I think it's because they are producing more productive content than us right now, although we now have the Moderator advantage which will go something along the lines of abuse of power. (I can see it in your eyes Lanxal. ;))
My thought's on Downpour is that it only locks down it's creatures for 1 turn which is really average where most of the other tempo cards get all their power form locking out creatures across multiple turns. And tapping 3 creatures isn't much better than 2. Most of the time a person will only have 2 or the third will be largely irrelevant from combat. Plus it's out classed by so many different tempo cards in cube, Withdraw, Rushing River and Frost Breath, just to name a few. Not just that, it really only is useful for an alpha strike which other cards already do, just better.
Feeling of Dread is freaken awesome and is totally worth the card slot in WU. It outclassed Downpour so many times it's not funny, by actually being a card that decks want to run.
Just peeking on ye olde Paupers, and what are your thoughts on Zombie scavengers?
Hmm, I do have a Crookclaw but never found it to be good enough. I'm still very sceptical, because I'm not sure if the P/T switch really does anything in this format.
I would have liked to do the review this time, but I won't have the time until the 29th/30th. So if that's early enough for you, I can do it, but if someone's able to finish it earlier, go ahead and do it.
What? Crookclaw is amaizing! 2 for 1 all day long!
As a bit of foreshadowing, the 2012 Pauper Power Rankings will probably start after Return to Ravnica is released, in October again. Should be fun, eh?
What? Crookclaw is amaizing! 2 for 1 all day long!
Nerp, sorry to inform you about this but P/T switching is not often a 2 for 1. It sometimes will be, but not reliably. It's really the Flash on a 3 power flyer that makes this card, and the P/T switch is gravy. BUT, people often want reliable cards and there already are several 4 cost 3 power flyers that do other cool stuff. And Crookclaw Transmuter is kind of not a control card, he's more of a tempo dude, although not unplayable in control due to the word flash.
Fair enough about Zombie Scavengers. It's pretty hard to actually have enough creatures in your graveyard in the early game reliably. Also he is a big anti-strategy with any graveyard recursion spell, which there are enough of in black to safely say that you are always playing at least 1, if not more. (It depends on the cube, but still...)
I was interested in the zombie because it seemed to me that if he came down after one guy died, you're having a good time. If your aggro guys aren't dying, I'd suppose that you're having a grand ol' time. You may have to wait a turn though, but picture this:
Skaab Skaab Skaab 2B
Creature - Zombie Homie
As an additional cost to cast ~, exile a creature from your graveyard.
~ is indestructible. Kinda.
3/1
I'd play that every day!
and unless your opponent throws a bunch of removal at it, a bunch of blockers at it, an incinerate, or a creature with 4 toughness, that's essentially what you have for a while. Not to mention it's just about the best 3 drop that I'd ever want to topdeck in black except for... hmm... Does anybody have an example?
So, long time since I've posted here! I've kept tinkering with my cube in my spare time, but no time to do anything much with it or update my thread unfortunately. Did get through a draft today though, matchups were 2-0 against Naya Zoo and 2-1 against UBr Control.
Match 2 vs. Dimir Control splash Red.
Match two starts off terrifying. On the play, my opponent lands Hymn to Tourach before my second turn, then Chittering Rats on his third. Pouncing Jaguar trades with the Rats only to have them be brought back by Cadaver Imp, which blocks my Stormfront Pegasus all day and leaves me with a crippled hand when I meet Rats again. It took a while for him to finish me off but I had essentially lost here.
Game two he has lots of card draw and finds both Windrider Eel and Shimmering Glasskite. He hits landfall every turn but I somehow stabilise with Cenn's Enlistment and Faith's Fetters to buy time. He's forced into a bad trade to get rid of Glasskite, and I muscle through on a whisker. He was a mountain off his splashed Fireball for the win!
Overall very happy with my draft and it was pretty fun for everyone. Windrider Eel again was good for us. Pouncing Jaguar is still awesome and trades up. Mold Shambler may be pushing overpriced and is no bomb. Trusted Forcemage is good but requires tight play or it really opens you up to blow outs!
How often is Windrider Eel a 4/4 or even a 6/6(Evolving Wilds!) for you guys instead of a derp 2/2. I'm wondering if I should test that dude out, also considering blue is now leaning towards the tempo/aggro side of the spectrum, and away for control.
Thanks CrusherX for the match reports as they are always insightful of other people's cubes and play habits.
More thoughts on Reckless Brute a 3/1 haster that must attack each turn. Is he good enough for red's 3 drop section? What are all your thoughts on him? Is he actually good enough to play with or does the competition in red's 3cc slot push him out? I know the fact he has to attack each turn will result in just suicidal charges, so I am currently leaning towards no in 360.
On Zombie Scavengers I'm starting to feel that exiling creatures of the top of the graveyard is a pretty big draw back, but I still can easily be swayed. He might actually require testing to how functional his ability is and how bad the repercussions actually are.
Thoughts on this? Pretty sure it's not gonna fly in most cubes, but a 2/1 flyer that can't always attack (Can always block though) I feel is worth a solid look.
I'm liking War Falcon. As soon as I saw it, I checked my current White creatures and found that most of them were already Soldiers or Knights, so there's a pretty good chance for the Falcon to get to attack.
There are a lot of Soldiers and Knights. And a 2-power defender is not bad. But I think what it wants to do, which is attack, doesn't happen often enough for it to be cubeable.
I'm skeptical, but I find that I have Testing Zone room, so I'll try it out (unless something better pops up.)
Edit: Frankly, amidst the good white 1-drops, I don't even think there's room for it.
I feel that while 2/1 fliers for 1 is super powerful, and there is a decent amount of solders and knights in white, ultimately it is just not worth it. It won't even reliably be able to attack on turn 2 at all which is when you want such a card online and doing it's thing. Not just that, but cards like it just fold to non-white removal. Plus, if you play a 2 coloured deck or even more (naya!) War Falcon's effect is dramatically dropped with all those silly non-solder/knight creatures running around.
To be frank War Falcon is far too unreliable and narrow to be playable let alone good in cube for anything other that blocking, and if blocking is your objective, there are far better cards out there than this.
I thought about Reckless Brute for a bit and he's just going to everytime, blindly run into one your opponents creatures and just trade down, hardly impacting the board. Sure, hastey 3 damage is appealing, but you have cards like Inner-Flame Acolyte to smash faces for 4 and still not be useless on following turns, and other hasters. Reckless Brute doesn't feel to be worth it.
Honestly I feel that I gave Fervent Cathar some bad rep when he was spoilt. He has so much synergy with himself, he may worth be considering for some cubes. He feels a lot like a combat trick to force through some damage and leaves a decent body as 2/1 seems to be Magic's magic number. I can imagine some decent blow out with him would be common. Still this depends how tight your list is and if you desire such effects.
I honestly don't mind the over all low power of this set. It feels a lot more balanced. In fact the only auto-include in this set for pauper seems to Searing Spear.
Other than that the only few playable cards that aren't straight up reprints seem to be Faerie Invaders (functional reprint of Spire Monitor) and Sentinel Spider being cubeable. Primal Huntbeast is kind-of too... He doesn't have obvious face-smashing power, but requires testing because of that powerful word called 'hexproof' on a not half-bad body.
I'm going to cross my little toes for some awesome common playable lands. Also Wizards needs to invent the creature type 'Hobbit', with at least 1 common bomb that will be stapled into my cube for all of time!
My real thought right now since we still don't have much to discuss this spoiler season is what cube sub-themes are there that are actually reliably viable at common for cubing. Something like tokens (which there is no support for other than making tokens), or maybe a discarding, madness/reanimator themes? Really what is there for sub-themes in pauper? And actually themes that will put together deck that can compete with a regular non-themed deck and win. It also can't be too narrow that those cards are playable outside of the theme. Is it doable?
I'm going to cross my little toes for some awesome common playable lands. Also Wizards needs to invent the creature type 'Hobbit', with at least 1 common bomb that will be stapled into my cube for all of time!
My real thought right now since we still don't have much to discuss this spoiler season is what cube sub-themes are there that are actually reliably viable at common for cubing. Something like tokens (which there is no support for other than making tokens), or maybe a discarding, madness/reanimator themes? Really what is there for sub-themes in pauper? And actually themes that will put together deck that can compete with a regular non-themed deck and win. It also can't be too narrow that those cards are playable outside of the theme. Is it doable?
Right now I'm trying to even out 5-Color Control (which is ebbing away, thank god) and Blue Aggro/Tempo. The latter is something I'm very interested in, especially after the great inclusion of Wingcrafter, but it'll take some time.
It's not that Watercourser is a bad card for all those people thinking about it's cubeability, it's just that he's way out competed for the 3 drop slot in blue as Lanxal just demonstrated. I'm sure someone with a bigger cube (+450 cards) might be able to make him fit if you are heading away from control in blue in favour of more 'aggressive' strategies.
Right now I'm trying to even out 5-Color Control (which is ebbing away, thank god) and Blue Aggro/Tempo. The latter is something I'm very interested in, especially after the great inclusion of Wingcrafter, but it'll take some time.
I like 5-CC to be viable if one puts in the drafting work, but I have to be really careful not to make it into some oppressive archetype where it's just TAKE ALL THE GOOD CARDS, and green mana fixes, and then proceed to smash everyone's faces in with a deck of bombs.
Also I agree with the general movement to make blue more aggressive, instead of making douche-baggy blue based control deck which seems to do nothing other than make your opponent do nothing too, and then eventually win somehow. Sure, I love those kinds of decks, but other people really do not at all. It's good to head my cube into a direction where more people enjoy playing it rather than just me. It's not like those grindy control decks will be dead, they will be just a lot harder to pull together, which requires some really good drafting if you want to crush everyone's hopes and dreams.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Insert witty quotation here.
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
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
Feeling of Dread is a better card, but probably a little worse in cube because it's multicoloured.
Frost Breath, Undo, Rushing River and Silent Departure do similar things better IMO.
Draft it on Cubetutor!
I don't like Downpour much. I feel better playing Frost Breath (which I don't even.)
Guys we're losing to the Peasant Cube Thread and I'm not happy about it.
My Pauper Cube ♤ The Pauper Cube Thread Common Knowledge — 1 2
How are we losing, exactly?
Sig courtesy of Disappointing Signet Inc.
My Cubes:
Goblin Pile Shuffler's 360 Card Pauper Cube - updated 1/4/2014
Goblin Pile Shuffler's 270 Card One-Drop Cube - updated 1/4/2014
(and also I don't know)
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 thought's on Downpour is that it only locks down it's creatures for 1 turn which is really average where most of the other tempo cards get all their power form locking out creatures across multiple turns. And tapping 3 creatures isn't much better than 2. Most of the time a person will only have 2 or the third will be largely irrelevant from combat. Plus it's out classed by so many different tempo cards in cube, Withdraw, Rushing River and Frost Breath, just to name a few. Not just that, it really only is useful for an alpha strike which other cards already do, just better.
Feeling of Dread is freaken awesome and is totally worth the card slot in WU. It outclassed Downpour so many times it's not funny, by actually being a card that decks want to run.
Just peeking on ye olde Paupers, and what are your thoughts on Zombie scavengers?
What? Crookclaw is amaizing! 2 for 1 all day long!
My errata'd commons cube
My Pauper Cube ♤ The Pauper Cube Thread Common Knowledge — 1 2
Nerp, sorry to inform you about this but P/T switching is not often a 2 for 1. It sometimes will be, but not reliably. It's really the Flash on a 3 power flyer that makes this card, and the P/T switch is gravy. BUT, people often want reliable cards and there already are several 4 cost 3 power flyers that do other cool stuff. And Crookclaw Transmuter is kind of not a control card, he's more of a tempo dude, although not unplayable in control due to the word flash.
Fair enough about Zombie Scavengers. It's pretty hard to actually have enough creatures in your graveyard in the early game reliably. Also he is a big anti-strategy with any graveyard recursion spell, which there are enough of in black to safely say that you are always playing at least 1, if not more. (It depends on the cube, but still...)
Skaab Skaab Skaab 2B
Creature - Zombie Homie
As an additional cost to cast ~, exile a creature from your graveyard.
~ is indestructible. Kinda.
3/1
I'd play that every day!
and unless your opponent throws a bunch of removal at it, a bunch of blockers at it, an incinerate, or a creature with 4 toughness, that's essentially what you have for a while. Not to mention it's just about the best 3 drop that I'd ever want to topdeck in black except for... hmm... Does anybody have an example?
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
Match 1 vs. Naya Zoo.
Zoo started crazy with Porcelain Legionnaire meeting Temporal Existance and Stormfront Pegasus meeting Pacifism, but I responded with Wickerbough Elder and Qasali Pridemage to get them back. I get momentum and he doesn't come back.
Game two I gain board control with a Trusted Forcemage and army of Cenn's Enlistment, but he finds Fireslinger to blow me out. I have Serrated Arrows ready to go and respond, but he still has Pyrotechnics and leaves me empty. My hand is still full and Kitsune Blademaster and Spined Thopter are too hard for him to slow.
2-0
Match 2 vs. Dimir Control splash Red.
Match two starts off terrifying. On the play, my opponent lands Hymn to Tourach before my second turn, then Chittering Rats on his third. Pouncing Jaguar trades with the Rats only to have them be brought back by Cadaver Imp, which blocks my Stormfront Pegasus all day and leaves me with a crippled hand when I meet Rats again. It took a while for him to finish me off but I had essentially lost here.
Game two he has lots of card draw and finds both Windrider Eel and Shimmering Glasskite. He hits landfall every turn but I somehow stabilise with Cenn's Enlistment and Faith's Fetters to buy time. He's forced into a bad trade to get rid of Glasskite, and I muscle through on a whisker. He was a mountain off his splashed Fireball for the win!
Game three he has a much slower hand. I resolve turn three Blastoderm off Llanowar Elves into Guardian of the Guildpact, and he can't stop it. Journey to Nowhere answers his Eel and it's soon game.
2-1
So, my list was:
1 Llanowar Elves
1 Pouncing Jaguar
1 Flayer Husk
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Porcelain Legionnaire
1 Spined Thopter
1 Wall of Roots
1 Stormfront Pegasus
1 Trusted Forcemage
1 Grazing Gladehart
1 Borderland Ranger
1 Kitsune Blademaster
1 Blastoderm
1 Wickerbough Elder
1 Cenn's Enlistment
1 Noble Templar
1 Mold Shambler
Spells
1 Journey to Nowhere
1 Faith's Fetters
1 Serrated Arrows
1 Selesnya Signet
Land
9 Forest
8 Plains
1 Penumbra Spider
1 Wild Leotau
1 Crushing Vines
1 Haunted Fengraf
Overall very happy with my draft and it was pretty fun for everyone. Windrider Eel again was good for us. Pouncing Jaguar is still awesome and trades up. Mold Shambler may be pushing overpriced and is no bomb. Trusted Forcemage is good but requires tight play or it really opens you up to blow outs!
G Omnath, Locus of Mana G
=CUBE=
Pauper {360} 2013 REVIVAL UPDATE
Thanks CrusherX for the match reports as they are always insightful of other people's cubes and play habits.
More thoughts on Reckless Brute a 3/1 haster that must attack each turn. Is he good enough for red's 3 drop section? What are all your thoughts on him? Is he actually good enough to play with or does the competition in red's 3cc slot push him out? I know the fact he has to attack each turn will result in just suicidal charges, so I am currently leaning towards no in 360.
On Zombie Scavengers I'm starting to feel that exiling creatures of the top of the graveyard is a pretty big draw back, but I still can easily be swayed. He might actually require testing to how functional his ability is and how bad the repercussions actually are.
Blue 4-drops has a lot of good candidates. I don't think it should be considered much at all.
@Reckless Brute
Nah. 1 toughness means it just trades with really bad creatures most of the time.
My Pauper Cube ♤ The Pauper Cube Thread Common Knowledge — 1 2
Thoughts on this? Pretty sure it's not gonna fly in most cubes, but a 2/1 flyer that can't always attack (Can always block though) I feel is worth a solid look.
Karador, Ghost Chieftain
I'm skeptical, but I find that I have Testing Zone room, so I'll try it out (unless something better pops up.)
Edit: Frankly, amidst the good white 1-drops, I don't even think there's room for it.
My Pauper Cube ♤ The Pauper Cube Thread Common Knowledge — 1 2
To be frank War Falcon is far too unreliable and narrow to be playable let alone good in cube for anything other that blocking, and if blocking is your objective, there are far better cards out there than this.
I thought about Reckless Brute for a bit and he's just going to everytime, blindly run into one your opponents creatures and just trade down, hardly impacting the board. Sure, hastey 3 damage is appealing, but you have cards like Inner-Flame Acolyte to smash faces for 4 and still not be useless on following turns, and other hasters. Reckless Brute doesn't feel to be worth it.
Honestly I feel that I gave Fervent Cathar some bad rep when he was spoilt. He has so much synergy with himself, he may worth be considering for some cubes. He feels a lot like a combat trick to force through some damage and leaves a decent body as 2/1 seems to be Magic's magic number. I can imagine some decent blow out with him would be common. Still this depends how tight your list is and if you desire such effects.
Other than that the only few playable cards that aren't straight up reprints seem to be Faerie Invaders (functional reprint of Spire Monitor) and Sentinel Spider being cubeable. Primal Huntbeast is kind-of too... He doesn't have obvious face-smashing power, but requires testing because of that powerful word called 'hexproof' on a not half-bad body.
My Pauper Cube ♤ The Pauper Cube Thread Common Knowledge — 1 2
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 real thought right now since we still don't have much to discuss this spoiler season is what cube sub-themes are there that are actually reliably viable at common for cubing. Something like tokens (which there is no support for other than making tokens), or maybe a discarding, madness/reanimator themes? Really what is there for sub-themes in pauper? And actually themes that will put together deck that can compete with a regular non-themed deck and win. It also can't be too narrow that those cards are playable outside of the theme. Is it doable?
Man-o'-War and Aether Adept, Stitched Drake, Thalakos Scout (which is frakking amazing), Sea Gate Oracle (another quality card), Calcite Snapper, Shaper Parasite (which I don't run but like a lot more than Watercourser), Pestermite (which has a solid set of abilities and a great card for the blue tempo decks.), Stormbound Geist (turned out to be fairly meh but still better than Watercourser.)
Right now I'm trying to even out 5-Color Control (which is ebbing away, thank god) and Blue Aggro/Tempo. The latter is something I'm very interested in, especially after the great inclusion of Wingcrafter, but it'll take some time.
My Pauper Cube ♤ The Pauper Cube Thread Common Knowledge — 1 2
It's not that Watercourser is a bad card for all those people thinking about it's cubeability, it's just that he's way out competed for the 3 drop slot in blue as Lanxal just demonstrated. I'm sure someone with a bigger cube (+450 cards) might be able to make him fit if you are heading away from control in blue in favour of more 'aggressive' strategies.
I like 5-CC to be viable if one puts in the drafting work, but I have to be really careful not to make it into some oppressive archetype where it's just TAKE ALL THE GOOD CARDS, and green mana fixes, and then proceed to smash everyone's faces in with a deck of bombs.
Also I agree with the general movement to make blue more aggressive, instead of making douche-baggy blue based control deck which seems to do nothing other than make your opponent do nothing too, and then eventually win somehow. Sure, I love those kinds of decks, but other people really do not at all. It's good to head my cube into a direction where more people enjoy playing it rather than just me. It's not like those grindy control decks will be dead, they will be just a lot harder to pull together, which requires some really good drafting if you want to crush everyone's hopes and dreams.