What is the general opinion about the disk in cube? Seems to become more and more ankward in a powered cube environment where everyone is boarding more mana artifacts and powerful enchantments. For the control players welling to play it as a wrath, it could be dangerous to touch your own stuff with it. Use to like it when my cube was slower and more fair with a ton of different cards in, but I don't know anymore...
If you can sculpt a deck that has little to no collateral damage from it, it's a great option. The problem was that my control decks played a lot of artifacts. I was willing to overlook that. But as of late, enchantments have gotten really big too, and preventing my O-Rings and stuff from working right is a huge drawback for the card. I ended up cutting it, but if those kinds of enchantments wind up being replaced with more Council's Judgments and Vindicates in the future, this card could probably slide back in. Because in a deck that has very few of its own cards destroyed by it, Disk can be really nasty still.
Still a stone cold staple for me. 'The button' has had the magical ability to turn any mish mash of colors into a control deck. I have actually found that the prevalence of more and better enchantments has made this more valuable. It has never been a top pick for traditional azorious control as they just usually want the wrath. But the black control decks.... Mono, Rakdos, Dimir, Grixis are all looking for ways to take out nasty enchantments (sometimes their own). Plus black is in the driver's seat when things go to the graveyard.
One major upside is that many many , even experienced players play incorrectly against this. I call it the standstill effect. We recently saw it in standard with perilous vault. The aggressive player has insufficient pressure on the board and doesn't want to over extend into the board wipe. This gives the control player time to get the upper hand and they don't even have to do anything. It also plays really well with man lands.
Another card that I am surprised to see is not agreed to be a clear-cut staple. The fun that this card brings to the game...I don't see it ever being cut.
It's too slow these days. Additionally, it wipes out your mana rock and other stuff. Leaves walkers behind, which can be both a benefit and a drawback. I like Powder Keg, Ratchet Bomb, and Engineered Explosives over it these days. They can take out tokens immediately and are more customizable in what they hit. Out of all of these, the only one that is a must-run is Explosives IMO. I love Disk, but unless I went up to an enormous cube size, its days in my cube are done.
It's too slow these days. Additionally, it wipes out your mana rock and other stuff. Leaves walkers behind, which can be both a benefit and a drawback. I like Powder Keg, Ratchet Bomb, and Engineered Explosives over it these days. They can take out tokens immediately and are more customizable in what they hit. Out of all of these, the only one that is a must-run is Explosives IMO. I love Disk, but unless I went up to an enormous cube size, its days in my cube are done.
Cheers,
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No planeswalkers in my cube so this guy hits it all (besides lands obviously). Keg, Bomb and Explosives are OK, overrated in my opinion and do not hit everything to give you a fresh start if/when really needed like Disk. Talk about slow, Keg and Ratchet Bomb are ultra slow, so why would that not be a drawback for them but it is for Disk to have to wait one turn?
I don’t think I’d add this even if I doubled my colorless section.
The delay is so bad, and unfortunately the anti-synergies often outweigh the synergies in a control deck.
The opponent has to have a way to kill it in one turn or board is reset. Just no other card in cube that has the same effect, and it makes for some really fun games in my experience.
Keg gets tokens and manlands immediately. That's pretty strong. Bomb is slow, but being able to hit what you want to hit with little damage to your own stuff is good. No 'walkers makes Disk even less attractive to me because it's harder to break the symmetry of it. I only run Explosives and Keg now, and don't see that changing anytime. Keg hitting the manlands is mostly what keeps it around.
Disc taking a turn to come online is too bad for a modern cube. Too telegraphed, and too slow. I've never missed cutting it.
If you want a non-creature artifact that effects the board, all the powder keg variants are better, as is blast zone as a land. Also, Tangle Wire is a much more interesting board-impacting artifact IMO.
Keg gets tokens and manlands immediately. That's pretty strong. Bomb is slow, but being able to hit what you want to hit with little damage to your own stuff is good. No 'walkers makes Disk even less attractive to me because it's harder to break the symmetry of it. I only run Explosives and Keg now, and don't see that changing anytime. Keg hitting the manlands is mostly what keeps it around.
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rant
Yes but you could say the same about Upheaval for example but the idea of course is you are playing it with a situation where you can recover more quickly than your opponent. If you are getting slapped around, it is a back breaker and completely changes the game in your favor.
Disc taking a turn to come online is too bad for a modern cube. Too telegraphed, and too slow. I've never missed cutting it.
If you want a non-creature artifact that effects the board, all the powder keg variants are better, as is blast zone as a land. Also, Tangle Wire is a much more interesting board-impacting artifact IMO.
How is Powder Keg a better variant if the main complaint is that Disk is too slow? Powder keg takes far longer, is limited in its targets based on number of turns/counters, and is even more telegraphed...I am confused by the criticism of Disk but praise of Powder keg variants...
Powder Keg can kill all Moxes, tokens and manlands immediately, and can also be used to wipe out specific CMCs instead of all permanents (which is often an advantage). It also costs half the mana...
When you need to stop a pair of 1-drops from beating you down, waiting until T5 to kill them both isn't a viable option. Plus, I may want to leave my 3/4cc permanents alone, and I can't do that with Disk.
Powder Keg can kill all Moxes, tokens and manlands immediately, and can also be used to wipe out specific CMCs instead of all permanents (which is often an advantage). It also costs half the mana...
When you need to stop a pair of 1-drops from beating you down, waiting until T5 to kill them both isn't a viable option. Plus, I may want to leave my 3/4cc permanents alone, and I can't do that with Disk.
But not all threats in cube are 1/1 tokens or 1 drops. In fact, most threats are much bigger and have higher casting costs, and a Keg variant would be a dead draw against those. Disk has a purpose and place in the right decks and right situations, despite it's "slow" (1 turn) activation time.
You asked how it was better, and I explained it. I understand not ALL threats fall into the category of ones that get answered by Keg efficiently. But decks that run Keg? They're weak to aggro beaters and low-to-the-ground go-wide strategies. They're also weak to manlands. So Keg is a clean answer to the things your deck is weak against. Plus, it's a good answer to moxen and fast mana. Disk is terrible against all the cards that Keg is efficient at answering. Which also happens to be the kinds of cards those decks have weaknnesses against. Smaller numbers of bigger, slower threats are not an issue for most control decks. So I don't need Disk. I'm weak to tokens, manlands, explosive artifact mana and aggro beaters ...all the things that Disk is just unacceptably bad at answering.
Disk was a fun card in superfriends decks where it was legitimately asymmetrical, but ended up getting cut from the cube because it simply wasn't good in control anymore. It was too bad against all the things my deck needed help tackling.
I still run Larry Nevin's disk. It's always been ok but never super impressive. It has stuck about because we end up in multiplayer games fairly regularly and it's nice to have a colourless sweeper, especially one that can act as a rattle-snake or political tool.
It definitely sucks to see in it your opening hand against a hard agro decks as the fact it telegraphs itself a turn early means your opponent knows to hold something back till you pop it and not overextend so you lose the element of surprise a 5 mana sweeper would have in that situation.
Its definitely showing it's age so I wouldn't fault anyone for cutting it in favour of the 2cmc scalable options if their environment was high powered or agro is a big player.
You asked how it was better, and I explained it. I understand not ALL threats fall into the category of ones that get answered by Keg efficiently. But decks that run Keg? They're weak to aggro beaters and low-to-the-ground go-wide strategies. They're also weak to manlands. So Keg is a clean answer to the things your deck is weak against. Plus, it's a good answer to moxen and fast mana. Disk is terrible against all the cards that Keg is efficient at answering. Which also happens to be the kinds of cards those decks have weaknnesses against. Smaller numbers of bigger, slower threats are not an issue for most control decks. So I don't need Disk. I'm weak to tokens, manlands, explosive artifact mana and aggro beaters ...all the things that Disk is just unacceptably bad at answering.
Disk was a fun card in superfriends decks where it was legitimately asymmetrical, but ended up getting cut from the cube because it simply wasn't good in control anymore. It was too bad against all the things my deck needed help tackling.
You explained why Keg variants are better than Disk in a limited situation, sure. You keep mentioning manlands like they're super prevalent and a huge threat. Maybe in your cube, but I have a handful total and in any given game maybe an opponent has 1 or 2 at most in their entire deck? Same for moxes or other 0 cost threats. And that is my biggest problem with Keg variants, how limited the blast is when you trigger it. For Disk, I like it because it will hit all of their threats and allow my quicker rebuild to take control of the game. Aggro decks are usually more quickly into top-deck mode and what you see on the field is what they have, so if you can destroy all of that with one card...it is surprising to me how that could not be seen as quite powerful.
These keg being better situations you mention just seem far less common than my personal experiences, but if Keg variants are better for your cube then it is what it is.
Again, you asked why people like Keg variants better, so I explained the reasons why they're far better performers for most cube managers than Disk is. Even if the situations occur less often, the card is more effective at dealing with those situations when they arise. Which is critical, because they're the most problematic for the types of decks that would be playing these effects to begin with. Especially against aggro, where I'm probably dead around the same time Disk becomes available to activate.
But ultimately it doesn't matter. If you like Disk, go for it. I was just explaining why people have historically had more success with the scaling variants.
FWIW, I like Oblivion Stone more too. They typically both activate on the same turn, but Stone CAN be played and be activated in the same turn (given enough mana), it can be asymmetrical more often because of its own text, and it kills planeswalkers. But I don't run any of these kinds of effects anymore as it is. They were all too slow for us (except for Engineered Explosives, since it can both be set to 0 and can be activated immediately). But if I were to add one back in, the next artifact version of the effect would be Keg.
I never liked blowing up my own oblivion rings. Besides, my W and B sections have enough sweepers as-is. Keg isn't what I'd consider a substitute, but it does give control another tool to work with. Sometimes that raging ravine can be a pain to the WU deck, and holding it at bay without pressing a big red button is appealing.
Hypothetical scenario: if I just finished drafting, and I've got 3 wraths to work with in my pool, I'd wayyy sooner add in a keg to my final 23 than a disk. Hell, I might even prefer a cantrip to a disk, unless I had zero disenchants somehow. It's just a really clumsy way of getting that redundancy IMO.
Threats are much more aggressive these days, plus there's a lot more ways to blow up Disk / lockdown Disk. I cut it years ago and really haven't missed it, 4-cmc do nothing the turn it you cast is too much of a liability in 2020.
Threats are much more aggressive these days, plus there's a lot more ways to blow up Disk / lockdown Disk. I cut it years ago and really haven't missed it, 4-cmc do nothing the turn it you cast is too much of a liability in 2020.
Definitely there are many ways to destroy artifacts, but those same cards would also destroy keg variants unless you are popping keg immediately for 0.
But it only cost me half the mana to invest in, had an opportunity to impact the board immediately and was useable up to 3 turns faster. Which also means it might have activated before the opponent even drew an answer to it.
What is the general opinion about the disk in cube? Seems to become more and more ankward in a powered cube environment where everyone is boarding more mana artifacts and powerful enchantments. For the control players welling to play it as a wrath, it could be dangerous to touch your own stuff with it. Use to like it when my cube was slower and more fair with a ton of different cards in, but I don't know anymore...
What are your thoughts about it?
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The delay is so bad, and unfortunately the anti-synergies often outweigh the synergies in a control deck.
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No planeswalkers in my cube so this guy hits it all (besides lands obviously). Keg, Bomb and Explosives are OK, overrated in my opinion and do not hit everything to give you a fresh start if/when really needed like Disk. Talk about slow, Keg and Ratchet Bomb are ultra slow, so why would that not be a drawback for them but it is for Disk to have to wait one turn?
The opponent has to have a way to kill it in one turn or board is reset. Just no other card in cube that has the same effect, and it makes for some really fun games in my experience.
Cheers,
rant
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If you want a non-creature artifact that effects the board, all the powder keg variants are better, as is blast zone as a land. Also, Tangle Wire is a much more interesting board-impacting artifact IMO.
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Yes but you could say the same about Upheaval for example but the idea of course is you are playing it with a situation where you can recover more quickly than your opponent. If you are getting slapped around, it is a back breaker and completely changes the game in your favor.
How is Powder Keg a better variant if the main complaint is that Disk is too slow? Powder keg takes far longer, is limited in its targets based on number of turns/counters, and is even more telegraphed...I am confused by the criticism of Disk but praise of Powder keg variants...
When you need to stop a pair of 1-drops from beating you down, waiting until T5 to kill them both isn't a viable option. Plus, I may want to leave my 3/4cc permanents alone, and I can't do that with Disk.
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But not all threats in cube are 1/1 tokens or 1 drops. In fact, most threats are much bigger and have higher casting costs, and a Keg variant would be a dead draw against those. Disk has a purpose and place in the right decks and right situations, despite it's "slow" (1 turn) activation time.
Disk was a fun card in superfriends decks where it was legitimately asymmetrical, but ended up getting cut from the cube because it simply wasn't good in control anymore. It was too bad against all the things my deck needed help tackling.
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It definitely sucks to see in it your opening hand against a hard agro decks as the fact it telegraphs itself a turn early means your opponent knows to hold something back till you pop it and not overextend so you lose the element of surprise a 5 mana sweeper would have in that situation.
Its definitely showing it's age so I wouldn't fault anyone for cutting it in favour of the 2cmc scalable options if their environment was high powered or agro is a big player.
You explained why Keg variants are better than Disk in a limited situation, sure. You keep mentioning manlands like they're super prevalent and a huge threat. Maybe in your cube, but I have a handful total and in any given game maybe an opponent has 1 or 2 at most in their entire deck? Same for moxes or other 0 cost threats. And that is my biggest problem with Keg variants, how limited the blast is when you trigger it. For Disk, I like it because it will hit all of their threats and allow my quicker rebuild to take control of the game. Aggro decks are usually more quickly into top-deck mode and what you see on the field is what they have, so if you can destroy all of that with one card...it is surprising to me how that could not be seen as quite powerful.
These keg being better situations you mention just seem far less common than my personal experiences, but if Keg variants are better for your cube then it is what it is.
But ultimately it doesn't matter. If you like Disk, go for it. I was just explaining why people have historically had more success with the scaling variants.
FWIW, I like Oblivion Stone more too. They typically both activate on the same turn, but Stone CAN be played and be activated in the same turn (given enough mana), it can be asymmetrical more often because of its own text, and it kills planeswalkers. But I don't run any of these kinds of effects anymore as it is. They were all too slow for us (except for Engineered Explosives, since it can both be set to 0 and can be activated immediately). But if I were to add one back in, the next artifact version of the effect would be Keg.
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I never liked blowing up my own oblivion rings. Besides, my W and B sections have enough sweepers as-is. Keg isn't what I'd consider a substitute, but it does give control another tool to work with. Sometimes that raging ravine can be a pain to the WU deck, and holding it at bay without pressing a big red button is appealing.
Hypothetical scenario: if I just finished drafting, and I've got 3 wraths to work with in my pool, I'd wayyy sooner add in a keg to my final 23 than a disk. Hell, I might even prefer a cantrip to a disk, unless I had zero disenchants somehow. It's just a really clumsy way of getting that redundancy IMO.
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Definitely there are many ways to destroy artifacts, but those same cards would also destroy keg variants unless you are popping keg immediately for 0.
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