Another un-card that I really like is Bear with Set's Mechanic. He basically has Windfury from Hearthstone. It's close to double strike but with some differences. Personally I think Aggressive is better in this type of deck (second hit requires a second blocker)
Other than Feasting Hobbit + Food I think Bear is definitely the best two drop for lowland green.
Incidentally, Tumbleweed Rising from the new set can get bigger than virtually any other two drop. And of course if you play something like 1v1 Brawl/Commander then Cactus Preserve is 12/12 with Ghalta as the commander
Yeah, arcane savant constricting what sorceries you add is a big downside , true point.
Clock napper is still worse than the absolute most broken arcane savant “combos”.
It’s not so much going infinite with clock napper that I thought was broken, it’s more how nuts a time walk + draw a card is on a card that can be blinked. Time walk lends itself to more blinking.
Our best player ranked it higher than black lotus at the time
My experience is that Clocknapper is strong but it isn't THAT strong.
I don't think its THAT strong either but its definitely the type of card you put in where intent is to abuse it
we just run Squirrel Dealer as "make a squirrel" and we use a die for Tchotcke Elemental because the novelty factor of knick knacks wears off fast. We also agreed that things like Teancious Pup's effect would end if it wasn't used before it left play (to assuage some players that had reservations)
you would need to have discussions on how to handle conjure, seek, perpetually, spellbooks, specialize, and things that rely on private information (such as Mind Spike). For private information you can use the honor system as you mentioned although tracking choices (ex: choose a creature in your hand) can be fairly cumbersome and is really prevalent in alchemy cards
Of those, conjure and variants like Double Team seem doable if occasionally impractical; seek is also fine as long as you change it to revealing from the top although technically different, and specialize + spellbooks are mostly a matter of having ALL of the necessary/relevant cards on hand I guess
I think boons could easily be in paper but oddly some cards like Tenacious Pup don't use the boon template for reasons I'm unclear on
There are also some weird things that don't appear in paper like "winning" a fight (but that seems less hairy than many silver border cards)
There are also some pretty clearly silver board/acorn one-offs like Davriel with his offers/conditions
Some of the cards like Divine Purge seem like they've basically been done in paper by now
Basically its a mixed bag and I would treat them like Un-cards where you make case-by-case decisions but in my experience at least one player is going to HATE things like perpetual abilities that apply to unknown cards in your hand. Something like Tenacious Pup mentioned before is ok (but if it dies and then the ability doesn't trigger for a turn or two there are some harsh glares)
I would pay 1B for a 1/1 with flash and an ETB trigger that makes a 1/1 token and deals 1 damage to any target, even with no other text. The extra ability to hate on opponents drawing extra cards is some fantastic gravy. Can't wait to use Orcish Bowmasters in decks with flicker and wheel effects.
Like the original amass, amass Orcs is anti-parasitic (because it works better in an environment containing fewer cards with amass Orcs, so that you're more likely to create a new creature token instead of adding more +1/+1 counters onto an existing Orc Army). Being anti-parasitic makes the mechanic stronger in singleton formats like cube, but doesn't motivate cube builders to include multiple cards with amass Orcs.
I hope they print a version of Orcish Bowmasters with reminder text for what "amass Orcs" does, because I try to keep in mind a new drafter's ability to understand the cube's many many mechanics and this is likely to end up as the only card in my cube with "amass" or "amass Orcs" printed on it.
According to Mark Rosewater's tumblr blog, all Amass types together. So Amass Orcs 1 and Amass Zombie 2 gives you a 3/3 Orc Zombie. I believe that goes against what was said earlier though, so I think it remains unclear.
EDIT: actually, the reminder text on the card is pretty clear that it does work that way
There's only like 400 of them available and you can't get them in any packs so most likely you'd have to proxy your own. And there are a good number of the Gavin cards that would definitely be cubed if they were real cards -- and I'm pretty sure some would just be outright imbalanced
I more or less agree with meltingsho's tier list in the OP.
I'm not as high on this as other people, as this will be a 1/2 Boreal Druid most of the time. You're likely to have a few legendary cards in any given deck, but not a huge number. Uncounterability and mana fixing for them is nice, but I'd much rather just have a second color.
That said, it's more interesting than some of the other mana dorks, and I'll probably end up playing it somewhere.
Interesting that it's called a halfling rather than a hobbit even in the card name.
I've been wondering about the lack of hobbits also
You have to really lean into the "casual" but Tchotchke Elemental (I call him Leon) is rather dumb. Based on how it's worded, if you have two of them each one triggers off the other getting a counter..which isn't infinite since you have to fit the counters on the cards but it's a lot at any rate. I think it should have been worded as "another permanent not named Tchotchke Elemental" personally
And then you have Crop Rotation-->Dark Depths for +10/+10 as well
Other than Feasting Hobbit + Food I think Bear is definitely the best two drop for lowland green.
Incidentally, Tumbleweed Rising from the new set can get bigger than virtually any other two drop. And of course if you play something like 1v1 Brawl/Commander then Cactus Preserve is 12/12 with Ghalta as the commander
I don't think its THAT strong either but its definitely the type of card you put in where intent is to abuse it
Of those, conjure and variants like Double Team seem doable if occasionally impractical; seek is also fine as long as you change it to revealing from the top although technically different, and specialize + spellbooks are mostly a matter of having ALL of the necessary/relevant cards on hand I guess
I think boons could easily be in paper but oddly some cards like Tenacious Pup don't use the boon template for reasons I'm unclear on
There are also some weird things that don't appear in paper like "winning" a fight (but that seems less hairy than many silver border cards)
There are also some pretty clearly silver board/acorn one-offs like Davriel with his offers/conditions
Some of the cards like Divine Purge seem like they've basically been done in paper by now
Basically its a mixed bag and I would treat them like Un-cards where you make case-by-case decisions but in my experience at least one player is going to HATE things like perpetual abilities that apply to unknown cards in your hand. Something like Tenacious Pup mentioned before is ok (but if it dies and then the ability doesn't trigger for a turn or two there are some harsh glares)
There is no way I could ever get my brother to allow cutting Maelstrom, for exactly the same reason
According to Mark Rosewater's tumblr blog, all Amass types together. So Amass Orcs 1 and Amass Zombie 2 gives you a 3/3 Orc Zombie. I believe that goes against what was said earlier though, so I think it remains unclear.
EDIT: actually, the reminder text on the card is pretty clear that it does work that way
There's also a Jitte/Divining Top mashup where its an equipment that gives you the top's effects as options when it deals combat damage.
Mox Poison for instance (its a 5 color mox with the drawback that you get a poison counter)
I've been wondering about the lack of hobbits also
That was my first question as well
And then you have Crop Rotation-->Dark Depths for +10/+10 as well
I'm surprised that Death-Greeter's Champion and Guardian Scalelord both missed your list
EDIT: or do you not include Commander cards?