Now that all new cards are revealed, it's time for the traditional includes thread!
For me:
Saheeli the Gifted ---> Saheeli Rai. New Saheeli feels like a slam dunk for me and I don't see myself cutting her as long as I continue to run an artifact theme, which will probably be forever.
Ancient Stone Idol ---> Blightsteel Colossus. I don't think the new robot is incredible, but it's a clear upgrade to Blightsteel in my mind. It's just as bad on defense but can see play in so many more decks.
Retrofitter Foundry ---> *shrug*. I'm a little higher on this card than most here I feel like. Time will tell if I'm right or overly optimistic.
I was pretty high on Night Incarnate when it was spoiled but after more thought I think I prefer Yahenni's Expertise and may even add Languish back into my cube before Night Eternal. The hunt for the ideal black 5 drop continues!
While this may be the worst commander set in years (:frown:), it's not half bad for cube. 3 viable options is more than we've seen in the past few years.
Night Incarnate -> Languish. I'm not super excited about this swap, since -4/-4 is big game, but after posting about how I think the threshold for this, Custodi Lich, and Shriekmaw together is 540, I decided I'd try it anyways. It's possible that I should be cutting Josu Vess instead, but I'd prefer not to do so yet.
Saheeli, the Gifted -> Ral Zarek. I want to try to keep incrementally improving the artifact deck, and while I'm not sure Ral Zarek is the worst Izzet card in the cube, I'd prefer to cut him over Dack Fayden, and I'm not running 3 planeswalkers in Izzet.
Retrofitter Foundry -> Thaumatic Compass. Thaumatic Compass largely came into the cube because I was jamming Watermarket. While I still technically run Watermarket, it's more of an "oh, this pays for stuff" than a buildaround, and otherwise both Compass and Foundry are both slow value cards. Foundry actually helps you win the game as a mana sink instead of just stopping you from losing, so I like this swap.
Ancient Stone Idol -> Watermarket. Speaking of Watermarket, I think it's time to axe it. It was fun at times but largely noise. I still like the watermark theme of the cube, because I think the quantity of promos makes the cube more unique, but despite campaigning for it as a fun card, it isn't particularly strong. I also couldn't figure out another cut for Stone Idol.
While not particularly relevant to me, there are also 6 cards that are available in the new border (in paper) for the first time. I wasn't sure where to post them, and most (all) of these don't really strike me as cube cards, but I know there are some people with new-border-only cubes here so it's worth highlighting them:
I'm on Saheeli, the Gifted, Ancient Stone Idol and Night Incarnate as well. Nothing else strikes me as exciting, though there's a lot of sweet stuff if you were to build a slower-paced EDH cube.
They left out the part where Yawgmoth is resurrected,but has been cleansed as Yawgmoth the Redeemed,and now must awaken Chromium so that Karn can fuse with him and create what can only be known as : the ultimate taco.
While not particularly relevant to me, there are also 6 cards that are available in the new border (in paper) for the first time. I wasn't sure where to post them, and most (all) of these don't really strike me as cube cards, but I know there are some people with new-border-only cubes here so it's worth highlighting them:
At 450, the only card I'm adding is Saheeli. I don't think I need another black sweepers or a big robot, but I have Night Incarnate and Ancient Stone Idol on my radar for if I change my mind.
Got in about 12-14 cubes with the new cards I'm testing from the set... Didn't get in as many reps as I'd like with the individual cards, but a large part of that was due to the skepticism my playgroup had towards them, and many of them being low tier/late picks.
Saheeli, the Gifted
Ended up being cut from a few slower decks that could cast it, but those decks only had a few other artifacts and/or high CMC mana payoff cards to ramp into. Card strikes me as very good, but is more of an artifact ramp roleplayer than a generic good card. The ultimate is poor/mediocore without a strong artifact presence on the battlefield, and the mana ramp ability can be underwhelming in some decks. Contrast this to the new tezzeret whom I've been happy to play in any slower deck with a few signets/moxen... and has been the best performer of the M19 cards (smallish sample).
Night Incarnate
Testing inconclusive, as I never personally saw it resolve.. But I did help build many decks that main decked it. It also went into a few sideboards that actively wanted to play it in 1/3 of the matches. My biggest take away from deck building with the card was how big of a deal the 3B was towards it's splash-ability. My cube has strange (great) fixing with an extra set of fetches/duals, so it's common for a mana base to have access to a couple random black dual lands. UR Artifact decks might have a couple black signets and a black dual. These type of mana bases don't want to main deck the card if they can avoid it, but are happy to have it as a sideboard option.
My sample isn't large enough to get a sense of -3/-3 vs -4/-4 and the value of it's creature mode, but I am still interested enough to keep on testing.
Ancient Stone Idol
Served it's roll as fatty #4-6 in any deck that was looking to play it. Tinker decks often had 2+ better targets to play, same with reanimator decks and sneak/show decks. Sat in some sideboards of cheaty decks because they already had more than enough playables at the top end. Overall my cube group was low on it, but it was still main decked a few times.. no great reviews anywhere. Likely better for large cubes, or cubes that want their fatties to be played in a variety of cheat archetypes (Lowering the cheat decks power without feel bads of missing combo pieces and allowing more cube space for other archetypes).
Very likely gonna cut.
Retrofitter Foundry
Disappointing results, but to be fair my cube group thought it sucked so bad that they didn't give it it's proper testing. I thought it would be an interesting fringe pick for Decks with gae's cradle/tolarian academy or welder/trinket mage support. But my players kept picking other playables in the pack over it. Think it only saw 1 main deck, even though I was trying to convince people it was good enough for some of them lol. Even though I'm convinced my group is underrating it, it is still quite narrow in my cube. Certainly way too slow/mana intensive for anything but a mega ramp deck or a deck that is looking to combo off artifacts... but thought those decks happen often enough for it to be worth a look.
Cutting it, but encourage further play testing from anyone else.
Entreat the Dead
This is for anyone read my essay in the main thread... I totally missed how you have 1 less mana the turn you cast it, because you have to cast it on your draw step. Surprising because I cube with a lot of miracles and support them thoroughly!
We decided to leave it in for the play testing, but it only got played twice. It got picked up by multiple reanimator decks, but when we looked at the deck configuration, decided it would be too inconsistent. For the decks that DID play it, results were poor.
Don't play this card.
Emissary of Grudges
Finally, for the winner of "overperformer" on the weekend cube marathon.
While it didn't blow anyone out of their chair with it's power level, it saw a lot of main deck play and performed better than most people expected.
It saw 90%+ of it's play in reanimator decks, always as support, never as the main go to target, but was rarely up for debate to be cut from the final 23...
6 CMC is the sweet spot for reanimator cube decks, as having cards that can be hardcast OR reanimated is a huge selling point. Reanimator can occasionally power things out very early.. If done so, the emissary can potentially race some more agressivly oriented decks. Reanimator also utilizes the emissary's protection of ANY permanent very well.
A few times the emissary's ability protected an elesh norn or a griselbrand that was having an even larger effect on the game. The scenario occurred much more often than I would have predicted. After witnessing it myself, I would be actively looking to include this creature in a eureka deck. The protection ability it has is extremely good, and is a nightmare for a deck trying to react to it.
It's splash-ability means it can be hard cast in BGr, BUr, BRx re-animator with just a few dual lands with red mana.
Still wouldn't play it in red control or artifact ramp unless I was desperate for a top end playable, but in decks that have the ability to power it very out quickly (say with a ritual and a mana vault), or can both ramp a bit AND attack for lethal the turn it comes into play, I like it a lot. I expect to play it in some green ramp/midrange decks.
Overall I think the card is slightly better than it looks on paper, but is still at least a tier behind the red/black titans in any deck that can reasonably cast them.
Conclusion:
Still testing 3 cards
-Night incarnate will likely be cut at some point in the next year, but I'm still unsure overall.
-Emissary of grudges will be replaced when a better red 6 drop creature comes along but happy with it for now. I didn't think there was room for another red 6 drop creature in my cube before this, but he saw too much main deck play for this to be true.
-Saheeli, the Gifted is here to stay as an artifact.dec roleplayer. Could see cutting it if izzet gets some impressive goodies in the near future (ravnica?).
I still need an Esper option for my cube but there's no standout candidates and I'm bored of SotSW. The new creatures are ok I guess.
I think Varina, Lich queen is an interesting card from the new set if you really want to play around with new esper options.
Very reasonable to play her with 6-8 mana open and make a couple zombies the turn she comes into play, or keep holding up counter magic instead. Guessing it plays out similar to a worse scarab god that can gain some life.
Cheers for the write-up. Yes, Varina may end up getting a run. Stone Idol is going in over Ulamog for us. That guy has been too hard to cast most times. Being an artifact will open up a lot more options.
Gyrus is certainly going to be fun for your group. It plays nice with counters, etb, reanimation, ramp etc. With haste I would get over the casting cost. As is I will keep an eye on it.
Regular Cube: No changes! Close calls: Saheeli, the Gifted is better in an Artifact Cube, where the 2nd and 3rd ability will matter. I am retaining Mr. Good stuff Ral Zarek Night Incarnate: I feel that it will be always be Evoked, but it is definitely good defensive body. I am still choosing Languish over this.
For me:
Saheeli the Gifted ---> Saheeli Rai. New Saheeli feels like a slam dunk for me and I don't see myself cutting her as long as I continue to run an artifact theme, which will probably be forever.
Ancient Stone Idol ---> Blightsteel Colossus. I don't think the new robot is incredible, but it's a clear upgrade to Blightsteel in my mind. It's just as bad on defense but can see play in so many more decks.
Retrofitter Foundry ---> *shrug*. I'm a little higher on this card than most here I feel like. Time will tell if I'm right or overly optimistic.
I was pretty high on Night Incarnate when it was spoiled but after more thought I think I prefer Yahenni's Expertise and may even add Languish back into my cube before Night Eternal. The hunt for the ideal black 5 drop continues!
While this may be the worst commander set in years (:frown:), it's not half bad for cube. 3 viable options is more than we've seen in the past few years.
- Saheeli, the Gifted
- Ancient Stone Idol
Possibly testing
- Night Incarnate
I like Night Incarnate more than Expertise, but less than Languish.
My High Octane Unpowered Cube on CubeCobra
Night Incarnate -> Languish. I'm not super excited about this swap, since -4/-4 is big game, but after posting about how I think the threshold for this, Custodi Lich, and Shriekmaw together is 540, I decided I'd try it anyways. It's possible that I should be cutting Josu Vess instead, but I'd prefer not to do so yet.
Saheeli, the Gifted -> Ral Zarek. I want to try to keep incrementally improving the artifact deck, and while I'm not sure Ral Zarek is the worst Izzet card in the cube, I'd prefer to cut him over Dack Fayden, and I'm not running 3 planeswalkers in Izzet.
Retrofitter Foundry -> Thaumatic Compass. Thaumatic Compass largely came into the cube because I was jamming Watermarket. While I still technically run Watermarket, it's more of an "oh, this pays for stuff" than a buildaround, and otherwise both Compass and Foundry are both slow value cards. Foundry actually helps you win the game as a mana sink instead of just stopping you from losing, so I like this swap.
Ancient Stone Idol -> Watermarket. Speaking of Watermarket, I think it's time to axe it. It was fun at times but largely noise. I still like the watermark theme of the cube, because I think the quantity of promos makes the cube more unique, but despite campaigning for it as a fun card, it isn't particularly strong. I also couldn't figure out another cut for Stone Idol.
While not particularly relevant to me, there are also 6 cards that are available in the new border (in paper) for the first time. I wasn't sure where to post them, and most (all) of these don't really strike me as cube cards, but I know there are some people with new-border-only cubes here so it's worth highlighting them:
-Dismantling Blow
-Dream Cache
-Predict
-Enchantress's Presence
-Wild Growth
-Mountain Valley
Draft my cube! (630 cards)
I like Saheeli but I cap walkers for each guild at 1 and Dack Fayden is better.
My wallet is happy.
As a modern-frame cube manager, I appreciate you poring over the list so I don't have to.
And I agree, nothing really cube-worthy here.
Saheeli, the Gifted
Ancient Stone Idol
Retrofitter Foundry
With also slight interest in:
Bloodtracker
Night Incarnate
Retrofitter Foundry
Coveted Jewel
Night Incarnate
Emissary of Grudges
Saheeli, the Gifted
Include with expectation of it being a semi-permanent placeholder:
Ancient Stone Idol
Testing, but don't necessarily expect it to become a permanent inclusion:
Retrofitter Foundry
Other cards I have my eye on:
Night Incarnate (if I find myself in the market for another black sweeper)
Emissary of Grudges (if I find myself in the market for another red 6-drop)
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
Night Incarnate
Emissary of Grudges
Saheeli the Gifted
Ancient Stone Idol
Retrofitter Foundry
Coveted Jewell
https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/3pq
Cheers,
rant
My Cube
CubeCobra: https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/5f5d0310ed602310515d4c32
Cube Tutor: http://cubetutor.com/viewcube/1963
Saheeli
Ancient Stone Idol
Gyrus, since i want to add Shard cards and he looks like an awesome scaling value beater.
Keeping an eye on Retrofitter Foundry and Emissary of Grudges too.
I still need an Esper option for my cube but there's no standout candidates and I'm bored of SotSW. The new creatures are ok I guess.
On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
Emissary of Grudges -> ?
Night Incarnate -> ?
Ancient Stone Idol -> ?
Retrofitter Foundry -> ?
Here's my cube! Give it a draft!
Saheeli, the Gifted
Ended up being cut from a few slower decks that could cast it, but those decks only had a few other artifacts and/or high CMC mana payoff cards to ramp into. Card strikes me as very good, but is more of an artifact ramp roleplayer than a generic good card. The ultimate is poor/mediocore without a strong artifact presence on the battlefield, and the mana ramp ability can be underwhelming in some decks. Contrast this to the new tezzeret whom I've been happy to play in any slower deck with a few signets/moxen... and has been the best performer of the M19 cards (smallish sample).
Night Incarnate
Testing inconclusive, as I never personally saw it resolve.. But I did help build many decks that main decked it. It also went into a few sideboards that actively wanted to play it in 1/3 of the matches. My biggest take away from deck building with the card was how big of a deal the 3B was towards it's splash-ability. My cube has strange (great) fixing with an extra set of fetches/duals, so it's common for a mana base to have access to a couple random black dual lands. UR Artifact decks might have a couple black signets and a black dual. These type of mana bases don't want to main deck the card if they can avoid it, but are happy to have it as a sideboard option.
My sample isn't large enough to get a sense of -3/-3 vs -4/-4 and the value of it's creature mode, but I am still interested enough to keep on testing.
Ancient Stone Idol
Served it's roll as fatty #4-6 in any deck that was looking to play it. Tinker decks often had 2+ better targets to play, same with reanimator decks and sneak/show decks. Sat in some sideboards of cheaty decks because they already had more than enough playables at the top end. Overall my cube group was low on it, but it was still main decked a few times.. no great reviews anywhere. Likely better for large cubes, or cubes that want their fatties to be played in a variety of cheat archetypes (Lowering the cheat decks power without feel bads of missing combo pieces and allowing more cube space for other archetypes).
Very likely gonna cut.
Retrofitter Foundry
Disappointing results, but to be fair my cube group thought it sucked so bad that they didn't give it it's proper testing. I thought it would be an interesting fringe pick for Decks with gae's cradle/tolarian academy or welder/trinket mage support. But my players kept picking other playables in the pack over it. Think it only saw 1 main deck, even though I was trying to convince people it was good enough for some of them lol. Even though I'm convinced my group is underrating it, it is still quite narrow in my cube. Certainly way too slow/mana intensive for anything but a mega ramp deck or a deck that is looking to combo off artifacts... but thought those decks happen often enough for it to be worth a look.
Cutting it, but encourage further play testing from anyone else.
Entreat the Dead
This is for anyone read my essay in the main thread... I totally missed how you have 1 less mana the turn you cast it, because you have to cast it on your draw step. Surprising because I cube with a lot of miracles and support them thoroughly!
We decided to leave it in for the play testing, but it only got played twice. It got picked up by multiple reanimator decks, but when we looked at the deck configuration, decided it would be too inconsistent. For the decks that DID play it, results were poor.
Don't play this card.
Emissary of Grudges
Finally, for the winner of "overperformer" on the weekend cube marathon.
While it didn't blow anyone out of their chair with it's power level, it saw a lot of main deck play and performed better than most people expected.
It saw 90%+ of it's play in reanimator decks, always as support, never as the main go to target, but was rarely up for debate to be cut from the final 23...
6 CMC is the sweet spot for reanimator cube decks, as having cards that can be hardcast OR reanimated is a huge selling point. Reanimator can occasionally power things out very early.. If done so, the emissary can potentially race some more agressivly oriented decks. Reanimator also utilizes the emissary's protection of ANY permanent very well.
A few times the emissary's ability protected an elesh norn or a griselbrand that was having an even larger effect on the game. The scenario occurred much more often than I would have predicted. After witnessing it myself, I would be actively looking to include this creature in a eureka deck. The protection ability it has is extremely good, and is a nightmare for a deck trying to react to it.
It's splash-ability means it can be hard cast in BGr, BUr, BRx re-animator with just a few dual lands with red mana.
Still wouldn't play it in red control or artifact ramp unless I was desperate for a top end playable, but in decks that have the ability to power it very out quickly (say with a ritual and a mana vault), or can both ramp a bit AND attack for lethal the turn it comes into play, I like it a lot. I expect to play it in some green ramp/midrange decks.
Overall I think the card is slightly better than it looks on paper, but is still at least a tier behind the red/black titans in any deck that can reasonably cast them.
Conclusion:
Still testing 3 cards
-Night incarnate will likely be cut at some point in the next year, but I'm still unsure overall.
-Emissary of grudges will be replaced when a better red 6 drop creature comes along but happy with it for now. I didn't think there was room for another red 6 drop creature in my cube before this, but he saw too much main deck play for this to be true.
-Saheeli, the Gifted is here to stay as an artifact.dec roleplayer. Could see cutting it if izzet gets some impressive goodies in the near future (ravnica?).
Last Updated 02/07/24
Streaming Standard/Cube on Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/heisenb3rg96
Strategy Twitter https://www.twitter.com/heisenb3rg
I think Varina, Lich queen is an interesting card from the new set if you really want to play around with new esper options.
Very reasonable to play her with 6-8 mana open and make a couple zombies the turn she comes into play, or keep holding up counter magic instead. Guessing it plays out similar to a worse scarab god that can gain some life.
Last Updated 02/07/24
Streaming Standard/Cube on Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/heisenb3rg96
Strategy Twitter https://www.twitter.com/heisenb3rg
Btw gonna leave this here http://www.businesswritingblog.com/business_writing/2006/05/its_its_or_its_.html
On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
Saheeli, the Gifted is better in an Artifact Cube, where the 2nd and 3rd ability will matter. I am retaining Mr. Good stuff Ral Zarek
Night Incarnate: I feel that it will be always be Evoked, but it is definitely good defensive body. I am still choosing Languish over this.
Artifact Cube
Saheeli the Gifted is a definite in unless I want her in my regular cube. Otherwise OG Saheeli remains. I have only 1 slot per guild.
Ancient Stone Idol replaces
Barricade BarrierMyr Enforcer as this is more versatile in offense and defense. Plus it leaves a token for Doubling Season or Daretti.Retrofitter Foundry makes me so excited. Searchable by Trinket Mage, a token maker, chump maker, and a sac outlet. This card has it all. Might replace Nuisance Engine because it just looks so bad alongside this.