If she pulses once and dies from an attack, she hasn't been worse than Maelstrom Pulse. She messed up an entire attack phase and killed at least one creature as well. If she dies from a spell, well, then she cost your opponent that spell. Again, not worse than Maelstrom Pulse.
Way too good not to play. She is better than other planeswalkers I play now but happens to be in a guild. I love the deed and all but if you want to talk about an oppressive card that leads to not interactive gameplay that is certainly one.
The troll is an auto-include because I am always trying to add more good quality low CMC creatures.
I understand the desire to limit guilds and make monocolored decks more viable but my playgroup has been going multicolored. I just could never imagine going lower than 4 gold in a 360. And if this means that people who choose to play 3-4 colored decks are less consistant but have access to more power, that's magic.
I find most mono colored decks in 360 to be quite boring , they are using about half of the cards that I placed in that color and surprise surprise the deck turns out to be exactly as I planned the color to be.
I can't believe the amount of good G/B stuff now; I already considered it one of my tightest guild sections with Leech, Deed and Pulse. Now it's insane up to 5 cards deep.
The ultimate is not one of the very best ones, but to say it will never be used is foolish. In the event of a stalemate, it's a win-con you easily build to. It's better than many others, and perfectly useable. But she's all about the -3.
You poor bastards that have to choose GB cards to cut are, well, poor bastards. The fact that people are kicking around Pulse and deed is possible cuts is just shocking (but understandable).
In addition to her amazing first two abilities, I'm shocked at how easily she can get to her ultimate. Also, love that these tokens are assassins.
I don't mind cutting good cards for better cards. It's called updating the cube, and I have to do it every time a new set comes out.
They've not printed a card as good as Deed in a remotely similar role. People who are thinking about cutting Deed are cutting top shelf cards for good-great cards. Huge difference.
They've not printed a card as good as Deed in a remotely similar role. People who are thinking about cutting Deed are cutting top shelf cards for good-great cards. Huge difference.
Yeah, there is no card I can see in the forseeable future that takes deed at the top spot (knock on wood)
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They've not printed a card as good as Deed in a remotely similar role. People who are thinking about cutting Deed are cutting top shelf cards for good-great cards. Huge difference.
I'm not suggesting cutting Deed. I think that's an absolutely terrible idea.
I don't mind cutting good cards for better cards. It's called updating the cube, and I have to do it every time a new set comes out.
This is why I like the flexible multicard system...you end up cutting the worst gold cards for new ones. With a rigid gold system, or even a guild one, you occasionally end up cutting a great, unique card, for a great, unique card, simply because the section is so small and rigid. I can imagine few GB decks where Deed wouldn't be an auto include, so cutting it just seems wrong to me.
This is why I like the flexible multicard system...you end up cutting the worst gold cards for new ones. With a rigid gold system, or even a guild one, you occasionally end up cutting a great, unique card, for a great, unique card, simply because the section is so small and rigid. I can imagine few GB decks where Deed wouldn't be an auto include, so cutting it just seems wrong to me.
It seems like the wrong cut to me too. Cutting Deed is a mistake, and a change I wouldn't advocate.
As more and more absurd cards get printed with RTR, it seems like we are now going to have to start making more decisions based on a fun/balanced environment when designing cube, rather than raw power.
This! She's obviously VERY powerful, but I'm going to have to ponder whether or not to include her because of that power. I'm sure Dreadbore has gone up a notch or three in Rakdos sections with her spoiling....
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.
In your most common occurrence, you'll skip your Turn 5 for the PW (6 loyalty), receive a big slap in return by your opponent, then go Pulse on Turn 6 (3 loyalty). At that point, the PW is not protected anymore and low on loyalty, so the opponent will either kill you (they gained a huge tempo since you skipped your Turn 5, and they should have a huge creature advantage over you), or deal 3 damage to the PW and the rest to you. For 5 mana and two turns you'd have gained a Pulse and a Healing Salve. Even if they don't kill the PW, on Turn 7 you either have the option to +1 again, with no impact on the board state, or to -3 and let the PW die. You'd have spent 5 mana and 3 turns to kill 2 permanents. That's also far from impressive.
I really don't see how that PW is good. Lux Cannon.
Yes, she is not that good when your opponent has a MULTIPLE creature advantage and is beating you down.
How many planes walkers really deal well with that situation?
If you look at it in the context of commonly played decks, black/green has all sorts of stuff to gum up the board, so getting overwhelmed isn't the most common way it loses.
B/G mid range already has a pretty good matchup against swarmy agro , so having a card that hedges great against tap-out control and attacks from a different angle is a very very welcome addition to the deck.
For people that are really high on this card, what does the normal scenario look like to you? Are you expecting to Pulse more than one card with this? Is +1, then pulse and die good enough? I just don't see what this does for you...
For people that are really high on this card, what does the normal scenario look like to you? Are you expecting to Pulse more than one card with this? Is +1, then pulse and die good enough? I just don't see what this does for you...
The normal scenario looks like Pulse to balance the board or take an advantage, then +1 to protect/rebuild, and then Pulse for a board advantage. Multiple pulse activations seems like a really likely scenario, and that's just boss for 5 mana. Do you consider Karn to be bad because he's a 7-mana Vindicate and then die? Hopefully that's not how you've learned to evaluate 'walkers.
Pulse best threat opponent has, and partial fog for opponents next combat step is close to her worse case scenario.
As far as poor case scenarios go, seems pretty decent.
She works best when your opponent is playing a tapout control deck with a lot of planeswalkers and stuff like control magic/sower of temptation/veldaken shackles.
Imagine playing against this deck with a B/G mid-range creature based deck before and after vraska.
Some Planeswalkers protect themselves with their +1. See Elspeth, Knight Errant or Sorin, Lord of Innistrad. This increases the value of the Planeswalker, and makes it harder to take down via combat damage.
Killing the attackers certainly protects itself. You can kill it with combat damage, sure, but at the cost of every creature that attacks it? Hardly worth it.
These only cost 4 mana. With Vraska, using the protection mode puts it down to 2 loyalty, and that is very easy to take down. For 5 mana. The standard scenario for Vraska will likely to use the -3 straight away, and then prey that she does'nt get destroyed. While I'm willing to pay for a 3 mana Maelstrom Pulse, I'm surely not appealed by a 5 mana Maelstrom Pulse, gain 2 or 3 life. Such a card would actually be completely unplayable.
Forcing an attack is SO much better than simply gaining the life that gets dealt to it. It can force them to make bad attacks, often having to attack into at least one creature that can kill off an attacker in order to kill the 'Walker. If I can Pulse something, force a bad attack AND protect my life total, that's certainly worth the mana investment. And again, you're talking about the 'walker's WCS.
The main difference with Karn and Vraska is that Karn's +4 ability is very relevant (and +4 with starting loyalty 6 is a great protection), while Vraska +1 ability will never be relevant. Karn ultimate is also a strong win condition on its own, while Vraska ultimate is more fluff than anything else.
Killing off every potential attacker is also great protection. Perhaps even better protection if those creatures would've been future targets for the {-} ability. Also, Karn costs seven mana. Saying her +1 will never be relevant is just silly.
Vraska is awesome on an empty board and weak when you are behind. That is not the kind of card I want to play in my decks. The latest 5 drops I've added to my Cube are Thragtusk and Thundermaw Hellkite. These two only make Vraska look terrible.
She's great on an even board, and still servicable when you're behind. B/G midrange already has an advantageous matchup against aggressive decks. I don't need a 'walker that makes it even better against decks I'm going to beat anyways. I need a good 'walker that shores up weaknesses against archetypes Golgari will typically struggle against. She does that perfectly.
And ya, there's two new 5-drops that are decent against her, but who cares? What about all the great cards she's excellent against? Repeatable pulses, a protective ability that preserves her loyalty and a great card for shoring up natural weaknesses that mid-range Golgari decks face is just the perfect combination of abilities for her to prove to be an excellent cube card; particularly for B/G.
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.
at smaller sizes i agree that people should probably run unbalanced sections to avoid skipping great stuff and running filler. but i can't agree with expanding just to fit in cards you like. more gold = worse draft experience. a ton of people around here have found that out first hand. cutting back my gold was the best thing i ever did for my cube.
sometimes it's sad we can't run a card we like. but it's for a better overall experience playing the cube.
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.
For people that are really high on this card, what does the normal scenario look like to you? Are you expecting to Pulse more than one card with this? Is +1, then pulse and die good enough? I just don't see what this does for you...
I think a lot of people are evaluating this card by itself, and pitting it against an entire deck's worth of opposing threats. In that situation, few cards can stand up. However, in the "normal scenario," she's part of a midrange or control deck that already has a few tools to keep early aggro in check. Indeed, there is more than one normal scenario, which is what makes planeswalkers so strong in general. If we compare her with Maelstrom Pulse, it's easy to conclude that Pulse has more raw power, and it's more efficient, but on the other hand, it's relatively one-dimensional. (It's a very good dimension, though.) Vraska, in my mind, has three possible outcomes (excepting the "watch her get countered" scenario, which can happen to Pulse too).
First, unlike Pulse, Vraska can threaten a win on an empty board. Some have said that her ultimate is useless, or at best unlikely to get there, but the threat of the ultimate can be useful if it leads your opponent to make unprofitable plays, like losing two creatures to her +1. She seems very strong after cards like Deed, Damnation, or Black Sun's Zenith, as she has some room to tick up, allowing you build up a double Pulse or go all-in with the Assassins if your opponent is out of gas. If this plan is backed up with hand disruption or accelerated with ramp, it could end up going the distance. If not, then you trade cards (maybe your opponent lost more than one) and move on to the next plan.
If your back is against the wall, then "Pulse and watch her die" can be an acceptable outcome. You might get the breathing room you need to draw one of your outs. If taking out their biggest nonland permanent isn't enough, then Pulse likely wouldn't have saved you either (notable exceptions, of course, include staring down a horde of tokens or sitting on 3-4 land).
The third scenario has her working as a harder-to-remove Lux Cannon, with the added bonus of being able to hit a permanent out of the gate. In my experience, BG midrange can find itself in situations where a timely Pulse is all you need to knock out the only threat the opponent has that survived your early removal or can get through your Walls of Blossoms and/or Roots. In that situation, Vraska acts as that Pulse, but then grows during the turn you bought yourself and Pulses again, which, to me, is a solid bargain.
The fact that a single card is capable of these different lines makes that card stronger than the sum of its parts. I've played Karn Liberated as a one-shot Vindicate, and doing so has sometimes saved my bacon, even if it's a wildly inefficient use of seven mana. I've also won with Karn's rather clunky ultimate. I think I'll end up with similar experiences with Vraska, and I'm happy to have her in my Cube.
I don't think many people are evaluating the card how it is going to be played. You'll be in G/B/(x), and so this is a potential t4 threat (totally fine on t5 too, ofc). You're in a pair of colors that excel at stabilizing by killing creatures and clogging the board. Most commonly, I think she will either:
a) +1 into a board where you are slightly disadvantaged in order to deter an attack, then you untap and go into vindicate mode while getting to play things to protect her
b) -3 into a board where you are facing down 1-2 large threats (a Jace/Elspeth, a powerful 4 drop, etc), leaving your opponent with no good way to deal with her without incurring even more disadvantage
The only time she is "bad" (you know, as bad as a 5 mana pulse+ can be) is when you are facing down a horde of small threats and you're way behind anyway. Not many things were digging you out of that hole, and she at least gets you started there.
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What I love about her is that she will always 1 for 1, and then its just upside.
Very strong..
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She's a strong 'walker.
The troll is an auto-include because I am always trying to add more good quality low CMC creatures.
I understand the desire to limit guilds and make monocolored decks more viable but my playgroup has been going multicolored. I just could never imagine going lower than 4 gold in a 360. And if this means that people who choose to play 3-4 colored decks are less consistant but have access to more power, that's magic.
I find most mono colored decks in 360 to be quite boring , they are using about half of the cards that I placed in that color and surprise surprise the deck turns out to be exactly as I planned the color to be.
Wow, this card is even better than I thought.
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The ultimate is not one of the very best ones, but to say it will never be used is foolish. In the event of a stalemate, it's a win-con you easily build to. It's better than many others, and perfectly useable. But she's all about the -3.
On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
No, it's basically a repeatable Pulse.
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In addition to her amazing first two abilities, I'm shocked at how easily she can get to her ultimate. Also, love that these tokens are assassins.
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They've not printed a card as good as Deed in a remotely similar role. People who are thinking about cutting Deed are cutting top shelf cards for good-great cards. Huge difference.
Yeah, there is no card I can see in the forseeable future that takes deed at the top spot (knock on wood)
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I'm not suggesting cutting Deed. I think that's an absolutely terrible idea.
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This is why I like the flexible multicard system...you end up cutting the worst gold cards for new ones. With a rigid gold system, or even a guild one, you occasionally end up cutting a great, unique card, for a great, unique card, simply because the section is so small and rigid. I can imagine few GB decks where Deed wouldn't be an auto include, so cutting it just seems wrong to me.
It seems like the wrong cut to me too. Cutting Deed is a mistake, and a change I wouldn't advocate.
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This! She's obviously VERY powerful, but I'm going to have to ponder whether or not to include her because of that power. I'm sure Dreadbore has gone up a notch or three in Rakdos sections with her spoiling....
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Yes, she is not that good when your opponent has a MULTIPLE creature advantage and is beating you down.
How many planes walkers really deal well with that situation?
If you look at it in the context of commonly played decks, black/green has all sorts of stuff to gum up the board, so getting overwhelmed isn't the most common way it loses.
B/G mid range already has a pretty good matchup against swarmy agro , so having a card that hedges great against tap-out control and attacks from a different angle is a very very welcome addition to the deck.
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The normal scenario looks like Pulse to balance the board or take an advantage, then +1 to protect/rebuild, and then Pulse for a board advantage. Multiple pulse activations seems like a really likely scenario, and that's just boss for 5 mana. Do you consider Karn to be bad because he's a 7-mana Vindicate and then die? Hopefully that's not how you've learned to evaluate 'walkers.
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As far as poor case scenarios go, seems pretty decent.
She works best when your opponent is playing a tapout control deck with a lot of planeswalkers and stuff like control magic/sower of temptation/veldaken shackles.
Imagine playing against this deck with a B/G mid-range creature based deck before and after vraska.
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Killing the attackers certainly protects itself. You can kill it with combat damage, sure, but at the cost of every creature that attacks it? Hardly worth it.
Forcing an attack is SO much better than simply gaining the life that gets dealt to it. It can force them to make bad attacks, often having to attack into at least one creature that can kill off an attacker in order to kill the 'Walker. If I can Pulse something, force a bad attack AND protect my life total, that's certainly worth the mana investment. And again, you're talking about the 'walker's WCS.
Multiple Pulses are valuable at all stages of the game. Karn has shown that clearer than anything.
Killing off every potential attacker is also great protection. Perhaps even better protection if those creatures would've been future targets for the {-} ability. Also, Karn costs seven mana. Saying her +1 will never be relevant is just silly.
She's great on an even board, and still servicable when you're behind. B/G midrange already has an advantageous matchup against aggressive decks. I don't need a 'walker that makes it even better against decks I'm going to beat anyways. I need a good 'walker that shores up weaknesses against archetypes Golgari will typically struggle against. She does that perfectly.
And ya, there's two new 5-drops that are decent against her, but who cares? What about all the great cards she's excellent against? Repeatable pulses, a protective ability that preserves her loyalty and a great card for shoring up natural weaknesses that mid-range Golgari decks face is just the perfect combination of abilities for her to prove to be an excellent cube card; particularly for B/G.
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this is exactly the wrong way to evaluate these kinds of effects.
you killed a green creature with vindicate? you just paid 1WB for hand of death! no, that is not a good evaluation of vindicate.
at smaller sizes i agree that people should probably run unbalanced sections to avoid skipping great stuff and running filler. but i can't agree with expanding just to fit in cards you like. more gold = worse draft experience. a ton of people around here have found that out first hand. cutting back my gold was the best thing i ever did for my cube.
sometimes it's sad we can't run a card we like. but it's for a better overall experience playing the cube.
She is NOT just a good when ahead, poor when behind card.
Safe to say you are behind when you're opponent has a JTMS on board and no way for your creatures to get through.
Safe to say you are behind when your opponent has 6 islands and has just veldaken shackled your tombstalker and has a tamiyo in play.
Would you rather have a sorin lord of innistrad , elspeth tirel, thragtusk in these situations?
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I think a lot of people are evaluating this card by itself, and pitting it against an entire deck's worth of opposing threats. In that situation, few cards can stand up. However, in the "normal scenario," she's part of a midrange or control deck that already has a few tools to keep early aggro in check. Indeed, there is more than one normal scenario, which is what makes planeswalkers so strong in general. If we compare her with Maelstrom Pulse, it's easy to conclude that Pulse has more raw power, and it's more efficient, but on the other hand, it's relatively one-dimensional. (It's a very good dimension, though.) Vraska, in my mind, has three possible outcomes (excepting the "watch her get countered" scenario, which can happen to Pulse too).
First, unlike Pulse, Vraska can threaten a win on an empty board. Some have said that her ultimate is useless, or at best unlikely to get there, but the threat of the ultimate can be useful if it leads your opponent to make unprofitable plays, like losing two creatures to her +1. She seems very strong after cards like Deed, Damnation, or Black Sun's Zenith, as she has some room to tick up, allowing you build up a double Pulse or go all-in with the Assassins if your opponent is out of gas. If this plan is backed up with hand disruption or accelerated with ramp, it could end up going the distance. If not, then you trade cards (maybe your opponent lost more than one) and move on to the next plan.
If your back is against the wall, then "Pulse and watch her die" can be an acceptable outcome. You might get the breathing room you need to draw one of your outs. If taking out their biggest nonland permanent isn't enough, then Pulse likely wouldn't have saved you either (notable exceptions, of course, include staring down a horde of tokens or sitting on 3-4 land).
The third scenario has her working as a harder-to-remove Lux Cannon, with the added bonus of being able to hit a permanent out of the gate. In my experience, BG midrange can find itself in situations where a timely Pulse is all you need to knock out the only threat the opponent has that survived your early removal or can get through your Walls of Blossoms and/or Roots. In that situation, Vraska acts as that Pulse, but then grows during the turn you bought yourself and Pulses again, which, to me, is a solid bargain.
The fact that a single card is capable of these different lines makes that card stronger than the sum of its parts. I've played Karn Liberated as a one-shot Vindicate, and doing so has sometimes saved my bacon, even if it's a wildly inefficient use of seven mana. I've also won with Karn's rather clunky ultimate. I think I'll end up with similar experiences with Vraska, and I'm happy to have her in my Cube.
a) +1 into a board where you are slightly disadvantaged in order to deter an attack, then you untap and go into vindicate mode while getting to play things to protect her
b) -3 into a board where you are facing down 1-2 large threats (a Jace/Elspeth, a powerful 4 drop, etc), leaving your opponent with no good way to deal with her without incurring even more disadvantage
The only time she is "bad" (you know, as bad as a 5 mana pulse+ can be) is when you are facing down a horde of small threats and you're way behind anyway. Not many things were digging you out of that hole, and she at least gets you started there.