Not currently running Steppe Lynx. I'd love to hear how it compares to other 1CC drops from those who have play-tested. I run 630 and currently have 10x 1CC white drops (listed below). I plan on cutting Raise the Alarm to make room for an 11th, considering Steppe Lynx, Savannah Lions, or Expedition Envoy.
I think it's better than the vanilla Lion variants. Having a 3rd toughness allows it to attack into more congested boards, and the interaction with fetches is quite powerful.
I think it's better than the vanilla Lion variants. Having a 3rd toughness allows it to attack into more congested boards, and the interaction with fetches is quite powerful.
Yea, good point. I was only thinking about potential as a 4/5 turn 2, but you're right a 2/3 on turn 2 is a big upside against early board presence.
It fizzles after a few attacks, but it can re-swing again after you topdeck more lands. It can attack more often than a lot of 2/1s can on average though, because of the 3-toughness.
It really depends on your cube and how you draft it. I feel like this card is tied pretty heavily with how much you can abuse landfall. Easiest way to do it is with fetch lands. Do you run multiple copies? Do you see all fetch lands each draft (so can you get a bunch in your deck)? What other landfall support cards do you play (Oracle of Mul Daya, Knight of the Reliquary, etc).
If you answer no to most of that, Steppe Lynx will suck in your cube. Run something else. If you push landfall or have a decent amount of synergy, it's really quite good. As is Plated Geopede.
Both Lynx and Geopede are good if you play lands in your deck. But to say that Lynx sucks without Oracle of Mul Daya is just a massive misevaluation of how the card should be played. You don't even want Lynx and Oracle in the same shell... My 2-power 1-drops don't want to be played alongside my 4-mana 2-power ramp creatures.
Like most other 1cc aggro guys, he's really good on turn one. His stock does drop as the game progresses, but that's true for even the best of the best in this camp. I think he's good enough in the early game, that he makes up for sometime being a dud in the mid/late game. Besides, if you're aggro and you're in the late game, something went wrong anyway.
Like most other 1cc aggro guys, he's really good on turn one. His stock does drop as the game progresses, but that's true for even the best of the best in this camp.
This.
In the first 3 turns or so it will be a 2/3 even without any support. That is at par with the multicolored Kird Ape.
Lynx is a 0/1 too often if you don't have synergies. He's not very good in hard aggro decks because you don't run a lot of lands. Lynx is better in a more midrange style deck that makes explosive turns. It's not hard to make this thing swing for 6 in the right deck on more than one turn. Which is a lot of value from something that costs W and simply asks you to play a bunch of lands.
This sort of feels like the Aether Vial debates I've seen. It doesn't matter how the card is played in other formats. In cube, it's a really bad card in aggro because you only have one copy. Play it in slower decks and it's basically a super charged mana rock that grants all creature spells you have flash. The longer the game goes, the more broken Aether Vial gets.
It's a feast or famine kind of card. I don't have a full set of fetchlands in my cube, so it's frequently weaksauce. Occasionally it will be a massive threat with midrange greenlandramp, but I'll agree that he's an 0/1 a lot more often than I like. Doesn't help that he's typically an awful blocker.
He's not very good in hard aggro decks because you don't run a lot of lands.
We'll have to disagree about this.
Lynx is good in aggro because of the size of his attacking body. Unlike 2/1s that are trying to push damage through in the development and midgame stages, your opponent doesn't have abundant early profitable blocks/trades that they can make with Lynx. Which actually helps it push damage through that another attacking body wouldn't have been able to get through. For every instance that a land drop is missed and he can't attack, there's an instance where it can profitably attack into a congested board of blockers because it's a 2/3. It can be an aggressive 1-drop on boards where no other mono-color 1-drop could've profitably attacked.
Not only that, but land can be redrawn later. Once he stalls out, he can be rejuvenated later on by simply making land drops. If you can get 3 consecutive attacks out of it and then 1-2 more attacks later on, that's perfectly fine for an aggressive creature, and thanks to his increased combat stats, it probably represented more damage than a vanilla 2/1 would've in that same spot ...even with an extra attack or two factored in.
And then there's the interaction with fetchlands. Having a 1-drop in an aggressive shell that has opportunities to attack for 4+ in a single round of combat is pretty absurd. So in small lists with a full suite of fetches (or larger lists that Glimpse Draft to increase the seen pool %) it can be a monster attacker based on fetch interaction alone. Without having to run it in a deck where aggressive 1-drops aren't designed to shine.
tl;dr = This creature is good in dedicated aggro decks, and doesn't need (or even want, honestly) to be tossed into shells with expensive ramp support cards as enablers.
Again, it's all about how many interactions you can trigger with this card. A "sometimes" mono colored Kird Ape is so very slightly above the curve that you could easily replace this with a 2 power 1 drop guy and do exactly what BacchusNL just said (cut it and never look back). This card is not even close to being a staple in anything.
But you guys are being equally myopic IMO by thinking this card only works in an aggro deck. Because you can make him a one mana Tarmogorf in the right build. So he's got a ton of potential if you draft an interesting deck around him. Maybe one mana 4/5's and 6/7's don't impress you, in which case I can see why you are confused by what I'm writing. And if that is the case, we can certainly just agree to disagree. That works too.
I don't like the lynx at all. Let's stop approaching everything as a best-case-scenario, because that is one of the very reall traps with cards like this in general, I think. For the upside of having a 3rd defense on the attack there is the very real down-side of (99% of the time) having 0 power on defense. He is also terrible in any situation that requires you to hold a guy back a turn, drop land and build out your board. He is also a way worse top-deck then most vanilla 2/1's in most cases because he is worse with anthems and most equipment, which in my experience makes him pretty much the worst top deck you could ever imagine since 2/1's are seldom an exciting topdeck to begin with. Then there is the fetch-land interaction which is pretty much neglectable and extremely best-case scenario, esspecialy in medium\ bigger cubes with only 1 fetchland cycle. I cut him a while ago for these reasons and noone ever missed him.
I don't feel anybody is looking at it from a best case scenario.
Steppe Lynx should only be competing with other 2/1s for a spot in the cube. 2/1s only really want to be in Aggro decks. They're there to ensure that you have a T1 play, and can fill in your curve at various points.
Assuming you drop him on T1 and hit your land drops, curving to four, you're getting three good attacks out of him. This is an average case if you have him in your opening hand, and he plays better than 2/1s for all the reasons that wtwlf123 mentioned.
If you drop him on T1 and flood, he out performs 2/1s even more.
If you drop him on T1 and stall out, you're going to have a rough time either way. Getting stuck on 2 or 3 land isn't the end of the world for an aggro deck, but a vanilla 2/1 will be equal to, if not slightly better than the lynx.
If you draw him while curving out, and end up playing him on T3 or T4 along with another dude, he'll end up in an awkward place. You likely won't have many land drops after he's in play, so may only get one ore two attacks in with him. Then again, it's quite likely that a 2/1 won't get many attacks in either, as it's easier to profitably block.
If your opponent is stabilized and you're just looking for a top deck to finish your opponent off, both the lynx and a generic 2/1 are pretty terrible. The 2/1 can at least trade with some things when it blocks, so it may buy you an extra turn.
The only other time that being a bad blocker would matter is when you're in an aggro mirror match. In this case, if you're equal or ahead, the extra toughness on the attack makes it significantly harder for your opponent to block profitably / trade, but if you're behind it's harder for you to trade. I think this makes it a wash with 2/1s.
All said, the only times the 2/1 is noticeably better is when you're on the defensive in an aggro deck, a place you don't want to be, and a place you're less likely to be if you draw the Lynx early. Then there's the upside of drawing a fetch and swinging with a 4/5.
Let's stop approaching everything as a best-case-scenario, because that is one of the very reall traps with cards like this in general, I think.
I don't think anyone has said anything relating to BCS in mind. BCS for this guy would be putting him in an aggro deck that has several fetch lands, blink and bounce effects that let you pump up to more than two power on multiple turns during the game. I'm pretty sure what we're saying is the Average Case Scenario for this guy assuming you play him on turn one. I think you have to evaluate any possible aggressive 1-drops as if you were playing them on turn one because it's obvious that drawing it late can be lackluster. There are a few that pass the late game draw test as well, but most are only really good early. With that said, most of your aggro decks should be able to hit land drops for at least the first three turns. If played on turn one, he probably gets to swing in for the next two turns. That's exactly what you want from an aggressive creature. Play him early, get 4-6 damage in with him, his job is done. I'm not worried about how he can't be on defense. He's probably tapped anyway. I'm not playing Savannah Lions because it's so good at blocking.
Again, it's all about how many interactions you can trigger with this card.
No, it's not. I don't have a landfall theme or push landfall interactions in any way in order to make Steppe Lynx a playable aggressive creature. I just play my lands naturally. Occasionally, yes, something cool happens and I get an extra pump from a fetch land or Cultivate or something, but those interactions are not why Lynx has been a good aggro creature for us.
Again, it's all about how many interactions you can trigger with this card.
It really, really isn't. It's all about playing out a normal aggro curve and a normal amount of land drops with Lynx as your T1 play. That's how it should be evaluated, and any role that it has in some kind of aggressive midrange Loam/Turboland strategy is just and added bonus to an already playable aggro 1-drop.
Quote from BacchusNL »
Let's stop approaching everything as a best-case-scenario...
Nobody was doing that. If you want to evaluate Lynx in magical Christmas land scenarios, he can be absolutely nutters. Chain bottomless fetches with Loam/Crucible effects and land-ramp spells being chained all over the place; Harrows being flashed back with Snapcasters and the like ...but that's not realistic. What you can expect, is a 2/3 attacker for ~3 consecutive turns and a few more late-game attacks if needed. Which is a great investment for W.
That's the sad part about the card, a 2/3 for 3 turns is as close to BCS as it gets with the cards.
How do you figure? Even in a 16 land deck, making your first 4 land drops, on the play, with one of the accounted-for cards being the Lynx is statistically more likely to happen than not. That IS the ACS. A BCS in an aggro deck would be including multiple fetch drops in that curve, which can still easily happen 20+% of the time anyways.
And if defensive value was a critical component of aggressive 1-drops, all the ETB guys and dudes that can't block would be terrible ...but all those cards are still great.
When you are saying "statisticly more likely to happen then not" you are bassicly saying "But i'm screwed the other 40% of the time".
Not at all. You're assuming that every time you don't simply make a regular land drop for the first 4 turns it's garbage. But that's not true at all. You're ignoring all the cases that fetches are played. Or that there are interactions with Loam/Crucible. Or replayed lands off Skyfisher. Or when a flipped Den Protector replays a fetch or a Strip. Or many of the other naturally-occurring cases in aggro where lands can drop. For each time that you only make 2 land drops, there are going to be cases where you hit 4+. For each time where it's less than 3 consecutive drops, there will be fetch interactions. That's why it paints a picture of the ACS for the card. WCS would be no land drops. BCS would be back-to-back-to-back fetches. The ACS is exactly what I described. 3 attacks as a 2/3 on curve, plus an attack or two in the later stages of the game if needed.
Quote from BacchusNL »
The simple fact is that white does get the option to choose with defense in mind and ignoring that is jsut wrong imo.
They're not being ignored. They are factored into the card evaluation. And the ACS on Lynx is high enough to overcome its deficiencies. By far.
For us Lynx was strictly an aggro card, and it was sometimes bonkers, sometimes ok and sometimes terrible. We ended up cutting it for a more consistent 2 power 1-drop. I do think a big strike against it is that the deck you really want/need it in (aggro) wants a low land count while Lynx needs lands to function. This means that drafting one or two spells that take a land slot (moxes) will increase Lynx's variance, and you really need consistency in an aggro deck.
I do have some fond memories of Lynx in a deck with 3 fetches though
Sometimes good cards don't work out because of the composition of your deck. Young Pyromancer is a hell of a card, but it has to be excluded from a lot of decks because the instant/sorcery count is too low. Sometimes, you have several moxen that take up land slots, and Lynx may have to ride the boards in those cases. Thems the breaks. But if you're building from a pool that has like 3 Moxes in it, passing on Lynx probably isn't going to have much of an impact on the quality of your final 40. However, in all the cases where your deck doesn't have multiple moxes in it, the land count is good enough to satisfy the requirements for the Lynx. And you can get away with using slightly less if you have multiple fetches to raise Lynx's value back up. Lynx is a monster 1-drop in a deck that can reliably draw a fetch in the early stages of the game.
Not currently running Steppe Lynx. I'd love to hear how it compares to other 1CC drops from those who have play-tested. I run 630 and currently have 10x 1CC white drops (listed below). I plan on cutting Raise the Alarm to make room for an 11th, considering Steppe Lynx, Savannah Lions, or Expedition Envoy.
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Yea, good point. I was only thinking about potential as a 4/5 turn 2, but you're right a 2/3 on turn 2 is a big upside against early board presence.
How often does it dud?
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If you answer no to most of that, Steppe Lynx will suck in your cube. Run something else. If you push landfall or have a decent amount of synergy, it's really quite good. As is Plated Geopede.
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/modular-cube-5-colors.800/
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This.
In the first 3 turns or so it will be a 2/3 even without any support. That is at par with the multicolored Kird Ape.
This sort of feels like the Aether Vial debates I've seen. It doesn't matter how the card is played in other formats. In cube, it's a really bad card in aggro because you only have one copy. Play it in slower decks and it's basically a super charged mana rock that grants all creature spells you have flash. The longer the game goes, the more broken Aether Vial gets.
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/modular-cube-5-colors.800/
Retro combo cube thread
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We'll have to disagree about this.
Lynx is good in aggro because of the size of his attacking body. Unlike 2/1s that are trying to push damage through in the development and midgame stages, your opponent doesn't have abundant early profitable blocks/trades that they can make with Lynx. Which actually helps it push damage through that another attacking body wouldn't have been able to get through. For every instance that a land drop is missed and he can't attack, there's an instance where it can profitably attack into a congested board of blockers because it's a 2/3. It can be an aggressive 1-drop on boards where no other mono-color 1-drop could've profitably attacked.
Not only that, but land can be redrawn later. Once he stalls out, he can be rejuvenated later on by simply making land drops. If you can get 3 consecutive attacks out of it and then 1-2 more attacks later on, that's perfectly fine for an aggressive creature, and thanks to his increased combat stats, it probably represented more damage than a vanilla 2/1 would've in that same spot ...even with an extra attack or two factored in.
And then there's the interaction with fetchlands. Having a 1-drop in an aggressive shell that has opportunities to attack for 4+ in a single round of combat is pretty absurd. So in small lists with a full suite of fetches (or larger lists that Glimpse Draft to increase the seen pool %) it can be a monster attacker based on fetch interaction alone. Without having to run it in a deck where aggressive 1-drops aren't designed to shine.
tl;dr = This creature is good in dedicated aggro decks, and doesn't need (or even want, honestly) to be tossed into shells with expensive ramp support cards as enablers.
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But you guys are being equally myopic IMO by thinking this card only works in an aggro deck. Because you can make him a one mana Tarmogorf in the right build. So he's got a ton of potential if you draft an interesting deck around him. Maybe one mana 4/5's and 6/7's don't impress you, in which case I can see why you are confused by what I'm writing. And if that is the case, we can certainly just agree to disagree. That works too.
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/modular-cube-5-colors.800/
Retro combo cube thread
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Steppe Lynx should only be competing with other 2/1s for a spot in the cube. 2/1s only really want to be in Aggro decks. They're there to ensure that you have a T1 play, and can fill in your curve at various points.
Assuming you drop him on T1 and hit your land drops, curving to four, you're getting three good attacks out of him. This is an average case if you have him in your opening hand, and he plays better than 2/1s for all the reasons that wtwlf123 mentioned.
If you drop him on T1 and flood, he out performs 2/1s even more.
If you drop him on T1 and stall out, you're going to have a rough time either way. Getting stuck on 2 or 3 land isn't the end of the world for an aggro deck, but a vanilla 2/1 will be equal to, if not slightly better than the lynx.
If you draw him while curving out, and end up playing him on T3 or T4 along with another dude, he'll end up in an awkward place. You likely won't have many land drops after he's in play, so may only get one ore two attacks in with him. Then again, it's quite likely that a 2/1 won't get many attacks in either, as it's easier to profitably block.
If your opponent is stabilized and you're just looking for a top deck to finish your opponent off, both the lynx and a generic 2/1 are pretty terrible. The 2/1 can at least trade with some things when it blocks, so it may buy you an extra turn.
The only other time that being a bad blocker would matter is when you're in an aggro mirror match. In this case, if you're equal or ahead, the extra toughness on the attack makes it significantly harder for your opponent to block profitably / trade, but if you're behind it's harder for you to trade. I think this makes it a wash with 2/1s.
All said, the only times the 2/1 is noticeably better is when you're on the defensive in an aggro deck, a place you don't want to be, and a place you're less likely to be if you draw the Lynx early. Then there's the upside of drawing a fetch and swinging with a 4/5.
I don't think anyone has said anything relating to BCS in mind. BCS for this guy would be putting him in an aggro deck that has several fetch lands, blink and bounce effects that let you pump up to more than two power on multiple turns during the game. I'm pretty sure what we're saying is the Average Case Scenario for this guy assuming you play him on turn one. I think you have to evaluate any possible aggressive 1-drops as if you were playing them on turn one because it's obvious that drawing it late can be lackluster. There are a few that pass the late game draw test as well, but most are only really good early. With that said, most of your aggro decks should be able to hit land drops for at least the first three turns. If played on turn one, he probably gets to swing in for the next two turns. That's exactly what you want from an aggressive creature. Play him early, get 4-6 damage in with him, his job is done. I'm not worried about how he can't be on defense. He's probably tapped anyway. I'm not playing Savannah Lions because it's so good at blocking.
No, it's not. I don't have a landfall theme or push landfall interactions in any way in order to make Steppe Lynx a playable aggressive creature. I just play my lands naturally. Occasionally, yes, something cool happens and I get an extra pump from a fetch land or Cultivate or something, but those interactions are not why Lynx has been a good aggro creature for us.
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It really, really isn't. It's all about playing out a normal aggro curve and a normal amount of land drops with Lynx as your T1 play. That's how it should be evaluated, and any role that it has in some kind of aggressive midrange Loam/Turboland strategy is just and added bonus to an already playable aggro 1-drop.
Nobody was doing that. If you want to evaluate Lynx in magical Christmas land scenarios, he can be absolutely nutters. Chain bottomless fetches with Loam/Crucible effects and land-ramp spells being chained all over the place; Harrows being flashed back with Snapcasters and the like ...but that's not realistic. What you can expect, is a 2/3 attacker for ~3 consecutive turns and a few more late-game attacks if needed. Which is a great investment for W.
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How do you figure? Even in a 16 land deck, making your first 4 land drops, on the play, with one of the accounted-for cards being the Lynx is statistically more likely to happen than not. That IS the ACS. A BCS in an aggro deck would be including multiple fetch drops in that curve, which can still easily happen 20+% of the time anyways.
And if defensive value was a critical component of aggressive 1-drops, all the ETB guys and dudes that can't block would be terrible ...but all those cards are still great.
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Not at all. You're assuming that every time you don't simply make a regular land drop for the first 4 turns it's garbage. But that's not true at all. You're ignoring all the cases that fetches are played. Or that there are interactions with Loam/Crucible. Or replayed lands off Skyfisher. Or when a flipped Den Protector replays a fetch or a Strip. Or many of the other naturally-occurring cases in aggro where lands can drop. For each time that you only make 2 land drops, there are going to be cases where you hit 4+. For each time where it's less than 3 consecutive drops, there will be fetch interactions. That's why it paints a picture of the ACS for the card. WCS would be no land drops. BCS would be back-to-back-to-back fetches. The ACS is exactly what I described. 3 attacks as a 2/3 on curve, plus an attack or two in the later stages of the game if needed.
They're not being ignored. They are factored into the card evaluation. And the ACS on Lynx is high enough to overcome its deficiencies. By far.
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I do have some fond memories of Lynx in a deck with 3 fetches though
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