Previous Masters sets weren't that powerful. Even the rarity downshifts didn't produce that amount of cubeables, and in MH they're not even downshifts but new printings. MH took it to another level and it just made sense for me to make the cut there.
That's between 1 and 6 from the previous Masters set. 12 from MH, taking Humphrey as an example because I can't provide one myself, is a completely different dimension... And quite frankly, most of the Masters commons I'm playing aren't format breaking. Some are actually filling crucial niches, such as the 2/1s for 1.
Even cards like Dinrova and Falkenrath were streches at the time and I actually have been and still am considering making my cube Expansion-only, excluding all supplementary sets. If it wasn't for the 2/1s I probably would have done that already, just like I probably would have made the final cut before Ravnica 3.0 if that didn't fill some much-needed holes in some gold sections, such as UG and RG.
i mean its your choice to quit, but your reasoning has no legs.
since you edited your post. I might argue that
Moldervine Cloak, Falkenrath Noble and Dinrova Horror are way above the powerlevel of the mh1 stuff.
pure powerlevel wise mm3 seems the highest.
I run 25 cards from that set (18 reprints)
anyway, playing the numbers game tells us nothing about the individual cards. mh1 is fine (and so was mm3)
wotc pretty much finally figured what to expect from a common and they mostly stick to it since like Amonkhet
running only commons that never saw uc or r printings seems an interesting approach though. Half my cube would be gone. I guess you might argue its a kinda peasant cube by now.
running only commons that never saw uc or r printings seems an interesting approach though. Half my cube would be gone. I guess you might argue its a kinda peasant cube by now.
Thought about it but it seems way too hard to track. Like logistical nightmare hard.
I obviously didn't count reprints for that list. Only how many new cards that set introduced to my cube, and MM3 was 6. Regardless of that, I clearly remember when MM3 came out I was already considering banning supplemental sets from my cube for the same reasons that I'm still considering banning them now. Those sets don't follow the same guidelines for what can be printed as a common and what can't, because they aren't standard legal, which means the overall power level of the set can be as high as they want it to be.
Again, I'm not trying to argue that anything I do with my cube is the objectively right thing to do. I wasn't even trying to start a discussion about that topic, but other people did, so I replied.
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"Someday, someone will best me. But it won't be today, and it won't be you."
?
Digitally and paper are still two different things, no matter wotc house rules. They reprinted a lot of digital commons by now and all of them remained UC.
As long as their isnt a physical copy at common, I dont use it. Mainly I dont want to discuss the uc symbol on cards I run when playing with newbs.
Has nothing to do with powerlevel though.
About MM3, cant say the format was less broken, just because most commons were reprints. If you play the numbers game, count them all.
Yeah, if you debate the softban of supplemental for quite a while and mh1 was the final straw it makes more sense to me.
I also dont question your cubebuilding choices, but the argument mh1 was above everything else, which it wasnt.
This pool reminds me of the earliest iterations of my cube which had way too many spells and not enough creatures. Either this cube has the same problem or it was super unlucky, given that blue was the color with the most creatures (relatively), with green at 50/50, white below 50%, and both R and B below 50% with virtually no universally good creatures and only disjointed build-arounds. I tend to play Sealed with 75 or even 60 cards nowadays and the pools don't look so shallow, so idk what happened there...
Red and Black are the most powerful colors all around, but given their miserable creature base I think RB is not optimal. I can see two decks here that could somewhat work. Option 1 would be something Jund, being mainly G and one of each R or B, splashing the third, with lots of fixing and removal. That would be similar to Humphrey's above, though looking at his mana situation I'm not a huge fan. So I'll go for the second deck I can see, which is just RG beatdown-and-hope-I-draw-enough-creatures-and-punish-opponents-for-durdling-around.dec.
Too few creatures obviously, and red Denizen is awful, but it at least feeds Sparksmith and sacs to Artillerize. Croc is also bad, but playing less than 15 creatures in RG Aggro with Flunkies sounds even worse.
There were also a few cards from newer sets that I have zero experience with since I discontinued my cube with Ravnica 3.0 due to the powercreep in the 2019 sets which would dilute my cube as I love it, so take that with a grain.
I play tested Humphrey's build against a U/B build from another sealed pool and the Jund deck keep running out of steam and had no outs to Calcite Snapper and Benthic Giant.
I build U/R Delver aggro out of the same pool and it seems to be performing really well.
I have a few more unlooked at sealed pools for friends when I'm next able to see them for play testing purposes. I really want to get a feel of where my cube is roughly at before I try to acquire the past few years worth of commons to update it.
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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."
well, its tough to build a deck if the rest of the cube is unknown. a lot of cards playability scales with the given meta.
Im not a huge fan of sealed anyway, unless the cube is build for it (lots of fixing)
for example diabolic edict is only really useful if hexproof is around and no token theme, so i didnt include it.
did you sb it against ur ub list?
I didn't sideboard against the Dimir deck. Sideboarding is tricky in sealed. And the point of the exercise for me at least was to get some playtesting done, and have a few prebuilt decks for friends to try out.
Diabolic Edict has been decent for me even when I don't see the untargetables. It's much worse when a lot of weenies are in the mix such as in your cube.
Aspect of Lamprey has been performing. Mind Rot is ok. Situational discard 2 is devastating at times and other times it's a dead card. The lifegain component is clutch more often than not. And it makes Benthic Giant very scary. The main downside to the aura is in response remove target creature. Which depending on what's being ran happens more often than not. Still nowhere near Okiba-Gang Shinobi.
I am supporting more midrange strategies than any other general archetype.
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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."
At a glance Unburden as an advantage from being the cheapest (same cost as Mind Rot) and has cycling so it can transform from being a dead card, which I guess can matter when curves are lower. Cycling is pretty decent, though 2 mana still slows down gameplay considerably when you are being stormed by weenie or burn. Double black is restrictive.
Reaper of Night is technically a 3 for 1 when you finally get the creature body. The body is decent at closing out games and obviously has an advantage over other cards when big mana is being reached. The flying clause is relevant. Overall, I'm still not that happy Mind Rotting for 4 mana even with the upsides. Sustain has gotten significantly better, but still aggro decks can put you on the ropes well before cards like this become relevant. Fine against durdly midrange. Although if I'm being honest, most midrange decks are pretty quick at closing out games, they just are also geared these days to deal with annoying, very quick decks, generally by one-upping at each point of the curve.
Lifegain is a strong mechanic; and is worth paying an extra 1 mana on top of Mind Rot for. Aspect of Lamprey isn't a shoe-in for most decks though. It requires a decent midrange shell that is looking for a bit of disruption. I don't like playing Aspect of Lamprey alongside Man-o'-War. Although Aspect of Lamprey plays nicely with Agony Warp, Benthic Giant, Skittering Horror and a lot of things that green typically does. Since lifegain is a scalable effect then it follows that creatures with higher power will synergise better. If the format is saturated with premium removal and Gideon's Lawkeepers then auras tend to be worse overall.
Ninjitsu is so strong; there are any number of cards which synergise with being returned to hand. Okiba-Gang Shinobi has to be dealt with, unless your opponent hand dumped their hand. The window to effectively deal with ninjas is narrow. Okiba-Gang Shinobi has been mvp of many games for me. Admitted weenie strategies tend to be weaker in my cube, so maybe you won't find Okiba-Gang Shinobi to be the powerhouse it's been for me. Ninjitsu does require a bit of deckbuilding to get working because you need to get that unblocked clause.
I think it's worth talking about Blightning too. It's good. 3 damage is very powerful.
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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."
For dicard spells I think I like Unburden the most. The fact that Aspect of Lamprey can fizzle is a huge bummer. Also these kinds of effects are highly situational, so Cycling is great here. Memory Leak is also decent.
As plain Mind Rot, Unburden seems best, although the BB really hurts it a lot. T3 discard works best if you developed a board. So its usually better in Bx decks.
Otherwise Shinobi is the all around best discard card. Maybe even better than Hymn.
That said, Discard works best in multiples, so you get all the relevant cards.
Lamprey seems dangerous. Sometimes it gets blanked by removal, othertimes you dont have a creature in the first place.
Okika-Gang Shinobi's impactful in games where you get the set-up. Though there are plenty of games where it's ok at best. The body isn't particularly impressive and when you are behind on tempo it may as well be a dead card.
Hymn to Tourach late game is an undercosted Mind Rot, which can be alright at checking if your opponent has a empty hand. But really, the turn 2 Hymn is so ridiculous it doesn't matter that much. Sometimes you sink the lands and that's game before your opponent even has a chance. 2 random discard is very disruptive. Hymn to Tourach is clearly stronger, there it isn't much of a contest.
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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."
Well green is pretty weak. It's creatures aren't that much better than other colors and the only thing it really has, that others colors don't have access to is cc1 ramp. Hexproof is a way to give green something unique and something worth ramping into, since simply casting a big fatty ahead of curve won't really cut it in this format, which is basically dominated by cheap, efficient removal.
I still decided to cut it a while ago, since it's pretty much the most boring archetype imagineable. It simply limits interaction and even though it's definitely possible to outtempo the hexproof/aura decks, most control decks simply don't have good answers and end up not really playing magic. I decided instead to simply put in all the mana elves and all the reasonably sized midrange creatures I could find in addition to some combat tricks.
Combat tricks aren't really that amazing against removal, but there is a bunch of decent ones, which can really make up for the risk. This means that green remains the weakest color, but as long as it's open you can still draft good decks. Also green has some of the best commons in form of Rancor, Blastoderm and probabldy the most busted limited common of all Sprout Swarm.
Okika-Gang Shinobi's impactful in games where you get the set-up. Though there are plenty of games where it's ok at best. The body isn't particularly impressive and when you are behind on tempo it may as well be a dead card.
Hymn to Tourach late game is an undercosted Mind Rot, which can be alright at checking if your opponent has a empty hand. But really, the turn 2 Hymn is so ridiculous it doesn't matter that much. Sometimes you sink the lands and that's game before your opponent even has a chance. 2 random discard is very disruptive. Hymn to Tourach is clearly stronger, there it isn't much of a contest.
Hymn can be insanely strong, we know that, but there is a lot of variance involved. It can get their only lands or it can get their chaff. You also need BB on turn 2 which probably hurts your development. Also people like to stuff it into every deck and lose to it. It doesnt affect the board and when you durdle with discard you might just die.
Meanwhile Shinobi is a repeatable Discard, so its highly likely it drains their whole hand if you back it off with some removal or counter.
You don't need to have BB on turn 2 for Hymn to be good. It's devastating in several situations and since it conly costs 2 mana not much development is lost. The Shinobi requires some conditions and I've rarely seen it connect more than once. Even the first connect isn't guaranteed against instant speed removal and it doesn't matter how much removal you have if the Shinobi simply gets killed. There is not much anyone can do against Hymn, except not having a hand.
about the list
why introduce a new rating metric? Most cards should be found in evaluation already.
Opt - Its not horrible, but there are better cnntrips available.
Empty the Warrens - With some amount of (free) spells its very efficient in creating tokens. Spellcount 2+ is enough to break the curve.
Frantic Search - unless you include a bluebased stormdeck, its just a filler.
Gush Draw2 for free, respectively +U, if you missed a landdrop.
Snap works really good in spells matters or tempo in general.
Pyroceratops too slow
Spellgorger Weird too slow
Stitched Drake needs some support in looters or cycling
Stormbound Geist looks good on paper, but it never perfomed for me. its only really good after it died once and only being able to block flyer really hurts, double U also sucks.
Ahn-Crop Invader its a solid sacenabler for threaten effects
Grim Initiate very good onedrop
Fencing Ace i often draft it but dont run it in the end. in theory its really strong with pump
Callous Dismissal I dont like sorcery bounce
Witching Well quite good drawspell with some artifact synergy
Manamorphose i really like it as manafixing
Opt: The power level of cantrips scales with the power level of the format, which is way they are the best in formats like legacy and modern and only ok in standard. I've actually reduced the amount of cantrips down to [/card]]Preordain[/card], which is by far the strongest without any setup like fetchlands, which is required for Brainstorm and Ponder to perform.
Emtpy the Warrens: I think it's magical christmas land to copy it 2 times at a point in game where it really matters. With only 1 additional spell it's not good enough and with 2 additional spells you need to have 6-8 mana when you cast it and usually hold back on spells you could have cast earlier, just to enable this.
Frantic Search: It's basically a combo only card. The card disadvantage really hurts in this format. Faithless Looting also leaves you with 1 card down, but at least you can flashback it.
Gush: It's by far not as good as it is in constructed, but still decent.
Snap: I highly dislike bounce spells without card draw attached, because it's card disadvantage. It might also read as a free spell, but in fact you have to have 2 mana open. I much prefer Repulse, Repeal or at least the ones, that can bounce 2 creatures aka Withdraw/Undo.
Pyroceratops: After the first spell it's a 3/4, which is slightly under curve and only after casting 2 spells it actually starts to grow above curve. Also if this gets killed before it actually started to become a threat 4 mana is a lot of mana spend on a undwerwhelming creature.
Spellgorger Weird: I like this one a lot more. The cheaper the creature, the more likely you are to have mana left over to cast another spell and if this get's killed by a 1-2 mana removal spell you are only down 1-2 mana and not 2-3 like with the ceratops. It also only needs 1 spell to be on curve and after the 2nd spell it's already a 4/4, which isn't that different from a 4/5 for 1 additional mana. Also the sooner you get the spell payoffs on the board the more spells you usually have after that.
Stitched Drake: Blue decks can actually struggle to get creatures into the yard early. This dude is still fine later in the game, but can be very hard to play on curve.
Stormbound Geist: A very annoying threat. It sure isn't very good in a very defensive deck, but against a removal heavy deck it can perform really well.
Ahn-Crop Invader: Well Bogardan Dragonheart exists. If you really want to push the red sac theme it's ok, but not to impressive. As much as I like the offensive design of first strike from a game design perspective, First Strike is still at it's best when blocking.
Grim Initiate: Meh. Sac fodder, but not much else. First Strike in combination with 1 power doesn't do much as soon as your opponent has a simple 2/2.
Fencing Ace: It really depends how many way to pump it you have. In a vacuum it's not worth it.
Manamorphose: It seems like you really want to push the spells matter theme. I personally think it's a trap and never performs as well as it reads on paper, but if you really want to force it, you need to play a bunch of cheap cantrips, this one included. Apart from the the card is kind of meh. For fixing purposes it doesn't really do the job very well, because you don't want to keep this card in hand and wait until you draw your splash card.
Fencing Ace's fail case is still an Ashmouth Hound and its potential is insane, even with just a +1 attack boost it's already dealing with 4-drops.
Gush is also pretty nuts when used correctly, which is on the turn where you'd have missed your land drop for the first time in the game. The reason why it's even better in old constructed formats is that that turn usually arrives by turn 3 and in Limited it's 5/6ish on average, but it's still good.
Stitched Drake is good whenever you can cast it by turn 5 at the latest. That won't happen in spell-based control decks, but it's pretty easy to enable between Looters and early trades, so I think it's still cubeable.
None of the other cards are particularly good.
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"Someday, someone will best me. But it won't be today, and it won't be you."
It really shows Al never played Empty the Warrens, while its in my cube since forever. First of all 4 tokens for cmc4 is already good enough and triggers for 2 spells after opponents removal. Just add a Manamorphose or Gut Shot and youre already in "magical christmas land" smh
It also shows he overevaluates card advantage over tempo. Snap is crazy good, because it bounces "for free" and let you have countermana. In my last draft on xmage I also had a value drafter who just lost to aggro. could have been him.
Manamorphose. Why wouldnt you not want to keep it if you need it for later fixing lol
Grim Initiate. The power of first strike comes with burn and pump.
To be fair, I don't think those cards are that great either and I've played with them a decent amount.
It's already pretty unlikely for Empty to just make 4 tokens by turn 5. There aren't many CC0 spells, maybe a small handful, so unless your opponent helps you out you're usually looking to cast one drop plus Empty on turn 5, which is fine, but even that is significantly weaker than just playing a reliable Beetleback Chief whenever you want. For your opponent to help you you may have to make suboptimal attacks to force an instant, or you need to have a board that forces them to do something to begin with. They apparently didn't use their instant on their turn, so maybe you can't even get it out without casting something yourself first. All of those are just small things that make it hard for EtW to actually be great and I've seen enough of those scenarios happen. And needless to say, the fail case is terrible.
We all understand Snap is usually a zero mana version of a 1 mana card that is far from being cubeable. Zero mana is always quite strong and shouldn't be underestimated, though unlike things like Daze, Fireblast or Mutagenic Growth Snap doesn't actually cost zero, which is a huge deal. You can't tap out and have Snap open for your opponent's turn. You're paying 2 for an Unsummon on their turn and are a favorite to have nothing to do with that 2 leftover mana. It may still be borderline playable, but not insane.
Grim Initiate has the same issues that all of those creatures have that have some sort of self-replacement when they die. You have Persist, Undying, Doomed Traveler, Loyal Cathar, etc, etc. The problem is that the front side already has to be efficient, because the back side is usually such that it will be irrelevant to the board once it comes up. A 1/1 First Striker is not good enough for Cube. And a 1/1 vanilla is very likely irrelevant by the time your opponent had that 1/1 First Striker killed.
Manamorphose is interesting. I don't think it does enough outside of EtW, Prowess and fixing once for that one card you're splashing for, but it's never really bad either. If spells matters is a thing in your cube you can't really go wrong with it.
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"Someday, someone will best me. But it won't be today, and it won't be you."
Fencing Ace's fail case is still an Ashmouth Hound and its potential is insane, even with just a +1 attack boost it's already dealing with 4-drops.
Gush is also pretty nuts when used correctly, which is on the turn where you'd have missed your land drop for the first time in the game. The reason why it's even better in old constructed formats is that that turn usually arrives by turn 3 and in Limited it's 5/6ish on average, but it's still good.
Stitched Drake is good whenever you can cast it by turn 5 at the latest. That won't happen in spell-based control decks, but it's pretty easy to enable between Looters and early trades, so I think it's still cubeable.
None of the other cards are particularly good.
the problem of fencing ace is its toughness of 1 though. and while it "deals" with 4drops after you pumped it, it still dies (trades). Im nowhere near cutting it rn, but as said I also find it hard to justify a deckslot most of the time. The WW flyer usually take that spot.
Gush became better after Mystic Sanctuary, even in cubes, which is just a silly loop.
Actually, I just checked with my current cube:
MM1: Moldervine Cloak.
MM2: Cathodion.
MM3: Burning-Tree Emissary, Dinrova Horror, Falkenrath Noble, Magma Jet, Tandem Lookout, Spike Jester.
EMA: Elephant Guide, Elite Vanguard, Night's Whisper, Peregrine Drake, Rally the Peasants.
ICO: Riverwheel Aerialists, Seeker of the Way, Thrill-Kill Assassin.
M25: Court Hussar, Ruthless Ripper, Frenzied Goblin, Jackal Pup, Hordeling Outburst, Savannah Lions.
UMA: Fire//Ice
That's between 1 and 6 from the previous Masters set. 12 from MH, taking Humphrey as an example because I can't provide one myself, is a completely different dimension... And quite frankly, most of the Masters commons I'm playing aren't format breaking. Some are actually filling crucial niches, such as the 2/1s for 1.
Even cards like Dinrova and Falkenrath were streches at the time and I actually have been and still am considering making my cube Expansion-only, excluding all supplementary sets. If it wasn't for the 2/1s I probably would have done that already, just like I probably would have made the final cut before Ravnica 3.0 if that didn't fill some much-needed holes in some gold sections, such as UG and RG.
- Last Word
since you edited your post. I might argue that
Moldervine Cloak, Falkenrath Noble and Dinrova Horror are way above the powerlevel of the mh1 stuff.
pure powerlevel wise mm3 seems the highest.
I run 25 cards from that set (18 reprints)
anyway, playing the numbers game tells us nothing about the individual cards. mh1 is fine (and so was mm3)
wotc pretty much finally figured what to expect from a common and they mostly stick to it since like Amonkhet
running only commons that never saw uc or r printings seems an interesting approach though. Half my cube would be gone. I guess you might argue its a kinda peasant cube by now.
powpercube Johnny https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
Thought about it but it seems way too hard to track. Like logistical nightmare hard.
Again, I'm not trying to argue that anything I do with my cube is the objectively right thing to do. I wasn't even trying to start a discussion about that topic, but other people did, so I replied.
- Last Word
With the big Pauper Unification aren't you doing kind of the same thing in microcosm by not allowing cards that were only printed at common digitally?
https://scryfall.com/search?q=r:c new:rarity is:digital
(I *think* that list is accurate, scryfall syntax can be bizarre sometimes)
Digitally and paper are still two different things, no matter wotc house rules. They reprinted a lot of digital commons by now and all of them remained UC.
As long as their isnt a physical copy at common, I dont use it. Mainly I dont want to discuss the uc symbol on cards I run when playing with newbs.
Has nothing to do with powerlevel though.
About MM3, cant say the format was less broken, just because most commons were reprints. If you play the numbers game, count them all.
Yeah, if you debate the softban of supplemental for quite a while and mh1 was the final straw it makes more sense to me.
I also dont question your cubebuilding choices, but the argument mh1 was above everything else, which it wasnt.
powpercube Johnny https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
I play tested Humphrey's build against a U/B build from another sealed pool and the Jund deck keep running out of steam and had no outs to Calcite Snapper and Benthic Giant.
I build U/R Delver aggro out of the same pool and it seems to be performing really well.
1 Lonely Sandbar
7 Island
7 Mountain
Creature
1 Blood Ogre
1 Borderland Marauder
1 Delver of Secrets
1 Eldrazi Skyspawner
1 Flummoxed Cyclops
1 Mistblade Shinobi
1 Prescient Chimera
1 Sea Gate Oracle
1 Serum Raker
1 Skitter Eel
1 Sparksmith
1 Spined Thopter
1 Umara Entangler
1 Wretched Gryff
1 Artillerize
1 Condescend
1 Counterspell
1 Incinerate
1 Opt
1 Lightning Bolt
1 Ray of Command
1 Staggershock
Sorcery
1 Arc Lightning
1 Disintegrate
1 Pyrotechnics
Im not a huge fan of sealed anyway, unless the cube is build for it (lots of fixing)
for example diabolic edict is only really useful if hexproof is around and no token theme, so i didnt include it.
did you sb it against ur ub list?
powpercube Johnny https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
Diabolic Edict has been decent for me even when I don't see the untargetables. It's much worse when a lot of weenies are in the mix such as in your cube.
Aspect of Lamprey has been performing. Mind Rot is ok. Situational discard 2 is devastating at times and other times it's a dead card. The lifegain component is clutch more often than not. And it makes Benthic Giant very scary. The main downside to the aura is in response remove target creature. Which depending on what's being ran happens more often than not. Still nowhere near Okiba-Gang Shinobi.
I am supporting more midrange strategies than any other general archetype.
Unburden
Reaper of Night
powpercube Johnny https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
At a glance Unburden as an advantage from being the cheapest (same cost as Mind Rot) and has cycling so it can transform from being a dead card, which I guess can matter when curves are lower. Cycling is pretty decent, though 2 mana still slows down gameplay considerably when you are being stormed by weenie or burn. Double black is restrictive.
Reaper of Night is technically a 3 for 1 when you finally get the creature body. The body is decent at closing out games and obviously has an advantage over other cards when big mana is being reached. The flying clause is relevant. Overall, I'm still not that happy Mind Rotting for 4 mana even with the upsides. Sustain has gotten significantly better, but still aggro decks can put you on the ropes well before cards like this become relevant. Fine against durdly midrange. Although if I'm being honest, most midrange decks are pretty quick at closing out games, they just are also geared these days to deal with annoying, very quick decks, generally by one-upping at each point of the curve.
Lifegain is a strong mechanic; and is worth paying an extra 1 mana on top of Mind Rot for. Aspect of Lamprey isn't a shoe-in for most decks though. It requires a decent midrange shell that is looking for a bit of disruption. I don't like playing Aspect of Lamprey alongside Man-o'-War. Although Aspect of Lamprey plays nicely with Agony Warp, Benthic Giant, Skittering Horror and a lot of things that green typically does. Since lifegain is a scalable effect then it follows that creatures with higher power will synergise better. If the format is saturated with premium removal and Gideon's Lawkeepers then auras tend to be worse overall.
Ninjitsu is so strong; there are any number of cards which synergise with being returned to hand. Okiba-Gang Shinobi has to be dealt with, unless your opponent hand dumped their hand. The window to effectively deal with ninjas is narrow. Okiba-Gang Shinobi has been mvp of many games for me. Admitted weenie strategies tend to be weaker in my cube, so maybe you won't find Okiba-Gang Shinobi to be the powerhouse it's been for me. Ninjitsu does require a bit of deckbuilding to get working because you need to get that unblocked clause.
I think it's worth talking about Blightning too. It's good. 3 damage is very powerful.
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)
Otherwise Shinobi is the all around best discard card. Maybe even better than Hymn.
That said, Discard works best in multiples, so you get all the relevant cards.
Lamprey seems dangerous. Sometimes it gets blanked by removal, othertimes you dont have a creature in the first place.
powpercube Johnny https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
Okika-Gang Shinobi's impactful in games where you get the set-up. Though there are plenty of games where it's ok at best. The body isn't particularly impressive and when you are behind on tempo it may as well be a dead card.
Hymn to Tourach late game is an undercosted Mind Rot, which can be alright at checking if your opponent has a empty hand. But really, the turn 2 Hymn is so ridiculous it doesn't matter that much. Sometimes you sink the lands and that's game before your opponent even has a chance. 2 random discard is very disruptive. Hymn to Tourach is clearly stronger, there it isn't much of a contest.
My Peasant Cube: @ mtgsalvation---- @ cubecobra
I still decided to cut it a while ago, since it's pretty much the most boring archetype imagineable. It simply limits interaction and even though it's definitely possible to outtempo the hexproof/aura decks, most control decks simply don't have good answers and end up not really playing magic. I decided instead to simply put in all the mana elves and all the reasonably sized midrange creatures I could find in addition to some combat tricks.
Combat tricks aren't really that amazing against removal, but there is a bunch of decent ones, which can really make up for the risk. This means that green remains the weakest color, but as long as it's open you can still draft good decks. Also green has some of the best commons in form of Rancor, Blastoderm and probabldy the most busted limited common of all Sprout Swarm.
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)
Hymn can be insanely strong, we know that, but there is a lot of variance involved. It can get their only lands or it can get their chaff. You also need BB on turn 2 which probably hurts your development. Also people like to stuff it into every deck and lose to it. It doesnt affect the board and when you durdle with discard you might just die.
Meanwhile Shinobi is a repeatable Discard, so its highly likely it drains their whole hand if you back it off with some removal or counter.
powpercube Johnny https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
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)
What are your guys and girls experience with the following cards. I am updating my cube and am not sure about some cuts/additions. Since the list of cards is rather long, just a grading from A-F would be fine. Thank you
Opt
Emtpy the Warrens
Frantic Seartch
Gush
Snap
Pyroceratops
Spellgorger Weird
Stitched Drake
Stormbound Geist
Ahn-Crop Invader
Grim Initiate
Fencing Ace
Callous Dismissal
Witching Well
Manamorphose
My Peasant Cube: @ mtgsalvation---- @ cubecobra
about the list
why introduce a new rating metric? Most cards should be found in evaluation already.
Opt - Its not horrible, but there are better cnntrips available.
Empty the Warrens - With some amount of (free) spells its very efficient in creating tokens. Spellcount 2+ is enough to break the curve.
Frantic Search - unless you include a bluebased stormdeck, its just a filler.
Gush Draw2 for free, respectively +U, if you missed a landdrop.
Snap works really good in spells matters or tempo in general.
Pyroceratops too slow
Spellgorger Weird too slow
Stitched Drake needs some support in looters or cycling
Stormbound Geist looks good on paper, but it never perfomed for me. its only really good after it died once and only being able to block flyer really hurts, double U also sucks.
Ahn-Crop Invader its a solid sacenabler for threaten effects
Grim Initiate very good onedrop
Fencing Ace i often draft it but dont run it in the end. in theory its really strong with pump
Callous Dismissal I dont like sorcery bounce
Witching Well quite good drawspell with some artifact synergy
Manamorphose i really like it as manafixing
powpercube Johnny https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
Emtpy the Warrens: I think it's magical christmas land to copy it 2 times at a point in game where it really matters. With only 1 additional spell it's not good enough and with 2 additional spells you need to have 6-8 mana when you cast it and usually hold back on spells you could have cast earlier, just to enable this.
Frantic Search: It's basically a combo only card. The card disadvantage really hurts in this format. Faithless Looting also leaves you with 1 card down, but at least you can flashback it.
Gush: It's by far not as good as it is in constructed, but still decent.
Snap: I highly dislike bounce spells without card draw attached, because it's card disadvantage. It might also read as a free spell, but in fact you have to have 2 mana open. I much prefer Repulse, Repeal or at least the ones, that can bounce 2 creatures aka Withdraw/Undo.
Pyroceratops: After the first spell it's a 3/4, which is slightly under curve and only after casting 2 spells it actually starts to grow above curve. Also if this gets killed before it actually started to become a threat 4 mana is a lot of mana spend on a undwerwhelming creature.
Spellgorger Weird: I like this one a lot more. The cheaper the creature, the more likely you are to have mana left over to cast another spell and if this get's killed by a 1-2 mana removal spell you are only down 1-2 mana and not 2-3 like with the ceratops. It also only needs 1 spell to be on curve and after the 2nd spell it's already a 4/4, which isn't that different from a 4/5 for 1 additional mana. Also the sooner you get the spell payoffs on the board the more spells you usually have after that.
Stitched Drake: Blue decks can actually struggle to get creatures into the yard early. This dude is still fine later in the game, but can be very hard to play on curve.
Stormbound Geist: A very annoying threat. It sure isn't very good in a very defensive deck, but against a removal heavy deck it can perform really well.
Ahn-Crop Invader: Well Bogardan Dragonheart exists. If you really want to push the red sac theme it's ok, but not to impressive. As much as I like the offensive design of first strike from a game design perspective, First Strike is still at it's best when blocking.
Grim Initiate: Meh. Sac fodder, but not much else. First Strike in combination with 1 power doesn't do much as soon as your opponent has a simple 2/2.
Fencing Ace: It really depends how many way to pump it you have. In a vacuum it's not worth it.
Callous Dismissal: Worse than Snap.
Witching Well: Decent card draw.
Manamorphose: It seems like you really want to push the spells matter theme. I personally think it's a trap and never performs as well as it reads on paper, but if you really want to force it, you need to play a bunch of cheap cantrips, this one included. Apart from the the card is kind of meh. For fixing purposes it doesn't really do the job very well, because you don't want to keep this card in hand and wait until you draw your splash card.
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)
Gush is also pretty nuts when used correctly, which is on the turn where you'd have missed your land drop for the first time in the game. The reason why it's even better in old constructed formats is that that turn usually arrives by turn 3 and in Limited it's 5/6ish on average, but it's still good.
Stitched Drake is good whenever you can cast it by turn 5 at the latest. That won't happen in spell-based control decks, but it's pretty easy to enable between Looters and early trades, so I think it's still cubeable.
None of the other cards are particularly good.
- Last Word
It also shows he overevaluates card advantage over tempo. Snap is crazy good, because it bounces "for free" and let you have countermana. In my last draft on xmage I also had a value drafter who just lost to aggro. could have been him.
Manamorphose. Why wouldnt you not want to keep it if you need it for later fixing lol
Grim Initiate. The power of first strike comes with burn and pump.
powpercube Johnny https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
It's already pretty unlikely for Empty to just make 4 tokens by turn 5. There aren't many CC0 spells, maybe a small handful, so unless your opponent helps you out you're usually looking to cast one drop plus Empty on turn 5, which is fine, but even that is significantly weaker than just playing a reliable Beetleback Chief whenever you want. For your opponent to help you you may have to make suboptimal attacks to force an instant, or you need to have a board that forces them to do something to begin with. They apparently didn't use their instant on their turn, so maybe you can't even get it out without casting something yourself first. All of those are just small things that make it hard for EtW to actually be great and I've seen enough of those scenarios happen. And needless to say, the fail case is terrible.
We all understand Snap is usually a zero mana version of a 1 mana card that is far from being cubeable. Zero mana is always quite strong and shouldn't be underestimated, though unlike things like Daze, Fireblast or Mutagenic Growth Snap doesn't actually cost zero, which is a huge deal. You can't tap out and have Snap open for your opponent's turn. You're paying 2 for an Unsummon on their turn and are a favorite to have nothing to do with that 2 leftover mana. It may still be borderline playable, but not insane.
Grim Initiate has the same issues that all of those creatures have that have some sort of self-replacement when they die. You have Persist, Undying, Doomed Traveler, Loyal Cathar, etc, etc. The problem is that the front side already has to be efficient, because the back side is usually such that it will be irrelevant to the board once it comes up. A 1/1 First Striker is not good enough for Cube. And a 1/1 vanilla is very likely irrelevant by the time your opponent had that 1/1 First Striker killed.
Manamorphose is interesting. I don't think it does enough outside of EtW, Prowess and fixing once for that one card you're splashing for, but it's never really bad either. If spells matters is a thing in your cube you can't really go wrong with it.
- Last Word
the problem of fencing ace is its toughness of 1 though. and while it "deals" with 4drops after you pumped it, it still dies (trades). Im nowhere near cutting it rn, but as said I also find it hard to justify a deckslot most of the time. The WW flyer usually take that spot.
Gush became better after Mystic Sanctuary, even in cubes, which is just a silly loop.
Drake I really want to cast on curve (by cycling Striped Riverwinder et al.
powpercube Johnny https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t