I'm inclined to agree with Leelue here. Ruthless Sniper worked in AKH limited because it was just stuffed with Cycling commons and uncommons, so it wouldn't be hard to build your deck around it and a few other Cycling payoffs like Drake Haven. I'm having a much tougher time imagining a cube with enough self-discard effects to make Ruthless Sniper consistent, and it's not even that great of a payoff even if you do.
Speaking of AKH limited build-arounds, it was pretty hard to make Nest of Scarabs do enough in that format to justify being a 3 mana do-nothing, and I don't think there are anywhere near enough enablers that make the cut to make it worthwhile for C/Ube.
There's so much love for Feldon, perhaps I should give him another try, the last time I did he just didn't see much play.. The biggest knock I have against Feldon is the fact that he's double red, but not particularly aggressive. Most graveyard centric decks in my cube tend to only splash red for things like FTK or Manic Vandal.
I think that a card for Ashnod is long overdue. From the cards with her name and the flavor text on them, we know that she's built some terrifying weaponry, performs gruesome experiments on people that brings them great power at the cost of their humanity, and she can defile her opponents' resources. Oh, and she's also very frugal. If it's true that we're going to be visiting Dominaria soon in an upcoming set, then with any luck we'll finally get the Ashnod creature card we've all been waiting for.
I'm hoping to learn more about the Raven Man when we go back to Dominaria.
This card is one of the few ways for red to get card advantage, so I'm happy to run both copies. Sure, Arc Trail is more efficient for the most common use cases of Arc Lightning, but it's great to also have the option to 1-for-1 an X/3 with it.
Speaking of which, Arc Trail is probably the single cube card I'm most hopeful about getting a straight up functional reprint of that I'd be happy to run.
Since I run the full cycle of Signets, I think it's important for the green ramp spells I run to be clearly better than an on-color Signet in order for it to qualify for a slot in my green section. STEve gets there because the body is useful in any number of ways, but pretty much all of the 2 CMC green ramp sorceries don't.
Do y'all count the signets or do you not consider them fixing?
They're fixing, but you can't really think of them the same way as dual lands because they can't just replace a basic land during deckbuilding. Also, more aggressive decks tend not to have much use for mana rocks the way midrange, control and ramp decks do, but they do often want some fixing in the form of land. You can run the Signets to provide an option for ramp (and I really like having the whole cycle), but you really should be running them in addition to any land-based fixing you want, not as a replacement for it.
I played Rescue From the Underworld in Theros block limited and a really janky Standard budget brew, and I can't say I'd want to run it in my cube. It's flavorful, it can blank a removal spell, and get some extra mileage out of ETB and death triggers, but it's also painfully slow. Not only do you have to pay 5 mana and sac a creature you've already invested mana into for it to do anything, but also because the creatures come back during your upkeep whatever you bring back still has summoning sickness even if you cast it during the opponent's end step. It's unique, and it does enough different things at the same time, that I wouldn't say it's completely unplayable, but you'd have to be going pretty deep on recursive strategies to want it, because it's so much less efficient than Victimize or Dread Return. A 1 seems right here.
Ruthless Disposal - 0? 1? Description - Did anyone test this, or have relevant experience from EM limited that might translate? It's a 3 for 2 which is bad..., but it kills everything that can be targeted… but the '3' card cost also includes 5 mana for this and on average probably at least a few mana you spent casting the creature you sacrifice… can't cast it if your board is empty... can't cast it as a top deck... Seems pretty clunky to me.
I remember this card well from EMN limited, and opinions seemed to be pretty divided on this card among limited players. It may be card disadvantage, but there were plenty of situations where tossing your worst card and worst creature that's outclassed in the later game to get rid of the opponent's worst creature would be a 3-for-2 you'd be happy to take. There were also plenty of creatures that weren't even really staying away for good like Ghoulcaller's Apprentice or Haunted Dead in that environment, so it was decent removal in that environment. However, paying 5 mana for unconditional removal is a great deal in retail limited, in Peasant cube, not so much. Comparing this to cards like Ashes to Ashes and Reckless Spite makes Ruthless Disposal look a lot worse, and I don't think it's actually better than the 5-mana unconditional single-target removal they keep printing at common like Final Reward. I think we can give it a 0, but I could see cube managers that are actively depowering their removal wanting this as a pseudo-Damnation that takes some extra work.
As much as I appreciate the low opportunity cost and ease of main decking a card like Llanowar Reborn, I ultimately have a hard time bringing myself to dedicating a cube slot to this kind of lower-impact utility land. I was really intrigued by Ifnir Deadlands, and I still think it's one of the best utility lands we've seen in a really long time below rare, but I just can't find a cut for it.
There are only a few utility lands I run in my C/Ube:
I'm always really happy to see a common or uncommon that's been pushed enough to be cube-worthy because they're so easy to get on prerelease and so cheap to pimp out, and Whirler Rogue has fit the bill quite nicely. This one is better suited to cube than many of the more pushed (un)commons because of the many already-mentioned cube cards and archetypes (plus Reveillark!) it has synergies with. Blue 4s are a pretty competitive spot, but I still don't see this going anywhere anytime soon.
CT says my cube is only about 25% commons and uncommons, but I run a lot of FNM and Game Day promos, which they count as a separate rarity, so it's probably closer to 30%.
My cube has 33,5% c+uc. That ratio has gone down over the years. It was once over 40%, but Wizards prints less cubable commons than they once did and really pushed uncommons are also not that plentiful.
I think WotC still prints plenty of pushed uncommons, but they tend to come in the form of creatures instead of spells. In recent sets we've gotten some pretty absurd uncommon creatures like Kessig Prowler, Manglehorn, Heir of Falkenrath, and the emergency banned-in-Standard Reflector Mage. They definitely don't print uncommon removal spells like they used to, though. We're lucky to seel a proper Shock variant in retail limited these days, much less Doom Blade.
This is what I was driving at. I don't want to get into a semantics war which is where this feels like it's going.
Nah, we can do without a semantics war. I think I get what you're driving at, that a cube that goes deep enough into combo like the MTGO Vintage Cube uses so much space on combo pieces and enablers that something has to give, and that's effective midrange support. I'd submit that they've also given up on most of the aggro support that's popular in the MTGS cubes, with zero aggro support in black or green. I built my cube with no combo except for reanimator, and added combos that were the easiest to support with mostly pieces that could fit into non-combo based decks. Combos come together all the time in my cube as well as "fair" decks, but it's rare for decks to come together that rely entirely on combo to win, it's usually just part of a more fair archetype (often control).
I can certainly understand anyone not wanting to run only removal spells in your Golgari section, but along with Pernicious Deed it's one of the two I've chosen because it's great to have that good of a catch-all removal spell in a color pair that doesn't really get much that effect otherwise on a single spell. As efficient as Abrupt Decay is, I think it's more important to run support for graveyard based decks in my remaining Golgari slots, so that stays out.
I haven't broken singleton in my cube since my initial janky budget build which had multiple cycles of Guildgates, although if they hadn't come out with the FTV reprint of Burning of Xinye I probably would be running a second copy of Wildfire by now. I'm also sometimes tempted to run a second copy of Armageddon until they reprint Ravages of War.
Speaking of AKH limited build-arounds, it was pretty hard to make Nest of Scarabs do enough in that format to justify being a 3 mana do-nothing, and I don't think there are anywhere near enough enablers that make the cut to make it worthwhile for C/Ube.
Zero seems right for both of these cards to me.
Spell Queller
BONUS QUESTION
What's your favorite Spirit card in MTG?
I think that a card for Ashnod is long overdue. From the cards with her name and the flavor text on them, we know that she's built some terrifying weaponry, performs gruesome experiments on people that brings them great power at the cost of their humanity, and she can defile her opponents' resources. Oh, and she's also very frugal. If it's true that we're going to be visiting Dominaria soon in an upcoming set, then with any luck we'll finally get the Ashnod creature card we've all been waiting for.
Who's the Raven Man?
Feldon of the Second Path
BONUS QUESTION
What MTG lore character would you most like to see a (new) creature card printed for?
Speaking of which, Arc Trail is probably the single cube card I'm most hopeful about getting a straight up functional reprint of that I'd be happy to run.
Arc Lightning // Flames of the Firebrand
BONUS QUESTION
What card would you most like to see a functional reprint of?
My only green non-creature based ramp is also Cultivate and Kodama's Reach plus Garruk Wildspeaker and Nissa, Worldwaker.
They're fixing, but you can't really think of them the same way as dual lands because they can't just replace a basic land during deckbuilding. Also, more aggressive decks tend not to have much use for mana rocks the way midrange, control and ramp decks do, but they do often want some fixing in the form of land. You can run the Signets to provide an option for ramp (and I really like having the whole cycle), but you really should be running them in addition to any land-based fixing you want, not as a replacement for it.
I played Rescue From the Underworld in Theros block limited and a really janky Standard budget brew, and I can't say I'd want to run it in my cube. It's flavorful, it can blank a removal spell, and get some extra mileage out of ETB and death triggers, but it's also painfully slow. Not only do you have to pay 5 mana and sac a creature you've already invested mana into for it to do anything, but also because the creatures come back during your upkeep whatever you bring back still has summoning sickness even if you cast it during the opponent's end step. It's unique, and it does enough different things at the same time, that I wouldn't say it's completely unplayable, but you'd have to be going pretty deep on recursive strategies to want it, because it's so much less efficient than Victimize or Dread Return. A 1 seems right here.
I remember this card well from EMN limited, and opinions seemed to be pretty divided on this card among limited players. It may be card disadvantage, but there were plenty of situations where tossing your worst card and worst creature that's outclassed in the later game to get rid of the opponent's worst creature would be a 3-for-2 you'd be happy to take. There were also plenty of creatures that weren't even really staying away for good like Ghoulcaller's Apprentice or Haunted Dead in that environment, so it was decent removal in that environment. However, paying 5 mana for unconditional removal is a great deal in retail limited, in Peasant cube, not so much. Comparing this to cards like Ashes to Ashes and Reckless Spite makes Ruthless Disposal look a lot worse, and I don't think it's actually better than the 5-mana unconditional single-target removal they keep printing at common like Final Reward. I think we can give it a 0, but I could see cube managers that are actively depowering their removal wanting this as a pseudo-Damnation that takes some extra work.
There are only a few utility lands I run in my C/Ube:
I also cut Maze of Ith in my most recent update for being too oppressive.
Rampant Growth
BONUS QUESTION
What non-creature based green ramp cards are you running in your cube?
CT says my cube is only about 25% commons and uncommons, but I run a lot of FNM and Game Day promos, which they count as a separate rarity, so it's probably closer to 30%.
I think WotC still prints plenty of pushed uncommons, but they tend to come in the form of creatures instead of spells. In recent sets we've gotten some pretty absurd uncommon creatures like Kessig Prowler, Manglehorn, Heir of Falkenrath, and the emergency banned-in-Standard Reflector Mage. They definitely don't print uncommon removal spells like they used to, though. We're lucky to seel a proper Shock variant in retail limited these days, much less Doom Blade.
Whirler Rogue
BONUS QUESTION
How much of your cube is commons and uncommons (if you have a CT page, you can see a rarity chart under the "Analysis" tab)?
Nah, we can do without a semantics war. I think I get what you're driving at, that a cube that goes deep enough into combo like the MTGO Vintage Cube uses so much space on combo pieces and enablers that something has to give, and that's effective midrange support. I'd submit that they've also given up on most of the aggro support that's popular in the MTGS cubes, with zero aggro support in black or green. I built my cube with no combo except for reanimator, and added combos that were the easiest to support with mostly pieces that could fit into non-combo based decks. Combos come together all the time in my cube as well as "fair" decks, but it's rare for decks to come together that rely entirely on combo to win, it's usually just part of a more fair archetype (often control).
As for Maelstrom Pulse....
I can certainly understand anyone not wanting to run only removal spells in your Golgari section, but along with Pernicious Deed it's one of the two I've chosen because it's great to have that good of a catch-all removal spell in a color pair that doesn't really get much that effect otherwise on a single spell. As efficient as Abrupt Decay is, I think it's more important to run support for graveyard based decks in my remaining Golgari slots, so that stays out.
I haven't broken singleton in my cube since my initial janky budget build which had multiple cycles of Guildgates, although if they hadn't come out with the FTV reprint of Burning of Xinye I probably would be running a second copy of Wildfire by now. I'm also sometimes tempted to run a second copy of Armageddon until they reprint Ravages of War.
Maelstrom Pulse
BONUS QUESTION
Do you now, or have you ever broken singleton?