I'm torn. It's very versatile as a card, but none of the abilities are particularly explosive. However it does buffer Green's 3 drops, but I don't know what it would replace in my Cube.
Have a helicopter drop you off out front. Light your cigar with a small Indonesian boy holding a black lotus. Then bust out a craw wurm deck with no sleeves. Raw dog shuffle, loose terribly, flip the table, leave in a hovercraft.
Wow, that's a lot of abilities. Looks like a green Trading Post.
Putting static abilities on these types of cards (Icy, Trading, etc) turns them from durdles to durdles that also pressure your opponent. Not to mention that the abilities are REALLY good. Gaining 3 life is so good against aggro and killing 2 power fliers is nuts! Putting +1/+1 counters on creatures is great, having this as a "threat of activation" during your opponent's combat step is awkward for them.
Easily a great support for archetype decks (Artifacts, Green Aggro, and potentially Enchantments in the future) which is my all-time favorite type of card to include.
Combos with:
//Deathtough
Polukranos, World Eater
Spikeshot Elder
Siege-Gang Commander
Inferno Titan
Olivia Voldaren
Triskelion
Any creature with trample or first strike!
I like repeatable damage to fliers the most (it notably takes out Sower of Temptation, which is traditionally nasty vs green decks) since this only gets answered post-sideboard. I'm not particularly impressed by attacking deathtouch, but the full suite of options makes this seem like a fine jack of all trades answer card.
I can't wait to attack with my Triskelion with this in play.
The zeroth (deathtouch) ability is good for aggro.
The +1/+1 counter randomly interacts with things like Triskelion, negates undying, abuses persist., activates unleash.
The 2 damage will beat mostly the blue and white fliers if you have them.
The 3 life is weak, but gives you an end of turn ability and will negate burn of course.
The 4th ability is good to recur you creatures with GSZ, NO, TaN, whichever you play with.
Individually these are weak effects and requires a lot of synergy to be worth it. untimately, I will not put it in my 450. Green has too few non creatures left and I think the other options are better.
I will most likely add it in my Mirran cube. Versatile artifacts goes well with Voltaic Key, Dross Scorpion and Clock of Omens. +1/+1 counters interact with many artifacts (and proliferate) as well.
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.
In my opinion, poor design is what they did with gold cards in Alara Reborn. Making every single card a gold card is not good for how the game plays or for how flavorful the set is, it is just so you can say "it's an all gold set!".
We have not seen much of Theros, but I don't get the impression that it is poorly designed. Clearly, they wanted to do an enchantment matters block, and there is nothing wrong with that in my book. Enchantments are not easy, though, because artifacts and planeswalkers started doing what enchantments used to do, only better. So in order to do an enchantment matters block, they had to reinvent the enchantment.
From a flavor point of view, an enchantment seems to represent favors of the gods. Near one of the gods artifacts (this card) or when calling upon the gods (god cards), they grant some favor and, with an additional offering, can be persuaded to do even more for you (or even appear on the battlefield, in case of god cards).
As for game mechanics, we have yet to see a card that cares about enchantments in some way, but I am confident there will be some. If these cards do not exist, then I will probably join the crowd shouting poor design, because that would mean tacking on the enchantment type would more or less be flavor text. But why would they ever make an enchantment matters block without cards that care about enchantments?
Bow of Nylea, as spoiled, is a very versatile card. It remains to be seen whether it is priced competitively, but the potential is there for sure. It messes with combat math and it addresses two of greens weaknesses: fliers and losing a race.
Once again, what looks like a mess appears to be very well thought flavorwise after a deeper analysis. Nyvea is the god(dess ?) of the Hunt and the 4 Seasons, so deathtouch and one of 4 ability fits imo.
On powerlevel, it's really hard to evaluate. It has randoms interactions with lots of card named already, but i'm not sure its enough.
Most of the cards spoiled so far aren't very interesting to me, and I am nervous about the God cards still...
This card has everything varying Green players might want on a stick(albeit not ramp), and it is still weak to enchantment/artifact removal, which keeps it fair.
The bow seems like its a jack of all trades but a king of none. I think I'll test it out to see if the massive utility is worth it.
[Theros so far]
[I honestly like the way they are making enchantments cool and relevant and to me, Enchant creature: enchanted creature gets +1/+1 for each enchantment you control is lazy and disinterested design. I'm actually happy they chose to go a route that makes enchantments stronger without being so outright blatant with it.
Chroma works really well with enchantments.
Enchantment creatures seem really well designed and by a flavor standpoint they are pretty cool.
Bestow is a cool way to make enchantments matter without taking the super obvious route.
There definitely will be very blatant enchantment matters cards in the set but I like how they catered to the crowd of people like me that don't like the simplicity of that design.]
I Like it. If you drop it on time in aggro it seems like a good way to circumvent the poor matchup with midrange. It has 3 abilities that never show up on cubeable cards and would all be weak on their own, but together make it a desirable card. I like when cards like that get printed (chandra, pyromaster) I think the only useless ability is the graveyard shuffle thing.
But getting your guys through, beefing up your guys, conditional removal, and blanking their swings seems absolutely worth inclusion to me. Think of it as a slow, fair jitte.
I Like it. If you drop it on time in aggro it seems like a good way to circumvent the poor matchup with midrange. It has 3 abilities that never show up on cubeable cards and would all be weak on their own, but together make it a desirable card. I like when cards like that get printed (chandra, pyromaster) I think the only useless ability is the graveyard shuffle thing.
But getting your guys through, beefing up your guys, conditional removal, and blanking their swings seems absolutely worth inclusion to me. Think of it as a slow, fair jitte.
WRONG! Less complaining about Jace 3.0 is what the graveyard ability gives you.
Once again, what looks like a mess appears to be very well thought flavorwise after a deeper analysis. Nyvea is the god(dess ?) of the Hunt and the 4 Seasons, so deathtouch and one of 4 ability fits imo.
Great observation! That explains all of the activated abilities (they are in order from Spring to Winter).
The abilities represent the four seasons. That's so cool. It's a good versatile card that shores up a weakness for green, so I see this making some lists.
I honestly don't understand any of the negative talk about this card...it seems amazing to me (granted I haven't played with it yet). While I don't see him breaking formats in half, I'm all for attacking for seven on turn four (assuming an accelerant of some kind is involved) while eating your best X/2 or two x/1's (not to mention scaling as the game goes longer).
As for the bow, it's definitely interesting and I can't wait to see how it actually plays out.
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.
I honestly don't understand any of the negative talk about this card...it seems amazing to me (granted I haven't played with it yet). While I don't see him breaking formats in half, I'm all for attacking for seven on turn four (assuming an accelerant of some kind is involved) while eating your best X/2 or two x/1's (not to mention scaling as the game goes longer).
As for the bow, it's definitely interesting and I can't wait to see how it actually plays out.
Cube is the only format I play, and I don't think I'll play him. Or if I did, he'll probably on chopping block.
I do like attacking deathtouch and I think it'll be play in green aggro. If this card pump up green aggro play in my cube, I'll consider leaving him a spot there.
This topic reminds me a lot of when people first saw Boros Charm, and questioned how good it would really be. While the abilities the Charm offers are a bargain at that cost, I feel like the same lesson can be applied to the Bow. And that is that cheaply costed cards with that much utility can be insane.
I also think it's a wonderful card for cube, as it makes everything green better. Your mana dork elves just got better, secures the three drop spot, and gives you a toolbox of abilities to choose from. I really enjoy these new utility cards Wizards keeps giving us (Boros charm, Deathrite Shaman, and Huntmaster of the Fells just to name a few), and hope they continue.
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Spring: Time of growth, +1/+1 counter on creatures, everything is getting alive
Summer: Time of the volatile storms, tension in the air, which are affecting flying creatures more, 2 damage to them
Fall: Time of harvest, reap what you sow, +3 life
Winter: Time of hibernation, during winter, everything lies dormant under the ground (graveyard), only to get active again in the next year (library)
To be fair, I don't like the summer design too much either, but I think this card makes sense, just as imo Thassa makes sense, but this set's design so far seems to split the opinions.
Personally, I think it's more like:
Spring: Time of renewal (cards getting put to library)
Summer: Time of abundant growth (+1/+1 counter)
Fall: Harvest (life)
Winter: Bitter chill (flying damage: see cards like Whiteout, Winter Blast, Blizzard)
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I see it as a 1GG enchantment that reads "your attackers have deathtouch" with the added ultra-utility abilities as extra. Putting that in my cube would hinge upon that notion. Do I want that? There are pro's and con's. I want to believe there is incredible upside in the 3 mana investment alone, but part of me wishes you always get deathtouch (defensive purposes would be a huge boon).
As some have said: A jack of all trades, master of none. The abilities are incredibly flexible. A little bit of everything. But nothing over the top (see my opening point).
Removal: Pure green removal is rare in general -- let alone having this as an affordable flex ability. Unfortunately, I can't see this thing shooting too many creatures down on its own. Flickerwisp and Lingering Soul tokens, sure. Kor Skyfisher...ehhh not enough. This would be insane if it could shock anything.
Life: +3 life isn't the biggest lifegain...but it's enough to throw off opponents and racing situations. Not bad.
Permanent buff: Growing 1 guy +1/+1 is alright. It combines well with deathtouch attacking for sure. That ability gets nasty if you can use it repeatedly. It also can get out of hand with tokens.dec (and/or convince me to push that theme).
Recursion: Situationally, this could be the best of all options. In a vacuum it does nothing. I actually like this ability to add counterspell'ed cards or key creatures who died back into the deck. This also meshes well with green sun's zenith and evoke guys, amongst other tricks.
Bottomline, I can't say this is auto-include. It would need a lot of testing. My initial thoughts are that you need to see the card as a static effect that costs 1GG with the potential to do flexible utility abilities.
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What do you think of this card? I think it provides so many abilities that it has to be at least considered for cubes.
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Although as Skinshifter shown, the last time a card required even one mana every turn, it's a severe drawback.
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Putting static abilities on these types of cards (Icy, Trading, etc) turns them from durdles to durdles that also pressure your opponent. Not to mention that the abilities are REALLY good. Gaining 3 life is so good against aggro and killing 2 power fliers is nuts! Putting +1/+1 counters on creatures is great, having this as a "threat of activation" during your opponent's combat step is awkward for them.
Easily a great support for archetype decks (Artifacts, Green Aggro, and potentially Enchantments in the future) which is my all-time favorite type of card to include.
Combos with:
//Deathtough
Polukranos, World Eater
Spikeshot Elder
Siege-Gang Commander
Inferno Titan
Olivia Voldaren
Triskelion
Any creature with trample or first strike!
//+1/+1 counters
Triskelion
Kitchen Finks
Murderous Redcap
Glen Elenda Archmage
Cubetutor Link
The zeroth (deathtouch) ability is good for aggro.
The +1/+1 counter randomly interacts with things like Triskelion, negates undying, abuses persist., activates unleash.
The 2 damage will beat mostly the blue and white fliers if you have them.
The 3 life is weak, but gives you an end of turn ability and will negate burn of course.
The 4th ability is good to recur you creatures with GSZ, NO, TaN, whichever you play with.
Individually these are weak effects and requires a lot of synergy to be worth it. untimately, I will not put it in my 450. Green has too few non creatures left and I think the other options are better.
I will most likely add it in my Mirran cube. Versatile artifacts goes well with Voltaic Key, Dross Scorpion and Clock of Omens. +1/+1 counters interact with many artifacts (and proliferate) as well.
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That seems to be the theme of theros design.
http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/59173670220/why-did-polukranos-have-the-ffl-worried
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We have not seen much of Theros, but I don't get the impression that it is poorly designed. Clearly, they wanted to do an enchantment matters block, and there is nothing wrong with that in my book. Enchantments are not easy, though, because artifacts and planeswalkers started doing what enchantments used to do, only better. So in order to do an enchantment matters block, they had to reinvent the enchantment.
From a flavor point of view, an enchantment seems to represent favors of the gods. Near one of the gods artifacts (this card) or when calling upon the gods (god cards), they grant some favor and, with an additional offering, can be persuaded to do even more for you (or even appear on the battlefield, in case of god cards).
As for game mechanics, we have yet to see a card that cares about enchantments in some way, but I am confident there will be some. If these cards do not exist, then I will probably join the crowd shouting poor design, because that would mean tacking on the enchantment type would more or less be flavor text. But why would they ever make an enchantment matters block without cards that care about enchantments?
Bow of Nylea, as spoiled, is a very versatile card. It remains to be seen whether it is priced competitively, but the potential is there for sure. It messes with combat math and it addresses two of greens weaknesses: fliers and losing a race.
"What am I looking at? Ashes, dead man."
On powerlevel, it's really hard to evaluate. It has randoms interactions with lots of card named already, but i'm not sure its enough.
Most of the cards spoiled so far aren't very interesting to me, and I am nervous about the God cards still...
This card has everything varying Green players might want on a stick(albeit not ramp), and it is still weak to enchantment/artifact removal, which keeps it fair.
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[Theros so far]
[I honestly like the way they are making enchantments cool and relevant and to me, Enchant creature: enchanted creature gets +1/+1 for each enchantment you control is lazy and disinterested design. I'm actually happy they chose to go a route that makes enchantments stronger without being so outright blatant with it.
Chroma works really well with enchantments.
Enchantment creatures seem really well designed and by a flavor standpoint they are pretty cool.
Bestow is a cool way to make enchantments matter without taking the super obvious route.
There definitely will be very blatant enchantment matters cards in the set but I like how they catered to the crowd of people like me that don't like the simplicity of that design.]
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=484979
But getting your guys through, beefing up your guys, conditional removal, and blanking their swings seems absolutely worth inclusion to me. Think of it as a slow, fair jitte.
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WRONG! Less complaining about Jace 3.0 is what the graveyard ability gives you.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=484979
Great observation! That explains all of the activated abilities (they are in order from Spring to Winter).
On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
I honestly don't understand any of the negative talk about this card...it seems amazing to me (granted I haven't played with it yet). While I don't see him breaking formats in half, I'm all for attacking for seven on turn four (assuming an accelerant of some kind is involved) while eating your best X/2 or two x/1's (not to mention scaling as the game goes longer).
As for the bow, it's definitely interesting and I can't wait to see how it actually plays out.
(list not current)
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(list is always current)
Cube is the only format I play, and I don't think I'll play him. Or if I did, he'll probably on chopping block.
I do like attacking deathtouch and I think it'll be play in green aggro. If this card pump up green aggro play in my cube, I'll consider leaving him a spot there.
My cube
My cube on Cube tutor
I'm OP_Forever. I'll be putting this in my signature for a while so everyone know I change my nickname.
I also think it's a wonderful card for cube, as it makes everything green better. Your mana dork elves just got better, secures the three drop spot, and gives you a toolbox of abilities to choose from. I really enjoy these new utility cards Wizards keeps giving us (Boros charm, Deathrite Shaman, and Huntmaster of the Fells just to name a few), and hope they continue.
Personally, I think it's more like:
Spring: Time of renewal (cards getting put to library)
Summer: Time of abundant growth (+1/+1 counter)
Fall: Harvest (life)
Winter: Bitter chill (flying damage: see cards like Whiteout, Winter Blast, Blizzard)
Currently Playing:
Legacy: Something U/W Controlish
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As some have said: A jack of all trades, master of none. The abilities are incredibly flexible. A little bit of everything. But nothing over the top (see my opening point).
Removal: Pure green removal is rare in general -- let alone having this as an affordable flex ability. Unfortunately, I can't see this thing shooting too many creatures down on its own. Flickerwisp and Lingering Soul tokens, sure. Kor Skyfisher...ehhh not enough. This would be insane if it could shock anything.
Life: +3 life isn't the biggest lifegain...but it's enough to throw off opponents and racing situations. Not bad.
Permanent buff: Growing 1 guy +1/+1 is alright. It combines well with deathtouch attacking for sure. That ability gets nasty if you can use it repeatedly. It also can get out of hand with tokens.dec (and/or convince me to push that theme).
Recursion: Situationally, this could be the best of all options. In a vacuum it does nothing. I actually like this ability to add counterspell'ed cards or key creatures who died back into the deck. This also meshes well with green sun's zenith and evoke guys, amongst other tricks.
Bottomline, I can't say this is auto-include. It would need a lot of testing. My initial thoughts are that you need to see the card as a static effect that costs 1GG with the potential to do flexible utility abilities.
10th at SCG: Syracuse (2014), GP:NJ Last-Chance Grinder Winner (2014):: Former Legacy Mod