Ral, Monsoon Mage is too unpredictable for my cube. It's not like Mana Crypt where you get the mana regardless of whether you win or lose the coin flip, because with Ral you need to win to transform. Waiting to transform Ral until the last instant or sorcery you plan to cast might maximize your value by having the most mana discount and starting loyalty, but because there is the coin flip clause, this is a very risky strategy because you might never get to the planeswalker side at all. Imagine the scenario where you plan to cast 4 instants or sorceries: You win the first 3 flips but decline to transform because you know you're going to cast another one, then on the 4th trigger you lose the coin flip, cannot transform, and take a damage.
Another downside is that in Storm or spells matter decks, Ral sits out as half of a reverse Grapeshot, because it deals 0.5 damage to you for every instant or sorcery you cast. So if you're trying to wait on the flip to max out the value of the mana discount and the starting loyalty, you might deal yourself quite a lot of incidental damage.
Even if you choose a different strategy where you opt to always transform Ral at the first opportunity, there's no guarantee you won't get unlucky and lose many coin flips in a row, leaving you stuck with a 1/3 liability.
“…if you cast a spell with an additional cost of "Sacrifice a creature" and you sacrifice Forsaken Miner to pay that cost, Forsaken Miner's ability will trigger as long as you committed a crime with that spell.”
Bombardment Miner combo is going to give Rakdos decks a lot of free wins against aggro, by mowing down the opponent’s whole team and then daring them to play more creatures into the damage loop. It seems great against control too, because it’s hard to disrupt with targeted creature removal since you can sac and loop Miner at instant speed to fizzle any removal spell, so control needs an additional removal spell for every B available. If you run out of B and Miner ends up in the graveyard, just commit a different crime (perhaps by sacrificing a different creature to Bombardment) to restart the loop. The best approaches against a player who has the combo with mana up could be enchantment removal on Goblin Bombardment or instant speed graveyard exile while the Miner’s ability is on the stack.
The Cancel/Catalog/Artistic Refusal modes are all pretty mediocre, so the instant speed clone effect has to pull someoweight. In my experience, Phyrexian Metamorph was rarely used to copy a player's own permanents, though admittedly the cube has changed a LOT since then. Right now I think I prefer Confounding Riddle because of its Forbidden Alchemy mode, also Convolute edges out Cancel for me.
If Three Steps Ahead was only “or” I think it would be worse than Confounding Riddle, but I’m swapping Three Steps Ahead in over Confounding Riddle because it has the possibility of “and.” 3UU for Cancel+Catalog is pretty close to Mystic Confluence’s most commonly used mode of 3UU for Mana Leak+Quick Study. I also like having the dream of a late game 6UU instant speed mega blowout.
I have a timing question about how Forsaken Miner works with Goblin Bombardment (or Yawgmoth, Thran Physician). If I sacrifice the Miner to Bombardment and target my opponent or something they control with 1 damage, then I committed a crime. However, I think that Miner won't be in the graveyard in time to be triggered by that particular crime because the targeting happened at the same time as the sacrifice, meaning I would have to commit a second crime in order to trigger the Miner's ability to return to the battlefield. Is that correct?
If so, these cards still have great synergy, but it doesn't work the way I initially assumed where they create a 2-card machine gun loop for B, because the combo requires additional sac fodder.
I wouldn't cube 1B destroy target creature. If I wanted to cube a card like that I'd be playing Power Word Kill, it hits everything you'd want to remove early except for Carnage Interpreter. Holding this up and having your opponent play one of the cheap aggressive rogues or pirates is a crushing tempo loss.
It depends on the specific make up of the cube. For my cube, Power Word Kill hits 89.5% of creatures, while Shoot the Sheriff hits 96%. I also think I will lose more games if my removal spell cannot answer the opponent’s big Dragon or Angel than if my removal spell cannot answer their small early threat.
Saddle looks a whole lot like Enlist to me: that is to say a mechanic unlikely to be used much. Tapping down your creatures during your turn to NOT attack is a hard sell.
Saddle works with summoning sick creatures. I think Saddle is closer to an upgraded Crew, where in an aggro deck the creature you just played each turn is usually hopping in the saddle.
Slamming Ornery Tumblewagg into my cube! I have been happy with both Luminarch Aspirant and Court of Garenbrig in cube, and this feels like a fun mash-up of those two cards. I love counter doubling effects that come with a built in way to make counters, because they support a deep +1/+1 counters theme centered in Selesnya. And counterdoubling effects get exponentially better in multiples (literally).
If you do have a red permanent lying around, X/1 creatures continue to become more of a liability in the era of stuff like Orcish Bowmasters and Wrenn and Six...
Ajani is also great against pingers. Go ahead Bowmasters, I dare you to ping my 2/1 Cat.
Hooray for flipwalkers! I always love these, both as flavorful origin stories for how the planeswalker got their spark and mechanically as creatures with a built in quest. Maybe Ajani, Nacatl Pariah will be the start of a new cycle or supercycle like thefivefromMagicOrigins? EDIT: This is indeed a cycle in MH3.
Anyway, there’s a lot to love about this card:
I like that the flip trigger on the front side is a may, so your opponent cannot bolt your cat then swing in to kill your planeswalker.
This is a welcome addition for white blink decks, because they typically have lots of high value 3-5 mana ETB creatures, but not many great 1-2 mana ETB creatures that come down before the Flickerwisp or Guardian of Ghirapur.
This is a great combo with Goblin Bombardment because it lets you sac the cat to flip the planeswalker immediately, then Bombardment provides a red permanent for the 0 ability.
Not only is Ajani a great stat monster play on turn 2, but it’s also a great late game top deck on a stalled board. The -4 is very powerful, so when you are stable the play pattern of +2 then -4 seems backbreaking against a big board.
Another downside is that in Storm or spells matter decks, Ral sits out as half of a reverse Grapeshot, because it deals 0.5 damage to you for every instant or sorcery you cast. So if you're trying to wait on the flip to max out the value of the mana discount and the starting loyalty, you might deal yourself quite a lot of incidental damage.
Even if you choose a different strategy where you opt to always transform Ral at the first opportunity, there's no guarantee you won't get unlucky and lose many coin flips in a row, leaving you stuck with a 1/3 liability.
Of the new flipwalker cycle, I'm very excited to include Ajani, Nacatl Pariah, Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student, and Sorin of House Markov in my cube.
“…if you cast a spell with an additional cost of "Sacrifice a creature" and you sacrifice Forsaken Miner to pay that cost, Forsaken Miner's ability will trigger as long as you committed a crime with that spell.”
Bombardment Miner combo is going to give Rakdos decks a lot of free wins against aggro, by mowing down the opponent’s whole team and then daring them to play more creatures into the damage loop. It seems great against control too, because it’s hard to disrupt with targeted creature removal since you can sac and loop Miner at instant speed to fizzle any removal spell, so control needs an additional removal spell for every B available. If you run out of B and Miner ends up in the graveyard, just commit a different crime (perhaps by sacrificing a different creature to Bombardment) to restart the loop. The best approaches against a player who has the combo with mana up could be enchantment removal on Goblin Bombardment or instant speed graveyard exile while the Miner’s ability is on the stack.
If Three Steps Ahead was only “or” I think it would be worse than Confounding Riddle, but I’m swapping Three Steps Ahead in over Confounding Riddle because it has the possibility of “and.” 3UU for Cancel+Catalog is pretty close to Mystic Confluence’s most commonly used mode of 3UU for Mana Leak+Quick Study. I also like having the dream of a late game 6UU instant speed mega blowout.
Another great set for cube!
Angel of Indemnity replaces Sun Titan
Smirking Spelljacker replaces Frost Titan
Three Steps Ahead replaces Confounding Riddle
Forsaken Miner replaces Cult Conscript
Shoot the Sheriff replaces Heartless Act
Bristly Bill, Spine Sower replaces Jadelight Spelunker
Ornery Tumblewagg replaces Managorger Hydra
Motivated by Angel of Indemnity, this was the set where I finally decided to break up the Titan cycle by cutting the worst two.
If so, these cards still have great synergy, but it doesn't work the way I initially assumed where they create a 2-card machine gun loop for B, because the combo requires additional sac fodder.
It depends on the specific make up of the cube. For my cube, Power Word Kill hits 89.5% of creatures, while Shoot the Sheriff hits 96%. I also think I will lose more games if my removal spell cannot answer the opponent’s big Dragon or Angel than if my removal spell cannot answer their small early threat.
Now that is how you write reminder text!
This shoots 96% of creatures in my cube. Seems great.
Saddle works with summoning sick creatures. I think Saddle is closer to an upgraded Crew, where in an aggro deck the creature you just played each turn is usually hopping in the saddle.
1W with Squad 3, so 4W, then 7W, then 10W?
Ajani is also great against pingers. Go ahead Bowmasters, I dare you to ping my 2/1 Cat.
Anyway, there’s a lot to love about this card:
Good luck trying to block Doctor Tongue.
Reanimator decks love free discard outlets that don't have to tap, and tempo decks love pecking away while drawing extra cards.
That card costs one more mana and is in the Clue set: Lonis, Genetics Expert. I really enjoy the fun of mixing and matching synergies between the many +1/+1 counters mechanics. Fathom Mage, Benthic Biomancer, and Dusk Legion Duelist are other options in this vein.