MTGNexus

Only time I ever considered this card was when I was trying to make a Wort spellslinger deck for under $50. The card just has way too much required setup:
- costs six
- has to survive to your next upkeep
- has to have an instant/sorcery in the yard
- returns a random one only
- offers no evasion to get that "extra" damage through, nor protection from removal

Charmbreaker Devils in sneakily powerful with the blue spells that make token copies. The +4/+0 is often overlooked, but not if you have 2 or 3 devils churning back spells.

Saturday, August 24th. 2019; Sawtooth Loon

I kinda like these buyback-adjacent creatures. Most of them are pretty awful as actual creatures, though.

Actually looking at planeshift they made a ton of these things. Most of them just arguably-above-curve creatures with a downside of bounce. Some, like the loon, more of a buyback spell- mostly the uncommon ones.

This is obviously pretty subpar as a mana sink in most circumstances, but it could be cute for a deck that wants a lot of etbs. It gets a lot spicier if you have alhammarret's archive in play too. The one other thing I see is that you could use it to put cards from your hand back into your deck, which there aren't a ton of good ways to do repeatedly (scroll rack being the obvious one). Putting them on the bottom would be cool for BR grenzo...but I can't imagine any deck playing both.

Fun fact: the name for this mechanic is 'gating'.

Gating creatures are interesting, but usually overpriced. Sawtooth Loon doesn't look to be an exception - a 2/2 for 4 that Careful Studies on ETB and bounces a creature. There are some arguments whether the extra filtering is more powerful than just drawing a card directly (like you would get with something such as Elite Guardmage), but I think I would usually prefer the raw card advantage. The fact that the pitched cards go on the bottom of your library instead of the graveyard also makes it more difficult to abuse. There are a lot of similar effects (Cloudblazer, Mulldrifter, etc) that I would prefer to the Loon.

The real draw to Sawtooth Loon (and most other Gating creatures) is the ability to bounce your creatures back to hand. However, if you just want to bounce your other creatures, there are much more efficient ways to do so - Whitemane Lion, Stonecloaker, and Shrieking Drake are all options.

I can't really think of any decks that would want to run Sawtooth Loon in a vacuum. There are some situations in which it may be preferable, but most of these situations are win-more. Any sort of draw-enhancing effect like Thought Reflection can turn it into actual card advantage, while using Panharmonicon to bounce multiple creatures can also be worthwhile. I think the best usage is probably to combine it with Omniscience, since replaying it for free lets you draw through your entire deck. Aluren is the usual thing to do with Gating creatures, but Sawtooth Loon is too expensive to use with it.

DirkGently wrote: ↑

4 years ago

I kinda like these buyback-adjacent creatures. Most of them are pretty awful as actual creatures, though.

I will admit to having used Fleetfoot Panther to save a creature and both the Panther and Horned Kavu with Aluren to storm off. This cycle's also good to reuse entry triggers.

DirkGently wrote: ↑

4 years ago

This is obviously pretty subpar as a mana sink in most circumstances, but it could be cute for a deck that wants a lot of etbs. It gets a lot spicier if you have alhammarret's archive in play too. The one other thing I see is that you could use it to put cards from your hand back into your deck, which there aren't a ton of good ways to do repeatedly (scroll rack being the obvious one). Putting them on the bottom would be cool for BR grenzo...but I can't imagine any deck playing both.

I always tell people, Alhammarret's Archive is actually good with looting (including "return to library" looting like Brainstorm and Sylvan Library) It's often win more, but it's broken with something like Sylvan Library, where you're drawing five and putting two back.

Sunday, August 25th, 2019; Furnace of Rath

In my early commander metagame one of my friends only had one deck Ashling the Pilgrim. This plus repercussion was his most common win condition. I've died to this card a ton. It's a pretty great card. Most people plan around having 40 life not 20, so you can get the table dead surprisingly fast.

Obviously it has a massive downside but if you're playing it you've built your deck with it in mind and probably won't get wrecked by it too often.

I'm usually too scared by the downside so I lean towards curse of bloodletting, gratuitous violence, and dictate of the twin gods all of which have slightly different purposes and downsides.

This card is fun with Stuffy Doll. Now you can just have Stuffy fight your opponents' creatures. Or bring out two more artifacts and now Galvanic Blast does 16 damage. Saskia the Unyielding quickly does a lot of damage: Your Thorn Elemental does 14 and then does 28.

In terms of actual win conditions, besides Ashling and Voltron in general, there's Blasphemous Act and Stuffy. 52 damage. Use Repercussion to hit everyone. Purphoros, God of the Forge requires no explanation, since just getting hit with Goblin Marshal or Myr Battlesphere takes half your life total. Infect, of course, loves it, as do token decks, since a bunch of 1/1s really don't care about if they get hit with 1 damage or 2, much less something like 4 or 8.

I'll admit, I have recently been using Dictate of the Twin Gods more. But this is still a good option, just be careful with that mana cost.

I mentally group all the damage doublers together - Furnace of Rath, Dictate of the Twin Gods, and Gratuitous Violence. The downside of doubling the damage dealt to yourself is often negligible - the sort of decks that want this effect often plan to deal a lot more damage than their opponents. Compare Eidolon of the Great Revel in Modern Burn - yes, it's symmetric, and you'll be taking extra damage too... but your life total isn't going to be under nearly as much pressure as your opponents'.

Ignoring the downside and just speaking to the upside, damage doublers are pretty powerful - one way to think of them is that instead of needing to deal 40 damage to each opponent, you only need to do 20... which means this is 4 mana enchantment that deals 60 damage if left unchecked (a pretty good deal, IMO). Also works very well with any sort of damage redirection effect, such as Stuffy Doll or Boros Reckoner, or fractional effects such as Heartless Hidetsugu or Malignus.

Monday, August 26th, 2019; Solemn Simulacrum



Not so random, but always a spirited conversation nonetheless. How has Sad Robot's place in the great card ecosystem performed? Still great? Downward slope? Trending just average?

I'd imagine downward slope given how EDH's been shifting away from battlecruiser for years now, but plateauing out. He hasn't aged quite as poorly as some of his old brothers in arms (remember when Eternal Dragon came up here?), he still has a place in some slower builds. Especially ones equipped to make good use of his abilities - your archetypical grindy graveyard value town decks and non-green flicker toolboxes come to mind.

I cut my last one yesterday. Unless I have some sort of value recursion engine that allows me to recur it, I don't see myself running it again. The effect the card provides just isn't worth 4 mana unless you have some additional synergies with it. It's a nice value card, it's just not nice enough, sadly.

It's also a bit of personal preference since those aren't the kind of decks I'm too fond of. Maybe I'll run the robot again sometime, but now is not the time for it.

I'd say that the Sad Robot still has a place in some non-green decks (it's good enough in my Aurelia equipment-centric deck and just barely good enough my Thassa Eldrazi deck), but beyond that, I think it's sliding downward in relevance. As others have said, it's just not efficient enough to make the cut.

3drinks wrote: ↑

4 years ago

Monday, August 26th, 2019; Solemn Simulacrum

It's seen a resurgence in my group, as we're moving closer to battlecruiser Magic, and further away from competitive or tuned decks.

I'm not sold it's for every deck, but I'm glad I found a group of like-minded folks who wanted to just smash creatures together, or play non-overwhelming synergies.

The more I tune my decks, the less I find myself wanting to use it.

I don't have very many edh decks and the ones I do don't have this.

but isn't this card like the epitome of value? ramps and replaces itself

maybe in edh this should be a 4/4?

seems like a card that is a auto include in every deck. . .then cut for specifics (which is what im coming to understand as what everyone is saying above)

don't get me wrong. . .I think I can agree completely with what has been said. in edh you cant hold onto nostalgia I guess haha

Haha -- I guess my decks are only partially tuned since I still use it in almost anything that can get value from it (recursion/flicker/clones). Chainer has it. The Marchesa rebuild will probably run it. But the way I like to play is far from cEDH -- somewhere between, or a mix of, battlecruiser and tuned. Semi-off-topic, but I'm also going to give Scaretiller a chance.

The N82O Molecule wrote: ↑

4 years ago

but isn't this card like the epitome of value? ramps and replaces itself

It has value, but, I think the main objection is that it costs 4 mana. In my experience, players will generally want to ramp at 2 mana, and they're laying groundwork for something when they have 4 mana. Simulacrum just kind of comes late to the party for really tuned environments, or doesn't do enough for the decks that want to play Explosive Vegetation or its analogues at 4 mana.

So, some awkward combination of "doesn't do enough" and "too slow". If this kind of effect were more 'playable' in tuned environments, we might see more of Shefet Monitor, which ramps and draws at instant speed. But, I can't recall having seen more than a couple of lists with Shefet Monitor.

in edh you cant hold onto nostalgia I guess haha

Man, I figure EDH is the only place you can hold on to nostalgia.

Every competitive format demands you kill your darlings.

Sinis wrote: ↑

4 years ago

Man, I figure EDH is the only place you can hold on to nostalgia.

Every competitive format demands you kill your darlings.

Agreed. I'd rather hold on to the fun pet cards and stuff and let my lists retain character than increase my win rate.

Sinis wrote: ↑

4 years ago

So, some awkward combination of "doesn't do enough" and "too slow". If this kind of effect were more 'playable' in tuned environments, we might see more of Shefet Monitor, which ramps and draws at instant speed. But, I can't recall having seen more than a couple of lists with Shefet Monitor.

I used it mostly to quick tutour out Scavenger Grounds, but I just can't use the Grounds in every deck.

The N82O Molecule wrote: ↑

4 years ago

I don't have very many edh decks and the ones I do don't have this.

but isn't this card like the epitome of value? ramps and replaces itself

maybe in edh this should be a 4/4?

seems like a card that is a auto include in every deck. . .then cut for specifics (which is what im coming to understand as what everyone is saying above)

don't get me wrong. . .I think I can agree completely with what has been said. in edh you cant hold onto nostalgia I guess haha

It's sub-par as a ramp-card, only netting you one mana for four mana is below par. If I'm in non-green & want ramp, there's enough mana rocks that beat it. If I'm in green, Explosive Vegetation etc got me covered. If I'm in non-green and want effects that puts basic lands into play I'd probably run it, but I've never ran a deck that fits that criteria.

For me, it goes into decks that are okay with paying 4 to get a land into play and draw a card as well as being able to reuse it's effects, either by blinking it or getting it back from the graveyard. A value Alesha deck is exactly the type of deck I'd run it in.

For me to run it, it'd have to cost 3 mana or have another upside that's not a P/T boost, but that would probably make it a near auto-include again, and I don't want that. Right now it's a nice option to have, but not something that goes into every deck & that's kind of the perfect power level for cards to be at.

Sinis wrote: ↑

4 years ago

The N82O Molecule wrote: ↑

4 years ago

but isn't this card like the epitome of value? ramps and replaces itself

It has value, but, I think the main objection is that it costs 4 mana. In my experience, players will generally want to ramp at 2 mana, and they're laying groundwork for something when they have 4 mana. Simulacrum just kind of comes late to the party for really tuned environments, or doesn't do enough for the decks that want to play Explosive Vegetation or its analogues at 4 mana.

So, some awkward combination of "doesn't do enough" and "too slow". If this kind of effect were more 'playable' in tuned environments, we might see more of Shefet Monitor, which ramps and draws at instant speed. But, I can't recall having seen more than a couple of lists with Shefet Monitor.

So Solemn Simulacrum has always been one of those deceptively good cards. By that I mean, it's just always better than it looks. I remember people being underwhelmed with it when it first was previewed, and then seeing it find heavy play in one of the most powerful Standard formats ever.

Look, if you want ramp, there's better ramp. Veggies is a great card, and ramps better than the sad robot. But man, for useful value, he's hard to beat. Shefet Monitor is a pretty poor comparison as the cycle doesn't put a body on the board. And despite the fact that the body is small and unimpressive, it almost always ends up mattering much more than you think it will.

I get why people are playing this less and less. It's an easy cut, as it's a less focused card that doesn't seem essential. But I suspect most times that it gets cut, doing so makes the deck worse and not better.

I typically play it in just Alesha, as it's stats are quite on-point for obvious reasons. Though, it doesn't make it into all Alesha builds (it's not a sliver so it can't beat out deck synergy after all). I'm not at the point where I'm ever sad to see it, and as an Alesha target it remains very strong, in fact once you've gone through this card's life cycle twice in a game it feels really good.

75chan wrote: ↑

4 years ago

For me to run it, it'd have to cost 3 mana or have another upside that's not a P/T boost, but that would probably make it a near auto-include again, and I don't want that. Right now it's a nice option to have, but not something that goes into every deck & that's kind of the perfect power level for cards to be at.

you are wise

Sharpened wrote: ↑

4 years ago

I get why people are playing this less and less. It's an easy cut, as it's a less focused card that doesn't seem essential. But I suspect most times that it gets cut, doing so makes the deck worse and not better.

poor sad robot