Hi all! For the few Un-cube managers still out there (there are dozens of us!), the latest MYB set is an absolute treasure trove of material. I personally manage a powered 400 Un-cube experience, which means that the bar tends to be quite high for Un-cards to make the cut. I wasn't expecting any new cards to work with until the upcoming Unsanctioned set, but super happy they managed to sneak some Playtest cards into the latest Mystery Boosters. Though I wish they had been silver bordered! Regardless, I wanted to share some of my initial thoughts, tentatively ordered by playability, as well as get some feedback on what you guys think are playable
EDIT: Scryfall updated to support all the spoiled playtest cards so far, so check them out here: https://scryfall.com/sets/mystpt?as=grid&order=set. Updated the post with some of the new (and more powerful) cards that were spoiled.
Bombardment
I think this card might be the most busted I've seen so far from the Playtest cards. For anyone that remembers running Stormbind (back when Gruul was quite shallow...), Bombardment fixes a lot of the problems it had - random discard, 2 to activate, and 1GR casting cost as an enchantment. Bombardment represents the ultimate finisher for burn/aggro decks, turning all your dead cards in hand into sorcery-speed Shocks. If I was complaining, it would be that Bombardment and its fellow Missiles weren't all Instants - or that your Bombarding would be limited to the number of R you can produce in a single turn. Definitely finding a spot in my cube.
Mirrored Lotus
Any Lotus or Mox is worth testing in my books. In this case, Mirrored Lotus is a fully functional black lotus, with the drawback of symmetry. Fantastic for cubes featuring Storm, and also for cubes that are reluctant to test/run power due to their one-sidedness. It's a shame it self-exiles after use (same problem Blacker Lotus experiences with Yawgmoth's Will), but pseudo-power is pseudo-power. Definitely finding a spot in my cube.
Buried Ogre
This is an amazing design space. For reanimator decks, being able to skip the process of digging for and discarding a creature before reanimating is a huge boon. On the other hand, Buried Ogre is not exactly the most exciting body to reanimate, but speed is of the essence. Not all decks will reliably draw into their bomb, or count on a T1 Entomb, and at the cost of 1 life, Buried Ogre makes sure you're halfway to your combo from T1. Unfortunately, Buried Ogre definitely falls into the category of "parasitic" archetype cards, and I can see this card wheeling right to the end of the draft which is a pro for Reanimator drafters, but a con for the draft experience.
Witty Demon
This is a really tough card to evaluate, but I have a feeling it will be good. a 4/3 flying body for 1BB with a Demonic Tutor stapled to it sounds awesome, but with a unique drawback for draft environments - overloading your deck with extra cards. 13 cards is a big jump considering draft pools are typically 45 cards large, which means a lot of extra chaff will find its way into your deck. On the other hand, Witty Demon comes with a built in solution to finding your bombs and outs. This card will definitely have to go through some testing, but I have a feeling it'll perform better in draft environments which either give more sculpted pools (ex. glimpse drafting), or larger pools (sealed deck)
Do-Over
This is an extremely powerful Un effect that I have been crossing my fingers for for a while - the ability to reset a turn with full knowledge. The usages of this card is insane - scouting counterspells, undoing combat tricks, or identifying your opponent's line of play. The fact that it untaps your lands as well Would Do-Over also shuffle the deck, and give players a second chance at a topdeck?
Problematic Volcano
Now this is a card I can get behind! 1RR for a 4 damage burn spell (sorcery) is a great place to start, and the fact that the ability can divide up your opponent's blockers will be a big upside for aggro decks. The throwback to World Enchantments, and the complicated Raging River is a nice touch as well. Definitely will run this at 400, and I expect this card to stick.
Aggressive Crag
It's a Boros land with almost no drawback, apart from the fact that you might have less mana to use for instant-speed shenanigans (during your combat, or during your opponent's turn). The other drawback - if we're being greedy here - is the fact that it does not use the basic land subtypes, and therefore cannot be fetched. This will be an easy replacement for cubes still running Needle Spires, and likely makes the cut just after duals, fetches, and shocks.
Gold Mine
This is one of those un-cards, like Blacker Lotus, that pushes the boundaries of the rules for a cube environment. There's no doubt this card finds a home - it reminds me of a Gemstone Mine with greater flexibility/activations. In terms of house rules, I think we will errata this card to say that the Legacy counter will refresh every match (just like we do with Blacker Lotus right now). This will definitely force players to evaluate when they need to activate the Legacy ability, and when they can just get away with adding colourless mana.
Smelt // Herd // Saw
Not the sexiest playtest card to be introduced, but perfectly viable for the Jund slot. Like a lot of cube owners, I maintain multicolour symmetry in the tricolour slot, but despite being one of the strongest colour combinations, Jund has a fairly shallow pool (Hellkite Overlord, Gyrus, Waker of Corpses, and Lord Windgrace?). For other cube managers looking for something different, I think Smelt // Herd // Saw represents a solid tricolour answer for multiple stages/threats in the game - the ability to deal with power/artifacts, creature threats, or to create elks of its own. Will test in the Jund slot.
Form of the Mulldrifter
FotM is awesome! It gives you the option to turn all your creatures into Mulldrifter (or Inspiration, if you're Evoking), while retaining the ability to cast your creatures if they happen to be more relevant than a Mulldrifter at that moment. Flexibility is definitely valuable in a Cube format. However, Mulldrifter isn't the most exciting card in Cube (especially in multiples), and I wish FotM either cost 2 less, or left a body behind.
Generated Horizons
Have you ever wanted to reliably trigger landfall every turn while ramping? There's no doubt that this is a slower card - ramping from 5 to 6 can be too little too late. But the sooner you can drop Generated Horizons, the quicker you start accruing the huge advantage of additional land tokens. The fact that these permanents remain in play to interact with effects such as Smokestack, Greater Gargadon, or Nissa, Worldwaker can really help get green decks off the ground. Definitely a card to test, and I have a feeling this will perform better than expected in green ramp decks.
Time Sidewalk
This is about as swingy of a Playtest card as you can get. The average case scenario of being a 8 mana time walk is pretty bad, but the tradeoff here is starting your game with an extra 4 time walks in your library - unheard of even by Cube standards. Unfortunately, the impact of this card is not always going to be felt immediately (4x Time Walks into your hand would be something else). That's not even considering the added requirement of starting with Time Sidewalk in your opening hand. Similar to Gunk Slug, your experience of hitting the newly shuffled Tokens will vary. This card will be fun to test, but likely won't make the cut.
Conclusion:
That's all I've got for now! Apparently there are ~70 playtest cards floating around but I haven't been able to track down spoilers for all of them just yetScryfall is supporting MYSTPT cards now, so check them out here. Given the massive size of this set (1000+ cards), I'm really hoping that more competitive and playable cards find their way into our hands - I'll keep this thread updated as they come up. I'm definitely looking forward to the shenanigans we can add to our Un-cubes, and its a nice surprise given that we also have Unsanctioned on the horizon. Thanks for reading!
Puresteel Angel
Now this is a card I'd tinker into! The fact that its Indestructible should mean that it should stick around long enough to get a swing in, and the emblem is a great last resort. However, the fact that your opponent keeps their board, nor does it draw you a fresh hand of 7 are definitely strikes against it. I don't think this will make the final cut at 400 (there are a lot of great tinker targets these days), but definitely will test it out.
Unicycle
This is a card I really want to like. 3/1 First Strike for 2 should be familiar for cubes running Porcelain Legionnaire, albeit with the downside of not being a creature (but upside of being a Haste Vehicle?). I think its flexibility as an equipment really pushes this over the edge. In the end, this card compares a bit unfavourably to both Porcelain Legionnaire or Chariot of Victory, while simultaneously imitating both, but I don't think it will ultimately stick in an environment with Smuggler's Copter.
Impatient Iguana
As a Redditor commented, this is a 2-mana 2/1 haste that gives you the Power Play 17.5% of the time. Red 2 drops tend to be fairly pushed (our Wizard Lizard is no Earthshaker Khenra), but I could see this card making an impact in medium sized to larger sized cubes. Having played a bit with Power Play, the ability to go first can be highly impactful for aggro decks, and being able to keep the losing player on the backfoot in a best-of-3 match can be good as well.
Largepox
For cube managers still running the Pox archetype, I give you Largepox! I really wish this card cost less than BBBB, since this technically inflicts less damage (1 card/life, as opposed to 1/3) than Pox, but the diversity of effects definitely makes up for it. This card will likely only be relevant for cubes that push mono black, devotion, or Pox effects, but the potential card advantage for hitting your opponent's planeswalkers, artifacts, enchantments, etc. is high.
This is another card I really want to like. The "battlecry" ability is reminiscent of Hearthstone, but the ability to shuffle dead draws into your opponent's library can be very detrimental. However, this card suffers from the same drawbacks of its Hearthstone brethren: uninspiring body, and low probability of drawing into Gunk. If it happens at the right moment, it can win you the game, but more often the 3 Gunk cards will not be relevant during the game. Fun card, but likely will be reserved for larger cubes.
Interesting cards. Not sure if I'll consider them for my Un-Cube or not - the difference in aesthetic bothers me, and I have limited slots because I need to keep a high as-fan of the parasitic Unstable mechanics (Host/Augment and Contraptions/Assemblers). I could certainly see throwing them into a different cube if I ever build a fourth one.
I'm certainly interested in a few of these cards, but probably only the ones that make sense or a pseudo-black-border (like City of Ass or something).
The fact that these cards technically are "black border" (as opposed to past sticker cards such as Look at Me, I'm R&D) makes me wonder if other cube managers will adopt them as well. It reminds me a bit of the Conspiracy modules we were including a few years ago...
I think Unicycle looks great, and will be including it.
I'm not sure on Gold Mine. It requires some house ruling, but I'm not sure the best solution. The easiest would be to use dice and treat it like:
Gold Mine - Land
Gold Mine enters the battlefield with 5 mine counters. T: C T, remove a mine counter: Add one mana of any color.
But that is stupidly pushed. It may as well be a 5-color land with no downside there. And maybe that's fine? I'm not sure. I could house rule it so you can only mine it 5 times in a draft, but that's a lot of bookkeeping. 5 times in a round might be okay, but still involves a little bookkeeping while also still being close to no downside, which is kind of the worst of both worlds there.
I'll continue to debate with myself if Gold Mine is worth the effort, but Unicycle is for sure getting in. Lazier Goblin and Gunk Slug seem okay, but I don't think they make the cut for me. Others that seem close, but I don't think will make it for me are:
Since these cards are black bordered, I am actually considering then for regular cube. The difference in aesthetic is certainly jarring, but many of the designs are super interesting
I'm certainly interested in a few of these cards, but probably only the ones that make sense or a pseudo-black-border (like City of Ass or something).
The fact that these cards technically are "black border" (as opposed to past sticker cards such as Look at Me, I'm R&D) makes me wonder if other cube managers will adopt them as well. It reminds me a bit of the Conspiracy modules we were including a few years ago...
I'd argue that these playtest cards aren't black bordered cards and that they're just merely ON black bordered cards.
Regardless of border, I think more people are concerned if they're tournament legal in Vintage / Legacy / etc (I'm assuming these are not) which means I have no interest in these cards. To me, most of them seem somewhere in-between black / silver bordered where a lot of these can be legit real cards, but there seems to be a good amount of bend / goofiness to a lot of them.
Sadly it looks like these playtest cards are convention-exclusive, which may make them quite expensive or rare
Yeah, I had just gone through and looked at all of them and was starting to consider a few when we got confirmation that they are convention exclusive, which is super lame and something they weren't supposed to do after Nalathni Dragon. So, yeah, I probably won't even be able to get any that I would have considered anyway.
Having seen the fully spoiled set now, the cards that interest me are (at 360-powered):
Frontier Explorer
Seems comparable to the other Savannah Lions variants with minor upside. The white weenie deck doesn't really want the ability to ramp mid-game, but the other cards with minor upside (e.g. Dragon Hunter) also rarely have their upside be relevant as well.
Wizened Arbiter
The double W mana cost makes this a little prohibitive, and it makes you construct your deck a little differently, but this improves card quality well. I can totally see exchanging a Plains for a sideboarded Angel of Invention, or Oblivion Ring, or Elspeth that didn't quite make the main 40. It's a pity this only has 1 toughness as a 2-drop.
Impatient Iguana
A baseline 1R haste 2/1 is not amazing. Its upside is only relevant if it's in your starting hand, and you're going second - about 8% of the time overall. Going first is definitely good for an aggro deck, though.
Lazier Goblin
I think this compares favourably with Firebolt. They have a similar front end (1-mana sorcery-speed deal 2 to any target). Firebolt can be activated for 4R to shock something again, while this can be activated for 3R to attack or block. A 2/1 is probably on average better than a shock, but I'm not sure how these compare once mid/late game begins. It's also noteworthy that you can still sacrifice the Goblin, and that it triggers ETB/dies abilities.
Problematic Volcano
1RR to deal 4 is not terrible. I'm not sure exactly how much the battlefield splitting will complicate blocking, but it can only be good for the red deck.
Unicycle
This is a little complicated to analyse. It's a pity the equipment doesn't also pump the creature as well. It's colourless and versatile, I'll give it that.
Bombardment, Mirrored Lotus are interesting and I'll see how they pain out.
Innocuous Insect, Command the Chaff, Growth Charm, Frogkin Kidnapper and Waste Land are cool, but probably not strong enough for the cube.
Gold Mine I'm not sure how to work within the rules for our cube draft.
I realize that Giant Growth is iconic but to match the theme of "2 mana Growth spells" I think it should've been Rampant, *Titanic* and Regrowth personally
I don't think bombardment is busted at all. May not even be good.
The issue is that it is only until end of turn, costs a card and a mana to set up.
Let's say you've managed to sand bag 3 dead cards?
Thats 4 cards and 4 mana for 6 damage... and pretty close to a best case scenario.
Worst case and common scenario is you are near hellbent and the card is worse than a shock.
Has some corner case build around potential (draw 7's + ramp) , but I don't think it's good in Mono R. Not "bad" tho.
Problematic Volcano on the other hand seems very good.
I don't think bombardment is busted at all. May not even be good.
The issue is that it is only until end of turn, costs a card and a mana to set up.
Let's say you've managed to sand bag 3 dead cards?
Thats 4 cards and 4 mana for 6 damage... and pretty close to a best case scenario.
Worst case and common scenario is you are near hellbent and the card is worse than a shock.
Has some corner case build around potential (draw 7's + ramp) , but I don't think it's good in Mono R. Not "bad" tho.
Problematic Volcano on the other hand seems very good.
Do all of your creatures have to go on the same side or is it creature-by-creature?
This is a little complicated to analyse. It's a pity the equipment doesn't also pump the creature as well.
I just realized this when I reread the card today. I thought it was completely busted when I read it as "equipped creature gets +3/+1 and has first strike and haste." I think I'm not testing it now that I read it again.
The cards I'll be testing are Frontier Explorer and Growth Charm. I like that Frontier Explorer could fit into a Smokestack deck.
I don't think bombardment is busted at all. May not even be good.
The issue is that it is only until end of turn, costs a card and a mana to set up.
Let's say you've managed to sand bag 3 dead cards?
Thats 4 cards and 4 mana for 6 damage... and pretty close to a best case scenario.
Worst case and common scenario is you are near hellbent and the card is worse than a shock.
Has some corner case build around potential (draw 7's + ramp) , but I don't think it's good in Mono R. Not "bad" tho.
Problematic Volcano on the other hand seems very good.
Great point! I might've been a bit overexcited by the Stormbind comparison, but I still think Bombardment is a really great late game option - its a single card that turns all your end game dead draws into damage. It'll never be your most efficient mana-damage-cards ratio, but it can give you the critical reach you need to finish the game. I think its worth testing out!
Do all of your creatures have to go on the same side or is it creature-by-creature?
Reading the card, it sounds like each player puts one creature at a time on a side of the volcano. So you can choose one at a time which creature to put where (and you can react to your opponent's placement too)
If the Volcano works like that (and I guess we'll find out with today's articles/explanations) then I like it much better than some other possible interpretations. But to me the wording is ambiguous.
I'm mostly interested in Frontier Explorer which just seems like a great 1 mana beater with stax potential, Impatient Iguana for a cool ability on a fine aggro body and most of all Innocous Insect. I really like Cloudkin Seer and the addition of Flash and the possibility of just being a repeated draw spell means I love this for both tempo and control decks
Reading this, it sounds like PLAYER 1 picks each side of the volcano for all their creatures, then PLAYER 2 picks each side of the volcano for all their creatures. It's not one creature at a time.
Reading this, it sounds like PLAYER 1 picks each side of the volcano for all their creatures, then PLAYER 2 picks each side of the volcano for all their creatures. It's not one creature at a time.
I still find it ambiguous because it isn't totally clear whether you assign creatures individually (3 on the left, 2 on the right) or altogether (5 on the left). But if it was the latter it would basically only be good in multiplayer games or offer your opponent a choice to make all creatures unblockable in a two player game (by picking the opposite side). It also wouldn't work well with the fact that you get to pick the side for each new creature that enters.
Reading this, it sounds like PLAYER 1 picks each side of the volcano for all their creatures, then PLAYER 2 picks each side of the volcano for all their creatures. It's not one creature at a time.
I still find it ambiguous because it isn't totally clear whether you assign creatures individually (3 on the left, 2 on the right) or altogether (5 on the left). But if it was the latter it would basically only be good in multiplayer games or offer your opponent a choice to make all creatures unblockable in a two player game (by picking the opposite side). It also wouldn't work well with the fact that you get to pick the side for each new creature that enters.
From my reading it looks like you go 3 to the left, 1 to the right. Then your opponent puts 2 to your left (their right), 1 on your right (their left).
My reading of it, is it's kind of like a permanent Raging River. The player that casts it chooses which creatures they want on the left or right, then the opponent chooses which creatures they want on the left or right. You don't need to choose to put all your creatures on the left, though you could if you want. You can have a mix of left/right.
But that is stupidly pushed. It may as well be a 5-color land with no downside there. And maybe that's fine? I'm not sure. I could house rule it so you can only mine it 5 times in a draft, but that's a lot of bookkeeping. 5 times in a round might be okay, but still involves a little bookkeeping while also still being close to no downside, which is kind of the worst of both worlds there.
I'll continue to debate with myself if Gold Mine is worth the effort, but Unicycle is for sure getting in. Lazier Goblin and Gunk Slug seem okay, but I don't think they make the cut for me. Others that seem close, but I don't think will make it for me are:
The easiest way to do Gold Mine I think is to put stickers on the sleeve with each use and keep them there for the entire draft. Then you can just peel off the stickers -- its not that unusual actually since many stores put price tags on cards this way. Or you could just replace the sleeve after each draft.
I think some Playtest cards were designed for Un-sets, some just for Fun, and some for Regular sets. They were not printed at the time they were tested, but now they are printed Sad they didn't include Mox Crystal.
For our group, we will put in cube 3 cards, which I think are cards OK for regular sets:
Frontier Explorer
Innocuocus Insect
Unicycle
We test 3 other cards (they are really powerfull and more Un-cards):
Growth Charm
Truth or Dare
Command the Chaff
I think rest of the cards are just fun/bad un cards or cards with not clear direction how to use them (for example Gold Mine - which players want to bend other ways than wotc intention) + Puresteel Angel (great, but very unfun)
I'm sold on Evil Boros Charm and picked one up..not sure how I'll wedge it in but it does seem pretty awesome for cubing.
Most of those write ups seem to seriously misunderstand the cards in question.
Regarding Do Over, let me just tell you that it is VERY tedious to actually implement. There was an Extra Pulled card from the old Duelist magazines that did the same thing and in the times we used it we realized that it was basically just a variant on Angel's Grace. I don't think it is anywhere close to good enough for Cube AND it plays horribly (and causes a lot of arguments) [and has massive memory issues]{and takes forever}
EDIT: and when you use Do Over because you "missed a win" it just causes resentment.
EDIT: Scryfall updated to support all the spoiled playtest cards so far, so check them out here: https://scryfall.com/sets/mystpt?as=grid&order=set. Updated the post with some of the new (and more powerful) cards that were spoiled.
Bombardment
Mirrored Lotus
Any Lotus or Mox is worth testing in my books. In this case, Mirrored Lotus is a fully functional black lotus, with the drawback of symmetry. Fantastic for cubes featuring Storm, and also for cubes that are reluctant to test/run power due to their one-sidedness. It's a shame it self-exiles after use (same problem Blacker Lotus experiences with Yawgmoth's Will), but pseudo-power is pseudo-power. Definitely finding a spot in my cube.
Buried Ogre
This is an amazing design space. For reanimator decks, being able to skip the process of digging for and discarding a creature before reanimating is a huge boon. On the other hand, Buried Ogre is not exactly the most exciting body to reanimate, but speed is of the essence. Not all decks will reliably draw into their bomb, or count on a T1 Entomb, and at the cost of 1 life, Buried Ogre makes sure you're halfway to your combo from T1. Unfortunately, Buried Ogre definitely falls into the category of "parasitic" archetype cards, and I can see this card wheeling right to the end of the draft which is a pro for Reanimator drafters, but a con for the draft experience.
Witty Demon
Do-Over
Problematic Volcano
Aggressive Crag
Gold Mine
This is one of those un-cards, like Blacker Lotus, that pushes the boundaries of the rules for a cube environment. There's no doubt this card finds a home - it reminds me of a Gemstone Mine with greater flexibility/activations. In terms of house rules, I think we will errata this card to say that the Legacy counter will refresh every match (just like we do with Blacker Lotus right now). This will definitely force players to evaluate when they need to activate the Legacy ability, and when they can just get away with adding colourless mana.
Smelt // Herd // Saw
Not the sexiest playtest card to be introduced, but perfectly viable for the Jund slot. Like a lot of cube owners, I maintain multicolour symmetry in the tricolour slot, but despite being one of the strongest colour combinations, Jund has a fairly shallow pool (Hellkite Overlord, Gyrus, Waker of Corpses, and Lord Windgrace?). For other cube managers looking for something different, I think Smelt // Herd // Saw represents a solid tricolour answer for multiple stages/threats in the game - the ability to deal with power/artifacts, creature threats, or to create elks of its own. Will test in the Jund slot.
Form of the Mulldrifter
FotM is awesome! It gives you the option to turn all your creatures into Mulldrifter (or Inspiration, if you're Evoking), while retaining the ability to cast your creatures if they happen to be more relevant than a Mulldrifter at that moment. Flexibility is definitely valuable in a Cube format. However, Mulldrifter isn't the most exciting card in Cube (especially in multiples), and I wish FotM either cost 2 less, or left a body behind.
Generated Horizons
Have you ever wanted to reliably trigger landfall every turn while ramping? There's no doubt that this is a slower card - ramping from 5 to 6 can be too little too late. But the sooner you can drop Generated Horizons, the quicker you start accruing the huge advantage of additional land tokens. The fact that these permanents remain in play to interact with effects such as Smokestack, Greater Gargadon, or Nissa, Worldwaker can really help get green decks off the ground. Definitely a card to test, and I have a feeling this will perform better than expected in green ramp decks.
Time Sidewalk
Conclusion:
That's all I've got for now! Apparently there are ~70 playtest cards floating around
but I haven't been able to track down spoilers for all of them just yetScryfall is supporting MYSTPT cards now, so check them out here. Given the massive size of this set (1000+ cards), I'm really hoping that more competitive and playable cards find their way into our hands - I'll keep this thread updated as they come up. I'm definitely looking forward to the shenanigans we can add to our Un-cubes, and its a nice surprise given that we also have Unsanctioned on the horizon. Thanks for reading!Puresteel Angel
Unicycle
This is a card I really want to like. 3/1 First Strike for 2 should be familiar for cubes running Porcelain Legionnaire, albeit with the downside of not being a creature (but upside of being a Haste Vehicle?). I think its flexibility as an equipment really pushes this over the edge. In the end, this card compares a bit unfavourably to both Porcelain Legionnaire or Chariot of Victory, while simultaneously imitating both, but I don't think it will ultimately stick in an environment with Smuggler's Copter.
Impatient Iguana
As a Redditor commented, this is a 2-mana 2/1 haste that gives you the Power Play 17.5% of the time. Red 2 drops tend to be fairly pushed (our Wizard Lizard is no Earthshaker Khenra), but I could see this card making an impact in medium sized to larger sized cubes. Having played a bit with Power Play, the ability to go first can be highly impactful for aggro decks, and being able to keep the losing player on the backfoot in a best-of-3 match can be good as well.
Largepox
PS. I just got the reference to Smallpox.
Gunk Slug
2023 Average Peasant Cube|and Discussion
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The fact that these cards technically are "black border" (as opposed to past sticker cards such as Look at Me, I'm R&D) makes me wonder if other cube managers will adopt them as well. It reminds me a bit of the Conspiracy modules we were including a few years ago...
I'm not sure on Gold Mine. It requires some house ruling, but I'm not sure the best solution. The easiest would be to use dice and treat it like:
But that is stupidly pushed. It may as well be a 5-color land with no downside there. And maybe that's fine? I'm not sure. I could house rule it so you can only mine it 5 times in a draft, but that's a lot of bookkeeping. 5 times in a round might be okay, but still involves a little bookkeeping while also still being close to no downside, which is kind of the worst of both worlds there.
I'll continue to debate with myself if Gold Mine is worth the effort, but Unicycle is for sure getting in. Lazier Goblin and Gunk Slug seem okay, but I don't think they make the cut for me. Others that seem close, but I don't think will make it for me are:
Celestine Cave Witch - almost the black siege gang everyone wants, but I don't think its still quite there. I think it looks better than Marsh Flitter and Sling-Gang Lieutenant, at least.
Spellmorph Raise Dead - This one I like, but don't think I could find room for it.
edit: Order of Midnight might be better than Spellmorph Raise Dead, but I think they're probably close.
Edit edit: I missed Growth Charm originally. I think I'll replace regrowth with that.
[180 classic cube]
I'd argue that these playtest cards aren't black bordered cards and that they're just merely ON black bordered cards.
Regardless of border, I think more people are concerned if they're tournament legal in Vintage / Legacy / etc (I'm assuming these are not) which means I have no interest in these cards. To me, most of them seem somewhere in-between black / silver bordered where a lot of these can be legit real cards, but there seems to be a good amount of bend / goofiness to a lot of them.
My High Octane Unpowered Cube on CubeCobra
2023 Average Peasant Cube|and Discussion
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Frontier Explorer
Seems comparable to the other Savannah Lions variants with minor upside. The white weenie deck doesn't really want the ability to ramp mid-game, but the other cards with minor upside (e.g. Dragon Hunter) also rarely have their upside be relevant as well.
Wizened Arbiter
The double W mana cost makes this a little prohibitive, and it makes you construct your deck a little differently, but this improves card quality well. I can totally see exchanging a Plains for a sideboarded Angel of Invention, or Oblivion Ring, or Elspeth that didn't quite make the main 40. It's a pity this only has 1 toughness as a 2-drop.
Impatient Iguana
A baseline 1R haste 2/1 is not amazing. Its upside is only relevant if it's in your starting hand, and you're going second - about 8% of the time overall. Going first is definitely good for an aggro deck, though.
Lazier Goblin
I think this compares favourably with Firebolt. They have a similar front end (1-mana sorcery-speed deal 2 to any target). Firebolt can be activated for 4R to shock something again, while this can be activated for 3R to attack or block. A 2/1 is probably on average better than a shock, but I'm not sure how these compare once mid/late game begins. It's also noteworthy that you can still sacrifice the Goblin, and that it triggers ETB/dies abilities.
Problematic Volcano
1RR to deal 4 is not terrible. I'm not sure exactly how much the battlefield splitting will complicate blocking, but it can only be good for the red deck.
Unicycle
This is a little complicated to analyse. It's a pity the equipment doesn't also pump the creature as well. It's colourless and versatile, I'll give it that.
Bombardment, Mirrored Lotus are interesting and I'll see how they pain out.
Innocuous Insect, Command the Chaff, Growth Charm, Frogkin Kidnapper and Waste Land are cool, but probably not strong enough for the cube.
Gold Mine I'm not sure how to work within the rules for our cube draft.
The issue is that it is only until end of turn, costs a card and a mana to set up.
Let's say you've managed to sand bag 3 dead cards?
Thats 4 cards and 4 mana for 6 damage... and pretty close to a best case scenario.
Worst case and common scenario is you are near hellbent and the card is worse than a shock.
Has some corner case build around potential (draw 7's + ramp) , but I don't think it's good in Mono R. Not "bad" tho.
Problematic Volcano on the other hand seems very good.
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Do all of your creatures have to go on the same side or is it creature-by-creature?
I just realized this when I reread the card today. I thought it was completely busted when I read it as "equipped creature gets +3/+1 and has first strike and haste." I think I'm not testing it now that I read it again.
The cards I'll be testing are Frontier Explorer and Growth Charm. I like that Frontier Explorer could fit into a Smokestack deck.
[180 classic cube]
Great point! I might've been a bit overexcited by the Stormbind comparison, but I still think Bombardment is a really great late game option - its a single card that turns all your end game dead draws into damage. It'll never be your most efficient mana-damage-cards ratio, but it can give you the critical reach you need to finish the game. I think its worth testing out!
Reading the card, it sounds like each player puts one creature at a time on a side of the volcano. So you can choose one at a time which creature to put where (and you can react to your opponent's placement too)
Reading this, it sounds like PLAYER 1 picks each side of the volcano for all their creatures, then PLAYER 2 picks each side of the volcano for all their creatures. It's not one creature at a time.
I still find it ambiguous because it isn't totally clear whether you assign creatures individually (3 on the left, 2 on the right) or altogether (5 on the left). But if it was the latter it would basically only be good in multiplayer games or offer your opponent a choice to make all creatures unblockable in a two player game (by picking the opposite side). It also wouldn't work well with the fact that you get to pick the side for each new creature that enters.
From my reading it looks like you go 3 to the left, 1 to the right. Then your opponent puts 2 to your left (their right), 1 on your right (their left).
[180 classic cube]
The easiest way to do Gold Mine I think is to put stickers on the sleeve with each use and keep them there for the entire draft. Then you can just peel off the stickers -- its not that unusual actually since many stores put price tags on cards this way. Or you could just replace the sleeve after each draft.
For our group, we will put in cube 3 cards, which I think are cards OK for regular sets:
Frontier Explorer
Innocuocus Insect
Unicycle
We test 3 other cards (they are really powerfull and more Un-cards):
Growth Charm
Truth or Dare
Command the Chaff
I think rest of the cards are just fun/bad un cards or cards with not clear direction how to use them (for example Gold Mine - which players want to bend other ways than wotc intention) + Puresteel Angel (great, but very unfun)
I'm sold on Evil Boros Charm and picked one up..not sure how I'll wedge it in but it does seem pretty awesome for cubing.
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Most of those write ups seem to seriously misunderstand the cards in question.
Regarding Do Over, let me just tell you that it is VERY tedious to actually implement. There was an Extra Pulled card from the old Duelist magazines that did the same thing and in the times we used it we realized that it was basically just a variant on Angel's Grace. I don't think it is anywhere close to good enough for Cube AND it plays horribly (and causes a lot of arguments) [and has massive memory issues]{and takes forever}
EDIT: and when you use Do Over because you "missed a win" it just causes resentment.