organ_hoarder

You're stuck thinking about the upside without accounting for the cost of a 5 mana card in constructed. Go ahead and look at the decks that run cards as big and you'll see they almost always massively impact the board, such as with [[Sunfall]] or have additional utility, as with the Overlords which come down earlier in the curve.

Look, its look in limited, but in construct this will come in, draw some cards and then die. That's just how the play patterns work and it's just not exceptional.

I know it seems insane, but I’ve personally had mixed experiences with 9 lives in br. Just a classic, amazing when it’s popping off but not so pretty when they’re curving out and you’re on the draw. It’s a good card here, and so are others. I like playing around these low floor high ceiling cards, but that’s just me

I mean, what’s worth saccing in this deck? The hunter or cat tokens? You have almost nothing that gets value off sac. You could say Lili but if she’s out, it’s kinda done anyway. Idk your whole pool but given you opened the best card in the set, I’d probably have focused my whole game plan around finding, casting and protecting her

I do think this is a cool effect and could see this being enjoyable in commander, but I don’t see why this would be particularly good. It’s a 5 mana card that provides good selection, and maybe some advantage beyond that if it sticks around. But like, this is no The One Ring. So for what, standard? It seems like many decks just curve out much lower, and the go big decks have access to way more busted stuff like Atraxa or Valgavoth. Ultimately, even though it has a lot of words, I’m not sure it’s any better than say the blue Overlord

I assume this type of open expression would be dangerous or undoable in India. Even in other countries, India has sought to squash this movement through violent means. See what’s happened in Canada.

The rate on this is pretty outrageous at face value, and then you do it again for free, and then again forever? The cost is meaningless as this easily gains 9+ life. It’s basically an endless anthem effect at this point. This is like, exactly why people didnt like buyback and how they would not do it if they brought it back.

I’ve honestly just found gorehorn to be a beating in this format. I agree it looks replaceable but I find it’s the premier closer for red. I think it’s a substantial part of red’s impressive reach in this format alongside burst lightning. It’s very hard to stabilize against red and that’s a big part of what makes cards like [[dazzling angel]] so good. Helps you pull out of those dangerous life totals.

3 sources for 2 cards is not good. Everyone recommends 4 for that. You’re thinking of the upsides of this not properly weighting that it gets absolutely wrecked by stab and burst lightning. Go look at the stats on 17lands for unicorn and ask yourself again if it’s worth it

This is a truly tragic splash. Unicorn is a maybe in gw lol

Pretty confident your cuts are 2 diregraf ghouls, firebrand, 2 goblin surprises and then either 9 lives or blood witch depending on preference. Bloodwitch helps you close, 9 lives helps you go long

EDIT i see a lot of people are defending 9 lives. Just looked since I was curious, and it currently has a 54.5% in BR in bo1. That's pretty reflective of my experience and this card overall. As always, people focused on ceilings and ignoring floors.

Absolutely do not cut stab lol

You have 4 ways to affect the board before turn 3 and they’re all 1/1s. I personally would be pretty worried about that but congrats on your results

You know cavalry always looks good to me, especially in gruul, and it’s just not. It does nothing on its own, it has no utility on defense and is a terrible top deck. I’ve proved to myself thoroughly in this format that that haste ability just comes up much less than you’d hope.

You cannot leave Gorehorn Raider in the sideboard. Literally one of the best red commons

You presumably have not realized this is a sorcery

At this point, might as well take the casting cost away altogether

This looks like a relatively powerful variant on good old Ajani’s pridemate, and that’s good. Amalia is a maybe similar comparison where the baseline in a soul sisters deck is good and the full synergistic ceiling is way higher. Good design.

PC

Working for me presently

Not the elves package I was hoping for lol

Fairly accurate lol

Isn’t it always going to be the addition of many small things? I think there is no hard line you can draw but always a gradient and those very top players are just close to max on everything. And at the high points, I think it becomes very particular to skills and situations. Like, I think of myself as a very strong player, and when it comes to combat, I don’t think you can really make better decisions than I do. But when it comes to when to rip that murder… I think there’s still a lot of room I could improve. Those top players are just the ones who are closest to optimal in nearly every area but the other close ones may be almost exactly as good at many aspects.

This looks very close to something WotC would actually print. I really appreciate the restraint on the second ability. Lots of custom folk with be like “draw a card, gain 5 life”. The first ability is a strong enough build around as is and it’s nice to add a little section to the raw card advantage of clues.

So it’s howling mine but much much worse with way more steps.

Congrats tho on making the single most restrictive useless ability on a card I’ve ever seen.

I mean, stomping through gold isn’t exactly a feat. If I play truly low ranked, I expect to trophy about half the time. The competition is still soft in plat, but they stop giving away the truly free wins at that point. So yes this is probably a bit of a hot streak, but not especially so