Oh man, a three cost answer to gods, walkers and TNN. And with a fun interaction. I like that it is less splashable than the Ring varients. White just gets more amazing by the day.
This seems like a great draw engine for ramp decks, which can go elf -> (more ramp or midrange guy) -> this -> T4 fatty. Requiring control decks to counter a four draop or play artifact removal seems sweet to me.
It might be good for classic UW control, though I'm not sure of the value of a card a turn these days.
BR reanimator is really going to become a thing, huh? Bless you wizards. What a strange, cool card concept. I hope it's not too slow, because I love the versatility here.
A hassle? You get to stop in the middle of drafting, play some mind games, and then continue with some weird information. Do you guys skip the draft because it's a hassle? This is a ton of fun. At worst, you have to write down three letters. Or text them to yourself.
I think people are way overestimating the amount of times this thing will whiff. The worst case scenario of getting this thing after you have committed to two colors and have zero chance of splashing is still 40% (the guy naming first picks either of two colors and you're golden) and then 33% (only three colors left when the last player names). That is assuming random guessing, but still, that is the worst case scenario. There are going to be so many times when this thing is just the best triland ever.
Agent of Acquisitions - 2
Artifact Creature - Construct
Draft Agent of Acquisitions face up.
Instead of drafting a card from a booster pack, you may draft each card in that booster pack, one at a time. If you do, turn Agent of Acquisitions face down and you can draft cards for the rest of this draft round. (You may look at booster packs passed to you.)
2/1
I assume you meant "turn Agent of Acquisitions face down and you can't draft cards for the rest of this draft round."?
This set is so awesome. Might be just a novelty for a while, but the strategy and fun of these cards is off the charts. Grabbing an entire pack is awesome. Having to sit there and look at all the awesome cards you don't get to touch is a great counter.
I'm kicking around the idea of adding more ramp and fatties to green. For fatties, I currently run Primeval Titan, Hornet Queen, and Woodfall Primus, plus Armada Wurm and Simic Sky Swallower. Given that, what do you think of Pelakka Wurm vs Terastodon.
For ramp, I will probably cut a midrangey green card. So I'd like input on Vengevine vs Master of the Wild Hunt vs Polukranos, World Eater. The latter two I haven't seen in action too much so I don't have a good feel for their relative power levels. Thanks.
I wouldn't cut any of those midrange cards. My ramp decks usually run a decent amount of 4 and five drops to accelerate out, in addition to the 6+ giant fatties. As for the fatties, I like Terrastodon more than the Wurn. I think it's more powerful, but it is also just a ton of fun.
It can be as formal or informal as you want, but I try to talk to every player after the draft about what they played, what they cut, how well things performed, what they wish they had been given access to, what they saw too much of, etc. It's a good way to diagnose how cards are performing, and what effects are over or under represented. Things like, I tried to go R/W aggro, but didn't see enough burn, or I grabbed Wildfire, but mana rocks and creatures with toughness 5+ were tough to come by can be great help to cube builders.
Realistically, I think this is going to require way too much to go right for a mediocre effect. I don't like it at all.
1. What if something cheap and essential to your deck's success (say, a fetchland you need to splash an engine card) comes around next pack? Or even worse, you hit a complete blank? The fact that this card gets worse as it goes around the table doesn't help, since it has to compete with the best cards in cube for the first few picks.
2. Is taking something off-color something you really want to be doing? Given that this is a 7-drop, there's a very high chance you're going to draw that card before you play this. Then, if you never find Aether Searcher, you've lost a draw step for no reason. Even if you do, that draw step was still wasted in comparison to any number of other ETB triggers. This drawback applies to on-color cards as well; if you decide to cast the named card first, your Searcher becomes a stupid Razorfield Thresher.
3. Let's say things go very well and you follow it up with something reliably good like an on-color Fact or Fiction, and you don't draw it before this hits play. In that case, isn't it still a worse Sphinx of Uthuun? The body is worse, you can't blink it, it's weak to artifact removal, and the free spell can be countered.
Good questions:
1) Well, if something essential is there, you draft it and move on, and Searcher just becomes one of the 15+ cards you draft that you don't play. No biggie. If you hit a complete blank, the bluffing game begins. I think where it gets picked is going to be interesting, and for that matter how players who ship it draft the packs behind it.
2) No, I agree that taking something uncastable is a bad idea. Stretching to something you might not have played might be more reasonable though.
3) Maybe. Fact would probably be on the lower end of cards that would cause me to run this guy. Other tinker or ramp targets would be ideal. I'm still not sure this guy makes it on power level, but I'm going to have a blast finding out.
FUN. I love it, both during a game, and during the draft, both from a strategy and information standpoint (revealing picks middraft is going to lead to so much awesome bluffing and counter bluffing). I get the feeling it will miss the cut a lot, because it needs a lot of things to go right, but I'm excited.
Kinda sucks that you can't search the graveyard, so if you've already drawn and cast your Fact or Fiction, you're S.O.L.
Yes and no. If you're at or close to your critical mass of aggro 1-drops, yes. A non 1-drop that's of a higher quality will be more beneficial. But if you're short on T1 aggression, even a less than optimal 1-drop is better than no pressure at all (unless it's completely unplayable garbage, which none of those three are).
What would you consider that "critical mass" of red one-drops to be in a 450 card cube? My red section has the 7 I listed, plus access to 2 hybrids (Rakdos Cackler and Figure of Destiny).
Go over on one drops. You can always scale back, and it is easy to spot when you have too many (assuming you do the sideboard post mortem that we always do). Knowing when you have too few is much more difficult to spot, and more importantly, much more damaging to the cube experience than just a wasted slot or two.
Lastly, the importance of one drops has NEVER been more important to aggro than it is now, thanks to the quality and volume of equipment in cube.
Really wish this thing was a 2/1. Would you ever feel good about blocking this thing, or attacking into it if they had four mana up? Would be cool in reanimator, or just a deck with a handful of flashback cards.
I think the quality/density of your aggro mana fixing really affects this decision. When we added our second set of fetches, greens impact on aggro became immense. As stated, it is rarely a main color, so you need to be able to splash it into two color decks, while at the same time having access to G turn one (and occasionally GG turn two) in two color decks.
Also, if you run non booster/roto drafts (winston, solomon, etc), green aggro becomes almost a neccessity in cubes larger than 360.
It might be good for classic UW control, though I'm not sure of the value of a card a turn these days.
I think people are way overestimating the amount of times this thing will whiff. The worst case scenario of getting this thing after you have committed to two colors and have zero chance of splashing is still 40% (the guy naming first picks either of two colors and you're golden) and then 33% (only three colors left when the last player names). That is assuming random guessing, but still, that is the worst case scenario. There are going to be so many times when this thing is just the best triland ever.
I assume you meant "turn Agent of Acquisitions face down and you can't draft cards for the rest of this draft round."?
This set is so awesome. Might be just a novelty for a while, but the strategy and fun of these cards is off the charts. Grabbing an entire pack is awesome. Having to sit there and look at all the awesome cards you don't get to touch is a great counter.
I wouldn't cut any of those midrange cards. My ramp decks usually run a decent amount of 4 and five drops to accelerate out, in addition to the 6+ giant fatties. As for the fatties, I like Terrastodon more than the Wurn. I think it's more powerful, but it is also just a ton of fun.
It can be as formal or informal as you want, but I try to talk to every player after the draft about what they played, what they cut, how well things performed, what they wish they had been given access to, what they saw too much of, etc. It's a good way to diagnose how cards are performing, and what effects are over or under represented. Things like, I tried to go R/W aggro, but didn't see enough burn, or I grabbed Wildfire, but mana rocks and creatures with toughness 5+ were tough to come by can be great help to cube builders.
Good questions:
1) Well, if something essential is there, you draft it and move on, and Searcher just becomes one of the 15+ cards you draft that you don't play. No biggie. If you hit a complete blank, the bluffing game begins. I think where it gets picked is going to be interesting, and for that matter how players who ship it draft the packs behind it.
2) No, I agree that taking something uncastable is a bad idea. Stretching to something you might not have played might be more reasonable though.
3) Maybe. Fact would probably be on the lower end of cards that would cause me to run this guy. Other tinker or ramp targets would be ideal. I'm still not sure this guy makes it on power level, but I'm going to have a blast finding out.
Kinda sucks that you can't search the graveyard, so if you've already drawn and cast your Fact or Fiction, you're S.O.L.
Go over on one drops. You can always scale back, and it is easy to spot when you have too many (assuming you do the sideboard post mortem that we always do). Knowing when you have too few is much more difficult to spot, and more importantly, much more damaging to the cube experience than just a wasted slot or two.
Lastly, the importance of one drops has NEVER been more important to aggro than it is now, thanks to the quality and volume of equipment in cube.
Also, if you run non booster/roto drafts (winston, solomon, etc), green aggro becomes almost a neccessity in cubes larger than 360.