First off, thank you for taking the time to do this. It is no small task.
The colorless list is on point although I think unpowered cubes are going to have a really difficult time resolving the new Kozilek. Thank goodness for Reality Smasher and to a lesser extent Bearer of Silence because without them I think colorless would have been a complete pass for many cube designers at this stage. Those are my only definite inclusions from our new colorless options although Eldrazi Displacer and Thought-Knot Seer are worthy options for small/mid size cubes as well.
For now, I don't think the colorless options available merit a large overhaul of current cube lands or the size of my colorless section. I will include about 10 wastes and I'm contemplating switching out my checklands for painlands or filterlands.
As for the traditional list. Reflector Mage is just such a gift to tempo/control decks. Count me among those who didn't feel the need for a harder to cast Oblivion Ring (Detention Sphere). Yes, there are a few applications of Detention Sphere that make it a little better, but they are corner cases. Also, blink decks should like this guy too!
Sylvan Advocate is a great, if imperfect card. It has good, but not great stats and abilities for aggro. Its ability requires little extra effort on your part except playing lands which is intuitive, but you may not have the synergies on board. It synergizes with manlands, Koth of the Hammer, Nissa, Worldwaker, but I don't have a single awaken card in my cube (and I don't think most other small/mid size cubes do either). Overall though you can't beat a card that transitions from the early game to the late-game for you--one reason why Nissa, Vastwood Seer is so potent. This card also makes me want to reconsider Life/Death for my Golgari section. Advocate has significant synergy with the life portion and a little more reanimator support might be nice.
So on Oath of Nissa we completely disagree, but I hope it meets or surpasses your expectations. My green decks don't want a cantrip+ as badly as my U/x builds and being able to sacrifice it to smokestack or get one additional cantrip off of flickerwisp isn't terribly exciting I'm afraid. I admit that I do play Harmonize but reloading the hand is a significantly more valuable effect then a cantrip in my G/x builds in my experience.
After the mild disappointment that was BFZ with it's 5 cube inclusions, it is nice to see OGW really deliver with approximately 8 inclusions in my cube.
I know most people run both skinrender/nekrataal even at smaller lists, but they are not BOTH needed at that size. There's diminishing returns of these effects in your main deck. I'm a big fan of running 1 of them, as support for reanimation type decks, and having a strong sideboard option vs small creature decks, but IMO Kalitas is a slightly more powerful cube card than either of them, so if your looking for spots, I think nekrataal is a place to start. I know people will disagree with this, but try it for a few months and re-evaluate.
I cut Nekrataal ages ago assuming I'd reinclude him soon, but never felt the need to and never really missed him. The card is definitely good, but there's a lot of decks he's bad against, that many other cards in black are also bad against. Diversity of answers are important.
I think Oath of Nissa is highly overrated. A green filter spell that is worse than most of the blue ones can't be the best card of the set.
But that's kinda what I'm trying to say ...I don't think it is worse than most of the blue ones. If you put it into a deck where it'll be the best cantrip in the entire cube more than half the times you cast it, it's better than you think it is. And a lot of cards gain value when they're off-color effects. For the same reason Song of the Dryads is an excellent green card despite being worse than white's Oblivion Ring variants most of the time ...a green 1cc cantrip that will be at least a Sleight of Hand when it's not arguably the best cantrip around is something we don't see every day. It would be like white getting a Burst Lightning. It might not be the same thing as white getting a Lightning Bolt, but I'll be damned if I'm not going to slam it into the cube. Green didn't get a Brainstorm, but Oath of Nissa should be seeing play in your green decks. Oath of Nissa is a lot better in comparison to blue's cantrips than Harmonize is in comparison to blue's draw spells, for example.
Probably you are right. The independence of a shuffle effect for maximum value compared to the blue cantrips may very well compensate the card type restriction. I'll try to find a cut for it in the ogw update
Putting Oath of Nissa at #1 is badass. Cheap card selection is SO good and every single cube can benefit from adding more. And seeing as Bant Blink/Bounce is a thing in my cube I'm gonna have to make room for this.
I'm also hoping you underrated Nissa PW cuz I want her to be good.
Do you think Reality Smasher, Kozilek, and Bearer of Silence are good enough to run without other colorless support? I don't want to go whole hog on colorless but those cards seem good enough and castable with just the normal suite of colorless lands and manafacts.
While cheap card selection is super useful, it is neither interesting nor powerful. I would have never put Oath of Nissa at the top. As for the blue ones like Ponder etc, I could easily cut one or two or all of them and wouldn't care. Sure, it would take some options away from blue decks, but blue is the strongest color in cube anyway. I think cards like Sylvan Advocate and Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet add way more to the cube than Oath of Nissa does.
I can usually guess the top ranking cards in these reviews, but Oath at #1 leaves me puzzled.
I think people are significantly underrating Oath of Nissa by referring to it as a "cantrip", instead of what it actually is which is modern blue level card selection. It makes mulliganing decisions a ton easier, it finds ramp decks your 2nd land to cast your ramp, or your ramping creature if you have the land. Or it can find you that Garruk or Nissa to push you over the top.
And importantly, in your mid-range decks, it has a 2nd mode! The mana-fixing ability WILL come up in games.
Go listen to Top Level Podcast with Patrick Chapin if you're unsure of the impact of this card. My prediction is it ends up as a multi-format all-star, and it will be a cube staple for years to come.
I don't think Oath of Nissa at #1 is any stranger than the newest Savannah Lions variant taking the top slot set after set. Cantrips are an important part of many cube decks, and even if some decks function well without them, most are made better by their inclusion. It's even more important that we're getting it in a color that previously had no access to this kind of effect.
Let us not forget that we are a singleton format, but we still build around combos and uniquely powerful cards. Much like song of the dryads we, if Oath pans out we will see significant improvement from an unassuming effect.
Your reviews are the cherry on top of every spoiler season. Thanks!
I think this set is a very interesting set for cube in which the includes are not that obvious, and the colorless section is going to split the cubers if they will include it or not (I am in the conservative camp - WUBRG only for now!).
In my 450 I will include the top 7, with a bit of hesitation for Oath of Nissa.
Do you think Reality Smasher, Kozilek, and Bearer of Silence are good enough to run without other colorless support? I don't want to go whole hog on colorless but those cards seem good enough and castable with just the normal suite of colorless lands and manafacts.
Cheers,
rant
I can't speak for wtwlf, but personally if I weren't planning on trying out a colorless section, I'd only be including Kozilek (probably a like for like swap with old Kozilek) and Reality Smasher. Both would just fall into my current colorless/artifact section. Both of those cards will be fairly late drops (unless you cheat out Koz), so the colorless shouldn't be as hard to come by considering the types of decks they'll likely go into.
The others are so hard to cast requiring basically two specific types of mana, that I don't think it's worth trying them unless you're supporting it fully. We may try the full on colorless section at first just to see how the cards play because we've never seen anything like this before. I'm not completely sold on their value, though. Currently most of them don't seem worth the trouble of trying to support the extra mana type. Bearer of Silence is the third best one and it's a 4 mana (2 type requirement) 2/1 that can't block and might possibly whiff. I think this guy needed to be a bigger body or a Terror instead of an Edict, tbh. I don't think I'd play that as a straight up black card, so I'm not sure how I'll feel about it as a black/colorless card. But that's why we test.
Do you think Reality Smasher, Kozilek, and Bearer of Silence are good enough to run without other colorless support? I don't want to go whole hog on colorless but those cards seem good enough and castable with just the normal suite of colorless lands and manafacts.
Cheers,
rant
This is what I am doing with just Matter Reshaper and Reality Smasher. I will probably add a few extra non basics like Tendo Ice Bridge or some others but I think those cards seem good enough to support in the same way you support tinker or sneak attack (pick up the right support cards if you want to play the cards in your deck).
Just wanted to say that I always read your articles to help inform my drafting/trading decisions while a set is out - thanks for doing it so well and so consistently! Really excited to finally build a cube with all the cards I've collected =]
With the addition of manlands, if you have all 10 manlands in your cube (mine of 540 so I will), how important is Treetop Village in the cube? I'm thinking of cutting it, even though it may be better than some of the other manlands
I don't have a single awaken card in my cube (and I don't think most other small/mid size cubes do either).
Thanks for the long and detailed response!
If you haven't played Ruinous Path, I recommend it. It's a solid removal spell in this format, and the awaken is a good way to sneak a big threat into yhe list without dedicating a slot to one.
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I'm also hoping you underrated Nissa PW cuz I want her to be good.
Me too. It would be sweet if she turned out to be good in this format.
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Do you think Reality Smasher, Kozilek, and Bearer of Silence are good enough to run without other colorless support? I don't want to go whole hog on colorless but those cards seem good enough and castable with just the normal suite of colorless lands and manafacts.
Kozilek and maybe Reality Smasher are, but I think that Bearer will have a hard time curving properly without some extra support for C mana.
Quote from Star Slayer »
While cheap card selection is super useful, it is neither interesting nor powerful. I would have never put Oath of Nissa at the top. As for the blue ones like Ponder etc, I could easily cut one or two or all of them and wouldn't care.
We'll just have to disagree on every point here.
Quote from Omirr85 »
With the addition of manlands, if you have all 10 manlands in your cube (mine of 540 so I will), how important is Treetop Village in the cube? I'm thinking of cutting it, even though it may be better than some of the other manlands
Perhaps less important, but no less potent. I'd keep it around because it's still a great card.
wtwlf, where are you on Warping Wail? It seems like a perfect inclusion to give non-blue decks a way to deal with powerful cube sorceries that they normally wouldn't be able to deal with. Was it a near-miss for the Top 10, or you're just fundamentally down on the card?
I don't think it's great. It requires too many sources of C to reliably cast it as soon as possible, which is what you need for that card to be good. In a constructed deck with all the sources available to play it on T2, it might be fine. But in a pseudo-limited environment like the cube, I think it's too inconsistent.
Thanks for the article! Very well-written and thorough, as usual.
I like swapping out gold cards for the colorless section. Half of the cards you are adding are gold anyway (Displacer et. al). The others are basically mono-colorless. The net effect on the cube as a whole should make casting-difficulty about the same. Maybe even easier since some gold cards are being replaced by mono-colorless.
Yes, I will be going the route of shrinking the multicolor section in my cube to make room for C cards. I think they will play more similarly to them than they do to mono-colored or generic-costed cards, and I don't want to cut easier to cast cards for harder to cast ones.
Great article wtwlf! Always fun to read you! 5* article!
I just personally think that OoN shouldn't be that high in the rank and that Nissa, Voice of Zendikar should be higher. I just played a UG Opposition this weekend with a lot of dorks and token producers and the card was absolutly stellar. Sometimes it just won me game by its own when cast on the play and on turn 2. In other games, the tokens it constantly produce lockdown the board pretty well paired with a turn 3 ramped Opposition.
Yeah you have me sold on Oath of Nissa. My green decks almost always have the 12-14 creatures and 17 lands so I expect your math to just play out over time. Most of my green decks will want to run it.
I am going to make room for Baby Nissa too though. I'm gonna bring in more support for the token subtheme that we're really liking right now and I see her fitting right in.
I know most people run both skinrender/nekrataal even at smaller lists, but they are not BOTH needed at that size. There's diminishing returns of these effects in your main deck. I'm a big fan of running 1 of them, as support for reanimation type decks, and having a strong sideboard option vs small creature decks, but IMO Kalitas is a slightly more powerful cube card than either of them, so if your looking for spots, I think nekrataal is a place to start. I know people will disagree with this, but try it for a few months and re-evaluate.
I cut Nekrataal ages ago assuming I'd reinclude him soon, but never felt the need to and never really missed him. The card is definitely good, but there's a lot of decks he's bad against, that many other cards in black are also bad against. Diversity of answers are important.
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Probably you are right. The independence of a shuffle effect for maximum value compared to the blue cantrips may very well compensate the card type restriction. I'll try to find a cut for it in the ogw update
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I'm also hoping you underrated Nissa PW cuz I want her to be good.
Great set review
Do you think Reality Smasher, Kozilek, and Bearer of Silence are good enough to run without other colorless support? I don't want to go whole hog on colorless but those cards seem good enough and castable with just the normal suite of colorless lands and manafacts.
Cheers,
rant
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I can usually guess the top ranking cards in these reviews, but Oath at #1 leaves me puzzled.
Uril, the Miststalker RGW -- Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre C -- Vhati il-Dal BG -- Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer RW -- Animar, Soul of Elements URG
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker R -- Maga, Traitor to Mortals B -- Ghave, Guru of Spores BGW -- Sliver Hivelord WUBRG
And importantly, in your mid-range decks, it has a 2nd mode! The mana-fixing ability WILL come up in games.
Go listen to Top Level Podcast with Patrick Chapin if you're unsure of the impact of this card. My prediction is it ends up as a multi-format all-star, and it will be a cube staple for years to come.
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I think this set is a very interesting set for cube in which the includes are not that obvious, and the colorless section is going to split the cubers if they will include it or not (I am in the conservative camp - WUBRG only for now!).
In my 450 I will include the top 7, with a bit of hesitation for Oath of Nissa.
I can't speak for wtwlf, but personally if I weren't planning on trying out a colorless section, I'd only be including Kozilek (probably a like for like swap with old Kozilek) and Reality Smasher. Both would just fall into my current colorless/artifact section. Both of those cards will be fairly late drops (unless you cheat out Koz), so the colorless shouldn't be as hard to come by considering the types of decks they'll likely go into.
The others are so hard to cast requiring basically two specific types of mana, that I don't think it's worth trying them unless you're supporting it fully. We may try the full on colorless section at first just to see how the cards play because we've never seen anything like this before. I'm not completely sold on their value, though. Currently most of them don't seem worth the trouble of trying to support the extra mana type. Bearer of Silence is the third best one and it's a 4 mana (2 type requirement) 2/1 that can't block and might possibly whiff. I think this guy needed to be a bigger body or a Terror instead of an Edict, tbh. I don't think I'd play that as a straight up black card, so I'm not sure how I'll feel about it as a black/colorless card. But that's why we test.
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This is what I am doing with just Matter Reshaper and Reality Smasher. I will probably add a few extra non basics like Tendo Ice Bridge or some others but I think those cards seem good enough to support in the same way you support tinker or sneak attack (pick up the right support cards if you want to play the cards in your deck).
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I have a question for you.
With the addition of manlands, if you have all 10 manlands in your cube (mine of 540 so I will), how important is Treetop Village in the cube? I'm thinking of cutting it, even though it may be better than some of the other manlands
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540> 360 Powered CubeThanks for the long and detailed response!
If you haven't played Ruinous Path, I recommend it. It's a solid removal spell in this format, and the awaken is a good way to sneak a big threat into yhe list without dedicating a slot to one.
Me too. It would be sweet if she turned out to be good in this format.
Kozilek and maybe Reality Smasher are, but I think that Bearer will have a hard time curving properly without some extra support for C mana.
We'll just have to disagree on every point here.
Perhaps less important, but no less potent. I'd keep it around because it's still a great card.
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I like swapping out gold cards for the colorless section. Half of the cards you are adding are gold anyway (Displacer et. al). The others are basically mono-colorless. The net effect on the cube as a whole should make casting-difficulty about the same. Maybe even easier since some gold cards are being replaced by mono-colorless.
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I just personally think that OoN shouldn't be that high in the rank and that Nissa, Voice of Zendikar should be higher. I just played a UG Opposition this weekend with a lot of dorks and token producers and the card was absolutly stellar. Sometimes it just won me game by its own when cast on the play and on turn 2. In other games, the tokens it constantly produce lockdown the board pretty well paired with a turn 3 ramped Opposition.
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And Oath of Nissa is the best card from this set. The more I play it, the clearer it becomes. It's a 360 quality card, and the only real frontrunner.
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I am going to make room for Baby Nissa too though. I'm gonna bring in more support for the token subtheme that we're really liking right now and I see her fitting right in.
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It happened in the last set review too.
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That's awesome lol. Cubes have come a long way!