Card/Deck Single Card Spotlight
- Thread starter Dom Harvey
- Start date
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Thanks. I like tokens though, I got several fabricate creatures in my cube. Maybe I should take Purphoros out then.
Dom Harvey
Contributor
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
It's even eating...
!!!
Sol food
and the winner is Jesper Myrfors, by 1000 miles
Can this be okay? Does the potential for wacky shenanigans outweigh the OP bullshit it enables?
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
I haven't tried it, because it looks busted with stuff like Cruel Ultimatum, which definitely should not come with a 3/3 body in a monocolored deck. It completely breaks the game in half when you play any blink effects with a rider, because the spell can be cast repeatedly. Acrobatic Maneuver draws your deck, Displace/Ghostly Flicker gets you unlimited ETB triggers from another creature/permanent already on the battlefield under your control, Dimensional Breach lets you reset the board at will (ok, no one is playing that spell, but it's a pretty broken interaction
), Rescue from the Underworld lets you slowly reanimate your whole graveyard, Vanish into Memory lets you loot 3 cards every turn. And we haven't even touched upon the color pie issue here, because building a mono-blue Nekrataal, Flametongue Kavu, or Acidic Slime is relatively easy and not something I wanted for my cube.
Had this sitting on the bark burner for a while, but I voted for the Twisted Colour Pie Cube because of Mesmeric Orb, and I got to draft it in a couple of my drafts and had a great time. Here are two games where I got to play with the card.
I don't have any examples of where I lost with the card though, as these were the only games I ever drew it. Still a very fun card and one I wish people wouldn't dismiss as easily as any other generic card.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Oh man, that has to be such a frustrating way to lose. Spiral of doom indeed!
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Can this be okay? Does the potential for wacky shenanigans outweigh the OP bullshit it enables?
Look through your cube, find the most broken thing it could possibly be combined with, and assume it will be combined with that 100% of the time (players are maximization experts, and you should probably treat them as such).
sure, if it's a blue shriekmaw because you can have him cast doom blade, that's probably fine. But what idiot isn't going to look through the packs and see something even slightly more impressive? It's an absurdly above the curve creature when combined with something as paltry as tidings
Dom Harvey
Contributor
Arcane Savant is the strongest Cube creature ever, IMO
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
From over on the AER spoilers thread.
I wonder how good/obnoxious/exciting Kaya is. Repeatable blink is pretty strong. On the other hand, the creature you blink can't attack on your next turn, it's off blocking duty, and blinking something costs precious life. The card works great with the various Wrath effects in black and white, precisely because it is slow blink, which is a cool interaction. There's also no game-wrecking ultimate, just perpetual value. And she never grows past 5 loyalty, so she stays in attacking range. Oh, and the blinking also works on opponent's creatures? That's pretty neat!
Does anyone have any experience with her?
I wonder how good/obnoxious/exciting Kaya is. Repeatable blink is pretty strong. On the other hand, the creature you blink can't attack on your next turn, it's off blocking duty, and blinking something costs precious life. The card works great with the various Wrath effects in black and white, precisely because it is slow blink, which is a cool interaction. There's also no game-wrecking ultimate, just perpetual value. And she never grows past 5 loyalty, so she stays in attacking range. Oh, and the blinking also works on opponent's creatures? That's pretty neat!
Does anyone have any experience with her?
Chris Taylor
Contributor
She was okay, but never really escaped the trap of "slightly interesting generic multicolor card" for me.
She wasn't oppressive by any stretch, but my environment is rather creature heavy, so YMMV
She wasn't oppressive by any stretch, but my environment is rather creature heavy, so YMMV
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
I have a lot of room for slightly interesting multicolor cards though, there's 17 slots for each of the five supported guilds. Currently I'm running Sorin, Lord of Innistrad, which is good, but not really more interesting, I think? There's no (or almost no?) blink in my cube either at the moment, and a lot of anthem effects, so Kaya might change things up a bit.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Is this card secretly GRBS? This once started out as a cute pickup for the +1/+1 counters theme, but that theme has grown a lot recently, and I think it might actually be too good. After the Aether Revolt update you can, for example, go t1 Scales, t2 Vinelasher Kudzu, t3 Rishkar, Padeem Renegade, t4 Cytoplas Rootkin, t5 Ridgescale Tusker in my cube. That's t2 1/1, t3 5/5 and 4/4, t4 9/9, 7/7 and 5/5, t5 13/13, 9/9, 7/7 and 5/5. I don't think that's a line I want to have available in my cube, so I am probably going to cut Scales.
You need to look carefully at every single enchantment in cube as they cannot be removed by repeatedly attacking like planeswalkers, so it really could be that scales is too strong if you have a +1/+1 counters theme viable.
Personally, I find Rishkar to be GRBS, a t3 3/3 mana elf that pumps something else and gives everything with a counter on it (at least one other, as we know) the ability of being a mana dork, too. Way too strong, if you ask me.
Personally, I find Rishkar to be GRBS, a t3 3/3 mana elf that pumps something else and gives everything with a counter on it (at least one other, as we know) the ability of being a mana dork, too. Way too strong, if you ask me.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Rishkar was awesome in testing so far, not nearly as devastating as Hardened Scales has been. It's good, but there's plenty of good in other colors as well!
Depends on your cubes power level. I saw some pretty degenerate things while running Hardened Scales. But it's also a really awesome signal for the +1/+1 deck, something I think helps make drafting more focused (and move you away from goodstuff.dec). Scales is bad if you draw it late. It does nothing. So you really need it in your opening hand or on your first couple draws, otherwise it's doing very little for you.
Question you have to ask is whether you like higher variability cards like this? There are pros and cons in much the same way powered cube works. You can build a semi-clunky deck that will win if it gets card X and Y. To some extent, that is going to be fun for people. The not-so-great drafter/player can still steal some games by getting Hardened Scales in his/her opener. The more you remove cards like that the more fair the game gets and the harder your weaker decks will generally perform on average. Bad drafter/player may not win very many games without some bombs to ride to victory.
This is all super group dependent I feel.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
This is such a lovely spell when your opponent Dragonlord Silumgar-ed away your artifact creature ^_^