1 for To Arms! ? You can probably get a favorable block a fair amount of the time and if it's useless you can always just cycle it. That's a really good worst case for a card dependent on board state.
Why would you want to play 3 color aggro outside of constructed anyway? That's insanely greedy. The best limited aggro decks are always going to be focused on one color and basically splash the second. Those decks don't really need painlands or any other rare fixing.
I mean, I drafted 4 Loyal Pegasus during a Theros draft (yes, I actually won that one), I love aggro as much as the next guy, but I'm perfectly happy with running tri-lands and vivids only. I don't think you need more unless you want constructed-like mana bases.
That sentence is in there for two specific reasons though. 1) They did not want another fetchable set of lands in Standard at the moment and 2) they wanted a generic set of guildgates without lifegain to print whenever they feel like it. They have their generic guildgates now and the fetches are going to rotate at some point. Given that, there's no reason to believe we won't see new and useful lands at C/U in the future. Heck, without the fetches, we might have that set of dual lands right now.
Huh, true. Don't know what I was thinking there. It would work with cards like Wood Elves, Krosan Verge, Farseek and Bant Panorama though. Also, the land cyclers get better. There are a lot of cards that deserve a second look if we ever get those duals with basic land types.
In any case, I think the important point to take away is not so much the specific lands they were discussing, but the fact that they were discussing lands other than guildgates with slight variations at all and that these lands were in fact part of the development cycle for a time.
Grip of the Roil is CRAAAAAAZY good. The Grixis player resolved this in almost every game and it was an unbelievable tempo play every time. This was a last-minute addition I made that very nearly didn't make the cut, but I was curious to see how it would play out. Hoooooly crap.
Sorry for the double post, but very relevant and very different topic:
EEF 8/22/14: Coastal Tower reprint.
SPS 11/2/14: Probably not important now, but I don't think that renaming only a few is right.
DOH 11/18/14: These could be tri-lands that tap for two colors plus colorless.
DH 12/15/14: We still need to have the group conversation about basic land types on these.
ID 1/8/15: Adding basic land types per dev meeting.
ID 1/26/15: Removing basic land types based on further conversation.
AP 1/27/15: Great. I don't want land types or any other frills here. We need to suck it up and print lands we're okay using forever in everything while still giving us maximum future design space.
Those are design file notes from the latest M-Files for Meandering River. Good reasons to be hopeful for more good Peasant lands, eventually.
I'd do themes for three-color combinations instead of decks for guilds by simply looking at the cards you want to play. For example, you notice you have a lot of GW +1/+1 counters cards already, so that's a theme. You also see red has a bunch of creatures who naturally get counters, so that fits right into that. Naya counters, easy. That way you don't have to "invent" one deck per guild and you strengthen that theme in three different guilds at the same time. You'll automatically have several possible decks per guild and the guilds don't have to support it equally to make it viable.
Next you can adjust your list of cards to fit your themes better, every time you think about a new card you can check if it fits into those themes and you can do targeted research if you want to include more cards that fit a specific theme instead of being generically good. Continuing the above example, you can find cards like Rage Forger or decide you're playing Goblin Glory Chaser over Reckless Waif, because both are good for aggro, but one fits your Naya theme better.
What I mean is Otherwordly Journey gives you additional options to mess with the math in race situations or situations where your opponent is trying to stabilize. Removing their only blocker for a turn can put you far enough ahead that you can attack into the improved blocker and still do lethal damage or it can act as a removal spell if that blocker prevents you from killing them. I hope I'm explaining it better this time.
Going down the rabbit hole for a moment: Those situations become more relevant if you play the combat-based nerfed white removal (Condemn or Immolating Glare), like I do. It lets me add to white's removal suite without actually improving it, if that makes sense. Most of the time Otherworldly Journey is just a flicker effect, but sometimes it can be a more expensive Path to Exile, though that's very specific to my cube setup, which also has +1/+1 counter synergies.
Also I like Lyev Decree at 1. Thinking about it, it's the kind of card you might have lying around if you're just starting out with cube and haven't been playing Magic for too long or the kind of card you can find in the commons box at your local store. I know in the beginning I was always looking for cards that I already owned that were cubable at all.
Blinding Beam is close enough to Lyev Decree's immediate effect and has major upside, but it's of course more expensive. Decree still looks ok for what it is though, I'm not sure how you handle the grading in a case like that.
Otherworldly Journey can also be used to remove potential blockers temporarily. Doesn't really change the grade I guess, but you're probably going to do this more often than taking out attackers. There are situations where you can set up an attack so that the +1/+1 counter on that blocker doesn't matter anymore, even if you don't kill them outright the turn you journeyed their creature.
edit:
Also Immolating Glare is solid, fair removal for White for anyone who wants it (so a 1 I guess). Unless we're not doing OGW cards for some reason?
Ethereal Armor has been ok for me. Obvious risks, but if you've got an enchantment theme in White it's usually an efficient card. There are worse things than being 2-for-1ed if they use their removal on an early game creature with Ethereal Armor rather than my more expensive creatures. I also like that it signals an enchantment theme.
I don't run Hexproof creatures other than Plated Crusher, but I also nerfed some of the removal. If your removal is very good or mostly kills outright rather than using stat reduction, you're probably better off with something like the Hyena Umbra.
Wrath effects feel off to me, provided you actually want to maintain a peasant-like cube. That's one of the really significant lines to cross, because of the implications it has for the rest of the cube.
Random peasant-like cards I can think of right now:
I missed that you had it in the Orzhov section, but I do think Grim Guardian is the kind of card that would probably be "niche" in Evaluate Everything, so yeah, makes sense to list it. Even in the other enchantment decks it buys you a bit of time to get going if you need it.
1 for To Arms! ? You can probably get a favorable block a fair amount of the time and if it's useless you can always just cycle it. That's a really good worst case for a card dependent on board state.
I mean, I drafted 4 Loyal Pegasus during a Theros draft (yes, I actually won that one), I love aggro as much as the next guy, but I'm perfectly happy with running tri-lands and vivids only. I don't think you need more unless you want constructed-like mana bases.
In any case, I think the important point to take away is not so much the specific lands they were discussing, but the fact that they were discussing lands other than guildgates with slight variations at all and that these lands were in fact part of the development cycle for a time.
How often did he get to surge it?
Those are design file notes from the latest M-Files for Meandering River. Good reasons to be hopeful for more good Peasant lands, eventually.
Next you can adjust your list of cards to fit your themes better, every time you think about a new card you can check if it fits into those themes and you can do targeted research if you want to include more cards that fit a specific theme instead of being generically good. Continuing the above example, you can find cards like Rage Forger or decide you're playing Goblin Glory Chaser over Reckless Waif, because both are good for aggro, but one fits your Naya theme better.
What I mean is Otherwordly Journey gives you additional options to mess with the math in race situations or situations where your opponent is trying to stabilize. Removing their only blocker for a turn can put you far enough ahead that you can attack into the improved blocker and still do lethal damage or it can act as a removal spell if that blocker prevents you from killing them. I hope I'm explaining it better this time.
Going down the rabbit hole for a moment: Those situations become more relevant if you play the combat-based nerfed white removal (Condemn or Immolating Glare), like I do. It lets me add to white's removal suite without actually improving it, if that makes sense. Most of the time Otherworldly Journey is just a flicker effect, but sometimes it can be a more expensive Path to Exile, though that's very specific to my cube setup, which also has +1/+1 counter synergies.
Also I like Lyev Decree at 1. Thinking about it, it's the kind of card you might have lying around if you're just starting out with cube and haven't been playing Magic for too long or the kind of card you can find in the commons box at your local store. I know in the beginning I was always looking for cards that I already owned that were cubable at all.
Otherworldly Journey can also be used to remove potential blockers temporarily. Doesn't really change the grade I guess, but you're probably going to do this more often than taking out attackers. There are situations where you can set up an attack so that the +1/+1 counter on that blocker doesn't matter anymore, even if you don't kill them outright the turn you journeyed their creature.
edit:
Also Immolating Glare is solid, fair removal for White for anyone who wants it (so a 1 I guess). Unless we're not doing OGW cards for some reason?
I don't run Hexproof creatures other than Plated Crusher, but I also nerfed some of the removal. If your removal is very good or mostly kills outright rather than using stat reduction, you're probably better off with something like the Hyena Umbra.
I also cannot believe Snapcaster would be ok in Peasant.
Random peasant-like cards I can think of right now:
Maybe Pain Seer or Pyrewild Shaman. Outland Colossus, Mantis Rider and Reaper of the Wilds also aren't too far off. Colfenor's Urn is whacky, but might fit as well.