Card/Deck Low Power Card Spotlight

[Grillo_Parlante]

Maybe barter in blood never did well because of the lack of lifegain or other perk?

I've never ran it, but I'm kind of surprised it performed so poorly for you. Consume in vapors is a beast, though obviously its somewhat matchup dependent.

 

[whydirt]

Skinrender is just the exact type of boring value creature I specifically started my current cube project to avoid. There's very little play to it - just shrink/kill their biggest dude and get a decent body on the board.

Soul Snuffers is better than Skinrender against wide decks, but comes with a smaller body and forces you to think a bit more about your own sequencing.

 

[RavebornMuse]

Wow, this thread has really blown up! I'm tinkering with my list to lower the power level some on every iteration, so this is some cool stuff to see crop up. Thought I'd throw in my two cents on some stuff that was mentioned back on page one...

Re; Eternal Dragon, I just added it to my list and it's very nice, and my list is hardly "low powered" - try it, it's fun! Cycle early and recur, cycle early and reanimate, play it outright as an acceptable threat; it's not a bad card. Doesn't read super exciting, but we've liked it.
Re; Gnaw to the Bone, I lived the dream with Darkblast, Life From the Loam, and Golgari Grave-Troll on my last draft, and had Gnaw to the Bone net me 24 life for when my opponent had nearly ran me over while I was still in the process of filling my yard and digging for a suitable response to their threats. The card is a beast and really gives the durdly graveyard decks a way to keep the good times rolling. Highly recommended.

On the topic of removal, I'm sure it's probably pushing the "low power" thing, but I've really loved this beauty:

Five life is no joke, and sorcery speed and double black help keep it fair, but it's still always a really awesome play that's best against midrange and slightly worse against aggro. I really like it.

 

[ahadabans]

Skinrender is just the exact type of boring value creature I specifically started my current cube project to avoid. There's very little play to it - just shrink/kill their biggest dude and get a decent body on the board.

Here's the thing with Skinrender. I hear you on the value thing, but it's also useless on an empty board since it kills itself (much like Flametongue Kavu). It's also a zombie, so it has that going for it. Some number of value 2 for 1 cards are probably acceptable, though YMMV on how many and which you can run. I don't begrudge those who want to remove Skinrender and his ilk from their cubes, but at the same time control decks need some number of these types of cards to survive aggressive decks.

I also feel there are several tiers of difference between something like Skinrender and Hero of Bladehold for example. Hero makes dudes repeatedly and is an ongoing value generation machine. it's a must remove threat. Skinrender does his thing once and then he's just an hill giant which dies to elephant tokens (outside blink shenanigans).

 

[whydirt]

Being useless when your opponent has an empty board is true of all removal, so I don't really consider that much of a drawback. No one would complain that Go for the Throat is bad in a similar situation. I'd be totally down with Skinrender if it just had a smaller or more conditional effect or possibly just cost more mana - that's why I run Pith Driller and Soul Snuffers in its place.

Obviously there is a huge power band that counts as "low-powered," but I thought I should explain where I'm coming from. YMMV and all that.

 

[ahadabans]

There's always Nekrataal. Soul Snuffers looks interesting, but it's shrinking all your dudes too (which is fine just more narrow). Along those lines, you've got super old school option in Bane of the Living. That one is cool because it can scale larger at the cost of killing itself. It's slow as molasses though.

 

[Chriskool]

I remember loving this hunk; might have a place in lists running Gray Merchant of Asphodel. For those of you that haven't been playing forever, here's the answer to "what if Skinrender were terrible?".

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

That card looks gloriously horrible. Black devotion here we come.

I think skinrender is the winner of this debate, however.

 

[whydirt]

Ashes to Ashes is basically a one-sided pauper Toxic Deluge and is probably even better than Deluge in lowered power formats where everyone plays fair creature decks. I actually found it at its best in black aggro decks as a way to clear blockers for your dumb beaters.

 

[GiftsForgiven]

Oh man, are we doing -x/-x sweepers?

...this doesn't really deserve to be in the low power thread, does it?

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Lol no

 

[whydirt]

That card looks gloriously horrible. Black devotion here we come.

I'd even say it's horror-ible!

 

[ahadabans]

Yeah, Massacre Wurm breaks my rule about finishers that are also stabilizers wrapped up into one neat package like a Christmas ham. He's BBB, so not easy to cast but still at 6 mana that is doing a bit more than I'm happy with. I did try it, but after it took a game where a bad deck was losing and suddenly said deck was winning, I decided to cut it.

On that topic... this is a philosophical question for people...

how do you feel about top end cards that both stabilize and act as a finisher? And I'm talking more along the lines of things that cost 6 (so even midrange can run them) and do board altering things like the wurm. There's gray area stuff, like Sunblast Angel for example (which stabilizes conditionally and can even die to it's own ability if your opponent can tap it). Those cards were too swingy when I tested them, but not everyone has the same (in)tolerance for swingy stuff like that. Clearly Titans are at the top end of this spectrum, but there's plenty a tier below that still feels a bit too easy-mode for durdly decks. Again, curious how others feel about it though.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Thats an interesting question because skeletal vampire both stabilizes and acts as a finisher. Lucre described it as a flying wrath some months ago, and I think thats a fair description.

I also don't think its fair to describe low powered cards as only doing fair things. Honestly, I think low power interactions are, in many ways, more prone to being unfair than high power interactions in cube:



To quote Alex Ullman:

For anyone who thinks "just ban Ghostly Flicker" here is the problem with that line of thought: Flicker is a fair card. Snap and Cloud of Faeries fundamentally break rules of Magic in a way that cannot be contained reasonably in Pauper. Sure, you can loop Flicker with other cards, but it is the nature of Cloud of Faeries to enable a combination that is extremely difficult to break up.

There just is no high power equivalent to cloud of faeries, other than perhaps, very efficent artifact mana.

I think the difference is the number, nature, and scope of the effect. Thragtusk is three very powerful spells in one, so is wormcoil engine, and so is massacre wurm. That level of condensed spell effect far outstrips something like skeletal vampire, even though skeletal vampire also represents multiple spell effects in one package: they are just more subdued.

So, perhaps its suitable to think of it in terms of power cliffs, where a constellation of certain cards dictate how powerful or efficient something must be to compete. Once you remove those cards, it creates a vacuum, that cards with more subdued effects, yet still powerful effects, can fill.

There is always going to be an emphasis on comparative turn efficiency, until you start scrapping the bottom of when powerful effects can come online. At that point its safe to break out the four mana durdle artifacts and spot removal.

 

[GiftsForgiven]

On the note of swingy cards, what do you think about cards like

I like angel of the dire hour much better than the second one, as she can be fairly useful even when your opponent plays around her, but... would you guys consider these cards too swingy? I think they make for some interesting choice points.

Edit: I really wish that comeuppance was double white. Single white seems really gross now that I look at it.

 

[RavebornMuse]

Comeuppance seems ripe for creating extremely sour feelings. The text is also obnoxiously long. Dire Hour represents a potential blowout but at 7 mana and with that degree of conditionality, I find her very tolerable and very cool.

 

[GiftsForgiven]

Comeuppance seems ripe for creating extremely sour feelings. The text is also obnoxiously long. Dire Hour represents a potential blowout but at 7 mana and with that degree of conditionality, I find her very tolerable and very cool.

I played comeuppance when it came with the precon commander deck a year back, and it created almost exclusively bad feelings, every single time. I eventually took it out because it just wasn't worth it.

 

[sigh]

I think I most closely compare Angel of the Dire Hour with is:


They have different levels of floor and ceiling. Dire Hour requires that a worthwhile attack happens, and Serenity can be killed to recur the creatures. I dunno.
Which do y'all even like better of the two?

Edit: I'm not even sure I'd call either of these low power? I do really like the Eternal Dragon mentioned above. Good stuff.

 

[GiftsForgiven]

I think I most closely compare Angel of the Dire Hour with is:

I kinda feel like they just do different things. Of the two, I think that Dire hour is more interesting, mostly because it has flash, and flash is neato.

Edit: ...alright, that's a horrible argument. Sorry.

 

[sigh]

it's a perfectly valid argument. Serenity is better placed in midrange (see Junk Rites in INN-RTR), and Dire Hour would be for control (or that bant flash discussion over in [OGW] lol).

 

[vennythekid]

I agree with what sigh said. Also, Angel of Serenity is amazing as a Pod finisher, if Birthing Pod is in your environment, so that's another consideration.

 

[ahadabans]

I'm not sure I would consider Skeletal Vampire as a stabilizer and finisher in one. It's just 5 power for 6 mana. It requires almost all your mana to make another 1/1 dude, which is horrible ROI. Regenerating requires sacrificing bats, so it's got a cost associated and isn't really free even if it has no direct mana cost (technically it costs 5 if you want to replace the bat).

If you are facing an army on the other side of the board, Batman blocks and one thing and loses a bat token. For 6 mana that's pretty tame. It can't attack and block either, so you have to use it one way generally. Yes, it combos with blink and global destroy effects. But it's kind of bad unless you are already in a good board position or can really abuse it with other effects.

NWO could print Batman at 5 mana and it would barely be better than Cloudgoat Ranger (although that is admittedly an exceptional uncommon).

How do guys feel about Crater Hellion? Because I feel it's an old school take on how finishers can have their cake and eat it too (stabilize and finish) but at a very real cost. In this case, echo. If you spend 12 mana, you get both things, but only by spending 12 mana. And you open yourself up to the doom blade blowout if you do it. That to me is how a pushed finisher should look at 6 mana.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

I'm not sure I would consider Skeletal Vampire as a stabilizer and finisher in one. It's just 5 power for 6 mana. It requires almost all your mana to make another 1/1 dude, which is horrible ROI. Regenerating requires sacrificing bats, so it's got a cost associated and isn't really free even if it has no direct mana cost (technically it costs 5 if you want to replace the bat).

If you are facing an army on the other side of the board, Batman blocks and one thing and loses a bat token. For 6 mana that's pretty tame. It can't attack and block either, so you have to use it one way generally. Yes, it combos with blink and global destroy effects. But it's kind of bad unless you are already in a good board position or can really abuse it with other effects.

I think thats less a statement showing its not a stabilizer and finisher in one, and more a criticism of how effective it is at doing so.

Here is a shot from B8R's draft vs. Kirblinx, for example

Skeletal took B8R from a hopeless position to one where he had stabilized the board, and had inevitability unless Kirblinx could find a way to force damage through.

The NWO take on a card like that would be grave titan, which is yes much more efficient in the way it obtains that effect, but than thats why skeletal has been reduced to a low power thread/cubes, rather than high power discussions.

 

[ahadabans]

I'd have to see how that game played out but Kirb has 12 creatures in play and B8R has 9 mana out. How many turns has this been going on? And what did the board state look like when Batman came down?

I guess I'm just drawing the line on what I call "finisher/stabilizer all-in-one X-mas ham special" is a card that takes you from no board position and losing to stable and winning with 6 easy mana. Batman does not do that. If B8R was facing down 4 creatures with nothing but Batman, he dies. With Grave Titan? Hmmm.. probably OK unless those 4 creatures have evasion.

I guess that is the critical difference in my mind. Skeletal Vampire was a very real card back in the day if I remember correctly (was at least in casual play - I was afraid of it), so I'm not suggesting it's bad. Early max power cubes ran it even. I think it's at a sweet spot for what 6 mana should give you, and I'm running it again after along hiatus. But if you replace it with Grave Titan above, Kirb would have lost the game several turns ago I'm thinking.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Skeletal saw a ton of competitive play back in the day, it was one of the reanimation targets in solar flare, along with angel of despair, and later akroma, angel of wrath. The appeal of it in those deck was its ability to both stabilize the board while presenting pressure, and later, for its great synergy with dread return.

Here is a meta breakdown from 2006 champs (also check out the sweet solar pox version running haakon).

While you can make the argument that father Solar Flare is the outmoded Neanderthal Man of the two decks, the incentives between the hot new thing and old man are different. Solar Flare hasRemand. Remand isn't a hard counter but it's probably still on the short list for the best spell in Standard. Against the top red secks, especially the multi-dimensional ones, Persecute is an important tool that Solar Pox typically doesn't play (I know I wouldn't have lost a match at Champs but for the well-aimed Persecute!). Finally, Solar Flare's offense allows for a more robust array of threats. You can't argue with the panache of Solar Pox, but there really is something to be said for that second – or even third – Skeletal Vampire!

And this is the 2006 version, where the card pool had been expanded to include akroma, yet skeletal is still there dominating boards.

I was watching that game, and I can attest that B8R was dead until skeletal came down. Yes, grave titan would have been stronger in that spot, but again, thats a given. Grave titan is just a busted version of a similar effect.