I will likely cut the Campi/Draw Lands when the next Thriving Cycle is out and go down to 10 Bounce Lands + 10 Thriving Lands and thus create 5 Slots for other things.
It's a different set, but it looks like we get another set of Thriving Lands in Commander Legends: Battle for Baldurs Gate:
At some point this makes dual lands obsolete. I really liked the Thriving Lands because they are simply better Evolving Wilds, that can go into any deck while only taking 5 instead of 10 slots, comapred to dual lands.
I think that Jewel Thief might be so far the strongest common in the set. Getting a really decent body on 3 and ramping into your 5 drop basicallly for free seems super powerful. From experience "free" treasure tokens attached to otherwise decent cards have been really good. Auto include for me.
Apart from that I think that Mayhem Patrol is actually pretty decent. This will probably replace Goblin Trailblazer for me, which has performed really well so far. Menace on a 2 power 2-drop can easily guarantee several damage to the face and this one also has the niche upside of enabling another creature to attack + of course you can always cycle it for 1R with temporary token on top.
I would have really liked the Botanical Plaza-Cycle to be all 10, since I definitely don't want to include incomplete cycles, but with the Campi from Strixhaven (which I didn't include for the same reason), they can cover all 10 color combinations I think I prefer a 5/5 split over the Gainlands, until 1 of the cycles is completed. I actually don't know which I would prefer, if I could choose.
I actually don't hate the fetchlands (Cabaretti Courtyard and so on), but again incomplete Cycles
Archetype specific: Body Dropper is certainly a more interesting multicolor card than Spike Jester, but so far I've kept Sacrifice as a mono black archetype and not force it into any specific color combination, in order not to railroad drafters. Also Spike Jester has performed incredibly well everytime I saw it.
Witty Roastmaster is kind of interesting in combination with Swarm. It's basically an Impact Tremors on a stick. Not a good stick, but a stick nontheless.
Clawing Torment does seem good when your the beatdown. Disabling a blocker and having a Stab Wound-esque effect in addition does sound lucrative when you put it like that. Obviously, when you're on defence it is a dead card so I see it more of a sideboard option.
This card is obviously meant to be drafted by aggressive decks, that look to be on the beatdown at all time, but if you actually run into a mirror and see yourself on the defense it's certainly not dead, because there will often be an X/1 you can get rid of to stop the bleeding.
I have played a lot of NEO limited since it has been released and I just wanted to point to some cards, that have performed way better than I initially thought:
1) Clawing Torment: When I first saw this, I pretty much thought it would be garbage, but in very aggressive deck this deck has been a real power house. It's kind of similar to Stab Wound, which is still a pretty decent card today, even though I did cut it from my cube a long while a ago. A huge difference though is the "can't block"-clause, which for an aggressive deck, can be all you need to deal with a creature. Sure there are a lot of ways to get rid of creatures for a very low mana investment, but if you are looking to be ahead in the damage race the "free" Curse of the Pierced Heart can be way more beneficial to that plan than actually killing the creature. In addition to that you can of course also just kill your opponents X/1 early drop for as little as 1 mana. Compared to Dead Weight or Disfigure it's relevant at any stage of the game as it can even help you to enable an attack through a big blocker.
2) Okiba Reckoner Raid: Actually good 1 mana creatures at common rarity are still kind of rare. At first I thought that having "Suspend 2" on a small creature would be too much of a downsight and in the case of Era of Enlightenment and The Modern Age it kind of is, but mostly because there are simply better things you can do for 2 mana, while turn 1 remains a spot where barely anything happens in pauper cube. This safely drains 2 life and the 2/2 Menace guy can be really annoying. The "Vehicle"-clause it obviously just flavour text, but it also is in NEO limited for the most part and doesnt affect this cards rating. If you are looking for good aggressive black 1 mana creatures, I think, that this ia a really decent candidate.
3) Imperial Oath: I think I somehow completely overlooked this card in the spoilers and/or didn't realise that it had Scry 3. There is an argument how much Scry equals drawing a card and I personally think it is around Scry 2,5 = Draw 1, sometimes the Scry is obviously better and sometimes it is worse, but Scry 3 is certainly relevant. In addition to that Scrying often becomes more powerful later in the game, when you have enough lands and know what tools you are actually looking for, where as in the early game it's often not that clear. I think think that 6 P/T for 6 mana with an equivalent of Draw a card and Vigilance over 3 bodies is really decent. This card is also interesteing, because it doesn't really have a lot of synergies in NEO, which is a very synergy dominated environment, but shines, through it's pure power in a vacuum.
Booth Voldaren Epicure and Experimental Synthesizer have been pretty bad in their respective draft environments without synergies. I wouldn't recommend you playing either unless you have like an artifact sacrifice sub-theme.
why did you cut the ninja tho? i say thats madness
Is Ninja of the Deep Hours really that good? It's a 2/2 for 2, which you can only cast if you have an unblocked creature. Blue doesn't actually have all that many great etb-effects, especially not on evasive creatures. It's not like your Man-o'-War or Sea Gate Oracle are very realistic to actually enable the ninja. On the other hand there are several evasive creatures, that don't actually want to be bounced and you trade the 1 free card for a tempo loss.
Apart from that the Ninja is only good when you can actually attack and aren't on a stalled board. You literally never want to hardcast it and it's not like the ninja realistically connects more than once in a game.
In summary it's not bad and your cube certainly has a lot more very active support for this card than mine, but I think for the average cube it's highly overrated and as much as I would like the UW Flicker archetype to be more of a thing, I simply don't think it is worth it, due to a lack of good etb-effects.
Oh yeah I forgot we also got another copy of Shimmerdrift Vale in the form of Uncharted Haven. It's getting reallly hard to squeeze these lands into the cube.
Hmmm a really unexciting set. I think if you have enough etb-effects in blue, so that Ninja of the Deep Hours performs well there Moon-Circuit Hacker is certainly a nice addition. I did cut the Ninja a while ago, so I won't add the new version.
Greater Tanuki seems decent. I personally prefer the tusker thought, because it's a 2 for 1. I mean cyclers are for the most part playable.
I'm personally a little bit interested in Spirited Companion. I do run Elvish Visionary as a pseudo token producer for the swarm archetype. Whites 2 drops are a lot more stacked than green though.
Might be the first set in a while, which doesn't add a single card to my cube. I can't really complain about the huge amount of options for my artifact cube though.
My playgroup decided, that they don't want monarch cards anymore. As much as I dislike cutting cards, due to powerlevel, this is a decision compareable to the reason, why I cut the hexproof/aura archetype. It's simply puts certain archetypes at a more significant disadvantage than others. Noncreature spell heavy control decks have a very hard time getting the crown and with this being in the command zone there is no other way to interact with it, so I decided to go in with the popular vote. It's not like I don't have more than enough alternative options.
On a sidenote, I do sometimes follow what is happening in constructed pauper and it seems that Bonder's Ornament seems to perform quite decently there. What are the thoughts on this card? I think for me it competes with a spot with Filigree Familiar.
is the project dead or just on ice until you find the mood to update?
As I said before I'm no longer motivated to do this on my own. I would only continue updating this project if it becomes a comunity driven effort. As long as no one else is willing to put in some work this project is laid on ice and can be considered dead. Again if someone is interesed in keeping this alive, the work isn't to evaluate the cards, but to actually include the missing cards directly into the posts. We are about 6 sets behind now and talking about around 600 missing cards right now, which is definitely several hours of work, so if anyone has some time to kill and cares about this project, feel free. Evaluating all the cards is probably only around 10% of the work, especially since evaluations for most cards have already been posted in this thread somewhere.
If there should be some interest to keep this updated here is how you can help if you want:
1) CTRL + C the section you want to edit and CTRL + V it into text editor or whatever.
2) Add the missing evaluations and save it.
3) CTRL + C the updated version and CTRL + V it into a pm to me and I will replace it with the original.
I think green 4 drops are getting super crowded now. Blastoderm and Trumpeting Herd are pretty set and Penumbra Spider rarely fails to overperform in my experience, but the rest is are on a similar powerlevel.
How would you rank these candidates?
4/4 Trample:
-Bannerhide Krushok: No flexibility tax for 2 very solid cards in 1 + Scavenge.
-Fierce Witchstalker: Trample on a 4/4 is already very nice and the food token isn't completely irrelevant.
-Peema Outrider: Another 4/4 trample with a little flexibility.
-Hooting Mandrills: Ok not officially a 4 drop, but I do count it as one. Green is definitely the worst color to fill it's own graveyard for Delve without dedicated self mill cards, but on the other hand you will often have a 2nd color, that might help you with that.
4/4 wihtout without Trample:
-Voracious Typhon: Recusrion, but bad against exile/enchantment removal.
-Shadowbeast Sighting: Recursion, but bad against Bounce.
-Hookhand Mariner: A 4/4 Vanilla on the front is still a decent body and the flip into a ceratinly very impressive backside doesn't require any mana investment.
5/5 with downside:
-Imperiosaur: 5/5 for 4 is obviously sick, but I do play a lot of 1 mana ramp and also a decent amount nonbasics. This card definitely has a lot of weird anti-synergies, which lead to weird situations.
-Emperor Crocodile: Another 5/5 for 4. The possible downside against red or black decks is obvious, but the stats are a good counter argument.
Utility:
-Sarulf's Packmate: Another strong addition, IMO. We have come a long way since the days of Kavu Climber, Nantuko Shaman and Joraga Visionary to end up with a straight up 3/3 for 4, that draws a card with even a small upside. I do think that green really needs this kind of card to not run out of gas, but the question is where does it rank compared to the others?
So in addition to the new Thriving Land Cycle we now also got another cantripping white 3 drop:
→ Wildwood Tracker > Jewel Thief
→ Goblin Trailblazer > Mayhem Patrol
→ Benalish Cavalry > Inspiring Overseer
→ Blossoming Sands > Botanical Plaza
→ Rugged Highlands > Racers' Ring
→ Tranquil Cove > Skybridge Towers
→ Bloodfell Caves > Tramway Station
→ Dismal Backwater > Waterfront District
→ Wind-Scarred Crag > Lorehold Campus
→ Swiftwater Cliffs > Prismari Campus
→ Thornwood Falls > Quandrix Campus
→ Scoured Barrens > Silverquill Campus
→ Jungle Hollow > Witherbloom Campus
I will likely cut the Campi/Draw Lands when the next Thriving Cycle is out and go down to 10 Bounce Lands + 10 Thriving Lands and thus create 5 Slots for other things.
At some point this makes dual lands obsolete. I really liked the Thriving Lands because they are simply better Evolving Wilds, that can go into any deck while only taking 5 instead of 10 slots, comapred to dual lands.
Ok Inspiring Overseer is clearly the best card in the set. A better Cloudkin Seer is clearly ridiculous.
Apart from that I think that Mayhem Patrol is actually pretty decent. This will probably replace Goblin Trailblazer for me, which has performed really well so far. Menace on a 2 power 2-drop can easily guarantee several damage to the face and this one also has the niche upside of enabling another creature to attack + of course you can always cycle it for 1R with temporary token on top.
I would have really liked the Botanical Plaza-Cycle to be all 10, since I definitely don't want to include incomplete cycles, but with the Campi from Strixhaven (which I didn't include for the same reason), they can cover all 10 color combinations I think I prefer a 5/5 split over the Gainlands, until 1 of the cycles is completed. I actually don't know which I would prefer, if I could choose.
I actually don't hate the fetchlands (Cabaretti Courtyard and so on), but again incomplete Cycles
Archetype specific:
Body Dropper is certainly a more interesting multicolor card than Spike Jester, but so far I've kept Sacrifice as a mono black archetype and not force it into any specific color combination, in order not to railroad drafters. Also Spike Jester has performed incredibly well everytime I saw it.
Witty Roastmaster is kind of interesting in combination with Swarm. It's basically an Impact Tremors on a stick. Not a good stick, but a stick nontheless.
1) Clawing Torment: When I first saw this, I pretty much thought it would be garbage, but in very aggressive deck this deck has been a real power house. It's kind of similar to Stab Wound, which is still a pretty decent card today, even though I did cut it from my cube a long while a ago. A huge difference though is the "can't block"-clause, which for an aggressive deck, can be all you need to deal with a creature. Sure there are a lot of ways to get rid of creatures for a very low mana investment, but if you are looking to be ahead in the damage race the "free" Curse of the Pierced Heart can be way more beneficial to that plan than actually killing the creature. In addition to that you can of course also just kill your opponents X/1 early drop for as little as 1 mana. Compared to Dead Weight or Disfigure it's relevant at any stage of the game as it can even help you to enable an attack through a big blocker.
2) Okiba Reckoner Raid: Actually good 1 mana creatures at common rarity are still kind of rare. At first I thought that having "Suspend 2" on a small creature would be too much of a downsight and in the case of Era of Enlightenment and The Modern Age it kind of is, but mostly because there are simply better things you can do for 2 mana, while turn 1 remains a spot where barely anything happens in pauper cube. This safely drains 2 life and the 2/2 Menace guy can be really annoying. The "Vehicle"-clause it obviously just flavour text, but it also is in NEO limited for the most part and doesnt affect this cards rating. If you are looking for good aggressive black 1 mana creatures, I think, that this ia a really decent candidate.
3) Imperial Oath: I think I somehow completely overlooked this card in the spoilers and/or didn't realise that it had Scry 3. There is an argument how much Scry equals drawing a card and I personally think it is around Scry 2,5 = Draw 1, sometimes the Scry is obviously better and sometimes it is worse, but Scry 3 is certainly relevant. In addition to that Scrying often becomes more powerful later in the game, when you have enough lands and know what tools you are actually looking for, where as in the early game it's often not that clear. I think think that 6 P/T for 6 mana with an equivalent of Draw a card and Vigilance over 3 bodies is really decent. This card is also interesteing, because it doesn't really have a lot of synergies in NEO, which is a very synergy dominated environment, but shines, through it's pure power in a vacuum.
Apart from that the Ninja is only good when you can actually attack and aren't on a stalled board. You literally never want to hardcast it and it's not like the ninja realistically connects more than once in a game.
In summary it's not bad and your cube certainly has a lot more very active support for this card than mine, but I think for the average cube it's highly overrated and as much as I would like the UW Flicker archetype to be more of a thing, I simply don't think it is worth it, due to a lack of good etb-effects.
Greater Tanuki seems decent. I personally prefer the tusker thought, because it's a 2 for 1. I mean cyclers are for the most part playable.
I'm personally a little bit interested in Spirited Companion. I do run Elvish Visionary as a pseudo token producer for the swarm archetype. Whites 2 drops are a lot more stacked than green though.
Might be the first set in a while, which doesn't add a single card to my cube. I can't really complain about the huge amount of options for my artifact cube though.
On a sidenote, I do sometimes follow what is happening in constructed pauper and it seems that Bonder's Ornament seems to perform quite decently there. What are the thoughts on this card? I think for me it competes with a spot with Filigree Familiar.
If there should be some interest to keep this updated here is how you can help if you want:
1) CTRL + C the section you want to edit and CTRL + V it into text editor or whatever.
2) Add the missing evaluations and save it.
3) CTRL + C the updated version and CTRL + V it into a pm to me and I will replace it with the original.
How would you rank these candidates?
4/4 Trample:
-Bannerhide Krushok: No flexibility tax for 2 very solid cards in 1 + Scavenge.
-Fierce Witchstalker: Trample on a 4/4 is already very nice and the food token isn't completely irrelevant.
-Peema Outrider: Another 4/4 trample with a little flexibility.
-Hooting Mandrills: Ok not officially a 4 drop, but I do count it as one. Green is definitely the worst color to fill it's own graveyard for Delve without dedicated self mill cards, but on the other hand you will often have a 2nd color, that might help you with that.
4/4 wihtout without Trample:
-Voracious Typhon: Recusrion, but bad against exile/enchantment removal.
-Shadowbeast Sighting: Recursion, but bad against Bounce.
-Hookhand Mariner: A 4/4 Vanilla on the front is still a decent body and the flip into a ceratinly very impressive backside doesn't require any mana investment.
5/5 with downside:
-Imperiosaur: 5/5 for 4 is obviously sick, but I do play a lot of 1 mana ramp and also a decent amount nonbasics. This card definitely has a lot of weird anti-synergies, which lead to weird situations.
-Emperor Crocodile: Another 5/5 for 4. The possible downside against red or black decks is obvious, but the stats are a good counter argument.
Utility:
-Sarulf's Packmate: Another strong addition, IMO. We have come a long way since the days of Kavu Climber, Nantuko Shaman and Joraga Visionary to end up with a straight up 3/3 for 4, that draws a card with even a small upside. I do think that green really needs this kind of card to not run out of gas, but the question is where does it rank compared to the others?