General Fight Club

[ravnic]

How would you rank these lifegain payoffs? I want to add 2 or maybe even 3 of them.

 

[Alfonzo Bonzo]

I think I would go for the enchantments as they are more robust, and your deck won't be theme less after your creature is bolted.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Ajani's Pridemate has the highest floor, which means it's much more playable if you don't pick up a large pile of life gain effects.

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

Accord seems good in a control deck if there's incidental life gain on a lot of cards that deck wants.

 

[Rowan_CB]

I prefer Pridemate and Cradle over the other two. I'm biased against the lifegain payoffs that require you to gain a specific amount of life in a turn because they are harder to trigger and therefore make the lifegain archetype less consistent.

 

[ravnic]

Thanks guys, I decided to go for Pridemate for it's high flor and Accord for being robust and tempting. I think Cradle is just dlow and also wants you to gain 2+ life at once to be worthwile.

 

[ravnic]

VS.

 

[Velrun]

Blood Fast 100 %

1. Some support to Aristocrats.
2. Interesting because it imposes a quest for the player. (Something to strive for.)
3. Creates interesting games because the opponent might also take the transform mechanic into consideration when deciding to attack or not.

 

[Tzenmoroth]

vs

I was amazed by Frenzy's performance on SCG coverage. The ceiling of drawing several cards a turn is bonkers. I'm thinking about replacing Outpost Siege with it but I'm not sure about giving up the alt mode and nonboing with other card draw effects. I don't know how to evaluate the power level of frenzy in cube but the play pattern looks super fun.

 

[Peter LaCara]

Future Sight is probably my favorite card of all time, so I'm on Frenzy.

 

[Velrun]

This begs the question: Would you also like to run Future Sight then? It costs 3 less mana but goes live 1 turn later. And is color shifted.

 

[Featherhall]

While I respect Experimental Frenzy, I still prefer Outpost Siege, as the modal nature of the card allows it to fill other archetypes (Aristocrats, Aggro, etc.) other than a card advantage engine. I look at frenzy and can only see it fill aggressive archetypes that look to empty their hand using a deck relying on a low curve.

It's a unique effect in red, and I probably will test it in time, but I don't see it a cube mainstay. Now I'll await 3 months from now where the card is proven awesome and this comment comes back to haunt me.

Speaking of recently-released red cards, what's the preference on these two?

 

[Velrun]

Excellent point regarding Outpost!

I prefer Dark-Dweller Oracle although it is not participating in this particular fight.

 

[shamizy]

Speaking of recently-released red cards, what's the preference on these two?

Have yet to test either, will run both in the near future, but if I had to choose I'd go with Cratermaker. Being able to represent a shock on a body + stop future colorless plays until it's dealt with for only 1 mana (and no tapping!) is really good. You can also sandbag it for post-combat shenanigans to clear out an especially big blocker for 2R in one go, can't do that with Pyromancer who requires you to telegraph interaction on board at all times. I do like them both though, if possible I'd look for a way to slot them both in because they give R/x decks additional reach and filtering that they so desperately need.

 

[ravnic]

I prefer Cratermaker. I'm always happy to get some artifact (or enchantment in other cases) removal that is maindeckable and even good with 0 targets. This guy not only has a cool cat in his art, he also fits well into every aggro deck and works with recursion. Also, since he's a goblin, you can pay instead of to shock something with Siege-Gang Commander!

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I prefer Pyromancer, because discarding for profit is fun (read: I cube Squee, Goblin Nabob)! Also, 4 damage saved me a few times from larger threats. That said, I'm also looking at if I can make room for the Cratermaker somehow.

 

[Aston]

I'm going to try Cratermaker and I'm confident he'll be a mainstay - playable answers to artifacts are always useful, and he's a goblin which does slightly matter in my cube.

 

[inscho]

Cratermaker for me. I run a high artifact count, and the lack of summoning sickness is great. I have plenty of filtering effects with the Wheels, and sift effects like Faithless Looting

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Still a big fan of the Pyromancer, but Cratermaker was instrumental in a win-at-1-life in a test match today, involving Genesis. I was able to keep recurring the little goblin, play it, block one attacker, shoot another, and little by little regain control while my opponent failed to find big flyers.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I run a discard theme in Grixis. With most of the payoffs in , and most of the enablers in . Think...



With that in mind, which is the more interesting card in my cube?

vs.

In other words, is it right for me to want to go for the synergistic common instead of the powerful rare?

 

[sigh]

I still like Prophetic Bolt better. It can hit players for one, and it digs for key pieces of a deck. And the damage isn't contingent on having a non-land to discard. Yeah, Bolt wins for me.

 

[Peter LaCara]

Hypothesizzle has the better name, though.

 

[ravnic]

Isn't there a better synergy card in Izzet colors? What about Desolated Lighthouse?

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Isn't there a better synergy card in Izzet colors? What about Desolated Lighthouse?

I have a "no utlity lands" rule in my cube, so I don't have to worry about land destruction.

 

[Aston]

Hypothesizzle has the better name, though.

Just alter the other one to Hyprophesizzle and you're set.