Which card do you first pick and why? Assume that your group has decided to draft your generals at the end instead of at the beginning. How would that pick change if you had drafted a certain general beforehand, instead?
[card]Battlegrace Angel[/card]
[card]Trusted Advisor[/card]
[card]Night’s Whisper[/card]
[card]Rorix Bladewing[/card]
[card]Arashi, the Sky Asunder [/card]
[card]Hull Breach[/card]
[card]Artisan of Kozilek[/card]
[card]Mystic Gate[/card]
[card]Revoke Existence[/card]
[card]Future Sight[/card]
[card]Carrion Feeder[/card]
[card]Flametongue Kavu[/card]
[card]Thrun, the Last Troll[/card]
[card]Spitting Image[/card]
[card]Tower of Fortunes[/card]
14 responses to “Commander Cube First Pick #6”
I think I would take splitting image as a first pick. I also like artisan of Kozilek as it will make your deck no matter what general you end up running. But the shenanigans of splitting image make me want to take it and build with it in mind. Getting a blue green X general while focusing on green blue shouldnt be too hard, I would think…
Artisan of Kozilek is without a doubt my first pick here. It’s playable in any deck, it’s guaranteed recursion, and it’s a ginormous annihilating attacker. What’s not to like?
After that, I could see picking Flametongue Kavu, Spitting Image, Thrun, or Arashi. All are very solid cards that go in the rampy stompy decks I like to play.
Artisan of Kozilek is definitely the pick if I haven’t selected a general. Sky high power level and keeps me open on colors.
If I’ve picked my generals, then I’d definitely be interested in Spitting Image in a Simic deck like Momir or Battlegrace Angel if I’ve got Rafiq or maybe Uril.
If I’m in blue I’ll pick Future Sight because it’s sooo baller.
If I’m not in blue I’ll pick Artisan of Kozilek
Artisan. Hands down. Already mentioned that he’s playable everywhere, awesome ETB effect, plays well with others, and annihilate. Picked a general beforehand? Still most likely artisan. I run him in a few edh decks as it is (Intet, and Kresh mainly) and am almost never dissatisfied.
Take Thrun and try to force mono-G beatdown. You have to try it sometime and really, if any monoclour Commander is going to make it work, Thrun is about as good as you can hope for.
Barring that, Spitting Image is the pick for sure, it’s straight up money.
Spitting Image – it literally has flashback and its a (costly) spot removals of legendarys.
This copying bombs or destroying problematic generals for the cost of a land is awesome.
Side note: Since you have switched how commanders are drafted (now 1 commander for every pack instead of drafting them before hand) are you following that in CCFP postings?
[…] Commander Cube First Pick 6 on OGTRTA! THRUN, I CHOOSE […]
Depends on the colors I’ve got if I’ve drafted generals already. If I’ve got any blue, I’m heading straight for the Future Sight, unless I’m green-blue, in which case I love me some Spitting Image. Recursion and copying, together at last.
I suppose if I didn’t know my general, the Eldrazi would be the safe, and definitely solid pick.
Good luck with the conversion! After working on converting Grant since this summer, I’m finally successful!Also, I’m disappointed there were no pictures of the so-called “magic bathroom” Tsk tsk.
Future sight (blue decks seem to have to run this) followed by Arty.
Battlegrace Angel would be a solid pick, it’s a solid creature and gives you a theme that could be strong if you get to work on it early.
Trusted Adviser is not a pick for me, doing something once during my upkeep just isn’t a strong enough effect.
Night’s Whisper, Hull Breach, and Revoke Existence get passed as “no advantage”. They’re too 1-for-1.
Rorix is nice and all, but he locks you into heavy red, dies to pretty much any removal, and even if you animate him on turn 2, your opponent gets at least 4 turns to answer him.
I don’t care for Arashi. Honestly, I’d rather have Hurricane.
Artisan is a reasonable pick. If you go for mana you might even hard cast it for an advantage. More likely you’ll animate it or play it without paying its mana cost. It represents a mean clock, and if you Exhume it on turn 2, it’s going to be brutal.
Mystic Gate is a pass. Land fixing is good, but U/W color fixing without accel isn’t a first pick.
Future Sight is a solid pick. It locks you into heavy blue, but making it your first pick opens a world of combo, synergy, and potential abuse. This pick would depend a lot on what else is in the cube, how you feel about combo, and how consistently you can take advantage of it.
Carion Feeder is another beautiful combo piece. It’s a great cheap sacrifice outlet with no sac cost, lending itself to any infinite recursion combo. I’d give this one high value, particularly if you know there are lots of other pieces of recursion combo in the cube.
FTK is yet another strong choice. It’s splashable, it’s a dude, it’s valuable enough that just playing it once is an advantage. Playing it many times with recursion would be sick. One point in its favor is that it doesn’t rely on any other cards to be good.
Thrun is outstanding. He’s near the pinnacle of creature value for non-utility creatures. Vigilance or Evasion equipment would make him even more valuable.
Spitting Image can be strong in a long game, but you’d really need to play it several times to take big advantage from it (rather than just running Clone). Which means you also need Crucible or Life from the Loam. I wouldn’t count it as a first pick. It’s too situational.
Tower of Fortunes is another card that can be strong in a long game. Still, I’d rather play cards of such high value that I always have something better to do with my 12 mana investment than draw 4 cards with it. Too much up-front investment, too much time playing this mediocre card before I manage to use it to maybe draw better cards. Far from a first pick.
So. I’d pick:
Artisan of Kozilek. Has advantage in the long game, busted if you cheat it into play early. Doesn’t rely on other cards to be good, but could take advantage of Reanimate and similar effects. Makes Mirrorweave or Infinite Reflection a bomb.
FTK 2, for similar reasons.
Thrun 3, very solid, if lacking evasion.
I remain underwhelmed by Spitting Image. It’s a 6CMC, sorcery speed, targeted removal of your opponent’s general.
Which maybe you can cast again, if it remains in your graveyard, and if you have a land in hand you feel like discarding.
Yes, it can also copy other things. For 6CMC and discard a land, it had better be copying something fantastic.
Value goes up if you know that you can pick up Crucible and/or Life from the Loam. Also if you know that you will be facing slow decks running bomb creatures, or decks overly reliant on their generals. However, in the above pack, Thrun is immune to Spitting Image, and an opponent with access to Carion Feeder reduces its value significantly.
In my play group, everyone is running Stonecloaker, Withered Wretch, Nihil Spellbomb, Tormod’s Crypt, Relic of Progenitus, and Bojuka Bog.
Spitting Image would go up in value if I knew these cards would be underrepresented.