I ran Thalia's Lancers in 3 Cube drafts today using the new Planeswalker rule. So far, it has been very impressive. Numbers-wise, Lancers now has 72 targets in my 450 list, which is quite a decent amount. Play-wise, the feedback I got was that Lancers was a decent-sized body as a 4/4, and the first strike helps to defend whatever planeswalker the player searches up for. The flexibility Lancer affords is great, and I've seen it grab Gideon Jura if the player wanted to turtle up, a Garruk Relentless if the player wanted to gum up the board or fight an opposing utility creature, and also an Elesh Norn if the mana was available. All in all, very positive results.
I'm also considering swapping in the Lancers, probably for Baneslayer. I think it's a more interesting card - good tutoring stapled to a decent body sounds like a win.
Has there been any discussion about some redundant planeswalkers with the new rule going into effect? I think there have been a few walkers I found intriguing to play but avoided simply due to saturation, ie Ajani, Caller of the Pride. If Lancers becomes useful because you don't mind drawing another walkers, it might also be worthwhile to include more walkers, which in turn may make Lancers even better?
Lancers did get better with the rule change, but not swap for Baneslayer level better. Once you get to 6+ white five drops you might have a slot for this one.
I'm swapping it for Baneslayer. As wtwlf pointed out, I think I'd rather have a 4/4 on the field and a Gideon/Elspeth/Jace/Liliana/Elesh Norn/Chandra/Jitte/Karn/Gaea's Cradle in hand than a 5/5 with all the stats.
Also, our group just doesn't find Baneslayer all that interesting. I'll miss having a white 5 that lives through Wildfire, but tutors are fun.
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I am thinking of cutting reveillark for it. Not really sure if it's correct or not, but reveillark always seems to be just a touch underwhelming, but maybe my playgroup is just bad
I will probably also swap this out for Baneslayer Angel. White already has Exalted Angel / Gisela for giant flying lifelink stat monsters. Planeswalker / legendary tutor is a fairly unique function that would be nice for white to have.
I am thinking of cutting reveillark for it. Not really sure if it's correct or not, but reveillark always seems to be just a touch underwhelming, but maybe my playgroup is just bad
This is one of those touchy cards around here. I like Reveillark quite a bit and so does my group. Most of the players I draft with are sort EDH-first players, and they're always trying to do crazy stuff with cards they know. Reveillark is much more interesting than Baneslayer, which wins on raw power, but my drafters really like being able to get goofy with synergies.
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I can't say I'm pleased to see you and must warn you I may have to do something about it.
EDH: UGEdric
Pauper: URDelver
Modern: UGRDelver
Draft my cube: Eric's 390 Unpowered
I am thinking of cutting reveillark for it. Not really sure if it's correct or not, but reveillark always seems to be just a touch underwhelming, but maybe my playgroup is just bad
This is one of those touchy cards around here. I like Reveillark quite a bit and so does my group. Most of the players I draft with are sort EDH-first players, and they're always trying to do crazy stuff with cards they know. Reveillark is much more interesting than Baneslayer, which wins on raw power, but my drafters really like being able to get goofy with synergies.
Yeah I feel like Reveillark gets people more excited with their drafting/deck building choices than a lot of other 5s. It's a great card IMO.
I didn't think about the Legendary rule applying to planeswalkers.
I'll be giving Lancers a test over Angel of Sanctions. White has a lot of the o-ring effect already, and while Sanctions is a good creature, this will add a unique tool to the color's arsenal.
I am thinking of cutting reveillark for it. Not really sure if it's correct or not, but reveillark always seems to be just a touch underwhelming, but maybe my playgroup is just bad
I think this is likely the swap for us too. The card is all too often a 4/3 flyer for 5, and a few times drafters that picked it up early and tried to draft around it were underwhelmed. It likely has much to do with the deck setups my group drafts - most people end up in aggro, control, or combo (ie Oath, Tinker, Sneak Attack, etc). Reveillark shines in grindy midrange matchups, which just don't show up often enough for it to be stellar. Excited to test Lancer's though.
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Whereas I think Lancers is the grindy midrange card, and 'Lark is the archetype-supporting build-around card. I don't put 'Lark into decks where it has no targets; I have never once seen 'Lark be a generic 4/3 flying creature for 5 in the ~10 years I've been cubing with it. Interesting.
The pool of 1st pick cards in cube is pretty shallow. So no, it's not a regular P1P1 choice. Those cards are limited to the very elite cube cards, and honest P1P1 cards are completely broken. It's easily the most P1P1-able white 5cc creature though, if that's what we're discussing. If you took the top 5 cards from each color and the 15 best colorless cards in the cube, that makes a more realistic pool of true "P1P1" choices. There's a ~70% chance that a bona fide elite top 40 cube card will be among my P1P1 choices, so it's rare to get opportunities to stray away from them. In a 450 card cube, that moves to about ~76%, and in a 360, your chances of opening a pure P1P1 bomb are about 84%. Little room for 5cc creatures when there's balances, recalls, walks, tinkers, drains, nightmares, twists, vortexes, moxes, libraries, jittes and rings floating about.
But I would describe 'Lark as a good early pick. The more you can build around it, the better it'll be. There's a whole deck engineered around ETB trigger abuse that wants 'Lark and the Recruiter(s), as well as Alesha, Feldon, Vat, Nightmare, blink/bounce effects and the like. It can be a lot of fun to play, and very powerful too.
Top picks in my cube usually revolve around archetype pillars / broken value cards such as Armageddon / Upheaval / Recurring Nightmare / Sulfuric Vortex / Nathral Order / Jitte / etc. I don't think Reveillark is in that league of top picks, but it's a high pick for sure. I've definitely P1P1'd it before. It's not an archetype pillar, but it does offer strong support for a lot of different decks.
In a draft setting, I'd probably value Reveillark much more over Lancers in the beginning. Of course Lancers will edge out Reveillark later in the draft if I don't have a lot of Reveillark targets / I have more of a superfriends theme going on.
Not them, but as someone who's fond of Reveillark even though I try to remain critical of cards like this... Picking Reveillark early if there's not a completely bonkers card in the pack can be though of as a pretty cheap speculative pick that doesn't commit you too much, but if you get passed a bunch of bonkers 2 power creatures and other ETB enablers, hey, even more reason to pick them. I'd pick it about as high as Purphoros or Crystal Shard. In general, I think it's completely fine to pick build-around cards early in cube if you know that the cube has enough support.
I've had a couple crazy 'Lark decks in different cubes, but I will admit sometimes breaking the card can feel pretty hard. It absolutely needs a deck that can otherwise win with it's 2 power creatures and other threats, or enough draw or tutoring to set up a value engine. Reading older threads and descriptions of card choices for cubes years ago, I think 'Lark might've been a lot more versatile some years back when aggro decks in most cubes just couldn't be as fast and consistent as nowadays, and adding a potentially value-generating five-drop was more reasonable.
I've also splashed 'Lark as my only white card in a deck that just happens to pair really well with the effect. I've picked it up and played it in non-white decks in the middle of pack 3. Grixis Nightmare ETB/'Yard shell? Where's my 'Lark at?
Well the next time you build a random midrange shell, look at the number of ≤2 power value/ETB/utility creatures are in it, and 'Lark would probably be pretty good there. A 4-power flier is annoying, but it's far more annoying if you get a Man-o'-War and a Pia and Kiran Nalaar back if they deal with it. And remember, Reveillark is a LTB trigger, not a dies trigger, so it'll still trigger off bounce and exile-based removal too.
This got off-topic, lol. Thalia's Lancers has been sweet. I've played it in a control deck and 2 midrange decks now, and it hasn't disappointed yet. In the control deck, the 4/4 first strike body helped stave off aggression until I could resolve the Ugin, the Spirit Dragon I tutored for. In the first midrange deck, I used it to grab a Karakas that set up a blink combo with Venser, Shaper Savant (which was cool because Lancers tutored up both halves of that combo in different games) and in the other midrange deck it was used to get a Chandra, Flamecaller which I was able to curve directly into. I'm sold on the average value of Lancers being high enough to push out a 5-drop that isn't an enabler for a specific decktype, and I haven't had Lancers in a draft pool yet without at least 3 eligible targets in my pool to choose from when deckbuilding. It's a really cool card.
I am glad people brought this up, the new interaction is the sort of thing that would take me as an individual a lot of time to realize. I'd test it over Angel of Sanctions probably. I'd not be opposed to try it over Reveillark either though.
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Also, our group just doesn't find Baneslayer all that interesting. I'll miss having a white 5 that lives through Wildfire, but tutors are fun.
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This is one of those touchy cards around here. I like Reveillark quite a bit and so does my group. Most of the players I draft with are sort EDH-first players, and they're always trying to do crazy stuff with cards they know. Reveillark is much more interesting than Baneslayer, which wins on raw power, but my drafters really like being able to get goofy with synergies.
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Pauper: UR Delver
Modern: UGR Delver
Draft my cube: Eric's 390 Unpowered
Yeah I feel like Reveillark gets people more excited with their drafting/deck building choices than a lot of other 5s. It's a great card IMO.
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I'll be giving Lancers a test over Angel of Sanctions. White has a lot of the o-ring effect already, and while Sanctions is a good creature, this will add a unique tool to the color's arsenal.
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I think this is likely the swap for us too. The card is all too often a 4/3 flyer for 5, and a few times drafters that picked it up early and tried to draft around it were underwhelmed. It likely has much to do with the deck setups my group drafts - most people end up in aggro, control, or combo (ie Oath, Tinker, Sneak Attack, etc). Reveillark shines in grindy midrange matchups, which just don't show up often enough for it to be stellar. Excited to test Lancer's though.
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But I would describe 'Lark as a good early pick. The more you can build around it, the better it'll be. There's a whole deck engineered around ETB trigger abuse that wants 'Lark and the Recruiter(s), as well as Alesha, Feldon, Vat, Nightmare, blink/bounce effects and the like. It can be a lot of fun to play, and very powerful too.
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In a draft setting, I'd probably value Reveillark much more over Lancers in the beginning. Of course Lancers will edge out Reveillark later in the draft if I don't have a lot of Reveillark targets / I have more of a superfriends theme going on.
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I've had a couple crazy 'Lark decks in different cubes, but I will admit sometimes breaking the card can feel pretty hard. It absolutely needs a deck that can otherwise win with it's 2 power creatures and other threats, or enough draw or tutoring to set up a value engine. Reading older threads and descriptions of card choices for cubes years ago, I think 'Lark might've been a lot more versatile some years back when aggro decks in most cubes just couldn't be as fast and consistent as nowadays, and adding a potentially value-generating five-drop was more reasonable.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
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My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 49th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from MKM!
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 49th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from MKM!
So... Reveillark is out?
More seriously, what are you looking at as a cut?
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