Remember when sprout swarm was a top 3 green card? A card that was so good that I put it on the banner for our home thread?
And now.... it's a ghost.
So what could be running on pure inertia? I've noticed that my opinion of Deep analysis has fallen quite a bit because of how bad it is against the high tempo environment I have in here. So much so that I feel like I'm making excuses to think it's worth keeping. A friend of mine even called it out directly, although I find his opinion to be frequently... dubious.
A big part of my update is to play up the grindier strategies, hopefully buffing deep analysis thanks to cards like excavation mole and more late-game blue cards to go along with it. But I never would have thought I'd even imagine stopping on deep analysis while I was looking for cards to cut.
I still include it but it seems like Acidic Soil might be another example of that. It's way too much direct damage for me not to include it but it's pretty unexiting as effects go in the abstract, and I think I haven't been seeing it when checking others' lists of late.
speaking from a pauper perspective, i already cut deep analysis. there is only so much room for pure draweffects, especially at sorcery speed. yeah, it would be great if you reliably loot it, but i dont run much of those effects and even then its a little unexciting due to the life loss.
sprout swarm on the other hand pretty much finishes as good as ever in a controldeck.
For me, every time I look at my green section for a cut lately I keep stopping on Regrowth and/or Yavimaya Elder; I always find something else to get rid of instead, but I'm beginning to think I might just be saving them for reasons of nostalgia. I'm not sure if these were Pauper/Peasant staples, but I remember when they were cube staples, so they probably qualify. Don't get me wrong. They're both still good... maybe just not as good, and powerful new cards are being printed all the time that I need to find room for.
Edit: I just noticed that this thread is very similar to the "Overly Romanticized Cards of the Past" thread, and Yavimaya Elder was discussed over there as well. I guess I'm not the only one feeling it only seems to shine in super grindy matches.
in pauper green is heavily lacking valuecards and elder is the best. replacing itself while also fixing is pretty good. afterall its a draw3 for 5 in green. visionary is pretty close as well, but i run both anyway.
I knew it existed, but couldn't remember what it was called.
Llanowar visionary seems to fill the role of yavimaya elder more efficiently, assuming you can't sacrifice a ton of tempo for an advantage that only works in a specific window or in a specific ramp-vs-grounded aggro matchup. I'd rather draw a card on 3 than get 2 lands, and ramping out a 5 drop on turn 3 is very possible with the visionary too. Never mind the issue of a fixer requiring double green.
I agree about Deep Analysis. 4 cmc sorcery speed is sooo slow, you can hardly ever justify doing that in most games. If you loot the card into the graveyard it's quite decent, but still - you get a bad version of Night's Whisper if you had another card you didn't really need that you could have discarded. And 3 life isn't nothing, sometimes it is a tough decision in the late game when you need cards the most. It's definitely on my cut list.
Yavimaya Elder is decent value and I'd still play it if it was 2G instead of 1GG. But the double green killed it for me, even though green has less problems with cc cards than other colors. It's just not good enough to justify a cc cost and like already mentioned cc cost on a card where one of the main advantages is that it fixes your mana is bad. Llanowar Visionary is a much better card - it gives you value and ramp immediately and it even has a small chance to fix your mana as well.
Completely disagree about Regrowth, which I still consider first pickable in a weak pack. It's a Demonic Tutor that is weaker in the early game and, at least sometimes, better in the late game. Combined with green self-mill effects (and there are plenty of those) it's even better. Can't imagine I'll ever cut this.
One card I personally dislike is Sentinel of the Eternal Watch. I can't say it has aged badly, from my pov it was always overrated. It's a 6 cmc creature you can remove at sorcery speed without it ever doing something. And even if it stays it doesn't end the game quickly, it's just a decent creature with a good ability. If your removal is depowered/more conditional ymmv, but I've been looking or a replacement for a while now. If they ever print a decent card in the 6+ cmc range or if I run out of other cards I can cut in white it will be gone.
if i dont play my green 3 drop off of a manelf i misdrafted in my view, so GG is hardly an argument. but well, to me it boils down whether i want/need to run Jace's Ingenuity in green or not.
but im pauper
if i dont play my green 3 drop off of a manelf i misdrafted in my view, so GG is hardly an argument.
Do you really believe your mean number of 1 drop accelerants in your green decks to be 2? I would assume it's more accurately 1.x, but even if it was 2 there's only about a 1/3 chance of drawing one of them on turn 1.
I still think Deep Analysis is good. If you always need to hard cast it then it's pretty sketchy, but we've gotten some more self discard in recent years.
Yavimaya Elder also matches up really poorly against most of the newer aggressive threats on top of being weak to pings/bounce and not having any relevance vs. evasion. It's a card killed by a lot of minor issues (including the CC cost).
Sentinel of the Eternal Watch will definitely age poorly once we get more playable white finishers (though white having some recursion/protection will probably keep it relevant for a good while). Waker of Waves is in the same "can't die while this lives" category and it got a pretty lukewarm response since we actually have good blue high end.
Sentinel of the Eternal Watch will definitely age poorly once we get more playable white finishers (though white having some recursion/protection will probably keep it relevant for a good while). Waker of Waves is in the same "can't die while this lives" category and it got a pretty lukewarm response since we actually have good blue high end.
It feels like it could be a decade before we finally get a decent fatty to replace the Sentinel. Looking on Scryfall, there's only 73 mono-W creatures at 6+ cmc. Most are pretty bad. They've been printing them a bit more frequently in recent sets, so maybe there's hope.
Waker of Waves is in the same "can't die while this lives" category and it got a pretty lukewarm response since we actually have good blue high end.
I don't know if doubling the mana cost on cumber stone (a rare sight as it is) is where I want to be as far as keeping myself alive. I'm actually running very little by the way of blue top end but if there was literally no other blue 6+ drop besides what I have I probably wouldn't consider the whale
i think the main use of the whale is the weak impulse mode. every other game you have an additional finisher. i kinda like it, but i wouldnt even make the cut over Striped Riverwinder if it was a common.
I don't know if doubling the mana cost on cumber stone (a rare sight as it is) is where I want to be as far as keeping myself alive. I'm actually running very little by the way of blue top end but if there was literally no other blue 6+ drop besides what I have I probably wouldn't consider the whale
I think you're way off base on your evaluation of the whale here. It's value comes in its versatility. It's self discarding in the reanimation deck. It's decent early even outside of that deck to help filter your draws. It's a really annoying finisher for control and ramp decks. I honestly haven't had a chance to even play any M21 cards in my C/U cube, but Waker of Waves is at the very least one of the top three blue finishers we have access to.
Waker of Waves is in the same "can't die while this lives" category and it got a pretty lukewarm response since we actually have good blue high end.
I don't know if doubling the mana cost on cumber stone (a rare sight as it is) is where I want to be as far as keeping myself alive. I'm actually running very little by the way of blue top end but if there was literally no other blue 6+ drop besides what I have I probably wouldn't consider the whale
Also I feel like Pelakka Wurm hasn't aged well. Either Arborback Stomper or Plated Crusher/Scaled Behemoth/Warden of the Woods are so much more effective at doing lifegain or resilience (and you rarely need both). If you play Sifter Wurm too there's hardly any need to prioritize picking Pelakka either.
Yeah, I definitely think that Hexproof (or similar) plus a decent body is the way to go with finishers, unless they have absurdly strong ETB effects. While I have not had a chance to CU/be in a while because of circumstances, Spined Megalodon was an excellent finisher when I was doing a few Arena drafts. I think I like the precedent it and a few other cards from M21 set in terms of non-rare high cost creatures.
True. If you cannot answer it, it will take over the game. With Spined Megalodon, though, it is almost impossible to answer it and I feel like that generalises better with the amount of targeted removal in your typical C/Ube.
Does Megalodon really take over the game? I feel like "block with my 4/4 and my 3/3" makes it look pretty silly as a finisher. Peasant is a format that lacks sweepers and tends to have a gummed-up ground -- evasion is king. IMO Megalodon looks pretty silly next to Jetting Glasskite.
Cards like Orzhov Enforcer also make Megalodon look pretty bad, which I have a number of in my cube.
I'd say that since you're already in a control deck if you're going with a big finisher like that, being able to control the situation with your opponent being largely unable to interact with you to the same extent is key. With double-blocks, for instance, they are always risking a 2-for-1 in case you have instant speed removal handy for the other blocker and their only option to interact with that is something that protects their creature from it. Such cards are much rarer than removal. While it is more niche to combine these things with a control shell, the hexproof on a finisher also makes any pants thrown on it better and safer and there are more means to grant evasion (e.g. Gryff's Boon) than there are to cover the other bases of a good finisher.
I think you're way off base on your evaluation of the whale here. It's value comes in its versatility. It's self discarding in the reanimation deck. It's decent early even outside of that deck to help filter your draws. It's a really annoying finisher for control and ramp decks. I honestly haven't had a chance to even play any M21 cards in my C/U cube, but Waker of Waves is at the very least one of the top three blue finishers we have access to.
As mentioned by someone else, I'm pretty sure striped riverwinder is better at this job. Even its version of cycling is better.
Like, am I more concerned about my opponents trading with my guy or sniping my finsiher with anything? I would have guessed that I would take the path of least variance (riverwinder)
The variance is low, but that shouldn't distract from how it's a Gurmag Angler with 2x the cost if you have other relevant removal targets (it's particularly funny if you have both it and Angler in play). Waker of Waves should easily win the game if you overwhelm their unconditional removal suite (which is rarely that large) with threat density / counterspells / reanimation / taking it in draft / them being in the wrong colours, but in my experience Striped Riverwinder needs the game to be basically already won to start attacking.
And now.... it's a ghost.
So what could be running on pure inertia? I've noticed that my opinion of Deep analysis has fallen quite a bit because of how bad it is against the high tempo environment I have in here. So much so that I feel like I'm making excuses to think it's worth keeping. A friend of mine even called it out directly, although I find his opinion to be frequently... dubious.
A big part of my update is to play up the grindier strategies, hopefully buffing deep analysis thanks to cards like excavation mole and more late-game blue cards to go along with it. But I never would have thought I'd even imagine stopping on deep analysis while I was looking for cards to cut.
Anyone else have similar surprises?
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 CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
sprout swarm on the other hand pretty much finishes as good as ever in a controldeck.
powpercube Johnny https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
Edit: I just noticed that this thread is very similar to the "Overly Romanticized Cards of the Past" thread, and Yavimaya Elder was discussed over there as well. I guess I'm not the only one feeling it only seems to shine in super grindy matches.
Elder is quite good onerall.
powpercube Johnny https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
powpercube Johnny https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
I knew it existed, but couldn't remember what it was called.
Llanowar visionary seems to fill the role of yavimaya elder more efficiently, assuming you can't sacrifice a ton of tempo for an advantage that only works in a specific window or in a specific ramp-vs-grounded aggro matchup. I'd rather draw a card on 3 than get 2 lands, and ramping out a 5 drop on turn 3 is very possible with the visionary too. Never mind the issue of a fixer requiring double green.
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
Yavimaya Elder is decent value and I'd still play it if it was 2G instead of 1GG. But the double green killed it for me, even though green has less problems with cc cards than other colors. It's just not good enough to justify a cc cost and like already mentioned cc cost on a card where one of the main advantages is that it fixes your mana is bad. Llanowar Visionary is a much better card - it gives you value and ramp immediately and it even has a small chance to fix your mana as well.
Completely disagree about Regrowth, which I still consider first pickable in a weak pack. It's a Demonic Tutor that is weaker in the early game and, at least sometimes, better in the late game. Combined with green self-mill effects (and there are plenty of those) it's even better. Can't imagine I'll ever cut this.
One card I personally dislike is Sentinel of the Eternal Watch. I can't say it has aged badly, from my pov it was always overrated. It's a 6 cmc creature you can remove at sorcery speed without it ever doing something. And even if it stays it doesn't end the game quickly, it's just a decent creature with a good ability. If your removal is depowered/more conditional ymmv, but I've been looking or a replacement for a while now. If they ever print a decent card in the 6+ cmc range or if I run out of other cards I can cut in white it will be gone.
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but im pauper
powpercube Johnny https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
Do you really believe your mean number of 1 drop accelerants in your green decks to be 2? I would assume it's more accurately 1.x, but even if it was 2 there's only about a 1/3 chance of drawing one of them on turn 1.
2/3s of the time is not "hardly an argument".
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
Yavimaya Elder also matches up really poorly against most of the newer aggressive threats on top of being weak to pings/bounce and not having any relevance vs. evasion. It's a card killed by a lot of minor issues (including the CC cost).
Sentinel of the Eternal Watch will definitely age poorly once we get more playable white finishers (though white having some recursion/protection will probably keep it relevant for a good while). Waker of Waves is in the same "can't die while this lives" category and it got a pretty lukewarm response since we actually have good blue high end.
It feels like it could be a decade before we finally get a decent fatty to replace the Sentinel. Looking on Scryfall, there's only 73 mono-W creatures at 6+ cmc. Most are pretty bad. They've been printing them a bit more frequently in recent sets, so maybe there's hope.
I don't know if doubling the mana cost on cumber stone (a rare sight as it is) is where I want to be as far as keeping myself alive. I'm actually running very little by the way of blue top end but if there was literally no other blue 6+ drop besides what I have I probably wouldn't consider the whale
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
powpercube Johnny https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
I think you're way off base on your evaluation of the whale here. It's value comes in its versatility. It's self discarding in the reanimation deck. It's decent early even outside of that deck to help filter your draws. It's a really annoying finisher for control and ramp decks. I honestly haven't had a chance to even play any M21 cards in my C/U cube, but Waker of Waves is at the very least one of the top three blue finishers we have access to.
MTGS Average Peasant Cube 2023 Edition
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Also I feel like Pelakka Wurm hasn't aged well. Either Arborback Stomper or Plated Crusher/Scaled Behemoth/Warden of the Woods are so much more effective at doing lifegain or resilience (and you rarely need both). If you play Sifter Wurm too there's hardly any need to prioritize picking Pelakka either.
Can we get some more good expensive stuff please.
My C/Ube on Cube Cobra
Cards like Orzhov Enforcer also make Megalodon look pretty bad, which I have a number of in my cube.
As mentioned by someone else, I'm pretty sure striped riverwinder is better at this job. Even its version of cycling is better.
Like, am I more concerned about my opponents trading with my guy or sniping my finsiher with anything? I would have guessed that I would take the path of least variance (riverwinder)
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