I’m interested to hear where people thinks this ranks among blue three drops.
I’m not running Hullbreacher or True-Name Nemesis, since they can be pretty un-fun to play against. Beyond those two cards, this is definitely behind Clique, as well as Metamorph and Borrower (depending on whether you classify them as 3 drops), but I think it competes decently with the other available options.
I find the ranking of Adeline surprising. I recognize the huge upside, but also can't help but wonder how it will look in draws where you stumble early, fall behind on board, or have your first creature bolted. In those situations it will really pale in comparison to rabblemaster. Then again, a lot of that could also be said about hanweir garrison, which I still run.
Overall, the card definitely seems good, but also a farcry from Brimaz, a card I've found to be dependably good in pretty much every scenario.
1) Could it played in a lot of archetypes?
2) Is the card a key anchor piece of an archetype?
3) Is the card powerful?
My evaluation typically goes beyond how cards fit into archetypes, to look at how cards fit in decks in general. A couple of years ago I tried to build a cube where every card went into an archetype (and ideally multiple archetypes). The experiment failed miserably because everyone ended up picking a lane and then drafting on wheels. The reality is that sometimes you just need cards like this, solid glue that can go into any deck and be decent + dependable.
I'm so far on the other side of this argument that it's getting pretty lonely
I don't think you're necessarily alone in thinking this, it's just that the other side is being louder
That being said, I'm definitely on the other side of this debate than you, for the reasons already outlined by wtwlf and ryansaxe. Looking forward to seeing how it all plays out though!
This is, I think, the crux of the discussion. It's a really different question to ask "would this make my deck?" than "should this make my cube?"
Obviously most decks that play white would rather replace a basic plains with Flagstones of Trokair, but that doesn't mean that card belongs in most cubes.
Yea, that's a good point.
I think that the ultimate question is, obviously, "should this make my cube?", but then there are 2 sub-questions as well:
[1] "would this make my deck?"
[2] "would this make my deck better"
One the first point, I think it's fair to make the comparison between these MDFCs and Flagstones of Trokair. These are both cards that will almost always make your deck. Where things differ is the second point. Whereas Flagstones won't typically have a meaningful impact on you winning games, I think that these MDFCs will.
So, overall, I think people are in agreement regarding the first point, but the real point of contention is the second point.
Incidentally, this caused me to go back and look at the top sets for my cube, and I was surprised. I tried to move everything around to their "original" printing, but my method was an imperfect science. Here are all the sets (lumping ABUR together) with 10+ cards. I hadn't realized that MH1 has more presence in the cube than ABUR does.
MH1 (28)
ABUR (23)
ELD (19)
IKO (17)
KLD (13)
ZEN (12)
MRD (12)
THB (11)
ULG (10)
BFZ (10)
XLN (10)
WAR (10)
Seeing this list confirms something I've been worrying about--the gradual power creep in sets. It's crazy how many of the top sets are from the past couple of years. On the one hand, I'm always excited to try new cards and I love the idea of creating a powerful environment for my drafters. On the other hand, a lot of what makes cube special is getting to play powerful/interesting old cards. Hopefully we don't get to the point where there are so many new cards that I have to start cutting some old favorites. This is a bigger deal for creatures than spells, but I'll be sad when cards like Wild Mongrel and FTK no longer make the cut
As well, everyone hopefully understands that the cost of including these cards comes at cutting another card from you Cube not your deck. Cube real estate is hard to break into these days with so many archetypes and generic high powered cards. That means even though each of the MDFC's would be played, does not mean they are auto-includes in a Cube.
This is a good point, but I think I come at it from a different perspective than most people. My experience has been that it isn't hard to pull together 23 non-land cards for a cube deck. Even my weaker drafters who basically just pick random cards in a colour pair tend to end up with at least a semi-coherent pile. This suggests to me that, while cube slots are competitive, there's a lot of cards that are going to waste, sitting in sideboards during games. As a result, cards like this that will never sit in sideboards are super appealing. Basically, I'd rather have cards that I'll include in my land slot 99% of the time, than the 9th best 3 drop in a colour or the 10th best draw spell, which aren't high picks to begin with.
I do agree that this can be taken too far. I don't want to end up in a situation where my drafters are struggling to pull together a solid deck, with an interesting gameplan. That being said, I think we're pretty far from that point. I'm likely going to be testing around 10 of these lands in my 500 card cube and I don't expect there to be any significant issues. I guess I'll find out though!
And just like that black two drops are stacked....It's going to take a lot of playtesting to work out the tiers these will fall into.
Bloodghast, Dark Confidant, Heir of Falkenrath, Kitesail Freebooter, Oona's Prowler, Pack Rat,Scrapheap Scrounger, Order of Midnight, Skyclave Shade, Glint-Sleeve Siphoner, Blood Artist, Vampire Hexmage, and now Nullpriest of Oblivion.
Yea, I was just thinking the same thing. I'm going to need someone smarter than me to help me figure out what I should run! Looking forward to the discussion once people get some reps in
I'm always on the lookout for new equipment options, since I'm not a fan of the Swords (they're so slow and matchup dependent), but still want to keep a high enough density to make stoneforge mystic a thing.
I think this card looks pretty decent.
Looking at mana-costs, The first equip requires 2 less mana than a Sword (3 vs 5). The second equip puts total mana expenditure on par with a Sword (7 vs 7). For each subsequent equip the swords are more efficient.
Looking at what the card actually does, +2/+2, first strike and flying is a solid package and should be pretty consistently good. In contrast the Swords have a lower floor, but a much, much higher ceiling.
I think what really hurts this card is the fact that it's in white, instead of being colourless.
Overall, I don't think this quite gets there, but it isn't too far off.
...Is it too much to ask that Wizards functionally reprints grafted wargear 3 times?
I've been sad about the lack of beef in my green 3 drops. Under-costed beaters just feels like a fundamental part of greens identity that doesn't really get represented in cube.
Even just the mammoth side would have been enough to pique my interest (even if it probably would have fallen a bit short). Smashing for up to 5 or 7 damage as early as turn 3 sounds great, so adding a land to the other side makes it a slam dunk for me.
We don't play Quench, but Miscalculation is great. We don't play Naturalize, but Wilt is fantastic. I think adding a tapped land option to a spell is even better than cycling (and by a pretty big margin, too). So ya, it's entirely possible for a card to go from bad to good because you add a flexible option to it. Any options we add on to the card that give us more ways to use them have historically been good. Kicker, cycling ...they all give us more than one thing we can do with our cards. There's no greater gap to leap than land to nonland and vice versa, and these MDFCs are going to be awesome. The land option is likely worth about 1 in terms of the acceptable "tax" that it adds to the non-land side ...that's the equivalent of adding 1-mana cycling that can't miss a land when you need to dig for one. So when I look at the Spell//Tapland combo card, if I would cube the spell if it cost 1 mana less, I'm interested in the MDFC. So in this case, I would play a 2-mana clone. So a 3-mana one with a land stapled to it looks great to me. And they change the keepable range of opening hands they're a part of too. Just amazing designs, really.
I've been keeping out of these discussions up to this point, but was about to weigh in by saying exactly this! Glad to see that we're on the same page
You can use the "1-mana cycling" viewpoint to analyse both sides of the card. Would I play a 3 mana clone with with islandcycling 1 (I'm counting the ETB tapped as the loss of 1 mana)? Would I play a land with that cycles for 1 and always finds a 2 mana clone? Taken together I think the answer is yes.
I've found the discussions on the MDFCs interesting. People seem to be really focused on the idea that cube is an unfair format where you have to be doing something inherently busted to win. My experience is a bit different. I find that my drafters lose as many cube games to flood/screw as anything else. Beyond that, people HATE losing to flood/screw. It's miserable to draft a sweet deck just to have variance get the best of you. These are great because they will help you win games, while also reducing the number of non-games.
Yea, I really like this as well. Modal spells tend to play better than they look and, as has already been mentioned, this provides you with a lot of options.
At the very least, I plan to test it, probably over Jace Beleren.
i would also definitely be interested to hear peoples' experiences with uro in cube. it's just moderately expensive enough that i don't want to buy one just for testing!
Yea, that's where I'm at. Before going and dropping $50, I just want to make sure it's a reasonable investment!
I was looking at the This or That thread and noticed some discussion about where Uro fits in the Simic power rankings (see top of pg 558, here). The sense that I got was that he's near the top of the list and basically a must play. Does that sound right, based on people's experiences?
I guess I'm just surprised since I saw the potential weaknesses of the card (i.e., low impact front end and difficult to enable back end) as outweighing the strengths, particularly in the cube format.
Yea, that's super helpful! The cards you mentioned cover a lot of the pieces I already run/was considering.
Not to get off track, but I guess my struggle is finding the niche that Green aggro fills. This is a bit of an oversimplification but, Red=speed + reach, White=hatebears, Black=recursion, Green=?Under-costed stompy creatures? Still, that's not really what my Green section looks like (more utility than power).
One quick follow-up question:
- Does Goyf really work in aggro? Seems like it would spend a lot of the early game as a 0/1 or 1/2. I'd imagine something like Rimestag would be able to attack much more consistently. EDIT: The old Goyf thread covers my question pretty well, however I'm still curious about people's thoughts on Goyf vs Rimestag in green aggro.
If anyone else has thoughts on the cards mentioned by me or wtwlf, I'd love to hear them!
In the end it may just not be worth adding any of these cards, but I just wish there was a little bit less utility and more stompy in my green section!
I’m not running Hullbreacher or True-Name Nemesis, since they can be pretty un-fun to play against. Beyond those two cards, this is definitely behind Clique, as well as Metamorph and Borrower (depending on whether you classify them as 3 drops), but I think it competes decently with the other available options.
Overall, the card definitely seems good, but also a farcry from Brimaz, a card I've found to be dependably good in pretty much every scenario.
My evaluation typically goes beyond how cards fit into archetypes, to look at how cards fit in decks in general. A couple of years ago I tried to build a cube where every card went into an archetype (and ideally multiple archetypes). The experiment failed miserably because everyone ended up picking a lane and then drafting on wheels. The reality is that sometimes you just need cards like this, solid glue that can go into any deck and be decent + dependable.
I don't think you're necessarily alone in thinking this, it's just that the other side is being louder
That being said, I'm definitely on the other side of this debate than you, for the reasons already outlined by wtwlf and ryansaxe. Looking forward to seeing how it all plays out though!
Yea, that's a good point.
I think that the ultimate question is, obviously, "should this make my cube?", but then there are 2 sub-questions as well:
[1] "would this make my deck?"
[2] "would this make my deck better"
One the first point, I think it's fair to make the comparison between these MDFCs and Flagstones of Trokair. These are both cards that will almost always make your deck. Where things differ is the second point. Whereas Flagstones won't typically have a meaningful impact on you winning games, I think that these MDFCs will.
So, overall, I think people are in agreement regarding the first point, but the real point of contention is the second point.
Seeing this list confirms something I've been worrying about--the gradual power creep in sets. It's crazy how many of the top sets are from the past couple of years. On the one hand, I'm always excited to try new cards and I love the idea of creating a powerful environment for my drafters. On the other hand, a lot of what makes cube special is getting to play powerful/interesting old cards. Hopefully we don't get to the point where there are so many new cards that I have to start cutting some old favorites. This is a bigger deal for creatures than spells, but I'll be sad when cards like Wild Mongrel and FTK no longer make the cut
This is a good point, but I think I come at it from a different perspective than most people. My experience has been that it isn't hard to pull together 23 non-land cards for a cube deck. Even my weaker drafters who basically just pick random cards in a colour pair tend to end up with at least a semi-coherent pile. This suggests to me that, while cube slots are competitive, there's a lot of cards that are going to waste, sitting in sideboards during games. As a result, cards like this that will never sit in sideboards are super appealing. Basically, I'd rather have cards that I'll include in my land slot 99% of the time, than the 9th best 3 drop in a colour or the 10th best draw spell, which aren't high picks to begin with.
I do agree that this can be taken too far. I don't want to end up in a situation where my drafters are struggling to pull together a solid deck, with an interesting gameplan. That being said, I think we're pretty far from that point. I'm likely going to be testing around 10 of these lands in my 500 card cube and I don't expect there to be any significant issues. I guess I'll find out though!
Yea, I was just thinking the same thing. I'm going to need someone smarter than me to help me figure out what I should run! Looking forward to the discussion once people get some reps in
I think this card looks pretty decent.
Looking at mana-costs, The first equip requires 2 less mana than a Sword (3 vs 5). The second equip puts total mana expenditure on par with a Sword (7 vs 7). For each subsequent equip the swords are more efficient.
Looking at what the card actually does, +2/+2, first strike and flying is a solid package and should be pretty consistently good. In contrast the Swords have a lower floor, but a much, much higher ceiling.
I think what really hurts this card is the fact that it's in white, instead of being colourless.
Overall, I don't think this quite gets there, but it isn't too far off.
...Is it too much to ask that Wizards functionally reprints grafted wargear 3 times?
Even just the mammoth side would have been enough to pique my interest (even if it probably would have fallen a bit short). Smashing for up to 5 or 7 damage as early as turn 3 sounds great, so adding a land to the other side makes it a slam dunk for me.
I've been keeping out of these discussions up to this point, but was about to weigh in by saying exactly this! Glad to see that we're on the same page
You can use the "1-mana cycling" viewpoint to analyse both sides of the card. Would I play a 3 mana clone with with islandcycling 1 (I'm counting the ETB tapped as the loss of 1 mana)? Would I play a land with that cycles for 1 and always finds a 2 mana clone? Taken together I think the answer is yes.
I've found the discussions on the MDFCs interesting. People seem to be really focused on the idea that cube is an unfair format where you have to be doing something inherently busted to win. My experience is a bit different. I find that my drafters lose as many cube games to flood/screw as anything else. Beyond that, people HATE losing to flood/screw. It's miserable to draft a sweet deck just to have variance get the best of you. These are great because they will help you win games, while also reducing the number of non-games.
At the very least, I plan to test it, probably over Jace Beleren.
Yea, that's where I'm at. Before going and dropping $50, I just want to make sure it's a reasonable investment!
I guess I'm just surprised since I saw the potential weaknesses of the card (i.e., low impact front end and difficult to enable back end) as outweighing the strengths, particularly in the cube format.
Not to get off track, but I guess my struggle is finding the niche that Green aggro fills. This is a bit of an oversimplification but, Red=speed + reach, White=hatebears, Black=recursion, Green=?Under-costed stompy creatures? Still, that's not really what my Green section looks like (more utility than power).
One quick follow-up question:
- Does Goyf really work in aggro? Seems like it would spend a lot of the early game as a 0/1 or 1/2. I'd imagine something like Rimestag would be able to attack much more consistently. EDIT: The old Goyf thread covers my question pretty well, however I'm still curious about people's thoughts on Goyf vs Rimestag in green aggro.
If anyone else has thoughts on the cards mentioned by me or wtwlf, I'd love to hear them!
strangleroot geist vs treetop ambusher vs saddled rimestag vs any other green aggro 2 drop I may not be considering?
Rhonas the Indomitable vs lovestruck beast vs The First Iroan Games vs any other green aggro 3 drop I may not be considering?
In the end it may just not be worth adding any of these cards, but I just wish there was a little bit less utility and more stompy in my green section!