All of those cards played leagues better than Clasp did in testing.
I appreciate the explanations, but you didn't actually answer my question. Do you think ~2 years is long enough to try testing a card like Clasp again? At what point -- time or delta of cards in and out -- do you have to deem old testing data invalid? Hell, in your example you mentioned Sneak Attack as an interaction with Erratic Portal. Sneak Attack was in very few lists (including your list) until the last year or so.
Do I think Clasp will be good for everyone? No. Do I think Clasp deserves a second look by anyone who added it as a part of Scars of Mirrodin set testing? Yes.
I don't know. Perhaps the speed of the cube? If paying 4 to add counters to permanents is something that your average drafts can afford to do (and have it be powerful) than we're clearly playing games at different tempos.
There are a lot of artifacts missing from your list that I'd gladly cut Clasp for, so that goes both ways.
I just don't get how you could advocate for cards like Ring of Gix, Erratic Portal, Black Vise and Zuran Orb, and then say the ability is too slow and/or not powerful enough. I don't think fast mana makes any of these cards any better. And I'm not quite sure what you mean by 'can afford to do'. Do you not have dedicated control, artifact, or Planeswalker strategies? Has BCSM/WCSM gotten so bad that we're just never hitting more than 6 mana in a given game?
In many situations I'd rather have Clasp over something like Nev's Disk or Oblivion Stone. It's a great speed bump in the early game, and a very unassuming card that literally can steal games when put in the right deck. I'm not going to argue with you whether you tested the card correctly or not, I'm simply questioning if 2 years is enough time to reevaluate a card like Clasp?
Quote from Phantizle »
Well, your cube appears to be much slower, so that could easily be it. I have never tested it, but it does seem like a lot of mana to pay to fiddle with some counters. Can you provide a rough list of artifacts you'd run it over? Can you tell us which decks want it? I see a lot of potential interactions, but none that seem worth all the mana and time, so having some more specific examples might help.
Assuming manafacts, creatures, and equipment aren't up for consideration, here is a short list of more fringe cards I would cut before Clasp (assuming we're only cutting one at a time and not removing them en mass):
I'm not going to bother listing the bigger cards that I'd cut, but be assured that I believe Clasp to be just as good as some of the other "staple" utility artifacts.
Ya, we tested it when the set came out. But the problem wasn't that we were playing it incorrectly, it's that the card was overpriced and low impact.
I guess we're just on different levels. I see over half a dozen artifacts in most lists (including your list) that I'd quickly and happily cut to make room for Clasp. I wonder what makes our testing so different?
If you had to guess, at what size would you cut this card?
That depends on how much your group values the Planeswalker deck. Like I said, there are plenty of artifacts I'd cut before I'd cut Clasp, so I wouldn't be surprised if I had it in a 360, but realistically it probably won't make many lists smaller than 450 just because people wouldn't dream of cutting their favorite artifacts to make room for it.
The 4-mana proliferate cost was way too high. It was a dud for us in testing.
I assume you tested it a couple years ago? It was okay at first and got progressively better as people understood how to draft and play with it. It's definitely a different card than it was when we first tested.
I've had Clasp in my list since Mirrodin came out, and there are quite a few artifacts I'd cut before I'd cut it. It's a great support card for Artifact.dec and Planeswalkers, and is a highly interactive, skill-intensive card that is rewarding and fun. I highly recommend it.
Back in my 5-Color days (www.5-color.com), we used play for a variety of different ante depending on which decks we were playing. I had a totally trashed deck that I'd play for traditional ante or signature ante. This involved letting your opponent doodle on a card (not necessarily the ante'd cards) if they won the game. It was usually with a fun quote about the card they won with or some way to dagger the opponent when they drew it the next game. When we played with out pimped out decks (duals, power, etc.), we would ante a dime, quarter, dollar, etc. Jeweled Birds were worth a buck regardless, which actually made them more powerful than Contract in many cases. I had a huge stack of them, all customized with silly doodles and stickers.
The few tournaments I participated in didn't enforce any ante rules. No one complained about Contract having no drawback because in the spirit of the format we were all doing broken things. In cube, you can decide to run whichever cards you want. I'm so sick of the house rules and errata discussions. Everyone's lists and formats are not without their quirks. We all have zany formats, cards, and house rules. No matter how strict you decide to manage your list, you're still playing a format that is about as competitive and serious as EDH or wacky pack drafts.
If Nof wants to play Contract, and her group is fine with the power-level, then why try to convince her it's bad just because it's essentially using errata? Why does anyone care about errata in the first place? At this point, these SCD discussions have gone on long enough that there is little ambiguity in what these cards actually do that the line between house rules and the way the card functions is beginning to get blurred. I loved playing Contract regardless of the mode. If I still played money games, you can bet your butt I'd be considering this in my combo cube. I'm glad that people go outside of traditional design parameters to test cards like Contract out.
I personally think cube without some sort of house rules and errata has about all the character of something like the MODO cube which is to say, not much. I can cube with my list or a close friend's any day of the week. It's not everyday I get to cast a card like Gifts Given, Contract, or something like Booster Tutor, play with an Exalted Angel with Exalted, or play a format like 2HG Roch with a finely-tuned multiplayer list. At big events like SCG Opens and Gen Con, there are quite literally dozens of cubes. When presented with a choice to draft a traditional 360-540 card vanilla list and someone's cube like Antknee or Andy Cooperfaus, people are immediately drawn to the other cubes. This isn't conjecture; this actually happens. People are excited to solve a new format and experience the format for themselves. To me, dismissing this kind of cube design goes against everything I love about the format. You don't have to like errata, but if you don't respect that it's just as much a part of our format as anything else, you are shutting out some really great design discussion.
Misstep is a great cube card. I have the nearly the full cycle of Phyrexian mana cards. They help fill out the draft nicely and are very powerful effects. Misstep is very easy to dismiss, but it's quite good.
I don't doubt you, but this is another situation I'm having trouble picturing. Aggro decks tend to curve out at 4 or 5, and surely it can't be better than Helix (on a regular basis) until at least 5, right?
Think of white and how hard it has pushing through damage if your opp plays a few blockers. This is why the Shadow and flying creatures are so good. They can essentially ignore the other side of the field. My deck last night had a good creature base, but I couldn't close games. Helix could clear the way for one, but having a turn where even X=2 would have been enough to let me seal the game with burn. Realistically you're looking at Fury generating 3-5 damage if X=2 or less and much, much more if you go to the late game. It's not ideal in aggro, but it's definitely good in decks with creatures.
For me I think it's fine to give the swords a power ranking. After all, how many times have you opened P1P1 and seen two swords? That said, here is my power ranking with brief explanation:
1) Sword of Body and Mind - I am a results oriented kind of guy. While the other Swords do a good job of impacting the board, none close the game quite like this one. If I had to guess, it has been responsible for more game wins since its inclusion than any of the other swords, but it's close.
2) Sword of Feast and Famine - Tempo and card advantage in one Sword. Honestly, this could easily be number one.
3) Sword of Fire and Ice - Everyone's favorite sword. Great equipment. Aggressive ability + card advantage is good stuff. Just slightly worse than Feast and Famine, IMO (I'd pick Feast over Fire in a P1P1).
4) Sword of Light and Shadow - This goes back and forth from being my favorite equipment to least favorite. It is not universally good like the other swords, and if I'm cracking in with a Sword, I want to have a bigger effect than gaining a few life. Obviously the Disentomb effect is good, but doesn't always trigger or have a meaningful target. Great build-around-me card, but not universally great.
5) Sword of War and Peace - this is the only Sword that I don't get excited to open. I like having it in my pool if I'm in an aggressive deck, but beyond being just a solid equipment, I'd just rather have any other Sword. It's probably a testament to the kind of player I am, but there you go. I do, however, love crushing red when they have no way of interacting with it. #justice
Thanks for the answer, but do you remember what type of deck it was in? It seems like such a midrange card, but I'm having trouble imagining a Boros deck that wants it.
Funny you say that. I was in the actual Boros aggro deck last night and I would have gladly traded the Helix I was running for Fury. Seriously.
For what it's worth, he was running a 4-color mid-range deck with 2-3 ramp spells.
Can you give us some details of the situation? What type of deck it was in? How much was it cast for? What did it target?
Here are the few times I watched it resolve:
1) Kill an X/1, X/2, ping
2) Kill an X/2, tap a big attacker (enough to swing in for lethal next turn)
3) Kill a manland, looter, and ping
In those situations it felt almost like an instant speed Bonfire. It has all the power and flexibility that something like Profane Command has, but has so much more impact given that it can be resolved at instant speed. I asked the drafter what he thought about it afterward and he mentioned that he'd be surprised if it went a full loop around the table next time.
Again, I'll just say that I'm surprised to hear that people haven't been reliably miracling this card. I wouldn't blame anyone for not including miracles if they're so infrequent like you say. For us, that's just not the case. Entreat, Bonfire, and Terminus are all in and doing just fine.
Just want to chime in and say this card is stone NUTS. I saw it resolved in a few matches last night and it stole the game like no other card could. Against me I couldn't actually think of any other card that would have won the game in the situation it was resolved. It's way more versatile than I thought.
I 100% believe that this card is every bit as good as Lightning Helix and could easily beat it out for the R/W slot if you're fighting against Ajani and Charm. (this is also why I moved my hybrid cards a long time ago. No need for Figure to fight against these cards).
Do I think Clasp will be good for everyone? No. Do I think Clasp deserves a second look by anyone who added it as a part of Scars of Mirrodin set testing? Yes.
In many situations I'd rather have Clasp over something like Nev's Disk or Oblivion Stone. It's a great speed bump in the early game, and a very unassuming card that literally can steal games when put in the right deck. I'm not going to argue with you whether you tested the card correctly or not, I'm simply questioning if 2 years is enough time to reevaluate a card like Clasp?
Assuming manafacts, creatures, and equipment aren't up for consideration, here is a short list of more fringe cards I would cut before Clasp (assuming we're only cutting one at a time and not removing them en mass):
I'm not going to bother listing the bigger cards that I'd cut, but be assured that I believe Clasp to be just as good as some of the other "staple" utility artifacts.
The few tournaments I participated in didn't enforce any ante rules. No one complained about Contract having no drawback because in the spirit of the format we were all doing broken things. In cube, you can decide to run whichever cards you want. I'm so sick of the house rules and errata discussions. Everyone's lists and formats are not without their quirks. We all have zany formats, cards, and house rules. No matter how strict you decide to manage your list, you're still playing a format that is about as competitive and serious as EDH or wacky pack drafts.
If Nof wants to play Contract, and her group is fine with the power-level, then why try to convince her it's bad just because it's essentially using errata? Why does anyone care about errata in the first place? At this point, these SCD discussions have gone on long enough that there is little ambiguity in what these cards actually do that the line between house rules and the way the card functions is beginning to get blurred. I loved playing Contract regardless of the mode. If I still played money games, you can bet your butt I'd be considering this in my combo cube. I'm glad that people go outside of traditional design parameters to test cards like Contract out.
I personally think cube without some sort of house rules and errata has about all the character of something like the MODO cube which is to say, not much. I can cube with my list or a close friend's any day of the week. It's not everyday I get to cast a card like Gifts Given, Contract, or something like Booster Tutor, play with an Exalted Angel with Exalted, or play a format like 2HG Roch with a finely-tuned multiplayer list. At big events like SCG Opens and Gen Con, there are quite literally dozens of cubes. When presented with a choice to draft a traditional 360-540 card vanilla list and someone's cube like Antknee or Andy Cooperfaus, people are immediately drawn to the other cubes. This isn't conjecture; this actually happens. People are excited to solve a new format and experience the format for themselves. To me, dismissing this kind of cube design goes against everything I love about the format. You don't have to like errata, but if you don't respect that it's just as much a part of our format as anything else, you are shutting out some really great design discussion.
1) Sword of Body and Mind - I am a results oriented kind of guy. While the other Swords do a good job of impacting the board, none close the game quite like this one. If I had to guess, it has been responsible for more game wins since its inclusion than any of the other swords, but it's close.
2) Sword of Feast and Famine - Tempo and card advantage in one Sword. Honestly, this could easily be number one.
3) Sword of Fire and Ice - Everyone's favorite sword. Great equipment. Aggressive ability + card advantage is good stuff. Just slightly worse than Feast and Famine, IMO (I'd pick Feast over Fire in a P1P1).
4) Sword of Light and Shadow - This goes back and forth from being my favorite equipment to least favorite. It is not universally good like the other swords, and if I'm cracking in with a Sword, I want to have a bigger effect than gaining a few life. Obviously the Disentomb effect is good, but doesn't always trigger or have a meaningful target. Great build-around-me card, but not universally great.
5) Sword of War and Peace - this is the only Sword that I don't get excited to open. I like having it in my pool if I'm in an aggressive deck, but beyond being just a solid equipment, I'd just rather have any other Sword. It's probably a testament to the kind of player I am, but there you go. I do, however, love crushing red when they have no way of interacting with it. #justice
For what it's worth, he was running a 4-color mid-range deck with 2-3 ramp spells.
1) Kill an X/1, X/2, ping
2) Kill an X/2, tap a big attacker (enough to swing in for lethal next turn)
3) Kill a manland, looter, and ping
In those situations it felt almost like an instant speed Bonfire. It has all the power and flexibility that something like Profane Command has, but has so much more impact given that it can be resolved at instant speed. I asked the drafter what he thought about it afterward and he mentioned that he'd be surprised if it went a full loop around the table next time.
I 100% believe that this card is every bit as good as Lightning Helix and could easily beat it out for the R/W slot if you're fighting against Ajani and Charm. (this is also why I moved my hybrid cards a long time ago. No need for Figure to fight against these cards).