On the surface Rattlechains appears to be a fast accelerator beatdown creature for a Spirits themed deck:
EXCPET that Blue has few Spirits to benefit from the boost. Here’s the current distribution of Spirits:
White: 7 Spirit Creatures (1 Rare), 2 Creatures, 2 Spells, and 1 Support that put Spirit tokens into play.
Blue: 4 Spirit Creatures, no other Spirit cards.
Black: 3 Spirit Creatures, no other Spirit cards.
Green: 1 Spirit Creature.
So as it seems that Blue-White Spirits, or Blue-Black Spirit/Zombies are the intended decks for Rattlechains, it appears destined to be relegated to mono-Blue decks as the designated Beatdown creature, or to Kiora decks where it can be found, cast, and boosted more easily.
Given all this, is it really worth building a deck around at the moment?
Could be we’re getting Tamiyo, Field Researcher (from Eldritch Moon). Tamiyo in paper is Green/White/Blue. I’d bet on Green/White or Blue/White unless they really want to give us a three color walker.
Yes rattlechain is somehow valid in itself but would really shine with better spirits.
Not many are required for it to be very good since usually you do not run more than 4/5 creatures in a deck.
Probably a
planeswalker can build a really nice spirit/support deck with:
rattlechains
tower Geist
blessed spirits
drogskol cavalry
Then fill will the best white and blue supports and spells.
Blessed Spirits + Investigate = Huge Spirit.
Sigil of the Empty Throne + Investigate = Huge Angel.
Rattlechains + Investigate = Find those other Spirits and get them out quick.
Slow Start? Blow up the board and put some angels out.
Enemy creature threat? Put it back in their deck and skip its death throes, pumping your Spirits/Angels in the process.
Swapping out Rogue’s Passage for True-Faith Censer if needed to address RC, of course.
Alas, I don’t have all the cards to immediately make this deck but hopefully I will by the time we receive Narset Transcendent, Venser the Sojourner, or another
Planeswalker.
As far as I know supports do not trigger throne nor spirits.
The only 3 interactions I found regarding clues “as support” are:
they grant mana reduction to tyrant
they drain mana when enter the field if oath of Jace is in play
they count, in all iteration I tried so far, as “destroyed support”.
Some examples are
• being brought back by seasons past
• spawning humans with ulvenwald in play.
Now that I think of it, is a matter worth including in my mechanic post(link in signature).
Not sure why they shouldn’t count for Blessed Spirits or Throne. Don’t have Throne, but I’ll check Blessed Spirits later when I get home. If it doesn’t work like that I’m quite disappointed.
Slayer’s plate creates spirits when the creature dies.
I have a feeling the clue’s aren’t really supports, they’re “special activate” gems, that you can’t lose. And hence it’s the usual template problems… sometimes they are sort of supports, and mostly they aren’t.
I used a deck filled with clues for the support node during the event and during my first fight, when it actually showed me how many I have I saw that 100% clues did count towards the objective.
As someone who just recently built a kiora rattlechains deck, I can confirm that this card turned out to be much, much more powerful than I was originally expecting-- most all because of something that wasn’t mentioned in the OP: Hexproof.
Rattlechains allows you to cast 6-cost spirits for free as soon as you draw them, and discounts duplicates of itself to 12, which is also awesome. But the real star of its effects is that not only does it offer a Hexproof aura to your whole board, but that the Hexproof remains persistent even if Rattlechains dies.
This gives it a strict advantage over Sphinx of the Final Word in every way; cost, stats and effect. I’ve shut down a plethora of decks-- including other Kioras and Koths-- just because they can’t cast any spells.
So yes, while blue/white would give you a larger variety of more powerful spirits to use, blue/green allows for the cycle and ramp that still lets you put together a solid board quite quickly.
So yeah, I’d say it’s a card worth building around, even now.
I would guess not bug - difference between give and and gain. Gain is temporary (checked all the time) while effect is in play, eg disappears when source is disabled. Give is a one-off addition to the card, source no longer required. But with their random templating who knows what was intended.
Yeah Tamiyo would most likely be U/W between U/G/W since she’s a merfolk and merfolks are always blue; i’m sure they’re not going to be making another U/G since kiora.
I’m also waiting for eldritch moon for more blue spirits (as well as red werewolves since i pulled geier reach bandit and want some more werewolves for her) . I’m also hoping for some more zombies in blue, i feel like they can be a decent deck to build around.
It depends.
For me any effect that does not state when it happens, it’s there until the source it’s there.
If the wording was “when a spirit enters the field, it gains hexproof” or “when this spirit enters the field give hexproof to all spirits in play” then I would be ok with hexproof lasting even after rattlechain death.
With the current wording it is at the very least ambiguous.
It could still be intended to work this way nonetheless.
Only devs can clear the matter.
Don’t know it could be.
Does not change the fact the description does not seem to imply permanent hexproof.
In paper magic for istance zombie lord has "all other zombie get +1/+1.
If the zombie lord dies the other zombie lose the +1/+1.
Not discussing the effect of rattlechain just the fact that to me it seem to not to work in line with its description.
If Sigarda does the same(I have her and will test) the same can be said for her.
