Vial has three main benefits: virtual mana production, playing creatures with flash, making them uncounterable. The first is the biggest benefit and is really only realized in an aggressive deck. If you can't capitalize on that I don't think the other two alone are worth it. In a non-aggro deck or a slower cube that doesn't really have aggro I don't think it would be very good. Even if you can draft a good aggro deck if you are playing against more than one opponent you probably don't want to draft aggro. They have trouble killing more than one opponent.
It's one of the few cards I feel is actively bad in cube. I won't ever take it from a pack or put it into a deck unless I absolutely have no other choice.
This feels like a stronger card with all the sacrifice/ utility lands, random discard outlets, mana sinks, and 3-4c splashes going around.
Anyone have any experience with this recently? I would love to hear the thoughts from taxes players.
I don't understand how any of those things help Vial?
I'm not sure about sacrifice effects / utility lands, but discard outlets (especially looting effects) help recycle marginal cards that are drawn at the wrong time. The more discard outlets I began running, the more I've been able to add some fringe stuff without it being completely useless.
This feels like a stronger card with all the sacrifice/ utility lands, random discard outlets, mana sinks, and 3-4c splashes going around.
Anyone have any experience with this recently? I would love to hear the thoughts from taxes players.
I tested out aether vial for a while back in like 2016-2018ish?
D&T was my go to legacy deck and had a soft spot for the card.
There were some games/decks it felt good, but after a while it's vulnerabilities got exposed. It takes a few turns to get online, which is a little slow for creature decks. By the midgame it was ripe for an artifact destruction spell. Good 2 for 1 artifact destruction spells were common, which made it feel significantly worse than in constructed.
It's still a great turn 1 card, but it wasn't good enough to overcome the bad top deck scenarios and it's narrowness.
I loved the card so I'm biased in direction of wanting it to be good.
The format getting faster is worse for it and the additional trinket support isn't relevant because it's a bad tutor target.
This feels like a stronger card with all the sacrifice/ utility lands, random discard outlets, mana sinks, and 3-4c splashes going around.
Anyone have any experience with this recently? I would love to hear the thoughts from taxes players.
I tested out aether vial for a while back in like 2016-2018ish?
D&T was my go to legacy deck and had a soft spot for the card.
There were some games/decks it felt good, but after a while it's vulnerabilities got exposed. It takes a few turns to get online, which is a little slow for creature decks. By the midgame it was ripe for an artifact destruction spell. Good 2 for 1 artifact destruction spells were common, which made it feel significantly worse than in constructed.
It's still a great turn 1 card, but it wasn't good enough to overcome the bad top deck scenarios and it's narrowness.
I loved the card so I'm biased in direction of wanting it to be good.
The format getting faster is worse for it and the additional trinket support isn't relevant because it's a bad tutor target.
I would figure the format getting faster is better for vial as it is at its core acceleration.
This feels like a stronger card with all the sacrifice/ utility lands, random discard outlets, mana sinks, and 3-4c splashes going around.
Anyone have any experience with this recently? I would love to hear the thoughts from taxes players.
I tested out aether vial for a while back in like 2016-2018ish?
D&T was my go to legacy deck and had a soft spot for the card.
There were some games/decks it felt good, but after a while it's vulnerabilities got exposed. It takes a few turns to get online, which is a little slow for creature decks. By the midgame it was ripe for an artifact destruction spell. Good 2 for 1 artifact destruction spells were common, which made it feel significantly worse than in constructed.
It's still a great turn 1 card, but it wasn't good enough to overcome the bad top deck scenarios and it's narrowness.
I loved the card so I'm biased in direction of wanting it to be good.
The format getting faster is worse for it and the additional trinket support isn't relevant because it's a bad tutor target.
I would figure the format getting faster is better for vial as it is at its core acceleration.
Eh, maybe I’m wrong about this point.
The more turns in play the more the mana advantage, but a deck with a curve that maximizes aether vial still doesn’t want to go to the late game. It wants to go the early-mid game , disrupt the opponents late game while leveraging your early game mana advantage. Weird tension there…
In a turn 2 format it would be too slow but cube is def not THAT fast lol.
I've noticed flicker decks are heavily saturated at the 3 CMC slot and with the printing of Guardian of Ghirapur, I don't hate adding this. With so many ways for colors, especially white, to recoup card disadvantage and all the mana sinks, I'mma give it a try ...
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Anyone have any experience with this recently? I would love to hear the thoughts from taxes players.
I don't understand how any of those things help Vial?
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StaffI'm not sure about sacrifice effects / utility lands, but discard outlets (especially looting effects) help recycle marginal cards that are drawn at the wrong time. The more discard outlets I began running, the more I've been able to add some fringe stuff without it being completely useless.
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I tested out aether vial for a while back in like 2016-2018ish?
D&T was my go to legacy deck and had a soft spot for the card.
There were some games/decks it felt good, but after a while it's vulnerabilities got exposed. It takes a few turns to get online, which is a little slow for creature decks. By the midgame it was ripe for an artifact destruction spell. Good 2 for 1 artifact destruction spells were common, which made it feel significantly worse than in constructed.
It's still a great turn 1 card, but it wasn't good enough to overcome the bad top deck scenarios and it's narrowness.
I loved the card so I'm biased in direction of wanting it to be good.
The format getting faster is worse for it and the additional trinket support isn't relevant because it's a bad tutor target.
Last Updated 02/06/23
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The dream is to case Vial on 1, then using your Port/ Manlands repeatly while your opponent is locked.
I would figure the format getting faster is better for vial as it is at its core acceleration.
Eh, maybe I’m wrong about this point.
The more turns in play the more the mana advantage, but a deck with a curve that maximizes aether vial still doesn’t want to go to the late game. It wants to go the early-mid game , disrupt the opponents late game while leveraging your early game mana advantage. Weird tension there…
In a turn 2 format it would be too slow but cube is def not THAT fast lol.
Last Updated 02/06/23
Streaming Standard/Cube on Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/heisenb3rg96
Strategy Twitter https://www.twitter.com/heisenb3rg