General Using Cube Cobra statistics, what are the most unique cards in your list?

MilesOfficial

MilesOfficial

In a recent change to Cube Cobra, you can now sort your cube by popularity. This has been a great way of quickly finding the deep cuts in other peoples' lists already, and is quite revealing for exposing the more controversial cards in my own cube. I've previously tried to use other tools to see what the "general consensus", like the "Average" cubes on CubeTutor, but this is by far the best tool for finding out if I'm a savant or if I'm basic with individual choices and within whole slots and colors.

It's not a perfect metric since with Commander and Pauper/Peasant cubes, the cards that fit into those and a more "traditional" unrestricted/less restricted cube are the only ones capable of hitting more than 20% of lists, it's still compelling and is so far my favorite way of understanding what the biggest trends in the cube community.

The way I view each of the cohorts is:
  • 0-1% - I Am a Genius for Including These!!
  • 1-2% - Spicy Picks
  • 3-5% - The Marginal Inclusions
  • 8-12% - Solid Role-Player
  • 12-20% - Cube All-Star
  • 20-30% - Multi-Format Cube Staple
  • 30-50% - Entirely Ubiquitous
My favorite view so far is by appending this bit to the end of your cube list's URL (which can also be done by using "Popularity" in your Secondary Sort.

?s2=Popularity&s3=Unsorted

As a note, I'm not sure what category that cards with 6-7% inclusion fall into!

I'm interested to see what you all have on your lists in the 0-1% category, with the exception of recent cards (i.e. anything from Strixhaven forward) since those are often just a matter of people being behind on updates. Having lurked these forums for years now (sorry it took so long to start posting), the Riptide community has the visionaries and iconoclasts of the cubing world that have inspired me more than anyone else in my own cubing adventures, so while I've posted this both here and on r/mtgcube, I'm expecting a lot more interesting responses here, and for many of your own lists to be overwhelmingly in the 0-1% category, making this a little less interesting of an exercise for those of you who have very innovative lists.

According to my own cube list, a 720 unpowered singleton list with goals of maximizing interactive play, fun, and accessibility, the following cards are my absolute spiciest:

White
  • Frontier Explorer - I think there's just less interest and availability in the playlist cards from Mystery Boosters, or else I'd expect to see this ahead of many other 2/1s, especially in larger lists like my own.
  • Loyal Retainers - I have a lot more hopes for white being a reanimator color than most and have for a while, I think, and completely opposite to the cubes happy to run Persist, my list is very legendary-filled, particularly when it comes to bombs.
  • Peacekeeper - Demands removal, and like Standstill, gives a control player some time to breathe. Probably a marginal include, but I've had too much success personally with him to want to cut him just yet.
  • Preacher - Probably the most guilty pet card on my 720, I've just always enjoyed taking other peoples' creatures, and giving them a choice is objectively not great but it's plenty fun. My biggest issue isn't even the slowness of the effect or the high token density my cube's gotten in recent years, but actually the double white pips that really minimizes what decks can/will play this.
  • Return to the Ranks - Again, my cube runs more graveyard interaction in white than most, and I think this has a really good place, particularly with cards like Emissary's Ploy decks (which are, now that I think about it, the only decks that have utilized this all that well....)
Blue
  • In the Eyes of Chaos - Really should cut this one, it doesn't really do much and I was being too cute adding it over this long break between drafts during the pandemic. Didn't show up in our first return draft back.
  • Mana Vortex - I love this card so much in aggressive UB and UW decks, it prevents my opponents from stabilizing. Objectively worse than Armageddon but that's ok.
Black
  • Contamination - This used to be a cube all-star, what happened? I still like it, but it's probably more unfun than I'd like for my list.
Red
  • Acidic Soil - This is some serious reach for aggro decks, I've been pretty satisfied with it as it can hit folks out of nowhere after they think they've stabilized.
  • Transcantation - Let your memes be dreams.
  • Fateful Showdown - On its way out, but this did a bunch of things I really quite like all on one card.
Green
  • Earthshaker Giant - An excellent six in green was hard to find until recently, and my crowd has opted for this over its more popular brother with flash, Great Oak Guardian, which is probably better, but I like the trample and the bigger buff more than the combat trick potential.
  • Stunted Growth - You're not running green aggro without this, just absolutely devastating.
Colorless
  • Helm of Possession - Control Magic effects are good, especially in red and black, which have the token density to really make this card hold its own.
  • Lifeline - May seem like more of an EDH card and certainly a more marginal pick on my side, but it makes the slog of midrange even more inevitable. This exercise has really forced me to consider this card again though, probably will look to cut it before long.
  • Static Orb - I wholeheartedly advocate this card for all sorts of cubes, this is a Winter Orb for midrange and tempo decks that forces you to play very differently in ways that can be built around to overcome the symmetry in interesting ways.
Based on feedback from my drafters, I honestly thought I'd have a much higher percentage of my list in the "rogue" categories -- I guess I've fallen for the so-called "common wisdom" more than I appreciated!
 
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Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
Barring of course all the silly things like Krovikan Mist as placeholders for custom cards:


That's all my 0-1%. Mostly just new cards, though Augur is a lovely little card. Mind Rot is always a bit to weak at 3, and there aren't a ton of options for it at 2 (mostly hymn to tourach).
This has the added benefit of being desperation Drudge skeletons if you need, but more notably you can raise dead

Squadron Crab I run 4x of and it's been good. Nobody's ever had 4 of them but all the decks with 3 copies have been solid, and people have run 2 as well. The fact that they're 4/4s does so much to help your lategame
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
Yeah, the fact that a lot of cubes won't have been updated makes this less informative for recently printed cards.
 
Aston

Aston

Here's mine
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I'm surprised that Jinxed Choker and Fire Imp aren't in more lists. Unbound Flourishing is experimental and I somewhat expect it to get cut again in the near future.

Oversold Cemetery is one that I don't see around very much but I really like - it's a bit like a powered down version of Recurring Nightmare, and while it can lead to some repetitive games in the same way, it at least doesn't have the super high ceiling of Nightmare and I do like having that sort of effect around.

I have a large-ish construct count and I have really liked Scrapyard Recombiner, it's surprising how many things it can fetch.

People should play more Un-cards.
 
ravnic

ravnic

Okay, I don't think anyone wants me to talk about all 98 cards I run in the 0-1% category of being genius (or the 105 spicy ones), so I'll just cherrypick a few examples of cards that should really rank higher in my opinion and explain why. Here are my top 10 genius includes in terms of how surprised I was to spot them there, but not in order.



This is probably my favorite magic card, so I might be a little biased, but it just seems that I always want this in my deck. It is incredible in self mill decks, as it does double duty. You'll never mill yourself and you can Worldly Tutor for every creature that once hit the grave. It also has many sweet micro interactions like top of your library matters effects or cycling payoffs (you can cycle that Horror of the Broken Lands again whenever you want). I love the comfortable feeling of safety dredging with this in my hand. The toolbox-ness also adds agency as long as you design your cube that there will usually be more than one interesting option in your gy.



It's a fairer FTK (only because it costs more tbh) that has some utility in promoting a devotion or goblin theme. I think more cubes outside the high power levels should consider this.



Similar. It is no Consecrated Sphinx, but it's a pretty potent blue finisher in your average control or tempo decks (5 mana makes it easily castable there too) and it's also one of blues best landfall payoffs. I think in every cube where a 5-drop doesn't need to generate immediate value, the designer should think about this once.



Rofellos is a high power cube staple, isn't it? This is a 4-mana rofellos that is much harder to remove. Doesn't start ramping on turn 3 usually, but you can easily untap with this on turn 4 with then double digits of green mana and if you cast this, when you already have more than 4, itcan pay for itself. It's the #1 reason in my cube to go mono green and definitely more powerful than people seem to give it credit for.



This is probably my best removal spell in black and I'd cut it (just like FoF) if it weren't so much fun. With two guys out it's an edict but then it just gets better and better, even useful against absurdly wide boards. It's maybe not quite as consistent as the strong Terror variants of today, but it should be in more lists imo.



Everyone runs Wildfire, but nobody runs this? Seriously, this is very close in power level and even more devastating with the many payoffs that leave something behind when they die (like TukTuk the Explorer) or the ones that don't die to any amount of damage, like the next one on this list ...



This is a pretty good finisher, survives board wipes, dodge's sorcery speed removal in general, works with artifact and proliferate themes and it's flexibility makes it just never bad. You need to hold back one mana if you want to block immediately with it, but that's usually worth it and therefor I like this much more than Endless One.



I don't know, I could imagine that Soltari Champions days of being a "cube staple" are counted at high power levels, but it's still a great card. And this mouse is not far off. It can even be better in one of the many cubes with some form of fetchlands in their mana base.



Blacks most creative draw spell. If they don't kill it right away, you'll most often get a 2-for-1 at least, and even when you're so behind, that this has to chump block something with toughness > 3, it will still replace itself at the very least. But then, as a creature, it's also easily recurable. And there are few things as cool as wiping the board with Black Sun's Zenith and drawing four or five cards of the Urchins.



It's not as cheap to cast as Cursed Scroll, but it's cheaper to activate and you can do so with more than one card in hand. This also opens up synergies with some themes that red and green can make good use of like madness or loam. Plus, it's some great inevitability for aggro decks even without synergies.
 
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Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
Okay so if we adjust for the new cards, here's the weird cards I'm running:
Enigma Sphinx: not thrilled about this, but I like having a 3 color signpost, and technically this is an esper artifacts card, even if that deck needs nothing in the way of win conditions.
Dreamstealer: Basically all the Eternalize cards play great if the front side is marginally playable.
Emerge Unscathed: excellent prowess enabler. Stave Off and co are more and more playable the faster your format is and the worse your removal is, so you get to pick your upside, and rebound is a great one to choose (Gods willing is perhaps a bit more common)
Graveblade Marauder: It's good offensive and defensive body, but it is mostly just Keyword:Large. Higher floor/lower ceiling than say, Nighthowler
Hallowed Burial: Much like emerge unscathed, this is the version of 5 mana wrath that fits my format.
Herald of Anguish: Love this guy. Artifact density isn't so high in my cube that this is a turn 4 play, but the dream is there and it's manageable without being overbearing.
Nether Traitor: this is new, and might only be good while you're winning, but I want more variety in my aristocrats decks, and this seems like a cooler (if worse) option than running a second bloodghast
Oversold Cemetery: Love this card. Cheap, effective inevitability engine you need to work for. A+, so sad it's not available in new frame (I own an onslaught foil one from back in the day and it is HARD to read) so I proxied one anyways.
Psychic Spiral: This is one of blue's better finishers, no mistake, this card will win you games nothing else in your cube will. Practically the closest thing I run to a pure combo card. It's probably at its best in a control shell with 99 answers and this to kill someone while refueling, bonus points if you can cast it twice somehow with snapcaster/eternal witness etc, but I did have a drafter put together Faithless Looting Tribal, turbo through their deck and just oneshot people.
Vadrok, Apex of Thunder: This card slaps so hard if you can get over the complexity barrier. I know mutate is a bit much, but I love that it's hybrid 3 color, which is a SMALL niche of cards if there ever was one.
On top of that:
a) it can cast enchantments/artifacts/planeswalkers from the graveyard, not just instants/sorceries
b) they go back to the graveyard afterwards!
If all my 3 color cards were this good, I'd be a happy happy drafter
 
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alvoi

alvoi

Oh wow, my 0-1% cards are:



The first two are there for a Faeries tribal theme, Day's Undoing is a budget Timetwister that works well with Narset (but I wanted to change it to Commit to Memory sooner or later), Unmask and Lake are some mono black reanimator cards.

My 1-2% are cards that are less narrow, such as:



I'm surprised that Scryb Ranger is cubed by so few people, it's a card I love and that has a lot of interesting play patterns.
 
japahn

japahn

9.7% of my core module is 0-1%
12.8% of my core module is 1-2%



A lot of that is related to the unusual Bwg -1/-1 counters archetype I run, the focus on equipment and on generic tribal, and the WU tappers archetype.

Cards here that I can recommend to low power cubes that aren't running these archetypes:



Smart use of support, lots of agency. It's sometimes worth buffing the opponent's Llanowar Elves. Particularly awesome in the -1/-1 counters deck, but I would probably run it even with only a few bad counters cards.



Another high agency card, makes tokens when necessary, and can work as a combat trick or a surprise EoT buff.



My favorite blink target - useful in any deck, but blink takes it to a new level. Not oppressive like FTK since the burn is so much smaller, but a nice creature for cubes built around incremental advantage.



The flavor is my favorite part of the card, but this is not weak and cute at all. High agency card, particularly in decks that want it - deciding the order to exile spells, when to pull the trigger, and whether to play around instant speed removal are cool features of the card.



An uncomfortable attacker to deal with, works nicely with evasion and protection, and it's a good blocker too. Gives green more fuel, but requires putting itself in the red zone to do so. Invites blocking and interaction.



One of my favorite cards, it has so many synergies with such little text. Sacrifice, tokens, artifacts, voltron (you can ignore a 1/1, but not if it picks up a Bonesplitter), goblins, golems, wildfire... it gives agency to the opponent as well, since they can try to ignore it as much as possible or bite the bullet and deal with the 5/5. The flavor is perfect, too.

Bolting your own and going for the kill is extremely satisfying.



Another highly synergistic card, with an element of risk/reward. Knowing when to attack into it and when not to is the key for the opponent to leverage its drawback. A bit too strong with blink.



Simic decks have little access to removal, and making Simic control possible goes through covering the greatest color combination weakness in Magic. This is also a failsafe for when I drop too much my removal in some particular color. Not particularly synergistic (though Trinket Mage fetches it and can be dumped to Thirst for Knowledge), but more agency than most removal, as you may choose when to disclose the information you have removal.



When running a lifegain theme, it's important: to avoid the poison principle; not to screw over aggro decks with huge lifegain swings. Recumbent Bliss does both perfectly, being a workable Pacifism in any deck, going up in value for control decks, and gaining life in a rhythm that aggro can compete with, but still triggering the payoffs.



Another highly recombinant card, blue is no stranger to card draw, which is the reason why people don't run this often. At only two mana though, this is particularly strong in aggro-control decks, and does not overwhelm with card advantage quickly like Edric, Spymaster of Trest or Bident of Thassa. Provides a mana sink with a significant cost but significant value as well for the long game, though the green splash is optional.
 
B

blacksmithy

36131D91-9522-4808-9137-CDCF75EA060C.jpeg

most of my 0-1% is just MH2 stuff but there’s a few here i think people should try!
Evasive Action is basically always going to at least be Quench and has big upside in cubes/decks with good fixing.
Wishes are just cool and scale nicely with bigger sideboards/narrower power bands.
I talked about Unbridled Growth a bit in Fight Club but it’s a sweet cantrip+fixer that gives you some relevant graveyard synergy.
And of the MH2 cards i gotta mention Moderation, we tested it and it plays way better than it reads.
 
Brad

Brad

Onslaught Cube has 198/528 and my artifact list has 126/557. Both are in needs of cuts, obviously. If you're doing anything atypical, a lot of your cards end up being "genius."
 
sigh

sigh

My "genius" includes (excluding the new sets as above)


I'm not much of a visionary :')

Aeolipile should be more of a consideration for people that run Emry, Scrap Trawler, and the like IMO. Slightly less efficient than pyrite spellbomb, but two things it really has going for it: 1) it's 2 CMC, so it can trigger Trawler to return a 1 CMC bauble. I find that the baubles in the deck can pile up at 1 CMC, which makes it harder to get value off of Trawler. 2) it can go into Ux Emry decks without needing to splash for R on Pyrite.

Surprised Canyon Jerboa is in the Genius category. It can have some pretty busted turns.

I'm guessing Angel of the Ruins is both a little too new, and also getting supplanted by Timeless Dragon already.

Another stat that would be interesting to hear from people: What category is your biggest slice of the cube at? Mine is at 3-5%, with another spike at 12-20%

EDIT: I'm pretty sure the missing 6-7% category is literally missing lmao. When sorted by popularity CC only shows 339 cards out of 400 for me.
 
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alvoi

alvoi

sigh said:
Another stat that would be interesting to hear from people: What category is your biggest slice of the cube at? Mine is at 3-5%, with another spike at 12-20%
Click to expand...
Mine is 12-20% with 170 cards out of 400, interesting

Another question, where can you find the most popular cards on cubecobra?
 
ravnic

ravnic

Lol, you're right about the missing category @sigh

My cube is peaking at 3-5% with 186 cards
Next is the mysterious 6-7% with 108 cards (not listed)
Followed by 1-2% with 104 cards
Then the genius 0-1% with now 100 cards
8-12% with 73 cards
12-20% with 68 cards
20-30% with 30 cards
30-50% with only 8 cards

If we're calculating by taking the middle ground in each category, that means that the average CCC-card is in 5.75% of cubes
 
Zoss

Zoss

This is from a mashup of my current cube and my super-secret, still-in-progress rework of that cube in which I embrace breaking singleton, so the proportions aren't quite accurate. Still, for my genius-tier includes (21 cards-ish each, with most shared across cubes for roughly 5.5% of each cube), I have the following:





Of that list, these ten are the ones I think deserve more attention.

Twilight Shepherd is both a reasonably sticky Baneslayer that can pick up a couple of other cards without being too overwhelming of a card advantage machine as well as a solid Aristocrats combo piece. I love it as a top end; picked it up after someone else mentioned it here and I've never looked back. Plus, it plays so well with Dread Return it's not even funny.

Speaking of cards that play nicely with Twilight Shepherd, Profaner of the Dead was a deep cut for a Blue board wipe. Again, I like having to work for the value, but having a MV 4 "bounce all of your opponent's critters with toughness 1 or 2" is not an awful floor. Plays really nicely in a defensive deck if you're running anything like Wall of Omens or Man O' War.

Nefashu is not the strongest individual card, but it puts in real work in clearing out tokens. I'm always tempted to make a slightly better custom card (menace? 5/5 body? costs {1} less?) because no one's ever seen it, but I've resisted...for now.

Fiendish Duo is, apart from the price tag, a fun Red finisher. (As an aside, you probably note that most of my 'fun' cards are the ones that end the game, both because you can get away with a larger power range in finishing the game so long as it clears that bar and because I want the finale of a game to be the most fun part) I never want to curate a cube without at least one card that has the word "double" in its text.

Kris Mage is definitely above par for RDW these days, but I still love this era of aggro, especially with how it intersects with Madness.

Vaultbreaker does something similar to Kris Mage, but I am/have been also trying to beef up the ETB/LTB contingent in my cube to go alongside Ninjas, so it fits perfectly.

Magus of the Candelabra is a really good dork with land-enchantment ramp and a really good dork with bouncelands. He's outright busted with both. Guess where I fall in that Venn diagram? I like the play patterns of tapping and untapping, especially because
a) your birds might get bolted but your lands won't
b) it feels a little more clever than just having 'extra' lands
c) with enchantments and untappers you can go bigger faster than with a bunch of Elves
d) cards that do both tapping and untapping can have defensive benefits that are reusable, unlike chumping with Elves

Niko Aris is certainly newer, but has some cool play patterns and scales with the game. They also do a lot of things that (the less-controversial) Venser, the Sojourner does without making your entire team unblockable. Seriously, who thought that that was balanced? And for -1!

Etched Monstrosity is a 5/5 for 5 with a ton of upside in 5c decks. The symmetry is beautiful, and also having a bigger body than most of my creatures helps it stay relevant in any deck that could use the extra side of beef.

Phyrexian Colossus is not as good as Metalwork Colossus (which I also run), but it plays the important role of offering any deck a second Big Robot, and that's really important to me. Generally speaking, I like all decks to have some access to all sorts of effects, and this one is the second-best one at this MV that wouldn't blow the rest of my cube out of the water.



My spice section is really flowing, at about 13.3% of each version of my cube, or an average of 56 cards! Here.


A lot of these are not fantastic and are going to get cute, but again,ten shout-outs. Funny how that works out.





Glyph Keeper falls into the same bucket as Twilight Shepherd in that it's a reasonably sticky Baneslayer.

More or Less is the best Blue combat trick, and I like including at least a couple of combat tricks in every color to keep people on their toes (no, removal does not count for this purpose). It has, quite frankly, too many uses, and really rewards people for being clever, just as a Blue spell should (for my taste, etc.). Just a fantastic piece of glue.

Sifter of Skulls is very good in Aristocrats and in Blaggro.

Cinderclasm is a real option for aggro decks, which is a very cool place for a wrath to be. Also, flexibility! And it's an instant, too!

Dargo, the Shipwrecker can be made cheaper both on his own and as a result of natural game activities, which leads to the type of maximization puzzles I really enjoy. Without trample, he'd be unplayable.

Ancient Stirrings--as Inscho says, why aren't more people playing this? I thought we liked artifacts!

Sylvan Safekeeper plays well with Crucible and does great things for giving Green a bit more 'play' to its decisions. Also creates a nice tension with ramp. Go Alvoi for cubing it.

Wort, the Raidmother has a non-zero floor (two goblins) and a really cool, if technically challenging, ceiling, that brings 'spells-matter' further into Temur. Plus, she's hybrid! I'm trying to keep myself to 3 'hard' gold cards in a section with my latest effort, but as we all know that can be a big ask.

Grusilda, Monster Masher is crazy in the best possible way. It's a shame she's so slow, since she offers a great, repeatable payoff that fits very well with discarding and reanimating.

Ongoing Investigation is just great, as Japahn says. I also like Ulvenwald Mysteries, though not quite as much. Generally speaking, I like 'do-nothing' buildarounds to cost {2} or {3}, and again, this gives Green some play in the artifact deck. I'm looking forward to combining this with Tireless Provisioner.
 
ravnic

ravnic

@Zoss

I have some questions regarding some of your genius inclusions.



What kind of decks want Uyo? How regularly is she copying relevant spells in the late game?

Doesn't Acorn Harvest play and feel like the worst Raise the Alarm ever?

Is Kris Mage really something aggro wants? Do you need synergies for it to be solid?

How good have your etbs to be for Voyager Staff to be good?
 
Zoss

Zoss

Thanks for the questions! It's a combination of things.

--Uyo, Silent Prophet is getting replaced by Rootha, Mercurial Artist, because the effect will actually get played at this MV; I just haven't updated my lists in a very long time. The idea behind Uyo was to combine spells and lands, but more than that she's just an overcosted flying brick, and was kind of a dud.

--Acorn Harvest is not technically worse than Raise the Alarm because it can be cast twice, but it sure is not great. I was doing a lot with Flashback, and Green's options fall off really quickly. Again, probably getting cut soon.

--Kris Mage actually used to be a viable if niche choice in aggro-supporting lists about a decade ago, but that's mostly because there weren't better options. I will say that being able to free-target a ping at instant speed makes blocking very tricky. She's not as powerful as Spikeshot Elder, but I was running one too many Bonesplitters to be fully comfortable with any of the Spikeshot cards. As you can probably tell, I was looking for a real power-down of my cube in the super-secret extra-fudgy nougat-filled rework. I think this is where the idea came from: https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/the-cube-forum/190570-graveyard-themed-cube

--Voyager Staff is notably available at instant speed and targets anyone's creatures, so it's a bit more flexible than just another blink enabler. I think someone around here recommended it, but that might have been from a really old thread, probably about combos with Auriok Salvagers. (Wait, it was your thread on increasing artifact densities! https://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/artifacts-in-cube-yes-but-how.1968/ )
With a lot of tokens running around, I'd be happy if I had four really good ETBs, stuff like Reveillark, Captain of the Watch, or a Gearhulk, and probably six to eight of the more medium ones? But I'm really not sure. This one has yet to see play in my testing.


Thanks for the questions!
 
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