This depends on how much you value the capture of jingzhou judge promo. its a portal 3 kingdom reprint. Do you plan on using a another time warp variant in commander (the only reasonable place i see it being played, since you have time warp and time manipulation too). Personally I would take Pile B in a heartbeat
Pile B:
One sealed box of Khans of Tarkir from a trustworthy source
First you need to consider that value wise, its basically fetches or bust. Either that or you would be holding on to the box for it to gain value and sell/trade as a whole. If you are strictly trading for value, I personally wouldn't do this.
However, do you plan on drafting? I don't remember how good triple khans was as a draft format (that was right around the time when I took a break). If so, I would weigh more in favor of the box.
This is also how much you value lili. Do you have an extra playset/don't plan on using them? They have already reprinted her in MM2017, so its not unlikely she will get another reprint (maybe in masters 25?)
Is there a U/R tempo/burn deck that this would fit in? This also has a nice trick where you shrink a big/problematic creature and kill it with a burn spell (like wurmcoil engine)
What these simulated packs are missing is that a lot of these cards will already be drafted. This depends on how your play groups draft and handle sideboard. There will be less cards in the pool to make packs from since people have taken creatures (and spells) already. And from the leftover, will you get a decent pack with this spell? Lots of variance, but lots of fun. People will have to play with it to see what kind of results you get.
The issue with looking at it like that is that all of the cards out of the packs you make get picked. There's no leftovers that get stuffed back into the cube, so the packs already made do not actually affect the probabilities involved. You already took 360 cards out, but they're 360 random cards, so your odds of having, say, Purphorus in the 15 cards that weren't part of your draft pod is the same as him being in any of the other packs you saw. I suppose if you're the type to memorize every card you see in a draft, you might be able to tell if this particular card is going to be better or worse than average based on what you saw, but that would be a complex calculation that would likely be too marginal to be worth it, especially in larger cubes.
True, but you should have some semblance of an idea what is leftover based on what decks were made and what cards you saw during a draft. i.e. you know 2 decks at the table were a g/x ramp deck and a b/x reanimator deck, so you can rule out certain cards based on that, and judge whether or not the card is worth playing in your deck.
But you are correct. Random is random. There shouldn't be any reason the simulation pack couldn't be one of the packs leftover
What these simulated packs are missing is that a lot of these cards will already be drafted. This depends on how your play groups draft and handle sideboard. There will be less cards in the pool to make packs from since people have taken creatures (and spells) already. And from the leftover, will you get a decent pack with this spell? Lots of variance, but lots of fun. People will have to play with it to see what kind of results you get.
This is basically what they did with the seeded packs (back in return to ravinica block prerelease, you picked a guild, all the way up to origins where you picked a color), which replaced one of your 6 packs with a skewed pack based on the color/guild you picked. They did away with this based on negative feedback. A few of the reasons include terrible luck (if you chose a blue seeded pack and the remaining 5 packs you opened little to no blue cards, you basically have a wasted pack of since your blue pool will be unplayable), and supply limit for events (i.e. people read the spoilers and choose their seeded pack based on the best/most expensive card, and since realistically stores will have an even distribution of seeded packs based on the colors (i.e. 5 white 5 blue 5 black 5 red 5 green), the number of people able to open the colors they want were low and created feel bad moments).
The latter issue wouldn't be a problem in casual play, but the former would still be an issue.
No I know what cube is. Take the 100 best cards of each color, put them into boosters, and do a draft. Considering Mesmeric Fiend is nowhere near the top 100 or whatever, comparing to this new card that has relatively similar value is... pointless. Whoh!!!!
What you posted here clearly showed that you didn't know what the cube format was/had valuable input into it
And to be frank, commander, cube, and formats with 1-of means you end up with less playable decks that all look the same. Its a joke of a format and only came about because someone wanted to blow 10 grand on cards.
If you don't like the format, then just leave. You aren't forced to be here on this sub forum dedicated to the cube format
Do I have input on what and when to draft? Nope, but I can certainly have input on how good a card is based on playing plenty of magic games. I can certainly say a cube forum topic about a card designed for standard or modern is outrageous. This card would be drafted last in every pack!!
Just because a card was "designed for a format" (according to you), doesn't mean it can't be played in another format. You say you play legacy, then can you explain why Council's Judgment, a card "designed for commander" is one of the premier removal spells in legacy? Have you ever heard of pauper cube? Unpowered cube? Hell, here is MTGO's Vintage Cube List (vintage i.e. has power 9.) Mesmeric Fiend is in there.
And yes it is amazingly stupid to have a debate on this card in cube. It's not worthy of cube. So what are we actually discussing here? If the card is good... in what format? Topic should be moved away from cube to another forum... like you know, standard. Calling someone dumb for talking about its relevance where its actually relevant is hilarious and incredibly dense. Fiend got a reprint because its a good balanced card that was phased out even in modern.
We are discussing the card in terms of cube. If its bad in a cube setting, then we will decide whether or not we want to put it in our cube. If you want to discuss the card in terms of its value in modern or standard, then make a thread in those subforums. Why are we creating a different thread for each format? Because as you said, you clearly have no valuable input for this card in a limited environment, but clearly think you know what you are talking about in a constructed environment. The people here only care for the card's application in a limited environment.
I took the time to type this out a be civil. This forum is meant for discussion in the cube environment. If you don't like limited and/or you just want to continue being off topic and toxic, then just leave.
Based on his last post, he clearly still doesn't understand what a cube is (or he is trolling). He thinks "cube" is interchangeable with "draft".
If you really don't know what cube is, the answer is that is it a set of cards (usually 360, 540, 630 are the common numbers) that someone puts together from all of the available mtg cards into a draftable environment. Do you play MTGO and have you heard of/seen the vintage/legacy/holiday cube? Those are draft sets with specific cards in them from all of the available magic sets. What we are discussing here is whether or not we should include this new card into one of these cube sets based on its power level, which would point us to other cards that are similar to it to make comparison (mesmeric fiend/brain maggot). Educate yourself before you start randomly flaming other people in the forum DEDICATED TO THE TOPIC AT HAND (Cube Draft)
If you are just trolling, then go away, you're not welcome here.
Also remember, this has the new o-ring/banishing light wording. So before, if you use a removal spell in response to mesmeric fiend's etb trigger, they wouldnt get the card back. However if you remove this card in response, they will get the card back.
However, do you plan on drafting? I don't remember how good triple khans was as a draft format (that was right around the time when I took a break). If so, I would weigh more in favor of the box.
This is also how much you value lili. Do you have an extra playset/don't plan on using them? They have already reprinted her in MM2017, so its not unlikely she will get another reprint (maybe in masters 25?)
Just my couple of cents
cut 1
But you are correct. Random is random. There shouldn't be any reason the simulation pack couldn't be one of the packs leftover
The latter issue wouldn't be a problem in casual play, but the former would still be an issue.
Here
If you don't like the format, then just leave. You aren't forced to be here on this sub forum dedicated to the cube format
Just because a card was "designed for a format" (according to you), doesn't mean it can't be played in another format. You say you play legacy, then can you explain why Council's Judgment, a card "designed for commander" is one of the premier removal spells in legacy? Have you ever heard of pauper cube? Unpowered cube? Hell, here is MTGO's Vintage Cube List (vintage i.e. has power 9.) Mesmeric Fiend is in there.
We are discussing the card in terms of cube. If its bad in a cube setting, then we will decide whether or not we want to put it in our cube. If you want to discuss the card in terms of its value in modern or standard, then make a thread in those subforums. Why are we creating a different thread for each format? Because as you said, you clearly have no valuable input for this card in a limited environment, but clearly think you know what you are talking about in a constructed environment. The people here only care for the card's application in a limited environment.
I took the time to type this out a be civil. This forum is meant for discussion in the cube environment. If you don't like limited and/or you just want to continue being off topic and toxic, then just leave.
If you really don't know what cube is, the answer is that is it a set of cards (usually 360, 540, 630 are the common numbers) that someone puts together from all of the available mtg cards into a draftable environment. Do you play MTGO and have you heard of/seen the vintage/legacy/holiday cube? Those are draft sets with specific cards in them from all of the available magic sets. What we are discussing here is whether or not we should include this new card into one of these cube sets based on its power level, which would point us to other cards that are similar to it to make comparison (mesmeric fiend/brain maggot). Educate yourself before you start randomly flaming other people in the forum DEDICATED TO THE TOPIC AT HAND (Cube Draft)
If you are just trolling, then go away, you're not welcome here.
adorned pouncer vs eight-and-a-half-tails vs true-heart duelist