Chris Taylor
Contributor
I mean legendary doesn't count for Goyf-Threshold, but yeah if you thoughtseize YOUR spear...
Sets Shadows over Innistrad Spoilers Thread
- Thread starter whydirt
- Start date
4cmc I goddamn KNEW it
Alright, so... is Arlinn Kord as good as I think she is? Halp.
FlowerSunRain
Contributor
Seems fair. Less of a roadblock then Huntmaster. Plays nice with vertical and horizontal themes. The wolf-bolt-wolf-bolt pattern seems a little on the strong side for grinding advantages. Kinda interesting that you often will have a one turn delay to get the ability you need. Looks like a likable card to me. The fact I have no attachment to and don't even run any of Bloodbraid/Xenagos/Sarkan/Huntmaster helps.
This may replace Huntmaster for me. We'll see, I'm on edge about her being too strong atm.
I really like that she's not a gigantic pile of loyalty, and that you can't make a dude every turn with her either. But in terms of interacting with the rest of the environment, this draws an (obvious) comparison:
My initial thoughts:
Reasons to want Arlinn:
1. Can more reliably flip to use as creature removal
2. Deals 3 damage to creatures rather than 2
3. Can't clog the board with bodies, in fact, this will more often than not break board stalls, between providing Trample and removing smaller threats.
4. Compared to other 4CMC planeswalkers, she can protect herself but not all the time, has lots of options, but requires careful sequencing, and looks like a blast to play, honestly.
Reasons to want Huntmaster/Ravager:
1. It's a creature, so interacts favorably with Pod/Reviellark/Blink/etc. This is huge in Cube formats where decks can make or break based on synergy/interaction.
2. Slightly better on its own, as it provides 2 bodies and gains life, making it a better card when you're behind on board.
Honestly, I probably want both. Might be a sad day for 'ol Sarkhan Vol.
My initial thoughts:
Reasons to want Arlinn:
1. Can more reliably flip to use as creature removal
2. Deals 3 damage to creatures rather than 2
3. Can't clog the board with bodies, in fact, this will more often than not break board stalls, between providing Trample and removing smaller threats.
4. Compared to other 4CMC planeswalkers, she can protect herself but not all the time, has lots of options, but requires careful sequencing, and looks like a blast to play, honestly.
Reasons to want Huntmaster/Ravager:
1. It's a creature, so interacts favorably with Pod/Reviellark/Blink/etc. This is huge in Cube formats where decks can make or break based on synergy/interaction.
2. Slightly better on its own, as it provides 2 bodies and gains life, making it a better card when you're behind on board.
Honestly, I probably want both. Might be a sad day for 'ol Sarkhan Vol.
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
Green tends to not have a lot of great aggressive 1 drop options in cube, or cheap token makers, so that puts a damper on the flipped sides +1. Using it as a bolt or trample buffer is kind of dull. It is a nice upgunned fires of yavimaya, however.
Dom Harvey
Contributor
The vast majority of the time I resolve Ajani V, I use it to manascrew my opponent and stop them participating in the game in a meaningful way. Nahiri is a more fun, more synergistic, less oppressive card.
Magister is leagues above the 4WW sweeper IMO; the card Wrath of God hasn't been great for me in a while, I can't see a conditional 6-mana version being oppressive.
STOP RIGHT THERE
Magister is leagues above the 4WW sweeper IMO; the card Wrath of God hasn't been great for me in a while, I can't see a conditional 6-mana version being oppressive.
STOP RIGHT THERE
Pretty much, yeah. SaffronOlive's video quadrupled the price of the deck that it's featured in. Ironic, no?
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Unregulated markets are fun
where do you think I got my tix in the first place?
Exactly this. Ask the majority of people what their least favorite things to have happen to them are, and I can bet that "land Destruction" makes the list somewhere. Keeping a land tapped is Land Destruction, and the Ult is obvious.
Exile > Destroy, just sayin
WHY. Seriously, why? Is there some pact made that Reckoner must make all lists? Is it a staple on cubes 360-450, power level middling? The card's a trap. Had one of my player's play it in an Abzan deck a while back...... yeah, didn't go so well. Newer players I guess don't grasp as well that Triple hybrids are multicolor. I suppose I could leave it in as a hard lesson, and take out my poor little weapons trainer
To be fair, WWW in a three-color deck is greedy as fuck, and deserves to be punished unless the fixing drafted is good enough. Less so in a RWx three-color deck, because its easier to be flexible with how you pay for him.
I definitely haven't seen rawrcat have that kind of effect at all, granted my cube's mana curve is low enough that decks can usually function fine on 3-4 mana and can get enough board presence to overcome him in a hurry. It can hurt overly splashy and grindy (poorly built) decks but my format might just be high enough power level to deal with land hate fine. We also have relatively competitive players who really don't resource denial. I imagine Jace's Fursona won't fit in a lot of environments though, just inputting my thoughts on it.
Aoret
Developer
Cards like Aslan have historically been, and likely always will be, a playgroup dependent thing. Every time LD and other forms of resource denial come up this same sort of discussion plays out. I think the more productive part of these kinds of discussions are things like
because none of this is gospel and one playgroup's "truth" will always be the opposite of another playgroup's "truth"
...not to get all moral relativist on you or stifle a good argument or anything D:
and less like
because none of this is gospel and one playgroup's "truth" will always be the opposite of another playgroup's "truth"
...not to get all moral relativist on you or stifle a good argument or anything D:
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
I have a love-hate relationship with Simba. I really like his +1 as a strategic way to punish greedy mana bases and/or keep a creature in check, and Lightning Helix is a sweet minus, but I loathe his ultimate. One-sided Ravages of War? Seriously?
Dom Harvey
Contributor
I haven't seen Final Judgment discussed once here, and Hallowed Burial only in passing. Is the conditional rider on the new sweeper so powerful and easy to trigger that it crosses the line somewhere?
Boros Reckoner is one of my favourite cards so I'm biased, but it's everything I want. It's a 'large' creature in colours that tend to lack them at that price, it does a lot of work to unclog boards, every combat step it's involved in presents tough decisions, it has fun combos with a bunch of cards (and you can go real deep with stuff like Dromoka's Command, Fire Covenant, Blasphemous Act, Devastating Dreams...), and it's great in all of aggro/midrange/control.
Boros Reckoner is one of my favourite cards so I'm biased, but it's everything I want. It's a 'large' creature in colours that tend to lack them at that price, it does a lot of work to unclog boards, every combat step it's involved in presents tough decisions, it has fun combos with a bunch of cards (and you can go real deep with stuff like Dromoka's Command, Fire Covenant, Blasphemous Act, Devastating Dreams...), and it's great in all of aggro/midrange/control.
Chris Taylor
Contributor
I will say, I'm not hugely interesting in either of the RW walkers, but the nicknames for both are top notch
A little yelling is always fun, but I do like reasons with the best of them. Put all like that I've decided that he's too cool, so I'll keep him in and try Nahiri in place of something else.
Arlinn Kord is super duper neato. Pretty hard to tell if too good personally. Seems bonkers in a Jund-style deck, making bodies and bolting in turn, or hasting and vigilancing new doods one after the other until you can make a move to get the emblem.
Arlinn Kord is super duper neato. Pretty hard to tell if too good personally. Seems bonkers in a Jund-style deck, making bodies and bolting in turn, or hasting and vigilancing new doods one after the other until you can make a move to get the emblem.
Back to the issues:
Class, who here knows that my favourite removal spells are edicts? Well everyone should. Because they're the fuckin COOLEST. So flavourful. Forcing someone to kill something/someone that's on their side? Brutal, and super duper black. I love it. This new edict has some obscenely good art going for it, too, as well as an amazing name to declare in a sinister voice, and the potential to be real strong if you trigger delirium when it matters. I gotta say, this has me REALLY hyped.
Class, who here knows that my favourite removal spells are edicts? Well everyone should. Because they're the fuckin COOLEST. So flavourful. Forcing someone to kill something/someone that's on their side? Brutal, and super duper black. I love it. This new edict has some obscenely good art going for it, too, as well as an amazing name to declare in a sinister voice, and the potential to be real strong if you trigger delirium when it matters. I gotta say, this has me REALLY hyped.
I really wish it was easier to know how often there are 4 or more card types in your GY! I have basically no data on that from any of my past cube matches on something like that cuz who knew it might matter? To the Slaughter really gets better with it, cuz it's not often going to be causing PW's to be sacrificed on normal mode, but almost always will cause it on delirium mode (if there is one). Still totally fine on normal mode, too, which is awesome
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Well, I imagine fetchland and probably one of instant/sorcery are going to be easy without much effort, both with some more careful deck construction.
That 4th one can be a bit hard. Creature is the obvious easy choice, but not always applicable given the deck, and artifact is traditionally REALLY hard, unless your cube has piles of spellbombs and eggs in it. Enchantment is basically downright impossible, to the point where people put Seal of Fire in their decks to make goyf bigger
There's things you can do in cube construction to help all this, but overall, delerium looks quite hard to actually achieve naturally. Like self mill and lots of looting hard.
Also no way this is ever playing well with your delve shit
That 4th one can be a bit hard. Creature is the obvious easy choice, but not always applicable given the deck, and artifact is traditionally REALLY hard, unless your cube has piles of spellbombs and eggs in it. Enchantment is basically downright impossible, to the point where people put Seal of Fire in their decks to make goyf bigger
There's things you can do in cube construction to help all this, but overall, delerium looks quite hard to actually achieve naturally. Like self mill and lots of looting hard.
Also no way this is ever playing well with your delve shit