I initially read this as being sacrificed either way, which would have made it a 4 mana draw one. I realized the failure of my reading skills when I saw the thread pop up, because it would clearly be insane to have a thread for a 4 mana draw one. Now, reading it correctly, the card looks a lot more appealing. I think it is too slow though. My experience in other fields is that (at least in 6+ player draft) the advantage of costing less mana (think Phyrexian Arena) almost always outweighs the advantage of being colorless.
And not being able to play instants outside of my turn wasn't great either.
No doubt. But I invite you to take a look at your cube deck next time you play and see how many instants you actually include. My ballpark estimate is that the drawback will only come up one time out of every ten you cast it. Furthermore, turning your instant spells into sorceries can be nullified by running less of them or simply playing decks that don't care about mainphasing their spells.
The biggest weakness of Cloister isn't the fact that it deprives you of instant speed spells. It's the fact that it makes it physically impossible to represent an instant speed spell in your hand, since you no longer have a hand. That's an extra layer of gameplay your opponent doesn't have to deal with anymore, as Cloister's drawback is one of those weird effects that isn't particularly negative for its caster but puts the opponent facing it leagues ahead because the amount of computations they have to deal with just went down by an order of magnitude. The extra card isn't enough raw power to make up for that. I think a Bottled Cloister that gave you two extra cards would give you all the gas you need to mainphase your spells and make up for not casting any on the opponent's turn.
But while I'm going to bat here, it even functions as discard protection against Mind Twist, Duress and its ilk
Cloister isn't new to me - it was one of my favourite cards from that block, and I have a ton of play time with it. It's just too high risk for cubes with the rampant artifact removal, even for decks that don't suffer from not being able to play instants (of which there aren't a great number). A Cloister that gave two cards would be so amazing though like you say, and would outweigh the possibility of getting my hand obliterated by a Manic Vandal.
This card is way better than Cloister for those reasons stated and unlike Icy, Trading Post, and Disk it doesn't require any mana investment making it very appealing. Plus drawing cards in cube is one of the best things you can do and 4cmc isn't quite that durdly.
My experience in other fields is that (at least in 6+ player draft) the advantage of costing less mana (think Phyrexian Arena) almost always outweighs the advantage of being colorless.
I'm a little confused by the many negative comparisons to Phyrexian Arena. We haven't cubed with Arena in a long time and I imagine that this new card would be better since I don't think Arena is coming down turn 3 very often anyway. Overall, I suppose both cards are "ok".
Arena almost always comes down on T3, and it's a huge reason why the card's good. If you wait until later, you're losing out on too much of the value that makes it good. The CC is key here.
Drafted this card in a midrange deck last night and didn't run it. It definitely felt too slow for what that specific deck wanted to do. I always thought Staff of Nin was a neat card but just too expensive for Cube. This card isn't exactly the same but it does cost 2 less. It takes 4 turns AFTER the current turn before it's better than Harmonize which a lot of Cubes don't run anymore. This definitely feels like the worst card of the 20 Conspiracy cards we're testing but I'll keep it in for a while longer to see if it's better than I think.
Drafted this card in a midrange deck last night and didn't run it. It definitely felt too slow for what that specific deck wanted to do. I always thought Staff of Nin was a neat card but just too expensive for Cube. This card isn't exactly the same but it does cost 2 less. It takes 4 turns AFTER the current turn before it's better than Harmonize which a lot of Cubes don't run anymore. This definitely feels like the worst card of the 20 Conspiracy cards we're testing but I'll keep it in for a while longer to see if it's better than I think.
Whenever I draft a card that is in the pool for testing, I force it into the deck. Leaving it in the sideboard because you feel like it's too slow just reinforces your current opinion, it doesn't provide any useful testing data.
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Arena almost always comes down on T3, and it's a huge reason why the card's good. If you wait until later, you're losing out on too much of the value that makes it good. The CC is key here.
Using hyperbole like this doesn't help your point. It often comes down on turn 3, but you regularly draw it later, or need to use mana to remove something or advance your board on turn 3, or don't have the double black on turn 3. Even on curve, it's one more card for a non-trivial amount of life. Usually better, sure, but certainly nowhere near always.
Arena almost always comes down on T3, and it's a huge reason why the card's good. If you wait until later, you're losing out on too much of the value that makes it good. The CC is key here.
Using hyperbole like this doesn't help your point. It often comes down on turn 3, but you regularly draw it later, or need to use mana to remove something or advance your board on turn 3, or don't have the double black on turn 3. Even on curve, it's one more card for a non-trivial amount of life. Usually better, sure, but certainly nowhere near always.
The point is that if it couldn't resolve on T3, it wouldn't be cubeworthy. Sometimes it resolves later, and we have to deal with that. But if we can play it on T3, we do. It's the reason why the card is good.
Arena almost always comes down on T3, and it's a huge reason why the card's good. If you wait until later, you're losing out on too much of the value that makes it good. The CC is key here.
Using hyperbole like this doesn't help your point. It often comes down on turn 3, but you regularly draw it later, or need to use mana to remove something or advance your board on turn 3, or don't have the double black on turn 3. Even on curve, it's one more card for a non-trivial amount of life. Usually better, sure, but certainly nowhere near always.
The point is that if it couldn't resolve on T3, it wouldn't be cubeworthy. Sometimes it resolves later, and we have to deal with that. But if we can play it on T3, we do. It's the reason why the card is good.
It can, it just doesn't the majority of the times you see it in a game. You also certainly don't always play it on turn 3. If you just dropped Geist and I've got Arena and Liliana in hand, which do I drop? If I can put up a blocker against an aggressive deck or remove a good creature, it's happening before Arena. If I'd have to mess up my fixing or take unnecessary damage on shocks to get this out on turn 3 before another 2-3 drop, I'm not always doing it. You made a blatantly false statement, that's all. I never said a word about how cube-worthy or not either card is.
I said almost always. Of course, that describes situations where I can play it (have BB available) and have drawn it. But other than those two factors limiting it, I'd say that it usually resolves on T3 in almost every scenario where we can cast it there.
You may not have said a word about how cube worthy they are, but I am. Being unable to resolve on T3 takes it from a great card to a bad one. That should illustrate the importance of being able to resolve on T3. Which should also be an indicator of how often we elect to play it on T3 when we can.
Or maybe, just maybe, you should lighten up a bit? Not get offended and accusatory over an "almost" statement and telling me that it's "blatantly false" ...when it's not. Just a thought.
One thing this card does have going for it is that it costs 4 colorless mana. I almost treat bigger artifacts like I do green cards in the assumption that I try to ramp them out. My cube has a fair share of mana rocks (I have no idea what the average number is in an unpowered cube), so placing this in a more artifact-centric deck makes it look more appealing than it does at face value. Just a thought. I still think it's on the border of playability in my cube.
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No doubt. But I invite you to take a look at your cube deck next time you play and see how many instants you actually include. My ballpark estimate is that the drawback will only come up one time out of every ten you cast it. Furthermore, turning your instant spells into sorceries can be nullified by running less of them or simply playing decks that don't care about mainphasing their spells.
The biggest weakness of Cloister isn't the fact that it deprives you of instant speed spells. It's the fact that it makes it physically impossible to represent an instant speed spell in your hand, since you no longer have a hand. That's an extra layer of gameplay your opponent doesn't have to deal with anymore, as Cloister's drawback is one of those weird effects that isn't particularly negative for its caster but puts the opponent facing it leagues ahead because the amount of computations they have to deal with just went down by an order of magnitude. The extra card isn't enough raw power to make up for that. I think a Bottled Cloister that gave you two extra cards would give you all the gas you need to mainphase your spells and make up for not casting any on the opponent's turn.
But while I'm going to bat here, it even functions as discard protection against Mind Twist, Duress and its ilk
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I'm a little confused by the many negative comparisons to Phyrexian Arena. We haven't cubed with Arena in a long time and I imagine that this new card would be better since I don't think Arena is coming down turn 3 very often anyway. Overall, I suppose both cards are "ok".
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Using hyperbole like this doesn't help your point. It often comes down on turn 3, but you regularly draw it later, or need to use mana to remove something or advance your board on turn 3, or don't have the double black on turn 3. Even on curve, it's one more card for a non-trivial amount of life. Usually better, sure, but certainly nowhere near always.
The point is that if it couldn't resolve on T3, it wouldn't be cubeworthy. Sometimes it resolves later, and we have to deal with that. But if we can play it on T3, we do. It's the reason why the card is good.
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It can, it just doesn't the majority of the times you see it in a game. You also certainly don't always play it on turn 3. If you just dropped Geist and I've got Arena and Liliana in hand, which do I drop? If I can put up a blocker against an aggressive deck or remove a good creature, it's happening before Arena. If I'd have to mess up my fixing or take unnecessary damage on shocks to get this out on turn 3 before another 2-3 drop, I'm not always doing it. You made a blatantly false statement, that's all. I never said a word about how cube-worthy or not either card is.
You may not have said a word about how cube worthy they are, but I am. Being unable to resolve on T3 takes it from a great card to a bad one. That should illustrate the importance of being able to resolve on T3. Which should also be an indicator of how often we elect to play it on T3 when we can.
Or maybe, just maybe, you should lighten up a bit? Not get offended and accusatory over an "almost" statement and telling me that it's "blatantly false" ...when it's not. Just a thought.
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