I also think Recruiter messes with the 'feel' of peasant cube. In current day, a card like Imperial Recruiter just doesn't feel like an uncommon. Not because of raw power level, but just because tutoring with loose restrictions is something typically done at rare, not at uncommon. Whether or ot you want to avoid cards that feel like they should be rare, but have been printed at lower rarities is a personal choice, but I don't like it for my cube.
Which is funny as all the classical tutors were originally printed as uncommons (some of them even reprinted as uncommons). So tutoring is an effect that is inteneded to be and feel uncommon. I think tutors might feel rare as in rare cubes the targets are so powerful. But I personally disagree that tutors do not feel uncommon.
@ Phitt: you play Enlightened Tutor and Mystical Tutor in your cube. How is your experinence with these? See, I stay away from these as they are card disadvantage and for me the cards you put on top of your library are not powerful enough to justify the card disadvantage.
To add one thing to the 'tutor cards break the game' argument - if you don't have any broken combos and if you have a homogenous powerlevel within your cardpool tutors aren't any different from harmless modal spells like Goblin Cratermaker. And that's exactly the environment we have in peasant cubes. The gap between the best and the worst card isn't that large and there are no combos that end the game on the spot (or even something remotely similar).
So what you get with Demonic Tutor is an extremely versatile modal spell that comes with a rather hefty price tag (+2 mana, sorcery speed only). That's still very good, but also very fair and not broken at all. Now Imperial Recruiter is far worse in every way possible, which may still be playable, but which I wouldn't call very good anymore (and certainly not game breaking).
There is a reason why Diabolic Tutor is considered a terrible limited card even in retail limited, where you have a slow environment and a huge power difference between cards sometimes and where it's still crap.
Btw, Demonic Tutor is actually very similar to the things Pyredream said about Force of Will. Imagine Legacy without combo decks. Would Demonic Tutor be broken if they unbanned it if only fair decks were allowed? I would even go as far and say that it wouldn't see any play at all if that was the case simply because it would be too expensive for what it does.
@ Phitt: you play Enlightened Tutor and Mystical Tutor in your cube. How is your experinence with these? See, I stay away from these as they are card disadvantage and for me the cards you put on top of your library are not powerful enough to justify the card disadvantage.
Enlightened Tutor is overall more often played, it can search for equipment, for important blink/bounce cards like Erratic Portal/Crystal Shard and white removal like Oblivion Ring, Banishing Light etc. So it's great as archetype support that can fetch a removal spell when there is a need for it. Mystical Tutor can be a decent utility card for control decks and in reanimator it can find spells like Frantic Search or Reanimate for a cheap cost early on.
Card disadvantage can be worth it since these basically come for free if you cast them eot. Like I've already said in the Recruiter discussion mana cost matters a lot in my cube environment and many decks can live with card disadvantage better than with spells that are too expensive. Plus Mystical Tutor is blue, which is a color that can more easily make up for the card disadvantage.
Which is funny as all the classical tutors were originally printed as uncommons (some of them even reprinted as uncommons). So tutoring is an effect that is inteneded to be and feel uncommon. I think tutors might feel rare as in rare cubes the targets are so powerful. But I personally disagree that tutors do not feel uncommon.
Magic is different from what it was originally intended to be, for good reasons. Bypassing the inherent randomness of drawing a card from a shuffled pile of cards by searching your library is rarely done at uncommon in the current card design philosophy.
I think that in general having to pay an extra mana or two for an otherwise powerful effect is inconsequential. Making the leap from 6 to 8 mana is huge, but the leap from 1-2 to 3 doesn't really matter in limited. Especially when your deck is 40% lands. The mana costs of things really doesn't matter when you just flood out half the time.
So the fact that Imperial Recruiter costs 1 extra and gets you a 1/1 compared to other tutors seems reasonable to me.
I've had this discussion before trying to convince Pauper Tron players to cut their normal countermagic for Muddle the Mixture. The way Pauper Tron is built (or aught to be built) is with a heavy emphasis on fogs. Running 4 copies of Stonehorn Dignitary and 4 copies of Moment's Peace makes it so that their creatures resolving doesn't matter and you can afford to only counter Instants and Sorceries and get to play modal Grim Tutor.
The perception was that doing this is too slow and that Grim Tutor sucks. I think that's wrong and hoping for top decks is slower on average. Literally cheating and drawing the card you need is faster than hoping to draw it off of a top deck or Mulldrifter.
Plus, then you can tutor for circle of protections post board and really stop them from being able to interact with you at all. That's stacking 2 types of cheating together lol.
There is something to be said for:
1.) Versatility. You may pay an extra mana for Dawn Charm or Lull over a one mana fog, but you get much better spells.
2.) Just having the card you need. Not everything is card advantage. If you have 6 lands in your hand your hand is worse than having a single powerful card in your hand. People prefer to be up on card advantage over having the single card that they need.
When Gush and Daze was Pauper legal and Foil was introduced into the format, people would shove Gurmag Anglers and Delvers and be able to cast multiple counters off of little/no mana. And still there were those who said that, "Foil is a bad card, you 3 for 1 yourself!!".
When I copied my friend's Relentless Rats Commander deck, he told me that my deck doesn't want Necropotence. I had a good laugh and put Necropotence in the deck.
So this kind of stuff is why I think that Magic players are in denial about what their best cards are.
Overall I think that even if Imperial Recruiter isn't a 10/10 card, it's still a reasonable one that scales with power level. Not everything has to be min maxed, you can just run cards because they have nice Portal: Three Kingdoms art sometimes or because they do interesting, middle of the road things.
In my cube I can grab Rock Hydra with it. That's exciting. *shrugs*
There seems like there's a lot of cool uncommons from the brawl arena stuff, I think they're all printed in paper too? Could be some knights synergy, anthem effect for mono color on an artifact.
Which is funny as all the classical tutors were originally printed as uncommons (some of them even reprinted as uncommons). So tutoring is an effect that is inteneded to be and feel uncommon. I think tutors might feel rare as in rare cubes the targets are so powerful. But I personally disagree that tutors do not feel uncommon.
Magic is different from what it was originally intended to be, for good reasons. Bypassing the inherent randomness of drawing a card from a shuffled pile of cards by searching your library is rarely done at uncommon in the current card design philosophy.
Listening to people dismiss tutors just confirms to me that all Magic players are denial about what their best cards are.
Free hard counter that you have to discard another blue card to? Literally UNPLAYABLE against fair decks.
Being able to cheat and draw the exact card you need in a game based around randomized decks of cards? I have to pay 3 mana for it and wait a turn?! Ugh, garbage.
I'm honestly (not) surprised this is still ongoing. You're not remotely interested in improvement through discussion. You are here to be contrarian and make grossly inaccurate generalizations about a hobby you have barely started to understand, just like I assume every other hobby with an online forum you've gotten into. The real MagicTM here is that you've managed to avoid a permaban until now by just barely being on the right side of obnoxious.
For the adults in the thread, I'm actually considering a foray into peasant cube after several days thinking about making a list, yay! Here's some cards I saw in a few lists, I think they're a bit weird and could use a word or two on why they see inclusion:
Indulgent Tormentor - kind of a punisher card, but it avoids the Desecration Demon problem because you get both the punishment and the creature. Is it correct to run this at 360, d'you think? Quest for the Gravelord - kind of puzzling because uncommon creatures already seem efficient enough to avoid jumping through hoops for this one, no? Hoarding Dragon - seems borderline at best. Shower of Coals - how good is this really at hitting three relevant targets? Looks like that's the only scenario worth including it for. Lust for War - I know it's popular here, just wondering if it would shine more in a fast meta or a slower one. Roar of the Wurm - paying seven for a vanilla 6/6, really? I guess when you reach that kind of mana it actually represents two fatties, but I'm fairly certain the only reason to include this is so you can cheat it into the grave to cast it off the flashback. Weaver of Lightning - overly defensive statline, but I wonder how well spells-matter works at peasant level and if this is a big help. Baleful Ammit - ends up as a bad 3/2 lifelinker for three, or ends up killing/nerfing one of your early game dorks. Is either scenario worth playing this?
I'm honestly (not) surprised this is still ongoing. You're not remotely interested in improvement through discussion. You are here to be contrarian and make grossly inaccurate generalizations about a hobby you have barely started to understand, just like I assume every other hobby with an online forum you've gotten into. The real MagicTM here is that you've managed to avoid a permaban until now by just barely being on the right side of obnoxious.
For the adults in the thread, I'm actually considering a foray into peasant cube after several days thinking about making a list, yay! Here's some cards I saw in a few lists, I think they're a bit weird and could use a word or two on why they see inclusion:
Indulgent Tormentor - kind of a punisher card, but it avoids the Desecration Demon problem because you get both the punishment and the creature. Is it correct to run this at 360, d'you think? Quest for the Gravelord - kind of puzzling because uncommon creatures already seem efficient enough to avoid jumping through hoops for this one, no? Hoarding Dragon - seems borderline at best. Shower of Coals - how good is this really at hitting three relevant targets? Looks like that's the only scenario worth including it for. Lust for War - I know it's popular here, just wondering if it would shine more in a fast meta or a slower one. Roar of the Wurm - paying seven for a vanilla 6/6, really? I guess when you reach that kind of mana it actually represents two fatties, but I'm fairly certain the only reason to include this is so you can cheat it into the grave to cast it off the flashback. Weaver of Lightning - overly defensive statline, but I wonder how well spells-matter works at peasant level and if this is a big help. Baleful Ammit - ends up as a bad 3/2 lifelinker for three, or ends up killing/nerfing one of your early game dorks. Is either scenario worth playing this?
All of those cards seem reasonable, including desecration demon. Punisher cards are well designed cards, I like them a lot.
I can't speak to spells matter so I can't tell you if weaver of Lightning is good, but all of the rest seem like decent spells. I'm not sure what's wrong with them.
Roar of the Wurm is 2 6/6's once you get to 7 mana. Seems good. That was basically my reaction to all of these cards.
Here's some cards I saw in a few lists, I think they're a bit weird and could use a word or two on why they see inclusion:
Indulgent Tormentor - kind of a punisher card, but it avoids the Desecration Demon problem because you get both the punishment and the creature. Is it correct to run this at 360, d'you think? Quest for the Gravelord - kind of puzzling because uncommon creatures already seem efficient enough to avoid jumping through hoops for this one, no? Hoarding Dragon - seems borderline at best. Shower of Coals - how good is this really at hitting three relevant targets? Looks like that's the only scenario worth including it for. Lust for War - I know it's popular here, just wondering if it would shine more in a fast meta or a slower one. Roar of the Wurm - paying seven for a vanilla 6/6, really? I guess when you reach that kind of mana it actually represents two fatties, but I'm fairly certain the only reason to include this is so you can cheat it into the grave to cast it off the flashback. Weaver of Lightning - overly defensive statline, but I wonder how well spells-matter works at peasant level and if this is a big help. Baleful Ammit - ends up as a bad 3/2 lifelinker for three, or ends up killing/nerfing one of your early game dorks. Is either scenario worth playing this?
- Indulgent Tormentor - I ran this for a little while but cut it when Vampire Sovereign was released. My main problems with it were that A) it has to survive until your upkeep for value and B) it offers three modes, of which your opponent will choose the weakest/least impactful for the current game state. Vampire Sovereign offers less attack power but guaranteed value on ETB (a 6 point life swing) and can be blinked/reanimated for even more value.
- Weaver of Lightning - I still run this as a spells-matter payoff. It can burn out some smaller cannon fodder/chump blockers that are cluttering up the board, block or burn out small flying creatures, and with alittledeathtouch, it can remove much larger threats. It also makes combat math a lot more difficult for opponents - do they block and risk you casting spells to finish off creatures?
- I've never run any of the others because they've never interested me.
Here's some cards I saw in a few lists, I think they're a bit weird and could use a word or two on why they see inclusion:
Indulgent Tormentor is playable, but I wouldn't include it at 360. It's a 5 mana creature that 'dies to removal' (instant and sorcery speed) and it even dies to bolt. It's basically only playable in midrange decks and there are enough better cards for the cost, especially in other colors. I cut it because it's neither very powerful nor needed for anything. Only put it in due to the lack of 5+ cmc creatures in black to begin with.
I mainly run Quest for the Gravelord as payoff for aristocrats style decks, where it's easy to trigger it reliably and quite early. Certainly not needed at 360 and if you don't support that deck I wouldn't play it.
Hoarding Dragon is borderline at best indeed. There aren't that many powerful artifacts in peasant, especially if you don't run the op cards like Skullclamp or Warhammer. Red doesn't really need any 5 cmc creatures either. Wouldn't play at 360. Better 5 cmc cards to run are Charging Monstrosaur, Rite of the Raging Storm or Skizzik (which is not really a 5 cmc card).
Shower of Coals is a powerful card. Peasant has a high density of x/2 already, so hitting two creatures and dealing 2 damage is quite easily possible even without threshold. And the ceiling is a 3 for 1, which is obviously extremely good.
Lust for War is an aggro card for fast decks. So I guess you need a relatively fast cube or it won't work that well. It's a fun card though.
Like you already figured out I run Roar of the Wurm mainly for decks that can discard it into the graveyard - mostly self-mill. A 6/6 for 4 mana you basically get for free is great. As a ramp target it's mediocre at best, rarely ends up in a pure ramp deck in my cube.
Weaver of Lightning is a good card for a spells matter control/midrange deck. Survives almost all the peasant sweepers, is a great blocker and can turn a Firebolt into a Chain Lightning or simply remove a x/1 (and there are plenty of those in peasant).
I have never considered Baleful Ammit. A 3/2 for 3 is bad, even with lifelink. So you need something you can put the counter on without being unhappy about it, which you won't have reliably in most decks. Maybe someone else who played with the card can give you more insight, but I wouldn't play it.
I basically agree with phitt here except for where I play quest for the gravelord in more aggressive decks/ aggressively leaning deck as well
It's a lot like a suspend creature. If it comes down in 3 turns, it's still a 5/5 that you probably spent your do nothing turn 1 on or a spare mana on turn 3.
I tried Baleful Ammit: it was bad. 4/3 lifelink is a big threat, but it's just too fragile for the cost. Being so horrible against removal and pretty pathetic on an empty board made it feel really bad even with the "right" deck.
Indulgent Tormentor - kind of a punisher card, but it avoids the Desecration Demon problem because you get both the punishment and the creature. Is it correct to run this at 360, d'you think?
Three toughness is bad enough that I've avoided this card so far, but I haven't played it so I may be wrong about it.
Quest for the Gravelord - kind of puzzling because uncommon creatures already seem efficient enough to avoid jumping through hoops for this one, no?
Leelue was apt in his description of this as like a suspend creature - however, a lot of suspend creatures have been finding their way out of my c/ube lately, maybe this is going the same way. That said, paying 1 mana for a 5/5 is pretty good no matter when it happens, provided it happens.
I don't play it, largely because it doesn't fit the themes of red in my c/ube. I think it's likely included more often than not because people are trying to diversify their red archetypes beyond aggro, which I can respect.
Shower of Coals - how good is this really at hitting three relevant targets? Looks like that's the only scenario worth including it for.
I think it's good enough if it finds two targets and hits face. I've heard it said that the baseline best way to draft peasant is to just pick as many Man o' Wars as you see (the point being, as many 2-for-1s as you can get) and this card fits that bill.
Lust for War - I know it's popular here, just wondering if it would shine more in a fast meta or a slower one.
It's one of the top 5 best aggro cards in the c/ube, IMO, and therefore one of the best red cards. It's deceptively powerful, against anything. Two turns in, it's two Lava Spikes that also blanked a blocker. That's nuts.
Roar of the Wurm - paying seven for a vanilla 6/6, really? I guess when you reach that kind of mana it actually represents two fatties, but I'm fairly certain the only reason to include this is so you can cheat it into the grave to cast it off the flashback.
Same 2-for-1 argument as before. Notably, ramp is bad in c/ube when you're playing all the best removal you can, so any threat that has to be dealt with twice is valuable.
Weaver of Lightning - overly defensive statline, but I wonder how well spells-matter works at peasant level and if this is a big help.
Spells matter is great in peasant, and it tends to be a control archetype more than an aggro archetype, in my experience, and I think others have found the same.
Baleful Ammit - ends up as a bad 3/2 lifelinker for three, or ends up killing/nerfing one of your early game dorks. Is either scenario worth playing this?
I'm not super high on it either. Amonkhet in general was a set where I added a record number of cards to my c/ube, an then cut all of them. Unique cards, but the power level wasn't quite there. I think this guy fits that bill.
Yeah, everything on that list seems super playable to me. But I've never tried to enforce the entirely ludicrous idea that only the absolute best cards are worth cubing. All those cards are good, but none are must-plays. Play any or all at your discretion.
Lust for War and Roar of the Wurm are the only ones from the list that I'm playing, and I wouldn't be playing Roar not for a heavy graveyard theme.
I decided to exclude Quest for the Gravelord-- not because it's a bad card, but because I've seen plenty of it in my main cube. It's never been bad, but it's more boring than it looks.
I've never been impressed by the cards of Baleful Ammit's line. From what I've seen, that's the best one, and it's not a very interesting card even when it works. It was good when I tried it in draft, but didn't make me want to try it in cube. This is a card to revisit if -1/-1 counters matter becomes more of a thing.
Lust for War is easy to underestimate. I urge you to try it.
I can't imagine a world where cards like Hoarding Dragon and Indulgent Tormentor are bad. I can easily see not playing them: I'm not playing either. But the power is there. Frankly, I'd rather play a rare over Indulgent Tormentor. It's kinda a mean card, and it doesn't feel very uncommon anyway.
Do you think they're too good, not good enough? Fun? ******* annoying?
I have a decent amount of powerful lands in my cube since I play all rarities, so I've changed my mind on the odd LD or LD-Lite spell and have sprinkled some back in. Unlike Pauper cube you have more powerful lands than Desert. Maze of Ith or Library of Alexandria, for example.
I have often considered trying Gerrymandering, but it's not easy to break parity. You need to better be able to deal with random lands than your opponent is. The thing that best supports that (like Armageddon) is non-land mana sources. Nevertheless, I've always come to the conclusion that while powerful, Gerrymandering doesn't tend to favor one player meaningfully over the other outside of perhaps mono-green, which has never been very doable in cube. It always struck me as too much of a chaos card for its own good, and I always figured Winter's Grasp was actually just better for the format. Grasp is an extremely fair land destruction card by the way.
I could see Shifting Borders being pretty good, but it's very highly situational. It'll range from 3U: do nothing important to 3U: yer dead, buddy. I've never seen the card used anywhere, so I'll pretend no great knowledge. It seems worth a try at least, particularly if you have powerful nonbasic lands about. Cycling is what the card really needs. This will often be dead in hand, which sucks for a four drop.
Along the lines of "fake" land destruction, my favorite is Spreading Seas. Compare it to the infinitely inferior Geomancer's Gambit. Also, never underestimate Temporal Spring. Land is most commonly the target at least in the early-mid game. It's mostly a tempo card, but such tempo!
If you're actually playing Library of Alexandria (presumably a proxy), typical land destruction like Stone Rain can come to late too stop the easy advantage. Wasteland is really the best solution to that problem. But Library is just a poorly balanced card in general. For super broken lands in a cube setting, I think Bazaar of Baghdad is a lot more interesting. You have to do some work and make some hard decisions to make it worthwhile. Cube isn't Vintage (and it isn't easy to use correctly even there).
My very favorite land disruption cards are Army Ants and Desolation (the latter being rare), but those cards are mean.
Well you might as well if you're going so far as broken lands, but I don't think that's a very well balanced card for cube either. Again, I think Bazaar is the most balanced card for cube as far as broken lands are concerned.
Diamond Valley is an interesting "broken" card to consider. Pretending it's a dollar, I'd consider it.
I have often considered trying Gerrymandering, but it's not easy to break parity. You need to better be able to deal with random lands than your opponent is. The thing that best supports that (like Armageddon) is non-land mana sources. Nevertheless, I've always come to the conclusion that while powerful, Gerrymandering doesn't tend to favor one player meaningfully over the other outside of perhaps mono-green, which has never been very doable in cube. It always struck me as too much of a chaos card for its own good, and I always figured Winter's Grasp was actually just better for the format. Grasp is an extremely fair land destruction card by the way.
I could see Shifting Borders being pretty good, but it's very highly situational. It'll range from 3U: do nothing important to 3U: yer dead, buddy. I've never seen the card used anywhere, so I'll pretend no great knowledge. It seems worth a try at least, particularly if you have powerful nonbasic lands about. Cycling is what the card really needs. This will often be dead in hand, which sucks for a four drop.
Along the lines of "fake" land destruction, my favorite is Spreading Seas. Compare it to the infinitely inferior Geomancer's Gambit. Also, never underestimate Temporal Spring. Land is most commonly the target at least in the early-mid game. It's mostly a tempo card, but such tempo!
If you're actually playing Library of Alexandria (presumably a proxy), typical land destruction like Stone Rain can come to late too stop the easy advantage. Wasteland is really the best solution to that problem. But Library is just a poorly balanced card in general. For super broken lands in a cube setting, I think Bazaar of Baghdad is a lot more interesting. You have to do some work and make some hard decisions to make it worthwhile. Cube isn't Vintage (and it isn't easy to use correctly even there).
My very favorite land disruption cards are Army Ants and Desolation (the latter being rare), but those cards are mean.
My thinking with Gerrymandering is that it has two modes. Chaos LD, and as a ritual. If you get to 7 lands you'll be able to cast Worldspine Wurm or another huge fatty. Which I'm kind of iffy on, because I want to incentivize using storage lands and mana batteries for ramp, not super rituals. Idk. I'll try it out.
I was a bit iffy and worried that Worldknit might be absurd and then even when I had Tron lands my 75 card deck was real bad.
So next time it comes up in a draft I'll see how it goes. It'll probably be fine.
I don't buy expensive cards. I buy counterfeits instead. Magic cards are just art and text on card stock. As long as the card has the same art and same text it essentially is the real thing. The only clue that they're counterfeits when sleeved is that there is no wear on them.
I might cut one for Ghost Quarter. No counterfeiters make the Carl Critchlow 2010 promo Wasteland that I like, and Discension Ghost Quarter looks real nice.
Other" powered" lands I have in my cube:
A card that adds 3 of each Tron land to your draft pool.
Another card that adds 3 Cloud and 3 Glimmerpost.
Diamond Valley
Elephant Graveyard (I have a few Elephants in my cube, at worst it's just a wastes)
Goblin Burrows
Library of Alexandria
Vesuva
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Serra's Sanctum
Mouth of Ronom
Maze of Ith
The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
An assortment of rainbow lands
Ones that I'm considering:
The land that you can pay 4&Tap to become the monarch. Throne of something.
Dark Depths. Seems pretty interesting to actually have to pay 30 mana to summon the ****huge token it makes. I know that this is a Legacy combo deck with Vampire Hexmage, but something I'm really into is using cards as my Lord and Savior Richard Garfield intended.
No counterfeiters make the Carl Critchlow 2010 promo Wasteland that I like,
Please do not buy counterfits. Get good proxies/alters if you can't stommack playing with simple proxies. Getting cards into the wild that has the potential for being mistaken for the real thing is bad for everyone. And buying counterfits creates demand for an ilicit product, no matter how noble your intentions might be.
something I'm really into is using cards as my Lord and Savior Richard Garfield intended.
Whenever I see someone using the phrase "as Richard Garfield intended", I am reminded about Dr. Garfield's description of one of his favourite decks: It was from before the max 4-of rule, the deck was all Mox Pearls and Shahrazads, and the deck was larger than the 40-card minimum. Basically, the deck sets up a "nested recursive series" of sub-games, each sub-game with slightly smaller libraries, until you finally play a sub-game where your opponent has a zero-card library and looses from decking. They then lose half their life in the "n-1-subgame", and so you keep starting subgames where they deck themselves until they actually lose all their life the "n-1-subgame" and lose half their life in the "n-2-subgame", and so on, until after I don't know how many sub-games they're finally dead.
Which is funny as all the classical tutors were originally printed as uncommons (some of them even reprinted as uncommons). So tutoring is an effect that is inteneded to be and feel uncommon. I think tutors might feel rare as in rare cubes the targets are so powerful. But I personally disagree that tutors do not feel uncommon.
@ Phitt: you play Enlightened Tutor and Mystical Tutor in your cube. How is your experinence with these? See, I stay away from these as they are card disadvantage and for me the cards you put on top of your library are not powerful enough to justify the card disadvantage.
My Peasant Cube: @ mtgsalvation---- @ cubecobra
So what you get with Demonic Tutor is an extremely versatile modal spell that comes with a rather hefty price tag (+2 mana, sorcery speed only). That's still very good, but also very fair and not broken at all. Now Imperial Recruiter is far worse in every way possible, which may still be playable, but which I wouldn't call very good anymore (and certainly not game breaking).
There is a reason why Diabolic Tutor is considered a terrible limited card even in retail limited, where you have a slow environment and a huge power difference between cards sometimes and where it's still crap.
Btw, Demonic Tutor is actually very similar to the things Pyredream said about Force of Will. Imagine Legacy without combo decks. Would Demonic Tutor be broken if they unbanned it if only fair decks were allowed? I would even go as far and say that it wouldn't see any play at all if that was the case simply because it would be too expensive for what it does.
Enlightened Tutor is overall more often played, it can search for equipment, for important blink/bounce cards like Erratic Portal/Crystal Shard and white removal like Oblivion Ring, Banishing Light etc. So it's great as archetype support that can fetch a removal spell when there is a need for it. Mystical Tutor can be a decent utility card for control decks and in reanimator it can find spells like Frantic Search or Reanimate for a cheap cost early on.
Card disadvantage can be worth it since these basically come for free if you cast them eot. Like I've already said in the Recruiter discussion mana cost matters a lot in my cube environment and many decks can live with card disadvantage better than with spells that are too expensive. Plus Mystical Tutor is blue, which is a color that can more easily make up for the card disadvantage.
My Old School Battlebox
My Premodern Battlebox
Magic is different from what it was originally intended to be, for good reasons. Bypassing the inherent randomness of drawing a card from a shuffled pile of cards by searching your library is rarely done at uncommon in the current card design philosophy.
So the fact that Imperial Recruiter costs 1 extra and gets you a 1/1 compared to other tutors seems reasonable to me.
I've had this discussion before trying to convince Pauper Tron players to cut their normal countermagic for Muddle the Mixture. The way Pauper Tron is built (or aught to be built) is with a heavy emphasis on fogs. Running 4 copies of Stonehorn Dignitary and 4 copies of Moment's Peace makes it so that their creatures resolving doesn't matter and you can afford to only counter Instants and Sorceries and get to play modal Grim Tutor.
The perception was that doing this is too slow and that Grim Tutor sucks. I think that's wrong and hoping for top decks is slower on average. Literally cheating and drawing the card you need is faster than hoping to draw it off of a top deck or Mulldrifter.
Plus, then you can tutor for circle of protections post board and really stop them from being able to interact with you at all. That's stacking 2 types of cheating together lol.
There is something to be said for:
1.) Versatility. You may pay an extra mana for Dawn Charm or Lull over a one mana fog, but you get much better spells.
2.) Just having the card you need. Not everything is card advantage. If you have 6 lands in your hand your hand is worse than having a single powerful card in your hand. People prefer to be up on card advantage over having the single card that they need.
When Gush and Daze was Pauper legal and Foil was introduced into the format, people would shove Gurmag Anglers and Delvers and be able to cast multiple counters off of little/no mana. And still there were those who said that, "Foil is a bad card, you 3 for 1 yourself!!".
When I copied my friend's Relentless Rats Commander deck, he told me that my deck doesn't want Necropotence. I had a good laugh and put Necropotence in the deck.
So this kind of stuff is why I think that Magic players are in denial about what their best cards are.
Overall I think that even if Imperial Recruiter isn't a 10/10 card, it's still a reasonable one that scales with power level. Not everything has to be min maxed, you can just run cards because they have nice Portal: Three Kingdoms art sometimes or because they do interesting, middle of the road things.
In my cube I can grab Rock Hydra with it. That's exciting. *shrugs*
Ignoring what Magic players say isn't the answer, it's listening to what they have to say and doing the exact opposite that's correct.
This guy might be my favorite:
Listening to people dismiss tutors just confirms to me that all Magic players are denial about what their best cards are.
Free hard counter that you have to discard another blue card to? Literally UNPLAYABLE against fair decks.
Being able to cheat and draw the exact card you need in a game based around randomized decks of cards? I have to pay 3 mana for it and wait a turn?! Ugh, garbage.
These players are why hexproof replaced shroud.
Ignoring what Magic players say isn't the answer, it's listening to what they have to say and doing the exact opposite that's correct.
For the adults in the thread, I'm actually considering a foray into peasant cube after several days thinking about making a list, yay! Here's some cards I saw in a few lists, I think they're a bit weird and could use a word or two on why they see inclusion:
Indulgent Tormentor - kind of a punisher card, but it avoids the Desecration Demon problem because you get both the punishment and the creature. Is it correct to run this at 360, d'you think?
Quest for the Gravelord - kind of puzzling because uncommon creatures already seem efficient enough to avoid jumping through hoops for this one, no?
Hoarding Dragon - seems borderline at best.
Shower of Coals - how good is this really at hitting three relevant targets? Looks like that's the only scenario worth including it for.
Lust for War - I know it's popular here, just wondering if it would shine more in a fast meta or a slower one.
Roar of the Wurm - paying seven for a vanilla 6/6, really? I guess when you reach that kind of mana it actually represents two fatties, but I'm fairly certain the only reason to include this is so you can cheat it into the grave to cast it off the flashback.
Weaver of Lightning - overly defensive statline, but I wonder how well spells-matter works at peasant level and if this is a big help.
Baleful Ammit - ends up as a bad 3/2 lifelinker for three, or ends up killing/nerfing one of your early game dorks. Is either scenario worth playing this?
My Cube (DeckStats)
My Pauper Cube: 540 (CubeTutor link!)
Level 1 Judge
All of those cards seem reasonable, including desecration demon. Punisher cards are well designed cards, I like them a lot.
I can't speak to spells matter so I can't tell you if weaver of Lightning is good, but all of the rest seem like decent spells. I'm not sure what's wrong with them.
Roar of the Wurm is 2 6/6's once you get to 7 mana. Seems good. That was basically my reaction to all of these cards.
Ignoring what Magic players say isn't the answer, it's listening to what they have to say and doing the exact opposite that's correct.
- Weaver of Lightning - I still run this as a spells-matter payoff. It can burn out some smaller cannon fodder/chump blockers that are cluttering up the board, block or burn out small flying creatures, and with a little deathtouch, it can remove much larger threats. It also makes combat math a lot more difficult for opponents - do they block and risk you casting spells to finish off creatures?
- I've never run any of the others because they've never interested me.
2023 Average Peasant Cube|and Discussion
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Indulgent Tormentor is playable, but I wouldn't include it at 360. It's a 5 mana creature that 'dies to removal' (instant and sorcery speed) and it even dies to bolt. It's basically only playable in midrange decks and there are enough better cards for the cost, especially in other colors. I cut it because it's neither very powerful nor needed for anything. Only put it in due to the lack of 5+ cmc creatures in black to begin with.
I mainly run Quest for the Gravelord as payoff for aristocrats style decks, where it's easy to trigger it reliably and quite early. Certainly not needed at 360 and if you don't support that deck I wouldn't play it.
Hoarding Dragon is borderline at best indeed. There aren't that many powerful artifacts in peasant, especially if you don't run the op cards like Skullclamp or Warhammer. Red doesn't really need any 5 cmc creatures either. Wouldn't play at 360. Better 5 cmc cards to run are Charging Monstrosaur, Rite of the Raging Storm or Skizzik (which is not really a 5 cmc card).
Shower of Coals is a powerful card. Peasant has a high density of x/2 already, so hitting two creatures and dealing 2 damage is quite easily possible even without threshold. And the ceiling is a 3 for 1, which is obviously extremely good.
Lust for War is an aggro card for fast decks. So I guess you need a relatively fast cube or it won't work that well. It's a fun card though.
Like you already figured out I run Roar of the Wurm mainly for decks that can discard it into the graveyard - mostly self-mill. A 6/6 for 4 mana you basically get for free is great. As a ramp target it's mediocre at best, rarely ends up in a pure ramp deck in my cube.
Weaver of Lightning is a good card for a spells matter control/midrange deck. Survives almost all the peasant sweepers, is a great blocker and can turn a Firebolt into a Chain Lightning or simply remove a x/1 (and there are plenty of those in peasant).
I have never considered Baleful Ammit. A 3/2 for 3 is bad, even with lifelink. So you need something you can put the counter on without being unhappy about it, which you won't have reliably in most decks. Maybe someone else who played with the card can give you more insight, but I wouldn't play it.
My Old School Battlebox
My Premodern Battlebox
It's a lot like a suspend creature. If it comes down in 3 turns, it's still a 5/5 that you probably spent your do nothing turn 1 on or a spare mana on turn 3.
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
Shower of Coals kills 2 random things and hits face most of the time. If you can get threshold it can be a big swing.
Lust for War can work basically anywhere, but it's matchup dependent outside of aggro.
Weaver of Lightning is mainly a control card in my experience as control decks can have issues with x/1s; we've gotten so many good spells matter's cards it's not always worth a slot in that deck imo. Spells-matter works very well at peasant with Murmuring Mystic/Young Pyromancer/Saheeli, Sublime Artificer. Then there's a bunch of other solid stuff you can play beyond that core which are more deck dependent: Rise from the Tides/Enigma Drake/Weaver of Lightning/Thermo-Alchemist/Pteramander.
I tried Baleful Ammit: it was bad. 4/3 lifelink is a big threat, but it's just too fragile for the cost. Being so horrible against removal and pretty pathetic on an empty board made it feel really bad even with the "right" deck.
Leelue was apt in his description of this as like a suspend creature - however, a lot of suspend creatures have been finding their way out of my c/ube lately, maybe this is going the same way. That said, paying 1 mana for a 5/5 is pretty good no matter when it happens, provided it happens.
I don't play it, largely because it doesn't fit the themes of red in my c/ube. I think it's likely included more often than not because people are trying to diversify their red archetypes beyond aggro, which I can respect.
I think it's good enough if it finds two targets and hits face. I've heard it said that the baseline best way to draft peasant is to just pick as many Man o' Wars as you see (the point being, as many 2-for-1s as you can get) and this card fits that bill.
It's one of the top 5 best aggro cards in the c/ube, IMO, and therefore one of the best red cards. It's deceptively powerful, against anything. Two turns in, it's two Lava Spikes that also blanked a blocker. That's nuts.
Same 2-for-1 argument as before. Notably, ramp is bad in c/ube when you're playing all the best removal you can, so any threat that has to be dealt with twice is valuable.
Spells matter is great in peasant, and it tends to be a control archetype more than an aggro archetype, in my experience, and I think others have found the same.
I'm not super high on it either. Amonkhet in general was a set where I added a record number of cards to my c/ube, an then cut all of them. Unique cards, but the power level wasn't quite there. I think this guy fits that bill.
Draft my Peasant Cube.
Lust for War and Roar of the Wurm are the only ones from the list that I'm playing, and I wouldn't be playing Roar not for a heavy graveyard theme.
I decided to exclude Quest for the Gravelord-- not because it's a bad card, but because I've seen plenty of it in my main cube. It's never been bad, but it's more boring than it looks.
I've never been impressed by the cards of Baleful Ammit's line. From what I've seen, that's the best one, and it's not a very interesting card even when it works. It was good when I tried it in draft, but didn't make me want to try it in cube. This is a card to revisit if -1/-1 counters matter becomes more of a thing.
Lust for War is easy to underestimate. I urge you to try it.
I can't imagine a world where cards like Hoarding Dragon and Indulgent Tormentor are bad. I can easily see not playing them: I'm not playing either. But the power is there. Frankly, I'd rather play a rare over Indulgent Tormentor. It's kinda a mean card, and it doesn't feel very uncommon anyway.
Low-power cube enthusiast!
My 1570 card cube (no longer updated)
My 415 Peasant+ Artifact and Enchantment Cube
Ever-Expanding "Just throw it in" cube.
Do you think they're too good, not good enough? Fun? ******* annoying?
I have a decent amount of powerful lands in my cube since I play all rarities, so I've changed my mind on the odd LD or LD-Lite spell and have sprinkled some back in. Unlike Pauper cube you have more powerful lands than Desert. Maze of Ith or Library of Alexandria, for example.
Ignoring what Magic players say isn't the answer, it's listening to what they have to say and doing the exact opposite that's correct.
I could see Shifting Borders being pretty good, but it's very highly situational. It'll range from 3U: do nothing important to 3U: yer dead, buddy. I've never seen the card used anywhere, so I'll pretend no great knowledge. It seems worth a try at least, particularly if you have powerful nonbasic lands about. Cycling is what the card really needs. This will often be dead in hand, which sucks for a four drop.
Along the lines of "fake" land destruction, my favorite is Spreading Seas. Compare it to the infinitely inferior Geomancer's Gambit. Also, never underestimate Temporal Spring. Land is most commonly the target at least in the early-mid game. It's mostly a tempo card, but such tempo!
If you're actually playing Library of Alexandria (presumably a proxy), typical land destruction like Stone Rain can come to late too stop the easy advantage. Wasteland is really the best solution to that problem. But Library is just a poorly balanced card in general. For super broken lands in a cube setting, I think Bazaar of Baghdad is a lot more interesting. You have to do some work and make some hard decisions to make it worthwhile. Cube isn't Vintage (and it isn't easy to use correctly even there).
My very favorite land disruption cards are Army Ants and Desolation (the latter being rare), but those cards are mean.
Low-power cube enthusiast!
My 1570 card cube (no longer updated)
My 415 Peasant+ Artifact and Enchantment Cube
Ever-Expanding "Just throw it in" cube.
Well you might as well if you're going so far as broken lands, but I don't think that's a very well balanced card for cube either. Again, I think Bazaar is the most balanced card for cube as far as broken lands are concerned.
Diamond Valley is an interesting "broken" card to consider. Pretending it's a dollar, I'd consider it.
Low-power cube enthusiast!
My 1570 card cube (no longer updated)
My 415 Peasant+ Artifact and Enchantment Cube
Ever-Expanding "Just throw it in" cube.
My thinking with Gerrymandering is that it has two modes. Chaos LD, and as a ritual. If you get to 7 lands you'll be able to cast Worldspine Wurm or another huge fatty. Which I'm kind of iffy on, because I want to incentivize using storage lands and mana batteries for ramp, not super rituals. Idk. I'll try it out.
I was a bit iffy and worried that Worldknit might be absurd and then even when I had Tron lands my 75 card deck was real bad.
So next time it comes up in a draft I'll see how it goes. It'll probably be fine.
I don't buy expensive cards. I buy counterfeits instead. Magic cards are just art and text on card stock. As long as the card has the same art and same text it essentially is the real thing. The only clue that they're counterfeits when sleeved is that there is no wear on them.
I'm running both.
Ignoring what Magic players say isn't the answer, it's listening to what they have to say and doing the exact opposite that's correct.
I might cut one for Ghost Quarter. No counterfeiters make the Carl Critchlow 2010 promo Wasteland that I like, and Discension Ghost Quarter looks real nice.
Other" powered" lands I have in my cube:
A card that adds 3 of each Tron land to your draft pool.
Another card that adds 3 Cloud and 3 Glimmerpost.
Diamond Valley
Elephant Graveyard (I have a few Elephants in my cube, at worst it's just a wastes)
Goblin Burrows
Library of Alexandria
Vesuva
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Serra's Sanctum
Mouth of Ronom
Maze of Ith
The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
An assortment of rainbow lands
Ones that I'm considering:
The land that you can pay 4&Tap to become the monarch. Throne of something.
Dark Depths. Seems pretty interesting to actually have to pay 30 mana to summon the ****huge token it makes. I know that this is a Legacy combo deck with Vampire Hexmage, but something I'm really into is using cards as my Lord and Savior Richard Garfield intended.
Ignoring what Magic players say isn't the answer, it's listening to what they have to say and doing the exact opposite that's correct.
Please do not buy counterfits. Get good proxies/alters if you can't stommack playing with simple proxies. Getting cards into the wild that has the potential for being mistaken for the real thing is bad for everyone. And buying counterfits creates demand for an ilicit product, no matter how noble your intentions might be.
Whenever I see someone using the phrase "as Richard Garfield intended", I am reminded about Dr. Garfield's description of one of his favourite decks: It was from before the max 4-of rule, the deck was all Mox Pearls and Shahrazads, and the deck was larger than the 40-card minimum. Basically, the deck sets up a "nested recursive series" of sub-games, each sub-game with slightly smaller libraries, until you finally play a sub-game where your opponent has a zero-card library and looses from decking. They then lose half their life in the "n-1-subgame", and so you keep starting subgames where they deck themselves until they actually lose all their life the "n-1-subgame" and lose half their life in the "n-2-subgame", and so on, until after I don't know how many sub-games they're finally dead.
Cubetutor Peasant'ish-Funbox
Project: Khans of Tarkir Cube (cubetutor)
An absurdly large amount of combos and interactions would be thrown out the window.
I thought I was going to pretend like this guy's posts didnt exist anymore (good advice) but the wild ideas just keep coming.
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article