Card/Deck Single Card Spotlight
- Thread starter Dom Harvey
- Start date
It is a cost, but it's also one of those things that's sometimes-a-cost, like discarding a card. Look at your cube and see how many guys you'd be willing to bounce just to get an extra go at their ETB effect (or Leave the Battlefield, for those few cards with that trigger). The higher the number, the more likely Ninjutsu works in your cube.
It's something I've personally gone to effort to support, but I can totally buy that in many cubes there just aren't enough attractive bounce-your-dude targets to make Ninjutsu viable.
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Oh I'm just talking about the tempo loss of the time it takes you to replay the creature. I mean unless you're bouncing ornithoptor. I've got a billion things which love to be replayed, but the drafter rarely has the time
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
The self-bounce hasn’t really been a problem over here. To give you an example from last weekend's draft of the kind of work ninja can do, we had a guy draft an almost mono-blue tempo deck with ninja. He had plays where he would cast venser shaper savant EOT to clear the way for an attack, and then he would bounce venser back to his hand with ninja of the deep hours for huge tempo gains, shutting the opponent down on the opponent’s next turn, and drawing a card. Really fun turns to play out for the tempo player.
Now, I'll admit that sometimes ninja is very low impact, but he just results in too many "feel good" moments for me to be able to cut him.
However, the best stories are all mistblade shinobi stories. That little guy has been the ban of many a would be armegeddon player.
Fair enough. But it's a pretty small cost most of the time and as many have mentioned, sometimes it's not really a cost so much as it is an abuse (like the venser example or how about reveillark?).
And even when you aren't abusing ETB, turn 1 elite vanguard turn 2 deep hours doesn't feel bad to me, especially if turn 3 is man-o-war (which means I'm drawing 2 cards with ninja and my opponent had to replay their 2/3 drop). Good times.
I'm starting to wonder if I should find room for mistblade now? Maybe if Darka Mystic doesn't pan out.
I am in the Chris Taylor camp here. Cube is a super creature-heavy format, and often the windows for playing Ninja are super inefficient like with your 1-drop on Turn 2. Cycling for two mana on Turn 2 is not really a play most attacking decks want. It works well in, say, Spellstutter Sprite decks because you have an evasive dude with a profitable ETB trigger. (The evasion, of course, means he'll actually get in)
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Is this playable? 5% of the cards in my cube are blue/black enchantments/artifacts:
I don't really feel comfortable including Sarcomancy in that list. 
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
I don't really feel comfortable including Sarcomancy in that list.
Haha, what can I say, I like to be thorough. It also saved me from typing "almost 5%" ;-) Still, Filigree Fracture can still cycle itself on Sarcomancy in a pinch, which is not the worst.
Anotak's question is a good one though. Obviously a good cube provides answers to all the annoying artifacts and enchantments (see above list for a few examples). I think it's important that some of those answers are castable at instant speed, even if that means they won't be maindecked often. Agree or disagree?
Pick one:
Pick one:
Am I missing awesome options?
Nature's Claim. The one that populates.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Oh nice, Sundering Growth! I used to run that because it fit with the token subtheme I am running. Then I cut it to make room in my Selesnya section. Then I read your excellent article on the difference between hybrid and gold cards. I will overhaul (shrink) my guild section to 3 gold cards per guild and cut the shard/wedge gold cards that don't pull their weight to make room for all the conspiracy goodies and streamline my cube at the same time. I'll probably still list the hybrid cards under their guild section, but not count them towards the 3 gold cards, does that sound fair?
Wherever I sort the hybrids, that would seems like an excellent time to reintroduce Sundering Growth. That would fill out green's need for artifact and enchantment removal. Now I only need to decide whether I want to replace Disenchant by another option.
Wherever I sort the hybrids, that would seems like an excellent time to reintroduce Sundering Growth. That would fill out green's need for artifact and enchantment removal. Now I only need to decide whether I want to replace Disenchant by another option.
Dom Harvey
Contributor
?
Chris Taylor
Contributor
He's a lot of bodies, but he doesn't really scream "thats a 3 color card I wanna play" the way maelstrom wanderer or cruel ultimatium does to me.
Even Maelstrom Wanderer seems more and more sketchy in my cube by the day. Most recently, I played a three-colour ramp deck, and opted for only one eight-drop - that being Craterhoof Behemoth - so Wanderer had to watch from the bench. I feel like it's a card that would've been great printed along with the rest of Alara in 2009, but isn't so hot anymore in 2014.
It's probably better the more dragonny your cube is.
CML
Contributor
Laz
Developer
Anyone else (other than CML, who's been heaping praise on this card for a year) try this? Now that I've cut out all my Naturalize effects, this thing is impossible to answer, and gets out of hand in a hurry.
Chris Taylor
Contributor
I think you just answered your own question mate
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
It was in our last 3-0 deck. I run plenty of effects that can remove it though, why would you cut all Naturalize effects?
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Because on average, your opponent has maybe 5 things worth naturalizing in their deck, and two of them cards singlehandedly win them the game. So you either play them and lose, or just hope they don't draw the card you just can't interact with. And the rest of the time naturalize and it's ilk are unplayable garbage, rotting in your hand or being grey ogre
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!
I think on average opposition is the exception that proves the rule, because even with 2-3 creatures that card becomes insane, and if it's ever fully doing it's thing unchecked someone just isn't playing a game. Everyone's got stuff they cut because it was too powerful though.
I'd forgotten how good Shatter effects are in large, singleton powermax cubes. I was poking fun at the designer for including the Rakdos Charm that I got fifteenth pick.. and then before I knew it, I was sideboarding it in every game.
I've cut out all the obnoxious artifacts from my list, so that I don't have to run Smash to Smithereens and Viridian Shaman. But I guess I gotta keep my eye out on obnoxious enchantments, now.
I've cut out all the obnoxious artifacts from my list, so that I don't have to run Smash to Smithereens and Viridian Shaman. But I guess I gotta keep my eye out on obnoxious enchantments, now.