I'm assuming you mean Bestow. I've added (but not had much testing with) Leafcrown Dryad, Nimbus Naiad and Observant Alseid. Of the 3 I expect Leafcrown to be the most consistent, since it is the most acceptable in its creature mode, and the enchantment mode on all of them is quite strong. Not as absurd as in Theros limited, but they all offer a strong effect in addition to their versatility, which is just what I want out of a cube card.
Al_Z_Heimer that is the second time on this page that you've compared a card to a portal second age card, which is really funny to me for some reason.
Al has a burden of knowledge bestowed upon him by only of the wisest Magic players - the complete encyclopedia of Pauper cube playable cards and commons throughout time.
I think you made good choices. I like Flayer Husk more than Adventuring Gear, though. Darklit Gargoyle and Unmake are better than Shrieking Grotesque imho. You cant do blink shenigans with it. Id say Unmake even is a staple.
How is it easier to cast when it is multicolored and has the same number of colored mana symbols in its "real" casting cost? You have to pay 1WB for Shrieking Grotesque or else you paid 2W for a Stormfront Pegasus and that's not the same card.
Darklit Gargoyle and Unmake are better than Shrieking Grotesque imho. You cant do blink shenigans with it. Id say Unmake even is a staple.
I don't think Unmake is a staple, at least not at 360. Orzhov is by far one of the strongest guilds in Pauper cube and Unmake is probably card 6 or 7 in that section. Shrieking Grotesque, Blind Hunter, Pillory of the Sleepless, Tithe Drinker, and Kingpin's Pet are all significantly stronger cards. If you're playing 6 guild slots you either have a huge cube or aren't too picky about maintaining a proper color balance in your drafts. I don't see how blink shenanigans is relevant to Shrieking Grotesque when neither of the cards you suggested in its place have any relevance to that archetype either.
And what about Grisly Salvage or LLanowar Dead over Trow?
Rendclaw Trow is still better than both of those. There aren't enough ways to take advantage of dumping cards into your graveyard to make Grisly Salvage card advantage and I wouldn't want to pay 2 mana for a 1 mana producer when it makes the same color mana you already had access to to cast it in the first place. You'd be better off playing Elves of Deep Shadow.
Liliana's Specter can be blinked and because of that I like it much more than Grotesque. Darklit Gargoyle is the better creature.
Im not sold on Tithe Drinker either. I try to reduce X/1 creatures, because they are to fragile. Thats why I prefer 2cc manadudes, too.
Unmake is premium removal and one of the few cards that can get rid of Guardian of the Guildpact
Grisly Salvage can dig for threats, and depending on your cube/deck you could abuse it with Night Soil, Flashback, Unearth [CARD]Disturbed Burial
[/CARD]
I liked Orcish Lumberjack since IceAge back in the days, but I never found a deck where he was useful. Usually you dont want to sacrifice a forest, for a small speed bump. He is no Lotus, since he can only net you G and R. Otherwise he might be real strong.
I still like Unmake though. Most black removal cant target black creatures and whites enchantment removal is easy to get rid of via bounce. The exile is a small plus, too.
It was a Top 8 with TSG unfortunately. I'm not sure those are still around after the falling out TSG had. I'll look around and post it here if I see it. Was a while ago.
EDIT: actually was only top 5... but still he ranks it over Jilt and it gets beaten by Kor Chant, Consume Strength, Briarhorn, and Ray of Command. So some pretty stiff competition.
This is actually a really cool talk. LSV mentions that it was silly of WotC to print these higher power level cards in Common, and it was a bad move. With that said, that really doesn't give me much hope for the future of common printings. Unless something as powerful as Delver comes around again - but I don't think we should ever expect something as powerful as Brainstorm to be printed ever again.
This is actually a really cool talk. LSV mentions that it was silly of WotC to print these higher power level cards in Common, and it was a bad move. With that said, that really doesn't give me much hope for the future of common printings. Unless something as powerful as Delver comes around again - but I don't think we should ever expect something as powerful as Brainstorm to be printed ever again.
Why doesn't that give you much hope for the future of commons? It just means that WOTC is overall better at designing cards, so abnormally powerful / broken commons are printed less frequently. But the overall power level of cards available to pauper cubes is rising - I only have statistics on my own cube, but I'm guessing other pauper cubes here are similar - New World Order (since around M10) commons take up a disproportionate number of slots in pauper cube, especially creature slots. Sure, Wizards won't print something like Hymn to Tourach at common any time soon, but the last few blocks have been overall quite good for pauper cube, and there's no sign of that changing.
Why doesn't that give you much hope for the future of commons? It just means that WOTC is overall better at designing cards, so abnormally powerful / broken commons are printed less frequently. But the overall power level of cards available to pauper cubes is rising - I only have statistics on my own cube, but I'm guessing other pauper cubes here are similar - New World Order (since around M10) commons take up a disproportionate number of slots in pauper cube, especially creature slots. Sure, Wizards won't print something like Hymn to Tourach at common any time soon, but the last few blocks have been overall quite good for pauper cube, and there's no sign of that changing.
Just like real cube, old spells are mostly better and new creatures are mostly better, unless you're going for tribal or something.
Why doesn't that give you much hope for the future of commons? It just means that WOTC is overall better at designing cards, so abnormally powerful / broken commons are printed less frequently. But the overall power level of cards available to pauper cubes is rising - I only have statistics on my own cube, but I'm guessing other pauper cubes here are similar - New World Order (since around M10) commons take up a disproportionate number of slots in pauper cube, especially creature slots. Sure, Wizards won't print something like Hymn to Tourach at common any time soon, but the last few blocks have been overall quite good for pauper cube, and there's no sign of that changing.
You're right about that - I was more referring to super high power level cards, that will probably never be replaced; Hymn to Tourach, Brainstorm, Ponder, Lightning Bolt etc etc. Personally the last common I've seen printed where I said "WOW" was Read the Bones, and before that was Delver. But up till this point, I feel like most of the ones we've been selecting are just "playable" for Pauper. They're not cards you'd see in a Legacy deck. I think that's really what LSV was talking about.
Luckily we're spoilt for powerful removal at common due to the early years of powerful spells and unbalanced limited environments.
Every set since the dawn of time has had overcosted crap removal. They are reducing the number of absolute answers at common but we're still going to get stuff like stab wound. Theros they deliberately underpowered removal so you can play with your rawr monsters.
Interesting point: Sip of Hemlock is an exception because of the design constraints of Theros. Because of the heavy Auras theme (MaRo has gone on the record to say that Bestow was the backbone of Theros), not to mention Heroic and monstrosity which would both also play badly against unconditional removal, Theros removal, especially on the level of commons, had to be less unconditional and more expensive to make Limited work. You can really tell from the extremely small swath of unconditional removal spells like Sip of Hemlock amidst the Theros spells.
I'm not saying that the trend being discussed isn't true, because Doom Blade reprinted at uncommon certainly is strong evidence for it, but Sip of Hemlock isn't appropriate evidence because it was influence by other contextual concerns.
Every set since the dawn of time has had overcosted crap removal. They are reducing the number of absolute answers at common but we're still going to get stuff like stab wound. Theros they deliberately underpowered removal so you can play with your rawr monsters.
I read this after I made my post. But yes, basically this.
I wad been running Moment of Heroism till Swift Justice. Lifelink AND pump is essentially white's retort to pump AND trample. Swift Justice adding the 3rd ability was just too good. Justice will not save your guy from burn, but as a combat trick, it is nice.
However, I have had to cut it as something I needed to move to my reserved list to make room for Theros and actually Master of Diversions.
One of my friends plays it in his EDH and its really annoying there and that's even a big mana environment so I'm sure it could do some very annoying things in pauper where curve is king.
I do like the way it works with Daze, Force Spike, and Miscalculation. Even if you don't have them in hand, it really narrows your opponent's options. It really does seem like a solid "curve topper" for Blue tempo decks.
The thing I like the most about it is you can kill the creature if necessary later and still get Slow Motion back. Or even bounce it. They pay to keep and then you bounce. Yikes, that's some tempo loss.
It may be too narrow though and a bad topdeck. It's cool enough I'll try it eventually.
It definitely could be a terrible top deck, unless you're playing something like Tempo however. I'm just not fond of it for the fact that Limited normally includes getting up to pretty high Land counts, so it's effectiveness falls off.
Since raising my cube to 450 from 360, I've added a ton of other cards. So, after drafting with the SO a bunch I'm gonna write some mini reviews.
First off, upgrading the cube to 450 has made grabbing Enchantment/Artifact removal during the draft phase more important, and as now their power level is above normal just due to them not being easily removed, with that said;
Whispersilk Cloak - Has done A LOT of work this week. If you're going to get any creature out that has board presence and have this equipped, your opponent in trouble. As a control player, the first time my SO slammed this down on the table and equipped it to even something like a measly 3/1 I knew I was in trouble. I really like it.
Aqueous Form - 1 Mana for the unblockable Scry is great. I know Al is fond of the G/W Hexproof shell, but even splashing some blue for this card was well worth it. Rubbleback Rhino unblock able really puts the hurt on, and the Scry is just an added bonus. For now it'll probably stay.
Basking Rootwalla - I know some of you disagreed putting this in, but holy crap in the right shell this guy is going to do wonders. Pair it with Undertaker or any other kind of Discard for Benefit and he's just going to keep recurring. I played a game against the SO where she ended up playing him for free like 3-4 times. Plus, the ability is super relevant, just as relevant as Darkthicket Wolf in my opinion. He's definitely staying, even as an aggro card.
Clay Statue - Recently just popped this in as well to give it some time on the board, and it's really done well. It's relevant in dealing with Fear/Shadow (which I know is huge in both my cube and others), and Regenerate isn't easy to get around. It's a great "6" drop, considering you should have the mana open to Regen it the turn it comes out. I'd take it over Tangle Hulk easily in pauper.
Frantic Search - Honestly I don't know why I didn't add this sooner. I consider it just as potent as Faithless looting in control decks, with the tradeoff of not having Flashback but instead having your lands untapped. It's staying, for now.
Heavy Ballista - Used it a bit, wasn't TOO impressed, but I feel like the match ups we're pretty bad. Even if you're dropping it on turn 4, I feel like at that point in the game it's ability is even less relevant. I'm gonna give it some more time to develop.
Brilliant Halo - Kind of meh about this so far. Some people in my group liked it and used it pretty effectively since it has an ability similar to Rancor, but I'm still not sold. I'm considering taking it out for Test of Faith.
Dross Golem - Holy ****. Probably one of my favorite added cards. I try to grab him every draft now. Really impressed with him so far.
Diabolic Edict and Innocent Blood - I added both of these to help deal with the Hexproof shell that I've been expanding on, and more often than not they've gotten the job done. I'm happy with their flavor and their effectiveness so they'll be staying. Also, IB is just that much better if you've got nothing on the board.
Altar's Reap - Okay, so this is probably also one of my new favorites. You might not think that there would be a lot of general uses for it, but let me tell you; with creature combat as such large factor in Pauper cube, at least 8 out of 10 times you will be block Saccing a creature with this and turning it into card draw. Someone Pacifism'd you? Sac'd, card draw. Have a 1/1 Mana dork you don't need anymore? Card draw. It's done wonders. I highly recommend others to try it out.
That's it for now, there are a lot more cards I haven't tried out yet in the added 90 personally so I'll be asking my group what they thought.
Level 1 Judge
Al_Z_Heimer that is the second time on this page that you've compared a card to a portal second age card, which is really funny to me for some reason.
Al has a burden of knowledge bestowed upon him by only of the wisest Magic players - the complete encyclopedia of Pauper cube playable cards and commons throughout time.
Those cards to the right side of the lands are personal notes and not in the cube. A card in red is just a card I need to obtain.
From Disappointing Signet Inc.!
Generation 16: First time you see this, change the number up 1 and copy into sig. It's a social experiment.
Darklit Gargoyle and Unmake are better than Shrieking Grotesque imho. You cant do blink shenigans with it. Id say Unmake even is a staple.
And what about Grisly Salvage or LLanowar Dead over Trow?
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
How is it easier to cast when it is multicolored and has the same number of colored mana symbols in its "real" casting cost? You have to pay 1WB for Shrieking Grotesque or else you paid 2W for a Stormfront Pegasus and that's not the same card.
I don't think Unmake is a staple, at least not at 360. Orzhov is by far one of the strongest guilds in Pauper cube and Unmake is probably card 6 or 7 in that section. Shrieking Grotesque, Blind Hunter, Pillory of the Sleepless, Tithe Drinker, and Kingpin's Pet are all significantly stronger cards. If you're playing 6 guild slots you either have a huge cube or aren't too picky about maintaining a proper color balance in your drafts. I don't see how blink shenanigans is relevant to Shrieking Grotesque when neither of the cards you suggested in its place have any relevance to that archetype either.
Rendclaw Trow is still better than both of those. There aren't enough ways to take advantage of dumping cards into your graveyard to make Grisly Salvage card advantage and I wouldn't want to pay 2 mana for a 1 mana producer when it makes the same color mana you already had access to to cast it in the first place. You'd be better off playing Elves of Deep Shadow.
Im not sold on Tithe Drinker either. I try to reduce X/1 creatures, because they are to fragile. Thats why I prefer 2cc manadudes, too.
Unmake is premium removal and one of the few cards that can get rid of Guardian of the Guildpact
Grisly Salvage can dig for threats, and depending on your cube/deck you could abuse it with Night Soil, Flashback, Unearth [CARD]Disturbed Burial
[/CARD]
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
I liked Orcish Lumberjack since IceAge back in the days, but I never found a deck where he was useful. Usually you dont want to sacrifice a forest, for a small speed bump. He is no Lotus, since he can only net you G and R. Otherwise he might be real strong.
I still like Unmake though. Most black removal cant target black creatures and whites enchantment removal is easy to get rid of via bounce. The exile is a small plus, too.
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
This is actually a really cool talk. LSV mentions that it was silly of WotC to print these higher power level cards in Common, and it was a bad move. With that said, that really doesn't give me much hope for the future of common printings. Unless something as powerful as Delver comes around again - but I don't think we should ever expect something as powerful as Brainstorm to be printed ever again.
Why doesn't that give you much hope for the future of commons? It just means that WOTC is overall better at designing cards, so abnormally powerful / broken commons are printed less frequently. But the overall power level of cards available to pauper cubes is rising - I only have statistics on my own cube, but I'm guessing other pauper cubes here are similar - New World Order (since around M10) commons take up a disproportionate number of slots in pauper cube, especially creature slots. Sure, Wizards won't print something like Hymn to Tourach at common any time soon, but the last few blocks have been overall quite good for pauper cube, and there's no sign of that changing.
Just like real cube, old spells are mostly better and new creatures are mostly better, unless you're going for tribal or something.
You're right about that - I was more referring to super high power level cards, that will probably never be replaced; Hymn to Tourach, Brainstorm, Ponder, Lightning Bolt etc etc. Personally the last common I've seen printed where I said "WOW" was Read the Bones, and before that was Delver. But up till this point, I feel like most of the ones we've been selecting are just "playable" for Pauper. They're not cards you'd see in a Legacy deck. I think that's really what LSV was talking about.
Every set since the dawn of time has had overcosted crap removal. They are reducing the number of absolute answers at common but we're still going to get stuff like stab wound. Theros they deliberately underpowered removal so you can play with your rawr monsters.
Knowledge is power, money is power, time is money, you are actually gaining time by reading my posts
check out my EDH and Pauper EDH decks here
Interesting point: Sip of Hemlock is an exception because of the design constraints of Theros. Because of the heavy Auras theme (MaRo has gone on the record to say that Bestow was the backbone of Theros), not to mention Heroic and monstrosity which would both also play badly against unconditional removal, Theros removal, especially on the level of commons, had to be less unconditional and more expensive to make Limited work. You can really tell from the extremely small swath of unconditional removal spells like Sip of Hemlock amidst the Theros spells.
I'm not saying that the trend being discussed isn't true, because Doom Blade reprinted at uncommon certainly is strong evidence for it, but Sip of Hemlock isn't appropriate evidence because it was influence by other contextual concerns.
I read this after I made my post. But yes, basically this.
My Pauper Cube ♤ The Pauper Cube Thread Common Knowledge — 1 2
Hehe, thanks. But I mixed it up with Slaughterhorn
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
Knowledge is power, money is power, time is money, you are actually gaining time by reading my posts
check out my EDH and Pauper EDH decks here
However, I have had to cut it as something I needed to move to my reserved list to make room for Theros and actually Master of Diversions.
Loose Change Pauper Cube-cast
Pauper Cube Article #1
Pauper Cube Article #2
Personal Enjoyment Cube
As far as I can tell this is just double-stone rain, because in what realistic scenario would you sacrifice your creature to this?
This card seems crazy powerful, what do you guys think? (Whether it's something you want in your cube is a different question entirely.)
Knowledge is power, money is power, time is money, you are actually gaining time by reading my posts
check out my EDH and Pauper EDH decks here
It definitely could be a terrible top deck, unless you're playing something like Tempo however. I'm just not fond of it for the fact that Limited normally includes getting up to pretty high Land counts, so it's effectiveness falls off.
First off, upgrading the cube to 450 has made grabbing Enchantment/Artifact removal during the draft phase more important, and as now their power level is above normal just due to them not being easily removed, with that said;
Whispersilk Cloak - Has done A LOT of work this week. If you're going to get any creature out that has board presence and have this equipped, your opponent in trouble. As a control player, the first time my SO slammed this down on the table and equipped it to even something like a measly 3/1 I knew I was in trouble. I really like it.
Aqueous Form - 1 Mana for the unblockable Scry is great. I know Al is fond of the G/W Hexproof shell, but even splashing some blue for this card was well worth it. Rubbleback Rhino unblock able really puts the hurt on, and the Scry is just an added bonus. For now it'll probably stay.
Basking Rootwalla - I know some of you disagreed putting this in, but holy crap in the right shell this guy is going to do wonders. Pair it with Undertaker or any other kind of Discard for Benefit and he's just going to keep recurring. I played a game against the SO where she ended up playing him for free like 3-4 times. Plus, the ability is super relevant, just as relevant as Darkthicket Wolf in my opinion. He's definitely staying, even as an aggro card.
Clay Statue - Recently just popped this in as well to give it some time on the board, and it's really done well. It's relevant in dealing with Fear/Shadow (which I know is huge in both my cube and others), and Regenerate isn't easy to get around. It's a great "6" drop, considering you should have the mana open to Regen it the turn it comes out. I'd take it over Tangle Hulk easily in pauper.
Frantic Search - Honestly I don't know why I didn't add this sooner. I consider it just as potent as Faithless looting in control decks, with the tradeoff of not having Flashback but instead having your lands untapped. It's staying, for now.
Heavy Ballista - Used it a bit, wasn't TOO impressed, but I feel like the match ups we're pretty bad. Even if you're dropping it on turn 4, I feel like at that point in the game it's ability is even less relevant. I'm gonna give it some more time to develop.
Brilliant Halo - Kind of meh about this so far. Some people in my group liked it and used it pretty effectively since it has an ability similar to Rancor, but I'm still not sold. I'm considering taking it out for Test of Faith.
Dross Golem - Holy ****. Probably one of my favorite added cards. I try to grab him every draft now. Really impressed with him so far.
Diabolic Edict and Innocent Blood - I added both of these to help deal with the Hexproof shell that I've been expanding on, and more often than not they've gotten the job done. I'm happy with their flavor and their effectiveness so they'll be staying. Also, IB is just that much better if you've got nothing on the board.
Altar's Reap - Okay, so this is probably also one of my new favorites. You might not think that there would be a lot of general uses for it, but let me tell you; with creature combat as such large factor in Pauper cube, at least 8 out of 10 times you will be block Saccing a creature with this and turning it into card draw. Someone Pacifism'd you? Sac'd, card draw. Have a 1/1 Mana dork you don't need anymore? Card draw. It's done wonders. I highly recommend others to try it out.
That's it for now, there are a lot more cards I haven't tried out yet in the added 90 personally so I'll be asking my group what they thought.