I like Scroll more than Staggershock. Reach is reach, and Scroll is also colorless. There are a lot of non-red aggro decks that love to have Scroll's effect around.
I just think the number of games you win because of the reach that scroll provides is less than the number of games you lose where having scroll in your starting hand is a virtual mulligan because you don't have time to use it.
I just think the number of games you win because of the reach that scroll provides is less than the number of games you lose where having scroll in your starting hand is a virtual mulligan because you don't have time to use it.
How is this ever true? Any deck not planning to get to top deck mode shouldn't run scroll. If you build a deck that plays out it's hand quickly and you never get to that point, having or not having scroll is not why you lost.
I would prefer having gas I can use from the second I drop it vs. a later mana sink. I've def seen scroll win games, but I've seen it do nothing or be awkward more. YMMV, of course.
I've never seen Cursed Scroll do nothing. With Scroll out, I'm either curving out and don't need Scroll, or I've played out all my other stuff and I'm activating Scroll. There's never a time where it prohibits me from doing something, because the only times where I'd be doing nothing, I can just activate Scroll...
I've won lots of games where I've drawn Scroll and never used it, but that's not actually a problem. I've never lost games because Scroll somehow prevented me from having something to do ...because it is something to do ...in exactly the situations where you might not have anything to do.
I've lost games and seen games lost where scroll sat there unactivated/unused for many turns when if it was any other creature it would be attacking and doing other creature things the player would've won. It would take spots from cards that are more pro-active, and that was an issue for us. It's a fine SB card for when you're facing the deck with a lot of removal, but it's been *****ty enough for me and my playgroup that we don't use it since we weren't too interested in what ended up being a sideboard-only card for us. Again, YMMV clearly and I'm glad it's working for y'all.
There's a lot of games in our cube where you don't have the time to spend 7 mana to do 4 damage, and any burn spell or relevant creature would have gotten there for you.
Edit - obviously different people have different experiences, and I remember losing at least 1 game to cursed scroll, but I've just always found it clunky in aggro decks which is where it supposedly shines.
Another creature might be more proactive, but Scroll also helps prevent overextending your board. One Wrath can offset any additional advantage you might've gotten from the creature, whereas the Scroll can still power additional damage through. Additionally, in your worst matchups, midrange creatures outclass your beaters pretty quick. Having a non-creature source of repeatable damage is it's most valuable when the rest of your deck is having its hardest time. Replacing it with a random beater or random burn spell doesn't pull me out of the situations where Scroll is bad, and doesn't help nearly as much in the situations where Scroll is good.
Replacing it with a creature does help, since it's attacking when Scroll is not. A 2 power one drop on T1 will do hypothetical 4 damage by the time you could activate the scroll once; we found this to be more valuable in our playgroup consistently enough to not warrant a spot for scroll since none of us wanted it MD when we were running an aggro build. Scroll in your opening hand is often so bad because it takes so long before it can potentially do anything, and that's something we wanted to avoid with our aggro decks.
I try to have enough 1 drops in my deck so that I can just depend on Cursed Scroll as a late game way to wrap up the game. Another 2 power 1 drop won't do that and it isn't really helpful to compare. Late game when you are looking down a few 3/3s that 2 power one drop isn't helping nearly as much as the Cursed Scroll is. They fill such different roles I don't think you can replace one with the other.
I can't remember the last time we drafted together and cursed scroll did anything, maybe actual years. You could easily cut it and have something else be the last pick of a pack.
Replacing it with a creature does help, since it's attacking when Scroll is not. A 2 power one drop on T1 will do hypothetical 4 damage by the time you could activate the scroll once; we found this to be more valuable in our playgroup consistently enough to not warrant a spot for scroll since none of us wanted it MD when we were running an aggro build. Scroll in your opening hand is often so bad because it takes so long before it can potentially do anything, and that's something we wanted to avoid with our aggro decks.
Scroll doesn't compete with a 2-power 1-drop when you deckbuild though, so it would never be an aggro 1-drop. It competes in a utility/burn/removal/reach slot. You never have one less creature in your hand because you elected to put Scroll into your final 40...
Like, if you cut an aggro beater for this when you were deckbuilding ...no wonder it didn't play well for you! That's a deckbuilding error, nothing more.
I'd argue and say that Cursed Scroll has gotten better over time: more efficient spells and discard outlets on creatures make it easier to dump your hand faster.
At the price of 1 + 3 repeatable colorless shocks are already excellent, bolts would be beyond absurd. There is exactly one artifact in the history of magic that is a repeatable source of direct damage and it doesn't go to the face. Cursed Scroll was an easily abused design mistake the likes of which we'll never see again, it's an iconic card, and it's still solid in my cube. If it weren't on the reserved list, I'd be keeping my fingers crossed for it to be reprinted as a Masterpiece.
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I'd argue and say that Cursed Scroll has gotten better over time: more efficient spells and discard outlets on creatures make it easier to dump your hand faster.
Kills less creatures nowadays though, while other aggro options became way more efficient. I think it got considerably weaker.
I can't remember the last time we drafted together and cursed scroll did anything, maybe actual years. You could easily cut it and have something else be the last pick of a pack.
Its come up quite a bit actually. I remember the last camden trip it got played a ton. Aggro decks still love either it, vise, or ankh to do a ton of damage in addition to attacking. Cursed Scroll is the only one that can consistently do it at the end game when the others have run out of steam.
Sorry for the typo, I meant to say "a repeatable source of that much direct damage", as in 3. That's never existed, and I'd be shocked if it ever saw print. Although I will say that in terms of damage-per-mana, the rate you get for Tower of Calamities really puts Cursed Scroll to shame.
I never bothered to go after this card for my cube when I started it 5 years ago and I want it even less now.
I added this card pretty soon after I built my cube and it's still solid reach and repeatable removal in aggro decks that put themselves in topdeck mode by turn 4 or 5. If you've never tried it, I think you'll find it plays much better than you expect it to and it's not all that expensive of a card. The original Tempest version is about $5, and the World Championship edition is next to nothing.
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Over time I've really grown to love this card for all the reasons stated above, but it'll be replaced in the Kaladesh update. I expect Fleetwheel Cruiser to do better in aggro so I'll be slotting that in (Cursed Scroll has pretty much been exclusively aggro).
Ankh of Mishra and Black Vise have both been cut long ago because they're only good in the very beginning of the game and the opponent has too much influence over whether they're good or not. Meanwhile, between my last comment and this one, I won a match because Cursed Scroll provided the reach I needed to close out the game, twice (in a red deck, no less).
I guess people are just looking for different things for their aggro decks. Many people love player burn in creature form like Hellspark Elemental while I consider them terrible. *shrug*
Black Vise was my cut to make room for Smuggler's Copter, and Masticore was my cut for Fleetwheel Cruiser. Copter might not represent as much damage in your opening hand, but it will support a much bigger variety of decks and will be good in more stages of the game. I have no idea yet whether I'll be happy enough with Cruiser to keep it over Masticore, but I feel a lot better about cutting Masticore than Scroll.
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Well, Masticore and Cruiser go in completely different decks. Still maybe an okay cut, but it's pretty far from like-for-like in terms of the role they play in the cube.
Replacing it with a creature does help, since it's attacking when Scroll is not. A 2 power one drop on T1 will do hypothetical 4 damage by the time you could activate the scroll once; we found this to be more valuable in our playgroup consistently enough to not warrant a spot for scroll since none of us wanted it MD when we were running an aggro build. Scroll in your opening hand is often so bad because it takes so long before it can potentially do anything, and that's something we wanted to avoid with our aggro decks.
Scroll doesn't compete with a 2-power 1-drop when you deckbuild though, so it would never be an aggro 1-drop. It competes in a utility/burn/removal/reach slot. You never have one less creature in your hand because you elected to put Scroll into your final 40...
Like, if you cut an aggro beater for this when you were deckbuilding ...no wonder it didn't play well for you! That's a deckbuilding error, nothing more.
Eh that's not really my point, the point is I've had too many hands where I look at cursed scroll and it feels/looks really awkward/awful and I can imagine a million different cards I'd want over it in that hand, and since an aggro deck should have only so many turns it seemed like a terrible option to be throwing into those decks. But we're going in circles so again, YMMV and thankfully cube is a place where I can run something else over scroll and still have a great time while supporting all relevant theaters
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How is this ever true? Any deck not planning to get to top deck mode shouldn't run scroll. If you build a deck that plays out it's hand quickly and you never get to that point, having or not having scroll is not why you lost.
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I've won lots of games where I've drawn Scroll and never used it, but that's not actually a problem. I've never lost games because Scroll somehow prevented me from having something to do ...because it is something to do ...in exactly the situations where you might not have anything to do.
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Edit - obviously different people have different experiences, and I remember losing at least 1 game to cursed scroll, but I've just always found it clunky in aggro decks which is where it supposedly shines.
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Scroll doesn't compete with a 2-power 1-drop when you deckbuild though, so it would never be an aggro 1-drop. It competes in a utility/burn/removal/reach slot. You never have one less creature in your hand because you elected to put Scroll into your final 40...
Like, if you cut an aggro beater for this when you were deckbuilding ...no wonder it didn't play well for you! That's a deckbuilding error, nothing more.
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At the price of 1 + 3 repeatable colorless shocks are already excellent, bolts would be beyond absurd. There is exactly one artifact in the history of magic that is a repeatable source of direct damage and it doesn't go to the face. Cursed Scroll was an easily abused design mistake the likes of which we'll never see again, it's an iconic card, and it's still solid in my cube. If it weren't on the reserved list, I'd be keeping my fingers crossed for it to be reprinted as a Masterpiece.
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Kills less creatures nowadays though, while other aggro options became way more efficient. I think it got considerably weaker.
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Its come up quite a bit actually. I remember the last camden trip it got played a ton. Aggro decks still love either it, vise, or ankh to do a ton of damage in addition to attacking. Cursed Scroll is the only one that can consistently do it at the end game when the others have run out of steam.
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Sorry for the typo, I meant to say "a repeatable source of that much direct damage", as in 3. That's never existed, and I'd be shocked if it ever saw print. Although I will say that in terms of damage-per-mana, the rate you get for Tower of Calamities really puts Cursed Scroll to shame.
I added this card pretty soon after I built my cube and it's still solid reach and repeatable removal in aggro decks that put themselves in topdeck mode by turn 4 or 5. If you've never tried it, I think you'll find it plays much better than you expect it to and it's not all that expensive of a card. The original Tempest version is about $5, and the World Championship edition is next to nothing.
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I guess people are just looking for different things for their aggro decks. Many people love player burn in creature form like Hellspark Elemental while I consider them terrible. *shrug*
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Eh that's not really my point, the point is I've had too many hands where I look at cursed scroll and it feels/looks really awkward/awful and I can imagine a million different cards I'd want over it in that hand, and since an aggro deck should have only so many turns it seemed like a terrible option to be throwing into those decks. But we're going in circles so again, YMMV and thankfully cube is a place where I can run something else over scroll and still have a great time while supporting all relevant theaters
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