Sarkhan the mad

ShawnP1

So Sarkhan the mad is an interesting choice for a new planeswalker I wonder what his abilities will be. His paper abilities where very different to say the least.

khurram

ShawnP1 wrote:

So Sarkhan the mad is an interesting choice for a new planeswalker I wonder what his abilities will be. His paper abilities where very different to say the least.

Card draws
Dragon tokens
Buffing of the summoned dragons

BigMao

The third ability works not only on the dragons summoned using the ability, but at least one other kind of dragon.

I confirmed that the colorless Dragons from Dragonmaster's Outcast also deal direct damage to the opponent when the ability is used.

EDHdad

He seems to be an odd choice, since there was only one Dragon in Origins, one Dragon in Battle for Zendikar, one Dragon in Oath of the Gatewatch, zero Dragons in Shadows over Innistrad. It's likely that there will be zero dragons in Eldritch Moon, and few if any dragons in Kaladesh.

It would appear that he's mostly being used for his color identity of red-black. He's the only red-black planeswalker in Magic, not counting Nicol Bolas Planeswalker, who is blue-red-black.

In paper, Sarkhan's second ability can be used offensively or defensively. "Target creature's controller sacrifices it, then that player puts a 5/5 red Dragon creature token with flying onto the battlefield.". It would be interesting if that was the case here. The three abilities would mirror Ob Nixilis' 3 abilities (draw cards, destroy a creature, deal a **** ton of damage to the opponent). If that were the case, Ob Nixilis would probably be preferable except for the ability to play black and red at the same time.

BigMao

Yes, I admit I purchased the card not for the abilities, but rather to think about the possible red/black combinations. So far I haven't come up with anything amazing, but someone smarter than me might.

EDHdad

The first thing that comes to mind is to use red cards like Turn Against and Act of Treason to gain control of your opponent's creatures, and black spells like Vampiric Rites and Altar's Reap to sacrifice them for value.

shteev

Yeah, tricky to see how a good Sarkhan deck will turn out. Red doesn't really DO anything at the moment except beat down with efficient creatures and play burn spells, and burn spells aren't as good as destroy spells, are they? Would anyone play Exquisite Firecraft if they had the chance to play Unholy Hunger instead?

span_argoman

Only thing I can think of at the moment is to use Black creature removal and graveyard return to keep your Red creatures on the board. Both colours have weak supports so it's mainly spells and creatures imo.

Say something like:
Iroas's Champion
Embermaw Hellion
Avaricious Dragon
Zada, Hedron Grinder
Ruinous Path
Unholy Hunger
Dark Petition
Fiery Bloodlust
Sure Strike
Smouldering Marsh (or whatever you have/like)

So the idea is Avaricious Dragon works with Sarkhan's third ability. Zada can boost Dragon power, so its ability gets an additional 24 damage per spell. The rest are just expensive creatures which are good (and worthwhile to Dark Petition), creature removal and spells for Zada fuel.

Thoughts?

*edit*
Almost forgot, depending on the order of triggering, Embermaw may also contribute to third ability damage.

johnnyde76

This PW is definitely worth it, with the caveat that having Avaricious Dragon and Dragonmaster Outcast help out a ton. Throw in removal and some gem destruction and he's now my favorite PW.

I'm just hoping for more Dragons the next expansion set.

Barrelrolla

johnnyde76 wrote:

I'm just hoping for more Dragons the next expansion set.

You can just check Oath of the Gatewatch card list, which came out almost six months ago. They take the cards from paper magic and make a Puzzle Quest equivalent. Take a look and see how many dragons are there. Spoiler: Not much. It's very Eldrazi focused.
Not a lot of dragons are coming in the near future. Use Avarious Dragon and hia secind skill to get dragons.

zaann85

shteev wrote:

Yeah, tricky to see how a good Sarkhan deck will turn out. Red doesn't really DO anything at the moment except beat down with efficient creatures and play burn spells, and burn spells aren't as good as destroy spells, are they? Would anyone play Exquisite Firecraft if they had the chance to play Unholy Hunger instead?

I would play both. But Firecraft can also deal 6 to the dome. You can't tell me you never had a game come down to you winning or losing by 6 points where the burn would have mattered. Also there are times where there dude is bigger than 6 toughness, so both are valuable spells.

BigMao

I wish I had Exquisite Firecraft, but at least for now I don't have to make this difficult decision.

shteev

zaann85 wrote:

shteev wrote:

Yeah, tricky to see how a good Sarkhan deck will turn out. Red doesn't really DO anything at the moment except beat down with efficient creatures and play burn spells, and burn spells aren't as good as destroy spells, are they? Would anyone play Exquisite Firecraft if they had the chance to play Unholy Hunger instead?

I would play both. But Firecraft can also deal 6 to the dome. You can't tell me you never had a game come down to you winning or losing by 6 points where the burn would have mattered.

D'you know what? I think I probably can tell you that. It's never happened with my current 200-300 game run with Liliana... It never happened with my previous run of 200-300 games with Gideon.... It never happened with the 1,000 or so games I played as Jace.

6 points of burn is nothing when your opponent starts on 100 life.

madwren

shteev wrote:

zaann85 wrote:

shteev wrote:

Yeah, tricky to see how a good Sarkhan deck will turn out. Red doesn't really DO anything at the moment except beat down with efficient creatures and play burn spells, and burn spells aren't as good as destroy spells, are they? Would anyone play Exquisite Firecraft if they had the chance to play Unholy Hunger instead?

I would play both. But Firecraft can also deal 6 to the dome. You can't tell me you never had a game come down to you winning or losing by 6 points where the burn would have mattered.

D'you know what? I think I probably can tell you that. It's never happened with my current 200-300 game run with Liliana... It never happened with my previous run of 200-300 games with Gideon.... It never happened with the 1,000 or so games I played as Jace.

6 points of burn is nothing when your opponent starts on 100 life.

Though if you cast it multiple times, then, say, 18 points of burn might be very relevant indeed.

span_argoman

madwren wrote:

shteev wrote:

zaann85 wrote:

shteev wrote:

Yeah, tricky to see how a good Sarkhan deck will turn out. Red doesn't really DO anything at the moment except beat down with efficient creatures and play burn spells, and burn spells aren't as good as destroy spells, are they? Would anyone play Exquisite Firecraft if they had the chance to play Unholy Hunger instead?

I would play both. But Firecraft can also deal 6 to the dome. You can't tell me you never had a game come down to you winning or losing by 6 points where the burn would have mattered.

D'you know what? I think I probably can tell you that. It's never happened with my current 200-300 game run with Liliana... It never happened with my previous run of 200-300 games with Gideon.... It never happened with the 1,000 or so games I played as Jace.

6 points of burn is nothing when your opponent starts on 100 life.

Though if you cast it multiple times, then, say, 18 points of burn might be very relevant indeed.

Shteev, of my 1,500+ games with Chandra on QB, I can say that the times where I needed strictly Exquisite Firecraft dealing 6 damage to close out the game were limited. Maybe less than 30 games by my estimate. But that is cause Chandra also has Flameshot and Fireball for more direct damage.

However, if you count the number of games which Exquisite Firecraft played a role in ending a round earlier, then that is too numerous to count. And we know speed is of great importance for QB. And I'm not just talking about dealing 6 damage to the opponent. Firecraft can clear away defenders so your creatures are free to deal more damage that than directly to the planeswalker. Or clearing away the opponent creature so my 8/8 buffed Iroas's Champion can deal 16 damage to the opponent instead. Firecraft is more than 'just 6 damage'.

khurram

span_argoman wrote:

However, if you count the number of games which Exquisite Firecraft played a role in ending a round earlier, then that is too numerous to count. And we know speed is of great importance for QB. And I'm not just talking about dealing 6 damage to the opponent. Firecraft can clear away defenders so your creatures are free to deal more damage that than directly to the planeswalker. Or clearing away the opponent creature so my 8/8 buffed Iroas's Champion can deal 16 damage to the opponent instead. Firecraft is more than 'just 6 damage'.

Agreed. Most of the creatures are 6 or less toughness. It destroys all of them for a cost of 6 mana. And it has been veryuseful in ending the matches several rounds earlie by clearing away the path for my berserkers so many times.