How has this card played for everyone? On the surface it looks like a boring card not worth a slot, but it also seems like exactly what I’d want to draft in most green ramp/midrange decks.
The problem with SCD discussion is not "is this good enough for cube" but can it make it into these higher competitive slots.
I been on the record for saying that Kodama's Reach is actually an incredibly bad card in cube - its one of the last filler cards I have in my cube to help round out the archetypes. 3 mana for 1 acceleration, in green is a horrible rate. I been wanting to remove it for some time.
Three years ago, you wanted cards that could fit in a variety of decks (including today), but the problem is some cards have very efficient cards such as Oko, Thief of Crowns, Skyclave Apparition, Shatterskull Smashing, Seasoned Pyromancer, Rankle, Master of Pranks that is essentially strong in 80% of decks in those colors and fills the engine roles of discard outlets, removal, artifact density, flicker targets etc. that the you need less of these "jack of all trait" cards and more hyper efficient archetype cards to compete.
I generally agree with this and am also lower on Kodama’s Reach / Cultivate than most people here. I would not be happy with those cards being in my Cube these days, even at 720. Llanowar Visionary, however, does two things better and one worse. 2/2 in play with the mana ability is better than a basic land. Drawing a random card is better than tutoring for a basic land. Obviously Llanowar doesn’t have the awesome fixing, and that’s where it’s worse.
But it is somewhat unfair to compare to cards like Oko which is a slam first pick. We’re talking about Llanowar as an 85th green card in a 720. I’m on the edge though.
How has this card played for everyone? On the surface it looks like a boring card not worth a slot, but it also seems like exactly what I’d want to draft in most green ramp/midrange decks.
I think the subtle nerfs to the abilities make this card much worse than it initially appears. The controller choosing the bounce, sorcery speed, and the creature being vanilla are all small missed opportunities to push this into my cube. I think I’d play this if the token simply had flying, for example. I’d definitely play it if it were an instant.
My group seems much higher on Plargg than the Salvation community, but I’m perhaps more in line with you all. Am I overlooking the value of a rummage bear? Is the idea that it’s going to attack a couple times in aggro decks and then pitch lands for gas in the mid and lategame? I guess the 5 mana ability also helps with reach. When I look at this card it doesn’t strike me as something I’m excited to grab out of a pack for my red aggro deck, but I could be wrong.
Aether Chaser > Dragonkin Berserker, although I think there's plenty of aggressive red 2-cmc creatures that are better than both of them.
Nightmare Shepherd > Eradicator Valkyrie. Shepherd doesn't die to bolt, and that's a big deal.
Behold the Multiverse > Thirst for Knowledge (allows you to keep riskier hands, Thirst is a slow discard outlet anyways).
Interesting, I think I’m going to go with the opposite on all three! But to be fair it’s all in theory since I haven’t tested the new cards.
Dragonkin upside of making a 5/5 flyer for 5 mana is significant. If Aether Chaser does prove to be better because the dragon never gets created then I’m still not going to run Aether Chaser, so at minimum I think Dargonkin is a great test case.
The lifelink on Valkyrie is a huge deal. Gisela overperformed for us and was often a “kill this now or you’re going to lose quickly” 4-drop. Something interesting is that depending on what bolts and walkers you play the number of targeted kill or bounce effects on walkers is similar to the number of 3-damage removal spells in the Cube. Also Nightmare Shepherd was not good enough for us, so this is another case of might as well test Valkyrie because the alternative given isn’t the best Cube card anyway.
We love Thirst for its archetype flexibility. While Behold does allow for navigating a riskier hand in terms of mana screw, Thirst is actually better in most mana flood hands, and I’d say it’s all-around more powerful in other situations.
We’ve supported snow from the beginning, even when we only had one snow card in the Cube. Faceless Haven is interesting to us as a mono red and mono white aggro support land. The 1/3 for 1U that animates snow lands seems solid.
This card is sweet. I have no idea if it’s good enough because it does so many different things which makes it tough to evaluate against other Cube options... But at minimum it’s a card I’d draft for a blue midrange deck if I saw it mid-pack.
Got a rulings question about magmatic channeler... If you have no cards in hand can you still use her ability? Or do you have to have a card to discard? Thanks.
Discarding one card is part of the cost, so you can only use the ability if you have a card to discard. If discarding were instead part of the resolution of the spell then it would work without discarding if you had no cards in hand.
Maybe I'm dumb, but I had to read this card several times to fully understand it. Some cards in this set are incredibly complicated... I would consider testing if the pump were not only for legendary creatures.
I generally agree with this and am also lower on Kodama’s Reach / Cultivate than most people here. I would not be happy with those cards being in my Cube these days, even at 720. Llanowar Visionary, however, does two things better and one worse. 2/2 in play with the mana ability is better than a basic land. Drawing a random card is better than tutoring for a basic land. Obviously Llanowar doesn’t have the awesome fixing, and that’s where it’s worse.
But it is somewhat unfair to compare to cards like Oko which is a slam first pick. We’re talking about Llanowar as an 85th green card in a 720. I’m on the edge though.
Interesting, I think I’m going to go with the opposite on all three! But to be fair it’s all in theory since I haven’t tested the new cards.
Dragonkin upside of making a 5/5 flyer for 5 mana is significant. If Aether Chaser does prove to be better because the dragon never gets created then I’m still not going to run Aether Chaser, so at minimum I think Dargonkin is a great test case.
The lifelink on Valkyrie is a huge deal. Gisela overperformed for us and was often a “kill this now or you’re going to lose quickly” 4-drop. Something interesting is that depending on what bolts and walkers you play the number of targeted kill or bounce effects on walkers is similar to the number of 3-damage removal spells in the Cube. Also Nightmare Shepherd was not good enough for us, so this is another case of might as well test Valkyrie because the alternative given isn’t the best Cube card anyway.
We love Thirst for its archetype flexibility. While Behold does allow for navigating a riskier hand in terms of mana screw, Thirst is actually better in most mana flood hands, and I’d say it’s all-around more powerful in other situations.
Discarding one card is part of the cost, so you can only use the ability if you have a card to discard. If discarding were instead part of the resolution of the spell then it would work without discarding if you had no cards in hand.