There's been a lot of recent printings lately that makes Flash a lot more consistent like Atraxa, Archon of Cruelty, Chaos Defiler, etc. I'm starting to think it might just be blue's Channel. While there's no Flash equivalent of Channel + Emrakul (besides Protean Hulk, but that requires a lot of other moving pieces), Flash being a single pip, instant speed, not having to pay life, and pairing with WAY more creatures makes it so much more versatile.
Let's look at Flash's options:
GENERIC / MIXED VALUE
- Atraxa, Grand Unifier will often draw at least 4 cards, which is +2 card advantage for 1U + "discarding" Atraxa. This is especially good in Reanimator shells since Flash bins Atraxa and Atraxa has a good chance of finding a reanimate or something.
- Archon of Cruelty is a potential 3 for 2 + 6 point life swing for 1U assuming you get the full value of your opponent discarding a card / sacrificing a creature or planeswalker.
- Titan of Industry modes gives you a lot of options. A 4/4 + Naturalize is a good deal for 1U. Making an indestructible 4/4 or making a 4/4 + gaining 4 life also ain't too shabby depending on the scenario.
- Primeval Titan can ramp you really fast up to 5 mana on turn 3.
- Astral Dragon gives you two 3/3 flyers that can randomly copy a land or something to ramp you.
TOKEN GENERATION
- Worldspine Wurm's death trigger gives you three 5/5s with trample.
- Triplicate Titan gives you three 3/3s with various abilities (vigilance / flying / trample.
- Hornet Queen gives you four 1/1 insects with flying and death touch.
The Flash package is probably suited for larger cubes that are desperate for premium Cheaty Face enablers that also have spare real estate for things that work well with Flash. Smaller cubes might not be playing a good amount of these creatures (especially the good token generating ones), lowering the potency of Flash a good amount. I honestly do think this has the potential to be on par with other similar Cheaty Face enablers like Oath of Druids / Show and Tell / Sneak Attack / Eureka / etc and is way above the other supplemental enablers like Through the Breach / Selvala's Stampede / Monster Manual / Quicksilver Amulet / etc (at least if you have the right creatures).
I always liked Flash as both a discard outlet and an enabler for Worldspine Wurm. Fatty Cheat/ Reanimator decks were lacking good enablers and I felt Flash was good.
I'm not sure how I feel about all these non-intuitive rulings, but my position prior to initiative is a card with non-intuitive ruling needs to be somewhat to significantly stronger than an intuitive counterparty. I've revised this recently as I don't think this is tenable going forward.
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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
There's a huge MTGS thread about this archetype somewhere.
I definitely ran a search before I created the thread but couldn't find anything other than relating the flash mechanic as an archetype. It must be labeled as something else...
Apparently it was discussion in my thread ~3 years ago. Here's the big post:
The way I see it, it can be used in a few different ways:
Potentially Game-Winning Interactions
Worldspine Wurm (Three 5/5 trample creatures is good)
Protean Hulk (Either immediate combo win or dropping a T2 Titan or some combination of other goodies)
Woodfall Primus (5/5 trample and destroy 2 non-creature permanents for 2 mana at instant speed)
Terastodon (Particularly in combat, this ability is strong)
Sundering Titan (2-mana 'Geddon with flash seems good)
Other Strong Interactions (Particularly In Combat)
Hornet Queen (Make 4 1/1 flying deathtouchers at instant speed)
Wurmcoil Engine (Two 3/3 bodies w/ flash for 2 mana)
Ancient Stone Idol (Makes a 6/7 trampling body)
Primeval Titan (Double land ramp)
Reveillark (Bring back 2 creatures)
Karmic Guide (Build-your-own instant speed 2-mana reanimation spell)
Weaker Situational Uses
Grave Titan (Two 2/2 zombies for two mana at instant speed)
Sun Titan (Bring back a critical cheap permanent)
Inferno Titan (2-mana instant-speed Arc Lightning with a discard drawback)
Thragtusk (Gain 5 life and get a 3/3 body for 2 mana + a card)
Great Oak Guardian/Craterhoof Behemoth (2-mana instant speed Overrun effects?)
Dragonlord Atarka (5 dividable damage at instant speed)
Myr Battlesphere (Grab 4 1/1 tokens)
Utility Uses
Turn ANY ETB/LTB trigger in the cube into a 2-mana instant with that ability (with the added drawback of costing you an additional card from hand). Disenchant effects, 187 triggers, fight triggers, bounce effects, etc, etc.
Use Flash as a "discard outlet" to get a giant monster into your graveyard to be able to reanimate it, or a big artifact creature into the 'yard for Welder/Daretti effects.
Use Flash to shuffle a super-titan back into your deck for Polymorph effects).
Face Value
You can always use it as a way to give a creature flash. If you can eat a creature in combat because of the flash, you can recoup the inherent card disadvantage associated with the effect.
Went 3-0 last night with this Cheaty Face deck featuring Flash / Oath / Sneak Attack, I made sure all my super fatties sans Griselbrand worked with Flash. Won my two game 3s off the back of Worldspine Wurm. First one was off just a turn 2 Flash vs aggro, second one was off baiting the control opponent's counters with Flash / Through the Breach only to resolve my Sneak Attack. Also won game 2 of the finals with Flash + Woodfall Primus when my opponent tapped out on turn 2 to cycle Timeless Dragon.
My initial take is that if you have the proper creature support for Flash, this is on par with what I call the main pillars of cheaty face (Oath of Druids / Sneak Attack / Eureka / Show and Tell / Channel). Worldspine Wurm is the primary way to cheese your opponent, but there are so many other tricks / value plays to be had that makes Flash extremely powerful.
Apparently it was discussion in my thread ~3 years ago. Here's the big post:
The way I see it, it can be used in a few different ways:
Potentially Game-Winning Interactions
Worldspine Wurm (Three 5/5 trample creatures is good)
Protean Hulk (Either immediate combo win or dropping a T2 Titan or some combination of other goodies)
Woodfall Primus (5/5 trample and destroy 2 non-creature permanents for 2 mana at instant speed)
Terastodon (Particularly in combat, this ability is strong)
Sundering Titan (2-mana 'Geddon with flash seems good)
Other Strong Interactions (Particularly In Combat)
Hornet Queen (Make 4 1/1 flying deathtouchers at instant speed)
Wurmcoil Engine (Two 3/3 bodies w/ flash for 2 mana)
Ancient Stone Idol (Makes a 6/7 trampling body)
Primeval Titan (Double land ramp)
Reveillark (Bring back 2 creatures)
Karmic Guide (Build-your-own instant speed 2-mana reanimation spell)
Weaker Situational Uses
Grave Titan (Two 2/2 zombies for two mana at instant speed)
Sun Titan (Bring back a critical cheap permanent)
Inferno Titan (2-mana instant-speed Arc Lightning with a discard drawback)
Thragtusk (Gain 5 life and get a 3/3 body for 2 mana + a card)
Great Oak Guardian/Craterhoof Behemoth (2-mana instant speed Overrun effects?)
Dragonlord Atarka (5 dividable damage at instant speed)
Myr Battlesphere (Grab 4 1/1 tokens)
Utility Uses
Turn ANY ETB/LTB trigger in the cube into a 2-mana instant with that ability (with the added drawback of costing you an additional card from hand). Disenchant effects, 187 triggers, fight triggers, bounce effects, etc, etc.
Use Flash as a "discard outlet" to get a giant monster into your graveyard to be able to reanimate it, or a big artifact creature into the 'yard for Welder/Daretti effects.
Use Flash to shuffle a super-titan back into your deck for Polymorph effects).
Face Value
You can always use it as a way to give a creature flash. If you can eat a creature in combat because of the flash, you can recoup the inherent card disadvantage associated with the effect.
Thanks for all this! While I think Flash will mainly be used in dedicated Cheaty Face decks that has a large critical mass of super fatties (like the one posted above), this has opened my eyes to certain Natural Order builds too that has a lot of fair stuff going on that isn't Natural Order. Besides the green super fatties, Flash pairs well with things like Thragtusk / Squirrel Hermits / etc, which can easily spell GG against aggro in the early game. Flash + Palace Jailer / Custodi Lich is also extremely powerful.
The cube ofa friend of mine is extending this archetype with both Academy and Arena Rector. The decks this produces are more controlish, but are very strong!
There's been enough recent printings of cards that interact powerfully with flash, I think it's worth a revisit.
The cards that were on the fence/bench that I'm adding to support it are:
Worldspine wurm & Triplicate titan.
Many of the best flash targets are in green which helps a natural order/flash deck organically come together.
Cheaty green + reanimator seems wide enough to be worth a test.
The card holds a place in MTG history which increases my desire to cube with it too.
I recently readded Goblin Welder to my cube (big pet card of mine) and yeah Flash does seem like a great way to kickstart a Welder loop. Hadn't though of this... I'm considering it now.
I've had one on hand for a long time, with the addition of Atraxa it might be worth giving it a look. I don't run many of the symmetrical cheaty cards at the moment (Eureka, S&T) so another outlet could be useful.
Yea our issue with it years ago was that it's a great "discard outlet" but didn't have enough broken payoffs to validate it in deckbuilding outside of UB reanimator. Sneak Attack has a few broken payouts, and reanimator a few more than that, but Flash has only ever really had 2 that are broken at all stages of the game, one of which is Worldspine Wurm which is otherwise only good with Sneak Attack strategies. Woodfall Primus is awesome, but even if you play the Wurm that's just two, and you probably want like 4. cards like Ancient Stone Idol/Triplicate Titan/Sundering Titan/Ashen Rider are only conditionally broken at very early turns in the game, meanwhile I'd assume you want your flash combo to scale better into the late game.
Working with Welder strategies opens up a lot of options, but for now I think we're set, but maybe I'm underestimating the Atraxa, Grand Unifier ETB off of Flash
Working with Welder strategies opens up a lot of options, but for now I think we're set, but maybe I'm underestimating the Atraxa, Grand Unifier ETB off of Flash
Flash for Atraxa is essentially Dig Through Time on steroids for 1U + discard Atraxa. My experience with Atraxa so far is that you're "drawing" 4 cards on average. Ancestral Recall is +2 card advantage for 1 mana. If Flash + Atraxa will usually come up to the same amount of card advantage, but gives you much more selection, not to mention that it bins the Atraxa for a follow up reanimator spell. I'd consider a 2 mana Ancestral Recall with better selection + set up for recursion to be pretty to be pretty broken.
What's great about Flash so far in my testing is how versatile it could be. For 2 mana it could win the game on the spot (Worldspine Wurm), clear the board (Atarka / Ashen Rider / Chaos Defiler) or just give you sheer random value (Atraxa / Archon of Cruelty / Woodfall Primus). It's the only cheap Cheaty Face enabler that doesn't have some horrendous cost (Channel) and doesn't allow the opponent to break the symmetry (Show and Tell / Eureka / Oath of Druids).
After a testing / forcing Flash since early February, I've come down to the conclusion that Flash > Tinker in my cube (or any other cheaty face enabler) for several reasons:
- It's among the cheapest of (non-reanimator) Cheaty Face enablers.
- It's extremely versatile since it can do pretty much anything at instant speed and works with most super fatties.
- It's asymmetrical, so there's no risk involved unlike Oath of Druids / Show and Tell / Eureka.
Here's my 3-0 Flash decks that I've archived so far.
Flash is super cool, and I've been enjoying it since bringing it back. Thanks for necro-ing all the discussion related to it, it push me to re-include it and it's a cool card.
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StaffThere's been a lot of recent printings lately that makes Flash a lot more consistent like Atraxa, Archon of Cruelty, Chaos Defiler, etc. I'm starting to think it might just be blue's Channel. While there's no Flash equivalent of Channel + Emrakul (besides Protean Hulk, but that requires a lot of other moving pieces), Flash being a single pip, instant speed, not having to pay life, and pairing with WAY more creatures makes it so much more versatile.
Let's look at Flash's options:
GENERIC / MIXED VALUE
- Atraxa, Grand Unifier will often draw at least 4 cards, which is +2 card advantage for 1U + "discarding" Atraxa. This is especially good in Reanimator shells since Flash bins Atraxa and Atraxa has a good chance of finding a reanimate or something.
- Archon of Cruelty is a potential 3 for 2 + 6 point life swing for 1U assuming you get the full value of your opponent discarding a card / sacrificing a creature or planeswalker.
- Titan of Industry modes gives you a lot of options. A 4/4 + Naturalize is a good deal for 1U. Making an indestructible 4/4 or making a 4/4 + gaining 4 life also ain't too shabby depending on the scenario.
- Primeval Titan can ramp you really fast up to 5 mana on turn 3.
- Astral Dragon gives you two 3/3 flyers that can randomly copy a land or something to ramp you.
TOKEN GENERATION
- Worldspine Wurm's death trigger gives you three 5/5s with trample.
- Triplicate Titan gives you three 3/3s with various abilities (vigilance / flying / trample.
- Hornet Queen gives you four 1/1 insects with flying and death touch.
- Ancient Stone Idol gives you a 6/12 with trample.
- Myr Battlesphere gives you four 1/1s.
- Old One Eye gives you a 5/5.
- Wurmcoil Engine gives you a 3/3 with deathtouch and a 3/3 with lifelink.
- Grave Titan gives you two 2/2s.
REMOVAL
- Double Vindicate that exiles with Ashen Rider.
- Destroy 2 non-land permanents with Chaos Defiler.
- Destroy 2 non-creature permanents + recursion with Woodfall Primus.
- Terastodon doing Terastodon things.
- Inferno Titan / Dragonlord Atarka /
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobitepotentially killing things also.The Flash package is probably suited for larger cubes that are desperate for premium Cheaty Face enablers that also have spare real estate for things that work well with Flash. Smaller cubes might not be playing a good amount of these creatures (especially the good token generating ones), lowering the potency of Flash a good amount. I honestly do think this has the potential to be on par with other similar Cheaty Face enablers like Oath of Druids / Show and Tell / Sneak Attack / Eureka / etc and is way above the other supplemental enablers like Through the Breach / Selvala's Stampede / Monster Manual / Quicksilver Amulet / etc (at least if you have the right creatures).
My High Octane Unpowered Cube on CubeCobra
The problem I dislike right now is a lot of cards require an entire article worth of rules to parse/ play against correctly - Initiative, Minsc and Boo, Urza's Saga etc. The case with Flash is that you actually do not get the Elesh Norn or Griselbrand Trigger if you choose not to pay for it - https://boardgames.stackexchange.com/questions/8027/will-elesh-norn-kill-creatures-if-i-dont-pay-the-extra-cost-for-flash.
I'm not sure how I feel about all these non-intuitive rulings, but my position prior to initiative is a card with non-intuitive ruling needs to be somewhat to significantly stronger than an intuitive counterparty. I've revised this recently as I don't think this is tenable going forward.
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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StaffI knew about Griselbrand, but didn't realize with Elesh Norn. That's good to know, but it's far from a dealbreaker for me.
My High Octane Unpowered Cube on CubeCobra
the discard into GY afterwards is a positive thing from reanimation, which is probably the deck most likely to play this card.
It’s narrow , but I can see the power. Depends on the fatty selection for the cube.
Last Updated 02/06/23
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Strategy Twitter https://www.twitter.com/heisenb3rg
My 540 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 45th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from ONE!
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StaffI definitely ran a search before I created the thread but couldn't find anything other than relating the flash mechanic as an archetype. It must be labeled as something else...
My High Octane Unpowered Cube on CubeCobra
The way I see it, it can be used in a few different ways:
Potentially Game-Winning Interactions
Worldspine Wurm (Three 5/5 trample creatures is good)
Protean Hulk (Either immediate combo win or dropping a T2 Titan or some combination of other goodies)
Woodfall Primus (5/5 trample and destroy 2 non-creature permanents for 2 mana at instant speed)
Terastodon (Particularly in combat, this ability is strong)
Sundering Titan (2-mana 'Geddon with flash seems good)
Other Strong Interactions (Particularly In Combat)
Hornet Queen (Make 4 1/1 flying deathtouchers at instant speed)
Wurmcoil Engine (Two 3/3 bodies w/ flash for 2 mana)
Ancient Stone Idol (Makes a 6/7 trampling body)
Primeval Titan (Double land ramp)
Reveillark (Bring back 2 creatures)
Karmic Guide (Build-your-own instant speed 2-mana reanimation spell)
Weaker Situational Uses
Grave Titan (Two 2/2 zombies for two mana at instant speed)
Sun Titan (Bring back a critical cheap permanent)
Inferno Titan (2-mana instant-speed Arc Lightning with a discard drawback)
Thragtusk (Gain 5 life and get a 3/3 body for 2 mana + a card)
Great Oak Guardian/Craterhoof Behemoth (2-mana instant speed Overrun effects?)
Dragonlord Atarka (5 dividable damage at instant speed)
Myr Battlesphere (Grab 4 1/1 tokens)
Utility Uses
Turn ANY ETB/LTB trigger in the cube into a 2-mana instant with that ability (with the added drawback of costing you an additional card from hand). Disenchant effects, 187 triggers, fight triggers, bounce effects, etc, etc.
Use Flash as a "discard outlet" to get a giant monster into your graveyard to be able to reanimate it, or a big artifact creature into the 'yard for Welder/Daretti effects.
Use Flash to shuffle a super-titan back into your deck for Polymorph effects).
Face Value
You can always use it as a way to give a creature flash. If you can eat a creature in combat because of the flash, you can recoup the inherent card disadvantage associated with the effect.
My 540 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 45th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from ONE!
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StaffMy initial take is that if you have the proper creature support for Flash, this is on par with what I call the main pillars of cheaty face (Oath of Druids / Sneak Attack / Eureka / Show and Tell / Channel). Worldspine Wurm is the primary way to cheese your opponent, but there are so many other tricks / value plays to be had that makes Flash extremely powerful.
Draft picks - https://magic.flooey.org/draft/show?id=ospWV0ySWu9z77rc04hfPiI1ASE&deck=ahRzfmV1cGhvcmljLWRpb2RlLTYxNnIRCxIEZGVjaxiAgIC1mMGACQw
Thanks for all this! While I think Flash will mainly be used in dedicated Cheaty Face decks that has a large critical mass of super fatties (like the one posted above), this has opened my eyes to certain Natural Order builds too that has a lot of fair stuff going on that isn't Natural Order. Besides the green super fatties, Flash pairs well with things like Thragtusk / Squirrel Hermits / etc, which can easily spell GG against aggro in the early game. Flash + Palace Jailer / Custodi Lich is also extremely powerful.
My High Octane Unpowered Cube on CubeCobra
There's been enough recent printings of cards that interact powerfully with flash, I think it's worth a revisit.
The cards that were on the fence/bench that I'm adding to support it are:
Worldspine wurm & Triplicate titan.
Many of the best flash targets are in green which helps a natural order/flash deck organically come together.
Cheaty green + reanimator seems wide enough to be worth a test.
The card holds a place in MTG history which increases my desire to cube with it too.
Last Updated 02/06/23
Streaming Standard/Cube on Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/heisenb3rg96
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On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
Working with Welder strategies opens up a lot of options, but for now I think we're set, but maybe I'm underestimating the Atraxa, Grand Unifier ETB off of Flash
What we cube with on XMage (Hasn't been updated since before Strixhaven)
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StaffFlash for Atraxa is essentially Dig Through Time on steroids for 1U + discard Atraxa. My experience with Atraxa so far is that you're "drawing" 4 cards on average. Ancestral Recall is +2 card advantage for 1 mana. If Flash + Atraxa will usually come up to the same amount of card advantage, but gives you much more selection, not to mention that it bins the Atraxa for a follow up reanimator spell. I'd consider a 2 mana Ancestral Recall with better selection + set up for recursion to be pretty to be pretty broken.
What's great about Flash so far in my testing is how versatile it could be. For 2 mana it could win the game on the spot (Worldspine Wurm), clear the board (Atarka / Ashen Rider / Chaos Defiler) or just give you sheer random value (Atraxa / Archon of Cruelty / Woodfall Primus). It's the only cheap Cheaty Face enabler that doesn't have some horrendous cost (Channel) and doesn't allow the opponent to break the symmetry (Show and Tell / Eureka / Oath of Druids).
My High Octane Unpowered Cube on CubeCobra
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Staff- It's among the cheapest of (non-reanimator) Cheaty Face enablers.
- It's extremely versatile since it can do pretty much anything at instant speed and works with most super fatties.
- It's asymmetrical, so there's no risk involved unlike Oath of Druids / Show and Tell / Eureka.
Here's my 3-0 Flash decks that I've archived so far.
My High Octane Unpowered Cube on CubeCobra
My 540 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 45th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from ONE!