An early peek of my cube War of the Spark review from several cube draft's worth of experience. It's pretty raw (no decklist compressions, pics that the editors do at CoolStuffInc to make my articles readable.) Article will be up next Friday if you want something in an easier-to-read format since it doesn't have much to break up the text.
This is the longest thing I've *ever* written in the near-decade that I've been writing (it's about 42 pages, about 16.8k words) and while there are few obvious 360 no scope staples or whatever, the set has a lot of good stuff, and is certainly one of the all-time greats for cube sets.
Thanks for sharing this, it was a great read. You've given me a lot of food for thought as some of the cards you really seemed to like are cards I was initially interested in, but decided against (namely Commence the Endgame and Dreadhorde Invasion).
I can tell you worked really hard on this and I love that this is based upon experience--even if a limited sample--and not speculation! LOL at "Stay Awhile and Listen!"
Sad to hear Oketra was too slow...
I think I'll still take the flexibility (and instant speed) of Cyclonic Rift over Callous Dismissal, but neither one is seems bound for the long-term in cube.
Commence the Endgame is better Consecrated Sphinx? Surely he jests. If the token had flying or some notable ability than we "might" be talking. Since Endgame guarantees two cards (as opposed to making it very likely you get them), is uncounterable and generally presents a decent body. Though it is notable (as you noted) that the body could be as weak as a 2/2 and that's a bad floor for 4UU. In the situations where you're getting a huge body it's probably a "win more" type card as having that many cards so late often means things are already going well. I'll watch this card more closely though now that I've read your write up.
I agree that Kefnet's value is in the body paired with evasion. The ability is gravy. Sometimes a very delicious gravy.
Nice to see Bontu tested well. I'm more excited about that now.
I expected Finale of Eternity would be more of an anti-aggro sweeper and I don't think I want to replace a slot in black to hose aggro.
Dreadhorde Arcanist is a card I want to pick up and put immediately in my on-deck binder. It has potential, but isn't there for me yet.
Arcanist needs the same thing Krenko needs. A reliable boost in power. At least Krenko can generate that boost himself. I think Krenko is an all-star and decks that fail to remove him within a turn are going to get punished hard. Tying the number of tokens to his power with a floor of 2 tokens is incredibly good. The magical christmasland damage/turn calculations don't adequately tell the story of these kinds of cards. I think this may actually be the best of them, even more than Goblin Rabblemaster (you heard it here first!).
I don't think the new Sarkhan even compares to Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker. For me Ilharg is the card I want to slot in.
Bummer that Finale of Devastation (you called it Glory) was too inefficient...expected, but unfortunate.
Where would you say Paradise Druid fits in in terms of cube size?
Unfortunate that the Arkbow doesn't get there....such a cool design. This is the innovation I need in my magic.
Ugin's Conjurant is notably worse than the phantoms (e.g Phantom Centaur). Conjurant removes "that many +1/+1 counters" not just a +1/+1 counter. If Conjurant had the Phantom ability I may test it as Endless One with the Phantom ability is actually really good I think, but this iteration is garbage.
Really disappointed Domri didn't do well in your limited testing....I'm really excited about this card as a not 4CC Gruul PW that has removal/ramp/aggro in a neat package. I was expecting this to do some serious legwork....hmmmm.
Lots of thoughts here...but there was a lot to respond to. Thanks again for the great writeup.
Great review! I love the data you presented, both decklists, and some of the math. It was lengthy but worth reading.
I’m (sort of) glad to hear my thoughts on Kefnet is correct. Miracles are too rare to be useful there.
Your evaluation of the red cards are interesting. I was skeptical of Dreadhorde Anarchist, Mizzium Tank, but I may give them a try. (The Tank may end up in my artifact cube) Ilharg, however feels very slow in terms of its trigger and its recursion. I think it is correct not to see it as a Sneak Attack to cheat creatures. Perhaps the power of this card is repeatable ETB effects.
I can tell you worked really hard on this and I love that this is based upon experience--even if a limited sample--and not speculation! LOL at "Stay Awhile and Listen!"
Sad to hear Oketra was too slow...
hahaha, thanks! I was a bit surprised that there wasn't a better clip of Deckard But ah well. Oketra, I think it made 2 zombos at most, but usually one (or just died.) I feel like the stress test point for Baneslayers for no immediate impact is probably 4-5 mana. I also probably didn't articulate it super well, but it seemed like the Titan cycle blurred the lines between Mulldrifters and Baneslayers, since they did something if they entered the battlefield, but had strong bodies if they lived. Unfortunately, this cycle is mostly Baneslayers, aside from Bontu (which, oddly, I think I liked most out of all of the gods, go figure.)
I think I'll still take the flexibility (and instant speed) of Cyclonic Rift over Callous Dismissal, but neither one is seems bound for the long-term in cube.
For what it's worth, I've liked Callous more than either of those and I've ran both for some time. Callous also is nice because it helps to cast it as a tempo effect (like bouncing a turn 3 mana rock) where casting Roil/Blink/Rift on a turn 3 mana rock is generally something not done that much unless you smell blood in the water and like Angel of Sanctions's ability, it kinda forces playing the cards correctly.
Commence the Endgame is better Consecrated Sphinx? Surely he jests. If the token had flying or some notable ability than we "might" be talking. Since Endgame guarantees two cards (as opposed to making it very likely you get them), is uncounterable and generally presents a decent body. Though it is notable (as you noted) that the body could be as weak as a 2/2 and that's a bad floor for 4UU. In the situations where you're getting a huge body it's probably a "win more" type card as having that many cards so late often means things are already going well. I'll watch this card more closely though now that I've read your write up. [/card]
Definitely isn't a win-more from what I've seen and the worst-case fears definitely don't match reality. I wouldn't say it's better than Consecrated Sphinx but it at least doesn't have the weakness of being awful against spot removal. It feels like people are starting to warm up to it, though.
I agree that Kefnet's value is in the body paired with evasion. The ability is gravy. Sometimes a very delicious gravy.
Mostly. Kefnet is definitely a Baneslayer first and miracle maker second, but didn't find it happened enough for my liking, although it could certainly turn a game around based on what it casts.
new Liliana by far, it's a much better general top-end card and better than the non-Grave Titan 6s.
Nice to see Bontu tested well. I'm more excited about that now.
Yeah, I was surprised at how well it turned out; sometimes it just sacrificed 3 or 4 things and then essentially won the game. Pleasantly surprised.
I expected Finale of Eternity would be more of an anti-aggro sweeper and I don't think I want to replace a slot in black to hose aggro.
Yeah. Likely would play the small wraths (although unsure if I'd play Night Incarnate over it, but it played poorly when I tried it.)
Dreadhorde Arcanist is a card I want to pick up and put immediately in my on-deck binder. It has potential, but isn't there for me yet.
It likely needs a shock or two to really see more mainstream cube play. Decks that could utilize it did so *very* well and casting the spell for free was really nice, especially in an archetype that uses everything on the pig but the squeal, so to speak.
Arcanist needs the same thing Krenko needs. A reliable boost in power. At least Krenko can generate that boost himself. I think Krenko is an all-star and decks that fail to remove him within a turn are going to get punished hard. Tying the number of tokens to his power with a floor of 2 tokens is incredibly good. The magical christmasland damage/turn calculations don't adequately tell the story of these kinds of cards. I think this may actually be the best of them, even more than Goblin Rabblemaster (you heard it here first!).
Yes and no; equipment helps both of these cards but they're fine in decks without them. Relying on equipment to make either of these cards is a sketchy proposition and too fragile to make it worth it.
Where would you say Paradise Druid fits in in terms of cube size?
I have no idea but I find those kinds of comparisons to be so context-sensitive and assuming of an assumption of what a cube *should* look like that I find the whole "cube at X size" to be not really useful. Paradise Druid's pretty good, I'd say slightly under stuff like Wall of Roots, Fertile Ground, Utopia Sprawl and whatnot in ramp tier. A nice pickup for those decks.
Ugin's Conjurant is notably worse than the phantoms (e.g Phantom Centaur). Conjurant removes "that many +1/+1 counters" not just a +1/+1 counter. If Conjurant had the Phantom ability I may test it as Endless One with the Phantom ability is actually really good I think, but this iteration is garbage.
Ugh, wow. That's awful. Boooooooo.
Lots of thoughts here...but there was a lot to respond to. Thanks again for the great writeup.
Thanks for sharing this, it was a great read. You've given me a lot of food for thought as some of the cards you really seemed to like are cards I was initially interested in, but decided against (namely Commence the Endgame and Dreadhorde Invasion).
Great review! I love the data you presented, both decklists, and some of the math. It was lengthy but worth reading.
I’m (sort of) glad to hear my thoughts on Kefnet is correct. Miracles are too rare to be useful there.
Your evaluation of the red cards are interesting. I was skeptical of Dreadhorde Anarchist, Mizzium Tank, but I may give them a try. (The Tank may end up in my artifact cube) Ilharg, however feels very slow in terms of its trigger and its recursion. I think it is correct not to see it as a Sneak Attack to cheat creatures. Perhaps the power of this card is repeatable ETB effects.
Thanks for the good read.
Thanks! There's a *lot* of underrated stuff in this set as it seemed that way in general, especially with the lukewarm receptions to things like Commence the Endgame, Mizzium Tank and a lot of other things; I'm hoping this article gets people to turn around on thinking that this is a mediocre cube set and to see how good a lot of these cards are, since a lot aren't obviously good ones in the set.
Thanks for yet another excellent review. It took a bit to get through the whole thing, but I made it out the other side with some new takes on cards I had previously dismissed for all of my cubes.
I had completely written off Liliana, Dreadhorde General. Your article has me rethinking her inclusion, probably over Liliana, Death's Majesty. I'm not running any of the lower tier black six drops, so I think that swap makes sense. New Lili is probably just straight up better as a potential high end in black control or even midrange decks.
I still don't see what you see in Sarkhan the Masterless. Obviously you've gotten in some reps with him and I haven't, but man, he just seems so low impact and slow compared to Dragonspeaker. So the common line was to play him, minus to make the 4/4, hope the token is enough to protect him, then plus on the next turn and get in for eight in the air? I won't deny that's certainly a lot of damage output at a decent rate of five mana, but I think I'd rather have the Sarkhan that serves a similar role, while also being more versatile in more situations. I've found that Dragonspeaker is great in midrange and control decks, especially Wildfire variants and not embarrassing in aggro as a top end if that's how your draft ended up. I wouldn't go so far as to say that Masterless is bad, but as far as red fives go, I still prefer the Dragonspeaker in that slot and if I'm finding room somewhere else for a new red five, I think Ilharg is a much more interesting and objectively fun option for that slot.
I'm a little disappointed to see that Arkbow and the green Finale didn't work out for you. I had high (medium?) hopes for both of these cards. I'm definitely still going to find room to test for myself, but I was really hoping to get to those two in the article and see that you were blown away by how great they were.
I'm also looking at both Dovin and Angrath for my peasant cube now, and I wasn't looking at them before. I took a second look at my Azorius section specifically and I think Dovin will do more for my UW decks than something like Thunderclap Wyvern. My players are more interested in a more traditional UW control or prison style deck, so I'd rather support that than the flyers deck that doesn't come together as often. Angrath I'm still a little on the fence with, but you convinced me enough to at least give him a shot. A 4/4 menace for four is pretty good. I don't know if it's better enough than something like Bit Blast or Redcap, but he might be worth testing in one of those slots.
Thanks again for the write up, man. I know you put a lot of work into both writing these articles and making sure you have enough reps in with the cards to form an opinion that's more than just an educated guess. Your articles are incredibly informative and I, for one, really appreciate what you do for the cube community.
Nothing more to say beyond a general "I loved reading this and thank you so much for taking the time to write it". Even if I am raising my eyebrow at that Commence the Endgame blurb just a little bit
Interesting to see the points of disagreement between you and wtwlf. I guess I'll have to test a few of those on the border and see what works for us.
Thanks so much. It was a great read.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I can't say I'm pleased to see you and must warn you I may have to do something about it.
EDH: UGEdric
Pauper: URDelver
Modern: UGRDelver
Draft my cube: Eric's 390 Unpowered
Awesome write-up as always. I look forward to your thoughtful analysis that is driven by play with the cards and is informed by years of experience with cube curation. I appreciate how you look at such a broad swath of cards and inspire me to reconsider cards that I had written off without a second thought as they were spoiled. Excellent work -- thank you!
Hey Usman! I was considering testing Roalesk, as I'm willing to go pretty deep to try to find Simic playables. I went back to reread your excellent set review, and I saw you were pretty down on it. I was hoping that the literal floor of a 5 cmc 4/5 flampler wouldn't be just the worst thing, and its value increases incrementally from there. Still not good enough? I can see that I'd far rather be tapping 5 for a Thragtusk, for instance, than this guy.
"Roalesk, Apex Hybrid is a Simic card that is a weird Baneslayer style pile of stats but is reliant on other creatures and/or planeswalkers to be useful. If you have a planeswalker out when Roalesk dies, you’re in business as proliferating twice is a lot of value, but the overall package is too situational to be useful for Cube."
An early peek of my cube War of the Spark review from several cube draft's worth of experience. It's pretty raw (no decklist compressions, pics that the editors do at CoolStuffInc to make my articles readable.) Article will be up next Friday if you want something in an easier-to-read format since it doesn't have much to break up the text.
This is the longest thing I've *ever* written in the near-decade that I've been writing (it's about 42 pages, about 16.8k words) and while there are few obvious 360 no scope staples or whatever, the set has a lot of good stuff, and is certainly one of the all-time greats for cube sets.
I used to write cube articles on StarCityGames, now for GatheringMagic and podcast about cube (w/Antknee42.)
Sad to hear Oketra was too slow...
I think I'll still take the flexibility (and instant speed) of Cyclonic Rift over Callous Dismissal, but neither one is seems bound for the long-term in cube.
Commence the Endgame is better Consecrated Sphinx? Surely he jests. If the token had flying or some notable ability than we "might" be talking. Since Endgame guarantees two cards (as opposed to making it very likely you get them), is uncounterable and generally presents a decent body. Though it is notable (as you noted) that the body could be as weak as a 2/2 and that's a bad floor for 4UU. In the situations where you're getting a huge body it's probably a "win more" type card as having that many cards so late often means things are already going well. I'll watch this card more closely though now that I've read your write up.
I agree that Kefnet's value is in the body paired with evasion. The ability is gravy. Sometimes a very delicious gravy.
What do you think on Liliana, Dreadhorde General vs. Liliana, Death's Majesty? I'd hate to cut reanimator support, but reanimator should be going off earlier than turn 5 anyway ideally....
Nice to see Bontu tested well. I'm more excited about that now.
I expected Finale of Eternity would be more of an anti-aggro sweeper and I don't think I want to replace a slot in black to hose aggro.
Dreadhorde Arcanist is a card I want to pick up and put immediately in my on-deck binder. It has potential, but isn't there for me yet.
Arcanist needs the same thing Krenko needs. A reliable boost in power. At least Krenko can generate that boost himself. I think Krenko is an all-star and decks that fail to remove him within a turn are going to get punished hard. Tying the number of tokens to his power with a floor of 2 tokens is incredibly good. The magical christmasland damage/turn calculations don't adequately tell the story of these kinds of cards. I think this may actually be the best of them, even more than Goblin Rabblemaster (you heard it here first!).
I don't think the new Sarkhan even compares to Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker. For me Ilharg is the card I want to slot in.
Bummer that Finale of Devastation (you called it Glory) was too inefficient...expected, but unfortunate.
Where would you say Paradise Druid fits in in terms of cube size?
Unfortunate that the Arkbow doesn't get there....such a cool design. This is the innovation I need in my magic.
Ugin's Conjurant is notably worse than the phantoms (e.g Phantom Centaur). Conjurant removes "that many +1/+1 counters" not just a +1/+1 counter. If Conjurant had the Phantom ability I may test it as Endless One with the Phantom ability is actually really good I think, but this iteration is garbage.
Really disappointed Domri didn't do well in your limited testing....I'm really excited about this card as a not 4CC Gruul PW that has removal/ramp/aggro in a neat package. I was expecting this to do some serious legwork....hmmmm.
Lots of thoughts here...but there was a lot to respond to. Thanks again for the great writeup.
I’m (sort of) glad to hear my thoughts on Kefnet is correct. Miracles are too rare to be useful there.
Your evaluation of the red cards are interesting. I was skeptical of Dreadhorde Anarchist, Mizzium Tank, but I may give them a try. (The Tank may end up in my artifact cube) Ilharg, however feels very slow in terms of its trigger and its recursion. I think it is correct not to see it as a Sneak Attack to cheat creatures. Perhaps the power of this card is repeatable ETB effects.
Thanks for the good read.
hahaha, thanks! I was a bit surprised that there wasn't a better clip of Deckard But ah well. Oketra, I think it made 2 zombos at most, but usually one (or just died.) I feel like the stress test point for Baneslayers for no immediate impact is probably 4-5 mana. I also probably didn't articulate it super well, but it seemed like the Titan cycle blurred the lines between Mulldrifters and Baneslayers, since they did something if they entered the battlefield, but had strong bodies if they lived. Unfortunately, this cycle is mostly Baneslayers, aside from Bontu (which, oddly, I think I liked most out of all of the gods, go figure.)
For what it's worth, I've liked Callous more than either of those and I've ran both for some time. Callous also is nice because it helps to cast it as a tempo effect (like bouncing a turn 3 mana rock) where casting Roil/Blink/Rift on a turn 3 mana rock is generally something not done that much unless you smell blood in the water and like Angel of Sanctions's ability, it kinda forces playing the cards correctly.
Commence the Endgame is better Consecrated Sphinx? Surely he jests. If the token had flying or some notable ability than we "might" be talking. Since Endgame guarantees two cards (as opposed to making it very likely you get them), is uncounterable and generally presents a decent body. Though it is notable (as you noted) that the body could be as weak as a 2/2 and that's a bad floor for 4UU. In the situations where you're getting a huge body it's probably a "win more" type card as having that many cards so late often means things are already going well. I'll watch this card more closely though now that I've read your write up. [/card]
Definitely isn't a win-more from what I've seen and the worst-case fears definitely don't match reality. I wouldn't say it's better than Consecrated Sphinx but it at least doesn't have the weakness of being awful against spot removal. It feels like people are starting to warm up to it, though.
Mostly. Kefnet is definitely a Baneslayer first and miracle maker second, but didn't find it happened enough for my liking, although it could certainly turn a game around based on what it casts.
new Liliana by far, it's a much better general top-end card and better than the non-Grave Titan 6s.
Yeah, I was surprised at how well it turned out; sometimes it just sacrificed 3 or 4 things and then essentially won the game. Pleasantly surprised.
Yeah. Likely would play the small wraths (although unsure if I'd play Night Incarnate over it, but it played poorly when I tried it.)
It likely needs a shock or two to really see more mainstream cube play. Decks that could utilize it did so *very* well and casting the spell for free was really nice, especially in an archetype that uses everything on the pig but the squeal, so to speak.
Yes and no; equipment helps both of these cards but they're fine in decks without them. Relying on equipment to make either of these cards is a sketchy proposition and too fragile to make it worth it.
I have no idea but I find those kinds of comparisons to be so context-sensitive and assuming of an assumption of what a cube *should* look like that I find the whole "cube at X size" to be not really useful. Paradise Druid's pretty good, I'd say slightly under stuff like Wall of Roots, Fertile Ground, Utopia Sprawl and whatnot in ramp tier. A nice pickup for those decks.
Ugh, wow. That's awful. Boooooooo.
Glad you liked it.
Thanks! There's a *lot* of underrated stuff in this set as it seemed that way in general, especially with the lukewarm receptions to things like Commence the Endgame, Mizzium Tank and a lot of other things; I'm hoping this article gets people to turn around on thinking that this is a mediocre cube set and to see how good a lot of these cards are, since a lot aren't obviously good ones in the set.
I used to write cube articles on StarCityGames, now for GatheringMagic and podcast about cube (w/Antknee42.)
I had completely written off Liliana, Dreadhorde General. Your article has me rethinking her inclusion, probably over Liliana, Death's Majesty. I'm not running any of the lower tier black six drops, so I think that swap makes sense. New Lili is probably just straight up better as a potential high end in black control or even midrange decks.
I still don't see what you see in Sarkhan the Masterless. Obviously you've gotten in some reps with him and I haven't, but man, he just seems so low impact and slow compared to Dragonspeaker. So the common line was to play him, minus to make the 4/4, hope the token is enough to protect him, then plus on the next turn and get in for eight in the air? I won't deny that's certainly a lot of damage output at a decent rate of five mana, but I think I'd rather have the Sarkhan that serves a similar role, while also being more versatile in more situations. I've found that Dragonspeaker is great in midrange and control decks, especially Wildfire variants and not embarrassing in aggro as a top end if that's how your draft ended up. I wouldn't go so far as to say that Masterless is bad, but as far as red fives go, I still prefer the Dragonspeaker in that slot and if I'm finding room somewhere else for a new red five, I think Ilharg is a much more interesting and objectively fun option for that slot.
I'm a little disappointed to see that Arkbow and the green Finale didn't work out for you. I had high (medium?) hopes for both of these cards. I'm definitely still going to find room to test for myself, but I was really hoping to get to those two in the article and see that you were blown away by how great they were.
I'm also looking at both Dovin and Angrath for my peasant cube now, and I wasn't looking at them before. I took a second look at my Azorius section specifically and I think Dovin will do more for my UW decks than something like Thunderclap Wyvern. My players are more interested in a more traditional UW control or prison style deck, so I'd rather support that than the flyers deck that doesn't come together as often. Angrath I'm still a little on the fence with, but you convinced me enough to at least give him a shot. A 4/4 menace for four is pretty good. I don't know if it's better enough than something like Bit Blast or Redcap, but he might be worth testing in one of those slots.
Thanks again for the write up, man. I know you put a lot of work into both writing these articles and making sure you have enough reps in with the cards to form an opinion that's more than just an educated guess. Your articles are incredibly informative and I, for one, really appreciate what you do for the cube community.
MTGS Average Peasant Cube 2023 Edition
Follow me. I tweet.
My Cube on Cube Tutor
Thanks so much. It was a great read.
EDH: UGEdric
Pauper: UR Delver
Modern: UGR Delver
Draft my cube: Eric's 390 Unpowered
<Eleusis> A 450 card legacy cube
"Roalesk, Apex Hybrid is a Simic card that is a weird Baneslayer style pile of stats but is reliant on other creatures and/or planeswalkers to be useful. If you have a planeswalker out when Roalesk dies, you’re in business as proliferating twice is a lot of value, but the overall package is too situational to be useful for Cube."
<Eleusis> A 450 card legacy cube