General Fight Club

[RavebornMuse]

I think the free trigger is actually better than extort, since it doesn't force you to play off curve to get the benefit. Evasion is also good, Tithe Drinker has a hard time connecting.

These are fair points, but I'm thinking more of the format as a whole. White and black are often stacked with excellent 3s; I'm not sure how low-power you'd have to go for Drana's Emissary to be anything more than an on-the-wheel pick. Tithe Drinker is similarly mediocre, but lifelink on a chump blocker/extort engine is very nice in the 2-drop spot imo, and though it will often be an always-wheeling, end of pack pick for the player, it's far more likely to make the final cut of a draft deck simply because the drafter likely has more room for solid 2-drops (having typically picked a glut of flashy 3-drops). In other words: you'll take either on the wheel, but, assuming you're , I'd be surprised if the 3-drop can find room even half of the time, whereas I'd expect the Tithe Drinker to find room 75% of the time or more. Neither of these cards are strong enough to splash for, so I'm moreso considering what the deck might want, rather than which is objectively easier to get value out of in general (a calculation that will nearly always push the curve up if you're not keeping its containment in mind).

 

[kevthewalker]

What about this little number:
VS.

The environment is heavy on discard.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Can I just say neither

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

In my experience, if your format revolves around spell creatures, neither of those cards will be mana efficient enough to compete. Spending a turn to resolve something that doesn't generate a compensating spell, and than which dies or is bounced to a 0-3 mana removal spell is really bad, especially when they can follow it up with a spell creature of their own.

If I saw these in the pack I would actively pass them to my opponent, hoping they would play them.

 

[ahadabans]

Moltentail is better in aggressive decks (where you have dudes in the yard to trigger the first ability). OG Masticore is better in midrange/control decks with a lot of mana at your disposal.

Both cards really require some synergy to make a deck list, but if you have that they are solid cards IMO. I've played both extensively in my midrange list over the years. Green decks in particular I think benefit a lot from running them since these are colorless removal and solid mana sinks for ramp decks. I will happily play either in a Rofellos deck. Regeneration is relevant too. I've seen them in wildfire decks for that reason (OG more than Moltentail - you need creatures for Moltentail to be good).

 

[sigh]

Think the crown for colorless removal/pinge creature has been claimed by

 

[Salmo2]

Molten-tail plays a lot better than it looks--hitting for 1/5 of their life total for 4 mana is pretty strong, and it can fuel itself, and as ahada says it's decent reach for green--but it's been pretty much relegated to end-of-packs and sideboards. 'neither' is probably the correct choice

 

[ahadabans]

Masticore costs 2 per ping whereas Ballista costs 4 and sacrifices power in the process (and has no regeneration clause to protect itself). If you have synergy with the yard (or something like Squee in hand), Masticore offers more board control for less with greater resilience and is the better card IMO.

 

[Salmo2]

Masticore costs 2 per ping whereas Ballista costs 4 and sacrifices power in the process (and has no regeneration clause to protect itself). If you have synergy with the yard (or something like Squee in hand), Masticore offers more board control for less with greater resilience and is the better card IMO.

You're glossing over some key components. When I pay that 2 or 4 or 6 or etc, Im not locked-in to needing that ping. Masticore is a card that forces you to have open mana to get any real value, whereas Ballista lets you use that mana when you can and rewards you when you're ready to be rewarded. There is of course the GY synergy which is something, and if you're facing a bunch of X/1s then masticore might seem like the better card, but there's a reason Walking Ballista is a staple and almost no lists run masticore. Masticore was questionable half a decade ago and time has not be the nicest to its standing.

 

[ahadabans]

Whatever people may think of wtwlf123, his cube is still running OG Masticore and he's definitely a pure power maxer. So I think you are underestimating how good the card actually is.

I'm not saying Ballista isn't good though. Or that it doesn't have advantages to Masticore. Clearly it is and does (can ping opponent directly for one).

 

[Salmo2]

Whatever people may think of wtwlf123, his cube is still running OG Masticore and he's definitely a pure power maxer. So I think you are underestimating how good the card actually is.

I'm not saying Ballista isn't good though. Or that it doesn't have advantages to Masticore. Clearly it is and does (can ping opponent directly for one).

Even as someone who highly respects his opinions, I don't always agree with him, which is fine and the way it should be as cube opinions should never overlap 100%.

It's important to understand his meta with that choice. He not only supports aggro in pretty much every avenue he can, but has *multiple* drafters wanting to draft aggressive decks. When your table always has a need for a creature that is tough to remove and can deal with swarm and aggressive starts, then Masticore gains a lot of merit. A red aggressive deck will have a hard time dealing with a Masticore, and when the Masticore player untaps it's going to wreck house.

And that being said, I see--and have seen--a lot of flaws regarding Masticore in those spots too. There are awkward positions where you can't afford to kill two or one creatures for 2-4 mana, or that you want to do other stuff, or that you have X/2+s that make your Masticore look silly. I have definitely seen Masticore control tables, but I've also seen it been the silly-billy you don't want to resolve for 4 mana.

At my usual table we have maybe 1 drafter out of 2-4 players going for aggro. When I play my cube or other cubes on xmage we have very few drafters going for aggro since people often feel like they aren't doing 'cool' or 'interesting' things when they're playing aggro, and 'cool' and 'interesting' is kind of a major appeal to cube. If my or other cubes were to transform into the meta he seems to have, then I would re-evaluate Masticore's standing but the large majority of cube experience I have makes Masticore look pretty limited and mana-intensive in practice.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

I ran molten-tail in the innistrad theme cube, which was a format with deliberatly bad removal, and molten-tail was a wheeler there, so I can't imagine it being actively good elsewhere. The math on it seems pretty clear once you start to factor in efficient removal hitting expensive non-etb creatures in formats that pivot around tempo.

Wtwfw was defending psychstog too a couple years ago, which is...ahem...questionable in his power max format.

Making up for not posting at all last week. On my phone so I prob come off as more curt than usual.

 

[ahadabans]

That's fair. I'm not sure what my current count is, but a lot of creatures in typical cubes have 1 toughness, so Masticore does a lot of work on many board states. It certainly has bad matchups though and there are very likely cubes that just aren't a right fit.

 

[ahadabans]

Tog is a strange one. I constantly re-include it in my list because there are people (not just wtwlf) that swear by it. I sort of get it in Upheaval strategies but it also seems lackluster most of the time (just from a body standpoint). So I don't know where to really stand on it. I don't think dismissing it outright is correct though. The card is likely better than that.

 

[Salmo2]

I ran molten-tail in the innistrad theme cube, which was a format with deliberatly bad removal, and molten-tail was a wheeler there, so I can't imagine it being actively good elsewhere. The math on it seems pretty clear once you start to factor in efficient removal hitting expensive non-etb creatures in formats that pivot around tempo.

Wtwfw was defending psychstog too a couple years ago, which is...ahem...questionable in his power max format.

Making up for not posting at all last week. On my phone so I prob come off as more curt than usual.

Psychatog is not a card that has been in my cube for a long time, but it's an AMAZING card with Upheaval, and is a lot better in practice than it is in theory. wtwlf also has a taste for nostalgia, so it's no wonder that one of the classical UB cards that really isn't that bad still spends time in the list.

 

[ahadabans]

I've never seen the tog + upheaval thing play out. But again, it doesn't feel that amazing. You need 9 mana, which is quite a lot. And then you upheaval, float and replay tog. Then discard a lot of stuff. And then wait an entire turn to discard your hand and vaporize your graveyard to hopefully deal 20? And hope they don't have cheap removal which would essentially lose you the game to a self mind twist. Again, it might just be a lot better in person and theory craft badly.

 

[inscho]

 

[Salmo2]

I've never seen the tog + upheaval thing play out. But again, it doesn't feel that amazing. You need 9 mana, which is quite a lot. And then you upheaval, float and replay tog. Then discard a lot of stuff. And then wait an entire turn to discard your hand and vaporize your graveyard to hopefully deal 20? And hope they don't have cheap removal which would essentially lose you the game to a self mind twist. Again, it might just be a lot better in person and theory craft badly.

These hurdles are less of a hurdle than you make them out to be, and the number of outs they have is much fewer than you'd think. At one mana, what is it they can do--swords/PTE? Bolt if you're the literal worst at sequencing? Hopefully my Upheaval decks can get to 9 mana on an at-least semi-consistent basis.

 

[FlowerSunRain]

I like Masticore well enough, but it does suck. One of its saving graces is that the decks it goes in generally have ways to throw away cards, so if it sucks, you can throw it away to one of them. It definitely has aged like complete shit though. 4 mana these days gets you 5/5s with upside and flying 4/4s, not evasionless 4/4s with huge drawbacks. I can't imagine it being worth the space in 99% of environments.

 

[ahadabans]

These hurdles are less of a hurdle than you make them out to be, and the number of outs they have is much fewer than you'd think. At one mana, what is it they can do--swords/PTE? Bolt if you're the literal worst at sequencing? Hopefully my Upheaval decks can get to 9 mana on an at-least semi-consistent basis.

It's exactly arguments like this that convince me I'm wrong about Tog. Every time I see a thread that starts to talk badly about Dr. Teeth, there are people that insist it's broken in the right deck.

 

[Dom Harvey]

I've also found Tog to be lackluster unless you deliberately support it but the Upheaval thing also works before then: cast it when you have 6 mana, make the first land drop, then when you play Tog it's basically The Abyss.

I want to put in a good word for the Masticores but the heads-up comparison between e.g. Masticore and Polukranos is kinda disheartening. Molten-Tail is still good for me though.

 

[Salmo2]

It's exactly arguments like this that convince me I'm wrong about Tog. Every time I see a thread that starts to talk badly about Dr. Teeth, there are people that insist it's broken in the right deck.

I think there are better, more consistent UB options and psychatog is more nostalgic than anything else, but that it's not as embarrassing in practice versus theory as it's good both defensively and offensively, or at minimum serviceable.

 

[CML]

Whatever people may think of wtwlf123, his cube is still running OG Masticore and he's definitely a pure power maxer. So I think you are underestimating how good the card actually is.

I'm not saying Ballista isn't good though. Or that it doesn't have advantages to Masticore. Clearly it is and does (can ping opponent directly for one).

that guy doesn't know what good cards are

 

[Jason Waddell]

I ran molten-tail in the innistrad theme cube, which was a format with deliberatly bad removal, and molten-tail was a wheeler there, so I can't imagine it being actively good elsewhere. The math on it seems pretty clear once you start to factor in efficient removal hitting expensive non-etb creatures in formats that pivot around tempo.

Wtwfw was defending psychstog too a couple years ago, which is...ahem...questionable in his power max format.

Making up for not posting at all last week. On my phone so I prob come off as more curt than usual.

My experience with Molten Tail is that there are random games that it completely takes over, and some times those outlier BCS examples can warp my view of the card. When I actually put it in my cube, it was such a dud.

 

[Aston]

What about Razormane Masticore? I still like him a fair bit.