I've been dissatisfied with my dimir section for some time, and I think this makes a good candidate for testing. I think it's well-positioned for control decks especially - you may be on a Show & Tell or reanimator plan, or any strategy that tries to grind down the early game and then win with a humongous threat ... why not have a 2/4 for 3 (IMO excellent stats for these colors and cost) that can give you a little redundancy and smoothen out your plans?
Although, I guess even if that holds up, this card will still probably not be for everyone. I know some folks like more general-use application in their guilds and apart from this scenario I'm describing, it definitely seems very mediocre and perhaps "too fair".
I'm in the same boat. As it stands, the only Dimir card we've ever had be genuinely good has been Strix, and we've gone through more dimir cards than I can count. The new looter PW looks pretty versatile so I think he could stick around, but otherwise stuff like Hostage Taker, Dragonlord Silumgar, Tyrant's Scorn, Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver, Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas, etc have all been disappointing, mostly by nature of just either not being useful in UB decks or for just not ever being worth the splash. Although a 3 mana 2/4 with an overpriced ability doesn't sound the best on paper, this is an effect that UB reanimator decks can actually play and that other cheaty decks might actually find value in splashing for. Idk if this has any decent fair-deck applications though, since I don't think most decks are interested in paying 4 mana to bounce their own stuff just to expedite a 5 drop. I don't love it, but at least it fits a defined role and does something more interesting for the combo decks than cards like Lim-Dul's Vault/Discovery // Dispersal/Diabolic Vision.
With that said I think it's probably too expensive to stick around long term, but the playgroup might still be down to test this (assuming we don't get more interesting UB cards in the set).
There's also classics like Undiscovered Paradise and Forsaken City, but we don't play those and while Paradise is ok I'm really not sure how cubeable the latter is.
Again, I've never tried Stasis in cube, but that's just the playable enablers that I'm familiar with. That's all I got but I hope that could be of at least some help.
Channel - , Discard Takenuma, Abandoned Mire: Mill three cards then return a creature or planeswalker card from your graveyard to your hand. This ability costs less to activate for each legendary creature you control.
An untapped black land that can dig and recur creatures or planeswalkers at instant speed. Grapple with the Past is valued at 2 mana and saw standard play, and while both cards are very different on paper, both are used to provide mana early or gas in the late game. Being able to grab planeswalkers is big game for both control and midrange decks, and while I doubt the uncountable nature of this card will be particularly relevant, the fact that it plays well with land synergies like Wrenn and Six and Life from the Loam can be very relevant in-game, in addition to being targetable with land-based dig like Once Upon a Time and Wrenn and Seven. I can't imagine the legendary mana-discount clause being particularly relevant with any sort of consistency, but it doesn't hurt that this may cost as little as on choice occasions.
The competition doesn't feel particular steep to me, and I'm always down for another versatile looter. In aggressive decks, the token isn't half bad, and a 3 mana Coercive Portal that draws on etb seems pretty good. It's a reanimator and aggro/midrange card covers enough bases that I'd have to imagine it's pretty decent. The phasing seems good too, and is nice to guarantee the loot+token for recurring nightmare.
Damn we still play it and it's stayed a very good roleplayer over here. Obviously great in control, but always good in reanimator decks too, and is just all around good dig+inevitability in basically all the blue combo decks. Can even play as decent filler in midrange and Wildfire decks if need be. Not insane at all, but I don't think it's anywhere close to being cut for us. Imo it's the second best "looter", only behind Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, which is fantastic company to be in.
Just drafted with the new cards, and I have some high praise for this. The person who drafted it was playing a UW control deck, and the card was really great. Throughout the early game it's good for blocking, and once you hit like x>2 the stats get really good for flash flyers strapped to loots. It kills attackers, plansewalkers, and even players once you hit like x=3 or 4, it really doesn't take that much mana to make an impact. We were all already super impressed, and it was made even better as a win condition that you could tutor off of Spellseeker and Mystical Tutor and flashback off of Jace, Vryn's Prodigy in the mid to lategame. If you're on the fence, I'd really recommend you try it. It's a small sample size, but this has greatly overpreformed my expectations to say the least, and I already thought it was going to be pretty good.
Forgot to post in this thread. We like it and are going to be trying it. Obviously a little clunky for aggro, and I wish you could target yourself for the lategame, but the blocker is relevant for UB control and the hand attack being good in everything is intriguing enough. 3/4 menace body is good, and should be good at dealing with PWs at that point in the game.
I don't think this is playable in reanimator like Grief is, which is obviously pretty rough, but Grief is great so I don't think that has to be as good as that to be any good.
Not sure how I feel about this, since there's some real high highs but some real low lows. Seems like an awful topdeck in just about everything, only has 4 toughness, costs you almost half your starting life total, and a bunch of other peoples' decks literally won't even play creatures, especially not ones that are worth killing that will gain you any amount of life back.
With that said, when this thing works out, it's a complete ******* beating. In matchups without creatures you probably don't care too much about the life loss regardless, the madness ability makes this card advantage, and the sac ability is reminiscent of Soul Shatter, which I know is a good card that is worth the mana. So a 2-for-1 madness Soul Shatter strapped to an 8/4 makes this a 3-for-1. That might cost you like 5 to 6 life on average at that point in the game?
Still seems really clunky, but has enough upside in weird aggro decks and in reanimator that I'm happy to try this out. Obviously at its best in aggro/midrange/reanimator with Survival of the Fittest and Fauna Shaman, but blue, red, and black also might have enough ways to pitch this thing on turn 4 and before.
Only big questions I have are if this is as terrible against aggro as I think it probably is, and secondly how many good+cheap discard outlets do you need to play this thing? I'm guessing like 4?
Again, not high on this at all, but at least it's cool so we'd probably be down to at least try it.
Decent fan of this. I'm thinking of it as a dig spell+a fog for control and ramp decks, loot for reanimator, and it's not really an aggro card but if you're in an aggressive blue deck there's a good chance you have Opposition anyways, which I'm sure you'd play this alongside. Unfortunately for other aggressive blue decks that don't have Opposition, yea this is probably a miss.
Not super excited, but always happy to try new stuff. Instants usually play better than they read so I'm down to give this a spin.
Whenever Cemetery Prowler enters the battlefield or attacks, exile a card from a graveyard.
Spells you cast cost less to cast for each card type they share with cards exiled with Cemetery Prowler.
Could be cool in decks high in specifics card types, like UG is with creatures and instants or GW is with creatures and more creatures. Cheating mana is historically very strong, and the statine on this creature is quite large for its cost. With that said, it requires jumping through a couple hoops to get those mana discounts, and doesn't always have the opportunity to exile what you want. How much mana reduction does this typically need to provide in order to be a good cube card? And is the statline good enough to make this not a bad topdeck?
Sorcery
Cleave (You may cast this spell for its cleave cost. If you do, remove the words in square brackets.)
Draw three cards. [Your maximum hand size is reduced by three for the rest of the game.]
Me and my playgroup think this looks pretty good. Secrets of the Golden City saw a decent amount of standard play, so the precedent of 3 mana draw 3 is powerful enough to risk it being a Compulsive Research sometimes. This only works in decks that can dump their hands a little faster, but our card comp for this has been a souped-up Chart a Course. This is certainly playable in reanimator, agressive strategies, and a variety of combo decks that just want more card draw. It's splashable, digs deep, can enable discard, is a lethal topdeck, and even has the cleave cost if need be.
With that said, that is one hell of a downside. There could be situations where the limited hand size comes back to bite you later, like if this is used to bin a Griselbrand or if this draws you into more card draw. Also has very bad synergy with cards like Lutri, the Spellchaser, Snapcaster Mage, flipped Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, Eternal Witness, etc.
Hopeful Initiate
Creature - Human Warlock
Training (Whenever this creature attacks with another creature with greater power, put a +1/+1 counter on this creature.) , Remove two +1/+1 counters from among creatures you control: Destroy target artifact or enchantment.
1/2
Assuming you play this guy on turn one, it can't activate until after it attacks turn 4, which might be a little late to destroy Thran Dynamos and Moats. With that said, it can still consistently play as a 1 mana 2/3 or 3/4 with upside, and even has some cute synergies with cards like Hangarback Walker and Luminarch Aspirant among others.
A 2/1 on turn 1 deals 6 damage by turn 4, and Hopeful Initiate deals at most the same amount of damage on the same turn, sometimes less, but leaves behind a latrger body with a relevant ability. Not sure how this compares to more mid-tier white one drops like Usher of the Fallen or Esper Sentinel.
I'm not very high on this, but it certainly has enough possible upside (specifically in regards to exiling a land early) that we're probably going to test this. The body is fine, might get slotted in over something like Lightning Mauler, even though mauler would be missed. Hope this guy plays better than he looks.
I really like this, definitely want to test it but cuts in GW are hard. It might not be better than Kitchen Finks on power level, but me and my playgroup think this at least deserves a test. Getting the Training to trigger on this guy isn't what's important, it's that the 1/1s are really easy to make into 2/2s and that just a token or two is enough to make this guy a stat monster. Only issue I have with the guy is that he curves poorly into Armageddon/Ravages of War, but I think it's still worth trying regardless. Card has so much upside and is so unbelievably easy to trigger for tokens.
The other concern could be that this guy generates value from the same angle that the cards it triggers from already enable. Making more creature tokens won't beat that Wrath of God/Wildfire/Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite/Time Vault loop, meanwhile a card like Monastery Mentor rewards you for playing counterspells and hand attack and removal, all things that can potentially protect itself. Disruptive creatures like Dauntless Bodyguard/Selfless Spirit/Skyclave Apparition/Reclamation Sage/etc might be able to curb that issue, but there is a part of me nervous for this card's value in the face of mass removal and combos.
Also, this is more than likely not a great topdeck, but the Training triggers might actually help curb that issue.
I'm in the same boat. As it stands, the only Dimir card we've ever had be genuinely good has been Strix, and we've gone through more dimir cards than I can count. The new looter PW looks pretty versatile so I think he could stick around, but otherwise stuff like Hostage Taker, Dragonlord Silumgar, Tyrant's Scorn, Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver, Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas, etc have all been disappointing, mostly by nature of just either not being useful in UB decks or for just not ever being worth the splash. Although a 3 mana 2/4 with an overpriced ability doesn't sound the best on paper, this is an effect that UB reanimator decks can actually play and that other cheaty decks might actually find value in splashing for. Idk if this has any decent fair-deck applications though, since I don't think most decks are interested in paying 4 mana to bounce their own stuff just to expedite a 5 drop. I don't love it, but at least it fits a defined role and does something more interesting for the combo decks than cards like Lim-Dul's Vault/Discovery // Dispersal/Diabolic Vision.
With that said I think it's probably too expensive to stick around long term, but the playgroup might still be down to test this (assuming we don't get more interesting UB cards in the set).
Also important to note that with the recent printings of Occult Epiphany/Suspicious Stowaway/Kaito Shizuki, there's definitely been a recent spike in evasive reanimator cards to help enable this guy alongside the likes of classics like Baleful Strix/Looter il-Kor/Kitesail Freebooter/etc (although Kaito doesn't really work on curve).
There's also classics like Undiscovered Paradise and Forsaken City, but we don't play those and while Paradise is ok I'm really not sure how cubeable the latter is.
Technically even stuff like Lotus Cobra and Oracle of Mul Daya could maybe keep the Stasis in play for a few extra turns, meanwhile cards like Thalia, Heretic Cathar or random Planeswalkers can break the parity.
Again, I've never tried Stasis in cube, but that's just the playable enablers that I'm familiar with. That's all I got but I hope that could be of at least some help.
Takenuma, Abandoned Mire
Legendary Land
Channel -
An untapped black land that can dig and recur creatures or planeswalkers at instant speed. Grapple with the Past is valued at 2 mana and saw standard play, and while both cards are very different on paper, both are used to provide mana early or gas in the late game. Being able to grab planeswalkers is big game for both control and midrange decks, and while I doubt the uncountable nature of this card will be particularly relevant, the fact that it plays well with land synergies like Wrenn and Six and Life from the Loam can be very relevant in-game, in addition to being targetable with land-based dig like Once Upon a Time and Wrenn and Seven. I can't imagine the legendary mana-discount clause being particularly relevant with any sort of consistency, but it doesn't hurt that this may cost as little as
Just my 2¢
I don't think this is playable in reanimator like Grief is, which is obviously pretty rough, but Grief is great so I don't think that has to be as good as that to be any good.
With that said, when this thing works out, it's a complete ******* beating. In matchups without creatures you probably don't care too much about the life loss regardless, the madness ability makes this card advantage, and the sac ability is reminiscent of Soul Shatter, which I know is a good card that is worth the mana. So a 2-for-1 madness Soul Shatter strapped to an 8/4 makes this a 3-for-1. That might cost you like 5 to 6 life on average at that point in the game?
Still seems really clunky, but has enough upside in weird aggro decks and in reanimator that I'm happy to try this out. Obviously at its best in
Only big questions I have are if this is as terrible against aggro as I think it probably is, and secondly how many good+cheap discard outlets do you need to play this thing? I'm guessing like 4?
Again, not high on this at all, but at least it's cool so we'd probably be down to at least try it.
Not super excited, but always happy to try new stuff. Instants usually play better than they read so I'm down to give this a spin.
Cemetery Prowler
Creature - Wolf
Vigilance
Whenever Cemetery Prowler enters the battlefield or attacks, exile a card from a graveyard.
Spells you cast cost
Could be cool in decks high in specifics card types, like UG is with creatures and instants or GW is with creatures and more creatures. Cheating mana is historically very strong, and the statine on this creature is quite large for its cost. With that said, it requires jumping through a couple hoops to get those mana discounts, and doesn't always have the opportunity to exile what you want. How much mana reduction does this typically need to provide in order to be a good cube card? And is the statline good enough to make this not a bad topdeck?
Inspired Idea
Sorcery
Cleave
Draw three cards. [Your maximum hand size is reduced by three for the rest of the game.]
Me and my playgroup think this looks pretty good. Secrets of the Golden City saw a decent amount of standard play, so the precedent of 3 mana draw 3 is powerful enough to risk it being a Compulsive Research sometimes. This only works in decks that can dump their hands a little faster, but our card comp for this has been a souped-up Chart a Course. This is certainly playable in reanimator, agressive strategies, and a variety of combo decks that just want more card draw. It's splashable, digs deep, can enable discard, is a lethal topdeck, and even has the cleave cost if need be.
With that said, that is one hell of a downside. There could be situations where the limited hand size comes back to bite you later, like if this is used to bin a Griselbrand or if this draws you into more card draw. Also has very bad synergy with cards like Lutri, the Spellchaser, Snapcaster Mage, flipped Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, Eternal Witness, etc.
Hopeful Initiate
Creature - Human Warlock
Training (Whenever this creature attacks with another creature with greater power, put a +1/+1 counter on this creature.)
1/2
Assuming you play this guy on turn one, it can't activate until after it attacks turn 4, which might be a little late to destroy Thran Dynamos and Moats. With that said, it can still consistently play as a 1 mana 2/3 or 3/4 with upside, and even has some cute synergies with cards like Hangarback Walker and Luminarch Aspirant among others.
A 2/1 on turn 1 deals 6 damage by turn 4, and Hopeful Initiate deals at most the same amount of damage on the same turn, sometimes less, but leaves behind a latrger body with a relevant ability. Not sure how this compares to more mid-tier white one drops like Usher of the Fallen or Esper Sentinel.
The other concern could be that this guy generates value from the same angle that the cards it triggers from already enable. Making more creature tokens won't beat that Wrath of God/Wildfire/Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite/Time Vault loop, meanwhile a card like Monastery Mentor rewards you for playing counterspells and hand attack and removal, all things that can potentially protect itself. Disruptive creatures like Dauntless Bodyguard/Selfless Spirit/Skyclave Apparition/Reclamation Sage/etc might be able to curb that issue, but there is a part of me nervous for this card's value in the face of mass removal and combos.
Also, this is more than likely not a great topdeck, but the Training triggers might actually help curb that issue.