MTG Salvation

Hey everybody,

The votes have been counted! For reference, here's the voting thread and the thread discussing the rules for this year's Power Rankings. All the final ranks (along with some interesting stats) are posted below, but if anyone wants to see the spreadsheet, you can view it here.

Before we get on to the actual results, I want to thank everyone for participating, both in discussing the ground rules and voting. We had 17 people voting this year: Majikian, Phitt77, _i0, Subtle_Relevance, Spike Rogue, ArBoR4817, TyranidBill, MechanicalMech, Ulna, BrownDog5117, n00b1n8R, rancoredmalone, bacchus2, Darcykun, VariSami, Leelue (only wubr) and myself. That's great!

Also, thanks to Spike Rogue and leadfeather89 for doing this before and for the inspiration of formatting.

Some notes before I share the lists with you:
- The scoring system used is (N*1.5+1)-R, with N=number of ranks in a list and R=rank given by a voter. This means that on a top 20 list, the number 1 rank gets (20*1.5+1)-1=30 points, on a top 10 list the top score gets 15, on a top 5 the top score gets 7.5 points.
- The format of how the results will be displayed will be (Place) (Card Name) - (Total points)
- W, U, B and R had 17 voters, the rest had 16.

Without further ado, here are our 2016 Peasant Cube Power Rankings!!

White

Blue

Black

Red

Green

Colorless

Lands

Guilds
RESULTS FOUND IN POST #4 BECAUSE THERE SEEMS TO BE A LIMIT ON THE AMOUNT OF SPOILER TAGS.

Feel free to discuss any outcomes!

This whole format is very well done. Thanks for putting the time into this.

It's nice seeing Sentinel and Aeriel Responder on here. I like seeing new cards crack the Power Rankings.

Nice!

FWIW: Mother of Rune is listed as having 495 points so should be in 2nd, and Custodi Squire/Journey to Nowhere should be switched.

GUILD RESULTS

Azorius (White/Blue)

Dimir (Blue/Black)

Rakdos (Black/Red)

Gruul (Red/Green)

Selesnya (Green/White)

Orzhov (White/Black)

Golgari (Black/Green)

Simic (Green/Blue)

Izzet (Blue/Red)

Boros (Red/White)

Who the heck didn't vote on Path to Exile? That had to be a brain fart, not a conscious ranking choice.

edit: I guess same thing for Whirler Rogue, Staggershock, red Shrine, black Curse, and Demonic Tutor

I didn't vote on staggershock as I honestly forgot it was a card when I was putting my list together.

Quote from Ulka »

I didn't vote on staggershock as I honestly forgot it was a card when I was putting my list together.

I imagine this is the case for most exclusions that seems puzzling. It's hard to remember everything!

I kind of put together around 75% of each list while looking at my list on cubetutor, then went and checked some other peoples responses so that I could pick up on the 'brainfarts' that otherwise would have made it through.

I thought Psionic Blast would have been higher. It's never been in my cube, but I put it in my list (I don't remember the exact rank off hand), and thought I'd ranked it lower than where I suspect it should actually be if I had experience. Maybe people just didn't vote for it if they don't have it in their cube?

I don't know if it is that surprising, but 13 out of the 20 red cards are burn or burn-on-a-stick, or 17 if you include the sweepers and Goblin Bombardment. Young Pyromancer, Goblin Heelcutter and Lust For War are the holdouts.

The small, rabid fan club for Rolling Thunder really shocks me. I mean, the card is in my cube at 540+ and it's certainly playable, but it's a lot closer to #80 out of my 85 red spells than anywhere near the top twenty.

Similiar thing I guess for Land Tax.

Results updated until allied guilds, so I'm almost done. Probably finishing tomorrow.

Quote from Phitt77 »

Quote from _i0 »

Similiar thing I guess for Land Tax.

No offense, but did you ever really play with Land Tax? According to your cubetutor it was in your cube for about one and a half months after you upgraded to 540 cards. Of course I have no idea whether you draft five times a week, but assuming you don't draft more often than most other people that means you didn't build a deck with it more than once or maybe twice. Why is Land Tax rated so highly in the rare cube section, where people actually have been playing with the card for many years and where it competes with cards like Balance, Stoneforge Mystic, Armageddon or Moat? Food for thought. Just give it a fair try and see it in action. If you ever had the (pretty standard) situation where you either stop playing lands or watch your opponent draw all/most of his lands from his library you would rate it higher.

"Big cube" has a lot more ways to turn Land Tax into a serious threat -- a recurring shuffle for Brainstorm, Sylvan Library, JTMS and Scroll Rack, fodder for things like Liliana, Mox Diamond, Smokestack, Braids. You also get much better control elements to make up for early tempo loss, i.e. actual Wrath of God & friends + planeswalkers.

From playing it in friends' powered/unpowered lists and a handful of times in my own (no, not a ton of actual drafts before cutting it), it was super duper strong in like 10% of games, "good enough" in another 40%, and stone dead in the other half. You know, because you're on the play and can't ever trigger the damn thing.

None of those cards are 100% snap includes in every cu/be, though. Pretty much everybody plays looters, but I think one in ten of us at best plays bouncelands, especially with all the people breaking Peasant for their lands. Stuff like Emancipation Angel and Raven's Crime, even Brainstorm and Sylvan, aren't exactly ubiquitous. If your cu/be is built to make Land Tax good, then of course it's good. Is it good without any support cards at all? How much support are we assuming when we're making these rankings?

Maybe the card just carries on its own. I don't know. But apparently enough people feel differently.

DONE! All the Power Rankings have been posted. Enjoy!

Good to see that I'm not the only person who's wild about Rolling Thunder. It pushes RGx Ramp-Control from mediocre to great because it is good at all stages of the game, clearing out your opponent's board on turn four or ending the game with 10+ damage to the face on turn twenty. In combination with Recoup, it gives the deck powerful inevitability without sacrificing early game tempo. It is significantly better than the next-best alternatives like Fireball or Cone of Flame.

And when an RGx control deck doesn't come together, Rolling Thunder is still a solid playable card in any red deck that goes past turn four. I have never picked the card and then decided to leave it in my sideboard. It does what it does quite well, and will even make it into some higher-curve aggro decks as reach or to clear out pesky blockers.

Also, I put the X on Doom Blade because I don't include it, not because it is too powerful in a vacuum. Much like Ghostly Prison and Propaganda, too much spot removal can make games unfun. With eight other black instant-speed kill spells, I don't think Doom Blade is a card my cube wants or needs.

Thanks for clarifying the X on Doom Blade. In that case, I'll remove it because the X is only meant for cards that people actually consider 'overpowered' (too good for cube). Since you don't consider Doom Blade too good, but rather a certain threshold of black removal spells, it doesn't deserve the OP vote. It's more of a meta suggestion, which doesn't belong on a power ranking list.

Interesting to see Spitemare do well, I was under the impression that it was underappreciated around here.

I voted for it, I think 2nd or 3rd, and I don't "appreciate" Spitemare as much as I loathe basically every other possible Boros card.

Quote from Subtle_Relevance »

Good to see that I'm not the only person who's wild about Rolling Thunder. It pushes RGx Ramp-Control from mediocre to great because it is good at all stages of the game, clearing out your opponent's board on turn four or ending the game with 10+ damage to the face on turn twenty. In combination with Recoup, it gives the deck powerful inevitability without sacrificing early game tempo. It is significantly better than the next-best alternatives like Fireball or Cone of Flame.

And when an RGx control deck doesn't come together, Rolling Thunder is still a solid playable card in any red deck that goes past turn four. I have never picked the card and then decided to leave it in my sideboard. It does what it does quite well, and will even make it into some higher-curve aggro decks as reach or to clear out pesky blockers.

I still don't understand how this adds up to make Rolling Thunder a better card than Lightning Bolt or Flametongue Kavu.

In all the Peasant games I've ever played, such a huge majority of the "relevant turns" take place before you ever get to six mana. Yes, it's nice that Thunder does something for 3/4/5 mana, but in those cases it's a very bad imitation of Forked Bolt or Arc Lightning.

I can see it being among the very best red cards in specifically "RGx Ramp-Control" (though I'd still rather have FTK/Bolt), but what percent of your mountain-based decks are actually that particular archetype?

I'm not in the Rolling Thunder camp, but I'm actively pushing R/X control with either green or artifacts for ramp and big red swing-spells. Red is actually very good at control, but you have to build for it.

That said, I've cut Rolling Thunder even when I push that style of deck. The card always feels so expensive, and that's from someone who has Flame Wave in his cube and likes it. I'd rather have Fireball in most cases.

I've never been on the rolling thunder hype.

Was on vacation for a few days and finally get to comment on some of these results. There were a few cards that I have never really liked as much or do not cube at all that I wanted to see people's opinions on.
(NOTE: A few cards I do not play for rarity reason, as I do not play online-only uncommons.)

Timely Reinforcements
I have always felt Timely Reinforcements was just so brutal against aggro decks without really pulling its weight in other matchups that I failed to include it due to swinginess. I know a similar case gets made for Ghostly Prison, but that card can slow down control decks from winning, especially depending on their win condition (making tokens or small utility creatures).
Are Reinforcements really as good as I think against aggro? It feels like even taking off turns 1 and 2 against aggro and then playing Reinforcements will completely shut them down. OR is Reinforcements somewhat reasonable against control matchups, especially if they have tokens or small utility creatures?

Goblin Bombardment (and Blood Artist / Falkenrath Noble)
I grouped these three cards together due to their general purpose in token/sacrifice decks. I do cube with both of the black cards, but do not value them as close to top 20 cards. My main question is on Goblin Bombardment, which I have always felt was too narrow its usefulness. I think it's generally weaker for token decks than other go-wide spells (Dynacharge or maybe Goblin War Drums) and only has extra utility if you have Threaten effects to utilize with the sacrifice aspect.
Maybe part of my problem has been due to having a larger cube and it not being as easy to assemble good two-card combos like Threaten and Bombardment, but I just do not get it. Anyone care to comment on the usefulness of Bombardment?

Isochron Scepter
I never put a lot of thought into playing Scepter, so I have a few questions. One, are there enough cards where playing them on a Scepter makes the game almost immediately unwinnable for opponents? If so, which kind of spells qualify? Two, how many relevant spells would you need before playing Scepter? Has it been easy enough to do so to make Scepter effective? And three, which type of decks is Scepter been best in?

Goblin Bombardment - any time a creature you control would be made useless, instead that creature deals 1 damange to target creature or player. If you have more creatures than your opponent has life, you win the game. It's really good.

Blood Artist/Falkenrath Noble - Keep track of how much +/- these guys do over the course of a game for 0 work. Blood Artist in particular punches well above his weight as a 2drop. Noble even has evasion.

Isochron Scepter:
1 - Any removal, bounce, burn or counterspell. Anything that draws you a card after being cast. Memory Lapse and Remand are some of the worst but even something as weak as Disfigure can be game warping.
2 - 5+ as a minimum for me, better with more but as long as you've got some of the better imprint cards I would be happy enough at that number.
3 - Yes. I've banned it for taking over too many games (that I was responsible for )
4 - Decks with enough good imprint options that can afford to take turn 2 off.

I didn't go through the effort of voting in this, but my sincere thanks to everyone who did, and extra super duper bonus thanks to Squirrely for organizing it and doing the heavy lifting. Some of these results just confirmed what I already thought, but some were eye-opening, and it's really great to have this for the historical record.

Thank you for doing this. You do it with such fidelity and grace (and statistics!). It is always a pleasure to see.
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!

i'll watch.