General Fight Club

From playing Citadel Siege, I can say that two +1/+1 counters is so so much more impactful than just getting one. It's like time walking a creature evolve style. The goblin is probably broken. It's a 5/5 on T3 with minimal effort and with synergistic cards, you aren't even losing anything. Goblin T1 into something that has an ETB effect T2 into Finks T3 is laughably good.
 

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
From playing Citadel Siege, I can say that two +1/+1 counters is so so much more impactful than just getting one. It's like time walking a creature evolve style. The goblin is probably broken. It's a 5/5 on T3 with minimal effort and with synergistic cards, you aren't even losing anything. Goblin T1 into something that has an ETB effect T2 into Finks T3 is laughably good.

T1 Goblin, T2 Mogg War Marshal (att for 3), T3 Might of Old Krosa, Berserk (att for 22)
 
Honestly. This card is amazing. I wish they'd actually print it.

But I think we've demonstrated with a few examples that this card is broken and can't be printed.
 



Which would you include if you could:
a) Pick only 1?
b) Pick 2 out of the 3?

a) Gerrard's Verdict; it's a lot of fun to cast, and feels like a "fair" Hymn to Tourach. A 2-mana discard 2 with upside in the event of them discarding junk is fantastic, and I've first-picked it and splashed for it before. It's quite nice.
b) Verdict + Tidehollow Sculler, especially if there are sac outlets so I can get rid of Sculler while the ETBT is on the stack to exile the card permanently if it really bothers me. Castigate looks outrageously situational; there are few times I want to exile something a lot more than simply discarding it, and I personally wouldn't ever pick or play it since 1-mana/1-card is about what I'm willing to accept as the going rate on discard.
 
Don't they fill separate roles though?

Yes, but I like the roles Coinsmith fills better (lifegain/drain, constellation, human, scales to multiplayer). They are both aggressive-ish WB bears, so they share that at least.

Re: the burn question, I'll rep Stoke the Flames all day cuz that card is amazing. I prefer Firecraft to Javelin, but neither are on my radar for inclusion.
 
I prefer Exquisite Firecraft above the rest, with Stoke the Flames being second. Uncounterability is a nice bonus for us, and it feels exceedingly "fair". Stoke improves if you're running a bunch of tokens, but I find it a bit dull after seeing it in standard forever. I may change my mind eventually but for now, meh. Javelin is junk.
 
Javelin was good before the other two were printed (and the alternative was, what, Lightning Blast?)... but yeah, fully outclassed now. Stoke is still the cooler / more interesting card compared to Firecraft, I think, and has the upside of not being $9 for a stupid sorcery speed burn spell.

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Sculler is by far my favorite of those Orzhov cards. Love any card that makes sequencing into an important game factor. Gerrard's Verdict is I guess OK but I'm far from excited by it, Castigate seems like an unplayable Distress variant, and Coinsmith's "roles" that Blacksmithy mentioned are are vastly irrelevant to what I look for in cube cards (though it was cool in Theros drafting and can certainly work well in very specific settings).
 
Raptor all day every day. I love the potential of it, and it works well with my green-focused +1/+1 theme.

I'm not big on Delver personally. It's a mixture of burnout carried over from my Pauper days and I like keeping my DFC to a minimum. Aside from that, it wants too much effort to be good most of the time, and I think it belongs in Constructed. Most decks here want at least 8 creatures, even control, with the usual being 14~16. I don't have the room for all the instants/sorceries Delver wants in most decks without relying on drafting all the Brainstorms. At that point, I'm paying 2 mana for a 3/2 T2 flier, that requires 2 cards in my opening hand to get. W h a t. I get the constructed hype for him, but in cube, I have better things in mind.

Bear bores me greatly. Blue-based aggro works fine without it. My blue section has virtually no aggressive 1-drops aside from Raptor and blue-based aggro-control is really awesome here (I'm actually trying to nerf it currently). The bear is unexciting and only a really cute deck is in the market for an efficient blue beater 1-drop. That aside, you'd really need multiples for it to really be worthwhile, anyway, meaning you'd need more of a bad thing. Passssspasspasspassss
 
Agree with everything in that post. Cloudfin has been extremely good in +1/+1 counters, winning games singlehandedly even. It gets out of control fast and that extra point of toughness it always has is relevant.
 

FlowerSunRain

Contributor
The best blue aggro cards (at least from where I sit) are Ordeal of Thassa, Force Spike, Daze, Mana Vortex and Distortion Strike. Phantasmal bear really has no place with those cards. Except maybe in mana vortex decks its fine as a generic 2/x, but the other colors have plenty of those already with cooler upsides. Nerfed Isamaru is not where I'm looking to be.

I like Cloudfin and Prowess Flying Man as my bread and butter aggressive blue 1 drops, two completely different approaches to the deck.

Delver is ok, but when he's reliable he's stupid good and when he isn't reliable he's frustrating so I can leave him no problem.
 
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