I've had the chance to test this for standard, and I can't express enough how good this card has been so far. At 3 mana it becomes mediocre, but at 2 it's good, and at 1 or 0 it becomes insane. In standard it feels super powerful, and I feel like it should be great in cube too. Thoughts?
Yeah probably incredible in a lower powered creature heavy environment... better than O-ring in many lower powered formats IMO. Like in GRN limited it's going to be silly good.
There is a different dynamic in a high powered cube though.. In many match-ups beating down with all your creatures is so important. 1 turn of attack can make a world of difference when a devastating board altering spell can happen on the next turn.. so the opportunity cost of convoke is much steeper.
Very possible I'm overestimating the consequences of that dynamic though.
Sometimes the value of double spelling in a turn is very high... EG. equipping a mirran crusader and O-ringing their only non-green blocker.. There are also occasions where you are constrained on mana and can't cast an oring but could cast conclave tribunal. The highest upside use I can see for this card in a high powered cube is casting it on the same turn you cast armageddon. If you can cripple their resources, forgoing a turn of attack is easily worth it. The difference between a board being at parity after an armageddon and you having an advantage is a world of difference.
Because of things like that, I expect it'll be slightly better than o-ring in a white agro deck. However, there are plenty of decks that can splash an o-ring that don't run much creatures... and in those decks this is a sideboard card only. So, in smaller cubes, it comes down to how many of effects like these do you want to run? I value archetype versatility in removal spells quite a bit.
If it was better than O-ring in a white agressive/midrange deck by a high enough margin, I would run it along side them... I expect it won't be.
Definitely warrants a thread, glad you started one.
As far as constructed goes, a big part of its power has come from dropping it on t3 or 4 on the same turn that i develop up to 2 other creatures. It allows you to play 1 drops for virtually no cost on the same turn, and squeezing a 2 drop or two in there works out sometimes. I hadn't even thought of the Armageddon synergy, but that seems excellent too.
Not bad, but this doesn’t beat out any of the standard effects like O-Ring / Banishing Light / Council’s Judgment / Unexpectedly Absent, and I think Cast Out / Faith’s Fetters / Quarantine Field have higher upsides.
I think I like this more than the other 4+cc O-ring variants, but not more than any of the current ones we play that are 3cc or less. I won't have room at 540.
I'm going to be honest, I'm not much of a fan of the double colored removal. I like when I can splash my removal in any decks with white. The only double colored removal I play in white is Unexpectedly Absent because it's an instant, and no removal over 3cmc. Everything else double colored or over 3 cmc just comes down too late in the game. This card gets around that issue, and can actually be cast for no colored mana at all.
Council's Judgment kills everything, and it's a much more important piece of removal because of that. There isn't a ton of Shroud/Hexproof/Protection floating around, but when it does show up, it's usually the difference between winning and losing a game. I think Judgment is a premiere removal spell in this format.
For Council's Judgment, going through my list, all I can find are True-Name and Thrun, and I've been trying to cut Thrun for ages. I know some lists play Carnage Tyrant, but other than being susceptible to Reclamation Sage, Best within and Upheaval I don't think it has enough distinct advantages that merit the double white in its cost, which can be really rough in decks where white is a secondary or third color. NOt to say its bad, because it sees plenty of legacy play because of its powerlevel, but in a format that sometimes lacks enough fixing to get double colors by t4 or 5 it can be a big enough disadvantage to not include it imo.
Cards like this negate that issue in a unique and incredibly inexpensive way.
There are at least 9 or 10 cards in my 540 that Judgement kills that no other spot removal spell can. That, in addition to being a better O-Ring at its base, is well worth the cost. It's not splashable, but that's fine. I have plenty of other removal spells that are. But there's no way I'd ever cube this spell over Council's Judgment.
Getting around Shroud / Hexproof isn't Council's Judgment's only strength, just being able to permanently exile something with no remorse is powerful on its own.
I think Conclave Tribunal is to exile-enchantments what Stoke the Flames was to burn spells. Stoke didn't play well for us, and I ended up cutting it in favor of playing pretty much any 4-damage burn spells that consistently costed 3 mana. I would expect Tribunal to play similarly ...probably even worse, considering you can't tap creatures at instant speed to pay costs. Now Stoke was great in constructed, but it didn't translate to cube particularly well. I don't see any reason why Tribunal would be different on the O-Ring side of things. Especially since I think there are far more white decks out there that play a small creature count than there are red decks. Which makes this more narrow, in addition to suffering from consistency issues and timing-window issues.
Yeah Council's judgement is much better than Oring from my experiences, but I do have a strong distaste for the 1WW mana cost. I didn't used to think this way, but a strong player in my cube group argued it with me during deck building a while ago and the more I payed attention the differences stood out.
There are enough ways to remove Oring and that the downside is a very real cost. It can be especially bad when it happens at instant speed on your end step... Or when multiple of them are removed at once, with effects like Ugin, Upheavel, cyclonic rift overload. Even if it gets bounced back to your hand, opponent can often get an extra ETB effect on a creature, or an activation on a planeswalker. IE compare how you feel about Oblivion ringing a Woodfall primus, or Council's judgementing one
Also, some of those hexproof permanants that O-ring can't target are threatening enough that the the difference between removing them and not are game changing.
2W > 1WW all day, but it's far from a dealbreaker. Council's Judgment > any 3W Oblivion Ring effect all day. As far as splashability goes, there's plenty of splashable white removal spells like Swords to Plowshares / Path to Exile / Balance / Oblivion Ring / Banishing Light / etc.
I think Conclave Tribunal is to exile-enchantments what Stoke the Flames was to burn spells. Stoke didn't play well for us, and I ended up cutting it in favor of playing pretty much any 4-damage burn spells that consistently costed 3 mana. I would expect Tribunal to play similarly ...probably even worse, considering you can't tap creatures at instant speed to pay costs. Now Stoke was great in constructed, but it didn't translate to cube particularly well. I don't see any reason why Tribunal would be different on the O-Ring side of things. Especially since I think there are far more white decks out there that play a small creature count than there are red decks. Which makes this more narrow, in addition to suffering from consistency issues and timing-window issues.
What made stoke so good in it's standard format was it was paired with 4 copies of hordeling outburst and goblin rabblemaster. Being able to double spell 4 damage burn spells with convoke was a large tempo advantage that's hard to replicate in cube... If you had hordeling outburst and 4 mana, you could cast hordeling outburst and then on their endstep, do 4 points of damage to them... for 1 mana!
Token creators work great with convoke because the opportunity cost of tapping a token for mana often only sacrifices 1 damage... Perhaps more importantly, on offense, the opportunity cost of tapping a summoning sick creature is zero! This dramatically increases the value of double spelling with convoke, and can generate a lot of free mana per card.
IE If you play spectral procession on turn 4 alongside conclave tribunal, you've created a 1 mana Oring. Sram's Expertise is even better. Play sram's expertise, play a creature off of srams expertise, tap your creatures, play Conclave Tribunal for 0! How much free mana was that???
Those are the best case examples though...
The goal of this post was to highlight that value of convoke is inherently very sensitive to the other cards in your deck (and by extension the format).... These sensitivities make it especially difficult to evaluate the value of a spell having a convoke. My intuition agrees with you that it won't be good enough, but Im not 100% confident in it.
I've never been super impressed with convoke in cube, even though I really wanted stoke the flames to work. Most of the time I see this as a o-ring where you tap your wall of omens or looter or something. Aggro decks don't want something that might be 4 mana unless it has a ceiling like Armageddon. And that is probably my biggest problem. When it is good it is still worse that path, stp etc. and at best it is ~o-ring. No way I would play this over quarantine field. Yes sometimes that is a clunk o-ring but other times it just wins unwinnable board states.
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If it had flash I would include it in a heartbeat. As it is, I'm on the fence. Selesnya decks would love it (naturally :rolleyes:) but I don't see other decks really getting much of an advantage out of convoke.
I know it was already mentioned, but I think my favorite part is being able to tap a white creature and get around the colored portion of the cost in case you are limited on white mana sources.
Not sure if thats enough to have it make the cut, but that's nice flexibility to be considered. I could see swapping out banishing light for it since white does have a decent amount of white tokens producing spells/permanents running around cubes these days.
I don't know if that's the right cut, although it might be. Tribunal is a primarily aggressive card, while O-Ring effects are super versatile but a little pricey, so for cuts I'd take out an aggressive slot like Glory-Bound Initiate or something like it.
Does anybody else have a good idea as to what to cut? Because I can't find a good cut, and what I was originally going to cut (Mana Tithe) I decided to swap out for Council's Judgment because of the advice on this forum for me to put it back in.
Playing and watching this card in Standard has made me want to revisit... The tempo swing is potentially massive allowing double spell on a key turn in the midgame.
I’m still playing and enjoying this card at 360, so I’d recommend it if you haven’t tried it. Card is even better in cube where you can Geddon and kill their blocker or value creature or mana rock in the same turn while tapped out. Card is stupidly good in standard, and is pretty great in cube.
Conclave Tribunal
I've had the chance to test this for standard, and I can't express enough how good this card has been so far. At 3 mana it becomes mediocre, but at 2 it's good, and at 1 or 0 it becomes insane. In standard it feels super powerful, and I feel like it should be great in cube too. Thoughts?
Conclave Tribunal
There is a different dynamic in a high powered cube though.. In many match-ups beating down with all your creatures is so important. 1 turn of attack can make a world of difference when a devastating board altering spell can happen on the next turn.. so the opportunity cost of convoke is much steeper.
Very possible I'm overestimating the consequences of that dynamic though.
Sometimes the value of double spelling in a turn is very high... EG. equipping a mirran crusader and O-ringing their only non-green blocker.. There are also occasions where you are constrained on mana and can't cast an oring but could cast conclave tribunal. The highest upside use I can see for this card in a high powered cube is casting it on the same turn you cast armageddon. If you can cripple their resources, forgoing a turn of attack is easily worth it. The difference between a board being at parity after an armageddon and you having an advantage is a world of difference.
Because of things like that, I expect it'll be slightly better than o-ring in a white agro deck. However, there are plenty of decks that can splash an o-ring that don't run much creatures... and in those decks this is a sideboard card only. So, in smaller cubes, it comes down to how many of effects like these do you want to run? I value archetype versatility in removal spells quite a bit.
If it was better than O-ring in a white agressive/midrange deck by a high enough margin, I would run it along side them... I expect it won't be.
Definitely warrants a thread, glad you started one.
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My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
Cards like this negate that issue in a unique and incredibly inexpensive way.
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My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
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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!
There are enough ways to remove Oring and that the downside is a very real cost. It can be especially bad when it happens at instant speed on your end step... Or when multiple of them are removed at once, with effects like Ugin, Upheavel, cyclonic rift overload. Even if it gets bounced back to your hand, opponent can often get an extra ETB effect on a creature, or an activation on a planeswalker. IE compare how you feel about Oblivion ringing a Woodfall primus, or Council's judgementing one
Also, some of those hexproof permanants that O-ring can't target are threatening enough that the the difference between removing them and not are game changing.
Last Updated 02/07/24
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What made stoke so good in it's standard format was it was paired with 4 copies of hordeling outburst and goblin rabblemaster. Being able to double spell 4 damage burn spells with convoke was a large tempo advantage that's hard to replicate in cube... If you had hordeling outburst and 4 mana, you could cast hordeling outburst and then on their endstep, do 4 points of damage to them... for 1 mana!
Token creators work great with convoke because the opportunity cost of tapping a token for mana often only sacrifices 1 damage... Perhaps more importantly, on offense, the opportunity cost of tapping a summoning sick creature is zero! This dramatically increases the value of double spelling with convoke, and can generate a lot of free mana per card.
IE If you play spectral procession on turn 4 alongside conclave tribunal, you've created a 1 mana Oring. Sram's Expertise is even better. Play sram's expertise, play a creature off of srams expertise, tap your creatures, play Conclave Tribunal for 0! How much free mana was that???
Those are the best case examples though...
The goal of this post was to highlight that value of convoke is inherently very sensitive to the other cards in your deck (and by extension the format).... These sensitivities make it especially difficult to evaluate the value of a spell having a convoke. My intuition agrees with you that it won't be good enough, but Im not 100% confident in it.
Last Updated 02/07/24
Streaming Standard/Cube on Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/heisenb3rg96
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Step 2: Resleeve Jeskai Ascendancy package
Step 3: Force Ascendancy combo at next draft
Step 4: Humiliation
Step 5: Remove package of garbage cards. Wait for next spoiler season to try again
But this becomes much less usable in control builds, so I think I am sticking to the versatile removal in O-ring.
Not sure if thats enough to have it make the cut, but that's nice flexibility to be considered. I could see swapping out banishing light for it since white does have a decent amount of white tokens producing spells/permanents running around cubes these days.
Does anybody else have a good idea as to what to cut? Because I can't find a good cut, and what I was originally going to cut (Mana Tithe) I decided to swap out for Council's Judgment because of the advice on this forum for me to put it back in.