This card had a hard time in its constructed life, competing with ravager-affinity and tooth and nail. Until recently, the card didn't show up in a lot of cubes. With the pox theme gaining popularity, Death Cloud saw an increase in numbers of cubes playing it. Is it just en vauge or did the cloud come to stay? And if so, what is the minimum cube size to play this card? The cube meta changed drastically since Mirrodin, so maybe now the time for the cloud has come?
I added it as part of the Pox package, and it's been very good in those decks. If you don't support the theme, it's not good enough on its own. But in a deck filled with cards that are designed to mitigate all of the card's drawbacks, it can be really powerful.
Complete and utter multiplayer finisher.
Does its triple-black CC preclude it from cube? Don't know. Maybe I should test it out? It certainly has a reputation in my playgroup that would probably see it drafted...
Honestly, the face value on Death Cloud has been very good on its own. If I have 3 creatures and my opponent has 2, a Death Cloud for 2 is a fine play. I've also had a couple of artifacts and a planeswalker down and hit a Death Cloud to completely make a 1-sided devastation spell. There was nothing left but my stuff. Combined with the discard effects, it usually seals the game when it goes off.
The biggest problem with the Cloud is that it's three black mana. I am probably going to jump on the bandwagon and try out Pox/Smallpox and a couple other cards, but I won't be including this. Profane Command is just way better I think.
The biggest problem with the Cloud is that it's three black mana. I am probably going to jump on the bandwagon and try out Pox/Smallpox and a couple other cards, but I won't be including this. Profane Command is just way better I think.
It really depends on what you're trying to do. Profane Command and Death Cloud are completely different spells. I have decks that would want Command and not Cloud, and vice versa.
It's been one of the strongest spells in the Pox decks we've been playing.
The biggest problem with the Cloud is that it's three black mana. I am probably going to jump on the bandwagon and try out Pox/Smallpox and a couple other cards, but I won't be including this. Profane Command is just way better I think.
if BBB is the biggest problem i think i would run death cloud over pox itself. especially since pox cares a lot about both players' board and hand and you really want to be able to pull the trigger at the right moment. Not that timing isn't important for death cloud but extra non-black mana gives you more flexibility with it.
By far the biggest problem with this card is the life loss. It takes so long to get going that by the time you can fire it off you are often too low to do it for an appropriate amount. With that said I still run it for being a fun and unique card.
The life loss is actually a great upside for this card. Pox style decks tend to be the aggressors in a lot of their matchups, and getting in for the extra late-game reach is very cool when their board is wiped and you still have a living attacker. And the multi-edict also keeps the pressure off you -- further mitigating the life-loss drawback.
What I don't get is that Profane Command is really good in aggressive decks too. The mass fear/life drain mode can end games out of nowhere. Command is also good in WB Tokens, decent in reanimation decks with a lot of value creatures, and good in regular (non-Pox) black aggressive decks. Death Cloud seems better when one has a bunch of creatures that work with the sac clause, but it seems like Command isn't that much worse even then...
When you're playing a pox-style aggro deck, there's really nothing better than this particular effect. I mean, Profane command doesn't hit their lands or their hand, which are the two biggest aspects of why the card can be used aggressively.
If it sounds like I'm bashing on Profane Command, I'm not. I love that card. I'm simply advocating the use of Death Cloud if you're playing those kinds of decks. With a couple ways of making the effect asymmetrical, it's a complete bomb.
I've come to realize that the great thing about Death Cloud is that it scales. You get the greatest advantage out of it because your can control the number it hits for. If you are the aggressor in your match-up, then Death Cloud, like the other Pox style cards, should go a long way in giving you the win. It removes blockers, hinders their ability to go over the top of you, and limits their various game plan options, all the while bringing the game closer to an end.
You don't always have to have the cards that mitigate the symmetrical effects, though they can really help, in most cases you just need to be ahead and ready to close the game out.
I think that was Theogony's point, but yeah, it's a great versatile spell. I'm looking at giving Smallpox another go on the back of this thread, and if it does OK, then maybe Death Cloud could get a look in.
I imagine it'd be sweet with Utopia Sprawl, Garruk Wildspeaker, and Nissa, Worldwaker.
It's tough because Smallpox fits much better into an aggressive-ish shell, where you can cast it into their first creature and recur a Bloodghast for free or something. This seems to fit in a much bigger mana deck, just like Wildfire does.
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IMO, Death Cloud is an auto-include in any heavy black deck. It's essentially a modal spell in that it can be used to simulate a lot of different effects when you need them. It's a wildfire. It's a fireball to your opponent's dome. It's a scale-able discard effect. And since you can set X to any number, it can also be a scalpel of sorts removing a single untargetable creature. It's expensive in all modes though and BBB is not something every deck can reliably reach, but the effect is absurdly powerful and feels flexible because of how many game states it is relevant in.
Once you have a small advantage, you can often make it a very large advantage with this card by removing nearly all resources from the game (cards, creatures and lands). It's just so easy to break symmetry on it in this color too with things like Bloodghast, Gravecrawler, Messenger, etc.
Death Cloud works great with tokens, planes walkers, big mana decks at times, and decks with recurrable creatures like ahdabans mentioned. It's a card I still include because one of my players was talking ***** about it endlessly w/o having actually used it and then I beat him with it and I like to remind him of that time I beat him with it by letting it show up in packs, but it can be hard to pull off and often sits in sideboards.
Not being able to deal with your opponent's planeswalkers is a huge strike against this card.
I think it's as much of a strike as it would be against things like wildfire, that being if you can build around that principal the card is that much better for you. I've had matches where my wildfires have been awful because my opponents have a bunch of planeswalkers and big creatures, but also excellent when I have them all, and that same idea applies to Death Cloud except moreso when your opponent is playing the token deck vs. you playing the token deck etc.
To make Death Cloud/Pox work, you want mana rocks, token generators, recursive creatures, planeswalkers, and a lot of black mana fixing so you can hit that BBB when you need to.
Also, since it's a build-around, you really should be running Pox as well as Death Cloud and Smallpox for the redundancy. Smokestack, Braids, or even something like Magus of the Abyss can help add redundancy.
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Not being able to deal with your opponent's planeswalkers is a huge strike against this card.
I think it's as much of a strike as it would be against things like wildfire, that being if you can build around that principal the card is that much better for you. I've had matches where my wildfires have been awful because my opponents have a bunch of planeswalkers and big creatures, but also excellent when I have them all, and that same idea applies to Death Cloud except moreso when your opponent is playing the token deck vs. you playing the token deck etc.
It's much easier to keep a relevant creature around that can deal with a planeswalker post Wildfire than post Death Cloud.
This card had a hard time in its constructed life, competing with ravager-affinity and tooth and nail. Until recently, the card didn't show up in a lot of cubes. With the pox theme gaining popularity, Death Cloud saw an increase in numbers of cubes playing it. Is it just en vauge or did the cloud come to stay? And if so, what is the minimum cube size to play this card? The cube meta changed drastically since Mirrodin, so maybe now the time for the cloud has come?
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Does its triple-black CC preclude it from cube? Don't know. Maybe I should test it out? It certainly has a reputation in my playgroup that would probably see it drafted...
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It's much like a black Wildfire variant.
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It really depends on what you're trying to do. Profane Command and Death Cloud are completely different spells. I have decks that would want Command and not Cloud, and vice versa.
It's been one of the strongest spells in the Pox decks we've been playing.
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Profane Command fits into more decks though, so it's a classic archetype vs. good-card choice.
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if BBB is the biggest problem i think i would run death cloud over pox itself. especially since pox cares a lot about both players' board and hand and you really want to be able to pull the trigger at the right moment. Not that timing isn't important for death cloud but extra non-black mana gives you more flexibility with it.
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If it sounds like I'm bashing on Profane Command, I'm not. I love that card. I'm simply advocating the use of Death Cloud if you're playing those kinds of decks. With a couple ways of making the effect asymmetrical, it's a complete bomb.
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You don't always have to have the cards that mitigate the symmetrical effects, though they can really help, in most cases you just need to be ahead and ready to close the game out.
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And you're right Theogony_IX, the scalability of the spell is what has made it so good for us thus far.
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It's tough because Smallpox fits much better into an aggressive-ish shell, where you can cast it into their first creature and recur a Bloodghast for free or something. This seems to fit in a much bigger mana deck, just like Wildfire does.
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Once you have a small advantage, you can often make it a very large advantage with this card by removing nearly all resources from the game (cards, creatures and lands). It's just so easy to break symmetry on it in this color too with things like Bloodghast, Gravecrawler, Messenger, etc.
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Also, this card can literally kill you. So can Earthquake, but it's much easier to break the symmetry of Earthquake than Death Cloud.
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I think it's as much of a strike as it would be against things like wildfire, that being if you can build around that principal the card is that much better for you. I've had matches where my wildfires have been awful because my opponents have a bunch of planeswalkers and big creatures, but also excellent when I have them all, and that same idea applies to Death Cloud except moreso when your opponent is playing the token deck vs. you playing the token deck etc.
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Also, since it's a build-around, you really should be running Pox as well as Death Cloud and Smallpox for the redundancy. Smokestack, Braids, or even something like Magus of the Abyss can help add redundancy.
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It's much easier to keep a relevant creature around that can deal with a planeswalker post Wildfire than post Death Cloud.
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