MTG Salvation

Here are the 2014 Power Rankings for Guilds.

These are final and now open for group discussion.

Haha, I was the 9 vote on Ajani Vengeant, deal with it, cube community!

Really surprised to see Qasali Pridemage higher than Dryad Militant, and Edric as the top Simic card.

I'm not surprised that Vindicate is still considered the top Orzhov card, but I like Lingering Souls considerably more.

EDIT: Comma added.

Pridemage is a selesnya card...

Missing a comma. Should have been:

Really surprised to see Qasali Pridemage higher than Dryad Militant, and Edric as the top Simic card.

Dat Oxford comma

Lingering Souls is more powerful, but I think the flexible removal of Vindicate is more important.

True, true. Most people definitely prefer Vindicate in their cube, which is what I assumed would be the case.

We play Lingering Souls and Sorin as our two multicolored cards. We tried out three multicolored cards in our 360 for a while but I felt like the mono-colored cards that take their place are more valuable to the cube.

Monocolored cards are also obviously easier to cast, although this is much less convincing reason to me to run less gold cards. I'm sure it's a greater selling point in a lot of people's cubes.

What did you choose as the top Boros card?

Little surprised to see Lavinia and Ashiok on these lists at all, and a card like Rakdos Cackler as the most 'powerful' Rakdos card and Dryad Militant as the 3rd in GW. Don't get me wrong; I'm as big a proponent for aggro cards as anyone who Cubes, and have flat out said that I will add every reasonable 2-power one drop in aggro colors...that doesn't mean they are the most powerful or P1P1 worthy.

Just my .02, for what it's worth (likely less than .02!)

-AA

Figure of Destiny. I'd much rather first pick it because then I'm not limiting myself to Boros right off the bat. It's close, but I value flexibility in a first pick so I really don't like jumping in on the gold plan if I can help it.

Similarly, I think Rakdos Cackler and Dryad Militant are good P1P1 pick-ups if you want to go into an aggressive strategy. They are really flexible and leave you open to a ton of color options. We count Dryad Militant as a white card, but in cubes that support green aggro, I would think it were wrong to pick a two drop very specific mana requirement 2/2 over a very flexible aggressive 2/1.

I'm surprised Dryad Militant is #3 instead of #2.

Quote from ColbyCube »

I'm surprised Dryad Militant is #3 instead of #2.

Looking at the numbers, it is only .5 away from being tied for second place. If it was more of a difference, I would understand but basically I would think that they are basically equal and people value the utility of a 2 drop that can go in any G/W deck slightly more than a versatile aggro one drop.

really surprised that Kessig Wolf Run and Gavony Township didn't make their respective lists. Are you guys not running those cards? They are insane in cube.

Quote from preppypoof »

really surprised that Kessig Wolf Run and Gavony Township didn't make their respective lists. Are you guys not running those cards? They are insane in cube.

I noted in the TURF that both of those are in the "Just Missed" category. Coincidentally, they are the #11's for each of the Guilds.

I'd be interested in testing Kessig Wolf Run if I supported red/green aggro and was at a larger cube size. I'd be much less interested in Gavony Township. I think each of those cards get better with larger list sizes for sure, and utility lands become much more valuable then too.

I usually treat colorless lands as spells so I don't fudge my manabase at all and then adjust from there, but I find most people start with 23-17 and then just add in 1-2 colorless lands and just expect their manabase to come together fine at the end. I really value utility lands, but lands that don't fix have to be really amazing to make the cut. I think a few cards do that - Library of Alexandria, Strip Mine, Wasteland, Rishadan Port, etc. Some lands that are exceptionally powerful like Bazaar of Baghdad or Mishra's Workshop don't get played because they can't produce mana in a meaningful way (except for an artifact heavy deck in the case of Mishra's Workshop). Producing just colorless mana is a big knock against a card, especially when people don't build their manabases correctly.

Even the most seasoned players can build their manabases incorrectly, which really helps something like Raging Ravine have the edge over Kessig Wolf Run. I think Kessig Wolf Run is for sure a more powerful ability, but the card itself is tricky to use in a Gruul deck that sometimes cares about very specific mana, which Raging Ravine helps out with wonderfully. So if you're at the point where you can play non-fetch, non-shock, non-dual lands in your guild section (I'd say that's around 450), you need to start making choices. Choices that fix well and still provide utility are going to have a significant edge over lands that can only produce colorless and have utility.

I think the combination of:

1) Green aggro is not supported as much as it used to be
2) Producing just colorless
3) Being restricted to 540+ size cubes, maybe ambitious 450s

Are all factors that hurt these cards.

I guess I just have a hard time imagining myself P1P1 drafting a one-drop that isn't one of the couple ridic ones (Goblin Guide, e.g.), since neither of those cards listed above 'puts' me into aggro like GG might. Even for an aggressive deck (if I'm leaning that way hard enough prior to the draft that I want to force it from the beginning), I'd be tempted to take a lot of other cards over one of them. I thought (and maybe I'm wrong) that this isn't an indication of 'If you were drafting the perfect deck for these colors, which would you take' and more of a 'Blank slate, all of these cards are in the pack, which one do you take' sort of thing.

They are great Cube cards; but they aren't P1P1 (or 'most powerful') cards IMO.

-AA

Probably the single card whose ranking surprises me most is Unburial Rites. At number 4 it should be getting run in most 450 cubes, It's slow for a dedicated reanimator spell and doesn't seem to provide better card advantage than Diabolic Servitude which comes down for less and is mono-black. I found it underwhelming when I played it in a junk reanimator deck and it's been a bottom pick for quite a while, so I was thinking about cutting it to try something else. My cube is a bit slower and lower powered than most about here, and Rites still doesn't seem to be all that great for me.

What am I missing here?

Quote from preppypoof »

really surprised that Kessig Wolf Run and Gavony Township didn't make their respective lists. Are you guys not running those cards? They are insane in cube.

I ran them both and cut them both. Neither were "insane" for us at all.

I think it's mostly the fact that the other options in Orzhov are so unexciting.

Sin Collector and Soltari Guerrillas look indeed better than some of the lower ranked cards in their guilds. Never heard of them before.

Not sure about the Niv-Mizzets, at that cost they would need some protection or immediate value to survive the Vindicate test.

Spike Jester is well received in our cube. He's great on turn 2 and still solid later. I'll miss him when we'll be cutting him for Grenzo. Rakdos is definitely one of the deeper guild, I think all the ranked cards would be playable even in small cubes, except Blightning and Bituminous Blast maybe not so much.

I'm hoping they'll print another two good Orzhov cards. Except for the top 3, that guild is pretty weak. And another good Simic card to replace our Simic Charm as #5.

Quote from Spike Rogue »

Probably the single card whose ranking surprises me most is Unburial Rites. At number 4 it should be getting run in most 450 cubes, It's slow for a dedicated reanimator spell and doesn't seem to provide better card advantage than Diabolic Servitude which comes down for less and is mono-black. I found it underwhelming when I played it in a junk reanimator deck and it's been a bottom pick for quite a while, so I was thinking about cutting it to try something else. My cube is a bit slower and lower powered than most about here, and Rites still doesn't seem to be all that great for me.

What am I missing here?

I thought the same thing. I know Unburial Rights isn't a bad card. I thought it would get ranked no higher than 7th best Orzhov card. I thought Ghost Council, Gerrad's Verdict and Desolation Angel would all get ranked much higher. I also noticed Tidehollow Sculler is ranked slightly higher than Gerrad's Verdict. I thought Gerrad's Verdict was suppose to be the better of those two cards. You would rather force that opponent to discard two cards. I thought Desolation Angel would also be ranked higher than Tidehollow Sculler. I thought Tidehollow Sculler would be ranked no higher than 7th best or 8th best Orzhov card.

I'd also like to add that the next time we run these PRs, Conspiracy will be included and Dack's Duplicate is most likely going to skyrocket to being the #1 Izzet creature.

I can't even think of another cubeable Izzet creature. Gelectrode? Umm... Goblin Electromancer?

Yeah, that guy is the best Izzet creature ever printed hands down.

The only thing I don't agree with is in Izzet. I think Dack Fayden handily beats out Electrolyze.

Quote from FiveFingers »

The only thing I don't agree with is in Izzet. I think Dack Fayden handily beats out Electrolyze.

That's just because Conspiracy cards were too new so we couldn't vote on them this year. I do agree Dack will probably be on top next time.

Ya, we couldn't vote for Dack or his Duplicate this year. Or Grenzo, or Council's Judgment in white.

Dack has the #1 Izzet nailed down and he's very high overall in my gold p1p1s. Everything that guy does is relevant in cube, be it filtering flashback cards, looking for bombs or stealing artifacts.