Valentin is the actual card here. Lisette is a random upside that comes up from time to time. What it is is a Vampire Cutthroat variant with a pile of upsides:
I'm actively maintaining a comprehensive article to help explain to new cube players how some complex vintage level cards work in a cube environment. Vintage Cube Cards Explained
One drops with Menace are no joke. With the lifelink and life gain from pest, it also gains quite a bit of life. Then it offers small bodies you can sacrifice.
I think the card has a fair amount raw power, the issue being how often you have a deck that is aggressive, wants life gain, has sacrifice synergies, and has mana to spare. Black already has tons of recurring creatures, so I don't know if the aristrocrat deck wants this mana sink.
Fun but not very powerful hybrid golgari card. Valentin requiring 2 mana and an opponent's creature to die makes it hard to use (as you can't abuse sacrifice effects). Lisette is decent and can do work in a shell abusing +1/+1 counters, but also quite fair.
In general this card seems suitable only for lower power level cubes, but a hybrid card with interesting effects like this is nice to have in cube land.
The exile clause from Kalitas was cute and occasionally back-breaking, but I was never asking to put that on a bad topdeck by itself.
Except... Lisette is a 4/4 for 4. So we have a similar situation to Halvar. But an equipment that can be a creature is precisely shoring up the weakness of equipment. This doesn’t feel like an equivalent substantiation. Pass for me.
Valentin is the actual card here. Lisette is a random upside that comes up from time to time. What it is is a Vampire Cutthroat variant with a pile of upsides:
That's enough for me, with a weaker cube like mine.
Low-power cube enthusiast!
My 1570 card cube (no longer updated)
My 415 Peasant+ Artifact and Enchantment Cube
Ever-Expanding "Just throw it in" cube.
Braids, Cabal Minion
Yawgmoth, Thran Physician
Rankle, Master of Pranks
I feel this is where you want to be with aristocrats top ends.
Green 4 CMC have gotten really competitive recently:
Magus of the Order
Oracle of Mul Daya
Garruk Wildspeaker
(Ramp)
Questing Beast
Collected Company
Garruk Relentless
(Midrange)
This is where Green 4 CMC should be.
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
I think the card has a fair amount raw power, the issue being how often you have a deck that is aggressive, wants life gain, has sacrifice synergies, and has mana to spare. Black already has tons of recurring creatures, so I don't know if the aristrocrat deck wants this mana sink.
I'm doubt about where put this, black section or golgari section. Thougts ?
In general this card seems suitable only for lower power level cubes, but a hybrid card with interesting effects like this is nice to have in cube land.
Except... Lisette is a 4/4 for 4. So we have a similar situation to Halvar. But an equipment that can be a creature is precisely shoring up the weakness of equipment. This doesn’t feel like an equivalent substantiation. Pass for me.
This is still the best place for high-power-level cube chat & debate.
Here's to many more years at MTGS *clink*