In the middle between Survival of the Fittest and Birthing Pod. This is a very strong mana sink late game and doesn't rely on very specific creature fodder like Birthing Pod does. I'm definitely going to be testing this. This might supplant Pod in the longrun, but I'm going to test both side by side for now.
I like this more than Pod, personally. I play some graveyard synergies in green in the form of both reanimation support and Loam packages, and this is a great card in both of those archetypes. This card is pretty neat.
I really hope this card ends up being strong enough to be viable for high powered cubes, because I absolutely love any sort of card that allows you to discard a card in exchange for another resource. I'll definitely be testing this out, seems like a sweet card for decks that love to grind.
I'm unsure how good this is in your average green deck, but it's definitely better than a card like Noose Constrictor in GB reanimator decks. That'll be my cut for testing and I imagine it'll perform well.
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Even though it's a completely different card, I still have Berserk in my cube, which doesn't really do anything most of the time. Going to probably swap that out for this, because this looks pushed.
Anyone else reminded of Pack Rat with this? You can cast this on 2 mana and never cast another spell, just activate EOT for fun and profit until your opponent is sufficiently crushed. Granted this isn’t always going to be the correct line; certainty has its upsides over spinning the wheel. But as a whole, this makes your deck instant speed, uncounterable, and flood-proof. And once you get to a certain point in the game, you’re certain to find your finishers within a spin or two. And I haven’t even gotten into the discard synergy, which opens up a whole recursion/reanimator avenue that this can just go nuts with.
I’m a bit concerned this card was a mistake, actually.
What's the minimum you'd want to pay for X? X=8, this card seems good since you'll reliably find something, and a decent chance to find something really good. But at lower amounts, it doesn't seem worth gambling on.
What's the minimum you'd want to pay for X? X=8, this card seems good since you'll reliably find something, and a decent chance to find something really good. But at lower amounts, it doesn't seem worth gambling on.
I think you'll pay 0 a decent amount of the time. Tapping just for a discard is sometimes what you need to do, and in such a case, you'll pay whatever extra mana you have in case you flip over a 1 or 2 drop.
I don't know that this card was a mistake, but it definitely feels closer to older engine cards where they figured "what could they possibly do with Earthcraft?"
What's the minimum you'd want to pay for X? X=8, this card seems good since you'll reliably find something, and a decent chance to find something really good. But at lower amounts, it doesn't seem worth gambling on.
It'll vary depending on the deck and the situation you're in, but a lot of times, I expect I'll happily activate this for X=3 or X=4.
This does not feel remotely broken enough to be a mistake to my eyes. Having to pay X and only hitting creatures makes it feel very safe to me as a card.
I don't know how much I even want this for cube. Discarding is part of the cost, so whiffing feels awful. And do you ever want to activate this for less than 4? And even at 4, I'd guess an average deck running, like. 1/3 creatures that are CMC 4 or less, you have like a 1/5 chance of missing at 4. It's nice late game to turn your lands into spells, but not even letting you cheat on mana makes this feel very meh to me.
Card seems great.
What's nice, is the floor of the card is a reasonably costed discard outlet for GB reanimator that serves as a late game mana sink/flood protection. So, even if the cost proves too mana hungry for most decks, it'll at least be solid in GB, a common archetype.
However, I think it'll be great in many more archetypes than that. Heavy green ramp decks that are looking for mana sinks and Tool box creature based type decks should love this.
I really like the instant speed nature of it (have fun attacking into this and 5+ open mana). I also like that it's a threat that can eventually win the game by itself that only costs 2 mana to resolve. IE incredible against counter spell heavy decks.
What keeps it's power level from being that high, is it requires a deck with a lot of creatures, which are generally not the strongest decks. In those decks, this card is competing with other powerful non-creature spells, like premium removal, planes-walkers or equipment.
Seems like a great card, lot's of possible synergistic plays possible with this, Reanimate, land themes with life from the loam, Courser of kruphix, it also let's you discard for x=0 as well which might come up more often than not. Extra value of any cards with flashback.
Easy playable in reanimate decks, in longer midrange vs midrange or midrange vs control decks as a way to keep finding threats. Control decks will have a hard time competing if the game gets to an open board and you have the ability to dig 6 or 7 and put a creature into play. Even a simple GW midrange deck there is a lot of really juicy targets you can hit. I think in these decks that curve out lower on the cost scale the discard won't be that big of a deal since you can get rid of lands you don't need anymore to draw for better creatures. In ramp decks you will be able to dig deep enough and can turn mana dorks into something more playable.
Now I don't think this is the best green card ever printed, but it has a lot of decks that would want an effect similar to this that It should be tested heavily based on the amount of decks that can get good use out of it.
then it plays really well with Collected Company which I run with a bant tempo deck available. As you will have a large enough amount of x=3 or less cost creatures for you to be able to tap this for 3 and have over 75 % chance of hitting. (you need 15 hits for 75 % chance with looking at top 3 cards), turning extra mana and late mana dorks into pure gas.
And lastly it also is just crazy with super ramp, since you'll have +75 % chance to hit bombs, even if you only have 6-8 of them in your deck.
I think this card is insane. It only costs two mana, and is ready to tap the turn you play it, it looks fun and exciting to play with, provides card advantage(as you trade useless cards in the late game into 8 drops), instant speed tricks and can't be countered. It plays with a lot of the green archetypes, (Ramp, pod/Coco, reanimator and even the rock deck wants this)
then it plays really well with Collected Company which I run with a bant tempo deck available. As you will have a large enough amount of x=3 or less cost creatures for you to be able to tap this for 3 and have over 75 % chance of hitting. (you need 15 hits for 75 % chance with looking at top 3 cards), turning extra mana and late mana dorks into pure gas.
And lastly it also is just crazy with super ramp, since you'll have +75 % chance to hit bombs, even if you only have 6-8 of them in your deck.
I think this card is insane. It only costs two mana, and is ready to tap the turn you play it, it looks fun and exciting to play with, provides card advantage(as you trade useless cards in the late game into 8 drops), instant speed tricks and can't be countered. It plays with a lot of the green archetypes, (Ramp, pod/Coco, reanimator and even the rock deck wants this)
Very well said. This card just does a lot of what green is trying to do in most cubes.
I love it, one of my favorite cards from the set so far. Fantastic art helps too, but the above posters have hit on the gameplay advantages pretty well.
I really want this card to be great, but it seems a bit overhyped here. Just some quick hypergeometric math to approximate hit rates:
If you have 17 Creatures cmc <= 4, you'll miss 10% of the time you activate this for 4
If you have 17 Creatures cmc <= 3, you'll miss 18% of the time you activate this for 3
Having that many hits in your deck is not common to begin with, and the rate you miss is almost too high for my taste. Spending two mana for an enchantment and then spending a card AND more mana for not a sure thing? Even if you hit, whose to say you don't just hit a mana dork. If you spend that much time/resources on a play that isn't impactful, you're going to lose. I see the appeal that it's a powerful mana sink and at worst it's a discard outlet, but my gut says this asks way too much of you.
I'll likely still test it, as I support the toolbox pod strategies, and often am looking for mana sinks because those decks can play the Vizier of Remedies + Devoted Druid combo, but I'm skeptical.
I love it, one of my favorite cards from the set so far. Fantastic art helps too, but the above posters have hit on the gameplay advantages pretty well.
then it plays really well with Collected Company which I run with a bant tempo deck available. As you will have a large enough amount of x=3 or less cost creatures for you to be able to tap this for 3 and have over 75 % chance of hitting. (you need 15 hits for 75 % chance with looking at top 3 cards), turning extra mana and late mana dorks into pure gas.
And lastly it also is just crazy with super ramp, since you'll have +75 % chance to hit bombs, even if you only have 6-8 of them in your deck.
I think this card is insane. It only costs two mana, and is ready to tap the turn you play it, it looks fun and exciting to play with, provides card advantage(as you trade useless cards in the late game into 8 drops), instant speed tricks and can't be countered. It plays with a lot of the green archetypes, (Ramp, pod/Coco, reanimator and even the rock deck wants this)
I don't know why we are okay on 75% here? Spending two mana, and then three mana AND a card is a big cost to pay when there's a 25% chance you brick. Sure, it's not the only application of the card, but until you have a bunch of mana mana, you're going to spend a card and your whole turn and miss a non insignificant portion of the time.
I think if you are a midrange deck and play this turn 2 and then activate turn 3 you are doing it wrong. It's more of a turn 2 that you play if you have nothing else going on, and then you sit on it a few turns, and then as the game drags on you have a repeatable form of card advantage since you can turn any useless card to dig deeper to find what you need to close out the game.
Discarding a card, spending a lot of mana and not even the guarantee to hit a relevant target.
Instant speed, GY-enabler and counter protection in return.
I am not convinced. I guess it's better than Birthing Pod for cube, but not by a large margin.
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In the middle between Survival of the Fittest and Birthing Pod. This is a very strong mana sink late game and doesn't rely on very specific creature fodder like Birthing Pod does. I'm definitely going to be testing this. This might supplant Pod in the longrun, but I'm going to test both side by side for now.
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Definitely going to be testing this out and I have high hopes that it will stick around for a while. Also, the art is super sweet.
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I’m a bit concerned this card was a mistake, actually.
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I don't know that this card was a mistake, but it definitely feels closer to older engine cards where they figured "what could they possibly do with Earthcraft?"
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I don't know how much I even want this for cube. Discarding is part of the cost, so whiffing feels awful. And do you ever want to activate this for less than 4? And even at 4, I'd guess an average deck running, like. 1/3 creatures that are CMC 4 or less, you have like a 1/5 chance of missing at 4. It's nice late game to turn your lands into spells, but not even letting you cheat on mana makes this feel very meh to me.
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What's nice, is the floor of the card is a reasonably costed discard outlet for GB reanimator that serves as a late game mana sink/flood protection. So, even if the cost proves too mana hungry for most decks, it'll at least be solid in GB, a common archetype.
However, I think it'll be great in many more archetypes than that. Heavy green ramp decks that are looking for mana sinks and Tool box creature based type decks should love this.
I really like the instant speed nature of it (have fun attacking into this and 5+ open mana). I also like that it's a threat that can eventually win the game by itself that only costs 2 mana to resolve. IE incredible against counter spell heavy decks.
What keeps it's power level from being that high, is it requires a deck with a lot of creatures, which are generally not the strongest decks. In those decks, this card is competing with other powerful non-creature spells, like premium removal, planes-walkers or equipment.
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Easy playable in reanimate decks, in longer midrange vs midrange or midrange vs control decks as a way to keep finding threats. Control decks will have a hard time competing if the game gets to an open board and you have the ability to dig 6 or 7 and put a creature into play. Even a simple GW midrange deck there is a lot of really juicy targets you can hit. I think in these decks that curve out lower on the cost scale the discard won't be that big of a deal since you can get rid of lands you don't need anymore to draw for better creatures. In ramp decks you will be able to dig deep enough and can turn mana dorks into something more playable.
Now I don't think this is the best green card ever printed, but it has a lot of decks that would want an effect similar to this that It should be tested heavily based on the amount of decks that can get good use out of it.
http://www.cubetutor.com/cubeblog/63569
It works as a reanimator outlet.
It plays with the Sylvan Library, Nissa, Steward of Elements, Courser of Kruphix and Oracle of Mul Daya focus on the top of your library theme.
then it plays really well with Collected Company which I run with a bant tempo deck available. As you will have a large enough amount of x=3 or less cost creatures for you to be able to tap this for 3 and have over 75 % chance of hitting. (you need 15 hits for 75 % chance with looking at top 3 cards), turning extra mana and late mana dorks into pure gas.
And lastly it also is just crazy with super ramp, since you'll have +75 % chance to hit bombs, even if you only have 6-8 of them in your deck.
I think this card is insane. It only costs two mana, and is ready to tap the turn you play it, it looks fun and exciting to play with, provides card advantage(as you trade useless cards in the late game into 8 drops), instant speed tricks and can't be countered. It plays with a lot of the green archetypes, (Ramp, pod/Coco, reanimator and even the rock deck wants this)
If you have 17 Creatures cmc <= 4, you'll miss 10% of the time you activate this for 4
If you have 17 Creatures cmc <= 3, you'll miss 18% of the time you activate this for 3
Having that many hits in your deck is not common to begin with, and the rate you miss is almost too high for my taste. Spending two mana for an enchantment and then spending a card AND more mana for not a sure thing? Even if you hit, whose to say you don't just hit a mana dork. If you spend that much time/resources on a play that isn't impactful, you're going to lose. I see the appeal that it's a powerful mana sink and at worst it's a discard outlet, but my gut says this asks way too much of you.
I'll likely still test it, as I support the toolbox pod strategies, and often am looking for mana sinks because those decks can play the Vizier of Remedies + Devoted Druid combo, but I'm skeptical.
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I don't know why we are okay on 75% here? Spending two mana, and then three mana AND a card is a big cost to pay when there's a 25% chance you brick. Sure, it's not the only application of the card, but until you have a bunch of mana mana, you're going to spend a card and your whole turn and miss a non insignificant portion of the time.
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http://www.cubetutor.com/cubeblog/63569
Instant speed, GY-enabler and counter protection in return.
I am not convinced. I guess it's better than Birthing Pod for cube, but not by a large margin.