I realize I forgot to even mention a few cards like Soulherder which I think I might use in place of Reflector Mage. However, looking at the pre-prerelease, Quakefoot Cyclops also caught my eye. Opinions on it? Both versions are pretty solid, even if its ETB does little unless you have means to attack that turn. Given how many Haste enablers there are, though, there is a decent chance even the cyclops itself will get to attack. The cycling makes it so much better than the other similar card we had, I'd say.
Edit: The card I had in mind is Seismic Elemental. It is a bit like a better combination of the good sides of that and Glarewielder, even if the card has no native haste.
Markov Warlord is also quite similar. I like the cycling on the cyclops, but I'm not sure it really adds up to a cubable card. Maybe for lower power cubes. There's also the issue of having too many effects like that being bad for interactive gameplay. If you only run a limited number of this effect, you can probably find better than cyclops.
I mean, the difference between five mana with a cheaper alternative form and six mana is definitely significant for an effect like that. I am unlikely to run the cyclops, given the options I already prefer, but it seems head and shoulders above similar cards in red. Since Seismic Elemental made some waves when it arrived, I was mostly wondering about how the cyclops had been received with complete silence.
Based on pre-prerelease, I think Gluttonous Slug is definitely cementing itself. What I realised while looking at the game play is just how versatile the card is. It already gets pretty crazy for its cost if you drop at least two creatures with a power of at least 2, but the huge butt ensures that it can work as a stabilising ground clogger in a pinch. Thus, both aggressive and more controlling (but not creatureless control) decks should be pretty happy to run the card. It might get removed as things are getting to be good but the investment would still be fairly small, and it does not take *that* long to start doing things, unlike actually sluggish cards.
Did all of us except for PurpleM forget that augury owl is a thing? Do enough people play that card to warrant playing a strictly worse one?
Strictly worse? A one-drop can't be strictly worse than a two-drop, by virtue of costing half the mana. It comes down a turn earlier, swings earlier, and, if bounced back to hand (by something like Ninja of the Deep Hours), it can be squeezed in with another spell on a later turn much easier.
Seer is a 1-drop, Owl is a 2-drop. Seer seems very significantly better due to the CMC -- not sure it's actually GOOD enough, but definitely an upgrade on the Owl
Well, I cant play it in black (so no hybrid) and I would never play it in monoblue, so dimir.
It's just murder for 1UB, with upside of sometimes not requiring you to have B in order to make a difference.
So in a way, it's like putrefy or mortify: a gold murder with upside. Except the upside is much lower, and it doesnt quite always even get to be murder.
In my opinion clearly better than Juniper Order Ranger. This is one of those effects that become (much) better the sooner you can cast them. Juniper Order Ranger is usually one of the last cards you will play before you get into top deck mode. This one is not.
To me this is the best card of the set for CU/be. It's an auto include for anyone who supports the blink/bounce/flicker archetype. You get a free etb effect and a growing creature each turn and Soulherder is even resilient against sorcery speed removal (kind of). With a Wall of Omens out you get a better version of Phyrexian Rager the turn you cast it and it can get really out of hand from there if it doesn't get removed.
Ephemerate is more or less strictly better than Cloudshift, so it's an easy switch. Cloudshift was borderline playable only, this is very decent value and won't leave my cube anytime soon. Again using the Wall of Omens example this can be a one mana instant speed Divination quite easily.
I like Faerie Seer a lot more than Omenspeaker. There aren't that many creatures a vanilla 1/3 can block without dying anyway these days and a 1/1 flyer can at least trade with 2/1 flyers or block a Hypnotic Specter for a turn. No need to say that the difference between 1 and 2 mana is huge as well.
Etb tapped is a bit of a shame, otherwise it would be a blue version of Sakura-Tribe Elder. I imagine it's still a very good card overall and obviously this is yet another great addition for the blink deck.
I'm not entirely sure about this card, but I think it may be better than some people think it is. I can see it play well both in sacrifice decks with creatures that want to die/cheap tokens or in aggressive decks where you can't really do much with your Carnophage or Jackal Pup on turn 5+ unless you win anyway. If you sac two creatures (and use convoke to cast the Feaster) it's a 7/7 flyer for four mana.
It's risky, but in creature heavy decks your opponent often won't have any answers left late in the game as only very few cards can actually deal with a black creature of that size. On top of that you still have the alternative to simply cast it as a 3/3 with convoke and black doesn't exactly have a wide selection of large, playable creatures.
As far as I can tell many people seem to think this is the best card of the set. I disagree. I believe it will mostly work like a slightly harder to cast Scrapper Champion. And while Scrapper Champion is a very decent card it doesn't stand out and I don't need another one in white.
If you play him in a typical aggro deck with lots of creatures and one drops you will still most of the time not be able to cast him before turn 4 (just like Scrapper Champion). Creature types overlap a lot (humans/soldiers/warriors etc) and if you play with old border cards and don't want to use oracle text you often only get a single creature type anyway. So getting four different creature types on the start of turn three will only rarely happen (if you don't have enough one drops like many people it will almost never happen actually).
If you draw it late and have a board that allows you to cast it for very cheap WW you probably don't need the mana reduction anymore anyway since you're playing aggro and don't have anything else you want to cast on your hand.
But the real reason to play a double strike creature are voltron/pants decks that run a lot of equipment and/or pump effects/auras/anthems. And here Changeling is even worse since these decks tend to run only relatively few creatures and no aggro one drops. You are probably happy if you can play him for 2WW on turn four in such a deck.
I think the comparison with Flower//Flourish that was made doesn't do it justice. Flourish gives each creature +2/+2, that means you have to assume the average creature you have is 4/2 when probably most creatures in a deck that wants a team pump spell like this are 1/1 or 2/2 at best (mana dorks, tokens, utility creatures).
I also disagree that you need a specific boardstate to use it. I hear this often in combination with cards like Overrun, but you don't need to kill your opponent immediately to get value out of a card like that. If he either needs to sacrifice blockers to prevent a game loss or if his life total goes down to burn range (even if you don't run red) that's enough reason to attack.
The only reason why I don't run Scale Up is that there are more than enough more interesting or outright better team pump effects in green (Song of Freyalise, Great Oak Guardian or Overrun for example) and I don't need another one.
I ran Alpha Orcish Artillery (with 1R casting cost) for a while and if I wanted to run this effect I would have used Alpha Oriflamme. I think it's always hard for non-creature effects like this to break into creature heavy decks since you can only run so few of them. Anything below standard anthem (+1/+1 all the time for 3 mana) isn't good enough for me.
Blue card draw is a bit like red burn - there is more than enough quality to choose from. Still, this could be actually a very decent card advantage engine in a control deck.
:/ I play blink and don't intend to play Soulherder It just feels like its only good in blink while playing some UW ETB creatures with reasonable bodies of their own are much more universal.
On second thoughts I don't think I'll add Watcher for Tomorrow because it's super annoying to have a card under my card like that I like to avoid annoying mechanics.
Yeah but I don't like energy so I don't have scrapper champion. Also, it's specifically my artifact/equipment deck that is best able to get lots of different creature types which is always where a double striker is good. Its an interesting comparison with Auriok Edgewright.
Okay, you have convinced me I'll try out the slug, my black tends to be more defensive.
Any thoughts on any of the new ninjas? Do any of these make a ninja archetype more viable?
There are like 1-3 playable ninjas (Ninja of the Deep Hours, Throat Slitter and maybe Okiba-Gang Shinobi?) and the Modern Horizons c/u ninjas are all worse than those. I think we are 4-5 ninja tribal sets away from a ninja archetype.
Of course you can make a tribal cube where even the bad ninjas are playable, but I guess that was not the question.
:/ I play blink and don't intend to play Soulherder It just feels like its only good in blink while playing some UW ETB creatures with reasonable bodies of their own are much more universal.
On second thoughts I don't think I'll add Watcher for Tomorrow because it's super annoying to have a card under my card like that I like to avoid annoying mechanics.
25% of the white and 40% of blue creatures in my cube have an etb effect - and almost all of them even have an effect that I would consider very powerful if it gets repeated every turn. I think that's no different in most other cubes. If you consider that a deck that wants Soulherder (midrange) doesn't want pure aggro cards the overall percentage of possible creature draft picks is probably more like 50%.
That's why I think Soulherder is perfectly playable in almost all Azorius midrange decks you can possibly draft as all you need are 5+ creatures with a nice etb effect. It's pretty much impossible to draft a deck that doesn't have at least 5 of those creatures. On top of that you get synergies with all those exile cards in white, such as Oblivion Ring, Path to Exile and the like.
I hate annoying mechanics myself (such as flip cards), but putting a card under another card is annoying? So auras are annoying as well? Not sure I understand, but to each his own.
:/ I play blink and don't intend to play Soulherder It just feels like its only good in blink while playing some UW ETB creatures with reasonable bodies of their own are much more universal.
I will be trying out Soulherder, but I think the floor is pretty low. The main thing for me is that it does absolutely nothing on its own. I feel a lot of W/U decks may not have a creature out until turn 3, and playing this as your first creature is really bad. That said, the upside is really high. I feel like getting any two good ETB effects off of Soulherder is well worth the mana.
All in all, I am weary of a card that requires specific other cards to be worth it, because I have no interest in a card that kind of plays as a Azorius Bounding Krasis where you get an okay body and to untap a creature to block.
Repulse -> Ghostly Flicker: Going to go deeper on flickering with a few of the cards in this set so I'm going to put this back in. Repulse is probably better on average but Flicker is more degenerate. More or Less -> Watcher for Tomorrow: Couldn't find a creature I wanted to swap this with, so I decided since to remove some cute jank instead. Weapon Surge -> Goblin Oriflamme: The blow-out potential on Weapon Surge is higher, but I think I prefer the consistency of the Oriflame. Darkthicket Wolf -> Saddled Rimestag: There's some fun "threat of activation" gameplay being lost here, but Rimestag is going to be more efficient as a beatstick in the early game. I could see myself going back on this if the activations aren't as consistent as I would like. The wolf is certainly better in a longer game. Harm's Way -> Valiant Changeling: Decided white has plenty of good removal that I can trim some of the less efficient stuff. I'm optimistic on this coming down by turn4 in most games, and hopefully turn3 with some consistency. Curse of Opulence -> Bogadan Dragonheart : Jank for spicier Jank. I don't think this guy has gotten enough love. Cloudshift -> Ephemerate: Yeah. Whisper, Blood Liturgist -> First-Sphere Gargantua: Whisper is too cute for her own good. Gargantua is a more practical and exciting card. Carrier Thrall -> Putrid Goblin: Nobody is talking about this guy but I think he's slightly better than the Thrall. The ramp is nice from Thrall but is is super significant? I'm really interested to hear other peoples thoughts on this one. Maybe I'm just late to the party cutting this guy and that's why nobody has mentioned it. Reflector Mage -> Soulherder: Soulherder is cute and fits in with all the blink cards I've just added. Reflector Mage is better in a vacuum but I want some spice in my gold cards! Vaporkin -> Faerie Seer: Alright I've been convinced that this is a reasonable 1drop, but I decided I still like having Omenspeaker around. Vaporkin has enough almost-strictly-better cards around these days that I'm comfortable cutting it. Skysnare Spider -> Mother Bear: Self-mill hasn't got a lot of love in my cube at the moment but the means are there and this is a good payoff in the deck that wants it while still being decent in the broader environment. I wasn't really sure what cut I wanted so I decided to trim one of the less exciting high-cmc creatures. This would have been Nessian Asp if we hadn't just gotten a bunch of "counters matter" cards recently.
Cards I decided not to add: Alpine Guide - I don't think the red deck that wants ramp on turn4 is going to be stoked about having to attack with this guy every turn. it's a nice bump in the curve but you really haven to spend the mana for it to be worth anything. Cunning Evasion - I couldn't find a cut I was happy with for this, and the comments that were posted earlier have cooled me a bit on this card. Interested to hear playtest results from the guys who've added it. Everdream - Too expensive. Nantuko Cultivator - If I were to go deep on green based +1/+1 counters or threshold(style) cards then I'd be more inclined to use this. For now I'll probably order one and maybe it'll find a niche down the line. Splicer's Skill - The pun is good so I'm disappointed it costs 1 too much to cube. Ravenous Giant - Big dumb red guy is not what I'm after these days. Vesperlark - I wanted to like this but I think it's too narrow. Martyr's Soul - I think it's too cute for its own good. Let me know if I'm wrong because I like the design a lot. Phantasmal Form - The floor isn't too bad on this, but 2U is steep for a trick and not something I'd want to hold up and not get value from. Winding Way - Another card that goes better with self-mill. Maybe one day.
Defile seems likely to be as good or better as Disfigure in most games by turn 4, which I think is worth it being worse on turns 1-3. Will anyone else be considering this swap?
Defile seems likely to be as good or better as Disfigure in most games by turn 4, which I think is worth it being worse on turns 1-3. Will anyone else be considering this swap?
I think the chance to hit a slightly larger creature in the late game isn't worth the chance that it can be useless (sometimes literally useless if you play a multicolor land instead of a basic swamp) in the early game. The reason why I play a 1 cmc removal spell is that I want to cast it early and I want that spell to be reliable when I need it.
To be fair, the power level of Disfigure is not such that I would ever splash for it. Especially given how its main function is indeed to reliably stop early creature plays, meaning that you would want to have easy access to that one black mana.
I would say Disfigure's reliability is definitely still more important, though. Let's say that you play two colours. By turn three, you would need to have specifically played two swamps rather than a swamp and two other lands (basic or non-basic) to get at least the floor Disfigure provides. Outside mono-black, you would generally start reaping benefits beyond that floor by the time you have between four and five lands, and that may easily mean turn six or more.
Defile seems likely to be as good or better as Disfigure in most games by turn 4, which I think is worth it being worse on turns 1-3. Will anyone else be considering this swap?
I think the chance to hit a slightly larger creature in the late game isn't worth the chance that it can be useless (sometimes literally useless if you play a multicolor land instead of a basic swamp) in the early game. The reason why I play a 1 cmc removal spell is that I want to cast it early and I want that spell to be reliable when I need it.
I feel the other main reason to play a 1 cmc removal spell is that you want cheap interaction that gives you a better chance of having a multi-spell turn and gaining a tempo advantage. That is one the main reason I like having some 1-mana instant speed interaction in every color. I will still test it out, since it should be as good or better starting around turn 4 and is also not completely useless early (-1/-1 still kills almost every 1-drop).
Markov Warlord is also quite similar. I like the cycling on the cyclops, but I'm not sure it really adds up to a cubable card. Maybe for lower power cubes. There's also the issue of having too many effects like that being bad for interactive gameplay. If you only run a limited number of this effect, you can probably find better than cyclops.
Based on pre-prerelease, I think Gluttonous Slug is definitely cementing itself. What I realised while looking at the game play is just how versatile the card is. It already gets pretty crazy for its cost if you drop at least two creatures with a power of at least 2, but the huge butt ensures that it can work as a stabilising ground clogger in a pinch. Thus, both aggressive and more controlling (but not creatureless control) decks should be pretty happy to run the card. It might get removed as things are getting to be good but the investment would still be fairly small, and it does not take *that* long to start doing things, unlike actually sluggish cards.
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
2023 Average Peasant Cube|and Discussion
Because I have more decks than fit in a signature
Useful Resources:
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Uh, is this about Faerie Seer?
Seer is a 1-drop, Owl is a 2-drop. Seer seems very significantly better due to the CMC -- not sure it's actually GOOD enough, but definitely an upgrade on the Owl
woops
Man, my reading comprehension has been really off lately
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
1U
Instant
Choose one -
-Target creature gets -6/-0 until end of turn.
-Switch target creature’s power and toughness until end of turn.
Entwine B
It's just murder for 1UB, with upside of sometimes not requiring you to have B in order to make a difference.
So in a way, it's like putrefy or mortify: a gold murder with upside. Except the upside is much lower, and it doesnt quite always even get to be murder.
So you should probably pass
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
Cards I like:
Mother Bear
A bit boring, but very nice value card for a common. Also another pay-off for a grindy graveyard self-mill deck.
Good-Fortune Unicorn
In my opinion clearly better than Juniper Order Ranger. This is one of those effects that become (much) better the sooner you can cast them. Juniper Order Ranger is usually one of the last cards you will play before you get into top deck mode. This one is not.
Soulherder
To me this is the best card of the set for CU/be. It's an auto include for anyone who supports the blink/bounce/flicker archetype. You get a free etb effect and a growing creature each turn and Soulherder is even resilient against sorcery speed removal (kind of). With a Wall of Omens out you get a better version of Phyrexian Rager the turn you cast it and it can get really out of hand from there if it doesn't get removed.
Ephemerate
Ephemerate is more or less strictly better than Cloudshift, so it's an easy switch. Cloudshift was borderline playable only, this is very decent value and won't leave my cube anytime soon. Again using the Wall of Omens example this can be a one mana instant speed Divination quite easily.
Faerie Seer
I like Faerie Seer a lot more than Omenspeaker. There aren't that many creatures a vanilla 1/3 can block without dying anyway these days and a 1/1 flyer can at least trade with 2/1 flyers or block a Hypnotic Specter for a turn. No need to say that the difference between 1 and 2 mana is huge as well.
Watcher for Tomorrow
Etb tapped is a bit of a shame, otherwise it would be a blue version of Sakura-Tribe Elder. I imagine it's still a very good card overall and obviously this is yet another great addition for the blink deck.
Feaster of Fools
I'm not entirely sure about this card, but I think it may be better than some people think it is. I can see it play well both in sacrifice decks with creatures that want to die/cheap tokens or in aggressive decks where you can't really do much with your Carnophage or Jackal Pup on turn 5+ unless you win anyway. If you sac two creatures (and use convoke to cast the Feaster) it's a 7/7 flyer for four mana.
It's risky, but in creature heavy decks your opponent often won't have any answers left late in the game as only very few cards can actually deal with a black creature of that size. On top of that you still have the alternative to simply cast it as a 3/3 with convoke and black doesn't exactly have a wide selection of large, playable creatures.
Decent cards I'm currently not interested in:
Valiant Changeling
As far as I can tell many people seem to think this is the best card of the set. I disagree. I believe it will mostly work like a slightly harder to cast Scrapper Champion. And while Scrapper Champion is a very decent card it doesn't stand out and I don't need another one in white.
If you play him in a typical aggro deck with lots of creatures and one drops you will still most of the time not be able to cast him before turn 4 (just like Scrapper Champion). Creature types overlap a lot (humans/soldiers/warriors etc) and if you play with old border cards and don't want to use oracle text you often only get a single creature type anyway. So getting four different creature types on the start of turn three will only rarely happen (if you don't have enough one drops like many people it will almost never happen actually).
If you draw it late and have a board that allows you to cast it for very cheap WW you probably don't need the mana reduction anymore anyway since you're playing aggro and don't have anything else you want to cast on your hand.
But the real reason to play a double strike creature are voltron/pants decks that run a lot of equipment and/or pump effects/auras/anthems. And here Changeling is even worse since these decks tend to run only relatively few creatures and no aggro one drops. You are probably happy if you can play him for 2WW on turn four in such a deck.
Scale Up
I think the comparison with Flower//Flourish that was made doesn't do it justice. Flourish gives each creature +2/+2, that means you have to assume the average creature you have is 4/2 when probably most creatures in a deck that wants a team pump spell like this are 1/1 or 2/2 at best (mana dorks, tokens, utility creatures).
I also disagree that you need a specific boardstate to use it. I hear this often in combination with cards like Overrun, but you don't need to kill your opponent immediately to get value out of a card like that. If he either needs to sacrifice blockers to prevent a game loss or if his life total goes down to burn range (even if you don't run red) that's enough reason to attack.
The only reason why I don't run Scale Up is that there are more than enough more interesting or outright better team pump effects in green (Song of Freyalise, Great Oak Guardian or Overrun for example) and I don't need another one.
Goblin Oriflamme
I ran Alpha Orcish Artillery (with 1R casting cost) for a while and if I wanted to run this effect I would have used Alpha Oriflamme. I think it's always hard for non-creature effects like this to break into creature heavy decks since you can only run so few of them. Anything below standard anthem (+1/+1 all the time for 3 mana) isn't good enough for me.
Splicer's Skill
Nice effect, but white doesn't have enough cheap instants and sorceries for such an effect.
Everdream
Blue card draw is a bit like red burn - there is more than enough quality to choose from. Still, this could be actually a very decent card advantage engine in a control deck.
Treetop Ambusher
Nice card, wish it was red. Green has more interesting options for me...I guess. Not sure yet.
My Old School Battlebox
My Premodern Battlebox
On second thoughts I don't think I'll add Watcher for Tomorrow because it's super annoying to have a card under my card like that I like to avoid annoying mechanics.
Yeah but I don't like energy so I don't have scrapper champion. Also, it's specifically my artifact/equipment deck that is best able to get lots of different creature types which is always where a double striker is good. Its an interesting comparison with Auriok Edgewright.
Okay, you have convinced me I'll try out the slug, my black tends to be more defensive.
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
Peasant cube: Cards I own
There are like 1-3 playable ninjas (Ninja of the Deep Hours, Throat Slitter and maybe Okiba-Gang Shinobi?) and the Modern Horizons c/u ninjas are all worse than those. I think we are 4-5 ninja tribal sets away from a ninja archetype.
Of course you can make a tribal cube where even the bad ninjas are playable, but I guess that was not the question.
25% of the white and 40% of blue creatures in my cube have an etb effect - and almost all of them even have an effect that I would consider very powerful if it gets repeated every turn. I think that's no different in most other cubes. If you consider that a deck that wants Soulherder (midrange) doesn't want pure aggro cards the overall percentage of possible creature draft picks is probably more like 50%.
That's why I think Soulherder is perfectly playable in almost all Azorius midrange decks you can possibly draft as all you need are 5+ creatures with a nice etb effect. It's pretty much impossible to draft a deck that doesn't have at least 5 of those creatures. On top of that you get synergies with all those exile cards in white, such as Oblivion Ring, Path to Exile and the like.
I hate annoying mechanics myself (such as flip cards), but putting a card under another card is annoying? So auras are annoying as well? Not sure I understand, but to each his own.
My Old School Battlebox
My Premodern Battlebox
I was hesitant at first (thought it had to survive until upkeep before I re-read it), but I'm definitely giving it a try.
2023 Average Peasant Cube|and Discussion
Because I have more decks than fit in a signature
Useful Resources:
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Cubetutor Peasant'ish-Funbox
Project: Khans of Tarkir Cube (cubetutor)
Invigorate --> Scale Up. Not instant speed but higher ceiling.
Momentary Blink --> Soulherder. Favorite card in the set.
Azure Mage --> Watcher for Tomorrow. No risk of not getting an activation, blink target, but comes in tapped. We will see.
Pyrewild Shaman --> Alpine Guide. No one plays shaman. And ramping, even just for the next turn, seems good.
Waterfront Bouncer --> Cunning Evasion. No one liked bouncer. And this card seems like it could be fun in the right deck.
Iwamori of the Open Fist --> Saddled Rimestag. Iwamori is kinda boring, would rather have another 2-drop.
Gallant Cavalry --> Rhox Veteran. Cheaper token creators are better. Battle cry is nice with 4 toughness.
Crested Herdcaller --> Mother Bear. I just want this to be good.
Fight with Fire --> Orcish Hellraiser. More 2-drops. Fight with fire too slow. May add the delve 5 damage card.
Undead Gladiator --> Gluttonous Slug. Gladiator too slow. Slug seems like it can go in a lot of decks.
Juniper Order Ranger --> Good-Fortune Unicorn. Lower CMC seems better.
Chittering Rats --> Sling-Gang Lieutenant. Love free sacrifice abilities.
All in all, I am weary of a card that requires specific other cards to be worth it, because I have no interest in a card that kind of plays as a Azorius Bounding Krasis where you get an okay body and to untap a creature to block.
https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/peasantsnowcube
-- Updated with Outlaws of Thunder Junction
The PioneWer Peasant CUbe
https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/pionewer
-- Updated with Murders at Karlov Manor
Repulse -> Ghostly Flicker: Going to go deeper on flickering with a few of the cards in this set so I'm going to put this back in. Repulse is probably better on average but Flicker is more degenerate.
More or Less -> Watcher for Tomorrow: Couldn't find a creature I wanted to swap this with, so I decided since to remove some cute jank instead.
Weapon Surge -> Goblin Oriflamme: The blow-out potential on Weapon Surge is higher, but I think I prefer the consistency of the Oriflame.
Darkthicket Wolf -> Saddled Rimestag: There's some fun "threat of activation" gameplay being lost here, but Rimestag is going to be more efficient as a beatstick in the early game. I could see myself going back on this if the activations aren't as consistent as I would like. The wolf is certainly better in a longer game.
Harm's Way -> Valiant Changeling: Decided white has plenty of good removal that I can trim some of the less efficient stuff. I'm optimistic on this coming down by turn4 in most games, and hopefully turn3 with some consistency.
Curse of Opulence -> Bogadan Dragonheart : Jank for spicier Jank. I don't think this guy has gotten enough love.
Cloudshift -> Ephemerate: Yeah.
Whisper, Blood Liturgist -> First-Sphere Gargantua: Whisper is too cute for her own good. Gargantua is a more practical and exciting card.
Carrier Thrall -> Putrid Goblin: Nobody is talking about this guy but I think he's slightly better than the Thrall. The ramp is nice from Thrall but is is super significant? I'm really interested to hear other peoples thoughts on this one. Maybe I'm just late to the party cutting this guy and that's why nobody has mentioned it.
Reflector Mage -> Soulherder: Soulherder is cute and fits in with all the blink cards I've just added. Reflector Mage is better in a vacuum but I want some spice in my gold cards!
Vaporkin -> Faerie Seer: Alright I've been convinced that this is a reasonable 1drop, but I decided I still like having Omenspeaker around. Vaporkin has enough almost-strictly-better cards around these days that I'm comfortable cutting it.
Skysnare Spider -> Mother Bear: Self-mill hasn't got a lot of love in my cube at the moment but the means are there and this is a good payoff in the deck that wants it while still being decent in the broader environment. I wasn't really sure what cut I wanted so I decided to trim one of the less exciting high-cmc creatures. This would have been Nessian Asp if we hadn't just gotten a bunch of "counters matter" cards recently.
Cards I decided not to add:
Alpine Guide - I don't think the red deck that wants ramp on turn4 is going to be stoked about having to attack with this guy every turn. it's a nice bump in the curve but you really haven to spend the mana for it to be worth anything.
Cunning Evasion - I couldn't find a cut I was happy with for this, and the comments that were posted earlier have cooled me a bit on this card. Interested to hear playtest results from the guys who've added it.
Everdream - Too expensive.
Nantuko Cultivator - If I were to go deep on green based +1/+1 counters or threshold(style) cards then I'd be more inclined to use this. For now I'll probably order one and maybe it'll find a niche down the line.
Splicer's Skill - The pun is good so I'm disappointed it costs 1 too much to cube.
Ravenous Giant - Big dumb red guy is not what I'm after these days.
Vesperlark - I wanted to like this but I think it's too narrow.
Martyr's Soul - I think it's too cute for its own good. Let me know if I'm wrong because I like the design a lot.
Phantasmal Form - The floor isn't too bad on this, but 2U is steep for a trick and not something I'd want to hold up and not get value from.
Winding Way - Another card that goes better with self-mill. Maybe one day.
Draft it on Cubetutor here, and CubeCobra here.
Treasure Cruise did nothing wrong.
Is Defile better than Disfigure?
Defile seems likely to be as good or better as Disfigure in most games by turn 4, which I think is worth it being worse on turns 1-3. Will anyone else be considering this swap?
https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/peasantsnowcube
-- Updated with Outlaws of Thunder Junction
The PioneWer Peasant CUbe
https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/pionewer
-- Updated with Murders at Karlov Manor
I think the chance to hit a slightly larger creature in the late game isn't worth the chance that it can be useless (sometimes literally useless if you play a multicolor land instead of a basic swamp) in the early game. The reason why I play a 1 cmc removal spell is that I want to cast it early and I want that spell to be reliable when I need it.
My Old School Battlebox
My Premodern Battlebox
Which may be a good thing, from certain cube-design viewpoints.
Cubetutor Peasant'ish-Funbox
Project: Khans of Tarkir Cube (cubetutor)
I would say Disfigure's reliability is definitely still more important, though. Let's say that you play two colours. By turn three, you would need to have specifically played two swamps rather than a swamp and two other lands (basic or non-basic) to get at least the floor Disfigure provides. Outside mono-black, you would generally start reaping benefits beyond that floor by the time you have between four and five lands, and that may easily mean turn six or more.
Cubetutor Peasant'ish-Funbox
Project: Khans of Tarkir Cube (cubetutor)
I feel the other main reason to play a 1 cmc removal spell is that you want cheap interaction that gives you a better chance of having a multi-spell turn and gaining a tempo advantage. That is one the main reason I like having some 1-mana instant speed interaction in every color. I will still test it out, since it should be as good or better starting around turn 4 and is also not completely useless early (-1/-1 still kills almost every 1-drop).
https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/peasantsnowcube
-- Updated with Outlaws of Thunder Junction
The PioneWer Peasant CUbe
https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/pionewer
-- Updated with Murders at Karlov Manor