Foundations Quick Hits

White

Omniczech: I do like that this thing is a big old brick that does something pretty close to when it ETBs if you have board presence the turn it comes down. I’m not sure it fully passes the smell test for me though.

Solset: I want to like this card as it has synergy in both go-wide and counters, but I suspect it will be too slow for either deck.  Relic Sloth showed us much Boros wants a big 5 drop.

Phizzled: This feels like it should be a powerful finisher, and maybe triple-Foundations will say it is.  In my recent cube play, though, waiting to attack to gain a benefit often feels too slow, and a five-drop carries extra pressure to impact the board immediately.

Usman: Relatively meh on this one, since it doesn’t do anything immediately and requires attacking with a team to work, and the payoff isn’t even that great.

Neveron: While it nominally does something on the turn it comes down, it feels like requiring 3 creatures and a target makes me worry that it’s easy to turn off. It does have Keyword: Big by white standards, though.

Solset: Incidental life gain on an evasive body is likely a strong card especially in a color that goes wide.  Still, I know we are being cautious with more lifegain in the cube. So it would just squeak in.   Any mutation that wants a soul sister type card that will get picked up and played by multiple decks should look here.

Phizzled: Certainly splashable, but our current three-drop fliers offer card velocity and feel more like they are set up to advance the game.  I think this is a step behind the curve, treating White as an aggro color.

Usman: The body’s pretty good and can at least survive a tussle with a 2/2, but I just don’t think we have the payoffs for the lifegain trigger, although I’ve never been that huge on the Soul Warden styles of creatures.

Neveron: Being a soul sister that has some actual combat use is something, at least, even if it’s using the one-sided templating.

Omniczech: I do like that this thing is just a decent stats to mana ratio that keeps turning sideways, as well as not being the type of card slower decks actually want that much.

Solset: This card is great and provides a much needed payoff for counters. I find a firststrike lord is better in most situations than a trample one, and this card is just great on curve even when you are not looking for the synergy.

Phizzled: I don’t mind the idea of a counters-lord sneaking in, but I wish it didn’t offer the potential for a memory issue.  I don’t know how many other creatures with counters you need to play to feel like you’re getting a steal when you play this, which is less of a negative and more of a deck-building question.

Usman: The counter bonus thing may just be more flavor text than useful in a lot of decks, and it being a 3/3 first strike might be where I mostly want to be playing this, since it usually means that it survives combat.  Giving that same bonus to other creatures with +1/+1 counters is nice, since usually 2/2s trade and turning that into a win in combat’s nifty too.  Cautiously optimistic that a first striking elephant body gets there.

Neveron: It’s important to remember that, unlike Ainok Bond-Kin, this only gives offensive first strike and not defensive first strike. That’s still good, though, and the base 3/3-for-3 body really shows how far we’ve come since Kor Scythemaster.

Omniczech: I know that this card has a bunch of words we like, and the body is far from the worst for what you’re paying, but I don’t love the idea of this being as slow as it is for a card that wants to find small things.

Solset: I like this card as a high end for an aggressive deck, and I could easily see it taking the place of  Palace Sentinels if we are ever looking for a Monarch replacement.  Even if we keep the sentinels, there are some high cost white cards that are looking iffy as we see power creep.

Phizzled: I quite like Militia Bugler, but being more expensive and requiring more mana to dig both hurt a bit.  I’m betting this will turn out to be a touch too slow for our four spot.

Usman: For some reason, I thought this was a 3-mana thing, not a 4-mana thing.  In theory, it’s an ok creature with late-game value, and there’s been a push to get some of these types of things in limited formats, like the 2/2 for 2 that can pump your team for a boatload of mana.  Initial impressions are that this is just so clunky, but I guess it’s also a Tome-style effect…ish, on a body.  Still, I think this is slow.

Neveron: While I think for many of us our first instinct was to compare it to Standard workhorse Recruitment Officer, it’s got some key differences. The first and most obvious is that this is a four-drop rather than a Savannah Lions, but this caring about power 2 or less (rather than mana value) means that it can find you other nasty expensive cards like Palace Sentinels, Guardian of the Guildpact, or all the relevant creature parts of the Peregrine Drake+Archaeomancer+Displace combo.

Blue

Omniczech: I really like this one, it’s nothing too impressive but I do feel like if we want more options for blue stuff that has a variety of play patterns and isn’t just a mulldrifter, I like the idea of this one.

Solset: I am worried about the one toughness being reasonable for decks looking to make it to the late game, but perhaps I am wrong.   If it does make it in, I agree that between the flash and prowess, it makes for a lot of interesting combat math.

Phizzled: Flash on a fair body is basically haste.  Lacking evasion is really the biggest negative, but I am eager to see a Blue-Red tempo deck featuring this and a grip of instant speed removal.

Usman: I love flash more than most humans should, but I’m a bit leary of the underwhelming body trading in combat with a random dork in combat, and needing a few spells to get to where it survives against a 2/2.  Maybe I’d like it more in white or red?  I really hope it’s better than I think though, since it’s priced right and has flash, which works well with reactive spells – and in a way, it can be a wonky removal spell against attackers.

Neveron: I’ve said it elsewhere, but if you’re going to pass to the opponent’s turn while holding up mana then 1U is a really good amount to be holding up.

Omniczech: I don’t think this one is for the cube, but if we wanted to go in a more Ninjutsu oriented collection of blue creatures, I don’t hate an enabler for that that’s also a more durable Frost Lynx

Solset: I actually like this better than Frost Lynx.  The effect is similar enough, with some slight counter payoffs here. It is also better for flicker loops as you will keep adding stun counters as opposed to doing nothing.   Both cards nullify a 2/2 and eat a 1/1 well enough so that feels a wash.  However, there are going to be times where the unblockable damage just matters more than a random 2/2 body.

Phizzled: I love this little crab.  I like the idea of having unblockability in the Cube’s toolbox, but I rather find the 1/3 slow and the vulnerability as an artifact a bit unfortunate. There could absolutely be decks where the stun counter effectively gains you quite a bit of life, or just finishes the game.  I’m not sure which is more likely, though.

Usman: I was pretty mid on this until the Frost Lynx comparison, and now I’m on board.  The body’s worse for tempo but being a 1/3 opens up some avenues for being in more controlly decks, since they didn’t really want a 2/2.

Neveron: There’s definitely some synergies to be had with this crab, I think. I don’t know if it makes it in, but I wouldn’t be upset if it did.

Omniczech: I’m not 100% on board with this being the breaking point for “how much upside does a Cancel need before I’m happy with.

Solset: I also feel this may not be enough upside to beat out other 2 mana options not currently in the cube. Don’t believe the hype.

Phizzled: This is not the Cancel I’m looking for.  Like Solset, two mana is the sweet spot, and barring that, a single blue pip helps playability a lot.

Usman: Much more a fan of the soft 2-mana counters than this, but this may be the closest we see to a Cancel variant getting there.  May secretly be more a Dimir card but I think it’s ok in control decks but it may still be a ways from getting there.

Neveron: Even the best Cancel With Upside runs into the problem that the best upside is actually costing one less mana.

Omniczech: I’m not sure that a spendy loot is the thing that makes the big difference on Storm Crow, but it’s not the worst free upside.

Solset: There are much better looters we can consider. This bird is so mana intensive when you need to loot to smooth early draws.

Phizzled: I don’t think this holds a candle compared to the two mana options currently in the Cube, but being able to draw your card after attacking is nothing to sneeze at.  Unfortunately, I imagine this coming online too late in the game to be truly effective.

Usman: It flies and pecks opponents via vigilance and it loots, but it… requires mana?  Nah, I don’t want to pay mana to do it.  Sorry.

Neveron: I think what this bird actually does is just that it’s a Hovermyr that lets you swing in every turn and safely hold up counterspell mana. I don’t think you’re looting every turn except in the late game, though, and in the early game it’ll just be when your opponent didn’t cast something worth countering

Black

Omniczech: I promise here I’ve read this correctly, unlike when it was first spoiled and assumed it cast Ransack the Lab on etb. I think this care is generally fine but I’m not as stoked as I could be.

Solset: I’m not interested at this point in any rager that doesn’t actually put me up a card.

Phizzled: Raid is usually easy enough to trigger, but man, this body feels mediocre, even with deathtouch, when you miss out on the card selection.

Usman: In theory, deathtouch is what you get as the bonus for trading a draw into whatever this thing’s trigger is, but it’s overall a downgrade.  Card selection’s nice but it just requires a lot of setup for a pretty medium payoff.

Neveron: I really wish this was just Surveil 3 or, yes, drawing the card. As-is it compares poorly even to, say, Daggerfang Duo. I’m not entirely convinced that it clears Gray Slaad, either.

Omniczech: We’ve been very happy with Doomed Traveler over the years, and this is the same card but in a color that also has options to use the bodies for sacrifice fodder, I really like this little thing.

Solset: Easy include but a hard cut.  I’ve never been that high on Shambling Ghast, and we are at a good number of these 1 mana death effects where we don’t want to cut something else.

Phizzled: I keep thinking the token has the Strixhaven Pest language, instead of flying, and struggle to evaluate it.  I think I am enamored of the flying token, even if token creep bothers me.  I also chuckle to think this offers a temporary roadblock for Guardian of the Guildpact.

Usman: A good existing creature in a color that wants it more.  Yay!

Neveron: Yeah, the issue here is mostly just which card to cut for it. Do we want to go down on the beefier two-drop variants, or do we cut a one-drop aristocrat card?

Omniczech: I have no real idea why exactly we got Disfigure version 2, but we did. It comes down to whether we want 2 of this exact card in there.

Solset: I’m not even sure I want Disfigure.

Phizzled: I feel like we’ve recently seen enough similar cards that I can’t find myself terribly excited by this as a potential 2-of.

Usman: It’s aight.  Not amazing, but a role-filler.  Probably better than Lash of Malice although I can’t think of many times when Disfigure was a combat trick.

Neveron: I’m generally against including functional reprints when possible, but even beyond that I’m not sure we have a space for it. And sometimes Lash of Malice just kills people by dealing 2 to face, y’know?

Omniczech: I was a bigger fan of this than a lot of folks, I’ve always found that gravedigger is a raise dead that chumps or gets fed into the nearest sacrifice outlet, this while not getting a lot of extra stuff going for it at 5 mana, does have evasion to present pressure after the ETB.

Solset: The usual mold for these cards is a deck that wants to out attrition your opponent and win with whatever random 2/2 is left over. So in that deck,  the blocking downside is real.  However, maybe this breaks the mold and lets the midrange black deck keep the pressure on. I am open to finding a spot for it.

Phizzled: Again, flying helps.  Gravedigger has often played a roadblock role, whereas this can’t block until you replay whatever premium creature you just got back.  I do think at five mana this is expensive enough that I can imagine some decision paralysis about when to cast it.  The body is enough of a threat on its own that maybe any one or two-drop creature returned will be good enough.

Usman: I’m generally pessimistic on these kinds of creatures, but having an actual body does help, as mentioned – although being unable to block gets rid of one of its primary modes – being a blocker to either chump or trade to potentially get a ton of card advantage.

Neveron: Being a three-power flier isn’t nothing. I’d say that it’s probably better than Warren Pilferers, at least, but that card isn’t in our cube these days. On the other hand, we also aren’t playing Cadaver Imp and that’s a cheaper flier.

Red

Omniczech: This is one of those cards where I vague curse the name of the first person to utter “strictly better” because while this isn’t 100% better Nivix Cyclops, it’s mostly just better. I think if we want to start swapping over some of the spells matter stuff to a bit more of a creature and combat oriented option.

Solset: I think this is a sidegrade to a number of options we currently run.  Stronger but more expensive. Better on defensive but less consistent at closing. More explosive but less aggressive.  I’ll wait until some votes are in to see how the community thinks.

Phizzled: Not needing to telegraph your combat trick isn’t too shabby.  If you can manage to double spell in the same turn, this takes huge chunks out of our opponent.  If we’re only able to string one spell a turn, I think the permanent growth of Spellgorger Weird likely feels better.

Usman: Agreed that it’s a sidegrade to these kinds of things.  Having 0 base power is annoying, but it’s mainly there to be a roadblock or something that does a ton of burst damage out of nowhere.  Not that enthused.

Neveron: One fun thing about being a 0/4 is that if you bluff and attack without noncreature spells in hand, it’s probably still likely to survive a blocker. This also lets it just eat the occasional creature in a way Kiln Fiend can’t.

Omniczech: We’ve been pretty happy with the general mold of 4/3 for 3 as a decent statline, but we’re definitely gonna need to consider how many of these is too many pretty soon.

Solset: As someone who has never hit on the madness for Skophos Reaver, I think I like this option a bit more.  I could easily see Izzet playing this with some evasive threats to hold the ground, but not the reaver.

Phizzled: This is fine but not exciting, at this point.  As someone who remembers the three mana commons I played with in Tempest, that feels wild to say.

Usman: Either bad or pretty good if it gets there via raid.  Do our aggro decks need another pile-o’-stats?  It’s another card, like Crackling Cyclops where I’m pretty whelmed since it’s not that much better… or worse than what we have.

Neveron: Hitting Raid is probably fairly trivial for red, but yeah this is just a vanilla stat monster. It’s better on the defense than the Reaver, I guess, but do you even want to block in the deck that plays this?

Omniczech: This is a nice little option on the list of “Trumpet Blasts with a bit of extra text” but I’m not sure how often I actually love casting the other mode.

Solset: Boros go-wide has a bit of a combo feel, and having a card that is BOTH pieces of a combo is always a good thing.  I remember playing  Shred Memory in The Pauper Perfect Storm because it became a ritual, draw, or kill spell.  I am opening to having 3 of these in red, and perhaps cutting  War Flare for Conduit Goblin. The red cut will still be hard.

Phizzled: Neither mode is thrilling, but it is nice to have flavor options on your pump spells, I suppose.

Usman: As someone who’d been meh on the global pump spells in red, I do like that this has a very real option in its goblin making mode, even if it’s not a particularly efficient mode, since it has kinda-haste and helps with a weakness of global pump: being underwhelming if you’re behind/have a weak board state.  I always ask myself if a non-creature spell is better than a burn spell, but making goblins, potentially, makes it somewhat like a creature on its own.  Is that enough?  Probably.

Neveron:  Back in Brother’s War I remember thinking that Mishra's Onslaught was a poor imitation of the uncommon You See a Pair of Goblins. It’s nice to get a functional downshift of the latter, even if we don’t end up using it.

Omniczech: I’m pretty happy to see an iteration on Ardent Elementalist, and especially with some more meaningful stats. While many have pointed this is not just the same card with better stats, I think it’s as good a decent amount of the time.

Solset: If we only want one of these in red, I think the 3/2 is just better for our cube.   Yes, having to play the returned spell immediately is annoying, but the bigger body just makes it so much more versatile in the draft phase.  If we want two of these, I could see Spelleater Wolverine as an easy cut for it.

Phizzled: There is a version of the world where I get to loop some flicker spell over and over with this, but I imagine this is often “just” a bigger version of a card I’m not embarrassed to run.  I would be surprised to not see this make it.

Usman: Effectively trading +1/+1 for timing on the returned spell, I’ve been thinking of what decks want it.  It’s definitely more restrictive than the usual “return a spell” types, since this either puts it into aggressive decks that mainly want to pair it with cheap burn (since it doesn’t work too well with countermagic) or in midrange that play it as a way to recycle cheap removal spells.  That’s the name of the game, though – cheap removal.  Might just get there, especially in the latter, where having a bigger body may actually matter.

Neveron: We recently cut down on a couple of these cards in blue on account of the flicker deck being too consistent, but maybe it’s fine for red to have two? This is an easy add, in any case.

Green

Omniczech: I’m not the biggest fan of these big idiot 6 drops in green that aren’t named exactly Colossal Dreadmask, but this one at least has the option to make something else bigger or gain life in a pinch.

Solset: I actually think this could be just good enough now, and if it came out one year ago I’d be arguing hard that it is a really needed top end of green.  However, we just got a few stellar late game options that I am just lukewarm on it now.

Phizzled: I think I’m much less excited about the modes this offers than I’m supposed to be.  One of my peasant cubing friends already asked, and I told him I was disappointed by the lack of trample.  I worry that the lifegain ability is either a win-more or a “you’ve already lost” type of play, once you have six mana.

Usman: I mentally read this as a 5-drop and was very excited.  Much less excited at 6 mana, since the body gets worse comparatively and it’s arguably too late.  Vigilance helps it act like a big road block, but I like our other big bodies as payoffs… but this might get there as yet another.  I don’t think it’s needed, though.

Neveron: I’m not sure that either mode really excites me. Honey Mammoth &co. are 6/6 and up after all, and the modes of “6/6 vigilance for 6” and “4/4 vigilance for 6 that grows a friend” feel like they’re not quite worth it. I think I’d prefer Spinewoods Paladin, really! If you want to sell Big Green to me, it’s got to have some Wow Factor to it—for example, Rust Goliath was a 10/10!

Solset: This is polling positive, and like a few other green cards would likely have been an easy include about 1 year ago.  Today,I can’t see cutting any 3 drop to make room even if we just evaluate this as always a 4/3.  We have a few cards in our 2 slot though, like Bayou Groff, which might lose out to this one, so we will have to see.

Omniczech: I like this as an alternate for Vicious Clown personally, but fully understand they serve markedly different roles in different colors. I do like that this one is just a 3-mana 3/3 with a keyword as a base rate a lot though.

Neveron: Our green three-drop slot has a lot going on, and like Solset said I’m not sure that our green token production is good enough for this to reliably be more than 4/3 trampler. I suppose it’s maybe better than Hungry Spriggan, but you’ll notice its absence from our cube.

Omniczech: I don’t love 1 mana fight spells, and I don’t love Lay of the Land, but together that’s actually kinda decent with the flexibility.

Solset: I have learned that cards which function like Zendikar Rising dual faced tapped lands are simply fantastic additions to decks in our cube.  Requiring Green makes it a bit worse than our 1 mana cyclers, but I still think this is going to be an auto include in any deck that picks it up letting you cut a land.

Phizzled: Not much to say. A modal spell where both modes cost the same as spells we’ve previously played is fair to include.  Can’t really get much more efficient than one mana.

Usman: I’ve lamented green having 2-mana fight spells when other colors get more efficient removal spells that don’t require a warm body to work and this cutting the mana in half is nice.  Even the Lay of the Land isn’t bad in matchups where I don’t really care about a fight spell, but it’s nice to have it if you just need another land.  A big fan.

Neveron: I was really excited about this one when I first saw it in Brother’s War, and I remain excited now when it’s common. Modal Lay of the Lands are essentially just tapped MDFCs, and you’ll notice how Khalni Ambush // Khalni Territory was put at three mana.

Solset: I am pretty high on this card for our cube as a solid on-rate option for any midrange deck but one which plays nicely in a number of our archetypes. If we don’t cut Bayou Groff for something else, I will likely argue that I would rather have this in its spot.

Neveron: Users in the Pauper Cube discord have informed us that this has pretty reliably grown every turn in Foundations limited, and I can see the potential here. If you just start swinging in, it even feeds itself. Also, Ward 2 on a dangerous four-drop can often just be a Time Warp in our cube: once you’ve cast it, it goes into the graveyard and they lose a card and skip a turn.

Solset: Without Bushwack coming along, I think this would be an easy inclusion.  The question, therefore, is how many of these “tap lands” do we want to add to green.  A late game fight spell is better than pump most of the time, so this is our second fiddle.  I could see Bushwack ousting  Longstalk Brawl and Go Forth pushing out something like  Massive Might if I have my way.

Neveron: Drawing from the MDFC comparison again, the closest equivalent would probably be something like Vastwood Fortification // Vastwood Thicket. Really, though, the closest cousins to this spell are all the “Giant Growth with set’s mechanic” cards that keep showing up: cards like Groundswell, Gather Courage, Mirran Mettle.

Phizzled: Potential interaction with my opponents threats generally feels better than a potential combat trick. I’m aware that this is an instant and Bushwhack is a sorcery, but assuming only one fits the needs of the Cube, I’ll take the Fight spell.

Usman: Between this and Bushwhack, I personally like that more but I’m a fan of there being a pump spell that can be cashed in for a land if need be.  I’m a fan of these kinds of cards, since they can land light hands into keepers and still be fine if you have land already.

Omniczech: This is a pretty sweet card for some very slow decks. It makes attacking into it pretty much universally miserable, and given a few turns something’s gonna be pretty substantially large. I’m not sure how much we want this type of brick wall in the cube but it sure does what it’s supposed to.

Solset: I love the idea of giving Evolution Witness a new late game friend with some midgame functionality, but I’m not sure the “cute” synergy is worth cutting a card that matters on curve.

Phizzled: Is green currently struggling enough that we need this kind of inevitability?  I can’t picture needing this, and the 1/4 base stifles quite a bit of removal already.

Usman: Similarly to the 6-mana elephant, my impressions are that it’s 1 mana too expensive on the front end, and while it’s – in theory – a way to act as a late game mana sink, I really don’t like the rate.  We’ve worked to make green threats so that they don’t just get punked by spot removal and this lines up weakly against the ones in black and white.

Neveron: This card seems fairly scary. 1/4 reach deathtouch is, surprisingly, not something we’ve seen before: it’s all been four-mana 2/3s, one-mana 2/1s and the like. There’s not a lot in the cube that manages to trade with this in combat, and that goes double once you start to put counters on this in a grindy game. It’s a very, very grindy card. However, is that something we even want in the cube?

Colorless

Omniczech: My vote for least sexy most functional option in the sets is this thing. It’s the similar shape of “big idiot that can be land cycled early on” that we’ve had in the cube for a while, and this one is just colorless so it goes anywhere as a nice little bit of glue.

Solset: I agree this is some nice glue.  Frankly,  Wayfarer's Bauble is something I am rarely excited about and giving a colorless fixer a late game modal function seems like a net gain.  I know it doesn’t “ramp,” but in these types of decks I am usually just fine making my drops without getting a single turn ahead.

Phizzled: Hi, yes, this is a very fair price for Rampant Growth and I suppose the big goofy creature is potentially threatening should you top deck this late.  Right now the creature sits at an awkward spot in the curve, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth discussing.

Usman: Also similarly to the 6-mana elephant, it’s a lot of mana upfront but has some ways to cash it in if you don’t see the game lasting that long – although 2-mana to basic landcycle ain’t cheap.  Sometimes cards with a few suboptimal modes get there purely on flexibility, even if they’re in efficient, because they comprise an overall package of what decks want to do, while having some base rates covering what decks want to do at some mode.  I’m just not sure this gets there on the last axis.

Neveron: It might surprise you to learn that 6/5 trample for 7 generic mana is actually fairly on-rate. It’s also one of very few colorless cards with colorless cycling (the others being Ash Barrens, Sojourner's Companion, and Runaway Boulder). Does that mean that it’s good? Eh, I could see it putting in work. Unexciting glue cards are unexciting, but sometimes you need to make something stop wiggling around.