Thank you!
Card/Deck Single Card Spotlight
- Thread starter Dom Harvey
- Start date
Thank you!
Not sure where to post this, but here goes. I've been playing a bunch of Arena cube because I want to try new cards I haven't been able to play IRL yet. Here are some cards that stood out (not necessarily unknown quantities mind you):
My initial take on decayed zombies was that I didn't want to mix them up with regular zombie tokens. Although it took me a few scroll over the decayed zombie tokens to fully register what they are doing, it's pretty simple to grok.
Jadar was great in aggro and/or sacrifice decks providing fodder and attackers every turn. It felt like a better Dreadhorde Invasion even Jadar himself is more vulnerable.
The Stitcher also played out impressively. It was easy to flip and the flip side had a big board impact as an anthem effect. I've been looking for a Young Pyromancer type card for Blue that is lower on the curve than Murmuring Mystic and Stitcher seems like the real deal. It's still a DFC which brings along a lot of complexity, but the gameplay was fun.
Hermit played out great in more tempo decks, kind of like a cheaper Glen Elendra Archmage. Playing against it was annoying too as you often had to delay your spell, cast removal on it or bait something first. Great 2 drop!
This one was obnoxious in my controlling decks. I would either flash it in EoT if the opponent tapped out or cast it with some cheap spell for protection. I still like it better than some other 7+ drops as you still need to work to get the full potential of the card (say unlike Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite that just shifts the board on it's head).
The bunny was everything I hoped for when I saw the card. Playable in the most aggressive builds as a 1 drop with late game relevance, but also decent in more midrange decks as a haste enabler.
Fable was new for me in limited and it was just a ton of value. The complexity is through the roof though! Saga, 3 types of tokens, DFC...I like it, but not for my group.
The treasures from the first token were often relevant letting me double spell or as my Black source to recur a Scrapheap Scrounger.
Overcharged Amalgam was a nice piece of interaction for my more proactive Blue decks. Upgrading a random token into an evasive threat and countering something was a big deal. It was also great in Blue mirrors where I coud just EoT drop a 3/3 flyer and put a lot of pressure on the opponent. If they counter, I have free reign on my turn, if not the waiting game continues but I have a threat!
These thoughts are over a small sample size, so I'd love to hear if people have different experience on some of these.
My initial take on decayed zombies was that I didn't want to mix them up with regular zombie tokens. Although it took me a few scroll over the decayed zombie tokens to fully register what they are doing, it's pretty simple to grok.
Jadar was great in aggro and/or sacrifice decks providing fodder and attackers every turn. It felt like a better Dreadhorde Invasion even Jadar himself is more vulnerable.
The Stitcher also played out impressively. It was easy to flip and the flip side had a big board impact as an anthem effect. I've been looking for a Young Pyromancer type card for Blue that is lower on the curve than Murmuring Mystic and Stitcher seems like the real deal. It's still a DFC which brings along a lot of complexity, but the gameplay was fun.
Hermit played out great in more tempo decks, kind of like a cheaper Glen Elendra Archmage. Playing against it was annoying too as you often had to delay your spell, cast removal on it or bait something first. Great 2 drop!
This one was obnoxious in my controlling decks. I would either flash it in EoT if the opponent tapped out or cast it with some cheap spell for protection. I still like it better than some other 7+ drops as you still need to work to get the full potential of the card (say unlike Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite that just shifts the board on it's head).
The bunny was everything I hoped for when I saw the card. Playable in the most aggressive builds as a 1 drop with late game relevance, but also decent in more midrange decks as a haste enabler.
Fable was new for me in limited and it was just a ton of value. The complexity is through the roof though! Saga, 3 types of tokens, DFC...I like it, but not for my group.
The treasures from the first token were often relevant letting me double spell or as my Black source to recur a Scrapheap Scrounger.
Overcharged Amalgam was a nice piece of interaction for my more proactive Blue decks. Upgrading a random token into an evasive threat and countering something was a big deal. It was also great in Blue mirrors where I coud just EoT drop a 3/3 flyer and put a lot of pressure on the opponent. If they counter, I have free reign on my turn, if not the waiting game continues but I have a threat!
These thoughts are over a small sample size, so I'd love to hear if people have different experience on some of these.
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if Villain exiles it it's astonishingly disappointing : (
What's up with this dude? Solid stats. Unique ability.
I didn't cube it but i DID try this as a 2-of in an iteration of Arena Historic Phoenix and i was very very underwhelmed with them in that constructed format.
e: the ability is a meaningful form of gas though. The decision to keep flameskull is usually the call, but sometimes you pay the opportunity cost because you just really really need a shock.
I think this card is the perfect fixing land for cube. It fixes all colors without making 5-color soup too easy, enters untapped for aggro, can be picked up by anyone not super strictly drafting mono color. You still get the Landfall/Loam synergies of fetches.
You guys know me, I've never broken singleton but I just asked myself why I wouldn't want my whole fixing be Prismatic Vistas. Or maybe something close to it. What would you really lose? Some cycling or scry 1 on a tapped land? Who cares, if you can add more non-fixing cards to the cube instead?
Yeah, that's correct. The more rainbow fixing in the draft, the less fixing you need. This gets more important the fewer people are at the table, as this increases the chance of that Hallowed Fountain not being of interest for anyone. Now, if you have an Azorius Chancery, that might even be true for the W/U tempo drafter.
I probably wouldn't be so excited about that random thought if I weren't having a devotion theme and a cube where people don't go for 3+ colors that often.
Now, tell my brain what you think of it's idea.
A fine idea.
Some great things can come from it. Simplicity and signaling. Also a lot of shuffling across the table. I would worry about everything having a toooooo easy time brewing greedy decks. But maybe you could test it, analyze on the results and finally publish your findings here?
Some great things can come from it. Simplicity and signaling. Also a lot of shuffling across the table. I would worry about everything having a toooooo easy time brewing greedy decks. But maybe you could test it, analyze on the results and finally publish your findings here?
Anthony Mattox plays multiple copies of Prismatic Vista in his Regular Cube. They just did an entire episode talking about it on Lucky Paper Radio, and they spoke highly of the multiple Prismatic Vistas.
I think this card is the perfect fixing land for cube. It fixes all colors without making 5-color soup too easy, enters untapped for aggro, can be picked up by anyone not super strictly drafting mono color. You still get the Landfall/Loam synergies of fetches.
You guys know me, I've never broken singleton but I just asked myself why I wouldn't want my whole fixing be Prismatic Vistas. Or maybe something close to it. What would you really lose? Some cycling or scry 1 on a tapped land? Who cares, if you can add more non-fixing cards to the cube instead?
Yeah, that's correct. The more rainbow fixing in the draft, the less fixing you need. This gets more important the fewer people are at the table, as this increases the chance of that Hallowed Fountain not being of interest for anyone. Now, if you have an Azorius Chancery, that might even be true for the W/U tempo drafter.
I probably wouldn't be so excited about that random thought if I weren't having a devotion theme and a cube where people don't go for 3+ colors that often.
Now, tell my brain what you think of it's idea.
I think Prismatic Vista is great. I would have run more in my MTGO cube, but the prices were quite steep at the time, and WOTC doesn't sell online proxies (yet).
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Anthony of Lucky Paper Radio runs 8 copies of prismatic vista IIRC (cube link) and swears by it.
I'm not sure how much I'd like it being the only fixing in an environment? At some point it'll all just blend together, I think players will feel a lot better about a mix between this and traditional fixing.
I run Triple Fetch/Triple Alpha Dual, but I do also run a few copies of vista as a more generic "backup fetch you'll play 100% of the time", as well as this @blacksmithy wonder, being the equivalent fetchable:
Edit: ah fuck Train beat me to it. Given jason's point, highly recommend printer and/or sharpie on evolving wilds for this one chief.
I'm not sure how much I'd like it being the only fixing in an environment? At some point it'll all just blend together, I think players will feel a lot better about a mix between this and traditional fixing.
I run Triple Fetch/Triple Alpha Dual, but I do also run a few copies of vista as a more generic "backup fetch you'll play 100% of the time", as well as this @blacksmithy wonder, being the equivalent fetchable:
Edit: ah fuck Train beat me to it. Given jason's point, highly recommend printer and/or sharpie on evolving wilds for this one chief.
Finally a deck-domain enabler.
Start of Game - if your deck contains all five basic land types, upgrade your Hero Power.
My hypothetical objections against it would be twofold:
- General monotony of having your mana fixing feel identical, you don't get to feel the same degree of agency over how your mana base ends up, and therefore probably feels less rewarding to pick up mana fixing
- It becomes very hard to curve X into YY or YZ, which you might consider a feature depending on your card selection and priorities.
- General monotony of having your mana fixing feel identical, you don't get to feel the same degree of agency over how your mana base ends up, and therefore probably feels less rewarding to pick up mana fixing
- It becomes very hard to curve X into YY or YZ, which you might consider a feature depending on your card selection and priorities.
I wouldn't want the fixing to be exclusively vistas, but multiple in the mix sounds great.
That's funny, I just recently discovered this incredible podcast and since I am laying in bed with influenza since yesterday I haven't done much else than drinking tea and listening to them, but I didn't know that and didn't discover that episode yet.
Regarding monotony: Does this really matter that much? Manafixing is a pretty boring part of the game and rarely affects the game beyond fixing your mana (duh). Newer players even often refuse to pick fixing as highly as they should. This way though, it would be less punishing for newer players to pick the shiny 5-drop when they should've taken Temple of Malady, because EVERY fixing land coming their way can do what they need. Also, a twocolored deck is probably fine with two vistas + basics, right?
having basics and vistas only makes it really hard to hit hard pip requirements, you need lands that make multiple colors of mana to have the fun greed piles.
vista is fabulous though and i give everyone a vista and a formless void (thanks for posting it for me @Chris Taylor ) before each draft. saves me like 20 land slots in the cube itself.
vista is fabulous though and i give everyone a vista and a formless void (thanks for posting it for me @Chris Taylor ) before each draft. saves me like 20 land slots in the cube itself.
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Look to frank karsten (praise be unto him) for more exact info, but tldr it depends on what you're going to do:
90% odds to be able to cast a 1 drop on T1 is 10 sources
So a 16 land deck with 4 duals in it can consistently cast goblin guide and savannah lions with 90% confidence.
Counterspell on T2 takes a bit more, I don't know those # off the top of my head.
Let's take 360 card cube and let's say you'd want every 2-color drafter get two fixing lands. If you take into account that aggro doesn't want tapped lands and especially, that lands could end up in the sideboards of speculative drafters, you would at least want four fixing lands per guild.
That adds up to 40 cards already, or ~11%. And it's still a bit of a lottery, especially if not all of the cube is drafted. So you shouĺd probably go up to what, 15% fixing? That's a lot of real estate.
Now let's say your 360's mana fixing is all Vistas. Same goal, every twocolor drafter should get two fixing lands. But now, since they work for everyone, that would just require and average of 16 Vistas in the cube. That is just ~4.4% of the cards. Heck, even if you'd calculate three oer drafter, you're at 24 cards or 6.6% ... You would still have incredible, juicy 16 slots freed up.
That adds up to 40 cards already, or ~11%. And it's still a bit of a lottery, especially if not all of the cube is drafted. So you shouĺd probably go up to what, 15% fixing? That's a lot of real estate.
Now let's say your 360's mana fixing is all Vistas. Same goal, every twocolor drafter should get two fixing lands. But now, since they work for everyone, that would just require and average of 16 Vistas in the cube. That is just ~4.4% of the cards. Heck, even if you'd calculate three oer drafter, you're at 24 cards or 6.6% ... You would still have incredible, juicy 16 slots freed up.
just beware cuz basics can’t do DRC into Counterspell no matter how many 5c basics you have
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Also you realize that this is 100% going to end up with a few people having 4 vistas each and the rest having zero
I think it introduces an element of fun during the draft portion, it provides a sense of tension to your more greedy picks that packs a lot more uncertainty than "assuming I get on average 6 prismatic vistas my mana-base can afford to...", and making some super-sketchy fetch+shock pairings is a real dopamine hit. It introduces a level of personality to the mana base that makes decks more memorable.
You believe so? If during an 8-person draft, 24 Vistas are opened, it seems hard to not get at least 1 or 2.
But yeah, maybe mono vista is a little too extreme, even for my cube. Hmmmm
how about 7 vistas per person?
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Even if it's not zero, people value lands at higher picks, but unfortunately if you value fixing at pick 5 because you're playing a 2 color aggro deck, and someone else values them at pick 2 because they're playing a 3 color control deck, you don't see any because by the time you get to the point where you would pick them there's zero in the packs.
I think handing them out to drafters is a better way to open up slots in the cube, especially if there's some level of fixing still in the draft. Everyone has a baseline level of solid fixing so nobody trainwrecks, and you can still make your deck better with judicious drafting. FSR had a whole 4th pack that was 100% lands, all the treetop villages, field of ruins and great furnaces you could ask for.
But on the other hand, what are you freeing up all these slots for?
Hm, I just feel like sure it's nice to have fixing, but I don't know if anyone ever feels like fixing is atrocious in regular retail limited (it's not very good either). It feels a little exotic to do fixing with all vistas.