Sets (M21) Testing/Includes

[TrainmasterGT]

This is a testing/includes thread. Post pictures or a text list using /c with what cards you plan to include and what cards you plan to test.​

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Includes:

Including if I open:

Testing:

It's kind of interesting going back and looking at the full set now that we've seen the whole thing. It seemed like every day they were spoiling tons of cool cards that were great for cube, but going back over the list, it's actually a little shallower than what I had initially anticipated. I think this is partially because my evaluation of the set was being tinted by all of the amazing reprints while here I'm only evaluating the new cards.

I firmly believe that all future core sets need to take after this set if they are to be worth the spot in the release schedule. This thing was basically a masters set with some new cards.


What are your plans for this set?

 

[Chris Taylor]

This is a testing/includes thread. Post pictures or a text list using /c with what cards you plan to include and what cards you plan to test. Feel free to include your Commander 2020 includes here as well.​

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This set was so weird... I'm not to big on the majority of the Mutate cards and the keyword counters are kind of weird. Cycling though... That's cools stuff to see again!

Ikoria still fresh in all our minds I see

 

[inscho]

Includes:
Barrin, Tolarian Archmage
Waker of Waves
Ghostly Pilferer
Heartfire Immolator
Demonic Embrace

Testing:
Subira, Tulzidi Caravanner
Radha, Heart of Keld

Might squeeze in:
Village Rites
Niambi, Esteemed Speaker
Malefic Scythe
Fungal Rebirth

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Space is tight, I don't have any certain includes anymore, I feel. But...

These are the cards that are interesting to me, part 1:

 

[Onderzeeboot]

And part 2:

 

[Peter LaCara]

Here's what I like:

I'm also seriously thinking about whether I want to make room for some shrines, but I suspect their power level is too low for what I've got going on.

 

[japahn]

Will test these:

Waker of Waves
Ghostly Pilferer
Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose
Gadrak, the Crown-Scourge
Chandra's Incinerator
Heartfire Immolator
Llanowar Visionary



And maybe these:

Shipwreck Douser
Kaervek, the Spiteful
Liliana's Standard Bearer
Goblin Wizardry

 

[shamizy]

I've only got a handful of cards this time around:

I like the Lieutenant's ability to slot into a handful of different archetypes and also serve as a form of pseudo-wrath protection. Relevant creature type, decent body, and great synergies to exploit. Slots right into decks that use counters or creatures that generate their own in G/W decks, is a decent blink target giving more of your board pseudo-wrath insurance, and it slots it well at 4 cmc as an aggro curve topper getting real big if necessary. Also a nice potential Winota flip off the top.

Barrin is just a solid Man-O'-War variant, nothing too exciting. There aren't too many ways to trigger the card draw in my cube, but that's fine with me.

Radha seems like a cool way to gain pseudo card advantage in green, I'm all for more Courser like effect in cube to help smooth out draws. They're pretty underrated in general, but being able to dig one deeper and plan out your next turn is much more relevant than you'd think.

 

[inscho]

I've only got a handful of cards this time around:
Radha seems like a cool way to gain pseudo card advantage in green, I'm all for more Courser like effect in cube to help smooth out draws. They're pretty underrated in general, but being able to dig one deeper and plan out your next turn is much more relevant than you'd think.

Do you like Radha more than Living Twister or Wrenn and Six?

I'm having trouble balancing the amount of three drops in the various lands decks. Twister at times feels a little on the nose flinging lands and surviving wildfires. I definitely like the oracle of mul daya mode on radha over the recursion of wrenn and six, because there's enough other ways to get lands back from the graveyard. I just don't love having two of my three guild slots taken up with 2 lands matter creatures at 3cmc.

 

[shamizy]

Do you like Radha more than Living Twister or Wrenn and Six?

I'm having trouble balancing the amount of three drops in the various lands decks. Twister at times feels a little on the nose flinging lands and surviving wildfires. I definitely like the oracle of mul daya mode on radha over the recursion of wrenn and six, because there's enough other ways to get lands back from the graveyard. I just don't love having two of my three guild slots taken up with 2 lands matter creatures at 3cmc.

Personally I prefer Wrenn and Six of all those options on a pure power level, but I think Radha is better if you're trying to smooth out draws in that archetype. They just provide you with different things. W6 will help you grind out a game, Radha seems like she'd be more proactive by giving you a body, mana sink, and a means of clearing dead draws off the top.

Not a fan of Living Twister at all after giving it a run; it was too clunky and limited in scope. The optimal deck for it is readily apparent, but it's not your first choice when actually deploying threats on curve most of the time. In the average case scenario it kind of sucks. With so many good 3 drops in red and green, it never felt like the optimal play when I had other options available. I like Radha and W6 more because they can more easily be slotted into a variety of different RG decks and help you play proactively.

 

[inscho]

Personally I prefer Wrenn and Six of all those options on a pure power level, but I think Radha is better if you're trying to smooth out draws in that archetype. They just provide you with different things. W6 will help you grind out a game, Radha seems like she'd be more proactive by giving you a body, mana sink, and a means of clearing dead draws off the top.

Not a fan of Living Twister at all after giving it a run; it was too clunky and limited in scope. The optimal deck for it is readily apparent, but it's not your first choice when actually deploying threats on curve most of the time. In the average case scenario it kind of sucks. With so many good 3 drops in red and green, it never felt like the optimal play when I had other options available. I like Radha and W6 more because they can more easily be slotted into a variety of different RG decks and help you play proactively.

I'm less concerned with pure power level, because I find that Twister is strong enough for my cube. You do make a good point about flexibility in deck application. Twister kinda beats you over the head. It really feels like it has one application. Maybe that's why it annoys me so much...especially for a guild slot.

 

[Brad]

I really like Radha. Solid body in aggro, super RG way to draw cards, late game payoff for the GR lands deck. if it's at your power level and you run RG lands, it does it all.

Twister is cool but it only does one thing and blocks like a mother fucker.

Dislike W6 on both power level and monetary cost.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Between this and Jump start it's been a sweet few weeks!

I run a +1/+1 counters theme, and the token ability on this is interesting. Weird that the + defends it and the minus is the aggressive mode, so maaaayabe the actual play patterns with this don't feel good?

I think it's worth a shot at any rate

instant/sorcery + is a lot more managable than the any spell + that illusory angel asked of you in my cube, since there's no burning-tree emissary type cards. Also I like that you can just hardcast this if things get dire.

I literally ran smother a while back, and I'm happy for the upgrade. Especially in my format where things toughness is often greater than their mana cost, this style of removal works wonders.
While smother next to doom blade does have its merits on both sides, this looks far more convincing. Plus promo frame! God I love this frame

This one is more of a stretch. Turning bodies into treasures is interesting, but I'm not so sure it's good at a base. It works with Mayhem Devil, but it doesn't work with tokens so half the "food" of my aristocrats decks won't actually work here.

Also, I'm not convinced the mode where it basically levels up into being able to attack is all that great. Maybe I'm wrong.

This hooooo man this fucking card!

I've already sung the praises of this guy in the preview thread, but in short:
-Prowess decks needed a more reasonable 2 drop, as all existing options were rather low power
-2 toughness is key on prowess threats
-Solid Ember Hauler impression, and can scale above 2 damage in lieu of going face.
-Human (Champion of the Parish) that sacrifices (Xathrid Necromancer)
-THAT FRAME I CANNOT GET ENOUGH OF THAT FRAME

Also yes I am going to be running 2. I would probably run more if I had less restraint

I'm giving this card a shot based off my disappointment in Enigma Drake, so maybe Enigma Drake plus Faithless Looting minus flying is good enough.
Trample is at least some evasion. This one I'm less confidant in.

Splashable red hero's downfall. Sign me up, I run x2 hero's downfall already! If I had more room on the curve I'd probably include 2.

I'm kinda worried about the lack of good player facing burn in recent years. This, Lava Coil, Fight with Fire, Mizzium Mortars, Scorching Dragonfire, and Abrade are all so good but there's just no reach left in my section

Oh, and Lava Spill, Magma Spray, Flame Slash, I'm sure there's countless others I'm not running at the moment as well.

Yeah so sue me, I'm going to give it a shot. Frankly "It's good if you get to attack with it" is hardly the most terrifying description, and I'm not really happy with any of my green 5s.
Maybe this is Verderous Gearhulk, maybe this is Kessig Cagebreakers.

Well I've run enough custom versions of this card in the past I should probably try the real one.
I prefer this effect on creatures so people can always interact, whereas Hardened Scales was a lot more feast/famine than I'd like

I know everyone's really hype about this from a RG lands deck perspective but I'm just including this on base power level.

 

[Kirblinx]

It's good to have prereleases back (at least in my country). Did my usual style of just jamming as many good cards into a deck as possible, consequences be damned:

Shrine to the Whale

Managed to go 2-1, only losing to flooding and a Onakke Ogre with a Rousing Read on it. That was a quick clock.

• The new shrines were pretty decent. The Green and Black ones were okay by themselves, the White one was pretty average, but when I had another shrine out with with it (especially the green one), it made the ability not terrible.
• Vito was great, I had some minor lifegain throughout this deck and it made any of those hurt a lot more than expected (faith's fetters anyone?). Also that activated ability when I had any of my 6 drops out was pretty much goodnight for the opponent.
• Elder Gargaroth is just stupid. It is just like a Baneslayer in that you need to remove it or it just takes over a game. I never used any ability except for the 3/3, I am not too sure when you would use the other tbh. Why does this have reach and vigilance?
• Warden of the Woodsis a surprisingly good top-end. Makes a big roadblock that can smack in. Even has that weird ability that if they remove it you get 2 cards. Biggest surpise this guy.
• Pursued Whale was my sick splash, and I got to cast it twice (never got stuck in hand). Card is nuts. As soon as it came down opp swings in, you make favourable trades then kill them on the back swing. Seems like a great top end card to break board stalls. Would splash for again.
• Falconer Adept was subpar. It could never get through as the body was too anaemic. Seems good in concept and on an empty board but never did anything for me.

This format seems VERY bomb heavy, even more so than Theros, which is what I expect from core sets. Games were fine, new shrines are cool. I give it a thumbs up.

 

[dbs]

I've never really enjoyed core set limited, but M21 has been an absolute blast to draft. There's enough archetype cross-pollination that the drafting process itself feels very non-linear even after you've ostensibly locked into a theme. I'm constantly finding little synergies I hadn't anticipated. So far, I've done six drafts with three 3-0s and three 2-1s. I'll break down some nuggets from the winning lists:

First was UB reanimator. The core of the deck was:



The thing I found surprising was that the mana advantage didn't matter much. Getting Gloom Sower in on turn 5 is fine. The real edge comes from forcing them to answer a big creature and then replaying that same creature from the yard several times. Reanimating Goremand 3 times ends the game especially fast. But this also applied to cards like:



The Dowser getting back Rise Again was pretty good value.

Second was UR spells. I had three copies, two copies, two copies respectively of:



but the crowning achievement was:



The Sublime Epiphany + Shipwreck Dowser lock won me a couple games from behind on the spot. Better than Eternal Witness + Cryptic Command. Not even remotely fair.

Third was BW aggro. Not much to say other than I played a bunch of mediocre creatures and won by curving out. Three copies, three copies, two copies respectively of:



My first iteration of the deck had one Chorister main deck and an extra bomb five drop. Getting rid of the five drop, going to 15 land, and jamming both Choristers was what made everything come together. Feat of Resistance massively over-performed but that's just preaching to the Riptide choir obviously.

In 6 drafts, of the cards I went up against the most surprisingly deadly was easily Vito. That card kills you so fast and you can never race it.

 

[ravnic]

Got my first deaft done on arena. I won a game I should not have won thanks to Greater Gargaroth and lost a game I was winning hard to Ugin. Screw modern day magic with random haymakers that just can't be beaten with the mass of commons you mostly have.

Other than that complain, which I basically have every set these days, M21 feels pretty fun. The archetypes are a little on-rail but there are enough overlaps/dense cards. Looks like focusing on synergies is heavily rewarded this time and the second best way of winning after pulling unbeatable bombs.

 

[Peter LaCara]

So I've done 6-7 drafts on Arena so far. Literally half of them have been the UB reanimator archetype because it feels like people don't understand how powerful it is yet. I keep getting passed like 6th pick Waker of Waves and I'm able to pick up 2-3 Rise Agains, and Grasp of Darkness is still going way too late. I've just been able to keep dunking on people with my zombie whales. I really like how this particular archetype plays, and I think it's a good candidate to try to copy for a cube format. The big payoffs are very powerful, but they are mostly Baneslayers rather than Mulldrifters. They demand removal, but if you manage to kill the thing they haven't generated so much advantage it's insurmountable. But at the same time, they aren't coming down until turn 5, maybe 4 with a Vodalian Arcanist or Llanowar Visionary. Anyway, it's a cool archetype, and it's what I'm going to remember when I think about this set.

The other card that has really impressed me is Stormwing Entity. This card is a house. For some reason, I parsed the mana cost when you have another spell as 2U, rather than 1U. I also missed the scry 2 line. I've had it in 2 drafts so far and I've only cast it for full price once, and even that time a 3/3 flying prowess scry 2 was totally acceptable. Definitely finding a place to slot this guy in now.

 

[Seeker]

Been playing some standard. Anyone trying Primal Might? The combination of Prey Upon and bad Fireball that lets you fight is at least tempting to me.

 

[safra]

Been playing some standard. Anyone trying Primal Might? The combination of Prey Upon and bad Fireball that lets you fight is at least tempting to me.

it's sick as a 3-of in my green aggro sideboard. cool card that pushes damage and clears blockers

 

[Mondschwein]

M20 and M21 were wonderful core sets from point of limited view, so it doesn't surprise me that there are cards that fit into some riptide cubes.
Personally, I got a bunch of cards that I'm actually interested in:



Some of these are actually low in power, but they demand synergies or support the archetypes in my cube (some are quite flexible in doing that).

Sweet, but definitely won't do it:

 

[sigh]

Anybody tested/still running/had success with this dude?: