General Fight Club

Rasmus Källqvist · Mar 17, 2015

Brainstorm and tons of manifest stuff? New theme?

Karl · Mar 17, 2015

That sounds like the sickest package ever if you put multiple into your cube. Flipping a Sower of Temptation during your opponents turn. HRNNNG

Eric Chan · Mar 17, 2015

Enters the battlefield triggers don't work with manifest, though, right? Or am I misremembering how the rules work here again o_O

safra · Mar 17, 2015

Eric Chan said:
Enters the battlefield triggers don't work with manifest, though, right? Or am I misremembering how the rules work here again o_O

for Cube i don't see any point in not houseruling this for a better experience.

Karl · Mar 17, 2015

Eric Chan said:
Enters the battlefield triggers don't work with manifest, though, right? Or am I misremembering how the rules work here again o_O

I just completely forgot about that. Lame. Okay, not nearly as cool.

Eric Chan · Mar 17, 2015

safra said:
for Cube i don't see any point in not houseruling this for a better experience.

I would say the barrier to this is complexity creep. A bit under half of our group are newcomers, and Magic already isn't an easy game to learn, so as much as possible I want to stick to the actual rules. That way players don't have to learn about all of Magic's funny corner cases, and then account for our extra list of corner cases.

Chris Taylor · Mar 17, 2015

Yeah morph (or manifest) is a not insignificant complexity cost, and really plays badly with ETB stuff.

You get blowouts when you flip a first strike creature, but that's...just a combat trick.
Hell even if you could flash in a sower of temptation, she doesn't untap things, you can't exactly trade of their attackers for eachother like you can with ray of command

Manifest is a sweet build around if the creature you're flipping has a big downside when it enters the battlefield. Phyrexian Dreadnought? That's nice to manifest. Grinning Demon? Not so much (probably okay, but not construct your deck with it in mind level good)

Dom Harvey · Mar 18, 2015

Sultai Emissary is also better with delve or reanimation, FWIW

Rasmus Källqvist · Mar 18, 2015

Sultai Emissary, chump an attack and get a huge guy manifested, untap and play flickerwisp = living the dream

GenericZero · Mar 18, 2015

Rasmus Källqvist said:
Sultai Emissary, chump an attack and get a huge guy manifested, untap and play flickerwisp = living the dream

Implying Resto Angel doesn't just do the job infinitely better.

Rasmus Källqvist · Mar 18, 2015

GenericZero said:
Implying Resto Angel doesn't just do the job infinitely better.

Infinitely a turn later you mean. You're on the draw so you chumped their one or two drop!

frostymoose · Mar 21, 2015

Diakonov · Mar 21, 2015

Good one. My gut sticks with geist, but if your counter theme is strong enough the avatar is certainly worth testing.

If you're running a minor green devotion theme, probably both.

Laz · Mar 21, 2015

Both are strong cards, but they are very beatdown oriented. I imagine that if your green section that tended that way you would probably want both. Despite that, obtaining

on turn 2 consistently in even a 2-colour deck seems to ask a lot of your mana base. Possibly the Avatar is more interesting if you are exploring a +1/+1 counter theme, as he scales a little later into the game, and

isn't as difficult to obtain then.
Green tends to be a support colour in aggro decks in my cube offering cards like Rancor and Bloodbraid Elf, and neither of these would really help those aggro decks touching green. Perhaps a cube with an Experiment One based 'vomit-hand-onto-board' green section would love these guys?

I just came from the discussion on Phyrexian Obliterator, so that is probably shaping my thinking, but do Filter lands have some virtue?
How good does the mana in your cube have to be in order to run multiple CC creatures?

Jason Waddell · Mar 22, 2015

Diakonov said:
Good one. My gut sticks with geist, but if your counter theme is strong enough the avatar is certainly worth testing.

If you're running a minor green devotion theme, probably both.

What's the upside on the avatar? a syngergy-based Tarmogoyf type of creature with reach and trample? Geist also works with +1/+1 counters, so that's not necessarily a big tick in avatar's column.

FlowerSunRain · Mar 22, 2015

I'd also agree Geist is usually going to be the better card, but the two are different enough and the Avatar's power level is high enough so I'd run both rather then x2 Geist if I was looking for a devotion/+1 counter cards (and I am, so I plan on it). Avatar coming down as a ~5/4 trample is going to work in a lot of board states that Geist can't do shit in. Geist addresses Green's weaknesses better, which gives it the edge.