I did just recently ban this card... as of last draft on Sunday. My playgroup was consistently frustrated with it for exactly the reason stated here. It can lead to quick, unfair games, just because you've played a few creatures on curve. However, since I did just ban it, I can just toss in the Beastmaster since I was looking for a replacement.
just because you've played a few creatures on curve
Not just a few creatures, arguably two of the best possible creatures in tandem with curse of predation. My opponent had a lot of answers that would've sufficed if they were almost any other 3 and 4 drop.
I really dig Curse because it's one of the few green cards that you want to take first pick over a good 187 guy. Other than that there's Joraga Treespeaker and Pelakka Wurm. No issues with it so far over here...or Skullclamp for that matter. The two games I played against clamp I won.
Interesting; would you say that's fairly typical for clamp? I could be persuaded to give it a test run if it's not proving too broken for you.
Well in the past several drafts it's surprisingly been in every pool, and it was in the winning deck twice iirc.
It gets snapped up within the first pick or two of a pack no matter what the drafter's strategy is. I support a lot of builds with low creature counts so it doesn't always find itself in the most optimal of contexts. Even the times it does make it into a conducive decklist it's not an auto-win card. I've seen value decks muscle through it before...shower of coals killing three of their guys they draw two is still good for you. Bouncing guys, exiling guys, or just dealing with the equipment itself...there's lots of ways to get around it.
This past draft I just steamrolled through it with hard to deal with fatties and behemoth sledge. An 8/8 wurm with trample and lifelink doesn't care much about skullclamp.
It's by far the strongest card in the cube, and is the card mostly likely to warp a game...It just hasn't been as problematic for me as it has been for others here.
Interesting; would you say that's fairly typical for clamp? I could be persuaded to give it a test run if it's not proving too broken for you.
Well in the past several drafts it's surprisingly been in every pool, and it was in the winning deck twice iirc.
It gets snapped up within the first pick or two of a pack no matter what the drafter's strategy is. I support a lot of builds with low creature counts so it doesn't always find itself in the most optimal of contexts. Even the times it does make it into a conducive decklist it's not an auto-win card. I've seen value decks muscle through it before...shower of coals killing three of their guys they draw two is still good for you. Bouncing guys, exiling guys, or just dealing with the equipment itself...there's lots of ways to get around it.
This past draft I just steamrolled through it with hard to deal with fatties and behemoth sledge. An 8/8 wurm with trample and lifelink doesn't care much about skullclamp.
It's by far the strongest card in the cube, and is the card mostly likely to warp a game...It just hasn't been as problematic for me as it has been for others here.
Would you say that is (partly) due to a critical mass of answers in your cube? Like you mentioned, artifact hate, bounce, exile, ect...
It seems like a fair enough card in the format you've created.
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"Once you let go of your morals, everything becomes funny."
Fair is an exaggeration...it's still stupid good....just manageable.
Not banning many cards, having a fast format, and a certain density of answers helps.
I'm still short an artifact hate card in red...I may bring Duergar Hedge-Mage back as a hybrid. I like it more than Manic Vandal since it's a may ability.
I haven't been cubing a ton lately, and most of my changes have been theoretically based. Channel has been relevant in a couple drafts so far...Notably being in one ramp deck that used it to power out Eldrazi as well as a turn 2/3 equipped Loxodon Warhammer.
It has yet to find its way into a really conducive build. I think the biggest strike against Channel is that making it work requires an extensive familiarity with the cube pool to draft effectively. The average ramp deck doesn't really want it...you really have to tailor your deck a certain way to be able to generate enough value out of the life loss. So it's a trap for beginning drafters, but rewards those that try and understand the intricacies of the cube.
It's one of the cards I've been aiming to draft around so I can showcase it's possibilities (or lack thereof) for the other drafters. It just hasn't found its way into my hands. People definitely respond to its presence in a pool...it makes people instantly think outside the box in deck builds more than the average card.
Because I've been in the mood to explore new archetypes, I wanted to see what a 5-color combo deck looked like in my cube. I was trying to have channel + fireball be a part of it, but what I came up with was far stranger and probably much better:
I've brought it up in another thread a few days ago as well. We obviously don't have the same engine spells, but I like the idea of more control oriented dredge deck. With recursive threats and sweepers.
coming up for air after spiraling into the abyss that is Modern.
-Gore-House Chainwalker, +Skarrgan Firebird: I have an irrational appreciation for phoenixes, so I was not quite as unhappy with Modern Masters 2 as others. That said, it was pretty underwhelming for us. I felt like I had enough 2 mana aggro duders, so out comes chainwalker. I may find another cut elsewhere eventually, but this works for now.
-Thran Dynamo, +Worldheart Phoenix: A pretty interesting downgrade to uncommon. I feel that 5c decks tend to prioritize looting to begin with so Phoenix should be a nice incentive to draft all colors.
-Mutagenic Growth, +Etched Oracle: More 5c support. I had a hard time cutting oracle to begin with because of the novel interaction with Imperial Recruiter. Growth was a hard cut, but I needed to make a cut from somewhere and Growth was my least favorite card in my colorless section. I need to figure out whether there is a better cut, because I still like it quite a bit.
Etched Oracle is awesome man. The only reason I cut it was because I didn't have a place to put it because it's not really a colorless card... It was more of a grouping concern for me, although I had great success with it in the 5-color decks.
Sphere of the Suns is better than Idol. One of the main reasons I like Idol is because of Standstill... hehe..
-Firespout, +Rolling Thunder: I felt like 3 was too many outright sweepers for red. I'm still a big fan of the X-Spells so I'm bringing Rolling Thunder back in.
-Knight of Meadowgrain, +Leonin Relic-Warder: I flipped flopped on which to cut for Consul's Lieutenant. For now I like the disruption of the Warder. The knight feels a little redundant in the 2 slot presently.
-Sillumgar Sorcerer, +Brainstorm: Finally making room for a pet card of mine. Sorcerer is a sweet card without a home in my cube. I'm sidelining it for the time being while I think of where it belongs.
-Rix Maadi Guildmage, +Blazing Hellhound: I like devoting at least one card per guild to signaling an archetype. Guildmage was a decent card, but always just filled in the cracks and rarely took over games like I was hoping.
-Leafcrown Dryad, +Satyr Wayfinder: Dryad was very middling, and never spectacular. Hoping Wayfinder will amp up the graveyard deck a little bit.
-Phantom Centaur, +Arbor Elf: I had a glut of 4 drops, because I couldn't make up my mind on which to cut. It was between centaur, blasto, and druid's familiar. By keeping the familiar in, I'm going to try and reassert the gruul pump archetype. These next changes are reflecting that.
I really like it in a pseudo gruul sneak attack shell. You really want some combination of generator servant, lightning mauler, and lightning greaves. Savage ventmaw is also good in this shell as are all fireball variants. I need a better big red critter to help the archetype out. Maybe shockmaw dragon will make an appearance.
It has yet to come together in a real draft, but I've sat down and played some example decklists with friends so it's definitely feasible. Channel so far has only really shown its face in mono green ramp with lightning greaves a couple times in the past dozen drafts. Turn one utopia sprawl into turn 2 channel+roar of the wurm, into turn 3 flashback wurm is a line of play I've seen. As well as a 3 turn greaves'd eldrazi. I've also seen it sit in hand more than a few times.
I'm still waiting to see someone pay 10 life and drop an ulamog's crusher and lightning greaves turn 2
Well haste allows you to catch your opponent with their pants around their ankles. Say they tap out to play anything turn three or four, you can potentially crush their board with annihilator triggers. It just decreases the risk of channel because you're paying almost half of your life.
Fires could definitely be good. Maybe I'll run it over Kird Ape for this weeks draft.
fires absolutely makes me want to bring phantom centaur back. i still don't like seismic elemental at all..it feels so narrow. It's a 5 drop that control doesn't want, tempo doesn't want it, it's too expensive for a true aggro deck. it's pretty much a gruul only card since you get mana elves to accelerate and all of the threats are big ground walkers.
Neither have I, fwiw. I just don't have any interest in it for my cube. I admit that it'd be pretty decent in a fires deck, but then I struggle to think of its application in other contexts.
With the emphasis on the gruul pump archetype, I figured I should increase blue's evasive beaters for a little more crossover potential with all of green's creature boosting. Delver is fine, but not exactly what my spell heavy decks want to do. Repeal is great but a little redundant with Repulse and Into the Roil. I also got a little trigger happy on the "gro" idea, and I'm cutting the weaker ones.
so we were looking at a 6 man draft last wednesday when 3 people backed out last minute....so the remaining 3 of us decided to play sealed and just play single games and rotate to keep anyone from sitting out too long. the decks turned out pretty incredible and cohesive.
I ran Rakdos Sacrifice which won out the night. I had all the key pieces, but it was definitely too light on creatures which got me into trouble in a couple games:
Have you tried out Viscera Seer? I use the card over Carrion Feeder because my sacrifice theme is more midrange than aggro, but I'm curious to see if carrion feeder is just better.
No, I haven't....but I've tried Plagued Rusalka and Thoughtpicker Witch in that slot. I prefer the feeder because the sacrifice deck needs proactive moves as it can easily find itself treading water in the durdlelake. The ability to endlessly recur creatures and generate value is great and something the sac deck does best, but in my experience it has the most difficulty in closing a game out. This is why I highly value Blood Artist, Falkenrath Noble, Hissing Iguanar, Goblin Bombardment, Blazing Hellhound, and Carrion Feeder. Seer needs multiple turns to generate its value which is something I don't think the archetype really needs.
Carrion Feeder also has more crossover potential in "go wide" aggro strategies...namely with white tokens. Aggro has no interest in Seer.
I did just recently ban this card... as of last draft on Sunday. My playgroup was consistently frustrated with it for exactly the reason stated here. It can lead to quick, unfair games, just because you've played a few creatures on curve. However, since I did just ban it, I can just toss in the Beastmaster since I was looking for a replacement.
My Peasant Cube thread !!! (380 cards)
Draft my Peasant Cube on Cube Cobra !!!
Not just a few creatures, arguably two of the best possible creatures in tandem with curse of predation. My opponent had a lot of answers that would've sufficed if they were almost any other 3 and 4 drop.
I really dig Curse because it's one of the few green cards that you want to take first pick over a good 187 guy. Other than that there's Joraga Treespeaker and Pelakka Wurm. No issues with it so far over here...or Skullclamp for that matter. The two games I played against clamp I won.
Well in the past several drafts it's surprisingly been in every pool, and it was in the winning deck twice iirc.
It gets snapped up within the first pick or two of a pack no matter what the drafter's strategy is. I support a lot of builds with low creature counts so it doesn't always find itself in the most optimal of contexts. Even the times it does make it into a conducive decklist it's not an auto-win card. I've seen value decks muscle through it before...shower of coals killing three of their guys they draw two is still good for you. Bouncing guys, exiling guys, or just dealing with the equipment itself...there's lots of ways to get around it.
This past draft I just steamrolled through it with hard to deal with fatties and behemoth sledge. An 8/8 wurm with trample and lifelink doesn't care much about skullclamp.
It's by far the strongest card in the cube, and is the card mostly likely to warp a game...It just hasn't been as problematic for me as it has been for others here.
Would you say that is (partly) due to a critical mass of answers in your cube? Like you mentioned, artifact hate, bounce, exile, ect...
It seems like a fair enough card in the format you've created.
~David Hayden
[420 Peasant Cube] (work in progress)
http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/21789
Not banning many cards, having a fast format, and a certain density of answers helps.
I'm still short an artifact hate card in red...I may bring Duergar Hedge-Mage back as a hybrid. I like it more than Manic Vandal since it's a may ability.
It has yet to find its way into a really conducive build. I think the biggest strike against Channel is that making it work requires an extensive familiarity with the cube pool to draft effectively. The average ramp deck doesn't really want it...you really have to tailor your deck a certain way to be able to generate enough value out of the life loss. So it's a trap for beginning drafters, but rewards those that try and understand the intricacies of the cube.
It's one of the cards I've been aiming to draft around so I can showcase it's possibilities (or lack thereof) for the other drafters. It just hasn't found its way into my hands. People definitely respond to its presence in a pool...it makes people instantly think outside the box in deck builds more than the average card.
1x Jade Mage
1x Lone Missionary
1x Wall of Blossoms
1x Eternal Witness
1x Guttersnipe
1x Sea Gate Oracle
1x Archaeomancer
1x Clone
1x Custodi Squire
1x Peregrine Drake
1x Pharika's Mender
1x Riverwheel Aerialists
Artifact Creature
1x Shardless Agent
Artifact
1x Coldsteel Heart
Instant
1x Worldly Tutor
1x Manamorphose
1x Momentary Blink
1x Ghostly Flicker
1x Careful Study
1x Ponder
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Victimize
1x Unburial Rites
Land
1x Arcane Sanctum
1x City of Brass
1x Jungle Shrine
1x Sandsteppe Citadel
1x Seaside Citadel
1x Vivid Grove
1x Vivid Marsh
6x Island
1x Swamp
3x Forest
1x Burst Lightning
1x Channel
1x Darksteel Sentinel
1x Dreg Mangler
1x Duergar Hedge-Mage
1x Enclave Cryptologist
1x Gnarled Scarhide
1x Knight of Meadowgrain
1x Kor Hookmaster
1x Mardu Skullhunter
1x Merfolk Looter
1x Reanimate
1x Rix Maadi Guildmage
1x Slice and Dice
1x Torch Fiend
Other cards that would be great in this kind of deck: Young Pyromancer, Imperial Recruiter, Mystical Tutor, Shriekmaw or other 187 terror dude, and maybe even Goblin Bombardment with Blood Artist and company.
Peregrine Drake + Eternal Witness/Archaeomancer + Ghostly Flicker/Victimize = Infinite Mana to draw your deck with Wall of Blossoms or Seagate Oracle, gain infinite life with Lone Missionary...then you can generate infinite tokens with Jade Mage or infinite triggers for Guttersnipe and Riverwheel Aerialists
Lots of recursion to get any pieces you need back, with a back up plan of a midrange deck where nothing ever dies.
However, a timely Swords to Plowshares is a one-way ticket to sad town haha.
Most of the inspiration for this has been from wanting to get the most mileage out of Buried Alive, as well as Raphael Levy's Modern Dredge deck:
http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=12357
I've brought it up in another thread a few days ago as well. We obviously don't have the same engine spells, but I like the idea of more control oriented dredge deck. With recursive threats and sweepers.
I've been wondering whether it's worth relooking into Moan from the Unhallowed. It's too bad our only squee-like cards are Veilborn Ghoul and Reach of Branches.
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
-Gore-House Chainwalker, +Skarrgan Firebird: I have an irrational appreciation for phoenixes, so I was not quite as unhappy with Modern Masters 2 as others. That said, it was pretty underwhelming for us. I felt like I had enough 2 mana aggro duders, so out comes chainwalker. I may find another cut elsewhere eventually, but this works for now.
-Thran Dynamo, +Worldheart Phoenix: A pretty interesting downgrade to uncommon. I feel that 5c decks tend to prioritize looting to begin with so Phoenix should be a nice incentive to draft all colors.
-Mutagenic Growth, +Etched Oracle: More 5c support. I had a hard time cutting oracle to begin with because of the novel interaction with Imperial Recruiter. Growth was a hard cut, but I needed to make a cut from somewhere and Growth was my least favorite card in my colorless section. I need to figure out whether there is a better cut, because I still like it quite a bit.
I may cut Guardian Idol for Sphere of the Suns or maybe Prophetic Prism, but I'll need to get over my love of manifacts first.
Sphere of the Suns is better than Idol. One of the main reasons I like Idol is because of Standstill... hehe..
My Peasant Cube thread !!! (380 cards)
Draft my Peasant Cube on Cube Cobra !!!
Yeeeeap...me to
- dark ritual, + marsh flitter
- twisted abomination, + gurmag angler
- stoke the flames, + searing blaze
orgins updates:
- Great Teacher's Decree, + Sentinel of the Eternal Watch
- Leonin Relic-Warder, + Consul's Lieutenant
- Hour of Need, + Whirler Rogue
- Riverwheel Aerialists, + Jhessian Thief
- Ancient Hydra, + Goblin Glory Chaser
- Rolling Thunder, + Acolyte of the Inferno
- Gravetiller Wurm, + Skysnare Spider
- Beastbreaker of Bala Ged, + Undercity Troll
EDIT: I forgot to take out Great Teacher's Decree with the arrival of the lieutenant so triplicate spirits stays for now
-Firespout, +Rolling Thunder: I felt like 3 was too many outright sweepers for red. I'm still a big fan of the X-Spells so I'm bringing Rolling Thunder back in.
-Knight of Meadowgrain, +Leonin Relic-Warder: I flipped flopped on which to cut for Consul's Lieutenant. For now I like the disruption of the Warder. The knight feels a little redundant in the 2 slot presently.
-Sillumgar Sorcerer, +Brainstorm: Finally making room for a pet card of mine. Sorcerer is a sweet card without a home in my cube. I'm sidelining it for the time being while I think of where it belongs.
-Rix Maadi Guildmage, +Blazing Hellhound: I like devoting at least one card per guild to signaling an archetype. Guildmage was a decent card, but always just filled in the cracks and rarely took over games like I was hoping.
-Leafcrown Dryad, +Satyr Wayfinder: Dryad was very middling, and never spectacular. Hoping Wayfinder will amp up the graveyard deck a little bit.
-Phantom Centaur, +Arbor Elf: I had a glut of 4 drops, because I couldn't make up my mind on which to cut. It was between centaur, blasto, and druid's familiar. By keeping the familiar in, I'm going to try and reassert the gruul pump archetype. These next changes are reflecting that.
-Worldheart Phoenix, +Mutagenic Growth
-Acidic Soil, +Madcap Skills
-Overrun, +Vines of Vastwood
It has yet to come together in a real draft, but I've sat down and played some example decklists with friends so it's definitely feasible. Channel so far has only really shown its face in mono green ramp with lightning greaves a couple times in the past dozen drafts. Turn one utopia sprawl into turn 2 channel+roar of the wurm, into turn 3 flashback wurm is a line of play I've seen. As well as a 3 turn greaves'd eldrazi. I've also seen it sit in hand more than a few times.
I'm still waiting to see someone pay 10 life and drop an ulamog's crusher and lightning greaves turn 2
Fires could definitely be good. Maybe I'll run it over Kird Ape for this weeks draft.
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
-Delver of Secrets, +Cloudfin Raptor
-Repeal, +Welkin Tern
-Lorescale Coatl, +Jhessian Infiltrator
-Sultai Scavenger, +Twisted Abomination
The 3 decks were:
Gruul Turbo Ramp w/ Channel, Plated Crusher, Pelakka Wurm, Bane of Bala Ged, Deathless Behemoth, Wall of Roots, Cultivate, Kodama's Reach, Generator Servant, Fires of Yavimaya, and Berserk. Plated Crusher was his MVP taking 3 of the 5 games he played, once coupled with Berserk to alpha strike me out of nowhere haha. Bane of Bala Ged was powered out turn 3 via Channel. I almost lost to him in the rubber match until I sacrificed my entire team to Skullclamp to draw into a Necromancy to reanimate his Pelakka Wurm and cushion me against an impending Plated Crusher attack.
The second deck was U/R Spells Matters w/ Guttersnipe, Young Pyromancer, Shower of Coals, and loads of good spells. This deck fell to Plated Crusher quickly, and Bombardment/Skullclamp shenanigans from my deck.
I ran Rakdos Sacrifice which won out the night. I had all the key pieces, but it was definitely too light on creatures which got me into trouble in a couple games:
1 Mogg Fanatic
1 Blood Artist
1 Mogg War Marshal
1 Nezumi Graverobber
1 Reassembling Skeleton
1 Phyrexian Rager
1 Blazing Hellhound
1 Flametongue Kavu
1 Skinrender
1 Twisted Abomination
1 Raven's Crime
1 Unearth
1 Go for the Throat
1 Hymn to Tourach
1 Fire Covenant
1 Skullclamp
1 Goblin Bombardment
1 Mortarpod
1 Shrine of Burning Rage
1 Lust for War
1 Necromancy
7 Mountain
8 Swamp
My Peasant Cube thread !!! (380 cards)
Draft my Peasant Cube on Cube Cobra !!!
Carrion Feeder also has more crossover potential in "go wide" aggro strategies...namely with white tokens. Aggro has no interest in Seer.