Planeswalker evaluation has always been tricky, and I've always thought Oko seemed terrible. That said, months of relentless internet complaints about Oko (plus his apparent popularity in every other format beyond standard) has gotten me to come around and acknowledge that he must actually be insane.
So my question now is... is he bad for a healthy cube environment? Does he make games too repetitive? Does he seem too back-breaking at 3 mana? Compared to UG Nissa, he seems...not "fun."
I'm amused that Thoughtseize Guy got dunked on so much (though he exacerbated the problem by constantly firing back) while "Mr. I'm cutting Grave Titan and Glen Elendra Archmage for two vanilla durdles" was praised (and why not Cloud Spirit or Latch Seeker or Shu Yun???). Anyway, as someone who has often cut objectively better cards for cards that perform well in my highly-subjective Fun Scale (Ruric Thar and Prime Speaker Zeganna are hilarious. Fight me.), I totally understand (if not support) everyone's perspective here.
One thing I tend to do after the initial wave of card evaluations is revisit limited cards that are severely overperforming. By way of example, I remember Consecrated Sphinx and Pack Rat not being universally embraced by the community. So far - the two that catch my eye are Light up the Stage, Ethereal Absolution and Hydroid Krasis.
Has anyone been testing either or thinking of giving them a run after seeing how they're performing in limited and constructed?
I think y'all are crazy. This bird is fantastic and is going to do great work in cubes that want red decks to be anything other than be mono-colored haste creatures and burn.
This falls into the Fun/Sweet zone that I find generally gets short shrift on this forum. I'm generally pretty happy making small tradeoffs on power level for awesome flavor and fun stories.
It's like the opposite of Carnage Tyrant which is fine but so...very...boring...zzz.
New Jace seems awful. Barely protects himself and his + incentivizes you to lower your shields by attacking.
I think the new planeswalker legend rule is pretty dumb as well. Doesn't seem as special to have multiple Elspeths on the same battlefield, but whatever.
In the Hour of Devastation new card discussion, Wildfire came up a lot as everyone's favorite red archetype. I don't currently support it. For a 630 card list, what are the must-have cards for the archetype? Obviously there's Wildfire and Burning of Xinye, but what are the subtle support cards? The creatures with 5 toughness you don't necessarily think about, etc? Extra red planeswalkers? Do you run Ember Swallower?
Also, I don't run signets and that won't be changing any time soon. I do have the normal suite of mana rocks, though.
So my question now is... is he bad for a healthy cube environment? Does he make games too repetitive? Does he seem too back-breaking at 3 mana? Compared to UG Nissa, he seems...not "fun."
I am all for powerful PW removal in the cube. I particularly like that it ignores all the soldiers, zombies, wolves, (some) constructs, satyr's...
I'm amused that Thoughtseize Guy got dunked on so much (though he exacerbated the problem by constantly firing back) while "Mr. I'm cutting Grave Titan and Glen Elendra Archmage for two vanilla durdles" was praised (and why not Cloud Spirit or Latch Seeker or Shu Yun???). Anyway, as someone who has often cut objectively better cards for cards that perform well in my highly-subjective Fun Scale (Ruric Thar and Prime Speaker Zeganna are hilarious. Fight me.), I totally understand (if not support) everyone's perspective here.
One thing I tend to do after the initial wave of card evaluations is revisit limited cards that are severely overperforming. By way of example, I remember Consecrated Sphinx and Pack Rat not being universally embraced by the community. So far - the two that catch my eye are Light up the Stage, Ethereal Absolution and Hydroid Krasis.
Has anyone been testing either or thinking of giving them a run after seeing how they're performing in limited and constructed?
Putting that all together, it's a card that doesn't blow me away, but may qualify for the cube on the strength of squirrels being awesome.
It's like the opposite of Carnage Tyrant which is fine but so...very...boring...zzz.
I think the new planeswalker legend rule is pretty dumb as well. Doesn't seem as special to have multiple Elspeths on the same battlefield, but whatever.
Also, I don't run signets and that won't be changing any time soon. I do have the normal suite of mana rocks, though.