Oath of the Gatewatch Cube Review, Part 2: Non-Colorless

Posted on January 20, 2016

In this article, I'll be discussing the noncolorless cards from Oath of the Gatewatch for Cube.

Needle Spires, Hissing Quagmire, and Wandering Fumarole

While the best Worldwake creature lands were the blue ones (Celestial Colonnade), the others never quite reached their level in Cube, but they were all still great in Cube—although one could argue that, for a Selesnya land, ones like Horizon Canopy and Gavony Township may be better. The ones from Battle for Zendikar followed in the footsteps of lands like Raging Ravine, as Shambling Vent, and Lumbering Falls brought their own strengths to the party, but evasion wasn't one of them. This made them both of these nice supplemental threats for enemy-colored decks, even if there were games or even matches in which the board state just didn't let them do much and/or there wasn't the mana to spare, so they were just Guildgates, solely because they represented threats.

Many Cubes consider these mana-fixing creature lands the fourth cycle of mana-fixers behind the fetch lands and dual lands and shock lands. Needle Spires, Hissing Quagmire, and Wandering Fumarole all join lands like Lavaclaw Reaches as companions in Cube.

Surge

Reckless Bushwhacker is comparable to Goblin Bushwhacker, which has better lasting appeal since it's a 2/1 even on turns after it enters the battlefield, and typically, red aggro decks are casting multiple spells a turn as part of their game plans. It has a bonus upside of being able to be cast as a

2/1 with haste in case things go badly—it's questionable for why one should want to run this risk if the upside (

vs.

) is worth the risk of not being able to surge it and even if casting two spells in a turn is part of red aggro's natural game plan. There are times when that is interrupted. Because of that, I'm not too high on this for Cube.

Crush of Tentacles, like Devastation Tide, was a bit too pricey in terms of mana for my liking, even if I found it easier than expected to make an 8/8 by chaining it with a cheap spell (cantrip, usually) or a mana rock. An 8/8 can close out the game quickly though. It's no Upheaval, but that's honestly not a fair comparison since nothing will be—and the text, “bounce all nonlands,” is a more apt comparison, even if it's harder to do since most other analogues don't see much Cube play. And although this is better than it looks, it may be difficult to find room for in your Cube—blue is highly competitive.

The No-Mechanic Cards

Linvala, the Preserver has a decent worst case as a

5/5 flyer, but when either upside happens, it gives a lot of value, although the life-gain one—which easier to reach than the creature one—ends up being the worse of the two, but it generally isn't too hard to gain at least some value out of it. For curve purposes, there aren't many high-quality white 6-mana creatures outside of Sun Titan and Elspeth, Sun's Champion (if you’re counting that), and its inclusion makes sense if you want another one to supplement those two.

Wall of Resurgence is a bit conflicted because a white aggro deck doesn't really care about a Wall outside of aggro mirrors, and the 3/3 can actually be a liability for a control deck that doesn't want make its lands vulnerable to removal and its own Wrath of God effects. It has great synergies with Flicker effects, but it's in a weird space for Cube since the Wall mostly requires Flicker effects to be good, while other cards, like Blade Splicer, become better with Flicker.

Oath of Jace is comparable to Compulsive Research and Thirst for Knowledge as somewhat inefficient draw spell that interacts well with the graveyard. The Planeswalker ability is more flavor text than anything due to unreliability and needing a very high number of Planeswalkers to even be worth it—and that is difficult to assemble. And even if that does happen, that generally isn't enough to pull a card toward inclusion, even in a final forty for the Planeswalker-counting abilities on these Oaths.

Regarding Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet, 4-mana creatures in Cube tend to either be utility creatures like Skinrender and Braids, Cabal Minion or big, dumb beaters like Desecration Demon or Abyssal Persecutor. Where does Kalitas fit? He’s somewhere in the middle, but closer to the big Demons.

It's true that Kalitas has no immediate impact when he enters the battlefield, like utility threats, but he works like one by giving potential upside when kill effects are being used and to disincentivize chump-blocking by nontoken creatures while having nice stats on its own as a 3/4 lifelinker. It doesn't really require kill spells or the opponent to play nontokens to make Kalitas good, nor does it require needing other creatures to sacrifice to it, but both work well to synergize together and works better, of course, if the opponent has nontoken threats to kill—it makes Doom Blades and even your own mass removal into great value. It was better than my initial impressions were, and I've liked it.

Reaver Drone is another in the line of 2/1s for 1, and since its drawback is worse than the existing options, its role is to supplement other black aggro creatures rather than replace another.

Chandra, Flamecaller's 6-mana cost makes it a hard sell for aggressive decks, and realistically, there's only room for so many “big red” cards since the color has such an aggressive lean to it. Therefore, it's a mostly midrange- and control-leaning red 6-drop (but isn't bad as a curve-topper in aggro either). Her plus ability doesn't give you as many free wins as Elspeth, Sun's Champion does, but it's great for taking down other Planeswalkers to close out the game while gaining loyalty. The middle ability is highly underrated and can help to churn through the deck quickly (going from three to four new cards, and then from five to six if she lives, is excellent for card selection, not even considering things like reanimation or delve). Her mass-damage ability is a bit limited since it can't deal with 6-mana threats like Wurmcoil Engine and Titans, but these board states seem to be the ones in which she shines least, not a sign that she's bad. She seems to be currently underrated since it feels that she “should” since Elspeth, Sun's Champion and other Wraths can, but dismissing her based on this weakness is a mistake—she shines in most other board scenarios.

Goblin Dark-Dwellers works as a nice build-your-own-FTK that tends to play well with the use-everything-on-the-pig-except-the-squeal ethos of red decks since they usually cast an instant or sorcery before turn five, whether it's to take something out of the way, draw cards (Izzet), or make the opponent discard (in Rakdos), making it a nice card for aggressive decks, even if it lacks haste (menace isn't flavor text, though, as it can supplement red aggro hordes well as it can't be chumped). Cards like Stormbreath Dragon and Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker can crowd this out, but if you have room for another red 5, this is another great one.

Nissa, Voice of Zendikar and her Oath are pretty underrated currently. Her +1 helps to defend her against ground attackers. One of the talking points against her is that 0/1s don't really do anything aside from chumping, and they merely act as a way to defend her, but typically, 1/1 tokens on cards like Elspeth, Knight-Errant and Sorin, Lord of Innistrad mostly do the same thing, as they usually don't trade up often even though they can sometimes get in for chip shots against other Planeswalkers and opponents and can allow the tokens to snowball, which Nissa's Plants can't do. That said, I've liked that her tokens can help a green ramp deck stall out the game and can act as sacrifice fodder, which helps her to emulate Elspeth, Knight-Errant.

The −2 abilitiy helps to give some velocity to the Plants (so that she can be a standalone threat) while buffing mana Elves and can act as a poor man's Curse of Predation. Her ultimate is essentially Sphinx's Revelation, although going for that plan can lead to disappointment if she dies and you haven't done anything with the tokens. If you're limiting Planeswalkers, she isn't as good as the Garruks and recent Nissas, but she's a solid 3-mana investment for decks that want to make it to the later stages of the game, but she isn't bad in green attacking decks either, as an Anthem effect that can eventually become two Anthems.

Oath of Nissa is a great filter/cycler that works well with what green decks do best: play lands, creatures, and the occasional Planeswalker. Like with some cards, such as Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas, there isn't as much card selection going on as it would in other Constructed formats, but it usually has at least a worst case of being cast and finding a land, which still generally meshes with green decks' game plans.

Sylvan Advocate has performed well as an on-curve vigilant beater that becomes absurd once it hits six lands, which isn't hard for green decks, as not requiring an untap step helps make sure that you have at least one attack in for 4. Although the creature-land-buff ability is secondary, it's nice with the five new creature lands in this block.

As for Natural State, in Cubes, even without Power, it's nice to have cards that deal with powerful artifacts and enchantments, as cards like Manic Vandal and Wickerbough Elder tend to see more play than they did in their respective Constructed formats. Natural State hits most of the premiere targets outside of Control Magics, big robots, and big mana rocks. Nature's Claim tends to work better in ramp and control decks that don't care about life, so its inclusion or supplementation may depend on how you want to customize your green section.

Last, Captain's Claws gives a virtual 2 power to a creature for a 1-mana equip cost, similar to Bonesplitter. Like with Brimaz, King of Oreskos and Goblin Rabblemaster, the creatures can just die to blockers (and Claws isn't anywhere near as good as those), but they help the attacker get through for more damage and cause awkwardness in racing situations. It's obviously not Sword-caliber, and aggressive Equipment tends to be on the thin side, but this is a nice tool for those decks.

Multicolored

Reflector Mage is a great upside to cards like Man-o'-War, which makes up for the cost awkwardness and natural multicolored limitation by allowing you to stall the creature coming back—that fits the game plan of Azorius decks, from W/U tempo to control. Cards like Detention Sphere aren't as needed as they were years ago due to cards like Grasp of Fate and Quarantine Field.

Jori En, Ruin Diver and Stormchaser Mage show how Izzet used to have a problem that there were a lot of solid value cards like Prophetic Bolt and Electrolyze but no standout cards until Dack Fayden, Dack's Duplicate, Ral Zarek, and Keranos, God of Storms. Both of these new cards fit more aggressive flavors of Izzet, especially Jori En, which helps to give aggressive decks fuel.

Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim is an extremely good supplement to Lingering Souls, Vindicate, and the Sorins; cards like Karlov of the Ghost Council tended to be pipe dreams to use since Karlov only worked off a specific subset of cards and the payoff wasn't really that great. But Ayli has great stats and works synergistically with itself rather than requiring a critical mass of life-gain, which is unrealistic to support. (Ayli doesn't require sacrifice or recursion, but is nice without them.)

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