Ok, so bear with me here. I was looking through the combat tricks thread and stumbled upon Briarhorn. I've always loved that card even though I never found spots for it in anything I actually played. That probably sounded harsh, but I could just never find a home for it. I never built the WUG Blink EDH deck, for instance, otherwise I may have. But I digress.
I was eager to slot in Briarhorn over Great Sable Stag, which I was mostly running as a placeholder until I obtained some of the more powerful cards on my wants list, so I began searching through my cards.
Lo and behold, upon said excavation I stumbled upon Hunting Moa and sort of stopped and thought about it.
(Aside: this is the part where it no longer has anything to do with the Briarhorn or combat tricks in general.)
I'm the first to admit that this is not a flashy card, but it's a 4/3 for 3, so at least it passes the vanilla test as a really boring beater at worst. What made me stop and think was the potential with Stax / Pox / Loam strategies in Cube. Mind you, I think this doesn't come in until 540 at the earliest in average unpowered cubes, but I want to try it out in my 400-ish and see how much Durdle I can achieve.
... it's a 4/3 for 3, so at least it passes the vanilla test as a really boring beater at worst
It's a 4/3 for 3 with echo. I don't think that's good enough.
You either pay his echo cost, than you get the 3/2 and the counter, or you sac him next turn for two counters. Neither seems worth the mana investment.
Another thing to keep in mind is that if you don't have another creature to put that counter on when your Hunting Moa dies, you have to put it on an opponent's creature. I get frustrated enough with the echo creatures in my cube when they have stronger ETB effects like Boneshredder or Keldon Vandals. It would make a terrible blink target, too, because you'd have to pay the echo every time you blink it, and you only get the second counter when it dies.
It's always nice to have extra ways to throw around and abuse +1/+1 counters, especially with quality persist creatures in the cube. Bow of Nylea is great for that and a lot of other things too. If you wanted to go a little deeper on counters you could try Cytoplast Root-Kin and/ or Renegade Krasis.
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I was eager to slot in Briarhorn over Great Sable Stag, which I was mostly running as a placeholder until I obtained some of the more powerful cards on my wants list, so I began searching through my cards.
Lo and behold, upon said excavation I stumbled upon Hunting Moa and sort of stopped and thought about it.
(Aside: this is the part where it no longer has anything to do with the Briarhorn or combat tricks in general.)
I'm the first to admit that this is not a flashy card, but it's a 4/3 for 3, so at least it passes the vanilla test as a really boring beater at worst. What made me stop and think was the potential with Stax / Pox / Loam strategies in Cube. Mind you, I think this doesn't come in until 540 at the earliest in average unpowered cubes, but I want to try it out in my 400-ish and see how much Durdle I can achieve.
Cards it seems fun with:
Recurring Nightmare, Survival of the Fittest, Experiment One, hexproof guys like True-name Nemesis, Sneak Attack, Spikeshot Elder, Sun Titan, Mikaeus, the Lunarch, Kitchen Finks, or maybe Triskelion.
Am I just crazy?
It's a 4/3 for 3 with echo. I don't think that's good enough.
You either pay his echo cost, than you get the 3/2 and the counter, or you sac him next turn for two counters. Neither seems worth the mana investment.
As for the combo's or synergies you list, none of them are particularly impressive (ok, Sun Titan is pretty neat).
So yes, I think it's crazy to consider this ahead of any number of Green 3-drops.
A Comprehensive list of Cube Archetypes
It's always nice to have extra ways to throw around and abuse +1/+1 counters, especially with quality persist creatures in the cube. Bow of Nylea is great for that and a lot of other things too. If you wanted to go a little deeper on counters you could try Cytoplast Root-Kin and/ or Renegade Krasis.
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.