Sets (VOW) Crimson Vow Testing/Includes Thread

[Velrun]

This is a lovely self-contained tribal card.

This reminds me. Can you explain to me how this is self-contained?

To me it looks like a signpost for Zombie tribal.

I might misunderstand the word self-containted. Please enlighten me. Most of my opinions on cube was shaped on this site so maybe here is a new lesson for me. I like cards like Edgar, Charmed Groom for self-contained because it, itself, creates the tokens it refers to. I don't mind including cards like that because it work with itself and doesn't invoke a feeling of tribal to my players.

 

[Velrun]

Green

None of the green cards go to the starter set


Ascendant Packleader
I have been looking for an additional green aggro 1-drop so this is perfect. It can deal some early pings and still be useful with most of green's other stuff. It is on one those cards that could easily be cut next time green gets a more interesting 1-drop.



Cemetery Prowler
I will include this but I will include it at level 3 which means it will be seen for the first time very late in the tournament. It has synergy with many of the things green does. I worry it road blocks a little too hard at three mana but I think it will be fine late in the tournament where aggro should also have access to some very powerful cards. I think the card is fairly interesting with the way it ramps and it's also a little bit of a build-around card because you cannot expect the opponent to have cards in the graveyard early in the game.



Glorious Sunrise
Very potent mid game enchantment if left unchecked. It doesn't create tokens but it does draw cards. And as always I like choice cards. Note that it works from the turn you cast it because it triggers at the beginning of combat. It is going to hurt like the Underworld on Theros if it gets tempo lossed by Return to Nature.



Ulvenwald Oddity
Wow, what a beast! I think @TrainmasterGT was right when he said this card was cool. I personally really like it as well although it is a 'dumb beat stick'. It will help close out games in the late game with haste + trample. I am totally fine with people calling it Canadian if they accept that it's probably not what Wizards intended

 

[Onderzeeboot]

This reminds me. Can you explain to me how this is self-contained?

To me it looks like a signpost for Zombie tribal.

I might misunderstand the word self-containted. Please enlighten me. Most of my opinions on cube was shaped on this site so maybe here is a new lesson for me. I like cards like Edgar, Charmed Groom for self-contained because it, itself, creates the tokens it refers to. I don't mind including cards like that because it work with itself and doesn't invoke a feeling of tribal to my players.

What I mean with "a self-contained tribal card" is that it is a card that rewards you for playing the tribe, but also works just fine on its own. For example, Cryptbreaker is a card I love, because while it is better when you couple it with a few other zombies in your deck, it also makes its own draw engine given time. Headless Rider is self-contained in the sense that it doesn't limit its ability to other zombies, but also works just fine as a 3/1 beatstick that turns into a 2/2 token when it dies itself. That's a decent enough baseline that you wouldn't be ashamed of running it in a Bx aggro deck containing no other zombies.

 

[blacksmithy]

the thing i like about oddity is that it busts the heck out of a stalled board when it flips

 

[Velrun]

What I mean with "a self-contained tribal card" is that it is a card that rewards you for playing the tribe, but also works just fine on its own. For example, Cryptbreaker is a card I love, because while it is better when you couple it with a few other zombies in your deck, it also makes its own draw engine given time. Headless Rider is self-contained in the sense that it doesn't limit its ability to other zombies, but also works just fine as a 3/1 beatstick that turns into a 2/2 token when it dies itself. That's a decent enough baseline that you wouldn't be ashamed of running it in a Bx aggro deck containing no other zombies.

Cryptbreaker also follows the 'rules' of creating it's own tokens it refers to.

If I saw a Cryptbreaker in a draft, I would not think Zombies was a tribe. I would consider it but I would certainly not arrive at any conclusions because Cryptbreaker doesn't need Zombies to do it's drawing.

If I saw a Headless Rider, I would be 100 % certain there was a Zombie tribal component to the cube. Why else would the cube owner include a card that says "or another Zombie you control dies"?

But that's just my way of looking at it. I believe I have the correct opinion though and that others should certainly take some time to consider my way of thinking

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Cryptbreaker also follows the 'rules' of creating it's own tokens it refers to.

If I saw a Cryptbreaker in a draft, I would not think Zombies was a tribe. I would consider it but I would certainly not arrive at any conclusions because Cryptbreaker doesn't need Zombies to do it's drawing.

If I saw a Headless Rider, I would be 100 % certain there was a Zombie tribal component to the cube. Why else would the cube owner include a card that says "or another Zombie you control dies"?

But that's just my way of looking at it. I believe I have the correct opinion though and that others should certainly take some time to consider my way of thinking

Yeah, I wouldn't advocate running this in a cube without a decent number of other zombies, because the line can be misleading. That said, it still works in a deck without any supporting zombies, and I like that quality in a card.

 

[blacksmithy]

i feel velrun’s pain on tribal trinket text. it makes me crazy

 

[TrainmasterGT]

Ulvenwald Oddity
Wow, what a beast! I think @TrainmasterGT was right when he said this card was cool. I personally really like it as well although it is a 'dumb beat stick'. It will help close out games in the late game with haste + trample. I am totally fine with people calling it Canadian if they accept that it's probably not what Wizards intended

Yes, yes, let the maple syrup flow through you!

 

[Velrun]

Yes, yes, let the maple syrup flow through you!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand that’s originally from USA

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand that’s originally from USA

It's like the Dutch being proud of "typical" Dutch products like ice skates (invented in Finland) or the cheese slicer (invented in Norway). Stroopwafels though? They're Dutch, and they're some of the most yummie "biscuits" you'll ever taste! Definitely buy some fresh stroopwafels somewhere when you're visiting the Netherlands

 

[Velrun]

It's like the Dutch being proud of "typical" Dutch products like ice skates (invented in Finland) or the cheese slicer (invented in Norway). Stroopwafels though? They're Dutch, and they're some of the most yummie "biscuits" you'll ever taste! Definitely buy some fresh stroopwafels somewhere when you're visiting the Netherlands

And American Football (The NFL sport) was invented by a Canadian and thus we have come full circle

Fun fact: The NFL wanted to be called AFL for American Football League but couldn’t because Australien Football League had already named their’s AFL.

I want stroopwaffels now

 

[Jason Waddell]

It's like the Dutch being proud of "typical" Dutch products like ice skates (invented in Finland) or the cheese slicer (invented in Norway). Stroopwafels though? They're Dutch, and they're some of the most yummie "biscuits" you'll ever taste! Definitely buy some fresh stroopwafels somewhere when you're visiting the Netherlands

Or buy some prepackaged stroopwafels in Belgium.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Or buy some prepackaged stroopwafels in Belgium.

We have those as well, but the fresh ones are better. Fresh, warm stroopwafels are a treat! However, if you fail to get hold of a fresh stroopwafel stand, literally every supermarket in the Netherlands sells prepackaged ones.

Stroopwafel survival guide (or: how to prepare for eating a prepackaged stroopwafel):

• Buy prepackaged stroopwafels
• Get a hot cup of tea or coffee in a big mug (personally I would pick tea)
• Remove one stroopwafel from its packaging, and put it on top of the mug
• Wait unil the stroopwafel starts getting a bit soft from the heat
• Enjoy your warm stroopwafel together with your tea or coffee

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I want stroopwaffels now

Also, you're in luck! Stroopwafels are shipped worldwide!

https://www.stroopwafelworld.com/en/

 

[sigh]

Mmm pastries

Now I want a bear claw

 

[Mown]

Wait, we have like one innovation, and the dutch are trying to appropriate it? Sounds like someone's in need of a høvling.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Wait, we have like one innovation, and the dutch are trying to appropriate it? Sounds like someone's in need of a høvling.

Apparently we also have your country to thank for salmon sushi. Much obliged!

 

[Zoss]

I'm actually testing an eye-watering 21 cards from this set in my New Cube (I swear I'll write it up someday! Because I know you're just waiting for it!).


Almost Assured Adds



I want to pull a few out of color order to talk about because I think more people should be interested in them.

Foreboding Statue is a neat little MV3 rock that turns into a sizeable body. Yes, it's vulnerable to removal, but the fact that it fixes, ramps, and acts as a really meaty creature make the downside tolerable for me. Plus, a lot of us like our ramp to have counterplay, and this sure does.

Dominating Vampire is Threaten for tokens with a free 3/3 that can change up your pick order a bit, which I think is fantastic. If you can sac things, grabbing a token is plenty, and many of us have rather too many of those lying around. It can grab MV2 things without too many issues, but it's not likely to grab anything much bigger, which bounds it fairly nicely. Plus it's also just a good tool for aggro to break up token-based board stalls. I'm a big fan, and I think it's a sleeper if only for the efficiency.

Mirrorhall Mimic is a neat take on Clone, an effect that I really like in small doses. The backside takes some setup, and is a nice high risk/high reward card that you can slap on an opponent's creature (!!!) to make copies of every turn, putting them in a really awkward situation. But it's also self-bounding in the sense that if you're ahead you'd tend to place it on your own creature, giving your opponent a nice window to take out the threat. This makes for some fun Level 2 moments where you want to place it on your second-best creature if you think your opponent has removal, diversifying your threats.

-----

Faithbound Judge is really freaking cool. I'm a little worried about a 4/4 skyblock, but I'm also happy for White to get something for graveyards, so it's a tradeoff I'm willing to risk for the moment. The backside is weak, but that'll just make it even more fun to win with.

By Invitation Only, Wedding Announcement, Lantern Bearer, Thirst for Discovery, Fell Stinger, Kessig Wolfrider, Cemetery Gatekeeper, and Ulvenwald Oddity have all been discussed pretty thoroughly already here, so I don't want to belabor the point, even though I kind of just did that with the Judge.



The Tentative Tests






Torrens, Fist of the Angels is a bit of a problem in that he not only increases new tokens but a new mechanic, eating into my complexity budget. He could get swapped back to Selesnya Guildmage, but I want to give him a shot.

Pointed Discussion creates a new token, so it's a solid Maybe for that alone. Otherwise I love the card, and if I ever cut it and re-add something with Blood/WotC prints more Blood cards I'll always look at this one for re-inclusion.

Similarly, I could see myself going back from Welcoming Vampire to Bygone Bishop.

Eruth, Tormented Prophet seems fine, I'm just not sure if the effect is worth the investment. It could be way too explosive for my cube or way too weak, but I'm excited to find out either way!

Mischievous Catgeist does a lot of what I want and is damn cute, but it's very weak. My cube is designed such that everyone is going to have to get on board by turn 2, so I think it will be hard to sneak this in, but a cheaper saboteur trigger would be nice as redundancy for Curious Obsession.

Cobbled Lancer also buffs Obsession-based Blue aggro by incentivizing decks that will trade out, though! Plus, it gets value when discarded/milled. It might just not do anything, though, so like Eruth I'm just going to see if it sticks.

I like Lantern Flare type-effects that count creatures, but I also like Kabira Takedown and am not sure I want two of them. The whole "mono-colored card with multicolored kicker" thing is totally my jam, though. But none of the other Cleave cards really appeal to me, so . . . complexity budget. I'll try it, but don't expect to keep it.

Jacob Hauken, Inspector is a new take on Jace, Vryn's Prodigy that I might want to try. The effect, like that of the Judge, seems splashy and fun while being attached to a generally reasonable bread-and-butter card, which is great--I get my cake while eating my veggies too. However, where the Judge is totally unique, Merfolk Looter is actually better than the front side of Jacob, and so the complexity might not be worth it. So I want to test it to find out if that's the case!

 

[Velrun]

Multicolored
Colorless
Lands


Path of Peril
I am often looking for more sweepers in order to keep the ratio high enough. If I do not include sweepers every now and then but still include more cards than I cut, then the ratio falls too low. I do not have a specific ratio number in my head but we discuss it after each tournament if we had enough/too many. This one is a black card with a white kicker and I like that it can be played in mono black but doesn't feel super cool to include until you're Orzhov/Silverquil. Neither mode is powerful but it's flexible. It feels fair to me. This is the second Cleave card in the cube which means it could be a candidate to get cut if we also cut Dread Fugue.



Grolnok, the Omnivore
Wow the creature is powerful. It draws three cards each turn. You can only cast them as long as you control Grolnok though but that's more than fair since it's freaking three cards per turn! This instantly goes to the level 4 set, which is the maximum in my cube. I like having extremely powerful cards in the cube but I want players to only experience playing against them rarely and for a brief period of time. And only when everyone else gets equally powerful cards.



Torens, Fist of the Angels
This Selesnya guy will be the only Training card in the cube which means I'll test him but not guarenteed include him. He has to perform really well in order to stay in because he's already in an uphill battle with that keyword. I actually like that he provides more tokens with Training since he is the only card with training in the cube.



Vilespawn Spider
It's almost impossible to find a spot in the Simic section however I will have to find a room for this one since it goes well with almost everything the Simic section tries to do. I'm cutting Decisive Denial for this Spider.



Lord Edgar, Charmed Groom
Yes, yes, yes!
Vampire tribal but he creates Vampires tokens himself. Doesn't feel oppressive even though he can't be killed without exiling him. I really, really like this card. This might be my Ulvenwald Oddity @TrainmasterGT I'll cut Killian, Ink Duelist to make room.



Honored Heirloom
I dislike when cards exile the entire graveyard(Like Relic of Progenitus). I still want them but I want them to be rare. I like when cards can exile a single card from a graveyard (Like Return to Nature) or do it repeatedly in an expensive way. This is expensive enough although I wish it had been a mana ability.



Investigator's Journal
"Pay 2 mana to create X + 1 Clue tokens where X is the number of creatures you control."
"And you can only crack one of them each turn unless it's your last Clue" "And you only get one artifact on the battlefield."
So this is basically a very slow draw spell. You have to pay for each of them and the first two mana you spend doesn't give you any card. I can foresee a few decks who want to include this. Mostly the Abzan decks in my cube. And sometimes you're even facing an opponent who has more creatures than you and it will give you even more draws. This card seems pretty bad but pretty fun and it even helps out the early game if you are mising land drops.



Deathcap Glade + Dreamroot Cascade + Shattered Sanctum + Stormcarved Coast + Sundown Pass
And finally the five last enemy-colored Slowlands.

All cards I've included and tested from the two most recent Innistrad sets can be seen here:
https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/ymtr?view=spoiler
Link will not last forever

 

[Velrun]

If these are fast lands...



...then these ones are slow lands, right?

 

[ravnic]

Na ja, fast (the german word)

 

[Peter LaCara]

So this set is kind of a letdown in terms of cube. The cards are at the same time too safe and too wordy. I love the aesthetic, and there's still a few cards I like. Granted, I've been neglecting my cube lately because I've been focusing on my tabletop RPG that I wrote, but I feel like that's in a decent enough place now that I can go back to tinkering with other projects again.

Interesting wrath that white likes with its go-wide themes.

Why yes, I would like another Seasoned Hallowblade in a relevant tribe, please.

Ooh, a Pridemate that plays better with Heliod and gains value from other incidental +1/+1 counters.

I think I like this better than Mentor of the Meek, actually. Sure, you only get 1 card each turn, but not having to pay mana to get the draw is a big bonus.

Future Sight is literally my favorite Magic card of all time, so this has me intrigued. That's a lot of goddamn words, though.

There are situations where I'd want this over Memory Deluge. Worth giving it a shot.

Kinda speaks for itself, doesn't it? This is probably the biggest slam dunk in the set.

This is sweet. I've had a chance to play a few of these in draft at this point, and I like it. Much like Expressive Iteration, you want to be casting this later in the game when you have more mana to play with.

Yeah, it's a stat monster, but Thrashy-B is fine, isn't it? Plus it goes in the G/R storm/spell velocity deck with Goblin Anarchomancer.

Pretty great signpost, plus it has the benefit of enabling itself.

Sweet little value card.

 

[Peter LaCara]

Double-faced cards:

This is a pretty sweet control card. It might be too big of a roadblock, though.

I had a chance to play with this in draft, and it is sweet. Definitely plays better than it looks. It's very much like a black Vendillion Clique.

It's got, like, a quarter of the words that Questing Beast had. Sold.

Edgar is pretty sweet as a self-contained tribal payoff.

Also, I forgot this sweet mana dork in my previous post:

 

[Onderzeeboot]

After testing it in a Wildfire deck, I've grown immeasurably more excited about Hiveheart Shaman! <3

 

[Chris Taylor]

oh that's real neato