Having non-basic lands vulnerable to wasteland and stifle was a huge downside relative to the marginal value provided by gaddock teeg.
Even if you don't want to ply green splash for another reason, I challenge that the assessments here are reversed, and that fetches/nonbasics actually provide the marginal downside, while Teeg and my green splash companion of his, Qasali Pridemage, provide a huge upside.
DnT as mono-white already has usually 13-14 non basics that can be hit with Wasteland. The "standard" green splash has... 14 lands you can hit with Wasteland. This is a moot point. Even if you think Stifle is a big deal, go to http://www.mtgtop8.com/topcards and see what the 5th most played card is. Yep, it's Dig Through Time. Stifle comes in at 45th. Stifle can be played around if you know it's there, Dig not so much.
That was my thought prior to testing, but dozens of hours of testing changed my mind.
Your wrong about wasteland, losing a green source on average is much more devastating then losing a Karakas or rishadan port.
Teeg in multiples was a liability in a lot of matchups. In the fair ones he'd live when he didn't matter and hit a removal spell when he did matter. Pridemage was a good card, but there was many times I wished he was a revoker (elves in particular).
I would love a singleton teeg and maybe a Pridemage or two, but overloading them was a mistake. If they were played in small numbers their effect was marginal relative to the worse mana base.
There's also all the fetch/canopy pain and exposure to price of progress that contributes to a worse burn matchup as well as increased blood moon vulnerability
Random thought: Right now I don't like anafenza Kin-tree spirit, but if people start playing forked bolts , golgari charms and zealous persecutions, it could be a singleton to consider to get death and taxes out of the too many x/1 range. Maybe card is too weak regardless...
More legendary white creatures that are playable in death and taxes could give it a nod (higher toughness legends to bounce and replay with karakas/vial)
I picked up the deck about 6 months ago and decided to stick exclusively to it. I wanted to play thalia and geddock teeg in the treasure cruise environment and figured Death and Taxes splashing green had a lot going for it. With wasteland on the decline , it seemed that splashing green was a great strategy. Why hadn't more people adopted it?
I played it in SCG invitational in December tested it thoroughly. I've read every article on the deck I've found. Since the invitational I've continued to play it casually at local events.
Splashing Green:
The first conclusion I reached from testing was splashing green was incorrect. This was true even with wasteland on the decline and gaddock teeg being well positioned. Having non-basic lands vulnerable to wasteland and stifle was a huge downside relative to the marginal value provided by gaddock teeg.
There are no bad cards in death and taxes.. The value gained by having teeg over a phyreian revoker or a serra avenger was not big. Having a clean painless manabase WAS big.
This is now even more true post treasure cruise banning.
Death and Taxes Gameplan:
I don't like the philosophy that this deck is a "control" deck. It's much more about attacking their mana base and ability to cast spells, while killing them before they can successfully execute their gameplan. This doesn't always work for a variety of reasons. Having good, stand alone cards that have the ability to engage with fair decks in combat AND presenting a clock is very important.
I've seen a lot of people badmouth cards like serra avenger and brimaz with the argument that we aren't an agressive deck and they don't contribute to our mana denial plan. I disagree with this philosophy. D&T needs to be able to switch gears AND be able to get their opponent dead.
Without the mana denial aspect to the game, the deck does not have a long game to compete with the mid-range decks or control decks of the format. Sometimes we are on the draw, and they draw a bunch of lands. Sometimes we don't draw many lands and have an aether vial in play. The mana denial gameplan is always temporary, given enough cards/time every deck in the format can get around it. Therefore, powerful cards are necessary.
Card Numbers:
There's a lot of bad draws in the deck (too many thalia, too many aether vials, too many karakas, too many moms) all of which are necessary for the decks gameplan to function. Without access to brain storm, D&T can have a lot of bad draws and be forced to mullgian frequently. Therefore, I like to increase consistancy wherever possible. This means, for the OTHER cards that have diminishing returns, I think it's important to err on the side of not over committing. Versatility has value.
Non-essential Cards with Diminshing returns:
Phyrexian Revoker (Not enough targets to shut off, and weak in fair battles. Some matchups it's good in multiples tho.)
Spirit of the Labyrinth (Should be obvious why this card sucks in multiples)
Brimaz, King of Oreskos (legend rule)
Serra Avenger (Past turn 3 it's great, but without an aether vial and 4 in the deck, you can easily start with 3 serra avenger and be forced to muligan)
Mangara of Condor (Card is meant for the possibility for the mangara lock, without the lock, card is bad. Only need 1 copy to execute the lock.)
Cards which are totally fine in multiples:
Flickerwisp (Bad when you need defense or satured with 3 drops, but it's effect with aether vial is almost always sick and it's rare it gets trumped in the air)
Stoneforge mystic (Only bad when you've exhausted all your equipment, but that's super rare. This is the best standalone card in the deck, I'd play 5 if I could)
Meta choices:
When U/R Delver was big I was not a fan of mirran crusader at all. I played zero copies at the invitational (and the following IQ on sunday) and am convinced that was correct.
I played 2 Brimaz who was outstanding all tournament, It's one flaw was getting outclassed by tarmogoyf. I also wasn't a big fan of Spirit of the labyrinth. Sure it was great against cruise, but that's only if it lived. Given the popularity of young pyromancer, a lot of decks were running cards like forked bolt and golgari charm which really blows death and taxes out if they focus too much on X/1's. This conclusion was shared by craig wescoe.
NOW, post cruise, Sultai is gaining a lot of steam (their win%'s have been among the highest) and UR is on huge decline. My initial reasons for not playing Mirran Crusader and Spirit of the labyrinth have switched completely. Vs Sultai, Mirran crusader is AMAZING and single handidly increases win% points in death and taxes favor. It's so good it might be worth a sideboard slot. Spirit of the Labryinth loses a lot of it's collateral damage with forked bolt's going from the format.
Fair decks have gained more popularity and combo is on a slight decline. I like a singleton mangara for the midrange wars right now. Most of the time it's clunky, but sometimes it wins the game by itself. I played 1 at the invitational as I was afraid of stoneforge wars, and it proved itself to be a great late game card. Very happy with it in my test sample.
Decklist:
I'm not convinced it's the best build, but I've used the previous analysis to arrive at it. Surprise surprise, I like a stock build of D&T. Consistency is VERY important.
Only debates I'm currently having are the sideboard(I'm not convinced on my sideboard), and the 2nd spirit of labyrnth. Likely want to get a 4th flicker wisp in there. Either over the Brimaz if 8 3 drops is not too much, or over the 2nd spirit of labyrinth.
Pod is a build around card that lacks other engines that also gain value from having a smooth curve of ETB creatures. There's a couple (momentary blink?) but in singleton cubes I'm not a big fan of it.
It can be selectively sweet tho. Playing 2 in my non-singleton makes a world of difference vs 1. That in conjunction with extra kiki-jiki combo support lead to some interesting combo pod decks.
Berserk is a pet card of mine, but is expendible. Don't want to randomly shove it in any green deck. It can be supported as part of a green pump spell zoo agro type deck. Ghor-clan rampager, selesnya charm, wolfir silverheart, ajani caller of the pride, rancor, vines of vastwood, rafiq of the many.. I supported it for a while, I had good results when I drafted it. But I had it for like 10 cubes and think I was the only one who drafted it.. Cut the whole package and berserk was apart of it.
Cradle is a card that allows good green decks to be great green decks. (requires a fair number of early mana accelerators, but you want that anyway...)
I really like tomb, but not in every deck. I like it to faciliate explosive starts, and those explosive starts being hard to react to.
Going turn 1 tomb -> signet, turn 2 -> 4 drop or spew out artifact ramp can lead to very nutty starts.
or turn 1 elf, turn 2 tomb -> 4 drop in green
I'd say Tomb > dynamo >= Gilded lotus (not sure about that one).
I consistantly swap dynamo for gilded lotus and I never am convinced what is correct.
The three are all very close in my eyes tho fwiw, and work well together in conjunction with signets.
Sorry, I meant high powered small cubes. Your cube is very non standard, so when people make generalizations about common cube environment its barely applies to your cube.
In my local scene there's like 4-5 cubes and all of them fit the criteria I listed. Same with modo holiday cube which is a partial benchmark for high powered cubes.
Obviously midrange creatures become better when people aren't going way over the top At fast speeds.
Removal becomes better the more decks are creature focused. That being said your cubes power level looks lower than standard so I suspect removal quality and quantity is a little less important. (Doesn't mean it's not important)
Artifacts are big in cube if you support artifact.dec , which is not hard to do if you run all fast mana and have a small cube size.
On unpowered 450 vs powered 450: Totally agree on cube diversity at different sizes. This will be increasingly true in the future as we get more and more redundancy. Cube owners will get more flexibility on themes and cube specific synergies.
On Standard vs Cube: There is a high correlation for standard performance and cube performance. It's far from 100% but, it's definitly greater than 50%.
In general, when evaluating cards for cube that are present in "good stuff" standard decks. IE not decks built mostly around synergy.
I won't write an essay on this but,
a) mid-ranged value engines are worse in cube than in standard. (they have to compete with busted blue card draw and turn 4 eldrazi)
b) creature removal is less valuable in cube than in standard.
c) artifacts are better in cube than in standard. (assuming standard format isnt artifact based)
d) artifact desctruction is MUCH better in cube than in standard.
e) non-creature permenant interaction is more important in cube than in standard.
f) cheap agressive creatures are better in cube than in standard. Ie 2/1's for 1.
g) midranged creatures are worse in cube than in standard.
h) powerful synergy dependent creatures are worse in cube than in standard, unless their synergy is highly supported in cube.
By these postulates, I'd say G and H apply to sidisi. But my speculation is that she can be built around often enough in cube. I also think demonic tutor effects are sick in a powered cube, where the best card in your deck can be miles better than the second best card.
I'll have to test to be sure, but initial poor impressions by forum members have reduced my optimism.
I had a brief phase where I was super high on solemn visitor (mostly due to playing it in constructed), so kept subbing them both out back and forth to get a better sense of what's better. I did this for maybe 10+ cubes heh.
Overall I settled on Lord of innistrad. It's better in a wider range of archetypes. Solemn visitor was disgusting in agro mirrors (the huge immediate lifegain is why it sees modern play over lord of innistrad, very important vs burn) and potentially better in tokens, but there were a bit too many matchups/deck where I wanted the planeswalker itself to be the stand alone threat.
Generating 2/2 flyers is great and all, but sorin innistrads ultimate is often game ending. Much easier for certain decks to come back vs a couple 2/2 flyers than a sorin ultimate.
Total zombie + zombie token maker in count in black = 7
I prefer graveborn muse, it's a solid card. When dealing with creatures that need to survive to generate value, 4 vs 5 is a big difference.
It has more upside potential too (a couple zombies + lifegain = legit engine).
Great synergy with Grey merchant too if you run that...
There have been an unbelievable number of cards that have been good in their respective standard formats that have been below-average cards in the cube.
What impresses me is how a card performs in the cube, not how it performs anywhere else. And this creature was super lackluster in testing. It's not a Demonic Tutor on legs, its a Diabolic Intent on legs, and the difference is huge.
I'm skeptical you gave her a fair shot.
You weren't interested in your initial appraisal, mentioned no where of intending to or testing but claim it's been lack lustre in testing?
I've seen you do this for multiple cards, do you test cards a lot despite claiming to not be interested in the card or mention it in your thread? More than 1 cube of duration?
I believe you do this, but curious why you selectively post your testing intentions?
"my" experience was watching two top 20 magic players in the world play dozens of games with the card in an environment much more powerful than draft but likely less powerful than cube.
The players who placed first and second in the whole tournament BOTH chose to build their decks with sidisi in mind, indicating their opinion of her power level. Reid duke wrote an article on channel fireball not long after the card was spoiled indicating how powerful he thought sidisi was. Put his money where his mouth was and was compensated for it.
The announcers (both of which are excellent magic players) mentioned how impressed they were the card multiple times.
The decks didn't take advantage of incredible synergy either.
The decks mearly had
a) A variety of answers
b) A powerful super late game bomb or two
c) Creatures to profitably exploit
and in reid dukes case
d) ways to abuse the ETB trigger
These are ALL things that can be easily replicated in a cube deck, but NOT easily replicated in a DTK limited deck.
You can't just throw her in any deck and have her be good.
I can't imagine your experience was very representative of sidisi's average case scenario either, a 4/6 deathtouch for 5 is a strong card in limited ignoring the ETB trigger.
I would chock up your experience mostly to variance and/or exploit -> demonic tutor being much weaker in draft than in cube or constructed.
Yes the demonic tutor is much more likely on "suspend" than traditional demonic tutor, but a 4/6 deathtoucher is not exactly a laughable road block to help buy you a turn. It sometimes won't be enough, but it often will. Nor would I ever think of arguing that sidisi is half the card demonic tutor is heh.
Deck should be built with the tutoring in mind, so I could see sidisi not being as Bomby in a random limited deck as a lot of big rares.
There aren't many tokens or cheap creatures that generate value relative to cube/constructed. (Less good targets to exploit)
Demonic tutor is a WAY more powerful effect in cube than it is in DTK limited. For example when ur back is against a wall, you can tutor for the card that gets you out of that spot. Much less likely you'll have that card in your deck In a random game of limited.
Both Jacob Wilson (Abzan control) and Reid duke (sultai reanimator) played 2 copies main. They finished 1st and 2nd respectively. Sidisi was busted in Reid's deck and surprisingly very good in Wilsons.
Sidisi is obviously at her best in high creature count reanimation strategies(recurring nightmare.dec), but she is not exclusive to that archetype.
That was my thought prior to testing, but dozens of hours of testing changed my mind.
Your wrong about wasteland, losing a green source on average is much more devastating then losing a Karakas or rishadan port.
Teeg in multiples was a liability in a lot of matchups. In the fair ones he'd live when he didn't matter and hit a removal spell when he did matter. Pridemage was a good card, but there was many times I wished he was a revoker (elves in particular).
I would love a singleton teeg and maybe a Pridemage or two, but overloading them was a mistake. If they were played in small numbers their effect was marginal relative to the worse mana base.
There's also all the fetch/canopy pain and exposure to price of progress that contributes to a worse burn matchup as well as increased blood moon vulnerability
More legendary white creatures that are playable in death and taxes could give it a nod (higher toughness legends to bounce and replay with karakas/vial)
Introduction:
I picked up the deck about 6 months ago and decided to stick exclusively to it. I wanted to play thalia and geddock teeg in the treasure cruise environment and figured Death and Taxes splashing green had a lot going for it. With wasteland on the decline , it seemed that splashing green was a great strategy. Why hadn't more people adopted it?
I played it in SCG invitational in December tested it thoroughly. I've read every article on the deck I've found. Since the invitational I've continued to play it casually at local events.
Splashing Green:
The first conclusion I reached from testing was splashing green was incorrect. This was true even with wasteland on the decline and gaddock teeg being well positioned. Having non-basic lands vulnerable to wasteland and stifle was a huge downside relative to the marginal value provided by gaddock teeg.
There are no bad cards in death and taxes.. The value gained by having teeg over a phyreian revoker or a serra avenger was not big. Having a clean painless manabase WAS big.
This is now even more true post treasure cruise banning.
Death and Taxes Gameplan:
I don't like the philosophy that this deck is a "control" deck. It's much more about attacking their mana base and ability to cast spells, while killing them before they can successfully execute their gameplan. This doesn't always work for a variety of reasons. Having good, stand alone cards that have the ability to engage with fair decks in combat AND presenting a clock is very important.
I've seen a lot of people badmouth cards like serra avenger and brimaz with the argument that we aren't an agressive deck and they don't contribute to our mana denial plan. I disagree with this philosophy. D&T needs to be able to switch gears AND be able to get their opponent dead.
Without the mana denial aspect to the game, the deck does not have a long game to compete with the mid-range decks or control decks of the format. Sometimes we are on the draw, and they draw a bunch of lands. Sometimes we don't draw many lands and have an aether vial in play. The mana denial gameplan is always temporary, given enough cards/time every deck in the format can get around it. Therefore, powerful cards are necessary.
Card Numbers:
There's a lot of bad draws in the deck (too many thalia, too many aether vials, too many karakas, too many moms) all of which are necessary for the decks gameplan to function. Without access to brain storm, D&T can have a lot of bad draws and be forced to mullgian frequently. Therefore, I like to increase consistancy wherever possible. This means, for the OTHER cards that have diminishing returns, I think it's important to err on the side of not over committing. Versatility has value.
Non-essential Cards with Diminshing returns:
Phyrexian Revoker (Not enough targets to shut off, and weak in fair battles. Some matchups it's good in multiples tho.)
Spirit of the Labyrinth (Should be obvious why this card sucks in multiples)
Brimaz, King of Oreskos (legend rule)
Serra Avenger (Past turn 3 it's great, but without an aether vial and 4 in the deck, you can easily start with 3 serra avenger and be forced to muligan)
Mangara of Condor (Card is meant for the possibility for the mangara lock, without the lock, card is bad. Only need 1 copy to execute the lock.)
Cards which are totally fine in multiples:
Flickerwisp (Bad when you need defense or satured with 3 drops, but it's effect with aether vial is almost always sick and it's rare it gets trumped in the air)
Stoneforge mystic (Only bad when you've exhausted all your equipment, but that's super rare. This is the best standalone card in the deck, I'd play 5 if I could)
Meta choices:
When U/R Delver was big I was not a fan of mirran crusader at all. I played zero copies at the invitational (and the following IQ on sunday) and am convinced that was correct.
I played 2 Brimaz who was outstanding all tournament, It's one flaw was getting outclassed by tarmogoyf. I also wasn't a big fan of Spirit of the labyrinth. Sure it was great against cruise, but that's only if it lived. Given the popularity of young pyromancer, a lot of decks were running cards like forked bolt and golgari charm which really blows death and taxes out if they focus too much on X/1's. This conclusion was shared by craig wescoe.
NOW, post cruise, Sultai is gaining a lot of steam (their win%'s have been among the highest) and UR is on huge decline. My initial reasons for not playing Mirran Crusader and Spirit of the labyrinth have switched completely. Vs Sultai, Mirran crusader is AMAZING and single handidly increases win% points in death and taxes favor. It's so good it might be worth a sideboard slot. Spirit of the Labryinth loses a lot of it's collateral damage with forked bolt's going from the format.
Fair decks have gained more popularity and combo is on a slight decline. I like a singleton mangara for the midrange wars right now. Most of the time it's clunky, but sometimes it wins the game by itself. I played 1 at the invitational as I was afraid of stoneforge wars, and it proved itself to be a great late game card. Very happy with it in my test sample.
Decklist:
I'm not convinced it's the best build, but I've used the previous analysis to arrive at it. Surprise surprise, I like a stock build of D&T. Consistency is VERY important.
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Serra Avenger
3 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Spirit of the Labyrinth
3 Flickerwisp
1 Brimaz, King of Oreskos
2 Mirran Crusader
1 Mangara of Corondor
4 Aether Vial
1 Batterskull
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
10 Plains
1 Cavern of Souls (Could be Horzion canopy)
3 Karakas
4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland
Only debates I'm currently having are the sideboard(I'm not convinced on my sideboard), and the 2nd spirit of labyrnth. Likely want to get a 4th flicker wisp in there. Either over the Brimaz if 8 3 drops is not too much, or over the 2nd spirit of labyrinth.
Pod is a build around card that lacks other engines that also gain value from having a smooth curve of ETB creatures. There's a couple (momentary blink?) but in singleton cubes I'm not a big fan of it.
It can be selectively sweet tho. Playing 2 in my non-singleton makes a world of difference vs 1. That in conjunction with extra kiki-jiki combo support lead to some interesting combo pod decks.
Berserk is a pet card of mine, but is expendible. Don't want to randomly shove it in any green deck. It can be supported as part of a green pump spell zoo agro type deck. Ghor-clan rampager, selesnya charm, wolfir silverheart, ajani caller of the pride, rancor, vines of vastwood, rafiq of the many.. I supported it for a while, I had good results when I drafted it. But I had it for like 10 cubes and think I was the only one who drafted it.. Cut the whole package and berserk was apart of it.
Cradle is a card that allows good green decks to be great green decks. (requires a fair number of early mana accelerators, but you want that anyway...)
My vote is Cradle >> Berserk >= Pod
Going turn 1 tomb -> signet, turn 2 -> 4 drop or spew out artifact ramp can lead to very nutty starts.
or turn 1 elf, turn 2 tomb -> 4 drop in green
I'd say Tomb > dynamo >= Gilded lotus (not sure about that one).
I consistantly swap dynamo for gilded lotus and I never am convinced what is correct.
The three are all very close in my eyes tho fwiw, and work well together in conjunction with signets.
In my local scene there's like 4-5 cubes and all of them fit the criteria I listed. Same with modo holiday cube which is a partial benchmark for high powered cubes.
Obviously midrange creatures become better when people aren't going way over the top At fast speeds.
Removal becomes better the more decks are creature focused. That being said your cubes power level looks lower than standard so I suspect removal quality and quantity is a little less important. (Doesn't mean it's not important)
Artifacts are big in cube if you support artifact.dec , which is not hard to do if you run all fast mana and have a small cube size.
On Standard vs Cube: There is a high correlation for standard performance and cube performance. It's far from 100% but, it's definitly greater than 50%.
In general, when evaluating cards for cube that are present in "good stuff" standard decks. IE not decks built mostly around synergy.
I won't write an essay on this but,
a) mid-ranged value engines are worse in cube than in standard. (they have to compete with busted blue card draw and turn 4 eldrazi)
b) creature removal is less valuable in cube than in standard.
c) artifacts are better in cube than in standard. (assuming standard format isnt artifact based)
d) artifact desctruction is MUCH better in cube than in standard.
e) non-creature permenant interaction is more important in cube than in standard.
f) cheap agressive creatures are better in cube than in standard. Ie 2/1's for 1.
g) midranged creatures are worse in cube than in standard.
h) powerful synergy dependent creatures are worse in cube than in standard, unless their synergy is highly supported in cube.
By these postulates, I'd say G and H apply to sidisi. But my speculation is that she can be built around often enough in cube. I also think demonic tutor effects are sick in a powered cube, where the best card in your deck can be miles better than the second best card.
I'll have to test to be sure, but initial poor impressions by forum members have reduced my optimism.
I had a brief phase where I was super high on solemn visitor (mostly due to playing it in constructed), so kept subbing them both out back and forth to get a better sense of what's better. I did this for maybe 10+ cubes heh.
Overall I settled on Lord of innistrad. It's better in a wider range of archetypes. Solemn visitor was disgusting in agro mirrors (the huge immediate lifegain is why it sees modern play over lord of innistrad, very important vs burn) and potentially better in tokens, but there were a bit too many matchups/deck where I wanted the planeswalker itself to be the stand alone threat.
Generating 2/2 flyers is great and all, but sorin innistrads ultimate is often game ending. Much easier for certain decks to come back vs a couple 2/2 flyers than a sorin ultimate.
I prefer graveborn muse, it's a solid card. When dealing with creatures that need to survive to generate value, 4 vs 5 is a big difference.
It has more upside potential too (a couple zombies + lifegain = legit engine).
Great synergy with Grey merchant too if you run that...
I'm skeptical you gave her a fair shot.
You weren't interested in your initial appraisal, mentioned no where of intending to or testing but claim it's been lack lustre in testing?
I've seen you do this for multiple cards, do you test cards a lot despite claiming to not be interested in the card or mention it in your thread? More than 1 cube of duration?
I believe you do this, but curious why you selectively post your testing intentions?
The players who placed first and second in the whole tournament BOTH chose to build their decks with sidisi in mind, indicating their opinion of her power level. Reid duke wrote an article on channel fireball not long after the card was spoiled indicating how powerful he thought sidisi was. Put his money where his mouth was and was compensated for it.
The announcers (both of which are excellent magic players) mentioned how impressed they were the card multiple times.
The decks didn't take advantage of incredible synergy either.
The decks mearly had
a) A variety of answers
b) A powerful super late game bomb or two
c) Creatures to profitably exploit
and in reid dukes case
d) ways to abuse the ETB trigger
These are ALL things that can be easily replicated in a cube deck, but NOT easily replicated in a DTK limited deck.
You can't just throw her in any deck and have her be good.
I can't imagine your experience was very representative of sidisi's average case scenario either, a 4/6 deathtouch for 5 is a strong card in limited ignoring the ETB trigger.
I would chock up your experience mostly to variance and/or exploit -> demonic tutor being much weaker in draft than in cube or constructed.
Yes the demonic tutor is much more likely on "suspend" than traditional demonic tutor, but a 4/6 deathtoucher is not exactly a laughable road block to help buy you a turn. It sometimes won't be enough, but it often will. Nor would I ever think of arguing that sidisi is half the card demonic tutor is heh.
Better, but not strictly.
If your opponent haS multiple walkers hellkite can only hit 1 whereas Atarka can divide between all.
There aren't many tokens or cheap creatures that generate value relative to cube/constructed. (Less good targets to exploit)
Demonic tutor is a WAY more powerful effect in cube than it is in DTK limited. For example when ur back is against a wall, you can tutor for the card that gets you out of that spot. Much less likely you'll have that card in your deck In a random game of limited.
Both Jacob Wilson (Abzan control) and Reid duke (sultai reanimator) played 2 copies main. They finished 1st and 2nd respectively. Sidisi was busted in Reid's deck and surprisingly very good in Wilsons.
Sidisi is obviously at her best in high creature count reanimation strategies(recurring nightmare.dec), but she is not exclusive to that archetype.
2 years ago id say bone shredder > gftt> doomblade.
Now id say gftt>doomblade>=shredder
It's all for curve reasons.
So many sick 3 drops in black now
I know it's standard, but seeing the dynamics Of it has me convinced it's going to be sick in cube.
narrow, but very good
Changed my stance from on the fence to excited..