Was never super impressed with Herald, as I think a lot of the 3s we have available now do cooler stuff or hit harder.(Drana, Flesh Carver, Liliana Ophiomancer, Master of Feasts, etc.)
Aesthetically, there's only one version available, and the only thing I like about it is the Theros block enchantment creature frame. The art itself just looks like a random mass of black swirly stuff. However, I doubt this creature will ever be reprinted unless for some reason they decide to do a Return to Theros block, so if you want to run this card what you see is what you get.
Small disagreement here from an artistic point of view. I'm taking exception to "random mass of black swirly stuff."
Look at how much of that "swirly stuff" actually points toward one thing. One focal point. The figure in the foreground. Lines come in from every direction to the demon. Creating a sort of "focus bubble" around it, despite seeming busy around the edges. The darkness gathering in the foreground. The wings curling around the figure. The hills in the background. Even whatever that stuff is flying around in the top right corner of the art, which I'm inclined to call overkill since I can't make out what it is at first glance, making it seem stiff, more artificially arranged and "placed" than natural.
The dead or dying crops behind the figure sort of add to that busyness you're talking about, but I think it's an acceptable trade-off and a beautiful way of illustrating both the card's mechanic of life-loss and the common symbolic use of plants/flowers in Greek mythology
I think those swirls in the upper right hand corner are supposed to be more Heralds of Torment, but the fact that neither of us is sure doesn't say much for the art on this card.
Black swirly stuff does seem to be a recurring motif in Vance Kovacs cards. Feast your eyes if you dare:
To be fair, though, he has also branched out into white swirly stuff:
OK, it's not all bad. I do love the work he did on these cards, swirly stuff and all:
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Herald is just so much worse than a lot of the great black 3-drops we have access to. Even at 720 there are a few black 3-drops I would add before considering Herald.
Herald's issue for me is BB in the cost and 5 mana for bestow. Even running enchantress, there are just other things I'd rather play at those spots. I think bestow is a neat mechanic though.
The costs on Herald make it a little awkward. It's a little too boring to fit into the 3-drops as an aggressive beater and the bestow is just a little too expensive to work really well in an aggro deck. With that said, though, I do run him in my low power list and he's fine there. Of course the 3-drops don't shine near as brightly in that list.
Herald of Torment looks better on paper than on practice, IMO. I really wanted to like it but it felt very underwhelming even when you cast it for its bestow cost. I really liked the concept of the card and thought it was okay when it came out, but luckily we have a lot more options for black.
I always loved the aesthetics of this card though. Enchantment creature cards are beautiful and this is definitely one of my favorite ones.
I always loved the aesthetics of this card though. Enchantment creature cards are beautiful and this is definitely one of my favorite ones.
Agreed, the enchantment creature frames are gorgeous, and especially when they're in foil. Bestow was also by far my favorite mechanic from Theros limited. I actually think it's a shame that Herald of Torment doesn't work for so many cubes, because I suspect that this is one of the cards that WoTC was trying push Bestow with, a mechanic that really bends the rules of how Auras traditionally work so that it's never card disadvantage to play it. As it stands, though, I only have one Bestow creature in my cube, but at least it helps fulfill my quota for black swirly stuff!
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Here's a very different kind of sac outlet. Braids may flunk the vanilla test, but that doesn't really matter because her static ability is absolutely devastating when she's cast at the right time, especially in a deck that's built to abuse her. Braids is a cornerstone of the Stax archetype, as her synergy is pretty easy to break with token generators and recursive permanents, which most cubes should already have plenty of even if they're not explicitly designed to push Stax. Braids is also perfectly playable in a lot of black aggro decks even without any specific ways to abuse her, because you can use her to punish decks that actually need more than 3 lands to function if yours doesn't.
There's only one version of Braids in print, but honestly, what other version could you possibly want? The facial expression is priceless, and the flavor text is hilarious. I keep trying to find room to shoehorn Blackmail into my cube just to have a bit more Braids flavor.
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What can you say about this card? It's awesome. It's great in a lot of different builds and is also great to build around. The art is fantastic. Total homerun.
I like it less than others on here as I find that there are a number of decks that don't want braids and a number of decks that absolute don't give a ***** about braids, but it's a card that I think if you do build around can do some gross things and be very powerful. I'm not the biggest fan of pox-style decks overall in cube as I feel a lot of the decks the Pox deck would face can play the attrition game just as good if not better, but Braids is absolutely the best pox card and doesn't need to go into a deck that's tunnel-visioned on the Pox plan to excel. It's often the first card I side out in decks that don't just try to Pox, but I don't think that's really a major detriment to the card.
Love me some Braids. I'm a huge Stax fan (my list has been featured in the SCG Legacy Compendium and some other articles) so I find myself often first picking the Cabal Minion. I always try to assemble Smokestack / Tangle Wire / Braids which I often refer to as the "Unholy Trinity."
Gameplay wise, Braids can still shine in a deck not built to abuse her. She naturally preys on slow control decks because since their light on permanents during the early game, Braids will just start eating their precious lands.
Card aesthetic wise, she's perfect besides the fact that she's not listed as a human, lmao.
Braids is easily one of my favorite cards ever. This is the type of control deck that I like to play. There's really not much to say about her. Draft her. Build synergies around her. Win.
Yet another reason to run an EDH expansion for your cube! I love seeing banned-in-EDH cards in play in my multiplayer drafts. I've got a foil Sylvan Primordial on the way....
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A 4/4 trampler for 4 plus a savage combat trick that gets damage through on top of winning combat make this modal card better than the sum of its parts. Unfortunately, it suffers from equally savage competition in the Gruul 4CMC slot, as it's competing with threeexcellentplaneswalkers as well as Bloodbraid Elf and Huntmaster of the Fells as well as a lot of great mono-colored red and green 4-drops. This was an absolute powerhouse in the original build of my cube, as it mostly consisted of RTR and Theros block draft leftovers, and it's still performing just fine in my Peasant cube. However, once I started buying cards specifically for cube it was eclipsed pretty quickly by its competition. Still, if you're looking to add more combat tricks to your cube, Ghor-Clan Rampager is a great combat trick that's almost never a dead draw.
There's an FNM promo foil (right) available for this, and I like the action and perspective depicted in the art on that version a bit better than the original (left). Also, this FNM promo has the Gruul guild symbol as the watermark instead of the FNM promo.
Good card. Ran it for a while. It just suffers from the glut of walkers in Gruul. If you want a combat trick, it's one of the best ones. And I prefer the original art.
The biggest issue with Ghor-Clan Rampager is it's in Gruul. Otherwise, I like it quite a bit as it's a great combat trick since you can't counter it and hard casting it is certainly not the absolute worst. I could see running it at a smaller sized cube since tricks are so rare in cube in general and this is one of the better playable ones.
I love the Rampager, it's powerful and unique. It really shouldn't compete with 4-drops as the creature is by far the least important 'mode', the bloodrush is the game-winning part of the card. Sometimes you'll cast it because the game state demands it, but it's a cube card because of the bloodrush.
I have bloodrushed a Sword equipped double striker on several occasions and it's as glorious as it sounds.
It really shouldn't compete with 4-drops as the creature is by far the least important 'mode', the bloodrush is the game-winning part of the card.
I haven't cubed with this card but I agree with this. I am big fan of Ingot Chewer who should similarly be considered as cmc = 1. I think more people would cube it if they looked at it this way.
My thing with Ingot Chewer is casting it straight-up seems like a tall task for a minimal reward. There will of course be times where it's great because some artifacts need to die, but 6 mana for a 3/3 Manic Vandal is a lot.
I get that the power of these cards are in their flexibility, but the 2nd half isn't flexible enough for me for the reward to really want to run Ingot Chewer. That being said, I'm way more inclined to run IC in a larger powered cube.
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Small disagreement here from an artistic point of view. I'm taking exception to "random mass of black swirly stuff."
Look at how much of that "swirly stuff" actually points toward one thing. One focal point. The figure in the foreground. Lines come in from every direction to the demon. Creating a sort of "focus bubble" around it, despite seeming busy around the edges. The darkness gathering in the foreground. The wings curling around the figure. The hills in the background. Even whatever that stuff is flying around in the top right corner of the art, which I'm inclined to call overkill since I can't make out what it is at first glance, making it seem stiff, more artificially arranged and "placed" than natural.
The dead or dying crops behind the figure sort of add to that busyness you're talking about, but I think it's an acceptable trade-off and a beautiful way of illustrating both the card's mechanic of life-loss and the common symbolic use of plants/flowers in Greek mythology
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Black swirly stuff does seem to be a recurring motif in Vance Kovacs cards. Feast your eyes if you dare:
To be fair, though, he has also branched out into white swirly stuff:
OK, it's not all bad. I do love the work he did on these cards, swirly stuff and all:
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
It's not flashy or sexy, but it can get the job done. I personally don't run one in my cube.
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/modular-cube-5-colors.800/
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I always loved the aesthetics of this card though. Enchantment creature cards are beautiful and this is definitely one of my favorite ones.
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Agreed, the enchantment creature frames are gorgeous, and especially when they're in foil. Bestow was also by far my favorite mechanic from Theros limited. I actually think it's a shame that Herald of Torment doesn't work for so many cubes, because I suspect that this is one of the cards that WoTC was trying push Bestow with, a mechanic that really bends the rules of how Auras traditionally work so that it's never card disadvantage to play it. As it stands, though, I only have one Bestow creature in my cube, but at least it helps fulfill my quota for black swirly stuff!
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
Here's a very different kind of sac outlet. Braids may flunk the vanilla test, but that doesn't really matter because her static ability is absolutely devastating when she's cast at the right time, especially in a deck that's built to abuse her. Braids is a cornerstone of the Stax archetype, as her synergy is pretty easy to break with token generators and recursive permanents, which most cubes should already have plenty of even if they're not explicitly designed to push Stax. Braids is also perfectly playable in a lot of black aggro decks even without any specific ways to abuse her, because you can use her to punish decks that actually need more than 3 lands to function if yours doesn't.
There's only one version of Braids in print, but honestly, what other version could you possibly want? The facial expression is priceless, and the flavor text is hilarious. I keep trying to find room to shoehorn Blackmail into my cube just to have a bit more Braids flavor.
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This is the good example of unequal symmetry.
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Gameplay wise, Braids can still shine in a deck not built to abuse her. She naturally preys on slow control decks because since their light on permanents during the early game, Braids will just start eating their precious lands.
Card aesthetic wise, she's perfect besides the fact that she's not listed as a human, lmao.
Also, #FreeBraidsInEDH
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I'm really all set with turn 2-3 braids off of sol rings/mana vaults/mana crypts.
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You're right, I hadn't noticed that, thanks for pointing it out! Fingers crossed for a foil reprint in EMA....
Yet another reason to run an EDH expansion for your cube! I love seeing banned-in-EDH cards in play in my multiplayer drafts. I've got a foil Sylvan Primordial on the way....
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
A 4/4 trampler for 4 plus a savage combat trick that gets damage through on top of winning combat make this modal card better than the sum of its parts. Unfortunately, it suffers from equally savage competition in the Gruul 4CMC slot, as it's competing with three excellent planeswalkers as well as Bloodbraid Elf and Huntmaster of the Fells as well as a lot of great mono-colored red and green 4-drops. This was an absolute powerhouse in the original build of my cube, as it mostly consisted of RTR and Theros block draft leftovers, and it's still performing just fine in my Peasant cube. However, once I started buying cards specifically for cube it was eclipsed pretty quickly by its competition. Still, if you're looking to add more combat tricks to your cube, Ghor-Clan Rampager is a great combat trick that's almost never a dead draw.
There's an FNM promo foil (right) available for this, and I like the action and perspective depicted in the art on that version a bit better than the original (left). Also, this FNM promo has the Gruul guild symbol as the watermark instead of the FNM promo.
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
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I have bloodrushed a Sword equipped double striker on several occasions and it's as glorious as it sounds.
I haven't cubed with this card but I agree with this. I am big fan of Ingot Chewer who should similarly be considered as cmc = 1. I think more people would cube it if they looked at it this way.
I get that the power of these cards are in their flexibility, but the 2nd half isn't flexible enough for me for the reward to really want to run Ingot Chewer. That being said, I'm way more inclined to run IC in a larger powered cube.
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Ingot Chewer only costs 4R.
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