Single Card Discussion : Sunforger

[warble]

A single cap activation will remove from about half, to all of workshop's win conditions.  A single sunforger activation, that is, assuming you can get all the mana together to play equip and activate sunforger, will destroy 2 artifacts.

Well, that is completely neglecting the fact that sunforger demands the deck run some artifact hate to protect it, and runs multiples because it has tutor power.  Without sunforger the deck can't look like it does...it won't function or win in a timely manner, something that jester's cap will not provide but sunforger does.  Advantage, sunforger.

Again, I'm looking for some way to really break sunforger.  I know the deck as-is is simply a metagame hate with a fast clock.  The real part that's lacking is brokenness.  There is no reason to bring a half-broken half-hate deck to a tournament, and I know this.  All I can state is that sunforger feels very powerful, but I haven't been able to truly break it yet and I want to...badly...

[AmbivalentDuck]

It's awful hard to "break" an effect that costs more than Yawgmoth's Bargain, requires a creature, and requires 8 mana of two different colors.  Especially when it only finds and casts a single instant.

[warble]

Grrrr will you stop treating it like it needs all your mana.  It's fully accelerated with 25 mana sources and only costs 3 mana to play.  It will not be part of a combo deck so please don't make the mistake of thinking it's a one-time thing and voila you've won.  It's not, so it costs 3 mana to play and yes to use repeatedly it costs 5 mana.  But the drain target is 3, then 1, 2, or 3.  Not 6 like bargain which says to a mana drain deck "drain me and you win"  Different...as in sorcery, 3 cost and weldable.

Well, I just played a few games on MWS.  Of course I got scrubs, but anyhow, against

R/U/W fish (without force of will for some reason) 6 wins 3 losses
a different R/U/W fish (with force of will) 2 wins 1 loss
Black Metal B/W angel vindicate denial 3 wins 1 loss (won two of the games with 0 mana on the board)
MonoRed (but who is going to play monored honestly) 3 wins 0 losses
2 Land Belcher 2 wins 1 loss
Affinity 1 wins 0 losses this match is completely unplayable for the affinity player, so we called it.  something like 99% of the time I'm going to win.
Another Affinity 2 wins 0 losses again, the match is unplayable.  After SB it actually gets harder for them to win, not like that matters.
Another Red/White hate deck 1 wins 0 losses he quit it was so imbalanced.  Yeah...that's right...
R/B/U aggro hate deck 1 wins 0 losses
Oath (sadness) 0 wins 3 losses
Oath (this time Wing Shards instead of Price of Progress) 2 wins 1 losses

For reference, I have CS on MWS and my record is something like 60 wins 2 losses so...this is looking bad.

I find the artifact hate against powered decks is very nice, and the deck's replayable combo is a bit more powerful than dredge.  Darkblast is pwning me, and at that phase of the game I do find I need 6 mana...which is too much against waste+strip...but with bigger creatures darkblast would stop it's complete pwnage.  Games 2 and 3 it was stated that the "deck is an anti-fish deck" and that's absolutely correct.  The sideboard is currently meant to give an aggro deck little to no chance to win.  That's exactly what it does.

I'm losing confidence in sunforger despite testing okay against aggro.  It's the creature base that needs work (as I stated before).  Surprisingly good results against two scrub decks, so at least I'm thinking it can make it through scrubs...but I need to test against CS, STAX and IT.  Something tells me IT is going to 10-0 my deck as-is.  Also, if I don't pilot this thing perfectly it loses every time.  Friggin worse than a cheerleader on crack.

[brianpk80]

A single cap activation will remove from about half, to all of workshop's win conditions.  A single sunforger activation, that is, assuming you can get all the mana together to play equip and activate sunforger, will destroy 2 artifacts.  And that is without assuming that you probably gave the workshop player 3 completely unmolested turns to play equip and activate sunforger(not to mention the creature you have to equip it to).  I hardly call that beating workshop.  Cap will come closer to exhausting the workshop player's ability to win than sunforger will a large percentage of the time.

While many of the Sunforger criticisms in this thread have been on point, this is one with which I'd have to
disagree.  Activating Jester's Cap is only remarkable against Stax if you are playing against 5C Stax and you
remove some of their bombs like Strip Mine, a Tinker target, or Balance.  Vs. Uba Stax (or its offspring
"The Jester"), the game is all about board position.  The only remarkable Cap targets would be Strip Mine, Karn,
Silver Golem or Crucible of Worlds if they don't already have one in play/hand, and in each instance the Sunforger
activation would be superior. For instance, I'd much prefer the effect of Rack and Ruin v. Stax than a chance to
remove 3 lock pieces not yet in play from the most redundant Tier 1 deck out there.  I'd also rather Lava Dart a
Welder than remove Karn, a Crucible, and a Strip Mine from an Uba library.

-Brian (BPK)

[warble]

Updated decklist.  I was getting schooled by Oath.  So I learned.

Basically, Price of Progress doesn't have to be a 3 of or even a 2 of.  Against a control deck you'll use ReB and creatures to draw the counters as well as crypt, and price of progress hurts.  It also kills you if you have more than one so I cut it down to 1.  Without bombardment I would lose the oath matchup so bad it's really not right.  I believe this list is alllllmost good enough to enter into a tournament.  First turn mox orchard oath still sucks donkey nuts, but Shards wasn't cutting it as two turns later the creatures came back.  Specifically it's darksteel colossus that caused the change.  Little bugger wouldn't die!

8 SoloMoxenCrypt
2 Tormod's Crypt
4 Sunforger

4 Plateau
3 Flooded Strand
3 Wooded Foothills
3 Sacred Foundry
2 Plains
2 Mountains

3 Hearth Kami
4 Goblin Welder
4 Grim Lavamancer
2 Gorilla Shaman

4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Rack and Ruin
4 Disenchant
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Lightning Bolt
2 Lava Dart
1 Orim's Chant

SB:
2 ReB
3 orim's chant
2 Tormod's Crypt
3 Lightning Bolt
4 Goblin Bombardment
1 Price of Progress

[Largent]

mishra's workshop seems okay