This is my 44th installment of the "top 20" set (P)review articles! Just like the previous reviews, it will be in a spoiled top X countdown format, with each section having an image, a brief summary/description, and my verdict on what cubes I think it could potentially see some play in. I got a lot of positive feedback on the format from the last few articles, so I’m going to keep the “what I like” and “what I don’t like” sections.
Keep in mind (just like the others) that this is a set preview. Similar to draft predictions in professional sports, this list is an educated guess at best. Some cards I value highly in here may turn out to not last long in the cube. Other cards that are lower down on the list (or even missed entirely!) could (well, very likely may) turn out to be great cards. Even the great Tom Brady was drafted in the 6th round! Again, this is not intended to be gospel, set in stone, or written as a review for posterity. This is simply written to be an enjoyable guess at cards I like for cubes, and hopefully it'll allow some cube managers to evaluate cards they may have otherwise overlooked and/or put some cards in perspective that may've been overhyped. Nothing more.
The Brothers’ War is a fantastic cube set, and even the exercise of trimming down to the 20 cards I felt like were the most worth discussing was quite the task. So if there’s cards you love for your cube that didn’t make my list, don’t fret. There’s a ton of good diamonds in the rough worth polishing from this set. Both the new and revisited mechanics happen to fit most cube themes, so there’s a lot of good things to pick from. The flavor is off the charts, and really appeals to the nostalgia for older Magic players like myself.
What I Like: Dealing damage to all creatures and all ‘walkers is a unique ability to find on a cheap spell. Additionally, destroying all cheap artifacts can really punish builds that use their first few turns to build up an artifact infrastructure of mana rocks and utility cards, just to have them swept away by one spell. Finding decks that can have both modes of this spell be asymmetrical will be a hard task, but if your decks are full of medium- to large-sized creatures and cheap spells, Brotherhood’s End can be a powerful card.
What I Don't Like: Most big red decks that want to play creature sweepers are often full of ‘walkers and cheap artifacts, which makes this card hard to abuse. And in red control, I think the cycling option on Sweltering Suns will prove to be a more valuable effect to have access to.
Verdict: If your cube supports red decks that are light on artifacts and ‘walkers and plays bigger midrange threats, this card is great when it’s asymmetrical. But I think most cubes aren’t constructed in a way to maximize the advantages that this card can bring.
What I Like: 1-mana removal that exiles targets is pretty sweet. The limitations this card has on the size of the targets makes this play more like a Fatal Push than a Swords to Plowshares or Path to Exile, but I like the fact that the pool of targets can scale as the game progresses. In mono white (or in white-heavy decks splashing another color off true dual lands) most of your lands will be Plains, and LDA will scale with the game as you make land drops.
What I Don't Like: Being a sorcery hurts, and with all the rest of the built-in limitations, I don’t think it would’ve been too much to make this card an instant. Being limited to mv ≤ plains count on targets is a huge restriction, as a lot of mana fixing and utility lands are non-plains, and multicolor decks won’t be able to reliably use this to kill anything more than cmc 1 or 2 with any consistency. And with both of those limitations, did it also have to cough up 3 life too?
Verdict: This won’t compete against the top-tier white removal spells. But for large cubes that play spells like Oust, Sunlance, and/or Condemn and also play a lot of mono-white decks, Lay Down Arms might be a cheap removal spell worth examining. Even for smaller cubes, if the majority of your fixing is provided by duals, and your utility land count is low, LDA could be worth a close look there too. It’s still 1-mana removal that exiles at the end of the day.
What I Like: For your 9 colorless mana, you get three Diabolic Edicts and a Debtors’ Knell. Which is a pretty decent deal, all things considered. Most of our big colorless targets are creatures, so it’s nice to see a Tinker/Welder target that does something different for a change. This is a solid target for green ramp decks, artifact.dec ramp shells, and cards that can cheat this onto the battlefield, like Tinker, Welder, Daretti, Show and Tell, and Eureka. It has a big ETB impact in the midgame, and depending on what this kills or what else you can feed it, the Knell effect can put some scary stuff to the board. Flipping this in and out of play with Welder will obviously be a powerful thing to do, since 3 Edicts is nothing to scoff at.
What I Don't Like: This isn’t going to be a great early-game Tinker target, because it won’t have any meaningful creatures to kill or return. In fact, there’s no guarantee that this card will ever be worth a ton for you, since both effects are largely contingent on the board, the ‘yards, and the matchup. It’s rough to play a 9mv payoff card that provides inconsistent value.
Verdict: If you’re in the mood or market for a big artifact that plays different than the traditional robots we cube folks cheat into play, Portal can be a fun and exciting alternative. But I think putting a giant artifact monster onto the board will be the more consistently good thing to do in the majority of cases.
What I Like: Glorious Anthem effects have fallen out of favor with cube managers over the years, since the idea of paying mana and utilizing a full card just to bolster your board is less and less of a good idea. Trenches helps to mitigate that issue by including a built-in O Ring effect onto your Anthem so you can get more than just one effect from the card. Most token-centric decks are designed to go into the late game with some bigger spells, so 6 mana won’t be impossible to reach for most of those decks, and being able to get an Anthem to bolster your mid-game team and be able to blast their best permanent in the late-game is a nice combination of effects to get from a single card.
What I Don't Like: 6 mana is a lot to invest in an activated ability. It would be really cool if it had a way to reduce the cost (like Convoke or something) that would play well with the kinds of shells that want an Anthem. You can end up investing 9 mana into this card between the Anthem and the O Ring, and have the entire thing be undone by a single Disenchant.
Verdict: If you’ve been looking for an Anthem effect that can play well in your Token/Ramp shells, Trenches might just fit that bill. However, I expect the majority of cubes to collect their Anthem effects from the creatures and ‘walkers that they’re so often stapled to nowadays.
What I Like: This card presents a good blocker the turn it comes down, and then turns into an unblockable 3-power beater that’s attacking as early as T3. You can start turning it sideways and using the leftover mana to protect it with tempo counters while it bashes in for big chunks of unblockable damage every turn. And towards the end of the game, you can dump 6 mana into it once to draw 3 cards if the game unfolds in a way where that option presents itself.
What I Don't Like: The way this card plays out, you spend your 2nd turn’s and part of your 3rd turn’s mana getting this beater online, and T3 plays are the bread and butter of blue tempo decks. I don’t like investing multiple turns worth of mana on my beatdown creature, because if it does happen to get answered quickly, it’s a lot of investment, and it has a big impact on my tempo moving forward. Since it has defender in its initial mode, the card doesn’t do anything for my beatdown deck until I can find a window to sink the additional mana into it. It prices me into paying for the ability on T3, and interrupting my ability to play the Clique, Nemesis or Channeler that I really want to be dropping in that part of the curve.
Verdict: If you’re looking for a tempo-specific blue creature, this is a pretty good one. It can represent a lot of unblockable damage, and can try and finish games as a solo threat protected by countermagic in a way that we don’t see very often.
What I Like: This is an exiling Naturalize effect that gains life and can split its mana investment across multiple turns. It’s also strapped to a body that can be searched for by all of the toolbox engine cards that care about small creatures, as well as being a 1-mana artifact that can be searched up by Urza’s Saga. It’s an early-game answer to power, other good ramp artifacts and utility cards in addition to being an obnoxious roadblock against aggro. Trading with a Ragavan in combat and gaining 2 life in the process is a bummer of a thing for red aggressive decks to run into, and it’s a great use of 1 colorless mana on defense.
What I Don't Like: Being limited to noncreature targets is quite the disruption. Looking at the numbers for my cube, this loses ~1/4 (23% to be exact) of the targets that a regular Naturalize would have by comparison. And a lot of the targets that I really want to use the exile clause against are all creatures.
Verdict: If this could hit any artifact/enchantment, I would be slamming it into my cube. With the noncreature clause, this is going to be a near miss for me, but I plan on keeping my eye on it. It has a lot of little upsides and interactions that add to its value, and if those bonuses add lots of value to your particular list, I could see justifying an inclusion here. But I think it will ultimately settle into the 630-720 range for a lot of cube managers.
What I Like: A 2-power 2-drop with haste is a good baseline. Feldon has the ability to replace itself with a different card if it dies off in combat, which is great when you can force the opponent into a combat trade. Feldon can get replacement value when it dies instead of the potential value you can get from a comparable card like Robber of the Rich, which can only get an additional card when the conditions are exactly perfect. 1-power tokens make for bad blockers against Feldon because he can still generate value if he lives through his damage-taking. Which also makes Feldon a great target for pinging effects, if you play any of those in your cube. If you can bolster Feldon’s toughness with other effects, he can start to swing into bigger blockers, and threaten to generate card advantage if they chump him. And being able to play the card until the end of your next turn is critical, so if he trades away in combat immediately, you can play the replacement card on the following turn.
What I Don't Like: Being unable to block hurts, because this would be a great blocker. And if Feldon dies in any way other than damage, you get nothing.
Verdict: With a couple of pinging effects or ways to bolster his toughness, you can turn Feldon into quite the engine. But even at face value, I would expect Feldon to compete as a decent beater creature in most read aggro decks. I would have room for Feldon at 630, but I could easily see him sneaking into smaller cubes if there are synergistic pieces or the cube’s red section is all-in on aggro.
What I Like: I have extensive playtesting with Edric, Spymaster of Trest, Gix’s Simic counterpart. By comparison, Gix is only one color, and is a 3/3 instead of a 2/2. The ceiling of this kind of an effect is really powerful. Curving from a 1-drop into a 2-drop into Gix can result in a free Night’s Whisper the turn it’s played if the creatures can make it through the red zone unchecked. In go-wide decks with throw-away attackers and in token-centric shells, these kinds of effects can be quite powerful. And if you somehow find yourself flooded with 7 mana and multiple dead cards in your hand, Gix has an activated ability that might be of value.
What I Don't Like: Paying life for the effect is fine, but there’s other self-damage effects in black that are already taxing on your life total in aggro mirrors. And the 7-mana activated ability thing is basically just flavor text. Decks that want to play Gix aren’t going to be both hitting 7 mana AND having additional dead cards in their hand with any amount of consistency. The problem with Gix is the same problem I had with Edric. It wasn’t color combination, it wasn’t the 2/2 body …it was the inconsistency of the effect. Sometimes you have multiple free attackers and you’ll draw lots of cards. Other times, your board will be empty, and the effect does next to nothing. Those inconsistency issues I had with Edric won’t be fixed by anything that Gix brings to the table.
Verdict: Gix is a powerful 3-drop for aggressive black decks, so if you’re in the market for another one, or you’re unhappy with your current suite, Gix could be a good option. I think I would be willing to play the card at 630, but I can’t find room in my current configuration, despite supporting black aggro.
What I Like: This is basically an Orzhov Maelstrom Pulse that exiles the main target.
What I Don't Like: In comparison to Pulse, LtA won’t hit copies of nontoken cards that share a name, so it won’t clip off clones.
Verdict: I like this less than Vindicate (hitting lands is boss), more than Anguished Unmaking (3 life is a lot) and about as much as Vanishing Verse (Ashes hits more targets, but Verse is cheaper). I would play this if I had 1-2 more Orzhov slots, so probably somewhere in the ~630 range.
What I Like: Teferi does quite a few things well. The fact that his loyalty and his Spirit tokens grow with all drawn cards adds quite a bit of synergy to his various functions. What makes Teferi good are his Spirit tokens. They get +1/+1 counters for each drawn card, and they have vigilance, so they get bigger every turn, and can both apply pressure and defend Teferi. Using Teferi to create a pair of growing tokens will quickly snowball out of control with pressure, card advantage, and protection. The ultimate is pretty powerful, and can be reached relatively easily with a bit of help from outside draw effects. Don’t forget to add loyalty to Teferi with your drawn card at the start of each turn, which also adds counters to your Spirits. Chucking a single Brainstorm or a looting engine or the like into the mix with Teferi and a couple of his Spirits makes things really scary for the opponent really quickly. Not to mention that a draw-7 effect will make the token into a 10/10 and/or set up Teferi to ultimate almost immediately.
What I Don't Like: Turn 5 is relatively late into the game to resolve a snowballing threat that generates value over time. Teferi is quite good at both of those roles, but it’s resolving about a turn too late into the game to feel completely broken.
Verdict: I expect this card to play a lot better than people think it will at first glance, and people willing to dedicate the real estate to it in their cubes will be rewarded with a powerful and consistent snowballing finisher and card advantage engine. I’d slam this in at 630, and even at 540 (and smaller) we should all be keeping a close eye on Teferi, because it’s a very good card.
What I Like: A 3-mana 3/3 with menace, lifelink, and lifeloss ward is a solid floor. It also has access to a 7-mana mode that makes a 7/5 body with the same abilities, and a much more punishing ward trigger. The card can play a variety of roles, from aggro/midrange beater to ramp target, Wildfire finisher, artifact.dec monster, blink target, and even a backup reanimation target in a pinch. It’s a solid roleplayer that can be a decent creature in a variety of decks.
What I Don't Like: While the Fleshgorger is a playable creature in a lot of shells, it’s not great in any of them. The lack of deathtouch and the 3 toughness will make the creature trade down in combat against a lot of current cube creatures, and I really wish it had a more appealing mana cost in its prototype mode.
Verdict: I was originally planning on adding this card into my cube, because it’s a good card that can be slotted into a variety of different shells. I asked if the card would be playable in many decks, and the answer was yes. But when I examined if the creature would be great in any of them, the answer was no. I could see testing this creature in cubes of most any size, and I think I’d be able to find room at 630, but it didn’t end up making it into my 540 list right off the bat. A good card, to be sure, but it doesn’t feel like something I can’t live without.
What I Like: This is an effect I’ve always waited to see get pushed enough to deliver a card that warranted testing. This is the first time that this effect has been available on a mono-colored card with flash without being accompanied with a drawback, and it’s especially rare with evasion. 2 mana for a 2-power flying creature with flash is already a fine rate when your deck is looking for an evasive beater to chip away, but the added versatility of being able to rescue a creature from combat/removal and/or returning a creature that you want to replay for another ETB trigger is good gravy. Not to mention the Soldier synergy, which will randomly allow this to enter as a 3-power 2-drop with flying. This creature will play well in flash decks, tempo shells, and ETB trigger decks, and demonstrate a good rate while doing so. Folks that played Whitemane Lion back in the good ol’ days will remember how the effect can be used, and this one has the critical added abilities of having flying and having the bounce trigger be OPTIONAL.
What I Don't Like: I wish the card could bounce any permanent I own instead of just creatures; some of my favorite things to do with Kor Skyfisher involve bouncing lands and moxen to provide a discounted rate, or returning other noncreature permanents like Sarcomancy and ‘walkers to get extra bodies or reset tokens.
Verdict: At the end of the day, this might not prove to be enough to warrant a coveted slot in blue, but it does a lot of nice things in one package, and it’s pushed beyond precedent for similar effects. I’m testing this at 540, but it could easily make smaller lists with pushed ETB themes and deep tempo strategies, and it could also be a complete bust if it turns out not to do enough. But I think it deserves testing to know for sure.
What I Like: Aggressive 3-power 2-drop with a completely colorless cost. It’s a Zombie for Gravecrawler dual-recursion synergy, and it returns with a +1/+1 counter, making it a 4-power monster when cast from the ‘yard. The cost reduction ability will work well to punish greedy 3- to 5-color control manabases (or honestly, any well-drafted manabase) with more consistency than it looks at first glance. Looking over my draft histories, this card would be damn-good against the kinds of manabases I draft, so I fear I’ll lose to this card more than I’ll win with it, lol. But in those situations where you can recur this card at the discounted rate, it’s a fantastic card to sacrifice, and getting access to an infinitely available 4-power 2-drop isn’t to be ignored. 6 mana is a lot, but we have some precedence with this looking at Earthshaker Khenra …different cards, to be sure, but the decently aggressive 2cc mode with the ability to bring back a 4-power threat for 6 mana in the late game if you get flooded has proven valuable, and I expect this to play decently well too. If they don’t exile it, you’ll always have access to a 4-power beater, and that’s a nice thing to be able to say.
What I Don't Like: I wish the gap between the normal recursion cost and the discounted recursion cost was smaller. One that returned for 5 normally and was reduced to 3 would drop some of the variance between its BCS and its WCS, and make it a more solid overall card. Either that or making the discount trigger off 3 nonbasics would be nice.
Verdict: This is a decent filler creature for aggressive decks, and it has a nice colorless cost. The recursion will be important when it’s live, and it punishes greedy mana. I’m finding room to test this out at 540, and expect it to play pretty decently at that size.
What I Like: Nobody is talking about this creature, and I’m happy to have found it and fallen for it. I mean, just look at its stupid face and tell me you don’t want to feed it some artifacts! Champion of the Parish is a good creature for human-centric decks that have enough critical mass of humans to reliably trigger the Champion early and often, and the Wurmlet does the same thing but for artifacts. I have more than twice as many artifacts in my cube as I do humans …hell, I have more artifacts with cmc < 3 in my cube than I do humans, and the ability to reliably trigger this creature is pretty high. I’ve drafted a ton and crunched a lot of numbers, and this can attack for 2 on T2 a decent % of the time with the number of cheap artifacts that naturally find their way into aggressive decks nowadays. Better in powered than in unpowered, but between cheap artifact creatures, fast mana, cheap equipment and utility artifacts like Baubles and stuff, this creature can function like a Champion of the Parish in pretty much any aggro deck that’s even paying a little bit of attention to its artifact count. Not to mention that continuing to add tokens throughout the game gets easier and easier as this counts treasures, clues, food, thopters, karnstructs, and all other artifacts you can hit. It also gains life for every artifact you play, so as it grows, you regain some life, which makes it punishing in the aggro mirror. In testing so far, this thing has been a 3/3 or 4/4 in almost every game, and has been an Isamaru variant a good % of the time. Plus, it can gain deathtouch if you have enough artifacts out! Nobody loves this creature, so I’m trying to spread the word. Repeatable artifact engines like Retrofitter Foundry will be spicy, and it plays perfectly in shells that are looking to take advantage of Urza’s Saga.
What I Don't Like: This creature would be so nasty if the +1/+1 counter thing wasn’t limited to once a turn, but after seeing it in action, I can see why it needs to be. Also, flying instead of deathtouch when you hit metalcraft would’ve been incredible. It is in an interesting intersection of cubes that support green as a beatdown color and cubes with a high concentration of cheap artifacts, so there are some cubes out there that won’t have the density of support to make the card (or its respective shell) work. Luckily for me, the Wurmlet can slot right in without any extra tinkering.
Verdict: I’m playing this at 540 and it’s killing it. However, I know it’s not for everybody. It needs some green beatdown support to shine, and it needs a good concentration of cheap artifacts to trigger it. This could be playable all the way down to 360 if the cube is powered and plays green beatdown decks, but my guess is that it’s closer to 450-630 ranges that will have the density of everything to make things shine for the little guy. One of my happiest cube finds that nobody is talking about but me (that I’ve seen yet as of the date/time I’m writing this article).
What I Like: I’m old enough to remember when Carrion Ants was a good Magic card. And I’m certainly old enough to have played a lot of Nantuko Shade in both constructed and in the early days of the cube. It was a premier cube beater, and was so good back in the day that it was worth playing mono black just to have access to it. Shadow eclipses that card in terms of its powerlevel, and I expect it to play really well. For those folks that have history with Nantuko Shade, you’ll immediately be able to pilot this creature to success and it’ll be just like riding a bike. For those that haven’t, there’s a lot of confusion about properly playing Shades. One of my cube catchphrases is: “The card doesn’t force you to play bad Magic” …and that applies to Shades. Common criticisms ask, “Isn’t it just better to play a better 2-drop and just spend your mana curving out?” and the answer to that is yes and no. More than the activation itself, it’s the threat of activation that makes Shades play so well. You can attack into your opponent’s blockers, and they won’t block because you could just pump the Shade and eat their blocker. So it chips in for damage. It’s almost like making it unblockable in a sense …unless the opponent offers a bad block, and you can then take advantage of their bad play. The rest of the time, you just sink whatever extra mana you can afford to spend on the unblocked Shade, and spend the rest of your mana on your other spells. However, there are also times where the opponent doesn’t have any blockers, and the right play is to sink all of your mana into the Shade and just fireball them every turn until they’re dead. It’ll take a lot of sets and reps to figure out when this is the correct play, but it often revolves around preventing overextension. Combat is even better with the Shadow than it was with the Shade, and the 2nd point of toughness subtly adds a ton of combat value to this card, saving a lot of mana on average. The colorless activation makes all the difference in the world, and gives your deck a mana sink for mana of any type/color that you can effectively use. Not to mention the exile clause that this adds, which will randomly punish the opponent in small ways during various matchups. I’m not big on creatures that are just …creatures, but this one is so good that I can’t wait to give it a go.
What I Don't Like: I wish the exile clause was a may, so I could kill off my opponent’s creatures and then grab them with my own reanimation spells, which is something I like to do on occasion. But that’s a pretty nit-picky criticism of the finest Shade variant that Magic has ever seen.
Verdict: This is a hell of a beater, and a really good Magic card. I think it could be slotted into cubes in the 450-540 range pretty easily, and might even be 360 material in cubes that play black aggro and don’t play the recursive/stax support monsters. This is a good one ya’ll.
What I Like: This card seems to be the result of Ashnod throwing a fixed Skullclamp, a Bonesplitter, and an Heirloom Blade into one of his vessels and melding it together. It has an affordable upfront cost, a cheap reequip cost, and provides good additional pressure and draws you a card every time your creature dies. The reequip cost of one in black is really nice, and allows you to get extra value from your disposable creatures as well as letting aggro beaters apply extra pressure. I’ll gladly pay one extra upfront mana in my black aggro decks for my Bonesplitter to draw cards every time my creature dies.
What I Don't Like: I think this would’ve been far too pushed at 1 mana, but man, that would’ve been nice.
Verdict: I think this is a solid piece of equipment. Not abusively broken like Skullclamp, but in an attacking deck, it helps to apply extra pressure and create asymmetrical trades. I’m happily playing this at 540, and I think it’s worthy of a test in smaller lists too if you can find the room.
What I Like: This card doesn’t provide your aggro deck with a new primary gameplan. Nobody wants to spend their T4 in an aggro deck digging for another cheap body, and that’s not how this card will shine. This creature gives you an insurance plan against flooding on mana and running out of gas. It contributes to the main plan by being a 2-power 1-drop. But it gives you a backup plan with its activated ability. If you find yourself running on empty with too many lands, you can activate it to keep you in threats. This card is at its best when your situation is at its most dire, and that’s a good thing to have. I’d rather have a card that gives me an insurance policy against a losing situation than some marginal upside on a random 2-power 1-drop.
What I Don't Like: A 3-mana activation cost would’ve been sweet. Just sayin’.
Verdict: Most cubes, even those at really small sizes, probably feature one or two 2-power 1-drops in white that are replacement level creatures. Something like Mardu Woe Reaper or Soldier of the Pantheon or something. I would replace a card like that with the Recruiter, so you can swap out a creature with a marginal upside for something that can give you a meaningful shot to compete in an otherwise losing situation.
What I Like: Sea Gate Stormcaller has been a solid performer for us. This card largely plays a similar role, with a few critical differences. The main one being that you don’t have to cast the Proxy in the same turn as the spell, which is a big change, and an important upside. You no longer need to sandbag the card waiting for a spell to copy, or hold off on playing a cantrip in the early game so you can duplicate it with the Stormcaller. Second, I think the 7-mana mode on the Proxy is far better. It gives you access to copy bigger spells that you’d never be able to copy otherwise, and you don’t have to pay for the spell. The kicked Stormcaller still wants you to cast the follow-up spell, so you need 8-9 mana instead of 7, and it’s hard to find good targets.
What I Don't Like: I wish the prototype mode was 2U instead of 1UU, and I wish it was just a plain ETB trigger instead of only firing if the creature was cast.
Verdict: If your cube has a decent saturation of proactive spells, Proxy will be a solid roleplayer, and there are a lot of powerful targets to choose from. In a powered cube, there are premium spells to copy. In an unpowered cube, Proxy may be slightly harder to justify unless you have a deep spells matters theme.
What I Like: White gets a Rec Sage, and with a few important changes too. Cube managers have been waiting for this kind of effect in white for a long while, and this is a good looking version of the effect. There are a lot of aspect of Rec Sage being in green that add to its value, but similarly, there are a lot of interactions in white that make Loran a good card. First off, she’s legendary, so there’s an interaction with Karakas that can ensure that your opponent’s artifacts and enchantments are never safe. She can also be blinked/picked up by Flickerwisp, Restoration Angel and Kor Skyfisher, giving you a second Disenchant when critical. She can be grabbed by Recruiter of the Guard, adding an important tool to that card’s toolbox. She’s also a creature with CMC < 3, so she can be replayed by Sevinne’s Reclamation and Sun Titan, and can also be picked up by Reveillark if that’s a thing. The body also has vigilance, so the throw-away 2-power body has two opportunities in every combat round to be an unfavorable trade for the opponent. Lastly, she has a mutual draw effect, that’s pretty far from flavor text. Rankle has taught me that mutual draw is often asymmetrical in nature when you’re poised to take full advantage of the extra card and your opponent may not. In addition to the obvious synergy the effect has with the draw-punishing mechanics like Hullbreacher, Narset, and gods-forbid a Notion Thief. Even something like Sheoldred can cause an additional 4 point life swing every time Loran’s activated, making the symmetrical draw pretty far from it. It also can add value to discard effects too, allowing you to get use out of your discard spells to mitigate the symmetry of the effect. But at the end of the day, this is a Rec Sage, we know how that card plays, and I’m happy to have access to another one.
What I Don't Like: There’s nothing I don’t like about the card. It’s not broken or anything, but it’ll be a solid roleplayer and a safe addition to most decks.
Verdict: If your cube has a decent saturation of targets for a card like Loran, she’ll be unlikely to disappoint. There may be some tiny cubes that are light on targets that may pass on her, but I expect to see Loran make the cut and be a solid performer in most cube lists out there.
What I Like: I love Young Pyromancer in the cube, and the only thing that would make it better would be having it trigger off of all noncreature spells. Enter the Iconoclast. Due to that one change, Iconoclast will play better in token decks because it will create more bodies in that shell, and it will be great in artifact.dec shells as a card that both triggers off of artifacts and makes artifacts. In addition to being an absolute boss in the spells matters deck, where this will just be Pyromancer plus, and provide lots of triggers. A Young Pyromancer that triggers like Mentor and can be pitched to Force of Will …this thing may very well see constructed play.
What I Don't Like: Could’ve been pushed at rare/mythic with a keyword or something, but it’s not necessary. I love the simple, clean design.
Verdict: Next to Dack, this is a clean #2 Izzet card in the cube, and if your guild sections contain more than one card in each one, I’d expect this to be the other one. Card’s sick.
As always, thanks for reading! Please feel free to comment below so we can discuss. Cheers, and happy cubing.
Great article! I'm now keeping an eye on Razorlash Transmogrant and Transmogrant's Crown, I didn't care for much when they were spoiled tbh. Black got a lot of nice toys in this set it seems like.
Great article as always, big agree that Third Path Iconoclast is the card of the set.
While Teething Wurmlet caught my eye, I can't say I share the same enthusiasm as you for it. While the critical mass of artifacts can be there, not all artifacts would want to be played in the same deck as it. Growing only once a turn is a huge bummer also. I could be wrong on it though, and it'd definitely be worse in my environment since I'm not powered nor do I explicitly support green aggro.
Have you tested Caldaia Guardian at all? That's been the sleeper of the year for me (hurray obscure Commander cards) and is everything green aggro wants to be doing. I don't support green aggro, but it's an auto include in any green creature based deck based on its aggression and value. Definitely a top tier green creature in my book and is an auto-include for me even without supporting green aggro, IMO.
While Teething Wurmlet caught my eye, I can't say I share the same enthusiasm as you for it. While the critical mass of artifacts can be there, not all artifacts would want to be played in the same deck as it. Growing only once a turn is a huge bummer also. I could be wrong on it though, and it'd definitely be worse in my environment since I'm not powered nor do I explicitly support green aggro.
I never saw this card until now. My gut tells me it would be unplayable in an unpowered cube and a unique fringe card in a powered cube. You really need a LOT of artifacts in your deck to realize it's potential. The cheaper, the better. That's almost impossible to achieve in unpowered cubes unless you are running multiple baubles, spell bombs etc. Green is normally not a color that pairs with lots of artifacts, but occasionally you get a green deck with a lot of artifacts and the card will be insane. A moxen or two (emerald/diamond/chrome) is likely essential to getting that critical density in a deck with a decent # of forests.
I normally wouldn't test a card this narrow, but in the right deck I think this card is nuts. One of the best cards in the set.
I also don't think you need to play a deck that beatdown oriented to leverage it. The lifegain and the deathtouch make it incredible on defense.
Glad you posted about it wtwlf, I'm a fan! gonna test.
Nice articl as always. There are a ton of cards in this set that I want to test, including a couple that aren't even on your list (Mishra, who is a buff Rakdos Hellrider with lifegain, and Phyrexian Dragon Engine, who does a lot of what I like in red with discard/artifact synergies. Yeah, I just want to live the meld dream for once). I had the Wurmlet on my pre-order list to try but wasn't expecting too much from it; my expectations have increased for it now since it tested well for you. I've been thinking about bringing back Champion of the Parish too.
I'm most hyped for Misery's Shadow. I always loved Nantuko Shade. I really want to like Feldon and Razorlash Transmogrant but I have been trying to shy away from can't block in my aggro two drops. From the looks of it you have an usually high density of nonbasics, so the latter should play super well for you. I may try them both anyway. With the Crown equipment, Fleshgorger and Gix all being very cubeable options also, black made out extremely well from the set.
Great article! I'm now keeping an eye on Razorlash Transmogrant and Transmogrant's Crown, I didn't care for much when they were spoiled tbh. Black got a lot of nice toys in this set it seems like.
Black did get a lot of cool stuff from this set, for sure!
Great article as always, big agree that Third Path Iconoclast is the card of the set.
While Teething Wurmlet caught my eye, I can't say I share the same enthusiasm as you for it. While the critical mass of artifacts can be there, not all artifacts would want to be played in the same deck as it. Growing only once a turn is a huge bummer also. I could be wrong on it though, and it'd definitely be worse in my environment since I'm not powered nor do I explicitly support green aggro.
Have you tested Caldaia Guardian at all? That's been the sleeper of the year for me (hurray obscure Commander cards) and is everything green aggro wants to be doing. I don't support green aggro, but it's an auto include in any green creature based deck based on its aggression and value. Definitely a top tier green creature in my book and is an auto-include for me even without supporting green aggro, IMO.
I liked Wurmlet so I started testing it. Powered environment is probably a must, but the density of artifacts needed to make this thing function like a Champion of the Parish has been pretty easy to assemble, and it functions just as well in practice. If you're on the fence, I'd give it a shot!
I like the Guardian, and it's on my short list of cards I want to add in when I have some wiggle room.
While Teething Wurmlet caught my eye, I can't say I share the same enthusiasm as you for it. While the critical mass of artifacts can be there, not all artifacts would want to be played in the same deck as it. Growing only once a turn is a huge bummer also. I could be wrong on it though, and it'd definitely be worse in my environment since I'm not powered nor do I explicitly support green aggro.
I never saw this card until now. My gut tells me it would be unplayable in an unpowered cube and a unique fringe card in a powered cube. You really need a LOT of artifacts in your deck to realize it's potential. The cheaper, the better. That's almost impossible to achieve in unpowered cubes unless you are running multiple baubles, spell bombs etc. Green is normally not a color that pairs with lots of artifacts, but occasionally you get a green deck with a lot of artifacts and the card will be insane. A moxen or two (emerald/diamond/chrome) is likely essential to getting that critical density in a deck with a decent # of forests.
I normally wouldn't test a card this narrow, but in the right deck I think this card is nuts. One of the best cards in the set.
I also don't think you need to play a deck that beatdown oriented to leverage it. The lifegain and the deathtouch make it incredible on defense.
Glad you posted about it wtwlf, I'm a fan! gonna test.
You need about 7-8 artifacts with mv<3 to turn Wurmlet into a reliable Isamaru variant. I thought that was too tall an order until I started putting in the sets and reps with it, and it actually fell into place quite easily. Powered helps a lot. Saga target density helps a lot too. But I think it's not quite as hard as folks think it is.
Nice articl as always. There are a ton of cards in this set that I want to test, including a couple that aren't even on your list (Mishra, who is a buff Rakdos Hellrider with lifegain, and Phyrexian Dragon Engine, who does a lot of what I like in red with discard/artifact synergies. Yeah, I just want to live the meld dream for once). I had the Wurmlet on my pre-order list to try but wasn't expecting too much from it; my expectations have increased for it now since it tested well for you. I've been thinking about bringing back Champion of the Parish too.
I'm most hyped for Misery's Shadow. I always loved Nantuko Shade. I really want to like Feldon and Razorlash Transmogrant but I have been trying to shy away from can't block in my aggro two drops. From the looks of it you have an usually high density of nonbasics, so the latter should play super well for you. I may try them both anyway. With the Crown equipment, Fleshgorger and Gix all being very cubeable options also, black made out extremely well from the set.
This set is bananas for cube enthusiasts. I am pretty sure gems will emerge after we get some reps with this set. I am hopeful Mox Opal might one day work with all this artifact love.
Always a treat to read these, wtwlf! Thanks once again.
I think I'm going to run your top 6 at 465, which makes this an amazing cube set. I'm not 100% sold on Crown or Proxy, but I love, love, love the other four. I'll keep an eye on Wurmlet and Transmogrant, too.
Iconoclast is amazing! On top of everything else, it's generally more useful to have artifact tokens than elemental tokens, so there's yet another advantage over Pyromancer.
The unfortunate part is I would label the vast majority of these cards as 2-4 drops in already high competitive slots that are at marginal upgrades to existing cards. This would put a lot of additional pressure on keeping weaker enablers for various combos or even some inefficient combos/ archetypes in my cube itself. I might need to re-evaluate some packages.
There are two cards I be very interested in, in particular to ho they affect the density of enablers in my cube:
- Skullclamp is an incredible card in creature combo decks, I could see this as an excellent addition in those decks to both dig into their combo/ play a creature value game
- I'm not sure at this point if this signals that 2 CMC dorks that don't produce 2+ mana consistently are unplayable at this point.
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This set is bananas for cube enthusiasts. I am pretty sure gems will emerge after we get some reps with this set. I am hopeful Mox Opal might one day work with all this artifact love.
I'm sure there are lots of hidden gems in this set, because it's super deep.
Always a treat to read these, wtwlf! Thanks once again.
I think I'm going to run your top 6 at 465, which makes this an amazing cube set. I'm not 100% sold on Crown or Proxy, but I love, love, love the other four. I'll keep an eye on Wurmlet and Transmogrant, too.
Iconoclast is amazing! On top of everything else, it's generally more useful to have artifact tokens than elemental tokens, so there's yet another advantage over Pyromancer.
The unfortunate part is I would label the vast majority of these cards as 2-4 drops in already high competitive slots that are at marginal upgrades to existing cards. This would put a lot of additional pressure on keeping weaker enablers for various combos or even some inefficient combos/ archetypes in my cube itself. I might need to re-evaluate some packages.
There are two cards I be very interested in, in particular to ho they affect the density of enablers in my cube:
- Skullclamp is an incredible card in creature combo decks, I could see this as an excellent addition in those decks to both dig into their combo/ play a creature value game
I totally agree with your #2-3 but I am a bit surprised by the top card of the set.
Current, I am including
Dack Fayden
Lutri, the Spellchaser
Prismari Command
in my Izzet section.
Lutri has been pretty solid and I'll have to see if I like this guy more than Prismari command.
I also view Surge Engine a bit differently. While it is "The way this card plays out, you spend your 2nd turn’s and part of your 3rd turn’s mana getting this beater online" like you say, it's also essentially leaving 2 mana open for counterspell which are bread and butter of blue decks. I do like blue tempo and like to push for cubable blue creatures a lot though. So while I'm not sure if it'll stay in my cube I'll still give it a run.
It's way better than Prismari Command, IMO. And Lutri too, for that matter. Iconoclast's a staple for me.
Ya, you get to leave countermagic open w/ Surge Engine ...but you could do that with any 2-drop, and not have to use up some of your T3 mana. So it still eats up multiple turns of mana when other options wouldn't. Not an insurmountable problem, but definitely something to identify with its play pattern.
Another great article! There are a ton of interesting cards here to give a go. A few among your list here stood out to me:
Teething Wurmlet is a card I completely overlooked but spied in your list before I saw this post go up - test drafting convinced me you're spot-on. I think it'll be a really cool addition in powered lists. Mine is unpowered, so I'm not too sure it'll work out, but I'm curious enough to see where its limits lie. Likewise, I had no idea Zephyr Sentinel existed - thanks for bringing it up! I've been waiting for this specific kind of bounce for a while.
Finally, I had reservations regarding Transmogrant's Crown, but you've made me give it a second thought. I think I fell into the trap of focusing too much on the 2 colorless equip cost - if I really just look at is a bonesplitter for 1 more mana and gaining card draw, yeah, that's a pretty desirable card.
Another great article! There are a ton of interesting cards here to give a go. A few among your list here stood out to me:
Teething Wurmlet is a card I completely overlooked but spied in your list before I saw this post go up - test drafting convinced me you're spot-on. I think it'll be a really cool addition in powered lists. Mine is unpowered, so I'm not too sure it'll work out, but I'm curious enough to see where its limits lie. Likewise, I had no idea Zephyr Sentinel existed - thanks for bringing it up! I've been waiting for this specific kind of bounce for a while.
Finally, I had reservations regarding Transmogrant's Crown, but you've made me give it a second thought. I think I fell into the trap of focusing too much on the 2 colorless equip cost - if I really just look at is a bonesplitter for 1 more mana and gaining card draw, yeah, that's a pretty desirable card.
Thanks for the (p)review!
Unsure about Wurmlet in unpowered, but with the right density of cheap artifacts, I'm sure it can perform.
I want to second Wtwlf's sentiment about Teething Wurmlet and I will try to sell this for anyone that's a skeptic. What I've learned during Phyrexia All will be one draft is a card like Evolving Adaptive / Exuberant Fuseling are incredibly strong in midrange decks that can incidentally make these creatures 3/x or 4/x if they're played on turn 1. Midrange decks often lack good early plays and having "delver" style cards can be incredibly strong.
- If you have 5 artifacts in your deck, you have a 70% chance on the play of making this a 2/2. This number improves ROUGHLY by 5% for every additional artifact/ card draw (increase in sample size), which are very strong odds.
- If you have 9 artifacts in your deck, you have roughly 50% chance of making it deathtouch by turn 3-4 (mid-game). This number improves by roughly 4% for every additional artifact/ card draw. (This doesn't take into account of cards that can produce multiple such as Tireless Tracker/ Oko, Retrofitter)
My experience with Wurmlet is its 70-80% "naturally" playable in Green-x aggressive decks (I would like 80% consistency on turn 2 to grow it into a 2/2) but it shines can shine in a lot of green decks such as Lands/ GX Smokestack (also an artifact!)/ Melira Combo/ ramp, which 50-70% of the time have the appropriate artifact density to naturally turn it into a 4/4 deathtouch in the mid-game. These decks often lack good turn 1 plays and having an early creature that can grow while gaining life/ block/ pressure planeswalkers has been invaluable for me.
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This is my 44th installment of the "top 20" set (P)review articles! Just like the previous reviews, it will be in a spoiled top X countdown format, with each section having an image, a brief summary/description, and my verdict on what cubes I think it could potentially see some play in. I got a lot of positive feedback on the format from the last few articles, so I’m going to keep the “what I like” and “what I don’t like” sections.
Keep in mind (just like the others) that this is a set preview. Similar to draft predictions in professional sports, this list is an educated guess at best. Some cards I value highly in here may turn out to not last long in the cube. Other cards that are lower down on the list (or even missed entirely!) could (well, very likely may) turn out to be great cards. Even the great Tom Brady was drafted in the 6th round! Again, this is not intended to be gospel, set in stone, or written as a review for posterity. This is simply written to be an enjoyable guess at cards I like for cubes, and hopefully it'll allow some cube managers to evaluate cards they may have otherwise overlooked and/or put some cards in perspective that may've been overhyped. Nothing more.
The Brothers’ War is a fantastic cube set, and even the exercise of trimming down to the 20 cards I felt like were the most worth discussing was quite the task. So if there’s cards you love for your cube that didn’t make my list, don’t fret. There’s a ton of good diamonds in the rough worth polishing from this set. Both the new and revisited mechanics happen to fit most cube themes, so there’s a lot of good things to pick from. The flavor is off the charts, and really appeals to the nostalgia for older Magic players like myself.
Without further ado, here’s the countdown!
Brotherhood's End
A new Slagstorm variant.
What I Like: Dealing damage to all creatures and all ‘walkers is a unique ability to find on a cheap spell. Additionally, destroying all cheap artifacts can really punish builds that use their first few turns to build up an artifact infrastructure of mana rocks and utility cards, just to have them swept away by one spell. Finding decks that can have both modes of this spell be asymmetrical will be a hard task, but if your decks are full of medium- to large-sized creatures and cheap spells, Brotherhood’s End can be a powerful card.
What I Don't Like: Most big red decks that want to play creature sweepers are often full of ‘walkers and cheap artifacts, which makes this card hard to abuse. And in red control, I think the cycling option on Sweltering Suns will prove to be a more valuable effect to have access to.
Verdict: If your cube supports red decks that are light on artifacts and ‘walkers and plays bigger midrange threats, this card is great when it’s asymmetrical. But I think most cubes aren’t constructed in a way to maximize the advantages that this card can bring.
Lay Down Arms
A white Fatal Push variant.
What I Like: 1-mana removal that exiles targets is pretty sweet. The limitations this card has on the size of the targets makes this play more like a Fatal Push than a Swords to Plowshares or Path to Exile, but I like the fact that the pool of targets can scale as the game progresses. In mono white (or in white-heavy decks splashing another color off true dual lands) most of your lands will be Plains, and LDA will scale with the game as you make land drops.
What I Don't Like: Being a sorcery hurts, and with all the rest of the built-in limitations, I don’t think it would’ve been too much to make this card an instant. Being limited to mv ≤ plains count on targets is a huge restriction, as a lot of mana fixing and utility lands are non-plains, and multicolor decks won’t be able to reliably use this to kill anything more than cmc 1 or 2 with any consistency. And with both of those limitations, did it also have to cough up 3 life too?
Verdict: This won’t compete against the top-tier white removal spells. But for large cubes that play spells like Oust, Sunlance, and/or Condemn and also play a lot of mono-white decks, Lay Down Arms might be a cheap removal spell worth examining. Even for smaller cubes, if the majority of your fixing is provided by duals, and your utility land count is low, LDA could be worth a close look there too. It’s still 1-mana removal that exiles at the end of the day.
Portal to Phyrexia
A big, powerful artifact.
What I Like: For your 9 colorless mana, you get three Diabolic Edicts and a Debtors’ Knell. Which is a pretty decent deal, all things considered. Most of our big colorless targets are creatures, so it’s nice to see a Tinker/Welder target that does something different for a change. This is a solid target for green ramp decks, artifact.dec ramp shells, and cards that can cheat this onto the battlefield, like Tinker, Welder, Daretti, Show and Tell, and Eureka. It has a big ETB impact in the midgame, and depending on what this kills or what else you can feed it, the Knell effect can put some scary stuff to the board. Flipping this in and out of play with Welder will obviously be a powerful thing to do, since 3 Edicts is nothing to scoff at.
What I Don't Like: This isn’t going to be a great early-game Tinker target, because it won’t have any meaningful creatures to kill or return. In fact, there’s no guarantee that this card will ever be worth a ton for you, since both effects are largely contingent on the board, the ‘yards, and the matchup. It’s rough to play a 9mv payoff card that provides inconsistent value.
Verdict: If you’re in the mood or market for a big artifact that plays different than the traditional robots we cube folks cheat into play, Portal can be a fun and exciting alternative. But I think putting a giant artifact monster onto the board will be the more consistently good thing to do in the majority of cases.
In the Trenches
A new Glorious Anthem variant.
What I Like: Glorious Anthem effects have fallen out of favor with cube managers over the years, since the idea of paying mana and utilizing a full card just to bolster your board is less and less of a good idea. Trenches helps to mitigate that issue by including a built-in O Ring effect onto your Anthem so you can get more than just one effect from the card. Most token-centric decks are designed to go into the late game with some bigger spells, so 6 mana won’t be impossible to reach for most of those decks, and being able to get an Anthem to bolster your mid-game team and be able to blast their best permanent in the late-game is a nice combination of effects to get from a single card.
What I Don't Like: 6 mana is a lot to invest in an activated ability. It would be really cool if it had a way to reduce the cost (like Convoke or something) that would play well with the kinds of shells that want an Anthem. You can end up investing 9 mana into this card between the Anthem and the O Ring, and have the entire thing be undone by a single Disenchant.
Verdict: If you’ve been looking for an Anthem effect that can play well in your Token/Ramp shells, Trenches might just fit that bill. However, I expect the majority of cubes to collect their Anthem effects from the creatures and ‘walkers that they’re so often stapled to nowadays.
Surge Engine
A blue tempo beater.
What I Like: This card presents a good blocker the turn it comes down, and then turns into an unblockable 3-power beater that’s attacking as early as T3. You can start turning it sideways and using the leftover mana to protect it with tempo counters while it bashes in for big chunks of unblockable damage every turn. And towards the end of the game, you can dump 6 mana into it once to draw 3 cards if the game unfolds in a way where that option presents itself.
What I Don't Like: The way this card plays out, you spend your 2nd turn’s and part of your 3rd turn’s mana getting this beater online, and T3 plays are the bread and butter of blue tempo decks. I don’t like investing multiple turns worth of mana on my beatdown creature, because if it does happen to get answered quickly, it’s a lot of investment, and it has a big impact on my tempo moving forward. Since it has defender in its initial mode, the card doesn’t do anything for my beatdown deck until I can find a window to sink the additional mana into it. It prices me into paying for the ability on T3, and interrupting my ability to play the Clique, Nemesis or Channeler that I really want to be dropping in that part of the curve.
Verdict: If you’re looking for a tempo-specific blue creature, this is a pretty good one. It can represent a lot of unblockable damage, and can try and finish games as a solo threat protected by countermagic in a way that we don’t see very often.
Haywire Mite
A Naturalize variant on legs.
What I Like: This is an exiling Naturalize effect that gains life and can split its mana investment across multiple turns. It’s also strapped to a body that can be searched for by all of the toolbox engine cards that care about small creatures, as well as being a 1-mana artifact that can be searched up by Urza’s Saga. It’s an early-game answer to power, other good ramp artifacts and utility cards in addition to being an obnoxious roadblock against aggro. Trading with a Ragavan in combat and gaining 2 life in the process is a bummer of a thing for red aggressive decks to run into, and it’s a great use of 1 colorless mana on defense.
What I Don't Like: Being limited to noncreature targets is quite the disruption. Looking at the numbers for my cube, this loses ~1/4 (23% to be exact) of the targets that a regular Naturalize would have by comparison. And a lot of the targets that I really want to use the exile clause against are all creatures.
Verdict: If this could hit any artifact/enchantment, I would be slamming it into my cube. With the noncreature clause, this is going to be a near miss for me, but I plan on keeping my eye on it. It has a lot of little upsides and interactions that add to its value, and if those bonuses add lots of value to your particular list, I could see justifying an inclusion here. But I think it will ultimately settle into the 630-720 range for a lot of cube managers.
Feldon, Ronom Excavator
A hasted 2-drop with value.
What I Like: A 2-power 2-drop with haste is a good baseline. Feldon has the ability to replace itself with a different card if it dies off in combat, which is great when you can force the opponent into a combat trade. Feldon can get replacement value when it dies instead of the potential value you can get from a comparable card like Robber of the Rich, which can only get an additional card when the conditions are exactly perfect. 1-power tokens make for bad blockers against Feldon because he can still generate value if he lives through his damage-taking. Which also makes Feldon a great target for pinging effects, if you play any of those in your cube. If you can bolster Feldon’s toughness with other effects, he can start to swing into bigger blockers, and threaten to generate card advantage if they chump him. And being able to play the card until the end of your next turn is critical, so if he trades away in combat immediately, you can play the replacement card on the following turn.
What I Don't Like: Being unable to block hurts, because this would be a great blocker. And if Feldon dies in any way other than damage, you get nothing.
Verdict: With a couple of pinging effects or ways to bolster his toughness, you can turn Feldon into quite the engine. But even at face value, I would expect Feldon to compete as a decent beater creature in most read aggro decks. I would have room for Feldon at 630, but I could easily see him sneaking into smaller cubes if there are synergistic pieces or the cube’s red section is all-in on aggro.
Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor
A mono-black Edric.
What I Like: I have extensive playtesting with Edric, Spymaster of Trest, Gix’s Simic counterpart. By comparison, Gix is only one color, and is a 3/3 instead of a 2/2. The ceiling of this kind of an effect is really powerful. Curving from a 1-drop into a 2-drop into Gix can result in a free Night’s Whisper the turn it’s played if the creatures can make it through the red zone unchecked. In go-wide decks with throw-away attackers and in token-centric shells, these kinds of effects can be quite powerful. And if you somehow find yourself flooded with 7 mana and multiple dead cards in your hand, Gix has an activated ability that might be of value.
What I Don't Like: Paying life for the effect is fine, but there’s other self-damage effects in black that are already taxing on your life total in aggro mirrors. And the 7-mana activated ability thing is basically just flavor text. Decks that want to play Gix aren’t going to be both hitting 7 mana AND having additional dead cards in their hand with any amount of consistency. The problem with Gix is the same problem I had with Edric. It wasn’t color combination, it wasn’t the 2/2 body …it was the inconsistency of the effect. Sometimes you have multiple free attackers and you’ll draw lots of cards. Other times, your board will be empty, and the effect does next to nothing. Those inconsistency issues I had with Edric won’t be fixed by anything that Gix brings to the table.
Verdict: Gix is a powerful 3-drop for aggressive black decks, so if you’re in the market for another one, or you’re unhappy with your current suite, Gix could be a good option. I think I would be willing to play the card at 630, but I can’t find room in my current configuration, despite supporting black aggro.
Legions to Ashes
An Orzhov Maelstrom Pulse variant.
What I Like: This is basically an Orzhov Maelstrom Pulse that exiles the main target.
What I Don't Like: In comparison to Pulse, LtA won’t hit copies of nontoken cards that share a name, so it won’t clip off clones.
Verdict: I like this less than Vindicate (hitting lands is boss), more than Anguished Unmaking (3 life is a lot) and about as much as Vanishing Verse (Ashes hits more targets, but Verse is cheaper). I would play this if I had 1-2 more Orzhov slots, so probably somewhere in the ~630 range.
Teferi, Temporal Pilgrim
A new 5cc blue ‘walker.
What I Like: Teferi does quite a few things well. The fact that his loyalty and his Spirit tokens grow with all drawn cards adds quite a bit of synergy to his various functions. What makes Teferi good are his Spirit tokens. They get +1/+1 counters for each drawn card, and they have vigilance, so they get bigger every turn, and can both apply pressure and defend Teferi. Using Teferi to create a pair of growing tokens will quickly snowball out of control with pressure, card advantage, and protection. The ultimate is pretty powerful, and can be reached relatively easily with a bit of help from outside draw effects. Don’t forget to add loyalty to Teferi with your drawn card at the start of each turn, which also adds counters to your Spirits. Chucking a single Brainstorm or a looting engine or the like into the mix with Teferi and a couple of his Spirits makes things really scary for the opponent really quickly. Not to mention that a draw-7 effect will make the token into a 10/10 and/or set up Teferi to ultimate almost immediately.
What I Don't Like: Turn 5 is relatively late into the game to resolve a snowballing threat that generates value over time. Teferi is quite good at both of those roles, but it’s resolving about a turn too late into the game to feel completely broken.
Verdict: I expect this card to play a lot better than people think it will at first glance, and people willing to dedicate the real estate to it in their cubes will be rewarded with a powerful and consistent snowballing finisher and card advantage engine. I’d slam this in at 630, and even at 540 (and smaller) we should all be keeping a close eye on Teferi, because it’s a very good card.
Phyrexian Fleshgorger
A new Vampire Nighthawk variant.
What I Like: A 3-mana 3/3 with menace, lifelink, and lifeloss ward is a solid floor. It also has access to a 7-mana mode that makes a 7/5 body with the same abilities, and a much more punishing ward trigger. The card can play a variety of roles, from aggro/midrange beater to ramp target, Wildfire finisher, artifact.dec monster, blink target, and even a backup reanimation target in a pinch. It’s a solid roleplayer that can be a decent creature in a variety of decks.
What I Don't Like: While the Fleshgorger is a playable creature in a lot of shells, it’s not great in any of them. The lack of deathtouch and the 3 toughness will make the creature trade down in combat against a lot of current cube creatures, and I really wish it had a more appealing mana cost in its prototype mode.
Verdict: I was originally planning on adding this card into my cube, because it’s a good card that can be slotted into a variety of different shells. I asked if the card would be playable in many decks, and the answer was yes. But when I examined if the creature would be great in any of them, the answer was no. I could see testing this creature in cubes of most any size, and I think I’d be able to find room at 630, but it didn’t end up making it into my 540 list right off the bat. A good card, to be sure, but it doesn’t feel like something I can’t live without.
Zephyr Sentinel
A new blue utility tempo creature.
What I Like: This is an effect I’ve always waited to see get pushed enough to deliver a card that warranted testing. This is the first time that this effect has been available on a mono-colored card with flash without being accompanied with a drawback, and it’s especially rare with evasion. 2 mana for a 2-power flying creature with flash is already a fine rate when your deck is looking for an evasive beater to chip away, but the added versatility of being able to rescue a creature from combat/removal and/or returning a creature that you want to replay for another ETB trigger is good gravy. Not to mention the Soldier synergy, which will randomly allow this to enter as a 3-power 2-drop with flying. This creature will play well in flash decks, tempo shells, and ETB trigger decks, and demonstrate a good rate while doing so. Folks that played Whitemane Lion back in the good ol’ days will remember how the effect can be used, and this one has the critical added abilities of having flying and having the bounce trigger be OPTIONAL.
What I Don't Like: I wish the card could bounce any permanent I own instead of just creatures; some of my favorite things to do with Kor Skyfisher involve bouncing lands and moxen to provide a discounted rate, or returning other noncreature permanents like Sarcomancy and ‘walkers to get extra bodies or reset tokens.
Verdict: At the end of the day, this might not prove to be enough to warrant a coveted slot in blue, but it does a lot of nice things in one package, and it’s pushed beyond precedent for similar effects. I’m testing this at 540, but it could easily make smaller lists with pushed ETB themes and deep tempo strategies, and it could also be a complete bust if it turns out not to do enough. But I think it deserves testing to know for sure.
Razorlash Transmogrant
An aggressive, recursive artifact Zombie.
What I Like: Aggressive 3-power 2-drop with a completely colorless cost. It’s a Zombie for Gravecrawler dual-recursion synergy, and it returns with a +1/+1 counter, making it a 4-power monster when cast from the ‘yard. The cost reduction ability will work well to punish greedy 3- to 5-color control manabases (or honestly, any well-drafted manabase) with more consistency than it looks at first glance. Looking over my draft histories, this card would be damn-good against the kinds of manabases I draft, so I fear I’ll lose to this card more than I’ll win with it, lol. But in those situations where you can recur this card at the discounted rate, it’s a fantastic card to sacrifice, and getting access to an infinitely available 4-power 2-drop isn’t to be ignored. 6 mana is a lot, but we have some precedence with this looking at Earthshaker Khenra …different cards, to be sure, but the decently aggressive 2cc mode with the ability to bring back a 4-power threat for 6 mana in the late game if you get flooded has proven valuable, and I expect this to play decently well too. If they don’t exile it, you’ll always have access to a 4-power beater, and that’s a nice thing to be able to say.
What I Don't Like: I wish the gap between the normal recursion cost and the discounted recursion cost was smaller. One that returned for 5 normally and was reduced to 3 would drop some of the variance between its BCS and its WCS, and make it a more solid overall card. Either that or making the discount trigger off 3 nonbasics would be nice.
Verdict: This is a decent filler creature for aggressive decks, and it has a nice colorless cost. The recursion will be important when it’s live, and it punishes greedy mana. I’m finding room to test this out at 540, and expect it to play pretty decently at that size.
Teething Wurmlet
A green Champion of the Parish for artifacts!
What I Like: Nobody is talking about this creature, and I’m happy to have found it and fallen for it. I mean, just look at its stupid face and tell me you don’t want to feed it some artifacts! Champion of the Parish is a good creature for human-centric decks that have enough critical mass of humans to reliably trigger the Champion early and often, and the Wurmlet does the same thing but for artifacts. I have more than twice as many artifacts in my cube as I do humans …hell, I have more artifacts with cmc < 3 in my cube than I do humans, and the ability to reliably trigger this creature is pretty high. I’ve drafted a ton and crunched a lot of numbers, and this can attack for 2 on T2 a decent % of the time with the number of cheap artifacts that naturally find their way into aggressive decks nowadays. Better in powered than in unpowered, but between cheap artifact creatures, fast mana, cheap equipment and utility artifacts like Baubles and stuff, this creature can function like a Champion of the Parish in pretty much any aggro deck that’s even paying a little bit of attention to its artifact count. Not to mention that continuing to add tokens throughout the game gets easier and easier as this counts treasures, clues, food, thopters, karnstructs, and all other artifacts you can hit. It also gains life for every artifact you play, so as it grows, you regain some life, which makes it punishing in the aggro mirror. In testing so far, this thing has been a 3/3 or 4/4 in almost every game, and has been an Isamaru variant a good % of the time. Plus, it can gain deathtouch if you have enough artifacts out! Nobody loves this creature, so I’m trying to spread the word. Repeatable artifact engines like Retrofitter Foundry will be spicy, and it plays perfectly in shells that are looking to take advantage of Urza’s Saga.
What I Don't Like: This creature would be so nasty if the +1/+1 counter thing wasn’t limited to once a turn, but after seeing it in action, I can see why it needs to be. Also, flying instead of deathtouch when you hit metalcraft would’ve been incredible. It is in an interesting intersection of cubes that support green as a beatdown color and cubes with a high concentration of cheap artifacts, so there are some cubes out there that won’t have the density of support to make the card (or its respective shell) work. Luckily for me, the Wurmlet can slot right in without any extra tinkering.
Verdict: I’m playing this at 540 and it’s killing it. However, I know it’s not for everybody. It needs some green beatdown support to shine, and it needs a good concentration of cheap artifacts to trigger it. This could be playable all the way down to 360 if the cube is powered and plays green beatdown decks, but my guess is that it’s closer to 450-630 ranges that will have the density of everything to make things shine for the little guy. One of my happiest cube finds that nobody is talking about but me (that I’ve seen yet as of the date/time I’m writing this article).
Misery's Shadow
One hell of a Shade variant.
What I Like: I’m old enough to remember when Carrion Ants was a good Magic card. And I’m certainly old enough to have played a lot of Nantuko Shade in both constructed and in the early days of the cube. It was a premier cube beater, and was so good back in the day that it was worth playing mono black just to have access to it. Shadow eclipses that card in terms of its powerlevel, and I expect it to play really well. For those folks that have history with Nantuko Shade, you’ll immediately be able to pilot this creature to success and it’ll be just like riding a bike. For those that haven’t, there’s a lot of confusion about properly playing Shades. One of my cube catchphrases is: “The card doesn’t force you to play bad Magic” …and that applies to Shades. Common criticisms ask, “Isn’t it just better to play a better 2-drop and just spend your mana curving out?” and the answer to that is yes and no. More than the activation itself, it’s the threat of activation that makes Shades play so well. You can attack into your opponent’s blockers, and they won’t block because you could just pump the Shade and eat their blocker. So it chips in for damage. It’s almost like making it unblockable in a sense …unless the opponent offers a bad block, and you can then take advantage of their bad play. The rest of the time, you just sink whatever extra mana you can afford to spend on the unblocked Shade, and spend the rest of your mana on your other spells. However, there are also times where the opponent doesn’t have any blockers, and the right play is to sink all of your mana into the Shade and just fireball them every turn until they’re dead. It’ll take a lot of sets and reps to figure out when this is the correct play, but it often revolves around preventing overextension. Combat is even better with the Shadow than it was with the Shade, and the 2nd point of toughness subtly adds a ton of combat value to this card, saving a lot of mana on average. The colorless activation makes all the difference in the world, and gives your deck a mana sink for mana of any type/color that you can effectively use. Not to mention the exile clause that this adds, which will randomly punish the opponent in small ways during various matchups. I’m not big on creatures that are just …creatures, but this one is so good that I can’t wait to give it a go.
What I Don't Like: I wish the exile clause was a may, so I could kill off my opponent’s creatures and then grab them with my own reanimation spells, which is something I like to do on occasion. But that’s a pretty nit-picky criticism of the finest Shade variant that Magic has ever seen.
Verdict: This is a hell of a beater, and a really good Magic card. I think it could be slotted into cubes in the 450-540 range pretty easily, and might even be 360 material in cubes that play black aggro and don’t play the recursive/stax support monsters. This is a good one ya’ll.
Transmogrant's Crown
A new black equipment!
What I Like: This card seems to be the result of Ashnod throwing a fixed Skullclamp, a Bonesplitter, and an Heirloom Blade into one of his vessels and melding it together. It has an affordable upfront cost, a cheap reequip cost, and provides good additional pressure and draws you a card every time your creature dies. The reequip cost of one in black is really nice, and allows you to get extra value from your disposable creatures as well as letting aggro beaters apply extra pressure. I’ll gladly pay one extra upfront mana in my black aggro decks for my Bonesplitter to draw cards every time my creature dies.
What I Don't Like: I think this would’ve been far too pushed at 1 mana, but man, that would’ve been nice.
Verdict: I think this is a solid piece of equipment. Not abusively broken like Skullclamp, but in an attacking deck, it helps to apply extra pressure and create asymmetrical trades. I’m happily playing this at 540, and I think it’s worthy of a test in smaller lists too if you can find the room.
Recruitment Officer
A mana sink 2-power 1-drop!
What I Like: This card doesn’t provide your aggro deck with a new primary gameplan. Nobody wants to spend their T4 in an aggro deck digging for another cheap body, and that’s not how this card will shine. This creature gives you an insurance plan against flooding on mana and running out of gas. It contributes to the main plan by being a 2-power 1-drop. But it gives you a backup plan with its activated ability. If you find yourself running on empty with too many lands, you can activate it to keep you in threats. This card is at its best when your situation is at its most dire, and that’s a good thing to have. I’d rather have a card that gives me an insurance policy against a losing situation than some marginal upside on a random 2-power 1-drop.
What I Don't Like: A 3-mana activation cost would’ve been sweet. Just sayin’.
Verdict: Most cubes, even those at really small sizes, probably feature one or two 2-power 1-drops in white that are replacement level creatures. Something like Mardu Woe Reaper or Soldier of the Pantheon or something. I would replace a card like that with the Recruiter, so you can swap out a creature with a marginal upside for something that can give you a meaningful shot to compete in an otherwise losing situation.
Arcane Proxy
A new Sea Gate Stormcaller variant.
What I Like: Sea Gate Stormcaller has been a solid performer for us. This card largely plays a similar role, with a few critical differences. The main one being that you don’t have to cast the Proxy in the same turn as the spell, which is a big change, and an important upside. You no longer need to sandbag the card waiting for a spell to copy, or hold off on playing a cantrip in the early game so you can duplicate it with the Stormcaller. Second, I think the 7-mana mode on the Proxy is far better. It gives you access to copy bigger spells that you’d never be able to copy otherwise, and you don’t have to pay for the spell. The kicked Stormcaller still wants you to cast the follow-up spell, so you need 8-9 mana instead of 7, and it’s hard to find good targets.
What I Don't Like: I wish the prototype mode was 2U instead of 1UU, and I wish it was just a plain ETB trigger instead of only firing if the creature was cast.
Verdict: If your cube has a decent saturation of proactive spells, Proxy will be a solid roleplayer, and there are a lot of powerful targets to choose from. In a powered cube, there are premium spells to copy. In an unpowered cube, Proxy may be slightly harder to justify unless you have a deep spells matters theme.
Loran of the Third Path
Finally, a white Reclamation Sage!
What I Like: White gets a Rec Sage, and with a few important changes too. Cube managers have been waiting for this kind of effect in white for a long while, and this is a good looking version of the effect. There are a lot of aspect of Rec Sage being in green that add to its value, but similarly, there are a lot of interactions in white that make Loran a good card. First off, she’s legendary, so there’s an interaction with Karakas that can ensure that your opponent’s artifacts and enchantments are never safe. She can also be blinked/picked up by Flickerwisp, Restoration Angel and Kor Skyfisher, giving you a second Disenchant when critical. She can be grabbed by Recruiter of the Guard, adding an important tool to that card’s toolbox. She’s also a creature with CMC < 3, so she can be replayed by Sevinne’s Reclamation and Sun Titan, and can also be picked up by Reveillark if that’s a thing. The body also has vigilance, so the throw-away 2-power body has two opportunities in every combat round to be an unfavorable trade for the opponent. Lastly, she has a mutual draw effect, that’s pretty far from flavor text. Rankle has taught me that mutual draw is often asymmetrical in nature when you’re poised to take full advantage of the extra card and your opponent may not. In addition to the obvious synergy the effect has with the draw-punishing mechanics like Hullbreacher, Narset, and gods-forbid a Notion Thief. Even something like Sheoldred can cause an additional 4 point life swing every time Loran’s activated, making the symmetrical draw pretty far from it. It also can add value to discard effects too, allowing you to get use out of your discard spells to mitigate the symmetry of the effect. But at the end of the day, this is a Rec Sage, we know how that card plays, and I’m happy to have access to another one.
What I Don't Like: There’s nothing I don’t like about the card. It’s not broken or anything, but it’ll be a solid roleplayer and a safe addition to most decks.
Verdict: If your cube has a decent saturation of targets for a card like Loran, she’ll be unlikely to disappoint. There may be some tiny cubes that are light on targets that may pass on her, but I expect to see Loran make the cut and be a solid performer in most cube lists out there.
Third Path Iconoclast
An Izzet Young Pyromancer variant!
What I Like: I love Young Pyromancer in the cube, and the only thing that would make it better would be having it trigger off of all noncreature spells. Enter the Iconoclast. Due to that one change, Iconoclast will play better in token decks because it will create more bodies in that shell, and it will be great in artifact.dec shells as a card that both triggers off of artifacts and makes artifacts. In addition to being an absolute boss in the spells matters deck, where this will just be Pyromancer plus, and provide lots of triggers. A Young Pyromancer that triggers like Mentor and can be pitched to Force of Will …this thing may very well see constructed play.
What I Don't Like: Could’ve been pushed at rare/mythic with a keyword or something, but it’s not necessary. I love the simple, clean design.
Verdict: Next to Dack, this is a clean #2 Izzet card in the cube, and if your guild sections contain more than one card in each one, I’d expect this to be the other one. Card’s sick.
As always, thanks for reading! Please feel free to comment below so we can discuss. Cheers, and happy cubing.
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StaffWhile Teething Wurmlet caught my eye, I can't say I share the same enthusiasm as you for it. While the critical mass of artifacts can be there, not all artifacts would want to be played in the same deck as it. Growing only once a turn is a huge bummer also. I could be wrong on it though, and it'd definitely be worse in my environment since I'm not powered nor do I explicitly support green aggro.
Have you tested Caldaia Guardian at all? That's been the sleeper of the year for me (hurray obscure Commander cards) and is everything green aggro wants to be doing. I don't support green aggro, but it's an auto include in any green creature based deck based on its aggression and value. Definitely a top tier green creature in my book and is an auto-include for me even without supporting green aggro, IMO.
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I never saw this card until now. My gut tells me it would be unplayable in an unpowered cube and a unique fringe card in a powered cube. You really need a LOT of artifacts in your deck to realize it's potential. The cheaper, the better. That's almost impossible to achieve in unpowered cubes unless you are running multiple baubles, spell bombs etc. Green is normally not a color that pairs with lots of artifacts, but occasionally you get a green deck with a lot of artifacts and the card will be insane. A moxen or two (emerald/diamond/chrome) is likely essential to getting that critical density in a deck with a decent # of forests.
I normally wouldn't test a card this narrow, but in the right deck I think this card is nuts. One of the best cards in the set.
I also don't think you need to play a deck that beatdown oriented to leverage it. The lifegain and the deathtouch make it incredible on defense.
Glad you posted about it wtwlf, I'm a fan! gonna test.
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After #6: made the top 5, cool I agree
After #4: top 3 wow
After #1: …… ☠️
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I'm most hyped for Misery's Shadow. I always loved Nantuko Shade. I really want to like Feldon and Razorlash Transmogrant but I have been trying to shy away from can't block in my aggro two drops. From the looks of it you have an usually high density of nonbasics, so the latter should play super well for you. I may try them both anyway. With the Crown equipment, Fleshgorger and Gix all being very cubeable options also, black made out extremely well from the set.
On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
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Black did get a lot of cool stuff from this set, for sure!
I liked Wurmlet so I started testing it. Powered environment is probably a must, but the density of artifacts needed to make this thing function like a Champion of the Parish has been pretty easy to assemble, and it functions just as well in practice. If you're on the fence, I'd give it a shot!
I like the Guardian, and it's on my short list of cards I want to add in when I have some wiggle room.
You need about 7-8 artifacts with mv<3 to turn Wurmlet into a reliable Isamaru variant. I thought that was too tall an order until I started putting in the sets and reps with it, and it actually fell into place quite easily. Powered helps a lot. Saga target density helps a lot too. But I think it's not quite as hard as folks think it is.
The white prototype thing? Ya sorry, I'm not a fan.
Ya, Mishra, Claimed by Gix doesn't have haste, so it's a Brutal Hordechief variant, not a Hellrider. An okay card, but
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I think I'm going to run your top 6 at 465, which makes this an amazing cube set. I'm not 100% sold on Crown or Proxy, but I love, love, love the other four. I'll keep an eye on Wurmlet and Transmogrant, too.
Iconoclast is amazing! On top of everything else, it's generally more useful to have artifact tokens than elemental tokens, so there's yet another advantage over Pyromancer.
Cheers,
rant
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The unfortunate part is I would label the vast majority of these cards as 2-4 drops in already high competitive slots that are at marginal upgrades to existing cards. This would put a lot of additional pressure on keeping weaker enablers for various combos or even some inefficient combos/ archetypes in my cube itself. I might need to re-evaluate some packages.
There are two cards I be very interested in, in particular to ho they affect the density of enablers in my cube:
1. Transmogrant's Crown
- Skullclamp is an incredible card in creature combo decks, I could see this as an excellent addition in those decks to both dig into their combo/ play a creature value game
2. Arcane Proxy
- This is a fantastic value creature. I'll be looking into adding this along side cards such as Sea Gate Stormcaller, Aminatou's Augury, Jeskai Ascendancy etc. for more spells matter combo/ control storm variants.
3. Haywire Mite
- I'm not sure at this point if this signals that 2 CMC dorks that don't produce 2+ mana consistently are unplayable at this point.
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2. Improving Green Archetypes
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4. Matchup Analysis
5. Cube Combos (Work in Progress)
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I'm sure there are lots of hidden gems in this set, because it's super deep.
The Foundry just doesn't do it for me. Too much to activate, can't target itself, can't boost on blocks. Meh.
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You're welcome rant!
Lots of cube goodies, and Iconclast is a banger.
You're welcome.
Not sure what you mean with point #3, and I'm unsure how the Mite is an indicator that 2cc green ramp is dead? Can you elaborate?
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Current, I am including
Dack Fayden
Lutri, the Spellchaser
Prismari Command
in my Izzet section.
Lutri has been pretty solid and I'll have to see if I like this guy more than Prismari command.
I also view Surge Engine a bit differently. While it is "The way this card plays out, you spend your 2nd turn’s and part of your 3rd turn’s mana getting this beater online" like you say, it's also essentially leaving 2 mana open for counterspell which are bread and butter of blue decks. I do like blue tempo and like to push for cubable blue creatures a lot though. So while I'm not sure if it'll stay in my cube I'll still give it a run.
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Ya, you get to leave countermagic open w/ Surge Engine ...but you could do that with any 2-drop, and not have to use up some of your T3 mana. So it still eats up multiple turns of mana when other options wouldn't. Not an insurmountable problem, but definitely something to identify with its play pattern.
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Teething Wurmlet is a card I completely overlooked but spied in your list before I saw this post go up - test drafting convinced me you're spot-on. I think it'll be a really cool addition in powered lists. Mine is unpowered, so I'm not too sure it'll work out, but I'm curious enough to see where its limits lie. Likewise, I had no idea Zephyr Sentinel existed - thanks for bringing it up! I've been waiting for this specific kind of bounce for a while.
Finally, I had reservations regarding Transmogrant's Crown, but you've made me give it a second thought. I think I fell into the trap of focusing too much on the 2 colorless equip cost - if I really just look at is a bonesplitter for 1 more mana and gaining card draw, yeah, that's a pretty desirable card.
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Unsure about Wurmlet in unpowered, but with the right density of cheap artifacts, I'm sure it can perform.
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- If you have 5 artifacts in your deck, you have a 70% chance on the play of making this a 2/2. This number improves ROUGHLY by 5% for every additional artifact/ card draw (increase in sample size), which are very strong odds.
- If you have 9 artifacts in your deck, you have roughly 50% chance of making it deathtouch by turn 3-4 (mid-game). This number improves by roughly 4% for every additional artifact/ card draw. (This doesn't take into account of cards that can produce multiple such as Tireless Tracker/ Oko, Retrofitter)
My experience with Wurmlet is its 70-80% "naturally" playable in Green-x aggressive decks (I would like 80% consistency on turn 2 to grow it into a 2/2) but it shines can shine in a lot of green decks such as Lands/ GX Smokestack (also an artifact!)/ Melira Combo/ ramp, which 50-70% of the time have the appropriate artifact density to naturally turn it into a 4/4 deathtouch in the mid-game. These decks often lack good turn 1 plays and having an early creature that can grow while gaining life/ block/ pressure planeswalkers has been invaluable for me.
Vintage Cube Cards Explained
Here are some other articles I've written about fine tuning your cube:
1. Minimum Archetype Support
2. Improving Green Archetypes
3. Improving White Archetypes
4. Matchup Analysis
5. Cube Combos (Work in Progress)
Draft my Cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/d8i