I have to see landfall in action - on paper it's certainly the mixed-bag you present. However I find all-too-often that I wish the land I just top decked meant something.
My cube runs all of the RAV block bounce lands which will help fuel any landfall shenanigans, and green runs virtually every efficient ramp/land fetch spell printed at common.
Again, landfall is just something I'm keeping my eye on. I still have concerns for blue and I'd like to find creatures that work to solve the issues with blue's creatures (not int he sense the blue dudes = green dudes but in that blue needs enough powerful evasion to make it both attractive enough to draft into as well as strong enough to be worthwhile once drafted.
I also play a lot of cube sealed where landfall seems like it would work best - stalemates and slower matches will benefit from the additional land drops. Again it's just something I'm keeping my eyes on. I haven't "pre-commited" to make any change to bring in a landfall card. Similar to the ally tribal line, I need to see more (and see it in action) to judge how well it would fit in. Ally seems less likely than landfall at this point.
Zendikar (see the spoiler link at the top for the latest additions) is looking to be an awesome set from virtually every viewpoint: tournament players get new Wrath of God and enemy fetch lands, tournament organizers and store owners have (nearly) unprecedented interest in product sales, and Design/Development is providing every player archetype and casual format cards that shine for them.
Cube? Oh yes. The Zendikar in the Cube? Zounds! is extremely full already. I won't bog down that thread with too much pauper discussion so I'm going to outline a few key choices already - and note that we know so few commons yet that it bodes well for other great options to appear.
Warning: Spoilers Ahead (if you didn't catch my drift yet)
White:
Kor Sanctifiers 2W
Kor Cleric
Kicker W
When ~ ETB, if it was kicked, destroy target artifact or enchantment.
2/3
This seems to be either a great replacement for one of the enchantment destruction dudes (Ronom Unicorn, Kami of Ancient Law, and Wispmare). If there isn't a lot of options in white (this is the only common revealed in white so far) this would be a great expansion choice as well. While a 2/3 2W isn't impressive, a 2/3 2WW that enters a trigger for Disenchantis really good. My cube needs a little more artifact destruction and I'm happy to get it attached to a body.
Blue:
Windrider Eel 3U
Fish
Flying
Landfall - Whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control, ~ gets +2/+2 until end of turn.
2/2
With Limited decks being 40-45% lands this guys seems pretty good. Effectively, he can be a 4/4 flying for 3U on the offense - a quick clock to be sure. Any landfall dude will match up well with a green ramp deck. I don't know if this will make the cube but it may be a good option to try if some of the changes in blue aren't working.
Black:
Hideous End 1BB
Instant
Destroy target nonblack creature. Its controller loses 2 life.
My cube is already intense on double costed black spells. However this is a nice little boost for any B/ aggro deck (which will pack some burn) and could replace something that's heavy black already (or I'll just continue to push black as a strong color alone - a nice contrast to the friendly splashing the other colors are).
Soul Stair Expedition B
Enchantment
Landfall - Whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control, you may put a quest counter on ~.
Remove three quest counters from ~ and sacrifice it: Return up to two target creature cards from your graveyard to your hand.
Basically, it's a Death's Duet for B. Like suspend, all you need to do is give it time. I'm not sure if this will replace anything outright, but this is an awesome early drop for any aggressive deck.
Vampire Lacerator B
Vampire Warrior
At the beginning of your upkeep, you lose 1 life unless an opponent has 10 or less life.
2/2
Carnophage 2.0! I think Dread Warlock will come out for Lacrator - reduce the double black and crank up the aggro level in one swap? Yes.
Red:
Plated Geopede 1R
Insect
First Strike
Landfall - Whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control, ~ get +2/+2 until end of turn.
1/1
Like Windrider Eel above if landfall works out as strong as it appears to be capable of having this replace a technically inferior creature (like Ronin Houndmaster or Suq'Ata Lancer) makes a lot of sense. Something to keep my eye on.
Green:
Beast Hunt 3G
Sorcery
Reveal the top three cards of your library. Put all creature cards revealed this way into your hand and the rest into your graveyard.
Harrow 2G
Instant
As an additional cost to cast Harrow, sacrifice a land.
Search your library for up to two basic land cards and put them onto the battlefield. Then shuffle your library.
It was a common in the past and I mention it here only to say that I'd love to see if the FOIL version will look good enough to replace my Tempest version. Oh, did I mention it combos with landfall like peanut butter with jelly?
Khalni Heart Expedition 1G
Landfall - Whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control, you may put a quest counter on ~.
Remove three quest counters from ~ and sacrifice it: Search your library for up to two basic land cards, put them onto the battlefield tapped, then shuffle your library.
A common Explosive Vegetation that builds off of ramping? Green is really getting the goods this go-around. A U/ control deck would love to drop this on turn two. This isn't your aggro mana ramping card - I feel a deck that wants to have lots of mana mid-to-late game.
Nissa's Chosen GG
Elf Warrior
If Nissa's Chosen would be put into a graveyard from the battlefield, put it on the bottom of its owner's library instead.
2/3
It's an Elvish Warrior that doesn't go to the graveyard. I don't like Elvish Warrior and Nissa's Chosen won't even permit reanimation efforts. Passing.
Oran-Rief Survivalist 1G
Human Warrior Ally
Whenever Oran-Rief Survivalist or another Ally enters the battlefield under your control, you may put a +1/+1 counter on Oran-Rief Survivalist.
1/1
It comes into play as a 2/2 (1/1 with a +1/+1 counter) so it's atleast a Grizzly Bears. However it remains to be seen if common ally cards will be strong as a linear concept. Outlook: doubtful but cautiously keeping an eye on it.
Scythe Tiger G
Cat
Shroud
When ~ enters the battlefield, sacrifice it unless you sacrifice a land.
3/2
It's a Rogue Elephant that gains shroud but loses a point of toughness. Since the point of the Elephant is to be better than any other creature that early the shroud bit doesn't feel like a fair trade down to 2 toughness. I probably should ass Rogue Elephant to my cube; Scythe Tiger isn't nearly as good.
Land:
Teetering Peaks
Land
~ enters the battlefield tapped.
When ~ enters the battlefield, target creature gets +2/+0 until end of turn.
:symtap:: Add R to your mana pool.
The implication of a cycle of "uncounterable" spells attached to an ETB tapped land drop seems good enough to look at on the whole. I sincerely doubt the entire cycle will be as good as this one (which fuels an aggro deck well) but if it is expanding the land section ot include these colorless, uncounterable spells may be worthwhile.
All of this discussion is just preliminary groundwork. There will be a lot more to look at and I'll probably starting skipping many cards wholesale. Chime in if you think I'm looking at something a little off!
He's an 8/8 with no evasion or protection. Compare this to an Akroma or Simic Sky Swallower.
In other reanimator news, the green landfall guy is actually a pretty good target as well.
And to get the most bang for the buck you still need 8 lying around to run through him. For a strong control deck, he can be the finisher that cuts through any defense. For reanimation he's pretty bad. The latter two cards Phantizle mentioned are the posterchildren for reanimator strategies. Lorthos is a very different fatty.
So I'm very tempted to add that Octopus, as it almost always will say when this creature attacks, pay eight colorless mana and win the game. Might be a bit too much for a creature without protection, but it looks awesome to play with, and I'm willing to give it a shot I think.
This makes me happy beyond belief. Lorthos? In my cube? It's more likely that you think!
I think Khalni Heart Expedition might me an option for my cube - given that if a game comes to a stalemate (which can often happen) or it gets dropped on turn two it will push the eventuality of deck thinning and mana ramping. I'm getting giddy at what this thing could do in a dedicated ramp deck in green: T1 Land, T2 Land -> Expedition, T3 Land -> Harrow -> Quest Trigger, T4 Six mana. Throw a different ramp effect in for Harrow and it's still a beating. I really like this quest.
With Painter's Servant painting plane cards, let's say red, would protection abilities interact with a colored plane, say with some chaos/planewalk trigger from a plane painted red trying to target a Silver Knight?
People really need to stop throwing the term 'functional reprint' around like this.
It is a new thing, too.
This card is much much better.
EDH players around the globe agree. Vault is okay and this Altar is better - how much remains to be seen. I'm looking forward to adding this to my heavily creature steal themed Kresh the Bloodbraided deck.
He kind of gave the impression that his previews would follow the order of his poll and the legendary octopus was only second to the super secret long sought-after fetchlands. Guess not. We get more boring Allies.
yeah yeah, Kelly is previewing it tomorrow. 100%. He said in his article last week.
Hydro is right. When you guys see this thing (and it's likely not going to be the next Baneslayer) you'll see that Blue is getting more share of a really powerful part of it's color pie. Also, it's going to be my next project for an EDH deck.
IMO the most interesting thing Mark spoiled in the entire article was ... hinting of another set of duals in the near future possibly? what else have we been asking for? bring back the original duals and i will propose to marry you, mr. rosewater. yes, i know you are married, and no i'm not gay, but that would make my decade.
From the context, I'm guessing the unused dual land cycle was for enemy colors, and the only one I can think of, other than Enemy Fetchlands, we have been asking for are enemy color counterparts to the M10 duals. (Unless they were talking about reprinting a cycle like the Shocklands or the Painlands). Enemy counterparts to the Invasion taplands are unnecessary thanks to the Alara tri-lands.
I imagine Rosewater's article hint was along the lines of a Future Sight dual being "cycled".
I'm not sure any potential cycle from Future Sight has been "asked to be printed" by players. The one cycle that would make Standard players extremely happy would be the cycle around Horizon Canopy for (1) turn one color fixing dual and (2) cycling from play for only 1. Not the most exciting I'm sure.
I would bet that the cycle would be the enemy ETB tapped cycle. While, yes, "strictly" inferior to the ALA tri-land cycle, my Niv-Mezzet, the Firemind EDH deck begs to differ on that. It's clear that there is significantly more attention paid to all parts of Magic, which the essence of those parts shining clearer. I would love more enemy duals if only to ensure that decks of those colors exist easier.
All your official articles are on that site from the people that work for the company doing any manner of job.
Not every writer is a full time WotC employee: some are contracted to write. Steve Sadin (the solid Limited Information writer) is one, I believe. Technically speaking contracted writers still "work for" the company.
Rosewater: "The earliest designs involved you playing the trap face down in the exile zone."
BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Yugioh FTW?
You mean the premise of morph in spell form? There is a different set of advantages and disadvantages to broadcasting that a trap card "is out there waiting for you" and just holding it in your hand. Like morph, which required both knowledges of morphs as well as making sharper play decisions, having the trap card known but face down would push opponents to think harder - which natually caused play errors (something tournament players love to see: "Think better." type cards). It (morph) was sucessful in Onslaught block and it would only be natural to have the initial design work with a mirrored approach (see flashback and unearth for an example of this mirror in execution).
Carnage Altar 2
Artifact (U) 3, Sacrifice a creature: Draw a card.
It feels like utility most decks can get behind. Turning chump blocks and opponent's removal into drawing a card seems good. The cost isn't prohibitive as either.
I was going to make a thread, I tried making a sort function button with some macros but it didn't work right, so I've uploaded it to my first post. If you want, I can send you a modified version of it with more slots.
I see your approach here. I noticed that there isn't a QC when you run the '% played' column: it returns '#DIV/0' if it hasn't been played yet. An IF statement can fix that pretty quick (and for an example of bastardizing statements to get what you want just look at some of the nesting I run in my spreadsheet; inelegant but it's not for style points).
Thanks for sharing; I will likely incorporate something similar into my spread.
(I'll upload my sheet for tracking cube usage in another thread, it's been useful for tracking what gets played and what doesn't.)
I apologize, but where can I find this spreadsheet? I'd like to set up a tracking system to track what gets maindecked (I've done quite a bit of four-man Sealed pools) and I'd like to see what your approach is to this.
I keep wanting to get excited about the new Chandra, but i keep thinking "how many decks do I play that can get to 3RRR and wouldn't rather just have Rorix or SGC, or Thunderblust or any large burn spell". Chandra seems to say "play me in burn decks that don't actually work".
Does she fall into the "This is greater than every other X in Y." type of categorization? I don't think so, but if you're the heaviest red player you'd be glad to pick her up in addition to/if you missed out on "better" options. At the very least, turning now obsolete/unhelpful red cards into free Flame Javelins seems okay. Unlike creature based options, once she's resolved you get to take your shot regardless and puts a complete three turn clock onto the opponent to either kill her (giving you time and perhaps a second free Flame Jav) or kill you (in how many cases would a single red creature save you compared to Chandra - neither will likely be a "saves me" card).
I think all three of the new 'walkers are extremely narrow - they are pushing a singular, common monocolor archetype (Elves!, Burn, and MBC). This makes then exclusionary in that they don't work as well with a highlander set of random, though awesome, cards as more general 'walkers (Garruk is basically an auto-include in virtually any deck that can run with GG). I think the 'walkers from ZEN will be solid in constructed but more difficult to properly marry to most cubes. Tribal or other theme cubes may be able to better use these than the average cube.
ADD -->Raise the Alarm - The circle is now complete. I was once the learner but now I am the master.
ADD -->Cloud Elemental - Because I couldn't find a copy of Cloud Spirit in my collection; will change again soon
ADD -->Skittering Skirge - Strong card, also have a signed foil version to put in. Coincidence? [My order arrived with a non-signed version; trying to get it sorted out (though it's still a foil Arena version)]
ADD -->Brute Force - Red Giant Growth feels right.
ADD -->Land Aid '04 - To gather proof Magic players can't sign; or put a land into play untapped for two? Sure.
Thanks to some shenanigans formula work in my spreadsheet, the online analysis has been updated with the most accurate cost assigned for my cards. All morphs that have a color cost in their morph cost use that color in their assigned cost, and morphs that have a morph cost exceeding CMC 3 have their cost set to the morph cost (see Skinthinner).
I've also created a table that tallies how "pimp" the cube is. While I'm actually not a fan of foils (they're easy to use to mark your deck with and warp way too easily) I am well aware that most cubes are expected to be pimped out. Of the 371 cards in my cube, 229 (~61%) are foil, 75 (~20%) need a foil version, and the remaining 67 (~18%) do not have a foil version available. This does not count the Unhinged basic lands supplied, though this would be a natural next target to work at.
I'll be working up a joint "Cards to try from the feedback in this thread." and "Hot new Zendikar cards to use." update for when ZEN finally hits: Prerelease is only three weeks away!
Any feedback would be greatly appreciated; I'll be updating my front page after making this post so it won't show up right away on the front page.
So we get enemy fetches. Well, that's pretty frickin' sweet! Peace out Mirage fetches. It's been real, but it's time to get the **** out my house.
Indeed. This makes the full case of boosters I ordered feel like a great investment. Looks like I'll be buying a box on release day as well if the "decent-to-chaff rare ratio" holds up well enough.
In a completely less exciting note, it looks like this set will be also be a Pauper/Peasant cube wet dream: lots of common/uncommon critters/enchantments that have huge bonuses from landfall, plus other critters with great kicker effects. Looks like I'll be working overtime to see what all needs to be shipped in.
And previews are just starting to get fired up! Man I'm stoked!
My cube runs all of the RAV block bounce lands which will help fuel any landfall shenanigans, and green runs virtually every efficient ramp/land fetch spell printed at common.
Again, landfall is just something I'm keeping my eye on. I still have concerns for blue and I'd like to find creatures that work to solve the issues with blue's creatures (not int he sense the blue dudes = green dudes but in that blue needs enough powerful evasion to make it both attractive enough to draft into as well as strong enough to be worthwhile once drafted.
I also play a lot of cube sealed where landfall seems like it would work best - stalemates and slower matches will benefit from the additional land drops. Again it's just something I'm keeping my eyes on. I haven't "pre-commited" to make any change to bring in a landfall card. Similar to the ally tribal line, I need to see more (and see it in action) to judge how well it would fit in. Ally seems less likely than landfall at this point.
Cube? Oh yes. The Zendikar in the Cube? Zounds! is extremely full already. I won't bog down that thread with too much pauper discussion so I'm going to outline a few key choices already - and note that we know so few commons yet that it bodes well for other great options to appear.
Warning: Spoilers Ahead (if you didn't catch my drift yet)
White:
Kor Sanctifiers 2W
Kor Cleric
Kicker W
When ~ ETB, if it was kicked, destroy target artifact or enchantment.
2/3
This seems to be either a great replacement for one of the enchantment destruction dudes (Ronom Unicorn, Kami of Ancient Law, and Wispmare). If there isn't a lot of options in white (this is the only common revealed in white so far) this would be a great expansion choice as well. While a 2/3 2W isn't impressive, a 2/3 2WW that enters a trigger for Disenchant is really good. My cube needs a little more artifact destruction and I'm happy to get it attached to a body.
Blue:
Windrider Eel 3U
Fish
Flying
Landfall - Whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control, ~ gets +2/+2 until end of turn.
2/2
With Limited decks being 40-45% lands this guys seems pretty good. Effectively, he can be a 4/4 flying for 3U on the offense - a quick clock to be sure. Any landfall dude will match up well with a green ramp deck. I don't know if this will make the cube but it may be a good option to try if some of the changes in blue aren't working.
Black:
Hideous End 1BB
Instant
Destroy target nonblack creature. Its controller loses 2 life.
My cube is already intense on double costed black spells. However this is a nice little boost for any B/ aggro deck (which will pack some burn) and could replace something that's heavy black already (or I'll just continue to push black as a strong color alone - a nice contrast to the friendly splashing the other colors are).
Soul Stair Expedition B
Enchantment
Landfall - Whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control, you may put a quest counter on ~.
Remove three quest counters from ~ and sacrifice it: Return up to two target creature cards from your graveyard to your hand.
Basically, it's a Death's Duet for B. Like suspend, all you need to do is give it time. I'm not sure if this will replace anything outright, but this is an awesome early drop for any aggressive deck.
Vampire Lacerator B
Vampire Warrior
At the beginning of your upkeep, you lose 1 life unless an opponent has 10 or less life.
2/2
Carnophage 2.0! I think Dread Warlock will come out for Lacrator - reduce the double black and crank up the aggro level in one swap? Yes.
Red:
Plated Geopede 1R
Insect
First Strike
Landfall - Whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control, ~ get +2/+2 until end of turn.
1/1
Like Windrider Eel above if landfall works out as strong as it appears to be capable of having this replace a technically inferior creature (like Ronin Houndmaster or Suq'Ata Lancer) makes a lot of sense. Something to keep my eye on.
Green:
Beast Hunt 3G
Sorcery
Reveal the top three cards of your library. Put all creature cards revealed this way into your hand and the rest into your graveyard.
I'd rather have Gift of the Gargantuan. This will never be mentioned here again.
Harrow 2G
Instant
As an additional cost to cast Harrow, sacrifice a land.
Search your library for up to two basic land cards and put them onto the battlefield. Then shuffle your library.
It was a common in the past and I mention it here only to say that I'd love to see if the FOIL version will look good enough to replace my Tempest version. Oh, did I mention it combos with landfall like peanut butter with jelly?
Khalni Heart Expedition 1G
Landfall - Whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control, you may put a quest counter on ~.
Remove three quest counters from ~ and sacrifice it: Search your library for up to two basic land cards, put them onto the battlefield tapped, then shuffle your library.
A common Explosive Vegetation that builds off of ramping? Green is really getting the goods this go-around. A U/ control deck would love to drop this on turn two. This isn't your aggro mana ramping card - I feel a deck that wants to have lots of mana mid-to-late game.
Nissa's Chosen GG
Elf Warrior
If Nissa's Chosen would be put into a graveyard from the battlefield, put it on the bottom of its owner's library instead.
2/3
It's an Elvish Warrior that doesn't go to the graveyard. I don't like Elvish Warrior and Nissa's Chosen won't even permit reanimation efforts. Passing.
Oran-Rief Survivalist 1G
Human Warrior Ally
Whenever Oran-Rief Survivalist or another Ally enters the battlefield under your control, you may put a +1/+1 counter on Oran-Rief Survivalist.
1/1
It comes into play as a 2/2 (1/1 with a +1/+1 counter) so it's atleast a Grizzly Bears. However it remains to be seen if common ally cards will be strong as a linear concept. Outlook: doubtful but cautiously keeping an eye on it.
Scythe Tiger G
Cat
Shroud
When ~ enters the battlefield, sacrifice it unless you sacrifice a land.
3/2
It's a Rogue Elephant that gains shroud but loses a point of toughness. Since the point of the Elephant is to be better than any other creature that early the shroud bit doesn't feel like a fair trade down to 2 toughness. I probably should ass Rogue Elephant to my cube; Scythe Tiger isn't nearly as good.
Land:
Teetering Peaks
Land
~ enters the battlefield tapped.
When ~ enters the battlefield, target creature gets +2/+0 until end of turn.
:symtap:: Add R to your mana pool.
The implication of a cycle of "uncounterable" spells attached to an ETB tapped land drop seems good enough to look at on the whole. I sincerely doubt the entire cycle will be as good as this one (which fuels an aggro deck well) but if it is expanding the land section ot include these colorless, uncounterable spells may be worthwhile.
All of this discussion is just preliminary groundwork. There will be a lot more to look at and I'll probably starting skipping many cards wholesale. Chime in if you think I'm looking at something a little off!
And to get the most bang for the buck you still need 8 lying around to run through him. For a strong control deck, he can be the finisher that cuts through any defense. For reanimation he's pretty bad. The latter two cards Phantizle mentioned are the posterchildren for reanimator strategies. Lorthos is a very different fatty.
This makes me happy beyond belief. Lorthos? In my cube? It's more likely that you think!
I think Khalni Heart Expedition might me an option for my cube - given that if a game comes to a stalemate (which can often happen) or it gets dropped on turn two it will push the eventuality of deck thinning and mana ramping. I'm getting giddy at what this thing could do in a dedicated ramp deck in green: T1 Land, T2 Land -> Expedition, T3 Land -> Harrow -> Quest Trigger, T4 Six mana. Throw a different ramp effect in for Harrow and it's still a beating. I really like this quest.
EDH players around the globe agree. Vault is okay and this Altar is better - how much remains to be seen. I'm looking forward to adding this to my heavily creature steal themed Kresh the Bloodbraided deck.
Hydro is right. When you guys see this thing (and it's likely not going to be the next Baneslayer) you'll see that Blue is getting more share of a really powerful part of it's color pie. Also, it's going to be my next project for an EDH deck.
I'm not sure any potential cycle from Future Sight has been "asked to be printed" by players. The one cycle that would make Standard players extremely happy would be the cycle around Horizon Canopy for (1) turn one color fixing dual and (2) cycling from play for only 1. Not the most exciting I'm sure.
I would bet that the cycle would be the enemy ETB tapped cycle. While, yes, "strictly" inferior to the ALA tri-land cycle, my Niv-Mezzet, the Firemind EDH deck begs to differ on that. It's clear that there is significantly more attention paid to all parts of Magic, which the essence of those parts shining clearer. I would love more enemy duals if only to ensure that decks of those colors exist easier.
Not every writer is a full time WotC employee: some are contracted to write. Steve Sadin (the solid Limited Information writer) is one, I believe. Technically speaking contracted writers still "work for" the company.
You mean the premise of morph in spell form? There is a different set of advantages and disadvantages to broadcasting that a trap card "is out there waiting for you" and just holding it in your hand. Like morph, which required both knowledges of morphs as well as making sharper play decisions, having the trap card known but face down would push opponents to think harder - which natually caused play errors (something tournament players love to see: "Think better." type cards). It (morph) was sucessful in Onslaught block and it would only be natural to have the initial design work with a mirrored approach (see flashback and unearth for an example of this mirror in execution).
Carnage Altar 2
Artifact (U)
3, Sacrifice a creature: Draw a card.
It feels like utility most decks can get behind. Turning chump blocks and opponent's removal into drawing a card seems good. The cost isn't prohibitive as either.
I see your approach here. I noticed that there isn't a QC when you run the '% played' column: it returns '#DIV/0' if it hasn't been played yet. An IF statement can fix that pretty quick (and for an example of bastardizing statements to get what you want just look at some of the nesting I run in my spreadsheet; inelegant but it's not for style points).
Thanks for sharing; I will likely incorporate something similar into my spread.
I apologize, but where can I find this spreadsheet? I'd like to set up a tracking system to track what gets maindecked (I've done quite a bit of four-man Sealed pools) and I'd like to see what your approach is to this.
Does she fall into the "This is greater than every other X in Y." type of categorization? I don't think so, but if you're the heaviest red player you'd be glad to pick her up in addition to/if you missed out on "better" options. At the very least, turning now obsolete/unhelpful red cards into free Flame Javelins seems okay. Unlike creature based options, once she's resolved you get to take your shot regardless and puts a complete three turn clock onto the opponent to either kill her (giving you time and perhaps a second free Flame Jav) or kill you (in how many cases would a single red creature save you compared to Chandra - neither will likely be a "saves me" card).
I think all three of the new 'walkers are extremely narrow - they are pushing a singular, common monocolor archetype (Elves!, Burn, and MBC). This makes then exclusionary in that they don't work as well with a highlander set of random, though awesome, cards as more general 'walkers (Garruk is basically an auto-include in virtually any deck that can run with GG). I think the 'walkers from ZEN will be solid in constructed but more difficult to properly marry to most cubes. Tribal or other theme cubes may be able to better use these than the average cube.
Fixed.
I do. In fact I have a nice FNM version. Apparently I forget what's in my cube.
Where's my '0' since I run nothing that's been in FtV set?I can't count or identify Magic cards.
Here's the actual changes I've decided to run with:
OUT --for--> IN
Thunderbolt --> Chain Lightning - Burn, baby, burn. Disco inferno.
Cloudchaser Aven --> Wispmare - The Aven was a switch in of itself but Wispmare is so much better.
Cloud of Faeries --> Rishadan Airship - Flying aggro for a color that needs it
Cephalid Looter --> Mana Leak - A great counter for a modest utility creature; I think this is the right swap
Sunscape Familiar --> Lumithread Field - I want to see if the utility works the way I think it will
Stormscape Familiar --> Echo Tracer - More bounce than California
Nightscape Familiar --> Zombie Cutthroat - Like Gathan Raiders it's useful in nearly any deck
Thunderscape Familiar --> Aftershock - It just kills stuff dead
Thornscape Familiar --> Patron of the Wild - Creature pump is good I hear
The blade cycle is coming out:
Bant Sureblade --> Soltari Visionary - Evasion plus trigger ability is good
Esper Stormblade --> Carnivorous Death-Parrot - 2/2 flying for two without a real drawback.
Grixis Grimblade --> Gravedigger - He should have been in here much sooner
Jund Hackblade --> Vithian Stinger - Pingers are really good; unearth is okay too
Naya Hushblade --> Nantuko Vigilante - Naturalize on a stick, something that's needed.
And some straight-up additions:
ADD -->Raise the Alarm - The circle is now complete. I was once the learner but now I am the master.
ADD -->Cloud Elemental - Because I couldn't find a copy of Cloud Spirit in my collection; will change again soon
ADD -->Skittering Skirge - Strong card, also have a
signedfoil version to put in. Coincidence? [My order arrived with a non-signed version; trying to get it sorted out (though it's still a foil Arena version)]ADD -->Brute Force - Red Giant Growth feels right.
ADD -->Land Aid '04 - To gather proof Magic players can't sign; or put a land into play untapped for two? Sure.
Thanks to some
shenanigansformula work in my spreadsheet, the online analysis has been updated with the most accurate cost assigned for my cards. All morphs that have a color cost in their morph cost use that color in their assigned cost, and morphs that have a morph cost exceeding CMC 3 have their cost set to the morph cost (see Skinthinner).I've also created a table that tallies how "pimp" the cube is. While I'm actually not a fan of foils (they're easy to use to mark your deck with and warp way too easily) I am well aware that most cubes are expected to be pimped out. Of the 371 cards in my cube, 229 (~61%) are foil, 75 (~20%) need a foil version, and the remaining 67 (~18%) do not have a foil version available. This does not count the Unhinged basic lands supplied, though this would be a natural next target to work at.
I'll be working up a joint "Cards to try from the feedback in this thread." and "Hot new Zendikar cards to use." update for when ZEN finally hits: Prerelease is only three weeks away!
Any feedback would be greatly appreciated; I'll be updating my front page after making this post so it won't show up right away on the front page.
Indeed. This makes the full case of boosters I ordered feel like a great investment. Looks like I'll be buying a box on release day as well if the "decent-to-chaff rare ratio" holds up well enough.
In a completely less exciting note, it looks like this set will be also be a Pauper/Peasant cube wet dream: lots of common/uncommon critters/enchantments that have huge bonuses from landfall, plus other critters with great kicker effects. Looks like I'll be working overtime to see what all needs to be shipped in.
And previews are just starting to get fired up! Man I'm stoked!