Vraska, Golgari Queen: Official Thread

Brigby

 Vraska, Golgari Queen 

(At Level 60)
+0  | +0  | +4  | +0  | +4  
106 HP
Creatures: 8 | Supports: 5 | Spells: 6

"On Ixalan, Vraska encountered Jace Beleren - the Living Guildpact and a Planeswalker himself, and discovered the doom that Nicol Bolas planned to unleash on Ravnica.

Vraska asked Jace to hold on to her memories of him and of Bolas's plans, resolving to live as a sleeper agent until the moment to return her memories, so she could retaliate against Nicol Bolas in defense of her home."

Abilities

Rise To The Occasion - Cost 9
Level 1 - Gain 4 life.
Level 2 - Gain 4 life. Then, lose 2 reinforcements and draw a card.
Level 3 - Then, lose a reinforcement and draw a card.
Level 4 - ...draw a card and gain 3 mana.

Capital Punishment - Cost 12
Level 1 - Undergrowth 4: Target creature gets -X/-X until end of turn.
Level 2 - Undergrowth 6: Target creature gets -X/-X.
Level 3 - Undergrowth 8: ... If your opponent doesn't control a creature, an opposing nonland support loses X shield.
Level 4 - Undergrowth 12:

Swarm of Assassins - Cost 18
Level 1 - Create a Golgari Assassins Token.
Level 2 - Create an Improved Golgari Assassins Token.
Level 3 - Cost changes to 15.
Level 4 - Cost changes to 12.

Tokens

Golgari Assassins
Regular - [4 Shield] At the end of your turn, if you control 1 or more creatures and if your opponent lost life this turn, reinforce this support and your opponent loses X life, where X is the number of reinforcements of this support.
Improved - [Indestructible] Can't be Destroyed or Exiled.

Kinesia

Hi Brigby, this seems to imply that getting her 1st to level 4 and her 2nd to level 3 might be an appropriate place to stop levelling... Usually there's some driver to get _most_ of the way to 60, definitely on the newer ones, but she seems positioned to end up like Bolas with many level 52 versions out there. Is that intended?

Brigby

Kinesia said:

Hi Brigby, this seems to imply that getting her 1st to level 4 and her 2nd to level 3 might be an appropriate place to stop levelling... Usually there's some driver to get _most_ of the way to 60, definitely on the newer ones, but she seems positioned to end up like Bolas with many level 52 versions out there. Is that intended?

Oops! Good catch. Seems I had missed the fact that her Swarm of Assassins ability's cost is decreased starting from level 3 and onwards. I've updated the post to reflect this.

Kinesia

Aha! Thank you.

Laeuftbeidir

What happens with her first when you don't have reinforcements?

And is her ult once indestructible an insta-killer, or is the indestructible implemented differently than an infinity shield counter?

Enygma6

Support Reinforcements are not the same as Shields on the support.  
There are already cards (only 3 that I know of) that specifically count Support Reinforcements: Powerstone Shard; Sage of Lat-Nam; and Zahid, Djinn of the Lamp.  They do not care how many shields any of your Supports have, only if they have been reinforced.  
And certain Supports cannot be reinforced, even though they have multiple shields: the Trials from AHK; Lich's Mastery; Hoarde (from Liliana, Death's Majesty).  
  
I expect Swarm of Assassins to be a steadily increasing source of damage every turn.  Getting it to Improved state just makes it harder for your opponent to get rid of in that they cannot simply match it away.  Also not sure how/if Vraska, Relic Seeker's first ability would work on it (could probably test that idea against Bolas the Ravager's indestructible support).

Laeuftbeidir

It doesn't work against the support, it's as easy as that.

You're right with the difference between the shields and the reinforcements, still it feels weird to think about the visual indicator of the number of reinforcements.

BigSwifty

I've been wanting to see another G/B walker out there, but I'm really not sure about this Vraska. Mana isn't bad but HP seem a little low. First ability is really wonky. I don't know, I'm not really sold. I'll wait until the crystal purchase option comes out I think rather than cash.

Grid88

Any other reviews on this? I'm thinking about buying It or not. Is She Better than relic seeker?

Grid88

How much Gold she will cost in your opinioni?

BigSwifty

695, like other dual; Just picked her up myself. Hope she is good!

madwren

Her first ability is detrimental as much as beneficial, her middle ability is situationally useful, and her ultimate is, well, ultimately slower than whatever creature you're using to actually beat opponents down with in the first place.

rafalele

madwren said:

Her first ability is detrimental as much as beneficial, her middle ability is situationally useful, and her ultimate is, well, ultimately slower than whatever creature you're using to actually beat opponents down with in the first place.

Completely agree to your analysis. Having Vraska 1 this new one is a lost of resources.

BigSwifty

Compare Vraska2's ultimate to Samut's Ultimate.....

Laeuftbeidir

.. Or most other ultimates.

Her first is outclassed by.. Let's just pick nissa 1 since it's the closest. The second is okay I guess, but not really good. The ult is just a joke though. Like, really. Without the requirements or if it also gave - x to the first enemy's creature it'd be interesting. But like it it? It might end one in ten games one turn faster.

I won't recommend anyone buying her.

I bought her for collection purposes and brought her to 55,by the way.

madwren

I bought her because I need more green-black deck slots for testing purposes, but I can't see playing her beyond that.

She'd be more interesting if her ultimate was simply an incremental clock; an Imminent Doom type effect would be dangerous but give you plenty of time to react to it, even if you couldn't destroy it.

Jain

So, at the From the Ashes Slack we had a discussion about Vraska 2 and probably everyone seems underwhelmed. I thought, whilst knowing better I'd post my idea on how to rework her to be interesting and not too OP. Laeuftbeidir suggested I'd do so, so thanks for motivating me to finally enter the forums after three years of playing. 

My Idea would be this: 

Enabling the graveyard:
1.1   cost 6 - Discard a card, draw a card
1.2   cost 6 - Discard a card, draw a card, gain 3 mana
1.3   cost 6 - Discard two cards, draw a card, gain 3 mana.
1.4   cost 6 - Discard two cards, draw two cards, gain 3 mana. 

Refurbishing and making relevant the token. 
2.1   cost 15 - Regular - [3 Shield] At the end of your turn, if you control 1 or more creatures and if your opponent lost life this turn, reinforce this support and your opponent loses X life, where X is the number of reinforcements of this support.
2.2   cost 12 - Regular - [4 Shield] 
2.3   cost 12 - Improved - [4 Shield] At the end of your turn, if you control 1 or more creatures and if your opponent lost life this turn, reinforce this support and your opponent loses X life, where X is the number of reinforcements of this support. [Indestructible] Can't be Destroyed or Exiled.
2.4   cost 9  - Improved 

Using the full graveyard in a board swing manner. But not that permanent and needs creatures to be relevant. 
3.1   cost 24 - Until end of turn each creature you control gains:  Undergrowth 6: Whenever this creature attacks, the first creature your opponent control gets -X/-X. 
3.2   cost 18 - Until end of turn each creature you control gains:  Undergrowth 6: Whenever this creature attacks, the first creature your opponent control gets -X/-X.  If there are no creatures, a support your opponent controls loses X shields
3.3   cost 18  - Until end of turn each creature you control gains:  Undergrowth 8: Whenever this creature attacks, the first creature your opponent control gets -X/-X. If there are no creatures, a support your opponent controls loses X shields
3.4   cost 18 - Until end of turn each creature you control gains:  Undergrowth 8: Whenever this creature attacks, the each creature your opponent controls gets -X/-X. If there are no creatures, a support your opponent controls loses X shields
 
Well, that's all the creativity I had concerning V2. Let me know What you think. 

Cheers!

rafalele

I think they are not going to fix her, as it has not been Chandra 2.

arNero

Agreed that this Vraska is pretty much a failure.

Her 1st ability pretty much forces you to spam tokens as it's the best way not to cripple yourself just to get a few measly mana, but yet her second ability forces you to run creatures (or, you know, Gather the Pack). And her Ultimate is just too slow, and way too conditional to trigger.

Compared to Vraska 1, she has barely any innate board control measure (which is, as mentioned, too dependent on Gather the Pack), and her Ultimate just isn't worth it.

Sad; I've been trying to make her work, but really, the only thing she has going is her color combination and nothing else.... Basically playing her in events with all their objectives and whatnots hasn't been favorable for her.

Stormcrow

Yeah, I was initially optimistic that I could find some fun way to make her work (her 1st ability seemed perfect for some Oathsworn Vampire shenanigans) but the best I can say about her is that I've made some fun black/green decks that can win without ever needing to use any PW abilities.

Her 1st ability is garbage without token spam or the previously-mentioned Oathsworn Vampire. Her second ability is...okay, I guess, but just in general I find that the creature-stuffed decks that make Undergrowth effective are too severely hampered by the 3-creature-limit. And her 3rd ability is just absolutely, absolutely underwhelming as an ultimate, to say nothing of the fact that it has no synergy with her other abilities which do basically nothing to help you put or keep creatures on the board. Maybe someday, if there's some card that cares about how many support reinforcements you've got on the board, her 3rd ability could matter, but unless you're in a really close damage race it just doesn't. And in black/green you should really never be in that close a race.

Wolfteeth

Very disappointing, I hope they fix her soon along with the other slew of planeswalkers that need some help. (Chandra 2, Castaway Jace, Garruk, Hualti 1, Liliiana 4)