Barcelona and
Vegas each brought new Unknown cards and a few of them are worth a trip to the label maker:
Force of Rowan 3RR
Instant
You may pay 1 life and exile a red card from your hand rather than pay this spell's mana cost.
Copy target instant or sorcery spell. You may choose new targets for the copy.
It's much easier to go off with a Fork effect when it's free! There's a real downside to doing that on 'just' a one-for-one removal spell or something but I'm already dreaming of this with Big Score, Fiery Confluence, Fireblast...
Questing Cosplayer 1G
Creature — Human Bard
When Questing Cosplayer enters the battlefield, create a Questing Role token and attach it to target creature.
(If you control another Role on it, put that one into the graveyard. Enchanted creature has all the abilities of Questing Beast.)
1/1
My issue with the Roles in Limited is that you have to carefully distinguish between a bunch of small bonuses that are very similar in practice. This one may be confusing but there's no confusing it with anything else - this is a massive upgrade to even the wimpiest lil' Squire
Princess Snowfall 4WR
Legendary Snow Creature — Human Noble
When Princess Snowfall enters the battlefield and at the beginning of your upkeep, create a token that’s a copy of
Seven Dwarves. When you do, each Dwarf you control deals 1 damage to any target.
4/4
Finishers that flood the board like Grave Titan can get old if they are just doing the same thing over and over. Here you literally are doing that but it builds out your board in a really impressive way - the opponent has a reason to fight over Snowfall herself and the individual Dwarves.
Cat Oven 1
Artifact
When Cat Oven enters the battlefield, create a Food token.
, Sacrifice a Food: Create a 1/1 black Cat creature token. Each opponent loses 1 life and you gain 1 life.
This homage to Cauldron Familiar + Witch's Oven is that combination done right (ignoring all the finicky game actions) - they work together in tandem but you can justify Cat Oven by itself much more easily with Familiar and it also scales nicely with other, non-repeated Food sources. You can support a sacrifice deck where one mana for multiple rectangles of various types is a good deal already - and then sprinkling in cards like Gilded Goose and Tough Cookie gives you nice seasoning.
The Barcelona batch were Commander-themed so most of them miss this conversation
Delve Too Deep XB
Sorcery
Delve
(Each card you exile from your graveyard while casting this spell pays for
.)
Target creature gets -X/-X until end of turn. If X was 7 or greater, create a 7/7 black and red Demon creature token.
A broken card but very satisfying to cast and probably fine to be the top of your power band over some of the other broken nonsense out there?
Not much from Minneapolis;
Philly had some bangers though.
Life Cloud XWWW
Sorcery
Each player gains X life, draws X cards, returns X creatures from their graveyard to the battlefield, then returns X lands from their graveyard to the battlefield.
The mirror of Death Cloud, this one is symmetrical but if you can take it early and build around it you can have a lot of fun shattering that symmetry
More of That Strange Oil 2U
Instant
Choose one
It's Probably Nothing - Proliferate. Draw a card.
That Could Actually Be Dangerous - Counter target creature, artifact, or planeswalker spell. Scry 1.
I like modes!
Untap, Upkeep, Draw 1U
Sorcery
Choose one:
After this phase, there is an additional untap step.
After this phase, there is an additional upkeep step.
After this phase, there is an additional draw step.
Entwine
(Chose all of them if you pay the entwine cost.)
An extra draw step lets you cycle it, an extra untap step (after main phase 1 but before main phase 2) lets you keep chaining together stuff - a fine modal spell before you ask what that stuff is or what an extra upkeep would mean
Original Skullclamp 1
Artifact — Equipment
Equipped creature gets +1/+1.
Whenever equipped creature dies, draw two cards.
Equip 1
Still kinda broken but in a way that makes you work for it (or just as a strong equipment that heavily discourages trading). Actual Skullclamp is often oddly underwhelming in Cube (until you reach the cases where it's completely overwhelming); I wonder how this one would do, especially in a deck without ways to bin your stuff on demand
Soul of Mirrodin 6
Artifact Creature - Spirit
Trample
: Search your library for an artifact card with mana value 5 or less, put it onto the battlefield tapped, then shuffle.
: Exile Soul of Mirrodin from your graveyard. Search your library for an artifact card with mana value 5 or less, put it onto the battlefield tapped, then shuffle.
6/6
The idea of 'midcombat discard Soul of Mirrodin and exile it for Verdurous Gearhulk as a combat trick' tickles me pink - and that's a relatively tame example! My Emry/Welder deck wants to be filling its graveyard anyway so a reward for those that's also its own reward sounds great
Chancellor of the Mulligan 7
Artifact Creature - Phyrexian Construct
You may reveal this card from your opening hand. If you do, at the beginning of the first upkeep, shuffle it into your library and draw a card.
Menace
When Chancellor of the Mulligan enters the battlefield, draw three cards. When you do, any number of players mulligan. (They shuffle their hand into their library, then draw that many cards and put one of them on the bottom of their library.)
7/7
This might be my favourite Unknown card of all - this is everything I want from a creature I'm cheating in (including not being so cracked that it just ends the game on the spot), works with almost every cheat effect, and even shuffles itself back for stuff like Tinker/Polymorph. It's a combo piece with the Bowmasters and Hullbreachers of the world too! All that aside, the idea of it is just delightful