So Merge is like a bestow that you first cast as a creature and then attach it to something? That sounds kind of strong in a vacuum. The reusability of equipment, plus it is not a blank with no other creature or if you can't fit in the time to pay to equip.
There is a cycle of lands I'd like to recommend to you guys, the storage lands from Time Spiral. Saltcrusted Steppe
These are pretty powerful and often work playing off color. They're pretty cool.
Anyone else tried these? I have looked at them, but always looked at them as too slow. As straight fixing, they are almost like worse Unknown Shores, a land that is generally seen as not good enough even in most retail limited decks/formats. Although I guess you can pay the 1-tax on a different turn than when you cast your spell.
The storage-function also seems kind of slow. You have to spend two turns storing before you net 1 mana, so it doesn't really seem functional as simple ramp. I imagine it would be more of a "throw the spare mana over here" kind of use, but you effectively need two mana for that, and on most turns before turn ~5 you don't just play that much off curve. Into the late game, I guess it is somewhere to dump mana, but your deck then needs a Blaze or an invoker to take advantage of silly amounts of mana..
This is all theorycrafting. Real experience would be appreciated.
Do we agree that Mogg Fanatic is the best at what it does? It wasn't mentioned on the initial list by DJRedLantern, but Goblin Arsonist and Fanatical Firebrand was on there. My opinion is that the ability to ping when untapped and with no help in dying outweighs haste and the ability to take out an X/2 (or sometimes two X/1s) via combat. (Disregarding weird new rules like damage on the stack).
Ooh, meaningless off-topic talk. Been missing that:)
I've never heard that the seasons are defined that way before. Where I live, the summer solstice is known as "midsummer". Kinda weird to have summer start with midsummer. And most years autumn is well underway by late September. And talking about most of December as autumn is nonsensical. December is winter.
Actually, wikipedia tells me that "Some cultures regard the autumnal equinox as "mid-autumn", while others with a longer temperature lag treat it as the start of autumn". Meteorologists (and most of the temperate countries in the southern hemisphere)[3] use a definition based on Gregorian calendar months, with autumn being September, October, and November in the northern hemisphere,[4] and March, April, and May in the southern hemisphere. In North America, autumn traditionally starts with the September equinox (21 to 24 September)[5] and ends with the winter solstice (21 or 22 December).[6] In traditional East Asian solar term, autumn starts on or around 8 August and ends on or about 7 November. In Ireland, the autumn months according to the national meteorological service, Met Éireann, are September, October and November."
I also found this: Autumn is defined by meterologists as when the local daily mean temperature is between 0°C and 10°C and falling. That would mean that large parts of the world doesn't have autumn.
I'm not really interested in tracking artists, although I guess the Iguanart could be pretty good on pure power. Also like the flavour text.
What about house-ruling Spirit of the season so that you "choose your own season"? (I don't know how the hell you could make a working definition of the start/end of seasons anyway).
And if we are in non-regular-card-frame-land: What about Growth Charm (internal card-link didn't seem to work)?
EDIT: Was "hell" always allowed on here, or has the sensor become more lenient? Let's find out: **** ****** *****. Guess not
If you go this route, then I'd like to point out Wall of Heat, it is really tough to break through.
The spellweaver-theme mentioned above could use Thermo-Alchemist, and if you include both that and the Wall, then perhaps Vent Sentinel could be made to work? If you do go that route and need more defenders, Pitchstone Wall also has big butt stats, but it will just be strictly worse than Wall of Heat unless you can do something with the ability. Weaver of Lightning is also a defender.
In my opinion, part of the fun of cubing is that there are a ton of borderline cards which allows for personalisation, diversification and/or pushing of themes.
I run Ghost-lit raider, and it is fine. I see it as a mediocre burn-spell with the alternate mode of being a repeatable source of damage when you can cast it (and perhaps protect it).
Here's how I think about it. 3R for 4 damage is fine, and would be a fine playable in most peasant cube Rx decks. Yes, there are better and more efficient options available among un/common burn spells, but that doesn't mean that once in the cube, an Electrify wouldn't be a worthvile card to put in a deck. This kind of a discussion came up a lot in the "Evaluate Everything" thread, where cards that are clearly "playable" would still get a zero because of better options available (I am asusming Electrify got a zero).
And the raider then comes with the upside of sometimes just being absurd in the right boardstate. It also has minor upside in being a creature, but also downside (can get it back with Raise Dead-effects, but does not trigger Young Pyromancer.
The times when this all breaks down are in cubes that are maxed out on removal and burn. In those cubes, a drafter might have so much removal to choose from that an Electrify would not make the 23. (even if being "fine" in the abstract").
Is Omen of the hunt relevant for the illusive Enchantment deck? I suspect that archetype will receive a fair few upgrades in the set, but perhaps Wild Growth, Utopia Sprawl, Gift of Paradise are more than enough options for enchantment-based ramp already? The option to scry it away is nice, and flash is also useful in simic, as those decks often both want to play at instant speed and tend to be splashing...
And while the last few years has been a bit weird in terms of peasant cube in that C/U removal has been poor for example, retail limited formats have generally been good. There are some exceptions of course, but if you pick the best from the best and look at cross synergies, there could definitely be something there.
An aside: How would you treat downshifts? I found Ire Shaman in my scryfall-search for an uncommon pioneer-legal red two-drop, but its uncommon printing was in M25. I presume you would judge rarity based on standard-legal printings only?
As an aside, has anyone looked at No rest for the Wicked? It is kinda similar to angelic renewal, but wording means that it doesn't have to be on the battlefield when the creature dies for it to work.
If the fetch+shock/dual manabases weren't so expensive, I think I would consider having them around for variety's sake. For a single draft, swap trilands+vivids+5 other lands for 10+10 fetch/dual could be interesting to spice things up. At a trillion billion moneys, I will go with no.
The frog looks strong. Good early, relevant late.
Anyone else tried these? I have looked at them, but always looked at them as too slow. As straight fixing, they are almost like worse Unknown Shores, a land that is generally seen as not good enough even in most retail limited decks/formats. Although I guess you can pay the 1-tax on a different turn than when you cast your spell.
The storage-function also seems kind of slow. You have to spend two turns storing before you net 1 mana, so it doesn't really seem functional as simple ramp. I imagine it would be more of a "throw the spare mana over here" kind of use, but you effectively need two mana for that, and on most turns before turn ~5 you don't just play that much off curve. Into the late game, I guess it is somewhere to dump mana, but your deck then needs a Blaze or an invoker to take advantage of silly amounts of mana..
This is all theorycrafting. Real experience would be appreciated.
Upside of Mogg Fanatic: the ability to ping when untapped and with no help in dying
outweighs:
haste (Fanatical Firebrand, who cannot ping when tapped)
and the ability to take out an X/2 (or sometimes two X/1s) via combat (Goblin Arsonist, who cannot ping with no help in dying).
Do we agree that Mogg Fanatic is the best at what it does? It wasn't mentioned on the initial list by DJRedLantern, but Goblin Arsonist and Fanatical Firebrand was on there. My opinion is that the ability to ping when untapped and with no help in dying outweighs haste and the ability to take out an X/2 (or sometimes two X/1s) via combat. (Disregarding weird new rules like damage on the stack).
I've never heard that the seasons are defined that way before. Where I live, the summer solstice is known as "midsummer". Kinda weird to have summer start with midsummer. And most years autumn is well underway by late September. And talking about most of December as autumn is nonsensical. December is winter.
Actually, wikipedia tells me that "Some cultures regard the autumnal equinox as "mid-autumn", while others with a longer temperature lag treat it as the start of autumn". Meteorologists (and most of the temperate countries in the southern hemisphere)[3] use a definition based on Gregorian calendar months, with autumn being September, October, and November in the northern hemisphere,[4] and March, April, and May in the southern hemisphere. In North America, autumn traditionally starts with the September equinox (21 to 24 September)[5] and ends with the winter solstice (21 or 22 December).[6] In traditional East Asian solar term, autumn starts on or around 8 August and ends on or about 7 November. In Ireland, the autumn months according to the national meteorological service, Met Éireann, are September, October and November."
I also found this: Autumn is defined by meterologists as when the local daily mean temperature is between 0°C and 10°C and falling. That would mean that large parts of the world doesn't have autumn.
What about house-ruling Spirit of the season so that you "choose your own season"? (I don't know how the hell you could make a working definition of the start/end of seasons anyway).
And if we are in non-regular-card-frame-land: What about Growth Charm (internal card-link didn't seem to work)?
EDIT: Was "hell" always allowed on here, or has the sensor become more lenient? Let's find out: **** ****** *****. Guess not
Something-something Vampire 1B
Creature - Vampire
Lifelink.
Pay 2 life: ~CARDNAME gains flying until end of turn.
2/1
If you go this route, then I'd like to point out Wall of Heat, it is really tough to break through.
The spellweaver-theme mentioned above could use Thermo-Alchemist, and if you include both that and the Wall, then perhaps Vent Sentinel could be made to work? If you do go that route and need more defenders, Pitchstone Wall also has big butt stats, but it will just be strictly worse than Wall of Heat unless you can do something with the ability. Weaver of Lightning is also a defender.
I miss the Evaluate Everything thread
Here's how I think about it. 3R for 4 damage is fine, and would be a fine playable in most peasant cube Rx decks. Yes, there are better and more efficient options available among un/common burn spells, but that doesn't mean that once in the cube, an Electrify wouldn't be a worthvile card to put in a deck. This kind of a discussion came up a lot in the "Evaluate Everything" thread, where cards that are clearly "playable" would still get a zero because of better options available (I am asusming Electrify got a zero).
And the raider then comes with the upside of sometimes just being absurd in the right boardstate. It also has minor upside in being a creature, but also downside (can get it back with Raise Dead-effects, but does not trigger Young Pyromancer.
The times when this all breaks down are in cubes that are maxed out on removal and burn. In those cubes, a drafter might have so much removal to choose from that an Electrify would not make the 23. (even if being "fine" in the abstract").
Guessing no still.
And while the last few years has been a bit weird in terms of peasant cube in that C/U removal has been poor for example, retail limited formats have generally been good. There are some exceptions of course, but if you pick the best from the best and look at cross synergies, there could definitely be something there.
An aside: How would you treat downshifts? I found Ire Shaman in my scryfall-search for an uncommon pioneer-legal red two-drop, but its uncommon printing was in M25. I presume you would judge rarity based on standard-legal printings only?
[From Luis Scott-Vargas' limited review on Channelfireball].
Any reactions? I was semi-intrigued by this card.