Cards that rarely/never see play

shteev

Shambling Ghoul - 6 mana 2/2. No, just no.

I disagree actually. I think it's okay to have some common cards that are flat-out worse than rare ones, and this also happens in paper Magic a lot. If the rare cards weren't objectively better, it could be less satisfying to get them in packs.

One example is Orchard Spirit vs. Honored Hierarch. The latter has several abilities that make it far superior to the former, but as a rare card it takes a while to get. I certainly didn't mind running Orchard Spirit for my first few days playing MTGPQ, and finally getting Honored Hierarch (in a free booster!) was very satisfying.

I agree. This is exactly the kind of 'bad' card that should exist. It's power to cost ratio is low, sure, and you'll never play it as soon as you have 10 decent rares and uncommons to put in your deck, but it's existence doesn't offend me in the way that, say, Zulaport Cutthroat does... or even Giant Mantis, to be honest.

nexus13

Skaab Goliath is awful. You could take the drawback off and it would still only be mediocre to good for a mythic. This card really needs to be changed, there is currently no utility for this card which is all on the developers here because it is very strangely translated from the paper version. I really feel cheated that I received this as a mythic.

Plastic

nexus13 wrote:

Skaab Goliath is awful. You could take the drawback off and it would still only be mediocre to good for a mythic. This card really needs to be changed, there is currently no utility for this card which is all on the developers here because it is very strangely translated from the paper version. I really feel cheated that I received this as a mythic.

I never looked at the paper card until just now. So, since we don't have a graveyard, I feel like the version for PQ should require the player to discard two cards from hand. Two creatures, any two.. whatever. But having to dump mana into creatures and then sac them is too much.

alextfish

First let me say thank you once again to Hibernum for participating in this thread and threads like it. We may be critical of the design choices of certain cards, but that's only because we enjoy the game and keep finding ourselves drawn back to playing it despite its frustrations. Thank you for being active in the community!

To SkywalterDBZ: 6 mana for a 2/2 is completely standard. Every colour gets it. It's the baseline stats, like in paper Magic a 2/2 costs {1}{W}, {1}{G}, or {1}{B}. And yes, most people don't play Glory Seeker or Runeclaw Bear, but the cards exist as a useful baseline.

Cards like Nantuko Husk and Skaab Goliath should best be played alongside creatures that make tokens. Revenant, Priest of the Blood Rite, Eldrazi Skyspawner, that kind of thing. Cards that can fill up 2 of your creature slots with 1 card. That said, Nantuko Husk is still very bad. In paper Magic its role is to allow you to sac lots of tokens or cheap creatures - but "lots of tokens" in MTGPQ becomes "one big-ish creature". I wonder if Husk could pump itself equal to the toughness of the creature that died?

I utterly agree on Zulaport Cutthroat though. Yesterday I was just trying to build a black lifegain deck (for one of the story objectives). I considered Zulaport Cutthroat, before I realised that it's rather less effective than a 2/2 lifelink, and a 2/2 lifelink would have to cost somewhere between 4 (Enlightened Ascetic) and 11 (War Oracle). Costing 18 mana is just absurd for a 2/2 that'll maybe gain you 1 or 2 life before it dies.

madwren

The other colors are notably overpriced compared to the white allies. Black in particular bugs me. There's no reason that Drana's Emissary should be more than Noyan Dar, that Cutthroat should be 18 and Entanglers 9, that Kalastria Healer is 13 and only a 1/2, etc.

Putting together a white ally deck is fun. Putting together one with the other colors is an exercise in futility.

VladG0015

I wish this guy was related to his paper copy and have "when this creature dies you and your opponent draw a card."

The ability is fairly simple, non-spamable and would make him quite playable.

If he had it I'd put him in my Ob Nix's deck

BigMao

I think this discussion is at risk of getting a bit sidetracked. To be more specific, I think the cards we should discuss are those that are not useful in any conceivable situation.

Runed Servitor and Orchard Spirit are useful for beginning players, because that's often their best option. The existence of the cost 6, 2/2 creatures serves as a useful baseline from which a player could upgrade. In fact, I think every color except Blue has a 2/2 creature with no special abilities, and there are cards that are a major upgrade (for example, Honored Hierarch or Serene Steward). I could even argue that the existence of the baseline creatures makes the upgrade more satisfying - after all, the concept of an upgrade is relative.

However, there are several cards, such as Complete Disregard, that are almost completely useless because they are overpowered by another card that fits all of these three criteria:

a) The other card an equal or superior effect
b) The other card the same color or a more general color (i.e. colorless is more general than red)
c) The other card is equally common or more common (i.e. uncommon is more common than rare)

In this case, the cards that are superior to Complete Disregard are Reave Soul and Scour from Existence.

Reave Soul has an identical effect except for the Ingest 1, but it costs 3 instead of 12 which makes it much more useful.
Scour from Existence is colorless and thus is more general, it destroys any creature (not limited to power <= 3), plus it Ingests more gems (which I presume to be a positive effect, seeing that it always costs extra).
Grip of Desolation costs 1 less and is also not limited to power <= 3, but it is uncommon and thus harder to get, so I don't think it qualifies.
Spells such as Unholy Hunger and Ruinous Path are far superior, but they are rare so not many players have them (I'm still waiting on when I get Ruinous Path).

I think that narrowing down the list to fewer possibilities increases the chance that the developers could reconsider their design choices and make some changes. This means we shouldn't list cards that just aren't useful to us - they have to be useless to almost anyone. Even so, I think there are many cards that could lead to helpful discussions.