Commander Legends Preliminary Review Part V

 

Kamahl's Will 2

Interesting modal card. Pricy and situational as removal but still, green removal. Land amination is narrow but has a lot more potential. With any sort of Anthem or global pump effects it is potentially a finisher but you need so much mana to do so as it doesn't untap them. As such probably better as a way of quickly making a load of fodder to sacrifice. All told this is a bit costly, situational, and janky to get a main cube slot but I am sure it will have uses in some exotic brews.

Kamahl, Heart of Krosa 6

A kind of self contained Craterhoof Behemoth. Have a bunch of dorks in play and ready to attack? Then the Overrun probably wins there and then. If not then just untap, animate four lands and Kamahl should seal the deal solo. Not as much immediate punch as Craterhoof and so will likely see rather less play in decks like Natural Order and elves. In commander this seems mentally good for green and should dramatically speed up sessions. This has a better chance in my midrange cube than Craterhoof and certainly merits some testing. With things slowing down a bit in my cube I can see this nicely rounded top end finisher having some appeal. There are only so many Ugins to go around! This is a very green way to end the game.

Prava of the Steel Legion 5

There are nearly enough token generators in cube for this to just be good. The body is poor but at least it is durable which is what you want from your dorks that are about the effects. Token generation ability is also poor but it is certainly useful being on theme with the card and a nice mana sink. Mostly it is about giving tokens +1/+4 which is pretty nuts. How does six in the air from my army of 2/5 spirits sound? Pretty hard to handle. Even just vanilla 1/1 tokens start to be a problem at that size. Token heavy cubes should likely run this. I will be testing it for sure and even if it isn't there it will certainly appear in those Intangible Virtue builds. 

Livio, Oathsworn Knight 1

Cool looking card but too mana intense and lacking in combat potency for cube interest. I like the design such that you can get back the exiled creatures with any iteration of Livio and somewhat reducing the risk of using him to "protect" your dorks. That however is a long way off making up for this rather glorified looking Bear. 

Court of Ambition 6

This seems pretty brutal but a little risky. I can almost be a do nothing as giving away the monarch rather mitigates the upkeep effect when you are no longer the monarch. Maintain the monarch yourself and this is going to steamroll the game quickly. One turn and you have drawn two and either done six or hit them for two in the hand. That is like a quicker Demonic Pact with rather less downside! Two turns with the monarch and you have Ancestral Recalled yourself and done irreparable damage to the opponent. This might be powerful enough that you jam a deck full of removal and defensive dorks with this and tutors for it. The 1v1 play of monarch isn't wildly too my liking as it is so swingy and as such I have a slightly higher bar for entry for this card than I do for others. It probably goes directly from bad to oppressive and no fun with little to no metas or context in between in which it is interesting and appropriately powered.

Belbe, Corrupted Observer 1

A bear that gives you conditional mana. Colourless is somewhat harder to use and typically lets you play bigger rather than more. Symmetrical is potentially an issue but not so much as being a narrow, low power gold ramp card. I can think of several ramp tools I would want to play over this. It looks flashy but it is actually just fiddly. Any simple mana dork, Rampant Growth or rock at two or less cost is going to serve you more reliably than this in most settings. Even if you do get it to work for you there is always that risk the opponent goes as well which would be a little awkward for Belbe...

Archon of Coronation 6

This is fairly powerful doing several potent things all at once. A 5/5 flier is obviously pretty good to have in play on offense or defence. Drawing a card every end step is lovely. Not being able to take damage is tasty too although apparently it doesn't stop you losing the monarch which is likely to be for the best as this would make Archon a one card lock against too many decks, hard in some cases and still often long enough in the soft ones. This is probably a bit too slow to quite cut it but none the less worthy of a test. It is still going to be a chore taking the monarch away from you if you have a 5/5 flier to block with, attack back with, and all the while taking no damage. 

Jeska's Will 5

This is quite cute. A kind of Three Wishes in red, in indeed actually just Act on Impulse, with the option on a potentially scaling Seething Song. Early the ritual will be most powerful and most reliably a big mana boost. Later on you want the cards and so that mode gets more interesting. Certainly a card that will get played in decks with Seething Songs and Wheel of Fortune style cards. Less sure it will be useful enough to make it in my cube but close enough for a bit of a test. When you slap two different decent enough cards together on a modal card the value jumps quite impressively. 

Jeska, Thrice Reborn 0

Looks interesting and has cool design but sadly does nothing at all in commanderless formats. 

Dargo, the Shipwrecker 4

Salvage Titan meets Hollow One meets Delraich meets Greater Gargadon! You can use this to sac things or you can just have a very cheap threat in a deck where you are making sacrifices to other things. A lovely card to pair with treasure for sure. Probably a little narrow for drafting cubes but well worth looking into when supported. Trample makes this not just a big dork but a relevant one and thus worth playing when supported well even if a little off theme. 

Laboratory Drudge 0

Situational and overcost for a card draw engine which is all this can really be used for. 

Rograkh, Son or Rohgahh 4

It costs 0 mana, it will have uses! We shall call this the red Ornithopter. Mox Amber stock increases. Only playable when you have synergies but there are potentially loads of those, just not ones you can draft in most normal cubes. 

Eligeth, Crossroads Augur 0

This turns a wide array of cards into Ancestral Recall! Much as this looks like a massive pile of fun I can't see it ever being correct to run this in cube play. Either over ongoing draw effects like Consecrated Sphinx or just one hit fliers like Master of Winds and Cavalier of Gales. Eligeth is just too reliant on other cards and too slow to take effect. 

Commander Legends Preliminary Review Part IV

 

Averna, the Chaos Bloom 0.5

Another bad fun card that will get a glimpse of play in a bad cascade deck. This is a 3 mana 4/2 that only does anything when you then cascade. Not looking good for Averna outside of commander.

Merchant Raiders 1

A bit slow and disruptable for a removal spell but pretty darn powerful in a tribal deck if the opponent cannot deal with it. Pirates seem to be Grixis so safer removal is likely the way to go than this conditional, disruptable four drop. High ceiling at least.

Malcom, Keen-Eyed Navigator 1.5

I like treasure and this gives you a good shot at getting some. Tribal only card but an interesting one that lets you do some funky things. Pirates has quite quickly gained an array of tools to have some significant options on build directions.

Numa, Joraga Cheiftain 0

Low powered on top of very narrow. Oran Rief Ooze is wildly better in a +1/+1 counters deck even if this wasn't restricted to elves. Almost any elf is better in an elf deck... 

Port Razer 0.5

Too expensive for a card that needs to live and deal combat damage. Body needed to be a lot better with some combat and evasive abilities. First strike and menace might have got it there but probably still not quite. Haste as well and we are talking! Perhaps the raw power is enough to have it as top end in a pirates deck as they do love raid and other such attacking payoffs. Still, tribal decks tend to want synergy from lower CMC cards, top end stuff has to be really really good and Razer doesn't look to clear that Seige-Gang Commander level of bar. 

Natural Reclamation 0.5

Only play this if you have cascade perks and known targets. So basically almost never. It is a sideboard card for a bad meme deck at best. 

Gor Muldrak, Amphinologist 0

Situational and too symmetrical. Don't play this in 1v1. 

Horizon Stone 1

Looks a bit combo esque but I can't quite see how. Far too expensive, slow and do nothingy to be a good 1v1 card. 

Amphin Mutineer 2

Interesting blue removal. A Pongify on 3/3 legs if you will. Somewhat better value and an overall more self contained removal effect but it still feels a bit dodgy and a bit clunky. Exile quality gives this a bit of hope but really it needed a mono blue deck in the meta to actually want it to even be worth testing in cube. I don't hold out much hope for it even in a suitable deck and meta although the encore is quite a bit help for once on this card.  

Yurlok of Scorch Thrash 1

Mana burn is back! Woop woop. Sadly this is just a bit bad. Not the ramp card you want nor really the beater either. Does at least look like it has some good ways to build around as a commander. 

Zara, Renegade Recruiter 0

Powerful but gold, needs to attack, and needs opponents to have things worth hitting them with in hand. Obviously hilarious when you annihilate the opposition with their own Eldrazi but that is the best thing this has going for it. I suspect Air Elemental is surprisingly close to this in quality as far as cube goes. 

Metioric Mace 0.5

Not good, even if it only costs you effectively 1 to cast as you hit a five drop (you should expect closer to 2 in mana value returns). Yes, I would play this if it were one mana and drew a card but it wouldn't get equipped that often nor do all that much. As it is it costs six and will sit in your hand clogging it up for far too long. I would be unhappy about playing this in a cascade themed deck but you might have to based on how few cards with the ability there are. 

Court of Cunning 6

This seems generally very powerful. As card draw, self mill, or milling you opponents it does good work. Mill 10 is huge in cube. One hit beats some decks by itself, two hits of that beats most decks in cube, three beats them all. You always draw a card, often more. If you are milling out your opponent you are a little less bothered if you let them draw cards too. I think if you flop this out and manage to keep the monarch for one turn you probably win. You have a two for one and a really serious threat. This is a bit like a Jace, Memory Adept. As such it might just be a bit too tedious for cube. People hate mill. Ashiok taking 3 cards a turn was bad enough. This will simply be unbeatable for too many slower or non-aggressive decks. Equally it is just a suicide play against an aggro deck that is immediately becoming the monarch and killing you with the value that gives them well before you get sufficient value out of your mill. You can force this by playing cards like Fog and Darkness in constructed if you like and it will be pretty broken. Obviously it gets fairer in 60 card decks and a whole lot fairer for the 100 card ones but for cube this looks like a candidate for the ban wagon. Shame as it is versatile and interesting.

Amareth, the Lustrous 0

Surprisingly tame. This is like a bad Consecrated Sphinx. Way more colours and harder to trigger. Just a source of value on a big flier. Not at all bad but really the only reason to play this over alternatives is if you want the extra colours for commander identity. 

Commander Legends Preliminary Review Part III

 

Blim, Comedic Genius 2

A flying Donate dork. Sure, this is fine. You likely play it in decks using Demonic Pact just because there are not that many Donate effects out there. Sadly it is relatively easy to stop it triggering which can be an issue when time critical Donations of things is at stake. It is actually one of the best ways to give an Illusions of Grandur away as you can avoid having to pay any upkeep thus reducing the cost of your combo. A narrow card but a fun one with at least some homes. Don't be playing this without serious synergy though, if your just giving away your stuff this is a pretty bad card. 

Demonic Lore 3

A nice little draw 3 in black. A great card to Donate away, perhaps flicker, or to fuel sacrifice costs to the likes of Smokestack and Doom Foretold. Fine to just play as a refuel in really low to the ground decks if you like too although I feel as if you are going to have either more powerful (Necropotence) or more on theme (Midnight Reaper, Skyclave Shade) sources of value in such places. Perhaps 8 rack is more the kind of place you want this. Probably still not as this is a bit big for the level of economy of those games typically. Verdict is that it is best with Blim, and while still good in a couple of other places, probably not good enough. 

Magus of the Order 3

This is fairly powerful but really slow and clunky. It is going to get removed on sight most of the time and put you behind as a result. I suspect I would probably still play it in many decks leaning on Natural Order as there is precious little else in the way of redundancy for it but I can't imagine I will be impressed with it. Not the sort of card I really want in my cube either even if it was good enough. Either it lives and you probably win or it doesn't and it did very little. Not interesting or skilful or fun. 

Kodoma of the East Tree 1

Plenty of combos with this (any token generator on landfall plus any bounce land) but thankfully it is a 6 drop dork that doesn't even do that well as a threat so it isn't going to be a problematic, or likely even playable, card outside of commander. No bad thing from a potentially dangerous combo card in a commander set mind. 

Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa 1

This card feels like it was designed in the Mirage era in terms of power level as well as the mechanics and flavour. He is hard to block and makes a team of weenies hard to block as well but still, he is pricey, narrow, very low threat by himself, and in the present whipping boy of guilds. Likely at best in a Doran style of deck but even then I am not rushing to play this nor excited by it if I do. 

Nekusar, the Mindrazor 1

Very costly in colour and quantity of mana for a poor body and a risky ability. Really, if you want these effects play Underworld Dreams, and Howling Mine if you must. There is an outside chance I would toss this into that sort of deck as redundancy but it wouldn't be very exciting. Certainly don't just play this. You will give you opponent a free card and then they will kill your crappy 5 drop for about 2 mana and get on with their day. 

Three Visits 7

I have been giving Wizards a hard time of late for their various bad calls and disrespectful actions, and indeed I will be doing so again before this set review is done. That all being said, credit where it is due. This is a much needed reprint being a staple ramp card. It is nicely fair on the power level and nicely clean on the design making it a perfect reprint. Brining it back at uncommon where it probably should be is good of Wizards. 

Breeches, Brazen Plunderer 2

Probably fine in a pirates deck giving you a bit of value, disruption, and payoff. Pirates are generally quite cheap and evasive so support Breeches well. Don't play this outside of tribal decks though, if you can only trigger Breaches with himself it is not making the cut. It wouldn't be the bad as such, just a long way from what you can get a 4 drop doing these days. This effect does work nicely with having treasure available and so works a little better still in pirate tribal. 

Coastline Maruaders 1

This likely never to get play just being a bit of a beater. Encore is mediocre in 1v1 and it costs a lot to do here. Still, this is a pirate and it does do a good job of scaling. So much so that I am surprised not to have seen more cards with this kind of design using land count as a modifier. 

Forceful Denial 1

I like this but it is bad. Five mana counters are not ideal and cascade is a nombo with counterspells too. Either this is your only counterspell or it is one of the cheapest... Not sounding very useful either way. To be fair to this you can run things like Cryptic Command, Supreme Will and Archmage's Charm as your counters, backed up by a nice Force of Will! That could work but then why not just play Dismiss if you really want value counterspells. Safer, online quicker and with no build impositions. Forceful Denial does look real good when you flop out some good value four drop like a Master of Winds. At that point it is hard to argue the case of Dismiss over this but realistically when is that happening? Don't let the  glimmer of juicy upside blind you to the mire of downside that is this random janky five mana counter. 

Aurora Phoenix 1

This looks good but really isn't. Cascade scales up poorly and is not a common ability. You are likely to only get two or three mana back from it and you are not likely to recur the Phoenix with more later down the line. Red has multiple far more impressive six drops. Scale this down to a four drop and I would be a lot more excited. Like a mono coloured Bloodbraid with flying instead of haste sounds good to me. If I did a cascade themed deck this probably makes the cut but it sounds pretty bad, all be it a lot of fun.

Emberwild Captain 6.5

This might be good enough. Monarch in red is quite tasty, not many decks get to attack them safely, especially without getting attacked right back. The Captain probably needs removing too else he is going to be dealing lots of damage for free on top of drawing extra cards. I expect this to spiral a lot of games out of control pretty easily. It is a threat in so many ways that will be really hard to combat all at once. Feels a bit like Tectonic Giant or Chandra, Fire Artisan both of which have proved effective tools in red. That being said, red is far from short of good four drops, be they value, utility, or pure threat so Captain has a high bar to pass. Monarch is also a little swingy in 1v1 and so this card also has to manage the additional hurdle of potentially being a card that isn't positive for games as a whole. 

Commander Legends Preliminary Review Part II

OK, learning this thing slowly. Please let me know of any issues with images. It isn't the same at all at this end so I suspect that will translate to readers on any platform. 

Szat's Will 1

This is a lot of tokens but at a high price and with very little reliability. Edict backup is nice too but it is hardly cost efficient either at five. I can't see this being viable without abuses much as I love the idea of making a tonne of fodder. Obviously nice if you get both modes but that is not something you can consider in formats without commanders. I can imagine a selection of house rules that could apply to cards that reference the commander in normal cube magic such as a companion counting or a designated in-deck legend or some such thing. That would make cards like this a lot more interesting but it is hardly like we need more cards at present. This still wouldn't get that much action in my cube even if it always triggered both modes. The Eldest Reborn is generally more powerful as far as overpriced edict effects go.

Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools 5

This is a sac decks wet dream but it comes at a high price. Tevesh just makes chumps and sacs chumps to draw cards. Two loyalty and two 0/1 chumps a turn is good return when you have uses for the tokens beyond protective chumps. If you fail to have that sort of aristocrat deck Tevesh is just a relatively slow draw engine. He should net you over a card a turn but it will not be reliable or consistent. At five mana too I would like a bit more utility or threat. I like Tevesh a lot but it seems a little narrow and fair to really do all that well in cube. One worthy of some testing at least. Lacking a relevant ultimate in non-commander formats really takes the danger away from this card and makes it more of a supporting tool and not the game ender you want your five drops to be. 

Nymris, Oona's Trickster 1

This just seems like a lot of mana for a really lame body that needs further support just to then be a value engine. Too un threatening for a five drop. 

Sphinx of the Second Sun 6

Wilderness Reclamation, Paradox Haze and Coercive Portal all rolled into this 6/6 flier. This is a bit of a slow burner as far as an 8 drop goes but it will start to dominate the game pretty quickly. The power level here is pretty phenomenal. It is effectively 0 mana once cast as well making it generally pretty safe. You can get blown out with counterspells or instant removal leaving you tapped down and not getting that card back right away but other than that it is a free play once you get to 8 mana. No easy feat but still done most of the time by slower cube decks. It is as close to an EtB Time Walk as you can print without combo abuses which is impressive design and results in a refreshingly new feeling card. Certainly worth testing. Given it has a chance in cube it is going to be a total bomb in commander... 

Ghost of Ramirez DePietro 2

This needs a lot of setup and support. There are better ways to get value out of a dork than this, not to mention better dorks. It does at least have two good tribes in which it might find a home. 

Lieasa, Shroud of Dusk 4

Baneslayer Angel meets Eidolon of the Great Revel. This is good in commander and remains OK in cube play. This would be a decent top end dork for an aggro deck that pressures life totals. That however isn't really what Orzhov does in my cube at present. Just a little narrow and top heavy to quite make the cut but pretty close. 

Seraphic Greatsword 0

Awkwardly bad, do nothing much when ahead and make one Angel token with your wildly overcost Vulshock Morningstar when behind somehow in your aggro white deck. Seems unplayable in 1v1. 

Phyrexian Triniform 1

Too pricey and lacking in evasion to be that exciting of a threat. As something to Weld in and out of play or Sneak Attack in for value this has some things going for it. Probably not enough to outclass the cards already used in these ways however. The encore is a big deal in multiplayer but is extremely pricy to the point of near irrelevance in heads up play. Trample would have gone a long way here. 

Mealstrom Colossus 1

Cascade on a big and easily cast-with-colourless-mana card is interesting at least, even if it doesn't have much obvious use. With things like Metalworker and Workshop etc this is easy to flop out although it likely hits you a cheap mana rock and not the Karn you were hoping for...

Bladegriff Prototype 1

In decks with Lightning Greaves and other means to protect and give haste in a broadly colourless sort of setting this has some mild hope. Mostly it is a 5 drop you get Shocked and are sad about. 

Rebbec, Architect of Ascension 1

Mostly just a less reliable Leonin Abunas however it does help make artifact creatures unblockable so there is that going for it. In white affinity or Tempered Steel lists this has a bit of hope in that capacity. Thing is those decks don't have a huge spread of CMC cards so it is only helping against smaller dorks. Still good but pretty narrow, I'm not a fan of 4 mana non artifacts in my affinity builds either. 

Keskit, the Flesh Sculptor 2

Very nice effect but the cost to use is extreme. You really need some impressive ways to generate token chaff, probably the 0/1 kind, recursive things like Bloodghast, and artifact tokens like food. If you can make that happen then this is going to be pretty wild, if not then leave this on the shelf. It is almost never going to do more for you than a Priest of the Forgotten Gods either being slower and not affecting the board in any positive way for you. 

Profane Transfusion 1

Big and fun but situational in addition to being somewhat underwhelming. One mana cards like Death's Shadow are rather better things to do when self harming. Almost anything else is a better strategy than this for stopping a beatdown. The token is pretty random and unexciting. The 8/8 token from Crush of Tentacles has won like a single game ever despite being summoned hundreds of times in my cube. At least this Transfusion is pretty interesting and fun in EDH which is after all where it is designed for. 

Eyeblight Cullers 0

Lots of tokens but conditional and really rather too far up the curve for a support card. Weaponcraft Enthusiast is the thing to use if you are considering this.

Ikra Shidiqi, The Usurper 0

A reprint so dull I nearly forgot it existed already. Don't play this in cube. A more efficient and accurate review the second time round I suspect.

Opposition Agent 6

A very powerful effect for sure although outside of combo cubes this is mostly just stealing sac land targets. Don't get me wrong, that is game breakingly powerful, the old 3/2 for 3 Rampant Growth Stone Rain... it is just that it is a 3/2 flash most of the time. Do you sit on your card and hope they have a sac land, do you play out your low value 3/2 chump? Neither are good options and that is mostly what you will be facing. Obviously the more tutor cards you are running in cube the more playable this looks. It is sufficiently powerful that it won't take much in the way of search cards to make it good in any given cube, it will just always be quite the polar card. Either back breaking or poor. In settings where you can build around it with delights such as Scheming Symmetry and Maleren the Mornsong then you have a bomb on your hands but such things are going to be a little tricky for singleton and a little too cute and slow for legacy or vintage. 

Commander Legends Preliminary Review Part I

Technical difficulties leading to no pictures. I typically go on chronological release as per Mythic Spoilers for these reviews so that is the best place to get such things if you wanted to follow along.

http://mythicspoiler.com/newspoilers.html

Enemy Battle Lands 0

For heads up play these are pretty much bottom of the pile as far as dual lands go and so they are of little use to me however they are nearly as good as you can get for the multiplayer settings. If you play multiplayer get a set of these, they will go up and stay up. Reprints will not happen often enough to quell demand and not do too much to reduce price.


Keeper of the Accord 0

Cute multiplayer recovery tool but rather too low impact to be all that busted. In 1v1 play this is terrible when you are ahead and not enough when you are behind.


Alena, Kessig Trapper 2

This is an interesting card and doesn't even need to be used in multiplayer or as a commander to be viable. It is a little like Neheb the Eternal with a bit less power and a different mechanism to gain loads of mana. Great with haste and for some blowout swings but generally going to be a bit too much phaff to set up and a bit overkill. Fun looking and certainly a card I play to experiment with but expecting it to not have many suitable homes.


Halana, Kessig Ranger 0

Removal in green is nice but this is too much mana for what it brings to the table. 


The Prismatic Piper 0

Interesting design and useful but so low in power I doubt it will make it into play at all often. Like under 1% of games sort of infrequent and that is only in commander and brawl. Not a card that has any application in more conventional magic. A nice way to enable drafting with commanders though. 

Behemoth of the Abyss 1

Not close to good enough as a threat but as a mechanism to bounce lands this does have a glimmer of hope for getting some play. 

Self Mutilating Hydra? 0

Such a poor rate of return on this dork. Wouldn't play in hydra or in counters themed decks.

Aesi, Tyrant of the Epicycle Strait? 2

Translation so the name is likely wrong. A lovely Simic staple. Lay extra lands, draw extra cards, on a big fat serpent. If someone where to ask you to describe Simic you could show them this card and have answered the question very efficiently. It is a bit high up the curve for a value card in cube but it is still sufficiently powerful and on theme that I can see running it in lands themed Simic decks. Just more redundancy is what you want. If you are playing Tatyova and Dryad of the Illyian Grove then  there is room for Aesi. 

Glowing Soulsteel 0

Would have been nice to have an equipment to help support this kind of Star of Extinction combo but sadly this is wildly too much to equip to help with that. Obviously far too weak for trying to use conventionally either. Really you need to cheat it onto something and that is just going to then be too many steps to be worth bothering. 

Providential Guard Rune 0

Not good enough without commanders being potential targets. Really handy for when you have a commander you want to build around though. 

Wyleth, Soul of Steel 2

A commander such as Wyleth! (re previous card) This guy loves getting all the buffs and being all sorts of protected. Likely one of the best vaultron commanders. Viable for cube constructed decks as well. You don't need to go as all in with Wyleth as you do with Kor Spiritdancer. Lightning Greaves into Wyleth is efficient and low risk. Most cheap equipment is for that matter, as are protective auras, those with flash in particular. Wyleth is certainly a synergy card but I suspect you can fit him into both aura and equipment decks effectively. Aura ones don't tend to need card draw and are usually green and white base, often with a blue or black splashes before red. Equip decks however are all about the red white base and make good use of protective dorks from white like the Runes one drops, Selfless Spirits and Bodyguards! Green auras does not lack for value, Boros equips do thus making Wyleth appeal a little more still. Just don't get him Shocked in response to paying much of an equip cost. 

Interpret the Signs 1

You can set this up to draw a whole lot of cards if you wish. That gives it some application in something like a Cadaverous Bloom deck. Too clunky and setup intense to be worth running outside of the abusive drawing of 10+ cards to immediately go off with. 

Brinelin, the Moonkraken 0

A very big Man-o-War indeed. This is just far too expensive for the effect it has on the game. It is not much protection, threat, or value. 

Mnumonic Deluge 2

Very powerful but prohibitively expensive for most cube uses. I want to have Omniscience with this. I really want to hit Time Stretch too which sounds like a bit too much top end for any sort of viable deck. Basically you need to abuse this to play it and there are very few places which can do that.

Krark the Thumbless 1

Much as this is a meme card it does start to make a coin flip constructed cube deck viable. Fun too! I'll absolutely be building that up for a laugh now one day. 

Quick Blog Update

 

Blogger has changed the interface and I am still getting to grips with it which is all rather slow going being such a luddite. The main loss at present is my ability to put pictures in without deleted loads of work... as such no piccies and just ominous walls of text. This and a bit of aimlessness about the direction of the blog and frankly the world at present has all lead to a significant reduction in content. I am still cubing avidly but I am feeling I have less to add than I once did. The cube community has come on leaps and bounds since I started this blog near a decade ago. There is good content, tools, and most importantly understanding for cube. It feels as if my work is done in many ways! Obviously I am not claiming credit for that by any means, simply that when I started out a lot of my motivation was to share my love of cube with the world and show how good it can be. People seem plenty aware of this now and don't need me banging on the same old drum. Perhaps it is a bit of burn out due to the vast swathes of new product coming from Wizards that keeping pace with it is a little daunting. Especially on top of Wizards blowing a bunch of their good will in a variety of ways over the last couple of years.

I have considered just moving over to Reddit. I would probably get more eyes from doing so but I know I would just sink all my spare time into discussion in the comments which has thus far kept me from doing so. I have also considered a hiatus from writing but I might as well just do what I want rather than formalising things. That seems to be less but not nothing so far. 

I have considered trying out videos or podcasts again too. The time and luddite issues arise with this again. If I could do them properly I suspect they would be better than my writing The thing is, I enjoy writing and find it both cathartic and illuminating. Making video and audio content sounds like it would be a less enjoyable process for me. 

If any one has any ideas, suggestions, or even requests I am more than happy to take them on board. Doing stuff is a lot more rewarding when it is helpful to someone else. The one thing I have had most requests regarding is the winners and losers from this and that series. I have always struggled with it a bit as it started out as an exercise in reviewing my reviews rather than actually talking about which cards are good cube cards in general. I would keep calling cards I overrated losers despite often still running them in cube. Equally I winners often wind up getting cut simply because I underrated them. I never really knew what people wanted, just lists of the good cards from sets once they have had a chance to be properly tested and evaluated or re-evaluations of my my initial reviews. The later was of use to me and has improved my initial assessments greatly but seemed like they would only be of interest to the most avid of readers. The former seems a little redundant what with all the various content and hype around good cards. Certainly there are some cards that perform in cube and not in other formats and vice versa and these are a third direction these articles could take. I could well do three distinct series; Card Reviews (backed up with testing), Preliminary Review Reviews, and an Underrated and Overrated series. 

So there we are, expect a bit less content with a lot less pretty pictures in the immediate future. If the lack of pictures is hurting readership then I will readdress the situation. All input and comments appreciated. Now time to do a bit of reviewing this Commander Legends thing.   

Spell Lands (Modal Dual Faced Cards)

 

The spell lands are proving to be rather better than expected. I put all of them into the cube for testing and none have come out yet, none even really look shaky as yet. They are not bombs but they add more to your deck than I imagined and are well worth a pick even when all they replace is a no-pick-required basic land. Cards like Teetering Peeks are great but they never last in cube because they simply don't merit the slot in terms of impact in games. Sure, you play it in your aggressive red deck and make it marginally better but such things do not lead to a better cube environment overall. The red player would always rather 24 good cards and 16 Mountains than 23 good cards plus a dodgy one, and a mana base including a land with minor upside. So what is making spell lands or these "modal dual faces cards" so much better than other utility lands and cycling cards? 

While evaluating these cards I used cycling as my base line. Flip lands looked a fraction better than cycling for the most part and so I took Pelakka Cavern / Predation to be equivalent to Memory Leak in terms of power level. Leak is a slightly better spell but having a flipside tap land is better than cycling for one so it is roughly balancing out. The reality however seems to be that having a land on the back is rather more powerful relative to cycling than I had appreciated and I have been trying to work out what is behind this. Especially when cards that are good early but weaker late like Force Spikes and hand disruption are exactly the sort of thing that shine with cycling relative to the norm. You would expect the cycling to trump the spell lands in those cases but seemingly not thus far. It is certainly closer with those sorts of cards in that the difference between Censor and Jwari disruption is small while the difference between Ondu Inversion and Akroma's Vengeance is massive (I couldn't think of a closer comparison but it is close enough to make the point!)

The first and most obvious case is that cycling on a spell is only OK in a mana screw while a flippy spell land is great. When you need a land your Memory Leak only represents a 40% or so chance of being a land. Predation is 100% lock in. Both cost you a mana in that Caverns comes in tapped, the Leak might even cost two if it finds a CitP tapped land. It might even effectively cost you more if you didn't play something else relevant in the hope you would hit a land with the cycle and be able to do both but instead miss and do nothing. 

This is also pretty much the second reason the spell lands are superior to cyclers - the certainty. When you cycle a card you are just tapping into the probability of what you might draw. You feel land light so you cycle so as to prepare for turns later down the line. That cycle might set you up well and it might not. It is also harder to know when it is right to be pulling the trigger on a cycler. The assured outcome of the spell land seems to make the choices a lot more clear cut and with a higher percentage of being correct. You can plan around the card in hand a lot more easily and formulate a long term plan. Cycling cards tend to sit in hand and muddy the waters in terms of planning. Indeed, they can effectively reduce your ability to plan precisely in the sense that you are one card down in hand that has a known outcome. Option density is usually a great thing but when it comes at the cost of certainty it is not all upside and that is a subtle hidden issue present in cycling cards. 

The next difference is action density. This is certainly much more a thing in cube than other formats but it is absolutely relevant and is a big part of why I dislike cards like Tooth and Nail in cube. There is lots of draw effects in cube and games often go fairly deep into decks. You only have so many deck slots to spread across threats, lands, removal, etc. Every card you cycle away gives you one less of total piece of action. In a long control affair or good old midrange grind it can often come down to who actually has more total threats and answers in their deck. Cycling cards reduce this total while spell lands increase it when occupying a land slot. When occupying a spell slot the spell lands instead increase consistency. Either way it is a win both in general and when compared to cyclers.

The more I build and play with these cards however the more I appreciate that none of them really sit exactly in the spell slot or in the land slot and instead will be somewhere between the two based on the spell land in question and the deck it resides in. In much the same way that you can use the idea of cheap cantrip cards you can do so more directly with the spell lands (xerox theory). The generally accepted rate for cantrips is two to three cantrips at one or two mana equates to the ability to cut one land from your deck. This is a good guide although glosses over some subtleties, most of which are context dependent and command an article all to itself. There is slight diminishing returns on this effect for one, you cannot just gut a deck of land and ram it full of cantrips. You lower consistency after a point but before then you are really slowing yourself down, clogging up the works all the while reducing your action density significantly. Spell lands however let you you go pretty nuts on cutting lands if you wish. You can nearly get away with a one for one trade on lands to spell lands even with the ones that are better and more powerful spells. I have commonly found I am adding two or three to a deck and removing one less normal land overall for them. A normal deck might be 16 lands and 24 spells but with spell lands I will have effectively have a 17 land deck with 25 or 26 spells all without changing library size. This is obviously just great in and of itself. Even when we accept the spells on the spell lands are underpowered in general. Power is a function of mana cost which is less relevant than normal when your card can simply be a free mana source. As such you have two general groups of spell lands; the cheaper situational cards and the costlier higher impact ones. A 4/5 trample for 6 is laughably bad in terms of power level for cube but the point in the game where you are playing it means the mana cost is far less of a factor. You are still looking at a 4/5 which is still reasonably big and threatening. A lot of seemingly underpowered cards perform very well as spell lands just so long as they can have a big impact. The cheaper situational cards get their power from being very effective and thus cost efficient when the time is right or being something else if not in the more conventional way that modal and cycling cards can be powerful. It is a big win for this latter group of cards in cube that the present meta seems to have endless uses for mana. Clues, Castles, adventures, flashback, escape, kicker,.. the list goes on a long time. There is certainly diminishing returns on the power per mana spent on these various mana sinks but they are there in plentiful supply ensuring that your Jawri Isle is useful into the late game long beyond when a Force Spike is getting anything done.    

What I have found is that having spell lands in my pool allows me to both play and build differently to normal. When your deck has 17 or 18 land you can expect to curve more consistently and play your 4 to 6 drop cards more reliably on or around their point on the curve. In essence the spell lands allow you to doubly increase your action density by having more powerful and more direct cards in your build. The consistency that I may have been getting from Elvish Visionary or Sleight of Hand is not as important as it was and so I can cut a card in that range and replace it with a planeswalker or something. Spell lands give you the possibility of the spells on the card directly but they also seem to allow for the cramming of more power over filler than before without harming consistency. 

So why are these lands so much more exciting than the afore mentioned Teetering Peeks? Llanowar Reborn looks like it is double the card that Vastwood Fortification is being able to do both things rather than just the one. In the case of Fortification it is the power of the instant speed that makes most of the difference. When you can use it as a trick and blow out a combat or negate removal the value of the card jumps massively. When it is just making a dork a bit bigger it isn't worth the card. That is the same case for most of these kinds of utility lands. They simply don't offer enough of a return in terms of raw power and potential. The payoff is not only minor but generally also tied to when you make the land. It makes timing the land awkward and further reduces the value of the card. You have to play Teetering Peeks in a land slot and as a result it makes your mana base a touch worse. Your spell lands sit in a nice void between land and spell and generally allow for you to improve your mana base overall. I have no math to support it but I am sure 17 lands with a couple of EtB tapped lands curves out far better than 16 land all entering untapped does. 

What about lands like Castles I hear you ask? These come in untapped for the most part and are activated at your discretion rather than as some kind of EtB effect. Certainly Castles are among the very best of the utility lands on offer and many remain in my cube. They are convenient and have minimal opportunity cost. The issue with these is tempo or power per mana if you prefer. You need 3 activations of Castle Vantress to see as many cards as Silundi Vision. You need to spend 40 mana on Castle Adenvale to make the same total stats as you get with Emeria's Call. In a world with endless time and mana the Castle cycle and lands with activated abilities in general outclass spell lands. In the real world of significant tempo pressures lands with activated abilities are one of the last places you sink mana into and as such rarely have that significant of an impact on games. I have activated less Castles in a year than I have cast spell lands in a few weeks. I have also laid more spell lands as lands than I have cast them which paints a pretty damning picture of the difference in relevance for these two groups of cards. Castles also occupy land slots in deck rather than the middle ground of spell lands meaning they generally wind up as a mild cost to your mana and thus consistency too. 

Man lands are the closest in terms of power to spell lands but they are doing something different. Man lands main strength is resistance to removal as they evade all sorcery speed removal and mass removal when they want to while also typically dodging a lot of the rounded removal like Cast Out as it tends to state non-land. Manlands give you threat diversity and cause a headache for the control players. A lurking disincentive to planeswalkers is the other thing manlands do so well in cube. It is hard to compare them to the spell lands as a result given they perform these unique roles. Pound for pound the spell lands crush all the man lands in terms of stats on the board for mana cost. One combat step with a Treetop Village is 3 mana. You only have to pay that cost once for your Kazandu Mammoth and then you get to use it every combat there after until it is answered. It is also hitting rather harder for the most part too. So in terms of utility the man lands have the edge but in terms of tempo spell lands win out significantly. It doesn't matter much when both are clearly great groups of cards and feature heavily in cubes. 

So there we have it, a load of technical reasons that spell lands are great. I didn't even look at the card design or flavour and they are big wins too. I love how they managed to pretty well sum up the colour pie for each colour in six spells. The only thing missing is a bounce effect in blue, and I guess some kind of Disenchant somewhere in the Selesnya area! They seem to have the power level fairly reasonable and consistent too. The quality of these cards and the clear thought gone into their design makes me really want to see a gold cycle summing up what the guilds are about. Being such a milestone in  terms of card design and pushing the boundaries of the game they pretty much had to do a great job and my vote is that they achieved it. The only complaint I have is that they are a bit of a phaff to use in paper and feel a little like sac lands in terms of time messing around with cards added to a game! Luckily they are absolutely worth it. As will be all the extra wear these cards get in the years to come. The spell lands are a lot better than they look and do so in lots of subtle ways.