When I see Healing Salve, I'm often like "Oh girl, I wish I could turn every card into this." Thanks they removed the gain life part, otherwise this would have been broken.
I found Vol so much better than Huntmaster. For all the reasons stated already by wtwlf, basically. All of his effects are fantastic and high-impact.
Vol's abilities are just totally at odds with one another. His + ability, if used to attack makes him less safe, and more vulnerable to a lethal counter-swing. His -2 ability steals a creature, and then kindly returns it so that on the opponent's turn that creature can kill Vol.
This isn't true at all. If you stole their creature, you just increased the amount of damage to your opponent by the total of that creature + your best creature's power, and saved a card by not having a creature die in combat. Even if my opponent swings straight back at me and kills Vol, that's fine. Chances are he's considerably better than that. You don't care one iota about him not protecting himself - he's there to ensure you maximise the damage to your opponent. Both his abilities help do that, the second even on a board where you don't have the upper hand. It breaks stalemates like no other. On a board where you're already winning, he just makes it impossible to stabilise by being a) a source of increased damage b) a huge clock.
I know this the thread for Huntmaster, not Vol, but just want to mention that Vol is great fun with Symbol Status. Vol into Status for anything 5 or greater is just crazy. Last night had Vol and Status for 8.
I have not picked up Huntmaster due to his price and my satisfaction with my current RG section. I do plan to pick him up after rotation though, since he is not seeing much modern play as far as I am aware. He seems like a fine 4th but I have no plans on playing him at 360.
If his etb ability did 2 damage to an opponent as opposed to gain 2 life he'd be better. Most (if not all) RG decks we draft are all about laying the beats as fast as possible... and don't really care about their own life total.
This may be blasphemous, but I cut Sarkhan for Domri & love it. Part of that was because of the glut of 2RG spells though (BBE, Huntmaster & Sarkhan)
Huntmaster is a great card & opens up some very interesting lines of play that RG doesn't usually get; he's the only werewolf printed that actually rewards you for maximizing the mechanic & punishes your opponent for fighting against it. The biggest problem with him is he's very high-variance & none of his tricks matter if he's quickly removed, though if he isn't I've seen him put in more work than a single 4-drop creature has any place doing, without even needing to attack. I'd also say he's pretty pigeon-holed to midrange / control / ramp ish long-game focused decks, which isn't necessarily what your RG section might be looking for. I'd run Sarkhan or Domri before him, but not Stormbind and not necessarily Kird Ape (depends on your Green aggro really).
We love him more than most people here. Two bodies plus life gain for four mana is brutal against the aggro third of the draft, and the value he provides is certainly serviceable against midrange/control.
With time, as cubes gets cheaper and leaner, it becomes harder to transform Huntmaster. It will very rarely be transformed, and in my experience it was mostly an anti-aggro card. Whether you need a gruul aggro hoser is up to you.
huntmaster in 2019? does he still cut it in gruul these days?
Definitely serviceable. IMO harder to justify than some other Gruul cards due to their functions. Currently my top 3 Gruul cards are Dragonlord Atarka / Bloodbraid Elf / Wrenn and Six. After that it's just whatever 2RG card fits the bill for what I want to support, which is currently Xenagos for me, but could also easily be any other 2RG card like Sarkhan / Arlinn / Huntmaster of the Fells.
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This isn't true at all. If you stole their creature, you just increased the amount of damage to your opponent by the total of that creature + your best creature's power, and saved a card by not having a creature die in combat. Even if my opponent swings straight back at me and kills Vol, that's fine. Chances are he's considerably better than that. You don't care one iota about him not protecting himself - he's there to ensure you maximise the damage to your opponent. Both his abilities help do that, the second even on a board where you don't have the upper hand. It breaks stalemates like no other. On a board where you're already winning, he just makes it impossible to stabilise by being a) a source of increased damage b) a huge clock.
On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
I have not picked up Huntmaster due to his price and my satisfaction with my current RG section. I do plan to pick him up after rotation though, since he is not seeing much modern play as far as I am aware. He seems like a fine 4th but I have no plans on playing him at 360.
I too would go with Sarkhan Vol.
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Huntmaster is a great card & opens up some very interesting lines of play that RG doesn't usually get; he's the only werewolf printed that actually rewards you for maximizing the mechanic & punishes your opponent for fighting against it. The biggest problem with him is he's very high-variance & none of his tricks matter if he's quickly removed, though if he isn't I've seen him put in more work than a single 4-drop creature has any place doing, without even needing to attack. I'd also say he's pretty pigeon-holed to midrange / control / ramp ish long-game focused decks, which isn't necessarily what your RG section might be looking for. I'd run Sarkhan or Domri before him, but not Stormbind and not necessarily Kird Ape (depends on your Green aggro really).
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Definitely serviceable. IMO harder to justify than some other Gruul cards due to their functions. Currently my top 3 Gruul cards are Dragonlord Atarka / Bloodbraid Elf / Wrenn and Six. After that it's just whatever 2RG card fits the bill for what I want to support, which is currently Xenagos for me, but could also easily be any other 2RG card like Sarkhan / Arlinn / Huntmaster of the Fells.
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