Hellkite has been awesome for us. I would cube it over Hazoret. It plays very much like a Fiery Confluence that makes them pay for a kill spell at some point over the next two turns instead of having the other modes.
Thanks for another great review! Truth be told I never fill my preorder until I read what you have to say, and this time you convinced me on the cleric, Vivien, and the leonin warcaller. In fact, going in my only include was going to be the pyromancer.
To that end, what would you cut for Vivirn, Freyalise or 5-mana Garruk?
Got my AKH set delivered right before cube night - so glad to finally test some new cards! While I swapped about 15 cards, I'll only commepnt on those that made it into the draft. For reference, my cube is 666 powered and contains conspiracies.
Angel of sanctions (cut dictate of heliod, main decked in BW reanimator) - This card was drafted early and did a ton of work. Highlight was taking out a Jace on 11 loyalty. Only embalmed once, but was frequently the reanimation target of choice.
Sandwurm Convergence (cut terastodon, main decked, green ramp) - The convergence was cast once and stranded in hand once. It would have won the game but the follow-up play of Ulamog got hit with a frenzied fugue.
Glorybringer (cut hero of oxide ridge, maindecked in RB deck) Was good and earned it's spot.
Censor (cut skyship plunderer, maindecked in RU tokens/artifacts) - Made it into the main deck over Control Magic. Didn't get played but I was very happy to have it in my deck.
I'm excited for this card. What I like most is that it does a good job bridging into your late game in a green ramp deck. I think it will force a removal spell from your opponent just like courser and Oracle, even if it's not as easy to accrue advantage. I've been down on Baloth and Thrun, so I'm glad there's a medium-sized creature to fill the gap while aligning more closely with green's themes.
I feel this card may be overhyped it still test-worthy. All other cubeable 3cc walkers (jace, nissa, dack, loyv, lotlh) gain material advantage whIle this one does not. In terms of quadrants, he's only good when you're at close to parity. The emblem sems cool but I think it's more like the lure abilities of other Gideons except it gives your opponent more options. Good enough but IMO worse than the other white walkers I'm currently running (Gids, Elspeths 4&6).
Initial impressions of card-referencing conspiracies may seem lackluster but the ones from CNS1 keep creeping up in pick order. Muzzio's + Glen Elendra is odd the charts.
Played 1 cube draft after implementing storm (w/o Dream Halls). 6 players, one parson actively drafted it, another took ~6 picks. Storm drafter went 2-1, deck was very good. Baral + Counters + Burn + Tendrils.
I'm not saying Dream Halls is narrow; rather it is the perfect sort of card to support storm while still finding a home in other combo decks. When I refer to a narrow card I'm thinking of a card that only supports the storm archetype but not any others and those are the slots I'd like to minimize. Obviously, to support storm you need some cards with the mechanic (e.g. tendrils and brain freeze) which I'm cool with. My question is how far can you go supporting storm with other, more open, cards while minimizing the storm-only support. I feel the line is somewhere around Seething Song (which I don't run) and Cabal Ritual (which I do).
Thanks for the tip on dream halls. It seems like the perfect card; strong storm support, broken as hell, but not so narrow that other cube decks can't use it.
Ultimately my goal is to support a rock and diverse storm archetype relying on as few narrow cards as possible (like entomb for reanimator strategies). With AER I feel this might be finally attainable (at least in powered cube).
Context: I run a <700 powered conspiracy cube. With the release of AER I decided to try supporting storm as I feel there are finally enough open ended support cards to make the archetype viable without being too insular and parasitic.
This week was our first draft and it turned out quite well. The storm player went 2-1 without even getting all the picks in our 6 player pod. Does anyone else have any experience spring storm? How do you do it?
For reference, here's how I have the archetype broken down.
Storm specific: Brain Freeze, Tendrils, LED,
Storm mana: Dark ritual, cabal ritual, manamorphose,
Open support creatures: Baral, guttersnipe, monastery mentor, Managorger hydra, Kiln Fiend, Pslinchron
Draw 7s: Wheel, Time Spiral, Time twister. Memory Jar
I still cube with this card (666 powered) and consider it a pet card. Strictly on power level I could find others to take it's place but I like my gold cards to have a unique effect and I feel Covenant gets the point there over stuff like terminate and dreadbore. In an aggro deck it can definitely lead to big turns when you wipe your opp's board then hit them for about what you paid in life. Instant speed is huge too.
I also quite like the nostalgia factor that comes with cubing obscure Ice Age cards.
Does anyone else rate Fire Covenant as one of the top Rakdos cards? I rarely see it discussed, yet it is unique, powerful, and has the ability to provide a huge amount of tempo and card advantage in a colour pair that can struggle to find even one on a card.
In the least I find it a much more interesting card than Dreadbore.
1) Kitchen Finks - Playable in all white and green decks basically. Good against aggro, good against mass removals, highly abusable with everything from Evolutionary Leap to Restoration Angel in his colors, and Recurring Nightmare, Crystal Shard and much more in other colors.
2) Dryad Militant - I don't play green aggro so I count it as a white card. A few sets ago would probably be number one on this list, but I can see smaller cubes now having more than enough white one drops, making it less important. Academic difference though, play both all the time.
3) Mirari's Wake - irrelevant to your pool
4) Qasali Pridemage - Beats for 3, deals with many problems. I've had more 2-for-1s with it than you would think.
5) Voice of Resurgence - Do not count on making any tokens with this, it will not unless your opponent will decide the spell is still worth it for him. Most decks are not greatly affected by it besides permission based control. Still, that matchup is really bad for W/G ramp that it adds a lot to the card. It is still good against the rest of the field enough that it is not sitting in your sideboard, from making your opponents adjust their game play, to discouraging trades against aggro. Also good as weak Wrath protection.
6) Gavony Township - This is the sort of card you will splash white for in your green deck and vice versa. Also doesn't take up a spell slot, so as far as gold cards go, it sees a lot of maindecks.
7) Fleecemane Lion - for the reasons you have mentioned, but he is very interchangeable
The rest I do not run anymore, but if I would enlarge my gold section:
8) Sigarda, Host of Herons - By the time you are here, you have so many low drops, a bone for midrange is probably more important. However, I do not like her non interactivity and would try to avoid including her in my cube.
9) Knight of the Reliquary - Ramp, fat, fixing and deck thinning. The higher your fetch density, the better he is by a significant amount.
10) I think from this slot on, it heavily depends on what you want to support. Blink/reanimation - Armada Wurm. Tokens - Wilt-Leaf Liege. For general utility though, Sundering Growth.
Dromoka doesn't only die to removal, but she is exceptionally bad by cube standards at bringing you back into the game from losing positions. She is only a blocker on defense, and easy to race on the offense.
My G/W section is exactly the same except with Gaddock Teeg in the place of Fleecemane Lion. I find his ability more relevant as it can protect your tokens and mana elves from wraths while randomly hosing some control and combo decks. (In my powered cube midrange needs the love.)
To that end, what would you cut for Vivirn, Freyalise or 5-mana Garruk?
Angel of sanctions (cut dictate of heliod, main decked in BW reanimator) - This card was drafted early and did a ton of work. Highlight was taking out a Jace on 11 loyalty. Only embalmed once, but was frequently the reanimation target of choice.
Sandwurm Convergence (cut terastodon, main decked, green ramp) - The convergence was cast once and stranded in hand once. It would have won the game but the follow-up play of Ulamog got hit with a frenzied fugue.
Liliana, Death's majesty (cut Sidisi, sideboard RB aggro/midrange)
Glorybringer (cut hero of oxide ridge, maindecked in RB deck) Was good and earned it's spot.
Censor (cut skyship plunderer, maindecked in RU tokens/artifacts) - Made it into the main deck over Control Magic. Didn't get played but I was very happy to have it in my deck.
I'll pay here wroth further testing.
Ultimately my goal is to support a rock and diverse storm archetype relying on as few narrow cards as possible (like entomb for reanimator strategies). With AER I feel this might be finally attainable (at least in powered cube).
This week was our first draft and it turned out quite well. The storm player went 2-1 without even getting all the picks in our 6 player pod. Does anyone else have any experience spring storm? How do you do it?
For reference, here's how I have the archetype broken down.
Storm specific: Brain Freeze, Tendrils, LED,
Storm mana: Dark ritual, cabal ritual, manamorphose,
Open support creatures: Baral, guttersnipe, monastery mentor, Managorger hydra, Kiln Fiend, Pslinchron
Draw 7s: Wheel, Time Spiral, Time twister. Memory Jar
Cantrips: Git probe, brainstorm, ponder, preordain
Artifact mana: all
Open ended support: Paradox engine, isochron scepter, empty the warrens, Yawgmoth's Will, Heartbeat of spring
Draw: frantic search, compulsive research, thirst for knowledge, necro, Yawgmoth's Bargain, Jace
I also quite like the nostalgia factor that comes with cubing obscure Ice Age cards.
In the least I find it a much more interesting card than Dreadbore.
http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/7604
It's now a bit more than 630 since I added power. There are conspiracies and a few pet cards but mostly it's a powered good stuff cube.
My G/W section is exactly the same except with Gaddock Teeg in the place of Fleecemane Lion. I find his ability more relevant as it can protect your tokens and mana elves from wraths while randomly hosing some control and combo decks. (In my powered cube midrange needs the love.)