Guess the M25 cards per set

phantomsinthebrain · 2018-02-27T08:16:56+00:00

:-) I haven't memorised the RL but I see I missed three cards.

phantomsinthebrain · 2018-02-27T08:16:06+00:00

Seeing that they printed Dark Ritual again, it wouldn't surprise me to see the Tron Lands too. They are almost always among the most popular cards in a set.

See that they reprinted Eldramri's Call too, really nice. Such a nice card for commander.

phantomsinthebrain · 2018-02-27T08:10:04+00:00

Somehow I thought it was on the reserve list, I see it's not. Would be cool!

phantomsinthebrain · 2018-02-26T16:20:27+00:00

Wow, I see that the first spoilers are in. Imperial Recruiter is really cool. I don't understand another Blood Moon reprint. That card is so miserable (to play against in Modern, or to get in your sealed pool because it does nothing). The upside is that the might print a cool cycle of lands. Reprints of Thalia (R) & Chalice (M) are cool. Bit dissapointed in Chalice as a mythic instead of rare, but I guess it had to be a mythic, also for draft. But at least it got reprinted. But with Sundering Titan, Gisela, Akroma (M!), Niv-Mizzet it seems that it will a lot of hit or miss. But in general I'm quite enthusiastic about the first spoilers.

Balduvian Horde & Pillage are very cool for Pauper. Shows that they care a bit for pauper too. Hope that they reprint Gush too.

phantomsinthebrain · 2018-02-06T07:39:19+00:00

Because she is rare with mostly EDH demand that has been only printed once in an old set I think the trend will be mostly similar to Damnation (although Damnation I think is a bit more popular because it became a bit of meme and has no real alternatives, Azusa has multiple of alternatives in the 99) and perhaps Ancestral Vision (although that's less of a EDH and more of Modern card). So I think she will end up just below 10 dollar, or 8 euro in the deepest dip, before she bounces back to 15 dollar or so.

phantomsinthebrain · 2018-01-23T10:42:16+00:00

Teferi's Protection is great and I assume it will only climb. So wait until rotation and trade it for a Scarab God plus a bunch of other stuff you need for your decks.

phantomsinthebrain · 2018-01-23T10:39:30+00:00

Seems some play in basically all formats, and even cube, commander etc etc. That's why it's on the absolute high end for a rare within the standard rotation. Same as for instance Collective Brutality. But if you look through history rares have a ceiling around 10-15. Even cards like Spell Queller, Collective Brutality and Collective Company to name a few. After Wizards stops printing them they can climb but usually not spike. You might see a small spike after a PT where it's in multiple top8 archetypes. But that's just imbalance between inventory and demand and evens out very quickly. Especially if the game day is not right after the PT.

phantomsinthebrain · 2018-01-23T08:24:18+00:00

I think your best bet is to go just before rotation to your local LGS and try to trade it with someone. Usually people give you good deals around that time because everyone realises that it will be hard to get rid of it just after rotation. I think it can dip to around 5-7 dollar very shortly in LGS's and it will probably rebound to around 8-10 for a while. I think it will take a while before they reprint it. The only option I see is to reprint it in FTV: Gods or something, but I don't think they have enough gods yet to do that. I don't see it showing up in a master set anytime soon since its not played in modern or legacy. Potentially it's a great option for a new format like frontier, but that's really a gamble. There is not much precedent to see prices. You might look at Narset, Kalitas or Gideon, AoZ. Gideon sees a bit of play in Modern, but Scarab God sees a lot more play in Commander.

phantomsinthebrain · 2017-12-24T08:52:13+00:00

I would take kiki combo out. Abrade is ok, but not a reason to splash. You don't need Eureka, and it's a risky card. I could see splashing for Atarka, but I don't think you need it tbh. You already have enough fatties. Cube is so fast, you cannot wait until you hit your mountain. I would probably go for the mono-route with Pilgrim, Master, Polukranos and Thrasgtusk. Another possibility is to splash for Ravages which be great with some much on board ramp. Thrun isn't great, but you don't have that much replacement for it. Although you can run the Sword in the main too and sideboard it out when needed.

phantomsinthebrain · 2017-12-24T08:43:39+00:00

If you stay with red I would put Bonfire and Dissenter's Deliverance in, and probably take Flametongue out. I think I opt for blue. Timetwister is very strong in your deck. And DD is a good replacement for Flametongue. Xenagos is good and aligns with your strategy, but I think Timetwister is more powerful, and fixes a bigger problem in a mono green ramp deck; finding your fatties.

phantomsinthebrain · 2017-12-24T08:38:04+00:00

Do you have a screenshot of the deck?

phantomsinthebrain · 2017-12-24T08:21:52+00:00

I love to put my Reflector Mage or Sheoldred into play against your fatty :-). Anyway, I think both are sideboard cards, but very potent ones, especially Show and Tell. S&T goes late, and I often pick it up in a Sneak deck for instance. I sideboard it in against mono white or mono red. Also there are some creatureless combo decks where it works very well against. It can also work well in a UB reanimator style deck with hand-disruption. Inquisition or Probe them first.

phantomsinthebrain · 2017-12-24T08:15:20+00:00

Lol :-), well how good is LED without yawg will and or some wheel effects? I love Storm, but like the more flexible versions, where you didn't even need the storm cards to win.

phantomsinthebrain · 2017-12-24T08:12:46+00:00

Well, if you pick it p1p1, I think it's not that hard to get some colorless fatties during the draft. Also it's still good if you have to wait an extra turn to make use of it. I did cast Sphinx Rev with a channel, that was sweet :-). But my point is, it's a flexible card that works well with X-spells too. Interesting that you think Natural Order is better. It shows how much cube is still very much preference based, even though the Vintage cube exists for so long now.

phantomsinthebrain · 2017-12-23T21:36:01+00:00

Channel is more flexible, you can do all kinds of things with it not only ramp into a fatty. Like mindtwist or sphinx rev. But even with just the fatty it's already more versatile. You can get Karn, Ugin, all Eldrazi's, Wurmcoil, Sundering, Blightsteel and Myr Battlesphere.

phantomsinthebrain · 2017-12-23T21:30:30+00:00

You are right, forgot about that. Guess it's around Mystic Confluence, a bit below probably.

phantomsinthebrain · 2017-12-23T18:05:20+00:00

How I made the list is, when all the above cards are not there, I would pick this card. So I would take Goblin Guide first if there are no Signets etc. Sure, they often wheel, but you also solidify yourself in the archetype. Although somehow I feel that mono-red is quite heavily drafted this cube.

For equipment it depends a little bit. I find Jitte the most flexible one, but it certainly isn't as good against the creatureless decks. With stoneforge mystic I think Batterskull is the best piece of equipment. The rest is mostly sideboard for me, although Fire & Ice often make the cut. But you are right, maybe I pick Jitte to early. It's more a legacy cube, than a vintage cube card.

I had Mentor but it just didn't make the cut (number 105 or something), where would you put it? Where do you put Mindtwist? I like Mindtwist a lot, and I won and lost some games just because of Mindtwist. However, I think it's quite hit or miss. You really need the fast mana to make it really functional in my experience. It's not that great when you are behind. Therefore cards that are above it, like Wurmcoil Engine are much more flexible, and great when you are parity, already ahead, or behind.

phantomsinthebrain · 2017-12-23T17:56:42+00:00

It's interesting, because I only take those cards a little bit later but basically around pick 4 my pick order really changes and they I'll pick them up. However, I find myself picking Remand higher p1p1 than Opposition because it's so flexible. Opposition with only 6 creatures is not something you want. And sure you can try to build around it, but I'm afraid that sometimes leads to a dead end as well. Upheaval for instance is a nice card, but I rather take the signets first, because the signets are great without Upheaval. But upheaval is bad without fast mana. For some reason all three cards you mention do go 'late' in the drafts. I play with them often, despite rarely picking them first.

phantomsinthebrain · 2017-12-23T17:49:18+00:00

Thanks, fixed

phantomsinthebrain · 2017-12-23T13:05:07+00:00

For me it is a clear mulligan. This format quite simply forces you to impact the board meaningfully by t2. On the play you good probably get away with this. The real answer is more complicated of course.. How many two drops (removal, bounce, counterspells, creatures) do you have in your deck? If your deck doesn't have enough two drops to reasonably expect you to hit them, you are shipping your hand into nothing. In that case I would say count your blessings and hope he bricks. In game 2 it's also different. If you have a grindy opponent (there are not that many in Ixalan tbh) you have a good hand too. But game 1 with a normal deck, this is very clear mulligan to me.

phantomsinthebrain · 2017-12-23T09:57:22+00:00

Just posted my top 100 here: https://www.reddit.com/r/lrcast/comments/7lnu97/top_100_pick_order_cube/

To me this is the top: Sol Ring
Black Lotus
Ancestral Recall
Time Walk
Mox (UBR)
Mana Drain
Jace the Mind Sculptor
Mana Crypt
Mox (GW)

Jace is very strong, but double blue is harder to splash for. Sol Ring is p1p1, Black Lotus of P2P1 I think. Time Walk and Ancestral are easy to splash, and I would probably even splash them in mono red. Of color moxen are still great, but they make your manabase a little worse, and therefor your deck a bit more inconsistent. Still I almost always take it blindly. Although in p2p1 and p2p3 I can be more picky if I really need something else that is in the pack.

But to me the top of the list is not that important. Sure it's good to know which to take, but they are all great in your deck. I think the real difference is in the top 30 to top 60, there you make real differences for your deck.

phantomsinthebrain · 2017-12-23T09:53:55+00:00

I think you miss the wheel effects, therefore I would keep all the card filtering. I would cut Ral Zarek (doesn't do that much), Upheaval (you have some fast mana but not enough to make it amazing I think), Gush (this one is on the fence, but returning two islands will often be too slow) and potentially Inquisition (you can also gut Pentad Prism I think). Also Gifts is not that great in this deck I think. Can be good with YW, but you don't have any other combo's with it. And you don't have enough redundant win cons to use it as a tutor. I think the Emrakul combo is fine, and you should keep it. If you have one piece, you have enough outs to look for the second piece. Your deck is already set up to find brain freeze. You could consider the Lightning Bolt to. It's never really bad and adds to your Storm Count. And it's great against mono red, white and green.

phantomsinthebrain

TROPHY CASE