One hell of a finisher for midrange decks. Mediocre if your board's empty, but the ceiling on this card more than makes up for it. Might very well be White's second best 5-drop after Solitude.
I'm a bit shocked that we're getting Fire Prophecy+; the targeting restriction seemed like a reasonable tradeoff for getting card filtering stapled to removal. I still prefer Cathartic Pyre because it can filter without needing a target, but I'm definitely on board for Volcanic Spite.
A Green Sleight of Hand! While it doesn't dig as deep as Oath of Nissa, being able to hit artifacts and enchantments is a huge plus. Combine that with the mill aspect, the instant speed, and the incidental life gain, I think we have ourselves a bona fide Green cantrip. Thoughts?
Every time I see a new aggressive 3-drop for Red my eyes start glazing over, but this card has jolted me awake. Playing this card as a 3/2 double striker seems like the worst mode to me, which is saying something. If you can place the counter on a 3/x on turn 3, that'll likely result in either a favorable trade of an extra 4 damage. If you can dash the Champion in on an empty board, that's 6 damage. And if you can dash the Champion in on no blockers AND have another creature to place the counter on, your opponent is in for a world of hurt. Even competing for a spot so congested with aggressive options, Death-Greeter's Champion is a windmill slam.
A 3 mana 3/2 which effectively draws you a 2 mana 3/3 with Flash when it dies is a pretty good rate. The activated ability is basically void in cube, but you can still scale the death trigger with Equipment. It's not the most exciting card, but I'm willing to give the Processor its day in the sun.
Trading the unblockable by power 2 or less for trample makes this a lot worse than Questing Beast. Being able to cleanly answer a Grist or a Daretti is one of Questing Beast's best features, and it is one that the Raptor can't replicate. Even taking planeswalkers out of the equation, there are a lot of decks which struggle to even produce enough high power creatures to trade with QB, whereas Rampaging Raptor can be teamblocked very easily. As far as curve-toppers for aggressive decks this is one of the better ones, but between Hellrider, Purphoros, and Caves of Chaos Adventurer I'm not sure there's really a need for more.
This had piqued my interest for being a Baneslayer with +2 CA attached. It's obviously a fair bit worse than Primeval Titan, but costing 1 less makes it a realistic topend for a greater variety of decks. But my enthusiasm started to wane when I started comparing it to Elder Gargaroth. While Vorinclex doesn't fail the Vindicate test as badly as Gargaroth, I imagine it will still feel pretty awful. And untapping with Vorinclex doesn't feel nearly as good as untapping with Gargaroth. I really wish the transform ability costed less so that it would be more of a must-kill for your opponent. As it stands, the threat of activation is lower than the threat of just getting attacked to death. I feel like this card is in a weird spot because it's both worse to cast on curve than Elder Gargaroth and worse to cheat out than Primeval Titan. It is nice though that it can play both roles decently well, and if I were running Gargaroth I would swap it out for Vorinclex for that reason.
You're getting a lot here for 3 mana, but my gripe is the decks that can generate BGU in my cube don't tend to have creatures lying around to sacrifice. A great card for sure, but I'll have to pass.
In the BCS, when you can play Invasion of Innistrad on your own turn and flip it immediately, it's a pretty stellar card. But it loses a lot of luster if you wait to flash this in on the opponent's turn and delay the initial zombie spawn. And when you can't manage to crack the battle at all... yeah it's a pass for me.
The ETB is a bit on the weak side compared to Black's current suite of 5-drops, but being able to brawl and survive Languish effects are major plusses. I'm not too optimistic about being able to flip her, but the front side alone is worthy of consideration.
Having a 2/4 statline (with Flying, no less) goes a loooong way to make up for the fact it doesn't generate blockers immediately. To me, the spells matter theme is still 2-3 payoffs away from where I would like it to be, so I'm definitely slamming this into my cube.
The main draw to me for Invasion of Ikoria, and really any of the battles, is being able to flip it on the turn you play it. Of course, you're not often going to be able to push 6 damage through in a single turn, but in the case of Ikoria you do get to add one more body to your board from the front side. And unlike with the other battles, you can afford to wait for that opportunity since the front side scales. But that being said, a watered down Finale of Devastation is quite bad if you can't ever get it to flip. Plus, even when you do manage to pull it off, your opponent still gets a turn to answer Zilortha. So it really makes you wonder, is it ever worth redirecting damage to flip one of these things?
I side with asmallcat, for me the more splashable cost and trading better in combat outweighs Flickerwisp's utility by a fair margin. That said, I think the card is good enough to be cubed on its own merits, irrespective of whether it's better or worse than Wisp.
The damage output is similar, yes, but in that scenario you've effectively paid 4 mana for an aura that grants +2/+2 and flying and gained you some life. Which is fine when that can win you the game, but you get blown out badly if your opponent has removal for your creature, particularly if you had held it back to block. In the same scenario with Knight-Errant, the opponent has an extra 3 loyalty to deal with, which will often make the difference between having and not having your planeswalker alive on your next turn.
Guardian of Ghirapur
Guardian Scalelord
Chrome Host Seedshark
Sheoldred
Death-Greeter's Champion
Considering:
Bloated Processor
Rampaging Raptor
Volcanic Spite
Vorinclex
Wrenn and Realmbreaker
Seed of Hope
On the radar:
Battles
I think the battles are undertuned for 1v1, but I'm happy to be proved wrong.
A Green Sleight of Hand! While it doesn't dig as deep as Oath of Nissa, being able to hit artifacts and enchantments is a huge plus. Combine that with the mill aspect, the instant speed, and the incidental life gain, I think we have ourselves a bona fide Green cantrip. Thoughts?
A 3 mana 3/2 which effectively draws you a 2 mana 3/3 with Flash when it dies is a pretty good rate. The activated ability is basically void in cube, but you can still scale the death trigger with Equipment. It's not the most exciting card, but I'm willing to give the Processor its day in the sun.