General CBS

[TrainmasterGT]

I feel like the forums have kind of died in the last week here, so I have a question:

Out of all the cards printed in 2021 so far, which one is the best for your Cube?

For me, I think the answer is pretty obvious:

You can read my in-depth thoughts about it in my article on the subject if you have not yet, but in short, this card is great because its card advantage stapled to a flying finisher. I don't see myself ever cutting this card.

 

[blacksmithy]

May seem strange but this gal getting REprinted in MH2 was a big mental tipping point where i started down the design road that ended in my current environment. until the reprint was announced, i’d put her into this place in my head of “she’s too expensive for me to get so might as well never worry about getting her.”
once she became accessible, i decided i wanted a cube that was a good home for her, where she could do her thing but not be overwhelming. and everything else, the whole fairmax philosophy, my own take on “fair power,” the crazy custom lands, it all kind of fell into place! and i love my cube more than ever, and so do my players!

 

[Chris Taylor]

The Cat-illac as it's referred to in standard is really what I'd been looking for: green 4, interesting deckbuilding, solid baseline use case, good floor, go wide, etc.

Hopefully this doesn't get companioned because mono green looks to be one of the better decks in AFR standard. I'd hate for people to be sick of this card before I get a chance to play with it.

 

[Brad]

I'd always had an artifact list kicking around in the background. These coming out right as vaccinations enable us to safely meet up again solidified it for me.

The previous artifact lands weren't really playable unless you wanted to run land destruction or neuter your artifact removal heavily. Being indestructible is a huge deal. The rest of MH2 adding a ton of great artifacts helped, of course.

 

[ravnic]

Just like Wildfire and Demonic Pact, this thing has created it's own archetype. Because I didn't have time to draft and play for the last few months, I've only seen the Abiding Grace deck in action once (in , while I assume it will be best in ), but theorycrafting hasn't been as exciting for a new card in years. I think it can nicely adapt to different power levels, depending on the 1-drops you're feeding it with and I am still in disbelief that I haven't seen another riptider getting nuts over this card.

 

[japahn]

I thought a lot about it, but looking at my list, it just doesn't do much. These are my 1-drops that it can do something synergistic with:


Dauntless Bodyguard
Giant Killer
Siren Stormtamer
Carrion Feeder


These are the ones it doesn't do much with:


Healer's Hawk
Thraben Inspector
Usher of the Fallen
Delver of Secrets
Hedron Crab
Carnophage
Cryptbreaker
Gravecrawler
Blazing Rootwalla
Bomat Courier
Goblin Banneret
Goblin Guide
Grim Lavamancer
Monastery Swiftspear
Spikeshot Elder
Basking Rootwalla
Birds of Paradise
Kessig Prowler
Llanowar Elves
Twinblade Slasher
Rakdos Cackler


How are you planning on using it? In a sacrifice deck? In aggro? With specific cards?

 

[LadyMapi]

I like:

 

[Brad]

Someone should make a post about it.

 

[LadyMapi]

It just hit me that Abiding Grace is porentially hilarious with squadron'd Myr Servitors.

Sac all of your Myrs on your turn, get one back on your end step, then get the rest back on your upkeep.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I feel like the forums have kind of died in the last week here, so I have a question:

Out of all the cards printed in 2021 so far, which one is the best for your Cube?

The fact that not a single card immediately pops into my mind says a lot about my current "obsession with cube" level...

After scouring MH2 for a bit, I remembered this duo:



I finally have two excellent signposts for my UB discard theme! Both of these really excited me when they first got spoiled, and will no doubt make it into my cube. It's just that... I haven't had a chance to play my main cube for over two years now. The last two sessions before COVID hit in March last year were with my Heritage cube, and I haven't played another game since the first lockdown hit.

 

[japahn]

Back to the topic, I'm going to say:



I just had so much fun playing this thing in KHM, and decided to have an equipment theme in my cube. It is such a deep card both in terms of drafting as well as gameplay relative to its simplicity.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Back to the topic, I'm going to say:



I just had so much fun playing this thing in KHM, and decided to have an equipment theme in my cube. It is such a deep card both in terms of drafting as well as gameplay relative to its simplicity.

I've seen multiple people praise this card. Maybe I should test it.

 

[Brad]

I've seen multiple people praise this card. Maybe I should test it.

I'm adding it right now.

 

[Velrun]

I've seen multiple people praise this card. Maybe I should test it.

You should. The equip cost feels free because it has the opportunity to create a Treasure token upon hit.

The opponent can also sometimes be faced with an interesting choice: Block the highest damage creature or the Treasure token creator? And for that reason the attacking players has an intersting choice. Kind of the same logic as with the Swords but just way lower power.

 

[sigh]

For me, probably Dragon's Rage Channeler? There are some others that are slam dunk includes or what have you, but this just does such a good job of encapsulating what I want out of my format, and provides it to some of the decks I wanted these types of effects for most.

 

[MilesOfficial]

Not counting reprints (I added something like 35 cards from Timespiral Remastered! and that doesn't include the old border MH1 reprints in MH2 collector's boosters or the Mystical Archive cards), I've added 51 cards printed first in 2021 to my cube.

You can get a nice visualization by adding this to the end of your CubeCobra URL:
?f=set%3AMH2+OR+set%3ASTX+OR+set%3AKHM+OR+set%3AKHC+OR+set%3AC21+OR+set%3AAFR+OR+set%3AAFC&view=spoiler

Of all of these new cards, either Sedgemoor Witch or the elemental cycle from MH2 are the most impactful or interesting to cube for me, and have already proven fun with lots of space for clever and interactive gameplay.

 

[TrainmasterGT]

Just like Wildfire and Demonic Pact, this thing has created it's own archetype. Because I didn't have time to draft and play for the last few months, I've only seen the Abiding Grace deck in action once (in , while I assume it will be best in ), but theorycrafting hasn't been as exciting for a new card in years. I think it can nicely adapt to different power levels, depending on the 1-drops you're feeding it with and I am still in disbelief that I haven't seen another riptider getting nuts over this card.

This card looks totally awesome, but I think it's hard for a lot of people to use.

Right now, my White 1-drops look like this:

So here's the problem: how do I make these work with Abiding Grace? A sac outlet could work, but then there aren't really that many of these worth looping other thanThraben Inspector. The life gain is literally irrelevant for me, since the decks that run a high density of 1-drops don't really care about their life total and the decks that might want life don't need the effect at this cost. I could maybe tool my White section to do something interesting with this card using a combination of different Benevolent Bodyguard effects, but I don't think that actually makes my White decks any better.

This card looks really cool and I think more people should try to do the leg work to make this card playable, but I don't think it slots well into any old Cube. It needs proper support to be good.

 

[LadyMapi]

What do the one-drops look like in your other colors?

 

[blacksmithy]

This card looks really cool and I think more people should try to do the leg work to make this card playable, but I don't think it slots well into any old Cube. It needs proper support to be good.

this 100%. most of my one drops are noncreatures even though i have a lot and so it’s much harder for me to justify this than its spiritual predecessor, Dreadhorde Arcanist, which is a slammo dunko for me

 

[Brad]

I think you have to slow the format down enough for looping 1 drops to be a nice stream of value. The fog loops look particularly irritating/rewarding.

 

[ravnic]

I thought a lot about it, but looking at my list, it just doesn't do much. These are my 1-drops that it can do something synergistic with:


Dauntless Bodyguard
Giant Killer
Siren Stormtamer
Carrion Feeder


These are the ones it doesn't do much with:


Healer's Hawk
Thraben Inspector
Usher of the Fallen
Delver of Secrets
Hedron Crab
Carnophage
Cryptbreaker
Gravecrawler
Blazing Rootwalla
Bomat Courier
Goblin Banneret
Goblin Guide
Grim Lavamancer
Monastery Swiftspear
Spikeshot Elder
Basking Rootwalla
Birds of Paradise
Kessig Prowler
Llanowar Elves
Twinblade Slasher
Rakdos Cackler


How are you planning on using it? In a sacrifice deck? In aggro? With specific cards?

It can probably be played in an aggro deck too, but my hope is, that it makes a grindy value playstyle with 1-drops possible - which would make them much more versatile.

But in general I think one thing people seem to miss about Abiding Grace is, that blocking is an important feature of most cube's games. For example, I run three 1-drops with deathtouch ...



A deathtouch blocker that comes back every turn for free is just incredibly annoying for many decks. But if your creature's stats are a little more on the fair side, you don't need deathtouch to be annoying your opponent.



Even just the very simple example of the vanilla savannah lion doesn't sound too bad to me. A 2/1 that comes back for free every turn? How long before this becomes worth it. But what if ...



Yeah, AG is great with equipment. Sure, equipping adds a mana cost, but the bodies come back for free. And now the Healer's Hawk you got there looks pretty synergistic, suddenly.

Of course it's great with self saccing dudes, but you can also combine it with 1-drops and sac outlets. Just imagine having these two:



You've got a threat growing every turn, that they might shrink temporarily by killing it, but it won't stay dead. And all the time, while you feed it, you can draw extra cards as well ...

There are also many high power 1-drops that seem incredible with AG:

 

[blacksmithy]

yeah this is a good analysis. as my cube slowly cuts 3/4 cost creatures for 1 cost creatures, Abiding Grace will start looking better and better

 

[sigh]

The only issue I have is when I evaluate it compared to

This is also a repeatable (one time) reanimation effect that can not only bring back a couple 1 drops, but can bring back a couple (much more powerful in general) 3 drops, and that's without even getting into the useful stuff from the other card types that it can recur

 

[blacksmithy]

Sevinne’s is frickin amazing, but while i agree it’s generally much better, it’s not STRICTLY better. but yeah it’s very very good, in fact it’s a bit of an outlier IMO

 

[LadyMapi]

I don't think those are really comparable cards.