My memory from RTR limited was that it took over games and made them unfun, but I guess the RTR meta is pretty different from an arbitrary cube.
Card/Deck Single Card Spotlight
- Thread starter Dom Harvey
- Start date
I ran Pack Rat for a while and it wasn't all that impressive. Lots of removal, mass removal, the ability to just plain race it.
Completely depends on your removal suite; I don't run pyroclasms or infests, and a lot of decks people make just don't want to run wraths, so PRat would be miserable to play against. I also dislike how packing rats almost always chumps other plays- reminds me of mirror entity. "I wonder what YOU'RE going to do!"
I've found in my environment that spending five mana to make two Grizzly Bears, or eight mana for a trio of Centaur Coursers, is usually worse than what your opponent is trying to do in the early game. Aggro decks will have one drops that grow out of control, or 3/4's for two. Control decks don't really feel threatened by the first couple of Pack Rats, so they can bide their time and wait for a good answer. I guess in theory that it might be good against midrange, but even then, those decks are clogging the board or ramping up to something sweet.
To date, I can't remember a winning decklist with Pack Rat, but I think there's enough play to the card that I'm willing to let it keep a slot.
To date, I can't remember a winning decklist with Pack Rat, but I think there's enough play to the card that I'm willing to let it keep a slot.
What I like about Pack Rat is that it starts innocent enough as this over-costed 1/1 little thing. And then you toss a card and use even more mana, and now you have two simple little 2/2's. And it's easy for the opponent to just ignore all that because it's harmless to most anything else people are doing on turns 2 and 3. But the longer you ignore it, the worse the problem gets. Suddenly, there are 3 or 4 of them and they don't die to pyroclasm or infect and removing one doesn't really help. It's an infestation of rats!!
It's reminds me a little of Champion of the Parish. That guy is constantly ending up a 3/3 or 4/4 because no one wants to waste removal on a harmless 1/1. Even when he becomes a 2/2, people just continue to ignore him because there is always a bigger problem to deal with and it's not like champion has double strike or protection. He's just this vanilla guy. And then all of a sudden, he's this huge beat stick and you need to waste your Char or Dismember to get rid of him.
It's reminds me a little of Champion of the Parish. That guy is constantly ending up a 3/3 or 4/4 because no one wants to waste removal on a harmless 1/1. Even when he becomes a 2/2, people just continue to ignore him because there is always a bigger problem to deal with and it's not like champion has double strike or protection. He's just this vanilla guy. And then all of a sudden, he's this huge beat stick and you need to waste your Char or Dismember to get rid of him.
In my experience, it has been at exactly the right power level. In RTR you pretty much can dump your hand without even looking at what cards are in it, but in cube, it makes for some really difficult decisions. It's a slow mediocre card that slowly gets better throughout the game unless you are receiving some sort of synergy off of its discard.
On the topic of 2-drops, I've been thinking of adding this guy back in:
On the topic of 2-drops, I've been thinking of adding this guy back in:
It's hard to believe that only seven or eight (I think?) years ago, this guy was Legacy-playable. I could never get any mileage out of him in cube, though I suppose I slotted him in back during an era when the black aggro archetype in my environment was horrible.
I run a lot of removal. But there's more to this as well. I don't run much black aggro, so this card is a fish out of water. Pox decks don't have the mana and mono black control would rather cast other 2 drops.
Like if it's not hitting in, it's being a BBB upkeep abyss right?
Anyway I don't really like the card that much either, but I like the era of magic it was designed to be a house in.
Ahadabans, I wana ask you some questions:
1) What does your name come from?
2) If you really don't like planeswalkers so much do you have any good ideas for better versions of cards like mobilization or fecundity / greater good / triumph of ferocity / green advantage generator that is not necessarily a creature for white and green?
Omg I had to google to find out what triumphs proper name was and I got this gem:
Anyway I don't really like the card that much either, but I like the era of magic it was designed to be a house in.
Ahadabans, I wana ask you some questions:
1) What does your name come from?
2) If you really don't like planeswalkers so much do you have any good ideas for better versions of cards like mobilization or fecundity / greater good / triumph of ferocity / green advantage generator that is not necessarily a creature for white and green?
Omg I had to google to find out what triumphs proper name was and I got this gem:
Chris Taylor
Contributor
There are so many good black two drops! In Modern alone, these are the ones I like more than Pain Seer:
Ok, maybe Rotting Rats isn't an all star. But he fits a theme.
I will say I cut pack rat purely because EVERYONE across both of the playgroups I draft with hates the thing. Maybe it's standard wareoff, but fine. Certainly doesn't make games more interesting.
Alright, I have room to fill for *checks spreadsheet* 11 black 2 drops. Let's dive in!
- Blood Artist is great, but I'm realizing just how insane 2 is. I'm going back down to 1. It's in.
- Bloodthrone is an okay outlet, but I don't like creatures this conditionally good. If it weren't so bad on it's own, I'd be more okay with it. Pass.
- Dark Confidant is cool, but really restricts the kind of deck he goes in. Also, when he's good, he's REALLY good. Not really the kind of card I want a bunch of. It's in.
- Oona's Prowler is an okay card, but it's horrible at actually participating in combat. When it's just wailing against a players life total it's fine, but when your opponent actually has creatures it's really poor. Pass.
- Pack Rat: Removed for reasons above, correctly or not.
- Reassembling Skeleton: Man I wish this card was like an actual creature! (IE was a 2/1) He's real slow and real small, and never brought me any success, except for the short stint purphoros was in my cube. Pass
- Rotting Rats: Yeah, not spectacular. I've got a 2/1 ravenous rats in my cube now who is solid, but not insane. This card leans heavily on synergy to work, a little too much so for my liking.
This is the problem I always have with creatures
It's like "Yup, those are great. Can I get 8 more please?"
I think you're misevaluating this card pretty hard. 3-evasive power for 2 mana is a great deal, and if they want to throw away cards to get your two-drop killed, by all means.
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Any words on this card? Ran the end-of-the-month tournament on the 30th and the winner ripped open his binder and slammed it down in front of me. The art seemed familiar but I just couldn't remember the card itself so it's new to me.
Any words on this card? Ran the end-of-the-month tournament on the 30th and the winner ripped open his binder and slammed it down in front of me. The art seemed familiar but I just couldn't remember the card itself so it's new to me.
Yep, at times I've splashed only three black cards in an otherwise mono-red aggro deck, with one of them being Oona's Prowler, and been very happy. Now that I look at my own list, he's probably stronger than all of red's two-drops, save for one or two. I draft the card early when I know I'm interested in attacking, even if I'm not solidly committed to black yet.
I don't know if you have a hundred custom cards that would make Prowler bad, Chris, because otherwise you should give this guy a fair shake. You're even removing Bitterblossom, so there should be less flying blockers to get in his way now.
I like the shade, but it needs the right deck to really excel and I don't think my cube supports it. There are other things I'd rather run.
My name is a nonsense word. One of many actually that I invented when I was younger (well, me and another couple guys). As it turns out, they work really well for internet userid's.
I have not tested my current cube as it stands so I'm not sure any of what I'm about to say still holds true (aggressive strategies lost some powerful equipment in jitte/swords). White and Green do not have great CA engines, but they have the best creatures (power cost ratio). Green ramps into beefy versions. White gets super efficient dudes on the cheap. I like how that works. Blue, Black and Red just don't have the same level of quality creatures but each of those colors gets something else to offset that (black has removal/discard and just a lot of 2 for 1 value dudes, blue has counters, bounce and draw, red has burn and I've tried to give it some combo pieces - tokens, things like sneak attack, kiki, etc.). I've tried to focus my cube on synergistic effects and combo pieces more than straight power. So while you can make a straight aggro deck or run-of-the-mill control deck if you really want to, I don't encourage that in my design (mainly because no one really wants to play either). I'd rather guys exploit card interactions (which is what most of us enjoy anyway). So I'll almost always choose something like Karmic Guide over Baneslayer Angel for example. I do have some non-interactive beater type dudes just for variety or to fill some kind of personal quota (like I must have a hydra somewhere in my cube just because), but I try to limit how many I run (and most that I include I do so because I like the flavor or I feel it fits the color well - dudes like Vampire Nighthawk).
I've changed my design approach several times and I don't think there's a right or wrong way to do it. I like supporting arch types, but if I force that too much I feel like I push people into things which kills creativity. It's a balance. There is no incentive to explore unusual decks if guys can assemble 5 or 6 super strong decks using known engines. Like as much as I love reanimator, guys auto draft it when they see the pieces because it very often runs the table. Taking away recurring nightmare was a step in the right direction, but I probably need to do more (though I'm afraid of crippling it if I take too much away). Hard to figure out where that line is. Tinker is another card that I really think is cool but it's very powerful. When the tinker Ux artifact deck comes together, it always wrecks people. So there is a strong incentive for me to gimp it a little.
Again, for me the coolest part about cube is/was throwing cards together for their interactions. You discover things you didn't even think of by doing that and it makes you wonder why you were/are artificially trying to force decks into certain synergies or strategies instead of just letting it happen organically. That's where I'm at now. Just trying to provide some pieces for classic arch types but mostly choosing interactive cards and just seeing what evolves out of that.
That took a major detour and probably didn't really answer your question. Sorry about that.
Can someone sell me on
please? Seeing it in a lot of lists but appears underwhelming. And is it still worth playing if you're not running black aggro?
please? Seeing it in a lot of lists but appears underwhelming. And is it still worth playing if you're not running black aggro?
its just an above curve dude, 2/3 deathtouch that can't block for 2, or flexibility wise a 1/2 death touch (which is a lot better at playing the blocking game than gore-house chainwalker)
nothing particularly special
nothing particularly special
Can someone sell me on
please? Seeing it in a lot of lists but appears underwhelming. And is it still worth playing if you're not running black aggro?
Uh, what Anotak said, and Black 2-drops kind of blow chunks. Are there cards that you're noticing are surprisingly absent from said lists?
Dom Harvey
Contributor
I wish Grave Pact didn't cost so much black. I really want a similar effect that's playable in a black red deck where the two colors are mostly even.
For not super-Johnny cubes though, that thing costs four, is hard to cast, and doesn't do anything by itself.
For not super-Johnny cubes though, that thing costs four, is hard to cast, and doesn't do anything by itself.
Dom Harvey
Contributor
?
I talk about this card in my Set Review (coming soon).
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Any words on this card? Ran the end-of-the-month tournament on the 30th and the winner ripped open his binder and slammed it down in front of me. The art seemed familiar but I just couldn't remember the card itself so it's new to me.
I pulled one of those in a Ravnica draft. I spent a lot of time trying to make a constructed deck around it. I failed. I still think it can be done though, I just didn't find a way to break it.
Grave Pact is amazing...
in janky casual decks. It would need to cost 3 I think to have any chance in cube. But if someone believes otherwise, I'm all ears. I really like this card.