A quick note to start things off, we’re going to have off color kicker cards in the gold section. We’ve talked at length about these as “not really gold cards” on the discord at length, but this is a question of convenience.
White
Omniczech: Loosely comparable to Attended Knight
, this is a neat option, I know the community is pretty high on this one, and I don’t mind it, but I’m not sure if we need two of these or what would come out for it.
Neveron: The sole difference between the Cavalier and the Knight is Enlist vs. First Strike, or an aggressive keyword vs. a largely defensive keyword. Do we want to bend white towards a more aggressive playstyle?
Solset: White’s bench of interesting 3 drops has been growing with nearly every set in the past two year. If the choice was only between Argivian Cavalier and Attended Knight, I think I prefer options in white that reward attacking. However, we have also recently received a downshifted Militia Bugler
and have multiple sidegrades of Priest of Ancient Lore
to wade through. Even if the 3 drops are aggressive, it’s crucial that we don’t use these great options and push white’s curve up too high.
Usman: This does appear to be strictly different rather than strictly better/worse. I like this more than Attended Knight, but I want to say that 2 power of first strike stonewalls a lot of things in this format.
Phizzled: We also have the likes of Sandsteppe Outcast
sitting in the cube, and, if you squint, enlist can play as both halves of that card. Many of the options available for the middle of White’s curve feel like a flavor of the week rather than clear upgrades, and I’m mostly hesitant when it comes to the ones that have non-evergreen keywords because of how complexity creep weighs on cubes.
Solset: There was some real buzz about this Human Kor unit when previews hit, but I am lukewarm on it. We have seen a number of other creatures that convert the “go-wide” elements into a bigger threat, and so far they all seem to disappoint. Martyr's Soul
, Celebrity Fencer
, Crusader of Odric
, and Squad Captain
seem great at first. Yet, the times I have had them I often think how much better off I would be if it was simply another white team pump. Maybe this is the one to break the mold, but I don’t have high hopes.
Omniczech: I am not a fan of this as your payoff for going wide when you could just cast your Trumpet Blast
or equivalent. It feels win more in a way I’m not actually sure helps your odds of winning.
Usman: I feel like the sweet spot for this is casting it for 2W, and casting it for 3W is merely ok. Unsure if that’s really that great of a payoff for being a curve-topper, and I think our current options are better.
Phizzled: Vigilant creatures usually intuit as early defenders to me, and the phalanx really doesn’t fit there. I’m intrigued if I can follow a token generating spell with this early game, but this feels like the wrong keyword to close out a game for a White-X deck featuring smaller creatures rather than tempo or pump effects.
Blue
Solset: Some of the best limited decks of old school draft formats were defined by fliers backed up by walls on the ground. An 0/5 is pretty huge for our cube and our Izzet “spells-matter” archetype already has a lot of powerful fliers to play with. Even a deck not going all in on the “spells” is sure to gain some value from this one late game if they hold onto some lands.
For Blue’s current rooster at 3 mana value creatures, there is a lot of similarity. Every single one of them has 2 power, and the majority of them have 2 or less toughness. I can depend on every blue deck to churn out some value oriented gray ogre on turn 3 which can trade with some bear across the table. As much as I like our current lineup, I think some decisions that present a different playstyle would be a net gain for the cube..
Omniczech: As much as I like cards that are more proactive, this is a powerful option for gumming up the game pretty well. I kinda am on board with this as the world’s tallest road block that keeps card quality high.
Phizzled: Flavorfully, I’m always surprised when very tall walls don’t have reach, and I have to keep going back to check that this doesn’t, in fact, stop fliers. I think the looting ability is absolutely interesting, and technically advances the game in a way a pure defender wouldn’t, but I’m unsure if this advances games in a more interesting way than other three drops like Moonfolk Puzzlemaker
, which offers less powerful selection but carries equipment better and can actually end the game, technically.
Omniczech: It’s Ranger's Guile
, but blue and just better! Community opinion is pretty high and I won’t fight this one, gonna be tricky to figure out a cut for this one, but I’m gonna enjoy the discussion.
Neveron: We’ve had similar cards before, such as Dive Down
, but they’ve largely just been combining hexproof with a toughness boost. Giving a boost to power and a surprise blocker is new territory for blue – the closest we’ve got is Planar Incision
. Overall I like it, although I’m not sure what we’d cut.
Solset: This is a pretty fantastic trick in blue, but one of the reasons that white, green, and black get their 1 mana creature saving tricks is to “counter” an opponent’s removal spell. They are also colors that are more creature oriented. For a color that already just gets access to fantastic counters and is light on creatures, can we really find room for a trick like this?
Phizzled: I’m very excited to play Shore Up in one of my other cubes, and the only potential downside I can reasonably present to this is “what if Blue is already too good?” I quite like this.
Omniczech: I like this well enough, it’s a big dumb monster that gets cheaper as the game goes, I’ve enjoyed seeing Sailors' Bane
and how that plays out in other formats, but this is definitely on the weaker side of things. The fact this has ward of a measly 2 means more often than not that’s a tax, not just functional hexproof.
Neveron: Having Affinity for Spells is interesting, but I do wonder at what threshold you’re looking for to play this in a deck. This isn’t a great spell at five mana, but perhaps at four? Interestingly, four mana is also the point where your opponent is spending just as much to kill it as you spent to cast it.
Solset: At the time of writing this, Tolarian Terror is the highest polling with a single color identity, so the comunity loves it! I don’t love it, but in general I do favor cards that change the draft evaluation process, and this does it. With the recent additions of Consider
, Cruel Witness, Scattered Thoughts and the return of Merfolk Looter, we definitely have a bit of graveyard support too these days.
Phizzled: While it should be possible to draft a deck that really favors the Terror coming down early, this is most likely a 5 drop that is difficult, but not impossible to remove. I still like our monstrous creatures a little more for providing early defense, but this at least makes me feel less bad about having to use bounce spells on creatures with ETB triggers. This is north of fine, but less than thrilling.
Black
Solset: It’s always interesting when a card is a self contained part of an archetype, both an enabler and payoff, and Soultender is exactly that for black’s graveyard love. It’s an aggressive stateline which I love, plus a card for the mill deck that doesn’t mind being flipped with …checks notes… Ransack the Lab. Wow, we really don’t have much graveyard support…yet?
Neveron: While five mana is a lot to draw a card, that is what the Streets of New Capenna drawlands work out to as well. Black is one of our more controlling colors, and would probably see plenty of use for this in drawn-out games.
Phizzled: We’ve seen a handful of these “gives you half a card of value” from the graveyard creatures in the last few years, and I always like them in grindy formats. The Pauper Cube isn’t currently super grindy, but as Neveron notes, we’re assuming people will get to five mana with at least some of our draw-lands. The 3/1 body will never survive combat, so I think you’re really paying to kill your opponent’s smallest creature, mill three, and draw a card. Scryfall search tells me there isn’t a sorcery that kills a creature and draws a card, so maybe Soultender is viable.
Red
Omniczech: I love this, it’s just an Enlist bear, but tacking on the ability to trade it for some artifact can be a very neat upside. I’m still waiting for just getting Reclamation Sage, but this is a welcome addition.
Neveron: We’ve come a long way since Torch Fiend, that’s for sure. Part of me is still boggled by seeing a red bear with two upsides. Actually, come think of it, is this just a better Plundering Barbarian?
Solset: In the past, I have let most artifact hate, sit in the sideboard for the rare matchup where it seemed worth running a subpar card even when attached to a creature like the Barbarian. Abrade has really set the tone for a card with a strong, not fine, mode A that can also take out a pesky Bonesplitter or Pristine Talisman in B mode. This ape is making the cut in most of my red decks even without its shatter. And those times it trades up for Renegade Freighter with a crew ability on the stack will be all the sweeter!
Phizzled: I think this is exactly where I want to see enlist. Red’s 1 and 2 drops are aggressively statted without being inherently likely to win combat. I like the ability to keep your Jackal Pup back while still being able to trade with the various 2/3s slower decks will bring out. Being able to incidentally remove opposing equipment should keep this relevant.
Green
Omniczech: This is just masters rebuke. Do we want another copy?
Neveron: While community members have pointed out that we still run fight spells, most of those have upsides that might make you want to run them over a two-mana bite. Clear Shot, for instance, lets you punch upwards in a way a bite wouldn’t. The question, then, is whether or not those upsides are big enough to make up for possibly losing a creature in exchange.
Solset: We have enough interesting sidegrades for our fights and bites, I don’t think I am interested in a functional reprint. Those upsides of the fights make for a more dynamic draft and play experience. I’d add another fight spell with upside in Smell Fear before I’d look for redundancy.
Phizzled: One of my colleagues running a peasant cube recently tried to rank the best common fight spells. He ranks this above Clear Shot, and I think that’s reasonable, but it’s a close enough question for me that I’m inclined to keep the status quo rather than add more pure bite spells that do nothing else. It’s hard to be excited or disappointed by a card that is just fair and unassuming, especially when a copy is sort of already in the Cube.
Gold
Omniczech: The card that kicked off the past few weeks of discussion about gold vs “gold” cards. I really like this, you’re never stoked to play Blade of the Sixth Pride, but it’s not the worst case, and being able to choose to only activate fleshbag mode when it’s advantageous solves one of the big issues that class of card has always had.
Neveron: The big thing to remember about Blade of the Sixth Pride was that it was a Rebel and was thus an on-board removal spell with Amrou Scout. Our current Blade in the cube, Cathar Commando, does both that and is an expensive Disenchant. The question, however, is whether or not a vanilla Blade of the Sixth Pride would be worth playing in a non-Orzhov white deck… and I suspect that it would be.
Solset: I’ll get it out of the way and say I am a sucker for symmetry. Because of my categorization hang ups, I am really reluctant to give ANY of these cards good grades. But getting that out of the way, I’ll evaluate these cards apart from that concern. This one seems pretty great as I’ve played plenty of 3/1s just for their stats in white aggro, and if you find you have access to black from either a thriving land or because you are actually in Orzhov, this gives you a lot of options. Both white’s go wide elements and black’s aristocrate support should be able to fuel this one if you need the Fleshbag Maruader.
Usman: I’m probably biased but I like this little unassuming 3/1, likely because I’ve played a lot of 3/1s for 2 in my days.
Phizzled: I, too, like 3/1s for two mana in a color that sometimes wants those. I also really, really like Diabolic Edict. This card is catnip to me. The off color kicker and where to slot this in as a cube card are the only concerns I have, and those are logistics rather than substantive.
Omniczech: I think I’m more bullish on this than most people. The base card isn’t amazing but being able to late game kick this to get a blocker out of there is a very nice upside for a modern version of Kiln Fiend.
Neveron: This is very much a card that has better version in monocolor in every aspect, both by Kiln Fiend’s scaling and Festival Crasher’s toughness, but perhaps it’s still something a spells deck would play outside Izzet?
Solset: Despite the monocolor versions with better baselines, this card seems good enough by itself with a nice clear signal for newer drafts which colors should be having lots of spells in future packs.
Usman: It’s a better Ogre Savant; a bit pricey to kick and bounce something but not bad if need be as a store brand Kiln Fiend if you smell blood in the water or need something to block a 2/1. Not bad.
Phizzled: The only thing I don’t like about this card is that it can only target your opponent’s creatures. The Kiln Fiend ability is reasonably scaled for the cube without being overpowering. This feels similar to some other kicker and psuedo-kicker spells I’ve run in the Izzet slot, like Steamcore Weird and I would be interested just for the nostalgia.
Omniczech: This is a spicy little option, the fact that this is a way to grant things haste, can come with some bodies, it’s all neat, the only thing that kinda holds me back is how often is this actually going to be more than a lava axe that folks can block?
Neveron: My main concern with this card is definitely whether or not you’ll actually be able to cast other creatures on the turn this enters the battlefield. How often is this just a worse Breakneck Berserker? Also, note that it’s a static ability and not a triggered one, so removing the Strike Team pre-combat removes the haste. I still like the card, but I’m hesitant.
Solset: Another ‘goldish’ card with a strong signal for what the archetype is doing for us. While the haste won’t often be used by other creatures, I still think this is going to win some games by the one two punch of 3 surprise attackers turn 5 and an Ambitious Assault. Lava Axe never left behind so many bodies to pump or sacrifice.
Phizzled: I hadn’t realized the haste was static. I think if you’re all-in you’re still just hoping to make 5 power and swing with it, anyway, so making your opponent “discard” a removal spell and leaving a pair of 1/1s that can’t attack is unfortunate, but not world ending. If you were playing as a Boros aggressive drafter rather than a studious Lorehold control deck, I think you’re not going to care. I’ll also note we used to play more three mana haste creatures, and this isn’t the worst version of that.
Omniczech: I’ve been a big fan of 3 mana get 2 things back types of cards for a while now, and this one’s a pretty neat variant on that. The fact that this gets back other things than just creatures when kicked is pretty cool, I’m not sure that this is something I’m dying to play but I’ll entertain the idea for sure.
Neveron: One mana is apparently a bit overcosted for this effect, but it’s still good. Remember: a Raise Dead is just a slightly more expensive copy of the best creature in your graveyard. Like a lot of these cards with off-color kicker, it’s a slightly worse effect than you’d get in either monocolor.
Solset: This a nice enough signal, but the power just isn’t there for me. By the time you are usually looking to rebuy creatures, you usually want a bigger effect and are less concerned about the mana. If I want urborg recursion, give me the old banger Urborg Uprising instead.
Omniczech: I like this a lot. A self pumping Raging Goblin is already kinda interesting, but this being able to come down as a 3/3 that pumps itself is a decent amount of utility, I’m a fan for sure once we’ve argued through off color “gold” stuff.
Neveron: Some of my favorite cards are hasty 1/1s for a single red mana. This one also has slightly worse firebreathing tacked on. Oh, and occasionally it’s a hasty 3/3 for 2RG with firebreathing. Even if this doesn’t get in as a monocolor slot, it’s got me eyeing Frenzied Arynx’ gold slot.
Solset: If we really are unconcerned about color and guild symmetry, this is a clear winner in my book. Aggro is often out of cards early, and this is a strong mana sink on a body that is almost playable without it. Like Neveron said, if Jilt is a gold Izzet card, I might like this better than a few of our Gruul inclusions.
Phizzled: I think the kicker cost is a touch high to be exciting, but a hasty Hill Giant is technically nothing to sneeze at. In Gruul decks with sufficient ramp, this hits hard and early, and in other Red decks it just hits early. I wouldn’t feel embarrassed to add this to the Cube. This does what I wish Wild Nacatl could do sometimes.
Lands
The Common Typed Duals
Omniczech: These are a clarity upgrade for the snow duals and would stop folks wondering why they’re in there. That all said, the polling data points to community opinion being pretty high on the bouncelands, so maybe it’s time to consider what our land base will be moving forward.
Neveron: There’s also an ongoing discussion within the community about whether or not we should increase the number of dual lands. Not to mention the ongoing question of how to handle the new Gates from Baldur’s Gate. If the snow duals would stay in, these would replace them… but perhaps we’re cutting the typed duals entirely, or having both sets at once? It remains to be seen how we handle this, so feel free to join the official discord and sound off your opinions!
Solset: There are no real surprises in the conversation. These are just a cleaner version of cards we currently run, and they keep the status quo but in a better way. And yet, they have given a lot of opportunities for us all to talk about our land base. Let’s just say that after deleting a thesis that is not really about these, I have been on team bounceland for a while now.
Phizzled: My holistic preference is to keep an eye on simplicity, and compared to the snow-typed duals, these are simpler. As far as the overall cube manabase, I am happy I get to defer to the community preference on the number of lands and whether bounce lands are available.
Omniczech: I might be the person quickest to point to how bad this style of filter land is. That said, the etb scry and being an untapped colorless source makes me somewhat on board with this if folks wanted this style of effect.
Neveron: It’s interesting that our return to Dominaria brings us not only a downshifted Zhalfirin Void, but a strictly better one. I don’t know if that makes for a card that’s good enough for the cube, but I welcome every colorless utility land that we get.
Phizzled: I like this more than Uncharted Haven, which I know isn’t the bar. To me, deck that is willing to play an enters-the-battlefield tapped splash is likely slow enough that they will value the scry and mana-gated filtering more than the splash. I know it’s not exciting, but this doesn’t have to be to be reasonable.
What can I do to help?
Glad you asked, the most helpful thing you can do is provide feedback on these new cards, that can either happen via the discord or by voting on cards on our handy card polling site