Dom's Stream of Consciousness

Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
I'm not quite clear on what deck had which record. In fact, the only deck I'm sure of is the WUb control list from the 3rd draft where you mention it went 3-0 :)

The decks straddle a weird line between my cube and a much more powerful one. Most of the cards I play myself, and then some of the cards I'm like: "That's too pushed for my environment," pretty weird. Cool decks though!
 
Dom Harvey

Dom Harvey

Contributor
I wasn't really able to track that myself - I went 1-1 with the UW Urza deck and 2-0 with the BG Yawgmoth deck (...and 0-3 with the WB Stax deck!)

The power band is certainly wide and weirdly shaped
 
Dom Harvey

Dom Harvey

Contributor
THEROS BEYOND DEATH

I went back and forth on the original Theros but ended up pursuing all of constellation, devotion, and heroic in various ways that derailed a lot of Cube sketches. My hopes weren't especially high for the reboot but I wanted more tools for each of those so that I could waste my own time again:

- Heroic wasn't a mechanic in the set but there were a few nods to it. War of the Spark did more for this theme almost by accident with Tenth District Legionnaire and Feather.

- Beyond trying to justify my own attachment to it, I think devotion is genuinely a great mechanic. It makes you play to the board and gives you goals to work towards (either fixed goals like get to 5 devotion for a God or scaling goals like Nykthos or Gray Merchant/Master of Waves). It rewards you for things you want to be doing anyway but also prompts you to look at aspects of cards that are usually irrelevant to gameplay in a new light - the disadvantage of Aether Adept over Exclusion Mage becomes an advantage in the right conditions. It also suggests a few natural forms of counterplay: you can either remove the devotion payoff or chip away at the pips on the board to minimize its power. As the player building devotion you have to choose how you develop your board - do you want to maximize devotion at the expense of some other goal? How do you build devotion without exposing your most valuable card to removal or your board to a sweeper?

Unsurprisingly, white had the short end of the stick previously - a devotion deck in every other colour had shown up in Constructed, with black/blue/green devotion as staples of their respective formats; red devotion was a flash in the plan but was an early trailblazer in showing what red could do outside of cheap creatures + burn. White devotion showed up exactly once at the end of a format. Heliod, Sun-Crowned is just one card but it's one hell of a card; Daxos is a good engine piece. Thassa, Deep-Dwelling is an appealing card even if you never animate it; its Oracle is a build-around in its own right. As I'll discuss separately, I was struggling to find a direction for blue so these are quite helpful for me.

- As an enchantment set there were bound to be nice additions for that theme even if the mechanics are different. I like the new Sagas but many of them are better in other shells than a dedicated enchantment strategy. There are new Replenish/Rector/Starfield targets in Kiora Bests the Sea God and Nyxborn Ancient but no more enchantment cheating cards so it's hard to make that a plank of your design. The Omens are great examples of the 'evergreen effect implemented via the set mechanic' staple cards that are necessary to tie the room together.

An enchantment theme needs a few ingredients: powerful enchantments that incentivize you to build around them, cards that key off enchantments or set up/improve your enchantments, and basic enchantments that make up the numbers for those effects. There are a few more build-around enchantments (including enchantment creatures) and finishers now but most have specific requirements; there aren't good new rewards for playing enchantments; there's more glue that holds these decks together but not that much more. Overall I still don't think the tools are there for me to commit to enchantments in the way I'd like but I'll give it the old college try. It's possible there's some aggressive WG Auras deck that got pushed over the line without drawing much attention?


That's the big picture. Let's look at some cards:

Birth of Meletis: Sagas are so great. Wall of Omens and this are superficially similar but very different cards and there's a spot in my heart for both

Elspeth Conquers Death: That second ability feels very out of place and mostly inconsequential but I like everything else going on here so it seems silly to let that turn me off the card?

Elspeth, Sun's Nemesis: I might try this in my mostly PW-less shells as a natural extension of the War of the Spark PWs that offers a rare and distinct graveyard payoff in white

Flicker of Fate: I love this not just with Sagas but for older Oblivion Ring tricks that would never be allowed these days and Parallax Wave/Saproling Burst. This wishes it was Teferi's Time Twist though (can white please get the best version of something one time?)

Heliod, Sun-Crowned: I liked the idea of Archangel of Thune (and this is an argument for playing both!) but white 5s are so competitive and it folds to a light breeze. Having a miniature version of that effect on a cheap, invincible card that threatens to come alive and crunch on their life total at any moment creates a whole new dynamic. The ability goes nuts with a range of specific and unrelated cards - Scavenging Ooze, Courser of Kruphix, Blood Artist, Brutal Hordechief, Zuran Orb - and the infinites with Walking Ballista and Kitchen Finks if you run them come up rarely enough to be novel rather than format-defining the way they might be in Modern/Pioneer. Plus I love the lifelink on demand with Archangel Avacyn, Boros Reckoner

Taranika, Akroan Veteran: Is 'sick with Topsy Turvy' a good enough argument?

Kiora Bests the Sea God: I love this design and I wish we had more flashy high-end Sagas like this

Nadir Kraken: People are raving about this in a way they didn't about Chasm Skulker but I'm not convinced this is better than Skulker? You want to follow up this card by tapping out/low for a big card draw spell and that doesn't work here; you can just earmark one mana for this each turn and not put any effort into this but then it's not actually that impressive

Thassa, Deep-Dwelling: There are a lot of good XUU+ creatures that you really want to blink (Wistful Selkie/Cavalier of Gales, Vendilion Clique, Sower of Temptation, Urza, Whirler Rogue, Venser, Riftwing Cloudskate, Agent of Treachery, Clocknapper or Arcane Savant if you're so inclined...) and blue has always had good blink fodder; this also opens up the original Thassa which is one of my favourite cards. It's nice to have a repeatable blink engine that isn't vulnerable itself and can be found with the same creature dig/recursion that finds its friends

Thassa's Oracle: I never got the love for Laboratory Maniac around these parts but this is the perfect execution of the same goal and I'm keen to give it a chance for the first time. The floor of Omenspeaker isn't the worst and this has room to be so much better than that

Thryx, the Sudden Storm: Great on rate even without the useful encouragement to play more battlecruisers

Agonizing Remorse: If you want more redundancy on targeted discard but don't want to double on Thoughtseize this is the next best option

Aphemia, the Cacophony: Don't think the juice is worth the squeeze on this; if this is good it's a sign that we have what we need to go all-in on enchantments

Cling to Dust: I tried Cremate ages ago as one of the few black cantrips to nudge the prowess/spells deck and this is so much better at that

Gravebreaker Lamia: I've soured on tutors a fair bit but you can make a special case for Entomb and this has a lot going on

Mire Triton: It's sad that this is refreshing but black has so little self-mill for a colour that's meant to be all about the graveyard

Nightmare Shepherd: This is fantastic - a sacrifice payoff that does something powerful and unique but also cares about the text on your other cards rather than just feeding them all into the maw of a Goblin Bombardment. I can imagine some truly ridiculous turns with this and it's a card I can see myself taking P1P1 and crafting my whole deck around

Tymaret Calls the Dead: See above re Mire Triton - this doesn't compare well on rate to the mighty Ophiomancer or even your dollar store Xathrid Necromancer but the self-mill piques my interest and I like the well integrated buff for Zombie tribal

Woe Strider: Probably my favourite card in the set. Viscera Seer's ability is very strong in any sac deck that's more combo focused or that has highly polarized cards but sac outlets have diminishing returns on weak bodies - this is everything Catacomb Sifter wants to be. It's easy to overload on sac-themed cards and graveyard cards in black but there's not much explicit overlap between the two despite the synergy; this is an excellent card that lets you condense some of those slots. Having cards like this with a good rate lets you support black aggro with an in-built sac theme rather than having to go hard in the paint on the sac stuff at the expense of 'normal' aggro

Anax, Hardened in the Forge: I love the can't block clause on the tokens stopping the ground from becoming clogged up, an increasingly common problem when so many cards bring tokens with them. There are some 'when this dies, make more bodies' cards in red (Mogg War Marshal is still a boss) but most of them are self-contained while Anax is an appealing engine piece. Amazing with the OG Purphoros, not that it needed the help

Blood Aspirant / Slaughter-Priest of Mogis: From playing with Mayhem Devil in Standard I learned just how many incidental sacrifices you can find if you're looking for them. I don't know if Priest is in the Top 3 BR 2-drops that are built with this shell in mind but it's one for the possibles box

Phoenix of Ash: I have dreams of chaining Phoenixes by meeting all their obscure recursion conditions at once; this one is alright

Purphoros, Bronze-Blooded: Already so many good red 5s and this is a high sticker price for a Sneak Attack

Storm Herald: Between Welders, Mizzix's Mastery/Izzet Chemister, and now this, you can reanimate basically any card type you want. I'm sure this will cause Eldrazi Conscription to spike after a SaffronOlive video

Underworld Breach: Incredibly high ceiling but the normal use case will be disappointing. I'd see this as a build-your-own Finale of Promise with cheap burn spells once you get to the late game

Dryad of the Ilysian Grove: I'm back on my bullshit with this in Modern but hard to make the Omen text relevant in Cube

The First Iroan Games: Tough to compare this to the other counters cards at the same spot in the curve in green but this does so much that it's solid in almost any green deck; if you get to draw cards, you're off to the races. The fourth chapter is very relevant if you restocked your hand and gives you a turn to pick the Saga back up once the important work is already done

Mantle of the Wolf: God I miss Elephant Guide

Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger: Often a really wordy Ravenous Rats but I have enough discard/graveyard stuff in BR that this may be worth a look despite the competition?

Polukranos, Unchained: In theory this is a promising intersection of counters and graveyard stuff but this has underperformed in Standard so far so I'm hoping conditions are different here.

Siona, Captain of the Pyleas: There's that Auras incentive. If WG wasn't already so crowded for me I'd look at this more seriously

Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath: Not the worst in any UG ramp/blink deck but gives you a real reward for graveyard stuff in UG that brings the Escape mode into sharp relief

Nyx Lotus: Can maybe juice up a blue artifact/devotion deck even further? Or let a black or white devotion deck get a jump they wouldn't normally have? Much more polarized than your everyday Hedron Archive
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Hahaha, so spot on with that SaffronOlive remark. You just know he's going to try it and spike another questionable rare :')
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
safra said:
i go absolutely nuts for academy rector and i'm definitely adding kiora bests the sea god, and hoping it does what sandwurm convergence/etc didn't quite achieve
Click to expand...

I can tell you from my testing results that Kiora Bests the Sea God is better and quicker than Sandwurm Convergence, which is why I am sticking with Convergence ;)
 
N0oh

N0oh

Dom Harvey said:
So at SCG's exclusive end of year tournament I managed to get THREE drafts in! I was trying some experimental things that I'll write up soon (along with a Cubetutor/Cubecobra list for real this time I promise no takebacks)
[/spoiler]
Click to expand...

Any news about this? I want to read this, seeing those deck lists I'm very curious about your cube.
 
TrainmasterGT

TrainmasterGT

Dom Harvey said:
Uploaded the big master list I'm working from here:

https://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/162891
https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/8hv
(CubeTutor AI seems better for now so draft there I guess?)

I'd appreciate any feedback or test drafts!
Click to expand...

I've been drafting your cube a bunch on Cube Cobra. I don't know if I'll have time to do a full writeup like I did for Alphez's cube but I have been leaving little comments in my draft decks. The one thing I will say right here is that green feels kind of weak without heavy support from a second color.
 
N0oh

N0oh

I did a bunch of drafts, and it's true that green seemed unappealing most of the tim, unless in a +1/+1 counter archetype. It has good cards, but I guess it will often be the minor color of the deck. Some thoughts :
  • I liked to see Kenrith or Golos but not Atraxa/Breya, who seemed hardly playable to me.
  • Snow lands allow cools card. I guess Skred/Scrying Land which I forgot the name would be too strong. Still, like it.
  • The power level of individuals cards is quite wide, althought it's difficult to guess if synergy overcome goodstuff without playing the cube. I guess synergy usually wins.
  • There s a champion of wits token listed instead on the real card on cubecobra.
  • Draft is tricky, there are so much build-arounds, sometimes you get a bit lost.
  • Felt like I lacked gas/something to finish the deck while drafting izzet spells and jund self-discard.
  • It's probably impossible to balance, but some archetypes are really easier to draft than others, especially blink decks or +1/+1 counters.
  • Mental Note seems like a Thought Scour downgrade (unless it's on purpose).
Most of these comments are probably due to me not being used to most of the cards in the list, it's not as well thought as l'id like it to be.

Edit : also, no Fabled Passage ? It may be unecessary with 4 prismatic vista, but I think it's better than ash barrens
 
Dom Harvey

Dom Harvey

Contributor
- Atraxa does seem like a pipe dream without more fixing. I'd hoped Breya would feature in more artifact decks; I wonder if CubeTutor/CubeCobra's AI gobbles up fixing indiscriminately?
- Scrying Sheets might be a good call actually
- UR Spells isn't explicitly pushed but there's a tension between the few enablers that are still there and the permanent/artifact focus in the rest of UR
- The Thought Scour art is just so unsettling!
- Green being stretched too thin seems to be a common criticism. That surprises me since I always saw Green as being the flagship of a few different archetypes but maybe it's just ending up as a jack of all trades
 
Dom Harvey

Dom Harvey

Contributor
I guess we all have more time for writing now

BUILDING BLACK AGGRO

Back in the day Cube owners would constantly wonder how to address the problem with black - the black aggro decks seemed weaker than their Boros counterparts, the tools weren’t there for black control, and the go-to combo deck in reanimator required a lot of narrow pieces to come together correctly. The answer most people settled on was to revamp black aggro into a sacrifice-based Stax deck and this forum was at the forefront of pushing that - some of the earliest posts on the Google Group (!) that preceded the forum were about how many Gravecrawlers to run, taking it for granted that this was the route worth pursuing.

The last few years of releases have solved these and many other Cube problems. Black aggro is now a strong and exciting deck if you want it and black can be the backbone of a solid control or midrange deck. We’re now faced with the more interesting problem of which of these various options we want to push and how to tailor them to promote fun gameplay.

Traditional approaches to black aggro made the same mistake as white aggro and red aggro - overloading on fragile one-drops that swallowed up space in a Cube as the deck required a heavy density of them to function and placing severe constraints on what was possible. Black’s Savannah Lions were more resilient as they had in-built recursion but this is more useful against removal and sweepers than the bevy of good blockers in all colours. Mono-Black Aggro seemed destined to be a top deck in Standard a few years ago but never saw the light of day as it didn’t matter how often Bloodsoaked Champion came back against Sylvan Caryatid and Courser of Kruphix. Meanwhile, the deck absolutely overran Pioneer for a brief period thanks to being much less one-dimensional than the typical aggro deck. Take a look:










It wouldn’t surprise anyone that the best deck in Pioneer had Thoughtseize and Fatal Push, the best cards at what they do at the cheapest mana cost covering almost all bases between them. It might surprise everyone to learn the best deck contained Night Market Lookout but it’s the only weak link in an otherwise sound shell. Smuggler’s Copter is one of the best aggro cards ever printed and this is an excellent Copter deck - you can park it until you have Thoughtseize to check the air is clear, your curve is very low so you can crew it reliably and discard excess lands, and you have many recursive creatures to take advantage of looting. Every creature in this deck either costs one mana (Knight of the Ebon Legion), recurs itself (Champion/Gutterbones/Scrounger), has haste (Rankle), or ‘draws a card’ (Murderous Rider), so removal is largely ineffective. Additionally, the mana in this deck is excellent - outside of the awkward land-light draws with multiple B spells and Mutavault, it’s easy to cast your spells and Castle plus Mutavault and Knight of the Ebon Legion make it hard to flood too much.

This is a solid template for how to build generic black aggro but it’s still worth exploring the other subthemes that can give a black section more character.

Tribal

Tribal subthemes always look better on paper than in practice. Even the much-touted Humans subtheme, which has support across the colour pie, some strong tribal payoffs, and a lot of incidental Humans, often fails to materialize. When tribal goes wrong, it clogs up packs with guaranteed last picks that nobody’s happy to see. Randy Buehler infamously tried to shoehorn Vampires into the MTGO Vintage Cube with predictable results. Part of that was poor implementation but part of it was inevitable:



At a glance Vampires seems promising - a decent number of black’s good creatures are Vampires anyway and some of the tribal payoffs are fine even if they only key off themselves or a handful of other cards in your deck. Vampires also has a good pedigree in Constructed, showing up in several different formats as a Tier 1 deck that could provide inspiration. However, these Vampires decks often lean heavily on one or two specific payoffs - Sorin or Highborn being great examples - and that’s a tough barrier to cross in a pseudo-singleton environment unless you want those tribal decks to look the same every time. The second-tier payoffs pull you in different directions - Cordial Vampire works well with the BW Vampires from Ixalan that want you to go wide and then sacrifice your board while Stromkirk Condemned and the BR Vampires from Shadows over Innistrad push a Madness theme that has to be built carefully. You can find the occasional crossover like Voldaren Pariah but trying to support both at once leads to ruin while focusing on one is likely to create an on-rails ‘Vampire deck’ that exists at the expense of other things.

By contrast, there are more than enough good Zombies and Zombie payoffs to lean into that without needing to embrace poor or narrow cards:



Cryptbreaker is one of my favourite cards in a long time and a great example of a self-contained but exploitable tribal engine. By itself Cryptbreaker lets you start drawing cards on Turn 4 but any Zombie lets you start that a turn earlier - already a decent incentive. It’s a great draw at almost any point but it reshapes the game if it comes down on Turn 1 without being an ‘answer this now or lose’ card which is exactly what I’m looking for. A steady stream of 2/2s is nothing to sneeze at if you’re taking more aggressive lines with them either. In graveyard-centric black decks a Turn 1 Cryptbreaker is an ideal start and I’m happy to play it in my black midrange or control decks too. It doesn’t demand a tribal commitment but rewards you for one - you can get a little extra from a smattering of Zombies or you can go deep in the paint with Zombie Infestation or (my favourite) Tombstone Stairwell. I’m happy to double up on it for all those reasons

Relentless Dead is fine in its own right as an evasive, nigh-unkillable 2/2 that’s good on offence and defence; if you have a sac outlet and/or any Zombie worth recurring, it quickly gets out of hand. I like that it demands careful mana management and risk assessment - do you take the shields down for a turn to curve out better or play it slow to guarantee that you can hold B up?
Undead Augur also has a fine base case as it triggers off itself but is the Midnight Reaper you always wanted in a dedicated Zombie deck. Triggering off tokens makes it a lot stronger not just with Cryptbreaker but with the mighty Stairwell (!!).

There’s no shortage of Lords if you want to buff your Zombies but, as expected, none of them are really sustainable outside of that one deck (maybe Cemetery Reaper?). Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet is strong in any black deck but having a board of Zombies certainly doesn’t hurt. Metallic Mimic continues to be a more versatile ‘Lord’ that often plays better than the actual Lords. Liliana’s Mastery isn’t a bad rate and is more appealing otherwise if you can flicker/return it somehow (there’s enough tools for a BW Replenish deck now?)

Tymaret Calls the Dead: Generally good and a welcome graveyard feeder but especially good when you have high-impact (tribal or non-tribal) cards to dig for with the final chapter

Graveborn Muse: Phyrexian Arena hasn’t been a great Cube card in a while now and there’s a ton of competition at this spot on the curve so I don’t know how inspiring this is by itself but this can swing too far in the other direction (putting you at risk of lethal life loss or decking) in the right deck

Dark Salvation: Likely too exclusive unless picking off X/1s or X/2s is a worthwhile task in the midgame and the wording is necessarily awkward

Gisa and Geralf: A formerly rare source of self-mill and wonky Apprentice Necromancer antics

Plague Belcher: Serviceable as black’s typical ‘big creature with manageable downside’ if you have many recursive creatures or token makers in your deck and excellent in the nut Zombie deck. Notably resets Undying for Geralf’s Messenger et al.


Before you even get to Stitcher’s Supplier etc it’s notable how many links there are to graveyard and sacrifice interaction. Normally trying to support several themed aggro decks in the same colour is a dead-end because most cards stay siloed in their own package but there’s enough crossover here that you can dip into all of them at once even in a smaller Cube.


Good Zombies: Carrion Feeder, Cryptbreaker, Gravecrawler, Carnophage/Diregraf Ghoul/Sarcomancy/Dread Wanderer, Lazotep Reaver, Withered Wretch, Graveyard Marshal, Undead Augur, Relentless Dead, Mire Triton, Apprentice Necromancer, Murderous Rider, Undead Gladiator, Nantuko Husk, Skaab Ruinator, Rotting Regisaur, Geralf’s Messenger, Polukranos, Unchained, Neheb, Graveborn Muse, Gray Merchant, God-Eternals, Sidisi

Grim Initiate, Dreadhorde Arcanist, Tymaret, Shambling Remains, Lotleth Troll, Putrid Leech, Dreg Mangler, Tidehollow Sculler, Corpse Knight, Soul Diviner, Tomebound Lich, Gisa and Geralf

Zombie sources: Cryptbreaker, Dark Salvation, Graveyard Marshal, Zombie Infestation, Curse of Disturbance/Shallow Graves, Tymaret Calls the Dead, Tombstone Stairwell, Varina, Lich Queen, Liliana’s Mastery, Lazotep Reaver

Zombie + graveyard: Stitcher’s Supplier, Mire Triton, Tymaret Calls the Dead, Gisa and Geralf, Gravecrawler, Dread Wanderer, Graveyard Marshal, Putrid Imp, Zombie Infestation, Cryptbreaker, Relentless Dead, Skaab Ruinator, Haunted Dead, Corpse Augur, Apprentice Necromancer, Rotting Regisaur



Sac/Stax

This is the easiest and deepest black archetype - people recommended it back in the early 2010s and it’s picked up a ton of great tools since then. There’s so much redundancy on every ingredient here that the challenge is making the right choices for your own priorities and not making the section too parasitic - it’s easy to have a good Sac deck that ends up having to cut 5+ cards, which is good in one sense but also suggests that some of those slots could be better used.

Sac is easy to support across all five colours so it’s worth asking how universal you want this theme to be in your Cube as it has wide-ranging implications beyond gobbling up slots in blue or white or whatever that could be used elsewhere: for example, a Cube that has a lot of token makers in every colour will be a hostile environment for creatures that ‘just’ attack and block like our friend Rotting Regisaur. If you design your Cube around each colour pair or shard/wedge having a theme, note that it’s very easy for Sac to bleed into other colours and blur those lines no matter where it starts.

This theme is certainly centred in black, which has the most variations on all of the key pieces:

= Sac outlets
The cost of the sac effect is almost more important than what it does - being able to shove on that effect at will with a developed board allows you to mould the game around that possibility. Viscera Seer is a strong card even if you’re not digging for anything in particular; Woe Strider would be excellent with any of its many other lines of text removed. One of the most important aspects of combo decks is being able to move cards between zones or convert one resource into another at low cost - in an aggro-combo deck like this, that second resource is often damage (directly with Nantuko Husk and friends or indirectly with a Blood Artist effect).

There is some internal competition between these effects - a Sac deck always wants to draw one but there are often diminishing returns on multiples. This can be self-mitigating: if you have a Carrion Feeder and a Nantuko Husk attacking at the same time, the threat of committing to one of them makes blocking or not blocking either tricky. This is worth tracking though when it comes to finding space in decks and the Cube - if sac outlets are sitting on the bench for the deck they should belong in or one outlet is always playing second fiddle when another is in play, that’s a sign that you can scale back. Alternatively, you can fill up on sac outlets if they have narrow uses but a high ceiling - Altar of Dementia isn’t good in all sac decks but it’s the centerpiece of some

= Fodder
There’s no shortage of creatures that create extra bodies or bring more with them somehow. In black, many of these are recursive creatures where the extra bodies are just future appearances by the same card. For the likes of Gravecrawler or Scrapheap Scrounger, this sets up a perfect tie-in to graveyard themes that also have substantial support available across all colours. The ideal fodder should be strong on its own merits but have a higher ceiling with the right support cards or build bridges with other decks. For example, Tuktuk the Explorer is a cool card that’s strong in a dedicated sac deck or a Wildfire strategy but weaker in a typical aggro deck except as sweeper insurance. Anax, Hardened in the Forge offers a different sac reward that’s more in keeping with the go-wide plan that a sac deck naturally lends itself to, scales better with that same plan, stronger in normal aggro, and is still excellent against sweepers. Pia Nalaar gives you two bodies if that’s all you want but is good in any aggro deck and also links up with any latent artifact synergies in your Cube. The Goblin Rabblemaster/Legion Warboss/Hanweir Garrison/Najeela, the Blade-Blossom family of cards gives you a constant stream of sac fodder and is more at home in a R/x deck that wants to protect a singular threat and use red or black’s removal to clear the way. You don’t want all of these at once but your choice is important for the structure of your red section and suggests useful information to a discerning drafter

It’s important to make sure these links with other decks are actually useful and not misleading. I’ve seen a lot of slower graveyard decks featuring Bloodghast with no way to exploit the recursive body where its impact on the game is completely ephemeral

= Rewards for sacrificing creatures

This is the least necessary and most narrow category.- a Sac deck can survive with just cards from the first two groups. A common mistake in incorporating the Sac deck is including too many Blood Artists and not enough Carrion Feeders or Gravecrawlers. If these are in your Cube they should be a reliable sign that the archetype is well-supported by other cards and that these are a nice finishing touch. Ideally these rewards should have a decent rate or be versatile. Judith, the Scourge Diva is excellent in BR Aggro and goes bonkers with a sac outlet; Mayhem Devil seems narrow but triggers off a surprising range of cards and a 3/3 for 3 that usually shoots down at least one card or deals some incidental damage is a good deal even when you aren’t turning Greater Gargadon into a Fireball

These slots can be used to add a new or colour-specific dimension to this strategy. Sower of Temptation and Zealous Conscripts are Cube staples anyway but get so much stronger with sac outlets. If you already have several creature stealers/copiers in blue, you likely have an emergent UB Sac deck

Similarly, the same framework can enable variations on the Sac deck in different colours - maybe BR pushes graveyard synergies and recursive creatures, BG gets more mileage from tokens and uses green’s creature finders and black’s reanimation to set up specific build-around sac outlets like Yawgmoth, BW uses the cheap creatures in white to keep its curve low and play as an aggressive deck with a combo finish

Woe Strider is the perfect illustration of all these principles: a free sac outlet that brings its own support, a fine aggro creature in black, and built-in recursion that makes it a formidable threat in longer games


Sac outlets: Viscera Seer, Carrion Feeder, Priest of Forgotten Gods, Nantuko Husk/Blood Bairn/Phyrexian Ghoul, Flesh Carver, Woe Strider, Yawgmoth, God-Eternal Bontu, Falkenrath Aristocrat, Tymaret, Mons’s Goblin Waiters, Greater Gargadon, Goblin Bombardment/Makeshift Munitions, Evolutionary Leap, Greater Good, Witch’s Oven, Altar of Dementia, Spawning Pit, Blasting Station, Phyrexian Altar/Altar of Dementia, Helm of Possession

Sac fodder: Bloodsoaked Champion/Gutterbones/Gravecrawler, Cryptbreaker, Scrapheap Scrounger, Relentless Dead, Butcher Ghoul/Carrion Thrall/Sultai Emissary/Putrid Goblin/Lazotep Reaver, Flesh Carver, Grim Initiate, Mogg War Marshal, Anax, Tuktuk, Pia/Pia and Kiran Nalaar, Thopter Engineer, Seasoned Pyromancer, Goblin Rabblemaster/Legion Warboss/Hanweir Garrison/Najeela, Siege-Gang Commander, Murderous Redcap, Doomed Traveler, Hallowed Spiritkeeper, Vesperlark/Reveillark, Blade Splicer, Lingering Souls, Battle Screech/Sram’s Expertise, Cloudgoat Ranger/Geist-Honored Monk/Scion of VItu-Ghazi/Angel of Invention, Eldrazi Skyspawner, Whirler Rogue, Reef Worm, Young Wolf/Strangleroot Geist, Nest Invader, Caller of the Claw, Symbol Status, Kozilek’s Predator, Deep Forest Hermit, Saproling Burst

Crossovers:
Sac outlet + sac fodder: Woe Strider, Flesh Carver, Pia/P&K
Sac outlet + graveyard: Woe Strider, Altar of Dementia, Greater Good
Sac fodder + graveyard: Stitcher’s Supplier, Tymaret Calls the Dead, Seasoned Pyromancer


Graveyard

An aggressive graveyard-themed deck was always more of a conceptual ideal than a reality for black but that may be changing. Most Cubes have a reanimation subtheme in black but this usually only gets an explicit nod with Entomb and then a cursory gesture in the form of assorted discard outlets that are only chosen because they are good elsewhere. Stocking the graveyard was surprisingly difficult for a colour that’s meant to play with it but recent printings help to alleviate that, making black less reliant on blue and red for looters or green for self-mill. That said, I don’t think black should aim to be self-sufficient here - this package is at its strongest and most versatile when it connects neatly but differently with other colours.

I suspect this is part of why black felt disjointed in traditional Cubes. You have the black aggro cards that need to be tended to more carefully than their Boros brethren. You have controlling black cards like sweepers or Phyrexian Arena and Read the Bones. You have the loosely inter- and intra-connected graveyard stuff. Maybe several iconic black cards that don’t have a clear home (Necropotence? Yawgmoth’s Will?). Finally, generically good black cards acting as a loose glue between these strands (Thoughtseize, Doom Blade etc). It’s not even a jack of all trades, it’s a confused student who can’t decide on a major.

A first step to fixing black is building these bridges. It’s not immediately clear how reanimation is meant to cooperate with Diregraf Ghoul. The more expensive reanimation cards are conditional curve-toppers in a deck that doesn’t want them. The one-sided reanimation cards like Life // Death have nothing good to return and the Animate Deads rely on your other disruption to find them good fodder. Meanwhile, the aggressive half of your deck doesn’t want to take time off to fill the graveyard for an unclear reward. You can put otherwise out-of-reach reanimation targets in your deck but these clunk up your draws; if you’re consistently setting these up with Entomb, the gameplay becomes repetitive as it’s usually clear what the best target is.

I don’t think it’s possible to have this crossover episode in a power-max Cube where your motley Gravecrawlers need all-out blitzkrieg aggression to compete with the best decks. I’ve seen aggro decks referred to instead as ‘assertive’ decks and that better reflects what I want: you develop your board early and use damage - and the threat of further damage - to control the pacing of the game. By extending various resources, you can choose which battle to fight and pressure the opponent quickly on that axis. Opening up the graveyard as a resource is a perfect dimension for this approach, especially as the various secondary colours use the graveyard differently.

For example, a BG Aggro deck might use recursive creatures like Bloodsoaked Champion or Scrapheap Scrounger as constant fodder for recursive enhancements like Rancor or Moldervine Cloak. Green’s creatures that grow from filling the graveyard like Tarmogoyf or Wild Mongrel/Noose Constrictor can be joined by Grim Flayer, Nighthowler, and Rotting Regisaur for cards that care about creatures’ power - maybe you turbo out The Great Henge or set up a OHKO with Berserk. Green’s CMC:stats ratio allows conditional reanimation like Unearth and Profane Command to represent a threat (Command also busts the doors down for green’s large attackers). The dredge cards in Golgari offer diverse, on-demand effects and make filling the graveyard trivial. This is an elaborate way of filling a wardrobe with socks full of pennies.

By contrast, a BR Aggro deck is much more about swift conversion of resources. Cathartic Reunion is a fine card on rate and an all-time great card if you can turn the discard cost into an advantage - black’s recursive creatures, red’s abundance of flashback/escape/unearth/aftermath/madness cards, damage with Flameblade Adept/Glint-Horn Buccaneer or removal with Ruthless Sniper. Combining red’s rummaging/Looting engine and black’s self-mill and recursion engine creates a deck with explosive potential that can tie cards together out of nowhere - Seasoned Pyromancer into a free Dread Return or Escaping Kroxa and bringing back Flamewake Phoenix when neither was in your graveyard last turn. Red and black are the two best removal colours, letting two-sided reanimation poach their creature - often in the same turn. In this shell it’s more feasible to run an ambitious or even off-colour reanimation target as it’s easier to cash it in for a new card. Cards that drastically reduce the size of the game like Smallpox, Devastating Dreams, or my favourite Rare-B’-Gone are excellent here as the graveyard synergies break the symmetry for you. There’s a different velocity to this deck - it threatens to seize control of the game on a new axis at any moment.
 
dbs

dbs

Dom Harvey said:
I don’t think it’s possible to have this crossover episode in a power-max Cube where your motley Gravecrawlers need all-out blitzkrieg aggression to compete with the best decks. I’ve seen aggro decks referred to instead as ‘assertive’ decks and that better reflects what I want: you develop your board early and use damage - and the threat of further damage - to control the pacing of the game. By extending various resources, you can choose which battle to fight and pressure the opponent quickly on that axis. Opening up the graveyard as a resource is a perfect dimension for this approach, especially as the various secondary colours use the graveyard differently.
Click to expand...


This is perfect, very well said.
 
TrainmasterGT

TrainmasterGT

Zombies is an incredibly easy flavor of tribal deck to make work in cube since there are so many zombies that slot so well into an aggro deck anyway.

Consider:


That list is discounting things like Cryptbreaker and Carrion Feeder which aren't really aggro cards but still slot in at 1 mana. If you're trying to build out your aggro section in black, throwing in a bunch of zombies lets you cross your every-important aggro density with a fun midrangey zombie tribal deck.

I can confirm that Cemetary Reaper is an absolutely fine magic card in a midrange deck and a good source of "card advantage" as an aggro curve topper provided the rest of the deck has a decent number of 1 and 2 drop zombies to play with. I've found Liliana's Mastery to also be a good top end finisher for the midrange zombies builds because it puts a bare minimum of 6 power on the board and can help in breaking up stalemates with other creature decks. There are so many good zombies these days with so many different applications that giving support to a tribal zombies deck is effectively a zero-risk slot investment since, in some form or another, a zombies deck can be playable with minimal support.
 
Dom Harvey

Dom Harvey

Contributor
Long overdue!

IKORIA:

In the past two months, Ikoria completely overhauled every Constructed format thanks to companion but none of us have been able to Cube with Ikoria cards in paper. That puts these evaluations in the odd position of having no direct experience to inform them but inevitably taking the impact on Constructed (Standard/Pioneer, for the non-companion cards) into account

Mutate:

Mutate looks very complicated and is... still pretty complicated, but it's mostly fine? If you have a playgroup that's experienced and likely to play with these cards again and again, this upfront cost may be worth it. Explaining the arcane rules interactions to that more casual friend who's making up the numbers for this week's draft might scare them off for good

I like that Mutate asks you to think carefully about what types of creature are good to mutate onto and which abilities work especially well with this Mutate card. It also has a well-tuned degree of parasitism: you can play a single Mutate card as Bestow+, as many as you can find to spam the Mutate triggers, or one or two that will lead to some big swings sometimes if you can pair them together

The rare cycle is a promising experiment with hybrid mana that I hope we see in other contexts

Illuna, Apex of Wishes: A fine way to get the dopamine rush from Cascade with no other mutators in sight, good stats; it's funny that this card shows up barely or even not at all in the Standard Mutate decks that can cast it

Nethroi, Apex of Death: An excellent card if hardcasting it is ever sensible and useful

Snapdax, Apex of the Hunt: We finally have a playable Mardu card and all it took was not needing to be in all the Mardu colours!

Vadrok, Apex of Thunder: More interesting as a much-needed form of variety in Boros than anything else but pretty good at that especially in Cubes around these parts; likely use case is as a build-your-own Goblin Dark-Dwellers with Hordeling Outburst or similar?

Sea-Dasher Octopus: The best variant on Curiosity in mono-U and an excellent pick-up for a creature-heavy flash deck. Oddly good in green between Birds of Paradise/Gilded Goose/Ice-Fang Coatl, trample, and big creatures that gain a card whether they connect with Octopus or eat a chump blocker

Dirge Bat: Hasn't showed up at all in Constructed but may have a brighter future here - a nice twist on Nekrataal that doesn't get blinked until you want to stop playing

Everquill Phoenix: Phoenix tribal is a fun pipe dream to shoot for - fine on its own merits too!

Gemrazer: Love this one - I want a certain density of Naturalize effects and I'm much more into Thrashing Brontodon and this than Reclamation Sage. You'll definitely get someone with the reach on this at least once

Parcelbeast: Enables some great starts but mostly in draws that were already good - probably not worth it unless you can Mutate it on T2 reliably and maybe expect more Mutate triggers

Regal Leosaur: White and red could both use a Trial of Solidarity a lot of the time so this is an appealing hybrid though it opens you up to spot removal that's typically not as strong there


Companion:

Since I should have wrote this up, companion has had such a pernicious influence on every Constructed format that it became the first mechanic AFAIK to require a retrospective fix. For Cube the non-Lutri deckbuilding restrictions are much harder to meet and an interesting goal to shoot for in drafting so I'd rather play with them as intended (not as printed since you can't divine how they are meant to work just by reading the card, but that's another topic...)


Lutri, the Spellchaser: Free in a lower % of Cubes on this website than anywhere else in the Cube community and possibly worth excluding just because it requires no effort; that said, this will lead to some very fun turns so maybe that's ok

Umori, the Collector: Even the most creature-heavy green decks want to make use of the non-creature enablers that set them up so Umori is still a significant cost and the companion criterion is so hard to meet

Gyruda, Doom of Depths: Condition is challenging but rewarding - blue has a lot of good even-CMC Clones, blue and black both have more great 4-drops than you can include, other colours have solid version of every staple effect up and down the curve

Yorion, Sky Nomad: This would be an auto-include for me sans companion so the extra potential makes it a slam-dunk. +20 cards is easily achievable but you really have to focus during the draft and be willing to make sacrifices for it. Yorion is deserving of its own writeup so I'll do that separately

Lurrus of the Dream-Den: Another fantastic Cube card with bonus companion text - this one is more straightforward than Yorion and there's not much to say beyond listing every CMC <=2 permanent in a list. It speaks for itself!



Lavabrink Venturer: The odd/even choice means that you can ensure you're immune to specific things but they can probably still interact with this somehow, which is the ideal spot for a card like this to hit. If you want to enhance it with something that dictates the value of your choice - the 'equip Jitte to True-Name Nemesis' lines aren't so easy here

Luminous Broodmoth: I haven't heard much follow-up to the initial hype over Nightmare Shepherd and this is in a colour less conducive to sac strategies; despite all that, I have higher hopes for this? Keeping the card instead of a copy, having the full power/toughness of the original, and giving them flying means that Broodmoth is great at applying pressure even through a sweeper and if the game goes longer you can set up more elaborate Broodmoth sequences with other rebuy effects

Neutralize: I don't like Cycling on a card this generic on principle but a fine replacement for Sinister Sabotage, Disallow etc if you care about the mechanic

Ominous Seas: Not to be confused with Omen of the Sea (though maybe to be confused since it's in the very next set?!), it's hard to gauge how easy this will be to activate in the average game. Without a decent number of 'above-rate' draws like Brainstorm or Sylvan Library (though having a lot of cyclers etc makes it easier to find those), this is more of a Suspend ~5 8/8 - not the worst?

Shark Typhoon: A home run - an excellent, interesting card in its own right, ties into various themes, and fun in all of its modes. It's tough to imagine a blue deck that doesn't want this but it's more engaging than the broken blue cards that's also true for


Extinction Event: An original twist on conditional sweepers in black - easier to build around than some and guaranteed to hit their biggest threat even if you have to lose material in the process. Notably, 'even' always hits tokens

Heartless Act: The most powerful Doom Blade variant because it's the most universal - more true for
me since most of my Cube sketches have a lot of artifact creatures and legends that dodge Go for the Throat/Cast Down


Fire Prophecy: If your red section is mainly aggressive, the bar for any burn spell that 'only' hits creatures is very high. That said, even in that context Prophecy can cash in a one-drop that stopped being useful turns ago for another shot at a game-ender while removing a blocker and it's obviously aces in midrange or control. Tucking a card is a rare effect in red that the half-dozen Polymorphs in this batch of releases

Mythos of Vadrok: More convincing as a midgame Plague Wind for 2RR than a future-shifted Aurelia's Fury

Weaponize the Monsters: Likely worse than Goblin Bombardment and that highlights just how critical a sac outlet being free is; that said, a Cube that really wants one Bombardment could easily want a second and this one should play out differently enough that it's a good complement to it

Yidaro, Wandering Monster: A rare red finisher with an interesting subgame and a way to recycle itself for the Polymorph crew. I like that if you want to reanimate it you have to find some other outlet


Kogla, the Titan Ape: Variants of this are a common custom card in green so it's nice to see it actually in print and offering some useful variety to green's midrange roster. The Human bounce effect is a bit out of left field and I'm unsure how often it will actually come up but there are a lot of great Humans to loop with it

Migration Path: Welcome and unsurprising but is removing some of ramp's inherent inconsistency actually a good thing? It's so easy for ramp to be the best strategy in a format thanks to stuff like this

Migratory Greathorn: A promising card even without any other mutators in a creature-heavy, mana-hungry deck. These twists on staples help to give Cubes an identity without making a large commitment

Vivien, Monsters' Advocate: There's a ton going on here that makes this more compelling than most of the 5-mana Nissas or the equivalent planeswalkers in other colours. The Vizier of the Menagerie text and the tutor ability pull you in subtly different directions and I like that this is a 7.5/10 that you can boost to a 9/10 if you try

Wilt: A slam-dunk if your Cube has... artifacts or enchantments in it


Chevill, Bane of Monsters: Competition among BG 2-drops is strong (though I typically hate evaluating new cards in those terms) but the ceiling on this is as high as any of the others in a creature-heavy format

General Kudro of Drannith: A fantastic lord for the WB Humans deck written about so well here

Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy: The wording here is unfortunately finicky (you really want this to work with Urza and you'll be really disappointed!) and the very conventional Elf-heavy green sections that want this tend to be more conservative with gold cards (UG going from maybe the worst guild to one of the best in a year didn't help either)

Narset of the Ancient Way: Has only been underwhelming according to most reports I've seen

Rielle, the Everwise: Read shamizy's great writeup here for the details but I'm excited to finally have an appealing build-around incentive in UR

Winota, Joiner of Forces: Same but for WR

Skull Prophet: If you want a BG card that isn't yet another removal spell and you support graveyard themes, this is a very workmanlike candidate

Fiend Artisan: Scratch that, this one is a lot deeper! Zombie Pod has always been a fun Cube transplant from Standard so having an in-colour threat that also sacs and searches for creatures is brilliant

Skycat Sovereign: WU fliers is an increasingly well-supported theme and this is a better lord-of-sorts than the likes of Empyrean Eagle

Sprite Dragon: The spells-matter two-drop that UR actually needed! It's hard to make the counters matter for more than their permanence in UR but if you're into Volt Charge et al. this makes them even better

Crystalline Giant: Held up as the example of how sets are designed with digital play in mind but I don't think this is at all hard to track with a modicum of effort? A neat way to incorporate in-your-face variance into the game and a nice artifact threat to add to that roster. An underappreciated card IMO

The Ozolith: Truly, truly berserk in a +1/+1 counters deck so it depends how strongly you want to push that; however strong it seems, it's better than that

Triomes : I recently pondered redesigning my land base around the AKH cyclers like Sheltered Thicket with fetchlands and the Triomes have opened up a whole new horizon there. I'm very tempted to proxy the Shard Triomes and make that the default model for my Cubes going forward



COMMANDER 2020

An odd set with fewer treats for Cube than most of its siblings. None of the gold legends really tempt me and some otherwise promising cards are worded for multiplayer in a way that renders them much weaker or useless for 1v1. That said, there are some useful niche cards:

Agitator Ant: An interesting card against a creature-light deck but most Cubes these days have enough creatures across most colours that this will backfire a lot and I don't know if it's worth it.

Fireflux Squad: The Polymorphs just keep coming! Red has enough good token makers that you can play this in a normal-ish deck and freeroll an upgrade to your 1/1 Goblin or Elemental or something but is also a solid Polymorph in a deck with stuff like Lukka, Sneak Attack, etc. I usually point out the utility of having this effect attached to a creature but a deck that's able to use this most effectively won't have many other creatures to Survival for, Reanimate, and so on. However, the rate on this card used 'fairly' is just fine - 3R for a 4/3 haste that upgrades your worst creature into another immediate attacker. That makes it a fine card for go-wide aggro decks, a popular direction for red. Having these Polymorphs that are good 'normal' cards makes it easier to support the ones that aren't

Surly Badgersaur: I LOVE THIS! A wacky but exciting discard payoff is just what I'm looking for. The lack of additional costs is a big deal as you can chain discard + draw effects together on one turn (especially when you're making Treasures) and a card like Drake Haven has an in-built ceiling on how bonkers it can be as the enablers can be quite mana-intensive. Also a perfect curve-topper for the aggro or midrange Madness decks in RG

Glademuse: A potentially dangerous symmetry here vs instant removal but a better centerpiece for a flash deck than all the recent cards that do that more earnestly. UG Flash is an established and solid archetype but WG Flash has a lot of potential as I discussed in the OP

Ravenous Gigantotherium: Another solid finisher with a safeguard against being too
good if you cheat it into play before you should, you naughty __

Sawtusk Demolisher: I like the use of Commander sets and the like as a way to push Standard mechanics in ways that wouldn't be ok there. This is a fantastic incentive for playing cheap creatures - if you have enough of them, upgrading one to a 3/3 makes your investment even stronger

Slippery Bogbonder: The flash/counters crossover I never knew I needed? If you aren't feeling ambitious you can take the guaranteed hexproof and load your counters on this, which makes it a lot more reliable

Manascape Refractor: One of the coolest mana rocks - finally, Bazaar of Baghdad actually makes mana! - but I doubt this will come up often in practice

Nesting Grounds: Doesn't specify the type of counter so there are lots of corner cases like endlessly resetting Sagas
 
Dom Harvey

Dom Harvey

Contributor
JUMPSTART:

What is this set? Why does this exist? Why now? None of these are good questions. Anyhow:

Emiel the Blessed:

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If my aunt had the need to make useless comparisons at every opportunity she wouldn't be my uncle. In the society in which we actually live, Emiel is a cool mana sink that pushes several themes at once

Stone Haven Pilgrim: White has a lot more good two-drops than colours that are meant
to be just as aggressive but this one still piques my interest - in the artifact aggro decks popular around these parts, this is a slam dunk

Scholar of the Lost Trove: I'd actually found Torrential Gearhulk to be a bit underwhelming outside of the generic control decks that don't need the help - it seems like it would be a good Welder target or finisher that interacts with the graveyard but rarely played out that way. Scholar is a substantial upgrade in other contexts and creates the Arcane Savant lines of chaining reanimation or Sneak Attack or something into a big spell while actually feeling like an accomplishment instead of a cheat code

Immolating Gyre: A new payoff of this kind for the spells deck but I suspect this looks better than it plays

Spiteful Prankster: A useful upgrade to Hissing Iguanar for the red sacrifice fans but a lack of good tools at that cost/colour has never been a problem for that deck?


CORE SET 2021:

Likely to go down as one of my favourite sets in recent memory, this is a great template for how the Core Set should look - Core Set 2020 had more bangers but also more mistakes, whereas this set looks more balanced overall

Basri Ket: Better for its role than Ajani, Caller of the Pride unless you support the Berserkers deck - I love cards that reward going tall and wide and this isn't too silly as a 3 mana planeswalker if you can contain the creatures that curve into it

Basri's Lieutenant: The ideal curve-topper: good but not dominant (a 4/5 Vigilance that leaves behind a 2/2 is a solid rate), with a chance to raise the ceiling through the roof in the right deck. Another piece for Metallic Mimic/Good-Fortune Unicorn combos if that's your jam

Conclave Mentor: The Winding Constrictor that should have come first - black has Constrictor/Reyhan as incentives and a handful of good mono-B or BG counters cards but WG is a more natural home for the archetype and this is a piece it really wanted. The lifegain clause won't be too relevant too often but has a nice tie-in with stuff like Heliod or Archangel of Thune

Speaker of the Heavens: Are there enoguh cards like this and Serra Ascendant that you can justify the Feed the Clans of ths world now? You really have to lean in hard but...

Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose: I love the OHKO with Illusions of Grandeur and having yet another way to go off with Zuran Orb. This effect needed to be on this card to enter the equation - now that it is, it's easy to imagine a deck that gets enough incidental use out of this without being a dedicated 'lifegain deck'

Griffin Aerie: A more manageable lifegain incentive but a less impressive one - are you going out of your way to build around this?

Seasoned Hallowblade: In many ways a card I wanted but I worry this will prove to be a classic trap - a card that ties a theme into a new colour but without enough support so it just ends up looking out of place. Luckily, a 3/1 that's awkward to kill already has a strong sales pitch

Selfless Savior: Benevolent Bodyguard is less cute but more effective unless you have a lot of sweepers with the Wrath of God wording or you object to protection (totally fairly!)

Barrin, Tolarian Archmage: I've wanted a card that does Man-o'-War's job in a more interesting way without the feel-bad of Reflector Mage and this is just the ticket. The extra subgoal is easier to reach than you might think:

1 Fieldmist Borderpost
1 Sidisi's Faithful
1 Fae of Wishes
1 Waterfront Bouncer
1 Kor Skyfisher
1 Stonecloaker
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
1 Riftwing Cloudskate
1 Meloku the Clouded Mirror
1 Kogla, the Titan Ape
1 Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar
1 Brightling
1 Shepherd of the Flock
1 Barrin, Tolarian Archmage
1 Sakashima's Student
1 Fallen Shinobi
1 Trade Routes
1 Words of Wind
1 Snap
1 Gush
1 Riptide Laboratory
1 Simic Growth Chamber
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
1 Teferi, Time Raveler
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Greenbelt Rampager
1 Zurgo Bellstriker
1 Glint Hawk

Discontinuity: When I was getting into Magic with Kamigawa I loved the aesthetic of the set and the amazing Scott Fischer art on Time Stop blew me away. Sadly that card never made waves outside Block Constructed but the upgrade in function is worth the downgrade in form here. Building your own Stifle-Dreadnought with Uro (or Dreadnought itself if I can get away with it?) or ramping with Lotus Field sounds like a lot of fun

Ghostly Pilferer: This card is a B or B+ at a lot of seemingly disconnected things but, since they are mostly unrelated, enough different decks should want a piece of one of them that this should make it across the line? It's surprising but refreshing to see multiple free discard outlets in this set. If you want to descend into madness in blue like it's 2002 you don't need to play Aquamoeba any more!

See the Truth: Lots of ways to unlock the Concentrate here, I just wish there were more high-value cheap instants/sorceries to exploit with those cards

Shipwreck Douser: One of the most appealing custom cards I saw here was 2 U/R U/R for Archaeomancer with Prowess and this is vaguely in the same universe. Archaeomancer's stats were weak enough that the body only really mattered for Blink etc whereas 3/3 Prowess is enough of an upgrade to be worth the hefty price of an extra mana. Sets up some wonderful looks with:

Sublime Epiphany: These expensive modal cards are my jam and this one is delightful! A little clunky but it's hard not to get 6 mana of value out of this as Dismiss + Disperse is an easy base case

Stormwing Entity: The low-curve decks that can Manamorphose this out ASAP in Constructed thankfully aren't really a thing in Cube. The lack of good one-drop spells that aren't just the best version of their archetype keeps this down for me

Teferi, Master of Time: This doesn't do anything interesting but does do it in a unique window. If you're looking for a generic blue planeswalker that needs something to feel less generic, this is a good way to go

Teferi's Ageless Insight: As the Internet's #1 Alhammarret's Archive fan, I should be more intrigued by this than I am?

Teferi's Tutelage: A more finely tuned version of Sphinx's Tutelage, if such a thing can exist. A strong single-card archetype in blue but there's a big contingent that hates playing around this card and it's already the menace of M21 Limited so tread carefully!

Waker of Waves: Not actually cycling or drawing a card is annoying in some contexts but if you want a pseudo-cycling reanimation or ramp target in blue this could be a step up over Striped Riverwinder?

Archfiend's Vessel: Baffling that this card came out when Lurrus was a fully powered companion in the most recent set but I'm not complaining. I love reanimation of all stripes so being able to sacrifice or bin this and turn reanimation (including stuff like Sevinne's Reclamation or Vesperlark/Reveillark) into a 5/5 flier is very tempting

Demonic Embrace: I enjoyed Herald of Torment back in the day but it always hovered on the fringes of my Cubes; Embrace is more narrow in a way but a lot more lethal in the aggro decks that want cards like this. In particular, BG graveyard aggro decks have big animals like Tarmogoyf/Wild Mongrel that can often OHKO in the air or you can mill yourself to power up a Fiend Artisan/Nighthowler/Golgari Grave-Troll or similar and then use the Embrace you milled for the finishing blow

Kaervek the Spiteful: I don't have a deck in mind that wants this effect but this is a whole lot better on a creature than on a Night of Souls' Betrayal (great spooky art and nostalgia there aside)

Liliana, Waker of the Dead: An inoffensive midrange planeswalker if you're in the market for that

Liliana's Devotee: The best Zombie lord is a... Human?! A fine card in a sac deck that helps to widen a typically narrow tribal focus

Liliana's Standard Bearer: This template never shows up as often as you'd expect in sac either but I have higher hopes for this one - good types and a nice trick vs sweepers

Village Rites: This effect really needs to cost one mana to be worth a look and that also makes it valuable for some hybrid spells deck with stuff like Young Pyromancer or Monastery Mentor. I've wanted to explore Threaten or Control Magic effects with sac outlets a bit more and Rites is the perfect one-two punch with something like Kari Zev's Expertise

Brash Taunter: Not as cute or iconic as Stuffy Doll but that was effectively a red card anyway and this is so much better in the decks that want it

Chandra's Incinerator: Debatably playable in Modern Burn featuring 24 Lightning Bolts and Lava Spikes, a pipe dream in this format I imagine

Conspicuous Snoop: I doubt you're assembling a weird Boggart Harbinger/Goblin Recruiter combo here but that's for the best; I wish Goblin Tribal was deep enough to work as payoffs like this are really compelling but compare its one-drops to Zombies' and the picture looks bleak

Gadrak, the Crown-Scourge: Compared to the better Iguanar whose name I already forget, this is more narrow but still more likely to grab my attention. I like being able to convert low-value material like small tokens or recursive creatures into different resources and this can ramp you towards your game-enders as a reward for something your deck already wanted. Having a big lug that can't even attack is better than it sounds with stuff like The Great Henge loafing around

Heartfire Immolator: Abbot of Keral Keep kept disappointing so it's refreshing to see this in a colour that desperately needs more top-shelf aggressive two-drops

Kinetic Augur: An absolute ace for the kind of lower power Cube I'm increasingly inclined to build but idk how well it holds up at a higher power level

Subira, Tulzidi Caravanner: A tongue-twister if you're the type who has to announce the name of every card when you play it but this seems pretty strong? If you're about redundancy and all-out aggression this doesn't beat out the Nth Rabblemaster clone but this is also great with those so maybe it makes it regardless

Terror of the Peaks: This has been caught up in the Baneslayer/Doom Blade Test discourse but this is a more versatile card than the usual hasty five-drop Dragon and the ceiling is both higher and more fun to reach for - lots of flashy combo kills with mass blink/reanimation, Greater Gargadon etc!

Transmogrify: Redundancy is important if you're pushing a combo strategy but this is at the back of the queue; if you weren't running Reality Scramble or whatever before, is this really what pushes you to embrace the theme?

Elder Gargaroth: Sadly and laughably unplayable in Standard but maybe its own brand of hidden reach will make its mark in some Cubes? The power-max crowd doesn't like this and it's not getting rave reviews around here so I'm not sure what its niche is outside of a token M21 card for the next MTGO Legacy Cube

Garruk, Unleashed: Excellent if you want an aggro-focused planeswalker in green but I'm including the OG Garruk Wildspeaker over this every time if I have to choose

Jolrael, Mwonvuli Recluse: Seemingly out of place in green - normally I'd applaud widening the colour pie a little but green has already been the best colour at most things for a while! This is the best incentive card for a theme that 'should' be rooted in UR. On its own merits, though, this is a fantastic card that I'm excited to build around. The 'draw extra cards' theme deserves its own writeup soon and Jolrael will be a big part of it. There are even some natural partners for it in this set:

Llanowar Visionary: There's no shortage of ramp cards of every stripe at this CMC. This is a jack of all trades that's broadly playable in any green deck - if you just want a bread=and-butter ramp card that doesn't lean towards any one extreme, this does the job

Primal Might: The playability of fight effects scales inversely and quickly with the efficiency of removal so you rarely seem them in Cube - that's a shame, since it's exactly the kind of removal that should be a reliable staple in green. The same goes for pump spells other than Hall of Famers like Berserk. Putting the two together is an old recipe but cards like Savage Punch are mostly notable for their art; Primal Might is the first flavour of that blend to really make a good case for itself

Alpine Houndmaster: A potential Squadron candidate but its cute pups aren't scaring away any predators in Cube; even though they are generally more powerful than a 1/1 flier (as is Houndmaster itself), it somehow feels more offensive that you have to include them in a deck? I'll probably give this a try, though

Niambi, Esteemed Speaker: Deputy of Acquittals wasn't a hit; is this that much better? I think so - the life gain gives you a small

Radha, Heart of Keld: This card just seems a bit confused to me - maybe it's greater than the sum of its parts but the other Radhas jump out to me more at a glance.

Watcher of the Spheres: A great sidekick for Skycat Sovereign in the WU fliers deck if you can support a ton of gold cards

Chromatic Orrery: The big mana rocks are a random favourite of mine and this one is the biggest and coolest yet (sorry Mox Lotus, nobody likes you). I keep looking for the elusive 'fair' Welder/Tinker target and this could be it! (he says, again)
 
Dom Harvey

Dom Harvey

Contributor
I'll try to post some detailed analysis of single cards or archetypes more regularly. Let's start with a card that most people (including me until recently!) have never even heard of:

Look at Me, I’m R&D

A uniquely enjoyable part of a game with a >25 year history is discovering some obscure card that you’ve never seen before and feeling your brain light up as you consider all the cool things you can do with it. The focus here is a hidden gem that is absolutely busted in a colour that desperately needs some exciting build-arounds. Despite several comprehensive searches of the Un-sets, Mystery Booster playtest cards, and all of Magic’s other oddities, I never noticed this one until a Reddit thread drew it to my attention:

c1f9c8f9-dbb4-408f-835a-4b6c6abfdc74.jpg

What jumps out at first glance? What cards do you immediately want to pair with this? You might have answers that never crossed my mind! There’s no easy way to search for the best synergies with this card and you can’t copy other people’s homework because nobody is playing it - there are a whole 72 Cubes on CubeCobra that feature this card and most of them are unfinished collections of Un- cards rather than actual Cube designs. That’s what makes this such a fun exercise - knowing that, however much I ramble on about it, I’m only seeing the tip of the iceberg and that someone else might find an incredibly inventive use for it.

One clear application is reducing 1/one to 0/zero. This acts as a Night of Souls’ Betrayal for X/1s only, clearing up the token spam problem that afflicts many Cubes, and messes with any future +1/+1 counters. There are some more subtle synergies too - Humility becomes a hard lock. Trade Routes lets you pick up and/or cycle any land for free. Anything that costs 1C now costs C - a boon to a combo deck looking for free mana somewhere. Necropotence draws your entire deck!

When you raise 1 to 2, you raise the roof:

  • Any token maker is now a substantial threat
  • Any +1/+1 counter source is now a +2/+2 counter source; any mechanic that cares about counters is so much better (Bloodthirst, Evolve, Graft, Adapt, Prowess, Renown, Outlast, Unleash, Modular, Amass, Devour, Bolster, Support, Scavenge, Undying, Mentor; Fabricate keys off tokens and counters at once!)
  • Any Anthem boosts your team even further; Prowess and Exalted improve
  • Any Impulse effect that lets you pick one card now gives you two; Sea Gate Oracle is the world’s best Mulldrifter. Any Fact or Fiction effect gives you both piles; Fact itself draws five cards!
  • Any land that taps for “one mana of any color” now makes two. Anything that adds one mana through any means now makes two (Moxen, Utopia Sprawl, Lotus Cobra, Eldrazi Scions/Spawns, Phyrexian Altar…)
  • Any card that makes you “choose one” or pick “up to one” now offers a much sweeter choice
  • Planeswalkers with +1 abilities jump in loyalty much faster
That sounds versatile and powerful but it’s hard to appreciate just how common these applications are and how strong this can be in practice. Things get even more absurd when you exploit this effect several times on the same card:

  • Deranged Hermit/Deep Forest Hermit makes 4 2/2s that get +2/+2 to become 4/4s
  • Wrenn and Six gains two loyalty to return two lands or can shoot anything for two instead; Karn, Scion of Urza gains two loyalty to draw two cards with no choice any more; new kid on the block Basri Ket gains two loyalty to give a +2/+2 counter or can make a horde of 2/2s; Jace, Architect of Thought gains two loyalty to give the opposing team -2/-0 or draws three cards by taking both piles
  • Voracious Hydra gets to fight something and double its counters first… but these are +2/+2 counters so you effectively quadruple your investment. 2GG gets you a 8/9 that fights (and surely wins!). Knight of Autumn becomes a 6/5 that also Disenchants or gains life. Marath, Will of the Wild lets you pay X for damage/tokens every turn. Pollenbright Druid is a 2/2 that gives something a +2/+2 counter and then Proliferates
  • Supreme Will lets you Convolute and Impulse… but Impulse now finds two cards, so for 2U you countered a spell and cast a card draw/selection spell that’s worth at least 2U already
  • Orzhov Pontiff gives your team +2/+2 and the other team -2/-2 when it ETBs or haunts
  • Surly Badgersaur now gets +2/+2 counters, makes Treasure that adds two mana, and fights two creatures at once if you want
  • Hardened Scales and Winding Constrictor now ask for two or more counters but reward you with “that many of those counters plus two”. With Scales in play, a Walking Ballista with X = 2 has 4 +2/+2 counters and shoots for 2 damage each time
  • Yawgmoth, Thran Physician takes twice the amount of blood but puts a -2/-2 counter on two creatures with every activation
  • March of the Multitudes makes 2/2s and every creature tapped for Convoke reduces the cost by 2 so your board explodes; Venerated Loxodon represents even more power at an even lower cost
A wide range of cards make use of this in their own ways:

  • Lurrus of the Dream-Den gets to replay two cards a turn
  • The Tabernacle of Pendrell Vale doubles its already steep cost
  • Split Screen now lets you draw two cards a turn from a roster of your choice
  • Baral and Grand Arbiter Augustin IV make mana cost an even looser concept
  • City of Ass now makes two and two-half mana, which by my maths is three mana
  • Finale of Promise scoops up two instants and two sorceries
  • More or Less enhances any of these synergies further and does it even more than normal
  • Narset, Parter of Veils stops the opponent drawing a card ever again
A short, definitely non-exhaustive list of synergies:

  • Planeswalkers: Teferi, Time Raveler (bounces two things); Nissa, Who Shakes the World (animates two lands); Nissa, Voice of Zendikar (-2 is much stronger and now happens every other turn, +2 makes 0/2s); Saheeli Rai (Scry 2 + 2 damage); Ajani, Adversary of Tyrants; Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast; see above
  • Choose one: Umezawa’s Jitte, Charming Prince, Marath, Orzhov Pontiff, Voracious Hydra, Charms (notably Archmage’s Charm now controlling even more), Doomfall, Supreme Will/Thassa’s Intervention, Mastermind’s Acquisition, Booster Tutor, Sleight of Hand, Ransack the Lab, Impulse, Sea Gate Oracle, Reviving Vapors, Gonti, Dread Presence
  • Mana: Aether Hub/Spire of Industry/Mana Confluence/Vivid lands, Moxen/mana rocks, Birds of Paradise/Gilded Goose/Sylvan Caryatid, Incubation Druid, Lotus Cobra, Utopia Sprawl
 
Dom Harvey

Dom Harvey

Contributor
Sensei’s Divining Top



Top is a go-to answer for “what’s the most overrated Cube card?”. A scourge of Extended and Legacy and any format where you automatically have a dozen shuffle effects in your manabase, Top is often seen as a universally strong card that inevitably disappoints people who invest too much of their mana and other people’s time in it.

If you are just using Top to Index every other turn, it’s a trap. If you somehow have enough shuffle effects that you’re seeing new cards consistently, it’s a rare colourless source of card selection. If you set out to exploit it, it’s a cheap, powerful engine card that conveniently helps to find the stuff it works with.

  • ‘Floating’ a card in your library with Top is a natural play pattern for Miracles but also helps to protect your best card from targeted or symmetrical discard (Wheel of Fortune and Death Cloud alike), set up an effect like Shelldock Isle/Windbrisk Heights or Riddle of Lightning, or keep a Oath of Druids/Natural Order/Tinker hit out of your hand
  • A repeatable reordering is perfect for all the recent effects that let you play the top card - Oracle of Mul Daya and Courser of Kruphix are classics by now but Experimental Frenzy, Vizier of the Menagerie/Vivien, Monster’s Advocate, Mystic Forge, and every variant on Light up the Stage can use it too. People have been using Top to make your own Dark Confidant more boring since 2005 and you can take the fun out of Cascade or Explore too. If you want to be flashy, Top turns Bolas’s Citadel into a better Yawgmoth’s Bargain!
  • Flipping Top can guarantee a hit for conditional ‘look at top X, pick one’ effects like Arcanist’s Owl; Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas; or Narset, Parter of Veils
  • Flipping Top gets you an extra draw (Jolrael/Improbable Alliance, Irencrag Pyromancer, Teferi’s Tutelage/Endless Insight, Ominous Seas) and extra Prowess trigger (Swiftspear/Soul-Scar Mage, Sprite Dragon, Seeker of the Way, Monastery Mentor, Mizzium Tank) or similar (Shark Typhoon, Quicksmith Genius, Saheeli, Sai, Teshar, Daring Archaeologist) every turn and an additional set for each draw effect and spare mana you have. Top unlocks the full power of Jeskai Ascendancy in a way few cards can
  • A cheap artifact for stuff that cares about that and ‘replaces’ itself with a sac outlet as you can sac/Weld it in response to the tap ability

In other words, don’t put it your deck just because but there are lots of reasons to put it in your deck if you’re looking for them
 
Dom Harvey

Dom Harvey

Contributor
Split Screen



I love seeing Wizards explore new design space but it’s even more fun to watch four-dimensional design space being created out of thin air. The Un-sets are a goldmine for exotic Cube cards - especially Unstable, which moved away from the ‘tickle your opponent if they say a word that contains the letter E’ nonsense from Unglued/Unhinged that wasn’t actually fun in practice and focused instead on designing functional Magic cards.

Split Screen is a perfect example. A lot of its power derives from the unintuitive rules for how it works (a cost in itself, sure) - notably, these libraries don’t have to be the same size so you can distribute the cards however you like. This is especially relevant for these:



If you want to push Oracle/Maniac combos in your Cube, Split Screen is the best way to do it - a very strong card in its own right that keeps the combo in mono-blue and can still be interacted with by destroying Split Screen

More commonly, you’ll be using Split Screen as a card selection device. How good is it at that? This is effectively the baseline:



If what you need fits neatly into a land/non-land binary, Split Screen almost always delivers. If you need specific spells - or don’t really know what you need yet - Split Screen allows you to map out the next few turns well.

Manipulating libraries is a popular pastime on here and Split Screen facilitates that in a way few cards can. The Sensei’s Divining Top writeup is the ideal companion piece to this one as most of the synergies are outlined there but Split Screen opens up new frontiers by itself:

  • Floating a Miracle on top of your deck for free
  • A draw spell can draw each card from a separate library; Brainstorm can then stash those cards somewhere else
  • Any Courser of Kruphix etc is all but guaranteed to hit
 
Dom Harvey

Dom Harvey

Contributor
I've really been in a funk with Cube design recently. I find it brings out the anxious/perfectionist streak in me in a way few other things do - I spend so much time thinking about it and yet feel like I make such little progress. A few observations:

- The Cubetutor/Cubecobra draft process gives me a highly skewed picture of how drafts actually play out; what's more, I can't even pinpoint which direction it's skewed in! Are my decks more consistent and powerful because cards that absolutely should not be going that late are making it through the black box? Are they worse than they could be because the bot in blue on my right steals my Urza in Pack 3 because it's a 'good blue card' despite having no artifacts? I have no idea!

- The lack of feedback from in-person drafts means I can't fix this from the other side; I don't get to draft often (or at all now!) and drafters rarely give detailed feedback. That last part isn't so bad - if people are generally content and have no complaints, that's fine! - but it makes it hard to get other perspectives. Additionally, I've found most people think about Cube (or Magic in general?) differently from me and naturally have their own priorities and things they enjoy in drafting. If a card choice in a deck doesn't make sense to me but the drafter is happy with it (even if it doesn't work out!), how should I interpret that?

The drafts I did at the SCG Players Championship - with highly skilled players who were also blowing off steam and looking to have fun - turned up interesting decks from a Cube that was much less organized than any of the shells that I've left to die on Cubecobra. Player feedback was vocally positive. That should be a source for optimism but it's hard to internalize it

- I'm not sure what the baseline for a 'successful' deck or draft is meant to be. I play more Constructed than most people who manage Cubes - that's an invaluable source of knowledge and reference material but I think it also warps my expectations for what a deck 'should' look like. Not every deck can be carefully crafted with an exact plan in mind and you don't have the redundancy on your namesake that you do in Constructed. It looks offensive when I see Thalia's Lieutenant alongside non-Human creatures - it makes sense to question that in Standard or Modern but it's inevitable in Cube and the aesthetics part of my brain needs to deal with that!

When drafting my various aborted Cube shells I can often draft decks that accomplish exactly what I'm looking for from my designs but the same is true when I'm drafting other Cubes that are built with other priorities in mind - it's like they know my brain better than I do.

There are other questions here - what should the 'hit rate' on my draft decks be? It's easy to see a card circulating in packs constantly and justify keeping it there for the 1/X chance it does something great; it's hard to figure out an acceptable value for X

- I get trapped by cool cards or archetypes way too easily. If you trawl through my early posts on this board you can identify my Heroic phase; I keep telling myself Lands or Enchantments will be viable if only they print one more card! I would have saved a lot of time and energy if I didn't know Goblin Welder existed

Anyway, I'm frustrated by this at the moment because I've gone through yet another cycle of sketching a design, committing the time to completing it on CubeCobra, and then discarding it when it all fell through. I know I'll do the same again soon and I don't know how to finally find something I'm happy with (whether by changing my standards or realizing how to meet my own)
 
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