What do you guys think of battles after some weeks now? Has anyone tested them in cube even?
Never trying them in cube, one go-around with a prerelease pool was enough for me in paper.
Just not a fan of fiddly double-sided mechanics where no one is going to remember the backside. At least for flipwalkers or Ixalan enchantments or ZNR lands you knew the other side was going to be a specific type of card, but for some of these (
Invasion of Kylem or
Invasion of New Capenna come to mind) it's hard to tell what it flips into without the creature P/T indicator. They aren't very memorable in terms of design thus far. The majority of them definitely felt snowball-y and winmore in practice as well. You'd value the ones that are straight removal way higher, but the ones that had medium effects were far less impressive and sometimes just not worth deploying if you were behind at all.
If I was behind there wasn't really a clean opening to play one of these and flip, but if I was ahead I could just pile it on and run away with a game. All the while having to re-read the backside, same for my opponent, just to remember what might be coming in a turn or two. Not the worst mechanic I've played with in recent years (Day//Night is unmatched), but it's definitely not something that I have any interest in putting into cube.
They're basically simplified walkers in terms of interaction and how you approach them, but it's too much extra work in paper to be worth the trouble in draft or during gameplay. Hard pass.
