Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
What are these Riptide rules you speak of?
Card/Deck Single Card Spotlight
- Thread starter Dom Harvey
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What are these Riptide rules you speak of?
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
The first rule of this forum is that this forum has no rules.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Hey guys, I've noticed a lot of you cube with
How has she worked for you? Is she higher power than she looks?
How has she worked for you? Is she higher power than she looks?
I've given her a significantly long trial in my old cube, but she never lived up to my own expectations.
As a 3-drop, she competes in the turn order significantly with stabilizing blue 3's and pressure-generating red 3's, and, given her ability, really demands you play her out fast and keep your curve low. That limits her to the generic "Counterburn" archetype as being her most effective wheelhouse (or, over here, a Jeskai-style Prowess/Fish deck), which doesn't usually need more generic ways to draw cards when you're ahead; the pair is typically quite well-equipped to keep the card advantage flowing in a billion other, less cutesy ways. Really, what that deck most wants is a catch-up mechanism and a more consistent value engine for when it stumbles, which Jori definitively isn't, being a miserable top-deck and offering no effective way to scramble back from a board-state tipped against you.
imho she kind of typifies a common problem I've seen with the Izzet pair, in that when things go wrong, all those eked out ~value plays~ the pair tends towards amount to a cute way to lose to beefier midrange decks, which is less of a problem for other
-aligned pairs (again, assuming a "typical" environment, if such a beast there be).
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
I love Jori En, and she's been great at generating value in my cube. I disagree that she only goes into one deck, as there are multiple base decks that have a low enough mana curve to cast two spells a turn. I'ld say she's best in either an aggressive deck, making sure you keep drawing cheap threats, or in a deck with a lot of cheap cantrips, pared with medium-sized threats. It's okay if you don't always trigger her ability. If you manage to trigger it twice over the course of a game, you already have a Divination with a 2/3 body, which is a pretty damn good deal!
decks that have a low enough mana curve to cast two spells a turn. I'ld say she's best in either an aggressive deck, making sure you keep drawing cheap threats, or in a deck with a lot of cheap cantrips, pared with medium-sized threats. It's okay if you don't always trigger her ability. If you manage to trigger it twice over the course of a game, you already have a Divination with a 2/3 body, which is a pretty damn good deal!
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
NEVERRRRRRRR!
She might seriously be my favorite Izzet card
I really, really hope they do more 'when you cast your second spell each turn' cards in the future.She's one of my favorite too, but she fills a role that's largely superseded by what myNEVERRRRRRRR!
She might seriously be my favorite Izzet card
and can do for my environment individually.
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
Yes, and the floor for a card at that mana point is really bad--like rvb said, a fine value play when everything is going well.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
She blocks morphs like a boss though
This might be too slow? Depends a bit on your environment I would say.What do yall think of
Is this too "Oops, I Win"? I very badly want to cut Garruk Wildspeaker because he's such a boring, staple first pick around here and there's more than enough cool green 'walkers to explore instead, but then I lose access to his hidden end-the-game mode, which I think ramp decks really need around when the ramp targets don't show up or get removed quickly. That said, I'm not sure if it's fair as an actual card - at least you have one turn to stop Garruk under normal circumstances.
Thoughts?
Chris Taylor
Contributor
I've been considering it as well. I think there's certainly some value in stallbreakers like that, but I worry the same as you do. If you were just straight swapping this for garruk I'd recommend against it, but I'm not sure if it's independently necessary.
I'd say try it, and swap to one of a few alternatives if it's not doing what you want it to. for eg:
If you want people to get plague winded rather than dying
Or
If you want more of a dream behind it.
Also worth noting both these alternatives are a bit easier to cast, if that matters to you at all
I'd say try it, and swap to one of a few alternatives if it's not doing what you want it to. for eg:
If you want people to get plague winded rather than dying
Or
If you want more of a dream behind it.
Also worth noting both these alternatives are a bit easier to cast, if that matters to you at all
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Also worth asking, does your group find Garruk to be a fun play? He might be a boring pick (debateable, I love picking Garruk), but if he leads to good games of Magic, is that so bad? Every color has to have its exciting first picks after all, and green typically has less standout first picks than other colors (except maybe red), so maybe that's why you see Garruk getting first picked all the time? People who love playing green ramp style decks don't have many other clear first picks available in most cubes.
Oh, yes - I find him fun, and I think he's a great first pick! He easily has a 95%+ maindeck rate; there's absolutely no reason not to put him in every deck that can play him. That's precisely why I'm cutting him; I believe it's high-time to mix things up. (I'm about to tangent, by the way; it's not an argumentative tangent, but I just want to lay out my thought process.
)See, there's bread-and-butter picks in every list, and they're necessary; we all want removal and card draw and small, useful bodies, those are all a given. But once you move up the curve with those "staple" effects, I find they start choking out some of the other options. If I'm stacked on 4-drops, I'm never cutting Restoration Angel, Sower of Temptation, Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet, Flametongue Kavu, or Garruk Wildspeaker. These effects are certainly iconic, and they certainly represent a reasonable powerband when considered in isolation.
The problem is, these effects are so simple to make use of, and so strong, and also represent such a viable top-end, that they can choke out some more niche synergy plays. Why should I work to make a threat out of Ojutai Exemplars if my curve is looking too tight for it? I've got Restoration Angel, that'll work fine with my two copies of Seeker of the Way. Why should I bother with Wing Splicer, when I can just have a removal-body? Why should I try to make Demonic Pact work, when Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet can choke out a game on its own? Why should I try to pick Oxidda Scrapmelter if I can just have a removal-body that's guaranteed to hit something I want to remove? Why should I bother with Splendid Reclamation when Garruk Wildspeaker can ramp me from 4-6, drop tokens if I need them, or provide a win-con out of his easy-to-reach ult?
This also ties in with a little dilemma I was having recently with Noxious Gearhulk. Which is funny, by the way, because I literally witnessed GiftsForgiven go through this same mental hoop shortly after I did on his thread in the forum - the hivemind strikes again? But anyway, I like the card a lot - I just realized that it was choking out the 6+ slot sooo hard. There was no reason not to run him, and if you had him, he was strong enough to function at a Titan-level of power, meaning that he made some other options look quite bad by comparison. I asked one of my drafters what they thought between Noxious Gearhulk and his likely replacement - Skeletal Vampire - and they said this: "I think the Vampire seems like a lot more fun. It's pretty goofy-looking and I think I'd enjoy it a lot." When I pointed out that this kind of building was what I wanted to do in the cube, he said, "That sounds great to me! I liked drafting your old cube, but it usually was just me picking cool cards and you beating me with the ones that were actually strong. It was still a lot of fun, but I felt like the fun things were mostly going to lose to the stronger options." Turns out, lowering the power level for fun cards and cutting stronger fare is actually something my drafters wanted more than I realized!
These are just a few examples, but they're somewhat representative. More often than not, I want no more than three to five 4-drops. Let's split the difference and say I want 4. If Garruk and Restoration Angel are in my picks, and I'm going
, I only have 2 slots left I might actually have to put some thought into filling. I think that's a fine way to run a cube - and I may find myself going back to it! - but for the time being, I want to try peeling out some of these easier picks, especially above 3cmc, to push some of the more exciting stuff into plain view. I mean, for me, at least, I think I'd be a lot more interested in breaking Splendid Reclamation if I didn't have the jack-of-all-trades pick that is Garruk Wildspeaker there to offer an easier solution to the "how to ramp hard" dilemma.Cutting these staple goodstuff cards has another important implication: it forces you to reach further into the format. I can't tell you how much time I've seen my drafters tank in their deck-building; it's been obscene at times! I'm talking, waiting an hour for someone to decide what cuts to make at times. That seems really obscene to me - as the format curator, I had the same problem at times of making really hard cuts and thinking on it for 15-20 minutes as to what to do with my pool, but 45 minutes? An hour? That's a lot of time in deckbuilding! And when you're trying to draft a few times a night most nights out of the week, it's a real time vortex. Since I've made my new cube, my test drafts in solo-mode have led to build times more in the range of 10 minutes on average, which I think is pretty reasonable, and this is because I'm making picks that are solid good cards, and then flexing around to fit them in together in the most synergistic way I can. I don't have to operate around a vast collection of bombs; I have a small handful of power-plays that I'm using to prop up a larger strategy. I'm really liking that.
More to the point, and responding more directly to your query: if the most exciting thing in Green is Garruk Wildspeaker, and it's the only consistent way to pull people into green, then that's reflective of my failure as a cube designer to offer up an exciting enough environment that can cater to a wide range of decks across multiple colours. If he is truly a beacon of fun and utility that my Green section collapses without, then I have failed, and it's time to do more work than simply bring him back in.
That said, I recognize that, through his ult alone, he offers a unique and high degree of utility that most 'walkers do not, and I think Garruk could certainly be put back into my list. But, even in my last cube, which had a lot more haymakers than this new project, the play of Nissa 3cmc -> Garruk 4cmc, or Garruk 4cmc -> Nissa 5cmc was a real beating. I'm now just running two Nissas, and I think that's a better place to be, because they both cater to very different decks, and even if you get them both, you can't just hide behind Superfriends to generate value - you have to sequence them at least. Maybe I'm being overly zealous with cutting Garruk, but I think it helps give some needed breathing room to the color.
Sorry for such a long reply! I've had a lot of these thoughts and nowhere proper to put them just yet, so I figured I'd dump them all here.
I appreciate the push-back, though - I could definitely just be going down a rabbit hole of bad ideas here.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
For the record, all of these four drops were in my cube at one time or another, and I cut all five of them for pretty much the reasons you're outlying above. It was more the word "boring" I was tripping over, as they certainly aren't that imo. I'm currently trying out Nissa, Vital Force, but I think I liked Garruk better. He's at quite a unique intersection where both ramp decks, midrange value decks, and go wide decks are interested in him. He's one of the planeswalkers I enjoy best, so I think it's pretty likely I'll return to him someday. Also, I kinda dislike Nissa's +1.
Ahhh; I see what you mean! In this context, I meant to say that I find them "boring" in the sense that, they're bread-and-butter first picks that fit in every deck, but, most problematically, they are bread-and-butter first picks that fit in every deck and are also often quite apparent when they're used as win vehicles. I can look at a game in retrospect and go "yeah, Garruk Wildspeaker was really essential to getting me to a point where I could win" in a way that I wouldn't as readily attribute to, say, Ultimate Price for removing a key creature. These goodstuff picks become "boring" to me because they feature prominently recollections and experiences in games and pull games down to a more common chain of events; it's the equivalent of every murder mystery resulting a solution of "the butler did it".
Is this too strong for what green 1 mana non-creature spell should do? Is it too 'outside' the modern color pie?
Love it. Actually not sure why I'm not running it (Naya doublestrike theme).