Scarecrows - Failed MtG Mechanics
Ойындар
Scarecrows are one of Magic the Gathering’s many creature types that have received tribal support over the years. Many of these tribal decks have been unsuccessful, but none have been quite as… strange as scarecrows. The main problem isn’t just that the cards are underpowered. It’s that the mechanical identity is so muddled and the design decisions are so questionable that scarecrows have become sort of iconic in their own way. Sure they’re not even remotely playable, but they do so many unique and interesting things and are so all over the place that tons of players have fallen in love with the tribe. So today, we’re going to go over the the entire tribe and answer the simple question - why?
Script by Pumkinswift
Editing by Pumkinswift
├ The List
Intro: (0:00)
The King: (0:34)
How Were Scarecrows Supposed to Work: (6:52)
What went wrong: (9:36)
What's with this color stuff: (12:13)
The "good" Scarecrows: (14:27)
The Newest Good Scarecrow: (17:13)
Why No New Scarecrows: (19:38)
Conclusion: (21:30)
#mtg #tcg #magicthegathering
(Just a note, we have people who actually know the game very well making the scripts for this channel. As the owner of the channel (Theduellogs/hirumaredx) is a total newbie to the game.)
Пікірлер: 344
"Reaper King Tribal" Lmao yeah ok, I thought we were gonna go changelings
@simic0racle157
3 ай бұрын
21:01
@asimovvomisa4040
3 ай бұрын
Too bad most scarecrows are colorless or Morophon blink deck would be interesting.
@mdb45424
3 ай бұрын
You had to,
@rodneysmith873
3 ай бұрын
Changeling scarecrows is pretty good with reaper king especially the ones with champion
@mdb45424
3 ай бұрын
@@rodneysmith873 especially the trible spells
I feel like scarecrows not having reach by default like spiders is a crime
@PhoenicopterusR
3 ай бұрын
Menace and reach but only against birds.
@Clepto_and_Co
3 ай бұрын
@@PhoenicopterusR menace reach fear and protection from birds
@Ash2Flame116
3 ай бұрын
How about removing the benefits of flying. That way (if scarecrows weren’t trash) the opponent couldn’t just avoid them
@simonecosci565
3 ай бұрын
They should have protection from creature with flying
Scarecrows were never meant to be a commander or sealed deck. Commander didnt start to get popular until right after Shadowmoor with Shards of Alara.
@Havok91
3 ай бұрын
They're a fantastic and flavorful casual deck for Halloween
@ofox716
3 ай бұрын
"Failed" typically just means "no longer gets support" I don't like this guy because he forced MtG into the same mold he used for Yugioh. And did the same thing for each of his several channels.
@ItsMeBeeee
3 ай бұрын
@@ofox716it really is a content farm
@franslair2199
3 ай бұрын
@@ofox716it's a content farm. He doesn't know anything about Magic or cares about it at all (as evident by constant mispronounciations of names you would have heard said a trillion times if you were into magic), other people write scripts for magic videos for him and he reads them out loud.
@perfectblue2992
3 ай бұрын
@@franslair2199They dont exactly pretend to care, just seems weird to get mad about. To me, its just comfy background noise, and i get to know some magic. Feel free to recommend better channels if you want though.
9:48 There is one other colored scarecrow in magic. The Portal Three Kingdoms "Straw Soldier" is blue and had gotten an errata to be a "Scarecrow Soldier" instead of just a Soldier. It is also the only non artifact scarecrow.
@ZobmieRules
2 ай бұрын
Look at this guy with the DEEP TRIVIA
Whats with the lorwyn hate. Its my favorite set! It introduced so many cool inventive things. Not all of them were good, but it was uniformly enjoyable
@williamdrum9899
3 ай бұрын
Yes there are lots of things Lorwyn did well: * Changelings * Hybrid Mana * Swans of Bryn Argoll (just one of my favorite cards) * The basic land art
@mantidream8179
3 ай бұрын
Lorwyn was great, haters gonna hate
@jshtng78
3 ай бұрын
@@mantidream8179 Pointing out the mechanics that didn't work and stating that mechanical design was wonky in that Block is not hating. It's just being non-delusional.
@jonothanthrace1530
3 ай бұрын
Lorwyn definitely is the most interesting setting I've ever seen.
@gemadragon9310
3 ай бұрын
@@jshtng78 Scarecrows worked perfectly fine, theyre purposefully for Draft to fill out the deck
I've never seen Scarecrows before this video, but I love how creepy they are. It's sad to hear they've been abandoned. Goth girl needs her goth deck!
@KreuzDrache
3 ай бұрын
Considering we are having a set based on Lorwyn sometime in 2025 (As well as them being prime commander fodder with being artifact creatures), it is very likely.
@uglyaniimals
3 ай бұрын
agreed haha
Fun fact: Reaper King costs 10 mana, even though you can pay WUBRG to cast him, but if you have cards that reduce the cost of colored spells or artifact spells, you can only pay 3-4 for him. Also, if you have Vial Smasher out, you'll deal 10 damage to an opponent.
@michaelmarsh1723
3 ай бұрын
Hold on, I uh... now have to go find a way to abuse this, lmao
@doodlealchemist1257
3 ай бұрын
@@michaelmarsh1723 Visions of Ruin is a 4 mana card that forces your opponents to sacrifice artifacts while giving you 3 treasures and has flashback 2. Majestic Genesis is an 8 mana put the top ten cards onto the battlefield. Padeem, Consul of Innovaton lets you draw a card every upkeep since you'll most likely have the highest costing artifact. Traverse Eternity, One with the Machine, and Rush of Knowledge allows you to draw 10 for 4-5 mana.
@nanya524
3 ай бұрын
@@michaelmarsh1723 Helm of the Host and Blade of Selves are great for Reaper King as it gives you free shotgun effect every turn.
@Mysterium-zy6ri
3 ай бұрын
Duplicate the card foundry inspector a bunch of times and cast reaper king and 99% of scarecrows for free
Reaper king is the perfect encapsulation of a scarecrow. From a far he looks scary, like something that could kill you. But then you get close and realize it’s just a harmless scarecrow
Don't worry, now we have leyline of the guildpact to make all scarecrows all 5 colors.
@Goldy01
3 ай бұрын
And of course, the best scarecrow, Roaming Throne! 👍
I RAN reaper king as a commander for a year and just now learned he pumps scarecrows. Thats how irrelevant the ability is next to his god tier secondary ability. Reaper king ruined scarecrows for all of time because he’s so good that the tribe cant be good or reaper king would be unstoppable
@gmradio2436
3 ай бұрын
I blame Painter's Servant personally.
@Ryluth
3 ай бұрын
Sliver's exist, free the Reaper King.
@austinkeller5105
2 ай бұрын
There's no way you played for a year and didn't notice it dude
It doesn't make sense to fault cards for being designed for Limited and Draft and not Commander decks that wouldn't have existed until a decade later.
@PhoenicopterusR
3 ай бұрын
Yeah this seems less like failed mechanics and more like something not being supported because there wasn't consideration for it.
@livedandletdie
3 ай бұрын
Scarecrows as a tribe is a failure, no matter how you look at it, which is hilarious because Reaper King if it had any other tribe than scarecrow would've been one of the most broken cards in MTG History. People have a passioned hatred of Iona, but if Reaper King said Soldier, or Zombies or anything else which is easy to get billions of on board, it would've been insta banned.
@UMAtronic
3 ай бұрын
@@livedandletdie if it was humans or hell even just "creatures with no abilities" thatd be nuts.
@yuuumtheepic4118
3 ай бұрын
If scarecrows had stayed low-quality draft fodder, then they wouldn't have been a failed mechanic. But the moment Wizards printed 'tribal support' it becomes an archetype. Imagine being a new, casual player in Lorwyn, pulling a Scarecrow lord card and thinking "Damn, this looks cool! I wanna build around this rare I just pulled", only to find out every single support card is absolute fucking trash. That's why it's a failure
@TheMinskyTerrorist
3 ай бұрын
@@yuuumtheepic4118 Not really. It's exactly one card that you probably could build around in draft due to the amount of changelings. I'm talking about comments like "this is really bad in commander." Who cares about commander?
As a person who design cube and who has studied a lot the lorwyn blocks, it's not a mistake for an archetype to be just slightly present in the pool in limited. In Lorwyn and Shadwomoore they wanted you to create decks with mixes strategies, they had cards with either multiple colors or types, and the idea was to mix multiple themes and trybes in one. Scarecrows were colorless creatures that could fit in multiple strategies, the presence of a tribal element was just because a creative player who drafted those card could try and do something. It didn't need to be strong but expressive.
Scarecrows were a limited tribe meant to interact with the various mechanics of their sets: -1/-1 counters and color matters using hybrid mana costs to get extra colors in play for free.
@InterloperBob
3 ай бұрын
The one with persist as long as you have a black creature is great, especially since a few black creatures also have persist, so you can get multiple respawning creatures with it. And so few cards have persist, so it's worth it at 3 for 2/2.
@harperna3938
3 ай бұрын
Yeah, they were very clearly meant to be played alongside another larger Shadowmoor/Eventide tribe from Lorwyn block in the same way that the giants were in Lorwyn/Morningtide.
@yuuumtheepic4118
3 ай бұрын
@@harperna3938 Then, to qoute the video, why did wizard decide to randomly print a bunch of high rarity scarecrow tribal support? If scarecrows had stayed low-quality draft fodder, then they wouldn't have been a failed mechanic. But the moment Wizards printed 'tribal support' it becomes an archetype. Imagine being a new, casual player in Lorwyn, pulling a Scarecrow lord card and thinking "Damn, this looks cool! I wanna build around this rare I just pulled", only to find out every single support card is absolute fucking trash. That's why it's a failure
PRAYING for a new Reaper King commander for Lorwyn next year, Im so tired of my favorite tribe not being able to be play because of the only commander's power
@gmradio2436
3 ай бұрын
More scarecrows wou be fun. Maybe some tribal spells and a themed All is Dust. Hope I named the right spell.
@astuteanansi4935
3 ай бұрын
Why would you ever build scarecrows for any other reason than to abuse Reaper King? It's hard to even call them a tribe when don't really have any kind of theming to them, other than sucking. Even with the one commander that can actually abuse them, people mostly run changelings instead, which is saying something given that changelings are *also* a bunch of mostly inefficient creatures, yet somehow still better than scarecrows
@gmradio2436
3 ай бұрын
@@astuteanansi4935 What people want is new and more scarecrows. New cards to use, abuse, and have fun with. New creatures, instants, enchantments, maybe even some tribal lands. Actually some Tribal Lands could be fun. Have a tribal plains be Wheat Field or something like that. Pay 1, tap; the next Scarecrow you play this turn cost 3 less. Possibly lean into the horror angle Reaper King has. Possibly a retrain of Reaper King. We have what, 5 Niv-Mizzets? Scarecrows need support. I hope they get it.
Remember that things like Assemble the Legion, Avatar of Zendikar, Awakening Zone, work so well with Arcane Adaptation and Reaper King, that it's actually one of the easiest Commanders to build around.
5:23 wouldn't it be 25 triggers, not 24?
@zsewqaspider
3 ай бұрын
it would actually be 30, 6 reaper kings see 5 scarecrows etb
@parasocialanxiety4994
3 ай бұрын
@@zsewqaspider the original reaper king was already on the board so the copies dont see the original entering
@benikujaku4567
3 ай бұрын
No‚ it's 24. The original reaper king sees 5 copies enter the battlefield‚ while each of the 5 copies sees 4 other copies enter.
@haeilsey
3 ай бұрын
@@benikujaku45675*4+5 is very much 25
@benikujaku4567
3 ай бұрын
@@haeilsey You. Are absolutely right. Sorry for that.
The untap symbol make scarecrows great for infinites
I have a fun Reaper King deck on moxfield; "The Printer's Broken"... every changeling is a scarecrow you know!
Painter's servant was one that i always wanted to include. Pila pala also. I didn't know about Scaretiller. That sounds super useful for a landfall deck.
That Secret Lair was themed around 5 color legendary creatures. There hasn't been that many 5 legends that people played in Commander, something that was getting very popular when they started dropping the Secret Lairs. Honestly Scarecrows were never supported or even focused, having a single pay off doesn't really count as having support. Also Reaper King has gotten better with Changelings who've had a good support as well as new great blink effects, which people sleep on.
Okay but now I kinda want to make a Scarecrow tribal commander just to spite Wizards
@franslair2199
3 ай бұрын
There's a scarecrow tribal deck on moxfield that's pretty neat, you can find it by filtering by casual and by most likes
@WIBYTIEDH
3 ай бұрын
@@franslair2199 Oh yeah there's a few. The release of Leyline of the Guildpact is actually brilliant for that type of strategy as it makes all of your permanents all colours so the Skulkins and old Scarecrows count for themselves now
@stigmurder99
3 ай бұрын
I built it a few years ago, you need to run protection for Reaper King because the gets killed constantly. Still have it but doesn't work very often
@pug8714
3 ай бұрын
It works pretty well
@cameronbarnes1434
3 ай бұрын
I have a scarecrow commander. it's funny but slow because of the land base I had at the time
Small thing, but I think the term is "2-brid" (as in "two hybrid"), not "2-bid"
@pitmaster226
3 ай бұрын
Idk why it’s not called Bi-Brid but that’s just me from the Chan-draw party
Hmm, Helm of the Host and Reaper King. Might have to consider that toxic bit of fun when I want to be public enemy number one!
@gmradio2436
3 ай бұрын
Add Blade of Selves. Free tokens on attack.
Though considering there's going to be a new more modern horror plane visited in an upcoming set, I bet Scarecrows will be a supported type there.
*Laughs in Rukarumel, Biologist naming Scarecrow
Now look at you’ve done: I’m going to build a Reaper King deck. Edit: I have built the Reaper King deck. Fear me.
@XayedOnline
Ай бұрын
share with me your ways! im currently building the deck
pumpkinswift and the other scriptwriters for every other Logs channels deserve so much praise. Engaging scripts with hiruma's narrating style, it's a shame the channels are only mildly successful, albeit with a few viral bangers These kinds of videos do so much to get new players interested in a TCG
@spoton6010
3 ай бұрын
His videos are exactly what got me into MtG. I didn't understand any of what he was talking about before getting it, but he does a good enough job that it still kept my attention
Scarecrows were more supposed to be a support tribe for other decks in limited and standard, hence why most of them were colorless, common/uncommon cards in a block that had a "colors matters" aspect built in The whole "commander exist" appeared in 2012, later than Lorwyn
@PhoenicopterusR
3 ай бұрын
It probably wasn't a coincidence that scarecrows initially supported each other, though. Not for commander reasons, obviously, but for flavour. I mean, looking at the scarecrows included in shadowmoor and eventide makes it pretty obvious that most of them create a weird web of synergies.
Can we talk about how amazing the art on Scaretiller is though? It's a real shame such a great picture got wasted on such a bad card.
@chrismanuel9768
2 ай бұрын
Bad card? Fair costed artifact creature that grants land advantage on attack. By itself it's already a good card, it's not legendary so you can easily abuse it, and you can use it for fetch lands
By far one of my favorite videos you have made that I rewatch. Ever since I saw this I have been constructing the best Reaper King strategy I can think of
With Reaper King in play, you can set up a rolling exile/enters loop of Changeling Berserker, Changeling Hero, and Changeling Titan to machine gun every permanent controlled by your opponents. Changeling C enters, exiling Changeling B, which had already exiled Changeling A; this causes A to re-enter, triggering Reaper King and exiling C, which brings back B, then A, etc. It doesn't happen often at all, but it's a sight to see when it does.
Scarecrone has a my updated Necron deck just as another reanimation option. Still not super efficient, but probably better than in a lot of other decks
I love that channels like this exist so even though I haven't played/bought cards for Mtg since 2020 I can learn about all the new stuff.
At least their artworks go hard
Could you cover the atogs?
@Vinegarhusband
3 ай бұрын
Please cover the atogs
@WurmZ420
3 ай бұрын
Absolutely, talking about bad tribes fml
Well, there's a good scarecrow, but it's Arena only, Wickerwing Effigy, which allows you to cast creatures from the top of the deck, making them into 1/1 black bird in addition to its types. Its variant in paper might've been able to help the tribal edh decks a little bit, but alas, only scarecrow help players get is defenders with mana filtering.
I think a better idea for this tribe would have been something like the Stitched from poxnora, all scarecrows leave behind scarecrow remains, those remains can be used as a resource for destruction effects or to rebuild more scarecrows. And finally giving offense focused scarecrows the ability to deconstruct defeated enemies into more scarecrow remains.
I can't believe the flavor text of Reaper King reads "it's reapin' time"
I had the thought that maybe WotC could just print other legendary scarecrows for people to play as commanders, only to realize that since Reaper King is all five colours, any other potential commanders would just be relegated to the 99 of Reaper King decks. The only thing Wizards could do is make a legendary scarecrow that actively works against Reaper King, while also working with the other scarecrows, but it would still be unplayable without releasing more support for scarecrows, which would just empower Reaper King.
I have a Reaper King commander and haven't had any problems with making it work. I've even decided to add Preston the Vanisher, Mirror of Life Trapping and other blink spells to maximize the chaos.
Since scarecrows arent meant to flock together i think thematically its peak flavor that they make a bad tribal decktype 😂
I love playing my Reaper King Commander deck occasionally, but I think it would be a good idea to errata its effect to nonland permanents. Destroying Lands in commander is always seen as a "no fun allowed" move so I think making that an errata or house rule would be pretty alright. Also, Leyline of the Guildgates and Scion of Draco lead to some crazy shenanigans as well. XD
As someone whose first self built E.D.H. deck, back when it was still called Elder Dragon Highlander, was a Reaper King deck I'm always happy to see a new Scarecrow printed because the deck wasn't even half Scarecrow when I first built it. Somewhat heartwarming story time: I was at a Shadowmoor tournament and got a free Japanese print copy of Scarecrone from someone there because I was running a Scarecrow deck in the tourny and mentioned how I needed a fifth copy of the crone for my E.D.H. deck and my opponent just happened to have one and gave it to me for free because they really liked the idea of a Reaper King E.D.H. deck. The other half of the deck is a Group Hug deck because the harvest will be bountiful this year and not just for me. The Scarecrows are there to protect the fields and let everyone benefit from things. I rarely ever actually cast Reaper King himself in that deck and typically try and play for second place, being the, funnily enough, kingmaker at the table. Thanks for the video.
2-bid mana conceptually is cool, but if they wanted to do it again, could probably make it easier to parse via something like "This card is XYZ colors, this card costs 1 less mana for each [color] mana used to pay its cost" eg Reaper King would be "This card is all colors, this card costs 1 less mana for each different color mana used to pay its cost", this keeps the 10 CMC, and the 5 minimum, but reads much more cleanly
It's worth mentioning that Magic doesn't have decks in the same way that Yu-Gi-Oh does. Elves, for example, aren't restricted to a narrow selection of play paths like Eldlich or Skull Servant. Elf Typal can consist of playing a bunch of lords to buff your stats, a bunch of tokens to build a wide board, a combination of both, or even using topends that aren't Elves. Elves can also be used as ramp packages for other decks, even in other Typal decks entirely. So to the point of the video, there isn't a "scarecrow deck" that WotC prints support cards for like Konami does, that's just not how Magic works. There are way more cards that stand on their own instead of having effects that work with a very few highly specific cards. Edited to correct a typo
@FranciscoJG
3 ай бұрын
Yeah, YGO being turned completely into an archetype-centered game was one of the reasons that killed it to me.
@thatoneboi9245
3 ай бұрын
@@FranciscoJG So since before the GX sets?
Man I love Scarecrows. The first deck I owned was Scarecrows, it's what got me into Magic. I really hope they get some love in the future.
Im gonna say it. Reaper king *companion* Umori. Its all artifacts, deck puts out crazy boreds AND often has good interactions alot of the "bad" scarecrows actually find tons of love in the deck especially if there 2 mana or less. Filter scarecrows fix your mana and help you cast your commander. Its not about scarecrows inherently being bad its about your ability to play and weave ideas together.
I remember building Reaper King. EDH was just starting to pick up in our LGS, in late 2011. Even I knew the Scarecrow archetype was just horrible. I played a bunch of control to manage/win games. Natural Affinity, Dovescape, with elesh norn grand cenobite. My favorite was Rite of Replication kicked targeting, Reaper King. I might build it again since so many great cards have come out.
I just wanna say there are other creatures types, such as changelings, that can help support this deck. I had a friend who played a 5 color deck scarecrow king fakeout deck. The commander was a random 5 color creature, but the deck was pretty much just 5 color good stuff with heavy changeling and scarecrow tribal synergies. It was cool to see.
I've got a 60-card casual scarecrow deck and I'm able to fairly consistently get Reaper King out quickly by running a low number of lands, a lot of land search, card draw, and Fabricate. I also use Tribal Flames for more damage. It's by no means competitive and would lose in any tournament. But, it's a fun deck to play with friends.
Using the world tree with maskwood nexus in play, so I can grab all "gods" out of my library, and putting all those "scarecrows" right into play!
Kind of reminds me a mix of the Thralls and the Slivers. Thralls for generally how bad they were with a few exceptions and the "Group abilities" of Slivers that work in theory but almost never all get on the field to do good.
Scuttlemutt is a clutch support for my three-color Liege deck. I love getting little boosts of power by making a double-strike creature all colors and snagging the boosts from all my liege creatures. But like the video says, I was left mostly confused with how to use *any* of the scarecrows that I pulled back in Lorwyn, and they just sit in archives doing nothing.
As a big fan of the untap scarecrows (pili-pala and farmstead gleaner) I'm a little disappointed that farmstead gleaner didn't make an appearance. Really enjoyed the video. I'm hoping with Agatha's soul cauldron, pili-pala infinite mana will be more viable in constructed.
Reaper King can be played for 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, or 10 mana, depending on your mana base at time of casting. You get to choose the mode for each mana symbol, not all at once.
I will say, grim poppet has been in my hapatra deck forever, it’s very good in that. Sure, 7 is a lot of mana, but it lets each -1/-1 instance trigger twice, two snakes for each. If you have blowfly infestation? Put a -1/-1 on a snake, make a snake, it dies, move it to poppet, make a snake, infinite 1/1 death touch snakes. Necroskitter out and something without a -1/-1 is going to die? Instant speed steal the creature. My boy grim poppet is a legend
When I was brand new to magic, The Reaper King was one of the first cards I saw. Knowing nothing about the game and power levels, reading the card it seemed insane. There goes my illusion, though it would still be fun in a casual/janky deck table.
My ideas for "Fixing" Scarecrows: -Do the Hybrid Mana again so that Scarecrows can go into any deck but work best in their color identity. -Give Scarecrows access to Intimidate, which used to be Fear but is for every color. They can still be 2/2s or 3/3s for 4 or 5 mana (With the Hybrid), so they aren't broken but they aren't terrible either and it makes the Scarecrow tribal deck more fun. - Make them Myr counterparts for more lore accurate planes. This gives them way more design space.
So if the issue is that every scarcrow is ballanced aginst triggering reaper kings ability, why are slivers so stacked, when we have: Sliver Overlord, Sliver Queen, The first Sliver, Sliver Legion, Sliver hivelord, Sliver Gravemother, and Slivdrazi Monstrosity...
@Insanity5163
3 ай бұрын
Slivers actually have tribal synergy, scarecrows do not. Slivers buff every other sliver, scarecrows... self-sac if you're missing your colors and kind of interact with -1/-1 counters? It's not so much that each scarecrow is balanced around Reaper King, it's that Reaper King is an incredible tribal payoff for a tribe that doesn't work well together.
@simic0racle157
3 ай бұрын
@@Insanity5163 well yeah they have "synergy" almost every tribe member is a lord of some kind.
Scarecrows are my absolute favorite tribe. Their lore is so strange, especially how they were made by the Kithkin from the wood of dead treefolk.
Reaper King, Scarecrone, mana Echoes, Rattleblaze, Rhythm of the Wild Reaper King, Changeling Berserker, Changeling Hero, Changeling titan. Two infinite combos.
This video seems to have been made in an alternate universe where Lorwyn/shadowmoor wasn’t full of shapeshifters with the Changeling ability…
“You can target the same permanent multiple times” _Yeah fuck that mountain-specifically._
See this video is a perfect encapsulation of why my tribal Scarecrow EDH deck has exactly 4 scarecrows and 31 Planeswalkers. Because the only way to make tribal Scarecrow work is to have a wall of superfriends in front of it.
I had a reaper king deck back in the day, and I think you're forgetting all the colorful scarecrows known as changeling. Mirror entity was one of the best cards in the deck.
Might some of those -1/-1s scarecrows in my massacre girl known killer deck, might be neat
After watching this a strange thought visited my mind: the best way WotC can add tribal support without making multiple infinite combos is adding a simple line to cards. Something like "You can put this card in your deck (or sideboard) only if there are at least 15 X subtype creatures in your deck". Of course it shouldn't be exactly this number, neither exactly a subtype, or maybe it could say opposite, maybe something like "if there are at least 5 artifacts in your deck you can't play this card". I mean, they should add cards with a rule that restrict your deck building in exchange for power. I know, this may sound subtle, but at this point there are way too many cards to not make a game breaking combo without some restrictions for deckbuilding
I loved running the OG nissa with all the champ changlings and vidicating the board
I was pretty sure it was 25 triggers, and sure enough it is. original king is 5, and then you have five copies from Rite of Replication, each triggering 4. 4, 8, 12, 16, 20 and the original five triggers, 25 total. Minor oopsie, but this IS a game that was designed to teach math, lol. Richard Garfield would be sad
I remember making up a land that created scarecrows in the mid-90s, possibly inspired by Ice Age's Brushland.
Scarecrow was actually a meta in modern back then when merfolks and goblins were a thing but once merfolk got the infinite combo down and goblins got 3 turn kill in there belt scarecrow became to slow. But edh scarecrow was one of the original strongest archetypes ever made
Pumpkinswift, if you're seeing this, I'm so happy that dzeeff recruited you. Your writing is really clear, and it feels like you have a lot to say for every video. Like each script is something you spent a week ranting about to yourself. Your voice is terrible for videos like this, and I sympathize so hard with that. It's so frustrating when people dismiss my ideas because of adhd and stuttering, so seeing you be successful on here just makes me feel happy inside. I guess it gives me hope for myself.
I think magic the gathering should return scarecrow and power creep them while sticking to their flavor.
@autobotstarscream765
3 ай бұрын
Their flavor: Broose Loops.
I have a reaper king deck, it’s quirky and a lot of fun to play. It’s also a deck that wins out of nowhere and never looks threatening.
Painter's Servant is the ONLY scarecrow I've ever seen in 9 years of playing Commander. Edit: I forgot about Scaretiller, who's in the FacelessMenace deck I still play largely unchanged from when I bought it.
If they ever bring back scarecrows, i'd love to see them caring about colors again, just to get away from reaper king's shadow. Hybrid mana scarecrows, different keywords for colors, multiple colors to give one keyword, etc. Ex, 2G Rabid Crowhunter scarecrow dog 3/3 gains menace if you control a red or black creature, gets a +1 counter if you control both. Ex2, Crash Test Dummy 1/1 W scarecrow soldier, gains flying if you have a blue creature, gains "sacrifice: shock an opponent" if you have a red creature Ex3 2 colorless U/G hybrid, Coral Bed Captain scarecrow jellyfish pirate, (jellyfish being the beard), 2/4, if your opponent controls a white creature, it gains vigilance, black menace, red +2/+0. Obviously, these would have to be cycles, but anything would be cool.
Reaper King is easily one of the cards that is best used without the tribe. And do you guys know how to best use it... Arcane Adaptation, and cheap token generators, and if you don't use Reaper King as your commander in EDH, you can simply cast him when no one's prepared for it, and everyone wonders why you chose Scarecrow with Arcane Adaption until the realization hits them like a sledgehammer.
I tried a Reaper King commander deck once. It was flavorful in that the scarecrows really do their own thing until the Reaper King gives them a unified purpose. Unfortunately that just means you have a board of weird and weak creatures until you can get the king out
Yooo Scuttlemutt, hehehe. Scuttlemutt was part of an actual strategy I ran that involved changing the color of the opponents monsters since you don't have to target your own.
Thx for fueling my Reaper king edh deck
When I brought in a Reaper King commander deck to my lgs back when the card wasn't that popular and RoR combo wasn't well known, others thought I was just using him to have access to 5 colors. I cast a kicked RoR and you guys know the rest.
I wonder how a scarecrow "colors matter" deck would work if the scarecrows had prototype. They'd still be colorless but the alternative casting condition would let them become a color.
You can play a black Changeling instead of Reaper King to get the effects of the persisting Scarecrows.
If I was doing commander this thing would have to be involved. I didn't realize I found something hilariously more appealing than slivers. This is hilarious to me even if really difficult.
@chriswarner8906
3 ай бұрын
This is the right attitude. Mine is scarecrows, crummy changelings, scapeshift, and gates. It's not setting the world on fire, but it's fun, and it cost me almost nothing to build.
Rite of Replication targeting Reaper King and kicked? Destroy 25 targets you say? Looks like I found another addition to my ever strong Scarecrow EDH!!
@lachlank.8270
3 ай бұрын
+See Double +Doppleganging +Fable of the Mirror Breaker
Being a bunch of colorless creatures that interact with creatures that have colors, scarecrows were obviously meant to be played in combination with non-scarecrow creatures.
Every changeling, another mechanic from that era, is a scarecrow. Changelings are everything. Im pretty sure the general idea was to use them with changelings, although that won't fix much of anything.
Not every creature type hast to be a strong tribal deck. Back in the days, that was something that only a real big tribe could do, as the name intends. There we're a few good ones (Goblins, Elfs, ...), some pretty bad ones (clerics, wizards (as a tribe), ...) . Most creature types were just flavour. Scarecrows are cool and have sick art. You guys and girls are valuable for just being human. That is enough.
Reaper King is the champion of Changeling decks
Shapeshifters also works with reaper king.
Feels like they could have solved the issue by having the scarecrows have the split mana like reaper king does, include needing to have at least one other creature in play, to use their ability, since that's already the theme of the archetype. Them being mana split would automatically turn on their abilities.
I built a Reaper King commander deck, but there's very few actual scarecrows. It uses Shapeshifters, Maskwood Nexus/conspiracy and is more an artifact combo deck. It's fun and works without the King, but it can be oppressive. That being said, everything you say about scarecrows is true. They would be a little better and more used if a Painters Servant wasn't a billion dollars.
As some one who runs a Reaper King deck, Changeling tribal is great.
I had a magical Christmas wonderland moment with this card had reaper king and maskeood nexus out along with the world tree at like turn 6 or 7 and I have enough mana to pop the tree I do and yeah table scoops can't argue with that (for those that don't know world tree says search your deck for any # of gods and put them on the battlefield maskwood nexus says everything is every creature type so seach my deck for all creatures plop em down and that many reaper king triggers)
16:58 Scarecrone costs 3 mana because at the time "Draw a card" on a colorless effect had to cost at least 4. It still probably could have afforded to have better stats (2/2? 1/3?), and if printed now, it would probably have been a 3 mana 2/3. Similarly, the King himself was somewhat unique. I don't know if it's literally the first artifact with colored mana symbols in its mana cost, but Wizards wasn't in the business of printing colored artifacts until Alara block.
@jdonvance
3 ай бұрын
I realized I could check, and yeah Reaper King is the first colored artifact (and the first multicolored artifact, too).
You just described the problem with most new tribal decks. Or other tribes that MTG won’t help out.
I only owned a couple scarecrow cards but they all seemed quite decent in artifact creature decks
I’ve got an artifacts only scarecrow deck that kinda slaps. Discounting artifacts is great
I feel like the smaller ones having a ability like "Spend one mana of any color except colorless: This creature becomes that color until the start of your next turn" to at least make the non-kingly ones work decently.
Didnt it used to work that cards with abilities that trigger off of etb only trigger if they were already in play when a card etbs and not if it entered at the same time as other cards?