Jumbo Cactuar

Creature — Plant

10,000 Needles — Whenever this attacks, this gets +9999/+0 until end of turn.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Alchemy	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Arena	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Freeform	Legal
Gladiator	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Historic	Legal
Historic Brawl	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Modern Beyond Horizons	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Planar Constructed	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Pre-release	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Standard	Legal
Standard Brawl	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (9)

DemonDragonJ on Mark Rosewater's Comments on Blocking …

1 month ago

wallisface, I was not actually being serious, as I am very fond of my current job, but, if I was working for WotC, I would have opposed the printing of cards such as Jumbo Cactuar or Overkill with every ounce of energy that I had.

legendofa on Is Anyone Else Concerned with …

1 month ago

Card quality isn't just about raw output. It's the ratio of input to output.

If Jumbo Cactuar cost just {G}, even if you cut its toughness way down, it would be broken. 7 mana is pretty reasonable for a modern (not necessarily Modern) creature with deathtouch, something like "If this creature deals combat damage to a player, that player loses the game," and no other abilities. Compare Vorpal Sword, Summon: Primal Odin, Phage the Untouchable, etc. Jumbo Cactuar has a huge output, but requires special preparation and lots of mana to make it work. High input, high output--good for style points, not for tournaments.

Overkill is somewhere between Murder and something like Flay Essence. It kills indestructible creatures, but that's the main perk it has over Murder. Moderate input, moderate output--functional, but there's better.

Zacama, Primal Calamity is notable in EDH, which is generally slower and allows for more setup than Modern. It's far from useless there, offering a big body with lots of combat abilities that can clear out obstacles as soon as it comes down. {R} and {G} are strong ramp colors, so you can get it out quickly. Even if it dies immediately, it's taking at least one problem with it. But to wallisface's point, it's nothing special in Modern. Commander: moderate input, high output--beware of Triplesaurus. Modern: high input, low output--not worth it.

For something I would call overpowered, Ocelot Pride works as an example. The game's filled with 1-cost 1/1s. The game's not filled with 1-cost 1/1s that reinforce themselves in all areas, providing the extra life and bodies to take over a match, either stalling until something else comes out or just incrementally building up until it can alpha strike by itself. Sure, it dies to any removal down to Scorching Spear. But if you don't do that immediately, it'll take over. And it's very easy to build around, since it doesn't need much more than incidental lifegain and one turn of survival to be a threat. And the first strike can be relevant, too. There's a reason the price tag is solidly in the double digits. Lifelink -> life gain -> cats -> army of cats, and that's eithout any outside support. Not bad for one mana. Low input, high output--kill on sight.

Bookrook on Is Anyone Else Concerned with …

1 month ago

How to reasonably defend against Jumbo Cactuar:block it with a 1/1. Dawnsire could say “when you attack, destroy target creature” and it would be the same.

DemonDragonJ on Is Anyone Else Concerned with …

1 month ago

wallisface, I confess that the large numbers on those cards are the exact reason for which I consider them to be overpowered, because how can a player reasonably defend against Jumbo Cactuar or Dawnsire, Sunstar Dreadnought? When will a creature ever have sufficient toughness, or a planeswalker have sufficient loyalty, to survive the damage from those creatures?

legendofa on sultai elves

1 month ago

Would you consider other options for the commander? The partners don't really have any interaction with each other, and they interact with just 15 cards in the deck, assuming your artifacts get destroyed regularly.

The deck feels like it needs some focus. There's not really any unifying theme. Revel in Riches doesn't have much support in either killing creatures or making treasures, and there's only nine Islands for High Tide.

There's nothing strictly wrong with the deck. Each piece can be independently useful. But if you develop the Elf theme, or a big trampler theme with Aggressive Mammoth + Jumbo Cactuar as the core, it'll flow better. As it stands now, the deck doesn't have much interaction with itself, and that usually makes the deck feel slow and inconsistent.

Of course, if you're happy with the deck as it is, or want it to grow and develop more organically, or go with something more thematic than competitive, that's all completely fair. The most important thing is that the deck is what you want it to be.

Crow_Umbra on Is Anyone Else Concerned with …

1 month ago

I agree to an extent that power creep exists and is an unavoidable facet of this game; boundaries in design space will be pushed and broken interactions with various mechanics from the game's 30+ year history may not always be evident at first glance. I think that the various cards you listed in your example are more gimmicky than examples of being broken or power crept.

• Overkill - This is a flavorful uncommon, but it still costs 3 mana. Since 3 toughness is considered a benchmark by many players due to Lightning Bolt, then something like Nightmarish End, Ob Nixilis's Cruelty, or Sudden Death achieve a similar effect for a similar cmc. Here's a more extensive list of Black instants that give some -x/-x effect as removal for comparison.

• Jumbo Cactuar - Again, this is a flavor gimmick given the Jumbo Cactuar's infamous attack. While 10k damage is a lot, the Cactuar costs 7 mana, needs {G}{G} to be cast, and lacks Haste or Trample. Yes, you could Fling or Self-Destruct the Cactuar, but that's now 9 total mana across 2 colors to send 10k damage directly at someone's face.

• The Station Artifacts you mentioned are both 5 cmc and each require 20+ Stationing power from other creatures on your board to achieve their fullest potential. Some strategies will have an easier time accomplishing this, but that's still a very steep investment of resources towards a single artifact/creature. I'd recommend checking out any gameplay videos of any of the Station commanders to see direct examples of the resource commitment needed, especially once they get into mid-late game where boards suffer more removal, and Stationing is harder to do.

In regards to more blatant power creep, I think cards that start seeing a lot of saturation in tournament top 8s should be examined. Take all of the cards recently banned from Standard as examples of power creep that have more direct effects on tournament metas. Vivi Ornitier is now getting similar complaints from different outlets.

DemonDragonJ on Is Anyone Else Concerned with …

1 month ago

Magic: the Gathering has now been around for over thirty years, so it is inevitable that it would experience power creep in some way, but I feel that the power creep has been particularly blatant in recent sets, with cards such as Jumbo Cactuar, Overkill, The Eternity Elevator, and Dawnsire, Sunstar Dreadnought being some of the best examples of this trend. I understand that this is purely my own opinion, but I imagine that at least some other players shall agree, with me, about this.

What does everyone else say, about this? Are you concerned with the extreme power creep of recent sets? I certainly am interested to hear your thoughts, on this matter.

Hybrow on The taxonomy of Volo

3 months ago

Been rebuilding my Volo a bit and have a couple more suggestions:

Octomancer is far and away the biggest threat in my deck. On the turn he is cast, even if I cast nothing else, I end the turn with 4 of them. Then every turn i get an extra 4 of any one creature i cast that turn. And if opponents are getting tokens, they also trigger on their turns. (only issue would be he is a druid

Summon: Valefor Each opponent generally pulls back 2 biggest creatures and then the next 3 turns you are stunning a bunch of creatures. Any of the Summons are nice from FF set, they are all non-legendary, and SAGA is not a creature type, so could use mutiple without them duplicating.

ohh, and Jumbo Cactuar is just a fun way to win if you have trample enablers.