I'm surprised you didnt mention the red and green virtues (you can rebuy strip mine for 1 mana), the boros adventure 3/1 beater, etc for mid level cubes
But most importantly, i think you should have mentioned Questing Druid, Beseech, Decadent Dragon, and Izzet Otter at least
Im testing find or finality, as find is a greate rate for 2 cards, especially in a color pair full of value creatures and creatures that trade. Finality is an expensive Boardwipe that can very easily leave you with the only threat on the board to win an attrition game, which are the things BG usually finds itself doing.
I was lucky enough to get tajic, trophy and cratermaker, and i just need a knight and whisperer to complete my grn adds
Yesh ive thought about adding him. My current 3 UW cards are sphinxs rev, reflector mage, and Geist of St Traft
I feel like the cards pull toward two different game plans (rev toward control, GoST toward tempo, and mage to both), so id be interested in replacing mage with teferi to help the UW control strategy
Demonlord beezy:
While he is very powerful, blacks top 6 drops (grave titan, massacre wurm/nox hulk) are really good at helping you come from behind, which ive found to be key in strategies where they aren't hitting the board fairly. I think DBs biggest strike against him isn't necessarily that there are better 6 drops, its simply that he doesn't impact the board enough (which is crazy to say)
Lyra:
While i agree that her ability is arguably easier to use than baneslayers, she falls in the cliche "dies to removal" bin. In fact, baneslayer angel has experienced less cube play over the past fee years with the printing of 5 drops with immediate board impact like angel of invention. Also, not a lot of angels get played in cube and the ones that do are 4+ cmc, which isnt where you want your curve to be. As a stat monster, she will win games if unanswered, but cubes have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to that these days.
Cast down:
Im not a big fan of the card. As more pushed legendaries are finding their way into cubes, the list of good targets for this piece of removal drops. I mean, sure you can kill nox hulk and baneslayer for 2 mana, but if the opponent has a powerful legendary creature (in cube, there are many powerful legendary creatures), cast down will behave like an edict. I would have to do some data mining to link not just number of potential targets, But quality as well
Divest: i agree with your analysis and i'd rank it 4th best t1 discard, with the top being TS, IOK and duress.
Im usually not thrilled for discard that nabs creatures, since black should be able to deal with them, and still come out on top in terms of mana efficiency. Hitting artifacts however is very important since thats one of the card types black usually cannot deal with.
I'm thinking on cutting it for Crystal shard. It's a bit of a weird change I know, And shard might be outdated in 360, but censor really hasn't impressed me.
I originally was only interested in chart and tyrant. Chart because of the reasons you gave (it does everything blue wants to do), and tyrant because I've been waiting for wotc to print this card (played crusher was close before this).
Card may be boring, but it is practical.
Spyglass looks great as a needle variant, and almost works as a pseudo discard spell for pws and (most) artifacts. Kind of like a colorless duress
Plus the #1 spot is yet another lion/pup. Jist make a "lion w upside" section instead
I'm surprised you didnt mention the red and green virtues (you can rebuy strip mine for 1 mana), the boros adventure 3/1 beater, etc for mid level cubes
But most importantly, i think you should have mentioned Questing Druid, Beseech, Decadent Dragon, and Izzet Otter at least
I had some thoughts on Starnheim and foretold in general following my playtesting
https://twitter.com/Zolthux/status/1352984233942384640?s=19
Im not testing Doomskar, as i still think its worse than the 4 mana wraths (which i feel ive sufficient of at my size)
Surprised not to see bloodsky berserker and Clarion Spirit which are testing well in low curve aggro decks.
I was lucky enough to get tajic, trophy and cratermaker, and i just need a knight and whisperer to complete my grn adds
I feel like the cards pull toward two different game plans (rev toward control, GoST toward tempo, and mage to both), so id be interested in replacing mage with teferi to help the UW control strategy
Some comments
Demonlord beezy:
While he is very powerful, blacks top 6 drops (grave titan, massacre wurm/nox hulk) are really good at helping you come from behind, which ive found to be key in strategies where they aren't hitting the board fairly. I think DBs biggest strike against him isn't necessarily that there are better 6 drops, its simply that he doesn't impact the board enough (which is crazy to say)
Lyra:
While i agree that her ability is arguably easier to use than baneslayers, she falls in the cliche "dies to removal" bin. In fact, baneslayer angel has experienced less cube play over the past fee years with the printing of 5 drops with immediate board impact like angel of invention. Also, not a lot of angels get played in cube and the ones that do are 4+ cmc, which isnt where you want your curve to be. As a stat monster, she will win games if unanswered, but cubes have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to that these days.
Cast down:
Im not a big fan of the card. As more pushed legendaries are finding their way into cubes, the list of good targets for this piece of removal drops. I mean, sure you can kill nox hulk and baneslayer for 2 mana, but if the opponent has a powerful legendary creature (in cube, there are many powerful legendary creatures), cast down will behave like an edict. I would have to do some data mining to link not just number of potential targets, But quality as well
Divest: i agree with your analysis and i'd rank it 4th best t1 discard, with the top being TS, IOK and duress.
Im usually not thrilled for discard that nabs creatures, since black should be able to deal with them, and still come out on top in terms of mana efficiency. Hitting artifacts however is very important since thats one of the card types black usually cannot deal with.
I originally was only interested in chart and tyrant. Chart because of the reasons you gave (it does everything blue wants to do), and tyrant because I've been waiting for wotc to print this card (played crusher was close before this).
Card may be boring, but it is practical.
Spyglass looks great as a needle variant, and almost works as a pseudo discard spell for pws and (most) artifacts. Kind of like a colorless duress