Just in time for Commander Legends 2: Electric Boogaloo, we’ve got an update for Streets of New Capenna!
New Cards
White
Inspiring Overseer was an instant hit with the community, and it’s not hard to see why. With Priest of Ancient Lore in the cube already, this is just a better card. Riftwatcher represents a pretty sizable life total bump and slower decks frankly don’t need the help.
Informant is a great card to see at common. A piker that loots on entering the battlefield is solid as is, but this being able to be a 3 power threat turn 2 is also great. Having both an aggressive body in the early game as well as being able to get you closer to a mass pump effect or simply looting away lands is much more valuable than Valkyrie which just felt bad paying retail for.
Blue
Blue’s newfound options for 1-mana ways to deal with resolved threats is an interesting turn. This swap was the most discussed amongst the committee with a lot of options being floated around, including fairly recent addition Bind the Monster
among others. End of the road we’ve chosen to swap out Thunder Drake. Drake is a cute card, is often just that, a little curiosity versus a real threat. If upping to 3 semi-permanent answers to resolved threats proves too much, we’ll re-evaluate this at a later date.
Red
Mayhem Patrol is a nice little card for getting in damage as well as having a mode that’s pretty close to 1R: shock and draw a card, and that’s pretty sweet. We looked through the glut of cards that are two mana, red and make two 1/1 bodies and eventually decided that instigator was the least interesting of the group and settled on it being the cut. The Instigator was best in go-wide and aristocrats, and Mayhem Patrol’s menace will still help with the former, while its blitz will still help with the later.
Roastmaster needs to trigger maybe three times to feel actively good, but thankfully red shouldn’t have many issues there. Inner-Flame Acolyte on the other hand is really showing its age at this point. It’s been on the chopping block before, and it’s just finally time to say goodbye to an old friend.
Green
We know some will be heartbroken by the Denizen’s departure, but as we’ve discussed in the discord, green is not wanting for four drops, but the threes are a barren wasteland of bad cards. Thankfully Jewel Thief is a shining gem in an otherwise miserable space. While more experienced players who know about the arcane combo lines with Ivy Lane might miss it, we feel that just having a solid beater that comes down early is likely better.
Prizefight wasn’t immediately on our radar, but thanks to committee member Solset and a bit of spirited discussion, we feel confident in including an instant speed fight that’s much faster and cheaper and can also temporarily ramp you is more appealing than the double bite.
Gold/Multicolored
I know folks breathed a collective sigh when we saw a Rakdos common that actually did things. Body Dropper is by no means going to turn the cube on its head overnight, but having it in lieu of Auger Spree felt like a solid upgrade in quality while also more clearly signaling the guild’s identity.
Lands
While it would have been nice if the campuses had been completed, here we are with the draw-a-card duals. While not a clear 1 to 1 comparison, these will be the allied color option that accompanies the campuses for the time being.
Older cards
White
A cool old card that a bunch of boomers like? How could the committee pass this one up? In all seriousness, Elite presents more interesting and aggressive game plans than a simple tapper and plays nicer in decks looking to put counters on their creatures. We look forward to fun stories about this card.
Yes, we’ve heard you! People have been clamoring for the inclusion of Ainok Bond-Kin for a while now, and we’ve finally relented. While whitemane has been in for a while, its mandatory effect can feel awkward when you just want to curve out. Knowing we wanted to get a bit more in the way of counter payoffs, this was an easy swap.
Blue
Another somewhat late inclusion, Flicker is finally joining the ranks alongside Displace
, providing a bit more utility as iit can target artifacts and lands. While the easier swap would have been to 1:1 the two double-target flicker spells, we opted to trim some of the redundant bounce instead.
Red
These four swaps are all somewhat related to one another, so they’ll be tackled together. While discussing cards, we talked about the desire for burn to be more useful for an aggressive styled deck, and allow for a bit more reach and mid combat interactions. We’re biasing towards more instant speed, better rate options, and including an X damage spell to help close out games. We’ve opted for Fireball to allow for some use by the more defensive decks as a somewhat awkward two or more for one, but not adding additional pips to the base cost to maximize damage as an aggro finisher. If necessary down the line, we can consider a different X spell if this particular one isn’t working out for cube owners.
Rage-Hound was discussed when Theros Beyond Death released, but it never made its way into the cube. We’re swapping it in over Dragon Fodder for a bit more diversity in the options we have when it comes to red two drops. The hound is great as a persistent threat that requires real creatures to block it after the first pass, and we think that will benefit red decks looking to attack.
Green
A bit of a strange inclusion, but we feel that giving green access to another decent multi-card draw spell in the form of Lead the Stampede will benefit the color’s card options.
Also rans
End of the day, we couldn’t figure out what the cut for this thing would be, so as much as we’ve liked it in concept, it won’t be making it in this round.
Next Steps
As always, joining the discord is your best way to voice your input and be a part of shaping the cube’s future, but this time we’ve got a new announcement. Currently in alpha but hopefully being more broadly accessible soon, we’re going to have a dedicated site for voting on cards for the pauper cube. This should allow for better access to voting on literally any common and allow for on the spot polling with less set up from the committee side of things. If you’ve ever sat there and said “I wish I could vote on literally every common!”, get excited. More news on this will be coming soon!