I dont think long has passed since cloudshift was more or less considered cubable. Ephemerate is that, just better. The first mode is to protect you creature from a removal. Then the rebound allows you to gain advantage. I think I might bring back lone missionary as always solid allaround card and potentially +4 life. Also flickering some random guy Attended Knight that spawns a token makes it worthwhile.
@Al:
I totally did not see treetop Ambusher as Terrain Elemental. *Mind Blown!!
In defense of Rhox and FS Gargantua:
-Rhox Vet imo is good in almost any white using deck, yes in a vacuum. It breaks stalemates, it compounds advantage, and it is splashable.
-Twisted Abom has 1 mana regen and can be swamp cycled, Gurmag is a 4/5 often for 3b (even less as the game goes). FSG replaces itself, a 5/4 for 6 is par, but then all the options of what Unearth yields, it actually is card advantage (+1) from using both sides. The only knock against it is BB but it is a 6cmc so that factors less.
-Scavenger is up there for trading fodder in an aggro deck to make a hasty 3/4 Flier that grows as trades happen. It is the only growing flier, and priced about perfect, in black while soon able to eclipse other fliers 1v1 in a matter of about 1 turn. He largest are Illusionary Forces and this can out grow them in 1 combat. Getting haste is really why I feel it is so much better than the competition and while not an auto kill like Gary, it is a combat beast. I will refer again to the 4/5 stats of Angler, this as a threat is very good.
I'll be back later to chew the fat. Good to see we are closely online with the 3 of us
Trumpeting Herd, while not quite Ojuti's Summons, suffers many of the same evaluation problems. It is better because it is in green, meaning Turn 3 and 4 being played is really good. But without some sort of extra support, 3/3s are not the same as 6/6.
I dont think long has passed since cloudshift was more or less considered cubable. Ephemerate is that, just better. The first mode is to protect you creature from a removal. Then the rebound allows you to gain advantage. I think I might bring back lone missionary as always solid allaround card and potentially +4 life. Also flickering some random guy Attended Knight that spawns a token makes it worthwhile.
I wonder what the density is to maximize the rebound from Ephemerate -- because some % of the time you will just decline to use it. I have a player who is enamored with Cloudshift+Threaten effect so I don't think it will be a welcome change for my group. Not sure about cubing both. Also worth noting that I think if you don't choose to play the card using Rebound that it stays exiled (thus can't be regrown)
I love mono green more than most so the only staple to me is Treetop Ambusher. But it being base 1 toughness is problematic.
I think a bunch of cards (>10) *will* get cubed (sidestepping the question of what counts as "cubable") but I think the only card that will eventually look like a staple overall is Rain of Revelation (despite tie-dyed Dorothy from Wizard of Oz)
I also think Winding Way is a Pauper Staple but not Pauper Cube Staple.
PS I agree with whoever said Seraph of Dawn is cuttable. But I don't think you can replace it with Rhox Veteran. On an empty board you would far rather drop the Seraph.
I dont think long has passed since cloudshift was more or less considered cubable. Ephemerate is that, just better. The first mode is to protect you creature from a removal. Then the rebound allows you to gain advantage. I think I might bring back lone missionary as always solid allaround card and potentially +4 life. Also flickering some random guy Attended Knight that spawns a token makes it worthwhile.
I wonder what the density is to maximize the rebound from Ephemerate -- because some % of the time you will just decline to use it. I have a player who is enamored with Cloudshift+Threaten effect so I don't think it will be a welcome change for my group. Not sure about cubing both. Also worth noting that I think if you don't choose to play the card using Rebound that it stays exiled (thus can't be regrown)
Big difference, not sure if you noticed, is Ephemerate returns ownership while Cloudshift does not
I dont think long has passed since cloudshift was more or less considered cubable. Ephemerate is that, just better. The first mode is to protect you creature from a removal. Then the rebound allows you to gain advantage. I think I might bring back lone missionary as always solid allaround card and potentially +4 life. Also flickering some random guy Attended Knight that spawns a token makes it worthwhile.
I wonder what the density is to maximize the rebound from Ephemerate -- because some % of the time you will just decline to use it. I have a player who is enamored with Cloudshift+Threaten effect so I don't think it will be a welcome change for my group. Not sure about cubing both. Also worth noting that I think if you don't choose to play the card using Rebound that it stays exiled (thus can't be regrown)
Big difference, not sure if you noticed, is Ephemerate returns ownership while Cloudshift does not
Yeah, that's what I'm referring to with the Cloudshift+Threaten comment. Not sure if he has pulled this off in a game before or just heard about it and thinks it's cool.
Wanna weigh in on the First Sphere debate or other ratings I proposed?
About First-Sphere, I'm wary of 6 drops personally but it has enough going on that some players will be interested in trying to take advantage of it. And it's definitely in the Cubeable range so I expect most Cubes will want to play it. But I could also see it falling out of favor over time if it turns out that the card is only really good enough when you can discard it. I'm on the fence on the question.
About Silumgar Scavenger, I agree that it should breaks stalls but I don't see it as the black Illusionary Forces by any means. Like the Gargantua it's possible it falls in the bracket of being a niche card.
Trumpeting Herd, while not quite Ojuti's Summons, suffers many of the same evaluation problems. It is better because it is in green, meaning Turn 3 and 4 being played is really good. But without some sort of extra support, 3/3s are not the same as 6/6.
I lean to your side on this one. I think the question is if you'd rather hit this on turn 3 or something like Wild Leotau
I cut the angel for Martyr's Soul though and readd lone missionary for lifegain with flicker.
I actually dont know how often youll be able to flicker something useful in my T1. There are a bunch of targets, but do you have them? I think the cloudshift baseline is strong enough to push it into very playable nonetheless.
wow so mh really got things rolling in my cube and i made "a lot" of changes, most considerably in green. I wasnt really sure where I want to go with green. Its too weak on aggro 1-drops and tbh even weak on 2 and 3 drops compared to red...
Now I decided green will become midrange meatfest from now on and I added a buch of 3-5 drops. So Anurid and Elephants made it into T1 and some old friends are back like Festerhide Boar and Tajuru Pathwarden. The latest addition of (all) signets, does its work and allows 5-drops to see play.
Which is pretty funny because I remember back then, when I came here Al already told me Manaelf into 3-4 drop is greens best strategy... We are going full circle with the shutoff of mtgs
I also cut both Goblin Cohort, to be fair they only ever were placeholder until red got more and better red drops and I feel we are at this point (Goblin Champion+Fanatical Firebrand), so they can leave. They also profited from Mardu Scout which also got axed.
In the end 30 cards probably got exchanged, which is really a huge upgrade after all this time.
wow so mh really got things rolling in my cube and i made "a lot" of changes, most considerably in green. I wasnt really sure where I want to go with green. Its too weak on aggro 1-drops and tbh even weak on 2 and 3 drops compared to red...
Now I decided green will become midrange meatfest from now on and I added a buch of 3-5 drops. So Anurid and Elephants made it into T1 and some old friends are back like Festerhide Boar and Tajuru Pathwarden. The latest addition of (all) signets, does its work and allows 5-drops to see play.
Which is pretty funny because I remember back then, when I came here Al already told me Manaelf into 3-4 drop is greens best strategy... We are going full circle with the shutoff of mtgs
I also cut both Goblin Cohort, to be fair they only ever were placeholder until red got more and better red drops and I feel we are at this point (Goblin Champion+Fanatical Firebrand), so they can leave. They also profited from Mardu Scout which also got axed.
In the end 30 cards probably got exchanged, which is really a huge upgrade after all this time.
Even if mh is what pushes you over the edge, I assume most of those conceptual changes have been contemplated for quite some time.
PS We love Sporecap Spider btw. In our first ever Conspiracy draft it somehow held off Reya Dawnbringer for about 10 turns to win the game. The Reya player was livid.
Its a small capitulation tbh. Green is a little bit the forgotten color. While all other colors got better or missing cmc creatures, the best thing green can do it apprearently still manaelf into borderland ranger into a stream of 5/5s. Only green thing that got better were mediocre fightning spells
Red essentially has become the better green now.
Honestly, we are lacking at least a 4/3 for 2G
Its a small capitulation tbh. Green is a little bit the forgotten color. While all other colors got better or missing cmc creatures, the best thing green can do it apprearently still manaelf into borderland ranger into a stream of 5/5s. Only green thing that got better were mediocre fightning spells
Red essentially has become the better green now.
Honestly, we are lacking at least a 4/3 for 2G
Green has basically been the weakest color in all sets during the last few years. WOTC has decided that it's fine as a support color, which simply helps certain archetypes or only supplies fixing. Due to the lack of strong cards in a vacuum I've gone a similar route of making green very synergy heavy. Since ramp is not really viable in pauper due to the lack of strong finishers, and every other color being better at going aggro my green basically consists of 3 components: the aura/hexproof archetype, swarm cards and decent midrange beaters.
yeah although i want to redefine "ramp" there.
sure its not a valid plan to ramp into 6++ creatures, because you have to spend weak or useless ressources in order to do so without any reward that doesnt die to terror.
but, ramping from 2 to 4 with a signet or up to 5 witha manaelf is a pretty good tempoplay for green, thanks to its cc4 5/5s which are even more scary on turn3
even swarm is pretty lackluster in green because it has no masspump
not sure anybody is interested, but more changes to the T1 have been made. I feel im reverting a couple of changes ive done earlier this year. Black has gotten back a (small) aggro theme, I also cleaned up the guilds and "rainbowflex" slots. I didnt keep track but I feel I added a couple of creature% to the pool, the cube feels more "meaty". Especially because green ofc.
- Dead Weight > Defile: Easy swap.
- Justiciar's Portal > Ephemerate: Was between either Portal or Acrobatic Maneuver. Decided to keep the latter because even though it's one more mana, if you use it to save a creature without an ETB from removal it's a 2 for 1.
- Rotfeaster Maggot > First-Sphere Gargantua: Maggot was just a high curve filler with some lifegain, so this was an easy swap. Gargantua's baseline looks pretty good already, but I also have graveyard shenanigans and blink going around.
- Welkin Tern > Ninja of the Deep Hours: Had this in mind for a while and Ninjas made me reconsider it.
- Glint-Sleeve Artisan > Martyr's Soul: Either a vanilla 3/3 or a 2/2 with a 1/1 was nothing to write home about, even with swarm and blink support.
- Dead Reveler > Gluttonous Slug: While a 3/4 for 3 is beefy, the fact that it can't block makes it a lot worse. Slug has evasion and is extremely easy to get to at least 2/5 while curving out, so by turn 4 it has probably already done the same 3 damage than the Reveler, but easier thanks to Menace and it can also block.
- Ashmouth Hound > Orcish Hellraiser: This and the functional Goblin are my weakest 2 to cut without harming archetype support, and it's not like they're staples either.
- Ornery Goblin > Goblin Champion: See above.
- Fervent Cathar > Bogardan Dragonheart: RB Sacrifice archetype support. Sure it can result in a 2 for 1, but is there any sac outlet that doesn't? Cathar was the cleanest cut as I'm not downgrading the power of the cube for archetype support too much by cutting a staple or anything, and Dragonheart isn't bad on its own.
- Terrain Elemental > Treetop Ambusher: As it has already been said, Ambusher is a more flexible Elemental with Dash.
- Keldon Overseer > Spellgorger Weird: A cut that I have been mulling about since WAR. Gorger is good on it's own and Overseer isn't a staple or high pick, so again the cube doesn't lose much power because of this.
- Soltari Visionary > Rhox Veteran: My 3s are super packed in white, and Veteran is good on it's own and also supports Swarm. Not sure about Visionary being the correct cut for it though, maybe I should look at something else.
- Predatory Nightstalker > Silumgar Scavenger: Nightstalker looks good on paper, but it usually just ate a 1/1 token, a Pacified creature or a random bear. Scavenger is pretty neat on it's own upgrading a creature into a 3/4 haste flying that can grow from there, and is both a sac enabler and sac payoff.
- Rampaging Rendhorn > Excavating Anurid: Cantripping 4/4 > Hasty 4/4. It will probably have Threshold active the next turn, so it's 5/5 case is also better than Rendhorn's
- Wrecking Beast > Trumpeting Herd: Beast was just a GR ramp experiment that got removed without impact one too many times. Herd seems pretty powerful, on the upper echelons of Green cards even, so it was an easy swap.
- Pegasus Courser > Knight of Cliffhaven: As I said I have a glut of things on White's 3, so Courser gets replaced by an okay 2 drop that helps enable War Falcon.
I'll also add Pondering Mage once I figure out what to cut as Blue is pretty stacked overall. I'm also looking for ways to include bread and butter things like Kitesail Corsair, Welkin Tern and Waterknot but that's probably for the This or That thread. Is there any obvious inclusions I might have missed?
Also what are our thoughts on Moonblade Shinobi and Magmatic Sinkhole? They've performed pretty good for me in MH drafts, and a Shinobi connecting on T3 snowballs real quick if you can keep up the tempo by removing blockers. Mother Bear also looks like it has a nice baseline and plays well with the graveyard.
Overall, these last two sets have been great for RB sac, as the only weak archetype cards I'm running are Bogardan Dragonheart and Hissing Iguanar, the rest are powerful cards that could be run on their own. Here's hoping Simic and Orzhov get the same love in coming sets.
Ruling: Blink Effects work positively with Unearth mechanic!
Many of you who play more eternal formats, or simply are better at rules likely know this.
However, I definitely want to mention that Blink effects (exile then return) work around Unearth's exile trigger; because they exile.
This means F.S. Gargantua is fun in a B/W Blink deck.
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
I totally did not see treetop Ambusher as Terrain Elemental. *Mind Blown!!
In defense of Rhox and FS Gargantua:
-Rhox Vet imo is good in almost any white using deck, yes in a vacuum. It breaks stalemates, it compounds advantage, and it is splashable.
-Twisted Abom has 1 mana regen and can be swamp cycled, Gurmag is a 4/5 often for 3b (even less as the game goes). FSG replaces itself, a 5/4 for 6 is par, but then all the options of what Unearth yields, it actually is card advantage (+1) from using both sides. The only knock against it is BB but it is a 6cmc so that factors less.
-Scavenger is up there for trading fodder in an aggro deck to make a hasty 3/4 Flier that grows as trades happen. It is the only growing flier, and priced about perfect, in black while soon able to eclipse other fliers 1v1 in a matter of about 1 turn. He largest are Illusionary Forces and this can out grow them in 1 combat. Getting haste is really why I feel it is so much better than the competition and while not an auto kill like Gary, it is a combat beast. I will refer again to the 4/5 stats of Angler, this as a threat is very good.
I'll be back later to chew the fat. Good to see we are closely online with the 3 of us
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I wonder what the density is to maximize the rebound from Ephemerate -- because some % of the time you will just decline to use it. I have a player who is enamored with Cloudshift+Threaten effect so I don't think it will be a welcome change for my group. Not sure about cubing both. Also worth noting that I think if you don't choose to play the card using Rebound that it stays exiled (thus can't be regrown)
I think a bunch of cards (>10) *will* get cubed (sidestepping the question of what counts as "cubable") but I think the only card that will eventually look like a staple overall is Rain of Revelation (despite tie-dyed Dorothy from Wizard of Oz)
I also think Winding Way is a Pauper Staple but not Pauper Cube Staple.
PS I agree with whoever said Seraph of Dawn is cuttable. But I don't think you can replace it with Rhox Veteran. On an empty board you would far rather drop the Seraph.
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Big difference, not sure if you noticed, is Ephemerate returns ownership while Cloudshift does not
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Yeah, that's what I'm referring to with the Cloudshift+Threaten comment. Not sure if he has pulled this off in a game before or just heard about it and thinks it's cool.
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About First-Sphere, I'm wary of 6 drops personally but it has enough going on that some players will be interested in trying to take advantage of it. And it's definitely in the Cubeable range so I expect most Cubes will want to play it. But I could also see it falling out of favor over time if it turns out that the card is only really good enough when you can discard it. I'm on the fence on the question.
About Silumgar Scavenger, I agree that it should breaks stalls but I don't see it as the black Illusionary Forces by any means. Like the Gargantua it's possible it falls in the bracket of being a niche card.
I lean to your side on this one. I think the question is if you'd rather hit this on turn 3 or something like Wild Leotau
I actually dont know how often youll be able to flicker something useful in my T1. There are a bunch of targets, but do you have them? I think the cloudshift baseline is strong enough to push it into very playable nonetheless.
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
made some minor changes to my previous list.
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
Now I decided green will become midrange meatfest from now on and I added a buch of 3-5 drops. So Anurid and Elephants made it into T1 and some old friends are back like Festerhide Boar and Tajuru Pathwarden. The latest addition of (all) signets, does its work and allows 5-drops to see play.
Which is pretty funny because I remember back then, when I came here Al already told me Manaelf into 3-4 drop is greens best strategy... We are going full circle with the shutoff of mtgs
I also cut both Goblin Cohort, to be fair they only ever were placeholder until red got more and better red drops and I feel we are at this point (Goblin Champion+Fanatical Firebrand), so they can leave. They also profited from Mardu Scout which also got axed.
In the end 30 cards probably got exchanged, which is really a huge upgrade after all this time.
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
Even if mh is what pushes you over the edge, I assume most of those conceptual changes have been contemplated for quite some time.
PS We love Sporecap Spider btw. In our first ever Conspiracy draft it somehow held off Reya Dawnbringer for about 10 turns to win the game. The Reya player was livid.
Red essentially has become the better green now.
Honestly, we are lacking at least a 4/3 for 2G
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
I sadly have to agree with this analysis
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sure its not a valid plan to ramp into 6++ creatures, because you have to spend weak or useless ressources in order to do so without any reward that doesnt die to terror.
but, ramping from 2 to 4 with a signet or up to 5 witha manaelf is a pretty good tempoplay for green, thanks to its cc4 5/5s which are even more scary on turn3
even swarm is pretty lackluster in green because it has no masspump
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
anyway "final" additions of mh1 are:
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
- Dead Weight > Defile: Easy swap.
- Justiciar's Portal > Ephemerate: Was between either Portal or Acrobatic Maneuver. Decided to keep the latter because even though it's one more mana, if you use it to save a creature without an ETB from removal it's a 2 for 1.
- Rotfeaster Maggot > First-Sphere Gargantua: Maggot was just a high curve filler with some lifegain, so this was an easy swap. Gargantua's baseline looks pretty good already, but I also have graveyard shenanigans and blink going around.
- Welkin Tern > Ninja of the Deep Hours: Had this in mind for a while and Ninjas made me reconsider it.
- Glint-Sleeve Artisan > Martyr's Soul: Either a vanilla 3/3 or a 2/2 with a 1/1 was nothing to write home about, even with swarm and blink support.
- Dead Reveler > Gluttonous Slug: While a 3/4 for 3 is beefy, the fact that it can't block makes it a lot worse. Slug has evasion and is extremely easy to get to at least 2/5 while curving out, so by turn 4 it has probably already done the same 3 damage than the Reveler, but easier thanks to Menace and it can also block.
- Ashmouth Hound > Orcish Hellraiser: This and the functional Goblin are my weakest 2 to cut without harming archetype support, and it's not like they're staples either.
- Ornery Goblin > Goblin Champion: See above.
- Fervent Cathar > Bogardan Dragonheart: RB Sacrifice archetype support. Sure it can result in a 2 for 1, but is there any sac outlet that doesn't? Cathar was the cleanest cut as I'm not downgrading the power of the cube for archetype support too much by cutting a staple or anything, and Dragonheart isn't bad on its own.
- Terrain Elemental > Treetop Ambusher: As it has already been said, Ambusher is a more flexible Elemental with Dash.
- Keldon Overseer > Spellgorger Weird: A cut that I have been mulling about since WAR. Gorger is good on it's own and Overseer isn't a staple or high pick, so again the cube doesn't lose much power because of this.
- Soltari Visionary > Rhox Veteran: My 3s are super packed in white, and Veteran is good on it's own and also supports Swarm. Not sure about Visionary being the correct cut for it though, maybe I should look at something else.
- Predatory Nightstalker > Silumgar Scavenger: Nightstalker looks good on paper, but it usually just ate a 1/1 token, a Pacified creature or a random bear. Scavenger is pretty neat on it's own upgrading a creature into a 3/4 haste flying that can grow from there, and is both a sac enabler and sac payoff.
- Rampaging Rendhorn > Excavating Anurid: Cantripping 4/4 > Hasty 4/4. It will probably have Threshold active the next turn, so it's 5/5 case is also better than Rendhorn's
- Wrecking Beast > Trumpeting Herd: Beast was just a GR ramp experiment that got removed without impact one too many times. Herd seems pretty powerful, on the upper echelons of Green cards even, so it was an easy swap.
- Pegasus Courser > Knight of Cliffhaven: As I said I have a glut of things on White's 3, so Courser gets replaced by an okay 2 drop that helps enable War Falcon.
I'll also add Pondering Mage once I figure out what to cut as Blue is pretty stacked overall. I'm also looking for ways to include bread and butter things like Kitesail Corsair, Welkin Tern and Waterknot but that's probably for the This or That thread. Is there any obvious inclusions I might have missed?
Also what are our thoughts on Moonblade Shinobi and Magmatic Sinkhole? They've performed pretty good for me in MH drafts, and a Shinobi connecting on T3 snowballs real quick if you can keep up the tempo by removing blockers. Mother Bear also looks like it has a nice baseline and plays well with the graveyard.
Overall, these last two sets have been great for RB sac, as the only weak archetype cards I'm running are Bogardan Dragonheart and Hissing Iguanar, the rest are powerful cards that could be run on their own. Here's hoping Simic and Orzhov get the same love in coming sets.
Thanks to DNC from Heroes of the Plane Studios for the sig
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Many of you who play more eternal formats, or simply are better at rules likely know this.
However, I definitely want to mention that Blink effects (exile then return) work around Unearth's exile trigger; because they exile.
This means F.S. Gargantua is fun in a B/W Blink deck.
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