this is so accurate it hurts
Card/Deck Single Card Spotlight
- Thread starter Dom Harvey
- Start date
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Well, how good is blocking in your enviornment?
they’re pretty bad. renown sucks because you have power points locked behind the condition of hitting with a non evasive, crappy body creature
Very power level dependent of course. Acolyte can be good in small-creature-land (like my cube) because it's effectively unblockable by toughness <= 2, and if blocked will trade up a lot of the time. Scab-Clan Berserker is kind of bland to me and I think it's actually worse, especially with the double red cost.
Mostly speaking about ORI draft, though, so take it with a grain of salt.
Mostly speaking about ORI draft, though, so take it with a grain of salt.
Renown sucks, because it works out for you if things work already out for you to some degree. I think renown shouldn't be the reason to run a renown creature. You want equipment support in a white low drop? Relic Seeker is your man. You need another Goblin 1-drop? Goblin Glory Chaser is a plausible option. That being said, I could see a reason for the beserker, but I would find like twenty red 3s for any given power level I would prefer to the acolyte.
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Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Renown blows because it's a "suck or snowball" mechanic. It only rewards you if you're winning (on board).
Chris Taylor
Contributor
I mean it rewards you once. Hardly a snowball.
Relic Seeker/Topan Freeblade/Undercity Troll are fine and I've ran both with success before. Goblin Glory Chaser and Honored Hierarch are okay, but since their base body is less useful they have a lot of the same play patterns as reckless waif: good on t1 if your opponent doesn't have a 1 drop, and not much else.
The higher you get on MV, the more likely there is for some random creature to be in the way
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
You don't snowball into a win, necessaril, but all of those creatures grow to decidedly above curve for most cubes here. Not all though.
Renown would have worked much better if it was inverted IMO. Get the reward on the creature being blocked. That both makes the creature a bit better and rewards actual interaction on the field.
The opponent goes from "blocking this prevents effect and prevents it from growing. this is good" to "do I take the chip shots from this creature, or block it and trigger the bonus?" (The Acolyte has a bit tougher combat math because it's... designed well for renown)
Combat becomes more interesting because the creature is bigger in combat rather than being its smaller version, and potential counter synergies might add another layer of interaction.
Opponent being behind on board or in general doesn't auto-bump-you-ahead
The opponent goes from "blocking this prevents effect and prevents it from growing. this is good" to "do I take the chip shots from this creature, or block it and trigger the bonus?" (The Acolyte has a bit tougher combat math because it's... designed well for renown)
Combat becomes more interesting because the creature is bigger in combat rather than being its smaller version, and potential counter synergies might add another layer of interaction.
Opponent being behind on board or in general doesn't auto-bump-you-ahead
I feel like the real problem with Renown is that the majority of the cards with the mechanic are just french vanillas with undersized bodies.
However I've always found that
is worth piling up with equipment/making evasive. Get a single hit in, and suddenly villain is going to get their hand slapped if they try to do anything other than play out creatures.
However I've always found that
is worth piling up with equipment/making evasive. Get a single hit in, and suddenly villain is going to get their hand slapped if they try to do anything other than play out creatures.
It creates a guessing game which is a little interesting.
But it is also kind of anti synergy. Renown wants the creature to:
1. Attack
2. Not get blocked
3. Not get ninjutsu’ed
4. And deal damage to the face => renown
Ninjutsu is trying to stop renown from happening. But I will give it that it also creates a bit of a mind game if opponent knows you have ninjas.
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Sounds like a decent Modern Horizons 3 idea to follow Neon Dynasty.
How strong is Bitterblossom? And how annoying is it? Do you guys think it would add anything to my cube or am I better off looking elsewhere?
From your cube description: “Very few planeswalkers and other easy engines”.
Whilst Bitterblossom can be used as a synergy card (for example with Smokestack, which is in your cube) it tends to warp games around it if unanswered. It is similar to Pack Rat which, though also a discard outlet and token enabler, is also a self-contained win condition.
i feel like your cube’s power level can probably handle it, even though it’ll be in the top section of your band for black. it can be used as Forcefield to drag games out in UB control… or as Sulfuric Vortex to close games out with Bonesplitter or a Sword in WB… also great with Korvold, Mayhem Devil, Rite of Oblivion etc in Rock decks. just be mindful of what cards people are likely to be running it with and how those games will play out once the BB engine gets running… are those play patterns you want?
(fwiw i run it in paper and like it)
(fwiw i run it in paper and like it)
A lot. But it would still be good.
One of the reasons why Bitterblossom is soooo good is because the downside is not really a downside. You lose 1 life each turn. But the token you create will always block more incoming damage than 1 life. And when it doesn’t need to protect you, it will easily overwhelm your opponent in flying damage.
If the tokens didn’t have flying, I think the card would still be strong but a lot closer to fair because it wouldn’t guarentee it could prevent more damage than 1 life/turn. And the non-flying army wouldn’t be a huge issue until there was enough. A single flyer is often = 1 damage. But a single 1/1 often cannot attack because opponent has a 2/2 or bigger.
Perfect. I already designed this custom lol.
Post it in the custom card thread?
It'll be in the Pokemon thread. It's just BB no flying.
Do these cards to anything? Or are they exclusively for combo builds?