I would assume he meant second behind Guardian of the Guildpact and I would agree with that. I think this card is significantly better than Seraph of Dawn. This thing is Gravedigger on performance enhancing drugs for just one more mana. It's a 3/3 flier, will always get back a relevant card, and is splashable.
So you get the 3/3 elephant token and the undying creature with a +1/+1 counter on it. That is exactly how I think it works.
Still going to be fun.
That's the same value of the two cards separately. There's not any synergy that increases their value by being together ><. I'm gonna go with Mslano in saying that's just the excitement of Elephant Guide being good
Can't wait to put Elephant Guide on an undying creature.
I don't think that works the way you think it does. You get the same advantage from Elephant Guide from both regular creatures and Undying. Undying sends the creature to the graveyard and the enchantment comes off, then it comes back to play without the enchantment.
Has anyone tried running Perilous Research? I've been playing Altar's Reap for some time now and it's really never been bad to me, and the same effect (but better) in blue seems pretty powerful.
It's fine (not fantastic, but it does decent work), and I've been playing it since the rarity downgrade in Modern Masters. It gives you something to do in response to removal and late game you can just sac a land to it.
Don't forget it allows you to get some card draw off of those early game creatures you'll be playing in more control oriented decks that WILL die to Midrange/Aggro decks. That block and extra leverage you get off those trades are well worth it.
Example; Doomed Traveler is one of the most perfect cards for a control deck, giving you two blockers on the 1st turn. Turn 2 you're blocking with it and you can easily block sac to either Perilous Research or Altar's Reap, next block the same. That's pretty much what I'm talking about and it happens much more often than you'd think with how midrangey a format Pauper cube is.
I don't think sac'ing a blocker is a bad thing but I think you're definitely overplaying the situations and "advantages" to doing so in regards to Perilous Research and Altar's Reap.
As far as the given situation of blocking on turn two with a Doomed Traveler, I think that if you're blocking on turn 2 (on the play or on the draw) you probably won't want to sac the Doomed Traveler. If you're on the play and you're blocking on turn 2 with Doomed Traveler, you're blocking an opponent's 1 drop which is probably not the most likely of scenario in pauper anyways. But if you are, that one drop will most likely have 1 toughness (with very few exceptions) and trading with the creature is a much better trade than sac'ing to Perilous Research and leaving their creature on the table. If you're on the draw, you're blocking a 2 drop which probably still has a decent chance of trading with Doomed Traveler (a decent number of pauper 2 drops are X/1's).
TLDR: I think that a turn 2 scenario isn't the most common situation for you sac'ing creatures like Doomed Traveler on blocks for Perilous Research. I think you would definitely be looking at much later turns where you would both benefit from blocking a larger creature and keeping mana open on your opponents turn for removal/counter back up.
Now given that you are playing Perilous Research on later turns, I think the direct benefit of playing a card like Perilous Research and Altar's Reap over a card like Divination is so minimal that it isn't worth including unless you run a major sacrifice theme. The main argument that people bring up for these cards is that you can either sacrifice a creature that you're going to chump with anyways or that you're going to use it on a creature targeted by removal. In both situations, you're going to lose the creature either way no matter which card you have in your hand (Divination vs Perilous Research). What you are benefiting from is a reduction in mana cost by (1) and instant speed. This seems significant in terms of counter/draw play style aside from the fact that both of these scenarios will happen pre/during combat before your opponent plays their threats that you're looking to counter in main phase 2. What you're losing is the ability to draw the cards you need outside of these scenarios without losing a creature (a viable threat or even a chump block) or waiting for your opponent to do something for you to justify using Perilous Research or Altar's Reap.
TLDR: Unless you're running a heavy sacrifice theme or you really want blue/black to have a specific answer to white removal so you can use reanimation spells, you're better off using other draw spells like Divination or Think Twice if you want to support draw go. Although the cards make it seem like you trade your opponent's spells/attacks for card gain, you're really just trading (1) mana and instant speed for waiting on your opponent. Whether you play Divination or Perilous Research, you still get to block the attack or your opponent still gets to kill your creature with their removal. Sorry for the huge essay ><
I guess you get what you expect but you only get it because it's the only "correct" answer. It's your cube and you can do whatever you want with it but including cards that have never been printed as commons breaks the definition of pauper cube. This is in no way shape or form "wrong" but you're basically creating your own cube format in doing so. Also, because of varying opinions on rarity and "What feels like a pauper card" there's really no way for multiple people to deem what would be acceptable as a common other than Wizard's themselves. For example, you feel like Elvish Archers is a common level card but if someone replied saying they thought it was definitely an uncommon card would you then not include it?
I was talking about lava storm, sorry for the confusion.
I do run rock slide, it's not bad.
I used to run pyrotechnics too, it's just a matter of space and how many/which kinds of burn spells I want. Rock slide can go in the Ux "as much of my stuff as possible can be done at instant speed" deck I (try to) support.
However, rock slide's inability to hit fliers is really lame.
This is actually very true. In fact, I always forget that and try to cast it on fliers. And i actually forgot it while discussing the card just now haha
It's probably in reference to Lava Storm. But if not,Rock Slide is definitely not as strong as Pyrotechnics but Pyrotechnics is a pretty solid sweeper and certainly a staple, so being worse isn't that big of a deal.
I really don't think it's that much worse. It's pretty clear that utility creatures are few and far between and dealing with them isn't very difficult. It's the reason no one runs arrest anymore. The ability to deal with utility creature's just isn't needed most of the time. However, being able to cast Rock Slide for 3 or 4 mana can be a big deal in getting you to the late game. Even casting it as a 3 mana more conditional Fire/Ice is still very good for pauper.
I guess if you're in the market for an awful version of pyrotechnics for some reason?
If this is in reference to Rock Slide, I would have to disagree. It's actually been really good. It's a bit more versatile than Pyrotechnics since it can be cast for any amount of damage at instant speed. It's only downside is that you can't use it to kill utility creatures, but those aren't incredibly common and red has a lot of other resources to deal with those. You should give it a try, you might be impressed.
I'm actually sort of surprised some of those cards weren't in there from the start. Some of those cards I would consider staples even at 360. I think the only card's in that list I'm not too keen of would be Gorilla War Cry and Lava Burst.
Unless you play with snow lands, then Chilling Shade is pretty sick
I would assume he meant second behind Guardian of the Guildpact and I would agree with that. I think this card is significantly better than Seraph of Dawn. This thing is Gravedigger on performance enhancing drugs for just one more mana. It's a 3/3 flier, will always get back a relevant card, and is splashable.
That's the same value of the two cards separately. There's not any synergy that increases their value by being together ><. I'm gonna go with Mslano in saying that's just the excitement of Elephant Guide being good
I don't think that works the way you think it does. You get the same advantage from Elephant Guide from both regular creatures and Undying. Undying sends the creature to the graveyard and the enchantment comes off, then it comes back to play without the enchantment.
I don't think sac'ing a blocker is a bad thing but I think you're definitely overplaying the situations and "advantages" to doing so in regards to Perilous Research and Altar's Reap.
As far as the given situation of blocking on turn two with a Doomed Traveler, I think that if you're blocking on turn 2 (on the play or on the draw) you probably won't want to sac the Doomed Traveler. If you're on the play and you're blocking on turn 2 with Doomed Traveler, you're blocking an opponent's 1 drop which is probably not the most likely of scenario in pauper anyways. But if you are, that one drop will most likely have 1 toughness (with very few exceptions) and trading with the creature is a much better trade than sac'ing to Perilous Research and leaving their creature on the table. If you're on the draw, you're blocking a 2 drop which probably still has a decent chance of trading with Doomed Traveler (a decent number of pauper 2 drops are X/1's).
TLDR: I think that a turn 2 scenario isn't the most common situation for you sac'ing creatures like Doomed Traveler on blocks for Perilous Research. I think you would definitely be looking at much later turns where you would both benefit from blocking a larger creature and keeping mana open on your opponents turn for removal/counter back up.
Now given that you are playing Perilous Research on later turns, I think the direct benefit of playing a card like Perilous Research and Altar's Reap over a card like Divination is so minimal that it isn't worth including unless you run a major sacrifice theme. The main argument that people bring up for these cards is that you can either sacrifice a creature that you're going to chump with anyways or that you're going to use it on a creature targeted by removal. In both situations, you're going to lose the creature either way no matter which card you have in your hand (Divination vs Perilous Research). What you are benefiting from is a reduction in mana cost by (1) and instant speed. This seems significant in terms of counter/draw play style aside from the fact that both of these scenarios will happen pre/during combat before your opponent plays their threats that you're looking to counter in main phase 2. What you're losing is the ability to draw the cards you need outside of these scenarios without losing a creature (a viable threat or even a chump block) or waiting for your opponent to do something for you to justify using Perilous Research or Altar's Reap.
TLDR: Unless you're running a heavy sacrifice theme or you really want blue/black to have a specific answer to white removal so you can use reanimation spells, you're better off using other draw spells like Divination or Think Twice if you want to support draw go. Although the cards make it seem like you trade your opponent's spells/attacks for card gain, you're really just trading (1) mana and instant speed for waiting on your opponent. Whether you play Divination or Perilous Research, you still get to block the attack or your opponent still gets to kill your creature with their removal. Sorry for the huge essay ><
This is actually very true. In fact, I always forget that and try to cast it on fliers. And i actually forgot it while discussing the card just now haha
I really don't think it's that much worse. It's pretty clear that utility creatures are few and far between and dealing with them isn't very difficult. It's the reason no one runs arrest anymore. The ability to deal with utility creature's just isn't needed most of the time. However, being able to cast Rock Slide for 3 or 4 mana can be a big deal in getting you to the late game. Even casting it as a 3 mana more conditional Fire/Ice is still very good for pauper.
Edit: I have no idea how to link split cards ><
If this is in reference to Rock Slide, I would have to disagree. It's actually been really good. It's a bit more versatile than Pyrotechnics since it can be cast for any amount of damage at instant speed. It's only downside is that you can't use it to kill utility creatures, but those aren't incredibly common and red has a lot of other resources to deal with those. You should give it a try, you might be impressed.
If you're looking for that type of card, Rock Slide has done very well for people here.