First off, a small apology for the delay in the quick hits, in general we’ve been slow on this one as Duskmourn was hot off the back of our Modern Horizons 3 and Bloomburrow update, featuring arguably the most impactful set in years for a variety of formats, we have Duskmourn, which has… Personality? As a result of this not being a very high include count set, we may be equally slow to get cards into the cube.
White
Omni: another in the vast waves of “this is better than the previous version, but unexciting”
Neveron: The main question here is probably whether it replaces a two-mana pacifism variant or one of the three-mana options that can deal with Desert.
Solset: My distaste for the flavor aside, this is a good card and will improve white’s overall removal package. As others have implied, this lacks just a bit of versatility compared to some options, but is likely better 90% of the time. So for the cut, the big question is do we prioritize strength or versatility in what it will replace.
Usman: I personally like it more than an O-Ring, but less than a Pacifism. Mostly universal removal which makes the maindeck in most white decks. Poor Mike Teavee. 🙁
Phizzled: As O-ring variants go, it’s fairly clean in explaining exactly what it can remove. Ward sometimes runs the risk of more “feel bad” moments (compared to “this ability costs more to cast/activate”), but I haven’t seen so much distaste for it that I would not consider this for inclusion.
Omni: I like this one in the same vein as Ecstatic Awakener // Awoken Demon, I do wish it had any sort of keyword somewhere to not just be Eager Cadet, but we can’t be too choosy.
Neveron: Being instant speed is good; not drawing a card like Awakener does is a bit rough.
Solset: I am one of Ecstatic Awakener’s biggest fans. Overall, I do think this compares favorably. Black cares about sacrifice; white cares about counters. Awakener lets you “cycle” your worst creature on board; Goat lets you ditch a card you haven’t wasted any tempo casting yet. Finally, even if Awakener is likely the better card in a vacuum, Goat is in a color that can really use more one drops that improve mid to late game.
Usman: My issue with this is that it doesn’t really give you anything that special when you discard a card, just combat stats. Being a combat trick (even if it’s on-board) is nice for combat, since it makes blocking it tough but I’m not feeling this one, even as a lover of beatdown 1-drops.
Phizzled: I guess I like that after your third or fourth land, you can draw a Hunger of the Howlpack to advance your boardstate, but this feels lacking compared to some of the explosive growth creatures other colors get. Technically, that’s fair for White, and it is entirely possible that activating the goat just ends the game anyway, so not getting to draw a card is maybe not disqualifying.
Solset: For anyone that has played Looter il-Kor, they know how consistent card selection can take over a game. I was a fan of Attentive Sunscribe, and this just blows that up. For a generic cube, this is likely good enough, and it is currently the best common in its own draft format. More, an early vigilance creature is also a great option to suit up with counters and equipment in Green White. While it is a bit worse early, I imagine this little enchantment is better than Topan Freeblade most of the time.
Usman: This reminds me a lot of the saboteurs without evasion, where it wants to consistently attack to do something but gets stymied in its goals by blockers. The whole “this gets outclassed quick” is somewhat cliched but I can’t help but think that when I see this. Admittedly, I’ve had a grand total of one draft of DSK and it’s one of the better performers in one of the better-performing colors, per 17lands but… eeeeeh.
Phizzled: I think this likely performs better where every color gets some more delirium payoffs, which are generally lacking in The Pauper Cube. A bear with vigilance is fine to throw into combat, but more and more creatures in other decks feel as likely to kill it as to stonewall this. Weirdly, I might like it more with an ETB surveil.
Blue
Omni: This one’s a sidegrade to Witness Protection and I’m still undecided which I prefer. This one walls your 1/1 forever vs trading with a token down the line.
Neveron: I think this probably replaces one of the one-mana tap-downs, perhaps, like Bubble Snare. Getting rid of static and triggered abilities is increasingly relevant.
Solset: For more tempo oriented cubes, this is likely worse than options that remove the creature from the combat phase, but I think for us, this is just better to survive until blue’s late game plans.
Usman: Not bad out of 10; I think I like it better than Witness Protection but they’re close enough.
Phizzled: I agree with Neveron. If we make the swap, this is more of a kind with the tap-removals aimed at removing a Gruul monster or some repeatable effect.
Black
Omni: Oh hey, it’s Sultai Emissary but better! I’m sure others can explain why they love this one but for me it’s just a slight upgrade on a card most haven’t been complaining about.
Neveron: For those who wonder, we’ve probably reached the limit on how many dies-into-a-body creatures we should have in the cube. This probably replaces Emissary rather than existing alongside it.
Solset: Aristocrats has plenty of support in the 2 drops, so we should expect this to replace an option. Putrid Goblin is better if you are looking for pressure, but it is worse in a deck that wants to actively sacrifice or fill up the graveyard compared to Emissary. For the diversity of effects, I’d expect Emissary to leave.
Usman: Slight upgrade is upgrade but still fine.
Phizzled: Manifest dread has seemed better and better the more I’ve played with it, but again, graveyard synergies in Duskmourn have maybe inflated the importance and value of binning one of the top two cards. The 1/1 is clearly less impressive, but there is just enough reanimation that I’m leaning towards inclusion, currently.
Red
Omni: I might be the dissenting voice here but I am not as high on this Raging Goblin with upside as a lot of folks. I won’t throw the wildest fit if this is what people want I just don’t think this is it.
Neveron: As the resident Raging Goblin Fan, I definitely feel a bit mixed on this one. “Drawing” a card when it dies is a good effect, but there’s a lot of similar cards competing for those slots.
Solset: This is really close to me when I compare it to our one drops that die into a guy or compared to Fanatical Firebrand. Might be worth asking for a vote to directly compare them.
Usman: Absolutely love this thing. Can’t wait to get some equipment on it but I’m good with this replacing something mediocre at 1-2 mana. It’s going to be awkward when this hits a combat trick but I think that’s likely its worst case, not usual case.
Phizzled: This is just such a cute Ragavan reference and I have no complaints about the flavor. I’m more interested in this for a Rakdos pauper constructed aristocrats build than I am in the cube right now, though.
Omni: This seems like a pretty solid combat trick that doesn’t care nearly as much about winning combat vs ensuring it trades up and nets you a 2/2. Good stuff.
Neveron: This card has been making waves in Standard in the turn two kill decks, but for us this is probably just a good combat trick. Otherworldly Outburst, Felonious Rage… We’ve come a long way, huh?
Solset: This is nuts in standard when copied for free, but it is still a really solid and versatile card. For most red decks, I imagine it will be a Lava Spike 95% of the time. However, the alternative mode of killing an annoying blocker and getting to upgrade the creature at the same time for 1 mana, makes it much better than our favorite Arcane bolt.
Usman: This may be best in class in terms of a combat trick that does something when the creature trades up (Felonious Rage, etc) and on-rate, it’s fine as a 3-damage spell. I’m unsure how often it’ll come up where you’d rather just have a Shock, which is its main point against it. Worth a whirl, though.
Phizzled: We’ve had several variants, as noted by my fellow committee members, and I think you’re just taking the one or two that feel most flavorful to you. This adds reach in two ways to some of Red’s smaller beaters, but, again, it doesn’t do anything that feels especially new.
Solset: Well, our community hates this card, but have you thought about how this hits on the play when you follow it up with a Beetleback Chief or Hordeling Outburst? Forget those fantastic follow ups, most of the time I think this is going to play as well as Skophos Reaver. Yet, when we have dedicated an archetype to go wide, it will often be much better. Give it a thought, and revote if you think this should be given a shot.
Omniczech: Besides passing value of jokes at your opponent’s expense (cause really, who’s a bigger clown than them?), I do think this is a card that presents a pretty must answer threat. It’s not the craziest idea to think this triggers once or twice pretty easily and does give those outsized early game creatures a little more utility in the mid to late game.
Usman: Initial thought is if this is better than Witty Roastmaster and I think the answer’s yes, for rate.
Phizzled: My first thought was, of course, the various token generator spells, but then my second thought was Rakdos aristocrats. There remain enough creatures that die into other tokens and trigger this so long as you have an instant speed sacrifice ability. If this triggers consistently, it’s Skophos Reaver, but we already already have several go-wide payoffs, and I couldn’t tell you how we’ll know we have too many of them.
Green
Solset: This is currently polling poorly, but I feel it is a great addition to green. A bear is always welcome, and an early deathtouch creature will help you stabilize. Late game, this is sure to trade up on defense, and later giving a trample creature deathtouch is a fantastic combo once you are turning big green guys sideways. I may be alone, but I think this is just what green wants in a bear, more than a teenage mutant samurai frog.
Usman: This may be a subtle way of getting green to play more of an aggressive role with small creatures that can’t be blocked effectively, might also be something good with tokens, since it doesn’t “pair up” with a specific creature ala Soulbond, it just chooses a buddy when it attacks. Yeah, this could do something.
Phizzled: I thought of the “backup” ability before Soulbond, but either way, this is a cheap creature I’d rather draw late, which is awkward to draft as a focal element of the Cube, but improves every 4/4 trampler immensely. The best play pattern being awkward is the biggest mark against this: if your trampler could potentially close the game out anyway, isn’t this worse to draw late than Predator's Strike or Massive Might (already in the Cube)?
Omni: This has to just be the best version of this effect we’ve gotten right? By a country mile? The fact you can blast something away just by having your late game threat in hand is nice utility.
Neveron: When this first appeared in Ikoria’s uncommon Charge of the Forever-Beast, people worried about what this meant for the future of Green. Turns out that they never returned to this mechanic until now, though, and having green be able to actually do stuff on an empty board is a fun addition to common.
Solset: This is about as close to Fell as I think we will get in green for a long time. It seems small, but by making your choice a cost rather than a target and allowing the pick from your hand this is so much better than our fight and bite spells since it is completely immune to the typical responses.
Usman: I’ve generally been eh on 2-mana fight/bite spells (especially at sorcery speed) in green since they lag behind removal in other colors, but being able to get around spot removal helps it not just get punked by a Doom Blade. We likely have room for this.
Phizzled: At sorcery speed, technically there is a downside, but not needing to have already cast your Dreadmaw to remove anything on the board is almost too good to pass up.
Omni: I don’t know where I fall on this vs other cyclers, do we need 2, all those various conundrums and will likely fall back on the rest of the committee, but it is cool to see a better dreadmaw show up in a standard release.
Neveron: This overgrown lizard can’t even be found with Commune with Dinosaurs, smh. Seriously, though, it’s probably fine? I’ve long been a fan of cards like Greater Sandwurm, where you cycle them early and cast them late, and the question is mostly just whether or not it beats the competition for high-MV green slots. It’s a tough race, and we aren’t even running Timberland Ancient.
Solset: While slightly different, this fits a similar spot to Greater Tanuki. The more I pauper cube, the less I want to want ramp on turn 3. Unless I am in a multicolor pile, I think I like Branchsnapper just better, and with a slew of new saclands, our multicolor options are doing just fine.
Usman: I agree that this > Tanuki, but this could easily replace something else at 5 and I wouldn’t bat an eye either. I used to love playing the cyclers in my own pauper cube as cards that could do a thing early and be cast late game as a giant beater. Maybe this is better than Krosan Tusker? Not that I think that’s what we’d cut for it…
Omni: We liked this when it was a cat, I still like it as a dog, the question is do we need 2 in the cube?
Neveron: As a cat person, I’ll probably stick with Wary Thespian. This is slightly less wordy due to the new wording of “enters”, I guess?
Solset: Well, the druid type on Thespian could matter in the future and people already own it, so I think we stick with what we have. No need for two of these.
Usman: Not a cat 🙁 :chrono: . If our green was more aggressive, I’d like it more as a way to bolster early aggressive curves with another on-rate body that does something on the way in and out, but I don’t think we necessarily need two.
Phizzled: Double dipping on the same body (except creature type) doesn’t seem critical. I’m comfortable passing.
Colorless
Abandoned Campground and its cycle are rarely going to matter more than a gate, but it is profoundly impactful that we have our first common dual cycle that could enter untapped. While the 13 life clause isn’t going to speed up aggressive decks nor will it excite control decks, it opens the door to many other conditional untapped duals at common. Not for us now, but the future is bright.
Usman: The “Death’s Door” mechanic is one of my favorite things about the Darkest Dungeon series, but I’m middling on these lands since it’s rough to put yourself that low and getting the opponent that low may not happen until the late game for non-aggro. It’s something we could consider down the line for the aggro color pairs but I’d rather just have a Thriving type land.
Phizzled: This is exciting because of what it presages for the future, not for what it offers right now.
Omni: This isn’t Ancestral Blade, but it’s not that far away. Yes this doesn’t auto equip to the token but it’s still a pretty large percentage of a card that we’ve been happy with so far.
Neveron: A good comparison might be Flayer Husk, which we’re currently running. Conventional wisdom for Equipment would be that MV2/Equip 1 is better than MV1/Equip 2, so… maybe?
Solset: Flayer husk gives every aggro deck another reasonable 1 drop, but no deck is happy to drop a Nath's Buffoon out without the elf hate. I imagine this is a fine late drop in those decks to keep things moving and to have a mana sink, but it’s never a needed card in any mode. I think it is a pass even if it has a high win rate in its grindy format.
Usman: It’s probably my undying love of living weapon and friends but I love this thing. It mostly emulates Sickleslicer, as a virtual 3-mana 2/2 that can be thrown around to other things; I like the 1 mana equip mode to give +1/+1 over the 4-mana mode to give something +2/+2, since the latter mode can be a time walk in the mid-game. Equip 1 is just so good and the +1/+1 is a decent size buff, especially given how compacted stats are in this format.
Phizzled: This is a lovely glue card and I couldn’t tell you easily which other colorless card this is the best replacement for.