A card that I've noticed in the AlphaFrog vintage cube I hadn't seen before.
Seems like a very powerful flash target. Strong with natural order/sneak attack.
I feel saturated with big green creatures, but I think this is one of the better ones.
portable hole = prismatic ending >> Planar Disruption > Get Lost > Fateful abscence.
Planar distruption has underperformed for me in my smallish sample (I was really high on it), but I'd still probabily include it at 465.
I don't play the other two at 540 so....
I strongly disagree about oracle. In the right synergy deck it's still quite powerful. Granted that deck is very niche.
Fastbond/exploration/crucible/lands style decks. Especially good in cubes that deeply support the land archetype.
Oracle's only saving grace is that it can generate random value some percentage of the time, assuming it lives and gets lucky.
I'd probably just rather slot Caldaia Guardian in that deck anyways just for the value / consistency.
The first sentence under-reps the card's strength and the second sentence is incorrect by a significant margin. High confidence.
The value it generates is one of it's primary functions. In the right deck (high land count, ways to manipulate the library) oracle averages a card a turn (sometimes 0, sometimes 2), including the turn it is played. That's a powerful draw engine, not "random value some % of the time". It is very vulnerable to removal but it's still a minimum 2 for 1 that ramped.
Those decks leverage the extra lands very well. Strip mine shenagins, digging to land combo's , zuran orb to gain life, man lands to effect the battlefield, landfall triggers. I prefer it to Dryad of the Ilysian Grove by a bit. Courser is better, but it's critical to the archetype.
I strongly disagree about oracle. In the right synergy deck it's still quite powerful. Granted that deck is very niche.
Fastbond/exploration/crucible/lands style decks. Especially good in cubes that deeply support the land archetype.
It's also better in powered cubes than unpowered cubes (mid-cost value engines are always better if accelerated into quicker).
I think it's far from mandatory to include, but in the right deck, it more than earns a slot.
Fwiw the 3-0 data is useful as an indicator, but not in the way it appears.
It's much more so because that's what the players who draft winning decks like to play, more so than what an individual card contributes to someone 3-0ing. Those two values are correlated tho, so it's still useful.
I've always said that the 3-0 archive is useful to see what's working / consistent / popular, not what's statistically the better card (way too small sample size for that). I also always say that I value the eye test above els. The 3-0 archive at least shows that we've done the work and have gotten plenty of eye tests on Caldaia Guardian. My playgroup unanimously deems it a top tier green card that usually gets picked pretty highly in most drafts. For me personally I think it's a top 5-10 green card overall since it pretty much does everything a green creature would want to do sans ramping.
yeah, fair enough. I try to rarely bring up that point heh, mostly for lurkers who might not understand.
The 3-0 archives proves you have a very high sample of experience with it to back up you impressions. I came back to edit my post to point that out but you beat me to it.
it’s your conviction in conjunction with your experience that ultimately is keeping me testing the card.
I'm kinda interested why there is such an enormous discrepancy in reception for this card.
I can't think of one card that can consistently generate more value in a single turn for 3 mana than Caldaia Guardian. 4 damage + two 1/1s + draw a card is green Mulldrifter on steroids that spreads out its value between damage / bodies / draw.
I've had medium? experiences with caldaia guardian.
In a pure aggressive deck or a deck that has multiple synergies with 1/1 bodies it's been servicable.
The value that Caldaia Guardian generates by itself means it doesn't rely on synergies and can pretty much slot into any green deck that doesn't involve Oath of Druids. When you do factor in synergies, it's the perfect roleplayer for any green creature based deck. Caldaia Guardian provides critical mass / fodder for things like Skullclamp / Gaea's Cradle / Natural Order / Recurring Nightmare etc. Haste + 2 extra bodies sets you up to win any battles over monarch / initiative. The card is insane just on value alone and doesn't need explicit green aggro support to be good. As far as green aggro cards that are just generically good in green creature based midrange decks, I consider this a top 4 card alongside Hexdrinker / Court of Garenbrig / Questing Beast. If you do explicitly support green aggro, those are just the 4 best cards, IMO. There isn't a single Jungle Lions variant other than Hexdrinker that is remotely close to being as good as Caldaia Guardian in a GX aggro deck.
In the 92 drafts I have archived since the release of NEO, it's currently the #2 most represented non-basic land card in my 3-0 archive, only second to Chrome Mox.
This still remains true after 222 drafts of my cube since the release of NEO. Here's the top 10 in terms of representation (a lot of ties, also filtered out mana fixing non basics like fetches / duals / shocks / City of Brass / etc).
Chrome Mox: 45
Caldaia Guardian: 37
Minsc & Boo, Timeless Heroes: 35
Pest Infestation: 31
Skullclamp: 30
Palace Jailer: 30
Fable of the Mirror-Breaker: 30
Fury: 29
Occult Epiphany: 28
Karakas: 28
Shark Typhoon: 26
True-Name Nemesis: 26
Mox Diamond: 26
Demonic Tutor: 26
Fiery Islet: 25
Path to Exile: 25
White Plume Adventurer: 25
Birds of Paradise: 25
Seasoned Dungeoneer: 24
Hexdrinker: 24
Thraben Inspector: 24
Urza's Saga: 24
Elvish Mystic: 24
Ancient Tomb: 24
Fwiw the 3-0 data is useful as an indicator, but not in the way it appears.
It's much more so because that's what the players who draft winning decks like to play, more so than what an individual card contributes to someone 3-0ing. Those two values are correlated tho, so it's still useful.
If you are a significant portion of those 3-0's, your opinion and that data are correlated in a way that makes the data not that useful as a support for your argument. I forget the name of the statistical concept, it's something like multi-colinearity? Two different sources that essentially explain the same thing.
If you look at the variance between three functionally identical cards (elvish mystic/llanowar elves/fyndhorn elves) you get a feel for how much variance is in the data. That variance gets magnified further when you are associating on something that is only partially correlated with it.
I like both of Tidebinder and Carnosaur but struggled to find space.
Bonehoard Dracosaur showed up only in one game but he stonewalled an attack phase and gave me a treasure and a 3/1 next turn, whilst effectively drawing a couple cards. He got answered a couple turns later but the extra card advantage and lots of Dino tokens easily sealed the game. Did what I hoped and expected, basically, which is win if he's not removed straight away.
Of all those cards mentioned Bonehoard Dracosaur's performance in standard would be something to pay attention to for cube.
Trumpeting carnosaur is obviously better in slower formats. Removal and card advantage is both at a premium in standard. Slower formats also have higher mana curves making the avg value generated from cascade more consistent.
It's price spike was more likely connected to pioneer tho? (cascade combo deck).
Tidebinder's price movement I'd guess is more likely from modern? fetchlands, urza's saga decks and the one ring make it particularly interesting there in a way that can't be replicated for cube.
Wandering Throne is a synergy focused card, so that could explain standard success but not cube success.
Bonehoard Dracosaur is better in a slower format, but it's also much worse in a removal heavy format. Standard has typically been loaded with effective answers to baneslayer type creatures. Sheoldred being in the format also incentivizes a lot of main deck removal spells. Cube has a lower density of removal spells, since more decks are fundamentally proactive compared to standard.
Therefore, if it does well in standard, It's worth examining for cube.
I've had medium? experiences with caldaia guardian.
In a pure aggressive deck or a deck that has multiple synergies with 1/1 bodies it's been servicable.
I've never been wowed by it, but I've seen it be a solid synergy role player.
For whatever reason it hasn't shown up much in my cubes since I added it for a test, so my sample isn't high.
Will likely cut it soon, but I want to give it a bit more of a chance.
It’s dropped in rankings in generic good stuff decks (it often misses the main deck unless there’s sufficient ramp), but it’s still a powerhouse in decks with the broken mana generators (academy, cradle, workshop , big ramp, zirda/monolith).
not close to the chopping block for me. Hangarback walker isn’t close to the power level of ballista imo and is on my chopping block.
Seems reasonable for cubes who densely support super fatties. You probably want a deck with minimum of 5-6 other very expensive targets for the floor of this card to be worth it.
I can imagine decks id want to play this, but it's very narrow. Depends on how deep you want to go I guess?
I played this a few times during Dominaria United Drafts and the CA on this thing has been insane. Does anyone have any feedback with this?
this is a pet card of mine I’ve been playing since release.
I love this card.
I think it’s up there with the most underrated vintage cube cards around.
it’s not a high pick, but Its powerful and I don’t see it being played anywhere. My confidence on this evaluation is high and is backed by a lot of experience now.
It’s better in powered than unpowered as it’s properly leveraged by acceleration.
My theory is that people incorrectly view it as strictly a reanimator card and think it’s more narrow than it really is.
Outside of grist, I think every other golgari card is expendable. They aren't bad, but they don't contribute to any archetype and are lowish picks. I'm sure people have their pet card, but imo most of the best ones run close in power/utility. I don't think you can go wrong.
My *guess* is deathclaw is better than all of the tier 2 options
Got a couple cubes in. I played the dilophosaur in a WB agro/midrange deck, it felt very good. It played on the upper end of the prediction spectrum where I thought it would be.
It basically had to be killed if the opponent had any chance of effectively blocking my creatures and it could guarantee value with sniping X/1's. There's a lot of X/1's in my cube.
Small sample, but I'm confident enough to call this an auto-include even in cubes that don't support low to the ground black agro as a primary archetype. (In my cube, black is an agressive support color and a midrange color)
Cryptic is close to my chopping block... I’ve entertained cutting it but it's not there yet.
Being able to effect the board is a very important mode and differentiates it from simply an expensive 2 for 1 counter spell.
That being said , UUU makes it still fairly narrow. More decks are going under it than before as mana curves have dropped over the years. Proactivity is more important than being reactive more so than ever. It’s a heavy blue “good stuff” card that is no longer anything special.
I’d rank all the staple 2 cmc soft counters over it yeah
A card that I've noticed in the AlphaFrog vintage cube I hadn't seen before.
Seems like a very powerful flash target. Strong with natural order/sneak attack.
I feel saturated with big green creatures, but I think this is one of the better ones.
There’s a non zero amount of situations where having the option to sacrifice an artifact is a big deal.
The one ring, hangarback walker are two big ones that come to mind.
Triplicate Titan and wurmcoil in response to exile removal is another.
thrill of possibility is a strong base that doesn’t require that much upside to be good enough. I think this (barely) gets over that hump for me
portable hole = prismatic ending >> Planar Disruption > Get Lost > Fateful abscence.
Planar distruption has underperformed for me in my smallish sample (I was really high on it), but I'd still probabily include it at 465.
I don't play the other two at 540 so....
The first sentence under-reps the card's strength and the second sentence is incorrect by a significant margin. High confidence.
The value it generates is one of it's primary functions. In the right deck (high land count, ways to manipulate the library) oracle averages a card a turn (sometimes 0, sometimes 2), including the turn it is played. That's a powerful draw engine, not "random value some % of the time". It is very vulnerable to removal but it's still a minimum 2 for 1 that ramped.
Those decks leverage the extra lands very well. Strip mine shenagins, digging to land combo's , zuran orb to gain life, man lands to effect the battlefield, landfall triggers. I prefer it to Dryad of the Ilysian Grove by a bit. Courser is better, but it's critical to the archetype.
Fastbond/exploration/crucible/lands style decks. Especially good in cubes that deeply support the land archetype.
It's also better in powered cubes than unpowered cubes (mid-cost value engines are always better if accelerated into quicker).
I think it's far from mandatory to include, but in the right deck, it more than earns a slot.
yeah, fair enough. I try to rarely bring up that point heh, mostly for lurkers who might not understand.
The 3-0 archives proves you have a very high sample of experience with it to back up you impressions. I came back to edit my post to point that out but you beat me to it.
it’s your conviction in conjunction with your experience that ultimately is keeping me testing the card.
Fwiw the 3-0 data is useful as an indicator, but not in the way it appears.
It's much more so because that's what the players who draft winning decks like to play, more so than what an individual card contributes to someone 3-0ing. Those two values are correlated tho, so it's still useful.
If you are a significant portion of those 3-0's, your opinion and that data are correlated in a way that makes the data not that useful as a support for your argument. I forget the name of the statistical concept, it's something like multi-colinearity? Two different sources that essentially explain the same thing.
If you look at the variance between three functionally identical cards (elvish mystic/llanowar elves/fyndhorn elves) you get a feel for how much variance is in the data. That variance gets magnified further when you are associating on something that is only partially correlated with it.
Of all those cards mentioned Bonehoard Dracosaur's performance in standard would be something to pay attention to for cube.
Trumpeting carnosaur is obviously better in slower formats. Removal and card advantage is both at a premium in standard. Slower formats also have higher mana curves making the avg value generated from cascade more consistent.
It's price spike was more likely connected to pioneer tho? (cascade combo deck).
Tidebinder's price movement I'd guess is more likely from modern? fetchlands, urza's saga decks and the one ring make it particularly interesting there in a way that can't be replicated for cube.
Wandering Throne is a synergy focused card, so that could explain standard success but not cube success.
Bonehoard Dracosaur is better in a slower format, but it's also much worse in a removal heavy format. Standard has typically been loaded with effective answers to baneslayer type creatures. Sheoldred being in the format also incentivizes a lot of main deck removal spells. Cube has a lower density of removal spells, since more decks are fundamentally proactive compared to standard.
Therefore, if it does well in standard, It's worth examining for cube.
In a pure aggressive deck or a deck that has multiple synergies with 1/1 bodies it's been servicable.
I've never been wowed by it, but I've seen it be a solid synergy role player.
For whatever reason it hasn't shown up much in my cubes since I added it for a test, so my sample isn't high.
Will likely cut it soon, but I want to give it a bit more of a chance.
not close to the chopping block for me. Hangarback walker isn’t close to the power level of ballista imo and is on my chopping block.
I can imagine decks id want to play this, but it's very narrow. Depends on how deep you want to go I guess?
personally not interested
this is a pet card of mine I’ve been playing since release.
I love this card.
I think it’s up there with the most underrated vintage cube cards around.
it’s not a high pick, but Its powerful and I don’t see it being played anywhere. My confidence on this evaluation is high and is backed by a lot of experience now.
It’s better in powered than unpowered as it’s properly leveraged by acceleration.
My theory is that people incorrectly view it as strictly a reanimator card and think it’s more narrow than it really is.
Outside of grist, I think every other golgari card is expendable. They aren't bad, but they don't contribute to any archetype and are lowish picks. I'm sure people have their pet card, but imo most of the best ones run close in power/utility. I don't think you can go wrong.
My *guess* is deathclaw is better than all of the tier 2 options
It basically had to be killed if the opponent had any chance of effectively blocking my creatures and it could guarantee value with sniping X/1's. There's a lot of X/1's in my cube.
Small sample, but I'm confident enough to call this an auto-include even in cubes that don't support low to the ground black agro as a primary archetype. (In my cube, black is an agressive support color and a midrange color)
Being able to effect the board is a very important mode and differentiates it from simply an expensive 2 for 1 counter spell.
That being said , UUU makes it still fairly narrow. More decks are going under it than before as mana curves have dropped over the years. Proactivity is more important than being reactive more so than ever. It’s a heavy blue “good stuff” card that is no longer anything special.
I’d rank all the staple 2 cmc soft counters over it yeah