Not it doesn't. Soulbond still uses the stack (which means that your opponent can kill the Navigator before they are bound together).
So what? Consecrated Sphinx (and to a lesser extent Frost Titan, though it costs 2 extra and there's still a tapped permanent) have the same vulnerability. If you're going to tell me that a card is worse than its rivals, please use a metric along which the cards differ.
In what games are you in a bad position if you untap with a 6 drop and another 5-8 drop?
You noticed that not all the creatures he listed were 6-drops? Flickerwisp, Bone Shredder, Blade Splicer, Nekrataal, Huntmaster of the Fells, Azorius Arrester... all these can be cast and flickered (sometimes twice) the turn after the Navigator hits. They also help you to get to the point of the game where you can cast Navigator. Casting Avalanche Riders and flickering them is pretty darn good--and then do it again in response to the echo. Mystic Snake is perhaps even more ridiculous. As for cards he didn't mention: Lone Missionary, Snapcaster Mage, Augur of Bolas, Man-o'-War, Aether Adept, Vendilion Clique, Solemn Simulacrum... the list goes on.
I think the card is very interactive and leads to interesting plays and deckbuilding decisions. I'm playing him.
People are fraidy-cats. Yes, there's potential downside. Yes, there are situations where you can't cast Volatile Rig. There are situations where you need a blocker but can't get one. But there are also situations where you can't cast Ultimate Price because your opponent has no monocolored creatures. Being afraid to pick Rig because it's symmetrical and you don't always want to cast it is nonsense--the same logic applies to Wrath of God.
Furthermore, that fraidy-cat mentality applies to your opponent. Selesnya is afraid to block it because it wipes out their entire team. Against Rakdos, they can't block it anyways because their creatures can't block. Against Azorius, they don't want to block it because 25% of the time all their fliers (and thus their victory condition) will die.
The biggest problem is really the 2/5s of the format, where half the time that your Rig dies, it doesn't take anything with it. In those matches, side it out.
It's exactly the card we want. Powerful, efficient, and will force errors on our opponents' part. The fact that there's variance to it doesn't make it less powerful. The fact that it's one less card we have to splash, if we end up splashing, is gravy.
If you're running Wild Growth (which I would recommend), or Fertile Ground (less enthusiastic), he gets even better.
The only concerns are:
1) If you're casting him with non-forest mana, which can happen from certain dual lands (Sunpetal Grove-type or Brushland-type)
2) Armageddon / Ravages
Agreed. It wouldn't be included only as a tutor for land. However, Primeval costs 6 and you can't always draft him or draw him. The other cards (save Knight and Reap & Sow) are only good for tutoring for land, and have no other applications.
Are there even enough Mountains in the typical Gruul deck to make the Valakut combo work? Also wouldn't you just rather pick up a regular 7 drop that works with artifact / creature mana, doesn't rely on you also getting Valakut and does not force you to play a Rg / RG deck?
The Valakut combo works with any number of mountains, as long as you have at least six in your forty. If you have 6 still in your library then you get a lovely 18 damage, but if you don't then you get 3 damage for every mountain. Four mana is a small price to pay for 9 (or 12, or 15, or 18) immediate damage, even if it requires having seven lands in play. If somehow it isn't going to kill your opponent, it can at least clear their side of the board. Would you play "4RRG Sorcery: CARD deals 18 damage to target opponent"? Of course, this works only if you can draft Valakut--which should even wheel.
As for the use as a pump spell for landfall creatures: Yes it gives a relevant pump to 5* creatures in the cube, but is that really reason enough to include a card that does not fit to the rest of your deck?
Well, a 4-mana sorcery that pumps an otherwise discounted guy for 8 or 10, or creates an army of 1/1 fliers, is probably castable for that reason--even if it was in the deck mostly for other reasons like getting utility lands or as a one-of finisher with Valakut.
Basically, I think Scapeshift is an RG finisher that doesn't lose to Path to Exile, has midgame applications, and increases the value of utility lands and landfall creatures in your deck.
A best case scenario would be something like: you have only a Plated Geopede and 4 lands. Your opponent just attacked with his Wurmcoil Engine, putting him to 16, surely safe. You draw your fifth land and Scapeshift for a Teetering Peaks, Cathedral of War, and three other lands. Then swing for lethal.
As an aside, I think Valakut is a worthy inclusion on its own for a late-game plan in heavy red decks.
I think that the card most likely to be good in our deck is Slime Molding. It's very versatile, so fits wherever we need it in our curve. We can get additional random value out of cards like Sundering Growth.
You all know how RB works, of course.
As for GR, my feeling on the archetype is that it focuses on:
- Gobbling Ooze (with Goblin Rally or Traitorous Instinct)
- Goblin Rally + Chorus of Might
- Guttersnipe + token producers (Slime Molding, Goblin Rally) and giant growth effects (Giant Growth, Seek the Horizon, Chorus of Might) in addition to the usual red removal (Annihilating Fire, Explosive Impact)
- Trample (Bloodfray Giant, Korozda Monitor, Chorus of Might)
- I think Giant Growth effects (all three of them) are important to deal with the X/4s in the format that the red deck can't typically remove for less than 6 mana, and to keep your tramplers bashing through (and surviving) a block. They open you to blowouts, but instant-speed removal is rare enough that you can play around it.
Chorus of might is typically pretty bad, but I think it can be an important glue card for the archetype if you're going "wide." Less important if you're going "tall."
So whether we go RGb or RBg, I think we want the Slime Molding most. If we're splashing green, we want something that's good in the late game (we have the Korozda Guildmage to help with evasion as well). If we're splashing black, it's less clear, and more or less even between the efficiency of the Brushstrider and the versatility of the Molding.
I don't think we want the crocodile. It's a very bad 3-drop relative to what we should be getting in our colors--Dead Revelers and Splatter Thugs. And I think the activation is too expensive. The Brushstrider is good, and I sympathize with the contradiction of taking Chainwalkers highly but the Brushstrider lowly. But I think Molding is the card, mostly because it's much better on the splash and only slightly worse otherwise.
Agree with Mandelbrot that the Molding should not be picked because of populate effects.
They're both thoroughly playable--meaning that the basic condition for inclusion is met--so I think the more important question is which you enjoy more. To me Goliath is by far the more interesting card--its interactions with self-mill and survival effects are nontrivial and it makes game states more complex/interesting simply as a post-death value card. If you're looking at pure power level, I think it's pretty close (and likely depends on your cube) but I think that's a boring criterion myself.
In addition to the aforementioned, don't forget Ogre Jailbreaker,. It makes your defenders more powerful, is a great blocker. I think you'll also be taking fixing highly because of the several colors, making him an aggressively-costed beater as well.
Personally, I view the wall.dec as the greedy 5-color deck of the format (like Allies in Zen, for example). Not only are the walls spread throughout four of the five colors, necessitating a lot of mana fixing, but the two green walls (Gatecreeper Vine and Axebane Guardian) actively fix your mana and ramp you. So, take whichever overcosted rare like Archon of the Triumvirate or Utvara Hellkite gets passed to you in pack 2 or 3. If those don't come around, pick up a couple of Risen Sanctuary-type gigantic durdles.
Absent the greedy 5-color route, I'm not sure about red in the archetype, I think it's GBU. Green, for the two defenders (Gatecreeper Vine and Axebane Guardian), U for its two defenders (Hover Barrier and Doorkeeper), and black for Trestle Troll and the aforementioned Ogre Jailbreaker. And, of course, Stab Wound.
I think red is mostly a distraction. Sure, Lobber Crew is good, but it accomplishes very little without other aggression going on. I think it's better as a finisher in Rakdos decks, or as defense in board-controlling Izzet decks. I see Doorkeepers and huge dudes/bombs (fueled by Axebane Guardian)being the win condition for this archetype.
As for card availability, I think that as time goes on, Axebane and Gatecreeper will lower in the amount people love them, because neither is good enough at blocking to be worthwhile in its own right. Both of these are at their best in Wall.dec, and honestly I don't think they're terrific outside of it.
Lastly, it's worthwhile to point out that the deck is very weak to fliers without a couple of trestle trolls, and probably wants a Towering Indrik and/or the 5/5 Reach spider in there as well. Otherwise the plethora of 2/2, 2/3, and 3/3 fliers will overwhelm you. If most of your creatures aren't presenting a threat, then all of their removal can go to the two creatures that can block fliers.
If you're looking for something similar to Fanatic but different, or if you have a Goblin subtheme going, you might want to try out Goblin Grappler. It serves the same purpose of getting in for 1 a few times, and once he's outclassed has the bonus of pinging a creature and making it unable to block other creatures that turn. But he can't hit players (relevant) or creatures with tap-activated abilities (irrelevant).
Agreed with the above. Goblin chieftain and krenko are cubeable and a fun way to spice up red. Cards that change the pick order of red beaters--even if only slightly--are a good way to make the color more interesting.
Reaper -- don't let the hive mind get you down. I've run him from time to time and he's been serviceable in aggressive black, though only in that deck and I run a bit of a downpowered list.
--Sacrifice outlets are typically more valuable than folks give credit for. Any early bunch of tokens can make him scary (e.g. turn 2 Mogg War Marshal or turn 3 Sprouting Thrinax), leading to a large monster very early.
-- In using him as a sacrifice outlet to kill your opponent's creatures, he's fantastic with Living Death (he can also sacrifice himself), Grave Pact, Balance, and Urborg Justice.
-- As for eking out advantage with cards like Hellspark Elemental and Keldon Marauders, there are also cards like Bone Shredder (paying echo is for losers), as well as in response to removal on other creatures you control.
-- His synergy with Bloodghast, Gravecrawler, and Blood Artist are obvious; there is also Reassembling Skeleton in the late game. Finally, he can grow very quickly out of Red point/sweeper range, and the instant nature of the effect can make him difficult for red decks to kill.
The above mention of him as a weaker Greater Gargadon is apt. He's not gigantic like the Garg, but he is an oft-underestimated threat that can get very scary very quickly.
Trying to decide which of these to include. Which do you find the most useful, and which the least useful? Which tilt the balance further than you would like towards 5-color control, and which are necessary to sustain it as a viable archetype? Which do you find useful as a general color fixer for 2+-color aggro builds?
The knight is one of my favorite cards ever printed, especially for cube:
-- It's a solid but not uncuttable card if you don't draft around it.
-- It's a build-around-me, and only becomes truly strong when you draft cards that combine well with it (utility lands, crucible, etc.)
-- It provides a lot of options for players, as it can be used to ramp, or simply sit back and grow itself / remove lands, or fetch utility lands
-- It rewards skilled play
It leads people to draft and play more intelligently, which is the #1 goal of my cube--a fun, balanced draft environment that rewards draftskill and playskill (and improves both). One day in the future, when every card is both a utility cog and a build-around-me, Cube will be perfect. I wish every card were like Knight (and Snapcaster, and Fauna Shaman, and Liliana of the Veil, etc.)
As for Sigarda, I can't think of a less interesting or rewarding card. She's powerful, but--like Jace3--in the most boring possible way.
So what? Consecrated Sphinx (and to a lesser extent Frost Titan, though it costs 2 extra and there's still a tapped permanent) have the same vulnerability. If you're going to tell me that a card is worse than its rivals, please use a metric along which the cards differ.
You noticed that not all the creatures he listed were 6-drops? Flickerwisp, Bone Shredder, Blade Splicer, Nekrataal, Huntmaster of the Fells, Azorius Arrester... all these can be cast and flickered (sometimes twice) the turn after the Navigator hits. They also help you to get to the point of the game where you can cast Navigator. Casting Avalanche Riders and flickering them is pretty darn good--and then do it again in response to the echo. Mystic Snake is perhaps even more ridiculous. As for cards he didn't mention: Lone Missionary, Snapcaster Mage, Augur of Bolas, Man-o'-War, Aether Adept, Vendilion Clique, Solemn Simulacrum... the list goes on.
I think the card is very interactive and leads to interesting plays and deckbuilding decisions. I'm playing him.
Furthermore, that fraidy-cat mentality applies to your opponent. Selesnya is afraid to block it because it wipes out their entire team. Against Rakdos, they can't block it anyways because their creatures can't block. Against Azorius, they don't want to block it because 25% of the time all their fliers (and thus their victory condition) will die.
The biggest problem is really the 2/5s of the format, where half the time that your Rig dies, it doesn't take anything with it. In those matches, side it out.
It's exactly the card we want. Powerful, efficient, and will force errors on our opponents' part. The fact that there's variance to it doesn't make it less powerful. The fact that it's one less card we have to splash, if we end up splashing, is gravy.
The only concerns are:
1) If you're casting him with non-forest mana, which can happen from certain dual lands (Sunpetal Grove-type or Brushland-type)
2) Armageddon / Ravages
Agreed. It wouldn't be included only as a tutor for land. However, Primeval costs 6 and you can't always draft him or draw him. The other cards (save Knight and Reap & Sow) are only good for tutoring for land, and have no other applications.
The Valakut combo works with any number of mountains, as long as you have at least six in your forty. If you have 6 still in your library then you get a lovely 18 damage, but if you don't then you get 3 damage for every mountain. Four mana is a small price to pay for 9 (or 12, or 15, or 18) immediate damage, even if it requires having seven lands in play. If somehow it isn't going to kill your opponent, it can at least clear their side of the board. Would you play "4RRG Sorcery: CARD deals 18 damage to target opponent"? Of course, this works only if you can draft Valakut--which should even wheel.
Well, a 4-mana sorcery that pumps an otherwise discounted guy for 8 or 10, or creates an army of 1/1 fliers, is probably castable for that reason--even if it was in the deck mostly for other reasons like getting utility lands or as a one-of finisher with Valakut.
Basically, I think Scapeshift is an RG finisher that doesn't lose to Path to Exile, has midgame applications, and increases the value of utility lands and landfall creatures in your deck.
A best case scenario would be something like: you have only a Plated Geopede and 4 lands. Your opponent just attacked with his Wurmcoil Engine, putting him to 16, surely safe. You draw your fifth land and Scapeshift for a Teetering Peaks, Cathedral of War, and three other lands. Then swing for lethal.
As an aside, I think Valakut is a worthy inclusion on its own for a late-game plan in heavy red decks.
Here's what it does:
1. The obvious--gets Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle or a bunch of mountains into play as a win condition.
2. In Gruul or Naya aggro, it gives huge pumps to Vinelasher Kudzu, Steppe Lynx, Plated Geopede, Countryside Crusher, Knight of the Reliquary, Wild Mongoose, and sometimes Tarmogoyf.
3. Gets awesome lands. Strip Mine, Maze of Ith, Library of Alexandria, Gaea's Cradle, Shelldock Isle, Barbarian Ring (which immediately has threshold), man-lands. It serves as sort of an early, one-shot Primeval Titan in this regard.
4. More niche uses:
-- Mana fixing in a pinch.
-- Fix lands for Wild Nacatl, Kird Ape, Flinthoof Boar, or Loam Lion,
-- Create an army with Emeria Angel. Win-more entertainment with Avenger of Zendikar and Rampaging Baloths.
-- Mana, in some situations, with Lotus Cobra
-- Can thin your deck considerably
-- Can get some card advantage with Life from the Loam and Crucible of Worlds.
Downsides:
1. Like any combo card, it does nothing some percentage of the time. On the other hand, in that case you probably aren't playing it.
I think that if you include Scapeshift, you should also include Valakut. But I think the above uses can also be worthwhile.
I've decided to put this in. What other cards, cubeworthy or otherwise, maximize its inclusion?
I really like it because good combat tricks are so few and far between in the format, and this is absolutely one of them.
You all know how RB works, of course.
As for GR, my feeling on the archetype is that it focuses on:
- Gobbling Ooze (with Goblin Rally or Traitorous Instinct)
- Goblin Rally + Chorus of Might
- Guttersnipe + token producers (Slime Molding, Goblin Rally) and giant growth effects (Giant Growth, Seek the Horizon, Chorus of Might) in addition to the usual red removal (Annihilating Fire, Explosive Impact)
- Trample (Bloodfray Giant, Korozda Monitor, Chorus of Might)
- I think Giant Growth effects (all three of them) are important to deal with the X/4s in the format that the red deck can't typically remove for less than 6 mana, and to keep your tramplers bashing through (and surviving) a block. They open you to blowouts, but instant-speed removal is rare enough that you can play around it.
Chorus of might is typically pretty bad, but I think it can be an important glue card for the archetype if you're going "wide." Less important if you're going "tall."
So whether we go RGb or RBg, I think we want the Slime Molding most. If we're splashing green, we want something that's good in the late game (we have the Korozda Guildmage to help with evasion as well). If we're splashing black, it's less clear, and more or less even between the efficiency of the Brushstrider and the versatility of the Molding.
I don't think we want the crocodile. It's a very bad 3-drop relative to what we should be getting in our colors--Dead Revelers and Splatter Thugs. And I think the activation is too expensive. The Brushstrider is good, and I sympathize with the contradiction of taking Chainwalkers highly but the Brushstrider lowly. But I think Molding is the card, mostly because it's much better on the splash and only slightly worse otherwise.
Agree with Mandelbrot that the Molding should not be picked because of populate effects.
Personally, I view the wall.dec as the greedy 5-color deck of the format (like Allies in Zen, for example). Not only are the walls spread throughout four of the five colors, necessitating a lot of mana fixing, but the two green walls (Gatecreeper Vine and Axebane Guardian) actively fix your mana and ramp you. So, take whichever overcosted rare like Archon of the Triumvirate or Utvara Hellkite gets passed to you in pack 2 or 3. If those don't come around, pick up a couple of Risen Sanctuary-type gigantic durdles.
Absent the greedy 5-color route, I'm not sure about red in the archetype, I think it's GBU. Green, for the two defenders (Gatecreeper Vine and Axebane Guardian), U for its two defenders (Hover Barrier and Doorkeeper), and black for Trestle Troll and the aforementioned Ogre Jailbreaker. And, of course, Stab Wound.
I think red is mostly a distraction. Sure, Lobber Crew is good, but it accomplishes very little without other aggression going on. I think it's better as a finisher in Rakdos decks, or as defense in board-controlling Izzet decks. I see Doorkeepers and huge dudes/bombs (fueled by Axebane Guardian)being the win condition for this archetype.
As for card availability, I think that as time goes on, Axebane and Gatecreeper will lower in the amount people love them, because neither is good enough at blocking to be worthwhile in its own right. Both of these are at their best in Wall.dec, and honestly I don't think they're terrific outside of it.
Lastly, it's worthwhile to point out that the deck is very weak to fliers without a couple of trestle trolls, and probably wants a Towering Indrik and/or the 5/5 Reach spider in there as well. Otherwise the plethora of 2/2, 2/3, and 3/3 fliers will overwhelm you. If most of your creatures aren't presenting a threat, then all of their removal can go to the two creatures that can block fliers.
--Sacrifice outlets are typically more valuable than folks give credit for. Any early bunch of tokens can make him scary (e.g. turn 2 Mogg War Marshal or turn 3 Sprouting Thrinax), leading to a large monster very early.
-- In using him as a sacrifice outlet to kill your opponent's creatures, he's fantastic with Living Death (he can also sacrifice himself), Grave Pact, Balance, and Urborg Justice.
-- As for eking out advantage with cards like Hellspark Elemental and Keldon Marauders, there are also cards like Bone Shredder (paying echo is for losers), as well as in response to removal on other creatures you control.
-- His synergy with Bloodghast, Gravecrawler, and Blood Artist are obvious; there is also Reassembling Skeleton in the late game. Finally, he can grow very quickly out of Red point/sweeper range, and the instant nature of the effect can make him difficult for red decks to kill.
The above mention of him as a weaker Greater Gargadon is apt. He's not gigantic like the Garg, but he is an oft-underestimated threat that can get very scary very quickly.
Moved from New Card Discussion to Card & Archetype Discussion. Added [MCD] tag.
—Lanxal
-- It's a solid but not uncuttable card if you don't draft around it.
-- It's a build-around-me, and only becomes truly strong when you draft cards that combine well with it (utility lands, crucible, etc.)
-- It provides a lot of options for players, as it can be used to ramp, or simply sit back and grow itself / remove lands, or fetch utility lands
-- It rewards skilled play
It leads people to draft and play more intelligently, which is the #1 goal of my cube--a fun, balanced draft environment that rewards draftskill and playskill (and improves both). One day in the future, when every card is both a utility cog and a build-around-me, Cube will be perfect. I wish every card were like Knight (and Snapcaster, and Fauna Shaman, and Liliana of the Veil, etc.)
As for Sigarda, I can't think of a less interesting or rewarding card. She's powerful, but--like Jace3--in the most boring possible way.