It fits in a typical aggro shell with 1 drop removals, burn, discard. Equipment, too. The only thing that does not match is the p/t, which kind of throws us off because we dont want to see this on a red creature. I think if this was 2/1 we will be all over this card. I will test if get one, but I forsee many feel bad mements where it is just a vanilla 1/3. That’s depressing!
Did anyone ever test Dreadhorde Arcanist? Curious to hear results.
Almost 3 years later, but I've added it to my cube recently in addition to Mental Note / Thought Scour which gives it a lot of cantrips to hit since this is "secretly" an Izzet card. It also helps that I also play a lot of other blue cantrips like Opt / Consider / Serum Visions / Gitaxian Probe / Sleight of Hand. THere's also a good amount of 1-mv spells that have been printed in other colors to help with the critical mass of 1 drops, and more ways to pump this like Eater of Virtue / Luminarch Aspirant.
I feel if we're looking to recur ancestral/ time walk, then Finale of Promise might be the card we're looking for.
I felt Kiln Fiend has been getting stronger year by year with the number of cheap cantrips/ burn spells. I've burnt people out of nowhere with this before.
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Dreadhorde felt it needed too much of a setup and not enough of a payoff - this is no Thing in the Ice / Young Pyromancer.
The only set up that I've really found is that you need a higher concentration of the cheap 1-cmc blue and red spells. Opt / Serum Visions / Consider / Sleight of Hand / Forked Bolt / Light up the Night do the trick for me since they're all playable on their own while also helping fuel critical mass for graveyard matters. Mental Note / Thought Scour are good extra credit for this role.
While Young Pyromancer is a better overall cube card, this is a fundamentally different card in the sense that this gains value from spells you've already played where Young Pyromancer only gains value in spells that you play after it. In my cube, I like this way more than Thing in the Ice, which requires a lot more game play set up than Dreadhorde Arcanist does. Like most 2 drops, they both fail the Vindicate test, but Dreadhorde Arcanist has a much higher chance of generating value in 1-2 turns than Thing in the Ice does.
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I feel if we're looking to recur ancestral/ time walk, then Finale of Promise might be the card we're looking for.
I think the issue with Finale of Promise is that it's a mana intensive Snapcaster Mage that can't be used as an instant / doesn't work with counterspells, and doesn't come with an Ambush Viper mode. It's also much more narrow than things like Regrowth / Eternal Witness / Bala Ged Recovery in the sense that it can't recur any card type and anything that you're re-casting has to be paid upfront rather than spreading out the cost over 2 turns.
This card has been a lot of fun over here. Sometimes you just can't get enough targets, and it sits on the bench. But there's plenty of stuff to work with. Sure, Brainstorm and Lightning Bolt are great, but I don't mind getting back Swords to Plowshares or even Mutagenic Growth either. It's not THAT hard to get one drop spells, and it's not THAT hard to increase a creature's power.
But this guy is perhaps a bit more effort than he's worth for a lot of people.
Did anyone ever test Dreadhorde Arcanist? Curious to hear results.
There were several good 1 CMC spells printed after DreadHorde's printing and I think its a very strong contender.
However, my cube is more combo heavy than most and cards like Opt/ Consider are more highly thought after by other decks, especially storm, which makes it harder for a Grixis tempo deck to come together.
I would add him to my cube if there were 1-2 new 1 CMC discard options printed in the next few years ... or someone could convince me that Despise is a good card.
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I realized one thing is your opponent often does not have perfect information about your hand/ deck. This will often lead to your opponent over-evaluated the Dreadhorde as you can "buff" you can grow it next turn or you can double plow etc.
My experience with a card like this is you need to play both sides of this matchup to fully understand how strong a card is - There are times for example where I had 3+ counters on thing in the Ice and I passed with 4+ mana. My opponent deosn't know if my hand is lands or Fact or Fiction into two burn spells and I've seen them play much more passively.
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It fits in a typical aggro shell with 1 drop removals, burn, discard. Equipment, too. The only thing that does not match is the p/t, which kind of throws us off because we dont want to see this on a red creature. I think if this was 2/1 we will be all over this card. I will test if get one, but I forsee many feel bad mements where it is just a vanilla 1/3. That’s depressing!
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StaffAlmost 3 years later, but I've added it to my cube recently in addition to Mental Note / Thought Scour which gives it a lot of cantrips to hit since this is "secretly" an Izzet card. It also helps that I also play a lot of other blue cantrips like Opt / Consider / Serum Visions / Gitaxian Probe / Sleight of Hand. THere's also a good amount of 1-mv spells that have been printed in other colors to help with the critical mass of 1 drops, and more ways to pump this like Eater of Virtue / Luminarch Aspirant.
My High Octane Unpowered Cube on CubeCobra
I feel if we're looking to recur ancestral/ time walk, then Finale of Promise might be the card we're looking for.
I felt Kiln Fiend has been getting stronger year by year with the number of cheap cantrips/ burn spells. I've burnt people out of nowhere with this before.
Vintage Cube Cards Explained
Here are some other articles I've written about fine tuning your cube:
1. Minimum Archetype Support
2. Improving Green Archetypes
3. Improving White Archetypes
4. Matchup Analysis
5. Cube Combos (Work in Progress)
Draft my Cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/d8i
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StaffThe only set up that I've really found is that you need a higher concentration of the cheap 1-cmc blue and red spells. Opt / Serum Visions / Consider / Sleight of Hand / Forked Bolt / Light up the Night do the trick for me since they're all playable on their own while also helping fuel critical mass for graveyard matters. Mental Note / Thought Scour are good extra credit for this role.
While Young Pyromancer is a better overall cube card, this is a fundamentally different card in the sense that this gains value from spells you've already played where Young Pyromancer only gains value in spells that you play after it. In my cube, I like this way more than Thing in the Ice, which requires a lot more game play set up than Dreadhorde Arcanist does. Like most 2 drops, they both fail the Vindicate test, but Dreadhorde Arcanist has a much higher chance of generating value in 1-2 turns than Thing in the Ice does.
I think the issue with Finale of Promise is that it's a mana intensive Snapcaster Mage that can't be used as an instant / doesn't work with counterspells, and doesn't come with an Ambush Viper mode. It's also much more narrow than things like Regrowth / Eternal Witness / Bala Ged Recovery in the sense that it can't recur any card type and anything that you're re-casting has to be paid upfront rather than spreading out the cost over 2 turns.
My High Octane Unpowered Cube on CubeCobra
But this guy is perhaps a bit more effort than he's worth for a lot of people.
My 1570 card cube
My 415 Peasant+ Artifact and Enchantment Cube
There were several good 1 CMC spells printed after DreadHorde's printing and I think its a very strong contender.
However, my cube is more combo heavy than most and cards like Opt/ Consider are more highly thought after by other decks, especially storm, which makes it harder for a Grixis tempo deck to come together.
I would add him to my cube if there were 1-2 new 1 CMC discard options printed in the next few years ... or someone could convince me that Despise is a good card.
Vintage Cube Cards Explained
Here are some other articles I've written about fine tuning your cube:
1. Minimum Archetype Support
2. Improving Green Archetypes
3. Improving White Archetypes
4. Matchup Analysis
5. Cube Combos (Work in Progress)
Draft my Cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/d8i
My experience with a card like this is you need to play both sides of this matchup to fully understand how strong a card is - There are times for example where I had 3+ counters on thing in the Ice and I passed with 4+ mana. My opponent deosn't know if my hand is lands or Fact or Fiction into two burn spells and I've seen them play much more passively.
Vintage Cube Cards Explained
Here are some other articles I've written about fine tuning your cube:
1. Minimum Archetype Support
2. Improving Green Archetypes
3. Improving White Archetypes
4. Matchup Analysis
5. Cube Combos (Work in Progress)
Draft my Cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/d8i