But at 5 mana, not 3. And that is a huge difference. We dont' have many cubable cheap planeswalker kill spells, well at least not the number I'd like in my cube.
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The two mana increase between Vraska and Pulse is a lot, but I think the upside for Vraska is huge enough to make it worth it. Additionally, I think Deed's ability to sweep the board makes it more valuable than Pulse.
In any event, I agree with everyone that we're rapidly reaching the point where there are no wrong answers, at least in the Golgari part of your cube. There are now 5 cards that are justifiable at 360, so just pick the cards that fit your playgroup the best.
I won't really be jumping on the bandwagon, I find that PW to be complete crap.
The +1 is quite worthless since you can simply attack the player instead, nothing forces you to attack the PW. The -3 is good, but that's paying 5 mana to kill something and being destroyed on the next combat phase. Then there is the ultimate, which is shiny because it has "you win the game" written on it, but that's only 3 1/1 dudes on Turn 8, and for assassins they don't even have Deathtouch.
Basically, it is an awesome PW on an empty board, and a weak one on a full board. Looks like a miss to me.
The whole point of the first ability is so you can build up loyalty over and over again without the opponent interrrupting it unless they want to lose creatures for it. I think the most common occurrence is playing it into a threat, +1, then double pulse unless you have the opportunity to keep it going. Recurring Pulse is pretty damn good if you ask me.
Great card.. but between toher PWs the tight gold section I dont think this will get in my 450. I am always wary of putting in PW in my cube (usually because of the cost) so I am holding my judgement on her for the meantime...
Argh! Too many cubable Golgari cards. Well, at least I can switch Putrefy for this Gorgon without feeling bad, since they both destroy artifacts and creatures. And having another card that can directly destroy planeswalkers is good, too.
Quote from Toad »
Since the +1 has 0 impact on the game state, you are basically skipping your Turn 5 to play the PW. In that situation, if you are facing a good aggro deck, the opponent has a great way to interrupt you: winning the game.
Nobody forces you to use the +1 in this situation. You can also use the -3 and kill one of those creatures, then soak up a few more damage when you opponent attacks Vraska. The great part about good planeswalkers is that they are flexible and you can chose which ability you want to use.
Quote from Toad »
You'd have spent 5 mana and 3 turns to kill 2 permanents. That's also far from impressive.
Actually, this is a pretty good deal. "Destroy target nonland permanent" costs somewhere between 3 and 4 mana and is a pretty useful ability in cube, where artifacts, creatures, planeswalkers and sometimes even enchantments can be really powerful threats. Paying a little bit more mana and waiting two more turns to get the effect a second time is quite good. If you don't get the second effect, it would normally be because your opponent wasted either an attack or a card to stop that effect by killing Vraska. It's fine to pay 1 or 2 mana for that. And if you do get to destroy another permanent, you got lots of value for only five mana.
I don't think she is better than Pulse or Deed and probably not even Lotleth Troll, but she surely comes next and is a good planeswalker.
In that situation, you've paid 5 mana for a Terror and a bad Healing Salve. Flexibility is awesome, but 5 mana Terrors are clearly not. Using the -3 as a one shot effect is very weak on a 5CC card.
All my 5 mana drop are either win conditions, or have an immediate CIP effect.
She can be a win condition thanks to her ultimate and she can have a very good immediate CIP effect.
Quote from Toad »
A good 4 drop will deal 4 to 5 damage to the PW, and that single hit would severely hinder the PW efficiency. A 2 drop with a piece of equipment will do the same.
But the creature will either die or she will already have cast a Maelstrom Pulse, depending what ability you used. Losing her at this point won't be the end of the world.
I would actually compare her to Chandra Nalaar. A five mana planeswalker with a good starting loyality, a loyality intensive kill ability, a +1 ability with a small (but not useless) effect and an ultimate that is not that far away and that can win the game in many cases. Considering that Chandra is good planeswalker in cube and that having the ability to kill artifacts, enchantments and planeswalkers in addition to creatures is very powerful, Vraska should at least be in the middle of the pack of cubable planeswalkers.
@Toad:
It's a flexible answer (the only other flexable answer walkers cost 7 and 8!) AND a win condition. It's good against one creature. It's pretty good against weenie swarms (unlike many other walkers). I don't see how this isn't just fantastic?!?
It's a good walker, but not insane at all. Her entire worth stands and falls with her -3, which admittedly is very good.
My first impression mirrored Nof's and Toad's. After having thought it over, I think it's better than that, as it can get rid of the most annoying thing on the board (whatever it is), and protects itself while building up to the next almost-Vindicate. It's quite slow, but if you don't have a way to smash through right away,you really won't be able to afford to let the walker do her thing and the walker will end up giving plenty of value by killing the stuff taking her down.
It will be worst against aggro because they can practically ignore her, but it's great against the rest of the field (and still good against aggro if you're not under too much pressure).
The ultimate is a joke and will never be used. 'nuf said.
I actually might end up swapping Pernicious Deed for it, Deed has been used less ever since we upped the number of mana elves in green. The new 'walker might be a better fit in our golgari section than Deed. But it won't be done lightly, that's for sure.
I'm really struggling to understand why people are trying to FORCE their gold sections to be a certain size. It just doesn't make any sense to me.
If these new gold cards are powerful enough for Cube, then gold sections should just be expanded to accommodate rather than just cutting some of the most powerful gold cards every printed to try squeeze them in.
I mean... you're HONESTLY talking about cutting Pernicious Deed?!
I'll probably be expanding my gold sections by 1-3 cards each (in powered 360), and making cuts to colours, lands or artifacts to compensate.
If cards are powerful enough for Cube, they should always be given a spot regardless of their colour or 'section limits'. IMO.
Well, if you expand your gold section by 3 while you cut lands and artefacts, the playability of your cube will drop, and the value of fixing will jump. Theoretically.
But, Ravnica as a block was fun to draft, and it was pretty multicolored. Especially in Rav-Gpt-Dis where you had to draft with 4 - 3 - 3 duo available. Doesn't prevented this extension to be excellent for draft.
People are fretting about the size of their gold sections because having a too-high density of multicolor cards decreases the flexibility of the cube and really screw up the draft environment. It's not a trivial thing. wtwlf nailed it pretty much spot on in his Cube Design Philosophy article:
"Gold cards naturally go against one of the two most important factors for cube card selection: flexibility. Gold cards go in decks that include their colors, and that's it. They're efficiently costed, for sure, but the restriction of their applications kills their flexibility.... With fewer gold cards, one- and two-color decks become a lot more viable, manabases become stronger, and the overall deck quality improves. "
Yeah, the cube size does limit the amount of multicolor cards that you can include, without severely altering how the cube plays. I came to the conclusion that 1/8 is the absolute maximum for multicolor cards in a normal cube (I ran equally large sections for a long time). 10% multicolor looks like a good number, but with all those great cards coming out, increasing it to 11% or 12% should be fine.
Actually, I really don't want to see more than 1 gold card per booster on average. So I'd advocate a gold section about 6-7% large. We're currently sitting at 5,6%, but that will doubtless go up a bit with RtR.
Note that these figures are without fixers as we have a separate section for that. Hybrids are counted, if there are enough cubeable hybrids we could doubtlessly go a bit beyond the 1/15 threshold.
Let's try to keep this to being about Vraska's use/value/potential in cube.
The revision of our approach to gold sections I feel is a valuable enough topic to deserve its own thread and its discussion here is pulling us away from the purpose of this thread.
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The ultimate is pure fluff. It will never be used.
It is situational and the -3 is just too great to not use it most of the time. However, never say never. I have won games with Karn Liberated's ultimate. Just having the option in case both players are in topdeck mode and/or are flooding for multiple turns is good and can win you a game once in while.
And I just can't stop comparing Vraska with Lux Cannon.
Vraska is way closer to Maelstrom Pulse (an absolute cube staple) than to Lux Cannon (does anybody run this at all?), simply because you can use her right away and don't have to wait three whole turns. Actually, Vraska is a bit like a Lux Cannon (and a serious, yet unlikely threat to win the game) stapled onto a Maelstrom Pulse for 2.
I'm not sure what I think about our new Gorgon Planeswalker yet. As others have mentioned, her -3 is where it is at. Of course, as soon as she uses it to kill one creature, the others swarm her and murder her. Is that OK for 5 mana? I say this every time a set is spoiled, but it's true. Planeswalkers are very hard to evaluate in a vacuum. Will this be a solid control card for BG's already solid suite of control cards? Or will the new planeswalker be ignored as creatures rush by her to lethal? I definitely need to test her!
I played her today and she was pretty good. Hit some creatures, hit some artifacts. she'll be destroying a lot of other walkers, especially since she won't be Planeswalker ruling herself. Her ultimate isn't the best but I cannot wait to win with it.
I think she is the 2nd best Golgari card under Deeds. Pulse is cheap but not a walker. As for guild sections, I'm going to increase my RtR guild sections for now, then increasing GC's guilds when it is spoiled.
She is going to be really hard to deal with in a lot of different game states. She can feasibly come out turn 4, at which point the board can already be clogged w/ mana dorks and small beaters. There are going to be a lot of times when up-ticking is the right move and the opponent cannot afford to trade their field to deal her six. She puts on SO much pressure.
At first blush, I'd probably put her into the same mix as Life // Death, Putrefy, & Putrid leech in competing for the 4 and 5 slots in my Golgari multi mix. Her -3 is fantastic, and I do believe her ultimate will steal a game here and there, but I find that her +1 is a bit too do-little rattlesnake for my tastes. The 5 mana cost also can't be ignored, as it's already a bit congested , particularly in green. That being said, she's probably going to take my #4 or #5 slot.
I think she's almost too good. Its Maelstrom Pulse, pay 2 to wait a turn and have it rebound. Tied with Deed for #1, or better, in my opinion.
What I don't enjoy about her mechanics is that they lead to stale gameplay. Her -3 is somewhat interactive, although fairly straightforward in terms of decisionmaking. Her +1 is what bothers me. I think that opponents should be encouraged to attack PWs, rather than the converse. Her +1 ability effectively shuts off one avenue of combat, unless the opponent is willing to throw away the game. When a player can so effectively control the flow of gameplay by upping the counters on a PW, I think it's detrimental to a dynamic gamestate.
That being said, she's a midrange monster. Her abilities are similar to Gideon's (IMO the best midrange card in unpowered cube), but inverted. She's not as good against aggro but much more insane against other midrange and control decks -- perhaps even oppressive. Her power is limited only by her casting cost, which for a BG player won't be any more difficult than Gideon's. I suppose I'll take the tack that gold cards are there to reward players for going into a certain color combo - a surprise bonus, if you will. I just hope that the surprise bonuses for other guilds will come to be equally as enticing.
But at 5 mana, not 3. And that is a huge difference. We dont' have many cubable cheap planeswalker kill spells, well at least not the number I'd like in my cube.
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In any event, I agree with everyone that we're rapidly reaching the point where there are no wrong answers, at least in the Golgari part of your cube. There are now 5 cards that are justifiable at 360, so just pick the cards that fit your playgroup the best.
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The whole point of the first ability is so you can build up loyalty over and over again without the opponent interrrupting it unless they want to lose creatures for it. I think the most common occurrence is playing it into a threat, +1, then double pulse unless you have the opportunity to keep it going. Recurring Pulse is pretty damn good if you ask me.
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I'm certainly not cutting the Deed. It's the card that I pick over any other B/G card.
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Nobody forces you to use the +1 in this situation. You can also use the -3 and kill one of those creatures, then soak up a few more damage when you opponent attacks Vraska. The great part about good planeswalkers is that they are flexible and you can chose which ability you want to use.
Actually, this is a pretty good deal. "Destroy target nonland permanent" costs somewhere between 3 and 4 mana and is a pretty useful ability in cube, where artifacts, creatures, planeswalkers and sometimes even enchantments can be really powerful threats. Paying a little bit more mana and waiting two more turns to get the effect a second time is quite good. If you don't get the second effect, it would normally be because your opponent wasted either an attack or a card to stop that effect by killing Vraska. It's fine to pay 1 or 2 mana for that. And if you do get to destroy another permanent, you got lots of value for only five mana.
I don't think she is better than Pulse or Deed and probably not even Lotleth Troll, but she surely comes next and is a good planeswalker.
Uril, the Miststalker RGW -- Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre C -- Vhati il-Dal BG -- Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer RW -- Animar, Soul of Elements URG
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker R -- Maga, Traitor to Mortals B -- Ghave, Guru of Spores BGW -- Sliver Hivelord WUBRG
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She can be a win condition thanks to her ultimate and she can have a very good immediate CIP effect.
But the creature will either die or she will already have cast a Maelstrom Pulse, depending what ability you used. Losing her at this point won't be the end of the world.
I would actually compare her to Chandra Nalaar. A five mana planeswalker with a good starting loyality, a loyality intensive kill ability, a +1 ability with a small (but not useless) effect and an ultimate that is not that far away and that can win the game in many cases. Considering that Chandra is good planeswalker in cube and that having the ability to kill artifacts, enchantments and planeswalkers in addition to creatures is very powerful, Vraska should at least be in the middle of the pack of cubable planeswalkers.
Uril, the Miststalker RGW -- Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre C -- Vhati il-Dal BG -- Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer RW -- Animar, Soul of Elements URG
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker R -- Maga, Traitor to Mortals B -- Ghave, Guru of Spores BGW -- Sliver Hivelord WUBRG
It's a flexible answer (the only other flexable answer walkers cost 7 and 8!) AND a win condition. It's good against one creature. It's pretty good against weenie swarms (unlike many other walkers). I don't see how this isn't just fantastic?!?
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=385729
My first impression mirrored Nof's and Toad's. After having thought it over, I think it's better than that, as it can get rid of the most annoying thing on the board (whatever it is), and protects itself while building up to the next almost-Vindicate. It's quite slow, but if you don't have a way to smash through right away,you really won't be able to afford to let the walker do her thing and the walker will end up giving plenty of value by killing the stuff taking her down.
It will be worst against aggro because they can practically ignore her, but it's great against the rest of the field (and still good against aggro if you're not under too much pressure).
The ultimate is a joke and will never be used. 'nuf said.
I actually might end up swapping Pernicious Deed for it, Deed has been used less ever since we upped the number of mana elves in green. The new 'walker might be a better fit in our golgari section than Deed. But it won't be done lightly, that's for sure.
If these new gold cards are powerful enough for Cube, then gold sections should just be expanded to accommodate rather than just cutting some of the most powerful gold cards every printed to try squeeze them in.
I mean... you're HONESTLY talking about cutting Pernicious Deed?!
I'll probably be expanding my gold sections by 1-3 cards each (in powered 360), and making cuts to colours, lands or artifacts to compensate.
If cards are powerful enough for Cube, they should always be given a spot regardless of their colour or 'section limits'. IMO.
But, Ravnica as a block was fun to draft, and it was pretty multicolored. Especially in Rav-Gpt-Dis where you had to draft with 4 - 3 - 3 duo available. Doesn't prevented this extension to be excellent for draft.
"Gold cards naturally go against one of the two most important factors for cube card selection: flexibility. Gold cards go in decks that include their colors, and that's it. They're efficiently costed, for sure, but the restriction of their applications kills their flexibility.... With fewer gold cards, one- and two-color decks become a lot more viable, manabases become stronger, and the overall deck quality improves. "
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Uril, the Miststalker RGW -- Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre C -- Vhati il-Dal BG -- Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer RW -- Animar, Soul of Elements URG
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker R -- Maga, Traitor to Mortals B -- Ghave, Guru of Spores BGW -- Sliver Hivelord WUBRG
Note that these figures are without fixers as we have a separate section for that. Hybrids are counted, if there are enough cubeable hybrids we could doubtlessly go a bit beyond the 1/15 threshold.
The revision of our approach to gold sections I feel is a valuable enough topic to deserve its own thread and its discussion here is pulling us away from the purpose of this thread.
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It is situational and the -3 is just too great to not use it most of the time. However, never say never. I have won games with Karn Liberated's ultimate. Just having the option in case both players are in topdeck mode and/or are flooding for multiple turns is good and can win you a game once in while.
Vraska is way closer to Maelstrom Pulse (an absolute cube staple) than to Lux Cannon (does anybody run this at all?), simply because you can use her right away and don't have to wait three whole turns. Actually, Vraska is a bit like a Lux Cannon (and a serious, yet unlikely threat to win the game) stapled onto a Maelstrom Pulse for 2.
Uril, the Miststalker RGW -- Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre C -- Vhati il-Dal BG -- Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer RW -- Animar, Soul of Elements URG
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker R -- Maga, Traitor to Mortals B -- Ghave, Guru of Spores BGW -- Sliver Hivelord WUBRG
I think she is the 2nd best Golgari card under Deeds. Pulse is cheap but not a walker. As for guild sections, I'm going to increase my RtR guild sections for now, then increasing GC's guilds when it is spoiled.
Her ultimate is NOT fluff either.
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Both her first abilities are relevant and she's easy to ramp out.
Good thing I'm planning to up my cube to 450
What I don't enjoy about her mechanics is that they lead to stale gameplay. Her -3 is somewhat interactive, although fairly straightforward in terms of decisionmaking. Her +1 is what bothers me. I think that opponents should be encouraged to attack PWs, rather than the converse. Her +1 ability effectively shuts off one avenue of combat, unless the opponent is willing to throw away the game. When a player can so effectively control the flow of gameplay by upping the counters on a PW, I think it's detrimental to a dynamic gamestate.
That being said, she's a midrange monster. Her abilities are similar to Gideon's (IMO the best midrange card in unpowered cube), but inverted. She's not as good against aggro but much more insane against other midrange and control decks -- perhaps even oppressive. Her power is limited only by her casting cost, which for a BG player won't be any more difficult than Gideon's. I suppose I'll take the tack that gold cards are there to reward players for going into a certain color combo - a surprise bonus, if you will. I just hope that the surprise bonuses for other guilds will come to be equally as enticing.
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