I loved Bombardment in my classic cube back in the days of stacked damage. Without it, it was limited to a very specific range of decks, and was unplayable outside of them. It's good in token shells and recursive creature decks, but if I wasn't poised to get far more than face value from it, it simply wasn't drafted. With a little bit of extra red support for that kind of deck I could see reintroducing it, but for now, it'll have to stay on parole.
I play and like Bombardment, along with Blood Artist, as token support in Mardu colors. I think it'll come out soon, as I think I want to try Twin combo out, and I'll need to clear some room. Tokens are plenty strong anyway.
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I'm inclined to agree that tokens decks don't really need Bombardment to be good, and aggro decks usually would rather have another burn spell or beater. This means it's only worth running in decks that need a 0 mana sac outlet, like Reveillark combo and Muzzio's Preparations combo. I pulled Muzzio's Preparations combo when I de-Conspiracied my cube a while back, and Reveillark combo doesn't appear to be a good enough reason to run this on its own, so I'm planning on cutting Bombardment in my next update.
I did midnight prerelease last night and 2 events at my LGS today. I got run over by aggro decks in the midnight event, but today I went 4-0 in the first event and 3-1 in the second with decks I didn't feel had any business getting there.
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Emrakul, the Promised End is the only one I've played with in cube. It's a well designed card, particularly I feel from the cost reduction mechanic. The mindslaver effect was generally game winning (coupled with a 13/13 flying trampler), but there was a lot of satisfaction and some skill required in getting the most out of it. I did lose a game to a top decked overrun, so it's not an unwinnable scenario to face down (though clearly odds are very much against you).
My group is very casual and this card had some feel-badness to it. So I ultimately cut it. The other Eldrazi are similarly sledgehammer-like, so I suspect none of them would be welcome in my meta. As far as flavor goes, I like the idea of annihilator. So Kozilek, Butcher of Truth is the one I wanted to run. But Annihilator 4 is just too strong. I did try Artisan of Kozilek, but it was too expensive and without protection, evasion or all that great of an ETB effect it simply wasn't good enough. Which is unfortunate because Annihilator 2 is probably something that wouldn't auto-win the game if it landed one time.
I love Emrakul in cube. I also play Ulamog. I dislike the shuffle clause on the old ones, although I've thought about including old Kozilek before. Emrakul is sweet because it's decent to reanimate, gives the cube a Mindslaver effect without having to run a really narrow card like Mindslaver, and it goes into a few different kinds of decks.
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This Emrakul is great. Fantastic in decks that can cast it (which is not just ramp but also some control shells too) and it's not bad as a reanimation target in a pinch. This and Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger are my two favorite Eldrazi for the cube, and I'm not positive which one I prefer overall.
Emrakul is probably the most broadly playable eldrazi titan, and she is generally as deadly as any of them. I'd consider playing her even without super ramp or reanimation present in cube, which is saying a lot.
Emrakul is great, and i love that it doesn't cost 15 and like people said, it can be cheated out where others can't. I find it to be a really fun card and the fact that it's cost can be reduced makes it a higher pick than some other super ramp targets
One of my favorite super fatties, I always wanted a Mindslaver effect in cube on top of another fattie, and Emrakul 2.0 delivered on both ends. I love how each Eldrazi Titan have different forms of "protection," makes it so that you have different answers for each of them.
I think I like Emrakul 2.0 a hair more than Ulamog 2.0 due to the cost reduction, but they are extremely close in power and can't imagine cubing without both of them.
I haven't had the chance to try the new Emrakul yet, I never pulled one during drafts. I'm currently running Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger and Kozilek Butcher of Truth, and I've been pretty happy with both but after all of this praise for new Emrakul I'm thinking I should give her a try. Maybe old Kozilek should be the cut?
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I haven't had the chance to try the new Emrakul yet, I never pulled one during drafts. I'm currently running Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger and Kozilek Butcher of Truth, and I've been pretty happy with both but after all of this praise for new Emrakul I'm thinking I should give her a try. Maybe old Kozilek should be the cut?
I like this cut. Kozilek is the best OG Eldrazi, IMO, but non-reanimation clause really hurts it.
Thanks for the tips on the cut, with any luck I should be able to trade for a copy of new Emrakul soon to make the swap. Now let's move on to today's card.
Gideon is a tank, literally. High loyalty count, has a +2 ability to ramp up the loyalty even higher, can snipe creatures, and crashes in for 6. It's too bad his 0 ability doesn't have indestructibility clause like the other Gideons, but this was his first iteration and that gives him some sort of weakness since this is arguably his strongest version.
Since the Amonkhet update, I'm currently playing 4 iterations of Gideon / Liliana / Nissa (3 planeswalkers + 1 flipwalker). Wouldn't mind a new Jace or Chandra, but I'd rather get some new names or a return of a planeswalker that only has one (cubable) iteration like Ral Zarek / Dack / Nicol Bolas.
I'll echo steve's 'Gideon is a tank.' Just brutal. It's a cool control finisher. There are a few folks I draft with who are obsessed with superfriends, and last week my whole approach against one of the decks was to make sure Gideon didn't resolve.
I have plenty of Gideons in the cube now. I'm passing on 3-mana Gid for now because of it. I don't want my planeswalker count in cube to go any higher than 30/450. I think I'll be at 27 after I get my Amonkhet update, and that's even starting to feel a little crowded. I don't care to see more Gideons or Lilianas for a while, and most of the Jace iterations are very boring. Both Kioras are pretty bland, and UG Nissa has that spot locked up anyway.
I'd love to see a new Nicol Bolas, especially if they could figure out a way to have it be a tribrid rather than a true 3 color card. I'd like to see better options for BG walkers. Apex Predator and Vraska are both underwhelming for cube.
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Another vote for "Gideon is a tank". Dude just shows up and changes the game every time.
I would love for them to take a block off from Jace & Co. and just do a side story with five totally different walkers. Then start to have those characters sprinkle in to the main story where it makes the most impact. At minimum have a side group that has to fight Ashiok or something tangentially related.
Gideon Jura is one of the top 10 cards in white. Unless you are capping walkers, you should run him. And if you are capping walkers, he should probably still be in there.
I am uninterested in any more variations of walkers that already have at least two cards. Give us some new blood.
A good tool or even bomb for control and midrange decks for all reasons mentioned. I do think the original is now only the second best Gideon, and not as powerful as he once was when creatures were weaker. Still a great card.
Gideon Jura is a monster card in white, and it's good in pretty much every shell that can reliably cast it.
I'd love to see good versions of planeswalkers that don't have any other good versions to play with. I'm tired of seeing the same planeswalkers represented set after set, and it's starting to impact their cubeability.
No white card pulls me into control quite like Gideon Jura. It's repeatable removal that protects you from your opponent's entire board, then starts attacking for the win.
That said, they've clearly run out of ideas for what to do with him, so I hope the latest Gideon is the last. I'm looking forward to seeing a new, playable Tybalt, and then some new planeswalkers in future expansions.
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Duplicant is pretty solid, It's expensive but exiling is sweet and the artifact synergies are great. I like having it around because it works in a lot of the recursion shells.
A 1 drop 2/x that doesn't suck or more colorless aggressive creatures. The more colorless aggressive support, the less pressure you need to put on individual colors to support aggro.
I think Duplicant is better the slower the cube is. In general, midrange slugfest cubes that are in bomb-topdeck wars will get a lot of mileage out of Duplicant, since you'll always have a big target for it.
I would also like more good colorless aggro creatures. The ones playable in aggressive decks are few and far between.
Won't be doing any prereleases, no.
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I'm inclined to agree that tokens decks don't really need Bombardment to be good, and aggro decks usually would rather have another burn spell or beater. This means it's only worth running in decks that need a 0 mana sac outlet, like Reveillark combo and Muzzio's Preparations combo. I pulled Muzzio's Preparations combo when I de-Conspiracied my cube a while back, and Reveillark combo doesn't appear to be a good enough reason to run this on its own, so I'm planning on cutting Bombardment in my next update.
I did midnight prerelease last night and 2 events at my LGS today. I got run over by aggro decks in the midnight event, but today I went 4-0 in the first event and 3-1 in the second with decks I didn't feel had any business getting there.
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Emrakul, the Promised End
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My group is very casual and this card had some feel-badness to it. So I ultimately cut it. The other Eldrazi are similarly sledgehammer-like, so I suspect none of them would be welcome in my meta. As far as flavor goes, I like the idea of annihilator. So Kozilek, Butcher of Truth is the one I wanted to run. But Annihilator 4 is just too strong. I did try Artisan of Kozilek, but it was too expensive and without protection, evasion or all that great of an ETB effect it simply wasn't good enough. Which is unfortunate because Annihilator 2 is probably something that wouldn't auto-win the game if it landed one time.
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I think I like Emrakul 2.0 a hair more than Ulamog 2.0 due to the cost reduction, but they are extremely close in power and can't imagine cubing without both of them.
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Emrakul 2.0 is quite good, and I prefer it to the original for cube. My favorite Eldrazi is probably Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger.
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I like this cut. Kozilek is the best OG Eldrazi, IMO, but non-reanimation clause really hurts it.
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Gideon Jura
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Since the Amonkhet update, I'm currently playing 4 iterations of Gideon / Liliana / Nissa (3 planeswalkers + 1 flipwalker). Wouldn't mind a new Jace or Chandra, but I'd rather get some new names or a return of a planeswalker that only has one (cubable) iteration like Ral Zarek / Dack / Nicol Bolas.
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I have plenty of Gideons in the cube now. I'm passing on 3-mana Gid for now because of it. I don't want my planeswalker count in cube to go any higher than 30/450. I think I'll be at 27 after I get my Amonkhet update, and that's even starting to feel a little crowded. I don't care to see more Gideons or Lilianas for a while, and most of the Jace iterations are very boring. Both Kioras are pretty bland, and UG Nissa has that spot locked up anyway.
I'd love to see a new Nicol Bolas, especially if they could figure out a way to have it be a tribrid rather than a true 3 color card. I'd like to see better options for BG walkers. Apex Predator and Vraska are both underwhelming for cube.
EDH: UGEdric
Pauper: UR Delver
Modern: UGR Delver
Draft my cube: Eric's 390 Unpowered
I would love for them to take a block off from Jace & Co. and just do a side story with five totally different walkers. Then start to have those characters sprinkle in to the main story where it makes the most impact. At minimum have a side group that has to fight Ashiok or something tangentially related.
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I am uninterested in any more variations of walkers that already have at least two cards. Give us some new blood.
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I'd love to see good versions of planeswalkers that don't have any other good versions to play with. I'm tired of seeing the same planeswalkers represented set after set, and it's starting to impact their cubeability.
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That said, they've clearly run out of ideas for what to do with him, so I hope the latest Gideon is the last. I'm looking forward to seeing a new, playable Tybalt, and then some new planeswalkers in future expansions.
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Duplicant
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What kind of artifact creature would you like to see printed next?
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A 1 drop 2/x that doesn't suck or more colorless aggressive creatures. The more colorless aggressive support, the less pressure you need to put on individual colors to support aggro.
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I would also like more good colorless aggro creatures. The ones playable in aggressive decks are few and far between.
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!