When it comes to Pestilence and Crypt Rats, those are pretty meh in the average deck. Those are build around cards that needs a good defensive early game or said Turn1 Elite Vanguard already dealt 6-8 damage to you, along with some other dudes. I had to heavily tweak my black section towards control to survive the aggro onslaught to the point you wont just die to your own sweeper on T4/5
Guardian is also not a "bomb". Its more or less an unblockable 2 power guy for 4, which is pretty bad. Its somewhat decent to stall the game, but might come too late. I actually dont draft it that often, although my favorite deck is white.
Anyway, at this point I suggest just putting someone on ignore, since interaction leads nowhere. Dont feed.
SM doesn’t support aggro, so midrange mirror-breakers are busted in his list. Instead of fixing his problem, he plugs his ears and says everyone else is doing it wrong.
Yeah I have to agree with all of you here. I rarely post in this thread and mainly follow it to keep my cube up to date, but the last 10 or so pages (even without the posts Ulka deleted a while ago) have been just useless drivel from people who clearly can't evaluate cards even if their life were on the line (who even admitted that they haven't done a single draft a few pages ago) nor understand basic game concepts at all like tempo, synergy, interactions, combos, and other avenues to victory other than knuckledragging "Creatures: the Tappening" and thus I think they don't actually enjoy the game at all, so why should their opinions count towards anything? Ignore button is there for a reason.
1.) You guys are bad at evaluating cards. Everything that doesn't single handedly win you the game is deemed unplayable trash.
You Imply that but that is not the case. Most of the people here think Elite vanguard is a good card. Does it single handedly win you the game? No. Is it a dud because of it? No.
And If you think the people here are bad for evaluating cards why do you ask them? If you already think something is a reasonable card go ahead and test/play it, if you still want feedback then accept the feedback (You don't have to agree but why ask for feedback if nobody can change your mind on a card anyways)
This notion that this forum is only for powered cubes, and that powered cubes are the only balanced ones holds the community back.
Agreed, but nobody here is saying that powered cubes are the only balanced cubes.
Whereas my cube has some dud cards in it, powered cubes are basically, Everything that's not Pestilence% is a dud.
Again you imply that but nobody said that and even if they did that wouldn't be true, you have to draft a specific deck for pestilence to shine. And Pestilence is not "unbeatable" by any means.
So what you consider, a "tuned" Pauper cube is in reality just Pestilence, Crypt Rats, Evincar's Justice, Sprout Swarm, Guardian of the Guildpact, etc. + 340~ cards that are unplayable trash in comparison
No again you imply that that is the case but it is not ( the unplayable trash in comparison part). To most people here a tuned cube is a cube where you can draft multiple strategies that can be on even footing. Yes some cards are more powerful than others but Pestilence [or other cards you mentioned] should always be beatable in a tuned cube even without one of the other cards you mentioned. And for that the other cards are neccesary by either being good cards themselves or synergize well with the rest of your drafted cards.
3.) It's better to have 2 dud cards and 13 decent cards in each pack than it is to have 13 decent cards and 2 obnoxious bomb cards.
The Obnoxius part is your personal view on some of the cards and that is fine, but the more duds you play the more your decent cards become the
cards that you always draft and that always dominate games
thats why balance is neccesary.
multiple decent cards can beat the "bomb" cards. It's harder (however possible) to beat decent cards with duds. But then again having only decent cards or only duds is easier to balance.
All a dud card does is waste a draft pick. A bomb on the other hand utterly dominates the game. From a balance perspective, an individual dud has far less of an impact on cube balance than an individual bomb does.
I'd argue if its just one bomb vs. one dud balance wise both have litte impact. But from a "feels bad" perspective (which is subjective) I'd rather have my opponent draft that bomb than having to waste a pick, since in the games they still have to draw it and might not even win if they play it but a dud will most likely not even see the deck so the only impact it had was "somebody needed to draft this" instead of "somebody wanted to draft this".
Why wouldn't Elite Vanguard be considered unplayable trash? I've seen Duress, Frantic Search, Demonic Torment, and Peregrine Drake sans Ghostly Flicker called unplayable trash.
So why not? "elite vanguard is an X/1 it literally dies to everything i would not draft it your cube is 50% unplayable trash "
So I have the perception that everyone here besides Waymarsh is bad at card evaluation and since people accuse me of the same thing I don't see anything wrong with throwing it back.
*Shrugs* I guess in hopes of discussing cards I like? Which I'm not allowed to do apparently since many of the cards I like are not part of The One True Three-Hundred And Sixty.
My experience with cards like Pestilence is that you can draft like ***** and then in the last pack get a handful of power cards and pivot to black and magically have a super powerful deck. When Pestilence gets put onto the field, it gets pumped for 3 and everything dies a turn later. The original version of my cube before I started changing it was utterly dominated by Orzhov decks, and so was Adam Styborski's cube.
I don't see how you can balance Pestilence unless your cube was filled with parasitic artifact/enchantment removal.
The difference between Ninja of the Deep Hours or Rancor and the average other card in my cube is closer than the difference between a bomb like Pestilence and the average card in a "tuned" pauper cube, I'd argue.
I'd rather the person waste 1/45 of their picks than have 1/45 of their picks utterly dominate the game. Someone getting access to an overly powerful card is more of a feels bad for everyone else than it is to have to waste a pick on a dud card.
Elite vanguard is a fast start can be used for go wide strategies pressures the opponent early on, its a bad late topdeck but most of the things in ww are bad late since you want to win fast.
Duress does very litte since most cubes are creature based and have redundant removal which is the main thing you can get with duress so the thing it does it doesnt do very well the off chance you get to hitting a crux piece is not worth the mostly reduntant pieces or actual whiffing that will occur.
Already Talked about Demonic torment as you have sac effects in black they will just sac the one with torment on it. Hard removal in the color of hard removal is always better then soft removal, torment is not unplayable but it is a dud in most cubes (I include yours because you have plenty of better removals in there)
Peregrine drake is a 5 mana 2/3 flier it is technically not free since you still need 5 mana upfront, the biggest upside you can have is playing another 5 drop. So your upside is playing a 3 drop for 5 and then a five drop, your downside is playing a 3 drop for 5, the upside is meh the downside is awful.
Cards in your cube that are better than the downside and and occupy a similar spot just in blue:
Carnivorous Death-Parrot,Cloudskate,Nimbus Naiad,Wormfang Drake,Stormbound Geist,Ascending Aven,Azure Drake,Shimmering Glasskite,Mulldrifter,Spire Golem,Wretched Gryff.
Each of them are cheaper and/or more powerful stats. So if I play the drake I would want more payoff or more chance at payoff than those for me to play the drake over those. Unplayable no likely to get played if i have multiples of the others (or even similar cards in other colors) rather low.
Frantic search is the most likely card i play and even there your cube has just so many better options that give real card advantage for 3 or less so unless I have a payoff for discard or really looking for a "combo" i'd most likely play those ofer search.
So I have the perception that everyone here besides Waymarsh is bad at card evaluation and since people accuse me of the same thing I don't see anything wrong with throwing it back.
You asked those people those people didn't ask you and while I agree some people here are quite dismissive you are still the one asking for the evaluation. So if you think they are bad at that don't ask.
*Shrugs* I guess in hopes of discussing cards I like? Which I'm not allowed to do apparently since many of the cards I like are not part of The One True Three-Hundred And Sixty.
I agree that the statement from some people "this is not the place to be discussing those cards" is a false one, you are not open to the discussion anyweys since you already made your mind up and most of us did so too. Everyone gave their reasoning so after that what is there more to discuss about a card.
My experience with cards like Pestilence is that you can draft like ***** and then in the last pack get a handful of power cards and pivot to black and magically have a super powerful deck. When Pestilence gets put onto the field, it gets pumped for 3 and everything dies a turn later.
And thats a valid expierience and reason for change, but in my Expierience (and apparently humphrey, and others) that is not the case.
(And as someone said before the reason for this might be that you have a cube with heavy emphasis on midrange so cards that break a midrange stall are exceptionally good)
Oh and a question for the statement everything dies, in your expirience what happens after since a boardwipe that kills everything still needs backup to win.
I don't see how you can balance Pestilence unless your cube was filled with parasitic artifact/enchantment removal.
You don't always need direct answers as others have stated a push to aggro helps since by turn 4 those decks (should) have already done a great amount of damage ( See the reasoning behind elite Vanguard). So even if it sticks (Pestilence still dies without creatures) they can't ride Pestilence alone to victory by virtue of having a lower life total than you.
The difference between Ninja of the Deep Hours or Rancor and the average other card in my cube is closer than the difference between a bomb like Pestilence and the average card in a "tuned" pauper cube, I'd argue.
I'd agree if your average cards are stuff like nimbus naiad, but as soon as the avereage card becomes stuff like Psychic Puppetry i'd say that rancor becomes rather unbeatable.
I'd rather the person waste 1/45 of their picks than have 1/45 of their picks utterly dominate the game. Someone getting access to an overly powerful card is more of a feels bad for everyone else than it is to have to waste a pick on a dud card.
Yeah thats personal preference thats why I stated it like that in my post.
Perhaps some context about Tidal Wave is necessary?
Currently in my cube, Big Dumb Green 4 mana 5/5's is the dominant deck. Tidal Wave matches up neatly with these and is also just a cool card.
Pacifisms do have some upsides. They eat enchantments like Rancor, Elephant Guide, Bestow creatures, and Totem Armor. And while perhaps often not as good as doom blades, I don't believe you that you wouldn't play Demonic Torment. The more removal, the better, right? Even if it's worse it's still worth playing in general.
Its not that i wont play it perse, if I really need removal and assume no more removal is coming my way i would take it but otherwise i'd rather have another ok threat than a meh removal. And even if I needed the removal as soon as I drafted an edict i would actively try to stay away from that. More removal is not always better.
Pacifisms do have upsides that hard removals don't have but that happens only in special circumstances (like the ones you mentioned) whereas hard removal needs special circumstances to be worse. So unless the cube is built in a way that the circumstances appear more ofthen then not i'd always go for the hard removal esp. in black.
Currently in my cube, Big Dumb Green 4 mana 5/5's is the dominant deck. Tidal Wave matches up neatly with these and is also just a cool card.
A single card rarely makes it or brakes it as weve discussed earlier, it is a simple yet convoluted (conditional) removal spell as people said earlier and if you think it helps by all means go for it.
By looking through your cube I didn't think that blue would have a tough time against that because it seems like you can just tempo them out, but I guess since that is your expierience in drafting your cube with your group thats just how the games play out and what stood out to you.
Yeah I have to agree with all of you here. I rarely post in this thread and mainly follow it to keep my cube up to date, but the last 10 or so pages (even without the posts Ulka deleted a while ago) have been just useless drivel from people who clearly can't evaluate cards even if their life were on the line (who even admitted that they haven't done a single draft a few pages ago) nor understand basic game concepts at all like tempo, synergy, interactions, combos, and other avenues to victory other than knuckledragging "Creatures: the Tappening" and thus I think they don't actually enjoy the game at all, so why should their opinions count towards anything? Ignore button is there for a reason.
1.) I don't see why I'm bad at card evaluation. My cube just isn't the top 360 Pauper legal cards mashed together, I like a lower power level. All that matters is that the cards are balanced enough compared to each other.
Furthermore, Tidal Wave is just a 3 mana blue kill spell against a lot of things, so even for a powered cube it seems playable. I don't see the issue with this one.
2.) Magic is not an area where expertise is very relevant. It's easy to learn and easy to master. It's even less relevant when you take someone else's cube as a start point and change from there.
So having never opened an actual pack for this game isn't relevant at all. I'm only marginally worse at this game than veteran players who have been playing MtG for 20 years.
See, cubes don't actually have to be balanced, have to have equal amounts of every color, have to have bombs, etc. No matter how unbalanced they are, the fact that everyone gets access to the same pool of cards balances it by default.
2.) Magic is not an area where expertise is very relevant.It's easy to learn and easy to master. It's even less relevant when you take someone else's cube as a start point and change from there.
So having never opened an actual pack for this game isn't relevant at all. I'm only marginally worse at this game than veteran players who have been playing MtG for 20 years.
This is a huge insult to every professional player and I think a statement like this says a lot about how much you know about this game.
If you have an unbalanced card pool, the way draft works inherently smooths that over and balances it somewhat because everyone works from the same pool of cards.
That's still not as desirable as having a card pool that's balanced to begin with, of course. But there are some axioms that people perceive as hard and fast rules when in reality there is no reason why you can't have a cube that has 27 white cards in it and 120 blue cards in it, for example. Many rules concerning cube construction are just arbitrary.
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Just because people find it insulting doesn't mean it's false.
As far as competitive Pauper goes, none of the decks are really that difficult to learn except for the One Land Spy deck. After a few practice games and a few nights at the LGS you can play most decks with an amount of competence that's just shy of someone who has been playing the deck for a long time.
My favorite deck is MBC. Half the time I win because I got lucky and drew Gary (Peace Be Upon Him) when I needed him.
Hell, half the decks require no thought at all, like Bogles or Burn. The only meaningful decision you make all game with Burn or Bogles are your mulligans.
You don't need 20 years experience to T1 Delver -> T2 hold 2 mana open for Counterspell. Like I said, this game is both easy to learn and easy to master. It's not an area where expertise is very valuable like chess, brain surgery, rocket science, playing an instrument, etc.
I'm a Peasant Cube player, but I lurk and read in the Pauper Cube threads because I find it interesting and helpful given that my cube is almost half commons. I also personally run Tidal Wave as a pet card even though I know there are a lot of better options. But I have to say that the last ten pages or so have been horrible to read. I've even considered getting into the conversation a few times, and the following quote finally pushed me over the edge.
Magic is not an area where expertise is very relevant. It's easy to learn and easy to master... I'm only marginally worse at this game than veteran players who have been playing MtG for 20 years.
Look up the Dunning–Kruger Effect sometime - this is a classic example of it. It's only after you learn through experience that you begin to realize how little you know. I look back at how smart and smug I felt fifteen years ago and am embarrassed at the arguments I got into at the time because I didn't know as much as I thought. If you think there's not much of a difference between you and someone with more experience, you haven't played against any more experienced players.
I'm a Peasant Cube player, but I lurk and read in the Pauper Cube threads because I find it interesting and helpful given that my cube is almost half commons. I also personally run Tidal Wave as a pet card even though I know there are a lot of better options. But I have to say that the last ten pages or so have been horrible to read. I've even considered getting into the conversation a few times, and the following quote finally pushed me over the edge.
Magic is not an area where expertise is very relevant. It's easy to learn and easy to master... I'm only marginally worse at this game than veteran players who have been playing MtG for 20 years.
Look up the Dunning–Kruger Effect sometime - this is a classic example of it. It's only after you learn through experience that you begin to realize how little you know. I look back at how smart and smug I felt fifteen years ago and am embarrassed at the arguments I got into at the time because I didn't know as much as I thought. If you think there's not much of a difference between you and someone with more experience, you haven't played against any more experienced players.
I agree about Tidal Wave. It's not that it's the best card, or even the best blue removal. My argument is simply that it's a reasonably playable card.
I have played against experienced players.
As far as the Dunning-Kruger accusation goes, I could level the same accusation at someone offended that I had said that experience means little because they drafted more sets than I did or whatever. Since I don't value experience as regards MtG very much, I just see it as an ad hominem.
I've said this once or twice already, but when I top foured a Pauper 1k I told the streamers that interviewed me, "Better lucky than good."
So I don't really see why this statement is a big deal. To me it's just a statement of fact. I can top deck Gary just as well as anyone else.
Due to the discussion not get any better and both sides just getting to the point of flaming rather than civility I'm locking this thread for a few days so people can cool off.
When the thread is unlocked if people continue to flame I will begin suspensions immediately. This is the last warning.
2.) Magic is not an area where expertise is very relevant. It's easy to learn and easy to master. It's even less relevant when you take someone else's cube as a start point and change from there.
So having never opened an actual pack for this game isn't relevant at all. I'm only marginally worse at this game than veteran players who have been playing MtG for 20 years.
Infracting a whole bunch of random posts on this page and this one that shows more than anything else why this whole drama even started is fine?
The most ignorant of human beings would realize that when someone posts something like that on a somewhat competitive MtG forum other people have two options: 1) react heavily offended and reply to the person, ultimately resulting in what you would call flaming, or 2) shake their head and stop bothering with this thread and forum given that people can spam tens of thousands of words of garbage without anyone acting. Both of those should not be in your interest. I know there's an ignore button, but when everyone else just c/p's back and forth it does literally nothing.
Issuing a last warning only goes so far. What do you expect to happen now? Well, either the one person who caused all of this miraculously vanishes and we'll live happily ever after, or we keep reading the same pointless discussions until people get tired and you have to lock the thread again.
I'd end my post with the generic 'back on topic' comment but I've really had enough of Tidal Wave and ... you know... *****ting on the whole competitive Magic community in the world by essentially calling them nothing but lucky and such, so if someone could bing up another one that would be much appreciated...
Public Mod Note
(Ulka):
Infraction for Ignoring Mod Text
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Someday, someone will best me. But it won't be today, and it won't be you."
Longtime Magic players have invested a significant amount of time, money, and emotion into the game. They're simply unwilling to acknowledge that in reality this game is fairly easy to play and that "mere competency" gets you 90% of the way there.
Don't get mad, it's true.
Having this opinion and stating it, no matter how calmly you state it, will infuriate those emotionally invested in it even if you're right.
Have you seen the Stanley Kubrick movie Paths of Glory? Remember when one of the officers says, "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." to the general and the general gets very angry? Yeah, like that.
So when everyone gets angry at me, I just see it as people not liking my opinions and wanting me silenced because of them. Because that's what's been happening.
Put yourself on my side of the aisle. How is one supposed to express their views against a sacred cow to those who hold those sacred cows dear?
5 Mana is a lot for 2 multicolored power. It Depends on how easy it is to kill a 5 toughness unblockable creature in the cube. If there's a lot of efficient answers then its probably not worth it when there's so much goodness in blue and white. There's several 2/5, 3/4 and 4/3 flyers for 5 nowadays and flying is not that much worse than unblockable if you have enough kill or bounce.
If I'm not going to get infracted - Tidal Wave is a fun sort of card, but it's basically a kill spell that says "destroy target creature with 5 toughness or less if your opponent does not discard a removal spell". Blue has way better ways to remove creatures than that than a super situational kill spell. It's too bad that the token has Defender, so its not a blue Waylay. They totally missed the opportunity to allow the wave to "crash" over your opponent if you cast it at the end of the enemy's turn so you get a combat phase with it.
there are no 2/5 or 4/3 flyer in pauper. Some 3/4s in blue though.
I havent played the arbiter in my T2 yet, but I liked it in rav limited. Being able to stall the ground quite well, while also dealing 2 each round is pretty solid. Its a borderline card still and I wouldnt run it in tighter guild sections.
so "inspired" by the latest discussions and because im bored, but also because it helps me keeping track of fringe archetypes and potential cards for my T2, I proudly present The Tier3 Cube
Features slivers, artifact matters, +1+1 counter theme, sacrifice and whatever else was left over from my other cubes. as always higher cube cards are excluded.
I discovererd pretty neat interaction between the Kor damage redirection and creatures that trigger upon damage like Spirit en-Kor + Overgrown Armasaur
its untested as of yet, but most cards have been played at some point already.
I discovererd pretty neat interaction between the Kor damage redirection and creatures that trigger upon damage like Spirit en-Kor + Overgrown Armasaur
its untested as of yet, but most cards have been played at some point already.
Not sure exactly how you are playing the Kor, but I ran into an issue with it in my Dino Enrage EDH deck with Marath as the commander. I expected to be able to do lots of redirecting on my indestructible Enrage creatures. The damage all happens at once and doesn't trigger Enrage multiple times. Just check on the rulings and make sure your players know.
I discovererd pretty neat interaction between the Kor damage redirection and creatures that trigger upon damage like Spirit en-Kor + Overgrown Armasaur
its untested as of yet, but most cards have been played at some point already.
Not sure exactly how you are playing the Kor, but I ran into an issue with it in my Dino Enrage EDH deck with Marath as the commander. I expected to be able to do lots of redirecting on my indestructible Enrage creatures. The damage all happens at once and doesn't trigger Enrage multiple times. Just check on the rulings and make sure your players know.
no idea what your commander does, but each point of damage from the kor triggers enrage, its not dealt at once.
so nobody interested in discussing the fringe stuff? everyone exhausted from the previous posts or is everybody on timeout lol?
building the T3 I (re)discovered a bunch of interesting stuff. nothing Tier1 worthy ofc, but maybe still interesting for downpowered cubes.
First the mentioned Kor interaction. It even works in-color with cards like Wall of Resistance. Too bad there are only 2 Kor at common right now.
Cards I think are reasonably interesting:
Drelnoch unless it gets removed directly it seems quite good. With some sort of pump it can get quite scary. Dreamspoiler Witches with a bunch of cheap spells it can be devastating in cubes with some amount of x/1s. Iirc it was pretty good in lorwyn limited as well. Dead Ringers probably the worst wording of all magic (besides illusionary mask) and not oracle rewording whatsoever. But hitting 2 creatures of the same color isnt hard to do and double removal for 5 is good. Quarry Hauler was noticed but dismissed in the akh spoiler season, but already pretty solid in a deck that just runs something like Travel Preparations or any creature that comes with at least 2 +1+1 counters or more Ivy Elemental Ethersworn Shieldmage rated bad in evaluation and dismissed as artifact dependent card, but its an artifact itself, so its a pretty solid combat trick/pseudoremoval on its own
also potentially interesting are the Chromatic Sphere variations. They are solid fixing, replace themselves and open some amount of interesting artifact synergies, especially in white. Leonin SquireTrusty Packbeast
I discovererd pretty neat interaction between the Kor damage redirection and creatures that trigger upon damage like Spirit en-Kor + Overgrown Armasaur
its untested as of yet, but most cards have been played at some point already.
Not sure exactly how you are playing the Kor, but I ran into an issue with it in my Dino Enrage EDH deck with Marath as the commander. I expected to be able to do lots of redirecting on my indestructible Enrage creatures. The damage all happens at once and doesn't trigger Enrage multiple times. Just check on the rulings and make sure your players know.
no idea what your commander does, but each point of damage from the kor triggers enrage, its not dealt at once.
I think you both may both potentially be right? Combat damage you redirect is still combat damage (per oracle) which seems to imply that it is all dealt simultaneously. I am not totally sure about other sources of damage.
the combat damage is dealt at once to the Kor which then triggers single point of damage for each activation to the targeted creature, its not triggered like one chunk of combat damage.
When it comes to Pestilence and Crypt Rats, those are pretty meh in the average deck. Those are build around cards that needs a good defensive early game or said Turn1 Elite Vanguard already dealt 6-8 damage to you, along with some other dudes. I had to heavily tweak my black section towards control to survive the aggro onslaught to the point you wont just die to your own sweeper on T4/5
Guardian is also not a "bomb". Its more or less an unblockable 2 power guy for 4, which is pretty bad. Its somewhat decent to stall the game, but might come too late. I actually dont draft it that often, although my favorite deck is white.
Anyway, at this point I suggest just putting someone on ignore, since interaction leads nowhere. Dont feed.
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
Thanks to DNC from Heroes of the Plane Studios for the sig
Check my Pauper Cube!
Why wouldn't Elite Vanguard be considered unplayable trash? I've seen Duress, Frantic Search, Demonic Torment, and Peregrine Drake sans Ghostly Flicker called unplayable trash.
So why not? "elite vanguard is an X/1 it literally dies to everything i would not draft it your cube is 50% unplayable trash
So I have the perception that everyone here besides Waymarsh is bad at card evaluation and since people accuse me of the same thing I don't see anything wrong with throwing it back.
*Shrugs* I guess in hopes of discussing cards I like? Which I'm not allowed to do apparently since many of the cards I like are not part of The One True Three-Hundred And Sixty.
My experience with cards like Pestilence is that you can draft like ***** and then in the last pack get a handful of power cards and pivot to black and magically have a super powerful deck. When Pestilence gets put onto the field, it gets pumped for 3 and everything dies a turn later. The original version of my cube before I started changing it was utterly dominated by Orzhov decks, and so was Adam Styborski's cube.
I don't see how you can balance Pestilence unless your cube was filled with parasitic artifact/enchantment removal.
The difference between Ninja of the Deep Hours or Rancor and the average other card in my cube is closer than the difference between a bomb like Pestilence and the average card in a "tuned" pauper cube, I'd argue.
I'd rather the person waste 1/45 of their picks than have 1/45 of their picks utterly dominate the game. Someone getting access to an overly powerful card is more of a feels bad for everyone else than it is to have to waste a pick on a dud card.
Ignoring what Magic players say isn't the answer, it's listening to what they have to say and doing the exact opposite that's correct.
Duress does very litte since most cubes are creature based and have redundant removal which is the main thing you can get with duress so the thing it does it doesnt do very well the off chance you get to hitting a crux piece is not worth the mostly reduntant pieces or actual whiffing that will occur.
Already Talked about Demonic torment as you have sac effects in black they will just sac the one with torment on it. Hard removal in the color of hard removal is always better then soft removal, torment is not unplayable but it is a dud in most cubes (I include yours because you have plenty of better removals in there)
Peregrine drake is a 5 mana 2/3 flier it is technically not free since you still need 5 mana upfront, the biggest upside you can have is playing another 5 drop. So your upside is playing a 3 drop for 5 and then a five drop, your downside is playing a 3 drop for 5, the upside is meh the downside is awful.
Cards in your cube that are better than the downside and and occupy a similar spot just in blue:
Carnivorous Death-Parrot,Cloudskate,Nimbus Naiad,Wormfang Drake,Stormbound Geist,Ascending Aven,Azure Drake,Shimmering Glasskite,Mulldrifter,Spire Golem,Wretched Gryff.
Each of them are cheaper and/or more powerful stats. So if I play the drake I would want more payoff or more chance at payoff than those for me to play the drake over those. Unplayable no likely to get played if i have multiples of the others (or even similar cards in other colors) rather low.
Frantic search is the most likely card i play and even there your cube has just so many better options that give real card advantage for 3 or less so unless I have a payoff for discard or really looking for a "combo" i'd most likely play those ofer search.
You asked those people those people didn't ask you and while I agree some people here are quite dismissive you are still the one asking for the evaluation. So if you think they are bad at that don't ask.
I agree that the statement from some people "this is not the place to be discussing those cards" is a false one, you are not open to the discussion anyweys since you already made your mind up and most of us did so too. Everyone gave their reasoning so after that what is there more to discuss about a card.
And thats a valid expierience and reason for change, but in my Expierience (and apparently humphrey, and others) that is not the case.
(And as someone said before the reason for this might be that you have a cube with heavy emphasis on midrange so cards that break a midrange stall are exceptionally good)
Oh and a question for the statement everything dies, in your expirience what happens after since a boardwipe that kills everything still needs backup to win.
You don't always need direct answers as others have stated a push to aggro helps since by turn 4 those decks (should) have already done a great amount of damage ( See the reasoning behind elite Vanguard). So even if it sticks (Pestilence still dies without creatures) they can't ride Pestilence alone to victory by virtue of having a lower life total than you.
I'd agree if your average cards are stuff like nimbus naiad, but as soon as the avereage card becomes stuff like Psychic Puppetry i'd say that rancor becomes rather unbeatable.
Yeah thats personal preference thats why I stated it like that in my post.
Currently in my cube, Big Dumb Green 4 mana 5/5's is the dominant deck. Tidal Wave matches up neatly with these and is also just a cool card.
Pacifisms do have some upsides. They eat enchantments like Rancor, Elephant Guide, Bestow creatures, and Totem Armor. And while perhaps often not as good as doom blades, I don't believe you that you wouldn't play Demonic Torment. The more removal, the better, right? Even if it's worse it's still worth playing in general.
Ignoring what Magic players say isn't the answer, it's listening to what they have to say and doing the exact opposite that's correct.
Pacifisms do have upsides that hard removals don't have but that happens only in special circumstances (like the ones you mentioned) whereas hard removal needs special circumstances to be worse. So unless the cube is built in a way that the circumstances appear more ofthen then not i'd always go for the hard removal esp. in black.
A single card rarely makes it or brakes it as weve discussed earlier, it is a simple yet convoluted (conditional) removal spell as people said earlier and if you think it helps by all means go for it.
By looking through your cube I didn't think that blue would have a tough time against that because it seems like you can just tempo them out, but I guess since that is your expierience in drafting your cube with your group thats just how the games play out and what stood out to you.
1.) I don't see why I'm bad at card evaluation. My cube just isn't the top 360 Pauper legal cards mashed together, I like a lower power level. All that matters is that the cards are balanced enough compared to each other.
Furthermore, Tidal Wave is just a 3 mana blue kill spell against a lot of things, so even for a powered cube it seems playable. I don't see the issue with this one.
2.) Magic is not an area where expertise is very relevant. It's easy to learn and easy to master. It's even less relevant when you take someone else's cube as a start point and change from there.
So having never opened an actual pack for this game isn't relevant at all. I'm only marginally worse at this game than veteran players who have been playing MtG for 20 years.
Ignoring what Magic players say isn't the answer, it's listening to what they have to say and doing the exact opposite that's correct.
This is a huge insult to every professional player and I think a statement like this says a lot about how much you know about this game.
Pauper Cube & Artifact Pauper Cube & Multiplayer Cube
Interested in building your own Pauper Cube? Take a look at some of the lists and the following project: The "Evaluate Everything" Project (updated to M21/JMP)
That's still not as desirable as having a card pool that's balanced to begin with, of course. But there are some axioms that people perceive as hard and fast rules when in reality there is no reason why you can't have a cube that has 27 white cards in it and 120 blue cards in it, for example. Many rules concerning cube construction are just arbitrary.
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Just because people find it insulting doesn't mean it's false.
As far as competitive Pauper goes, none of the decks are really that difficult to learn except for the One Land Spy deck. After a few practice games and a few nights at the LGS you can play most decks with an amount of competence that's just shy of someone who has been playing the deck for a long time.
My favorite deck is MBC. Half the time I win because I got lucky and drew Gary (Peace Be Upon Him) when I needed him.
Hell, half the decks require no thought at all, like Bogles or Burn. The only meaningful decision you make all game with Burn or Bogles are your mulligans.
You don't need 20 years experience to T1 Delver -> T2 hold 2 mana open for Counterspell. Like I said, this game is both easy to learn and easy to master. It's not an area where expertise is very valuable like chess, brain surgery, rocket science, playing an instrument, etc.
Ignoring what Magic players say isn't the answer, it's listening to what they have to say and doing the exact opposite that's correct.
Look up the Dunning–Kruger Effect sometime - this is a classic example of it. It's only after you learn through experience that you begin to realize how little you know. I look back at how smart and smug I felt fifteen years ago and am embarrassed at the arguments I got into at the time because I didn't know as much as I thought. If you think there's not much of a difference between you and someone with more experience, you haven't played against any more experienced players.
2023 Average Peasant Cube|and Discussion
Because I have more decks than fit in a signature
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I agree about Tidal Wave. It's not that it's the best card, or even the best blue removal. My argument is simply that it's a reasonably playable card.
I have played against experienced players.
As far as the Dunning-Kruger accusation goes, I could level the same accusation at someone offended that I had said that experience means little because they drafted more sets than I did or whatever. Since I don't value experience as regards MtG very much, I just see it as an ad hominem.
I've said this once or twice already, but when I top foured a Pauper 1k I told the streamers that interviewed me, "Better lucky than good."
So I don't really see why this statement is a big deal. To me it's just a statement of fact. I can top deck Gary just as well as anyone else.
Ignoring what Magic players say isn't the answer, it's listening to what they have to say and doing the exact opposite that's correct.
When the thread is unlocked if people continue to flame I will begin suspensions immediately. This is the last warning.
Ulka
Infracting a whole bunch of random posts on this page and this one that shows more than anything else why this whole drama even started is fine?
The most ignorant of human beings would realize that when someone posts something like that on a somewhat competitive MtG forum other people have two options: 1) react heavily offended and reply to the person, ultimately resulting in what you would call flaming, or 2) shake their head and stop bothering with this thread and forum given that people can spam tens of thousands of words of garbage without anyone acting. Both of those should not be in your interest. I know there's an ignore button, but when everyone else just c/p's back and forth it does literally nothing.
Issuing a last warning only goes so far. What do you expect to happen now? Well, either the one person who caused all of this miraculously vanishes and we'll live happily ever after, or we keep reading the same pointless discussions until people get tired and you have to lock the thread again.
I'd end my post with the generic 'back on topic' comment but I've really had enough of Tidal Wave and ... you know... *****ting on the whole competitive Magic community in the world by essentially calling them nothing but lucky and such, so if someone could bing up another one that would be much appreciated...
- Last Word
Longtime Magic players have invested a significant amount of time, money, and emotion into the game. They're simply unwilling to acknowledge that in reality this game is fairly easy to play and that "mere competency" gets you 90% of the way there.
Don't get mad, it's true.
Having this opinion and stating it, no matter how calmly you state it, will infuriate those emotionally invested in it even if you're right.
Have you seen the Stanley Kubrick movie Paths of Glory? Remember when one of the officers says, "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." to the general and the general gets very angry? Yeah, like that.
So when everyone gets angry at me, I just see it as people not liking my opinions and wanting me silenced because of them. Because that's what's been happening.
Put yourself on my side of the aisle. How is one supposed to express their views against a sacred cow to those who hold those sacred cows dear?
Ignoring what Magic players say isn't the answer, it's listening to what they have to say and doing the exact opposite that's correct.
... How's Azorius Knight-Arbiter been for those that have played with him?
5 Mana is a lot for 2 multicolored power. It Depends on how easy it is to kill a 5 toughness unblockable creature in the cube. If there's a lot of efficient answers then its probably not worth it when there's so much goodness in blue and white. There's several 2/5, 3/4 and 4/3 flyers for 5 nowadays and flying is not that much worse than unblockable if you have enough kill or bounce.
If I'm not going to get infracted - Tidal Wave is a fun sort of card, but it's basically a kill spell that says "destroy target creature with 5 toughness or less if your opponent does not discard a removal spell". Blue has way better ways to remove creatures than that than a super situational kill spell. It's too bad that the token has Defender, so its not a blue Waylay. They totally missed the opportunity to allow the wave to "crash" over your opponent if you cast it at the end of the enemy's turn so you get a combat phase with it.
I havent played the arbiter in my T2 yet, but I liked it in rav limited. Being able to stall the ground quite well, while also dealing 2 each round is pretty solid. Its a borderline card still and I wouldnt run it in tighter guild sections.
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
Features slivers, artifact matters, +1+1 counter theme, sacrifice and whatever else was left over from my other cubes. as always higher cube cards are excluded.
I discovererd pretty neat interaction between the Kor damage redirection and creatures that trigger upon damage like Spirit en-Kor + Overgrown Armasaur
its untested as of yet, but most cards have been played at some point already.
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
Not sure exactly how you are playing the Kor, but I ran into an issue with it in my Dino Enrage EDH deck with Marath as the commander. I expected to be able to do lots of redirecting on my indestructible Enrage creatures. The damage all happens at once and doesn't trigger Enrage multiple times. Just check on the rulings and make sure your players know.
http://www.cubetutor.com/cubeblog/36546
My Peasant Cube Forum
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/the-cube-forum/cube-lists/682833-360-peasant-hasteds-cube
My Riviera Live Draft Cube
http://www.cubetutor.com/cubeblog/35647
no idea what your commander does, but each point of damage from the kor triggers enrage, its not dealt at once.
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
building the T3 I (re)discovered a bunch of interesting stuff. nothing Tier1 worthy ofc, but maybe still interesting for downpowered cubes.
First the mentioned Kor interaction. It even works in-color with cards like Wall of Resistance. Too bad there are only 2 Kor at common right now.
Cards I think are reasonably interesting:
Drelnoch unless it gets removed directly it seems quite good. With some sort of pump it can get quite scary.
Dreamspoiler Witches with a bunch of cheap spells it can be devastating in cubes with some amount of x/1s. Iirc it was pretty good in lorwyn limited as well.
Dead Ringers probably the worst wording of all magic (besides illusionary mask) and not oracle rewording whatsoever. But hitting 2 creatures of the same color isnt hard to do and double removal for 5 is good.
Quarry Hauler was noticed but dismissed in the akh spoiler season, but already pretty solid in a deck that just runs something like Travel Preparations or any creature that comes with at least 2 +1+1 counters or more Ivy Elemental
Ethersworn Shieldmage rated bad in evaluation and dismissed as artifact dependent card, but its an artifact itself, so its a pretty solid combat trick/pseudoremoval on its own
also potentially interesting are the Chromatic Sphere variations. They are solid fixing, replace themselves and open some amount of interesting artifact synergies, especially in white. Leonin Squire Trusty Packbeast
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
I think you both may both potentially be right? Combat damage you redirect is still combat damage (per oracle) which seems to imply that it is all dealt simultaneously. I am not totally sure about other sources of damage.
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t