Rattlechains, Clues, and UW Planeswalkers

Reaganstorme

On the surface Rattlechains appears to be a fast accelerator beatdown creature for a Spirits themed deck:



EXCPET that Blue has few Spirits to benefit from the boost. Here's the current distribution of Spirits:

• White: 7 Spirit Creatures (1 Rare), 2 Creatures, 2 Spells, and 1 Support that put Spirit tokens into play.
• Blue: 4 Spirit Creatures, no other Spirit cards.
• Black: 3 Spirit Creatures, no other Spirit cards.
• Green: 1 Spirit Creature.

So as it seems that Blue-White Spirits, or Blue-Black Spirit/Zombies are the intended decks for Rattlechains, it appears destined to be relegated to mono-Blue decks as the designated Beatdown creature, or to Kiora decks where it can be found, cast, and boosted more easily.

Given all this, is it really worth building a deck around at the moment?

Corn_Noodles

Could be we're getting Tamiyo, Field Researcher (from Eldritch Moon). Tamiyo in paper is Green/White/Blue. I'd bet on Green/White or Blue/White unless they really want to give us a three color walker.

Morphis

Yes rattlechain is somehow valid in itself but would really shine with better spirits.
Not many are required for it to be very good since usually you do not run more than 4/5 creatures in a deck.

Probably a planeswalker can build a really nice spirit/support deck with:
- rattlechains
- tower Geist
- blessed spirits
- drogskol cavalry

Then fill will the best white and blue supports and spells.

Reaganstorme

Yeah, my Spirit deck would look something like this:

Creatures (4):
Tower Geist
Blessed Spirits
Drogskol Cavalry
Rattlechains

Spells (2):
Gone Missing
Descend upon the Sinful

Supports (4):
Tamiyo's Journal
Rogue's Passage
Ongoing Investigation
Sigil of the Empty Throne

Blessed Spirits + Investigate = Huge Spirit.
Sigil of the Empty Throne + Investigate = Huge Angel.
Rattlechains + Investigate = Find those other Spirits and get them out quick.
Slow Start? Blow up the board and put some angels out.
Enemy creature threat? Put it back in their deck and skip its death throes, pumping your Spirits/Angels in the process.

Swapping out Rogue's Passage for True-Faith Censer if needed to address RC, of course.

Alas, I don't have all the cards to immediately make this deck but hopefully I will by the time we receive Narset Transcendent, Venser the Sojourner, or another Planeswalker.

Barrelrolla

Let's just hope we see U/B or U/W soon, why not even both!

Morphis

As far as I know supports do not trigger throne nor spirits.
The only 3 interactions I found regarding clues "as support" are:
- they grant mana reduction to tyrant
- they drain mana when enter the field if oath of Jace is in play
- they count, in all iteration I tried so far, as "destroyed support".
Some examples are
• being brought back by seasons past
• spawning humans with ulvenwald in play.

Now that I think of it, is a matter worth including in my mechanic post(link in signature).

Reaganstorme

Clues count as supports in all of the Story missions requiring "Summon x Supports".

Clues also count as supports for Helm of the Gods.

I've used this mechanic to complete those story missions by tossing in Trail of Evidence into my Silverfur Partisan Kiora deck.

Not sure why they shouldn't count for Blessed Spirits or Throne. Don't have Throne, but I'll check Blessed Spirits later when I get home. If it doesn't work like that I'm quite disappointed.

Morphis

Reaganstorme wrote:

Clues count as supports in all of the Story missions requiring "Summon x Supports".

Clues also count as supports for Helm of the Gods.

I've used this mechanic to complete those story missions by tossing in Trail of Evidence into my Silverfur Partisan Kiora deck.

Not sure why they shouldn't count for Blessed Spirits or Throne. Don't have Throne, but I'll check Blessed Spirits later when I get home. If it doesn't work like that I'm quite disappointed.

I tested blessed spirit it does not work with clues.
Also throne has been reported to not work in the bug forum with clues either.

Thanks for the helm of gods.
Forgot that interaction(and tezz ultimate too came to mind) for my topic on mechanics

fox1342

Slayer's plate creates spirits when the creature dies.

I have a feeling the clue's aren't really supports, they're "special activate" gems, that you can't lose. And hence it's the usual template problems... sometimes they are sort of supports, and mostly they aren't.

Pqmtg-

Anyone sacrificed a point to see if they counted as supports during last event?

Morphis

Pqmtg- wrote:

Anyone sacrificed a point to see if they counted as supports during last event?

It has been proved that for story objectives clues are supports.
There is no reason why they should not work for event objectives.

Barrelrolla

Pqmtg- wrote:

Anyone sacrificed a point to see if they counted as supports during last event?

I used a deck filled with clues for the support node during the event and during my first fight, when it actually showed me how many I have I saw that 100% clues did count towards the objective.

Jazzpha

As someone who just recently built a kiora rattlechains deck, I can confirm that this card turned out to be much, much more powerful than I was originally expecting-- most all because of something that wasn't mentioned in the OP: Hexproof.

Rattlechains allows you to cast 6-cost spirits for free as soon as you draw them, and discounts duplicates of itself to 12, which is also awesome. But the real star of its effects is that not only does it offer a Hexproof aura to your whole board, but that the Hexproof remains persistent even if Rattlechains dies.

This gives it a strict advantage over Sphinx of the Final Word in every way; cost, stats and effect. I've shut down a plethora of decks-- including other Kioras and Koths-- just because they can't cast any spells.

So yes, while blue/white would give you a larger variety of more powerful spirits to use, blue/green allows for the cycle and ramp that still lets you put together a solid board quite quickly.

So yeah, I'd say it's a card worth building around, even now.

Morphis

I would try it for sure together with days undoing.
But I don't have him... And don't have days undoing

The hexproof still applied after its death is most likely a bug.
Good to know anyways.

fox1342

Morphis wrote:

I would try it for sure together with days undoing.
But I don't have him... And don't have days undoing

The hexproof still applied after its death is most likely a bug.
Good to know anyways.

I would guess not bug - difference between give and and gain. Gain is temporary (checked all the time) while effect is in play, eg disappears when source is disabled. Give is a one-off addition to the card, source no longer required. But with their random templating who knows what was intended.

Plastic

Morphis wrote:

As far as I know supports do not trigger throne nor spirits.
The only 3 interactions I found regarding clues "as support" are:
- they grant mana reduction to tyrant
- they drain mana when enter the field if oath of Jace is in play
- they count, in all iteration I tried so far, as "destroyed support".
Some examples are
• being brought back by seasons past
• spawning humans with ulvenwald in play.

Now that I think of it, is a matter worth including in my mechanic post(link in signature).

Clues trigger Oath of Chandra aslo.
Does NOT trigger Herald of the Pantheon (maybe because they aren't cast like the card requires)

SoberReality

Yeah Tamiyo would most likely be U/W between U/G/W since she's a merfolk and merfolks are always blue; i'm sure they're not going to be making another U/G since kiora.

I'm also waiting for eldritch moon for more blue spirits (as well as red werewolves since i pulled geier reach bandit and want some more werewolves for her) . I'm also hoping for some more zombies in blue, i feel like they can be a decent deck to build around.

Morphis

fox1342 wrote:

Morphis wrote:

I would try it for sure together with days undoing.
But I don't have him... And don't have days undoing

The hexproof still applied after its death is most likely a bug.
Good to know anyways.

I would guess not bug - difference between give and and gain. Gain is temporary (checked all the time) while effect is in play, eg disappears when source is disabled. Give is a one-off addition to the card, source no longer required. But with their random templating who knows what was intended.

It depends.
For me any effect that does not state when it happens, it's there until the source it's there.
If the wording was "when a spirit enters the field, it gains hexproof" or "when this spirit enters the field give hexproof to all spirits in play" then I would be ok with hexproof lasting even after rattlechain death.

With the current wording it is at the very least ambiguous.
It could still be intended to work this way nonetheless.
Only devs can clear the matter.

Plastic

Sigarda gives permanent hexproof and is worded the same, no?

Morphis

Plastic wrote:

Sigarda gives permanent hexproof and is worded the same, no?

Don't know it could be.
Does not change the fact the description does not seem to imply permanent hexproof.

In paper magic for istance zombie lord has "all other zombie get +1/+1.
If the zombie lord dies the other zombie lose the +1/+1.

Not discussing the effect of rattlechain just the fact that to me it seem to not to work in line with its description.
If Sigarda does the same(I have her and will test) the same can be said for her.

alextfish

Clues are meant to be supports in every way. (Just ones that spawn like activation gems, tick down like activation gems, and give you their ability whenever they die for any reason.) I expect the Investigate fail-to-trigger on Blessed Spirits is a bug. I was making great use of Tamiyo's Journal + Blightcaster during the "make 8 supports" objective in the Saheeli Rai event.

I've been trying Rattlechains a bit since I got it as a coalition prize. The problem is, 18 mana is really a lot for Jace. I imagine it'd be quite a bit better in Kiora simply because her ramp is so much better.
One trick I like is Forgotten Creation as a way to ditch a hand of junk and hope to draw several new spirits. If they're Stormrider Spirit then they get cast for free immediately.
It would be much better if we were able to use Drogskol Cavalry, though you'd have the same problem as with many creatures-that-make-creatures - you fill up the 3 creature slots very easily and quickly, making other creatures dead draws.

(Fortunately "fetching" a card with Talent of the Telepath does count as "drawing" it for Rattlechains, unlike similar paper-MtG effects which say "put that card into your hand" and don't count as "drawing a card".
...Edit: OK, looks like I was just wrong. I was probably getting confused with the 6 mana Talent gives the card instead.)