Unreleased and New Card Discussion

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Post by Dunadain » 1 year ago

Alright I give up someone explain to me like I'm 5

How do attractions actually work and what do stickers actually do?
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Post by DirkGently » 1 year ago

Actually how DO attractions work in commander? They aren't just complicated reminder text like dungeons, they're a real card that exists outside your deck, right? And they don't bring themselves in like companions…

I think everyone knows where this is going. I feel kinda dumb for not noticing it earlier. Surely this already got discussed? I don't see any official rulings on it though.
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Post by 5colorsrainbow » 1 year ago

Dunadain wrote:
1 year ago
Alright I give up someone explain to me like I'm 5

How do attractions actually work and what do stickers actually do?
Sorry if this is complex not sure how to make it more simple;
Image

Attractions- similar to contraptions from unstable they are in a separate deck that you pull cards from when a cards tells you to open a attraction.

Image

Each attraction has a vist ability and some have a pize ability. Each attraction also have 1-6 on the side with some numbers light up with 1 always left dark and 6 always lit up.

Image

Attractions have variations that have the same effects but with have different combos of 2-5 lit up.

At the beginning of your main phase you roll a D6 and if the result matches a number that's lit you get the visit ability.

Image

The ones that have prize abilities will often have mini games or some thing you will need to complete in order to get the prize ability.

Image

Stickers- there are cards that will give you tickets (The symbol similar to how energy was set up) and prompt you to place stickers (you don't have to if you want to store up). The types of stickers are;

Image

Art stickers that change the art of cards and have no cost.

Name sticks that change the name of the card and have no cost.

Ability stickers grant abilities and cost tickets.

Art, name and ability stickers are additive meaning they don't replace any attributes even if the sticker covers them up.

Power/toughness stickers that change the base power and toughness of a creature and costs tickets. You can only have one power/toughness stick on and any others will replace the old stats

Stickers are like counters but stay on in any public zone (so they stay on in graveyards, command zone face up exile, ect). You can only put stickers on cards you own.

For constructed players can pick ten unique sticker sheets and random gets 3 per game to use. Like tokens and counters if you don't have the sticker sheets you may use paper.

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Post by Dunadain » 1 year ago

5colorsrainbow wrote:
1 year ago
Dunadain wrote:
1 year ago
Alright I give up someone explain to me like I'm 5

How do attractions actually work and what do stickers actually do?
Sorry if this is complex not sure how to make it more simple...
Yeah, that helps a lot, thanks!

It feels very... alien. I actually kinda like the concept of attractions, stickers, not so much but *shrug* still better than mutate
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Post by Sporegorger_Dragon » 1 year ago

Dunadain wrote:
1 year ago
How do attractions actually work and what do stickers actually do?
*Thick Slavic accent*

Papa Igor is explaining!

Attraction is like Contraption, have own deck and graveyard!

Instead of "assemble Contraption", you "open Attraction"!

Instead of crank Contraptions, you visit Attractions, by rolling of die at beginning of main phase!

Whatever you roll number, you visit each Attraction with that number lit up! But no Attraction have number 1 lit up, so avoid 1!

Some Attraction have mini-game when you visit! If you win mini-game, you get Prize! But then Attraction closed (sacrificed)! If you lose, Attraction remain open for another try!

Sticker is like counter! Card say, put sticker, you put sticker on card you own!

Sticker, unlike counter, stay on card, as long as it is public zone, like battlefield/graveyard/exile. If go to hidden zone, like library/hand, must take off sticker, is very sad!

Art sticker, name sticker is FREE!! Ability sticker cost tickets! Tickets like energy counters, some cards give you tickets!

Some card say, put art sticker, put name sticker, so you put sticker of that type! Other card say, put any kind of sticker, so go ahead, but make sure you have enough tickets!

Art, name, and ability stickers all add up, so don't worry if cover anything else, even card text or other stickers!! Put as many name stickers you want on Thallid, will have very loooooong name, but will always retain name "Thallid" and all other card text!!

Power/toughness, however, only applies one at a time, replace base-power/toughness! So if you add new one, overwrites old one!

Papa Igor is finished!
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Post by BeneTleilax » 1 year ago

RxPhantom wrote:
1 year ago
Unfinity feels like the end result of Maro putting his head three feet up his own ass.
Yeah, I'd agree. This absolutely feels like MaRo let loose without enough people to steer him or tell him no. I also felt that was the case for MHII, and this has only borne that out by sharing many of the same excesses. This feels like someone awkwardly insisting that the table let them play their OC as a custom general.

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Post by TheAmericanSpirit » 1 year ago

BeneTleilax wrote:
1 year ago
RxPhantom wrote:
1 year ago
Unfinity feels like the end result of Maro putting his head three feet up his own ass.
Yeah, I'd agree. This absolutely feels like MaRo let loose without enough people to steer him or tell him no. I also felt that was the case for MHII, and this has only borne that out by sharing many of the same excesses. This feels like someone awkwardly insisting that the table let them play their OC as a custom general.
I don't think this is very fair. MaRo, for all his perceived faults, cranks out cool stuff for us all the time. Un-Sets, for better or worse, are his thing. If he wants to make one of these silly things every few years, I'm okay with that price. I'm not a huge fan of them (imho making the unsets into single-print run collectibles would command higher prices and keep their value higher long run than the whole BB scheme, but I kinda doubt that was MaRo's idea anyway) but all things considered it could be worse.

Imagine a Negative MaRo in some alternate universe cranking out an ultra grimdark set every few years because he's massively depressed instead of being a fan of bad puns. Speculative, I know, but given the choice, I'll just take the joke set. Besides people are gonna forget it two weeks after release anyway in the age of perpetual hype.
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Post by Lifeless » 1 year ago

This is the most "thanks, I hate it" set in MtG history for me. I don't know how they managed to turn sometime I liked so much into something I'm so disgusted with I can only read the spoilers a couple at a time before closing my browser.

In other news Starlight Spectacular is kinda powerful in token decks eh?

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Post by RxPhantom » 1 year ago

@TheAmericanSpirit: look, I don't like being down on Maro. He's an ineffable ray of sunshine and positivity, he's given life to so many ideas that have made this game into the best game ever made. But this set...I don't know. When it comes to the some of the Eternal stuff in this set, I get the impression it was made with an attitude of "F**k it, let's just do it. WEEEEEEEEE!" I don't even think Eternal formats are going to be shaken by these cards, but this is the kind of stuff we're doing in black border now? It feels cheap, lame, and tedious.
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Post by TheAmericanSpirit » 1 year ago

@RxPhantom it ain't my bag either. While I think negative opinions, expressions, sentiments, etc about the set, the bb decision, the eternal implications are fine and dandy, I think we should be more generous in our estimation of the folks behind the game. They make a lot of stuff we enjoy. Thus they're allowed a few misses imho, even if some of them appear to be flaming slam dunks into the dumpster for whatever reason.

And again, my intuition says maro didn't make the bb call, that reeks of Hasbro.
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Post by Mookie » 1 year ago

I'd say that I am generally high on Unfinity, despite the fact that I don't expect to play much with it. I think it's important for the game to experiment with new things, even if those things don't always work out. I also think it's nice to have a set that isn't for me - there have been a ton of products coming out recently (40k previews were literally last week), and it's nice to be able to take a break from having to analyze every new card.

As for mechanics...

I'm not a big fan of stickers from a logistical perspective, but I've played enough digital-first card games to know that they have a massive design space. There have been some cards I've seen in Alchemy that I'd love to have physical versions of, and stickers bring that a bit closer to reality. Name / art stickers don't particularly appeal to me, but ability and P/T stickers have some very interesting implications.

I'm somewhat ambivalent on attractions, but that's partially from a power level perspective - there aren't a lot of options for non-acorn attractions, which means any deck playing them would need to include some fairly bland ones. That said, if you have artifact or dice-rolling synergies, they look much more interesting - attraction generation has been very aggressively costed (see: "Lifetime" Pass Holder and Myra the Magnificent), so they're a sweet way to power up something like Clock of Omens. More broadly, I'm a fan of durdley value engines, which attractions certainly are.

Art and name/wordplay mechanics don't particularly excite me, but I do appreciate Vorthos, Steward of Myth and other flavor-matters cards. There historically hasn't been much support for flavor-focused decks (for obvious reasons), so I'm generally in f(l)avor of supporting them more. I'll also give a shout to all the hat tribal cards giving new support for Innistrad-based decks.

Dice rolling I'm fine with, since it appears to have been done tastefully here - Strategy, Schmategy is bad design, but I don't mind using dice as a randomizing factor for a card's power level. I sort of prefer using cards as a randomizer (ex: cascade, explore), but that's partly because card manipulation has a ton of historical support, and dice manipulation doesn't outside niche stuff like Barbarian Class.

Outside-the-game mechanics like Rock Star I'm not really a fan of, but they're pretty fun for draft / other formats where you have a bunch of people around.

As for various other mechanics and cards... like most things in MTG, they're neat in isolation, but can be annoying if abused. Magar of the Magic Strings as a value engine / token producer? Totally fine. Magar as a way to cheat out Expropriate / Enter the Infinite? Less so. Same for Truss, Chief Engineer + Basalt Monolith, but it's not like it does anything Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy wasn't already doing. It looks like they've done more testing / balancing for this set than they did for Unstable, which I certainly appreciate. Prior Un-sets have had cards that are interesting to read, but less fun to actually play with (ex: Spike, Tournament Grinder and X), and this batch looks to be more well-balanced.

Re: black vs silver border - it's very easy to be cynical and assume this is a marketing / business decision, since black-bordered sets (I assume) sell better. That said, I don't mind the philosophy of 'it's a game, just have fun with it and play some silly cards' either, and if Unfinity normalizes building flavor / less-serious decks, I won't complain.

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Post by BeneTleilax » 1 year ago

TheAmericanSpirit wrote:
1 year ago
If he wants to make one of these silly things every few years, I'm okay with that price.
We buy packs. That's his price. If he wants to make goofy sets on his own, that's his prerogative, same as anyone here. My issue is twofold, the more immediate is that his quirky side-projects have breached containment and are being injected into EDH, the more speculative is that he seems to be getting less criticism within WotC and is becoming more of a fan darling at the same time. I don't think that kind of creator is good for any long-running game, regardless of which direction they're heading off in.

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Post by Sporegorger_Dragon » 1 year ago

There's an Attraction that's been spoiled named Clown Extruder and it's the most unwholesome thing Magic has ever printed. Each version of its flavor text is fouler than the last.
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Post by folding_music » 1 year ago

Slowly coming to understand the theme here: complaining that the D&D sets have actual new mechanics in them, complaining that the Unglued sets have actual new mechanics in them, absolute bliss when something like New Capenna hits and contains zero exciting thought but several new picks to make yr decks more efficient. imo the card overflow has gotten so extreme that the regular standard expansions are the ones hitting like parody

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Post by Rumpy5897 » 1 year ago

I pretty much ignored Unstable on impact, think my main exposure came in that draft video Game Knights did. I remember seeing a bunch of limited chaff with goofy arts/names and wondering what made them silver border. At first when I heard that Unfinity would be partly eternal legal, I largely suspected a cynical marketing ploy to shift product, but it turns out it's more like Unstable in that regard. Most of the stuff that's eternal legal is the common/uncommon draft chaff. The closest to a chase piece for EDH we've seen so far remains Saw in Half, and that thing doesn't give off a calculated pushed card vibe. The more I see of Unfinity, the more I'm willing to give the design team the benefit of the doubt on this one.

The counterpoint is good old rule zero - if you want to have an attraction deck or whatever, why not just talk your group into letting you play one? This is an extra layer of faff, and not guaranteed to work. For example, my group is quite chill about stuff, but not at all interested in silver bordered commanders. Since stickers and attractions got to work fine in black border, and are supported by utility cards made in line with current mechanical design philosophy (but un-set flavour), why not just skip the middleman?

In summary, I'm quite a bit more annoyed about their current marketing practice of consciously powercreeping established cards in the format in other releases, rather than the largely revealed black bordered un-set. And at the same time I'm less annoyed with powercreeping established cards than I was with their past few ideas for EDH monetisation support. I think we're leaving the growing pains of the past few years, and am optimistic about what the future holds.
 
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Post by Wallycaine » 1 year ago

Rumpy5897 wrote:
1 year ago
I pretty much ignored Unstable on impact, think my main exposure came in that draft video Game Knights did. I remember seeing a bunch of limited chaff with goofy arts/names and wondering what made them silver border. At first when I heard that Unfinity would be partly eternal legal, I largely suspected a cynical marketing ploy to shift product, but it turns out it's more like Unstable in that regard. Most of the stuff that's eternal legal is the common/uncommon draft chaff. The closest to a chase piece for EDH we've seen so far remains Saw in Half, and that thing doesn't give off a calculated pushed card vibe. The more I see of Unfinity, the more I'm willing to give the design team the benefit of the doubt on this one..
Just to add on for how clearly this was desjgned like Unstable, Maro recently answered why Gift Shop (a) and Push Your Luck (b) were acorn. Apparently, the call to add eternal legality came late enough that they couldn't change the tokens to make the two eternal legal, so obviously that must have been deep into the process. This set was designed as a 100% silver border set to begin with, and then barely tweaked to make what already worked in the rules eternal legal.

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Post by TheAmericanSpirit » 1 year ago

Sporegorger_Dragon wrote:
1 year ago
There's an Attraction that's been spoiled named Clown Extruder and it's the most unwholesome thing Magic has ever printed. Each version of its flavor text is fouler than the last.
"One day, it will produce a clown that can itself produce a clown. Until that day, it will not rest." Maybe I'm just not turtlely enough for the Turtle Club, but I thought this was pretty funny ngl.
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Post by 5colorsrainbow » 1 year ago

The only thing I dislike is making some cards eternal legal means singles won't be as cheap.
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Post by DirkGently » 1 year ago

folding_music wrote:
1 year ago
Slowly coming to understand the theme here: complaining that the D&D sets have actual new mechanics in them, complaining that the Unglued sets have actual new mechanics in them, absolute bliss when something like New Capenna hits and contains zero exciting thought but several new picks to make yr decks more efficient. imo the card overflow has gotten so extreme that the regular standard expansions are the ones hitting like parody
Very simplistic take. While I don't like UB or black-border un cards, I have no problem with those sets having new mechanics. The issue is when those mechanics are terrible.

Dungeons were only somewhat annoying to track - at least they were usually opt-in - but initiative is one of the worst mechanics I've ever seen - as soon as someone plays a single initiative card, now every player has to track their dungeon progress and who has initiative for the rest of the game. Every game I've played where someone got initiative, initiative got forgotten about and/or someone forgot triggers multiple times. Plus there's the issue of needing dungeon cards for everyone etc etc, all this because someone played a random common. jfc.

Stickers and attractions both require prepared additional cards - at least for stickers, there's the random sticker generator, but ofc it won't be optimized and it'll be ass to track without physical stickers. Remember how much people complained about "needing" to have wish targets if wishes were legal? Personally I care a lot less about that - and I think all the sticker cards only put them on your own cards - but I don't like the logistics of dealing with stickers that need to be returned to the correct sticker sheet after every game, will lose their stickiness, etc. It seems like a mechanic designed for un-limited, which is where it should have stayed. I think the concept is okay - changing cards in a game in more complex ways than ability counters is interesting, and the ticket system is fine although a copycat of energy - but the logistics suck.

Look at a card like Fight the _______ Fight. I've played Warbriar Blessing in a deck before, and outside of a dedicated sticker deck, this is the exact same thing. EXCEPT that unless you want to risk whiffing on having long words, you've gotta carry around 10 stupid sticker sheets. To get a functional reprint of a common. What a pain in the ass.

Attractions I don't have much beef with, although I do think it's bizarre that they're allowed when wishes aren't. I know I'll be unlikely to bother using them in most decks since you'd need a whole stack of extra cards just to play one attraction opener. Fine for decks built around attractions, but anywhere else it's just not worth the effort imo.

I think all of these mechanics could have been a lot better if they'd iterated on them more, and especially in the case of stickers if they weren't married to the un-set wackiness. They all work okay in their respective limited environments, but it feels like they're putting a lot less care into the complications they'll create in eternal formats - especially commander - with mechanics this complex.
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Post by Ruiner » 1 year ago

DirkGently wrote:
1 year ago
Dungeons were only somewhat annoying to track - at least they were usually opt-in - but initiative is one of the worst mechanics I've ever seen - as soon as someone plays a single initiative card, now every player has to track their dungeon progress and who has initiative for the rest of the game. Every game I've played where someone got initiative, initiative got forgotten about and/or someone forgot triggers multiple times. Plus there's the issue of needing dungeon cards for everyone etc etc, all this because someone played a random common. jfc.
I find this to be such a strange take based on my experiences, not saying your own experiences are wrong at all of course.

Initiative is no harder to track than Monarch, which has mostly been a hit from what I read online. In my experience, everyone is usually pretty aware of who has Monarch and/or Initiative.

Generally, the person with an Initiative generating deck is focused on retaining/regaining the initiative so they will be reminding people of who has it as well.

If people don't have their own copies of "The Undercity", it is easy enough to put a second marker down on your own copy to show where another player is. As someone who has a dungeon deck that often generates Initiative (Rilsa Rael, Kingpin generates it on her own), I have a few extra copies just in case others need them (because they are super cheap), but even without going that "extra mile" its easy enough to track multiple players on one copy of The Undercity. Some people like to just pull up the picture on their phone and track it that way as well.

Maybe its because my regular group have been playing for a long time for the most part, but we haven't found tracking this stuff to be much of a burden or complication at all.

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Post by RxPhantom » 1 year ago

Ruiner wrote:
1 year ago
DirkGently wrote:
1 year ago
Dungeons were only somewhat annoying to track - at least they were usually opt-in - but initiative is one of the worst mechanics I've ever seen - as soon as someone plays a single initiative card, now every player has to track their dungeon progress and who has initiative for the rest of the game. Every game I've played where someone got initiative, initiative got forgotten about and/or someone forgot triggers multiple times. Plus there's the issue of needing dungeon cards for everyone etc etc, all this because someone played a random common. jfc.
I find this to be such a strange take based on my experiences, not saying your own experiences are wrong at all of course.

Initiative is no harder to track than Monarch, which has mostly been a hit from what I read online. In my experience, everyone is usually pretty aware of who has Monarch and/or Initiative.

Generally, the person with an Initiative generating deck is focused on retaining/regaining the initiative so they will be reminding people of who has it as well.

If people don't have their own copies of "The Undercity", it is easy enough to put a second marker down on your own copy to show where another player is. As someone who has a dungeon deck that often generates Initiative (Rilsa Rael, Kingpin generates it on her own), I have a few extra copies just in case others need them (because they are super cheap), but even without going that "extra mile" its easy enough to track multiple players on one copy of The Undercity. Some people like to just pull up the picture on their phone and track it that way as well.

Maybe its because my regular group have been playing for a long time for the most part, but we haven't found tracking this stuff to be much of a burden or complication at all.
Ok, but I don't want your cards to force me to track something I never wanted in the first place. Go into dungeons all you want. Leave me out of it. I will say that you do exactly what one should do, which is bring enough copies of the Undercity for everyone. But to say it's as easy to track as monarch? That's just not true. Monarch and the Undercity require tokens for optimal tracking, but the latter needs even more tracking and must be monitored for each player who as ever taken the initiative. I've written a paragraph already about my dislike of this mechanic, though I wouldn't balk too much if someone came prepared like you apparently do.

Tangentially related, I've been driving the anti-Day/Night bandwagon since the mechanic was spoiled, and if you have a deck that does day/night stuff, that's your job to track. I will make zero effort to do so.
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Post by DirkGently » 1 year ago

@Ruiner I'd imagine for a dedicated initiative deck that's probably true, but mostly when I've played against it it's been incidental initiative cards thrown in there. Part of that may be that my meta is jank. People suck at keeping track of their triggers already so adding initiative is a minefield between tracking who has it, where everyone is in the dungeon, and when to actually do the things in the dungeon. Usually it ends up falling on me, but when I'm already tracking 2/3 of the table's triggers, needing to track everyone's triggers for initiative is a massive annoyance. Ofc it's less bad if the people you play against are more competent.

But saying it's "no harder to track than Monarch" is a bizarre claim. It's monarch PLUS dungeons, itself a complex mechanic that's easy to lose track of. Plus it has weirder timings than monarch.

Moving multiple pieces along a single, normal-sized dungeon is a pretty tight fit. Having a double-sized dungeon card is a lot easier, or if everyone has their own. Still, "I play a random common, so now I have to distribute bingo cards to everyone that they have to track for the rest of the game" is dumb. It's dumb and I hate it.
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Post by Dunadain » 1 year ago

Just don't take the initiative from me then you won't have to track it ;) /s
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Post by BeneTleilax » 1 year ago

I think day/night is way worse than initiative, just because it doesn't actually do anything most of the game, and Celestus is pretty common ime as another manalith-with-upside. Day/night should end when all the cards that care about it leave the battlefield, I don't want to keep tracking crap from a dead Celestus just in case the green player happens to draw their Outland Liberator // Frenzied Trapbreaker.

Attractions are going to be the same, as there's no game cost, everyone *should* run an Attraction-board. And unlike Dungeons, they're actual cards, not tokens, so people will need to track down the rare ones. It's most of what I dislike about wishboards but slathered in forced, un-set wackiness. You can say it won't be compulsory, but in my experience deckbuilding threads tend to optimize slots pretty ruthlessly, not really for power, but just to pick at technically-worse inclusions. Back when Thought Vessel was $10 card, I saw a lot of people saying everyone should swap their everflowing chalices for it "Just in case someone plays a big table-wide draw spell when your hand is full", and I can't see why "just in case you should run an Attraction pile" would be any different.

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Post by wildfire393 » 1 year ago

BeneTleilax wrote:
1 year ago
I think day/night is way worse than initiative, just because it doesn't actually do anything most of the game, and Celestus is pretty common ime as another manalith-with-upside. Day/night should end when all the cards that care about it leave the battlefield, I don't want to keep tracking crap from a dead Celestus just in case the green player happens to draw their Outland Liberator // Frenzied Trapbreaker.

Attractions are going to be the same, as there's no game cost, everyone *should* run an Attraction-board. And unlike Dungeons, they're actual cards, not tokens, so people will need to track down the rare ones. It's most of what I dislike about wishboards but slathered in forced, un-set wackiness. You can say it won't be compulsory, but in my experience deckbuilding threads tend to optimize slots pretty ruthlessly, not really for power, but just to pick at technically-worse inclusions. Back when Thought Vessel was $10 card, I saw a lot of people saying everyone should swap their everflowing chalices for it "Just in case someone plays a big table-wide draw spell when your hand is full", and I can't see why "just in case you should run an Attraction pile" would be any different.
At least you could share a single attraction pile among multiple decks fairly easily, since there isn't any color requirements and it seems like there's not huge opportunities for deck-specific synergy. Just grab a stack of ten and keep it with your tokens for when some bozo casts Knowledge Pool and you end up casting The Most Dangerous Gamer off of it.

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