Cut Your Losses– Streets of New Capenna
Date Reviewed: May 6, 2022
Ratings:
Constructed: 1.58
Casual: 3.00
Limited: 3.00
Multiplayer: 2.92
Commander [EDH]: 2.67
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is bad. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
I know there’s a complicated-sounding explanation of why having a whole bunch of your cards milled isn’t actually a threat to your game position, but it’s kind of hard to keep that in mind when you’re on the wrong end of spells like this one – or building around them in your own deck. It’s certainly spectacular, but may not be the most effective way to win a game with milling: at the stage when you can cast it, you may actually need to be able to take control of a game, and it doesn’t really help you do that. If you can get it out early, it might have more impact, and the casualty ability helps in Commander where you have larger libraries and/or more opponents.
Note that copying it and targeting the same player twice does not mill their entire library – each one takes out half of their current library when they resolve.
Constructed: 2/5
Casual: 3/5
Limited: 3/5
Multiplayer: 3/5
Commander [EDH]: 3/5
Oh, look, it’s Traumatize 2.0.
Mill has slowly been creeping into the light as less of a rogue strategy and more of a threat, but mill generally functions by playing a lot of cheaper, efficient spells that either offer guaranteed gains or has massive upside on a good roll of the proverbial dice. Cut Your Losses has the same issue Traumatize does in coming down too late; while the idea of nuking three-quarters of a library (or half of two libraries) sounds fun and splashy, on its own, this just doesn’t do much. Mill has always had issues related to the mill backfiring or it just not taking out problem permanents on board, and I do not think Cut Your Losses does enough to rectify that. This is definitely fun, but I seriously doubt this’ll be good. The standard Mill decks, when they show up, aim for a tighter curve that doesn’t want to wait to get to six mana.
Constructed: 1.25
Casual: 3.5
Limited: 3 (this is a safer bet without a ton of graveyard interaction, but I think it’s still a pretty mediocre finisher in most cases)
Multiplayer: 2.75 (you can hit two opponents, which is an upside)
Commander [EDH]: 2.5 (I think the main issue is that Commander is a lot better at turning non-exiling mill against the person trying to do it)
I tossed and turned about this one but overall I feel like it’s not a good card. It is a fun card and a splashy, dazzler wow card but it’s not a good card. It is too expensive, that’s the issue but the high mana cost prevents it from being played very early in the game making it not fun. In limited this is better, milling your opponent’s better cards is good strategy and one that will give them a headache for sure. Graveyard strategies aren’t really a thing in this format so you should be safe from getting your opponent to combo off on a graveyard strategy. Lastly, there’s commander. If you are making a mill commander deck I would include it because it can target multiple people on the table but it doesn’t change the fact that it won’t fair better than a more direct mill strategy.
Overall this is a cool idea and a fun card but it is not a good card for constructed formats.
Constructed: 1.5/5
Casual: 2.5/5
Limited: 3/5
Multiplayer: 3/5
Commander [EDH]: 2.5/5
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