I had cut the signets and was running a lot of worse 2 mana rock options as I was seeing a drop in successful agro decks not putting enough pressure fast enough when an opponent was casting 4 and 5 drops early. I recently added a few of the Talisman into my cube as worse signets against agro since if you want colored mana out of them you have to ping and that life is relevant in the agro match up. I've really liked the tension that brings to that match up. I'll be cubing with more, maybe even the full cycle when these come out for sure.
Hello Cube Community on MTGSalvation. I love all the discussions that goes on in these threads for new cards and what people are planning on playing and testing. What I feel is lacking, is a continued discussion after initial testing has occurred. I'm just now settling on what I'm planning on added and came to look to see if anyone had learned anything yet with little to no success. Anyone else feel this would be valuable? Once I have testing results, I would be inclined to share them.
I wonder if the card is better in cubes that support token strategies. I have a 28 cards that make at least 2 creatures on their own and 9 Planeswalkers that make tokens. Obviously not all of them will be in the same deck, but a 2 or 3 color token deck is a real archetype in my cube. Perhaps in that environment Itlimoc could be a good card.
I guess I admit to not understanding the excitement for a Needle effect. Is there a significant difference in Powered vs. Unpowered cubes that you would main deck a Needle effect? Over the course of 66 drafts of my Unpowered cube Phyrexian Revoker has only been in 43% of main decks.
Some observations by deck played: Glory-Bound Initiate and Angel of Sanctions were played in a UW tempo agro deck. The Glory-Bound put pressure on well. It was annoying for a controlling deck to deal with it. The Angel was a fine roadblock to a reanimation deck, but the reanimation deck also had lots of removal. The control deck countered the Angel but couldn't counter the embalm which was really good.
Next Trueheart Duelist, Dread Wanderer, Liliana, with Gideon riding the sidebord of a WB Stacks Token deck. Duelist had some fine interactions with Stacks, and was embalmed once all night. Was fine. Gideon was in the WB agro decks sideboard. It was sided in a bunch but never drawn. Dread was also great with Stacks, no complaints at all. Liliana was great in this build. She made tokens for Stacks, recurred creatures that were sacrificed. The player was super happy every time she was cast.
Pull from Tomorrow, Curator of Mysteries, Manglehorn New Nissa were all drafted by the Temur control deck, mainly blue splash red and green. Pull and Curator were sideboard. The Pull was not necessary with the redundant card advantage the deck had through planeswalkers like Dack and 4 mana Darretti. The Curator was sided in often and the player was coming around on the card. Nothing great about it, but it does a lot of things OK, which might add up to a good card. Nissa was great all night. It was cast against me as a 3 drop, i didn't put enough pressure on it, he ultimated it to him me for 5 and deal 5 to my Chandra. I was able to deal with it there, but the player cast it all over the curve and it was great in that deck. Manglehorn ran into low artifact draws. The player discarded it a few times to looter, could have been good against a couple of decks, but didn't draw it when the opponents drew their artifacts.
Plague Belcher, Never to Return, and Rhonas the Indomitable were in a GB midrange deck. Never to Return in its first night had aftermath portion cast once where i can't remember ever seeing ruinous path being awakened, so added value on day one is nice. Plague Belcher didn't seem at its best, but there were some OK interactions, Curse of Perdition removing the counters is good, Rishkar negating the counters was OK as well. 5/4 menace is a good beater. Rhonas had about 6 cards in the deck that would have turned him on without the pump. The player claimed that it was good, and I saw a few board states where it would have, but need more data still.
Lastly Hazoret the Fervent was in a RG Wildfireless Wildfire deck. Didn't see any of the 2 wildfire cards in the draft. The ramp shell allowed the ability to empty my hand as well as use the discard ability. The highlight of the night was getting a Batterskull equipped with 1 card in hand, 9 life a turn is a bunch. 5 power hit hard, never got to haste it in this deck. The discard damage being able to redirect to planeswalkers is great. Overall, for a card I was intending to be an agro curve topper only, performed well in a couple of games in deck where it might not be at its best.
Lots of cards I'm excited to try out again next week. A few that are already on my radar to cut.
Does anyone have Monastery Swiftspear in an Unpowered list? How has that performed? It doesn't seem like it would be particularly good being a 1 power creature most turns. Additionally, this Soul-Scar doesn't feel very good either for me, in an Unpowered cbue. Too frequently a 1/2 than a 2/3.
@Salmo Do players change the card named each game? That is my biggest concern since technically they are allowed to change the hidden card name each game over the course of minimum 6 games.
How do playgroups handle hidden agendas? I only have the conspiracy card type in my combo cube. To make the process easy for all, I ask players to choose the cards named by hidden agendas before round 1 starts and always use the same cards. With the fact that it is only combo cube that we draft rarely it's not a big deal to be inflexible. But I am highly considering a Conspiracy module for my unpowered cube and was curious how people keep track of the hidden agendas each game.
For what it is worth, if the opponent steals the monarch from you when you have this in play, and you steal it back you can make them sac another creature. Still a very costly and time consuming situation to set up to get a second edict.
White
IN Glory-Bound Initiate OUT Relic Seeker
IN Trueheart Duelist OUT Kor Skyfisher
IN Angel of Sanctions OUT Hallowed Spiritkeeper
IN Gideon of the Trials OUT Parallax Wave
Blue
IN Pull from Tomorrow OUT Baral's Expertise
IN Curator of Mysteries OUT Clever Impersonator
Black
IN Dread Wanderer OUT Tormented Hero
IN Plague Belcher OUT Liliana, Heretical Healer
IN Liliana, Death’s Majesty OUT Languish
IN Never to Return OUT Ruinous Path
Red
IN Hazoret the Fervent OUT Hero of Oxid Ridge
Green
IN Rhonas the Indomitable OUT Wall of Blossoms
IN Manglehorn OUT Ainok Survivalist
Multi
IN Nissa, Steward of Elements OUT Mystic Snake
Some observations by deck played: Glory-Bound Initiate and Angel of Sanctions were played in a UW tempo agro deck. The Glory-Bound put pressure on well. It was annoying for a controlling deck to deal with it. The Angel was a fine roadblock to a reanimation deck, but the reanimation deck also had lots of removal. The control deck countered the Angel but couldn't counter the embalm which was really good.
Next Trueheart Duelist, Dread Wanderer, Liliana, with Gideon riding the sidebord of a WB Stacks Token deck. Duelist had some fine interactions with Stacks, and was embalmed once all night. Was fine. Gideon was in the WB agro decks sideboard. It was sided in a bunch but never drawn. Dread was also great with Stacks, no complaints at all. Liliana was great in this build. She made tokens for Stacks, recurred creatures that were sacrificed. The player was super happy every time she was cast.
Pull from Tomorrow, Curator of Mysteries, Manglehorn New Nissa were all drafted by the Temur control deck, mainly blue splash red and green. Pull and Curator were sideboard. The Pull was not necessary with the redundant card advantage the deck had through planeswalkers like Dack and 4 mana Darretti. The Curator was sided in often and the player was coming around on the card. Nothing great about it, but it does a lot of things OK, which might add up to a good card. Nissa was great all night. It was cast against me as a 3 drop, i didn't put enough pressure on it, he ultimated it to him me for 5 and deal 5 to my Chandra. I was able to deal with it there, but the player cast it all over the curve and it was great in that deck. Manglehorn ran into low artifact draws. The player discarded it a few times to looter, could have been good against a couple of decks, but didn't draw it when the opponents drew their artifacts.
Plague Belcher, Never to Return, and Rhonas the Indomitable were in a GB midrange deck. Never to Return in its first night had aftermath portion cast once where i can't remember ever seeing ruinous path being awakened, so added value on day one is nice. Plague Belcher didn't seem at its best, but there were some OK interactions, Curse of Perdition removing the counters is good, Rishkar negating the counters was OK as well. 5/4 menace is a good beater. Rhonas had about 6 cards in the deck that would have turned him on without the pump. The player claimed that it was good, and I saw a few board states where it would have, but need more data still.
Lastly Hazoret the Fervent was in a RG Wildfireless Wildfire deck. Didn't see any of the 2 wildfire cards in the draft. The ramp shell allowed the ability to empty my hand as well as use the discard ability. The highlight of the night was getting a Batterskull equipped with 1 card in hand, 9 life a turn is a bunch. 5 power hit hard, never got to haste it in this deck. The discard damage being able to redirect to planeswalkers is great. Overall, for a card I was intending to be an agro curve topper only, performed well in a couple of games in deck where it might not be at its best.
Lots of cards I'm excited to try out again next week. A few that are already on my radar to cut.