Card/Deck Single Card Spotlight

[Chris Taylor]

IIRC Caleb Durward did a series of legacy "lets see what might happen if we unbanned this card" videos and even with goblin guide synergy, wasteland and stifle to keep people off mana it still wasn't good enough for legacy.

It's kind of one of those weird cards where it's either horrible or useless, and I think we're all decent enough at designing cubes here that it's likely leaning towards useless

 

[FlowerSunRain]

The idea of vice is great. A card the encourages players to actually play their cards? Amazing! But, in practice the thing just doesn't work. A much better way to encourage people to play cards is to design your cube in a way that playing cards is encouraged. One person having one card in their deck (maybe) that does it isn't actually encouragement, its a relatively random punishment that just feels bad.

 

[Chris Taylor]

yeah I feel like the good things about black vice are better achieved by just sculpting the curve of the enviornment

 

[CML]

For some reason I picture you having this bizarre compulsion to activate Griselbrand five times immediately every single time it hits play.

i do but that dude, that ain't legal either

legacy is different because you can crap out your hand way faster than in cube. for example none of us would think about running spell snare or mental misstep.

 

[CML]

 

[Eric Chan]

for example none of us would think about running spell snare or mental misstep.

i run spell snare

*runs away*

 

[Onderzeeboot]

One of those is in my cube. Hint: I support Naya.

Fiery Justice and Violent Eruption are both powerful removal spells, though Justice, obviously, is only useful for killing creatures, and Eruption is hard to cast. I would put Fire // Ice and Arc Trail ahead of Forked Bolt. The one mana is nice, but so are versatility and instant speed and dealing 1 extra damage respectively.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

i run spell snare

*runs away*

That doesn't logically invalidate his statement!

*also runs away*

 

[Eric Chan]

*runs back*

oh true i didn't see the word think in his statement. which is a good point because i didn't really think about this one

*hides*

 

[Lucre]

I love damage splitting but in the wrong cube it's pretty oppressive.
People learned the hard way not to let me have 2x arc lightning in peasant. I'll cram those in wherever I can.

In many formats reds removal is the strongest and I believe it is silly how heavily people here police black and white removal while letting red get such cheap trades (that can also attack your opponent) and so many conditional plague wind type effects. Cube's threats are good and highly efficient, they don't need babying.

Red is only weak as a control colour because of it's lack of card filtering and card advantage off board. This combines rather unpleasantly with it's shitty blockers and the fact people tend to prioritize early pressure in red so far above anything else. You do what you know I guess. Someone make an updated arc slogger please.

 

[CML]

does spell snare actually do anything? i will try it if you say it does because i get a big boner for 1-cmc spells. at any rate it can't be much worse than stubborn denial.

 

[Eric Chan]

i have no idea yet, but roughly 90/320 spells in my list - or about 2 in 7 - are 2 cmc so i figure it's worth a shot, especially because so many of the Mana Leak variants are so bad on the draw against fast decks

 

[DreamPaint]

So Purphoros is wildly unplayable right? I was super against adding it but this one dude in my playgroup has a huge boner for it and bought one and jammed it into my cube. It's been like two months and goes last pick all the time. I literally never want it in my deck. Am I missing something? Has anyone had (dis)similar experiences?

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

For those of you that play this card



What kind of decks does it typically show up in? B/W with sac. outlets? Or is it just a general value card (with sun titan).

Also, sick art.

 

[James Stevenson]

Somebody mentioned this in the gruul thread:

any good?

 

[Jason Waddell]

i have no idea yet, but roughly 90/320 spells in my list - or about 2 in 7 - are 2 cmc so i figure it's worth a shot, especially because so many of the Mana Leak variants are so bad on the draw against fast decks

You just reduced a fraction to 2/7ths, as if that's particularly useful.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

You just reduced a fraction to 2/7ths, as if that's particularly useful.

Well, big fractions like 90/320 are hard to parse for the human brain, so reducing it to a smaller number is useful. I don't know if 2/7 is that number though. I think I would go with 1 in X, or alternatively Y in 15 (as in, number per booster), or even better (in this discussion) Z in 23 (as in, ~ number per deck).

So, 1 in 3.5 cards in his list have a cmc of 2, which averages to 6.5 cards per deck. It's probably right to maindeck Spell Snare in a format where it can hit more than a quarter of the cards your opponent plays.

 

[Eric Chan]

i did counter a Bitterblossom over the course of the night i had it, along with a buncha far less threatening cards

yeah, if i can reliably make blue mana turn one i think it's a card i'd start maindeck, and then move to the side if i don't see any high impact two's

 

[Diakonov]

So Purphoros is wildly unplayable right? I was super against adding it but this one dude in my playgroup has a huge boner for it and bought one and jammed it into my cube. It's been like two months and goes last pick all the time. I literally never want it in my deck. Am I missing something? Has anyone had (dis)similar experiences?

I like Purphoros a lot. It sounds to me like your drafters aren't valuing it properly. If you're playing anything remotely aggressive or durdly with creatures, that card can become super scary. Unless they can maintain a lifelinker, it provides some serious inevitability.

 

[Jason Waddell]

Well, big fractions like 90/320 are hard to parse for the human brain, so reducing it to a smaller number is useful. I don't know if 2/7 is that number though. I think I would go with 1 in X, or alternatively Y in 15 (as in, number per booster), or even better (in this discussion) Z in 23 (as in, ~ number per deck).

So, 1 in 3.5 cards in his list have a cmc of 2, which averages to 6.5 cards per deck. It's probably right to maindeck Spell Snare in a format where it can hit more than a quarter of the cards your opponent plays.

I wasn't being entirely serious, but if we're going as far as sevenths, I'd skip the fractions and express it as a percentage.

 

[Eric Chan]

So Purphoros is wildly unplayable right? I was super against adding it but this one dude in my playgroup has a huge boner for it and bought one and jammed it into my cube. It's been like two months and goes last pick all the time. I literally never want it in my deck. Am I missing something? Has anyone had (dis)similar experiences?

How many red devotion enablers do you run? Having cards like Burning-Tree Emissary, Murderous Redcap, Frostburn Weird, Boros Reckoner, and various other hybrid cards with multiple symbols goes a long way towards having your drafters view Purphoros as strictly a global enchantment versus an enchantment that can threaten to wake up and do some damage.

 

[Jonas]

So Purphoros is wildly unplayable right? I was super against adding it but this one dude in my playgroup has a huge boner for it and bought one and jammed it into my cube. It's been like two months and goes last pick all the time. I literally never want it in my deck. Am I missing something? Has anyone had (dis)similar experiences?

Do you run army in a can cards? Those make purphy an I win button.

 

[FlowerSunRain]

I hated Puphoros. He's really good. I mean, after talking all kinds of shit about sanguine bond as "an enchantment that is just basically lava axe" one might think I wouldn't like Purphoros, but there is a big difference. Purphoros costs less and does his damage by doing stuff that is directly advancing your gameplay. And it quickly becomes a lot of damage. He's insane with certain cards and requires basically no deckmaking sacrifices to reap the benefit. He also has three other abilities that are often relevant on top of it when he would likely be playable without them. Purphoros is an asston of inevitability, a combo engine, and a utility toolbox all in one. I could see cubes where he isn't that great, but I didn't like him in mine.

 

[FlowerSunRain]

This card hits a lot of the right buttons for me. Unfortunately, it also sucks pretty hard. What's the simplest way to make it cubable?

The first ability requires three costs.

If we eliminate the tap, the card is just insanely good, so that's out. We could add stuff like "once per turn as a sorcery", but that's a lot of extra text. However, that card might be pretty damn playable.

If we eliminate the mana, its still really slow, but at least it doesn't slow your curve.

If we eliminate the life, it kinda doesn't work as a "sadist" and it probably still sucks.

If we remove the second ability's cost, it becomes a reasonable pinger that grows.

If we change the power, its obviously playable, but that's sort of the most brute force answer.

If we change the toughness, it still sucks.

I don't think adding a keyword would help. Lifelink would be interesting, I guess, but pretty powerful maybe?

ideas?

 

[Tanner K.]

What about changing the 2nd ability to "Place X -1/-1 counters on Cruel Sadist: Cruel Sadist deals X damage to target creature."? It's like Goblin Arsonist with a built-in sac outlet, plus additional upside.

I feel like the mana costs should be adjusted down, but I can't decide how.