I've played Fire Covenant in my cube before; I'm not just theorycrafting here. It got cut from my classic cube for under-performing. It's a fun card and it has the cool nostalgia factor, but I think it gets pushed out by the Rakdos' competition in a pretty big way nowadays.
Talking power in a vacuum, Fire Covenant is good enough for cube IMO. It's an extremely powerful effect.
That said, I don't think it does what any modern deck wants. I tested it extensively and it never really had a home. Decks that don't care about their life totals (aggro generally), aren't really in the market for a one sided sweeper. They have other ways to get around blockers and/or need spot removal only. It's not that scenarios don't come up, they just aren't frequent enough in this color combination where it's better than cheaper single target options (or straight burn that is also reach). Control decks want the effect, but none of them can generally afford to pay the life needed to make this worth 3 mana. There are just much better sweepers since control rarely cares about not killing their own dudes. And when they do, you have things like Languish and Deluge (which can often be engineered as one sided).
They're just totally different cards? Like if I have the Rakdos Cackler deck, I'd love to have Fire Covenant (at least in some match-ups) and would never consider Deluge or Earthquake.
I'd run Earthquake over Deluve in a Rakdos aggro deck because it can function as reach and planeswalker removal as well as a sweeper. I don't think Fire Covenant would unplayable, but with access to rares I run more flexible removal that hits more than just creatures and Olivia, Mobilized for War which hits like a truck while providing a discard outlet. As much as I like Fire Covenant for Peasant it's just never been on my radar for my unpowered because there are better options that also fit that environment better.
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Looking back, I'm amazed at the neagtive evaluation of this card. Either time's have changed a lot and the nature of the format, or it was herendously underrated. (I'm guessing it's more than former).
When I first saw the card I barely looked twice, but I've been so impressed with it in the cubes I've been playing it in (MTGO vintage cube and alphafrog's vintage cube). Medium sample.
With burn on the decline, cheap creatures on the rise and one sided wraths getting better (plays well in creature decks),
I have this as my current #4 rakdos card.
Reminds me a little of parallax wave, which I always thought was super under-rated. In mine and other cubes I play, I have wave as a high-mid pick.
I've always found Fire Covenant to be fine, but its stock was always worse in my cube since I've always played a lot of dividable burn anyways. It hasn't been in my list for a while and I don't feel the need to add it when I'm already playing a lot of dividable burn and one-sided sweepers like Delayed Blast Fireball / Fear, Fire, Foes! in red anyways, and there's also Seismic Wave. Those generally do most of what Fire Covenant wants to do at a much more efficient rate and without costing you any life. There's other things I can be doing with my Rakdos cards when my mono red cards already cover sweeping and black can pick off any creature I want.
Reminds me a little of parallax wave, which I always thought was super under-rated. In mine and other cubes I play, I have wave as a high-mid pick.
Yeah, I never understood why Parallax Wave was always so underrated. Every year on Twitter there's always somebody talking about how everybody playing the MTGO sleeps on Parallax Wave. It's always been a top performer for me and still shines despite today's power creep. It's great at any point in the game: seals the game if you're winning, breaks through a stalemate, and can turn a game around if you're losing.
FWIW, I do think Covenant is being overrated now, but it has improved with time as powerful creatures have gotten cheaper, and the quality of low-toughness creatures has gone up. Back in the days of Kokushos, Exalted Angels, and Baneslayers, Fire Covenant was an unimpressive card in comparison to things like Ashes to Ashes (which didn't see much play even when it was better). In the era of Ragavans, Hullbreachers, and Bowmasters, Covenant has certainly gained some ground.
I've always found Fire Covenant to be fine, but its stock was always worse in my cube since I've always played a lot of dividable burn anyways. It hasn't been in my list for a while and I don't feel the need to add it when I'm already playing a lot of dividable burn and one-sided sweepers like Delayed Blast Fireball / Fear, Fire, Foes! in red anyways, and there's also Seismic Wave. Those generally do most of what Fire Covenant wants to do at a much more efficient rate and without costing you any life. There's other things I can be doing with my Rakdos cards when my mono red cards already cover sweeping and black can pick off any creature I want.
Reminds me a little of parallax wave, which I always thought was super under-rated. In mine and other cubes I play, I have wave as a high-mid pick.
Yeah, I never understood why Parallax Wave was always so underrated. Every year on Twitter there's always somebody talking about how everybody playing the MTGO sleeps on Parallax Wave. It's always been a top performer for me and still shines despite today's power creep. It's great at any point in the game: seals the game if you're winning, breaks through a stalemate, and can turn a game around if you're losing.
I agree that BR already excels at dealing with small creatures, which is a knock against it, but I think fire covenant is substantially better than every card you mentioned except delayed blast fireball. I don't agree the red cards you mentioned do functionally similar thing more efficiently.
The only board state where covenant is much worse is when there’s a wide board state littered with X/1’s and not much else.
Being able to deal with higher toughness threats is a huge advantage for fire covenant, making it powerful on so many more board states. Yes it might cost a ton of life to do so, but it often make the difference between winning and losing.
Killing something like a sheoldred and a dauthi voidwalker might cost you 7 life, but the flip side of not having an answer to that board is a near guarnteed loss.
The life loss on fire covenant is a very real drawback, but I found it to be less crippling than I was expecting.
I still enjoy fire Covenant simply for the smaller and quick target board wipes. Is it great? Enough so only because of the increase in lower toughness and lower cost threats
Offcourse every color combination has its great planeswalkers, so i instantly thought about angrath and ob nixilis. What about those? Do I somewhat have a point? Or are these no good in your deck?
Also I'm new here, how do I make the card names into links?
Cards can be tagged by [ c ]CARDNAME[ /c ], [ C ]CARDNAME[ /C ] or [ CARD ]CARDNAME[ /CARD], but without the spaces. Spelling (and punctuation, for cards with it in the name) needs to be exactly right, or it'll generate a dead link (Archaeomancer's Map yes, Archeomancer's Map or Archaeomancers Map no)-- the Preview button lets you check. (For some reason, the Ravnica bouncelands don't work, though) The main forum pages have lists of how to do all the various formatting options. That said, it's best to create a new topic for questions like yours, so as not to hijack this thread from the card it's discussing.
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That said, I don't think it does what any modern deck wants. I tested it extensively and it never really had a home. Decks that don't care about their life totals (aggro generally), aren't really in the market for a one sided sweeper. They have other ways to get around blockers and/or need spot removal only. It's not that scenarios don't come up, they just aren't frequent enough in this color combination where it's better than cheaper single target options (or straight burn that is also reach). Control decks want the effect, but none of them can generally afford to pay the life needed to make this worth 3 mana. There are just much better sweepers since control rarely cares about not killing their own dudes. And when they do, you have things like Languish and Deluge (which can often be engineered as one sided).
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/modular-cube-5-colors.800/
Retro combo cube thread
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I'd run Earthquake over Deluve in a Rakdos aggro deck because it can function as reach and planeswalker removal as well as a sweeper. I don't think Fire Covenant would unplayable, but with access to rares I run more flexible removal that hits more than just creatures and Olivia, Mobilized for War which hits like a truck while providing a discard outlet. As much as I like Fire Covenant for Peasant it's just never been on my radar for my unpowered because there are better options that also fit that environment better.
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When I first saw the card I barely looked twice, but I've been so impressed with it in the cubes I've been playing it in (MTGO vintage cube and alphafrog's vintage cube). Medium sample.
With burn on the decline, cheap creatures on the rise and one sided wraths getting better (plays well in creature decks),
I have this as my current #4 rakdos card.
Reminds me a little of parallax wave, which I always thought was super under-rated. In mine and other cubes I play, I have wave as a high-mid pick.
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Yeah, I never understood why Parallax Wave was always so underrated. Every year on Twitter there's always somebody talking about how everybody playing the MTGO sleeps on Parallax Wave. It's always been a top performer for me and still shines despite today's power creep. It's great at any point in the game: seals the game if you're winning, breaks through a stalemate, and can turn a game around if you're losing.
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My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
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I agree that BR already excels at dealing with small creatures, which is a knock against it, but I think fire covenant is substantially better than every card you mentioned except delayed blast fireball. I don't agree the red cards you mentioned do functionally similar thing more efficiently.
The only board state where covenant is much worse is when there’s a wide board state littered with X/1’s and not much else.
Being able to deal with higher toughness threats is a huge advantage for fire covenant, making it powerful on so many more board states. Yes it might cost a ton of life to do so, but it often make the difference between winning and losing.
Killing something like a sheoldred and a dauthi voidwalker might cost you 7 life, but the flip side of not having an answer to that board is a near guarnteed loss.
The life loss on fire covenant is a very real drawback, but I found it to be less crippling than I was expecting.
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Offcourse every color combination has its great planeswalkers, so i instantly thought about angrath and ob nixilis. What about those? Do I somewhat have a point? Or are these no good in your deck?
Also I'm new here, how do I make the card names into links?
Greatings all and great 2024.