While the jury is still out on Headliner Scarlett, Rampaging Raptor has been the best Hellrider variant for me over Hellrider itself. Trample is huge when it comes to stealing monarch / initiative, and this helps solve red's big problem with wasting a lot of time / resources to take out planeswalkers. Surviving Lightning Bolt effects is also a nice advantage it has over Hellrider / Scarlett.
Looking at past 283 drafts in my 3-0 archive since Jan 2022 (around the release of NEO), Rampaging Raptor has comparable representation to Hellrider. The kicker is that Rampaging Raptor wasn't released until April 2023, meaning it got comparable numbers in half the time and would probably have similar numbers to Questing Beast with the same amount of time. It turns out that a worse Questing Beast is still REALLY good, and is effective enough for me to consider it the best Hellrider variant in red. I'm assuming Scarlett will land in the top 2, meaning Hellrider is probably the #3 best Hellrider variant for me at this point.
Things like eggs and baubles are innocuous on their own, but they add up a lot when tying together support for different things like Lurrus / Urza's Saga / Delirium / Prowess etc, not to mention artifact critical mass in general. There's an upward trend I've been keeping an eye on in both artifact critical mass and artifact sacrifice outlets. Things like Galvanic Blast have really appreciated in value, and there's a lot of new artifact sacrifice outlets now with Gut / Bombardiers / Demand Answers. Even something like Shrapnel Blast looks like it can be pretty consistent these days. When LCI came out, I said in my hot takes article that Syr Ginger, the Meal Ender was a huge signpost for things to come in the future, and we've been only getting more and more things that create artifacts or do stuff with artifacts than ever.
A 1 mana modal egg is something we've never really seen before. ETB surveil gives it a decent floor. Being able to make a 2/2 with ward 2 for just an additional 2 mana is pretty good since you're spreading out the cost of a disguised creature while getting surveil 1 and an artifact in your graveyard to boot, not to mention having other modes to choose from. Drawing a card is always nice, and goad is there when you need it. I'm always looking for more artifacts to find with Urza's Saga / replay with Lurrus, so I'll be testing this out.
I did a bit of Theorycrafting/ testing today on these lands and I believe they ARE strong lands for constructed, with high potential for Modern/ Legacy play but may cut short for Cube.
I personally play a Grixis Deck in Legacy with a Watery Grave instead of Underground Sea. I found that having a Surveil land in your deck can be incredibly strong as you can opt to EOT Fetch -> Surveil depending on the board state. In fact, I found this interaction to be so strong that I'm planning to play 2 Surveil lands as a starting point for testing.
The problem in cube is that if you only have a single set of fetch lands, this interaction comes up significantly less AND with the Triome cycle competing for a similar design space. Plus, several individuals also pointed out the problem with ETB tapped lands, and thus my instinct is it's unlikely we're going to play the entire cycle as-is.
This is overthinking things, IMO. These are more than good enough for any cube that is willing to tolerate ETB tapped manland. It's just a matter of having / finding space for them.
A Bant Fastbond Draw 7 Natural Order Combo deck recently 3-0'd that played Bring to Light solely as a way to assemble its combo pieces which I thought was interesting. It was mostly used to assemble Hullbreacher / Day's Undoing, but it could also find Ramunap Excavator / Courser of Kruphix to pair with Fastbond, Cemetery Prowler against reanimator, or just grab Questing Beast / Natural Order (with Mox Diamond / Lotus Cobra providing the 4th color).
The draw 7 / Fastbond aspect is what's the most appealing to me since Fastbond is a card I've been trying to push lately. Draw 7s pair naturally with Fastbond, and Bring to Light can essentially function as a Time Reversal in these types of shells, while being able to grab other things. Most of the time I see Bring to Light relegated as "go fetch Chaos Defiler / Fractured Identity" in a 4-5 color deck, so it's very interesting to me to see a different application in only a 3 color deck.
I mean if people would like more counter spells in Azorius, I would play Spell Queller first as UW is very stacked at 2 CMC (including signets) and there is quite a bit of room at the 3 CMC slot. Also it's very competitive nowadays for stealing the initiative/ monarch.
I'm also playing Spell Queller, which I do like more than this. I just want more of these. I currently like this as my 5th Azorius spell alongside Fracutred Identity / T3feri / T5feri / Spell Queller.
To be clear, I don't expect this to crack a lot of cubes. This is probably more appealing to me than most since I have a very specific agenda / scenario that this fits perfectly into.
I'd rather my 5th azorious guild slot be filled up with a soulherder than a mana leak for example.
It's definitely not a sexy / exciting pick, but for me right now it's about solving a balancing issue. Proactive / offensive options are overwhelmingly superior and have so many better options in both quantity and quality than reactive / defensive options. This fits the bill perfectly in me trying to move the needle a little bit towards reactive / defensive options. I've never been very hung up on the whole "multicolored cards need to be cool and exciting to be worth a slot" train and see them just as merely an extension of what X/Y color combination can do.
Azorius Mana Leak that exiles! A new good counter spell is tough to come by, seems like a strong option if people are willing to make room in their Azorius slot. My play group has been asking for more counterspells and I really didn't want to play Dovin's Veto, so this came at the right time for me.
Court of Locthwain has been playing well in my cube. Unlike most monarch cards, there's not much risk to Court of Lochtwain since the card itself grinds almost the same value as being the monarch. Losing monarch isn't so bad because you're still you're still also "drawing" a card every turn. And that's well worth the upside of holding monarch and casting spells for free every turn. It's essentially a more swingy Coercive Portal that your opponent might be able to benefit from. I like the role it plays, especially since black is the only color that still doesn't have a great 4-cmc value planeswalker.
I've arrived at the conclusion that my black 2-drop section is one card short. I'm running 360 powered an find all of the remaining options so lackluster...
I'm already running Dark Confidant, Bloodghast, Oona's Prowler and Pack Rat.
We've played all 3 of those cards with very lukewarm results. What are people's experience with these guys? Any other options?
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Aside from that, I've also recently cut Earthquake for Fiery Confluence. Am I crazy?
We're running the Wildfire package so we felt like 2 earthquakes + 2 wildfires + Confluence seemed like too many sweepers. Thoughts?
2
Looking at past 283 drafts in my 3-0 archive since Jan 2022 (around the release of NEO), Rampaging Raptor has comparable representation to Hellrider. The kicker is that Rampaging Raptor wasn't released until April 2023, meaning it got comparable numbers in half the time and would probably have similar numbers to Questing Beast with the same amount of time. It turns out that a worse Questing Beast is still REALLY good, and is effective enough for me to consider it the best Hellrider variant in red. I'm assuming Scarlett will land in the top 2, meaning Hellrider is probably the #3 best Hellrider variant for me at this point.
Questing Beast: 24
Hellrider: 14
Rampaging Raptor: 11
1
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A 1 mana modal egg is something we've never really seen before. ETB surveil gives it a decent floor. Being able to make a 2/2 with ward 2 for just an additional 2 mana is pretty good since you're spreading out the cost of a disguised creature while getting surveil 1 and an artifact in your graveyard to boot, not to mention having other modes to choose from. Drawing a card is always nice, and goad is there when you need it. I'm always looking for more artifacts to find with Urza's Saga / replay with Lurrus, so I'll be testing this out.
2
This is overthinking things, IMO. These are more than good enough for any cube that is willing to tolerate ETB tapped manland. It's just a matter of having / finding space for them.
2
This can blow up Lotus Field since its triggered ability doesn't target.
1
The draw 7 / Fastbond aspect is what's the most appealing to me since Fastbond is a card I've been trying to push lately. Draw 7s pair naturally with Fastbond, and Bring to Light can essentially function as a Time Reversal in these types of shells, while being able to grab other things. Most of the time I see Bring to Light relegated as "go fetch Chaos Defiler / Fractured Identity" in a 4-5 color deck, so it's very interesting to me to see a different application in only a 3 color deck.
1
I'm also playing Spell Queller, which I do like more than this. I just want more of these. I currently like this as my 5th Azorius spell alongside Fracutred Identity / T3feri / T5feri / Spell Queller.
To be clear, I don't expect this to crack a lot of cubes. This is probably more appealing to me than most since I have a very specific agenda / scenario that this fits perfectly into.
2
It's definitely not a sexy / exciting pick, but for me right now it's about solving a balancing issue. Proactive / offensive options are overwhelmingly superior and have so many better options in both quantity and quality than reactive / defensive options. This fits the bill perfectly in me trying to move the needle a little bit towards reactive / defensive options. I've never been very hung up on the whole "multicolored cards need to be cool and exciting to be worth a slot" train and see them just as merely an extension of what X/Y color combination can do.
2
Azorius Mana Leak that exiles! A new good counter spell is tough to come by, seems like a strong option if people are willing to make room in their Azorius slot. My play group has been asking for more counterspells and I really didn't want to play Dovin's Veto, so this came at the right time for me.
1