I am very surprised to see many of the cards in the tier 3 section. I mean most of them should not really show up on the radar to begin with, but I guess you have to write about some thing, right?
You're right.
Some cards deserved being talked about even if I don't like them because other people have been discussing them.
Others cards are undercosted to the point where they should be talked about even if they're not quite good enough.
Interesting question: If you were to build a deck with Lorescale Coatl, what would it look like? Would it be a grow-esk style build or more fish like disruption to back up your dude plan?
Coatl is versatile enough to fit into most shells.
I haven't tried making any lists yet.
For now, I can only say that I'll get back to you on this.
But who did ever think about hardcasting Glassdust Hulk/Architects of Will or playing them as robots in Welder/Workshop decks. The point, why it is at least interesting to think about these cards, was definately something else (PITCHING), while nobody honestly advocates these as überbroken cards.
Being blue doesn't really hold much weight when I look at a card like this.
Don't take that statement out of context. Blue is the best color blah blah blah. I know that.
The point is that I want my cards to serve a specific purpose.
Saying something like, "Glassdust Hulk is the new Inkwell Leviathan. It's an artifact, blue, and kills your opponent." isn't a comparison that I'll take seriously.
Inkwell Leviathan has a very specific use and incredible characteristics for its purpose.
Glassdust Hulk isn't spectacular in any specific regard except having multiple non-stellar applications.
As a beater, he's bad.
As a 'draw engine', he's bad.
The first thing that comes to mind when I think of Glassdust Hulk is "Jack of all trades; master of none".
I also think that Sen Trip has more potential then you give it.
Sen Triplets feels like a double-or-nothing card with a variable reward.
What that means is:
You're going to incredible lengths to put this card into play either by casting it or using something else to cheat it into play ([Bazaar/Thirst]+Welder, Tinker, Show and Tell, Oath of Druids).
There is no immediate reward to having Sen Triplets in play.
If something other than Goblin Welder was used to get Sen Triplets into play, you're mana is going to be tied up.
If Goblin Welder was used to get this into play, why didn't you just use Mindslaver instead?
If Sen Triplets' ability resolves, what deck do you want to be playing against for its ability to be the most devastating?
Is it TPS, [some other storm combo deck], Tezzeret, [some other drain deck], stax, workshop aggro, oath, dredge, fish, other?
How will the average turn against that matchup play out if Sen Triplets' ability resolves?
I don't see the turns playing out as gloriously as it seems you think they will.
The Time Vault and Voltaic Key combination is disrupted somewhat by having a Pridemage in play and mana untapped to use it.
Disrupted Somewhat? You mean like Suppression Field? That would be a "disrupted somewhat" interaction. The Vault/Key interaction is stopped entirely as long as a Pridemage is in play and a mana is available, just as if Pridemage were a Seal of Cleansing or Seal of Primoridium. And I can attest from playing GR beatz that a sitting Seal of Primoridum functsion in that way. That doesn't mean that they can't recur the Time Vault, but it is simply inaccurate to say that it is "disrupted somewhat." It is stopped, period.
Using 'somewhat' shouldn't have been in there.
I'll edit my article more carefully next time.
When you say:
The disenchant ability that Qasali Pridemage has isn’t terribly relevant to the field.
That can't possibly be accurate. When Time Vault makes up no less than a third of top 8s, with Oath, Painter and Workshop decks constituting at least another 15%, Qasali Pridemage's disenchant ability is VERY relevant to the "field."
How often is a Vault/Key deck going to kill you (the Pridemage-attack-you.dec) with Vault/key versus Tinker or chaining Thirsts plus restricted cards?
If a deck is going to approach the 'Pridemage matchup' in a way that doesn't lean on Vault/Key, then the value of Pridemage decreases.
True, it's still there, but not as useful.
In my set review, I put Coatl into a Mystic Remora deck, and since you have been writing about Remora recently, I was hoping to see your thoughts on Coalt in a Remora shell. I suspect that you think he should not replace Tog in there; I think that he might, and I was wondering what your thoughts on that might be.
Having Coatl in a Remora deck is fine.
Splashing a third color isn't really a problem.
There's a lot of room to work with regarding the mana base.
The basic swamp would change back to LoA again.
A sample manabase would look something like this: 1 Library of Alexandria, 3 Flooded Strand, 3 Polluted Delta, 3 Underground Sea, 3 Tropical Island, 3 Island.
There are some obvious changes in the way the deck would need to be played.
If you have Coatl in your deck, you're going to want to resolve it sooner than you'd want to resolve a Tog.
It's all relative to your metagame I suppose.
If the matchups where you (Remora) want to be more aggresive outweigh the opposite, then I'd say Coatl is better.
With the way I play Remora, all I care about it drawing cards until I find Vault/Key.
After that, it doesn't matter what I kill them with.
