MTG Salvation

Kokusho has long been considered a cube staple, and according to Eidolon's list he was recently voted as one of the top 20 black cards. However out of the 81 cubes in Eidolon's current stats, he is only in 55 of the cubes (68%). So is he still good enough? Is he just outclassed by Grave Titan?

I'll be honest, every time I make cuts in black, I just gloss over this guy as if he could never been considered as a cut target, but the last time we cubed we had a guy with a Jund deck who had to choose between Kokusho and Broodmate Dragon, and it was pretty clear that Broodmate would be a much better creature for him. Now obviously that's comparing a 3 color card to a monocolor card, but I was surprised at how clear the decision was.

So . . thoughts? Does Kokusho really carry his weight nowadays or is he just holding on through inertia?

I think he's still pretty good and has some neat interactions, but he's on the possible cut list I think.

Kokusho still puts in work, a 5/5 flying dragon and makes a 10 point life swing when he dies is nothing to sneeze at, he is a little worse than Grave Titan but I'd just run them both and be extremely happy. He's really good, and I wouldn't consider cutting him anytime soon.

He's iconic, and a big part of what it was about to play competitive and casual magic in that era for me. I played a gifts/reanimator deck in Standard at the time which was all about popping two of these in play, rinse and repeat. He was also a multiplayer favourite for many years in my playgroup.

For these reasons, he pretty much has a permanent place in my cube. People are still very happy to draft him. Sure, there are a large number of really good fatties in all colours now, and choosing which to run can be a matter of personal preference. Maybe Massacre Wurm is better, but I don't care that much.

There are a few other cards that have a permanent place in my cube, because of the same reasons as Kokusho. They include Blastoderm, Yawgmoth's Bargain, Gifts Ungiven, Mogg Fanatic, and Wild Mongrel. Up until recently, I would have said Bottle Gnomes, as it was a card I played a lot back in the day. I cut him recently, because he wasn't drafted at all anymore, and the biggest champion and player of the Bottle Gnomes left our group last year.

Grave Titan is certainly better, I think. Kokusho gets bonus points in my cube because we run a fair bit of multiplayer, where he is absolutely brutal. I could see him leaving the main cube one day but not the multiplayer addendum.

We would have to be given another Grave Titan power level finisher before I'd ever consider cutting Kokusho.

Quote from calibretto

We would have to be given another Grave Titan power level finisher before I'd ever consider cutting Kokusho.

I assume from this that at 555 you feel you need more than two 6+ mana black finishers?

With Griselbrand and Grave Titan, I'm just not convinced I need another giant black finisher. I could easily be wrong though, and it's not like Kokusho isn't getting drafted.

There are plenty of cards that I would cut before I cut the three dragons. Heck I just added the red one in.

Grave Titan is better. Griselbrand is just a reanimation target, not something that gets hardcast. So if you're looking for another good black finisher for mid-range and control decks, Kokusho, the Evening Star is a solid option. I recently cut Griselbrand for a 6-drop because he was simply too expensive to go in anything but reanimator. I'm testing out Massacre Wurm right now, but if it turns out to under-perform, I won't have any issues axing it to get Kokusho back. I think it's a fine option, but I haven't cubed it in a while, and I don't consider it a staple.

Quote from JeffDerek

I assume from this that at 555 you feel you need more than two 6+ mana black finishers?

At 555, I run three 6+ casting cost guys (not counting Tombstalker). Grave Titan and Kokusho are obvious and I'm currently running Sheoldred in the third slot, but this one could go to any possible black finisher (Griselbrand, Massacre Wurm, etc). So I guess I should change my comment... They would have to print two Grave Titan power level black finishers before I would ever consider cutting Kokusho.

The big Kok is a fan favorite and I wouldn't cut him for the world... Then again I don't run Titans as they are a tad too good, and I don't exactly like cards that single handily force a two turn clock while creating continuous card advantage on the board. It's the same reason I hated that World's Champ top8, as good as the players were and as interesting as the format was with new invention, the finals generally ended with "whoops, I topped grave titan, gg." in the finals and that's terrible to watch.

Not only do I support multiplayer, but I also have a pretty large Clone theme in my Cube. I remember one of my friends drafting a Living Death deck with Kokusho and several clones - the life swing was insane.

I love the guy. A 5/5 flyer for 6 is fine, but make it one that the opponents don't want to kill and it's just that much better.

-rexx

Have anyone tried Laquatu's champion vs. this guy? I am running champion at the moment but I am debating whether to run kokusho in his place.

Kokusho is about a million times better than the Champion.

Seriously, though, Laquatus' Champion really isn't that great, while Kokusho is amazing. I ran Champion for a while when I first built my cube and he was only ever good when he acted like a finishing burn spell. Most of the time the life loss was never a setback and he's not hard to deal with.

Part of the issue with the champion is that he's not even a great burn spell... If they're at 6 life and you play the Champion they can still remove him to stay alive by allowing the loss of life trigger to stack and then killing him to get the gain of life trigger to resolve prior to the loss of life trigger. This is further compounded by his three toughness which means Incinerate and Lightning Bolt just ruin him.

If he was worded as "That opponent gains life lost this way" or what have you, he would be much better as then he could be blinked or bounced to deal 12 points of life loss with as little as 5BBW.

However, as it stands now, Kokusho is just better as he is the same cost and is a 5/5 with evasion that punishes your opponent for removing him with a much more relevant life exchange. He also works better with more strategies like Recurring Nightmare, which the Champion doesn't because of the wording.

We love to "rock out with our kok out", as we say when cubing with him.

I cut Kokusho and kept Grave Titan as my only black finisher when I went down to 400. I didn't like the fact that the life loss to the opponent was rarely relevant to the control deck that ran him/her/it*, often leaving it as an unimpressive 5/5 flier for 6 who gains you 5 life... when it dies. I still think he's one of the best choices other than GT, but outside of shenanigans with Rec Nightmare and the likes, I would say he's just good rather than great. I'm expecting better to emerge within the next year or two.

*delete as appropriate.

KokoPuff topped the black creatures in the Multiplayer power rankings by a loooooong way. Admittedly, half the people voting in these are outside of the Cube forums (and Koko is even better when he's not in a singletons-only environment). But still, in a Multiplayer cube, he's probably still the #1 choice. Especially if you're smart enough to be running Rite of Replication in the same cube.

My cube plays almost solely multiplayer, so obviously Kokusho is a complete house for us and I feel that any cube that plays even some multiplayer should run him. In cubes that are strictly 1v1, I'd say it depends on how attached to him your playgroup is. There's definitely enough black finishers out there now that equal or surpass Kokopuffs, but he's still far enough from being a bad card that sentimentality doesn't have to be the only reason to keep him around.

I think the best black finisher is Grave Titan. After that, it's a tight race between Kokusho and Massacre Wurm. I'm not sure which is better. I currently run Kokusho and prefer him because of his iconic status. In terms of black fatties, those three are the best (with Griselbrand if you want just a reanimation target) and you should probably only run the others if you have a really large cube.

Cheers,
rant

Quote from Nof

Kokusho, the Evening Star's MD%, with other black finishers for comparaison

Grave Titan 88%
Kokusho, the Evening Star 82%
Twisted Abomination 75%
Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief 68%
Bloodgift Demon 62%
Ob Nixilis, the Fallen 61%
Average black creature 58%
Skeletal Vampire 56%
Phage the Untouchable 50%
Geth, Lord of the Vault 46%
Visara the Dreadful 42%
Griselband 33%
Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon 25%
Reiver Demon 11%

Is posting this usefull? I have no idea how many drafts make up these random numbers and not to mention that in general your results are far far different from anything I or anyone I know have encountered. Unless your drafting 5+ times a week I highly doubt this information is usefull to the community. Give me your oppion, I want to hear it. But those kind of statistics need to have some meat to them to mean anything at all. If your combining your own statistics with atleast 5 other cubes with the same lists I would be a lot lot more interested.

Quote from Nof

I have the same opinion about every single collection of anecdotal evidence that everybody else is posting here.

Agreed, its all oppinion for the most part. With Eidolon's data (when provided) being an exception.

Grave Titan is obviously better, but Kokusho, the Evening Star is still very good. It can easily be your second black 6-drop and should at least be your third one.

I once played a red burn deck and had my opponent down to a single life when he cast Consuming Vapors on his own Kokusho. That was fun.

I think Kokusho still holds his own even these days, at least at 450+.

I think the MD% is irrelevant to how good a card is in the cube. Some cards make the cut in more decks. It doesn't mean they're better than the cards that make it into less decks. It doesn't mean they're more popular than the cards with lower percentages. It simply means they're played more. A card like Incinerate may have a higher MD% than something like Sulfuric Vortex, but does that mean it's better? No. Does it even mean it's more popular? No. It simply means it sees play in more decks. I receive direct feedback from my drafters about how cards perform. Why they do and don't make the cut. That makes up a small fraction of what makes a card good for the cube. And I share that information with this community. So even though saying "I prefer card X to card Y" seems anecdotal, I find the information 10x more valuable than "Card X has 81% play and card Y has 74% play" which is 0% relevant to me. The way the information is presented makes it seems as if that's somehow relevant to a card's power-level, importance or popularity in the cube; when in fact, it's none of those things.

Just my $0.02.