Merfolk Skydiver looks really solid. Worst case it's a 2/2 flyer that doubles as a mana sink in the lategame to grow it bigger. Just a solid card for the direction my Simic is headed.
I'm not entirely sure if Neoform is worthwhile in the average UG deck, since there aren't that many great sacrifice options. Most of your good toolbox targets are pretty high picks as well. Seems great in BUG though. Notably, this on Hooting Mandrills is a pretty low effort Pelakka Wurm, Plated Crusher, or Trostani's Summoner.
Evolution Sage seems pushed to me. I don't support the counters archetype, but I could see playing it if a couple more generally good counter cards are printed.
Nobody runs Gaea’s Skyfolk, and additional... proliferate to a 3/3 for 3GB doesn’t seem like something I would want either.
Unless I have a large handful of creatures already on the field *with* counters, this card seems like a dud.
It pushes an archetype I support, is an fairly interesting card, and has a decent powerlevel. That seems like a good card to me. Gaea's Skyfolk is mostly weaker, less interesting, and provides less support.
What am I missing about Rescuer sphinx? Bouncing your own thing back has got to be too much of a tempo hit to be worth the hassle on curve (I can't just assume the card I'm bouncing is exactly man-o-war or pacified)
/
"Abusing" pollenbright druid sounds too slow for what I'm used to. You drop it on a guy, you bounce it back... drop a counter on another guy, then bounce it again in order to finally use proliferate?
My experience with the +1/+1 counter synergy is that it's very hard for a card to be good unless its baseline without the synergy is also pretty decent. Maybe we will get a lot more of these cards and can do more with them more regularly, loosening the constraints a bit, but it's a meh from me.
/
Neoform is an effect I have no way to really judge. It would be fun to test with cards like hooting mandrills, although I imagine something like sharktocrab recently stole the last flex simic spot from a number of cubes.
/
Comparing merfolk skydiver to gaia's skyfolk isn't entirely unwarranted. You probably do just put the counter on this 98% of the time, and paying 5 for an additional counter is... really slow. Like I said with pollenbright druid, though, we may just get enough counter-related cards to make paying 5 more palatable. Kiora is a chunky chick with all that loyalty, after all.0
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To that effect, I want to live in the timeline where evolution sage is a thing. 2 of my 5 favorite abilities of all time.
/
Mayhem devil is almost vanilla. Hard pass, especially for a gold card.
/
(Unrelated, but holy **** grateful apparition is a second copy of thrummingbird. I have to dust off my dead "synergy cube" project the second all this stuff drops.)
12 of the 13 planeswalkers we've seen thus far are super unimpressive, but I'm gonna give them more leeway for testing just because we've never seen the card type in the format before (Kiora is the standout by far)
Nahiri, as the most recent topic of discussion here, looks like she just sucks. The times you'll get two meaningful activations out of here are times you're already winning anyway and can somehow keep winning despite your very subpar 4cmc investment with her. Nobody plays Take Vengeance, I absolutely don't want Magus of Take Vengeance.
Just thought about the interaction between Kiora, Behemoth Beckoner and the bouncelands. If people weren't already convinced to try her, that combo seems totally busted and easy to pull off in cubes that run all 10.
Nahiri, as the most recent topic of discussion here, looks like she just sucks. The times you'll get two meaningful activations out of here are times you're already winning anyway and can somehow keep winning...
Maybe. I can see her being used quite nicely in a situation to slow down/stop an aggro deck's bombardment of creatures.
Just thought about the interaction between Kiora, Behemoth Beckoner and the bouncelands. If people weren't already convinced to try her, that combo seems totally busted and easy to pull off in cubes that run all 10.
I don't think that combo makes running the bouncelands worthwhile. So far, I'm excited to add Nahiri, Tibalt and Kiora. I suspect Kiora will underperform and will be swapped out, but i'll give her a try.
Nahiri is specifically good against front heavy creatures, but even in aggro its not as if there are many creatures with 2 more power than toughness to get value out of.
Best case scenario for her loyalty going into the opponents turn would be 5, as in she comes in and kills a 2/1 flier or something. And with five loyalty, she has a good chance to take a hit and kill something else. 2 damage + 3 toughness, or 3+2, or 1+4, or 4+1.
But if she comes in and has to spend 2 loyalty on a shot, then the number of likely combinations of damage taken+health of a target drops a lot. Its not like there are going to be a bunch of 1/1 creatures that end up tapped this late in the game, at least not without a bunch of friends.
/
In a midrange race, I could see it better though. kill guy, get in better attacks, then she dies absorbing damage for you while making your *next* attack still better because something had to tap and attack to kill her.
One thing I dont know is how good she is when she comes down with no tapped targets. Rattling the rattle on the rattlesnake is still worse than just biting the creature outright, so this must be worse by a decent amount
i still like jiang yanggu and kiora the most, but i could definitely see myself running samut, tibalt, angrath, and nahiri. they're just so hard to evaluate...
I dont think I like Jiang Yanggu, Wildcrafter. I dont see the value in "make a creature into an Alloy Myr" that beneficial. Perhaps Im missing something though.
He isn't making a creature an Alloy Myr he is making all your creatures alloy myrs, yea you need to support the +1/+1 counter deck but I do and this set does.
I am just not seeing Tibalt to be honest, what do people like so much about him?.
I wasn't originally sure about Kiora I actually don't have very many +4 power creatures in my cube but that 7 loyalty and ramp usefulness has me intrigued.
Are people forgetting Nahiri's static ability? she gives all your creatures first strike on attack and equip costs cost 1 less. You play her you Alpha making blocks for your opponent really tough. I find her possibilities interesting.
He does turn your board into Alloy Myrs, but I can't imagine that being worthwhile outside of magical Christmas land; it's not like Cryptolith Rite which is easy to set up, explosive, and can't be interacted with. He has a good chance of just dying, even if you have the right board state for it, since his loyalty is so low.
Tibalts goes in basically every red deck without being boring or oppressive imo. Devils get better as you get slower, and the life gain prevention makes that up for aggro. Aggro probably gets both tokens by threatening damage, while slower decks can probably get both by removing evasive threats. The devils can also be interacted with or used in a number of ways in basically every archetype. Having him at one also makes for interesting combat decisions, as the static ability has fairly subjective value. The more I think about it, the more I like the card.
Kiora >= Tibalt > Nahiri > Angrath for my potential inclusions atm. I do think most of the walkers are passable filler at worst, since either their floors or ceilings are high; the only ones I can't see the argument for are Jiang Yanggu and The Wanderer.
To be fair, if I had slots to dedicate to red cantrips for Spells Matter, I would definitely consider Warlord's Fury. DOM was not particularly heavy on archetypes it would support, as far as I can tell, but the effect it offers for 1 mana, attached to a cantrip, is pretty decent. Of course, this still means that the effect by itself would be worth half a mana per turn or so. But then, Nahiri also being (sub-optimal) removal still gives her a chance to provide a higher, less niche floor than Fury.
As others have noted, evaluating these walkers is a little hard. Some of the Proliferate cards may help (we've had 10 of the 14 proliferate cards spoiled). But we just got Kasmina, Enigmatic Mentor, and I think I might try her. For four mana, you get a defensive tax effect, a 2/2 token, a loot ability, and a planeswalker that still has 3 loyalty and can do it again. Thoughts?
To be fair, if I had slots to dedicate to red cantrips for Spells Matter, I would definitely consider Warlord's Fury. DOM was not particularly heavy on archetypes it would support, as far as I can tell, but the effect it offers for 1 mana, attached to a cantrip, is pretty decent. Of course, this still means that the effect by itself would be worth half a mana per turn or so. But then, Nahiri also being (sub-optimal) removal still gives her a chance to provide a higher, less niche floor than Fury.
Right, the fact that you think it's a Spells Matter card and not worth it just as a pump effect is exactly my point.
DOM did some weird ramp and 5C things but still had a lot of creature-centric decks (esp in red), and Fury was just... filler, because giving your team first strike on your turn isn't actually reliably good.
Also, I'm not sure how a 4cmc conditional removal spell / weird anthem can ever have a higher FLOOR than something with Cycling: R
Right, the fact that you think it's a Spells Matter card and not worth it just as a pump effect is exactly my point.
DOM did some weird ramp and 5C things but still had a lot of creature-centric decks (esp in red), and Fury was just... filler, because giving your team first strike on your turn isn't actually reliably good.
Warlord's Fury is only ever a one turn thing and your opponent won't have to do anything to make it go away. You could usually take a hit and wait for next turn to block/trade in DOM. That's the reason it's not a great card. That doesn't work with Nahiri though, it's not a great analogy imo. Nahiri makes blocking much more difficult for most decks for the rest of the game, not just for a turn. Plus you have to spend resources (cards, attacks and damage that could go face or block something without Nahiri) to get rid of her. Just ignoring her and going face means you open yourself up to her ability, which makes racing more difficult at the very least. None of that is true for Fury.
The relevant question to my mind is how often you can just ignore her. How much and what kinds of evasion a cube has plays a huge role in how useful she will be. I don't think most decks can just ignore permanent blocking diffulties, but a race against Nahiri is very hard to theorize about, because so much depends on the exact game state. I typically find killing planeswalkers with creatures to be a pain also, and we don't have any of the spells that can deal with them, so I suspect in most games they'll actually be harder to remove than we are used to now (although again, much depends on evasion).
It is worth noting that we do in fact have spells that deal with Planeswalkers directly in burn and Oblivion Ring and such. Also, I don't imagine getting more than 1 swing out of a Nahiri, as in, your Nahiri will probably die on the backswing in the type of decks you will play her. I just don't think she does enough. Being a sorcery speed conditional removal spell hurts.
On a sidenote, Kasmina does seem pretty solid, making casting removal harder is always good, and making 2 2/2's and looting twice also seems okay.
Other than that, so far, I'm interested in Kiora and Tibalt, and I will probably try out the Merfolk Skydiver.
I think it looks pretty good. It will probably make my list.
Mayhem Devil is fun, but I don't think I have enough sacrifice support.
EDIT: Just saw Neoform. I like it a lot. I will definitely make room for this one.
2023 Average Peasant Cube|and Discussion
Because I have more decks than fit in a signature
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Peasant 540 Cube
Evolution Druid looks like a strong contender too.
Draft it on Cubetutor here, and CubeCobra here.
Treasure Cruise did nothing wrong.
Nobody runs Gaea's Skyfolk, and additional... proliferate to a 3/3 for 3GB doesn’t seem like something I would want either.
Unless I have a large handful of creatures already on the field *with* counters, this card seems like a dud.
Evolution Sage seems pushed to me. I don't support the counters archetype, but I could see playing it if a couple more generally good counter cards are printed.
Draft it on Cubetutor here, and CubeCobra here.
Treasure Cruise did nothing wrong.
It pushes an archetype I support, is an fairly interesting card, and has a decent powerlevel. That seems like a good card to me. Gaea's Skyfolk is mostly weaker, less interesting, and provides less support.
/
"Abusing" pollenbright druid sounds too slow for what I'm used to. You drop it on a guy, you bounce it back... drop a counter on another guy, then bounce it again in order to finally use proliferate?
My experience with the +1/+1 counter synergy is that it's very hard for a card to be good unless its baseline without the synergy is also pretty decent. Maybe we will get a lot more of these cards and can do more with them more regularly, loosening the constraints a bit, but it's a meh from me.
/
Neoform is an effect I have no way to really judge. It would be fun to test with cards like hooting mandrills, although I imagine something like sharktocrab recently stole the last flex simic spot from a number of cubes.
/
Comparing merfolk skydiver to gaia's skyfolk isn't entirely unwarranted. You probably do just put the counter on this 98% of the time, and paying 5 for an additional counter is... really slow. Like I said with pollenbright druid, though, we may just get enough counter-related cards to make paying 5 more palatable. Kiora is a chunky chick with all that loyalty, after all.0
/
To that effect, I want to live in the timeline where evolution sage is a thing. 2 of my 5 favorite abilities of all time.
/
Mayhem devil is almost vanilla. Hard pass, especially for a gold card.
/
(Unrelated, but holy **** grateful apparition is a second copy of thrummingbird. I have to dust off my dead "synergy cube" project the second all this stuff drops.)
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
Nahiri, as the most recent topic of discussion here, looks like she just sucks. The times you'll get two meaningful activations out of here are times you're already winning anyway and can somehow keep winning despite your very subpar 4cmc investment with her. Nobody plays Take Vengeance, I absolutely don't want Magus of Take Vengeance.
Best case scenario for her loyalty going into the opponents turn would be 5, as in she comes in and kills a 2/1 flier or something. And with five loyalty, she has a good chance to take a hit and kill something else. 2 damage + 3 toughness, or 3+2, or 1+4, or 4+1.
But if she comes in and has to spend 2 loyalty on a shot, then the number of likely combinations of damage taken+health of a target drops a lot. Its not like there are going to be a bunch of 1/1 creatures that end up tapped this late in the game, at least not without a bunch of friends.
/
In a midrange race, I could see it better though. kill guy, get in better attacks, then she dies absorbing damage for you while making your *next* attack still better because something had to tap and attack to kill her.
One thing I dont know is how good she is when she comes down with no tapped targets. Rattling the rattle on the rattlesnake is still worse than just biting the creature outright, so this must be worse by a decent amount
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
I am just not seeing Tibalt to be honest, what do people like so much about him?.
I wasn't originally sure about Kiora I actually don't have very many +4 power creatures in my cube but that 7 loyalty and ramp usefulness has me intrigued.
Are people forgetting Nahiri's static ability? she gives all your creatures first strike on attack and equip costs cost 1 less. You play her you Alpha making blocks for your opponent really tough. I find her possibilities interesting.
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
Peasant cube: Cards I own
Tibalts goes in basically every red deck without being boring or oppressive imo. Devils get better as you get slower, and the life gain prevention makes that up for aggro. Aggro probably gets both tokens by threatening damage, while slower decks can probably get both by removing evasive threats. The devils can also be interacted with or used in a number of ways in basically every archetype. Having him at one also makes for interesting combat decisions, as the static ability has fairly subjective value. The more I think about it, the more I like the card.
Kiora >= Tibalt > Nahiri > Angrath for my potential inclusions atm. I do think most of the walkers are passable filler at worst, since either their floors or ceilings are high; the only ones I can't see the argument for are Jiang Yanggu and The Wanderer.
I dont know what its like to go ham on counters, but having a majority of creatures already with counters sounds like Christmas
I mentioned it, but i have no idea how sorcery speed first strike ends up actually playing out on average.
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
Fury was weak chaff in DOM limited and got zero attention for our format...
2023 Average Peasant Cube|and Discussion
Because I have more decks than fit in a signature
Useful Resources:
MTGSalvation tags
EDHREC
ManabaseCrafter
Right, the fact that you think it's a Spells Matter card and not worth it just as a pump effect is exactly my point.
DOM did some weird ramp and 5C things but still had a lot of creature-centric decks (esp in red), and Fury was just... filler, because giving your team first strike on your turn isn't actually reliably good.
Also, I'm not sure how a 4cmc conditional removal spell / weird anthem can ever have a higher FLOOR than something with Cycling: R
I think this is a good alternative to Prophetic Bolt.
Kasmina seems good.
My Omniscience Draft Cube[/b]
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Warlord's Fury is only ever a one turn thing and your opponent won't have to do anything to make it go away. You could usually take a hit and wait for next turn to block/trade in DOM. That's the reason it's not a great card. That doesn't work with Nahiri though, it's not a great analogy imo. Nahiri makes blocking much more difficult for most decks for the rest of the game, not just for a turn. Plus you have to spend resources (cards, attacks and damage that could go face or block something without Nahiri) to get rid of her. Just ignoring her and going face means you open yourself up to her ability, which makes racing more difficult at the very least. None of that is true for Fury.
The relevant question to my mind is how often you can just ignore her. How much and what kinds of evasion a cube has plays a huge role in how useful she will be. I don't think most decks can just ignore permanent blocking diffulties, but a race against Nahiri is very hard to theorize about, because so much depends on the exact game state. I typically find killing planeswalkers with creatures to be a pain also, and we don't have any of the spells that can deal with them, so I suspect in most games they'll actually be harder to remove than we are used to now (although again, much depends on evasion).
On a sidenote, Kasmina does seem pretty solid, making casting removal harder is always good, and making 2 2/2's and looting twice also seems okay.
Other than that, so far, I'm interested in Kiora and Tibalt, and I will probably try out the Merfolk Skydiver.
WiJ
Peasant 540 Cube