I really like Rootwalla. Most of the time, he plays exactly like a 2nd Twinblade Slasher. Even though the wither is better than the Madness on average, there are times where his Madness is really quite valuable, and times where the wither is equally useless. I plan on playing both for quite a while.
wtwlf123 and metamind convinced me in antother cube thread that Lone Missionary is better than Blade of the Sixth Pride. I've seen the cat trade with many three drops and bring some early hurt, but the Missionary seems more reliable. Maybe I make the swap myself.
As for removing Unearth or Burried Alive: I would cut Unearth if it weren't for its cycling ability, which makes that card more flexible. It can be used in an aggro deck or midrange deck, too (to bring back a beater post-wrath or get another use out of an utility creature), while Buried Alive works only in a dedicated reanimator deck. It's still a close call, though.
wtwlf123 and metamind convinced me in antother cube thread that Lone Missionary is better than Blade of the Sixth Pride. I've seen the cat trade with many three drops and bring some early hurt, but the Missionary seems more reliable. Maybe I make the swap myself.
I just made this switch based on their logic too. Seems solid.
hey, thanks dude! i never go over there so i had no idea. the forums suck so hard now that i just gave up posting in them and if i can't post, why read the articles? that is definitely me though. talking about cube, no less! that post is from like 6 months ago, though.
if there was a weekly cube article, i would be over there so fast... but right now i mostly hang out when there's previews and ignore it otherwise.
When I see Healing Salve, I'm often like "Oh girl, I wish I could turn every card into this." Thanks they removed the gain life part, otherwise this would have been broken.
hey, thanks dude! i never go over there so i had no idea. the forums suck so hard now that i just gave up posting in them and if i can't post, why read the articles? that is definitely me though. talking about cube, no less! that post is from like 6 months ago, though.
if there was a weekly cube article, i would be over there so fast... but right now i mostly hang out when there's previews and ignore it otherwise.
Ditto. I used to be all over that forum until the "upgrade" and then I came here. Never looked back. I check their articles every night just to see if there is anything of note. I like their card of the day and announcements etc. Also, sometimes they have neat deck ideas or a peak at how they design cards. that kind of stuff interests me.
When I see Healing Salve, I'm often like "Oh girl, I wish I could turn every card into this." Thanks they removed the gain life part, otherwise this would have been broken.
Overall a great upgrade for your cube, but removing barter in blood can't be right - most of the time this just acts as your second copy of Damnation. I would rather remove one of the reanimation spells, namely dread return or Unearth.
Dread Return should be removed instead of Barter in Blood.
i think orcish settlers have had their time. i like them a lot but they are slow, and i've just added a bunch of good LD so they're not needed anymore. sudden shock will go back in but i'll probably replace it with fire ambush once i get one.
i like barter but i don't know if it's essential. i push reanimator in this cube so i don't want to pull too much out. is there a better reanimation spell than dread return that i'm not running? if i feel like black needs more mass removal i will be happy to put barter back in but consuming vapors does something very similar while being easier to cast and having upsides that, so far in my experience, outweigh the downsides. my cube did fine before with just barter, so i don't think it needs both. but we'll see.
When I see Healing Salve, I'm often like "Oh girl, I wish I could turn every card into this." Thanks they removed the gain life part, otherwise this would have been broken.
While I like Consuming Vapors a lot, it is very common, that your opponent has 2 creatures on the board, with one being significantly better. Vapors gives him the option to just sac the small critter, swing with the big one next turn and play another useless creature to sac during your upkeep (if you are still alive after the attack).
eidolon is right. Consuming Vapors plays like a very different card than Barter in Blood. I think both are worthy of the cube though.
I like Consuming Vapors a lot more than Barter in Blood... which was a pretty below average card in my cube. I'd rather have the one-sided effect in the black decks that I build.
If I played a lot of black control around here, I'd probably play Barter. But most of our black decks are aggro and mid-range based... and the Barter was just bad. Vapors on the other hand, has been excellent so far.
Now, with all that being said, I do feel like both are better than Dread Return, so of you've got one of those things to cut, then I'd play both Barter and Vapors and 86 the Return.
Dread Return isn't bad if you can get a Akroma or one of the other typical reanimation targets into play, but often you only have the option to bring back one of your "regular size" creatures, which just isn't worth spending 4 mana on a situational card.
It is not a reanimation spell but a creature with a really devastating reanimation effect that is missing in your cube: Puppeteer Clique.
5 damage for a ability that doesn't even let you keep the creature may seem like a lot, but you get 2 (offcolor) etb effects and a massive amount of hasty damage in a color in a color where you don't except this and 3+2 evasive power with a built in 2 for 1 is also a ice bonus.
i like this card a lot and i ran it in my cube but ironically i cut it for being too situational. you don't get a "massive amount of hasty damage" unless your opponent happens to have a massive amount of damage in his or her graveyard. it's more situational than dread return, which you can set up with entomb and tutors and discarders like forbid and oona's prowler. the clique doesn't support the reanimator archetype, so it's not really a "reanimator card." it's just a reanimation card. if you'll excuse my unofficial use of those terms.
also i'm not sure what's offcolor about the card.
If you are explicitly searching for a spell, I would recommend Corpse Dance.
yeah, i think you're right about this one. it's probably better than dread return and can be set up. however, nothing in my cube cares about graveyard order so it will be a pain to change that rule. i'll think about this one. i was also thinking about diabolic servitude.
eidolon is right. Consuming Vapors plays like a very different card than Barter in Blood. I think both are worthy of the cube though.
i understand the differences in play, but i think the easier casting cost, the lifegain in monoblack, and the one sided nature of the spell all make up for those situations where your opponent manages to play around the rebound. it's still a new card in the cube but it's performed better than barter ever did (not that i dislike barter). it often plays like a one sided barter with a lot of awesome upsides.
If I played a lot of black control around here, I'd probably play Barter. But most of our black decks are aggro and mid-range based... and the Barter was just bad. Vapors on the other hand, has been excellent so far.
yeah everyone in my playgroup tends toward black aggro and reanimator. i like black control, though. looking at my black section, do you guys think i have enough tools for it? is cutting barter digging a grave for any black control deck?
Now, with all that being said, I do feel like both are better than Dread Return, so of you've got one of those things to cut, then I'd play both Barter and Vapors and 86 the Return.
i think i would feel more comfortable upgrading to a better reanimation spell like corpse dance, but i'm going to ponder this for a while. i don't disagree that dread return is the worse card of the three, but while my main focus in this cube is on powerful play, it's not my only focus.
When I see Healing Salve, I'm often like "Oh girl, I wish I could turn every card into this." Thanks they removed the gain life part, otherwise this would have been broken.
it's still a new card in the cube but it's performed better than barter ever did (not that i dislike barter). it often plays like a one sided barter with a lot of awesome upsides.
The Clique is awesome in multiplayer. The other night someone KRoR it and got all the nastiest things from everyone's yards. Disgusting.
I love diabolic servitude. It hasn't gotten as much play around here since I got recurring nightmare but its still a pain in the ass to deal with without enchantment hate. Killing the creature just brings out their next creature and so on and so on. I give it a B+ for reanimation spells. I give Dread Return a C+, I think.
When I see Healing Salve, I'm often like "Oh girl, I wish I could turn every card into this." Thanks they removed the gain life part, otherwise this would have been broken.
i guess it's just a semantics thing, but i wouldn't call haste off color for black. black has plenty of haste cards (and a fair number of them make the cut in the cube) and haste is officially a black ability according to several articles on the wotc website (including articles written by rosewater). it's certainly not as common as it is in red but it's there and it's been around a while.
When I see Healing Salve, I'm often like "Oh girl, I wish I could turn every card into this." Thanks they removed the gain life part, otherwise this would have been broken.
Haste is not a very black ability. With the exception of the unearth mechanic, there's not a ton of it (less than 20 cards probably?). And how many black creatures with haste are good enough to be considered for the cube? Maybe 3? Maybe? There's Bloodghast (which only sometimes has haste). Then there's Mirri the Cursed, which is a pet card at best... and then what? Spirit of the Night?
Haste just isn't a "black" ability... and certainly not one that's commonly found in the cube.
and then what? Haste just isn't a "black" ability... and certainly not one that's commonly found in the cube.
Also Ichorid, but Bloodghast and Ichorid can't really be counted as Haste, they're more 'recurring' creatures and need to have haste or they would be really bad.
Also Ichorid, but Bloodghast and Ichorid can't really be counted as Haste, they're more 'recurring' creatures and need to have haste or they would be really bad.
ball lightning would be really bad without haste too, which is why they made it in a color with haste. same deal with ichorid and bloodghast. and ashen ghoul. and nether shadow. and nether traitor. and akuta, born of ash. and we were just talking about corpse dance, which does something similar. they wouldn't keep putting this kind of card into black if its effect was off color, and yet they keep printing them. if this was the only type of card in black with haste i'd see it being a valid point but there are other black cards with haste that don't come back from the grave.
Haste just isn't a "black" ability... and certainly not one that's commonly found in the cube.
like i said, it's a matter of semantics. if your definition of an off color ability is "one that is very rare in the cube in that color" or "notably lesser in this color than in another color" then you could say haste is off color for black. there's a lot more red haste than black haste, and a lot more cubeworthy haste in red than in black, which is a completely different thing. but in magic in general, haste is black according to wotc (i'll dig it up if you want) and it shows up on commons.
it comes down to how you use the term. no one is arguing that black is primary in haste or has more haste (cubeworthy or not) than red. but it does have more haste than any color other than red and wizards officially considers haste black.
edit: because i enjoy being thorough, i counted and there's 22 monoblack cards that have or grant haste (i've excluded unearth and suspend cards because they obviously don't count). there are also a few hybrid that do it. that is a pretty damn small number, but it's more than the 14 in green (mostly old, and haste is tertiary in green) and it's a lot more than the 1 in white and the 5 in blue (all pretty old except bonded fetch, which is designed so that the haste plays nothing like it does with vengevine, blistering firecat or bloodghast).
i won't even bother counting the red because it would take too long.
When I see Healing Salve, I'm often like "Oh girl, I wish I could turn every card into this." Thanks they removed the gain life part, otherwise this would have been broken.
Just because they aren't good doesn't mean that black doesn't get haste as part of the color pie. Its a secondary ability for black, I don't expect it to ever be as good as Red. Same reason I don't expect many other colors to have creatures with Trample that are as good as Greens.
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As for removing Unearth or Burried Alive: I would cut Unearth if it weren't for its cycling ability, which makes that card more flexible. It can be used in an aggro deck or midrange deck, too (to bring back a beater post-wrath or get another use out of an utility creature), while Buried Alive works only in a dedicated reanimator deck. It's still a close call, though.
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I just made this switch based on their logic too. Seems solid.
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Yeah, I still like the Blade too, but I can't seem to find something to remove.
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if there was a weekly cube article, i would be over there so fast... but right now i mostly hang out when there's previews and ignore it otherwise.
Ditto. I used to be all over that forum until the "upgrade" and then I came here. Never looked back. I check their articles every night just to see if there is anything of note. I like their card of the day and announcements etc. Also, sometimes they have neat deck ideas or a peak at how they design cards. that kind of stuff interests me.
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OUT --> IN
relic of progenitus --> ring of gix
aether vial --> mindslaver
blade of the sixth pride --> eight-and-a-half-tails
emeria angel --> yosei, the morning star
take possession --> keiga, the tide star
legacys allure --> dismiss
tidings --> forbid
gatekeeper of malakir --> bane of the living
barter in blood --> sinkhole
buried alive --> recurring nightmare
rakka mar --> ravenous baboons
caldera hellion --> crater hellion
ball lightning --> ghitu slinger
incendiary command --> starstorm
impending disaster --> aftershock
sudden shock --> barbarian ring
silvos, rogue elemental --> genesis
wolfbriar elemental --> basking rootwalla
explosive vegetation --> call of the herd
ice storm has yet to arrive but when i get it i'll swap that in.
Dread Return should be removed instead of Barter in Blood.
Agree. I also like Sudden Shock. In fact I like it much more than Orcish Settlers or Decree of Annihilation.
Overall, a very good update.
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i like barter but i don't know if it's essential. i push reanimator in this cube so i don't want to pull too much out. is there a better reanimation spell than dread return that i'm not running? if i feel like black needs more mass removal i will be happy to put barter back in but consuming vapors does something very similar while being easier to cast and having upsides that, so far in my experience, outweigh the downsides. my cube did fine before with just barter, so i don't think it needs both. but we'll see.
eidolon is right. Consuming Vapors plays like a very different card than Barter in Blood. I think both are worthy of the cube though.
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If I played a lot of black control around here, I'd probably play Barter. But most of our black decks are aggro and mid-range based... and the Barter was just bad. Vapors on the other hand, has been excellent so far.
Now, with all that being said, I do feel like both are better than Dread Return, so of you've got one of those things to cut, then I'd play both Barter and Vapors and 86 the Return.
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i like this card a lot and i ran it in my cube but ironically i cut it for being too situational. you don't get a "massive amount of hasty damage" unless your opponent happens to have a massive amount of damage in his or her graveyard. it's more situational than dread return, which you can set up with entomb and tutors and discarders like forbid and oona's prowler. the clique doesn't support the reanimator archetype, so it's not really a "reanimator card." it's just a reanimation card. if you'll excuse my unofficial use of those terms.
also i'm not sure what's offcolor about the card.
yeah, i think you're right about this one. it's probably better than dread return and can be set up. however, nothing in my cube cares about graveyard order so it will be a pain to change that rule. i'll think about this one. i was also thinking about diabolic servitude.
i understand the differences in play, but i think the easier casting cost, the lifegain in monoblack, and the one sided nature of the spell all make up for those situations where your opponent manages to play around the rebound. it's still a new card in the cube but it's performed better than barter ever did (not that i dislike barter). it often plays like a one sided barter with a lot of awesome upsides.
yeah everyone in my playgroup tends toward black aggro and reanimator. i like black control, though. looking at my black section, do you guys think i have enough tools for it? is cutting barter digging a grave for any black control deck?
i think i would feel more comfortable upgrading to a better reanimation spell like corpse dance, but i'm going to ponder this for a while. i don't disagree that dread return is the worse card of the three, but while my main focus in this cube is on powerful play, it's not my only focus.
My feelings exactly.
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I love diabolic servitude. It hasn't gotten as much play around here since I got recurring nightmare but its still a pain in the ass to deal with without enchantment hate. Killing the creature just brings out their next creature and so on and so on. I give it a B+ for reanimation spells. I give Dread Return a C+, I think.
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I'd go with the haste effect.
i guess it's just a semantics thing, but i wouldn't call haste off color for black. black has plenty of haste cards (and a fair number of them make the cut in the cube) and haste is officially a black ability according to several articles on the wotc website (including articles written by rosewater). it's certainly not as common as it is in red but it's there and it's been around a while.
Haste just isn't a "black" ability... and certainly not one that's commonly found in the cube.
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Also Ichorid, but Bloodghast and Ichorid can't really be counted as Haste, they're more 'recurring' creatures and need to have haste or they would be really bad.
ball lightning would be really bad without haste too, which is why they made it in a color with haste. same deal with ichorid and bloodghast. and ashen ghoul. and nether shadow. and nether traitor. and akuta, born of ash. and we were just talking about corpse dance, which does something similar. they wouldn't keep putting this kind of card into black if its effect was off color, and yet they keep printing them. if this was the only type of card in black with haste i'd see it being a valid point but there are other black cards with haste that don't come back from the grave.
like i said, it's a matter of semantics. if your definition of an off color ability is "one that is very rare in the cube in that color" or "notably lesser in this color than in another color" then you could say haste is off color for black. there's a lot more red haste than black haste, and a lot more cubeworthy haste in red than in black, which is a completely different thing. but in magic in general, haste is black according to wotc (i'll dig it up if you want) and it shows up on commons.
it comes down to how you use the term. no one is arguing that black is primary in haste or has more haste (cubeworthy or not) than red. but it does have more haste than any color other than red and wizards officially considers haste black.
edit: because i enjoy being thorough, i counted and there's 22 monoblack cards that have or grant haste (i've excluded unearth and suspend cards because they obviously don't count). there are also a few hybrid that do it. that is a pretty damn small number, but it's more than the 14 in green (mostly old, and haste is tertiary in green) and it's a lot more than the 1 in white and the 5 in blue (all pretty old except bonded fetch, which is designed so that the haste plays nothing like it does with vengevine, blistering firecat or bloodghast).
i won't even bother counting the red because it would take too long.
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