@Sliver Lord I’ve been trying for days to understand when anyone would choose oubliette. It isn’t symmetrical. Only you take all the punches there. I’m pretty disappointed by that, although it would be nightmarish in constructed to do that over and over. Do you have a sales pitch in mind?
If anyone has additional feedback on Abundant Harvest, I'd love to hear it.
My opinion so far is that when choosing nonland, you aren't gaining card selection that other cantrips like Preordain and Opt grant, and when you choose land, you are just fixing a bad situation, where perhaps luck or better deck building or drafting could have assisted you. Either scenario seems underpowered. What I'm UNDERevaluating is the flexibility of both those options on a single card. So has anyone experienced the card solving your problems every time it comes up?
On a tangential note regarding efficiency of comparable spells, I think describing 2 mana as being "twice as much" as 1 mana is a fallacious metric, and unhelpful. Yes it's mathematically accurate, but its misleading. All other mana disparities in the game that can be measured as "twice as much mana" are describing a higher amount of mana than 1. It's really just a matter of "1 mana more". Just an uber nitpick. Portable hole is 1 mana cheaper than Prismatic End when killing 2 CMC things, without flexibility at higher costs, and that's really what matters here. I think Prismatic End is a really interesting 5-color slot card, but if you are slotting it in white in a powered cube, I'd go with Portable Hole.
I'm quite high on this card in theory, and will test. I think asking Spark Harvest (the previous best version of this card) to be an instant is too much. The discard is already substantially easier to pay than sacrificing a creature. Aggro decks will often have a spare land in hand, and they are the same decks that dearly need efficient removal to push through damage, or kill token-producing planeswalkers without falling behind in races. You cannot get more efficient than 1 mana kill any creature OR planeswalker, except tier 1 removal like Snuff Out. Without even considering that the discard is often an upside, I think this could shine in R + B/W token aggro decks - and in reanimator & Daretti shells, it should also fill two roles in one card. Them's my hopes, anyway.
This card is depressing to me. There’s no real reason to print a strictly better Wrath of God. I don’t draft exclusively with pros, so there’s a high chance this card is passed accidentally because the white mana symbols weren’t read properly. For that reason alone, I won’t cut Wrath for it. But maybe you should depending on your playgroup!
I’m not trying to be a design boomer here, it’s great and hype and cool, but the strictly better design space used in quite a handful of these MH2 cards is grossly unnecessary and a little rude, lol.
Esika’s Chariot has a very satisfying floor and a surprisingly high ceiling for my cube. It’s not in danger of being cut. That being said, I personally find Garruk Relentless a stronger roleplayer.
I have also started to dislike doom blade variants, the only ones I have remaining (not including Baleful Mastery because it’s so, so, so much better) is GFTT. And that won’t be around forever. As tight as this design is, the feel-bad of not hitting their Wurmcoil is much lower than not hitting their Baneslayer, imo. I don’t appreciate how many top-end threats this has a blindspot for. What are kills spells for?
The way I see it, the 5 mana ability of Plargg is a particular kind that we occasionally see on cube contenders: it provides inevitability and card advantage, and initially seems sweet. But in practice, I doubt it will actually be useful or worthwhile to activate. It’s pretty much never better than any card you’d have in your hand, especially given the ability is random. I’d never feel good activating it at parity, for fear of wasting mana.
More than most formats, cube highlights the best case scenarios for the cards you play, where every single mana is crucial. A situation where you are spending 5 mana and tapping an attacker in order to cast a random, less-expensive card from your deck feels like a situation in which you are already losing, and in danger. And trying to squeeze the card advantage out of it just means you’ve spent 10+ mana to cast 2-6 mana worth of cards that you didn’t choose, because you are so far behind you’ve run out of cards in hand. Sometimes it’s all you can do and then it seems good, but in that scenario, a better bear might’ve helped me too, like Direfleet Daredevil. The cost for unlocking that upside is still a subpar rummaging bear.
I still don’t know if Augusta is the nuts or not, but I’ve definitely fallen off Plargg for cube, as cool as the design is.
Bloodchief’s thirst super-super radical frame only got a few weeks of play time in my cube but this is definitely an upgrade. No more Turn 2 Oko’s for you.
I will be cutting Kozilek 2.0 and finally breaking the trifecta. Although, I’m also considering cutting a completely different card, because I am slightly concerned all the high-end targets are still being stretched thin across the archetypes that need them
The card is definitely very efficient, but I can’t stop thinking about how it doesn’t kill Oko, Wrenn, Teferi, Dack, Kitchen Finks, Psychatog, etc. These are the cards I think of when I apply more broad removal a la Bloodchief’s Thirst. And if a card is going to take up a slot as broad removal, it needs to actually remove the worst offenders.
I wouldn’t feel happy running this next to vindicate, and it’s definitely not better, since Vindicate is sometimes just Stone Rain. I think it’s a pass for me, but it’s certainly playable at 450.
The exile clause from Kalitas was cute and occasionally back-breaking, but I was never asking to put that on a bad topdeck by itself.
Except... Lisette is a 4/4 for 4. So we have a similar situation to Halvar. But an equipment that can be a creature is precisely shoring up the weakness of equipment. This doesn’t feel like an equivalent substantiation. Pass for me.
I have a hybrid/phyrexian section, and this would go into that. It’s certainly more hybrid than gold.
I appreciate this discussion, because I totally didn’t consider that Augusta comes down and immediately acts as an anthem, and always works exactly how you like. For those that run both Mother & Giver, this seems pretty good. Plargg seems very very fun, but only slightly more efficient than Cards I’ve previously cut.
It’s going to seriously hurt cutting the Boros Charm + Wrath or Armageddon combo, but I do think this outperforms on avg case against Boros Charm.
this thread has got me thinking about gold removal. In my head, I could never really consider cutting assassin‘s trophy, because it’s like the best removal smell ever printed, and that’s the point of my cube. But only having three gold cards per guild, I definitely want to value those slots highly for splashiness and fun.
If anybody else is having slot struggles, one thing I’ve done with great results is moving all of my single-pip hybrid cards and phyrexian mana cards into a small 10 card “color flex” section by itself, similar to how some people do 3-color cards. Up til now, I’ve left Kitchen Finks & Saheeli in gold slots, since they are harder to monocast. Just a suggestion!
My opinion so far is that when choosing nonland, you aren't gaining card selection that other cantrips like Preordain and Opt grant, and when you choose land, you are just fixing a bad situation, where perhaps luck or better deck building or drafting could have assisted you. Either scenario seems underpowered. What I'm UNDERevaluating is the flexibility of both those options on a single card. So has anyone experienced the card solving your problems every time it comes up?
I’m not trying to be a design boomer here, it’s great and hype and cool, but the strictly better design space used in quite a handful of these MH2 cards is grossly unnecessary and a little rude, lol.
Woe Strider vs. Sedgemoor Witch?
Thalia, Heretic Cathar vs. Blade Splicer vs. Elite Spellbinder?
More than most formats, cube highlights the best case scenarios for the cards you play, where every single mana is crucial. A situation where you are spending 5 mana and tapping an attacker in order to cast a random, less-expensive card from your deck feels like a situation in which you are already losing, and in danger. And trying to squeeze the card advantage out of it just means you’ve spent 10+ mana to cast 2-6 mana worth of cards that you didn’t choose, because you are so far behind you’ve run out of cards in hand. Sometimes it’s all you can do and then it seems good, but in that scenario, a better bear might’ve helped me too, like Direfleet Daredevil. The cost for unlocking that upside is still a subpar rummaging bear.
I still don’t know if Augusta is the nuts or not, but I’ve definitely fallen off Plargg for cube, as cool as the design is.
I will be cutting Kozilek 2.0 and finally breaking the trifecta. Although, I’m also considering cutting a completely different card, because I am slightly concerned all the high-end targets are still being stretched thin across the archetypes that need them
I wouldn’t feel happy running this next to vindicate, and it’s definitely not better, since Vindicate is sometimes just Stone Rain. I think it’s a pass for me, but it’s certainly playable at 450.
Except... Lisette is a 4/4 for 4. So we have a similar situation to Halvar. But an equipment that can be a creature is precisely shoring up the weakness of equipment. This doesn’t feel like an equivalent substantiation. Pass for me.
I appreciate this discussion, because I totally didn’t consider that Augusta comes down and immediately acts as an anthem, and always works exactly how you like. For those that run both Mother & Giver, this seems pretty good. Plargg seems very very fun, but only slightly more efficient than Cards I’ve previously cut.
this thread has got me thinking about gold removal. In my head, I could never really consider cutting assassin‘s trophy, because it’s like the best removal smell ever printed, and that’s the point of my cube. But only having three gold cards per guild, I definitely want to value those slots highly for splashiness and fun.
If anybody else is having slot struggles, one thing I’ve done with great results is moving all of my single-pip hybrid cards and phyrexian mana cards into a small 10 card “color flex” section by itself, similar to how some people do 3-color cards. Up til now, I’ve left Kitchen Finks & Saheeli in gold slots, since they are harder to monocast. Just a suggestion!