Rage Forger is indeed great, even when the first ability finds zero targets!
Plaid Magic 360 Counters Matter Cube
- Thread starter PlaidMagic Cube
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Talk to Crow13th, I've been pushing for that card for over a year, lol
**UPDATE**
Rage Forger approved!
Basically wherever there are LRW or MOR card that aren't crap, (or too good in weird ways *cough* Elvish Handservant) I support them.
Sage of Fables actually looks pretty sweet, we'll take a look. we had a disaster in our last cast where my audio was not working. We'll try it again and include our eval of it. Thank you kindly for the constructive criticism ahadabans!
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Did you ever find the Swords of X and Y to be a problem? I personally hate hate hate them for the double protection they grant. They have a tendency to randomly take games in a very noninteractive way.
Now I know there hasn't been too many drafts and continue on the 'Sword Hate' bandwagon here are the top 10 picks on your cube tutor page:
Got to love those bombs that can fit into any deck. 7 artifacts, 2 mana dorks and a removal spell.
I don't think you are power max enough that those artifacts should be in the cube (personal opinion). All of them were printed in artifact heavy limited sets where removal was prevalent so they weren't AS feel bad. Even in higher powered cubes these things are still the top picks and still dominate games. I feel these need to neutered a little so that you don't get a 'free' bomb when you open it, unlike Grave Titan that at least locks you in a colour. Oh, and incase you were wondering the other two swords appear in the top 25.
Speaking of overpowered equipment, I am wondering why Umezawa's Jitte isn't in your cube? It fits the counter theme fairly well, which would probably make it more busted than it already was. Considering you have the swords I was just wondering why it was omitted.
Final question I have is why have you included these one drops?
I don't see the graveyard/madness theme that makes the tribe useful.
Blue doesn't seem aggro enough to require the bear.
I know there is a counter theme but the Initiate just seems so lacklustre.
Trying to not look like I am hating on the cube, just trying to pick your brain on the design inclusions.
Got to love those bombs that can fit into any deck. 7 artifacts, 2 mana dorks and a removal spell.
I don't think you are power max enough that those artifacts should be in the cube (personal opinion). All of them were printed in artifact heavy limited sets where removal was prevalent so they weren't AS feel bad. Even in higher powered cubes these things are still the top picks and still dominate games. I feel these need to neutered a little so that you don't get a 'free' bomb when you open it, unlike Grave Titan that at least locks you in a colour. Oh, and incase you were wondering the other two swords appear in the top 25.
Speaking of overpowered equipment, I am wondering why Umezawa's Jitte isn't in your cube? It fits the counter theme fairly well, which would probably make it more busted than it already was. Considering you have the swords I was just wondering why it was omitted.
Final question I have is why have you included these one drops?
I don't see the graveyard/madness theme that makes the tribe useful.
Blue doesn't seem aggro enough to require the bear.
I know there is a counter theme but the Initiate just seems so lacklustre.
Trying to not look like I am hating on the cube, just trying to pick your brain on the design inclusions.
Finishing moving furnature into the new house, I'll do a full reply later, just wanted to pop in and send a thanks for the input!
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
To elaborate on my post: the problem with colorless bombs is not only that they dominate games, but also that they're essentially a free first pick. No matter what deck you end up with, you can always maindeck them, and they will probably perform well, requiring the least amount of drafting skills to succeed. Inherently they pose no interesting question at all during a draft. When opening a pack with a colorless bomb and a colored bomb, it's virtually always correct to take the colorless bomb since it leaves you open to read the signals of your neighbor. Now, if a card is not interesting to draft, and overbearing in play, why is it in the cube? This goes not only for the five Swords, but also for Wurmcoil Engine and, to a lesser extent maybe, Skullclamp.
I'll also add to the sentiment that there are a few other cards in the cube that seem way too powerful when compared to the rest, namely Grave Titan and Kalonian Hydra. The first is ridiculously powerful, and the second is, well, also ridiculously powerful. The Hydra alone is already a removal check, but in a cube rife with synergies, it gets even worse. Has anyone ever lost a game in your cube after they got to attack with it? Because that would seriously surprise me.
I have no experience with Magister of Worth. It seems very powerful, but it's in two colors, doesn't fit every deck style, and it's six mana. She's certainly not as good as Grave Titan and Kalonian Hydra I would think.
Other than that your cube looks very fun. There's a myriad of synergies, and I love that your mana fixing is in good shape. It's easy to neglect that part, but your fixing looks good. You even doubled up on fetches!
I'll also add to the sentiment that there are a few other cards in the cube that seem way too powerful when compared to the rest, namely Grave Titan and Kalonian Hydra. The first is ridiculously powerful, and the second is, well, also ridiculously powerful. The Hydra alone is already a removal check, but in a cube rife with synergies, it gets even worse. Has anyone ever lost a game in your cube after they got to attack with it? Because that would seriously surprise me.
I have no experience with Magister of Worth. It seems very powerful, but it's in two colors, doesn't fit every deck style, and it's six mana. She's certainly not as good as Grave Titan and Kalonian Hydra I would think.
Other than that your cube looks very fun. There's a myriad of synergies, and I love that your mana fixing is in good shape. It's easy to neglect that part, but your fixing looks good. You even doubled up on fetches!
I've got the shell of my modular cube put together and I just tested Sage of Fables in a +1/+1 Ion Storm deck. It was really good. A late game board stall was broken with it (I didn't draw ion storm in that game) when I used sage to draw several cards off a fatty that had been disabled. I'm sold on this guy.
For what it's worth, Rage Forger I'm less sure about. After playing with him for a bit, I've come to the conclusion he is definitely NOT a 3 drop. He's something you want to drop late in an aggressive deck with lots of +1/+1 dudes (bonus points if you have some shamans) and he the turns your team into hellrider apostles. Still though, not sure he really has enough impact. Anyone else use him to great effect? If so, how are you using him?
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
To add to the mass of things for you respond to, I was wondering if you could comment a bit on the way +1 +1 counters are intergrated into your aggro decks?
I know Chris mentioned volt charge awhile back, but I like vertical growth aggro strategies, and hate sligh aggro, and this seems like a neat approach.
I know Chris mentioned volt charge awhile back, but I like vertical growth aggro strategies, and hate sligh aggro, and this seems like a neat approach.
So we threw Rage Forger into our 90 card extension and it was mainboarded and played in a suicide rakdos build and played pretty well from what I saw. It helped that it hit at least 2 shamans that I saw. He'll probably get included, my only fear is that Crow13th hates tribal with a passion and doesn't want anything more than incidental relevance. I think a lot of the weird stuff in the cubes mentioned in some of the previous posts are meta calls for our playgroup. We have NEVER seen Kalonian Hydra take over a game, which I admit is weird, and the swords tend to get gobbled up by the newer players. I personally have passed every sword I was given. It's kinda like on Easter when the big kids know that the easy eggs are for the little kids, and they should look for the harder ones. Still, I'm sure we'll be adjusting soon
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Well, if they have the removal, it's just a dork. If they don't have the removal however... Still, strange, with the amount of games you're putting out, you'ld think it would have come up. Maybe it's less atrocious in an a decent limited environment (which is quite unlike it's original environment)?
Passing a Sword seems... wrong. I mean, I get what you're saying, but it sounds like "I know they're overpowered, that's why I don't pick them", which to me sounds like a good reason to cut them
Nail on the head. Both are poor excuses, just an honest answer to why they haven't been on the radar yet. We certainly have an odd cube that looks pretty mishmash outside of our meta. We have 5 players that have been playing since 94-95 and 5 players playing since post Innistrad. We probably have enough rounds in at this point to tighten up and let go of the noob fodder, so we will take a look at the artifact section next. Thanks to all for the feedback, there's a lot more knowledgeable insight here than anywhere else I've found!Well, if they have the removal, it's just a dork. If they don't have the removal however... Still, strange, with the amount of games you're putting out, you'ld think it would have come up. Maybe it's less atrocious in an a decent limited environment (which is quite unlike it's original environment)?
Passing a Sword seems... wrong. I mean, I get what you're saying, but it sounds like "I know they're overpowered, that's why I don't pick them", which to me sounds like a good reason to cut them
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
Yeah, I would expect it to work a bit like a split card, with one half being raid bombardment (in the sense that it has a condition on the damage trigger) and the other half being a worse version of goblin bushwhacker.
As in an entwine split? I feel like this card is hard to evaluate outside of gameplay.
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
Exactly. Its something you are ideally going to use during an alpha strike. I wish that the shaman part of it was easier to use though, since its a neat junction point for horizontal and vertical growth, much like anax and cymede.
Kinda talking out of my ass here because I haven't looked at your cube or done my own calculation on Innistrad references to "graveyard" but I really like the way you're thinking here. That said, did you take into account purely instances of the word, or are you factoring in card rarity and percentage of occurrence in packs? I suspect if you're only doing the former, you may be fooling yourself into thinking you're providing as much theme support as ISD did while (potentially) falling far short of that mark. Regardless, I'd never even considered taking an angle like this before and I think I'll crunch some numbers on my own cube when I have the time.
I'll second James and say I'm glad you found us. You've probably already sold me on at least Volt Charge, so that's pretty sweet
this was bugging me so I thought I'd do some quick math! I did some sweet magiccards.info searches and identified cards that mentioned the graveyard, could be cast from it, dealt with creatures going to the graveyard, discard, and pretty much any way a card could be related to the graveyard as a play space.
with these numbers, and using this as-fan calculator I checked out Innistrad's graveyard space and here's what I found:
c 42 / 113
u 28 / 74
r 22 / 65
m 6 / 15
as-fan of 5.56 and an as-draft (8 player pod, so 24 boosters / 360 cards) of 133.34 (37%)
That's an awfully large percentage! I'm using the loosest sense of the graveyard theme possible, erring on the side of inclusion where it touches up against sacrifice and mill cards, but if your goal is an Innistrad-type environment, the solution might be trimming the top-end of your power band and including all the fun archetype-bridging cards you can get your hands on.
Yeah, I realized I had messed up the numbers there but forgot to respond. I gotta get Crow13th to sign up here, he's the real architect. I've been busy with the house move but I'll be more responsive after this weekend. We will be "reshooting our twitch cast this Thursday because after our last cast we realized it wasn't recording my audio....on the plus side, we finally got approved by YouTube for our channel page URL, http://www.YouTube.com/c/plaidmagic...it took 4 months!