Part 4: Even More FFxM:TG Cube First Impressions, including Impressions from a cube draft.
Last week, I posted part 3 to follow up on the second part of first impressions of cube for the Final Fantasy set that I posted back in February when the set was first shown.
I was able to get a cube draft in this week with the Final Fantasy cards seeded in my cube, and it was good to finally (ha) get some reps in with the new cards.
I’ll talk about the cards that piqued my interest for cube in the time period from the last post and then talk about my impressions of the cards so far, since the offerings this week were pretty light.
New Stuff:
Sleep Magic
A sleeper hit for the set. Sensory Deprivation was somewhat jokingly called “blue Swords to Plowshares” but this honestly is pretty close for being a sorcery and gives me Swift Reconfiguration vibes (in a good way) and stopping abilities is a huge boost as well. The damage drawback only really matters against red against things that could survive a damage effect. Easily the best of this type of blue removal.
Lindblum, Industrial Regency // Mage Siege
I had low opinions on this, but a comparison between this and a (really bad) Guttersnipe with flash made me think that maybe it could be worth it, if it’s attached to a land. Unfortunately, it didn’t really do much, as expected, but being an instant at least helped. I also noticed that it being a land to be able to be played wasn’t a large bonus unlike with the adventure cards, since those at least represented a real card after you cast the spell (and this was just a bad land.)
Joshua, Phoenix’s Dominant // Phoenix, Warden of Fire
It’s weird that I’m pretty mid on Jill but decently high on this, but that may be because its base effect is pretty good as a rummager with a much better back side that doesn’t require a board presence. This was drafted but wasn’t played, but my main concern was that this may have a harder time making it into cubes because of Boros cards being very strong.
This was in a mono white deck (we had 2 mono color decks, a mono white and a mono black deck) and this generally played like a worse Sunpearl Kirin by virtue of lacking evasion, but worked well in a deck that had a lot of things to re-use. Ambrosia, along with Nurturing Pixie, can help form a backbone for a deck that focuses on bouncing things for value - like a better version of the blink decks I’d see in cubes that never felt like they were worth the squeeze, power-level wise.
I’m have doubts on this in “power-motivated” cubes like mine, since it’s a 3-mana do nothing without extra help, but the potential upside is just absurd. I looked at an Esper control deck and when I looked at the deck, it had a surprisingly high number (19) of hits for it., but wraths are a nombo with him.
I’ll give it a whirl although I get the feeling it’ll not last long.
Miscellaneous Impressions from Draft:
These were our impressions of cards that were previewed thus far (aside from Sleep Magic, which wasn’t shown but would have been included.)
Summon: Yojimbo, Summon: Ixion, Summon: Esper Valigarmanda, Summon: Kujata
Both of these were played in a mono-white midrange deck and I was surprised at how well Yojimbo played out, as it almost always came down and had something to exile. I figured that the other chapters were flavor text and for the most part, the last one was, but being an actual large body with vigilance was relevant, since it helped get some nice damage in while he was still around. Ixion was good as well and its chapters helped to put some real board presence on while it was sticking around. Things like Ambrosia and Flickerwisp being in the deck helped to get multiple effects of the first chapter, which helped too.
For the most part, these played like sorceries (Banishing Slash) that had additional utility by way of being creatures with decent body stats, even if they were only around for a short period of time, while the red ones played closer to creatures than spells due to having haste. Esper V usually died before being able to flash something back, but Kujata was able to have immediate board impact and turn games around very quickly if it was able to survive to do a second attack.
This was brought back several times (including via self-discard,) which I didn’t expect from when I saw it previewed, as I thought the cost would be prohibitively high (but honestly, 4B isn’t a ton and isn’t tough to do on EOT when there’s fallow mana.) Having flying really helped its saboteur trigger occur consistently, which was great too.
Tonberry, Shadow, Mysterious Assassin, Interceptor, Shadow’s Hound
These were played in a mono-black deck and the latter two were lightning rods for removal (which may bode poorly, given the cheap cost of removal), but Tonberry’s been doing pretty well as something that represents a clock - even if it takes a few turns to unlock. I’ve been including a few more monarch cards in my cube because of deathtouchers like Tonberry and Cecil but I haven’t seen a deck with monarch and deathtouchers yet.
Played in an esper control deck and was unsurprisingly very good. Likely the best in class for the City of Brass type of land, and the drafter noted that the drawbacks didn’t matter too much. It’s nice because I didn’t expect to see its first appearance in a control deck, since City of Brass/Mana Confluence are generally unplayable in those (and I generally thought that the Vivid lands were better than Grand Coliseum.) I don’t see Starting Town leaving my cube any time soon but being more universally playable should give it a long shelf life.
Yuffie, Materia Hunter, Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER
Both of these were played in a BR aggro deck. Yuffie’s abilities never mattered all that much, but her being able to be put into play via Ninjutsu on turn 2 was very relevant, which I had expected to see when I saw her previewed. Sephiroth played well as a Blood Artist riff with an actual body, but it wasn’t hard for him to draw a card off of sacrifice fodder / something that wasn’t as useful in the mid game. He never transformed (which isn’t surprising) but I expect that to be gg when he does.
Yuna’s Decision, Yuna’s Whistle, The Warring Triad, Terra, Magical Adept, Sabin, Master Monk
These were played in a GR midrange deck. Yuna’s Decision performed well, as I had expected since it was able to play multiple roles (cheat something out via nut draw, get stuff from the graveyard.) Yuna’s Whistle was a nice combat trick that essentially played as giving something ~2-3 +1/+1 counters and drawing a creature for 3 mana. The Warring Triad was a fine mana rock that was able to go active and clock some people out since it has flample, and although getting 8 cards in the graveyard usually isn’t easy, having a way to proactively get there helped. Likely better than ones like Coalition Relic, although not strictly so. Terra didn’t have a ton of enchantments in the deck (3) and didn’t trigger that much, but the body was fine. May need a few more enchantments to organically support her. Sabin was a beatstick that played about as expected - decently well.
This was played in the mono-white midrange deck with Glimmer Lens and Batterskull as the equipment to fetch. His passive didn’t matter all that much and Stoneforge Mystic would have worked better with Batterskull, but Cloud still worked well in the deck by being able to get something and apply pressure. Likely going to stick around in my cube for some time.
Astrologian’s Planisphere, Vivi Ornitier
I had these in a UR tempo/control deck splashing green.
Planisphere was something that elicited a lot of strong reactions as a kill-on-sight and the impression that I had from playing it was that it was good - kind of like a Sprite Dragon without keywords as a growing threat - but wasn’t… broken, but just a solid threat that grew (usually to a 3/3, and wasn’t too hard to get it to be larger.) When the token died, it did feel a bit weird equipping it onto something without a tangible upside (until you cast another non-creature spell) but that was fine given the 2 mana equip cost.
I honestly forgot that Vivi domed an opponent off of his trigger in a good number of instances, but I was pretty impressed with Vivi even when I forgot that mode. The initial 3-mana investment wasn’t great if you weren’t able to grow him, but usually I untapped with him and was able to get a decent return on him, since he’d be able to get mana. It almost like it was a “fair storm” type of card, except this could also just be a 4+ power threat without going all-in. A very good first impression.
Unplayed:
Rejoin the Fight - I misread this as letting the opponents let you choose something to reanimate and then letting the caster choose something to reanimate. This is getting yeeted out ASAP.
Hildibrand Manderville, Kefka, Court Mage, Good King Mog XII, Jidoor, Aristocratic Capital and the other (non-red/black) adventure lands, Commune with Beavers, Rosa, Resolute White Mage
you don't think Vaan is playable? I searched for how many rogues, pirates, and scouts were already in my cube and it was surprisingly a lot. And it wasn't that hard to find a few more good ones to slot in