hyrexian War Beast is crap if you have some amount of bounce in your cube
Not really. Against something like heavy blue tempo, you can just wait to play it or even side it out if you're too concerned about the downside. Cards have answers / bad matchups, that doesn't mean they're bad.
hyrexian War Beast is crap if you have some amount of bounce in your cube
Not really. Against something like heavy blue tempo, you can just wait to play it or even side it out if you're too concerned about the downside. Cards have answers / bad matchups, that doesn't mean they're bad.
Why even reply to Humphrey? Just feeding the trollpool.
hyrexian War Beast is crap if you have some amount of bounce in your cube
Not really. Against something like heavy blue tempo, you can just wait to play it or even side it out if you're too concerned about the downside. Cards have answers / bad matchups, that doesn't mean they're bad.
Why even reply to Humphrey? Just feeding the trollpool.
?
Although, the Beast stats are slightly above curve, I think the downside is much to heavy. The card was useful back in 1996 when White vs Black needed it because of the Protections and stopped being good after that.
The average paupercube has much to much removal and/or bounce.
I think war beast is a fine pauper cube card, as long as you don't try to use it outside of its one niche: Curve-topper in a super fast, ultra low-curve aggro deck.
2 color pauper cube aggro decks usually can't risk playing less than 16 lands, as they need 8 of each basic land to reliably drop their cards, and there certainly aren't nonbasic lands to help. The result is that low-curve decks find themselves drawing a fifth land that they almost never want. Some extra mana goes into equip costs and onboard pumps like darkthicket wolf, but for the most part, I think after land #4 (sometimes even #3) you can afford to pitch lands to power better cards. (This is even more true for green decks with llanowar elves and clones.)
"Powerful cards for low-curve decks that require you to throw out extra lands" isn't a super crowded niche, but drawing more than one of those cards makes them a lot worse, and they cut into your deck's ability to make use of 4 drops and fireball effects. There are probably some more but these are the main ones in my mind:
All these cards pack a huge punch for their mana costs. The zendikons are undercosted beaters with haste, magma burst is often just "kill 2 guys," looting digs for relevant spells for just 1 mana, and raiders and warbeast are just huge (the difference between a 3 toughness centaur courser and the 3/4 war beast in pauper cube is critical, and very appealing to a deck that can afford to choose the beast.) It's just a question of whether you think a cube has room for all of them to play nice together.
I think war beast is a fine pauper cube card, as long as you don't try to use it outside of its one niche: Curve-topper in a super fast, ultra low-curve aggro deck.
2 color pauper cube aggro decks usually can't risk playing less than 16 lands, as they need 8 of each basic land to reliably drop their cards, and there certainly aren't nonbasic lands to help. The result is that low-curve decks find themselves drawing a fifth land that they almost never want. Some extra mana goes into equip costs and onboard pumps like darkthicket wolf, but for the most part, I think after land #4 (sometimes even #3) you can afford to pitch lands to power better cards. (This is even more true for green decks with llanowar elves and clones.)
"Powerful cards for low-curve decks that require you to throw out extra lands" isn't a super crowded niche, but drawing more than one of those cards makes them a lot worse, and they cut into your deck's ability to make use of 4 drops and fireball effects. There are probably some more but these are the main ones in my mind:
All these cards pack a huge punch for their mana costs. The zendikons are undercosted beaters with haste, magma burst is often just "kill 2 guys," looting digs for relevant spells for just 1 mana, and raiders and warbeast are just huge (the difference between a 3 toughness centaur courser and the 3/4 war beast in pauper cube is critical, and very appealing to a deck that can afford to choose the beast.) It's just a question of whether you think a cube has room for all of them to play nice together.
I enjoy Corrupted Zendikon in black suicide aggro decks. It's a large body that comes out fairly early. Though I couldn't see it being played in any black control decks so it is slightly narrow for that reason. I used to run Wind Zendikon in my cube but blue doesn't support aggro as well as black and blue tends to need its mana so I cut it. I am also thinking of giving Crusher Zendikon a try.
Have people played Corrupted Zendikon, Crusher Zendikon or Wind Zendikon? They always seemed interesting to me, particularly Corrupted Zendikon. Wind is cool too but Blue is so stacked. Thinking of them as: Haste, this creature cannot attack unless you pay 1 seems solid. They also fit two spots on the curve which is a neat little perk, being hasty or etb tapped for one less.
I knew people tried Crusher Zendikon, though I haven't.
EDIT: Also lol at ntDars's "Agreed." in response to metalvolence's essay.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Did you read my essay? Or is that what prompted your question?
Corrupted is awesome, crusher is ok.
Wind seems viable for those of you who like blue aggro, but casting it on turn 1 does nothing but give them a chance to bolt your land, and if your aggro deck doesn't have a 2 drop you probably should have mulliganed...? Wind zendikon seems like an ok turn 4 play with another spell, kind of like rogue elephant.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
.
Knowledge is power, money is power, time is money, you are actually gaining time by reading my posts
EDIT: Also lol at ntDars's "Agreed." in response to metalvolence's essay.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Did you read my essay? Or is that what prompted your question?
Hahaha my bad - I was agreeing with the fact you said it's a great card as long as it is filling it's niche - a fast aggressive deck with no real reliance on lands. The fact that it survives through most red burn and can trade with other 3/3's is huge on T3, especially if you're going 2nd.
And yes, I read it I was probably hammered though when I responded. Nothing better than drunkenly judging pauper cube cards.
Has anyone tried running Perilous Research? I've been playing Altar's Reap for some time now and it's really never been bad to me, and the same effect (but better) in blue seems pretty powerful.
Has anyone tried running Perilous Research? I've been playing Altar's Reap for some time now and it's really never been bad to me, and the same effect (but better) in blue seems pretty powerful.
It's fine (not fantastic, but it does decent work), and I've been playing it since the rarity downgrade in Modern Masters. It gives you something to do in response to removal and late game you can just sac a land to it.
Has anyone tried running Perilous Research? I've been playing Altar's Reap for some time now and it's really never been bad to me, and the same effect (but better) in blue seems pretty powerful.
It's fine (not fantastic, but it does decent work), and I've been playing it since the rarity downgrade in Modern Masters. It gives you something to do in response to removal and late game you can just sac a land to it.
Don't forget it allows you to get some card draw off of those early game creatures you'll be playing in more control oriented decks that WILL die to Midrange/Aggro decks. That block and extra leverage you get off those trades are well worth it.
Example; Doomed Traveler is one of the most perfect cards for a control deck, giving you two blockers on the 1st turn. Turn 2 you're blocking with it and you can easily block sac to either Perilous Research or Altar's Reap, next block the same. That's pretty much what I'm talking about and it happens much more often than you'd think with how midrangey a format Pauper cube is.
Has anyone tried running Perilous Research? I've been playing Altar's Reap for some time now and it's really never been bad to me, and the same effect (but better) in blue seems pretty powerful.
It's fine (not fantastic, but it does decent work), and I've been playing it since the rarity downgrade in Modern Masters. It gives you something to do in response to removal and late game you can just sac a land to it.
Don't forget it allows you to get some card draw off of those early game creatures you'll be playing in more control oriented decks that WILL die to Midrange/Aggro decks. That block and extra leverage you get off those trades are well worth it.
Example; Doomed Traveler is one of the most perfect cards for a control deck, giving you two blockers on the 1st turn. Turn 2 you're blocking with it and you can easily block sac to either Perilous Research or Altar's Reap, next block the same. That's pretty much what I'm talking about and it happens much more often than you'd think with how midrangey a format Pauper cube is.
I don't think sac'ing a blocker is a bad thing but I think you're definitely overplaying the situations and "advantages" to doing so in regards to Perilous Research and Altar's Reap.
As far as the given situation of blocking on turn two with a Doomed Traveler, I think that if you're blocking on turn 2 (on the play or on the draw) you probably won't want to sac the Doomed Traveler. If you're on the play and you're blocking on turn 2 with Doomed Traveler, you're blocking an opponent's 1 drop which is probably not the most likely of scenario in pauper anyways. But if you are, that one drop will most likely have 1 toughness (with very few exceptions) and trading with the creature is a much better trade than sac'ing to Perilous Research and leaving their creature on the table. If you're on the draw, you're blocking a 2 drop which probably still has a decent chance of trading with Doomed Traveler (a decent number of pauper 2 drops are X/1's).
TLDR: I think that a turn 2 scenario isn't the most common situation for you sac'ing creatures like Doomed Traveler on blocks for Perilous Research. I think you would definitely be looking at much later turns where you would both benefit from blocking a larger creature and keeping mana open on your opponents turn for removal/counter back up.
Now given that you are playing Perilous Research on later turns, I think the direct benefit of playing a card like Perilous Research and Altar's Reap over a card like Divination is so minimal that it isn't worth including unless you run a major sacrifice theme. The main argument that people bring up for these cards is that you can either sacrifice a creature that you're going to chump with anyways or that you're going to use it on a creature targeted by removal. In both situations, you're going to lose the creature either way no matter which card you have in your hand (Divination vs Perilous Research). What you are benefiting from is a reduction in mana cost by (1) and instant speed. This seems significant in terms of counter/draw play style aside from the fact that both of these scenarios will happen pre/during combat before your opponent plays their threats that you're looking to counter in main phase 2. What you're losing is the ability to draw the cards you need outside of these scenarios without losing a creature (a viable threat or even a chump block) or waiting for your opponent to do something for you to justify using Perilous Research or Altar's Reap.
TLDR: Unless you're running a heavy sacrifice theme or you really want blue/black to have a specific answer to white removal so you can use reanimation spells, you're better off using other draw spells like Divination or Think Twice if you want to support draw go. Although the cards make it seem like you trade your opponent's spells/attacks for card gain, you're really just trading (1) mana and instant speed for waiting on your opponent. Whether you play Divination or Perilous Research, you still get to block the attack or your opponent still gets to kill your creature with their removal. Sorry for the huge essay ><
I agree - in the end Divination is much more reliable. Regardless, I don't think I'll be adding in Perilous Research since there are much better cards in the slot, and Altar's Reap is great in black decks that could potentially kill yourself with cards that do damage to you on upkeep's, or cards that will be sacrificed anyway.
Yeah ntDars, not sure what to make of it all, but to try to get something out of the list, here's some of the "recommended cards" that seemed worth discussing. Any of these stand out as blasphemous to not play? I have reasons for all the cuts, but if there's enough argument for a card, I could cycle them back in.
The only one of those I'm not running is Garruk's Companion to make way for Golgari Brownscale to support the Dredge/Graveyard shell, which has been working really well so far. The Companion is okay, but for a T2 two Toughness creature that isn't really that splash able I'm not really that impressed - especially when it's much easier for green to get out something much better on T2.
Yeah ntDars, not sure what to make of it all, but to try to get something out of the list, here's some of the "recommended cards" that seemed worth discussing. Any of these stand out as blasphemous to not play? I have reasons for all the cuts, but if there's enough argument for a card, I could cycle them back in.
Do you like the fact that bounce removes pacifism? I don't; I'd use journey instead.
Blind zealot is cool and plays cutely with black's plethora of raise dead effects.
Burst lightning is a cool card, but if you've put a cap on removal for 3+ toughness creatures or something then don't worry about it. I still think lava dart sucks and I would switch it for burst.
Searing blaze is awkward but the sheer power is second to none.
Someone once won a draft of my cube with a deck that maindecked manic vandal. I don't know if that actually means anything, but I'll remember it forever.
Edge of autumn seems really good if you support the green-based multicolor ramp deck. I just added it, haven't had much chance to use it but it seems generally better than rampant growth and farseek.
Beast - Probably too weak, but it is a 5/7 vigilance when monstrous.
Starfish - I like it. Improves draws. Blocks stuff. Just like all good blue dudes.
Stayr Hopline - Only in tribal.
Ajani's Presence - Seems pretty good. Strive is basically the same as replicate but for instants.
Also for not-pauper the new enchantress is awesome.
Now Blue control hasn't exactly struggled. It's been a fine archetype in my current list, going 2-1 often enough, but looking at what creatures I'm actually playing, that might be incentive enough to play Scryfish, because I simply need blue blockers.
You forgot about Mnemonic Wall. Also, I wouldn't classify cards like Sea Gate Oracle as purely defensive creatures - they're primarily good because of their additional utility. I think the only "purely defensive" (no substantial additional utility) creature I currently play is Calcite Snapper, because shroud is super good. I played Drift of Phantasms and Giant Tortoise for a while simply to have more blue blockers, but they really didn't change control's viability and non-control blue decks never wanted them.
Also, I'm not sure whether just adding blue blockers will solve your issues with blue control, especially since "control" decks seem to tend towards tempo-control decks rather than decks that want to turtle around with blockers until they play a finisher. I've liked more versatile cards such as Nephalia Seakite and Sentinels of Glen Elendra in the place of pure walls.
Now Blue control hasn't exactly struggled. It's been a fine archetype in my current list, going 2-1 often enough, but looking at what creatures I'm actually playing, that might be incentive enough to play Scryfish, because I simply need blue blockers.
I'm not running Omenspeaker but for ages I've heard people tell me how good it is - for me though the low CMC Blue section is just super tight so dropping something for it will be difficult. I've got pretty much everything else in there you could expect though. To be honest I like Omenspeaker even more than the fish though, since it lets you get that Scry down the turn it comes down (which in any tempo or control shell is super important on T2), and it Scry's for 3 - which takes 4 turns for the Scrystar. Let's not forget it's 1 Power too, which can't be overlooked.
Omenspeaker/Starfish (one of the two) are on my short list to come in once I cut a couple bounce spells, which actually is something that needs to happen. I've felt there are too many in my cube. Any help pruning would be appreciated because I honestly can't decide which are the worst of them, other than Aethersnipe.
I saw Drift of Phantasms mentioned- is that guy good? It grabs a pretty reasonable number of good targets I guess, but is the other mode worth it?
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
Not really. Against something like heavy blue tempo, you can just wait to play it or even side it out if you're too concerned about the downside. Cards have answers / bad matchups, that doesn't mean they're bad.
Why even reply to Humphrey? Just feeding the trollpool.
?
Although, the Beast stats are slightly above curve, I think the downside is much to heavy. The card was useful back in 1996 when White vs Black needed it because of the Protections and stopped being good after that.
The average paupercube has much to much removal and/or bounce.
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
2 color pauper cube aggro decks usually can't risk playing less than 16 lands, as they need 8 of each basic land to reliably drop their cards, and there certainly aren't nonbasic lands to help. The result is that low-curve decks find themselves drawing a fifth land that they almost never want. Some extra mana goes into equip costs and onboard pumps like darkthicket wolf, but for the most part, I think after land #4 (sometimes even #3) you can afford to pitch lands to power better cards. (This is even more true for green decks with llanowar elves and clones.)
"Powerful cards for low-curve decks that require you to throw out extra lands" isn't a super crowded niche, but drawing more than one of those cards makes them a lot worse, and they cut into your deck's ability to make use of 4 drops and fireball effects. There are probably some more but these are the main ones in my mind:
Black: corrupted zendikon (ties up a land)
Red: magma burst, crusher zendikon, faithless looting
Colorless: gathan raiders, phyrexian war beast
All these cards pack a huge punch for their mana costs. The zendikons are undercosted beaters with haste, magma burst is often just "kill 2 guys," looting digs for relevant spells for just 1 mana, and raiders and warbeast are just huge (the difference between a 3 toughness centaur courser and the 3/4 war beast in pauper cube is critical, and very appealing to a deck that can afford to choose the beast.) It's just a question of whether you think a cube has room for all of them to play nice together.
Knowledge is power, money is power, time is money, you are actually gaining time by reading my posts
check out my EDH and Pauper EDH decks here
Agreed.
EDH Decks:
BWR Alesha, Who Smiles at Death BWR
BUG Tasigur, the Golden Fang BUG
BRU Mishra, Artificer Prodigy BRU
R Jaya Ballard, Task Mage R
U Hakim, Loreweaver U
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Did you read my essay? Or is that what prompted your question?
Corrupted is awesome, crusher is ok.
Wind seems viable for those of you who like blue aggro, but casting it on turn 1 does nothing but give them a chance to bolt your land, and if your aggro deck doesn't have a 2 drop you probably should have mulliganed...? Wind zendikon seems like an ok turn 4 play with another spell, kind of like rogue elephant.
Knowledge is power, money is power, time is money, you are actually gaining time by reading my posts
check out my EDH and Pauper EDH decks here
Hahaha my bad - I was agreeing with the fact you said it's a great card as long as it is filling it's niche - a fast aggressive deck with no real reliance on lands. The fact that it survives through most red burn and can trade with other 3/3's is huge on T3, especially if you're going 2nd.
And yes, I read it
It's fine (not fantastic, but it does decent work), and I've been playing it since the rarity downgrade in Modern Masters. It gives you something to do in response to removal and late game you can just sac a land to it.
Don't forget it allows you to get some card draw off of those early game creatures you'll be playing in more control oriented decks that WILL die to Midrange/Aggro decks. That block and extra leverage you get off those trades are well worth it.
Example; Doomed Traveler is one of the most perfect cards for a control deck, giving you two blockers on the 1st turn. Turn 2 you're blocking with it and you can easily block sac to either Perilous Research or Altar's Reap, next block the same. That's pretty much what I'm talking about and it happens much more often than you'd think with how midrangey a format Pauper cube is.
I don't think sac'ing a blocker is a bad thing but I think you're definitely overplaying the situations and "advantages" to doing so in regards to Perilous Research and Altar's Reap.
As far as the given situation of blocking on turn two with a Doomed Traveler, I think that if you're blocking on turn 2 (on the play or on the draw) you probably won't want to sac the Doomed Traveler. If you're on the play and you're blocking on turn 2 with Doomed Traveler, you're blocking an opponent's 1 drop which is probably not the most likely of scenario in pauper anyways. But if you are, that one drop will most likely have 1 toughness (with very few exceptions) and trading with the creature is a much better trade than sac'ing to Perilous Research and leaving their creature on the table. If you're on the draw, you're blocking a 2 drop which probably still has a decent chance of trading with Doomed Traveler (a decent number of pauper 2 drops are X/1's).
TLDR: I think that a turn 2 scenario isn't the most common situation for you sac'ing creatures like Doomed Traveler on blocks for Perilous Research. I think you would definitely be looking at much later turns where you would both benefit from blocking a larger creature and keeping mana open on your opponents turn for removal/counter back up.
Now given that you are playing Perilous Research on later turns, I think the direct benefit of playing a card like Perilous Research and Altar's Reap over a card like Divination is so minimal that it isn't worth including unless you run a major sacrifice theme. The main argument that people bring up for these cards is that you can either sacrifice a creature that you're going to chump with anyways or that you're going to use it on a creature targeted by removal. In both situations, you're going to lose the creature either way no matter which card you have in your hand (Divination vs Perilous Research). What you are benefiting from is a reduction in mana cost by (1) and instant speed. This seems significant in terms of counter/draw play style aside from the fact that both of these scenarios will happen pre/during combat before your opponent plays their threats that you're looking to counter in main phase 2. What you're losing is the ability to draw the cards you need outside of these scenarios without losing a creature (a viable threat or even a chump block) or waiting for your opponent to do something for you to justify using Perilous Research or Altar's Reap.
TLDR: Unless you're running a heavy sacrifice theme or you really want blue/black to have a specific answer to white removal so you can use reanimation spells, you're better off using other draw spells like Divination or Think Twice if you want to support draw go. Although the cards make it seem like you trade your opponent's spells/attacks for card gain, you're really just trading (1) mana and instant speed for waiting on your opponent. Whether you play Divination or Perilous Research, you still get to block the attack or your opponent still gets to kill your creature with their removal. Sorry for the huge essay ><
Then why did you even come here? To give us homework?
The only one of those I'm not running is Garruk's Companion to make way for Golgari Brownscale to support the Dredge/Graveyard shell, which has been working really well so far. The Companion is okay, but for a T2 two Toughness creature that isn't really that splash able I'm not really that impressed - especially when it's much easier for green to get out something much better on T2.
Do you like the fact that bounce removes pacifism? I don't; I'd use journey instead.
Blind zealot is cool and plays cutely with black's plethora of raise dead effects.
Burst lightning is a cool card, but if you've put a cap on removal for 3+ toughness creatures or something then don't worry about it. I still think lava dart sucks and I would switch it for burst.
Searing blaze is awkward but the sheer power is second to none.
Someone once won a draft of my cube with a deck that maindecked manic vandal. I don't know if that actually means anything, but I'll remember it forever.
Edge of autumn seems really good if you support the green-based multicolor ramp deck. I just added it, haven't had much chance to use it but it seems generally better than rampant growth and farseek.
The compare cubes feature is cool, if you haven't tried it out: http://cubetutor.com/comparecubes/514/420
also [obligatory unfunny 420 joke]
Knowledge is power, money is power, time is money, you are actually gaining time by reading my posts
check out my EDH and Pauper EDH decks here
Mtg Sally hasn't updated but there's new cards here:
http://www.magicspoiler.com/journey-into-nyx-spoiler/
Or on the mothership.
Beast - Probably too weak, but it is a 5/7 vigilance when monstrous.
Starfish - I like it. Improves draws. Blocks stuff. Just like all good blue dudes.
Stayr Hopline - Only in tribal.
Ajani's Presence - Seems pretty good. Strive is basically the same as replicate but for instants.
Also for not-pauper the new enchantress is awesome.
You forgot about Mnemonic Wall. Also, I wouldn't classify cards like Sea Gate Oracle as purely defensive creatures - they're primarily good because of their additional utility. I think the only "purely defensive" (no substantial additional utility) creature I currently play is Calcite Snapper, because shroud is super good. I played Drift of Phantasms and Giant Tortoise for a while simply to have more blue blockers, but they really didn't change control's viability and non-control blue decks never wanted them.
Also, I'm not sure whether just adding blue blockers will solve your issues with blue control, especially since "control" decks seem to tend towards tempo-control decks rather than decks that want to turtle around with blockers until they play a finisher. I've liked more versatile cards such as Nephalia Seakite and Sentinels of Glen Elendra in the place of pure walls.
Yessir. Sorry didn't see this post
I'm not running Omenspeaker but for ages I've heard people tell me how good it is - for me though the low CMC Blue section is just super tight so dropping something for it will be difficult. I've got pretty much everything else in there you could expect though. To be honest I like Omenspeaker even more than the fish though, since it lets you get that Scry down the turn it comes down (which in any tempo or control shell is super important on T2), and it Scry's for 3 - which takes 4 turns for the Scrystar. Let's not forget it's 1 Power too, which can't be overlooked.
I saw Drift of Phantasms mentioned- is that guy good? It grabs a pretty reasonable number of good targets I guess, but is the other mode worth it?
Level 1 Judge