I feel like Leaping Augur is worse than what we have as a spells-matters creature. I like the ETB-rummage though, it's an effect I have been wanting on a decent red creature. Not sure this is it for me. I'm almost more interested in Chandra's Pyreling. It's difficult to set it up, and probably too fragile, but I can imagine it being fun to try to craft a deck where it works.
Archdemon's Vessel seems too bad "on the front side" to consider. I don't know, it can serve double duty as a chump-blocker to buy you time as well as being a reanimation-target..?
Concecrated Veteran seems better on defence at first glance, since it turns all your cards into free combat-tricks it looks hard to attack into. It does open you up for a two for one against -1/-1 and exile effects though. It is also decent on attack, so perhaps the decision hinges on whether you want a white 2-drop with more general application or one that is aggro-only.
Without having looked carefully into the four-drops available for that deck, Tide Skimmer looks like a decent addition to the UW skies deck.
(3U for 2/3 flier with "Whenever you attack with two or more creatures with flying, draw a card.")
Why is Force of Will a "technical uncommon"? Alliances had real rares, I believe. In 12-card boosters if I remember correctly. But I still think each booster had dedicated rare-slots.
And I think Purple's points are good:
-Aggro suffers more from the good removal (specially 2-for-1) than from a lack of fixing, IMO.
-Aggro can often play ETBT-lands without massive drawbacks (although sometimes they will bite you, of course).
RW in particular, and also RB, can have very good aggro decks. Often, I have been on the receiving end of these and found that my random grizzly bears don't stem the bleeding as planned because of stuff like Ahn-Crop Crasher, Territorial Hammerskull, Madcap Skills, or even just a Kongming, "Sleeping Dragon" coming down and making my blocks bad.
And while tapped fixing is suboptimal, particularly for aggro, most decks and games don't play out exactly on curve, so going two-drop into two-drop+tapland into four-drop is a good line too.
I know people on here have also had good results with pushing blue aggro.
Interestingly, like how the shocklands aren't really that powerful without fetchlands, the oposite also holds true. Fetchlands with no fetchable duals are fairly weak; they only "tap for a single colour". It is the combination of the two that takes things way above the top, a few duals and suddenly your fetchlands can get 3-4 colours. So if you wished to push landfall or up the amount of shuffle-effects, I don't think going with just fetches would give "too good" mana.
I've never moved in, but my thought would be if I'd go with rare lands to go with temples plus painlands.
As a mutating creature spell resolves, instead of entering the battlefield, it merges with its target into one creature. Its controller chooses to put the resolving mutating creature spell on top of its target or underneath it. You'll end up with a pile of cards (or tokens—we'll get to that in a second) that all represents a single creature.
As I understand this, the whole pile of mutants dies at the same time, so why would I mutate? I can choose to have a 3/2 with vigilance and a 5/4 with reach, or a 5/4 with vigilance and reach. Wouldn't it be correct to choose two separate creatures in 99+% of normal circumstances? I guess within Ikoria, the "whenever this creature mutates" stuff may be enough of an incentive, but there is no way that there will be enough powerful cards for that to be viable in most cubes unless you completely overhaul your cube to accomodate it.
Thinking a bit: I guess small creatures with relevant abilities could make it worth it to mutate over having two bodies. Like a Flying Men that can act as a Flight on your 5/5 later.
//
Cool to see cycling return. The red two-drop (1Rfor 2/2 with cycling:1) and "whenever you cycle another card, this does 1 damage to opp.") actually seems decent, but not quite there for cube I suppose.
Lantern, you mention Chemister's Insight: Isn't that just the upgrade to Deep Analysis you want? It still "rewards" self mill, but is better on the front end.
And Kryptnyt: On turn 4 you can happily play Hymn into a morph, as unless they were ramping they won't have the 1U available to unmorph.
I don't think Hymn is good for the gameplay experience. There is something about nostalgia and about playing with the most powerful broken cards and so on. But that much power combined with that much randomness isn't my cup of tea.
Interesting on Cultivate, but as I love 4-colour green, I still value it over Rampant Growth.
At what point is the "fixing" on these lands worse than a basic though? It is not free to put Cloudcrest Lake in your deck, and certainly not Aysen Abbey and friends. At some points a basic plains will be a better draw since it at least taps for one of your colours for free.
If the fixing in a cube is so bad, then in two colour decks it is probably correct to just stick to basics. And it may even just be incorrect to play 3+ colours, since the "fixing tax" isn't worth the improved card quality of a splash.
The ramping aspect is somewhat nifty I believe, but the environment must somehow support it. I.e. your games must go long enough so that storing mana is viable, and there must be something to spend that mana on. If you have somehow crafted an environment in which Worldspine Wurm is a feasible ramp-target, then the lands probably work. I don't think they would work in my Cube though.
I like the mana batteries in principle. I'd love to see slightly stronger versions, but I'm not sure if there is a place where they'd be worth it over other mana rocks without them just being too powerful. Maybe at 3 to cast and 1T to store?
Archdemon's Vessel seems too bad "on the front side" to consider. I don't know, it can serve double duty as a chump-blocker to buy you time as well as being a reanimation-target..?
Without having looked carefully into the four-drops available for that deck, Tide Skimmer looks like a decent addition to the UW skies deck.
(3U for 2/3 flier with "Whenever you attack with two or more creatures with flying, draw a card.")
Not bad, but worse than Relief Captain I would say. Perhaps for bigger cubes that are really pushing the +1/+1 counter theme?
It's not exactly the same, but Elvish Piper kind of fills this space.
I think Natural Order is a good choice, as is probably Channel. Beyond those already mentioned, I could perhaps see Magus of the glimpse?
And I think Purple's points are good:
-Aggro suffers more from the good removal (specially 2-for-1) than from a lack of fixing, IMO.
-Aggro can often play ETBT-lands without massive drawbacks (although sometimes they will bite you, of course).
RW in particular, and also RB, can have very good aggro decks. Often, I have been on the receiving end of these and found that my random grizzly bears don't stem the bleeding as planned because of stuff like Ahn-Crop Crasher, Territorial Hammerskull, Madcap Skills, or even just a Kongming, "Sleeping Dragon" coming down and making my blocks bad.
And while tapped fixing is suboptimal, particularly for aggro, most decks and games don't play out exactly on curve, so going two-drop into two-drop+tapland into four-drop is a good line too.
I know people on here have also had good results with pushing blue aggro.
I've never moved in, but my thought would be if I'd go with rare lands to go with temples plus painlands.
As I understand this, the whole pile of mutants dies at the same time, so why would I mutate? I can choose to have a 3/2 with vigilance and a 5/4 with reach, or a 5/4 with vigilance and reach. Wouldn't it be correct to choose two separate creatures in 99+% of normal circumstances? I guess within Ikoria, the "whenever this creature mutates" stuff may be enough of an incentive, but there is no way that there will be enough powerful cards for that to be viable in most cubes unless you completely overhaul your cube to accomodate it.
Thinking a bit: I guess small creatures with relevant abilities could make it worth it to mutate over having two bodies. Like a Flying Men that can act as a Flight on your 5/5 later.
//
Cool to see cycling return. The red two-drop (1Rfor 2/2 with cycling:1) and "whenever you cycle another card, this does 1 damage to opp.") actually seems decent, but not quite there for cube I suppose.
And Kryptnyt: On turn 4 you can happily play Hymn into a morph, as unless they were ramping they won't have the 1U available to unmorph.
I don't think Hymn is good for the gameplay experience. There is something about nostalgia and about playing with the most powerful broken cards and so on. But that much power combined with that much randomness isn't my cup of tea.
Interesting on Cultivate, but as I love 4-colour green, I still value it over Rampant Growth.
If the fixing in a cube is so bad, then in two colour decks it is probably correct to just stick to basics. And it may even just be incorrect to play 3+ colours, since the "fixing tax" isn't worth the improved card quality of a splash.
The ramping aspect is somewhat nifty I believe, but the environment must somehow support it. I.e. your games must go long enough so that storing mana is viable, and there must be something to spend that mana on. If you have somehow crafted an environment in which Worldspine Wurm is a feasible ramp-target, then the lands probably work. I don't think they would work in my Cube though.
I like the mana batteries in principle. I'd love to see slightly stronger versions, but I'm not sure if there is a place where they'd be worth it over other mana rocks without them just being too powerful. Maybe at 3 to cast and 1T to store?