Pattern Recognition #19 - Modern Master
Features Opinion Pattern Recognition
berryjon
2 March 2017
3265 views
2 March 2017
3265 views
Hello everyone, and welcome back to Pattern Recognition! I am berryjon, resident Old Fogey and general regailer of tales both true and false (I'll let you decide which is which).
Today is another subject of my choosing. No, not because you guys haven't come up with neat ideas, but rather because I want to.
And because I'm still in the process of moving and guess who hasn't had a desk for a week and a half? I'll give you three guesses, and the first two don't count.
Anyway, with Modern Masters 3: Electric Modern, Master Harder on the horizon, my thoughts turned back to the one card that I am sure will be reprinted in that set. Again. Because it's really too powerful to even get back into Standard. So powerful, in fact, it was printed as a mistake - one that Wizards couldn't really couldn't undo because by the time they realized what had happened, it was too late.
No, it's not Snapcaster Mage. He's a pansy and a gimmick. No, I'm talking about a card that literally redefined an entire deck type, saving it from the abyss.
I'm talking about Tarmogoyf.
Now, before I get around to actually talking about it, let's roll back the clock and bit and see where it came from. You see, the Tarmogoyf is the last instance of a creature type that draws its name from the first instance of that creature type, and there are so very few of those remaining after several Great Creature Updates. The only other one I can think of is Atog, but I could be missing something.
So, let's start with the good old Lhurgoyf itself. This summon Creature also has perhaps one of the most iconic pieces of flavor text in the game, giving rise to Saffi Eriksdotter and "Ach! Hans, Run!". Still no sign of Hans himself though. The Lhurgoyf was a curious thing, as it was a mono-green card that cared about cards in the graveyard.
Back then, even now, it's more Black's thing to worry about the graveyard. White got into it as well for the purposes of recursion, and Greed dabbled too, but for the most part, once a card hit the graveyard, that was it, you're not seeing it again. Yes, that was actually a thing. Before Dredge. Before Exile was the new graveyard, and even the Eldrazi made a mess of that.
So seeing a card that actively cared not only about your graveyard, but the 'yards of all players? That was something new.
Now, the Lhurgoyf works by counting all the creatures in all the graveyards. That's it's power. Add one, and that's its toughness. You may stop rolling your eyes now, I know you read the card already. I just wanted to remind you, because as you'll see, this makes this creature actually in the minority when compared to the others with the same creature type. Now, you would be thinking that that is painfully obvious. Except it's not. You see, back in Ice Age and 5th Edition, Green didn't really have any methods of getting creatures into the graveyard - except through combat.
The Lhurgoyf was seen, and developed as a mid-to-late game option for Green decks to pull out a huge creature to go where all the others have died to to swinging and blocking. Of course, this assumed that your opponent wouldn't simply cast Counterspell, Terror, Swords to Plowshares, or Fireball and kill it first, but such was the way of Green Stompy decks.
Alas, Lhurgoyf faded away in the face of more interesting creatures and better ones too.
But all was not lost! When the Odyssey block rolled around, it was decided to take a trip back and re-examine some older cards, and the Lhurgoyf was one of those chosen. Given that the set included a 'Graveyard matters' theme to it with the inclusion of the Threshold mechanic, Flashback and others, it was only natural that a creature who looked at the Graveyard would get a comeback!
Well, it wasn't reprinted. Instead, we got a new cycle of rare 'Goyfs. In colour order, they are the Cantivore, the Cognivore, the Mortivore, the Magnivore and the Terravore. Now, these five are wildly inconsistent about what they can do and how much they are costed, but I'll try to find themes anyways.
The Cantivore and Terravore are at the lower end of the spectrum. White's contribution to the cause counts enchantments, which were ... well, let's just say that this card deserved its lower cost because there wasn't a whole lot of enchantment removal in the set, and I honestly suspect the whole thing was a case of someone in R&D going "So, uh, what card type does White care about that we haven't already used?" and that was that.
Terravore on the other hand, was a case of Green not really being into land destruction. Not to say that it can't. I mean, Creeping Mold exists, but it's just that Red has always been the go-to colour for blowing up lands. Which meant that Terravore had to be under-costed just to get it to fit into multi-coloured decks.
Moving on, the Mortivore and the Magnivore both are what I like to think of as 'standard' for the type in terms of casting cost. Now, the Mortivore has the same check that the Lhurgoyf does, and so while you may think that that, plus the ": Regenerate Mortivore" would put it in the realm of 'Strictly better', you see there is one thing about this cycle that I haven't talked about yet.
The base toughness is zero. Not one. You can't play the card with none of the relevant cards in the graveyard and get a 0/1 in play. You would get a 0/0, which promptly goes into the graveyard as a state-based effect. This is why I said that Lhurgoyf was in the minority. It will still be alive when Mortivore goes down.
Lastly, Cognivore.
sigh
Who thought a casting cost of was any good? Well, I suppose in hindsight, having a hard-evasion ability, plus counting off the one card type that gets the most of might be considered a bit over powered. Of course, it's not like Blue has a history of getting ridiculously overpowered creatures at equally inflated prices.
Note to self: Do groundwork for an article about Leviathan and its successors.
OK, so Cognivore works as a finisher in a control deck. I'll give it that. But in general, the experiment failed. Of this cycle, the Mortivore was the only one that saw a reprint. Well, a couple actually, in core sets. Even the 'gimmick' of giving each of them an ability associated with the colour didn't help any.
And finally, we come to the Time Spiral block. Take a drink.
Detritivore, at first glance, looks like a poor mans's Terravore. It has a higher casting cost, a worse ability in that in only counts non-basic lands and only counts opponents graveyards, so you can't seed it ahead of time with a couple of your own lands.
But, much like how I talked about certain cards being priced to effectively work with alternate casting costs, such as Force of Will, the real power behind Detritivore is its Suspend ability. As time has gone on, fewer and fewer decks are running basic lands - especially when every multicoloured deck ever exists - which means that the card is something of a diamond in the rough.
Unless you're one of those people who read the Gather comments and have people synergizing this guy with Jhoira of the Ghitu for efficient demolition of lands in the Commander format. Which is a format that really likes their non-basic lands for some strange reason.
But it's that time. The time you've all been waiting for.
Story time first. Now, this is me recalling something from years ago, and I may be wrong. If I am, I'm certain someone in the audience will correct me. And if I'm not, I'll be entertaining.
You see, Tarmogoyf was printed by accident. No, not the kind of accident where you go "hey, where did this card come from?" type. Rather, as the time to actually start printing the cards for Future Sight came near, Wizards was having a problem. You see, they wanted to print Garruk Wildspeaker in Future Sight, one of many previews of the Lorwyn/Shadowmoor block coming out the next year.
Except that they hadn't yet nailed down all the mechanics and how Planeswalkers were supposed to work yet. They were introducing a totally new card type into the game, and they wanted it to work as perfectly as possible. And as the deadline came closer, Wizards realized that Garruk wouldn't be ready in time, so they had to go with 'Plan B'.
'Plan B' being the standby of "Oh, this card can't work out, which one did we cut out due to space reasons that we can put into its place?". And they looked through the list of cards that got cut at the last minute, and saw Tarmogoyf in the file. So why not? They had art they could use, slap that gorgeous Future Sight frame onto it, and put it on the sheet! And because it cared about card types, they could still slip in their Planeswalker reference and be done with it! (And a side reference to the Tribal card type, which also appeared on Bound in Silence in the same set.)
Except someone made a mistake. When putting the card together, they apparently had to do so from memory, and the person who did so went to double check if the casting cost was mentioned at any point in the recorded discussions. Apparently, they saw "GG" at the end of the internal discussion about the card, and due to the time crunch, saw that as . And to compound the mistake, when the card went to the printers, it was given the casting cost we see today - .
Problem 1: All other creatures of this type have a casting cost that includes a double-dose of whatever colour they are. or . You get the idea. This card is under-costed compared to every other one out there.
Problem 2: Let me give you a "Golden play" example, just using cards from the Time Spiral Block:
Turn 1: Play a Forest, and cast Magus of the Vineyard. Cycle Edge of Autumn, sacrificing the tapped forest. You now have a Sorcery and a Land in the Graveyard.
Turn 2: Play another Forest, and with the , play Llanowar Augur and Tarmogoyf. Cast Claws of Gix.
Turn 3: Sacrifice the Llanowar Augur during your upkeep, targeting the Tarmogoyf. Activate Claws of Gix targeting itself, gaining you 1 life, then cast Might of Old Krosa during your main phase, targeting the Tarmogoyf. Swing with a 12/13 TRAMPLE creature. 0/1 at base. +5/+5 for having an Artifact, Creature, Instant, Sorcery and Land in the Graveyard. +3/+3 and Trample from the Augur, then +4/+4 from casting Might of Old Krosa during your main phase.
You see, this mistake caused a massive change in deck types. It singlehandedly brought back mono-Green Aggro. It warped the format to a limited extent. And while the format that became Modern could handle it just fine, Standard had to deal with the fact that a nearly-dead archetype was resurrected, and there were so few ways to take it on. It wasn't Ban worthy, but it was enough that Wizards has put that card on the 'Never to be printed in a standard set' list.
So, that's the sordid story of Tarmogoyf. An excellent card destined for mediocrity made extremely powerful by a simple mistake. Alas, we haven's seen any of these cards in a regular set since 10th Edition, but that's alright. There's enough happening with the graveyard now that forcing people to count out cards in theirs could be quite tiresome.
I'll see you all next time, when I talk about ... something. I'll think of something, don't you worry! Until then, I'm selling out! Or is that tapping out?
JonathanSamurai says... #2
Best 2 drop in the game creature wise. Too much for its mana cost. Green is supposed to be efficient but this is unfair.
March 2, 2017 1:21 p.m.
JerichoDarkstar: I did not know that it was being spoiled today. The only possibility I can think of is that I linked the article off-site, someone at Wizards reads my stuff, and bumped the 'Goyf up to being revealed today to match.
Either that, or blank coincidence. ;)
JonathanSamurai: As I said, this card redefined the Standard of the time, and the ramifications of that are still being felt.
March 2, 2017 2:18 p.m.
Harashiohorn says... #4
I remember one article from WOTC at some point talked about how Tarmogoyf should have been a blue card flavor and mechanic wise, now that would have been entertaining.
March 2, 2017 2:54 p.m.
jandrobard says... #5
Poor neglected Odyssey 'goyfs. They're not unusable, they're just inefficient and warp the deck's playstyle around them too much.
March 2, 2017 6:02 p.m.
AngryKitten says... #7
Funny how when Wizards makes a mistake it produces OP cards rather than the other way around. (By mistake I mean someone changing stuff on accident.)
March 3, 2017 2:40 p.m.
Better to err high and limit the damage through lack of reprints than to err low and upset the playerbase with a bad card.
March 3, 2017 5:17 p.m.
MerciMerci says... #9
I believe them reprinting Fiery Temper was a mistake. I don't know where I heard that, though.
March 7, 2017 9:48 a.m.
Harashiohorn says... #10
well considering it is a card in standard that reads deal three damage to target creature or player, that seems pretty believable.
March 7, 2017 4:52 p.m.
Tarmogoyf is wayyy overrated and over priced! Compared to other cards just as / almost as / more powerful than it, I wouldn't value it more than $20-$25, paying more than that is a complete ripoff. To each their own tho.
March 8, 2017 8:49 a.m.
krackhour, if you can tell me another creature that can grow to a 8/9 while costing just 1G, I would be delighted to know.
"Compared to other cards just as / almost as / more powerful than it" - there are literally no cards even close to it terms of power.
March 8, 2017 9:01 a.m.
It can grow to much more than that for sure, just like any other creature (pumped, enchanted or affected by any other spell), but that is not guaranteed. It's a /1+ not an 8/9 for 1G.
March 8, 2017 9:08 a.m.
Talara's Battalion, Vexing Devil, Greenwheel Liberator - just to name a few off the top - all of which are a fraction of the cost. I'm speaking in terms of value / price compared to abilities / power / toughness... Like I said to each their own!
March 8, 2017 9:13 a.m.
The Cantivore wouldn't be terrible in a Daxos the Returned commander deck.
March 8, 2017 9:31 a.m.
I don't quite know how to formulate this correctly but how about an article on how Wizards seems to favour some colours in some sets?
For example, if you play in the current Standard there are so many cards you can choose from to make a solid deck.
Playing during KTK also gave you a wealth of great cards to choose from.
March 8, 2017 9:31 a.m.
Cantivore is a great example! It's a ~.50 cent card with similar potential, but different colour and costs 1 more to cast - definitely factors to consider. Ever notice WoTC doesn't reprint cards that are known to be OP'd?? Well, they reprinted Tarmogoyf. My prediction is that Tarmogoyf's value will decrease significantly sooner err later, especially since creatures these days just keep getting more powerful. Don't get me wrong Tarmogoyf is a great card, I'm not saying it isn't. It's just definitely over priced and overrated.
March 8, 2017 9:46 a.m.
krackhour: Tarmogoyf has been reprinted twice and the price has gone up each time.
Argeaux: And Siege Rhino is a bad card for that reason. It offended me when it got printed for just how ludicrous it was.
March 8, 2017 10:20 a.m.
I have to say, when something is the best there is without any equal, it cannot be overrated or overpriced.
"Tarmogoyf has been reprinted twice and the price has gone _up _each time." - that is pretty much the evidence that the card is neither overpriced nor overrated.
March 8, 2017 10:31 a.m.
I haven't noticed it's price change much, but then again I don't follow that card. From what I remember thinking about that card since day one it was over priced and overrated. I do agree that the card's price is an indicator of it's popularity and usefulness, but also what formats it's playable / legal in. If someone wants to pay the going price for it, then I say go for it! I personally would never pay more than $30 for that particular card (even that would be a stretch), I would turn around and sell it. It's a matter of opinion, I strictly play EDH anymore and have no use for it in any of my decks, so that's why I feel the way I do about it. Other people are certainly allowed to feel differently.
March 8, 2017 10:54 a.m.
Cantivore is >.5 card because it is not a good card - it grows only from the least played card type that is the hardest to get in the graveyard.
Vexing Devil is in another color and allows the opponent choice, and is never a good topdeck, and is easily susceptible to Lightning Bolt.
Talara's Battalion is very hard to play on turn 2 and easily bolt-able. A bad topdeck to boot.
Greenwheel Liberator is good on turn 2 and requires fetchlands to be decent. Bolt-able and a bad topdeck too.
This is not a matter of opinion or feeling. Sure, it is not good in EDH, but there is no place for undercosted vanilla creatures in the format anyways (maybe DOran could play goyf?), just like there is no place for Time Stretch in Legacy for example.
Some things like Lightning Bolt>Shock are not on debate. The same goes for Goyf - it is better than anything else for its cost and the only card in the game to do what it does this well.
March 8, 2017 11:13 a.m.
You're right, Tarmogoyf can't be bolted or shocked on turn 2 just like those others (which were quick examples to compare price VS abilities / P/T) because it always comes into play with a toughness higher than 3 on turn 2. Durp!! If you pay 1 red for an opponent to take 4 damage - that's just a bad deal! I'd much rather bolt someone. Durp again!! You clearly missed the point since you mention the colour difference. I get Talara's battalion out on 1st/2nd turn fairly frequently (please don't make me tell you how LOL). Greenwheel REQUIRES fetchlands for turn 2 play??? C'mon man, you're kidding right? Cantivore was not my example, but IMO a good example of price VS abilities, right!! $.05 as opposed to whatever Tarmogoyf goes for!! Get it?? Probably not, I'd assume probably because you either spent the outrageous price or have a few of them hoping they retain their value. I will reiterate that I never said it wasn't a good card, only that I felt that it was over priced and overrated. You are more than welcome to like goyf just as I am welcome to not like it, but I must say your arguments against the other cards was extremely weak. Sorry
March 8, 2017 11:43 a.m.
And before I get copied and pasted for the greenwheel comment, I guess I should have put it the way it was said "to be decent" because I can not think of ANY other way for a permanent to leave play other than fetch lands.
March 8, 2017 11:53 a.m.
Harashiohorn says... #24
The thing about Tarmogoyf's Price is that its seen very little actual printing. It has only been printed in Future sight which saw a small print run, Modern Masters 1 (where it was a mythic) which received a smaller print run than ALPHA, and Modern Masters 2 (mythic again), which still saw a very limited print run. I'm not saying I like Goyf's price, but I can certainly understand said price, given how much it is played across eteranl formats relative to how little print it has actually seen.
March 8, 2017 3:20 p.m.
Harashiohorn , That's kind of how I've always figured why Tarmogoyf's price was so high (always just figured it was a low print card), that's the only reason I could ever logically see (speaking for myself on it). I could never see it worth more than some duals. I dunno, there's absolutely a chance I'm looking at it all wrong.
March 8, 2017 5:10 p.m.
While supply is a factor in price, it is not the only one. Tarmogoyf is just that good. I do not have a stake in this, as I do not own any Tarmogyfs, but I do recognise that card is without peer.
"It always comes into play with a toughness higher than 3 on turn 2." - a 2/3 goyf is immune to bolt if there is no instant in the yard. And that is very easy to achieve - taking a look at any recent death's shadow aggro deck, it plays 4 baubles, 10 fetches. 4 tribal instants and 8 sorcery speed discard spells to enable exactly that. Any 2 of these 3 will enable a 2/3 goyf on turn 2.
"If you pay 1 red for an opponent to take 4 damage - that's just a bad deal! I'd much rather bolt someone." - actually yes, the flexibility of Lightning Bolt is much more valuable than 1 damage that the opponent has the choice to take.
Turn 1 Batallion is very difficult to achieve (ex. Simian Spirit Guide + Manamorphose + battalion) and not that worth it. T2 Batallion is decent off of say a Burning-Tree Emissary, but it requires you to play green cards. Additionally, beyond t3, the card is bad, and it is a terrible thing to topdeck with no green cards in hand. Goyf does not require you to play anything green besides it.
"Greenwheel REQUIRES fetchlands for turn 2 play??? C'mon man, you're kidding right?" - no, I am kidding, I am making arguments. That is by far the easiest way to enable this card and pretty much the only viable way to do it in aggressive Zoo decks outside of a Mishra's Bauble or something of the sort. A 4/3 on t2 is good, but it is worse from t3 onwards and a bad topdeck and it requires enabling of some kind to be good the very turn you play it, which goyf does not.
See, the difference between all these examples and goyf, is that only goyf can slot into pretty much every deck, without requiring anything extra, without having conditions that are restrictive to deckbuilding, and without being a bad topdeck (in fact, it is great late game threat).
Additionally, a piece of advice - using Durp and extra exclamation points does not make points more persuasive.
I could agree with overpriced, though price composition is difficult on this one, but it is not overrated by any stretch of the imagination, it is still the best way in the game to spend .
By the way, I mentioned Mishra's Bauble - the card is already 40 for an uncommon. Just like Goyf, in Modern, there is no card that does the same as Mishra's Bauble at that mana cost.
March 9, 2017 5:20 a.m.
I'll mention a few cards here then I'm done on this chain - it's a waste of time. Soooo here: Mutagenic Growth , Invigorate , Elvish Spirit Guide , Vine Dryad , Land Grant , Bounty of the Hunt , this is only a quick list of cards that pop in my melon, I'm sure there's allot more if I researched it and thought about it more, I just don't care enough... Think what you want : )
March 9, 2017 12:25 p.m.
krackhour: Of those, only Mutagenic Growth is Modern legal. And any card that involves Phyrexian Mana needs to [i]burn[/i] for how bad they are. In this case, it's because if you cast in on an unblocked creature and pay the life, [i]you both lose two life[/i].
March 9, 2017 7:53 p.m.
berryjon your formatting is off.
You've either got to use < > as brackets for your html or use * * either side of the italicised word.
March 9, 2017 9:17 p.m.
Yeah, I know. I'm just too lazy to fix it there. In the articles themselves? Yeah, fix that right away. But I'll just blame laziness, and be done with it. On to article #20!
March 9, 2017 9:21 p.m.
krackhour, I have to say that:
Elvish Spirit Guide - is not really cast, so it does not fulfill the condition of Talara's Battalion.
Mutagenic Growth , Invigorate , Vine Dryad , Land Grant , Bounty of the Hunt - most of these require a creature to be targeted, so you need yet another card to be played on turn 1 to enable t2 4/3. Those that do not are poor and have requirements themselves, like exiling a green card (severe card disadvantage for low gain) or having no lands in hand.
Sure, there are lots of ways that batallion can be played on t2, but there are _very few good ones _that do not hamper the rest of your deck. The same goes for Greenwheel Liberator's condition. And most of them do not work if you draw the card later than t2 or negate the fact that Battallion and Liberator are the worst topdecks ever.
March 10, 2017 9:23 a.m. Edited.
Sounds good to me. I still would never value tarmogoyf more than 20-30, that's a respectable value for any card IMO. I asked some people at a local shop to see what they thought, most said around 50, no more than 60. None of the people I asked said they were interested in the card. That's double what I value it at, so I'm definitely valuing it low.
JerichoDarkstar says... #1
So, I'm curious... are you a psychic and knew that Goyf was getting spoiled today? Or are you a really fast typer?
EDIT: Also, great job as always :)
March 2, 2017 12:32 p.m. Edited.