Treasure Cruise

[fsecco]

I think it's easy to say that Cruise is better in decks with fewer mana sources (like Delver) and Dig would shine in decks with combos or one-of's and that can spare UU (like Grixis Control or Bomberman).

[Smmenen]

LSV talks about both cards alot in his recent article: http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/td/treaure-mapping

[zeus-online]

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[Commandant]

Anything said about new cards on wotc mtg site should be viewed with the fact that the author is payed to make the product appealing.

Yet most of what LSV said has played out to be true.

I mean we all know TMD has had an off the charts noise to signal ratio for a few years running but the amount of shit posting in this thread is astounding.

[zeus-online]

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[Commandant]

Anything said about new cards on wotc mtg site should be viewed with the fact that the author is payed to make the product appealing.

Yet most of what LSV said has played out to be true.

I mean we all know TMD has had an off the charts noise to signal ratio for a few years running but the amount of shit posting in this thread is astounding.

Played out to be true...?
You mean the part where he posted a deck list that won after it won? :S

I will add that i actually agree with pretty much everything he says in this article.

Way over your head.

[MaximumCDawg]

Yet most of what LSV said has played out to be true.

I mean we all know TMD has had an off the charts noise to signal ratio for a few years running but the amount of shit posting in this thread is astounding.

I assume you're referring to the proliferation of threads about poop cards during the wasteland that was Theros block, yes?

This thread hardly went that way.  It relates to a playable card, and people have been on the fence to positive about Treasure Cruise since it was spoiled. 

[Chubby Rain]

Having had the chance to play with and against Treasure Cruise and Dig, I now feel both are insane. I was wrong to be skeptical. 100%. They might even be restrict-able. Wizards done goofed. Sorry for the lack of strategic depth to this post but I wanted to admit that I was wrong. Now I'm working on build the best shell for these card prior to Champs.

[Twiedel]

An intersting post nonetheless... how did you come to this conclusion? What matchups did you test the cards in? I won't argue they are insane when playing big blue vs. big blue - but aren't they terrible when playing Oath, Shops, BUG, Hatebears, etc. ?

[serracollector]

I have been coming to the same conclusion. I been thinking of trying a big blue list minus the vampiric demonic and yawgmoth for three dig thru time. I just want to see if it at least gives me the same utility while cutting a color in your basic restricted list deck with vault and tinkerbot.

[vaughnbros]

They might even be restrict-able.

Let's not jump the complete opposite direction.  If they are heavily played Id expect a resurgence of deathrite, and possibly main deck nihil spellbombs to hit these delve cards hard.

[oshkoshhaitsyosh]

An intersting post nonetheless... how did you come to this conclusion? What matchups did you test the cards in? I won't argue they are insane when playing big blue vs. big blue - but aren't they terrible when playing Oath, Shops, BUG, Hatebears, etc. ?

I have to echo this as well Mark. They are great in blue vs blue. But in matchups when you want to be doing things quicker, they are often times too slow

[JarofFortune]

An intersting post nonetheless... how did you come to this conclusion? What matchups did you test the cards in? I won't argue they are insane when playing big blue vs. big blue - but aren't they terrible when playing Oath, Shops, BUG, Hatebears, etc. ?

I have to echo this as well Mark. They are great in blue vs blue. But in matchups when you want to be doing things quicker, they are often times too slow

I partially disagree with the Oath part. Once you crush their initial attempts at winning, having superior card draw/selection is an excellent way to close out the game. Because Dack is good against Oath, I would say that Treasure cruise is too(in the right deck), as long as you have the disruption to drag the game down.   

[Chubby Rain]

An interesting post nonetheless... how did you come to this conclusion? What matchups did you test the cards in? I won't argue they are insane when playing big blue vs. big blue - but aren't they terrible when playing Oath, Shops, BUG, Hatebears, etc. ?

I have to echo this as well Mark. They are great in blue vs blue. But in matchups when you want to be doing things quicker, they are often times too slow

Fair enough. My conclusions have been based on my results at TDG and the Grudge Match over the past two weeks with UW Bomberman and in testing with John's 4 color delver. The decks used Dig through Time and Treasure Cruise respectively and I have been impressed with both. While they are obviously insane in the big blue vs big blue match up, they are also really good against other decks (this was not intuitive for me before testing).

1) I underestimated the ability of decks to naturally fill up their graveyards during the course of the game. As Josh said, there are matchups in which you need to interact quickly. However, these matchups are becoming much rarer as Vintage is becoming progressively attrition based and efficient, hard to deal with answers like Flusterstorm and Abrupt Decay are becoming more prevalent. Being able to refill in the mid to late game is becoming increasingly valuable and these cards are ideal for this.

2) I overestimated the difficulty of chaining multiple Delve cards together, as well as the negative interactions with other graveyard based cards like Snapcaster Mage and Yawgmoth's Will. In John's deck, I was able to cast 3 Treasure Cruises during the course of a single game as the 3 cards drawn and the Treasure Cruise in the yard give you a head start towards the next Cruise. Basically, I would draw my cards, play threats that were answered by my opponent, stop their threats, and then restock 2-3 turns later. It was also not hard to sculpt the game state so that critical cards were left in the graveyard for Snapcaster Mage. Also, even if Yawgmoth's Will gets a little bit worse, it still typically wins the game.

3) With regards to Dig through Time, I underestimated how often the card just wins the game. I was playing against Greg Fenton at TDG with Bomberman, fought and won a counterspell battle with Greg over his Oath and fired off and EoT Dig. Within the top 7 cards were both Auriok Salvagers and Black Lotus and that game ended rather abruptly. Even in the circumstances in which you don't win the game, you are typically getting a Jace and Counterspell, two counterspells, Ancestral Recall and Time Walk or some combination of cards that are going to put your opponent in a significant hole.

4) These cards actually are alright against shops. I mean, in the cases where they go turn 1 Trinisphere or just flood the board with spheres, it obviously doesn't matter what you have in your hand. Most of my games against shops after board have become more attrition based, trading Ingot Chews, Disenchants, and Swords for their threats, along with counterspells as appropriate, and then firing off a Dig or Cruise through Spheres.

Let's not jump the complete opposite direction.  If they are heavily played Id expect a resurgence of deathrite, and possibly main deck nihil spellbombs to hit these delve cards hard.

But this is the internet, I'm supposed to make knee-jerk reactions and controversial statements. That said, Deathrite does not have as significant of an effect on the Delve cards as I thought it would (both playing against it and playing with it). In general, the graveyards fill up faster than Deathrite can empty them and there is much more removal and missteps than were present a couple of months ago. Unlike Yawgmoth's Will, Deathrite can't hit a critical card like Recall or Time Walk as any card in the graveyard will work for Delve. Nihil Spellbomb is obviously pretty good, but the fact that Delve is a cost means it takes good timing or multiples to really effectively hate out the Delve cards. Blow the Spellbomb too early and the opponent has a chance to refill their graveyard while not blowing it in time means the Delve spell is already on the stack.

With regards to more specialized graveyard hate like RiP and LotV, most of the time these Delve spells are accessories to the main objective of the deck. Delver still wins with creatures and tempo - Cruise just enables this. Bomberman is primarily a creature-based control deck - Dig just helps it combo off, take over the game, dig (lack of a better word) for answers. These enchantments do nothing on their own and are only effective against if your opponent has drawn and not yet cast a Delve card. I'm reminded of cards like Cranial Extraction that always looked like they were better than they actually were. I could even see boarding out the Delve cards if the opponent is going to try this strategy. I used to board out my Battle of Wits against Solar Flare back in the day because they weren't my primary win condition against them (Ironically, Mikokoro was).

[enderfall]

Chubby, how many times did you cast Dig or TC without delving for the full possible amount?

I think a lot of people fail to understand that drawing 3 cards for 3 mana is not unreasonable; this is exactly what you do when you Scroll for Recall, yet TC can't be Misstep'ed like Recall can... Is Cruising for 4 mana really that terrible if your hand is empty? Clearly, you would never build a Vintage deck with Jace's Ingenuity in it, but there are many times in Vintage matches where I would gladly draw a Jace's Ingenuity (obv. ignoring the Restricted cards like Brainstorm, Recall, YWill, etc) since it's probably better than just drawing just about anything else.

[Samoht]

Jace's Ingenuity is an instant though right?  :p

If Treasure Cruise was an Instant I'd be so much more excited. As it stands, I really like Dig Through Time. Treasure Cruise seems great in Legacy and it's ported decks to Vintage. I'm a bit more skeptical of it in dedicated Vintage decks, but that's more out of intuition than fact.

I've cast Dig for the full 8 w/o any Delve and it was fine. Games go long sometimes.

[keys]

I'd like to point out how good Delve is with Dack's +1 as well.  There's just so much synergy in U/R right now, dare I say that T Cruise is actually an improvement on GUSH.

Take your standard RUG Delver list, cut the green cards, i.e. replace Trygon with Dack, replace Grudge, Mystical, and other singletons with Gitaxian Probe, replace Tropical Island with Wasteland (to fill up the yard even faster), and then replace Gush with T Cruise.

This deck is extremely powerful, fast, and resilient.

[JarofFortune]

Jace's Ingenuity is an instant though right?  :p

If Treasure Cruise was an Instant I'd be so much more excited. As it stands, I really like Dig Through Time. Treasure Cruise seems great in Legacy and it's ported decks to Vintage. I'm a bit more skeptical of it in dedicated Vintage decks, but that's more out of intuition than fact.

I've cast Dig for the full 8 w/o any Delve and it was fine. Games go long sometimes.

What's a dedicated Vintage deck? One with Yawgmoth's Will?

I'd like to point out how good Delve is with Dack's +1 as well.  There's just so much synergy in U/R right now, dare I say that T Cruise is actually an improvement on GUSH.

Take your standard RUG Delver list, cut the green cards, i.e. replace Trygon with Dack, replace Grudge, Mystical, and other singletons with Gitaxian Probe, replace Tropical Island with Wasteland (to fill up the yard even faster), and then replace Gush with T Cruise.

This deck is extremely powerful, fast, and resilient.

I also like Dack better than Trygon. However, I don't think that you need to cut Green. Keep one tropical, and cut the basic islands(or just one). You don't have to cut all of the gushes. Gush is great with Treasure Cruise; it doesn't have to be one or the other.  You are right on Wasteland; it is much better with Gush than most people think, and it is excellent in the shop matchup. I think Treasure cruise is great in Delver, but I don't think cutting Grudge and mystical for probes is worth running four, unless you have no shops in your metagame. If you are starting from the most popular list, as you said, try cutting a spell pierce instead.


As a side note, if there are any other people who run Tarmogoyf, Cruise rarely interferes with Goyf. Cruise even makes you more likely to draw a lotus or grudge to make it bigger.

[ben_berry]

How have they been as a limit of the abilities of deathrite? You meant that deathrite has little effect how is the reverse?

[Samoht]

Jace's Ingenuity is an instant though right?  :p

If Treasure Cruise was an Instant I'd be so much more excited. As it stands, I really like Dig Through Time. Treasure Cruise seems great in Legacy and it's ported decks to Vintage. I'm a bit more skeptical of it in dedicated Vintage decks, but that's more out of intuition than fact.

I've cast Dig for the full 8 w/o any Delve and it was fine. Games go long sometimes.

What's a dedicated Vintage deck? One with Yawgmoth's Will?

A deck designed specifically for Vintage. Delver was a deck designed for Legacy that Mike Solymossy ported over and then it has become a Vintage deck over the passed two years or so. It's much different in what it's trying to do than any other vintage deck. The closest thing to it is the old GAT decks, and they were quite different. I'd be wary of pointing to a specific card, but Will is the most obvious one that contends with the Delve mechanic so I understand why you went there. To me it's more about the overall plan of attack than any one cards interaction. For instance, I don't believe that Treasure Cruise fits well into Bomberman or Turbo Tezz. Typical Grixis or BUG midrange decks also would have a harder time utilizing it effectively. The sorcery speed of it is so huge in conjunction with the requisite cards in the graveyard. I think Cruise fits best in a deck that is playing Fetches, Wastes, Cantrips, and efficient countermagic. UBg and URg Fish variants fit that the best, and I think that's where the card will make the most noise. Any control deck opting to play Treasure Cruise over Dig Through Time is something I'd be extremely skeptical of. It makes little sense to use resources on your own turn for inferior effects. Having UU is requisite for a typical control deck, so we're merely comparing effects. Is the best 2 of the top 7 better than the top 3? Significantly more often than not. As such, I'd have to see 4 Digs before I saw 1 Cruise. I don't think 4 Dig is right, so I can't advocate Cruise.

[Chubby Rain]

Excellent article on Treasure Cruise here.

http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/treasure-cruise-is-the-real-problem/

It's written for modern but many of the points are transferable to vintage.

[Smmenen]

We covered Treasure Cruise extensively in my podcast this week. 

[Protoaddict]

So I just asked this in the delver thread but do these delve cards start asking for us to consider Bazaar of Baghdad again? Some sort of minus6 list?

[Chubby Rain]

So I just asked this in the delver thread but do these delve cards start asking for us to consider Bazaar of Baghdad again? Some sort of minus6 list?

I think the big thing is that these cards are excellent without warping your deck substantially.

[Demagoguery]

So I just asked this in the delver thread but do these delve cards start asking for us to consider Bazaar of Baghdad again? Some sort of minus6 list?

I think the big thing is that these cards are excellent without warping your deck substantially.

While I don't think it's good to base the deck around it, things like Bazaar can be ok since in a way it becomes like an alternate option to a Library of Alex as a one of. The Treasure Cruise offsets the card disadvantage while the Bazaar provides card quality as needed.

[Varal]

There might be a deck that uses Bazaar but the Delve card advantage will quickly gets cancelled by the card disadvantage of Bazaar, it also slows down your mana development. I think you need something else that uses the Bazaar to make it worth it, e.g. Madness or something.

[Chubby Rain]

Madness plus Delve seems possible.

Dack Fayden is pretty insane with Treasure Cruise and has more utility than Bazaar I feel. However, I'm having trouble putting a shell together that would effectively use Bazaar and Cruise.

[Hrishi]

I was trying out Madness+Delve too. It seems reasonable.

[tribet]

And throw in dredge as well with Life from the Loam for extra bananas!

Somebody else said this earlier, Treasure Cruise is already sweet by itself. Try to do too many cute things at once and I can guarantee it's not gonna work out.

[sirgog]

Always be aware of which mainphase you cast your Cruise in.

I won a game recently where my opponent Force of Willed my lategame one-mana Treasure Cruise (precombat main). Rather than Mana Drain their Force, I Mana Drained my own Cruise, passed to postcombat main, and hardcast Blightsteel.