Have any of them ever drafted a common/uncommon cube? First pack is windmill slam Curse of Predation and someone wants to take Mnemonic Wall over it? My head hurts.
I banned Ancient Tomb from my cube after a short while. My players found it was too strong, and I agreed with that. We found that having it in your opening hand gave too much of an advantage over the course of the game, even with the life loss drawback.
I don't think you need to have additional synergies for your two mana 4/3 to be outstanding, even if it sets you back a card. Hopefully your opponent is at 0 before that extra card matters.
Leelue, sorry to hear about your student. I think we're all doing the best we can to communicate our thoughts in the most effective way we can, sometimes more successfully than others. Best of luck in whatever the current and future hold for you.
Presumably it would be to ensure colors each have things they can and can't do to give them all a clearer identity. I know you don't care about that, Leelue, but some people do.
I run it and it's perfectly fine. Possibly a little underwhelming due to the plethora of other removal in black, but I like having a card that works almost exclusively in control decks.
The ones I'm explicitly pushing are:
+1/+1 counters: white and green primarily, but present in all colors
Tokens: white primarily, but present to some extent in blue, green, and red
Life drain: white and black
Flyers: white and blue primarily
Ramp: green, generally splashing multiple other colors
Spells matters: blue and red
Sacrifice: black primarily
I cut Sprout Swarm because it's so often not very good, and the times it's good it's very not fun to play against. Wouldn't fault anyone for running it, though.
So What I'll do is hit random on magiccards.info until I run into a card I think one of us may be cubing (or a card I see in the peasant aggregate list on cubetutor, or a card I think to run but never do).
I feel like white has access to better removal and better defensive spells. I don't think having the option for one or the either on one card makes up for each half being underwhelming.
If it was just a 6/6 with the sac ability, I'd be much more interested. If you're playing it as a 3/3 you're very very unhappy. Even as a reanimation target, if you don't have Bloodthirst active, I'd rather have Skinrender or Flametongue Kavu. I don't think it's consistent enough. Interesting card though, I forgot this one even existed.
We've only drafted with it once, so not a ton of experience, but I seem to remember it being underwhelming. It's possible that's it's better in a more dedicated spells deck.
Cross-posting my rare expansion list from the thread JovianHomarid linked to. I wouldn't recommend using Surrakar Spellblade (not good enough) or Rakka Mar, Hornet Queen, Awakening Zone, or Wolfbriar Elemental (too good), but the rest were fine. Pianna is even uncommon already if you include Vintage Masters cards.
Pretty much, yeah. I've considered Constricting Sliver on its own though, as a poor man's Duplicant. It probably doesn't make the cut at this point on its own, and jamming other slivers into a cube to make it better doesn't sound great because it's a 6-drop and therefore usually will be the last creature you play.
+1/+1 counters: white and green primarily, but present in all colors
Tokens: white primarily, but present to some extent in blue, green, and red
Life drain: white and black
Flyers: white and blue primarily
Ramp: green, generally splashing multiple other colors
Spells matters: blue and red
Sacrifice: black primarily
1 Pianna, Nomad Captain
1 Geist-Honored Monk
1 Precinct Captain
1 Galepowder Mage
Blue:
1 Desertion
1 Talrand, Sky Summoner
1 Serra Sphinx
1 Surrakar Spellblade
1 Oona's Prowler
1 Undead Gladiator
1 Disciple of Bolas
1 Skeletal Vampire
Red:
1 Firedrinker Satyr
1 Rakka Mar
1 Ash Zealot
1 Char
1 Ulvenwald Tracker
1 Awakening Zone
1 Wolfbriar Elemental
1 Hornet Queen
Colorless:
1 Erratic Portal
1 Runechanter's Pike
1 Chimeric Mass
1 Staff of Nin