Card/Deck Low Power Card Spotlight
- Thread starter Grillo_Parlante
- Start date
I haven't played Village Rites in cube yet, but it has been absolutely fantastic in constructed. I want to add a copy of it to my cube. Here's the deal:
1) It's instant and cost just one mana. It's a massive improvement over every other similar card. Two cards is also a substantial amount.
2) You can use to Skullclamp chump blockers, suicide attackers and creatures that would die to removal anyways.
3) It works extremely well with token makers, Young Pyromancer, Dreadhorde Arcanist and many other cards we all run in our cubes.
1) It's instant and cost just one mana. It's a massive improvement over every other similar card. Two cards is also a substantial amount.
2) You can use to Skullclamp chump blockers, suicide attackers and creatures that would die to removal anyways.
3) It works extremely well with token makers, Young Pyromancer, Dreadhorde Arcanist and many other cards we all run in our cubes.
Argh heck lost my WIP post. Please work with this reconstruction.
Erik is absolutely right; Village Rites is a house. Said it better than I could. The Standard Bearer, on the other hand, has been incredibly mediocre for me, as holding up 3 mana is just not great. I might need to play it more proactively regardless of whether I benefit from the card draw, but I'd rather play Whisper Agent because 1 toughness is just miserable on anything that wants to grind.
I'm working on a side project, which is a cube with a card from every set. Here's some stuff I think is interesting and yet have unanswered questions about. I'd love your opinions on any of these!
The Whispers: good at changing how we play the game? Or just horrible stax? Symmetry is good, because it makes it risky and allows counterplay. I think.
Misinformation: In the best case, it's simultaneous graveyard hate and a way to muck up someone's hand without actually doing the whole nasty "reveal-discard" thing.
Beacon of Destruction: I'm not sure if this does what I want it to do, which is to be a big yet fair burn spell with some inevitability. Hammer of Bogardan may be the better version of this effect, but I do like this being an instant.
Ball Lightning and its ilk: Obviously, Lightning Skelemental is the best of the bunch, but has anyone included multiple of these effects? I like them in theory as big burn spells that can be interacted with and that offer interaction with blink, Ninjutsu, sac, reanimation, etc., but worry that they might be too one-dimensional. I like that they mandate both decks fight over the board, but they might be a bit too swingy--six hasty points of damage is, in fact, a lot.
Brigid, Hero of Kinsbaile: She seems like she'd be both good at preventing attacks and in pushing through damage while, again, committing to the board. But maybe she's just bad? Can you tell that I like these sorts of effects being on bodies?
Brine Shaman: Is it just me or does this seem like a fun way to convince UB control to pick up some Aristocrats pieces? Or, again, it might be just bad.
Erik is absolutely right; Village Rites is a house. Said it better than I could. The Standard Bearer, on the other hand, has been incredibly mediocre for me, as holding up 3 mana is just not great. I might need to play it more proactively regardless of whether I benefit from the card draw, but I'd rather play Whisper Agent because 1 toughness is just miserable on anything that wants to grind.
I'm working on a side project, which is a cube with a card from every set. Here's some stuff I think is interesting and yet have unanswered questions about. I'd love your opinions on any of these!
The Whispers: good at changing how we play the game? Or just horrible stax? Symmetry is good, because it makes it risky and allows counterplay. I think.
Misinformation: In the best case, it's simultaneous graveyard hate and a way to muck up someone's hand without actually doing the whole nasty "reveal-discard" thing.
Beacon of Destruction: I'm not sure if this does what I want it to do, which is to be a big yet fair burn spell with some inevitability. Hammer of Bogardan may be the better version of this effect, but I do like this being an instant.
Ball Lightning and its ilk: Obviously, Lightning Skelemental is the best of the bunch, but has anyone included multiple of these effects? I like them in theory as big burn spells that can be interacted with and that offer interaction with blink, Ninjutsu, sac, reanimation, etc., but worry that they might be too one-dimensional. I like that they mandate both decks fight over the board, but they might be a bit too swingy--six hasty points of damage is, in fact, a lot.
Brigid, Hero of Kinsbaile: She seems like she'd be both good at preventing attacks and in pushing through damage while, again, committing to the board. But maybe she's just bad? Can you tell that I like these sorts of effects being on bodies?
Brine Shaman: Is it just me or does this seem like a fun way to convince UB control to pick up some Aristocrats pieces? Or, again, it might be just bad.
Chris Taylor
Contributor
I run Red Sun's Zenith instead of beacon, though I like both effects for the purpose you're describing.
Whispers looks alright, but I think there's plenty better picks from 5DN.
Misinformation looks savage if you have fetch-like lands around.
Beacon's solid in a lower-mid power level. Works with Doomsday, if you need a card from whatever old ass set it premiered in.
Ball Lightning is really cool. The mana makes it nearly unplayable, however. Skelemental seems a bit pushed to me.
Brigid looks like a nightmare to deal with. In a good way.
Brine Shaman looks reasonable, but you can totally bail yourself out by playing Brainstorm here.
How many sets are there in total? Are you counting Masters-style reprint sets? What about Commander products? Etc.
Misinformation looks savage if you have fetch-like lands around.
Beacon's solid in a lower-mid power level. Works with Doomsday, if you need a card from whatever old ass set it premiered in.
Ball Lightning is really cool. The mana makes it nearly unplayable, however. Skelemental seems a bit pushed to me.
Brigid looks like a nightmare to deal with. In a good way.
Brine Shaman looks reasonable, but you can totally bail yourself out by playing Brainstorm here.
How many sets are there in total? Are you counting Masters-style reprint sets? What about Commander products? Etc.
I've run Beacon of Destruction (like 6 years ago) and Brigid, Hero of Kinsbaile (9 years ago?).
Beacon: 5 mana is clunky for a burn spell, but it depends on the speed of your cube. The inevitability is a good feeling, and though you never get to the point you're casting it every turn, sometimes you do draw it twice. A 5 point burn spell isn't common at all, and is exceptional reach. When opponent is at 10 life, one of your outs is casting Beacon end of their turn and crossing your fingers. I liked the card, just didn't have have space for a burn spell that doesn't help a particular archetype.
Brigid: It's quite a conditional card. Assuming she doesn't get removed, she slows the game down a lot. Absurd against aggro decks. Kind of bad against midrange. I put it in occasionals, it's a card I'd be happy to run again, but I'm not sure I want to see it every draft.
Beacon: 5 mana is clunky for a burn spell, but it depends on the speed of your cube. The inevitability is a good feeling, and though you never get to the point you're casting it every turn, sometimes you do draw it twice. A 5 point burn spell isn't common at all, and is exceptional reach. When opponent is at 10 life, one of your outs is casting Beacon end of their turn and crossing your fingers. I liked the card, just didn't have have space for a burn spell that doesn't help a particular archetype.
Brigid: It's quite a conditional card. Assuming she doesn't get removed, she slows the game down a lot. Absurd against aggro decks. Kind of bad against midrange. I put it in occasionals, it's a card I'd be happy to run again, but I'm not sure I want to see it every draft.
@Brad--the idea sprung from how disappointed I was with Masters 25 when it came out, so originally I built a masters set with the requisite 101 commons, 53 uncommons, 53 rares, and 15 mythics just to prove that I, a bipedal mollusk, could make a better set. I've lost the original version on an old hard drive somewhere, but I wanted to make a ~540 cube with the same rules--"lands or spells from every Vintage-legal Magic set that introduced original cards"--as that seemed like that would be an interesting take on a museum cube. So yes, I'll be including a card from each Commander year, Conspiracy, Portal, etc., but I'll also be doing my best to include at least one card from each Un-set, because they're definitely part of the game's history. To do so, I'm combing through each set for something interesting that really captures the flavor of that particular era of Magic, and then once I've grabbed at least one card from every set I'll go back and flesh things out with cube staples. Hence why I'm looking at stuff like Brine Shaman over Brainstorm at the moment. It's a neat card, but it's a lot easier to add in brainstorm later than something like this. That and I want to have as flat a distribution of cards as I can, so I'm trying to grab less-obvious cards first. Plus, it seems tolerable as a Black card, though it encourages going into UB, which is a flexibility + push I value highly.
The upside is, of course, that I'm not limiting myself to a single card from each set! So yes, I have a couple more-traditional cards from 5DN, but those I largely feel comfortable evaluating. I'll post this Cube once I feel I have a plausible draft, but right now I'm still working through sets to grab a card from each.
You're absolutely right about the color requirement on Ball Lightning being a beating, but it'll provide something cool for mono-Red decks. I'm hoping that one wouldn't mind casting this off-curve, as even T6 this would still force some sort of trade. Thunderblust is a cool variant on this type of thing, and I'd likely round out the archetype with Hellspark Elemental, Hell's Thunder, and Impetuous Devils. They also fit thematically with various Dash cratures. Chandra, Acolyte of Flame and Feldon of the Third Path are perfectly respectable cube candidates that already have this sort of theme in mind, with the latter working REALLY well with this type of creature.
And yeah, Lightning Skelemental is gross. It might be too good for a museum environment like this one, but it requires such a strict color requirement that I want to consider it. I actively try to make my multicolor cards and my CCC cards very strong to encourage changing direction during a draft. (I think that's how that works?
)
Thanks for the input on Brigid, Japahn! I'm thinking of her as a fixed Magus of the Moat. Hopefully at 540 I'll see her just the right number of times. And yeah, Beacon of Destruction seems like a YuGiOh "heart of the cards" type of thing, which can be really fun in VERY small doses. I do try to cut down on shuffle effects as much as possible, but a few are fine.
The upside is, of course, that I'm not limiting myself to a single card from each set! So yes, I have a couple more-traditional cards from 5DN, but those I largely feel comfortable evaluating. I'll post this Cube once I feel I have a plausible draft, but right now I'm still working through sets to grab a card from each.
You're absolutely right about the color requirement on Ball Lightning being a beating, but it'll provide something cool for mono-Red decks. I'm hoping that one wouldn't mind casting this off-curve, as even T6 this would still force some sort of trade. Thunderblust is a cool variant on this type of thing, and I'd likely round out the archetype with Hellspark Elemental, Hell's Thunder, and Impetuous Devils. They also fit thematically with various Dash cratures. Chandra, Acolyte of Flame and Feldon of the Third Path are perfectly respectable cube candidates that already have this sort of theme in mind, with the latter working REALLY well with this type of creature.
And yeah, Lightning Skelemental is gross. It might be too good for a museum environment like this one, but it requires such a strict color requirement that I want to consider it. I actively try to make my multicolor cards and my CCC cards very strong to encourage changing direction during a draft. (I think that's how that works?
)Thanks for the input on Brigid, Japahn! I'm thinking of her as a fixed Magus of the Moat. Hopefully at 540 I'll see her just the right number of times. And yeah, Beacon of Destruction seems like a YuGiOh "heart of the cards" type of thing, which can be really fun in VERY small doses. I do try to cut down on shuffle effects as much as possible, but a few are fine.
Related design idea: All cards from the same block/plane except for 1 card from each set. Like a Ravnican Museum, or something.
My worry is that 1 card from each set isn't actually going to come across during a draft. It's likely going to feel like a normal draft but with some weird old cards (and Beta Giant Spider? What's the plan for your Alpha and Beta slots?) peppered in. Using cards of the same theme/set symbols may make the outliers stand out more.
My worry is that 1 card from each set isn't actually going to come across during a draft. It's likely going to feel like a normal draft but with some weird old cards (and Beta Giant Spider? What's the plan for your Alpha and Beta slots?) peppered in. Using cards of the same theme/set symbols may make the outliers stand out more.
It's absolutely not going to come across in draft that it's a card from each set. However, I'm trying to keep a fairly even distribution of cards across time--540 cards and ~110 sets with new cards means that I'm aiming for about 5 cards from each set. I'm starting with one and building from there. This will of course vary a bit, as some sets like Unglued and Homelands don't have many goodies whereas Alpha, Ravnica, and the Urza block are all likely to have more than their fair share, but the intent is to capture all eras of Magic, even if individual parts of history don't get nearly as much love. The goal is to prioritize function over form in this endeavor, unlike M25. However, in a concession to that spirit, I'm also excluding nifty cards that are on the reserved list (boo hiss give me my Su-Chi and Firestorm).
The plan for Alpha and Beta is to count them (and Revised and Unlimited and 4th and blah blah blah) as one set, because let's face it, Beta is a reprint set. I'm planning on including ~2x the number of cards from Alpha and Beta than my average include count, to represent how this is the basis of Magic. Plus, a lot of them get reprinted a bunch, so it'll help represent core sets.
Besides, I view the museum aspect of this cube the way I view Easter Eggs in movies: they're meant to entertain the creator more than the audience. If the audiences notice them immediately like in Pixar movies, they overwhelm the actual thing on display.
The plan for Alpha and Beta is to count them (and Revised and Unlimited and 4th and blah blah blah) as one set, because let's face it, Beta is a reprint set. I'm planning on including ~2x the number of cards from Alpha and Beta than my average include count, to represent how this is the basis of Magic. Plus, a lot of them get reprinted a bunch, so it'll help represent core sets.
Besides, I view the museum aspect of this cube the way I view Easter Eggs in movies: they're meant to entertain the creator more than the audience. If the audiences notice them immediately like in Pixar movies, they overwhelm the actual thing on display.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Easy! Make it a jank cube, with as little synergy as possible!
Barrow Witches, with Knight of the Mists being the only other knight in the cube, Quill-Slinger Boggart with no kithkin in the cube, etc.! You're guaranteed to get the 1 card per set concept across during the draft!
Also... it's going to be a horrible draft experience :')
So, I ran across this old favorite while I was building my gimmick cube:
I've found that this little lady does interesting things with pump and +1/+1 counters. The flying really helps in conjunction with that particular ability, since cheap flyers tend to be small.
Yeah, she's definitely not bad in the right environment. You'd need a low power level (not higher than what I have for sure) and some ways to boost stat lines in blue. Something like Simic auras seems like a nice home. Maybe add Dimir ninjutsu to give the cheap evasion more oomph?
Have any of you tried this card? It looks neat and terrible at the same time:
You don't see green reanimation everyday. But green certainly has the enablers (and the fatties, even if color largely doesn't matter). This card seems good with stuff like Steve, which sac for value so you're not down a card. And instant speed can make for a neat surprise block. I've never seen it in action, but I think in the right cube it is definitely not terrible.
How good is this card if you don't reliably have something you want to discard? See, my politics are, that I only count cards as removal, when you don't have to jump through too many hoops to get a solid rate. Incinerate and Last Gasp are obviously removal for every deck, Defile also passes, but Warfire Javelineer doesn't, as many red decks won't be able to get even 2-3 spells in the 'yard.
So what about Lightning Axe? Does it do enough, when your deck does have nothing else than excess lands to discard? If not, how many discard-able cards do you want before you'd like this as a removal in lower powered lists?
I have 14 cards in my red section that are at least somewhat synergistic with being discarded, with a total of 600 cube cards.
It's stronger than it looks - it kills amost everything for one mana - but I think it's the kind of card you should only run in your cube if you are explicit about supporting discard and graveyard strategies. I think your cube doesn't run enough of a graveyard focus for it to be good. You also run good removal. Abrade, Magma Jet, Lightning Bolt and the like make the Axe look quaint.
Having run it for quite some time, it's a card really meant for synergizing with the GY. 2-f01-1-ing yourself and not getting a side benefit later is pretty lame, especially since it isn't unconditional removal. Really great if you do have the synergy. I'd want at least 3 cards in my deck to start considering it, with a much more dedicated "GY" deck to more heavily consider it. Really suited for a graveyard themed cube.
The true Unholy Strength experience is playing with a beat up Revised copy. You have to be sure to hide it under other cards when your friend's mom walks by because she'll confiscate it for being "devil worship."
Or use a 4th Edition copy and use a Sharpie to draw in the pentagram that was removed by WotC.
Or use a 4th Edition copy and use a Sharpie to draw in the pentagram that was removed by WotC.
Depending on your creature suite, I'd consider the above because it can act as removal, it has recursion, and it has that feeling of sacrificing life for power (plus, you've written about how you like the flavor of Escape
). Great on Kitesail Freebooter. I'm always a fan of sprinkling in a few auras and combat tricks while powering down removal, so I'd say run the Strength!