Wow, didn't see this coming! I can see this creature being pretty great in decks with 3+ targets. My cube definitely runs more bomb planeswalkers than bomb enchantments and I messed with Academy Rector for a while with mixed success. This is probably worth testing for people without planeswalker caps. I'm definitely interested at 540.
My current White 4's are Hero of Bladehold, Restoration Angel, Gisela, Palace Jailer and Sublime. Out of these 5 I think I'd miss Gisela the least, and would be my cut for testing.
This card probably would've been a lot worse years ago when the PWers were bad, but now we have some real legit big-mana options along with all the other ones. Grabbing Ugin/Karn/Bolas/Elspeth would all be pretty devestating from 4 mana.
What deck wants this, and how do they ensure their 1/2 dies? 4 mana would be a lot to spend and not get this for X turns/at all. Genuinely curious about what the expectation is, I don't think it's unreasonable at all but it's a lot harder to kill Form of the Dragon than it is Ugin, even though there are way more bomb planeswalkers that are naturally run already.
I run a walker cap and still I have ~25 in my cube. This card is stone nuts. Every walker I get is equal or more expensive mana except for super 3 drops like Lili. Outside of being beaten to death by flyers or unblockables I will gladly tap out of 4 for this. For somethign like Ugin I am happy to shoot my own card with removal. I already run carrion feeder and greater gargadon.
This can also be fetched with both recruiters, can be cloned and any number of other weird cube interactions.
For cube this is almost like a stoneforge in my mind. I know it is 4 instead of 2 and you have to jump some hoops but I have been waiting for a PW support card that didn't require you to be all in.
Powerful effect, but I don’t think this will be consistent enough. The average cmc of my planeswalkers is 4.29 and there will be a lot of scenarios where the creature will die either EOT or on your opponent’s turn and they can just pick off the walker before you even use your walker.
I think this card is very good. Being able to search up the planeswalker that you need at that precise moment in the game should be a big swing. Also, your opponent will reeeally need to play around this. Unless they have planeswalker kill, it's hard to deal with the wide range of possibilities that an unknown planeswalker could could have on the game.
Another aspect of this card that I think shouldn't be overlooked is the intangible synergy it has in decks with multiple walkers. You wont always draw this before you cast a walker and this is one SCARY rattlesnake and could do really good work deterring attacks and allowing walkers already on the field to breathe easy.
This and Will Kenrith are nice pieces that could push superfriends to the next level as an archetype. The more I think about Rector the more I want to test her.
I'm skeptical.
While the death trigger ability is obviously very powerful, I'm worried about all the ways it can fail.
So, the value it produces in excess of 4 mana is
a) you can tutor for the best planeswalker in your library
b) you can produce a mana advantage if that planeswalker costs > 4 mana
The ways it can fail is
-Exile spell on the rector. A planeswalker would have generated value, rector wouldn't. Same with bounce spells, parralax wave, cryptic tap etc
-Can be ignored, either by hoping to close the game with burn spells, beat down with flyers, or wait until they can mount an alpha strike through the rector.
-The planeswalker you wanted to tutor for is in your graveyard/hand
Like imagine your opponent has their own planeswalker, and you have an arena rector. They could just ignore it, not attack, while generate a bunch of value with their planeswalker. I think in a lot of match ups your deck would need to have a variety of ways of killing your own rector that ideally doesn't involve pointing your own kill spell at it. Unless you are getting an ugin or something, 2 for 1ing your self and spending 5-6 mana is a real cost.
Probably good enough in the right deck, but I'm worried that deck would be too narrow.. Jamming it into a random deck with 4-5+ planeswalkers might not be enough.
I'm skeptical.
While the death trigger ability is obviously very powerful, I'm worried about all the ways it can fail.
So, the value it produces in excess of 4 mana is
a) you can tutor for the best planeswalker in your library
b) you can produce a mana advantage if that planeswalker costs > 4 mana
The ways it can fail is
-Exile spell on the rector. A planeswalker would have generated value, rector wouldn't. Same with bounce spells, parralax wave, cryptic tap etc
-Can be ignored, either by hoping to close the game with burn spells, beat down with flyers, or wait until they can mount an alpha strike through the rector.
-The planeswalker you wanted to tutor for is in your graveyard/hand
Like imagine your opponent has their own planeswalker, and you have an arena rector. They could just ignore it, not attack, while generate a bunch of value with their planeswalker. I think in a lot of match ups your deck would need to have a variety of ways of killing your own rector that ideally doesn't involve pointing your own kill spell at it. Unless you are getting an ugin or something, 2 for 1ing your self and spending 5-6 mana is a real cost.
Probably good enough in the right deck, but I'm worried that deck would be too narrow.. Jamming it into a random deck with 4-5+ planeswalkers might not be enough.
Academy Rector has the same death trigger and has been solid in many cubes for a long time.
This into a wrath is pretty back breaking for most decks.
I think this is decent. Academy Rector is quite solid, and the only thing that keeps it out of the cube is lack of powerful targets. When this dies, it'll turn into a random Elspeth/Gideon or whatever, with the occasional boost of playing a free Ugin/Karnfather etc. Not sure if it'll make it in with only two "bomb" targets, but it may be worth testing.
The big thing that it lacks in comparison to the original effect is lack of build-around targets. The original Rector can be a copy of a card that a deck is centered around (Form of the Dragon, Moat, Opposition, Etc). Problem with this new one, is that most 'walkers aren't engineered to play that role. Only being able to cash Arena Rector in for a value target may severely limit its importance in any given deck. Especially since there are great "catch-all" utility targets for the original Rector like Oblivion Ring or Seal of Cleansing that ensure that Academy Rector can get you a unique answer card for specific scenarios. Arena Rector can't really do that, since all of its typical targets are just random value cards.
I guess we'll just have to wait and see on this one.
Ill admit I have never cubed with academy rector, but my untested opinion is that card doesn’t come close to deserving a slot in a high powered vintage cube in 2018. Assuming it’s not supported with form of the dragon and omniscience etc.
I’d be extremely surprised if building around it led to 3-0 decks in a competitive environment.
2/2 vs a 1/2 is slightly relevant as it’s a bit harder to ignore a 2/2x
But yeah, I think this card is better than academy rector and easier to organically build around.
If you personally had good results with that card, go for it!
I think this card is nuts but probably not cubeable, or at least not my in scope of consideration. It seems hard to hit a critical mass of targets, and I'm not willing to cut my "generically good" white 4's for a build around that is hard to build around. Obviously 4 mana ugin is "the nuts", but will that happen often enough to be more cubeable than super value cards like Gisela?
This card looks fun, but I don't believe it will be very impactful in power settings.
If I ran more walkers in my cube this would be an include for me. great with any sac outlets. the threat of a big walker coming down can stonewall your opponent. I feel like this is kind of like a tinker for walkers.
I think the potential upside of this is outweighed by the surefire value of Lancers. If my cube had way more sac outlets, then I might be singing a different tune.
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I think this card is a good card, but white four drops is the tightest place in cube as always.
Things I haven't seen mentioned are the fact that arena rector is usually going to be in a controlling super friends deck, so ignoring it won't be easy as its controllers deck will include cards like day of judgement.
The front side of this card is pretty much zero mana so the main value in a random deck would be its flexibility, rather than its efficiency in grabbing an 8 cost planeswalker. This card is a lot more flexible than Academy Rector which would usually just grab a single powerful enchantment, whereas there are situations where I'd rather have a Jace, the mind sculptor, than an Ugin, the spirit dragon.
Agree on most points. Academy Rector does sometimes want an O-Ring or mid tier enchantment but since I am not playing any of the big targets for Academy Rector but I am playing lots of big targets for Areana Rector I think it is an easy one to decide to try it out.
I was never into lancers because I viewed it as a 5 maaa tutor where this puts it on the field. But for those playing lancers I assume you already are playing lots of great and big walkers to support it so it would seem that adding this would just further that plan. For me if I like how this plays I will give lancers another look. It feels like a both or none move to support superfirends.
And for the record big Karn and Ugin are my dream targets but I'd also include Elspeth Sun's Champion and maybe Big Chandra into the prime target list.
The biggest drawback I can see is the one steve_man mentioned, where they kill the rector EoT and then get a free attack into the walker without you getting a chance to activate a loyalty ability. But the rector is a may ability, so you do need to get a walker in that situation. You just lose out on a tutor and eat a removal spell for 4 mana. I still think I like lancers better.
That is a reasonable downside. I'm more worried about it being a bad 4 drop to play into an on curve hellrider or some such but at least it can chump. But I think even in those cases they might not shoot it if they don't have enought to take out a Karn or Bolar
If they play bolt I am still getting a walker and saving the 4+ damage that is fine with me, unless I have a sweet reanimation spell next turn.
I've been seeing this played in legacy a bit and now that I'm running a lot more sac outlets to support persist I was thinking about giving it another spin.
Did anyone end up giving this much testing? Thanks!
Edit: realizing that the persist decks are usually different than the decks that would want rector, but just noting that there are more sacrifice tools in my cube than there were a few years ago.
We played this card for years but ended up cutting it due to 4-drop density in white. Card wants 2 good high-cmc walkers (or just one expensive and one really powerful mid-cmc backup walker, like grabbing a Gideon Jura/Jace, the Mind Sculptor is completely serviceable as your backup option behind your Ugin, the Ineffable/Elspeth, Sun's Champion/Ugin, the Spirit Dragon) to be good, which was surprisingly easy. Only issue is you have to be able to actually cast the walker in your deck consistently, which makes Rector mostly just a control and combo card (ramp being included in combo).
You don't need sac outlets to make the card good, it's plenty strong in its own, as most slow decks that play white have sweepers and are looking to dissuade attacks early. We cut it for space so we could play stuff from the new sets, but the card is definitely playable at our size imo as long as you have enough planeswalkers worth tutoring for, we just didn't think it was super exciting or necessary.
I should also probably mention that it's pretty solid in some very specific combo decks too for finding your special combo walkers, like Nahiri, the Harbinger in Eldrazi combo decks, Tezzeret the Seeker and Ral Zarek in Time Vault decks, or even Narset, Parter of Veils in your Wheel of Fortune variant combo decks if you happen to support those. That's definitely more narrow and doesn't come up nearly as often as you think it might, but it can be useful sometimes.
The first way I see Arena Rector being good is it could be played more or less like a Moat, such that if your opponent attacks, you get to untap with a planeswalker, which in a lot of cases is pretty much game over.
Off the top of my head, I have at least 6 planeswalkers that could fill this role:
This is from my testing of Nexus of Fate - The ability to EOT Nexus of Fate for two continuous turn with open mana has been absolutely insane.
The second way is the Aristocrats shell, where Rector could be sacrificed to grab a planeswalker. I'm a bit skeptical about this use case, given that I usually don't play high value walkers in these lists. If Liliana, Dreadhorde General is added into my cube, I might reconsider.
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What deck wants this, and how do they ensure their 1/2 dies? 4 mana would be a lot to spend and not get this for X turns/at all. Genuinely curious about what the expectation is, I don't think it's unreasonable at all but it's a lot harder to kill Form of the Dragon than it is Ugin, even though there are way more bomb planeswalkers that are naturally run already.
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This can also be fetched with both recruiters, can be cloned and any number of other weird cube interactions.
For cube this is almost like a stoneforge in my mind. I know it is 4 instead of 2 and you have to jump some hoops but I have been waiting for a PW support card that didn't require you to be all in.
Overall I like Thalia’s Lancers more.
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This and Will Kenrith are nice pieces that could push superfriends to the next level as an archetype. The more I think about Rector the more I want to test her.
While the death trigger ability is obviously very powerful, I'm worried about all the ways it can fail.
So, the value it produces in excess of 4 mana is
a) you can tutor for the best planeswalker in your library
b) you can produce a mana advantage if that planeswalker costs > 4 mana
The ways it can fail is
-Exile spell on the rector. A planeswalker would have generated value, rector wouldn't. Same with bounce spells, parralax wave, cryptic tap etc
-Can be ignored, either by hoping to close the game with burn spells, beat down with flyers, or wait until they can mount an alpha strike through the rector.
-The planeswalker you wanted to tutor for is in your graveyard/hand
Like imagine your opponent has their own planeswalker, and you have an arena rector. They could just ignore it, not attack, while generate a bunch of value with their planeswalker. I think in a lot of match ups your deck would need to have a variety of ways of killing your own rector that ideally doesn't involve pointing your own kill spell at it. Unless you are getting an ugin or something, 2 for 1ing your self and spending 5-6 mana is a real cost.
Probably good enough in the right deck, but I'm worried that deck would be too narrow.. Jamming it into a random deck with 4-5+ planeswalkers might not be enough.
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This into a wrath is pretty back breaking for most decks.
The big thing that it lacks in comparison to the original effect is lack of build-around targets. The original Rector can be a copy of a card that a deck is centered around (Form of the Dragon, Moat, Opposition, Etc). Problem with this new one, is that most 'walkers aren't engineered to play that role. Only being able to cash Arena Rector in for a value target may severely limit its importance in any given deck. Especially since there are great "catch-all" utility targets for the original Rector like Oblivion Ring or Seal of Cleansing that ensure that Academy Rector can get you a unique answer card for specific scenarios. Arena Rector can't really do that, since all of its typical targets are just random value cards.
I guess we'll just have to wait and see on this one.
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I’d be extremely surprised if building around it led to 3-0 decks in a competitive environment.
2/2 vs a 1/2 is slightly relevant as it’s a bit harder to ignore a 2/2x
But yeah, I think this card is better than academy rector and easier to organically build around.
If you personally had good results with that card, go for it!
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This card looks fun, but I don't believe it will be very impactful in power settings.
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I think this card is a good card, but white four drops is the tightest place in cube as always.
Things I haven't seen mentioned are the fact that arena rector is usually going to be in a controlling super friends deck, so ignoring it won't be easy as its controllers deck will include cards like day of judgement.
The front side of this card is pretty much zero mana so the main value in a random deck would be its flexibility, rather than its efficiency in grabbing an 8 cost planeswalker. This card is a lot more flexible than Academy Rector which would usually just grab a single powerful enchantment, whereas there are situations where I'd rather have a Jace, the mind sculptor, than an Ugin, the spirit dragon.
thats my cube
I was never into lancers because I viewed it as a 5 maaa tutor where this puts it on the field. But for those playing lancers I assume you already are playing lots of great and big walkers to support it so it would seem that adding this would just further that plan. For me if I like how this plays I will give lancers another look. It feels like a both or none move to support superfirends.
And for the record big Karn and Ugin are my dream targets but I'd also include Elspeth Sun's Champion and maybe Big Chandra into the prime target list.
If they play bolt I am still getting a walker and saving the 4+ damage that is fine with me, unless I have a sweet reanimation spell next turn.
Did anyone end up giving this much testing? Thanks!
Edit: realizing that the persist decks are usually different than the decks that would want rector, but just noting that there are more sacrifice tools in my cube than there were a few years ago.
You don't need sac outlets to make the card good, it's plenty strong in its own, as most slow decks that play white have sweepers and are looking to dissuade attacks early. We cut it for space so we could play stuff from the new sets, but the card is definitely playable at our size imo as long as you have enough planeswalkers worth tutoring for, we just didn't think it was super exciting or necessary.
I should also probably mention that it's pretty solid in some very specific combo decks too for finding your special combo walkers, like Nahiri, the Harbinger in Eldrazi combo decks, Tezzeret the Seeker and Ral Zarek in Time Vault decks, or even Narset, Parter of Veils in your Wheel of Fortune variant combo decks if you happen to support those. That's definitely more narrow and doesn't come up nearly as often as you think it might, but it can be useful sometimes.
Off the top of my head, I have at least 6 planeswalkers that could fill this role:
- Elspeth, Sun's Champion
- Tezzeret the Seeker
- Jace, the Mind Sculptor
- Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
- Karn Liberated
- Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
This is from my testing of Nexus of Fate - The ability to EOT Nexus of Fate for two continuous turn with open mana has been absolutely insane.
The second way is the Aristocrats shell, where Rector could be sacrificed to grab a planeswalker. I'm a bit skeptical about this use case, given that I usually don't play high value walkers in these lists. If Liliana, Dreadhorde General is added into my cube, I might reconsider.
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Here are some other articles I've written about fine tuning your cube:
1. Minimum Archetype Support
2. Improving Green Archetypes
3. Improving White Archetypes
4. Matchup Analysis
5. Cube Combos (Work in Progress)
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