Artificers Intuition in Salvagers?

[M.Solymossy]

Artificers intuiton.
i haven't seen a build with this, but rather, builds with trinket mage.  I have done some REALLY nutty things with the intuition in play, using my budget salvagers deck.  with salvager + lions eye (or lotus for the powered player) you can cycle for the kill.   normal decks i've seen run 1 pyrite spellbomb for the kill, not to mention that it's combo pieces are both restricted (lotus or lions eye).  With an intuition and salvagers in play, you can cycle any 0 or 1CC artifact to find your lotus, then go infinite with salvagers (add w*** then use to add uuu bring lotus back, discard to artificers to find a pyrite bring lotus back add RRR go infinite)

i personally think intuition is WAY better than trinket mage, in that the intuition can search for more than one artifact....


artificers intuition + salvagers = game over


put your thoughts together here...

and please... no flaming...  

[AngryPheldagrif]

Assuming Zherbus doesn't kill this for being a Salvagers thread, I voted no.

Artificer's Intuition requires you to pitch a Mox or other artifact to fetch one. This slows you down by a turn, since you don't get to use what you pitched. Since it requires 3 mana to find the Lotus, that part yields the same as Trinket Mage, with the edge going to the Mage for 2U versus 1UU.

The advantage of the Intuition is that it gets you both pieces of the combo. The disadvantage is that you lose card advantage and the Intuition is useless on it's own. It's also vulnerable to enchantment destruction, which is negligible.

The advantage of the Mage is that it is card advantage, while it also provides a free beatstick, which will at very least distract your opponent momentarily. It also is cheaper, since it only costs 3 mana total. The disadvantage of the Mage is that it only fetches the major part of the combo, but not the other half (or vice versa). It's also vulnerable to Stifle, which is negligible.

Then we get to my favorite piece, good old Intuition. With a Salvagers in play, it fetchs both the mana piece and the win condition. It can also brute-force tutor up a Salvagers. It also works with the AK engine. The disadvantage is that it doesn't always give you the Lotus for the first use.

Overall, I prefer the good old Intuition by a mile. Unfortunately, because the deck needs more, Intuition can't cover it all. So the choice between Mage and the new Intuition is not for an engine, but for a utility tutor. Mage just beats the hell out of Artificer's Intuition there. Not a hard choice at all.

If it helps, and I'm probably not supposed to say this because 'testing means nothing,' but in my team's testing we used Artificer's Intuition in our original build and it sucked. You'd either draw it after dropping all your Moxen, or have to mulligan hands with it and no artifacts. With 4 effective win conditions (since Cunning Wish is golden in that role) and a ton of draw, the extra little bit of tutoring was just never vital enough to overcome the severe drawback.

-Dan

PS: Budget Salvagers!? I sure hope you were running it at least semi-proxied, because Budget Salvagers is an oxymoron. It needs the full power, and I'm not even going to go into how vital the real Lotus is.

[policehq]

Trinket Mage is also non-Duressable, which is significant in a combo-oriented deck, as a sidenote.

Barry

[M.Solymossy]

actually it's for a 5 proxy tournament, and i AM borrowing the Lotus and Blue power from my buddy so it WILL be fully powered.  but i DID play this saturday at a small 10  person tourny WITHOUT ANY power and it did exceptionally well.  
 my speed was definitely slow, 3rd to 4th turn, but i used artifacts like wayfarers bauble and chromatic sphere... they helped a little.

[LotusHead]

As one of the two TMD'rs Salvager Guys (Not counting the hush hush Trinket.dec rumored to being worked on by an established team.), I feel I should comment.

My original Salvagers build (SlapJack) used Trinket Mages because I had never heard of Artificer's Intuition. (Never came up in Booster Drafts, you know?)

But when I made my build, with Trinket Mages, it just worked right off the bat in my Scrubby Metagame.  After posting my Decklist and modifying the TRULY needless cards (See: Shared Fate versus Pyrite Spellbomb as Kill Condition), I was told by others to use Artificer's Intuition.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that AI SUCKS. At least in Salvager Decks.  Trinket Mages simply produce immediate results with blockage.  The non-Duressable thing is no joke either.

If your deck needs Artificer's Intuition, it had better be to put a Big Artifact from your hand into the graveyard so you can get further SoLoMoxen to back it up after you weld it.

You may need an almost completely combo build for it to work.  If you can find out or make one, POST IT!.

There is an Aggro Salvager's decklist by Rosetta (I belive) that takes Salvagers into a different direction. A workshop direction.

But mostly, AI can't block, AND you have to ditch an artifact in hand.

All in all, it depends on what your angle is.  I don't see AI as being usefull just yet without some REALLY neat innovation, or a fresh new expansion set.

In contrast, I see Trinket Mages as ALWAYS being useful in any Salvagers build that includes blue. (hmmmm. A Salvager build without blue? Wait. No Blue, no T1. T1 is BUILD on FoW, Mana Drain, Ancestral Recall, Brainstorm, Time Walk and Cunning Wish. )

[Un4givenKnight]

As one of the two TMD'rs Salvager Guys

Ouch, bro. I had a salvager.dec list out befor either of you two. Granted it wasnt a very good deck, but it was there and might have been the first thread on the subject. Can a guy get some love here?

That said, I dont think that AI will fit in this as well as Trinket Mage. The fact that it's  non-Duressable and a solid 2/2 beatstick/chumpblocker if necessary makes it a better pick.

[VGB]

Actually, I did post a Salvagers deck with AI, but I was probably foolish to do so - note that my deck also utilizes Crucible.

AI would be better in a deck that uses Goblin Welder - but don't take this as a recommendation to drop AI/Salvagers into a Welder deck.