This card is not scary. 0/1s are not a threat, and if Gaea's Anthem were a threat, you've already got threats, and better options in both situations. Curse of Predation scales far better. You don't have to protect it. Awakening Zone makes better tokens and can actually ramp you. You don't have to protect it. What deck wants worse versions of both of these cards at the same time? And it's harder to cast than either?
Best case scenario, you can drop her on turn 2, power out a mean 0/1 and attack for 2-4 extra damage on turn 4 with your multiple elf dorks.
Curse of Predation would have done the same thing, but with a single elf.
I guess this is supposed to be a wonky defensive filler card, where you pump out 0/1s to block while you cast removal spells all game, wait 'til they run out of spells, then start pumping and attacking. That's not how cube games tend to go, in my experience.
If we were still running Awekening Zone, I would test her in the same spot, but we've found Zone to be too durdely. I could see her being better than Zone (or Gaea's Anthem, fwiw). We're not even running Curse of Predation anymore, so I just don't see what could be cut for her.
Really nice MTG Goldfish podcast talking about OGW spoiled cards. It is done mostly in a Standard perspective, but I think authors especially did a pretty nice job at evaluate Nissa in a overall perspective as well because they explain how good she's self efficient. For those who what to listen, it starts at 18:00 and it last for 7 minutes.
Really nice MTG Goldfish podcast talking about OGW spoiled cards. It is done mostly in a Standard perspective, but I think authors especially did a pretty nice job at evaluate Nissa in a overall perspective as well because they explain how good she's self efficient. For those who what to listen, it starts at 18:00 and it last for 7 minutes.
Thanks for the podcast, Zetsu. I enjoyed the entire episode and if they are always this entertaining I'll continue to listen in.
Regarding the Nissa discussion, I don't think they were talking about her in a cube format at all. Remember, context matters. Many people who posted in this thread, myself included, are not necessarily down on the card as a whole, we just think she is too low impact in our fast paced cube environments. If you run a lower-power cube where a lot of mid-range grindy decks battle it out (cough cough standard), I can see her doing quite well. She does hit the board early and can protect herself by adding a steady stream of board presence. But in a powered cube environment, where people are doing unfair things on the regular, this card comes up a little short IMHO.
Edit: Just wanted to add that I hope some people here test her out and report back. I am curious to hear how she plays.
I think that Nissa is quite revealing of how one evaluates cube cards. One thing that throws people off about her is that while both her plus and minus abilities work well together, they're at their best in very different decks. The +1 draws you towards Stax and Recurring Nightmare-style strategies (where it's a worse Awakening Zone), while the -2 draws you into heavy-green aggro (usually a worse Curse of Predation). Couple it with a moderately restrictive cost that will sometimes keep it out of both decks, and it's easy to see a card without a home. Look from the perspective of what it adds to your archetypes, and it doesn't get there.
That said, you can also look at this card and see effects that have had nothing but success in the past. Token-making plus abilities have always been good. Minus anthem abilities have always been good. Three mana planeswalkers have always been good. Planeswalkers that protect themselves and have attainable, powerful ultimates have always been good. "Armies in a can" have always been good. Almost every single one of these effects that can be cubed, has been cubed at some point. I can't think of a card I've ever evaluated with higher raw pedigree than this one. Look at it from the perspective of history, and it totally gets there.
So the question becomes: does this get there as a raw value card in your average green deck? I think she does. As a win condition by herself she's slow, but how many 3 mana planeswalkers actually operate as win conditions? Only Ashiok, and that's slow too. And despite producing powerless tokens, she does demand an answer. She'll add whatever you need to a board state (faster clock? chump blocker? better combat matchups? sacrifice fodder?), something that differentiates it from narrower cards like Curse and Zone. And while double green is an issue, it's not something that's prevented other green value cards from getting there before.
That said, you can also look at this card and see effects that have had nothing but success in the past. Token-making plus abilities have always been good. Minus anthem abilities have always been good. Three mana planeswalkers have always been good. Planeswalkers that protect themselves and have attainable, powerful ultimates have always been good. "Armies in a can" have always been good. Almost every single one of these effects that can be cubed, has been cubed at some point. I can't think of a card I've ever evaluated with higher raw pedigree than this one. Look at it from the perspective of history, and it totally gets there.
"Token-making plus abilities have always been good"
True, but these are LITERALLY the worst tokens that can possibly be produced. We have no precedent evaluating a planeswalker with tokens this bad.
Armies in a can have traditional been good, but this is not an army in a can. One of the main advantages of an army in a can is that they produce multiple THREATS in one turn. Taxing removal spells for control decks, and providing multiple blockers in one turn against agro.
You make some good points as grounds to test her out, and am glad you or others will. I personally won't be, but I'll listen to the reports and keep an open mind.
That said, you can also look at this card and see effects that have had nothing but success in the past. Token-making plus abilities have always been good. Minus anthem abilities have always been good. Three mana planeswalkers have always been good. Planeswalkers that protect themselves and have attainable, powerful ultimates have always been good. "Armies in a can" have always been good. Almost every single one of these effects that can be cubed, has been cubed at some point. I can't think of a card I've ever evaluated with higher raw pedigree than this one. Look at it from the perspective of history, and it totally gets there.
You're right in that it's a swiss army knife of all these pedigrees, but it's the worst of its class in every category. She produces the worst tokens, her anthem effect is too costly in both its loyalty and Nissa's converted mana cost, and she's probably the worst 3 cmc planeswalker that's worth discussing for cube.
Like I said before, I could be wrong, there is definitely a possibility of hidden potential for Nissa, but I'm not convinced yet.
Really nice MTG Goldfish podcast talking about OGW spoiled cards. It is done mostly in a Standard perspective, but I think authors especially did a pretty nice job at evaluate Nissa in a overall perspective as well because they explain how good she's self efficient. For those who what to listen, it starts at 18:00 and it last for 7 minutes.
Thanks for the podcast, Zetsu. I enjoyed the entire episode and if they are always this entertaining I'll continue to listen in.
Regarding the Nissa discussion, I don't think they were talking about her in a cube format at all. Remember, context matters. Many people who posted in this thread, myself included, are not necessarily down on the card as a whole, we just think she is too low impact in our fast paced cube environments. If you run a lower-power cube where a lot of mid-range grindy decks battle it out (cough cough standard), I can see her doing quite well. She does hit the board early and can protect herself by adding a steady stream of board presence. But in a powered cube environment, where people are doing unfair things on the regular, this card comes up a little short IMHO.
Edit: Just wanted to add that I hope some people here test her out and report back. I am curious to hear how she plays.
Yeah, I listen to those podcasts since weeks and they are really interesting. They talk about a bunch of stuff, but not in a cube perspective most of the time. And FWIW, yeah they evaluate Nissa mostly in constructed format. But what they also said is that the card is self efficient, a thing that is important for a cube card. Even if it hasn't been said in a cube context, I think it is a relevant fact.
There's a UG Opposition decklist that I played recently and that features Nissa, Voici of Zendikar. It went pretty well! Just wanted to share it to the community!
The only cut I see for this is Bow of Nylea and my playgroup likes that card too much to consider that change. I try to keep planeswalkers limited in my cube and this one just isn't exciting/useful enough to warrant making space for IMO
I've been testing nissa despite not thinking she's good enough, as part of a massive test from the new set.
She's better than I thought she was, but still don't think she'll make the cut. She saw play multiple times a mostly(almost mono) green ramp deck, with a lot of mana elves, planeswalkers and gae's cradle. In this deck she proved to be pretty good. Her tokens with gae's cradle were a nice synergy, and her anthem threatened a big push with planeswalker tokens + mana elves.
Overall the pressure was a bit slow though, as my deck lacked proper interaction, and my deck couldn't deal with huge/cheated threats. Mono red also snuck under my gameplan. Ended up 0-3 in the draft, but I was happy with her performance. The gae's cradle interaction was very nice.
Pretty convinced she's an auto-include for 600+ cubes, and still inconclusive/testing for smaller sizes. No chance she's 400- material.
I think she definitely gets better the more fair your cube archetypes are. She's not going to pose problems for a reanimated Griselbrand or provide a fast clock without some other support, so if you play a lot of decks that are 70% air and 30% interaction, she's not going to be the standalone threat you want her to be. If fair green decks are viable in your cube, I think she'll be one of the best cards in that deck.
I've been testing nissa despite not thinking she's good enough, as part of a massive test from the new set.
She's better than I thought she was, but still don't think she'll make the cut. She saw play multiple times a mostly(almost mono) green ramp deck, with a lot of mana elves, planeswalkers and gae's cradle. In this deck she proved to be pretty good. Her tokens with gae's cradle were a nice synergy, and her anthem threatened a big push with planeswalker tokens + mana elves.
Overall the pressure was a bit slow though, as my deck lacked proper interaction, and my deck couldn't deal with huge/cheated threats. Mono red also snuck under my gameplan. Ended up 0-3 in the draft, but I was happy with her performance. The gae's cradle interaction was very nice.
Pretty convinced she's an auto-include for 600+ cubes, and still inconclusive/testing for smaller sizes. No chance she's 400- material.
I run a 450, and have tested this Nissa extensively. I am very, very happy with her in the 3-drop section. She often comes down on turn 2 because of mana dorks, and her suite of abilities, while seemingly innocuous, result in a great investment for such a low casting cost. Her 0/1 Plant tokens serve to protect her, the +1/+1 counters are great for G/x midrange decks aiming to go wide, and I've seen her use the ultimate several times. I'm satisfied she'll be in my Cube for a while to come.
I run a 450, and have tested this Nissa extensively. I am very, very happy with her in the 3-drop section. She often comes down on turn 2 because of mana dorks, and her suite of abilities, while seemingly innocuous, result in a great investment for such a low casting cost. Her 0/1 Plant tokens serve to protect her, the +1/+1 counters are great for G/x midrange decks aiming to go wide, and I've seen her use the ultimate several times. I'm satisfied she'll be in my Cube for a while to come.
I run a 450, and have tested this Nissa extensively. I am very, very happy with her in the 3-drop section. She often comes down on turn 2 because of mana dorks, and her suite of abilities, while seemingly innocuous, result in a great investment for such a low casting cost. Her 0/1 Plant tokens serve to protect her, the +1/+1 counters are great for G/x midrange decks aiming to go wide, and I've seen her use the ultimate several times. I'm satisfied she'll be in my Cube for a while to come.
Echoing this sentiment. Baby Nissa is a very good deal for 3 mana considering her abilities and various synergies. Ever see her in play with this adorable guy? Talk about getting 'hoofed...
Yeah, I've also add Craterhoof Behemoth once again when I've decide to give Nissa a spin. They are insane together when you can ramp into the first one quickly.
My opponent was running little Nissa against me last night. We were both playing green based midrange decks, and she was a house. One game she came out on turn two and made 5 tokens consecutively, gumming up the board and freeing up my opponent's threats to play offense. Once we hit a board stall she switched to anthem mode and I was smooshed.
She definitely seems to play a lot better in real life than she looks on paper.
Card has finally won me over.
Played a GB rock style deck with some token sub synergies that made me very impressed.
nissa + bitter blossom + deranged hermit + sorin, lord of innistrad, and a fair bit of interactive spells.
+1 -> -2 -> -2 combined with another token producer in play is super devastating... and unlike other anthems, she's able to take over the game (slowly) by herself... This gives you deck building flexibility to build in more interactive cards, and cards that generate card advantage. Whereas, other anthems generally require a heavy creature concentration to be good.
Best case scenario, you can drop her on turn 2, power out a mean 0/1 and attack for 2-4 extra damage on turn 4 with your multiple elf dorks.
Curse of Predation would have done the same thing, but with a single elf.
I guess this is supposed to be a wonky defensive filler card, where you pump out 0/1s to block while you cast removal spells all game, wait 'til they run out of spells, then start pumping and attacking. That's not how cube games tend to go, in my experience.
http://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/podcast-047-are-leaks-bad-chandra-nissa-expeditions
Have a nice podcast!
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Thanks for the podcast, Zetsu. I enjoyed the entire episode and if they are always this entertaining I'll continue to listen in.
Regarding the Nissa discussion, I don't think they were talking about her in a cube format at all. Remember, context matters. Many people who posted in this thread, myself included, are not necessarily down on the card as a whole, we just think she is too low impact in our fast paced cube environments. If you run a lower-power cube where a lot of mid-range grindy decks battle it out (cough cough standard), I can see her doing quite well. She does hit the board early and can protect herself by adding a steady stream of board presence. But in a powered cube environment, where people are doing unfair things on the regular, this card comes up a little short IMHO.
Edit: Just wanted to add that I hope some people here test her out and report back. I am curious to hear how she plays.
That said, you can also look at this card and see effects that have had nothing but success in the past. Token-making plus abilities have always been good. Minus anthem abilities have always been good. Three mana planeswalkers have always been good. Planeswalkers that protect themselves and have attainable, powerful ultimates have always been good. "Armies in a can" have always been good. Almost every single one of these effects that can be cubed, has been cubed at some point. I can't think of a card I've ever evaluated with higher raw pedigree than this one. Look at it from the perspective of history, and it totally gets there.
So the question becomes: does this get there as a raw value card in your average green deck? I think she does. As a win condition by herself she's slow, but how many 3 mana planeswalkers actually operate as win conditions? Only Ashiok, and that's slow too. And despite producing powerless tokens, she does demand an answer. She'll add whatever you need to a board state (faster clock? chump blocker? better combat matchups? sacrifice fodder?), something that differentiates it from narrower cards like Curse and Zone. And while double green is an issue, it's not something that's prevented other green value cards from getting there before.
So heck yeah I'll be testing this.
Cubetutor Link
"Token-making plus abilities have always been good"
True, but these are LITERALLY the worst tokens that can possibly be produced. We have no precedent evaluating a planeswalker with tokens this bad.
Armies in a can have traditional been good, but this is not an army in a can. One of the main advantages of an army in a can is that they produce multiple THREATS in one turn. Taxing removal spells for control decks, and providing multiple blockers in one turn against agro.
You make some good points as grounds to test her out, and am glad you or others will. I personally won't be, but I'll listen to the reports and keep an open mind.
Last Updated 02/07/24
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You're right in that it's a swiss army knife of all these pedigrees, but it's the worst of its class in every category. She produces the worst tokens, her anthem effect is too costly in both its loyalty and Nissa's converted mana cost, and she's probably the worst 3 cmc planeswalker that's worth discussing for cube.
Like I said before, I could be wrong, there is definitely a possibility of hidden potential for Nissa, but I'm not convinced yet.
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Yeah, I listen to those podcasts since weeks and they are really interesting. They talk about a bunch of stuff, but not in a cube perspective most of the time. And FWIW, yeah they evaluate Nissa mostly in constructed format. But what they also said is that the card is self efficient, a thing that is important for a cube card. Even if it hasn't been said in a cube context, I think it is a relevant fact.
Zetsu's Cube on CubeTutor.com
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1 Sol Ring
1 Fyndhorn Elves
1 Noble Hierarch
1 Birds of Paradise
1 Elvish Mystic
1 Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
Token Stuff :
1 Mayor of Avabruck
1 Nissa, Voice of Zendikar
1 Garruk Wildspeaker
1 Master of the Wild Hunt
1 Deranged Hermit
1 Meloku the Clouded Mirror
1 Myr Battlesphere
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Opposition
1 Natural Order
1 Craterhoof Behemoth
Other Stuff :
1 Remand
1 Mana Leak
1 Daze
1 Looter il-Kor
1 Trinket Mage
1 Memory Jar
1 Time Spiral
1 Flooded Strand
1 Windswept Heath
1 Tropical Island
1 Breeding Pool
1 Reflecting Pool
1 Gaea's Cradle
6 Forest
4 Island
Zetsu's Cube on CubeTutor.com
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My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 49th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from MKM!
She's better than I thought she was, but still don't think she'll make the cut. She saw play multiple times a mostly(almost mono) green ramp deck, with a lot of mana elves, planeswalkers and gae's cradle. In this deck she proved to be pretty good. Her tokens with gae's cradle were a nice synergy, and her anthem threatened a big push with planeswalker tokens + mana elves.
Overall the pressure was a bit slow though, as my deck lacked proper interaction, and my deck couldn't deal with huge/cheated threats. Mono red also snuck under my gameplan. Ended up 0-3 in the draft, but I was happy with her performance. The gae's cradle interaction was very nice.
Pretty convinced she's an auto-include for 600+ cubes, and still inconclusive/testing for smaller sizes. No chance she's 400- material.
Last Updated 02/07/24
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Thanks for the detailed feedback. Very helpful!
My 630 Card Powered Cube
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My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
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Same impression here.
Zetsu's Cube on CubeTutor.com
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Check out the Cube Discord channel here
Zetsu's Cube on CubeTutor.com
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Zetsu's Poker Draft Method
https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/3pq
She definitely seems to play a lot better in real life than she looks on paper.
Played a GB rock style deck with some token sub synergies that made me very impressed.
nissa + bitter blossom + deranged hermit + sorin, lord of innistrad, and a fair bit of interactive spells.
+1 -> -2 -> -2 combined with another token producer in play is super devastating... and unlike other anthems, she's able to take over the game (slowly) by herself... This gives you deck building flexibility to build in more interactive cards, and cards that generate card advantage. Whereas, other anthems generally require a heavy creature concentration to be good.
Last Updated 02/07/24
Streaming Standard/Cube on Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/heisenb3rg96
Strategy Twitter https://www.twitter.com/heisenb3rg