Next underrated card: Twinscroll Shaman. 8.95 ALSA, making it the 10th least-drafted card in Bo3. I have a lot less to say about this one. I do think it's pretty mediocre, but just how low it's taken speaks, again, to how underdrafted aggressive Lorehold decks are. 1/5
My view of Twinscroll Shaman is as a mediocre but ultimately fine 3-drop in aggressive Lorehold decks. You often want to play those decks with combat tricks anyways, and tricks synergize with Twinscroll's double strike (especially the best one: Enthusiastic Study). 2/5
I would still rather not include it in my decks, but that's mostly because there's better 3s: Lorehold and Silverquill Pledgemages, Stonebound Mentor, and Pilgrim of the Ages. But while it's worse than those, it's not worse by that much, because it does have some synergies. 3/5
I've already mentioned tricks: Enthusiastic Study makes it a 4/3 double striking trampler. There's also incidental buffs from Combat Professor, Guiding Voice, First Day of Class, and Expanded Anatomy that get doubled. And finally, Twinscroll gives Orator double strike. 4/5
Again, I'm not saying that Twinscroll is good. But it's a decent enough 3 with enough synergies that sometimes it does end up being fine in my decks, and has no business being taken below other worse creatures like Spined Karok, Novice Dissector, and Fuming Effigy. 5/5
Some recent trophy decks that I've played Twinscroll Shaman in:
Today, I'm going to talk briefly about three cards that all have their best home in the same kind of deck: Thrilling Discovery, Teach By Example, and Curate. ALSAs of 9.39, 8.57, and 8.18. Not exactly sure whether they're "underrated", but definitely worth talking about. 1/x
The best home for these cards is Serpentine Curve control decks. Disclaimer: I don't have the most experience with these decks myself; probably the expert here is @SamuelHBlack, both in his recent podcast episode about Dimir and his excellent stream. But I'll try my best. 2/x
Thrilling Discovery is the worst of these in a vaccuum, as reflected by it being the 6th least-drafted card, barely above First Day. It looks like just another Cathartic Reunion, which is historically bad. But it does have some good synergies that can make it worth playing. 3/x
Next up: Mascot Interception. ALSA 8.64, third least drafted uncommon (barely above Detention Vortex). Now *this* is a card I have a lot to say about, though some of what I have to say I already said on Limited Levelups last week (
At its baseline, this is just a more expensive Act of Treason that gives a power boost. Framed that way, it might not be very exciting, as Act of Treason is a card that traditionally only plays well in decks that are either very aggressive or have steal-and-sac synergies. 2/x
But there are some factors that make Interception play better in this format. First of all, the +2 power matters. You generally want your Act of Treason effects to end the game when cast, and the power boost helps Interception do so in a wider array of situations. 3/x
One thing I've noticed is that STX draft has a lot of cards that I think are underrated by both the Arena population and sometimes content creators. So, starting today, I'm going to post a thread each day about an underrated card, in reverse order of 17lands Bo3 ALSA data. 1/x
First up, fittingly: First Day of Class (ALSA 9.4, fifth least drafted card by ALSA). A lot of people talk about this card in terms of "yeah all the learn is great, except First Day is trash." And yes, I will admit it's the weakest learn card, but that doesn't make it trash. 2/x
Let's look at some baselines first: the absolute worst case is 1R learn at instant speed. I think most people agree that learning has turned out to be better than drawing a card (or at least, that you can draft to make it so), so this is better than cycling 1R. 3/x