My earlier post didn't get much traction, but I really do want to sing the praises of Displacer Kitten. Non-cube communities have recognized the power of this card in competitive EDH and infinite combos in Legacy, but I've been extremely impressed with it in cube too.
I've done ~5 drafts with Kitten in my cube, and it has seriously over performed. If you haven't tested it, I *strongly* recommend doing so. Attached is a picture of a recent 4-0 deck. Untapping with Kitten essentially guaranteed a win, and any instant protected it from removal. Kitten's interaction with creatures is nice, but blinking Mana Rocks (or Treachery, which counts as a mana rock) is where the card truly shines. The ability to constantly reset Planeswalkers, move around Control Magic/O-Ring effects, and reset Tangle Wire/Parallax Wave was also extremely strong.
I don't think Thassa is the right comparison - in a deck built to maximize Kitten with cards like Sensei's Divining Top, cantrips, Capsize, Time Spiral, etc. Kitten can trigger 5+ times a turn, and give you the mana or card necessary to keep going. Multiple games with the posted deck involved casting Capsize 12+ times in a single turn.
I've also tried it more traditional UW blink shells, and it performs well there too, although is trickier to enable. The biggest advantage there compared to something like Thassa is the instant speed nature of the ability. Thassa can't dodge removal or fade blockers, but Kitten can.
I've gotten a good amount of reps with the CLB cards, everything so far has pretty much panned out the way I thought they would. I'd also argue that some of the cards (Minsc & Boo / White Plume Adventurer / Seasoned Dungeoneer) even exceeded my already high expectations.
- Minsc & Boo is super busted. It's solidified its place for me as a top tier planeswalker / multicolored card, best overall generic Gruul card, and is just the best 4-cmc win condition, Like Oko, I won't hesitate to take this P1P1 and is an auto-include for any deck in Gruul colors regardless of what archetype I'm playing. One thing to note is that M&B has been working well in cheaty face shells as an alternate win condition via hamster or a big burn spell to close out the game a turn earlier by flinging your super fatties for (usually) 6 or more damage.
- White Plume Adventurer / Seasoned Dungeoneer are just absurd due and are far and away the two best initiative enablers due to White Plume Adventurer's cheap cost and Seasoned Dungeoneer able to make things unblockable. White Plume Adventurer / Seasoned Dungeoneer have earned themselves staple status for me as they are easily at the top of their weight classes. While initiative can be risky, white is by far the best color to take / defend monarch and initiative. White Plume Adventurer is essentially a value Brimaz and Seasoned Dungeoneer combines the value of Palace Jailer with Hero of Bladehold's damage output. These cards really should've at least 1WW / 2WW respectively, it would've been nice if decks couldn't easily splash for these.
- Undermountain Adventurer isn't on the same level as the white initiative enablers, but it's still a pretty respectable threat as a versatile green 4-cmc creature. To me it essentially does a lot of things that Oracle of Mul Daya wants to do, but is generally much better as it has much better stats and has a much better floor (sans your opponent stealing initiative).
- Caves of Chaos Adventurer is also respectable, but is the worst of the 4 initiative enablers that I've been testing. I like it enough to keep testing for now, but I don't see it as a long-term player.
- Monster Manual has been a welcome addition as a roleplayer to Cheaty Face strategies as a second Quicksilver Amulet. Being able to use its Adventure mode to dig for a creature if you already have something like Sneak Attack in play is really clutch. I've also seen some people use it in Natural Order shells too, but I personally think its best home is in Show and Tell type decks. It's here to stay for me at 540 as I'm always looking for more supplemental Cheaty Face enablers.
- Noble's Purse is a solid mana rock that has a nice niche in its ability to accumulate treasures to ramp harder in a single turn or just have boost your critical mass of artifacts for things like Tolarian Academy / Urza's Saga. I've been liking it more overall than Coldsteel Heart, which I think is its best comparison in terms of commonly cubed cards.
- Delayed Blast Fireball is also a solid roleplayer if you're looking for more crowd control options. Being one-sided like Seismic Wave is especially nice.
TL;DR:
- Minsc & Boo / White Plume Adventurer / Seasoned Dungeoneer are stone cold staples in my book.
- Undermountain Adventurer / Caves of Chaos Adventurer are serviceable initiative enablers.
I second the conclusion of basically everything Steve said.
Minsc & boo is a step below power 9 (top 3 planeswalkers ever).
White plume adventurer & seasoned dungeoneer are very strong. top 10 white cards. Top 100-150 cube cards.
Monster's manual overperformed. Not a hardcore 5yr+ staple, but definitely better than I was expecting. Graduated from "testing" to included. I thought it would relegated to cheaty decks, but I've played it to success in generic green ramp decks with a 3 , 7+ CMC creatures. The adventure mode was better than I thought. Milling is relevant in a G/B deck that plays a reanimation spell or two, or with cards like URO. I've also splashed in artifact decks that have a few big artifact creatures.
Delayed blast fireball has been incredible. I have both arcane savant and bring to light, so it's particularly strong in my cube.
The initiative is a little less strong than I first imagined, but still very good. On average, the early modes are slightly worse than "draw a card" from monarch, unless you are hyper aggressive. The final mode is VERY powerful, so it incentivizes having multiple initiative enablers in the same deck, or blink effects like ephemerate to get you there faster... Adds a little bit more depth to the mechanic.
It is very much like monarch, but slightly more maintenance to keep track of.... so I wouldn't want too many effects like it in cube. Currently at 2 white + red... might go down to just 2 white.
I've done ~5 drafts with Kitten in my cube, and it has seriously over performed. If you haven't tested it, I *strongly* recommend doing so. Attached is a picture of a recent 4-0 deck. Untapping with Kitten essentially guaranteed a win, and any instant protected it from removal. Kitten's interaction with creatures is nice, but blinking Mana Rocks (or Treachery, which counts as a mana rock) is where the card truly shines. The ability to constantly reset Planeswalkers, move around Control Magic/O-Ring effects, and reset Tangle Wire/Parallax Wave was also extremely strong.
I don't think Thassa is the right comparison - in a deck built to maximize Kitten with cards like Sensei's Divining Top, cantrips, Capsize, Time Spiral, etc. Kitten can trigger 5+ times a turn, and give you the mana or card necessary to keep going. Multiple games with the posted deck involved casting Capsize 12+ times in a single turn.
I've also tried it more traditional UW blink shells, and it performs well there too, although is trickier to enable. The biggest advantage there compared to something like Thassa is the instant speed nature of the ability. Thassa can't dodge removal or fade blockers, but Kitten can.
- Minsc & Boo is super busted. It's solidified its place for me as a top tier planeswalker / multicolored card, best overall generic Gruul card, and is just the best 4-cmc win condition, Like Oko, I won't hesitate to take this P1P1 and is an auto-include for any deck in Gruul colors regardless of what archetype I'm playing. One thing to note is that M&B has been working well in cheaty face shells as an alternate win condition via hamster or a big burn spell to close out the game a turn earlier by flinging your super fatties for (usually) 6 or more damage.
- White Plume Adventurer / Seasoned Dungeoneer are just absurd due and are far and away the two best initiative enablers due to White Plume Adventurer's cheap cost and Seasoned Dungeoneer able to make things unblockable. White Plume Adventurer / Seasoned Dungeoneer have earned themselves staple status for me as they are easily at the top of their weight classes. While initiative can be risky, white is by far the best color to take / defend monarch and initiative. White Plume Adventurer is essentially a value Brimaz and Seasoned Dungeoneer combines the value of Palace Jailer with Hero of Bladehold's damage output. These cards really should've at least 1WW / 2WW respectively, it would've been nice if decks couldn't easily splash for these.
- Undermountain Adventurer isn't on the same level as the white initiative enablers, but it's still a pretty respectable threat as a versatile green 4-cmc creature. To me it essentially does a lot of things that Oracle of Mul Daya wants to do, but is generally much better as it has much better stats and has a much better floor (sans your opponent stealing initiative).
- Caves of Chaos Adventurer is also respectable, but is the worst of the 4 initiative enablers that I've been testing. I like it enough to keep testing for now, but I don't see it as a long-term player.
- Monster Manual has been a welcome addition as a roleplayer to Cheaty Face strategies as a second Quicksilver Amulet. Being able to use its Adventure mode to dig for a creature if you already have something like Sneak Attack in play is really clutch. I've also seen some people use it in Natural Order shells too, but I personally think its best home is in Show and Tell type decks. It's here to stay for me at 540 as I'm always looking for more supplemental Cheaty Face enablers.
- Noble's Purse is a solid mana rock that has a nice niche in its ability to accumulate treasures to ramp harder in a single turn or just have boost your critical mass of artifacts for things like Tolarian Academy / Urza's Saga. I've been liking it more overall than Coldsteel Heart, which I think is its best comparison in terms of commonly cubed cards.
- Delayed Blast Fireball is also a solid roleplayer if you're looking for more crowd control options. Being one-sided like Seismic Wave is especially nice.
TL;DR:
- Minsc & Boo / White Plume Adventurer / Seasoned Dungeoneer are stone cold staples in my book.
- Undermountain Adventurer / Caves of Chaos Adventurer are serviceable initiative enablers.
- Monster's Manual / Noble's Purse / Delayed Blast Fireball are solid roleplayers.
My High Octane Unpowered Cube on CubeCobra
Minsc & boo is a step below power 9 (top 3 planeswalkers ever).
White plume adventurer & seasoned dungeoneer are very strong. top 10 white cards. Top 100-150 cube cards.
Monster's manual overperformed. Not a hardcore 5yr+ staple, but definitely better than I was expecting. Graduated from "testing" to included. I thought it would relegated to cheaty decks, but I've played it to success in generic green ramp decks with a 3 , 7+ CMC creatures. The adventure mode was better than I thought. Milling is relevant in a G/B deck that plays a reanimation spell or two, or with cards like URO. I've also splashed in artifact decks that have a few big artifact creatures.
Delayed blast fireball has been incredible. I have both arcane savant and bring to light, so it's particularly strong in my cube.
The initiative is a little less strong than I first imagined, but still very good. On average, the early modes are slightly worse than "draw a card" from monarch, unless you are hyper aggressive. The final mode is VERY powerful, so it incentivizes having multiple initiative enablers in the same deck, or blink effects like ephemerate to get you there faster... Adds a little bit more depth to the mechanic.
It is very much like monarch, but slightly more maintenance to keep track of.... so I wouldn't want too many effects like it in cube. Currently at 2 white + red... might go down to just 2 white.
Last Updated 02/07/24
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