Creature - Zombie Wizard

Trample

Whenever Dreadhorde Arcanist attacks, you may cast target instant or sorcery card with converted mana cost less than or equal to Dreadhorde Arcanist’s power from your graveyard without paying its mana cost. If that card would be put into your graveyard this turn, exile it instead.

1/3

Well now this is more like a red Snapcaster. Good thing is that if it survives combat you can do it again. I like it a lot. It's bad that it's not a Human, but whatever.

It can cast cantrips, Ancestral, Swords and discard spells (am I forgetting anything?), which makes him not that flexible, also his timing is limited so obviously not "red Snapcaster" so don't get attached to the comparison. I don't think there's any good way to up his power except Noble Hierarch or maybe a PW that gives power boost - none of which see much Vintage play.

That you have to resolve it in the first place, then survive a turn, and have the thing you want to cast in the yard and not have it removed, it gives me pause that this is actually going to work out.

@protoaddict I know, I know. But JVP sees play and is equally slow. They don't have the same power level, but in terms of speed are similar. Note that you don't pay mana for the card so tempo-wise it's pretty nice.

The first place I would want to try this is in a UR Pyromancer shell. Getting to re-cast a cantrip for free every turn for your Pyromancer seems like really great value. I'd probably also be inclined to test a Skullclamp or two in such a list, for clamping the tokens and for boosting this card's power to enable re-casting Time Walk/Merchant Scroll. That might be too cute, but I'd be interested to explore that space.

If you are repeatedly attacking in Pyromancer every turn with a creature your opponent has yet to remove you have likely already won. If they have the ability to remove it you would have then been better off using this slot for counter magic or something that can instant speed hexproof onto your dude.

I'm going to go ahead and say that the risk reward does not seem there to me on this guy. It has a very high ceiling but the games where you get there are going to be super rare and in many of them it'll be a winmore card.

In other formats I can see this being a huge scary dude, but not so much here.

@protoaddict You're probably right, but I'm not 100% convinced yet. The fact that all you have to do is attack with it, not even connect, to get a free cantrip/bolt/shattering spree seems good to me. I am, of course, presuming that you have one of these in the yard in the first place, which isn't necessarily a given. It does also make the Delve spells slightly harder to cast if you're pillaging your graveyard every turn, but I think the benefit would outweigh the drawback there.

@fsecco Can this cast costless spells? The wording is the same as As Foretold, not Snapcaster Mage, so I think it can. Could this make As Foretold and Ancestral Visions/hypergenesis something in vintage? As foretold alone wasn't enough to make AV playable, but if you are casting it and then REcasting it for free....is that enough?

@thewhitedragon69 That would be interesting. We have to wait on the official Oracle wording though, since this is a non-official translation I got from Mythic Spoilers.

From mtgsalvation:

Creature - Zombie Wizard
Trample

Whenever Dreadhorde Arcanist attacks, you may cast target instant or sorcery card with converted mana cost less than or equal to Dreadhorde Arcanist's power from your graveyard without paying its mana cost. If that card would be put into your graveyard this turn, exile it instead."

Looks like we get As Foretold on a stick

Turn 1 - mox, land, Arcanist, pass.
Turn 2 - land, As Foretold, Ancestral visions...attack, ancestral visions.

Seems money to me!

@thewhitedragon69 said in [WAR] Dreadhorde Arcanist:

Turn 1 - mox, land, Arcanist, pass.
Turn 2 - land, As Foretold, Ancestral visions...attack, ancestral visions.
Seems money to me!

Yeah, but you need a Mox and exact 3 cards in your hand to do it
These "Ancestral Visions" decks are not as good, I guess. You go through a lot less hoops to just play a Standstill and get the same result.

It's hoops to set up, yeah...but then you are left with an engine that casts and REcasts all your cantrips and junk for free. Maybe not the best, but probably not the worst.

I thought about this guy and the fact that it doesn't have to connect is huge. It makes it easier for him to connect and in a grixis shell, you can kill opp's creature, play this, then attack flashing back the 1 mana kill spell and still leave some 1 or 2 power on opp's board because it doesn't matter. It can be good in a Legacy grixis style deck with tons of 1cmc discard, removal and cantrip. It may be better at Legacy, but it's harder to remove in vintage.

I kinda see this guy like baby jace. He can't cast treasure cruise and such, but he "-3"s every turn and gives you the recurred spell for free. Can also cast costless stuff, which
I think is great.

If there were an easy way to make him have more power effiently, he'd cast all sorts of awesomeness for free and would be a clock himself. Jitte?

I just cant get over the feeling this is not going to get through in MOST games where snappy would.

It lacks Evasion or hexproof, it lacks haste or flash, it's not blue, it dies to every form of removal used in the format, I'm not sure wizard is even a relevant creature type for Cavern, it activates your opponenents oath, you cannot get instant speed value out of it (Like Mentor or Pyro) and it does not win the game on the spot. Any one of those would not be specifically disqualifying, but all of them?

We have had red value creatures before in Dire Fleet Daredevil and Flamespeaker and even Dualcaster mage and all 3 of them seem like they are likely better than this right? I know its not apple to apples here but they face the same issues on the board.

He's much worse than JVP because of the inability to cast Delve spells, Time Walk, and Gush without additional help. The looting ability is also constantly underestimated but highly relevant.

I love this card for Legacy where you have a much higher density of impactful 1 mana cost instants and sorceries, but right now the Blue matchups resolve around the restricted Blue spells and this card doesn't typically interact on that axis.

I've tested this card over the last few weeks and it certainly has some appeal over the Snapcaster and JVP.

In respect to Snapcaster, it has a much stronger Shops matchup - by allowing a JVP-recurrence of Shattering Spree, and in respect to JVP it cannot be Revokered.

The 1/3 body also makes it much more difficult to remove by Ballista.

What it does allow is a potential move away from RUg into Jeskai or Grixis by reducing the need for Ancient Grudge maindeck. Furthermore, Sylvan Library seems to have lost much luster with printing of Narset which both hoses it in a head to head draw engine scenario and also potentially gives the Narset player a better selection of cards.

I expect to see a shift back towards Jeskai with sured up Shops matchup.

So, is Arcanist the new hot stuff and even better than Snapcaster? Seems so if I see the latest Legacy (and Vintage) results.

That’s almost literally what I wrote into the show notes for our site review on this card. I’m surprised it took so long to catch on

Pretty cool to see this card catching on. As someone else pointed out to me, maybe the apt comparison isn’t Snapcaster, but Bob - it’s a longterm value engine.

It's more similar to Bob or a Planeswalker that generates a long term advantage if it stays on the battlefield. The card is absurd in Legacy. It's very good in Vintage as well but the hit rate is slightly lower as legacy decks can run more cantrips.

Card evaluation is hard.