I have only really been satisfied with memory adept as a big mono blue finisher, consecrated sphinx too often just exploded, or in control mirrors milled its controller. Aetherling was good at everything, but its upkeep cost was too high in our games. (As an example, grave Titan vs this, this pays mana to play offense and defense, grave Titan just swings gets board/ tempo advantage, and its controller can cast more spells).
Frost Titan was just mediocre in every situation except when played against an opposing Titan.
This card is a one time tempo/card advantage, into a fatty, that can be blinked flickered and reanimated for more value, I bought into the antihype here and was hoping to pick him up for cheap, then he tripled in price. Guess I'll wait til rotation, because I just assume word will always print better and better finishers.
Going over my HOU update, Abrade and Supreme Will gives Torrential Gearhulk a nice little boost. Between these two and Commit // Memory from AKH, Torrential Gearhulk has become more consistently powerful since its KLD release.
There has been some discussion about Torrential Gearhulk versus Aetherling in the "This or That" Thread, so I wanted to collect the reasons that made me include Gearhulk over Aetherling at 540 unpowered.
Flash and the natural ability for a 2 for 1 have made Gearhulk the superior play compared to Aetherling in my Cube when playing from behind. I have found this to be critical, since there often were games where deploying Aetherling didn't work - partly because Aetherling does feel like a 7-drop to me. Maybe I was just unlucky and the opponent just always had the answer ready, leaving me without progress and finishing the game.
With Nightpack Ambusher and Mayor of Avabruck, there is some real payoff for playing on the opponents turn, making the Flash on Gearhulk even more valuable (although playing two spells is a bit of nonbo with the Mayor). Assembling a Simic Flash deck in my Cube is very strong, and support keeps coming in, the latest piece being Hullbreacher.
I'm trying to support an artifact-deck, which is somewhat difficult in unpowered. Gearhulk as an artifact is a nice little synergy that I have found useful some times. A counter-argument to this would be pointing to the inherent weakness to removal due to being both an artifact and a creature, which indeed is true.
With Sublime Epiphany, there now are three supreme Instant-targets for Gearhulk - Cryptic Command, Mystic Confluence and Sublime Epiphany. It is sad that Gearhulk does only work with instants and I had games where I clenched my teeth over the inability to cast Wrath of God from the graveyard, but there are powerful instants in Cube, enough to make the ability work in the majority of games I think.
I do not think Torrential Gearhulk is a better finisher than Aetherling, but I think it has more useful synergies and can be deployed with success in more situations, which makes me play the former over the latter.
I mostly agree with you Resarox. While I think that Aetherling is a better traditional draw-go control finisher (especially in the control mirror), I think Torrential Gearhulk is the overall better cube card because it has a higher guaranteed ceiling and I think it's playable in a wider variety of decks. I really like all 3 of the commonly used 6cc "finishers" in blue at 720, if my cube was smaller and I had to cut one, I'd let go of Aetherling before I cut Gearhulk, I'm pretty sure.
I have not found the instant-speed target restriction to be particularly limiting for most of my blue-based decks.
Frost Titan was just mediocre in every situation except when played against an opposing Titan.
This card is a one time tempo/card advantage, into a fatty, that can be blinked flickered and reanimated for more value, I bought into the antihype here and was hoping to pick him up for cheap, then he tripled in price. Guess I'll wait til rotation, because I just assume word will always print better and better finishers.
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is this any better than these 3?
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I Actually like Hulk more than sphinx, but in a vacuum Sphinx is 100% the better card.
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I do not think Torrential Gearhulk is a better finisher than Aetherling, but I think it has more useful synergies and can be deployed with success in more situations, which makes me play the former over the latter.
I have not found the instant-speed target restriction to be particularly limiting for most of my blue-based decks.
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!