Cards that I didn't vote on (because I never played with them): The Abyss; Nether Void; Imperial Seal; Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet; and Liliana, the Last Hope. I think Imperial Seal could make my list, but I also think that sorcery speed and put-on-top are enough drawbacks that it might miss it, so I prefer not to estimate it. Honorable Mention: Pack Rat (I like them, but they really don't make my list).
I still like Shackles at lot, and I thought about voting for it, but the heavy islands requirement is bummer and kept it off my list (and I just haven't seen it dominiate any games lately).
I find it crazy that despite MANY people here touting Jace, Memory Adept as "too good/unfun" for cube me and Krazedkarl were the only ones to vote on it at all...
I don't know about other people, but I think he's good but maybe not even good enough, *and* unfun.
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Edit: I'm not really surprised or disappointed, but I am wondering: how do you feel about Counterspell? It easily made my list, but very few other lists. I know it's a bit boring and there are (a few) other counterspells available. But the same could be said about Lighting Bolt, and I'm sure that will make the red list. Couterspell is still the best hard counter after Mana Drain, and has saved by butt sooo many times. Counterspell doesn't win games, but it keeps you from losing them, which is just as important.
I'd prefer voting on Wildfire and Burning of Xinye at the same spot. (Nitpicking, but I would not say "as the same card", just giving them one rating as they are similar enough.) It would produce more interesting results. Basically, when ranking them separately, no matter where there would land in the final results relative to each other, it would reveal no interesting information. If they are next to each other, great, that would be to be expected. If they are apart, what gives? Giving them just one rating would simply free up another spot for all cards to be compared against.
For me, it was also the build-around aspect of Upheavel that made me rank it #10 (and mind you, being blue's #10 is nothing to scoff at). I feel that the cards that I ranked higher contribute to winnig the game more on their own, and in a wider variety of decks. Except Tinker and Show and Tell, which are also build-around-me cards in the same vein, but they cost halve the mana, and I've just seen many more Tinker wins than Upheavel wins. When Upheavel is cast the game is usually sealed, whereas with Tinker or Show and Tell there's still more chance of a comeback. But it's also much easier to cast the latter two and especially Tinker decks come together more often (at least in our cube).
Besides Rancor and Plow Under there isn't much that draws me into green aggro, but I like the archetype. Experiment One and Warden of the First Tree are great once you're in that boat.
I recently noticed something about green aggro in our cube: it works really well when you get some great non-green aggro cards, like Bonesplitter, Tangle Wire, but also cards from other colors. And then just complete your deck with low cmc aggro dudes, which is easier with green because green aggro is often open. So whenever I played green aggro I ended up with a very high concentration of one drops and an overall really low curve, and those decks played very well because of the increased consistency.
I also tried some elves in green aggro and they were decent there with equipment, but I still prefer 2 power one drops, unless I'm building an aggressive midrange deck.
The top of the list was easy, but then there's just so many awesome blue cards to consider. Ranking them felt a bit like building a deck after a draft that went really well, where you have like 30 perfect cards for your deck and don't want to cut any of them. I didn't even have space for any of the looters, even though I love them wholeheartedly.
The only card I excluded (because I haven't played with it yet) that I think could have made my top 20, is Arcane Savant.
(Edit: I didn't like my initial ranking of Control Magic, I moved it down a bit.)
... I'm curious as to whether they're actually missing the mark for that many people after extensive playtesting, or if they're victims of not having seen enough play yet.
For me, it was the latter. I just haven't got the opportunity to play much with the newer cards yet. Another (related) factor might be standing the test of time. Some newer cards have been really powerful in recent games, but that might have been luck and we just didn't see the board states where the cards would be duds.
Nothing that cracked the Top 20 could really be called an aggro card, aside from some 4CMC curve toppers, even though white is a core aggro color in most cubes. Even Brimaz got edged out this year. There are some great 1-3 CMC white aggro cards that are stone cold staples, and I'm wondering why none of them made the list this year. Not good enough individually? Too narrow? I'm tempted to blame the new voting standard, but last year's Top 20 weren't particularly aggro either. What's going on here?
I think it's for the most part that the aggro cards are only good when you have a critical mass of them, and (the white ones) are pretty interchangable. I was thinking of voting for some white one drops, but none of them are that much better than the others. Kytheon is great and all, but I haven't seen him flip often, so he plays mostly like another, slightly scarier, Savanna Lions.
Thanks, Spike Rogue, for organizing this! I always greatly enjoyed the power rankings. They are a great resource, especially for new cube players and cube managers, I know they were for me when I started cubing. I'm late for the vote, but I think it's great that the P1P1 metric has been discarded. That always felt odd. Your first pick only makes up one card in your deck, or may not even make the final 40 in the end. And it doesn't take many picks until focus shifts from powerful-in-a-vacuum or great build-around-me cards to cards that complement your deck. Judging how much a card contributes to winning a game may actually be more difficult, but makes much more sense, imo.
This is my first participation in the power rankings. I always enjoyed reading them (actually, I think they were one of the resources that brought me to this forum in the first place). Ranking the cards is quite hard, but I really like this years criteria of overall contribution to wins instead of P1P1-worthyness. I'm happy with my top 20, but the ranking between those 20 could shift a lot depending on my mood (or recent game play experiences).
There are quite a few cards that I think could have made the list, but I don't have enough (or any) experience playing with them and I don't feel comfortable ranking them. Particularly Moat, but also Monastery Mentor; Archangel Avacyn; Thalia, Heretic Cathar; and Gideon, Ally of Zendikar. There is one card that I haven't played with yet, but decided to include anyway: Recruiter of the Guard is similar enough to Imperial Recruiter, and surely deserves a spot on my list. Honorable mentions that I just didn't find space for: Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite; Cloudgoat Ranger; and aggro one drops (Kytheon, Hero of Akros; Student of Warfare).
I really like how this avoids the problem of Misdirection and Fork, where you have to wait too long for the right timing or just never get an oppotunity to play them at all. Sadly, it seems overcosted nonetheless. This would need to be a 2-for-1 or similar value more often than not to be worth the four mana, I don't think that's how it would play out.
One downside I imagine to come up is that this could shoehorn your players onto playing mostly those guilds and rarely the others. Gold cards often draw you into a color pair, and it feels rewarding to play cards that you couldn't play in a deck with another color combination. Maybe the extra support for mono colored decks makes up for this though. I'd like to have some more support for mono too.
Only if you're desperate for more 5-color fixing, imo. Tendo Ice Bridge and the new one are fine cards, but also not necessary (in small or medium cubes). Westvale Abbey is more interesting at least.
Ya, this looks more comparable to Hell's Thunder. Two hasty 4-power attacks. Hellions second attack doesn't cost you mana, but it lacks the evasion and you cannot choose the timing. The lack of evasion really hurts. Maybe it's better than Hell's Thunder if you play a lot of energy cards, but so far I haven't seen many cubeable ones, so that seems unlikely.
02 Recurring Nightmare
03 Bitterblossom
04 Demonic Tutor
05 Vampiric Tutor
06 Dark Confidant
07 Liliana of the Veil
08 Toxic Deluge
09 Hymn to Tourach
10 Animate Dead
11 Reanimate
12 Braids, Cabal Minion
13 Shriekmaw
14 Damnation
15 Languish
16 Ophiomancer
17 Grave Titan
18 Thoughtseize
19 Griselbrand
20 Dismember
Cards that I didn't vote on (because I never played with them): The Abyss; Nether Void; Imperial Seal; Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet; and Liliana, the Last Hope. I think Imperial Seal could make my list, but I also think that sorcery speed and put-on-top are enough drawbacks that it might miss it, so I prefer not to estimate it. Honorable Mention: Pack Rat (I like them, but they really don't make my list).
I don't know about other people, but I think he's good but maybe not even good enough, *and* unfun.
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Edit: I'm not really surprised or disappointed, but I am wondering: how do you feel about Counterspell? It easily made my list, but very few other lists. I know it's a bit boring and there are (a few) other counterspells available. But the same could be said about Lighting Bolt, and I'm sure that will make the red list. Couterspell is still the best hard counter after Mana Drain, and has saved by butt sooo many times. Counterspell doesn't win games, but it keeps you from losing them, which is just as important.
I recently noticed something about green aggro in our cube: it works really well when you get some great non-green aggro cards, like Bonesplitter, Tangle Wire, but also cards from other colors. And then just complete your deck with low cmc aggro dudes, which is easier with green because green aggro is often open. So whenever I played green aggro I ended up with a very high concentration of one drops and an overall really low curve, and those decks played very well because of the increased consistency.
I also tried some elves in green aggro and they were decent there with equipment, but I still prefer 2 power one drops, unless I'm building an aggressive midrange deck.
2 Time Walk
3 Mana Drain
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
5 Tinker
6 Snapcaster Mage
7 Treachery
8 Show and Tell
9 Upheaval
10 True-Name Nemesis
11 Opposition
12 Control Magic
13 Phyrexian Metamorph
14 Counterspell
15 Mystic Confluence
16 Vendilion Clique
17 Mystical Tutor
18 Consecrated Sphinx
19 Dig Through Time
20 Aetherling
The top of the list was easy, but then there's just so many awesome blue cards to consider. Ranking them felt a bit like building a deck after a draft that went really well, where you have like 30 perfect cards for your deck and don't want to cut any of them. I didn't even have space for any of the looters, even though I love them wholeheartedly.
The only card I excluded (because I haven't played with it yet) that I think could have made my top 20, is Arcane Savant.
(Edit: I didn't like my initial ranking of Control Magic, I moved it down a bit.)
For me, it was the latter. I just haven't got the opportunity to play much with the newer cards yet. Another (related) factor might be standing the test of time. Some newer cards have been really powerful in recent games, but that might have been luck and we just didn't see the board states where the cards would be duds.
I think it's for the most part that the aggro cards are only good when you have a critical mass of them, and (the white ones) are pretty interchangable. I was thinking of voting for some white one drops, but none of them are that much better than the others. Kytheon is great and all, but I haven't seen him flip often, so he plays mostly like another, slightly scarier, Savanna Lions.
This is my first participation in the power rankings. I always enjoyed reading them (actually, I think they were one of the resources that brought me to this forum in the first place). Ranking the cards is quite hard, but I really like this years criteria of overall contribution to wins instead of P1P1-worthyness. I'm happy with my top 20, but the ranking between those 20 could shift a lot depending on my mood (or recent game play experiences).
There are quite a few cards that I think could have made the list, but I don't have enough (or any) experience playing with them and I don't feel comfortable ranking them. Particularly Moat, but also Monastery Mentor; Archangel Avacyn; Thalia, Heretic Cathar; and Gideon, Ally of Zendikar. There is one card that I haven't played with yet, but decided to include anyway: Recruiter of the Guard is similar enough to Imperial Recruiter, and surely deserves a spot on my list. Honorable mentions that I just didn't find space for: Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite; Cloudgoat Ranger; and aggro one drops (Kytheon, Hero of Akros; Student of Warfare).