Fireball. Classic, iconic and potential immediate card advantage. The option to scale to kill a single target of kill a pair of 1-toughness dudes for 3R is nice.
Devil's Play. New & improved source of red X card advantage. Two X spells in one, that can be used to kill a pair of smaller creatures or for two big-ish late-game casts.
Red Sun's Zenith. Exiles the target, keeps your threat density slightly higher at all times, can be used early and re-drawn late. But not card advantage, like the other two.
Because Earthquake effects are a completely different kind of card than the other three, and all the other XR (Banefire/Demonfire/Disintegrate/etc) spells aren't up for consideration.
But why only these three options? For example I run 4 XR spells which are:
Fireball, Earthquake, Banefire & Devil's Play.
Earthquake is really sweeper/finisher more than an X-spell. It's flexibility gives it a different feel than the others.
Banefire has been completely outclassed by Devil's Play and Red Sun's Zenith (and is arguably worse than Fireball). The can't counter/prevent clause on it is not often applicable (although I have bad memories of being Banefired to death while holding a Mana Drain).
I like Devil's Play the best. The reusability puts it over the top. RSZ's exile ability seems to become more and more relevant as new cards get printed.
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Devil's Play is two Balls for the price of one!
RSZ is solid. The exiling is often relevant and the fact that it comes back is nice for control decks so they can limit the number of finishers during construction.
Fireball is the weakest for me. I like a couple of other X-spells better because for us the multiple targets was relevant only once in a blue moon.
I was a Fireball guy for a long, long time (back when everyone was on the Banefire train) but Devil's Play is just too good. It combines the card advantage of Fireball, with the "recastiness" of RSZ, and a touch of anti counter magic of Banefire.
Red Sun's Zenith for me. Exiling becomes more and more relevant, it is a shuffle effect, you can draw it again and in some rare circumstances you can avoid decking yourself when you have RSZ in your deck.
Devil's Play is so much better than the competition. After that, the Zenith and then Banefire > Fireball. I never got why Fireball gets so much love, nostalgia I guess. The splitting is insanely expensive and rarely relevant. Banefire's upside is also rarely relevant but wins the game on the spot where no other card could have done it if it is relevant.
Devil's Play is so much better than the competition. After that, the Zenith and then Banefire > Fireball. I never got why Fireball gets so much love, nostalgia I guess. The splitting is insanely expensive and rarely relevant. Banefire's upside is also rarely relevant but wins the game on the spot where no other card could have done it if it is relevant.
I don't get why Banefire gets so much love. The damage splitting came up much more frequently for me than my opponent countering my Fireball.
I don't get why Banefire gets so much love. The damage splitting came up much more frequently for me than my opponent countering my Fireball.
Same here. I've split Fireball more times than I can count (cubes have, quite simply, a crapton of awesome be fragile creatures), but the amount of times I've casted an X spell for 5+ damage, had been countered, and I would have won me the game, AND I ended up losing are less than five at most.
I don't get why Banefire gets so much love. The damage splitting came up much more frequently for me than my opponent countering my Fireball.
It's worth noting that though the splitting might come up more often, at least Banefire does SOMETHING when you'd want to split fireball. Fireball does straight-up nothing when countered.
It's worth noting that though the splitting might come up more often, at least Banefire does SOMETHING when you'd want to split fireball. Fireball does straight-up nothing when countered.
But... Banefire is just a Blaze when it's not being specifically dodging a late-game counter. Fireball always has an option of being better than a Blaze, no matter how much X is and whether you're facing counterspells or not.
Red Sun's Zenith for me. Exiling becomes more and more relevant, it is a shuffle effect, you can draw it again and in some rare circumstances you can avoid decking yourself when you have RSZ in your deck.
I voted RSZ for the above reasons. Devil's Play is a close second though.
Possibly, I don't run reanimator support in my cube so recursion is less of an issue which is why I voted for Devil's Play. I brought up Fireball vs. RSZ several times with my playgroup but they weren't interested in RSZ, care to give more detail on why the exiling is so valuable? I split Fireball a fair amount so I was pretty indifferent as to which one we used.
I still play Banefire as a weapon against blue-based control. To this day it continues to win games straight through countermagic, against opponents who thought they had the game in hand and counterspell backup for anything.
Each time I think about cutting it for RSZ, Banefire nets another win or two through counterspells. I can't fathom cutting it anytime soon unless the metagame dynamic shifts.
That said, I like Fireball and Devil's Play more than Banefire and RSZ, which I hold pretty equal, giving the slight nod to Bane.
I love Red Sun's Zenith!! A splashable, repeatable, retutorable X-burn spell is fantastic. Easily my favorite.
RSZ you for 5, Imperial Seal, put RSZ on the top of my library, GG!!
Actually, even without tutoring, it's been redrawn enough to know that they'll have to print a LOT of awesome X-spells for me to consider changing it out, not so for other X-spells.
Red Sun's Zenith for me. Exiling becomes more and more relevant, it is a shuffle effect, you can draw it again and in some rare circumstances you can avoid decking yourself when you have RSZ in your deck.
I chose the Zenith for reasons along these lines: it has more upsides than the other two. While Devil's Play is close, I have gotten multiple uses out of Zenith more often than I've gotten multiple uses out of Devil's Play, primarily due to the splashibility of Zenith. Triple red can be a headache, especially in 3+ color control. That's why it got the nod in my vote.
Fireball. Classic, iconic and potential immediate card advantage. The option to scale to kill a single target of kill a pair of 1-toughness dudes for 3R is nice.
Devil's Play. New & improved source of red X card advantage. Two X spells in one, that can be used to kill a pair of smaller creatures or for two big-ish late-game casts.
Red Sun's Zenith. Exiles the target, keeps your threat density slightly higher at all times, can be used early and re-drawn late. But not card advantage, like the other two.
Which is your favorite of the three?
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Earthquake is really sweeper/finisher more than an X-spell. It's flexibility gives it a different feel than the others.
Banefire has been completely outclassed by Devil's Play and Red Sun's Zenith (and is arguably worse than Fireball). The can't counter/prevent clause on it is not often applicable (although I have bad memories of being Banefired to death while holding a Mana Drain).
I like Devil's Play the best. The reusability puts it over the top. RSZ's exile ability seems to become more and more relevant as new cards get printed.
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Devil's Play is two Balls for the price of one!
RSZ is solid. The exiling is often relevant and the fact that it comes back is nice for control decks so they can limit the number of finishers during construction.
Fireball is the weakest for me. I like a couple of other X-spells better because for us the multiple targets was relevant only once in a blue moon.
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Same here. I've split Fireball more times than I can count (cubes have, quite simply, a crapton of awesome be fragile creatures), but the amount of times I've casted an X spell for 5+ damage, had been countered, and I would have won me the game, AND I ended up losing are less than five at most.
This.
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It's worth noting that though the splitting might come up more often, at least Banefire does SOMETHING when you'd want to split fireball. Fireball does straight-up nothing when countered.
But yeah, Devils play and it's hardly close.
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But... Banefire is just a Blaze when it's not being specifically dodging a late-game counter. Fireball always has an option of being better than a Blaze, no matter how much X is and whether you're facing counterspells or not.
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I voted RSZ for the above reasons. Devil's Play is a close second though.
Maybe some kind of group think (both ways I guess from the Fireball lovers as from the banefire and Disintegrate people)?
I feel compelled to repeat everything I hear
Each time I think about cutting it for RSZ, Banefire nets another win or two through counterspells. I can't fathom cutting it anytime soon unless the metagame dynamic shifts.
That said, I like Fireball and Devil's Play more than Banefire and RSZ, which I hold pretty equal, giving the slight nod to Bane.
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RSZ you for 5, Imperial Seal, put RSZ on the top of my library, GG!!
Actually, even without tutoring, it's been redrawn enough to know that they'll have to print a LOT of awesome X-spells for me to consider changing it out, not so for other X-spells.
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I chose the Zenith for reasons along these lines: it has more upsides than the other two. While Devil's Play is close, I have gotten multiple uses out of Zenith more often than I've gotten multiple uses out of Devil's Play, primarily due to the splashibility of Zenith. Triple red can be a headache, especially in 3+ color control. That's why it got the nod in my vote.
BRRakdos, Lord of RiotsBR
Ya, but two uses out of Devil's Play is card advantage, which is nice for red.
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