Card/Deck Single Card Spotlight

FlowerSunRain

Contributor
I had a very odd card evaluation experience today.



So, I was looking at this card and I was curious, but unsure if it would be a decent aura/heroic enabler worth cubing. Anyway, I flip over to my cube list and start scanning it and it seems pretty obvious that this card is fucking insane. I mean, Furor of the Bitten has been decent filler and Wordmail is blatantly better. I mean sometimes Insanely Not Even Close Better. I didn't realize so few cards had one word names. So now, I'm not wondering if it is good enough, but rather if its too good to play.
 
Well... I was curious. I have 183 creatures in my cube. 398 total words in names, bringing the average to about 2.17. Compared to Rancor I'd say this is not too good to play.

Isamaru is def my best target, though Thassa, God of the Sea holds the record in my cube.

Makes me wonder what other stats I could extract from my cube...
 

FlowerSunRain

Contributor
The thing is, the average name length isn't that important, its the name length of the quality targets. A lot of the cards you want to cast an aggressive aura on get +4/+4 from this card and none of them get worse then +2/+2 (I guess Fettergeist and Thrummingbird can suck it?).

The main thing I'm wondering is if an aura that gives out (often) +4/+4 for {W} is even fun.
 

Dom Harvey

Contributor
I like that its strength varies wildly in a hilarious way. I would feel much less bad about losing to Wordmail than to a card that just unconditionally gave +4/+4
 

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
I had a very odd card evaluation experience today.



So, I was looking at this card and I was curious, but unsure if it would be a decent aura/heroic enabler worth cubing. Anyway, I flip over to my cube list and start scanning it and it seems pretty obvious that this card is fucking insane. I mean, Furor of the Bitten has been decent filler and Wordmail is blatantly better. I mean sometimes Insanely Not Even Close Better. I didn't realize so few cards had one word names. So now, I'm not wondering if it is good enough, but rather if its too good to play.

Well, creatures tend to have much longer names than instants and sorceries. Almost all the iconic "english word" card names are spells.

Do we have cards with > 4 words in their name that are played in cube?
 
A hyphenated word is just one word. Although in this case, I'd probably lobby for it to count - just to make the card sweeter.
 

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member


Anyone have any success with this card in a non-graveyard focused (i.e. traditional) cube? I feel like of the five colours, red cares about the graveyard the least, and our graveyard-based decks here are usually some combination of {B}{U}{G}. Does this card do anything in regular cubes?
 

FlowerSunRain

Contributor


Anyone have any success with this card in a non-graveyard focused (i.e. traditional) cube? I feel like of the five colours, red cares about the graveyard the least, and our graveyard-based decks here are usually some combination of {B}{U}{G}. Does this card do anything in regular cubes?

This card does everything in every cube.

For me, besides the mundane act of digging (which is hardly irrelevant), it chucks flashback cards for value, triggers the madness, chucks graveyard dudes, chucks lands for loam and helps set up replenish/living death/corpse dance. I think the impact of this card is probably overstated in general, but its got plenty of play to it and will usually find a home.
 

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
This card does everything in every cube.

For me, besides the mundane act of digging (which is hardly irrelevant), it chucks flashback cards for value, triggers the madness, chucks graveyard dudes, chucks lands for loam and helps set up replenish/living death/corpse dance. I think the impact of this card is probably overstated in general, but its got plenty of play to it and will usually find a home.

I put it in thinking it would do these things but it never actually does these things. Mostly it does a fuckton of filtering for 1 card.
 

FlowerSunRain

Contributor
I hate how cards like this don't work on things like Oblivion Ring and Shreikmaw. I mean, its pretty narrow even from a theoretical standpoint, it sucks that its even narrower because of what is more or less a technicality.
 
I like faithless looting just for the ability to pitch extra lands in an aggro deck.

Diverting your opponent's removal from your best creature to his best certainly seems awesome, though it also seems narrow in a weird kind of way, mainly because you have to set this trick up when you opponent doesn't have two free mana.
 
Lightning Bolt, Hymn to Tourach, Ancestral Recall, Compulsive Research, Searing Blaze, Doom Blade etc etc etc. The card is sweet. Give it a shot for sure.
 

CML

Contributor
no way. i've played it in legacy, where it is more or less 'in its element,' and it was a miscarriage. real misdirection is worth considering, though.

"single target" ≠ searing blaze fwiw

faithless is pretty delightful but it's not for decks without graveyard themes, i don't think. i have trouble imagining "R/x aggro" or "U/r/x control" that wants faithless without some way to abuse it. i've thought about doubling up on that card a lot, and i haven't for that reason.
 
Faithless Looting is probably my favorite 1 mana red card. My cube has tons of graveyard interactions though, so that card is very easy to find synergies with. One of my favorite moves of recent times is looting discard Vengevine. Next turn drop a couple mana elves. Profit.
 
Okay, I run a modern-framed Cube, so this isn't as mindblowing for most of you but today I found out this card became available for my cube! :)

Image.ashx
 
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I was happy about that too because the only other options cost a bajillion dollars or have white borders (which I refuse to cube with).
 
Okay, I run a modern-framed Cube, so this isn't as mindblowing for most of you but today I found out this card became available for my cube! :)

You have a modern frame cube too!? I was also pretty thrilled with that reprint. Lots of goodies in Commander 2013. Also Jace vs Vraska brings us these in modern frame for the first time:

 
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