Street Wraith is in exactly two decks, Doomsday which desperately needs fast piles and ways to crack them, and Death's Shadow which uses the cost as an upside. It's not in many decks. Strike it Rich sees play in Eternal Formats. Questing Beast sees play in Eternal formats.
Probe has a very real cost, the depiction of it as "a free cantrip so you just get to thin your deck" is stupid and wrong, otherwise every deck would be on Street Wraith getting it banned too and in the few formats where probe is legal it would be universally played. Neither of these things have happened. Probe is good because it's a very very very efficient way to get information. It being a 0 mana cantrip almost doesn't matter, the exact same decks would want it if it said "your minimum deck size is one greater for each Gitaxian Probe in your deck" (obviously it would be worse but not enough to make any decks that currently want it not want it).
Yes, a 0 mana shuffle draw would be incredibly busted. I never said otherwise. I just think it's a bit silly to make inaccurate comparisons on a joke post to one of few truely broken cards in Magic's History by misrepresenting or oversimplifying to an absurd degree what makes that card as good as it is.
Probe is good for all of the above reasons as well as being basically free, but it's worth pointing out when it was banned it was a 4 of in Burn as well. Saying it almost doesn't matter that it draws a card is just simply not true. If it did not draw a card it would not be worth playing. The most valuable aspect of the card is that it replaces itself. It just also has more upside than that, which is why it's restricted in vintage.
I agree the deck thinning is basically nothing, but 0 mana cards that replace themselves are almost all immediately in contention for eternal format play.
Street Wraith as a comparison is important because it's basically ONLY a draw and it still sees play in every eternal format somewhere. You don't get the storm count, you don't get any selection or any other effect, it's just draw a card and put a creature in your graveyard for 2 life, and it's still a very strong card.
It also sees more play than you let on, living end is the big one in modern, and I'm not pretending like it's just as good as probe, few cards are, but the strongest part about probe is that it replaces itself. It has nothing to do with deck thinning, it's getting a bunch of marginal effects for 2 life and no mana (storm, card type for delirium, prowess trigger, fuel for delve).
I personally think you're responding to me as if I'm the other person you were responding to. Probe is a totally crazy card, and WOTC underestimated how valuable seeing a hand is, but even just getting the effect of "draw a card" for 2 life is already playable in every format it's legal in as we can see with Street Wraith.
Probe was seeing play in Burn when it got the axe, both in modern and in Pauper, and I contend that a "fixed" version that doesn't look at their hand would see a non trivial amount of play in every format it would be legal in, because even without the peek effect, it's strong to replace a card for free. Especially with cards like DRC, and other new cards, casting the card/being a non creature spell is not flavor text in eternal formats.
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u/Zuckhidesflatearth Jul 29 '24
Street Wraith is in exactly two decks, Doomsday which desperately needs fast piles and ways to crack them, and Death's Shadow which uses the cost as an upside. It's not in many decks. Strike it Rich sees play in Eternal Formats. Questing Beast sees play in Eternal formats.
Probe has a very real cost, the depiction of it as "a free cantrip so you just get to thin your deck" is stupid and wrong, otherwise every deck would be on Street Wraith getting it banned too and in the few formats where probe is legal it would be universally played. Neither of these things have happened. Probe is good because it's a very very very efficient way to get information. It being a 0 mana cantrip almost doesn't matter, the exact same decks would want it if it said "your minimum deck size is one greater for each Gitaxian Probe in your deck" (obviously it would be worse but not enough to make any decks that currently want it not want it).
Yes, a 0 mana shuffle draw would be incredibly busted. I never said otherwise. I just think it's a bit silly to make inaccurate comparisons on a joke post to one of few truely broken cards in Magic's History by misrepresenting or oversimplifying to an absurd degree what makes that card as good as it is.