Forgot about this thread, but I guess we have some new cards I haven't seen others play since the last time I posted here. This is gonna be a long one...
First and foremost, Angel of the Ruins is amazing. The card sees so much play in so many decks, it's honestly incredible. Reanimator, Control, Oath of Druids, Artifact Ramp, fair Recurring Nightmare decks, the card is everywhere. It even fixes mana off of dual lands! Can't recommend this card enough, it's everything I wanted Emeria's Call to be and so much more.
Most cubes I see on here also don't play Plague Engineer which is baffling to me, because we've been playing it for well over 2 years now and that card is absolutely stellar, imo the second best black 3 drop after Rotting Regisaur. Whether it's in aggro, control, midrange, or even the slower reanimator decks, the card gets maindecked in everything. The same way an early Deranged Hermit can single-handedly win you a bunch of aggro matchups, Plague Engineer oftentimes does the same for 3 mana, except it is also one of the best cards available in aggro decks for wiping away your opponents' wide blocking token boards. It's great defensively and has a ton of applications aggressively too, and before anyone mentions that it's only goo din fair matchups, that hasn't been the case either. The card blocks everything well, and can trade with most fatties while cleaning up Myr Battlesphere and Hornet Queen tokens. I promise that card plays soooo much better than it looks, singleton format be damned. Should also mention that it just annihilates green decks of the Elf subtype and white off of Humans, and completely erases all the red 3cmc token producers from combat. The worst case scenario is a 2/2 with deathtoutch for 3 that "pings" something, a debuff that oftentimes lets one of your 2/2s or 3/3s trade up.
I remember bringing up Bomat Courier in the Cube-Card-of-the-Day thread a few years back encouraging others to test it, and I think a bunch of people did but then proceeded to cut it. I'm sure there's good reason for that, but in my playgroup's experience Bomat has been arguably red's second or third best 1 drop prior to Ragavan's printing. It constantly accounts for 2-4 dmage and 3-5 cards for 1-2 measly mana, and is even castable on turn one off of off-color moxen/mana crypt/sol ring which is not a menial upside. I have less to say for this card since its extensive standard dominance and occasional legacy showings already display the play patterns for the card, but just know that the little guy definitely finds it's way into all sorts of aggro and midrange decks, even off of splashes.
Beast Within and Song of the Dryads have been great too. I think people used to play them but cut them for space over the years, but tbh they've only gotten better as PWs and fatties have gotten more and more pushed over the years. Beast Within especially is certainly the better of the two, and makes its way into almost all our green decks, even in aggro and ramp. I'd put it in Council's Judgement territory without batting an eye, with Song a step below all the Oblivion Ring variants but still more than playable, especially in green.
For multicolor, we play all the obvious stuff, but Klothys, God of Destiny has been absurd. It goes in everything, gets splashed constantly, takes over games when it hits the board, and fills every niche you could want in draft and deckbuilding. Gruul is a solid color combination, and I'd vouch for Klothys as the easy #2 behind only Atarka.
Nahiri, the Harbinger isn't actually that great, but she's certainly playable and gets about as much millage as Figure of Destiny in our cube by nature of uniqueness alone. If you don't play her, no harm no foul, but I'd definitely give her a shot because people love to splash for her in all kinds of decks. Control, renaimator, Sneak Attack, Oath, etc can all get fatties off the top-end to win the game, and shes the kind of card that just gets the gears turning for people. If you have a Boros flex slot available that you're just using to test new cards, I'd highly recommend her.
I've mentioned Glare of Subdual before, and I'm not going to go into a whole spiel again, but it's been bar none the best Selesnya card in our cube for like 5 years straight now and it hasn't been particularly close either. It's just as dominant as Opposition vs everything except exactly control, and turns out like 80% of opposition is still ridiculous. Card just shuts down like 80% of other cube decks.
Ugin, the Ineffable has been a colorless Elspeth, Sun's Champion, and isn't going anywhere any time soon. Goes in Control, all the ramp decks, Channel decks, and even some midrange decks. The static ability is super relevant in ramp decks, especially if you play Eldrazi titans, and the card advantage it creates gets out of control insanely fast. It's been leagues better than Karn Liberated for us by comparison, and is without a doubt a premier 6 drop in our cube.
Sawtusk Demolisher has been some pretty stellar agressive/midrange top end for us so far. Has received substantially less extensive testing (just 2 or 3 months now since mutate wasn't on XMage) than every other non-Angel card I've listed so far, but a splashable pseudo-Demon of Catastrophes with haste and a Terrastodon proc has been really good for us so far. Again, by far the least testing of anything I've mentioned so far as most of the cards I'm bringing up have been in our cube for several years, but looks like it's gonna stick around for a while.
Component Pouch has only been in for 5 (I think?) drafts so far over Worn Powerstone, and has already blown away expectations. The card sees play in control and midrange decks all the time a-la pseudo-Coalition Relic, and the fixing has been invaluable. If you aren't comfortable with that swap, I'd at least recommend trying the Pouch in a different slot, as I am confidant that it has got to be better than something. Card deserves a fair shot, goofy die-rolling and counters aside.
And finally I know I've been mentioned her a million times before, but Arcane Artisan is amazing, and it amazes me that there are still cubes that support reanimator/show and tell/sneak attack/Oath of Druids (aka most cubes on here) that don't play it. It's a one-card combo enabler that gets around removal off the EOT activation, and can even loot for value in the late game.
And I think that's everything, whew now I need to go get dinner
Had this card kill me off of 7 attack, and saw the same guy get a Deranged Hermit down with this thing in play for a billion against somebody else. This thing is a monster in combat when left unchecked. Being both token support and token payoff has been awesome, think this is gonna be sticking around for a while (alongside Brimaz, King of Oreskos for us, we're playing both)
We don't play aristocrats but are testing this today. Plague Engineer has been so good in our cube that we couldn't help but try another small-scale sweeper that can theoretically be played in both aggro and control decks. I didn't really like this the first time I saw it, but I think it has a ton of potential, card is super pushed.
Was just talking to the playgroup about this card, we think it looks great as aggressive decks can likely find use for this card once in a while, but more notably basically all the non-aggro red decks can seriously take advantage of an instant-speed double rummage when the burn isn't good (Reanimator, Artifact Ramp, Time Vault, Through the Breach combo, Izzet Control, etc). Card looks super sweet imo, and this hitting PWs really puts it over the edge. It's ust so versatile that I'm excited to draft with this, possible card disadvantage be damned.
This doesn't get anything for 2. Only gets anything at 5. That alone makes abbot much better. The body with haste is fine. At 5 this is worse than GDD.
Being more aggressive / better on curve makes it better than Abbot / DFD to me. Having haste makes up for the potentially lost value when you're casting this with 1-2 mana open.
I disagree, we played Abbot of Keral Keep for a long time (and it was/is pretty good just not great) and for us the #1 thing it was used for was on turns 3 or 4 to dig for another land and/or 1 drop, meaning you're casting Abbot most of the time with 0-1 mana open. Not to say Abbot is better than this card because I literally don't know, but Abbot is certainly a much better card at helping you curve out than this, even if it is worse on exactly turns 2 and 5 (and by turns I mean mana availability, not the actual turn. I think most aggressive openers don't have 5 mana on turn 5, which is another positive for Abbot at helping you curve out early).
With that said this is probably better on curve than Dire Fleet Daredevil since DFD is a little bit less consistent, but I do like that card better from a strictly power level perspective regardless.
Looter Il kor was a card I always loved but felt it was a casualty of power creep and the format speeding up over the past 5 years.
Certainly a fine card, but i cut it a while ago and haven’t missed it.
This is enough of a power boost that I’m happy to test it out again.
The flip side is as must kill as you can get for a 2 mana creature.
Exactly how I feel. This is different enough that I think it might make the leap. Can't wait to try it.
Love this, going in over Elite Spellbinder (which has been very good, but is def the worst white 3 we still play). Card looks absurd, and it's nice to finally have a giant, playable high power beater besides Grafted Wargear to come down the turn before an Armageddon.
Eh idk, I think this is pretty mediocre. Goblin Dark Dwellers was pretty bad for us, and going over our cube we only have like 20 good hits with this card. A 2/2 for 2 with haste isn't a bad floor, but I think the inconstant ceiling is just to weak to justify a card like this at 360. I specifically like Dire Fleet Daredevil a lot more since its usually a lot cheaper.
Wow this looks fantastic. Good, versatile token support is hard to come by for small cubes, and this card just hits all the right spots. 3/1 for 2 with lifelink isn't a bad baseline for most aggro decks, 4/2 for 4 with an anthem is fantastic follow up in a Boros or Orzhov aggro deck (amazing follow up to a Goblin Rabblemaster variant or Brimaz, King of Oreskos), then all the way up to 5/3 for 6 in Selesnya aggro decks to follow up Deranged Hermits or Angel of Invention, or even to just get damage over the top with a Glare of Subdual or Opposition up. Card looks incredible imo, easy 360 pickup for sure.
I like it, shock is a fine floor as long as it has late game value, and scry one is solid stuff. Obviously the face-targeting requirement for the scry is rough so this can never 2-for-1, but vs creature decks any and all burn is usually great regardless, so the late game bonuses are usually most relevant vs decks that don't play a lot of creatures or only play really big creatures, in which case your burn is almost always going face anyways so the scry is super relevant. Burn that can targeting anything for cheap is just so good, so this is probably getting a test for us.
This makes colored mana, so you can actually play it in midrange and control decks as a worse Coalition Relic, unlike Powerstone. In ramp you still aren't usually using all your mana every turn, so I think you'll have plenty of time to charge up your Pouch, and you still get the benefit from the fixing that Powerstone can't provide. Not a lock for a swap, but can't wait to at least try rolling some dice.
Component Pouch
Artifact , Remove a component counter from Component Pouch: Add two mana of different colors. : Roll a d20.
1-9: Put a component counter on Component Pouch.
10-20: Put two component counters on Component Pouch.
45% Chance of 1 counter, 55% chance of 2 counters. Essentially ETBs tapped, but next turn always taps for 2 colored mana of your choice, and can always bank more counters on off turns or off untaps with Ral Zarek/Tezzeret the Seeker/Kiora's Follower. Compares pretty favorably to Worn Powerstone imo, and our playgroup is already excited for the swap. We were also really hoping for a good dice-rolling card, and this fits that bill too. Any other thoughts on this card?
We tried it and didn't like it because in our experience it was just so slow and overpriced, but I'm sure its decent removal against aggro and ramp decks if your format is a little slower.
Really? I would think its more powerful in a smaller 360 card cube than a 720 card cube as your opponent is more likely to open with moxen/ mana dorks
The issue is it's really, really clunky removal that most decks can't even play in the first place. Other people with larger cubes have said they like it, so I'm assuming its a speed issue rather than a target-density issue but regardless for us it was pretty unplayable every time we've tried it (which has been multiple times).
We tried it and didn't like it because in our experience it was just so slow and overpriced, but I'm sure its decent removal against aggro and ramp decks if your format is a little slower.
First and foremost, Angel of the Ruins is amazing. The card sees so much play in so many decks, it's honestly incredible. Reanimator, Control, Oath of Druids, Artifact Ramp, fair Recurring Nightmare decks, the card is everywhere. It even fixes mana off of dual lands! Can't recommend this card enough, it's everything I wanted Emeria's Call to be and so much more.
Most cubes I see on here also don't play Plague Engineer which is baffling to me, because we've been playing it for well over 2 years now and that card is absolutely stellar, imo the second best black 3 drop after Rotting Regisaur. Whether it's in aggro, control, midrange, or even the slower reanimator decks, the card gets maindecked in everything. The same way an early Deranged Hermit can single-handedly win you a bunch of aggro matchups, Plague Engineer oftentimes does the same for 3 mana, except it is also one of the best cards available in aggro decks for wiping away your opponents' wide blocking token boards. It's great defensively and has a ton of applications aggressively too, and before anyone mentions that it's only goo din fair matchups, that hasn't been the case either. The card blocks everything well, and can trade with most fatties while cleaning up Myr Battlesphere and Hornet Queen tokens. I promise that card plays soooo much better than it looks, singleton format be damned. Should also mention that it just annihilates green decks of the Elf subtype and white off of Humans, and completely erases all the red 3cmc token producers from combat. The worst case scenario is a 2/2 with deathtoutch for 3 that "pings" something, a debuff that oftentimes lets one of your 2/2s or 3/3s trade up.
I remember bringing up Bomat Courier in the Cube-Card-of-the-Day thread a few years back encouraging others to test it, and I think a bunch of people did but then proceeded to cut it. I'm sure there's good reason for that, but in my playgroup's experience Bomat has been arguably red's second or third best 1 drop prior to Ragavan's printing. It constantly accounts for 2-4 dmage and 3-5 cards for 1-2 measly mana, and is even castable on turn one off of off-color moxen/mana crypt/sol ring which is not a menial upside. I have less to say for this card since its extensive standard dominance and occasional legacy showings already display the play patterns for the card, but just know that the little guy definitely finds it's way into all sorts of aggro and midrange decks, even off of splashes.
Beast Within and Song of the Dryads have been great too. I think people used to play them but cut them for space over the years, but tbh they've only gotten better as PWs and fatties have gotten more and more pushed over the years. Beast Within especially is certainly the better of the two, and makes its way into almost all our green decks, even in aggro and ramp. I'd put it in Council's Judgement territory without batting an eye, with Song a step below all the Oblivion Ring variants but still more than playable, especially in green.
For multicolor, we play all the obvious stuff, but Klothys, God of Destiny has been absurd. It goes in everything, gets splashed constantly, takes over games when it hits the board, and fills every niche you could want in draft and deckbuilding. Gruul is a solid color combination, and I'd vouch for Klothys as the easy #2 behind only Atarka.
Nahiri, the Harbinger isn't actually that great, but she's certainly playable and gets about as much millage as Figure of Destiny in our cube by nature of uniqueness alone. If you don't play her, no harm no foul, but I'd definitely give her a shot because people love to splash for her in all kinds of decks. Control, renaimator, Sneak Attack, Oath, etc can all get fatties off the top-end to win the game, and shes the kind of card that just gets the gears turning for people. If you have a Boros flex slot available that you're just using to test new cards, I'd highly recommend her.
I've mentioned Glare of Subdual before, and I'm not going to go into a whole spiel again, but it's been bar none the best Selesnya card in our cube for like 5 years straight now and it hasn't been particularly close either. It's just as dominant as Opposition vs everything except exactly control, and turns out like 80% of opposition is still ridiculous. Card just shuts down like 80% of other cube decks.
Ugin, the Ineffable has been a colorless Elspeth, Sun's Champion, and isn't going anywhere any time soon. Goes in Control, all the ramp decks, Channel decks, and even some midrange decks. The static ability is super relevant in ramp decks, especially if you play Eldrazi titans, and the card advantage it creates gets out of control insanely fast. It's been leagues better than Karn Liberated for us by comparison, and is without a doubt a premier 6 drop in our cube.
Sawtusk Demolisher has been some pretty stellar agressive/midrange top end for us so far. Has received substantially less extensive testing (just 2 or 3 months now since mutate wasn't on XMage) than every other non-Angel card I've listed so far, but a splashable pseudo-Demon of Catastrophes with haste and a Terrastodon proc has been really good for us so far. Again, by far the least testing of anything I've mentioned so far as most of the cards I'm bringing up have been in our cube for several years, but looks like it's gonna stick around for a while.
Component Pouch has only been in for 5 (I think?) drafts so far over Worn Powerstone, and has already blown away expectations. The card sees play in control and midrange decks all the time a-la pseudo-Coalition Relic, and the fixing has been invaluable. If you aren't comfortable with that swap, I'd at least recommend trying the Pouch in a different slot, as I am confidant that it has got to be better than something. Card deserves a fair shot, goofy die-rolling and counters aside.
And finally I know I've been mentioned her a million times before, but Arcane Artisan is amazing, and it amazes me that there are still cubes that support reanimator/show and tell/sneak attack/Oath of Druids (aka most cubes on here) that don't play it. It's a one-card combo enabler that gets around removal off the EOT activation, and can even loot for value in the late game.
And I think that's everything, whew now I need to go get dinner
I disagree, we played Abbot of Keral Keep for a long time (and it was/is pretty good just not great) and for us the #1 thing it was used for was on turns 3 or 4 to dig for another land and/or 1 drop, meaning you're casting Abbot most of the time with 0-1 mana open. Not to say Abbot is better than this card because I literally don't know, but Abbot is certainly a much better card at helping you curve out than this, even if it is worse on exactly turns 2 and 5 (and by turns I mean mana availability, not the actual turn. I think most aggressive openers don't have 5 mana on turn 5, which is another positive for Abbot at helping you curve out early).
With that said this is probably better on curve than Dire Fleet Daredevil since DFD is a little bit less consistent, but I do like that card better from a strictly power level perspective regardless.
Exactly how I feel. This is different enough that I think it might make the leap. Can't wait to try it.
Component Pouch
Artifact
1-9: Put a component counter on Component Pouch.
10-20: Put two component counters on Component Pouch.
45% Chance of 1 counter, 55% chance of 2 counters. Essentially ETBs tapped, but next turn always taps for 2 colored mana of your choice, and can always bank more counters on off turns or off untaps with Ral Zarek/Tezzeret the Seeker/Kiora's Follower. Compares pretty favorably to Worn Powerstone imo, and our playgroup is already excited for the swap. We were also really hoping for a good dice-rolling card, and this fits that bill too. Any other thoughts on this card?
The issue is it's really, really clunky removal that most decks can't even play in the first place. Other people with larger cubes have said they like it, so I'm assuming its a speed issue rather than a target-density issue but regardless for us it was pretty unplayable every time we've tried it (which has been multiple times).