I hate seeing the Avalanchers bashed constantly. Akki Avalanchers is a fine card for Block Sligh, and will see play in Standard. It's better than almost all alternatives.
The 1-drops available to Sligh in Standard, based on what we know from the spoiler, are:
That's every creature we know of for post-BoK Standard that costs R or 1. Obviously the Walls don't count. None of the artifact 1-drops are good enough to compensate for the fact that they're artifacts in an artifact-hating environment.
Crazed Goblin is a terrible card, clearly inferior to say Mons's Goblin Raiders or Dwarven Trader. Orcish Spy is a terrible card, as its special ability is wholly irrelevant. Spark Elemental is a terrible card, a skill-tester, strictly worse than Lava Spike unless you have equipment on the board, which you shouldn't.
Frostling is a very good card, better than Akki Avalanchers.
Krark-Clan Shaman is a balanced card, but has two things going against it -- a) it's unwise for a non-Affinity beatdown deck to play enough artifacts to activate its ability regularly, and b) a red-based beatdown deck will kill its own creatures when it activates the KCS ability.
Mogg Sentry is playable in the correct environment, which IMO is an environment where either your guys are getting removed by Shock and its equivalents, or your opponent is countering things before your attack phase. The current environment is not heavy on damage-based removal or counters, so I think Mogg Sentry < Akki Avalanchers. At least an argument can be made here.
Without Piledriver around to make its haste meaningful, or tribal Goblins to care about its creature type, Raging Goblin is pretty bad. With the exception of the most aggressive Onslaught-based tribal Goblin decks, Raging Goblin has always been pretty bad. You have to get 2 Raging Goblins onboard and through for damage to equal 1 activation from an Akki Avalanchers, and that's all you'll ever get from the Raging Goblins. The Akki Avalanchers can take down a larger creature. The Akki Avalanchers can be activated repeatedly, and have the bonus of pumping or activating other cards that care about land going to the graveyard.
So, for a red-based beatdown deck in Standard, you're looking at the following playable one-drops:
Akki Avalanchers
Frostling
Mogg Sentry
If you only want 4 one-drops, Frostling is the best choice. If you want 8 one-drops, I believe the Avalanchers are clearly superior to Mogg Sentry, but that's arguable.
So Akki Avalanchers is one of the best 2 or 3 one-drops for red in Standard. By default, it's one of the best 2 one-drops in Block. If that's not good enough for you, then you should probably not be playing red weenies in Standard or Block.
I can see an argument against playing *any* one-drops other than Frostling in Standard. I played exactly 0 one-drops at States this year. But I also accepted the fact that I would mulligan a lot of threat-free hands.
A 1/1 for R with an aggressive ability is as good as it gets for red weenies. Like I said, if that strikes you as "terrible" then red weenies are clearly not for you.
My name is Scott, pretty much everyone calls me Otter ... I may or may not know some of y'all from efnet #mtg on the IRC a looong time ago, where I was an op under the nick MarchHare.
I've never been very active on an MtG forum before, but I'm giving it a shot here.
I've been playing since Legends, but have played a limited number of sanctioned tournaments because of the sorry state of sanctioning in West Virginia during most of my playing career. I have played a *lot* of local tournaments, most recently at D&S Collectibles in Fairmont WV when unsanctioned t2, Block, and Extended tournaments were held there regularly (twice weekly).
In the next year or so I will (hopefully) have gainful employment as an attorney and will have the time and money to PTQ in Butler PA and Columbus OH on weekends. As it is, I'm lucky to get one shot per Constructed season.
My highest finish in any significant (ie "non-store") tournament is 5th at this year's WV States playing Dan Paskins's last t2 version of RDW.
I play beatdown decks (especially red-based beatdown decks) in every environment, partly because I enjoy and do well with beatdown decks, and partly because I rarely have time to playtest these days and so I have to specialize a bit. There was about a three year period where I didn't play a single deck without either Mongrel or Piledriver. :tongue2:
For all those of you who complained that Flames of the Blood Hand should have targetted creatures instead of players "because it's creatures you really want to burn", here's your chance to put your money where your mouth is!
Oh just stop it. :tongue2:
The issue with Flames of the Blood Hand is not that it would be a better Constructed card if it *just* targeted creatures, but that it would be better if it did less damage and could target either creatures or players.
Flexible burn is almost always better than narrow burn ... the fact that Electrostatic Bolt gets played is more a testament to the warped T2 environment than to Bolt being better because it targets creatures.
In Extended, which is not hideously warped toward artifact creatures, I can't think of a single commonly played burn spell that can *only* target one or the other. Earth Rift saw some play in burn-heavy Sligh a while back, but it was so undercosted that it was worth it. Same with Fireblast, which rarely targeted creatures.
Flames of the Blood Hand is no Fireblast. For Constructed purposes, your burn needs to a) remove blockers AND b) go to the face.
So, this card is also *bleah* because it is narrow burn. :grin2:
Interactions like land-hating-Akki/God's Eye/Crack the Earth may push Crack the Earth from "bleah, it's just Raze" (my initial impression) into Constructed-worthy territory.
In a vacuum, CtE = "just Raze," but the more cards I see, the more I think WotC is bashing us with the clue bat ... they're clearly pushing the "land matters" Akki deck for Block. In that deck, where you get additional bonuses for destroying your own or your opponent's land, CtE will be solid.
It depends on what kind of synergies CtE has with the other cards in your deck, because on its own, it's no worldbeater. You don't generally win games by giving away cards. But if you're getting something *extra* -- a combat boost, an extra guy -- to compensate for destroying your own or your opponent's permanent, that goes a long way toward recouping the card loss.
Unfortunately, I don't think the decks that go out of their way to destroy your land really care that much about a random 1/1.
It's not a *bad* card at all -- far from it, I think. It can certainly go into mono-colored decks in Block that can afford colorless lands. Any card that replaces itself for free when destroyed deserves a look.
One problem I see, though, is that mono-colored decks that care about having creatures are going to want to use Genjus, and colorless lands interfere with playing the maximum number of Genju targets.
In the right deck, it's worth it. The "right deck" is one that eats its own land for whatever reason ... like I said, I don't think it's worth playing outside of Block over, say, Nexus or Stones, on the off-chance someone will destroy it for you.
If the Akki land deck turns out to be good, and they seem to be prebuilding it for us, I would use 4 of these. The fact that there's a combo with Crack the Earth, Akki Avalanchers, etc. is a nice bonus, but too convoluted to really make it a major design consideration if you were only playing one of that kind of card. If you're playing lots of that kind of card, then you get a pretty frequent small bonus for something you were going to do anyway, and that adds up.
A typical opening sequence on the play might be:
T1: Mountain, Avalanchers.
T2: God's Eye, attack with Avalanchers, sac God's Eye to Avalanchers, get +2/+0 and another attacker for next turn
-OR-
T2: God's Eye, attack with Avalanchers, Crack the Earth sac'ing God's Eye, get another attacker for next turn, stay even on cards and ahead on tempo.
So far the core of that deck looks like Akki Avalanchers, Akki Raider, Zo-Zu, Stone Rain, Crack the Earth, God's Eye ... I think Kumano, Frostling, and the Genju will also be automatic inclusions in any Block red deck.
So my take is that it's just another one of those "little things" that, taken by itself or with any other single combo is unimpressive, but when taken with every easily playable combo in the right deck, becomes pretty good.
At the worse it's raze which wasn't all that bad in the right deck and at the best its a raze effect which you splice something nice onto giving you good card advantage.
I'm not sure how splicing this results in card advantage ... say you splice Glacial Ray onto it. They lose two permanents -- one to Crack the Earth, one to Glacial Ray. You lose a permanent to Crack the Earth, and you lose Crack the Earth itself. Am I missing something?
In this case you get a tempo advantage but you break even on cards. And that's the best case scenario.
Life gain has to be *very* powerful to be worth playing. This seems poopy ... you'd have to gain life from 6 lands to make it equal to one Renewed Faith from old t2, and Renewed Faith had cycling and was an instant.
If you're able to develop your land base or do land tricks consistently enough to take advantage of this card, it seems like there's something better to do than gain life.
It's basically Raze. Raze did not tear up the world ... it saw very limited sideboard play. At best you're behind a card, unless you're splicing Ray or something.
It looks like WotC has prebuilt the core of a block red deck with LD as a secondary theme. If you can consistently get the jump on an opponent, obviously you don't mind giving up a card to stunt both players equally, and there are obvious synergies between Crack the Earth and the block Goblins that care about land.
I suspect a lot of people are going nuts over it because the person who posted it said that only advanced players would see its potential. It's not horrible but I wouldn't get too happy over an Arcane Raze.
I hate seeing the Avalanchers bashed constantly. Akki Avalanchers is a fine card for Block Sligh, and will see play in Standard. It's better than almost all alternatives.
The 1-drops available to Sligh in Standard, based on what we know from the spoiler, are:
Akki Avalanchers
Arcbound Worker
Cinder Wall
Clockwork Beetle
Crazed Goblin
Frostling
Krark-Clan Shaman
Mogg Sentry
Myr Mindservant
Myr Moonvessel
Myr Servitor
Orcish Spy
Raging Goblin
Razorgrass Screen
Spark Elemental
Steel Wall
That's every creature we know of for post-BoK Standard that costs R or 1. Obviously the Walls don't count. None of the artifact 1-drops are good enough to compensate for the fact that they're artifacts in an artifact-hating environment.
That leaves us with:
Akki Avalanchers
Crazed Goblin
Frostling
Krark-Clan Shaman
Mogg Sentry
Orcish Spy
Raging Goblin
Spark Elemental
Crazed Goblin is a terrible card, clearly inferior to say Mons's Goblin Raiders or Dwarven Trader. Orcish Spy is a terrible card, as its special ability is wholly irrelevant. Spark Elemental is a terrible card, a skill-tester, strictly worse than Lava Spike unless you have equipment on the board, which you shouldn't.
That leaves us with:
Akki Avalanchers
Frostling
Krark-Clan Shaman
Mogg Sentry
Raging Goblin
Frostling is a very good card, better than Akki Avalanchers.
Krark-Clan Shaman is a balanced card, but has two things going against it -- a) it's unwise for a non-Affinity beatdown deck to play enough artifacts to activate its ability regularly, and b) a red-based beatdown deck will kill its own creatures when it activates the KCS ability.
Mogg Sentry is playable in the correct environment, which IMO is an environment where either your guys are getting removed by Shock and its equivalents, or your opponent is countering things before your attack phase. The current environment is not heavy on damage-based removal or counters, so I think Mogg Sentry < Akki Avalanchers. At least an argument can be made here.
Without Piledriver around to make its haste meaningful, or tribal Goblins to care about its creature type, Raging Goblin is pretty bad. With the exception of the most aggressive Onslaught-based tribal Goblin decks, Raging Goblin has always been pretty bad. You have to get 2 Raging Goblins onboard and through for damage to equal 1 activation from an Akki Avalanchers, and that's all you'll ever get from the Raging Goblins. The Akki Avalanchers can take down a larger creature. The Akki Avalanchers can be activated repeatedly, and have the bonus of pumping or activating other cards that care about land going to the graveyard.
So, for a red-based beatdown deck in Standard, you're looking at the following playable one-drops:
Akki Avalanchers
Frostling
Mogg Sentry
If you only want 4 one-drops, Frostling is the best choice. If you want 8 one-drops, I believe the Avalanchers are clearly superior to Mogg Sentry, but that's arguable.
So Akki Avalanchers is one of the best 2 or 3 one-drops for red in Standard. By default, it's one of the best 2 one-drops in Block. If that's not good enough for you, then you should probably not be playing red weenies in Standard or Block.
I can see an argument against playing *any* one-drops other than Frostling in Standard. I played exactly 0 one-drops at States this year. But I also accepted the fact that I would mulligan a lot of threat-free hands.
A 1/1 for R with an aggressive ability is as good as it gets for red weenies. Like I said, if that strikes you as "terrible" then red weenies are clearly not for you.
It's obviously solid in Limited. It's removal. Constructed? Not so much.
I've never been very active on an MtG forum before, but I'm giving it a shot here.
I've been playing since Legends, but have played a limited number of sanctioned tournaments because of the sorry state of sanctioning in West Virginia during most of my playing career. I have played a *lot* of local tournaments, most recently at D&S Collectibles in Fairmont WV when unsanctioned t2, Block, and Extended tournaments were held there regularly (twice weekly).
In the next year or so I will (hopefully) have gainful employment as an attorney and will have the time and money to PTQ in Butler PA and Columbus OH on weekends. As it is, I'm lucky to get one shot per Constructed season.
My highest finish in any significant (ie "non-store") tournament is 5th at this year's WV States playing Dan Paskins's last t2 version of RDW.
I play beatdown decks (especially red-based beatdown decks) in every environment, partly because I enjoy and do well with beatdown decks, and partly because I rarely have time to playtest these days and so I have to specialize a bit. There was about a three year period where I didn't play a single deck without either Mongrel or Piledriver. :tongue2:
Anyway, glad to be here!
Oh just stop it. :tongue2:
The issue with Flames of the Blood Hand is not that it would be a better Constructed card if it *just* targeted creatures, but that it would be better if it did less damage and could target either creatures or players.
Flexible burn is almost always better than narrow burn ... the fact that Electrostatic Bolt gets played is more a testament to the warped T2 environment than to Bolt being better because it targets creatures.
In Extended, which is not hideously warped toward artifact creatures, I can't think of a single commonly played burn spell that can *only* target one or the other. Earth Rift saw some play in burn-heavy Sligh a while back, but it was so undercosted that it was worth it. Same with Fireblast, which rarely targeted creatures.
Flames of the Blood Hand is no Fireblast. For Constructed purposes, your burn needs to a) remove blockers AND b) go to the face.
So, this card is also *bleah* because it is narrow burn. :grin2:
EDIT: "Flame" Rift, not Earth Rift.
In a vacuum, CtE = "just Raze," but the more cards I see, the more I think WotC is bashing us with the clue bat ... they're clearly pushing the "land matters" Akki deck for Block. In that deck, where you get additional bonuses for destroying your own or your opponent's land, CtE will be solid.
It depends on what kind of synergies CtE has with the other cards in your deck, because on its own, it's no worldbeater. You don't generally win games by giving away cards. But if you're getting something *extra* -- a combat boost, an extra guy -- to compensate for destroying your own or your opponent's permanent, that goes a long way toward recouping the card loss.
It's not a *bad* card at all -- far from it, I think. It can certainly go into mono-colored decks in Block that can afford colorless lands. Any card that replaces itself for free when destroyed deserves a look.
One problem I see, though, is that mono-colored decks that care about having creatures are going to want to use Genjus, and colorless lands interfere with playing the maximum number of Genju targets.
In the right deck, it's worth it. The "right deck" is one that eats its own land for whatever reason ... like I said, I don't think it's worth playing outside of Block over, say, Nexus or Stones, on the off-chance someone will destroy it for you.
If the Akki land deck turns out to be good, and they seem to be prebuilding it for us, I would use 4 of these. The fact that there's a combo with Crack the Earth, Akki Avalanchers, etc. is a nice bonus, but too convoluted to really make it a major design consideration if you were only playing one of that kind of card. If you're playing lots of that kind of card, then you get a pretty frequent small bonus for something you were going to do anyway, and that adds up.
A typical opening sequence on the play might be:
T1: Mountain, Avalanchers.
T2: God's Eye, attack with Avalanchers, sac God's Eye to Avalanchers, get +2/+0 and another attacker for next turn
-OR-
T2: God's Eye, attack with Avalanchers, Crack the Earth sac'ing God's Eye, get another attacker for next turn, stay even on cards and ahead on tempo.
So far the core of that deck looks like Akki Avalanchers, Akki Raider, Zo-Zu, Stone Rain, Crack the Earth, God's Eye ... I think Kumano, Frostling, and the Genju will also be automatic inclusions in any Block red deck.
So my take is that it's just another one of those "little things" that, taken by itself or with any other single combo is unimpressive, but when taken with every easily playable combo in the right deck, becomes pretty good.
Also, lol @ people trying the "end of turn" thing despite it having been explained repeatedly that it does not work. It. Does. Not. Work.
It will see sideboard play if Life is popular at the PTQs, but I can't see any Constructed deck maindecking this card ever.
I'm not sure how splicing this results in card advantage ... say you splice Glacial Ray onto it. They lose two permanents -- one to Crack the Earth, one to Glacial Ray. You lose a permanent to Crack the Earth, and you lose Crack the Earth itself. Am I missing something?
In this case you get a tempo advantage but you break even on cards. And that's the best case scenario.
If you're able to develop your land base or do land tricks consistently enough to take advantage of this card, it seems like there's something better to do than gain life.
It looks like WotC has prebuilt the core of a block red deck with LD as a secondary theme. If you can consistently get the jump on an opponent, obviously you don't mind giving up a card to stunt both players equally, and there are obvious synergies between Crack the Earth and the block Goblins that care about land.
I suspect a lot of people are going nuts over it because the person who posted it said that only advanced players would see its potential.
It doesn't take much to please me when it comes to things Goblin-related, but this didn't make the cut.