Ral Zarek seems to fit in quite well with the UR control and UR tempo decks that see play in my cube. In control lists, he burns away creatures and untaps your mana to ramp you to your Upheavals and Wildfires, while in tempo lists he removes blockers, helps you keep up countermagic, and goes to the face with burn. I like him.
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.
Unfortunately, I don't think that's gonna happen. I don't think there are any hybrid cards in this set. I think they went the split/Fuse route instead.
A bomb G/W token generating 'Walker would be nuts. I thought it was ironic that for all the speculation regarding Elspeth Tirel being G/W, she turned out mono-white - but could easily have been G/W with the same abilities.
The best reason to keep Fire//Ice is that it's essentially a hybrid card, since you can cast it with just one color of mana. I'm always looking for ways to keep hybrid and cut gold to keep drafter' options open. I also hate to cut lands, because lands are so amazing, but I think Loothouse gets cut for Ral Zerek.
A bomb G/W token generating 'Walker would be nuts. I thought it was ironic that for all the speculation regarding Elspeth Tirel being G/W, she turned out mono-white - but could easily have been G/W with the same abilities.
In our defense on that one, her picture was the only thing spoiled, she wears a Selesnyan symbol on her chest, and Ravnican towers are seen outside of the window. At the time it was "oh look she found her inner peace in Selesnya's teachings that she was looking for after Alara block, she'll be Green or GW now."
Obviously in hind sight knowing RtR was being made at the time it probably went more like:
"Ah crap we need a returning walker in this first SoM set to really sell it but we don't have any spare art this late in development, that new Elspeth art is in early, let the guys doing Ravnica just toss Jace or that Ral guy in their block instead, nobody will notice the green art and Ravnican background anyway. Make her mono-white, don't want to take too many risks with new ideas here."
The best reason to keep Fire//Ice is that it's essentially a hybrid card, since you can cast it with just one color of mana. I'm always looking for ways to keep hybrid and cut gold to keep drafter' options open. I also hate to cut lands, because lands are so amazing, but I think Loothouse gets cut for Ral Zerek.
I think Loothouse is the cut too, I like the card but it really doesn't get used all that much compared to how great it looked on paper. I think aggro is properly supported in my cube to the point where paying that much to loot isn't feasible anymore.
Garruk has probably one of the better ultimates. Ral Zarek's is cool, though.
Ral's is actually one of the most powerful ultimates, in my opinion. It takes a while to get there, granted, but once you do you're approximately 4/5 likely to get 2 or more turns, which should win you the game right there, especially if ral's ultimate didn't kill him (extra turns combo pretty well with walkers).
The 1/32 chance of it doing nothing is annoying, but not that relevant really. getting a single time walk about 1/5 of the time is something you'll have to plan for, as it's unlikely to make you win right off, but it's still a powerful effect.
Pretty disappointed by Ral Zarek. He's obviously very good for Cube, but Entwined Dream's Grip, Lightning Bolt and multiple Stitch in Time is cheap design.
I'm not exactly sure how that can be called cheap design. Lightning bolt is a distinct for the Red part of his casting cost and plays well with Izzet's zaping themes. Tapping/untapping is also very thematic for Izzet and what it's trying to do, tinkering and what not. And his ulitmate is basically the living embodiment of the Epic Experiment. If you bothered to ACTUALLY look at the card from the Guild's perspective instead of just dismissing it, you'd notice the awesome flavor and design they put into this dude.
I like the design, myself. Subtly powerful, versatile first ability. Straightforward, brute force second. Pure izzet ultimate, random but statistically likely to be very strong. It's a satisfying design for me.
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.
[Pretentiousness]It's actually Toils of Night and Day that Ral's +1 is emulating [/Pretentiousness]
I love him. I've always felt Izzet was a few cards short (size 6 guild sections for me, but I fill out the lackluster guilds with custom cards, so it's give and take) and I've always loved Garruk Wildspeaker. Hopefully this helps the Blue Red Tempo deck a bit, since he's got stun as a +1 and reach as a minus ability
It could be done...
Grull 1 drop Fuse Card
G
Put a 2/2 Wolf token into play
2R
Creatures you control gain +1/+0 and Haste until end of turn.
EDIT: Sorry, didn't see the first bit.
On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
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Very likely.
Well technically, it's a sorcery.
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He seems quite similar to Garruk 1.0 to me.
+1: Make some mana (+ stun)
-2: Bolt instead of beast
His ult is...different, but people forget just how solid garruk is.
Plus it's way cooler
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For reference:
All the walkers http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?output=spoiler&method=visual&type=+%5bPlaneswalker%5d&sort=color+
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I'll take a simic walker but I definitely don't need anything for my selesnya section.
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On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
In our defense on that one, her picture was the only thing spoiled, she wears a Selesnyan symbol on her chest, and Ravnican towers are seen outside of the window. At the time it was "oh look she found her inner peace in Selesnya's teachings that she was looking for after Alara block, she'll be Green or GW now."
Obviously in hind sight knowing RtR was being made at the time it probably went more like:
"Ah crap we need a returning walker in this first SoM set to really sell it but we don't have any spare art this late in development, that new Elspeth art is in early, let the guys doing Ravnica just toss Jace or that Ral guy in their block instead, nobody will notice the green art and Ravnican background anyway. Make her mono-white, don't want to take too many risks with new ideas here."
I think Loothouse is the cut too, I like the card but it really doesn't get used all that much compared to how great it looked on paper. I think aggro is properly supported in my cube to the point where paying that much to loot isn't feasible anymore.
Old Cube Thread (Outdated)
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Rotisserie Drafted Commander Cube Commanders
Ral's is actually one of the most powerful ultimates, in my opinion. It takes a while to get there, granted, but once you do you're approximately 4/5 likely to get 2 or more turns, which should win you the game right there, especially if ral's ultimate didn't kill him (extra turns combo pretty well with walkers).
The 1/32 chance of it doing nothing is annoying, but not that relevant really. getting a single time walk about 1/5 of the time is something you'll have to plan for, as it's unlikely to make you win right off, but it's still a powerful effect.
Draft it on Cubetutor!
I'm not exactly sure how that can be called cheap design. Lightning bolt is a distinct for the Red part of his casting cost and plays well with Izzet's zaping themes. Tapping/untapping is also very thematic for Izzet and what it's trying to do, tinkering and what not. And his ulitmate is basically the living embodiment of the Epic Experiment. If you bothered to ACTUALLY look at the card from the Guild's perspective instead of just dismissing it, you'd notice the awesome flavor and design they put into this dude.
I like the design, myself. Subtly powerful, versatile first ability. Straightforward, brute force second. Pure izzet ultimate, random but statistically likely to be very strong. It's a satisfying design for me.
Yeah, even though I started it myself let's stick to the subject.
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I love him. I've always felt Izzet was a few cards short (size 6 guild sections for me, but I fill out the lackluster guilds with custom cards, so it's give and take) and I've always loved Garruk Wildspeaker. Hopefully this helps the Blue Red Tempo deck a bit, since he's got stun as a +1 and reach as a minus ability
What are the (updated) top 5 or 6 izzet cards?
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