I have a human subtheme, and any (monoW) human that can also be a lord is a card I'm playing. I also love that, because this has lifelink, it can be used for defensive speed in non-aggro decks. I played Glory-Bound Initiate for a while, and it was played by both aggressive and non-aggressive decks to good effect. This seems like a much much better version of a card for that slot too.
I was so excited about this card until I learned that "decayed" means that the token's can't block and need to be sacrificed if they attack. Now I think it's cool, but I'm probably going to pass on it.
I'm definitely testing htis one. If Spikefield Hazard has taught me anything, it's that there are a lot of spots where I'm *very happy* to have access to "R: deal 1 dmg". A fireball with that as the floor is something I'm into, especially since my list supports both Zirda and Devoted Druid as infinite mana combos, so I'm always looking to include X spells.
It would be missing multiple other cards to go infinite with Yawgmoth.
While Undying Creatures aren't in most cubes, You just need a clone, right? And there are three clones in many lists now (Image, MDFC, Metamorph). It's not fully infinite, but generally repeatable pay 1 life -> deal 2 dmg wins the game.
The one thing I really like about this card is that it is the perfect card to make the famous Eternal Command deck by Shouta Yasooka a thing in cube.
It happens super infrequently, and requires an extremely experienced pilot, but when it comes together with my group everybody gets so incredibly excited. It's a UG midrange/control deck that wins via Eternal Witness + Cryptic Command to cement a lategame advantage.
I've tried seeding Aether Vial as a WW card that could make Eternal Command a thing before, and that doesn't work at all. I might try this for the same reason, although I expect it will also fail.
Okay, I lied, I'm responding one more time because I LOVE the response above from Fires, and wanted to do more than upvote!
I think all of that logic and evaluation is sound, and I absolutely see where you're coming from. I think we have different expectations for the mechanic as a whole. For example, I expect many of these cards to see constructed play all the way from Standard down to Legacy. They all won't, just like all magic cards don't, but many will. Thank you so much for outlining your expectations, beliefs, and evaluations so clearly. I really appreciated it!
I just believe these cards change the game significantly. And I will happily admit I'm wrong if proven otherwise.
Cheers! And for anybody else who stays in the discussion, enjoy
I am exiting this conversation after the response. I find the above response upsetting, as it ignores (maybe misunderstands?) my entire point and doesn't even recognize the positive mechanical differences. Below is my best attempt to reframe my point, and respond to comments relating to it.
That is a PRETTY far-off comparison TBQH. Manlands can be lands when you need them to be and creatures when you need them to be within the same game, and these can't.
That is literally the first statement I made in my comment. I address differences in my comparison, I would like to see the same. The statement I make about only needing to make the mana-investment once is quite significant. I bring it up in the context of this difference to shine a light that there are upsides that each have that the other doesn't.
Further, the manlands dodge all sweepers and sorcery-speed removal.
This is just another example of the above. Another "here's a place where X is better than Y" while ignoring that I do mention places where Y is greater than X.
Finally, that land would be fine, not amazing. It's maybe on par with Treetop Village in a color that is less able to use a manland, and worse than conclave.
And this is where I believe my point was simply missed. Focusing on black being less able to use the manland is like focusing on cubing Blackbloom Rogue. I never suggest to cube the card. I am just making an evaluative analogy as referenced at the top with "look at Man Lands". One that makes Blackbloom Rogue look at least cubable. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. I certainly don't plan on testing it, But if one of the worst MDFCs can be framed in such a manner that it at least seems enticing, does that not speak volumes for the mechanic in the abstract?
That makes me WAY more interested in cards like Silundi Vision and Khalni Ambush that I believe are significantly better than Blackbloom Rogue.
Anyways, I'm exiting the conversation now, and all future conversations about MDFCs unless they turn out to be bad, in which I will likely come back and admit I was wrong. I simply feel too strongly that this mechanic is absurd for Magic, and I have yet to see somebody make an argument that makes me believe otherwise.
Happy cubing y'all, and I hope you have as much fun with this set as I intend to!
To add to this, look at Man Lands! Yes, you get to play those as the tap-land and then later in the game turn them on as creatures. These don't have that aspect, but the creature variants have the benefit of only requiring a mana-investment once. I played Treetop Village for a long long time, and the new Mammoth puts that card to shame IMO.
To put this into context, look at [[Blackbloom Rogue]], a card I'm sure many aren't even close to considering. If we had the "Treetop Village" variant of that, it would look like this:
---------------------------------
Blackbloom Land:
Blackbloom Land enters the battlefield tapped.
Tap: add black to your mana pool.
1B: Blackbloom Land becomes a 2/3 Human Rogue creature with menace until the end of the turn. Blackbloom Land gets +3/+0 as long as an opponent has eight or more cards in their graveyard.
-------------------------------
I don't know about you, but that card would have been in my cube for years, and would still be good enough for my cube today. I know it's not the same card, but it's not some far-off comparison. And I'd argue that Blackbloom Rogue is one of the worse MDFCs. It's going to take a while for all of us to evaluate and wrap our heads around these cards. I'll be the first to admit I'm wrong if it turns out that they don't belong in cubes. However, my current prior is that many will turn out to be staples.
To me this card is the real teat. A powerful card for a reasonable mana cost, that is situational bad/excellent. But I like it more than the combat trick ones because you get to sculpt a plan with it. They effect is also usually better late, when you dont need land. So if excellent i may try more flip catds
Personally I don't think the upside of the land in the early game is much of an "upside" since etb tapped is so horrible.
You know what is also absolutely horrible? Every single mode on Izzet Charm. In fact, I would rather have an extra colored tapland in my deck over UR: any single mode of Izzet charm. Zero of those individual modes would make a 2000 sized cube. However, the card is fantastic and a lower-sized-izzet-section-staple because it provide full coverage: a set of options such that one is always useful. I view MDFCs in a very similar light.
I agree with this when playing with it years ago. It was a black impulse that had downside.
But it's worth revisiting now for two reasons:
1. This year we got Nexus, Thassa's Oracle, and Jace, Wielder of Mysteries. Which finally puts playable lab-mans in the cube. I've been very happy with This, Demonic Consultation, Oath of Druids, Doom Whisperer, and some other ways to A + B combo here.
2. With the inclusion of Modal DFCs, it will be more common to have a lower number of basics, as this greatly increases the ASFAN of lands in my cube.
Add in that many decks can still play it as impulse that occassionaly reads "draw a basic", and I think it's a greet inclusion at 540+
This card seems pretty good, but I already painfully cut Phantasmal Image from my 360 cube a while back (which I think is a better card) - so no, I won't be playing this. Would probably play this at 540+.
Yeah, I would NEVER run this over image, which is hands down the best clone. Of course, I also can't imagine not running image in a cube of any size, unless it's some kind of themed cube that doesn't run creatures.
Phantasmal Image stayed in my cube because its two mana cost was incredibly important in the Pod/ Vannifar Deck.
From my experience, not being able to copy the opponent's has been incredibly underwhelming.
The reason not being able to copy opponent is underwhelming is because the card gets stuck in your hand and effectively does nothing. When clone is bad, play it as a land. When clone is good, it's VERY good. Evaluating these cards properly requires forgetting about the Worst-Case-Scenario of similar effects. It's irrelevant. The only thing that is relevant is the probability of that WCS, as it will dictate how often this is played as a land. But how bad the WCS is does not matter.
you're going to find the spell side to be dead a good bit of the time and be wishing for an island.
This is the case with almost every non-land card. Every spell can be a dead card in your hand based on the board state or lack of available mana. But at least with MDFCs, they can be a land in cases where you really need them to be. This likely won't replace a basic for me during deckbuilding in the same way the mythic MDFCs do, since they have to enter tapped. It'll be a playable non-land card that can be used in a land in situations where you'd otherwise be stuck with yet another uncastable card in your hand.
SO SO SO SO SO MUCH THIS
Magic is a game of probability. The reason we play cards like Preordain is that they skew the probability distributions of our draws in the direction we need (agency via card selection). MDFCs do something very similar. By having spells attached to lands, this provides a player agency over that variant distribution. What do you need more, a spell or a land? MDFCs will ALWAYS be whichever you need. That certainty is important. It means these cards need to be evaluated with more optimism than we are used to. Why? Because when you cast the spell side, it is almost always going to be when that spell is good. So there's no more WCS vs ACS vs BCS. To be as specific as possible, most cards are valued at:
Where P(x) is the probability of x and V(x) is the expected value of x. These MDFCs have a different equation:
P(BCS) * V(BCS) + (1 - P(BCS)) * V(TapLand)
Observer that V(TapLand) is almost always greater than V(WCS). That observation is what makes me believe these cards are all MUCH MUCH better than we're giving them credit. To me, this card is an absolute slam dunk. Same with the regrowth. Same with the elephant. Same with the removal spell. Hell, I'm even considering the 3cmc fling. Why? Because I believe that the probability that access to fling wins a game in a red deck is high enough (say 5-10%) to justify the inclusion of a tap-land. Fling is bad because P(WCS) is too high, and V(WCS) is literally close to zero. So including it in your deck leads to just a mulligan a great percentage of the time. Now it's never a mulligan.
I chose to use fling because it's not one of these rares that has an effect you would actually consider cubing. I'm higher on these effects than WTWLF123 by his example because reducing cost by 1 yields 2cmc fling, and I am nowhere close to playing fling. But I hope my explanation explained why I think these cards are all pretty ridiculous.
The inclusion here is probably just a function of curve. My cube has quite the high density of cheap aggressive creatures, so I'll try this out. But if your curves are a bit more chonky where the 1cmc mode isn't impactful often enough, then it's reasonable to pass.
I think the problem isn't that this card isn't good enough, but rather the competition. Shelldoc Isle and Tolarian Academy as blue lands are just miles ahead of this card. If you wanted another U land, I could see playing it for sure.
I have a human subtheme, and any (monoW) human that can also be a lord is a card I'm playing. I also love that, because this has lifelink, it can be used for defensive speed in non-aggro decks. I played Glory-Bound Initiate for a while, and it was played by both aggressive and non-aggressive decks to good effect. This seems like a much much better version of a card for that slot too.
While Undying Creatures aren't in most cubes, You just need a clone, right? And there are three clones in many lists now (Image, MDFC, Metamorph). It's not fully infinite, but generally repeatable pay 1 life -> deal 2 dmg wins the game.
It happens super infrequently, and requires an extremely experienced pilot, but when it comes together with my group everybody gets so incredibly excited. It's a UG midrange/control deck that wins via Eternal Witness + Cryptic Command to cement a lategame advantage.
I've tried seeding Aether Vial as a WW card that could make Eternal Command a thing before, and that doesn't work at all. I might try this for the same reason, although I expect it will also fail.
I think all of that logic and evaluation is sound, and I absolutely see where you're coming from. I think we have different expectations for the mechanic as a whole. For example, I expect many of these cards to see constructed play all the way from Standard down to Legacy. They all won't, just like all magic cards don't, but many will. Thank you so much for outlining your expectations, beliefs, and evaluations so clearly. I really appreciated it!
I just believe these cards change the game significantly. And I will happily admit I'm wrong if proven otherwise.
Cheers! And for anybody else who stays in the discussion, enjoy
That is literally the first statement I made in my comment. I address differences in my comparison, I would like to see the same. The statement I make about only needing to make the mana-investment once is quite significant. I bring it up in the context of this difference to shine a light that there are upsides that each have that the other doesn't.
This is just another example of the above. Another "here's a place where X is better than Y" while ignoring that I do mention places where Y is greater than X.
And this is where I believe my point was simply missed. Focusing on black being less able to use the manland is like focusing on cubing Blackbloom Rogue. I never suggest to cube the card. I am just making an evaluative analogy as referenced at the top with "look at Man Lands". One that makes Blackbloom Rogue look at least cubable. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. I certainly don't plan on testing it, But if one of the worst MDFCs can be framed in such a manner that it at least seems enticing, does that not speak volumes for the mechanic in the abstract?
That makes me WAY more interested in cards like Silundi Vision and Khalni Ambush that I believe are significantly better than Blackbloom Rogue.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Anyways, I'm exiting the conversation now, and all future conversations about MDFCs unless they turn out to be bad, in which I will likely come back and admit I was wrong. I simply feel too strongly that this mechanic is absurd for Magic, and I have yet to see somebody make an argument that makes me believe otherwise.
Happy cubing y'all, and I hope you have as much fun with this set as I intend to!
To put this into context, look at [[Blackbloom Rogue]], a card I'm sure many aren't even close to considering. If we had the "Treetop Village" variant of that, it would look like this:
---------------------------------
Blackbloom Land:
Blackbloom Land enters the battlefield tapped.
Tap: add black to your mana pool.
1B: Blackbloom Land becomes a 2/3 Human Rogue creature with menace until the end of the turn. Blackbloom Land gets +3/+0 as long as an opponent has eight or more cards in their graveyard.
-------------------------------
I don't know about you, but that card would have been in my cube for years, and would still be good enough for my cube today. I know it's not the same card, but it's not some far-off comparison. And I'd argue that Blackbloom Rogue is one of the worse MDFCs. It's going to take a while for all of us to evaluate and wrap our heads around these cards. I'll be the first to admit I'm wrong if it turns out that they don't belong in cubes. However, my current prior is that many will turn out to be staples.
You know what is also absolutely horrible? Every single mode on Izzet Charm. In fact, I would rather have an extra colored tapland in my deck over UR: any single mode of Izzet charm. Zero of those individual modes would make a 2000 sized cube. However, the card is fantastic and a lower-sized-izzet-section-staple because it provide full coverage: a set of options such that one is always useful. I view MDFCs in a very similar light.
But it's worth revisiting now for two reasons:
1. This year we got Nexus, Thassa's Oracle, and Jace, Wielder of Mysteries. Which finally puts playable lab-mans in the cube. I've been very happy with This, Demonic Consultation, Oath of Druids, Doom Whisperer, and some other ways to A + B combo here.
2. With the inclusion of Modal DFCs, it will be more common to have a lower number of basics, as this greatly increases the ASFAN of lands in my cube.
Add in that many decks can still play it as impulse that occassionaly reads "draw a basic", and I think it's a greet inclusion at 540+
The reason not being able to copy opponent is underwhelming is because the card gets stuck in your hand and effectively does nothing. When clone is bad, play it as a land. When clone is good, it's VERY good. Evaluating these cards properly requires forgetting about the Worst-Case-Scenario of similar effects. It's irrelevant. The only thing that is relevant is the probability of that WCS, as it will dictate how often this is played as a land. But how bad the WCS is does not matter.
SO SO SO SO SO MUCH THIS
Magic is a game of probability. The reason we play cards like Preordain is that they skew the probability distributions of our draws in the direction we need (agency via card selection). MDFCs do something very similar. By having spells attached to lands, this provides a player agency over that variant distribution. What do you need more, a spell or a land? MDFCs will ALWAYS be whichever you need. That certainty is important. It means these cards need to be evaluated with more optimism than we are used to. Why? Because when you cast the spell side, it is almost always going to be when that spell is good. So there's no more WCS vs ACS vs BCS. To be as specific as possible, most cards are valued at:
P(WCS) * V(WCS) + P(ACS) * V(ACS) + P(BCS) * V(BCS)
Where P(x) is the probability of x and V(x) is the expected value of x. These MDFCs have a different equation:
P(BCS) * V(BCS) + (1 - P(BCS)) * V(TapLand)
Observer that V(TapLand) is almost always greater than V(WCS). That observation is what makes me believe these cards are all MUCH MUCH better than we're giving them credit. To me, this card is an absolute slam dunk. Same with the regrowth. Same with the elephant. Same with the removal spell. Hell, I'm even considering the 3cmc fling. Why? Because I believe that the probability that access to fling wins a game in a red deck is high enough (say 5-10%) to justify the inclusion of a tap-land. Fling is bad because P(WCS) is too high, and V(WCS) is literally close to zero. So including it in your deck leads to just a mulligan a great percentage of the time. Now it's never a mulligan.
I chose to use fling because it's not one of these rares that has an effect you would actually consider cubing. I'm higher on these effects than WTWLF123 by his example because reducing cost by 1 yields 2cmc fling, and I am nowhere close to playing fling. But I hope my explanation explained why I think these cards are all pretty ridiculous.