I don't think planeswalkers are particularly effective against aggro or that aggro is where I'm generally running cards that would be stronger if they could double up damage on players and planeswalkers (I'm thinking earthquake here. but maybe I'm missing something.)
At times I'm baffled by this sub-forum... In a regular RtR draft I can generally activate this card twice in any give turn with 4-5 lands in play if I'm running a Rakdos deck. How is it that in a cube where you have Fetches, Duals, Shocks, and more you can't happen to activate this card twice or more in a given turn if you go R/B anything?
I don't want to be able to "happen" to cast or activate my cards, I want to be able to do so reliably.
While cube may have better fixing there isn't exactly a dearth of it in RtR and cube has powerful colorless lands and off-color moxen competing for slots with your off-color lands. It is also generally faster which favors cards with more immediate impact than the slow, grindy cards that always end up being first picks in set drafts. Of course, all of this depends on the specific cube so it isn't like I'm saying the guildmage is worthless, just saying why I don't want to run it.
Rix Maadi Guildmage gives more late game presence than many 2 drops but has a restrictive mana cost and restrictive ability costs. cc' activated abilities are harder to stack than they may seem at first and the ability to use them twice in the same turn often comes very late (in aggro's game-plan at least.) While I like the idea of giving up some direct power for flexibility in role I don't like the idea of giving up consistency for potential flexibility when it means the card may not be able to fill the role you want it to in a specific game.
The biggest problem with the Cloud is that it's three black mana. I am probably going to jump on the bandwagon and try out Pox/Smallpox and a couple other cards, but I won't be including this. Profane Command is just way better I think.
if BBB is the biggest problem i think i would run death cloud over pox itself. especially since pox cares a lot about both players' board and hand and you really want to be able to pull the trigger at the right moment. Not that timing isn't important for death cloud but extra non-black mana gives you more flexibility with it.
Ertai is a trap for the same people who want to jam 12+ counterspells in their constructed deck. You only need to counter specific key cards in any match-up where counters are good. If you are relying on counters to answer everything you are eventually going to let something through and/or never going to actually win the game yourself. Ertai is way to much mana to serve as a tempo counter and too telegraphed and slow to counter the match-up key cards.
The problem with hatred is that it is a 5 mana aggro finisher that only works if you are already getting an attacker through. It is definitely powerful when it works but it is slow and does nothing on its own.
I really don't understand how so many people seem to be coming down on this card with u/w as weak as it is. Unless you only run geist and venser and want to keep venser as archetype support this seems like a shoe-in to me.
we use burning/living/cunning on and off here and have them pull from the unused portion of the cube. We have a pretty small play group and there are always relevant targets available. living/cunning are good and burning is pretty broken (no real surprise.)
Every player discards their hand at the beginning of each end step, not just the player whose turn it is.
That being said it seems a bit niche for cube.
I realize it doesn't top the cards but I don't think that is as relevant unless your opponent kept a loose hand and was hoping to draw out of it.
I don't want to be able to "happen" to cast or activate my cards, I want to be able to do so reliably.
While cube may have better fixing there isn't exactly a dearth of it in RtR and cube has powerful colorless lands and off-color moxen competing for slots with your off-color lands. It is also generally faster which favors cards with more immediate impact than the slow, grindy cards that always end up being first picks in set drafts. Of course, all of this depends on the specific cube so it isn't like I'm saying the guildmage is worthless, just saying why I don't want to run it.
if BBB is the biggest problem i think i would run death cloud over pox itself. especially since pox cares a lot about both players' board and hand and you really want to be able to pull the trigger at the right moment. Not that timing isn't important for death cloud but extra non-black mana gives you more flexibility with it.
best 3-drop ever?