Sagu Mauler has been totally awesome for us. The hexproof vs shroud portion has also been quite relevant. A lot of decks struggle to beat the Mauler and being able to equip a huge creature is amazing. At this point I'm running Kiora, Trygon, Mystic Snake & SSS with it in my 540 Simic section and I think Sagu Mauler may be the best one. Regardless, it's definitely *one* of the best cards & should at least be tested in all Cubes.
Sagu Mauler has been totally awesome for us. The hexproof vs shroud portion has also been quite relevant. A lot of decks struggle to beat the Mauler and being able to equip a huge creature is amazing. At this point I'm running Kiora, Trygon, Mystic Snake & SSS with it in my 540 Simic section and I think Sagu Mauler may be the best one. Regardless, it's definitely *one* of the best cards & should at least be tested in all Cubes.
I agree with all of this, except I think Edric is better as he truly is a unique card whereas SSS and Mauler can be interchangeable in some scenarios. I feel Mauler is ultimately better than SSS, but they're both big beaters at the end of the day whereas Edric can turn your board of elves and tokens into all Shadowmage Infiltrators.
Sagu Mauler has been totally awesome for us. The hexproof vs shroud portion has also been quite relevant. A lot of decks struggle to beat the Mauler and being able to equip a huge creature is amazing. At this point I'm running Kiora, Trygon, Mystic Snake & SSS with it in my 540 Simic section and I think Sagu Mauler may be the best one. Regardless, it's definitely *one* of the best cards & should at least be tested in all Cubes.
I agree with all of this, except I think Edric is better as he truly is a unique card whereas SSS and Mauler can be interchangeable in some scenarios. I feel Mauler is ultimately better than SSS, but they're both big beaters at the end of the day whereas Edric can turn your board of elves and tokens into all Shadowmage Infiltrators.
Edric is arguably the most powerful 3-drop in all of cube in the right deck, but it's very easy to have a setup where nobody wants him. Really depends on if you want your UG section to be focused on tempo/midrange (run Edric, Snake, Trygon) or fatty cheating (run Kiora, Mauler, SSS)
So I've recently come down to the conclusion that I want more Carnage Tyrant and decided to re-visit Sagu Mauler. Since Sagu Mauler has been released, great removal spells such as Fractured Identity / Assassin's Trophy / Hostage Taker / Ravenous Chupacabra have been printed and I want more things that are resilient to removal. Sagu Mauler is over 90% Carnage Tyrant, and morph makes it more flexible / able to swing face up faster than you can cast an actual Carnage Tyrant. Trygon Predator has always bee okay, but I can get away with less Disenchant now with the recent printings of Assassin's Trophy / Vraska, Golgari Queen / Goblin Cratermaker / Knight of Autumn. Simic is really shallow, and I can see Sagu Mauler being a great #3-#5 Simic card if you want something to fight the rising tide of premium removal spells. I've been liking Sagu Mauler a lot lately as an anti-BS card (which is pretty BS itself).
In terms of Simic Sky Swallower vs Sagu Mauler, I like Sagu Mauler much more because I want a more castable midrange threat, not a super fatty.
I separately came to the exact same conclusion as steve_man and just stumbled upon the comment after considering replacing Trygon Predator with Sagu Mauler as the 5th Simic card in my Cube. There are really 3 great Simic cards in my opinion: Edric, Shardless Agent, and Nissa. The other 2 slots in my Cube are now Sagu Mauler and Coiling Oracle. I love adding a "scary" morph for the UG deck. This existence of Sagu should make Rattleclaw Mystic and Ainok Survivalist better (there are more morphs than these two, but these are sometimes morphed simply because you can at a given point in the game, and causing removal spew on them is great).
My 540 card Powered Cube last updated March 2022
I agree with all of this, except I think Edric is better as he truly is a unique card whereas SSS and Mauler can be interchangeable in some scenarios. I feel Mauler is ultimately better than SSS, but they're both big beaters at the end of the day whereas Edric can turn your board of elves and tokens into all Shadowmage Infiltrators.
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Edric is arguably the most powerful 3-drop in all of cube in the right deck, but it's very easy to have a setup where nobody wants him. Really depends on if you want your UG section to be focused on tempo/midrange (run Edric, Snake, Trygon) or fatty cheating (run Kiora, Mauler, SSS)
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In terms of Simic Sky Swallower vs Sagu Mauler, I like Sagu Mauler much more because I want a more castable midrange threat, not a super fatty.
My High Octane Unpowered Cube on CubeCobra
The biggest complaint I have is that a lot of my high end fatties are 6/6s, and the ones that trade without additional value don't look great