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On Treasure Cruise and its Inevitable Banning

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Treasure Cruise is taking over Magic. There were 14 copies in the top eight of the Vintage tournament at Eternal Weekend, and there were 20 copies of it in the Legacy event. LSV has demonstrated how much the card tears up Modern in UR Delver. Article after article is being written about how much the card has warped eternal formats. It's simply nuts.

And I love it.

treasurecruise

Drawing cards feels wonderful. Drawing three of them? For one mana? I've cast Ancestral Recall few enough times in my life that I could count them on one hand, but I intend to cast a whole lot of Treasure Cruise...at least until it is banned.

And it will be banned. Ancestral Vision is banned in Modern, so it would make zero sense not to ban this. Ancestral Recall is obviously banned in Legacy, but so is Gush. Treasure Cruise and Gush have slightly different uses, but without Fastbond in the format, Treasure Cruise is probably the more powerful of the two. Don't expect it to stick around for long.

gush

Everything I know about Vintage I've learned in the last few months from watching theĀ Vintage Super League Ā and LSV videos, but it's hard for me to believe the card won't be restricted in our most eternal of formats. Maybe the format will adjust, but the fact that an outright ban is not the only option here leads me to believe that the DCI will play it safe.

Don't get me wrongā€”I don't want Treasure Cruise to be banned. I've gone on recordĀ as being a fan of Delver of Secrets // Delver of Secrets and wishing it was playable in Modern. This has happened in a big way thanks to Treasure Cruise, and I'm not quite ready to give that up. But I also recognize that the format is being overrun with Delver decks, which is not as fun as them merely being competitive. Much as I love to cast it and would love to do so for a long while, I also recognize that the card is too powerful.

So expect a banning, and probably sooner rather than later. Star City Games is currently selling foils for $25 each. If you have any, get rid of them. If you're a Legacy enthusiast and you love to foil out your deck, you may want to hold off, because that $100 will not end up being well spent. Want a foil copy for your cube or EDH deck? You could probably wait for the huge dip after the card is banned. Are you a rare paper Vintage player? Maybe only picking up one copy is the right call for you. In my opinion, you'd have to be very reckless to be picking up foil Treasure Cruises right now. Save your money, because this price won't lastā€”just like the card won't last in your favorite format.

11 thoughts on “On Treasure Cruise and its Inevitable Banning

  1. One line of thinking is that Treasure Cruise will stay unbanned and Ancestral Visions will come off the ban list. Though I think the most likely scenario is it gets banned (keeping in line with Ponder and Preordain bans) along with Jeskai Ascendancy, the telltale sign for me being that burn decks are now splashing blue for 4x Treasure Cruise. Probably gets restricted in Vintage as well, but I think it’s fine in Legacy for the time being because there are several combo decks that can win quicker than the fair decks it’s seeing play in.

  2. Clearly TC warps the Modern meta…that said its quite nice to have new toys in modern that make playing the format actually fun too(I mean how fun is it that Delver is playable!), would like it if at least WOTC would be patient with the ban hammer….maybe they can make a ‘restricted’ list for modern too, that way it keeps things in check without just neutering every card that has some power too it…
    From the sounds of it however the sun is about to set on TC fun parade…at least I get to go to a modern GP next month to see the final chapter….and yes I will be playing TC:)

  3. I kind of agree with seeing it happening; almost every single deck i see that can afford to splash a little blue is doing so just to run this.
    Fun while it lasted i guess.

  4. This card screams poor design and/or lack of good playtesting (for non-standard formats). The ability to get threshold has been proven in legacy to take very little effort and most of the time it’s a byproduct of furthering one’s own game plan in the first place. To give decks the ability to ancestral recall with almost no cost (save the non-bo with Snapcaster Mage) gives blue decks the ability to just 1 for 1 repeatedly and get ahead when you cast this card on turn 3-4 and again on turn 5-7. The weekly modern event at our LGS has quickly shifted to U/R Delver decks, other decks with TC thrown in, and a few of everything else…I am almost curious if this was one of those cards that was changed at the last minute and just didn’t get time to go through proper playtesting (like maybe it was similar to Dig Through Time with an additional colored requirement..which would have made it a lot more fair)…..UU7 and I think the card is fine..but U7 is too good.

    1. I only partially disagree. In modern we are currently in the year of combo or burn. For the most part, the most well positioned decks are combo. That being said, combo which is already pretty consistent, wants card selection, not card draw. This is where Dig Through Time comes in. Dig for the combo decks is much more important than Treasure Cruise. I think that either they both need to stay or they both need to go. I’m playing Blue Moon/UWR control right now, and would prefer to see them both stay, but I actually believe they will probably both go.

      1. I agree with you but I feel that’s part of the problem (on combo meta) the thing is delver destroys most combo decks so its snapping a whole new metta

  5. The Card is the actual nut nut. when Mono-red Burn is splashing 4 volcs/Steam Vents just for cruise, you know things have degenerated. Last night I was testing formats and every single person agreed Cruise was far to strong and would inevitably get the ban, a few people played devils advocite but when any deck can splash blue for the 1 card it feels warping. Kind of like Mental Mistep in Legacy. Now Some people think they will e-ban it before GP NJ but I think it will happen at the next set, the real nail in the coffin for its future in Legacy is how it preforms at the GP. I have my one foil I cracked in a draft and I plan on keeping it at one until we get a real announcment of its ban or restriction. gotta keep my Vintage deck looking crispy ya know.

  6. Whoever designed treasure cruise and the person who said “print it”. They should be banned from wotc staff all together!

    Test the GD cards before you print them. Dont print awesome cards and then say “oops you cant play that one anymore”.

    TEST TEST TEST and then TEST some more! Half assed morons

    1. Telling people to test every possible deck or even just every tier2 deck ( which UR delver was, so was burn ) in every format every 3 months they print a new set is unreasonable. The banlist is there for a reason. Unless you expect them to bring out 350 card sets every 6 months instead. Your comment is pretty dim witted, since you have no sat on a seat in the development team. Its like saying it was obvious that stoneforge or blazing shoal should never have been printed. Im sure they did some testing, expecting them to make it impossible to ever print overpowered modern/legacy cards while printing them in standard sets is retarded.

    2. They most definitely tested it. I guarantee you that. However, they most likely tested how it played in standard. I think they are starting to divide the products they release. Modern Masters is slowly going to become the source for Modern players. The Commander decks will slowly become a large source for commander players (but never the main source). And then eventually the block-released format will be for standard players. That’s just my speculation.

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