I think the situations where you'll want to cast Aven Surveyor as bad phantom monster are negligible in evaluating the card as they will be so few and far between. 5-mana Mist Raven is probably still pretty playable but I'm going to forgo it in the interest of not having that kind of critical mass of tempo dudes.
What do you mean by a critical mass of tempo dudes? Just like etb bounce cards?
Right. They're very strong but having too many means that a deck can just play one every turn of the game and the opponent is just dead in the water. It's happened a couple times and been miserable for everyone else in the draft. That's not really the kind of gameplay I'm looking for. I don't want to cut these powerful, cool cards but I don't want a single deck to be able to curve out with them and auto-win.
I will definitely be testing Write into Being. A grey ogre with scry 2 seems fairly decent, even if it will rarely flip.
On a slightly unrelated note, from my admittedly minimal testing, Goblin Heelcutter has performed extremely well. I can't imagine this card leaving my cube anytime soon at 270. I think it will be a 360 staple.
The problem is, that blue doesn't have that many bodies that would be interesting to flip-up, at least without a blink effect. The vast majority of blue creatures are not big, but evasive or ETB-powerful.
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Holiday Armadillo... Cloak
My 490 Pauper Cube
Modern frame only- Common on paper only - no functional copies, no strictly-betters - no subtype-matters
The average blue deck has about 13-14 creatures. This is about 1/3 of the deck. This way digging 2 cards deep doubles the chance to 2/3. I wouldn't call this rarely.
So if Write into Being looked at the top 3 cards of your library, the odds of revealing a creature is 100%, by that math. For two cards, with 13-14 creatures, the probability of manifesting one of them is certainly lower than 67%. But lets assume that those are the odds. That might be the odds of manifesting a creature, but then you have to consider the odds of that creature being better than a 2/2. Just looking at your cube list, there are several blue creatures that if manifested, I would not pay the mana to flip them. If 2/3 creatures in your deck are worth flipping up, then instead of 13-14 relevant creatures you have 7-8.
I think that the flipping part of manifest will just be a bonus. If the manifest card isn't good enough just making a 2/2, then it won't be good enough for cube. With that said, I still think this card has potential.
I have yet to post my list. Was probably going to this weekend. Its based a lot on lanxal's, but with updates. I'll PM you the link later if that's okay. I'll try it in place of Blademaster for now I suppose.
What do you like about write into being? It looks like gray ogre with scry 1.5 which seems pretty bad
Still interested in hearing about this.
Also, has anyone tried harsh sustenance? You only need 2 creatures for it to be playable (i know some people like Al will balk at this statement, but douse in gloom is perfectly playable. Honestly, anything at 3 or less mana that kills a 2 toughness creature is cubeable, because that's more than half the creatures in this format.) And then if you have more than 2 creatures it becomes super powerful. Seems pretty good?
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After consideration, I'm looking to include Gurmag Angler, Goblin Heelcutter and Mardu Scout, and pick up a copy of Enhanced Awareness to try out. Otherwise I'm not that interested in this set.
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Tier1:
in: Collateral Damage out: Puncture Blast
in: Gurmag Angler out: Fog of Gnats (finally dismissed golgari Longlegs for Elves of Deep Shadow)
Tier2:
in: Ethereal Ambush out: Shielding Plax
in: Mardu Scout out: Bloodcrazed Neonate
in: War Flare out: Squee's Embrace
in: Enhanced Awareness out: Sift
in: Goblin Heelcutter out: Flurry of Horns
in: Aven Surveyor out: Frostwind Invoker
in: Abzan Skycaptain out Heavy Ballista
in: Sandsteppe Outcast out Salt Road Patrol
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
Right. They're very strong but having too many means that a deck can just play one every turn of the game and the opponent is just dead in the water. It's happened a couple times and been miserable for everyone else in the draft. That's not really the kind of gameplay I'm looking for. I don't want to cut these powerful, cool cards but I don't want a single deck to be able to curve out with them and auto-win.
Level 1 Judge
On a slightly unrelated note, from my admittedly minimal testing, Goblin Heelcutter has performed extremely well. I can't imagine this card leaving my cube anytime soon at 270. I think it will be a 360 staple.
My 490 Pauper Cube
Modern frame only- Common on paper only - no functional copies, no strictly-betters - no subtype-matters
So if Write into Being looked at the top 3 cards of your library, the odds of revealing a creature is 100%, by that math. For two cards, with 13-14 creatures, the probability of manifesting one of them is certainly lower than 67%. But lets assume that those are the odds. That might be the odds of manifesting a creature, but then you have to consider the odds of that creature being better than a 2/2. Just looking at your cube list, there are several blue creatures that if manifested, I would not pay the mana to flip them. If 2/3 creatures in your deck are worth flipping up, then instead of 13-14 relevant creatures you have 7-8.
I think that the flipping part of manifest will just be a bonus. If the manifest card isn't good enough just making a 2/2, then it won't be good enough for cube. With that said, I still think this card has potential.
Odds of seeing at least one creature:
Looking at 2 cards:
13 creatures: 55%
14 creatures: 58.33%
Looking at 3 cards:
13 creatures: 70.39%
14 creatures: 73.64%
You may have put this part into the calculator wrong.
27/40 * 27/40 = 0.455625
1 - 0.455625 = 0.544375 or 54.4375%
The # in my earlier post is higher because I did 27/40 * 26/39, since the first card drawn was not a creature.
It's not perfect because you're not going to be manifesting out of a 40 card deck, but it's the best way I could think to calculate it.
Actually I didnt expect so many additions first. If Heelcutter overperforms that well, it might end up in Tier1.
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
What has Fate Reforged done to your Cube? Is anyone happy consistantly with anything besides Outcast and Heelcutter?
Loose Change Pauper Cube-cast
Pauper Cube Article #1
Pauper Cube Article #2
Personal Enjoyment Cube
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
Still interested in hearing about this.
Also, has anyone tried harsh sustenance? You only need 2 creatures for it to be playable (i know some people like Al will balk at this statement, but douse in gloom is perfectly playable. Honestly, anything at 3 or less mana that kills a 2 toughness creature is cubeable, because that's more than half the creatures in this format.) And then if you have more than 2 creatures it becomes super powerful. Seems pretty good?
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
My 490 Pauper Cube
Modern frame only- Common on paper only - no functional copies, no strictly-betters - no subtype-matters