Do I just not get Strive?

[Elah]

Strive seems really, really weak to me because it seems like all the strive costs are terribly expensive. Like Nature's Panoply, for instance. If you're going to cast it and strive once, then you're basically casting a more expensive Common Bond that you can't apply twice to the same creature. And once you get beyond two or three targets it just starts getting so expensive that it'd be more worth it (and possibly cheaper) to put in a bomb in your deck instead of have the opportunity to give four different creatures +1/+1 counters or some kind of end-of-turn ability.

Am I missing or underestimating something here?

[Volafortis]

Most of them aren't very impressive in constructed, but strive is fantastic in Theros limited. it enables heroic wonderfully, and allows for very versatile combat tricks. Just play against a GW Heroic deck in limited that swings with five mana open. You'll see why strive is good.

As far as in constructed, it's basically a bad multikicker.

[Prospero101]

Nature's Panoply is perhaps not the best example. The best Strive cards are already good on their own; getting additional targets is upside, making the cost less of a concern.

Take Hour of Need. For 2U you get to upgrade one of your dudes into a 4/4 flier at instant speed. You'd play that card in a heartbeat, right? But if you strive for a total cost of 3UU, you can get TWO big fliers at instant speed. Something like that can swing the game in your favor out of nowhere.

Or, let's look at something a wee bit more expensive. Silence of the Believers. 2BB, exile a creature. Period, full stop, end of sentence. Sick, right? But if you're able to get up to 4BBB, you get to kill TWO things forever, along with every enchantment attached to them.

Strive is best as upside on a card that's already good.

[tamaness]

Launch the Fleet is worthy of awe in WU heroic.

[jkefka]

I adore the counter-doubling one, but I'm crazy.

Also Battlefield Thaumaturge makes some strive cards cost virtually nothing.

[NamelessSteve]

I busted face in a draft with a RB deck, Twinflame on a Spawn of Thraxes is sickening and Blinding Flare is excellent with some heroic triggers - "alright, I pay four, your two flyers can't block and my War-Wing Sirens get a +1/+1 counter each, swing for lethal." It isn't as cost efficient as, say, the cycle of two-target spells from Theros original, but when the game drags on they can be major blowouts. I have to agree that most of them are far better in limited, but several are going to become EDH staples I think. Silence the Believers is premium removal, Launch the Fleet is bonkers in token decks, Hour of Need is powerful and versatile.

[Lord Hosk]

Some of the strive spells are better than others, its kind of like Hexproof or trample.

Sometimes its amazing, sometimes its just on the card and never comes into play.

[Utilitarian]

There's a reason that Setessen Tactics is one of the strive cards seeing the most talk for standard, as its strive is the most reasonable.

[Del]

Twinflame is a card that I expected would see constructed play (in a rdw or monsters), but has yet to do so. I am still holding out hope it will, and run a singleton in my rw deck at the moment.

[Utilitarian]

Twinflame is a card that I expected would see constructed play (in a rdw or monsters), but has yet to do so. I am still holding out hope it will, and run a singleton in my rw deck at the moment.

There's an infinite combo with twinflame + two cards in Standard right now but it doesn't fit into a deck very well as its pretty clunky

[korvys]

What's the combo? (I'm a sucker for a good/bad combo)

[Lurkon]

Mnemonic Wall + Axebane Guardian, both targeted by Twinflame, for infinite mana.

[Utilitarian]

You need axebane guardian, mnemonic wall, and twinflame.

Make RR with the guardian, tap 3, strive to copy the above two spells.

Mnemonic wall enters, get back twinflame. Tap the new axebane for RRRR, tap 1 from land, strive again. Now you start netting mana with each strive. Soon you can strive an extra creature.

Now you can either infinitely either cast any spell from your hand or graveyard (getting it back with copied walls) or make infinite hasty copies of some other creature you have that can attack.

One nice thing is you don't actually need red mana in the deck since you only need to cast twinflame on e you have the axebane on the board, which makes the red

-edit- the good thing is it's not just infinite mana but also infinite graveyard spell recursive and infinite hasty creatures

[Lord Hosk]

Plus if you have a creature down that has heroic +1/+1's you get infinite +1/+1's

[Utilitarian]

My preferred method was to have Dimir charm in the deck and then just mill out my opponent. I found it worked pretty well to help stall to combo time, killing aggro creatures, filtering my draws to find combo pieces, and countering thoughtsieze to protect my hand.

[My pseudonym is Ix]

You need axebane guardian, mnemonic wall, and twinflame.

Make RR with the guardian, tap 3, strive to copy the above two spells.

Mnemonic wall enters, get back twinflame. Tap the new axebane for RRRR, tap 1 from land, strive again. Now you start netting mana with each strive. Soon you can strive an extra creature.

Now you can either infinitely either cast any spell from your hand or graveyard (getting it back with copied walls) or make infinite hasty copies of some other creature you have that can attack.

One nice thing is you don't actually need red mana in the deck since you only need to cast twinflame on e you have the axebane on the board, which makes the red

-edit- the good thing is it's not just infinite mana but also infinite graveyard spell recursive and infinite hasty creatures

...I am so, so tempted to break my thus far lifetime rule about buying singles just to make that deck happen. Four of each, every other card would be either land or hunting for those three or some aggro creatures. It would be exquisite. I would annoy my playgroup so damn hard

[My pseudonym is Ix]

OK, screw it- I am going to build this deck. However, this'll be the first time I've constructed a deck from scratch, so right now I'm not exactly sure how I'd go about doing it. This is what my decklist currently looks like (cards marked with a * denote 'I had this lying about and wanted to play with it', which is my more typical justification for deck construction).

Creatures:
1x Golden Hind*
1x Wood Sage*
4x Axebane Guardian
2x Howling Wolf* (going to a Conspiracy draft on Friday hoping to pick up a couple more)
1x Fleetfeather Cockatrice*
1x Kruphix, God of Horizons*
4x Mnemonic Wall
1x Hydra Omnivore*

Sorceries:
3x Lay of the Land
2x Commune with the Gods*
4x Twinflame
3x Divination
3x Ghastly Discovery
1x Seek the Horizon*

...yeah, I know it's a mess. There aren't even enough cards there to make a deck as yet. Trouble is, because I'm only trying to get a combo to work I'm essentially working along the lines of 'draw cards until I find what I'm looking for', since I haven't been able to find any 'go hunting for creatures/sorceries' cards that aren't white. So... advice anyone?

[iamafish]

commune with the gods does that, doesn't it? Although you're milling yourself in the process.

Speaking of, there does seem to be a pretty decent BG re-animator deck in Theros block

[My pseudonym is Ix]

Commune with the Gods does that for creatures & Enchantments, but does nothing for getting out sorceries, which I want too. I've got no issue with milling sorceries as re-animating them is this deck's trick, but a little something to re-animate creatures & find sorceries would be rather helpful.

[Lord Hosk]

Well commune pitches them to the bin and Mnemonic Wall gets them back. You could also get Reviving Melody to get your walls and guardians back. its Green black but you could do Nyx Weaver to dig for what you need then have Elixir of Immortality as back up so you dont mill out.

[My pseudonym is Ix]

I have all three of those... Reviving Melody is definitely going in. Reluctant to go even further outside colours with Nyx Weaver. Would it be worth then investing in a couple more Communes and 3 more Reviving Melodies?

[MowDownJoe]

Heh... this is what I ended up brewing when I read that Twinflame combo.

I doubt it's going to be Modern viable, but I think it could be fun. Gifts Ungiven proves to be a very efficient tutor in UG decks. Also, dipping into Modern gives you a Splinter Twin-esque wincon of infinite hasty Eternal Witnesses, since they can also become a Twinflame target and then buy back Twinflame.

[My pseudonym is Ix]

See, that's the kind of thing I was looking for- I haven't heard of most of those cards and couldn't find them by looking online. I personally wouldn't construct quite that deck, but it'll probably end up looking vaguely similar...

[Root potato]

Might as well go all defenders and kill them in the funniest way, toss in door keeper and mill equal to your infinite defenders! Lol