I don't know if there's any actual truth to the "mythic uncommon" terminology. It is far more noticeable to not pull a highly sought after card than one that you don't particularly care about, though. Mostly I was just being a little sarcastic and exaggerating the fact that we opened quite a few packs and didn't pull all of the cards we wanted for cube like I had expected. I surely didn't expect there to be a retort focusing solely on the idea of specific uncommons being more or less rare than other uncommons from a set.
I'll also add that is says a lot about the power level or lack thereof of Rivals that instead of discussing specific cards and newfound synergies in cube, we're discussing the merits of the idea of a mythic uncommon.
I'm cubing the following from RIX and my experiences so far (and in an effort to bring the thread back on topic)
1. Ravenous Chupacabra - This card is bonkers good, like most of us expected. My personal opinion is that it should be run alongside Nekrataal, not in favor of him.
2. Skymarcher Aspirant - had a friend cube this the other day and it was pretty good. Ascend was only hit a few times, but when it did it definitely mattered. I like that this card is highly playable in normal R/X aggro decks but also incentivizes more token heavy aggro builds. Huge fan.
3. Dire Fleet Daredevil - Keldon Marauders is the test cut. Not entirely sure what to think of this card, but everyone here seems to think it's a slam dunk so I'm willing to test.
A weak set for cube, but my cube recently went a major overhaul to cut some weaker cards for newer ones that have been favorable in testing (Torrential Gearhulk, Walking Ballista, Sorcerous Spyglass, etc), so it'll be nice to test those extensively without worrying too much about RIX.
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I wouldn't sat Daredevil is a slam dunk, but it's fun, has a great ceiling and acceptable floor, and due to the relatively-shallow nature of red 2s a lot of cubes have space for it. There's also the inverse factor of the smaller the cube=the better the cards=the better the targets, but I don't think I'd play it at 360 still.
Dubious swaps: Hero of Oxid Ridge -> Rekindling Phoenix - Mostly, I opened this at the prerelease and found it to be strong. I don't really know if it'll actually be good, but I'd like to see it in action. Nahiri, the Harbinger -> Path of Mettle//Metzali, Tower of Triumph - This is the most dubious test. I do have almost 30 RW creatures that interact with the front side (plus 2 planeswalkers) as well as some in other colors. I'm mostly considering this because I don't like having 2 planeswalkers in a given guild, despite Nahiri encouraging a different playstyle than Ajani Vengeant.
Mostly, I want to know how incorrect people feel the last 2 changes are.
I suspect the middle change won't perform that well, but I can see the logic for the tests. I don't think the Rekindling Phoenix test is crazy, given that Hellrider fulfills much the same role as Hero of Oxid Ridge (though I personally think a high density of those effects is important).
Can't see Path of Mettle working in your cube. Aggro decks will never want it, as its a 2 mana do nothing (or worse - kill your own creatures) that doesn't interact favorably with most of your 1 or 2 drop suite in RW. Slower decks rarely want to play the creatures that flip it. The only deck it would be playable in is some weird midrange deck, and even then putting Path of Mettle in your deck and hoping to assemble a 3-card, easily disruptable combo doesn't sound like a winning recipe.
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Yeah, I just don't really like having 2 walkers in Boros, and I don't really know what else to put there. I guess I could put Boros Reckoner back in or try out Iroas. Thanks for the feedback both of you! I'll probably still try all of these anyways for this draft, but get where you're coming from.
I personally prefer Goblin Trenches over Boros Reckoner. It contributes to the token deck and is pretty good late game in aggro decks. I know it's not very conventional.
Chupacabra is probably the rarest uncommon ever. My group open about 40 packs of RIX this weekend between prereleases and winnings and literally only saw one copy of Chupacabra and it wasn't even foil.
This line of thinking always comes up when there's a chase uncommon (saw it a lot with Fatal Push) and it's always total nonsense.
One -- you opened 120 uncommons, and there's 60 in the set. Getting exactly one isn't unlikely at all.
Two -- you only notice Chupacabra because it's the "chase" uncommon. How many Majestic Heliopterus did you open? How many Highland Lake? They go straight into bulk piles so you have no idea. But whenever the ONE uncommon you want is missing, it's super noteworthy.
Three -- just think about how the packs are made. Look at print sheets. I haven't seen one for RIX uncommons, but what's more likely -- it being the same as every other print sheet since 1996 with equal printing among the same rarity... or there being some conspiracy where WOTC thinks they need to make Chupacabra more scarce because ???reasons??? and make their printing/pack creation significantly more difficult and expensive in order to accomplish that?
(anyway, total aside, back to actual card discussion)
We do think less common uncommons exist. Rudy, from Alpha Investment, has made a ton of comments about it since SOI release a few years ago. Not every rare and uncommon are print the same according to him and god knows he opens TON of packs. Just look at his YouTube videos and you'll see. We get your point, but don't understand why you need to be rude about it though.
"Rare Uncommons" is 100% thing, MaRo has said it on his podcast a lot of times, it is actually a practice that has been around since day 1 of magic. I don't think they are hiding the fact, they just aren't broadcasting it because saying "we have 4 raraties" is a lot cleaner than "we have roughly 8 rarities depending on the set or how we need the ASFAN to work out"
I think its usually because of limited balance and ASFAN; uncommons appear x times on a sheet but if they have concerns about a card in limited there is some wiggle room. There is usually a card that appears less on each uncommon sheet, I think internally the rarity is called "uncommon 2" or something. Sure you could be cynical and claim its profit driven, and you wouldn't be entirely wrong but I dont think it's as shady as some make out.
Skymarcher Aspirant and Ravenous Chupacabra have performed well (as expected).
- City's Blessing came into play the first time I played against Skymarcher. Although I was dead anyways, it did speed up the clock by a turn.
- The first tournament I played Ravenous Chupacabra, I lost a game where a Nekrataal would have won. I used Chupacabra to kill a Thalia and trade with a Savannah Lion. Drew Jitte the next turn but didn't have any creatures to take over the game with. Later in the tournament, the Chupacabra killed a Grave Titan that a Nekrataal would've whiffed against. The inferior stats compared to Nekrataal / Skinrender is definitely noticeable, but the tradeoff is definitely worth it.
Curious to hear anybody's experience with Dire Fleet Daredevil. I've yet to see it in action and all I've heard so far is that it flashbacked a Duress.
The other day my opponent had my purphoros under a banishing light next to a moat stopping my entire gameplan, with Fractured Identity in the GY.
I played Dire Fleet Daredevil on the FI targeting light, got back my purphoros, and then lit up the moat to open up the board.
Another game I hit my opponent's Catastrophe after they wrathed my board to clear away all the lands for the win.
Another game I hit an opponent's lightning bolt to get rid of a creature.
Another game I played it turn 2 and didn't feel too bad about that considering how bad it would've been to do nothing t2 in that game.
I'm very impressed with Daredevil, as it's almost always had a target and when it hasn't (read: artifact-heavy signet-planeswalkers decks; creature-heavy green decks) it's a pretty easy side out or is still fine as a 2/1 first striker.
I played with a cube that supports Zecama, Primal Calamity the other day, and I lucky enough to get the chance to build around it with Heartbeat of Spring and Tooth and Nail. I gotta say, it felt better than most Eldrazi when ramped into, and I didn’t even have GSZ or Natural Order in my deck to take full advantage of it being green. It’s definitely a niche card, but probably the best at what it does.
Side note, blowing up your own Heartbeat/Mana Flare with Zacama is a surprisingly useful line. Next time I want to see how well it does with Sneak Attack.
I played with a cube that supports Zecama, Primal Calamity the other day, and I lucky enough to get the chance to build around it with Heartbeat of Spring and Tooth and Nail. I gotta say, it felt better than most Eldrazi when ramped into, and I didn’t even have GSZ or Natural Order in my deck to take full advantage of it being green. It’s definitely a niche card, but probably the best at what it does.
Side note, blowing up your own Heartbeat/Mana Flare with Zacama is a surprisingly useful line. Next time I want to see how well it does with Sneak Attack.
The inner timmy in me loves this card, so im happy to hear this... Do you think heartbeat of spring deserves a slot in a mid-sized power cube running fastbond, time spiral, all the major draw 7's , but no storm?
Tested it for a little bit before I ran fastbond, but it's main deck % was abysmal.
I don't think it's worth it without Storm. Mirari's Wake though...
In theory Mirrari's wake seems like it fits well into a subtheme that I have for green, but it's never tested well under my (too) short trial tests.
With my increased fixing support (making a white splash easier) a big dino to synergize with , and your long term advocation of the card, think it deserves another proper trial run.
I don't play Wake at 405 anymore, but it's a good card. But if I was trying to cast Zecama, and I didn't support Storm, I'd add in Wake far before adding in Heartbeat/Flare.
Managed to do some playtesting today but didn't get as much focus on RIX cards as I'd hoped. We ended up drafting twice with a group of 4 due to timing issues with half of the intended drafters. That said:
Ravenous Chupacabra was great in the deck it was in. It usually functioned as a worse Nekrataal, but the player playing it was able to use it at one point to destroy a Griselbrand that he otherwise couldn't have.
I drafted Dire Fleet Daredevil, which due to the weakness of the rest of the deck it was in, never really got to shine because I kept having to run it out when I didn't want to. It didn't seem that great in a control shell. Jadelight Ranger ended up in the portion of the cube that didn't get drafted because I inadvertently forgot to include it when I was trying to make sure all of the RIX cards ended up in packs that got drafted. Skymarch Aspirant was fine - the player playing it seemed happy to have it but it didn't gain flying as far as I'm aware. I did get to make a token copy of it with The Scarab God, which was great, but at that point, it could have been literally any creature that had flying, since the p/t was fixed. Rekindling Phoenix was (as expected) fairly garbage. I drafted it in the first round. Not having haste on the initial cast really hurts it in cube. In one game, it got mugged with a Treachery which really hurt. In another, it got hit with an exile effect. While it seems absurd for Standard, it really doesn't bring enough to the table for cube, which others had voiced concerns about, but that I was ultimately happy to be able to see with my own eyes.
I didn't end up testing Path of Mettle since the slot that it was going to fill got replaced with an additional land cycle.
"Rare Uncommons" is 100% thing, MaRo has said it on his podcast a lot of times, it is actually a practice that has been around since day 1 of magic. I don't think they are hiding the fact, they just aren't broadcasting it because saying "we have 4 raraties" is a lot cleaner than "we have roughly 8 rarities depending on the set or how we need the ASFAN to work out"
I think its usually because of limited balance and ASFAN; uncommons appear x times on a sheet but if they have concerns about a card in limited there is some wiggle room. There is usually a card that appears less on each uncommon sheet, I think internally the rarity is called "uncommon 2" or something. Sure you could be cynical and claim its profit driven, and you wouldn't be entirely wrong but I dont think it's as shady as some make out.
"We now have a rarity indicator (that wasn’t true in the early days) and all cards within a single rarity appear (mostly) at the exact same ratio. I say mostly because of things like the 101st common that is rarer than a normal common."
"With the exception of the 101st common, all cards of a certain rarity are printed at the same rate as all other cards of the rarity. Note I’m just talking about in the booster pack and not taking into account things like intro decks."
"Rare Uncommons" is 100% thing, MaRo has said it on his podcast a lot of times, it is actually a practice that has been around since day 1 of magic. I don't think they are hiding the fact, they just aren't broadcasting it because saying "we have 4 raraties" is a lot cleaner than "we have roughly 8 rarities depending on the set or how we need the ASFAN to work out"
I think its usually because of limited balance and ASFAN; uncommons appear x times on a sheet but if they have concerns about a card in limited there is some wiggle room. There is usually a card that appears less on each uncommon sheet, I think internally the rarity is called "uncommon 2" or something. Sure you could be cynical and claim its profit driven, and you wouldn't be entirely wrong but I dont think it's as shady as some make out.
"We now have a rarity indicator (that wasn’t true in the early days) and all cards within a single rarity appear (mostly) at the exact same ratio. I say mostly because of things like the 101st common that is rarer than a normal common."
"With the exception of the 101st common, all cards of a certain rarity are printed at the same rate as all other cards of the rarity. Note I’m just talking about in the booster pack and not taking into account things like intro decks."
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I'll also add that is says a lot about the power level or lack thereof of Rivals that instead of discussing specific cards and newfound synergies in cube, we're discussing the merits of the idea of a mythic uncommon.
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1. Ravenous Chupacabra - This card is bonkers good, like most of us expected. My personal opinion is that it should be run alongside Nekrataal, not in favor of him.
2. Skymarcher Aspirant - had a friend cube this the other day and it was pretty good. Ascend was only hit a few times, but when it did it definitely mattered. I like that this card is highly playable in normal R/X aggro decks but also incentivizes more token heavy aggro builds. Huge fan.
3. Dire Fleet Daredevil - Keldon Marauders is the test cut. Not entirely sure what to think of this card, but everyone here seems to think it's a slam dunk so I'm willing to test.
A weak set for cube, but my cube recently went a major overhaul to cut some weaker cards for newer ones that have been favorable in testing (Torrential Gearhulk, Walking Ballista, Sorcerous Spyglass, etc), so it'll be nice to test those extensively without worrying too much about RIX.
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Easy/straightforward swaps:
Nekrataal -> Ravenous Chupacabra
War-Name Aspirant -> Dire Fleet Daredevil
Dragon Hunter -> Skymarch Aspirant
Middling swap:
Yavimaya Elder -> Jadelight Ranger - I couldn't think of a better cut but want to give this a test.
Dubious swaps:
Hero of Oxid Ridge -> Rekindling Phoenix - Mostly, I opened this at the prerelease and found it to be strong. I don't really know if it'll actually be good, but I'd like to see it in action.
Nahiri, the Harbinger -> Path of Mettle//Metzali, Tower of Triumph - This is the most dubious test. I do have almost 30 RW creatures that interact with the front side (plus 2 planeswalkers) as well as some in other colors. I'm mostly considering this because I don't like having 2 planeswalkers in a given guild, despite Nahiri encouraging a different playstyle than Ajani Vengeant.
Mostly, I want to know how incorrect people feel the last 2 changes are.
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Can't see Path of Mettle working in your cube. Aggro decks will never want it, as its a 2 mana do nothing (or worse - kill your own creatures) that doesn't interact favorably with most of your 1 or 2 drop suite in RW. Slower decks rarely want to play the creatures that flip it. The only deck it would be playable in is some weird midrange deck, and even then putting Path of Mettle in your deck and hoping to assemble a 3-card, easily disruptable combo doesn't sound like a winning recipe.
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As for Rivals, the Chupacabra was maindecked and performed as expected.
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"Rare Uncommons" is 100% thing, MaRo has said it on his podcast a lot of times, it is actually a practice that has been around since day 1 of magic. I don't think they are hiding the fact, they just aren't broadcasting it because saying "we have 4 raraties" is a lot cleaner than "we have roughly 8 rarities depending on the set or how we need the ASFAN to work out"
I think its usually because of limited balance and ASFAN; uncommons appear x times on a sheet but if they have concerns about a card in limited there is some wiggle room. There is usually a card that appears less on each uncommon sheet, I think internally the rarity is called "uncommon 2" or something. Sure you could be cynical and claim its profit driven, and you wouldn't be entirely wrong but I dont think it's as shady as some make out.
- City's Blessing came into play the first time I played against Skymarcher. Although I was dead anyways, it did speed up the clock by a turn.
- The first tournament I played Ravenous Chupacabra, I lost a game where a Nekrataal would have won. I used Chupacabra to kill a Thalia and trade with a Savannah Lion. Drew Jitte the next turn but didn't have any creatures to take over the game with. Later in the tournament, the Chupacabra killed a Grave Titan that a Nekrataal would've whiffed against. The inferior stats compared to Nekrataal / Skinrender is definitely noticeable, but the tradeoff is definitely worth it.
Curious to hear anybody's experience with Dire Fleet Daredevil. I've yet to see it in action and all I've heard so far is that it flashbacked a Duress.
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I played Dire Fleet Daredevil on the FI targeting light, got back my purphoros, and then lit up the moat to open up the board.
Another game I hit my opponent's Catastrophe after they wrathed my board to clear away all the lands for the win.
Another game I hit an opponent's lightning bolt to get rid of a creature.
Another game I played it turn 2 and didn't feel too bad about that considering how bad it would've been to do nothing t2 in that game.
I'm very impressed with Daredevil, as it's almost always had a target and when it hasn't (read: artifact-heavy signet-planeswalkers decks; creature-heavy green decks) it's a pretty easy side out or is still fine as a 2/1 first striker.
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Side note, blowing up your own Heartbeat/Mana Flare with Zacama is a surprisingly useful line. Next time I want to see how well it does with Sneak Attack.
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The inner timmy in me loves this card, so im happy to hear this... Do you think heartbeat of spring deserves a slot in a mid-sized power cube running fastbond, time spiral, all the major draw 7's , but no storm?
Tested it for a little bit before I ran fastbond, but it's main deck % was abysmal.
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In theory Mirrari's wake seems like it fits well into a subtheme that I have for green, but it's never tested well under my (too) short trial tests.
With my increased fixing support (making a white splash easier) a big dino to synergize with , and your long term advocation of the card, think it deserves another proper trial run.
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Ravenous Chupacabra was great in the deck it was in. It usually functioned as a worse Nekrataal, but the player playing it was able to use it at one point to destroy a Griselbrand that he otherwise couldn't have.
I drafted Dire Fleet Daredevil, which due to the weakness of the rest of the deck it was in, never really got to shine because I kept having to run it out when I didn't want to. It didn't seem that great in a control shell.
Jadelight Ranger ended up in the portion of the cube that didn't get drafted because I inadvertently forgot to include it when I was trying to make sure all of the RIX cards ended up in packs that got drafted.
Skymarch Aspirant was fine - the player playing it seemed happy to have it but it didn't gain flying as far as I'm aware. I did get to make a token copy of it with The Scarab God, which was great, but at that point, it could have been literally any creature that had flying, since the p/t was fixed.
Rekindling Phoenix was (as expected) fairly garbage. I drafted it in the first round. Not having haste on the initial cast really hurts it in cube. In one game, it got mugged with a Treachery which really hurt. In another, it got hit with an exile effect. While it seems absurd for Standard, it really doesn't bring enough to the table for cube, which others had voiced concerns about, but that I was ultimately happy to be able to see with my own eyes.
I didn't end up testing Path of Mettle since the slot that it was going to fill got replaced with an additional land cycle.
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Uh
http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/159396217903/just-because-people-seem-to-think-this-you-should#notes
"We now have a rarity indicator (that wasn’t true in the early days) and all cards within a single rarity appear (mostly) at the exact same ratio. I say mostly because of things like the 101st common that is rarer than a normal common."
http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/93608390193/youve-mentioned-before-having-printing-techniques#notes
"We print the same number of every card within the same rarity (with a few exceptions like the 101st common) so AS-FAN isn’t affected by collation."
http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/39230248533/in-any-given-set-do-you-print-an-equal-number-of
"With the exception of the 101st common, all cards of a certain rarity are printed at the same rate as all other cards of the rarity. Note I’m just talking about in the booster pack and not taking into account things like intro decks."
http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/159398939608/doesnt-fatal-push-appear-on-the-aether-revolt#notes
"No, [Fatal Push] appears the same number of times to the best of my knowledge."
--
"Uncommon 2" was a real thing on print sheets... but it was last used in Homelands, in 1995.
I stand corrected. I was pretty sure he mentioned it on his Drive to Work podcast but I can't argue with MaRo's own blog so I must be misremembering.