I have been searching and reading about Judge's Familiar in cube. Most people seem to think it is a good card for tempo/devotion builds, but obviously not good enough to deserve a guild spot.
How do you think it compares to Sygg, River Cutthroat and Inkfathom Infiltrator for blue devotion? (Please rank the 3 cards)
It depends a bit on your cube and what you are trying to support.
Chandra is better in a midrange grindy shell (which tend to not fair well for red in my cube), wheras stoke is >> in an agressive strategy.
In the vast majority of cubes stroke should be in over chandra. Some people choose not to heavily represnt burn tho, so *shrug*.
Aether vial is better in multiples only to the extent of how good the card is in "aether vial decks". Aether vial on turn 1 is so good in those decks, that it's worth running multiple copies to make the probability of that happening rise.
The card is worse in multiples to the extent that having more than 1 in play is generally overkill and leads to diminished returns of any individual vial. It also has anti-synergy with itself in that Vial wants creatures, not more vial. In constructed 3+ Vials in your opening hand is an instant mulligan.
I'm of the belief that modern G/W hatebears is closer to wanting 3 vials main deck than 4. Legacy death and taxes wants 4 , but if it could play 5, I don't think it would.
My definition of better in multiples is the second-third etc copy has greater value in the deck than the first. Or it makes the first copy better. Under this definition, aether vial is worse in multiples, not better.
It is a build around card tho, that's for sure. In my cube, I think enough decks organically come together that would be happy to play an aether vial, such that it wasn't required to be built around.
My issue with the card is how underwhelming it can be as a top deck in the late game; it really is a card you want on turn 1 with diminishing returns thereafter. Do you plan to up the number of copies in your non-singleton Cube?
It's top deck value is horrendous, for sure. Within any given game it's downside is awful, but it's upside is broken.
If any creature based agro deck was given an indestuctable turn 1 vial every game, that would be an ability on the level of power 9.
In a tight curved creature hand, with a couple mana sinks (rishadan port, man lands, figure of destiny, stoneforge + equipment), the card generates mana at a broken rate.
3 creatures out through vial is ~6 free mana over 3 turns AND those creatures are at instant speed, which has interesting/tricky application AND those creatures dodge counter magic.
I might experiment with 2 some time, as it can let you do some really cool stuff. But not until I'm convinced it's great in white weenie.. I've only seen it being used in 4+ color agro and a bant blink/flash deck.
Collected company functions as aether vial redundency by the way. Both cards want a lot of good 3 drops, lots of creatures that cost 3 or less mana, and they both want creatures that are even better at instant speed (IE flickerwisp, man-o-war).
Does anyone still run this? I have an 810 cube and was thinking of revisiting some cards I cut when my cube was much smaller. At what cube level is this viable?
I've played aether vial in constructed a TON. Death and taxes is my go to legacy deck, have dabbled in both merfolk and GW hatebears in modern.
In my quest to make white weenie more competitive I decided to give aether vial a trial run. My theory was that it would be very good in white weenie. White has a lot of great 3 drops, good mana sinks (student of warfare + figure of destiny + equipment) and symmetrical land destuction that vial breaks (armageddon).
I envisioned it mainly as a white only card, with some hope for bant collected company style decks to play it.
A new cuber that we play with LOVES to draft 5 color agro decks. I've seen him AEther vial to great effect multiples times. Flickerwisp with vial is amazing, tidehollow sculler during opponenets draw step was interesting.
It's still relatively early in it's testing, but signs have been very positive. It requires a tight mana curve to be good, so it's a card that might actually be worse as you get larger in your cube size.
Aether vial has been widely dismissed as an unplayable cube card , but I think that view needs to be re-examined. It's a card that has gotten a lot better with time, and one I expect to continue to get better...
Once you go above 450 in cube size, it's the cheaty/broken archetypes that take the biggest hit.
Tolarian academy, tinker, sneak attack, channel.. These cards are build around cards, have no redundant equivalent at larger cube sizes. cards like quicksilver amulet or pattern of rebirth are not on the same stratosphere of power of sneak
Attack.
The difference in power between animate dead and say makeshift mannequin is muchhh bigger than the difference between brimaz and like a silverblade paladin or (insert decent but not quite there white 3 drop).
Certain exceptions for fair decks apply (ie jitte) but those cards aren't anywhere as crucial to fair decks, the way a sneak attack type card is to an unfair deck
Your testing reflects what I predict would happen if I decided to test colorless required cards. The one exception is Mirror Pool, I love the concept of the card but the whole coming into play tapped, only tapping for colorless, and colorless requirement for the activations really turned me off to the card. Hopefully it continues to impress!
I was on the receiving end of it's power, and it felt gross... But I didn't get to see how much all those restrictions you mentioned negatively impacted his curve/color requirements.
More testing needed, but man... Not hard to see it's upside.
Eldrazi Displacer was drafted twice in different blink decks it was PERFECT for, but each of those blink decks had 0-2 colorless producing sources, and couldn't justify the inclusion.
Do you think that if you were playing a bigger list where including more sources of C is easier, that a lot of the eldrazi cards would be easier to play and therefore better? In our testing so far, we've been capable of hitting our sources of C pretty reliably, but that has had a lot to do with painlands, fringe mana rocks and some of the lesser green support cards that can snag Wastes. I felt that small cubes (450 or smaller) would have too hard a time getting the necessary sources of colorless mana to play most of the C cost cards, and that the package as a whole would be relegated to bigger lists. Is that consistent with your playtesting so far?
Yes, definitely relegated to bigger lists...
Should have emphasized that I felt the package wasn't working in my cube, and not that it wouldn't work in anyones cube.
I went up to 485 for the test, and even at that size, it's constrained my design space (can't test other fringe archetypes) and I didn't provide enough fixing for it , despite adding a considerable amount of fixing.
I am now certain for it to work in anybody's cube they have to go heavier on the fixing than I was hoping. I'm guessing at least a full cycle of pain/filters as well as many non-basic lands that fix your mana AND colorless.
Is a few payoff cards worth that big of a shift? I'm guessing no. If the cards were borderline broken, or there were a couple more that helped support it's own archetype, my opinion would change.
Looking forward to hearing your experiences with the eldrazi after a couple months of testing.
Moved back to vancouver, been playing/testing with my regular playgroup an unhealty amount of hours.
Preliminary conclusions-
WASTE MANA ELDRAZI
I don't think this theme is going to last long.
Since the eldrazi has been in, they've mostly hit sideboards. A couple times they saw play in a Mono Color + utility lands deck, but those decks performed poorly.
I haven't seen enough of the eldrazi in action to judge their overall power level, but they've hit a bit too many sideboards, or been a 1 of in decks that I feel like they don't belong (IE reality smasher in an artifact ramp deck). Time will tell if this trend sticks.
Eldrazi Displacer was drafted twice in different blink decks it was PERFECT for, but each of those blink decks had 0-2 colorless producing sources, and couldn't justify the inclusion.
Based on my prelimary impressions, I have a feeling the "colorless" section was 1-2 powerful midrange eldrazi creatures/spells short of being a thing worth supporting. Also convinced for it to work, you need to HEAVILY support it via your non-basic land base. I've learned I didn't have enough ways to support the mana. I'm running a handful of nonbasics that fix colorless + colored mana, but only a few filters/pain.
Kozilek is an exception. Card is as good as it seems, and in mega-ramp decks, it's a high-caliber target. Getting colorless in those decks are not hard with most default cube mana-bases/artifacts. It's won many games, and is a crowd favourite amongst the big creature deck drafters around here.
COLORLESS NONBASIC LANDS
The real payoff of the eldrazi theme is for decks with a lot of strong colorless non-basic lands. The colorless lands can be very strong (mutavault, mishras factory, rishadan port) giving a few extra reasonable threats to add to these decks card pool is nice. Probably couldn't jusfiy many of these lands in a deck without the eldrazi, but also probably wouldn't draft the eldrazi without the payoff of these lands.
I played a green ramp deck with sea gate wreckage. Never got to activate it. The situations where I wanted to felt rare. Perhaps it wasn't the deck for it, but it made me lower on the card. Small sample, testing inconclusive.
Mirror pool was played against me in a UR control deck, that had snapcaster, timewalk, true name nemesis, jace vryn's prodigy and felt very strong. Once it copied a true name nemsis, nuff said. Later it copied a suspended ancestral visions, drawing my opponent 6! cards in a spot where we were trading threat/answer. Effectively made it impossible for me to come back. Obviously time walk was the ideal target. That experience was the highlight of colorless mana support for me.
Tectonic Edge seems like it's an obvious inclusion right now. 3-4 color decks with plenty of manlands have been cropping up, that have felt really powerful. The new man lands are really making their prescence felt in those decks. Having an answer to the man lands, disrupting greedy mana bases and being a colorless mana source for the eldrazi all are something that appeal to me.
OTHER CARDS
Oath of Nissa felt like the real deal. Played it twice, once in a green ramp deck where it was good, but not convinced if the tempo slow-down was worth the selection (over say another threat/land). Another time in a bant blink deck where it was amazing. It was a strong card selection cantrip that had synergy with multiple cards in the deck.
One game I was playing vs a midrange/controlish esper deck, had a really bad start with a mull to 6, kept a loose hand (4 lands, oath of nissa, into the roil) I whiffed on the oath of nissa that was hoping to find a threat (3 lands that I was very happy to bottom 2 of them).
By turn 4, I still hadn't drawn a threat. Into the roil + kicker on my oath of nissa, casting it again. Generated card advantage, managed to draw a threat off the into the roil, and dig for another good threat with the oath of nissa. The smidgen of card advantage + card selection allowed me to compete in the mid game with my esper opponent who was flooding a bit. I ended up narrowly winning the game.
Im reasonably confident it will survive the testing phase, and that this card is legit.
Slyvan Advocate, while not seeing it much in action myself, I watched a friend, attack with it as a 4/5 + 2 4/4 manlands into my opponent. I'm not sure how good it will end up being without manlands, but WITH manlands, I'm digging the card. Need more testing results to be sure.
Reflector Mage, drafted it twice, was played against me once. It was good. Felt like it belonged in the cube of my power level. Nothing spectacular, but served it's role well. The "can't play again next turn" clause was relevant in many ways for getting in damage needed to win games, I didn't mind playing it on creatures with ETB effects as a way to get in damage, not the case with man-o-war. The cannot play creature next turn clause was particular devastating with a critical amount of blink/clone. Man-o-war has been playing out about as good as I remembered (borderline cut/playable at 460 size), but reflector mage will likely stick around... Not sure for how long.
SUMMARY
New evaluations relative to my initial predictions of cards that I got to see in action for multiple games
Mirror Pool +++
Oath of Nissa ++
Nissa, Voice of Zendikar ++ (better than what I predicted, but I evaluated her quite low)
Reflector Mage + (a bit higher than what I predicted, but a bit lower than some of the more optimistic forum members)
Kozilek, the great distortion ==
Seagate wreckage - (Less good in ramp decks than I initially thought)
Eldrazi Package - (expectations were not high to begin with)
I've been testing nissa despite not thinking she's good enough, as part of a massive test from the new set.
She's better than I thought she was, but still don't think she'll make the cut. She saw play multiple times a mostly(almost mono) green ramp deck, with a lot of mana elves, planeswalkers and gae's cradle. In this deck she proved to be pretty good. Her tokens with gae's cradle were a nice synergy, and her anthem threatened a big push with planeswalker tokens + mana elves.
Overall the pressure was a bit slow though, as my deck lacked proper interaction, and my deck couldn't deal with huge/cheated threats. Mono red also snuck under my gameplan. Ended up 0-3 in the draft, but I was happy with her performance. The gae's cradle interaction was very nice.
Pretty convinced she's an auto-include for 600+ cubes, and still inconclusive/testing for smaller sizes. No chance she's 400- material.
Griselbrand vs Tasigur vs Kalitas, Traitor of Khet
Man, finding cut for 360 is becoming more and more impossible. Then again, I don't want to expand my cube size.
I wouldn't play kalitas over either of those cards @ 360, but I would definitely play him over nekrataal or one of your weaker black 3 drops , vampire nighthawk or mardu strike leader. Priest of the bloodrite is a fine cut, seems pretty out of place in your list. malicious affliction if u feel like axing a removal spell.
First off, thank you for taking the time to do this. It is no small task.
The colorless list is on point although I think unpowered cubes are going to have a really difficult time resolving the new Kozilek. Thank goodness for Reality Smasher and to a lesser extent Bearer of Silence because without them I think colorless would have been a complete pass for many cube designers at this stage. Those are my only definite inclusions from our new colorless options although Eldrazi Displacer and Thought-Knot Seer are worthy options for small/mid size cubes as well.
For now, I don't think the colorless options available merit a large overhaul of current cube lands or the size of my colorless section. I will include about 10 wastes and I'm contemplating switching out my checklands for painlands or filterlands.
As for the traditional list. Reflector Mage is just such a gift to tempo/control decks. Count me among those who didn't feel the need for a harder to cast Oblivion Ring (Detention Sphere). Yes, there are a few applications of Detention Sphere that make it a little better, but they are corner cases. Also, blink decks should like this guy too!
Sylvan Advocate is a great, if imperfect card. It has good, but not great stats and abilities for aggro. Its ability requires little extra effort on your part except playing lands which is intuitive, but you may not have the synergies on board. It synergizes with manlands, Koth of the Hammer, Nissa, Worldwaker, but I don't have a single awaken card in my cube (and I don't think most other small/mid size cubes do either). Overall though you can't beat a card that transitions from the early game to the late-game for you--one reason why Nissa, Vastwood Seer is so potent. This card also makes me want to reconsider Life/Death for my Golgari section. Advocate has significant synergy with the life portion and a little more reanimator support might be nice.
So on Oath of Nissa we completely disagree, but I hope it meets or surpasses your expectations. My green decks don't want a cantrip+ as badly as my U/x builds and being able to sacrifice it to smokestack or get one additional cantrip off of flickerwisp isn't terribly exciting I'm afraid. I admit that I do play Harmonize but reloading the hand is a significantly more valuable effect then a cantrip in my G/x builds in my experience.
After the mild disappointment that was BFZ with it's 5 cube inclusions, it is nice to see OGW really deliver with approximately 8 inclusions in my cube.
I know most people run both skinrender/nekrataal even at smaller lists, but they are not BOTH needed at that size. There's diminishing returns of these effects in your main deck. I'm a big fan of running 1 of them, as support for reanimation type decks, and having a strong sideboard option vs small creature decks, but IMO Kalitas is a slightly more powerful cube card than either of them, so if your looking for spots, I think nekrataal is a place to start. I know people will disagree with this, but try it for a few months and re-evaluate.
I cut Nekrataal ages ago assuming I'd reinclude him soon, but never felt the need to and never really missed him. The card is definitely good, but there's a lot of decks he's bad against, that many other cards in black are also bad against. Diversity of answers are important.
I think Oath of Nissa is highly overrated. A green filter spell that is worse than most of the blue ones can't be the best card of the set. Maybe time/testing will prove me wrong, but i'd rank Sylvan Advocate clearly above Oath.
I know cantrips are unexciting, but the best blue ones are cubable at every single cube size.
The only other cards from oath that are DEBATABLY 360 playable is slyvan advocate and kalitas (IMO, only kalitas).
IF (still need to see this for myself hehe) the green one is 95%+ as good, then it deserves a slot @ 360 and the top of this list.
Great review, and I find myself in agreement on a lot of points here. Oath is probably the most exciting small set I've seen for cubes since New Phyrexia; not just in terms of the playable count, but in the holes that it fills and the design space that it opens up for cube owners. There's really something here for everyone.
I'll have to prove you wrong on Nissa, though. Where you see a mediocre token support card, I see one of the best green planeswalkers available to cube and one of the most annoying early plays to deal with, no matter who you're sitting across from.
Wow, that's a super strong statement. When I do the analysis I don't see it, but will keep an eye on it. I like it a lot for standard, so will probably see how it plays out a lot over the next couple months.
It depends a bit on your cube and what you are trying to support.
Chandra is better in a midrange grindy shell (which tend to not fair well for red in my cube), wheras stoke is >> in an agressive strategy.
In the vast majority of cubes stroke should be in over chandra. Some people choose not to heavily represnt burn tho, so *shrug*.
Hermit >= Thragtusk > Acidic slime > kalonian hydra
Stromkirk noble > tattermunge maniac > goblin glory chaser
The card is worse in multiples to the extent that having more than 1 in play is generally overkill and leads to diminished returns of any individual vial. It also has anti-synergy with itself in that Vial wants creatures, not more vial. In constructed 3+ Vials in your opening hand is an instant mulligan.
I'm of the belief that modern G/W hatebears is closer to wanting 3 vials main deck than 4. Legacy death and taxes wants 4 , but if it could play 5, I don't think it would.
My definition of better in multiples is the second-third etc copy has greater value in the deck than the first. Or it makes the first copy better. Under this definition, aether vial is worse in multiples, not better.
It is a build around card tho, that's for sure. In my cube, I think enough decks organically come together that would be happy to play an aether vial, such that it wasn't required to be built around.
It's top deck value is horrendous, for sure. Within any given game it's downside is awful, but it's upside is broken.
If any creature based agro deck was given an indestuctable turn 1 vial every game, that would be an ability on the level of power 9.
In a tight curved creature hand, with a couple mana sinks (rishadan port, man lands, figure of destiny, stoneforge + equipment), the card generates mana at a broken rate.
3 creatures out through vial is ~6 free mana over 3 turns AND those creatures are at instant speed, which has interesting/tricky application AND those creatures dodge counter magic.
I might experiment with 2 some time, as it can let you do some really cool stuff. But not until I'm convinced it's great in white weenie.. I've only seen it being used in 4+ color agro and a bant blink/flash deck.
Collected company functions as aether vial redundency by the way. Both cards want a lot of good 3 drops, lots of creatures that cost 3 or less mana, and they both want creatures that are even better at instant speed (IE flickerwisp, man-o-war).
I've played aether vial in constructed a TON. Death and taxes is my go to legacy deck, have dabbled in both merfolk and GW hatebears in modern.
In my quest to make white weenie more competitive I decided to give aether vial a trial run. My theory was that it would be very good in white weenie. White has a lot of great 3 drops, good mana sinks (student of warfare + figure of destiny + equipment) and symmetrical land destuction that vial breaks (armageddon).
I envisioned it mainly as a white only card, with some hope for bant collected company style decks to play it.
A new cuber that we play with LOVES to draft 5 color agro decks. I've seen him AEther vial to great effect multiples times. Flickerwisp with vial is amazing, tidehollow sculler during opponenets draw step was interesting.
It's still relatively early in it's testing, but signs have been very positive. It requires a tight mana curve to be good, so it's a card that might actually be worse as you get larger in your cube size.
Aether vial has been widely dismissed as an unplayable cube card , but I think that view needs to be re-examined. It's a card that has gotten a lot better with time, and one I expect to continue to get better...
Tolarian academy, tinker, sneak attack, channel.. These cards are build around cards, have no redundant equivalent at larger cube sizes. cards like quicksilver amulet or pattern of rebirth are not on the same stratosphere of power of sneak
Attack.
The difference in power between animate dead and say makeshift mannequin is muchhh bigger than the difference between brimaz and like a silverblade paladin or (insert decent but not quite there white 3 drop).
Certain exceptions for fair decks apply (ie jitte) but those cards aren't anywhere as crucial to fair decks, the way a sneak attack type card is to an unfair deck
I was on the receiving end of it's power, and it felt gross... But I didn't get to see how much all those restrictions you mentioned negatively impacted his curve/color requirements.
More testing needed, but man... Not hard to see it's upside.
Yes, definitely relegated to bigger lists...
Should have emphasized that I felt the package wasn't working in my cube, and not that it wouldn't work in anyones cube.
I went up to 485 for the test, and even at that size, it's constrained my design space (can't test other fringe archetypes) and I didn't provide enough fixing for it , despite adding a considerable amount of fixing.
I am now certain for it to work in anybody's cube they have to go heavier on the fixing than I was hoping. I'm guessing at least a full cycle of pain/filters as well as many non-basic lands that fix your mana AND colorless.
Is a few payoff cards worth that big of a shift? I'm guessing no. If the cards were borderline broken, or there were a couple more that helped support it's own archetype, my opinion would change.
Looking forward to hearing your experiences with the eldrazi after a couple months of testing.
Preliminary conclusions-
WASTE MANA ELDRAZI
I don't think this theme is going to last long.
Since the eldrazi has been in, they've mostly hit sideboards. A couple times they saw play in a Mono Color + utility lands deck, but those decks performed poorly.
I haven't seen enough of the eldrazi in action to judge their overall power level, but they've hit a bit too many sideboards, or been a 1 of in decks that I feel like they don't belong (IE reality smasher in an artifact ramp deck). Time will tell if this trend sticks.
Eldrazi Displacer was drafted twice in different blink decks it was PERFECT for, but each of those blink decks had 0-2 colorless producing sources, and couldn't justify the inclusion.
Based on my prelimary impressions, I have a feeling the "colorless" section was 1-2 powerful midrange eldrazi creatures/spells short of being a thing worth supporting. Also convinced for it to work, you need to HEAVILY support it via your non-basic land base. I've learned I didn't have enough ways to support the mana. I'm running a handful of nonbasics that fix colorless + colored mana, but only a few filters/pain.
Kozilek is an exception. Card is as good as it seems, and in mega-ramp decks, it's a high-caliber target. Getting colorless in those decks are not hard with most default cube mana-bases/artifacts. It's won many games, and is a crowd favourite amongst the big creature deck drafters around here.
COLORLESS NONBASIC LANDS
The real payoff of the eldrazi theme is for decks with a lot of strong colorless non-basic lands. The colorless lands can be very strong (mutavault, mishras factory, rishadan port) giving a few extra reasonable threats to add to these decks card pool is nice. Probably couldn't jusfiy many of these lands in a deck without the eldrazi, but also probably wouldn't draft the eldrazi without the payoff of these lands.
I played a green ramp deck with sea gate wreckage. Never got to activate it. The situations where I wanted to felt rare. Perhaps it wasn't the deck for it, but it made me lower on the card. Small sample, testing inconclusive.
Mirror pool was played against me in a UR control deck, that had snapcaster, timewalk, true name nemesis, jace vryn's prodigy and felt very strong. Once it copied a true name nemsis, nuff said. Later it copied a suspended ancestral visions, drawing my opponent 6! cards in a spot where we were trading threat/answer. Effectively made it impossible for me to come back. Obviously time walk was the ideal target. That experience was the highlight of colorless mana support for me.
Tectonic Edge seems like it's an obvious inclusion right now. 3-4 color decks with plenty of manlands have been cropping up, that have felt really powerful. The new man lands are really making their prescence felt in those decks. Having an answer to the man lands, disrupting greedy mana bases and being a colorless mana source for the eldrazi all are something that appeal to me.
OTHER CARDS
Oath of Nissa felt like the real deal. Played it twice, once in a green ramp deck where it was good, but not convinced if the tempo slow-down was worth the selection (over say another threat/land). Another time in a bant blink deck where it was amazing. It was a strong card selection cantrip that had synergy with multiple cards in the deck.
One game I was playing vs a midrange/controlish esper deck, had a really bad start with a mull to 6, kept a loose hand (4 lands, oath of nissa, into the roil) I whiffed on the oath of nissa that was hoping to find a threat (3 lands that I was very happy to bottom 2 of them).
By turn 4, I still hadn't drawn a threat. Into the roil + kicker on my oath of nissa, casting it again. Generated card advantage, managed to draw a threat off the into the roil, and dig for another good threat with the oath of nissa. The smidgen of card advantage + card selection allowed me to compete in the mid game with my esper opponent who was flooding a bit. I ended up narrowly winning the game.
Im reasonably confident it will survive the testing phase, and that this card is legit.
Slyvan Advocate, while not seeing it much in action myself, I watched a friend, attack with it as a 4/5 + 2 4/4 manlands into my opponent. I'm not sure how good it will end up being without manlands, but WITH manlands, I'm digging the card. Need more testing results to be sure.
Reflector Mage, drafted it twice, was played against me once. It was good. Felt like it belonged in the cube of my power level. Nothing spectacular, but served it's role well. The "can't play again next turn" clause was relevant in many ways for getting in damage needed to win games, I didn't mind playing it on creatures with ETB effects as a way to get in damage, not the case with man-o-war. The cannot play creature next turn clause was particular devastating with a critical amount of blink/clone. Man-o-war has been playing out about as good as I remembered (borderline cut/playable at 460 size), but reflector mage will likely stick around... Not sure for how long.
SUMMARY
New evaluations relative to my initial predictions of cards that I got to see in action for multiple games
Mirror Pool +++
Oath of Nissa ++
Nissa, Voice of Zendikar ++ (better than what I predicted, but I evaluated her quite low)
Reflector Mage + (a bit higher than what I predicted, but a bit lower than some of the more optimistic forum members)
Kozilek, the great distortion ==
Seagate wreckage - (Less good in ramp decks than I initially thought)
Eldrazi Package - (expectations were not high to begin with)
She's better than I thought she was, but still don't think she'll make the cut. She saw play multiple times a mostly(almost mono) green ramp deck, with a lot of mana elves, planeswalkers and gae's cradle. In this deck she proved to be pretty good. Her tokens with gae's cradle were a nice synergy, and her anthem threatened a big push with planeswalker tokens + mana elves.
Overall the pressure was a bit slow though, as my deck lacked proper interaction, and my deck couldn't deal with huge/cheated threats. Mono red also snuck under my gameplan. Ended up 0-3 in the draft, but I was happy with her performance. The gae's cradle interaction was very nice.
Pretty convinced she's an auto-include for 600+ cubes, and still inconclusive/testing for smaller sizes. No chance she's 400- material.
I wouldn't play kalitas over either of those cards @ 360, but I would definitely play him over nekrataal or one of your weaker black 3 drops , vampire nighthawk or mardu strike leader. Priest of the bloodrite is a fine cut, seems pretty out of place in your list. malicious affliction if u feel like axing a removal spell.
I know most people run both skinrender/nekrataal even at smaller lists, but they are not BOTH needed at that size. There's diminishing returns of these effects in your main deck. I'm a big fan of running 1 of them, as support for reanimation type decks, and having a strong sideboard option vs small creature decks, but IMO Kalitas is a slightly more powerful cube card than either of them, so if your looking for spots, I think nekrataal is a place to start. I know people will disagree with this, but try it for a few months and re-evaluate.
I cut Nekrataal ages ago assuming I'd reinclude him soon, but never felt the need to and never really missed him. The card is definitely good, but there's a lot of decks he's bad against, that many other cards in black are also bad against. Diversity of answers are important.
I know cantrips are unexciting, but the best blue ones are cubable at every single cube size.
The only other cards from oath that are DEBATABLY 360 playable is slyvan advocate and kalitas (IMO, only kalitas).
IF (still need to see this for myself hehe) the green one is 95%+ as good, then it deserves a slot @ 360 and the top of this list.
Wow, that's a super strong statement. When I do the analysis I don't see it, but will keep an eye on it. I like it a lot for standard, so will probably see how it plays out a lot over the next couple months.
Apreciate the work, solid analysis as always.