I guess the better way to phrase this would have been that the majority of cube cards come from standard/draft environments and so the critique that something is fine for cube, but could not have been printed into a standard format is an odd one.
Every card that is a cube card was once a standard/draft card. This isn't the second coming of Ragavan - but would definitely be a white weenie staple.
Zidane TribalRW
Legendary Planeswalker - Zidane (M)
+1: Zidane Tribal becomes an X/X red and white Human Genome creature with first strike and haste where X is Zidane Tribal’s loyalty until end of turn.
0: Gain control of target artifact or enchantment with a mana value less than or equal to Zidane’s loyalty until Zidane Tribal leaves the battlefield.
-5: Zidane Tribal deals 6 damage to any target and you gain 6 life.
(1)
Abilities are meant to reflect the attack, steal, and Dyne abilities. Ash Zealot is a borderline cubeable card so I decided this would be an interesting baseline. The continued on curve growth is also a flavorful way to demonstrate leveling. I leaned a bit on Dack Fayden's abilities to help with the steal ability - Zidane has a lot of tradeoffs with Dack's ability. Zidane impacts the board earlier and can hit enchantments, but its targets are limited by loyalty/mana value and the theft is not permanent. I think the "until Zidane leaves the battlefield" clause also helps justify the effect in white. The last effect is an interpretation of Zidane's ultimate trance ability, grand lethal.
Final Fantasy, IX in particular, is high on my Universes Beyond wishlist.
Zidane TribalRW
Legendary Planeswalker - Zidane (M)
+1: Zidane Tribal becomes an X/X red and white Human Genome creature with first strike and haste where X is Zidane Tribal’s loyalty until end of turn.
0: Gain control of target artifact or enchantment with a mana value less than or equal to Zidane’s loyalty until Zidane Tribal leaves the battlefield.
-5: Zidane Tribal deals 6 damage to any target and you gain 6 life.
(1)
Abilities are meant to reflect the attack, steal, and Dyne abilities. Ash Zealot is a borderline cubeable card so I decided this would be an interesting baseline. The continued on curve growth is also a flavorful way to demonstrate leveling. I leaned a bit on Dack Fayden's abilities to help with the steal ability - Zidane has a lot of tradeoffs with Dack's ability. Zidane impacts the board earlier and can hit enchantments, but its targets are limited by loyalty/mana value and the theft is not permanent. I think the "until Zidane leaves the battlefield" clause also helps justify the effect in white. The last effect is an interpretation of Zidane's ultimate trance ability, grand lethal.
This is an early draft of my design for this character in my custom FFIX set - would you cube this?
Thanks for the wording feedback. While I definitely design with a cube power level in mind since that is my primary format, I don't think this is too powerful. This is very narrow removal unless kicked and even then it is sorcery speed reprisal and a 2/1 for 1WW. This has the benefits of also being a great aggro role player with an overcosted sorcery speed combat trick. The flexibility is what makes this fantastic.
Titan TopplerW
Creature - Human Warrior (R)
Kicker 1W
When Titan Toppler enters the battlefield, if it was kicked, target creature gets +2/+2 until end of turn.
When Titan Toppler enters the battlefield, destroy target creature with power 6 or greater.
2/1
Notes: Wanted a design that taps into many of the best aspects of white - it's aggro, it's a combat trick, it's an equalizer, it has a kicker that has a fun interaction with the final ability to make it less narrow.
I don't have the support for Wrenn and Six - and he nearly costs a Benjamin so the opportunity cost isn't worth it for me. So my Gruul top 5 now looks like this:
1. Minsc and Boo
2. Dragonlord Atarka
3. Mawloc
4. Bloodbraid Elf
5. Xenagos, the Reveler
Noise Marine4R
Creature - Astartes Warrior (U)
Cascade Sonic Blaster - When Noise Marine enters the battlefield, it deals damage equal to the number of spells you've cast this turn to any target.
3/2
This is a ton of value, but in a slot with a lot of solid competition. A Bloodbraid Elf variant that loses haste, but is mono-red, can cascade into 4CC spells and will at least shock any target upon ETB. It's a lock for peasant. Torn on if it makes it into small to medium power-focused cube lists.
Old One Eye 5G
Legendary Creature - Tyrannid (R)
Trample
Other creatures you control have trample.
When One Old Eye enters the battlefield, create a 5/5 green Tyrannid creature token. Fast Healing - At the beginning of your precombat main phase, you may discard two cards. If you do, return Old One Eye from your graveyard to your hand.
6/6
Opinions about UB aside, this card is ridiculous. 11 trampling power for 5G, blink synergy, and recursion. This card answers the question what if Rampaging Baloths was easier to splash, just provided the additional creature without hoops to jump through, provided trample to that creature as well, made that creature bigger, and let's throw recursion in there too because why not?
Suspect there's an amount of math I am disinclined to do needed to determine whether or not this card would be standard printable. Assuming a 5 card hand where 2 are lands - there's a 40% chance of hitting one of those lands and then only a 25% chance of hitting the 2nd land. A probability calculator tells me that this results in an overall 10% probability of an opponent losing both of their lands. Then they have a 40-45% chance of drawing a land back. So very small percentage of games, but not zero, where this would temporarily land-screw an opponent.
I'm curious as to how instant speed causes this effect to be a problem whereas it seems you think this effect would be okay as a sorcery? I thought the speed of the spell was more significant with regards to the first mode since Thrill of Possibility is much better than Tormenting Voice.
Edit: What if the second ability read and then draws a card for each land card discarded this way? Doesn't completely eliminate the issue, but in the event of randomly hitting two lands, they are drawing two cards (one of which is likely a land). Also occasionally makes this card into a more powerful Hymn which is kind of spicy.
I wasn't planning on testing this, but I feel like the universe is sending me signals (whispers maybe?). Participated in my first draft in some time when DMU was released. Showcase Seholdred was in my 3rd pack and the promo pack I got for going 2-1 had another Sheoldred.
I don't play standard, but I'm still not sure I agree. Even with the instant speed upgrade of this over Hymn to Tourach - this design allows the opponent to draw a card afterwards when the "Hymn" mode is chosen which makes this significantly less powerful then Hymn.
Target opponent discards two cards at random, then draws a card.
This is a modal twist on Thrill of Possibility and Hymn to Tourach. Worse than either individually, but the choice makes for an interesting uncommon design I think.
This is a card that would be okay at uncommon for limited purpose but that I could imagine being bumped to rare to make it more collectible for commander. If you max out on X=2 on a 4-player game (which doesn't seem too unreasonable), you are killing 6 creatures and creating 6 tokens for only 5 mana. That is a very good rate for token creation, above even the rates that white or green normally get.
Right, this situational bomb potential is why I think this makes sense at rare. In 1 v. 1 this card is good, but has a lower ceiling. Multiplayer gives the card a huge potential ceiling, but the situational nature of that ceiling keeps the effect in check.
Legendary Planeswalker - Zidane (M)
+1: Zidane Tribal becomes an X/X red and white Human Genome creature with first strike and haste where X is Zidane Tribal’s loyalty until end of turn.
0: Gain control of target artifact or enchantment with a mana value less than or equal to Zidane’s loyalty until Zidane Tribal leaves the battlefield.
-5: Zidane Tribal deals 6 damage to any target and you gain 6 life.
(1)
Abilities are meant to reflect the attack, steal, and Dyne abilities. Ash Zealot is a borderline cubeable card so I decided this would be an interesting baseline. The continued on curve growth is also a flavorful way to demonstrate leveling. I leaned a bit on Dack Fayden's abilities to help with the steal ability - Zidane has a lot of tradeoffs with Dack's ability. Zidane impacts the board earlier and can hit enchantments, but its targets are limited by loyalty/mana value and the theft is not permanent. I think the "until Zidane leaves the battlefield" clause also helps justify the effect in white. The last effect is an interpretation of Zidane's ultimate trance ability, grand lethal.
Zidane Tribal RW
Legendary Planeswalker - Zidane (M)
+1: Zidane Tribal becomes an X/X red and white Human Genome creature with first strike and haste where X is Zidane Tribal’s loyalty until end of turn.
0: Gain control of target artifact or enchantment with a mana value less than or equal to Zidane’s loyalty until Zidane Tribal leaves the battlefield.
-5: Zidane Tribal deals 6 damage to any target and you gain 6 life.
(1)
Abilities are meant to reflect the attack, steal, and Dyne abilities. Ash Zealot is a borderline cubeable card so I decided this would be an interesting baseline. The continued on curve growth is also a flavorful way to demonstrate leveling. I leaned a bit on Dack Fayden's abilities to help with the steal ability - Zidane has a lot of tradeoffs with Dack's ability. Zidane impacts the board earlier and can hit enchantments, but its targets are limited by loyalty/mana value and the theft is not permanent. I think the "until Zidane leaves the battlefield" clause also helps justify the effect in white. The last effect is an interpretation of Zidane's ultimate trance ability, grand lethal.
This is an early draft of my design for this character in my custom FFIX set - would you cube this?
Creature - Human Warrior (R)
Kicker 1W
When Titan Toppler enters the battlefield, if it was kicked, target creature gets +2/+2 until end of turn.
When Titan Toppler enters the battlefield, destroy target creature with power 6 or greater.
2/1
Notes: Wanted a design that taps into many of the best aspects of white - it's aggro, it's a combat trick, it's an equalizer, it has a kicker that has a fun interaction with the final ability to make it less narrow.
I don't have the support for Wrenn and Six - and he nearly costs a Benjamin so the opportunity cost isn't worth it for me. So my Gruul top 5 now looks like this:
1. Minsc and Boo
2. Dragonlord Atarka
3. Mawloc
4. Bloodbraid Elf
5. Xenagos, the Reveler
Creature - Astartes Warrior (U)
Cascade
Sonic Blaster - When Noise Marine enters the battlefield, it deals damage equal to the number of spells you've cast this turn to any target.
3/2
This is a ton of value, but in a slot with a lot of solid competition. A Bloodbraid Elf variant that loses haste, but is mono-red, can cascade into 4CC spells and will at least shock any target upon ETB. It's a lock for peasant. Torn on if it makes it into small to medium power-focused cube lists.
Legendary Creature - Tyrannid (R)
Trample
Other creatures you control have trample.
When One Old Eye enters the battlefield, create a 5/5 green Tyrannid creature token.
Fast Healing - At the beginning of your precombat main phase, you may discard two cards. If you do, return Old One Eye from your graveyard to your hand.
6/6
Opinions about UB aside, this card is ridiculous. 11 trampling power for 5G, blink synergy, and recursion. This card answers the question what if Rampaging Baloths was easier to splash, just provided the additional creature without hoops to jump through, provided trample to that creature as well, made that creature bigger, and let's throw recursion in there too because why not?
I'm curious as to how instant speed causes this effect to be a problem whereas it seems you think this effect would be okay as a sorcery? I thought the speed of the spell was more significant with regards to the first mode since Thrill of Possibility is much better than Tormenting Voice.
Edit: What if the second ability read and then draws a card for each land card discarded this way? Doesn't completely eliminate the issue, but in the event of randomly hitting two lands, they are drawing two cards (one of which is likely a land). Also occasionally makes this card into a more powerful Hymn which is kind of spicy.
Instant (U)
Choose one --
This is a modal twist on Thrill of Possibility and Hymn to Tourach. Worse than either individually, but the choice makes for an interesting uncommon design I think.
Right, this situational bomb potential is why I think this makes sense at rare. In 1 v. 1 this card is good, but has a lower ceiling. Multiplayer gives the card a huge potential ceiling, but the situational nature of that ceiling keeps the effect in check.