I've seen the X-0s play it out and the loser drops to like third place. It might not be guaranteed, but it can certainly happen.
Oh, I agree it can certainly happen, but the most common by far result is that the 2nd X-0 will just be second. My point wasn't to say that it was impossible, just that for all the energy people waste hating on ID's it's like a tiny percentage chance that in any given tournament it will fundamentally alter their results.
People seem to take issue with being X-1 and being locked out of second when the X-0s ID (or similar such situations, depending on event size and the like), is what I imagine to be it. It's like how people would rage at the thought of someone opening the rare and valuable Goyf + foil Goyf pack in Modern Masters draft and dropping with it—they hate the thought of being the one next to that person and not having that person be forced to pass value to them. It all seems to stem from a sense of entitlement not to get "cheated" out of something they could possibly have had.
Do these people fail to realize that the guy who played the eventual champion would almost certainly have better breakers than them? Like 95% of the time? People are so irrational.
Why does anyone care about ID'ing? If no one's being scummy and tricking someone else, and both players benefit from ID's, let them both do it. It doesn't hurt the store or other players in any way.
// On higher levels with an actual Top8 and proper prices that are worth "fighting for" , the ID is well known and its a legit and accepted way to go. Nobody "really" blames anyone, they actual blame you if you DONT ID, dreamcrushers are a evil breed
I thought dream crushing was when people with no chance to make top 8 didn't scoop to someone who was win-and-in (although I hate that term and think you should have to actually win to get your win-and-in, but that's neither here nor there), not people who actively hurt their own lockf or the top 8 by refusing to ID when it's in their best interest. I thought we just called those people "stupid."
Ahhh, remember when they had erratad the efreet so you couldn't do that? Glad they reverted the change. If you can stuck your 3 mana 2/1 and 4 mana do nothing enchantment you deserve to win.
I think these are significant. I mainly protest when the card, on its own, seems like it should do something and then doesn't. For example, Whippoorwill doesn't fly.
Whippoorwill is a bizarre card for lots of flavor reasons. Why in gods name is that ability green and on a small bird that exists in the real world? Is there something about whippoorwills what I never learned that would make this ability make sense? It should be on a ghost, or a magic user, or something, not some random woodland creature.
They want Auras to be a thing. Conventional thinking will just have to adjust if they keep pushing that.
Except that Auras still won't be a thing.
Did you miss all of Theros?
Did you miss that the reason that auras were good in theros, heroic and bestow, both serve to counteract what is generally the biggest problem - getting 2-for-1'ed?
Making the +1 last until your next turn would be far too powerful. There needs to be some downside to a 3/3 first striker for 2 that's also a walker. I think we can sacrifice a little elegance to control the power level, which is already probably too high.
Under the influence of type changing cards maybe? An enchant artifact with mycosynth lattice in play? Add March of the Machines and without that rule, Rancor could rancor itself.
Could it though? It couldn't from hand, because it would still need a target in play. Maybe with aura finesse or aura graft?
Edit - Not with aura graft as it specifies another permanent, so maybe you could do it with finesse?
Yeah, while this guy is going to be fantastic in normal limited, just not enough going for it to make it in normal, small cubes. The color intensive cost and super fragile body just kills it, along with how many other amazing 3-drops white has.
Why have I not thought of this or seen this in action?!
Well, it did hit dorks fairly often, and it's also not great if you get a hornet queen or grave titan in play and essentially give your opponent a free creature every turn for the rest of the game, but it seemed to be a pretty good alternate plan and way to deal with aggro. I also killed it with woodfall primus in one game to stop my opponent getting a trigger.
I play in Flutter's playgroup and we played your cube a couple weeks ago. I think we all had a blast, although I'm not sure if I'd want to draft such a crazy cube weekly =P
General thoughts - I think you succeeded really well in making a combo cube. Almost every deck drafted had a comboey way to win, although since we were only drafting with 5 the attempted storm deck didn't come together as well as it could have. That being said, the "fair" decks that got drafted also seemed competitive which is nice to see. I admit I was a little worried that the cube would really only be able to make combo decks, but the second place deck was a 3-color aggro control with some powerful interactions (bloodghast, carrion feeder, and fetch lands, double stroke on path to exile) and powerful fair cards like jitte. He did also have key/vault, but I don't know if he ever won that way.
My biggest concern, and again this may be because we didn't see the whole cube, was the lack of GY hate. I drafted the straight nuts BG reanimator deck with bazaar of baghdad, reanimate, necromancy, recurring nightmare, various mana dorks, and survival and once I got guys in the yard other decks had no way to get rid of them or really interrupt my plan in any meaningful way short of counterspells (I was also running oath of druids). My reanimation targets were terrastadon, primus, grave titan, sundering titan, and hornet queen so removal just didn't do much against me either. Granted, this was a limited sample size, but just in our experience reanimator seemed really hard to deal with.
P.S. - muzzio's preperations with woodfall primus is pretty hilarious, especially with recurring nightmare. Those are the kind of cube interactions I love to see and play with.
P.P.S. - Oath of druidsing into hornet queen to stabilize at 5 life is a good feeling.
Ok at killing you really fast. In a 4 person game you are taking 4 damage every round, and you better believe that with drawing 5 cards a round you are going to be a big target.
The fact that both the token and the card itself grow rather than checking number of forests 1 time is definitely a plus, although you will still occasionally end up with 2 3/3's in 2 color decks. That said, you still end up with 2 non-evasive creatures that can be chumped till the end of time and one of them has all the inherent weaknesses of tokens. I am leaning towards not playable in small cubes because 6 drops need to be super impactful there and this guy is horrendous to cheat into play, but he does pass the vindicate test fairly well so I wouldn't be surprised if some cubes find a place for him.
I'm not sure it's that much better than dungrove elder though.
Oh, I agree it can certainly happen, but the most common by far result is that the 2nd X-0 will just be second. My point wasn't to say that it was impossible, just that for all the energy people waste hating on ID's it's like a tiny percentage chance that in any given tournament it will fundamentally alter their results.
Do these people fail to realize that the guy who played the eventual champion would almost certainly have better breakers than them? Like 95% of the time? People are so irrational.
I thought dream crushing was when people with no chance to make top 8 didn't scoop to someone who was win-and-in (although I hate that term and think you should have to actually win to get your win-and-in, but that's neither here nor there), not people who actively hurt their own lockf or the top 8 by refusing to ID when it's in their best interest. I thought we just called those people "stupid."
Ahhh, remember when they had erratad the efreet so you couldn't do that? Glad they reverted the change. If you can stuck your 3 mana 2/1 and 4 mana do nothing enchantment you deserve to win.
Any card becoming boomerang as a + ability on a 2 mana PW is absurdly good. That + would need to be something else
The green guys 0 is not land grant. Did you mean crop rotation?
Whippoorwill is a bizarre card for lots of flavor reasons. Why in gods name is that ability green and on a small bird that exists in the real world? Is there something about whippoorwills what I never learned that would make this ability make sense? It should be on a ghost, or a magic user, or something, not some random woodland creature.
Did you miss that the reason that auras were good in theros, heroic and bestow, both serve to counteract what is generally the biggest problem - getting 2-for-1'ed?
Could it though? It couldn't from hand, because it would still need a target in play. Maybe with aura finesse or aura graft?
Edit - Not with aura graft as it specifies another permanent, so maybe you could do it with finesse?
Well, it did hit dorks fairly often, and it's also not great if you get a hornet queen or grave titan in play and essentially give your opponent a free creature every turn for the rest of the game, but it seemed to be a pretty good alternate plan and way to deal with aggro. I also killed it with woodfall primus in one game to stop my opponent getting a trigger.
General thoughts - I think you succeeded really well in making a combo cube. Almost every deck drafted had a comboey way to win, although since we were only drafting with 5 the attempted storm deck didn't come together as well as it could have. That being said, the "fair" decks that got drafted also seemed competitive which is nice to see. I admit I was a little worried that the cube would really only be able to make combo decks, but the second place deck was a 3-color aggro control with some powerful interactions (bloodghast, carrion feeder, and fetch lands, double stroke on path to exile) and powerful fair cards like jitte. He did also have key/vault, but I don't know if he ever won that way.
My biggest concern, and again this may be because we didn't see the whole cube, was the lack of GY hate. I drafted the straight nuts BG reanimator deck with bazaar of baghdad, reanimate, necromancy, recurring nightmare, various mana dorks, and survival and once I got guys in the yard other decks had no way to get rid of them or really interrupt my plan in any meaningful way short of counterspells (I was also running oath of druids). My reanimation targets were terrastadon, primus, grave titan, sundering titan, and hornet queen so removal just didn't do much against me either. Granted, this was a limited sample size, but just in our experience reanimator seemed really hard to deal with.
P.S. - muzzio's preperations with woodfall primus is pretty hilarious, especially with recurring nightmare. Those are the kind of cube interactions I love to see and play with.
P.P.S. - Oath of druidsing into hornet queen to stabilize at 5 life is a good feeling.
Ok at killing you really fast. In a 4 person game you are taking 4 damage every round, and you better believe that with drawing 5 cards a round you are going to be a big target.
I agree that the interactions with wildfire and earthquake are cool though.
I'm not sure it's that much better than dungrove elder though.