I would only really call Aetherling a dedicated control finisher, personally. It's not even that great in reanimator as it gets better with mana and requires blue, versus a lot of creatures that you reanimate and forget about.
I just played C. Sphinx in a G/U midrange deck to replenish my hand, or perhaps reanimator to do the same (and be a token big fatty). Meloku I would also run in token or midrangey builds. Probably not tempo, personally, but yeah it's OK there.
All three of these cards are great, but do different stuff. I don't see the issue.
I consider Wurmcoil and TNN fine, so take this with a cellar of salt, but Aetherling is 'just' a great control finisher. The thing that makes great control finishers the better ones is because they are inherently harder to deal with. If I can reach the costs and survive long enough to play such an expensive card, I really want something at least as good as a Titan or an Aetherling to ensure me some value in the face of removal, or to resist it very well. You could just replace every good control finisher with a Mahamoti Djinn boring fatty or a durdley Deadeye Navigator fancy card, but I'd rather something resilient and effective
I agree with this as well. Blue has a lot of solid finishing options, but none that really blow me away. Consecrated Sphinx is a sick creature, but it's more of a CA engine with a P/T value than it is a true finisher. The rest of them are all serviceable, but don't excite me. I would be excited about resolving this creature.
This is exactly how I feel. I never felt like the 6 CMC options like JJ Sphinx and Frost TItan were up to par for a cube finisher at 360. This guy might be the one I always wanted.
7 drops are hard-castable for control, and he's a pretty strong reanimation target as long as you have U up. It's good to have a 6 and a 7 drop in blue, like I have Sun Titan and Elesh in white.
It's the shiznit. It's the blue 'finisher' I wanted (Consecrated Sphinx isn't quite that in what it does, so I find no reason to cut him for Aetherling). The Blink ability is gorgeous, and I was always disappointed that supporting Argent Sphinx would be a little hard.
I just played C. Sphinx in a G/U midrange deck to replenish my hand, or perhaps reanimator to do the same (and be a token big fatty). Meloku I would also run in token or midrangey builds. Probably not tempo, personally, but yeah it's OK there.
All three of these cards are great, but do different stuff. I don't see the issue.
On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
This is exactly how I feel. I never felt like the 6 CMC options like JJ Sphinx and Frost TItan were up to par for a cube finisher at 360. This guy might be the one I always wanted.
On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
Exciting times for cube!
On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms: