It's one of those "on the bubble" cards for me. It fits the token theme, it does it's job, but it's not particularly strong. I cut mine for Declaration in Stone I think.
Never cubed with it. It looks okay on paper, not sure about practice. Perhaps it does work in Pauper / Peasant?
I set two alarms twenty minutes from each other. I usually don't need the alarms to wake up, they just tell me to get up. First one rings, I'll lay around and cruise on the internet for a bit and then actually get up to get ready for the day after the second alarm.
I use very specific tunes for my alarms. I recall hearing something that it's better to use an alarm that gradually gets louder instead of a traditional obnoxious one. Being awaken more slowly makes it easier to get up where if you are abruptly awoken by an obnoxious alarm, you'll want to fight it and go back to sleep.
It's one of those "on the bubble" cards for me. It fits the token theme, it does it's job, but it's not particularly strong.
This is where I stand on it as well. It synergizes with both token/anthem decks and "spells matter" quite nicely, and it's one of the few that does. However, I don't think it's strong enough on its own to make the cut at 450/465 since the bench for white 2-drops has become incredibly deep in the past few years.
Perhaps it does work in Pauper / Peasant?
It's pretty good there, especially in Peasant cubes that support tokens and spells matter. In my Peasant cube I'm running an EMA foil. I prefer the newer art because it looks more like soldiers are actually responding to an alert as opposed to a generic battle scene.
On weekdays I use my smartphone's alarm clock feature to wake me up, but I hate the song it uses, and I really should switch it to something less annoying that will still wake me up. On weekends my alarm clock is all too often a truck from a used appliance store that goes through our neighborhood using a megaphone to exhort people to come out and sell them their old refrigerators and TVs.
Never cubed with it. It looks okay on paper, not sure about practice. Perhaps it does work in Pauper / Peasant?
Yeah, it's serviceable in Peasant token archetypes still.
My alarms are my children, but I have a friend with an awesome alarm story.
They went to visit a friend in Japan. As they were leaving, their friend gave them a present and told them to wait until they got home to Australia to open it. They pack it into the suitcase and head to the airport.
So this present turns out to be an alarm clock that says "WAKE UP!" in Japanese, and gets louder if you don't turn it off.
And Murphy's Law dictates that it went off going through Japanese customs.
They had no idea why their suitcase was loudly telling the Japanese customs officers to wake up!
I find three coloured (hard cast colours, not hybrid) cards too restrictive for cube draft. Last time I tried was Siege Rhino, who spent the vast majority of his time in the sideboard.
My Riddle shall be in the form of an interesting rules interaction:
Player A and Player B are both on 6 life. Player A has a 6/6 Beast Token with Trample on the board, player B has an untapped Death's Shadow (currently a 7/7). Player A swings for lethal damage with his token and player B blocks with Death's Shadow. In response to this block, player A casts Blessed Alliance - targeting his opponent with the ‘Target Player Gains 4 life’ option, which resolves.
What happens?
First person to answer correctly gets… to be smug.
I find three coloured (hard cast colours, not hybrid) cards too restrictive for cube draft. Last time I tried was Siege Rhino, who spent the vast majority of his time in the sideboard.
Sphinx and Rhino are apples and oranges. You want to be playing rhino ideally turn 4 and abusing his trigger, but you need to put the strain on your mana base typically to run him. Sphinx is often run w/o esper colors since he's stellar in any reanimation or tinker-style decks. Plus costing 8 makes the splash SO MUCH easier. I look at him less like an esper card and more as a big bad dude who sometimes gets cast for esper colors.
Sphinx is such a good bomb finisher. It works in every deck and actually closes out the game when it sticks. If I had to cut all the shards I would still run it.
Riddle:
You have a Tarmogoyf, a Manic Vandal and a Mind Stone. You must cross a river with only one of them at a time. If you leave the Tarmogoyf with the Manic Vandal he will eat him; if you leave the Manic Vandal with the Mind Stone he will break it. How can you get all three across safely?
Player A and Player B are both on 6 life. Player A has a 6/6 Beast Token with Trample on the board, player B has an untapped Death's Shadow (currently a 7/7). Player A swings for lethal damage with his token and player B blocks with Death's Shadow. In response to this block, player A casts Blessed Alliance - targeting his opponent with the ‘Target Player Gains 4 life’ option, which resolves.
What happens?
Death's Shadow becomes a 3/3, so the Beast only needs to assign 3 damage to it, and can assign the other 3 to Player B (who now has 10 life). When damage is done simultaneously, Player B will be at 7, shadow will be a 6/6 with 3 damage marked on it, so it will live. Player B wins on the crack back. Though technically, Player A can assign all 6 damage to the shadow so he wouldn't lose, but that is another story.
Sphinx is such a good bomb finisher. It works in every deck and actually closes out the game when it sticks. If I had to cut all the shards I would still run it.
Riddle:
You have a Tarmogoyf, a Manic Vandal and a Mind Stone. You must cross a river with only one of them at a time. If you leave the Tarmogoyf with the Manic Vandal he will eat him; if you leave the Manic Vandal with the Mind Stone he will break it. How can you get all three across safely?
They all start on side A want to get on side B.
1)Take vandal first from A, leave him on side B. (Side A: goyf stone, Side B: vandal)
2)Take Mindstone from A, exchange him with vandal on side B (Side A: goyf, Side B: stone, IN HAND: vandal)
3)Exchange Goyf with vandal, leave goyf in side B (Side A: vandal, side b: stone goyf)
4)Take vandal from A to B
Total cross river 6 times
As for the card, sweet reanimation and tinker target. Not much else to say.
Player A and Player B are both on 6 life. Player A has a 6/6 Beast Token with Trample on the board, player B has an untapped Death's Shadow (currently a 7/7). Player A swings for lethal damage with his token and player B blocks with Death's Shadow. In response to this block, player A casts Blessed Alliance - targeting his opponent with the ‘Target Player Gains 4 life’ option, which resolves.
What happens?
Death's Shadow becomes a 3/3, so the Beast only needs to assign 3 damage to it, and can assign the other 3 to Player B (who now has 10 life). When damage is done simultaneously, Player B will be at 7, shadow will be a 6/6 with 3 damage marked on it, so it will live. Player B wins on the crack back. Though technically, Player A can assign all 6 damage to the shadow so he wouldn't lose, but that is another story.
Yeah, it does require a small amount of ignorance on player A's part, I was hoping to skim over that bit lol.
Sphinx of the Steel Wind is the only true 3-color card I run, because I don't ever expect it to be hardcast. It's a great Tinker and reanimator target, and it's survives most non-white spot removal. You can even buy it in foil (Premium Deck series) for about a buck. Great card, and since they haven't been printing that many big robots that make worthwhile Tinker targets it'll likely remain a cube staple for quite a while.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
465 card Unpowered cube thread. Draft it here and I'll be happy to return the favor.
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
For reanimator and tinker shenanigans. I don't run it currently because my only copy is inside a Sen Triplets EDH deck, but I've thought about cutting it out of there and moving it over.
I ran Sphinx of the Steel Wind for a long time. Very good in reanimator and tinker decks, but also a good control finisher. She was the first 3-color card that I included and was the reason why I made room for a small tricolor section in my cube. I just removed that section with my Kaladesh update though. Tricolor is hard to get and those cards often didn't find a home in maindecks. With the new conspiracies and the vehicles from Kaladesh, I just needed more room in my colorless section. Cutting those tricolor cards seemed like the best option.
Another reason to cut Sphinx was that I've been culling creatures with protection from colors from my cube for the last few years. Sphinx was the last creature with that miserable ability. (Seriously, I wish Wizards would have just changed that ability's rules rather than removing its evergreen status. Protection would be a much better mechanic if it just said "can't be targeted by X and all damage from X is prevented".)
Living Death is a really cool card. The only downside that it has is that it is a very unique effect that works best as a build-around. I really prefer to run 2-3 versions of effects like these in my cube (e.g. since I run Sneak Attack, I also run Through the Breach and Cauldron Dance). Such redundancy makes drafting a deck around those effects easier. Unfortunaly, there are very, very few cards that do something similar than Living Death and they are either too unweildy (Living End) or cost 1 mana too much to be good in cube (Twilight's Call). This means that Living Death is a one-off in my cube, making it harder to build around it consistently.
I run the Coalition vs Phyrexia version, because it has the superior 8th edition border, is not foil and has the accurate wording.
I like Living Death, but I've always found it difficult to make asymmetrical in my favor. It seems like a lot of times I can't cast it at all because I don't want my opponent getting back what's in their 'yard. With that said, though, that's probably a me problem, not a Living Death problem. I have seen the card be good before and I currently run it in my secondary lower power list, I just don't play it myself very often.
My preferred version would be the judge promo because it has the superior pre-8th edition border, is foil, and has the nostalgic wording that I often still use myself when discussing what cards do. (I still say "comes into play" more often than "enters the battlefield" even though I know ETB is a cleaner wording.)
As far as I know, I've never been very close to death. I once had a really bad gall stone attack and had to have my gall bladder taken out. I've been in a couple of semi-serious car accidents. Other than that, it seems like I've been lucky enough to stay as far away from the other side as I can.
Living Death can't go in just any deck, and it can't be cast in just any window. But when those two things come together, it's one of the most powerful effects in the cube. Nothing creates insane losing -> winning stories like Living Death.
This card is one I just can't seem to find a copy for trade or sale locally. But it seems awesome and I'll find one sooner or later.
Once in an EDH game, I was playing Teysa, Orzhov Scion, and someone cast Living Death. I had out some sac outlet, sacrificed my whole board, and came out further ahead than the player who cast the spell. There's always that danger with symmetrical effects, but in 1v1 games and with good playing, it's mitigated.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I can't say I'm pleased to see you and must warn you I may have to do something about it.
EDH: UGEdric
Pauper: URDelver
Modern: UGRDelver
Draft my cube: Eric's 390 Unpowered
Living Death can't go in just any deck, and it can't be cast in just any window. But when those two things come together, it's one of the most powerful effects in the cube. Nothing creates insane losing -> winning stories like Living Death.
I ultimately took it out because it was getting narrower and narrower, but this is how I would evaluate the card.
Closest I've been to death was, I was on a windy road and a fire truck came speeding the opposite way in both lanes, my car wouldn't fit on the road with it, and, by evidence now, I'd rather destroy myself than someone else, so I veered off the road into a ditch, completely totaled my card, a windshield wiper broke through my windshield and was an inch from my face, I was completely unharmed but I probably should have died there.
My favorite card of all time, Living Death was in the very first deck I ever played (Cinder Heart from the Battle Royale multiplayer precon decks).
It can be a tough card to slot / build around and can't just be cast whenever, but every best MTG bad beatz story usually involves Living Death, IMO.
OG Tempest Art all the way, but I run a super dirty, beat up white boardered version in my Karador EDH deck because it's the exact one that I first played MTG with.
Living Death is a very hit-or-miss card, and as powerful as the effect can be I think the set up cost is just too high for it to compete with other reanimation effects and board wipes, as cool as it is to get both in the same card.
I dig that Battle Royale version, it's so strange to see a gold Tempest symbol! When I did run Living Death, it was the FTV edition. I prefer the original art, though, and even the wording on it makes sense than the newer Oracle text.
The closest I've ever come to death was when I got caught in a riptide while swimming in the ocean during a beach trip. I noticed myself being a bit further from shore than I'd originally planned to swim, and just couldn't get any closer when I tried to swim back because I was being pulled out to sea. I yelled for help, but no one could hear me. Fortunately, I'd read about what to do in that situation maybe a week or two earlier, which was to swim parallel to the shore until you're out of it. It worked, but I just barely had enough strength to pull myself out of the water by the time I could touch bottom and wade the rest of the way.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
465 card Unpowered cube thread. Draft it here and I'll be happy to return the favor.
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
I hate this card. I hate, hate, hate it more on a visceral than on an emotional level. Just looking at it or thinking about including it in my cube makes me literally physically sick. I think I played with it once in my entire life: In a RTR booster draft, simply because it is undeniably a strong card and there were boosters to win. But playing it for fun? Never.
There are very, very few cards where I have such a strong negative reaction on a gut level. It is really hard to explain for this card why I have it though. My attempts to explain it are that dodging every single type of removal while hitting for up to 8 unblockable damage can lead to massive feelbads on the receiving end; plus, I find the picture ugly as hell. Apart from that, I can't really tell why my body reacts this way, but even three years after seeing it for the first time, it still gives me stomach cramps just looking at it.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
And waking up implies that I sleep.
I set two alarms twenty minutes from each other. I usually don't need the alarms to wake up, they just tell me to get up. First one rings, I'll lay around and cruise on the internet for a bit and then actually get up to get ready for the day after the second alarm.
I use very specific tunes for my alarms. I recall hearing something that it's better to use an alarm that gradually gets louder instead of a traditional obnoxious one. Being awaken more slowly makes it easier to get up where if you are abruptly awoken by an obnoxious alarm, you'll want to fight it and go back to sleep.
My High Octane Unpowered Cube on CubeCobra
This is where I stand on it as well. It synergizes with both token/anthem decks and "spells matter" quite nicely, and it's one of the few that does. However, I don't think it's strong enough on its own to make the cut at 450/465 since the bench for white 2-drops has become incredibly deep in the past few years.
It's pretty good there, especially in Peasant cubes that support tokens and spells matter. In my Peasant cube I'm running an EMA foil. I prefer the newer art because it looks more like soldiers are actually responding to an alert as opposed to a generic battle scene.
On weekdays I use my smartphone's alarm clock feature to wake me up, but I hate the song it uses, and I really should switch it to something less annoying that will still wake me up. On weekends my alarm clock is all too often a truck from a used appliance store that goes through our neighborhood using a megaphone to exhort people to come out and sell them their old refrigerators and TVs.
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
Yeah, it's serviceable in Peasant token archetypes still.
My alarms are my children, but I have a friend with an awesome alarm story.
They went to visit a friend in Japan. As they were leaving, their friend gave them a present and told them to wait until they got home to Australia to open it. They pack it into the suitcase and head to the airport.
So this present turns out to be an alarm clock that says "WAKE UP!" in Japanese, and gets louder if you don't turn it off.
And Murphy's Law dictates that it went off going through Japanese customs.
They had no idea why their suitcase was loudly telling the Japanese customs officers to wake up!
My Stupidly Large Number of Current Decks
PucaTrade with me!
The Multiplayer Power Rankings
Cube: the Gittening (My Multiplayer Cube) - MTGS Cube List | @ CubeTutor
The N00b Cube (Peasant cube for new players) - MTGS Cube List | @ CubeTutor
Sphinx of the Steel Wind
BONUS QUESTION
Tell us a riddle! I'll start....
Why is there no milk on Bant?
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
My Riddle shall be in the form of an interesting rules interaction:
Player A and Player B are both on 6 life. Player A has a 6/6 Beast Token with Trample on the board, player B has an untapped Death's Shadow (currently a 7/7). Player A swings for lethal damage with his token and player B blocks with Death's Shadow. In response to this block, player A casts Blessed Alliance - targeting his opponent with the ‘Target Player Gains 4 life’ option, which resolves.
What happens?
First person to answer correctly gets… to be smug.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
Sphinx and Rhino are apples and oranges. You want to be playing rhino ideally turn 4 and abusing his trigger, but you need to put the strain on your mana base typically to run him. Sphinx is often run w/o esper colors since he's stellar in any reanimation or tinker-style decks. Plus costing 8 makes the splash SO MUCH easier. I look at him less like an esper card and more as a big bad dude who sometimes gets cast for esper colors.
Also, follow us on twitter! @TurnOneMagic
Riddle:
You have a Tarmogoyf, a Manic Vandal and a Mind Stone. You must cross a river with only one of them at a time. If you leave the Tarmogoyf with the Manic Vandal he will eat him; if you leave the Manic Vandal with the Mind Stone he will break it. How can you get all three across safely?
Draft my cube!
Watch me stream!
Death's Shadow becomes a 3/3, so the Beast only needs to assign 3 damage to it, and can assign the other 3 to Player B (who now has 10 life). When damage is done simultaneously, Player B will be at 7, shadow will be a 6/6 with 3 damage marked on it, so it will live. Player B wins on the crack back. Though technically, Player A can assign all 6 damage to the shadow so he wouldn't lose, but that is another story. They all start on side A want to get on side B.
1)Take vandal first from A, leave him on side B. (Side A: goyf stone, Side B: vandal)
2)Take Mindstone from A, exchange him with vandal on side B (Side A: goyf, Side B: stone, IN HAND: vandal)
3)Exchange Goyf with vandal, leave goyf in side B (Side A: vandal, side b: stone goyf)
4)Take vandal from A to B
Total cross river 6 times
As for the card, sweet reanimation and tinker target. Not much else to say.
Yeah, it does require a small amount of ignorance on player A's part, I was hoping to skim over that bit lol.
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
Another reason to cut Sphinx was that I've been culling creatures with protection from colors from my cube for the last few years. Sphinx was the last creature with that miserable ability. (Seriously, I wish Wizards would have just changed that ability's rules rather than removing its evergreen status. Protection would be a much better mechanic if it just said "can't be targeted by X and all damage from X is prevented".)
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
Living Death
BONUS QUESTION
We're all among the living, but what's the closest you've ever come to death?
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
I run the Coalition vs Phyrexia version, because it has the superior 8th edition border, is not foil and has the accurate wording.
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
My preferred version would be the judge promo because it has the superior pre-8th edition border, is foil, and has the nostalgic wording that I often still use myself when discussing what cards do. (I still say "comes into play" more often than "enters the battlefield" even though I know ETB is a cleaner wording.)
As far as I know, I've never been very close to death. I once had a really bad gall stone attack and had to have my gall bladder taken out. I've been in a couple of semi-serious car accidents. Other than that, it seems like I've been lucky enough to stay as far away from the other side as I can.
MTGS Average Peasant Cube 2023 Edition
Follow me. I tweet.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
Once in an EDH game, I was playing Teysa, Orzhov Scion, and someone cast Living Death. I had out some sac outlet, sacrificed my whole board, and came out further ahead than the player who cast the spell. There's always that danger with symmetrical effects, but in 1v1 games and with good playing, it's mitigated.
EDH: UGEdric
Pauper: UR Delver
Modern: UGR Delver
Draft my cube: Eric's 390 Unpowered
I ultimately took it out because it was getting narrower and narrower, but this is how I would evaluate the card.
Closest I've been to death was, I was on a windy road and a fire truck came speeding the opposite way in both lanes, my car wouldn't fit on the road with it, and, by evidence now, I'd rather destroy myself than someone else, so I veered off the road into a ditch, completely totaled my card, a windshield wiper broke through my windshield and was an inch from my face, I was completely unharmed but I probably should have died there.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=484979
It can be a tough card to slot / build around and can't just be cast whenever, but every best MTG bad beatz story usually involves Living Death, IMO.
OG Tempest Art all the way, but I run a super dirty, beat up white boardered version in my Karador EDH deck because it's the exact one that I first played MTG with.
My High Octane Unpowered Cube on CubeCobra
I dig that Battle Royale version, it's so strange to see a gold Tempest symbol! When I did run Living Death, it was the FTV edition. I prefer the original art, though, and even the wording on it makes sense than the newer Oracle text.
The closest I've ever come to death was when I got caught in a riptide while swimming in the ocean during a beach trip. I noticed myself being a bit further from shore than I'd originally planned to swim, and just couldn't get any closer when I tried to swim back because I was being pulled out to sea. I yelled for help, but no one could hear me. Fortunately, I'd read about what to do in that situation maybe a week or two earlier, which was to swim parallel to the shore until you're out of it. It worked, but I just barely had enough strength to pull myself out of the water by the time I could touch bottom and wade the rest of the way.
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
Ætherling
BONUS QUESTION
Who is your favorite superhero?
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
There are very, very few cards where I have such a strong negative reaction on a gut level. It is really hard to explain for this card why I have it though. My attempts to explain it are that dodging every single type of removal while hitting for up to 8 unblockable damage can lead to massive feelbads on the receiving end; plus, I find the picture ugly as hell. Apart from that, I can't really tell why my body reacts this way, but even three years after seeing it for the first time, it still gives me stomach cramps just looking at it.
...
My favorite superhero is Hellboy!
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