I feel ok about suspend tokens design-wise if there are no other creatures in the limited format to confuse it with, but I agree it’s a strange design choice.
I also don’t think it’s a great cube card. I’ve never seen free spell cheating work reliably in cube, and not getting to suspend this in the early turns is pretty catastrophic.
Yeah, I’m not really a fan of snow basics in cube either. In my mind it cheapens the balance these cards were designed around and contains none of the backwards compatibility or mana fixing decisions that colorless mana offers. I would offer basic Wastes long before basic snow lands, and I don’t do that either.
Not K-Command, but not bad I don’t think. It does some very real things that card can’t and drops the hammer down against aggro, even if it’s not a powerful card advantage engine.
Generally speaking I count hybrids as “half a card” in each monocolor section. For example, if I’m running Finks and Dryad Militant in Selesnya, I’ll simply dock one slot from each monocolor section. If a tie needs to be broken, it’ll go against whichever color uses it more.
This card is a goddamn monster. Some decks can’t ever beat a 6/6 Progenitus, and if you just play this on turn 4 you get to make a 4/4 semi-Hexproof that threatens to become that next turn. And the activation being colorless is insane: you can splash this! It’s like Untamed Kavu except instead of every mode being underwhelming, every mode is awesome. This is the best green 1-drop outside of mana dorks, and I’d play it in all cubes.
This is one of those weird cards that exists at the intersection of beatdown and synergy, and I think suffers for it. There will be decks where this shines, but it’s neither a premium graveyard enabler nor aggro card, and I’d rarely if ever play this in a normal midrange deck. You need to have a deck interested in both gameplans, and I don’t think this is a strong enough payoff to incentivize that.
Getting to add substantial power/toughness to the board for free is not something to be trifled with. The floor is reasonable, and the ceiling will push many aggressive starts over the edge. Red players are going to be really irritated when their burn spell gets stymied by this.
Am I greedy to think this somehow isn’t good enough? I mean, many of the artifacts in cube tap for mana or have things you’d rather be doing with them anyway... and the mana sink is kinda expensive... but artifact decks can make so much mana... nah card’s gonna be great lol.
Idk, I think it’s a good bit better than Blightning personally. There’s a reason Ball Lightning costs RRR and Lava Spike only costs R. 3 extra damage is serious business, and even though the discard isn’t as reliable connecting with this is just a backbreaker. I wish the mana cost was a bit less restrictive, but I imagine this mostly in red splashing black aggro decks anyway.
Card might be playable even without snow basics anyway, depending on how much emphasis you put on Coiling Oracle’s ramp potential. Flash and flying are some pretty relevant upsides.
Love that value all around. Most red 3s are susceptible to immediate removal or are fairly situational, so this is a nice new look. I don’t know if it makes the average aggro deck’s main, but I can’t think of any base red deck that would be upset about playing it.
I also don’t think it’s a great cube card. I’ve never seen free spell cheating work reliably in cube, and not getting to suspend this in the early turns is pretty catastrophic.
Am I greedy to think this somehow isn’t good enough? I mean, many of the artifacts in cube tap for mana or have things you’d rather be doing with them anyway... and the mana sink is kinda expensive... but artifact decks can make so much mana... nah card’s gonna be great lol.