I posted the following in the single card discussion but figured I'd repost it here since this is the more active traxos thread?

Just wanted to mention I played Shops with 4 Traxos at the TMD Open this past weekend to a 5-2 finish, missing out on T16 due to tiebreakers. Traxos was completely insane. I encourage you all to try it. My list was as follows:

4 Ancient Tomb
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Mishra's Workshop
1 Strip Mine
1 Tolarian Academy
4 Wasteland
1 Black Lotus
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
4 Sphere of Resistance
1 Thorn of Amethyst
1 Trinisphere
4 Arcbound Ravager
4 Foundry Inspector
1 Lodestone Golem
2 Phyrexian Metamorph
4 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Steel Overseer
4 Traxos, Scourge of Kroog
4 Walking Ballista

Sideboard:

4 Grafdigger's Cage
4 Null Rod
2 Precursor Golem
1 Sorcerous Spyglass
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Wurmcoil Engine

Traxos is:

1. tremendously pressuring in conjunction with Ravager, often threatening to one-shot the opponent through blockers
2. effective source of reach on many stalled boards
3. the lowest cmc maindeckable mirror breaker
4. easy enough to untap without playing any weird cards like Voltaic Servant. Yes, when your hand gets small, you have to think about what happens if you topdeck a Traxos. It's a decision point you have to practice. Also Shops is already 70% historic cards...

You want to play four of them because it's better the earlier you play it. Besides the obvious reasons due to the untap clause, playing it early in conjuction with a lock piece (either before or after) often presents a tough fork for blue opponents with opening hands of average strength. Can they outrace Traxos if they counter or destroy the sphere? Can they set up under a sphere if they counter or kill Traxos?

I think people are worrying too much about the legendary clause. In certain archetypes in other formats, it is often correct to play 4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben despite the fact that it's legendary. I think a similar remark holds here. Untap triggers are sometimes worth a card, so drawing multiples isn't even the end of the world...

Just wanted to mention I played Shops with 4 Traxos at the TMD Open this past weekend to a 5-2 finish, missing out on T16 due to tiebreakers. Traxos was completely insane. I encourage you all to try it. My list was as follows:

• 4 Ancient Tomb
• 4 Mishra's Factory
• 4 Mishra's Workshop
• 1 Strip Mine
• 1 Tolarian Academy
• 4 Wasteland
• 1 Black Lotus
• 1 Chalice of the Void
• 1 Mana Crypt
• 1 Mox Emerald
• 1 Mox Jet
• 1 Mox Pearl
• 1 Mox Ruby
• 1 Mox Sapphire
• 1 Sol Ring
• 4 Sphere of Resistance
• 1 Thorn of Amethyst
• 1 Trinisphere
• 4 Arcbound Ravager
• 4 Foundry Inspector
• 1 Lodestone Golem
• 2 Phyrexian Metamorph
• 4 Phyrexian Revoker
• 4 Steel Overseer
• 4 Traxos, Scourge of Kroog
• 4 Walking Ballista

Sideboard:

• 4 Grafdigger's Cage
• 4 Null Rod
• 2 Precursor Golem
• 1 Sorcerous Spyglass
• 2 Tormod's Crypt
• 2 Wurmcoil Engine

Traxos is:

1. tremendously pressuring in conjunction with Ravager, often threatening to one-shot the opponent through blockers
2. effective source of reach on many stalled boards
3. the lowest cmc maindeckable mirror breaker
4. easy enough to untap without playing any weird cards like Voltaic Servant. Yes, when your hand gets small, you have to think about what happens if you topdeck a Traxos. It's a decision point you have to practice. Also Shops is already 70% historic cards...

You want to play four of them because it's better the earlier you play it. Besides the obvious reasons due to the untap clause, playing it early in conjuction with a lock piece (either before or after) often presents a tough fork for blue opponents with opening hands of average strength. Can they outrace Traxos if they counter or destroy the sphere? Can they set up under a sphere if they counter or kill Traxos?

I think people are worrying too much about the legendary clause. In certain archetypes in other formats, it is often correct to play 4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben despite the fact that it's legendary. I think a similar remark holds here. Untap triggers are sometimes worth a card, so drawing multiples isn't even the end of the world...

Looks like we're going to get another Staff of Nin-like card, via Reddit noticing the Brazilian MTG Twitter account accidentally tweeting out a preview card early:

Immortal Sun - 6
Legendary Artifact - M
Players can't activate Loyalty abilities of Planeswalkers.
At the beginning of your draw step, draw an additional card.
Spells you cast cost 1 less to cast.
Creatures you control get +1/+1.

EDIT: card image

@13nova said in [XLN] Sorcerous Spyglass:

I really want to quote myself right now, but I won't.

OK! Then I will.

@13nova said in [XLN] Sorcerous Spyglass:

this card is shit.

Although unbounded optimism about Spyglass isn't right, this isn't right either. The card is not "shit" if only because it's a Pithing Needle. Needle is a playable sideboard card, and this might be better in that role since it gets through Misstep.

I played 2 copies in my sideboard in the Vintage Challenge today to test it and wew lad did this card feel bad. I tried bringing it in against some blue decks as was suggested earlier in the thread and just never had any decent names. Shutting down some random artifact or Deathrite Shaman or whatever is nice, but it's not worth it because it doesn't actually hose them. They can play a perfectly normal game without any one card.

Also it got cast against me in a shops mirror and was not good for my opponent even though he caught multiple Ballistas this way. I can still cast them as random creatures, and they're still relevant in combat even if they can't shoot.

I think this card is much narrower than has been suggested here. I think it's fine pretty much only where Needle is fine - e.g. against turbo-depths or Dredge, but that's about it.

The main knock against your hand that you didn't even mention is that your hand doesn't apply any pressure; even if you draw mana, you are going to give your opponent a lot of draw steps to find their counter-hate. That being said, it is true that you do have a lot of live draws: (a) any mana source or (b) any 1cmc cantrip or (c) any one of the other 4 sideboard cards that you haven't drawn yet. That is probably more than half your library.

I think this is actually a very close call and I wouldn't fault you for throwing it away, but I think given how live the top of your deck is, and how you have a StP to interact with their plan B of an early Hollow One, I'd probably try it. Depending on your exact list, you're probably like 75% or better to find a relevant draw in your next two draw steps, and this hand + any relevant card feels like a keep even if it's slow.

@nedleeds said in [XLN] Sorcerous Spyglass:

You are trading off opening hand explosiveness for a card that's pretty mediocre in mirrors where Shop players are copying each others 75s of ABR, WB, WL.

I agree with this, and I think this is the best argument that one really should not overload on Spyglasses, at least in the mid-Atlantic metagame, even if they're great against the rest of the field. The Spyglasses are not totally dead in the mirror, but they're pretty bad. Last year at EW I played something like 5 shops mirrors. I don't think I'd be willing to maindeck more than 2 or 3 of these just for this reason.

I looked at the Vintage Challenge standings and it was just a 5-rounder. Some of those top 32 lists are midway through the standings. 3-2 results - not impressive at all. The fact that not even the mediocre decklists had any copies makes me think that one cannot actually conclude that the card is bad - all this tells us is that it was not even tested. Even if you think that Spyglass is crap, replacing a few random critters with a couple Spyglasses will not make the deck completely unplayable...

New Vintage Challenge results on mtgo: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/tournament/vintage-challenge-10913701#paper

Doesn't look like any shops pilots care for the Spyglass at all! I'm surprised.

Are there data about or decklists of the t16/t32? I'd be interested to see if interesting ideas got close to t8.