I think it's crazy talk to cut Tusk. Other people wouldn't rank it as high but I think it's the most versatile green 5 drop creature in the Cube. Plus it's a splashable card in a color with the fewest number of quality splash cards. I love Tusk.
Booze is pretty close with Whisperwood as LV mentioned. I like the wrath protection afforded by that card, which bolsters midrange's weakness, and paying 0 rather than 1GGG for additional creatures is also a thing. The manifest ability is also non-negligible. It can't make them on demand though and won't grow like Booze. I would like to find space alongside Tusk, Gearhulk and Slime, but it could be tough. Rather like the white 5 slot we are spoiled for choice.
I'm gonna test the card, but not excitedly. As just a pair of 3/3s for 3GG this is super low value. The card is killable by everything, including all burn spells. So yes, you gain a 2-for-1 against them if they burn out the main ooze, but it is a super bad tempo play as they have probably spent 1-2 mana and you spent 5. If he survives, the tokens grow, but that is still probably worse than Whisperwood Elemental for multiple reasons. Yet my experience with WE was terrible so a slightly better version is still probably not good enough.
All that is to say that I'd be very sad to play it in a deck without a real viability of using the activated ability at least once a game. That decks needs to be heavy green and ramp hard. Such decks obviously exist in the cube, and it has great synergy with Cradle, Rofellos and co. But it will not be a good midrange card, not is it worthy of cheat/ETB abuse. Reminds me of Polukranos - has an almost acceptable floor without sinking extra mana into it, but becomes much better in certain archetyes because it is a mana sink.
Gearhulk has been a bomb here and I don't think this card is as good as the Hulk. Hulk has a much higher initial impact, doesn't require extra mana to be good and is strong enough to be cheated/reanimated as everything is self-contained.
My initial estimation is that it is going to be #5 green 5 drop.
About the same level as Whisperwood Elemental, love that I get the +1/+1 counters at the end of my turn. At 720, I definitely have room for this, might even keep it alongside WE.
All that is to say that I'd be very sad to play it in a deck without a real viability of using the activated ability at least once a game. That decks needs to be heavy green and ramp hard. Such decks obviously exist in the cube, and it has great synergy with Cradle, Rofellos and co. But it will not be a good midrange card, not is it worthy of cheat/ETB abuse. Reminds me of Polukranos - has an almost acceptable floor without sinking extra mana into it, but becomes much better in certain archetyes because it is a mana sink.
I fully agree that most of the time you want to play this in a heavy green deck (2 power synergies + ooze tribal + clones are an exception).
But, at least in my cube with excellent fixing, multi color green decks have an abundance of 5 drops to chose from, because they have access to the 5 drops of the other colors as well. Red and white are super stacked @ 5. Black and blue are light, but tend to go "bigger" than 5 CMC well naturally..
The restrictive cost of it's ability is a thing, but don't think it's a make or break with the card. It's very rare for decks that can cast 3GG comfortably to have less than 8-9 green sources anyway, which will still be able to activate it's ability >50% of the time on curve.
I'm pretty happy to run a card that has very high upside in Rofellos/Cradle decks, that is a "meh" 22-25th playable in 2+ color midrange decks...
Two 3/3 blockers is probably the minimum I'd accept for a 5 mana card in green, if there are other perks available. So, it meets that basic threshold. But what else does it have?
It's recruitable, 'larkable, grows, and provides a mana sink to make tokens. This is a card that can win the game, but still gives a little value if removed. It's maybe not as specialized to any particular task as some other cards, but when a card is this "busy" it gets my attention. I think it's absolutely worth testing.
I forgot that I also still have Kalonian Hydra in the cube, and I'm starting to think that's the cut for this instead of Verdurous Gearhulk.
Yeah, If I do make a cut, Hydra will be it. Gearhulk is flexible, usually impactful even if it gets killed right away, and the two fill a similar role, Gearhulk just does it better more often than not.
That said, I'm not quite on the hype train for this. This is super easy to kill and if they have instant speed removal you're getting a 2/2 for 3GG (that also baited your opponent's removal, but still...). The token making ability is costly and color-intensive. Also the +1/+1 counters stop if the OG ooze is killed. In my cube, without fast mana or Gaea's cradle, I'm not 100% sold on this guy. Even comparing it with Hydra, I'm not certain this wins...Hydra doesn't go wide, but it has built in evasion and swings for 8, 16, etc. If my opponent has a couple midsize blockers, ooze is stymied for a bit longer. Hydra doesn't provide any value against removal, but I'm not sure that's worth the precipitous drop in total power.
Edit: Unfortunately the Hydra and ooze actually have incredible synergy, but only one can stay....
This card interests me as well. The ability rewards heavy-green builds and worth noting there are already two very solid cube staple Oozes - Acidic Slime and Scavenging Ooze. Experiment One is also an Ooze, for those of us running green aggro.
Seems at minimum testable though I'm not sure what it would push out.
My gut says that it's worse than Kalonian Hydra, though I do have a soft spot for that card. Red burn has trouble dealing with Hydra the turn it comes down, but can remove this Ooze, leaving only a 2/2 Ooze, but totally worthless against Hydra. The ooze is obviously better if your opponent just blasts it with a kill spell instantly, so it's floor is higher, but the lack of evasion, and substantially smaller growth compared to the Hydra means the ceiling is much lower. Hydra also operates independently, but Ooze wants you to dump mana into it to be at maximum effectiveness; which is fine if you're flooded, but there are definitely going to be times, I feel, where you don't have mana to spare. Also it encourages you to spend mana on your turn, before the EoT trigger, and it's a triple green activation cost, so the whole thing has me somewhat leery.
I think if you are playing the big mana cards like mana reflection and wake this is a great choice. I love cards that are good on curve but can consume a zillion mana if you have that.
In my experience the best green decks just play a bunch of one and two drop accelerants and ramp into a turn 4 craterhoof or primus for immediate ggs.
That's why green sun zenith is so great because it gets both the rofellos or llanowar elf and the craterhoof.
4 or 5s like this or Master of the Wild Hunt are a little suboptimal because they dont win the game.
The more I think about it, the more I tend to agree with this. I wish green had another angle other than ramp, but the midrangey green creatures like Master of the Wild Hunt and Polukranos, World Eater under perform, especially in powered cube. I don't know what my dream green 4 or 5 would even look like.
My dream green 4 exists and it's called Oracle of Mul Daya. Although 3 extra toughness wouldn't hurt that card :).
Another one that I think will be hard to beat is Garruk Wildspeaker. I expect both of those cards to still be in cube in ten years while a card like this will almost certainly not be.
I agree Oracle and Garruk at great green 4s. I should have clarified that I'm curious about green 4s that don't shine brightest in ramp would look like.
Yeah. Basically I think green is just a pretty one dimensional color with Ramp being clearly much stronger than green aggro.
Not really convinced green aggro is worth supporting as red, white and even black do it better, while no other color can even begin to touch green's ramp potential.
In this context, I think Biogenic Ooze is fine but definitely very medium. I think it may be worth it at 540+ but no smaller.
Not really convinced green aggro is worth supporting as red, white and even black do it better, while no other color can even begin to touch green's ramp potential.
I wrote a discussion on green aggro a while back. It's hard to support in large cubes right now because there are not enough good early drops, and small (360) cubes don't have the space. but one of the benefits to running aggro in GRWB is that you can get away with running fewer in each color since you basically need to be able to have so many 1 drops but it doesn't matter which 2 colors you get them from. so it does open a few spots in RWB if you add a little Gaggro
I think it's pretty easy to underestimate the game-winning potential of this card. One of a green deck's big problems is that you can find spots where you have tons of mana and nothing to do with it. In those spots, this card will just win the game without question. Of course that may not be enough, but I think it's the strongest portion of the card. Verdurous Gearhulk and Whisperwood are rarely able to do that.
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I would still put Wolfir on 4. But that might depend on the cube. Wolfir tends to hit incredibly hard in green aggresive midrange builds. Add in some double strike or flying or hasters for double the fun.
The two cards are hard to compare though as they play quite differently.
With including Biogenic Ooze, does Rishkar, Peema Renegade get better? I was never terribly impressed by Rishkar when I played it in other cubes, so I never included it in my cube, but turn 1 elf into turn 2 Rishkar into turn 3 Ooze into turn 4 Woodfall Primus or 2 more Oozes or whatever other big mana play seems tempting.
edit: I've talked myself into it. Since I'm also adding Rhythm of the Wild in this update, I think there's a Gruul deck somewhere with Rishkar, Rhythm of the Wild, Biogenic Ooze, Scavenging Ooze, Legion Warboss, Tireless Tracker, Walking Ballista, and Stromkirk Noble. Playing beatdown while also ramping. I don't know if it will be good, but I'm excited about the possibility of a new Archetype.
With including Biogenic Ooze, does Rishkar, Peema Renegade get better? I was never terribly impressed by Rishkar when I played it in other cubes, so I never included it in my cube, but turn 1 elf into turn 2 Rishkar into turn 3 Ooze into turn 4 Woodfall Primus or 2 more Oozes or whatever other big mana play seems tempting.
Rishkar was rarely more than a 3 cmc elf for us, and I don't think the presence of this card makes Rishkar so much better that he gets worthy of inclusion (we're at 450).
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Yeah, that's always been my issue with Rishkar, as well. All of Green's 1s and 2s already ramp, so Rishkar didn't help. I've been thinking about it a lot today, though, and talked myself into testing Rishkar with this update (looks like you posted just as I edited my last post lol). I'm going to see if a +1/+1 counter theme in Gruul exists in my cube. but I realize I may find myself underwhelmed again by some of those cards.
I think Rishkar is an interesting dude to bring up. Some of my friends swear by him, but I never saw him do too much. Getting more interactions certainly makes him look more promising (actually you just sparked a thought about some of the other new simic cards), but I'm concerned about the sort of deck we're building. Like, yes, I think this card does make him better; the question is, does it matter from a big picture perspective?
Say we go Elf -> Rishkar -> Ooze ; that's setting us up for a turn 4 with 8 mana. Not bad. But, it took us 2 unusual cards to get here. Ooze is appealing to me, but is this the card I want to be playing in a deck where my goal is generate a bunch of mana? Well, it turns out he can generate oozes with mana, so, actually that doesn't strike me as a bad call at all. This deck might also enjoy Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, or Mirari's Wake, and in general seems kinda good in the GW decks that pop up here. GR seems a little different, because I feel like red +1/+1 counters are more of an exception than a rule, and I don't tend to think Stromkirk Noble and Rishkar should really be in the same deck. Using Rhythm of the Wild seems pretty clever, but I feel like you're going to need more than that to make it worthwhile. I'm not yet convinced this will work out.
I have to wonder about how deep I have to cultivate this synergy. How many creatures are going to have counters, and how many of them will I prefer to tap for mana instead of just attacking with them? I suppose with Nissa, Voice of Zendikar, there is maybe a greater appeal for use of tokens for this sort of plan. Ajani Goldmane probably would be nice as well, but I feel like adding him back in would be a compromise, likely pushing out another card that I normally prefer; I think that's too much to ask for just getting added synergy with Rishkar.
I think between +1/+1 counters, tokens and mana ramping, there's some sort of convergence of themes when we look at cards like Biogenic Ooze and Rishkar, Peema Renegade. Worth looking at, but I think before Rishkar has a shot of really being that great of an include, we need to devise a list of cards that make it work. Like, on an individual basis, I think these cards are a hard sell. But, if defined as part of an Archetype package, maybe you can encourage people to examine these themes like some folks like myself have lately been examining Aristocrats.
Curse of Predation would definitely be a slam dunk in a +1/+1 counter package. The bummer for me is a counter theme seems like mostly a green only thing. I'd want to see more support across other colors.
I think it's crazy talk to cut Tusk. Other people wouldn't rank it as high but I think it's the most versatile green 5 drop creature in the Cube. Plus it's a splashable card in a color with the fewest number of quality splash cards. I love Tusk.
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All that is to say that I'd be very sad to play it in a deck without a real viability of using the activated ability at least once a game. That decks needs to be heavy green and ramp hard. Such decks obviously exist in the cube, and it has great synergy with Cradle, Rofellos and co. But it will not be a good midrange card, not is it worthy of cheat/ETB abuse. Reminds me of Polukranos - has an almost acceptable floor without sinking extra mana into it, but becomes much better in certain archetyes because it is a mana sink.
Gearhulk has been a bomb here and I don't think this card is as good as the Hulk. Hulk has a much higher initial impact, doesn't require extra mana to be good and is strong enough to be cheated/reanimated as everything is self-contained.
My initial estimation is that it is going to be #5 green 5 drop.
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I fully agree that most of the time you want to play this in a heavy green deck (2 power synergies + ooze tribal + clones are an exception).
But, at least in my cube with excellent fixing, multi color green decks have an abundance of 5 drops to chose from, because they have access to the 5 drops of the other colors as well. Red and white are super stacked @ 5. Black and blue are light, but tend to go "bigger" than 5 CMC well naturally..
The restrictive cost of it's ability is a thing, but don't think it's a make or break with the card. It's very rare for decks that can cast 3GG comfortably to have less than 8-9 green sources anyway, which will still be able to activate it's ability >50% of the time on curve.
I'm pretty happy to run a card that has very high upside in Rofellos/Cradle decks, that is a "meh" 22-25th playable in 2+ color midrange decks...
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It's recruitable, 'larkable, grows, and provides a mana sink to make tokens. This is a card that can win the game, but still gives a little value if removed. It's maybe not as specialized to any particular task as some other cards, but when a card is this "busy" it gets my attention. I think it's absolutely worth testing.
Yeah, If I do make a cut, Hydra will be it. Gearhulk is flexible, usually impactful even if it gets killed right away, and the two fill a similar role, Gearhulk just does it better more often than not.
That said, I'm not quite on the hype train for this. This is super easy to kill and if they have instant speed removal you're getting a 2/2 for 3GG (that also baited your opponent's removal, but still...). The token making ability is costly and color-intensive. Also the +1/+1 counters stop if the OG ooze is killed. In my cube, without fast mana or Gaea's cradle, I'm not 100% sold on this guy. Even comparing it with Hydra, I'm not certain this wins...Hydra doesn't go wide, but it has built in evasion and swings for 8, 16, etc. If my opponent has a couple midsize blockers, ooze is stymied for a bit longer. Hydra doesn't provide any value against removal, but I'm not sure that's worth the precipitous drop in total power.
Edit: Unfortunately the Hydra and ooze actually have incredible synergy, but only one can stay....
Mirror Entity -> everything is an ooze!
That's why green sun zenith is so great because it gets both the rofellos or llanowar elf and the craterhoof.
4 or 5s like this or Master of the Wild Hunt are a little suboptimal because they dont win the game.
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The more I think about it, the more I tend to agree with this. I wish green had another angle other than ramp, but the midrangey green creatures like Master of the Wild Hunt and Polukranos, World Eater under perform, especially in powered cube. I don't know what my dream green 4 or 5 would even look like.
Another one that I think will be hard to beat is Garruk Wildspeaker. I expect both of those cards to still be in cube in ten years while a card like this will almost certainly not be.
Generally, I think the best roles in green are:
1-2 mana: Ramp (Birds of Paradise, Noble Hierarch, Joraga Treespeaker,
Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary). This slot has a ton of great options that are think are around to stay
for next 10 years.
3-5 mana: card advantage / gas cards, cheating fatties (Tireless Tracker, Oracle of Mul Daya,
Garruk Wildspeaker, Natural Order). I think the best things wizards could do for green is
improve this part of the curve with better versions of marginal cards like Harmonize or
Garruk, Primal Hunter.
6+ mana: top end ramp targets like Craterhoof Behemoth, Primeval Titan and
Woodfall Primus that should win the game. Green has plenty of these, although a better version of
Terastodon or a mono-green version of Dragonlord Atarka would be welcome.
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Not really convinced green aggro is worth supporting as red, white and even black do it better, while no other color can even begin to touch green's ramp potential.
In this context, I think Biogenic Ooze is fine but definitely very medium. I think it may be worth it at 540+ but no smaller.
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I wrote a discussion on green aggro a while back. It's hard to support in large cubes right now because there are not enough good early drops, and small (360) cubes don't have the space. but one of the benefits to running aggro in GRWB is that you can get away with running fewer in each color since you basically need to be able to have so many 1 drops but it doesn't matter which 2 colors you get them from. so it does open a few spots in RWB if you add a little Gaggro
http://www.cubetutor.com/cubeblog/63569
Regular 450 unpowered cube (with some custom cards) - 450 Unpowered
I would still put Wolfir on 4. But that might depend on the cube. Wolfir tends to hit incredibly hard in green aggresive midrange builds. Add in some double strike or flying or hasters for double the fun.
The two cards are hard to compare though as they play quite differently.
I feel compelled to repeat everything I hear
edit: I've talked myself into it. Since I'm also adding Rhythm of the Wild in this update, I think there's a Gruul deck somewhere with Rishkar, Rhythm of the Wild, Biogenic Ooze, Scavenging Ooze, Legion Warboss, Tireless Tracker, Walking Ballista, and Stromkirk Noble. Playing beatdown while also ramping. I don't know if it will be good, but I'm excited about the possibility of a new Archetype.
[180 classic cube]
Rishkar was rarely more than a 3 cmc elf for us, and I don't think the presence of this card makes Rishkar so much better that he gets worthy of inclusion (we're at 450).
Regular 450 unpowered cube (with some custom cards) - 450 Unpowered
[180 classic cube]
Say we go Elf -> Rishkar -> Ooze ; that's setting us up for a turn 4 with 8 mana. Not bad. But, it took us 2 unusual cards to get here. Ooze is appealing to me, but is this the card I want to be playing in a deck where my goal is generate a bunch of mana? Well, it turns out he can generate oozes with mana, so, actually that doesn't strike me as a bad call at all. This deck might also enjoy Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, or Mirari's Wake, and in general seems kinda good in the GW decks that pop up here. GR seems a little different, because I feel like red +1/+1 counters are more of an exception than a rule, and I don't tend to think Stromkirk Noble and Rishkar should really be in the same deck. Using Rhythm of the Wild seems pretty clever, but I feel like you're going to need more than that to make it worthwhile. I'm not yet convinced this will work out.
I have to wonder about how deep I have to cultivate this synergy. How many creatures are going to have counters, and how many of them will I prefer to tap for mana instead of just attacking with them? I suppose with Nissa, Voice of Zendikar, there is maybe a greater appeal for use of tokens for this sort of plan. Ajani Goldmane probably would be nice as well, but I feel like adding him back in would be a compromise, likely pushing out another card that I normally prefer; I think that's too much to ask for just getting added synergy with Rishkar.
I think between +1/+1 counters, tokens and mana ramping, there's some sort of convergence of themes when we look at cards like Biogenic Ooze and Rishkar, Peema Renegade. Worth looking at, but I think before Rishkar has a shot of really being that great of an include, we need to devise a list of cards that make it work. Like, on an individual basis, I think these cards are a hard sell. But, if defined as part of an Archetype package, maybe you can encourage people to examine these themes like some folks like myself have lately been examining Aristocrats.