General Evasion

[Mondschwein]

There are lots of ways of evasion and pseudo-evasion - which ones do you prefer and why?

Personally, I don't like creatures that generally can't be blocked, which is true for playable cards with horsemanship,and I don't like permanent protection (but cards like Shelter that grant protection temporarily). Intimidate/Fear actually is pretty interesting, but also pretty rare on interesting cards (somewhat contradictory, I know). Shadow is very uninteractive.

Deathtouch, First Strike and Trample are known as pseudo-evasion, depending on the board state.
Flying and Menace are true evasion (like Intimidate/Fear/Shadow/Horsemanship/can't be blocked), and by far are the ones that appear on the most of the more interesting cards. There are situations in which Menace is actually better than Flying, but most of the time, Flying is actually better.

How do you balance evasion in your cubes? Some time ago, I read some post of japahn I believe where he said that he cut some of the creatures of his blue section because there's too much evasion. Do any of you have similar experiences, or something else to say to that matter?

 

[Velrun]

Stuff I like:
Flying
Can't be blocked
Menace
Trample
First strike
Deathtouch

Because they treat all the same. No matter the villain. He is not forked just because he decided to be blue or decided to not draft the other shadow creature.

Stuff I dislike:
Protection from one or more colors except Progenitus because it has pro all.
Intimidate because it depends on villain colors.
Shadow
Horsemanship



Can't be blocked is uninteractive but that is the point. Like Hexproof/Shroud are uninteractive unlike hexproof from white that either is a non-keyword or hexproof. Same logic with the rest. Flying go into the Shadow/Horsemanship category unless you run plenty of flying/reach creatures. Although most people run more flying/reach than they run Shadow/Horsemanship.

 

[Erik Twice]

I really like unblockable when it's done right, as it provides a little puzzle. For example, I like that you can pull tricks with Looter Il-Kor but that it requires a bit of trickery or effort on your part.

In a sense, it's like Hexproof. I like when Hexproof provides a puzzle and I dislike when it's a dumb thing you can't deal with. In other words, I think the difference is:

 

[japahn]

My current state

https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/elegant?f=tag:evasion

White: 10/37 (27%) of creatures have evasion or make tokens with evasion
Blue: 15/30 (50%)
Black: 13/35 (37%)
Red: 4/38 (11%)
Green: 1/42 (2%)
Artifacts / Multicolor: 4/21 (19%)

Out of all cards that have, give, or make tokens with evasion:

• 1 shadow (Looter il-Kor)
• 1 non-haste (Gingerbrute)
• 4 menace
• 47 flying

Some mild history

I had to control the number of creatures with evasion is blue, because at a certain point at was at like 75%. I also had to control the number of cards that can't block, or are terrible at blocking (like Wake Thrasher).

Another thing I noticed is how green was losing to flying every time because it had few ways of dealing with fliers. I added reach and flying hosers for that, and it's hard to come by good ones!


Where I'm at

I don't like too much "can't be blocked" because of the lack of interaction. Same for "can't block." Shadow is basically "can't block, can't be blocked", but Looter il-Kor is so needed in madness that I let it slide.

Lots of flying by itself isn't too bad - creatures with flying can block other creatures with flying after all, so if the more your evasion relies on flying, the less evasive your creatures are! What has been a problem is the difference between colors. White, blue and black are pretty interactive with each other, and red has a bit of evasion and can burn down those damn birds. Green, though, needs some real weapons against fliers. And that's why I run the worst [citation needed] card of my cube:



And also:



About menace, I like it as a form of evasion that decks can actually overcome with some effort. It also make combat tricks better, as 2-for-1s are easier to create.