For me this card is about on par with Magma Burst, which is worse when you need the extra 1 damage to kill one creature in exchange for being 50% better to the face and having the option to virtually trade 2-for-1 in the late game.
If I understand you correctly, you're saying here that you can use Magma Burst to do 6 damage to a single target. I'm just clearing up that you must choose two different targets if you pay the kicker cost (gatherer link).
First thing I think is that it's important to know by heart which guilds are in each set:
Ravnica: Selesnya(GW), Boros(RW), Dimir(UB), Golgari(GB)
Guildpact: Gruul(GR), Izzet (UR), Orzhov(BW)
...
1- GRW, picking from Selesnya and Boros in the Ravnica boosters, and from Gruul in Guildpact;
2- BGW, picking Selesnya and Golgari in the first two packs, and Orzhov in the last;
3- UBR, going for Dimir in RAV and Izzet in GPT.
Why only those three? I drafted a jeskai deck yesterday, I think any three-color combination that has a guild in each pack is a consideration.
WUB (Esper):
-RAV: Dimir
-GPT: Orzhov
UBR (Grixis):
-RAV: Dimir
-GPT: Izzet
BRG (Jund):
RAV: Golgari
GPT: Gruul
WRG (Naya):
-RAV: Selesnya, Boros
-GPT: Gruul
WBG (Abzan):
-RAV: Selesnya, Golgari
-GPT: Orzhov
WUR (Jeskai):
-RAV: Boros
-GPT: Izzet
WBR (Mardu):
-RAV: Boros
-GPT: Orzhov
Of course, not all the combinations are equal. Looking at the list, the combinations that put you in the most guilds are Naya and Abzan. These also both give you two guilds in RAV, the pack you get two of, making these the safest colors to go into.
Guild balance matters as well. From my experience so far I suspect that Golgari and Gruul are the weakest guilds. Golgari primarily because the dredge mechanic is difficult to take advantage of, especially with a viable milling archetype in the format. Gruul have generally poor commons as far as I've seen. Enabling bloodthirst is doable if you draft with it in mind, but the bloodthirst cards are generally not paying you off enough for your efforts. If this is true then it primarily hurts Jund as it has both colors. Abzan and Naya may be able to take the hit since they have two other guilds to rely on, but it could make pack three tough for Naya.
I've seen the other guilds do well, so I'm not sure how to prioritize after that. Izzet and Orzhov have been pretty strong in my experience, so I'll probably stray further away from Naya and Jund as they get access to neither of them.
Four mana is just an awkward slot for Mind Rot. I don't think the extra mana is worth the 2 life (which also nerfs the original Blightning as a planeswalker killer in regular cubes, here it's pretty lackluster).
I've seen this opinion a few times now, does the extra mana make that much of a difference in people's experiences? In other formats, I find myself picking the Mind Rot type effects up based on how useful it is in the format or in my deck, regardless of whether it costs 3 or 4. I find it's generally incorrect to cast it on turn 3 anyway unless you have nothing else to do (and maybe not even then), so the primary advantage a cheaper version is the ability to cast another spell with it on turn 5+.
Agreed on Blightning type cards being worse in common cube than in a format with plainswalkers, but it's still over 2 cards worth of value in one if all goes well.
actually i dont expect them to print more diamond mana cards in the near future. like snowmana in coldsnap, which was never used again. colorless cards are zendikar plane only and it would be pretty terrible if theyd print diamond dependant cards in normal sets. maybe some commander cards will use it.
I see what you're saying I just can't believe they'd errata all those cards just for this set. They errata'd cards from the previous set! I'm not sure how they'd enable the costs though outside of just letting people put Wastes in their deck, which I expected them to do in this set but they didn't.
Interesting P1 P1 - Reiver Demon or Viridian Shaman? Is 8 mana too slow for this format? It has appeared like a pretty slow paced format from my experience.
From my experience Reiver Demon is pretty bad in this format. Eight mana is doable in this format, BBBB is harder, and his ability is not anywhere near as good as it looks. I had some vindication for my opinions a few days ago when my opponent cast this guy against my field of 3 creatures, killing 0 of them.
Viridian Shaman on the other hand is very very good, even worth splashing. Killing an artifact is on par with creature removal in this set, and this one leaves a body behind. The artifact destruction is mandatory though, so be careful on when you cast it.
I've done a few of these and here's some possible misevaluations I've seen from myself or others:
Equipment in general - As stated in the lrcast subreddit, you want around 3 pieces of equipment at most. There's a fair bit of equipment in this set, so that corresponds to not picking it very early unless it's Viridian Longbow. I'd basically never first or second pick a Bonesplitter unless my deck really needed it, for example.
Mana Myr vs Talismans - It's probably been mentioned before, but the common myr that produce mana are generally better than the talismans unless you are trying to enable a specific splash. This is primarily because they can hold equipment.
Frogmite - The heavy artifact deck is better than I thought it was, but this card is not one of the reasons. The payoffs for that deck are Myr Enforcer, Somber Hoverguard, and Thoughtcast. A vanilla 2/2 that you generally can't play on turn 2 is not unplayable, but it's generally worse than other playable artifact creatures.
Goblin Replica - I usually end up with a few of these, which means I probably rate it higher than most. He doesn't do anything spectacularly well, but as an artifact creature that can kill other artifacts he does almost everything you want to be doing in this format.
Irradiate - I underrated this card. You're much more likely to have a bunch of random artifacts in triple Mirrodin than in MD5.
Isochron Scepter - I remember this card having very high appeal when it was printed so I thought it would be overrated, but I've been regularly seeing them in the middle of the pack. If you have any combination of 3 of the common Electrostatic Bolt, Raise the Alarm, Shatter, or Terror, this card will win you the game if not answered. There are a few other commons you can use in a pinch, and at uncommon+ there are more still. You generally want to cast it with 2 mana open and a target to prevent a 2 for 1.
Spikeshot Goblin vs Viridian Longbow - I've seen some dispute of which of these is the better early pick and I think I know why. Spikeshot Goblin is generally going to be better if you're already in red because there's less setup cost and they work well in multiples. If all the players at the table draft very well, I think Viridian Longbow is a better first pick because it will be welcome in any deck, you will be unlikely to see another one, and you may not end up in red. In the flashback drafts I've been able to play red pretty much every time, so Spikeshot is probably better.
Kor Sky Climber - Any one considering this card? 3/2 for 3 is solid stats and it can get evasion, we really don't have anything like that in white right now.
Blinding Drone - Essentially a two-color Master Decoy with one more toughness. Given how rarely Master Decoy is run I don't think this guy is good enough.
U
Jwar Isle Avenger - 3/3 flyer for 5 is not good enough, 3/3 flyer for 3 that you have to do work for is probably not either.
Sweep Away - I don't think Whisk Away is good enough, and I think this card is maybe slightly better since you can bounce your own things.
Umara Entangler - I'd like to get more tempo cards for blue in the early game, and this card is a good start.
B
Kozilek's Shrieker - Seems pretty good if you have access to some colorless mana.
Witness the End - Does a reasonable Blightning impression in one color. Worth considering over other discard spells.
R
Cinder Hellion - Not bad, a good body that gets in for 2 even if it dies. Worth considering.
Goblin Freerunner - I might be off on the surge cards but I think this guy is going to be worse than Boggart Brute the majority of the time. I think that makes it not good enough for me.
Scion Summoner - If you're trying to support tokens this card is an easy inclusion since green previously had very poor options at 3 mana. Was using Gilt-Leaf Ambush myself.
Stalking Drone - With access to colorless mana this is one of the best two drops in the cube.
Tajuru Pathwarden - A really fantastic fatty for green. Probably not as good as Sentinel Spider but should be better than anything worse.
I qualified a few of those with "with access to colorless mana". Before seeing the commons I was considering letting my players put as many Wastes as they wanted in their deck. I don't think this set gives me enough cards to make that worth it, but I doubt that Wizards would errata thousands of cards and then never use the diamond symbol again so maybe we'll get more.
If your life total is getting low, you should at least be aware of the option to sac all your lands of the relevant type to Coastal Hornclaw after attackers, and ambush their guy/guys.
Wow now I feel even worse for not trying that guy yet. That's a good tip, I've had similar experiences with the landwalkers. I can't wait to sacrifice like seven forests to block a Rushwood Dryad.
Thanks for the primer links. After doing a few of these and doing fairly well, I came to many of the same conclusions that Kai's article does.
A few differences from his common rankings:
White:
The only white card I strongly disagree with is Glory Seeker. I saw this card rated fairly high in one of the other articles as well, possibly because it was good in Onslaught. This format is very slow, and outside of against the one guy trying to make a very aggressive red deck work, a 2 mana 2/2 is unlikely to help you win a long game. I'd move it somewhere around Crossbow Infantry.
Green:
I'd move Rampant Growth and Fertile Ground above Horned Troll. Kai mentions some good reasons to pick them higher in his "Color Combinations" section, and I'm not sure why he has them lower in the general section.
I'd move Wood Elves above Naturalize as there are multiple common 5-drops to ramp into, and there are many ways to draft so that you can make use of a large amount of mana.
Blue:
I'd move Unsummon and Boomerang to around Sea Monster level. I expect they were only so high because of stacked damage. They may be slightly better than that level if tempo is better than I think it is.
I'd move Inspiration above Horned Turtle since the format is slow and it gives you more resources.
I'd move Catalog around to where Horned Turtle is for the same reason as Inspiration. Just make sure not to play your last land if you don't need it and it does a pretty good Divination impression.
Red:
I'd move Shock Troops below Hill Giant, once again because of stacked damage having been removed.
Kai must have thought Anaba Shaman was uncommon. I'd have it around where Shock is.
I'd move Raise Dead way up, maybe around Drudge Skeletons. It's not a fantastic effect but in this format I'd rather re-buy my best creature than play a random 2/2.
Other notes:
I consider green to be the best color. It's the deepest, as Kai says, and can also enable a third color with Fertile Ground and Rampant Growth. This puts it ahead of the other colors for me as it is often very difficult to get enough playable cards for your deck in this format.
Thanks for the tip on Coastal Hornclaw, I totally missed that card and thought it was crap.
Kai looks like he has Rushwood Dryad about right, but I underestimated it. In this format more than most, your opponents are more likely to play green because it can support many drafters at the table.
Not 100% about this yet, but the one power fliers might be better than they look. The ground stalls up very often, and my opponents have occasionally been able to either create a clock or accelerate one with a Sage Owl or Storm Crow. I think they are still going to be among the worst cards in your deck, but I previously thought them to be unplayable.
Kai mentions Fodder Cannon in his list of "broken stuff", and it may have been when damage stacked. Under the modern rules, it trades your worst creatures for their best creatures at the initial investment of a card and a ton of mana. I don't think this is the type of thing you want to be doing in this format unless you have a good deck for it, since you are likely to run out of resources. I've beaten this card and Death Pits of Rath multiple times now simply by having more creatures than my opponent over a long game.
Be prepared to play a long, grindy game. Most of my successes have been from playing a long game better than my opponents. You can do this tactically by valuing cards over life totals, or during draft and deck construction by taking cards that help in the long game or try to slow the game down.
I just noticed this now, but if you're looking at the Eighth Edition commons on gatherer there are a few listed that are not in the boosters. So far I've noticed Eager Cadet, Sea Eagle, and Giant Octopus.
Sorry for the long post, but I've thought about the format a lot since it's been out and figured I'd share.
I don't think I like either of the new lands mentioned. Crumbling Vestige is a very odd card that fixes your mana the turn you play it, but makes it more difficult every turn after. Holdout Settlement seems even worse. It doesn't help you make your primary colors, since you needed access to those to cast creatures in the first place. If you're using it just for a splash color, why not just run a basic for that?
These both might be better in Oath if producing the <> is important.
As others have said the best snow cards are Chilling Shade, Skred, Boreal Centaur, and Gangrenous Zombies. I consider the Shade to be a bomb, and one of the top picks for black. Even off a splash he represents game over very quickly if unanswered. Skred is essentially a red Swords to Plowshares with no lifegain.
I ran Rimebound Dead for a while since he's the best Drudge Skeletons variant by far, but it just didn't do enough to warrant inclusion sadly.
There are a few ways in every cube to deal with him, but if you put him in your deck or see him across from you he's going to be a 2/infinity unblockable shroud creature the vast majority of the time.
That being said he's pretty slow at four mana, making him about as fair as unfair cards get. I've definitely won before with him still on the other side of the table.
I'm pretty new to vintage, but it doesn't seem so cut and dry to me. There are answers to every Tinker target. Counterspells and Hurkyl's Recall get all of them, jace and dack get a few fewer, etc. The fast ones are vulnerable to more answers, but give less time to find them. The more resilient ones give the opponent more time to find one of their answers or just win before you kill them.
I think it comes down to your personal preference and what you think your deck needs. If there was a clear answer everyone would be running it and we wouldn't be having this discussion.
If I understand you correctly, you're saying here that you can use Magma Burst to do 6 damage to a single target. I'm just clearing up that you must choose two different targets if you pay the kicker cost (gatherer link).
Why only those three? I drafted a jeskai deck yesterday, I think any three-color combination that has a guild in each pack is a consideration.
-GPT: Orzhov
-GPT: Izzet
GPT: Gruul
-GPT: Gruul
-GPT: Orzhov
-GPT: Izzet
-GPT: Orzhov
Of course, not all the combinations are equal. Looking at the list, the combinations that put you in the most guilds are Naya and Abzan. These also both give you two guilds in RAV, the pack you get two of, making these the safest colors to go into.
Guild balance matters as well. From my experience so far I suspect that Golgari and Gruul are the weakest guilds. Golgari primarily because the dredge mechanic is difficult to take advantage of, especially with a viable milling archetype in the format. Gruul have generally poor commons as far as I've seen. Enabling bloodthirst is doable if you draft with it in mind, but the bloodthirst cards are generally not paying you off enough for your efforts. If this is true then it primarily hurts Jund as it has both colors. Abzan and Naya may be able to take the hit since they have two other guilds to rely on, but it could make pack three tough for Naya.
I've seen the other guilds do well, so I'm not sure how to prioritize after that. Izzet and Orzhov have been pretty strong in my experience, so I'll probably stray further away from Naya and Jund as they get access to neither of them.
I've seen this opinion a few times now, does the extra mana make that much of a difference in people's experiences? In other formats, I find myself picking the Mind Rot type effects up based on how useful it is in the format or in my deck, regardless of whether it costs 3 or 4. I find it's generally incorrect to cast it on turn 3 anyway unless you have nothing else to do (and maybe not even then), so the primary advantage a cheaper version is the ability to cast another spell with it on turn 5+.
Agreed on Blightning type cards being worse in common cube than in a format with plainswalkers, but it's still over 2 cards worth of value in one if all goes well.
I see what you're saying I just can't believe they'd errata all those cards just for this set. They errata'd cards from the previous set! I'm not sure how they'd enable the costs though outside of just letting people put Wastes in their deck, which I expected them to do in this set but they didn't.
Yeah he's definitely better in your cube than most with all the 1 drops.
From my experience Reiver Demon is pretty bad in this format. Eight mana is doable in this format, BBBB is harder, and his ability is not anywhere near as good as it looks. I had some vindication for my opinions a few days ago when my opponent cast this guy against my field of 3 creatures, killing 0 of them.
Viridian Shaman on the other hand is very very good, even worth splashing. Killing an artifact is on par with creature removal in this set, and this one leaves a body behind. The artifact destruction is mandatory though, so be careful on when you cast it.
W
U
B
R
G
I qualified a few of those with "with access to colorless mana". Before seeing the commons I was considering letting my players put as many Wastes as they wanted in their deck. I don't think this set gives me enough cards to make that worth it, but I doubt that Wizards would errata thousands of cards and then never use the diamond symbol again so maybe we'll get more.
Wow now I feel even worse for not trying that guy yet. That's a good tip, I've had similar experiences with the landwalkers. I can't wait to sacrifice like seven forests to block a Rushwood Dryad.
A few differences from his common rankings:
White:
- The only white card I strongly disagree with is Glory Seeker. I saw this card rated fairly high in one of the other articles as well, possibly because it was good in Onslaught. This format is very slow, and outside of against the one guy trying to make a very aggressive red deck work, a 2 mana 2/2 is unlikely to help you win a long game. I'd move it somewhere around Crossbow Infantry.
Green:- I'd move Rampant Growth and Fertile Ground above Horned Troll. Kai mentions some good reasons to pick them higher in his "Color Combinations" section, and I'm not sure why he has them lower in the general section.
- I'd move Vine Trellis above Horned Troll as well. It doesn't fix, but it still lets you play your fatties a turn earlier and can block Hill Giants and Moss Monsters.
- I'd move Wood Elves above Naturalize as there are multiple common 5-drops to ramp into, and there are many ways to draft so that you can make use of a large amount of mana.
Blue:- I'd move Unsummon and Boomerang to around Sea Monster level. I expect they were only so high because of stacked damage. They may be slightly better than that level if tempo is better than I think it is.
- I'd move Inspiration above Horned Turtle since the format is slow and it gives you more resources.
- I'd move Catalog around to where Horned Turtle is for the same reason as Inspiration. Just make sure not to play your last land if you don't need it and it does a pretty good Divination impression.
Red:- I'd move Shock Troops below Hill Giant, once again because of stacked damage having been removed.
- Kai must have thought Anaba Shaman was uncommon. I'd have it around where Shock is.
Black:- I'd move Vicious Hunger below Severed Legion. It's not bad but the other cards are more likely to help you win.
- I'd move Raise Dead way up, maybe around Drudge Skeletons. It's not a fantastic effect but in this format I'd rather re-buy my best creature than play a random 2/2.
Other notes:- I consider green to be the best color. It's the deepest, as Kai says, and can also enable a third color with Fertile Ground and Rampant Growth. This puts it ahead of the other colors for me as it is often very difficult to get enough playable cards for your deck in this format.
- Thanks for the tip on Coastal Hornclaw, I totally missed that card and thought it was crap.
- Kai looks like he has Rushwood Dryad about right, but I underestimated it. In this format more than most, your opponents are more likely to play green because it can support many drafters at the table.
- Not 100% about this yet, but the one power fliers might be better than they look. The ground stalls up very often, and my opponents have occasionally been able to either create a clock or accelerate one with a Sage Owl or Storm Crow. I think they are still going to be among the worst cards in your deck, but I previously thought them to be unplayable.
- Kai mentions Fodder Cannon in his list of "broken stuff", and it may have been when damage stacked. Under the modern rules, it trades your worst creatures for their best creatures at the initial investment of a card and a ton of mana. I don't think this is the type of thing you want to be doing in this format unless you have a good deck for it, since you are likely to run out of resources. I've beaten this card and Death Pits of Rath multiple times now simply by having more creatures than my opponent over a long game.
- Be prepared to play a long, grindy game. Most of my successes have been from playing a long game better than my opponents. You can do this tactically by valuing cards over life totals, or during draft and deck construction by taking cards that help in the long game or try to slow the game down.
- I just noticed this now, but if you're looking at the Eighth Edition commons on gatherer there are a few listed that are not in the boosters. So far I've noticed Eager Cadet, Sea Eagle, and Giant Octopus.
Sorry for the long post, but I've thought about the format a lot since it's been out and figured I'd share.These both might be better in Oath if producing the <> is important.
I ran Rimebound Dead for a while since he's the best Drudge Skeletons variant by far, but it just didn't do enough to warrant inclusion sadly.
That being said he's pretty slow at four mana, making him about as fair as unfair cards get. I've definitely won before with him still on the other side of the table.
You may have put this part into the calculator wrong.
27/40 * 27/40 = 0.455625
1 - 0.455625 = 0.544375 or 54.4375%
The # in my earlier post is higher because I did 27/40 * 26/39, since the first card drawn was not a creature.
It's not perfect because you're not going to be manifesting out of a 40 card deck, but it's the best way I could think to calculate it.
Odds of seeing at least one creature:
Looking at 2 cards:
13 creatures: 55%
14 creatures: 58.33%
Looking at 3 cards:
13 creatures: 70.39%
14 creatures: 73.64%
I think it comes down to your personal preference and what you think your deck needs. If there was a clear answer everyone would be running it and we wouldn't be having this discussion.