General Giving White things to do

Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
Do any of you running Champions run extra blink effects as a way of pumping champions at instant speed? I kind of see the card as an optimistic Nacatl at best (eventually) that happens to be the world's worst top deck. For how much everyone was shitting on Delver as a 1/1 that can take a few turns to turn into a 3/2 flier, I'm pretty amazed by how differently everybody feels about a 1/1 that can take a few turns to become a 3/3 ground-pounder.
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
Jason Waddell said:
Do any of you running Champions run extra blink effects as a way of pumping champions at instant speed? I kind of see the card as an optimistic Nacatl at best (eventually) that happens to be the world's worst top deck. For how much everyone was shitting on Delver as a 1/1 that can take a few turns to turn into a 3/2 flier, I'm pretty amazed by how differently everybody feels about a 1/1 that can take a few turns to become a 3/3 ground-pounder.
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Admittedly Jason, Nacatl never outsizes a 3/3, so if he is actually becoming a 4/4 or 5/5, that might be the reason. That can be hard to beat, assuming conditional removal and all
 
ahadabans

ahadabans

On paper, Champion shouldn't be good. But as many have said, it requires almost no effort at all to support him in cube. There are a lot of humans that are in most cubes, and plenty more fringe guys you can include if you really want to make him awesome. I love this card and I can't imagine not including him in my cube.

Champion is good because he's a one drop that your opponent has to waste removal on or after a couple turns of ignoring him he's suddenly a monstrosity (at pretty much no cost- just keep playing dudes). It's true he's a really bad top deck, but that is where creative deck building comes in (with sac and/or discard outlets to use him to other effects when he is less useful). Cursed scroll is down with this guy as a top deck with no cards in hand. AMIRITE? And really, would that savannah lions been any better at that point in the game anyway? One drops suck as late game top decks as a general rule. :)
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
I guess part of the difference is that Delver flips with non-threats and Champion grows with threats. I'm still pretty happy with my Lynxes though.
 
ahadabans

ahadabans

How is that triple Lynx thing working BTW? Because I'm about to drop this guy from my cube for just being a total disappointment a lot of times. Does having more than one really help all that much? I get that he is sweet with fetches and such, but when you miss a land drop he's completely annoyingly useless.
 
ahadabans

ahadabans

Wow. Is it because you are doubled up on fetches?

Because it doesn't seem that easy to abuse this guy outside GW (which never happens in my cube). Maybe I'm missing something though.
 
FlowerSunRain

FlowerSunRain

Contributor
4/5 for one mana is slightly above the curve. The fact that it will sometimes be 0/1 later is the game is not too meaningful when your opponent is dead. 20 Fetches is key to this happening consistently.
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
Yeah, it's the 20 fetches combined with the fact that the white aggro player will prioritize those. There are also a couple fetches in the utility land stack (Evolving Wilds), and uh... that land that goes back to your hand.

But how much damage do you really need a one-drop to do before it's given you sufficient value?
 
ahadabans

ahadabans

Fair enough. I'm tempted to do the double fetch thing. I'd have to proxy them though because I don't have a play set and I'm not dropping $600 on a set unless I can scrounge up enough via trades (which would be more work than I feel like putting into this at the moment).

How many people are doing the double fetch thing? Those that are doing it, are they completely sold on the idea? Land is one area of cube that I've never been happy with (that's a utility land draft thread discussion though).
 
FlowerSunRain

FlowerSunRain

Contributor
Jason: 4 and I'm pretty happy.

I do not do the double fetch thing and I run Steppe Lynx and it still does enough work for me to be happy with it.
 
Eric Chan

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
I run 20 fetches in 380 cards, and I can confirm Steppe Lynx is mostly hot garbage. Calvin first alerted me to this fact when he built a near mono-white weenie deck with five fetches, and he still didn't want any Lynxes.

After a couple years of trying to make the landfall experiment work, I've now expunged it from my cube entirely. Plated Geopede was the first to go, followed by Rampaging Baloths, then more recently Steppe Lynx, and finally even the sacred Lotus Cobra. It was no secret here that fetches are bonkers, no matter what you're trying to do, so it quickly became difficult to assemble more than three fetch lands in a cube deck.

I suppose a 2/3 Steppe Lynx isn't the end of the world, but it's 0/1 enough times in the early game that it became too frustrating for my tastes.
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
ahadabans said:
Fair enough. I'm tempted to do the double fetch thing. I'd have to proxy them though because I don't have a play set and I'm not dropping $600 on a set unless I can scrounge up enough via trades (which would be more work than I feel like putting into this at the moment).

How many people are doing the double fetch thing? Those that are doing it, are they completely sold on the idea? Land is one area of cube that I've never been happy with (that's a utility land draft thread discussion though).
Click to expand...

I will say, I haven't heard of a single person trying double fetches and not liking it. I know some of my other ideas (Birthing Pod, eg.) are a bit sketchier, but multifetch seems pretty solid. Chris Taylor even runs quad fetch.
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
Eric Chan said:
After a couple years of trying to make the landfall experiment work, I've now expunged it from my cube entirely. Plated Geopede was the first to go, followed by Rampaging Baloths, then more recently Steppe Lynx, and finally even the sacred Lotus Cobra. It was no secret here that fetches are bonkers, no matter what you're trying to do, so it quickly became difficult to assemble more than three fetch lands in a cube deck.
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Do you guys, uh... forget triggers or something?
 
ahadabans

ahadabans

Jason Waddell said:
I will say, I haven't heard of a single person trying double fetches and not liking it. I know some of my other ideas (Birthing Pod, eg.) are a bit sketchier, but multifetch seems pretty solid. Chris Taylor even runs quad fetch.
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Thanks Jason. I will put it under serious consideration.

I'm generally not one for convention, but I've struggled with breaking the singleton rule. And not because I think cube should be singleton, but because I have 400 card slots and there seems to be something very wrong about using more than one slot for the exact same card when there are literally thousands of unique things I could run. I don't even like functional reprints.

With that said, I can see some real benefits to do it selectively to support a healthier meta even at the expense of running fewer unique cards. I just need to convince myself the trade off is worth it.

Anyone wanting to keep selling me on this, your words aren't being wasted.
 
ahadabans

ahadabans

Thanks for the links. This tidbit from cube design remodeling part one (which I ended up in) especially resonates with me:

"We weakened the context-independent power-level of your average card, so you're forced to look for synergies to recoup that power discrepancy. "

I have always been sold on the idea that synergy in cube is where the sweet spot it, and I'm constantly choosing interesting cards that have circumstantial high ceilings over ones that are just innately powerful on their own. It's a fine line though.

 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
Jason Waddell said:
I will say, I haven't heard of a single person trying double fetches and not liking it. I know some of my other ideas (Birthing Pod, eg.) are a bit sketchier, but multifetch seems pretty solid. Chris Taylor even runs quad fetch.
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Triple, but close enough :p
You guys are all 20/~360, so I'm 30/540, with duals, shocks and filters to round it out.
 
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