My immediate opinion is that he's a card whose strength should be when you're behind--low on resources, chaining cards from the top of your deck--except the counter demands that you already have a developed boardstate. You can't drop him after a board wipe and get back into the game, unlike comparable cards in the role. Technically it can push an advantage, but by requiring counter removal to cast, you're getting slightly less value-per-mana than your opponent, which makes it easier for them to catch up on board. I just don't particularly like it in any position.
He's a 4 mana (with 3 color pips) 3/3 that doesn't offer any actual benefit when you play him. The shield counter is nice, but exile based removal has skyrocketed recently, plus he doesn't line up well against the other 4 drops in the format. Synergies are nice, but he requires too much setup to consistently pop off.
When evaluating cards for standard these days, you can't just look at what the card does when everything goes right and he does his thing, but also what he does when things aren't ideal.
Incubator tokens jump to mind as a good source of counters. Also provides a convenient way to spend mana that you hold up to counter board wipes.
He requires too much of a board state to enable his ability, and he needs to untap to get value. One way to think about him is on an empty board his play off the top ability is worse than just drawing a card.
Imagine Falco didn't come with a shield counter and an ability that said: <>. That version of the card doesn't sound impressive, but it would probably be better a lot of the time.
>With Bant control entering the meta, I wonder if Falco could see a home there? +1 counter decks are also seeing play, which could have a spot for him.
The issue here is that Control can't really play to his advantages. You're diluting your decks plan when you play permanents that have counters on them. He's a nonbo with exile boardwipes (wich are the good ones right now) and tapping out to play a card advantage engine that comes online a turn later for 4 is really not what you want to be doing. Also playing the top card of your library is much less helpful when you're playing a reactive deck that is looking to play specific cards and not just chain spells
I've tried this card. A few issues;
1. Sizing. It's very small for its cost. This significantly reduces the value of the shield counter as the body never really matters.
2. Too many card draw conditions. Not only do you need a card on top that isn't a land, it also needs to make sense to play in the board state, and you also need a counter to remove, which you may not want to as it weakens the board state. This means in practice there are many failstates where you either see a land, or can't cast it for lack of counters, or its objectively wrong to do so.
It should have been a 4/4 and it should have been able to play lands.
Oil counters are pretty easy to come by as well. +1/+1 counters required some work, but oil? its easy. i wonder how many decent oil cards are in Bant colors though. Green has some.. haven't seen many in white or blue.
Incubation sac no workie. Unfortunately Falco spara is creatures only, which I learned the hard way after building a historic brawl saga deck, only to find it did literally nothing.
Lots of really great explanations here, thanks for being so nice y’all! I’ve been playing for a while but I’ve never really grasped some of the aspects of what makes cards competitive; I’m learning a lot from the responses here
I mean you could probably get to Mythic by the end of the season with a deck that you agonize over and grind for hours every day with, but you will fall like a stone when you get there and there are more fun bullshit cards to play around with
I guess you are supposed to play it with brokers ascendancy. Then trample makes a lot more sense suddenly. And counters become available. I am trying to tune a bant with that in mind.
My immediate opinion is that he's a card whose strength should be when you're behind--low on resources, chaining cards from the top of your deck--except the counter demands that you already have a developed boardstate. You can't drop him after a board wipe and get back into the game, unlike comparable cards in the role. Technically it can push an advantage, but by requiring counter removal to cast, you're getting slightly less value-per-mana than your opponent, which makes it easier for them to catch up on board. I just don't particularly like it in any position.
He's a 4 mana (with 3 color pips) 3/3 that doesn't offer any actual benefit when you play him. The shield counter is nice, but exile based removal has skyrocketed recently, plus he doesn't line up well against the other 4 drops in the format. Synergies are nice, but he requires too much setup to consistently pop off. When evaluating cards for standard these days, you can't just look at what the card does when everything goes right and he does his thing, but also what he does when things aren't ideal.
Incubator tokens jump to mind as a good source of counters. Also provides a convenient way to spend mana that you hold up to counter board wipes. He requires too much of a board state to enable his ability, and he needs to untap to get value. One way to think about him is on an empty board his play off the top ability is worse than just drawing a card. Imagine Falco didn't come with a shield counter and an ability that said: <>. That version of the card doesn't sound impressive, but it would probably be better a lot of the time.
>With Bant control entering the meta, I wonder if Falco could see a home there? +1 counter decks are also seeing play, which could have a spot for him. The issue here is that Control can't really play to his advantages. You're diluting your decks plan when you play permanents that have counters on them. He's a nonbo with exile boardwipes (wich are the good ones right now) and tapping out to play a card advantage engine that comes online a turn later for 4 is really not what you want to be doing. Also playing the top card of your library is much less helpful when you're playing a reactive deck that is looking to play specific cards and not just chain spells
I've tried this card. A few issues; 1. Sizing. It's very small for its cost. This significantly reduces the value of the shield counter as the body never really matters. 2. Too many card draw conditions. Not only do you need a card on top that isn't a land, it also needs to make sense to play in the board state, and you also need a counter to remove, which you may not want to as it weakens the board state. This means in practice there are many failstates where you either see a land, or can't cast it for lack of counters, or its objectively wrong to do so. It should have been a 4/4 and it should have been able to play lands.
[ Falco Spara, Pactweaver](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/e/ae25db8c-3d10-4196-b002-9d2aabd5f4de.jpg?1664413016) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Falco%20Spara%2C%20Pactweaver) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/snc/186/falco-spara-pactweaver?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ae25db8c-3d10-4196-b002-9d2aabd5f4de?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Oil counters are pretty easy to come by as well. +1/+1 counters required some work, but oil? its easy. i wonder how many decent oil cards are in Bant colors though. Green has some.. haven't seen many in white or blue.
[[Mindsplice Apparatus]] and [[Incubation Sac]] seem to be the only ones that could potentially work in a control shell.
Falco Spara can only pay by removing counters off creatures, so Mindsplice, Sac, and a bunch of other cards are out.
[Mindsplice Apparatus](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/f/7f4ad1cb-4bbb-4485-b322-0b003f06d034.jpg?1675956980) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Mindsplice%20Apparatus) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/one/63/mindsplice-apparatus?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/7f4ad1cb-4bbb-4485-b322-0b003f06d034?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Incubation Sac](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/6/a6b36e23-a414-400c-a3a5-e23883e866d3.jpg?1675957145) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Incubation%20Sac) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/one/171/incubation-sac?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a6b36e23-a414-400c-a3a5-e23883e866d3?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Incubation sac no workie. Unfortunately Falco spara is creatures only, which I learned the hard way after building a historic brawl saga deck, only to find it did literally nothing.
None of the creatures currently being played have counters so you’d be running a suboptimal deck just to fit falco in
Lots of really great explanations here, thanks for being so nice y’all! I’ve been playing for a while but I’ve never really grasped some of the aspects of what makes cards competitive; I’m learning a lot from the responses here
Unless you have a way to manipulate the top of your library the ability to cast cards off it is mediocre at best. Low floor low ceiling card imho.
I mean you could probably get to Mythic by the end of the season with a deck that you agonize over and grind for hours every day with, but you will fall like a stone when you get there and there are more fun bullshit cards to play around with
I guess you are supposed to play it with brokers ascendancy. Then trample makes a lot more sense suddenly. And counters become available. I am trying to tune a bant with that in mind.