I like it. I asked Frank Karsten to run the math for me on the casting cost, and in an 18-mana source 40-card deck with 10 sources of white and 10 sources of black, the card is ~12% harder to cast (77% vs. 89%) off your first 4 mana sources than a card like Day of Judgment would be. That's a meaningful percentage, and it's slightly harder to cast than something like Supreme Verdict, but ultimately, I think that 4cc Wraths are just really good, and I want to test this one out and see if it performs for us. It also has an upside that can be randomly meaningful when it has some otherwise collateral damage.
I do kind of wonder how much life you're gonna gain on average, as in my control decks, especially BW, I feel like I usually don't have that many creatures in play when I'm wrathing. I'd be shocked if the average case was more than 1.5, which is a nice bonus but not really that much. This also goes in exactly 1 deck (orzhov), maybe 2-3 if your esper or mardu deck has just bonkers good mana, where all the other wraths don't require such a commitment.
If your cube desperately needs 4 mana unconditional wrath #5, I guess this is what you want, although I think it's clearly the worst of the unconditional wraths and worse than deluge and languish because it's too easy to not hit on curve. In fact, I think if I wanted an Orzhov wrath I'd be more interested in putting magister back in.
I think controlling the number of wraths in a cube is important. I am not sure if having a 4th 4 mana wrath is too many, but I like the idea of running this and supreme verdict at the same time to help differentiate BW vs UW, vs UB vs UBW control decks. While I don't think it will gain a lot of life, it could lead to some interesting game play especially with cards like lingering souls. Correct lines of play could end up being to get get a few tokens or recursive creatures onto the field and then wrath to get some life back.
Will probably test out to see how much the mana requirements are a hindrance.
I really like Merciless Eviction as my BW wrath, and I don't think I want more than one. I might have to play this if I get it just because four-mana wraths are good.
Eh, I have no interest or any need for it. True Orzhov decks in my meta are very aggressive / stax / token based midrange, not control, and the new Orzhov angel would fit the Orzhov mold better. Black and white are also stacked to the brim with sweepers. At 540 I feel like I barely NEED Supreme Verdict. I’d rather double down on more Vindicate effects like Anguished Unmaking than devote an Orzhov slot to a 4 PIP sweeper. I’d have to be playing Yahenni’s Expertise / Night Incarnate / Fumigate / Rout before I’d even consider this.
Whereas I love playing Orzhov control, so I'm much more in the market for a true 4cc Wrath than any of the bad mono-colored variants. Like, the lack of Fumigate/Expertise/Rout has no bearing on me wanting a true 4cc Wrath, IMO. I have no interest at all in any of those cards, but I'm certainly interested in another Day of Judgment variant for that color combination. In fact, I'd be more willing to cut one of those cards if I had another true Wrath available in Orzhov. Just my $0.02.
Whereas I love playing Orzhov control, so I'm much more in the market for a true 4cc Wrath than any of the bad mono-colored variants. Like, the lack of Fumigate/Expertise/Rout has no bearing on me wanting a true 4cc Wrath, IMO. I have no interest at all in any of those cards, but I'm certainly interested in another Day of Judgment variant for that color combination. In fact, I'd be more willing to cut one of those cards if I had another true Wrath available in Orzhov. Just my $0.02.
Gotta say, I am surprised you like this. What card if any have you had success with that had a mana cost of YYZZ?
Yeah, we basically never get orzhov control... Sometimes esper with WB as a base, but don't think is enough better than the other options I'm not playing to run it. In my cube Orzhov control isn't really a thing, because they can't compete with blues card advantage, so are a dog in controlling mirror matches.
I also try to limit the number of wraths in my cube for archetype balance purposes.
Cool card tho, and if you do get a lot of pure Orzhov control decks, go for it!
It's powerful enough to define a deck in standard imo.
but I'm certainly interested in another Day of Judgment variant for that color combination.
Why? BW is the color that needs this the least, as it has access to 6 cmc 4 or less wraths in your list. You mentioned you'd be more inclined to cut them if you added this, but aren't those all superior to this card because they're easier to cast? Cutting a mono-colored card for an Inferior gold card seems very odd to me. And if you're not, does BW really need access to 7 wraths?
Whereas I love playing Orzhov control, so I'm much more in the market for a true 4cc Wrath than any of the bad mono-colored variants. Like, the lack of Fumigate/Expertise/Rout has no bearing on me wanting a true 4cc Wrath, IMO. I have no interest at all in any of those cards, but I'm certainly interested in another Day of Judgment variant for that color combination. In fact, I'd be more willing to cut one of those cards if I had another true Wrath available in Orzhov. Just my $0.02.
Gotta say, I am surprised you like this. What card if any have you had success with that had a mana cost of YYZZ?
I've never been inclined to play any before, so ...none. But since I've never cubed one before, it's hard to have success with one.
but I'm certainly interested in another Day of Judgment variant for that color combination.
Why? BW is the color that needs this the least, as it has access to 6 cmc 4 or less wraths in your list. You mentioned you'd be more inclined to cut them if you added this, but aren't those all superior to this card because they're easier to cast? Cutting a mono-colored card for an Inferior gold card seems very odd to me. And if you're not, does BW really need access to 7 wraths?
It's not an inferior gold card. If you're playing a deck that can support the mana cost, it's a stronger effect.
I like this more than cards like Rout and Fumigate because it costs 4 mana. And I like it more than cards like Yahenni's Expertise and the like because it kills every creature. Plus, it has some built-in incidental lifegain.
If a 10/10 manabase can cast this on-curve ~80% of the time, I aim to find out how good it can be in the cube. I LOVE Orzhov control, and I'd definitely be in the market for another true 4cc Wrath if this can play like one most of the time.
There have only been 4 cards in the history of Magic that unconditionally kill every creature for 4 mana. Wrath of God, Day of Judgment, Damnation and Supreme Verdict. And those 4 cards have been excellent in the cube. This one is harder to cast, but it does have an additional upside. I don't want to write it off without giving it a chance, since it's a powerful effect in a deck I play often.
I’m a big advocate for the power of the 4 mana wrath, but this one’s a bridge too far for me. I’m fine dedicating a slot like this to being the payoff for a single archetype, but this isn’t the kind of card that will draw people in. It will always wheel and be a fine role-player when the deck comes together (and I’m not convinced it will even be better than traditional wrath there, two color drafters tend to skimp on fixing). But unless this deck is a real draw that shows up in more than half your drafts, this card looks like it will go unplayed too often.
I think Fumigate is just a better, more versatile card. It can be played outside of Orzhov, you'll probably be gaining an additional 2-5 life and it doesn't take up a guild spot. Sure it's 5cmc, but Fumigate is easier to accelerate into using mana rocks, so on average I bet it wouldn't be that much slower than Kaya's Wrath anyway.
I'm inclined to agree with TorontoJock here. I think I'd prefer a 5CC option to a 4 cmc card with 4 pips that is multicolored. I also play Magister of Worth which has been excellent for me for years and I'm not that interested in cutting it for this card.
Still, I hadn't thought about the fact that is is only the 5th 4cmc wrath in the history of magic, which is definitely pretty cool. I will not be surprised if this is good enough.
If we weren't running Night Incarnate, the only card we'd considered to cut for this among regular 4CMC wrath would be Languish. And that would mean a precious guild slot would also have to be sacrifice in order to make space . Not sure we'd make that move just to create a new black spot available. Maybe if we needed another one, we'd be inclined to add it. But since the cube has been subdivised into three modules (Base, Fair and Unfair), average cube sessions count less than 540 cards each time. I don't think a 5th 4CMC is needed at that size. Night Incarnate for its part is in there just for fun matter. Nice creature to recure.
In fact, I think this card has been created more with standard in mind that anything else. It's certainly a potent answer to Carnage Tyrant and still mostly unseen 4CMC+ creatures in the format.
If a 10/10 manabase can cast this on-curve ~80% of the time, I aim to find out how good it can be in the cube. I LOVE Orzhov control, and I'd definitely be in the market for another true 4cc Wrath if this can play like one most of the time.
I did some quick simulation to check this. Let's say you mulligan all 0/1 and 6/7 land hands and your manabase consists of 7 Plains, 7 Swamps, and 3 WB Duals. The probability that you hit WWBB on t4 given that you've drawn four lands and Kaya's Wrath is, ironically, about 79%. The probability that you're able to cast it unconditional on how many lands you draw is 55% (because you may not draw 4 lands). That's compared to 89% and 62% for something like Wrath of God.
If you have no fixing at all, the chance you'll be able to cast it on t4 even if you've drawn 4 lands is about 60%, whereas it's still about 80% for Wrath.
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And that's pretty much exactly what I said, which is the information provided to me by Frank Karsten. He estimated slightly lower, actually, at about 77% to cast this w/ your first 4 sources. Compared to 89% w/ Day of Judgment. Which makes this approximately 12% harder to cast off your first 4 sources. And your sim was off of 17 mana sources, whereas mine/his was off 18.
And yes, playing hard to cast spells with no fixing is a bad idea.
If a 10/10 manabase can cast this on-curve ~80% of the time, I aim to find out how good it can be in the cube. I LOVE Orzhov control, and I'd definitely be in the market for another true 4cc Wrath if this can play like one most of the time.
I just read your thread intro more closely, I realized I totally missed the part about Frank Karsten. My post wasn't meant to be a "well that can't be right, let ME do it", I just genuinely missed that it was initially posted. I interpreted your above post as a question, not a statement (to me, it reads like a question), though in retrospect having the exact same number as what you stated should have been a tip off ;). Glad to see that I came up with the same thing as Frank in the end though.
In any case, I do think this card is very cubeable. 4 cmc wraths are at a premium, and a 5 cmc wrath could leave you dead against a good aggro draw. Plus many of us still cube Anguished Unmaking, which just isn’t very good. If Orzhov control doesn’t show up much, I can see not wanting it, but honestly it’s a sweet deck and encouraging it is something I’m excited to do. They get access to hand disruption, which can be a great part of a control game plan, although they do tend to lack card advantage relative to blue decks.
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No worries, your math is certainly correct. I don't trust my math enough to post it without verifying through a trusted source first, and Karsten's the man when it comes to that sort of thing. With a good 18-source control manabase, something like a 12/10 or 11/11 manabase is relatively common, which means that Kaya's Wrath would be over 80% off my first 4 sources, and Day of Judgment would be over 90%. It's important to note the differences, but since the kinds of decks playing this spell will have more robust manabases, it's not a complete dealbreaker like it might be for a more aggressive AABB costed card.
Since neither are castable with under 4 sources, the most important math to show was the difference between a 2WW-costed card and the WWBB-costed card. Which is just over ~10% harder for decks playing the minimum manabase required to play such a card in the first place.
There is a discussion focus here on the castability math, but the bigger issue is the narrowness of the Cube archetype that actually wants this card. I'm not interested in a color-intensive multicolored wrath that realistically can't be played in a blue control deck. Even if BW Control happens sometimes, we're talking about a card that appears in every or every other draft and would only see play in BW Control. Not only would it only see play in BW Control, it doesn't fill a need that exists for that archetype. BW Control doesn't suffer from lack of Wrath effects...
There is a discussion focus here on the castability math, but the bigger issue is the narrowness of the Cube archetype that actually wants this card. I'm not interested in a color-intensive multicolored wrath that realistically can't be played in a blue control deck. Even if BW Control happens sometimes, we're talking about a card that appears in every or every other draft and would only see play in BW Control. Not only would it only see play in BW Control, it doesn't fill a need that exists for that archetype. BW Control doesn't suffer from lack of Wrath effects...
This is a good point. If this was, like, UUBB, I would be more interested (although still probably not that interested).
Castability aside, this is a card in search of a home for my cube. BW Control isn't a thing for us.
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It's just nothing special for four colored mana symbols.
Being 4 colored mana symbols makes this pretty narrow. It's very difficult to slot into 3 color control decks like you can with Wrath of God, Day of Judgment or Damnation. Even Supreme Verdict is significantly easier to cast, can sometimes be slotted into 3 color control, and is in a more natural control color pairing.
The casting cost is brutal and there are plenty of better wraths without having to dip into four mana symbols.
I think the lifegain is mostly flavor text if this is being played in a proper control deck.
If you are going to play cards with heavy color requirements that are intrinsically narrow, at least get a big and unique payoff like with Niv-Mizzet, Parun.
I agree with Patrunkenphat. If some of you are still looking for a four mana mass removal, Settle the Wreckage played better here than any 5 mana wrath. I think the card is a bit overlooked. It keeps you alive against aggression as good as any other wrath. Not being able to kill creatures that do not attack is obviously a big drawback, but the other advantages of the card almost make up for it. First, it answers haste creatures. Who didn't play a mass removal on turn 4 just for his opponent to immediately play Hellrider/BB elf/Koth? Settle keeps you safer for an extra turn. Settle answers manlands, vehicles and attacking Gideons, that normally evade mass removals. Exiling over destroying is another relevant perk.
But the most important is that StW is playable in more decks, at least as a sideboard card. You can play it in creature based decks against more aggressive opponents. Token decks, G/W ramp decks with elves and even sometimes white weenie or midrange will side it in when they are the slower deck. I recommend people who consider trying Kaya's Wrath to also consider testing Settle the Wreckage.
I agree that StW is undervalued in general in the cube community. It's not technically better than Kaya's Wrath, but last one's CMC is so much restrictive that it is certainly more playable. FWIW, people doesn't play around StW in cube like they do in constructed formats. It helps the card to shine even more.
Interesting post. Have you cubed with Comeuppance?
I haven't. Without playing the card I think the following two things are true:
1. Comeuppance is worse than Settle the Wreckage. It is less white intensive, but that comes with a greatly reduced range of targets it kills. For starters, it cannot kill creatures with higher toughness than power, and there are a lot of them in cube. In white alone we have Elesh Norn, Brimaz, Restoration Angel, Hero of Bladehold, Kor Skyfihser and Exalted Angel as commonly cubed cards. It also doesn't exile, so it triggers LTB effects like Wurmcoil Engine, doesn't touch Kozilek, is preventable by Selfless Spirit, worse against self-recurring beaters and reanimator and many more. I think the more intensive cost is justified in this case.
2. The second such effect is much worse than the first. That's true in a deck, as the drawbacks of the two cards are overlapping. But that's also true in the cube, as now people will play around them more often.
Kaya's Wrath
I like it. I asked Frank Karsten to run the math for me on the casting cost, and in an 18-mana source 40-card deck with 10 sources of white and 10 sources of black, the card is ~12% harder to cast (77% vs. 89%) off your first 4 mana sources than a card like Day of Judgment would be. That's a meaningful percentage, and it's slightly harder to cast than something like Supreme Verdict, but ultimately, I think that 4cc Wraths are just really good, and I want to test this one out and see if it performs for us. It also has an upside that can be randomly meaningful when it has some otherwise collateral damage.
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If your cube desperately needs 4 mana unconditional wrath #5, I guess this is what you want, although I think it's clearly the worst of the unconditional wraths and worse than deluge and languish because it's too easy to not hit on curve. In fact, I think if I wanted an Orzhov wrath I'd be more interested in putting magister back in.
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Will probably test out to see how much the mana requirements are a hindrance.
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Gotta say, I am surprised you like this. What card if any have you had success with that had a mana cost of YYZZ?
I also try to limit the number of wraths in my cube for archetype balance purposes.
Cool card tho, and if you do get a lot of pure Orzhov control decks, go for it!
It's powerful enough to define a deck in standard imo.
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Why? BW is the color that needs this the least, as it has access to 6 cmc 4 or less wraths in your list. You mentioned you'd be more inclined to cut them if you added this, but aren't those all superior to this card because they're easier to cast? Cutting a mono-colored card for an Inferior gold card seems very odd to me. And if you're not, does BW really need access to 7 wraths?
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I've never been inclined to play any before, so ...none. But since I've never cubed one before, it's hard to have success with one.
It's not an inferior gold card. If you're playing a deck that can support the mana cost, it's a stronger effect.
I like this more than cards like Rout and Fumigate because it costs 4 mana. And I like it more than cards like Yahenni's Expertise and the like because it kills every creature. Plus, it has some built-in incidental lifegain.
If a 10/10 manabase can cast this on-curve ~80% of the time, I aim to find out how good it can be in the cube. I LOVE Orzhov control, and I'd definitely be in the market for another true 4cc Wrath if this can play like one most of the time.
There have only been 4 cards in the history of Magic that unconditionally kill every creature for 4 mana. Wrath of God, Day of Judgment, Damnation and Supreme Verdict. And those 4 cards have been excellent in the cube. This one is harder to cast, but it does have an additional upside. I don't want to write it off without giving it a chance, since it's a powerful effect in a deck I play often.
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Still, I hadn't thought about the fact that is is only the 5th 4cmc wrath in the history of magic, which is definitely pretty cool. I will not be surprised if this is good enough.
In fact, I think this card has been created more with standard in mind that anything else. It's certainly a potent answer to Carnage Tyrant and still mostly unseen 4CMC+ creatures in the format.
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I did some quick simulation to check this. Let's say you mulligan all 0/1 and 6/7 land hands and your manabase consists of 7 Plains, 7 Swamps, and 3 WB Duals. The probability that you hit WWBB on t4 given that you've drawn four lands and Kaya's Wrath is, ironically, about 79%. The probability that you're able to cast it unconditional on how many lands you draw is 55% (because you may not draw 4 lands). That's compared to 89% and 62% for something like Wrath of God.
If you have no fixing at all, the chance you'll be able to cast it on t4 even if you've drawn 4 lands is about 60%, whereas it's still about 80% for Wrath.
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And yes, playing hard to cast spells with no fixing is a bad idea.
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I just read your thread intro more closely, I realized I totally missed the part about Frank Karsten. My post wasn't meant to be a "well that can't be right, let ME do it", I just genuinely missed that it was initially posted. I interpreted your above post as a question, not a statement (to me, it reads like a question), though in retrospect having the exact same number as what you stated should have been a tip off ;). Glad to see that I came up with the same thing as Frank in the end though.
In any case, I do think this card is very cubeable. 4 cmc wraths are at a premium, and a 5 cmc wrath could leave you dead against a good aggro draw. Plus many of us still cube Anguished Unmaking, which just isn’t very good. If Orzhov control doesn’t show up much, I can see not wanting it, but honestly it’s a sweet deck and encouraging it is something I’m excited to do. They get access to hand disruption, which can be a great part of a control game plan, although they do tend to lack card advantage relative to blue decks.
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Since neither are castable with under 4 sources, the most important math to show was the difference between a 2WW-costed card and the WWBB-costed card. Which is just over ~10% harder for decks playing the minimum manabase required to play such a card in the first place.
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This is a good point. If this was, like, UUBB, I would be more interested (although still probably not that interested).
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It's just nothing special for four colored mana symbols.
Being 4 colored mana symbols makes this pretty narrow. It's very difficult to slot into 3 color control decks like you can with Wrath of God, Day of Judgment or Damnation. Even Supreme Verdict is significantly easier to cast, can sometimes be slotted into 3 color control, and is in a more natural control color pairing.
The casting cost is brutal and there are plenty of better wraths without having to dip into four mana symbols.
I think the lifegain is mostly flavor text if this is being played in a proper control deck.
If you are going to play cards with heavy color requirements that are intrinsically narrow, at least get a big and unique payoff like with Niv-Mizzet, Parun.
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But the most important is that StW is playable in more decks, at least as a sideboard card. You can play it in creature based decks against more aggressive opponents. Token decks, G/W ramp decks with elves and even sometimes white weenie or midrange will side it in when they are the slower deck. I recommend people who consider trying Kaya's Wrath to also consider testing Settle the Wreckage.
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I haven't. Without playing the card I think the following two things are true:
1. Comeuppance is worse than Settle the Wreckage. It is less white intensive, but that comes with a greatly reduced range of targets it kills. For starters, it cannot kill creatures with higher toughness than power, and there are a lot of them in cube. In white alone we have Elesh Norn, Brimaz, Restoration Angel, Hero of Bladehold, Kor Skyfihser and Exalted Angel as commonly cubed cards. It also doesn't exile, so it triggers LTB effects like Wurmcoil Engine, doesn't touch Kozilek, is preventable by Selfless Spirit, worse against self-recurring beaters and reanimator and many more. I think the more intensive cost is justified in this case.
2. The second such effect is much worse than the first. That's true in a deck, as the drawbacks of the two cards are overlapping. But that's also true in the cube, as now people will play around them more often.
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