I definitely agree that this is the #3 blue 6-cmc creature, poor Frost Titan is going down in the charts
That being said, he's also the most swingy of the 4. ACS, he'll have access to some sort of Bolt / Terror / Plow variant. BCS, the blowout potential is just huge: Mystic Confluence / Dig Through Time / Ancestral Recall / Cryptic Command, and this is on top of being a surprise blocker that can take out a large number of threats in combat.
I can't make up my mind about this robot. Do some of you really like it better than Frost Titan? Frosty is probably my least favorite Titan, but it's still a Titan after all! I don't know, maybe we could test it in his spot ...
Has anyone tested this card so far? The more we think about it, the more our playgroup want to give it a shot as part of the Daretti-Welder-Tinker package.
I'm testing this if/when I acquire one, but the artifact part will more than likely be a downside not an upside, as the artifact doesn't really want snapcaster Titan.
Won the Gearhulk lottery at the midnight pre-release last night and got a promo Verdurous Gearhulk, pack foil Torrential Gearhulk, and a normal Combustible Gearhulk. Not only that, but I got Saheeli's Artistry and was able to double copy my Gearhulks many times. Ended up going UR Spells / Energy Matters aka Stall for Gearhulks and went 3-1, and the only person I lost any games to was a 4-0 player that had a BW aggro vehicle deck with a Kambal that just totally shut me down
Anyways, Torrential Gearhulk put in some serious work. Being a surprise blocker + Snapcaster Mage brings a lot of value to the table and leads to a lot of blowouts. I can see it working great in cube where it has more / better instants to work with. He suffers the same dilemma as Frost Titan: perfectly playable card surrounded by stiff competition. If you have space for him or just want to test him out for fun, I highly recommend him.
Won the Gearhulk lottery at the midnight pre-release last night and got a promo Verdurous Gearhulk, pack foil Torrential Gearhulk, and a normal Combustible Gearhulk. Not only that, but I got Saheeli's Artistry and was able to double copy my Gearhulks many times. Ended up going UR Spells / Energy Matters aka Stall for Gearhulks and went 3-1, and the only person I lost any games to was a 4-0 player that had a BW aggro vehicle deck with a Kambal that just totally shut me down
Anyways, Torrential Gearhulk put in some serious work. Being a surprise blocker + Snapcaster Mage brings a lot of value to the table and leads to a lot of blowouts. I can see it working great in cube where it has more / better instants to work with. He suffers the same dilemma as Frost Titan: perfectly playable card surrounded by stiff competition. If you have space for him or just want to test him out for fun, I highly recommend him.
Also had great experience in sealed with the gearhulk, but obviously a 6/5 flash blocker is so good in limited.. Much easier to trump its body in cube and in decks with a ton of instants , 6mana is very expensive...
That being said it was very fun to play and definitely powerful.
Maybe a broken instant away from being good enough to crack medium lists.
I already lived the dream of Mystic Confluence ramped out on turn 4 by a Mind Stone countering my opponent's 4 drop and drawing 2 cards (including Gearhulk.) Turn 5 flashing in Gearhulk bringing back confluence to lock the game in my favor. This card is just so much more fun that Frosty ever dreamed of being. Other fun targets included "EOT flashback Gifts Ungiven" and "flashback Hero's Downfall and block with my 5/6." The Hero's Downfall play was dubbed "What Black Gearhulk?"
If you have room in a mid-sized list to try this guy, I highly recommend it.
I am slamming this guy in my 360. I reckon he is great. Frosty may get ploughed out of my list for this guy. Deep Friend recently cracked the list and has me and my group excited for big Blue flashers.
As people have stated before, EOT Mystic Confluence on this guy bouncing a few would be blockers seems fun, yes there is a setup but it is a cool build around and will lead to some cool stories, which is what I like.
Only major downside is that you can't reasonably hold counter mana when you flash him in, so against control he loses value.
My issue with this argument is that it also works against the other 6 drops in cube. The issue you have is actually less painful with Gearhulk, as flash is purely an upside against control decks.
If you try to cast Frost Titan at sorcery speed you also cannot reasonably hold up counter mana. At least when flashing in Gearhulk you can do it in response to a spell the opponent attempts to cast, or at worst, at their end step. Even if they counter Gearhulk at the end of their turn, you immediately untap at the beginning of your turn, if Frosty gets countered you are now tapped out when your opponent untaps, allowing them to play their gameplan unmolested for the turn.
I would agree it is a loss of value, but it's still better than the card it would be replacing in that case, even with the lost value.
That is a good point. Overall it is a very powerful and fun inclusion for cube. For some reason I was not able to run a lot of instants other than a handful of counterspells, fact or fiction, and mystic confluence but even without the flashback having flash is powerful in its own right.
Was so impressed by torrential gear hulk's performance in the recent pro tour, that I decided to give it a test run in cube... Paired up the test with wretched confluence (a high powered instant I never got around to properly testing)
Today was the first day it got played in my cube and it overperformed. Think I was on the positive side of variance, as it ended up getting played in two decks that were perfect for it.. But I was impressed. I'll post the analysis at a later date, but wanted to share the highlight of the night, made possible by the gearhulk.
Grixis Reanimator vs Jeskai Artifact ramp/Planeswalkers
Board state:
Jeskai Control had an Ugin on 8, Elspeth sun's champion on 6, Ajani Vengeant on 4 , Jace Architecht of Thought on 5 and 6 soldier tokens
Grixis Reanimator had nothing in play
Play sequence:
End of Jeskai's turn, Grixis reanimator cast makeshift mannequin, targeting inferno titan, killing 3 untapped soldiers.
Next turn, attack with inferno titan, killing Elspeth and the remaining soldiers.
Next turn, Ugin +2 target inferno titan (killing it), +1 Ajani, -2 Jace (hitting an oblvion ring)
End of jeskai's turn, cast Torrential gearhulk targeting makeshift mannequin, makeshift mannequin targeting inferno titan. Inferno titan kills Jace with ETB 3 damage
Next turn, Torrential gearhulk attacks/kills Ajani, Inferno titan attacks and kills Ugin.
Summary:
In 2.5 turns and two cards cast, the board went from
Ugin + Elspeth + 6 tokens + Ajani + Jace for one player
to
Torrential Gearhulk + Inferno titan (with a mannequin coutner) for the other player.
This guy has flash, and that is huge for a control finisher, as has been pointed out.
I dare say this is so much more fun than Consecrated Sphinx.
Happy to run the Gearhulk in my 360.
Was so impressed by torrential gear hulk's performance in the recent pro tour, that I decided to give it a test run in cube... Paired up the test with wretched confluence (a high powered instant I never got around to properly testing)
Today was the first day it got played in my cube and it overperformed. Think I was on the positive side of variance, as it ended up getting played in two decks that were perfect for it.. But I was impressed. I'll post the analysis at a later date, but wanted to share the highlight of the night, made possible by the gearhulk.
Grixis Reanimator vs Jeskai Artifact ramp/Planeswalkers
Board state:
Jeskai Control had an Ugin on 8, Elspeth sun's champion on 6, Ajani Vengeant on 4 , Jace Architecht of Thought on 5 and 6 soldier tokens
Grixis Reanimator had nothing in play
Play sequence:
End of Jeskai's turn, Grixis reanimator cast makeshift mannequin, targeting inferno titan, killing 3 untapped soldiers.
Next turn, attack with inferno titan, killing Elspeth and the remaining soldiers.
Next turn, Ugin +2 target inferno titan (killing it), +1 Ajani, -2 Jace (hitting an oblvion ring)
End of jeskai's turn, cast Torrential gearhulk targeting makeshift mannequin, makeshift mannequin targeting inferno titan. Inferno titan kills Jace with ETB 3 damage
Next turn, Torrential gearhulk attacks/kills Ajani, Inferno titan attacks and kills Ugin.
Summary:
In 2.5 turns and two cards cast, the board went from
Ugin + Elspeth + 6 tokens + Ajani + Jace for one player
to
Torrential Gearhulk + Inferno titan (with a mannequin coutner) for the other player.
Instant speed for the win
Snapcaster can do most of that while costing less.
Flashing back Makeshift Mannequin, Snapcaster also would have cost 6 mana. It's only cheaper if you use it to flashback a 1-3 mana instant. It does also have the advantage of being able to get sorceries, which is very significant in cube.
Flashing back Makeshift Mannequin, Snapcaster also would have cost 6 mana. It's only cheaper if you use it to flashback a 1-3 mana instant. It does also have the advantage of being able to get sorceries, which is very significant in cube.
What I mean is in general, not this specific case.
Flashing back Makeshift Mannequin, Snapcaster also would have cost 6 mana. It's only cheaper if you use it to flashback a 1-3 mana instant. It does also have the advantage of being able to get sorceries, which is very significant in cube.
What I mean is in general, not this specific case.
Uh, so?
Snapcaster is also a top 10 (I ranked it 6) card in blue, and a top 30-50 card in cube.
Being worse than snapcaster isn't much of a relevant criticism.
Being worse than a card that people don't play is a good argument for exclusion, being worse than one of the best cards in cube, is not.
In this specific case, (meant to highlight upside).... Ajani vengeant would have still lived through the attack, +1 on inferno titan, killing it, and surviving through the snapcaster follow up attack. The body was relevant.
I wouldn't dispute for a second torrential gearhulk is as good as snapcaster mage, but your argument on cost is misleading.
The 5/6 FLASH body is worth at least an additional mana more than a 2/1 FLASH body.
When flashing back a 3 mana instant, I'd rather pay 6 for the gearhulk and get a huge body, than 5 and get a goblin piker.
The broken deck I personally had with the gearhulk was in combination with counter spells, draw spells, removal spells, snapcaster mage, kologhans command and wretched confluence. Wretched confluence in conjuction with gearhulk/snapcaster was unreal powerful.
Two relevant interactions I loved when drafting around the gearhulk is a combination of raise dead effects and thirst for knowledge.
Decks that play a heavy draw-go strategy tend to not have too many artifacts, which can make the thirst for knowledge drawback a big deal. Gearhulk being an artifact and an expensive spell, made for the ideal card to discard to an early thirst.. Ideally to be later brought back with kologhans command or wretched confluence. The spells that set up the return of the gearhulk also happen to be incredible targets for the gearhulk to flash back!
When you combine the raise dead spells, with cards like snapcaster mage/torrential gearhulk/den protector/eternal witness, you get an incredible recursive engine that is almost impossible to outgrind...
After succesfully building around torrential gearhulk, I now believe if you have the perfect deck for him he is the best 6 drop blue creature for cube by a small margin. However, he requires many important peices to come together to realize this potential.
You can't just toss him into any blue deck and have him be great... unlike a consecrated sphinx which is always great.
I personally LOVE that about the card, as it creates some interesting draft trade off decisions that the other blue 6 drop creatures lack
If you think blue is underpowered relative to your other colors, and needs the extra power from more generically powerful 6-drops like Sphinx/Titan, it makes sense to leave Gearhulk out on power-level basis.
I suspect that's not the case here.
I'm including Gearhulk because it adds another layer of interesting decision making to the draft process and shakes up the blue 6-drop slot that has been the same for 5+ years.
To each their own, but Cube would be a lot less interesting to me if I built it like a constructed deck. Power is fun, but variety is more fun.
I'm including Gearhulk because it adds another layer of interesting decision making to the draft process and shakes up the blue 6-drop slot that has been the same for 5+ years.
I like this line of thinking, and agree that gearhulk is by far the most interesting 6 drop when it comes to drafting/deck building decisions.
Have had more testing with it, and I now believe it belongs for it's power as well. It does literally every thing a non-tapout control deck wants.
Pulls you out of losing board states, locks up games you are already winning with counter magic and is also a win condition in itself.
I strongly believe every cube with a reasonable instant count should be running Torrential Gearhulk over Aetherling. Only caveat being if you prefer to keep your expensive creature count low and more versatile than specialized and powerful. Aetherling goes in more archetypes.
FWIW, Torrential gearhulk is starting to creep into modern control lists... Constructed isn't cube yadaa yadaa, but it's still a testament to it's efficiency for it's effect. Modern is a lightning fast format, and gearhulk doesnt have any particular synergizes in modern that cannot be reconstructed in cube.
I like Gearhulk, but I won't run him over AEtherling / Sphinx for a few key reasons:
- Lacks evasion
- Is consistently the worst choice for a reanimation / cheaty face shenanigans early game
- Variance is extremely high
Criticizing its lack of evasion sort of misses the point on what the card does... it's value comes from its versatility to impact a variety of board states, prevent spells from being cast that could swing the matchup away from your control and/or pull ahead in card advantage by an insurmountable amount.
But the second point you made is a great one and is why I almost deleted my point about aetherling. aetherling , while is at its best as a control finisher, has a lot of cheaty/fringe uses as well that the gearhulk doesn't have.
I run enough saturation of top end monsters, that I'm not concerned about having critical density of reanimation/sneak attack targets. Aetherling is a tier 2/3 target for those decks , so he rarely makes the cut.
For cube owners who prefer their top end targets to be versatile and run less of them, critical density is important... torrential gearhulk is very niche and doesn't fit within that paradigm.
That being said, he's also the most swingy of the 4. ACS, he'll have access to some sort of Bolt / Terror / Plow variant. BCS, the blowout potential is just huge: Mystic Confluence / Dig Through Time / Ancestral Recall / Cryptic Command, and this is on top of being a surprise blocker that can take out a large number of threats in combat.
My High Octane Unpowered Cube on CubeCobra
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
Zetsu's Cube on CubeTutor.com
Zetsu's Ebay MTG Online Store
Zetsu's Poker Draft Method
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=484979
Anyways, Torrential Gearhulk put in some serious work. Being a surprise blocker + Snapcaster Mage brings a lot of value to the table and leads to a lot of blowouts. I can see it working great in cube where it has more / better instants to work with. He suffers the same dilemma as Frost Titan: perfectly playable card surrounded by stiff competition. If you have space for him or just want to test him out for fun, I highly recommend him.
My High Octane Unpowered Cube on CubeCobra
Also had great experience in sealed with the gearhulk, but obviously a 6/5 flash blocker is so good in limited.. Much easier to trump its body in cube and in decks with a ton of instants , 6mana is very expensive...
That being said it was very fun to play and definitely powerful.
Maybe a broken instant away from being good enough to crack medium lists.
I'd test it in medium/large lists
Last Updated 02/07/24
Streaming Standard/Cube on Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/heisenb3rg96
Strategy Twitter https://www.twitter.com/heisenb3rg
I already lived the dream of Mystic Confluence ramped out on turn 4 by a Mind Stone countering my opponent's 4 drop and drawing 2 cards (including Gearhulk.) Turn 5 flashing in Gearhulk bringing back confluence to lock the game in my favor. This card is just so much more fun that Frosty ever dreamed of being. Other fun targets included "EOT flashback Gifts Ungiven" and "flashback Hero's Downfall and block with my 5/6." The Hero's Downfall play was dubbed "What Black Gearhulk?"
If you have room in a mid-sized list to try this guy, I highly recommend it.
Old Cube Thread (Outdated)
945 Card Commander Cube
Rotisserie Drafted Commander Cube Commanders
As people have stated before, EOT Mystic Confluence on this guy bouncing a few would be blockers seems fun, yes there is a setup but it is a cool build around and will lead to some cool stories, which is what I like.
Modern: Jund
My issue with this argument is that it also works against the other 6 drops in cube. The issue you have is actually less painful with Gearhulk, as flash is purely an upside against control decks.
If you try to cast Frost Titan at sorcery speed you also cannot reasonably hold up counter mana. At least when flashing in Gearhulk you can do it in response to a spell the opponent attempts to cast, or at worst, at their end step. Even if they counter Gearhulk at the end of their turn, you immediately untap at the beginning of your turn, if Frosty gets countered you are now tapped out when your opponent untaps, allowing them to play their gameplan unmolested for the turn.
I would agree it is a loss of value, but it's still better than the card it would be replacing in that case, even with the lost value.
Old Cube Thread (Outdated)
945 Card Commander Cube
Rotisserie Drafted Commander Cube Commanders
Today was the first day it got played in my cube and it overperformed. Think I was on the positive side of variance, as it ended up getting played in two decks that were perfect for it.. But I was impressed. I'll post the analysis at a later date, but wanted to share the highlight of the night, made possible by the gearhulk.
Grixis Reanimator vs Jeskai Artifact ramp/Planeswalkers
Board state:
Jeskai Control had an Ugin on 8, Elspeth sun's champion on 6, Ajani Vengeant on 4 , Jace Architecht of Thought on 5 and 6 soldier tokens
Grixis Reanimator had nothing in play
Play sequence:
End of Jeskai's turn, Grixis reanimator cast makeshift mannequin, targeting inferno titan, killing 3 untapped soldiers.
Next turn, attack with inferno titan, killing Elspeth and the remaining soldiers.
Next turn, Ugin +2 target inferno titan (killing it), +1 Ajani, -2 Jace (hitting an oblvion ring)
End of jeskai's turn, cast Torrential gearhulk targeting makeshift mannequin, makeshift mannequin targeting inferno titan. Inferno titan kills Jace with ETB 3 damage
Next turn, Torrential gearhulk attacks/kills Ajani, Inferno titan attacks and kills Ugin.
Summary:
In 2.5 turns and two cards cast, the board went from
Ugin + Elspeth + 6 tokens + Ajani + Jace for one player
to
Torrential Gearhulk + Inferno titan (with a mannequin coutner) for the other player.
Instant speed for the win
Last Updated 02/07/24
Streaming Standard/Cube on Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/heisenb3rg96
Strategy Twitter https://www.twitter.com/heisenb3rg
I dare say this is so much more fun than Consecrated Sphinx.
Happy to run the Gearhulk in my 360.
Snapcaster can do most of that while costing less.
What I mean is in general, not this specific case.
Uh, so?
Snapcaster is also a top 10 (I ranked it 6) card in blue, and a top 30-50 card in cube.
Being worse than snapcaster isn't much of a relevant criticism.
Being worse than a card that people don't play is a good argument for exclusion, being worse than one of the best cards in cube, is not.
In this specific case, (meant to highlight upside).... Ajani vengeant would have still lived through the attack, +1 on inferno titan, killing it, and surviving through the snapcaster follow up attack. The body was relevant.
I wouldn't dispute for a second torrential gearhulk is as good as snapcaster mage, but your argument on cost is misleading.
The 5/6 FLASH body is worth at least an additional mana more than a 2/1 FLASH body.
When flashing back a 3 mana instant, I'd rather pay 6 for the gearhulk and get a huge body, than 5 and get a goblin piker.
Last Updated 02/07/24
Streaming Standard/Cube on Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/heisenb3rg96
Strategy Twitter https://www.twitter.com/heisenb3rg
Two relevant interactions I loved when drafting around the gearhulk is a combination of raise dead effects and thirst for knowledge.
Decks that play a heavy draw-go strategy tend to not have too many artifacts, which can make the thirst for knowledge drawback a big deal. Gearhulk being an artifact and an expensive spell, made for the ideal card to discard to an early thirst.. Ideally to be later brought back with kologhans command or wretched confluence. The spells that set up the return of the gearhulk also happen to be incredible targets for the gearhulk to flash back!
When you combine the raise dead spells, with cards like snapcaster mage/torrential gearhulk/den protector/eternal witness, you get an incredible recursive engine that is almost impossible to outgrind...
After succesfully building around torrential gearhulk, I now believe if you have the perfect deck for him he is the best 6 drop blue creature for cube by a small margin. However, he requires many important peices to come together to realize this potential.
You can't just toss him into any blue deck and have him be great... unlike a consecrated sphinx which is always great.
I personally LOVE that about the card, as it creates some interesting draft trade off decisions that the other blue 6 drop creatures lack
Last Updated 02/07/24
Streaming Standard/Cube on Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/heisenb3rg96
Strategy Twitter https://www.twitter.com/heisenb3rg
If you think blue is underpowered relative to your other colors, and needs the extra power from more generically powerful 6-drops like Sphinx/Titan, it makes sense to leave Gearhulk out on power-level basis.
I suspect that's not the case here.
I'm including Gearhulk because it adds another layer of interesting decision making to the draft process and shakes up the blue 6-drop slot that has been the same for 5+ years.
To each their own, but Cube would be a lot less interesting to me if I built it like a constructed deck. Power is fun, but variety is more fun.
I like this line of thinking, and agree that gearhulk is by far the most interesting 6 drop when it comes to drafting/deck building decisions.
Have had more testing with it, and I now believe it belongs for it's power as well. It does literally every thing a non-tapout control deck wants.
Pulls you out of losing board states, locks up games you are already winning with counter magic and is also a win condition in itself.
I strongly believe every cube with a reasonable instant count should be running Torrential Gearhulk over Aetherling. Only caveat being if you prefer to keep your expensive creature count low and more versatile than specialized and powerful. Aetherling goes in more archetypes.
FWIW, Torrential gearhulk is starting to creep into modern control lists... Constructed isn't cube yadaa yadaa, but it's still a testament to it's efficiency for it's effect. Modern is a lightning fast format, and gearhulk doesnt have any particular synergizes in modern that cannot be reconstructed in cube.
Last Updated 02/07/24
Streaming Standard/Cube on Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/heisenb3rg96
Strategy Twitter https://www.twitter.com/heisenb3rg
- Lacks evasion
- Is consistently the worst choice for a reanimation / cheaty face shenanigans early game
- Variance is extremely high
My High Octane Unpowered Cube on CubeCobra
Criticizing its lack of evasion sort of misses the point on what the card does... it's value comes from its versatility to impact a variety of board states, prevent spells from being cast that could swing the matchup away from your control and/or pull ahead in card advantage by an insurmountable amount.
But the second point you made is a great one and is why I almost deleted my point about aetherling. aetherling , while is at its best as a control finisher, has a lot of cheaty/fringe uses as well that the gearhulk doesn't have.
I run enough saturation of top end monsters, that I'm not concerned about having critical density of reanimation/sneak attack targets. Aetherling is a tier 2/3 target for those decks , so he rarely makes the cut.
For cube owners who prefer their top end targets to be versatile and run less of them, critical density is important... torrential gearhulk is very niche and doesn't fit within that paradigm.
Last Updated 02/07/24
Streaming Standard/Cube on Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/heisenb3rg96
Strategy Twitter https://www.twitter.com/heisenb3rg