This is of course not counting any ways you have to blink, recur or bounce ashiok. I had a sick draft deck which did just that. I could almost be on board with them if it didn't also exile your opponents graveyard and hose entire strategies. It's a no from me too.
General [WAR] War of the Spark
- Thread starter Velrun
- Start date
I just look and Teferi and think "Does this make the game more fun?" And I can't help but think the answer is "No".
Ashiok is kind of an interesting one because its effect on the game tends to be all or nothing - either it will win the game or have almost no impact at all. When you can protect them and get 4-5 full activations off then yes, it is a legitimate win condition, but I've also had situations where I can't even play Ashiok because it'll mill 4 or 8 and then die and be basically a waste of mana and a card.
The ability to self-mill is kind of interesting, but I think for my cube at least the passive is so brutal at hosing fetchlands I probably can't include them.
The ability to self-mill is kind of interesting, but I think for my cube at least the passive is so brutal at hosing fetchlands I probably can't include them.
Ashiok is like Stony Silence- way to narrow in some matchups but just wins the game when it's good.
Ashiok is just better in more matchups.
Ashiok is just better in more matchups.
I disagree with this, only because attacking Ashiok is a legitimate way to answer, and most decks have a way to attack. Most decks don't have a way to deal with enchantments and especially not main-board, which I think is a big difference.
What's more, in the match-ups where Stony Silence just wins, it says "you can't play Magic anymore". Ashiok doesn't quite do that; you have several turns until you get milled out. In those turns, you can play Magic, and try to win the race, by removing the Ashiok or presenting a competing clock/win condition.
I'm not advocating for playing Ashiok, and I don't know if their play pattern is even good, but it's a far cry from a Stony Silence/Leyline/Countertop kind of lock.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Ok, did a real (Silent Auction) draft yesterday, and some of the WAR adds saw play.
Verdict: Great addition. More interesting than Gideon's Lawkeeper for the expected reasons. 1) It doesn't hit everything. 2) It has an additional toughness. 3) It activates for colorless mana, meaning you can keep deploying white cards if your short on white mana, without letting your shields down.
Verdict: Seemed great. Wasn't that good in the deck it ended up in, would have been great in the other finalist's deck (which featured both Braids, Cabal Minion and Smokestack). Looks like it isn't a mindless bomb in the format, which is great.
Verdict: Promises sweet potential. I didn't really see it do a lot of work in the games I played against it, but there were several moments it would have been a sweet topdeck for my opponent.
Verdict: Solid removal spell. It's fun to nab planeswalkers with it. Pretty much what I expected of it, really.
Verdict: OMG <3 There are so many interactions with this in my cube! Zur the Enchanter, Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle, Flickerwisp, Cloudstone Curio, etc.
Verdict: I still haven't really made up my mind whether I like this card or not, but there's some undeniable synergies with the cube, and
has historically struggled a bit in my cube, so this might be a nice way to strengthen that color combination.
Note that the ended up in three different decks in a four player draft :')
Verdict: Great addition. More interesting than Gideon's Lawkeeper for the expected reasons. 1) It doesn't hit everything. 2) It has an additional toughness. 3) It activates for colorless mana, meaning you can keep deploying white cards if your short on white mana, without letting your shields down.
Verdict: Seemed great. Wasn't that good in the deck it ended up in, would have been great in the other finalist's deck (which featured both Braids, Cabal Minion and Smokestack). Looks like it isn't a mindless bomb in the format, which is great.
Verdict: Promises sweet potential. I didn't really see it do a lot of work in the games I played against it, but there were several moments it would have been a sweet topdeck for my opponent.
Verdict: Solid removal spell. It's fun to nab planeswalkers with it. Pretty much what I expected of it, really.
Verdict: OMG <3 There are so many interactions with this in my cube! Zur the Enchanter, Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle, Flickerwisp, Cloudstone Curio, etc.
Verdict: I still haven't really made up my mind whether I like this card or not, but there's some undeniable synergies with the cube, and
has historically struggled a bit in my cube, so this might be a nice way to strengthen that color combination.Note that the
ended up in three different decks in a four player draft :')Late to the party, but got my first 5-0 draft on Arena Bo3 with this piece of garbage:
The draft started out with Jace, Kasmina, then Jaya, afterwhich U and R dried up for the rest of it. Cobbled this together as an aggressive try.
Outside of a game I won off of Jace passive (lol) I never felt I was in control of the game, and was winning on the seat of my pants. But, a lot of decks were slow and when I had a fast draw and my opponent stumbled I could close pretty fast.
The draft started out with Jace, Kasmina, then Jaya, afterwhich U and R dried up for the rest of it. Cobbled this together as an aggressive try.
Outside of a game I won off of Jace passive (lol) I never felt I was in control of the game, and was winning on the seat of my pants. But, a lot of decks were slow and when I had a fast draw and my opponent stumbled I could close pretty fast.
Raging R/U
| | | | | |
| |||||
Got another 5-0 this evening with Bant+ (UGWb)
I'm really starting to enjoy drafting this format. It's slow enough that decks can be creative in putting together combos (proliferate, etc) while also forcing players to be proactive on turns 2 and 3 or risk falling behind to the planeswalkers.
I think if you cut out the top-top end bombs (like the gods, Ugin, maybe some other premium walkers) and also cut the chaff of the set (mostly the bad combat tricks), you'd end up with a sweet, middling powerband cube.
I'm really starting to enjoy drafting this format. It's slow enough that decks can be creative in putting together combos (proliferate, etc) while also forcing players to be proactive on turns 2 and 3 or risk falling behind to the planeswalkers.
I think if you cut out the top-top end bombs (like the gods, Ugin, maybe some other premium walkers) and also cut the chaff of the set (mostly the bad combat tricks), you'd end up with a sweet, middling powerband cube.
Bant-ish Proliferate-ish
| | | | | |
| |||||
| |||||
Back at it with another 5-win deck. Seems that this is the only Magic I've played in the last several months and I'm on a tear. I did get carried by the bombs in my pool (Enter the God-Eternals and Finale of Eternity) a bit here.
I think they got "spells matter" very right in this set! Several things contribute to this which could be instructive takeaways for our own formats, especially given how "spells matter" is such a common archetype, but the common question is "yes, but how?"
1. Silly good removal at common. The premium removal in the set (Jaya's Greeting, Spark Harvest, Ob Nixilis's Cruelty) is very good, and it's in the spells matter colors.
2. The Amass cards like Honor the God-Pharaoh and Toll of the Invasion both sculpt hands while developing the board at the same time. What's more, these cards can play as cogs in the sacrifice subtheme seamlessly as well. Callous Dismissal is on a tier of it's own in terms of being insanely good.
3. Triggers on "non-creature" rather than "instant or sorcery". Decks are already playing 2-3 Planeswalkers and usually 1-2 artifacts/enchantments. Spellgorger Weird triggering on everything really gets it going.
4. Spellgorger Weird. It lets spells you cast continue to develop the board-state, keeping you from falling behind when you cast your removal/card draw/disruption.
I think they got "spells matter" very right in this set! Several things contribute to this which could be instructive takeaways for our own formats, especially given how "spells matter" is such a common archetype, but the common question is "yes, but how?"
1. Silly good removal at common. The premium removal in the set (Jaya's Greeting, Spark Harvest, Ob Nixilis's Cruelty) is very good, and it's in the spells matter colors.
2. The Amass cards like Honor the God-Pharaoh and Toll of the Invasion both sculpt hands while developing the board at the same time. What's more, these cards can play as cogs in the sacrifice subtheme seamlessly as well. Callous Dismissal is on a tier of it's own in terms of being insanely good.
3. Triggers on "non-creature" rather than "instant or sorcery". Decks are already playing 2-3 Planeswalkers and usually 1-2 artifacts/enchantments. Spellgorger Weird triggering on everything really gets it going.
4. Spellgorger Weird. It lets spells you cast continue to develop the board-state, keeping you from falling behind when you cast your removal/card draw/disruption.
Grixis Spells
| | | | | |
| |||||
| |||||
This deck was super fun to pilot, and I ran the table again, this time at 5-1, with my only match loss in two quick games to T3 Feather, The Redeemed.
It's a G/B "Rainbows" deck, which is to say I picked up fixing early on and grabbed the best card out of every pack 3. During the draft, I passed on Niv-Mizzet Reborn before I knew I had the ability to be 5 color, which I'm not upset about, but it could have been that much cooler.
I love how much "engine" this deck gets to play. Living Twister is amazingly fun, if not a bit demoralizing for the opponent given sufficient resources. The Living Twister highlight today was throwing down bolts with Jaya, Venerated Firemage's ability.
The other engines/combos that felt good to play included:
Spark Reaver + Dreadhorde Invasion, which runs away with the game (and kept me from dying to Dreadhorde once).
Looping Elite Guardmage with Storrev, Devkarin Lich twice (the Guardmage was on blocking duty against a large Merfolk Skydiver)
Aid the Fallen and Storrev, Devkarin Lich in combination with Honor the God-Pharaoh
This is my favorite of the decks I've drafted so far, it just has a ton of sweet cogs and value plays. I'm going to try to remember this one for if/when I make my new cube.
It's a G/B "Rainbows" deck, which is to say I picked up fixing early on and grabbed the best card out of every pack 3. During the draft, I passed on Niv-Mizzet Reborn before I knew I had the ability to be 5 color, which I'm not upset about, but it could have been that much cooler.
I love how much "engine" this deck gets to play. Living Twister is amazingly fun, if not a bit demoralizing for the opponent given sufficient resources. The Living Twister highlight today was throwing down bolts with Jaya, Venerated Firemage's ability.
The other engines/combos that felt good to play included:
Spark Reaver + Dreadhorde Invasion, which runs away with the game (and kept me from dying to Dreadhorde once).
Looping Elite Guardmage with Storrev, Devkarin Lich twice (the Guardmage was on blocking duty against a large Merfolk Skydiver)
Aid the Fallen and Storrev, Devkarin Lich in combination with Honor the God-Pharaoh
This is my favorite of the decks I've drafted so far, it just has a ton of sweet cogs and value plays. I'm going to try to remember this one for if/when I make my new cube.
G/B Rainbow
| | | | | |
| |||||
| |||||
Chris Taylor
Contributor
It's mostly incidental and I'm not sure you can stop it. He'll even the CCDD cards didn't actually stand in the way too much.
That being said, it's only a game design failure in that sometimes nobody else at the table gets any fixing.
Ok so this opinion is based on losing a draft game against this mofo, but this team-wide lifelink is some real piece of work. It just completely ruins whatever interesting race might've been there prior. Absolute GRBS card. Do not put this in your cubes!
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Ok so this opinion is based on losing a draft game against this mofo, but this team-wide lifelink is some real piece of work. It just completely ruins whatever interesting race might've been there prior. Absolute GRBS card. Do not put this in your cubes!
I mean we knew that going in. Hopefully with enough data points we can find out if it being 2 colors and attackable is enough that its not total bullshit
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
This was exactly what I was afraid off. In testing, however, it seems like this doesn't play out this miserable most of the time, mainly because it doesn't grant lifelink on defense. So, while you're in a stalemate, it doesn't really help you find a way out.
Ok so this opinion is based on losing a draft game against this mofo, but this team-wide lifelink is some real piece of work. It just completely ruins whatever interesting race might've been there prior. Absolute GRBS card. Do not put this in your cubes!
Preach man, preach.
Ok so this opinion is based on losing a draft game against this mofo, but this team-wide lifelink is some real piece of work. It just completely ruins whatever interesting race might've been there prior. Absolute GRBS card. Do not put this in your cubes!
But the problem I've encountered in WAR drafting is there's some board states where the Hero simply can't effectively attack a planeswalker and then that walker runs away with the game (It's usually the rares/mythics, but Arlinn, Voice of the Pack and Kasmina, Enigmatic Mentor get close). So the game plan quickly switches to "can I ignore the planeswalker and kill the Villian before the planeswalker takes over?" And that, in my opinion, is a compelling pivot that turns a game interesting.
Sorin is the epitome of this issue. The card is innocuous enough and a lot of the time isn't horrible, but if you find yourself needing to pivot to race the opponent, it's impossible. You simply cannot race the lifelink. I think without the passive this card is actually pretty cool.
So, how do people think about the new planeswalker design in Cube? A lot of riptidelab users don't add a lot of PWs to their cubes as they tend to be pretty nuts with their value abilities often times ending in big Ultimates that win the game, but in WAR there are a lot of PWs that aren't typical bombs but need work to be done while not having an Ultimate at all. They are more like interactive enchantments which looks pretty desirable to me. Anyway, here are the ones I (still) find interesting:
Any experiences?
Any experiences?
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
I'm currently running:
I still have Ob Nixilis, the Hate-Twisted in testing. I really, really like it, but haven't found a cut for him yet. I'm still unsure on Sorin, as every once in a blue moon he leads to an incredibly unfair game, but most of the time he's very nice. Karn might also be replaced someday. He's a nice, narrow hate effect, and a cute build around, but I have a feeling he'll spend too much time in the sideboard to really be worth a slot. The other four are cool! Jaya is a sneaky way to make Empty the Warrens better. Jiang is basically what I hoped Rishkar, Peema Renegade would be. Where Rishkar proved to be little bit too much of a beating when played on curve, Jiang is great! Domri is sweet, and suits the themes in my section to a T. Saheeli, finally, is my favorite planeswalker out of the set. Great synergies! This week I won a game, in testing, by copying a Sentinel Tower to go off with a spells matters deck, how sweet is that?
I still have Ob Nixilis, the Hate-Twisted in testing. I really, really like it, but haven't found a cut for him yet. I'm still unsure on Sorin, as every once in a blue moon he leads to an incredibly unfair game, but most of the time he's very nice. Karn might also be replaced someday. He's a nice, narrow hate effect, and a cute build around, but I have a feeling he'll spend too much time in the sideboard to really be worth a slot. The other four are cool! Jaya is a sneaky way to make Empty the Warrens better. Jiang is basically what I hoped Rishkar, Peema Renegade would be. Where Rishkar proved to be little bit too much of a beating when played on curve, Jiang is great! Domri is sweet, and suits the themes in my
section to a T. Saheeli, finally, is my favorite planeswalker out of the set. Great synergies! This week I won a game, in testing, by copying a Sentinel Tower to go off with a spells matters deck, how sweet is that? Anyone played with Dreadhorde Arcanist?
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
I playtested it, but without a certain density of pump spells, it doesn't do much.
I don't have any planeswalkers on my cube but I must admit I'm tempted by Saheeli quite a bit. It's a fun design, even if she's a token creator more than an ability-driven card.
Chris Taylor
Contributor
It is but that's hard to swing.
I have double patched double bolted people, but that's far from the average case.
I like the card, the amount of payoff is high, but drafting for it to work consistently is hard