I firmly believe that Braids has outlived her usefulness and should be shown the door. In an environment with ample spot removal she has a giant "Bolt me Now" sign taped to her back.
Being able to cast a 3 drop on turn 2 is THE clutch ability that ramp elves give green. This does that just fine. If you don't have a good turn 2 play, you can just make another Food and stockpile for later in the game. This card is definitely the worst 1 drop mana dork, but it's still a 1 drop mana dork.
I think this card is better than Joraga Treespeeker... *ducks*
I actually like this (these?) walker(s) in my unpowered 540 more than Dack. I don't run reanimator or have all that many artifacts in my environment so Dack is pretty much just an attack-able Faithless Looting emblem. Obviously that's crazy good, but he's narrow and I haven't missed him since I cut reanimator/tinker shenanigans.
The Royal Scions loot is exactly half as good, the other +1 solid in aggressive tempo decks and the ultimate is better.
I pretty much agree with everything wtwlf said in the OP. 1 mana things that make mana are exceptionally powerful and rare (these days). I'll be playing this alongside every other 1 mana elf ever printed (all the way down to Boreal Druid, Avacyn's Pilgrim, and Elves of Deep Shadow).
This may only be 75% of an actual mana dork in the early game, but its 500% better as a topdeck as games go long.
For example, if in my 540 cube I run 18 white aggro one drops and I sit down with a 6 pod to draft half my cube (270 cards), there is a 76% chance that at least 8 of those white aggro one drops will show up in the draft. Aggro decks want 8+ one drops in order to have a good chance of pulling one in their opening hand. I realized through looking at math like this that I need more aggro beaters in my cube in order to fully support the archetype and enable it to come together every draft.
This knight is basically a Savannah Lions. The upside is marginal-to-immaterial, but that doesn't matter. At 540 there still aren't enough 2 power one drops to fill my quota, so I'm stoked to have this guy.
One thing I have going for me w/ regards to cubing this card is I no longer run discard support among my black 2 drops (Pack Rat, Falkenrath, Prowler) so I have a bit more wiggle room.
But seriously, this card is incredible. It's an evasive aggro beater that has significant upside and is totally modal. It's like a better split card combined with fuse and aftermath. Don't underrate the flexibility here.
I think he's probably better than both. Yawgmoth has a higher ceiling when the pieces fall into place but his floor is pretty terrible. As a 4 mana baneslayer, Kalitas fails the vindicate test pretty hard. Rankle gets you value before sorcery speed removal can take him out and can affect the board the turn you cast him, without needing additional resources. Sometimes a 4 mana edict/Lava Spike is what you need I think Rankle is probably the best non-Nekrataal-y black 4 drop for cube.
Yea I think this card is pretty great. My black section is moving away from stax/reanimator so the sac and discard will hurt more in my environment, but I still think the flexibility and decent body makes this guy easily testable.
I think this guy is insane. 3 mana walker that goes to 6 loyalty right away is rare. He makes 3/3s every other turn and threatens to trade a pretty meh token your opponent's Rabblemaster or something. Slam dunk into my cube.
I want to chime in to revise my above statement. I've pretty much abandoned all notion of walker caps and now have almost 65 walkers in my 540 cube. I've found that having more walkers helps midrange decks fight against control strategies and that "superfriends" decks fold to well built aggro decks easily.
I think this card is better than Joraga Treespeeker... *ducks*
The Royal Scions loot is exactly half as good, the other +1 solid in aggressive tempo decks and the ultimate is better.
This may only be 75% of an actual mana dork in the early game, but its 500% better as a topdeck as games go long.
https://medium.com/@andrewmburbine/using-a-hypergeometric-probability-calculator-to-inform-mtg-cube-design-dc249fcee8d1
For example, if in my 540 cube I run 18 white aggro one drops and I sit down with a 6 pod to draft half my cube (270 cards), there is a 76% chance that at least 8 of those white aggro one drops will show up in the draft. Aggro decks want 8+ one drops in order to have a good chance of pulling one in their opening hand. I realized through looking at math like this that I need more aggro beaters in my cube in order to fully support the archetype and enable it to come together every draft.
This knight is basically a Savannah Lions. The upside is marginal-to-immaterial, but that doesn't matter. At 540 there still aren't enough 2 power one drops to fill my quota, so I'm stoked to have this guy.
But seriously, this card is incredible. It's an evasive aggro beater that has significant upside and is totally modal. It's like a better split card combined with fuse and aftermath. Don't underrate the flexibility here.
Modal Pegasus/Gravedigger anyone? Get in my cube!