Viral Drake or Merfolk Skydiver?
Commander Deck Help forum
Posted on Oct. 24, 2019, 10:48 p.m. by DemonDragonJ
In my Atraxa EDH deck, I have a copy of Viral Drake , less for its infect ability and more for its repeatable proliferate ability. However, War of the Spark has Merfolk Skydiver , which would be a perfect replacement for it, as it would lower the mana curve of my deck, except for the higher mana cost of its activated ability, so I, thus far, have kept the drake in my deck.
The higher cost of the drake is a one-time payment, whereas the higher cost of the skydiver's ability would accumulate over time (although I deliberately included numerous methods of rapidly producing large amounts of mana in that deck specifically for such situations); personally, I believe that the skydiver's ability would have been perfectly balanced if it had cost , but WotC clearly did not believe that, and there is nothing that I can do about it.
What does everyone else say about this subject? Should I replace Viral Drake with Merfolk Skydiver ?
DragonSliver09 says... #3
my recommendation would be to run both to double your chances of getting your repeatable proliferate effect. just because 2 cards are similar doesn't mean you have to choose one or the other. in fact in a singleton format like commander, i'd say it means the opposite and that you should run both as a way to improve the decks consistency.
October 24, 2019 11:05 p.m.
bushido_man96 says... #4
That's a good idea. Only bad thing is now he's got to cut another card...
October 24, 2019 11:19 p.m.
triproberts12 says... #5
I think the drake stays. There are way better ways to proliferate than spending 4+ mana, but having a backup wincon with the drake never hurts.
October 24, 2019 11:21 p.m.
Viral Drake gives infect. That is a good enough reason to keep it. But importantly - you need some ramp. You have like 6 ramp pieces and a bunch of them are super expensive. Having a mana sink if fine and all, but you should prioritise actually having mana.
October 25, 2019 12:52 a.m.
multimedia says... #7
Viral Drake is better because of flying and infect. Drake is also easier to activate with colorless mana combos; needing only colorless and one blue. If not playing mana combos and only using these cards for proliferate then there's better mana efficient options such as Evolution Sage , Flux Channeler , Thrummingbird and Grateful Apparition .
October 25, 2019 1 a.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #8
DragonSliver09, yes, I would like to have both, but there is no card that I can remove to make room for Merfolk Skydiver (actually, do I really need the triple redundancy of Thrummingbird , Grateful Apparition , and Guildpact Informant ?).
bushido_man96, you clearly have been following my posts, to know how I think regarding these matters.
October 25, 2019 4:27 p.m.
DragonSliver09 says... #9
DemonDragonJ if you could post the deck here, i could probably make a recommendation on what to cut.
October 25, 2019 5:06 p.m.
bushido_man96 says... #10
I tend to like some redundancy in my decks, but your mileage may vary. How's it play out usually?
October 25, 2019 6:09 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #11
DragonSliver09, I posted a link to the deck in the opening post of this thread.
bushido_man96, I actually have not used the deck sufficiently frequently to be able to provide detailed information about how it usually functions, but I shall say that I usually do very well with it; I do not win every game with it, but I rarely am in last place in any games with more than two players.
Also, I have multiple redundant cards in that deck: as I already mentioned, Thrummingbird , Grateful Apparition , and Guildpact Informant are redundant, but that group also includes Archangel of Thune and Sword of Truth and Justice in that they all have triggered abilities that put counters on my creatures. Viral Drake has redundancy with Contagion Clasp , Contagion Engine , Mikaeus, the Lunarch , Shalai, Voice of Plenty , and Gavony Township in that all of those cards have activated abilities that place counters on my creatures, so replacing, for example, Guildpact Informant with Merfolk Skydiver would be reducing the number of redundant cards in one group and increasing the number of redundant cards in the other group, which could probably be a thread of its own.
October 26, 2019 1:01 a.m.
bushido_man96 says... #12
Swapping it for the Guildpact Informant would probably be ok, in order to gain a little more consistency in that area of the deck.
October 26, 2019 1:08 a.m.
I like Viral Drake over the Merfolk Skydiver for the 4 Toughness compared to the 1 Toughness.
bushido_man96 says... #2
I think the Drake is better, but it's close.
October 24, 2019 10:50 p.m.