It's a fun card to read and think about-- it's
neat the way all four of its abilities chain
into each other. Activating all four in a row
(over four turns) would leave you up 3 life and
possibly have improved what's in your hand, but
it takes four untappings of the Post to do that.
If I had four turns, I certainly hope the Post
isn't the most impressive thing I'm doing. And
if I had a way to repeatedly untap an artifact,
Trading Post is on Page 306 of the list of
artifact combos I'd use with a repeatable untap
effect, right after Pest Generator + Krark-Clan
Ironworks + Dragon Appeasement.
So it's not quite a one-card combo, but could it
be a combo piece in four different decks? It has
four activated abilities. The first one is a
decent discard outlet if you're playing Madness
decks, Hellbent, or some kind of graveyard
recursion. The second one makes a Goat token for
1 life, which is fair I suppose, but hardly
impressive. The third one just screams to be put
in a Sharuum Commander deck, or could be used to
bounce a pair of Solemn Simulacrums back and
forth for all the land fetching and card drawing
you could want-- if you have time and mana to
recast each Simulacrum. And the fourth? Well, if
your artifact is about to be Shattered, why not
sack it for a card? At the worst, the Trading
Post can be a cantrip if you're desperate and
need to dig.
I don't know if there's any deck that really
needs Trading Post, but I doubt there's a deck
that can't find a use for it. With four
abilities, it's quite possible that on any given
turn, you'll have a use for it. Just as the name
suggests, it lets you trade whatever you've got
a surplus of-- cards in hand, creatures,
artifacts, or life-- for something else. It'd be
good to have in a stalemate, and it can really
open up some options for you.
As the latest in the "lots of slightly different
abilities" line of cards, Trading Post
definitely rewards those who take the time to
analyze it. I admit that I tend to sort of drift
off when I read some of the longer synergy or
combo cards - my early decks had cards like War
Mammoth and Scathe Zombies, if we go back far
enough - but Trading Post jumped out at me as
one of the most interesting. It almost reminds
me of the Stations from Fifth Dawn, where the
abilities lead in a "circle" and take over the
game, except on one card rather than four. That
means that you can devote pretty much all of the
rest of your deck to things that support or
protect it, which is a very good thing for combo
players.
Welcome back readers todays card of the day is
Trading Post an amazing engine card that has
seen some play in standard formats in
combination with artifacts. In standard this
card has seen some play in black control shells
combined with artifacts such as Ichor Wellspring
and ilk to grind out incremental advantage, the
sheer amount of things one can do with Trading
Post and how they build on top of one another
makes it a great but sometimes slow source of
advantage. In modern I can foresee this card
seeing fringe play as it allows some artifact
shenanigans and in legacy and vintage I feel its
too slow to have a profound impact. In casual
and multiplayer this card provides a multitude
of effects that are beneficial to provide a
solid defense and a way to reuse and repurpose
resources. Trading Post is an engine card and
provides some sweet incremental advantage. In
limited its solid and if you can draft
around the engine quality it may prove to be a
solid card. Overall a card with constructed and
casual applications and who doesent love goat
tokens?
Today's card of the day is Trading Post which
is a four mana artifact with four effects which
each include a cost of one mana and tapping to
activate in addition to loss of something.
The first is discard a card to gain four life
which should rarely be used outside of wanting a
specific card in the graveyard or a few
situations where burn, evasive, or Trample
damage will only not win the game if you have
four more life. The second effect is
probably going to be used the most as it is pay
one life for a 0/1 token which can of course
block a big attacker or be sacrificed for other
effects. The third effect of sacrificing a
creature to return an artifact to hand can be
very useful in an artifact heavy design or one
that has a sacrifice engine in place. The
last is good when used on tokens or in response
to removal, but can also be combined with
expended charge counters or other reduced
effectiveness choices. Overall this is a
very versatile card that can see play in
numerous deck types, though it isn't extremely
powerful in any one regard the number of options
it offers means it almost always has something
it can do.
For Limited the main benefit will be creating
tokens barring a decent artifact pool for the
third and fourth effects, but just that one
effect alone makes this a first pick and the
potential for other uses is just icing on the
cake. The token generation can shut down
an opponent's primary offense and without one
can swiftly make a wall of blockers should they
be needed. If needed the first effect can
provide a safety buffer for summoning more
tokens. As an artifact this is an easy
inclusion in any Sealed build as well and there
really is no downside to using this in any
Limited deck.
Welcome to the
Pojo.com card of the day section. Today we are
looking at Trading Post from M13. Trading Post
is a rare artifact that costs four generic mana.
Trading Post has four abilities. Pay one generic
mana, tap, discard a card: Gain 4 life. pay one
generic mana, tap, pay 1 life: put a 0/1 white
Goat creature token onto the battlefield. Pay
one generic mana, tap, sacrifice a creature:
Return target artifact card from your graveyard
to your hand. Pay one generic mana, tap,
sacrifice an artifact: draw a card.
This card so totally reminds me of the cycle of
Stations from Mirrodin, only this time they are
all in one. Crazy good card when utilized
properly. There are so many ways of breaking
this card, most of them in older formats.
Because of the way combos are so easily broken,
I won't go into details.
Even in its Standard form, it can still be a useful
card. In a token based deck, the sacrifce a
creature could help get back a decent artifact
you may have lost. The discard for 4 life is
also nice, since flashback is a decent way to
go.
This card is a lot of fun, and I have seen it used many
interesting ways.
