A full list of results, with all cards that received votes and the number of lists a card appeared on, can be found on this Google spreadsheet.
Thanks to all 20 voters!
Trivia, Useless Ramblings, and Facts (TURF)
Trendbreaker! - For every other color despite having less voters, more cards were voted upon. Green actually had a decrease in different cards voted upon with only 55 cards among 20 voters as opposed to 69 cards among 28 voters in 2016!
Next up is the Allied Guilds! Thread will be up tonight or tomorrow morning. Friendly notice - I probably will not extend the voting time on the guilds and even voting will be very time consuming so make sure you plan ahead!
I found a few things particularly interesting. Green being the only color where people tend to agree on more cards than not is interesting. I think it might just be that ramp staples tend to take up slots in everyone's list so there are less outliers. Channel got its due in our rankings and I personally think this list is actually a lot more on point than 2016's results. Garruk Relentless not getting even one vote was really surprising to me even though I didn't expect it to be in the top 20. The only other card that has fallen out of favor so dramatically so far is Languish and I don't think this Garruk is anywhere near as bad. Also, kind of neat to see Hexdrinker going straight into top 20 territory considering it is so new.
I have gotten a little feedback about how the result threads seem to be just a bunch of "no surprises here" comments and then the thread dies. I like to think these results will continue to generate discussion over time and will provide a means for comparison when someone else takes on this project a year or a few years down the line. I have had fun following the evolution of these results from 2009 to 2016 to today. I hope other people are getting a bit more than just a "yep, sounds about right" from all of this, but regardless I appreciate that people are taking part.
In my experience, Oath of Druids is a lot more consistent than Channel. I'm playing 5/6 Eldrazi Titans and still feel like I need more Channel payoffs at 540.
Let's talk about Oath of Druids. I really feel like a boat came by with Oath of Druids and Selvala's Stampede giving us a fun new archetype in cube and I completely missed it. I've seen these cards in so many cubes and now here's Oath in the top 20 this year. I was around when Oath was in standard (ahem... type 2) and people were Oathing out Archangels and Warrior Angels. One of my best friends loves Oath as an archetype and even started playing pre-Modern so he can once again play his Turbo Oath deck. So, I get how powerful the card and the effect can be. But... that type of deck doesn't seem (at least to me) to be able to translate to cube. Obviously people have had success with the card and the archetype, but help me out with the how. What does an Oath deck look like in cube? Is it just another addition to normal fatty cheater decks we're already seeing with Channel and Natural Order? How often do you Oath into something that's not necessarily a finisher? How does the deck play when you don't see your Oath?
I think the problem with Oath is its very matchup dependent. If you get a turn 2 Oath against White Weenie, that's pretty much the game; it's not like they can afford to not play creatures. But Oath against a Superfriends control deck is a dead card. As for where to slot Oath into, RGx Sneak Attack is very strong. Sneak Attack, Channel, Oath, and a handful of Eldrazi wins games.
I see Oath of Druids in the same family as Sneak Attack / Show and Tell / Eureka as the 4 primary pillars of the Cheaty Face package. These decks do not play small creatures. Typically your smallest creature will be in the 6-cmc range, but sometimes I'll make an exception for Thundermaw Hellkite (or Thragtusk from the sideboard).
I define Cheaty Face as effects that put a creature from your hand / library onto the battlefield. Reanimator / Tinker / Natural Order / Channel are pretty different from standard Cheaty Face cards, but asides from Natural Order, you can cross the streams successfully, it's just difficult. Channel is especially do-able if you have a full Eldrazi package.
Here are some Oath decks from the 3-0 archives that I personally piloted.
One word of advice with Oath decks is try not to include army in a cans like Myr Battlespehre / Hornet Queen if you can help it. Blocking your Oath triggers can easily lose you the game. Grave Titan is a little bit more tame since it doesn't go as wide and is pretty castable.
I also think people underestimate the bouncelands in green (Simic Growth Chamber). They are utterly nuts with untappers like Voyaging Satyr which are also underaprreciated. However, if lands are common targets in a cube, bouncelands go from good to nigh unplayable.
Also to note, Channel is a pretty fair card in my cube. Sure, it's a high pick, and you want to find a big colorless creature to cheat out, plus fireballs. However, while I've seen it work, I've never seen it be broken in my lower power environment.
The biggest reason channel is a much better card in cube than oath of druids, is that it is MUCH easier to build
a good deck that functions well when you don't draw channel than it is when you don't draw oath.
Being unable to include cheap creatures is a huge huge restriction when it comes to drafting a green card (hell it's big for any color).
Green functions primarily as a creature ramp color, so it's easy to draft cards like Hydroid krasis, Karn liberated, Ugin, 10 mana ulamog and have them be good cards even when you don't draw channel. You don't have to warp your draft egregiously just to make the card good. Play expensive colorless cards that would already be good in a ramp shell and play ramp cards.
Evaluating how good a card is when you draw it in a shell built around it, is far from the full picture in regards to it's contribution to winning.
It's super rare my channel decks turn into train wrecks, a channel "train wreck" is often just a mediocre ramp decks. When I build around Oath in the MTGO vintage cube , or when I tested it out in my cube, the train wreck rate was sooo much higher and so much more devastating.
Also, NUT channel decks are better than nut oath decks. Channel does something MORE powerful (Eldrazi cast triggers), a turn earlier and doesn't require something specific from the opponent to enable.
Oath is for any deck that can play big creatures and cut the small ones, especially if you have a tutor or two. So artifact ramp, sneak attack, reanimator, control, or even weird superfriends variants. Card is nuts and slots easily into plenty of decks.
Looks like I may be missing out by not cubing Oath and Craterhoof. I assume Craterhoof is best in Natural Order decks and decks that ramp with a lot of dorks. Correct? Other ideas?
Looks like I may be missing out by not cubing Oath and Craterhoof. I assume Craterhoof is best in Natural Order decks and decks that ramp with a lot of dorks. Correct? Other ideas?
Cheers,
rant
Pretty much... It's fine in some G/B reanimation type shells as well (requires a minimum # of creatures, preferably with multiple bodies)
It's the most narrow of common green finishers, but it has by far the biggest upside. With some creatures on your board, it wins the game on spot, no matter the opponents board state. For a format like cube where opponents can have some scary board states, or untap and win with a combo/upheavel/time walk loop etc., winning on the spot is huge.
Looks like I may be missing out by not cubing Oath and Craterhoof. I assume Craterhoof is best in Natural Order decks and decks that ramp with a lot of dorks. Correct? Other ideas?
Cheers,
rant
Definitely really really late on this response, but I just came back to check the rankings, and seeing as many still don't run Craterhoof Behemoth in their cubes, I guess now might be a good time to share my personal experience as to what makes Craterhoof Behemoth so unique among green fatties and why I think you should give it a shot.
Unlike other green fatties, Craterhoof Behemoth obviously can't be used in reanimator and Sneak Attack decks which might make it feel too narrow, but comparing it to a random fatties like Terastodon or Woodfall Primus isn't fair, as those creatures tend to be cards that support archetypes, meanwhile Craterhoof Behemoth (sorta) creates its own. Green ramp decks generally want a bunch of dorks, a few midgame cards that allow you to get over the hump from 5 to 8 mana (either by ramping or by stalling the opponent), maybe some removal/tutors/card draw for good measure, a then bunch of fatties that win the game. Oftentimes you'll need more than one fatty to win the game, as the first one is only enough to help you catch up from all those turns you spent ramping instead of developing a board presence, and the second one helps you turn the tide to finally kill your opponent.
With Craterhoof Behemoth in your deck, you can neglect all of that. Instead, you can focus on just grabbing as many mana dorks and green creature tutors as you can, since one Craterhoof hitting the board should realistically win you every single game, even in the face of several removal spells. Instead of picking 5 or 6 fatties, you can get away with just picking a Craterhoof Behemoth and a backup fatty (or two) in case something goes wrong. In my experience, the more win-con lite Craterhoof decks tend to be both more explosive and higher powerlevel than their hoof-less counterparts, and all it takes is adding a single green card to your cube, even though it might be a pretty narrow card overall.
A better comparison to Craterhoof might be to Tooth and Nail: An 8-mana card you can tutor for off of Worldly Tutor/Survival of the Fittest/Green Sun's Zenith/Natural Order to instantly win most games vs a 9-mana card that ussually wins the game but forces you to dilute your deck with a reliable number of fatties so that you can still use it after topdecking for a bit. Most people probably don't run Tooth and Nail in their cubes anymore, but it's still far from a weak cube card, meanwhile Craterhoof Behemoth sorta fills that same niche but allows the drafter to spend way more draft picks making their deck as consistent as possible.
It may be slightly overrated at #11 on this list, and others may have had a different experience with the card and tend to use it differently than me and my playgroup, but if you've tried drafting Craterhoof Behemoth and it just never seems to work the way you want it to, maybe you're trying too hard to draft with it, and maybe you just need to try drafting around it instead, sort of like you would with a Tooth and Nail or a Eureka.
2. Channel 16.6
3. Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary 15.85
4. Gaea's Cradle 14.6
5. Sylvan Library 12.9
6. Survival of the Fittest 12.4
7. Birds of Paradise 11.1
8. Noble Hierarch 9.05
9. Primeval Titan 8.55
10. Eternal Witness 8.35
11. Craterhoof Behemoth 8.15
12. Oath of Druids 6.95
13. Joraga Treespeaker 6.9
14. Garruk Wildspeaker 6.55
15. Hexdrinker 6.35
16. Plow Under 4.25
17. Green Sun's Zenith 4.15
18-T. Eureka 3.05
18.T Lotus Cobra 3.05
19. Llanowar Elves 2.55
20. Reclamation Sage 2.4
A full list of results, with all cards that received votes and the number of lists a card appeared on, can be found on this Google spreadsheet.
Thanks to all 20 voters!
Trivia, Useless Ramblings, and Facts (TURF)
Trendbreaker! - For every other color despite having less voters, more cards were voted upon. Green actually had a decrease in different cards voted upon with only 55 cards among 20 voters as opposed to 69 cards among 28 voters in 2016!
Just Missed - A Hermit's Tale - Selvala's Stampede (#21), Deep Forest Hermit (#22), Deranged Hermit (#23)
Ramp is Still King - Green's top cards are still dominated by ramp cards including Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary (3#), Gaea's Cradle (#4), Birds of Paradise (#7), Noble Hierarch (#8), Joraga Treespeaker (#13), Lotus Cobra (#18-T), and even Llanowar Elves (#19)!
A New Order - Survival of the Fittest fell from #1 in 2016 to #6 today. So our new top 3 is Natural Order, Channel (up from 9th in 2016!) and Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary. Other big movers include Gaea's Cradle moving from 11th to 4th. Eternal Witness fell from 5th to 10th. Garruk Wildspeaker went from 7th in 2016 to 14th today but he fared better than Garruk Relentless who went from 16th to not getting a single vote! Eureka dropped from 12th to 18th. Noble Hierarch went from 13th to 8th and Oath of Druids went from 18th to 12th.
Reclaiming my Time! - Newcomers to the top 20 include Craterhoof Behemoth (#11), Hexdrinker (#15), Green Sun's Zenith (#17), Llanowar Elves (#19), and Reclamation Sage (#20).
Next up is the Allied Guilds! Thread will be up tonight or tomorrow morning. Friendly notice - I probably will not extend the voting time on the guilds and even voting will be very time consuming so make sure you plan ahead!
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!
I have gotten a little feedback about how the result threads seem to be just a bunch of "no surprises here" comments and then the thread dies. I like to think these results will continue to generate discussion over time and will provide a means for comparison when someone else takes on this project a year or a few years down the line. I have had fun following the evolution of these results from 2009 to 2016 to today. I hope other people are getting a bit more than just a "yep, sounds about right" from all of this, but regardless I appreciate that people are taking part.
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StaffIn my experience, Oath of Druids is a lot more consistent than Channel. I'm playing 5/6 Eldrazi Titans and still feel like I need more Channel payoffs at 540.
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StaffI define Cheaty Face as effects that put a creature from your hand / library onto the battlefield. Reanimator / Tinker / Natural Order / Channel are pretty different from standard Cheaty Face cards, but asides from Natural Order, you can cross the streams successfully, it's just difficult. Channel is especially do-able if you have a full Eldrazi package.
Here are some Oath decks from the 3-0 archives that I personally piloted.
One word of advice with Oath decks is try not to include army in a cans like Myr Battlespehre / Hornet Queen if you can help it. Blocking your Oath triggers can easily lose you the game. Grave Titan is a little bit more tame since it doesn't go as wide and is pretty castable.
My High Octane Unpowered Cube on CubeCobra
1: Quirion Ranger
2: Thundering Tanadon
3: Dawnstrider
4: Caustic Caterpillar
5: Fertile Ground
6: Instill Energy
7: Eyeless Watcher
8: Greenwarden of Murasa
9: Karametra's Acolyte
10: Silklash Spider
11: Hooting Mandrills
12: Mutagenic Growth
13: Summoning Trap / See the Unwritten
14: Vines of Vastwood
15: Scorned Villager// Moonscarred Werewolf
16: Deadly Recluse
17: Oviya Pashiri, Sage Lifecrafter
18: Masked Admirers
19: Tangle
20: Sylvok Replica
I also think people underestimate the bouncelands in green (Simic Growth Chamber). They are utterly nuts with untappers like Voyaging Satyr which are also underaprreciated. However, if lands are common targets in a cube, bouncelands go from good to nigh unplayable.
Also to note, Channel is a pretty fair card in my cube. Sure, it's a high pick, and you want to find a big colorless creature to cheat out, plus fireballs. However, while I've seen it work, I've never seen it be broken in my lower power environment.
Low-power cube enthusiast!
My 1570 card cube (no longer updated)
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a good deck that functions well when you don't draw channel than it is when you don't draw oath.
Being unable to include cheap creatures is a huge huge restriction when it comes to drafting a green card (hell it's big for any color).
Green functions primarily as a creature ramp color, so it's easy to draft cards like Hydroid krasis, Karn liberated, Ugin, 10 mana ulamog and have them be good cards even when you don't draw channel. You don't have to warp your draft egregiously just to make the card good. Play expensive colorless cards that would already be good in a ramp shell and play ramp cards.
Evaluating how good a card is when you draw it in a shell built around it, is far from the full picture in regards to it's contribution to winning.
It's super rare my channel decks turn into train wrecks, a channel "train wreck" is often just a mediocre ramp decks. When I build around Oath in the MTGO vintage cube , or when I tested it out in my cube, the train wreck rate was sooo much higher and so much more devastating.
Also, NUT channel decks are better than nut oath decks. Channel does something MORE powerful (Eldrazi cast triggers), a turn earlier and doesn't require something specific from the opponent to enable.
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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!
Cheers,
rant
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Pretty much... It's fine in some G/B reanimation type shells as well (requires a minimum # of creatures, preferably with multiple bodies)
It's the most narrow of common green finishers, but it has by far the biggest upside. With some creatures on your board, it wins the game on spot, no matter the opponents board state. For a format like cube where opponents can have some scary board states, or untap and win with a combo/upheavel/time walk loop etc., winning on the spot is huge.
Last Updated 02/07/24
Streaming Standard/Cube on Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/heisenb3rg96
Strategy Twitter https://www.twitter.com/heisenb3rg
Definitely really really late on this response, but I just came back to check the rankings, and seeing as many still don't run Craterhoof Behemoth in their cubes, I guess now might be a good time to share my personal experience as to what makes Craterhoof Behemoth so unique among green fatties and why I think you should give it a shot.
Unlike other green fatties, Craterhoof Behemoth obviously can't be used in reanimator and Sneak Attack decks which might make it feel too narrow, but comparing it to a random fatties like Terastodon or Woodfall Primus isn't fair, as those creatures tend to be cards that support archetypes, meanwhile Craterhoof Behemoth (sorta) creates its own. Green ramp decks generally want a bunch of dorks, a few midgame cards that allow you to get over the hump from 5 to 8 mana (either by ramping or by stalling the opponent), maybe some removal/tutors/card draw for good measure, a then bunch of fatties that win the game. Oftentimes you'll need more than one fatty to win the game, as the first one is only enough to help you catch up from all those turns you spent ramping instead of developing a board presence, and the second one helps you turn the tide to finally kill your opponent.
With Craterhoof Behemoth in your deck, you can neglect all of that. Instead, you can focus on just grabbing as many mana dorks and green creature tutors as you can, since one Craterhoof hitting the board should realistically win you every single game, even in the face of several removal spells. Instead of picking 5 or 6 fatties, you can get away with just picking a Craterhoof Behemoth and a backup fatty (or two) in case something goes wrong. In my experience, the more win-con lite Craterhoof decks tend to be both more explosive and higher powerlevel than their hoof-less counterparts, and all it takes is adding a single green card to your cube, even though it might be a pretty narrow card overall.
A better comparison to Craterhoof might be to Tooth and Nail: An 8-mana card you can tutor for off of Worldly Tutor/Survival of the Fittest/Green Sun's Zenith/Natural Order to instantly win most games vs a 9-mana card that ussually wins the game but forces you to dilute your deck with a reliable number of fatties so that you can still use it after topdecking for a bit. Most people probably don't run Tooth and Nail in their cubes anymore, but it's still far from a weak cube card, meanwhile Craterhoof Behemoth sorta fills that same niche but allows the drafter to spend way more draft picks making their deck as consistent as possible.
It may be slightly overrated at #11 on this list, and others may have had a different experience with the card and tend to use it differently than me and my playgroup, but if you've tried drafting Craterhoof Behemoth and it just never seems to work the way you want it to, maybe you're trying too hard to draft with it, and maybe you just need to try drafting around it instead, sort of like you would with a Tooth and Nail or a Eureka.