Overall the power to cost ratio falls off steeply at 5 in Green commons compared to higher rarity. Often my main metric for gaging commons is would I feel bad playing this if higher rarities are available and the answer overwhelmingly for this seems to be no.
As far as 5 drops go, most of them are outclassed by Green 4-drops which is a much better price point and you get Blastoderm! I find Stampeding Elk Herd never fails to give itself and everything else trample. Counting up your power and subtracting by your opponents toughness is the kind of maths Green wants to be doing.
I ran Sentinel Spider for a while. It was ok, until I realised that I could be saving mana and spending the extra mana on something like a Groundswell. The main thing that keep impressing me about Sentinel Spider is how it was always able to a relevant blocker while contributing on beatdown. Whereas Nessian Asp could only contribute to attacking or Blocking. I think I slightly prefer the extra power and trample of Tajuru Pathwarden over reach. While reach is an in demand ability for Green, additional power and trample contribute that much more to winning games that I'm in favour of Tajuru Pathwarden over Sentinel Spider for the limited card slot. Vigilance is a strong keyword for big green creatures.
Kavu Climber's not costed as a big creature, it's costed as a cantrap and needs to be treated as such. Then again we now have Silverback Shaman, Entourage of Trest and Excavating Anurid as bigger bodies with card draw attached. Kavu Climber definitely the no fuss version, but at the end of the day you're paying 2 additional mana for a Nessian Courser that draws a card, which is not that worth it. Being an etb give Kavu Climber some resistance to Man-o'-War.
Rubbleback Rhino can be really difficult for opponents to deal with and even without relevant auras and equipment. Rubbleback Rhino put on guard duty can totally brick out a game against non-fliers and non-shadowers. The limited amount of removal can be used to chomp evasion creatures, while all ground creatures must be this tall to fight. It is extremely rare to actually play against pumps spells as Rubbleback Rhino although I include a few in non-Green colours as a token gesture to deck builders.
I haven't had a chance to try out Silverback Shaman. It's very well costed as a cantrap. Still, it will feel bad to have Pacifism cast on.
On that note, Wickerbough Elder is the best honourary 5-drop. Destroying artifacts and enchantments can be devastating when it's attached to a decent body.
My fear with Entourage of Trest is you can get out-tempoed. I am very hesitant about any card which can potentially give my opponent free resources. Of course when you hold tempo Entourage of Trest is great. I'm still worried about how this card deals with the Flood matchup.
Excavating Anurid. I'm pretty happy trading lands for draw. The only time I don't want to be doing that is when I'm curving out into Maul Splicer. Also treshhold is another excuse to be running the Green Black selfmill cards.
In Blue 1 you could include Cloudfin Raptor. Black's missing Gurmag Angler, although I haven't seen many ways of cheaply putting cards into your graveyard. Ashes to Ashes is a pretty spicy piece of removal that I don't see here. I'm not too sold on Enslave, 6 mana is so expensive even if you are stealing a creature. The two Shrines seem a bit too narrow. Black probably needs more sustain in terms of life gain or something so it can actually set up and begin doing Black things.
Honden of Seeing Winds cost 5 mana and takes several turns before it pays itself off. The Red Shrine is an unanswerable Prodigal Pyromancer. I would pay this with commons only, but I assume that the overall power level is substantially higher here.
I'm more of a Pauper person, so those are my thoughts at a glance.
Also in regards to people being removing Loxodon Warhammer. Really? Do people get that upset when they lose to life gain? I'm sorry to inform people who play aggro decks that there is a fatal flaw in their strategy and that is the opponent can just gain life back that you've painstakingly reduced. It definitely isn't nearly as broken as Skullclamp. What's the interaction there? Hope your opponent doesn't draw Skullclamp?
Also Force Spike is better than I was giving it credit, mostly because I wasn't taking into account how valuable having a turn 1 tempo play is for Blue.
How much counter magic would you say a typical 360 Pauper Cube needs. I'm sort of on the fence for this one. I know that all the strong counter magic down to about Miscalculation are typically auto-included, but after that how much counter magic do you include for the counter control strategies and in terms of redundancy. I'm making assumptions that people will spend early picks on cards that they won't ultimately end up playing rather than hard committing into whatever colour combinations they see first.
Most of the Black card draw doesn't cut it for me. I find that I would rather try to recur the creatures I've already seen than try to draw new cards. Especially because Black card draw tends to be associated with playing life and that tends not to be a commodity in high availability with the sheer number of aggro decks that tend to do well. Of course that depends on what your local meta is doing. I've got one guy who always first picks Nivix Cyclops and goes R/U based off that. I've tried to explain how that is a terrible idea, but apparently he knows Magic. It's not that the archetype isn't supported (or else why would I have Nivix Cyclops in there), just that the archetype requires certain components (Delver of Secrets, Firebolt, etc) to sing before you start committing to narrow cards. You're better off spending the first few picks on high demand staples that are either for the top strategies (ie. Hymn to Tourach) or are all round strong (Mana Leak).
Errr... Somewhere in that tangent I lost the point I was trying to make about Black card draw. Paying life to not put yourself ahead on board is not a good idea when aggro decks are tuned and often cheaper recursion is available. Sure Read the Bones is decent dig, but Unearth is plain cheaper. The creatures that are being recurred tend to accrue value each type you see them. Gray Merchant of Asphodel is a classic example. If you get this back a few times with any kind of devotion you win. Most enter the battlefield effects aren't this good, but the old Phyrexian Rager and Chittering Rats will get there in the end. Another reason why Okiba-Gang Shinobi is first pick material if I'm considering going Black. This is why I am currently in favour of Ghoulcaller's Chant over Sign in Blood.
For me Altar's Reap is one of the tools I have available to cheaply kill my own creatures when they aren't dying in combat. As well as being an alright response to an opponent's removal spell. Gray Merchant of Asphodel isn't going to recur itself. Being able to pop Viridian Emissary and Perilous Myr can be quite important as people will avoid trading with those kinds of creatures when possible. Perilous Myr is a staple. I've thoroughly played it and it is amazing. I even play it in aggro decks when I'm short a 2-drop. Perilous Myr carries Bonesplitter like a champion.
I think I will compile the Future Sight "review" into an actual set review, evaluating them into a bomb, cubeable, borderline, weak, terrible framework. I'm not sure if the rubric needs to be reworked or not? I'll clean up some typos and maybe offer a bit more commentary than Leaden Fists: WTF.
Also I want to get around to reviewing Planar Chaos, because it's a mess.
Were you intending to cover every card in FS? Amongst the ones you omitted, I think Bound in Silence has seen some fringe play in large Cubes looking for more pacifisms (granted BiS was downshifted years later)
During my review of the spoiler I found the following cards that I don't believe you mentioned:
I wasn't intending on doing a full review, I just kept finding things to say. I missed some of the vanilla creatures and a couple of cards which I had forgotten that they were downshifted. So for completeness' sake.
Blade of the Sixth Pride - The first 3/1 for 2. The first of many. It's a rebel, so technically not strictly worse than something such as Leonin of the Lost Pride, although I'm not sure if anyone runs rebel synergies. A vanilla 3/1 for 2 in white will still get played even in a competitive environment in Pauper cube. Blind Phantasm - This vanilla clearly signals that Blue creatures are going to typically have less over stats for mana cost than other more Green colours. Three power has been a premium stat for 3CMC creatures for quite some time. It's only been in recent years that we've been seeing consistently strong cheap creatures. Bogardan Lancer - In order for this to be viable there needs to be a lot of decent 1 drops. Even then Benalish Cavalry essentially has the same stats without the downside of having an opponent take damage. +1/+1 counter synergies are few and far between at common. The downsides are many; the upsides are few. Bound in Silence - I don't understand rebel cards that well. Arn't there tutors for rebels with converted mana cost less than or equal to the converted mana cost of the creature that is doing the searching? Anyways, ignoring the tribal text, this is slightly worse than Recumbent Bliss or Arrest, but not strictly worse. Although in most cubes it will be strictly worse due to no Rebel synergies. I assume there is at least one good rebel common out there that can fetch this. Fatal Attraction - From the days where 4 damage was a premium for Red. We still are in those days, but now we at least have Flame Slash to keep us company. As far as Red enchantments which deal damage when they enter the battlefield go, Galanvic Arc is the best of the lot (maybe Oath of Chandra, however that is rare). Or in more recent enchantment developments, Omen of the Forge is alright. In saying all this, when it comes down to it, if you remove access to all decent damage based removal, cards such as Fatal Attraction will get played. Fatal Attraction is by no means terrible, it's just Red removal is very, very efficient since Lightning Bolt was printed. Flowstone Embrace - An aura that taps, just to show that there is design space there. As removal Immolation is better in most regards. As a buff, you can keep your creature's toughness if required. Or in multiplayer you can put it on an opponent's creature to use as a negotiating tool. Fomori Nomad - Ahh yes, the fabled nomad creature type. Maybe this was meant to be the new Hill Giant as a 4/4 is the new 3/3. Mass of Ghouls - Black seems to get a lot of lopsided power/toughnesses. I think it's because most large zombies don't have a balanced diet. 5 power unopposed sets a quick clock. 3 toughness means it's mostly target practice. Sparkspitter - The 1/3 body means that this card itself won't do a Spark Elemental impersonation. Turning lands into 3/1s means that this can act as retrace. However, the generator is rather vulnerable and Red decks already have a solution to drawing an excess of land which are the x-costspells. The Spark Elemental land-to-damage exchange rate is quite favourable if left unopposed.
Night's Whisper - Pretty obviously the best, but I'm not running this due to arbitrary restrictions I've got in place for my cube. Sign in Blood - The mana cost is much more restrictive, although if you run enough Swamps you hardly notice. Read the Bones - 3 mana puts it behind the other two. Scry 2 is alright, although not quite worth the extra mana in my opinion.
Funeral Rites - A better version of the 4 mana ones. Mill can be stronger than scry in the right deck. Altar's Reap - In the Undying Evil category of strong cards that require interaction to extract full value, therefore not consistent enough for most people's cubes. (Still a powerful card in my opinion.) Foreboding Fruit - It's another black artifacts card. There must be enough of these to support the archetype by now. The steep colour requirement for the food is quite the downside.
Bitter Revelation - Not quite enough support to justify the 4 mana. The card selection quite good, but most of the really good graveyard effects are not in common (excluding Stinkweed Imp, Exhume and some flashback.) Dark Bargain - Not sure what R&D were thinking making this 4 mana. Presumably it was strong at 3 mana, so it got bumped up and made totally irrelevant. Instant speed doesn't do much to make up for this.
On Peregrine Drake: I was overly harsh on it. I was comparing it to a tempo/midrage style deck which typically allocates almost all its resources to pulling ahead in the early game in order to close out a game. In which case Peregrine Drake is not so hot because of the opportunity cost; Peregrine Drake could be another piece of midrange. Maybe some decks can still find a slot for Peregrine Drake in between the Man-o'-Wars, Eldrazi Skyspawners, Repulses and whatever else is packed into these decks. Card slots are be quite tight after you've accumulated all the necessary tempo pieces.
On the other hand Lock decks (call them control, call them Lock) are looking for any kind of flier to actually get through damage so they can crawl to victory through their complete denial of their opponent's board/hand. The quicker the clock the more midrangey these style of control decks can play. Peregrine's a relatively low-cost flier which can act as an alternate wincon with Mnemonic Wall and Ghostly Flicker which are both cards in the my cube and both cards that these Lock decks typically play. Even without the alternative wincon (which is fairly likely when the deck intends to stall indefinitely) the Drake is a fine play turn 5 or later because you can keeps your lands untapped to deal with whatever you opponent tries to do. I'm much more likely to have things to do with 5 mana in control than tempo. Being able to play a creature and still have mana to Flood is invaluable.
Also apparently Ninjas are a thing in our format? 5 mana is a bit slow for Ninjas, still the Drake makes a good target to return. Maybe Cloud of Faeries is better for Ninjas because you can set up that much sooner.
Perilous Research is similar to Altar's Reap, although the fact that the sacrifice is not a part of the cost is a downside in my eyes compared to Altar's Reap because an opponent could always Shock in response causing you to sacrifice a land. Altar's Reap is able to get rid of Recumbent Bliss in a colour which has very limited enchantment removal. I honestly think Altar's Reap is a strong card, although it's clearly not a universal Black staple. Card draw is a rare sight in Black. There isn't a shortage of card advantage in Black, but that mostly is in the form of recurring creatures. And in order to recur creatures you need them to go to the graveyard, which turns into several hoops you have to jump through, meanwhile your opponent could be doing a good play which avoids interacting with your engine ie. going for lethal.
We have been pretty lucky at common in the sense that almost every viable strategy involves going through combat. Sure, there are other win conditions (Pili-Pala) but these tend to be difficult to assemble in singleton limited and very fragile. Outside Capsize locks and the odd Burn deck, that's pretty much it for viable alt-win decks. Not quite sure what that has to do with Altar's Reap. The point is I think Altar's Reap as strong being Black and Perilous Research being Blue — which already has access to very powerful card draw — as much weaker. I don't feel that there are many ways of taking advantage of the sacrifice component of Perilous Research either. Whereas I feel there are many, many more ways Black can find value in sacrificing one of its own.
Sylvok Lifestaff: Bonesplitter levels of good. It isn't going to end games as quickly, but that's exactly the purpose.
Giant Skewer: Really for the grind. Try it with Cranial Plating in a Black artifacts theme. That way the card generates value without needing to do much, even then it seems a bit too narrow. Equip 3 is pretty much a no-go on common artifacts. Then again we keep getting more sustain cards for Black so maybe there's a critical mass for stuff like this to be useful?
Prying Blade: By the time you get the Treasure there isn't too much to do with it. I would just want more damage for the cost instead of loot. Maybe the White equipment matters cards make stuff like this better than it appears.
Minotaur Skullcleaver is better than Slash Panther
that said, maybe have a look at my cube, since i go for lowcurve since ever and monowhite is the best deck lol
Cackling Flames is an interesting one. I don't get Hellbent often enough to really justify it. I'm often looking for a lull to cast 5 damage spells. And anyway Sprinting Warbrute is the best Lava Axe. It's just really nice to have redundancy in big damage effects because damage synergises so well with itself.
Not really sure how I feel about splicing a madness theme in. Most of the decent cards for it require supplementary sets for the common printings. I experimented with madness before, it felt like I needed too many pieces in order for the deck to function well. And the gains were marginal compared to a lot of the Red/x goodstuff decks.
Taste for Mayhem has been the hellbent card I've been considering adding. My red enchantment section is a bit light and the default mode of an extra 2 power somewhere is alright. 4 power for 1 mana is nothing to sneeze at and hopefully a deck that runs that is planning on unloading it's hand pretty quickly. Drawing extra lands will be the main challenge, although a few mana sinks such as Immolating Souleater will solve that problem.
Inner-flame Acolyte is a better Minotaur Skullcleaver in my opinion. I prefer having envoke over the slightly more awkward casting cost. Slash Panther can cost no red mana and always has 4 power; and I don't know about you, but 4 power creatures tend to be pretty good. Also I can give the +2/+0 to an unblockable creature and still net the 2/2 potentially as a blocker for myself. Embereth Paladin is a potential replacement for Slash Panther, although I'll try both because I suspect they will be ran in different builds.
Playing against White I go for war of attrition strategies. Most cube lists that I've seen run a lot of 1&2 drops, which is fine, but I think it goes to show that the other colour's sections haven't been adapted to a 1 mana heavy format. Little cards like Dead Weight go a long way to dropping the strength of an early-game. As well as that Dead Weight enables delirium, the cards of which are all aggressively costed. I generally want quite a bit of early hate and I want those cards to be multimodal so I have a use for them when I play against something that has less targets.
Blue's a bit of a sitting duck, but for me it's almost always paired with the colour with the most removal and grind. Getting Blue to play mono is a bit of a mission.
@Cobble:
You usually don't get many responses, when asking for mass evaluations. I would go step by step and ask specific VS questions. Also a great tool to help yourself is to use the Cubetutor Cube Comparison Function. I know, that not everyone hast their list up to date on cubetutor, but I still have a list of links in my signature. I often use this myself, when I want to see what other people run in specific slots.
I've been looking at other people's lists. I'll get around to eventually putting mine up on Cubetutor as well. I'm not too interested in direct comparisons either because I know that I've been balancing curves differently. Card by card is a pain when evaluating a whole section.
When posting a whole section, I'm looking for something that stands out rather than details, because I've already gone over the details. I'm also in the middle of a massive overhaul because I'm missing a few years of recent additions and the other colours are in a much rougher state (less Red staples have been printed recently so the line-up is fairly static).
i want to mention Cosmotronic Wave which is pretty insane. not only sweeps it away pesky x/1s and token strategies, its also a reliable finisher for sligh.
My cube on ct 4632
I've been considering Cosmotronic Wave. It's a piece of cardboard which by freak occurrence I am missing. I've tried out Ruthless Invasion, so I assume it plays similarly to that. Spraying down 1 toughness creatures sounds very useful. However Ruthless Invasion can be very strong for both Green and White (especially G/W). I'll probably run both as they fit different archetypes.
This is my current red section. I'm not quite sure what to do to this section other than the obvious add Chain Lightning (everyone I knew was being a cheapskate with their Fire & Lightning ones thinking the card would go up in value when I was extensively trading for commons.) I pulled apart Red a while ago, but since then it turns out that people want to get crushed in a format they don't understand.
Notes: Artillerize has always ended games when I've played it. It's basically the second cheapest Lava Axe in the format after Brimstone Volley. I'm less keen on x cost burn spells because I generally want to lower my curve by as much as possible, but I know their good pick-ups for people considering a red splash. Rolling Thunder is still strong, but requires a much more serious commitment to red. Mugging and Dead // Gone seem like weaker copies of Galvanic Blast, but they allow you to remove a creature from the equation when your looking to close out a game and double as good removal at dealing with pesky white cards and mana elves. Scorchwalker sneaks in 5 damage, which again pretty much ends games. Maw of Kozilek is in purely for experimental purposes; Wastes are freely available since they are basic lands. Yes, I know that Pyroblast is strictly better than Red Elemental Blast due to escape, hellbent, delve and Hero of the Pride. It's what I had at hand. Immolating Souleater and Oxidda Golem are sitting in the colourless section for sorting purposes. Also there are no cards from supplementary sets. It was a clean way of excluding Unsets, Eternal whatever and the MTG Online stuff as well.
I want to increase my spells section (I know they are all technically spells) and reduce the creature section. I've just found that each creature fills a purpose, but the spells are most contested, so I need to provide redundancy there.
There is also Shield of the Oversoul, which makes green creatures permanently indestructible and the white side isn't that terrible either.
Edit: Fun fact: I sometimes ask people if they know 2 commons, which can create a 5/4 Flying, Indestructible, Shroud on turn 3 in pauper and no one I've asked so far knew both (Naya Hushblade + Shield of the Oversoul).
I think I tried out Shield of the Oversoul quite a while ago, but there were no hexproofers to protect it from Man-o'-War. The cube was still forming so it was a pretty rouge place. I think it wasn't until someone stomped everyone with mono red that my cube's archetypes started forming for me. Before that I was relying a lot on decklists posted here as a guide for what to build.
[quote from="Cobble »" url="/forums/the-game/the-cube-forum/pauper-peasant-discussion/193989-the-pauper-cube-discussion-thread-commons-only?comment=7283"]Robe of Mirrors does the same thing without the stipulation of it being a blue creature.
No it isn't. +1/+1 is quite a big stat buff for a 1 mana aura. The downside of having to play it on a blue creature is negated by playing blue. That's if you actually intent on casting blue creatures with relevant bodies. The main downside I foresee of Clout of the Dominus is players will tunnel vision on getting both colours for all the bonuses, rather than focusing on the much more powerful effect. Another point is this kind of effect is not going to cut in on Merfolk Looters, which while strong are more for durdling than actually engaging the board. Durdling's fine and all, but creatures have gotten muchbetter.
As far as 5 drops go, most of them are outclassed by Green 4-drops which is a much better price point and you get Blastoderm! I find Stampeding Elk Herd never fails to give itself and everything else trample. Counting up your power and subtracting by your opponents toughness is the kind of maths Green wants to be doing.
I ran Sentinel Spider for a while. It was ok, until I realised that I could be saving mana and spending the extra mana on something like a Groundswell. The main thing that keep impressing me about Sentinel Spider is how it was always able to a relevant blocker while contributing on beatdown. Whereas Nessian Asp could only contribute to attacking or Blocking. I think I slightly prefer the extra power and trample of Tajuru Pathwarden over reach. While reach is an in demand ability for Green, additional power and trample contribute that much more to winning games that I'm in favour of Tajuru Pathwarden over Sentinel Spider for the limited card slot. Vigilance is a strong keyword for big green creatures.
Kavu Climber's not costed as a big creature, it's costed as a cantrap and needs to be treated as such. Then again we now have Silverback Shaman, Entourage of Trest and Excavating Anurid as bigger bodies with card draw attached. Kavu Climber definitely the no fuss version, but at the end of the day you're paying 2 additional mana for a Nessian Courser that draws a card, which is not that worth it. Being an etb give Kavu Climber some resistance to Man-o'-War.
Rubbleback Rhino can be really difficult for opponents to deal with and even without relevant auras and equipment. Rubbleback Rhino put on guard duty can totally brick out a game against non-fliers and non-shadowers. The limited amount of removal can be used to chomp evasion creatures, while all ground creatures must be this tall to fight. It is extremely rare to actually play against pumps spells as Rubbleback Rhino although I include a few in non-Green colours as a token gesture to deck builders.
I haven't had a chance to try out Silverback Shaman. It's very well costed as a cantrap. Still, it will feel bad to have Pacifism cast on.
On that note, Wickerbough Elder is the best honourary 5-drop. Destroying artifacts and enchantments can be devastating when it's attached to a decent body.
My fear with Entourage of Trest is you can get out-tempoed. I am very hesitant about any card which can potentially give my opponent free resources. Of course when you hold tempo Entourage of Trest is great. I'm still worried about how this card deals with the Flood matchup.
Excavating Anurid. I'm pretty happy trading lands for draw. The only time I don't want to be doing that is when I'm curving out into Maul Splicer. Also treshhold is another excuse to be running the Green Black selfmill cards.
Rhystic Lightning is another 4 damage spell missing. Green three drops are way too thin. I'm not sure any deck will play Pilgrim's Eye or Meteor Golem.
Honden of Seeing Winds cost 5 mana and takes several turns before it pays itself off. The Red Shrine is an unanswerable Prodigal Pyromancer. I would pay this with commons only, but I assume that the overall power level is substantially higher here.
I'm more of a Pauper person, so those are my thoughts at a glance.
Also in regards to people being removing Loxodon Warhammer. Really? Do people get that upset when they lose to life gain? I'm sorry to inform people who play aggro decks that there is a fatal flaw in their strategy and that is the opponent can just gain life back that you've painstakingly reduced. It definitely isn't nearly as broken as Skullclamp. What's the interaction there? Hope your opponent doesn't draw Skullclamp?
Errr... Somewhere in that tangent I lost the point I was trying to make about Black card draw. Paying life to not put yourself ahead on board is not a good idea when aggro decks are tuned and often cheaper recursion is available. Sure Read the Bones is decent dig, but Unearth is plain cheaper. The creatures that are being recurred tend to accrue value each type you see them. Gray Merchant of Asphodel is a classic example. If you get this back a few times with any kind of devotion you win. Most enter the battlefield effects aren't this good, but the old Phyrexian Rager and Chittering Rats will get there in the end. Another reason why Okiba-Gang Shinobi is first pick material if I'm considering going Black. This is why I am currently in favour of Ghoulcaller's Chant over Sign in Blood.
For me Altar's Reap is one of the tools I have available to cheaply kill my own creatures when they aren't dying in combat. As well as being an alright response to an opponent's removal spell. Gray Merchant of Asphodel isn't going to recur itself. Being able to pop Viridian Emissary and Perilous Myr can be quite important as people will avoid trading with those kinds of creatures when possible. Perilous Myr is a staple. I've thoroughly played it and it is amazing. I even play it in aggro decks when I'm short a 2-drop. Perilous Myr carries Bonesplitter like a champion.
Also I want to get around to reviewing Planar Chaos, because it's a mess.
I wasn't intending on doing a full review, I just kept finding things to say. I missed some of the vanilla creatures and a couple of cards which I had forgotten that they were downshifted. So for completeness' sake.
Blade of the Sixth Pride - The first 3/1 for 2. The first of many. It's a rebel, so technically not strictly worse than something such as Leonin of the Lost Pride, although I'm not sure if anyone runs rebel synergies. A vanilla 3/1 for 2 in white will still get played even in a competitive environment in Pauper cube.
Blind Phantasm - This vanilla clearly signals that Blue creatures are going to typically have less over stats for mana cost than other more Green colours. Three power has been a premium stat for 3CMC creatures for quite some time. It's only been in recent years that we've been seeing consistently strong cheap creatures.
Bogardan Lancer - In order for this to be viable there needs to be a lot of decent 1 drops. Even then Benalish Cavalry essentially has the same stats without the downside of having an opponent take damage. +1/+1 counter synergies are few and far between at common. The downsides are many; the upsides are few.
Bound in Silence - I don't understand rebel cards that well. Arn't there tutors for rebels with converted mana cost less than or equal to the converted mana cost of the creature that is doing the searching? Anyways, ignoring the tribal text, this is slightly worse than Recumbent Bliss or Arrest, but not strictly worse. Although in most cubes it will be strictly worse due to no Rebel synergies. I assume there is at least one good rebel common out there that can fetch this.
Fatal Attraction - From the days where 4 damage was a premium for Red. We still are in those days, but now we at least have Flame Slash to keep us company. As far as Red enchantments which deal damage when they enter the battlefield go, Galanvic Arc is the best of the lot (maybe Oath of Chandra, however that is rare). Or in more recent enchantment developments, Omen of the Forge is alright. In saying all this, when it comes down to it, if you remove access to all decent damage based removal, cards such as Fatal Attraction will get played. Fatal Attraction is by no means terrible, it's just Red removal is very, very efficient since Lightning Bolt was printed.
Flowstone Embrace - An aura that taps, just to show that there is design space there. As removal Immolation is better in most regards. As a buff, you can keep your creature's toughness if required. Or in multiplayer you can put it on an opponent's creature to use as a negotiating tool.
Fomori Nomad - Ahh yes, the fabled nomad creature type. Maybe this was meant to be the new Hill Giant as a 4/4 is the new 3/3.
Mass of Ghouls - Black seems to get a lot of lopsided power/toughnesses. I think it's because most large zombies don't have a balanced diet. 5 power unopposed sets a quick clock. 3 toughness means it's mostly target practice.
Sparkspitter - The 1/3 body means that this card itself won't do a Spark Elemental impersonation. Turning lands into 3/1s means that this can act as retrace. However, the generator is rather vulnerable and Red decks already have a solution to drawing an excess of land which are the x-cost spells. The Spark Elemental land-to-damage exchange rate is quite favourable if left unopposed.
Pretty much agree with this. I would also add Funeral Rites and Foreboding Fruit.
How I rank them:
Death Denied - One of the best Arcane spells (ignoring Through the Breach).
Night's Whisper - Pretty obviously the best, but I'm not running this due to arbitrary restrictions I've got in place for my cube.
Sign in Blood - The mana cost is much more restrictive, although if you run enough Swamps you hardly notice.
Read the Bones - 3 mana puts it behind the other two. Scry 2 is alright, although not quite worth the extra mana in my opinion.
Funeral Rites - A better version of the 4 mana ones. Mill can be stronger than scry in the right deck.
Altar's Reap - In the Undying Evil category of strong cards that require interaction to extract full value, therefore not consistent enough for most people's cubes. (Still a powerful card in my opinion.)
Foreboding Fruit - It's another black artifacts card. There must be enough of these to support the archetype by now. The steep colour requirement for the food is quite the downside.
Bitter Revelation - Not quite enough support to justify the 4 mana. The card selection quite good, but most of the really good graveyard effects are not in common (excluding Stinkweed Imp, Exhume and some flashback.)
Dark Bargain - Not sure what R&D were thinking making this 4 mana. Presumably it was strong at 3 mana, so it got bumped up and made totally irrelevant. Instant speed doesn't do much to make up for this.
On the other hand Lock decks (call them control, call them Lock) are looking for any kind of flier to actually get through damage so they can crawl to victory through their complete denial of their opponent's board/hand. The quicker the clock the more midrangey these style of control decks can play. Peregrine's a relatively low-cost flier which can act as an alternate wincon with Mnemonic Wall and Ghostly Flicker which are both cards in the my cube and both cards that these Lock decks typically play. Even without the alternative wincon (which is fairly likely when the deck intends to stall indefinitely) the Drake is a fine play turn 5 or later because you can keeps your lands untapped to deal with whatever you opponent tries to do. I'm much more likely to have things to do with 5 mana in control than tempo. Being able to play a creature and still have mana to Flood is invaluable.
Also apparently Ninjas are a thing in our format? 5 mana is a bit slow for Ninjas, still the Drake makes a good target to return. Maybe Cloud of Faeries is better for Ninjas because you can set up that much sooner.
We have been pretty lucky at common in the sense that almost every viable strategy involves going through combat. Sure, there are other win conditions (Pili-Pala) but these tend to be difficult to assemble in singleton limited and very fragile. Outside Capsize locks and the odd Burn deck, that's pretty much it for viable alt-win decks. Not quite sure what that has to do with Altar's Reap. The point is I think Altar's Reap as strong being Black and Perilous Research being Blue — which already has access to very powerful card draw — as much weaker. I don't feel that there are many ways of taking advantage of the sacrifice component of Perilous Research either. Whereas I feel there are many, many more ways Black can find value in sacrificing one of its own.
Giant Skewer: Really for the grind. Try it with Cranial Plating in a Black artifacts theme. That way the card generates value without needing to do much, even then it seems a bit too narrow. Equip 3 is pretty much a no-go on common artifacts. Then again we keep getting more sustain cards for Black so maybe there's a critical mass for stuff like this to be useful?
Prying Blade: By the time you get the Treasure there isn't too much to do with it. I would just want more damage for the cost instead of loot. Maybe the White equipment matters cards make stuff like this better than it appears.
Cackling Flames is an interesting one. I don't get Hellbent often enough to really justify it. I'm often looking for a lull to cast 5 damage spells. And anyway Sprinting Warbrute is the best Lava Axe. It's just really nice to have redundancy in big damage effects because damage synergises so well with itself.
Not really sure how I feel about splicing a madness theme in. Most of the decent cards for it require supplementary sets for the common printings. I experimented with madness before, it felt like I needed too many pieces in order for the deck to function well. And the gains were marginal compared to a lot of the Red/x goodstuff decks.
Taste for Mayhem has been the hellbent card I've been considering adding. My red enchantment section is a bit light and the default mode of an extra 2 power somewhere is alright. 4 power for 1 mana is nothing to sneeze at and hopefully a deck that runs that is planning on unloading it's hand pretty quickly. Drawing extra lands will be the main challenge, although a few mana sinks such as Immolating Souleater will solve that problem.
Inner-flame Acolyte is a better Minotaur Skullcleaver in my opinion. I prefer having envoke over the slightly more awkward casting cost. Slash Panther can cost no red mana and always has 4 power; and I don't know about you, but 4 power creatures tend to be pretty good. Also I can give the +2/+0 to an unblockable creature and still net the 2/2 potentially as a blocker for myself. Embereth Paladin is a potential replacement for Slash Panther, although I'll try both because I suspect they will be ran in different builds.
Playing against White I go for war of attrition strategies. Most cube lists that I've seen run a lot of 1&2 drops, which is fine, but I think it goes to show that the other colour's sections haven't been adapted to a 1 mana heavy format. Little cards like Dead Weight go a long way to dropping the strength of an early-game. As well as that Dead Weight enables delirium, the cards of which are all aggressively costed. I generally want quite a bit of early hate and I want those cards to be multimodal so I have a use for them when I play against something that has less targets.
Blue's a bit of a sitting duck, but for me it's almost always paired with the colour with the most removal and grind. Getting Blue to play mono is a bit of a mission.
I've been looking at other people's lists. I'll get around to eventually putting mine up on Cubetutor as well. I'm not too interested in direct comparisons either because I know that I've been balancing curves differently. Card by card is a pain when evaluating a whole section.
When posting a whole section, I'm looking for something that stands out rather than details, because I've already gone over the details. I'm also in the middle of a massive overhaul because I'm missing a few years of recent additions and the other colours are in a much rougher state (less Red staples have been printed recently so the line-up is fairly static).
I've been considering Cosmotronic Wave. It's a piece of cardboard which by freak occurrence I am missing. I've tried out Ruthless Invasion, so I assume it plays similarly to that. Spraying down 1 toughness creatures sounds very useful. However Ruthless Invasion can be very strong for both Green and White (especially G/W). I'll probably run both as they fit different archetypes.
1 Slash Panther
Creatures (41)
1 Atarka Efreet
1 Borderland Marauder
1 Chartooth Cougar
1 Embereth Paladin
1 Fireslinger
1 Foundry Street Denizen
1 Gathan Raiders
1 Ghirapur Gearcrafter
1 Ghitu Slinger
1 Goblin Cohort
1 Goblin Freerunner
1 Goblin Heelcutter
1 Goblin Shortcutter
1 Gorehorn Minotaurs
1 Gore-House Chainwalker
1 Hissing Iguanar
1 Inner-Flame Acolyte
1 Intimidator Initiate
1 Keldon Marauders
1 Keldon Halberdier
1 Kozilek's Sentinel
1 Kruin Striker
1 Martyr of Ashes
1 Maw of Kozilek
1 Mogg Conscripts
1 Mogg Fanatic
1 Plated Geopede
1 Prickleboar
1 Rimrock Knight
1 Rubblebelt Recluse
1 Ruinous Minotaur
1 Rukh Egg
1 Scorchwalker
1 Sparksmith
1 Spikewheel Acrobat
1 Splatter Thug
1 Sprinting Warbrute
1 Stingscourger
1 Underworld Rage-Hound
1 Weaselback Redcap
1 Zada's Commando
1 Crusher Zendikon
1 Madcap Skills
Instant (18)
1 Artillerize
1 Brimstone Volley
1 Burst Lightning
1 Dead // Gone
1 Dynacharge
1 Fireblast
1 Incinerate
1 Lash Out
1 Lava Dart
1 Lightning Bolt
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Rhystic Lightning
1 Rock Slide
1 Searing Blaze
1 Searing Spear
1 Smash to Smithereens
1 Staggershock
1 Thrill of Possibility
Sorcery (13)
1 Aftershock
1 Arc Lightning
1 Disintegrate
1 Faithless Looting
1 Fireball
1 Firebolt
1 Flame Slash
1 Kaervek's Torch
1 Molten Rain
1 Mugging
1 Pyrotechnics
1 Reckless Charge
1 Rolling Thunder
Notes: Artillerize has always ended games when I've played it. It's basically the second cheapest Lava Axe in the format after Brimstone Volley. I'm less keen on x cost burn spells because I generally want to lower my curve by as much as possible, but I know their good pick-ups for people considering a red splash. Rolling Thunder is still strong, but requires a much more serious commitment to red. Mugging and Dead // Gone seem like weaker copies of Galvanic Blast, but they allow you to remove a creature from the equation when your looking to close out a game and double as good removal at dealing with pesky white cards and mana elves. Scorchwalker sneaks in 5 damage, which again pretty much ends games. Maw of Kozilek is in purely for experimental purposes; Wastes are freely available since they are basic lands. Yes, I know that Pyroblast is strictly better than Red Elemental Blast due to escape, hellbent, delve and Hero of the Pride. It's what I had at hand. Immolating Souleater and Oxidda Golem are sitting in the colourless section for sorting purposes. Also there are no cards from supplementary sets. It was a clean way of excluding Unsets, Eternal whatever and the MTG Online stuff as well.
I want to increase my spells section (I know they are all technically spells) and reduce the creature section. I've just found that each creature fills a purpose, but the spells are most contested, so I need to provide redundancy there.
Naya Hushblade and Shield of the Oversoul were both standard legal at the same time but never saw any play.
I think I tried out Shield of the Oversoul quite a while ago, but there were no hexproofers to protect it from Man-o'-War. The cube was still forming so it was a pretty rouge place. I think it wasn't until someone stomped everyone with mono red that my cube's archetypes started forming for me. Before that I was relying a lot on decklists posted here as a guide for what to build.
Because this is the place to discuss cards such as Clout of the Dominus.
No it isn't. +1/+1 is quite a big stat buff for a 1 mana aura. The downside of having to play it on a blue creature is negated by playing blue. That's if you actually intent on casting blue creatures with relevant bodies. The main downside I foresee of Clout of the Dominus is players will tunnel vision on getting both colours for all the bonuses, rather than focusing on the much more powerful effect. Another point is this kind of effect is not going to cut in on Merfolk Looters, which while strong are more for durdling than actually engaging the board. Durdling's fine and all, but creatures have gotten much better.