My inclusions for the set! Please note, I care about the flavor of my cube enough but I know pretty much nothing about D&D beyond the very basic mechanics and yet I still think this set is neat.
White
Probably replacing either
Glory-Bound Initiate or
Imposing Sovereign, both of which are solid roleplayers but don't get much love. Seems like a fun mini-build around that will work great alongside the Welder package and my cube's minor artifact sub-theme, and may encourage me to put in/back in several of the favorite white artifact cards from my on-deck binder. Not overly strong, but I'm excited to play around with him.
Blue
Replacing
Glyph Keeper, who regularly is drafted 13th and never gets cast out of the graveyard, which is more than half the point. I don't think this card needs much explanation, I wholeheartedly think it's one of the best 5-drops we've ever gotten in blue. Ojutai gets frequent comparisons here, and sure, this is marginally worse, but it's also only a single color, and Ojutai was a frequent pick in a reasonably competitive guild not too long ago (though, admittedly, is now only the 12th most-cubed UW creature (and 25th UW card overall...wow, did not realize this until I looked it up here!). Anyways, cool dragon.
Love the flexibility and flavor here. Haven't targeted something to remove yet, which would normally mean this won't actually make it in, but I think people will enjoy this card on many axis and it's reasonably powerful as a modal
Rebuff the Wicked.
Fair mono-colored Edric slash ETB abuser! The double blue kills me here, because this is more of a pick for Xu decks rather than Ux decks, but I'll take this scholar if I can find something worth cutting here. The three power means he'll work great in fan favorite deck, tempo, and drawing cards off of aggressive action is a nice thing to reward. Pet card
In the Eye of Chaos is honestly really terrible in most cubes including mine, so that seems like a good thing to replace.
Black
In a quick examination of my black section, I realized I never added
Ravenous Chupacabra in the 4+ years since Ixalan? Weird. I'm guessing it was due to my then-aversion to restriction-less black removal at competitive pricing, which I've since more than gotten over. Anyways, I'll probably add that
and this, with the Cube replacing long-time favorite and one of the longest-standing cube inclusions from my original list,
Skinrender, which I had drafted the same night I started putting together my cube in earnest! Such great memories, but I'm not sure that'll be enough in 2021 to keep out this jelly boy.
Gelatinous Cube is basically just a [Banisher Priest] in black, which seems worse than the competition at first, no? But it's got
four power. It's no slouch on the battlefield, and it's even got an out to dissolve its target. Fun! Excellent stuff, even if it's probably too fair at four mana. Can't wait to cube with this cube.
Potentially replacing
Nezumi Graverobber, who never plays half as good as I expect/want/need it to (but who is great at drawing removal!). Most circumstances, this is a 2-mana 3/2 that trades and leaves behind a 2/2. I really can't ask for much more for two mana than that...except from most of my other black 2-drops. Still, great creature type, good up-front power, supports multiple archetypes, easy to cast, good art -- I'll be happy to include Wight.
Love love love this skeleton boi, especially because it's technically a zombie. Makes the whole set worth doing. To quote myself from the set thread:
Slamdunk for me, wow. Did not expect to like this set so much, but there's some fun, evocative designs every other card spoiled! I lover recursive creatures, cards that don't mind getting milled or sitting in graveyards, etc. and the flash on this actually puts it over the top in terms of flexibility. And they gave it a zombie creature type?? Aggressively costed without being oppressive, opens up dynamic play patterns with lots of choices, I don't know what else to say. I love this Dracolich! To think I ran
Bone Dragon as long as I did. Maybe eventually I'll be able to get
Boneyard Scourge back in...
Red
No one's been talking about this card, but it's not bad? I support a lot of artifact nonsense in red, and the price is right. I'm not sure I can find room for it but it's a neat card that I'm going to at least force my playgroup to vote on or something.
I've talked about it before on Riptide, but this is probably the second best recursive card in red at 3 mana, but the fact that it doesn't recur itself from the graveyard is really a big blow, considering all the looting/discard effects I try to play in the color. I'm going to wait to make sure it's not too expensive, as it's going to be the least favorite of my red 3s and may not last more than another set or so, but it's worth consideration. Oh, and I hate it from a cube perspective because of how unclean its recursion immediately is. It feels unintuitive the way it's written. The worst part of this card is the art, but I'm really close to talking myself out of this card even without that!
Weird that I have much less concern with this card at the same slot in the curve as Flameskull when it's not getting a fraction of the attention, but this is great for my strong token theme in red. Either option has a use, and I've been hoping for a playable
Trumpet Blast effect in red for a while, and I think this is it. The flavor is cute too.
To be continued in part 2, I've attached too many images...
