I want better Red 2/1s for one. I also want more interactivity with some of the more broken
"i win" combos in cube.
Search hater -R
Legendary Creature - Goblin
Whenever an opponent would search his or her library for a card, he reveals that many random cards instead.
2/1
Bonky, the Bonker - R
Legendary creature - Ape Shaman
13R, Sacrifice Bonky, deal 13 damage to target creature. This ability costs X less where X is the targets converted mana cost.
I feel like I mostly agree with this list. However I'm a lot lower on Kazandu mammoth then a lot of people are. It reminds me a lot of Deadbridge Goliath a 5/5 with an alternative mode that could be big value, but I just don't think its enough in either case. I'd say I'm higher on bala ged recovery though as that specific effect can be so dead in some cases that even a tapped land is a HUGE upside.
A vast majority of creatures are 3 or less mana, this could be pretty good. I might test this. I think it might be one of those cards that plays better than it looks, or it could be hot garbage.
I agree, but i don't think that means its impossible. Ajani Goldmane was pretty good in cube for a long time. I think a super pushed pw that needs outside help could be fine. domri, anarch of bolas had a lot of people thinking about including it recently.
As an aside, I want more AGGRO planeswalkers. I really feel like Sarkhan vol is the only PW that fits into aggro, that won't just get grabbed by a durdly superfriends deck.
I played a cube draft last night, where the combo decks just happened to get amazing opening hands, and had several turn 2 or 3 wins based on opening hands. Meanwhile, I had a subpar lutri, the spellchaser deck, and played her several times as a 3/2 flash vanilla creature, to apply pressure or kill a problematic planeswalker. Which honestly didn't feel fair, but definitely felt like magic... I understand what some companions have done to magic in other formats, but I'm really not feeling like they are all too broken in cube. Jegantha, the wellspring , umori, the collector and lutri, the spellchaser have all been at an OK power level in our two in-person drafts. Gyruda has been maindecked twice, and been reanimated pulling out a turn wurmcoil engine as well in his most "broken play". Yorion still hasn't seen play, so i can't say, and i dont own the other 5 yet, so I can't say how they will do, but i can't imagine the hippo to be unfair in a format with turn 2 reanimated blightsteel collosus, and splintertwin combos...
Yes, the companion ability is destroying a lot of magic formats right now, but I still feel like in cube the deckbuilding restrictionsare impactful + average power level is high enough that they aren't just unsalvageable. In 400 powered, individual cards feel like bombs, while others feel like 8-15th picks. A pack 3 gyruda, or yorion might be a hard sell.
Every regularly cubed conspiracy is stronger than companion. I run power play and sentinel dispatch. One drafter remarked, "the strongest companion at the table today is my 1/1 artifact defender"
As for other ikoria cards, Vivien, monster's advocate still seems like a strong, but not broken tool in green midrange decks.
I can't afford, and would be surprised if many could afford getting foil extended arts for every card they wanted to try out. Mothra is a favorite of one of my drafters, so I might trade for that if someone has it, but the premium cost is way too much for these cards to buy. That being said, Gemrazer has a beautiful comic art, and his godzilla version art is hideous. I did get a gyruda, doom of depths as gigan, cyberclaw terror just by chance, and its pretty cool.
Also got a foil extended vivien, monster's advocate and it looks great, convinced me to test it over garruk relentless.
On the previous conversations, AMONKHET masterpieces were illegible, that alone made them garbage except for Hazoret the Pervert. Kaladesh some cards looked amazing, and others were not so great.
OK, so i got a 5 person draft in with 5 packs of 9 yesterday. Companion does seem as strong as wtwlf is making it out to be. Personally, I drafted an Umori, the collector deck of jund midrange creatures. Umori's ability is relevant, but what I found really interesting is that a lot of the times, I just cared that he was a big beefy creature that I would definitely be able to play. The ability to guaranteed have a 4/5 on the field if my opponent wrathed, or dealt with my board, that ALSO helped me reastablish my board was amazing insurance as a creature based deck. Making it really hard for me to overextend on board, I think Umori might be here to stay, but i did P1P1 it, so that may have affected my impression. My deck had a few cards he could ramp out, but most of my games, he was the most expensive creature i ended up casting (deck winrate 5-2)(singles)
Lutri, the spellchaser - was drafted but not used as a companion because we did a multiplayer draft, and the player chose the next card as his companion. (FFA multiplayer)
Jegantha, the wellspring - simlar to umori, a medium sized creature with no strings attached ( once deck construction is complete) is pretty good. Was dealt with immediately in multiplayer, but a free 8th card is something I'd be fine with failing the vindicate test.(FFA Multiplayer)
Triomes in general - My cube is decently small(so most players had multiple fetches), and I just added all 5 of these guys, but every time they were fetched as another copy of my shock/duals. The cycling ability was never used, but is something we recognized the value of. It didn't last night, but these would also make splashes or tricolors a little easier. One small bonus of triomes is that "offcolor" fetches work so much better. Like if you have the sultai triom, are jund, and use the izzet fetchland, you have access to all colors in your deck, which is pretty good. (singles)
Gemrazer - this card wasn't on my radar, but one of my cube group recommended it to me and i realized, I was actually really excited for it. I realized that I still run wickerbough elder, maybe it was a pet card, but i liked it over the seemingly more popular thrashing brontodon(singles)
Yorion, sky nomad amusingly, in our second draft, I (drafting america control) wanted this card, assumed it would table, and it didn't, the deckbuilding restriction proved too difficult for the person who was forced to draft grixis control. (my cube has a rule where if you get nicol bolas p1p1 you are "forced" to build his grand deck, people tend to like it.(strongly peerpressured). I definitely WOULD have used this companion, but cut down to a 40 card deck when it didn't table. (FFA multiplayer) gigan, cyberclaw terror Was found pack 3, Bolas player also grabbed this card and didn't ever draw it. (FFA multiplayer) vivien, Monster's advocate Drafted but never drawn, probably would have been good.(FFA multiplayer)
Mutate mechanic! - Seems a lot harder of a rule than I first thought to understand. its very important to know the reminder text on mutate. Last night, I used Treachery on an Ulamog, the ceaseless hunger then mutated it into a Ghidorah, king of the cosmos in an EDH game afterwards(to prevent losing control of the fatty), and apparently you can only mutate creatures you own. ALSO fun fact, if the creature you want to mutate onto dies, the mutate creature just ETB's normally.
edit: I think its kind of amusing that my experience was the opposite of the poster above me. callibretto was basically saying the cards themselves need to be good still, and I'm saying that in some games a 4/5 vanilla creature was bonkers.
I think this card is a good card, but white four drops is the tightest place in cube as always.
Things I haven't seen mentioned are the fact that arena rector is usually going to be in a controlling super friends deck, so ignoring it won't be easy as its controllers deck will include cards like day of judgement.
The front side of this card is pretty much zero mana so the main value in a random deck would be its flexibility, rather than its efficiency in grabbing an 8 cost planeswalker. This card is a lot more flexible than Academy Rector which would usually just grab a single powerful enchantment, whereas there are situations where I'd rather have a Jace, the mind sculptor, than an Ugin, the spirit dragon.
If I make a dragonsiege in an aggressive deck, either something's gone horribly wrong, or my opponent is at like 2 life and horribly dead on board next turn.
If this card did hit lands I'd be all over it, I agree.
I see this a lot and I feel like it's hyperbole that some people see as fact. There's no way every aggro deck out there in other people's cubes always wins on turn 3 or 4. I'd say the games where aggros plan goes of without a hitch are like 25% of games.
Parallax wave is in one of the most competitive slots in cube, so I've never actually tried it, but it looks pretty good.
The weirdest deck that has ever been drafted in my cube was a 33 land 7 card deck that was made for a free for all game, it did nothing while other people fought, played knight of the reliquary into Armageddon then murdered everyone, it objectively wasn't a good deck by any means, but that doesn't matter if it won.
Love thassa, not the best card in cube, but it always does work, rarely turns into a creature probably 20% of the time, but scry 1 every turn is pretty good and the unblockable ability gets used a lot and is a beating.
This card seems fine in blue, but nothing super special. Reminds me a little bit of jace, vryn's prodigy rather than thassa as a closest comparison.
Thassa received a lot of hate in this thread, so I'll explain why I like it better than this. I think thassa is a sum of her parts card. At every point in the game she's doing something for the decks she's drafted for, like acetic wary and then making my finisher unblockable in control,
I've said this in numerous threads but I love this card, [card] citadel siege [\card] wins games. It's never a dead card and while usually it can be seen as slow, the +2/+2 its first turn always matters, and I can't count the times I've chosen the tap mode in any aggro decks to tap down a sneak attack threat. It's in the most competitive slot in the cube, and it still shines.
I'm kind of surprised the mass path to exile wasnt discussed at all. This seems pretty decent, but that's it. It seems really conditional though. I feel like this might explore once in a lot of matchups or even zero times.
I think this card fits a whole lot of rolls pretty well. My black aggro tends to win by recurring drops with grafted wargear a lot and can tend to have spare Mann a late game. A bad bone splitter early can be made up for by a bunch of those lategame. If you even clone this once I'd say it's worth it.
"i win" combos in cube.
Search hater -R
Legendary Creature - Goblin
Whenever an opponent would search his or her library for a card, he reveals that many random cards instead.
2/1
Bonky, the Bonker - R
Legendary creature - Ape Shaman
13R, Sacrifice Bonky, deal 13 damage to target creature. This ability costs X less where X is the targets converted mana cost.
2/1
As an aside, I want more AGGRO planeswalkers. I really feel like Sarkhan vol is the only PW that fits into aggro, that won't just get grabbed by a durdly superfriends deck.
Yes, the companion ability is destroying a lot of magic formats right now, but I still feel like in cube the deckbuilding restrictionsare impactful + average power level is high enough that they aren't just unsalvageable. In 400 powered, individual cards feel like bombs, while others feel like 8-15th picks. A pack 3 gyruda, or yorion might be a hard sell.
Every regularly cubed conspiracy is stronger than companion. I run power play and sentinel dispatch. One drafter remarked, "the strongest companion at the table today is my 1/1 artifact defender"
As for other ikoria cards, Vivien, monster's advocate still seems like a strong, but not broken tool in green midrange decks.
Also got a foil extended vivien, monster's advocate and it looks great, convinced me to test it over garruk relentless.
On the previous conversations, AMONKHET masterpieces were illegible, that alone made them garbage except for Hazoret the Pervert. Kaladesh some cards looked amazing, and others were not so great.
Lutri, the spellchaser - was drafted but not used as a companion because we did a multiplayer draft, and the player chose the next card as his companion. (FFA multiplayer)
Jegantha, the wellspring - simlar to umori, a medium sized creature with no strings attached ( once deck construction is complete) is pretty good. Was dealt with immediately in multiplayer, but a free 8th card is something I'd be fine with failing the vindicate test.(FFA Multiplayer)
Triomes in general - My cube is decently small(so most players had multiple fetches), and I just added all 5 of these guys, but every time they were fetched as another copy of my shock/duals. The cycling ability was never used, but is something we recognized the value of. It didn't last night, but these would also make splashes or tricolors a little easier. One small bonus of triomes is that "offcolor" fetches work so much better. Like if you have the sultai triom, are jund, and use the izzet fetchland, you have access to all colors in your deck, which is pretty good. (singles)
Gemrazer - this card wasn't on my radar, but one of my cube group recommended it to me and i realized, I was actually really excited for it. I realized that I still run wickerbough elder, maybe it was a pet card, but i liked it over the seemingly more popular thrashing brontodon(singles)
Yorion, sky nomad amusingly, in our second draft, I (drafting america control) wanted this card, assumed it would table, and it didn't, the deckbuilding restriction proved too difficult for the person who was forced to draft grixis control. (my cube has a rule where if you get nicol bolas p1p1 you are "forced" to build his grand deck, people tend to like it.(strongly peerpressured). I definitely WOULD have used this companion, but cut down to a 40 card deck when it didn't table. (FFA multiplayer)
gigan, cyberclaw terror Was found pack 3, Bolas player also grabbed this card and didn't ever draw it. (FFA multiplayer)
vivien, Monster's advocate Drafted but never drawn, probably would have been good.(FFA multiplayer)
Mutate mechanic! - Seems a lot harder of a rule than I first thought to understand. its very important to know the reminder text on mutate. Last night, I used Treachery on an Ulamog, the ceaseless hunger then mutated it into a Ghidorah, king of the cosmos in an EDH game afterwards(to prevent losing control of the fatty), and apparently you can only mutate creatures you own. ALSO fun fact, if the creature you want to mutate onto dies, the mutate creature just ETB's normally.
edit: I think its kind of amusing that my experience was the opposite of the poster above me. callibretto was basically saying the cards themselves need to be good still, and I'm saying that in some games a 4/5 vanilla creature was bonkers.
I think this card is a good card, but white four drops is the tightest place in cube as always.
Things I haven't seen mentioned are the fact that arena rector is usually going to be in a controlling super friends deck, so ignoring it won't be easy as its controllers deck will include cards like day of judgement.
The front side of this card is pretty much zero mana so the main value in a random deck would be its flexibility, rather than its efficiency in grabbing an 8 cost planeswalker. This card is a lot more flexible than Academy Rector which would usually just grab a single powerful enchantment, whereas there are situations where I'd rather have a Jace, the mind sculptor, than an Ugin, the spirit dragon.
I see this a lot and I feel like it's hyperbole that some people see as fact. There's no way every aggro deck out there in other people's cubes always wins on turn 3 or 4. I'd say the games where aggros plan goes of without a hitch are like 25% of games.
The weirdest deck that has ever been drafted in my cube was a 33 land 7 card deck that was made for a free for all game, it did nothing while other people fought, played knight of the reliquary into Armageddon then murdered everyone, it objectively wasn't a good deck by any means, but that doesn't matter if it won.
This card seems fine in blue, but nothing super special. Reminds me a little bit of jace, vryn's prodigy rather than thassa as a closest comparison.
Thassa received a lot of hate in this thread, so I'll explain why I like it better than this. I think thassa is a sum of her parts card. At every point in the game she's doing something for the decks she's drafted for, like acetic wary and then making my finisher unblockable in control,