i do love me some strix
Card/Deck Single Card Spotlight
- Thread starter Dom Harvey
- Start date
anyone have experience or thoughts on Legion Angel as a squadron pick? i have seen it in a list or two and it makes me kinda happy
Haven't played with it in Cube, but it's really nice in constructed. I guess the biggest question is not whether to squadron it when you include it but how many you plan to squadron when you do. I'd expect that your cube could handle 4 or more. Heck, for you the right answer may be to only offer one in the draft portion but for it to come with an infinite number of them in your sideboard, effectively replacing the text on Legion Angel with "When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, conjure a card named Legion Angel into your hand."
literally infinite 4/3 fliers might a BIT much lol
Pack it in, we've found something too strong for @blacksmithy 's cube. /s
<3
In all honesty you're absolutely right, but I feel like the line between "good" and "absolutely busted" is really, really close with squadroning this one. Two might be the sweet spot, especially if the second one is a squad pick. However, I feel like once you have two in the sideboard you've effectively got an infinite number, because how many times is an opponent reasonably going to be able to deal with a 4/3 flier? Any more than twice means that they're not going to be spending unconditional/premium removal on anything else, so you've already probably won on the card quality and advantage fronts anyways if you have two in the board.
I'm not sure what cube deck would want more than two in the main, tbh, and that might be a little high to begin with. Two would be me guessing low, three would make for more-interesting decisions about whether to run a 2/1 or a 1/2 split. But as I said before, I also think that that is super dangerous, so test at your own risk. Of course, to counter that I always find it's a lot easier to remove things that are way too powerful than to realize what sucks because super powerful cards will blatantly win games whereas underpowered cards tend to lose games in such a sneaky manner that it' s difficult to tell if it's card A's fault vs card B or whether it's the combination of them. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that we tend not to include cards we see as drastically weaker than the average level of our cubes, so our perceptions are already skewed due to the fact that we cubed these cards in the first place.
Edit: with three, I think the most common "correct" configuration will be one in the main and two in the sideboard. I also think that doing so is far more problematic than the inverse, so this is how I'd test if if you're looking to find the breaking point for your format.
Edit edit: if you're doing duplicate vouchers this is a sweet target.
<3In all honesty you're absolutely right, but I feel like the line between "good" and "absolutely busted" is really, really close with squadroning this one. Two might be the sweet spot, especially if the second one is a squad pick. However, I feel like once you have two in the sideboard you've effectively got an infinite number, because how many times is an opponent reasonably going to be able to deal with a 4/3 flier? Any more than twice means that they're not going to be spending unconditional/premium removal on anything else, so you've already probably won on the card quality and advantage fronts anyways if you have two in the board.
I'm not sure what cube deck would want more than two in the main, tbh, and that might be a little high to begin with. Two would be me guessing low, three would make for more-interesting decisions about whether to run a 2/1 or a 1/2 split. But as I said before, I also think that that is super dangerous, so test at your own risk. Of course, to counter that I always find it's a lot easier to remove things that are way too powerful than to realize what sucks because super powerful cards will blatantly win games whereas underpowered cards tend to lose games in such a sneaky manner that it' s difficult to tell if it's card A's fault vs card B or whether it's the combination of them. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that we tend not to include cards we see as drastically weaker than the average level of our cubes, so our perceptions are already skewed due to the fact that we cubed these cards in the first place.
Edit: with three, I think the most common "correct" configuration will be one in the main and two in the sideboard. I also think that doing so is far more problematic than the inverse, so this is how I'd test if if you're looking to find the breaking point for your format.
Edit edit: if you're doing duplicate vouchers this is a sweet target.
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here’s another one for consideration that i pulled in Mystery Booster draft today:
Evil Boros Charm
…in the mono black section?
Evil Boros Charm
…in the mono black section?
This but with drafting 1+ Learn spells unlocking all Lessons. Or each player gets 1 of each lesson! Hmmmm.
it’s a lot better than it looks if your curve is low. if my whole deck runs on 3 lands, i don’t mind saccing my 3rd or 4th drop to kill a thing. what else was i gonna do with it?
This card is just bad, right? It's not a decent pickup for a lands deck or anything? For context, my average burn spell isfor 2 damage and upside at sorcery speed. It almost seems decent in this context as a Bolt but only in the late game.
It also could be decent if you are running the gitrog monster or Titania, protector of argoth
@Zoss and @blacksmithy
The trick is to run two Legion Angel and make both of them double picks meaning a player picking one from a booster pack will get two.
In this way it is fair if you get one because it can fetch another 4/3 flier from the sideboard. But if you get two, you burst out laughing with your arms in the air. And it keeps that drafting feeling intact.
The trick is to run two Legion Angel and make both of them double picks meaning a player picking one from a booster pack will get two.
In this way it is fair if you get one because it can fetch another 4/3 flier from the sideboard. But if you get two, you burst out laughing with your arms in the air. And it keeps that drafting feeling intact.
Doesn't this just slow the game down in a kind of uninteresting way?
I didn't see anyone ever mention this card on these boards so far, but I think it's a very real option for Demonic Pact number 2.
I topdecked it tonight, cast Teferi's Time Twist on it and then destroyed it before it could do me any damage by sacrificing my Thrashing Brontodon. I basically used two and a half cards to draw 6 juicy new ones.
Can't say if I just got lucky, but I think this might be a sleeper.
Losing 2 life per card in hand is just way too much of a risk to make this card worthwhile. Demonic Pact "works" as well as it does because players have a decently large window to reset their pact. Demonic Lore doesn't provide that same opportunity- you basically have to kill it the same turn you play it or else you are going to lose a ton of life.
I didn't see anyone ever mention this card on these boards so far, but I think it's a very real option for Demonic Pact number 2.
I topdecked it tonight, cast Teferi's Time Twist on it and then destroyed it before it could do me any damage by sacrificing my Thrashing Brontodon. I basically used two and a half cards to draw 6 juicy new ones.
Can't say if I just got lucky, but I think this might be a sleeper.
If you're looking for Demonic Pact number 2, the best option is probably just adding a second Demonic Pact and calling it a day.
Dom Harvey
Contributor
I like Treacherous Blessing a lot more if you want something in that vein
I second this, Treacherous Blessing is great!
The window in which you can handle your Pact is the key. Pact also generates a lot more value and has a more exciting fail state (although losing 12 life off Lore is effectively the same, it doesn't read as dramatically).
Blessing lets you build your own window of in which to remove it. Lose as much life as your choose to.
It still may be worthwhile to simply run Read the Bones or similar.
Blessing lets you build your own window of in which to remove it. Lose as much life as your choose to.
It still may be worthwhile to simply run Read the Bones or similar.
i do see Treacherous Blessing a fair bit in Historic and it’s a cool build. Usually with Yorion to get double the draw.
I play WB Yorion with both Demonic Pact and Treacherous Blessing. It's a cool deck but it's extremely reliant on actually having Yorion on every game to get massive card advantage. Without it, I'm not sure Treacherous Blessing would be much better than more normal black draw. You can eat it with a Smokestack effect but the cool part is the blink.
How powerful is this when played fairly? And is it too dumb if I have Tinker in my cube? Tinker will hit on turn three but I know it's one of the best targets in the MTGO Vintage Cube.
it really depends on how fast you’re getting to 7 mana. if you just play 7 lands and tap out for it on turn 7+, you could have been running a bunch of stronger cards at 1-3 mana that win the game. if you’re cheating it out turn 2-4, it’s quite strong, and will leave some value behind if it dies, but isn’t an instant win the game button, so it’s a nicely designed cheat target.
It attacking for (up to) 12 the turn after it comes in has never sat well with me. Thats a huge gut punch for a card that is fairly easy to get out early. Compare to Titanoth Rex, which hits for less and is *much* harder to straight cast.
For me the biggest fear is it getting into play on turn 3 via Tinker. You can reanimate it faster but I'm much less scared of Reanimator as an archetype, it's far more vulnerable.
I was actually thinking of replacing Triniform with it so that's actually a point in its favour.
It hits a bit too hard, but it also lacks trample so I'm unsure if it's too scary compared to other cards I run.
There actually aren't that many cards that fill this role, though.