With the upcoming release the first new Magic set of 2017, I figure it's time to take my first crack at writing some card evaluations based on my experience playing Peasant Cube!
For a small second-in-a-block set, there's plenty of good playable options to work with, and it was a blast to look through everything and try to parse the great from the good from the meh.
All feedback welcome -- whether it's tips for formatting and presentation, correction of typos, or of course agreement/disagreement with the actual card choices and their spot in the top 20
Without further adieu, here's the list in traditional descending order!
Felidar Guardian -- Horned Turtle + sorcery speed Cloudshift isn't what I want to be doing for four mana. Might show up in powered/unpowered lists for Kiki-Jiki combos, but way too far below Glimmerpoint Stag in this setting.
Destructive Tampering -- if your deck wants a Falter effect, getting it with a built-in Shatter mode is pretty nifty. Probably just worse than Torch Fiend for main-deckable red artifact destruction, though.
Hungry Flames -- good burn, but aggro wants removal at 1-2 mana and control doesn't care about a little extra damage to the fact.
Lifecraft Cavalry -- as I'll say a few times, Revolt is a super unreliable keyword. This will never go too awry as a 4/4 trampler, but with that as the baseline I'd rather have Rhox Maulers or possibly even Riparian Tiger.
Narnam Renegade -- great little thing to plop down for a slower green deck to trade early (or at least eat up some removal). I think I like it a hair more than Wasteland Viper, but (like most C/Ube owners) I'm not playing the Viper currently either.
Scrounging Bandar -- cool flexible card, but waiting a turn to boost your best creature if you draw the Bandar late-game is annoying. Very solid for decks with pushed +1/+1 counter themes, but worse than Kujar Seedsculptor without that element.
Hidden Stockpile -- provides basically nothing when you're behind, and doesn't win games quickly when it's at its best. It does a lot of stuff, I guess, but that stuff doesn't add up to something I'd ever play as one of three or four or five Orzhov cards.
Maverick Thopterist -- Whirler Rogue is insanely good, even at five mana... in two colors... without the extra unblockable ability. It's just not Electrolyze / Prophetic Bolt levels of good. If you're only playing Modern or M15+ cards, seems like a great Izzet option.
Renegade Rallier -- Timely Hordemate does (basically) the same thing but nearly 100% of the time in an aggro deck. This is cheaper, but has a much higher bar to clear as a gold card and is far, far less reliable (thanks, Revolt!).
Renegade Wheelsmith -- Boros C/Ube cards almost all suck. This one sucks slightly more than what you're already playing, continuing the recent WOTC trend of giving us not-quite-there options like Nahiri's Machinations and Veteran Motorist.
Cogwork Assembler -- cool Invoker-style card, but in the vast majority of games the best thing you can copy will be its own vanilla 2/3 body.
Daredevil Dragster -- turns two power into four for three mana, but the sac trigger feels like a downside; if this survives two combats, I usually want to keep doing exactly that and not turn it into Divination. Unlikely any C/Ube wants this in addition to Renegade Freighter.
Watchful Automaton -- I love Azure Mage, but this is not quite the same. If it was a 2/3 with a two-mana activation, I'd definitely give it a spin.
Welder Automaton -- similar to its blue cousin, just too expensive to activate for a single damage. I do like the idea, though, tacked on to the same starting body as Young Pyromancer.
20. Wrangle -- this could be the best C/Ube variant of Threaten (Mark of Mutiny, Besmirch, whatever)... but that’s not really too high of a ceiling, and it will feel atrocious when you need to grab a Pelakka Wurm to create a lethal attack but cannot. Does have a good amount of potential to steal a 4-drop, attack with your board for a good chunk of damage, and play another 2-drop in the same turn, though.
19. Rogue Refiner: Reach Through Mists plus Terrain Elemental (plus two energy you’re unlikely to use) adds up to a good, safe, but boring card that will basically always be a welcome draw for decks that can cast it. Simic is just shallow enough for this to merit consideration.
17. Vengeful Rebel -- if it works, it’s a Fire Imp with a bigger body and a better trigger. Seems insane, right? Well, until you think about how clunky cards like Morkrut Banshee and Wakedancer are in practice; this almost certainly the best payoff of the three, but will be even less consistent since Revolt, unlike Morbid, doesn’t trigger off an opponent’s thing dying.
16. Reckless Racer -- I’m still impatiently waiting for an effective red rummaging creature, and this… feels like it just barely misses. The pseudo-attack trigger is certainly better than a combat damage trigger, but for a deck that’s attacking a 3-drop with two power just isn’t super impressive.
15. Winding Constrictor -- this card is very good, very fun, and pushes you to build decks in interesting ways to maximize its ability. Unfortunately, most of the ways to do so involve cards that aren’t black. It could be close to my #1 if it were, say, a 2/1 for 1G, but it’s definitely awkward to slot in as a Golgari option.
14. Renegade Map -- nifty little tool for 3+ color decks without green mana for better fixing options. Would be more exciting if we hadn’t just received Ash Barrens, but nevertheless a solid contender… at one mana (and yes, waiting a turn), it’s much closer in quality to Evolving Wilds than old (and bad) artifact options like Wanderer’s Twig.
13. Hinterland Drake -- a Wind Drake-plus that can deter opposing 2/2s is a nice card. Solid and reliable in blue tempo decks, but still able to play defense against your Rakdos Cackler opponent.
12. Fatal Push -- cool new Modern-warping card, not super amazing for C/Ube. And at least on an instant, rather than a creature’s ETB, getting Revolt seems like much less of a pipe dream. Still, it’s just somewhere in the Disfigure/Tragic Slip tier -- at most regular C/Ube sizes, you want one or maybe two of the three B-cost spells, and I’m not particularly excited by any one of them over the others.
11. Trophy Mage -- very narrow, but three of the (whatever number) best cards in C/Ube are Loxodon Warhammer, Grafted Wargear, and Behemoth Sledge. If you have one of those and a random Cathodion, et cetera, Trophy Mage becomes an insanely powerful threat. Of course, if you play mostly sealed and Rochester and 4-person drafts, the appeal of the Mage goes down drastically alongside the odds of drafting it with two targets.
10. Treasure Keeper -- it shows just how absurdly great Bloodbraid Elf is that you can remove its haste and turn Cascade into a death trigger and still have it be a great card. Still, a card that’s a Hill Giant in play probably doesn’t interest aggro decks, but an extremely solid value card for midrange and control.
9. Restoration Specialist -- 2/1 on T2 when you need it, re-buys Control Magic or Shardless Agent or something later on. Getting to Restock for both card types seems like a pipe dream, but an on-curve creature with late-game utility is always a welcome effect.
8. Pacification Array -- to the dismay of my inner nostalgist, this could definitely be a better Icy Manipulator. This is a type of card that’s only worthwhile if you want the game to go late, and I think it’s easier to do that with this costing only a single up-front mana compared to four for good ol’ Icy.
7. Scrapper Champion -- it attacks for six, but can also block and trade with 4/4s. It’s an easier-to-cast Bloodfray Giant; chump-blockable, yes, but also absurd with any way of boosting its power.
6. Maulfist Revolutionary: the little version of Cytoplast Root-Kin. You don’t need to go crazy on +1/+1 counter themes a la Abzan Falconer for this card to be quite solid, though if you do it obviously gets much closer to the #1 spot for Aether Revolt cards. Has a lower ceiling than Root-Kin if your C/Ube reliably creates a board full of +1/+1 counters, but still very solid as an on-curve trampler that works nicely alongside Unleash, Evolve, Renown, and about a million other mechanics.
5. Gifted Aetherborn -- I’ve cast more than enough copies of un-unleashed Thrill-Kill Assassin in my day to know the value of a random deathtouch body. Yes, often it’s just Incinerate fodder or a just-okay trade in combat with Terrain Elemental, but the chance to either trade for a much bigger creature or earn you a good chunk of lifegain are more than enough payoff for the tough double-black mana cost.
4. Aether Chaser -- a Youthful Knight with very real upside, apologies to Zada’s Commando. I think aggro decks will prefer a three-power-right-away card like Gore-House Chainwalker, but unlike all of the 3/2 variants this is still a totally respectable option for midrange and control decks.
3. Untethered Express -- the “vehicle as equipment” analysis isn’t perfect for a variety of reasons, but it’s a decent starting point… and for this card, it’s a 4-drop that gives your 1/1 creature +4/+4 and trample, then gets even bigger. That’s a pretty absurd rate, and this card should be a top-of-the-curve aggro staple from here to eternity.
2. Ridgescale Tusker -- this card is absolutely ridiculous. I mean, sometimes you won’t have much of a board and you only get… wait, it’s still by itself a 5/5? Relief Captain was a great new C/Ube card last year (admittedly in a color with more random token bodies around), and this is just miles better.
1. Skyship Plunderer -- strictly better versions of staples are easy/safe cards to praise , but this is still clearly AER’s winner. A Welkin Tern that plays actual passable defense on T2 is just great, and it’s all bonus when you’re going off with Cloudfin Raptor or… well, basically no other blue cards, but you can find something in your second color!
I thought of Cryptologist, too -- they're not THAT unlikely to wind up together... certainly more likely than Cryptologist + Welkin Tern
Also you're probably right about Tusker. Just way too much power for the cost (though if a low-average case is two other creatures, it's "only" 7/7 for 5, and Druid's Familiar in that case is probably better as a 6/6 for 4... but of course Tusker is a permanent boost, not susceptible to backfiring to instant speed removal).
I'm just more excited / interested in the blue aggro option. If they're both still in C/Ubes in five years, as they should be, I'm not really going to sweat the difference between #1 and #2!
Good list. I agree that the difference between the first three cards is academic.
The only card I somewhat disagree with is Maulfist Revolutionary. Cytoplast Rootkin works on its own, for Revolutionary you do need to have counters already. If you get no counters it's still solid, but I'm not convinced we're going to get the maximum out of this often enough.
Rootkin's Graft helps you set up payoff cards like Abzan Falconer and Elite Scaleguard if you play creatures afterwards, so it doesn't need to add counters when it etbs (although it's obviously vastly better if it does). If you graft counters onto creatures, you can sometimes move them back, should they die. Even if you have no other creatures, Root-Kin works with those payoff cards, because it has counters on its own. Maulfist Revolutionary on its own is just a 3/3 with trample and does nothing for your synergies. Those etb and dies triggers are much more conditional and a lot less useful than Root-Kin's abilities.
With the upcoming release the first new Magic set of 2017, I figure it's time to take my first crack at writing some card evaluations based on my experience playing Peasant Cube!
For a small second-in-a-block set, there's plenty of good playable options to work with, and it was a blast to look through everything and try to parse the great from the good from the meh.
All feedback welcome -- whether it's tips for formatting and presentation, correction of typos, or of course agreement/disagreement with the actual card choices and their spot in the top 20
Without further adieu, here's the list in traditional descending order!
Thopter Arrest -- an Oblivion Ring that misses enchantments is still quite good. If we didn't already have Banishing Light as O-Ring #2, it would be a solid option for its ability to hit brutal cards like Grafted Wargear or Shrine of Burning Rage.
Destructive Tampering -- if your deck wants a Falter effect, getting it with a built-in Shatter mode is pretty nifty. Probably just worse than Torch Fiend for main-deckable red artifact destruction, though.
Hungry Flames -- good burn, but aggro wants removal at 1-2 mana and control doesn't care about a little extra damage to the fact.
Lifecraft Cavalry -- as I'll say a few times, Revolt is a super unreliable keyword. This will never go too awry as a 4/4 trampler, but with that as the baseline I'd rather have Rhox Maulers or possibly even Riparian Tiger.
Narnam Renegade -- great little thing to plop down for a slower green deck to trade early (or at least eat up some removal). I think I like it a hair more than Wasteland Viper, but (like most C/Ube owners) I'm not playing the Viper currently either.
Scrounging Bandar -- cool flexible card, but waiting a turn to boost your best creature if you draw the Bandar late-game is annoying. Very solid for decks with pushed +1/+1 counter themes, but worse than Kujar Seedsculptor without that element.
Hidden Stockpile -- provides basically nothing when you're behind, and doesn't win games quickly when it's at its best. It does a lot of stuff, I guess, but that stuff doesn't add up to something I'd ever play as one of three or four or five Orzhov cards.
Maverick Thopterist -- Whirler Rogue is insanely good, even at five mana... in two colors... without the extra unblockable ability. It's just not Electrolyze / Prophetic Bolt levels of good. If you're only playing Modern or M15+ cards, seems like a great Izzet option.
Renegade Rallier -- Timely Hordemate does (basically) the same thing but nearly 100% of the time in an aggro deck. This is cheaper, but has a much higher bar to clear as a gold card and is far, far less reliable (thanks, Revolt!).
Renegade Wheelsmith -- Boros C/Ube cards almost all suck. This one sucks slightly more than what you're already playing, continuing the recent WOTC trend of giving us not-quite-there options like Nahiri's Machinations and Veteran Motorist.
Spire Patrol -- this is way better than Boros's Wheelsmith, but it's not even a top-three uncommon Azorius card released since 2016 (that would be Reflector Mage, Cloudblazer, and Migratory Route).
Cogwork Assembler -- cool Invoker-style card, but in the vast majority of games the best thing you can copy will be its own vanilla 2/3 body.
Daredevil Dragster -- turns two power into four for three mana, but the sac trigger feels like a downside; if this survives two combats, I usually want to keep doing exactly that and not turn it into Divination. Unlikely any C/Ube wants this in addition to Renegade Freighter.
Watchful Automaton -- I love Azure Mage, but this is not quite the same. If it was a 2/3 with a two-mana activation, I'd definitely give it a spin.
Welder Automaton -- similar to its blue cousin, just too expensive to activate for a single damage. I do like the idea, though, tacked on to the same starting body as Young Pyromancer.
Also you're probably right about Tusker. Just way too much power for the cost (though if a low-average case is two other creatures, it's "only" 7/7 for 5, and Druid's Familiar in that case is probably better as a 6/6 for 4... but of course Tusker is a permanent boost, not susceptible to backfiring to instant speed removal).
I'm just more excited / interested in the blue aggro option. If they're both still in C/Ubes in five years, as they should be, I'm not really going to sweat the difference between #1 and #2!
The only card I somewhat disagree with is Maulfist Revolutionary. Cytoplast Rootkin works on its own, for Revolutionary you do need to have counters already. If you get no counters it's still solid, but I'm not convinced we're going to get the maximum out of this often enough.
(There's Graft, yes, but that doesn't ADD power to make it more than a 4/4 for 4)