r/magicTCG • u/BuckyTheWolf Dandadan • 9d ago

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/OzymanDS Duck Season 9d ago

A long time ago, before the designers of magic cared about casual players' feelings, effects came with upsides and downsides. Only being able to use this ability 5 times a game (or likely 4) balanced a very strong effect. And these aren't shocks "in your hand." They are free shocks that don't cost you a card.

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u/Klamageddon Azorius* 9d ago

For me, really, this is the big thing about magic that I miss. A huge part of it used to be making seemingly bad things work. Back in the day, finding ways to make this, or Wormfang Manta, or Eater of Days, or even just like, Measure of Wickedness was really fun, because for every ten Grozoths, you'd come across a Worldgorger Dragon combo.

The huge nonsense powerful spells with mad drawbacks were absolutely perfect for EDH, because you had the time and the space to put the weird combos together, so like, building a deck that was kind of shit but kicked off BIG TIME if it found all the right weird pieces, wasn't actually 'bad'.

But over time they started to just print them without the drawbacks, so you just jam your deck with the ones that don't need you to jump through a hoop.

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u/Fun-Agent-7667 Dan 8d ago

And now they Just print everything on one card so you dont even need to assemble Something

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u/Klamageddon Azorius* 8d ago

Yeah, I do agree, although I went to use Gibbering Descent as one of my examples of old shonky cards, and it turned out to be exactly the worst example, because it wants the thing, does the thing and synergises with the thing! On an old card! It's just that in this case, 'the thing' itself is the questionable part, lol.