I kinda like this card. A 1-shot Birds of Paradise isn't great, but I think the Goose is a lot more than that. It will play more like a Jeweled Amulet than a regular mana dork; costing 2 mana to "recharge" it, but being able to produce colors of mana you don't already have. Plus, it gives you the ability to stockpile Food tokens, which can be valuable as artifacts for certain decks, and can also be an absolute menace for aggro decks to try and outrace. There will be matchups where you can steal games with a handful of Food tokens. Lastly, I like how it fares against Bolts. The old adage of "Bolt the Bird" stands true with this card as well, but it will leave a Food behind when they do so. Something that will be meaningful in matchups where they're playing Bolts.
I don't think this will crack smaller cube lists, but I do expect it to perform well in larger lists that can find room for it after all the usual suspects are included. I plan to test it in my cube, and expect it to play relatively well.
I like this card a fair bit. I also plan to test it and be surprised if it doesn't stick.
Any color fixing, temporary ramp, minor value through removal , multiple permanents, solid chump blocker, that's all pretty great for 1 mana.
I expect it to be competitive with the lower tier elfs.
Also, I expect Oro to make my cube, which means there could be a few cubeable sources of food, which makes both cards better.
I don't think saying a card plays like Jeweled Amulet makes me wanna play that card lol.
I think this is worse than every other 1 mana elf that can make colored mana, is maybe worse than boreal druid, and is behind like 6-8 of the 2 mana ramp creatures. I like that it blocks tokens well, but I don't like basically anything else about it. Getting a mana only every other turn after the first activation is not where I want to be. Unless your cube has some way to abuse the tokens (beyond the usual mono-brown deck, as this is not where that deck wants to be), this is an easy pass for me.
I guess it's nice that it gives you something to do when you don't need its mana or another 2 mana, but if you get to that point in a green deck and aren't crushing it feels like gaining even 20+ life will be fairly irrelevant.
I pretty much agree with everything wtwlf said in the OP. 1 mana things that make mana are exceptionally powerful and rare (these days). I'll be playing this alongside every other 1 mana elf ever printed (all the way down to Boreal Druid, Avacyn's Pilgrim, and Elves of Deep Shadow).
This may only be 75% of an actual mana dork in the early game, but its 500% better as a topdeck as games go long.
I pretty much agree with everything wtwlf said in the OP. 1 mana things that make mana are exceptionally powerful and rare (these days). I'll be playing this alongside every other 1 mana elf ever printed (all the way down to Boreal Druid, Avacyn's Pilgrim, and Elves of Deep Shadow).
This may only be 75% of an actual mana dork in the early game, but its 500% better as a topdeck as games go long.
500% of 0 is still 0 =P.
Sure, this is better than elves on turn 8. It's still bad on turn 8. And it's way worse on turn 1. I am fully unimpressed with this creature.
Being able to cast a 3 drop on turn 2 is THE clutch ability that ramp elves give green. This does that just fine. If you don't have a good turn 2 play, you can just make another Food and stockpile for later in the game. This card is definitely the worst 1 drop mana dork, but it's still a 1 drop mana dork.
I think this card is better than Joraga Treespeeker... *ducks*
Being able to cast a 3 drop on turn 2 is THE clutch ability that ramp elves give green. This does that just fine. If you don't have a good turn 2 play, you can just make another Food and stockpile for later in the game. This card is definitely the worst 1 drop mana dork, but it's still a 1 drop mana dork.
I think this card is better than Joraga Treespeeker... *ducks*
Ok now we're fighting =P
Edit - And I think being a turn ahead for every turn past 1 is a pretty important part of the mana elves.
Treespeaker is great in that it can get you to 5 mana on turn three all by itself, it it's also a giant lightning rod and forces you to play on curve until turn three, something my green decks are bummed to have to do. I run it, and I think it's fine, but he eats removal in response to the first level up WAY more often than I'm comfortable with. It always sucks to have your "bird bolted", but Treespeaker exacerbates that to the Nth degree and gives your opponent a juicy window to take a dump right in your mouth on turn 2. Goose on the other hand, does exactly what I want my dorks to do 90% of the time: ramp me into a three drop on turn 2. Treespeaker's floor is almost unacceptably low, and he will likely be my cut for Goose.
EDIT: I went too far saying I was going to cut Treespeaker. I think it's worse than the Goose, but still a notch above some of the premium 2 cmc ramp creatures.
I don't like the Goose over most traditional mana dorks besides fringe things like Elves of Deep Shadow / Boreal Druid, but it is a nice supplement to them. Might add the goose if I can find room. I like the incidental lifegain and being able to churn out permanents for Smokestack / Braids / 4-cmc Vraska fodder is nice. Being able to wall 1/1 flyers is also huge for green. Not only does this block Lingering Souls tokens all day, but it can mitigate the damage with food over time.
I really don't see it - it goes against what I mostly want to be doing in green, and life gain is nearly always not good enough. If you aren't getting bigger dudes or hitting face with green you are losing no matter what this bird does.
This has some interesting tradeoffs with Mana elves.
You get flying and an extra toughness - good against 1/1 tokens including spirits.
You get color fixing.
You get the ability to ramp for two or even three mana of any color if you invest additional mana into it early.
Potential life gain/artifact synergy
in exchange you lose
the ability to ramp more than once without investing additional mana.
attacking capability
If the bird is killed and you have nothing to cast you are left with food which barring some additional cubeable cards that synergize with food (beyond Oko) is not great. Getting hit with removal in response to investing extra mana in food is pretty painful.
All in all, I think this is probably worth swapping out one of the Llanowar Elf variants for a test. This does ramp AND fix, even if only once and unlike BOP if this gets killed you still got some minimal value. Also, if left unchecked for turn 1 and 2 it will ramp AND fix twice. What other 1 drop can do the same? I know consistency is king in cube, but the heightened ceiling for this card helps balance out the floor.
Only activating the goose once before needing to sink mana into it is a big deal. It will come up a lot and there are times you will wish it was a llanowar elf. I know this from my experience with deathrite shaman in cube.
However, I can't stress enough how big of a deal fixing ANY color of mana is versus just green. Birds of Paradise and hierarch are soooooo much better than llanowar elfs because of that.
I think less frequent activations is almost worth fixing for any color of mana.
We've also never played with an 0/2 flying card! The extra point of toughness will come up more than is obvious. Birds of paradise has been a crucial chump blocker against a flying KO more times than I can count. Gilded goose blocks better than any elf.
While I don't know if it's slightly better or slightly worse than llanowar elf , I'm certain it's very close and serves the same roll... The 1 cmc elves are the backbone of green creature strategies, and I don't mind increasing redundancy of them.
All in all, I think this is probably worth swapping out one of the Llanowar Elf variants for a test.
Don't cut a 1 mana dork! Cut a 2 mana dork or, if you are still running them Kodama's Reach/Cultivate. Cheap ramp is amazing and green's single greatest strength
I'm intrigued by the recent sea-change regarding Kodama's Reach and Cultivate. Cultic Cube just put out a video that says the same thing. These cards have been generally agreed upon for a long while, but seems like they might be turning into Sacred Cows. I guess I haven't been wowed by them either, but I think they're generally fine. Since this card also can fix this does seem like a good choice to replace one of them with if I'm going to try that.
It's weird to me that people are so hype on this cause it can fix any color, but cultivate and reach do it for 2 colors for forever lol. I think they are WAY Better than this birb.
It's weird to me that people are so hype on this cause it can fix any color, but cultivate and reach do it for 2 colors for forever lol. I think they are WAY Better than this bird.
Why play cultivate when you could play Nissa's Renewal?? that way you get 3 lands at once AND 7 life!!
Sorry for the troll comment, but one spell costs 3 times as many as the other, it's not a remotely fair comparison.
Although elves might frequently be indistinguishable from other ramp spells on later turns, I think the potential for a turn 1 play is significant enough to put them in a class above cultivate etc. It's probably what I'd side out for the test period, anyway.
Being able to cast a 3 drop on turn 2 is THE clutch ability that ramp elves give green. This does that just fine. If you don't have a good turn 2 play, you can just make another Food and stockpile for later in the game.
This is actually a really good observation IMO; if I keep something like: Goose, 2-drop, 4-drop, 4 lands, I may not be immediately activating goose. I've had plenty of games with turn 1 elf -> turn 2 don't actually spend 3 mana; I don't think it's impossible it'll turn out to be just good enough. But, I would like to see more ways to get him going, because I could just as well see like 50% of the time my players whining about how "any other elf" would have won them the game.
I don't think this can stand up to the best 1-drop or 2-drop ramp mana dorks. Nevertheless, it does do a lot of things.
- It taps for any color on T2, which no other 1-drop dork does other than Birds of Paradise (which is still better).
- It produces artifact tokens.
- You can gain life in a pinch. This won't come up most of the time, but when it matters, it'll likely be the difference between dying and winning at 2 life.
- It blocks thopter tokens, and chump blocks Baneslayers.
- It carries equipment very well, particularly swords that it can cast on turn 2.
BUT you don't always cast this on turn one, and it doesn't consistently ramp you like every other dork. Tapping for 5 on turn 4 can be just as important as tapping for 3 on turn 2.
All in all, I doubt this will be good enough for really tight cubes, but if you want a more interesting, more versatile dork than your basic Elvish Mystic, this seems like a solid choice. It rewards skillful play a lot more than most dorks. Personally, I'm not interested in playing Llanowar Elves AND Fyndhorn Elves AND Elvish Mystic AND Arbor Elf. A little variety is nice.
How is this goose looking as we enter 2021? I still see him pop up in lists and will admit I never tried him myself.
Do the people running him generally like him more, as much, or less than other one drop ramp spells? He looks to me like the next best 1 drop "elf" to add after all the traditional 1 mana mana dorks, but it does not seem worth cutting any of them for him to me when he only works every other turn or so. Which means for my 540 cube, he is currently on tbe outside looking in, although I'm still interested to hear what people think.
We already have 9 1 mana mana dorks that tap for mana. If you count Joraga Treespeaker then we have ten.
I think 1 mana dorks are great and I would add any bird/elf variants into my cube but I think people are forgetting we have also have Wild Growth and Utopia Sprawl that function almost ideally to elves.
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I like Gilded Goose well enough. Not being able to go 3-drop into 4-drop like other elves can is a real downside, but gaining life off the food late-game comes up often enough,that it's a nice benefit. Synergies with Oko, Thief of Crowns is also nice if you include Oko.
I like Gilded Goose well enough. Not being able to go 3-drop into 4-drop like other elves can is a real downside, but gaining life off the food late-game comes up often enough,that it's a nice benefit. Synergies with Oko, Thief of Crowns is also nice if you include Oko.
I'll add it back into my cube for a second round of testing if the opinions on this forum of Gilded Goose is positive. I find Green's power comes from both its 3 and 4 drops.
I'm not sold on the synergy with oko though - everything works well with Oko.
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Gilded Goose
I kinda like this card. A 1-shot Birds of Paradise isn't great, but I think the Goose is a lot more than that. It will play more like a Jeweled Amulet than a regular mana dork; costing 2 mana to "recharge" it, but being able to produce colors of mana you don't already have. Plus, it gives you the ability to stockpile Food tokens, which can be valuable as artifacts for certain decks, and can also be an absolute menace for aggro decks to try and outrace. There will be matchups where you can steal games with a handful of Food tokens. Lastly, I like how it fares against Bolts. The old adage of "Bolt the Bird" stands true with this card as well, but it will leave a Food behind when they do so. Something that will be meaningful in matchups where they're playing Bolts.
I don't think this will crack smaller cube lists, but I do expect it to perform well in larger lists that can find room for it after all the usual suspects are included. I plan to test it in my cube, and expect it to play relatively well.
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Any color fixing, temporary ramp, minor value through removal , multiple permanents, solid chump blocker, that's all pretty great for 1 mana.
I expect it to be competitive with the lower tier elfs.
Also, I expect Oro to make my cube, which means there could be a few cubeable sources of food, which makes both cards better.
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I think this is worse than every other 1 mana elf that can make colored mana, is maybe worse than boreal druid, and is behind like 6-8 of the 2 mana ramp creatures. I like that it blocks tokens well, but I don't like basically anything else about it. Getting a mana only every other turn after the first activation is not where I want to be. Unless your cube has some way to abuse the tokens (beyond the usual mono-brown deck, as this is not where that deck wants to be), this is an easy pass for me.
I guess it's nice that it gives you something to do when you don't need its mana or another 2 mana, but if you get to that point in a green deck and aren't crushing it feels like gaining even 20+ life will be fairly irrelevant.
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This may only be 75% of an actual mana dork in the early game, but its 500% better as a topdeck as games go long.
500% of 0 is still 0 =P.
Sure, this is better than elves on turn 8. It's still bad on turn 8. And it's way worse on turn 1. I am fully unimpressed with this creature.
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I think this card is better than Joraga Treespeeker... *ducks*
Ok now we're fighting =P
Edit - And I think being a turn ahead for every turn past 1 is a pretty important part of the mana elves.
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and he will likely be my cut for Goose.EDIT: I went too far saying I was going to cut Treespeaker. I think it's worse than the Goose, but still a notch above some of the premium 2 cmc ramp creatures.
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You get flying and an extra toughness - good against 1/1 tokens including spirits.
You get color fixing.
You get the ability to ramp for two or even three mana of any color if you invest additional mana into it early.
Potential life gain/artifact synergy
in exchange you lose
the ability to ramp more than once without investing additional mana.
attacking capability
If the bird is killed and you have nothing to cast you are left with food which barring some additional cubeable cards that synergize with food (beyond Oko) is not great. Getting hit with removal in response to investing extra mana in food is pretty painful.
All in all, I think this is probably worth swapping out one of the Llanowar Elf variants for a test. This does ramp AND fix, even if only once and unlike BOP if this gets killed you still got some minimal value. Also, if left unchecked for turn 1 and 2 it will ramp AND fix twice. What other 1 drop can do the same? I know consistency is king in cube, but the heightened ceiling for this card helps balance out the floor.
However, I can't stress enough how big of a deal fixing ANY color of mana is versus just green. Birds of Paradise and hierarch are soooooo much better than llanowar elfs because of that.
I think less frequent activations is almost worth fixing for any color of mana.
We've also never played with an 0/2 flying card! The extra point of toughness will come up more than is obvious. Birds of paradise has been a crucial chump blocker against a flying KO more times than I can count. Gilded goose blocks better than any elf.
While I don't know if it's slightly better or slightly worse than llanowar elf , I'm certain it's very close and serves the same roll... The 1 cmc elves are the backbone of green creature strategies, and I don't mind increasing redundancy of them.
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Don't cut a 1 mana dork! Cut a 2 mana dork or, if you are still running them Kodama's Reach/Cultivate. Cheap ramp is amazing and green's single greatest strength
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Why play cultivate when you could play Nissa's Renewal?? that way you get 3 lands at once AND 7 life!!
Sorry for the troll comment, but one spell costs 3 times as many as the other, it's not a remotely fair comparison.
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This is actually a really good observation IMO; if I keep something like: Goose, 2-drop, 4-drop, 4 lands, I may not be immediately activating goose. I've had plenty of games with turn 1 elf -> turn 2 don't actually spend 3 mana; I don't think it's impossible it'll turn out to be just good enough. But, I would like to see more ways to get him going, because I could just as well see like 50% of the time my players whining about how "any other elf" would have won them the game.
- It taps for any color on T2, which no other 1-drop dork does other than Birds of Paradise (which is still better).
- It produces artifact tokens.
- You can gain life in a pinch. This won't come up most of the time, but when it matters, it'll likely be the difference between dying and winning at 2 life.
- It blocks thopter tokens, and chump blocks Baneslayers.
- It carries equipment very well, particularly swords that it can cast on turn 2.
BUT you don't always cast this on turn one, and it doesn't consistently ramp you like every other dork. Tapping for 5 on turn 4 can be just as important as tapping for 3 on turn 2.
All in all, I doubt this will be good enough for really tight cubes, but if you want a more interesting, more versatile dork than your basic Elvish Mystic, this seems like a solid choice. It rewards skillful play a lot more than most dorks. Personally, I'm not interested in playing Llanowar Elves AND Fyndhorn Elves AND Elvish Mystic AND Arbor Elf. A little variety is nice.
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Do the people running him generally like him more, as much, or less than other one drop ramp spells? He looks to me like the next best 1 drop "elf" to add after all the traditional 1 mana mana dorks, but it does not seem worth cutting any of them for him to me when he only works every other turn or so. Which means for my 540 cube, he is currently on tbe outside looking in, although I'm still interested to hear what people think.
Should I be giving this card another look?
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I think 1 mana dorks are great and I would add any bird/elf variants into my cube but I think people are forgetting we have also have Wild Growth and Utopia Sprawl that function almost ideally to elves.
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Here are some other articles I've written about fine tuning your cube:
1. Minimum Archetype Support
2. Improving Green Archetypes
3. Improving White Archetypes
4. Matchup Analysis
5. Cube Combos (Work in Progress)
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I'll add it back into my cube for a second round of testing if the opinions on this forum of Gilded Goose is positive. I find Green's power comes from both its 3 and 4 drops.
I'm not sold on the synergy with oko though - everything works well with Oko.
Vintage Cube Cards Explained
Here are some other articles I've written about fine tuning your cube:
1. Minimum Archetype Support
2. Improving Green Archetypes
3. Improving White Archetypes
4. Matchup Analysis
5. Cube Combos (Work in Progress)
Draft my Cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/d8i