In my experience with Carrion Feeder, it tends to be a pretty solid card. Your opponent either removes it or every removal and chump from there on out nets you some (small) amount of value. I wouldn't say he's amazing by any means, but he does a job and he does it well. Viscera Seer I would only run if I were trying to support some sort of sacrifice combo. The scry 1 is a bit of value similar to Carrion Feeder, but not enough to warrant inclusion on his own. I don't know if I'll include Vampiric Rites at all, even with trying to support the combo. Not having a free sacrifice means you can't go infinite and tying up two mana to get a small amount of value just doesn't seem worth it to me. I've not played with the card personally, though, so I can't be sure, but that's my thoughts on it at first glance.
I like and run all three, and not for combo reasons. In any game, creatures are going to die. If you're not getting a favorable trade, these all offer alternative value. Even in a 1-for-1 against removal, these offer essentially free value. In aristocrats or combo, they can shine even brighter, but they offer decent value all the time for me.
Carrion Feeder is a good card even when it's just eating removal targets or chump blockers. I'd imagine Viscera Seer is similar but more orientated towards combo/grindy shells.
Vampiric Rites costing 2 to activate massively limits its utility outside of super late game scenarios. With Village Rites being printed I'd have a hard time justifying it outside of very slow environments.
Carrion Feeder is just a decent card in any aggressive deck with creatures.
I had Viscera Seer in my cube for a while to support the sacrifice deck, but the only thing it has going for it is that the sacrifice ability is free. Which isn't enough to warrant an inclusion in most decks.
I didn't play Vampiric Rites for a long time, but I recently added it back as support for the slower, more grindy version of the sacrifice deck. There are now enough Blood Artist variants and sac outlets that the deck works both in WB and RB. I am hopeful that the card will work out well enough in that type of deck when you have lots of creatures that are good for sacrificing and additional upside from Blood Artist variants, but I wouldn't run it in a random midrange deck.
Ok. So I'll try and squeeze in Carrion feeder and use the opportunity to force Promise of Bunrei back in as well. Now that we have weaponize the monsters there's extra incentive for me to look at white for disposable tokens.
Black now has access to three blood artist payoffs for creatures dying, red has spiteful prankster (and hissing iguanaur for people who play strictly worse versions of cards), but what does white have?
Unfortunately white doesn't offer much for the deck as far as variety, but it does offer one of the important cards in Vizier of Remedies. It seems like white will mostly be a splash color and the deck will mostly be some Jund combination with just a few payoff white cards. Given that most of the cards that actually enable the combo (meaning negate the -1/-1 counter on the persist creature) fall in white, this makes me wonder how often the deck will come together and where these new cards end up when the combo pieces just aren't there.
I still think it's at least worth testing, though. I'll do it for science, if nothing else. Here's the changes I'm thinking of making to fit this in. I don't feel like I'm losing too much outside of the two Selesnya multicolor slots.
Vizier of Remedies --> Savannah Lions
Viscera Seer --> Tormented Hero
Bloodthrone Vampire --> Harsh Scrutiny
Putrid Goblin --> Dauthi Horror
Zulaport Cutthroat --> Nezumi Graverobber
Renata, Called to the Hunt --> Phantom Centaur
Mayhem Devil --> Bituminous Blast
Grumgully, the Generous --> Ghor-Clan Rampager
Safehold Elite --> Dryad Militant
Good-Fortune Unicorn --> Behemoth Sledge
Corpse Knight --> Unburial Rites
Cruel Celebrant --> Angel of Despair
Ashnod's Altar --> Mortarpod
Blasting Station --> Breaker of Armies
Lesser Masticore --> Darksteel Sentinel
I wish all archetypes could be equally hated. Or loved, but the former better reflects the mindset of the vocal portion of the player base. My 540ish Peasant Cube on Cubetutor
Black now has access to three blood artist payoffs for creatures dying, red has spiteful prankster (and hissing iguanaur for people who play strictly worse versions of cards), but what does white have?
Oh, and I run Sylvok Lifestaff since the first iteration of my cube and never saw the need to remove it. It's a pretty good card in any token deck that isn't super aggressive and of course it's great in a sacrifice deck as well.
Graf Harvest is obviously inefficient, but if you could expect to have a couple zombies in play over time anyway, can the menace bonus add up to enough value to make up for it?
And while I'm here, I was surprised to see nobody (that I looked at) was running phyrexian reclamation. I'm still running haunted crossroads, but without the premier etb creatures like shriekmaw it isnt' as easy to justify the loss of card advantage.
Graf Harvest is obviously inefficient, but if you could expect to have a couple zombies in play over time anyway, can the menace bonus add up to enough value to make up for it?
And while I'm here, I was surprised to see nobody (that I looked at) was running phyrexian reclamation. I'm still running haunted crossroads, but without the premier etb creatures like shriekmaw it isnt' as easy to justify the loss of card advantage.
I've been pretty happy with Season of Growth with 6 things that trigger the draw in green. It generates pretty insane value in bant blink shells with stuff like Ephemerate and Repulse. Outside of blink I'm fairly confident it's good, but it's a bit hard to say since the scry 1 has pretty inconsistent value and you often need to go a bit out of your way to get draw triggers (buffs/auras are often aggressive while the card itself is grindy, or getting draws out of bounce/split burn often has a gameplay cost).
Did anyone talk about siege striker when preview season was rolling around? A 2/2 double strike would be on the strong side, and the amount of work it would take to get this guy there isn't too rough. I don't know offhand how often this happens, but whenever your 1 or 2 drop gets outclassed he becomes 4 hard to block damage.
Ultimately, am I wrong to I imagine it as a mediocre card with a very large ceiling? Any of the flying token producers turn him into an abyss (since those tokens only block somewhat rarely anyway). And while he can't block as a 2/2 it would seem like on the whole it's about the combined value of a splatter thug.
I prefer the flying 1/1 double strikers for that 3-drop slot still, despite the double white. Evasion is just so important for that kind of thing which relies on explosive damage. In draft, Siege Striker was pretty nice and that definitely improved my impression of it but I think I would still be hard-pressed to try and justify its inclusion when that slot is not exactly wanting for options.
Though, if you just treat Siege Striker as a - well - battering ram against a clogged board and generic aggro dude, I suppose he might still be one of the better options for white 3-drops. Hmm. Maybe I have been too focused on the double striker analogy in terms of that 'archetype'.
I prefer the flying 1/1 double strikers for that 3-drop slot still, despite the double white. Evasion is just so important for that kind of thing which relies on explosive damage. In draft, Siege Striker was pretty nice and that definitely improved my impression of it but I think I would still be hard-pressed to try and justify its inclusion when that slot is not exactly wanting for options.
Though, if you just treat Siege Striker as a - well - battering ram against a clogged board and generic aggro dude, I suppose he might still be one of the better options for white 3-drops. Hmm. Maybe I have been too focused on the double striker analogy in terms of that 'archetype'.
It's mostly a role-player: you don't want it unless you support archetypes which mesh with it. I have not had an issue and it being something of a low pick for others also means you can trust to have a decent chance of wheeling it. Of course, in the late game, the Megamorph can have some value even if the rate is pretty terrible by itself, even when split in two. I'd say that if I was considering some cut for Siege Striker, Aven Sunstriker would likely be among the main candidates still.
Magmaw vs. Havoc Jester, any thoughts?
I am currently running the jester since Magmaw is really subpar the turn you play it vs. the "I win" factor if you resolve Jester with a free sac outlet on the board. Plus 4/4 vs 5/5 is a not insignificant difference.
Has anyone tried or had success trying a version of persist combo at peasant? We lose out on a couple decent combo pieces (Anafenza and Melira), but for the most part it's a bunch of common and uncommon cards. I'll also admit that it's a clunky combo and probably a clunky deck.
If you don't know what the combo is it looks like this:
If your sac outlet happens to be Goblin Bombardment or if your persist creature happens to be Murderous Redcap, then it doubles as your payoff and makes the combo a bit less clunky (but only just a bit).
Ideally you would be able to include enough pieces that are good in multiple decks that you could reasonable support it across four colors (WBRG), so it's easier to come together.
Anyway, I was just noticing that the deck is mostly peasant legal and wondered if anyone here had given it a shot or is currently running it. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts and experiences with the archetype.
I had the deck come together during a 2 player draft. My deck contained the following pieces:
Persist: Kitchen Finks and Murderous Redcap
+1/+1 counter: Renata and Rhytm of the wild
Sac outlets: Goblin Bombardment and Carrion Feeder.
I also had Demonic Tutor, to help assembling the combo. The rest of the deck were decent creatures and removal, so the deck was capable of winning without assembling the combo.
I think we played 3 games. Given only two pieces of each kind, I was a bit lucky to assemble it twice. In the first game my wife had leathal, but didn't really know the combo and she thought she had control. The second time I would probably have won anyway due to overwhelming board pressence.
Her deck was an agressive BR, and she won of Weaponize the monsters in one game. This made us realize that those cards have slightly different uses. Goblin Bombardment is better for persist combo and gaining value against control decks as you don't need to hold up mana. Weaponize the Monsters is a great finisher for creature/token heavy aggressive decks.
Our cube is only 200 cards, and supporting persist combo is easier as most of the pieces are strong enough for any non-combo deck.
Finally settled on all my changes. Today. I had to increase my cube by a little to accommodate everything.
I also have a lengthy write-up to make, to explain why certain cards are back in after like 5 years of being gone (capsize), what's experimental, what cards just missed the cut, etc.
I noticed that there were three archetypes that could flourish if I put a little more work into them: decks that want to play in the very late game, graveyard synergy builds, and artistocrats.
For the late-game decks, I saw a lack of an ability to close the game out if the first pelakka wurm didn't get there. So I turned to recursive threats. Reaching waaay back into the past, I think capsize and Sprout Swarm will both be successful in the new environment thanks to how much mana these decks can generate and how solidly they can survive the midgame nowadays. The matches I witnessed before the update sometimes involved the non-ramp player merely out-topdecking their opponents thanks to some decent 4 drop or flyer, and cards like these should keep that possibility in check. Voracious Typhon is in as an experiment to serve as another form of inevitability as well. Lastly, Bonder's ornament and Ulvenwald captive are in to reduce the odds that you "draw the wrong half of the deck", since they are serviceable in both stages of the game.
Note- Season of growth is probably the next green card for me to test, since I have sprout swarm, imperious perfect, and squirrel nest all in at once.
The graveyard deck additions don't need explanation, but I will take the time to acknowledge that deep analysis got cut anyway.
Curse of Predation
I really like curse of predation. I really do. But I finally had to cut it. Besides the fact that it naturally... well... does what we all know it does, with all the +1/+1 counter synergy that just got added to the cube I knew it was only going to dominate more. Jiang Yanggu, wildcrafter and song of freyalise are going to have to make up the difference.
Curse of Shallow Graves
By a very slim margin, curse of shallow graves lives to see another day. Most recently it stood alongside Liliana's devotee and thoughtpicker witch for some of the most disgusting, soul crushing, games I've seen in a while... but I can't help but be a little fond of a machine like that. Furthermore, since I added a little more removal, removed the other curse, and made red a touch narrower in scope, I felt like straightforward aggro might need a real 10/10 to hang its hat on.
Mulldrifter
A card I once cut for being "too strong", I think the rest of blue has finally caught up with him. Both serra sphinx and Shipwreck dowser provide adequate competition for him in different decks, and the cards in blue with higher cmcs can all be reasonable choices over it in the right cases. I'm really glad to return to the mainstream on this one.
Ravenous Chupacabra
Black had accidentally fallen behind red and white as far as spot removal was concerned, while with this update green was getting more giant men added to the list. I ended up painted somewhat into a corner on this one since black's hard removal is frustratingly inconsistent thanks to the scars it carries from the past (color restrictions, heartless act, etc) and I really won't stand for that. Cast down would push out cards like murderous cut and Ob Nixilis's Cruelty, but chupacabra at least has the "downsides" of being only middling in aggro and not being as splashable as those options. So Chupacabra makes it into my cube for the first time. For now, at least. (EDIT: The new sorcery that also hits enchantments is going in my cube, and I dont know if that means I will be ending this experiment early or not).
Serendib Efreet
Something tells me that I'm cheating my philosophy by including this. I tried to talk myself into arguments for how I could include every other blue 3 drop in some theoretical deck over him, but I'm not sure how much I was lying to myself to stretch some of those. If it is indeed true, and feel free to call me out on this one, he will probably be replaced by latch seeker.
Omenspeaker and Sea Gate Oracle
I love blue aggro more than I love most of the people in my life, but an honest assessment of my cube showed me that I was being unfairly biased against giving blue control the tools it needs to survive. Tetsuko umezawa, fugitive is sitting out because I included these guys, which is a shame, but I think that in order to not compromise an entire core strategy of Magic I had to throw control both of these bones.
Tribal stuff Wildwood Tracker, Pouncing shoreshark and company unfortunately are a lot like wild nacatl thanks to how color skewed my human distribution is. Almost half of my red creatures are humans, but one only one fifth of my black creatures are. In green, it's one ninth. So while I like both of the aforementioned cards, I hate how stupid this restriction is outside of ikoria limited.
Other tribal effects on the other hand I decided to finally loosen my grip on. Historically I never liked how seemingly arbitrary tribal things are in cu/be, but I felt like I would be doing myself a disservice by not including liliana's devotee, which opened the door for imperious perfect to be tested again. Moving forward, I think I can see myself including cards that don't swing wildly in function based on whether or not the tribe is in play, which is why I am finally giving it a go with Chandra, novice pyromancer.
Archfiend's Vessel and a mini graveyard package
I'm pretty sure this card secretly very good for us. I was already curious about call of the death-dweller since it was spoiled and being able to bring back a 2 drop (with 2 keywords) alongside a 5/5 flyer has to be value. It's an excuse for me to reintroduce unearth and to test vesperlark. And while we're here, call of the death dweller pairs well with grim initiate (I assume an uncommon grim initiate with deathtouch probably would cost 5 mana in a modern set). If anyone didn't notice, fireslinger and cunning sparkmage like the reanimation spell and can even kill themselves to accelerate the process.
Control magic effects
This was another holdup for me, since I kept waffling on whether or not mind control is stronger than the other blue high drops by enough that it violated my policies. Once I decided that it was probably true, I had a lot to choose from in the C tier of these effects: Lay claim, volition reins, even vapor snare. I am probably open to adding any of these as a third choice in the future, but for now I am going to run with domestication and binding grasp (a card I forgot existed).
2 card combos
I remain skeptical about keeping pestilence in alongside lashknife barrier, but I will allow it since both cards sorta "do nothing" the turns they come in and then you have to pour more mana into it just to make it work. Pyrohemia is very close to making it in again as I push red control a little further than before but that added pressure may end up kicking lashknife barrier if it is indeed too annoying to see this pairing twice as often.
However, there was one 2 card combo that I noticed a couple days ago that single-handedly kept me from posting this update until I figured out what to do with it. It's only a concern for the peasant+ crowd, but time of ice and nesting grounds are probably wholly unfair on the same board. Nesting ground was sort of a pet card for me, but I think this combo is ultimately too degenerate. Nesting ground also was ripe for abuse alongside murderous redcap (basically scoop city for most opponents if they don't have removal even before you add a sac outlet to the mix).
Can we all give our thoughts and prayers to cubetutor? I only made the change to cubecobra because I am under the impression that cubetutor may collapse any given month, but it had superior AI aaaaand I will miss my personal URL only being 3 digits long (274).
Searching for something, I accidentally ran into the most me sentence possible: "For every extra playable hybrid card, the possible combinations of hybrids for the system go up geometrically."
Sheesh
Fresh off the sting of all four of my cubes being rejected by a new playgroup in favor of "reanimate griselbrand on 2 is a better way to play magic", I was not enthused to see this old post of mine (The context is that I had a game group together that claimed to know how to play magic. Someone played rogue elephant on turn 1 with no plan and someone else played standstill while behind on board. Both players quit after game 1 and never played with me again. "Inscho, while you're right about the playgroup... I've been waiting years to get one together. This was really disheartening. I'm probably not going to have another chance."
...in 2014.
Well, I guess I'll wait and see what 2026 has in store.
Stuck on mobile so i can't reply directly to the best bits (**** phone posting), just wanted to say that i appreciate your contributions as always Leelue. The ppps in particular stung and I'm sorry to hear that.
The fact that people tell me that they appreciate it makes me take my posts more seriously. It's a positive feedback loop, I suppose.
For example, I'm still mad at myself for not fact checking the expected number of swamps in play on turn 8 for Defile. But I carry those sorts of setbacks as motivation.
Oh, I forgot to mention that I have enjoyed the snow cards (despite the fact that snow is a profoundly bad mechanic outside of their native draft formats), but the extreme effect that a card like Conifer Wurm has on the game when all the lands are snow might bee a little too silly.
yeah leelue, you have probably the most thorough posts around. i don't read a lot of walls of text these days, but yours are definitely in that minority.
also i am frustrated by snow, because i want it to work, but can't find a way for it to work. i hate the basic snow lands idea because then there is no cost to them. i love how drafting snow lands is a legit thing in their environment, but it's a horrible idea for cube.
In my experience with Carrion Feeder, it tends to be a pretty solid card. Your opponent either removes it or every removal and chump from there on out nets you some (small) amount of value. I wouldn't say he's amazing by any means, but he does a job and he does it well. Viscera Seer I would only run if I were trying to support some sort of sacrifice combo. The scry 1 is a bit of value similar to Carrion Feeder, but not enough to warrant inclusion on his own. I don't know if I'll include Vampiric Rites at all, even with trying to support the combo. Not having a free sacrifice means you can't go infinite and tying up two mana to get a small amount of value just doesn't seem worth it to me. I've not played with the card personally, though, so I can't be sure, but that's my thoughts on it at first glance.
MTGS Average Peasant Cube 2023 Edition
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2023 Average Peasant Cube|and Discussion
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Vampiric Rites costing 2 to activate massively limits its utility outside of super late game scenarios. With Village Rites being printed I'd have a hard time justifying it outside of very slow environments.
I had Viscera Seer in my cube for a while to support the sacrifice deck, but the only thing it has going for it is that the sacrifice ability is free. Which isn't enough to warrant an inclusion in most decks.
I didn't play Vampiric Rites for a long time, but I recently added it back as support for the slower, more grindy version of the sacrifice deck. There are now enough Blood Artist variants and sac outlets that the deck works both in WB and RB. I am hopeful that the card will work out well enough in that type of deck when you have lots of creatures that are good for sacrificing and additional upside from Blood Artist variants, but I wouldn't run it in a random midrange deck.
My Old School Battlebox
My Premodern Battlebox
Black now has access to three blood artist payoffs for creatures dying, red has spiteful prankster (and hissing iguanaur for people who play strictly worse versions of cards), but what does white have?
Daxos, blessed by the sun
Answered Prayers
Goldnight Commander/Valor in Akros?
Sheesh, for the little creature color wizards hasn't printed a lot by the way of payoffs for those creatures being born.
And I guess if anyone still would consider Galvanic Juggernaut, he appreciates this deck.
Or for a real flashback, sylvok lifestaff.
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
I still think it's at least worth testing, though. I'll do it for science, if nothing else. Here's the changes I'm thinking of making to fit this in. I don't feel like I'm losing too much outside of the two Selesnya multicolor slots.
Vizier of Remedies --> Savannah Lions
Viscera Seer --> Tormented Hero
Bloodthrone Vampire --> Harsh Scrutiny
Putrid Goblin --> Dauthi Horror
Zulaport Cutthroat --> Nezumi Graverobber
Renata, Called to the Hunt --> Phantom Centaur
Mayhem Devil --> Bituminous Blast
Grumgully, the Generous --> Ghor-Clan Rampager
Safehold Elite --> Dryad Militant
Good-Fortune Unicorn --> Behemoth Sledge
Corpse Knight --> Unburial Rites
Cruel Celebrant --> Angel of Despair
Ashnod's Altar --> Mortarpod
Blasting Station --> Breaker of Armies
Lesser Masticore --> Darksteel Sentinel
MTGS Average Peasant Cube 2023 Edition
Follow me. I tweet.
I like that Lifestaff synergizes well with the new Silversmote Ghoul.
My 540ish Peasant Cube on Cubetutor
Black has access to four Blood Artists (Blood Artist, Zulaport Cutthroat, Bastion of Remembrance and Falkenrath Noble).
White has all the great token cards, including cards like Promise of Bunrei and Belfry Spirit, which work exceptionally well in a sacrifice deck. And you get a good selection of cards in the Orzhov section, like Maw of the Obzedat, Hidden Stockpile, Corpse Knight (I play the misprint as if it was the real card), Cruel Celebrant and of course Lingering Souls.
Oh, and I run Sylvok Lifestaff since the first iteration of my cube and never saw the need to remove it. It's a pretty good card in any token deck that isn't super aggressive and of course it's great in a sacrifice deck as well.
My Old School Battlebox
My Premodern Battlebox
And while I'm here, I was surprised to see nobody (that I looked at) was running phyrexian reclamation. I'm still running haunted crossroads, but without the premier etb creatures like shriekmaw it isnt' as easy to justify the loss of card advantage.
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
I'm running Phyrexian Reclamation and it probably gave me several wins in a BG deck a few weeks ago. The deck had Phyrexian Reclamarion, Curse of shallow graves, Rotwidow Pack, Spider spawning, a couple other spiders, Shriekmaw and a total of 18 creatures.
/
I suppose that since stitcher's supplier has not flamed out of my list could I suddenly consider... hedron crab for self-mill? And Iceberg cancrix? They would happen to give the potential solo-win conditions I'm not running (teferi's tutelage and psychic spiral) a couple of friends.
It's 8am and I need some sleep I suppose. Talking crazy.
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
Ultimately, am I wrong to I imagine it as a mediocre card with a very large ceiling? Any of the flying token producers turn him into an abyss (since those tokens only block somewhat rarely anyway). And while he can't block as a 2/2 it would seem like on the whole it's about the combined value of a splatter thug.
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
Though, if you just treat Siege Striker as a - well - battering ram against a clogged board and generic aggro dude, I suppose he might still be one of the better options for white 3-drops. Hmm. Maybe I have been too focused on the double striker analogy in terms of that 'archetype'.
How has Aven Sunstriker performed for those who run it?
And how's the update going? :-D
I am currently running the jester since Magmaw is really subpar the turn you play it vs. the "I win" factor if you resolve Jester with a free sac outlet on the board. Plus 4/4 vs 5/5 is a not insignificant difference.
I had the deck come together during a 2 player draft. My deck contained the following pieces:
Persist: Kitchen Finks and Murderous Redcap
+1/+1 counter: Renata and Rhytm of the wild
Sac outlets: Goblin Bombardment and Carrion Feeder.
I also had Demonic Tutor, to help assembling the combo. The rest of the deck were decent creatures and removal, so the deck was capable of winning without assembling the combo.
I think we played 3 games. Given only two pieces of each kind, I was a bit lucky to assemble it twice. In the first game my wife had leathal, but didn't really know the combo and she thought she had control. The second time I would probably have won anyway due to overwhelming board pressence.
Her deck was an agressive BR, and she won of Weaponize the monsters in one game. This made us realize that those cards have slightly different uses. Goblin Bombardment is better for persist combo and gaining value against control decks as you don't need to hold up mana. Weaponize the Monsters is a great finisher for creature/token heavy aggressive decks.
Our cube is only 200 cards, and supporting persist combo is easier as most of the pieces are strong enough for any non-combo deck.
Finally settled on all my changes. Today. I had to increase my cube by a little to accommodate everything.
I also have a lengthy write-up to make, to explain why certain cards are back in after like 5 years of being gone (capsize), what's experimental, what cards just missed the cut, etc.
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
https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/5f4c7bcfda93e330d65628ce
I noticed that there were three archetypes that could flourish if I put a little more work into them: decks that want to play in the very late game, graveyard synergy builds, and artistocrats.
For the late-game decks, I saw a lack of an ability to close the game out if the first pelakka wurm didn't get there. So I turned to recursive threats. Reaching waaay back into the past, I think capsize and Sprout Swarm will both be successful in the new environment thanks to how much mana these decks can generate and how solidly they can survive the midgame nowadays. The matches I witnessed before the update sometimes involved the non-ramp player merely out-topdecking their opponents thanks to some decent 4 drop or flyer, and cards like these should keep that possibility in check. Voracious Typhon is in as an experiment to serve as another form of inevitability as well. Lastly, Bonder's ornament and Ulvenwald captive are in to reduce the odds that you "draw the wrong half of the deck", since they are serviceable in both stages of the game.
Note- Season of growth is probably the next green card for me to test, since I have sprout swarm, imperious perfect, and squirrel nest all in at once.
The graveyard deck additions don't need explanation, but I will take the time to acknowledge that deep analysis got cut anyway.
For aristocrats, I pushed red very hard into this direction. There are a lot of individually questionable cards here that hopefully piece together into a cohesive whole: three more threatens, Grim initiate, Chained brute, and Heartfire. Imperial recruiter also returns and weaponize the monsters makes its debut. As mentioned earlier this year, white doesn't help much beyond providing the tokens, but I included daxos, blessed by the sun and kept answered prayers in for the deck as well.
Side note- Bringing in these threatens makes ghostly flicker just a little cooler.
//
Individual cards:
Curse of Predation
I really like curse of predation. I really do. But I finally had to cut it. Besides the fact that it naturally... well... does what we all know it does, with all the +1/+1 counter synergy that just got added to the cube I knew it was only going to dominate more. Jiang Yanggu, wildcrafter and song of freyalise are going to have to make up the difference.
Curse of Shallow Graves
By a very slim margin, curse of shallow graves lives to see another day. Most recently it stood alongside Liliana's devotee and thoughtpicker witch for some of the most disgusting, soul crushing, games I've seen in a while... but I can't help but be a little fond of a machine like that. Furthermore, since I added a little more removal, removed the other curse, and made red a touch narrower in scope, I felt like straightforward aggro might need a real 10/10 to hang its hat on.
Mulldrifter
A card I once cut for being "too strong", I think the rest of blue has finally caught up with him. Both serra sphinx and Shipwreck dowser provide adequate competition for him in different decks, and the cards in blue with higher cmcs can all be reasonable choices over it in the right cases. I'm really glad to return to the mainstream on this one.
Ravenous Chupacabra
Black had accidentally fallen behind red and white as far as spot removal was concerned, while with this update green was getting more giant men added to the list. I ended up painted somewhat into a corner on this one since black's hard removal is frustratingly inconsistent thanks to the scars it carries from the past (color restrictions, heartless act, etc) and I really won't stand for that. Cast down would push out cards like murderous cut and Ob Nixilis's Cruelty, but chupacabra at least has the "downsides" of being only middling in aggro and not being as splashable as those options. So Chupacabra makes it into my cube for the first time. For now, at least. (EDIT: The new sorcery that also hits enchantments is going in my cube, and I dont know if that means I will be ending this experiment early or not).
Serendib Efreet
Something tells me that I'm cheating my philosophy by including this. I tried to talk myself into arguments for how I could include every other blue 3 drop in some theoretical deck over him, but I'm not sure how much I was lying to myself to stretch some of those. If it is indeed true, and feel free to call me out on this one, he will probably be replaced by latch seeker.
Omenspeaker and Sea Gate Oracle
I love blue aggro more than I love most of the people in my life, but an honest assessment of my cube showed me that I was being unfairly biased against giving blue control the tools it needs to survive. Tetsuko umezawa, fugitive is sitting out because I included these guys, which is a shame, but I think that in order to not compromise an entire core strategy of Magic I had to throw control both of these bones.
Tribal stuff
Wildwood Tracker, Pouncing shoreshark and company unfortunately are a lot like wild nacatl thanks to how color skewed my human distribution is. Almost half of my red creatures are humans, but one only one fifth of my black creatures are. In green, it's one ninth. So while I like both of the aforementioned cards, I hate how stupid this restriction is outside of ikoria limited.
Other tribal effects on the other hand I decided to finally loosen my grip on. Historically I never liked how seemingly arbitrary tribal things are in cu/be, but I felt like I would be doing myself a disservice by not including liliana's devotee, which opened the door for imperious perfect to be tested again. Moving forward, I think I can see myself including cards that don't swing wildly in function based on whether or not the tribe is in play, which is why I am finally giving it a go with Chandra, novice pyromancer.
Archfiend's Vessel and a mini graveyard package
I'm pretty sure this card secretly very good for us. I was already curious about call of the death-dweller since it was spoiled and being able to bring back a 2 drop (with 2 keywords) alongside a 5/5 flyer has to be value. It's an excuse for me to reintroduce unearth and to test vesperlark. And while we're here, call of the death dweller pairs well with grim initiate (I assume an uncommon grim initiate with deathtouch probably would cost 5 mana in a modern set). If anyone didn't notice, fireslinger and cunning sparkmage like the reanimation spell and can even kill themselves to accelerate the process.
Control magic effects
This was another holdup for me, since I kept waffling on whether or not mind control is stronger than the other blue high drops by enough that it violated my policies. Once I decided that it was probably true, I had a lot to choose from in the C tier of these effects: Lay claim, volition reins, even vapor snare. I am probably open to adding any of these as a third choice in the future, but for now I am going to run with domestication and binding grasp (a card I forgot existed).
2 card combos
I remain skeptical about keeping pestilence in alongside lashknife barrier, but I will allow it since both cards sorta "do nothing" the turns they come in and then you have to pour more mana into it just to make it work. Pyrohemia is very close to making it in again as I push red control a little further than before but that added pressure may end up kicking lashknife barrier if it is indeed too annoying to see this pairing twice as often.
However, there was one 2 card combo that I noticed a couple days ago that single-handedly kept me from posting this update until I figured out what to do with it. It's only a concern for the peasant+ crowd, but time of ice and nesting grounds are probably wholly unfair on the same board. Nesting ground was sort of a pet card for me, but I think this combo is ultimately too degenerate. Nesting ground also was ripe for abuse alongside murderous redcap (basically scoop city for most opponents if they don't have removal even before you add a sac outlet to the mix).
Mind Control (likely outclasses serra sphinx and/or shipwreck dowser, the latter I really want to play with)
Diregraf Ghoul and Dryad Militant (outclassed by icehide golem)
Dismember (outclasses like a third of all kill spells.)
Flame Slash (outclassed by skred)
P.S.s
"For every extra playable hybrid card, the possible combinations of hybrids for the system go up geometrically."
Sheesh
"Inscho, while you're right about the playgroup... I've been waiting years to get one together. This was really disheartening. I'm probably not going to have another chance."
...in 2014.
Well, I guess I'll wait and see what 2026 has in store.
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
Draft it on Cubetutor here, and CubeCobra here.
Treasure Cruise did nothing wrong.
For example, I'm still mad at myself for not fact checking the expected number of swamps in play on turn 8 for Defile. But I carry those sorts of setbacks as motivation.
Oh, I forgot to mention that I have enjoyed the snow cards (despite the fact that snow is a profoundly bad mechanic outside of their native draft formats), but the extreme effect that a card like Conifer Wurm has on the game when all the lands are snow might bee a little too silly.
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
also i am frustrated by snow, because i want it to work, but can't find a way for it to work. i hate the basic snow lands idea because then there is no cost to them. i love how drafting snow lands is a legit thing in their environment, but it's a horrible idea for cube.