Recurring Nightmare, we all know it's a great card, but current trends show that not everybody sees it as the nearly-automatic first pick that many of us believe it to be.
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People here seem to think that you can just pop it in any deck and it'll be amazing. I really don't think that's the case. There's a reason it's not played in Legacy: It's not fast enough.
Sure, if you build your deck right, with some nice ETB guys, and/or nice creatures to reanimate, over time it can be an absolute nightmare for your opponent (get it???). However the timeframe for when this thing actually gets online and starts generating advantage for you can often be way too much for people to want to commit to.
I often go into a draft with the mindset that I want to create a fast, efficient deck that has that beats down with efficiency. I'm not just talking about hard aggro, I'm also talking about aggressive midrangy decks too. Recurring Nightmare just doesn't fit into every deck with black in it like some people on this forum seem to think.
I'm not saying that Recurring Nightmare isn't fantastic, because it is. However, criticizing people and rage quitting videos (remember the rage when a dude on youtube picked a Sword over Recurring Nightmare?) when people pick something else over it is just wrong imo for this reason:
People cube the way they wanna cube. Let them do that. I like to think of cube as a competitive casual format, with emphasis on the casual. Don't get all cube elitist on their ass for not picking stuff that you would.
In my opinion, this is one of the strongest cards in black. The card is an engine by itself and anything added to it (tokens being one), it just gets crazy. It makes all your fatties extremely resilient to removal and wrath effects. It lets you play hyper aggressive because you can turn your in hard dork into a fatty in the yard in case things get rough.
Recurring Nightmare just doesn't fit into every deck with black in it like some people on this forum seem to think.
I'm not saying that Recurring Nightmare isn't fantastic, because it is. However, criticizing people and rage quitting videos (remember the rage when a dude on youtube picked a Sword over Recurring Nightmare?) when people pick something else over it is just wrong imo for this reason:
People cube the way they wanna cube. Let them do that. I like to think of cube as a competitive casual format, with emphasis on the casual. Don't get all cube elitist on their ass for not picking stuff that you would.
But Recurring Nightmare DOES fit in his deck at that time. It would've been a perfect card for it.
I'll understand a sword over Recurring Nightmare. Those two cards are comparable in power level. But did you look at what he pick over it?
But Recurring Nightmare DOES fit in his deck at that time. It would've been a perfect card for it.
I'll understand a sword over Recurring Nightmare. Those two cards are comparable in power level. But did you look at what he pick over it?
Oh yeah, absolutely. I mentioned in the video thread how it would have been my pick too, but I still stand by my points about the card. I know I'm unlikely to be in line with popular opinion, but whatever.
Recurring Nightmare is insane. It's easily first pickable in a cube where you can reasonably expect to build around it, and is a very high pick most of the time when not. The comparison to legacy is ridiculous, legacy is far far faster than any cube I've ever played, which makes late game card advantage engines (such as Nightmare) much better.
As for the aforementioned draft video, Woo definitely underrated it or didn't even see it. People defending his pick are out of their minds, he did not even consider the card, it's not like he thought about it and then said "Ah yeah Nightmare is good but I really want to go/like playing/whatever blue green". Personal preference is fine, especially in cube. Not considering the card at all is something completely different.
@juju "However, criticizing people and rage quitting videos[...]"
I don't see how you can sit there and say that that pick isn't worthy of criticism on one hand, but on the other hand criticise other people yourself for their reactions to it. Either you're a massive hypocrite or just a typical "troll", I don't know which. Travis invited criticism of himself multiple times during the video, saying things like "if you think these picks were wrong comment" or "if I played that badly let me know". Why do you feel the need to defend him from opinions that he was interested in hearing?
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Recurring Nightmare is insane. It's easily first pickable in a cube where you can reasonably expect to build around it, and is a very high pick most of the time when not. The comparison to legacy is ridiculous, legacy is far far faster than any cube I've ever played, which makes late game card advantage engines (such as Nightmare) much better.
As for the aforementioned draft video, Woo definitely underrated it or didn't even see it. People defending his pick are out of their minds, he did not even consider the card, it's not like he thought about it and then said "Ah yeah Nightmare is good but I really want to go/like playing/whatever blue green". Personal preference is fine, especially in cube. Not considering the card at all is something completely different.
@juju "However, criticizing people and rage quitting videos[...]"
I don't see how you can sit there and say that that pick isn't worthy of criticism on one hand, but on the other hand criticise other people yourself for their reactions to it. Either you're a massive hypocrite or just a typical "troll", I don't know which. Travis invited criticism of himself multiple times during the video, saying things like "if you think these picks were wrong comment" or "if I played that badly let me know". Why do you feel the need to defend him from opinions that he was interested in hearing?
This isn't the first or second time this has happened on a cube draft video. Particularly with this one card, people on this forum have tended to go overboard with their reactions to people not picking Recurring Nightmare. I don't know if you got the context of my multiple posts on the subject on both threads, but my point wasn't that we shouldn't criticize his picks, but seriously, people need to chill out when someone doesn't pick this card.
I need to find the comments (I think from the Official Cube Discussion thread) where people went goddamn mental over this one guy not picking Recurring Nightmare. It was like several posts with people exclaiming "It made me sick" and generally bashing the entire video and the guy because of it.
For the recent video, I can say that I might understand passing it in the first 5 picks. I could see there hypothetically being high quality cards of greater relevance to what you're drafting, but when a card like that tables one and a half times in pack one where there's still the time to build into it, there is something wrong. That thread also covers in detail how his picks leading up to it would have meshed fine with it.
Just got to say, you've definitely earned distinction as an MTGS hero
Quote from Stardust »
Because he's the hero MTGS deserves, and the one it needs right now. So we'll global him. Because he can take it. Because he's not just our hero. He's a silent guardian, a watchful protector. An expired rascal.
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ExpiredRascals you sir are a god-like hero.
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ER is a masterful god who cannot be beaten in any endeavour.
For the recent video, I can say that I might understand passing it in the first 5 picks. I could see there hypothetically being high quality cards of greater relevance to what you're drafting, but when a card like that tables one and a half times in pack one where there's still the time to build into it, there is something wrong. That thread also covers in detail how his picks leading up to it would have meshed fine with it.
Sure, I won't contest that. He absolutely should have picked it over Narcolepsy, which is usually a pretty meh card (although it did work out well for him, being able to cast it on the Inferno Titan).
I'm done now. I don't know if I can handle the storm of people bashing me tomorrow for even insinuating that Recurring Nightmare isn't the second coming of Jesus in cardboard form, and should be first picked and placed upon a holy alter.
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@Juju: No need to be preemptively condescending. If someone comes after you in, then talk to him about your points. If you're not prepared to do that, then don't post in a thread like this, as that is their whole purpose.
As to the card, it is not an automatic first pick, though it is close. Much like it's green cohort, Survival, it needs a fairly focused deck to thrive, but when that deck comes together, the cards power level is off the charts. Any comparison to Legacy is just silly, as there are many cards that rock in cube that are too slow for Legacy (Upheaval).
The thing that is best about Nightmare compared to other engine cards is that Nightmare decks are often still pretty sweet decks filled with value creatures regardless of whether you get the nightmare, whereas a deck that really wants sneak attack or survival of the fittest has much more variance if they don't get their engine card.
I'm going to step back from my confrontational stance in previous threads, but still say that Nightmare's status within a given cube is actually a pretty good litmus test of at least the cuber and usually also the cube:
Nightmare is not a card that you want in a tempo deck. Nightmare is a card for value or inevitability. If you think that a value/inevitability card is an unquestionable windmill slam, then either you are completely closed to the possibility for tempo-based decks or else the cube you're drafting in is hostile to them.
The reason that I think cubes hostile to tempo decks are an issue is because drafting a tempo deck is already harder and more skill intensive due to the redundancy you need to assemble through the variance of packs and because the correct picks float around a lot based on what you already have. If the environment is significantly hostile then it is seldom correct to do it unless the deck is epically wide open.
You then occasionally get the nearly unbeatable deck and the rest of the time no proper aggro deck to keep the value decks honest. The effect compounds itself until everyone just 'knows' that the value/inevitability cards are best.
Too many sweepers and color sections just without enough creatures overall are the two big things that I immediately cue in on.
It's the number 1 or number 2 card in black. The earlier you get it, the better because you can craft a deck around it. While I don't think it's amazing in every deck, it's more than decent in any deck with a sufficient number of creatures. It has sick combos/synergies with a number of cards, including reanimation effects, ETB abilities, token generation, LTB abilities, Sneak Attack, Survival, Mimic Vat, and more. I have passed Nightmare, but it's pretty unusual that I would do so.
Recurring Nightmare was a card that I loved when I was a new player, and having it in cube is a treat. Its usually among my first picked cards, and reanimating ETB creatures is really really fun. Personally, its one of my favorite cube cards. There are probably better and more efficient cards, but its just an iconic black card that always stands out for me.
Unless you are completely dedicated to agro (say mono white or Red/white) or have managed to put together some kind of creatureless deck (not possible in my cube I don't think but could be for some people) I think in any other situation it could be put into just about any deck and be amazing. I personally can't recall a game being lost by the person playing it if it wasn't countered the first time it was played.
Unless you're building a specific deck that doesn't want it (hard aggro, low-creature dedicated control) it'll be pretty damn good in everything else. The cube is stacked with value/CA/etb creatures across every color, and it's immediately abusive in decks that are running them. Combine it with any amount of dedicated support and the card is absolutely bonkers. One of the best black cards in the cube (if not THE best) and unless you're having a bad day, it's hard to not take this card P1P1 because it's perhaps THE strongest card in the cube when it's built around.
It's a card that should be in absolutely every single cube, and a card that really should be taken early in pretty much every single draft.
Unless you're building a specific deck that doesn't want it (hard aggro, low-creature dedicated control) it'll be pretty damn good in everything else. The cube is stacked with value/CA/etb creatures across every color, and it's immediately abusive in decks that are running them. Combine it with any amount of dedicated support and the card is absolutely bonkers. One of the best black cards in the cube (if not THE best) and unless you're having a bad day, it's hard to not take this card P1P1 because it's perhaps THE strongest card in the cube when it's built around.
It's a card that should be in absolutely every single cube, and a card that really should be taken early in pretty much every single draft.
This isn't the first or second time this has happened on a cube draft video. Particularly with this one card, people on this forum have tended to go overboard with their reactions to people not picking Recurring Nightmare. I don't know if you got the context of my multiple posts on the subject on both threads, but my point wasn't that we shouldn't criticize his picks, but seriously, people need to chill out when someone doesn't pick this card.
I need to find the comments (I think from the Official Cube Discussion thread) where people went goddamn mental over this one guy not picking Recurring Nightmare. It was like several posts with people exclaiming "It made me sick" and generally bashing the entire video and the guy because of it.
I don't know what you mean by "this has happened" -- in the comments on the thread/video that this SCD thread was made in response to, there was no such "rage" and the criticism was all very reasonable (I'm 100% certain that ExpiredRascals was joking/exagerating when he said he was "horrified", the tone of his post did not seem malicious at all (no where near as much as yours did, at least)).
I only assumed that you were being snide and antagonisitic towards the users that did offer criticism (which Travis invited) and toward myself saying I closed the video with your "rage quit" comments. If you didn't mean it like that I apologise for the misunderstanding, but then another user here suggested that there's no need for you to be so condescending, so I don't think I'm the only one who interpreted your post that way.
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For a more substantial contribution....The power of Nightmare is built into its ability to be very very difficult to stop once going. Only counter magic, removing all creatures that player owns, or making them discard it will stop the chain.
Enchantment removal is useless, and nightmare becomes even more powerful as the amount of mana increases, creating very impressive chains of card advantage that are nearly impossible to recover from.
I've definitely drafted this card and left it in the sideboard before. In really aggressive decks your creature quality is so low that RN is not an efficient use of mana and in really controlling decks you might simply not have enough creatures. So not only do you need creatures they need to be good enough that you want to recur them and you need to have enough of them so you have sac fodder. Mind Twist this card is not.
This card is a tank. Even if my deck didn't need the card (not my strategy, color, etc) I'd have to pick it up as protection. Nightmare snowballs out of control.
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I mean, hell, we're all on a forum for something that most people would describe as a "children's card game"...do what makes you happy. You are never too old to enjoy yourself.
Recurring Nightmare, we all know it's a great card, but current trends show that not everybody sees it as the nearly-automatic first pick that many of us believe it to be.
So, let's cover this once and for all.
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Sure, if you build your deck right, with some nice ETB guys, and/or nice creatures to reanimate, over time it can be an absolute nightmare for your opponent (get it???). However the timeframe for when this thing actually gets online and starts generating advantage for you can often be way too much for people to want to commit to.
I often go into a draft with the mindset that I want to create a fast, efficient deck that has that beats down with efficiency. I'm not just talking about hard aggro, I'm also talking about aggressive midrangy decks too. Recurring Nightmare just doesn't fit into every deck with black in it like some people on this forum seem to think.
I'm not saying that Recurring Nightmare isn't fantastic, because it is. However, criticizing people and rage quitting videos (remember the rage when a dude on youtube picked a Sword over Recurring Nightmare?) when people pick something else over it is just wrong imo for this reason:
People cube the way they wanna cube. Let them do that. I like to think of cube as a competitive casual format, with emphasis on the casual. Don't get all cube elitist on their ass for not picking stuff that you would.
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In my opinion, this is one of the strongest cards in black. The card is an engine by itself and anything added to it (tokens being one), it just gets crazy. It makes all your fatties extremely resilient to removal and wrath effects. It lets you play hyper aggressive because you can turn your in hard dork into a fatty in the yard in case things get rough.
That and its hell of hard to stop.
But Recurring Nightmare DOES fit in his deck at that time. It would've been a perfect card for it.
I'll understand a sword over Recurring Nightmare. Those two cards are comparable in power level. But did you look at what he pick over it?
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Oh yeah, absolutely. I mentioned in the video thread how it would have been my pick too, but I still stand by my points about the card. I know I'm unlikely to be in line with popular opinion, but whatever.
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As for the aforementioned draft video, Woo definitely underrated it or didn't even see it. People defending his pick are out of their minds, he did not even consider the card, it's not like he thought about it and then said "Ah yeah Nightmare is good but I really want to go/like playing/whatever blue green". Personal preference is fine, especially in cube. Not considering the card at all is something completely different.
@juju "However, criticizing people and rage quitting videos[...]"
I don't see how you can sit there and say that that pick isn't worthy of criticism on one hand, but on the other hand criticise other people yourself for their reactions to it. Either you're a massive hypocrite or just a typical "troll", I don't know which. Travis invited criticism of himself multiple times during the video, saying things like "if you think these picks were wrong comment" or "if I played that badly let me know". Why do you feel the need to defend him from opinions that he was interested in hearing?
This isn't the first or second time this has happened on a cube draft video. Particularly with this one card, people on this forum have tended to go overboard with their reactions to people not picking Recurring Nightmare. I don't know if you got the context of my multiple posts on the subject on both threads, but my point wasn't that we shouldn't criticize his picks, but seriously, people need to chill out when someone doesn't pick this card.
I need to find the comments (I think from the Official Cube Discussion thread) where people went goddamn mental over this one guy not picking Recurring Nightmare. It was like several posts with people exclaiming "It made me sick" and generally bashing the entire video and the guy because of it.
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Sure, I won't contest that. He absolutely should have picked it over Narcolepsy, which is usually a pretty meh card (although it did work out well for him, being able to cast it on the Inferno Titan).
I'm done now. I don't know if I can handle the storm of people bashing me tomorrow for even insinuating that Recurring Nightmare isn't the second coming of Jesus in cardboard form, and should be first picked and placed upon a holy alter.
Disclaimer to future people: If you read my posts and feel like you have to tell me why Recurring Nightmare is the greatest and I'm a total dumbass, you don't have to, because I know that already.
BED TIME.
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As to the card, it is not an automatic first pick, though it is close. Much like it's green cohort, Survival, it needs a fairly focused deck to thrive, but when that deck comes together, the cards power level is off the charts. Any comparison to Legacy is just silly, as there are many cards that rock in cube that are too slow for Legacy (Upheaval).
I'm going to step back from my confrontational stance in previous threads, but still say that Nightmare's status within a given cube is actually a pretty good litmus test of at least the cuber and usually also the cube:
Nightmare is not a card that you want in a tempo deck. Nightmare is a card for value or inevitability. If you think that a value/inevitability card is an unquestionable windmill slam, then either you are completely closed to the possibility for tempo-based decks or else the cube you're drafting in is hostile to them.
The reason that I think cubes hostile to tempo decks are an issue is because drafting a tempo deck is already harder and more skill intensive due to the redundancy you need to assemble through the variance of packs and because the correct picks float around a lot based on what you already have. If the environment is significantly hostile then it is seldom correct to do it unless the deck is epically wide open.
You then occasionally get the nearly unbeatable deck and the rest of the time no proper aggro deck to keep the value decks honest. The effect compounds itself until everyone just 'knows' that the value/inevitability cards are best.
Too many sweepers and color sections just without enough creatures overall are the two big things that I immediately cue in on.
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Recurring Nightmare is a great card but this statement is straight up wrong. You do actually need to have cards in your deck that support it.
I'm telling you, it is all down to the specific cube meta. If the cube meta is close to 100% value decks, then the statement is completely correct.
It's a card that should be in absolutely every single cube, and a card that really should be taken early in pretty much every single draft.
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I don't know what you mean by "this has happened" -- in the comments on the thread/video that this SCD thread was made in response to, there was no such "rage" and the criticism was all very reasonable (I'm 100% certain that ExpiredRascals was joking/exagerating when he said he was "horrified", the tone of his post did not seem malicious at all (no where near as much as yours did, at least)).
I only assumed that you were being snide and antagonisitic towards the users that did offer criticism (which Travis invited) and toward myself saying I closed the video with your "rage quit" comments. If you didn't mean it like that I apologise for the misunderstanding, but then another user here suggested that there's no need for you to be so condescending, so I don't think I'm the only one who interpreted your post that way.
I guess I deserved that.
For a more substantial contribution....The power of Nightmare is built into its ability to be very very difficult to stop once going. Only counter magic, removing all creatures that player owns, or making them discard it will stop the chain.
Enchantment removal is useless, and nightmare becomes even more powerful as the amount of mana increases, creating very impressive chains of card advantage that are nearly impossible to recover from.
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