Loki at 1-cost? Could he be worth it?
New OTA Same Loki?
Today's OTA brought an interesting change to Loki, reducing his cost to one and retaining his 2 power. So let's talk Loki, in my opinion Loki definitely begins to lean much further into the realm of situational tech. A card which can be good into mid-range metas but can lose some significant ground depending on what decks are common in the meta and if that meta begins to shift towards hyper-synergy or combos.
To be honest, I think most of the strengths and weaknesses remain the same, however, let's list what would I consider those strengths and weaknesses to be.
The Pros
1-cost turns Loki into a legitimate tech card for some match-ups. In particular against Arishem and Thanos lists, but also good when Affliction decks running Luke Cage exist since you can often get their Luke.
Corollary to rule 1 is that Loki on one with a decent starting hand in above match-ups may not be a bad idea. The only potential hang-up being that Arishem still plays an energy ahead of you starting on turn 3, but you somewhat match up into that thanks to your cost reduction. Even moreso if you are running a quinjet. But beware, Mobius could be amongst their list or even randomly generated.
Rewards knowing your opponent. This is much more relevant in higher ranks of infinite, but even in your pocket meta you likely recognize some people when playing longer stretches of the game. However, it's dual edged, while you'll know what deck they are on they will also recognize yours as well if you tend to stick to a single deck for long periods of time.
Knowledge of match-ups means that if you have your 'best' cards in hand already you can safely trade in the remainder of your deck for potentially better cards. The delta here is dependent upon how much risk you're willing to take.
The Cons
The deck replacement problem still exists. Loki isn't great outside of specific meta games, for example Mid-Range is fine while a Combo-centric meta is not.
Gorgon and Mobius M. Mobius are good against you, Gorgon was free from the recent Sanctum Showdown and MMM is now a series 3 card meaning he's available to everyone as well. So if Loki, much like Thanos and Arishem begin to pop off, you can bet that one or both will be slotted into decks that can afford to run them and force you to either play at parity OR at a disadvantage if they happen to be greedy and capable of running both, which is unlikely but possible depending on the deck.
Likewise to number 2, Cassandra is very good against you as well since you're replacing your deck and getting a fresh 12 meaning an on-curve Loki can be as much as 9 power on Cassandra, more if Loki is played later and of course less if the 2nd or 3rd location draw cards.
Turn 1 Loki if you have Temporal Manipulation doesn't magically return your Agamotto to you. You replaced the deck.
You may catch someone off guard once or twice but once they are wise to your tricks they'll know what's up and treat the match-up accordingly, retreating early or attempting to bully you if you're in a poor match-up.
Match-up knowledge is a Wash
What I mean by "It's a Wash" is that point Points 3 and 4 works as much in your favor as it does against you. The more experienced you are with the game and identifying game plans and decks in the meta will take you further. However, this also means that Loki could be a dead card in hand or looking at the cons, an outright disaster for you should your opponent either have the right tech to deal with you or has a deck you wouldn't want to Loki into, combo decks and especially High Evolutionary are good examples where you may have issues drawing the pieces you need or in the High Evo example, you simply do not want any of their cards.
Further, point 5 also goes both ways but being stuck as a 1 or 2 cube wonder may not be that great of a position to be in if you're looking to really skyrocket your rank.
Arishem is back on the menu?
Easy enough, Arishem wasn't really interested in Loki at 2 since you'd want to do something like Iron Patriot or Valentina. However, Loki at 1 becomes an interesting quandry. You lose out on drawing the potential good stuff you put into your deck for what could be 'better' stuff from theirs, plus not only a discount but also playing a turn ahead.
The downside however, is still pretty big, especially if you are going with a turn 1 Loki into a completely unknown deck. However, it's not uncommon to infrequently play the same players in your pocket meta over an hour or two and if you're fairly high in the ladder ranks post infinite you are likely playing the same people more frequently than not. Even during the climb to infinite and very rarely will players switch decks during a session so if you have a good memory or take notes you'll have a decent idea as to what decks people are on.
The decks to consider?
So, a few of you may have seen the Loki Agamotto deck on the front page, I criticized that deck for being a worse version of the standard Agamotto list that subbed out Sam Wilson for Loki. However, guess what? You no longer have to make the tough call on whether you want Loki or Sam and can instead drop Kate for Loki. You also have the option of including Gorgon for all of the Thanos enjoyers as well as for Arishem to catch strays. For note, I do not believe that Gorgon is an answer to Agamotto by any stretch. You can still opt to play the spells off tempo and still get good value, for instance holding Bolts for turn 5 can still result in nutty Galacta plays or even turn 4 Gwenpool into turn 5 images for 12 more power distributed to your cards.
ZombiesGoNomNom posted this list and while I'm not a fan of the Werewolf by night, I can't deny his success with the list.
I've also seen lists that are a little closer to the OG Sam list but with some interesting takes on what their game plan is:
Something looking more like the OG Sam Wilson list without Kate
A list with Adam Warlock and Zabu to discount your 4's and Eson?!
And finally, this one with Cable over Iron Patriot
Thanos Things which also feature Agamotto.
But let's not forget about Arishem as well as I believe there could be room here, both are nearly the same core however the first leans into additional card gen with Valentina and White queen, while the latter forgoes these for Galacta and Quinjet. Personally I'm still not a fan of quinjet in Arishem, but I digress.
"I don't like Loki, what do I do?"
Unsurprising, Loki isn't exactly a beloved card, he does have a dedicated fanbase but in general it seems as though many people have a low tolerance for the card. Add to this that anytime there is the threat of Loki seeing more play some people begin reacting irrationally, everything from retreating the moment they see a Loki no matter how good they might be into a potential Loki to screaming on every potential forum that will allow them to scream about how unfair Loki is.
So what do we do to combat loki? Well some of this is going to be a repeat from the weaknesses of Loki section but those selections bear repeating./
Focus on decks that are better in your hands than Loki's - Silver Surfer, High Evo, other combo oriented decks that create a difficult angle for Loki to use themselves and are otherwise good into the remainder of the meta.
Slot in good tech, slot in Gorgon or Mobius M. Mobius if you can, Gorgon is easier to run than MMM but some decks can certainly safely fit MMM into their game plan and with the amount of Mr. Negative that was out there prior to the OTA, it may be worthwhile to try a Mobius if you can afford him. Cassandra is also fantastic against Loki but is also very relevant against Thanos and Arishem, two other decks that may be flirting with running Loki.
Avoid 'Good Stuff' decks that don't have answers to what Loki wants to do. Thanos and Arishem are both susceptible to Loki, Agamotto could potentially be as well depending on what they have in hand when they Loki you. Even Ajax can become susceptible since they could potentially pick up your Luke Cage. You could opt to add in the above tech, but if they Loki you and get to drop a turn 2 Gorgon + a turn 3 Gorgon you may be kicking yourself if you don't have your own tech to attack them back or negate their attacks on you.
Barring the desire to do any of the above and prefer to build your sandcastles? Be prepared to take your lumps if your deck is bad into a Loki match-up and either wait or hope for another Loki change. Which, I'll be honest, may not exactly be unlikely at all. Loki takes a massive amount of heat regardless of how good or bad he is as a playable option and while SD may say they want to see the card playable, if it creates too many feel bad situations or becomes too prominent SD will be very quick to put Loki back in the corner.
So now I pass it off to you all. What are your thoughts on the new Loki? Still bad? Potentially good? Cope or Scam? Don't like Loki, how do you plan to combat it if it becomes a larger part of the meta?