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I'm an incredibly tractable person, I find. Someone voices something on a forum, I think about it a little, and I come to agree with them. I fear sometimes that my attempts to be reasoned and balanced are nothing more than pretty window-dressing, and that I'm just inclined to follow the most recent conventional wisdom.
Consider; Aaron Forsythe made a comment, last year, about the nature of “parasitic” mechanics, like Affinity or Splice, and how he felt they weren't very good, how they didn't enrich the game as much as more open mechanics (the name for them has been lost to me now). At the time, I agreed with him; all those mechanics felt either way too good, or just plain bad, and both stifled the environment.
Now, in hindsight, it was unfair, really, to use these two mechanics as examples. Affinity itself wasn't that overpowered – it was R&D's perhaps reckless zeal to enable the mechanic that pushed it over the edge. Who knows what world it would be if, say, Galvanic Key had Affinity, and not Myr Enforcer? Splice had then downplayed itself, in a block that simply couldn't add much more power to Standard without the potential of just entirely knocking the wheels off the cart.
Then, Patrick Sullivan, while voicing dissatisfaction with the great designer search, said that Aaron's words had done more harm than good; that players of the game had latched onto the simple principle behind what he'd said, and treated parasitic now as a pejorative term. He – and others, who work in the field of game design – claimed that the game was not overly helped by the Great Designer Search, or the articles that followed in its wake, regardless of their source.
I fancy he's incorrect in this regard; no matter what the game, there will be those who derive enjoyment from flipping up the lid and tinkering with it, and feeding the interests of those folks is not about to harm the interests of those people who don't. These people don't enjoy the game any less because of their tinkering. Really, it appears the greatest crime committed by these amateur design articles in the eyes of these professionals is not being as good as stuff they'd want to read.
Patrick mentioned that Aaron appears to be against parasitic mechanics, and it's quite easy to think that, in the current context. Time Spiral and Ravnica have featured fewer obvious deck skeletons. While cards interact, they are more likely to be in two-and-three card stacks, rather than a solid-based deck where you swap out or tailor the numbers of about ten, fifteen cards, and be done. Now you have to build your decks by clambering together two or three similar skeletons, finding places where deck fragments intersect. It's the same puzzle as always, but with smaller pieces, and worse, because the pieces aren't giving us hints. Look at Block – every other deck's a Teferi deck, and it's not because Teferi has some bonkers synergy or anything. It's just that Teferi's a really powerful card and he can look too good to not run.
Patrick brought up an important point, though, even as I feel he obscured another. Those parasitic mechanics that seem to be maligned useful for play at the professional level. The absence of these deck cores have made it very tricky for the Feldmans and the Nassifs, who rely on navigating past these cores (if not the decks themselves) as specialized predators in a coral reef. That's just the price of progress, it seems; the most stalwart ally of these kinds of players is time, and the more of it they have, the more they can observe the coalescing of a field. As Flores says; breaking a format is a one-off, solving a format can be done forever and ever. And not every format can be broken – just observe Gabe Walls' statements about Beach House. A deck that basically packed it in to Owling Mine was not exactly exciting in that format, but Owling Mine didn't even break the format. It was just an extra cog in the clockwork.
Perhaps more important, however, is that these parasitic mechanic (lords, the name itself sounds pejorative) are really quite valuable in teaching people how to play. Onslaught was a giant block of parasitism, with out-of-tribe cards like Wirewood Symbiote and Outrider needing to jump a very high bar for the tribes they wanted to help one way or another. It's very rare that you can print an “open” card that also manages to corral even a single deck behind it.
That's why the guy who designed Cloudstone Curio deserves a raise.
Taste The Rainbow
I have been making Curio decks up and down since my first outing with the card, over a year ago. A simple,
mana-free engine that R&D costed just out of the “danger range,” the card can be the glue
for so many other decks. As Vanishing and Echo were added to the Standard pool, the possible options for
the Curio Use just went up.
I've been suffering through a lot of inappropriate communication lately. I almost called it “Curio Abuse” ... but is abuse really the correct term for any of the things we do with cards? I mean, in some cases, there can be confusion; perhaps Disciple of the Vault had been designed to be a simple, efficient way to punish an opponent for destroying your artifacts (as Black can rarely do such things without help), and what was done with it in the Ravager Affinity, making it a proactive tool to end opponent life was an “abuse” compared to the original intent. But I don't think that's quite appropriate, even then. In the Curio's case, using the Curio as a means to avoid paying echo costs, or to rescue Vanishing permanents... that doesn't strike me as “abusive” by any means.
Since the release of Planar Chaos, I've been eyeing the Curio more carefully. Decklists featuring the curio were scruted and effed, and I found remarkably few people had written about it. It was, as it were, old tech. Understandable – I mean, the card doesn't do anything that unfair, and its best synergies seem to be mana intensive. The closest comparison we have to the card right now is to Wirewood Symbiote in Extended – which has the dignity of costing one, and even untaps Spectral Force to boot... and supposedly, isn't even all that busted. Still, we work with what tools Wizards gave us. And Wizards gave Curio-based decks a boon in Planar Chaos.
There was a serious lack of reasons to go White back in the older lists. It was there for, at best, Azorius Herald and Court Hussar, with the all-star Soul Warden muscling into bench space, but invariably being the first thing cut. After all, as just a one-drop, it doesn't advance many other plans. So why is it that when I built decks in Green for this deck, I kept on coming back to Essence Warden?
Strange things, strange things indeed.
I think the main reason that Green-based, non-White Curio decks aren't hurting for space right now; rather, they're hurting for more creatures to use as part of them. Plus, White creatures are already busting all over the place with life-gaining options. Why bother with Soul Warden when a Loxodon Hierarch, played three times, will do more than an Essence Warden can manage on its own? And you never want to bounce the Warden itself, surely? So with combos that lack the Hierarch, what are the options for consistent, easy lifegain that are better than the Essence Warden?
Not many, let me tell you. And when you venture into other colors... well, let's just do a quick run-down of the colors combinations.
Green/Black
I toyed with this combination for a while, but the Black doesn't offer much that doesn't cost four mana.
When you're talking about bouncing and replaying a card multiple times a turn, it can be a real drudge to
wait until turn 12 to do it – and besides, most of Black's best cards for the casual player aren't
creatures. Hopping Nekrataals sounds like fun, or Nightshade Assassins, but you just don't have much to
win with aside from a squad of 2/1 dorks. There's removal, that's for sure, but less of it than you'd want
in a deck that wants to be as many permanents as possible. No, the permanents do too little for too much
in this combination.
Blue/Black, Red/Blue, Black/White
Not an avenue I explored too much. I mean, why would you? Blue and Black tend to have faff creatures. Most
Blue/Black creatures with comes into play or leave play abilities are either total wusses themselves (Sage
of Epityr), or have a drawback (Dream Stalker and Avatar of Discord). There wasn't enough meat here to try
tricks with the Faceless Butcher, so I moved on. Red had some nice tools, but coupled with Blue, I kept
thinking there were better things to focus on – and let's face it, when you can put Remand
and Electrolyze in a deck for the casual room, you need a really good reason to not. Just in turn, casual
and budget play tends to operate around cards you have to put in your deck, Castigate represents a similar
problem – especially with the slim pickings Black offers a Curio deck, and White… well, yeah,
White remains a problem, as you'll see.
Red/White
This deck doesn't even want the Curio. With White's rescue dudes, like Stonecloaker and Dust Elemental,
there's just no reason to waste time with the artifact; you can do better with just Whitemane Lion and
Dust Elemental, both of which are just plain good creatures in their own right. I'll bet any money that
Rivien's written about this yesterday, or he's going to write about it next week, so I'm going to refrain
from going into too much detail. Yet, if you have some Curios, you can use the Red and White pieces from
the other lists, I suppose, and put them together. But really, you'd be looking at a slower version of the
same deck.
Blue/White
I tested this one more thoroughly than the others, but the problem remains; there's just nothing much to
bounce aside from Azorius Herald and Court Hussar. You chew aggro up and spit it out, but you don't do
anything to control, and you can't really try. The only creature counterspells in Standard need Green, or
cost six, and White's flash creatures are best assigned to replacing the Curio anyway.
Black/Red
This falls even more prey to the Green/Black problem. You have some awesome spells – including
Squealing Devil, who loves to turn up early, beat down a little, then fuel some other evasive
creature through for a game-winning pseudo-Fireball late – but you just don't have the mana to fuel
them. You have to play Signets to power into your four-mana spells, and you have to have filler early men
like Ravenous Rats. Some take the philosophy that, provided your opponent's got no cards in hand and no
creatures in play, you don't care how bad your dudes are, but I'm sick of losing to topdecked singletons
like Murray or the like.
| Black/Red Curio Featured by Talen Lee on 2007-03-25 (Standard) | ||
Artifacts 4 Cloudstone Curio 4 Rakdos Signet Creatures 4 Hellhole Rats 4 Mogg War Marshal 4 Nekrataal 4 Ravenous Rats 4 Squealing Devil 4 Stinkweed Imp |
Sorceries 4 Dimir Machinations Basic Lands 10 Mountain 10 Swamp Lands 4 Rakdos Carnarium | Stats: Average mana: 1.67 Average creature mana cost: 2.83 Average creature power: 1.50 Average creature toughness: 1.33 Deck Composition: Basic Lands: 33.33% Lands: 6.67% Artifacts: 13.33% Creatures: 40.00% Sorceries: 6.67% |
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It did cement in my mind the awesomeness of the Mogg War Marshal, though. With Curio down, he lets you buyback any creature for 1R, and buybacks himself as well, leaving behind a chump-blocker. With trample so rare in the format (barring for Tromp the Domains, which really wizzed in my corn flakes last night), the tokens can hold off pretty much anyone while you continue to recycle dudes. But unfortunately, I couldn't fit in Stingscourger – there are just too many other things that cost four mana.
And man, do Red's flash creatures suck!
Green/White
The most obvious, and simple combination. I explored this in the past, and it's only gotten a few new
tools. Green hasn't really gained any new, amazing comes-into-play abilities on its creatures, with only
Harmonic Sliver and Indrik Stomphowler showing their faces. The main vice of this deck is that it's very
draw dependent, and mostly builds on the Glare skeleton. And when you have that... why not play Glare? The
cost between the rares isn't that distinct. We're not talking about the kind of investment it takes to
play with duals, after all. Glare of Subdual goes for four dollars; Cloudstone Curio for a buck
twenty-five. So there's a distinct gap – about ten dollars – but it's not the kind of boundary
that duals or the like represent. Ultimately, though, the main reason this color combination gives me the
skeeves is that there's no way to reach across the board, no way to affect your opponent without a splash.
Removal-less archetypes are bad! Certainly in the casual room, where you just know someone's
going to ruin your day with some creature or other.
Here's just a very basic list, using the cards I have; as you can probably tell, it bashes the hell out of aggro with all its lifegain – with Loxodon Hierarch, Caryatid, and the acceleration / lifegain, it can just romp over it. It also can't recover very readily from a Wrath, which is awkward. What would be great is some kind of card that would let you pick up multiple creatures at once, eh?
| Green/White Curio Featured by Talen Lee on 2007-03-25 (Standard) | ||
Artifacts 4 Cloudstone Curio |
Creatures 4 Carven Caryatid 4 Cloudchaser Kestrel 4 Essence Warden 4 Llanowar Elves 4 Loxodon Hierarch 4 Soul Warden 4 Spike Feeder 4 Yavimaya Dryad Basic Lands 8 Forest 8 Plains Lands 4 Selesnya Sanctuary 4 Temple Garden | Stats: Average mana: 1.47 Average creature mana cost: 2.38 Average creature power: 1.63 Average creature toughness: 1.88 Deck Composition: Creatures: 53.33% Basic Lands: 26.67% Lands: 13.33% Artifacts: 6.67% |
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Thus, we're at the same problem as with Red/White. You don't need the Curio in White – since it doesn't fly, have fear, or bash for 6 on turn 4.
Blue/Green
Take Blinking Snake.dec; replace Blink with Curio. You have more or less the same deck, but can cut the
White. When you do that, though, the deck starts to look a bit sad, with a similar problem to Red. Without
the Hierarch to hold the ground, you rely on clunkier, less-immediate answers like Carven Caryatid, whose
impressive tuchus isn't nearly as useful as turning sideways, killing a chump-blocker, bouncing, and being
replayed. It's one point's difference – which right now, isn't that much of a difference.
Being able to bounce Mystic Snakes sounds cool, but it's a lot of mana and requires an opponent
to refuse to stockpile spells in hand. Mana development is really crucial to these decks, and having that
mostly fuelled by three-drops in Standard makes these lists worse.
I tried an alternate direction with it, actually; simply adding another mini-combo, in an attempt to see if some removal could make a difference. I tried out Reality Acid, despite all my knowledge that it was not The Poop, it was just plain Poop. What eventuated was... uninspiring.
| Blue/Green Curio Featured by Talen Lee on 2007-03-25 (Standard) | ||
Artifacts 4 Cloudstone Curio Creatures 1 Ana Battlemage 4 Carven Caryatid 4 Coiling Oracle 4 Essence Warden 4 Mystic Snake 4 Patagia Viper 4 Plaxmanta |
Enchantments 4 Reality Acid 4 Utopia Sprawl Basic Lands 9 Forest 8 Island Lands 2 Breeding Pool 4 Simic Growth Chamber | Stats: Average mana: 1.58 Average creature mana cost: 2.68 Average creature power: 1.68 Average creature toughness: 2.00 Deck Composition: Basic Lands: 28.33% Creatures: 41.67% Lands: 10.00% Enchantments: 13.33% Artifacts: 6.67% |
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So where's the problem? The deck got really flabby around the three-mana slot, and I found that I wasn't happy bouncing three-drops unless they were doing something drastic. Worse, Patagia Viper is just bad at doing buyback duty compared to Dust Elemental and Mogg War Marshal, and it's a big gulf. Dust Elemental does more as a big, evasive man, and Mogg War Marshal costs less and is easier to cast... so where's the competition? With only Reality Acid to control the game, you just can't compete with any decks that want to swarm you, since you can't flash men out at instant speed, like the earlier-mentioned Wirewood Symbiote. Generally speaking, I just barked up the wrong tree here. The deck's got some game, and of course, Mystic Snake is good – but I think the key to it is Momentary Blink, and the manabase that can support that.
Green/Red
This was the one that surprised me. Green/Red is not the kind of deck I look at for efficient weenies
that do neat things, and it's very much not where I look for a game that closes with me with thirty-plus
life and seven in the grip. The Gruul build of the deck is better able to abuse Stingscourger through its
cheaper drops in general, and a greater focus on building a manabase over time. The best added component
is that Red gave the deck removal in the form of Stalking Yeti, and, thanks to Skarrg, could utilize the
generally-underwhelming Vinelasher Kudzu as a legitimate threat. Trampling over blockers is remarkably
easy, since this deck can guarantee hitting land drops if it gets a Curio out, and can even use
Silly Curio Tricks to replay a Yavimaya Dryad six or seven times.
| Green/Red Curio Featured by Talen Lee on 2007-03-25 (Standard) | ||
Artifacts 4 Cloudstone Curio Creatures 4 Citanul Woodreaders 4 Essence Warden 4 Keldon Marauders 4 Mogg War Marshal 2 Scryb Ranger 4 Stingscourger 4 Vinelasher Kudzu 4 Yavimaya Dryad Snow Creatures 2 Stalking Yeti |
Basic Snow Lands 5 Snow-Covered Forest 6 Snow-Covered Mountain Lands 3 Gruul Turf 2 Skarrg, the Rage Pits Legendary Lands 1 Pendelhaven Snow Lands 4 Highland Weald 2 Mouth of Ronom 1 Scrying Sheets | Stats: Average mana: 1.40 Average creature mana cost: 2.25 Average creature power: 1.63 Average creature toughness: 1.88 Deck Composition: Snow Lands: 11.67% Snow Creatures: 3.33% Lands: 8.33% Basic Snow Lands: 18.33% Legendary Lands: 1.67% Creatures: 50.00% Artifacts: 6.67% |
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I'm not happy with the manabase yet. It wants Green on turn 1, Red on turn 2, and double Green on turn 3 – so the colorless lands might be more bother than they're worth, which would be a shame. Don't expect to use the Curio to cast Citanul Woodreaders in cycle, though – that six mana play may look appealing, but if it can happen, you're probably losing. Stomping Grounds would make the deck better, as I'm sure you're aware, and fix one mana issue right away; the Yavimaya Dryad can't get you Red in this list, and in the late game, multiple Red sources are better as they let you play winners like Mogg War Marshal, Stingscourger, or the remarkably useful Keldon Marauders time and time again. To my amazement, the Marauders are a decent deal even without the Curio. Against control, they represent a cool five damage for two mana, and against aggro they happily block other threats like Watchwolf and Scab-Clan Mauler (who, believe it or not, still exists in the casual room). Plus, sometimes Kird Ape runs into him, a strategy that I find puzzling, but will capitalize on it my opponent opts to run it.
Something I've noticed; if you have multiple Dryads in hand, it's generally a better plan to let the first one give you a Forest, then, on your next turn, once the first is able to attack, bequeath a forest on your opponent. The upshot's the same, but you get the mana to play with, and they don't, prolonging the turns your generous donation can be a bother.
Stingscourger is really, really good, but I've never once paid his echo. He hits the table, removes a threat, gets in the way of something, then comes back to hand thanks to Scryb Ranger. With that 2 power of his, he can block a lot of stuff, and do so easily.
If the deck could use anything, it'd be a beefy four-drop and some better lands. Rumbling Slum fits the build, and even thanks to the lifegain represented by Essence Warden, wouldn't be even that painful. He'd probably be best off replacing the Citanul Woodreaders, though. While I love my Green Turtles, I have to accept that they're inefficient cards when played for three, and unimpressive when cast for six. I'd avoid Harmonize and the Caryatid, though – unless I had those good lands I mentioned.
Where that leaves us
One card, three or four common deck “bones” – not even complete skeletons – and
there we have ourselves four decks. That doesn't strike the possibility of mono-colored, or three-colored
combinations, and also abstains from multiplayer options. This is all off one card, who doesn't really say
on it what it does. The power of the Curio is entirely defined by the cards around it, rather than the
card itself. I find that fascinating, and the card simply murmurs to me, asking me to do things with it,
to see what this combination will do, to test these pieces around it. In this regard,
Curio is a delicate jewel, demanding a setting, and yet providing you with a style guide to craft it.
I don't know if you could make a Magic set where every rare was a Curio. I doubt you could, in fact; the card's simplicity is part of its charm, and its efficiency is perhaps what makes it usable. Could Magic be more like this? I don't know. I think we still need these “parasitic” mechanics, these skeletons of decks rather than these bones of skeletons, if only to give the format a place to coagulate. I think that too much freedom can be a bad thing, and too few borders can be stifling to creativity.
The solution, however, is not to avoid, or embrace parasitism in itself, I feel. Given where the Curio has taken us, showing us facets of older cards we already knew, showing differences in the newer cards, and being worse than some colored cards, but better than colorless ones, I think the solution is to instead make those non-obvious pieces engaging. Let those players who don't care about the obvious parasitic lists find something to sift past, to power up their decks and give them new directions to move in. Kamigawa block may have been maligned for many things, but who wasn't surprised to see Azami, Lady of Scrolls in the Top 8? Who wasn't surprised to see Honor-Worn Shaku, or Godo, Bandit Warlord? These cards we now know as mighty, but originally thought of as, perhaps, blase? They had power, they just didn't have obvious power, and that was their lure. Of course, the “obvious” power in Kamigawa was a paper tiger, its two major thematic mechanics, Splice and Spiritcraft, being dead ducks as history shows us. Yet, I wonder...
Could it be done? Could Wizards bring together the power mechanics, but leave the field open that the tools to build decks are not about sifting through the data and finding the best list, but instead sifting through the pieces and finding a good enough list?
This is an area where I'd have to leave answering the question up to these professional designers.
I'm just an amateur, after all.
Hugs and Kisses
Talen Lee
talen at dodo dot com dot au
PS. By the way, since I'm apparently annoying everyone this week, Patrick, if I've misrepresented your meaning, I really do apologize.
PPS. Yeah, I said I was done, but this struck me as pretty cute for those lovers of combo out there. The deck's not feasible to play on MTGO, because it can't recognize infinite loops, but here's a quick list:
| Mono-White Curio Featured by Talen Lee on 2007-03-25 (Standard) | ||
Artifacts 4 Cloudstone Curio 4 Prismatic Lens |
Creatures 4 Calciderm 4 Celestial Crusader 4 Cloudchaser Kestrel 4 Knight of the Holy Nimbus 4 Soul Warden 4 Stormfront Riders Instants 4 Mana Tithe Basic Lands 24 Plains | Stats: Average mana: 1.67 Average creature mana cost: 3.17 Average creature power: 2.67 Average creature toughness: 2.50 Deck Composition: Basic Lands: 40.00% Creatures: 40.00% Instants: 6.67% Artifacts: 13.33% |
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The Lenses and Tithes were just in my list to test, but I can't see many other ways to accelerate in White. Simply, the deck wants a Soul Warden, a Stormfront Rider, a Curio, and some other dudes; by the Rider's power, you can pick up two guys as it comes into play, spawning two soldiers. Each soldier's arrival prompts the Curio to trigger, and you can pick it up with the curio. That prompts another soldier to turn up, and so on until you choose to stop. This isn't exactly a robust, amazing combo, but the Riders are a solid card in their own right, and chances are the deck's good without the combo. I certainly fancy it'll be worth a shot alongside Mournglash's evil mono-White Gauntlet of Power deck.
