Card/Deck Low Power Card Spotlight

Mondschwein

Mondschwein



I wanted to ask you again what you think about some of the beloved Spellshapers, particularly Stronghold Machinist, as Madness, Reanimator and cards like Drake Haven do profit from their use as discard outlets, when something came to my mind: there was that one sweet little card in ORI that I so badly wanted to be a good card in control decks - but it was too slow.

What do you think? Maybe in a slightly lower powered environment where spells matter is a thing? Or is it too slow and too weak for five mana, as it actually needs some kind of setup to be relevant?

And because I already mentioned them (and this is the right thread I guess):


Overtaker might be too strong together with sac outlets, Undertaker is a fairer Tortured Existence and the Avenger seems to be not powerful enough as its ability is very reactive, but it might stall games and draw removal on it. The Machinist actually looks very cool and controllish, but might also be too slow as it is too reactive and doesn't do very much if you're behind on board. EDIT: I forgot to mention one more: Waterfront Bouncer seems to be the best spellshaper as it is able to repeatedly 'tempo' swing the game for a reasonable cost if it remains unhandled.

What are your thoughts? Low Power seems to be one of the more relevant terms for riptide cubes atm, so I want that discussion to glow up again. :)
 
S

Salmo2

I think asking a 1/1 to live a turn in that spot as a must-kill creature is asking a lot. Maybe there are benefits to getting the 1/1 for 2U bolted vs something else, and vs some decks this is tough when you untap. I kinda wish it countered anything, cause there are a number of decks in any formats that will just play creatures that have to be dealt with, and when you're spending mana to deal with them you no longer have the counter.

Waterfront Bouncer is a legit card though. It's much more an enabler of madness and drake haven and etc., and it can be both proactive and reactive whereas the value of the Machinist directly correlates with what your opponent is doing. Even if they're not playing creatures in some control deck or just playing draw-go, Bouncer can be used to protect your own board or take advantage of ETB triggers, and it also costs less so it's easier to cast madness cards off it or get drakes.

FWIW none of your picture links are working for me, might be for others but I can't see any of them.
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
I would say none of the formats here are low power enough for most of those cards, except maybe laz's gy cube. The mana expendenture is too much. Though, like salmo said, bouncer is a real card.

I run drake haven in a slowe low power format, which you can check out in the sig link. There are a lot of good blue discard outlets that are very strong. Haven just needs to have your turn 5-6 plays not be grossly out performing value sifting to make a couple 2/2 flyers, and to be able to take a turn off to make a 3 mana tempo hemorrage play. Format structure is way more important to that card than the specific enablers.
 
S

Salmo2

I played undertaker in my pauper cube and it was great there, but pauper is a grind fest where re-buying your value creatures is a winning strategy so I don't know how well that would translate to another format. I like it more than the white and uncommon blue ones you show, and most likely more than the rare blue one since the activation cost is pretty reasonable vs 3U which is kinda a lot. Undertaker dies to pretty much everything, but there are also a lot of great synergies you can grind with that are worth abusing when you can untap with him.

I think the big thing to take away from this is, if you're going to play any of those, you want to play the ones that are also proactive. The white and UU ones are too easy to play around, and when you leave mana open turn after turn so you can 'get' them with those cards, you're probably in a losing spot more often than not. I can just not do the things you want me to do when you have those cards, try to play around them, and if that's successful then they aren't that great and that sucks.

----

As an aside: black is actually probably the best pauper color because of the grind, they have so much recursion at common that they can just grind all day. The black player would often always be one of the best decks because of this, and it wasn't rare to see multiple B/X decks that played out of the GY. It didn't warp the format, like it's not unbeatable, but it was definitely one of the decks you wanted to be in. EDIT: Also Pestilence and Evincar's Justice are insane Pauper cards due to the fact that there are no good board wipes at common.
 
Fulcrum

Fulcrum

I saw this card on the Cube Subreddit in a post about merfolk tribal and it feels like a little gem. The body is anemic but it seemingly plays well with vehicles, removes blockers, messes with with your opponent's bouncelands, abuses etb effects, resets ninjas, and allows you to reuse scrylands.

 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Oh wow. That Lorwyn mechanic is worth checking out again now that vehicles are a thing! It was a merfolk thing. There's also the untap symbol which might be worth checking out in conjunction with vehicles.



Soooo... I checked, but there's not much there. The untap cr atresia are mostly really bad :/
 
Dom Harvey

Dom Harvey

Contributor
during my brief 1v1 EDH griefer phase Surgespanner was great in Azami

nice with Chief Engineer/Grand Architect too
 
ahadabans

ahadabans

Hexproof + regenerate is an extremely powerful combination. Troll Ascetic is a bit small by today's standards, so higher powered cubes you could run it and wind up unhappy with the power level. Lower powered though, this can be oppressive. Particularly if you have a strong equip/aura/pump theme to abuse the troll. Basically, you'll have to test it and see because this card is very much a YMMV type of card.
 
Rasmus Källqvist

Rasmus Källqvist

Thanks, that was sort of my hunch. Played it against my brother who had a weenie deck, and he got pretty tilted about the fact that it had both regenerate and hexproof. I'll give that slot to something more fun, then!
 
ravnic

ravnic

Super awesome that we have such a thread here for lower powered cubes!

Let's talk about this one today:



Any experience with this card? Good or bad?
If not, why aren't you running it?
What anthem effects do you play?
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
It's not "win more", but the "I'm losing" side is so below the curve, and the "winning" side is just kinda... Par....

Not the biggest fan
 
Rasmus Källqvist

Rasmus Källqvist

I feel like this is one of those kind of effects that should act as the glue that holds together an aggressive deck with many bodies (mostly tokens?), so making it an effect that doesn't function when your behind seems not great. Think I remember Jason talking about running it in tandem with some life gain cards, though, so maybe it has a home there.
 
ravnic

ravnic

I decided to test this a few month ago, because we wanted another anthem for white aggro and tokens. And it really surprised the group, how often this was a better Glorious Anthem. In aggro, when you cast this (usually turn 3-5) it is unlikely that you have taken mir damage than you have creatures to attack with on board, so the pump goes online immediatly in most cases. In tokens, it is a little more swingy, but it can gain you a lot of life when you're on par and turn the game in your favorite, especially with some evasive dudes. When you're really behind it is bad, yes, and it is useless without a board presence like every anthem.

Still, I learned that Path of Barvery can be really strong in a cube with a peasant-like power level. I can only recommend testing this one, you might be surprised.
 
ravnic

ravnic

Let's talk about:



Do or did you cube with this? How did it perform?

BONUS QUESTION:
What was your luckiest top deck moment ever?
 
RavebornMuse

RavebornMuse

I ran Dakra Mystic for a while - she was interesting, and I wouldn't fault you for wanting to play around with her. She can help graveyard decks a bit and also deny your opponent things that might give you trouble from time to time, but I ultimately cut her for being a bit low-impact and not really what my decks wanted to be about. She's real cute with Codex Shredder and Mindshrieker as a micro-mill package that can mess with people's draws.
 
ravnic

ravnic

Thanks guys. I guess I will give her a try, could help the dredge decks. But if I find another spell I want I might add that instead and leave blue with two 1-drops.
 
ahadabans

ahadabans

I think Dakra Mystic is pretty neat. I don't have extensive play time with it but the effect was very good in certain situations.

The cost for the ability hurts this card and I found you usually wanted to draw versus toss something in the yard (outside a dedicated shell). And if your deck is doing that, you have a tempo problem using this often and/or early because you are basically tapping an island each turn for a howling mine. Not generally where you want to be if your opponents deck isn't limp.

Late game though, this has a lot of potential because 1 mana means little and you can craft this card to do very powerful thing when hands are empty and top decks get more important. And clearly in a dedicated deck where you want stuff in the yard, this is even better.

So yeah, I would try it. Design is very sweet and it's highly skill intensive.
 
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