Tinfoil Hat, what you are most likely looking for is building a list that doesn't try to power-creep every ounce of card-slot real estate it has. If you really want to play those cards and make them interesting, you are very likely going to have to forego some more powerful cards to make those playable enough.
As for running multiples, you can pretty much ignore what the nay-sayers and cry-babies complain about and simply try and play them. I do have a non-singleton cube and I can assure you that you won't die if you try new things to spice things up with your list. If people don't want to play multiples, they can pretty much skip this thread and leave it to people who actually want more intel on ways to do it.
For additional rules concerning multiples, I wouldn't try to overcomplicate things. If you run a 360 list, having 4 of each of those cards might be enough and you don't have to spend time explaining your players that some draft picks grant you additional picks or whatever. If you think the number is not sufficient, well, you can tweak it until you think it is good enough. Playtesting your list will be your best guide here.
Also, don't try forcing multiples in every color if you don't have any card that you think is interesting there. You will be sacrificing slots simply for the sake of color-completion.
On the cards that you have mentioned:
• I think that you don't need Raid Bombardment to have multiples, but the following themes might be interesting for you to push and make the card more attractive: Battalion, tokens, battle cry, and goblins. The card itself is more of an advantage engine that plays well with a lot of themes and doesn't need to be a foundation block by itself.
• Squadron Hawk plays well with equipment, so make sure that you have something interesting for them to carry, like Grafted Wargear, Mortarpod or Bonesplitter. Flying-matters might also be an interesting theme to push and, since there are a lot of tokensthatfly already, you can try to make it overlap with a tokens theme (that might help you support your Raid Bombardment).
• Timberpack Wolf seems like a card that is a pretty hard to make interesting if you don't play multiples. I wouldn't say it is very interesting unless you are pushing a Werewolf-theme and have Immerwolf on your list.
tl;dr version: It's better to find themes to support your multiples instead of blindly throwing them in any list.
A friend of mine is quitting Magic and selling all his cards, so he decided to let me keep some things since he cubes with us all the time. (He also left me with some stuff for commander)
And he still has three binders of foils (with playsets of foil Jaces and Goyfs) to sell.
Guess that last update wasn't my last update after all. Still have 20 days in Brazil, so there is more cube to be had until then.
Yesterday we did two 4-people drafts. Here is the breakdown of archetypes and win-ratio:
(players ordered by table position)
1st Draft:
1/1 — RW Boros Aggro (Rafael)
2/0 — UG Ramp (Carlos)
1/1 —BWR Tokens and Removal Midrange (Vince)
0/2 — BR Aggro/Reanimator (Henrique)
We played only two rounds because one of the players had to leave. Luckily, we found a fourth player for our second draft.
First draft was interesting because a fairly underdrafted archetype got to be the winner. Ramp faced Boros in the "finals". I was half-expecting Boros to be the winner since it was extremely fast, but the UG deck had a lot of incremental advantage and Boros didn't had many removal spells and the creatures weren't as evasive as they should. BR is also a combination that is always underrated and it was good to see someone try to play with it (both; results weren't so good, unfortunately). Esper Control still looks like it is the deck to beat in the cube. I can't really say it was a regular draft since we had fewer players than usual and Esper got to be the only player in white (and the pool had a lot of great removal for white). Still, there is a lot to be said for the consistency of this color combination.
Test Pool Results: Pain's Reward:
This card has been completely awful in playtesting. Ok, it was a 3-mana 10+ damage spell a couple of times, but even then, drawing cards would be miles better and the cards the opponent drew were usually what made the caster lose the game. I should probably test this a bit more to have more data before letting this card go ( BR would theoretically love this). This card was in the tokens and then in the UB deck, and it has been much worse than anticipated and I'm cutting it from the test pool.
Renegade Krasis:
This guy has been an underperformer for a good while. He was in my test pool because I'm planning on taking a 5-drop and replace it with a 3-drop to make my green mana curve a bit smoother, but krasis' test nemesis (Hystrodon) has been miles ahead. Hytro will likely being included to the main list in the near future. Krasis on the other hand, is going back to the binder.
Both Young Pyro and Spellstutter were in my radar to be tested for a while and now they've got a chance to shine. Lyev Skyknight was added in place of Momentary Blink in my main list as I moved the instant to my test pool. I usually do this to cards that are underperforming or being low-picked to raise availability (test pool cards are included in every draft) and verify if the card is truly underperforming or it just hadn't had time to shine (I call this probation and I do it constantly). The thing is, I had no idea how well it would play. I believed (and still do) that it would fit :u::w: archetypes very well, but right now I want to see it being played, and the best way of assuring a card will see play is to make it available, so this is why it is now in my test pool.
There were no changes to the main list with the exception of Lyev Skyknight going to the test pool.
So, after this post, I'll be moving my reports on changes and stuff to my thread at the RiptideLab. RiptideLab is a relatively new community for cube drafters that tend to have a very open mind to new ideas for cube drafting (even though there is some aversion to a few old ones) and I've been really enjoying the community there. I'll see if I post here every once in a while, but I'm no longer going to fully update my list here.
After a very long while, I've finally decided I played enough with my list to change things. I was going to have my list changed last week, but due to my cards not being in my posession and the release of M14, I decided to wait a week and include the new stuff as well.
I haven't noted any archetype breakdowns for a long while, but I can remember at least 3 Esper controls and one UWR Tempo/Control and maybe one GW Midrange and a random aggro deck going 3-0 in my drafts, so you can see the list was a bit skewed towards blue-white-based control. I'd like to have more aggressive decks 3-0ing my drafts as well, so you might see that most of the changes I'm making are meant to power down the control decks and giving more love to aggressive strategies (U-based aggro/tempo especially).
Timetwister
Interestingly enough, the lowest of the Power 9 has never impressed anyone and no deck wanted to play it. It was already on probation and is now going away. Time Spiral on the other hand has constantly impressed us and played major role on very interesting decks and is nowhere near being cut if anyone is curious.
Hystrodon
Has been maindecked more than Renegade Krasis and is the best choice so far for being my new green 3-drop (right now my green curve has too many 5-drops and too little 3-drops, and Hystro is curiously both). In case you have any suggestions for any other green three drop that I'm not playing right now, please do tell me. Suggestions for cuts in 5-drops are also welcome (right now I'm looking at Indrik Stomphowler as my favoured cut).
¹ = Card in now on probation
² = Card was in the test pool
³ = Card was in the watch list
I'm not going into details on my changes, but most of the cards removed where either reduntant control-oriented cards or unimpressive late-pick cards that would be better of as something else. Some cards I wasn't completely sure about how well will they fare, so they are honorary test pool cards for the time beign.
Well, after all of this, I think I have to announce that this might as well be my last update for a long time. I'll be moving to Denmark next month to study and my cards will be staying with my friend, the co-owner of my collection. I think I'll have some time to play with my cube until then, but I also have a secondary cube list (my discussion thread is in another forum) that I have been dying to try and I can't because there are too many cards overlapping with my regular cube list.
Make it three. Almost every set he has been lead designer on has been terrible. He has zero formal design training (he has a communications degree and was a third string writer on the tail end of Roseanne's run), and basically lucked into one of the greatest jobs in the world by making Magic puzzles for the Duelist before MTG was popular and chumming it up with people at WoTC. He knows he lacks the skills or design chops to do anything else, so once he got into WoTC he rooted himself there and will probably never leave until he dies.
Truly talented people are sought out for their skills and try new and different things in thier industry. Look at Richard Garfield and the breadth of games and companies he has applied his talents to. MaRo is a classic example of the Peter Principle in action. He is MTG's David Brent: an inept designer enamored with himself and his perception of his own abilities.
Hahahahahha....like it even matters! (And this is from someone with "formal design training")
We did a Rotisserie Draft long ago when I had a 720 cards list and if I recall correctly, the winner was a monored that first-picked Skullclamp. It was an unpowered cube with low aggro support and a lot of aggro deterrants.
In what way have you been using Crystal Shard and Erratic Portal? Those cards have never been even close to being removed in my cube.
Hey Rellik, hadn't seen your post until now. Sorry for that :/
So, players were mostly using to try and reset their ETB effects and sometimes as a defensive measure against big mana decks. I guess I've seen them in UB, UR and UG builds, but Bant Blink-ish Midrange decks that would theoreticaly be their main homes would never play them because they had much better stuff to do with their mana.
The last deck that I saw that used it was a UB that had at least Man-o'-War and either Nekrataal or Skinrender (can't remember which now) but, even then, the deck didn't survive the disruption/aggression of the other decks.
The problem is that both cards were too slow compared to what all the other decks were accomplishing in the meantime, so people started evaluating them lower, they got eventually renegated to the last picks and lastly Crystal Shard was sent to probation. While on probation, the shard was played but never rended enough value to the caster.
As with Sinkhole (another universally appraised card that got dismissed by the players), I might return it to my test pool in the future to see if my players see the card through different lenses. Right now, though, I'd rather use the slots to try other things with the cube.
Haven't really played my cube for a long while. I did have some winston drafts and played stack with the cube, but never got to really test anything, so no big changes for now.
Breakdown from the Winston draft: UBR Delver/Bob Aggro/Tempo (2-0){e} WRU Aggro (1-1) UBR splashing WG Planeswalker Control (0-2)
I did switched a couple of cards from the list and one from my test pool after some consideration, though, so here are the changes:
Guild cards
- Sulfuric Springs → + Graven Cairns
- Llanowar Wastes → + Twilight Mire
I was thinking about adding Darkcleave Cliffs for BR for a while and was already forseeing adding Twilight Mire to the list since I added Sunken Ruins. I decided to add the Cairns instead for the same reasons that I was considering the Mire (namely, Geralf's Messenger and Necropotence). The scars land had the advantage of being more valuable for aggro and maybe be overlooked by any control players, but I know my players value mana fixing a lot and it would probably not matter much. Also, all the BBB cards suddenly seems to be one step closer to being easily castable.
On the test pool:
Goblin Ruinblaster
This guy was pretty much a blast in playtesting. People loved it so much more than Goblin Settler and it was even casted without kicker at least once to put some pressure. My only problem right now is finding a slot for him in my cube, so suggestions are welcome. If you would like to give a suggestion, it would be great if you would check out my spreadsheet to see if it wouldn't impact my curves so much.
Skyshroud Elite
I don't think this guy was relevant to any player at all during their drafts, and we did had green aggressive decks being played while this guy was around. In the end, I guess green aggro doesn't need this guy as it has more reliable 1-drops to play. Right now I am more concerned in giving green another interesting 3-drop to get my curve fixed, so Hystrodon is stepping right into this spot.
So, with this swap, my test pool is now the following:
[spoiler=Current]
[spoiler=Picture][/spoiler]
Oh yes, I have also updated all my cube pictures, so go check it out if you like cool foils and alters (and pictures that are somewhat blurry due to photographer's incompetence)! Heck, even my proxies are foil now!
I play Drana in my list and she has been great. The one reason that I thought about taking her away from my cube was because she is so dominant in any black control deck, then I would replace her with either Ob Nixilis (which I'm not very fond of) or Bloodgift Demon, but then, Drana is pretty much the same power level as Bloodgift.
Personally, I don't think there isn't any kind of Terminate test to go through here. You are playing her when either you have some board control already and you need to close the game, or you desperately need a little board presence, then, if you untap with her, you pretty much have the game in a platter. If you blindly tap out for her and she eats removal because your opponent knew you were going all-in for your finisher, you got what you deserved, plus the opponent gets to have that fuzzy feeling inside knowing he made the right play by keeping the removal spell instead of spending it by killing your Skinrender.
Untimately, Drana is an all-around good card that rewards skilled players much more than either Ob or Bloodgift, so I'd rather play her over the others.
Also, Shriekmaw is going nowhere as he is the coolest 5-drop black has ever played. (And yes, here his Evoke is more of an emergency button than his go-to mode of being a 5-drop evasive removal)
Probably not as pimp as most posts here, but decided I should share it since I don't think I have ever traded for so many cube foils in a single day before.
As for running multiples, you can pretty much ignore what the nay-sayers and cry-babies complain about and simply try and play them. I do have a non-singleton cube and I can assure you that you won't die if you try new things to spice things up with your list. If people don't want to play multiples, they can pretty much skip this thread and leave it to people who actually want more intel on ways to do it.
For additional rules concerning multiples, I wouldn't try to overcomplicate things. If you run a 360 list, having 4 of each of those cards might be enough and you don't have to spend time explaining your players that some draft picks grant you additional picks or whatever. If you think the number is not sufficient, well, you can tweak it until you think it is good enough. Playtesting your list will be your best guide here.
Also, don't try forcing multiples in every color if you don't have any card that you think is interesting there. You will be sacrificing slots simply for the sake of color-completion.
On the cards that you have mentioned:
• I think that you don't need Raid Bombardment to have multiples, but the following themes might be interesting for you to push and make the card more attractive: Battalion, tokens, battle cry, and goblins. The card itself is more of an advantage engine that plays well with a lot of themes and doesn't need to be a foundation block by itself.
• Squadron Hawk plays well with equipment, so make sure that you have something interesting for them to carry, like Grafted Wargear, Mortarpod or Bonesplitter. Flying-matters might also be an interesting theme to push and, since there are a lot of tokens that fly already, you can try to make it overlap with a tokens theme (that might help you support your Raid Bombardment).
• Timberpack Wolf seems like a card that is a pretty hard to make interesting if you don't play multiples. I wouldn't say it is very interesting unless you are pushing a Werewolf-theme and have Immerwolf on your list.
tl;dr version: It's better to find themes to support your multiples instead of blindly throwing them in any list.
And he still has three binders of foils (with playsets of foil Jaces and Goyfs) to sell.
Yesterday we did two 4-people drafts. Here is the breakdown of archetypes and win-ratio:
(players ordered by table position)
1st Draft:
1/1 — RW Boros Aggro (Rafael)
2/0 — UG Ramp (Carlos)
1/1 —BWR Tokens and Removal Midrange (Vince)
0/2 — BR Aggro/Reanimator (Henrique)
We played only two rounds because one of the players had to leave. Luckily, we found a fourth player for our second draft.
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Gyre Sage
1 Lotus Cobra
1 Mana Drain
1 Channel
1 Into the Roil
1 Edric, Spymaster of Trest
1 Somberwald Sage
1 Hystrodon
1 Mimic Vat
1 Oracle of Mul Daya
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Sower of Temptation
1 Dungeon Geists
1 Sakashima's Student
1 Master of the Wild Hunt
1 Garruk Wildspeaker
1 Deep Analysis
1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
1 Garruk, Primal Hunter
1 Bribery
1 Misty Rainforest
10 Forest
7 Island
3/0 — WUB Esper Control (Carlos)
1/2 — BR Beatdown (Henrique)
2/1 — GB Rec/Sur Midrange (Vince)
0/3 — UB Tempo Ramp (Renan)
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Path to Exile
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Tidehollow Sculler
1 Gilded Drake
1 Baleful Strix
1 Remand
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Gerrard's Verdict
1 Flickerwisp
1 Willbender
1 Jace Beleren
1 Necropotence
1 Vindicate
1 Mortify
1 Stab Wound
Four:
1 Jace, The Mind Sculptor
1 Wrath of God
1 Faith's Fetters
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Isolated Chapel
1 Tundra
7 Island
4 Swamp
4 Plains
First draft was interesting because a fairly underdrafted archetype got to be the winner. Ramp faced Boros in the "finals". I was half-expecting Boros to be the winner since it was extremely fast, but the UG deck had a lot of incremental advantage and Boros didn't had many removal spells and the creatures weren't as evasive as they should.
BR is also a combination that is always underrated and it was good to see someone try to play with it (both; results weren't so good, unfortunately). Esper Control still looks like it is the deck to beat in the cube. I can't really say it was a regular draft since we had fewer players than usual and Esper got to be the only player in white (and the pool had a lot of great removal for white). Still, there is a lot to be said for the consistency of this color combination.
Test Pool Results:
Pain's Reward:
This card has been completely awful in playtesting. Ok, it was a 3-mana 10+ damage spell a couple of times, but even then, drawing cards would be miles better and the cards the opponent drew were usually what made the caster lose the game. I should probably test this a bit more to have more data before letting this card go ( BR would theoretically love this). This card was in the tokens and then in the UB deck, and it has been much worse than anticipated and I'm cutting it from the test pool.
Renegade Krasis:
This guy has been an underperformer for a good while. He was in my test pool because I'm planning on taking a 5-drop and replace it with a 3-drop to make my green mana curve a bit smoother, but krasis' test nemesis (Hystrodon) has been miles ahead. Hytro will likely being included to the main list in the near future. Krasis on the other hand, is going back to the binder.
Test Pool Changes:
- Pain's Reward ? + Spellstutter Sprite
- Renegade Krasis ? + Young Pyromancer
Lyev Skyknight has been promoted to a honorary test pool slot.
Both Young Pyro and Spellstutter were in my radar to be tested for a while and now they've got a chance to shine.
Lyev Skyknight was added in place of Momentary Blink in my main list as I moved the instant to my test pool. I usually do this to cards that are underperforming or being low-picked to raise availability (test pool cards are included in every draft) and verify if the card is truly underperforming or it just hadn't had time to shine (I call this probation and I do it constantly). The thing is, I had no idea how well it would play. I believed (and still do) that it would fit :u::w: archetypes very well, but right now I want to see it being played, and the best way of assuring a card will see play is to make it available, so this is why it is now in my test pool.
There were no changes to the main list with the exception of Lyev Skyknight going to the test pool.
So, after this post, I'll be moving my reports on changes and stuff to my thread at the RiptideLab. RiptideLab is a relatively new community for cube drafters that tend to have a very open mind to new ideas for cube drafting (even though there is some aversion to a few old ones) and I've been really enjoying the community there. I'll see if I post here every once in a while, but I'm no longer going to fully update my list here.
I haven't noted any archetype breakdowns for a long while, but I can remember at least 3 Esper controls and one UWR Tempo/Control and maybe one GW Midrange and a random aggro deck going 3-0 in my drafts, so you can see the list was a bit skewed towards blue-white-based control. I'd like to have more aggressive decks 3-0ing my drafts as well, so you might see that most of the changes I'm making are meant to power down the control decks and giving more love to aggressive strategies (U-based aggro/tempo especially).
Test pool analysis:
Goblin Ruinblaster, Gaea's Cradle, Far//Away and Voice of Resurgence
Amazing. Everybody loved them and were main decked most of the time.
Timetwister
Interestingly enough, the lowest of the Power 9 has never impressed anyone and no deck wanted to play it. It was already on probation and is now going away. Time Spiral on the other hand has constantly impressed us and played major role on very interesting decks and is nowhere near being cut if anyone is curious.
Hystrodon
Has been maindecked more than Renegade Krasis and is the best choice so far for being my new green 3-drop (right now my green curve has too many 5-drops and too little 3-drops, and Hystro is curiously both). In case you have any suggestions for any other green three drop that I'm not playing right now, please do tell me. Suggestions for cuts in 5-drops are also welcome (right now I'm looking at Indrik Stomphowler as my favoured cut).
List Changes:
(Also on CubeTutor!)
- Revoke Existence → + Imposing Sovereign
- Magus of the Moat → + Banisher Priest
- Capsize → + Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
- Consacrated Sphinx → + Cursecatcher
- Impulse → + Cloud of Faeries (Test Pool Slot)
- Shelldock Isle³ → + Ninja of the Deep Hours
- Tooth and Nails → + Gush
- Nekrataal → + Liliana's Reaver
- Living Death → + Wasteland #2
- Bloodline Keeper → + Fulminator Mage
- Vampire Nighthawk → + Cemetery Reaper (Test Pool Slot)
- Burning of Xynie → + Goblin Ruinblaster²
- Rolling Earthquake → + Hell's Thunder
- Kargan Dragonlord → + Burst Lightning
- Chandra, the Firebrand → + Chandra, Pyromaster
- Terastodon → + Gaea's Cradle²
- Fyndhorn Elves → + Elvish Mystic
- Momentary Blink → + Lyev Skyknight
- Forbidden Alchemy¹ → + Far//Away²
- Armada Wurm¹ → + Voice of Resurgence²
- High-Priest of Penance → + Stillmoon Cavalier
- Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius → + Turn//Burn
¹ = Card in now on probation
² = Card was in the test pool
³ = Card was in the watch list
I'm not going into details on my changes, but most of the cards removed where either reduntant control-oriented cards or unimpressive late-pick cards that would be better of as something else. Some cards I wasn't completely sure about how well will they fare, so they are honorary test pool cards for the time beign.
The new test pool is the following:
1 Mistblade Shinobi (new)
1 Sakashima's Student (new)
1 Standstill (new)
1 Cemetery Reaper (new)
1 Stab Wound (new)
1 Pain's Reward (new)
1 Renegade Krasis
1 Hystrodon (good)
1 Momentary Blink (probation)
1 Sire of Insanity
1 Armada Wurm (probation)
Well, after all of this, I think I have to announce that this might as well be my last update for a long time. I'll be moving to Denmark next month to study and my cards will be staying with my friend, the co-owner of my collection. I think I'll have some time to play with my cube until then, but I also have a secondary cube list (my discussion thread is in another forum) that I have been dying to try and I can't because there are too many cards overlapping with my regular cube list.
Hahahahahha....like it even matters! (And this is from someone with "formal design training")
I was going to post this but someone was faster.
Other first picks were Umezawa's Jitte, Sword of Fire and Ice, Vedalken Shackles, Sensei's Divining Top, Sol Ring and maybe Tarmogoyf and Sword of Light and Shadow (not sure about it). Can't really remember the order, though.
My thoughts as well. I was even considering running Avacyn's Pilgrim over Fyndhorn in my cube just to get rid of it, so bye-bye nonfoil ugly elf
Hey Rellik, hadn't seen your post until now. Sorry for that :/
So, players were mostly using to try and reset their ETB effects and sometimes as a defensive measure against big mana decks. I guess I've seen them in UB, UR and UG builds, but Bant Blink-ish Midrange decks that would theoreticaly be their main homes would never play them because they had much better stuff to do with their mana.
The last deck that I saw that used it was a UB that had at least Man-o'-War and either Nekrataal or Skinrender (can't remember which now) but, even then, the deck didn't survive the disruption/aggression of the other decks.
The problem is that both cards were too slow compared to what all the other decks were accomplishing in the meantime, so people started evaluating them lower, they got eventually renegated to the last picks and lastly Crystal Shard was sent to probation. While on probation, the shard was played but never rended enough value to the caster.
As with Sinkhole (another universally appraised card that got dismissed by the players), I might return it to my test pool in the future to see if my players see the card through different lenses. Right now, though, I'd rather use the slots to try other things with the cube.
Breakdown from the Winston draft:
UBR Delver/Bob Aggro/Tempo (2-0){e}
WRU Aggro (1-1)
UBR splashing WG Planeswalker Control (0-2)
I did switched a couple of cards from the list and one from my test pool after some consideration, though, so here are the changes:
Guild cards
- Sulfuric Springs → + Graven Cairns
- Llanowar Wastes → + Twilight Mire
I was thinking about adding Darkcleave Cliffs for BR for a while and was already forseeing adding Twilight Mire to the list since I added Sunken Ruins. I decided to add the Cairns instead for the same reasons that I was considering the Mire (namely, Geralf's Messenger and Necropotence). The scars land had the advantage of being more valuable for aggro and maybe be overlooked by any control players, but I know my players value mana fixing a lot and it would probably not matter much. Also, all the BBB cards suddenly seems to be one step closer to being easily castable.
On the test pool:
Goblin Ruinblaster
This guy was pretty much a blast in playtesting. People loved it so much more than Goblin Settler and it was even casted without kicker at least once to put some pressure. My only problem right now is finding a slot for him in my cube, so suggestions are welcome. If you would like to give a suggestion, it would be great if you would check out my spreadsheet to see if it wouldn't impact my curves so much.
Skyshroud Elite
I don't think this guy was relevant to any player at all during their drafts, and we did had green aggressive decks being played while this guy was around. In the end, I guess green aggro doesn't need this guy as it has more reliable 1-drops to play. Right now I am more concerned in giving green another interesting 3-drop to get my curve fixed, so Hystrodon is stepping right into this spot.
So, with this swap, my test pool is now the following:
[spoiler=Current]
[spoiler=Picture]
1 Timetwister (probation)
1 Yawgmoth's Bargain (new)
1 Goblin Ruinblaster (good)
1 Renegade Krasis (new)
1 Hystrodon (new)
1 Far//Away (new)
1 Sire of Insanity (new)
1 Voice of Resurgence (new)
1 Gaea's Cradle (new; good)
Oh yes, I have also updated all my cube pictures, so go check it out if you like cool foils and alters (and pictures that are somewhat blurry due to photographer's incompetence)! Heck, even my proxies are foil now!
I did pretty much the same with my Thornling
Awesome cards, btw!
Personally, I don't think there isn't any kind of Terminate test to go through here. You are playing her when either you have some board control already and you need to close the game, or you desperately need a little board presence, then, if you untap with her, you pretty much have the game in a platter. If you blindly tap out for her and she eats removal because your opponent knew you were going all-in for your finisher, you got what you deserved, plus the opponent gets to have that fuzzy feeling inside knowing he made the right play by keeping the removal spell instead of spending it by killing your Skinrender.
Untimately, Drana is an all-around good card that rewards skilled players much more than either Ob or Bloodgift, so I'd rather play her over the others.
Also, Shriekmaw is going nowhere as he is the coolest 5-drop black has ever played. (And yes, here his Evoke is more of an emergency button than his go-to mode of being a 5-drop evasive removal)
Also, why isn't this thread pinned?