Image courtesy of Scryfall.com
Conductor of Cacophony in Draft: When to Prioritize This Demon on the Schedule
If you’re drafting in Jumpstart 2022 or any black-centric deck building, the Conductor of Cacophony slides into your curve with a canny blend of resilience and reach. This is a card that quietly grows into a near-forgotten masterclass in value: it arrives as a 4-mana, 4/3 threat (thanks to two +1/+1 counters), and its real pickup comes from the ability it carries in reserve. With a single black mana and the removal of a counter, it can light up the board by pinging every other creature and every player for 1 damage. That’s not just board control; that’s tempo with a side of inevitability. 🧙♂️🔥💎⚔️
Card at a glance
- Name: Conductor of Cacophony
- Set / Rarity: Jumpstart 2022 (J22) — Uncommon
- Mana Cost: {3}{B}
- Type / PT: Creature — Demon, 2/1 base
- Abilities: “This creature enters with two +1/+1 counters on it. {B}, Remove a +1/+1 counter from this creature: It deals 1 damage to each other creature and each player.”
- Flavor: “Only an imitation of tortured shrieking — or so the Rakdos claim.”
In practice, this is a card that rewards careful planning. The two +1/+1 counters at enter-time instantly scale the board presence, turning a modest 4-mana body into a legitimate midrange threat. The activated ability is not a one-shot trick; it’s a resource system. You invest a counter to clear lanes, punish stalled boards, and push toward the finish while you manage your remaining counters for closer finishes. In a one-on-one draft, consider it a tempo engine with a built-in damage lever that you can pull multiple times over the course of a game. 🧙♂️
When to prioritize it in a draft pack
In Jumpstart 2022, the environment encourages aggressive midrange builds and efficientRemoval and disruption. Conductor of Cacophony thrives when you’re building a black-inflected deck that wants both stable early pressure and late-game reach. Here’s how to read the room on pick orders:
- Early pack picks: If you see a stark black skeleton for your deck—especially creatures that generate value off +1/+1 counters or that scale with board presence—this card becomes a natural pickup. The two counters at entry act as a head start on a bigger plan, so it can be worth snagging even a touch earlier than its uncommon slot would suggest.
- Mid-pack context: If you’re drafting into a Rakdos-centered or black-dominant shell, Conductor of Cacophony slides in as a strong second or third pick. Its power-to-cost ratio and its shock-value removal ability make it a reliable engine in most black decks that want to trade, radiate pressure, and finish strong.
- Late-pack value: In black-light or multi-color environments where removal is scarce, Conductor can still shine because it’s a sizeable midgame threat that can snowball with counter generation. You don’t need to rely on it being a first-pick stopper; its true merit shows up as you weave it into a broader plan.
Draft strategy and synergy
The real magic of Conductor lies in how you leverage counters. If your deck contains a few ways to protect or accelerate +1/+1 counter stacking—whether through efficient threats or synergy with other counter mechanics—you’ll find the Conductor becoming more than the sum of its parts. In the Jumpstart environment, you’ll often see a mix of self-contained removal, resilient threats, and splashy finishers. The Conductor acts as the bridge between early board presence and late-game reach. And in a pinch, that activated ability can clean the slate when the opposing board looks ready to swing the race in their favor. The flavor text nods to a grand theater of shrieks; the gameplay nods to a practical, board-warping tool. 🎲🎨
Another angle worth noting is its rarity class. As an Uncommon in J22, it’s not the long-term, “must-pick-only-if-it’s-curving-your-deck” bomb you’d find in rares, but it offers a dependable, repeatable engine in the right shells. The card’s black mana identity is tight enough for sharp color-pigeonholing, yet flexible enough to slot into multi-color decks that want a concrete plan around permanents that scale with time. If you’re enamored with a theme built around disruption, tempo, and incremental advantage, this Demon fits the bill nicely. 🔥
Practical moves on game day
- Early game: Deploy threats that pressure without overcommitting. Conductor becomes a lovely later-game line of play as counters accumulate.
- Mid-game: If you’ve managed to keep the board clear or swapped control into your favor, begin leveraging the counter removal to push damage across while your other creatures survive to apply pressure.
- Late game: The plan is simple—one or two clean counter removals can end games when you’ve got a couple of +1/+1 counters already on the table and your opponent is pressed for options.
When you pair Conductor of Cacophony with mindful removal timing and board-preserving plays, you’re weaving a thread that can tighten into a victory condition before your opponent can reestablish dominance. It’s not a pure “blowout” card, but it’s a reliable, enjoyable inclusion that embodies the clever, combative spirit of black in draft. 🧙♂️⚔️
The culture and the craft
Artistically, the Demon’s design fits the darker edge of Jumpstart’s creative space, leaning into the Rakdos-esque theater of torment, a hallmark of that guild’s aesthetic. The flavor text, the counters, and the damage-spell synergy all echo a cohesive, thematic cadence that fans of the set will recognize. For collectors and players alike, the Conductor of Cacophony offers a crisp, flavorful example of how mechanics can be embedded into a single card that still plays well in a variety of draft grammars. And if you’re into collecting and display, the card’s lineage within Jumpstart 2022 makes it a neat artifact of a format built for fast, social drafting adventures. 💎
As you plan your next draft night, keep an eye out for the Conductor when black is open or when you can steer your deck toward a tempo-rich plan. It’s the kind of card that rewards you for sequencing and patience—two things every good drafter brings to the table. And if you’re looking to carry your favorite cards in style, consider pairing your favorite MTG stash with a sleek MagSafe card holder case—convenient, chic, and ready for the battlefield. 🧙♂️🎲
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