Sets AEther Revolt Spoilers
- Thread starter Chris Taylor
- Start date
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
<3 
Have people already made the posts where they include card images of all the cards they are adding to their cubes from this set?
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Ok, buckle up! These are the Aether Revolt cards that'll be in my 450 this Sunday (provided the mail arrives in time...)
Yep, 43 cards. I'm loving this set!
Yep, 43 cards. I'm loving this set!
I'm pretty strongly opposed to this because IMO they are totally different cards. Trike is only good with things like Welder/blink. It's all about the ETB trigger. Walking Ballista is an expensive mana sink that decks which struggle to find removal might want or decks that will generate stupid amounts of mana might want to abuse. Rofellos + Ballista sounds like a green deck with some abusive potential. Trike in that deck is sort of lame though, just like ballista in the welder/blink styles decks is completely rubbish.
imho Walking Ballista vs Triskelion comes down to the fact that they function very differently but look very similar, so players are going to be evaluating them against each other; given that, I much prefer the Baller, because it has so much more going for it. Players who would rarely, if ever, add Triskelion to their final 40 will be jamming Walker Texas Ranger much more often. It's just too flexible to pass up.
I mean, sure, you can get good damage out of a Trike if you're doing some real shenanigans, but the same is true of Perilous Myr, who is much more desirable in a wider range of decks, and has way more points of intersection as far as archetypes go. Consider also that Goblin Welder needs little help to do some crazy things, and that blink decks have a smorgasbord of ETB triggers to abuse in most cubes... I just don't think Trike is worth the slot anymore, unless you're nostalgic for the combos (which is a perfectly valid reason to keep it around).
I mean, sure, you can get good damage out of a Trike if you're doing some real shenanigans, but the same is true of Perilous Myr, who is much more desirable in a wider range of decks, and has way more points of intersection as far as archetypes go. Consider also that Goblin Welder needs little help to do some crazy things, and that blink decks have a smorgasbord of ETB triggers to abuse in most cubes... I just don't think Trike is worth the slot anymore, unless you're nostalgic for the combos (which is a perfectly valid reason to keep it around).
I guess my main point was if your cube isn't down with Trike, Ballista isn't the reason you should be cutting it. That should have happened already.
A list with either, both or neither is fine. Even making the swap is OK as long as you understand you aren't swapping like pieces. It's dropping a combo piece for a flexible general use card.
A list with either, both or neither is fine. Even making the swap is OK as long as you understand you aren't swapping like pieces. It's dropping a combo piece for a flexible general use card.
This was my initial reaction when I first saw the card, but after playing with it and seeing it in action, I think it's just fine in a more powerful cube. The faster your mana, the more impressive a threat you can employ. A 3/3 means a virtual 6 damage with a clear attack and removing the counters afterwards. The worst case scenario is playing it as a 1/1 on T2 but from that point onwards your opponent needs to think about the 1 toughness creatures they'll be employing in the short term.
I think it's reasonably easy to deploy it for 2 or 4 mana in the earlier game when both sides are developing. It puts your opponent into a tricky situation with blocks where you can begin trading up with bigger blockers and clearing the way. Now they need to think twice about blocking a 3/2 attacker with that Courser of Kruphix if there's a chance to lose it from a ping. That's a powerful effect to have without having to use up a whole card in most scenarios (assuming Ballista is on 2 counters). With any open mana you can just reload and create a bigger threat that can actually punch through blockers and with more pings to shoot out later.
It goes absolutely insane with any +1/+1 counters theme or even just solid cards that synergize with it like:
It actually made me revisit UB Tezz as an archetype and look again at these cards in particular:
I like the idea of being able to tutor up a scaleable finisher with the Mage and being able to recur a pinger off a semi-evasive attacker is very appealing.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Walker is also an awesome target for
And
FWIW, Ballista is getting rave reviews at MTGS and by our (my) favorite cube blog post guy.
http://mtgcube.blogspot.com/2017/01/winners-and-losers-from-aether-revolt.html
If I get back to my midrange list, I'm definitely going to try it. I was very skeptical at first, but it's hard to ignore this many people saying it's good.
http://mtgcube.blogspot.com/2017/01/winners-and-losers-from-aether-revolt.html
If I get back to my midrange list, I'm definitely going to try it. I was very skeptical at first, but it's hard to ignore this many people saying it's good.
I like that it gives UG a solid removal tool. Use the G ramp hAlf to power it, and get a perfect answer to small problematic dorks like Thalia, that U and G removal don't efficiently bring to the table.
Great for my format in general where I'm trying to make G more controlling. This is a great tool there too. Very happy to swap Ballista in.
Great for my format in general where I'm trying to make G more controlling. This is a great tool there too. Very happy to swap Ballista in.
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
Its an amazing mana sink. It fills the same role that cards like endless one fill, while actually contributing to an environment, rather than being boring vanilla curve fillers.
Great card in general, and really great for cube, where gaps in the mana curve is more of an issue.
Great card in general, and really great for cube, where gaps in the mana curve is more of an issue.
Chris Taylor
Contributor
That's probably better kept to your individual cube thread I'd wager. Given how different cubes like mine and say...grillo's* can be the specific swaps are hard to contextualize with all the different factors at play.
I listened to the 3rd power podcast about aether revolt and they mentioned that solemn recruit was cool, but probably not going to unseat mirran crusader. Off the top of my head, here's a handful of different answers surrounding those two cards:
- Protection is uninteractive, so I'm cutting mirran crusader
- Pro green is actually a downside, since pump spells help aggro keep up with combo, so I'm swapping the two
- I like that solemn recruit places more value on fetchlands, and I love the idea of a turn 3 3/3 double strike.
- Double strike tends to lead to really bursty, out of nowhere losses when combined with pump spells or equipment, so I don't run either.
- +1/+1 counters is a tribal deck in my cube, so I'm making the swap to better support cards like volt charge and Abzan Falconer
- I don't run rares, so I don't run either
- White aggro never performed, so I cut all the cheap creatures to make room for more control and combo cards. Why would I need this thing?
- This card is SO MUCH WORSE THAN BRIMAZ GUYZ
Sideways: Explaining each swap would be insane, and trying to guess at what motivates the swaps is probably an excercise in projection. I find a it's a lot more important why something is worth considering rather than specific nuts and bolts changes.
*I'm mostly mentioning you by name because damnit man I respect you but it's so frustrating that your deep understanding of limited dynamics and cube design is all dust in the wind do me because of how different our enviornments are! I was so excited when you started the riptide midrange cube, but about 4 posts in you decided "Whelp this is boring better lower the power level a bit" and now your theory about sifting over cantripping and the difference between careful consideration's impact on a format and brainstorm's impact on a format is really cool, and super interesting, and really well thought out and.. and just...not...what I'm trying to do
I wish I could benefit more from your teachings on what makes
Hopefully this little love letter doesn't come across as insulting I'd say the same goes for cards we put into our cubes.
It's one thing to lay out why a card might be good or worth including in your format; it's quite another to specifically explain why you're making the swaps you're making. Especially during spoiler season and discussions around cards from the most recent sets, many of us aren't 100% sure where a card (or if a card) would fit into our format, only that it appears to be worth considering (or appears to be not worth considering).
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
*I'm mostly mentioning you by name because damnit man I respect you but it's so frustrating that your deep understanding of limited dynamics and cube design is all dust in the wind do me because of how different our enviornments are! I was so excited when you started the riptide midrange cube, but about 4 posts in you decided "Whelp this is boring better lower the power level a bit" and now your theory about sifting over cantripping and the difference between careful consideration's impact on a format and brainstorm's impact on a format is really cool, and super interesting, and really well thought out and.. and just...not...what I'm trying to do
I wish I could benefit more from your teachings on what makesmagicpauper so great, but not enough that I'm willing to try and unlearn the last 10 years of lessons I've learned about what I love about cube
No offense taken.
If you want magic to play more like a competitive e-sport, its going to be run closer to pauper (sad to say). Competitive play has to take into account the high levels of coordination and skill that comes with competition, toning down raw card power, and reducing certain factors that introduce levels of play variance that start to supersede player skill. Pauper isn't particularly well designed, but its (horrifying to say) closer to the mark than any other format, as a static example.
The core magic experience, however, is designed to be more casual, aimed at providing a balanced but varied experience that we all know and love, whether we are playing standard, EDH, modern, legacy, or vintage. Cube is very much a casual format, aimed at providing a core experience--which is fine.
The main problem with MTG--and certainly with the pro tour--is that its designed to sell cards, not to sell competition as entertainment, in the same way that a real e-sport does (or MMA or any other competitive outlet for that matter).
There's some controversy for everyone to unpack.