Chris Taylor
Contributor
While chaos orb is sweet, it is WAY too good post cube eratta
Sets What cards from Theros are you playing?
- Thread starter Jason Waddell
- Start date
Chaos Confetti style is the only acceptable option. User must replace the card. It's the cube equivalent of "pay to win". Deck must be legal after loss of card. either use it from the sideboard or suit up 41+ gentlement.
For those of you who have had the privilege of cubing with the new God cards from Theros, what has been your overall impression of each of them? During yesterday's draft, someone suggested that I jam all five of them in my cube. My research indicates that Thassa, God of the Sea and maybe Purphoros, God of the Forge are worthy, but the other three probably are not.
FlowerSunRain
Contributor
Erebos is a great card, very fair, but makes value and helps win grindfests. I loved the matches he was involved in and I expect to cube this for a long time. If you ever wanted Greed to be playable, here it is.
Nylea is a sweet mana sink and green devotion is super easy to support. Trample will win more games then you think. This will be played for at least a while.
Heliod is playable with lots of enchantment support, but loses to 2378575890 other white 4 drops on power level. He went creature for me a couple of times, but games were too tight to afford to make tokens most of the time. Marginal to the extreme.
Purphoros just stomps face doing things you want to be doing anyway. Presents inevitability, but also has combo potential. Great include for archtype support or simply on power level, but hard to interact means potentially less fun. Curving into 5 mana token producers is just dumb. I'll probably drop it.
With Thasa, I always wished she was another counter or another creature. Decks seem to want this effect, then you actually build your deck and you just really don't want it in there. Threat light decks can't make her a creature reliably. She probably won't make the next cut.
Nylea is a sweet mana sink and green devotion is super easy to support. Trample will win more games then you think. This will be played for at least a while.
Heliod is playable with lots of enchantment support, but loses to 2378575890 other white 4 drops on power level. He went creature for me a couple of times, but games were too tight to afford to make tokens most of the time. Marginal to the extreme.
Purphoros just stomps face doing things you want to be doing anyway. Presents inevitability, but also has combo potential. Great include for archtype support or simply on power level, but hard to interact means potentially less fun. Curving into 5 mana token producers is just dumb. I'll probably drop it.
With Thasa, I always wished she was another counter or another creature. Decks seem to want this effect, then you actually build your deck and you just really don't want it in there. Threat light decks can't make her a creature reliably. She probably won't make the next cut.
I really dig Boon Satyr.
Denix's peasant cube has been a little Theros-happy, but it kinda hasn't been making old Lucas very happy.
Looks like the creature augmenting threshold is having trouble keeping up. Its getting really hard to play control decks, harder to block right? Lots of Ordeal style decks running folks over. I can see that being a worry for Eric's cube too, though in different forms. Eric has more of a constructed metagame where as you have more limited drafting problems in the Denix environment. I am still very curious about the over run themes and how well elves or hawks can be made aggressive.
I have no idea about devotion. It seems sorta shallow. I wouldn't mind playing grey merchant in a generic black control deck.
Do you really mean it?
Denix's peasant cube has been a little Theros-happy, but it kinda hasn't been making old Lucas very happy.
Looks like the creature augmenting threshold is having trouble keeping up. Its getting really hard to play control decks, harder to block right? Lots of Ordeal style decks running folks over. I can see that being a worry for Eric's cube too, though in different forms. Eric has more of a constructed metagame where as you have more limited drafting problems in the Denix environment. I am still very curious about the over run themes and how well elves or hawks can be made aggressive.
I have no idea about devotion. It seems sorta shallow. I wouldn't mind playing grey merchant in a generic black control deck.
Do you really mean it?
That's interesting...totally contradictory to what I've read about them, but it kind of makes sense.
I have two problems with this cycle:
1. Except for Thassa, all the other gods are four drops, and there are probably more cube-worthy four drops sitting out than in it.
2. The indestructibility is something that most non-blue decks are not going to be able to interact with. White has Path and Swords, black might get lucky enough to Edict them away, and green just has the miser's Primal Command.
Don't get me wrong...I can see the fun factor in Erebos/Purphoros/Nylea, but I'm having a hard time justifying them over so many other more interactive spells.
- Heliod is worse than white's other 4s; vigilance is meh, a 2/1 for 4 is costly when my drafters already hesitated to make a 1/1 for 3 off Jade mage.
- Thasa has been good for me, but I have apparently have more blue permanents than the average cube.
: Unblockable anything ends games fast, and scry is nice and has the benefit of being scry instead of confusing my players like sylvan library or adding five minutes to every game like top. - Erebos has also been bad; his passive does literally nothing in the vast majority of games, and his active is very costly for a minor advantage. My players don't like him.
- Purphoros has been good, no one gets wrecked by an army in a can often enough to hate him, and he makes games end eventually, so I'm keeping him for now.
- Nylea has also been good, team trample alone is huge, and the costly pump makes for very interesting combat math. Too interesting, sometimes. An unfortunate too-greedy midrange matchup stalled forever because of it once.
With cube's versatile removal/bounce/steal/flicker etc. turning the gods on and off makes for some very swingy turns in terms of tempo. Only purphoros and Thasa are that threatening when 'off' IMO.
Dom Harvey
Contributor
Purphoros and Thassa are very good. Erebos is neat. Nylea is passable in every sense of the word, Heliod is pretty bad.
/2cents
/2cents
FlowerSunRain
Contributor
The thing that bugs me most about Thasa is that the decks that play her never seem to need to be unblockable. All the creatures generally have evasion or they bounce the blocker. Distortion Strike is a much better costed version of Thasa's unblockable power that also happens to have synergy with other stuff. Abstractly, she seems like the best God, but in practice she always seems to be the wrong card for the situation.
I don't see what's fun about Purphoros, however, I find that Nylea and Erebos (and Heliod too) are very interactive BECAUSE you can't just kill them directly. They add an effect on the game that the opponent cannot simply ignore by having the right card in their hand and actually have to play around them, which is fine because between devotion and the subtle nature of their effects, doing so is a valid option. Its ok that you can't just kill them directly, you don't have to!
I don't see what's fun about Purphoros, however, I find that Nylea and Erebos (and Heliod too) are very interactive BECAUSE you can't just kill them directly. They add an effect on the game that the opponent cannot simply ignore by having the right card in their hand and actually have to play around them, which is fine because between devotion and the subtle nature of their effects, doing so is a valid option. Its ok that you can't just kill them directly, you don't have to!
I agree with this. I like the design of the gods in general. It's hard to turn them on but they are even harder to remove, so that becomes a mini game in and of itself. I don't know if they will stick around long term, but I'm a fan right now.
CML
Contributor
FSR nails it, also I like having a 4-drop in Red that doesn't attack for 4 with Haste, a Black 4-drop that doesn't 187 something, and so on. I'm obsessed with finding cards that are well outside the norm for a game of Magic and create weird board states and lead to weird thought processes my players maybe haven't had before -- stuff like Imperial Recruiter and Omnath, Locus of Mana -- and the gods really fit this well.
I second everyone else's judgment of only the Jund ones being worth running. Again, Thassa is an amazing card, but I'm not sure how to design a Blue section where she'd fit in without falling into poison / gravecrawler-griselbrand territory
I second everyone else's judgment of only the Jund ones being worth running. Again, Thassa is an amazing card, but I'm not sure how to design a Blue section where she'd fit in without falling into poison / gravecrawler-griselbrand territory
Dom Harvey
Contributor
It's not that hard to turn on Thassa, you just need some decent UU 2-drops. Frostburn Weird and Tidebinder Mage are both fine, you can push Voidmage Prodigy, etc.
Small aside on this: you might try out Sewer Nemesis if you want a different kind of black four-drop. He's not a very popular pick for most, but my group raves about him.
Back to the main discussion point, I'm starting to see the appeal for Purphoros as I re-examine my black and red sections. Nylea might get some consideration if s/he can ever get past Polukranos or Chameleon Colossus at the four slot. Still having a hard time seeing the value of Erebos when there's already Bob and Arena and possibly Blood Scrivener/Graveborn Muse that do similar things. I can see a lot of games where the passive is just not relevant.
Chris Taylor
Contributor
I do, yes.
(For reference, the erratta in question leaves chaos orb as
artifact , sac: Vindicate)It's really hard to make 1 for 1 removal gamebreaking, but the fact that this gets everything, can be spaced out, recurred, is colorless, is instant speed, etc this does it.
It's the epitome of not interactive draft.
Dom Harvey
Contributor
goddamn this block is so good
I've tested all of these in one Cube or another:
I've tested all of these in one Cube or another:
FlowerSunRain
Contributor
I'm with you 100%, man, Theros block has been phenomenal.
It's interesting to read this thread a couple years after it ended. I imagine the "omg theros win!" glow has faded for most folks, though Flower's cube has a lot of enchantments.
I'm still running (or plan to run) 20 cards from this block (and that doesn't include the temples), so that seems like a pretty solid block for my cube at least. And I've tested and run more than those 20 too.
At a glance, I'd say Khans is my most influential block. 34 cards plus the fetches (that's a rough number - could be more).
At a glance, I'd say Khans is my most influential block. 34 cards plus the fetches (that's a rough number - could be more).
Chris Taylor
Contributor
(Kinda)
Soldier is currently out, but could easily come back in
Gods Willing got turned into Emerge Unscathed because of prowess (and wasn't that great before that point)
Spear is nice. I can't believe jason was worried about this card
Omenspeaker still isn't good enough. It's better than look at the bottom three cards of your library, but thats not much
Prognostic Sphinx got custom'd to play better with pod
Thassa left (I hate devotion)
Mogis Marauder got piled on by a FLOOD of amazing black 3cc creatures
Read the bones....I dunno. Draw spells have been weird. I should take another look at these.
Thoughtsieze got custom'd for something with more decisions.
I've doubled up on downfall
Swallower was the creature that made me realize wildfire is just a control deck, not a theme deck. This creature is not a control creature
Boon Satyr turned into Yasova Dragonclaw
Warrior's Lesson left with the double strike theme. If I ever bring that back it's totally coming back in though.
Commune got REALLY customed. This kind of effect really needs to find lands, or you need to care A LOT about the yard (Like spider spawning hard)
Medomai...Sigh. Not sure why I thought I needed this creature
Tymaret is kinda like super low power falkenrath aristocrat. I moved in the direction of aristocrat.
Aaaaand the temples just became more shocklands
Interesting. There's a lot of interesting cards there still active, and I don't have heroic-style decks as a dedicated theme anymore. I think that's a good spot to be in.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
13 cards, alright I guess?
And Magma Jet because the Theros art is much better. Conversely, I run the Lorwyn Thoughtseize.
Agree with ahadabans though, Tarkir has been much more influential, though admittedly I run a lot of gold cards. 46 cards from that block at the moment, not counting fetchlands.
How is Ashiok in your cube? I want to put her in the cube I'm building, but I feel like she spirals out of control very, very fast.
Also, does nobody run Chain to the Rocks?
Also, does nobody run Chain to the Rocks?
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Hasn't won any games so far.
Didn't think it would be so many as I'm absolutely no fan of the flavour of this block.