It may not be as "aggro only" as I originally estimated. Creature-heavy midrange decks are perfectly happy flipping a mana elf and a Caryatid or something off this card too. Granted, it's hard to reach 15 1-3cc creature targets in a typical midrange deck, but I suppose it could happen.
Yeah, definitly good in those decks, but think they are hard to assemble in cube. It's possible to build your cube to be better for collected company.
EG If you have selesnya make up be voice of resurgence, kitchen finks, qasali pridemage, fleecemane lion and knight of the reliquary. Could be much better for company than if you have cards like mirrari's wake, sigarda, armada wurm etc.
Very possible that if collected company turns out to be too narrow now, it could be awsome in 3 years when the landscape of 1-3 drops changes.
Was toying around with the idea, but havent pule the trigger on it. Curious how it goes, interested in updated opinion after multiple tests!
My concern mirrors one of your initial ones "That's pretty narrow because it's limited to aggro-only to start, and further limited to a specific structure of that given aggro deck too. "
Still think this true... Im afraid it'll be like a birthing pod type effect, where it's a super powerful card when built around effectively, but the payoff of building around it is too small. There's only one copy of it in your deck and there's not enough other redundant effects that utilize that type of deck design for when you don't draw it.
In sumamry, think it's rare you'll naturally fall into a collective company deck, and don't think it's powerful enough to build around one copy.
Maybe it'll be good enough in any G/x agro deck, or Wg type deck, so still interested in hearing test reports. 2 flash creatures for 4 mana is absurd value...
You don't even need to use the untap forests ability to want her in a deck. She's at her best when you can, but the other abilities power level is high enough that it's not required.
Making a 4/4 hasted creature every turn ends the game extremly fast... And she's increasing loyalty while she's doing it.
It's generally not a big deal that you are constraining your mana, since 4/4 haste every turn is generally better than whatever you are potentially preventing yourself from casting.
Churning out 4/4's from your lands can occasionally lead to a blowout, but the upside is well worth it.
Turns out I was way off in my evaluation of this card. Best megamorph by far. (as usual) biassed by standard results not cube results, but it's quickly becoming one of (likely the) best card from the new set in standard. It's proven itself so throughly that I can't imagine it's not great in cube too.
Den protector works best in a grindy shell, so a little better suited for standard than cube... However, rebuying power is an absurd upside only available in cube, so I doubt it's a BIG difference.
1) Underestimated the body dramatically. 3/2 + evasion is a very solid body. The evasion is particularly relevant with equipment
2) Uhh yeah, regrowth is not a "draw a card" in a grindy matchup. It's closer to demonic tutor. Worth paying a bunch of mana for if you get a great body with it.
3) Mana in two phases means you can leave up mana to play another spell if necessary, or run it out early if the situation requires it.
I think black is one of the strongest colors in small cubes, but one of the weakest in large cubes. This is due to the top 20 cards in black being very strong (second best color), but the 55+ range being relatively weak (worst color).
A lot of it's weaknesses are getting filled up as sets get printed. Black agro has a cool sub-sac theme with stax/braids now and is almost as powerful as red agro in medium cubes. I DEFINITELY wouldn't have said that was true 2 years ago.
1st pickable cards (but not common):
Bitterblossm
Liliana of the Veil
Thoughtseize
Dark confidant
Animate Dead
Necromancy
Entomb
Griselbrand
Grave titan
Hymn to tourach
Imperial Seal
That's pretty crazy... those are some damn good cards. All these cards are WAY too powerful for current standard for example. (thoughtseize is a card who's power doesn't scale much depending on the power of the environment and is stronger in cube than in standard)
If your cube's white agressive decks tend to be mono white, the most powerful anthems are honor of the pure and crusade.
If your white agro decks are a mix of mono, 2 color and zoo stay far far away. But if your white decks are 80%+ mono colored, my favourite anthem is honor of the pure.
White is very deep at 1/3 and shallow at 2, It fits much nicer into the curve. If all of your threats are white, clearly it is MUCH more powerful than a glorious anthem.
In powered cubes, I think white agro is among the weaker archetypes, so there's an argument to giving them a narrow card to boost their upside a bit.
The power level boost is unlikely enough to justify the narrowness, but it's something to think about.
I've been able to mock draft several just like it. Seems like it'll be a sweet archetype.
Just went over your list, like it a lot. It's great that your able to support several fun archetypes that your old size couldn't support, while still maintaining the cube's consistency and power level.
My only suggestion, now that you are supporting spells matter, is adding serum visions and gitaxian probe.
Cheap cantrips are instrumental in spells matter, as they trigger prowess and draw into more spells that also trigger prowess.
plus, cheap cards are nice to be able to fill out blues curve which in general is higher than most other colors, so they are a welcome addition for basically all decks that play blue.
Gitaxian probe tends to not get played in big control decks, but is great in reanimator, sneak/show or the spells matter decks.
I think Mirror entity is a very high variance card that can often either be pretty weak or completely annhilate your opponent.
It's a hard card to evaluate because experiences can range so wildly with it.
My experiences were more on the negative side for about 4-5 cubes drafting it or so, a couple of the best player in my playgroup said they didn't like the card much either, so I cut it early and never really gave it another shot.
So I choose soltari champion (I like him a lot in cube lists with lots of token makers), but take my advice with a grain of salt. That being said, I wonder how many people here are biased by the OTHER side of mirror entities variance.
Curious how much you end up liking 4 man glimpse drafts @ 540.
I'd be interested on hearing your evaluation in a months time or so..
I've never glimpse drafted before, but it sounds interesting.
I was debating on making a 300ish size cube for 2v2s but this might be a better alternative.
Do you think it's feasible to build narrow archetype type decks with glimpse?
Comparable to a 6 man? 8 man?
After positive reports, gonna test him now when I can assemble a playgroup in Toronto.
Think I indeed (as I speculated) underestimated the value of being a fires of yavimaya for other creatures. Will tinker my green 5 drop section a bit to maximize his potential to give him a fair shot.
I liked it enough the two times I drafted it in the legacy cube. Was nothing awe inspiring , but a solid creature. I'd play him in 450+ unpowered range, but wouldn't castrate someone for play him in a lower cube.
The lower the cube size the higher the ratio of exile effects to doom blade effects, making him worse. Plus blue is ultra stacked. I value cantrips and medicore counter spells more than most , so the bottom 10 blue cards in my cube I likely evaluate different than others. Eg I'd rather play negate or gitaxian probe than chasm skulker.
Your wrong about wasteland, losing a green source on average is much more devastating then losing a Karakas or rishadan port.
Apologies, but you're playing incorrectly if you're finding this to be the case. If possible, you only put a Savannah on the field if you're going to use it that turn. With only a small handful of green cards, once it's been tapped for G once, the damage is already done. Go ahead and Wasteland it then. I'm also confident there are a good number of opposing decks out there who fear what Karakas can do over what Teeg will do, so this wouldn't even apply all the time. I've been piloting this version for quite a many matches now, taking it to a finals at a SCG IQ a few weeks back, and now Frenadol piloting it to a win at his LGS. It can be played correctly so that these perceived land issues are mitigated. Don't just claim it sucks. Is it really every other deck in the format that can enjoy playing duals, and DnT is truly the sole deck that can't handle it due to extreme fragility? C'mon, you don't really believe that.
I was playing it as you described. I didn't claim it sucks, I claimed it was incorrect to play over mono white DnT.
I never said said DnT can't handle it, only that It was worse. You keep putting words in my mouth. I think it'll decrease win percentages a few%. Enough that the variance associated could give me a negative experience despite dozens of hours of testing and give a few people positive experience over the same trial.
Winning a Lgs and finalsing an iq is hardly an accomplishment, only proves the deck is not a complete pile. You are running 65 out of 75 cards a normal DnT list runs anyway.
I dont know why obzedat doesnt get more love on these forums! Card is great.
Gerrard's verdict #1, Obzedat #2 for me.
Yeah, definitly good in those decks, but think they are hard to assemble in cube. It's possible to build your cube to be better for collected company.
EG If you have selesnya make up be voice of resurgence, kitchen finks, qasali pridemage, fleecemane lion and knight of the reliquary. Could be much better for company than if you have cards like mirrari's wake, sigarda, armada wurm etc.
Very possible that if collected company turns out to be too narrow now, it could be awsome in 3 years when the landscape of 1-3 drops changes.
My concern mirrors one of your initial ones "That's pretty narrow because it's limited to aggro-only to start, and further limited to a specific structure of that given aggro deck too. "
Still think this true... Im afraid it'll be like a birthing pod type effect, where it's a super powerful card when built around effectively, but the payoff of building around it is too small. There's only one copy of it in your deck and there's not enough other redundant effects that utilize that type of deck design for when you don't draw it.
In sumamry, think it's rare you'll naturally fall into a collective company deck, and don't think it's powerful enough to build around one copy.
Maybe it'll be good enough in any G/x agro deck, or Wg type deck, so still interested in hearing test reports. 2 flash creatures for 4 mana is absurd value...
Making a 4/4 hasted creature every turn ends the game extremly fast... And she's increasing loyalty while she's doing it.
It's generally not a big deal that you are constraining your mana, since 4/4 haste every turn is generally better than whatever you are potentially preventing yourself from casting.
Churning out 4/4's from your lands can occasionally lead to a blowout, but the upside is well worth it.
Den protector works best in a grindy shell, so a little better suited for standard than cube... However, rebuying power is an absurd upside only available in cube, so I doubt it's a BIG difference.
1) Underestimated the body dramatically. 3/2 + evasion is a very solid body. The evasion is particularly relevant with equipment
2) Uhh yeah, regrowth is not a "draw a card" in a grindy matchup. It's closer to demonic tutor. Worth paying a bunch of mana for if you get a great body with it.
3) Mana in two phases means you can leave up mana to play another spell if necessary, or run it out early if the situation requires it.
A lot of it's weaknesses are getting filled up as sets get printed. Black agro has a cool sub-sac theme with stax/braids now and is almost as powerful as red agro in medium cubes. I DEFINITELY wouldn't have said that was true 2 years ago.
Insane cards (almost power):
Mind Twist
Demonic Tutor
Vampiric Tutor
Recurring Nightmare
1st pickable cards (but not common):
Bitterblossm
Liliana of the Veil
Thoughtseize
Dark confidant
Animate Dead
Necromancy
Entomb
Griselbrand
Grave titan
Hymn to tourach
Imperial Seal
That's pretty crazy... those are some damn good cards. All these cards are WAY too powerful for current standard for example. (thoughtseize is a card who's power doesn't scale much depending on the power of the environment and is stronger in cube than in standard)
If your white agro decks are a mix of mono, 2 color and zoo stay far far away. But if your white decks are 80%+ mono colored, my favourite anthem is honor of the pure.
White is very deep at 1/3 and shallow at 2, It fits much nicer into the curve. If all of your threats are white, clearly it is MUCH more powerful than a glorious anthem.
In powered cubes, I think white agro is among the weaker archetypes, so there's an argument to giving them a narrow card to boost their upside a bit.
The power level boost is unlikely enough to justify the narrowness, but it's something to think about.
Just went over your list, like it a lot. It's great that your able to support several fun archetypes that your old size couldn't support, while still maintaining the cube's consistency and power level.
My only suggestion, now that you are supporting spells matter, is adding serum visions and gitaxian probe.
Cheap cantrips are instrumental in spells matter, as they trigger prowess and draw into more spells that also trigger prowess.
plus, cheap cards are nice to be able to fill out blues curve which in general is higher than most other colors, so they are a welcome addition for basically all decks that play blue.
Gitaxian probe tends to not get played in big control decks, but is great in reanimator, sneak/show or the spells matter decks.
It's a hard card to evaluate because experiences can range so wildly with it.
My experiences were more on the negative side for about 4-5 cubes drafting it or so, a couple of the best player in my playgroup said they didn't like the card much either, so I cut it early and never really gave it another shot.
So I choose soltari champion (I like him a lot in cube lists with lots of token makers), but take my advice with a grain of salt. That being said, I wonder how many people here are biased by the OTHER side of mirror entities variance.
I'd be interested on hearing your evaluation in a months time or so..
I've never glimpse drafted before, but it sounds interesting.
I was debating on making a 300ish size cube for 2v2s but this might be a better alternative.
Do you think it's feasible to build narrow archetype type decks with glimpse?
Comparable to a 6 man? 8 man?
Depends on cube, but on average Id say 500 unpowered or larger size I prefer jazal, lower I prefer exemplars.
Think I indeed (as I speculated) underestimated the value of being a fires of yavimaya for other creatures. Will tinker my green 5 drop section a bit to maximize his potential to give him a fair shot.
The lower the cube size the higher the ratio of exile effects to doom blade effects, making him worse. Plus blue is ultra stacked. I value cantrips and medicore counter spells more than most , so the bottom 10 blue cards in my cube I likely evaluate different than others. Eg I'd rather play negate or gitaxian probe than chasm skulker.
I was playing it as you described. I didn't claim it sucks, I claimed it was incorrect to play over mono white DnT.
I never said said DnT can't handle it, only that It was worse. You keep putting words in my mouth. I think it'll decrease win percentages a few%. Enough that the variance associated could give me a negative experience despite dozens of hours of testing and give a few people positive experience over the same trial.
Winning a Lgs and finalsing an iq is hardly an accomplishment, only proves the deck is not a complete pile. You are running 65 out of 75 cards a normal DnT list runs anyway.