Comparable to Supreme Will. If your deck would have sufficient density of 2-cost counterspells, this card would be much stronger than Supreme Will, since the Impulse mode digs 1 deeper, and you don't have to choose modes until you see the cards. If you are for example playing in a powered cube, this can be very strong, as some of your cards are much better than others. You can also cast some removal for free off this.
Unfortunately, it's impossible to achieve high enough density of counterspells to have a good chance of hitting one with this. In my cube there are 8 counterspells that this can cast for free, and even if you had all of them, you'd have a probability of only 1 - (31 choose 5) / (39 choose 5) ~ 70% of finding one. As two of those counterspells only tax 1, having all the counterspells in your deck is not something you can count on, and as the value of having this card as another counterspell in such a situation is low, this mode of the card cannot really be counted on.
Because of the inconsistency, I don't think this card is going to be good enough for cube, but it is pretty interesting for how deep it can dig.
We need Frank Karsten, but my gut says you'd need 6+ counterspells at 2cmc to have this hit at anything approaching reliability for that mode, so let's put that dream aside as nothing more than another version of the desperation brainstorm in response to a spell digging for a counter.
HOWEVER, lets put that aside. I love impulse. For 1 mana more, you get to go a card deeper and you get to cast some spells for free.
I have 28 instants that I could hit and cast for free. Powered cube probably has more (recall being the obvious one). You can hit volt variants, terror variants, etc, which will often be fine. I think I'll test this.
2-cmc instants comprise of about less than 10% of my cube, and roughly half of those are just blue cantrips or counters. Unless you're heavily supporting spells matters / double spelling a turn, I think Supreme Will is generally better since it always has the Mana Leak mode.
For me, there are 35 hits (out of 630), which is way under where I'd want to be for this. The card is definitely cool, but I don't think it's anywhere near enough to include. I'm not currently cubing Impulse, but I'd definitely consider adding it back in before running this.
We need Frank Karsten, but my gut says you'd need 6+ counterspells at 2cmc to have this hit at anything approaching reliability for that mode, so let's put that dream aside as nothing more than another version of the desperation brainstorm in response to a spell digging for a counter.
HOWEVER, lets put that aside. I love impulse. For 1 mana more, you get to go a card deeper and you get to cast some spells for free.
I have 28 instants that I could hit and cast for free. Powered cube probably has more (recall being the obvious one). You can hit volt variants, terror variants, etc, which will often be fine. I think I'll test this.
Its worse than that.
Hypergeometric Distrubtion:
Success = X
Population Size = 40
Sample Size = 5
X = 9 gives you 74% of hitting.
X = 6 gives you 57% of hitting.
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I'm actively maintaining a comprehensive article to help explain to new cube players how some complex vintage level cards work in a cube environment. Vintage Cube Cards Explained
In the deck where the upside is important, the upside is indeed quite important. Realistically, you aren't just digging for counterspell. You're digging for a Counterspell, but Burst Lightning will suit you just fine, and if you see Brainstorm or Manamorphose, that's jim dandy too. In fact, if you don't have counterspells in your deck, but you do have draw spells, you are more likely to cast this during your main phase so that you can use sorcery speed cards you draw with your instant speed draw spells.
In the deck that's not optimized to get use out of the upside, maybe you have 1-2 targets in your deck. At that point, you are really just using it as a bad Impulse, but that's not the worst. And most decks are going to have a least one thing to potentially hit, even if it's just Mutagenic Growth.
I think the important consideration is less "what percent of my cube is targets for this", and more "how many targets am I likely to have in a deck that plays this".
Comparable to Supreme Will. If your deck would have sufficient density of 2-cost counterspells, this card would be much stronger than Supreme Will, since the Impulse mode digs 1 deeper, and you don't have to choose modes until you see the cards. If you are for example playing in a powered cube, this can be very strong, as some of your cards are much better than others. You can also cast some removal for free off this.
Unfortunately, it's impossible to achieve high enough density of counterspells to have a good chance of hitting one with this. In my cube there are 8 counterspells that this can cast for free, and even if you had all of them, you'd have a probability of only 1 - (31 choose 5) / (39 choose 5) ~ 70% of finding one. As two of those counterspells only tax 1, having all the counterspells in your deck is not something you can count on, and as the value of having this card as another counterspell in such a situation is low, this mode of the card cannot really be counted on.
Because of the inconsistency, I don't think this card is going to be good enough for cube, but it is pretty interesting for how deep it can dig.
HOWEVER, lets put that aside. I love impulse. For 1 mana more, you get to go a card deeper and you get to cast some spells for free.
I have 28 instants that I could hit and cast for free. Powered cube probably has more (recall being the obvious one). You can hit volt variants, terror variants, etc, which will often be fine. I think I'll test this.
375 unpowered cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/601ac624832cdf1039947588
My High Octane Unpowered Cube on CubeCobra
Draft my cube! (630 cards)
Its worse than that.
Hypergeometric Distrubtion:
Success = X
Population Size = 40
Sample Size = 5
X = 9 gives you 74% of hitting.
X = 6 gives you 57% of hitting.
Vintage Cube Cards Explained
Here are some other articles I've written about fine tuning your cube:
1. Minimum Archetype Support
2. Improving Green Archetypes
3. Improving White Archetypes
4. Matchup Analysis
5. Cube Combos (Work in Progress)
Draft my Cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/d8i
In the deck that's not optimized to get use out of the upside, maybe you have 1-2 targets in your deck. At that point, you are really just using it as a bad Impulse, but that's not the worst. And most decks are going to have a least one thing to potentially hit, even if it's just Mutagenic Growth.
I think the important consideration is less "what percent of my cube is targets for this", and more "how many targets am I likely to have in a deck that plays this".
Low-power cube enthusiast!
My 1570 card cube (no longer updated)
My 415 Peasant+ Artifact and Enchantment Cube
Ever-Expanding "Just throw it in" cube.