P1P1 or most powerful or best are all wildly subjective, and completely contingent on the list you're drawing the data from, and the playgroup you're drafting it with.
I mean, "favorite cards" or whatever is way more subjective, since by definition it's nothing but personal opinion. At least P1P1 has some basis in objectivity w/r/t perceived power level.
More to the point, I don't know what the point would be of the project you're proposing. Like, if it's just "I want everyone to know about this cool card", that's fine, but why not just have a big thread about people's pet cards? Or hell, just make an SCD about it. God knows this place could use some more activity outside of spoiler season. But what difference is it to anyone that Parallax Wave and Porphyry Nodes are two of my favorite cards? Who does that help? And why do we need to have a vote on it?
Anyway, if P1P1 is such a difficult thing for people to grok (I really don't think it is, but whatever), it's not hard to come up with a different way of thinking about it. Something like this:
Edit: Calibretto said it better. Would I take Card A over Card B, all else equal.
Yeah I agree that Hierarch should be a green card because it's good without being in Bant, whereas Yasova and Alesha are garbage without access to their other color identities so should be considered as wedge/shard cards. Ultimately it's only one card and we really shouldn't spend so much time on it, but without pedantry we wouldn't be cube designers I suppose.
(BW, this is your project and you're going to be doing the leg work on it. You've already been generously solicitous of everyone's opinion, and we're all dead split on it so you're not going to find consensus. Just tell us what to do with Hierarch and let's all move on.)
I also think a P1P1 (or most powerful, or best) makes the most sense, especially since maximizing power level is the overriding philosophy on this forum. If people want to have an opportunity to highlight their favorite cards or whatever, just add a "Favorite Cards" section of like 5 or something at the end of the real rankings.
It would also be nice to not be pedantic about Wrath of God being a strictly better Day of Judgment, and lump those two together as well.
And I don't want to step on your toes, BW, since this is your project, but I disagree with your categorization priorities. I know this is a decades-old fight at this point, but we really ought to consider context in cards rather than strictly adhering to mana costs. Kird Ape is not a red card in any meaningful sense, in the same way that Yasova Dragonclaw is not a green card. From your logic, it follows that Lingering Souls should be considered a white card, and Alesha, Who Smiles At Death should be considered a red card, even though neither of those cards would go in decks without their secondary colors.
Man, everyone is so ******* high on this card that it makes me wonder how Usman came to be so down on it in his review:
"I’d much rather have something like Kasmina, Enigmatic Mentor and Jace, Wielder of Mysteries than this as a sorcery speed threat. If you include this in your Cube, don’t be surprised if you replace it within a year."
Awesome article, Usman. There's some pretty surprising assessments here, especially this:
"Without snow basics, [Ice-Fang Coatl is] the best Simic card, and with snow basics, being able to organically get deathtouch later in the game (or even have it have deathtouch by casting it after turns 3 and 4) is absurd. Play this."
That's the review that most goes against the community consensus here--I don't think I heard anyone praise this at all, and certainly they didn't say it was better than Edric or Nissa. I'm pretty surprised; maybe I'll have to pick one up.
I'd also be interested to see in the coming months whether or not people sour as much on Urza, Lord High Artificer and Yawgmoth, Thran Physician as you have, since it seems like you're not going to even include them in your medium-sized cube.
Wait, so does everyone think these are better than signets? I always thought the conventional wisdom was the opposite.
Signets sometimes lead to situations where you have two islands and a blue signet, with Force Spike and Counterspell in hand, but can't keep both up because of the way Signets filter. Talismans let you cast both. Talismans also let you cast a talisman turn 2 and follow it up with a 1-drop, where Signets only let you cast the Signet turn 2.
For sure, all the arguments for the Talismans being good make sense to me. What I don't understand is, if they're so powerful, why don't they show up with any amount of frequency in powered lists? At least at the same rate as the signets?
Take a look at the average 360 list on CubeTutor. All 10 signets, not a single talisman. This holds true all the way up to 720.
Hell, look at your list. You're running all 10 signets but not a single talisman (according to CT). Same with the lists of wtwlf, rantipole, and all the other frequent cubers, as far as I can tell. If they're so close in value, you'd think you'd see the Talismans show up more often in a few lists, yeah?
Yeah, it's interesting academically at least. I don't disagree with wtwlf's logic at all, but there's a non-zero chance that in 40 years (assuming global warming hasn't killed us) we'll have ten different Rakdos Cacklers / Dryad Militants knocking around. I don't think you could apply wtwlf's thinking to the guild sections of small cubes at that point. Wouldn't you have to count them as 1/2 color?
Cool, so you're arguing that both options increase the playability of the cube, but one option increases it more than the other. Makes sense!
I was just confused because it sounded like you were arguing that not placing it in a gold slot somehow reduced the playability of the cube in an absolute, rather than relative, sense. Thanks for the clarification!
So I either ... cut monocolored cards for hybrids to preserve gold slots (which reduces overall playability)
Would you mind unpacking that for me? If the hybrid is a strict upgrade on a preexisting monocolored card like this one is, wouldn't that increase the amount of decks that can play the card without penalty and thus increase the overall playability of the cube?
Horizon Canopy gets snatched up so often by non-G/W decks that I just classified it as colorless, since it largely played out that way. Never had a problem with balance or anything, but I'm not sure it's wise to add 5 more clones to my colorless section.
Nothing more to say beyond a general "I loved reading this and thank you so much for taking the time to write it". Even if I am raising my eyebrow at that Commence the Endgame blurb just a little bit
Awesome writeup as always, wtwlf. These are always my favorite part of spoiler season. Especially for this set in particular, since it seems like this is the first time in a while you weren't scrambling to find 20 cards to write about. Hell, you didn't even include Commence the Endgame or Dreadhorde Invasion, both of which Usman praised in his own article.
I love this. Is there something we can do to get more people to vote? maybe move this thread to the main cube page, so more people will see it?
Probably something to do with the format. The previous iterations of these were a lot of fun because everyone posted only their top-10 or 20 cards or whatever, and we all got to see them in real time and have a dialogue about it here on the forum. Now everyone just posts in the sheet and doesn't say anything, and then that's that. Also, the fact that there's an additional layer of friction in working in google spreadsheets doesn't help with voter participation, either.
Just my 2c, I'm glad y'all are doing this nonetheless!
I mean, "favorite cards" or whatever is way more subjective, since by definition it's nothing but personal opinion. At least P1P1 has some basis in objectivity w/r/t perceived power level.
More to the point, I don't know what the point would be of the project you're proposing. Like, if it's just "I want everyone to know about this cool card", that's fine, but why not just have a big thread about people's pet cards? Or hell, just make an SCD about it. God knows this place could use some more activity outside of spoiler season. But what difference is it to anyone that Parallax Wave and Porphyry Nodes are two of my favorite cards? Who does that help? And why do we need to have a vote on it?
Anyway, if P1P1 is such a difficult thing for people to grok (I really don't think it is, but whatever), it's not hard to come up with a different way of thinking about it. Something like this:
Edit: Calibretto said it better. Would I take Card A over Card B, all else equal.
(BW, this is your project and you're going to be doing the leg work on it. You've already been generously solicitous of everyone's opinion, and we're all dead split on it so you're not going to find consensus. Just tell us what to do with Hierarch and let's all move on.)
I also think a P1P1 (or most powerful, or best) makes the most sense, especially since maximizing power level is the overriding philosophy on this forum. If people want to have an opportunity to highlight their favorite cards or whatever, just add a "Favorite Cards" section of like 5 or something at the end of the real rankings.
And I don't want to step on your toes, BW, since this is your project, but I disagree with your categorization priorities. I know this is a decades-old fight at this point, but we really ought to consider context in cards rather than strictly adhering to mana costs. Kird Ape is not a red card in any meaningful sense, in the same way that Yasova Dragonclaw is not a green card. From your logic, it follows that Lingering Souls should be considered a white card, and Alesha, Who Smiles At Death should be considered a red card, even though neither of those cards would go in decks without their secondary colors.
(FWIW, Arcane Denial is 360 material. Anyone who says otherwise is wrong and I shall hear no opinions to the contrary.)
"I’d much rather have something like Kasmina, Enigmatic Mentor and Jace, Wielder of Mysteries than this as a sorcery speed threat. If you include this in your Cube, don’t be surprised if you replace it within a year."
Sample size issues, I guess?
"Without snow basics, [Ice-Fang Coatl is] the best Simic card, and with snow basics, being able to organically get deathtouch later in the game (or even have it have deathtouch by casting it after turns 3 and 4) is absurd. Play this."
That's the review that most goes against the community consensus here--I don't think I heard anyone praise this at all, and certainly they didn't say it was better than Edric or Nissa. I'm pretty surprised; maybe I'll have to pick one up.
I'd also be interested to see in the coming months whether or not people sour as much on Urza, Lord High Artificer and Yawgmoth, Thran Physician as you have, since it seems like you're not going to even include them in your medium-sized cube.
For sure, all the arguments for the Talismans being good make sense to me. What I don't understand is, if they're so powerful, why don't they show up with any amount of frequency in powered lists? At least at the same rate as the signets?
Take a look at the average 360 list on CubeTutor. All 10 signets, not a single talisman. This holds true all the way up to 720.
Hell, look at your list. You're running all 10 signets but not a single talisman (according to CT). Same with the lists of wtwlf, rantipole, and all the other frequent cubers, as far as I can tell. If they're so close in value, you'd think you'd see the Talismans show up more often in a few lists, yeah?
I was just confused because it sounded like you were arguing that not placing it in a gold slot somehow reduced the playability of the cube in an absolute, rather than relative, sense. Thanks for the clarification!
Would you mind unpacking that for me? If the hybrid is a strict upgrade on a preexisting monocolored card like this one is, wouldn't that increase the amount of decks that can play the card without penalty and thus increase the overall playability of the cube?
Thanks again for all your hard work!
Probably something to do with the format. The previous iterations of these were a lot of fun because everyone posted only their top-10 or 20 cards or whatever, and we all got to see them in real time and have a dialogue about it here on the forum. Now everyone just posts in the sheet and doesn't say anything, and then that's that. Also, the fact that there's an additional layer of friction in working in google spreadsheets doesn't help with voter participation, either.
Just my 2c, I'm glad y'all are doing this nonetheless!