My favourite bit of the story so far was when Ajani was very sus (haha) and he vented then Karn said that Ajani sus and he saw him killing Jaya but he got himself ejected instead, certified hood classic.
...God, that was physically painful to read. I don't know why nobody's talking about the author deliberately doing in your face Among Us references every two paragraphs with Jodah even name dropping it.
Why yes, of course I believe they "found" cardboard boxes from almost 30 years ago in perfect condition that no one happened to know about until now and from which they "casually" didn't happen to open a single one of themostpolemiccards in the set or moneycardsnot in the reserved list they can freely print without putting a show on, how did you know?
Also that Omnath is fugly, I don't know what but something about it looks wrong.
Damn, is he the last uncommon Blue partner? I was hoping for some useful Artifact commander to pair with Armix, Filigree Thrasher in PDH. This is too expensive, could've used a 3/4 for 3U...
- Daybreak Charger -> Daring Skyjek: Skyjek can't gain flying until turn 4 at the very least and it dies to a stiff breeze, and can also be easily sabotaged by controlling your other creatures. The body on Charger is the same, but at least allows your 1-drops to hit harder early and can push through the final points of damage late.
- Rambunctious Mutt -> Supply-Line Cranes: I'll finally try this one over Valorous Steed and see how it goes, since it's basically a White version of Wickerbough Elder.
- Spined Megalodon -> Cold-Water Snapper: A really solid upgrade for just one more pip. My only fear with this is that even in control the difference between 6 and 7 is too big, but testing will prove if it's doable or not.
- Hobblefiend -> Underworld Rage-Hound: Rage Hound is a pretty decent card overall and it's really easy to bring back when you're going low on gas, but Hobblefiend is another good sac outlet in Red, which are reaching critical mass already. It also adds to the trample count for Ram Through, which isn't necessary, but it's cute.
- Llanowar Visionary -> Phantom Tiger: Easy autoinclude, and Tiger is probably the worst of my current Green 3s.
Cards I'm also interested in adding once I find out what to cut for them:
- Valorous Steed: 5/5 worth of stats across two bodies with Vigilance for 5 is pretty chunky for white's top end, and for midrange decks trying to stabilize. It's also a target for the UW blink archetype.
- Roaming Ghostlight: I've ran Aven Surveyor in the past, and curving Man-o-Wars is a fairly powerful strategy. I might cut Cloudreader Sphinx, but it's big butt, easier casting cost and Scry 2 is making it hard for me to justify the cut.
- Village Rites: Pretty solid card with a good rate, holding 1 mana up to counter removal, cashing in pacified creatures, or simply sacrificing a token or outclassed creature at the end of the opponent's turn makes this a very attractive option.
- Crypt Lurker: Decent stats for Black, but my Black 4 is pretty stacked atm. Nevertheless, cashing pacified or outclassed creatures, or simply discarding irrelevant ones or creatures that want to be in the graveyard and drawing a card is a good interaction, so I'm likely to include this once I can make room for it.
- Drowsing Tyrannodon: Even if Green's 2 don't matter that much, the fact that it's a huge speedbump on turn 2 and has a good rate after that is too good to pass. It also enables itself with something like Rancor or Trusted Forcemage.
Steed looks super beefy and is a White 5 drop, which are a bit lacking. 5 Vigilance power across two bodies is pretty good, and it's a good blink target as well. Dog should've costed 1 less to be really good, but I don't think it quite makes the cut at 5.
Garruk, Unleashed 2GG
+1 Up to one target creature gets +3/+3 and gains trample until EOT.
-2 Create a 3/3 Green Beast token. Then, if an opponent controls more creatures than you, put a loyalty counter on Garruk, Unleashed.
-7 You get an emblem with "At the beginning of your end step, you may search your library for a creature card, put it onto the battlefield, then shuffle your library".
"Dozing Tyrannosaurus" 1G
Creature - Dinosaur
Defender
As long as you control a creature with power 4 or greater, Dozing Tyrannosaur can attack as though it didn't have defender.
3/3
Seems like a pretty easy autoinclude, 3/3 for 2 is beefy and the drawback is negligible in Green.
What are your thoughts on these? I tend to favor Dead Weight in the 1 CMC slot since it can permanently shrink a bigger critter and has enchantment synergy, but Last Gasp seems the better card in the 2 CMC section due to its instant speed.
Iunno, cubecobra sometimes gives me "Undefined" error when I try to edit a card's CMC, type or color and can only fix it by refreshing the page. I'm giving it the benefit of doubt since it's a relatively new open source project, so it should get better as time passes. You've sold me on Fledgling Djinn vs Gluttonous Slug with the Pacifism argument for the time being, although Djinn will always be the better topdeck when you need to keep up the pressure or sneak in the last points of damage
On the new cards, finally made some cuts:
- Faceless Butcher -> Bushmeat Poacher: Not a cut I'm happy making, and I'll try to find something to cut to get Butcher back in, but this will have to do for now.
- Makeshift Mauler -> Dreamtail Heron: I've moved the graveyard theme away from UB to GB, and a 3/4 flier is better than a 4/5 ground attacker most of the time. It's Mutate trigger also negates the ability's card disadvantage by replacing whatever irrelevant creature you just mutated into.
- Attended Knight -> Vulpikeet: I hate cutting the ever-diminishing White blink targets, but Knight's rate is a bit poor and is also a Human, which Vulpikeet doesn't like. It's also the worst of my current White threes, where you would always play it if you got it, but you wouldn't actively go hunting for it.
- Martyr of Ashes -> Lava Serpent: Strictly better Tenement Crasher, which I've seen some people run and is classified as Cubeable. Great top end for midrange Red decks that can also cycle for value early game. Martyr is just a provisional cut, but since it's super clunky late game and Red has tons of divisible burn for board control in the midrange/control red decks, I don't see it as a big loss.
Furthermore, although Ram Through's Trample rider is certainly cherry on top and not the main attraction of the card, it has made me reconsider some Trample dudes that are always in and out of my cube:
- Goblin War Party -> Ill-Tempered Cyclops: War Party was a cog for both RW tokens and RB sac, but it's overcosted in both modes and the Entwine mode basically never happened. I believe Cyclops was the card I cut for it back in the day, and it's an overall solid creature at base rate and a good mana sink later, so back into the cube he goes.
- Entourage of Trest -> Tajuru Pathwarden: Losing one of the almost non-existent Green card advantage engines hurts, but a 4/4 for 5 is not where I want to be, and there's always the possibility of a Flier or Shadow creature stealing the crown from you. Pathwarden is an overall solid creature being able to play both offense and defense at the same time, which is where Green wants to be IMO.
I'm still on the fence about Cavern Whisperer. My Black fours are stacked and I'm already trying to bring Faceless Butcher back in, and Mutate seems like it could play clunky and open you up to 2-for-1s, but discarding a card and being a beefy evasion dude could make up for it. What are your thoughts on this one?
On a different note, I still think Spelleater Wolverine is worth a look. A 3/2 for 3 as base rate isn't terrible, and double strike is both really powerful and a rare ocurrence at common rarity. You don't even have to jump through hoops, all it asks of you is that you play a regular game of Magic (and for you to not Delve your spells away I suppose).
Overall I feel this set has been pretty decent for us, lots of great solid cards all around. The power level seems to be higher than the previous Standard set.
I don't run Dross Golem (nor any of the golems for that matter), and Underworld Charger is a recent addition which I haven't been able to test properly due to corona, so there's that. Might cut Fledgling Djinn instead to give Slug another chance, but a flat 2/2 flyer for 2 seems too good IMO.
UR spells has a lot of incidental things you could be running already that are strong on their own like Ingenious Skaab, Thermo-Alchemist, Burning Prophet and Salvager of Secrets. In fact the only concessions I've made for the archetype are Flurry of Horns as a way to cheat the Instant/Sorcery count while still playing creatures, and Spellgorger Weird as an ever-growing payoff and finisher.
Also finally made the switch with cubecobra. I don't know how you guys like it, it's so buggy and unintuitive I almost gave up. The only upside it has over cubetutor is that since the site is using scryfall's database, the new sets are updated immediately.
These are the changes I'm doing, effective immediately:
- Boot Nipper -> Gluttonous Slug: Slug looked good enough, but it has performed slow in my testing with it. It's also difficult to grow it larger than a 2/5 in an aggro deck, which is precisely the kind of deck that wants it in the first place.
- Springbloom Druid -> Excavation Mole: I wanted to beef up my 3 CMC section and was looking at Nessian Courser et all, but felt to vanilla. Mole is a trampling courser that also happens to have GY synergy, which is GB's archetype.
- Ram Through -> Ambuscade: 1 CMC cheaper would be enough to trump Ambuscade's +1/+0, but the fact that it also makes the leftover damage pass through if the creature has Trample is just gravy.
- Greater Sandwurm -> Honey Mammoth: Sandwurm is a flexible Ramp target due to it's cycling, and has solid evasion, but I've wanted a lifegain fatty for so long I'm going to test Mammoth for a while. It's also 1 cheaper, and the difference between 6 and 7 CMC is huge even in ramp decks.
Sudden Spinnerets and Heightened Reflexes look like great combat tricks. They cost 1, which is the basis for them being playable, but they also leave a permanent keyword on their target. Spelleater Wolverine also looks pretty strong for the UR spells deck, which should be an archetype in everyone's cube by now even if you weren't forcing archetypes. Lava Serpent is an interesting Red fatty, which is something we lack. A 5/5 haste for 6 is fine, and it also has the added flexibility of Cycling. Reminds me of the longtime staple Chartooth Cougar. Ferocious Tigorilla and Forbidden Friendship look interesting, but probably don't make the cut.
I loved the UG snow archetype in Modern Horizons (the only one I liked more was UB Ninjas) and have been debating ever since to add it to my peasant cube as my UG pair is a bit directionless at the moment, but the problem was that I needed snow support. So since money isn't a problem for me I've been going back and forth between swapping all basics for Snow or seeding snow-covered islands and forests in one of each 3-4 packs, and was ultimately deciding in favor of the latter since Snow cards are powerful and their suppossed downside is that you have to draft snow basics to make them worth it as oppossed to them being free full value spells. Since Saltmaster has decided to default everything to Snow instead of making people earn their synergies, I guess I can confirm that seeding basics was the good idea.
Why are people so hyped up about Audacious Thief? Stealer of Secrets was never anything more than Borderline, and while this doesn't have to connect, it's still a 2/2 for 3 in a world full of efficient removal at 1 and 2 CMC. The only straight up Staples I see are Cloudkin Seer and Silverback Shaman, and maybe Winged Words. I wanna low-key try Boneclad Necromancer though, since a floor case of 5/5 worth of stats spread across two bodies isn't that bad, and it can disrupt Flashback cards and incidental graveyard synergies in my cube.
Boneclad Necromancer's floor case is a 3/3 vanilla for 5. So that's an absolutely abysmal floor case paired with a ceiling that's just on par for a 5 drop in black. It's unplayable.
I kinda agree with you on Thief though. Even when it was spoiled I for some reason thought it would play out worse than it looks, and after playing with it on Arena it has been pretty disappointing indeed. On the surface it looks like the best of both worlds between Phyrexian Rager and Stealer of Secrets, but in practise it's pretty similar to Stealer and worse than Rager. It suffers from the same insurmountable problem that all of those Scroll Thief variants have: they're only good when your opponent can't deal with a mediocre body hitting them every turn on turn 4 or later. Whenever that happens, you were probably winning the game no matter what. However, when the game is close and your opponent is able to stop a vanilla 2/2 from attacking them, which in practise should be in over 80% of games, they are literally Grey Ogres and a full card down on Phyrexian Rager. All Thief had going for it over Stealer is that you can basically cycle it away from play by suiciding it. That's not nothing, and if your opponent actually had to trade for it it's actually good, but still not better than Rager. I'm still suspecting Rager's average will be higher than his.
Ah, you're right on Necromancer. I thought it exiled any card which could also mean nabbing Flashback things, but now I see why it hasn't been discussed much.
Also that Omnath is fugly, I don't know what but something about it looks wrong.
- Daybreak Charger -> Daring Skyjek: Skyjek can't gain flying until turn 4 at the very least and it dies to a stiff breeze, and can also be easily sabotaged by controlling your other creatures. The body on Charger is the same, but at least allows your 1-drops to hit harder early and can push through the final points of damage late.
- Rambunctious Mutt -> Supply-Line Cranes: I'll finally try this one over Valorous Steed and see how it goes, since it's basically a White version of Wickerbough Elder.
- Spined Megalodon -> Cold-Water Snapper: A really solid upgrade for just one more pip. My only fear with this is that even in control the difference between 6 and 7 is too big, but testing will prove if it's doable or not.
- Hobblefiend -> Underworld Rage-Hound: Rage Hound is a pretty decent card overall and it's really easy to bring back when you're going low on gas, but Hobblefiend is another good sac outlet in Red, which are reaching critical mass already. It also adds to the trample count for Ram Through, which isn't necessary, but it's cute.
- Llanowar Visionary -> Phantom Tiger: Easy autoinclude, and Tiger is probably the worst of my current Green 3s.
Cards I'm also interested in adding once I find out what to cut for them:
- Valorous Steed: 5/5 worth of stats across two bodies with Vigilance for 5 is pretty chunky for white's top end, and for midrange decks trying to stabilize. It's also a target for the UW blink archetype.
- Roaming Ghostlight: I've ran Aven Surveyor in the past, and curving Man-o-Wars is a fairly powerful strategy. I might cut Cloudreader Sphinx, but it's big butt, easier casting cost and Scry 2 is making it hard for me to justify the cut.
- Village Rites: Pretty solid card with a good rate, holding 1 mana up to counter removal, cashing in pacified creatures, or simply sacrificing a token or outclassed creature at the end of the opponent's turn makes this a very attractive option.
- Crypt Lurker: Decent stats for Black, but my Black 4 is pretty stacked atm. Nevertheless, cashing pacified or outclassed creatures, or simply discarding irrelevant ones or creatures that want to be in the graveyard and drawing a card is a good interaction, so I'm likely to include this once I can make room for it.
- Drowsing Tyrannodon: Even if Green's 2 don't matter that much, the fact that it's a huge speedbump on turn 2 and has a good rate after that is too good to pass. It also enables itself with something like Rancor or Trusted Forcemage.
+1 Up to one target creature gets +3/+3 and gains trample until EOT.
-2 Create a 3/3 Green Beast token. Then, if an opponent controls more creatures than you, put a loyalty counter on Garruk, Unleashed.
-7 You get an emblem with "At the beginning of your end step, you may search your library for a creature card, put it onto the battlefield, then shuffle your library".
"Dozing Tyrannosaurus" 1G
Creature - Dinosaur
Defender
As long as you control a creature with power 4 or greater, Dozing Tyrannosaur can attack as though it didn't have defender.
3/3
Seems like a pretty easy autoinclude, 3/3 for 2 is beefy and the drawback is negligible in Green.
- Mire's Grasp vs Last Gasp
What are your thoughts on these? I tend to favor Dead Weight in the 1 CMC slot since it can permanently shrink a bigger critter and has enchantment synergy, but Last Gasp seems the better card in the 2 CMC section due to its instant speed.
On the new cards, finally made some cuts:
- Faceless Butcher -> Bushmeat Poacher: Not a cut I'm happy making, and I'll try to find something to cut to get Butcher back in, but this will have to do for now.
- Makeshift Mauler -> Dreamtail Heron: I've moved the graveyard theme away from UB to GB, and a 3/4 flier is better than a 4/5 ground attacker most of the time. It's Mutate trigger also negates the ability's card disadvantage by replacing whatever irrelevant creature you just mutated into.
- Attended Knight -> Vulpikeet: I hate cutting the ever-diminishing White blink targets, but Knight's rate is a bit poor and is also a Human, which Vulpikeet doesn't like. It's also the worst of my current White threes, where you would always play it if you got it, but you wouldn't actively go hunting for it.
- Martyr of Ashes -> Lava Serpent: Strictly better Tenement Crasher, which I've seen some people run and is classified as Cubeable. Great top end for midrange Red decks that can also cycle for value early game. Martyr is just a provisional cut, but since it's super clunky late game and Red has tons of divisible burn for board control in the midrange/control red decks, I don't see it as a big loss.
Furthermore, although Ram Through's Trample rider is certainly cherry on top and not the main attraction of the card, it has made me reconsider some Trample dudes that are always in and out of my cube:
- Goblin War Party -> Ill-Tempered Cyclops: War Party was a cog for both RW tokens and RB sac, but it's overcosted in both modes and the Entwine mode basically never happened. I believe Cyclops was the card I cut for it back in the day, and it's an overall solid creature at base rate and a good mana sink later, so back into the cube he goes.
- Entourage of Trest -> Tajuru Pathwarden: Losing one of the almost non-existent Green card advantage engines hurts, but a 4/4 for 5 is not where I want to be, and there's always the possibility of a Flier or Shadow creature stealing the crown from you. Pathwarden is an overall solid creature being able to play both offense and defense at the same time, which is where Green wants to be IMO.
Mosscoat Goriak is the last card from the set that I want to add but I don't find a cut for. Heightened Reflexes and Sudden Spinnerets also look super promising.
I'm still on the fence about Cavern Whisperer. My Black fours are stacked and I'm already trying to bring Faceless Butcher back in, and Mutate seems like it could play clunky and open you up to 2-for-1s, but discarding a card and being a beefy evasion dude could make up for it. What are your thoughts on this one?
On a different note, I still think Spelleater Wolverine is worth a look. A 3/2 for 3 as base rate isn't terrible, and double strike is both really powerful and a rare ocurrence at common rarity. You don't even have to jump through hoops, all it asks of you is that you play a regular game of Magic (and for you to not Delve your spells away I suppose).
Overall I feel this set has been pretty decent for us, lots of great solid cards all around. The power level seems to be higher than the previous Standard set.
UR spells has a lot of incidental things you could be running already that are strong on their own like Ingenious Skaab, Thermo-Alchemist, Burning Prophet and Salvager of Secrets. In fact the only concessions I've made for the archetype are Flurry of Horns as a way to cheat the Instant/Sorcery count while still playing creatures, and Spellgorger Weird as an ever-growing payoff and finisher.
Also finally made the switch with cubecobra. I don't know how you guys like it, it's so buggy and unintuitive I almost gave up. The only upside it has over cubetutor is that since the site is using scryfall's database, the new sets are updated immediately.
- Boot Nipper -> Gluttonous Slug: Slug looked good enough, but it has performed slow in my testing with it. It's also difficult to grow it larger than a 2/5 in an aggro deck, which is precisely the kind of deck that wants it in the first place.
- Springbloom Druid -> Excavation Mole: I wanted to beef up my 3 CMC section and was looking at Nessian Courser et all, but felt to vanilla. Mole is a trampling courser that also happens to have GY synergy, which is GB's archetype.
- Ram Through -> Ambuscade: 1 CMC cheaper would be enough to trump Ambuscade's +1/+0, but the fact that it also makes the leftover damage pass through if the creature has Trample is just gravy.
- Greater Sandwurm -> Honey Mammoth: Sandwurm is a flexible Ramp target due to it's cycling, and has solid evasion, but I've wanted a lifegain fatty for so long I'm going to test Mammoth for a while. It's also 1 cheaper, and the difference between 6 and 7 CMC is huge even in ramp decks.
I'm also including Mosscoat Goriak, Bushmeat Poacher, Vulpikeet, Dreamtail Heron and Migratory Greathorn for sure, just don't know what to cut for them at the moment. Greathorn is probably cutting Tishana's Wayfinder, but what little selection Wayfinder has is premium for green so not sure yet.
Sudden Spinnerets and Heightened Reflexes look like great combat tricks. They cost 1, which is the basis for them being playable, but they also leave a permanent keyword on their target. Spelleater Wolverine also looks pretty strong for the UR spells deck, which should be an archetype in everyone's cube by now even if you weren't forcing archetypes. Lava Serpent is an interesting Red fatty, which is something we lack. A 5/5 haste for 6 is fine, and it also has the added flexibility of Cycling. Reminds me of the longtime staple Chartooth Cougar. Ferocious Tigorilla and Forbidden Friendship look interesting, but probably don't make the cut.
Ah, you're right on Necromancer. I thought it exiled any card which could also mean nabbing Flashback things, but now I see why it hasn't been discussed much.