If 1/4 of your cards are instants/sorceries, by turn 4, you have drawn 11-12 cards. So on average you will have drawn 3 instants/sorceries. That seems okay in the BCS of one, two, and three or four cost spell, but what about expensive spells or counters or removal spells or just any spell where it is not the best idea to cast it immediately?
On the other hand, I could see this guy having some poor mans Goyf like potential, where he is often a 2/3 at birth, but quickly grows to a 5/3. Still 5 would be half the instants/sorceries in a fairly packed deck.
Clearly you just aren't building your deck right. You should have gone 22 spells, this guy, and 17 lands! =P
Growing Edifice W
Creature - Wall
Defender
At the beginning of your upkeep, put a +1/+1 counter on ~.
When ~ has 4 +1/+1 counters on it, it gains Reach.
When ~ has 8 +1/+1 counters on it, it gains Indestructible.
2/2
How about an AGGRESSIVE wall? Turn 1, this trades with 2/1's. Turn 2, it stops them in their tracks. By turn 5, it can keep Baneslayer Angel out. By turn 9, it tells Progenitus "NO".
I like the card, but sadly it doesn't tell progenitus no since it can't block him =P
Edit - You also have it worded like a triggered effect right now, I think you would want to do "As long as ~ has 4 or more +1/+1 counters on it, it has reach."
I think this is fine for bigger cubes if they want another copy of slagstorm or if they need a way to combat a ton of recurring creatures. This is obviously much better than slagstorm against undying, persist, and cards like bloodghast and gravecrawler, so if you're looking for a way to combat decks like that or you want another anti-swarm card this seems testable.
On a non-cube note, it's real weird that they printed this after undying and Inn zombies rotated out. I wonder if we are going to see some form of creature recur keyword or something coming up.
How many spells do you play in your cube that you want to target your own guy with? I pretty much only have rancor in my cube.
Capsize with buyback. 9 MANA EDICT COMBO INITIATE!
But yeah, not sure how often this guy will be triggering.
Edit - Just checked. We have 1 card in black that could conceivably be cast on this (profane command), a couple good things to cast on it (reckless charge or rancor) and like 6 or 7 cards total where you could choose to target it for value (and I'm taking like pinging it for 1 with electrolyze or flames if you have an "extra damage," although the trigger does resolve before the spell which is something to keep in mind). Frankly I can't see any heroic guy being good enough in small cubes because there is so little self targeting you want to do
But I would imagine being able to double as a control finisher in addition to just a reanimation target has some value for BW control decks. And I know I'd much rather try and reach 7 mana than 8.
True, I guess I always think of angel of despair as a cheat into play card rather than a hardcast card, and this is pretty much always better in that situation. But yeah, if you are actually trying to cast it I do like angel better as getting to 7 mana is already hard enough, 8 is asking a ton.
I cube every Sunday with my group. This time I ran proxies of:
Elspeth, Purphoros, Poulkranos, Thassa, Xenagos, Ember Swallower, and Stormbreath Dragon.
Elspeth, Poulkranos, Thassa, Ember Swallower, Purphoros, and the dragon were main decked.
Here is a break down by each card:
Xenagos was hate drafted.
Purphoros and the dragon never saw play.
Elspeth showed me she is cubable. It came out onto a battlefield where the opponent had an Elesh norn so of course the course of action was to pop off its ultimate. Because of Elesh, all of the opponents creatures died while Elspeth's owners creatures survived. Elspeth died on the opponents turn but it acted as a huge game turner.
Monstrosity was never able to go off. Whenever Ember Swallower and Poulkranos dropped they put the living fear into their opponents. This is not a bad thing. Especially when the threat density of the board is high enough that it doesnt matter if only one of your threats is killed.
Finally Thassa is the real deal. She just won games. She never once became a creature. But the card advantage, and especially being able to make creatures unblockable won many a games.
So there you have it. Any one proxy and test the cards in their cube? what were your results? Any questions about my experience? I will and can go into more details.
I am glad to hear about how good thassa was. She has been the card so far that I am most excited about, and she seems so good.
I am sure the answer is yes, but, does this beat out Prophetic Bolt?
1 mana cheaper, and you get an average of 2.5 cards out of it, compared to the 2-for-1 that bolt is, you also get to dig an extra card deeper. Downside is you will often lose the best card in the top 5, instead of getting the best card in the top 4. So that's the comparison, and yeah, I think this is normally better, but there are times when bolt is exactly what you need, and then you get the next "exactly what you need" card, wheres augury is just always sick card advantage.
Is it just me, or is Angel of Despair actually better because it costs less mana? I don't know if I want to pay the extra 1 to have the LTB trigger, honestly.
I dunno, are you ever hardcasting angel of despair anyway? I think exile + double trigger makes this better than angel of despair, but it's not like people were lining up to play angel of despair in their cube anyway.
Did you mean to compare this to desolation angel? This card is much closer to angel of despair (although I realize more people were running desolation angel as an actual card in cube, just not sure which comparison you were trying to make because the names are kind of similar.) I feel like if you are still running desolation angel, I wouldn't really replace it with this because I feel like you are running desolation angel for the geddon effect, whereas the effect here is something white and black have a fair amount of access to (obviously exiling and any permanent is nice, but between white and black you can usually answer most permanent types) and not something unique enough to replace deso for.
Now, on to this card itself. I don't think it's high enough on the list of orzhov cards to make it into most cubes as something you will actually be casting. However, I think this is an interesting enough reanimate target that I would definitely test it as like a colorless card or as a special reanimate section card if that's what you do (we count Sphinx of the Steel Wind as a colorless card, for example, since it really only gets cast in tinker and reanimate decks). This is a very strong effect and you feel way less bad if it dies than you do with most reanimation targets.
I like this card, especially for bigger cubes with reanimate packages.
It's actually the opposite of this. Combo decks won't want it because you can't grab specific pieces, but decks like counterburn that are full of consistent stuff will love it.
I think the card is really strong, and is easily one of the top 3 Izzet cards. Again, if it's real, of course. That's my only concern about it.
edit: And it's looking more and more fake as the discussion goes on.
It is worrying that it hasn't been thrown on the official spoiler yet. Bummer.
Edit - Also worrying that this is literally the only magic related result on the 1st page of a google search.
Pretty sick interaction with greater gargadon or any other sac outlet.
Clearly you just aren't building your deck right. You should have gone 22 spells, this guy, and 17 lands! =P
I like the card, but sadly it doesn't tell progenitus no since it can't block him =P
Edit - You also have it worded like a triggered effect right now, I think you would want to do "As long as ~ has 4 or more +1/+1 counters on it, it has reach."
On a non-cube note, it's real weird that they printed this after undying and Inn zombies rotated out. I wonder if we are going to see some form of creature recur keyword or something coming up.
Capsize with buyback. 9 MANA EDICT COMBO INITIATE!
But yeah, not sure how often this guy will be triggering.
Edit - Just checked. We have 1 card in black that could conceivably be cast on this (profane command), a couple good things to cast on it (reckless charge or rancor) and like 6 or 7 cards total where you could choose to target it for value (and I'm taking like pinging it for 1 with electrolyze or flames if you have an "extra damage," although the trigger does resolve before the spell which is something to keep in mind). Frankly I can't see any heroic guy being good enough in small cubes because there is so little self targeting you want to do
You like this more than electrolyze? I feel like electrolyze is a blowout so often.
Lol
True, I guess I always think of angel of despair as a cheat into play card rather than a hardcast card, and this is pretty much always better in that situation. But yeah, if you are actually trying to cast it I do like angel better as getting to 7 mana is already hard enough, 8 is asking a ton.
I am glad to hear about how good thassa was. She has been the card so far that I am most excited about, and she seems so good.
1 mana cheaper, and you get an average of 2.5 cards out of it, compared to the 2-for-1 that bolt is, you also get to dig an extra card deeper. Downside is you will often lose the best card in the top 5, instead of getting the best card in the top 4. So that's the comparison, and yeah, I think this is normally better, but there are times when bolt is exactly what you need, and then you get the next "exactly what you need" card, wheres augury is just always sick card advantage.
I don't think liliana will dip at all.
Yeah, when I saw the name I thought it was either gonna be black, red, or red black.
I dunno, are you ever hardcasting angel of despair anyway? I think exile + double trigger makes this better than angel of despair, but it's not like people were lining up to play angel of despair in their cube anyway.
On the plus side, this is fun with flash lol.
Now, on to this card itself. I don't think it's high enough on the list of orzhov cards to make it into most cubes as something you will actually be casting. However, I think this is an interesting enough reanimate target that I would definitely test it as like a colorless card or as a special reanimate section card if that's what you do (we count Sphinx of the Steel Wind as a colorless card, for example, since it really only gets cast in tinker and reanimate decks). This is a very strong effect and you feel way less bad if it dies than you do with most reanimation targets.
I like this card, especially for bigger cubes with reanimate packages.
It is worrying that it hasn't been thrown on the official spoiler yet. Bummer.
Edit - Also worrying that this is literally the only magic related result on the 1st page of a google search.
Edit 2 - Well, except stuff linking to here.
Edit 3 - Looks like it's quasi confirmed?
Uhhhhh, revelation?