Rakka Mar interests me because although the turn 4 impact is pretty low, the turn 5 impact looks really good. The triple R required for 2RRR on turn 5 is not always easy, but I think a ETBT 2/2 PLUS a 3/1 haste PLUS long-term value engine is good enough. I would honestly categorize this against the other red 5 drops, but that is also some tough competition though. Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit also getting downshifted is very interesting. Another card with tougher color requirements and a small immediate turn impact. I think the long-term value is worth all that work and you also get to enable some more combo potential off the Persist creatures.
Having retired from Commander a while back, I need to ask if Cartographer's Hawk is a substantial upgrade to the Mistral Chargers of the world?
I ask because the return trigger is mandatory, so you are forced to search up a Plains at the expense of bouncing your own Hawk. This feels like it will be a great effect in many scenarios, but I wanted to see if anyone here has more experience with the card.
Selesnya has been one of my hardest color combinations to figure out for Cube. Honestly, I just feel weird about green strategies outside of ramp. I think the next best things Green do are graveyard synergy and +1/+1 counters.
Selesnya is my +1/+1 counter theme since White and Selesnya itself have some pretty good payoffs for Green's pretty good ability to add +1/+1 counters. My issue has always been that I feel like green has no great payoffs for having +1/+1 counters other than the creatures becoming bigger.
I suppose the real payoffs are Scurry Oak and Herd Baloth, plus you can do all the crazy combo stuff with Rosie Cotton of South Lane. That would definitely give green a solid direction for +1/+1 counters and have some overlap with the Rhythm of the Wild and Invigorating Hot Springs part of Gruul.
You talked me into Rosie Cotton of South Lane. It sounds really interesting because it helps you go wide AND go tall at the same time. You also get to play into any +1/+1 counter synergies you may have in the deck.
I am always a tad skeptical of cards whose power comes from being paired with other already good cards. That said, the power of these combinations sounds extremely high, so I am happy to try that out. Even got my foil scene Rosie to play.
Re: Rosie Cotton of South Lane, would you consider this better token support than Intangible Virtue or Prava of the Steel Legion? Saying it supports creature tokens well enough and then also has the combo upside if you run those cards.
Rosie is the easiest to remove of all three, but you also do not constantly need Rosie in play for your tokens to be pumped. This also means you need Rosie out *before* the tokens, which can be rough.
The other upside of placing the counters on non-token creatures means you can add extra power to attacks right away.
I think I want to keep Prava instead of Rosie, but I could pretty easily be talked out of that position.
I wrote off Fear, Fire, Foes! after I noticed you cannot hit players with the X damage. X damage to players would have let me consider this as an aggro finisher that also clears small blockers. Not that this card is bad, but it is squarely placed amongst many contemporaries as a mid-range/control card with an anti-token bend.
At that point, you kind of pick your favorite of the various effects. Outside of Slice and Dice, I would be more inclined towards Volcanic Torrent or even Thunderwave as options.
Hidden Stockpile has the problem that you really have to be using *something else* with it to get the most out of its Revolt triggers. I do not think anyone is really happy looping the token every turn to Scry 1.
Of course, it also has some regular uses outside of dedicated sacrifice decks. You can pay 1 to sacrifice chump blockers or otherwise dying creatures to scry 1, which is okay. You can also trade creatures off when you attack for a token or two.
Shadow Summoning makes two good tokens without anything else. Elas il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim has deathtouch and could trade up when you are not hitting its triggers. Denethor, Ruling Stewart has a good effect to sacrifice and a reasonable body. Late game, you can probably get something going with a clogged board after Denethor is cast.
Since (some of) y'all are cubing Midnight Haunting, I wonder if anyone looked at Shadow Summoning.
I want to check my own expectations here, but the card I kept thinking about is Expressive Iteration. No one runs Divination, but a fair number of people run a worse guild version of it at two mana.
People are playing Midnight Haunting (exactly 1 more person than plays Expressive Iteration, per the 2022 Cube Survey), so is doing a worse guild version at 2-mana interesting? And with everyone talking about Orzhov sac outlets, having multiple bodies also seems good too.
ETBT is a bummer and certainly matters in lots of situations. That said, it's a minor drawback on curve.
The highly anticipated and oft-controversial Lord of the Rings set is upon us. We have discussed lots of the more interesting mechanics in some detail, but now it is time to hone in on the best cards to Cube.
Despite replacing Modern Horizons on the schedule, this is not a super-powerful set. But, as always, is pretty deep on interesting cards worth considering and I think a lot of people will find favorites.
My cube is 512 cards, 6 spells and 3 lands per guild, maximized for power. Here is my Too Early Top 20 for the Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle Earth.
20) Éowyn, Lady of Rohan- A sizable creature that buffs your other creatures. Someone pointed out similarities with Danitha Capashen, Paragon and I think the built-in keywords place Danitha slightly ahead.
19) The Mouth of Sauron- Dimir has become my favorite reanimator/graveyard deck, so Mouth is a great fit here. I am mostly just curious as to how big the Army needs to be to get good value. X equals 4 feels like that spot, and that's not the easiest to achieve, especially on curve.
18) Denethor, Ruling Steward- Some great discussion on here comparing to existing cards like Hidden Stockpile and Fleshtaker. Pretty close power level between the 3 cards. The small bleeding aligns well with similar Black and Orzhov cards, but 2 mana is expensive to activate.
17) Rosie Cotton of South Lane- A very cool combo piece for some commonly cubed cards. I play neither Scurry Oak or Herd Baloth, so this sits on the side for now.
I will play basically any mechanics that led to a high-powered play experience. My issue is not the complexity of the mechanic, but the power and the volume. The upside is borderline nothing prior to a 2nd tempting, so the base card has to be good enough.
16) Bilbo, Retired Burglar- With that all said, Bilbo promises two tempting and an interesting gameplay pattern: Attack with the hard-to-block 1/ 3 and make some treasure before it dies and turns another creature into a looter.
15) Gollum, Patient Plotter- Another card that offers multiple tempts, but with some setup cost. The base effect is fine enough and maybe you have small things to turn back into Gollum and maybe you want to turbo tempt and power the Ring up.
14) Samwise the Stouthearted- An interesting variation on other combat tricks or gating creatures. You really need to hit on the ETB to get value and Peasant has fewer good hits outside of creatures themselves.
13) Fiery Inscription- Whether this is better than Guttersnipe is interesting. I like that being a non-creature plays well with Prowess and similar effects, but a 2/2 body is always nice too.
Cards Searching For Fellowship
12) Old Man Willow- A pretty beefy creature that turns expendable resources into Disfigure. Generically powerful, but maybe generically powerful enough?
11) Shadow Summoning- It initially looks a little underwhelming: ETB tapped, only 2 power of fliers for 2 mana, guild slot. The rate just might be good enough despite all that.
10) Troll of Khazad-dûm- These one-man cyclers can really help turbo power the reanimator deck. The cycling is a great way to ensure consistent draws, but not sure how often you just want to cast this spell.
9) Long List of the Ents- Does a few things the green decks want: Pumps a lot of creatures, plays into +1/+1 synergies. Is that enough upside to balance this being really slow sometimes?
8) Grishnákh, Brash Instigator- Has a perfect home in sacrifice decks: makes 2 bodies and steals another (small) creature. Probably good enough in go-wide/token decks and likely meh elsewhere.
7) Shire Terrace- A decent fixing card best suited for light splashes. Enables minor landfall, sacrifice, and graveyard synergies. Definitely in the middle tier for these effects.
6) Generous Ent- Great consistency for the green decks plus a solid enough ramp/reanimator target.
5) Rally at the Hornburg- A strong variant on red's token makers. Hasty tokens means Rally can be good in generic aggro decks and adds the little upsides for spellslinging, tokens, and sacrifice.
The Trilogy
4) Westfold Rider- Another solid Disenchant creature that should ensure all types of decks have good maindeck answers to artifacts/enchantments.
3) Stern Scolding- A very unique card for blue decks that should fit pretty well in tempo decks and control decks. Answers tons of cheap creatures and plenty of 4 and 5 mana creatures too.
2) Meneldor, Swift Savior- An extremely good enabler for ETB abilities where the default mode is a big flier.
Return of the King
1) Reprieve- An amazing tempo spell reprinted into an even better color for it. An immediate all-time staple.
My take on 1-mana card selection spells is that most of their value comes from helping with synergy in one of two ways:
1) Assembling synergistic cards quickly
OR
2) Being part of deck synergy
The first one applies less to Peasant since we have fewer dedicated Combo decks. We do have generally good synergy decks in every color, however.
The second one applies way more to blue than green. Between casting rewards, prowess, spells in the graveyard, and delve, blue wants to cast one-mana instants/sorceries. Green not only has none of those synergies, but also has a deep roster of other 1-mana spells that help the ramp gameplan.
For all of these, it's also really important that you have time to play the spell. Is the average creature in your deck worth paying an extra mana compared to the best creature in your sideboard? Blue operates a bit more reactively, which is also an advantage over green.
I like Théoden, King of Rohan. How does it stack up against newcomer Bladehold War-Whip and old reliable Iroas' Champion? Quite a large number (81 out of 241) of the creatures in my cube are humans, and most of those are in Boros colours. Losing double strike on the defense is a bummer, though.
I am surprised you have so many Humans in your cube. I am down under 23% now (60/263), although white does still have more than the other colors. Did you try Coppercoat Vanguard?
I will also test out Shire Terrace, given the copious mana fixing I try for. Similar to the green land-cyclers, I am curious how people rank the "colorless" fixing lands.
I would rather be playing a lot of other ramp/fixing cards at 3 mana before I played the C-tier stuff. Llanowar Visionary, Jewel Thief, and both Cultivates.
Rosie Cotton of South Lane is one of those cards where I am underwhelmed by the card outside of the combo potential. It is definitely getting filed away for later as part of a potential combo package.
Shire Terrace- I was pretty hyped on this card but have cooled down. It does not fix until turn 3, at which point you have to spend a lot of time to fix your mana. If your splash is light, you are probably fine with a land that keeps you fully functional until you fix.
Some thoughts on cards I have not yet seen mentioned:
Meneldor, Swift Savior- A reasonable close parallel to Galepowder Mage. Does not help you get blockers though or clear opposing tokens, but also allows your creatures to attack before blinking. As someone down on the blink archetype, feels like a generic good card as opposed to a "good in blink decks card."
Stern Scolding- Of the 263 cards I classify as "Creatures" in my cube, which also includes token makers, this hits ~200 of them. That is a lot of interaction for a one-mana spell, and it should be a really neat effect for control. Maybe a blue Fatal Push?
Generous Ent- A big creature that does a little bit of everything: okay-ish Ramp target, bins itself for Reanimator, Forestcycles. The turn 1 cycling makes this another cool turn-2 Exhume play. Also, this is why I do not like Abundant Harvest. So many other green cards do a similar thing while also fitting green's normal gameplans.
Quickbeam, Upstart Ent- Decently big creature that pushes damage through. This is not a traditional ramp target, but it tops curves well and probably does well on certain boards for Ramp decks as it pumps mana elves like the world's worst Craterhoof.
Malone needs to re-read how Tempted works. It's an emblem and will keep its abilities regardless of whether or not you have a ring bearer.
Not something you'd expect to trigger very often but even getting the looter mode is good enough upside.
I mean to say that the emblem keeps the abilities when the Ring bearer dies, but the emblem just sits there until you get Tempted by the Ring again. If your deck is not able to get the Looter mode, the actual upside is miniscule.
You said earlier that "Samwise is obvioualy great" after the Ring was revealed and that is what I am unsure about.
Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit also getting downshifted is very interesting. Another card with tougher color requirements and a small immediate turn impact. I think the long-term value is worth all that work and you also get to enable some more combo potential off the Persist creatures.
I ask because the return trigger is mandatory, so you are forced to search up a Plains at the expense of bouncing your own Hawk. This feels like it will be a great effect in many scenarios, but I wanted to see if anyone here has more experience with the card.
Selesnya is my +1/+1 counter theme since White and Selesnya itself have some pretty good payoffs for Green's pretty good ability to add +1/+1 counters. My issue has always been that I feel like green has no great payoffs for having +1/+1 counters other than the creatures becoming bigger.
I suppose the real payoffs are Scurry Oak and Herd Baloth, plus you can do all the crazy combo stuff with Rosie Cotton of South Lane. That would definitely give green a solid direction for +1/+1 counters and have some overlap with the Rhythm of the Wild and Invigorating Hot Springs part of Gruul.
I am always a tad skeptical of cards whose power comes from being paired with other already good cards. That said, the power of these combinations sounds extremely high, so I am happy to try that out. Even got my foil scene Rosie to play.
Rosie is the easiest to remove of all three, but you also do not constantly need Rosie in play for your tokens to be pumped. This also means you need Rosie out *before* the tokens, which can be rough.
The other upside of placing the counters on non-token creatures means you can add extra power to attacks right away.
I think I want to keep Prava instead of Rosie, but I could pretty easily be talked out of that position.
At that point, you kind of pick your favorite of the various effects. Outside of Slice and Dice, I would be more inclined towards Volcanic Torrent or even Thunderwave as options.
Of course, it also has some regular uses outside of dedicated sacrifice decks. You can pay 1 to sacrifice chump blockers or otherwise dying creatures to scry 1, which is okay. You can also trade creatures off when you attack for a token or two.
Shadow Summoning makes two good tokens without anything else.
Elas il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim has deathtouch and could trade up when you are not hitting its triggers.
Denethor, Ruling Stewart has a good effect to sacrifice and a reasonable body. Late game, you can probably get something going with a clogged board after Denethor is cast.
I want to check my own expectations here, but the card I kept thinking about is Expressive Iteration. No one runs Divination, but a fair number of people run a worse guild version of it at two mana.
People are playing Midnight Haunting (exactly 1 more person than plays Expressive Iteration, per the 2022 Cube Survey), so is doing a worse guild version at 2-mana interesting? And with everyone talking about Orzhov sac outlets, having multiple bodies also seems good too.
ETBT is a bummer and certainly matters in lots of situations. That said, it's a minor drawback on curve.
Despite replacing Modern Horizons on the schedule, this is not a super-powerful set. But, as always, is pretty deep on interesting cards worth considering and I think a lot of people will find favorites.
My cube is 512 cards, 6 spells and 3 lands per guild, maximized for power. Here is my Too Early Top 20 for the Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle Earth.
20) Éowyn, Lady of Rohan- A sizable creature that buffs your other creatures. Someone pointed out similarities with Danitha Capashen, Paragon and I think the built-in keywords place Danitha slightly ahead.
19) The Mouth of Sauron- Dimir has become my favorite reanimator/graveyard deck, so Mouth is a great fit here. I am mostly just curious as to how big the Army needs to be to get good value. X equals 4 feels like that spot, and that's not the easiest to achieve, especially on curve.
18) Denethor, Ruling Steward- Some great discussion on here comparing to existing cards like Hidden Stockpile and Fleshtaker. Pretty close power level between the 3 cards. The small bleeding aligns well with similar Black and Orzhov cards, but 2 mana is expensive to activate.
17) Rosie Cotton of South Lane- A very cool combo piece for some commonly cubed cards. I play neither Scurry Oak or Herd Baloth, so this sits on the side for now.
I will play basically any mechanics that led to a high-powered play experience. My issue is not the complexity of the mechanic, but the power and the volume. The upside is borderline nothing prior to a 2nd tempting, so the base card has to be good enough.
16) Bilbo, Retired Burglar- With that all said, Bilbo promises two tempting and an interesting gameplay pattern: Attack with the hard-to-block 1/ 3 and make some treasure before it dies and turns another creature into a looter.
15) Gollum, Patient Plotter- Another card that offers multiple tempts, but with some setup cost. The base effect is fine enough and maybe you have small things to turn back into Gollum and maybe you want to turbo tempt and power the Ring up.
14) Samwise the Stouthearted- An interesting variation on other combat tricks or gating creatures. You really need to hit on the ETB to get value and Peasant has fewer good hits outside of creatures themselves.
13) Fiery Inscription- Whether this is better than Guttersnipe is interesting. I like that being a non-creature plays well with Prowess and similar effects, but a 2/2 body is always nice too.
Cards Searching For Fellowship
12) Old Man Willow- A pretty beefy creature that turns expendable resources into Disfigure. Generically powerful, but maybe generically powerful enough?
11) Shadow Summoning- It initially looks a little underwhelming: ETB tapped, only 2 power of fliers for 2 mana, guild slot. The rate just might be good enough despite all that.
10) Troll of Khazad-dûm- These one-man cyclers can really help turbo power the reanimator deck. The cycling is a great way to ensure consistent draws, but not sure how often you just want to cast this spell.
9) Long List of the Ents- Does a few things the green decks want: Pumps a lot of creatures, plays into +1/+1 synergies. Is that enough upside to balance this being really slow sometimes?
8) Grishnákh, Brash Instigator- Has a perfect home in sacrifice decks: makes 2 bodies and steals another (small) creature. Probably good enough in go-wide/token decks and likely meh elsewhere.
7) Shire Terrace- A decent fixing card best suited for light splashes. Enables minor landfall, sacrifice, and graveyard synergies. Definitely in the middle tier for these effects.
6) Generous Ent- Great consistency for the green decks plus a solid enough ramp/reanimator target.
5) Rally at the Hornburg- A strong variant on red's token makers. Hasty tokens means Rally can be good in generic aggro decks and adds the little upsides for spellslinging, tokens, and sacrifice.
The Trilogy
4) Westfold Rider- Another solid Disenchant creature that should ensure all types of decks have good maindeck answers to artifacts/enchantments.
3) Stern Scolding- A very unique card for blue decks that should fit pretty well in tempo decks and control decks. Answers tons of cheap creatures and plenty of 4 and 5 mana creatures too.
2) Meneldor, Swift Savior- An extremely good enabler for ETB abilities where the default mode is a big flier.
Return of the King
1) Reprieve- An amazing tempo spell reprinted into an even better color for it. An immediate all-time staple.
1) Assembling synergistic cards quickly
OR
2) Being part of deck synergy
The first one applies less to Peasant since we have fewer dedicated Combo decks. We do have generally good synergy decks in every color, however.
The second one applies way more to blue than green. Between casting rewards, prowess, spells in the graveyard, and delve, blue wants to cast one-mana instants/sorceries. Green not only has none of those synergies, but also has a deep roster of other 1-mana spells that help the ramp gameplan.
For all of these, it's also really important that you have time to play the spell. Is the average creature in your deck worth paying an extra mana compared to the best creature in your sideboard? Blue operates a bit more reactively, which is also an advantage over green.
I have already cut cards like Adventurous Impulse and Abundant Harvest and will not be making room for Elven Farsight.
I am surprised you have so many Humans in your cube. I am down under 23% now (60/263), although white does still have more than the other colors. Did you try Coppercoat Vanguard?
I will also test out Shire Terrace, given the copious mana fixing I try for. Similar to the green land-cyclers, I am curious how people rank the "colorless" fixing lands.
Aether Hub
Ash Barrens
Cave of Temptation
Crystal Grotto
Evolving Wilds/Terramorphic Expanse
Mirrodin's Core
Shimmerdrift Vale/Temple of the Dragon Queen/Uncharted Haven
Shire Terrace
Beanstalk Giant- Payoff for its own ramp.
B Tier:
Generous Ent- Cheapest to cycle, decent body.
C Tier:
Greater Tanuki- Actually ramps, okay body
Krosan Tusker- Best cycling effect, horrible body.
Timberland Ancient- Meh cycling, decent body
Orchard Strider- Cycles for other colors, bad body, okay ETB.
I would rather be playing a lot of other ramp/fixing cards at 3 mana before I played the C-tier stuff. Llanowar Visionary, Jewel Thief, and both Cultivates.
I *love* Great Oak Guardian, so maybe a bad one is still okay? Although it is embarrassing how much Guardian outclasses Quickbeam, Upstart Ent.
Rosie Cotton of South Lane is one of those cards where I am underwhelmed by the card outside of the combo potential. It is definitely getting filed away for later as part of a potential combo package.
Shire Terrace- I was pretty hyped on this card but have cooled down. It does not fix until turn 3, at which point you have to spend a lot of time to fix your mana. If your splash is light, you are probably fine with a land that keeps you fully functional until you fix.
Meneldor, Swift Savior- A reasonable close parallel to Galepowder Mage. Does not help you get blockers though or clear opposing tokens, but also allows your creatures to attack before blinking. As someone down on the blink archetype, feels like a generic good card as opposed to a "good in blink decks card."
Stern Scolding- Of the 263 cards I classify as "Creatures" in my cube, which also includes token makers, this hits ~200 of them. That is a lot of interaction for a one-mana spell, and it should be a really neat effect for control. Maybe a blue Fatal Push?
Generous Ent- A big creature that does a little bit of everything: okay-ish Ramp target, bins itself for Reanimator, Forestcycles. The turn 1 cycling makes this another cool turn-2 Exhume play. Also, this is why I do not like Abundant Harvest. So many other green cards do a similar thing while also fitting green's normal gameplans.
Troll of Khazad-dum- Better color for reanimator, worse color for ramp. Might replace Void Beckoner.
Quickbeam, Upstart Ent- Decently big creature that pushes damage through. This is not a traditional ramp target, but it tops curves well and probably does well on certain boards for Ramp decks as it pumps mana elves like the world's worst Craterhoof.
I mean to say that the emblem keeps the abilities when the Ring bearer dies, but the emblem just sits there until you get Tempted by the Ring again. If your deck is not able to get the Looter mode, the actual upside is miniscule.
You said earlier that "Samwise is obvioualy great" after the Ring was revealed and that is what I am unsure about.