Sets [KTK] Khans of Tarkir Spoilers

[Grillo_Parlante]

Yeah, the power level in the set is wrapped up in the shards, so its a bit hard to patch over the best bits into cube. Even then, I don't feel the set is really pushing the boundaries.

On the other hand, this thread let me talk about how great chrono trigger is, so there is that.

 

[Eric Chan]

Choice of 3color land?

I was just thinking the same thing as I looked over the beautiful wedge tri-land artwork this morning. Would that be too good, though?

 

[CML]

This set is indeed so far pretty disappointing for Cube as I've conceived it (which I know is similar to that of a lot of the rest of you guys). Not only that, but between the really color-intense nature of their cards, and their (presumably) high power level, they don't look like good fits in any Cube I know of. Maybe Eldrazi Domain? It's possible the balance could be OK for Constructed, but there are so many 3-color cards (a lot more than Shards, it appears) and so few 2-color ones that ugh wtf.

 

[Eric Chan]

Yeah, Shards of Alara wasn't great for cube either, and if the breakdown of this set by colour is anything similar, we probably shouldn't be too optimistic. Luckily it's just a wedge set and not a whole block

 

[Kuldahar]

Is morph a cubable mechanic?
How many morph dudes would you need to make it cool, but not too many to make it silly?

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Its not a good sign when one of your sets best cards is a lightning angel with bad art.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Is morph a cubable mechanic?
How many morph dudes would you need to make it cool, but not too many to make it silly?

Morph is a fine mechanic, the issue with it is that you can end up with decks running a bunch of de facto three drops, which get tempoed out by the decks running more tempo efficent cards. I'm not sure what the proper balance would be, but they have shown some decent morphs in this set with a viable 2 drop modes as well as morph mode.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I run a few 3-color cards in my cube:

All of them are impactful when they hit the battlefield. The problem with cheap 3-color cards is that your mana base has to be able to support aggressive cards in three colors and their effect on the battlefield often just isn't impactful enough to justify that third color. With expensive 3-color cards it's easier to just splash your third color plus you can expect more powerful things at a higher mana cost making the card actually worth splashing for. So, what I'm looking for in this set is 5+ mana 3-color cards that make me want to splash that third color.

Narset, Enlightened Master has a powerful effect, but the body is underwhelming, and I'm not too fond of hexproof (although it might be okay on a six mana 3/2).
Zurgo Helmsmasher looks fun. Definitely a playable curve topper that I'ld want to splash a color for in a semi-aggressive deck.
Sage of the Inward Eye might be a better cube fit than Narset in its colors actually. Lifelink for your whole team is powerful, and the 3/4 evasive body is nice. Not better than Archangel of Thune though, and that's in one color.
Duneblast is awesome, but at seven mana just one mana too expensive.

Ainok Bond-Kin should have been a human. Cool common nonetheless.
End Hostilities is interesting.
Suspension Field might replace Journey to Nowhere over here.
Wingmate Roc is replacing Archangel of Thune because it has more interesting applications.
Thousand Winds looks interting. Sometimes we forget how good a Mahamoti Djinn is in limited formats, and this one has a definite upside.
Clever Impersonator is going in.
Jeskai Elder looks more interesting than the shadow looter.
Ruthless Ripper is awesome, but I would want at least two morphs per color in my cube and watch the 3 cmc slot carefully.
Mardu Ambusher is an aggressive Ravenous Rats in a good tribe.
Horde Ambusher is playable.
Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker looks like a fine replacement for one of the two red planeswalkers I currently run. Koth can be a bit overwhelming sometimes, Sarkhan looks a little less cutthroat. On the other hand, mono red still has to win a draft...
War-Name Aspirant is good. Human and +1/+1 counters.
Hardened Scales is probably going in.
Icefeather Aven is a good card.

 

[Chris Taylor]

I was just thinking the same thing as I looked over the beautiful wedge tri-land artwork this morning. Would that be too good, though?

Just make sure it isn't in addition to whatever control fixing cycle you have a choice of. Midrange likes these lands too, and it does make splashing way easier, since now there's no way you could have a 3 color combination for which no land exists.

 

[GenericZero]

So I want to experiment and throw together a good multicolor cube just to see how it works. The reflecting pool cube seems close to what I'd want, but not quite there. I really have to know these things first though:

1.would ravnica lands with fetches be good enough and are there any other lands I should run?(tricolor,scry, anything not over 60 bucks each)
2.are there enough interesting but not too powerful mono and dual colored cards where I could make the three color cards seem more tempting without making everything too underwhelming?
3.what kind of themes could I have that cross over decently with other themes without decks feeling like they're all too similar with their general strategy?

Based off of what I've read on the forums, things like cycling, heavier reliance on activated abilities, and obviously good mama should make this cube idea work. I like multicolored morph cards in concept. The ability to play a threat without feeling like poop for not having all three colors on curve is a good use of the mechanic. I just hope we get enough good multicolor morph dudes to work with. We probably won't, though. But if anyone has some suggestions or answers to my questions, please share.

 

[ahadabans]

Morph is a fine mechanic, the issue with it is that you can end up with decks running a bunch of de facto three drops, which get tempoed out by the decks running more tempo efficent cards. I'm not sure what the proper balance would be, but they have shown some decent morphs in this set with a viable 2 drop modes as well as morph mode.

I agree with this.

Really they should have had morph by more dynamic and more efficient. Like instead of it being a 2/2 for 3. Maybe make it cheaper and give you two modes. Something like a 2/1 for 2 or a 1/3 for 2. You'd need tokens or something to indicate what type of morph you made. But otherwise it would be the same thing essentially.

The benefit though is the creature in morph mode would almost be worth the cost even if you don't get to flip it (which solves the tempo problem). As an aggressive deck, a goblin piker is underwhelming but serviceable. In a more control oriented deck, a 1/3 for 2 mana is actually pretty useful.

The main issue with morph is that a 2/2 for 3 is super underpowered and virtually useless to every strategy. It represents pure tempo loss if it dies before you get to flip it. In limited that is probably going to be OK due to limited removal (and general creature dominated lameness of the format), but in cube I don't think it works well (unless the payout is so great that it is worth the risk... like Exalted Angel for example).

 

[CML]

morph is great, it just appears on creatures from 2000 and is limited-heavy, so the card pool is super-limited

threadjack: what morphs would you consider running from Onslaught or Time Spiral for a nice themesies with Khans? How many morphs would you need to make it worthwhile?

 

[anotak]

threadjack: what morphs would you consider running from Onslaught or Time Spiral for a nice themesies with Khans? How many morphs would you need to make it worthwhile?

well
http://cubetutor.com/viewcube/13998
i dont know

a start:

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

So I want to experiment and throw together a good multicolor cube just to see how it works. The reflecting pool cube seems close to what I'd want, but not quite there. I really have to know these things first though:

1.would ravnica lands with fetches be good enough and are there any other lands I should run?(tricolor,scry, anything not over 60 bucks each)
2.are there enough interesting but not too powerful mono and dual colored cards where I could make the three color cards seem more tempting without making everything too underwhelming?
3.what kind of themes could I have that cross over decently with other themes without decks feeling like they're all too similar with their general strategy?

Based off of what I've read on the forums, things like cycling, heavier reliance on activated abilities, and obviously good mama should make this cube idea work. I like multicolored morph cards in concept. The ability to play a threat without feeling like poop for not having all three colors on curve is a good use of the mechanic. I just hope we get enough good multicolor morph dudes to work with. We probably won't, though. But if anyone has some suggestions or answers to my questions, please share.

Yeah, I was thinking that might be fun to do too.

I was thinking maybe develop a main theme for its shard, and have the major incentive cards for that theme in the multi-color section. Than have overlap with another shard, which creates a sub-theme. The overlapping pieces are mono-colored cards.

I have no idea what actually to run though.

 

[GenericZero]

Gotta see what's printed in those shards. Blue shards are always gimmicky. Sultai being graveyard themed and esper being artifact themed. Those seem like the hardest to do. On another note is the issue of finding guild color themes that also tie in well.

 

[Diakonov]

The main issue with morph is that a 2/2 for 3 is super underpowered and virtually useless to every strategy. It represents pure tempo loss if it dies before you get to flip it. In limited that is probably going to be OK due to limited removal (and general creature dominated lameness of the format), but in cube I don't think it works well (unless the payout is so great that it is worth the risk... like Exalted Angel for example).

This is why I thought it would be neat if they printed some morph cards that take this problem into account. For example:

GGG

Morph G

When this creature becomes the target of a spell or ability, turn it face up.
Hexproof

3/3

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

That particular card I think doesn't work since it gains hexproof by becoming a target, so the hexproof won't do anything unless the flip also counters.

Can the morph as 2/1 or 1/3 just be slotted into the current morph cards?

Edit: Actually shouldn't it be a 3/1? I just feel like having a morph being able to completely stop an opposing morph makes for a passive boardstate. This becomes more of an issue in retail but we still need some critical mass of morph cards to begin with.

 

[Diakonov]

Gaining hexproof would cause the effect to fizzle since the target is no longer legal. Similar to this card:

 

[ahadabans]

That particular card I think doesn't work since it gains hexproof by becoming a target, so the hexproof won't do anything unless the flip also counters.

Can the morph as 2/1 or 1/3 just be slotted into the current morph cards?

Edit: Actually shouldn't it be a 3/1? I just feel like having a morph being able to completely stop an opposing morph makes for a passive boardstate. This becomes more of an issue in retail but we still need some critical mass of morph cards to begin with.

Well, a 3/1 for 2 mana (with the upside of also being a morph) would probably be too good for 2 colorless mana. And by comparison, a 1/3 would be quite a bit weaker IMO (so the "aggro" morph would be better than the "control" morph - maybe that'a an issue and maybe it isn't though).

You certainly could try and just play morphs with those new options. It wouldn't require any additional rule tweaking really (you are just changing the cost of morph and what the colorless creature's stats are). Again, you just need a way to track whether you did the 2/1 or 1/3 version (or whatever flavors you want to make).

If you want the aggro/control morphs to "stalemate" each other, maybe make the options a 2/1 or 0/4 (versus 1/3). An 0/3 for 2 mana I think would be too useless (I'd rather have the 2/2 for 3 honestly).

Perhaps an even better solution is to make different choices based on how much mana you spend. Like maybe the morph is an X/1, where X is the amount of mana you spend playing the morph. That way, you don't run into the problem of all your 3 drops being morphs since the cost is static. Making it X/1 also means it scales efficiently, but is much riskier at higher mana costs due to the non-scaling toughness. You then run into interesting game decisions. Both you and your opponent are in top deck mode, you get a morph. Do you play it for 7 mana as a 7/1 and hope he lives?

 

[GenericZero]

I think having variable morph stats and costs is a complexity issue. even with tokens to mark them, it just feels...off. Another issue is that it makes the guessing game of "who's that morph dude?" a bit less relevant since only some dudes would have certain stats. A 2/2 for 3 is definitely below the curve, but it can work.

 

[ahadabans]

I think having variable morph stats and costs is a complexity issue. even with tokens to mark them, it just feels...off. Another issue is that it makes the guessing game of "who's that morph dude?" a bit less relevant since only some dudes would have certain stats. A 2/2 for 3 is definitely below the curve, but it can work.

It can. You just need the morph to have a lot of upside when it un-morphs. And to some extent you may need to limit removal to minimize the tempo loss if (when) your morph gets blown up.

This is why I think morph works much better in regular limited. I run a crap load of removal in my cube. If there is one thing creatures do consistently, it's die. So if you are only getting to unmorph your dude 10% of the time (making this number up), you really aren't incentivized to play morphs unless you are getting a close to on-curve creature for it. If I pay 2 mana and get a 2/1 and you bolt it, I really haven't lost that much tempo. It's also no longer a tempo trade with 2 mana removal. I think it would work a little better at that cost in cube personally.

3 mana is a lot to spend on a 2/2 vanilla that will die 90% of the time to your opponents 1 mana removal spell (or worse his turn 3 /4 ETB guy). In that type of meta, why would you bother playing morphs face down at all? You are just asking to put yourself behind on the board. That's the fundamental issue in my mind.

EDIT: Cards with alternate morph costs (like discard a card to unmorph or pay X life, etc) would be another way to combat this issue because you can play the morph and unmorph in response to the inevitable removal spell (either negating the tempo loss or turning it around on the opponent). But this requires Wizard's to print cubable morph cards with these alternate costs, and I've seen precious few to date.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Another thing you could do is just change your removal suite. It would be cool to have, in a custom cube, removal cards that couldn't target colorless cards, and maybe a whole colored/colorless swap theme, or color changing. Say a terror or dark banishing that can't target colorless. One of morphs problems is that it suffers from the same weaknesses as combat tricks, but instead of a card advantage blowout, its a tempo blowout. So somewhere along the lines, removal is probably going to have to be toyed with to accommodate the mechanic.

Due to the lack of non-pauper level playable morphs, and the fact you need a density of them for the mechanic to be meaningful, I think the whole mechanic slots in very well in a custom environment anyways.

I still think most of its problems can be solved by having the majority of morphs have viable 2 drop modes, to compete with a compelling unmorphed mode. It seems like a neat way to connect the early and late game.

 

[FlowerSunRain]

 

[Dom Harvey]

 

[ahadabans]

I'll take "horribly worded removal spells" for $1000, Alex.