How is Ragavan Remotely Balanced?
General forum
Posted on Oct. 23, 2022, 4:46 p.m. by DemonDragonJ
I know that I have made numerous threads of this nature in the past, but, this time, I feel that I have a legitimate case.
Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer is an extremely powerful creature, and I personally feel that he is simply far too powerful for one mana; I personally think that he should have cost three mana, or been a 1/1 for 2 mana, but that much value for one mana is simply ridiculous; did WotC playtest him before they released that card?
What does everyone else say about this? How is Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer remotely balanced?
wallisface says... #3
My personal thought is that the card would be perfectly balanced if they took away its dash ability. With dash if can be a little too flexible, imo - though i should say that while the card as-is is quite powerful, its not at all broken.
Reasons why Ragavan isn’t as good as it reads:
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While this is often a very strong early-game play, mid-to-late game this becomes effectively a dead-draw, as its often not going to be able to do anything of value once higher-mana’d creatures are in play. Comparably, a card like Dragon's Rage Channeler remains a lot more relevant in later-game scenarios.
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While the “nab your opponents card” can certainly be useful/strong in some matchups, there are a lot of other matchups where its a completely pointless effect. In those matchups the monke isn’t really doing anything except making a few treasure (and oftentimes that treasure won’t be particularly useful after the early-mid part of the game, given the mana-curves monke-decks often dwell in).
Personally, if an opponent plays a turn-2 DRC and Monke, i’m probably prioritising killing the DRC first in almost all scenarios (~80-90%).
I would say that if you’re having serious troubles with the Monke, that you need to probably be including more interaction in your decks. Note that is true for deckbuilding regardless of whether monke exists or not, it’s just that monke helps make this weakness blindingly obvious.
October 23, 2022 5:13 p.m.
The devils advocate defense of ragavan that I've heard (which I'm not exactly on board with) is that he makes combat relevant in the modern format.... I dont like him personally but that's what others have said.
October 23, 2022 7:55 p.m.
plakjekaas says... #5
I'm going to disagree with point 2 of wallisface and say that nabbing the card is almost always relevant, just by denying your opponent access to it. I played Robber of the Rich heavily in Standard, and the "nab a card"-effect won me the game many times, not by flipping useful spells, but mostly by flipping multiple lands in a row that the opponent didn't draw, ending them up way behind on mana.
October 23, 2022 8:17 p.m.
wallisface says... #6
plakjekaas in a typical game of magic you're not going to see more than 25% of your deck: "nabbing" the card is no different to it just being in the bottom 45 cards of the deck. The card that is "nabbed" has no real affect on what your opponent is going to draw unless you get lucky and grab their one copy of Shadowspear. In almost all cases this top-card being exiled will have no meaningful impact on the game.
I think your argument & example given here is a bit of a "Post Hoc Fallacy", that is, it had no actual effect on the game, but how events lined up gave you the illusion that it did. In your example you were just as likely to nab-away un-useful draws and let your opponent get the land they needed.
October 23, 2022 8:24 p.m.
I think Ragavan is busted because every time I play against it, it exiles all my white source in my tri-colour deck T_T
October 23, 2022 8:47 p.m.
The Nab/exile card is kinda like any mill effect.... its more psychological in terms of your probability of what you will draw next in most cases.
October 23, 2022 9:38 p.m.
plakjekaas says... #10
I didn't say the nabbing will always do that, I was just saying there's games where it happens. Generalizing that would be a fallacy, but I'm talking specific cases, where this effect crippled my opponent by sheer luck, in a way that's not at all matchup dependant. It's not something you can count on, but it's an additional boon to the monkey, on top of everything already mentioned here.
Seriously, an opponent stuck on 2 lands on turn 5, looking at the three land cards that were exiled by triggers, going to discard... does not feel like fair magic at all. For me it was in Standard, the efficiency of the Modern format can mitigate that somewhat, of course, I'm just saying that the actual exiled cards can matter to the game even if they do you no good being cast.
October 23, 2022 10:05 p.m.
Dead_Blue_ says... #11
Ragavan is broken. That being said I’m okay with it existing in the format. Decks should have already been packing at least a play set of interaction before it existed anyway.
Thing is we can all agree that Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer is more powerful than Deathrite Shaman and it’s allowed to be in the format than DRS should be too. Golgari needs a boost as it is
October 23, 2022 10:20 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #12
Ragavan is frustrating to me because of he steals cards and how the player cannot get them back; if he did not steal cards, or if the cards returned if Ragavan's controller did not play them, then I would not find him to be nearly as frustrating.
October 23, 2022 10:25 p.m.
wallisface says... #13
DemonDragonJ that's a very interesting take - my opinion is that the card-stealing part of the card is the absolute weakest part of the card (weaker than the treasure generation, Dash ability, or even potentially its stats). There are definitely occasional games where the Ragavan gets lucky and can cast some dangerous 2-3cmc spell on turn 2 that just turns the game into a landslide, but it feels overwhelmingly that the monke just whiffs a large majority of the time with its card-stealing (I guess, as it should be to prevent the card being too miserable).
I think I quite like Icbrgr's comment above where the monke poses more of a psychological impact than any real tangible threat. The best way to deal with it is actually understanding what it's capable of, in terms of its threat capability, as well as actual card-odds.
October 23, 2022 11:04 p.m.
Dead_Blue_ - Ragavan is nowhere close to as powerful as the "Best Planeswalker in the game"--a well deserved moniker for Deathrite Shaman given its versatility.
Let's compare the two:
Ragavan provides:
- A mana-efficient body;
- The ability to "draw" a card from someone else's deck. This is card advantage (as already discussed herein, it is not a real punishment to an opponent--cards in the library are the single worst resource in the game so you are not really taking anything meaningful from an opponent)--but it is card advantage where you are very likely to "draw" a card that does not help further your deck's victory, and which you have to play that turn or you lose out on.
- Ramp, but only if it connects.
- You are punished for playing him because he is Legendary.
Deathrite Shaman provides:
- A way to shut down common graveyard shenanigans, making it an effective hatebears piece.
- Ramp which you almost always will have access to given the prevalence of fetch lands in DRS-legal formats.
- The ability to ping an opponent for 2.
- The ability to heal if you need it.
- A blocker who can take out 1/1s (such as common tokens).
- A relevant creature type in Elves.
- You can play it in any deck that has Green or any deck that has Black, making it easy to slot into any deck running either of those colours (while Ragavan requires you to be in Red).
Look at Vintage play (the only competitive format DRS is legal) and you can easily see the difference in how "broken" they are--DRS is the second most played creature in Vintage, in a whopping 18.9% of decks, with the average deck running a full 4 copies of DRS.
Ragavan is no slouch, sitting at being the sixth most played creature in Vintage, but he appears in only 13.6% of decks, and those decks only run an average of 2.9 copies--he is not even being run as a 3-of on average, let alone DRS's "you run four of these every time".
Ragavan is clearly a good card--there is a reason he is the most played creature in Modern and could be on the chopping block there as it was in Legacy. But to say it is better than DRS is to truly underestimate how powerful of a card DRS is.
As for the thread itself, starting in Guilds of Ravnica, Wizards adopted a new design system known as the F.I.R.E. system, seeking to design cards that are "Fun, Inspiring, Replayable, and Exciting". Under this new design plan, Wizards takes more risks with their card designs, hoping to make things that are more complex, realizing that they can fix problematic cards after the fact through bannings. Ragavan is a card that clearly falls within the FIRE philosophy (and is from a set where they can play more fast and loose with design to boot, since they do not have Standard to worry about). I expect they playtested the card, found it to be fun and interesting and therefore pass under FIRE--and have been slowly rolling out bans (like in Legacy) when it becomes too problematic.
Whether that is good game design or not is a matter worthy of some debate.
October 23, 2022 11:33 p.m.
I mean, my main problem with the monkey is that it is so much better on the play than it is on the draw. Well, my real problem is that they somehow made me dislike a monkey pirate, and I want to love monkey pirates : ) But seriously it's just such an imbalanced play pattern when Ragavan wrecks or gets wrecked based on a coin toss.
October 24, 2022 8:34 a.m.
Dead_Blue_ says... #17
Name too dark to read:
Let’s keep in mind that financially speaking DRS is like 7$ and Ragavan is 70$
I feel like your assessment was extremely unfair though so here are some counter points to your thoughts
Deathrite Shaman provides:
A way to shut down common graveyard shenanigans, making it an effective hatebears piece.
Exiling 1 card per turn is not shutting down any strategy for decks that can potentially have 6 cards in the grave by turn 2. (Fetch, bauble, thought scour, fetch) nor is it fast enough to keep up with decks like Living End. I don’t think this is a valid argument at all.
Ramp which you almost always will have access to given the prevalence of fetch lands in DRS-legal formats.
Yes and it’s probably the strongest aspect of the card but the ramp is not free, requiring fetches is still requiring an outside resource and is limited to once per turn. The ramp that Ragavan provides can be accumulated and requires no additional investment. It may be slightly harder to access but is still realistically obtainable.
The ability to ping an opponent for 2.
I mean a Dash ability on a 2/1 is literally the same thing except safer
The ability to heal if you need it.
The least relevant and least used ability but Ragavan gives you access to opponents spells which is potentially a stronger ability, they could always exile a Weather the Storm
A blocker who can take out 1/1s (such as common tokens).
Fair
A relevant creature type in Elves.
Would Elves even play it? I honestly don’t know, I don’t remember them playing it while it was legal
You can play it in any deck that has Green or any deck that has Black, making it easy to slot into any deck running either of those colours (while Ragavan requires you to be in Red).
Yes and that is my biggest point, Black & Green are arguably the weakest colors right now and could use a boost
October 24, 2022 1:44 p.m.
Dead_Blue_ - I am not sure if you thought your point about pricing was a worthwhile one to make, but I am sure you can see why it is a rather irrelevant one. You simply cannot compare the price of a card legal in a single format that no one plays against a card that is legal in one of Magic’s most popular formats. Supply and demand does not care about a creature’s power level so much as it cares about how many people want to play it, and you can bet there are vastly more Modern players out there than Vintage.
Let’s also dispose of a few other arguments.
Regarding only exiling one card, the reality is you are able to remove whatever is going to be he hardest to deal with AND getting a boon out of it AND are not sacrificing a card slot for your main deck graveyard hate and DRS is still viable even against non-GY decks. It very easily could be the difference between them fielding something you can handle and something you can’t handle in Game One, winning the game back placing you in a better position when you sideboard in more explosive Graveyard hate in game two.
Regarding Ragavan’s card draw, as already noted countless times, the chances you hit the card you want to play are low and the chances you hit the card you want to keep your opponent from having are low. It is a bad ability, and certainly worse than DRS’s life gain - while life gain is generally mediocre, the Modern meta is currently skewed toward agro decks (44% of decks, compared to 16% for control and 40% for combo), which is a good environment for incidental life gain to thrive.
With regards to black bad green needing a buff, the most popular current decks in Modern are Red or Izzet decks - in no small part due to Ragavan’s aggressive nature and the efficiency at red burn to counteract Ragavan and other aggressive small creatures. But there are plenty of popular Green and Black decks out there (Rakdos Aggro, Elementals, Creativity, Living End), all of which command 5% or more of the current Modern Meta.
Again, I think Ragavan has its problems - it was enough of a problem to get a Legacy ban and is a card that could see a Modern ban. But DRS’s absurd versatility and low opportunity cost makes it an incredibly potent enabler that can easily be slid into countless decks. It quickly becomes a mainstay of any format it is in, in every deck that can run it - in a way that Ragavan, while easy to slid into an aggressive Red deck, just does not have.
October 24, 2022 2:20 p.m. Edited.
I don't think the card is. Ragavan has been banned in Legacy, and I think probably would've been banned in more formats if the card had been in a premier set.
TheOfficialCreator says... #2
I'm not sure. In most cases the cards that end up breaking the game are the ones that are perfectly fine card theory-wise, but end up having some brutal interaction with normal play. Ragavan does not fit that bill.
Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer is a 2/1 for one mana (already good), with dash (already an almost strictly better Zurgo Bellstriker), that has the Sticky Fingers trigger, and that steals your opponent's cards.
So just on its own, even as a mythic it should have been all around, even for the Dash cost.
That's not to mention that it bridges gaps that really shouldn't be and combines multiple efficient gameplay patterns into one card. It's mana-fixing, aggro, and (in some cases) control all at once, and plays well into 4-5 color stacks, enabling an already dominant gameplay strategy.
October 23, 2022 4:56 p.m. Edited.