Ah great feedback. It seems like this card does so much for one white mana.
-Card advantage body for W
-2 permanents for W
-Artifact synergies
-Blink/come-into-play synergies
-Human synergies
It does enough for multiple archetypes that I've been happy playing it over one of the Savannah Lions variants in both peasant and regular cubes, even though there are enough good utility 1-drops that I'd understand if you need that aggression boost. If only white 2-drops were so competitive...
This card was great in standard because of Smuggler's Copter. Now it can serves well again in various new vehicule builds. But in traditional powered cube? I don't know. It just doesn't seem to do enough. A 1/2 body plus a 2-mana draw one doesn't exactly fit the description of card advantage. I don't know... Maybe I'm wrong or just not a fan of it. Doesn't it seem more like a sideboard card againt agressive lists only? Maybe in aggro lists in their control match-up? Where does it fit exactly? I just don't see any decks where it fits well and serves a specific and important role.
It's funny that I recently talked to a friend about Thraben Inspector and how I've been a fan of it, trying it out and saying that I think it's better than we think (as it turns out, Kenny knew all along), giving it a bunch of reps, and liking it in my cube, but, I'm... not entirely sure how I'd articulate *why* it's a good cube card, and despite being a fan of it for a while (I've not done much posting here in the past few years but I'm looking to remedy that) - I'll be damned if I can find a really good way of articulating *why* it's good.
Because when I've articulated it using traditional talking points, it looks abysmal (it's mostly seen play in white cube aggressive decks and has several 3-0 decks with it being represented in that archetype [although it's seen 3-0 representation in non aggro decks, albeit to a lesser degree,] and my cube *very* much supports aggressive decks, after all, I wrote an article about it.) Like, why does my white aggro deck want a 1/2? And 2 to draw a card? Shouldn't they be dead to a t4 geddon or Elspeth?
Well.
Sometimes.
It's true that it doesn't really do much in games where you're curving out and the opponent's just getting their head bashed in. But a lot of the times, like with life, things don't always go as planned and your threats get neutralized and while your deck may not want to end up there, you may inevitably find yourself wanting some card advantage. Thraben Inspector does that, while still being a somewhat serviceable body. Something I've talked about in recent reviews that I've done is the concept of pushing momentum forward, while performing an action (I think that's a concept in judo, but I honestly have no idea) and it works in that vein. It's also nice as part of a turn when casting a few 1-drops, or even just cashing it in immediately when searching for an answer. It's like a lot of other cards that performs well on a total package rather than a sweet front side, if that makes sense.
I'm probably explaining it poorly, hahaha. I attached a 3-0 deck that utilized it from a LGS Cube draft - it's a bit wonky and if I had my druthers, I'd have not run Baneslayer and Elspeth, Sun's Champion in the deck and would rather have had a few more 3s (but that's the way things go.) The deck's mostly a meat-and-potatoes white aggro deck (more top-heavy than I'd like, FWIW) with no artifact shenanigans or anything. I haven't found it being an artifact/permanent being super relevant for Tangle Wire and other cards that use permanents as a resource, but hey, nice bonus if you do.
This is a card I undervalued when it was originally spoiled, and if your cube supports decks that can take advantage of a utility 1-drop (flicker/blink/bounce, recursive effects, etc) there's probably a home and a demand for a creature like Inspector. Not something I wanna jam into all my aggro decks, but it's better than it looks, and can have an immediate home in shells commonly run in cubes. I'll be giving this card some extra testing and see if I can't find a home for it.
Turns out Thraben Inspector was one of the best cards in the entire SOI set and was absolutely everywhere in standard, made it a little hard to avoid and as far as I'm concerned it turned out to be a cube staple.
It was always mediocre for us, and has been in and out of the cube a ton of times. Fine card, but not something I ever miss when it's in the parole board.
It doesn't surprise me that it has really high inclusion numbers though, since it was popular in a relatively recent standard, has a low rarity (and is cheap) so it's readily available (and legal) to more cube managers, and even cube groups that don't like aggro can still use it.
Inspector has always been mediocre for me as well. It's a fine filler card that can help boost things like humans tribal / artifacts matters or something, but no deck really wants / needs it.
I would definitely play it at your size.
It's an unassuming but consistent 1 drop.
Nothing exciting but good value and obviously plays well with blink themes.
-Card advantage body for W
-2 permanents for W
-Artifact synergies
-Blink/come-into-play synergies
-Human synergies
I may test this out...
Tinker target? Check. Draw engine? Check. Early pressure? Check. Blocker? Check. Sacrifice target? Check.
Yes Please.
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Because when I've articulated it using traditional talking points, it looks abysmal (it's mostly seen play in white cube aggressive decks and has several 3-0 decks with it being represented in that archetype [although it's seen 3-0 representation in non aggro decks, albeit to a lesser degree,] and my cube *very* much supports aggressive decks, after all, I wrote an article about it.) Like, why does my white aggro deck want a 1/2? And 2 to draw a card? Shouldn't they be dead to a t4 geddon or Elspeth?
Well.
Sometimes.
It's true that it doesn't really do much in games where you're curving out and the opponent's just getting their head bashed in. But a lot of the times, like with life, things don't always go as planned and your threats get neutralized and while your deck may not want to end up there, you may inevitably find yourself wanting some card advantage. Thraben Inspector does that, while still being a somewhat serviceable body. Something I've talked about in recent reviews that I've done is the concept of pushing momentum forward, while performing an action (I think that's a concept in judo, but I honestly have no idea) and it works in that vein. It's also nice as part of a turn when casting a few 1-drops, or even just cashing it in immediately when searching for an answer. It's like a lot of other cards that performs well on a total package rather than a sweet front side, if that makes sense.
I'm probably explaining it poorly, hahaha. I attached a 3-0 deck that utilized it from a LGS Cube draft - it's a bit wonky and if I had my druthers, I'd have not run Baneslayer and Elspeth, Sun's Champion in the deck and would rather have had a few more 3s (but that's the way things go.) The deck's mostly a meat-and-potatoes white aggro deck (more top-heavy than I'd like, FWIW) with no artifact shenanigans or anything. I haven't found it being an artifact/permanent being super relevant for Tangle Wire and other cards that use permanents as a resource, but hey, nice bonus if you do.
I used to write cube articles on StarCityGames, now for GatheringMagic and podcast about cube (w/Antknee42.)
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Did the evaluations of this card change that much over the last 3 years?
Yes. It took a while to catch on, but most Cubes run it now. Staple in our 720.
It doesn't surprise me that it has really high inclusion numbers though, since it was popular in a relatively recent standard, has a low rarity (and is cheap) so it's readily available (and legal) to more cube managers, and even cube groups that don't like aggro can still use it.
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I would definitely play it at your size.
It's an unassuming but consistent 1 drop.
Nothing exciting but good value and obviously plays well with blink themes.
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2020 Numerical Power Rankings:
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It's a filler card, IMO. I'm currently playing it at 540, but it would be an easy cut for me my cube was smaller.
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Read my blog on cube - Latest post June 2nd 2022
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My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
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My 49th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from MKM!
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