Card/Deck Single Card Spotlight

Mondschwein

Mondschwein

I do run Vendilion Clique and am currently thinking about breaking singleton on it.
What do people think about



She looks a bit like a 2-mana planeswalker getting virtual counters (your life) through her first activated ability, until she's able to ultimate with her second.
Deathrite Shaman seems to be way too strong for a 1-mana walker, how do they compare to each other?
Sylvan Advocate got cut for being too strong against aggro. Being a 2/3-body with vigilance as a 2-drop is very strong, even for a green. How do they compare? Ayli has deathtouch but not vigilance, it could serve as a removal by blocking a bigger body, but it's not aggressive and offensive, and she requires two colours on turn two to be a comparable wall against aggro.
 
Erik

Erik

Currently working on my simic and mainly green section in that regard where I want to try the new emerge mechanic.



Is the body just to weak to make this card viable? He just seems to fit so well with what simic wants to do, and you also have great snakes like the new noose contractor. The others I'm considering are ambush viper, ohran viper and hooded hydra (which is amazingly cool with decimator of the provinces, or does that not work because it's a cast trigger? say it aint so).

I'm also curious about replaceable bodies in green, other than the aforementioned hooded hydra, what's the opinion on cards like seed guardian, brindle shoat and strangleroot geist. There seems to be a lot of them these days, as well as tools to take extra advantage from them.


by the way
t1: manadork
t2: eldritch evolution skaab ruinator
seems brutal.
 
ahadabans

ahadabans

Erik said:
kaseto, orochi archmage
Is the body just to weak to make this card viable?
Click to expand...

My opinion, this isn't worth a gold slot. But, snakes are cool so I can see the appeal. You might consider Sosuke's Summons. Pretty powerful CA engine in a snake deck. You may also consider the snake lords from Kamigawa block. I like Sosuke, Son of Seshiro (tie in with warrior tribal too if you want to pursue that).

I'm also curious about replaceable bodies in green, other than the aforementioned hooded hydra, what's the opinion on cards like seed guardian, brindle shoat and strangleroot geist. There seems to be a lot of them these days, as well as tools to take extra advantage from them.
Click to expand...

Geist is absolutely good enough. Only drawback is the GG mana cost.

by the way
t1: manadork
t2: eldritch evolution skaab ruinator
seems brutal.
Click to expand...


Like most combo plays, this is high risk/reward. Red decks will roll over to that. Green probably will too. Black can edict, white can journey to nowhere, blue can bounce. All those moves are basically a 3 for 1 and potentially blow you out. This is the primary reason I'm not high on Eldritch Evolution as a card. The lesson I learned from Tinker and Natural Order is that if you are going to 2 for 1 yourself, you need to get back extreme value. Regular value is not enough to justify in most cases. Fair tinker was an utter failure for me in testing. Not saying T2 is Skaab Ruinator is necessarily fair, but I'm not sure it's unfair enough. Pod is better because it's reusable. If they remove the first nasty thing you get, you just need one more creature to try again. EE is a one shot deal. YMMV depending on how high powered your list is though.
 
sigh

sigh

If UG in your environment is the "sudden burst of damage" kind of UG, Kaseto seems pretty neat.

Not 100% sure, but I think because sacrifice is part of Emerges cost, the snake babies will get the buff. But they'll still need haste.

I like Strangleroot Geist. I like Genesis a lot too, as a way to bring bodies back.

That is pretty brutal >_>
 
psly4mne

psly4mne

Decimator does pump the baby snakes if it eats Hooded Hydra. Both abilities trigger while casting Decimator, so you put them on the stack in either order. You'll need another way to give them haste though.

ahadabans, getting your Eldritch Evolution target removed is a 2 for 1, not a 3 for 1. I still agree that it isn't enough value for that investment.
 
FlowerSunRain

FlowerSunRain

Contributor
Kateso breaks stalls about beautifully, but blue is already pretty good at that. The card is playable for sure, but I'm not guessing the demand is going to be pretty low because there are lots of other cards that can fill that role and it doesn't really solve any "problems" for green/blue. In my cube, I think Kateso would get maindecked in most RUG or UWG aggro decks, but that's a narrow niche.

As for replaceable bodies, I like the undying trio of Young Wolf, Vorepede and Strangleroot geist. Hooded Hydra seems nice, but I've cubed so little since it came out I don't really have a strong opinion, but I'm leaning slightly negative on it (too slow).

Getting Ruinator with EE is nice because even if they kill it, you have ruinator and a creature in your graveyard, so you just need two dead to get back to parity. White removal, though, probably just owns it.
 
ahadabans

ahadabans

I think Ruinator is a good curve topper in Ux tempo style decks. Less so as a combo card. If it gets answered more than one time, it's basically useless. Best way I feel to avoid that is cast it as hands dwindle. People have spent their removal. Down it comes and if they kill it once, maybe you have the extra bodies in the yard already to recast it. Cheating it into play, it's on the board early and eats premium removal. Maybe you an recast it later, but now they might hold a spell for it.

I don't know. Just my limited experience with this card. I thought plopping it into play off Aether Vial was sweet. But it died a lot in that scenario. More than it did as this thing you drop late game and people are out of ammo for flying things with 6 toughness. It's basically a six drop that your hyper aggro 14 land deck gets to cast.
 
Aston

Aston

Erik said:
Currently working on my simic and mainly green section in that regard where I want to try the new emerge mechanic.



Is the body just to weak to make this card viable? He just seems to fit so well with what simic wants to do, and you also have great snakes like the new noose contractor. The others I'm considering are ambush viper, ohran viper and hooded hydra (which is amazingly cool with decimator of the provinces, or does that not work because it's a cast trigger? say it aint so).

I'm also curious about replaceable bodies in green, other than the aforementioned hooded hydra, what's the opinion on cards like seed guardian, brindle shoat and strangleroot geist. There seems to be a lot of them these days, as well as tools to take extra advantage from them.


by the way
t1: manadork
t2: eldritch evolution skaab ruinator
seems brutal.
Click to expand...


You could also play Coiling Oracle (the best creature in Modern).
 
RavebornMuse

RavebornMuse

Erik said:
Currently working on my simic and mainly green section in that regard where I want to try the new emerge mechanic.



Is the body just to weak to make this card viable? He just seems to fit so well with what simic wants to do, and you also have great snakes like the new noose contractor. The others I'm considering are ambush viper, ohran viper and hooded hydra (which is amazingly cool with decimator of the provinces, or does that not work because it's a cast trigger? say it aint so).
Click to expand...

Thassa, God of the Sea does this so much better and outside of multicolour. It also adds more texture to {U} as an evasive colour, rather than giving some weird, looks-like-tribal-but-shouldn't-be goodie to goodstuff stompy decks. I will admit that Thassa's unblockable ability is strong in the hands of a capable pilot, but I'll take "maybe too strong" over "12th pick 3-mana 2/2 in a weird pair with bad tribal signalling" any day (and FWIW, most people play Thassa for the scry and neglect to use the unblockable line as often as they should)
 
Mondschwein

Mondschwein

I think it came up quite often on these forums, but what do people think about their red 4-drops?
Hellrider and Hero of Oxid Ridge are lame, fact. Ogre Battledriver just doesn't fit aggressive decks as a curve-topper as the wrath could hit on the next turn. Personally, I have Thunderbreak Regent, Shaman of the Wild Hunt, Akoum Firebird and Flametongue Kavu on that slot.
The Firebird serves aggro as well as RG landfall decks, Shaman is cooler than Hellrider and Hero of blah, FTK might get cut from my cube for being too powerful, unconditionally, and Thunderbreak Regent is cool as a 4/4-flier with built-in pseudo-protection, but I wonder if the last one mentioned cut be swapped out with something that immediately has an impact? Red aggro needs such creatures. I thought of..



Did riptideheads test it yet? Playing it t4 with haste and copying a 2- or 3-drop seems pretty neat.
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
Not a huge fan :(
Another target attacking creature is a huge target restriction basically.

I've actually found shaman to be a little weak, and while I love the synergy and flood protection it provides, it's super depressing to have elite vanguard wannabes thrown in front of it (Of which there are many in cube)
 
shamizy

shamizy

Hellrider is incredibly powerful and non-interactive if that Red Aggro deck has curved out. It's probably the most powerful card you could have for that given archetype. I actually took it out a while back because along with recursive beaters in black, it was too oppressive. Hero of Oxid Ridge has pretty much been the perfect power level as far as curve toppers are concerned. That "power 1 or less" text has been more relevant than I expected on a handful of occasions.

If you aren't already running it, I'd suggest:



Who is admittedly more of a 3 drop than anything, but it' super sweet. Dash is honestly the perfect mechanic for aggressive decks just to get around sorcery speed removal. Apply pressure without committing to the board, help push through another attacker, and it's a sweet curve out threat when you go 1 drop/2 drop/Dash Heelcutter. He's the total package.
 
Mondschwein

Mondschwein

Heelcutter seems to be quite nice to have, and it really is more of a 3-drop than anything else.
Goldnight Castigator seems super strong, 4/4.5 Flying with Haste, the drawback mostly counts in aggro mirrors or when your opponent has come so far that s/he starts to race you. I like the art but I find the card itself quite weird, on top it doesn't have something 'clever' to it.
 
Alphez

Alphez

What do you guys think about



It might not seem like anything special, but out of my Cube I can see nice interactions with



And basically any other loot effect. It's kind of a worse Loam, but I think it's still playable if your power level isn't too high.
Thoughts?
 
Mondschwein

Mondschwein

Actually, it looks pretty decent. I'm running double Magmatic Isnight, one Molten Vortex and some discard outlets, especially in black, as well as looters and some of the cards you listed there.

I don't know, double loam seems to make a certain deck too consistent, while cutting loam and adding this guy x2 instead could enable a new value engine without being unfair. It pairs well with black, blue and red. I'm definitely going to try it.
 
W

wahoopride

Chris Taylor said:
So you either up the artifact (enchantments are less a problem here, most of us know moat is pretty dumb design wise) count in your cube until it's like mirrordin block and you can actually maindeck shatter and not want to kill yourself, or you tone it down and build from the assumption that no artifact/enchantment removal will be present, so stuff like bident of thassa is perfectly fine since you can still interact with creature removal, but cards like eldrazi monument leave, because the only way to deal is with naturalize and co.

And man do you have more room! :D
Click to expand...

This is basically the conclusion I came to. Rather than having to waste space in my cube with narrow cards (like ones with naturalize effects) it is better to just not have broken artifacts and enchantments. Not only does that make more room and make deck construction more fun, its means two things:

1) less time wasted side-boaring answers for broken artifacts and enchantments
2) less variance in games where either someone gets out the artifact/enchantment and they win, or you have the answer in your hand and you win
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
For a fair cube without cheap artifact mana and only a modicum of planeswalkers.



Can this be a fun card in an environment where it's harder to abuse the card?
 
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