MTG Salvation

Quote from armando.zuffi »

1 - Necrotic Hex vs Crippling Fear ?

2 - Wickerbough Elder vs Gemrazer ?

3 - Frost Titan vs Kiora Bests the Sea God ?

4 - Galvanic Blast vs Mizzium Mortars ?

Kiora Bests the Sea God > Frost Titan
Galvanic Blast > Mizzium Mortars

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Quote from armando.zuffi »

1 - Staggershock vs Galvanic Blast ?

2 - Irreverent Revelers vs Ancient Grudge (assuming that is red card, and my cube is unpowered)?

Quote from SaucyFaucet »

land debate!

enemy horizon lands vs. enemy pathways?


allied bicycle lands vs. allied pathways?

My initial thoughts are that the blue and white guilds would rather have the cycling or no-life-loss options, whereas the green and black guilds would rather have crucible synergies.

Blast > Staggershock, 3 mana burn just isn't too appealing.

Horizon > Pathways > bicycle lands

Azorius:
1. Flooded Strand
2. Tundra
3. Hallowed Fountain
4. Celestial Collonade
5. Adarkar Wastes
6. Hengegate Pathway
7. Seachrome Coast
8. Irrigated Farmland
9. Glacial Fortress

Dimir:
1. Polluted Delta
2. Underground Sea
3. Watery Grave
4. Creeping Tar Pit
5. Underground River
6. Clearwater Pathway
7. Darkslick Shores
8. Fetid Pools
9. Drowned Catacomb

Quote from armando.zuffi »

1 - Clarion Spirit vs Imposing Sovereign vs Accorder Paladin ? What order ?

2 - Fireblast vs Char vs Stoke the Flames ? What order ?

3 - Skyknight Vanguard vs Showdown of the Skalds ?

4 - Forsake the Worldly vs Fragmentize ?

Sovereign > Paladin > Spirit - Paladin trades with everything and does nothing if you don't attack with it. Sovereign has a strong static ability in your worst matchups.
Fireblast > Stoke > Char - Fireblast is narrow, but far stronger. The two damage of Char proved quite bad against aggro.
I'll probably test showdown at some point, but aggro is saturated with four drops in those colors. Two-drops have a much milder competition.
Forsake > Fragmentize - Forsake is maindeckable, Fragmentize is a narrow sideboard card in most cubes. It also sucks to draw it a turn after they Tinkered their Myr Battlesphere. If artifacts are so prevalent Fragmentize is maindeckable, go with that.

Quote from Visserdrix »

For me there are a few cube classics that just don't see much play in my list. At 360 where its hard to justify keeping cards that don't see play I consider that "low performance". even though these cards are powerful and do make big plays now and then it's getting harder to keep them in.

rishadan port
armageddon
show and tell
sneak attack
reveillark

Rishadan Port also underperformed for us for some time.
We cut Armageddon and Ravages for being too win-more, I am happy about this decision. I remember the times where you could go one drop, two drop, three drop, and Armageddon to a win, but these days are long gone. It is much harder to have a significant advantage by turn four. If the game didn't go significantly in your favor, then almost any other card is preferable. Plus,
Reveillark we cut ages ago, it is narrow and slow. I don't think the power level is high enough to justify its shortcomings.
At 720, I play the cheat effects you have listed to good effect.

Quote from ThatOneNinja »

Gonna get flack for this one but Balance has been disappointing for me. Yes, when Balance is good its REALLY good but it suffers from a similar problem to Reveillark in that it fits in a narrow range of decks and situations. Aggro decks don't want to wipe their board and control decks don't want to discard their hand. And in an unpowered cube its too hard to turbo out ways to break the symmetry. I assume its much better in powered cubes; I'm probably going to cut it from my unpowered cube soon.

Balance is very powerful but has a few drawbacks. One, it is a build-around; it is very likely that no one will play it if it was opened pack three. Two, it is legitimately a hard card to play correctly even in the "right" deck. I can see playgroups where it would not be a good fit.

I like that it fills several roles at once. It is a ramp top end, a reanimation target and can be fetched with Natural Order. It is immune to sorcery speed destroy effects (and after the first upkeep to all destroy effects), cannot be countered, plays offense and defense simultaneously and can lock up to two permanents. I think Koma is a consideration if you need another cheat target. I'm going to test it at 720 over Nissa, Steward of Elements as Simic card #5.

I've been running snow since MH1, but I don't think any of the new cards make it. Snow got a pretty big hit in playability after Zendikar Rising. With MDFC lands, there are fewer basics running around.

A great card. I think the ability will be rarely used in practice, but it doesn't matter; it's still about the 3rd-4th best Savannah Lions variant.

Quote from Fredo »

Quote from Mergatroid_Jones »

It's also big fun in an aristocrats deck. Sac five creatures, then do it again.

Yeah, aristocrats is the best deck for this card, but I could see it in other token decks as well, especially red ones (with cards like Goblin Bombardment, Purphoros and Outpost Siege), or in a pinch as wrath insurance in aggro.

I agree that you need to support token-heavy archetypes to make this card good enough to run, but in the right deck I think it's absolutely cube-worthy.

The card doesn't count creature tokens. Sorry to be a party pooper

We see Acidic Slime paired an awful lot with Caller of the Untamed

I like this card. A splashable four drop in a very weak slot. It is hard to undo all the value it represents. A mass removal will leave the vehicle behind, a disenchant will leave two 2/2 tokens. It can attack as a 4/4 and leave a fresh 2/2 to defend with every combat. It is three extra mana next turn with Gaea's Cradle.

Quote from Patrunkenphat7 »

Even though Azorius is arguably the most competitive guild, this planeswalker seems incredible to me. It’s an interesting combo of powerful upside with flexibility. A three mana planeswalker that nukes something and sticks around for 2+ more cards of potential value is about the best you can ask for in a Walker. Add the ability for the aforementioned three mana play to also be a lategame Sphinx’s Rev effect is incredible. The +1 is gravy because while I don’t predict it being activated often, knowing Cube it will probably be relevant in more scenarios than it seems.

Note the shard synergy with Archon of Angel’s Grace constellation effect is sweet!

How often will it nuke something? It needs to be a tapped creature with 2 or less toughness

Quote from Breathe1234 »

There are 3 cards I would like to discuss:

Liliana of the Veil - I don't see how in cube you can "liliana someone out" anymore. The edict isn't that good given the speed of the format + haste, tokens etc. The amount of card advantage + draw 7 has made the discard too even. Discard has been pretty bad, even in reanimator decks - I find if I'm using her as a discard outlet, its a easy 2 for 1 in my opponent's favor as she will prob be attacked down without something like Tarmogoyf blocking.

Sword of Body and Mind - Mill 10 seems to be too much of an upside given the graveyard synergies. I don't really understand how this is good

Acidic Slime - This just seems way too slow. If it can hit planeswalkers, then I be all for it.

Liliana is still great for us. The edict comes early enough that it almost always kills the relevant creature. In fact I really like that it is one of the few maindeckable edicts, making the first game against reanimator or cheat decks much closer. When you have a Liliana out, it discourages your opponent to play large creatures if they have none out - somewhat of a soft lock. The usual play pattern is to lay down Liliana as soon as possible and edict to take out their likely only blocker, then repeatedly discarding until a new edict is warranted. The discard is very often not symmetrical, as you are emptying your hand much more quickly than your opponent. Against a deck that is vastly faster than me, I'd side Lili out.

Sword - It is still winning the game in two hits way more often than it helps your opponent. Getting a token is a big part of the power level though. It bolster offense and defense at the same time and it gives more bodies to equip in the face of spot removals. I think it is the second best sword.

Slime - We have thought about cutting it too. Slime is one of the few ways to kill lands what are generally playable. If you ramp, it is not unreasonable to cast it on turn three, at which point the Stone Rain is powerful. It is a synergistic card, working well with Recurring Nightmare, blink and it is easy to tutor, being a green creature. All that, and it has a solid floor, basically always being a 2-for-1 as you will always have a land to kill and the body has deathtouch.
Green five drops have gotten very good, and I believe Slime is of the weaker ones we still play.