Niko Aris seems good, probably the third or fourth best Azoriusplaneswalker for cube. I’m considering testing Niko over Sphinx's Revelation, so I wrote out a comparison of these two cards.
Upsides:
— The main reason I want to test Niko is that they are probably the best way to create multiple enchantments ever printed. So if your cube hasaconstellationtheme Niko is a fantastic enabler.
— Niko is scalable card draw like Rev, but they are also good in the early game with 3-5 mana before Rev is useful.
— While none of Niko's three abilities are amazing, there's one for several common situations: “I’m way ahead and want to close out the game” = make your best attacker unblockable, "I'm behind against aggro" = remove small tapped creatures, or “I’m at parity"/"The board is stalled” = make a Shard.
— The +1 returning the creature to hand is sometimes useful in ETB-creatureheavyAzoriusdecks.
— It's cool that cracking Shards and/or other card draw makes Niko's removal better.
— After downticking, Niko can be blinked by Yorion, Flickerwisp, or Brago to reset Niko's loyalty to 3.
— Niko creates interesting choices. Casting them with 6 mana available, should you create X=3 Shards or X=1 Shard and crack it right away? Probably 3 Shards for max value if your life total is high. But what if your opponent has a tapped 4 toughness creature and you want to draw a second card for the turn so Niko’s downtick kills the creature right now before it untaps? If you have 8 mana available, should you cast Niko to create X=5 shards, or X=3 and crack one immediately, or X=1 then downtick to make a second Shard and crack both immediately? When you have a ton of mana it gets even more interesting because the value of having more Shards doesn't scale forever; for instance, having X=30 Shards in play is virtually the same as having X=20 Shards in play because the game will be over before you crack them all anyway. That idea scales down to a point. But where is the optimal line between value (having the option to draw the most cards later) and tempo (scrying and drawing cards right now)? I enjoy these kinds of strategic puzzles.
Downsides:
— The card draw is much worse on rate than Rev because you have to pay 2 to crack each Shard. The scry 1 doesn't make up for the extra mana cost compared to Rev (although Shards do compare favorably to Clues).
— Niko’s utility is pretty niche and takes up a guild slot that competes with generically better and easier to cast Azorius planeswalkers.
— Niko’s removal hitting only tapped creatures is... not great.
— It's fun to imagine using the +1 to replay your Cloudblazer, but most of the time returning your unblockable creature to it's owner's hand is a major tempo downside (and it's bad with Control Magic effects).
— I like that Rev is an instant for the theoretical Jeskai spells matter deck and that it gains life for the theoretical Esper lifegain matters deck. But realistically the Izzet deck rarely wants to splash white and the Orzhov deck rarely wants to splash blue, so these minor downsides to cutting Rev probably don't matter.
This is a pretty neat design although sadly I don't think it's that good. OP's analysis seems mainly on the money. My instinct is it's a clear miss for a small UW section since it folds bad to a reasonable board position on the other side, and also has that awkward cost, but I like the idea if you have an enchantment theme.
This is an excellent card held back by how rediculous UW planeswalkers are. I personally am a huge proponent of playing your favorite guild cards for mechanical reasons over playing the most powerful ones.
Narset Transcendent is actually a pretty decent card that I've been wanting to play for a while, but the color combination is too stacked.
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Even though Azorius is arguably the most competitive guild, this planeswalker seems incredible to me. It’s an interesting combo of powerful upside with flexibility. A three mana planeswalker that nukes something and sticks around for 2+ more cards of potential value is about the best you can ask for in a Walker. Add the ability for the aforementioned three mana play to also be a lategame Sphinx’s Rev effect is incredible. The +1 is gravy because while I don’t predict it being activated often, knowing Cube it will probably be relevant in more scenarios than it seems.
Note the shard synergy with Archon of Angel’s Grace constellation effect is sweet!
Even though Azorius is arguably the most competitive guild, this planeswalker seems incredible to me. It’s an interesting combo of powerful upside with flexibility. A three mana planeswalker that nukes something and sticks around for 2+ more cards of potential value is about the best you can ask for in a Walker. Add the ability for the aforementioned three mana play to also be a lategame Sphinx’s Rev effect is incredible. The +1 is gravy because while I don’t predict it being activated often, knowing Cube it will probably be relevant in more scenarios than it seems.
Note the shard synergy with Archon of Angel’s Grace constellation effect is sweet!
How often will it nuke something? It needs to be a tapped creature with 2 or less toughness
How often will it nuke something? It needs to be a tapped creature with 2 or less toughness
The target creature does have to be tapped which limits Niko's utility, but if your opponent is playing around the chance that you might use Niko by not tapping their Elf or holding back their Goblin Guide, that seems good for you anyway. You can sometimes control the amount of damage to make Niko’s removal better than a Shock. With 6 mana you can play Niko, make a Shard, immediately crack it to have drawn a total of two cards this turn, then downtick to immediately kill a tapped creature with 4 toughness. With 9 mana, you can make 2 Shards, immediately crack both, then downtick to kill a tapped creature with 6 toughness. On just 3 mana, you can still sometimes kill a 4-toughness creature if you have anotherfreewaytodrawacardthatturn.
Even though Azorius is arguably the most competitive guild, this planeswalker seems incredible to me. It’s an interesting combo of powerful upside with flexibility. A three mana planeswalker that nukes something and sticks around for 2+ more cards of potential value is about the best you can ask for in a Walker. Add the ability for the aforementioned three mana play to also be a lategame Sphinx’s Rev effect is incredible. The +1 is gravy because while I don’t predict it being activated often, knowing Cube it will probably be relevant in more scenarios than it seems.
Note the shard synergy with Archon of Angel’s Grace constellation effect is sweet!
How often will it nuke something? It needs to be a tapped creature with 2 or less toughness
Good question - I think how often the turn 3 upside happens will somewhat determine how good this is. Our cube is pretty aggressive with max mana elves, and I envision this being relevant a lot, but we’ll see.
I've been liking Niko quite a bit. The triple pips in the mana cost are the tough part, since the card really thrives in three-color decks (especially bant and jeskai). But the scalability is very powerful, especially with X=0 being a strong play on turn 3.
The abilities are all very relevant for very different purposes, and all can be used at any point Niko is active, unlike most planeswalkers.
The shards being Opts instead of clues can let you dig out exactly what you need if the game is getting long (Which the +1 also helps punch through). And if the game is more aggressive, the -1 is where it's at. Niko can protect in the now while eking out a later advantage if you managed to get any shards.
This is one of the most strategically complex and versatile planeswalkers out there. I'm a big fan. But they're still not gonna be toppling a top tier Teferi any time soon.
In comparison to Sphinx's Revelation, I prefer Niko simply because they're a lot more interesting than the rather generic Revelation effect. But Niko will not save you when you are behind like Revelation. If you top-deck Revelation against a game-warping must-answer threat, you can draw for the answers you need while buying the time to get there. Niko on the other hand won't draw you the cards fast enough to save you, or buy you any time against a doomsday monster.
I just haven't been able to justify running Niko at any time. We have 4 UW slots and we currently have Fractured Identity, Teferi 5, Teferi 3 and Soulherder (we have a pretty nice blink subtheme).
That being said I've always thought Niko was an alright card, but just never seen the card in play in really any format so can't judge the power level.
I once farted during the final match for prizes at an FNM. It was a tense moment, everything was quiet, control vs control, I was about to mana leak, thought about it.. and farted. Then mana leaked.
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Niko Aris seems good, probably the third or fourth best Azorius planeswalker for cube. I’m considering testing Niko over Sphinx's Revelation, so I wrote out a comparison of these two cards.
Upsides:
— The main reason I want to test Niko is that they are probably the best way to create multiple enchantments ever printed. So if your cube has a constellation theme Niko is a fantastic enabler.
— Niko is scalable card draw like Rev, but they are also good in the early game with 3-5 mana before Rev is useful.
— While none of Niko's three abilities are amazing, there's one for several common situations: “I’m way ahead and want to close out the game” = make your best attacker unblockable, "I'm behind against aggro" = remove small tapped creatures, or “I’m at parity"/"The board is stalled” = make a Shard.
— The +1 returning the creature to hand is sometimes useful in ETB-creature heavy Azorius decks.
— It's cool that cracking Shards and/or other card draw makes Niko's removal better.
— After downticking, Niko can be blinked by Yorion, Flickerwisp, or Brago to reset Niko's loyalty to 3.
— Niko creates interesting choices. Casting them with 6 mana available, should you create X=3 Shards or X=1 Shard and crack it right away? Probably 3 Shards for max value if your life total is high. But what if your opponent has a tapped 4 toughness creature and you want to draw a second card for the turn so Niko’s downtick kills the creature right now before it untaps? If you have 8 mana available, should you cast Niko to create X=5 shards, or X=3 and crack one immediately, or X=1 then downtick to make a second Shard and crack both immediately? When you have a ton of mana it gets even more interesting because the value of having more Shards doesn't scale forever; for instance, having X=30 Shards in play is virtually the same as having X=20 Shards in play because the game will be over before you crack them all anyway. That idea scales down to a point. But where is the optimal line between value (having the option to draw the most cards later) and tempo (scrying and drawing cards right now)? I enjoy these kinds of strategic puzzles.
Downsides:
— The card draw is much worse on rate than Rev because you have to pay 2 to crack each Shard. The scry 1 doesn't make up for the extra mana cost compared to Rev (although Shards do compare favorably to Clues).
— Niko’s utility is pretty niche and takes up a guild slot that competes with generically better and easier to cast Azorius planeswalkers.
— Niko’s removal hitting only tapped creatures is... not great.
— It's fun to imagine using the +1 to replay your Cloudblazer, but most of the time returning your unblockable creature to it's owner's hand is a major tempo downside (and it's bad with Control Magic effects).
— I like that Rev is an instant for the theoretical Jeskai spells matter deck and that it gains life for the theoretical Esper lifegain matters deck. But realistically the Izzet deck rarely wants to splash white and the Orzhov deck rarely wants to splash blue, so these minor downsides to cutting Rev probably don't matter.
On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
Low-power cube enthusiast!
My 1570 card cube (no longer updated)
My 415 Peasant+ Artifact and Enchantment Cube
Ever-Expanding "Just throw it in" cube.
Narset Transcendent is actually a pretty decent card that I've been wanting to play for a while, but the color combination is too stacked.
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
Note the shard synergy with Archon of Angel’s Grace constellation effect is sweet!
How often will it nuke something? It needs to be a tapped creature with 2 or less toughness
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Read my blog on cube - Latest post June 2nd 2022
The target creature does have to be tapped which limits Niko's utility, but if your opponent is playing around the chance that you might use Niko by not tapping their Elf or holding back their Goblin Guide, that seems good for you anyway. You can sometimes control the amount of damage to make Niko’s removal better than a Shock. With 6 mana you can play Niko, make a Shard, immediately crack it to have drawn a total of two cards this turn, then downtick to immediately kill a tapped creature with 4 toughness. With 9 mana, you can make 2 Shards, immediately crack both, then downtick to kill a tapped creature with 6 toughness. On just 3 mana, you can still sometimes kill a 4-toughness creature if you have another free way to draw a card that turn.
Good question - I think how often the turn 3 upside happens will somewhat determine how good this is. Our cube is pretty aggressive with max mana elves, and I envision this being relevant a lot, but we’ll see.
The abilities are all very relevant for very different purposes, and all can be used at any point Niko is active, unlike most planeswalkers.
The shards being Opts instead of clues can let you dig out exactly what you need if the game is getting long (Which the +1 also helps punch through). And if the game is more aggressive, the -1 is where it's at. Niko can protect in the now while eking out a later advantage if you managed to get any shards.
This is one of the most strategically complex and versatile planeswalkers out there. I'm a big fan. But they're still not gonna be toppling a top tier Teferi any time soon.
In comparison to Sphinx's Revelation, I prefer Niko simply because they're a lot more interesting than the rather generic Revelation effect. But Niko will not save you when you are behind like Revelation. If you top-deck Revelation against a game-warping must-answer threat, you can draw for the answers you need while buying the time to get there. Niko on the other hand won't draw you the cards fast enough to save you, or buy you any time against a doomsday monster.
Low-power cube enthusiast!
My 1570 card cube (no longer updated)
My 415 Peasant+ Artifact and Enchantment Cube
Ever-Expanding "Just throw it in" cube.
That being said I've always thought Niko was an alright card, but just never seen the card in play in really any format so can't judge the power level.