Oath of Nissa G
Legendary Enchantment
When Oath of Nissa enters the battlefield, look at the top three cards of your library. You may reveal a creature, land, or planeswalker card from among them and put it into your hand. Put the rest on the bottom of your library in any order.
You may spend mana as though it were mana of any color to cast planeswalker spells. For the life of every plane, I will Keep Watch.
Ok so it seems we get the Oath cycle . This one looks really pushed to me. I'd certainly include it in my cube.
Thoughts?
This one is okay. It's kinda like a green cantrip that can't get instants, sorceries, artifacts or enchantments. So like a bad cantrip. Unless you're running a ton of 'walkers to utilize the 2nd ability (green fixes your mana for them pretty well anyways) I don't see this being very good.
If the deck is largely saturated with hits, it can be a reasonable T1 spell to cast. But if you have critical cards in your deck that it can't grab, it can be kinda rough sometimes. I can't imagine the average green deck wanting to cast this instead of a mana dork on T1 the vast majority of the time.
I take back my previous statement in the Jace thread that the Nissa one was going to be terribad...
That being said, she's a good card. I'm probably underestimating her, but my first impression is that this card is just G: Cycle. I think it's hard to justify a slot for her in my cube ATM, plus I'm not sure if I like it more than Mirri's Guile.
This seems good to me. Green Preordain/Ponder/Serum Visions type card? Feels like in your opener this could make it a lot easier to keep a questionable hand. Late game it digs you to your big threat you've been ramping to. Green already has a lot of "toolbox" type answers, so the "no spells" thing doesn't seem like a big deal. I'm perfectly fine to dig up an Eternal Witness or Reclamation Sage with this if I need an "answer". All that to say, this seems good at all stages in the game and it smooths your draws out in a way that green can't usually do alone (Sylvan Library notwithstanding).
Occasionally, it might fix your colors when casting a planeswalker. About as relevant as the text on Dragon Hunter I'll wager. I think it's still playable for the main effect.
This doesn't really appeal to me. Missing seems rare, but hitting seems kind of subpar too some percentage of the time. Maybe Im misevaluating but Im not impressed.
Not a bad card, but I don't think it's an effect I want. I wouldn't run an off-color planeswalker just because of this card, which seems to be what the second ability encourages. The first ability is nominally useful. Overall, though, I'd rather cast some kind of mana creature and accelerate myself over the next couple turns.
This is better than a cantrip (draw a card) in green decks. Will try to find a slot.
You mean it's better than a card that has: Cycling G? Maybe. But true cantrips have better selection modes on them than this does, as there's a lot of different cards you might want to select with this card and can't. This effect seems much worse than Opt to me, in a color that has a lot more proactive action on T1 than blue does.
Now in a constructed deck that either can't whiff, doesn't have mana dorks or has ways to get additional value out of the enchantment (like Enchantress triggers and stuff) it might be very good. But my green cube decks I don't think want this card all that much.
I hope I'm wrong, because a green Cantrip would be kinda cool, but I see myself wanting to hit cards this can't grab all too often. My green decks that really want to play things besides mana dorks are filled with and/or built around effects Oath can't snag, which is kinda a bummer in this format.
Really wish this was land, creature, walker, or enchantment.
I wouldn't play this just for the first mode, I wouldn't draft a walker that I would otherwise pass on account of having picked it, and I wouldn't play a walker that I would otherwise sideboard on account of this being in my pool.
Seems like a cube pass, although I like the card quite a lot along other axes.
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I wanna see how relevant the interactions with it can be. It works well in WG and UG since you can blink/bounce/flicker the card for value. You can also sac it to Smokestack. There might be enough combo value/interactions to make it worthwhile even if it might fall just short of being good enough on its own merits. And maybe the value of the fixing for 'walkers is higher than I'm estimating; particularly if your group plays a lot of 4-5c planeswalker control decks. I might very well test it out since it's hard to evaluate at first glance. My gut says that the limitations on its targets might make it too inconsistent as a pure cantrip effect, but I'm hoping that the secondary bonuses push it into playability. :crossesfingers:
My gut says that the limitations on its targets might make it too inconsistent as a pure cantrip effect, but I'm hoping that the secondary bonuses push it into playability. :crossesfingers:
This is a weird card for sure, however I do't think it misses very often at all. I think in base green or full 2-color green decks missing would be very, very rare as those decks tend to have lots of creatures and at least 17 lands. Even with 10 non-land, non-creature, non-PW spells (pus the oath) the chance of missing in the top 3 is only (if my math is right) (10/39)*(9/38)*(8/37)= ~1.3% (this is obviously drawing from a full deck, which doesn't happen, but I don't know enough stats to factor in having a hand - the number should be basically the same as your 7 cards would have similar ratios), and most green decks don't have more than 11 non-creature, land, and PW spells in my experience.
The main question is, even hitting almost every time with this, how good is it? It's like a weird mix of ponder and preordain, where you get to look at three, have to bottom two, and can't always take the best card - I honestly have no idea how to evaluate that, and also have a really hard time determining if the second ability is worth it - it seems very, very low impact, but also incredibly low cost.
All of this to basically say - I agree. Seems like this is a card that screams out for testing because it is super hard to evaluate.
I don't mean "missing" as completely blanking and getting nothing, but "missing" in that you need one of the 3 and fail to find, or wind up bottoming a critical card that it can't select.
The decks that would want this the most would be green decks digging for interesting effects, right? So less for generic ramp and more for cool archetype decks. But all the cards I really want to hit in those decks can't be selected by OoN anyways...
Hard to evaluate without seeing it in action I guess.
This is a such a weird design. About a good 70% of the text on this card is superfluous, leaving the worlds most complicated Anticipate.
Does it get there? Obviously just being a cantrip isn't good enough, as Abundant Growth doesn't warrant a slot. The selection can range from one of the best cantrips available in the format to barely better than draw a card. Is that worth putting any effort towards? We'll see. Greens never had an an effect this pushed before, so I agree it's worth a test.
Would be cool if all the oaths were playable and create a mini sub-theme deck.. One of my biggest gripes about planeswalkers is their general lack of synergy with the cool stuff you can do in cube. This may help alleviate that if we get oaths that are generally playable.
IE maybe this is playable in a 18 creature, 0 planeswalker, 16 land deck? Probabily not, but considering testing it out.
Flickerwisp/Venser/Smokestack have some nice interactions, wonder if there's more I can't think of?
Problem with Augur is that there's a maximum number of instants and sorcerers you can include in your deck. You can build plenty of decks with this such that you'll never whiff.
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Would be cool if all the oaths were playable and create a mini sub-theme deck.. One of my biggest gripes about planeswalkers is their general lack of synergy with the cool stuff you can do in cube. This may help alleviate that if we get oaths that are generally playable.
IE maybe this is playable in a 18 creature, 0 planeswalker, 16 land deck? Probabily not, but considering testing it out.
Flickerwisp/Venser/Smokestack have some nice interactions, wonder if there's more I can't think of?
With that deck composition you have a 99.9% chance not to whiff. 31% chance you get two choices (~Sleight of Hand) and 65% chance you get three choices (Anticipate).
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Yes, but Slight of Hand and Anticipate can collect any of those cards. It's not just about replacing itself, but getting a card you need. When you can't grab instants, sorceries, artifacts or enchantments, there will be a lot of cases where it gets the 2nd best card from your top 3. Do we want that? Maybe we do, but I'm not sure yet. It's more like a Peer Through Depths kind of effect than a true cantrip because you can't draw any card you find.
If this were blue I would agree with you, but a lot of green's best cards and cards played in green decks are creatures, lands, and planeswalkers, this card reminds me the most of Origins Nissa, never spectacular but always kinda servicable. In the early game it thins your land drops, and in the late game it grabs your finisher, the ability is a lot better than a cantrip.
I think this might end up being a card that we need to crunch some actual numbers on. At what point does the selection become better than a Sleight of Hand? If that's the average green deck, this starts to look very appealing.
If this were blue I would agree with you, but a lot of green's best cards and cards played in green decks are creatures, lands, and planeswalkers, this card reminds me the most of Origins Nissa, never spectacular but always kinda servicable. In the early game it thins your land drops, and in the late game it grabs your finisher, the ability is a lot better than a cantrip.
Well yes and no. Again, a lot of those cards are pretty redundant in green. The unique effects and off-color splashes that I might be digging for are often cards this can't hit. I certainly agree it's better than simply cycling for a random card, but I wonder how often I'll need this effect when it could've been a mana dork or something instead. If I can snag my 2nd or 3rd best option from my top 3 because I had to bottom some significant hits, how good is that really?
I guess I'm used to blue's cantrips which can find whatever I want. So maybe I'm just spoiled. But this card is not only limited in what kind of card I can get with it, but it also is competing in a color that has a lot of proactive plays in the early game that are pretty crucial to development. I think the decks that want a cantrip more than a mana creature are the kinds of decks that are built around cards this can't grab.
Again, I hope I'm wrong, because it would be sweet to have a card like this in decks that can abuse it (Flickerwisp and friends say hello!) but I'm just playing devil's advocate to make sure we evaluate all sides of the card. Hope it turns out to be great.
I'm skeptical. This card reminds me of Evolutionary Leap, where it doesn't go into every deck, but can do some serious work in the decks that it can go into. Unlike Leap, I don't see enough of a payoff to make it into my deck. When talking about blink / bounce effects, only Flickerwisp / Kor Skyfisher (and Venser PW, but not everybody plays him) work well with it. Not being a creature means it can't work with Crystal Shard / Erratic Portal / Restoration Angel, and it's extremely rare that I use Man-o-War on my own creatures (Venser is less conditional since he can save things with flash).
I won't be testing this Nissa's Oath, but it certainly is a card worth doing so.
It's important to note that if you're trying to find a particular noncreature spell (Sneak Attack, let's say), casting this does not make you any less likely to get it in the next N turns, for any value of N. It actually makes you favored to find Sneak Attack slightly faster, since you put them back in any order and can shuffle if needed.
Hitting two targets is not quite Sleight of Hand, but it is statistically indistinguishable from the following card:
Sleight of Nature G
Sorcery
Reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal two creature, land, or planeswalker cards. Put up to one into your hand, then shuffle the rest into your library.
I might cube Sleight of Nature, especially as an enchantment. You only need 26 creatures+land+walkers to get 2 hits *in expectation.* That means 9 creatures+walkers. Now you might want to give it some sort of penalty for inconsistency (sometimes hitting 0,1, or 3), but I think it is pretty solidly better than Sleight of Nature at 14 lands+walkers, which is pretty easy common for green. That gives you a .6% chance of 0, 9.5% of 1, 40.7% of 2, and 49.2% chance of 3, for an average of 2.38 cards.
Edit: And, similar to preordain, this is usually just as good as, or better, on turns 2+ than it is on turn one, so I don't think it actually conflicts with elves in the slightest.
Oath of Nissa G
Legendary Enchantment
When Oath of Nissa enters the battlefield, look at the top three cards of your library. You may reveal a creature, land, or planeswalker card from among them and put it into your hand. Put the rest on the bottom of your library in any order.
You may spend mana as though it were mana of any color to cast planeswalker spells.
For the life of every plane, I will Keep Watch.
Ok so it seems we get the Oath cycle . This one looks really pushed to me. I'd certainly include it in my cube.
Thoughts?
If the deck is largely saturated with hits, it can be a reasonable T1 spell to cast. But if you have critical cards in your deck that it can't grab, it can be kinda rough sometimes. I can't imagine the average green deck wanting to cast this instead of a mana dork on T1 the vast majority of the time.
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That being said, she's a good card. I'm probably underestimating her, but my first impression is that this card is just G: Cycle. I think it's hard to justify a slot for her in my cube ATM, plus I'm not sure if I like it more than Mirri's Guile.
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Occasionally, it might fix your colors when casting a planeswalker. About as relevant as the text on Dragon Hunter I'll wager. I think it's still playable for the main effect.
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You mean it's better than a card that has: Cycling G? Maybe. But true cantrips have better selection modes on them than this does, as there's a lot of different cards you might want to select with this card and can't. This effect seems much worse than Opt to me, in a color that has a lot more proactive action on T1 than blue does.
Now in a constructed deck that either can't whiff, doesn't have mana dorks or has ways to get additional value out of the enchantment (like Enchantress triggers and stuff) it might be very good. But my green cube decks I don't think want this card all that much.
I hope I'm wrong, because a green Cantrip would be kinda cool, but I see myself wanting to hit cards this can't grab all too often. My green decks that really want to play things besides mana dorks are filled with and/or built around effects Oath can't snag, which is kinda a bummer in this format.
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I wouldn't play this just for the first mode, I wouldn't draft a walker that I would otherwise pass on account of having picked it, and I wouldn't play a walker that I would otherwise sideboard on account of this being in my pool.
Seems like a cube pass, although I like the card quite a lot along other axes.
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This is a weird card for sure, however I do't think it misses very often at all. I think in base green or full 2-color green decks missing would be very, very rare as those decks tend to have lots of creatures and at least 17 lands. Even with 10 non-land, non-creature, non-PW spells (pus the oath) the chance of missing in the top 3 is only (if my math is right) (10/39)*(9/38)*(8/37)= ~1.3% (this is obviously drawing from a full deck, which doesn't happen, but I don't know enough stats to factor in having a hand - the number should be basically the same as your 7 cards would have similar ratios), and most green decks don't have more than 11 non-creature, land, and PW spells in my experience.
The main question is, even hitting almost every time with this, how good is it? It's like a weird mix of ponder and preordain, where you get to look at three, have to bottom two, and can't always take the best card - I honestly have no idea how to evaluate that, and also have a really hard time determining if the second ability is worth it - it seems very, very low impact, but also incredibly low cost.
All of this to basically say - I agree. Seems like this is a card that screams out for testing because it is super hard to evaluate.
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The decks that would want this the most would be green decks digging for interesting effects, right? So less for generic ramp and more for cool archetype decks. But all the cards I really want to hit in those decks can't be selected by OoN anyways...
Hard to evaluate without seeing it in action I guess.
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Does it get there? Obviously just being a cantrip isn't good enough, as Abundant Growth doesn't warrant a slot. The selection can range from one of the best cantrips available in the format to barely better than draw a card. Is that worth putting any effort towards? We'll see. Greens never had an an effect this pushed before, so I agree it's worth a test.
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IE maybe this is playable in a 18 creature, 0 planeswalker, 16 land deck? Probabily not, but considering testing it out.
Flickerwisp/Venser/Smokestack have some nice interactions, wonder if there's more I can't think of?
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Brago if you play it, skyfisher, and I think those are the only playable ones.
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With that deck composition you have a 99.9% chance not to whiff. 31% chance you get two choices (~Sleight of Hand) and 65% chance you get three choices (Anticipate).
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Well yes and no. Again, a lot of those cards are pretty redundant in green. The unique effects and off-color splashes that I might be digging for are often cards this can't hit. I certainly agree it's better than simply cycling for a random card, but I wonder how often I'll need this effect when it could've been a mana dork or something instead. If I can snag my 2nd or 3rd best option from my top 3 because I had to bottom some significant hits, how good is that really?
I guess I'm used to blue's cantrips which can find whatever I want. So maybe I'm just spoiled. But this card is not only limited in what kind of card I can get with it, but it also is competing in a color that has a lot of proactive plays in the early game that are pretty crucial to development. I think the decks that want a cantrip more than a mana creature are the kinds of decks that are built around cards this can't grab.
Again, I hope I'm wrong, because it would be sweet to have a card like this in decks that can abuse it (Flickerwisp and friends say hello!) but I'm just playing devil's advocate to make sure we evaluate all sides of the card. Hope it turns out to be great.
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I won't be testing this Nissa's Oath, but it certainly is a card worth doing so.
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Hitting two targets is not quite Sleight of Hand, but it is statistically indistinguishable from the following card:
Sleight of Nature G
Sorcery
Reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal two creature, land, or planeswalker cards. Put up to one into your hand, then shuffle the rest into your library.
I might cube Sleight of Nature, especially as an enchantment. You only need 26 creatures+land+walkers to get 2 hits *in expectation.* That means 9 creatures+walkers. Now you might want to give it some sort of penalty for inconsistency (sometimes hitting 0,1, or 3), but I think it is pretty solidly better than Sleight of Nature at 14 lands+walkers, which is pretty easy common for green. That gives you a .6% chance of 0, 9.5% of 1, 40.7% of 2, and 49.2% chance of 3, for an average of 2.38 cards.
Edit: And, similar to preordain, this is usually just as good as, or better, on turns 2+ than it is on turn one, so I don't think it actually conflicts with elves in the slightest.
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