I think it'll be competing with Bob for 2nd best black 2 drop with the 2nd power.
Best black 2 drop (in cube) is Pack Rat.;)
I think the second power could even make it compete with pack rat. On a scarier note, Pack Rat discarding the 2 power Reassembling skeleton might be terrifying.
I run reassembling skeleton, but if I wasn't running Pox or other black sacrifice packages... I wouldn't run it at all. It's cute that it can bring itself every so often to hold equipment, etc., but I think its real value lies in discarding it to pox, reanimating it and then sacrificing it to pox (again and again and again), thereby gaining multiple instances of card advantage over your opponent.
tldr; I don't think its strong enough to stand on its own legs, and its a key support card for the black pox package.
Well yeah, it only sees play in 1/3 of Cubes. So what? It's a niche card that's interesting but not obviously powerful; in other words, exactly the kind of card that these threads are for. There's a reason you don't see [SCD] Oblivion Ring or [SCD] Counterspell.
I get what you're saying but that doesn't mean the information is irrelevant. Maindeck percentage and the number of cubes that run the card don't prove anything on their own or tell the whole story, but they're still interesting and pertinent data.
When I see Healing Salve, I'm often like "Oh girl, I wish I could turn every card into this." Thanks they removed the gain life part, otherwise this would have been broken.
This guy saw play in todays draft and it shone brightly. Picking up a sword. Discarding it to my own Oona's Prowler EOT so it had psudo flash. Worked well with the Masticores and I was very happy to see it play with Pox.
The guy has a ton of game and I would (at this point) be willing to try him out even if I wasn't running a Pox package.
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Black value decks are popular in my group. They may use pox or stax, but. Maybe not. The main theme is piling a bunch of two for ones like skin render with broken cards like skullclamp, and some great removal. This guy has been great in all of these decks.
I'm running him at unpowered 540(Sry I haven't done the work to get my deck into your database yet Eidolon) and I think he's a fine role player for mid range and control decks. He trades with a decent amount of guys that would be part of an aggro rush and is hard to deal with permanently. I'd say he's in the bottom third of the black section and since they seem to be the most fluid cube to cube it certainly is a matter of taste. I like the guy, but would love a zombie version...
if you die you become a skeleton over time, and necromancers cant resist a fabulous skeleton when they see one. The moral is always drink your milk so your bones remain strong.
Are your cubers having a great time playing and playing against grindy lockdown decks? I know I tend to like the sorta cards and combos that make the game unfun but this reminds me of those things that make environments non-interactive and I don't think replacing one problem with another is really what you want.
Don't get me wrong, I like black disruption, I like when black has more cards that make symmetrical things less so, but I don't really know if I like wholesale support of gimmicks, especially ones that are attempting to make the game frustrating as quickly and efficiently as possible. I think wholesale commitment to black contagion / pox seems wonky. I like pox cards on their own however and my experience is admittedly limited.
Does anyone really love having cards like winter orb in their cube? It also seems like a strategy that is really bad against the balls out aggressive decks that don't mind sacrificing their mogg war marshal or a land or two so I worry games get swingy.
I personally would consider an unfun deck or strategy to be one where I am not having fun playing the deck, or a deck that always loses.
I have found that the Pox subtheme is a strategy that is both fun to play and interesting to play against. It is quite unconventional, and requires outside the box thinking to build and play against. It doesn't fold to aggro the way you think it might, thanks to the lifegain tools black has been given, as well as the occasional (or usual) white splash.
When it comes to fun, only you can decide though. It played a lot different than I expected, and I encourage you to give it a shot.
Black was undervalued in general in my cube until I supported poxish decks fulltime. Otherwise my group would just do g/b reanimator and splash for removal/broken. Occasionally I would see someone try to make necro work, but alot of good black tabled, especially aggro.
Maybe it is just my group but the pure aggro guys look elsewhere, while those looking to put together an obnoxious grindy deck go heavy black. I don't think I will focus all my colors on attrition decks, that would be too much. But for giving black the identity people were looking for it worked.
Well by all means tell me why. I don't dislike having punishment cards in the cube, that are there to remind players not to get too greedy, funny little game changing pieces of hate that contribute to the drafting process but can also just find their way into decks that take advantage of the problem they present more than an opponent's deck might. It's just one that has accumulated a particularly large amount of dislike and bad experiences as far as I've seen in my years of playing, in cube and just cultural memory.
I guess it's also one of those cards that is very powered/signets dependent.
I'm not sure the comparison to upheaval and timewalk is fair. People looooooove casting timewalk. It's just a big dumb splashy fun effect that isn't always back breaking but often creates "Oooh & Ahhh" style memories. Upheaval is another of those cards that feels incredibly climactic and has a lot of sweet turns that follow it that you really feel like you earned. But orb... or like magnivore types of strategies or stax types of strategies that we are talking about here. Don't those decks just conjure a very well deserved shiver when you think about having played against them? And talk about bad experience vs newer players. These decks are weird niche strategies with powerful effects that are especially unpleasant to the unwary and have very crucial steps in deck building and particular turns in order to effectively play against them.
Now I'm the sort of jerk that loves to play Rising Waters decks or ones that make your oponent want to quit, but I find those work best in constructed formats for metagame prepardedness reasons on all sides of the table, but these decks also are only fun to play if you've made them super tight. So assuming that you can't always draft your ideal shut-out deck, but you are still relatively invested in shut-out cards, both sides of the table are probably having a less than wonderful time.
I know you've all played a game where you resolved a winter orb and the game just became an unpleasant untenable mess that went on way longer than it ought to have. I'm sure we've all played a balance that made the game really weird and dull. Why are we making black really invested in these weird niche strategies. I get that they get along with the recursion elements and classic plans like skullclamp but it just seems weird to start investing a lot of a struggling colours slots into a potentially very unfun and tenuous strategy.
Anyway I look forward to seeing more of it, but I'm also trying to bring cubing to a new group and stuff like that really turns people off. Part of me also just want to see black cards get better (besides impressive outliers) not forcing them down weird paths like stax or playing a lot of :symb::symb::symb: cards.
i agree with the above but would like to add that aggro doesn't get enough good disruption, even in a smaller list. cutting a tier 1 cheap, colorless disruption card seems like a horrible idea for that reason.
When I see Healing Salve, I'm often like "Oh girl, I wish I could turn every card into this." Thanks they removed the gain life part, otherwise this would have been broken.
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I think it'll be competing with Bob for 2nd best black 2 drop with the 2nd power.
Best black 2 drop (in cube) is Pack Rat.;)
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I think the second power could even make it compete with pack rat. On a scarier note, Pack Rat discarding the 2 power Reassembling skeleton might be terrifying.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=484979
tldr; I don't think its strong enough to stand on its own legs, and its a key support card for the black pox package.
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I get what you're saying but that doesn't mean the information is irrelevant. Maindeck percentage and the number of cubes that run the card don't prove anything on their own or tell the whole story, but they're still interesting and pertinent data.
The guy has a ton of game and I would (at this point) be willing to try him out even if I wasn't running a Pox package.
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I know it's worth mentioning, but at least part of me is going "Sure, what creature isn't"
We don't say "It's good with Armageddon" whenever someone brings up a piece of artifact mana. (Wait, or do we?)
I just wish he was a 2/1.
And a zombie.
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Not true, Phantasmal Image is not good with skull clamp.
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it is if you copied a cloudgoat
Or if you have died of cancer.
And became a Reassembling Skeleton.
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http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=484979
Don't get me wrong, I like black disruption, I like when black has more cards that make symmetrical things less so, but I don't really know if I like wholesale support of gimmicks, especially ones that are attempting to make the game frustrating as quickly and efficiently as possible. I think wholesale commitment to black contagion / pox seems wonky. I like pox cards on their own however and my experience is admittedly limited.
Does anyone really love having cards like winter orb in their cube? It also seems like a strategy that is really bad against the balls out aggressive decks that don't mind sacrificing their mogg war marshal or a land or two so I worry games get swingy.
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I personally would consider an unfun deck or strategy to be one where I am not having fun playing the deck, or a deck that always loses.
I have found that the Pox subtheme is a strategy that is both fun to play and interesting to play against. It is quite unconventional, and requires outside the box thinking to build and play against. It doesn't fold to aggro the way you think it might, thanks to the lifegain tools black has been given, as well as the occasional (or usual) white splash.
When it comes to fun, only you can decide though. It played a lot different than I expected, and I encourage you to give it a shot.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 49th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from MKM!
Maybe it is just my group but the pure aggro guys look elsewhere, while those looking to put together an obnoxious grindy deck go heavy black. I don't think I will focus all my colors on attrition decks, that would be too much. But for giving black the identity people were looking for it worked.
Well by all means tell me why. I don't dislike having punishment cards in the cube, that are there to remind players not to get too greedy, funny little game changing pieces of hate that contribute to the drafting process but can also just find their way into decks that take advantage of the problem they present more than an opponent's deck might. It's just one that has accumulated a particularly large amount of dislike and bad experiences as far as I've seen in my years of playing, in cube and just cultural memory.
I guess it's also one of those cards that is very powered/signets dependent.
I'm not sure the comparison to upheaval and timewalk is fair. People looooooove casting timewalk. It's just a big dumb splashy fun effect that isn't always back breaking but often creates "Oooh & Ahhh" style memories. Upheaval is another of those cards that feels incredibly climactic and has a lot of sweet turns that follow it that you really feel like you earned. But orb... or like magnivore types of strategies or stax types of strategies that we are talking about here. Don't those decks just conjure a very well deserved shiver when you think about having played against them? And talk about bad experience vs newer players. These decks are weird niche strategies with powerful effects that are especially unpleasant to the unwary and have very crucial steps in deck building and particular turns in order to effectively play against them.
Now I'm the sort of jerk that loves to play Rising Waters decks or ones that make your oponent want to quit, but I find those work best in constructed formats for metagame prepardedness reasons on all sides of the table, but these decks also are only fun to play if you've made them super tight. So assuming that you can't always draft your ideal shut-out deck, but you are still relatively invested in shut-out cards, both sides of the table are probably having a less than wonderful time.
I know you've all played a game where you resolved a winter orb and the game just became an unpleasant untenable mess that went on way longer than it ought to have. I'm sure we've all played a balance that made the game really weird and dull. Why are we making black really invested in these weird niche strategies. I get that they get along with the recursion elements and classic plans like skullclamp but it just seems weird to start investing a lot of a struggling colours slots into a potentially very unfun and tenuous strategy.
Anyway I look forward to seeing more of it, but I'm also trying to bring cubing to a new group and stuff like that really turns people off. Part of me also just want to see black cards get better (besides impressive outliers) not forcing them down weird paths like stax or playing a lot of :symb::symb::symb: cards.
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Because Winter Orb is a powerful card, and we like playing with powerful cards. My playgroup isn't "turned off" by cards because they're good.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 49th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from MKM!