I watched the trailer earlier today with my sons, both of whom love Star Wars. They were underwhelmed by the first trailer but this one provoked outrage when I explained that the movie won't be out for another eight months. I'm struggling to wait but it must seem like an eternity when you are only five.
I played my first game of magic with my older son, and he's hooked! I built a basic deck of each colour, avoiding complexity and gruesome art. He picked the blue deck and has declared himself a blue mage. Unfortunately I then found him teaching his younger brother. They now play each other and I have nobody to play against.
I haven't been posting much lately, on account of moving house, starting a new job, and working on a part time MSc. I need to find a new cube group.
This seems like an interesting card for cubes that want to push UW in a heavy control direction. On the standard measure of "can it protect itself" it does not do anything... other than having a loyalty of 7 if you choose to +1 it. In creature-light decks it could be reliably drawing a card about half the time, which is not too bad. Rebound seems nice, but a lot of instants and sorceries are not so relevant with rebound: countermagic is likely to have no target, and there may be no relevant targets for removal. Rebounding a Time Walk would be nice, though, and if there is no advantage in Rebound then you can just go for the +1.
The ultimate seems eminently attainable, and against many decks it will negate a significant number of powerful cards. Against certain decks it could be crippling.
I don't think the name really works for this guy. A dragon hunter should be going out actively killing dragons: I imagine this guy waiting on the battlements with a spear, bravely fending the dragons off but not actually slaying them. 2 power isn't enough to kill most dragons.
I may have to switch to Mardu to express my nationalist pride after Thursday.
I agree that, for most cubes, Lightning Angel, is still the better card. It likely won't be played any sooner unless you are very fortunate with fixing. I find it astonishing that a card from Invasion block has not been bested, given the overall power creep for creatures.
I guess Im not trying to say its not good, its just not as good as it used to be.
When I first started cubing, aggro was really weak. Now there are a greater proportion of decks that run large numbers of 1-2 drop critters, Deed seems much better. Being able to activate it at instant speed is occasionally relevant. BG decks are the most likely to have regenerators, allowing creatures to survive. It is just a really good card to build/play around.
Also Deed's threat of activation is crazy good, not Mother of Runes good but it's up there.
I absolutely agree with this. For some reason, a Deed on the other side of the board seems to make players in my group (myself included) play wrong: holding back threats when we should be pressuring our opponent to activate the Deed, or overcommitting when we should be holding back. Maybe because there is no right answer to the Deed.
Being an instant is interesting too. Obviously when you're taking advantage of the haste it's not that relevant, but I've used Sneak Attack on my opponent's turn before, so it's not a dead ability having TTB as an instant.
I wouldn't be opposed to testing it out, actually.
I'm interested to hear the results of your testing.
We frequently find Sneak Aattack is used on defence. Removing equipment at instant speed can often be a blow out - particularly when you're cheating Acidic Slime to remove a sword and the creature wielding it. SA just really messes with combat maths.
This is also where TTB falls down relative to Sneak Attack. I think it is reasonable as a one-shot means of getting a fatty into play, but it lacks the ability to repeatably play creatures with ETB abilities that can really mess with your opponent.
I have never consciously evaluated a card strictly on its rarity. However, rarity does correlate with complexity and "impact" which do affect my decision making.
Pelakka Wurm is very efficient, but its triggered abilities offer zero decision making. To me that feels very consistent with uncommon rarity. Terastodon, on the other hand, forces a complex decision when you put it into play, and dramatically changes the board state. This feels more "rare" to me.
I like both cards about the same, to the extent I rotate them in my cube. But it is not the colour of the symbol on the type line that affects my decision, rather what that symbol reflects.
The thing that keeps Merchant Scroll off my list is that it is a sorcery. Blue decks are often reactive, and it would be great to be able to use it to tutor for the perfect response to an opponent's play, as well as having the option to cast it EOT of course.
If you run more proactive blue decks, and it looks like you push combo, I could see it being a reasonable include.
The Grade Point Average thing made me smile. I think you should consider throwing evasion into the mix. Terastodon really suffers through lacking trample.
Woodfall is just so solid: great ETB, good sized body, evasion and very resilient. The persist gives it a certain amount of combo potential with things like Sneak Attack.
Hornet Queen is tricksy, plays very well on both defence and attack and is a fantastic top end for ramping token builds in my cube.
Terastodon is really interesting to play - trying to decide who gets the tokens is not always an easy decision. Lacking evasion really hurts the card though.
Pelakka Wurm is all upside, but feels a little dull. There are fewer decisions to make with it than the others.
Worldspine Wurm, Avenger of Zendikar and Craterhoof Behemoth can all do a lot in the right circumstances, but are too limited in my cube. I want my fatties to be good when cheated into play: Worlspine is hard to reanimate; Avenger is not good when you have more artifact mana than lands; and Behemoth is less successful if you cheat it into play with Natural Order, having sacrificed your only creature. Super Fatties are already narrow enough cards without further limiting the decks that can cast them.
I played my first game of magic with my older son, and he's hooked! I built a basic deck of each colour, avoiding complexity and gruesome art. He picked the blue deck and has declared himself a blue mage. Unfortunately I then found him teaching his younger brother. They now play each other and I have nobody to play against.
I haven't been posting much lately, on account of moving house, starting a new job, and working on a part time MSc. I need to find a new cube group.
This seems like an interesting card for cubes that want to push UW in a heavy control direction. On the standard measure of "can it protect itself" it does not do anything... other than having a loyalty of 7 if you choose to +1 it. In creature-light decks it could be reliably drawing a card about half the time, which is not too bad. Rebound seems nice, but a lot of instants and sorceries are not so relevant with rebound: countermagic is likely to have no target, and there may be no relevant targets for removal. Rebounding a Time Walk would be nice, though, and if there is no advantage in Rebound then you can just go for the +1.
The ultimate seems eminently attainable, and against many decks it will negate a significant number of powerful cards. Against certain decks it could be crippling.
Oh, and auto-include.
I may have to switch to Mardu to express my nationalist pride after Thursday.
I agree that, for most cubes, Lightning Angel, is still the better card. It likely won't be played any sooner unless you are very fortunate with fixing. I find it astonishing that a card from Invasion block has not been bested, given the overall power creep for creatures.
Nice that it is another Stacks/Pox support card.
Given you run a non-singleton cube, you could always double up on Griselbrand or another top target:p
When I first started cubing, aggro was really weak. Now there are a greater proportion of decks that run large numbers of 1-2 drop critters, Deed seems much better. Being able to activate it at instant speed is occasionally relevant. BG decks are the most likely to have regenerators, allowing creatures to survive. It is just a really good card to build/play around.
I absolutely agree with this. For some reason, a Deed on the other side of the board seems to make players in my group (myself included) play wrong: holding back threats when we should be pressuring our opponent to activate the Deed, or overcommitting when we should be holding back. Maybe because there is no right answer to the Deed.
I'm interested to hear the results of your testing.
We frequently find Sneak Aattack is used on defence. Removing equipment at instant speed can often be a blow out - particularly when you're cheating Acidic Slime to remove a sword and the creature wielding it. SA just really messes with combat maths.
This is also where TTB falls down relative to Sneak Attack. I think it is reasonable as a one-shot means of getting a fatty into play, but it lacks the ability to repeatably play creatures with ETB abilities that can really mess with your opponent.
Pelakka Wurm is very efficient, but its triggered abilities offer zero decision making. To me that feels very consistent with uncommon rarity. Terastodon, on the other hand, forces a complex decision when you put it into play, and dramatically changes the board state. This feels more "rare" to me.
I like both cards about the same, to the extent I rotate them in my cube. But it is not the colour of the symbol on the type line that affects my decision, rather what that symbol reflects.
If you run more proactive blue decks, and it looks like you push combo, I could see it being a reasonable include.
My ranking is:
Woodfall Primus > Hornet Queen > Terastodon = Pelakka Wurm
Woodfall is just so solid: great ETB, good sized body, evasion and very resilient. The persist gives it a certain amount of combo potential with things like Sneak Attack.
Hornet Queen is tricksy, plays very well on both defence and attack and is a fantastic top end for ramping token builds in my cube.
Terastodon is really interesting to play - trying to decide who gets the tokens is not always an easy decision. Lacking evasion really hurts the card though.
Pelakka Wurm is all upside, but feels a little dull. There are fewer decisions to make with it than the others.
Worldspine Wurm, Avenger of Zendikar and Craterhoof Behemoth can all do a lot in the right circumstances, but are too limited in my cube. I want my fatties to be good when cheated into play: Worlspine is hard to reanimate; Avenger is not good when you have more artifact mana than lands; and Behemoth is less successful if you cheat it into play with Natural Order, having sacrificed your only creature. Super Fatties are already narrow enough cards without further limiting the decks that can cast them.
Seriously, fatties are narrow enough by virtue of being fatties without requiring extra restrictions like being in near mono green.