Sunday 9 April 2023

March of the Machines Preliminary Review: Part 6

 

0 - unplayable in 40 card singleton

1 - effectively unplayable

2 - has low tier constructed decks it might go in

3 - has mid tier constructed decks it does go in

4 - pretty powerful stuff with several potential homes, able to perform well in lower powered cubes

5 - powerful stuff that is either just too narrow or has too many superior alternatives

6 - fringe cube worthy

7 - cube worthy

8 - cube staple

9 - unpowered cube bomb

10 - powered cube bomb 



Invasion of Moag 2

The kind of battle I dislike. Sure, overall potential returns, as expected, this is nuts. But, it scales up with dorks, needs dorks to flip, and then is a dork. Already that feels like an over extension. Perhaps if I had just Secured the Wastes at the end of your turn and untap with this it is OK. The front end is double what you expect to pay for the effect and so if you fail to flip this card is embarassing. It isn't exactly exciting when you do... 




Invasion of Segovia 6

Much as I do not see blue as the prime target for completing battles it does have a bunch of flash and evasive cards. Three mana for a pair of 1/1 tokens isn't a shocker and the value and utility with this do get a bit wild should you manage to flip it. I am assuming this fails because it isn't very blue and is a bit battly but I do like it. 






Invasion of Kaladesh 2

Very limp front end and a reasonably unexciting but novel vehicle back end. Also quite the narrow card one way or another so cannot see this one getting off the ground. 





Hidetsugu and Kairi 7

EtB value and scary on death trigger round off a nice meaty and threatening body. This is safe and messes with your opponents. Mostly you are just going to nug someone for like 4 damage if they kill this, every now and again you will get some juicy free Confluence but whatever. Mostly this is a flier than doesn't cost you a card and that gives your opponent pause for thought. It might be a bit gold and in the shadow of other powerful and safe Dimir 5 drops like The Scarab God and Enter the God-Eternals. It might well not care! 




Doomskar Warrior 7.5

Pretty spot on card for cube in terms of power and suitability while also being exactly what green wants to be doing at 4 mana. Presently green is a little limp in the four slot with a couple of bombs and then quite the sharp drop off. The quality of the green decks does bottleneck a little on that and Doomskar Warrior should help widen that gap. The floor of a four mana 5/4 trample that should do some level of Seek the Wilds / Adventurous Impulse when it attacks is very high. That would already be a fringe card I would consider and test. The addition of the lovely backup mechanic goes a huge distance to making this card amazing. It is more immediacy, and many more options, it has potential for scaling and synergy. It just adds so much. Ideally you have some robust 3 drop in play that you can attack with. When you get to drop Warrior down and get a card back right away it seems pretty outstanding. Doomskar Warrior is a good blend of tempo and value that offers reasonably high threat at relatively low risk. 



Knight-Errant of Eos 5

I do not like this as a dork but I do kind of like it as a means to get value. If I look at this as a kind of Dig Through Time I am a bit excited but as a 4/4 bigboy Bugler I am a whole lot less excited. My concern here is of course the win more nature. If you have to hard cast this X = 0 and so you just got a 4/4 and that is abysmal. Convoke it with at least 3 dorks and you should be getting two cards for your trouble. When this is good it is Collected Company good but when it is bad it is Durkwood Boars bad. I think white just has more reliable means to get cards these days. Midrange and control decks will have a sufficiently low dorks count with a sufficiently high CMC to render this broadly unplayable and so aggro decks will be the only home. I think I probably just prefer Venerated Loxodon if we are looking at aggressive convoke 5 drop white dorks... It was good but a little inconsistent and I think that pretty much covers us here too.





Bloodfeather Phoenix 7

Interesting card although perhaps a little narrow. Certainly a great little tool for helping with battles. The combination of this not being able to block and only recurring when you use your spells to go face rather take away from control and midrange applications for this card. It is mostly just a small tenacious threat, a bit of a red Bloodghast. In a battle heavy world I can see this jumping up in value a lot and breaking out of just being an aggro card. Despite just being something I want in an aggro deck it is absolutely a lock in for those. Cheap, recursive, and evasive. This will be pretty hard to efficiently deal with and eat up premium removal while getting some damage, tempo, and potentially even value on the way there. Powerful aggro tool with some further applications seemingly on the cards. 



Invasion of Azgol 5

This is certainly strong with an OK value and rounded front end that consequently makes the whole back end of the card potential juicy helpings of gravy. It just doesn't matter much if you flip this card. The issue it has is not really power level but more competition from Angrath's Rampage and Dreadbore and that sort of thing. Even Terminate has some strong game when it comes to deserving of cube space. There just isn't room for these kinds of luxury spells. Being gold hurts this kind of card more than any others and so I can't see it being worth a slot despite the strength here. Even Ashen Reaper is decent, it will be able to close out some games. The tempo potential with turn one dork, turn two this, and then flipping it the following turn somehow is all quite scary. Cards that can reduce the opponents board and then increase your own for low mana costs are to be feared. All that means I must test this but I cannot see people playing it over simpler spells like Searing Spear and Go for the Throat nearly enough of the time. 




Errant and Giada 3

Super cute card I would play in any skies deck. Too low power without a high density of flash and/or flying cards. Equally near impossible to get that density outside of a build around deck. 

 



Inga and Eskia 6

A lot of card but a bit situationally good for a gold card. If you can deploy this and then take advantage of dorks in play to cast a three drop and draw a card then amazing. If not then we have a 4/4 that might well do some nothing. I need a bit more consistency with my gold four drops and so this isn't quite making the cut. Lots of power and potential but not reliable enough. 




Furnace Gremlin 1

Close to there but not. Too much mana needed to make this relevant. Mostly this dies at 1 power at which point transforming your token is piss weak value. 





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