Maybe not the thread for this but I’ve thought young pyromancer was over rated in cube for a long time.
It’s been in and out of my cube for years now and is currently out.
there’s decks where it’s a good card, but those decks are few and far between. You need much more spell/cantrip support than the slick shot needs to make it better than a random peice of interaction.
I think this is much better.
I believe it’s not in the MTGO cube at the moment either.
Goldvein Hydra is not a "good stuff" card, it is a synergy card.
I see this as a powerful (playable) green fireball type effect.
You want to pair this with Gaea's cradle, basalt monolith infinite combo, channel, tolarian academy, rofellos, berserk, 5 mana nissa, mana vault, sac outlets etc.
A big problem with green ramp is the amount of mana it can produce is wildly inconsistent. If you get your (vulnerable) mana elves killed, you will often be stuck at 3-4 mana. If you draw a bunch of elves and they live, you might be able to produce 6-8 mana easily. If you draw cradle, you might be able to produce 12 mana.
An X spell that can serve as utility at cheaper CMC's and a game winniner at higher CMC's works very well with green's strengths and weaknesses.
This can work defense AND offense AND steals/protect monarch/initiative AND bridges into some of your more expensive spells if it dies.
Yes it's behind curve at every step of the way (like every X spell), but the modality is worth it IMO.
I think this is on par with most of the better green 5 drops.
By that I mean it's completly unplayable (jkjk).
If I evaluate it simply for it' hardcast mode it fall short for it's cost. No guarnteed value, takes some time to take over the game in many scenarios, requires other cards to be truly great, doesn't stabalize that well. Vulnerable to cheap removal, bounce or wraths. With time it'll take over any board state and is decent on defense, but for 5 mana and it's vulnerabilities I expect A LOT. Compare this to something like a bonehoard dracosaur and it's hard to see what this card does better.
That being said, the plot mode adds a lot of power to the card. Being able to play around counter spells, double spell the next turn to make it so soft counters don't work, guarnteeing the ability to cast another creature on the same turn. Playing it for 4 mana if you don't have another card to play...
Not sure how good that'll all be, but I think it'll be good.
I hope to see it in action, but I predict it'll be similar to vorinclex, hermits etc. Maybe a little worse :/
I like this card a lot if your cube supports a high density of creatures to cheat into play and some tier 2 ways of doing so.
You really want to be in a deck that can make use of the cheat into play mode with a solid frequency.
Putting in creatures at instant speed is huge, the 3 mana instant dig mode is almost worth it as a card itself and there will be occasional situations where protecting a big fatty with the 2 mana mode will be game winning.
The modality of all that makes a good card.
I like how this is fairly splashable in reanimator without much ramp. The dig mode gets good value and fuels the graveyard and the 6 mana mode only takes a single pip of green to cast. In most decks the 3 mana mode will be the most frequent/best mode.
Seems ok in most white decks, great in the right deck.
Lots of creature to pick up for value in white, but it sets back tempo a fair bit if you don't want to pick anything up and is bad if you don't have a creature or a mox you want to return for value.
Not sure if I'll test it. The upside is probably worth it? I could imagine decks where it'll be fantastic.
I see this as basically on par with the better agressive/recursive black 1 drops. If that's your jam then this card's worth a spin.
It lacks the combo upside of a gravecrawler , but should be a bit more consistent. 2 toughness is nice.
I'm not personally a fan unless you are intentionally supporting aristocrat synergies, but to each their own.
MOAR COUNTERS.
Yeah, I like this card quite a bit.
One nice quality compared to other land fall creatures is if you top deck it later in the game, immediatly activating the ability becomes a real prospect in the right deck.
Nissa, walking Ballista, hydroid krasis etc.
Think ya'll are underestimating it, but ehhh , once it was pointed out that it doesn't stop ETB's and I thought about that more, I'm no longer testing the card.
FWIW if the instant speed wrath mode was 5 mana it would be a slam dunk and that is a hill I would die on , but also wouldn't waste time arguing since that's not the card
I guess I dont see why you would counter your own Solitude? As for Valki, when you cast a double sided card for free, you can choose which side. Works with Bring to Light as well.
I think so you get the 3/2 body.
Evoke solitude on their turn, counter plot it, then cast it from exile on your turn for free.
seems like a LOT of setup for a 3/2 body lifelink but it’s still a cool interaction.
I think this card is deceptively powerful, but it’s hard to evaluate. Very annoying in a tempo shell against slower decks and good against counter magic.
I've played this a lot since it was spoiled. I underestimated it.
I see it as blue's cut down (slightly better) , which is a cheap effect that blue really wants.
You often trade up 1-3 pips in mana , which more than makes up for it being dead occasionally.
It's great in decks that are slower/reactive as they have other answers for problems this doesn't solve, and can make up for the tempo lost for drawing cards with the mana effeciency of this card.
As far as cost effectiveness goes, I'd argue a 5 mana instant speed wrath is on par with a 4 mana sorcery speed one.
Not sure if it was a typo or if you just got the cost mixed up mid thought (which is understandable because the template is very confusing), but it's a 6 mana wrath, not 5 mana. 5 mana Wrath would definitely make it interesting, but even then I don't think it'd get there for me. Overall I think this is much worse than Touch the Spirit Realm, which does a lot of what the second mode wants to do while also giving you a blink effect.
Sorry for not being clear.
The logic was
5 mana instant wrath = 4 mana sorcery wrath, 4 mana sorcery wrath is cubebale card.
Pay 1 extra mana (6 mana) on the wrath mode for all the extra utility, relative to the equivalent of an already proven, cubeable card.
This is one of the better "combat tricks", but I think this is a bit worse than Legolas's Quick Reflexes, and these type of effects need to be at that level, IMO.
shutting off a powerful ETB (palace jailer/white plume adventurer) OR a 6 mana INSTANT speed wrath. If you pay 7 you can even save one of your creatures or destroy indestructable/dies trigger creatures on your opponents side.
This doeesn't shut off ETBs, it doesn't stick around like Dress Down does.
Ah, woops, right. Makes it worse. Still think it's pretty good (but nothing special)
Hard to compare it to other combat tricks when one of the modes is an instant speed 6 mana wrath.
As far as cost effectiveness goes, I'd argue a 5 mana instant speed wrath is on par with a 4 mana sorcery speed one.
So you are effectively paying an extra mana on a wrath mode for a high amount of utility that'll be useful when an expensive wrath is too slow.
That's how I comparitvely evaluate it (it's hard). You don't want to play this card in fast decks, you want to play it in slow decks that have some creatures, this is much more similar to wrath than a combat trick in that respect.
It’s been in and out of my cube for years now and is currently out.
there’s decks where it’s a good card, but those decks are few and far between. You need much more spell/cantrip support than the slick shot needs to make it better than a random peice of interaction.
I think this is much better.
I believe it’s not in the MTGO cube at the moment either.
Goldvein Hydra is not a "good stuff" card, it is a synergy card.
I see this as a powerful (playable) green fireball type effect.
You want to pair this with Gaea's cradle, basalt monolith infinite combo, channel, tolarian academy, rofellos, berserk, 5 mana nissa, mana vault, sac outlets etc.
A big problem with green ramp is the amount of mana it can produce is wildly inconsistent. If you get your (vulnerable) mana elves killed, you will often be stuck at 3-4 mana. If you draw a bunch of elves and they live, you might be able to produce 6-8 mana easily. If you draw cradle, you might be able to produce 12 mana.
An X spell that can serve as utility at cheaper CMC's and a game winniner at higher CMC's works very well with green's strengths and weaknesses.
This can work defense AND offense AND steals/protect monarch/initiative AND bridges into some of your more expensive spells if it dies.
Yes it's behind curve at every step of the way (like every X spell), but the modality is worth it IMO.
Does everything you want in a green card
Defense, offense, mana sink, protection.
Not a high pick, but an auto-include I think.
There's now 4? +1/+1 counters synergy playable cube cards in this set.
By that I mean it's completly unplayable (jkjk).
If I evaluate it simply for it' hardcast mode it fall short for it's cost. No guarnteed value, takes some time to take over the game in many scenarios, requires other cards to be truly great, doesn't stabalize that well. Vulnerable to cheap removal, bounce or wraths. With time it'll take over any board state and is decent on defense, but for 5 mana and it's vulnerabilities I expect A LOT. Compare this to something like a bonehoard dracosaur and it's hard to see what this card does better.
That being said, the plot mode adds a lot of power to the card. Being able to play around counter spells, double spell the next turn to make it so soft counters don't work, guarnteeing the ability to cast another creature on the same turn. Playing it for 4 mana if you don't have another card to play...
Not sure how good that'll all be, but I think it'll be good.
I hope to see it in action, but I predict it'll be similar to vorinclex, hermits etc. Maybe a little worse :/
You really want to be in a deck that can make use of the cheat into play mode with a solid frequency.
Putting in creatures at instant speed is huge, the 3 mana instant dig mode is almost worth it as a card itself and there will be occasional situations where protecting a big fatty with the 2 mana mode will be game winning.
The modality of all that makes a good card.
I like how this is fairly splashable in reanimator without much ramp. The dig mode gets good value and fuels the graveyard and the 6 mana mode only takes a single pip of green to cast. In most decks the 3 mana mode will be the most frequent/best mode.
Defintily will test in my cube
Lots of creature to pick up for value in white, but it sets back tempo a fair bit if you don't want to pick anything up and is bad if you don't have a creature or a mox you want to return for value.
Not sure if I'll test it. The upside is probably worth it? I could imagine decks where it'll be fantastic.
It lacks the combo upside of a gravecrawler , but should be a bit more consistent. 2 toughness is nice.
I'm not personally a fan unless you are intentionally supporting aristocrat synergies, but to each their own.
The combination of the power maxxed mode at high mana costs
and versatility at the mid-mana costs makes this card strong.
It competes with other more expensive blue cards, as you can only justify a few of them in your decks, but I think It does so favorably.
I always thought cancel variants were under-rated, but as power crept and curves dropped, I couldn't justify them.
This is the best one by a lot.
Yeah, I like this card quite a bit.
One nice quality compared to other land fall creatures is if you top deck it later in the game, immediatly activating the ability becomes a real prospect in the right deck.
Nissa, walking Ballista, hydroid krasis etc.
FWIW if the instant speed wrath mode was 5 mana it would be a slam dunk and that is a hill I would die on , but also wouldn't waste time arguing since that's not the card
I think so you get the 3/2 body.
Evoke solitude on their turn, counter plot it, then cast it from exile on your turn for free.
seems like a LOT of setup for a 3/2 body lifelink but it’s still a cool interaction.
I think this card is deceptively powerful, but it’s hard to evaluate. Very annoying in a tempo shell against slower decks and good against counter magic.
I see it as blue's cut down (slightly better) , which is a cheap effect that blue really wants.
You often trade up 1-3 pips in mana , which more than makes up for it being dead occasionally.
It's great in decks that are slower/reactive as they have other answers for problems this doesn't solve, and can make up for the tempo lost for drawing cards with the mana effeciency of this card.
~ Top 100 cube card imo.
See above posts for reasoning, nothing really particularly surprising.
It's a ultra high variance card so opinions will vary.
It's good in basically any deck that is proactive and can cast it.
Sorry for not being clear.
The logic was
5 mana instant wrath = 4 mana sorcery wrath, 4 mana sorcery wrath is cubebale card.
Pay 1 extra mana (6 mana) on the wrath mode for all the extra utility, relative to the equivalent of an already proven, cubeable card.
Ah, woops, right. Makes it worse. Still think it's pretty good (but nothing special)
Hard to compare it to other combat tricks when one of the modes is an instant speed 6 mana wrath.
As far as cost effectiveness goes, I'd argue a 5 mana instant speed wrath is on par with a 4 mana sorcery speed one.
So you are effectively paying an extra mana on a wrath mode for a high amount of utility that'll be useful when an expensive wrath is too slow.
That's how I comparitvely evaluate it (it's hard). You don't want to play this card in fast decks, you want to play it in slow decks that have some creatures, this is much more similar to wrath than a combat trick in that respect.