This card looks great on paper, but from my personal experience and the experience from other cubers, this card is a considered a "trap" and should not be played. This is definitely weaker than the very powerful Sneak Attack and the powerful Through the breach, but is it as bad as people make it out to be?
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Card's awesome, and I don't consider it a trap at all. Rarely does the opponent have a permanent that's even remotely comparable to what I'm playing, and I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen an opponent's permanent actually be better than the S&T caster's permanent. And in an even smaller percentage of those cases has it ever cost someone a game. I guess it feels so bad when it happens that the memory sticks around with you, but I don't ever see it happen. The decks willing to play cards like Show and Tell and Eureka don't use them to put permanents into play that get outclassed by the opponent's stuff. You put the biggest, baddest bombs into play. 7/10 times I play an effect like this, the permanent I put into play with it wins me the game. Maybe another 20% of the time the opponent can answer it and it's not game-winning. Rarely, likely less than 1/10 times the card is played, do I wind up in a worse position because of what my opponent puts onto the battlefield with it. It's powerful, it's fun, it's exciting, and if your opponent's cards are bigger than yours, you're probably playing S&T in the wrong decks to begin with. It's the exact kind of card that makes this format a blast to play.
Card's awesome, and I don't consider it a trap at all. Rarely does the opponent have a permanent that's even remotely comparable to what I'm playing, and I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen an opponent's permanent actually be better than the S&T caster's permanent. And in an even smaller percentage of those cases has it ever cost someone a game. I guess it feels so bad when it happens that the memory sticks around with you, but I don't ever see it happen. The decks willing to play cards like Show and Tell and Eureka don't use them to put permanents into play that get outclassed by the opponent's stuff. You put the biggest, baddest bombs into play. 7/10 times I play an effect like this, the permanent I put into play with it wins me the game. Maybe another 20% of the time the opponent can answer it and it's not game-winning. Rarely, likely less than 1/10 times the card is played, do I wind up in a worse position because of what my opponent puts onto the battlefield with it. It's powerful, it's fun, it's exciting, and if your opponent's cards are bigger than yours, you're probably playing S&T in the wrong decks to begin with. It's the exact kind of card that makes this format a blast to play.
I've had a different experience with Eureka - the card's interaction with Ugin has been incredible.
I've always avoided Show and Tell early on in picks and only pick up the card if I'm already in Blue based cheat decks are Show and Tell wheels late.
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Show and Tell / Eureka / Oath of Druids get a bad rap for the following reasons:
- Often used incorrectly
- A lot of cubes don't support it as much as they should
- They occasionally blow up in your face
The first two issues can be addressed fairly easily (check out my podcast episode about Cheaty Face: https://theartofcube.podbean.com/e/episode-6-supporting-and-drafting-the-cheaty-face-archetype-in-cube/). The third issue is just the nature of those cards. Yeah, sometimes your opponent one-ups you, but as long as you built your deck correctly, you should come out ahead in most scenarios. These cards are all about asymmetric risk and hedging the bets in your favor.
I'd add that the bad rap also comes from people's experience playing them in MTGO cube where, by the unfortunate nature of league play instead of playing against the pod you drafted with, you can often run up against the mirror or at least another fatty cheat deck. In general when drafting my own cube, I've found that cards like Show and Tell and Eureka tend to be game winning instead of creating a parity or causing a blow out. And, in my experience, when you do get the occasional blowout it makes for a fun story rather than a feel bad. Years ago I Eureka'd in a Karn on turn 3 and though I was the best player ever until my opponent Eureka'd in a Faith's Fetters. That was literally years ago and it's a play I still vividly remember us both laughing about.
I'd add that the bad rap also comes from people's experience playing them in MTGO cube where, by the unfortunate nature of league play instead of playing against the pod you drafted with, you can often run up against the mirror or at least another fatty cheat deck. In general when drafting my own cube, I've found that cards like Show and Tell and Eureka tend to be game winning instead of creating a parity or causing a blow out. And, in my experience, when you do get the occasional blowout it makes for a fun story rather than a feel bad. Years ago I Eureka'd in a Karn on turn 3 and though I was the best player ever until my opponent Eureka'd in a Faith's Fetters. That was literally years ago and it's a play I still vividly remember us both laughing about.
That I strongly agree with. I find drafters in my 8 player pod are often incredibly good at reading signals from the rest of the table and have changed archetypes such as brain freeze storm after seeing too many Eldrazi opened etc.
But now you mentioned the MTGO environment, this makes a lot of sense; naturally the fatties will gravitate to the fatty cheat deck reducing the scenarios you're describing.
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That is an amazing point Calibretto, and it explains so much of why my IRL/Paper experience with the card is so different from the online experience. League play. In paper, I'm the only player at the table with the eldrazi super titans in my deck, and I know I have the baddest monsters in town. In league play, each opponent has the exact same chances as me to have giant monsters in their hand. I never realized how simple the disparity really is.
Show and Tell / Eureka / Oath of Druids get a bad rap for the following reasons:
- Often used incorrectly
- A lot of cubes don't support it as much as they should
- They occasionally blow up in your face
The first two issues can be addressed fairly easily (check out my podcast episode about Cheaty Face: https://theartofcube.podbean.com/e/episode-6-supporting-and-drafting-the-cheaty-face-archetype-in-cube/). The third issue is just the nature of those cards. Yeah, sometimes your opponent one-ups you, but as long as you built your deck correctly, you should come out ahead in most scenarios. These cards are all about asymmetric risk and hedging the bets in your favor.
Thanks for the link!
I've been looking for cube podcasts to listen to.
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I ran show and tell for years and it was almost always bad. Not being able to put PW's into play is a huge drawback, as is the large amount of permanent-based answers that your oppnent can have, AS is your opponent not only getting the first use of the permanent they put into play but an entire turn to answer whatever you did. Sure, it's great against aggro decks but all decks putting fatties into play are. This is further compounded by the fact that we support reanimator, super ramp, and artifact decks, meaning there's a good chance at least 1 other deck at the table has a big thing to put into play.
Oath of druids is a different beast because it's cheaper, and if you build your deck right it's not symmetrical. The chance of you getting screwed by your opponent is much lower. Additionally, both super ramp and reanimator often use small creatures as part of their gameplan (elves, looters, and discard outlets) so it isn't weak to the same decks that show and tell is.
Eureka benefits massively from being able to put PW's into play letting you get value immediately - a huge reason Eureka works is cause you get to put an Ugin or Karn or Nicol Bolas into play and kill their biggest thing. You also often have more threats than they have answers, so it doesn't matter if they have one O-ring if you dropped 3 things into play. You also can get your opponent if they try to save their answer by passing until they have the most information by you passing after putting 2 things into play or whatever. It's much easier to break the symmetry with Eureka than with Show and Tell.
Oath and Eureka are fun, unique cards that are powerful enough to warrant their inclusion in cubes. While Show and Tell is fun, it proved itself too weak in our cube, and so cutting it was right. Maybe in cubes that are smaller and support less decks putting big stuff into play, but in our cube it won the game for the caster only a small minority of the time and was worse than basically every other way of getting fatties into play.
Sneak Attack and Through the Breach are obviously different animals (and more akin to the tinker, channel, and reanimate decks IMO) as they aren't a symmetrical effect, so I don't think they're good points of comparison.
Edit - and I do think LSV is unfairly harsh on Eureka (for the reasons listed above), but I don't play MTGO at all so he could very well be right that it's awful in that format.
7/10 times I play an effect like this, the permanent I put into play with it wins me the game. Maybe another 20% of the time the opponent can answer it and it's not game-winning. Rarely, likely less than 1/10 times the card is played, do I wind up in a worse position because of what my opponent puts onto the battlefield with it.
I'd be pretty shocked if show and tell had a 70% win rate after being cast. That would put it on par with power I would think, or cards that cost 7+ mana. I also think these stats fail to take a couple things into account - the times your stranded with Show and Tell in hand and no fatty, or vice versa, or how much you have to warp your deck to make something like show and tell good, meaning that the times your opponent does have an answer (any O-ring, any man-o-war, any nekrataal, one of the green creatures that kills an artifact if that's your play, or untap into an answer) they've often shut down your main line of play for the game and you'll have a hard time recovering. Yeah, you play fatty, they play answer, you got 2-for-1'ed, doesn't seem that devastating on its face but now you need to find more combo pieces.
Edit - I guess I can actually see a 70% win percentage for show and tell, since you wouldn't cast it unless you were pretty confident it would win you the game, but I'd be curious as to the win % for game where you draw show and tell (whether you cast it or not).
Cube on MTGO has really gone from being a way to play cube online to kind of its own version of the format. Cubing at home with your buddies means your reanimator deck with a Sneak and Show fall back likely isn't going to run into another version of that same deck. League play is a big reason why I don't enjoy cube on MTGO. Drafting a sweet RDW deck and having my turn one opponent go Mountain, Goblin Guide just takes me completely out of the experience.
On the subject of Show and Tell (and other symmetrical cheats) outside of MTGO cube, I'd agree that the win rate is probably pretty high. In general the player casting the cheat spell is in a very specific deck that's designed to support that spell and plenty of ways to make it work efficiently. And again, their opponent isn't likely to be on a similar deck with fatties of their own. If I go turn three Show and Tell and put in any 6+ casting cost creature from the cube, that will almost assuredly win me the game. That's not to mention very specific scenarios with individual creatures that can win the game on the spot. You ever put a Sundering Titan in on turn two or three and blew up your opponents lands? Feels real good.
Thanks everyone. I think its a huge consensus that drafting on MTGO is very different than drafting in paper given the league structure.
I think hate drafting and signals is an incredibly important aspect of drafting that should not be over looked.
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Just chiming in to say my experience with Show and Tell mirrors wtwlf's and calibretto's. The care is pretty busted and I can't imagine cutting it. Cards like that are the main reasons I play cube.
If I go turn three Show and Tell and put in any 6+ casting cost creature from the cube, that will almost assuredly win me the game
Maybe it's the group I play with but this is not remotely my experience with the card. You play your fatty, they play an o-ring or man o' war or shriekmaw and laugh at you. Or they just play their 5-drop curve topper 2 turns early for free, untap and kill your fatty. Or they play a mana rock, untap and wrath. Or you ARE against the other deck playing fatties and they get first crack.
Everyone in my group agreed show and tell was bad and we should cut it. I dunno if it's confirmation bias my way, confirmation bias by people who love the card, different experiences with size of draft pool (we almost always have 8 or 6 so there's a good chance at least one other drafter is doing something with fatties - I imagine this is far less likely if the average group size is 5 or less), a difference in cube size (at 465 there's almost always the pieces for at least one big deck, usually two), or a little bit of all of this, but it's fascinating how different our experiences with the card were.
This makes me wish both that MTGO cube draft was still in pods (although I understand why almost all players enjoy leagues - it seems like such a better experience time wise) and that WOTC hadn't decided to hide much of the data from MTGO. It used to be that you could get basically all the data you wanted and I remember articles talking about win rates after casting certain cards in various draft formats. I'd love to see that for cube, but that data is no longer accessible AFAIK.
Everyone has their own experiences with cards, so if your group wasn't a fan of Show and Tell, it's not my place to tell you you're wrong. I will admit that my post was a bit hyperbolic. Sometimes, sure, you put in your threat and they answer it almost immediately. It's a high risk, high reward type of card. I think if you're ok having it be so swingy then you know what to expect with it and that's what makes it ultimately fun.
I'd also add that this doesn't take into account the other cheat effects that are probably in your deck. They answered your turn three Show and Tell threat, but can they also answer your turn five Sneak Attack threat? What about the times they you then untap and reanimate the same threat back to the battlefield? The deck itself deserves context in how it plays, even when the cheated threat is immediately answered.
Everyone in my group agreed show and tell was bad and we should cut it.
Then cut it. I would never dream of doing that, because the card's been a blast to play and a complete powerhouse, but why debate it? If you and your playgroup hate it, stop cubing with it.
If I go turn three Show and Tell and put in any 6+ casting cost creature from the cube, that will almost assuredly win me the game
Maybe it's the group I play with but this is not remotely my experience with the card. You play your fatty, they play an o-ring or man o' war or shriekmaw and laugh at you. Or they just play their 5-drop curve topper 2 turns early for free, untap and kill your fatty. Or they play a mana rock, untap and wrath. Or you ARE against the other deck playing fatties and they get first crack.
Everyone in my group agreed show and tell was bad and we should cut it. I dunno if it's confirmation bias my way, confirmation bias by people who love the card, different experiences with size of draft pool (we almost always have 8 or 6 so there's a good chance at least one other drafter is doing something with fatties - I imagine this is far less likely if the average group size is 5 or less), a difference in cube size (at 465 there's almost always the pieces for at least one big deck, usually two), or a little bit of all of this, but it's fascinating how different our experiences with the card were.
This makes me wish both that MTGO cube draft was still in pods (although I understand why almost all players enjoy leagues - it seems like such a better experience time wise) and that WOTC hadn't decided to hide much of the data from MTGO. It used to be that you could get basically all the data you wanted and I remember articles talking about win rates after casting certain cards in various draft formats. I'd love to see that for cube, but that data is no longer accessible AFAIK.
I'd argue that your cube can do more to support it. There are a good amount of supporting cards that could support Show and Tell shells that I found missing in your list:
- Brainstorm
- Imperial Seal
- Through the Breach
- Selvala's Stampede
- Sensei's Divining Top
- Dragonlord Atarka
How has Eureka been performing for you? Typically those two cards go hand in hand, except Show and Tell is more versatile since it's more playable in your typical Reanimator deck. It'd seem weird to me if Eureka is performing well but not Show and Tell.
Normally I'd say listen to your playgroup. If you don't believe in the card yourself, then yeah, just cut it. But if you do believe in the card, it's up to you to educate both yourself and your playgroup (either through explaining it to them or showing them how beastly the card it is in practice). Again, it's a card with inherent risk, so of course it'll blow up in your face from time to time, and that's usually what people remember it from.
If you haven't done so, I'd highly recommend to check out my podcast episode on Cheaty Face in cube. I have a lot of my own personal 3-0 lists to reference from and a spreadsheet breaking down a lot of the ratio of colors / key cards used in the 3-0 decks listed.
Everyone in my group agreed show and tell was bad and we should cut it.
Then cut it. I would never dream of doing that, because the card's been a blast to play and a complete powerhouse, but why debate it? If you and your playgroup hate it, stop cubing with it.
Oh we cut it forever ago. I was just saying everyone agreed it should be cut when I brought it up.
I'd argue that your cube can do more to support it. There are a good amount of supporting cards that could support Show and Tell shells that I found missing in your list:
- Brainstorm
- Imperial Seal
- Through the Breach
- Selvala's Stampede
- Sensei's Divining Top
- Dragonlord Atarka
How has Eureka been performing for you? Typically those two cards go hand in hand, except Show and Tell is more versatile since it's more playable in your typical Reanimator deck. It'd seem weird to me if Eureka is performing well but not Show and Tell.
Normally I'd say listen to your playgroup. If you don't believe in the card yourself, then yeah, just cut it. But if you do believe in the card, it's up to you to educate both yourself and your playgroup (either through explaining it to them or showing them how beastly the card it is in practice). Again, it's a card with inherent risk, so of course it'll blow up in your face from time to time, and that's usually what people remember it from.
If you haven't done so, I'd highly recommend to check out my podcast episode on Cheaty Face in cube. I have a lot of my own personal 3-0 lists to reference from and a spreadsheet breaking down a lot of the ratio of colors / key cards used in the 3-0 decks listed.
Sorry, I should have been more clear. We cut it long ago, and used to run a lot of those enablers. I'll never run Top again though because it just makes games take SO. LONG. when certain players have it (same with scroll rack). I actually have run Atarka until after the pandemic started. It's only pulled for now because I'm testing companions (with RAW not the errata) when we eventually get back to playing, and didn't have enough data on Domri v Xenagos to be absolutely certain that xenagos is who I'm sticking with (although I'm 90% of the way there), and I like bloodbraid more as a card since it's a more unique effect than Atarka.
The reason show and tell didn't perform was because if the other person put in an answer, or had one on their turn, it was really bad for you. Eureka gets around that by letting you put multiple threats into play and letting you put PW's into play, where you get to get first crack, unlike creatures. Generally Eureka has made it's way into either the green super ramp decks or the channel/sneak decks as alternate paths to victory. It never felt like the reanimator decks needed it because there are so many enablers that can't backfire so spectacularly. The only deck I actually liked Show and Tell in was the tinker decks as an alternate line that didn't need a second color, but that wasn't enough for me to want to keep it in the cube.
Perusing your imgur links, those look basically identical to the decks we make in this archetype (except that we don't have show and tell and through the breach).
Edit - Also eureka is just more fun IMO, but that's not that useful for analysis.
I think its a strong consensus here that Show and tell is worse than Eureka, Sneak Attack, Through the Breach etc. But I think in order for cards like Show and Tell, Brain Freeze etc to work, the drafter cannot force the archetype and needs to be aware of the density of answers opened.
I personally would like to see show and tell used more in storm/ combo variants cheating in spells like Sharknado/ Thousand Year Storm or even omniscience (if your cube plays it)
I've thought about adding omniscience into my cube. its likely way too greedy but I've got a lot mana doublers and fast mana. I would really like to see a lot of crazy interactions.
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Show and Tell is good. It's cheaper than the other cards mentioned. It's about as "fair" as Exhume in my opinion.
While I do agree that Show and Tell is good, I don't think this is a good comparison. Most decks can't pitch something in the yard early (or at all), not to mention an Oblivion Ring or something to counter your super fatty.
I think its a strong consensus here that Show and tell is worse than Eureka, Sneak Attack, Through the Breach etc. But I think in order for cards like Show and Tell, Brain Freeze etc to work, the drafter cannot force the archetype and needs to be aware of the density of answers opened.
I don't think there's a consensus at all, Show and Tell is a top blue card for us and sees play in a variety of decks (Sneak Attack/Through the Breach decks, Oath of Druids decks, Reanimateor decks, and even in storm decks back when we supported that archetype. I'd say its far better than Eureka/Selvala's Stampede/Through the Breach/Arcane Artisan/Ilharg, the Raze-Boar (which are all good don't get me wrong, even if we don't play the first two), but quite a bit worse than Oath of Druids and Sneak Attack. The symmetry is so easily breakable it will just about make your head spin, especially in reanimateor decks that play it alongside a couple of tutors, sometimes it almost feels like they end up just turning into Show and Tell decks that happen to have reanimateor spells in them since it just ends up winning like a third or half of your games.
And tbh I also don't think it really requires you to read the table for it to be any good, I'll gladly mainboard it even knowing that a couple other players at my table are playing fatties too. I'll gladly pick it early just as I'll gladly pick it late, it's good and is a high priority reason to go into blue with any non-ramp creature combo decks imo. I'd say it's also quite a lot better than Exhume, and far more versatile across archetypes, even though I'm pretty sure that's not what you mean when you said it was equally fair, but just thought I'd throw that in the mix too.
This card looks great on paper, but from my personal experience and the experience from other cubers, this card is a considered a "trap" and should not be played. This is definitely weaker than the very powerful Sneak Attack and the powerful Through the breach, but is it as bad as people make it out to be?
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1. Minimum Archetype Support
2. Improving Green Archetypes
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5. Cube Combos (Work in Progress)
Draft my Cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/d8i
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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!
I've had a different experience with Eureka - the card's interaction with Ugin has been incredible.
I've always avoided Show and Tell early on in picks and only pick up the card if I'm already in Blue based cheat decks are Show and Tell wheels late.
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Here are some other articles I've written about fine tuning your cube:
1. Minimum Archetype Support
2. Improving Green Archetypes
3. Improving White Archetypes
4. Matchup Analysis
5. Cube Combos (Work in Progress)
Draft my Cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/d8i
- Often used incorrectly
- A lot of cubes don't support it as much as they should
- They occasionally blow up in your face
The first two issues can be addressed fairly easily (check out my podcast episode about Cheaty Face: https://theartofcube.podbean.com/e/episode-6-supporting-and-drafting-the-cheaty-face-archetype-in-cube/). The third issue is just the nature of those cards. Yeah, sometimes your opponent one-ups you, but as long as you built your deck correctly, you should come out ahead in most scenarios. These cards are all about asymmetric risk and hedging the bets in your favor.
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That I strongly agree with. I find drafters in my 8 player pod are often incredibly good at reading signals from the rest of the table and have changed archetypes such as brain freeze storm after seeing too many Eldrazi opened etc.
Part of writing this came from reading LSV's article (https://www.channelfireball.com/all-strategy/articles/the-ultimate-guide-to-cube-archetypes-blue/)
But now you mentioned the MTGO environment, this makes a lot of sense; naturally the fatties will gravitate to the fatty cheat deck reducing the scenarios you're describing.
Vintage Cube Cards Explained
Here are some other articles I've written about fine tuning your cube:
1. Minimum Archetype Support
2. Improving Green Archetypes
3. Improving White Archetypes
4. Matchup Analysis
5. Cube Combos (Work in Progress)
Draft my Cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/d8i
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!
Thanks for the link!
I've been looking for cube podcasts to listen to.
Vintage Cube Cards Explained
Here are some other articles I've written about fine tuning your cube:
1. Minimum Archetype Support
2. Improving Green Archetypes
3. Improving White Archetypes
4. Matchup Analysis
5. Cube Combos (Work in Progress)
Draft my Cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/d8i
Oath of druids is a different beast because it's cheaper, and if you build your deck right it's not symmetrical. The chance of you getting screwed by your opponent is much lower. Additionally, both super ramp and reanimator often use small creatures as part of their gameplan (elves, looters, and discard outlets) so it isn't weak to the same decks that show and tell is.
Eureka benefits massively from being able to put PW's into play letting you get value immediately - a huge reason Eureka works is cause you get to put an Ugin or Karn or Nicol Bolas into play and kill their biggest thing. You also often have more threats than they have answers, so it doesn't matter if they have one O-ring if you dropped 3 things into play. You also can get your opponent if they try to save their answer by passing until they have the most information by you passing after putting 2 things into play or whatever. It's much easier to break the symmetry with Eureka than with Show and Tell.
Oath and Eureka are fun, unique cards that are powerful enough to warrant their inclusion in cubes. While Show and Tell is fun, it proved itself too weak in our cube, and so cutting it was right. Maybe in cubes that are smaller and support less decks putting big stuff into play, but in our cube it won the game for the caster only a small minority of the time and was worse than basically every other way of getting fatties into play.
Sneak Attack and Through the Breach are obviously different animals (and more akin to the tinker, channel, and reanimate decks IMO) as they aren't a symmetrical effect, so I don't think they're good points of comparison.
Edit - and I do think LSV is unfairly harsh on Eureka (for the reasons listed above), but I don't play MTGO at all so he could very well be right that it's awful in that format.
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I'd be pretty shocked if show and tell had a 70% win rate after being cast. That would put it on par with power I would think, or cards that cost 7+ mana. I also think these stats fail to take a couple things into account - the times your stranded with Show and Tell in hand and no fatty, or vice versa, or how much you have to warp your deck to make something like show and tell good, meaning that the times your opponent does have an answer (any O-ring, any man-o-war, any nekrataal, one of the green creatures that kills an artifact if that's your play, or untap into an answer) they've often shut down your main line of play for the game and you'll have a hard time recovering. Yeah, you play fatty, they play answer, you got 2-for-1'ed, doesn't seem that devastating on its face but now you need to find more combo pieces.
Edit - I guess I can actually see a 70% win percentage for show and tell, since you wouldn't cast it unless you were pretty confident it would win you the game, but I'd be curious as to the win % for game where you draw show and tell (whether you cast it or not).
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On the subject of Show and Tell (and other symmetrical cheats) outside of MTGO cube, I'd agree that the win rate is probably pretty high. In general the player casting the cheat spell is in a very specific deck that's designed to support that spell and plenty of ways to make it work efficiently. And again, their opponent isn't likely to be on a similar deck with fatties of their own. If I go turn three Show and Tell and put in any 6+ casting cost creature from the cube, that will almost assuredly win me the game. That's not to mention very specific scenarios with individual creatures that can win the game on the spot. You ever put a Sundering Titan in on turn two or three and blew up your opponents lands? Feels real good.
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I think hate drafting and signals is an incredibly important aspect of drafting that should not be over looked.
Vintage Cube Cards Explained
Here are some other articles I've written about fine tuning your cube:
1. Minimum Archetype Support
2. Improving Green Archetypes
3. Improving White Archetypes
4. Matchup Analysis
5. Cube Combos (Work in Progress)
Draft my Cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/d8i
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CubeCobra: https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/5f5d0310ed602310515d4c32
Cube Tutor: http://cubetutor.com/viewcube/1963
Maybe it's the group I play with but this is not remotely my experience with the card. You play your fatty, they play an o-ring or man o' war or shriekmaw and laugh at you. Or they just play their 5-drop curve topper 2 turns early for free, untap and kill your fatty. Or they play a mana rock, untap and wrath. Or you ARE against the other deck playing fatties and they get first crack.
Everyone in my group agreed show and tell was bad and we should cut it. I dunno if it's confirmation bias my way, confirmation bias by people who love the card, different experiences with size of draft pool (we almost always have 8 or 6 so there's a good chance at least one other drafter is doing something with fatties - I imagine this is far less likely if the average group size is 5 or less), a difference in cube size (at 465 there's almost always the pieces for at least one big deck, usually two), or a little bit of all of this, but it's fascinating how different our experiences with the card were.
This makes me wish both that MTGO cube draft was still in pods (although I understand why almost all players enjoy leagues - it seems like such a better experience time wise) and that WOTC hadn't decided to hide much of the data from MTGO. It used to be that you could get basically all the data you wanted and I remember articles talking about win rates after casting certain cards in various draft formats. I'd love to see that for cube, but that data is no longer accessible AFAIK.
375 unpowered cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/601ac624832cdf1039947588
I'd also add that this doesn't take into account the other cheat effects that are probably in your deck. They answered your turn three Show and Tell threat, but can they also answer your turn five Sneak Attack threat? What about the times they you then untap and reanimate the same threat back to the battlefield? The deck itself deserves context in how it plays, even when the cheated threat is immediately answered.
MTGS Average Peasant Cube 2023 Edition
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Then cut it. I would never dream of doing that, because the card's been a blast to play and a complete powerhouse, but why debate it? If you and your playgroup hate it, stop cubing with it.
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I'd argue that your cube can do more to support it. There are a good amount of supporting cards that could support Show and Tell shells that I found missing in your list:
- Brainstorm
- Imperial Seal
- Through the Breach
- Selvala's Stampede
- Sensei's Divining Top
- Dragonlord Atarka
How has Eureka been performing for you? Typically those two cards go hand in hand, except Show and Tell is more versatile since it's more playable in your typical Reanimator deck. It'd seem weird to me if Eureka is performing well but not Show and Tell.
Normally I'd say listen to your playgroup. If you don't believe in the card yourself, then yeah, just cut it. But if you do believe in the card, it's up to you to educate both yourself and your playgroup (either through explaining it to them or showing them how beastly the card it is in practice). Again, it's a card with inherent risk, so of course it'll blow up in your face from time to time, and that's usually what people remember it from.
If you haven't done so, I'd highly recommend to check out my podcast episode on Cheaty Face in cube. I have a lot of my own personal 3-0 lists to reference from and a spreadsheet breaking down a lot of the ratio of colors / key cards used in the 3-0 decks listed.
Podcast: https://theartofcube.podbean.com/e/episode-6-supporting-and-drafting-cheaty-face-in-cube/
My own 3-0 Cheaty Face decks within the past 2 years: https://imgur.com/a/hPjTpEt
Spreadsheet breakdown of 3-0 decks: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qLFkXQOmIYdXmq3O7bHnM9FGQhxJovs5ONqilgQeFkI/edit?usp=sharing
My High Octane Unpowered Cube on CubeCobra
Oh we cut it forever ago. I was just saying everyone agreed it should be cut when I brought it up.
375 unpowered cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/601ac624832cdf1039947588
Sorry, I should have been more clear. We cut it long ago, and used to run a lot of those enablers. I'll never run Top again though because it just makes games take SO. LONG. when certain players have it (same with scroll rack). I actually have run Atarka until after the pandemic started. It's only pulled for now because I'm testing companions (with RAW not the errata) when we eventually get back to playing, and didn't have enough data on Domri v Xenagos to be absolutely certain that xenagos is who I'm sticking with (although I'm 90% of the way there), and I like bloodbraid more as a card since it's a more unique effect than Atarka.
The reason show and tell didn't perform was because if the other person put in an answer, or had one on their turn, it was really bad for you. Eureka gets around that by letting you put multiple threats into play and letting you put PW's into play, where you get to get first crack, unlike creatures. Generally Eureka has made it's way into either the green super ramp decks or the channel/sneak decks as alternate paths to victory. It never felt like the reanimator decks needed it because there are so many enablers that can't backfire so spectacularly. The only deck I actually liked Show and Tell in was the tinker decks as an alternate line that didn't need a second color, but that wasn't enough for me to want to keep it in the cube.
Perusing your imgur links, those look basically identical to the decks we make in this archetype (except that we don't have show and tell and through the breach).
Edit - Also eureka is just more fun IMO, but that's not that useful for analysis.
375 unpowered cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/601ac624832cdf1039947588
I personally would like to see show and tell used more in storm/ combo variants cheating in spells like Sharknado/ Thousand Year Storm or even omniscience (if your cube plays it)
I've thought about adding omniscience into my cube. its likely way too greedy but I've got a lot mana doublers and fast mana. I would really like to see a lot of crazy interactions.
Vintage Cube Cards Explained
Here are some other articles I've written about fine tuning your cube:
1. Minimum Archetype Support
2. Improving Green Archetypes
3. Improving White Archetypes
4. Matchup Analysis
5. Cube Combos (Work in Progress)
Draft my Cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/d8i
Except that there's no deck other than reanimator that will generally be putting big creatures in their GY.
375 unpowered cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/601ac624832cdf1039947588
While I do agree that Show and Tell is good, I don't think this is a good comparison. Most decks can't pitch something in the yard early (or at all), not to mention an Oblivion Ring or something to counter your super fatty.
My High Octane Unpowered Cube on CubeCobra
I don't think there's a consensus at all, Show and Tell is a top blue card for us and sees play in a variety of decks (Sneak Attack/Through the Breach decks, Oath of Druids decks, Reanimateor decks, and even in storm decks back when we supported that archetype. I'd say its far better than Eureka/Selvala's Stampede/Through the Breach/Arcane Artisan/Ilharg, the Raze-Boar (which are all good don't get me wrong, even if we don't play the first two), but quite a bit worse than Oath of Druids and Sneak Attack. The symmetry is so easily breakable it will just about make your head spin, especially in reanimateor decks that play it alongside a couple of tutors, sometimes it almost feels like they end up just turning into Show and Tell decks that happen to have reanimateor spells in them since it just ends up winning like a third or half of your games.
And tbh I also don't think it really requires you to read the table for it to be any good, I'll gladly mainboard it even knowing that a couple other players at my table are playing fatties too. I'll gladly pick it early just as I'll gladly pick it late, it's good and is a high priority reason to go into blue with any non-ramp creature combo decks imo. I'd say it's also quite a lot better than Exhume, and far more versatile across archetypes, even though I'm pretty sure that's not what you mean when you said it was equally fair, but just thought I'd throw that in the mix too.
Just my 2¢ on the topic