Black
Omni: We’ve run similar versions of this in blue, and it’s done just fine there, and black has more things that care about the excess bodies. I do wish this was a Wind Drake
+ a 1/1 rather than a 1/1 in the air and a 2/2 token, but it seems fine enough
Neveron: It fills a weird gap where it’s better to flicker or recur from the graveyard, but also maybe you’d prefer to just get a 2/2 each time? Seems fine, though.
Phizzled: To me the advantage is that, compared to something like Doomed Dissenter
, you aren’t forced to sacrifice your creature to get the beefier token. I don’t mind this, but three mana seems like a lot? Wakedancer
only makes a token conditionally and Deathbloom Thallid
only offers a combined 1 more power, without evasion.
Usman: This seems not bad, agreed that we’d rather have the flier being a 2/2 like a lot of the blue variants, but this fine for being several warm bodies, one having evasion and a 2/2 still being a fine body in this format.
Omni: Yet another 2 drop that turns into a token when it dies. Not sure I’m super high on this one and the community isn’t either.
Neveron: Well, the “big” body is on the front end so that’s a bit of a negative in some ways. It’s also only a 2/1+1/1, which puts it behind the 1/1+2/2 of others. Overall we have so many of these that I think this is just outclassed.
Phizzled: Getting to cite Doomed Dissenter a second time. Amass sometimes being a buff to an existing token instead of its own new body generally feels less powerful than our other current options.
Usman: Just about every variant that I can think of is better, especially Carrier Thrall
, and I don’t think is better than the others like Lazotep Reaver
.
Omni: I want to respond to this with “this isn’t EDH, we don’t do this here”, but this is surprisingly easy to trigger and opens up some funky lines. It also makes any inclusion of a prefab token that sacs itself just a tiny bit better.
Neveron: We don’t have the token density of EDH with the treasure decks, but we do have tokens and this will do a decent Witty Roastmaster
impression at times. Having to specifically sacrifice, and specifically tokens, is a bit of a bother.
Phizzled: I’ve been comfortable paying the same price for the same body in the cube, with respect to Vulturous Aven
, and that’s french vanilla. There are more incidental token creators in the Cube than I usually think of, currently 51 out of the 450. This isn’t as consistent as a card with extort or the Gray Merchant variants, and that makes me think it wouldn’t stay long if it did make the cut.
Usman: Usually when I see cards like this, I wonder what the critical mass is to make something like it worth playing in the final 40 (5 hits?) I’m not entirely sure this hits that critical mass.
Omni: I didn’t think 2023 was going to be this good for the Twisted Abomination
fanclub, but here we are. Love that this is a generic mana to cycle, and really love that this is a big pain for anyone trying to block it.
Neveron: This is probably my favorite of the new Twisted Abominations and it’s probably going to be at least a 1-for-2 if it somehow trades in combat.
Phizzled: Super menace on this beefy buddy is pretty great, and I’m salivating about backing this up with a Cast Down
when my opponent saves “only” three creatures to block with.
Usman: I love that this works with the typed duals in our formats, and even though that mode emulates using a Bad River to find a tapped dual land, it’s still nice for decks to have that option, and I think I like the body better than Twisted Abom.
Red
Omni: I get that this is similar to Abrade
, and the exile is a nice upside, I just wish this could hit 2 toughness creatures in a pinch
Neveron: Not actually being a Forked Bolt
hurts, but there’s more than enough x/1s in the cube that this could be reliably mainboarded. Or at least for game 1.
Phizzled: I think you’ve nailed what’s felt lacking about this to me for a while. Losing the flexibility to hit a single two toughness creature hurts. Dedicated sideboard or side-out spells have an uphill climb for me, mentally.
Usman: Yeah, this seems like more of a sideboard card than a maindeck one.
Omni: I love that we’re getting more creatures in the vein of Firebrand Archer
that both are on rate and have good text that rewards you for stuff you’re likely already doing. No real notes besides being bummed it’s not “noncreature spell”.
Neveron: It’s no Firebrand Archer but if we ever need to double up we’ve got its number.
Phizzled: I don’t think we need more of this effect yet, but yeah, this feels like a reasonable third place behind Archer and Thermo-Alchemist
. I just don’t see the path to needing a third one at present.
Usman: Nice to have if we hit critical mass for this kind of thing, especially if we get more cards that let you double dip on the trigger (flashback, etc.)
Neveron: In the time since we started working on this Quick Hits, Guttersnipe
got downshifted. Well, that solves that question.
Omni: This is a boring but strictly better kind of upgrade. This being able to gobble artifact tokens instead of eating into your creatures is a super nice upside over Heartfire.
Neveron: While we don’t have a ton of artifact tokens, you do end up with the occasional Clue or Treasure that looks nice when embedded in a 4/4’s face.
Phizzled: Having potentially meaningful alternative casting costs compared to Heartfire
should make this a slam dunk. No notes.
Usman: Easy upgrade is easy.
Omni: Big land cycling idiots are a fave, I really like this as an option for a red one.
Neveron: Giving the other creature trample is huge.
Phizzled: Trample feels like a way more threatening form of evasion in red. Giving a second threat trample feels really threatening. This should mess up combat math and end games pretty quickly.
Usman: I think I like this more than the black one, but the same points apply – nice for slower decks, and having a big body that’s hard to ignore helps when looking to just close a game out with a ham sandwich. This makes other ham sandwiches bigger, even!
Omni: Hey! We finally got a much better version of krenko’s! I don’t know how often this is going to enable other things to swing with haste but that’s a pretty sweet line of text.
Neveron: We went from Krenko's Command
‘s plodding goblins to Forbidden Friendship
’s overeager dinosaur and now this. These tokens are so hasty they’ll speed up their friends, although I have to agree with Omni that I don’t know how often that aspect will be relevant.
Phizzled: Where goblins don’t matter, this is pure upside, making this a better late game top deck. I assume any other hasty humans will need to be part of a double-spell turn. I also think worrying about them is maybe additive distraction.
Usman: Yeah, I think this is just 2 hasters for 2, which is still a good rate for us.
Omni: I don’t like this thing. I think this is a 5 drop that leaves a 2/2 behind and that’s all. I might be a bit more on board if this had trample or anything else.
Neveron: While this sounds like a sweet engine on paper, we don’t actually have a ton of four-power creatures in red and, well, the ones that exist are probably lower-priority targets than this 5/4. I’m reminded of how NEO’s Akki Ember-Keeper is a sweet card that sometimes does a whole lot of nothing.
Phizzled: If only this were Green instead, I’d be trying to come up with a bunch of scenarios to convince us to try it out. Instead, I think we have to watch for the next version of this.
Usman: This may just be a RG signpost card but it’s just so clunky. I do like that it at least helps it get value if it gets Doom Bladed, though.
Green
Omni: I dig this, if you’re dense enough on creatures, this can mostly just be a Preordain
that looks 3 deep, sure it gives up some info, but I think that’s just the cost you pay for these types of effects in green.
Neveron: Green keeps getting these one-mana cantrips and I’m into it.
Phizzled: Whiffing is going to feel real bad, but I think this could only be more interesting if it had surveil instead of scry.
Usman: Not bad, usually draws into a creature. I think this works in our world.
Omni: We’ve yet to dig into the “6ish mana green creature with a huge body and life gain” cards, but this might be the one that gets the nod. Tacking on a low mana utility is a nice way to improve almost any card, and here I can almost overlook the extra 2 mana for the lifegain.
Neveron: The people love their landcycling treefolk. After Generous Ent and MOM’s Timberland Ancient
, I’ve even seen people clamoring for MH2’s Orchard Strider
!
Phizzled: I think this is less immediately impactful than similarly expensive Green cards, but the treefolk blocks for days. I wish it had evasion instead of reach, necessary as it is.
Usman: Welp, here’s another landcycler, with a big ol’ body and some removal resilience. Kinda. Still great though, and I love how this almost never loses in combat.
Omni: This is the first time we’ve had a 2 mana permanent only regrowth, and I’m not sure I’m in love here. I could see this being interesting if you’ve got enchantments and artifacts you really want to rebuy, but we have pulse of murasa and I think that just generally does what you want, at instant speed, with the massive 6 life being only one more mana up front.
Neveron: In our cube, “target permanent card” generally means “target creature card”. Frankly, I’d take Evolution Charm
over this… or maybe Grapple with the Past
or Survivors' Bond
.
Phizzled:There are absolutely times we want something else other than creatures, but yeah, most games are ending during combat and you’re likely to great an attacker or blocker anyway.
Usman: I think Nature's Spiral
+ Skulk is good enough here, although green’s a weird color for skulk although it’s nice to give a random mana elf a way to chip in damage.
Colorless
Omni: A colorless 2 mana Opt
might actually be enough to make this sort of genre of card to be appealing to me. The fact this loops itself is kinda nice, and that 3 life might matter. Color me intrigued.
Neveron: While some other formats might be gnashing their teeth over it removing itself from your graveyard where it could be recurred for value, in this cube it would make for a mildly interesting Elixir of Immortality
. Note that, ironically, the card draw might actually be what kills you in that case.
Phizzled: Lembas is way more flexible than I expected the first time I read the spoiler. This not being a game changing artifact engine hurts compared to some of our recent pickups, but it’s got quite a bit of flexibility and if you can’t make it an engine by itself.
Usman: Never-ending Breadsticks may be ok in decks that look to max durdle and win via decking ala Clear the Mind
decks in RNA draft, and I do like that it at least does something to impact the game (kinda?) by gaining you life. So slow though.
Land
Omni: I actually dig this, I wasn’t on board with Warped Landscape, but this manages to be an interesting sidegrade to Ash Barrens
. It’s untapped mana if you need that now, filters to another color if you have time to wait, I’m a fan.
Neveron: I’ve always kept a bit of an eye on Esper Panorama
et. al., so it’s neat to see an all-color version of it. If nothing else, one slot is a lot easier to justify than five!
Phizzled: Being able to commit later to figuring out what color you need is a nice perk, and I think this is a nice card. I’ll take a playset, just in case.
Usman: I do like this more than the Panoramas for flexibility and it being a card that’s good enough to be a 1-of in our format, but not necessarily a 5-of. Being an untapped mana source is nice for curving out, and just getting rid of it at EOT if need be is nice too.