What role does Sculpting Steel *actually* fill?

[3drinks]

Man. Tf is sculpting steel suppose to fill anyway. The only role I can justify is "good stuff/utilitarian" which is shorthand for pet card/cuttable because it's a category you make up to fit cards that don't actually have a job you don't wanna cut.

Context: I'm finally going over this Growing Threat deck and it's roles are actually fairly well established, including six draw spells, four sweepers and eleven spot removal. For a stock in box deck, I'm impressed with the ratios they came to. But I get to two cards that don't have a clear role, one is shimmer myr (it doesn't fill a beater, token, interaction, or card advantage slot) and while yes flash is important (and it as well as battlethopter do belong here I think), I find it and the aforementioned sculpting steel not falling into a pre designed category. So, how do you categorize these types of effects without falling back on the dreaded "utility" category that means precisely nothing? Is it a beater because you might sculpt a wurmcoil? Is it a token engine because you could sculpt a battlesphere? Is it mana because you might sculpt a dynamo? And similarly, what role do you consider flash enablers, and hell when do you even want a flash enabler (if the answer isn't "always")?

I think this can make for some good discussion so I'll sign this off here.

[Sinis]

I would say, the same role as any single-clone spell. Sometimes you clone the Rune-scarred Demon. Sometimes you clone the Acidic Slime.

I think Sculpting Steel has aged out, though; it's hard to justify over something like Phyrexian Metamorph, or Clever Impersonator if you're in blue, and then the rest of the time... it feels too narrow. People don't put down big gross pieces of equipment like they used to, and I don't often see swords of protection and value anymore. Moreover, most the top artifacts in the format cost less than Sculpting Steel and aren't especially effective in multiples, or are legendary, or... whatever.

This isn't to say it doesn't have value. Copy a Vanquisher's Banner. Panharmonicon. Portal to Phyrexia. I'd love to copy Spine of Ish Sah with it, and then blast it with Priest of Yawgmoth for the ritual + vindicate. But, this is magic xmas land to me.

I think to answer 'what role' it has, you have to ask 'what are you even copying, on your best day'? I think you can't really depend on your opponent to provide good copy targets, so it has to be something in your own focus, and it's hard to see where that is, IMO.

[Dragonlover]

Can't speak to the Shimmer Myr, but Sculpting Steel in an artifact heavy deck is definitely a 'no idea what this is going to do, but it'll do something cool' kind of pick for me.

Dragonlover

[pokken]

I count it as a 3 mana rock that taps for 1 in my head, and anything else is upside.

[Hawk]

Good thread as these are cards that I find myself still mindlessly running that, as @Sinis says, have probably aged out of the format - not just Sculpting Steel but pretty much any copy effect that can't clone degenerate commanders. I'm increasingly cold on sibling effects like Mirrormade, Copy Artifact, Copy Enchantment, Clever Impersonator, etc - basically anything other than spells that can generate massive value like Rite of Replication or clone someone like Volo (Irenicus's Vile Duplication, Spark Double).

All of these spells are holdovers from an era where the game was generally ramp to 7+MV bombs, then a boardwipe, then more bombs. So being able to copy your own bombs or your opponents bombs was great. There also wasn't such a density of threats; you'd run your Craterhoof Behemoth and Terastodon and then...what? Nothing, is often the answer, so if you can might as well just clone those right?

But nowadays, with lists being so fine-tuned, these are often cumbersome. These are dead on an empty board and can often be "win-more" on the best day compared to just having a diversity of threats. As the format has grown more and more powerful spells it's hard to spend 2 or 3 mana to copy a "great" card when your deck could just have another "great" card. You don't need to scuplting steel your Wurmcoil Engine because you can instead jam other powerful 6-drops.

For Sculpting Steel in particular, I suppose it remains a redundancy effect in exactly colorless like an Liberator, Urza's Battlethopter deck - the quality of your 5-6 drops really does drop off a cliff after Wurmy, Steel Hellkite, Myr Battlesphere, and Ancient Stone Idol so you might just want to copy. But for most decks, room is tight enough to force out clones in favor of cards that are always good imo

[RogHimself]

For Sculpting Steel in particular, I suppose it remains a redundancy effect in exactly colorless like an Liberator, Urza's Battlethopter deck - the quality of your 5-6 drops really does drop off a cliff after Wurmy, Steel Hellkite, Myr Battlesphere, and Ancient Stone Idol so you might just want to copy. But for most decks, room is tight enough to force out clones in favor of cards that are always good imo

I like it in my Feldon of the Third Path deck, since all of my reanimation targets become an artifact, I basically can duplicate any creature. Double Ancient Copper Dragon hell yes. Another great target is Portal to Phyrexia.

Imho it's never a dead card. Worst case it's a three mana manarock. Wouldn't run it outside of heavy artifact decks though (d'uh).

[3drinks]

So it's basically the fifteenth ramp card that sometimes is more. Disappointing, because the schematic is so beautiful. Except here in Brimaz I find it especially worse since it's not an artifact creature (no incubate on cast), and even if it is right to replace rocks with mana myr (which I believe to be the case), it's going to pale in most cases that aren't cloning a precursor golem|brc.

[Sinis]

Yeah, I mean, the failcase as a mana rock is okay, but I think you need to compare that to other mv 3 mana rocks, like Cursed Mirror, Strixhaven Stadium, etc. The fail case of "a 3 mv add 1 rock" is actually really bad nowadays, IMO.

It's acceptable during play, because that sort of thing might happen, but I think during deck construction, you'd want to have a set of things you want to copy, and then you need to examine the odds that you'll have something you want to have at the same time (like Isochron Scepter in a non-combo context).

I would reiterate: It's not a card I would consign to the dustbin of history, but, I would take a very hard look at whether it should be included in any given deck. I would only play it as a 'failcase Manalith' if the ceiling in my deck was at least reasonably high, and reasonably likely.

[Mookie]

I run Sculpting Steel primarily as a combo piece in Sharuum, and secondarily as a backup draw engine / mana rock / etc. The fact that it combos with my commander makes it much easier to justify including, plus I'm running plenty of other artifacts I'm interested in copying. That usually isn't the case outside dedicated artifact decks though - I don't see myself ever wanting it in the 99 of a random, non-artifact deck.

...in general, I'll agree that clones are hard to categorize - unless you can count on them to clone your commander or some other specific effect, they're pretty high variance, and the fact that they don't directly synergize with most decks makes them pretty easy to cut. That said, clones do tend to have a pretty high floor. 'A copy of the best thing on the board' is usually pretty solid even without synergy.

[3drinks]

I did wind up putting it in and I'll just have to watch it and see how often I do a thing with it. I figure, if I can copy Sad Bot that's typically worth the slot and then some, while if I hit Mind Stone|brc it's just okay. Sometimes you hit the jackpot and copy Lodestone Golem|brr and isn't that just a little cute. It's probably as much pre-game editing as I can do until I can brute force some games tomorrow.

[PrimevalCommander]

I liked Sculpting Steel in Daretti, Scrap Savant artifacts, but it was a bit of a glass cannon deck with a BUNCH of overcosted artifacts and mana rocks. So there was always something fun and splashy to copy. Better in casual artifact decks with less tuned mana curve and more splashy artifacts. Otherwise, it looks weak just as all other clones do.

[materpillar]

I only have it slotted into one deck and in that deck I primarily think of it as an equipment. I like having Chromium wield 3 Sword of Fire and Ices at once. Sue me.

It's a really good "I want a second one of this…" *gestures wildly at random artifact* "… in my deck". The floor is another mana rock, the upside is a 3cmc Blightsteel Colossus. It does a great job at that. I barely ever copy other people's stuff to the best of my memory, but that deck is full to the brim of good artifact targets for various situations. I'd say the vast majority of the time I'm looking to use it as a Sword of X and Y, sometimes a creature (double the Master Transmuter fun!) and then sometimes a rock.