Yes, everyone got their gift (I have confirmation from everyone either in this thread or by PM). I hope you all had fun - thank you all for participating!
The question really becomes what type of Bant decks are is your group playing? Rafiq was good for us as a splash in GW beatdown decks, but our super Bant decks tended to be more combo-y and control. Out Bant decks were looking for ways to abuse blink effects and Crystal Shard, not a heavy hitter like Rafiq.
I used to run Bant Charm as the WUG representative (although in a non-balanced 3+ color section). Although unexciting, it proved to be solid and flexible enough to be main-decked a couple of times. The Hierarch is the better card, for sure, but if you're looking for a purely Bant card the Charm is your best bet, IMO.
Yes. Use cake flour/mix in addition to the usual pancake mix/flour. Alton Brown suggests going half-and-half. I think that's a little too cake-y. YMMV.
You should be able to find Alton Brown's pancake recipe via Google pretty easily.
This was more a case of "do you know someone American that has a cool homemade recipe?" than "let's #kiblergoogle". And this felt like the easiest way to achieve that goal, actually.
In any case, thanks for the suggestion, I'll let my wife know.
@Sparki, winterlude
Sometimes these things take time due to various reasons (customs, post offices, a slight delay in sending the gifts). Last year, for instance, I got my gift in March and Marcus got his in June (!). I will check with your Secret Santas to be sure everything is OK.
@6jerfz
No reason to say "sucks for you guys" - people are already sad and maybe a bit anxious they did not get their stuff yet, no need to aggravate that. And DEFINITELY no reason to assume the gifts got "lost" or the Santas are "lazy" - that's totally uncalled for, and I am not a fan of false accusations. People are human. I know who the Secret Santas are and I have no reason to suspect of any fowl play. Please avoid these type of statements in the future.
I don't like him her. I much prefer Feldon over him her.
I don'treally get the hype. He She must attack, and you have to pay mana of another color?? Seems like a trap.
Fixed that for you.
About the card itself - very solid inclusion, IMO. The thing about Red 3-drops is that most (if not all of them) are utility plays, and sometimes you just want to have a solid but general purpose creature to keep curving out. The fact that it's a human and easily splashable makes it that much better. And it still has another relevant ability! As someone who has been playing with Splatter Thug just to feel that role, I'm very happy we got yet another solid card from what is turning out to be the nightmare of cube owners' wallets an awesome set for Cubes everywhere.
If you wanted to add more fixing in a sense, would you go for 10 signets or 10 painlands?
10 painlands, and it's not close to being close.
EDIT
For further clarification, if your goal is only to improve the fixing, you definitely want the painlands. Untapped fixing is very important, particularly for aggro decks, and the pain lands are very good in that role. In my experience, the signets will be a boon for midrange/control decks (mostly blue-based ones, if I may add) and not really playable in the more aggressive decks.
Yeah I've been amazed by the generosity I've gotten from my Secret Santa recipients, both this time and from Christmas in July. My players really love all the new pimp I've been able to add recently, too. The bar's been set pretty high, so really hope my giftees have been as happy as I've been.
All this talk makes me wish I had sent more to my giftee, but I sent as much as I could afford at the time. (It was still close to the $20 range so I think its fine?) I may have to try and hunt down more pieces of their list. . .
You can attest from the previous posts that some participants decided to be generous in their gifts, but this does not mean in any way that everyone should feel "obligated" (yes, in quotes) to match that. Like the OP said, we have people from different backgrounds here, from students with a tight budget to people with a steady paycheck, and people give what they can. It's really the thought that counts.
I think that the 2nd ability is mostly just gravy and this will likely find a place in my Cube as a black card. This will also be the 2nd Orc in my Cube...
...after Mirror Entity. (come one, it is a lousy joke, but it needed to be said.)
I actually like it, this will almost certainly be main decked around here in all BW/BR aggressive decks. In those decks, it has very good stats as a gold card but with an easy casting cost. Might give it a test run to see how it performs.
Seems incredible. At very worse he she's a lifelinking bear which is pretty good, and then he she adds so much more value. The only downside is that I find the white weenie/aggro decks lack instants/sorceries if they're base-white, but if you only had a path or STP then this guy gal is still totally awesome. AND he she's another really good human, further making that tribe legit.
There, fixed that for you (but I agree with the points you made).
This card looks very very good to me. It was not that long ago that I had Knight of Meadowgrain in my Cube and this just blows it out of the water entirely. I even feel like this would still be in contention for a Cube slot if it didn't have the 3rd line of text, although that makes it very good in UW decks and even better than it already is in RW decks. Definitely an inclusion.
Adding a card (Karn Liberated) that costs 7 and can't be cheated into play with reanimation spells or Tinker is hard to justify at 360, because there are enough colorless threats that can be cheated.
I know Goodking cut Karn for Aether Searcher when it came out precisely for that reason. While Karn is one of my favorite all-time cards I can certainly see the reasoning behind that swap.
As for Ugin, I think it will be a great Cube card. The obvious cut (for me) would be All Is Dust but I can see some merit on cutting something like Oblivion Stone. Just don't cut Karn for it - this is one of those cases where I think it pays off to cut an orange for an apple (using Antknee's terminology).
In any case, thanks for the suggestion, I'll let my wife know.
(It can't get much more offtopic than this
Sometimes these things take time due to various reasons (customs, post offices, a slight delay in sending the gifts). Last year, for instance, I got my gift in March and Marcus got his in June (!). I will check with your Secret Santas to be sure everything is OK.
@6jerfz
No reason to say "sucks for you guys" - people are already sad and maybe a bit anxious they did not get their stuff yet, no need to aggravate that. And DEFINITELY no reason to assume the gifts got "lost" or the Santas are "lazy" - that's totally uncalled for, and I am not a fan of false accusations. People are human. I know who the Secret Santas are and I have no reason to suspect of any fowl play. Please avoid these type of statements in the future.
About the card itself - very solid inclusion, IMO. The thing about Red 3-drops is that most (if not all of them) are utility plays, and sometimes you just want to have a solid but general purpose creature to keep curving out. The fact that it's a human and easily splashable makes it that much better. And it still has another relevant ability! As someone who has been playing with Splatter Thug just to feel that role, I'm very happy we got yet another solid card from what is turning out to be
the nightmare of cube owners' walletsan awesome set for Cubes everywhere.EDIT
For further clarification, if your goal is only to improve the fixing, you definitely want the painlands. Untapped fixing is very important, particularly for aggro decks, and the pain lands are very good in that role. In my experience, the signets will be a boon for midrange/control decks (mostly blue-based ones, if I may add) and not really playable in the more aggressive decks.
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This card looks very very good to me. It was not that long ago that I had Knight of Meadowgrain in my Cube and this just blows it out of the water entirely. I even feel like this would still be in contention for a Cube slot if it didn't have the 3rd line of text, although that makes it very good in UW decks and even better than it already is in RW decks. Definitely an inclusion.
As for Ugin, I think it will be a great Cube card. The obvious cut (for me) would be All Is Dust but I can see some merit on cutting something like Oblivion Stone. Just don't cut Karn for it - this is one of those cases where I think it pays off to cut an orange for an apple (using Antknee's terminology).