That's a big boi. Kind of like it for Reanimator as a discard outlet / back up win condition. Being a zombie is always good. Seems testable, those stats are too hard to ignore. The drawback gets worse over time, but it's not a drawback later in the game, which shouldn't be too hard for an aggro deck.
EDIT: Over the initial shock of those stats. For three mana those stats are pretty spicy. Zero evasion is a problem, but it might be a problem I'm willing to swallow for a turn three 7/6. The WCS with this card is they have an infinite string of tokens and you get stonewalled and lose your hand. But you can sideboard this out in token match ups.
Discard any of the million recursive black aggro creatures you're playing with this. Discard Life from the Loam, dredge it, fill you hand with lands to discard. Discard Griselbrand. All sorts of uses here.
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I think this card is absurd. I think the only black 3cmc creature I like more than it is Ophiomancer. And those cards are very different. In most of my black decks, it's very easy to mitigate the downside. Either abusing it with reanimator or discarding cards like Bloodghast and
Gravecrawler.
Sure it can be chump-blocked, but it's a also three turn clock. We don't get creatures like that until what 6cmc?? It even dodges all the red removal and a good chunk of black removal too.
I could be wrong, but I'm very excited to play with this one!
EDIT: Over the initial shock of those stats. For three mana those stats are pretty spicy. Zero evasion is a problem, but it might be a problem I'm willing to swallow for a turn three 7/6. The WCS with this card is they have an infinite string of tokens and you get stonewalled and lose your hand. But you can sideboard this out in token match ups.
There's also the WCS of them letting you discard on your upkeep and then removing this for a 2-for-1. But the list of removal cards that do that at instant speed, even in cube, is pretty narrow. And the discard is often an upside if you're doing it just once.
Discarding one card is different than being forced to discard every turn. Black can handle a single discard with eas, but there are not many cube situations where having to discard every single turn is not a significant downside. Over time this is going to eat your resources. Is 7 power on turn three enough to justify that? I think probably. I'm most likely going to test this card. But I don't think we can ignore the drawback just because we are dealing with a black creature.
It gets chump blocked all day by anything that can make 1 token a turn -- and there are lots of those in cube -- but it is tempting. It's nice that this is a large threat that an opponent might not want to use a Control Magic on, too. Plays nice with Black's recursive dudes (it's even a zombie for Gravecrawler!), Reanimator subthemes, and low curves. I may test this over Drana.
Has no evasion and a giagantic downside. Sure you might me able to do some cute tricks with Gravecrawler and Bloodghast, but if you dont have synergy cards at the time the card is hot garbage. Hard pass for me.
Seems sweet in a shell with Gravecrawlers and Hazoret. Or if you support green aggro, Pelt Collector, Rhonas the Indomitable, and Rancor do fun things with this guy.
Seems powerful in decks where you can use the drawback to your advantage. But the drawback can be steep in other spots. Probably worth testing, but I'm not on the hype bandwagon just yet.
Im not a fan of this dino. I think it'll be too risky early in the game and too anemic after you've dumped your hand. This turns all your opponents instant speed kill or bounce into an immediate 2 for 1. Never mind tokens or 187 creatures that are happy to chump block. I think Rotting Regisaur just gives too many chances for your opponent to leverage the steep downside of this card. This reminds me a lot of a 3cc desecration demon with a downside and I haven't cubed that in years.
If i tested this it will be over Oona's prowler since they both sort of play in this discard/aggro space. This has a bigger punch but no evasion, but I am never happy to play Oona in my aggro decks since if you cast her you opponents can buy so much time by discarding to stem the bleeding till they stabilize. This might be better since they would at least have to cast a spell or block to mitigate this guy, but he also makes a much worse discard outlet since casting him and having him removed before you can discard something will also feel bad whereas Oona you can discard what you need at instant speed. If others try this and it ends up playing better than it looks I will try the swap, but now that I have written my thoughts out here, I am not certain this is better
I'm curious to see if this gets there on power level alone, but personally I'm passing on this simply due to the fact it's uninteresting gameplay and synergy-wise, it has no interesting deck building applications outside being a discard outlet, which black has plenty of already.
This slightly edges ahead of Master of the Feast for me. Trades evasion for bigger stats and card advantage for your opponent for card disadvantage for you. In certain decks the discard will work to your favor, but in certain decks the evasion would have been more welcome. This is actually a decent topdeck whereas Master of the Feast is less so in my opinion since the discard ability means nothing if you are in topdeck mode. Still, narrowly surpassing Master of the Feast isn't going to be enough. Removal is so strong in cube, that even these insanely pushed stats can't justify running a vanilla creature with a card disadvantage drawback and no evasion. I like the card though and hope to see more huge risk, huge reward cards in black.
I’m salivating thinking about T1 Ritual into this guy, or T1 elves into him on T2. I can’t wait to play this guy. Plays around Wildfire super well and just beats face.
This card is bonkers. There's already some great Cube cards that incentivise you emptying your hand as fast as possible (Hazoret, Wheel, Scroll) and this fits great alongside them. I've enjoyed Heir of Falkenrath as a card that's decent in both aggro and reanimator, and while this is a turn slower for reanimator, it's actually better there because it's a threat that requires answering by itself! 7/6 is just absurd for so little mana, a token generator on the opposing end will happen often but even then the WCS isn't close to something like Master of the Feast. Discarding yourself isn't nearly as big a deal as letting the opponent draw cards. Possibly the perfect Black 3-drop.
Just cubed today and this card got played in a BU Aggro deck. Only had time for 2 rounds, but this card singlehandedly won the first round VS artifact ramp by surviving wildfire and just being a super fast clock, and it was great alongside Phantasmal Image and Pack Rat. Round 2 was against WB aggro with Bitterblossom, Lingering Souls, some single target removal, and two token producing planeswalkers. Needless to say, I boarded it out game 2 but I ultimately still won with the help of Smuggler's Copter and Pack Rat. Not sure where that leaves this card, but it felt really strong and incredibly difficult to deal with efficiently, as it lets your wide strategy go tall at the same time. I'd give it a spin if you're on the fence.
I do like how this can fill a lot of slots with just one easily understood sentence. I also think it's being overvalued by some here. The downside is going to be downside pretty often, and other than that it's just big and dumb. Pacifism sure does the trick.
This card will have pretty high variance. Sometimes you are discarding cards you want to discard, and a 7/6 is really relevant. That's great. Sometimes you discard something you are kinda neutral on, and their Cast Down is a two for one. Sometimes they have Fog Bank (or similar) and the discard used to be just fine, but now it's a huge problem.
I don't think this is a recipe for success in small cubes. It's plenty good enough for mine though.
I play a madness and graveyard theme cube so this is perfect. The discard clause is arguably a bonus just because of how many cards it can be favorably paired with in my cube:
Basking Rootwalla
Arrogant wurm
Reckless Wurm
Fiery Temper
Bloodghast
Gravecrawler
Asylum Visitor
Ichorid
Faithless looting
Lingering Souls
Stromkirk Occultist
Flamewake Phoenix
Unburial Rites
Dreg Mangler
Plenty of recursion theme in the cube as well so even if it's not discarding something that actively wants to be discarded on its own, tons of reanimator effects so pair with it.
That's a big boi. Kind of like it for Reanimator as a discard outlet / back up win condition. Being a zombie is always good. Seems testable, those stats are too hard to ignore. The drawback gets worse over time, but it's not a drawback later in the game, which shouldn't be too hard for an aggro deck.
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EDIT: Over the initial shock of those stats. For three mana those stats are pretty spicy. Zero evasion is a problem, but it might be a problem I'm willing to swallow for a turn three 7/6. The WCS with this card is they have an infinite string of tokens and you get stonewalled and lose your hand. But you can sideboard this out in token match ups.
For sellout aggro, there might not be a hand to discard by upkeep of T4. I think this definitely deserves a test.
Similar to master of feast, but discarding is less of a drawback then opponent drawing.
However a 7/6 is much worse than a 5/5 flyer when Theres a cumulative downside.
Most of my black Agro decks generate value in some way and aren’t all in.
He’d be good if you could consistently get hell bent, but my Agro decks tend to run multiple 4 drops.
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Gravecrawler.
Sure it can be chump-blocked, but it's a also three turn clock. We don't get creatures like that until what 6cmc?? It even dodges all the red removal and a good chunk of black removal too.
I could be wrong, but I'm very excited to play with this one!
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It's not.
I want 5 of these.
There's also the WCS of them letting you discard on your upkeep and then removing this for a 2-for-1. But the list of removal cards that do that at instant speed, even in cube, is pretty narrow. And the discard is often an upside if you're doing it just once.
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Being a discard outlet is ok but I dont think I really want it in reanimater, seems like more of a agro curve topper.
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It seems like it definitely has potential but I think time will tell. The zombie type is definitely a pro with Gravecrawler.
While kind of a weird swap, I could maybe see cutting Drana, Liberator of Malakir.
But again, I'm finding this card hard to evaluate so that might be a terrible decision too.
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This card will have pretty high variance. Sometimes you are discarding cards you want to discard, and a 7/6 is really relevant. That's great. Sometimes you discard something you are kinda neutral on, and their Cast Down is a two for one. Sometimes they have Fog Bank (or similar) and the discard used to be just fine, but now it's a huge problem.
I don't think this is a recipe for success in small cubes. It's plenty good enough for mine though.
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