I like Ashiok pretty well and always seems to make the cut. The thing I like best is that it plays differently than any other planeswalker in cube, and 3 many walkers are boss.
Strong card, probably worthy of top 3-4 dimir on power level, but don't play it because lack of interesting interactions (and power level is not high enough to compensate for that).
I was first introduced to Ashiok in the legacy cube a couple years ago and was very impressed. I think U/B is a very boring combination anyway, and Ashiok provides a reasonable amount of milling and exile interactions to not be overwhelming.
I'm not as big on psychatog as others here. I feel like the games where he doesn't do much vs. the games where he gets huge are too close. Ashiok has proven to be a card our players would rather cast.
I definitely like shadowmage infiltrator more than Ashiok. Ashiok was very good but was also inconsistent and is currently sitting on the sidelines of my cube atm. The other two cards i haven't heard mentioned that I think are also among the best dimir cards are the talisman and signet. Imho ramping on turn two is exactly what dimir wants to be doing and, along with baleful strix, will make the cut in any u/b deck about 99% of the time.
I'm not as big on psychatog as others here. I feel like the games where he doesn't do much vs. the games where he gets huge are too close. Ashiok has proven to be a card our players would rather cast.
An extremely vocal minority of players actually like Psychatog in Cube. I think the consensus among grinders and most mtgo cube drafters is that it is pretty bad outside of Upheaval. I think it's god awful. /grabspopcorn
Ashiok is sweet and is especially good if you throw talismans/signets into a colorless section.
Is it weird/narcissistic to quote yourself in a thread? I'm going to do it here because my thoughts September of 2013 are still pretty true:
9/14/13:
This card was again a house in several Cube drafts last night. Going up to 5 loyalty the turn it hits play is so sweet. It doesn't give you the immediate card draw that baby Jace gives you but as a 3cc walker that will give you incremental advantage was sweet. Several games it just went +2 until it found something awesome. It combos quite well with other token producers to protect it so there's no pressure & you can be more picky with what creature to grab from your opposing side.
I had two drafters in our group (whose opinions I respect) both say they think it may be the best Dimir card in the Cube. Not sure if I'm willing to go that far but after seeing it in a handful of drafts I would definitely put it in the top 3 Dimir cards which means in my opinion it's worth running at 360+.
...
Disregard the other cards in your section as far as what to cut, etc so you can give this card a test. It will surprise you. I know it's been infinitely better than I expected & may be the sleeper card of the set.
9/24/13:
I've gushed plenty already about this card so I will just say that everyone should test this card in their Cube. It came up in a draft again on Friday & won a game by milling. The opponent only had 4 creatures in their control deck and he ended up +2'ing the whole way. This is the only game (out of the 10 or so it's hit the board) where it milled out the opponent. The losing player had several creature kill spells in hand but no way to deal with a 3-drop walker. T-3 walker, +2 to victory. I know this is unusual but it did happen.
Another game it stole an opponent's Griselbrand. Yeah.
In a less flashy match it stole an opponent's Hellrider when its controller wanted to be the aggressor one game and stole a more defensive creature (Vampire Nighthawk?) in a different game when it wanted a defender.
I didn't get to play in a recent Cube draft with the new cards. I came back after it was done and went through the list of the Theros cards, asking how they played. I got to Ashiok & both guys (who are good players) shook their heads and proceeded to tell me how well it played.
I run a 540 powered & I think the win percentage of games where Ashiok has hit the board is at least 80%. This may be conservative because I have never seen the controller lose a game when it was cast.
Test this card.
[/Public Service Announcement]
5/19/16:
Ashiok continues to impress. Last month I mentioned to my fellow Cubers that there were many people who didn't Cube with Ashiok & they were in shock. I love Strix & Tog is sweet but I say that Ashiok is the best card in Dimir. All 3 cards are different but if I ran a 360 Cube I'd run those 3 in the Dimir guild. It's the #11 most drafted walker in my heavily drafted Cube on CubeTutor (out of 30 walkers). Just last week it was picked P1p3 and it took over several games. Just an amazing & excellent card and if you don't at the very least test it you're doing a disservice for your Cube
{Side note: I don't think the Cubemunity is way wrong on very many cards but I think Ashiok is one of the most undervalued cards by many people.)
{Side note: I don't think the Cubemunity is way wrong on very many cards but I think Ashiok is one of the most undervalued cards by many people.)
100% agree. I was a major hater at first, but when a lot of the Ashiok games ended up being "Ashiok soaks a million damage" or "Ashiok takes over the board" or "Ashiok mills the opponent", it becomes hard to ignore the results and put the theory crafting aside.
"I run a 540 powered & I think the win percentage of games where Ashiok has hit the board is at least 80%. This may be conservative because I have never seen the controller lose a game when it was cast."
Strix has still been incredible for us and I think is overall better because cheap artifact creatures with ETB triggers that are awesome are easy enough to abuse. Ashiok does win a lot, but she also can certainly do nothing other than mill 3-6 which to me is a bit worse than a cantripping 1/1 that blocks everything profitably. Baleful Strix is consistently Baleful Strix which is very good, whereas Ashiok doesn't always act like the beast she is.
Ashiok wins more games by itself than any of the others. He is weak against mono red and aggro, but against midrangey or control decks there aren't many cards I would rather resolve against them.
I'm not as big on psychatog as others here. I feel like the games where he doesn't do much vs. the games where he gets huge are too close. Ashiok has proven to be a card our players would rather cast.
An extremely vocal minority of players actually like Psychatog in Cube. I think the consensus among grinders and most mtgo cube drafters is that it is pretty bad outside of Upheaval. I think it's god awful. /grabspopcorn
Ashiok is sweet and is especially good if you throw talismans/signets into a colorless section.
God awful is strong, but I agree it's time is over. 3 mana creatures that don't provide utility/resilience against sorcery speed removal have to be extremely powerful to make it in powered cubes, and 'tog doesn't quite reach that bar anymore. Thinking about it, I don't think there's a single creature outside of brimaz that fits this description and doesn't go last pick.
I tried to make it work for so so long, but was rarely successful...
I still play it as a historical card that has some utility in reanimator or weird tempo decks, but I'm almost certainly cutting it soon. Probably only managed to stay this long because of the weak competition in dimir.
I've been doing testing with dragon lord sulu game since dtk came out and I'm finally ready to take it out and put ashiok back in. Both are very good cards, ashiok is just a good card faster, and a lot of lists that run dragonlord silumgar end of killing all enemy permanents... So his etb isn't that great.
Ashiok is about the same level of good but earlier. Though silumgar can pull off INSANE plays.
For now I'm running Lim-Dûl's Vault since few months mainly for combo pruposes, but Ashiok is definitly on my watch list. I think it's a great need to be anwsered card that bring something unique to the cube. Also really underrated.
Ashiok looks cool, but as long as I support the artifact deck, I will run Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas. There is just not enough room in my Dimir section for Ashiok.
Unless your cube tutor is out of date, I think Ashiok would be a nice upgrade over Syg. Syg always took too much work to get going and no evasion of any sort is kinda rough at times. I think Ashiok is better than Dragolord and Psychatog too, but I can see arguments for both of those vs. Ashiok as well.
It is a bit out of date. I haven't included my SOI update yet. That won't affect my Dimir section though.
I guess the three cards you mention aren't more powerful than Ashiok. Maybe even weaker. But I like all of them for different reasons. Sygg, River Cutthroat was an experimental inclusion that surpassed my expectations. He is actually really solid in both Ux Control and Bx aggro. Which is quite a weird mix of decks for a card to fit in. Psychatog is iconic and does double duty as a reanimation enabler and a control finisher. Dragonlord Silumgar is just splashy and fun.
I've thought about trying out Ashiok, but no archetype really needs them and I currently like all my Dimir cards, so I never did. Maybe I get sick of one of my Dimir cards at one point. And then Ashiok is one of the first cards to fill that space.
It's true that Ashiok is not a archetype enabler. It's just really a powerful by its own card. However, while not being something that would pull you into it, it does fit well into control shells. If you can protect it with some other spells, it can quick become a powerhouse finisher. And that's even more true in unpowered cube's environment.
It's true that Ashiok is not a archetype enabler. It's just really a powerful by its own card. However, while not being something that would pull you into it, it does fit well into control shells. If you can protect it with some other spells, it can quick become a powerhouse finisher. And that's even more true in unpowered cube's environment.
I will say that for our playgroup in the last 2 drafts Ashiok appeared in the first pack and because of it the drafter moved into U/B & it was picked highly in both cases (2nd overall & 3rd overall).
I've said a ton about how great Ashiok is. People will choose to include it or not but it should be in every Cube.
In the groups that I play with, people are more likely to pick Ashiok early over Shadowmage Infiltrator. One of my cube design principles is that multicolor cards should either pull you in to that combo or really reward the player for being in that combo. I think Ashiok is about as good of a reward, but a better pull. My group has a number of newer players, which I think partly accounts for the preference. The reason this cut was hard was because Shadowmage (and Psychatog, which I also cut) are iconic parts of Magic's history. My philosophy is to weigh the power of a card when it's good, and how often it's good/how many decks it's good in. I think Ashiok scores higher than Shadowmage in both regards.
In a cube review I realised that I had 6 cards in my Dimir section, and the problem was that I had kept Psychatog in even though I'd removed it for Ashiok. Per the above discussion this still seems to be the right choice, and I don't feel like anything has changed in the last 3 years in that regards?
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An extremely vocal minority of players actually like Psychatog in Cube. I think the consensus among grinders and most mtgo cube drafters is that it is pretty bad outside of Upheaval. I think it's god awful. /grabspopcorn
Ashiok is sweet and is especially good if you throw talismans/signets into a colorless section.
9/14/13:
This card was again a house in several Cube drafts last night. Going up to 5 loyalty the turn it hits play is so sweet. It doesn't give you the immediate card draw that baby Jace gives you but as a 3cc walker that will give you incremental advantage was sweet. Several games it just went +2 until it found something awesome. It combos quite well with other token producers to protect it so there's no pressure & you can be more picky with what creature to grab from your opposing side.
I had two drafters in our group (whose opinions I respect) both say they think it may be the best Dimir card in the Cube. Not sure if I'm willing to go that far but after seeing it in a handful of drafts I would definitely put it in the top 3 Dimir cards which means in my opinion it's worth running at 360+.
...
Disregard the other cards in your section as far as what to cut, etc so you can give this card a test. It will surprise you. I know it's been infinitely better than I expected & may be the sleeper card of the set.
9/24/13:
I've gushed plenty already about this card so I will just say that everyone should test this card in their Cube. It came up in a draft again on Friday & won a game by milling. The opponent only had 4 creatures in their control deck and he ended up +2'ing the whole way. This is the only game (out of the 10 or so it's hit the board) where it milled out the opponent. The losing player had several creature kill spells in hand but no way to deal with a 3-drop walker. T-3 walker, +2 to victory. I know this is unusual but it did happen.
Another game it stole an opponent's Griselbrand. Yeah.
In a less flashy match it stole an opponent's Hellrider when its controller wanted to be the aggressor one game and stole a more defensive creature (Vampire Nighthawk?) in a different game when it wanted a defender.
I didn't get to play in a recent Cube draft with the new cards. I came back after it was done and went through the list of the Theros cards, asking how they played. I got to Ashiok & both guys (who are good players) shook their heads and proceeded to tell me how well it played.
I run a 540 powered & I think the win percentage of games where Ashiok has hit the board is at least 80%. This may be conservative because I have never seen the controller lose a game when it was cast.
Test this card.
[/Public Service Announcement]
5/19/16:
Ashiok continues to impress. Last month I mentioned to my fellow Cubers that there were many people who didn't Cube with Ashiok & they were in shock. I love Strix & Tog is sweet but I say that Ashiok is the best card in Dimir. All 3 cards are different but if I ran a 360 Cube I'd run those 3 in the Dimir guild. It's the #11 most drafted walker in my heavily drafted Cube on CubeTutor (out of 30 walkers). Just last week it was picked P1p3 and it took over several games. Just an amazing & excellent card and if you don't at the very least test it you're doing a disservice for your Cube
{Side note: I don't think the Cubemunity is way wrong on very many cards but I think Ashiok is one of the most undervalued cards by many people.)
My 540 card Powered Cube last updated March 2022
100% agree. I was a major hater at first, but when a lot of the Ashiok games ended up being "Ashiok soaks a million damage" or "Ashiok takes over the board" or "Ashiok mills the opponent", it becomes hard to ignore the results and put the theory crafting aside.
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Same, but my cube is unpowered.
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My Dimir cards are:
Baleful Strix
Far // Away
Nightveil Specter
Psychatog
Shadowmage Infiltrator
Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
Dragonlord Silumgar
Oona, Queen of the Fae
Ashiok wins more games by itself than any of the others. He is weak against mono red and aggro, but against midrangey or control decks there aren't many cards I would rather resolve against them.
God awful is strong, but I agree it's time is over. 3 mana creatures that don't provide utility/resilience against sorcery speed removal have to be extremely powerful to make it in powered cubes, and 'tog doesn't quite reach that bar anymore. Thinking about it, I don't think there's a single creature outside of brimaz that fits this description and doesn't go last pick.
I tried to make it work for so so long, but was rarely successful...
I still play it as a historical card that has some utility in reanimator or weird tempo decks, but I'm almost certainly cutting it soon. Probably only managed to stay this long because of the weak competition in dimir.
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Ashiok is about the same level of good but earlier. Though silumgar can pull off INSANE plays.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=484979
I would absolutely pick Ashiok over Shadowmage and Dragonlord Silumgar. I suspect the fact that there is more removal floating around in Multiplayer probably makes Dragonlord weaker and Ashiok stronger, but she's certainly in no danger of getting dropped anytime soon. That will probably go to Dragonlord or Extract from Darkness (and, yes, I obviously need Baleful Strix in here).
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I guess the three cards you mention aren't more powerful than Ashiok. Maybe even weaker. But I like all of them for different reasons. Sygg, River Cutthroat was an experimental inclusion that surpassed my expectations. He is actually really solid in both Ux Control and Bx aggro. Which is quite a weird mix of decks for a card to fit in. Psychatog is iconic and does double duty as a reanimation enabler and a control finisher. Dragonlord Silumgar is just splashy and fun.
I've thought about trying out Ashiok, but no archetype really needs them and I currently like all my Dimir cards, so I never did. Maybe I get sick of one of my Dimir cards at one point. And then Ashiok is one of the first cards to fill that space.
Uril, the Miststalker RGW -- Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre C -- Vhati il-Dal BG -- Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer RW -- Animar, Soul of Elements URG
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker R -- Maga, Traitor to Mortals B -- Ghave, Guru of Spores BGW -- Sliver Hivelord WUBRG
Zetsu's Cube on CubeTutor.com
Zetsu's Ebay MTG Online Store
Zetsu's Poker Draft Method
I will say that for our playgroup in the last 2 drafts Ashiok appeared in the first pack and because of it the drafter moved into U/B & it was picked highly in both cases (2nd overall & 3rd overall).
I've said a ton about how great Ashiok is. People will choose to include it or not but it should be in every Cube.
My 540 card Powered Cube last updated March 2022
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