MTG Salvation

I guess I'll kick things off.

Veteran Survivor - A 1-mana 2/1 is a good start, but there are already plenty of options with those stats. On the whole, I'm not sure this is better than what we have if you don't have any way of tapping it outside of attacking. Once you get some Vehicles or other ways of letting this safely tap, it could be really scary - a 5/4 hexproof is no joke.

Unwanted Remake - It's unconditional, instant-speed removal for 1 mana, but I still don't like it. Letting your opponent manifest dread is a HUGE cost.

Nowhere to Run - A 2-mana instant speed -3/-3 is actually playable by itself. Being an enchantment makes it better for things like Bargain or Delirium, but worse for things like Escape or Delve. I think the second paragraph of text won't come up very much in my cube, but I could see other environments where this is a bigger deal. Finally, I think the real cherry on top is how this interacts with Kor Skyfisher and similar cards, which seems really powerful!

Fear of Lost Teeth - I'm not high on this, but there's enough going on here that it might synergize well in some environments, specifically where you care about it being an enchantment.

Norin, Swift Survivalist - This seems great. A 1-mana 2/1 is a good starting point, and you're not usually interested in blocking with cards like this anyway. The ability lets you alpha strike and "save" your creatures that get profitably blocked. It does cost mana to do that, but on the other hand, it lets you re-use ETB triggers.

At first, I was a little down on Norin, Swift Survivalist for Cube. There’s not a lot of red creatures with good Enters abilities at under 4 mana and without those, there are likely few instances where you want to spend your mana to re-deploy your own board. That said, a 2/1 that cannot block for R is a decent floor and the ability has a high upside and scales pretty well into the late game. Should be an excellent Cube contributor.

Patched Plaything plays in the same space as Combat Thresher and looks excellent if you are chock full of blink tricks.
Similarly, Fear of Isolation joins Kor Skyfisher in scratching that itch of reusing strong Enters abilities while getting a strong creature on the battlefield.
Neither one is for me, but both should be reasonably popular for Peasant Cube.

Altanak, the Thrice-Called seems like an interesting green top end that can even get itself in the bin if you support some kind of reanimator package.

Time for disagreements, yay

No way Veteran Survivor gets 3 counters in even 10% of games, even with a vehicle "package". Savannah Lions.

Norin the Raceswapped probably isn't great. A 2/1 vanilla is not playable anymore, and even in aggro you are going to want to block sometimes. So we are starting from a 2011 statline. Recasting your stuff to keep them alive is cool and all but most aggressive creatures don't have etbs. Attacking with multiple creatures just to be able to play some again isn't advancing your board, so it's only really a lategame play. Also, if your board has any tokens or modified creatures then your opponent still has a path for good blocks. TLDR I don't think the chance to attack with everyone and gustcloak them at the end of the game is worth a substandard front end.

7+ drops really need to be able to protect you beyond being a lone grounded blocker to be good, so I don't see Altanak being a smart choice. Titanoth Rex is going to be better for reanimation, and I would be surprised if anyone is looking for a second card that's only playable as a reanimation target while Generous ent and Spinewoods armadillo exist.

I have a lot of the same thoughts you do about Norin- initial body is weak, cannot save tokens, expensive to re-deploy creatures. There are two things that are going to get me to definitely test it:
1) Red’s 1-drops are already pretty weak. People’s preferences vary, but I think it would be hard to find a consensus of, say, 8 better creatures at red’s one mana slot.
2) The ability translates pretty well to the late game. This feels like the rare 1-drop that can be cast turn 6 and immediately impact the board. All of a sudden, my Geological Appraiser, Briarhorn, and Winter Eladrin have pseudo unblockability.
I think there is a pretty wide range of outcomes that Norin, Swift Survivalist could end up having for us.

I second rancoredmalone's assessment. For me the value is that Norin, Swift Survivalist has utility both early (as an attacker) and late (as a pseudo-blink/unblockable engine), where most red 1 drops tend to only offer value early. May not stick, but something I will test.

A couple of other interesting cards for me so far:

Patched Plaything - I like Combat Thresher a little better, but I might test both.
Floodpits Drowner - Blue's 2 mana creatures are getting pretty crowded, but this seems like a pretty solid tempo play and has the option of being hard removal if needed.
Fear of Isolation - Speaking of 2 mana blue creatures, color shifted Kor Skyfisher seems good.
Trapped in the Screen - More or less Seal from Existence with a better casting cost.
Insidious Fungus - Powercrept Caustic Caterpillar.
Untimely Malfunction - Quite a bit of flexibility.

Floodpits Drowner's abusability with Crystal shard/essence reliquary is pretty bananas. Even just saccing it to some card draw engine and reviving it is probably gg

Bottomless Pool probably replaces the silent departure that I might be the only one running anyway. So many cards bounce our own permanents now. Seems like yet another card to add to the pile of things worth trying to squeeze value out of.

To me, Norin offers some good late game value. Maybe some people see red just as a low-to-the-ground aggro deck, but blue, green, white or black have many good cards with ETBs. And the late game options is something each day I value more in red.

From Flametongue Kavu (or to reset a turn 2 Flametongue Yearling) and Geological Appraiser to Imodane's Recruiter to recast the adventure mode, play again an Eternal Witness or a Thought-Stalker Warlock, or again an Aerie Auxiliary to pump your team... The card has legs to me. It doesn't seem crazy, but it has potential.

Maybe you just want to attack with him as a 2/1 for R but he doesn't have to, just wait in the second line and see your team do their work. We still have to see how he does in this Limited.

Irreverent Gremlin could be interesting to pretty good, depending on the cube. 2/2 Menace alright, but the repeatable rummage ability is what I'm looking at. I have 170 creatures with power 2 or less and another 19 cards that can create tokens to trigger this, sometimes on multiple turns.

Quote from Leelue »

7+ drops really need to be able to protect you beyond being a lone grounded blocker to be good, so I don't see Altanak being a smart choice. Titanoth Rex is going to be better for reanimation, and I would be surprised if anyone is looking for a second card that's only playable as a reanimation target while Generous ent and Spinewoods armadillo exist.

Honestly, fair, and something I should have arrived at by thinking a little longer on it lmao

Sawblade Skinripper is an interesting hybrid of Stormclaw Rager and Mayhem Devil. It has some nice upsides (Menace; sacrifice can be done at instant speed) and some clear downsides (damage only triggers at your EOT and only on your permanents; does not draw a card; sacrifice costs 2 mana). I am considering testing.

Piggy Bank is an all upside 3/2 red two drop.

For the most part this set seems horrifically wordy and that bugs me.

I am curious on what people’s thoughts are about the Manifest Dread mechanic. Specifically, what mana cost would you associate with the effect? Every color has a little bit of the effect, but blue and green have 3-mana instant speed versions tied in with other options. (Twist Reality and Break Down the Door.)
If I consider this a flash 2/2 with the minor upsides of milling 1 and possibly flipping a creature, that is roughly a 2 mana effect (maybe 1.75 mana). On that basis, I will consider playing both unless my analysis is way off.

Other card thoughts-
Splitskin Doll- Nice as a potential source of card advantage, especially punishing on curve.

Clockwork Percussionist- Haste and getting an extra turn to play the card when this dies on your turn means a lot compared to Unlucky Witness. The artifact typing could be an extra bonus too.

Piggy Bank- Unless your cube is explicit on artifact synergies, I do think a 2-mana spell becomes a minor downside against artifact removal (unlike Clockwork Percussionist). Losing this or Splitskin Doll to something incidental like Reclamation Sage or Requisition Raid would be tough.

Quote from Narvuntien »

Piggy Bank is an all upside 3/2 red two drop.

"Back in my day we played Gore-House Chainwalker and we liked it."

It's crazy how much has changed over the past decade, especially the most recent 2-3 years.

Quote from A_WasherDryer »

Quote from Narvuntien »

Piggy Bank is an all upside 3/2 red two drop.

"Back in my day we played Gore-House Chainwalker and we liked it."

It's crazy how much has changed over the past decade, especially the most recent 2-3 years.

I had the exact same reaction. The future is now old man.

For reference, I have 24 red 2 drops, 25 if I count Weapon Surge's overload cost as its default mode. Weapon Surge, Mogg War Marshal and Viashino Slaughtermaster are the only ones not from the 2020s..

The cheap Red spells are looking really good so far. Norin, Swift Survivalist, Irreverent Gremlin, Piggy Bank, and maybe Clockwork Percussionist all look like they could be good.

I would need to do some testing to see how often Untimely Malfunction is a dead card, but that has some potential too.

Floodpits Drowner is the other card that really stands out.

I have been pushing 4+ power matters in red recently so Fear of being hunted seems like an option at 3 mana but Giant Cindermaw is a lot better. I wish it was a full lure effect :/

I am working off the presumption that, at this size and mana value, I would rather have haste as a keyword than trample. All other things equal, I would rather have Fear of Being Hunted over Giant Cindermaw. The difference in color mana symbols and the vulnerability to enchantment removal probably makes it even out in the end.

I have a similar feeling about Wildfire Wickerfolk in a world of Voltaic Brawlers and Yavimaya Iconoclasts, that haste is a better-enough keyword to make up for the other differences in abilities.

Quote from rancoredmalone »

I am working off the presumption that, at this size and mana value, I would rather have haste as a keyword than trample. All other things equal, I would rather have Fear of Being Hunted over Giant Cindermaw. The difference in color mana symbols and the vulnerability to enchantment removal probably makes it even out in the end.

I really think the difference in toughness was missed here? I get the point was really to point to Haste as being a better keyword over Trample at this mana value, but here 4/2 just isn't a card to put in a deck over a 4/3.

Cindermaw is much better. Even if they had the same stats, 2R is much easier to cast than 1RR.

Quote from HaccyZ »

I really think the difference in toughness was missed here? I get the point was really to point to Haste as being a better keyword over Trample at this mana value, but here 4/2 just isn't a card to put in a deck over a 4/3.

I was actually saying I would rather have a 4/2 haste over a 4/3 trample at the same cost. Having an entire attack step before the opponent can do most things is really good.
I also want to consider how double mana costs I cube at lower mana values, considering how heavy I am on fixing. One of those benefits of fixing should be playing more double pips in exchange for more power. Not that Fear of Being Hunted is powerful enough to make that switch.

This whole discussion is making me rethink my red 3s, since I am playing a few that were less popular than Giant Cindermaw as of the last cube survey.

(Basically skipping the casting cost downside here)
3mv 4/2 with no way to win over any 2/x is not a card I think is all that playable. Too often you're trading down on mana, and the card has very little other upside. The opponent most likely wants to prevent four damage hitting them anyway, so getting something else through isn't all that special often enough.
The only upside is hitting for 4 with haste when the opponent has no blockers. If that's a general scenario you're going for, I'd much trade one damage for toughness à la Brazen Scourge for all the other times the opponent has a basic dork in the way, but you're running all the best cards in the format so how about Toralf's Disciple? Even the casting cost is actually easier.

Withering Torment is the new Feed the Swarm. One mana more, but it's instant speed, and the life loss is fixed at 2.

Even if you have 12 sources with your "better fixing" you still have a worse chance of casting 1RR than if you only had 7 sources and were trying to cast something for 2R. So, no, better fixing doesn't really let you play 1CC very well. It's a big downside.

Also 2 toughness sucks, lol