You speak my language, friend
General [FRA] Reality Fracture
- Thread starter shamizy
- Start date
You speak my language, friend
Saw this one this morning and immediately thought "This is a riptide card." Not sure if I want to introduce another token into my cube... but a 4/4 trample for 4 that draws a 4/4 trample for 6 feels good if you are aiming for a slightly higher power level than Call of the Herd et al. Definitely worth picking up for a dime.
New persist combo enabler in Boros seems interesting. The other new Mabel (Mabel, Bitter Recluse) isn't bad either, but I don't see it being as generally viable as Valley Hero.
Man I really hope this card is not constructed playable, because it would be PERFECT in Landfill. I have been longing for a card to replace Deeproot Wayfinder (a perfectly fine card that unfortunately references Battles). Trading out the surveil for a prepared land-entomb spell would be so perfect. This card's only flaw is the lack of reminder text for Prepared, but it looks like I'll be able to include several more cards with prepared spells, so I'm OK with it. Diviner of Victory, Paradox Shaper, Pompous Battlemage, and Fatehold Chronologist are all likely candidates (although I'm worried Pompous Battlemage might be Standard playable and out of my budget). Speaking of $$$: there's no way I'll be able to include Hexhaven Invigorator or Emrakul, the Exigent Doom, but could this be the Tarmogoyf reprint that pushes him into bar cube territory?
Also hoping to include Enlightened Confidant, but that one seems like it'll have a lot of Commander appeal and it's a Mythic, unforch.
Hoping to see more Prepared cards and more Surveil that isn't locked into a Jace token (the least bar-cube-playable token since the Incubator.) All in all this set is already very cool for my cube, and some of the weird artifact stuff is getting me interested in my Welder's Workshop box again, too.
This dude is a fantastic bridge between a bunch of themes. He ramps with artifacts, which can pump him on subsequent turns if mana isn’t needed. Grows with counters and converts all artifacts into power. Then you have land sac/gy synergies.
Seems like a solid include in a bunch of cubes!
This one seems like a great include for me as a way to get more White GY enablers. Triggering off itself and any creature (including tokens) means the floor and ceiling are really high!
The recursion is nice but unreliable unless you’ve cast a creature on your turn or your cube incidentally has a ton of scry/surveil. I was in the market for an Azorius card to boot. Sold!
I want to play this with a Goblin Bombardment and some tokens in play.
I've had a hard time identifying a "signature spell" for Dimir in the same way that we have really good ones for the other guilds. But I like this.
I initially glanced at this and thought it might be a functional reprint of Sevinne's Reclamation, but now I see that it's a bit simpler. I think I like it better, partly because I have no idea who Sevinne is and I prefer more general card names, and partly because I like the power level better on this new one. It's a 2 for 1 instead of a 3 for 1. I'll buy a copy of it, and maybe I like this well enough to replace Recommission.
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Proctor of Potential has broken my heart with that finality counter.
Probably cubing this. Sweepers are kind of boring and shoehorned to control decks, but I feel like it's important to have some just so there is some punishment for just putting everything into play. This one is admittedly extremely telegraphed, but it being a dinky little 2 mana trinket before you press the button gives it some neat synergies, and you can sometimes be encouraged to sandbag it to whammy it for 7 mana. Just a bit awkward that your opponent can kill it in response to the etb trigger before you can board wipe in that case.
Both of these are sweet
Oh it's definitely a sweet card, I just can't put it in Landfill because it's a strict no-counters environment. Unfortunately, cutting counters and DFCs has left me without a lot of options for graveyard synergies in W/U, so I'm on the lookout. Hoping for a couple more Surveil cards in these colors.
How do you feel about Yuriko, Hope from the Shadows? She seems pretty decent to me as a flexible surveil gimmick in blue, but definitely not as cool or multifaceted as Proctor of Potential.
I've been away from my computer all week but I have Many Feelings about this set, most of them positive. Maybe it's an overreaction to the deluge of UB we get, but I feel like I now love the self-indulgent fanservice sets more than ever before, and this one feels more reasonable than seeing Oko wearing cowboy gear (which I didn't mind as much as everyone else, but still rolled my eyes at). Anyways, tons of cards that are either worth testing for me or interesting enough for inclusion otherwise.
Emrakul, the Exigent Doom is the fifth massive colorless creature printed this year that's worthy of consideration in Cube. Goodness, it feels like the most recent trio of Eldrazi titans were printed pretty recently, and that felt like a big shift to the available super-ramp targets. Now we have Krang, Utrom Warlord, Panther Robot, Galactus, Devourer of Worlds, Darksteel Angel, and now this! Compared to the others, I like how it turns one of your lands into an Ancient Tomb while you wait to ramp up to it, and 10 mana feels like a tough but reasonable target for your dedicated ramp decks.
Currently, I'm running Emrakul, the Promised End and Triplicate Titan in the 9+ mana slots, with Citywide Leveler close behind. For the sake of Trash for Treasure and Daretti, Scrap Savant, I probably would only swap in one Emrakul for another, and while its stocks have fallen dramatically over the years, it's still my favorite of the top-end Eldrazi they've printed still, so Exigent Doom is not on my shortlist for the set. Solid design, but doesn't quite get there with all the competition.
Repurposed Enforcer is the Mage-Ring Bully we've all been waiting for. I joke, of course. This is a go-wide payoff that helps you fill your graveyard with an extra surveil every turn, and some rare card advantage in white too. For me, the "empower Jace" mechanic seems totally fine, but I'd only want cards with it that explain the mechanic on the card, so as good as it is, I won't be considering Fatehold Charm. The complexity is there, but it seems less troublesome than the likes of Incubate and Maps, both of which I've tolerated in my Cube for a while (though I am happily free of Incubate tokens at the moment). The mechanic is a really cool way to show planeswalkers at common, and I think it's an incredibly clever design solution and seems like it'll play well, especially with all the different ways of adding PW powers in the set. I think I'll probably swap this in for The Queen of Dale, who has been underperforming by a much larger margin than I had anticipated.
Jace's Machinations is essentially a better Spellgyre/Quick Study but you only get the first draw at instant speed, and I guess your opponent has the chance to short your value if they defer attacks in your direction. If I do end up with Empower Jace at a high enough frequency (3-4 cards), I'm keen to play this, as I like multiple triggers of the cards that trigger off of me drawing two cards in a turn and incidental surveil on a relatively cheap instant. The net result of this card isn't too far off from Fact or Fiction played over the course of 3.5 turns, which is...fine for one fewer mana.
Sphinx of False Conclusions is what I wanted Stoic Sphinx to be. I really don't like hexproof and indestructible in my Cube, as I like there to be outs to everything. Making your opponent work hard to kill your bomb, on the other hand, I do like. The penumbra ability here is excellent, and would nearly be enough to put me over the edge with this flash flyer, but getting a loot on every attack gives it enough crossover with the median blue deck that I think it'll stick around for a while. Neat art too.
I'm still on the edge about Vraska's Final Mercy. I love a mana-intensive kill spell to help the black heavy decks get some sweet cards on the wheel. In practice, this is a split card of Sign in Blood and Dreadbore, two totally fine cards on their own. Since I'm likely to already be running the Jace mechanic, you get some bonus flexibility from the Jace, even if the card draw is somewhat slower. Being sorcery is my biggest issue here, but with the Empower Jace ability, it does make sense. Seems just a little too tuned to be fair.
Pompous Battlemage is fine but it doesn't spark joy for me. Theoretically I'd love another respectable one-drop in red that discards cards, but I can't imagine ever wanting this more than Greasewrench Goblin or Voldaren Epicure.
I currently run 26 cards that Scry or Surveil. If this number were closer to 40, Denzilore Fatehold would be a neat, if a little too boring, of a payoff card for an archetype that doesn't exist on its own but totally could if you wanted it to. I agree that Proctor of Potential has more generic...potential for Cube, but I do wish that it didn't have finality counters as well.
Gideon's Memorial is what we say we want from modal cards: a card whose abilities are all extremely different. I think these ones might be too different, as wholly different decks are interested in each of the three abilities. That said, the first and third ability do just fine in the median white deck of my Cube, so I'm considering it.
Lyra, Tolarian Archangel is sweet. A 3/3 flyer for 3 that can be Unearthed is cool, but getting an extra one any turn you cast a Brainstorm or Portent is a fun build-around that's not too hard to pull off, but just enough to prevent it from being oppressive. I think this is in the sweet spot of being good enough on its own and tinkered with to ask you just the right amount for the payoff that I'm seriously looking forward to trying this out. I would prefer she not have its second ability to give you a guaranteed angel, even if I get this is a Resplendent Angel reference. It'd be cleaner.
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This is already long enough, so I'll continue my reactions in a little bit. Sweet set so far, though.
Emrakul, the Exigent Doom is the fifth massive colorless creature printed this year that's worthy of consideration in Cube. Goodness, it feels like the most recent trio of Eldrazi titans were printed pretty recently, and that felt like a big shift to the available super-ramp targets. Now we have Krang, Utrom Warlord, Panther Robot, Galactus, Devourer of Worlds, Darksteel Angel, and now this! Compared to the others, I like how it turns one of your lands into an Ancient Tomb while you wait to ramp up to it, and 10 mana feels like a tough but reasonable target for your dedicated ramp decks.
Currently, I'm running Emrakul, the Promised End and Triplicate Titan in the 9+ mana slots, with Citywide Leveler close behind. For the sake of Trash for Treasure and Daretti, Scrap Savant, I probably would only swap in one Emrakul for another, and while its stocks have fallen dramatically over the years, it's still my favorite of the top-end Eldrazi they've printed still, so Exigent Doom is not on my shortlist for the set. Solid design, but doesn't quite get there with all the competition.
Repurposed Enforcer is the Mage-Ring Bully we've all been waiting for. I joke, of course. This is a go-wide payoff that helps you fill your graveyard with an extra surveil every turn, and some rare card advantage in white too. For me, the "empower Jace" mechanic seems totally fine, but I'd only want cards with it that explain the mechanic on the card, so as good as it is, I won't be considering Fatehold Charm. The complexity is there, but it seems less troublesome than the likes of Incubate and Maps, both of which I've tolerated in my Cube for a while (though I am happily free of Incubate tokens at the moment). The mechanic is a really cool way to show planeswalkers at common, and I think it's an incredibly clever design solution and seems like it'll play well, especially with all the different ways of adding PW powers in the set. I think I'll probably swap this in for The Queen of Dale, who has been underperforming by a much larger margin than I had anticipated.
Jace's Machinations is essentially a better Spellgyre/Quick Study but you only get the first draw at instant speed, and I guess your opponent has the chance to short your value if they defer attacks in your direction. If I do end up with Empower Jace at a high enough frequency (3-4 cards), I'm keen to play this, as I like multiple triggers of the cards that trigger off of me drawing two cards in a turn and incidental surveil on a relatively cheap instant. The net result of this card isn't too far off from Fact or Fiction played over the course of 3.5 turns, which is...fine for one fewer mana.
Sphinx of False Conclusions is what I wanted Stoic Sphinx to be. I really don't like hexproof and indestructible in my Cube, as I like there to be outs to everything. Making your opponent work hard to kill your bomb, on the other hand, I do like. The penumbra ability here is excellent, and would nearly be enough to put me over the edge with this flash flyer, but getting a loot on every attack gives it enough crossover with the median blue deck that I think it'll stick around for a while. Neat art too.
I'm still on the edge about Vraska's Final Mercy. I love a mana-intensive kill spell to help the black heavy decks get some sweet cards on the wheel. In practice, this is a split card of Sign in Blood and Dreadbore, two totally fine cards on their own. Since I'm likely to already be running the Jace mechanic, you get some bonus flexibility from the Jace, even if the card draw is somewhat slower. Being sorcery is my biggest issue here, but with the Empower Jace ability, it does make sense. Seems just a little too tuned to be fair.
Pompous Battlemage is fine but it doesn't spark joy for me. Theoretically I'd love another respectable one-drop in red that discards cards, but I can't imagine ever wanting this more than Greasewrench Goblin or Voldaren Epicure.
I currently run 26 cards that Scry or Surveil. If this number were closer to 40, Denzilore Fatehold would be a neat, if a little too boring, of a payoff card for an archetype that doesn't exist on its own but totally could if you wanted it to. I agree that Proctor of Potential has more generic...potential for Cube, but I do wish that it didn't have finality counters as well.
Gideon's Memorial is what we say we want from modal cards: a card whose abilities are all extremely different. I think these ones might be too different, as wholly different decks are interested in each of the three abilities. That said, the first and third ability do just fine in the median white deck of my Cube, so I'm considering it.
Lyra, Tolarian Archangel is sweet. A 3/3 flyer for 3 that can be Unearthed is cool, but getting an extra one any turn you cast a Brainstorm or Portent is a fun build-around that's not too hard to pull off, but just enough to prevent it from being oppressive. I think this is in the sweet spot of being good enough on its own and tinkered with to ask you just the right amount for the payoff that I'm seriously looking forward to trying this out. I would prefer she not have its second ability to give you a guaranteed angel, even if I get this is a Resplendent Angel reference. It'd be cleaner.
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This is already long enough, so I'll continue my reactions in a little bit. Sweet set so far, though.
Hold it. Stop talking about rares, a common is here.
I think this is a lot closer to Sprite Dragon than many may think. It's somewhat more expensive, but that's not uncalled for and it also starts larger. Lack of evasion hurts it, ofc, but you can play it in monored! I think this is a very very good choice.
New persist combo enabler in Boros seems interesting. The other new Mabel (Mabel, Bitter Recluse) isn't bad either, but I don't see it being as generally viable as Valley Hero.
I'm heavily considering her. As a persist enabler she is unique in that she can also act as a finisher both Aluren and Enduring Renewal while also being a solid Tokens / go wide card. I think she is one of the better generally good combo pieces for cube.
Oh my, multiple playable Rakdos slots that 'Deal Damage' right after I finally added Pyromancer's Swath? WoTC, you shouldn't have. But I will take it, I have been waiting for a Rakdos Lightning Strike for years now.
I think this card is really good and I am surprised I haven't seen any discussion on it. I hate 'behold' as a mechanic but 'empower Jace' isn't that bad imo, if you just have an example Jace Token for reference it is pretty self explanatory. Creates a pretty cool Aristocrats / Pox draw engine while also enabling those strategies to pivot into Superfriends. Makes some pretty scary Ultimates reliable to hit just by playing as you would anyway. Enables Persist / Enduring Renewal loops to Juice Planewalkers as a win-con. Very novel card, I actually really like a lot of these 'Way of' Enchantments. Way of the Deathbringer seems really good as well (albeit more fair in its applications)
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I feel this is perfect for so many cubes. Makes me want to build a new one. It also isn't stupid or passé like the majority of "mirrored legends" revealed so far.
Dom Harvey
Contributor
I love enchantments generally, many of the more unique + narrow build-arounds I like are enchantments but there aren't good tutors for them so 'worse Formidable Speaker but for enchanties' is actually a really appealing pitch for me
This thing looks great - I love self-mill on creatures but you usually get a poor body/rate in return, this thing can easily be a good attacker + enabler at once
This thing looks great - I love self-mill on creatures but you usually get a poor body/rate in return, this thing can easily be a good attacker + enabler at once
I wish that one drop was a Zombie; it would have been a perfect cross pollinator for Gravecrawler/Vengevine decks and Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis enabler. It probably still gets there on sheer utility but that's a tough slot to make space for in my environment.
As somebody who was willing to entertain adding Jalum Tome, I'll buy a copy of this for sure. It's a little different than Collector's Vault. Both are cool. Murmuring Volume is a completely clean card that I can even add to my beginner cube list, assuming I ever find the direction and mental energy to properly update it.
Also, this seems like an easy one to add to occasionals:
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I've been more aggressively testing cards during spoiler season, and right now I'm looking to include 18 cards of those spoiled so far, with more on my watch list that simply need a swap I'm comfortable with. My change-log is here, and as you can see, it's mostly replacement-level cards going in for other replacement-level cards or experiments that didn't quite work out. That said, I'm super excited about this set overall, so here are some other card observations and early reactions.
BUT FIRST! I did a few practice drafts online and ended up with two decks that were built around some of the new cards I wanted to share.
Lyra Card Draw
Lyra belongs to one of my favorite categories of Cube cards, the "single-card archetype enabler" variety. When you see this card, you can build your deck around here, but it'll still function well if you never draw it. It's a great way to help newer drafters and add a layer of depth for veterans without requiring a bunch of dedicated slots.
This is to say that card draw isn't really an archetype in my Cube, but there are plenty of cards that benefit from it that I've considered in the past. I don't run any of the 54 cards that contain the line "whenever you draw your second card" at the moment, but it's a worthy one for consideration that gets better when aggregated across sets, and you only need to include 1-2 of these linear cards to push the archetype in most Cubes, as there are dozens of cross-synergies that exist out there. And I think this deck, which can be enabled every turn just with Dack Fayden or Leader, Super-Genius, is good proof that Lyra fits my Cube quite well.
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Lifegain Tokens
I've been trying to figure out how to make my lifegain micro-archetype work for a while, but this seems to do it quite well. I've got Ocelot Pride as a power outlier in Cube, but here it looks like a purposeful synergy piece, with a dozen different ways to gain life. Proctor of Potential loves all the tokens, but so do Repurposed Enforcer, General Great, the Boltbringer, and Spider-UK. Liliana the Faultless kind of does everything this deck wants, including dumping creatures to protect your early plays that can come back easily with Krile Baldesion. Of course, Bre of Clan Toutarm, which is always on the edge of getting cut, works beautifully here.
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Proft, Sinister Mastermind is the Moriarty to the in-universe Holmes. A bunch of on-the-nose references, this one. I've always thought Wring Flesh was totally fine for most Cubes, but I do love a Wring Flesh that doubles as a sick Unearth target that triggers Marauding Mako and adds a creature to my graveyard for a bunch of other things. Psyched to play this, maybe one of my favorite cards spoiled this season.
Fblthp, Impossibly Lost is essentially a Chart a Course as a creature, but also has a bonus Laboratory Maniac mode as well. While I'd rather not have cards shuffled into the library for practical reasons, this is a fun card with a proven ACS and in one out of every fifteen games or so, it's going to make for the best stories Cube is capable of. That's reason enough for me to want to play this semi-official mascot.
I guess now I don't need to be bummed about the trinket text on Thunderclap Drake any longer. Geist of Saint Thalia is a great card with two great pieces of art that does a good job reversing OG Thalia in a way that's altogether satisfying. That said, I don't know if I need this card in my Cube, particularly since I don't support combos terribly well. If you do, even a little, this is fantastic. Otherwise, it's just OK value. Definitely worthwhile for many Cubes, but not essential playing.
The Echoverse Fulcrum seems good. Very similar to Nevinyrral's Disk, but I think it'll play better because of the front payment being lower, having some incidental value on ETB, and can be brought back from the yard with the likes of Sevinne's Reclamation if it gets milled. Disk is still better, but the recursion possible on that was actually a downside. I also like how this can go off the turn you cast it with enough mana, and it asks you to pay enough to make that worthwhile.
Way of the Pyromancer is a two-mana planeswalker in red that operates as a proper planeswalker??? Sick. I think this is really neat and good acceleration. Excellent art, too.
Vigorbloom Charm is fine I guess. I don't know how much better it is than Origin of Metalbending, which already feels like a marginal inclusion, but being instant speed removal / protection / card draw seems like a fine spell to include in a color pair without too many exceptional options. I doubt it'll last in my Cube very long, unlike the excellent Theorix Charm.
Stitcher's Supplier but better for some Cubes? It gets you roughly halfway there on its own. Losing the dies trigger is a big loss, as the Supplier makes your opponent more hesitant to attack for just an extra point of damage or two, but I do like how it can be a 3/2 for 1 relatively easily.
Ultimately, I do still like Stitcher Supplier more, but in a Cube like mine that cares a ton about the graveyard and has 720 cards, this is a reasonable "in addition to" card instead of a replacement. With such a big Cube, I can make room for about eight 1-drops in black.
That said, as much as I like self-mill, I'm not sure I can justify this over a snowballing threat like Moonshadow or Stalactite Stalker, a control all-star like Concealing Curtains, a card that benefits from the self-mill like Forsaken Miner, or even a legendary-matters beater like [[Cecil, Dark Knight]]. Milling three cards on an aggressive one-drop is no slouch though, so I'll keep an eye out on this Manipulator in the weeks to come and maybe give it a test run.
This is like the sixth version of this effect, but Karn, Argent Defender is great because 1) he's colorless 2) he's an incidental artifact (many control decks care about this) and 3) he's Karn. Easy effect to slot into my Cube when it's not taking up a colored slot.
Pia, Aether Ascetic is great, perhaps better (for Cube, not power-level) than Formidable Speaker as a glue card. It may be too instructive on "hey grab Recurring Nightmare or Reanimate Dead" but I do like how it calls out enchantments in particular and fills up my graveyard with specific cards. Interested to test this out, may even swap out the Speaker.
BUT FIRST! I did a few practice drafts online and ended up with two decks that were built around some of the new cards I wanted to share.
Lyra Card Draw
Lyra belongs to one of my favorite categories of Cube cards, the "single-card archetype enabler" variety. When you see this card, you can build your deck around here, but it'll still function well if you never draw it. It's a great way to help newer drafters and add a layer of depth for veterans without requiring a bunch of dedicated slots.
This is to say that card draw isn't really an archetype in my Cube, but there are plenty of cards that benefit from it that I've considered in the past. I don't run any of the 54 cards that contain the line "whenever you draw your second card" at the moment, but it's a worthy one for consideration that gets better when aggregated across sets, and you only need to include 1-2 of these linear cards to push the archetype in most Cubes, as there are dozens of cross-synergies that exist out there. And I think this deck, which can be enabled every turn just with Dack Fayden or Leader, Super-Genius, is good proof that Lyra fits my Cube quite well.
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Lifegain Tokens
I've been trying to figure out how to make my lifegain micro-archetype work for a while, but this seems to do it quite well. I've got Ocelot Pride as a power outlier in Cube, but here it looks like a purposeful synergy piece, with a dozen different ways to gain life. Proctor of Potential loves all the tokens, but so do Repurposed Enforcer, General Great, the Boltbringer, and Spider-UK. Liliana the Faultless kind of does everything this deck wants, including dumping creatures to protect your early plays that can come back easily with Krile Baldesion. Of course, Bre of Clan Toutarm, which is always on the edge of getting cut, works beautifully here.
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Proft, Sinister Mastermind is the Moriarty to the in-universe Holmes. A bunch of on-the-nose references, this one. I've always thought Wring Flesh was totally fine for most Cubes, but I do love a Wring Flesh that doubles as a sick Unearth target that triggers Marauding Mako and adds a creature to my graveyard for a bunch of other things. Psyched to play this, maybe one of my favorite cards spoiled this season.
Fblthp, Impossibly Lost is essentially a Chart a Course as a creature, but also has a bonus Laboratory Maniac mode as well. While I'd rather not have cards shuffled into the library for practical reasons, this is a fun card with a proven ACS and in one out of every fifteen games or so, it's going to make for the best stories Cube is capable of. That's reason enough for me to want to play this semi-official mascot.
I guess now I don't need to be bummed about the trinket text on Thunderclap Drake any longer. Geist of Saint Thalia is a great card with two great pieces of art that does a good job reversing OG Thalia in a way that's altogether satisfying. That said, I don't know if I need this card in my Cube, particularly since I don't support combos terribly well. If you do, even a little, this is fantastic. Otherwise, it's just OK value. Definitely worthwhile for many Cubes, but not essential playing.
The Echoverse Fulcrum seems good. Very similar to Nevinyrral's Disk, but I think it'll play better because of the front payment being lower, having some incidental value on ETB, and can be brought back from the yard with the likes of Sevinne's Reclamation if it gets milled. Disk is still better, but the recursion possible on that was actually a downside. I also like how this can go off the turn you cast it with enough mana, and it asks you to pay enough to make that worthwhile.
Way of the Pyromancer is a two-mana planeswalker in red that operates as a proper planeswalker??? Sick. I think this is really neat and good acceleration. Excellent art, too.
Vigorbloom Charm is fine I guess. I don't know how much better it is than Origin of Metalbending, which already feels like a marginal inclusion, but being instant speed removal / protection / card draw seems like a fine spell to include in a color pair without too many exceptional options. I doubt it'll last in my Cube very long, unlike the excellent Theorix Charm.
Stitcher's Supplier but better for some Cubes? It gets you roughly halfway there on its own. Losing the dies trigger is a big loss, as the Supplier makes your opponent more hesitant to attack for just an extra point of damage or two, but I do like how it can be a 3/2 for 1 relatively easily.
Ultimately, I do still like Stitcher Supplier more, but in a Cube like mine that cares a ton about the graveyard and has 720 cards, this is a reasonable "in addition to" card instead of a replacement. With such a big Cube, I can make room for about eight 1-drops in black.
That said, as much as I like self-mill, I'm not sure I can justify this over a snowballing threat like Moonshadow or Stalactite Stalker, a control all-star like Concealing Curtains, a card that benefits from the self-mill like Forsaken Miner, or even a legendary-matters beater like [[Cecil, Dark Knight]]. Milling three cards on an aggressive one-drop is no slouch though, so I'll keep an eye out on this Manipulator in the weeks to come and maybe give it a test run.
This is like the sixth version of this effect, but Karn, Argent Defender is great because 1) he's colorless 2) he's an incidental artifact (many control decks care about this) and 3) he's Karn. Easy effect to slot into my Cube when it's not taking up a colored slot.
Pia, Aether Ascetic is great, perhaps better (for Cube, not power-level) than Formidable Speaker as a glue card. It may be too instructive on "hey grab Recurring Nightmare or Reanimate Dead" but I do like how it calls out enchantments in particular and fills up my graveyard with specific cards. Interested to test this out, may even swap out the Speaker.
Incredible art, I love this design. I'm so excited to pick up a copy of this.
This is such a cool card, that I’m seriously considering breaking singleton for it. Bone Shards sacrificing a creature on either side brings Phoenix back for free if you can bin it. It also discards the Phoenix neatly. Lightning Axe is also sweet here.
Can’t wait to pick one up!
I'm considering adding it to my Voucher system if it lives up to my expectations. Arclight Phoenix is a great design, but without the consistency of 4 copies of cheap cantrips it was more a pipe dream than anything in most cube environments. This seems much more reasonable in a fair environment where creatures are king and combat matters. We get edict creatures and a Deadly Precision variant like every other set to enable it so it's not so ridiculous.
I can see incredibly explosive B/G decks paired alongside Gravecrawler and Vengevine putting in work. B/R is also an option where looting this away early could lead to a massive turn with 7+ hasty damage alongside a Falkenrath Aristocrat. Definitely the type of card that makes you want to explore synergies and maximize it with sequencing decisions.