My error in thinking was viewing it in the context of an agressive creature, but it's much better as a defnesive and utility creature that can eventually turn into a big threat.
Plus all the artifact synergies are sweet... Missed the trinket mage thing
There's a cube blog writer who had quite a bit to say about Lat-Nam's Legacy, and ranked it #4 on his list of his favorite 15 card quality cards, which is quite a bit higher than he ranked some more commonly cubed cantrips like Ponder, Preordain, and Impulse. Here's what he had to say about Lat-Nam's Legacy:
The poor mans Brainstorm but at least it has a built in shuffle and is therefore a self contained piece of general card quality. Compared to Brainstorm it gives you the cards slower, costs twice as much and it one less new card in hand and one less old card shuffled away. This is a lot to pay for a built in shuffle but due to the power of putting cards in hand back in the library the Legacy sees a vast amount of play and remains one of the best card quality cube cards. If you play it how it reads you can also make it a draw two when you have no cards in hand. It has some added utility at evading discard effects. Instant is fantastic and on the pricier card quality spells (yes, two is pricey for card quality!) is that much more important. Lat-Nam's is more the kind of card you play when you have specific uses than it is one you play to smooth out your early draw. It is better at getting you out of a screw than Top or a Brainstorm but it is painfully slow to do so compared with something more humble like a Preordain. If you have a card that is key to your plan but something you want to use late and need to protect early such as an Elixir of Immortality then Lat-Nam's is a great call. It is almost an auto include in any deck with miracles as it makes you much less susceptible to mulligans. The more shuffle away effects you have the more you are able to keep hands containing miracles.
The fact that you have to wait until the next upkeep to get the two cards makes it a lot harder for me to rank this anywhere near as highly as he does, though, because it makes it a much worse topdeck if what you're digging for is something you need to play during your main phase. This might mean that I'm undervaluing being able to shuffle something back into your deck for later, but I like all of the cantrips that you're running right now (Impulse, Preordain, Ponder, Serum Visions), and I think if I were looking to add another I'd try Opt, Sleight of Hand, or maybe even Anticipate before Lat-Nam's Legacy.
All the same, I do recommend checking out that blog post about card selection in cube. There's some very interesting food for thought on the subject.
"options per mana" is the evaluation metric for the card ranking in the article.
It's an interesting metric for thought, but it's not a good one to use when deciding what cards to put in your cube.
The conclusions/ranking of this metric show why...
Hmmm, I do like it in a tinker deck or natural order deck... and maybe with a few other cards that can utilize the shuffle value(life from the loam, sylvan library, land tax, scroll rack, brain storm) but that's about it.
Seems far too narrow in the best cube color, but wouldn't face palm if someone decided to run it
Wtwlf, how is it going with the testing? I'm also on the verge of getting a copy of Karakas for my cube.
I already cut it. Spent too much time as a Plains, and didn't impact as many cards (or nearly as consistent) as Kor Haven. I added the Haven back in.
Maybe when there's more Legends it'll go back in. But even now, not enough legends in the cube to do something of value most of the time.
Funny, I also cut it, but because of how opressive and unfun it felt against certain decks.
We were team drafting and a friend of mine who was playing a GW collected company style deck showed me a hand of brimaz, edric and anafenza and we laughed. Shut him completly out of the game.
Then I watched it own a show and telled eldrazi and prevent a through the breached eldrazi in the same event.
If karakas somehow gained value "most of the time" it would be broken.
Kolaghan's Command is the best true BR gold card for the cube, and I think it's the second card that I'd include in the Rakdos section, behind Cackler. It's more powerful than Rakdos Cackler, but I think it's less important.
There's ~3 metrics that this forum seems to evaluate and rank cards.
1)Overall power, focused on power in a deck that utilizes a card's strengths, breaks it's symmetry etc.
2)How high would you pick the card early in the draft, without much of a draft path
3)How important is this card to the composition of your cube
I believe you are saying in criteria 1) kologhans command is > Rakdos cackler, in criteria 3) rakdos cackler > kologhans command.
Id say before I belived 1) Kologhan's command , 2) Rakdos cackler, 3) Rakdos cackler.
Now I believe 1) Kologhan's command , 2) Kologhan's command, 3)????? Probably still the cackler.
Although, I think the relative importance of cackler is trending down a bit, as more and more interesting good 1 drops are printed.
Also, I'd probably include both cards in a cube of size 180, so it's pretty hard to analyze relative importance. Cackler isnt THAT much more versatile as, it's an agro only card and Kologhan's command is good in every rakdos archetype that exists. So it's color flexibility vs archetype flexiblity.
FWIW, I ranked it below rakdos cackler in the latest polls, but the more I play with kologhan's command, the more I think that was a clear mistake.
In a raw power evaluation, It now cracks my overall guild top 10 and maybe even my top 5. I have almost never had it be a dead card, it's uncommon that it hasn't generated a 2 for 1 and occasionally it put me in a situations where the raise dead + other mode felt like a 4 for 1.
I'll make a prediction that in 3+ years this will be a more widely held opinion.
Note: assuming powered cube, where artifact destruction is at a premium.
I think commune is borderline playable at mid-ranged cubes (I cut it for being too narrow after significant testing), but I'm assuming it's very underrated due to it rarely being mentioned.
In the GB graveyard deck (the only deck that wants it), commune of the gods was very solid and IMO quite a bit better than this card on average. Commune grabbing enchantments was even more relevant than creatures when I played it. Well over half the strong cubeable reanimation spells are enchantment based, so binning creatures , fetching a necromancy/animate dead/recurring nightmare/dance of the dead, then casting it on next turn was was very strong. Commune was one card that set up discard + reanimation in itself.
Gather wants a deck with multiple enablers of this type to trigger spell mastery, which very few cubes support.
Ie, If you want to chain sell mill enablerss into a big reanimation spell, this card is great (since spell mastery is more likely), but without proper enabling support, I suspect the card will get 1 creature way too often, and will be quite a bit worse than commune.
But... In a deck with a lot of self mill, I suspect this card is the nuts, but that's cube specific AND very narrow.
Most cubes use discard outlets as a means to get creatures in the GY, not self mill. If that changes throughout the years, id keep my eye on gather the pack.
seems extremly sick on paper in limited, jeez, surprised I glossed over this guy. Gotta be one of the top 10 rares in the set for sure.
Think he's not far off cube power actually, but alas, he doesn't quite reach the competition. 5 red is staaaccckkked, and he's below stuff that isn't making it in medium-high cubes.
Key difference is he requires a board prescence to be "cube good", and he's 5 mana. Both of which are commonplace in limited, but are harder to obtain in cube. In limited a 4/5 trample for 5 by itself has the possiblity of taking over the game.. Not so in cube. The ability has so much more effect in creature vs creature stalemate type battles (common in limited), than in cube haymaker style gameplay.
In cube your dinky creatures/tokens can still get blocked and might not even trade up with their blockers cause of the power of the higher drops.
Would require a token build to be almost as good as what's played in medium cubes.
yeah card is cleary insane in origins limited.. Speed of the cards value generation (to make up for the loss of both card + tempo for a creature deck) and and it's power relative other engines is the concern for cube, neither of which apply at all for a low powered limit format.
Being a sorcery is part of the design. Just because it's not an instant doesn't mean it's a drawback. Just like being a 2-power creature isn't a "drawback" just because it's not a 3-power creature. Time Walk doesn't have a drawback just because it's not an instant.
And Nissa's not "so bad at face value". Looking at her without evaluating her value when she flips is an incomplete evaluation of the card. Just because it's worse than Civic Wayfinder if it doesn't transform doesn't mean it's worse than Civic Wayfinder for the cube. Something I learned while testing her, even though that was my gut reaction before seeing her on the table.
What sort of surprised me, was how good a worse civic wayfinder felt, I mean not cubeable in medium lists without the upside, but it's still a guarnteed 2 for 1 for 3 mana, can't be that far of from cubeable.
After playing her, I feel like civic wayfinder's like 90% there on it's own, which is where a lot of people are misevualting her.
Abbot of Keral Keep - I know you don't support mono red in your cube, so maybe we have different experiences, but our testing results with both this and Ire Shaman have been insane. They're both great on curve two drops that you can play but when you draw them late game they're card advantage spells. I really can't think of that many other cards in red that do that, and it's a role red sorely needs.
I think saying "it can also be played in a pinch as a 2-drop to fill the curve if you have to" misunderstands the power of this creature, and the Shaman you're not playing either.
Seems like the general argument he was making is abbot is falling short in comparisons vs ire shaman (which wtwlf doesn't run and has tested extensivly).
I personally think a 2/1 menace is much better than a 2/1 prowess for on curve.
But I was skeptical/luke warm on ire shaman when he first was spoiled, but he's been playing out really great and surprised wtwlf cut him. All-in agro he's not his best in, but in a grindier agro deck or like a modern jund style deck he's been amazing. Maybe those decks don't see play tho.
Wow' don't think I've ever agreed this precisely with the review, like almost identical ranking.
Great job as always.
I procrastinated writing up more on the Nalars, but I think they are awsome. Glad you liked them as much as me.They tested so well for me and the more I thought about them, the more I understood why they are so great.
Defense is their best game.. From things like, chump a lifelinker, sac to the face. Chump protection and intimidate creatures to buy time, trade with pesky flies, blocks menace/swarm agro.. Targeted shocks remove troublesome utility creatures, messes up combat math, allowing blockers to trade up...
Also, they works way better in the artifact deck than I thought. If you generate crazy mana, you can Attack with thopters and Hail Mary for like 10 damage the turn you untaps, thopters adding to academy count helps this too.
Offensively, you can be very strategic, nipping away with your evasion, then holding back to block and start flinging to the face while blocking. The damage isn't fast, but it's very hard to prevent and is capable of producing a flurry of damage on the final turn.
Synergistically, there's like, every interaction you can think of....
Snuff Out is excellent. It was so good, I took it out of my list actually.
But it's not going to fix mox/sol ring. Those decks are just as likely to main deck Snuff Out. The only way to prevent auto-win games caused by fast mana is to not run any. Trying to balance that is futile. Just accept the degeneracy they bring or remove it from your meta.
Unfortunatly, I am partially at the whim of my play group. I prefer a slightly weaker unpowered environment with lots of interesting creature vs creature battles... But that's not what my local play group wants to do.
For example, I really dislike sneak attack/channel/eldrazi style decks, but they are so popular in my group that they are constantly OVER drafted, no matter how much support I give them. If I cut the package altogether I hear *****ing and moaning from a few players. Many players enjoy playing cube because they can do degenerate things, it's less about the gameplay for them.
So, I do my best to work within those guidelines to balance the environment and make it as interactive/balanced as possible, while still catering to the Timmays. But yeah, there's a lot of un-interactivity I have to accept.
Slaughter Pact is the cut there. Snuff Out is the best 1-for-1 targeted removal spell in black.
Hmmm... That's a strong recommendation. I should give snuff out a try. Assumed the 4 life was a big downside, but I've been more concerned with "re-gaining" tempo plays as of late and this fits the bill nicely.
Always been a side concern of mine to tweak the cube to design it such that there's some chance to come back from mox/sol ring feuled starts. A kill spell that costs no mana seems like it help a game get under control, and cause some random blowouts. ie your tapped out , they go for a sword equip and, OOP U GOT SNUFFED SON
My error in thinking was viewing it in the context of an agressive creature, but it's much better as a defnesive and utility creature that can eventually turn into a big threat.
Plus all the artifact synergies are sweet... Missed the trinket mage thing
"options per mana" is the evaluation metric for the card ranking in the article.
It's an interesting metric for thought, but it's not a good one to use when deciding what cards to put in your cube.
The conclusions/ranking of this metric show why...
Seems far too narrow in the best cube color, but wouldn't face palm if someone decided to run it
Funny, I also cut it, but because of how opressive and unfun it felt against certain decks.
We were team drafting and a friend of mine who was playing a GW collected company style deck showed me a hand of brimaz, edric and anafenza and we laughed. Shut him completly out of the game.
Then I watched it own a show and telled eldrazi and prevent a through the breached eldrazi in the same event.
If karakas somehow gained value "most of the time" it would be broken.
There's ~3 metrics that this forum seems to evaluate and rank cards.
1)Overall power, focused on power in a deck that utilizes a card's strengths, breaks it's symmetry etc.
2)How high would you pick the card early in the draft, without much of a draft path
3)How important is this card to the composition of your cube
I believe you are saying in criteria 1) kologhans command is > Rakdos cackler, in criteria 3) rakdos cackler > kologhans command.
Id say before I belived 1) Kologhan's command , 2) Rakdos cackler, 3) Rakdos cackler.
Now I believe 1) Kologhan's command , 2) Kologhan's command, 3)????? Probably still the cackler.
Although, I think the relative importance of cackler is trending down a bit, as more and more interesting good 1 drops are printed.
Also, I'd probably include both cards in a cube of size 180, so it's pretty hard to analyze relative importance. Cackler isnt THAT much more versatile as, it's an agro only card and Kologhan's command is good in every rakdos archetype that exists. So it's color flexibility vs archetype flexiblity.
In a raw power evaluation, It now cracks my overall guild top 10 and maybe even my top 5. I have almost never had it be a dead card, it's uncommon that it hasn't generated a 2 for 1 and occasionally it put me in a situations where the raise dead + other mode felt like a 4 for 1.
I'll make a prediction that in 3+ years this will be a more widely held opinion.
Note: assuming powered cube, where artifact destruction is at a premium.
In the GB graveyard deck (the only deck that wants it), commune of the gods was very solid and IMO quite a bit better than this card on average. Commune grabbing enchantments was even more relevant than creatures when I played it. Well over half the strong cubeable reanimation spells are enchantment based, so binning creatures , fetching a necromancy/animate dead/recurring nightmare/dance of the dead, then casting it on next turn was was very strong. Commune was one card that set up discard + reanimation in itself.
Gather wants a deck with multiple enablers of this type to trigger spell mastery, which very few cubes support.
Ie, If you want to chain sell mill enablerss into a big reanimation spell, this card is great (since spell mastery is more likely), but without proper enabling support, I suspect the card will get 1 creature way too often, and will be quite a bit worse than commune.
But... In a deck with a lot of self mill, I suspect this card is the nuts, but that's cube specific AND very narrow.
Most cubes use discard outlets as a means to get creatures in the GY, not self mill. If that changes throughout the years, id keep my eye on gather the pack.
Think he's not far off cube power actually, but alas, he doesn't quite reach the competition. 5 red is staaaccckkked, and he's below stuff that isn't making it in medium-high cubes.
Key difference is he requires a board prescence to be "cube good", and he's 5 mana. Both of which are commonplace in limited, but are harder to obtain in cube. In limited a 4/5 trample for 5 by itself has the possiblity of taking over the game.. Not so in cube. The ability has so much more effect in creature vs creature stalemate type battles (common in limited), than in cube haymaker style gameplay.
In cube your dinky creatures/tokens can still get blocked and might not even trade up with their blockers cause of the power of the higher drops.
Would require a token build to be almost as good as what's played in medium cubes.
What sort of surprised me, was how good a worse civic wayfinder felt, I mean not cubeable in medium lists without the upside, but it's still a guarnteed 2 for 1 for 3 mana, can't be that far of from cubeable.
After playing her, I feel like civic wayfinder's like 90% there on it's own, which is where a lot of people are misevualting her.
civic wayfinder is a good magic card
Seems like the general argument he was making is abbot is falling short in comparisons vs ire shaman (which wtwlf doesn't run and has tested extensivly).
I personally think a 2/1 menace is much better than a 2/1 prowess for on curve.
But I was skeptical/luke warm on ire shaman when he first was spoiled, but he's been playing out really great and surprised wtwlf cut him. All-in agro he's not his best in, but in a grindier agro deck or like a modern jund style deck he's been amazing. Maybe those decks don't see play tho.
Great job as always.
I procrastinated writing up more on the Nalars, but I think they are awsome. Glad you liked them as much as me.They tested so well for me and the more I thought about them, the more I understood why they are so great.
Defense is their best game.. From things like, chump a lifelinker, sac to the face. Chump protection and intimidate creatures to buy time, trade with pesky flies, blocks menace/swarm agro.. Targeted shocks remove troublesome utility creatures, messes up combat math, allowing blockers to trade up...
Also, they works way better in the artifact deck than I thought. If you generate crazy mana, you can Attack with thopters and Hail Mary for like 10 damage the turn you untaps, thopters adding to academy count helps this too.
Offensively, you can be very strategic, nipping away with your evasion, then holding back to block and start flinging to the face while blocking. The damage isn't fast, but it's very hard to prevent and is capable of producing a flurry of damage on the final turn.
Synergistically, there's like, every interaction you can think of....
Unfortunatly, I am partially at the whim of my play group. I prefer a slightly weaker unpowered environment with lots of interesting creature vs creature battles... But that's not what my local play group wants to do.
For example, I really dislike sneak attack/channel/eldrazi style decks, but they are so popular in my group that they are constantly OVER drafted, no matter how much support I give them. If I cut the package altogether I hear *****ing and moaning from a few players. Many players enjoy playing cube because they can do degenerate things, it's less about the gameplay for them.
So, I do my best to work within those guidelines to balance the environment and make it as interactive/balanced as possible, while still catering to the Timmays. But yeah, there's a lot of un-interactivity I have to accept.
Hmmm... That's a strong recommendation. I should give snuff out a try. Assumed the 4 life was a big downside, but I've been more concerned with "re-gaining" tempo plays as of late and this fits the bill nicely.
Always been a side concern of mine to tweak the cube to design it such that there's some chance to come back from mox/sol ring feuled starts. A kill spell that costs no mana seems like it help a game get under control, and cause some random blowouts. ie your tapped out , they go for a sword equip and, OOP U GOT SNUFFED SON