General Unique Cards

[Brad Kershaw]

Hi guys,

I've been working on my Cube tonight and thought i should share some cards that may have flown under the radar. Also, i'm guessing i'm building an 'unpowered' cube, so some of these suggestions might seem silly to other posters.

First up is Warren Weirding.

One of my favourite cards from my brief time with Lorwyn due to it's depth. You can either Edict them or use it to trigger a sacrifice effect and hopefully even score some free gobbos too! I think i will use this over similar cards like Devour Flesh or Geth's Edict.

Next is Hypersonic Dragon. While a pretty slow card for most peoples cubes i'm sure, there is alot of room for players to innovate with this guy. From using cards like Raven's Crime to lock opponents out of the game, being a hasty flyer, making draw cards into instant speed, wrathing in response to fresh board states, to pondering before their own draw step and my personal favourite; the "If i Explore in your turn, can i play a land in your main phase"

Last one is very silly: Boldwyr Heavyweights

This card can be either a gamble if the player feels his opponent has no top end, or a funny sequence involving threaten effects. Might be worth a miss, or just takes the "Puts a smile on their face" slot.

Does anyone else have any cards they think might have flown under the radar?

 

[Jason Waddell]

Hi Brad! Great thread. I really like the three cards you mentioned, and it sounds like you have a lot of really great interactions going on in your cube. I'll check back in later to see if I have sweet tech to add. In the meantime, here are some card images so others don't have to track them down:

 

[Jason Waddell]

My cube is a little nutty at the moment, but here are some favorites that are off the beaten path:

 

[CML]

the hawk and his three buddies, waiting in the wings (ok, box of basic lands):

 

[Eric Chan]

Pet cards!

 

[Jason Waddell]

I ran Sunlance until I cut down to 360. It's definitely a useful card.

 

[CML]

i like sunlance but is it really sweeter than oust or condemn? (with presumably swords and path already in)

i'm trying harm's way tomorrow

 

[FlowerSunRain]

I ran sunlance for a long time and it is very good. I like it much better then oust or condemn. The only reason I took it out was because I was because I wanted less removal in white, not because it wasn't pulling its weight. It hits such a large percentage of creatures, it is seriously sweet.

 

[Jason Waddell]

Sunlance was fine. I like Condemn more (especially in my current design), and might add Oust before Sunlance.

Chris, I know you run Dredge in your cube, so maybe Oust has (marginally) more play to it? These days I am gravitating towards removal that has some mechanical relevance. For example I think a second Tragic Slip would be more interesting than the Doom Blade I have in there. My next set with a domain theme will be running two Path to Exile.

 

[Eric Chan]

I actually had Oust in for a while at the beginning. While it was fine, it was never exactly what our white decks wanted. It hosed green mana dorks very well, as sending a Treespeaker or a Cobra back to the top of the library is pretty crushing for a ramp deck looking to get off the ground. But the lifegain clause was awkward if you were an aggro deck trying to remove a small blocker. And a lot of the speed bumps you were interested in removing had good comes-into-play effects, like Sea Gate Oracle.

Sunlance hits the green mana elves just as well, and we found it has more overall utility. It's been a mainstay in our cube for a while, and while people initially made fun of it, the fact that everyone maindecked it had people coming around pretty quickly. It's weird in that it feels more like a red card than a white one, hitting weenies particularly well, whereas most white removal is universal, like Temporal Isolation or Journey to Nowhere. So I might cut it one day, but only because it doesn't feel particularly white to me.

I think something like Condemn fills an altogether different role - that is, a removal spell in a dedicated control deck that wants to put the brakes to an armada of beefy attackers. I run Condemn, too.

 

[CML]

maybe i just think oust is extremely powerful? in cube it's a little better than path and it does almost the same thing as swords, though sorcery speed and cip effects (as eric mentions) do make it worse. the lifegain isn't particularly relevant imo, the aggro decks would rather have 'em gain 3 and draw a mediocre creature in a couple turns than feed 'em a basic. it's not like they're trying to burn 'em out for the last 3 points, it's more 'curve-out / board-position' aggro (as in the current standard for example) than legacy burn. i dunno, oust is very good and would be played a lot in modern if not for the creatures demanding an instant-speed answer (chiefly twin and/or pod pieces), whereas sunlance seems far more conditional

eric: i agree condemn does something different and i don't like it too much for that reason. let the removal be good in aggro too.

 

[Jason Waddell]

I don't think it is bad design to have cheap cards that are guaranteed to make their way to a control player (i.e. Condemn). It's a bit of a judgment call. I want our control decks to be doing things early, and this has been a useful card to have around. But maybe I have one of the only cubes where I worry about aggro being too powerful at times?

 

[CML]

haha, i worry about that from time to time, but the control decks do have some sweet tools at their disposal. what i'm saying is that oust is great in those decks too, and most other things being equal i just like the powerful and flexible and weird card over the timeshifted strafe. (re. balance mainly the state of midrange seems abysmal and i'm not exactly sure how to remedy that because all the best cards are already in.)