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JasonILTG

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27 May, 10 tweets, 4 min read

Early thread about Spiteful Squad today because I'm going to be on a flight tonight to California. 1/x

ALSA of 7.33. Looking at the Card Evaluation Metagame graph, it seems that it's actually been going down since the start of the format. Maybe people are comparing it to Star Pupil, and moving it down as Pupil goes down? 2/x

Squad might look similar to Star Pupil, as it has the same modular-like ability. But they are fundamentally different cards. Pupil's is an aggressive 1-drop that needs extra +1/+1 counters to function, while Squad needs no extra counters and gums up the ground with value. 3/x

Squad's deathtouch lets it trade with any ground creatures, which is especially relevant against big Fractals. The ideal scenario is to threaten to trade it off with a big creature and put its counters on a flier; the threat of this will often prevent attacks altogether. 4/x

And even if you don't have fliers, the 2 counters helps with a lot with grinding on the ground. I've won several games with Squads and Pilgrims eventually trading off with all of my opponent's creatures. 5/x

Something I heard someone say near the start of the format is "the more Rise of Extus you have, the more Spiteful Squads you want." And I think that rings very true: Squad is very much a grindy card, not an aggressive one. You *can* attack with Squad, but you'd rather block. 6/x

The main problem with Squad is that there's a lot of 4s already in Silverquill. Basically all decks would rather have Combat Professor or Specter of the Fens. You can only have so many 4s, and Squad is much worse at playing offense. But sometimes you don't have that luxury. 7/x

Conclusion: while Squad isn't your first choice for 4s, it's still definitely playable as a powerful defensive and grindy card. It goes very well in grindy Silverquill or Mardu decks, along with cards like Pilgrim or Rise. 8/8

My most recent trophy deck was aggressive, but still liked the one Squad:
17lands.com/deck/99dbc0809…

My last Draft Challenge deck was very grindy, and Squad was even better there:
17lands.com/deck/addac566d…

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More from @JasonILTG

JasonILTG

@JasonILTG

28 May

Late and short thread today about Owlin Shieldmage. Future threads are likely to also be later, as I am now on the west coast instead of the east coast of the US. 1/x

ALSA of 7.02. Looks like its Card Evaluation Metagame has stayed fairly stable for the whole format. 2/x

I don't really have a great comparison for Owlin Shieldmage. A 5 mana 3/3 flier is slightly overcosted, but the Ward 3 makes it play out much differently: with it, Shieldmage is basically a guaranteed 3 damage, either from Ward or from attacking. 3/x

Read 9 tweets

JasonILTG

@JasonILTG

26 May

Today I'm wrapping up my streak of talking about tricks/creature enhancements with Enthusiastic Study. I'll definitely be talking about at least one more in the future (looking at you, Fortifying Draught), but that won't be for a bit still. 1/x

ALSA of 7.51 in Bo3, making it the second-lowest-drafted learn spell, only above First Day of Class. Though, judging by the Card Evaluation Metagame graph, that data might be a bit outdated from being an average; Study is now roughly tied for third among red commons. 2/x

Even judging from the higher recent numbers, I still think Study is underrated. I think it is clearly the third best red common, and possibly even better than Pigment Storm. I believe this for the same reason I think First Day of Class might be fourth: learn/lesson is busted. 3/x

Read 16 tweets

JasonILTG

@JasonILTG

25 May

Today I'm talking about Essence Infusion, which is a card that I think is both overrated and underrated in Bo3. I know that's kind of a contradictory thing to say, but I'll explain. 1/x

ALSA 7.77 in Bo3, which is exactly the same as Professor's Warning, a card that I generally like better. Here's the Card Evaluation Metagame graph for it; looks like it's been gaining in popularity a lot recently. 2/x

So first of all, why do I think Infusion is overrated? Well, this is tied to how I like to build my Silverquill decks: more fliers, fewer counters. My ideal aggro Silverquill deck wins by having too many fliers for opponents to deal with, not by loading up on one creature. 3/x

Read 12 tweets

JasonILTG

@JasonILTG

23 May

Late thread today on Resculpt and Sudden Breakthrough. ALSAs of 9.29 and 8.67, respectively. I didn't talk about these earlier because I think they're correctly evaluated as generally very bad, but I do want to touch on them a bit to show how they can be used. 1/x

Here are the Card Evaluation Metagame graphs for the two. Resculpt was initially a lot higher (though still the lowest blue common); I wonder if other people, like me, thought that its synergy with treasure (like Breakthrough) was going to be good in Prsimari. 2/x

First let's talk about Resculpt. This looks like Angelic Ascension, but the 4/4 not having flying makes a huge difference. Without flying, the 4/4 is much more medium for you, but it's still good enough that you're almost never happy giving it to your opponent either. 3/x

Read 12 tweets

JasonILTG

@JasonILTG

22 May

Very short thread today about Make Your Mark. Not really underrated, but I do want to talk about it as one of the more interesting combat tricks in the set, and a card that has some pretty specific uses. 1/x

Here's the Card Evaluation Metagame graph for MYM. It's gone down since the start of the format, which makes sense, as it became clear that the best aggressive decks in the format mostly rely on evasion. 2/x

I want to start off by saying that I don't think MYM belongs in most decks, even aggressive ones. In order to maximize it, you need to be trading off your creatures a lot, and have a 3/2 matter. And a lot of aggressive decks don't want to trade, instead preferring evasion. 3/x

Read 9 tweets

JasonILTG

@JasonILTG

21 May

After finishing a couple final papers, I'm back with my underrated cards threads! To ease myself back into it, I'm going to be talking about a few combat tricks for the next few days. First up: Big Play! ALSA 8.09 in Bo3, taken just a bit above Curate. 1/x

Here's the Card Evaluation Metagame graph for it; it's been relatively flat, but trending slightly downwards. 2/x

First off, a note about combat tricks: almost all the ones I'm planning to talk about are very replaceable effects. They all have their uses, but I hesitate to call them underrated, because you don't want too many. Doesn't stop me from talking about them though. 3/x

Read 10 tweets

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