Can I recommend this as an alternative to mentor?
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- Thread starter Jason Waddell
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Can I recommend this as an alternative to mentor?
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
I'm a big fan of Bygone Bishop as well, that's a sweet, sweet card.
Two other favorites at the 3 mana slot:
I love Extricator. It looks so innocious, but plays together so well with various white themes, if you build your cube accordingly. It can bin a creature if you want a recursion target, feed its own (and other cards') delirium by binning a land, adds two bodies to the board for anthem effects, and adds a whopping 6/7 in stats to the board for a mere three mana, provided you can trigger delirium consistently. I love to build around this one!
Sunscourge Champion is just an excellent tool for any archetype really. Obviously midrange and control decks love the life gain, but aggro decks can make great use of the card as well, because it turns excess land into a sizable threat once they dealt with the Champion the first time. It's also great for racing other aggro decks.
Then my favorite white 4 drop:
This card can fetch so many sweet cards nowadays. One of the best ways to add some card advantage to white.
And those are just some of the options available in white, once you expand to other colors the list becomes even sweeter!
Two other favorites at the 3 mana slot:
I love Extricator. It looks so innocious, but plays together so well with various white themes, if you build your cube accordingly. It can bin a creature if you want a recursion target, feed its own (and other cards') delirium by binning a land, adds two bodies to the board for anthem effects, and adds a whopping 6/7 in stats to the board for a mere three mana, provided you can trigger delirium consistently. I love to build around this one!
Sunscourge Champion is just an excellent tool for any archetype really. Obviously midrange and control decks love the life gain, but aggro decks can make great use of the card as well, because it turns excess land into a sizable threat once they dealt with the Champion the first time. It's also great for racing other aggro decks.
Then my favorite white 4 drop:
This card can fetch so many sweet cards nowadays. One of the best ways to add some card advantage to white.
And those are just some of the options available in white, once you expand to other colors the list becomes even sweeter!
Jup, Mentor is an easy pick, as much as nostalgia I have for Drover. I love to firstpick Mentor and go into either Wx Tokens or Wx Blink mostly, but the card's pretty flexible and good but fine in lower powered cube most of the time.
Archangel is the stronger 4-drop, I'm pretty sure. It is boltable and just a huge flier, but damn it kills people fast. Even on it's own, a 5/4 flier for 4 is threatening. The Monks need more effort to be great, clearly worse but I feel a little more interesting.
Archangel is the stronger 4-drop, I'm pretty sure. It is boltable and just a huge flier, but damn it kills people fast. Even on it's own, a 5/4 flier for 4 is threatening. The Monks need more effort to be great, clearly worse but I feel a little more interesting.
Bygone Bishop is very good, and definitely a good choice for this slot. Not having to pay up front is very strong, giving you the opportunity to continue utilizing all your mana, with the card advantage sitting and waiting for an opening.
Also a much better body on it's own.
Also a much better body on it's own.
Sublime Archangel was probably my group's favourite Magic card before I cut it after it being too strong, but she lasted for a long, long time in my list. Similar tears were shed over Angelic Destiny. They're really amazing cards that I find to be extremely pleasing both aesthetically and mechanically, but yes, they require a high-powered home to reign in properly.
I run the Archangel back when nearly half my red section was about burn. It rarely wasn't dealt with immediately. On the other hand, I do believe that now it could be too strong for my list, actually.
+ 1 for Bygone Bishop, I love that card and cannot believe that I really didn't suggest it when posting about the mentor.
I guess I have to test the Extricator yet another time, although I find it hard to trigger Delirium consistently in white decks. It always looked sweet, though.
+ 1 for Bygone Bishop, I love that card and cannot believe that I really didn't suggest it when posting about the mentor.
I guess I have to test the Extricator yet another time, although I find it hard to trigger Delirium consistently in white decks. It always looked sweet, though.
Thanks for all the input.
I basically was leaning away from the Archangel the way many of you have suggested. Great card, but so powerful. And I am really trying to narrow my powerband and remove faceroll-pick cards like the Archangel.
I was also leaning away from the drover and toward mentor.
However, mentor vs bishop is an interesting discussion. There are a few reason I originally wanted mentor over bishop.
1) The fact that it requires a "creature spell" when so much of my white section is based around token generation that would not proc Bishop's ability
2) While it does not cost right away, in the long run, you have to pay 2 to draw the card instead of just the 1
3) Mentor synergizes with cards like Alesha, Reviliark, Xathrid Necromancer, etc while Bishop does not
Perhaps it is worth including both since I do have an artifact theme going on in white which would make Bishop more interesting. But that section is already so crowded.
I basically was leaning away from the Archangel the way many of you have suggested. Great card, but so powerful. And I am really trying to narrow my powerband and remove faceroll-pick cards like the Archangel.
I was also leaning away from the drover and toward mentor.
However, mentor vs bishop is an interesting discussion. There are a few reason I originally wanted mentor over bishop.
1) The fact that it requires a "creature spell" when so much of my white section is based around token generation that would not proc Bishop's ability
2) While it does not cost right away, in the long run, you have to pay 2 to draw the card instead of just the 1
3) Mentor synergizes with cards like Alesha, Reviliark, Xathrid Necromancer, etc while Bishop does not
Perhaps it is worth including both since I do have an artifact theme going on in white which would make Bishop more interesting. But that section is already so crowded.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
You have to sculpt your format around it a bit. Make sure white has some artifact creatures it wants to pick up, and both instants and sorceries. If you also play fetchlands, you're already there
Counterpoints:
1) you should really put your list in your signature, b/c I can't really weigh in on this
2) it depends a lot on your format speed and power level but imho I'd rather pay more later to get a draw when my hand is thinning out/I have more mana than be forced into bad sequencing decisions to trip the Mentor's ability. There's also the value of an evasive body that has an extra point in toughness, as white doesn't often have many defensive 3-drops
3) Fair points but I would question whether Mentor synergizing with those cards is really necessary or valuable enough to tip the scale? Again, without seeing your list, it's hard to say, but it's very easy to get distracted by stacking up synergy and end up over-feeding one archetype at the expense of others, and Humans.dec is one such repeat offender on these forums imho
4) It's amazing to feed artifact synergies. If you're looking to run Marionette Master or Fangren Marauder, it's great.
I play both mentor and Bishop, play both!
Chris Taylor
Contributor
I just wanna weigh in on the other one, Jeskai bros takes more to make work than you'd think, but sublime Archangel kinda just 1 shots people. I had it described as "hero of Bladehold with haste"
Yeah, I ran Sublime Archangel a long time ago and cut it for being way too efficient and kind of boring. You just drop it and go to town with one guy the rest of the way. If they can't check it right then and there, you're gonna crush them if you've developed your board even a little bit. It does have absolutely stunning art though, I kept it in for much longer than I would have just because I liked looking at it so much.
Ojutai Exemplars never really worked for me, but my environment is also more powerful at a base level than the usual here. It does seem like the kind of card that would serve as a solid value body in most environments, especially if you have your spellslinger suite extend through Jeskai colors.
Ojutai Exemplars never really worked for me, but my environment is also more powerful at a base level than the usual here. It does seem like the kind of card that would serve as a solid value body in most environments, especially if you have your spellslinger suite extend through Jeskai colors.
Yes I am working on it. I am in the process of an overhaul and as soon as it is done I will add it to cubetutor and also create a thread in the "cube blog" section and add the cubetutor link to my signature.
These are all good points. It sounds like it is at least worth running both if not exclusively Bishop.
You should probably link now, or we can't get any context for helping you with the overhaul, which I seem to remember is the reason you are posting fights and whatnot. Obviously up to you, but having that info helps a ton with correctly analyzing the situation.
VS I really want more cute interactions in my cube, and I also want clean easy to digest text boxes. Which do I choose? Infiltrator seems more fun, and I already have some discard stuff and creatures-in-the-yard. Looter reads much better, and slots into more decks psychologically, since maybe you won't be as distracted by not planning on having discard friendly creatures or whatever?
Looter il-Kor is an easy pick for me. It's pretty perfect card imo. It's a nice dependable beater unlike infiltrator making it clutch for tempo decks, alongside equipment and in Simic with buffs like Druid's Familiar, Elephant Guide, etc.
I'd run Wharf over the Jeskai Elder in your list. Never been a fan even in peasant of that card.
Then put Edric, Spymaster of Trest in your Simic section.
I'd run Wharf over the Jeskai Elder in your list. Never been a fan even in peasant of that card.
Then put Edric, Spymaster of Trest in your Simic section.
Then put Edric, Spymaster of Trest in your Simic section.
Hardly a lower power card
cutting elder for infiltrator does sound good however.Ok I went ahead and uploaded what I had to cubetutor and added it to my signature. Keep in mind it is still in the draft stage (it is 568 cards now and I am in the process of cutting it down to 540). Would love feedback but please be gentle
I've been thinking of cutting Jace, Vryn's Prodigy soon as well; he's quite good I don't like his ult and his + ability is strong enough to get him there in a lower-powered list. I think Looter il-Kor, Enclave Cryptologist, and Merfolk Looter all make great swaps for him.
Thought Courier because he is a human and a wizard.
EDIT: Though I now realize most people probably support Merfolk over Wizards, so nvm.
I just think Thought Courier has dumb art and Merfolk Looter has good art and I try not to overload on humans anyway, but yeah, Merfolk is getting some decent incidental support these days
