Huge congrats on 50 articles. I always look forward to these - your analysis is always very thoughtful.
I'll chime in to say we've been testing Hostile Investigator and it has performed really well. The amount of incidental discard in the cube is through the roof these days.
Please consider The Raven Man if you aren't already!
Thanks for the write-up as always! No strong disagreements with any of your takes. I would have expected Lost Jitte to make an appearance. And a card I'm very excited about is Hostile Investigator, but it's not for everybody.
I respect Steve's crusade for this card. And I think it is very good! Might be a bit too fair. I think it's so close to being pretty good. I just wish it were a bit better somehow.
And I will surely put in like 6 of them, then take out 2, then add 3 others from my list that weren't part of the initial 6, and then put in 2 still new cards from this list, before ultimately taking everything out and keeping like 5 of them for the foreseeable future.
I like the comparison to Green Sun's Zenith. I like this less than some other niche tutors, such as Beseech the Mirror and Bring to Light. But if you have 4 drops, especially monarch/initiative ones, this could be worth it. Pass for me though, especially because there are several other black cards I'm going to be testing.
I'm definitely testing this. As you highlighted, this is a fit for me because I don't run monarch/initiative. I would have made a thread for it here if I was more active on this forum than on Reddit.
Whenever Roxanne, Starfall Savant enters the battlefield or attacks, create a tapped colorless artifact token named Meteorite with “When Meteorite enters the battlefield, it deals 2 damage to any target” and “{T}: Add one mana of any color.”
Whenever you tap an artifact token for mana, add one mana of any type that artifact token produced.
4/3
What do we think of Roxanne, lover of Meteors apparently.
It's a decent Inferno Titan impression. And those Meteors can be used for mana on later turns of course, or sacrificed for any number of things.
Additionally, she does let the Meteors tap for 2, along with any Treasure or any other artifact tokens you have lying around. Could be lovely with any ramp finisher or an Upheaval or Jokulhaups setup to clear the board entirely then deploy a thread (even Roxanne herself) and coast to victory.
When Aftermath Analyst enters the battlefield, mill three cards.
{3}{G}, Sacrifice Aftermath Analyst: Return all land cards from your graveyard to the battlefield tapped.
“Could someone bring me more evidence markers? Like … a lot more?”
1/3
This is in the same vein as Satyr Wayfinder. It mills the same number of cards, assuming you hit a land with Wayfinder, but doesn't "draw" you a land. It does have 2 extra toughness, which makes it a reasonable blocker early. And it becomes a literal Splendid Reclamation. At instant speed to boot.
I think this card is worth a look in cubes that have decks that have graveyard synergies and/or cubes that run a higher density of fetchlands than normal.
I think people aren't giving enough consideration to these being fetchable. That's a huge boon. Some cubes have broken singleton to run more fetches, creating a more balanced land base of fetches and fetch targets. And I think the Surveil lands will be great includes in environments like that.
Thank you as always for the content! Like most people, this set is on the weaker side.
I do think the Surveil lands are better than people are giving them credit for, especially in cubes that care about the graveyard. They're still safely below Triomes to me, but being fetchable is huge.
One card I'm into that you didn't mention is Aftermath Analyst. Besides thinking it's not a top 20 card in the set, what's your opinion of it?
Feldon creates a token of Gruff, though. And Gruff doesn't create additional copies of itself when it's a token, right?
I can see this being fine if the "real" Gruff dies, and the other tokens are still on the board, and then you use Feldon to make another Gruff token. That seems like a pretty unlikely scenario, though. And not even that strong, unless I'm not doing the math right.
How's this card doing for everyone? I noticed a lot of people aren't running it anymore. I love tinkering with my cube, but don't get to play as often as I'd like so I don't have many reps with it.
Please consider The Raven Man if you aren't already!
https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/new_considerations
And I will surely put in like 6 of them, then take out 2, then add 3 others from my list that weren't part of the initial 6, and then put in 2 still new cards from this list, before ultimately taking everything out and keeping like 5 of them for the foreseeable future.
Roxanne, Starfall Savant
{3}{R}{G}
Legendary Creature — Cat Druid
Whenever Roxanne, Starfall Savant enters the battlefield or attacks, create a tapped colorless artifact token named Meteorite with “When Meteorite enters the battlefield, it deals 2 damage to any target” and “{T}: Add one mana of any color.”
Whenever you tap an artifact token for mana, add one mana of any type that artifact token produced.
4/3
What do we think of Roxanne, lover of Meteors apparently.
It's a decent Inferno Titan impression. And those Meteors can be used for mana on later turns of course, or sacrificed for any number of things.
Additionally, she does let the Meteors tap for 2, along with any Treasure or any other artifact tokens you have lying around. Could be lovely with any ramp finisher or an Upheaval or Jokulhaups setup to clear the board entirely then deploy a thread (even Roxanne herself) and coast to victory.
{1}{G}
Creature — Elf Detective
When Aftermath Analyst enters the battlefield, mill three cards.
{3}{G}, Sacrifice Aftermath Analyst: Return all land cards from your graveyard to the battlefield tapped.
“Could someone bring me more evidence markers? Like … a lot more?”
1/3
This is in the same vein as Satyr Wayfinder. It mills the same number of cards, assuming you hit a land with Wayfinder, but doesn't "draw" you a land. It does have 2 extra toughness, which makes it a reasonable blocker early. And it becomes a literal Splendid Reclamation. At instant speed to boot.
I think this card is worth a look in cubes that have decks that have graveyard synergies and/or cubes that run a higher density of fetchlands than normal.
I do think the Surveil lands are better than people are giving them credit for, especially in cubes that care about the graveyard. They're still safely below Triomes to me, but being fetchable is huge.
One card I'm into that you didn't mention is Aftermath Analyst. Besides thinking it's not a top 20 card in the set, what's your opinion of it?
I can see this being fine if the "real" Gruff dies, and the other tokens are still on the board, and then you use Feldon to make another Gruff token. That seems like a pretty unlikely scenario, though. And not even that strong, unless I'm not doing the math right.