I've ran all of those cards in my pauper and powered cube and they've been generally solid, and I've seen them taken out of the MTGO cubes, replaced by things that do similar things - like Searing Blaze, Smash to Smithereens - likely because they have the same converted mana cost. (and IMO, there were likely better cuts for them.)
It goes without saying that these cards do their role well and that's why they've been around for so long, but think back to cards like Hero of Oxid Ridge, lands like bouncelands and other cards that we all assumed would be cube staples for the ages, only to find themselves make their way out of many lists.
So what do you think will be the impetus that has the 1R 3-damage dealers to leave our cubes?
They’d have to print 3 more copies of Lightning Bolt, hehe.
I actually wasn’t runnning Searingn Spear for a bit but recently re-added it because red just lost a lot of its best answers to planeswalkers with the new rules changes. Incinerate knockoffs May be boring, but efficient burn is one of those things you just need critical mass of, just like Savannah Lion variants.
They’d have to print 3 more copies of Lightning Bolt, hehe.
I actually wasn’t runnning Searing Spear for a bit but recently re-added it because red just lost a lot of its best answers to planeswalkers with the new rules changes. Incinerate knockoffs May be boring, but efficient burn is one of those things you just need critical mass of, just like Savannah Lion variants.
Yeah, pretty much this. When I want unconditional burn, I want unconditional burn, not Smash or Searing Blaze or etc, and showing their reluctance to do that it would take some excellent spells.
Like, take Abrade--I think that's a good card, but not being able to hit players or planeswalkers makes it definitely worse to me than Incinerate. Still a good card, but there are some scenarios where it's a dead card whereas the burn always has a target.
For what it's worth, I've been running Incendiary Flow due to the recommendation from others, and it's been pretty solid. Losing instant speed makes it plow out worse most of the time, but when exiling is relevant it's really really clutch.
EDIT: There's also the big-red stupid stuff that most people don't run but I would add maybe before more burn if I went up in size. I find that while drafting, most tables only have one player who wants all the burn, so then if there's another red player--the wildfire guy, the control guy who has other removal to choose from, etc.--I'd rather throw something in like Form of the Dragon or Jokulhaups, cards that are objectively worse than more efficient burn but 'directions' that some player might get excited for. This is less appealing if you only play with an IRL playgroup, but when you're on xmage constantly drafting with strangers it's important to give them potential outs, or at minimum potentially a lot more fun.
This is a really interesting question to think about. I think the reason they've lasted so long is a mix of a few different things: efficiency, utility, and a lack of mechanical depth in red.
In an effort to keep the constructed formats balanced, I think these spell's efficiency are on the high end of what they're willing to print by current standards.
The utility of these spells are also hard to match, especially at this mana cost. The ability to use them as efficient removal or burn damage to the face allow them to fit in most decks, even as a splash.
The most likely thing to push them out is a new mechanical identity that requires slots taken up by burn that cube owners may choose to trim down on. Since they are relatively boring and mechanically identical to multiple other cards already represented, it's possibke they could get the boot by people wanting to experience different play patterns in this scenario.
Responded to this on twitter but I will add it here as well:
Very rarely do I enjoy having functional reprints in cube. Yes it improves consistency and with llanowar elves and elvish mystic I allow it but I have tried not to do that in burn. Worse for me is that bolt and the 2 drop burn spells are often splashed by opposing control/midrange decks. The fixing is very good in cube and aggressive creatures are a real thing, it is similar to how o-ring doesn't usually end up in the white aggro decks. Nothing wrong with it per se but I have had to adjust to make sure the red deck gets what it needs to win. I am currently only playing incinerate of those three and have tried a lot of other things in their place
Searing blaze is much more often what the red deck wants to do.
I played smash to smithereens for a long time and feel it is the right choice in 360 powered, but as I am not fully powered I have moved to abrade for now.
Temur Battle Rage wins a lot of games and is a very popular card. It can turn the traditional red deck or spells decks more comboey and has a better fit with the other broken cube decks.
After playing a lot of goblin grenade in pauper I realized I needed to give reckless abandon another try. I often have a token or a scrapheap scrounger or whatnot laying around and 4 damage is big game. Very good for the red deck.
This concern has been more apparent at my three drop slot. Arc lightning and it family of cards have gotten replaced for more damage/less controlly cards. I like collective defiance, stoke the flames, and trying pillage again in those spots.
Burn will definitely need a lot of redundancy in cube.
It is needed in all archtypes as creature and planeswalker removal and reach (for aggro). For aggro, you need multiples of it fid consistency.
So basically what could replace them are either better or more interesting burn spells.
Abrade, Mizzium Mortars, for example will be a preferred spell by the control player. So a card or two is fine.
I think Incinerate, et. al will stay a long time as well, unless functionally better cards appear. (E.g. tacking on flashback or kicker, or perhaps an exile clause)
Very rarely do I enjoy having functional reprints in cube. ... bolt and the 2 drop burn spells are often splashed by opposing control/midrange decks. ...Nothing wrong with it per se but I have had to adjust to make sure the red deck gets what it needs to win. I am currently only playing incinerate of those three and have tried a lot of other things in their place
Isn't control/midrange snatching up the burn an argument for including more functional reprints? That way the red deck has more chances to get what it needs?
I have removed lightning strike and incinerate from my cube due to functional reprint restraints that I impose on my cube. The only one I allow is llanowar elves and fyndhorn elves because dorks are so important to green strategies and even then I am looking for a replacement effect.
Very rarely do I enjoy having functional reprints in cube. ... bolt and the 2 drop burn spells are often splashed by opposing control/midrange decks. ...Nothing wrong with it per se but I have had to adjust to make sure the red deck gets what it needs to win. I am currently only playing incinerate of those three and have tried a lot of other things in their place
Isn't control/midrange snatching up the burn an argument for including more functional reprints? That way the red deck has more chances to get what it needs?
I have no problem with controlly deck taking red cards so I give them something like Abrade. I give searing blaze for the strait forward red, and incinerate is for both. One of my biggest complaints with modern magic design and IMHO the easiest trap in cube design is to make midrange decks the best. Too many people short change aggro, or add to many walkers, or have a glut of 4-5 mana cards because they are afraid of 6+ CMC.
There is nothing wrong with that point of view of pure flexibility, and that idea might be the best in abstract but as I say with my group I have needed to shift things around regularly to give incentives in different places. Don't get me wrong they have been in and out as I waffle on the issue.
I don't love the cards, but they're solid and effective, so they're in. If I had one instant-speed Incendiary Flow (to give me a "strictly better" Incinerate/Spear variant) and maybe one more utility burn spell along the lines of Abrade, that might spell the end for the Incinerate clones for me.
After reading your insightful comments, I think I will give it a go with Searing Blaze and just Incinerate and Lightning Strike. In this way I do get some of the redundancy, but also a bit more help to the heavier red decks.
I think the above is a really important point too. The constant push towards cards with single colored mana requirements creates (in my experience) a more homogenized drafting environment where 3+ color good stuff is more represented than I like. I think the card flexibility is important for smaller groups, but when a large portion of the pool is being used each draft, I think double colored cards are an important tool for cube designers to reward less greedy decks.
The constant push towards cards with single colored mana requirements creates (in my experience) a more homogenized drafting environment where 3+ color good stuff is more represented than I like. I think the card flexibility is important for smaller groups, but when a large portion of the pool is being used each draft, I think double colored cards are an important tool for cube designers to reward less greedy decks.
I'd blame too much mana fixing rather than single colored mana requirements. The payoff for a 2-cmc CC card really has to be worth it in my eyes to be cube worthy, especially when you're contending with the likes of the following cards:
- Channel
- Mana Drain
- Rolfellos, Llanowar Emissary
- Hymn to Torach
- Sinkhole
- Bloodghast
Searing Blaze is a fine card, but it's not getting my juices flowing enough to commit to heavy red like Vedalken Shackles / Cryptic Command would reward me for being heavy blue. Blistering Firecat is my red card of choice that I would cube if I want something to really reward me for being heavy red.
At this moment I currently have 150 3-0 decks archived: (https://tinyurl.com/yc5rkozt). 3-color decks have the best average performance, but Orzhov is the most winning color combination. Four / five color puts up results, but not as much as 3-colors. 3-color decks are perfectly fine in my book since they still have a strong identity, it's four / five color decks that really start to blur the lines. Note that the only CC cards I'm playing are the ones listed above (minus Mana Drain).
Yes, good mana fixing exacerbates the issue, but I look at 2/3 cmc CC cards as more of a reward than a reason to pull you into the color. Being able to take the more easily splashable high powered card and tabling the strong but restrictive CC cards rewards the two-colored drafters. This does seem less important a feature when there's no shortage of playables (which explains the three color decks having the best average performance), but after thinking about this a bit, it might be where I want to take my cube. Try to skirt the edge between peasant and unpowered and better emphasize drafting strategy.
EDIT: I should say, as an avid limited fan, my favorite part of drafting is (and the part that separates good limited builders from great ones) is slots 20-23 of a draft deck. I think the power level on cards in draft sets I've really enjoyed dropped off around 20-21 and the how you fill in with less than perfect options makes the difference. I think that is a feature that's really lost in cube because it's not uncommon to have 29-30 playables.
EDIT2: Sorry Usman, this really got off topic didnt it..
I'm already not running Lightning Strike. A more interesting, but similar, burn spell could easily push Searing Spear out. I'm not sure what that spell would be or what it would do, but these spells are certainly not uncutable.
I don't play any of the 3 in my cube, but I have a similar problem with single-mana burn spells. Currently I run Lightning Bolt, Magma Spray, Pillar of flame.. but I'm wanting to fit Firebolt in there and thinking it should replace one of these. I may end up replacing something else and keeping 4 single-mana burn spells.
I think it's funny that there's always chatter of not wanting to cube a bunch of Incinerate variants, but nobody ever brings up the same topic for something like Llanowar Elves.
I don't play any of the 3 in my cube, but I have a similar problem with single-mana burn spells. Currently I run Lightning Bolt, Magma Spray, Pillar of flame.. but I'm wanting to fit Firebolt in there and thinking it should replace one of these. I may end up replacing something else and keeping 4 single-mana burn spells.
I'd keep the two Bolts and cut the others for Incinerate and Searing Spear.
I think it's funny that there's always chatter of not wanting to cube a bunch of Incinerate variants, but nobody ever brings up the same topic for something like Llanowar Elves.
This is the first that I've heard of discussion on what it'd take for Incinerate variants to leave a cube, and 1-mana elves are arguably better/less easily replaced than red burn.
I don't love the cards, but they're solid and effective, so they're in. If I had one instant-speed Incendiary Flow (to give me a "strictly better" Incinerate/Spear variant) and maybe one more utility burn spell along the lines of Abrade, that might spell the end for the Incinerate clones for me.
This. Some other potential scenarios I can come up with:
* Power creep on creatures getting to the point that a certain threshold of aggro creatures simply can't be killed with three direct damage
* More ridiculous cheap divisible burn cards like Arc Trail getting printed
* Cheap red temporary card advantage spells getting better
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I've ran all of those cards in my pauper and powered cube and they've been generally solid, and I've seen them taken out of the MTGO cubes, replaced by things that do similar things - like Searing Blaze, Smash to Smithereens - likely because they have the same converted mana cost. (and IMO, there were likely better cuts for them.)
It goes without saying that these cards do their role well and that's why they've been around for so long, but think back to cards like Hero of Oxid Ridge, lands like bouncelands and other cards that we all assumed would be cube staples for the ages, only to find themselves make their way out of many lists.
So what do you think will be the impetus that has the 1R 3-damage dealers to leave our cubes?
I used to write cube articles on StarCityGames, now for GatheringMagic and podcast about cube (w/Antknee42.)
I actually wasn’t runnning Searingn Spear for a bit but recently re-added it because red just lost a lot of its best answers to planeswalkers with the new rules changes. Incinerate knockoffs May be boring, but efficient burn is one of those things you just need critical mass of, just like Savannah Lion variants.
My High Octane Unpowered Cube on CubeCobra
Yeah, pretty much this. When I want unconditional burn, I want unconditional burn, not Smash or Searing Blaze or etc, and showing their reluctance to do that it would take some excellent spells.
Like, take Abrade--I think that's a good card, but not being able to hit players or planeswalkers makes it definitely worse to me than Incinerate. Still a good card, but there are some scenarios where it's a dead card whereas the burn always has a target.
For what it's worth, I've been running Incendiary Flow due to the recommendation from others, and it's been pretty solid. Losing instant speed makes it plow out worse most of the time, but when exiling is relevant it's really really clutch.
EDIT: There's also the big-red stupid stuff that most people don't run but I would add maybe before more burn if I went up in size. I find that while drafting, most tables only have one player who wants all the burn, so then if there's another red player--the wildfire guy, the control guy who has other removal to choose from, etc.--I'd rather throw something in like Form of the Dragon or Jokulhaups, cards that are objectively worse than more efficient burn but 'directions' that some player might get excited for. This is less appealing if you only play with an IRL playgroup, but when you're on xmage constantly drafting with strangers it's important to give them potential outs, or at minimum potentially a lot more fun.
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In an effort to keep the constructed formats balanced, I think these spell's efficiency are on the high end of what they're willing to print by current standards.
The utility of these spells are also hard to match, especially at this mana cost. The ability to use them as efficient removal or burn damage to the face allow them to fit in most decks, even as a splash.
The most likely thing to push them out is a new mechanical identity that requires slots taken up by burn that cube owners may choose to trim down on. Since they are relatively boring and mechanically identical to multiple other cards already represented, it's possibke they could get the boot by people wanting to experience different play patterns in this scenario.
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Very rarely do I enjoy having functional reprints in cube. Yes it improves consistency and with llanowar elves and elvish mystic I allow it but I have tried not to do that in burn. Worse for me is that bolt and the 2 drop burn spells are often splashed by opposing control/midrange decks. The fixing is very good in cube and aggressive creatures are a real thing, it is similar to how o-ring doesn't usually end up in the white aggro decks. Nothing wrong with it per se but I have had to adjust to make sure the red deck gets what it needs to win. I am currently only playing incinerate of those three and have tried a lot of other things in their place
Searing blaze is much more often what the red deck wants to do.
I played smash to smithereens for a long time and feel it is the right choice in 360 powered, but as I am not fully powered I have moved to abrade for now.
Temur Battle Rage wins a lot of games and is a very popular card. It can turn the traditional red deck or spells decks more comboey and has a better fit with the other broken cube decks.
After playing a lot of goblin grenade in pauper I realized I needed to give reckless abandon another try. I often have a token or a scrapheap scrounger or whatnot laying around and 4 damage is big game. Very good for the red deck.
This concern has been more apparent at my three drop slot. Arc lightning and it family of cards have gotten replaced for more damage/less controlly cards. I like collective defiance, stoke the flames, and trying pillage again in those spots.
It is needed in all archtypes as creature and planeswalker removal and reach (for aggro). For aggro, you need multiples of it fid consistency.
So basically what could replace them are either better or more interesting burn spells.
Abrade, Mizzium Mortars, for example will be a preferred spell by the control player. So a card or two is fine.
I think Incinerate, et. al will stay a long time as well, unless functionally better cards appear. (E.g. tacking on flashback or kicker, or perhaps an exile clause)
Isn't control/midrange snatching up the burn an argument for including more functional reprints? That way the red deck has more chances to get what it needs?
I have no problem with controlly deck taking red cards so I give them something like Abrade. I give searing blaze for the strait forward red, and incinerate is for both. One of my biggest complaints with modern magic design and IMHO the easiest trap in cube design is to make midrange decks the best. Too many people short change aggro, or add to many walkers, or have a glut of 4-5 mana cards because they are afraid of 6+ CMC.
There is nothing wrong with that point of view of pure flexibility, and that idea might be the best in abstract but as I say with my group I have needed to shift things around regularly to give incentives in different places. Don't get me wrong they have been in and out as I waffle on the issue.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
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My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
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(CubeTutor & MTGS)
360 Peasant Cube!
Custom Cube
RWU Miracles RWU
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
I'd blame too much mana fixing rather than single colored mana requirements. The payoff for a 2-cmc CC card really has to be worth it in my eyes to be cube worthy, especially when you're contending with the likes of the following cards:
- Channel
- Mana Drain
- Rolfellos, Llanowar Emissary
- Hymn to Torach
- Sinkhole
- Bloodghast
Searing Blaze is a fine card, but it's not getting my juices flowing enough to commit to heavy red like Vedalken Shackles / Cryptic Command would reward me for being heavy blue. Blistering Firecat is my red card of choice that I would cube if I want something to really reward me for being heavy red.
At this moment I currently have 150 3-0 decks archived: (https://tinyurl.com/yc5rkozt). 3-color decks have the best average performance, but Orzhov is the most winning color combination. Four / five color puts up results, but not as much as 3-colors. 3-color decks are perfectly fine in my book since they still have a strong identity, it's four / five color decks that really start to blur the lines. Note that the only CC cards I'm playing are the ones listed above (minus Mana Drain).
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EDIT: I should say, as an avid limited fan, my favorite part of drafting is (and the part that separates good limited builders from great ones) is slots 20-23 of a draft deck. I think the power level on cards in draft sets I've really enjoyed dropped off around 20-21 and the how you fill in with less than perfect options makes the difference. I think that is a feature that's really lost in cube because it's not uncommon to have 29-30 playables.
EDIT2: Sorry Usman, this really got off topic didnt it..
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I'd keep the two Bolts and cut the others for Incinerate and Searing Spear.
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This is the first that I've heard of discussion on what it'd take for Incinerate variants to leave a cube, and 1-mana elves are arguably better/less easily replaced than red burn.
I used to write cube articles on StarCityGames, now for GatheringMagic and podcast about cube (w/Antknee42.)
This. Some other potential scenarios I can come up with:
* Power creep on creatures getting to the point that a certain threshold of aggro creatures simply can't be killed with three direct damage
* More ridiculous cheap divisible burn cards like Arc Trail getting printed
* Cheap red temporary card advantage spells getting better