MTG Salvation

Plague Engineer - 2B
Creature - Carrier
2/2
Deathtouch
As ~ETB, choose a creature type.
Creatures of the chosen type your opponents control get -1/-1.

Secret sauce against token archetypes? Engineered Plague on a body seems playable, maybe.

This is a cool creature, and if you have multiple tribal synergies floating around, it should definitely be a strong consideration for inclusion.

Oh wait, this only hits your opponent's creatures? This card is bonkers. I'll be playing this for sure.

Pretty nuts. Straight up murders so many creatures and weakens others. Too bad it's not a zombie, but is stellar otherwise.

Cheers,
rant

Where do you think this ranks in black's 3-drops though? I feel like it's hard to crack them.

This is great value as a reactive creature. Elf, Human or a number of token types could be carnage against some board states. Even as a 2/2 deathtouch that snipes an x/1, that's an ok deal for 3 mana. Like a better Dark Salvation.

Quote from happyjosiah »

Where do you think this ranks in black's 3-drops though? I feel like it's hard to crack them.

Is it? I think the only untouchable ones are Flesh Carver and Ophiomancer. I could easily see this in place of something more classic like Hypnotic Specter or Nighthawk

Not just tribal but this puts a good check on all the token makers

Heirloom Blade has taught me that there are way more tribal synergies in the average cube than you would think, even if deep tribal synergies like humans, zombies, and warriors aren't explicitly supported. On paper this card may not seem that crazy but I expect it will be a strong card in practice. And as Goodking said, nuking a single x/1 and getting a 2/2 deathtouch for your troubles is a pretty good floor.

This is nuts and I like it. It fits my light tribal theme very well. It fights tokens and at the very worst it weakens a creature for a little while. Daggerback Basilisk is also a decent base.

Quote from user-21393455 »

Quote from happyjosiah »

Where do you think this ranks in black's 3-drops though? I feel like it's hard to crack them.

Is it? I think the only untouchable ones are Flesh Carver and Ophiomancer. I could easily see this in place of something more classic like Hypnotic Specter or Nighthawk

What about Drana, Liberator of Malakir and Mardu Strike Leader?

The six we've now mentioned are the ones I've run and I'm having a hard time seeing this being better than any of them, but maybe I'm just undervaluing the effect. Sure you can name "elf" against mana dorks but... I feel like a lot of the time it's just going to give a single creature a -1/-1 for a turn. Maybe I'm wrong.

Quote from happyjosiah »

Quote from user-21393455 »

Quote from happyjosiah »

Where do you think this ranks in black's 3-drops though? I feel like it's hard to crack them.

Is it? I think the only untouchable ones are Flesh Carver and Ophiomancer. I could easily see this in place of something more classic like Hypnotic Specter or Nighthawk

What about Drana, Liberator of Malakir and Mardu Strike Leader?

The six we've now mentioned are the ones I've run and I'm having a hard time seeing this being better than any of them, but maybe I'm just undervaluing the effect. Sure you can name "elf" against mana dorks but... I feel like a lot of the time it's just going to give a single creature a -1/-1 for a turn. Maybe I'm wrong.

Why “for a turn”? The effect lasts until it leaves the battlefield, if you decide to play it as a 2/2 Deathtouch you’re just using its floor. When played on curve it’s usually not hard to find an X/1 to kill, while if played later it can really decimate a token board or put to shame token generators and armies-in-a-can like Hornet Queen, Myr Battlesphere, Bitterblossom etc

It does seem strong and I absolutely love its 2B cost. Might slot in over Spawn of Mayhem, less 1BB is always good.

Quote from user-21393455 »

Quote from happyjosiah »

Quote from user-21393455 »

Quote from happyjosiah »

Where do you think this ranks in black's 3-drops though? I feel like it's hard to crack them.

Is it? I think the only untouchable ones are Flesh Carver and Ophiomancer. I could easily see this in place of something more classic like Hypnotic Specter or Nighthawk

What about Drana, Liberator of Malakir and Mardu Strike Leader?

The six we've now mentioned are the ones I've run and I'm having a hard time seeing this being better than any of them, but maybe I'm just undervaluing the effect. Sure you can name "elf" against mana dorks but... I feel like a lot of the time it's just going to give a single creature a -1/-1 for a turn. Maybe I'm wrong.

Why “for a turn”? The effect lasts until it leaves the battlefield, if you decide to play it as a 2/2 Deathtouch you’re just using its floor. When played on curve it’s usually not hard to find an X/1 to kill, while if played later it can really decimate a token board or put to shame token generators and armies-in-a-can like Hornet Queen, Myr Battlesphere, Bitterblossom etc

Hmm, those are really good points.

Quote from happyjosiah »

Where do you think this ranks in black's 3-drops though? I feel like it's hard to crack them.

Solidly in the top 3. I'd rank them as Ophiomancer, Flesh Carve, This guy, then Drana. Was looking to re-add Hyppie but I think this has to be included instead.

Cheers,
rant

It's important to note that while this is obviously great against token armies and tribal builds, the floor of being Noxious Groodion will be fine against decks playing non-evasive midrange beaters. I love cards that can start in the maindeck but are fine to side out aggressively when they're not needed for a match, as opposed to cards which will always start in the sideboard and then maybe come in sometimes.

White aggro doesn't need another card that craps on it, and in other matchups it's literally Noxious Groodion, which is terribly unexciting. This has the Liliana, Dreadhorde General problem of being either backbreaking or incredibly mediocre.

Quote from OneRingToGruulThemAll »

White aggro doesn't need another card that craps on it, and in other matchups it's literally Noxious Groodion, which is terribly unexciting. This has the Liliana, Dreadhorde General problem of being either backbreaking or incredibly mediocre.

This is a concern I have looking at this card, too. I try to include hatebears that hurt the unfair strategies. Cards like Containment Priest, Scavenging Ooze, etc. I worry about including a card that hates out go-wide creature based strategies. This can hurt Green's Elves, or cards like Goblin Rabblemaster, and Bitterblossom, but would that push only combo and control to being viable archetypes?

Quote from jamis »

Quote from OneRingToGruulThemAll »

White aggro doesn't need another card that craps on it, and in other matchups it's literally Noxious Groodion, which is terribly unexciting. This has the Liliana, Dreadhorde General problem of being either backbreaking or incredibly mediocre.

This is a concern I have looking at this card, too. I try to include hatebears that hurt the unfair strategies. Cards like Containment Priest, Scavenging Ooze, etc. I worry about including a card that hates out go-wide creature based strategies. This can hurt Green's Elves, or cards like Goblin Rabblemaster, and Bitterblossom, but would that push only combo and control to being viable archetypes?

This is my thinking as well. For the first time I’m asking myself if this is just too powerful of an effect. I first leaned towards “it’s fine”, since I play unfair powered environments, but the decks this hurts the most are the ones struggling to keep up as it is, so I’m torn. I think being a creature that is susceptible to just about every piece of removal makes it juuust clear the “it’s fine” mark for me, but I can see others be hesitant to play this for being too oppressive.

First, I don't think that one card is going to suddenly cause control and combo to be the only viable archetypes.

And second, the decks that this is good against don't struggle to keep up. Aggro decks, token shells and green ramp are all spectacular theaters, so I'm not sure where that notion is coming from.

This is a good card and I plan to cube it, but it's pretty far from "too powerful" and it certainly won't be rendering entire theaters unplayable.

Quote from wtwlf123 »

And second, the decks that this is good against don't struggle to keep up. Aggro decks, token shells and green ramp are all spectacular theaters, so I'm not sure where that notion is coming from.

I guess from my own experience. I tried to word things subjectively, and I think anyone here is posting from their own trials with their playgroup and personal cube. What I probably should have said is “in my playgroup, and from my own experience, these areas struggle to get drafted and play out optimally, so putting a piece in place to further discourage these rich, spectacular theaters might lead to other areas seeing too much competition/improvement”.

As it is, I agree with you and will be cubing this creature.

Now that people have had a little more time with this guy how would you rank him compared to other black 3s?

Good but not great. Worse than I expected in a lot of situations. Sometimes it's crippling, but often it's just a black Fire Imp variant. It's good when decks can play it, but not every black deck wants to maindeck it. Not sure how long it'll survive in my cube.

I’ve had great experiences with plague engineer.

Rarely found it lacked any targets and occasionally it’s busted.

My sample isn’t large with it tho, it’s certainly a high variance card, so
While I’m very high on it now, not impossible I’d change my tune over time.