The should go into their respective colors. They have the option to play as a colorless spell in off color decks, but they will ideally be played in their respective colors.
You can play them in the colored sections with the argument that that they are best when you can choose to play the colored mana cost instead of life. This is what I will do with Dismember, I expect it will be mostly played in decks with access to black mana.
Or you can put them in colorless with the argument that they will be played in every deck, no matter what color, like artifacts. This is what I will do with Porcelain Legionnaire, Phyrexian Metamorph and Spined Thopter; I expect they will be played like artifacts.
Porcelain Legionnaire is cube worthy as a 3/1 first strike for 2 and 2 life, not as a 3/1 first strike for 2W. Now of course it has additional value if you can use both casting costs, but I think it is good enough without white that I would play it in cube. Accordingly it is a colorless card.
Dismember is in black for now because you have to pay 4 life to cast it colorless which is quite a lot. Though I would probably cube the 1, pay 4 life version of that spell as well, so I could see Dismember in colorless too.
I think 2W for a 3/1 first strike is absolutely fine. I'd definitely cube with that. People can sort them however they like, but I think they make more sense in their colored sections.
Then again, I'm no expert on where things should be sorted. I believe that Crystal Shard should be sorted with blue, but still run it as an artifact because I don't want to lose a blue card for it.
Considering I think maybe 2 phyrexian mana cards are worth putting in a high powered cube, I doubt it matters too much. If your white section is stronger than your artifact section, put legionnaire in colorless, otherwise put it in artifact.
Depends on the size I guess. In my 450ish I'm going to try out Porcelain Legionnaire, Phyrexian Metamorph, Dismember, and Spined Thopter, but I'm probably going to put them in my artifact section cause it's a bit weaker.
I think 2W for a 3/1 first strike is absolutely fine. I'd definitely cube with that. People can sort them however they like, but I think they make more sense in their colored sections.
Then again, I'm no expert on where things should be sorted. I believe that Crystal Shard should be sorted with blue, but still run it as an artifact because I don't want to lose a blue card for it.
I drafted Porcelain Legionaire in an aggro naya deck and found the ability to be played for 2 to be the mode he was most often used in (just being a mana cheaper if is often huge, but he loves to be played T1 off Sol Ring too :)).
So even to white aggro decks he's mostly a 2 mana creature with a W kicker of 'Gain 2 life'.
So even to white aggro decks he's mostly a 2 mana creature with a W kicker of 'Gain 2 life'.
The white kicker makes me want to play him in white. He can be played outside of white, but he'll ideally be played where the white kicker is an option.
The white kicker makes me want to play him in white. He can be played outside of white, but he'll ideally be played where the white kicker is an option.
I've heard the arguement before, but it leaves me unconvinved.
If this card existed:
Wizzle Teats
1
Artifact Creature - Golem
Kicker R18
When ~ ETB, if the kicker cost was paid, you win the game
2/2
This should be classified as a red card because although he *can* be played outside of red decks, ideally he'll be played in red decks?
I will 100% of the time play porcelain legionaire in non-white aggro decks. If you want to put him in your white section, go right ahead. It just dilutes white as a colour. (If I recall correctly, I played the legnionaire about 3/4 of the time for 2, in my white aggro deck). The white mana is just an extra alternate cost. It's not the main or default cost.
I'm with ponder, I won't be intimidated into taking kird ape out of my red section. An exhaustive reading of the comprehensive rules reveals the following additional classifications:
porcelain legionairre: white
phyrexian metamorph: blue
dismember: black
vedalken shackles: colorless
oh snap!
(just messing around, not meaning to offend... you are entitled to sort as you please, but the idea that sorting kird ape in red "doesn't work" is kinda silly)
I've heard the arguement before, but it leaves me unconvinved.
If this card existed:
Wizzle Teats
1
Artifact Creature - Golem
Kicker R18
When ~ ETB, if the kicker cost was paid, you win the game
2/2
This should be classified as a red card because although he *can* be played outside of red decks, ideally he'll be played in red decks?
I will 100% of the time play porcelain legionaire in non-white aggro decks. If you want to put him in your white section, go right ahead. It just dilutes white as a colour. (If I recall correctly, I played the legnionaire about 3/4 of the time for 2, in my white aggro deck). The white mana is just an extra alternate cost. It's not the main or default cost.
Well, it all actually depends on the mana. It is an alternative cost. That's why it's nice. If I had 3 mana and path in my hand and draw him, I'll play him at 2. If I had 3 mana and no path and draw him, I'll play him at 3. That alternative cost make him at his BEST in white. It's not a bad thing to have. Hybrid is put in multicolor in most cube (maybe? I'm not sure) in my opinion because they have most option in their respective color. I think it's the same here.
I've heard the arguement before, but it leaves me unconvinved.
If this card existed:
Wizzle Teats
1
Artifact Creature - Golem
Kicker R18
When ~ ETB, if the kicker cost was paid, you win the game
2/2
This should be classified as a red card because although he *can* be played outside of red decks, ideally he'll be played in red decks?
I will 100% of the time play porcelain legionaire in non-white aggro decks. If you want to put him in your white section, go right ahead. It just dilutes white as a colour. (If I recall correctly, I played the legnionaire about 3/4 of the time for 2, in my white aggro deck). The white mana is just an extra alternate cost. It's not the main or default cost.
I'm with ponder, I won't be intimidated into taking kird ape out of my red section. An exhaustive reading of the comprehensive rules reveals the following additional classifications:
porcelain legionairre: white
phyrexian metamorph: blue
dismember: black
vedalken shackles: colorless
oh snap!
(just messing around, not meaning to offend... you are entitled to sort as you please, but the idea that sorting kird ape in red "doesn't work" is kinda silly)
Really all three positions are valid, just depends on what your goal is. To me, sorting a card by how it is most often cast gives you the best color balance, but it is by far the most difficult. Sorting by ideal cost isn't quite as good for giving the best balance, but it's not that far off and is easier to figure out. Sorting by the printed color is easiest but provides the worst color balance. I wouldn't recommend it for a group of regular cubers who know what they're doing, but it makes sorting a big cube and the like easier for people who don't the setup.
If this card existed:
Wizzle Teats
1
Artifact Creature - Golem
Kicker R18
When ~ ETB, if the kicker cost was paid, you win the game
2/2
This should be classified as a red card because although he *can* be played outside of red decks, ideally he'll be played in red decks?
This example is a bit ridiculous considering how hard the kicker cost is to actually get to. This guy will 99.999% of the time be played for 1 and not kicked. Legionnaire will certainly be played for 2 and 2 life fairly often, but I feel like he'll be played for 2W just as often.
I will 100% of the time play porcelain legionaire in non-white aggro decks. If you want to put him in your white section, go right ahead. It just dilutes white as a colour. (If I recall correctly, I played the legnionaire about 3/4 of the time for 2, in my white aggro deck). The white mana is just an extra alternate cost. It's not the main or default cost.
Of course you'll play him in nonwhite aggro decks. That's part of what makes him good. He gives you options. My BR aggro deck wants this guy just as much as my WR aggro deck does. But he's better in my white deck, because I have the option to play him for 2W. I don't think including him in white will dilute the color. Even if their was a negative impact, we're talking about one card, so the impact would still be miniscule. I don't believe that's the case, though. As OP_Forever said, if I'm in white and I have Legionnaire, I'll play him at whatever cost makes sense. If dropping him for 2W doesn't set me back any, then that's what I'll do.
For what it's worth, I still run Gathan Raiders and I sort it in red despite the fact that it is always played as a morph.
This example is a bit ridiculous considering how hard the kicker cost is to actually get to. This guy will 99.999% of the time be played for 1 and not kicked. Legionnaire will certainly be played for 2 and 2 life fairly often, but I feel like he'll be played for 2W just as often.
I think we'll have to agree to disagree here (which is fine). In every RB deck he'll be played without the white of course, and about half the time in a white deck his kicker will be used.
Like all other cards I'm gonna categorize these as they get drafted & played the most.
this. the point of running equal numbers of cards in each colored section (for me) is to balance how much support each color gets. running dismember in black isn't perfect, because it will get played outside of black (in green/white or green/blue, for example). but i feel like it balances the cube better to put it in black because it will see more play there.
I drafted Porcelain Legionaire in an aggro naya deck and found the ability to be played for 2 to be the mode he was most often used in (just being a mana cheaper if is often huge, but he loves to be played T1 off Sol Ring too :-)).
So even to white aggro decks he's mostly a 2 mana creature with a W kicker of 'Gain 2 life'.
i'm not sure playing him in a three color deck was the optimum test, there. the more colors in your deck the more valuable the colorless option will be.
When I see Healing Salve, I'm often like "Oh girl, I wish I could turn every card into this." Thanks they removed the gain life part, otherwise this would have been broken.
Really all three positions are valid, just depends on what your goal is. To me, sorting a card by how it is most often cast gives you the best color balance, but it is by far the most difficult. Sorting by ideal cost isn't quite as good for giving the best balance, but it's not that far off and is easier to figure out. Sorting by the printed color is easiest but provides the worst color balance. I wouldn't recommend it for a group of regular cubers who know what they're doing, but it makes sorting a big cube and the like easier for people who don't the setup.
Great post, and agreed.
To sum it up, I think sorting cards by how they’re used most often gives the best color balance. It’s really exactly the same as counting Kird Ape a gruul card: it is red, and it can be played in a mono-red deck, but in practice it’s played in RG decks, so that’s how it’s categorized. The fact that it’s also ideal in RG is incidental, which is proven by magicmerl’s extreme example.
For phyrexian mana cards, we’ll have to find out where they’re most often played on a card per card basis, but for me a card needs to be run at least as often in decks with access to its own color as in all the other decks combined to be considered for its color section, which is kind of a tall order for good cards that can be played without colored mana. Let’s say a card with phyrexian mana is played twice as much in its own color as in any other single color (34% as opposed to 16,5% for the other colors). That would still result in the card seeing play outside its own color two thirds of the times, largely sufficient to be categorized as colorless.
t
Lashwrithe is the easiest to categorize as it needs swamps to be good, so it should obviously be run in the black section (see also Vedalken Shackles). The easier equip cost seals the deal, as a phyrexian activation cost make a card much more likely to make it end up in a deck that can pay the colored mana than a phyrexian casting cost, which only needs to be paid once.
Spined Thopter is also quite obvious, especially for cubes that don’t support blue tempo: it has no business being anywhere but in the colorless section. Arguing that it’s ‘ideal in blue’ is really weird, considering that most blue decks wouldn’t contemplate running this colorless pegasus. Even for cubes that do support blue tempo I’m confident that the Thopter will still see play in the combined other colors much more often than in blue.
Porcelain Legionnaire is a little less straightforward, but I still think it will easily see more play outside white than inside it. Unless your playgroup irrationally refuses to play it outside white, the match-up ‘any aggro deck without white’ vs ‘any white aggro deck’ should be easily won by the non-white colors.
Phyrexian Metamorph is tricky – what kind of decks will play this? Especially if you support the artifact archetype, the odds of this landing in a blue deck seem good. Still, *any* deck could use it, so the match-up still seems to be ‘any non-blue deck’ vs ‘any blue deck’. I’m hesitant to put it in blue for that reason.
Dismember is another tough one. It’s true that its cost is a lot easier to pay with black mana available. On the other hand, I can think of many non-black decks that will be happy to have access to such an efficient spot removal spell, especially non-red ones, and they will be able to play it. On top of that, black decks won't need it as much because they already have access to the whole black spot removal suite. I think Dismember will prove best placed in the colorless section, but only drafting with the new cards will give proof.
Really all three positions are valid, just depends on what your goal is. To me, sorting a card by how it is most often cast gives you the best color balance, but it is by far the most difficult. Sorting by ideal cost isn't quite as good for giving the best balance, but it's not that far off and is easier to figure out. Sorting by the printed color is easiest but provides the worst color balance. I wouldn't recommend it for a group of regular cubers who know what they're doing, but it makes sorting a big cube and the like easier for people who don't the setup.
My answer is, it depends. I'm putting them in sections according to how I think they will be played. If I'm not sure how they will be played most often(Phyrexian Metamorph), I'll default to their respective colors.
In my cube, Porcelain Legionnaire will be white, Metamorph blue, Dismember black, and, if I decide to run them, Spined Thopter and Hex Parasite will be colorless.
I'm going with the "how do I evaluate this card during draft and when I build my deck?" method for the corner cases. Porcelain Legionnaire is something I'm going to draft as a 2 drop and probably will be placed with the 2 drops during deck construction unless I'm already flooded with them so I'm going to put it as colorless. Phyrexian Metamorph won't be getting played on curve (3 + 2 life) as often as the Legionnaire due to the nature of the card (there might not be something good to copy) so I'm more comfortable evaluating it as a blue card during draft. Blue is also going to be a color in the vast majority of blink style decks which is one of the best decks for Clone type cards so that is something to consider as well.
I agree with what Fredo posted. Makes me want to put Dismember in colorless, too. Since red was mentioned - I think mono-red decks would love Dismember as an out to the pro red creatures. A single Silver Knight or Soltari Priest can totally ruin a red players day, especially when life-gain equipment is involved.
@Donald: The blink deck is just one of many that wants a clone. The possibility to pay 3 and 2 life for a second Avlanche Riders, Eternal Witness or Shriekmaw almost ensures that Phyrexian Metamorph sees play in non-blue decks all the time.
@Donald: The blink deck is just one of many that wants a clone. The possibility to pay 3 and 2 life for a second Avlanche Riders, Eternal Witness or Shriekmaw almost ensures that Phyrexian Metamorph sees play in non-blue decks all the time.
Every card you listed comes down turn 3 or later (and all happen to be good in blink decks) so I don't see a reason to pay the extra life if I don't have to. I'll see how it plays out but without testing this card I would say that I am not going to draft it as a 3 mana artifact that shocks me unless I have a very specific deck for it.
Every card you listed comes down turn 3 or later (and all happen to be good in blink decks) so I don't see a reason to pay the extra life if I don't have to. I'll see how it plays out but without testing this card I would say that I am not going to draft it as a 3 mana artifact that shocks me unless I have a very specific deck for it.
Well all non-blue decks have a good reason to pay 2 life. There are plenty of non blue cards I want to copy, so I can't see why I should classify this as a blue card. 2 damage is only 2 damage. I mean the thing can copy Jitte and Swords just as well as it can copy an Avalanche Rider or a Eternal Witness.
By their actually color or into colorless?
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Or you can put them in colorless with the argument that they will be played in every deck, no matter what color, like artifacts. This is what I will do with Porcelain Legionnaire, Phyrexian Metamorph and Spined Thopter; I expect they will be played like artifacts.
Porcelain Legionnaire is cube worthy as a 3/1 first strike for 2 and 2 life, not as a 3/1 first strike for 2W. Now of course it has additional value if you can use both casting costs, but I think it is good enough without white that I would play it in cube. Accordingly it is a colorless card.
Dismember is in black for now because you have to pay 4 life to cast it colorless which is quite a lot. Though I would probably cube the 1, pay 4 life version of that spell as well, so I could see Dismember in colorless too.
"What am I looking at? Ashes, dead man."
Magic Work Station Winston-180 http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=315755
Doesn't work well for Kird Ape and probably isn't the best way to do these.
I'll go by at what cost they are most likely to be played/have their abilities activated.
Then again, I'm no expert on where things should be sorted. I believe that Crystal Shard should be sorted with blue, but still run it as an artifact because I don't want to lose a blue card for it.
MTGS Average Peasant Cube 2023 Edition
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Sure it seems that people have some confusing about balancing Kird Ape and friends. But Im not going down that road.
Template works 100% for me. And several other Cubists. So Its the best way for me!
But whatever works for you Korla.
Magic Work Station Winston-180 http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=315755
I drafted Porcelain Legionaire in an aggro naya deck and found the ability to be played for 2 to be the mode he was most often used in (just being a mana cheaper if is often huge, but he loves to be played T1 off Sol Ring too :)).
So even to white aggro decks he's mostly a 2 mana creature with a W kicker of 'Gain 2 life'.
The white kicker makes me want to play him in white. He can be played outside of white, but he'll ideally be played where the white kicker is an option.
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I've heard the arguement before, but it leaves me unconvinved.
If this card existed:
Wizzle Teats
1
Artifact Creature - Golem
Kicker R18
When ~ ETB, if the kicker cost was paid, you win the game
2/2
This should be classified as a red card because although he *can* be played outside of red decks, ideally he'll be played in red decks?
I will 100% of the time play porcelain legionaire in non-white aggro decks. If you want to put him in your white section, go right ahead. It just dilutes white as a colour. (If I recall correctly, I played the legnionaire about 3/4 of the time for 2, in my white aggro deck). The white mana is just an extra alternate cost. It's not the main or default cost.
porcelain legionairre: white
phyrexian metamorph: blue
dismember: black
vedalken shackles: colorless
oh snap!
(just messing around, not meaning to offend... you are entitled to sort as you please, but the idea that sorting kird ape in red "doesn't work" is kinda silly)
Well, it all actually depends on the mana. It is an alternative cost. That's why it's nice. If I had 3 mana and path in my hand and draw him, I'll play him at 2. If I had 3 mana and no path and draw him, I'll play him at 3. That alternative cost make him at his BEST in white. It's not a bad thing to have. Hybrid is put in multicolor in most cube (maybe? I'm not sure) in my opinion because they have most option in their respective color. I think it's the same here.
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I'm OP_Forever. I'll be putting this in my signature for a while so everyone know I change my nickname.
Really all three positions are valid, just depends on what your goal is. To me, sorting a card by how it is most often cast gives you the best color balance, but it is by far the most difficult. Sorting by ideal cost isn't quite as good for giving the best balance, but it's not that far off and is easier to figure out. Sorting by the printed color is easiest but provides the worst color balance. I wouldn't recommend it for a group of regular cubers who know what they're doing, but it makes sorting a big cube and the like easier for people who don't the setup.
That's fine. Not much I can do about that.
This example is a bit ridiculous considering how hard the kicker cost is to actually get to. This guy will 99.999% of the time be played for 1 and not kicked. Legionnaire will certainly be played for 2 and 2 life fairly often, but I feel like he'll be played for 2W just as often.
Of course you'll play him in nonwhite aggro decks. That's part of what makes him good. He gives you options. My BR aggro deck wants this guy just as much as my WR aggro deck does. But he's better in my white deck, because I have the option to play him for 2W. I don't think including him in white will dilute the color. Even if their was a negative impact, we're talking about one card, so the impact would still be miniscule. I don't believe that's the case, though. As OP_Forever said, if I'm in white and I have Legionnaire, I'll play him at whatever cost makes sense. If dropping him for 2W doesn't set me back any, then that's what I'll do.
For what it's worth, I still run Gathan Raiders and I sort it in red despite the fact that it is always played as a morph.
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I think we'll have to agree to disagree here (which is fine). In every RB deck he'll be played without the white of course, and about half the time in a white deck his kicker will be used.
Yeah. I... ran him as a colourless card.
At the end of the day these sort of hair splitting points don't really affect the cube to a great extent.
To each their own.
this. the point of running equal numbers of cards in each colored section (for me) is to balance how much support each color gets. running dismember in black isn't perfect, because it will get played outside of black (in green/white or green/blue, for example). but i feel like it balances the cube better to put it in black because it will see more play there.
me, too. sometimes it will be best to play it for 2, but sometimes you'll have 2W open and the dude in hand.
i'm not sure playing him in a three color deck was the optimum test, there. the more colors in your deck the more valuable the colorless option will be.
Great post, and agreed.
To sum it up, I think sorting cards by how they’re used most often gives the best color balance. It’s really exactly the same as counting Kird Ape a gruul card: it is red, and it can be played in a mono-red deck, but in practice it’s played in RG decks, so that’s how it’s categorized. The fact that it’s also ideal in RG is incidental, which is proven by magicmerl’s extreme example.
For phyrexian mana cards, we’ll have to find out where they’re most often played on a card per card basis, but for me a card needs to be run at least as often in decks with access to its own color as in all the other decks combined to be considered for its color section, which is kind of a tall order for good cards that can be played without colored mana. Let’s say a card with phyrexian mana is played twice as much in its own color as in any other single color (34% as opposed to 16,5% for the other colors). That would still result in the card seeing play outside its own color two thirds of the times, largely sufficient to be categorized as colorless.
t
Lashwrithe is the easiest to categorize as it needs swamps to be good, so it should obviously be run in the black section (see also Vedalken Shackles). The easier equip cost seals the deal, as a phyrexian activation cost make a card much more likely to make it end up in a deck that can pay the colored mana than a phyrexian casting cost, which only needs to be paid once.
Spined Thopter is also quite obvious, especially for cubes that don’t support blue tempo: it has no business being anywhere but in the colorless section. Arguing that it’s ‘ideal in blue’ is really weird, considering that most blue decks wouldn’t contemplate running this colorless pegasus. Even for cubes that do support blue tempo I’m confident that the Thopter will still see play in the combined other colors much more often than in blue.
Porcelain Legionnaire is a little less straightforward, but I still think it will easily see more play outside white than inside it. Unless your playgroup irrationally refuses to play it outside white, the match-up ‘any aggro deck without white’ vs ‘any white aggro deck’ should be easily won by the non-white colors.
Phyrexian Metamorph is tricky – what kind of decks will play this? Especially if you support the artifact archetype, the odds of this landing in a blue deck seem good. Still, *any* deck could use it, so the match-up still seems to be ‘any non-blue deck’ vs ‘any blue deck’. I’m hesitant to put it in blue for that reason.
Dismember is another tough one. It’s true that its cost is a lot easier to pay with black mana available. On the other hand, I can think of many non-black decks that will be happy to have access to such an efficient spot removal spell, especially non-red ones, and they will be able to play it. On top of that, black decks won't need it as much because they already have access to the whole black spot removal suite. I think Dismember will prove best placed in the colorless section, but only drafting with the new cards will give proof.
Nailed it.
In my cube, Porcelain Legionnaire will be white, Metamorph blue, Dismember black, and, if I decide to run them, Spined Thopter and Hex Parasite will be colorless.
Cheers,
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@Donald: The blink deck is just one of many that wants a clone. The possibility to pay 3 and 2 life for a second Avlanche Riders, Eternal Witness or Shriekmaw almost ensures that Phyrexian Metamorph sees play in non-blue decks all the time.
"What am I looking at? Ashes, dead man."
Every card you listed comes down turn 3 or later (and all happen to be good in blink decks) so I don't see a reason to pay the extra life if I don't have to. I'll see how it plays out but without testing this card I would say that I am not going to draft it as a 3 mana artifact that shocks me unless I have a very specific deck for it.
Well all non-blue decks have a good reason to pay 2 life. There are plenty of non blue cards I want to copy, so I can't see why I should classify this as a blue card. 2 damage is only 2 damage. I mean the thing can copy Jitte and Swords just as well as it can copy an Avalanche Rider or a Eternal Witness.
I feel compelled to repeat everything I hear