I'm honestly so bummed I won't be able to play this card behind Lutri, the Spellchaser/Dack Fayden/Ral Zarek (for Time Vault), since I love seeing the blowouts Kolaghan's Command is capable of on the play vs Mox openers, and this seems like an even stronger cube card. Def the third best Izzet card in cube, just a shame the other ones in less competitive color combinations were so much weaker than this
We've had snow cards in our paper cube since MH1, so these new ones look great but we won't be able to play them until covid ends since XMage doesn't support snow lands for custom drafts. Ascendant Spirit and Narfi, Betrayer King look incredible, and alongside Arcum's Astrolabe (and I guess on a technicality Coldsteel Heart) round out our snow section. We had to cut Icehide Golem, Frostwalk Bastion and Ice-Fang Coatl for space about a year ago but they're great too, and if our cube were any bigger we'd bring them back as well (specifically the Golem, might even replace Crawling Barrens with it because I miss it so much).
Reidane, God of the Worthy seems alright, but all decks that don't have snow cards in them would rather play regular basics in a format with this card, and although it looks alright even without the snow land effect, I don't think its good enough to justify a slot.
My favorite non-snow card of the set for sure for our cube. Card is super splashable, super versatile, and looks like it can close out games super fast. One of the things white has always severely missed is a huge body that can be dropped directly before/after Armageddon to close out the game by itself, a la True-Name Nemesis/Rotting Regisaur/Anje's Ravager or even non-3s like Tarmogoyf/Tasigur, the Golden Fang. The fastest white creatures in that territory are... Brimaz, King of Oreskos and flipped Kytheon, Hero of Akros? I thought Gideon Blackblade could alright in that role, but he severely underpreformed for us becuase of his lack of versatility elsewhere. Meanwhile the new additions of Skyclave Apparition and Maul of the Skyclaves have been great for white aggro decks trying to curve into Ravages of War, but they still don't single-handedly create that much pressure. A single turn 3 4/4 with flying and vigilance can likely take over a game, and the late game value on this card for 2 or even 3 4/4s is just incredible. Works great with Opposition and Glare of Subdual too because of the vigilance, just can't wait to get some reps in with this card.
I'm excited to test this card. The only foretell cards we wanted to try were this, Starnheim Unleashed and Glorious Protector, so for us there'll likely be little suspense as the what the control deck is tucking away in exile, but being able to wrath as early as turn 3 without a mana rock seems really strong. And although playing a rock on 2 and wrathing on 3 favors the 4cmc wraths, being able to drop a rock on 2 and exile this and hold up 2 and threaten a counterspell on 3, then cast this on 4 and have 2 up for the same counter seems like a perfectly reasonable line too.
You'll almost always have mana sitting around for this thing in control decks assuming it's in your opener, and although it might be worse off the top on turns 3 and 4, card looks solid. With that said, I really doubt it will stick in the long run in my cube since white doesn't really need more boardwipes next to Wrath of God/Day of Judgment/Winds of Abandon/Balance/Moat.
Damn I've never been a huge fan of Bloodbraid Elf, Sarkhan Vol, or Wrenn and Six in cube. We've played all 3 and the Elf was only ok, Sarkhan Vol was better than he looked but still pretty mediocre, and in our experience Wrenn and Six was pretty useless in the several drafts we got to play it in, just hardly ever did much.
In my experience, Dragonlord Atarka has been by far best Gruul card as a premier cube fatty, but Xenagos, the Reveler and Klothys, God of Destiny round out the rest of the ones we play, with Klothys probably being the second best and Xenagos at third (and imo by far the best/most versatile of all the Gruul 4 drops). Back years ago when our cube was 450 we played Huntmaster of the Fells, so I think that's probably(?) the fourth best Gruul cube card in a vacuum, but I might just be partial because it's so unique and can be really fun to build around, plus it's really good vs mono red which is super important in larger and unpowered cubes.
Card seems cool but just seems like it's going to be too hard to protect yourself. I think I'd really only be willing to play this in decks that would ordinarily platy Show and Tell, which tend to not play small creatures to block with or smaller creatures to get the monarch back if you lose it.
I've tried seeding Aether Vial as a WW card that could make Eternal Command a thing before, and that doesn't work at all. I might try this for the same reason, although I expect it will also fail.
Not that I'm especially familiar with the Eternal Witness control decks outside of modern, but I feel like Sublime Epiphany and/or Den Protector would make sense if you're trying to support that and need more redundancy. Even cards like Seasons Past (which I remember playing in my first cube years ago and was super fun) are sorta in that green control vein
Red aggro in cube is the same as burn as far as I'm aware, and we have plenty of red aggro support in our cube, so much so that it is one of our best decks.
With that said, this card seems alright, but kinda narrow. It's basically like Sulfuric Vortex in that it only goes in one deck, but it's quite a lot worse and has some substantial downsides to wheel. Cards that allow your opponent to make a choice tend to be far worse than they look, and I'm not convinced that the power of this card outweighs that inconsistency. You will always receive the worst option. Not to mentions, unlike wheel where you can fall behind and spend a turn digging for burn for next turn, if you win or tie with this you still take the damage and your opponent can outright just name the number that kills you. Obviously making this effect asymmetrical might be a bigger upside than I'm giving it credit for, but just off of first instinct this seems pretty inconstant and I'm not sure it's good enough outside of pretty big cubes.
Seems great in RDW, but what makes Wheel of Fortune so good is it's usefulness in Reanimator, Ramp, AND red aggro. This card only seems usefull in red aggro, and unless your cube is pretty large and requires more unique flagstone cards for the red aggro archetype, this card just seems too narrow imo
I don't really like the mini game that monarch creates in games but this card is pretty spicy.
I wouldnt be surprised if this is a sleeper. I also have a cut for this card in ogre battledriver so might have to look at bringing in monarch to my cube with additional includes of palace jailer and custodi lich
We played Lich for a while and the issue was always that 5CMC slot being so hard to reach for aggro decks, but the monarchy itself was always incredibly powerful. This and Lich have the same statline, and making the opponent sac a creature usually is not that powerful outside of Liliana of the Veil, so I'd have to imagine being a mana less in a more suited color makes this quite a bit better than the Lich (which is already a totally solid, 540+ playable card to begin with).
Targeted exiling is obviously way better than the abilities on both Emberwilde Captain and Custodi Lich, so maybe Lich is the better cube comparison for this card just due to the statline alone.
Every Magus we've ever tested has been unplayably bad, the fact that they have summoning sickness is just so rough. Oftentimes they also cost way more combined mana, which this one thankfully doesn't, but I still don't think this looks good. It's slow, easy to disrupt, and isn't nearly as versatile/flexible as other cards that are sorta like it that require you to pass the turn (Arcane Artisan, Ilharg, the Raze-Boar, etc.)
Thought this looked like a legacy card for red aggro, but I didn't realize this could be nice for cube too. Monarch is no joke, and a 4/2 body is pretty big. The obvious comparison for cube would be Palace Jailer, and while this is certainly worse that's a pretty high floor. Seems to lack versatility, but the power level is certainly there. Might just have to test this card
Assuming they can't kill the body, how much damage on average will this guy probably do from just the trigger each time in cube? maybe like 2 or 3? In legacy that number is obviously higher, but even just 2-3 damage is no joke.
When Phyrexian Triniform dies, create three 3/3 colorless Golem artifact creature tokens.
Encore ( , Exile this card from your graveyard: For each opponent, create a token copy that attacks that opponent this turn if able. They gain haste. Sacrifice them at the beginning of the next end step. Activate only as a sorcery.)
9/9
Big dumb artifact beater that can be cast, reanimated, Tinkered, and Sneak Attacked/Through the Breached. I would snap play this if it had some form of evasion like Trample or Menace (a la Ancient Stone Idol), but the lack thereof makes me think this probably isn't playable outside pretty big cubes. Seems versatile enough, just lacks a way to take over the game
I think this looks really cool, seems to specifically affect Blue, Green, and Black the most which is certainly a plus. Flash is such a powerful ability and this guy is even a decent planeswalker killer, just eats up JTMS, Narset, Xenagos, T3feri, etc. It's a creature too so its easy to tutor for it off of tutor effects themselves to grab it consistently, or even just to flash in EOT to sneak in with an equipment or a Fallen Shinobi. Maybe its just better in powered cubes since it lets you punish people with better decks than you, but I'm excited to play this card.
Oh yea, Tireless Tracker is great for us in like everything, even Mono green ramp. I’d vouch the house on it, the card sees play all the way to legacy for good reason. Meanwhile Courser of Kruphix obviously isn’t an aggro card, but the card draw aspect of it makes it pretty good in aggro decks too if you want your aggro 3 drops to be as versatile as possible. I haven’t been able to play the new set yet, but Mammoth seems pretty good and I’m guessing Tracker is probably a bit better than that For comparison.
Beyond that, if this discussion also involves versatile multicolored green 3 drops as well, Kitchen Finks is fantastic in everything too (Although I’m sure that’s no surprise). A great 3cmc Gruul card for us has been Klothys, God of Destiny which has been nothing short of spectacular and has probably become our second favorite Gruul card, and when ramped out on turn 2 still triggers nearly every time.
Cards like Beast Within and Song of the Dryads aren’t necessarily aggro cards but they still seem to always make their way into every green maindeck anyways (aggro included) for their versatility, so if you don’t play those they’re definitely a great choice to consider at the green 3cmc slot.
We only play like 5 mono-green 3s in total (6 when Xmage finally uploads the new set for Bala Ged Recovery), so I’d also be interested in hearing what good green 3s people are playing
Reidane, God of the Worthy seems alright, but all decks that don't have snow cards in them would rather play regular basics in a format with this card, and although it looks alright even without the snow land effect, I don't think its good enough to justify a slot.
You'll almost always have mana sitting around for this thing in control decks assuming it's in your opener, and although it might be worse off the top on turns 3 and 4, card looks solid. With that said, I really doubt it will stick in the long run in my cube since white doesn't really need more boardwipes next to Wrath of God/Day of Judgment/Winds of Abandon/Balance/Moat.
In my experience, Dragonlord Atarka has been by far best Gruul card as a premier cube fatty, but Xenagos, the Reveler and Klothys, God of Destiny round out the rest of the ones we play, with Klothys probably being the second best and Xenagos at third (and imo by far the best/most versatile of all the Gruul 4 drops). Back years ago when our cube was 450 we played Huntmaster of the Fells, so I think that's probably(?) the fourth best Gruul cube card in a vacuum, but I might just be partial because it's so unique and can be really fun to build around, plus it's really good vs mono red which is super important in larger and unpowered cubes.
Not that I'm especially familiar with the Eternal Witness control decks outside of modern, but I feel like Sublime Epiphany and/or Den Protector would make sense if you're trying to support that and need more redundancy. Even cards like Seasons Past (which I remember playing in my first cube years ago and was super fun) are sorta in that green control vein
With that said, this card seems alright, but kinda narrow. It's basically like Sulfuric Vortex in that it only goes in one deck, but it's quite a lot worse and has some substantial downsides to wheel. Cards that allow your opponent to make a choice tend to be far worse than they look, and I'm not convinced that the power of this card outweighs that inconsistency. You will always receive the worst option. Not to mentions, unlike wheel where you can fall behind and spend a turn digging for burn for next turn, if you win or tie with this you still take the damage and your opponent can outright just name the number that kills you. Obviously making this effect asymmetrical might be a bigger upside than I'm giving it credit for, but just off of first instinct this seems pretty inconstant and I'm not sure it's good enough outside of pretty big cubes.
We played Lich for a while and the issue was always that 5CMC slot being so hard to reach for aggro decks, but the monarchy itself was always incredibly powerful. This and Lich have the same statline, and making the opponent sac a creature usually is not that powerful outside of Liliana of the Veil, so I'd have to imagine being a mana less in a more suited color makes this quite a bit better than the Lich (which is already a totally solid, 540+ playable card to begin with).
Targeted exiling is obviously way better than the abilities on both Emberwilde Captain and Custodi Lich, so maybe Lich is the better cube comparison for this card just due to the statline alone.
Assuming they can't kill the body, how much damage on average will this guy probably do from just the trigger each time in cube? maybe like 2 or 3? In legacy that number is obviously higher, but even just 2-3 damage is no joke.
Phyrexian Triniform
Artifact Creature - Golem
When Phyrexian Triniform dies, create three 3/3 colorless Golem artifact creature tokens.
Encore
9/9
Big dumb artifact beater that can be cast, reanimated, Tinkered, and Sneak Attacked/Through the Breached. I would snap play this if it had some form of evasion like Trample or Menace (a la Ancient Stone Idol), but the lack thereof makes me think this probably isn't playable outside pretty big cubes. Seems versatile enough, just lacks a way to take over the game
Seems like a premier black 3 drop in cube imo and I can't wait to test this guy, especially alongside cards like Path to Exile, Winds of Abandon, and most notably Assassin's Trophy.
Beyond that, if this discussion also involves versatile multicolored green 3 drops as well, Kitchen Finks is fantastic in everything too (Although I’m sure that’s no surprise). A great 3cmc Gruul card for us has been Klothys, God of Destiny which has been nothing short of spectacular and has probably become our second favorite Gruul card, and when ramped out on turn 2 still triggers nearly every time.
Cards like Beast Within and Song of the Dryads aren’t necessarily aggro cards but they still seem to always make their way into every green maindeck anyways (aggro included) for their versatility, so if you don’t play those they’re definitely a great choice to consider at the green 3cmc slot.
We only play like 5 mono-green 3s in total (6 when Xmage finally uploads the new set for Bala Ged Recovery), so I’d also be interested in hearing what good green 3s people are playing