Not gonna lie, my first initial thoughts when I saw XBBB mana cost and a lot of green cloud like things in the art was "omg, death cloud".
My second impression was I was on the fence about it, since this one has a good amount of variance. That being said, I think this is best in aggro, which will give you the most consistent value at 5-6 mana, getting back your Rabblemaster / Dark Confidant / Goblin Guide for 3BBB or something. Also seems decent for midrange. Kinda iffy on this in control and seems useless in most combo decks, but I think this one is pretty solid.
Playing this card in black aggro or blood artist decks seems to be really efficient, as they can spare the life points. The card is castable at 5 mana, ok at 6 and becomes good at 7+. But when you add the land mode to it, it just seems great.
If you cast it for 7, you can get blood artist, ophiomancer, Braids and a random 1 drop and basically just start the grind again.
Yeah, this seems pretty awesome. I'm 100% here for it. Definitely get the most bang for your buck in an aggro shell, but I could see this also pulling its weight in a Golgari midrange deck as well. In any case, it makes the cut.
I'd gladly play this in B/x aggro/midrange decks for some lategame gas, UB control to get back like a Venser, Shaper Savant and True-name Nemesis, and even reanimator just to get back like a mana dork and a fauna shaman, or maybe a looter and a Rotting Regisaur. Probably in the middle of the pack for the new lands, but still servicable enough to test. We play Castle Locthwain which is probably better, but both seem good enough to play. Love these flip lands
Ok I like this but we have had gruesome menagerie for a while and I think people are a little overheated on this. Yes, 1 more mana become an x spell can make it better (triple black is tough), and of course I understand that this is awesome has being the back side of a land. But the decks this goes in is the same a GM. Aggro/cheap value/'crats.
So for me this is probably 3rd/4th best with the white one. A little narrow but can b e backbreaking late game, slightly more inconsistent that the white. think I like the castle and stornghold more as utility black lands.
Obviously good card is good... I think i'd rate this 3rd place in the cycle.
The spell side is overcosted by 1-2 mana for black agro and you won't have enough targets for control/traditional reanimator.
The option of having a spell/land is still so good... even though im pooping on it a bit, it's a very powerful card.
It does come at the opportunity cost of cards that support archetypes though. Black being split between
reanimator/agro and control, means cube space for cards that don't directly faciliate those gameplans are tough to justify.
This card will be played out as a land 90%+ time I think.
... Not sure how long this card will stick for me, despite it's high power level. Slamming it for now.
Seeing this compared to Gruesome Menagerie as a negative is just ...painful. My head hurts. That comparison is the same as looking at Rolling Thunder as a reason why the red mythic MDFC must be bad ...while completely ignoring the entire reason the card is good, lol. Oh well.
Seeing this compared to Gruesome Menagerie as a negative is just ...painful. My head hurts. That comparison is the same as looking at Rolling Thunder as a reason why the red mythic MDFC must be bad ...while completely ignoring the entire reason the card is good, lol. Oh well.
I have no problem playing devils advocate. And rolling thunder is a sweet devidable burn spell. Any red deck wants that stapled to a land. Only some black decks want this, even fewer make really good use of this. But yeah it’s free
Yes, black decks with no creatures in them don't like this card, that's correct. But even if I only have a few, a chance to bring back a meaningful creature or two on a card that's otherwise just taking up a land slot is still great. And the ceiling on this card is insane. The point was that it doesn't matter if Gruesome Menagerie even exists or not. Not only is it a bad comparison (it can only do a fraction of the things that Agadeem's Awakening can do, even in just spell mode), but it completely misses the entire point as to why this spell/land is good.
My point was not to compare the two in power level. My point was to have a real discussion about how this is gonna get played as we all get to run it practically for free.
I get the how good the mechanic is, I just feel like the use cases are different from the red and green. Maybe not enough to not run some of these but it certainly is relevant on when you pick these in drafts and what you try to do with them. Most likely I will find room for all of these except the blue one, but black will be hard to find a cut for.
I think this is one of the best ones. It has arguably the highest ceiling in terms of total card advantage and board presence that it can generate. I mean, for 7-8 mana (the same range as when the other ones get nutty) you can replay multiple meaningful creatures from your graveyard. Cast at 8 mana and get a Shriekmaw, a Solemn Simulacrum and Phyrexian Revoker or something ...that's only hitting 3/5 potential creatures it could hit in Magical Christmasland, is a completely fair estimation of value and sounds totally absurd to me. Oh, and it's also 2 different lands.
Even in a much more mundane scenario, I could be playing a Dimir control deck and maybe tap out for 7 when topdecking and buy back a lone Sower of Temptation, stealing their bomb creature and changing the outlook on the game. Like, that's not a "dream" scenario ...it's very realistic, it's only one creature, and it still is an incredible thing to do with a card that started its journey in your deck in a land slot.
In cubes that support creature-based combo, you might be able to just win the game by topdecking this when you're flooded and assembling all your combo critters at the same time. Boom! Headshot.
Could people critique cards and not others' card evaluation skills as determined by their own subjective opinion? I'm all about people making the case in support or against a card, but I can't with some of these comments. The Gruesome Menagerie comparison isn't out of bounds in that the spell side is exactly that when cast for 3BBB. Doesn't mean we stop the analysis there, but it isn't absurd to make the reference.
I think this is the second best of the cycle behind the green MDFC and it definitely makes the cut in my 450 unpowered. Even at 1BBB it can recur a 1 drop and the fact that as X scales it isn't just the CC of the target you can grab with it that increases, but also the # of different targets of X CC or less. I also think the likelihood of casting X for high enough to get a ton of value from the spell is heightened in decks that run black as one of the primary colors.
In terms of ranking the mythic MDFCs, my initial take is this:
- Red above all else since it's the most flexible. Any deck playing red as a primary color should maindeck this, period.
- Green / White / Black are pretty equal, IMO. The white one has the best overall effect, the green one benefits from green's natural ability to ramp, and the black one is scalable.
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Not gonna lie, my first initial thoughts when I saw XBBB mana cost and a lot of green cloud like things in the art was "omg, death cloud".
My second impression was I was on the fence about it, since this one has a good amount of variance. That being said, I think this is best in aggro, which will give you the most consistent value at 5-6 mana, getting back your Rabblemaster / Dark Confidant / Goblin Guide for 3BBB or something. Also seems decent for midrange. Kinda iffy on this in control and seems useless in most combo decks, but I think this one is pretty solid.
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If you cast it for 7, you can get blood artist, ophiomancer, Braids and a random 1 drop and basically just start the grind again.
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So for me this is probably 3rd/4th best with the white one. A little narrow but can b e backbreaking late game, slightly more inconsistent that the white. think I like the castle and stornghold more as utility black lands.
The spell side is overcosted by 1-2 mana for black agro and you won't have enough targets for control/traditional reanimator.
The option of having a spell/land is still so good... even though im pooping on it a bit, it's a very powerful card.
It does come at the opportunity cost of cards that support archetypes though. Black being split between
reanimator/agro and control, means cube space for cards that don't directly faciliate those gameplans are tough to justify.
This card will be played out as a land 90%+ time I think.
... Not sure how long this card will stick for me, despite it's high power level. Slamming it for now.
Last Updated 02/07/24
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I have no problem playing devils advocate. And rolling thunder is a sweet devidable burn spell. Any red deck wants that stapled to a land. Only some black decks want this, even fewer make really good use of this. But yeah it’s free
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I get the how good the mechanic is, I just feel like the use cases are different from the red and green. Maybe not enough to not run some of these but it certainly is relevant on when you pick these in drafts and what you try to do with them. Most likely I will find room for all of these except the blue one, but black will be hard to find a cut for.
Even in a much more mundane scenario, I could be playing a Dimir control deck and maybe tap out for 7 when topdecking and buy back a lone Sower of Temptation, stealing their bomb creature and changing the outlook on the game. Like, that's not a "dream" scenario ...it's very realistic, it's only one creature, and it still is an incredible thing to do with a card that started its journey in your deck in a land slot.
In cubes that support creature-based combo, you might be able to just win the game by topdecking this when you're flooded and assembling all your combo critters at the same time. Boom! Headshot.
Card looks completely savage to me!
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I think this is the second best of the cycle behind the green MDFC and it definitely makes the cut in my 450 unpowered. Even at 1BBB it can recur a 1 drop and the fact that as X scales it isn't just the CC of the target you can grab with it that increases, but also the # of different targets of X CC or less. I also think the likelihood of casting X for high enough to get a ton of value from the spell is heightened in decks that run black as one of the primary colors.
- Red above all else since it's the most flexible. Any deck playing red as a primary color should maindeck this, period.
- Green / White / Black are pretty equal, IMO. The white one has the best overall effect, the green one benefits from green's natural ability to ramp, and the black one is scalable.
- Blue one the worst of the bunch, IMO.
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