[quote from="Cobble »" url="/forums/the-game/the-cube-forum/pauper-peasant-discussion/193989-the-pauper-cube-discussion-thread-commons-only?comment=7283"]Robe of Mirrors does the same thing without the stipulation of it being a blue creature.
No it isn't. +1/+1 is quite a big stat buff for a 1 mana aura. The downside of having to play it on a blue creature is negated by playing blue. That's if you actually intent on casting blue creatures with relevant bodies. The main downside I foresee of Clout of the Dominus is players will tunnel vision on getting both colours for all the bonuses, rather than focusing on the much more powerful effect. Another point is this kind of effect is not going to cut in on Merfolk Looters, which while strong are more for durdling than actually engaging the board. Durdling's fine and all, but creatures have gotten muchbetter.
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There's no word in the goblin language for "strategy." Then again, there's no word in the goblin language for "word."
There is also Shield of the Oversoul, which makes green creatures permanently indestructible and the white side isn't that terrible either.
Edit: Fun fact: I sometimes ask people if they know 2 commons, which can create a 5/4 Flying, Indestructible, Shroud on turn 3 in pauper and no one I've asked so far knew both (Naya Hushblade + Shield of the Oversoul).
There is also Shield of the Oversoul, which makes green creatures permanently indestructible and the white side isn't that terrible either.
Edit: Fun fact: I sometimes ask people if they know 2 commons, which can create a 5/4 Flying, Indestructible, Shroud on turn 3 in pauper and no one I've asked so far knew both (Naya Hushblade + Shield of the Oversoul).
I think I tried out Shield of the Oversoul quite a while ago, but there were no hexproofers to protect it from Man-o'-War. The cube was still forming so it was a pretty rouge place. I think it wasn't until someone stomped everyone with mono red that my cube's archetypes started forming for me. Before that I was relying a lot on decklists posted here as a guide for what to build.
This is my current red section. I'm not quite sure what to do to this section other than the obvious add Chain Lightning (everyone I knew was being a cheapskate with their Fire & Lightning ones thinking the card would go up in value when I was extensively trading for commons.) I pulled apart Red a while ago, but since then it turns out that people want to get crushed in a format they don't understand.
Notes: Artillerize has always ended games when I've played it. It's basically the second cheapest Lava Axe in the format after Brimstone Volley. I'm less keen on x cost burn spells because I generally want to lower my curve by as much as possible, but I know their good pick-ups for people considering a red splash. Rolling Thunder is still strong, but requires a much more serious commitment to red. Mugging and Dead // Gone seem like weaker copies of Galvanic Blast, but they allow you to remove a creature from the equation when your looking to close out a game and double as good removal at dealing with pesky white cards and mana elves. Scorchwalker sneaks in 5 damage, which again pretty much ends games. Maw of Kozilek is in purely for experimental purposes; Wastes are freely available since they are basic lands. Yes, I know that Pyroblast is strictly better than Red Elemental Blast due to escape, hellbent, delve and Hero of the Pride. It's what I had at hand. Immolating Souleater and Oxidda Golem are sitting in the colourless section for sorting purposes. Also there are no cards from supplementary sets. It was a clean way of excluding Unsets, Eternal whatever and the MTG Online stuff as well.
I want to increase my spells section (I know they are all technically spells) and reduce the creature section. I've just found that each creature fills a purpose, but the spells are most contested, so I need to provide redundancy there.
Minotaur Skullcleaver is better than Slash Panther
that said, maybe have a look at my cube, since i go for lowcurve since ever and monowhite is the best deck lol
@Cobble:
You usually don't get many responses, when asking for mass evaluations. I would go step by step and ask specific VS questions. Also a great tool to help yourself is to use the Cubetutor Cube Comparison Function. I know, that not everyone hast their list up to date on cubetutor, but I still have a list of links in my signature. I often use this myself, when I want to see what other people run in specific slots.
i want to mention Cosmotronic Wave which is pretty insane. not only sweeps it away pesky x/1s and token strategies, its also a reliable finisher for sligh.
Minotaur Skullcleaver is better than Slash Panther
that said, maybe have a look at my cube, since i go for lowcurve since ever and monowhite is the best deck lol
Cackling Flames is an interesting one. I don't get Hellbent often enough to really justify it. I'm often looking for a lull to cast 5 damage spells. And anyway Sprinting Warbrute is the best Lava Axe. It's just really nice to have redundancy in big damage effects because damage synergises so well with itself.
Not really sure how I feel about splicing a madness theme in. Most of the decent cards for it require supplementary sets for the common printings. I experimented with madness before, it felt like I needed too many pieces in order for the deck to function well. And the gains were marginal compared to a lot of the Red/x goodstuff decks.
Taste for Mayhem has been the hellbent card I've been considering adding. My red enchantment section is a bit light and the default mode of an extra 2 power somewhere is alright. 4 power for 1 mana is nothing to sneeze at and hopefully a deck that runs that is planning on unloading it's hand pretty quickly. Drawing extra lands will be the main challenge, although a few mana sinks such as Immolating Souleater will solve that problem.
Inner-flame Acolyte is a better Minotaur Skullcleaver in my opinion. I prefer having envoke over the slightly more awkward casting cost. Slash Panther can cost no red mana and always has 4 power; and I don't know about you, but 4 power creatures tend to be pretty good. Also I can give the +2/+0 to an unblockable creature and still net the 2/2 potentially as a blocker for myself. Embereth Paladin is a potential replacement for Slash Panther, although I'll try both because I suspect they will be ran in different builds.
Playing against White I go for war of attrition strategies. Most cube lists that I've seen run a lot of 1&2 drops, which is fine, but I think it goes to show that the other colour's sections haven't been adapted to a 1 mana heavy format. Little cards like Dead Weight go a long way to dropping the strength of an early-game. As well as that Dead Weight enables delirium, the cards of which are all aggressively costed. I generally want quite a bit of early hate and I want those cards to be multimodal so I have a use for them when I play against something that has less targets.
Blue's a bit of a sitting duck, but for me it's almost always paired with the colour with the most removal and grind. Getting Blue to play mono is a bit of a mission.
@Cobble:
You usually don't get many responses, when asking for mass evaluations. I would go step by step and ask specific VS questions. Also a great tool to help yourself is to use the Cubetutor Cube Comparison Function. I know, that not everyone hast their list up to date on cubetutor, but I still have a list of links in my signature. I often use this myself, when I want to see what other people run in specific slots.
I've been looking at other people's lists. I'll get around to eventually putting mine up on Cubetutor as well. I'm not too interested in direct comparisons either because I know that I've been balancing curves differently. Card by card is a pain when evaluating a whole section.
When posting a whole section, I'm looking for something that stands out rather than details, because I've already gone over the details. I'm also in the middle of a massive overhaul because I'm missing a few years of recent additions and the other colours are in a much rougher state (less Red staples have been printed recently so the line-up is fairly static).
i want to mention Cosmotronic Wave which is pretty insane. not only sweeps it away pesky x/1s and token strategies, its also a reliable finisher for sligh.
My cube on ct 4632
I've been considering Cosmotronic Wave. It's a piece of cardboard which by freak occurrence I am missing. I've tried out Ruthless Invasion, so I assume it plays similarly to that. Spraying down 1 toughness creatures sounds very useful. However Ruthless Invasion can be very strong for both Green and White (especially G/W). I'll probably run both as they fit different archetypes.
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There's no word in the goblin language for "strategy." Then again, there's no word in the goblin language for "word."
you seem to fall into the "i need to overload strategies" trap with madness.
you all want to stuff 40 card archetypes in the cube, when it comes to keywords it seems. be it madness, boggles, sacrifice or whatever. thats silly and railroads drafting. its totally fine to run Insolent Neonate and Lightning Axe as decent standalone cards without any payoff. and then be happy to grab either Reckless Wurm or Fiery Temper later in the draft. (or enable cackling flames) Basking Rootwalla and Gathan Raiders are in every cube already usually.
Inner-flame Acolyte was infinitely worse than minotaur in my testings, because RR makes it often unplayable and unsplashable. If I can support 1RR i run Viashino Sandsprinter
Sprinting Warbrute is a pretty unreliable lava axe and got cut at some point.
What are people's thoughts on Goblin Shortcutter? Azorius Arrester is the strictly better White version and I don't see many people play that.
From experience Sprinting Warbrute been good every time I've cast it. When dashing's not an option I can hardcast Warbrute for it to sit on the battlefield looking really threatening. Typically you want it to live in your hand for those Akki Underlings that no one is running.
On Peregrine Drake: I was overly harsh on it. I was comparing it to a tempo/midrage style deck which typically allocates almost all its resources to pulling ahead in the early game in order to close out a game. In which case Peregrine Drake is not so hot because of the opportunity cost; Peregrine Drake could be another piece of midrange. Maybe some decks can still find a slot for Peregrine Drake in between the Man-o'-Wars, Eldrazi Skyspawners, Repulses and whatever else is packed into these decks. Card slots are be quite tight after you've accumulated all the necessary tempo pieces.
On the other hand Lock decks (call them control, call them Lock) are looking for any kind of flier to actually get through damage so they can crawl to victory through their complete denial of their opponent's board/hand. The quicker the clock the more midrangey these style of control decks can play. Peregrine's a relatively low-cost flier which can act as an alternate wincon with Mnemonic Wall and Ghostly Flicker which are both cards in the my cube and both cards that these Lock decks typically play. Even without the alternative wincon (which is fairly likely when the deck intends to stall indefinitely) the Drake is a fine play turn 5 or later because you can keeps your lands untapped to deal with whatever you opponent tries to do. I'm much more likely to have things to do with 5 mana in control than tempo. Being able to play a creature and still have mana to Flood is invaluable.
Also apparently Ninjas are a thing in our format? 5 mana is a bit slow for Ninjas, still the Drake makes a good target to return. Maybe Cloud of Faeries is better for Ninjas because you can set up that much sooner.
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There's no word in the goblin language for "strategy." Then again, there's no word in the goblin language for "word."
You have some cool conclusions. On a typical Cube 360 way of looking at things, "real" Control is very hard to accomplish as most do not run enough piece to make such a deck exist. Peregrine Drake is more or less just a 2/3 Flier for free. Some ran Spire Golem for similar effect, but is much harder to get it for free.
I am 273% pro-Ninjas and Al and Imhave discussed at length about Ninjas vs Blink for an Archetype. Peregrine is one of the many optio s for 5cmc Blue finishers, and in the end it comes down to preference and body count, becausetoomany will really hurt Blue's viability as a U/x style deck and sill get it cut to X/u
Augur il-Vec - Shadow meta? Augur of Skulls - 2 mana discard for two. Doubles as a blocker. Has to wait a whole turn rotation to do its thing. Aven Augur - Undo on a flier. Cutthroat il-Dal - Speaking of hellbent... 4/1 for 4 shadow is pretty obviously good enough. Sure it dies to Desert, etc, but 4 power that is functionally unblockable. Still, how consistent is hellbent for most people? The fact that this card can be used as a blocker is worth considering. I'd imagine this as a curve topper, alongside the ranks of Gorehorn Minotaurs. Death Rattle - In lieu of Soul Reap and Murderous Cut. Not being able take out Green creatures is a significant downside. Still this kills Twisted Abomination. The cost even with delve is steep. Deepcavern Imp - In my eyes only useful as a discard outlet. Edge of Autumn - The second best Pauper copy of Rampant Growth (after Sakura-Tribe Elder), simply because there was nothing much to do with big mana here in the first place. Emberwilde Augur - Played this one a bit. It's underwhelming except in Burn. Foresee - Future Sight Foresee has been proven to be the best version of Forsee. Frenzy Sliver - Look it's a sliver. These are spread out into too many colours to be of much use to us. The 2 mana +1/+1 ones are by far, acting as a Seven Dwarves as well as making anything with the silver creature type decent. However all those are in Green and White. Gathan Raiders - One of the better colourless (I mean Red) cards in cube. You can in response do a Wild Mongrel impersonation to make it a 3/3. 5/5 is simply huge in cube, and you're not even restricted to Red in order to cast Gathan Raiders! Although Raiders are a bit better in Red due to hardcasting it and avoiding the discard entirely. Still, it's a joy to see Gathan Raiders in a White deck. Ghostfire - Can deal with Guardian of the Guildpact at instant speed and Cho-Manno's Blessing. That's about it for reasons to consider this. Gift of Granite - As far as toughness only boosting combat tricks go this is the best because the buff is permanent. Grave Peril - Pretty classic Future Sight design. It's just waiting for the day Black gets access to Ghoulcaller's Chant for enchantments. Grave Scrabbler - One of the best madness cards. Grinning Ignus - I spent a long time trying to combo this card. In the end it was a Vessel of Volatility on a creature. The main downside is there is nothing to do with temporary extra mana which significantly puts you ahead. Grinning Ignus is a bit of a nonbo with Bogardan Rager which is the biggest playable red creature. (Yeah, yeah yeah, Chartooth Cougar...) There's nothing like Vicious Shadows here which justifies ramping to. Henchfiend of Ukor Firebreathing hastey 4 drop. This seems really strong. I assume the Black echo cost is the reason we don't see people running this. Most people only allocate so many slots for B/R cards which are already stacked with the likes of Terminate and Blightning. Cards like these are the bane of people-who-like-balanced-colour-distribution's existence. (Generally the solution is to ignore cards like these altogether.) Homing Sliver - So you can tutor for Muscle Sliver. Ichor Slick - A very modal card to do a whole load of unimpressive things. This card goes to show how exotic combinations of abilities can be very synergistic with each other, unlike the nonbo of Old Fogey. Imperiosaur - Once upon a time, this card got downshifted. Still, I reckon the Future Sight boarder verison is superior to the much inferior Modern Masters version with its newfangled common symbol. Also, Imperiosaur is in fact a dinosaur. I'm not sure how relevant that is. Infiltrator il-Kor - Another Future Sight head scratcher. So for the cost of Errant Ephemeron I get a suspend to which means it skips a turn before coming down, then what? I get a 3/1 shadow for a slight discount, although it's fragile and delayed... Overall I think I prefer Cloud Drake in this place. And even then I'm not to hot on 3/1 fliers in Blue because there are much better 3 mana options available. However shadow creatures tend to be worth more than fliers and cards like Infiltrator il-Kor allow me to lower mu overall curve because I require less lands in total to get my effects. The 5 mana cast is ok as well. 5 mana is an achievable amount, although the body is unimpressive for the cost especially in the toughness department. Judge Unworthy - 2 mana removal with Scry 3. At a glance that seems very strong. Of course, being Future Sight there is a complicated catch. The first being Judge Unworthy is chancy without other top deck manipulation, the second is depending on your curve how much damage Judge Unworthy is likely to do. With plenty of Savannah Lions you are likely to deal at least 1 damage, although Elite Vanguard doesn't make for an impressive top deck. With a slightly higher curve you can be pretty guaranteed to do 2 damage consistently with Judge Unworthy which gives it the Grizzly Bears seal of approval. If you a looking to kill anything with 3 or more damage, then the odds begin to look slim. 3 damage is a coin toss for most decks and 4 damage is only worth attempting in a pinch. Overall, cheap removal which has a decent scry in White is worth playing in my opinion. Kavu Primarch - It's big. It dies to Doom Blade. There isn't a shortage of cheap big creatures in Green. Convoke with kicker makes it fairly unique for its flexibility. Puts early tokens to good use. Considerable, but somewhat marginal. Knight of Sursi - The suspend means it won't impact the board in the early turns where White wants to apply most of its pressure. Four mana means it is reasonable to hardcast. Leaden Fists - What is even going on here? Llanowar Augur - Another strange combination. Llanowar Empath - Requires a creature heavy deck for consistency. Generally cards that put you behind in tempo in Green won't make the cut for a lot of people's decks. I think that this was meant to be Gravedigger-esque, but anything beyond scry 2 was considered too powerful. Logic Knot - With a heap of 1 mana spells it's a good counterspell. Lost Hours - Comparable to Distress. Putting a card third from the top can be much stronger or much weaker than discard depending on how the card-you-put-away's power fluctuates over the course of a game. Generally I want rid of things for good and I don't want to spend 2 mana to do so for an effect such as this. Lucent Liminid - There are simply not enough enchantment synergies to make this card worth running. Lymph Sliver - Absorb is such a strong mechanic when you think about it. Sort of a build-your-own pillow fortress, but just for Slivers. Maybe in after Sliver set we'll see the critical mass to consider cards such as this. Marshaling Cry - I've really tried to make this card work. I really did. It's so close... Yet so far. Cycling is a bit weaker in White that other more Blue colours because the 2 mana represents the opportunity cost of another 2 drop this. Still when the Plains align Marshaling Cry can be just the right card you need. It's got a very specific combination of abilities, and the flashback is no joke when it works. Mesmeric Sliver - We recently rediscovered how strong fateseal is with Lantern Control. Again, how many slivers do you need to play this? Nessian Courser - Hasn't stopped being a vanilla 3/3 for 3. Oblivion Crown - Basically reads: Madness and hellbent enabler. Patrician's Scorn - In case enchantments ever become enough of a thing to warrant playing this, we have a common enchantment sweep. Petrified Plating - I feel the costing process for auras involves asking the question of "What happens if enchantments are very strong" and then working back from there. Putrid Cyclops - If your curve tops a 2, then this is perfect for your deck! Quiet Disrepair - Passive enchantments and artifacts haven't ever been a thing at common outside of the odd Pestilence and Flood. Equipment are some of the few cards that do a fair bit of sitting around. Even so, I typically want to destroy artifacts and enchantments now if I have destruction effects available. Then again doing things now wasn't really a core theme of Future Sight. Riddle of Lightning - Pretty much all the things said about Judge Unworthy and Grinning Ignus. Except now you're incentivised to run expensive cards to deal direct damage, rather than relying on consistency to deal just enough damage to problematic creatures. Rift Elemental Very good at removing time counters which represents a whole turn of value! There just aren't many decent cards with time counters that we want to remove. Saltskitter - The common Norin the Weary. Samite Censer-Bearer - Prevents damage to each creature you control. Sarcomite Myr - All round a bit expensive. Sporoloth Ancient - You can put this in your Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind themed cube. Sprout Swarm - Everyone here must know about this one already. Buyback with convoke and makes a creature. Even if Sprout Swarm costed more it would still be decent. Street Wraith - Cycling that costs life means that this is playable even as a sideboard only card, because in the right match-up you always want it as it effectively reduces your decksize to 39. 5 mana 3/4 swampwalk is solid against any deck with more than a couple of Swamps in it. There's no Living End to really take advantage of cheaply stocking the graveyard with creatures. Downshifted in Modern Masters. Thornweald Archer - Alongside Ambush Viper, Thornweald Archer is one of the best Green deathtouch creatures. Unblinking Bleb - Future Sight design in peak form. Vedalken Aethermage - The wizard tutor we never needed. Venser's Diffusion - Bounces suspended nonland permanents... Virulent Sliver - With a critical mass of slivers this becomes great. As well as that you can run slivers alongside the infect creatures with this. Think of the possibilities. Virulent Sliver's poisonous 1 stacks really nicely with itself, which isn't much to write home about if you are running cards in singleton... Whip-Spine Drake - The off-colour morph adds interesting gameplay. Ultimately it is an overcosted morph creature and then strong morph synergies were never printed at common outside of the aforementioned Unblinking Bleb. Wrap in Vigor - Regenerate each creature you control. A solution to a problem that pauper cube neverhad. Still this card has a lot of blow out potential and it can make for some interesting combat bluffs.
I didn't intend on doing a full review of Future Sight, but the spoiler is so funny. There are so many oddities. Also I really want to try out Judge Unworthy as scry on cheap removal sounds a little too good to be true.
Were you intending to cover every card in FS? Amongst the ones you omitted, I think Bound in Silence has seen some fringe play in large Cubes looking for more pacifisms (granted BiS was downshifted years later)
During my review of the spoiler I found the following cards that I don't believe you mentioned:
Were you intending to cover every card in FS? Amongst the ones you omitted, I think Bound in Silence has seen some fringe play in large Cubes looking for more pacifisms (granted BiS was downshifted years later)
During my review of the spoiler I found the following cards that I don't believe you mentioned:
I wasn't intending on doing a full review, I just kept finding things to say. I missed some of the vanilla creatures and a couple of cards which I had forgotten that they were downshifted. So for completeness' sake.
Blade of the Sixth Pride - The first 3/1 for 2. The first of many. It's a rebel, so technically not strictly worse than something such as Leonin of the Lost Pride, although I'm not sure if anyone runs rebel synergies. A vanilla 3/1 for 2 in white will still get played even in a competitive environment in Pauper cube. Blind Phantasm - This vanilla clearly signals that Blue creatures are going to typically have less over stats for mana cost than other more Green colours. Three power has been a premium stat for 3CMC creatures for quite some time. It's only been in recent years that we've been seeing consistently strong cheap creatures. Bogardan Lancer - In order for this to be viable there needs to be a lot of decent 1 drops. Even then Benalish Cavalry essentially has the same stats without the downside of having an opponent take damage. +1/+1 counter synergies are few and far between at common. The downsides are many; the upsides are few. Bound in Silence - I don't understand rebel cards that well. Arn't there tutors for rebels with converted mana cost less than or equal to the converted mana cost of the creature that is doing the searching? Anyways, ignoring the tribal text, this is slightly worse than Recumbent Bliss or Arrest, but not strictly worse. Although in most cubes it will be strictly worse due to no Rebel synergies. I assume there is at least one good rebel common out there that can fetch this. Fatal Attraction - From the days where 4 damage was a premium for Red. We still are in those days, but now we at least have Flame Slash to keep us company. As far as Red enchantments which deal damage when they enter the battlefield go, Galanvic Arc is the best of the lot (maybe Oath of Chandra, however that is rare). Or in more recent enchantment developments, Omen of the Forge is alright. In saying all this, when it comes down to it, if you remove access to all decent damage based removal, cards such as Fatal Attraction will get played. Fatal Attraction is by no means terrible, it's just Red removal is very, very efficient since Lightning Bolt was printed. Flowstone Embrace - An aura that taps, just to show that there is design space there. As removal Immolation is better in most regards. As a buff, you can keep your creature's toughness if required. Or in multiplayer you can put it on an opponent's creature to use as a negotiating tool. Fomori Nomad - Ahh yes, the fabled nomad creature type. Maybe this was meant to be the new Hill Giant as a 4/4 is the new 3/3. Mass of Ghouls - Black seems to get a lot of lopsided power/toughnesses. I think it's because most large zombies don't have a balanced diet. 5 power unopposed sets a quick clock. 3 toughness means it's mostly target practice. Sparkspitter - The 1/3 body means that this card itself won't do a Spark Elemental impersonation. Turning lands into 3/1s means that this can act as retrace. However, the generator is rather vulnerable and Red decks already have a solution to drawing an excess of land which are the x-costspells. The Spark Elemental land-to-damage exchange rate is quite favourable if left unopposed.
I think I will compile the Future Sight "review" into an actual set review, evaluating them into a bomb, cubeable, borderline, weak, terrible framework. I'm not sure if the rubric needs to be reworked or not? I'll clean up some typos and maybe offer a bit more commentary than Leaden Fists: WTF.
Also I want to get around to reviewing Planar Chaos, because it's a mess.
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There's no word in the goblin language for "strategy." Then again, there's no word in the goblin language for "word."
I think I will compile the Future Sight "review" into an actual set review, evaluating them into a bomb, cubeable, borderline, weak, terrible framework. I'm not sure if the rubric needs to be reworked or not? I'll clean up some typos and maybe offer a bit more commentary than Leaden Fists: WTF.
Also I want to get around to reviewing Planar Chaos, because it's a mess.
Planar Chaos had a very high rate of good cards. On top of that, ~half of the color shifted cards are now in color.
Time to have a read through the Planar Chaos spoiler.
Aquamorph Entity: Too expensive in every regard. Being either a 1/5 or 5/1 is decent as it has a strong defensive mode or a strong offensive mode. However at 4 mana you'd generally want something a bit more well rounded, maybe Illusionary Forces? Morphing is alright, but there isn't too much in the way of decent morph bluffs in most pauper cubes outside of Guthan Raiders. Or maybe Abzan Guide, but that is very mana intensive (and people typically avoid running it for the sake of sanity) and isn't going to disguise as a blue creature very well.
Aven Riftwatcher: One of white's strongest anti-aggro cards. It lifegain can be really annoying to deal with especially when you need to remain of the offensive as an opposing aggro deck. Aven Riftwatcher can scale a bit poorly against more control oriented builds as it will eventually remove itself, meaning the control player can save a piece of removal. It white you typically what to be holding tempo anyway so by the time Aven Riftwatcher vanishes and you don't have a strong board presence you have basically lost anyway. Still anti-aggro creatures are always in high demand for me personally, and this is very good at that role.
Battering Silver: 6 mana Silver is pretty much a hard pass. The trample is ok at going over the top with a board of Muscle Silvers and that's about it.
Blightspeaker - The fabled Rebel tutor. Might be worth it with Bound in Silence and what ever other decent 3CMC or less Rebels you can find. The search is repeatable, so in the right deck Blightspeaker must be dealt with or else it will spiral out of control in terms of card advantage. Pretty useless without other Rebels.
Bog Serpent - 5/5 for 6 isn't that good anymore, even ignoring this creatures downsides.
Brain Gorgers - The effect is worth it for the madness cost. While it is a part of Planar Chaos's give the opponent a choice in black subtheme, this is a decent one if you can get the discount. Why? Because discard is usually priced as if it was a downside, so Brain Gorgers goes into bargain-bin territory.
Brute Force - Second best red pump-spell after Reckless Charge. Best red combat trick. Giant Growth is boarderline in green, but typically gets out competed by Groundswell and Invigorate. This is similar in strength to Incinerate (although I'd say Incinerate is a bit better) but importantly Brute Force adds a bit of diversity in terms of effects available which helps counter strategies which aim to counter red burn.
Citanul Woodreaders: This is no Mulldrifter. However it is a very decent green 6 drop. Early game it can be used to meatshield against ground assaults. Draw 2 also breaks parity late. 1/4 body is relevant in most cases, even if it just to gum up the board.
Dash Hopes: You really need the Swamps to aline into to get the between a rock and a hard place decision that you crave. 5 life is a lot. Countering spells in black is unique. Ultimately, your opponent should be able to pick an option which is unfavourable for you in most cases as often the life option will be negligible if your opponent is leading in life. Otherwise the spell might not actually be worth 5 life. I don't want to create the impression that Dash Hope is a weak card. It just presents very little control to you in terms of how your opponent plays. Carnophage players will likely be able to get the most value out of Dash Hopes.
Dawn Charm: A strong charm. Not every cube is looking for a charm in white, but this does things. It Holy Days importantly without fully having to commit a card slot to that effect. Regenerate is also another strong mode for the protect the Queen strategies. Unfortunately we haven't really got any Queens to protect outside the odd Aura buffed Pegasus.
Dead // Gone: Strong cheap removal. It deals creatures in a modal manner.
Deadly Grub: A 6/1 shroud creature is the dream. Dreams are free. Reality is much crueler. Deadly Grub is not the kind of card you want against aggro, tempo, or midrange, which pretty much puts it out of consideration.
Dreamscape Artist: There was a time where this got played in quite a few cubes. Dreamscape Artist never got any worse, just decks that play well against durdle got better. Blue Harrow on a Spellshaper is strong.
Erratic Mutation: This card hurts my head somewhat. It's alright with plenty of top-deck manipulation, and terrible otherwise.
Essence Warden: A green Soul Warden. Is an elf as well. Very much a cube builders toolkit type creature.
Evolution Charm: The main mode of this is Raise Dead. It does a few things, but nothing stellar. Most green decks these days are looking for efficiency. This is an efficient use of card slots because you save space for effects (getting a land can be clutch as well as evasion). But is inefficient in terms of mana as Raise Dead is priced at 1 black mana and even then is outclassed by Ghoulcaller's Chant and Omen of the Dead.
Fa'adiyah Seer: Again, this synergised strongly with top-deck manipulation and is subpar otherwise.
Firefright Mage: I vastly prefer Intimidator Initiate for a similarly costed effect. 2 mana and discard is too expensive for the spellshaping. I guess it was price poorly because there are some niche goblin strategies which put 1/1 for 1 Goblins to work. Not so at common.
Fury Charm: On one hand this is a strictly better Shatter, on the other hand its third mode is essentially useless except at deploying Errant Ephemeron. I guess it comes down to the second mode which is err... ehhh. While there are artifacts in cube which need to be shattered, the opportunity cost of holding narrow removal tends to be outweighed of packing another more universally useful Searing Spear which will come in hand most matchups, including the ones when you respond to an equip by burning the target creature.
Ok, I'll get around to finishing the review later, but I'll post this for now for CONTENT.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
There's no word in the goblin language for "strategy." Then again, there's no word in the goblin language for "word."
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Pardon?
powpercube Johnny https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=152092
No it isn't. +1/+1 is quite a big stat buff for a 1 mana aura. The downside of having to play it on a blue creature is negated by playing blue. That's if you actually intent on casting blue creatures with relevant bodies. The main downside I foresee of Clout of the Dominus is players will tunnel vision on getting both colours for all the bonuses, rather than focusing on the much more powerful effect. Another point is this kind of effect is not going to cut in on Merfolk Looters, which while strong are more for durdling than actually engaging the board. Durdling's fine and all, but creatures have gotten much better.
Edit: Fun fact: I sometimes ask people if they know 2 commons, which can create a 5/4 Flying, Indestructible, Shroud on turn 3 in pauper and no one I've asked so far knew both (Naya Hushblade + Shield of the Oversoul).
Pauper Cube & Artifact Pauper Cube & Multiplayer Cube
Interested in building your own Pauper Cube? Take a look at some of the lists and the following project: The "Evaluate Everything" Project (updated to M21/JMP)
powpercube Johnny https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
Naya Hushblade and Shield of the Oversoul were both standard legal at the same time but never saw any play.
I think I tried out Shield of the Oversoul quite a while ago, but there were no hexproofers to protect it from Man-o'-War. The cube was still forming so it was a pretty rouge place. I think it wasn't until someone stomped everyone with mono red that my cube's archetypes started forming for me. Before that I was relying a lot on decklists posted here as a guide for what to build.
Because this is the place to discuss cards such as Clout of the Dominus.
1 Slash Panther
Creatures (41)
1 Atarka Efreet
1 Borderland Marauder
1 Chartooth Cougar
1 Embereth Paladin
1 Fireslinger
1 Foundry Street Denizen
1 Gathan Raiders
1 Ghirapur Gearcrafter
1 Ghitu Slinger
1 Goblin Cohort
1 Goblin Freerunner
1 Goblin Heelcutter
1 Goblin Shortcutter
1 Gorehorn Minotaurs
1 Gore-House Chainwalker
1 Hissing Iguanar
1 Inner-Flame Acolyte
1 Intimidator Initiate
1 Keldon Marauders
1 Keldon Halberdier
1 Kozilek's Sentinel
1 Kruin Striker
1 Martyr of Ashes
1 Maw of Kozilek
1 Mogg Conscripts
1 Mogg Fanatic
1 Plated Geopede
1 Prickleboar
1 Rimrock Knight
1 Rubblebelt Recluse
1 Ruinous Minotaur
1 Rukh Egg
1 Scorchwalker
1 Sparksmith
1 Spikewheel Acrobat
1 Splatter Thug
1 Sprinting Warbrute
1 Stingscourger
1 Underworld Rage-Hound
1 Weaselback Redcap
1 Zada's Commando
1 Crusher Zendikon
1 Madcap Skills
Instant (18)
1 Artillerize
1 Brimstone Volley
1 Burst Lightning
1 Dead // Gone
1 Dynacharge
1 Fireblast
1 Incinerate
1 Lash Out
1 Lava Dart
1 Lightning Bolt
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Rhystic Lightning
1 Rock Slide
1 Searing Blaze
1 Searing Spear
1 Smash to Smithereens
1 Staggershock
1 Thrill of Possibility
Sorcery (13)
1 Aftershock
1 Arc Lightning
1 Disintegrate
1 Faithless Looting
1 Fireball
1 Firebolt
1 Flame Slash
1 Kaervek's Torch
1 Molten Rain
1 Mugging
1 Pyrotechnics
1 Reckless Charge
1 Rolling Thunder
Notes: Artillerize has always ended games when I've played it. It's basically the second cheapest Lava Axe in the format after Brimstone Volley. I'm less keen on x cost burn spells because I generally want to lower my curve by as much as possible, but I know their good pick-ups for people considering a red splash. Rolling Thunder is still strong, but requires a much more serious commitment to red. Mugging and Dead // Gone seem like weaker copies of Galvanic Blast, but they allow you to remove a creature from the equation when your looking to close out a game and double as good removal at dealing with pesky white cards and mana elves. Scorchwalker sneaks in 5 damage, which again pretty much ends games. Maw of Kozilek is in purely for experimental purposes; Wastes are freely available since they are basic lands. Yes, I know that Pyroblast is strictly better than Red Elemental Blast due to escape, hellbent, delve and Hero of the Pride. It's what I had at hand. Immolating Souleater and Oxidda Golem are sitting in the colourless section for sorting purposes. Also there are no cards from supplementary sets. It was a clean way of excluding Unsets, Eternal whatever and the MTG Online stuff as well.
I want to increase my spells section (I know they are all technically spells) and reduce the creature section. I've just found that each creature fills a purpose, but the spells are most contested, so I need to provide redundancy there.
Minotaur Skullcleaver is better than Slash Panther
that said, maybe have a look at my cube, since i go for lowcurve since ever
powpercube Johnny https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
You usually don't get many responses, when asking for mass evaluations. I would go step by step and ask specific VS questions. Also a great tool to help yourself is to use the Cubetutor Cube Comparison Function. I know, that not everyone hast their list up to date on cubetutor, but I still have a list of links in my signature. I often use this myself, when I want to see what other people run in specific slots.
Pauper Cube & Artifact Pauper Cube & Multiplayer Cube
Interested in building your own Pauper Cube? Take a look at some of the lists and the following project: The "Evaluate Everything" Project (updated to M21/JMP)
My cube on ct 4632
powpercube Johnny https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
Cackling Flames is an interesting one. I don't get Hellbent often enough to really justify it. I'm often looking for a lull to cast 5 damage spells. And anyway Sprinting Warbrute is the best Lava Axe. It's just really nice to have redundancy in big damage effects because damage synergises so well with itself.
Not really sure how I feel about splicing a madness theme in. Most of the decent cards for it require supplementary sets for the common printings. I experimented with madness before, it felt like I needed too many pieces in order for the deck to function well. And the gains were marginal compared to a lot of the Red/x goodstuff decks.
Taste for Mayhem has been the hellbent card I've been considering adding. My red enchantment section is a bit light and the default mode of an extra 2 power somewhere is alright. 4 power for 1 mana is nothing to sneeze at and hopefully a deck that runs that is planning on unloading it's hand pretty quickly. Drawing extra lands will be the main challenge, although a few mana sinks such as Immolating Souleater will solve that problem.
Inner-flame Acolyte is a better Minotaur Skullcleaver in my opinion. I prefer having envoke over the slightly more awkward casting cost. Slash Panther can cost no red mana and always has 4 power; and I don't know about you, but 4 power creatures tend to be pretty good. Also I can give the +2/+0 to an unblockable creature and still net the 2/2 potentially as a blocker for myself. Embereth Paladin is a potential replacement for Slash Panther, although I'll try both because I suspect they will be ran in different builds.
Playing against White I go for war of attrition strategies. Most cube lists that I've seen run a lot of 1&2 drops, which is fine, but I think it goes to show that the other colour's sections haven't been adapted to a 1 mana heavy format. Little cards like Dead Weight go a long way to dropping the strength of an early-game. As well as that Dead Weight enables delirium, the cards of which are all aggressively costed. I generally want quite a bit of early hate and I want those cards to be multimodal so I have a use for them when I play against something that has less targets.
Blue's a bit of a sitting duck, but for me it's almost always paired with the colour with the most removal and grind. Getting Blue to play mono is a bit of a mission.
I've been looking at other people's lists. I'll get around to eventually putting mine up on Cubetutor as well. I'm not too interested in direct comparisons either because I know that I've been balancing curves differently. Card by card is a pain when evaluating a whole section.
When posting a whole section, I'm looking for something that stands out rather than details, because I've already gone over the details. I'm also in the middle of a massive overhaul because I'm missing a few years of recent additions and the other colours are in a much rougher state (less Red staples have been printed recently so the line-up is fairly static).
I've been considering Cosmotronic Wave. It's a piece of cardboard which by freak occurrence I am missing. I've tried out Ruthless Invasion, so I assume it plays similarly to that. Spraying down 1 toughness creatures sounds very useful. However Ruthless Invasion can be very strong for both Green and White (especially G/W). I'll probably run both as they fit different archetypes.
you all want to stuff 40 card archetypes in the cube, when it comes to keywords it seems. be it madness, boggles, sacrifice or whatever. thats silly and railroads drafting. its totally fine to run Insolent Neonate and Lightning Axe as decent standalone cards without any payoff. and then be happy to grab either Reckless Wurm or Fiery Temper later in the draft. (or enable cackling flames)
Basking Rootwalla and Gathan Raiders are in every cube already usually.
Inner-flame Acolyte was infinitely worse than minotaur in my testings, because RR makes it often unplayable and unsplashable. If I can support 1RR i run Viashino Sandsprinter
Sprinting Warbrute is a pretty unreliable lava axe and got cut at some point.
powpercube Johnny https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
From experience Sprinting Warbrute been good every time I've cast it. When dashing's not an option I can hardcast Warbrute for it to sit on the battlefield looking really threatening. Typically you want it to live in your hand for those Akki Underlings that no one is running.
On the other hand Lock decks (call them control, call them Lock) are looking for any kind of flier to actually get through damage so they can crawl to victory through their complete denial of their opponent's board/hand. The quicker the clock the more midrangey these style of control decks can play. Peregrine's a relatively low-cost flier which can act as an alternate wincon with Mnemonic Wall and Ghostly Flicker which are both cards in the my cube and both cards that these Lock decks typically play. Even without the alternative wincon (which is fairly likely when the deck intends to stall indefinitely) the Drake is a fine play turn 5 or later because you can keeps your lands untapped to deal with whatever you opponent tries to do. I'm much more likely to have things to do with 5 mana in control than tempo. Being able to play a creature and still have mana to Flood is invaluable.
Also apparently Ninjas are a thing in our format? 5 mana is a bit slow for Ninjas, still the Drake makes a good target to return. Maybe Cloud of Faeries is better for Ninjas because you can set up that much sooner.
I am 273% pro-Ninjas and Al and Imhave discussed at length about Ninjas vs Blink for an Archetype. Peregrine is one of the many optio s for 5cmc Blue finishers, and in the end it comes down to preference and body count, becausetoomany will really hurt Blue's viability as a U/x style deck and sill get it cut to X/u
Loose Change Pauper Cube-cast
Pauper Cube Article #1
Pauper Cube Article #2
Personal Enjoyment Cube
Augur il-Vec - Shadow meta?
Augur of Skulls - 2 mana discard for two. Doubles as a blocker. Has to wait a whole turn rotation to do its thing.
Aven Augur - Undo on a flier.
Cutthroat il-Dal - Speaking of hellbent... 4/1 for 4 shadow is pretty obviously good enough. Sure it dies to Desert, etc, but 4 power that is functionally unblockable. Still, how consistent is hellbent for most people? The fact that this card can be used as a blocker is worth considering. I'd imagine this as a curve topper, alongside the ranks of Gorehorn Minotaurs.
Death Rattle - In lieu of Soul Reap and Murderous Cut. Not being able take out Green creatures is a significant downside. Still this kills Twisted Abomination. The cost even with delve is steep.
Deepcavern Imp - In my eyes only useful as a discard outlet.
Edge of Autumn - The second best Pauper copy of Rampant Growth (after Sakura-Tribe Elder), simply because there was nothing much to do with big mana here in the first place.
Emberwilde Augur - Played this one a bit. It's underwhelming except in Burn.
Foresee - Future Sight Foresee has been proven to be the best version of Forsee.
Frenzy Sliver - Look it's a sliver. These are spread out into too many colours to be of much use to us. The 2 mana +1/+1 ones are by far, acting as a Seven Dwarves as well as making anything with the silver creature type decent. However all those are in Green and White.
Gathan Raiders - One of the better colourless (I mean Red) cards in cube. You can in response do a Wild Mongrel impersonation to make it a 3/3. 5/5 is simply huge in cube, and you're not even restricted to Red in order to cast Gathan Raiders! Although Raiders are a bit better in Red due to hardcasting it and avoiding the discard entirely. Still, it's a joy to see Gathan Raiders in a White deck.
Ghostfire - Can deal with Guardian of the Guildpact at instant speed and Cho-Manno's Blessing. That's about it for reasons to consider this.
Gift of Granite - As far as toughness only boosting combat tricks go this is the best because the buff is permanent.
Grave Peril - Pretty classic Future Sight design. It's just waiting for the day Black gets access to Ghoulcaller's Chant for enchantments.
Grave Scrabbler - One of the best madness cards.
Grinning Ignus - I spent a long time trying to combo this card. In the end it was a Vessel of Volatility on a creature. The main downside is there is nothing to do with temporary extra mana which significantly puts you ahead. Grinning Ignus is a bit of a nonbo with Bogardan Rager which is the biggest playable red creature. (Yeah, yeah yeah, Chartooth Cougar...) There's nothing like Vicious Shadows here which justifies ramping to.
Henchfiend of Ukor Firebreathing hastey 4 drop. This seems really strong. I assume the Black echo cost is the reason we don't see people running this. Most people only allocate so many slots for B/R cards which are already stacked with the likes of Terminate and Blightning. Cards like these are the bane of people-who-like-balanced-colour-distribution's existence. (Generally the solution is to ignore cards like these altogether.)
Homing Sliver - So you can tutor for Muscle Sliver.
Ichor Slick - A very modal card to do a whole load of unimpressive things. This card goes to show how exotic combinations of abilities can be very synergistic with each other, unlike the nonbo of Old Fogey.
Imperiosaur - Once upon a time, this card got downshifted. Still, I reckon the Future Sight boarder verison is superior to the much inferior Modern Masters version with its newfangled common symbol. Also, Imperiosaur is in fact a dinosaur. I'm not sure how relevant that is.
Infiltrator il-Kor - Another Future Sight head scratcher. So for the cost of Errant Ephemeron I get a suspend to which means it skips a turn before coming down, then what? I get a 3/1 shadow for a slight discount, although it's fragile and delayed... Overall I think I prefer Cloud Drake in this place. And even then I'm not to hot on 3/1 fliers in Blue because there are much better 3 mana options available. However shadow creatures tend to be worth more than fliers and cards like Infiltrator il-Kor allow me to lower mu overall curve because I require less lands in total to get my effects. The 5 mana cast is ok as well. 5 mana is an achievable amount, although the body is unimpressive for the cost especially in the toughness department.
Judge Unworthy - 2 mana removal with Scry 3. At a glance that seems very strong. Of course, being Future Sight there is a complicated catch. The first being Judge Unworthy is chancy without other top deck manipulation, the second is depending on your curve how much damage Judge Unworthy is likely to do. With plenty of Savannah Lions you are likely to deal at least 1 damage, although Elite Vanguard doesn't make for an impressive top deck. With a slightly higher curve you can be pretty guaranteed to do 2 damage consistently with Judge Unworthy which gives it the Grizzly Bears seal of approval. If you a looking to kill anything with 3 or more damage, then the odds begin to look slim. 3 damage is a coin toss for most decks and 4 damage is only worth attempting in a pinch. Overall, cheap removal which has a decent scry in White is worth playing in my opinion.
Kavu Primarch - It's big. It dies to Doom Blade. There isn't a shortage of cheap big creatures in Green. Convoke with kicker makes it fairly unique for its flexibility. Puts early tokens to good use. Considerable, but somewhat marginal.
Knight of Sursi - The suspend means it won't impact the board in the early turns where White wants to apply most of its pressure. Four mana means it is reasonable to hardcast.
Leaden Fists - What is even going on here?
Llanowar Augur - Another strange combination.
Llanowar Empath - Requires a creature heavy deck for consistency. Generally cards that put you behind in tempo in Green won't make the cut for a lot of people's decks. I think that this was meant to be Gravedigger-esque, but anything beyond scry 2 was considered too powerful.
Logic Knot - With a heap of 1 mana spells it's a good counterspell.
Lost Hours - Comparable to Distress. Putting a card third from the top can be much stronger or much weaker than discard depending on how the card-you-put-away's power fluctuates over the course of a game. Generally I want rid of things for good and I don't want to spend 2 mana to do so for an effect such as this.
Lucent Liminid - There are simply not enough enchantment synergies to make this card worth running.
Lymph Sliver - Absorb is such a strong mechanic when you think about it. Sort of a build-your-own pillow fortress, but just for Slivers. Maybe in after Sliver set we'll see the critical mass to consider cards such as this.
Marshaling Cry - I've really tried to make this card work. I really did. It's so close... Yet so far. Cycling is a bit weaker in White that other more Blue colours because the 2 mana represents the opportunity cost of another 2 drop this. Still when the Plains align Marshaling Cry can be just the right card you need. It's got a very specific combination of abilities, and the flashback is no joke when it works.
Mesmeric Sliver - We recently rediscovered how strong fateseal is with Lantern Control. Again, how many slivers do you need to play this?
Nessian Courser - Hasn't stopped being a vanilla 3/3 for 3.
Oblivion Crown - Basically reads: Madness and hellbent enabler.
Patrician's Scorn - In case enchantments ever become enough of a thing to warrant playing this, we have a common enchantment sweep.
Petrified Plating - I feel the costing process for auras involves asking the question of "What happens if enchantments are very strong" and then working back from there.
Putrid Cyclops - If your curve tops a 2, then this is perfect for your deck!
Quiet Disrepair - Passive enchantments and artifacts haven't ever been a thing at common outside of the odd Pestilence and Flood. Equipment are some of the few cards that do a fair bit of sitting around. Even so, I typically want to destroy artifacts and enchantments now if I have destruction effects available. Then again doing things now wasn't really a core theme of Future Sight.
Riddle of Lightning - Pretty much all the things said about Judge Unworthy and Grinning Ignus. Except now you're incentivised to run expensive cards to deal direct damage, rather than relying on consistency to deal just enough damage to problematic creatures.
Rift Elemental Very good at removing time counters which represents a whole turn of value! There just aren't many decent cards with time counters that we want to remove.
Saltskitter - The common Norin the Weary.
Samite Censer-Bearer - Prevents damage to each creature you control.
Sarcomite Myr - All round a bit expensive.
Sporoloth Ancient - You can put this in your Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind themed cube.
Sprout Swarm - Everyone here must know about this one already. Buyback with convoke and makes a creature. Even if Sprout Swarm costed more it would still be decent.
Street Wraith - Cycling that costs life means that this is playable even as a sideboard only card, because in the right match-up you always want it as it effectively reduces your decksize to 39. 5 mana 3/4 swampwalk is solid against any deck with more than a couple of Swamps in it. There's no Living End to really take advantage of cheaply stocking the graveyard with creatures. Downshifted in Modern Masters.
Thornweald Archer - Alongside Ambush Viper, Thornweald Archer is one of the best Green deathtouch creatures.
Unblinking Bleb - Future Sight design in peak form.
Vedalken Aethermage - The wizard tutor we never needed.
Venser's Diffusion - Bounces suspended nonland permanents...
Virulent Sliver - With a critical mass of slivers this becomes great. As well as that you can run slivers alongside the infect creatures with this. Think of the possibilities. Virulent Sliver's poisonous 1 stacks really nicely with itself, which isn't much to write home about if you are running cards in singleton...
Whip-Spine Drake - The off-colour morph adds interesting gameplay. Ultimately it is an overcosted morph creature and then strong morph synergies were never printed at common outside of the aforementioned Unblinking Bleb.
Wrap in Vigor - Regenerate each creature you control. A solution to a problem that pauper cube never had. Still this card has a lot of blow out potential and it can make for some interesting combat bluffs.
I didn't intend on doing a full review of Future Sight, but the spoiler is so funny. There are so many oddities. Also I really want to try out Judge Unworthy as scry on cheap removal sounds a little too good to be true.
During my review of the spoiler I found the following cards that I don't believe you mentioned:
1 Blind Phantasm
1 Bogardan Lancer
1 Bound in Silence
1 Fatal Attraction
1 Flowstone Embrace
1 Fomori Nomad
1 Mass of Ghouls
1 Sparkspitter
I wasn't intending on doing a full review, I just kept finding things to say. I missed some of the vanilla creatures and a couple of cards which I had forgotten that they were downshifted. So for completeness' sake.
Blade of the Sixth Pride - The first 3/1 for 2. The first of many. It's a rebel, so technically not strictly worse than something such as Leonin of the Lost Pride, although I'm not sure if anyone runs rebel synergies. A vanilla 3/1 for 2 in white will still get played even in a competitive environment in Pauper cube.
Blind Phantasm - This vanilla clearly signals that Blue creatures are going to typically have less over stats for mana cost than other more Green colours. Three power has been a premium stat for 3CMC creatures for quite some time. It's only been in recent years that we've been seeing consistently strong cheap creatures.
Bogardan Lancer - In order for this to be viable there needs to be a lot of decent 1 drops. Even then Benalish Cavalry essentially has the same stats without the downside of having an opponent take damage. +1/+1 counter synergies are few and far between at common. The downsides are many; the upsides are few.
Bound in Silence - I don't understand rebel cards that well. Arn't there tutors for rebels with converted mana cost less than or equal to the converted mana cost of the creature that is doing the searching? Anyways, ignoring the tribal text, this is slightly worse than Recumbent Bliss or Arrest, but not strictly worse. Although in most cubes it will be strictly worse due to no Rebel synergies. I assume there is at least one good rebel common out there that can fetch this.
Fatal Attraction - From the days where 4 damage was a premium for Red. We still are in those days, but now we at least have Flame Slash to keep us company. As far as Red enchantments which deal damage when they enter the battlefield go, Galanvic Arc is the best of the lot (maybe Oath of Chandra, however that is rare). Or in more recent enchantment developments, Omen of the Forge is alright. In saying all this, when it comes down to it, if you remove access to all decent damage based removal, cards such as Fatal Attraction will get played. Fatal Attraction is by no means terrible, it's just Red removal is very, very efficient since Lightning Bolt was printed.
Flowstone Embrace - An aura that taps, just to show that there is design space there. As removal Immolation is better in most regards. As a buff, you can keep your creature's toughness if required. Or in multiplayer you can put it on an opponent's creature to use as a negotiating tool.
Fomori Nomad - Ahh yes, the fabled nomad creature type. Maybe this was meant to be the new Hill Giant as a 4/4 is the new 3/3.
Mass of Ghouls - Black seems to get a lot of lopsided power/toughnesses. I think it's because most large zombies don't have a balanced diet. 5 power unopposed sets a quick clock. 3 toughness means it's mostly target practice.
Sparkspitter - The 1/3 body means that this card itself won't do a Spark Elemental impersonation. Turning lands into 3/1s means that this can act as retrace. However, the generator is rather vulnerable and Red decks already have a solution to drawing an excess of land which are the x-cost spells. The Spark Elemental land-to-damage exchange rate is quite favourable if left unopposed.
powpercube Johnny https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
Also I want to get around to reviewing Planar Chaos, because it's a mess.
Planar Chaos had a very high rate of good cards. On top of that, ~half of the color shifted cards are now in color.
powpercube Johnny https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
I think another Future Sight would be a pretty terrible idea in Standard but for us I think Modern Horizons is as close as we'll get probably.
Aquamorph Entity: Too expensive in every regard. Being either a 1/5 or 5/1 is decent as it has a strong defensive mode or a strong offensive mode. However at 4 mana you'd generally want something a bit more well rounded, maybe Illusionary Forces? Morphing is alright, but there isn't too much in the way of decent morph bluffs in most pauper cubes outside of Guthan Raiders. Or maybe Abzan Guide, but that is very mana intensive (and people typically avoid running it for the sake of sanity) and isn't going to disguise as a blue creature very well.
Aven Riftwatcher: One of white's strongest anti-aggro cards. It lifegain can be really annoying to deal with especially when you need to remain of the offensive as an opposing aggro deck. Aven Riftwatcher can scale a bit poorly against more control oriented builds as it will eventually remove itself, meaning the control player can save a piece of removal. It white you typically what to be holding tempo anyway so by the time Aven Riftwatcher vanishes and you don't have a strong board presence you have basically lost anyway. Still anti-aggro creatures are always in high demand for me personally, and this is very good at that role.
Battering Silver: 6 mana Silver is pretty much a hard pass. The trample is ok at going over the top with a board of Muscle Silvers and that's about it.
Blightspeaker - The fabled Rebel tutor. Might be worth it with Bound in Silence and what ever other decent 3CMC or less Rebels you can find. The search is repeatable, so in the right deck Blightspeaker must be dealt with or else it will spiral out of control in terms of card advantage. Pretty useless without other Rebels.
Bog Serpent - 5/5 for 6 isn't that good anymore, even ignoring this creatures downsides.
Brain Gorgers - The effect is worth it for the madness cost. While it is a part of Planar Chaos's give the opponent a choice in black subtheme, this is a decent one if you can get the discount. Why? Because discard is usually priced as if it was a downside, so Brain Gorgers goes into bargain-bin territory.
Brute Force - Second best red pump-spell after Reckless Charge. Best red combat trick. Giant Growth is boarderline in green, but typically gets out competed by Groundswell and Invigorate. This is similar in strength to Incinerate (although I'd say Incinerate is a bit better) but importantly Brute Force adds a bit of diversity in terms of effects available which helps counter strategies which aim to counter red burn.
Citanul Woodreaders: This is no Mulldrifter. However it is a very decent green 6 drop. Early game it can be used to meatshield against ground assaults. Draw 2 also breaks parity late. 1/4 body is relevant in most cases, even if it just to gum up the board.
Cradle to Grave: Comparable to Doom Blade and Remove Soul. Except worse than either in just about every regard.
Dash Hopes: You really need the Swamps to aline into to get the between a rock and a hard place decision that you crave. 5 life is a lot. Countering spells in black is unique. Ultimately, your opponent should be able to pick an option which is unfavourable for you in most cases as often the life option will be negligible if your opponent is leading in life. Otherwise the spell might not actually be worth 5 life. I don't want to create the impression that Dash Hope is a weak card. It just presents very little control to you in terms of how your opponent plays. Carnophage players will likely be able to get the most value out of Dash Hopes.
Dawn Charm: A strong charm. Not every cube is looking for a charm in white, but this does things. It Holy Days importantly without fully having to commit a card slot to that effect. Regenerate is also another strong mode for the protect the Queen strategies. Unfortunately we haven't really got any Queens to protect outside the odd Aura buffed Pegasus.
Dead // Gone: Strong cheap removal. It deals creatures in a modal manner.
Deadly Grub: A 6/1 shroud creature is the dream. Dreams are free. Reality is much crueler. Deadly Grub is not the kind of card you want against aggro, tempo, or midrange, which pretty much puts it out of consideration.
Dreamscape Artist: There was a time where this got played in quite a few cubes. Dreamscape Artist never got any worse, just decks that play well against durdle got better. Blue Harrow on a Spellshaper is strong.
Dust Corona: Anti flying meta?
Erratic Mutation: This card hurts my head somewhat. It's alright with plenty of top-deck manipulation, and terrible otherwise.
Essence Warden: A green Soul Warden. Is an elf as well. Very much a cube builders toolkit type creature.
Evolution Charm: The main mode of this is Raise Dead. It does a few things, but nothing stellar. Most green decks these days are looking for efficiency. This is an efficient use of card slots because you save space for effects (getting a land can be clutch as well as evasion). But is inefficient in terms of mana as Raise Dead is priced at 1 black mana and even then is outclassed by Ghoulcaller's Chant and Omen of the Dead.
Fa'adiyah Seer: Again, this synergised strongly with top-deck manipulation and is subpar otherwise.
Firefright Mage: I vastly prefer Intimidator Initiate for a similarly costed effect. 2 mana and discard is too expensive for the spellshaping. I guess it was price poorly because there are some niche goblin strategies which put 1/1 for 1 Goblins to work. Not so at common.
Fury Charm: On one hand this is a strictly better Shatter, on the other hand its third mode is essentially useless except at deploying Errant Ephemeron. I guess it comes down to the second mode which is err... ehhh. While there are artifacts in cube which need to be shattered, the opportunity cost of holding narrow removal tends to be outweighed of packing another more universally useful Searing Spear which will come in hand most matchups, including the ones when you respond to an equip by burning the target creature.
Ok, I'll get around to finishing the review later, but I'll post this for now for CONTENT.