Sets (AFR) Adventures in the Forgotten Realms Previews- Dripping with Flavor, and Excess Words!
- Thread starter TrainmasterGT
- Start date
Wow this is exactly what I’m looking for! I was just thinking “It would be cool if there was a variant that was good with landfall.” and then you comment.
That thing is a fair control magic. And it's still better than it reads in a fair environment. At my cube's power level, this thing is something every blue deck wants, which is a sweet baseline for a landfall enabler.
we need more cubes with stasis
Stasis can go into the Upheaval Cube, as a treat.
In all seriousness, I feel like bouncing lands for re-use is a thing that more environments need to have as a thing. Even outside of landfall or utility lands, Vapor Snare lets you effectively cast a one-drop instant for free on your upkeep (tap the land in response, bounce it, and replay it). Sure, that isn't the most dramatic free spell ever, but it's still a free bolt or cantrip.
In all seriousness, I feel like bouncing lands for re-use is a thing that more environments need to have as a thing. Even outside of landfall or utility lands, Vapor Snare lets you effectively cast a one-drop instant for free on your upkeep (tap the land in response, bounce it, and replay it). Sure, that isn't the most dramatic free spell ever, but it's still a free bolt or cantrip.
It is only a good play if you happen to have no other land to play. I am not convinced this is good outside Stasis or landfall.
everyone always dumps on Deprive-ing your own Mystic Sanctuary but….
That's a good play indeed!
The "when you have no other lands to play" was implicit, because I thought that was pretty obvious. I apologize for not being clearer.
This kind of interaction got Mystic Sanctuary banned from Modern, so I don't think everyone was dumping on it...
(I personally prefer Familiar's Ruse + Eternal Witness - it costs more mana, but it doesn't put as much pressure on your mana base, doesn't block you from drawing new cards, and works cleanly with any creatures you have with solid ETBs.)
Well, it's a great one in it's own format
Did any of you try this? It seems to hit a lot of themes for me in what it provides
I was digging around Cube Cobra this morning and was interested to see what cube owners have actually been putting into their cubes, as opposed to what we see on discussion boards like this and others. Now, Cube Cobra isn't necessarily representative of the whole cubing community, nor is it a perfect or bug-free tool, but I've got some findings to share that I think are compelling about the set's reaction so far. If you'd like to follow along, here's the query I used.
The most popular new cards from the set among all cubes are:
No surprises here, Portable Hole and Power Word Kill have been oft-cited here and elsewhere as the only "cube-worthy" cards from the set in small to medium-sized cubes, even if I am to quibble with that narrow interpretation of what "Cube" is or the quality of other cards from the set. Not much to say about these two that hasn't been said already -- the Hole is great, flexible removal and Power Word Kill is, by the math, the most broad-hitting Doom Blade variant we've gotten. Prosperous Inkeeper is equally obvious for inclusion in Peasant and low-powered cubes, providing the ramp + block capabilities not too dissimilar from a Sakura-Tribe Elder with a Soul Warden ability. I've been impressed with it in AFR draft, and I'm certainly not the only one from the discourse online (or its prevelance in my opponents' decks). I am, however, surprised that at present, Vintage cubes are more likely to take this prosperous badboy up than Peasant lists (1.6% vs. 0.9%) -- it's a reasonable roleplayer but I would have expected the need to be much greater for this kind of effect in rarity-restricted cubes than in power-restricted ones.
The first three rares and mythics on the list was a bit more surprising than the uncommons that top AFR's Cube List prevelance:
None of these three got much love during spoiler season, and for good reason -- Icingdeath is not entirely unreasonable as a four-power flyer at the 4 CMC slot, but the equipment upon death is not enough solace to overcome the three toughness, and the Frost Tyrant does not have the same explosive swinging potential of the similarly-costed and statted Gisela, the Broken Blade or the 4th toughness and flexibility of Halvar, God of Battle who can come in as either the dude or the equipment as needed. The full-art version is neat though, and the artwork on the standard edition will win the hearts of fans of dragons as well.
Demilich is a card I've read up on plenty but not played, but cannot fathom including even after its success in Modern. I've sadly had to reject the triple-pip cards from my cube wherever I can, even crowd-pleasers like Very Cryptic Command, simply because they get stuck in drafters' hands during pivotal games or picked 15th more often than otherwise. Demilich is, in its reasonable best-case in most cubes, going to require at least triple blue to cast, ignoring the remaining demands of casting it from the graveyard. Super cool card, this is the kind of innovation I love to see from WotC, but I don't think it's feasible in the supermajority of cubes that value real games of Magic getting played.
Guardian of Faith is fine I guess, but it's not terribly interesting and the power level is slightly below the typical Riptide Lab list I've seen. There's an abundance of popular cube cards that care about / want you to blink them, and while the utility here is real, this feels like a nonbo to me. That said, it's the only one of the rares here that made it onto wtwlf's Top 20 cards of the set for his ritual set (p)review, so it's a little less out of left field than the other two, which are also both more expensive than very playable cards I was surprised to not see top the list at this point.
All of this can and will change, but to see these results at the earliest point of the cards being released tells you something about early adopters int cube community. The next three rares and mythics, by the way, are Gelatinous Cube, Orcus, Prince of Undeath, and Old Gnawbone, the first of which is one of my favorite cards in the set joining my list as soon as the US Postal Service allows, and the other two making sense for an abundance of different cube types...even if I can only really see Old Gnawbone being a satisfying card in an EDH or multiplayer-focused context.
My own cube picks, which are discussed here in the other AFR thread, are all outside of the top 25 most-played cards from AFR, with the previously-mentioned exception of Gelatinous Cube. Even Tiamat has slotted into more Cubes so far than my MVP of the set, Ebondeath, Dracolich! Ellywick Tumblestrum has sung her way into more hearts than Den of the Bugbear or Ranger Class. And, most surprisingly, Priest of Ancient Lore has only been picked up by 91 cubers on Cube Cobra, and is the sixth most popular white common or uncommon in the set as of writing.
This is all to say that, not surprisingly, the biggest cards from this set are focused on Pauper and Peasant cubes, which both earned a great amount of new cards to play with that have both interesting play patterns and competitive power level for those contexts. It's also a great example of how uninteresting the set is to the typical cuber, who, by my observations, was slotting in Modern Horizon 2 cards days before the first pre-release packs were even shipped to LGSes, and that set didn't have two weeks of pre-play on Magic Arena before pre-release to force cube curators to come to terms with their theorycrafting during the heat of spoiler season. It seems like, more often than for the last year of expansions, there's a lot of cubers who are taking this set off, or waiting until the dust is entirely settled to begin updating their lists. Prices are already quite low on this set for most cards, I don't think folks are waiting too much for that reason.
Either hypothesis speaks to a significant disinterest in Forgotten Realms that makes the typical summer core set seem like a happy but hazy memory that's now unobtainable. As someone who is entirely disinterested in D&D as a thing and the world of Forgotten Realms as an aesthetic, I thought this set was fine if a little less compelling than M19-M21 (and certainly each standard set in between), but totally fine. If I ran fewer than 720 cards, would very many AFR cards make it into my cube? Probably not more than a handful, but I guess I'm a little sad to see the cube community have such a widespread disinterest in the latest expansion overall, if only because it cut short MH2-fueled discussion and a general fervor in the cubing world I had missed.
Anyways, I've gone on plenty long -- thanks for reading, and let me know if any of you see anything interesting happening in the Cube Cobra rankings in these next few weeks.
The most popular new cards from the set among all cubes are:
No surprises here, Portable Hole and Power Word Kill have been oft-cited here and elsewhere as the only "cube-worthy" cards from the set in small to medium-sized cubes, even if I am to quibble with that narrow interpretation of what "Cube" is or the quality of other cards from the set. Not much to say about these two that hasn't been said already -- the Hole is great, flexible removal and Power Word Kill is, by the math, the most broad-hitting Doom Blade variant we've gotten. Prosperous Inkeeper is equally obvious for inclusion in Peasant and low-powered cubes, providing the ramp + block capabilities not too dissimilar from a Sakura-Tribe Elder with a Soul Warden ability. I've been impressed with it in AFR draft, and I'm certainly not the only one from the discourse online (or its prevelance in my opponents' decks). I am, however, surprised that at present, Vintage cubes are more likely to take this prosperous badboy up than Peasant lists (1.6% vs. 0.9%) -- it's a reasonable roleplayer but I would have expected the need to be much greater for this kind of effect in rarity-restricted cubes than in power-restricted ones.
The first three rares and mythics on the list was a bit more surprising than the uncommons that top AFR's Cube List prevelance:
None of these three got much love during spoiler season, and for good reason -- Icingdeath is not entirely unreasonable as a four-power flyer at the 4 CMC slot, but the equipment upon death is not enough solace to overcome the three toughness, and the Frost Tyrant does not have the same explosive swinging potential of the similarly-costed and statted Gisela, the Broken Blade or the 4th toughness and flexibility of Halvar, God of Battle who can come in as either the dude or the equipment as needed. The full-art version is neat though, and the artwork on the standard edition will win the hearts of fans of dragons as well.
Demilich is a card I've read up on plenty but not played, but cannot fathom including even after its success in Modern. I've sadly had to reject the triple-pip cards from my cube wherever I can, even crowd-pleasers like Very Cryptic Command, simply because they get stuck in drafters' hands during pivotal games or picked 15th more often than otherwise. Demilich is, in its reasonable best-case in most cubes, going to require at least triple blue to cast, ignoring the remaining demands of casting it from the graveyard. Super cool card, this is the kind of innovation I love to see from WotC, but I don't think it's feasible in the supermajority of cubes that value real games of Magic getting played.
Guardian of Faith is fine I guess, but it's not terribly interesting and the power level is slightly below the typical Riptide Lab list I've seen. There's an abundance of popular cube cards that care about / want you to blink them, and while the utility here is real, this feels like a nonbo to me. That said, it's the only one of the rares here that made it onto wtwlf's Top 20 cards of the set for his ritual set (p)review, so it's a little less out of left field than the other two, which are also both more expensive than very playable cards I was surprised to not see top the list at this point.
All of this can and will change, but to see these results at the earliest point of the cards being released tells you something about early adopters int cube community. The next three rares and mythics, by the way, are Gelatinous Cube, Orcus, Prince of Undeath, and Old Gnawbone, the first of which is one of my favorite cards in the set joining my list as soon as the US Postal Service allows, and the other two making sense for an abundance of different cube types...even if I can only really see Old Gnawbone being a satisfying card in an EDH or multiplayer-focused context.
My own cube picks, which are discussed here in the other AFR thread, are all outside of the top 25 most-played cards from AFR, with the previously-mentioned exception of Gelatinous Cube. Even Tiamat has slotted into more Cubes so far than my MVP of the set, Ebondeath, Dracolich! Ellywick Tumblestrum has sung her way into more hearts than Den of the Bugbear or Ranger Class. And, most surprisingly, Priest of Ancient Lore has only been picked up by 91 cubers on Cube Cobra, and is the sixth most popular white common or uncommon in the set as of writing.
This is all to say that, not surprisingly, the biggest cards from this set are focused on Pauper and Peasant cubes, which both earned a great amount of new cards to play with that have both interesting play patterns and competitive power level for those contexts. It's also a great example of how uninteresting the set is to the typical cuber, who, by my observations, was slotting in Modern Horizon 2 cards days before the first pre-release packs were even shipped to LGSes, and that set didn't have two weeks of pre-play on Magic Arena before pre-release to force cube curators to come to terms with their theorycrafting during the heat of spoiler season. It seems like, more often than for the last year of expansions, there's a lot of cubers who are taking this set off, or waiting until the dust is entirely settled to begin updating their lists. Prices are already quite low on this set for most cards, I don't think folks are waiting too much for that reason.
Either hypothesis speaks to a significant disinterest in Forgotten Realms that makes the typical summer core set seem like a happy but hazy memory that's now unobtainable. As someone who is entirely disinterested in D&D as a thing and the world of Forgotten Realms as an aesthetic, I thought this set was fine if a little less compelling than M19-M21 (and certainly each standard set in between), but totally fine. If I ran fewer than 720 cards, would very many AFR cards make it into my cube? Probably not more than a handful, but I guess I'm a little sad to see the cube community have such a widespread disinterest in the latest expansion overall, if only because it cut short MH2-fueled discussion and a general fervor in the cubing world I had missed.
Anyways, I've gone on plenty long -- thanks for reading, and let me know if any of you see anything interesting happening in the Cube Cobra rankings in these next few weeks.