Card/Deck Broken cards for lower power

[ravnic]

Last year I introduced reanimator as a fully supported strategy to my Casual Champions Cube. I wasn't sure if such an inherently unfair strategy could be adapted to a fair, lower powered cube – but so far, it was quite the success. "Unfair" things aren't exclusive to max power/vintage/legacy style cubes.

That made me think ... what if some of those cards that we all consider unfair, broken or at least among the best ever printed, were actually more adaptable? After all, no one would call vintage cube staples like Llanowar Elves or Mana Leak problematic. But that's not what I'm talking about here, maybe we could go deeper.



I've been running Sneak Attack as an occasional and so far it has felt even underwhelming. I've decided to add Bazaar and Stoneforge with my next update.

All of these cards have one thing in common: they can be dialed down or up with the cards they combine with. Sneak Attack isn't crazy when the best thing you can sneak in is Titanoth Rex. Bazaar is hard to make worth the card disadvantage when you aren't fueling dredge combo kills or opressive stuff like Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis. And Stoneforge is much worse when you get Conductive Machete instead of Batterskull.

Yet these cards are great, because people get excited drafting infamous constructed staples. That's especially great for something like occasionals.

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Now, I made this a thread because I thought we could accumulate knowledge here and have this be a resource for any lower power cube curator in the future:
What cards that are constructed power houses and usually more connected with max power cubes can actually be fine in lower power environments?

 

[TekLazar]

I have found that the "Magus"-es are a sweet low power alternative to some of the "best" cards in Magic. Some of them though are just not that great though.
Like Arena is much more interesting than Magus of the Arena, and the same thing with Mirror Universe.
But the real unsung heroes are

If you don't have a bunch of Lotus Petals then Yawgmoth's Will is just "until end of turn, you can cast cards in your graveyard, " With the most "broken" thing in my environment being, turn 5 with 5 mana "Yawg, I Cast explore in my graveyard, I get back two lands from my graveyard (cuz I haven't done my land drop yet), and I can get a creature and/or blackmail (if I have another basic land in my graveyard)." But like... is that really that much stronger than Urban Evolution? (The answer is yes, but it required me throwing stuff in my graveyard, whereas the person playing urban evolution has a much easier time just playing the game.) Underworld Breach also requires a lot of setup, but I decided to take it out of my environment just because it sent some false signals because the only real mill card I have in red is

This card is strong, but I have never really had any problems with it. It's like a much slower Delver of Secrets, that is actually playable in Cube because it's its own engine. If you have a bunch of fetchlands and faithless looting and such it might be a bit strong, but for me it takes awhile to get there, and most of my graveyard decks want to be pulling stuff out of the graveyard, not just leaving them there.
Also, some of the most oppressive multicolored cards in constructed, are generally pretty much fine in lower powered environments IF your mana bases suck. Like I play the tri-cycles, BUT I don't have any Farseek or fetchland variants. (I could see myself playing Bad River, but there comes a point where it's just a bad land.) And the final secret sauce is that I don't have traditional fast ramp like Llanowar Elf, instead I have Gilded Goose. So still fast, but generally you can only use it once or twice. This keeps my tricolor bombs feel like... tricolor bombs, but you have to commit to playing them rather than just playing a mono or dual deck, and even my dual decks are generally a lot slower because most of my multicolor stuff is 3 mana or more.

Spoiler: 'Higher Powered' Multicolored Cards I love

a few of these are in my occasionals, but they generally have been fun explosive cards that have not ruined much.
I would bet that some of the 'higher powered' 4 color cards like Breya, Etherium Shaper, Saskia, the Unyielding, Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder, Atraxa, Grand Unifier, and Aragon, the Uniter, would also be fine based on my experience with three color cards in this style of mana base. But I can't say that I have tested them, Saskia and Yidris are the only ones that really interest me, so I should probably at least throw them into my occasionals.
With the only exception being Atraxa, Praetor's Voice and Omnath, locus of creation because even them coming down on 5 would just be miserable.

It really just boils down to that these higher powered cards are very much tied to the environment, The Mimeoplasm is fine if the strongest 'consistent' thing I can do is like, Hypersonic Dragon and +4, or making Stuffy Doll a 4/5.

 

[Mown]

I have two Animate Deads as a "broken" reanimation spell with underwhelming targets. It sucks how wordy it is, but it lets you do some cool things like have Mirrorshell Crab and Colossal Skyturtle as reanimation targets without the ward necessarily becoming too oppressive, because you have the enchantment itself as another vector of interaction. Weighing your reanimation towards the reanimate effects instead of the targets also makes them more generically useful in normal decks that aren't trying to do something busted.

Lion's Eye Diamond is a funny card that can do some very busted things. I don't know if I would advise trying to add support for it, I have a couple because I want storm to be viable, but there are a lot of ways to make this card quite close to black lotus between madness/mayhem, impulse draw, tutors/regrowth effects, or flashback/unearth/escape type keywords. Storm itself would also fit the category, you can have some less explosive plays by supporting it with plot, suspend, rebound and such. Funniest storm combo is Quicken/Scout's Warning to end-step combo off all the spells your opponent main-phased though.

 

[EzPzJapanezy]

My cube had some early stages of being much lower in power level than it is now, and when I did draft it with friends I never found the following to be 'issues':



Snapcaster is hardly ever bad and would probably be an outlier in quite a few lists, but is also powerful, fun to play, and easy to understand. Humans and Wizards are great creature types for lower powered tribal strategies, and Snappy's power can be scaled down with weaker instants and sorceries (although I don't think this is even necessary, but to each their own).

Dark Confidant and Tarmogoyf are both unique cards that encourage thoughtful deck construction and in my opinion, reward those constraints appropriately. Don't get me wrong, Confidant in particular is an amazing aggro piece, but in slower lists where aggro curves to 5cmc and might need more 3 drops than super low to the ground aggro, the life loss can be much more of a liability.

All 3 of these have been printed in multiple sets with great foiling quality and are at the most affordable they have ever been as Modern moved on without them, I recommend trying them out, more than anything I find them all to be very fun to play.

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I know a lot of low powered curators avoid 'free' spells like the plague itself, but



Has been in my list forever and I never found it overbearing or anything. Its just a strong option for Red Control decks that happens to deal with a lot of pesky / strong 1 & 2 drops.


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This is a shot in the dark, and I don't have experience in a low powered list to back it up, but if I were to make a lower powered list again I personally wouldn't mind testing:



He is without a doubt going to be stronger than most 2cmc dorks available, but I guess I am just a fan on super powerful 2 drops that encourage deck building constraints. In lists that are very stingy with Dual Lands, Rofellos really does ask you to stick with mono-green, but rewards you with insane ramp potential.

I think why I would be ok with this even in lower power is probably 3 fold for me:

1) In lower power with weaker land selections, Green has the most robust inherent ability to support multicolor decks. Offering a mana dork strong enough to encourage the exact opposite approach is interesting tension to me.
2) His contraints also make his potential payoffs 'tuneable'. Green's top end could be tailored around being powerful with explosive turns, but not immediately game winning.
3) I think this is the biggest for me (and somewhat applies to the first three 2 drops mentioned), removal that targets exclusively low cmc is becoming more and more available as of late. Cards like Portable Hole, Seam Rip, Cut Down and Fatal Push just as some examples. Removal suites tuned to hard punish power outliers at lower cmcs without sacrificing resiliency for weaker options up the curve is something I think lower power lists should explore more

 

[Nanonox]

Pretty sure you could pull these off with the right targets.



Good 2 mana cantrips?

 

[Rusje]

What cards that are constructed power houses and usually more connected with max power cubes can actually be fine in lower power environments?

Most are fine. The thing is that most powerhouses require a lot of set-up or scale with the powerlevel of the other cards in the format. Even cards banned in most formats like

are fine. The other reason cube is more forgiving is that one has not always access to these cards, or only one copy.

A creature that is way above the curve could be problematic just like strong cards that require no set-up like