Early creatures have become better and better and the value of Unearth has gone up because of that. 3 mana can buy you a lot of powerful stuff today and Unearth can re-use those cards. It's cheap, it's splashable, it's powerful and it's not tied to a certain kind of deck. That sounds very much like a cube card to me.
I remember seeing this in a lot more lists not too long ago, and it does look like it could be a solid role player aggro decks as well as RecSur/Pod and other decks with a lot of ETB creatures and since it cycles it's never a complete blank. Is this worth trying or is it getting passed over these days for a reason?
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465 card Unpowered cube thread. Draft it here and I'll be happy to return the favor.
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
It would depend on if I'm looking for an aggro card or a control card. I wouldn't include either first in general. I would exclude both unless I found myself needing an effect to support one of the two decks.
To answer your other question, no I wouldn't play it. Unless I'm building a deck around a 1-3cc creature that has a specific irreplaceable effect, I'd just rather run another creature instead of Unearth. I don't want this in my hand instead of a threat when it has no targets, cycling or not.
Unearth is an irreplaceable effect in my cube. I also run black utility creatures over aggro ones, like Apprentice Necromancer and Doomed Necromancer, which heavily influences the efficacy of the card. I also plan on running all five of the new Origins flip-walkers, so, Unearth will especially spike in its potential then.
I think the other reanimator spells get played more because this does not reanimate fatties because of the 3cc restriction. So if you support the archtype this is of course not a good card for it.
It is a good aggro spell though, it privides a redundant "copy" of an early drop that has died before.
I don't play it though, because it is only optimal in the middle part of the game. In the early game you have nothing to unearth, while in the late game the 3 drops have less impact.
I ran unearth for a while when I first came across it and was blown away by its value. However, after playing through several drafts with it (and living the dream of reanimating a dark confidant) I have to say I ended up pretty disappointed with the card. The card is utterly fantastic on paper, but it ended up falling short of our expectations in practise. I think the biggest problem with unearth is that it is too "conditional". While the argument could be made that Unearth is a "second copy" of your best card (similar to how tutors are perceived), the problem is that you:
a) have to draw and play your business creature
b) have it die
c) have unearth in hand to play it again
I found unearth sitting in my hand as a dead card more often than I would've liked and ended up cutting it a while back from my 380 powered cube.
This might be stating the obvious, but Unearth is not a 1 mana card. At least, you shouldn't have it in your 1 mana slot when you build your deck's curve. It's a 4 or 5 drop and should take that slot because you are never going to cast it turn 1. It's also not wonderful outside fairly aggressive builds in my experience. I'm not convinced using this in a midrange deck to get a second use out of reclamation sage is the ideal use for this card. I'd much rather have this in a deck where 85% of my creatures are 1CC - 3CC. Getting back a Figure of Destiny is perfectly fine by me. Any leveler is a great target for unearth.
Unearth brought back Brimaz, King of Oreskos for me a month or so ago. Fringe cards can still do broken things. What makes them fringe is that they can be inconsistent. I like Unearth and I happily run it in my 680. It's one of the cards I almost cut a while back, but with 3 drops getting better and better, Unearth has aged nicely. The new planeswalkers will only continue this trend.
I've been thinking about adding Unearth back into my cube. 1-3 drops have gotten a lot better in the past 8 years, I feel like it was a fringe card back then but has probably got better targets now for value/stats/combo.
Has anyone else had any luck with unearth recently?
Thanks for the feedback guys. I think I'm still going to try it again, but I'll keep an eye on what it's actually doing for me.
No real creature combos in my cube so it's mostly for value on ETBs or recurring agro dudes. Maybe that won't be enough, but given I liked it years ago it can only have been buoyed up by the rising tide of power-crept creatures.
Not too sure what my cut is yet but I've added alot of random cards to try recently so I'll just cut theworst
Somehow this card never got its own thread. DerBK makes an interesting case for Unearth (at http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/the-cube-forum/577401-what-cards-do-you-believe-are-criminally-excluded?comment=23):
I remember seeing this in a lot more lists not too long ago, and it does look like it could be a solid role player aggro decks as well as RecSur/Pod and other decks with a lot of ETB creatures and since it cycles it's never a complete blank. Is this worth trying or is it getting passed over these days for a reason?
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
Playable in 720?
Would you play it over Innocent Blood?
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I know. I am just wondering which card you would include first in general.
To answer your other question, no I wouldn't play it. Unless I'm building a deck around a 1-3cc creature that has a specific irreplaceable effect, I'd just rather run another creature instead of Unearth. I don't want this in my hand instead of a threat when it has no targets, cycling or not.
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It is a good aggro spell though, it privides a redundant "copy" of an early drop that has died before.
I don't play it though, because it is only optimal in the middle part of the game. In the early game you have nothing to unearth, while in the late game the 3 drops have less impact.
a) have to draw and play your business creature
b) have it die
c) have unearth in hand to play it again
I found unearth sitting in my hand as a dead card more often than I would've liked and ended up cutting it a while back from my 380 powered cube.
Best thing I've unearthed is Bone shredder. Bone shredder, don't pay echo, unearth bone shredder. Now that's living the dream.
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/modular-cube-5-colors.800/
Retro combo cube thread
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/retro-combo-cube.1454/
Has anyone else had any luck with unearth recently?
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My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
No real creature combos in my cube so it's mostly for value on ETBs or recurring agro dudes. Maybe that won't be enough, but given I liked it years ago it can only have been buoyed up by the rising tide of power-crept creatures.
Not too sure what my cut is yet but I've added alot of random cards to try recently so I'll just cut theworst