If any part of this post is malfunctioning, we recommend checking the mirror on the polling site
We would like to open up this update by thanking everyone for your patience, as we’ve been trying to ensure that this update is a good one for all.
One main thing to address up front is that in the past, cost of cards/the cube overall has been something that we as a group have paid attention to, trying to avoid expensive cards where possible as well as tracking the overall cost of the cube. As of this update, we will no longer be doing that.
We have been eyeing Snuff Out
for a long time here and the only real thing we said was “it’d be nice if it was cheaper”, which sucks to be the only limitation on a card we feel is generally very cool to play with. We will still consider these cards in extreme cases (Three Visits
when it was a 70-80 dollar card would be a good example), most cards will be judged solely on their gameplay merits rather than attempting to navigate a volatile collectibles market. Before anyone asks, the committee will not be maintaining a list that abides by our old internal budget guidelines, so we encourage you to modify the cube so that it best suits your personal needs.
Another small tweak that we’ve made is that we’re testing out some typal-matters cards, which does mean there’s at least one switch here that’s for a functionally identical card that has a more relevant creature type. This will not mean you’ll see a bunch of bad cards suddenly start showing up to justify type mattering, but in cases like Wary Thespian
and Lys Alana Informant
, we will make these minor, potentially frustrating updates when they come along.
We also want to tell people we’re entering a more modern, fine-tuning era of how we’re approaching the cube. If you’re keeping your copy up to date, don’t stash those cuts in a random bulk box, as we may return to them if either an experiment doesn’t work out, or future changes to the cube make something appealing again.
In terms of upcoming updates, we want to hear from YOU. If you’ve not already done so, please make sure to sign up for the Polling Site and vote on cards. Having more information in a quantifiable format allows us to avoid opinions that are expressed louder from taking as much priority. The other thing that will be very useful for us is gathering deck lists from your drafts. You can submit decks from any pauper cube on the polling site’s Deck Submission Page. While we know there’s a tendency to focus on 3-0 lists, it is really important where possible to make sure that you get lists from the whole pod with their records, as it’s arguably just as useful if not more so to see what is performing poorly as what is performing well. We are planning to introduce some sort of reward system for folks who manage to get full 8 person pods logged, so stay tuned in The Discord for news on that front.
Moving forward, the committee is going to be moving more towards updates looking at big picture issues rather than mostly newer and shinier cards that have been released since the last update. We’ve definitely over the past few years drifted closer to the latter than the former and want to correct for that. Hopefully we’ll see less weird things like black’s 3 drop slot drying up or blue’s creatures stacking up around the same point. Hopefully addressing big picture issues will lead to more long term successful changes to the cube.
Usman talks about these big-picture lenses in his article about making cube changes here, if you’re interested in more details.
White
In
Interceptor is similar enough to now cube staples Thraben Inspector
and Novice Inspector
that it caught many people’s eyes when first previewed. We’re putting this in as we know this general style of creature has worked well and hopefully the ability to tap down a blocker or trigger a spells matter card is a nice added upside.
Simple card with a simple purpose, pump something and make a slightly better attack. This also being ok to discard or see milled over is nice icing on the cake, as surveil begins to seep more into all colors.
We had a long discussion about Omen and its inclusion in this cube as a mechanic; in the end we ultimately have decided to let adventure’s weird cousin hang out a bit longer and we’re gonna test this side-grade of Combat Professor
for at least a bit.
Hammerskull is an interesting one that we want to test out to see if this style of “get the biggest blocker out of the way” creatures that are more likely to connect for damage over the 1-drop tappers are going to find a place here.
There’s nothing we can say about this card that will make it more appealing. It’s a 1 mana 2/2 with a barely-there downside.
Out
Cuts this time are things that were unexciting or we felt had run their course, alongside one functional reprint that we had both copies of.
Blue
In
We’ve always been fans of the Frost Lynx
style of creatures and this one is a hell of a tune up to that original formula. Pseudo-prowess that sometimes will double up is a pretty cool option. We’ve been eyeing the 3-mana slot in blue in this update, since that tends to be a bottleneck spot for blue decks, but this looks to be a solid addition to blue tempo decks with potential to not just be a 2/2.
We’re rotating the options for “Draw 2” effects as this one is one that fits into decks with board presence a bit better than previous versions, hopefully discouraging it from being only found in slower blue decks.
Exclude
has been pretty well received and Repulse is the classic milk to its cookies, this one is great whether it’s protecting your key creature or clearing a blocker out for an attack.
We think the best way to imagine this is a 5-mana 3/3 flyer that double loots, with the trick being that you can split the cost over multiple turns. Again, the addition that it will help out with spell-casting triggers is just a nice little upside.
Out
To reduce the high number of 3-mana cards in blue, we looked to replace generally replaceable effects at 3 mana. Warden of Evos Isle was a signpost that we felt wasn’t that necessary and in a section that was feeling bloated. The cost discounts were nice, but broadcasting that you can play flyers in blue wasn’t exactly a revelation. We’ve also got plenty of bounce so not wanting to go up on that was pretty important with repulse coming in.
Black
In
Black’s 3-drop slot was lacking, so part of this update was interviewing some of the past inclusions, and Specter felt right to bring back here.
This was one that people were pretty gung-ho on back when it released and we’re finally getting around to including it as a card for black aggro.
This is being introduced as a way to let the black decks compete with some of the slower decks that are trying to push for a late game where they can leverage card advantage or loops, by making your lands (or lands bounced back with bouncelands) no longer dead draws while crunching away at the opponent’s hand.
This is a cool engine card where you’re just able to leverage all those little early creatures and token generators into some card selection and even just self mill in the decks that want that too!
One of the big gets this update, it has come down quite a bit in price but man, is it good to see this iconic common that adds a bit of free removal to the cube to spice it up just a little bit.
We’re trying this one out as a probational include to see if this can play a role alongside similar cards we’ve got that help make blockers worse while also slowly chipping away at the opponent’s life total.
We’re adding this as a recursive threat that really puts some pressure on the opponent. It goes fine in an aggressive leaning deck just as well as a midrange deck just representing a 5/5 that they’re gonna have to find specific answers to deal with.
This is a new sacrifice outlet in a can that we’re trying out. Our hopes are that while this one does need to untap and is limited to just once per turn, the upside of it actually just never needing to get into the red zone while also just being on an on-rate body is hopefully enough.
Out
Cuts here are to help stabilize the really weird stuff we had going on with the curve for black with the last update and also trimming some cards we felt weren’t the most vital ones for supporting various archetypes.
Red
In
This is a funky one that has a similar card already in the cube in Gixian Infiltrator
. We’re hoping that the additional text where it can convert small bits of game material into getting other attackers in for damage will be enough to really push this one over the top.
This one’s an interesting little include that most of the committee was pretty stoked to see when it was first previewed. While it’s unexciting to see a 3 mana 2/3, the fact this rapidly becomes one of the largest creatures in the color AND makes it hard to block it seems like a pretty solid option.
While we don’t expect this to be a Scourge of the format, this is one of the aforementioned typal matters payoffs, and it’ll hopefully play well even outside a goblin dense deck. We’ve been happy with Fireslinger
for a long time, and since we have a lot of incidental goblins here, that means sometimes this may incidentally be able to kill X/2s-X/4s without much trouble, making it really awkward to play around. Although it can’t go face, even if it only pings a creature for 2, that should likely be enough to pay for its mana investment.
This is Jackal Pup
with 0 mechanical downside, regardless of your view on the fact it’s a UB card, it’s just a strict upgrade on a card that’s generally well liked.
Out
The cuts for red this go around were simply cards that we didn’t feel had a place any more, and at least one (Skyclaw) had a fairly vocal group that didn’t care for it.
Green
In
As mentioned in the intro, this one is literally just to have a mildly more relevant creature type.
Our Typal payoff in green since there’s a decent amount of elves; we feel like while x=1 is not enough for this card to be viable, x=2 seems already pretty solid, so going turn 1 elf into turn 2 priest and another 1 drop seems like a pretty great start for decks looking to hit that late game fast.
Maverick might not be the world’s most exciting creature for everyone, but we think it’ll work out in the long run, providing an early speed bump with some late game value for slower green decks, acting as a pseudo-Elvish Visionary
.
Out
Farseek will become clear as a cut when you look at the land situation, Thespian is a very much like for like swap, finally Brawl just wasn’t as exciting as we’d expected.
Gold
In
This is a minor upgrade to just have the Selesnya hybrid card be something that actually does things outside of “chumps twice”. A 3/3 for 3 isn’t bad by current creature standards either and this looks to play well with the strategies in green and white that spam out creatures.
This one might be a touch controversial based on some discussion in the discord, but we’re fans of this riff on the model of big creature with an early game mode that you can use to get some card fixing. The first time that you see someone Archaeomancer
this back for the 3rd and 4th token, please let us know!
Out
Lands
In
We continue on our quest to tweak the tiniest parts of the land base. The mana base we’re preferring here is 1x Bounceland 1x either SPM or SOS surveil land (based on the color pair) and then 1x wild card. These additions are the new picks for their respective pair’s “wild card” slot.
Out
These are the cuts for the “wild card” slot. The biggest takeaway here is the shift away from the typed duals, they’re just not providing enough upside via their type lines to beat out utility in the textbox.
Colorless
In
We’re giving this one a shot as a “creature land” since it’s pretty low cost but might help keep games going when the 2/2 is relevant while not asking a lot of players besides being ok with having a colorless land.
Out
This is a card that we just don’t have enough data to actually say is bad but in its own way we feel that’s enough of a sign. The common sentiment with Juggernaut was that it was mostly a filler card, despite its former constructed pedigree and all the data we’ve been gathering about actual decks and their records rarely actually included this so we think it’s fairly safe to conclude that it’s not seeing enough play and that’s reason enough on our end.