I prefer this to the Primaris Eliminator.
The cheap mode is a huge part of what makes this card good.
You will mostly be casting it for the cheap mode.
It's like, imagine the difference between a walking ballista that can't be played for x = 1 and a walking ballista that can.
The difference between those two cards are considerably smaller than the difference between this card with it's discard mode and this card without it.
I struggle to evaluate this one.
It’s a bit slow and conditional, but the potential value is insane (broken) for its cost.
I think it's easy to fixate on triggering the hideaway
and neglect that a 1 mana (tap): +1/+1 counter engine is pretty solid in it's own right.
Not enough to make it a good card by itself, but provide a good floor effect for any deck that runs creatures.
Great midrange card.
Good on defense, decent on offense, plays well with the +1/+1 counter givers this set along with anything that grows a creature.
Ultra mana effecient for a baneslayer angel type card if you plot it.
Yeah, will prob play pretty well in efficient good stuff blue decks. Reasonably splashable.
Random creatures added to mediocore cards tend to make them surprising good.
2/2 flyer as a value addition probably better than what is intuitive.
I think it's better in many more decks than three steps ahead, but three steps ahead has much higher upside (blue artifact ramp decks), so
I have trouble comparing them without seeing them in action.
Generally speaking I find modal spells to be victims of power creep so I am not sure the hype is jutified here.
I have found that to be true about previous good modal/X spells. I think I may be over-rating the modal/X spells from this set simply because I like so many of them lol.
The clone mode does a lot of the heavy lifting for the upside of the card. I think? I wouldn't play it without a few powerful clone targets or in a deck that can make lots of mana. IE Tolarian academy deck.
In slower/combo matchups, I think the card will be really strong. Against agressive decks, the card is much weaker. You lose out on the 5-8 mana upside, cancel as a base mode is much less good (you won't trade up in mana or you'll be forced to tap out) and you are less likely to have a good target in play to clone.
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.
The cheap mode is a huge part of what makes this card good.
You will mostly be casting it for the cheap mode.
It's like, imagine the difference between a walking ballista that can't be played for x = 1 and a walking ballista that can.
The difference between those two cards are considerably smaller than the difference between this card with it's discard mode and this card without it.
It’s a bit slow and conditional, but the potential value is insane (broken) for its cost.
I think it's easy to fixate on triggering the hideaway
and neglect that a 1 mana (tap): +1/+1 counter engine is pretty solid in it's own right.
Not enough to make it a good card by itself, but provide a good floor effect for any deck that runs creatures.
sleeper potential, would test
a blade splicer where the blade splicer itself becomes a must kill creature in many scenarios.
nasty with lingering souls, constructs, hermits and more
How it compares to “draw a card” , could make or break the power level of the card.
The food tokens are definitly not neglible as far as vindicate value goes, but it is fairly small.
I think it’s reasonable to test, but will be surprised if it’s any better than a late/low priority pick.
At the hard casted rate alone it almost gets there.. add in the alternative casted mode (that plays well with reanimation) and it’s a slam dunk.
Massacre girl isn’t far off cube level and this adds an almost on rate self pitch discard mode as an alternative option.
Good on defense, decent on offense, plays well with the +1/+1 counter givers this set along with anything that grows a creature.
Ultra mana effecient for a baneslayer angel type card if you plot it.
Yup, def testing.
Random creatures added to mediocore cards tend to make them surprising good.
2/2 flyer as a value addition probably better than what is intuitive.
I think it's better in many more decks than three steps ahead, but three steps ahead has much higher upside (blue artifact ramp decks), so
I have trouble comparing them without seeing them in action.
I have found that to be true about previous good modal/X spells. I think I may be over-rating the modal/X spells from this set simply because I like so many of them lol.
The clone mode does a lot of the heavy lifting for the upside of the card. I think? I wouldn't play it without a few powerful clone targets or in a deck that can make lots of mana. IE Tolarian academy deck.
In slower/combo matchups, I think the card will be really strong. Against agressive decks, the card is much weaker. You lose out on the 5-8 mana upside, cancel as a base mode is much less good (you won't trade up in mana or you'll be forced to tap out) and you are less likely to have a good target in play to clone.
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.