Card/Deck Single Card Spotlight
- Thread starter Dom Harvey
- Start date
Aoret
Developer
I love FoF too and almost made that comparison. But can we not just run both? They're both way more interesting ways to draw cards than frigging Treasure Cruise. (And instants!)
How is Luminarch Ascension good? Not sure I see it. Someone sell me on it, I want more low cmc control finishers.
Gifts Ungiven is sweet. Sometimes is just an Inspiration that always grabs two relevant cards, in graveyard utilizing decks its often more. I love cards that give both you and your opponents options.
Gifts Ungiven is sweet. Sometimes is just an Inspiration that always grabs two relevant cards, in graveyard utilizing decks its often more. I love cards that give both you and your opponents options.
I really want to give Gifts Ungiven a try... anyone got any good sample Gifts piles?
Gifts seems cool, I just don't know which decks would specifically be interested in it. I could see it being really awesome in a Sultai deck helmed by KTK Sidisi/Vengevine/recursive dudes but that's as far as I see it. Seems like it would be difficult to craft a deck that could maximize Gifts. FoF just seems like it works better in the majority of draft decks.
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
I always end up cutting fact or fiction, which I kind of regret. The other benefit of it is that it feeds the graveyard, so it actually pairs quite nicely alongside treasure cruise and dig through time.
I should probably just not be running compulsive research, but I feel like that one mana is a big deal on a draw spell. ugh.
I should probably just not be running compulsive research, but I feel like that one mana is a big deal on a draw spell. ugh.
Chris Taylor
Contributor
I don't think I could have gifts in my cube and still have games finish on time
I do those First Pick Fridays on the cube subreddit (although tbh i should probably stop using reddit) and I've been able to get some really fun Gifts decks in more traditional and Grim Monolith cubes. Don't forget that you can fail to find more than two cards if you really want to play it into the graveyard (since cards in your library are hidden information, you can in fact go 'oh, here's a card, here's a card, shit, all out'). The last time this came up here, though, I think we settled on Intuition being more fun in both fair and unfair builds. God that's a great card.
CML
Contributor
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
I should probably let go of running gush in cube, and run fact or fiction instead, but I just really love the complexity behind gush.
Gush is great late game, but returning two islands to your hand is very problematic early (having that many islands and being able to eat that much tempo loss for just two cards). So I'd make that swap personally.
For card draw, I'm currently running these:
Fact or Fiction - Good synergy with the graveyard, it also offers a lot of potential for capitalizing on mistakes your opponents often make. I love this card.
Treasure Cruise - I'm really into delve right now. And this is basically ancestral recall later in the game. Perfect power level for cube I think because ancestral recall is broken early but is much less broken when you have to exile 7 cards from your graveyard.
Dig Through Time - Solid card. Delve is such goodness in cube.
Frantic Search - This is one of my favorite draw spells of all time. Being card disadvantage rarely matters if you have any graveyard synergies. It's also free and an instant. When you need an answer and you need it right now, this is probably the best card you could be holding besides the actual answer you need.
Ancestral Vision - Walks a fine line for me. T1 it's stellar in any Ux deck. Pretty much nothing I'd rather play. But it's also the worst top deck of all time. And even on T4 it's basically useless. So of all the draw spells I have in my cube, this is the one I am most likely to cut. But one drops are not super plentiful in blue, so it keeps hanging around (I also like the art).
Compulsive Research - Solid card that does a lot of work for control strategies. It's stock keeps rising with all the land focus mechanics too (which in my mind encourage land dense decks - molten vortex, magmatic insight, etc).
Thirst For Knowledge - This was better when I ran more artifact support and broken reanimator, but it's still a decent card. Being an instant helps. Discard is a very desirable effect in my cube due to all the graveyard synergies, so even if this ends up just a one for one, it can be worth the 3 mana sometimes.
Cards I'm not currently running but have run before:
Gush - was problematic. The tempo loss makes it unplayable early. Later it's good value (and has sweet combo interactions) but it's low on my list of draw effects in my cube's current configuration. Since the power purge, combo has become almost nonexistent (blink is all that really remains, and I'm chipping away at that deck now too).
Gifts Ungiven - Good but not great. Unless I have a specific combo I'm trying to fetch, FoF is almost always a better deal for the same cost. This card is probably better than Thirst at this point though, so I should probably consider the swap.
For card draw, I'm currently running these:
Fact or Fiction - Good synergy with the graveyard, it also offers a lot of potential for capitalizing on mistakes your opponents often make. I love this card.
Treasure Cruise - I'm really into delve right now. And this is basically ancestral recall later in the game. Perfect power level for cube I think because ancestral recall is broken early but is much less broken when you have to exile 7 cards from your graveyard.
Dig Through Time - Solid card. Delve is such goodness in cube.
Frantic Search - This is one of my favorite draw spells of all time. Being card disadvantage rarely matters if you have any graveyard synergies. It's also free and an instant. When you need an answer and you need it right now, this is probably the best card you could be holding besides the actual answer you need.
Ancestral Vision - Walks a fine line for me. T1 it's stellar in any Ux deck. Pretty much nothing I'd rather play. But it's also the worst top deck of all time. And even on T4 it's basically useless. So of all the draw spells I have in my cube, this is the one I am most likely to cut. But one drops are not super plentiful in blue, so it keeps hanging around (I also like the art).
Compulsive Research - Solid card that does a lot of work for control strategies. It's stock keeps rising with all the land focus mechanics too (which in my mind encourage land dense decks - molten vortex, magmatic insight, etc).
Thirst For Knowledge - This was better when I ran more artifact support and broken reanimator, but it's still a decent card. Being an instant helps. Discard is a very desirable effect in my cube due to all the graveyard synergies, so even if this ends up just a one for one, it can be worth the 3 mana sometimes.
Cards I'm not currently running but have run before:
Gush - was problematic. The tempo loss makes it unplayable early. Later it's good value (and has sweet combo interactions) but it's low on my list of draw effects in my cube's current configuration. Since the power purge, combo has become almost nonexistent (blink is all that really remains, and I'm chipping away at that deck now too).
Gifts Ungiven - Good but not great. Unless I have a specific combo I'm trying to fetch, FoF is almost always a better deal for the same cost. This card is probably better than Thirst at this point though, so I should probably consider the swap.
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
I briefly cut gush after making that post and than added it back in.
With decks in the penny cube running 15 lands standard (due to bouncelands), and going down to 13-14 if they think they can get away with it, this actually seems like a good gush environment.
Its another very complex card, like gifts, brainstorm, and ponder. I guess its my hope that there will be a point months down the line where it "revolutionizes" the meta after people figure it out finally.
I actually just cut thirst for knowledge for artificer's epiphany.
With decks in the penny cube running 15 lands standard (due to bouncelands), and going down to 13-14 if they think they can get away with it, this actually seems like a good gush environment.
Its another very complex card, like gifts, brainstorm, and ponder. I guess its my hope that there will be a point months down the line where it "revolutionizes" the meta after people figure it out finally.
I actually just cut thirst for knowledge for artificer's epiphany.
Aoret
Developer
Thirst for Knowledge is too friggin pretty to cut. Am I the only one who hates treasure cruise? I really, really prefer dig through time. If I want two giant delve draw spells, I prefer two dig through times. Not saying I think DTT is more powerful, but it's certainly the card with more play. It feels like I'm doing stuff. Not just beating my opponent over the head with extra cards.
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Yeah I have Beleren, Double Treasure Cruise and Thirst for Knowledge, so Compulsive got the boot
I think DTT *is* vastly more powerful in Cube environments. Cruise got the banlist hatchet in every format* because you can construct decks where 3 cards is more powerful than best-2-of-7 (not to mention the significant difference between U and UU mana with full delve) -- but in Cube it's not as easy to fill up the graveyard to get the spells as cheap as possible, and card quality is significantly more uneven.
(* = I'm reasonably confident Dig will end up banned in Legacy and possibly also restricted in Vintage soon, perhaps even with the next ZEN set, but that's a talk for another time)
I also think the "beat over the head with extra cards" thing is, in this case, actually more interesting than the Dig alternative. We're not Digging for Grave Titan or whatever, but choosing the best line out of raw card advantages is, in my experience, more enjoyable than cherry-picking your strategy when you get a look at an absurd seven cards.
(* = I'm reasonably confident Dig will end up banned in Legacy and possibly also restricted in Vintage soon, perhaps even with the next ZEN set, but that's a talk for another time)
I also think the "beat over the head with extra cards" thing is, in this case, actually more interesting than the Dig alternative. We're not Digging for Grave Titan or whatever, but choosing the best line out of raw card advantages is, in my experience, more enjoyable than cherry-picking your strategy when you get a look at an absurd seven cards.
Luminarch Ascension is threateningly powerful in a lot of non-powermax environments because board stalls happen and damage does not always get through every turn. It's actually usually pretty easy to buy a few turns in any well-balanced format, because even a mediocre cadre of chumpers and big booty creatures can repel a not-all-in aggro deck for turns as they grind towards a breaking point that won't cost them good creatures, and aside from that, board wipes will (typically) mean at least two counters for Ascension (assuming minimal haste/haste-enablers are available on average). Neverminding that, it also really forces your opponent to try to connect, which can lead to them making very bad plays as they swing in or waste burn on your face at sorcery speed when saving it for later would be more ideal. Once it turns on, the game is essentially yours. Obviously it can be quite frustrating to be at 3 counters and get it removed but really most environs don't have a wealth of disenchant effects and even if they do, most drafters honestly don't care enough to pick them unless Swords or similar bullshit is very readily available. I've been wanting to pack it in, and probably will, for a test, but it represents some pretty serious power and asking for 4 turns to charge up is really not a serious enough hurdle to stop it from being an all-star card. I'd consider it likely more powerful than Bitterblossom in my environ at least, if that's any comparison.
(FYI Bitterblossom is a first-rate snatch-pick in my cube but isn't often backbreaking, even cast T2, and has led to several death-by-upkeep games so far, so to me it's more a question of if Ascension can outperform it in a more interesting way without feeling bah-roken.)
The meta is evolving and even though Omnitell players will talk (your ear off) about how many complex and intricate lines there are it's still basically just another Show and Tell deck (that wins at instant speed). Wizards' track record with trying to make cards for Eternal formats isn't inspiring, but I'm still hopeful new tools will come out at some point that let non-blue decks fight the Dig meta. I love Shardless, but Ancestral Visions getting worse (since now there are other, non-fringe ways to add more cards to your hand) has pushed out a couple of decks and Dig has invigorated a lot more old ones and even some new stuff (TWIN COMBO IN A LEGACY TOP 8 WHAT THE SHIT). I hope it doesn't get banned for, like, at least another year or so, Innistrad really calcified the format.
Since it's the Spotlight thread I wanna say I've been really impressed with Twisted Image as a cantrip that effects the board, particularly with Prowess.
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
I think at this point DTT is probably the strongest blue cube draw spell. I'm not sure ancestral recall is stronger than it in cube /controversy
I cut Treasure Cruise because it was certifiably insane in the tempo and aggro decks here - U/R Delver did not need the extra help - and swapped Ancestral Vision back in as a "fairer" one-mana draw-three. Dig Through Time has been similarly powerful, but as it's better suited to control lists and that archetype could use the buff, I've still got it in.
Compulsive Research is sweet - I'm up to two of them now!
Compulsive Research is sweet - I'm up to two of them now!
Chris Taylor
Contributor
How cheap was the average Cruise? (Also what other delve cards do you run, since it's hard to have too many in a deck)
My cruises are costing 2-3, and I've got x2 Cruise, Tasigur and Gurmag Angler
My cruises are costing 2-3, and I've got x2 Cruise, Tasigur and Gurmag Angler
and the mean Cruise was
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
Are you sure your median cruise was 1 mana?