I can tell you that my experiment with giving creature types out on stickers were pretty much a total failure. Either it is total fluff or you're including cards that are generally not cubeworthy in order to make the type stickers matter.
Definitely cutting them for the next cycle of cube legacy.
Right. But none of those things make it blue. They just make it a slightly different version of an existing white spell.
Yes they do. Blue gets the 'clever/good' versions of other colors' effects. If you take a white effect and give more options, that's blue. I mean, right?
It's playable grave hate and in most average to best case scenarios, will result in a one-sided sweeper. The effect is also different from most Oblivion Ring effects in that the cards don't come back to play but into the owners' hands, which has multiple applications for both you and your opponent's creatures. I'd say this is most likely the third best 7+ drop, behind Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite and Eternal Dragon and about the same as Akroma, Angel of Wrath.
Off topic, but I'm getting less and less inspired by Eternal Dragon -- with the extent to which I support tempo, it is a card that only really does anything other than landcycle in control mirrors.
This still isn't good enough for my cube. 7-drops have an incredibly high barrier to entry for me.
My players are much more pulled by good removal, I guess. Pulse, Vindicate, etc. get taken very highly despite being just solid removal. YMMV, I guess.
how often does that effect matter with pulse? i run pulse because it's a vindicate clone, not because of the token killing. it's cool, but it doesn't make a gold o-ring a staple, not for my 360 anyway.
I'm just saying that against two entire colors, this is just as much of a Vindicate clone as Maelstrom Pulse. How often the extra text matters depends on how much your cube does tokens and how much your cube does clones and other copy effects. I've seen it come up substantially more since the printing of Phantasmal Image and Phyrexian Metamorph.
As an aside, regarding Capsize, when was the last time anyone here has Capsize-locked someone? I feel like its been FOREVER in my Cube. With Cubes getting faster, are Capsize's days numbered?
I consider it cuttable, because it is intensely slow. Right now, I have it in a 'control/ramp spell' slot, with the understanding that it sometimes pulls double-duty as a substantially suboptimal aggro card.
In my experience, it is far and away best in ramp, or control mirrors, which are the only places where I've seen it truly get rolling in my cube. For instance, it is a bit too slow in a control versus aggro or even control versus midrange matchup in my cube.
Relevant to this discussion, I'm not sure whether this new card can take its slot. Hitting lands is relevant in the situations where Capsize gets rolling. That said, I usually break on even decisions in favor of cards which can serve more roles. I think the overload version is pretty sweet at seven mana, and the base version is also better than Capsize when the card is serving as a less-than-optimal tempo card.
I was on the fence about this one, but I just talked myself into testing it over Capsize. Cube is going to fall out of favor at my office for a while after RtR comes out, so I won't be able to report back with substantial findings until most of the forums reach consensus though.
While Lorwyn faeries are Magical-born, and that they insect-like features don't really make sense with the presence of breasts, Glen-Elendra Archamage's art have two proheminent female secondary sex characteristics.
You are of course correct, and I thank you for correcting me. I hate doing that, and so I've edited my previous post, leaving this the only monument to my shame.
I've found him to be at his best in burn-backed base-green midrange beats. He lets you lean on one fat creature and keep pushing through damage without spending cards -- specifically your burn that you'll use to do the last several points of damage.
Using him correctly takes some consideration, but when the deck's plan really doesn't want to get chumped at give the opponent extra turns or the opportunity to generate a board position, then Tracker works very well -- specifically when Master of the Wild Hunt wouldn't.
I think that I'm less sold on Vraska than others. I feel as if she has three modes, only one of which is sweet:
1) She is a Suspend 2 sorcery that makes 3 assassins. Only good onto a stable board.
2) She is a 5-mana vindicate that gains you some life. Not sweet, but reasonable.
3) She cacks your opponent's only creature, then survives to rebuild for additional vindicates.
Basically, mode 3 is sweet but only happens against 'one big threat' decks. I think she's primarily a card for midrange and ramp against controlling decks.
The other aspect of flipping with belief counter triggers on the stack is the confusing nature of two different counter types on the same permanent. "Wait . . . is that 3 loyalty counters and 5 belief counters, or is that the other way around?"
Here's where I think that you're being held back in a way that you needn't be for a custom cube. If the whole cube is custom Norse, then just make the PW side of these cards run off of Belief counters instead of Loyalty counters. For clarity's sake, give them a custom cardtype instead of calling them Planeswalkers on the back face.
Heck, if you want to power them up, say that when they are reduced to 0 belief, they transform back into a shrine instead of being destroyed -- these norse deities are so formidable that once they appear they can't be destroyed -- the best you can hope for is to drive them off and then get rid of their shrine so that they can never return.
Doing the above would almost certainly mean revisiting the indestructibility clause on the Shrines, of course.
When I rebuild next, I'll probably include Splinter Twin. Since there are enough twin targets that are defensible-to-good at ~450+, Twin is basically a one-card add to get an interesting combo deck in the cube. Kiki-Jiki is more than sweet enough regardless of whether he's doing this combo or just making extra avalanche riders and titans.
I won't be highly prioritizing additional twin targets on the basis of enabling the combo, though. Angel, Conscripts, and Pestermite all make the cut on their own, but Deceiver Exarch easily could be left outside looking in.
- Combo off (Note that Glen Elendra persists back to counter any removal disrupting the combo)
Note that Glen Elendra persisting doesn't stop instant-speed disruption while her persist is still on the stack. All of your combo pieces except for Kiki-Jiki are on the table before she persists back, so if they can kill your twin target at instant speed then they still buy time until you can get another twin target. Elendra-Kiki is a good pair that prevents most interaction with Kiki, though -- if you're not going off then your first counter per turn costs U and a tap of Kiki, and only your second costs your actual Archmage.
Definitely cutting them for the next cycle of cube legacy.
Yes they do. Blue gets the 'clever/good' versions of other colors' effects. If you take a white effect and give more options, that's blue. I mean, right?
Off topic, but I'm getting less and less inspired by Eternal Dragon -- with the extent to which I support tempo, it is a card that only really does anything other than landcycle in control mirrors.
This still isn't good enough for my cube. 7-drops have an incredibly high barrier to entry for me.
I'm just saying that against two entire colors, this is just as much of a Vindicate clone as Maelstrom Pulse. How often the extra text matters depends on how much your cube does tokens and how much your cube does clones and other copy effects. I've seen it come up substantially more since the printing of Phantasmal Image and Phyrexian Metamorph.
If you think it is easily reversible, two entire colors would like a word with you.
These spells are secret extra color hate for Red and Black.
Small upside? Maelstrom Pulse would like a word with you.
I consider it cuttable, because it is intensely slow. Right now, I have it in a 'control/ramp spell' slot, with the understanding that it sometimes pulls double-duty as a substantially suboptimal aggro card.
In my experience, it is far and away best in ramp, or control mirrors, which are the only places where I've seen it truly get rolling in my cube. For instance, it is a bit too slow in a control versus aggro or even control versus midrange matchup in my cube.
Relevant to this discussion, I'm not sure whether this new card can take its slot. Hitting lands is relevant in the situations where Capsize gets rolling. That said, I usually break on even decisions in favor of cards which can serve more roles. I think the overload version is pretty sweet at seven mana, and the base version is also better than Capsize when the card is serving as a less-than-optimal tempo card.
I was on the fence about this one, but I just talked myself into testing it over Capsize. Cube is going to fall out of favor at my office for a while after RtR comes out, so I won't be able to report back with substantial findings until most of the forums reach consensus though.
You are of course correct, and I thank you for correcting me. I hate doing that, and so I've edited my previous post, leaving this the only monument to my shame.
Using him correctly takes some consideration, but when the deck's plan really doesn't want to get chumped at give the opponent extra turns or the opportunity to generate a board position, then Tracker works very well -- specifically when Master of the Wild Hunt wouldn't.
1) She is a Suspend 2 sorcery that makes 3 assassins. Only good onto a stable board.
2) She is a 5-mana vindicate that gains you some life. Not sweet, but reasonable.
3) She cacks your opponent's only creature, then survives to rebuild for additional vindicates.
Basically, mode 3 is sweet but only happens against 'one big threat' decks. I think she's primarily a card for midrange and ramp against controlling decks.
Here's where I think that you're being held back in a way that you needn't be for a custom cube. If the whole cube is custom Norse, then just make the PW side of these cards run off of Belief counters instead of Loyalty counters. For clarity's sake, give them a custom cardtype instead of calling them Planeswalkers on the back face.
Heck, if you want to power them up, say that when they are reduced to 0 belief, they transform back into a shrine instead of being destroyed -- these norse deities are so formidable that once they appear they can't be destroyed -- the best you can hope for is to drive them off and then get rid of their shrine so that they can never return.
Doing the above would almost certainly mean revisiting the indestructibility clause on the Shrines, of course.
I won't be highly prioritizing additional twin targets on the basis of enabling the combo, though. Angel, Conscripts, and Pestermite all make the cut on their own, but Deceiver Exarch easily could be left outside looking in.
Note that Glen Elendra persisting doesn't stop instant-speed disruption while her persist is still on the stack. All of your combo pieces except for Kiki-Jiki are on the table before she persists back, so if they can kill your twin target at instant speed then they still buy time until you can get another twin target. Elendra-Kiki is a good pair that prevents most interaction with Kiki, though -- if you're not going off then your first counter per turn costs U and a tap of Kiki, and only your second costs your actual Archmage.