Sets [IKO] Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths

[Onderzeeboot]

I guess that's true. It DOES occasionally get those effects. I've never liked the ones with the ability to go directly to the field. Feels too green for me.

Green is hogging too much quality anyways, nowadays, I'm okay with the other (nonblue) colors sharing in green's wealth of mechanics a bit

Verge Rangers looks definitely testable for cube as well. That's a good effect on a good body, in a color that can use all the (virtual) card advantage it can get its hands on!

 

[Mondschwein]

Verge Rangers is interesting and I might consider it If lands.dec ends up in RUGW. Still not sure.

Heavenly Whale looks very interesting! And makes it even harder for me to choose between all the interesting spells matter creatures.

Cazur is the spoiler I'm definitely testing. Good-Fortune Unicorn still looks great aus a signpost. I need to see If Cazur ends up being too strong.

 

[Velrun]

The mutate mechanic is a bit weird. The first mutation will probably buff the creature. The second one (if you should have one) will probably not buff the creature but simply feel like a sorcery spell with an “Whenever you mutate, do X” Aura on it. That means mutating a creature several times will feel like a firework of sorcery spells being cast.

The creatures will usually not grow and grow and grow in size.

 

[sigh]

This set does seem to have quite the high power level. Heavenly Whale is crazy good, and capable on T2 with a good hand. I like that the ability kinda adds another restriction to the delve cost, because more expensive = harder to cast, but more fuel to potentially return to hand, while less cost = 3/3 flyer for super cheap and easy.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

This set does seem to have quite the high power level. Heavenly Whale is crazy good, and capable on T2 with a good hand. I like that the ability kinda adds another restriction to the delve cost, because more expensive = harder to cast, but more fuel to potentially return to hand, while less cost = 3/3 flyer for super cheap and easy.

Heavenly Whale is from the Commander set that accompanies Ikoria, I believe.

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

Yeah we seem to have begun mixing spoilers from both sets in this thread

 

[Velrun]

Yeah we seem to have begun mixing spoilers from both sets in this thread

And I love it!

(Since we are cubers and therefore do not care if a card is Standard legal or nooooot (Borat))

 

[shamizy]

Usually the spoilers from CMDR versus regular sets are mechanically distinct enough to keep separate, but this one is tied in with Ikoria with a ton of overlap. Not really worth the effort to have two different threads. Also too late at this point

 

[Onderzeeboot]

A commander spoiler. I want to test this one, very curious whether this is good or not.

 

[TrainmasterGT]

Trample/big guys/go wide support!

Cazur is the spoiler I'm definitely testing. Good-Fortune Unicorn still looks great aus a signpost. I need to see If Cazur ends up being too strong.

I think this card is very bad. It's body is below the curve, it doesn't have or provide evasion, it just makes all of your creatures into Sliths. I'd rather have a guaranteed one-time pump like Good-Fortune Unicorn or Renata, Called to the Hunt than something which may never end up pumping any of my creatures.

This guy can snowball in theory, but I think there are so many more flexible green 4's that he's not worth the slot. Ripjaw Raptor laughs at the person who puts this in their deck.

A commander spoiler. I want to test this one, very curious whether this is good or not.

I could see this card being very good. It doesn't specify that you have to grab a basic plains card, so in theory it could help with fixing in Shockland environments. The Mistral Charger body is already playable in cube, and Tony Hawk here provides a pseudo-ramp pseudo-card advantage ability to boot. Being forced to bounce it back kind of sucks, but that's not too important considering that it helps accelerate mana. This may easily be a cube staple in the making.

 

[TrainmasterGT]

This card is so cool, but you have to cast it to get the trigger. They're printing a bunch of cards like this in the EDH decks, but they're all designed so that the cards are either bad outside of commander or that you can't use them to cheat on mana. I just want to discard this and Striped Riverwinder to Putrid Imp and then get them both back using Animate Dead!

 

[Onderzeeboot]

It doesn't specify that you have to grab a basic plains card, so in theory it could help with fixing in Shockland environments.

Oh jeez, I didn't even see that. I just assumed basic Plains. That makes it even better!

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

I think this card is very bad. It's body is below the curve, it doesn't have or provide evasion, it just makes all of your creatures into Sliths. I'd rather have a guaranteed one-time pump like Good-Fortune Unicorn or Renata, Called to the Hunt than something which may never end up pumping any of my creatures.

This guy can snowball in theory, but I think there are so many more flexible green 4's that he's not worth the slot. Ripjaw Raptor laughs at the person who puts this in their deck.

Uhm, I think this analysis is assuming too much about the power level of the format this guy would fit into. In a lower power cube I could see this as a good fixed version of curse of predation.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Uhm, I think this analysis is assuming too much about the power level of the format this guy would fit into. In a lower power cube I could see this as a good fixed version of curse of predation.

Curse of Predation is busted. I tested Curse of Stalked Prey for a while as an alternative, and it was still too snowbally. I actually really like this ability on a 4 mana body, definitely going to test!

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

Yeah honestly, I'm not sure what to feel about effects like that. If you stumble once to a card like that you might quickly lose your footing completely because you lose the ability to block after maybe the first swing even, and after that you either chump or let them grow even bigger. I think that four drop is fine. You gotta work a little for an effect like that! Bounce spells, trample, you know.

 

[Brad]

Hmm. It's always a swamp. It will probably tap for at least your own two colors of mana. It will be a manland somewhat often. Sometimes it's Nykthos.

Definitely worth a look for anyone running 3cmc rocks.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Hmm. It's always a swamp. It will probably tap for at least your own two colors of mana. It will be a manland somewhat often. Sometimes it's Nykthos.

Definitely worth a look for anyone running 3cmc rocks.

I'm more interested in the one that lets you draw a card for 4 mana, actually.

 

[Mondschwein]

Uhm, I think this analysis is assuming too much about the power level of the format this guy would fit into. In a lower power cube I could see this as a good fixed version of curse of predation.

Exactly this, and what Onder said. I don't add a lot of enchantments to my cube because of the missing interaction (I don't like removal that's blank per se in certain matchups) so it's nice to try some enchantments on a stick.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Coool

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Is it cool though? Or is it just randomly super frustrating like most cards with permanent protection?

 

[safra]

Is it cool though? Or is it just randomly super frustrating like most cards with permanent protection?

it's cool because haktos was cool and this has fewer feelbads than he did. thanks.

 

[Velrun]

Is it cool though? Or is it just randomly super frustrating like most cards with permanent protection?

If those are the two options, then cool.
There is nothing random about a strategic choice.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

it's cool because haktos was cool and this has fewer feelbads than he did. thanks.

So Haktos was cool, but caused feelbads? You're really selling this card to me Safra I agree the flavor of the card is nice, but I'm not touching that card for the same reason I'm not touching most cards with permanent protection. Like with most of them, Haktos will sometimes just randomly go to town against an opponent who is utterly unable to interact with it, which is a major feelbad moment. Hexproof and permanent protection are sucky mechanics from a limited gameplay standpoint in my opinion.

If those are the two options, then cool.
There is nothing random about a strategic choice.

Maybe I shouldn't say randomly, but incidentally, if you really want to be nitpicking, but my point is, if your opponent happened to "randomly" pick up only odd cost removal, and you name odd, their entire removal suite can't touch this. I just think this looks cooler than it will play out, much like Sword of Fire and Ice, because it sometimes just hoses people.

Also, I kinda hate it because of the even and odd cost companions printed in the same set, which already require you to handicap yourself by ignoring roughly half the card pool, and this just straight up is True-Name Nemesis against those decks. Boo.

 

[Velrun]

Maybe I shouldn't say randomly, but incidentally, if you really want to be nitpicking, but my point is, (Here I have cut your point but it is a good point!)

I literally was not nitpicking. I guess you were when you changed ‘random’ to ‘incidentally’? I said if those were the two options, then cool is the right word. Don’t put your nitpicking on me.

The big difference between the Swords of X and Y and this new choice protection are exactly that randomness. You do not control who you are playing against/getting paired with in the tournament. You do not choose which colors they play against you. This means the Swords can simply win you a game if villain just happen to be in those colors. That is not the case with this choice protection. I highly doubt villain’s deck is entirely odd or even.

In most cases I expect you to have scenarios where you are either pushing for tempo or abandoning tempo for later value. This is a very interesting choice because it will change from game to game and from person to person.

Edit: I guess you are talking about drafting Ikoria? I always refer to cube drafting when I think about newly spoiled cards. At least on this website.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

No, I think this is less cool than you and Safra think it is in Cube, but I also dislike it for what it means for the viability of odd and even companions in constructed. I just don't like permanent forms of protection all that much, even when it involves choices and you probably won't block their whole deck. It's entirely possible that you block all of the removal they are going to draw, however, but you have no way of knowing if that removal is going to be odd or even, so that's the random factor I was talking about. The closest I run to permanent protection is Sphinx of the Guildpact, but that's meant to be a hard to remove threat in the end game, and it can be chump-blocked.