MTG Salvation

Splinterfright has *finally* been downshifted. I don't even care if it's bad after all these years, I'm so excited to finally get to play Splinterfright.

Holy Christmas.............

Splinterfright is my favorite card of all time. I'm beyond stoked that this is happening.

I was super disappointed Splinterfright did not get a downshift for its 2X2 reprint, so I definitely felt the wait too. And my favorite card is Overrun, which may similarly be past its time in Peasant cube.
The main thing that worries me about Splinterfright is needing a creature in the graveyard first, which makes it harder to deploy as an immediate threat on curve. Strangely enough, it feels like this is the slot that I am currently trying out Bushy Bodyguard in.

Splinterfright was never on my radar, but it seems sweet.

Did anyone's bingo card have Triskaidekaphobia downshift?

So far all the new downshifts are bad. Which is fine, something like 60% of my cube is under 18 months old

Somberwald Sage downshift is probably also bad, but boy do I want to try it.

Killing Wave seems good. I don't love giving my opponents choices, so maybe it's worse than it reads. Certainly bad if you can't pressure your opponents life total. But I would love a playable sweeper in black.

Soul Separator is just a weird one! Is this remotely playable? It seems like it could have fun applications as a weird reanimation spell, but 8 Mama over two turns is a ton.

Like I told malone in discord, Worn powerstone is where you should be looking instead of the sage.

Killing wave is doodoobrown. You have to pick what to sac first so your opponent can just leave their board intact enough to still be better than yours. If you need to clear the board, they just won't. If you make X high enough that they have to sac all but one/two guys (paying like 7 mana for this card), you probably don't have the life to leave the right amount of blockers behind.

Yeah Splinterfright is going straight in
its buddy Ghoultree is there.

There are a couple of madness cards that might be good, most of us have faithless looting to trigger madness but I don't think its relavant.
Stromkirk Occultist
Asylum Visitor

Asylum Visitor is busted good.

Cackling Counterpart and Asylum Visitor seem very playable.

Splinterfright and Ghoultree are both tempting as well. I think I would only play one of them at 360 though and Splinterfright is probably the more interesting option. I'm not sure if it's worth the times it will just rot in your hand though.

I've played a lot of these cards in a low-power cube with rares. Which is weaker than high-power peasant, especially nowadays. Just to restate the obvious, there's never been a reason in any cube environment to maximize power unless that's specifically what you want.

Sever the Bloodline is just fine. Flashback is great on removal even at that price. But people have more efficient removal options.

I've always liked Somberwald Sage and gunned for it. I don't care what anyone says, I like powering out fatties. Fun Timmy card.

I've tried Ghoultree and never seen it be worth anything. It's so underwhelming, as it just gets chumped and removed. Sadly, as cool as Splinterfright is, I've also never seen it be good. End step instead of upkeep trigger would've gone a long way.

I never tried Cackling Counterpart. Might be decent, but double pips.

Asylum Visitor is good, but the upsides don't come up as often as one would think. It's mostly a 3/1 beater. Still an excellent card to help support a discard theme. I never tried Stromkirk Occultist. It always seemed weak and like it never should've been rare. If it had been uncommon back in the day, nobody would play it now. But that's true of most of these cards.

Soul Separator and Killing Wave seem way too expensive and unreliable. Never tried them.

I'm very disappointed to see Falkenrath Gorger at rare. Shoulda downshifted it. Helvault coulda been uncommon too, but it's not good.

Quote from leadfeather89 »

Asylum Visitor is busted good.

Quote from Mergatroid_Jones »

... It's mostly a 3/1 beater.

I retract my statement. It's meh, and not worth a slot in my outdated by 5yrs cube.

Maybe the cubes with... unusually dense graveyard support can make use of splinterfright. But I wouldn't want to handle the work it takes to be good or even mildly consistent.
Ghoultree though? large conditional creature with minimal protection no evasion no value is not where anyone should wanna be. It's not like the tree can really be expected to come down on turn 4. Average case, with support, is probably turn 5.something and for 4 mana we're getting something good nowadays.

Whats the use case for cracking counterpart? What am I running it to do?

Sever the bloodline is just playable enough. maybe, but keeping track of token names is whaaaack

Set is bootystains

Leelue, you used to be someone. Remember the days when you used to be a dreamer?

If there is a world where Splinterfright and Ghoultree can be respectable cards, I want to live in it. I will move mountains to make them good enough. I already support graveyard synergy in Golgari, so my environment is a perfect place to test these two cards. My love for Splinterfright will absolutely blind me in all my future decisions for Golgari. It doesn't help that I have a signed and altered version of this card. We'll just silver sharpie in his gold symbol for aesthetics.

I will absolutely report back on my findings with this two cards, Splinterfright especially.

For whatever it's worth, I don't think I've moved mountains and Splinterfright did well in our draft last night. The player that drafted it had a pretty normal GB deck and made good use of it. More importantly, my drafters had fun playing with and against it. The tension between its growth, the number of cards in its controller's library, and the opponent's dwindling but large life total made for a memorable race in round 2. Overall I'm happy with it's inclusion for now.

I'm super excited to play it.

I also support GY shenanigans in my cube and I'm also super excited to try Splinterfright out.

I tried playing him in Standard when he first came out. He was always just a hair too slow and not being *+1 for defense always made him a liability. In this format however I imagine him playing out pretty fairly. Anyone who plays him please tell me how he did.

Quote from BrownDog5117 »

Leelue, you used to be someone. Remember the days when you used to be a dreamer?

Everyone has heard that people become more republican as they grow up, but nobody ever expects to have it happen to them

I'm going to be adding Splinterfright as my cube has been getting lower and lower CMC and more interative which means that there has been more creatures in the yard earlier in the game.


I also am adding Asylum Visitor as I have supported strong discard decks in the past and I want to keep that aspect strong going forward. Additionally its still a decent body for aggro strats as a 3/1 for 2 is still solidly playable as cards #22 and #23.

I will be testing Killing Wave as I remember it always felt better in play than theory when playing it. It's not a great board wipe but it's not just a boardwipe. If thought about as drain spell it turns out for more controlling decks dropping it on X=3 often can be tempo swinging against more aggressive decks. I don't have high high hopes but I do feel with my past experience with it, it is worth looking at again.

I ended up mostly disappointed in the downshifts.

Cackling Counterpart looks like a little too much setup to be consistently good as a card for my takes, plus the “copy only your creatures” traditionally disappoints.

Asylum Visitor looks pretty good as an aggro creature and/or with a lot of self-discard. I think too many cubes have moved away from that direction in Black.

Sever the Bloodline is expensive, but it offers eventual card advantage and a clean answer to token makers. But, the price is certainly too high next to other options.

Stromkirk Occultist has potential to generate card advantage, but is outclassed by Anep, Vizier of Hazoret.

Splinterfright is the only downshift I will test. I am not happy that this has no inherent power/toughness, but it could be an early threat that grows while enabling the rest of your deck.

Killing Wave is the only one I would consider adding, but I think I'll skip it.

Honestly, I think this is going to be a sad year for my peasant cube. Nothing from this set, unlikely from Aetherdrift, won't run the three UB sets - we've got more sets than ever before, and I'm interested in less than ever. Lorwyn was the set I was really looking forward to, but they pushed that, so now I just have Tarkir.