I'll be honest with you guys. I can't for the life of me understand why people have such a hard on for Drake Haven.

3cmc do nothing enchantment, that requires you to be playing discard/cycle, and requires you to pay to activate it.

If that whole "pay " clause wasn't there I could see it, but as long as it is there it just feels too derpy for me.

Consider that most of the discard outlets and methods of cycling cost us mana to activate as well. Which means most of the time we are going to be paying at least or for a 2/2 flying token. Not terrible, but not great either.

Heaven forbid if you want to be using Madness as well, are you really going to have the mana available to be potentially paying to discard, paying to cast off of Madness, and then paying for a token too? I could maybe see it with some of the free discard outlets we have, but even then it just seems too derpy for my tastes. *shrug*

Jeskai madness derp is going to be a deck. Drake Haven into Annointed Procession is going to be a thing. Just think about it... you take off t3&4 and then you win. You can play peepy's favorite card in duels. For three mana you gain 2 life and make 2 2/2 flying drakes. Epicness shall ensue, rage shall be the emotion of your opponent, evil laughter shall be had by all.

So you are doing absolutely nothing on T3 and T4 so that on T5 you can gain 2 life and get two 2/2 flying tokens.

Sounds legit. /sarcasm

Yep, legit game plan! T3&4 are overrated anyway.

It's def not a card you can put in many types of decks. But in the type of Grixis or Dimir (or maaaybe Jeskai, but that's prob the worst of the options and the last one I'd try) filtering/recurring/madness decks I'm thinking it will be fine at worst and amazeballs at best. There are so many discard generators that activate in the range of - mana (baby Jace, Cathartic Reunion, Haunted Dead, Olivia's Dragoon, Smuggler's Copter, Key to the City, etc), that by T4 you can be jamming out 1-2 drakes without much trouble while doing what your deck normally does anyways. Those decks aren't aggro, they grind out value working towards eventually winning the resource war by recurring cards, so starting the drake party T4 is fine. Then later you can get really stupid with wheel effects from Chandra or even Collective Defiance (tho more expensive to high profit from). The madness cards those decks run are cheap too, so by T4 you can be Cathartic Reunioning out a land + Fiery Temper, converting the land into a 2/2 flying Drake while madnessing Temper. Turning your non-madness cards into additional profit alone is good. Not only are you gaining more profit from filtering extra lands, you're getting gravy on your recurrable creature discards (Prized Amalgams, Haunted Dead, Scrapheap, Dread Wanderer).

I've played quite a bit with a few versions of that type of Grixis shell the past few seasons. Drake Haven is a "build around rare", but its build already exists and is pretty solid without it. It doesn't need to get drawn for the deck to do its thing, but conviently the thing it's doing will help you find it quicker than other "build around rares". I feel pretty confident that this is a card that can take them from being pretty solid to very competitive.

As far as doing something Jeskai and pairing Anointed Procession with Drake Haven - that deck prob wouldn't be very good. Thinking back when I was playing a bunch w/ Wintervoid's Inevitability, that deck had enough wheeling/discarding that Drake Haven could go in and do something, but it really only gains Nihiri for trying that, and loses Haunted Dead plus the graveyard recursion side profit, so it will be more JFF just to combo AP for the drake storm when it works 1 game out of 20. Grixis/Dimir will be serious tho. Grixis is serious already and this is a seemless fit. Dimir doesn't really exist yet, but it could pop up.

TL;DR - it's narrow in the types of decks that can use it. But so are zombie lords, and peeps are gasses for those. Unlike zombie lords, decks that can use it already exist and are good (T2 good at least, maybe this is a piece that can push them to the next tier).

Don't worry, you'll be proven wrong in a couple weeks.

Well you saw where I (and Modulo) rated it; even if you get it working, you'd better have counter backup, because they're 2/2s and die to Rags // Riches, Yahenni's Expertise, Planar Outburst, Tragic Arrogance, Radiant Flames, Languish, and probably my favourite; Declaration in Stone - which a lot of people run to get rid of Scrounger and will incidentally rip Drake Haven a new one. It's a slow card that requires the majority or entirety of its deck built around it, needs counter backup and multiple colours, and folds to every sweeper.

Tutelage at least encourages playing good cards and the only hard counter to it is playing 100 cards, popping all of them before they mill 30, or Commit // Memory and you get an extra copy. Its ability doesn't cost extra mana. Aside from style points, any deck you could build around Haven is by definition a worse deck than you could be building with Tutelage. It's not even the best token strategy you could build unless you insist on mono-U. Going wide isn't U's thing. That said, I'm sure I'll lose to the card on a bad draw or playing an even goofier idea (Trials & Cartouches) but that's not going to make it consistent. It's never going to get over its rarity restriction and you need this to hit early even moreso than Tutelage because you're on a clock against any sweepers/Declaration they have.

it's not a card you put in any tier 1/2 deck, because sphinx's tutelage is better

It's almost like you didn't just run Grixis Slugs to a top 4 finish, and a home for it only exists in a hypothetical dream world. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Yeah, what an IDIOT

Jesus, some of these takes are ****'ing brutal to have to read.

Hey... why not both? Mill/Drakes.

For JFF, sure why not. Another alternate win con to Tutelage that would frustrate folks packing Commit // Memory just for mill could be funny. That seems more like the Jeskai build I think would be a much less competitive option. Maybe an izzet shell could be a little better, but either way, are you cutting Fevered Visions to make room? I see the competitive versions of decks w/ Drake Haven not being mill decks.

Mill sucks because it's completely dependent on Sphinx's Tutelage.

Decks designed to win with damage can still deal damage even without Drake Haven. It's not the only card in the entire cardpool that benefits from discard/madness strategies.

Comparing Drake Haven to Sphinx's Tutelage is like comparing Tireless Tracker to Oath of Liliana. They have nothing in common.

Also, why are people terrified of sweepers?

1.) Drakes can come in at EOT with instant speed discard effect
2.) The drakes are an ancillary effect. If you are getting value elsewhere from discard/cycling, it's basically like your opponents are spending removal/sweepers to deal with free tokens.

What are you thinking in terms of list?

That is the thing though. The tokens aren't free, even for a deck who's main game plan is to be cycling/discarding. I feel like the "pay " clause is a hell of a lot more relevant than people are making it out to be.

I don't think the card is terrible by any means, because it can be a repeatable source of value. I just don't see it being amazeballs like a ton of other people seem to.

Either grixis with things like Cathartic or Dimir madness with things like Cryptbreaker and copter and reckless scholar and Jace.

Basically any looting effect with madness is already good value. Adding Drake Haven is extremely exploitable

Decks that want to discard are highly combo-y and they can afford the cost. 2 extra mana for 4 points of flying damage is massive value

I still think the mana is going to be tighter than you are accounting for.

Like I said, unless you are running good sources of free discard (which I will admit things like Copter and Key provide) I just don't see it happening. Look at Cryptbreaker for example. You expect to be able to pay to discard, pay the madness cost on something, and pay for the token? In most cases that is going to be an investment of at least 4-5 mana.

Cathartic? So you are paying 2 to discard, potentially paying for 1 or more madness effects, and paying for 1 or more tokens?

Again, I am not saying the card is bad, or that it can't put in some work in the correct build where you wring value out of the card over the long game. I am not even denying that the card has a decent/good home in a few pre-existing decks. I just don't think it is as great as some seem to think it is.

I guess the biggest thing is the NAH! side of the Drake Haven argument see it as a card you need to build brand new decks around, where as the YAS! side doesn't see it as a Build Around Rare because we have decks in mind for it who's (100% compatible) engine already works fine without it and could be mighty mighty boss tones with it.

Whether or not the meta shifts in a way that keeps those decks from being very competitive, idk. Think not, but could be wrong.

Now we've all stated our cases, can we get the next color review going? What's next, Psychatog, red?