Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Oh wow, that looks insane! And I was about to add Zur the Enchanter to my cube as well!
General Ixlan Spoiler
- Thread starter Chris Taylor
- Start date
I think the speed of the effect helps keep it in the power level I'm looking for. That said, I'm not even sure it's that slow. Drop it mid-game, and you might already have 7 cards in the bin. It's only threshold, and threshold is not super hard to hit in blue, especially if the format has a more draw-discard focused suite of options.
"Scry 1" a turn is pretty decent on it's own for a 2 mana enchant.
"Scry 1" a turn is pretty decent on it's own for a 2 mana enchant.
yes exactly.
I think for me this fits perfectly in "just as fast/slow as I want, while also being a relatively unique blue effect".
Another 2 mana card that provides a unique draw effect that is subtly pretty great (I think)
Provides a nice touch of aggro for Green while also providing a valuable draw/filter effect for the color. Might like this slightly better than Wall of Blossoms. Maybe.
I think for me this fits perfectly in "just as fast/slow as I want, while also being a relatively unique blue effect".
Another 2 mana card that provides a unique draw effect that is subtly pretty great (I think)
Provides a nice touch of aggro for Green while also providing a valuable draw/filter effect for the color. Might like this slightly better than Wall of Blossoms. Maybe.
Somebody on Reddit had an idea to run some of these new transform lands already transformed in their cubes. That's a pretty interesting idea, though clearly it makes these cards even more powerful than they already are. The Maze of Ith that taps for mana is probably too good, but this new blue land might not be too broken. 4 mana to draw a card is obviously really good in control but it's slow and expensive. Probably less busted than Shelldock Isle.
Thoughts?
Thoughts?
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
I agree with your judgment. The blue one is still really good though. Etb untapped, taps for colored mana, buries your opponent in card advantage in the late game. The "problem" is that, when running it in the land slot, the card doesn't take up a precious spell slot in your deck. Effectively you're running 24 cards without skimping on mana, that's secretly extremely powerful.
In fact, I cut all special lands from my cube. While things like Gavony Township offer something unique to a cube, lands are excessively hard to deal with, considering that you have a limited amount of space in your cube, and other, likely more important kinds of removal directly compete with land destruction cards. I'm happy running only mana fixing lands!
I'd just like to mention that the fact that they're making the vampires in this set 17th century spaniards is just brilliant. Fits with the whole subtle caribbean/south america thing going on.
CML
Contributor
Haha, everyone who played in 2010 was raised on Future Sight ... they in fact were the only people remaining after that set.
I kinda like a lot of these cards, it's too bad the writing is so horrific or the setting might work too (How could you fuck up dinos and pirates???) It's all cribbed pretty shamelessly from Warhammer's Lustria, but that's a separate issue
Non-sequitur: I LIKED VAMPS ENOUGH TO TRY THEM OUT I'LL HAVE YOU KNOW. And the B/r Vampires Standard deck was totally respectable so it seemed like it might work, until you tried it. You would know this if you played in 2010
Edit: I like the new announcement (a few months ago) about now having a testing team at WotC, implying that previously, they didn't. I know prior to that period the extant testing teams missed sophisticated stumpers like "Mono-Black Devotion" though so, who knows, maybe it was money well saved. It goes without saying the Cube was not tested. And if Smuggler's Copter was tested—Ulamog help us all!
I'm sure if you asked Rosewater he would use the word "transformation".
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Woooooow! This is awesome! This cycle is officially great
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
I even like it in more controlling builds that run enough incidental value creatures / token producers, where it can function as a semi-Mystifying Maze (that can't block flyers but gains 1 life). I'm pretty sure I would run it in the aforementioned Zur the Enchanter-deck.
Let's not forget that this is a one mana investment -> ramp you by one. That's very efficient for non-creature ramp, especially in non-green. Now that I think it, I wonder if this flip mechanic can free up a mana rock slot or so? All these flip-into-land spells are ramp effects that can exist outside of green, so they behave similarly to rocks... Interesting.
As an aside, with a good curve out this shouldn't be terribly hard to flip. T1 this into T2 Mogg War Marshal or 2 one-drops can easily threaten to flip this T3, even giving you access to 4 mana that same turn, which is doubly great.
As an aside, with a good curve out this shouldn't be terribly hard to flip. T1 this into T2 Mogg War Marshal or 2 one-drops can easily threaten to flip this T3, even giving you access to 4 mana that same turn, which is doubly great.
Pretty meh about it, going to wait for testing as I don't think decks that can trigger this really want a plains or a 4 mana solider ability vs playing their other spells. Could be wrong here, but eh I don't know.
How many turns would you accept this being a 1/1 lifelinker? In practice that could be an issue.
How many turns would you accept this being a 1/1 lifelinker? In practice that could be an issue.
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
Both the ceiling and the floor on its triggered/activated abilities seem meh to bad. The mana ramp strikes me as the biggest material draw, but slots in awkwardly into the type of cube deck that most wants to be attacking with multiple bodies, making it somewhat narrow.
Very weird card. I do like the idea though of making 1/1 bodies and sacing them to goblin bombardment on blocks to produce the world's worst sulfuric vortex.
Realistically, how high does the ceiling have to be?? It's a one mana spell. How high is the ceiling on a vanilla 2/1? It's a body, potential ramp, reach and more bodies into the later game. That's a lot of value for one mana. Decks I see most wanting it are the Young Pyromancer style spell-tempo decks, and RW aggressive decks that rely slightly more on equipment.
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
Well, the floor is where the focus should be, not the ceiling. If we're talking about ceilings on cards we can always come up with some narrow combination that makes them worthwhile. Generally you want cube cards to be flexible, suggest a deck, but be able to slot reasonably into multiple archetypes. Whats the floor of the card across the board? In a game increasingly based around pressure, this card seems poor at exerting it on all fronts, while awkwardly requiring a trigger that suggests you should be exerting board pressure.
I know its spoiler season, and this is a card people have already decided they want to run, so anything that sounds like negativity directed at is is going to be treated like we're out in the open ocean, and I'm trying to take someone's raft away. Not saying not to test it, just thats its a weird card, and it would be interesting to talk about some of the issues with such a weird card, to flesh it out better.
I know its spoiler season, and this is a card people have already decided they want to run, so anything that sounds like negativity directed at is is going to be treated like we're out in the open ocean, and I'm trying to take someone's raft away. Not saying not to test it, just thats its a weird card, and it would be interesting to talk about some of the issues with such a weird card, to flesh it out better.
For a cube spot? Higher than this, at least more consistently. You're either paying 4 for a soldier or you have a plains; I get that there are cool things you can do with that, and there is some value, but none of it is really super appealing on either side and I feel like most of the time I'm going to want to cast my spells vs activate the back.
Again, maybe I'm wrong, and what I'm saying definitely won't happen in every game, but I imagine a number of games and matches it will feel pretty meh.