The plot in this is great as even if your follow up is just bolt to the face you hit your opponent for 6 while not exposing this to any sorcery speed removal, and it's easy to imagine doing more than that. Easy test IMO.
I think the cheap modes are too low-impact or narrow and 3WWW is too much for a wrath even at instant.
The 4WWW you keep your best creature mode is basically a pipe dream, as is 5WWW mode (which is narrow too - your opponent has to have creatures with die triggers you want to avoid or indestructible). Feels like an easy skip to me.
Titan of Industry has punched above its weight for us. Card just does so much and always has 2 relevant modes. That said this is great too, I think I'll run both.
I suspect this is too low impact when you have to wait until turn 4 to cast it and then even if you immediately plot a 3-drop you have to wait until next turn to put that into play. Don't really want a PW that can't come down until turn 4 and can't impact the board until turn 5, even if it does enable a two-spell turn 4 well.
His youtube channel is also a great channel to learn how to think about drafting cube (and it's entertaining).
I get the most insight into how to draft combo from him, especially in a cube that doesn't focus on archetypes.
Incidentally you can right click on a youtube video and select "copy video URL at current time" and it will go right to the point your talking about. Like so - https://youtu.be/hhdU845Hz6w?t=681
(I assume there's a way to do it on mobile as well, but I don't know how.)
And I think that while dig through time does not go in every deck, for a non-vintage cube it remains great in basically any blue deck that is even a little reactive. I think it is substantially better than treasure cruise because the second U is much less punishing in cube and in every other way it's a stronger card than cruise.
Leaving up instants and being able to dig for the two best cards in your top 7 is still a really good value play, even in a powerful legacy cube. I am a very long way from cutting it.
It's 2024. How does Elspeth, Sun's Champion hold up in powered Vintage Cubes today? At what size Cube would you play Elspeth?
I was wrong on this Elspeth when it first came out, but it absolutely justified its 6 CMC cost and was a staple for years.
HOWEVER, I recently cut it when I trimmed my list down to 375 and I don't particularly miss it. We're sort of at the point now where 6 mana plays need to basically win the game on their own and with so many evasive threats and efficient PW kill spells now, even getting 3 soldiers off elspeth only to have her die to a 2 or 3 cmc instant still feels like you're worse off in the exchange.
Still a strong card, but cuttable now IMO. I think 4 years ago I would have said it's insane to cut her.
If you look back at the MH2 elementals, Fury and Grief were extremely underestimated by a lot of people in the cube community, and they ended up being Vintage cube allstars.
LOL I was curious so I went back and read my takes - I was wildly wrong. The WRB elementals are all like top 10 in their colors and the green one is also playable.
I'm most interested in the white and black cards in this cycle - they have the most disposable creatures floating around. Outside chance for the red one to be good in the same way fireblast is to finish someone off with a multi-spell turn. I think it will be hard for the U one to be good because I don't think they'll print a straight free counter again but we'll see.
This is an equipment (a card type which requires heavy focus on creatures to work) that cares about instants and sorceries, and the protection from spells instead of colours means this has no inbuilt way to prevent chumping, which greatly devalues the plan of cloning removal spells with the on-hit trigger. Many cubes don't even run Sword of Fire and Ice, I have a hard time seeing this make it.
Yeah I'm out on swords generally (I still run fire and ice but I suspect it will be gone within a year) but this one seems like an interesting alternative for cubes that still run them.
I'm not a fan of this sword. Protection from instants and sorceries is good against removal, but this providing zero evasion makes it a tough sell. Even then, the damage trigger is going to be very inconsistent. Decks that want swords tend to be heavier on the creature side than spell side, so I feel like there's a lot of anti-synergy here.
I think it's slightly worse than fire and ice still, but I would have this as the second best sword ahead of body and mind.
Personally for me this doesn't even crack my top 5 swords. I have Fire and Ice / Body and Mind / Anduril, Flame of the West as my top 3 swords, and this doesn't even come close to those 3, IMO. Those generally just kill your opponent if you connect twice, this doesn't. I think this sword in general is worse than both Sword of Feast and Famine / Sword of Once and Future.
Oh yeah, I think Anduril is also a top 3 sword, but people tend to not list it in the "sword of x and y" cycle.
The lack of evasion on this definitely hurts, but there's a ton of cubable small flyers and unblockable creatures now, and I think the ceiling on this sword is just so high. I could certainly be overestimating how often you get to hit with a spell in hand, and the fact that it does basically nothing if you use all your mana to play and equip it definitely hurts.
Surprised to not see a thread about this yet. I'm of the opinion that swords are too slow for cube nowadays, but this is definitely one of the best we've seen and I find protection from instants and sorceries much more interesting than protection from colors (I really don't like how protection from colors wins the game against some decks and does nothing against others). I don't like how this sword does basically nothing if you don't have a spell in hand, but if you even have just a bolt it goes off. I think it's slightly worse than fire and ice still, but I would have this as the second best sword ahead of body and mind.
I really wish they hadn't felt the need to limit to only green creatures - saccing a thraben inspector to cast this would be sick. The problem is basically all green 1's are mana dorks (as are a lot of 2's) so you end up mana neutral by going that route.
Infernal grasp is the best one, and heartless act is 2nd IMO. I'm not running either of those so this is an easy pass for me.
The 4WWW you keep your best creature mode is basically a pipe dream, as is 5WWW mode (which is narrow too - your opponent has to have creatures with die triggers you want to avoid or indestructible). Feels like an easy skip to me.
I suspect this is too low impact when you have to wait until turn 4 to cast it and then even if you immediately plot a 3-drop you have to wait until next turn to put that into play. Don't really want a PW that can't come down until turn 4 and can't impact the board until turn 5, even if it does enable a two-spell turn 4 well.
Incidentally you can right click on a youtube video and select "copy video URL at current time" and it will go right to the point your talking about. Like so - https://youtu.be/hhdU845Hz6w?t=681
(I assume there's a way to do it on mobile as well, but I don't know how.)
And I think that while dig through time does not go in every deck, for a non-vintage cube it remains great in basically any blue deck that is even a little reactive. I think it is substantially better than treasure cruise because the second U is much less punishing in cube and in every other way it's a stronger card than cruise.
Leaving up instants and being able to dig for the two best cards in your top 7 is still a really good value play, even in a powerful legacy cube. I am a very long way from cutting it.
I was wrong on this Elspeth when it first came out, but it absolutely justified its 6 CMC cost and was a staple for years.
HOWEVER, I recently cut it when I trimmed my list down to 375 and I don't particularly miss it. We're sort of at the point now where 6 mana plays need to basically win the game on their own and with so many evasive threats and efficient PW kill spells now, even getting 3 soldiers off elspeth only to have her die to a 2 or 3 cmc instant still feels like you're worse off in the exchange.
Still a strong card, but cuttable now IMO. I think 4 years ago I would have said it's insane to cut her.
LOL I was curious so I went back and read my takes - I was wildly wrong. The WRB elementals are all like top 10 in their colors and the green one is also playable.
I'm most interested in the white and black cards in this cycle - they have the most disposable creatures floating around. Outside chance for the red one to be good in the same way fireblast is to finish someone off with a multi-spell turn. I think it will be hard for the U one to be good because I don't think they'll print a straight free counter again but we'll see.
Yeah I'm out on swords generally (I still run fire and ice but I suspect it will be gone within a year) but this one seems like an interesting alternative for cubes that still run them.
Oh yeah, I think Anduril is also a top 3 sword, but people tend to not list it in the "sword of x and y" cycle.
The lack of evasion on this definitely hurts, but there's a ton of cubable small flyers and unblockable creatures now, and I think the ceiling on this sword is just so high. I could certainly be overestimating how often you get to hit with a spell in hand, and the fact that it does basically nothing if you use all your mana to play and equip it definitely hurts.
Surprised to not see a thread about this yet. I'm of the opinion that swords are too slow for cube nowadays, but this is definitely one of the best we've seen and I find protection from instants and sorceries much more interesting than protection from colors (I really don't like how protection from colors wins the game against some decks and does nothing against others). I don't like how this sword does basically nothing if you don't have a spell in hand, but if you even have just a bolt it goes off. I think it's slightly worse than fire and ice still, but I would have this as the second best sword ahead of body and mind.