MTG Salvation

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The problem with Banding creatures is their horrible mana cost to body ratio. Sometimes the effect can be useful, but usually you want to have the cards do enough on their own. Reading paragraphs during the games isnt too great either, since the creatures lack the tooltip. Thats only a problem on the firsts drafts though.

Maybe its because you play jut for a short period, but mana cost becomes never irrelevant, you want to have more plays a turn or bluff answers. Paying 5 for a 2/2 is huge tempoloss. You also want to have a reasonable mana curve in your deck.

I also doubt the games go that long, unless your playgroup is as unexperienced. RG Beatz for example looks pretty fast to me. http://www.cubetutor.com/cubedeck/1042880

Rot Wolf doesnt draw you cards, it gets ignored until you have 6-8 poison counters and then gets removed or chumped.

Peregrine Drake is pretty mediocre. And as said, it sends wrong signals.

A card can be nostalgic without being around at that time. Its just the flavor of the yesterdays that makes them interesting. We are playing paupercube and magic in general for a while here now and playtested a lot of cards. Many of the cards you run dont work, at least not in the general poweroriented and not even neccessarily in the archetype driven ones. As you see in my sig, i have both approaches.

That said, I think its always cool to see something different, but right now your cube looks quite unbalanced. You run a lot of the powerful cards as well as the packfiller. Maybe you want to try to build an old school pauper cube with only the old frame? Or start there and then add more modern cards on the same powerlevel and bring more depths into some mechanics like morph. I dont think it works well the other way around (starting with a modern powerlevel and water it down with the old school stuff)

hmm

hehe, too bad my playgroup fell apart with the years. some left town, others lost interest or dont have time because of family. so i almost exclusively play on xmage now, so my players are bound to my balances. some give good feedback, nobody complained about greens (almost) lack of removalmthough. i run cartouche, lignify and snakeform right now. but also a bunch of deathtouch creatures, which help against hexproof, fit the color better and overall do a good if not better job as plain removal. green basically ignores what the opponent does and smash faces.

but yeah, the t1 lost some appeal for me over the years as well. partly because i played it so much, but also because the decks are so streamlined. when i created the cube i wanted legacy-like meta and thats kinda what it is, highly competitive, but lost a lot of limiteds durdly and interactive characteristic. thats why i like the t2 better, it has way more cute interactions than just brutal power and it runs different cards that you would see in constructed.
that said, i mentioned it earlier, paupercubes in general play less diversified than vintagecubes and get old rather quick.
So both cubes mixed together becoming a 720 card cube is the best experience. because you wont see the same decks and cards over and over again and it makes drafting for the cognizant cuber more interesting/random. i basically just stayed 360 in paper, because its so much hassle with shuffling, sleeving, maintaining and carrying 720 cards around. (but also twice the fun balancing them) but if youre not as lazy like me, i definitely recommend going 720 or 540 at least.

EDIT:
posted at the same time, eh.
Ambuscade also opens yourself for 2:1s

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decrease all ratings by one level and youre good to go

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I think the game is a horrible place to spend money on, because of the fast rotations and the unavailability of direct purchase of singles. If your goal is to play competitive (constructed) magic play MTGO, is vastly superior when it comes to that, offers all formats and actually even has the better interface. And you can cashout at any point.

Arena is for casual fun and limited (where ofc you can also sink a lot of money into). If you only enjoy the game trashing F2P decks with your netdeck, then in my opinion are a very poor guy.

Quote from leadfeather89 »

Quote from VariSami »

... something like a copied Hordeling Outburst would be living the dream.

3RRR for a bunch of tokens hmm. That doesn't seem like a dream to me. Even my proposed 2RR for two Lightning Bolts to clear a board or 6 to the dome seems.... mediocre.

Quote from VariSami »

However, it still acts a type of Azure Mage in the absence of decent targets to copy and once you have the mana to spare.

While not very common at all, I have drawn 2 cards in one turn during an opponent's endstep from Azure Mage, which wouldn't be allowed from League Guildmage.

I'm not feelin' this card.

uhm. a copied Outburst is RRR4 and a copied Bolt is RR1 which seems quite good.

Wind is defintely outclassed by Spell Shrivel. Its really rare that +4 doesnt counter the stuff you want, unless its really lategame and then Winds wouldnt need extra support to become maybe better.

Havent played Oasis Ritualist in the end, although i wanted to, I went with Ondu Giant and Wild Wanderer instead. The problem with Ritalist is, that it cant attack or block when you want to ramp with it, which kinda obsoletes the mana advantage it gives you.

I think it can definitely be said, that this set has been pretty incredible with regards to the amount of cubeable cards. Since I cut the Campi/Draw Duals in exchange for the Gates I now had 5 slots for monocolor cards and decided to add a whole bunch of new cards (Out > In):

→ Skybridge Towers > Black Dragon Gate: What can I say. The Thriving Lands where amazing and so are these. 5 Slots for basically perfect fixing.
→ Waterfront District > Citadel Gate: "
→ Tramway Station > Cliffgate: "
→ Racers' Ring > Manor Gate: "
→ Botanical Plaza > Sea Gate: "
→ Silverquill Campus > Roving Harper: Sure it's no Inspiring Overseer, but so is every blue card no Mulldrifter. A "free" 2/2 is still really strong.
→ Prismari Campus > Breath Weapon: I like getting more Wraths in pauper, which deal more than 1.
→ Witherbloom Campus > Winter Eladrin: Yeah... Man-o'-War I guess.
→ Lorehold Campus > Undercellar Myconid: I really want Swarm to be a Naya archetype and while R and W have more than enough good cards I was always hoping they would print more 2 for 1 green creatures. This is mostly here for archetype support, rather than raw power level.
→ Spore Crawler > Cloakwood Swarmkeeper: "
→ Terrain Elemental > Carefree Swinemaster: "
→ Shimmerdrift Vale > Bronze Walrus: I think a watered down colorless Llanowar Visionary, that can fix mana is still good enough.
→ Cruel Witness > Stunning Strike: I really like how they worded this, whith the combat clause. Makes it really flexible.
→ Ballynock Cohort > Greatsword of Tyr: I've always really liked this type of effect and I think with the fact, that it perpetually grows and is really fairly costed overall it might actually be worth it.
→ Daybreak Chimera > Blessed Hippogriff: I was surprised to see that the spell is actually just 1 mana. It really doesn't go much cheaper than that and the 2 for 1 potential for this card is really high.
→ Clawing Torment > Arms of Hadar: A one-sided pseudo wrath seems pretty insane actually. This might actually be a staple.
→ Boot Nipper > Guildsworn Prowler: This seems like a decent upgrade.

On my watchlsit are Clockwork Fox, Sea Hag and Mold Folk for my black sacrifice theme.

Edit: Since my playgroup has voted to kick monarch out, I'm not gonna include Initiative for obvious reasons.

I finally found time to look through the whole spoiler and read to all the the posts.

Regarding Breath Weapon and red control: I supported this archetype for a long time and it was quite decent even before Cannonade. There are certainly a few interesting cards in red, which support this archetype like Rukh Egg and I did actually quite like Wall of Heat as it's really hard to deal with and can basically prevent every X/2 from attacking.

Blur is kind of interesting if you support the Archaeomancer etc - Ghostly Flicker/Displace/Ephemerate Combo as this can simply draw a card for 3 mana as often as you like with an Archaeomancer-like creature on the board.

I do like booth Clockwork Fox and Carefree Swinemaster. Clockwork Fox is very similar to Spore Crawler, which was actually a decent card in green before. The Swinemaster is a decent blocker, which can act as an opportunistic attacker. It also works fine with combat tricks.

I also realised, that no one has talked about Bronze Walrus. It's obviously no Llanowar Visionary, but Scry 2 is certainly valueable and being able to go into any deck and actually fix your mana instead of just seems really nice.

White

Astral Confrontation - Bad. Hard removal is almost never terrible, but in 1v1 you can only reduce the cost by 1 for 4 mana which is still overcosted.

Bane's Invoker - Bad. I'm trying to be a harsher critic of cards since in recent years there has be a lot of power creep in the average power of commons, so this would have definitely been a borderline card in the old rubric. 2/2 for 2 is fine, but isn't enough to make cards playable these days. 8 mana is simply too much for an effect that doesn't win you the game. Not to say that the ability is bad, but it is very expensive. This is going to be a similar story with all the invokers.

Blessed Hippogriff - Borderline Cubeable. Both halves of this card are fine, but neither excel. If either side was 1 mana less then this would be pretty good, but as it stands the flier comes down a little late and 2 mana is a lot to hold for a trick. Umm turns out I didn't read the card. 1 mana indestructible is fine as an adventure. Then the flier side is good offensively. 4 mana is okay costed considering that essentially an extra card strapped onto this.

Dawnbringer Cleric - Borderline. 2 mana etb destroy enchantment with upside. This is good sideboard tech, or would be better in a environment with more enchantments. The other modes give this flexibility which is what a lot of enchantment hate cards are lacking. The 1/3 body is big enough to impact the board, but mostly will be blocking.

Flaming Fist - Terrible. The first truly awful card from the set. I don't know what to say about this other than there are no commanders in a non-commander format.

Flaming Fist Officer - Cubeable. The potential for growth on this card is impressive. This goes well with flicker and tokens. Three mana come down early and the ability compliments what white is typically trying to do. Your opponent has to respect the threat that this presents.

Goliath Paladin - Staple. Yeah... All of this initiative cards are bonkers. They are comparable to monarch cards, but the effect stacks with monarch! While to do think the pure card draw is stronger of the two, the cards that grant initiative are not weak either, but they are typically priced at 5 mana which means they do very little to impact burn match ups. The downside of these cards is always your opponent can play to the board as well and take the initiative. But they give a lot of late game staying power to a deck with relatively little cost. This card specifically is bulky are won't die to anything that isn't hard removal. Vigilance is fine at hold monarch and initiative, but doesn't do a lot to stop evasion creatures. 5 mana also puts it on the expensive end. Not too many people run Staunch Throneguard which is a comparable card.

Greatsword of Tyr - Cubeable. This equipment to cheap to cast and even cheaper to equip. Tapping creatures when attacking is good at holing the beatdown, plus counters are a bonus, not to mention that they stick around when to shuffle around the equipment. This does more or less what white wants from an equipment.

Guardian Naga - Borderline. The adventure part is fine, more sideboard tech, but crucially it deals with bridges. The creature part has undoubtably a strong ability, but costs 7, which is pretty much a death kneel for all cards much weaker than Ulamog's Crusher. I guess this has vigilance too.

Guiding Bolt - Weak. 3 mana removal with scry 2 seems like it should be very good, but it's simply too narrow.

Icewind Stalwart - Weak. Hill Giant is ummm pretty bad. Flicker attached potentially can be good, but this requires a lot of support to be consistently fine and probably isn't worth it in the long run.

Martial Impetus - Bad. This is probably the most viable on of the goaded enchantments for pauper cube because it is fine on your own creature. Still enchantments are typically bad and this is no exception. It's worth mentioning at this point that goading creatures forces them to attack it possible regardless of the number of players, so it does mechanically do something in 1v1.

Minimus Containment Borderline. Just run Oblivion Ring over this.

Pegasus Guardian - Borderline. 6 mana is a lot, but the tokens do have flying. The adventure is fine and the creature side plays into a flicker deck. But flicker decks never really needed much more late game because of all the card advantage they can accrue, they need more early game. Still this is probably the best six mana white creature we've seen to date. (Imperial Oath isn't technically a creature so I'm excluding it.)

Recruitment Drive - Borderline. This is too luck based. Either 50% of the time it's good and 45% it's bad. Of course there is 5% of the time where it is bonkers. It might be fine in terms of pure power level, but it seems too rage inducing.

Roving Harper - Cubeable. It cantrips. This seems to be a standard mechanic on white creatures these days. Creatures that replace themselves tend to be decent if they are appropriately costed. This is pretty solidly middle of the pack as far as these creatures go. Just remember that Llanowar Visionary and Inspiring Overseer are both 3 mana, but better.

Scouting Hawk - Bad. The land catch up mechanic is much weaker in lvl than multiplay because of the lack of consistency. If this was consistent it would be fine, but otherwise its a three mana 1/1 flier.

Steadfast Unicorn - Bad. The activated ability is in okay when you are going wide, unfortunately a 1/2 for 1 is just too small to impact the board in any significant way even with this ability. Many some swarm strategies have a use for this, but I'm just not seeing it.

Tabaxi Toucaneers - Bad. Myriad doesn't do anything in 1v1, and all your left with is a overcosted flier.

Wyrm's Crossing Patrol - Terrible. This is just a vanilla 1/1 in 1v1.

Your Temple Is Under Attack - Overcosted to save your team and puts your opponent in too much of an advantage by striking a deal because it essentially 2-for-1s yourself.

You're Confronted by Robbers - Cubeable. Captain's Call at instant speed or taps down your opponents board (probably). This seems very good. Maybe getting close to staple. We'll have to see...

I like the instant and flexibility. Decent for go wide strategies.

This is very interesting. A pump and tapping effect on a reasonably costed equipment.

Quote from Humphrey »

initiative triggers in upkeep not etb, right?
so it takes 2 turns to pump

"Whenever you take initiative and at the beginning of your upkeep, venture into Undercity."
Apaarently the first effect takes place immediately.

An quick update after playing the set for a while now:
Inspiring Overseer and Jewel Thief are obviously just as broken as they looked at first sight. What a surprise.

Overperformers:
Mayhem Patrol: I had my eyes pinned on this from the beginning and it definitely lived up to what I was expecting and even overperforming. A 2/2 Menace is very decent on it's own and the ability to Cycle it on turn 5+ is really really nice. Also the ability to give one of your 2/Xs or 3/Xs that 1 additional point of power out of nowhere, so that they can attack into a slightly bigger blocker "for free" is really useful. I think it's just plain wrong to not have this card in your cube. I would even say it qualifies as a staple among red 2 drops.

Girder Goons: I expected nothing and was pleasantly surprised. It's not so much the hard cast mode, that is interesing here, but the 4/4 haste for 4, that your opponent doesn't really want to block, because it replaces itself anyway, so they tend to tank it with their face, which is not always easily possible. I mean you could read it as: 3B Deal 4 damage to your opponent, unless they sacrifice a creature. Create a tapped 2/2 Zombie. Draw a card. The hard cast mode can obviously also be viable in some spots. Not saying you have to cube this, but it's certainly a consideration.

Plasma Jockey: Kind of similar to Goblin Heelcutter, expect that your opponent doesn't want to block ths. Even if your opponent puts 2/2s in front of this, you get a 2 for 1 trade. By no means a must play in cube, but definitely surprisingly strong in SNC draft.

Rooftop Nuisance: The name of the card says it all. It's really annoying. Removing 2 blockers from combat for 2 turns can be a huge swing in the middle of the damage race and you don't necessarily have to have a perfect sacrifice target, but simply being able to turn a Man-o'-War or something like that into this effect and also a card of the top can be quite viable. Also not a must play, but a surprisingly good tempo card.

Black

Corrupt Court Official - Borderline. We've seen a few variations of this card and this doesn't really have much differentiating it from the pack. The main downside of this compared to Elderfang Disciple is Court Offical cannot be mutated onto. Of course there is also Virus Beetle which differentiates itself by being an artifact. The main problem with these creatures is that there isn't enough to do with the bodies in cube. 1/1s just don't make the biggest impact on board.

Crooked Custodian - Borderline. I wouldn't fault anyone for playing this, but compared to black's other 2 mana creatures this isn't going to get there. Compared to say Gluttonous Slug, this seems a the body isn't anything to write home about and it can't block the turn it comes down whereas the Slug is going to grow uncontrollably. A 3/2 body on a 2 mana creature isn't that impressive now.

Cutthroat Contender - Borderline. A vanilla 2/1 would be cubeable. Paying life to get the second point of life just isn't worth the stats. Sure it's a fine card when you are ahead, but in a race it is going to slow you down a lot paying life and also without the life cost this is just a vanilla 1/1.

Deal Gone Bad - Bad. 4 mana is simply too much for -3/-3. The mill flavourtext doesn't make up for the overcosted nature of this spell.

Demon's Due - Borderline. This sneaks into borderline because its instant. Even so 4 mana and 2 life is a lot to pay for scry 2 and draw 2. Read the Bones is good because 3 mana means it can come out as soon as turn 3, or you actually have left over mana to cast what you drew.

Dig Up the Body - Borderline. Causality seems deceptively good because you are getting essentially double the effect of whatever is written on the card. I think if there where better dedicated mill decks in Pauper cube this would be pretty good. I like this card's synergy with Gurmag Angler. Still you have to go out of your way to create fodder to use for the cost of Dig Up the Body.

Extract the Truth - Cubeable. This is the first good piece of dedicated enchantment hate in black outside of Feed the Swarm. This might not be played in everyone's main deck, but it definitely paves the way for more good enchantments to get printed as 4 colours now have answers available. Still there isn't too much outside of Flood, Pestilence and Armadillo Cloak on a hexproofer that specifically need this to deal with it. And basically all of whites removal. Doubling up as hand hate is pretty nifty too, so this shouldn't be a dead card.

Fake Your Own Death - Cubeable. So-so trick, but you get a treasure, so it's probably fine. Still maybe you play Undying Malice over this? It is an open question how useful the treasure is going to be.

Girder Goons - Cubeable. This card blitzed in in fine. Cast normally is fine. Having the flexibility to do either is better. It seems like it will find a home in a top end of a deck. The rouge token means that you get a lasting something out out blitzing and don't forget the card draw.

Incriminate - Borderline. It is worse that Diabolic Edict because you can't pop off a single creature, it has to have a friend. This gets better when there are more tokens and cheap bodies gumming up the board. I could definitely see a future where the meta shifts and this is cubeable.

Join the Maestros - Borderline. 5 mana is a lot and you have to sacrifice something with at least 2 power. Maybe this is a bit better than it looks — casualty is a bit difficult to evaluate at a glance. If there is good fodder for this then 2 big bodies is probably good enough for 5 mana. I just am not sure that there will be too many disposable 2 power or greater creatures.

Maestros Initiate - Borderline. The activated ability is a lot on this card. And the body isn't that good either. 1 toughness is a big red flag. Maybe there are control decks that just want the body for chumping purposes. Late game the mana sink will win you the game eventually so it's probably not that bad. (Oh wait I just read the card. It's bad.)

Midnight Assassin - Borderline. Flying and deathtouch means it will trade for basically anything, but that's about all it will do.

Murder - Cubeable. This is the very definition of cubeable. It does exactly what is says on the tin. The 2 mana spells edge it out in most cubes, still no one will fault you for paying Murder.

Revel Ruiner - Cubeable. Connive is pretty good, and this is one of the good connive creatures. It basically is a 4/2 menace for 4 mana which loots you a card. Sure sometimes it is a 3/1, but that's because you got rid of a useless land.

Summary: Extract the Truth is a good direction black is taking, but I feel will mostly be relegated to sideboards. Fake Your Own Death could be worse than I think, but I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt for the treasure. Girder Goons seems like a fine top end. Murder is good and Revel Ruiner is also pretty strong. Other than that, there are a bunch of ok borderline cards that I wouldn't fault anyone for trying out.

New Capella Review

Blue

Backstreet Bruiser - Borderline. Getting 2 or more counters down in Pauper isn't going to be all that realistic, because although there are most counter matter cards being printed, the majority of Pauper cube staples don't care about counters. As a road block this is only going to stop some stuff as fliers can still get in and a lot got ground creatures have a decent amount of power. Plus this is in Strangle range. I feel like there is a market for defenders in blue, but this isn't it.

Brokers Veteran - Cubeable. It's a 2/1 in blue with a decent upside for 2. The biggest limiting factor for this will be having another creature in play to use the counter. As early game it's basically Faerie Seer and Cloudfin Raptor as blue's cheap creatures. But a shield counter's utility will begin to shine in the mid game. I think Brokers Veteran is niche but dismissing it as borderline seems like a mistake.

Case the Joint - Bad. Hieroglyphic Illumination is good because you can easily trade it in for a card. And even then it's not that good. Looking at the top of each player's library is cute, but ultimately has does very little to actually impact the game state.

Disdainful Stroke - Borderline. A hard counter for 4 mana value spells is fine, you'd play it if the meta ever started to revolve around expensive spells. But in this timeline isn't not really anything.

Echo Inspector - Cubeable. Connive is good. Looting and getting a +1/+1 counter are fine mechanics on their own. This has the potential to be a 4 mana 3/4 flier that loots on etb, and that is a realistic proposition. It passes the Azure Drake test with flying colours and the Phantom Monster test. I have been impressed with the connive creatures and I am probably going to test all the good ones out.

Expendable Lackey - Bad to Borderline. I was going to say this is a bad card, but then I remembered that it can be milled away and still do something. The base body is bad and it is no Doomed Traveler because you have to pay mana to get the token. There are plenty of more impactful 1 mana creatures. I guess this plays nicely with Casualty 1.

Majestic Metamorphosis - Borderline. 3 mana is too much for a so-so trick. For 2 mana then this would be worth considering, but until then... It does make the creature into an artifact for what it's worth.

Make Disappear - Cubeable. For what it's worth Quench is a fine card and this is Quench with strictly upside. I am going to put this into my cube, but I don't know if other people are. The dampener is on this card a little bit because of Lose Focus being even better than this. Still, I like this more than Syncopate in the 2 mana counter slot.

Obscura Initiate - Borderline. It's not bad in my mind because of the potential lifelink, but it's certainly not good.

Psionic Snoop - Bad. Maybe connive is better on this creature than it looks and maybe flash gives it some subtle edge that I'm not seeing, but this is certainly the worst of the connive cards. It feels like this was going to be 2 mana, but for limited reasons it got bumped up to 3 mana.

Rooftop Nuisance - Cubeable. 3 mana double frosty tap, draw 2 for for the low cost of Casualty 1. This card looks like it plays better than it reads. I think this is likely to be played along side white for the Doomed Travelers of this world. Or maybe green, pitching a Lone Wolf.

Run Out of Town - Borderline. Again, I can't call this bad, but it is overcosted. This is worse than it could be also because the owner of the targeted permanent gets to chose whether this goes top or bottom.

Security Bypass - Borderline. This basically turns your creature into a growing Looter il-Kor, but without the downside of shadow. This seems good on the hexproofers, but otherwise it has the classic aura downside for getting 2-for-1ed. It is similar to Spectral Flight and Aqueous Form — if it can stick it seems very good, but ultimately will draw the ire of too much removal.

Sewer Crocodile - Borderline. I am reserving bad for actually bad cards today, but this is not good. 6 mana is just too much to pay for something that doesn't Dinrova Horror. In saying that 6 toughness is a healthy amount and being able to attack unblockably for four mana will end games, but paying 4 mana to do so might be a bit steep.

Witness Protection - Cubeable. 1 mana is cheap, and actual creature removal is rare for blue. Turning a problematic creature into a Legitimate Businessperson is great palliative solution. It deals with the symptom: a problematic creature; but doesn't deal with the cause: there is still a creature body there.

Summary: There is a decent amount of good blue cards this set, but no staples. Brokers Veteran is niche but fine. Echo Inspector and Rooftop Nuisance are probably the sleeper cards in blue. Make Disappear and Witness Protection are probably good enough for most people's cubes, but don't stand out as exceptional.

Its almost strictly better Tuinvale Treefolk mixed with Greater Sandwurm. I think that if you support counters matter theme in your cube, as I do in mine, it is playable as an instant, albeit expensive way to put counters on something like Sharktocrab, thats still a creature. Also apparently it's the first time we got "can't be blocked by creatures with power 3 or less" on a creature that doesn't have 1 or 2 toughness.