Decent floor with 2 thopters with haste and can do a decent Teferi, Hero of Dominaria impression by untapping a mana rock to leave up for instant speed interactions. Works really well with Retrofitter Foundry since she can make Thopters and then untap the foundry for free to make two 4/4 golems out of those thopters. I might give this a test at least, although the artifact deck isn't exactly hurting for support. I've always considered Izzet to be one of the more flexibile two color combinations, and this isn't as versatile as other Izzet options.
First ability taps an untapped artifact, not the other way around.
Personally, I'm not big on the card. Not being a creature itself means that it's two bodies down from three, and it can't synergize with blink or reanimation the same way Rogue can. Plus I think that the +1 ability is pretty awful, and the ultimate is quite disappointing.
All of this doesn't consider that it's a guild card and thus has more competition. I might honestly prefer The Gifted or Sublime Artificer to this card.
I think Sanctuary Warden has found plenty of homes in cubes, and I see this ability to be somewhat similar. The card is solid on its own but also used in conjunction with planeswalkers since it can also remove loyalty counters from them, and I suspect the same is true for this 2 drop.
It's probably not 360 material, but probably a decent defensive play for cubes that want more creative options.
The tokens are what make this card for me. Untouched, it can produce 3 tokens over 3 turns without additional cantrips or shenanigans, which will be 9/9 worth of vigilant bodies and gaining +3/+3 each turn. Seems like a great average case to me.
Of course, this card loves synergies with incidental card draw, like Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, Remand, Arcane Denial, cantrips, and being The Monarch.
Furthermore, cards like Brainstorm and Cavalier of Gales kick this card up a notch while being easily playable in most blue decks.
The way I see it, Teferi's 0 ability will be used in a similar way to Jace Beleren's +2, meaning only enough to facilitate more tokens, unless you're digging for a game-winning ultimate.
Even with that in mind, the card still seems pretty solid as a defense and possible win condition for blue.
Unlike Yawgmoth's Will, this card never had a thread. While Yawgmoth's Will has more history as a combo card in cubes, Breach has proven itself to be a formidable combo card in its own right in formats like cEDH, and maybe more.
Upside over Will is that cards can be cast more than once, so Black Lotus can power some real shenanigans alongside Brain Freeze and Memory Jar.
Downside over Will is that it can't bring back lands and requires a much fuller graveyard to use for its fairer cases. It's also a permanent, so your opponent can kill it at instant speed, but hey - maybe recast a counterspell to protect it, so counters in yards gain value maybe?
YMMV for different combos, interactions with different cards, supported archetypes, etc.
What's the verdict?
Edit: set abbr. is THB, can't seem to change, sorry
Time has come and gone, and this card was largely forgotten in cube.
However, with the mana curve getting ever leaner, and with more discard, burn, efficient removal, and broken bombs like Oko, I think this card might be interesting to look upon again, especially for black decks that discard things.
Black is very powerful early game but loses the card advantage fight mid and late. Only recently we've gotten some decent 5 drops for black, and even then they are nowhere near the power that green or red 5s offer. But if you untap with 5 mana and Will, you have probably played a minimum of two cards, and maybe a fetch. So that's an average case of 2.5 for 1, which ain't half bad.
This card also slots well into draw 7 decks as a backup plan for the cards you dumped for Wheel of Fortune, if you don't draw your Hullbreacher.
There's been some discussion about Wheel + Draw 7 effects, and so I think this card deserves another look.
Aggro obviously likes both the cards and the opponent having to pay a lot of life to mitigate them.
Reanimator likes this less than regular wheel because it only cares about discarding and drawing. However, if it can discard reliably into a combo to gain life, i.e. discard Griselbrand and Unburial Rites, paying life might be worth it.
And with cards like Narset or Hullbreacher, this card loses much of its downsides - either you get cards or the opponent takes damage and discards their hands - a REAL punisher card.
The whole point of a 1/4 lifelink is to stall aggro to a halt. However, the Living Metal ability only lets the body be relevant while it's your turn, so the stats are quite irrelevant. The 2/4 lifelink for 2W is much more reliable, but still isn't amazing.
Another drawback is that if you're stuck on the Living Metal mode with no trinket in sight, it can't even become an actual creature.
Note that if you blink or bounce the permanent, it loses the exile clause. This can be great with cards like Flickerwisp, Charming Prince, Touch the Spirit Realm. Even if the exile clause stays, bringing your On Thin Ice back in a pinch can save you from losing the game.
Tear Asunder 1G
Instant
Kicker 1B
Exile target artifact or enchantment. If this spell was kicked, exile target nonland permanent instead.
An exiling Naturalize gains an Utter End option. Golgari seems super tight in most cubes, especially the removal suites, but the flexibility on this card seems unprecedented.
Probably not better than Assassin's Trophy, but I think it deserves a comparison to Abrupt Decay or Maelstrom Pulse. Thoughts?
This is a unique red card in that it enables slow, grindy play, which is unlike the color's usual game plan.
Generating consistent tokens without attacking is pretty uncommon in red, so the +1 is probably the best part of this planeswalker. Plus the tokens reward holding up your mana to cast spells at instant speed.
That, and the option of generating cards, is a pretty consistent value engine. The -2 is easily the worst ability on this card, but it still provides an ability to impact the board, even if you need to be relying on your own creature count for it.
In terms of damage and tempo, sure Koth beats it easily, but I think that excluding ToD no red planeswalker tops this Jaya in terms of value.
In fact, if you're not playing aggro, I believe that Jaya even plays relatively well with other colors. Black decks will love both the tokens and the cards, and blue will appreciate consistent token generation (and the prowess) and the -2 ability to kill a creature with your tokens (even if it's pretty bad). However, green and white's 4 drops are mostly far above her, so Jaya probably won't be played in RG or RW.
The question is - are cubes looking for a value oriented card in their red section? If they are, I'm sure this card warrants a test at the very least. If all your red section wants is to dome the opponent for lethal, Jaya probably won't be good enough.
Even if you're copying lands, you won't be able to use the abilities until your next turn. So even if copying Strip Mine, it wouldn't do much to immediately impact the board. Plus all the best lands, like Karakas and Cradle, are legendary.
All the best permanents I can think of that this can copy are enchantments, most of them white. Cards like Courts, Oblivion Rings, Bitterblossom, Sulfuric Vortex...
However, since this card will mostly be played in black reanimator, as already mentioned, they probably won't be run in that deck, so the average choice of what to copy will likely be far worse.
I think it needs to be mentioned that the longer this card lasts on board, the higher probability it has to kill both players at once and cause a draw.
So if your deck isn't built to use the leverage that this card gives in treasures, and use it quickly, the card will not help you win per se.
Until I considered this point, I thought that I might even splash for this card in ramp decks, but perhaps even ramp decks aren't fast enough to utilize the storm of treasures it provides.
I do think that it's an intriguing card for multiple archetypes, including aggro, ramp, and artifacts.
So here's a thought I had.
Yes, if you build your deck right, this card plays as a Polymorph. However, I think that the card type clause is quite significant, and I believe it can be abused with proper cube crafting and deck building.
The thing is that if you target an artifact (token) that ISN'T a creature, while your deck has no artifacts, this card is kind of like a pseudo-Tinker.
The most common types of this type of token existing are Treasures, Clues, and Food tokens. And while the latter two aren't really a thing in red, we've just gotten two consecutive sets filled with red treasures from cards like Professional Face-Breaker and Fable of the Mirror Breaker, so it could be a good basis. Not to mention the great cards that red has which incidentally produce Treasures. Prismari Command, Goldspan Dragon, and of course Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer.
So while this kind of interaction would definitely not be enough for a solo archetype of an entire cube, I think it could be a great compliment to other cheat decks or artifact matters archetypes. It feels like it might be at home in the same type of decks as Goblin Welder and Daretti, Scrap Savant.
Plus, if the deck is in a pinch, the card could also do a decent Polymorph impression.
How does this card fare in 2022? Red 3s have gotten ridiculously stacked, but Recruiter still serves a unique tutoring purpose.
Also worth mentioning: How significant is the difference between having or not having KikiCombo in your cube for this card to be worth it?
First ability taps an untapped artifact, not the other way around.
Personally, I'm not big on the card. Not being a creature itself means that it's two bodies down from three, and it can't synergize with blink or reanimation the same way Rogue can. Plus I think that the +1 ability is pretty awful, and the ultimate is quite disappointing.
All of this doesn't consider that it's a guild card and thus has more competition. I might honestly prefer The Gifted or Sublime Artificer to this card.
It's probably not 360 material, but probably a decent defensive play for cubes that want more creative options.
Of course, this card loves synergies with incidental card draw, like Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, Remand, Arcane Denial, cantrips, and being The Monarch.
Furthermore, cards like Brainstorm and Cavalier of Gales kick this card up a notch while being easily playable in most blue decks.
The way I see it, Teferi's 0 ability will be used in a similar way to Jace Beleren's +2, meaning only enough to facilitate more tokens, unless you're digging for a game-winning ultimate.
Even with that in mind, the card still seems pretty solid as a defense and possible win condition for blue.
Unlike Yawgmoth's Will, this card never had a thread. While Yawgmoth's Will has more history as a combo card in cubes, Breach has proven itself to be a formidable combo card in its own right in formats like cEDH, and maybe more.
Upside over Will is that cards can be cast more than once, so Black Lotus can power some real shenanigans alongside Brain Freeze and Memory Jar.
Downside over Will is that it can't bring back lands and requires a much fuller graveyard to use for its fairer cases. It's also a permanent, so your opponent can kill it at instant speed, but hey - maybe recast a counterspell to protect it, so counters in yards gain value maybe?
YMMV for different combos, interactions with different cards, supported archetypes, etc.
What's the verdict?
Edit: set abbr. is THB, can't seem to change, sorry
However, with the mana curve getting ever leaner, and with more discard, burn, efficient removal, and broken bombs like Oko, I think this card might be interesting to look upon again, especially for black decks that discard things.
Black is very powerful early game but loses the card advantage fight mid and late. Only recently we've gotten some decent 5 drops for black, and even then they are nowhere near the power that green or red 5s offer. But if you untap with 5 mana and Will, you have probably played a minimum of two cards, and maybe a fetch. So that's an average case of 2.5 for 1, which ain't half bad.
This card also slots well into draw 7 decks as a backup plan for the cards you dumped for Wheel of Fortune, if you don't draw your Hullbreacher.
What do you guys think?
Aggro obviously likes both the cards and the opponent having to pay a lot of life to mitigate them.
Reanimator likes this less than regular wheel because it only cares about discarding and drawing. However, if it can discard reliably into a combo to gain life, i.e. discard Griselbrand and Unburial Rites, paying life might be worth it.
And with cards like Narset or Hullbreacher, this card loses much of its downsides - either you get cards or the opponent takes damage and discards their hands - a REAL punisher card.
What do you guys think?
Any chance you could talk about Yawgmoth's Will / Underworld Breach?
Another drawback is that if you're stuck on the Living Metal mode with no trinket in sight, it can't even become an actual creature.
Tear Asunder
1G
Instant
Kicker 1B
Exile target artifact or enchantment. If this spell was kicked, exile target nonland permanent instead.
An exiling Naturalize gains an Utter End option. Golgari seems super tight in most cubes, especially the removal suites, but the flexibility on this card seems unprecedented.
Probably not better than Assassin's Trophy, but I think it deserves a comparison to Abrupt Decay or Maelstrom Pulse. Thoughts?
Generating consistent tokens without attacking is pretty uncommon in red, so the +1 is probably the best part of this planeswalker. Plus the tokens reward holding up your mana to cast spells at instant speed.
That, and the option of generating cards, is a pretty consistent value engine. The -2 is easily the worst ability on this card, but it still provides an ability to impact the board, even if you need to be relying on your own creature count for it.
In terms of damage and tempo, sure Koth beats it easily, but I think that excluding ToD no red planeswalker tops this Jaya in terms of value.
In fact, if you're not playing aggro, I believe that Jaya even plays relatively well with other colors. Black decks will love both the tokens and the cards, and blue will appreciate consistent token generation (and the prowess) and the -2 ability to kill a creature with your tokens (even if it's pretty bad). However, green and white's 4 drops are mostly far above her, so Jaya probably won't be played in RG or RW.
The question is - are cubes looking for a value oriented card in their red section? If they are, I'm sure this card warrants a test at the very least. If all your red section wants is to dome the opponent for lethal, Jaya probably won't be good enough.
All the best permanents I can think of that this can copy are enchantments, most of them white. Cards like Courts, Oblivion Rings, Bitterblossom, Sulfuric Vortex...
However, since this card will mostly be played in black reanimator, as already mentioned, they probably won't be run in that deck, so the average choice of what to copy will likely be far worse.
So if your deck isn't built to use the leverage that this card gives in treasures, and use it quickly, the card will not help you win per se.
Until I considered this point, I thought that I might even splash for this card in ramp decks, but perhaps even ramp decks aren't fast enough to utilize the storm of treasures it provides.
I do think that it's an intriguing card for multiple archetypes, including aggro, ramp, and artifacts.
Yes, if you build your deck right, this card plays as a Polymorph. However, I think that the card type clause is quite significant, and I believe it can be abused with proper cube crafting and deck building.
The thing is that if you target an artifact (token) that ISN'T a creature, while your deck has no artifacts, this card is kind of like a pseudo-Tinker.
The most common types of this type of token existing are Treasures, Clues, and Food tokens. And while the latter two aren't really a thing in red, we've just gotten two consecutive sets filled with red treasures from cards like Professional Face-Breaker and Fable of the Mirror Breaker, so it could be a good basis. Not to mention the great cards that red has which incidentally produce Treasures. Prismari Command, Goldspan Dragon, and of course Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer.
Out of color there are less treasures, but then the other tokens become more relevant. Blue has Hard Evidence, but green has a lot, with Tireless Tracker, Gilded Goose, Briarbridge Tracker, Oko, Thief of Crowns and more.
So while this kind of interaction would definitely not be enough for a solo archetype of an entire cube, I think it could be a great compliment to other cheat decks or artifact matters archetypes. It feels like it might be at home in the same type of decks as Goblin Welder and Daretti, Scrap Savant.
Plus, if the deck is in a pinch, the card could also do a decent Polymorph impression.
What do you guys think?
Also worth mentioning: How significant is the difference between having or not having KikiCombo in your cube for this card to be worth it?