I mean for one thing it's strictly better than Unmarked Grave, since the tutoring has no restrictions.
In addition to that having another option to recur things endures the card affects the board which is great.
The 5mv option is good but I'm not so sure how often it'll be played. Black is not green and so does not necessarily reach 5 mana every game, and even when it does not all of its 4 drops end games. GSZ is great because it's so flexible, fetching you an elf one game and a game ending bomb the next, while the average black deck would probably care only about the 5mv mode on this card, making it very inflexible.
I'd probably test it, but I'd consider it mostly a reanimator card with some niche uses elsewhere.
Venser's 4mv and permanent bounce is the only real edge it has over this, and even that is quite desperate in today's fast and efficient meta.
On the other hand this is more splashable (which is big) and doesn't give them their spell back. It doesn't even need to connect to cast the stolen spell - attacking is enough. On top of that the body is better.
I mean I definitely think this is nuts. White it's true that 5 mana is a lot, especially to hold up at instant speed, blue has considered things like Voracious Greatshark before, and this is leagues better. Welcome to cube, Mr djinn, I can see you staying for quite a while.
Comparing this to Shriekmaw is interesting.
I'd argue that Shriekmaw's body is better than this, considering it's more splashable and has better evasion, while this card is also risking killing your own stuff.
However, in modern cube, I'd argue that this channel ability is better than Shriekmaw's evoke, since it's instant speed and kills more targets.
Overall I'd say that both are quite comparable, which means this card should probably be an easy include.
When ~ enters, create a 3/3 colorless Golem artifact creature token.
2,T: Put a +1/+1 counter on each creature token you control. They gain trample until end of turn.
1/1
------
Green gets a Blade Splicer. You lose out on the immediate First Strike for the token, but you gain a mana sink that grows your tokens and gives them evasion.
A slam dunk if I've ever seen one.
This seems like a great all-rounder. A 5/5 body with two foods is good against aggro, and Trample and netting you a card on attack is good against control, but it excels in neither role.
I do like it better than Ulvenwald oddity unless you're running green aggro.
With saddle being able to make use of summoning sick creatures and green having an abundance of bodies to make use of (i.e. tokens, mana elves, etc) I can definitely see this Brushwagg becoming a significant threat over time.
Saddling and attacking this thing twice or more should feel like a game-deciding move.
The one big downside to the combo is that our opponent can exile your entire board by removing the Worldgorger Dragon in response to its ETB trigger, so this combo ain't for the faint of heart. Ideally you pair this with a lot of discard effects / Teferi, Time Raveler, counter magic, etc. Luckily the combo itself is cheap so it's not too hard to leave up a counter. I think it's worth testing out since the only real parasitic parts of the combo are Worldgorger Dragon / Abdel Adrian / Bazaar of Baghdad , everything else are just random goodstuff cards that you're probably already (can be) playing.
This kills the combo for me. In MTG's beginning, the spells that could have stopped this combo were far rarer, since there weren't as much instant speed hard removal spells except for counterspells - Terror and Swords to Plowshares were the peak of it.
Now, however, the variety of cubable instant kill spells is astounding, and many also exile, which kills the option of a comeback with the combo. White has 5, the newest of which is Get Lost, Black has a ton, the newest of which is Bitter Triumph, and even Blue has Dress Down. This makes the odds of disrupting the combo far greater.
Necro. I'd like to give my two cents about the card and ask for some discussion.
Personally, I can definitely see the appeal of the card. Monarch is great, especially for a color that likes aggro so much, and 7 damage is a lot. Often when resolving this card it was enough to slowly kill the opponent's biggest threat each turn, while the card advantage from keeping the monarch slowly assures victory, and that's even without dealing damage to the opponent themselves nearly guaranteeing lethal.
However, this card has proved to be polarizing: once you lose monarch it's extremely hard to regain it, since 2 damage doesn't do a lot, even if it is every turn. Moreover, the prohibitive cost of 5 mana means this is often out of aggro's main deck scope, and the fact that it has no board presence makes it hard to play for midrange.
--
I'm bringing this up because I'm curious about comparing it to Court of Embereth.
In comparison to this card, CoE always guarantees board presence - which makes defending the monarch much easier - and if you are the monarch, you get to slowly burn down your opponent's life total. Aggro likes the reduced cost better, and midrange likes the board presence, but in terms of sheer power the older court clearly wins.
The newer court is also really sad when compared to options in other colors, like Court of Garenbrig and Court of Grace.
--
How have your experiences with the red courts been? Do you favor one over another? And how would you rate the cards?
ESC has had its first real competition printed in The Eternal Wanderer. I'm curious how they stand up to comparison, now that it's been a while since the card's release.
I admittedly haven't had a lot of chances of playing with either lately, so I sadly don't have much to contribute.
Sevinne's recurs all permanent types, which is a huge difference. This includes Oblivion Ring and friends, equipment like Jitte or SoXaY, lands for ramping through fetches, and even 3mv planeswalkers. These modes ensure the card is never dead, plus it has a great flashback mode for card advantage.
This card, on the other hand, has none of those. You either have a 3mv or less creature in your yard, in which case you get it improved, or you get an equipment that's pretty awful for the cost.
Even if you have the creature, it's not clear that it would be worth recurring. A 1 drop with +2/+2 is a far cry from being worth investing a card into - and certainly not comparable to something like Adeline. Why not just run a good white 3 drop creature instead of this? White has plenty of those.
1G
Creature - Human Detective
Vigilance
Whenever a creature enters the battlefield under your control, if its power is greater than ~'s power or its toughness is greater than ~'s toughness, put a +1/+1 counter on ~ and investigate.
2/2
---
Tireless Tracker for 2 mana, but evolve instead of landfall, and the counters arrive immediately instead of after saccing the clue.
While it's nowhere nearly as easily triggered as Tracker, it's fairly easy to trigger at least once - even Sylvan Caryatid coming after this guy gives you a trigger.
Once you trigger it once it becomes a 3/3 vigilance, and after investing 2 more mana it has replaced itself, which is pretty good for a 2 drop.
I think it's a solid contender, and a far cry better than most green 2 drops since it fits into so many decks.
Any thoughts?
Whenever one or more creatures you control and/or creature cards in your graveyard are put into exile, you may choose a creature card from among them. Until end of turn, target token you control becomes a copy of it, except it has flying.
+2: Surveil 2, then exile a card from a graveyard.
+1: Create a 1/1 black and white Spirit creature token with flying.
-2: Exile target creature you control. For each other player, exile up to one target creature that player controls.
{3}
---
+1 is similar to Tezzeret, Artifice Master, which is very solid at protecting Kaya and yourself.
-2 is a nerfed version of Grist, the Hunger Tide. It exiles, which is great versus some, but loses the ability to target planeswalkers, which sucks.
These two abilities are already a solid, if weaker, riff on Grist. The two other abilities make this more interesting.
The passive turns your token into the creature that you exile for 1 turn. This is actually really big - black is a color that likes reanimation, so it likes fatties like Griselbrand, Archon of Cruelty, and others.
The +2 that surveils then exiles a card from the yard is an easy way to proc this passive, and specifically even if you mill an Eldrazi you can still exile it with the ability, making your token attack with Annihilator and a huge body for 1 turn.
If you don't have a cheat target in your graveyard, exiling your Adeline, Resplendent Cathar or other previously killed creature will still net you some nice value when you attack - these dudes especially appreciate gaining Flying from the ability.
Other ways to more easily proc this passive are cards like the new Lord Skitter, Sewer King that not only provides the exile trigger but also tokens to turn into fatties.
The final thing I'll say is that I think you can use blink cards like Restoration Angel or Ephemerate to blink a creature on the field, and I believe the ability will still let you copy the card even though it's not in exile anymore.
While it does suck that we need a token to "get" the exiled creature for a turn, I think it's quite a reasonable drawback, especially since white generates so many of them. The worse part is that you don't get the ETB abilities and that you can't clone the opponent's creatures - they really annoy me.
Overall, I think it's a solid and very interesting option, probably the strongest Orzhov planeswalker since Sorin, Grim Nemesis.
What are everyone's thoughts?
I think Oona's Prowler has actually gotten much better over time.
While there's still only one deck that likes discarding cards (reanimator) that the card is bad against, the general card quality and quicker pace of the game mean that discarding cards to reduce its damage is often an incredible CA and tempo loss.
When playing Prowler in aggro, I recall only a handful of times out of dozens where the opponent used the ability, and only a few where it made a difference against me.
I guess that focused powered cubes probably have better options as mentioned, but I would still hesitate to cut it. Just sideboard it out if you're playing against reanimator and have fun killing planeswalkers and stealing the monarch.
In my opinion there is less and less space for TITI.
It's a wall that requires you to wait with your spells until it's on the table. If it's not coming down t2, then the odds of it flipping are incredibly low, especially since blue isn't as reliant on counterspells as it used to be, with Fall From Favor, Dress Down, etc.
Even if you have a lot of slow spell-focused decks in your cube, TITI might still not cut it. A wall is far from enough to stop modern aggro decks, that have a dozen Rabblemaster variants and stuff like Embercleave to push through. You will probably not live long enough against aggro to cast 4 spells.
My rank for importance of abilities of this card for cube is as follows:
-X > +1 > passive >> +2.
The -X is the biggest form of guaranteed value and survivability, and the +1 is a source of card advantage.
The passive is low because it relies on a specific card type, whereas 6 drops in aggressive colors like red and white must do their best to fit in every single deck that would play a 6 drop.
The +2 gives you mana when you already have 6 mana, which is pretty useless except if you're playing 5c superfriends or just trying to up her loyalty.
My biggest gripe with the card in cube is its +1. Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast's +1 was too dangerous to activate consistently because of the risk of decking out, and this ability is even risker, exiling five instead of three and only getting to play only one instant or sorcery. While 60 card decks in standard probably don't care as much about the drawback of decking out, cube decks being 40 cards care much more about self mill, and can't necessarily tune themselves to have enough instant / sorcery hits. As mentioned before, needing 9+ hits is far too much.
I can definitely see standard spellslinger decks playing this, though, or a deck that cares more about the +2 for some reason. If Arena Rector would be a deck this would be a great card to cheat out.
In addition to that having another option to recur things endures the card affects the board which is great.
The 5mv option is good but I'm not so sure how often it'll be played. Black is not green and so does not necessarily reach 5 mana every game, and even when it does not all of its 4 drops end games. GSZ is great because it's so flexible, fetching you an elf one game and a game ending bomb the next, while the average black deck would probably care only about the 5mv mode on this card, making it very inflexible.
I'd probably test it, but I'd consider it mostly a reanimator card with some niche uses elsewhere.
On the other hand this is more splashable (which is big) and doesn't give them their spell back. It doesn't even need to connect to cast the stolen spell - attacking is enough. On top of that the body is better.
I mean I definitely think this is nuts. White it's true that 5 mana is a lot, especially to hold up at instant speed, blue has considered things like Voracious Greatshark before, and this is leagues better. Welcome to cube, Mr djinn, I can see you staying for quite a while.
I'd argue that Shriekmaw's body is better than this, considering it's more splashable and has better evasion, while this card is also risking killing your own stuff.
However, in modern cube, I'd argue that this channel ability is better than Shriekmaw's evoke, since it's instant speed and kills more targets.
Overall I'd say that both are quite comparable, which means this card should probably be an easy include.
2G
Creature - Human Artificer
When ~ enters, create a 3/3 colorless Golem artifact creature token.
2,T: Put a +1/+1 counter on each creature token you control. They gain trample until end of turn.
1/1
------
Green gets a Blade Splicer. You lose out on the immediate First Strike for the token, but you gain a mana sink that grows your tokens and gives them evasion.
A slam dunk if I've ever seen one.
I do like it better than Ulvenwald oddity unless you're running green aggro.
Saddling and attacking this thing twice or more should feel like a game-deciding move.
This kills the combo for me. In MTG's beginning, the spells that could have stopped this combo were far rarer, since there weren't as much instant speed hard removal spells except for counterspells - Terror and Swords to Plowshares were the peak of it.
Now, however, the variety of cubable instant kill spells is astounding, and many also exile, which kills the option of a comeback with the combo. White has 5, the newest of which is Get Lost, Black has a ton, the newest of which is Bitter Triumph, and even Blue has Dress Down. This makes the odds of disrupting the combo far greater.
Personally, I can definitely see the appeal of the card. Monarch is great, especially for a color that likes aggro so much, and 7 damage is a lot. Often when resolving this card it was enough to slowly kill the opponent's biggest threat each turn, while the card advantage from keeping the monarch slowly assures victory, and that's even without dealing damage to the opponent themselves nearly guaranteeing lethal.
However, this card has proved to be polarizing: once you lose monarch it's extremely hard to regain it, since 2 damage doesn't do a lot, even if it is every turn. Moreover, the prohibitive cost of 5 mana means this is often out of aggro's main deck scope, and the fact that it has no board presence makes it hard to play for midrange.
--
I'm bringing this up because I'm curious about comparing it to Court of Embereth.
In comparison to this card, CoE always guarantees board presence - which makes defending the monarch much easier - and if you are the monarch, you get to slowly burn down your opponent's life total. Aggro likes the reduced cost better, and midrange likes the board presence, but in terms of sheer power the older court clearly wins.
The newer court is also really sad when compared to options in other colors, like Court of Garenbrig and Court of Grace.
--
How have your experiences with the red courts been? Do you favor one over another? And how would you rate the cards?
I admittedly haven't had a lot of chances of playing with either lately, so I sadly don't have much to contribute.
This card, on the other hand, has none of those. You either have a 3mv or less creature in your yard, in which case you get it improved, or you get an equipment that's pretty awful for the cost.
Even if you have the creature, it's not clear that it would be worth recurring. A 1 drop with +2/+2 is a far cry from being worth investing a card into - and certainly not comparable to something like Adeline. Why not just run a good white 3 drop creature instead of this? White has plenty of those.
1G
Creature - Human Detective
Vigilance
Whenever a creature enters the battlefield under your control, if its power is greater than ~'s power or its toughness is greater than ~'s toughness, put a +1/+1 counter on ~ and investigate.
2/2
---
Tireless Tracker for 2 mana, but evolve instead of landfall, and the counters arrive immediately instead of after saccing the clue.
While it's nowhere nearly as easily triggered as Tracker, it's fairly easy to trigger at least once - even Sylvan Caryatid coming after this guy gives you a trigger.
Once you trigger it once it becomes a 3/3 vigilance, and after investing 2 more mana it has replaced itself, which is pretty good for a 2 drop.
I think it's a solid contender, and a far cry better than most green 2 drops since it fits into so many decks.
Any thoughts?
2WB
Whenever one or more creatures you control and/or creature cards in your graveyard are put into exile, you may choose a creature card from among them. Until end of turn, target token you control becomes a copy of it, except it has flying.
+2: Surveil 2, then exile a card from a graveyard.
+1: Create a 1/1 black and white Spirit creature token with flying.
-2: Exile target creature you control. For each other player, exile up to one target creature that player controls.
{3}
---
+1 is similar to Tezzeret, Artifice Master, which is very solid at protecting Kaya and yourself.
-2 is a nerfed version of Grist, the Hunger Tide. It exiles, which is great versus some, but loses the ability to target planeswalkers, which sucks.
These two abilities are already a solid, if weaker, riff on Grist. The two other abilities make this more interesting.
The passive turns your token into the creature that you exile for 1 turn. This is actually really big - black is a color that likes reanimation, so it likes fatties like Griselbrand, Archon of Cruelty, and others.
The +2 that surveils then exiles a card from the yard is an easy way to proc this passive, and specifically even if you mill an Eldrazi you can still exile it with the ability, making your token attack with Annihilator and a huge body for 1 turn.
If you don't have a cheat target in your graveyard, exiling your Adeline, Resplendent Cathar or other previously killed creature will still net you some nice value when you attack - these dudes especially appreciate gaining Flying from the ability.
Other ways to more easily proc this passive are cards like the new Lord Skitter, Sewer King that not only provides the exile trigger but also tokens to turn into fatties.
The final thing I'll say is that I think you can use blink cards like Restoration Angel or Ephemerate to blink a creature on the field, and I believe the ability will still let you copy the card even though it's not in exile anymore.
While it does suck that we need a token to "get" the exiled creature for a turn, I think it's quite a reasonable drawback, especially since white generates so many of them. The worse part is that you don't get the ETB abilities and that you can't clone the opponent's creatures - they really annoy me.
Overall, I think it's a solid and very interesting option, probably the strongest Orzhov planeswalker since Sorin, Grim Nemesis.
What are everyone's thoughts?
While there's still only one deck that likes discarding cards (reanimator) that the card is bad against, the general card quality and quicker pace of the game mean that discarding cards to reduce its damage is often an incredible CA and tempo loss.
When playing Prowler in aggro, I recall only a handful of times out of dozens where the opponent used the ability, and only a few where it made a difference against me.
I guess that focused powered cubes probably have better options as mentioned, but I would still hesitate to cut it. Just sideboard it out if you're playing against reanimator and have fun killing planeswalkers and stealing the monarch.
It's a wall that requires you to wait with your spells until it's on the table. If it's not coming down t2, then the odds of it flipping are incredibly low, especially since blue isn't as reliant on counterspells as it used to be, with Fall From Favor, Dress Down, etc.
Even if you have a lot of slow spell-focused decks in your cube, TITI might still not cut it. A wall is far from enough to stop modern aggro decks, that have a dozen Rabblemaster variants and stuff like Embercleave to push through. You will probably not live long enough against aggro to cast 4 spells.
-X > +1 > passive >> +2.
The -X is the biggest form of guaranteed value and survivability, and the +1 is a source of card advantage.
The passive is low because it relies on a specific card type, whereas 6 drops in aggressive colors like red and white must do their best to fit in every single deck that would play a 6 drop.
The +2 gives you mana when you already have 6 mana, which is pretty useless except if you're playing 5c superfriends or just trying to up her loyalty.
My biggest gripe with the card in cube is its +1. Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast's +1 was too dangerous to activate consistently because of the risk of decking out, and this ability is even risker, exiling five instead of three and only getting to play only one instant or sorcery. While 60 card decks in standard probably don't care as much about the drawback of decking out, cube decks being 40 cards care much more about self mill, and can't necessarily tune themselves to have enough instant / sorcery hits. As mentioned before, needing 9+ hits is far too much.
I can definitely see standard spellslinger decks playing this, though, or a deck that cares more about the +2 for some reason. If Arena Rector would be a deck this would be a great card to cheat out.