We’ve put off updating the cube for Midnight Hunt to accommodate updating for Crimson Vow at the same time, and it’s here.
Mechanics
Blood – A riff on the classic investigate/clue mechanic from our last trip to Innistrad, blood tokens rummage for half the cost. The ability is really interesting for keeping card velocity flowing, and as one discord member pointed out, mimic giving your entire hand Cycling 1.
Training – An inverse of Mentor, this mechanic has some odd play patterns to it with regards to curving out, it wasn’t super present at common, but it is interesting and on theme for Selesnya.
Cleave – Another kicker variant, cleave involves “ignoring” rules text when an alternate cost is paid for a spell.
White
Omniczech: Neither side of this is incredible, but it’s a bear that stays relevant further into the late game. Allowing white a way to turn its bear into a buff for a flyer is really appealing
Phizzled: To me, this feels a bit like an equipment. In particular, this has the feel of Ancestral Blade. I like it less than the Blade, but I do like it.
Omniczech: Many fans in the Discord know my feelings about this keyword. Since we’ve got Swift Response the comparison is definitely there, but being able to eat something outside of combat for 2 mana that’s tapped is more appealing for me currently. The 6 mana mode is just a bit further than I’m ready to consider but will leave this to community opinions.
Phizzled: Cleave isn’t my favorite thing to look at, but the six mana, instant speed creature kill is a thing I like in certain situations. I’m assuming the community will be enamored with the flexibility but offended by the cost, but I’ll have to wait for the Q&A to confirm that.
Omniczech: We passed on Star Pupil when it came out, but this one has a little bit of added spice that makes it appealing in the form of Training. This following a savannah lions body is very believably a 2/3 with very little extra work which can feed future creatures its tokens. I’m a fan.
Phizzled: Training is hard for me to grok. You want a body that you can play early in the game, but after something with greater power. It needs to survive on defense or impact the board some other way while you wait for it to attack, and it probably needs to grow to a size that is more impressive than its mana value would normally reach. This wants our 2/1s and 3/1s to support it, and I honestly can’t tell if we’d rather just have some of those 3/1s.
Phizzled: This is clearly worse than Shock, but I’ve been (gently) reminded that it’s okay for White to get access to removal that isn’t enchantments. We’ve had two versions of this without scry, and neither interested me. Does tempo or aggro need the incidental card selection to support our removal for White? I don’t know the answer, but I know I’m supposed to check in with the community before ignoring this card.
Blue
Omniczech: Dragon's Rage Channeler this ain’t, but it’s honestly pretty nice. The body is on rate and adding a bit of extra filtering to blue decks is unlikely to be something most would turn down.
Phizzled: As you noted, the body is exactly what you’d expect in Blue for four mana. I can remember being excited to see Phantom Monster in a master’s set. The filtering is likely worth the color commitment. I’m uncertain if this gives too much consistency to Blue-X decks somehow. I imagine it’s just a powerful, evasive weapon, and it’s hard to find something negative to say about it that doesn’t feel like i’m reaching for something to complain about.
Omniczech: I look at this and just see a worse Archaeomancer. I get that it’s a bigger body, but having to sacrifice things to cause this to trigger just makes this unappealing for the main cube list.
Phizzled: I am reminded of Scribe of the Mindful which does the same thing for the same combined mana, over two turns, without requiring that you’ve drawn another creature. If we move to a 540, I could see adding this for consistency for the spells-matter decks.
Phizzled: One of Cube magic’s most respectable statesmen recently wrote an article about Fact or Fiction and whether it was good in enough in modern magic cubes. Spoiler: it is, if you want it to be. Scattered Thoughts has a higher floor and lower ceiling, but offers a lot of card selection at instant speed. This is a heck of a magic card, and suffers, in my personal assessment, from Blue still having so many powerful tools.
Omniczech: I had completely missed this, and I’m kinda bummed about that? This is half of the very solid Memory Deluge and that card absolutely slaps. I might be interested in this if we can find room.
Omniczech: I saw some chatter around this and just don’t see it either. This is just barely in the realm of on rate without the exploit being done, and it feels bad to treat this as a 3 mana Opt.
Phizzled: In contrast, a 3/2 body that fits in a crowded mana cost in Blue. I like the potential to sacrifice something for that optional Opt. I don’t know that this is exciting enough, but if we did feel compelled to remove the creature bounce, this could slot in for one of those in some cube variants.
Black
Omniczech: I don’t know if I’m falling victim to “a lot of words does a lot” syndrome, but I kinda like this? Rummaging away something that’s just rotting in your hand early game is nice, and being able to rebuy big threats later is nice as well. This is going to go to community decision but I wouldn’t be upset to include it.
Phizzled: One of my friends compared this to Witching Well during previews and I kind of love that. The existence of Gary means we have an awkward incentive to keeping a black pip on board if we needed it. I kept Omen of the Dead
in my variant for a while, and this feels much more powerful for the same initial cost.
Omniczech: I like this one, it’s just a fine midrange thing that easily can be a bit above rate. Nothing flashy just something I feel can put in work.
Phizzled: The Gray Ogre pricing feels a touch high, but transforming this at will is only a little more than trivial. Lifelink isn’t the most powerful ability, but it does enough on both halves of the card that I kind of love the idea of it.
Omniczech: I like this in the abstract but also have a gut reaction to adding more tribal things to a format that doesn’t have a heavy focus on it is just forcing in additive distraction.
Phizzled: This is clearly much more powerful than Bonds of Faith for multiple reasons, but at present we have so few vampires (currently 5) that this is just another Dead Weight
number two an overwhelming percent of the time. We have access to other similar effects that are just removal or just buffs but won’t crack the rotation. I’m assuming this doesn’t make it in.
Omniczech: I have no idea where this would live (the gut call is aristocrats) but this is a style of card we have yet to see at common, where it comes right back to play. I’m a fan of this and feel like the community would also be on board.
Phizzled: This is a card I love unreasonably. The clean reanimator and aristocrats enabler does exactly what I want – in another cube. In the Pauper Cube, this is probably less exciting than in my other cubes, but I like this for the same reasons I like Disowned Ancestor. I think this feels great in aristocrats and incidentally like a Fog for some control builds.
Omniczech: This just needs a touch more for me to be interested in it. We just added Loathsome Curator and this just feels so much worse with the same body aching any evasion coupled with being an edict, I’m just not thrilled by this.
Phizzled: It breaks my heart to say, but edicts aren’t powerful in our cube right now. Selectively allowing for the edict mitigates some of the downside of the kind of clunky cost, but I guess it’s nice that we’re still getting edicts even if I can’t endorse them for cube.
Omniczech: We just got Feign Death in AFR, and this is exactly the same again (I had to reread it like 10 times to make sure) and that’s a good card, it really comes down to whether the community wants to have a second copy of this card.
Phizzled: It’s not obvious to me that we need two copies, but I guess it’s neat that we can encourage folks to pick their preferred artwork? I assume if we needed a second copy we’d already have one of the other versions from years past.
Red
Omniczech: I don’t know where I fall on this, we’ve got a lot of good red options at 3 and this feels pretty reasonable as well. Another that I’ll put to community opinion.
Phizzled: I may be overenamored with trample on our red creatures, but I quite like the idea of creating blood tokens. I don’t know that doing so is better than the various other creatures that guarantee a loot without mana payment when they attack or hit an opponent, but controlling your cycling likely appeals to at least a subset of the community as it does me.
Omniczech: The cube is currently not running Thermo-Alchemist or Firebrand Archer
and this has reminded me to question that decision. These are all ways for red decks to push extra damage if their creatures are outmatched on the ground, as well as being able to go in a spell heavy Rx deck.
Phizzled: I don’t mind providing payoffs in the spells matter decks in Red, instead of only in Blue, in particular because BR sometimes just needs the reach. My personal preference is for Thermo-Alchemist for the job, especially when attached to a generally defensive body anyway, but I like all the members of the suite more than something like Kiln Fiend.
Omniczech: How much of a 2 mana draw 2 is this? It’s probably most of one and that’s nothing to sneeze at. This almost feels like an autoinclude.
Phizzled: Some of my friends with peasant cubes are giving strong consideration to replacing the three-and-one mana spectacle version of this effect, and I don’t think they’re wrong. This reads as wildly powerful.
Omniczech: A lot of talk on this in comparison to Insolent Neonate in the Discord. I think this is fine but overall not as good. I like the menace over being able to activate without losing the body, I like neonate being really obnoxious to block, I think this is a firm miss from me.
Phizzled: I’m honestly a fan of both, but, especially as we’ve managed to sneak a few more creature buffs back in the Naya colors, menace on a one drop generally feels better. Blood’s mana activation is still less than ideal compared to Neonate, though I guess you could argue you’ll feel less disappointed if the Epicure happens to die after providing the token.
Green
Omniczech: This was a miss for me. I think it’s just a boring big body that sometimes gets bigger and gains a bit of evasion, it’s fine but we can do much better in green 4s in the current era of design.
Phizzled: I don’t mind the body, and I really don’t mind the evasion gained when you’re able to flip it, but I hesitate to add Day-Night for a relatively unexciting “payoff.” My opinion will almost certainly change if the community is really eager to pull some of the Midnight Hunt wolves still being considered.
Omniczech: Giant Growth is a classic, but I think this might be the point I’m tempted out of it. I like the fact this gives evasion and isn’t drastically less power for the same cost. I’m a fan
Phizzled: Growth remains better on defense and to help your creatures survive damaged based removal, but cheaply adding trample is quite good. I think this helps Green (and maybe Selesnya) close out some games it might have struggled with. I hope the community feels the same way.
Omniczech: I’m a big fan of “green creatures that draw a card somewhere in their lifecycle” and this fits that mold. Our 3s are currently a bit lacking and I could see this fitting in one of those slots.
Phizzled: This feels extremely fair. The body is aggressive enough, for reasons expanded upon ad naseum elsewhere, even without evasion. Advancing the board and drawing a card against most fair removal in the Cube is probably good enough.
Colorless
Omniczech: It’s the Mike’s garbage hour special of the set. I think this is a neat card that does things. I don’t know how many tokens it needs to make before it’s worth it, but this is at least a card that does things, where some of our colorless section is just boring filler in my eyes.
Phizzled: I still prefer the Sword of the MIdnight Snack (Prying Blade) for advancing the game for bigger effects, but there are two pieces of equipment beloved by others that I would pass over for this card.
Reprints, if you’re into foils or new art: