Eh, I think this is just Tombstalker way too much of the time, which isn't great. In order to be better than tombstalker you need to have 3 spells to exile, which means it's only a great early play in the spells matter deck, and that deck has better cards that only fit in it IMO.
I know I am the odd-one-out here, but I've been keeping Tombstalker around for some time, and generally love the card. At the moment I haven't played him at 360 for a the last few years, but he is definitely in if I expand to 540. While not a very exciting card, it has won me so incredibly many matches in poxy, more grindy decks. As a play I am a major fan of grindy/prison style decks, where Tombstalker fits very well. I know he is not an objectively good card, he is a personal preference, but I also think he is slightly underrated/overlooked.
I think I will try out Murktide, but I don't think blue fits the poxy, low-resource style play as well, so I don't think it will play that well in the end. Testing will show.
I think the lack of Flash is quite a major drawback on this one, and playing it as a 2/2 Rec Sage for 3G doesn't seem good enough to compensate for that to me. I'd rather run Wilt in my own cube I think. Cool tool, but I don't see this cracking lists at 540 or below.
Will definitely play Usher of the Fallen, seems quite a bit better than the other Lions after Kython. Will test Starnheim Unleashed, though I am unsure of what to cut for it, as it is so flexible and goes into any part of the curve. Perhaps it's time to cut Secure the Wastes, though I am a fan of that card.
Custom cards means cards you have designed yourself, or somehow altered the rules of. Most cubes don't play custom cards, but some do. A common reason for customizing cards are to play cards as they were before an errata, to simplify a rule or similar. A common example is cubes that play Chaos orb like an artifact that says: (1)(Tap): Destroy target permanent. Another common example are people who play Orcish Oriflamme or Oubliette misprints, these were both printed with the wrong mana cost, so you can get copies that lower CMC and thus more powerful.
If I play Snow basics instead of Basics, then that is just the way it is like in any other format. In addition, I really like that cards like Coatl, Dead of Winter, etc. exactly lead players to play more (Snow) Basics.
This is where I disagree, and this was my main point. Playing snow basics in a cube is not like any other format. In no official limited format ever have you been allowed to add snow basics to your draft pool. Not in draft, and not in sealed. Instead you have needed to draft snow basics. The design of snow-matters card for limited strongly reflects this, where the pay-off necessitates that you also draft snow-covered lands during the draft. Only in constructed format can one freely add as many snow basics as you want, but Cube is inherently a limited format, where to me, the draft experience is the main reason to play it.
I know a lot of people play snow-covered basics in their cube, and I totally understand why, it means you get to play some unique and powerful cards. But my point was that this is changing the fundamentals of how a limited format usually works. It's your cube and your format, of course you decide how you play. But to me this goes against what I want cube to be. Some people also let people add as many tapped dual lands as they want to their draft pool. One cube I saw mentioned on Reddit let all players add one of each fetch and one of each dual to their pool. These are more drastic examples of changing the "fundamental rules" of how draft works, but I think adding snow-covered basics is basically the same as these examples at the most fundamental level.
My point about snow-cards feeling like "custom cards" is this: Because adding snow-covered basics to your pool is traditionally not allowed, adding this house rule is functionally equivalent to taking a sharpie to snow-cards and changing "snow permanents" or "snow lands" to "basic lands". I won't criticize anyone for playing snow in their cube, nor would I criticize anyone for playing custom cards. I was just presenting my thoughts on why I, personally, don't.
Another example: Some people also play only snow-covered basics in their cubes, saying you can't play non-snow basics - and then they add Cold Snap as an incredibly powerful aggro card. I mean, at that point, you might as well just design your own white sulfuric vortex and play that.
I've never liked doing snow in cubes and honestly think it just looks quite messy design wise. Snow cards are designed to be in limited environments where you are supposed to need to draft the snow lands, and it really shows. It's a "critical mass" kind of design. I think it worked really well in Modern Horizons for example, which I personally found to be a great limited format. When people play things like Ice-Fang Coatl in cube it's basically like you replace every instance of "Snow" on the card with "Basic". Feels like using custom cards to me.
If I wanted to build a snow theme it would probably be in a Desert-style cube where all lands needs to be drafted, where some lands could be normal basics, some non-basics and some snow-basics perhaps.
With that said, I don't think any of these cards are terribly exciting to begin with. Also, calling Boreal Outrider a "mono-green Good-Fortune Unicorn" is a big exaggeration. You briefly mention it not working in persist combo, which is the main reason the unicorn is played, but it also doesn't work with tokens, which is another major downside.
I am not feeling this card at all. Aggro decks in my cube are rarely interested in 5-drops, especially 5-drops that don't have haste or impact the board immediately. The comparison to Vortex also doesn't seem great. Part of the strength of vortex is that it is so hard to remove for most decks and that it gets around creature removal and sweepers. This seems very easy to remove for most decks and fails the vindicate test completely, with the trigger being on your own upkeep. In addition it only has 4 toughness, so it also can't be played as a finisher in Wildfire-decks. The triggers-from-the-graveyard looks sort of cool, but the number of giants in my cube is so low that it is close to flavor text. If I add in more changelings it might improve slightly, but then you still need to get this into your GY and keep a giant in play over several turns for a 2 damage a turn ping, which seems like jumping through a lot of hoops for a small reward.
I was skeptical about this card until I saw your Gisela comparison, as I've been quite a fan of Gisela in actual gameplay. Might try this if I go back up to 540, which is where I play Gisela.
I agree with your top 5 CMC3 creatures, though I'm not sure exactly where spellseeker would rank, as I play an unpowered cube myself.
What would you run in these three spots? Have we reached the point the 360 card cubes are too small?
Only three CMC3 creatures? I know that blue is the color with the fewest creatures, but that sounds low to me. Especially if you count Thieving Skydiver as a CMC3, which in reality has a flexible CMC. I think the creatures you refer to here are all pretty darn stellar, and so would definitely try to find room for more than three of them. If you link your cube, I'm sure I would find some other cards in blue I would much rather cut.
If I had to pick 3 of the 5, it is a bit tricky, because they all fill slightly different roles, and so I would want to look at the whole cube. However, Clique is definitely the best by far in my opinion. Best blue creature of them all.
The biggest strike against this card for me is that replacing Lurrus with this turns Orzhov into exactly what most Golgari sections look like now which is a whole guild section full of just great removal. I already have Vindicate and Anguished Unmaking, adding this as well is overkill and Lurrus even without companion is more interesting and lends to differing archetypes. For me this is #6 overall in Orzhov which puts it just narrowly outside of inclusion into my cube.
I think this is a great point. I'm currently playing Vindicate, Lingering Souls, Lord of Innistrad and Anguished Unmaking. So to me, Kaya seemed more interesting, as trading out Anguished Unmaking for Kaya would give more lines of play, not less. But definitely agree that running Vindicate, Anguished Unmaking and Kaya would be very linear. I don't play Lurrus as my playerbase are not too big on black aggro or artisocrats, but I definitely see Lurrus as a better and more interesting card in the right cube.
I like OG kaya a LOT more, she is a card advantage machine if she gets to stick around and she's 1 less mana.
Interesting. I would definitely rank new Kaya above OG Kaya, she seems much more versatile to me. If left unchecked she seems much more threatening than OG Kaya, and if you are slightly behind she also seems great, unconditional removal for one big threat to take over the game. If you are you further behind, neither will do much for you. Either way, I probably won't play either of them in the end.
WB tends to play aristocrats and/or tokens - is this better than any of the Sorins in that archetype? those sorin's make tokens or provide stat buffs usually, which aristocrats / tokens want. This seems better than the +1 for those decks. Vindicate is cheaper on the minus and can hit a land, though maybe this is better than anguished unmaking? The ability to ult quickly and recur itself is neat. It's not better than Sorin's for usual BW archetypes, but not generically good to be in the top imho.
Fair enough. In my environment WB sees a lot of play in control archetypes, especially Esper Control, and I view her mostly through that lens as a type of unconditional removal ala Anguished Unmaking.
I definitely rank Sorlin, Lord of Innistrad above her. Not sure about the others. Played Solemn Visitor for a while, but I never liked him that much. But to be fair, WB sees a lot of play as a control archetype in my cube, often as Esper Control, and probably less aristocrats/tokens. I might have evaluated Kaya a bit too heavily through that lens, where you always want a few unconditional removal like vindicate, anguished unmaking, etc. Kaya feels great there to me, where you can slot in a general win-con in the place of a removal.
Kaya: Hey, can I copy your homework.
Vraska: Yeah, just change it up a bit so it doesn't look obvious you copied.
Kaya: Ok
Haha, yeah, I had to do a double take when I first saw her too - felt like a carbon copy of Vraska. However, I think this looks better than Vraska by a mile. Vraska's +1 is pretty useless, while Kaya's +1 can potentially provide a lot of value. The -3 being exile instead of destroy is a small upgrade, and the ult is way, way better.
All in all, it's a totally fair planeswalker not unlike many planeswalkers before. For a weaker cube, she's totally fine, but of the 4 other Kayas and 4 Sorins in Orzhov, she's not top of the pile for power, versatility, or uniqueness. Nor most likely for budget after the dust settles. Personally I think Sorin, Vengeful Bloodlord is the sleeper black/white planeswalker.
After thinking more about this for a day, I think I definitely overrated her a bit when I first saw the spoiler. Think one could still argue for her being the second or third best of the WB walkers, but that does place her pretty far down the list in Orzhov I guess.
This can be cool for cubes with a heavy elf tribal theme, as more lords are always welcome. However, in a normal cube environment, buffing elves is close to irrelevant.
------------------------------------------------------ Kaya the Inexorable3WB
Legendary Planeswalker - Kaya
+1: Put a ghostform counter on up to one target nontoken creature. It gains "When this creature dies or is put into exile, return it to its owner’s hand and create a 1/1 white Spirit creature token with flying." -3: Exile target nonland permanent. -7: You get an emblem with "At the beginning of your upkeep, you may cast a legendary spell from your hand, from your graveyard, or from among cards you own in exile without paying its mana cost."
Another WB walker, and it looks quite interesting to me. The -3 seems very versatile, and she ultimates very quickly. The Ultimate is not an instant win, but it does seems very powerful. Note that it can also get back walkers, including Kaya herself, as it says legendary spell, not just creautre. Biggest downside is being 5 mana and the +1 not protecting herself.
I think I prefer Sorin, Lord of Innistrad, Vindicate and Lingering Souls to this by quite a lot. But I might give it a test run as the fourth Orzhov card where I am currently playing Anguished Unmaking. In the end, I think she might cost one mana too much, so I think I will stick with Unmaking.
On a different note, I am disappointed she isn't dual wielding her hatchets in the art, having opted for purple icicles instead. Neither the standard or the full art is that great in my opinion.
It's still a bonkers magic card, don't get me wrong. But it's not enough better on turn 1 than being 1-2 mana ahead for the rest of the game that it makes up for all the games where it's just a colorless land, and recall is great no matter when you draw it while time walk is good (explore) to game winning whenever you draw it. Yes, every piece of power has a portion in the game where they "do nothing" except recall and time walk. The portion for library is substantially larger.
I think we are talking slightly past each other here. My comment started by explaining I rank library behind the other power, so we definitely agree on that part.
I was simply trying to point out that I think describing library as "do nothing" is strange when it is a land that even enters untapped. Sure, a Wastes isn't great, but it is very, very far from a dead draw, which is what I associate with the term "do nothing". The whole point is that the opportunity cost of including library in your deck is so miniscule, and then when you do get it in the opening hand your chances of winning increase very dramatically. I think the same can be said for the moxen, they are great because they are insane in the early game and has close to no opportunity cost. When drawn late, a Mox is rarely much to write home about.
So to summarize my own thoughts on the matter. Yes, library is worse than the other power. No, it isn't a "do nothing card" unless you get in at the start of the game.
The main problem with library is that it does stone nothing if you draw it with 5 or less cards in hand. Yes, it's absurd on turn 1, and against any non-aggro, non-combo opponent, you can't lose. However, if you draw it on turn 4 or later, it does nothing in a whole lot of games. None of the other absurd cards in cube are that do nothing later in the game.
I definitely place Library below plenty of the other power. But saying that none of the other absurd cards in cube are do nothing when drawn late seems flat out wrong. When drawing it turn 4+, if you are out of lands, the moxen will act as a land in many cases and so be fairly comparable to drawing Library. Even Sol Ring, which I would say is the best P1P1 tied with Recall can be pretty interchangable with a land when drawn later in the game, as you might not be in a situation where the ramp does anything for you.
I've always loved the design of the bounce lands, they are just so interesting compared to pretty much all other duals, and provide card advantage to boot. I would love to cube them. However, sadly, the power level is just to low. They are very slow and extremely weak against any form of land destruction/bounce. The slight upside they have with MDFC is not enough to push them to see play in a normal powered/unpowered cube, even at large size.
If I were to design a lower power cube I think the bounce lands would be my go to choice for the first cycle of lands, vivid lands being another cycle of weaker lands I enjoy would go in, and also play well with the bounce lands.
I know I am the odd-one-out here, but I've been keeping Tombstalker around for some time, and generally love the card. At the moment I haven't played him at 360 for a the last few years, but he is definitely in if I expand to 540. While not a very exciting card, it has won me so incredibly many matches in poxy, more grindy decks. As a play I am a major fan of grindy/prison style decks, where Tombstalker fits very well. I know he is not an objectively good card, he is a personal preference, but I also think he is slightly underrated/overlooked.
I think I will try out Murktide, but I don't think blue fits the poxy, low-resource style play as well, so I don't think it will play that well in the end. Testing will show.
Custom cards means cards you have designed yourself, or somehow altered the rules of. Most cubes don't play custom cards, but some do. A common reason for customizing cards are to play cards as they were before an errata, to simplify a rule or similar. A common example is cubes that play Chaos orb like an artifact that says: (1)(Tap): Destroy target permanent. Another common example are people who play Orcish Oriflamme or Oubliette misprints, these were both printed with the wrong mana cost, so you can get copies that lower CMC and thus more powerful.
This is where I disagree, and this was my main point. Playing snow basics in a cube is not like any other format. In no official limited format ever have you been allowed to add snow basics to your draft pool. Not in draft, and not in sealed. Instead you have needed to draft snow basics. The design of snow-matters card for limited strongly reflects this, where the pay-off necessitates that you also draft snow-covered lands during the draft. Only in constructed format can one freely add as many snow basics as you want, but Cube is inherently a limited format, where to me, the draft experience is the main reason to play it.
I know a lot of people play snow-covered basics in their cube, and I totally understand why, it means you get to play some unique and powerful cards. But my point was that this is changing the fundamentals of how a limited format usually works. It's your cube and your format, of course you decide how you play. But to me this goes against what I want cube to be. Some people also let people add as many tapped dual lands as they want to their draft pool. One cube I saw mentioned on Reddit let all players add one of each fetch and one of each dual to their pool. These are more drastic examples of changing the "fundamental rules" of how draft works, but I think adding snow-covered basics is basically the same as these examples at the most fundamental level.
My point about snow-cards feeling like "custom cards" is this: Because adding snow-covered basics to your pool is traditionally not allowed, adding this house rule is functionally equivalent to taking a sharpie to snow-cards and changing "snow permanents" or "snow lands" to "basic lands". I won't criticize anyone for playing snow in their cube, nor would I criticize anyone for playing custom cards. I was just presenting my thoughts on why I, personally, don't.
Another example: Some people also play only snow-covered basics in their cubes, saying you can't play non-snow basics - and then they add Cold Snap as an incredibly powerful aggro card. I mean, at that point, you might as well just design your own white sulfuric vortex and play that.
If I wanted to build a snow theme it would probably be in a Desert-style cube where all lands needs to be drafted, where some lands could be normal basics, some non-basics and some snow-basics perhaps.
With that said, I don't think any of these cards are terribly exciting to begin with. Also, calling Boreal Outrider a "mono-green Good-Fortune Unicorn" is a big exaggeration. You briefly mention it not working in persist combo, which is the main reason the unicorn is played, but it also doesn't work with tokens, which is another major downside.
I agree with your top 5 CMC3 creatures, though I'm not sure exactly where spellseeker would rank, as I play an unpowered cube myself.
Only three CMC3 creatures? I know that blue is the color with the fewest creatures, but that sounds low to me. Especially if you count Thieving Skydiver as a CMC3, which in reality has a flexible CMC. I think the creatures you refer to here are all pretty darn stellar, and so would definitely try to find room for more than three of them. If you link your cube, I'm sure I would find some other cards in blue I would much rather cut.
If I had to pick 3 of the 5, it is a bit tricky, because they all fill slightly different roles, and so I would want to look at the whole cube. However, Clique is definitely the best by far in my opinion. Best blue creature of them all.
I think this is a great point. I'm currently playing Vindicate, Lingering Souls, Lord of Innistrad and Anguished Unmaking. So to me, Kaya seemed more interesting, as trading out Anguished Unmaking for Kaya would give more lines of play, not less. But definitely agree that running Vindicate, Anguished Unmaking and Kaya would be very linear. I don't play Lurrus as my playerbase are not too big on black aggro or artisocrats, but I definitely see Lurrus as a better and more interesting card in the right cube.
Interesting. I would definitely rank new Kaya above OG Kaya, she seems much more versatile to me. If left unchecked she seems much more threatening than OG Kaya, and if you are slightly behind she also seems great, unconditional removal for one big threat to take over the game. If you are you further behind, neither will do much for you. Either way, I probably won't play either of them in the end.
Fair enough. In my environment WB sees a lot of play in control archetypes, especially Esper Control, and I view her mostly through that lens as a type of unconditional removal ala Anguished Unmaking.
I definitely rank Sorlin, Lord of Innistrad above her. Not sure about the others. Played Solemn Visitor for a while, but I never liked him that much. But to be fair, WB sees a lot of play as a control archetype in my cube, often as Esper Control, and probably less aristocrats/tokens. I might have evaluated Kaya a bit too heavily through that lens, where you always want a few unconditional removal like vindicate, anguished unmaking, etc. Kaya feels great there to me, where you can slot in a general win-con in the place of a removal.
Haha, yeah, I had to do a double take when I first saw her too - felt like a carbon copy of Vraska. However, I think this looks better than Vraska by a mile. Vraska's +1 is pretty useless, while Kaya's +1 can potentially provide a lot of value. The -3 being exile instead of destroy is a small upgrade, and the ult is way, way better.
After thinking more about this for a day, I think I definitely overrated her a bit when I first saw the spoiler. Think one could still argue for her being the second or third best of the WB walkers, but that does place her pretty far down the list in Orzhov I guess.
Kaya the Inexorable 3WB
Legendary Planeswalker - Kaya
+1: Put a ghostform counter on up to one target nontoken creature. It gains "When this creature dies or is put into exile, return it to its owner’s hand and create a 1/1 white Spirit creature token with flying."
-3: Exile target nonland permanent.
-7: You get an emblem with "At the beginning of your upkeep, you may cast a legendary spell from your hand, from your graveyard, or from among cards you own in exile without paying its mana cost."
Starting Loyalty: 5
------------------------------------------------------
Another WB walker, and it looks quite interesting to me. The -3 seems very versatile, and she ultimates very quickly. The Ultimate is not an instant win, but it does seems very powerful. Note that it can also get back walkers, including Kaya herself, as it says legendary spell, not just creautre. Biggest downside is being 5 mana and the +1 not protecting herself.
I think I prefer Sorin, Lord of Innistrad, Vindicate and Lingering Souls to this by quite a lot. But I might give it a test run as the fourth Orzhov card where I am currently playing Anguished Unmaking. In the end, I think she might cost one mana too much, so I think I will stick with Unmaking.
On a different note, I am disappointed she isn't dual wielding her hatchets in the art, having opted for purple icicles instead. Neither the standard or the full art is that great in my opinion.
I think we are talking slightly past each other here. My comment started by explaining I rank library behind the other power, so we definitely agree on that part.
I was simply trying to point out that I think describing library as "do nothing" is strange when it is a land that even enters untapped. Sure, a Wastes isn't great, but it is very, very far from a dead draw, which is what I associate with the term "do nothing". The whole point is that the opportunity cost of including library in your deck is so miniscule, and then when you do get it in the opening hand your chances of winning increase very dramatically. I think the same can be said for the moxen, they are great because they are insane in the early game and has close to no opportunity cost. When drawn late, a Mox is rarely much to write home about.
So to summarize my own thoughts on the matter. Yes, library is worse than the other power. No, it isn't a "do nothing card" unless you get in at the start of the game.
I definitely place Library below plenty of the other power. But saying that none of the other absurd cards in cube are do nothing when drawn late seems flat out wrong. When drawing it turn 4+, if you are out of lands, the moxen will act as a land in many cases and so be fairly comparable to drawing Library. Even Sol Ring, which I would say is the best P1P1 tied with Recall can be pretty interchangable with a land when drawn later in the game, as you might not be in a situation where the ramp does anything for you.
If I were to design a lower power cube I think the bounce lands would be my go to choice for the first cycle of lands, vivid lands being another cycle of weaker lands I enjoy would go in, and also play well with the bounce lands.