Not yet, but I’ve been trying to decide what to cut for it for a couple of weeks lolAnyone have success with Cori-Steel Cutter yet in their cubes?
I see it making waves in just about every Constructed format where it's clearly very powerful, interested in seeing what kind of cube lists can benefit the most from it before picking up a copy in the next week or two.
Sets (TDM & TDC) Tarkir: Dragonstorm Testing/Includes Thread!
- Thread starter TrainmasterGT
- Start date
This! I’ve been toying with cutting Rabbit battery. They don’t necessarily go into the same decks, but I haven’t found my Red artifact decks really needing it (I like the card don’t get me wrong).
You keep your equipment count up, you still have a haste enabler and now you get a token maker.
@Nanonox (or anyone who has an opinion), is Aligned Heart really lower power than Monastery Mentor?
I guess over the course of a game you are probably less likely to create fewer monks with the enchantment. But in my cube it’s a lot harder for the opponent to interact with enchantments than a 2 toughness creature who is susceptible to basically every piece of removal except dark blast. And actually it can’t even really avoid dark blast if you use the right tech
I guess over the course of a game you are probably less likely to create fewer monks with the enchantment. But in my cube it’s a lot harder for the opponent to interact with enchantments than a 2 toughness creature who is susceptible to basically every piece of removal except dark blast. And actually it can’t even really avoid dark blast if you use the right tech
I've been cubing a little bit now with Aligned Heart and it has been ... fine. It sometimes has it's high notes, but triggering from double spelling on a three drop is not trivial – best outcome so far was a game where someone got five monks from a trigger.
The biggest downside is probably, that it gets rapidly worse later in the game. Where Monastery Mentor is still a 2/2 prowess guy and also triggers when you just topdeck one noncreature spell, you need a little more to trigger the enchantment in the later stages of the game, like card draw or adventure creatures.
Take all that with a grain of salt, pretty limited experience here still.
The biggest downside is probably, that it gets rapidly worse later in the game. Where Monastery Mentor is still a 2/2 prowess guy and also triggers when you just topdeck one noncreature spell, you need a little more to trigger the enchantment in the later stages of the game, like card draw or adventure creatures.
Take all that with a grain of salt, pretty limited experience here still.
Thanks for the insight. So is your feeling that Aligned Heart is a better, less busted, fit for the spells matters archetype in white? Or is Aligned Heart too underwhelming?
I think for mid/lower power level cubes, it is the fourth or fifth most fitting payoff for casting noncreature spells specifically. But it's tough to say how strong it really is imo.
The top three are pretty clear to me, although I could see an argument for switching 1 and 2.
1. Seeker of the Way
2. Myth Realized
3. Ojutai Exemplars
Then you have Aligned Heart and Rally the Monastery that make tokens that trigger of noncreature spells and I chose the enchantment because I don't like the "kill a big thing for cheap" removal effect.
I can't say much to the other flurry and magecraft cards in white, as I try to really focus
on noncreature spells. I want my payoffs to trigger from Barbed Spike and Niveous Wisp.
The top three are pretty clear to me, although I could see an argument for switching 1 and 2.
1. Seeker of the Way
2. Myth Realized
3. Ojutai Exemplars
Then you have Aligned Heart and Rally the Monastery that make tokens that trigger of noncreature spells and I chose the enchantment because I don't like the "kill a big thing for cheap" removal effect.
I can't say much to the other flurry and magecraft cards in white, as I try to really focus
on noncreature spells. I want my payoffs to trigger from Barbed Spike and Niveous Wisp.The fact that Heart is capped to once per turn limits how high the ceiling can be. So if you have a bunch of zeros and free spells, Mentor is stronger. Being a creature with mana < 3 also means you can Unearth it (and all the similar effects in White).
That said, Heart is still good IMO and let’s you have fun with proliferate effects.
I’ll add Builder’s Talent for mid powered cubes. It’s pretty limited with what works with it, but it can really pop off with all the various artifact tokens.
For a stronger noncreature payoff, Summon: Good King Moogle XII is really good! Lifelink on both him and his tokens helps stabilize. Your opponent can mess up your plans for sure, but you can also go nuts with some spicy tokens too.
That said, Heart is still good IMO and let’s you have fun with proliferate effects.
I’ll add Builder’s Talent for mid powered cubes. It’s pretty limited with what works with it, but it can really pop off with all the various artifact tokens.
For a stronger noncreature payoff, Summon: Good King Moogle XII is really good! Lifelink on both him and his tokens helps stabilize. Your opponent can mess up your plans for sure, but you can also go nuts with some spicy tokens too.
Fwiw, I think Summon: Good King Mog XII is above what I call lower/mid power personally. It's a 4/4 lifelink flier for two attacks/three blocks, and it leaves behind up to 8/12 worth of stats – with lifelink too. And potentially even more, if you happen to have some large tokens laying around.
in
in even higher powered formats one of the strongest things Monastery Mentor does is land on the board, get protected by a free counterspell (make a monk), and then make a second monk on the opponent's turn with a lightning bolt or whatever. and then you untap with three prowess threats that swing for lethal. etc. making more monks seems good but the most dizzying strongest fastest starts in Mentor decks involve 'i make mentor, next turn you lose'; i don't think the enchantment is capable of this.
I added 9 dragons with Omen spells to my Peasant cube (which also features over a dozen Adventure cards), and I'm afraid they're all coming out. Over the course of explaining the difference between Adventure and Omen to my drafters, I realized I sounded insane.
I'll really miss the red/white and red/blue ones the most.
I'll really miss the red/white and red/blue ones the most.
have you tried using the different showcase frames for them? maybe seeing a completely different frame can help them think they work in different ways (?)
I don’t think I knew there was such a thing called an omen until right now. Probably been thinking they were adventures. What is an example of a card that is an omen vs one that is an adventure
Oh I see. Ok thanks. Yeah that’s confusing I didn’t notice they had different instructions until now
I'm running the standard versions of 4 of them now, and it doesn't feel like it's enough to make it clear to my players what's happening, so we've had mistakes. I think it was a massive design failure on WotC's part, but I still like the modality and the specific cards a lot. Is it enough to survive my next update? Probably not.
I'm running 5 omens and decided the opposite: no adventures for me. The omen play patterns work better for my cube
Dom Harvey
Contributor
I don't hear people actually get confused about Omen/Adventures as much as Cube designers talk about that fear but I find it quite jarring myself and it blocks a lot of marginal Omens for me. My one exception currently is Marang River Regent which is cool/good enough to earn a spot anyway and also gets to turn the Omen difference into an advantage sometimes as a self-reshuffling hit for Oath of Druids et al
I agree with all of this, particularly the shuffling. Omens are exhausting.
So far, the two includes from this set that I think will stick around for years are Dalkovan Packbeast and Dragonbrood's Relic.
1 year bump for Tarkir: Dragonstorm!
I was pretty excited for us to revisit this plane as Khans of Tarkir in 2014 was when I was playing the most Magic of my life. The MTG club on campus was active with draft and EDH nights and we'd carpool to the LGS on Friday. A lot of my closest friends to this day were from that time period and I remember we jammed so much Magic then in between classes and midterms.
The Limited format this time around wasn't nearly as deep or memorable, but there were a good number of cards that have stuck around in my cube:
All 4 of these cards were in my initial adds and all 4 have proven themselves over the last year and retained their slot.
Descendent of Storms is one of my favorite Savannah Lions variants with a lot of play to it allowing you to either go wide or vertical depending on the board-state. Hits harder than you'd think once it gets going and especially if you can pair it with something like a Luminarch Aspirant or Siege Veteran to really maximize pressure. Magic is at its best when combat and sequencing matters to eke out those early advantages. Voice of Victory falls into a similar category and I've loved the play patterns for it. Limiting the opponent to sorcery speed interaction opens up a lot of decision points on both sides and really introduce great dimensions into Aggro matchups. Been a big fan of Kari Zev, Skyship Raider for a decade now and this does a great impression.
Tersa Lightshatter hits quick and hard, lets you filter your card quality, and has the ever relevant Wizard subtyping to fuel my Flame of Anor dreams (which are more a reality nowadays!). One of my favorite draw 2 discard 2 variants that we've gotten in recent years even with the weird anti-Threshold trigger but that's been fine. I'm all for more playable options that help support Astrologian's Planisphere and when they can slot into multiple archetypes that's an absolute win. Great all-around card.
Surrak, Elusive Hunter is probably the closest to being on the block, but that's more because green gets interesting 3 drops on the regular that I want to try out. I cannot deny that his passive protection ability paired with a 4/3 trampling body hits hard though; really tough cover for certain decks to deal with. I still play old classic Thrun, the Last Troll due to nostalgia and play patterns so having another similarly resilient beater helps keep certain decks in check and force them to acknowledge the threat on board. It's been a great roleplayer for me in a variety of archetypes ranging from G/R midrange coming in off a T1 dork to G/W Coco decks flying in at instant speed EOT with support. If you run any +1/+1 counters support it will hit very hard in very little time.
Finally I had two newer additions that got added in post-release with more information available:
I initially overlooked Winternight Stories on first glance but after Final Fantasy came out and gave me cards like Astrologian's Planisphere and Vivi Ornitier that play so well with it, I just had to give it another go and find a slot for it. Jury is out on how effective it will be in the long run, but there's a lot to like about a draw 3 discard 2 that can also be flashbacked later in the game with some extra work.
CSC is just awesome; exactly the type of low to the ground permanent that applies a lot of pressure and also rewards a deck built to be low to the ground and maximize the early game. So many times I've held back on playing cheap cards to maximize the token generation ability. The 1R equip cost makes it a totally reasonable play to re-equip to threats in the later game once you've run out of the resource to double spell. Like I've said before many times over the years, being able to design multiple play patters for Aggro is probably the biggest improvement you can make to a Limited cube environment and keep it fresh. This card helped make R/x decks more compelling than they had been in a long time.
6 is a great hit rate for a normal set, we'll see how many stick around for the long haul!
I was pretty excited for us to revisit this plane as Khans of Tarkir in 2014 was when I was playing the most Magic of my life. The MTG club on campus was active with draft and EDH nights and we'd carpool to the LGS on Friday. A lot of my closest friends to this day were from that time period and I remember we jammed so much Magic then in between classes and midterms.
The Limited format this time around wasn't nearly as deep or memorable, but there were a good number of cards that have stuck around in my cube:
All 4 of these cards were in my initial adds and all 4 have proven themselves over the last year and retained their slot.
Descendent of Storms is one of my favorite Savannah Lions variants with a lot of play to it allowing you to either go wide or vertical depending on the board-state. Hits harder than you'd think once it gets going and especially if you can pair it with something like a Luminarch Aspirant or Siege Veteran to really maximize pressure. Magic is at its best when combat and sequencing matters to eke out those early advantages. Voice of Victory falls into a similar category and I've loved the play patterns for it. Limiting the opponent to sorcery speed interaction opens up a lot of decision points on both sides and really introduce great dimensions into Aggro matchups. Been a big fan of Kari Zev, Skyship Raider for a decade now and this does a great impression.
Tersa Lightshatter hits quick and hard, lets you filter your card quality, and has the ever relevant Wizard subtyping to fuel my Flame of Anor dreams (which are more a reality nowadays!). One of my favorite draw 2 discard 2 variants that we've gotten in recent years even with the weird anti-Threshold trigger but that's been fine. I'm all for more playable options that help support Astrologian's Planisphere and when they can slot into multiple archetypes that's an absolute win. Great all-around card.
Surrak, Elusive Hunter is probably the closest to being on the block, but that's more because green gets interesting 3 drops on the regular that I want to try out. I cannot deny that his passive protection ability paired with a 4/3 trampling body hits hard though; really tough cover for certain decks to deal with. I still play old classic Thrun, the Last Troll due to nostalgia and play patterns so having another similarly resilient beater helps keep certain decks in check and force them to acknowledge the threat on board. It's been a great roleplayer for me in a variety of archetypes ranging from G/R midrange coming in off a T1 dork to G/W Coco decks flying in at instant speed EOT with support. If you run any +1/+1 counters support it will hit very hard in very little time.
Finally I had two newer additions that got added in post-release with more information available:
I initially overlooked Winternight Stories on first glance but after Final Fantasy came out and gave me cards like Astrologian's Planisphere and Vivi Ornitier that play so well with it, I just had to give it another go and find a slot for it. Jury is out on how effective it will be in the long run, but there's a lot to like about a draw 3 discard 2 that can also be flashbacked later in the game with some extra work.
CSC is just awesome; exactly the type of low to the ground permanent that applies a lot of pressure and also rewards a deck built to be low to the ground and maximize the early game. So many times I've held back on playing cheap cards to maximize the token generation ability. The 1R equip cost makes it a totally reasonable play to re-equip to threats in the later game once you've run out of the resource to double spell. Like I've said before many times over the years, being able to design multiple play patters for Aggro is probably the biggest improvement you can make to a Limited cube environment and keep it fresh. This card helped make R/x decks more compelling than they had been in a long time.
6 is a great hit rate for a normal set, we'll see how many stick around for the long haul!
is out.A year ago I was very hyped to add Floral Evoker but it has been cut for being just clunky in every function. It finally made me try Llanowar Mentor seriously and I fell in love with it since.
The enchantment is still a part of my core module, pretty fun to make work. I don't love the instant and it's been moved to occasionals where tricks are at a good place.
... is still in and probably will stick for a while. Just a great 2-drop. However, I also considered Alchemist's Assistant in my post a year ago but never tested it. It went away when I established core/occasionals shortly after this set.
DBD made it all the way from a loose maybe to a core module staple. Such a sweet card. GoWide payoff, sac outlet, trick for prowess.dec, does it all.
Added this one today, finally, over Thrashing Brontodon to get some more single card graveyard hate.
Two more cards I didn't have on my radar initially but I've liked them as occasionals a lot:
Pretty cool how graveyard focused
was in this set.
Last edited: