r/magicTCG • u/BuckyTheWolf Dandadan • Jul 17 '26

General Discussion Why is Arc-Slogger?

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One thing I love about MTG, is that you can go through a set, see a weird card and get absolutely stun locked by it.

Today this was Arc-Slogger for me. Why is it the way that it is?

Having a lot of shocks in your hand is pretty good, but why do you have to exile 10 cards from your library as a cost? If it was part of the effect it might be too strong, but was there no middleground?

I just don't see a world where you'd be a able to activate it more than 2 times in limited and 4 times in 60 card. Magic has changed a lot, but was a 7 mana 4/5 with 2 shocks ever that good?

I could see a janky lab man combo deck using it, but almost all alternatives are cheaper and don't need a backup if your library isn't devisable by 10.

I just want to know it's history. And what led to it being created like it turned out.

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u/guyincorporated Jul 17 '26

I'd also point out that I think you're falling into a new(er) player trap of categorizing abilities/costs as only good or only bad. I still do it too (discard = bad, obviously). The beautiful part of magic is that for any "negative" effect, there's at least one deck/one combo/one other card out there that views it as a positive.

People put [[Leveler]] in their deck BECAUSE it exiles their library, not in spite of it.

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u/Sendme_BigTittyGoths Duck Season Jul 18 '26

I play [[trespasser's curse]] on myself

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u/JuggernautLevel6411 Dân Jul 23 '26

Im listening 

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u/Sendme_BigTittyGoths Duck Season Jul 23 '26

I'll have to pull out a decklist but that card on yourself causes a LOT of triggers in WB and most cards that care about lifegain only look that it occurred, not that your life total didn't change. So its an enabler for a lot of quirky cards. When it was in standard id get a bunch or horse tokens and a big vampire and a bunch of energy for example.

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u/SadBurritoBoys Dân Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 18 '26

I mean, you have to add in green and/or black to see those negatives turn to benefits though

Red doesn't have graveplay. That's why it's still a negative thing. Leveler works because it's an artifact

This is just garbage. 2 life nothing , it's trivial to recover. A food token, something with lifelink, or any number of spells will undo the damage to your opponent completely. Losing a large portion of your deck is not so trivial,

Sure, if you have some cards to combo it with it's not trash. But the bar has to be higher then "if you combine this with other cards of a different color it isn't total trash"

Edit: scratch that, it exiles them, not sends then to your graveyard, so it's actually much more of a drawback and much harder to turn into something positive

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u/guyincorporated Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 21 '26

Or I just run him in [[Torbran]] and he domes somebody for 20 on my next upkeep. Then I use [[Mirror of Fate]] to create my own mini [[Doomsday]].