MTG Salvation

For those trying Ayli, what's the cut you plan to make?

My three UW cards are Detention Sphere, Verdict, and Geist. I could see cutting Sphere. As an earlier poster mentioned, Sphere is an effect we already have in white.

Seems fine. It isn't as strong as some of the other lands, but it does have a cheaper activation cost. From the title, was anyone else expecting this to be blue/red?

We just finished up a cube draft. A few thoughts on the new additions:

Mardu Strike Leader- showed up in a very solid Jund build, and was great.
Alesha- See above.
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon- was drafted in a UG ramp deck along with Karn. Only saw play once, was fine, but not amazing.
Warden of the First Tree- Saw excellent play in the Jund deck, great card.
Soulfire Grand Master- Very solid in URW control. Recurred Burst Lightning, Path To Exile, and Forbid. Other games she came out and did some early damage, then traded, which was fine.
Tasigur, the Golden Fang- Brutal in UB control...and just as brutal when my URW deck stole him with Treachery. Very solid EOT ability.

Disfigure is a cute removal spell, but a little underpowered for cube. I don't know that I want to pay 3 life to make it a bit more relevant. Cautious pass for now.

Like almost all punisher cards, this one seems pretty weak. Your opponent is always going to pick exactly the wrong choice for you at any given time.

Beyond my quick evaluation of the card, I do want to chime in on the controversy surrounding WTWLF and his opinions. If they carry authority, it's because he obviously cubes quite a bit. I don't always agree with him, but he usually presents an argument that's cogent and direct. As shown by the diversity in cubes, his word isn't law, and it seems sad to try and criticize him for participating in a discussion here.

Sorry, are you talking about her in EDH? I have no idea how she'll be in that, since I've never played the format. As a cube card, she seems weak to me. She fails the Terminate test, and even if she survives, there's no guarantee that she'll cast something amazing (short of Vampiric Tutor style tricks). Easy miss for my cube.

Finally got some play time with this fellow last night. He was great! In one game he just acted like a 2/1 beater for a few turns and died to removal, which was fine. In another, he drew a ton of extra cards for me, and sealed the win. It's great to have a creature that's fine in the early game, but not a dead draw in the late game.

Draw-go is probably my favorite deck of all time, and I still regularly draft wrath-heavy control decks. Maybe it's my nostalgia for the era of Weisman, but there it is. This new blue fatty will definitely get some testing in my cube!

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I don't think I'd cut either Sorin, Lord of Innistrad, Lingering Souls, or Vindicate for this. I like that all three of those spells bring a different effect with them. I can see cutting Lingering Souls to test it out, I guess, but I'd rather have the different options than two Vindicates. At 4 or 5 per guild, though, this is obviously in. For me this will replace the recently added Ayli. It's a bummer that she didn't have more time to shine, but it happens.

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I really don't think Hybrid cards should be competing for a wedge slot. Yasova doesn't reward you or incentize you to play Temur, and it's almost always just going to end up in a Gruul or Simic deck. This card, on the other hand, clearly does incentize you. The shard cards should be a reward for playing three colors, and you shouldn't be losing the picks to U/B control guy who is going to play Tasigur, or mono black aggro whos playing Hordechief.


And its awesome. I think this is the guy if you're running a Temur deck. I've never been too impressed with Maelstrom Wanderer as his cascade fizzles a lot because of the ramp you need to run him.

We know there are other Planeswalkers-as-Commanders. Could see a pushed aggro one given the high life totals in EDH.

I am intrigued by this card. I usually draft with 6-8 players these days, and increasingly push archetypes. It seems that this card can make it easier to draft an archetype: pick it when there is nothing for you and then use it when you see Braids and Smokestack or Griselbrand and Animate dead in packs together. It feels like it could reduce variance a bit but I'd be interested to hear analysis from someone better at maths.

I'm not bothered by this being a card that will never be played, but I almost wish that the designers were honest about it and made it a new card type that literally couldn't be played.

So, statisticians, will adding this to drafts improve the quality of decks or worsen them, given that a drafter only plays about 60% of his picks anyway?