Its funny how you argue about the blocking, while completely ignoring the toughness. Which is its biggest disadvantage. It reads: Cant attack if opp controls a creature. Cant block anyway.
The one toughness really doesn't matter, it's a 1 drop. You shouldn't expect all of your 1 drops to be Isamaru, Hound of Konda. Elite Vanguard, Savannah Lions, and Jackal Pup are still respectable 1 drops that see play in cubes of every level and no one is blocking with them (that's simply not what playing 1 drop aggro creatures is for), which effectively makes Jungle Lion the same card but in a different color/rarity.
Flowstone Crusher has always seemed really iffy on paper to me but has continued to impress me every time I draft it.
I agree that the pseudo lifelink 2/2 probably becomes worth consideration above 360. I think the competition for white 2 drops is pretty well stocked atm in 360 tho.
So what do people think about Pharagax Giant? For those who haven't seen the spoiler:
Pharagax Giant 4R
Tribute 2 (As this creature enters the battlefield, an opponent of your choice may place two +1/+1 counters on it.)
When Pharagax Giant enters the battlefield, if tribute wasn't paid, Pharagax Giant deals 5 damage to each opponent.
3/3
Seems like it's probably in a better place in pauper than Vexing Devil was in standard. It still suffers from the same argument that it's burn when you want a creature and a creature when you want burn but a 5/5 is a huge creature for red decks.
Edit.: I just had the opportunity to see Slow Motion in action and it was performing awesome. Against a mana screwed or at least slightly mana screwed deck it's able to win the game nearly on it's own.
This isn't a very good selling point. You probably shouldn't need extra help against a mana screwed opponent ><
Also strange seeing you advocate blue land D when you cut all of your red land D which is a color that should most be trying to hose poorly constructed control mana bases.
One of my friends plays it in his EDH and its really annoying there and that's even a big mana environment so I'm sure it could do some very annoying things in pauper where curve is king.
How is it easier to cast when it is multicolored and has the same number of colored mana symbols in its "real" casting cost? You have to pay 1WB for Shrieking Grotesque or else you paid 2W for a Stormfront Pegasus and that's not the same card.
Darklit Gargoyle and Unmake are better than Shrieking Grotesque imho. You cant do blink shenigans with it. Id say Unmake even is a staple.
I don't think Unmake is a staple, at least not at 360. Orzhov is by far one of the strongest guilds in Pauper cube and Unmake is probably card 6 or 7 in that section. Shrieking Grotesque, Blind Hunter, Pillory of the Sleepless, Tithe Drinker, and Kingpin's Pet are all significantly stronger cards. If you're playing 6 guild slots you either have a huge cube or aren't too picky about maintaining a proper color balance in your drafts. I don't see how blink shenanigans is relevant to Shrieking Grotesque when neither of the cards you suggested in its place have any relevance to that archetype either.
And what about Grisly Salvage or LLanowar Dead over Trow?
Rendclaw Trow is still better than both of those. There aren't enough ways to take advantage of dumping cards into your graveyard to make Grisly Salvage card advantage and I wouldn't want to pay 2 mana for a 1 mana producer when it makes the same color mana you already had access to to cast it in the first place. You'd be better off playing Elves of Deep Shadow.
Ninja doesn't go in Aggro decks, it's a Tempo creature
This. All the times I've successfully controlled a game with ninja it has been on the back of tempo'ing people out with things like Man-O'-War, undo, and (my favorite) Flood, which is also pretty disgusting with Mistblade Shinobi. Ninja is just a 2/2 version of Scroll Thief that has fun interactions with cards like Man-o'-War and Mulldrifter.
Just for posterity's sake, Deadly Recluse used to be considered garbage, or not as high at the very least. I am seeing this discussion unfold and scratch my head as we compared it to the Thornweald Archer, and then to the Ambush Viper and it was always 'what? a 1/2 with reach.. Archer is better".
I see this as a metagaming solution to the current love affair with Hexproof, and then looking at the context as it pertains to the 'defensive' or 'controlling' side of green.
I would agree. Out of the 3 I only run Ambush Viper because of it's flexibility as both an evasive 2/1 and an instant speed trick. I would also prefer the Thornweald Archer over Deadly Recluse but I guess if you're looking for that defensive kill spell Deadly Recluse might look more enticing because it doesn't die to every pinger and half of a Lava Dart. I would probably throw Nightshade Peddler into the mix as well if we were to put this discussion into the This or That thread.
Also, I don't think any of the things I mentioned are corner cases. They are things that come up in every game of pauper cube. Also, giving your opponent who is playing black/white/red to "counter" your removal with their removal is worse than straight up playing a removal spell when in late game top deck mode. Being able to trade their burn spell so that you can't deal with their 4/4 is very much so in their favor.
Edit: Just a question for everyone else, who still plays Giant Growth, so everyone except for me: Isn't Deadly Recluse strictly better than any combat trick? Who wouldn't pick the Recluse as a sure 1 for 1 trade over any kind of combat trick in a draft?
I've not once been disappointed by Rock Slide since I put it in my cube a year ago. It does some serious work against aggro decks. I've also cut Searing Blaze just because the RR is often annoying to cast and the lack of fetches in pauper making it a sorcery 99% of the time.
I don't think its even close to fair to say that Mogg Fanatic is an awful card. If you don't like it, I guess that's up to you but this card still sees play in Powered Cubes.
The idea of Mogg Fanatic is that when played on turn 1 he gets in for damage because your opponent can't profitably block without losing their own creature. I think this is especially true of pauper cube because very few colors have access to 2 drops with 2 toughness let alone 1 drops that can do anything against Mogg Fanatic. For example, Al's inclusion of typhoid rats which you would never want to waste blocking a Mogg Fanatic if you played it on turn 1. Your same black section only has 3 two drops that can profitably block Mogg Fanatic. When you play him on turn 1 he beats in the first two turns netting you 2 damage. When your opponent finally plays a dude on turn 3 that can profitably block it, you get to swing in with your whole team. If he blocks the fanatic with his biggest creature, it means all of your bigger creatures get to get in for damage and you get to sac your Mogg Fanatic to either kill one of their lower drop creatures or deal 1 damage to the face. If you went to the face, Mogg Fanatic got you 3 damage and a free attack with your larger creature. If you killed a creature, your Mogg Fanatic got in 2 damage to your opponent, got a free attack for your biggest creature and killed a low drop/utility creature all for the low cost of R.
Obviously this scenario is much different when he doesn't get played on turn 1 but that can be said of most 1 drop creatures in pauper cube. If anything, it's better than most 1 drops in pauper cube when drawn late because you are guaranteed the 1 damage.
Does anyone put multicolor cards that cost XAB in their respective guild/shard/wedge section and then hybrids and off color kicker costs into a separate section that is more A or B?
I am thinking about doing this because it opens up a couple slots, but mainly, these cards are castable in A or B instead of requiring a multicolor deck (where you maybe are just losing some value by not being able to kick it or do an off color activation). Thoughts?
I think the best way to do hybrid cards is to count them as .5 of a card for each color in it's hybrid cost. So something like Snakeform, would be .5 of your blue section and .5 of a card in your green section. The one problem with this strategy is that it requires you to have obviously an evenly made group of cards to make whole numbers and there aren't a ton of hybrid options for pauper. However, I have made a number of acceptable combinations of hybrids ranging from 4-10 cards. I think the lower the number the better tho because as i said, the options at pauper aren't great. Otherwise, I would either place them in the guild section or under the mono color if it's only playable as that one color (IE Pit Fight)
I'm not a fan of looting either but to be fair it's still only card disadvantage once. The second activation doesn't cost you another card, just 3 mana.
Of those I think only Fiery Temper and Grave Scrabbler are too tempting. Maybe the Gorgon if you could get it discarded regularly. There are some others unlisted (12 madness total at common) but aren't even worth mentioning : /
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The one toughness really doesn't matter, it's a 1 drop. You shouldn't expect all of your 1 drops to be Isamaru, Hound of Konda. Elite Vanguard, Savannah Lions, and Jackal Pup are still respectable 1 drops that see play in cubes of every level and no one is blocking with them (that's simply not what playing 1 drop aggro creatures is for), which effectively makes Jungle Lion the same card but in a different color/rarity.
I agree that the pseudo lifelink 2/2 probably becomes worth consideration above 360. I think the competition for white 2 drops is pretty well stocked atm in 360 tho.
Pharagax Giant 4R
Tribute 2 (As this creature enters the battlefield, an opponent of your choice may place two +1/+1 counters on it.)
When Pharagax Giant enters the battlefield, if tribute wasn't paid, Pharagax Giant deals 5 damage to each opponent.
3/3
Seems like it's probably in a better place in pauper than Vexing Devil was in standard. It still suffers from the same argument that it's burn when you want a creature and a creature when you want burn but a 5/5 is a huge creature for red decks.
This isn't a very good selling point. You probably shouldn't need extra help against a mana screwed opponent ><
Also strange seeing you advocate blue land D when you cut all of your red land D which is a color that should most be trying to hose poorly constructed control mana bases.
How is it easier to cast when it is multicolored and has the same number of colored mana symbols in its "real" casting cost? You have to pay 1WB for Shrieking Grotesque or else you paid 2W for a Stormfront Pegasus and that's not the same card.
I don't think Unmake is a staple, at least not at 360. Orzhov is by far one of the strongest guilds in Pauper cube and Unmake is probably card 6 or 7 in that section. Shrieking Grotesque, Blind Hunter, Pillory of the Sleepless, Tithe Drinker, and Kingpin's Pet are all significantly stronger cards. If you're playing 6 guild slots you either have a huge cube or aren't too picky about maintaining a proper color balance in your drafts. I don't see how blink shenanigans is relevant to Shrieking Grotesque when neither of the cards you suggested in its place have any relevance to that archetype either.
Rendclaw Trow is still better than both of those. There aren't enough ways to take advantage of dumping cards into your graveyard to make Grisly Salvage card advantage and I wouldn't want to pay 2 mana for a 1 mana producer when it makes the same color mana you already had access to to cast it in the first place. You'd be better off playing Elves of Deep Shadow.
This. All the times I've successfully controlled a game with ninja it has been on the back of tempo'ing people out with things like Man-O'-War, undo, and (my favorite) Flood, which is also pretty disgusting with Mistblade Shinobi. Ninja is just a 2/2 version of Scroll Thief that has fun interactions with cards like Man-o'-War and Mulldrifter.
I would agree. Out of the 3 I only run Ambush Viper because of it's flexibility as both an evasive 2/1 and an instant speed trick. I would also prefer the Thornweald Archer over Deadly Recluse but I guess if you're looking for that defensive kill spell Deadly Recluse might look more enticing because it doesn't die to every pinger and half of a Lava Dart. I would probably throw Nightshade Peddler into the mix as well if we were to put this discussion into the This or That thread.
Also, I don't think any of the things I mentioned are corner cases. They are things that come up in every game of pauper cube. Also, giving your opponent who is playing black/white/red to "counter" your removal with their removal is worse than straight up playing a removal spell when in late game top deck mode. Being able to trade their burn spell so that you can't deal with their 4/4 is very much so in their favor.
But Deadly Recluse isn't a guaranteed 1 for 1. Most removal spells don't lose to first strike, white tappers, intimidate/unblockable or half of a removal spell (Staggershock, Firebolt, Crippling Fatigue, Arc Lightning, etc...).
I don't think its even close to fair to say that Mogg Fanatic is an awful card. If you don't like it, I guess that's up to you but this card still sees play in Powered Cubes.
The idea of Mogg Fanatic is that when played on turn 1 he gets in for damage because your opponent can't profitably block without losing their own creature. I think this is especially true of pauper cube because very few colors have access to 2 drops with 2 toughness let alone 1 drops that can do anything against Mogg Fanatic. For example, Al's inclusion of typhoid rats which you would never want to waste blocking a Mogg Fanatic if you played it on turn 1. Your same black section only has 3 two drops that can profitably block Mogg Fanatic. When you play him on turn 1 he beats in the first two turns netting you 2 damage. When your opponent finally plays a dude on turn 3 that can profitably block it, you get to swing in with your whole team. If he blocks the fanatic with his biggest creature, it means all of your bigger creatures get to get in for damage and you get to sac your Mogg Fanatic to either kill one of their lower drop creatures or deal 1 damage to the face. If you went to the face, Mogg Fanatic got you 3 damage and a free attack with your larger creature. If you killed a creature, your Mogg Fanatic got in 2 damage to your opponent, got a free attack for your biggest creature and killed a low drop/utility creature all for the low cost of R.
Obviously this scenario is much different when he doesn't get played on turn 1 but that can be said of most 1 drop creatures in pauper cube. If anything, it's better than most 1 drops in pauper cube when drawn late because you are guaranteed the 1 damage.
I think the best way to do hybrid cards is to count them as .5 of a card for each color in it's hybrid cost. So something like Snakeform, would be .5 of your blue section and .5 of a card in your green section. The one problem with this strategy is that it requires you to have obviously an evenly made group of cards to make whole numbers and there aren't a ton of hybrid options for pauper. However, I have made a number of acceptable combinations of hybrids ranging from 4-10 cards. I think the lower the number the better tho because as i said, the options at pauper aren't great. Otherwise, I would either place them in the guild section or under the mono color if it's only playable as that one color (IE Pit Fight)
I'm not a fan of looting either but to be fair it's still only card disadvantage once. The second activation doesn't cost you another card, just 3 mana.
Of those I think only Fiery Temper and Grave Scrabbler are too tempting. Maybe the Gorgon if you could get it discarded regularly. There are some others unlisted (12 madness total at common) but aren't even worth mentioning : /