I think Worm Harvest is situational adequate at 1. Which is a fancy way of saying 1 is okay if you're not under pressure.
Worm Harvest and Cenn's Enlistment is not a good comparison because Worm Harvest is a build-around me engine and Enlistment isn't. You put Worm Harvest into a deck because you plan on casting it 3+ times. Saying 'It's not more effective than Cenn's Enlistment until you cast it 3 times' is almost beyond the point.
The real discussion to have here is about whether or not the engine involved is good enough to support Worm Harvest. And we won't really know that without testing.
Edit: I now see a thread on this exact topic, which is good.
Point is, what's the perfect card to buy you time until your Worm Harvest starts getting bigger and bigger? That's right, Worm Harvest. Yes, the first cast (assuming one token) must be seen as strictly setting things up. The second gains you something, and as soon as you get three tokens, it's hard to overcome that soon enough until more worms spawn. This card takes over games. This is no Lingering Souls. Nobody goes comparing Sprout Swarm to Souls saying "I have to pay 14 mana to gain as much as I get from Souls" because when you've done that, you still have the card that makes more and more tokens.
Specialities about the cube: U tempo, B aggro, R slow-ish are supported. G aggro is not.
Currently trying to support tokens in all colors but blue, in different ways: W pumps them, B sacrifices them, R suicides them, G has decent-sized ones.
cube list outdated
*literal C/U definition according to gatherer
**some cards are banned. Library of Alexandria, Land Tax, Sol Ring.
The third time you activate worm harvest, starting from 1 token, gives you the same number of tokens as 3 cenn's enlistments. The thing is that you've started a turn later and a token lesser.
5 mana to "set up" and get 1 token is absolutely not an adequate way to defend yourself. At all. You would have to be in a completely nonthreatening board state to justify paying 5 mana for a 1/1 just so you can pay 5 mana again for 2 1/1s and so on.
I would have to see it activated a four times for me to consider it worthwhile if you're starting from 1 token. It absolutely should not take a long time for you to overcome the first 2 activations since that's only 3 tokens spread out over 2 turns with you probably doing absolutely nothing else in the meantime. And considering that it hasn't even really begun to protect you until the third activation, you're too far behind to consider living long enough for this to matter.
It's not as though you're activating it every turn, either. You can expect to go quite some time before you really start to see it have an impact.
Worm Harvest and Cenn's Enlistment is not a good comparison because Worm Harvest is a build-around me engine and Enlistment isn't. You put Worm Harvest into a deck because you plan on casting it 3+ times. Saying 'It's not more effective than Cenn's Enlistment until you cast it 3 times' is almost beyond the point.
Comparing the output of the two cards makes perfect sense. Cenn's enlistment is a pretty good standard for how bad a card can be and still be perfectly cubable. If cenn's enlistment was much worse, if at all worse, it probably would not be cubable. So I want to see if a card that has a similar pattern of token production is better or worse, or what it would take for it to not be worse. For worm harvest to be competitive, I could not imagine making less than 2 tokens on the first shot and would really want to get to a third activation. That's talking turn 8-10 territory.
Now that we have a baseline for what we'd need it to do in order for it to function at a competitive level, we can see what we'd have to have a deck look like in order to reliably get 2 or more lands in the 'yard by the time you cast this. And that sounds daunting indeed. Even if you have cycling lands, you may want to play them. If you have harrow, you still have less than a 50% chance of drawing it. If you have wild mongrel, you still need to have discarded extra lands before getting to your 5th mana source. Honestly... you practically need a dredge card and there are not enough cubable ones.
It's not as though you're activating it every turn, either. You can expect to go quite some time before you really start to see it have an impact.
I agree with Leelue here, the combined mana cost and slow yield on Worm Harvest seems pretty bulky. I'm curious to see how they make it viable in MM limited.
Imo the apparent lack of ICE/APO painlands at uncommon in this set is a real missed opportunity. Not just for us, but to facilitate entrance into the Modern format for budget players. Plus it would have just been a cool move.
Imo the apparent lack of IPA/APO painlands at uncommon in this set is a real missed opportunity. Not just for us, but to facilitate entrance into the Modern format for budget players. Plus it would have just been a cool move.
Wow I never thought of the budget MM player. That does kinda suck.
Vivids are better for drafting though. I guess they chose that path instead of the, you know, slated purpose of the set.
Worm Harvest and Cenn's Enlistment is not a good comparison because Worm Harvest is a build-around me engine and Enlistment isn't. You put Worm Harvest into a deck because you plan on casting it 3+ times. Saying 'It's not more effective than Cenn's Enlistment until you cast it 3 times' is almost beyond the point.
The real discussion to have here is about whether or not the engine involved is good enough to support Worm Harvest. And we won't really know that without testing.
Edit: I now see a thread on this exact topic, which is good.
https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/peasantsnowcube
-- Updated with Outlaws of Thunder Junction
The PioneWer Peasant CUbe
https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/pionewer
-- Updated with Murders at Karlov Manor
Constant Mists or Sunstone and Worm Harvest....yeowch
Other Worm Harvest interactions:
Zuran Orb
Troubled Healer
450, Peasant*, unpowered**
Specialities about the cube:
U tempo, B aggro, R slow-ish are supported. G aggro is not.
Currently trying to support tokens in all colors but blue, in different ways: W pumps them, B sacrifices them, R suicides them, G has decent-sized ones.
cube list outdated
*literal C/U definition according to gatherer
**some cards are banned. Library of Alexandria, Land Tax, Sol Ring.
5 mana to "set up" and get 1 token is absolutely not an adequate way to defend yourself. At all. You would have to be in a completely nonthreatening board state to justify paying 5 mana for a 1/1 just so you can pay 5 mana again for 2 1/1s and so on.
I would have to see it activated a four times for me to consider it worthwhile if you're starting from 1 token. It absolutely should not take a long time for you to overcome the first 2 activations since that's only 3 tokens spread out over 2 turns with you probably doing absolutely nothing else in the meantime. And considering that it hasn't even really begun to protect you until the third activation, you're too far behind to consider living long enough for this to matter.
It's not as though you're activating it every turn, either. You can expect to go quite some time before you really start to see it have an impact.
Comparing the output of the two cards makes perfect sense. Cenn's enlistment is a pretty good standard for how bad a card can be and still be perfectly cubable. If cenn's enlistment was much worse, if at all worse, it probably would not be cubable. So I want to see if a card that has a similar pattern of token production is better or worse, or what it would take for it to not be worse. For worm harvest to be competitive, I could not imagine making less than 2 tokens on the first shot and would really want to get to a third activation. That's talking turn 8-10 territory.
Now that we have a baseline for what we'd need it to do in order for it to function at a competitive level, we can see what we'd have to have a deck look like in order to reliably get 2 or more lands in the 'yard by the time you cast this. And that sounds daunting indeed. Even if you have cycling lands, you may want to play them. If you have harrow, you still have less than a 50% chance of drawing it. If you have wild mongrel, you still need to have discarded extra lands before getting to your 5th mana source. Honestly... you practically need a dredge card and there are not enough cubable ones.
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
I agree with Leelue here, the combined mana cost and slow yield on Worm Harvest seems pretty bulky. I'm curious to see how they make it viable in MM limited.
Masked Admirers on the other hand is a slam dunk.
Imo the apparent lack of ICE/APO painlands at uncommon in this set is a real missed opportunity. Not just for us, but to facilitate entrance into the Modern format for budget players. Plus it would have just been a cool move.
Wow I never thought of the budget MM player. That does kinda suck.
Vivids are better for drafting though. I guess they chose that path instead of the, you know, slated purpose of the set.
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article