Because I promised to get around to this at some point, and I've been totally slack in doing so...
For those new to this, I've run Multiplayer Power Rankings threads for the past four years, with the aim of coming up with a list of universally-acknowledged "good Multiplayer cards". You can see links to all four of these Power Rankings in my sig.
In 2015, the results were so close to 2014 that we were able to take a speculative punt at a list. And lo, it was good! With thanks to everyone who ever voted in one of the Power Rankings threads, we were able to come up with some sort of a list up-to-and-including DTK / Origins. Head into that Best Multiplayer Card Available thread to find some new friends for your decks.
So once it was all over and all the dust settled, we had the problem of how we approached updating the list when new sets came out. The common response was one vote thread every quarter. As you can tell by now, I am way behind on this schedule, so I'm covering three sets with one hit here (and I'll probably lump SOI and Eldritch Moon together in three months' time). So here's the deal - let's do our usual Top 10 vote, and anything that is a clear winner, we'll cart over to the Best Multiplayer Cards Available thread and debate where they slot into the list once the voting's done. Sound good? OK, let's go!
The Rules
Hand me your Top 10 best Multiplayer cards across Battle for Zendikar, Oath of the Gatewatch and Commander 2015!
Order matters. We'll use this to rank the cards later on.
Only cards newly printed in BFZ, OGW or C15 are valid votes (so reprints are not valid... here's looking at you, Rite of Replication and C15 friends).
You've got a week to vote. This means voting closes at 4am UT on Wed May 4th (yes, I really am on the other side of the planet to you). I have been known in the past to extend and/or completely miss this deadline.
Blade of Selves was the only card to receive multiple top votes (with two). The other three cards to receive a top vote were Kalitas, Eldrazi Displacer and Mizzix's Mastery.
Just missing out on the Top Ten were Sire of Stagnation and Void Winnower (both tied with Magus of the Wheel and Kiora on 1.8).
I don't vote on the others because I think that the format is ridiculous. You have lists that have Solemn Simulacrum towering above Black Lotus and Sol Ring because "well we're not allowed to play Black Lotus" in our meta. No kidding, no one is. That being said I don't understand how Cad can call his lists "optimal" and use them to build an "optimal Cube" when people aren't listing the most objectively powerful cards. Counterspell gets more votes than Mana Drain. Mystic Remora and Consecrated Sphinx don't even get votes. One card win conditions such as Waste Not are nowhere to be seen. The final product isn't remotely close to being "optimal."
At least this time there's no BS to hide behind. 3 sets, 10 best cards, no subjective nonsense.
It's a beautycontest. And fan favourites win.
And that's a good thing because chances are that for this mechanic the cube will be fun to play.
And that just might be the entire objective.
(-:
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
In magic there's Harry Dresden, Fizban, Sethra Lavode, Dorotea Senjak and me...
My meta: 3 or 4 player free for all, anything goes but boring games or broken decks cause a vote to end that game.
I have a bit of free time so I'll explain my list a bit:
1. Mizzix's Mastery
This one isn't particularly close in my opinion since MM is a heinously overpowered card. First of all it's a generic Recoup effect which is always nice but at the same time it's also a Show and Tell for spells that allows you to bypass the high mana costs of cards such as Enter the Infinite. Even if you're recurring an Anger of the Gods for 4 mana that's still fine because other times you'll be jamming that 4 mana Insurrection which is where this card makes it mark. Note that Red has a ton of Faithless Looting, Tormenting Voice and Daretti, Scrap Savant type effects at its disposal so you're not even required to cast the cards before you recur them. You're typically going to be fielding those anyways so why not take advantage of those early discards to abuse a Reanimate effect of sorts? This makes it horrifically broken for combo decks especially since the Overload reads "you win the game" in the context of an unfair, spell-based archetype. 8 mana is a lot but Mana Geyser is a thing so it's not as though Red struggles to "get there" as it were. It's another Yawgmoth's Will/Past in Flames in that sense but unlike those cards it still has relevance early on and, as I previously eluded to, even allows for quick combo kills using cards like Enter the Infinite. Now, some people will argue that this type of spell doesn't work in every deck and/or every meta. That's true. You can't blindly jam this in every Red deck and have it defeat any number of players. That being said when this card is good it's the best card in your deck period and it's the only card across the 3 sets that can reliably defeat any number of players when it's properly supported. It towers above the rest of the pack in that sense and I don't think it's even slightly reasonable to argue that another card deserves the 1 seed. A spell doesn't have to be good in every deck to be absurdly overpowered and MM is the pinnacle of combo win conditions.
EDIT: Let me clarify something. A lot of people probably read that and thought "oh he just wants to combo with that card no wonder he likes it so much." Wrong. The reason why you never see cards like Yawgmoth's Will and Past in Flames in fair decks is because they need cards like Dark Ritual, Rite of Flame and Cabal Ritual to do anything. Since most MP decks don't those the cards suck in fair decks (usually). Mizzix's Mastery isn't like that. You get to play generically powerful spells and as long as you hit 8 mana at some point (Mana Geyser helps) then you win the game. Period. Casting a GY full of spells for free is ridonkulous which is why this card is #1 no questions asked. I don't care if you don't have Enter the Infinite because maybe it's Preordains, Syphon Minds, Time Warps, Cruel Ultimatums, Insurrections, etc. and that's perfectly fine too. Any spell-based deck can win the game after resolving this and you don't need a ton of terrible rituals to make it work. You get to play fun, fair Magic for as long as you want and then it's just "oops I win" come turn 10 once you've cast 7-8 spells. So no, this has nothing to do with always trying to combo kills via Enter the Infinite or any other broken spell. This about playing normal decks that have normal cards and then you back-door into this insane bomb that Yawgmoth's Wills into a win.
2. Grasp of Fate
Since the sets didn't contain any other broken combo enablers I gave the second seed to the card that you could blindly run in any quantity, any deck, any multiplayer format, against any number of players, etc. Grasp of Fate is one of the premier interaction spells in the game that players of all calibers can appreciate. It doesn't matter if people are Rampant Growthing out Craw Wurms or Tinkering out Blightsteel Colossuses because you'll happily play this card either way and it'll always be good. It's not very interesting compared to many of the other cards in the sets but you can't argue with its power and flexibility and since I expect it to be a competitive staple until the end of time I have to give it the #2 slot. There's not much to say about it because it speaks for itself but given that this is one of the most powerful interaction spells of all time it would be a crime to rate outside of the top 3.
3. Eldrazi Displacer
I have Kalitas and Displacer ranked about the same but I gave the edge to Displacer given its ability to go infinite with cards like Palinchron. It's also stupidly overpowered with Training Grounds and good in basically any creature-based deck that can support the colorless activation. I think that Kalitas will likely win more games when played just because I think that Kalitas is better against weaker players but the Displacer has more potential why is why it gets the 3 seed. It's a prime example of a card that's perfect for players of all skill-levels because everyone loves value so even if you're not going infinite the card is still fantastic. Otherwise it's a solid body that makes combat miserable for players since it can remove attackers/blocker at will which can make it extremely difficult for players to cope. Even when you don't have a good target to blink you can always use your mana to tap the preceding player's blockers at which point they have to survive N combat phases from N adversaries with nothing to hinder them. The card is nuts.
4. Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
I've been playing Massacre + Kalitas decks for some time now and I have to say that the card is simply moronic. I was skeptical at first since it seems like a glorified Ogre Slumlord but a 4 mana creature that puts 2/2s into play is many orders of magnitude more powerful than a 5 mana threat that jams 1/1s. The exile clause is extremely relevant in modern day Magic, especially in formats such as EDH where recursion is abundant. The card is stupidly powerful engine that generates a ton of value over time but even if you're simply jamming it alongside Mutilate on turn 6-7 that's still a fantastic way to seize control of the game and force your opposition to have mass removal. Sure, some % of the time he'll die to removal and that's life but the card is absurd in general because he will win the game on his own if left unchecked for a couple of circuits. I have him ranked among the best Black 4 drops in the game to the point where I can't think of anything that I'd rather jam over him. Grave Pact, Syphon Mind, Damnation, some cards come close but ultimately none of them are quite on Kalitas's level. He literally wins the game if left unchecked, provides relevant disruption, brings lifegain, is a sac outlet, on and on and on and he asks nothing of you. Card is stupid.
5. Meren of Clan Nel Toth
Meren gets the 4 seed because I would play her in 100% of BG decks. There's nothing inherently broken about recursion engines and she'll never dominate the game but she provides (more-or-less) immediate value and, left unchecked, will slowly seize control of the game. I don't give a damn about her experience counter clauses but every now and then they become relevant, especially when your deck has cards like Viscera Seer and mass revival such as Living Death. Otherwise she's a solid "Graveborn Muse" value engine with a fantastic ROI and a reasonable body which is always sweet when your deck has cards like Green Sun's Zenith, Survival of the Fittest, Recurring Nightmare, Birthing Pod, etc. Not a broken card but one that I'll play 100% of the time for (ostensibly) forever which is good enough to clinch the 4 seed.
6. Void Winnower
Much like Mizzix's Mastery I expect this card to get absolutely no love even though it's one of the dumbest creatures ever printed. 100% of decks that cheat creatures into play (Reanimator, Mass Polymorph, Hypergenesis, etc.) should play with this monstrosity since blanking "50%" of your opponents' spells is utterly ridiculous and wildly competitive. Everyone and their mother defaults to the "oh but it'll just eat a Swords to Plowshares" cop-out and wrongfully dismiss it as a result. Having played with and against this card countless times in a competitive setting let me assure you that it's absolutely ridiculous and that you're all criminally undervaluing the thing. People are not going to have an easy answer for it each and every time and the card is impossible to play against when they don't. It's one card that prevents each and every one of your opponents from playing Magic and for the life of me I don't understand why no one seems to appreciate how powerful that is. Card is nuts. I legitimately wanted to give this card the #2 or #3 seed and the only reason why I'm not is because not every deck is an "unfair" list that cheats creatures into play using cards like Oath of Druids.
7. Zulaport Cutthroat
As we saw with Eldrazi Displacer ZC is the perfect mix of fair and unfair. Any Black creature-based deck can run one out at any point and feel good about it and the option to combo-out with him always exists. Token-based strategies (such as Prossh, Skyraider of Kher) would be nuts to omit this from their lists since much like Purphoros, God of the Forge this allows you to win games without ever needing to attack. Otherwise the card is bonkers when paired with mass card draw and mass revival, especially if you have Viscera Seer around to constantly dig into action. Even if this is merely your generic 2 drop in your Gray Merchant of Asphodel deck that's still extremely powerful but obviously the true power of the card lies in its ability to combo-off and kill any number of opponents simultaneously.
8. Blade of Selves
Oppressive value engine that pairs absurdly well with sac outlets such as Greater Good and Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord. Any creature-based deck filled with ETB triggers should play at least 1 of these because the card is totally bonkers if left unchecked. Whereas some people get hyped about cards like Umezawa's Jitte and Batterskull I couldn't care less about fielding them in most MP settings but the Blade here was a total paradigm shift in my opinion. Even in the context of a 4 player game it's still realistically drawing 2 extra cards per turn and once you start hitting 6-8 players it becomes well and truly mind-boggling. This is everything that I want in a piece of Equipment in the context of a MP setting and I will happily jam the first into any creature-based deck with ~12 or more ETB triggers.
9. Sire of Stagnation
Solid Reanimator/Ramp/Recursion target. It's no Consecrated Sphinx but it's still a stupidly powerful value engine that pairs amazingly well with Oblivion Sower. I think that this card is extremely underrated and for the life of me I don't understand why no one plays them in their UB decks. It's ridiculously powerful if left unchecked and will easily win games on its own (especially when it's cheated into play early on).
10. Emeria Shepherd
This card took a bit of time to catch on but at this point it's a de-facto White finisher alongside Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite. Sakura-Tribe Elder "infinite combos" aside we all realized very quickly that this is what you want in an "8 drop" because you cast this on turn 8 alongside a Fetchland which you immediately crack for a Plains you've now returned a card to your hand and a card to play (anything, even Omniscience) and it's only going to get worse from there. It has immense Sun Titan synergy since it recurs Sunny D which then recurs Fetchlands blah blah blah so essentially you get to "go infinite." Emeria, the Sky Ruin already gives you plenty of incentive to jam a ton of Plains into your lists and once you start recurring Myriad Landscapes (with your Sun Titans, not Emeria herself) you're basically drawing 6+ cards per turn and 2 of them are being cast for free. It's utterly ridiculous which is why Emeria is basically the best White finisher in the game. Still, it's an 8 drop and not every deck/meta can support 8 drops. It's also in the second-worst multiplayer color which makes it naturally difficult to field a deck with a ton of Plains. This is why it only get the 10 seed whereas if this were a Blue/Black/Green card it would surely be higher.
Done! Finally got around to compiling the results for this. Thanks for your votes, guys!
Results up in the OP, as usual. I'll be heading over to the Best MP Cards Available thread after this to discuss where the top cards slot into that list in the grand scheme of things.
I don't vote on the others because I think that the format is ridiculous. You have lists that have Solemn Simulacrum towering above Black Lotus and Sol Ring because "well we're not allowed to play Black Lotus" in our meta. No kidding, no one is. That being said I don't understand how Cad can call his lists "optimal" and use them to build an "optimal Cube" when people aren't listing the most objectively powerful cards. Counterspell gets more votes than Mana Drain. Mystic Remora and Consecrated Sphinx don't even get votes. One card win conditions such as Waste Not are nowhere to be seen. The final product isn't remotely close to being "optimal."
At least this time there's no BS to hide behind. 3 sets, 10 best cards, no subjective nonsense.
True, I probably shouldn't be using the word "optimal". In truth, it's "The As-Optimal-As-I-Can-Get-The-Damned-Thing Cube".
But yeah, I'm glad we're down to new-release single sets now. Less subjectivity, no "if you ever come to own one" arguments. At least the "Best MP Cards Available" list managed to scrape in all the cards you mentioned, IIRC.
It's a beautycontest. And fan favourites win.
And that's a good thing because chances are that for this mechanic the cube will be fun to play.
And that just might be the entire objective.
(-:
One of the two, yes. To identify potential new multiplayer cube cards, and to identify awesome MP cards from new sets that you should probably be playing / building around anyway.
I tend to think that at a certain level, they tend to be the same thing (i.e. it's a good card, go and play with it, cube, free-for-all, 2HG, whatever, just use it)!
I would say that the cube is attempting to be optimal to a certain price point. We all get that P9 and many other expensive cards are only in peoples cubes if a) they played way back in the day, b) are lucky to own one or two of these cards or c) if they proxy them. If not, its always been tough on the voting system
One could argue that power in MP cubes is pointless unless the cube supports broken infinite combos which have traditionally be frowned upon in an MP setting.
No one is saying that an MP cube can't have $50 cards in it, ours certainly does, but perhaps designing a cube with a "X" dollar limit is the way to go about these things in the future.
This might make voting a little bit more realistic and take us away from P9, dual lands, and other expensive cards which for obvious reasons dominate lists but are unattainable for the vast majority of players.
You might call it the "realistic cube" instead of the optimal one
Either that, or you are going to have to have like three different cubes. Budget cube, Non Power Cube, Anything goes powered cube and it all becomes a bit much.
Depends if you're building a "fair" deck or an Enter the Infinite combo deck.
It doesn't need to be fair, but no combo wins or obnoxious 'prevent everything else from happening and win' cards like that one. for example, 4x Skullclamp isn't fair, but that's acceptable.
Depends if you're building a "fair" deck or an Enter the Infinite combo deck.
It doesn't need to be fair, but no combo wins or obnoxious 'prevent everything else from happening and win' cards like that one. for example, 4x Skullclamp isn't fair, but that's acceptable.
It really just depends on what you're looking to spend and what you're trying to accomplish. For example, a sample deck could look something like:
For those new to this, I've run Multiplayer Power Rankings threads for the past four years, with the aim of coming up with a list of universally-acknowledged "good Multiplayer cards". You can see links to all four of these Power Rankings in my sig.
In 2015, the results were so close to 2014 that we were able to take a speculative punt at a list. And lo, it was good! With thanks to everyone who ever voted in one of the Power Rankings threads, we were able to come up with some sort of a list up-to-and-including DTK / Origins. Head into that Best Multiplayer Card Available thread to find some new friends for your decks.
So once it was all over and all the dust settled, we had the problem of how we approached updating the list when new sets came out. The common response was one vote thread every quarter. As you can tell by now, I am way behind on this schedule, so I'm covering three sets with one hit here (and I'll probably lump SOI and Eldritch Moon together in three months' time). So here's the deal - let's do our usual Top 10 vote, and anything that is a clear winner, we'll cart over to the Best Multiplayer Cards Available thread and debate where they slot into the list once the voting's done. Sound good? OK, let's go!
The Rules
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DONE!
The Top Ten
TURF (Tendencies, Useless Ramblings and Facts)
The Full List (For Those Who Like Numbers)
My Stupidly Large Number of Current Decks
PucaTrade with me!
The Multiplayer Power Rankings
Cube: the Gittening (My Multiplayer Cube) - MTGS Cube List | @ CubeTutor
The N00b Cube (Peasant cube for new players) - MTGS Cube List | @ CubeTutor
My Stupidly Large Number of Current Decks
PucaTrade with me!
The Multiplayer Power Rankings
Cube: the Gittening (My Multiplayer Cube) - MTGS Cube List | @ CubeTutor
The N00b Cube (Peasant cube for new players) - MTGS Cube List | @ CubeTutor
Ok, ok, one card in common...
My meta: 3 or 4 player free for all, anything goes but boring games or broken decks cause a vote to end that game.
2. Grasp of Fate
3. Eldrazi Displacer
4. Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
5. Meren of Clan Nel Toth
6. Void Winnower
7. Zulaport Cutthroat
8. Blade of Selves
9. Sire of Stagnation
10. Emeria Shepherd
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
My list:
1. Blade of Selves
2. Grasp of Fate
3. Meren of Clan Nel Toth
4. Zulaport Cutthroat
5. Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
6. Eldrazi Displacer
7. Kiora, Master of the Depths
8. Void Winnower
9. Sire of Stagnation
10. Emeria Shepherd
I don't vote on the others because I think that the format is ridiculous. You have lists that have Solemn Simulacrum towering above Black Lotus and Sol Ring because "well we're not allowed to play Black Lotus" in our meta. No kidding, no one is. That being said I don't understand how Cad can call his lists "optimal" and use them to build an "optimal Cube" when people aren't listing the most objectively powerful cards. Counterspell gets more votes than Mana Drain. Mystic Remora and Consecrated Sphinx don't even get votes. One card win conditions such as Waste Not are nowhere to be seen. The final product isn't remotely close to being "optimal."
At least this time there's no BS to hide behind. 3 sets, 10 best cards, no subjective nonsense.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
And that's a good thing because chances are that for this mechanic the cube will be fun to play.
And that just might be the entire objective.
(-:
My meta: 3 or 4 player free for all, anything goes but boring games or broken decks cause a vote to end that game.
1. Mizzix's Mastery
This one isn't particularly close in my opinion since MM is a heinously overpowered card. First of all it's a generic Recoup effect which is always nice but at the same time it's also a Show and Tell for spells that allows you to bypass the high mana costs of cards such as Enter the Infinite. Even if you're recurring an Anger of the Gods for 4 mana that's still fine because other times you'll be jamming that 4 mana Insurrection which is where this card makes it mark. Note that Red has a ton of Faithless Looting, Tormenting Voice and Daretti, Scrap Savant type effects at its disposal so you're not even required to cast the cards before you recur them. You're typically going to be fielding those anyways so why not take advantage of those early discards to abuse a Reanimate effect of sorts? This makes it horrifically broken for combo decks especially since the Overload reads "you win the game" in the context of an unfair, spell-based archetype. 8 mana is a lot but Mana Geyser is a thing so it's not as though Red struggles to "get there" as it were. It's another Yawgmoth's Will/Past in Flames in that sense but unlike those cards it still has relevance early on and, as I previously eluded to, even allows for quick combo kills using cards like Enter the Infinite. Now, some people will argue that this type of spell doesn't work in every deck and/or every meta. That's true. You can't blindly jam this in every Red deck and have it defeat any number of players. That being said when this card is good it's the best card in your deck period and it's the only card across the 3 sets that can reliably defeat any number of players when it's properly supported. It towers above the rest of the pack in that sense and I don't think it's even slightly reasonable to argue that another card deserves the 1 seed. A spell doesn't have to be good in every deck to be absurdly overpowered and MM is the pinnacle of combo win conditions.
EDIT: Let me clarify something. A lot of people probably read that and thought "oh he just wants to combo with that card no wonder he likes it so much." Wrong. The reason why you never see cards like Yawgmoth's Will and Past in Flames in fair decks is because they need cards like Dark Ritual, Rite of Flame and Cabal Ritual to do anything. Since most MP decks don't those the cards suck in fair decks (usually). Mizzix's Mastery isn't like that. You get to play generically powerful spells and as long as you hit 8 mana at some point (Mana Geyser helps) then you win the game. Period. Casting a GY full of spells for free is ridonkulous which is why this card is #1 no questions asked. I don't care if you don't have Enter the Infinite because maybe it's Preordains, Syphon Minds, Time Warps, Cruel Ultimatums, Insurrections, etc. and that's perfectly fine too. Any spell-based deck can win the game after resolving this and you don't need a ton of terrible rituals to make it work. You get to play fun, fair Magic for as long as you want and then it's just "oops I win" come turn 10 once you've cast 7-8 spells. So no, this has nothing to do with always trying to combo kills via Enter the Infinite or any other broken spell. This about playing normal decks that have normal cards and then you back-door into this insane bomb that Yawgmoth's Wills into a win.
2. Grasp of Fate
Since the sets didn't contain any other broken combo enablers I gave the second seed to the card that you could blindly run in any quantity, any deck, any multiplayer format, against any number of players, etc. Grasp of Fate is one of the premier interaction spells in the game that players of all calibers can appreciate. It doesn't matter if people are Rampant Growthing out Craw Wurms or Tinkering out Blightsteel Colossuses because you'll happily play this card either way and it'll always be good. It's not very interesting compared to many of the other cards in the sets but you can't argue with its power and flexibility and since I expect it to be a competitive staple until the end of time I have to give it the #2 slot. There's not much to say about it because it speaks for itself but given that this is one of the most powerful interaction spells of all time it would be a crime to rate outside of the top 3.
3. Eldrazi Displacer
I have Kalitas and Displacer ranked about the same but I gave the edge to Displacer given its ability to go infinite with cards like Palinchron. It's also stupidly overpowered with Training Grounds and good in basically any creature-based deck that can support the colorless activation. I think that Kalitas will likely win more games when played just because I think that Kalitas is better against weaker players but the Displacer has more potential why is why it gets the 3 seed. It's a prime example of a card that's perfect for players of all skill-levels because everyone loves value so even if you're not going infinite the card is still fantastic. Otherwise it's a solid body that makes combat miserable for players since it can remove attackers/blocker at will which can make it extremely difficult for players to cope. Even when you don't have a good target to blink you can always use your mana to tap the preceding player's blockers at which point they have to survive N combat phases from N adversaries with nothing to hinder them. The card is nuts.
4. Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
I've been playing Massacre + Kalitas decks for some time now and I have to say that the card is simply moronic. I was skeptical at first since it seems like a glorified Ogre Slumlord but a 4 mana creature that puts 2/2s into play is many orders of magnitude more powerful than a 5 mana threat that jams 1/1s. The exile clause is extremely relevant in modern day Magic, especially in formats such as EDH where recursion is abundant. The card is stupidly powerful engine that generates a ton of value over time but even if you're simply jamming it alongside Mutilate on turn 6-7 that's still a fantastic way to seize control of the game and force your opposition to have mass removal. Sure, some % of the time he'll die to removal and that's life but the card is absurd in general because he will win the game on his own if left unchecked for a couple of circuits. I have him ranked among the best Black 4 drops in the game to the point where I can't think of anything that I'd rather jam over him. Grave Pact, Syphon Mind, Damnation, some cards come close but ultimately none of them are quite on Kalitas's level. He literally wins the game if left unchecked, provides relevant disruption, brings lifegain, is a sac outlet, on and on and on and he asks nothing of you. Card is stupid.
5. Meren of Clan Nel Toth
Meren gets the 4 seed because I would play her in 100% of BG decks. There's nothing inherently broken about recursion engines and she'll never dominate the game but she provides (more-or-less) immediate value and, left unchecked, will slowly seize control of the game. I don't give a damn about her experience counter clauses but every now and then they become relevant, especially when your deck has cards like Viscera Seer and mass revival such as Living Death. Otherwise she's a solid "Graveborn Muse" value engine with a fantastic ROI and a reasonable body which is always sweet when your deck has cards like Green Sun's Zenith, Survival of the Fittest, Recurring Nightmare, Birthing Pod, etc. Not a broken card but one that I'll play 100% of the time for (ostensibly) forever which is good enough to clinch the 4 seed.
6. Void Winnower
Much like Mizzix's Mastery I expect this card to get absolutely no love even though it's one of the dumbest creatures ever printed. 100% of decks that cheat creatures into play (Reanimator, Mass Polymorph, Hypergenesis, etc.) should play with this monstrosity since blanking "50%" of your opponents' spells is utterly ridiculous and wildly competitive. Everyone and their mother defaults to the "oh but it'll just eat a Swords to Plowshares" cop-out and wrongfully dismiss it as a result. Having played with and against this card countless times in a competitive setting let me assure you that it's absolutely ridiculous and that you're all criminally undervaluing the thing. People are not going to have an easy answer for it each and every time and the card is impossible to play against when they don't. It's one card that prevents each and every one of your opponents from playing Magic and for the life of me I don't understand why no one seems to appreciate how powerful that is. Card is nuts. I legitimately wanted to give this card the #2 or #3 seed and the only reason why I'm not is because not every deck is an "unfair" list that cheats creatures into play using cards like Oath of Druids.
7. Zulaport Cutthroat
As we saw with Eldrazi Displacer ZC is the perfect mix of fair and unfair. Any Black creature-based deck can run one out at any point and feel good about it and the option to combo-out with him always exists. Token-based strategies (such as Prossh, Skyraider of Kher) would be nuts to omit this from their lists since much like Purphoros, God of the Forge this allows you to win games without ever needing to attack. Otherwise the card is bonkers when paired with mass card draw and mass revival, especially if you have Viscera Seer around to constantly dig into action. Even if this is merely your generic 2 drop in your Gray Merchant of Asphodel deck that's still extremely powerful but obviously the true power of the card lies in its ability to combo-off and kill any number of opponents simultaneously.
8. Blade of Selves
Oppressive value engine that pairs absurdly well with sac outlets such as Greater Good and Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord. Any creature-based deck filled with ETB triggers should play at least 1 of these because the card is totally bonkers if left unchecked. Whereas some people get hyped about cards like Umezawa's Jitte and Batterskull I couldn't care less about fielding them in most MP settings but the Blade here was a total paradigm shift in my opinion. Even in the context of a 4 player game it's still realistically drawing 2 extra cards per turn and once you start hitting 6-8 players it becomes well and truly mind-boggling. This is everything that I want in a piece of Equipment in the context of a MP setting and I will happily jam the first into any creature-based deck with ~12 or more ETB triggers.
9. Sire of Stagnation
Solid Reanimator/Ramp/Recursion target. It's no Consecrated Sphinx but it's still a stupidly powerful value engine that pairs amazingly well with Oblivion Sower. I think that this card is extremely underrated and for the life of me I don't understand why no one plays them in their UB decks. It's ridiculously powerful if left unchecked and will easily win games on its own (especially when it's cheated into play early on).
10. Emeria Shepherd
This card took a bit of time to catch on but at this point it's a de-facto White finisher alongside Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite. Sakura-Tribe Elder "infinite combos" aside we all realized very quickly that this is what you want in an "8 drop" because you cast this on turn 8 alongside a Fetchland which you immediately crack for a Plains you've now returned a card to your hand and a card to play (anything, even Omniscience) and it's only going to get worse from there. It has immense Sun Titan synergy since it recurs Sunny D which then recurs Fetchlands blah blah blah so essentially you get to "go infinite." Emeria, the Sky Ruin already gives you plenty of incentive to jam a ton of Plains into your lists and once you start recurring Myriad Landscapes (with your Sun Titans, not Emeria herself) you're basically drawing 6+ cards per turn and 2 of them are being cast for free. It's utterly ridiculous which is why Emeria is basically the best White finisher in the game. Still, it's an 8 drop and not every deck/meta can support 8 drops. It's also in the second-worst multiplayer color which makes it naturally difficult to field a deck with a ton of Plains. This is why it only get the 10 seed whereas if this were a Blue/Black/Green card it would surely be higher.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
Done! Finally got around to compiling the results for this. Thanks for your votes, guys!
Results up in the OP, as usual. I'll be heading over to the Best MP Cards Available thread after this to discuss where the top cards slot into that list in the grand scheme of things.
True, I probably shouldn't be using the word "optimal". In truth, it's "The As-Optimal-As-I-Can-Get-The-Damned-Thing Cube".
But yeah, I'm glad we're down to new-release single sets now. Less subjectivity, no "if you ever come to own one" arguments. At least the "Best MP Cards Available" list managed to scrape in all the cards you mentioned, IIRC.
One of the two, yes. To identify potential new multiplayer cube cards, and to identify awesome MP cards from new sets that you should probably be playing / building around anyway.
I tend to think that at a certain level, they tend to be the same thing (i.e. it's a good card, go and play with it, cube, free-for-all, 2HG, whatever, just use it)!
My Stupidly Large Number of Current Decks
PucaTrade with me!
The Multiplayer Power Rankings
Cube: the Gittening (My Multiplayer Cube) - MTGS Cube List | @ CubeTutor
The N00b Cube (Peasant cube for new players) - MTGS Cube List | @ CubeTutor
One could argue that power in MP cubes is pointless unless the cube supports broken infinite combos which have traditionally be frowned upon in an MP setting.
No one is saying that an MP cube can't have $50 cards in it, ours certainly does, but perhaps designing a cube with a "X" dollar limit is the way to go about these things in the future.
This might make voting a little bit more realistic and take us away from P9, dual lands, and other expensive cards which for obvious reasons dominate lists but are unattainable for the vast majority of players.
You might call it the "realistic cube" instead of the optimal one
Either that, or you are going to have to have like three different cubes. Budget cube, Non Power Cube, Anything goes powered cube and it all becomes a bit much.
Depends if you're building a "fair" deck or an Enter the Infinite combo deck.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
It really just depends on what you're looking to spend and what you're trying to accomplish. For example, a sample deck could look something like:
6x Mountain
6x Swamp
4x Bloodfell Caves
4x Akoum Refuge
4x Rakdos Carnarium
Spells (36)
4x Faithless Looting
1x Vandalblast
4x Tormenting Voice
4x Rakdos Signet
2x Dread Summons
2x Mizzium Mortars
4x Hordeling Outburst
4x Mizzix's Mastery
3x Mana Geyser
2x From Under the Floorboards
2x Syphon Flesh
1x Warstorm Surge
1x Din of the Fireherd
1x Insurrection
1x Army of the Damned
And obviously it sucks that Pyromancer's Goggles costs a million dollars now.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold