Dom Harvey
Contributor
This is a very neat incentive - feels like a nod to Lorwyn and the UB Faeries/flash stuff we hopefully get to feast on again soon
General [TLA/TLE] [UB] Avatar: The Last Airbender
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This is a very neat incentive - feels like a nod to Lorwyn and the UB Faeries/flash stuff we hopefully get to feast on again soon
not for me, haven't got enough cheap artifacts. definitely for someone who wants Kappa Cannoneer but with slightly less power level but still high
Dom Harvey
Contributor
Neat card with Helping Hand/Recommission etc variants yeah
I always had a soft spot for Desolate Lighthouse and this is a really nice one
I always had a soft spot for Desolate Lighthouse and this is a really nice one
I like this one a bit, but yeah, not doing anything on its own is rough. Final-Word Phantom is probably better for this kind of ability, even if you don't get the potential draw engine out of it.
I much prefer this to Zack Fair, and I think it's a big improvement on the art.
I like keeping the dude around. I like not having to spend mana on this effect. I think hexproof plus a +1/+1 counter is generally better than indestructible. But most importantly, I like that it's much simpler to read and understand.
Devoted Caretaker was in my Cube for a long time, but I think this is preferable in most ways other than art.
I think it's significantly better than Curse of Predation, because green has so many dudes that love to tap for mana. It feels like the power delta is a bit too big for having it in the same Cube as Ouroboroid for me, but that's kind of the case for any +1/+1 counter generator the more I think of it. I think with the big improvement over Curse of Predation, I'd put it in this class of cards, all of which I run or have in my on-deck binder:
as well as the recently spoiled:
Master's Guidance (should be up on scryfall within a few hours) is a super neat card that sucks unless you're deep in the legendary theme. Probably a little too much crossover between the +1/+1 counters, go-wide tokens, big dudes, and legendary-matters themes, but it's kind of nice it does that all. I like drawing an extra card every turn. I like getting multiple +1/+1 counters a turn. It just asks a lot, is all. Happy it exists either way.
Finally, new Consider art! I'll probably keep my Saruman version, but this is a huge improvement over the original.
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Obsessive Pursuit is a great recurring trinket generator for me that also pairs very nicely with aristocrats cards. I like this more than the new Bitterblossom dude that was spoiled!
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Fire Nation Occupation is more exciting to me than a Monastery Mentor. What a sweet card that really fires you up as a build-around. Don't love that it asks for its own token types, and don't love firebending on them, but I think it's worth the Cube curator-side accounting problems.
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Professor Zei, Anthropologist feels like it was made for Cube curators. Lovely card. Not sure I'm going to have room for it, but I love the simplicity and the lack of sacrifices asked of its players.
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Jet, Rebel Leader would've been so sick a few years ago. I love that it puts the dudes in attacking.
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Airbender's Reversal is like Iroh's Demonstration in that it's a modal spell that really doesn't ask you to make much of a sacrifice for it. I'd still prefer Spectacular Tactics or Battle Menu or Thraben Charm (of which I'm currently only playing Battle Menu) but I think a lot of this is up to the Cube curator's preference and I'm happy to have the choices.
Nyla, Shirshu Sleuth creates a ton of trinkets all at once, and I think is super cool. Power level is somewhat lacking, but I think I'd rather have this than Doom Whisperer, for example.
Dom Harvey
Contributor
If you like ambitious mana bases...
Kind of makes me question why I'm playing Dryad of the Ilysian Grove! I think I'd rather have my greed-enabler also be able to tap for mana, and costing a whole mana less is huge. Losing one point of toughness and the Exploration ability seems like a small cost.
The issue is my stupid sexy Dryad is very sexy. Feels like a bit of a downgrade to the vibes!
It can even protect itself from land destruction if you have the mana available.
Okay fine, you win Ba Sing Se, you have my attention.
This set has so so many cool cards that I can't really fit into my cube, with all the additional jumpstart cards (including great reprints with fitting art) I am really considering to make an Avatar Cube. I'll probably do this once the inevitable Legend of Korra Set arrives
As we're wrapping up spoiler season (today's TLE cards round out the mechanically new cards in the set and we're down to just ~20 cards from the main set, with 270/296 revealed), I'm currently at 26 swaps planned for this set. Not a record-breaker (nothing close to FIN/FIC), but there's a lot more high-confidence cards than usual here. I spent some time this morning procrastinating and finding swaps, so I'm ready for the Includes thread as soon as we can get it going!!
Speaking of the last few cards, though:
Not necessarily for my Cube, but hell yeah. HELL YEAH. You don't need to know Avatar lore or anything to appreciate this design, how well it integrates Magic and Avatar lore, or how perfectly tuned every element of this card is. Just a fantastically designed set overall.
Speaking of the last few cards, though:
Not necessarily for my Cube, but hell yeah. HELL YEAH. You don't need to know Avatar lore or anything to appreciate this design, how well it integrates Magic and Avatar lore, or how perfectly tuned every element of this card is. Just a fantastically designed set overall.
Dom Harvey
Contributor
Nice one here for any fans of Cryptic Command loops etc (or Doppelgang, Flash Photography etc...)
but you're gonna need something to do with it all, so spend your turn one green mana on
Bumi's Feast Lecture is another card in the vein of the earlier-discussed 2-drop-with-a-food-token Michelangelo, the Heart / Spider-Ham, Peter Porker / Tough Cookie / Unlucky Cabbage Merchant, and it's pretty cool! It plays better if you're playing with more of the others, because you really would prefer this not play out as a Bakersbane Duo (especially since it'll enter tapped if you've only got two lands to cast it with). Lower power-level than what I'm trying to do, but interesting nonetheless.
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Oh hey it's another Bear (that isn't a bear) that makes a bear (that isn't a bear)
not for me, haven't got enough cheap artifacts. definitely for someone who wants Kappa Cannoneer but with slightly less power level but still high
The funny thing is that a couple other cards that work well as cheat-y Unearth targets effectively use unkeyworded waterbend:
It's honestly one of the stand-out cards from this set for me.
That said...
(Ezuri's Predation is the only other non-creature mono-green spell that lets you fight a creature without having any pre-existing creatures of your own.)
I don't know man, I know a lot of people who are into exactly the kind of man the Great Divide Guide appears to be. I think there's an argument that he might be the more attractive one tbh.
Toph, Hardheaded Teacher is hella cool. A Gruul card that cares about spells and makes a bunch of creatures? I'm in!! The concern about the lessons is valid here, though. I'm only planning on including a handful of lessons at this point (Enter the Avatar State, Redirect Lightning, Solstice Revelations, Origin of Metalbending, Abandon Attachments), but hey, most of them are Gruul at least! I just don't want my players to get too fussed over that element of the card. I'm really excited to try her out.
I was worried I wasn't going to end up with any Toph cards in my Cube, since Toph, Greatest Earthbender doesn't tell you what the card does and Toph, Earthbending Master seems just a little too fiddly, as much as I like their designs.
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I used to play with Favorable Winds as a boost to the many spirit tokens and spirits I had running around in the era where Innistrad was one of the foundational sets of my Cube. I'm currently running a little bit of "flying matters" support in the way of the upcoming Rinoa, Angel Wing and Momo, Friendly Flier. I don't think Air Nomad Legacy has any chance of making it in but...hey, I really like things that make clues, and I really like communicating archetypes with my gold cards. It's not the worst idea I've ever heard of, but it certainly would make me need to do a little more to support the burgeoning archetype.
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White finally gets its own Insidious Fungus / Caustic Caterpillar / Haywire Mite! But just like how Caustic Caterpillar received a slightly cooler reception at its release, not having a nice out from the disenchant ability makes it a little less appealing.
It's not hard to say that the Reclamation Sage (45,919 cubes) and Loran of the Third Path (14,856 cubes) versions of these effects are more popular -- the caterpillar and fungus are in 4.6k and 2.7k lists respectively -- but there's a time and a place for them, so I'm happy to have this in the game, particularly with the life boost that triggers no matter how they die.
I'm always surprised at how Haywire Mite (10.2k) is so much more popular than the Fungus, but I guess exiling, gaining life, costing 1 less to activate, and being an artifact all make up for not hitting creatures. My Cube has a ton of artifact creatures, so you lose out on 35-40% of the value of the card style by using the Mite.
I may end up trying this one out, to be honest.
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Phoenix Fleet Airship is such a cool card. I love the storytelling here, and I want to play it just for that reason. I think it might even be OK. OK, it's probably not good enough. But it's pretty easy for it to pass the vindicate test by making a copy of itself the turn it comes in from a fetch land or a spawn token, and it snowballs quick. Going from 1 to 2 to 4 to 8 seems like a fun game plan, and an anxiety-inducing impending scenario for your opponent. You can really turn it into mostly draw-go so long as you can sacrifice anything during each of your turns. I want to try it out, just because it seems so cool.
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I've been a little annoyed at how parasitic-feeling so many of the lessons-matter cards are, but this is the perfect place for them. The card is totally fine on its own, but gets the mother of all upgrades if you're in the right lane. I won't Cube with this in my main list, but side projects? Hell yeah. This is a fun one to break singleton for and I'm really glad it exists.
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EDIT: Somehow I forgot the best card of the day so far!!
This land enters tapped unless you control a basic land.
: Add
My boy Gavony Township is back!! And he taps for white now! And can come in untapped easily!
I still feel like Gavony Township is totally fine, even in powerful Cubes. It's just such a backbreaking effect to have repeatable on a land. I'm jazzed as hell for Abandoned Air Temple, and think this cycle competes with the MH3 one for some of the best mono-colored land cycles we've seen.
There are some serious bangers in this set for a lot of power levels.
I tend to avoid midrange cards, but spell Toph is amazing. So many themes are included here and the gameplay seems like it would be fun with what my cube is doing. Between Toph and Fire Nation Occupation, I am happy to be adding spell velocity themes in colors other than Jeskai.
I tend to avoid midrange cards, but spell Toph is amazing. So many themes are included here and the gameplay seems like it would be fun with what my cube is doing. Between Toph and Fire Nation Occupation, I am happy to be adding spell velocity themes in colors other than Jeskai.
I definitely think this gets there if you have anything resembling a fetch/landscape mana base and/or a sacrifice theme in Black. At your size, maybe you need both for density reasons. Having evasion and crew 1 makes this very playable and I agree with you about the sense of doom pending on the opponent.
I think it might even be OK.
As a certified UB hater (I've changed my mind a lot in the last few months), it brings me some kind of weird sad-joy to report that this set based on a children's cartoon I've never watched is absolutely full of bangers.
I might have to change my stance to "okay, UB is fine if it feels more like a normal Magic set than Aetherdrift/Duskmourne/Edge of Eternity (so lotr, fin, tla)"
kind of wild that Spider-Man was full of absolute garbage that I had zero interest in on the individual card merits (aside from Multiversal Passage and Heroes' Hangout, both of which I found to play worse than they looked in my brief experience) and then this set has so many sweet cards. did they just like, put the B team of novices on SPM?
Dom Harvey
Contributor
Yeah, the relative success of LOTR + FF + Avatar in blending in just makes Spiderman look even more heinous
It is not even that difficult to blend in with Magic's aesthetics, even if you discount negative outliers like Aetherdrift. I mean, there is a lot of room on a spectrum between Bloomburrow and (New) Phyrexia.
"Feeling Magic" is really mostly just being essentially a fantastical world telling a story involving spellcasting and fantastical creatures. If they would only do crossovers with IPs set in well crafted, rich fantasy worlds including some kind of magic, I would be 100% pro UB.
"Feeling Magic" is really mostly just being essentially a fantastical world telling a story involving spellcasting and fantastical creatures. If they would only do crossovers with IPs set in well crafted, rich fantasy worlds including some kind of magic, I would be 100% pro UB.