Was so impressed by torrential gear hulk's performance in the recent pro tour, that I decided to give it a test run in cube... Paired up the test with wretched confluence (a high powered instant I never got around to properly testing)
Today was the first day it got played in my cube and it overperformed. Think I was on the positive side of variance, as it ended up getting played in two decks that were perfect for it.. But I was impressed. I'll post the analysis at a later date, but wanted to share the highlight of the night, made possible by the gearhulk.
Grixis Reanimator vs Jeskai Artifact ramp/Planeswalkers
Board state:
Jeskai Control had an Ugin on 8, Elspeth sun's champion on 6, Ajani Vengeant on 4 , Jace Architecht of Thought on 5 and 6 soldier tokens
Grixis Reanimator had nothing in play
Play sequence:
End of Jeskai's turn, Grixis reanimator cast makeshift mannequin, targeting inferno titan, killing 3 untapped soldiers.
Next turn, attack with inferno titan, killing Elspeth and the remaining soldiers.
Next turn, Ugin +2 target inferno titan (killing it), +1 Ajani, -2 Jace (hitting an oblvion ring)
End of jeskai's turn, cast Torrential gearhulk targeting makeshift mannequin, makeshift mannequin targeting inferno titan. Inferno titan kills Jace with ETB 3 damage
Next turn, Torrential gearhulk attacks/kills Ajani, Inferno titan attacks and kills Ugin.
Summary:
In 2.5 turns and two cards cast, the board went from
Ugin + Elspeth + 6 tokens + Ajani + Jace for one player
to
Torrential Gearhulk + Inferno titan (with a mannequin coutner) for the other player.
Instant speed for the win
Snapcaster can do most of that while costing less.
Worldknit decks have not lost any matches so far in my group. Its also really fun to play with a bunch of cards that dont seem to fit together some times. Two people in my group will always pick it really early.
While I do enjoy Chirdaki's interesting take on a lot of different cards, I tend to disagree with a lot of what he says, especially in this article. I would rank it at the #4 slot for Golgari as well behind the three obvious removal spells. You shouldn't focus so much on how the card performed in constructed and try to compare that to cube. It will never consistently activate all of its abilities like it can in constructed. As wtwlf pointed out, though, it's maindeckable graveyard hate, and not just Relic of Progenitus type hate. You get something useful each time you activate him. It's actually pretty surprising how valuable a card like Deathrite Shaman can be in almost every single match up.
The reddit cube forum has a lot of weird opinions that run counter to what we usually hear here.
Wildfire decks dont really care about lands after resolving the spell.
Sure they do!
There are two main ways to win after casting Wildfire:
(A) Kill your opponent quickly with a threat that you deployed before casting Wildfire before they can rebuild.
(B) Rebuild faster than your opponent after casting Wildfire and kill them with new threats while they are still struggling.
From many years of experience, (A) happens roughly 1/3 of the time, while (B) happens at least 2/3 of the time. And Stunning Growth really helps with the latter.
You should have a threat or two on board after the wildfire and lands wouldn't matter. If you need to hit a string of lands after a wildfire, it just means you were really behind to begin with.
Snapcaster can do most of that while costing less.
The reddit cube forum has a lot of weird opinions that run counter to what we usually hear here.
You should have a threat or two on board after the wildfire and lands wouldn't matter. If you need to hit a string of lands after a wildfire, it just means you were really behind to begin with.