I think I will compile the Future Sight "review" into an actual set review, evaluating them into a bomb, cubeable, borderline, weak, terrible framework. I'm not sure if the rubric needs to be reworked or not? I'll clean up some typos and maybe offer a bit more commentary than Leaden Fists: WTF.
Also I want to get around to reviewing Planar Chaos, because it's a mess.
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There's no word in the goblin language for "strategy." Then again, there's no word in the goblin language for "word."
Were you intending to cover every card in FS? Amongst the ones you omitted, I think Bound in Silence has seen some fringe play in large Cubes looking for more pacifisms (granted BiS was downshifted years later)
During my review of the spoiler I found the following cards that I don't believe you mentioned:
I wasn't intending on doing a full review, I just kept finding things to say. I missed some of the vanilla creatures and a couple of cards which I had forgotten that they were downshifted. So for completeness' sake.
Blade of the Sixth Pride - The first 3/1 for 2. The first of many. It's a rebel, so technically not strictly worse than something such as Leonin of the Lost Pride, although I'm not sure if anyone runs rebel synergies. A vanilla 3/1 for 2 in white will still get played even in a competitive environment in Pauper cube. Blind Phantasm - This vanilla clearly signals that Blue creatures are going to typically have less over stats for mana cost than other more Green colours. Three power has been a premium stat for 3CMC creatures for quite some time. It's only been in recent years that we've been seeing consistently strong cheap creatures. Bogardan Lancer - In order for this to be viable there needs to be a lot of decent 1 drops. Even then Benalish Cavalry essentially has the same stats without the downside of having an opponent take damage. +1/+1 counter synergies are few and far between at common. The downsides are many; the upsides are few. Bound in Silence - I don't understand rebel cards that well. Arn't there tutors for rebels with converted mana cost less than or equal to the converted mana cost of the creature that is doing the searching? Anyways, ignoring the tribal text, this is slightly worse than Recumbent Bliss or Arrest, but not strictly worse. Although in most cubes it will be strictly worse due to no Rebel synergies. I assume there is at least one good rebel common out there that can fetch this. Fatal Attraction - From the days where 4 damage was a premium for Red. We still are in those days, but now we at least have Flame Slash to keep us company. As far as Red enchantments which deal damage when they enter the battlefield go, Galanvic Arc is the best of the lot (maybe Oath of Chandra, however that is rare). Or in more recent enchantment developments, Omen of the Forge is alright. In saying all this, when it comes down to it, if you remove access to all decent damage based removal, cards such as Fatal Attraction will get played. Fatal Attraction is by no means terrible, it's just Red removal is very, very efficient since Lightning Bolt was printed. Flowstone Embrace - An aura that taps, just to show that there is design space there. As removal Immolation is better in most regards. As a buff, you can keep your creature's toughness if required. Or in multiplayer you can put it on an opponent's creature to use as a negotiating tool. Fomori Nomad - Ahh yes, the fabled nomad creature type. Maybe this was meant to be the new Hill Giant as a 4/4 is the new 3/3. Mass of Ghouls - Black seems to get a lot of lopsided power/toughnesses. I think it's because most large zombies don't have a balanced diet. 5 power unopposed sets a quick clock. 3 toughness means it's mostly target practice. Sparkspitter - The 1/3 body means that this card itself won't do a Spark Elemental impersonation. Turning lands into 3/1s means that this can act as retrace. However, the generator is rather vulnerable and Red decks already have a solution to drawing an excess of land which are the x-costspells. The Spark Elemental land-to-damage exchange rate is quite favourable if left unopposed.
On Peregrine Drake: I was overly harsh on it. I was comparing it to a tempo/midrage style deck which typically allocates almost all its resources to pulling ahead in the early game in order to close out a game. In which case Peregrine Drake is not so hot because of the opportunity cost; Peregrine Drake could be another piece of midrange. Maybe some decks can still find a slot for Peregrine Drake in between the Man-o'-Wars, Eldrazi Skyspawners, Repulses and whatever else is packed into these decks. Card slots are be quite tight after you've accumulated all the necessary tempo pieces.
On the other hand Lock decks (call them control, call them Lock) are looking for any kind of flier to actually get through damage so they can crawl to victory through their complete denial of their opponent's board/hand. The quicker the clock the more midrangey these style of control decks can play. Peregrine's a relatively low-cost flier which can act as an alternate wincon with Mnemonic Wall and Ghostly Flicker which are both cards in the my cube and both cards that these Lock decks typically play. Even without the alternative wincon (which is fairly likely when the deck intends to stall indefinitely) the Drake is a fine play turn 5 or later because you can keeps your lands untapped to deal with whatever you opponent tries to do. I'm much more likely to have things to do with 5 mana in control than tempo. Being able to play a creature and still have mana to Flood is invaluable.
Also apparently Ninjas are a thing in our format? 5 mana is a bit slow for Ninjas, still the Drake makes a good target to return. Maybe Cloud of Faeries is better for Ninjas because you can set up that much sooner.
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There's no word in the goblin language for "strategy." Then again, there's no word in the goblin language for "word."
Minotaur Skullcleaver is better than Slash Panther
that said, maybe have a look at my cube, since i go for lowcurve since ever and monowhite is the best deck lol
Cackling Flames is an interesting one. I don't get Hellbent often enough to really justify it. I'm often looking for a lull to cast 5 damage spells. And anyway Sprinting Warbrute is the best Lava Axe. It's just really nice to have redundancy in big damage effects because damage synergises so well with itself.
Not really sure how I feel about splicing a madness theme in. Most of the decent cards for it require supplementary sets for the common printings. I experimented with madness before, it felt like I needed too many pieces in order for the deck to function well. And the gains were marginal compared to a lot of the Red/x goodstuff decks.
Taste for Mayhem has been the hellbent card I've been considering adding. My red enchantment section is a bit light and the default mode of an extra 2 power somewhere is alright. 4 power for 1 mana is nothing to sneeze at and hopefully a deck that runs that is planning on unloading it's hand pretty quickly. Drawing extra lands will be the main challenge, although a few mana sinks such as Immolating Souleater will solve that problem.
Inner-flame Acolyte is a better Minotaur Skullcleaver in my opinion. I prefer having envoke over the slightly more awkward casting cost. Slash Panther can cost no red mana and always has 4 power; and I don't know about you, but 4 power creatures tend to be pretty good. Also I can give the +2/+0 to an unblockable creature and still net the 2/2 potentially as a blocker for myself. Embereth Paladin is a potential replacement for Slash Panther, although I'll try both because I suspect they will be ran in different builds.
Playing against White I go for war of attrition strategies. Most cube lists that I've seen run a lot of 1&2 drops, which is fine, but I think it goes to show that the other colour's sections haven't been adapted to a 1 mana heavy format. Little cards like Dead Weight go a long way to dropping the strength of an early-game. As well as that Dead Weight enables delirium, the cards of which are all aggressively costed. I generally want quite a bit of early hate and I want those cards to be multimodal so I have a use for them when I play against something that has less targets.
Blue's a bit of a sitting duck, but for me it's almost always paired with the colour with the most removal and grind. Getting Blue to play mono is a bit of a mission.
@Cobble:
You usually don't get many responses, when asking for mass evaluations. I would go step by step and ask specific VS questions. Also a great tool to help yourself is to use the Cubetutor Cube Comparison Function. I know, that not everyone hast their list up to date on cubetutor, but I still have a list of links in my signature. I often use this myself, when I want to see what other people run in specific slots.
I've been looking at other people's lists. I'll get around to eventually putting mine up on Cubetutor as well. I'm not too interested in direct comparisons either because I know that I've been balancing curves differently. Card by card is a pain when evaluating a whole section.
When posting a whole section, I'm looking for something that stands out rather than details, because I've already gone over the details. I'm also in the middle of a massive overhaul because I'm missing a few years of recent additions and the other colours are in a much rougher state (less Red staples have been printed recently so the line-up is fairly static).
i want to mention Cosmotronic Wave which is pretty insane. not only sweeps it away pesky x/1s and token strategies, its also a reliable finisher for sligh.
My cube on ct 4632
I've been considering Cosmotronic Wave. It's a piece of cardboard which by freak occurrence I am missing. I've tried out Ruthless Invasion, so I assume it plays similarly to that. Spraying down 1 toughness creatures sounds very useful. However Ruthless Invasion can be very strong for both Green and White (especially G/W). I'll probably run both as they fit different archetypes.
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There's no word in the goblin language for "strategy." Then again, there's no word in the goblin language for "word."
This is my current red section. I'm not quite sure what to do to this section other than the obvious add Chain Lightning (everyone I knew was being a cheapskate with their Fire & Lightning ones thinking the card would go up in value when I was extensively trading for commons.) I pulled apart Red a while ago, but since then it turns out that people want to get crushed in a format they don't understand.
Notes: Artillerize has always ended games when I've played it. It's basically the second cheapest Lava Axe in the format after Brimstone Volley. I'm less keen on x cost burn spells because I generally want to lower my curve by as much as possible, but I know their good pick-ups for people considering a red splash. Rolling Thunder is still strong, but requires a much more serious commitment to red. Mugging and Dead // Gone seem like weaker copies of Galvanic Blast, but they allow you to remove a creature from the equation when your looking to close out a game and double as good removal at dealing with pesky white cards and mana elves. Scorchwalker sneaks in 5 damage, which again pretty much ends games. Maw of Kozilek is in purely for experimental purposes; Wastes are freely available since they are basic lands. Yes, I know that Pyroblast is strictly better than Red Elemental Blast due to escape, hellbent, delve and Hero of the Pride. It's what I had at hand. Immolating Souleater and Oxidda Golem are sitting in the colourless section for sorting purposes. Also there are no cards from supplementary sets. It was a clean way of excluding Unsets, Eternal whatever and the MTG Online stuff as well.
I want to increase my spells section (I know they are all technically spells) and reduce the creature section. I've just found that each creature fills a purpose, but the spells are most contested, so I need to provide redundancy there.
There is also Shield of the Oversoul, which makes green creatures permanently indestructible and the white side isn't that terrible either.
Edit: Fun fact: I sometimes ask people if they know 2 commons, which can create a 5/4 Flying, Indestructible, Shroud on turn 3 in pauper and no one I've asked so far knew both (Naya Hushblade + Shield of the Oversoul).
I think I tried out Shield of the Oversoul quite a while ago, but there were no hexproofers to protect it from Man-o'-War. The cube was still forming so it was a pretty rouge place. I think it wasn't until someone stomped everyone with mono red that my cube's archetypes started forming for me. Before that I was relying a lot on decklists posted here as a guide for what to build.
[quote from="Cobble »" url="/forums/the-game/the-cube-forum/pauper-peasant-discussion/193989-the-pauper-cube-discussion-thread-commons-only?comment=7283"]Robe of Mirrors does the same thing without the stipulation of it being a blue creature.
No it isn't. +1/+1 is quite a big stat buff for a 1 mana aura. The downside of having to play it on a blue creature is negated by playing blue. That's if you actually intent on casting blue creatures with relevant bodies. The main downside I foresee of Clout of the Dominus is players will tunnel vision on getting both colours for all the bonuses, rather than focusing on the much more powerful effect. Another point is this kind of effect is not going to cut in on Merfolk Looters, which while strong are more for durdling than actually engaging the board. Durdling's fine and all, but creatures have gotten muchbetter.
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There's no word in the goblin language for "strategy." Then again, there's no word in the goblin language for "word."
Preordain - The best 1 mana cantrap in this format. Treasure Cruise - You do need things to go to your graveyard and has anti-synergy with Gurmag Angler, but the 3 card windfall is massive. Deep Analysis - Would be the ranked higher if burn/aggro decks weren't so strong. Rush of Knowledge - If you play this right, you can win from the card advantage generated by this card. Be wary of Terminate in response. Impulse - Best 2 mana card selection spell available. Serum Visions - The power is dispersed into the next turn, rather than as upfront dig. Still if you play this early this downside is almost entirely negated. Ponder - Significantly worse than Preordain because of the lack of shuffle when you see good card-land-land. Stronger at dig which puts Ponder above its peers. Brainstorm - The value of Brainstorm card spikes if you have drafted Evolving Wilds and Terramorphic Expanse and Ash Barrens. Shuffling away two cards is powerful. Seeing 3 cards is useful when you need to find an answer in response to a big threat, but I don't like the feeling of drawing cards I've already seen. Compulsive Research - Best 3 mana draw. Gitaxian Probe - Depending on the match up, strong or marginal. When the 2 life doesn't matter then seeing your opponents hand is a powerful move. When the life matters, you'll probability find an opportunity for cast this for 1 blue, and then you'll know how doomed you are. Depending on the types of spells you are holding depends on the value of the information. Opt - Helps slightly increase your card filtering so you can more reliably find what you are looking for when you need it. Being instant speed helps this card a lot. Portent - Drawing next upkeep would be a deal breaker, except for one important detail: you can look at the top three cards of an opponent's library. Hieroglyphic Illumination - Cycling for 1 blue makes this card quite decent. You can trade it in much sooner for a card than any of the 2 mana or more cards. I highly recommend cycling this card when possible because that's where the power is. Drawing two cards for 4 mana is way behind curve. The blue deck that runs Hieroglyphic Illumination wants to see as much of its library as soon as possible. Rain of Revelation - A strong 4 mana instant. Foresee - This is a huge play for 4 mana because you can see up to six cards. You need to tap out for it, so I'd probably want to play this in a removal heavy shell, so either Black, Red or White. I don't think a Blue heavy build has much use for a card like this. See Beyond - I really prefer cheap cards in blue decks and being able to put away an Ulamog's Crusher or a land when you don't need those cards means See Beyond generates virtual card advantage. Scour All Possibilities The flashback is ok. The regular cast is ok. I don't think I'll often have a spare 5 mana floating around, unless I'm ahead and holding countermagic mana. Omen of the Sea - Alright dig. This card feels very cuttable, but if I need a bit of glue to keep my deck together I'd run it. Winged Words - 2 mana draw two cards feels a little too good to be true. Midgame you should be able to get the discount. I think this won't be cast on turn 2. Anticipate - Instant speed chose one in three for 2 mana is so-so. Solidly middle of the pack, but I wouldn't be that inclined to play it. Shimmer of Possibility - The dig means I want to play this only if a couple of my cards are significantly stronger than the rest. Digging for Guardian of the Guildpact seems alright. Gush - Returning 2 Islands for 2 cards is too steep, because I wouldn't want to do that for any reason in the first several turns. This card is pretty broken not in a singleton common draft. The synergies to make use of Gush are few and far between. Think Twice - Cuttable even in self mill decks. Witching Well - No upfront card draw. 4 mana to draw two is bad unless there is an alternative. This is the kind of card that's worth watching because when there are enough decent cheap artifacts, the artifact matters cards really shine. Radical Idea - Drawing one for 2 mana isn't a deal I'm inclined to make. Discarding a card for an extra draw doesn't make up for the lack of mana efficiency. Divination - This is what mediocre card draw looks like. If you are looking for card advantage it almost always is worth looking elsewhere.
Bonus drawspell: Pieces of the Puzzle. Can get up to 2 relevant spells as well as fuel the graveyard. Very strong in the right deck, however you need to reach a critical mass of instants and sorceries in order for this card to function properly.
On Peregrine Drake. I prefer Spire Golem as my never tap out blue flier. Actually, all the Golems from Darksteel are great. The cost reduction is stronger than untapping some lands in Blue inPauper Cube because there is never a shields down moment. 4 toughness on a flier is really something else. When I was trying out some drossier cards Azure Drake performed well and Spire Golem is a much better version than the Drake, assuming you play Islands. I thought a 2/4 would be much worse than Phantom Monster, however not dying to most Red removal is a big deal. The slower clock isn't too noticeable in a Blue shell. What I find impacts the deck most is losing one of my few creatures to other deck's filler cards. Even if am crushing in card advantage I still don't want to durdle against Red.
With the Drake itself, 2/3 flier is very unimpressive and you have to wait for turn 5 before the card is even playable. That's more or less 4 turns of a card sitting in the hand doing nothing. In a colour that cares deeply about colour advantage, I'm not sure if I want to include functionally dead cards into my deck because then I am losing on on virtual card advantage (the only CA that truely matters) for the first chunk of a game. At 5 I want to be playing my Cavalier of Gales. My non-Mulldrifter Blue 5 drop of choice is Clutch of Currents, mostly because I like beating people with Man-o'-Wars.
Edit: if I have ways of shipping Peregrine Drake out of my hand early, I'd be a bit more charitable towards it. Not sure if anyone plays See Beyond. Merfolk Looter is a clear choice, but some games you don't have time to stick the Looter and begin looting, you need to do stuff now. If I'm happy to throw away a card to a Specter, that's not a good sign of overall card strength.
Picking the best card in 4 and putting it into you hand is stronger than Omen of the Sea. I like Omen on it's own merits, but Impulse is clearly stronger. Sure no one is talking about Shimmer of Possibility, but it goes to show how much better being instant speed is in Blue. We're a bit short on strong Blue 2 mana instant cantraps. There's a gulf between Anticipate which is not regarded well even in Standard and Impulse which I regard strong. Omen of the Sea is the Serum Visions in this situation. Ok, cashing in for the scry 2 is decent, but I would take up front dig any day.
Exclude is almost the best counterspell at common. The only reason why I pick Mana Leak over it, is that strong 2 cmc counterspells are at a premium, and I can always find card advantage somewhere else. Drawing a card on a 3 mana counterspell is bonkers. If you're looking for turn 2 plays, some of the cheap black removal on turn 2 followed by holding mana on turn 3 for Exclude is a hard to beat play. The single blue mana means you can splash blue for Exclude so you don't even have to be committed to the counterspell life style. Exclude is bonkers and there is no way my mind is changing on this. When you reach Turn 5 and your opponent still hasn't managed to stick a creature, you know it's going to be a fun match.
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There's no word in the goblin language for "strategy." Then again, there's no word in the goblin language for "word."
I don't think REB and BEB are Cube cards personally
Hence the honourable mention. They are strong pieces of countermagic.
I forgot Dispel and Spell Pierce. They are strong, but a bit too narrow for a limited environment. Maybe Spell Pierce is in the league of Faerie Trickery and Syncopate, and dispel's at the bottom with Confound and Logic Knot (without synergies), where it could be strong, but mostly will sit in your hand while your opponent plays creatures.
I really like Faerie Trickery because it feels like the extra 1 mana I'm paying over something the 2 mana alternatives is for a no questions asked, no nonsense kind of deal. If I counter a card with this, I don't to see it come back and haunt me. The Faerie clause has never been relevant (neither the tribal type).
I've decided not to run the Welkin Terns and for now also decided against Flicker combo and instead went with simply more goodstuff and more counterspells, because I felt like I had too few. While doing this I wondered, how do you rank the counterspells?
How do you rank the following:
-XU Counters (Power Sink/Syncopate/Broken Ambitions): The additional effects can mostly be ignored, IMO. They can counter everything on curve for 1U, but can be become quite mana intense later and outright bad if you are mana screwed or play against green with a lot of acceleration.
-Confound: A pet card of mine. It's mostly a weaker Shelter, but still pretty solid.
-Deprive: Unconditional cmc 2 Counter with tempo drawback. Bad early, doesn't matter later.
-Disdainful Stroke: I've only recently realised that this card might be really good as it hits pretty much all of the high impact cards, you actually want to counter. When it hits it's a guaranteed tempo gain.
-Dissolve: The best [card]Cancel/card].
-Creature Counter (Essence Scatter/False Summoning/Remove Soul): Narrow, but still creature removal for cmc 2.
-Force Spike: Good early, often useless later.
-Logic Knot: Bad early, good late.
-Memory Lapse: It feels more like a bounce spell than a Counter, but it technically is one. It's not really a permanent out, but instead buys you time to find one.
-Negate: Interesting in combination with the creature Counters.
-Prohibit: By far not as good as it is in constructed, but still not unplayable. It can't be better than going even or even in the negative tempo-wise.
Tier 7 Logic Knot (Without synergies) Confound (I ran this for a while but, it was a dead card more often than not. Although I was often more concerned with interacting with my opponent's stuff than my own.)
more like tl;dr. If I dedicate my whole cube, I can push Terns into borderline category.
yeah if you run terns, because you need them dead in the grave, fine.
lol
Al isnt running any of the zombies though.
if you run them in a controllish deck, you will just lose the race, cuz they cant block.
I think over the past 8 years or so, I tried and cut them as often as Al reintroduced them to his cube. Theyre just horrible.
Again. Desert turns them all into bad category. I can only imagine its underrated by Als playgroup.
Also autolosing to red isnt the best option. Your green evaluation was on point. how to win the swiss and beat burn. Now you just fold to red?
Sideboarding in cubedrafts is widely accepted as nothing to aim for.
I strongly believe in the sideboard. It feels more like a strategy game than roulette.
There's no need to bad mouth design decisions.
@Al_Z_Heimer
I just had a look at your cube list. I don't remember seeing Burn Trail before. 6 damage seems gross. You're red spells are so stacked. Maybe you could try Artillerize as well for another big overkill spell. Interesting that you're not running Faithless Looting for the filter. I guess it doesn't contribute to the burn as much as possible as quickly as possible plan. I like the card filter when I durdle. The red one drops are also extremely light. Maybe Foundry Street Denizen and Intimidator Initiate? Giantbaiting is another convoke card, although it might not make it through the sea of tokens you've got going. The 8 damage in nice in theory. It can come of nowhere so it's more of a trick (than a combat trick). I'm not sure if you play with sideboards. Giantbaiting would be in and out depending on what I thought the likelihood of it connecting would be in a given game.
A pet card which turned out to be a monster is Basilica Guards. It started going first pick it was that good. As a blocker it soaks damage in the relevant aggro matchups. You can negate its weakness to big creatures by being in removal colours and Gods Willing colour(s) to deal with your opponent's answers. The extort is crazy with lots of 2 for 1 cards and cheap spells. It's a big part of what makes the tithe archetype work.
Sentinel's Eyes seems good. Kind of a White Rancor — sort of. Obviously it represents less damage, but we haven't had enough vigilance cards in white outside of the odd Razor Golem. The 2 cards for escape is affordable, but means you don't want to run Eyes with much of the delve and Raise Dead effects.
Ehh on running Thirst for Meaning. I don't think most people will have enough enchantments for the discard. All the draw 3 and discard 1 of a card types have been strong. I'm looking forward to holding three mana in constructed... Compulsive Research, although sorcery, is the strongest for Pauper Cube as every deck has lots of lands and they are the type of cards you want to discard; lands are Dead Weights in your hand in multiples.
I don't think Rain of Revelation is very good. I prefer Hieroglyphic Illumination if I'm instant speed drawing netting a card for 4 mana. Cycling for 1 blue mana is very strong. You can trade in your card much sooner for one off the top, or in a game where you're not going to find the spare 4 mana you might be able to spare 1 Force Spike of mana somewhere. Hieroglyphic Illumination was one of the more expensive common foils I've picked up recently. I'm not sure if it's because the art in foil is amazing or because it's a strong cycling card. I could be underestimating the power of clearing a dead card from my hand with Rain of Revelation, but I think I would try to avoid dead cards in hand in the first place and Rain might just be one of those cards.
Sure if you're opponent is playing red, but it was never a strong card to play anyway against red. I'd be more afraid of Lava Dart. A magical thing exists in magic called sideboards. There are plenty of cards that are bad against red and plenty of cards that are great against red. All the 1 damage Fireslingers don't push that well for damage making them pretty susceptible to a standard curve of 2 drop, 3 drop, 4 drop. The repeatability of them means that we won't be seeing any more at common, so that's all there is. Dauthi Horror also dies to them and you don't see people saying that it's a weak card. Sure it's in black and you can streamline your aggro deck a lot there. The same could be said for blue if people supported aggro there. Eldrazi Skyspawner is a great 3 drop for the deck. 3 points of power and 2 of it is on the a flier and the rest is an Eldrazi Spawn is a great deal. Or Stitched Drake.
Headless Skaab takes a little bit to stand upright, but is massive. You really, really need 2 drops to make this deck work and preferably on colour so you don't end up making the mana base shaky. Merfolk Looter is pretty decent with the blue zombies. And Vapor Snag works wonders, sure it's pretty all in but you can recuperate your losses with Treasure Cruise. Ghoulcaller's Chant is an under appreciated card. Getting back 1 creature for 1 mana is an alright deal, but often in deck building you could just cut it for a decent creature and save 1 mana in the process. But getting a 2-for-1 with zombies is bonkers for 1 mana. And there is not exactly what you'd call a shortage of zombies. Gray Merchant of Asphodel, Gurmag Angler and Twisted Abomination are all ridiculous cards to recur. Sultai Emissary and Deranged Assistant gel the deck together. None of these cards are weak on their own either. Silver Myr and Leaden Myr are fine cards, but fall a little under the bar for most Pauper cubes; the artifact synergies are either parasitic or the artifacts themselves don't do enough. (Hopes for more good artifacts.) The self mill really sets the Assistant apart because there is so much to do with the cards in graveyard even if that's just to fuel delve.
Welkin Tern is fine in slower more controlly decks as well. As it sets a clock while you do blue things with blue mana. You can play it on later turns such as turn 4 when you might want to hold Mana Leak. Lowering the overall CMC lets you play more cards per turn and typically 2 2-drops is greater than 1 4-drop in overall stats. As well the card draw in blue is plentiful and abundant.
I was playing a friend's cube and I kept Primal Growthing tokens on turn 3. It seemed really strong, especially because I got the 2 lands into play untapped. It reminded me of Rushing River for the kind of value it generated.
Also I want to get around to reviewing Planar Chaos, because it's a mess.
I wasn't intending on doing a full review, I just kept finding things to say. I missed some of the vanilla creatures and a couple of cards which I had forgotten that they were downshifted. So for completeness' sake.
Blade of the Sixth Pride - The first 3/1 for 2. The first of many. It's a rebel, so technically not strictly worse than something such as Leonin of the Lost Pride, although I'm not sure if anyone runs rebel synergies. A vanilla 3/1 for 2 in white will still get played even in a competitive environment in Pauper cube.
Blind Phantasm - This vanilla clearly signals that Blue creatures are going to typically have less over stats for mana cost than other more Green colours. Three power has been a premium stat for 3CMC creatures for quite some time. It's only been in recent years that we've been seeing consistently strong cheap creatures.
Bogardan Lancer - In order for this to be viable there needs to be a lot of decent 1 drops. Even then Benalish Cavalry essentially has the same stats without the downside of having an opponent take damage. +1/+1 counter synergies are few and far between at common. The downsides are many; the upsides are few.
Bound in Silence - I don't understand rebel cards that well. Arn't there tutors for rebels with converted mana cost less than or equal to the converted mana cost of the creature that is doing the searching? Anyways, ignoring the tribal text, this is slightly worse than Recumbent Bliss or Arrest, but not strictly worse. Although in most cubes it will be strictly worse due to no Rebel synergies. I assume there is at least one good rebel common out there that can fetch this.
Fatal Attraction - From the days where 4 damage was a premium for Red. We still are in those days, but now we at least have Flame Slash to keep us company. As far as Red enchantments which deal damage when they enter the battlefield go, Galanvic Arc is the best of the lot (maybe Oath of Chandra, however that is rare). Or in more recent enchantment developments, Omen of the Forge is alright. In saying all this, when it comes down to it, if you remove access to all decent damage based removal, cards such as Fatal Attraction will get played. Fatal Attraction is by no means terrible, it's just Red removal is very, very efficient since Lightning Bolt was printed.
Flowstone Embrace - An aura that taps, just to show that there is design space there. As removal Immolation is better in most regards. As a buff, you can keep your creature's toughness if required. Or in multiplayer you can put it on an opponent's creature to use as a negotiating tool.
Fomori Nomad - Ahh yes, the fabled nomad creature type. Maybe this was meant to be the new Hill Giant as a 4/4 is the new 3/3.
Mass of Ghouls - Black seems to get a lot of lopsided power/toughnesses. I think it's because most large zombies don't have a balanced diet. 5 power unopposed sets a quick clock. 3 toughness means it's mostly target practice.
Sparkspitter - The 1/3 body means that this card itself won't do a Spark Elemental impersonation. Turning lands into 3/1s means that this can act as retrace. However, the generator is rather vulnerable and Red decks already have a solution to drawing an excess of land which are the x-cost spells. The Spark Elemental land-to-damage exchange rate is quite favourable if left unopposed.
On the other hand Lock decks (call them control, call them Lock) are looking for any kind of flier to actually get through damage so they can crawl to victory through their complete denial of their opponent's board/hand. The quicker the clock the more midrangey these style of control decks can play. Peregrine's a relatively low-cost flier which can act as an alternate wincon with Mnemonic Wall and Ghostly Flicker which are both cards in the my cube and both cards that these Lock decks typically play. Even without the alternative wincon (which is fairly likely when the deck intends to stall indefinitely) the Drake is a fine play turn 5 or later because you can keeps your lands untapped to deal with whatever you opponent tries to do. I'm much more likely to have things to do with 5 mana in control than tempo. Being able to play a creature and still have mana to Flood is invaluable.
Also apparently Ninjas are a thing in our format? 5 mana is a bit slow for Ninjas, still the Drake makes a good target to return. Maybe Cloud of Faeries is better for Ninjas because you can set up that much sooner.
Cackling Flames is an interesting one. I don't get Hellbent often enough to really justify it. I'm often looking for a lull to cast 5 damage spells. And anyway Sprinting Warbrute is the best Lava Axe. It's just really nice to have redundancy in big damage effects because damage synergises so well with itself.
Not really sure how I feel about splicing a madness theme in. Most of the decent cards for it require supplementary sets for the common printings. I experimented with madness before, it felt like I needed too many pieces in order for the deck to function well. And the gains were marginal compared to a lot of the Red/x goodstuff decks.
Taste for Mayhem has been the hellbent card I've been considering adding. My red enchantment section is a bit light and the default mode of an extra 2 power somewhere is alright. 4 power for 1 mana is nothing to sneeze at and hopefully a deck that runs that is planning on unloading it's hand pretty quickly. Drawing extra lands will be the main challenge, although a few mana sinks such as Immolating Souleater will solve that problem.
Inner-flame Acolyte is a better Minotaur Skullcleaver in my opinion. I prefer having envoke over the slightly more awkward casting cost. Slash Panther can cost no red mana and always has 4 power; and I don't know about you, but 4 power creatures tend to be pretty good. Also I can give the +2/+0 to an unblockable creature and still net the 2/2 potentially as a blocker for myself. Embereth Paladin is a potential replacement for Slash Panther, although I'll try both because I suspect they will be ran in different builds.
Playing against White I go for war of attrition strategies. Most cube lists that I've seen run a lot of 1&2 drops, which is fine, but I think it goes to show that the other colour's sections haven't been adapted to a 1 mana heavy format. Little cards like Dead Weight go a long way to dropping the strength of an early-game. As well as that Dead Weight enables delirium, the cards of which are all aggressively costed. I generally want quite a bit of early hate and I want those cards to be multimodal so I have a use for them when I play against something that has less targets.
Blue's a bit of a sitting duck, but for me it's almost always paired with the colour with the most removal and grind. Getting Blue to play mono is a bit of a mission.
I've been looking at other people's lists. I'll get around to eventually putting mine up on Cubetutor as well. I'm not too interested in direct comparisons either because I know that I've been balancing curves differently. Card by card is a pain when evaluating a whole section.
When posting a whole section, I'm looking for something that stands out rather than details, because I've already gone over the details. I'm also in the middle of a massive overhaul because I'm missing a few years of recent additions and the other colours are in a much rougher state (less Red staples have been printed recently so the line-up is fairly static).
I've been considering Cosmotronic Wave. It's a piece of cardboard which by freak occurrence I am missing. I've tried out Ruthless Invasion, so I assume it plays similarly to that. Spraying down 1 toughness creatures sounds very useful. However Ruthless Invasion can be very strong for both Green and White (especially G/W). I'll probably run both as they fit different archetypes.
1 Slash Panther
Creatures (41)
1 Atarka Efreet
1 Borderland Marauder
1 Chartooth Cougar
1 Embereth Paladin
1 Fireslinger
1 Foundry Street Denizen
1 Gathan Raiders
1 Ghirapur Gearcrafter
1 Ghitu Slinger
1 Goblin Cohort
1 Goblin Freerunner
1 Goblin Heelcutter
1 Goblin Shortcutter
1 Gorehorn Minotaurs
1 Gore-House Chainwalker
1 Hissing Iguanar
1 Inner-Flame Acolyte
1 Intimidator Initiate
1 Keldon Marauders
1 Keldon Halberdier
1 Kozilek's Sentinel
1 Kruin Striker
1 Martyr of Ashes
1 Maw of Kozilek
1 Mogg Conscripts
1 Mogg Fanatic
1 Plated Geopede
1 Prickleboar
1 Rimrock Knight
1 Rubblebelt Recluse
1 Ruinous Minotaur
1 Rukh Egg
1 Scorchwalker
1 Sparksmith
1 Spikewheel Acrobat
1 Splatter Thug
1 Sprinting Warbrute
1 Stingscourger
1 Underworld Rage-Hound
1 Weaselback Redcap
1 Zada's Commando
1 Crusher Zendikon
1 Madcap Skills
Instant (18)
1 Artillerize
1 Brimstone Volley
1 Burst Lightning
1 Dead // Gone
1 Dynacharge
1 Fireblast
1 Incinerate
1 Lash Out
1 Lava Dart
1 Lightning Bolt
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Rhystic Lightning
1 Rock Slide
1 Searing Blaze
1 Searing Spear
1 Smash to Smithereens
1 Staggershock
1 Thrill of Possibility
Sorcery (13)
1 Aftershock
1 Arc Lightning
1 Disintegrate
1 Faithless Looting
1 Fireball
1 Firebolt
1 Flame Slash
1 Kaervek's Torch
1 Molten Rain
1 Mugging
1 Pyrotechnics
1 Reckless Charge
1 Rolling Thunder
Notes: Artillerize has always ended games when I've played it. It's basically the second cheapest Lava Axe in the format after Brimstone Volley. I'm less keen on x cost burn spells because I generally want to lower my curve by as much as possible, but I know their good pick-ups for people considering a red splash. Rolling Thunder is still strong, but requires a much more serious commitment to red. Mugging and Dead // Gone seem like weaker copies of Galvanic Blast, but they allow you to remove a creature from the equation when your looking to close out a game and double as good removal at dealing with pesky white cards and mana elves. Scorchwalker sneaks in 5 damage, which again pretty much ends games. Maw of Kozilek is in purely for experimental purposes; Wastes are freely available since they are basic lands. Yes, I know that Pyroblast is strictly better than Red Elemental Blast due to escape, hellbent, delve and Hero of the Pride. It's what I had at hand. Immolating Souleater and Oxidda Golem are sitting in the colourless section for sorting purposes. Also there are no cards from supplementary sets. It was a clean way of excluding Unsets, Eternal whatever and the MTG Online stuff as well.
I want to increase my spells section (I know they are all technically spells) and reduce the creature section. I've just found that each creature fills a purpose, but the spells are most contested, so I need to provide redundancy there.
Naya Hushblade and Shield of the Oversoul were both standard legal at the same time but never saw any play.
I think I tried out Shield of the Oversoul quite a while ago, but there were no hexproofers to protect it from Man-o'-War. The cube was still forming so it was a pretty rouge place. I think it wasn't until someone stomped everyone with mono red that my cube's archetypes started forming for me. Before that I was relying a lot on decklists posted here as a guide for what to build.
Because this is the place to discuss cards such as Clout of the Dominus.
No it isn't. +1/+1 is quite a big stat buff for a 1 mana aura. The downside of having to play it on a blue creature is negated by playing blue. That's if you actually intent on casting blue creatures with relevant bodies. The main downside I foresee of Clout of the Dominus is players will tunnel vision on getting both colours for all the bonuses, rather than focusing on the much more powerful effect. Another point is this kind of effect is not going to cut in on Merfolk Looters, which while strong are more for durdling than actually engaging the board. Durdling's fine and all, but creatures have gotten much better.
https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=152092
Preordain - The best 1 mana cantrap in this format.
Treasure Cruise - You do need things to go to your graveyard and has anti-synergy with Gurmag Angler, but the 3 card windfall is massive.
Deep Analysis - Would be the ranked higher if burn/aggro decks weren't so strong.
Rush of Knowledge - If you play this right, you can win from the card advantage generated by this card. Be wary of Terminate in response.
Impulse - Best 2 mana card selection spell available.
Serum Visions - The power is dispersed into the next turn, rather than as upfront dig. Still if you play this early this downside is almost entirely negated.
Ponder - Significantly worse than Preordain because of the lack of shuffle when you see good card-land-land. Stronger at dig which puts Ponder above its peers.
Brainstorm - The value of Brainstorm card spikes if you have drafted Evolving Wilds and Terramorphic Expanse and Ash Barrens. Shuffling away two cards is powerful. Seeing 3 cards is useful when you need to find an answer in response to a big threat, but I don't like the feeling of drawing cards I've already seen.
Compulsive Research - Best 3 mana draw.
Gitaxian Probe - Depending on the match up, strong or marginal. When the 2 life doesn't matter then seeing your opponents hand is a powerful move. When the life matters, you'll probability find an opportunity for cast this for 1 blue, and then you'll know how doomed you are. Depending on the types of spells you are holding depends on the value of the information.
Opt - Helps slightly increase your card filtering so you can more reliably find what you are looking for when you need it. Being instant speed helps this card a lot.
Portent - Drawing next upkeep would be a deal breaker, except for one important detail: you can look at the top three cards of an opponent's library.
Hieroglyphic Illumination - Cycling for 1 blue makes this card quite decent. You can trade it in much sooner for a card than any of the 2 mana or more cards. I highly recommend cycling this card when possible because that's where the power is. Drawing two cards for 4 mana is way behind curve. The blue deck that runs Hieroglyphic Illumination wants to see as much of its library as soon as possible.
Rain of Revelation - A strong 4 mana instant.
Foresee - This is a huge play for 4 mana because you can see up to six cards. You need to tap out for it, so I'd probably want to play this in a removal heavy shell, so either Black, Red or White. I don't think a Blue heavy build has much use for a card like this.
See Beyond - I really prefer cheap cards in blue decks and being able to put away an Ulamog's Crusher or a land when you don't need those cards means See Beyond generates virtual card advantage.
Scour All Possibilities The flashback is ok. The regular cast is ok. I don't think I'll often have a spare 5 mana floating around, unless I'm ahead and holding countermagic mana.
Omen of the Sea - Alright dig. This card feels very cuttable, but if I need a bit of glue to keep my deck together I'd run it.
Winged Words - 2 mana draw two cards feels a little too good to be true. Midgame you should be able to get the discount. I think this won't be cast on turn 2.
Anticipate - Instant speed chose one in three for 2 mana is so-so. Solidly middle of the pack, but I wouldn't be that inclined to play it.
Shimmer of Possibility - The dig means I want to play this only if a couple of my cards are significantly stronger than the rest. Digging for Guardian of the Guildpact seems alright.
Gush - Returning 2 Islands for 2 cards is too steep, because I wouldn't want to do that for any reason in the first several turns. This card is pretty broken not in a singleton common draft. The synergies to make use of Gush are few and far between.
Think Twice - Cuttable even in self mill decks.
Witching Well - No upfront card draw. 4 mana to draw two is bad unless there is an alternative. This is the kind of card that's worth watching because when there are enough decent cheap artifacts, the artifact matters cards really shine.
Radical Idea - Drawing one for 2 mana isn't a deal I'm inclined to make. Discarding a card for an extra draw doesn't make up for the lack of mana efficiency.
Divination - This is what mediocre card draw looks like. If you are looking for card advantage it almost always is worth looking elsewhere.
Bonus drawspell: Pieces of the Puzzle. Can get up to 2 relevant spells as well as fuel the graveyard. Very strong in the right deck, however you need to reach a critical mass of instants and sorceries in order for this card to function properly.
With the Drake itself, 2/3 flier is very unimpressive and you have to wait for turn 5 before the card is even playable. That's more or less 4 turns of a card sitting in the hand doing nothing. In a colour that cares deeply about colour advantage, I'm not sure if I want to include functionally dead cards into my deck because then I am losing on on virtual card advantage (the only CA that truely matters) for the first chunk of a game. At 5 I want to be playing my Cavalier of Gales. My non-Mulldrifter Blue 5 drop of choice is Clutch of Currents, mostly because I like beating people with Man-o'-Wars.
Edit: if I have ways of shipping Peregrine Drake out of my hand early, I'd be a bit more charitable towards it. Not sure if anyone plays See Beyond. Merfolk Looter is a clear choice, but some games you don't have time to stick the Looter and begin looting, you need to do stuff now. If I'm happy to throw away a card to a Specter, that's not a good sign of overall card strength.
Cloud of Faeries is a funny untaps lands card. Cycling is nice, but the strength is deploying the team early. I'm not sure if a 1/1 flier has any impact. This creature requires testing. Send it to the splicers for innovation.
Picking the best card in 4 and putting it into you hand is stronger than Omen of the Sea. I like Omen on it's own merits, but Impulse is clearly stronger. Sure no one is talking about Shimmer of Possibility, but it goes to show how much better being instant speed is in Blue. We're a bit short on strong Blue 2 mana instant cantraps. There's a gulf between Anticipate which is not regarded well even in Standard and Impulse which I regard strong. Omen of the Sea is the Serum Visions in this situation. Ok, cashing in for the scry 2 is decent, but I would take up front dig any day.
Hence the honourable mention. They are strong pieces of countermagic.
I forgot Dispel and Spell Pierce. They are strong, but a bit too narrow for a limited environment. Maybe Spell Pierce is in the league of Faerie Trickery and Syncopate, and dispel's at the bottom with Confound and Logic Knot (without synergies), where it could be strong, but mostly will sit in your hand while your opponent plays creatures.
I really like Faerie Trickery because it feels like the extra 1 mana I'm paying over something the 2 mana alternatives is for a no questions asked, no nonsense kind of deal. If I counter a card with this, I don't to see it come back and haunt me. The Faerie clause has never been relevant (neither the tribal type).
Tier 0
Mana Leak
Condescend
Exclude
Counterspell
Tier 0.5 (Honourable mentions)
Pyroblast
Red Elemental Blast
Hydroblast
Blue Elemental Blast
Tier 1
Daze
Miscalculation
Mana Tithe
Tier 2
Quench
Dissolve (I'm personally not running downshifted cards right now.)
Arcane Denial (More of a tempo card than a control card.)
Tier 3
Force Spike
Memory Lapse (similar to Arcane Denial)
Essence Scatter and functional reprints
Logic Knot (With Preordain, Thought Scour or something turn 1.)
Tier 4
Faerie Trickery (This is one of my pet cards.)
Broken Ambitions (The clash is a functional scry 1, but the downsides are your opponent gets to scry 1 or fuel graveyard.)
Syncopate
Power Sink
Tier 6
Prohibit (Never tried this one out.)
Deprive
Disdainful Stroke
Memory Drain
Cancel
Tier 7
Logic Knot (Without synergies)
Confound (I ran this for a while but, it was a dead card more often than not. Although I was often more concerned with interacting with my opponent's stuff than my own.)
Tier 8
Traumatic Visions
Negate (I'm learning to appreciate Negate, but most of the time I want a Remove Soul instead, or even Cancel.)
Bone to Ash
I strongly believe in the sideboard. It feels more like a strategy game than roulette.
There's no need to bad mouth design decisions.
@Al_Z_Heimer
I just had a look at your cube list. I don't remember seeing Burn Trail before. 6 damage seems gross. You're red spells are so stacked. Maybe you could try Artillerize as well for another big overkill spell. Interesting that you're not running Faithless Looting for the filter. I guess it doesn't contribute to the burn as much as possible as quickly as possible plan. I like the card filter when I durdle. The red one drops are also extremely light. Maybe Foundry Street Denizen and Intimidator Initiate? Giantbaiting is another convoke card, although it might not make it through the sea of tokens you've got going. The 8 damage in nice in theory. It can come of nowhere so it's more of a trick (than a combat trick). I'm not sure if you play with sideboards. Giantbaiting would be in and out depending on what I thought the likelihood of it connecting would be in a given game.
A pet card which turned out to be a monster is Basilica Guards. It started going first pick it was that good. As a blocker it soaks damage in the relevant aggro matchups. You can negate its weakness to big creatures by being in removal colours and Gods Willing colour(s) to deal with your opponent's answers. The extort is crazy with lots of 2 for 1 cards and cheap spells. It's a big part of what makes the tithe archetype work.
Sentinel's Eyes seems good. Kind of a White Rancor — sort of. Obviously it represents less damage, but we haven't had enough vigilance cards in white outside of the odd Razor Golem. The 2 cards for escape is affordable, but means you don't want to run Eyes with much of the delve and Raise Dead effects.
Ehh on running Thirst for Meaning. I don't think most people will have enough enchantments for the discard. All the draw 3 and discard 1 of a card types have been strong. I'm looking forward to holding three mana in constructed... Compulsive Research, although sorcery, is the strongest for Pauper Cube as every deck has lots of lands and they are the type of cards you want to discard; lands are Dead Weights in your hand in multiples.
I don't think Rain of Revelation is very good. I prefer Hieroglyphic Illumination if I'm instant speed drawing netting a card for 4 mana. Cycling for 1 blue mana is very strong. You can trade in your card much sooner for one off the top, or in a game where you're not going to find the spare 4 mana you might be able to spare 1 Force Spike of mana somewhere. Hieroglyphic Illumination was one of the more expensive common foils I've picked up recently. I'm not sure if it's because the art in foil is amazing or because it's a strong cycling card. I could be underestimating the power of clearing a dead card from my hand with Rain of Revelation, but I think I would try to avoid dead cards in hand in the first place and Rain might just be one of those cards.
Headless Skaab takes a little bit to stand upright, but is massive. You really, really need 2 drops to make this deck work and preferably on colour so you don't end up making the mana base shaky. Merfolk Looter is pretty decent with the blue zombies. And Vapor Snag works wonders, sure it's pretty all in but you can recuperate your losses with Treasure Cruise. Ghoulcaller's Chant is an under appreciated card. Getting back 1 creature for 1 mana is an alright deal, but often in deck building you could just cut it for a decent creature and save 1 mana in the process. But getting a 2-for-1 with zombies is bonkers for 1 mana. And there is not exactly what you'd call a shortage of zombies. Gray Merchant of Asphodel, Gurmag Angler and Twisted Abomination are all ridiculous cards to recur. Sultai Emissary and Deranged Assistant gel the deck together. None of these cards are weak on their own either. Silver Myr and Leaden Myr are fine cards, but fall a little under the bar for most Pauper cubes; the artifact synergies are either parasitic or the artifacts themselves don't do enough. (Hopes for more good artifacts.) The self mill really sets the Assistant apart because there is so much to do with the cards in graveyard even if that's just to fuel delve.
Welkin Tern is fine in slower more controlly decks as well. As it sets a clock while you do blue things with blue mana. You can play it on later turns such as turn 4 when you might want to hold Mana Leak. Lowering the overall CMC lets you play more cards per turn and typically 2 2-drops is greater than 1 4-drop in overall stats. As well the card draw in blue is plentiful and abundant.
I was playing a friend's cube and I kept Primal Growthing tokens on turn 3. It seemed really strong, especially because I got the 2 lands into play untapped. It reminded me of Rushing River for the kind of value it generated.
tl;dr curving is strong.