Slice and Dice... kills everything. This means it has to be played in a virtually creatureless deck imo (a difficult thing to do in the midrangey creature-based value environment of peasant.
I strongly disagree about needing a creatureless deck to run board wipes. Board wipes need to be played correctly, but when they are, you can gain huge advantage even in a creature-heavy deck.
Are you winning the creature race? Keep it in hand and don't cast it.
Are you losing the creature race, with two small creatures out vs their five large ones? Board wipe! Sure, you'll lose your creatures, but they will lose far more than you. It brings you to parity.
Did you draw the board wipe turns ago? I hope you planned ahead and didn't overcommit to the board, because now you can board wipe and then rebuild faster than your opponent.
Did they just spend a bunch of removal to clear your side of the board? Return the favor with a single spell.
Facing a flying army with no hope of survival? Board wipe!
You have five cards in hand but your opponent is top-decking?
If you play a board wipe properly, you can net advantage even in a creature-heavy deck. You don't just blindly cast it without regard to timing. You have to consider tempo, cards committed to the board, cards remaining in hand, life totals, etc.
Fair... maybe I was over-simplifying it. There are definitely situations where it can still be useful - even game winning. Still, all those are kind of niche scenarios, and I still gotta ask, does Slice and Dice really belong in a creature heavy deck if we're being honest? Does it even belong in a deck with an average amount of creatures? I think the answer is no because each one of those scenarios can be turned around.
"Are you winning the creature race? Keep it in hand and don't cast it." Sure... you can do that, but you just drew a card that is dead atm and may be dead for who knows how long, but hey... just hold onto it until you lose control of the board, and then haha! Wham! We get ourselves back to even... after getting ourselves into trouble in the first place by drawing a blank?
"Are you losing the creature race, with two small creatures out vs their five large ones? Board wipe! Sure, you'll lose your creatures, but they will lose far more than you. It brings you to parity." Ok, this is a extremely bad scenario, and I'm not sure what got you into this big of a mess that drawing and adding one good creature (say a Nekrataal or something) to your board couldn't come close to bringing you back to even.
"Did you draw the board wipe turns ago? I hope you planned ahead and didn't overcommit to the board, because now you can board wipe and then rebuild faster than your opponent." Again, good advice to make the best out of less than ideal situation where you drew something that was useless for several turns.
"Did they just spend a bunch of removal to clear your side of the board? Return the favor with a single spell." Pretty niche. If they spent so many cards removing your creatures, then they're probably not playing a bunch of cards to make a ton of creatures to get wiped. Two or even one (especially if it's big) can get there on an empty board.
"Facing a flying army with no hope of survival? Board wipe!" Great! But what were we doing while we were getting into this terrible situation again where we now need our singleton big sweeper to save us?
"You have five cards in hand but your opponent is top-decking?" I'm assuming you mean this is in some board-stall stalemate situation? Niche, but sure.
Finally, I'd say that all of these situations could be applied to smaller sweepers as well (admittedly in regard to smaller creatures), except you might be able to build your deck in such a way that you only play creatures (or creatures that you care about at least) that can survive a Pyroclasm I'm not saying Slice and Dice isn't a good card; I just think it's limited in the number of decks it can go in in the same way Wrath of God is. Yes, big sweepers, like Wraths can be extremely powerful, but they're not good in and don't belong in a bunch of decks.
Of the listed red sweepers, I run two Pyroclasm and Fast // Furious. I dropped Slice and Dice for Fast//Furious since it can be a red divination in aggro decks.
I am also testing Seismic Wave. The fact it only hits your opponent's creatures makes it easier to run in aggro and token (like Young Pyromancer) decks.
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My opinion on the cards you listed Vannatar:
Roaring Earth - Currently testing. It is a bit underpowered, but fits the counter theme I have in my cube as well. I like that it is not a dead draw late game as you can always channel it. Also, turns Herd Baloth into a Rampaging Baloths.
Song of Freyalise - Situationally very good. When used early, you can more quickly empty your hand and then pump for a large attack. Unfortunately, it can be a pretty weak top deck and the mass attack is broadcasted, so your opponent has some time to respond.
Gaea's Anthem - Was in my cube for a while, but I removed it in part that it is fairly boring to me. Overall a good card, but I would rather move around counters.
Curse of Predation (spoiler alert, this is the strongest) - 100% agree. I understand why some folks do not run this.
Jiang Yanggu, Wildcrafter - May be just me, but I prefer Song of Freyalise over Jiang. 3 counters over three turns is pretty underwhelming and the static ability is not that exciting unless your cube naturally supports early game counters on creatures.
Roaring Earth - Currently testing.It is a bit underpowered, but fits the counter theme I have in my cube as well. I like that it is not a dead draw late game as you can always channel it. Also, turns Herd Baloth into a Rampaging Baloths.
Song of Freyalise - Situationally very good. When used early, you can more quickly empty your hand and then pump for a large attack. Unfortunately, it can be a pretty weak top deck and the mass attack is broadcasted, so your opponent has some time to respond.
Gaea's Anthem - Was in my cube for a while, but I removed it in part that it is fairly boring to me. Overall a good card, but I would rather move around counters.
Curse of Predation (spoiler alert, this is the strongest) - 100% agree. I understand why some folks do not run this.
Jiang Yanggu, Wildcrafter - May be just me, but I prefer Song of Freyalise over Jiang. 3 counters over three turns is pretty underwhelming and the static ability is not that exciting unless your cube naturally supports early game counters on creatures.
Thanks for the thoughts. I basically was thinking the same thing, and am debating removing Gaea's Anthem for Roaring Earth; the former seems stronger in a vacuum, but the latter is definitely more on-theme for me. I appreciate your thoughts on the other cards as well. I've never played Song of Freyalise or Jiang Yanggu, Wildcrafter, but I know others tried them and just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything amazing.
I always get curious when cards get played in the MTGO Vintage 540 Cube that are also available for Peasant and are not frequently getting played. While a lot of those are specific to the context of that cube (rituals for Storm decks, Red Elemental Blast, etc.), there are two cards I wanted to ask this group about. Bloodtithe Harvester- A card I dismissed as being sort of unfocused and off-theme for Rakdos that does a LOT of stuff at two mana. Decent sized creature, provides a Blood token for rummaging, and trades directly with small creatures. I imagine the discard utility is a bit higher in Vintage cube for reanimator, but we need that support too. Portent- An oddball "slowtrip" from Ice Age that compares real well to blue cantrips frequently played. Not drawing immediately is rough, but the utility you might get from locking an opponent out of key cards might make up for that. The Vintage Cube has this and not either Serum Visions or Consider, and I could see making a similar swap.
One of the guys in my playgroup recently suggested Bloodtithe Harvester. It isn't super on theme, and I don't like that it is the only thing in my environment that makes Blood, but I can see why it has some potential. Blood essentially gives all of your cards cycling 1. Also, both Harvester's ability and the Blood token's ability can trigger some of the commonly played sacrifice pieces (blood artist, prankster, mayhem devil, etc.), it has a decent aggressive body as a 2 mana 3/2, and assuming you haven't cashed in the Blood yet, it can kill x/2's outright or something bigger post-combat. I don't have room for it right now at 360, but it's a card I'm keeping an eye on.
I always get curious when cards get played in the MTGO Vintage 540 Cube that are also available for Peasant and are not frequently getting played.
Portent- An oddball "slowtrip" from Ice Age that compares real well to blue cantrips frequently played. Not drawing immediately is rough, but the utility you might get from locking an opponent out of key cards might make up for that. The Vintage Cube has this and not either Serum Visions or Consider, and I could see making a similar swap.
Generally speaking, I think a number of cards in the MTGO Vintage Cube are chosen for nostalgia reasons rather than because of raw power level, so you don't need to read too much into Portent being in it other than that it's an old card that doesn't appear elsewhere and people might remember it fondly.
That said, Portent is a legit card. I've played it for years (granted, my cube is larger, so I want more 1cmc blue cantrips than most), and I'd probably rank it behind only Ponder and Preordain. It can dig four cards deep, which none of the other options can do except Ponder. Sorcery speed isn't a big deal for a 1cmc spell. And, unlike any of the other options, it can actually mess with an opponent's library; this may not come up all the time, but I definitely remember using it to make sure a mana-screwed opponent stayed screwed and to ensure that my flooding opponent kept flooding. Yes, the fact that you don't get the card immediately can be awkward if you're needing a land or a spell immediately, but because it digs so deep it almost always finds what you need - just with the slight delay. This just means you have to change your play pattern a bit.
I do like Serum Visions, Brainstorm (which I think isn't as good in Peasant or in bigger cubes because of a lack of fetchlands), and Consider and would probably rank them in that order just behind Portent. I'm less enthusiastic about, but still play, Sleight of Hand, Opt, and Thought Scour - with the first two basically being inferior copies of better cantrips and Thought Scour being more niche. That said, I think all of these are playable, and I'd say it just depends what your decks really want.
I was wondering what people thought of the U/W Blink archetype, both on power level and how fun it is to draft. I've been running Flyers as the main U/W archetype since the beginning of my cube, but I'm starting to think it's a bit too on-rails of an archetype. Since there's so few flyers in other colors I only occasionally see a flyers deck try to splash other colors, and even when it does happen it's usually for removal. Blink looks kind of interesting to me because all colors have good ETB, which makes me think there will be significant blink deck variety, lots of interesting draft decisions for players going the blink route, etc.
I love blink as an archetype becomes it needs very little dedicated support. Most if not all blink targets are good enough on their own and most blink spells are still decent in decks without many blink targets. The only narrow blink cards I run are Displace, Ghostly Flicker, Momentary Blink and Soulherder. All the other cards are still fine in other decks as well.
The deck can be very strong but is often weak against full aggro decks. This can be mitigated by cards like Aven Riftwatcher and Lone Missionary but in my experience you should be careful to not add to much life gain if you want to support aggro in your cube. Drafting it is straightforward but not really parasitic as most cards are good enough on their own. You can start your draft with Ghostly Flicker or Soulherder and work from there but you can just as easily have a U/W control deck and see a second pack Ghostly Flicker and look at your cards and think: "Yeah, that's definitely good enough in my deck".
As for playing the deck, I think it is very fun to play, the only downside is that it doesn't often have a premium win con. This means that sometimes you have taken over the game, your opponent has no board presence, is on 20 life and is in topdeck mode, you are on 6-8ish life, have 6 cards in your hand and your are trying to win by attacking with a Mulldrifter or Cloudkin Seer ten turns in a row. This can be frustrating to play against.
Yeah, ArBoR4817 covered it thoroughly, but blink is a ton of fun and can be supported with good ETB cards you're already running. In a focused deck, it can generate overwhelming advantage and void opposing removal. As a support mechanic, it allows other cards to shine even more.
Blink is one of my favorite archetypes. My cube has a heavy emphasis on reusing ETB effects and uses blink, reanimation, and even a creature in each color like Skull Collector and Roaring Primadox to do this. With the right card, blink can even be used for the kill (think Gray Merchant or other life loss/direct damage creatures).
Fair... maybe I was over-simplifying it. There are definitely situations where it can still be useful - even game winning. Still, all those are kind of niche scenarios, and I still gotta ask, does Slice and Dice really belong in a creature heavy deck if we're being honest? Does it even belong in a deck with an average amount of creatures? I think the answer is no because each one of those scenarios can be turned around.
Not a generic aggro or many midrange decks, but it's not just an expensive wrath of god. Dealing with certain aggro and token builds as a backup plan is very valuable, and not being dead in its worse matchups is icing. Turn 3 on the play, "kill your 1 drop draw a card" is not a sexy play, but it's a play that you're still fine to have around unless all of your aggro opponents are just drawing the perfect curve on you and everything has 2 toughness.
It's not A+ tier, but I'm really not sure what cards would have to be released before I take this card out.
So I've been able to play a lot lately after the move (not with a wife, unfortunately, Leadfeather), and I've had back to back to back to back to back dominant performances from aggro.
My public list is horribly out of date, so don't mind looking it up.
In any case, I am trying to curtail the performances of aggro without including too many explicitly anti-aggro cards. I still have some of the more expensive sweepers (slice and dice, feast of succession, incremental blight, shower of coals) but I thought the Drown in sorrow type effects were a bit too heavy-handed/side-boardy. At least the bigger spells have mainboard appeal against the broader spectrum of decks out there.
Red has been well equipped to deal with the aggro menace thanks to the abundance of shock variants and even tokens, as has black to a lesser degree, but the Bant part of the pie hasn't been so lucky. Lone missionary, Alirios, Enraptured, Circuit mender and kitchen finks can only do so much.
So I'm looking for some more bant/artifact cards to gum up the field. Labyrinth guardian and Sea gate oracle come to mind as two cards I'm not running but previously underperformed. There's actually a surprising dearth of good defensive 2s in blue.
Assuming I'm running or have banned any obvious staples, any ideas for more obscure cards? Even stuff like... pristine talisman I suppose.
and I've had back to back to back to back to back dominant performances from aggro.
In the last times I've played my peasant cube I've too discovered aggro tends to set the pace for the whole environment so I've looking for cards to enhance control andm mainly lowering the curve of control cards not to fall out of tempo with fast aggro archetypes. I've replaced many 3 or 4 drop cards in order to do so. I've put a lot of thoght into reanimator, since it needs enablers, payoffs and reanimation spells. I'm eager to test the new cards I've added to verify how control and mid range decks perform against aggro.
Btw I think Drown in Sorrow and all 2-damage sweepers perform pretty well in peasant.
Threnody Singer has been an okay card for us in midgame blue decks. When it lands, devotion is often at 2 or 3. It often helps for a turn in staving off aggression, and can either chip in for damage or be a relatively big blocker.
Dawnbringer Cleric has also seen much play as a good filler type card. All modes have been used, I think, even though the enchantment destruction has been the most prevalent. A 1/3 is still often a roadblock, albeit a temporary one.
As for sweepers... I feel Drown in Sorrow and Pyroclasm are pretty good, even though in some matchups they can feel pretty dead. We also run Volcanic Torrent, which has been great for slower red decks. it is often possible to sneak in a spell before the Torrent, and wiping all opponents for 3 can be backbreaking.
As of late, aggro decks in my cube have been red, white and black, and any combination found within these colours, usually with a graveyard or equipment subtheme.
In any case, I am trying to curtail the performances of aggro without including too many explicitly anti-aggro cards.
Here are some peasant-legal cards I'm playing that are good against aggro in one way or another. Of course there's always Propaganda/Ghostly Prison. I don't play either of those, but I definitely play Fog Bank and Wall of Denial without any qualms.
I see you talking about Slice and Dice, which I've never tried. I'm wondering if you've ever tried Breath of Darigaaz, which is cheaper and not dissimilar. I've found it to be quite strong, though missing flying is a big downside outside of RW or RU. It's the closest to something like Storm's Wrath we're likely to get at uncommon, and 4 is much cheaper than 6.
Excavated Wall (which replaced Steel Wall) and Fountain of Renewal are cards I'll emphasize as highly underestimated. Any deck trying to survive to the late game is going to be happy to see that during the draft.
If Aggro is too dominant, you can always cut some goodstuff aggressive creatures for durdlier cards that are still worth playing.
Notes for the other cards:
I have... so many regrowth effects already. Pulse of murasa is tempting but I think a fifth one is overkill and I like the DFC version more. I guess I can order it anyway. Having a peasant cube is so cheap ha.
All of the walls that don't provide value are too specific. Same with the small sweepers.
Augur of bolas only hits 50.8% of the time with 8 targets in the deck, and 8 is being pretty generous.
I really want to like foulmire knight, but 3 mana is just too much for one card (especially considering how much I'm saying aggro is beating everyone)
Instead of Icy manipulator, I am running Icebind Pillar. After much deliberation, I've settled on including only the snow cards that don't scale based on the number of snow lands you control. The ones that count them repeatedly were not balanced as though you would have access to that many in limited and are far too swingy.
And I've included a bunch of 1 power 1 drops to help other decks at least trade with aggro's X/1s in a mana efficient, interactive way like Spectral sailor. Oh, and I'm trying Force of Will again too.
I also think it's interesting that I am happy playing omenspeaker but sage's row savant seems like a bad magic card (despite the latter being able to trade with 2s and 3s and being comparable in value to lone missionary).
After much deliberation, I've settled on including only the snow cards that don't scale based on the number of snow lands you control. The ones that count them repeatedly were not balanced as though you would have access to that many in limited and are far too swingy.
I used to think the card was nuts, and it's been in my cube for quite some time, but more and more it just doesn't seem to be finding a home.
Six mana is just too much for my green aggro and even midrangey creature decks that might want the Overrun effect. This goes for both Gruul and Selesnya I think, as Ridgescale Tusker basically give the same effect at a cmc cheaper and even has +1/+1 counter synergies. Ramp doesn't seem to want it either, as it doesn't get much bonus from the ETB and would rather have a more resilient threat like Warden of the Woods or Scaled Behemoth. Golgari is more about grinding and GY stuff, so it would prefer a better value play like Blossom Prancer or Baloth Null I think. I even support a Simic Flash/Tempo archetype where you'd think it would fit, but again... 6cmc.
Great Oak Guardian is a unique card that I don't really want to cut, but it's just not been what I want it to be.
I used to think the card was nuts, and it's been in my cube for quite some time, but more and more it just doesn't seem to be finding a home.
Six mana is just too much for my green aggro and even midrangey creature decks that might want the Overrun effect. This goes for both Gruul and Selesnya I think, as Ridgescale Tusker basically give the same effect at a cmc cheaper and even has +1/+1 counter synergies. Ramp doesn't seem to want it either, as it doesn't get much bonus from the ETB and would rather have a more resilient threat like Warden of the Woods or Scaled Behemoth. Golgari is more about grinding and GY stuff, so it would prefer a better value play like Blossom Prancer or Baloth Null I think. I even support a Simic Flash/Tempo archetype where you'd think it would fit, but again... 6cmc.
Great Oak Guardian is a unique card that I don't really want to cut, but it's just not been what I want it to be.
I'm always happy to see Great Oak Guardian. Cast after your attack, it's a pseudo-vigilance overrun. Cast on an opponent's attack, it's a bunch of surprise blockers. And if you cast it using mana dorks, it gives untaps and pumps them into relevant bodies. Even without an army to back it up, it's a flash reach 6/7 blocker the turn it enters - that can take out most attackers in a peasant cube and still survive to attack or block later.
I have some issues concerning my black creature 5-drop section. I currently run Vampire Sovereign, which I haven't tested yet. My question in fact is if Syr Konrad, the Grim is so great to be an auto-include in almost any peasant list. I love the card text but I don't know yet if all those triggers matter given it is a 5-drop. If anybody could enlighten me about the brilliance of this card I'd appreciate it.
I have some issues concerning my black creature 5-drop section. I currently run Vampire Sovereign, which I haven't tested yet. My question in fact is if Syr Konrad, the Grim is so great to be an auto-include in almost any peasant list. I love the card text but I don't know yet if all those triggers matter given it is a 5-drop. If anybody could enlighten me about the brilliance of this card I'd appreciate it.
I had Syr Konrad but ended up cutting him. I think it's a phenomenal card in constructed, and I even built a Commander deck around him, but in limited, I found him to be less impressive. Not awful - just not as good as I wanted, espexially for a card that doesn't fit into my main archetypes. I felt like most of my 4-5 drops in black had a more immediate impact on the game than Konrad. I didn't even replace him with another 5-drop; I went with something smaller to lower my curve (I already have 5x 4-drops and another 4x 5-drops, so I didn't really need another).
I have had a weird sample size, but I keep losing to Konrad. He just happens to come down when I'm at single digit life and don't have removal.
Vampire sovereign is perfectly fine, and I know people swear by Indulgent tormentor. It's not strictly a 5 drop but I've been impressed by Feaster of Fools.
Had a thread idea earlier today and wanted to gauge whether there's interest for something like this.
This forum does an excellent job of evaluating cards during spoiler season. But, we don't really have much discussion revisiting those sets and talking about which cards are working, which cards aren't working, and why. The closest thing we have to that is the annual Average Cube posts (which are great btw). What if we did something every 3-6 months that revisited a group of recent sets?
Had a thread idea earlier today and wanted to gauge whether there's interest for something like this.
This forum does an excellent job of evaluating cards during spoiler season. But, we don't really have much discussion revisiting those sets and talking about which cards are working, which cards aren't working, and why. The closest thing we have to that is the annual Average Cube posts (which are great btw). What if we did something every 3-6 months that revisited a group of recent sets?
Heya.
I would be whole-heartedly on board with such a thread both here and and on the main cube forum. The "includes and testing results" thread always ends up being all includes, and not a lot of testing results. What there is is usually based off of one early cuber giving a single player's experience. That's great, but it's not much of a sample size.
I think another factor is that we are all excited to talk about cards when they are new, and we are all excited to play our cubes and try new cards. But many of us can't cube that often. I've cubed four times in the last few months. That's more than usual. But there have been two standard releases since then, and I certainly don't have a lot of Kamigawa testing, and none at all for New Capenna. I'll probably be locking my cube off for a while as I'm leaving it with my sister. I might build a smaller, more portable peasant cube in the meantime.
All that to say, testing is naturally well behind card releases. Now is the time that I'm able to give definitive testing results for cards from around Eldraine to Zendikar Rising. As for more recent cards, I'm mostly still acting on first impressions. I expect others are not dissimilar, though the size of my cube does slow down testing.
Are you winning the creature race? Keep it in hand and don't cast it.
Are you losing the creature race, with two small creatures out vs their five large ones? Board wipe! Sure, you'll lose your creatures, but they will lose far more than you. It brings you to parity.
Did you draw the board wipe turns ago? I hope you planned ahead and didn't overcommit to the board, because now you can board wipe and then rebuild faster than your opponent.
Did they just spend a bunch of removal to clear your side of the board? Return the favor with a single spell.
Facing a flying army with no hope of survival? Board wipe!
You have five cards in hand but your opponent is top-decking?
If you play a board wipe properly, you can net advantage even in a creature-heavy deck. You don't just blindly cast it without regard to timing. You have to consider tempo, cards committed to the board, cards remaining in hand, life totals, etc.
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"Are you winning the creature race? Keep it in hand and don't cast it." Sure... you can do that, but you just drew a card that is dead atm and may be dead for who knows how long, but hey... just hold onto it until you lose control of the board, and then haha! Wham! We get ourselves back to even... after getting ourselves into trouble in the first place by drawing a blank?
"Are you losing the creature race, with two small creatures out vs their five large ones? Board wipe! Sure, you'll lose your creatures, but they will lose far more than you. It brings you to parity." Ok, this is a extremely bad scenario, and I'm not sure what got you into this big of a mess that drawing and adding one good creature (say a Nekrataal or something) to your board couldn't come close to bringing you back to even.
"Did you draw the board wipe turns ago? I hope you planned ahead and didn't overcommit to the board, because now you can board wipe and then rebuild faster than your opponent." Again, good advice to make the best out of less than ideal situation where you drew something that was useless for several turns.
"Did they just spend a bunch of removal to clear your side of the board? Return the favor with a single spell." Pretty niche. If they spent so many cards removing your creatures, then they're probably not playing a bunch of cards to make a ton of creatures to get wiped. Two or even one (especially if it's big) can get there on an empty board.
"Facing a flying army with no hope of survival? Board wipe!" Great! But what were we doing while we were getting into this terrible situation again where we now need our singleton big sweeper to save us?
"You have five cards in hand but your opponent is top-decking?" I'm assuming you mean this is in some board-stall stalemate situation? Niche, but sure.
Finally, I'd say that all of these situations could be applied to smaller sweepers as well (admittedly in regard to smaller creatures), except you might be able to build your deck in such a way that you only play creatures (or creatures that you care about at least) that can survive a Pyroclasm I'm not saying Slice and Dice isn't a good card; I just think it's limited in the number of decks it can go in in the same way Wrath of God is. Yes, big sweepers, like Wraths can be extremely powerful, but they're not good in and don't belong in a bunch of decks.
I am also testing Seismic Wave. The fact it only hits your opponent's creatures makes it easier to run in aggro and token (like Young Pyromancer) decks.
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My opinion on the cards you listed Vannatar:
Roaring Earth - Currently testing. It is a bit underpowered, but fits the counter theme I have in my cube as well. I like that it is not a dead draw late game as you can always channel it. Also, turns Herd Baloth into a Rampaging Baloths.
Song of Freyalise - Situationally very good. When used early, you can more quickly empty your hand and then pump for a large attack. Unfortunately, it can be a pretty weak top deck and the mass attack is broadcasted, so your opponent has some time to respond.
Gaea's Anthem - Was in my cube for a while, but I removed it in part that it is fairly boring to me. Overall a good card, but I would rather move around counters.
Curse of Predation (spoiler alert, this is the strongest) - 100% agree. I understand why some folks do not run this.
Jiang Yanggu, Wildcrafter - May be just me, but I prefer Song of Freyalise over Jiang. 3 counters over three turns is pretty underwhelming and the static ability is not that exciting unless your cube naturally supports early game counters on creatures.
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Thanks for the thoughts. I basically was thinking the same thing, and am debating removing Gaea's Anthem for Roaring Earth; the former seems stronger in a vacuum, but the latter is definitely more on-theme for me. I appreciate your thoughts on the other cards as well. I've never played Song of Freyalise or Jiang Yanggu, Wildcrafter, but I know others tried them and just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything amazing.
Bloodtithe Harvester- A card I dismissed as being sort of unfocused and off-theme for Rakdos that does a LOT of stuff at two mana. Decent sized creature, provides a Blood token for rummaging, and trades directly with small creatures. I imagine the discard utility is a bit higher in Vintage cube for reanimator, but we need that support too.
Portent- An oddball "slowtrip" from Ice Age that compares real well to blue cantrips frequently played. Not drawing immediately is rough, but the utility you might get from locking an opponent out of key cards might make up for that. The Vintage Cube has this and not either Serum Visions or Consider, and I could see making a similar swap.
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Generally speaking, I think a number of cards in the MTGO Vintage Cube are chosen for nostalgia reasons rather than because of raw power level, so you don't need to read too much into Portent being in it other than that it's an old card that doesn't appear elsewhere and people might remember it fondly.
That said, Portent is a legit card. I've played it for years (granted, my cube is larger, so I want more 1cmc blue cantrips than most), and I'd probably rank it behind only Ponder and Preordain. It can dig four cards deep, which none of the other options can do except Ponder. Sorcery speed isn't a big deal for a 1cmc spell. And, unlike any of the other options, it can actually mess with an opponent's library; this may not come up all the time, but I definitely remember using it to make sure a mana-screwed opponent stayed screwed and to ensure that my flooding opponent kept flooding. Yes, the fact that you don't get the card immediately can be awkward if you're needing a land or a spell immediately, but because it digs so deep it almost always finds what you need - just with the slight delay. This just means you have to change your play pattern a bit.
I do like Serum Visions, Brainstorm (which I think isn't as good in Peasant or in bigger cubes because of a lack of fetchlands), and Consider and would probably rank them in that order just behind Portent. I'm less enthusiastic about, but still play, Sleight of Hand, Opt, and Thought Scour - with the first two basically being inferior copies of better cantrips and Thought Scour being more niche. That said, I think all of these are playable, and I'd say it just depends what your decks really want.
The deck can be very strong but is often weak against full aggro decks. This can be mitigated by cards like Aven Riftwatcher and Lone Missionary but in my experience you should be careful to not add to much life gain if you want to support aggro in your cube. Drafting it is straightforward but not really parasitic as most cards are good enough on their own. You can start your draft with Ghostly Flicker or Soulherder and work from there but you can just as easily have a U/W control deck and see a second pack Ghostly Flicker and look at your cards and think: "Yeah, that's definitely good enough in my deck".
As for playing the deck, I think it is very fun to play, the only downside is that it doesn't often have a premium win con. This means that sometimes you have taken over the game, your opponent has no board presence, is on 20 life and is in topdeck mode, you are on 6-8ish life, have 6 cards in your hand and your are trying to win by attacking with a Mulldrifter or Cloudkin Seer ten turns in a row. This can be frustrating to play against.
Looking at your cube I would replace some of the protection spells like Ajani's Presence, Emerge Unscathed, Shelter, Test of Faith etc. in white for some blink spells as they can serve a similar function (cards like Ephemerate, Cloudshift and since you seems to support +1/+1 counters Otherworldly Journey and/or Long Road Home are decent as well).
You play most of the premium blink targets already (Mulldrifter, Cloudgoat Ranger etc.) You can replace some of the dedicated flier cards in blue and white with cards that like Watcher for Tomorrow, Alirios, Enraptured, Sea Gate Oracle, Master Splicer, Glimmerpoint Stag, Dawnbringer Cleric, Whirler Rogue and the before mentioned Displace, Ghostly Flicker, Momentary Blink and Soulherder.
As for the other colors:
Green usually brings the most. It has Eternal Witness and Timeless Witness for "comboing" with Displace or Ghostly Flicker. It also has some other premium blink targets like Blossom Prancer, Trostani's Summoner and Acidic Slime. Halana, Kessig Ranger is also pretty good with blink spells. It also has quite of few cards like Llanowar Visionary, Wall of Blossoms, Reclamation Sage which are good on their own and decent to blink.
Red brings the obvious Flametongue Kavu but also Beetleback Chief, Ardent Elementalist (for "comboing" again) and Imperial Recruiter (can search for a lot of good blink targets and can be blinked itself as well).
Finally, black gives you the "etb: destroy creature" cards like Shriekmaw, Skinrender and Ravenous Chupacabra. It also has some other decent blink targets like Vampire Sovereign and Sling-Gang Lieutenant. It also has some cheap reanimate cards which can work well with creatures with etb abilities and cards like Malakir Rebirth and Undying Evil.
My C/Ube on Cube Cobra
You don't have to make an either-or decision between flyers and blink - they aren't mutually exclusive, and there are a number of cards that can support both: Elite Guardmage, Cloudblazer, Mulldrifter, Frost Trickster, Cloudkin Seer, Faerie Seer, Stonecloaker, Kor Skyfisher, Topplegeist, etc... I support both archetypes in W/U.
Blink is one of my favorite archetypes. My cube has a heavy emphasis on reusing ETB effects and uses blink, reanimation, and even a creature in each color like Skull Collector and Roaring Primadox to do this. With the right card, blink can even be used for the kill (think Gray Merchant or other life loss/direct damage creatures).
2023 Average Peasant Cube|and Discussion
Because I have more decks than fit in a signature
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Not a generic aggro or many midrange decks, but it's not just an expensive wrath of god. Dealing with certain aggro and token builds as a backup plan is very valuable, and not being dead in its worse matchups is icing. Turn 3 on the play, "kill your 1 drop draw a card" is not a sexy play, but it's a play that you're still fine to have around unless all of your aggro opponents are just drawing the perfect curve on you and everything has 2 toughness.
It's not A+ tier, but I'm really not sure what cards would have to be released before I take this card out.
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 public list is horribly out of date, so don't mind looking it up.
In any case, I am trying to curtail the performances of aggro without including too many explicitly anti-aggro cards. I still have some of the more expensive sweepers (slice and dice, feast of succession, incremental blight, shower of coals) but I thought the Drown in sorrow type effects were a bit too heavy-handed/side-boardy. At least the bigger spells have mainboard appeal against the broader spectrum of decks out there.
Red has been well equipped to deal with the aggro menace thanks to the abundance of shock variants and even tokens, as has black to a lesser degree, but the Bant part of the pie hasn't been so lucky. Lone missionary, Alirios, Enraptured, Circuit mender and kitchen finks can only do so much.
So I'm looking for some more bant/artifact cards to gum up the field. Labyrinth guardian and Sea gate oracle come to mind as two cards I'm not running but previously underperformed. There's actually a surprising dearth of good defensive 2s in blue.
Assuming I'm running or have banned any obvious staples, any ideas for more obscure cards? Even stuff like... pristine talisman I suppose.
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
In the last times I've played my peasant cube I've too discovered aggro tends to set the pace for the whole environment so I've looking for cards to enhance control andm mainly lowering the curve of control cards not to fall out of tempo with fast aggro archetypes. I've replaced many 3 or 4 drop cards in order to do so. I've put a lot of thoght into reanimator, since it needs enablers, payoffs and reanimation spells. I'm eager to test the new cards I've added to verify how control and mid range decks perform against aggro.
Btw I think Drown in Sorrow and all 2-damage sweepers perform pretty well in peasant.
(360, Peasant, Unpowered)
Dawnbringer Cleric has also seen much play as a good filler type card. All modes have been used, I think, even though the enchantment destruction has been the most prevalent. A 1/3 is still often a roadblock, albeit a temporary one.
We're also running Tireless Provisioner and The Underworld Cookbook, and both of these have been really good at keeping a healthy life total.
As for sweepers... I feel Drown in Sorrow and Pyroclasm are pretty good, even though in some matchups they can feel pretty dead. We also run Volcanic Torrent, which has been great for slower red decks. it is often possible to sneak in a spell before the Torrent, and wiping all opponents for 3 can be backbreaking.
As of late, aggro decks in my cube have been red, white and black, and any combination found within these colours, usually with a graveyard or equipment subtheme.
WiJ
Peasant 540 Cube
Here are some peasant-legal cards I'm playing that are good against aggro in one way or another. Of course there's always Propaganda/Ghostly Prison. I don't play either of those, but I definitely play Fog Bank and Wall of Denial without any qualms.
Staunch Shieldmate
Icatian Javelineers
Soul Warden (+ Soul's Attendant/ Essence Warden)
Wall of Glare (Yep, I'm still playing this and still like it)
Timely Reinforcements/ Sunset Revelry
Archon of Absolution
Unquestioned Authority makes a creature unblockable, but also turns it into a fog bank and cantrips. Beloved Chaplain isn't too terrible either.
Augur of Bolas
Puppeteer
Thieving Magpie
Command of Unsummoning (Little known, but good against aggro in my experience)
Exhaustion
Foulmire Knight (I'm missing Vampire of the Dire Moon)
Fume Spitter
Crypt Rats
Contagion
Call the Bloodline
Fireslinger
Cunning Sparkmage
Fire Ants
Breath of Darigaaz
Aether Flash
Portcullis Vine/ Tinder Wall
Wasteland Viper
Deadly Recluse
Masked Vandal
Tireless Provisioner
Tangle
Pulse of Murasa
Bond of Flourishing
Savage Twister
Drana's Emissary (good in aggro too though)
Spitemare
Excavated Wall (Gee shucks, I'm always playing this card, mediocre though it may seem)
Wall of Tanglecord
Fountain of Renewal (How does everyone always underestimate this?)
Thunderstaff
Icy Manipulator
I see you talking about Slice and Dice, which I've never tried. I'm wondering if you've ever tried Breath of Darigaaz, which is cheaper and not dissimilar. I've found it to be quite strong, though missing flying is a big downside outside of RW or RU. It's the closest to something like Storm's Wrath we're likely to get at uncommon, and 4 is much cheaper than 6.
Excavated Wall (which replaced Steel Wall) and Fountain of Renewal are cards I'll emphasize as highly underestimated. Any deck trying to survive to the late game is going to be happy to see that during the draft.
If Aggro is too dominant, you can always cut some goodstuff aggressive creatures for durdlier cards that are still worth playing.
Low-power cube enthusiast!
My 1570 card cube (no longer updated)
My 415 Peasant+ Artifact and Enchantment Cube
Ever-Expanding "Just throw it in" cube.
There can only be one
From the lists above, I'm already playing:
And that's it, actually.
I am going to order and see if I can squeeze in:
Notes for the other cards:
I have... so many regrowth effects already. Pulse of murasa is tempting but I think a fifth one is overkill and I like the DFC version more. I guess I can order it anyway. Having a peasant cube is so cheap ha.
All of the walls that don't provide value are too specific. Same with the small sweepers.
Augur of bolas only hits 50.8% of the time with 8 targets in the deck, and 8 is being pretty generous.
I really want to like foulmire knight, but 3 mana is just too much for one card (especially considering how much I'm saying aggro is beating everyone)
Instead of Icy manipulator, I am running Icebind Pillar. After much deliberation, I've settled on including only the snow cards that don't scale based on the number of snow lands you control. The ones that count them repeatedly were not balanced as though you would have access to that many in limited and are far too swingy.
And I've included a bunch of 1 power 1 drops to help other decks at least trade with aggro's X/1s in a mana efficient, interactive way like Spectral sailor. Oh, and I'm trying Force of Will again too.
I also think it's interesting that I am happy playing omenspeaker but sage's row savant seems like a bad magic card (despite the latter being able to trade with 2s and 3s and being comparable in value to lone missionary).
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
That's a shame, since Avalanche Caller, Abominable Treefolk, Spirit of the Aldergard, and Conifer Wurm are all insane! The first two are even good against aggro.
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On a separate note, thoughts on Great Oak Guardian these days?
I used to think the card was nuts, and it's been in my cube for quite some time, but more and more it just doesn't seem to be finding a home.
Six mana is just too much for my green aggro and even midrangey creature decks that might want the Overrun effect. This goes for both Gruul and Selesnya I think, as Ridgescale Tusker basically give the same effect at a cmc cheaper and even has +1/+1 counter synergies. Ramp doesn't seem to want it either, as it doesn't get much bonus from the ETB and would rather have a more resilient threat like Warden of the Woods or Scaled Behemoth. Golgari is more about grinding and GY stuff, so it would prefer a better value play like Blossom Prancer or Baloth Null I think. I even support a Simic Flash/Tempo archetype where you'd think it would fit, but again... 6cmc.
Great Oak Guardian is a unique card that I don't really want to cut, but it's just not been what I want it to be.
2023 Average Peasant Cube|and Discussion
Because I have more decks than fit in a signature
Useful Resources:
MTGSalvation tags
EDHREC
ManabaseCrafter
(360, Peasant, Unpowered)
2023 Average Peasant Cube|and Discussion
Because I have more decks than fit in a signature
Useful Resources:
MTGSalvation tags
EDHREC
ManabaseCrafter
Vampire sovereign is perfectly fine, and I know people swear by Indulgent tormentor. It's not strictly a 5 drop but I've been impressed by Feaster of Fools.
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
This forum does an excellent job of evaluating cards during spoiler season. But, we don't really have much discussion revisiting those sets and talking about which cards are working, which cards aren't working, and why. The closest thing we have to that is the annual Average Cube posts (which are great btw). What if we did something every 3-6 months that revisited a group of recent sets?
Heya.
I would be whole-heartedly on board with such a thread both here and and on the main cube forum. The "includes and testing results" thread always ends up being all includes, and not a lot of testing results. What there is is usually based off of one early cuber giving a single player's experience. That's great, but it's not much of a sample size.
I think another factor is that we are all excited to talk about cards when they are new, and we are all excited to play our cubes and try new cards. But many of us can't cube that often. I've cubed four times in the last few months. That's more than usual. But there have been two standard releases since then, and I certainly don't have a lot of Kamigawa testing, and none at all for New Capenna. I'll probably be locking my cube off for a while as I'm leaving it with my sister. I might build a smaller, more portable peasant cube in the meantime.
All that to say, testing is naturally well behind card releases. Now is the time that I'm able to give definitive testing results for cards from around Eldraine to Zendikar Rising. As for more recent cards, I'm mostly still acting on first impressions. I expect others are not dissimilar, though the size of my cube does slow down testing.
Low-power cube enthusiast!
My 1570 card cube (no longer updated)
My 415 Peasant+ Artifact and Enchantment Cube
Ever-Expanding "Just throw it in" cube.