Confession time: I have a weakness for toolbox cards. Few opening words in the rules text of a card pique my interest more than "Choose one." None of the options I can choose may be worth a card on their own, but having three of those options on one card means that charms rarely stay dead in my hand for very long. Charms reward proper timing and clever play, which I always try to encourage within my group. The Pauper-legal charms may not have the raw power of the guild and shard charms printed at the uncommon rarity, but they do have the redeeming feature of being monocolor -- and therefore potentially playable in more decks.
Of all the charms printed at common, the Planar Chaos cycle seems like it offers the most cube-worthy options because they offer each color a couple of effects that normally fall outside of the established domain for each slice of the color pie. Here's how I would rank their utility in a typical Pauper Cube environment, from most to least useful:
1. Evolution Charm: it landcycles during the early turns, pulls your prize fatty out of the 'yard, creates a surprise blocker to eat your opponent's flyer, or launches your fatty over the opponent's defensive line to deliver the final blow. These are all things that G/x midrange decks love to do.
2. Midnight Charm: it either Gut Shots a dork, turns a combat trade into a rout, or taps down an attacker/blocker that you don't want to deal with that turn. Not a bad set of tricks at all, especially for B/x aggro.
3. Dawn Charm: multi-purpose panic button for white. Fogs your opponent's alpha strike, lets your creature shrug off a kill spell or mortal combat to fight another round, or counters that game-ending Fireball aimed at your face. It's more reactive than proactive compared to the other charms though, which is why I don't rank it higher.
4. Piracy Charm / Funeral Charm: the one-turn landwalk is only relevant during the mirror match, which hurts this card a bit. But the +2/-1 option pulls double duty as removal and combat pump. And a well-timed instant-speed discard should be good for getting that final card out of your opponent's hand, especially if it's some buyback bomb like Capsize, Sprout Swarm, or Disturbed Burial.
5. Fury Charm: this is the most narrow of the Planar Chaos charms outside of its native Time Spiral block. The time-counter removal option will only see use in a cube packed chock-full of suspend and vanishing cards. The other two modes aren't bad -- Shatter or mini-Predator's Strike -- but I don't think they're quite good enough on their own.
Would you guys rank these charms differently? Would you rank any of the common charms or other multi-purpose cards from other sets above these? And how many of them do you actually consider cube-worthy in Pauper or other formats?
Dawn charm is one of my all time favorite cards ever. I know it's not the best in my edh cube, but every time I'm close to cutting it, someone plays it so successfully in a deck, that I just can't do it. Last weekend for instance, a friend of mine managed to stave off a lethal assault by my bant deck; they had close to the sunforger + mistveil plains lock with dawn charm, and managed to eke out an incremental win after shutting me down. Before that session, I planned on eliminating dawn charm, but I've since shifted my attention away after that performance.
Evolution and piracy I love in constructed and pauper cube.
Dawn charm is one of my all time favorite cards ever. I know it's not the best in my edh cube, but every time I'm close to cutting it, someone plays it so successfully in a deck, that I just can't do it. Last weekend for instance, a friend of mine managed to stave off a lethal assault by my bant deck; they had close to the sunforger + mistveil plains lock with dawn charm, and managed to eke out an incremental win after shutting me down. Before that session, I planned on eliminating dawn charm, but I've since shifted my attention away after that performance.
Evolution and piracy I love in constructed and pauper cube.
Great story, and exactly the sort of "clever play" I was talking about.
I was sad to cut Dawn Charm from my budget cube recently. It always felt great having the option to counterspell a hymn to tourach or mind twist in white.
Out of those five, I think Evolution and Dawn Charm have the most potential. Maybe Midnight Charm as well, although less so. They're definitely all interesting cards to consider, though.
I've had Evolution Charm in my cube for a couple months now, and all three modes have done excellent work.
Fury Charm is a card I've added recently for a couple reasons.
1:
I wanted to encourage players to maindeck artifact removal and Smash to Smithereens wasn't enticing enough since you'd run into players without artifacts sometimes. Fury Charm helps because the pump mode is relevant if there's no good Shatter targets, especially with the First Strike creatures in red.
2:
I recently added Immolating Souleater, Kiln Fiend, Fling, and Double Cleave. All of these cards have their uses, but they combine very, very well. Fury Charm adds a lot to this deck because both of those creatures love gaining Trample, and any creature with Double Strike loves both pump effects.
Sadly, the third mode hasn't come up. There was a time when I was facing down an Aven Riftwatcher in a Momentary Blink deck where Fury Charm would have let me get rid of the bird while he was tapped out, but I didn't draw it. People around here are still trying to live the dream though and flash out Errant Ephemeron as a blocker. Someday...
I wouldn't be against cubing with Piracy, Evolution or Funeral Charms, but I think the others are too underpowered to really justify inclusion. I do agree that charms are nice to play and cube with, they're awesome cards.
Hmm, I've always kind of dismissed these cards, but after taking a good look at these and my cube environment, I think at least Evolution Charm could be moderately useful. Might even test out Piracy and Funeral Charm as well. Too bad the landwalks weren't some other form of evasion like flying/fear. Oh well, I'm just glad this thread brought them to my attention again.
I wouldn't be against cubing with Piracy, Evolution or Funeral Charms, but I think the others are too underpowered to really justify inclusion. I do agree that charms are nice to play and cube with, they're awesome cards.
Which modes on the charms are you eying that makes them cubeable? (serious question.) On Piracy Charm, I only really like it as a removal spell, and with that I can't imagine cubing it. The other modes don't really do enough to work for me.
Evolution Charm, on the other hand, I like because each of the modes seem more relevant as options I might take. I may even try it out.
I actually like Evolution charm the least of the three. The landsearching effect, while not horrible, is too late to fix 1 land hands. The raise dead effect is nice, but not amazingly efficient, and the flying one is more or less irrelevant. The other two are nice because they're cheap removal spells that have an arguably better-than-cycling ability (note it can be used in the draw step to blank a draw if they have no cards in hand and they don't draw an instant). Again, the evasion ability is rarely useful. I don't like them that much compared to other more universal removal spells, but I'd pick them in a draft and be happy.
I'm thinking about adding Hearth Charm to my cube the next time I update, as part of an ongoing effort to diversify red's noncreature portfolio so it brings more to the table than just burn. The last two modes should play well with weenie-rush aggro, and the first mode removes artifact creatures that are too big for most burn spells to handle (Pith Driller, Thundering Tanadon, Phyrexian War Beast, etc).
What do people think: better or worse than Fury Charm for a cube that doesn't do much with time counters?
I had been thinking about hearth charm for a while. I forgot how versatile it was. I could see all of the modes being used in my cube. I will have to check out all of the other older charms. I'm not sure which ones I want to try running. I currently run dawn and evolution. I've tried piracy in and out but haven't made up my mind about it. I just don't think it is what I want blue to be doing at the moment in my cube.
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I cube with Funeral Charm in my peasant cube. The +2/-1 gets played most often, as people have said. But it's also an incidental reanimator enabler - better than stuff like Putrid Imp at this, imo. The instant speed discard is sweet too. Nailing a topdecking opponent during the draw step is very satisfying.
Confession time: I have a weakness for toolbox cards. Few opening words in the rules text of a card pique my interest more than "Choose one." None of the options I can choose may be worth a card on their own, but having three of those options on one card means that charms rarely stay dead in my hand for very long. Charms reward proper timing and clever play, which I always try to encourage within my group. The Pauper-legal charms may not have the raw power of the guild and shard charms printed at the uncommon rarity, but they do have the redeeming feature of being monocolor -- and therefore potentially playable in more decks.
Of all the charms printed at common, the Planar Chaos cycle seems like it offers the most cube-worthy options because they offer each color a couple of effects that normally fall outside of the established domain for each slice of the color pie. Here's how I would rank their utility in a typical Pauper Cube environment, from most to least useful: I've had Evolution Charm and Dawn Charm in my cube for a while now, and I'm currently testing Midnight Charm and Piracy Charm.
Would you guys rank these charms differently? Would you rank any of the common charms or other multi-purpose cards from other sets above these? And how many of them do you actually consider cube-worthy in Pauper or other formats?
Evolution and piracy I love in constructed and pauper cube.
"Personally I love high-riak, low-reqars gambles. Life's best with a decent amount of riak. And f*** reqars."
Great story, and exactly the sort of "clever play" I was talking about.
I hear that X Charm + Isochron Scepter is also a thing.
My Pauper Cube ♤ The Pauper Cube Thread Common Knowledge — 1 2
Fury Charm is a card I've added recently for a couple reasons.
1:
I wanted to encourage players to maindeck artifact removal and Smash to Smithereens wasn't enticing enough since you'd run into players without artifacts sometimes. Fury Charm helps because the pump mode is relevant if there's no good Shatter targets, especially with the First Strike creatures in red.
2:
I recently added Immolating Souleater, Kiln Fiend, Fling, and Double Cleave. All of these cards have their uses, but they combine very, very well. Fury Charm adds a lot to this deck because both of those creatures love gaining Trample, and any creature with Double Strike loves both pump effects.
Sadly, the third mode hasn't come up. There was a time when I was facing down an Aven Riftwatcher in a Momentary Blink deck where Fury Charm would have let me get rid of the bird while he was tapped out, but I didn't draw it. People around here are still trying to live the dream though and flash out Errant Ephemeron as a blocker. Someday...
Draft it on Cubetutor!
Which modes on the charms are you eying that makes them cubeable? (serious question.) On Piracy Charm, I only really like it as a removal spell, and with that I can't imagine cubing it. The other modes don't really do enough to work for me.
Evolution Charm, on the other hand, I like because each of the modes seem more relevant as options I might take. I may even try it out.
My Pauper Cube ♤ The Pauper Cube Thread Common Knowledge — 1 2
Draft it on Cubetutor!
What do people think: better or worse than Fury Charm for a cube that doesn't do much with time counters?
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