thanks guys! I havent played either of them in my own list and they are both staples for a lot of people. My green section has been hurting and aggro has been running a bit rampant so I thought one or both of these might give green a bit of a buff.
Got in another draft last night. Doomskar solid. Usher of the Fallen was in a 3-0 selesnya deck. Firja's Retribution last pick in the pack. Think I am done testing it.
The changeling effect of masked vandal came up twice in funny situations that weren't expected. One time saving its controller from being killed by a flipped Thing in the Ice while it counted as a horror. The other time backfired and stopped its controller from creating snakes with their Ophiomancer! lol
Got in the first test on Xmage last night and got some reps with a lot of cards.
Usher of the Fallen, Clarion Spirit, and Dragonkin Berserker were played in a Boros Aggro list. Usher was great as expected and clarion spirit ate removal everytime it hit the board which is fine for a 2cmc creature and at least speaks to the perceived threat level of the card. Dragonkin threatened to make a dragon forcing the opponent to remove it or die so again I think if your 2cmc spells are forcing your opponent to use up valuable removal they are doing a fine job.
Doomskar, glorious protector, and cosima, god of the voyage were played in an Esper control list. Nothing much to report on doomskar unfortunately, glorious protector was mostly played as a non blinking restoration angel, but cosima was surprisingly good. Vehicle wasn't played at all but the front side blocked then drew two cards, then exiled while the controller played a board wipe and came back later drawing 3 cards. So pretty good in this shell. Still feels slow but has potential and people who run double fetches might want to consider it more strongly.
Battle Mammoth, Esika's Chariot, and Masked Vandal were played in a Mono Green deck. Battle mammoth was a big dummy as expected but in the situations where Elder Gargaroth would have just died the insurance of battle mammoth felt good. Chariot is very strong. It was very difficult for opponents to decide to kill the chariot or to kill the crewing creatures and just snowballed so hard. Surprise of the night, Masked Vandal was very strong. It hit the board as a 2 mana Rec sage three times not being hindered by lack of creatures in the graveyard at all. Took out a retrofitter foundry and two coalition relics. Was tutored for with Green Sun's Zenith twice costing only 3 mana to tutor it directly into play where compared to reclamation sage would be 4 mana. So far very happy with this over spell based disenchants like Wilt especially being able to tutor for it in green with things like greensun, Fiend artisan, etc.
Behold the Multiverse was in a Dimir control list and played pretty much as expected. It was cast for foretell about equal amounts as fully paid and gave a nice flexible option to hold up mana for counterspells.
Starnheim unleashed unfortunately didn't get cast as far as I know. Firja's Retribution rotted in the sideboard of the Esper Control deck, being too demanding of a casting cost for the mostly blue aligned deck. I feel it is the weakest of the cards i'm testing so not too surprised by this. Shimmerdrift Vale Was serviceable as a fixer if you are looking to cut back on functional reprints of evolving wilds and terramorphic expanse which are both better than this. Some people are diehard on singleton and this helps with the spirit of that if you are against functional reprints. Also if your cube plays some crazy land configuartion where decks consistently end up with only 1 or 2 basics shimmerdrift can fit into these decks without ending up as a dead card with nothing to fetch so that's one advantage to consider.
Hope you are all getting in some good testing and enjoying the set!
I personally don't know if judging by main deck percentage is the best way to go. There are several reasons from my game play experience that a card might see less maindeck play:
- If I see a card that is a rarely seen effect - I.e. Gaea's Cradle, SkullClamp, Crucible of Worlds, I would pick it Pick 1, Pack 1/2 - The other cards are pretty replaceable, I might get lucky and see both Loam + Strip Mine etc.
- There are cards that are build arounds and not intended to be played as frequently. There is almost no green deck that will not play Birds of Paradise, but cards like Griselbrand require a build around.
I agree that maindeck percentage alone is not a good measure of overall cube performance but I do think it is an important factor to consider. The best cube cards have a high maindeck percentage and a high win rate. The worst cube cards have a low maindeck percentage and a low win rate. Serviceable cube cards fall somewhere in the middle. Your example of Griselbrand is a great one. It has a lower maindeck percentage because it needs to be built around, but it is sufficiently powerful that it has a high enough win rate to offset its low maindeck percentage.
Unfortunately this is not the case for Armageddon in my cube. It has a maindeck percentage of only 32.50% and a win rate of 51.16% for an overall cube rating of 41.83%. This is dismal. Out of all 360 cards in my list it is ranked 352nd. Griselbrand by comparison has an overall rating of 55.55% ranked 261st out of 360 cards.
Overall Armageddon has not been performing well enough to justify its low maindeck percentage in my list.
And do you guys think any of the Pathways are better than their respective man-land?
Pathway much better than spires. RW aggro wants untapped lands. needle spires too slow to get activated in most RW decks.
I would say the pathways are better than most manlands with the exception of tarpit, collonade, and maybe on par with ravine and shambling vent depending what you want these sections to do.
I think with armageddon its just that aggro decks tend to be more red/black alligned than white in my cube so it doesn't see a ton of play. On a power level it is definitely there so I am keeping it in the list despite the low main deck percentage.
I don't have as high a density of sneak/show targets in my cube which I think hurts both of those cards as well. The only Eldrazi I run is emrakul, the promised end and my other top end targets are griselbrand, sundering titan, etc. So I think this is limiting the maindeckability of these cards in my list.
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.
first group for sure. 5 colour fetches are always good and seems like you are ocd about colour balancing just like me so shimmerdrift does a good job of alleviating the problem of needing to include 5 thriving lands as you are currently debating.
The changeling effect of masked vandal came up twice in funny situations that weren't expected. One time saving its controller from being killed by a flipped Thing in the Ice while it counted as a horror. The other time backfired and stopped its controller from creating snakes with their Ophiomancer! lol
Usher of the Fallen, Clarion Spirit, and Dragonkin Berserker were played in a Boros Aggro list. Usher was great as expected and clarion spirit ate removal everytime it hit the board which is fine for a 2cmc creature and at least speaks to the perceived threat level of the card. Dragonkin threatened to make a dragon forcing the opponent to remove it or die so again I think if your 2cmc spells are forcing your opponent to use up valuable removal they are doing a fine job.
Doomskar, glorious protector, and cosima, god of the voyage were played in an Esper control list. Nothing much to report on doomskar unfortunately, glorious protector was mostly played as a non blinking restoration angel, but cosima was surprisingly good. Vehicle wasn't played at all but the front side blocked then drew two cards, then exiled while the controller played a board wipe and came back later drawing 3 cards. So pretty good in this shell. Still feels slow but has potential and people who run double fetches might want to consider it more strongly.
Battle Mammoth, Esika's Chariot, and Masked Vandal were played in a Mono Green deck. Battle mammoth was a big dummy as expected but in the situations where Elder Gargaroth would have just died the insurance of battle mammoth felt good. Chariot is very strong. It was very difficult for opponents to decide to kill the chariot or to kill the crewing creatures and just snowballed so hard. Surprise of the night, Masked Vandal was very strong. It hit the board as a 2 mana Rec sage three times not being hindered by lack of creatures in the graveyard at all. Took out a retrofitter foundry and two coalition relics. Was tutored for with Green Sun's Zenith twice costing only 3 mana to tutor it directly into play where compared to reclamation sage would be 4 mana. So far very happy with this over spell based disenchants like Wilt especially being able to tutor for it in green with things like greensun, Fiend artisan, etc.
Behold the Multiverse was in a Dimir control list and played pretty much as expected. It was cast for foretell about equal amounts as fully paid and gave a nice flexible option to hold up mana for counterspells.
Starnheim unleashed unfortunately didn't get cast as far as I know.
Firja's Retribution rotted in the sideboard of the Esper Control deck, being too demanding of a casting cost for the mostly blue aligned deck. I feel it is the weakest of the cards i'm testing so not too surprised by this.
Shimmerdrift Vale Was serviceable as a fixer if you are looking to cut back on functional reprints of evolving wilds and terramorphic expanse which are both better than this. Some people are diehard on singleton and this helps with the spirit of that if you are against functional reprints. Also if your cube plays some crazy land configuartion where decks consistently end up with only 1 or 2 basics shimmerdrift can fit into these decks without ending up as a dead card with nothing to fetch so that's one advantage to consider.
Hope you are all getting in some good testing and enjoying the set!
otherwise i'm in agreement.
I agree that maindeck percentage alone is not a good measure of overall cube performance but I do think it is an important factor to consider. The best cube cards have a high maindeck percentage and a high win rate. The worst cube cards have a low maindeck percentage and a low win rate. Serviceable cube cards fall somewhere in the middle. Your example of Griselbrand is a great one. It has a lower maindeck percentage because it needs to be built around, but it is sufficiently powerful that it has a high enough win rate to offset its low maindeck percentage.
Unfortunately this is not the case for Armageddon in my cube. It has a maindeck percentage of only 32.50% and a win rate of 51.16% for an overall cube rating of 41.83%. This is dismal. Out of all 360 cards in my list it is ranked 352nd. Griselbrand by comparison has an overall rating of 55.55% ranked 261st out of 360 cards.
Overall Armageddon has not been performing well enough to justify its low maindeck percentage in my list.
I am really hoping fortell comes through stronger than it reads.
Pathway much better than spires. RW aggro wants untapped lands. needle spires too slow to get activated in most RW decks.
I would say the pathways are better than most manlands with the exception of tarpit, collonade, and maybe on par with ravine and shambling vent depending what you want these sections to do.
I don't have as high a density of sneak/show targets in my cube which I think hurts both of those cards as well. The only Eldrazi I run is emrakul, the promised end and my other top end targets are griselbrand, sundering titan, etc. So I think this is limiting the maindeckability of these cards in my list.
rishadan port
armageddon
show and tell
sneak attack
reveillark
https://andrewvisser.wixsite.com/cube/post/kaldheim-the-usurper