Sets The Hobbit

This card is awesome. I'm a fan of passive hate and this does a great job of being a pest in fair W/x decks against a plethora of removal or counterspells ala Surrak, Elusive Hunter. Even in the face of a wrath you get to benefit by sculpting your hand for a rebuild. More ways to loot in white brings greater value and consistency to small reanimator ala Helping Hand or Sevinne's Reclamation as you get to churn through more of your deck while going wide on board. Might be the last bit of splash looting in my cube to make Abhorrent Oculus fully viable.

Relevant creature type, makes relevant tokens, and it's right on par stats-wise. Great art is a bonus.
Oh neat it's actually human soldier tokens for once. So used to seeing only Soldier tokens
 


This guy is pretty cool, turbocharges your graveyard in blue delve cantrip strategies, grows to a 5/3 for 2 fairly quickly, has vigilance for some reason.
 
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this is extremely for me i think
 
Screw you, wizards!

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I support prowess and goblin type. I have done a few scryfall searches on goblins that care about non-creature spells, and so far I found essentially nothing. Now they print this, and it's kinda perfect, but I really don't like amass. It's a unique token, and it's also still weird to me to imagine an army that is represented by one game object. You can unsummon the whole army, but you cannot unsummon two separate creatures. That bothers me for some reason. It's also weird to have something be called an army, and it's just a 1/1 or 2/2.

Still going to test this. Hope it's not too strong, honestly. I guess it's still slightly worse than young pyromancer because you can answer the army with one spell?
 
I actually love this goblin. 2 mana for making a token off a noncreature spell might be a first. The fact you are making an army that stacks rather than going wide means it’s worse than Young Pyromancer and Ravenous Robots for spells and artifacts respectively, but I run both and I am thinking I could save a slot. Or at the very least swap one out for the goblin.

I also really like the subtle push towards sacrifice to maximize your token generation and the fact that this is another Red +1/+1 counter card (Inti, Ivora, Mako, Gau, Shivan Devastator, …).
I think it’s @EzPzJapanezy that runs Skirk Prospector and that seems crazy for a goblin storm build.
 
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This card looks fantastic. I have sacrifice in black and an overarching artifact theme in all colours, so this should be a great fit for any color combination.

It's best buddies with Marionette Apprentice and Umbral Collar Zealot, I'm just wondering if it's getting too much. Tokens is a bit more specific than creatures or artifacts but I could see myself cutting Vraan, Executioner Thane or Warren Soultrader (I absolutely love this card but it just comboes with a ham Sandwich).

If nothing else this set is exciting enough that I feel like working on my cube again (sometime.. soon..). I just wish it were not tied to an external IP.
 
Noisemaker is fantastic. I think if you have enough sacrifice support, it's just a better YoungP, a card I famously have issues with. I'd rather go wide than go tall with my tokens, but the second toughness and practically doubling the amount of cards that trigger it, especially in a world where I'm paying even more attention to artifacts and enchantments, seems like a card to pay attention to. Not a lock or anything, but I'm doubtful I'll skip it, and I may even be inspired to test out Skirk Prospector myself again for the first time in a decade plus.


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Bilbo's Gambit is a delight. I'm very happy to be getting more counter magic in White, and this feels like a very White way to do it. While it's not the color-shifted Memory Lapse I've been hoping for, and it's got slightly weird art and a name that's not very reprint friendly, this is a card I'm excited to play. The Silence effect on a kicker may be more appropriate for EDH, but overcomes one of the biggest issues with Remand effects in 1v1 as well: your opponent can always just play it again. Making them wait another turn to do so is an awesome tempo play, and the treasure token won't really matter by the time it comes up. I wish the reminder text for the gift wasn't so long, but I will absolutely not play with "gift" cards without it.


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The Sackville-Bagginses feels just shy of my desired power level, but in terms of mechanics, it's a great match, so I'm still interested. Like Marionette Apprentice, it (generally) comes in with an artifact token and can be a legitimate win condition in your trinket-focused decks. Curving into this after a Cult Conscript or the like will feel amazing, and at that point in the game, I'd much rather a Treasure than a Servo. Being able to draw a card later in the game is a great addition to have on a 2-drop as well. It's an excellent design overall.
 
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Belladonna Took! Bilbo's mom is pretty cool. This is similar to Staff of the Storyteller, which has been excellent for us. The advantages are exciting: more upside potential (the Basri's Solidarity's effect is real good in a token deck), not having to pay for the card draw, bigger body on ETB, can trigger on both your turn and your opponent's turn. It's a legendary creature too, which is nice for me, and can be Helping Handed.

The downsides are notable, though, especially the big one: you need to get two tokens in a given turn to get the card draw. I like getting the first hit "free" from Staff too. It's just a bear if you never get a token. A 1/1 spirit token is no slouch, and two game pieces, one of which is an artifact, all contribute to make the Staff the superior card overall. That said, I love the staff. I'm currently playing two other cards similar to it, and have been looking at Tippy-Toe as well:



I like Belladonna Took more than Caretaker's Talent, and that's currently my planned swap. I like her more than Bennie too, but I have a soft spot for the card and find the convoke lets the card over-perform my expectations whenever I play him.

I understand the frustration from some players about these kinds of EDH-centric designs narrowing the strategic complexity of the game while simultaneously muddling the board state complexity, but I think this is straightforward enough for me and my players, and it's a good signal for drafters, particularly those less familiar with my Cube's 720 glorious cards or Magic in general. I am glad that this engine card is not generating tokens on its own as well. We only need one Ivora, Insatiable Heir (love you, baby).
 

I think Beorn, as much as I love it, is a little too Magical Christmas Land for me
The real magical Christmas land is wombo comboing your Kudo, King Among Bears with Beorn.

While not needing any typal payoffs, I do think these cards are more fun when there are other cards sprinkled throughout the cube to work with them. Unfortunately I'm not running any bears, but Kudo, Wilson, Refined Grizzly, Hurska Sweet-Tooth, and Lumra, Bellow of the Woods are all other bears I wouldn't mind running on their own. Also shout-out to Doric, Nature's Warden who turns into a bear.

It's probably a lesser powered card on average, but I think I prefer Sauron, Dino Devotee in this slot instead, and wouldn't run both as they have such similar effects.



Speaking of typal payoffs, here's one I'm closer to including, if it weren't for the color identity. Everything it does is mono green card at heart, and plays well into a lot of those decks. It's a premier 3MV reanimation target, makes tokens for go wide, provides good sacrifice fodder, and turns on power 4 or greater, with trample providing a good place to put counters.

I might proxy this as {B/G}{G}{R/G} or {1}{B/R}{G} just for an excuse to run it. I was already trying to find space for Titania, Rugged Rumbler (another primo Unearth payoff) but this might take her place instead.

Really though I just wanted to talk wolves! Torgal, A Fine Hound, Summon: Fenrir, Nightpack Ambusher, Cemetery Prowler and Ranger Class are all banger wolves in green. Honorary mentions to Young Wolf, Master of the Wild Hunt as well. Lastly, Faldorn, Dread Wolf Herald, Arlinn Kord, Garruk Relentless, and Tolsimir, Friend to Wolves all make for interesting splash options.

I don't think you need all of these of course, but a few allow for interesting payoffs that aren't going to railroad your drafts in the way other 'types matter' cards do.


To thematically round this out, I don't support goblins but I think this will perform better than Young Pyromancer on it's own merit. Having this be your only amass card is basically an upside, compared to most mechanics that are more deterimental for running on their own. I had been thinking of trying Molten-Core Maestro, but triggering off noncreature spells instead of Instants/Sorceries is just such a huge upside lately. I expect this one to become a cube stable.
 
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@Nanonox

It is UB reveals like these that make me cry lol, Bothersome Noisemaker is probably one of the best Goblin Tribal glue cards I have ever seen. The noncreature trigger bridges Instant / Sorceries and Artifacts and some classic Gobbos dabble in both.

Amass definitely plays worse than it looks but Goblins are kind of in that unique position where they are good at utilizing both modes. The constant snackrifices help reset token production, while the hordes of Pump / Haste enablers like Goblin Chieftain & Goblin Warchief make that Amassing Army a fast threat.

Seems really good with pieces like Goblin Sledder / Mogg Raider and yeah Skirk Prospector. Goblin Sharpshooter, Sling-Gang Lieutenant, and Pashalik Mons seem awesome with this setup. Good Goblin Grenade support.

While Amass limits its potential here, it is definitely not bad with Sparksmith or Goblin Piledriver.

Goblins also dip their toes into 'Power Matters' a little with cards like Spikeshot Elder, Ardoz, Cobbler of War, Molten-Core Maestro, Krenko, Tin Street Kingpin. While not always Plan A, cards like Fling and Thud can help give these veritcally growing threats reach and an Amassed Army wouldn't be an exception.
 
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I was eyeing a goblin artifact sacrifice package to make use of all the trinkets found in most Riptide cubes and the Noisemaker might be the missing piece



With these cards to pop off



Mogg War marshall and other random goblins could tie the room together!
 
This set is scoring very favorably on my scale for UB cards that don't need a re-skin.

There's a lot here already that would work in my Landfill cube:
Master's Councilors is a sweet card that plays really well with all the Blue draw/discard spells here.
Elven Raft-Steerer provides some consistency for the Infinite Landfall Triggers combos, as a creature version of Retreat to Coralhelm
Silvan Reveler is one of those cards that basically describes the whole thesis of the cube in its text box. SO HAPPY this isn't called "Rivendell Reveler" or something.
Part in Friendship is very correct for the environment but might not be able to compete for a spot. Right now there's only one green enchantment, Prismatic Undercurrents, and I like it even more.
And then there's Desert Were-Worm, who is now on-deck to replace Moraug, Fury of Akoum if his price tag gets out of hand. Absolutely SICK art on this Worm.
 
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