That is actually a well thought out environment. List even looks pretty sweet.
Shame it just got ignored. I suppose it is MTGS, I don't know what else you would expect.
Card/Deck Single Card Spotlight
- Thread starter Dom Harvey
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That is actually a well thought out environment. List even looks pretty sweet.
Shame it just got ignored. I suppose it is MTGS, I don't know what else you would expect.
I think the answer to your question is that masked admirers doesnt usually make it and the decks where it is pretty good to play in are usually awful to play with and play against.
How are these? I'm pushing more graveyard stuff because I love graveyard stuff.
Also, what is the current consensus on Gravecrawler? Is it worth it to pack 1 for incidental recursion? 2 for the potential buddy system? Are we off the G-man entirely?
GG is a lot to pay for Masked Admirers, and a 2/5 is more interesting than a 3/2 when you are trying to create interaction. So Reach of Branches should not be discarded because it's a worse Masked Admirers. It's not worse and it's not that similar.
I got a Reach of Branches because it looked cool too, but I think the power level is too low for my cube. Will test someday.
Wildwood Rebirth seems really bad - I found Regrowth quite meh - probably because these effects scale to the format power level. Other options:
I got a Reach of Branches because it looked cool too, but I think the power level is too low for my cube. Will test someday.
Wildwood Rebirth seems really bad - I found Regrowth quite meh - probably because these effects scale to the format power level. Other options:
lol how is a less impactful card that is altogether harder to interact with encouraging for interaction.
We cubed on thursday and my GW deck was exceptionally value heavy and as was my opponents GB deck we had an exceptionally thrilling time making infinite medium body creatures and occasionally making something bigger that would be less significant than either of us hoped. I was even a really card advantage and interaction heavy green deck but we were just capable of producing waaay more cards in the form of middling threats than we could actually draw, and of course your rebuy effects never get to interact with your journey to nowhere etc
They were both uncommons in the same format, but I never saw Masked Admirers do anything, while Reach of Branches was both a solid blocker and a legit wincon for the slower green decks. Being an instant means you never have to commit, too!
People have been trying to make Masked Admirers work in cube since forever ago, because his text box reads well. In practice, though, he needs a lot of things to happen before you start chaining value off him: he needs to die, you have to draw another creature, and then you need to have
available on top of that creatures's casting cost. It's all a bunch of really slow hoops to jump through to get a slightly bigger bear.
People have been trying to make Masked Admirers work in cube since forever ago, because his text box reads well. In practice, though, he needs a lot of things to happen before you start chaining value off him: he needs to die, you have to draw another creature, and then you need to have
available on top of that creatures's casting cost. It's all a bunch of really slow hoops to jump through to get a slightly bigger bear.
Speaking of recursive value spells who's tried out Exile into Darkness?
Hmm.. I'm thinking of a utility draft with charms now. I think I may need to try something like that.
Dom Harvey
Contributor
14-year-old me took sadistic pleasure in Exile-locking aggro decks
not sure about Cube though
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
14-year-old me took sadistic pleasure in Exile-locking aggro decks
not sure about Cube though
I played Exile into Darkness at a PTQ once. In a 3-color concoction with Meloku the Clouded Mirror. It was a blast. I didn't qualify.
I had reach of branches in for a very long time. When it was in I didn't have that many flyers so it acted as slow inevitability, scary to play against but not unfair. It also works well with
Kind of like a squee for a very green deck. It's probably too weak for most cubes here, but I would still run it if I didn't have to cut treefolks out.
Kind of like a squee for a very green deck. It's probably too weak for most cubes here, but I would still run it if I didn't have to cut treefolks out.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Now I'm curious... What did the treefolk do to you?
My cube was initially super low powered, so they used to be arguably the strongest tribe if you had the pieces and most of them were also warriors or shamans and played well with elves. This worked because the cube used to play like durdly kid magic at first (which was really fun for a while, especially as some of my players were kind of newbies at that point so a tribe of 3/6 looks really cool and intimidating). But as the cube grew more focused and powerful, treefolks had a hard time keeping up (there is sweetspot for them at the same level of play that allows this, but my cube was moving on). They are a costly tribe, with worse bombs than giants, and worse midrange potencial than beast. On top of that the monogreen player loved elves so in the end the only treefolks that really saw play was these guys (plus reach of branches)
They had some crossover with black, but elves were better at that too. Doran is a great card but you have to splash white for it, and white has no good treefolks. There are a bunch of other reasons as well, but it concerns other parts of the cube that are not really related to treefolks other than incidentally or through competition of slots.
I might go back to a lower powerlevel at some point, or if wizard decides to print some good low cmc treefolks and some good white treefolks then they will come back. Right now I am trying to see how far I can push the powerlevel and still keep tribes viable/fun/synergistic and in a singelton format.
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Nothing. But it's christmas time, and...well...
FlowerSunRain
Contributor
Yeah, I for one know I underestimated that card. 3 mana is so much less then 4 its not funny. Costing 3 life and requiring a multicolor manabase is completely worth it to pull this far ahead. I'm playing Infernal Contract in my Legacy Death's Shadow deck and loving every minute of it. That card is probably too restrictive to be cubable, but painful truths has a more managable cost and a easier to build around restriction. Most cube decks have 2 colors and access to a third off of a splash or fetchable off color dual. Its asking very little of you as a player and you doesn't compete with your 4 drop bomb.
It's a fine card, but more gold than hybrid, tasigur, or off-color flashback cards so fudge your numbers however you wish.
I'm not 100% happy with people taking lands they normally wouldn't solely to +1 their single domain/sunburst/converge card, but that's drafting I guess.
Comparing it to read the bones again, they're pretty close on value, bones only being 100% worse when you double-top and have no mana issues. Youcan't cast look silly casting truths on-curve, and never have the "I only have one of my splash mana but my actual splash card is also in my hand" problem.
I'm not 100% happy with people taking lands they normally wouldn't solely to +1 their single domain/sunburst/converge card, but that's drafting I guess.
Comparing it to read the bones again, they're pretty close on value, bones only being 100% worse when you double-top and have no mana issues. You
I personally still like Read the Bones more, because you get to look at up to 4 cards, and you can be in a 1 or 2 color deck and still get value. I'm not sure that doesn't mean running both isn't justified... Drawing 3 cards is strong.
I'm still on Read the Bones over here, as well, because I'm trying to support a half-hearted devotion theme in black. But I think that if you can reasonably expect over half of your decks on any given night to be three colours or more, Painful Truths starts to look mighty tempting. It's a function both of how much fixing you make available to your drafters, and how conservative those drafters are when it comes to splashing and stretching that mana.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
All of you on Read the Bones need to accept the Painful Truth(s) that there is now a better three-mana draw spell available unless you specifically cultivate an environment that does not want to encourage two-color with a splash decks
I am all for running the cards that place minor deckbuilding / drafting incentives.
Dom Harvey
Contributor
Read the Bones is one of those bread-and-butter cards that you need to have in some quantity, and you don't want it to become more conditional than even most gold cards. The card selection from Read also becomes a little more important in near-singleton synergy-based formats like most of the Cubes here.
I just like having more scry.
I like Read the Bones more than Painful Truths personally, but I value scry pretty highly.
I will say that both Read the Bones and Painful Truths have helped me to understand that when you're taking a turn off to refill your hand at sorcery speed - all that tempo lost! - you need to get back a minimum of ~2.5 cards' worth of value. This is why, despite being costed more efficiently, Night's Whisper has never been more than a fringe role-player over here, and is never picked early. Meanwhile, Read the Bones reads a smidge worse than Night's Whisper, but has actually performed better in practice.