I love Jace, Memory Adept. I also think it's super underrated, but that's also a well-beaten horse around here.
Also re: 'Hive Mind', I think this point is generally overblown and can probably be put to rest. I spend a lot of time around here (probably too much lol) and if anything I notice there are generally a variety of opinions and suggestions for what we're talking about. I mean, just look at the answers in this thread: it's like all different, and all people agreeing and disagreeing on stuff. There are 5+ different planeswalkers being discussed as the most underrated. There are some concepts that are just generally agreed upon because they're magic concepts, but for the most part we aren't a great 'hive' in the sense that we all think alike or come anywhere close to it.
Chandra, Pyromaster doesn't add enough to immediate board presence to work as an aggro curve-topper, and doesn't protect its controller or herself well enough to do enough in control shells. Even before this iteration of Chandra was outclassed by Chandra, Torch of Defiance and her parents, it didn't really have much of a role compared to other 4 CMC options in red. In slower, midrange builds the card advantage from her 0 ability and the Falter effect plus pings from her +1 ability will help close up games, but that's just not enough reason to justify a slot for this card. The best reason I can think of to recommend this card is that it only costs around $2, so if the more popular planeswalker choices are out of your price range you could do a lot worse than jamming this and Sarkhan, the Dragon Speaker.
Speaking of budget walkers, my pick for most underrated planeswalker is Jace, Architect of Thought. The + ability protects against go-wide aggro decks like it's nobody's business, it provides great card draw/selection, and has a really fun game-ending ultimate. Sure, it's no JtMS, but for less than $3 you can't ask for much better.
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Good ol' 3-for-1 card advantage strapped to a body in green. Love Elder, and have no plans of cutting him. For some reason, I thought we discussed this card before, no?
Not a bad card. There's a lot of value on his death, and it's one of the few 'card draw' spells in green. It kinda sucks if they exile him, but on the other hand there's a small window for that and it's generally better to be him vs. the rest of your deck, so really the value is going to come as long as you're not dying the next turn. The only complaint I have is that he's slow, which is a real complaint and one that could totally justify his exclusion.
I *love* bad art, so even if the best art is garbage I'm happy. For perspective, I choose to run the white bordered 7th edition llanowar elves lol
The value is filthy. Elder is one of the best commons ever printed (not THE best, but it's up there). I can't see cutting him, and I can't see him really getting outclassed at his point on the curve.
My problems with the art are mostly centered on homogeneity rather than quality. Generic explosions like Searing Blaze, and generic weapon-guys like Champion of the Parish are the norm. There are still some awkward promos too. Joraga Warcaller may be generic, but look at that ugly promo (I couldn't even find it on the MTGS database). I complain about the newer art, but the late nineties/ early 2000's are filled with awkward cards like Breath of Darigaaz. In my opinion, the glory days of MTG art started with Arabian Nights, and ended with Tempest block. To be fair, I'm saltier on this subject than I have any right to be.
I think we did discuss this card already. Yavimaya Elder is fine. Solid good stuff filler. I like it less than most. As a body, it's not great dying to pretty much anything with a pulse. 2 power is fine on an empty board. The CA is more expensive than I'd like. 5 mana if you want the 3 cards. Late in the game, the lands are not that good so it's much better early. In most ramp decks, I'd rather play Harmonize which scales much better as the game goes later.
Art is such a subjective thing. I'm not running it, but I've always hated Cloudgoat Ranger. And I know a lot of people really like it. The ascetics of a card matter to me as cube is also a work of art itself, so I do intentionally try to avoid running ugly cards (I won't touch these new split cards with a 50 foot pool for example - I don't care how good any of them are).
Elder is safe in my 450 unpowered for the time being but definitely ranks high on the list of cards I would cut if better options come along.
To answer a couple of the questions I would say that Liliana, the Last Hope had been one of the most underrated walkers of recent times. I think it took a bit longer than the usual for people to recognize her potential.
My worst art award goes to Duress. I only like the IDW comics art. All of the others are bad.
I think Elder is extremely underestimated, the card advantage is strong and he synergies with pretty much everything (Green matters / Clamp / 2-power / etc).
There really isn't any art in my cube that I currently dislike. I really hate original Bloodbraid Elf / Noose Constrictor, but I play different versions of those now so it's all good.
I think we did discuss this card already. Art is such a subjective thing. I'm not running it, but I've always hated Cloudgoat Ranger. And I know a lot of people really like it. The ascetics of a card matter to me as cube is also a work of art itself, so I do intentionally try to avoid running ugly cards (I won't touch these new split cards with a 50 foot pool for example - I don't care how good any of them are).
When I first made my cube in paper, I said the same exact thing and didn't cube because of that. I eventually turned around and found it to be an amazing card and came to appreciate the wonky art. Not a big fan of a lot of the Lorwyn arts though, Kithkin are ugly.
Elder is good card advantage, but I can see cutting him at some point soon. I actually quite like the original art, too.
Least favorite art: Cryptic Command is iconic but it's just so boring. But the one I've been anxiously awaiting new art for is Terramorphic Expanse. Been printed 69 times with the same art.
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I love Yavi Elder. Such value, many use. Wow. But I can definitely see this guy start to get pushed out as the power creep keeps lurching.
As for me, I think it's my Theros Thoughtseize, partially because the Lorwyn art is so classically good, and partially because the art doesn't depict what is really happening. His thoughts aren't being plucked, he's just getting all smeared by magic.
with the theros thoughtseize though you are destroying your opponents hand!
Never run elder. He's been on the edge for me.
My least favourite arts are hero of bladehold promo... awkward anorexic but still jacked like a weightlifter with really bad 90's fake tits strapped onto a horse.... and then a surprising one that lots of people disagree with me is that I have never really liked braids, cabal minion What is she doing with her hand? holding an invisible gun? what is the setting? I didn't play back then I dont know the lore surrounding her but the art doesn't really give me any hints towards it.
I also dont like the mirror entity extra terrestrials.
So I actually decided to do some research and learned that the art on braids, cabal minion was originally designed to be diabolic tutor! seems like she is saying "aha! I know just the thing!" which explains the hand and fits with the tutor.
After the card depicted Braids so nicely R&D gave Braids her own card in the set which she originally never had. And thats how we ended up with such a cool powerful card. now I will always use this art even if it gets reprinted because of the trivia!
I love Elder. He's an all expenses paid trip to Valuetown.
Not sure what my least favorite art in my cube is, but Noose Constrictor, promo Hero of Bladehold, and Mind Twist are up there. I was really hoping Mind Twist would get reprinted in Eternal Masters so it would get new art. I mean the original is classic but it sucks.
I have elder in, but honestly I want to cut as soon as something else gets printed that competes at that slot. He's way too slow for green most of the time and doesn't accomplish much.
One art I really hate the art on is Eternal Witness. My older brother once broke both of his wrists when I was little and I had to sit in the hospital with him for 7 hours, the whole time looking at his eternal witness-like wrists. Like look at her damn hands and forearms, they look mangled!
I cut elder about half a year ago and it's one of the cuts I've been least confident about his exclusion.
Green 3's have gotten a strong boost in the past 3-4 years (it used to be an anemic slot) and it was hard for me to cut him.
The issue I have is with him is that green decks tend to want to come out of the gate fast, and elder can require a lot of time/mana investment to get full value. Slow card draw is less important in green, as they tend to lack answers or will lose the long game against many decks.
That being said, you gotta hit your land drops and he's a freaking 3 for 1 for ~3-5 mana which is a very good rate.
For some reason, I thought we discussed this card before, no?
I don't think so, but I've fallen behind on indexing the cards discussed in the past 2 months, so it's hard to be sure.
Yavimaya Elder is a recent cut for me as well, as I've been happy to take advantage of the more aggressive options now available for this slot like Tireless Tracker and Rishkar, Peema Renegade that still have plenty to offer to ramp decks in terms of card advantage and mana acceleration. Yavimaya Elder is good value, but he's slower than I want my cube's green decks to be.
In case you haven't guessed, the art on the modern-frame reprint of Yavimaya Elder was what inspired this bonus question. I've always thought it's hideous, but I felt obligated to run it over the original because the modern reprints have the word "Human" in the type line which mattered for (if nothing else) Stromkirk Noble. Now that I've cut Elder, the honor of least favorite cube art goes to Ral Zarek. The pose and facial expression look absolutely wooden, something I've found particularly annoying because they've been able to depict him with a lot more personality in Dragon's Maze promotional materials, but in the actual card they've got him looking like a mannequin.
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I still like Graverobber a lot. Maindeckable graveyard removal is hard to come by, it has synergy with Exhume and Living Death, and occasions show up all the time where this guy just flips early; giving you a 4-power beater that can start reanimating stuff all over the place. That's a lot of potential value to have rolled into a 2-power 2-drop.
I still like Nezumi a decent amount. The GY hate on a piker is pretty solid, and when he actually flips he can be a beast. It helps that you don't have to choose between attacking or using the GY hate. You just attack as you can, and pay the activations for when it's relevant. If you only have to activate it once to flip it feels like a pretty beastly card as the 4B reanimate ability is really sick.
Pale Rider of Trostad. It was fine, and probably better than most say it was, but at this point we have the luxuries of running certain redundant effect, like Bob and his bros.
Never played Graverobber and I don't plan on trying it either since there's no support for black aggro in our cube.
I also have no idea what the last black 2 drop creature I cut was, but I'm going to guess it may have been Heir of Falkenrath waaay back in Eldritch Moon after we decided it didn't do enough.
I've never been temped to run Nezumi Graverobber mainly due to my dislike of the flip card mechanic. Cards are fugly. As much as I also dislike the DFC design from a logistical standpoint, it's way cleaner visually at least.
I'm pretty happy with black 2 drops, so haven't been inclined to do much tweaking with them. That said, my cubes are constantly being monkeyed with as I do testing and other exercises, so my cube tutor blogs are very messy. Technically, the last cut I did in combo list was Heir of Falkenrath for Oona's Prowler just because I decided to cut DFC after experimenting a bit with them. Heir is good and I only made the swap for ascetic purposes. The DFC experiment hinged on Delver of Secrets which is just really hard to build around in draft. I might revisit it again but for now I'm abandoning it. Heir was a casualty of that cut.
I still run him. He gets funny looks from some of my less experienced players, but he can still pack a punch. Especially if the other guy lacks any yard presence turn 3.
Dies to most burn, but still has fun utility. If he's not taken care of, he could eventually become a problem. Plus, a 4/2 body is nothing to snuff at.
I just cut Asylum Visitor. There are a lot of these "almost" 2 drops in black that just don't cut it. Pain Seer was who I cut for the visitor. Neither have returned.
I've never been super impressed by Nezumi Graverobber. Pack rat is a better mana sink, and its at the same spot on the curve. If my cube was a little bigger, or a little slower, then I'd probably like him more. I really like my black 2's. The entire section is comprised of aggressive creatures that double as a discard outlet, and Bob clones.
The last Black two drop I cut was Vampire Hexmage. I decided the Dark Depths package wasn't good enough.
Also re: 'Hive Mind', I think this point is generally overblown and can probably be put to rest. I spend a lot of time around here (probably too much lol) and if anything I notice there are generally a variety of opinions and suggestions for what we're talking about. I mean, just look at the answers in this thread: it's like all different, and all people agreeing and disagreeing on stuff. There are 5+ different planeswalkers being discussed as the most underrated. There are some concepts that are just generally agreed upon because they're magic concepts, but for the most part we aren't a great 'hive' in the sense that we all think alike or come anywhere close to it.
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Speaking of budget walkers, my pick for most underrated planeswalker is Jace, Architect of Thought. The + ability protects against go-wide aggro decks like it's nobody's business, it provides great card draw/selection, and has a really fun game-ending ultimate. Sure, it's no JtMS, but for less than $3 you can't ask for much better.
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
Yavimaya Elder
BONUS QUESTION
What's your least favorite art currently in your cube?
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
e: Oh, least favorite art... Probably Noose Constrictor?
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My problems with the art are mostly centered on homogeneity rather than quality. Generic explosions like Searing Blaze, and generic weapon-guys like Champion of the Parish are the norm. There are still some awkward promos too. Joraga Warcaller may be generic, but look at that ugly promo (I couldn't even find it on the MTGS database). I complain about the newer art, but the late nineties/ early 2000's are filled with awkward cards like Breath of Darigaaz. In my opinion, the glory days of MTG art started with Arabian Nights, and ended with Tempest block. To be fair, I'm saltier on this subject than I have any right to be.
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Art is such a subjective thing. I'm not running it, but I've always hated Cloudgoat Ranger. And I know a lot of people really like it. The ascetics of a card matter to me as cube is also a work of art itself, so I do intentionally try to avoid running ugly cards (I won't touch these new split cards with a 50 foot pool for example - I don't care how good any of them are).
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/modular-cube-5-colors.800/
Retro combo cube thread
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/retro-combo-cube.1454/
To answer a couple of the questions I would say that Liliana, the Last Hope had been one of the most underrated walkers of recent times. I think it took a bit longer than the usual for people to recognize her potential.
My worst art award goes to Duress. I only like the IDW comics art. All of the others are bad.
There really isn't any art in my cube that I currently dislike. I really hate original Bloodbraid Elf / Noose Constrictor, but I play different versions of those now so it's all good.
When I first made my cube in paper, I said the same exact thing and didn't cube because of that. I eventually turned around and found it to be an amazing card and came to appreciate the wonky art. Not a big fan of a lot of the Lorwyn arts though, Kithkin are ugly.
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Least favorite art: Cryptic Command is iconic but it's just so boring. But the one I've been anxiously awaiting new art for is Terramorphic Expanse. Been printed 69 times with the same art.
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As for me, I think it's my Theros Thoughtseize, partially because the Lorwyn art is so classically good, and partially because the art doesn't depict what is really happening. His thoughts aren't being plucked, he's just getting all smeared by magic.
Never run elder. He's been on the edge for me.
My least favourite arts are hero of bladehold promo... awkward anorexic but still jacked like a weightlifter with really bad 90's fake tits strapped onto a horse.... and then a surprising one that lots of people disagree with me is that I have never really liked braids, cabal minion What is she doing with her hand? holding an invisible gun? what is the setting? I didn't play back then I dont know the lore surrounding her but the art doesn't really give me any hints towards it.
I also dont like the mirror entity extra terrestrials.
After the card depicted Braids so nicely R&D gave Braids her own card in the set which she originally never had. And thats how we ended up with such a cool powerful card. now I will always use this art even if it gets reprinted because of the trivia!
Not sure what my least favorite art in my cube is, but Noose Constrictor, promo Hero of Bladehold, and Mind Twist are up there. I was really hoping Mind Twist would get reprinted in Eternal Masters so it would get new art. I mean the original is classic but it sucks.
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One art I really hate the art on is Eternal Witness. My older brother once broke both of his wrists when I was little and I had to sit in the hospital with him for 7 hours, the whole time looking at his eternal witness-like wrists. Like look at her damn hands and forearms, they look mangled!
For that reason, I only use the promo haha.
Green 3's have gotten a strong boost in the past 3-4 years (it used to be an anemic slot) and it was hard for me to cut him.
The issue I have is with him is that green decks tend to want to come out of the gate fast, and elder can require a lot of time/mana investment to get full value. Slow card draw is less important in green, as they tend to lack answers or will lose the long game against many decks.
That being said, you gotta hit your land drops and he's a freaking 3 for 1 for ~3-5 mana which is a very good rate.
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I don't think so, but I've fallen behind on indexing the cards discussed in the past 2 months, so it's hard to be sure.
Yavimaya Elder is a recent cut for me as well, as I've been happy to take advantage of the more aggressive options now available for this slot like Tireless Tracker and Rishkar, Peema Renegade that still have plenty to offer to ramp decks in terms of card advantage and mana acceleration. Yavimaya Elder is good value, but he's slower than I want my cube's green decks to be.
In case you haven't guessed, the art on the modern-frame reprint of Yavimaya Elder was what inspired this bonus question. I've always thought it's hideous, but I felt obligated to run it over the original because the modern reprints have the word "Human" in the type line which mattered for (if nothing else) Stromkirk Noble. Now that I've cut Elder, the honor of least favorite cube art goes to Ral Zarek. The pose and facial expression look absolutely wooden, something I've found particularly annoying because they've been able to depict him with a lot more personality in Dragon's Maze promotional materials, but in the actual card they've got him looking like a mannequin.
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
Nezumi Graverobber
BONUS QUESTION
What's the last creature card you cut from your black 2's?
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
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!
Pale Rider of Trostad. It was fine, and probably better than most say it was, but at this point we have the luxuries of running certain redundant effect, like Bob and his bros.
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I also have no idea what the last black 2 drop creature I cut was, but I'm going to guess it may have been Heir of Falkenrath waaay back in Eldritch Moon after we decided it didn't do enough.
I'm pretty happy with black 2 drops, so haven't been inclined to do much tweaking with them. That said, my cubes are constantly being monkeyed with as I do testing and other exercises, so my cube tutor blogs are very messy. Technically, the last cut I did in combo list was Heir of Falkenrath for Oona's Prowler just because I decided to cut DFC after experimenting a bit with them. Heir is good and I only made the swap for ascetic purposes. The DFC experiment hinged on Delver of Secrets which is just really hard to build around in draft. I might revisit it again but for now I'm abandoning it. Heir was a casualty of that cut.
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/modular-cube-5-colors.800/
Retro combo cube thread
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/retro-combo-cube.1454/
Dies to most burn, but still has fun utility. If he's not taken care of, he could eventually become a problem. Plus, a 4/2 body is nothing to snuff at.
I just cut Asylum Visitor. There are a lot of these "almost" 2 drops in black that just don't cut it. Pain Seer was who I cut for the visitor. Neither have returned.
The last Black two drop I cut was Vampire Hexmage. I decided the Dark Depths package wasn't good enough.
Pretty rare that you find a two-drop which doesn't die to most burn.
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