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Magic: The Gathering Discussion
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Post by
Hyperspacerebel
Eh, I mostly just play casual. It has a way too high mana cost to be effective, imo.
Just to me clear with the terms: limited can be casual. The differentiations are limited vs constructed and casual vs sanctioned.
Post by
Monday
Let me rephrase: I play with any cards. If you have a card, you can play it. There are no restrictions, no extra rules, no tournament format.
I do not generally play any format except Sealed Limited. If I'm talking about cards, I'm generally talking about playing with friends or people at the local games shop.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
And that's all great, but the point I was making is that in limited formats, which for the most part tend to accommodate slower creature-based decks (mostly due to removal being more at a premium), scavenge can be a powerful effect. Not all cards are made for constructed play, and not all cards are made for limited play. Things are are umplayable in one can be quite good in the other.
Post by
Monday
Aye, I understand. I just thought I'd gone over it before. I tend to build decks around themes, especially flavor wise. Eventually I'll probably build a Golgari deck, but their mechanics are, outside of Limited, not exactly the greatest compared to the other Guilds.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
Aye, I understand. I just thought I'd gone over it before. I tend to build decks around themes, especially flavor wise. Eventually I'll probably build a Golgari deck, but their mechanics are, outside of Limited, not exactly the greatest compared to the other Guilds.
Understandable, but you have to admit that's a bit different than saying it's the worst mechanic in the block. I'm a stickler making sure players, especially new players, understand the difference between an
objectively bad card
and a card that might not fit into a person's specific playstyle in a specific format. New magic players are extremely impressionable, and I've seen too many people teach them bad ways of thinking about cards and mechanics.
Post by
Squishalot
That is... a ridiculously bad card.
I can imagine it could potentially be useful when playing with a completely random deck rather than pre-built colour-based deck. In very limited circumstances.
Post by
Monday
*shrug*
I'm mostly speaking from experience. Nobody ran Golgari decks during the Gatecrash Sealed. It was either Izzet, Selesnya, Azorius or Boros. The others were all still used (not as much), but I never once played a Golgari deck, and nobody was really registered as one.
So yes, I understand that there's a lot of leeway between different cards. However, I, and most people I know, agree that Scavenge's cost far outweighs the benefits. It's easier to get +1/+1 counters with Undying and counter-movement cards or Evolve.
Again, I like Golgari and I think it has some good cards. However, the bulk of the Golgari commons and uncommons (and some rares) were fairly unbalanced, and not in the good way.
Post by
Nathanyal
OMG that's such an awesome card, gonna go buy 4 and add to my deck.
lulz
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
*shrug*
I'm mostly speaking from experience. Nobody ran Golgari decks during the Gatecrash Sealed. It was either Izzet, Selesnya, Azorius or Boros. The others were all still used (not as much), but I never once played a Golgari deck, and nobody was really registered as one.
So yes, I understand that there's a lot of leeway between different cards. However, I, and most people I know, agree that Scavenge's cost far outweighs the benefits. It's easier to get +1/+1 counters with Undying and counter-movement cards or Evolve.
Again, I like Golgari and I think it has some good cards. However, the bulk of the Golgari commons and uncommons (and some rares) were fairly unbalanced, and not in the good way.
I don't understand what "cost" you're associating with scavenge. There are two main costs to casting every spell: mana for a turn and a card. The mana cost determines how late in the game the spell can be cast and how much of your turn it is going to take up. Costing a card to play determines how many spells you can cast over the course of a game. Scavenge has no card cost. It's limited to how many you have in your graveyard, but utilizing scavenge does not cost a card. So take your staple scavenge common
Drudge Beetle
. There we have what is called a bear: a 2/2 for one and a green. Bears are solid creatures in most limited formats and are easy 4th+ picks in drafts. And in addition to being a bear, you have the option of giving a creature 2 counters late in the game. Looking at just mana costs and comparing it to something like undying, of course it looks bad. 6-mana compared to 1 mana is huge. But 0 cards to cast compared to 1 card to cast is also huge. Essentially you can turn any turn after getting 6 mana where you don't have anything relevant to cast (which can be quite often in limited) into two counters. And if those two counters mean the difference between your opponent's blocker trading or chumping, you just gained additional card advantage, and card advantage is king.
Post by
Monday
Sure, but if we're talking limited, the other guilds had much better effects. For example, Izzet. Overload is a ridiculously powerful mechanic. Most of the cards with Overload printed on it were generally cheap for rather good effects, but with a small mana cost, they become much larger. For example,
weapon surge
: +1/+0 and first strike for all your creatures for 2CMC? That's ridiculous. It makes blocking ridiculously easy and lets you sweep aside creatures that may force a trade.
Downsize
: quick and easy way to block a token deck in Limited.
Blustersquall
: tap all their creatures, giving you a free run to attack.
Obviously there are counters to these, but these are just a few examples of Overload. It has less than half the mana cost, you don't need to wait for your creature to die and it grants potentially game changing effects, if only temporary.
Slow decks can work in Limited, but when placed up against a deck that CAN go fast, they get left behind almost every time.
Edit: I should probably expound before you reply: once again, I do not find any of the mechanics
terrible
. I'm merely pointing out that some guilds, generally, had better mechanics and flow than others.
And Golgari is still my dream deck to build >.>
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
I find it interesting that two of the three cards you mentioned I consider borderline unplayable in limited (Downsize and Blustersquall). They are pure tempo cards which generally limited decks cannot support. You generally want to be playing cards that leave an impact on the battlefield, not cards that give you a single turns worth of advantage.
But I think the clincher is that you just listed a couple of combat tricks. Overload or not, a combat trick is a combat trick, and I think you taking the value of the combat trick itself and comparing that to scavenge, which isn't a fair comparison. Black and Green have their own combat tricks, and
dredge
scavenge (edit: whoops, wrong graveyard mechanic) doesn't claim to be one.
Edit: I should probably expound before you reply: once again, I do not find any of the mechanics terrible. I'm merely pointing out that some guilds, generally, had better mechanics and flow than others.
Well, you did say it was terrible, and I took issue with that. If you don't really think that, then that's fine.
Post by
Monday
I suppose it was because I was likening instants/sorceries to creatures. Shall I mention Guttersnipe and goblin electromancer, then?
Well, you did say it was terrible, and I took issue with that. If you don't really think that, then that's fine.
It was a bad turn of phrase on my part. My apologies. As I said earlier, the Golgari are my favorite guild besides the Legion, thematically. I just haven't had the heart to actually form a deck of them. Recently, though, it's come down to building a Golgari or building an Eldrazi deck, and my laziness asserts the former.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
I suppose it was because I was likening instants/sorceries to creatures. Shall I mention Guttersnipe and goblin electromancer, then?
If I'm drafting, and I've gotten green and red mostly so far and then I hit a pack where the two best picks for my colors are Drudge Beetle and Guttersnipe, it would be a toss up. If I'm looking at 14+ creatures with a solid mid-game I would take the Drudge Beetle, but if I have 7 or 8+ removal spells with a attrition-based late game then I'd probably take the Guttersnipe. I'm less excited about Goblin Electromancer in limited. Removal spells are generally costed well enough that you already should have the mana needed to cast them when they become relevant. I'd take him as a solid but hard-to-cast bear with a situational upside if I'm already solidly in red/blue and there are no other good picks. I'd probably be more excited about Drudge Beetle if I'm drafting green simply because it's easier to cast.
Both those cards are great in constructed where you can actually run decks with 25+ instants.
PS: I stopped putting links for all my cards because it's too much of a pain. Everyone should get
Autocard Everywhere
which scans the page for Magic card names and makes them hoverable with a pop-up to see the card. Makes things so much easier, and you can limit to specific domains if you only want it to work here.
Also, speaking of card advantage and bad spells, it's interesting to look back at 5 original one-cost instants (boons): Healing Salve, Ancestral Recall, Dark Ritual, Lightning Bolt, Giant Growth. Definitely a flavorful thing to do, but Wizards had no idea how valuable card draw was at the time. Healing Salve is pretty much unplayable, and while Dark Ritual, Lightning Bolt and Giant Growth are quite good cards to this day, Ancestral Recall remains one of the most powerful cards ever printed (one of the "
Power Nine
").
Post by
Sparkbolt
Golgari has become alot more viable since Dragon's maze.
Varolz, the Scar-Strped
made scavange decks alot less mana intensive. Now all those scavenge cards now run on there converted mana cost so you get two for two with Drudge beetle.
And I have faced a couple scavenged decks that threw in
Vexing Devil
so now there getting +4/+4 for one mana.
Post by
Monday
True, I forgot about Varolz. I think I'm going to grab the prebuild Golgari mazerunner deck and throw some of my extra cards in there. Pulled an Abrupt Decay the other day and I like the look of it.
Post by
Monday
So, HsR, you've convinced me. I started running a Golgari deck and wow. Scavenge is amazing. I've convinced my friends, who thought it was terrible, that it's awesome as well.
Post by
Nathanyal
Doing quite well with my deck. Gone from 1-4 three weeks ago to 2-2 tonight. And I played in both Game Day events and I did well enough to place top 8 in both (the first only had 8 players but thats besides the point) and got Hive Stirrings and Goblin Diplomats. Of course I couldn't use either so I trade them away.
Thinking about adding some red cards and try for a Gruul deck. Need some removal cards and red seems like a good choice. Not to mention that most red cards seem to be cheap.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
So, HsR, you've convinced me. I started running a Golgari deck and wow. Scavenge is amazing. I've convinced my friends, who thought it was terrible, that it's awesome as well.
Heh, glad I could help.
Post by
Monday
So, HsR, you've convinced me. I started running a Golgari deck and wow. Scavenge is amazing. I've convinced my friends, who thought it was terrible, that it's awesome as well.
Heh, glad I could help.
It's actually one of my favorite mechanics, now. My Golgari deck works quite well, and the addition of Varolsz makes the Scavenge much more viable and a lot more dangerous. I got Varolsz to an 11/11 within three turns with the cheap Scavenge.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
Not strictly MTG-related but does anyone play SolForge?
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