Image courtesy of Scryfall.com
Clustering by Mana Cost: Complaints Clerk Spotlight
When you’re digging through a set like Unfinity, the chaos of park-at-your-own-risk humor meets the precision of theory. Machine learning clustering by mana cost is a playful lens to view the game’s mana curve—and it’s perfect for a card like Complaints Clerk. This white 4-drop, a Creature — Sloth Beast Employee from Unfinity, embodies the idea that a single card can anchor a broader pattern in both deck-building and a data-minded mindset 🧠✨. Its presence in a chart of mana costs isn’t just about power; it’s about how cost, color, and text combine to generate a cluster of play patterns that players can recognize, compare, and optimize with humor intact ⚔️🎨.
Meet Complaints Clerk on the battlefield
The Clerk wears a calm, clockwork grin: a {3}{W} spelllet that ends up as a sturdy 3/3 on the battlefield. Its true personality blooms the moment it enters: open an Attraction. In Unfinity’s theme-park cosmos, that means you reveal a new Attraction card onto the battlefield alongside your new guest from the park gates. Think of it as a doorway to a carnival of options, where every entrance reshapes the board state with a splash of whimsy 🧭🎡. And if the gods of chaos smile and you roll a 1, you don’t just gain a momentary advantage—you spawn a 1/1 white Clown Robot token, a tiny, gleeful artifact creature that can press forward or chump block as needed. The card’s flavor text—“The longest lines in the park.”—nails the vibe: you’re in a place where every draw and every die roll has a story to tell 🎭🤖.
Why this card anchors a mana-cost clustering discussion
Complaints Clerk sits at CMC 4, a sweet spot for several clustering cohorts. In a practical ML sense, you might group cards by features like color identity, mana value, and card type, then examine how each cluster yields different kinds of value—tempo, board presence, or long-term payoff. The Clerk’s combination of a solid body (3/3), an enter-the-battlefield trigger, and a rolling chance to generate tokens creates a distinct footprint in a mana-cost space that many players recognize and leverage. In other words: it’s a reference point for exploring how a four-mana, White creature can catalyze a multi-layered game plan, especially when you’re curating a theme around attractions, park-wide synergies, and token generation 🧙🔥💎.
How to translate this into practical clustering steps
- Define features: mana value (CMC), color identity, card type, triggered abilities, unique keywords (like Open an Attraction), and token generation potential.
- Choose a metric: a simple Hamming-like distance for discrete features (color identity, card type, keywords) combined with a numeric distance for CMC and tokens per turn.
- Draft initial clusters: - Cluster A: White, CMC 4, solid bodies, ETB effects with stable board impact (Complaints Clerk-like archetypes). - Cluster B: Cards that open ancillary permanents or reward on die rolls (Attraction-driven or chaos-friendly effects). - Cluster C: Tokens-as-wrath strategies, where the card’s tokens multiply with recurring triggers.
- Inspect cross-cluster interactions: how ETB triggers chain into more permanents, or how dice-reward tokens scale with the overall board state.
- Consider playstyle and formats: in Commander, where Complaints Clerk is legal, you can lean into long-game value with attractions and token pressure; in Legacy or Vintage, you’ll see a different flavor of stability and risk management, even if those formats are outside typical Unfinity love notes 🧩⚖️.
Flavor, design, and the art of playability
Unfinity isn’t only about jokes; it’s a celebration of craft—the art by Michael Phillippi brings a park corridor vibe to life, with the Clerk’s slope-browed patience as a counterpoint to the card’s lively ETB mechanic. The blend of a friendly, approachable creature type—Sloth Beast Employee—with a mechanical payoff in Attraction opens doors to a design space that’s both accessible and surprisingly deep. The card’s rarity—uncommon—reflects a sweet spot: enough presence to matter in a game, enough quirk to feel special in a collection, and a price that nudges newer players toward a smile rather than a wallet-groan 🧙🔥.
Collector value, legality, and real-world use
From a collector’s lens, Complaints Clerk sits at a modest price point in the USD market (around $0.10 for non-foil and about $0.18 for foil, per Scryfall data). It’s foil-enabled, non-foil friendly, and part of the Unfinity set—an easy “in” for players building fun, park-themed boards. In terms of play formats, the card is Commander-legal, with a playful but restricted presence in other formats (Legacy and Vintage see bans or prohibitions in some cases). Its EDHREC rank sits in the higher-number field, reflecting its niche but beloved status among casual and theme-driven decks. If you’re chasing a white, mid-range value creature with a park-full of options, Complaints Clerk makes a strong case for inclusion in a lighthearted Atrraction-centric brew 🧩🎲.
Deck-building tips and jokes that stay on theme
For a fun, defensible Commander shell, pair Complaints Clerk with attractions that reward board presence and token ambassadors. A white-led theme can leverage protection spells, bend favors for permanents on the battlefield, and leverage the tokens from your dice results into a winning tempo. Don’t forget the flavor: Complaints Clerk isn’t just a cog in a machine; it’s a character in a carnival—so lean into synergy between park features and your own card draw. It’s all about balancing a grin with a plan: maintain a steady board state, keep your attractions coming, and watch as the Clown Robot tokens carve out front-line pressure while you stash a few surprises for the late game 🧙♂️🎡.
Whether you’re a data nerd who loves a tidy clustering exercise or a casual dabbler who adores the park’s chaos, Complaints Clerk offers a memorable blend of strategy and whimsy. It’s a reminder that even a seemingly simple 4-mana White creature can anchor a larger pattern—one that’s ripe for analysis, brews, and a little Park Department-approved mischief.
Ready to go deeper? Check out the product options for your desk and table space while you plan your next Unfinity-inspired deck build. And for a desk setup that sparks joy between matches, consider the Neon Desk Neoprene Mouse Pad 4mm Non-Slip—the perfect companion for long nights of data crunching and card drafting alike 🎲🧙♂️.