This whole block sucks. I'm hoping the RIX-IXL limited format is good because this has not been a good stretch for magic IMO.
I feel the same. I loved Amonkhet (the set, not the block) but nothing since then has excited me. Before that, I'm not even sure what the last set was that really interested me.
I've not been very enticed by Ixalan block, and so I've bought and played little with it. I liked several things about Amonkhet block, but I also disliked a lot of trends that are seeming to continue. Unstable is where it's at for me. Best set in ages.
Away for a couple months so unfortunately won't be able to test for while.. Ranked by my estimated likelyhood will last for 1+ year in my cube.
Some near misses , very few hits... won't surprised if at least one of the cards im not testing turns out to be a sleeper.
99%+
Direfleet Daredevil
Ravenous Chupacabra
35%+
Jadelight Ranger
10%-
Zacama, Final calamity (funsies test)
Not testing but have my eye on: Ranked in aproximate order of interest
Thrashing Brontodon
Azor, the lawbringer
Immortal Sun
Flood of recollection
Skymarcher aspirant (good enough but I run my white 1's a bit different)
Warsail Marauder
Rekindling Pheonix
Journey to eternity
Angrath, the flame chained
Azor's gateway
Nezahal, the primal tide
Some testing (Only three cards, but they all ended up in the same deck, jund midrange):
-Jadelight Ranger was pretty inconsistent. Drawing 2 lands seemed a lot better than exploring 1-2 times, and exploring once felt better than twice, but if you switched the spots up a bit I would have different impressions. Leads me to believe it's not a cube card as that type of inconsistency is no bueno.
-Direfleet Daredevil was inconsistent, but in a better way as the ceiling was higher and pretty great for a 2 drop. There was one game where it was played on curve in a matchup where that deck was the beatdown, and it was fine in that specific spot, and in a few cases it flashed back spells. It definitely seemed borderline-awful to play it on curve, but it seemed worse to do nothing t2 so it was nice to have that option and not feel awful playing a piker like you would with snapcaster in that spot. I don't think this card is 360 material as it's too inconsistent game to game, but I could see running it there too because it's a real ceiling.
-If you know how nekrataal plays, chupacabra is better. First strike is real and the chup sat out of some combat situations where nekrataal would ball out, but the UB match up really illustrated how much better it is to have murder and not terror on a stick. In fact, there was one point where chupacabra was played into a board where the opponent had a black creature and the chupaowner had a nonblack creature, pretty telling to have that happen on the first night. EDIT: Note that we burn draft with small groups, so it's easily possible for a color to be shared in a 2-3 person draft, so it might be more negligible if your starting pool is small in relation to the number of players.
Probably immediately taking out Jadelight Ranger, but I'm pretty happy with the other two. And, honestly, I'm kinda alright having a down year for cube, it's hard enough finding 10 cuts each set that I could use a break with that!
I'm kinda alright having a down year for cube, it's hard enough finding 10 cuts each set that I could use a break with that!
Yeah, It's nice to not have to worry about getting lot's of cards from every set. Easier on the pocket book, that way I can work on the staples I don't have yet. I think between the lack of exciting cube cards, and the change from loging in with twitch, I think the cube community has died down quite a bit from a year ago, So I hope Dominaria has some exciting stuff to talk about in a few months.
I'm kinda alright having a down year for cube, it's hard enough finding 10 cuts each set that I could use a break with that!
Yeah, It's nice to not have to worry about getting lot's of cards from every set. Easier on the pocket book, that way I can work on the staples I don't have yet. I think between the lack of exciting cube cards, and the change from loging in with twitch, I think the cube community has died down quite a bit from a year ago, So I hope Dominaria has some exciting stuff to talk about in a few months.
On top of that, a real percent of the community had no interest in unstable which didn't help anything either.
I actually think this is one of the worst years for magic that we've had in a long time. Maybe I'm not remembering what happened this year correctly, but I'm feeling pretty down about magic as a whole over the past 6 months.
On top of that, a real percent of the community had no interest in unstable which didn't help anything either.
I actually think this is one of the worst years for magic that we've had in a long time. Maybe I'm not remembering what happened this year correctly, but I'm feeling pretty down about magic as a whole over the past 6 months.
Couldn't agree more. Even the new Commander decks were disappointing, and I've loved those in the past. Iconic Masters was like the worst Masters set ever, with very little that was actually Iconic in it. Except for Amonkhet, I haven't been in love with a Magic product since, I don't know, Eternal Masters maybe.
I'm kinda alright having a down year for cube, it's hard enough finding 10 cuts each set that I could use a break with that!
Yeah, It's nice to not have to worry about getting lot's of cards from every set. Easier on the pocket book, that way I can work on the staples I don't have yet. I think between the lack of exciting cube cards, and the change from loging in with twitch, I think the cube community has died down quite a bit from a year ago, So I hope Dominaria has some exciting stuff to talk about in a few months.
On top of that, a real percent of the community had no interest in unstable which didn't help anything either.
I actually think this is one of the worst years for magic that we've had in a long time. Maybe I'm not remembering what happened this year correctly, but I'm feeling pretty down about magic as a whole over the past 6 months.
See, Mark Rosewater is trying to kill magic, and it's working....This video from the professor is funny, but only because it sometimes feels like it's not to far from the truth.
I actually think this is one of the worst years for magic that we've had in a long time.
I think this is especially true from a cube standpoint. We got some good stuff here and there and a couple of true staples, but the last six months of releases have felt especially lackluster. I think this is heavily influenced, at least for me, by Unstable being the end of year promotional new cards release.
With that said, though, I am pretty excited to get some reps in with the few inclusions I'll be adding from Rivals this weekend. Mostly I'm just excited to cube, I guess.
I didn't pull the two rares that I want to test at the prerelease, so I can't report on Dire Fleet Daredevil or Jadelight Ranger in cube, but I can talk a little about the commons and uncommons that I put in.
Skymarcher Aspirant - We ended up putting this in over Dragon Hunter. I'm still running Savannah Lions and I know that's probably the "correct" cut, but it's just such an iconic card that I've been playing with since I started playing Magic 20 years ago. Plus we have a sweet FBB version that I really like. Anyway, this did see play in a UW tempo list, but I don't think Ascend ever happened. That's not really saying anything negative about Ascend as a mechanic, it just didn't come up. Either the Skymarcher didn't show up in the game when Ascend could have happened, or the game was over before it happened.
Grasping Scoundrel - I played him in a BG Aggro prison shell with the black aggro guys, some mana dorks, and a Winter Orb/Tangle Wire package that ended up being really fun to play and really annoying to play against. This dude did what you'd think he does. He got in for two. I swapped him for Tormented Hero. The heroic never would have came up in my games anyway, so this swap was really six of one half dozen of another. Which art do you like better? Go with that one. I think I'll keep this new guy just because he's a new guy.
Ravenous Chupacabra - I had this guy in a mono black control deck with a couple different planeswalkers and literally every single Nekrataal variant that I run in the cube. Chupacabra is probably the rarest uncommon ever. My group open about 40 packs of RIX this weekend between prereleases and winnings and literally only saw one copy of Chupacabra and it wasn't even foil. Also, I played three rounds with this deck and never drew him a single time. Very elusive dude. I imagine he'll do what Nekrataal does. I did lose a match to a reanimator deck where drawing him would have won it for me against the Griselbrand I was facing, so there's that.
And that's about it. Overall happy with the cards put in, but then again, none of them differ too much from the cards I took out, so take that for what it's worth. Here's looking forward to Dominaria for some really sweet cube additions!
Chupacabra is probably the rarest uncommon ever. My group open about 40 packs of RIX this weekend between prereleases and winnings and literally only saw one copy of Chupacabra and it wasn't even foil.
This line of thinking always comes up when there's a chase uncommon (saw it a lot with Fatal Push) and it's always total nonsense.
One -- you opened 120 uncommons, and there's 60 in the set. Getting exactly one isn't unlikely at all.
Two -- you only notice Chupacabra because it's the "chase" uncommon. How many Majestic Heliopterus did you open? How many Highland Lake? They go straight into bulk piles so you have no idea. But whenever the ONE uncommon you want is missing, it's super noteworthy.
Three -- just think about how the packs are made. Look at print sheets. I haven't seen one for RIX uncommons, but what's more likely -- it being the same as every other print sheet since 1996 with equal printing among the same rarity... or there being some conspiracy where WOTC thinks they need to make Chupacabra more scarce because ???reasons??? and make their printing/pack creation significantly more difficult and expensive in order to accomplish that?
(anyway, total aside, back to actual card discussion)
Chupacabra is probably the rarest uncommon ever. My group open about 40 packs of RIX this weekend between prereleases and winnings and literally only saw one copy of Chupacabra and it wasn't even foil.
This line of thinking always comes up when there's a chase uncommon (saw it a lot with Fatal Push) and it's always total nonsense.
One -- you opened 120 uncommons, and there's 60 in the set. Getting exactly one isn't unlikely at all.
Two -- you only notice Chupacabra because it's the "chase" uncommon. How many Majestic Heliopterus did you open? How many Highland Lake? They go straight into bulk piles so you have no idea. But whenever the ONE uncommon you want is missing, it's super noteworthy.
Three -- just think about how the packs are made. Look at print sheets. I haven't seen one for RIX uncommons, but what's more likely -- it being the same as every other print sheet since 1996 with equal printing among the same rarity... or there being some conspiracy where WOTC thinks they need to make Chupacabra more scarce because ???reasons??? and make their printing/pack creation significantly more difficult and expensive in order to accomplish that?
(anyway, total aside, back to actual card discussion)
Wow. Aggressive response to an off handed comment.
I appreciate comments like that, even if not totally warranted. iO is right on all accounts, whether the person he was responding to was asking for it or not. Kind of reminds me of a player I used to play World of Warcraft with by the name iO.
I really hope Ravenous Chupacabra gets a promo with different artwork. I really don't like the artwork, but the power level means I'm going to run it.
Skymarcher Aspirant was great as expected. and I even got to see the ascend trigger in the second game i played against it so i think the upside is going to happen a lot more than some of the other 2/1's. From what I have seen Ascend is much more viable in unpowered which is to be expected with slower decks.
Bishop of Binding was maindecked and went 2-1 in the list it was in. It was great in a boros aggro deck clearing the way for attackers while being able to attack himself the next turn without worry of dying in combat like banisher priest and even fiend hunter have to. great for not laying off the gas.
warkite marauder was awesome in a Bant midrange deck. Was great alongside a walking ballista attacking making a creature a 0/1 and then letting balista kill it. was used along side ezuri, claw of progress to keep reloading the ballista. would have been great with hadana's climb but that was in a different deck.
Hadana's climb was maindecked in my Simic Counters deck with hangarback walker, curse of predation, endless one, etc. it could have been great in many instances but never made it onto the field unfortunately. If you support a +1/+1 counters theme I think it could be a viable option in simic in bigger cubes.
Similar story to Visserdrix: I played him in a WU Midrange/Reveillark deck today. With Jitte, Warkite was insanity, he allowed the Jitte to just shred any creature. I was able to destroy Hero of Bladehold and a Sylvan Advocate with just one counter each. ABSURD.
Very happy, it definitely has a home in both tempo and midrange (and Izzet control shells).
Interested to see how testing for Direfleet Daredevil shakes up. Currently don't plan to cube it, but would love to be proven wrong. Anyone have results with it yet?
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My Cubes - The Busted Cube. A fully functional, almost 100% custom cube. The project started out by asking "What if other colors got cards on the power level of Mana Drain,Ancestral Recall, and Time Walk?" Draft and enjoy!
Yes, I had a RWb aggro deck with it. As a note, this did not happen because I misplayed, I played the Direfleet turn 2 instead of another 2 drop. I would have played it on turn 3 if I had remembered the ability, but I punted.
Anyways, had I played correctly, Direfleet would have been played on turn 3 and I would have flashed back my opponent's Dark Ritual and probably casted my Demonic Tutor for "free".
In this case it pretty much would have been a 2 power FS for 2 that gave you BB when it ETB. Pretty good.
Chupacabra is probably the rarest uncommon ever. My group open about 40 packs of RIX this weekend between prereleases and winnings and literally only saw one copy of Chupacabra and it wasn't even foil.
This line of thinking always comes up when there's a chase uncommon (saw it a lot with Fatal Push) and it's always total nonsense.
One -- you opened 120 uncommons, and there's 60 in the set. Getting exactly one isn't unlikely at all.
Two -- you only notice Chupacabra because it's the "chase" uncommon. How many Majestic Heliopterus did you open? How many Highland Lake? They go straight into bulk piles so you have no idea. But whenever the ONE uncommon you want is missing, it's super noteworthy.
Three -- just think about how the packs are made. Look at print sheets. I haven't seen one for RIX uncommons, but what's more likely -- it being the same as every other print sheet since 1996 with equal printing among the same rarity... or there being some conspiracy where WOTC thinks they need to make Chupacabra more scarce because ???reasons??? and make their printing/pack creation significantly more difficult and expensive in order to accomplish that?
(anyway, total aside, back to actual card discussion)
We do think less common uncommons exist. Rudy, from Alpha Investment, has made a ton of comments about it since SOI release a few years ago. Not every rare and uncommon are print the same according to him and god knows he opens TON of packs. Just look at his YouTube videos and you'll see. We get your point, but don't understand why you need to be rude about it though.
Also, follow us on twitter! @TurnOneMagic
I feel the same. I loved Amonkhet (the set, not the block) but nothing since then has excited me. Before that, I'm not even sure what the last set was that really interested me.
Cheers,
rant
My Cube
CubeCobra: https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/5f5d0310ed602310515d4c32
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My 1570 card cube (no longer updated)
My 415 Peasant+ Artifact and Enchantment Cube
Ever-Expanding "Just throw it in" cube.
Some near misses , very few hits... won't surprised if at least one of the cards im not testing turns out to be a sleeper.
99%+
Direfleet Daredevil
Ravenous Chupacabra
35%+
Jadelight Ranger
10%-
Zacama, Final calamity (funsies test)
Not testing but have my eye on: Ranked in aproximate order of interest
Thrashing Brontodon
Azor, the lawbringer
Immortal Sun
Flood of recollection
Skymarcher aspirant (good enough but I run my white 1's a bit different)
Warsail Marauder
Rekindling Pheonix
Journey to eternity
Angrath, the flame chained
Azor's gateway
Nezahal, the primal tide
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So far in powered environments I think i can pretty safely say I dont think Ascend is going to be a thing.
in 8 instances ascend was only achieved 3 times. the decks just seem too fast.
Hoping to get some testing in unpowered environments where i think ascend will be way more viable.
-Jadelight Ranger was pretty inconsistent. Drawing 2 lands seemed a lot better than exploring 1-2 times, and exploring once felt better than twice, but if you switched the spots up a bit I would have different impressions. Leads me to believe it's not a cube card as that type of inconsistency is no bueno.
-Direfleet Daredevil was inconsistent, but in a better way as the ceiling was higher and pretty great for a 2 drop. There was one game where it was played on curve in a matchup where that deck was the beatdown, and it was fine in that specific spot, and in a few cases it flashed back spells. It definitely seemed borderline-awful to play it on curve, but it seemed worse to do nothing t2 so it was nice to have that option and not feel awful playing a piker like you would with snapcaster in that spot. I don't think this card is 360 material as it's too inconsistent game to game, but I could see running it there too because it's a real ceiling.
-If you know how nekrataal plays, chupacabra is better. First strike is real and the chup sat out of some combat situations where nekrataal would ball out, but the UB match up really illustrated how much better it is to have murder and not terror on a stick. In fact, there was one point where chupacabra was played into a board where the opponent had a black creature and the chupaowner had a nonblack creature, pretty telling to have that happen on the first night. EDIT: Note that we burn draft with small groups, so it's easily possible for a color to be shared in a 2-3 person draft, so it might be more negligible if your starting pool is small in relation to the number of players.
Probably immediately taking out Jadelight Ranger, but I'm pretty happy with the other two. And, honestly, I'm kinda alright having a down year for cube, it's hard enough finding 10 cuts each set that I could use a break with that!
Also, follow us on twitter! @TurnOneMagic
Yeah, It's nice to not have to worry about getting lot's of cards from every set. Easier on the pocket book, that way I can work on the staples I don't have yet. I think between the lack of exciting cube cards, and the change from loging in with twitch, I think the cube community has died down quite a bit from a year ago, So I hope Dominaria has some exciting stuff to talk about in a few months.
http://www.cubetutor.com/cubeblog/63569
On top of that, a real percent of the community had no interest in unstable which didn't help anything either.
I actually think this is one of the worst years for magic that we've had in a long time. Maybe I'm not remembering what happened this year correctly, but I'm feeling pretty down about magic as a whole over the past 6 months.
Also, follow us on twitter! @TurnOneMagic
Couldn't agree more. Even the new Commander decks were disappointing, and I've loved those in the past. Iconic Masters was like the worst Masters set ever, with very little that was actually Iconic in it. Except for Amonkhet, I haven't been in love with a Magic product since, I don't know, Eternal Masters maybe.
Cheers,
rant
My Cube
CubeCobra: https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/5f5d0310ed602310515d4c32
Cube Tutor: http://cubetutor.com/viewcube/1963
See, Mark Rosewater is trying to kill magic, and it's working....This video from the professor is funny, but only because it sometimes feels like it's not to far from the truth.
http://www.cubetutor.com/cubeblog/63569
I think this is especially true from a cube standpoint. We got some good stuff here and there and a couple of true staples, but the last six months of releases have felt especially lackluster. I think this is heavily influenced, at least for me, by Unstable being the end of year promotional new cards release.
With that said, though, I am pretty excited to get some reps in with the few inclusions I'll be adding from Rivals this weekend. Mostly I'm just excited to cube, I guess.
MTGS Average Peasant Cube 2023 Edition
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http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/the-cube-forum/articles-podcasts-and-guides/788112-set-p-review-my-top-20-rivals-of-ixalan-cards-for
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My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
Woo hoo! Finally. I don't envy you writing this one. I don't think more than ~6 even earned a second look from me.
Cheers,
rant
My Cube
CubeCobra: https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/5f5d0310ed602310515d4c32
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Skymarcher Aspirant - We ended up putting this in over Dragon Hunter. I'm still running Savannah Lions and I know that's probably the "correct" cut, but it's just such an iconic card that I've been playing with since I started playing Magic 20 years ago. Plus we have a sweet FBB version that I really like. Anyway, this did see play in a UW tempo list, but I don't think Ascend ever happened. That's not really saying anything negative about Ascend as a mechanic, it just didn't come up. Either the Skymarcher didn't show up in the game when Ascend could have happened, or the game was over before it happened.
Grasping Scoundrel - I played him in a BG Aggro prison shell with the black aggro guys, some mana dorks, and a Winter Orb/Tangle Wire package that ended up being really fun to play and really annoying to play against. This dude did what you'd think he does. He got in for two. I swapped him for Tormented Hero. The heroic never would have came up in my games anyway, so this swap was really six of one half dozen of another. Which art do you like better? Go with that one. I think I'll keep this new guy just because he's a new guy.
Ravenous Chupacabra - I had this guy in a mono black control deck with a couple different planeswalkers and literally every single Nekrataal variant that I run in the cube. Chupacabra is probably the rarest uncommon ever. My group open about 40 packs of RIX this weekend between prereleases and winnings and literally only saw one copy of Chupacabra and it wasn't even foil. Also, I played three rounds with this deck and never drew him a single time. Very elusive dude. I imagine he'll do what Nekrataal does. I did lose a match to a reanimator deck where drawing him would have won it for me against the Griselbrand I was facing, so there's that.
And that's about it. Overall happy with the cards put in, but then again, none of them differ too much from the cards I took out, so take that for what it's worth. Here's looking forward to Dominaria for some really sweet cube additions!
MTGS Average Peasant Cube 2023 Edition
Follow me. I tweet.
This line of thinking always comes up when there's a chase uncommon (saw it a lot with Fatal Push) and it's always total nonsense.
One -- you opened 120 uncommons, and there's 60 in the set. Getting exactly one isn't unlikely at all.
Two -- you only notice Chupacabra because it's the "chase" uncommon. How many Majestic Heliopterus did you open? How many Highland Lake? They go straight into bulk piles so you have no idea. But whenever the ONE uncommon you want is missing, it's super noteworthy.
Three -- just think about how the packs are made. Look at print sheets. I haven't seen one for RIX uncommons, but what's more likely -- it being the same as every other print sheet since 1996 with equal printing among the same rarity... or there being some conspiracy where WOTC thinks they need to make Chupacabra more scarce because ???reasons??? and make their printing/pack creation significantly more difficult and expensive in order to accomplish that?
(anyway, total aside, back to actual card discussion)
Wow. Aggressive response to an off handed comment.
MTGS Average Peasant Cube 2023 Edition
Follow me. I tweet.
I really hope Ravenous Chupacabra gets a promo with different artwork. I really don't like the artwork, but the power level means I'm going to run it.
Bishop of Binding was maindecked and went 2-1 in the list it was in. It was great in a boros aggro deck clearing the way for attackers while being able to attack himself the next turn without worry of dying in combat like banisher priest and even fiend hunter have to. great for not laying off the gas.
warkite marauder was awesome in a Bant midrange deck. Was great alongside a walking ballista attacking making a creature a 0/1 and then letting balista kill it. was used along side ezuri, claw of progress to keep reloading the ballista. would have been great with hadana's climb but that was in a different deck.
Hadana's climb was maindecked in my Simic Counters deck with hangarback walker, curse of predation, endless one, etc. it could have been great in many instances but never made it onto the field unfortunately. If you support a +1/+1 counters theme I think it could be a viable option in simic in bigger cubes.
Similar story to Visserdrix: I played him in a WU Midrange/Reveillark deck today. With Jitte, Warkite was insanity, he allowed the Jitte to just shred any creature. I was able to destroy Hero of Bladehold and a Sylvan Advocate with just one counter each. ABSURD.
Very happy, it definitely has a home in both tempo and midrange (and Izzet control shells).
Please draft my Cube! I'll draft yours in return! http://www.cubetutor.com/draft/86999
On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
Regular 450 unpowered cube (with some custom cards) - 450 Unpowered
Anyways, had I played correctly, Direfleet would have been played on turn 3 and I would have flashed back my opponent's Dark Ritual and probably casted my Demonic Tutor for "free".
In this case it pretty much would have been a 2 power FS for 2 that gave you BB when it ETB. Pretty good.
Please draft my Cube! I'll draft yours in return! http://www.cubetutor.com/draft/86999
We do think less common uncommons exist. Rudy, from Alpha Investment, has made a ton of comments about it since SOI release a few years ago. Not every rare and uncommon are print the same according to him and god knows he opens TON of packs. Just look at his YouTube videos and you'll see. We get your point, but don't understand why you need to be rude about it though.
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