Sets (LCI & REX) Lost Caverns of Ixalan and Jurassic Park spoilers

[Onderzeeboot]

Is the splashability that huge a concern for you?
has been fine, not overpowered.

I don't like 3/4's for 3 in general, but yes, I particularly don't like those with an easy mana cost (which also kinda is). That 4th toughness makes it just so resilient, and the 3 power means it slaughters everything cheaper. The only 3 mv 3/4 I run in my own cube is Feather, the Redeemed, and she has a really unique ability plus she has three colored pips in the casting cost. I also really, really dislike the vigilance on both Sentinel of the Nameless City and Cemetery Prowler. That's really not the keyword I want to see on overstatted cheap minions.

Edit: Please keep in mind that, unlike you, I don't run removal like Swords to Plowshares and Flame Slash. A 3/4 for 3 is decidedly less backbreaking when your removal keeps pace with the higher power curve.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Whereas I've lowkey wanted a 4/4 for 1GG since Loxodon Smiter was printed

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

Whereas I've lowkey wanted a 4/4 for 1GG since Loxodon Smiter was printed

Weirdly I don't mind Loxodon Smiter. I guess it's because it's multicolored? I think it's a fun sweet card in how straight forward and dumb it is, but I also am not super happy about the idea of playing mono colored 3/4 creatures for 3

 

[Chris Taylor]

I will say I probably don't want a 4/4 for 1gg anymore, as it's not particularly interesting. Before I was pretty frustrated I'd wanted something other than troll ascetic because my cube was big enough, and smiter just had the wrong kinds of upsides for me. Felt frustrated when I felt that green HAD to reach into multicolor in order to get good 3s.

Turns out now we get good 3s, because they stopped printing llanowar elves. Funny how those two are related

 

[TrainmasterGT]

Oh cool! A 3/4 for with upside! This is fine! >_> Like, I know this would rather suck at , but maybe some stats should not exist at certain mana costs? Then again, I'll just not play it, and anyone who does desire this stat push is welcome to enjoy the card!

I don't know man, this thing gets bodied by Siege Rhino until you dump several mana into it. It feels perfectly balanced to me

 

[TrainmasterGT]

My nominee for the cutest card in the set, at least until we see the Capybara. I love the art and flavor of this, and the base 3/2 trample stats seem potentially quite good. I definitely feel that we're getting past the point where French Vanilla creatures with stats are the most fun options for a given Cube slot, but this guy might just be worth giving a spin.

 

[Velrun]

@TrainmasterGT
Just wanted to let you know that Belligerent Yearling is not a french vanilla.

 

[Brad]

View attachment 8990
This is very cute and very neat. I don't think it'll get there in power-level for my main cube but for my travel cube, I'm very interested.

They really could have let this hit lands as a cute plan B.

Ew. Leave that to the Rogues. They even had to errata the reminder text. As much as I have a distaste for this, some EDH Dino Kid is hyped for cheating in their Colossal Dreadmaw.

I think that a cube with "land tribal" themes of Caves, Gates, Deserts, Snow... Locus? could be cool. I like seeing what they do with these occasional land types. They'll need to fix Nearby Planet's reminder text.

UB Minecraft spoiler???

At least you have to work for this one.

The Ancient One
UB
Legendary Creature - Spirit God
Descent 8 - This can't attack or block if you have less than 8 or more permanent cards in your graveyard.
2UB: Draw a card, then discard a card. When you do, target player mills equal to that card's mana value.

This is a cool mix of things. Besides the obvious, this gives us a God card for The World Tree that isn't DFC or super fucking annoying to play with OR against.

Dirge of the Forgotten
UB
Sorcery
Descend 8 - Choose one. If your graveyard has eight or more permanent cards when you cast this spell, choose one or more instead.
· Return target nonland permanent to its owner's hand.
· Target opponent discards a card.
· Look at the top three cards of your library. Put one of them into your hand and the rest into your graveyard.

Sorcery definitely hurts it and it probably isn't going to be competitive enough to make the cut in a normal multicolor section, but this does a lot of what UB typically wants and I appreciate the design.


This is so good without being oppressive. Probably a "staple"?

 

[TrainmasterGT]

@TrainmasterGT
Just wanted to let you know that Belligerent Yearling is not a french vanilla.

You’re right, but I don’t think extra that ability is going to come up often enough in Cube to really matter unless the designer is specifically pushing Dinosaurs. Functionally it’s a 3/2 with Trample in the vast majority of cases.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Lmao you know what this is? This is 4WW, 4/4 flying with Convoke and Improvise

 

[TrainmasterGT]

This is so good without being oppressive. Probably a "staple"?

This is exactly the type of wordy card I don't like. You have to read it like two or three times before you can fully appreciate what the card actually does, but then the card in practice is only ok. I feel like if you're going to put players through the effort of trying to use a card, it should be something that can win the game on a regular basis and not just be a B+ interactive card.

This is basically Stifle but as a Banisher Priest. While that's definitely good enough for many Cubes, it's just a really boring use of complexity space.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

It reads like a really mid card to me. Is this even better than, say, Frost Lynx or Exclusion Mage?

 

[Rusje]

It reads like a really mid card to me. Is this even better than, say, Frost Lynx or Exclusion Mage?

Yes, but not against creatures. The power of the card lies against artifacts and planes walkers. Against those it is a banisher priest.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Yes, but not against creatures. The power of the card lies against artifacts and planes walkers. Against those it is a banisher priest.

You have to read it like two or three times before you can fully appreciate what the card actually does

Aaah, right… I think I’m with Train on this one, but I get why people might be excited about the card then, especially in planeswalker-heavy environments.

 

[LadyMapi]

They really could have let this hit lands as a cute plan B.

Ew. Leave that to the Rogues. They even had to errata the reminder text. As much as I have a distaste for this, some EDH Dino Kid is hyped for cheating in their Colossal Dreadmaw.

That's not actually errata, though? That's just the actual rules text for Prowl. The reason it looks weird is that, unlike most cards with Prowl, it can't make any assumptions about what creature types your Prowl-er is.

 

[Zoss]

Lmao you know what this is? This is 4WW, 4/4 flying with Convoke and Improvise

But more importantly, it's a cheat target! If you think I'm not going to draw T1 and discard to hand size then T2 Helping Hand it into play at some point in this season of limited then you're nuts. This is kind of exactly where I want cheat target to be: semi-castable but still fairly valuable to sneak into play.

In cube, the lines are even more reasonable. Heck, you can recur this with Lurrus or Teshar, Ancestors' Apostle! Will I run it? That's a hard maybe, but if I do it'll be because of the crossover between the rectangle deck and a Recursion target, as a 4/4 is pretty large in my cube.

 

[MilesOfficial]

Folks, this set has finally done it to me. I'm committing to white artifacts as a subtheme.


I love this little guy. It's a "fair" welder and a restricted mana rock. Maybe it has too many knobs turned towards being safe, but I like what this card's got going on.



This is my favorite version of this effect to date...which is weird, because it's a super-wordy, double-sided, and requires a novel token that is super unlikely to be reused in my list in the future.

But I like the bits and bobs going on here, and I think it's easy enough to understand. It gives you two of the five creatures/artifacts you need to flip it, and it's not the worst sitting around unflipped as a way to power up your gnome. It's finally a 4-drop in white that's oppressive once it gets going if you build towards it, instead of just being oppressive to begin with. Neat!

I think I'm already a bit too far-gone in token spam / DFC spam and it's easy enough to grok even with a million words, so I'm in.

 

[inscho]

Folks, this set has finally done it to me. I'm committing to white artifacts as a subtheme.

View attachment 8993
I love this little guy. It's a "fair" welder and a restricted mana rock. Maybe it has too many knobs turned towards being safe, but I like what this card's got going on.


View attachment 8994View attachment 8995
This is my favorite version of this effect to date...which is weird, because it's a super-wordy, double-sided, and requires a novel token that is super unlikely to be reused in my list in the future.

But I like the bits and bobs going on here, and I think it's easy enough to understand. It gives you two of the five creatures/artifacts you need to flip it, and it's not the worst sitting around unflipped as a way to power up your gnome. It's finally a 4-drop in white that's oppressive once it gets going if you build towards it, instead of just being oppressive to begin with. Neat!

I think I'm already a bit too far-gone in token spam / DFC spam and it's easy enough to grok even with a million words, so I'm in.

Love the artifact theme in white…but neither of these are doing it for me.

The foundry has too many hoops to jump through to get value for my tastes. Hoops to jump through to produce mana. You need an artifact in play and in the graveyard that satisfy the criteria and that you actually want to exchange. It exiles the card and it’s sorcery speed

Smithy feels clunky and a little win more. I like that it provides two of the five things you need to tap, and the body is a 2/2 minimum. It wants you to have played a lot of your hand to be able to flip, but also have still stuff in hand to cast off the transformed land’s mana. All at the turn 4-5 mark which are crucial turns. Just feels a little awkward

 

[MilesOfficial]

@inscho I get it, I'm sure I'll probably be less hot on these by the time I get over the honeymoon phase of seeing them during spoiler season based on what you're saying. One card I will maintain my hype for, though:


Speak of the devil.....

Great take on Tendershoot Dryad, which I took out of my Cube because it was a bit oppressive and unfun. It's been 6 years since then, though, and I think this is a great way to support white artifact aggro (and sign-post it from the heavens!) That said, I'm trying to have fewer 5-drops, not more....


My favorite of the gods. Feels pretty bad to pay 5 for a land if your opponent checks you with removal, but even trampling over 1 is generally going to get you good value. I like this format for making gods feel immortal without indestructibility or the like, and it's just slow enough that it's not wholly oppressive. I doubt I'll replace Vorniclex with this, but it's a neat design all the same.

 

[MilesOfficial]

Neat! I'll take it.

I have 5 cards that use -1/-1 counters still, so no real downside to this from a logistics standpoint.

 

[Schafkurai]

Folks, this set has finally done it to me. I'm committing to white artifacts as a subtheme.

View attachment 8993
I love this little guy. It's a "fair" welder and a restricted mana rock. Maybe it has too many knobs turned towards being safe, but I like what this card's got going on.


View attachment 8994View attachment 8995
This is my favorite version of this effect to date...which is weird, because it's a super-wordy, double-sided, and requires a novel token that is super unlikely to be reused in my list in the future.

But I like the bits and bobs going on here, and I think it's easy enough to understand. It gives you two of the five creatures/artifacts you need to flip it, and it's not the worst sitting around unflipped as a way to power up your gnome. It's finally a 4-drop in white that's oppressive once it gets going if you build towards it, instead of just being oppressive to begin with. Neat!

I think I'm already a bit too far-gone in token spam / DFC spam and it's easy enough to grok even with a million words, so I'm in.

The fabrication foundry reminds me a bit too much of Scrap Welder, a card that I was pretty disappointed with after trying it in draft and cube. I think that design wise the mana rock part takes up most of the power of the card and I'm not interested in that and as a result the reanimation part is very weak/restricted (sorcery, exiling, cost,..).

The Gnomestruct machine on the other hand might be quite solid! Important for me is: at what point is the creature large enough to be worth 4 mana? I think it's somewhere between 4/4 and 5/5.

These cards, among others, can do that by themselves:


It's definitely weaker than a card like Urza, Lord High Artificer but I think that's a good thing, and it rewards you more for focused deckbuilding (Urza is probably anyway too strong for my cube and I should cut it...). I also like that you have to work a bit for the backside but it's probably feasible to achive in cubes with high artifact/token densities. I am curious how it might add to a package as outlined in Nanonox's 1v1 cube.

EDIT:

As for the white Tendershoot Dryad.. I always felt that it was a very harsh removal check [in draft]. Either you deal with it fast or you lose. On the other hand losing your 5 drop to a shoch also felt bad. Being an artifact and creating artifacts definitely makes it more interesting, but I think the jump from 4 to 5 mana is high enough in my cube that this feels too fragile.

 

[StrionicAdventurer]

OMG. I have been searching high and low for a Jeskai legend who REALLY feels like they belong in my cube. Here it is!!!

Jeskai is my favorite color combo, so this is especially delightful for me.

 

[Seeker]

But more importantly, it's a cheat target! If you think I'm not going to draw T1 and discard to hand size then T2 Helping Hand it into play at some point in this season of limited then you're nuts. This is kind of exactly where I want cheat target to be: semi-castable but still fairly valuable to sneak into play.

Counterpoint: how good can your deck be when you have to dodge Discover just because you'll hit your one-of this idiot every time arrrrgh etc etc

It's rare that I wish a commander card was a "real" card but I genuinely like this bite spell and I think it could have seen Standard play:

Probably not for my cube because I really dislike sorcery speed, but might at least test it.

 

[Rusje]

Probably not for my cube because I really dislike sorcery speed, but might at least test it

Where is the sharpie emoji when you need it?

 

[Brad]

That's not actually errata, though? That's just the actual rules text for Prowl. The reason it looks weird is that, unlike most cards with Prowl, it can't make any assumptions about what creature types your Prowl-er is.

You right. I only checked one card with Prowl. It happened to be Morsel Theft and that confirmed what I thought I knew. Still doesn't sit right for me being on a non-Rogue, but it's a cool card.

It reads like a really mid card to me. Is this even better than, say, Frost Lynx or Exclusion Mage?

Maybe my lens of evaluation is too unique on the Tidebinder. I think that countering nonland (fetch) abilities is really cool. I like cards that partial-counter Eldrazi. I love Flash as an ability. It feels solid to me. Exclusion Mage may be better, but it's not my style. I've been wanting a nonland Nimble Obstructionist and this is close.

I love cards that are high in the curve and low in the curve. The burn spell is playable in mid-power and the dino is sweet in my big mana format. Nice Channel.

It adds a lot of text, but options are nice.

A nice tribal card. Bad Shock as a floor is a solid backup plan.

A not-as-nice tribal card. I feel like this stays 90% as thematic and has much more usage if it searched for a creature with power >N.

I really like the DFCs in this set, but won't be utilizing any for physical logistical issues. Most of the Crafts feel flavorful and appropriately costed.