I think everyone will have very different experiences with this card. The strength of this card really depends on the configuration of your cube. Do you typically 8-man with a lot of reanimator or loam decks? Do you run a lot of the build-around effects like Squee?
It's main function, IMO, is as a flexible hate-mons that can do some things when there's nothing to hate. That's not too bad. Part of my hesitance is that I don't want an essentially-gold card to be a hate-mons, especially since I don't 8-man often and thus don't need hate-effects quite as much.
Would you include Grim Lavamancer in an aggro deck? How about one that can go in any black or green aggro deck, has more abilities, protection from Doomblade/Snuff Out/etc, and can hate on strategies better, and requires less conditions for activation, but can't target creatures?
I personally wouldn't run a Grim Lavamancer that could not target creatures. And this one can't go into just any green aggro deck, only one that at least splashes black.
I wouldn't play it in a non-green deck because it doesn't target it creatures. I wouldn't play it in a non-black deck because it's worthless. So I would only pick it up if I am in the BG combination (virtual gold card during draft), even though it's easier to play once in-game than a gold card. But if its taking up a virtual gold slot in draft, it should do something pretty good, not just be better than grim in some narrow ways and worse than grim in other, quite critical, ways.
I don't think it's uncubeable. I'd probably play it in the MTGO cube as a sideboard card. That said, it's probably out of contention for the vast majority of typical cubes on this board. I bet it'd be good in something a bit more atypical like the Split Card cube, where you could stick it on a vanilla creature and be able to use the "hoser"ish modes when needed.
i) Not necessarily. It's in there because it's really good, not because I simply need another fatty.
ii) It has a HUGE immediate board impact that kills most of my opponent's creatures and turns all my creatures into legit threats.
iii) No. Trinket Mage needs all the targets it can get. Being unpowered would remove too many of them.
iv) Probably still no, for the same reasons.
v) I don't have much experience with Tezz in unpowered lists. I would assume it wouldn't be nearly as good.
vi) I cut it a long time ago. It just wasn't stacking up. Neither was Bloodgift Demon.
I don't say this often, but I agree with wtwlf's answers for all these questions. And Elesh Norn is very good indeed -- credit is due to those who kept pushing her despite the lack of early adoption by the community.
To me this card feels more like devastation tide than upheaval. I like this kind of effects in blue but 7 mana cards have to be almost unreal(Karn) for me to play them outside of green.
I think people should not make this sort of calculus. You're asking for a Karn with a split side as a bounce spell? I think it's more appropriate to compare the 7 cost side with a 6-cost spell, because you pay the extra 1 for as a convenience cost for the modal options. I think it's certainly arguable whether a bounce-all-opponent's-nonland-permanent effect is worth 6 mana.
I think in cube we've generally discovered that cards which have a large effect on the board state can be extremely powerful even when they cause effects symmetrically and are sorceries. An asymmetric, instant-speed effect of this power-level will be quite easy to abuse, in my opinion.
As for the 1U side, I think it's better than the 3 cost mode of Capsize, which still sees regular play (though not in my cube).
I'll be testing it in unpowered 360, if that means anything.
I watched the drafts with Thea's cube. I thought these drafts were much more interesting (and better drafted) than the CFB ones. You're a pretty decent commentator. Plays could have been a bit better of course but not bad for first time streaming. Thanks for the entertainment.
I'll second the praise for the Vault. I'd run it if I wasn't running Lingering Souls. It's easily the 4th best, IMO, even taking into account the mana troubles. The problem is that the power drops off steeply if it's not in a midrange build, whereas Vindicate, Sorin, and Lingering Souls are pretty solid in any WB build.
I disagree wholeheartedly that the content in them will be worthless. Why not try to bring the content to a higher level rather than just erase it outright. I certainly won't be posting any thoughts in the SCD threads for upcoming sets if they will be discarded outright.
And it doesn't matter whether it's arbitrary which threads are moved. It's just as arbitrary when someone decides to start up any new thread in the SCD forum as is.
Well in 360 probably the worst 6 cost creature I run is Massacre Wurm, and the rest are the Titans and Wurmcoil Engine.
I'd rather have the effect of Massacre Wurm than the chance to cascade into a card thats worth between 1-5 CMC, especially since many of those cards in UR may be counters or cantrips. I'd obviously rather have the ETB & Attack triggers of the titans (which are monocolored to boot).
The body on the Horn Sorcerer is negligible for a 6CMC, so you have to ask whether it's worth 9 mana a turn to cascade into a spell that's worth between 1-5 mana. I think the answer for nearly everybody is no.
I don't understand the knee-jerk disdain this community has for including 2-ofs in the cube in limited cases (see the Shockland discussion), while at the same time generally getting supremely excited about what essentially amounts to a functional reprint of a functional reprint. I get that the options in UW aren't the best, but couldn't you say the same thing about lands? Splitting hairs aside, it seems in spirit to be the same to me.
Funny that your reasoning for not reading the Megathread is that it's time consuming and my reasoning for not reading the SCDs is that it's time consuming. I don't see how it's more time consuming to check one thread than it is to check 10 or more. For me it takes a lot of effort to visit each and every thread that's created for different cards and then read all of the discussion for those cards and then find time to add to that discussion.
Yes, that's why I threw in my opinion for counterbalance. It takes me more time to read through the megathread because with the megathread I have to try to jump back and forth often to find discussion about cards I'm interested in (especially when the discussion is often jumbled), and also because I can simply avoid certain SCDs where I'm not interested at all in the card or the discussion. For example, I'm very torn about Rakdos Shred-Freak, so I follow that thread closely to see how the discourse is developing. I can skip the thread about Dryad Militant because there's no question that I'll add the card. This is time efficient for me.
What I'm advocating for is not location, but rather discussion quality. I'd rather not see the discussion content in the SCD threads become overflooded by declarations of excitement without analysis.
I certainly don't mind if the threads are placed into a subforum for spoiler season. It's not really that big of a step to click into another link during the timeframe of the spoiler season alone. I do, however, hope that the threads are not archived and then closeted away -- for two reasons. First, because the SCD experiment is still new, so there is no need to jump to the conclusion that the discussion during spoiler season will be worthless and that we'll need "real" SCD threads later. It would be fun to watch the evaluations of cards change over time in an organic way, and to observe different members' methods of evaluation and whether their predictive capabilities turn out to be strong. Second, I would rarely want to repost my opinion if I've already done so in the "spoiler" SCD. When I post an evaluation of a card I'm generally confident about my evaluation of it, and as a consequence I very rarely change my evaluation of a card after I've posted my thoughts, even during spoiler season. I'd be extremely discouraged to write anything in the spoiler threads if I thought that they'd be hidden away later. Perhaps that's a good thing, though, because it forces posters to strongly consider postponing their thoughts until they've had a better chance to evaluate.
It's main function, IMO, is as a flexible hate-mons that can do some things when there's nothing to hate. That's not too bad. Part of my hesitance is that I don't want an essentially-gold card to be a hate-mons, especially since I don't 8-man often and thus don't need hate-effects quite as much.
I personally wouldn't run a Grim Lavamancer that could not target creatures. And this one can't go into just any green aggro deck, only one that at least splashes black.
I wouldn't play it in a non-green deck because it doesn't target it creatures. I wouldn't play it in a non-black deck because it's worthless. So I would only pick it up if I am in the BG combination (virtual gold card during draft), even though it's easier to play once in-game than a gold card. But if its taking up a virtual gold slot in draft, it should do something pretty good, not just be better than grim in some narrow ways and worse than grim in other, quite critical, ways.
I don't say this often, but I agree with wtwlf's answers for all these questions. And Elesh Norn is very good indeed -- credit is due to those who kept pushing her despite the lack of early adoption by the community.
I think people should not make this sort of calculus. You're asking for a Karn with a split side as a bounce spell? I think it's more appropriate to compare the 7 cost side with a 6-cost spell, because you pay the extra 1 for as a convenience cost for the modal options. I think it's certainly arguable whether a bounce-all-opponent's-nonland-permanent effect is worth 6 mana.
I think in cube we've generally discovered that cards which have a large effect on the board state can be extremely powerful even when they cause effects symmetrically and are sorceries. An asymmetric, instant-speed effect of this power-level will be quite easy to abuse, in my opinion.
As for the 1U side, I think it's better than the 3 cost mode of Capsize, which still sees regular play (though not in my cube).
I'll be testing it in unpowered 360, if that means anything.
And it doesn't matter whether it's arbitrary which threads are moved. It's just as arbitrary when someone decides to start up any new thread in the SCD forum as is.
I'd rather have the effect of Massacre Wurm than the chance to cascade into a card thats worth between 1-5 CMC, especially since many of those cards in UR may be counters or cantrips. I'd obviously rather have the ETB & Attack triggers of the titans (which are monocolored to boot).
The body on the Horn Sorcerer is negligible for a 6CMC, so you have to ask whether it's worth 9 mana a turn to cascade into a spell that's worth between 1-5 mana. I think the answer for nearly everybody is no.
Yes, that's why I threw in my opinion for counterbalance. It takes me more time to read through the megathread because with the megathread I have to try to jump back and forth often to find discussion about cards I'm interested in (especially when the discussion is often jumbled), and also because I can simply avoid certain SCDs where I'm not interested at all in the card or the discussion. For example, I'm very torn about Rakdos Shred-Freak, so I follow that thread closely to see how the discourse is developing. I can skip the thread about Dryad Militant because there's no question that I'll add the card. This is time efficient for me.
I certainly don't mind if the threads are placed into a subforum for spoiler season. It's not really that big of a step to click into another link during the timeframe of the spoiler season alone. I do, however, hope that the threads are not archived and then closeted away -- for two reasons. First, because the SCD experiment is still new, so there is no need to jump to the conclusion that the discussion during spoiler season will be worthless and that we'll need "real" SCD threads later. It would be fun to watch the evaluations of cards change over time in an organic way, and to observe different members' methods of evaluation and whether their predictive capabilities turn out to be strong. Second, I would rarely want to repost my opinion if I've already done so in the "spoiler" SCD. When I post an evaluation of a card I'm generally confident about my evaluation of it, and as a consequence I very rarely change my evaluation of a card after I've posted my thoughts, even during spoiler season. I'd be extremely discouraged to write anything in the spoiler threads if I thought that they'd be hidden away later. Perhaps that's a good thing, though, because it forces posters to strongly consider postponing their thoughts until they've had a better chance to evaluate.