This is my 34th installment of the "top 20" set (P)review articles! Just like the previous reviews, it will be in a spoiled top X countdown format, with each section having an image, a brief summary/description, and my verdict on what cubes I think it could potentially see some play in. I got a lot of positive feedback on the format from the last few articles, so I’m going to keep the “what I like” and “what I don’t like” sections.
Keep in mind (just like the others) that this is a set preview. Similar to draft predictions in professional sports, this list is an educated guess at best. Some cards I value highly in here may turn out to not last long in the cube. Other cards that are lower down on the list (or even missed entirely!) could (well, very likely may) turn out to be great cards. Even Tom Brady was drafted in the 6th round! Again, this is not intended to be gospel, set in stone or written as a review for posterity. This is simply written to be an enjoyable guess at cards I like for cubes, and hopefully it'll allow some cube managers to evaluate cards they may have otherwise overlooked and/or put some cards in perspective that may've been overhyped. Nothing more.
Magic 2021 is a core set that features a lot of cool reprints in addition to revisiting classic characters and themes from throughout Magic history. As far as cube content goes, this set is rather flat, but there are still some gems in there in addition to some cards that look fun to explore.
Without further ado, I can start the countdown!
Stormwing Entity
An evasive beater for spells decks.
What I Like: The card has a decent ceiling when it can drop for cheap. A 3/3 flying prowess creature that scries twice when it enters the battlefield is no joke for 2 mana. It should be relatively easy to cast in a deck loaded with spells, and if you can play it off of a truly free spell (like a Gitaxian Probe or a Manamorphose) it can be really great. But coming down on the cheap on T3 or T4 after pairing it with a cheap proactive spell (like a cantrip, burn spell or discard spell) will still feel pretty good.
What I Don't Like: I think this card might have a better chance in constructed where there’s a better chance of playing it with a truly free proactive spell. I wish this card had flash instead of prowess so it could be paired with countermagic and flashed in at EOT for cheap.
Verdict: Larger cubes that have deep, dedicated spells matters tempo shells featuring Delvers and Pteramanders and Ethereal Foragers might like access to this creature to bolster that package. But otherwise, I feel it’s probably a miss.
Chromatic Orrery
A giant mana deck enabler.
What I Like: Some ramp decks want to go big. Like, really big. And those kinds of ramp decks might enjoy having access to a super-ramp spell like this. It enters untapped so it can immediately be used for up to 5 rainbow mana for casting an additional spell (or even activating its own ability to draw cards right away). It provides perfect fixing, provides a ton of additional mana, and has a built-in card advantage engine. If you set out with a gameplan that revolves around casting giant monsters and big X spells, this is one of the biggest ways to go even bigger. Late game battlecruiser enthusiasts might find a lot to like about this Orrery.
What I Don't Like: I support a super ramp package, and even for me this is a little much. But this can get you to 12+ mana if you’re in the market for casting super-titans and Colossi and stuff.
Verdict: This may be relegated to cubes that are designed to go big and late; likely multiplayer exclusive cubes in a lot of cases. Probably not a card for most traditional cubes, but if you like to go big… this card goes big.
Liliana's Standard Bearer
Flash utility in black!
What I Like: A splashable 3-power zombie with flash for 3 mana is a good place to start. Drawing cards in black without having to pay life is pretty rare at instant speed, especially since it’s strapped to a body. It reminds me a bit of Caller of the Claw. Except this can draw you something besides free grizzly bears, and it triggers off of token creatures that die! This can be a good way to reactively recover from a board sweeper, but it can also be used as a way to draw massive amounts of cards when used as part of your proactive gameplan in a sacrifice/aristocrats/tokens shell. Plus, it’s a zombie (and a knight, for that matter) for anyone supporting those smaller tribal subthemes.
What I Don't Like: Black’s 3cc creature section is pretty stacked with good options, and a card that’s only situationally valuable can be hard to find room for.
Verdict: This isn’t a card I have my eye on at the moment, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it turns out to be somewhat of a sleeper. It probably plays better than it looks, and it might be worth a test in larger cubes that are deep on a tokens/sacrifice plan and have the room to tinker around with their black 3-drops.
Sparkhunter Masticore
A colorless ‘walker killer.
What I Like: Planeswalkers can present a unique set of challenges for some fair decks to deal with effectively, and Sparkhunter Masticore is a good tool for dealing with superfriends decks. I like the 4 toughness, since it keeps Masticore out of Bolt range, and I like the affordable nature of the ability that shoots the ‘walkers. Some decks rely more on ‘walkers than others, and against a superfriends kind of shell, this card will be backbreaking. It can also make itself indestructible, so once you get a chance to untap with it in play, you can use it to be an absolute annoyance against decks that will be hurt the most by it. Decks that can find ways to get it into play without casting it (an advantage brought to my attention by ELPsteel), or decks that can use the discard to their advantage might find additional utility with the Masticore that others can’t.
What I Don't Like: Tapping out for this thing is risky, since it can’t immediately shoot any ‘walkers and you won’t have any leftover mana to protect it. And discarding a card to cast it is risky before you can make it indestructible, since it can be blown up by a huge swath removal that kills both creatures and artifacts. Not to mention the risk against countermagic, since the discard is part of the cost to cast it.
Verdict: If you’ve found yourself in the need for a colorless bullet for planeswalkers, this might be worth a spin. Doubly so if you play more ways than average to sneak smaller creatures onto the board (Unearth, Aether Vial, etc). But I think for most cubes, this is going to be a miss.
Teferi, Master of Time
A blue looting machine.
What I Like: Looting twice per round of turns is a powerful thing to be able to do, and the double activations lend Teferi to be able to build up to his ultimate rather quickly, which is a powerful effect to reach. You can churn through your library rather quickly when you can loot this much. The {-3} ability doesn’t generate card advantage or tempo advantage since the phasing doesn’t kill or bounce your target, but it can be used to keep Teferi (or yourself or another critical ‘walker) alive until you have a chance to deal with it another way. At the end of the day, looting twice a turn is powerful, and Teferi’s other abilities just add flavor onto that card selection engine.
What I Don't Like: I wish the phasing ability wasn’t limited to your opponent’s creatures. I was excited to be able to use Teferi as a utility ‘walker that can protect my creatures from removal and then loot to boot. But as it turns out, I can’t do that, and the phasing ability is limited to just protecting itself. Due to that fact, I think the phasing protection should’ve been a {-2}.
Verdict: I think this version of Teferi is good. Looting twice per round of turns is obviously good, and the {-3} ability will situationally save you or one of your ‘walkers from a hard-hitting attacker. I don’t think Teferi will disappoint anyone that chooses to cube with it, but I also don’t expect it to blow anybody away either. My blue section is configured in a way where most of my inclusions are enabling specific archetypes, and I just can’t find a cut I like for Teferi at the moment, but if you can find a card you want to swap out to give Teferi a shot, I think it’ll be a perfectly serviceable cube inclusion.
Terror of the Peaks
A Warstorm Surge with wings!
What I Like: A 5-power flying creature for 5 mana is a good baseline for an ETB damage engine that has punishing protection against targeted removal. It just represents so much potential damage between the attacking body and that powerful ETB damage trigger. It gains even more value in cubes that support creature combo loops, because even a non-lethal loop of creatures entering and leaving the battlefield becomes lethal with this kind of effect on the board.
What I Don't Like: The punishing protection doesn’t trigger on abilities, so this gets removed by O-Rings, Chupacabras and planeswalker abilities like it had no protection at all (not to mention Edict effects and Wrath effects too). It has no immediate impact in most situations because it has no haste, and it only has 4 toughness so It can’t contribute to the “Big Red” Wildfire shells. Not to mention that I think the red 5cc creature slot is one of the more competitive and congested slots in the cube right now.
Verdict: I am really close to wanting to play with this creature, because my cube supports the Corpse Knight/Impact Tremors/Altar of the Brood/Purphoros creature loop kills, and this is another card that can serve as a win condition for those kinds of shells. But 5 mana is a lot for those decks, and without the guaranteed value and only having 4 toughness …it just checks one too few boxes for my liking. But I think the card has a lot of promise, so if you can find a cut you like in your red 5cc creature section, it might be worth a spin.
Sublime Epiphany
One big scary blue spell.
What I Like: It’s impossible to fail to find value from this card. In most situations, it’ll be a counterspell (or a Stifle) that nets you a card, that you can strap “draw a card” to, while maybe bouncing an opponent’s permanent and/or creating an extra creature token of your best creature. In situations where you have a viable target to copy, this card will generate 3-for-1 card advantage for you …and perhaps have some bounce strapped to it as well. That’s certainly not ever a bad place to be. Not to mention the insane interaction this has with Torrential Gearhulk which includes copying and bouncing Gearhulks and all kinds of unsavory things as was pointed out by Rosy Dumplings in the SCD thread. And as Respycho pointed out, the Stifle trigger can be used to counter the cast trigger of things like Eldrazi super-titans and cards like Hydroid Krasis, so you can use this as a “full counter” for both the cast trigger and the spell itself.
What I Don't Like: 6 mana is a lot. A whole lot. And situations may arise (more often than we want, in creature-light control decks) where you need to cast this and don’t have a viable target to make a creature token from. In those situations, I just don’t feel like casting a 6-mana Dismiss, even if it has a free bounce spell strapped to it.
Verdict: This is a good Magic card. And in cubes designed to go bigger and into the later stages of the game, I predict this card can be an all star. Multiplayer cubes, for example, will see this spell be a powerhouse. But I fear that a reactive 6-mana spell is just too limited in application for conventional 1v1 cubes with aggro and/or combo decks supported.
Llanowar Visionary
Llanowar Elves + Elvish Visionary =
What I Like: A little bit of ramp, a little bit of card draw …all thrown together onto a splashable 2/2 body. Easy, simple card advantage. Visionary is to midrange ramping green decks what Cloudkin Seer is to blue tempo shells. Better, probably, since I think the Visionary stays truer to its respective deck’s objectives than Seer does to its decks. Visionary is ready to be bounced, flickered, Recurring Nightmared and everything else that middling green decks can assist with in the cube.
What I Don't Like: We’ve seen this recipe before. Cultivate and Kodama’s Reach also provide ramp and card advantage (and those ones fix your mana too). Yavimaya Elder generates 3-for-1 card advantage and is also strapped to a body. So there’s precedent for Visionary to be solid. But I don’t know if there’s precedent for it to be great.
Verdict: I like Visionary, and I think there’s potential there. It’s splashable, the card advantage and board impact is immediate, and it’s ready to be abused. I’m keeping a close eye on this creature, and it might very well sneak into some larger cubes and be quite solid.
Garruk, Unleashed
Green’s aggressive Elspeth.
What I Like: For green decks looking to apply early pressure, this Garruk can help your cheap attacking beaters to punch through even formidable defenders. And if you don’t have any bodies to buff, Garruk can make a Beast for you to bash with. It follows a similar recipe to the original Elspeth, Knight-Errant, except flying is a stronger form of evasion than trample in most cases, and Garruk doesn’t grow his loyalty when creating a board presence.
What I Don't Like: Decks playing this Garruk are unlikely to be behind on creature count, so using Garruk to make beasts isn’t as loyalty-efficient as the original Garruk is. And for the majority of green decks, this Garruk’s giant growth ability is going to be less valuable than something like ramping or fighting is. So I think this is the 3rd best 4cc Garruk for the cube, which makes it kinda hard to find room for.
Verdict: I like this card for green sections in larger cubes that support a heavy green stompy shell. The greater percentage of green decks in the cube that want this kind of effect, the more justifiable of an inclusion it becomes. It’s a miss for me, but I know there are other cubes out there constructed in a way to take better advantage of this Garruk’s suite of abilities.
Elder Gargaroth
Green’s Baneslayer.
What I Like: If your opponent doesn’t kill this creature immediately, I think it will win the vast majority of the fair matchups it’s involved in. So depending on your comfort level with 5+cc creatures that don’t guarantee value in the face of removal, this could be a card of interest for your playgroup. That topic has been discussed to death, but for what it’s worth, I think it’s okay to support a handful of creatures that fail the “Vindicate Test”, because I think the risk/reward of a creature like this creates some tension that’s quite exciting. Sometimes it’s fun to force the question: “Do you have it?” Knowing full well that if they don’t, you’re probably going to win. That aside, this creature is also a baller in Fires shells, so if you support that deck in your cube, and there’s lots of ways to give creatures haste, this card is one of the top contenders for creatures that get really damn scary with a Lightning Greaves strapped to it.
What I Don't Like: I think that if a creature fails the “Vindicate Test”, you need to have a damn-good reason to decide to play it in the cube. Unfortunately, I can’t find that reason for this card. It will break aggro decks …but who cares? Your midrange green deck is already favored in that matchup. Does this help you beat control, where your deck likely struggles the most? Not at all. And what about midrange mirrors? Matchups where you’re the most likely to run into fair removal spells that will generate good tempo advantage against you when they resolve. I just can’t find a situation where I need this card over a different green 5-drop that has less risk involved. And green’s 5cc creatures are stacked. Too stacked for me to find room for a Baneslayer variant that doesn’t actually solve any specific problems or fit into any specific archetypes.
Verdict: This is one scary creature. If you’re comfortable with Baneslayer creatures in general, and you want one for green, this is your dude. Otherwise, it’s okay to pass on it, considering how many other great options we already have in the 5cc green creature slot.
Radha, Heart of Keld
A more aggressive Courser of Kruphix variant.
What I Like: I love Courser. Free card advantage off the top of the library always feels good. Radha provides similar value, and does it with 3-power, first strike (on your turn) and a pump ability that can mean a lot of additional damage in the late game.
What I Don't Like: Courser has a set of unique traits that combine to make it great. The defensive body is nice to have on a value engine, because the increased survivability (for both you and the creature) lends itself to getting more advantage over time with its abilities. The incidental lifegain is nice, and the 4 toughness is huge.
Verdict: I like Radha, and I’ll have one eye on it every time the Gruul section gets retooled. It’s going to miss my initial group of adds from M21, but there’s a good chance it could make it into the cube in a future update. Especially as a “Lands Matter” theme comes together organically over time.
Waker of Waves
A unique blue cantrip variant.
What I Like: This card isn’t about the creature mode, it’s about the discarding ability. It functions like an instant-speed, uncounterable Strategic Planning variant that always bins a 7/7 Cumber Stone as one of the cards that goes to the ‘yard. Good for setting up incidental reanimation shenanigans, since it’s both a big creature and a discard outlet rolled up into one card. Engineered to be better with effects like Living Death, Unburial Rites and the 5cc Liliana rather than going all-in on the whale with a Reanimate or something.
What I Don't Like: The creature isn’t the scariest body to reanimate, and the cantrip mode is only solid, not amazing. This card will be good at its job, but won’t ever feel great.
Verdict: I think this creature is one of the better 2cc cantrip options available, so if your cube is engineered to load up on card selection effects, don’t overlook this one. I think this will be especially valuable for lower-powered and C/Ubes looking to bolster a reanimation package.
Mazemind Tome
A new Treasure Map variant.
What I Like: I like repeatable, colorless forms of card advantage and card selection more than most folks do, and this one jumps out at me as another good option. I picture myself using this card to scry at the end of my opponent’s turn when I’m tapped out, and drawing cards in those same situations when I have untapped mana available. Scrying once or twice, drawing two or three cards and then gaining 4 life seems like a good way to spend otherwise unspent mana. It can represent up to 4-for-1 card advantage, and the colorless cost allows it to be inserted into multiple different decks.
What I Don't Like: There’s only room for so many versions of these effects, and I think I like this one the least out of Top, Rack and Map. Top is cheaper and dodges removal. Rack generates more synergy-based value, and is also a combo card. And Map gives me more total scries and draws for a similar mana investment, not to mention the ramp it provides. If the tome died instead of being exiled, I think I would be more interested in it too, since there’s some artifact shells that would like to flip it in and out of the battlefield to reset more draws, scries and lifegain.
Verdict: I think this card is being overlooked, similarly to how Treasure Map was being overlooked before more people realized it was good. But if you have an open colorless slot in a 630-720 card cube and you like colorless engine cards, give this one a shot. I’d wager it plays a lot better than it looks at first glance.
Heartfire Immolator
A solid splashable red 2-drop.
What I Like: A 2/2 with prowess for 1R is a good baseline for a utility creature suited for spell heavy decks. The activated ability scales well with the prowess, since the trigger cares about power. A cheap burn spell can be combined with the prowess trigger to take down 5- and 6-toughness creatures with consistency, and the combination of prowess and the ability to shoot ‘walkers directly can make this card a combat nightmare for the opponent to navigate when they’re trying to protect their planeswalkers. As steve_man pointed out, this card can have its power boosted in other ways too (equipment, +1/+1 counters, etc) and use that extra power to kill off bigger targets. Seems fun with Grafted Wargear and Heirloom Blade, etc.
What I Don't Like: I don’t know what it is exactly, but there’s something about this card that leaves me wanting more. It seems like a perfectly reasonable creature, but it feels like it falls short in comparion to some of its most direct competition. Like Goblin Cratermaker, for example, just feels so much better than this card and they’re sorta competing in the same slot.
Verdict: I think this card is being slightly overrated by the cube community overall, even though it looks like a totally fine inclusion. I can’t find a cut I like from my own cube at the moment, but I think this is a reasonable inclusion for any cube around 540 cards or more.
Eliminate
A new Smother variant.
What I Like: Hitting both small creatures and small planeswalkers is nice. There’s quite a few additional cheap ‘walkers that you gain as additional targets for this spell in comparison to other Doom Blade effects. If those ‘walkers are problematic or too numerous, this spell is a nice, cheap answer to those kinds of cards.
What I Don't Like: Doing the math for my own cube, there are 15 ‘walkers with a CMC of 3 or less in my cube, and there are 99 creatures with CMC 4 or more. Now obviously not all of those creatures are targets for all of the Heartless Act/Go for the Throat/Doom Blade kinds of effects people run in the cube …but a lot of them are. Even if you lost half of those potential targets, is gaining 15 small walkers as targets worth losing 50 or so larger creatures as targets? I’m not so sure that it is. At least, not for my playgroup anyways.
Verdict: If you have noticed that cheap ‘walkers are dominating boards in your cube drafts, this spell might be a nice alternative to one of the other 2cc removal spells you run as a way to deal with them. For me, I prefer the upper tier of the Terror variants to Eliminate, but I certainly see the appeal to this spell. I would be considering this for inclusion for cubes about 540 in size or larger; especially if you’ve been finding yourself wanting for more spot removal for these kinds of targets.
Ghostly Pilferer
Blue utility soup.
What I Like: This creature does a lot of things. It’s not fantastic at any one job, but I think its value is greater than the sum of its parts. It’s a splashable 2-power 2-drop that can be evasive. It’s a reliable discard outlet that works on demand and is uncapped. It can generate card advantage in situations where you have the mana to pay to draw. And it has a built in pseudo-hatebear ability to punish the opponent from casting spells from outside of their hand. Originally, the cast-punishing ability felt like flavor text, but I started exploring it more, and there’s a lot of cards that this card triggers off of. Cythare started compiling a list and found more than 30 commonly played cube cards that will trigger Pilferer to draw cards for you. All instances of flashback, adventure creatures, Gravecrawlers, suspend cards, cascade triggers, escape cards, Snapcaster/Jace/Gearhulk, top-of-library cast effects (new Vivien, Frenzy, Citadel, etc), and exile casts like Light Up the Stage, Chandra, Hostage Taker …and Yawgmoth’s Will effects too. The list goes on. Pilferer isn’t the master of any one role, but it does too many different little things to not warrant some exploration in the cube. In cubes that can use it effectively both as a discard outlet and as a tempo creature (even if not at the same time) the card looks worth tinkering with.
What I Don't Like: As TalosMaximus pointed out, there are few decks that can take advantage of everything Pilferer can do. So it’ll never feel like it’s being put to its maximum use in any one shell. It’s a good tempo creature for those shells, and it’s a good discard outlet for those kinds of decks, but rarely will all of the abilities on Pilferer be put to ideal use by the same deck.
Verdict: My gut says I’m overvaluing this card. It’s a good discard outlet, but I think a combination of a relatively low reward for that discard, having to pay 2 mana to draw upon untapping and the narrow nature of the middle draw ability will ultimately catch up to this creature and prevent it from being great. It’s really designed for cubes that use blue for graveyard decks a lot. If you’ve been in the market for a hugely upgraded Aquamoeba, this will probably make your day. But I don’t think cube managers are sleeping on the next broken blue card if they opt to exclude this. I’d test it at 540+, but expect this to have varied results from cube-to-cube.
Transmogrify
A red Polymorph!
What I Like: Ok, so there’s a history and a backstory that goes along with this. Since the beginning of my cube (say, 2007 or so), my playgroup and I have been discussing the validity of a Polymorph deck in the cube. We’ve had the namesake card since Mirage, and a Proteus Staff as long as I’ve been managing a cube. I always wanted to be able to turn creature tokens into giant monsters for as long as I can remember, but the cube was short on …all three aspects of those things 12 years ago, to be honest. We were missing the game-ending kinds of creatures to Polymorph into, we were short on competitive non-creature cards that generated creature tokens, and most importantly, we only had two Polymorph effects. We got bigger and better monsters. We got stronger and more competitive cheap token makers. And slowly but surely, we’ve been getting more Polymorph effects. In 2018, we discussed Reality Scramble when it was printed, but all agreed that we needed at least 2 more Polymorph effects for the deck to be consistent. Earlier this year, Lukka was printed and we asked the same question again: “Is now the time?” …and still it was no. Just not quite enough to warrant experimenting with the archetype. But now. Now we get Transmogrify, and now’s the time. So. The recipe is simple. Step 1) Use a non-creature card to make a creature token. Step 2) Use a Polymorph to cascade past your other non-creature “creatures” and transform that token into an Emrakul or a Progenitus or a Blightsteel Colossus or something. Step 3) Win the game. Use Sneak Attacks and Quicksilver Amulets the like as a backup plan for drawing your big monsters, and don’t rely on just one trigger to carry you to victory every time.
What I Don't Like: This archetype package takes up a lot of real estate in the cube, because you need a critical mass of token-making non-creature cards that are cheap enough that you have a creature on board before T4 (so you can Polymorph it on curve). Then you need all 5 of the affordable (under 6 mana) consistent Polymorph effects. It’s a big ask for smaller cubes.
Verdict: I’ve wanted to be able to give this experiment a thorough testing for over a decade, and I finally have the critical mass to make it work. I plan to include this into my cube as another fun archetype for my drafters to explore, but I don’t expect it to become common practice throughout the cube community.
Basri's Lieutenant
A white value/combo creature.
What I Like: Critically, neither the +1/+1 counter trigger or the death trigger contain the phrase “another creature” so the Lieutenant can target itself with the counter, and count itself with the trigger. That means that this creature has the floor of being a 4/5 vigilance, protection from multicolored that replaces itself with a vigilant 2/2 token when it dies …for 3W. That’s a pretty good deal. This card is to midrange creature decks what Flesh Carver is to more aggressive shells. But wait, there’s more! It can distribute the counter to other creatures you control to leverage a board advantage and make combat problematic for the opponent. It can trigger off of other creatures dying that have +1/+1 counters on them (fun with 3cc Nissa!). And additionally (as pointed out by Rosy Dumplings) this card creates an infinite combo with a sacrifice outlet and a Unicorn effect (one of the effects that places a +1/+1 counter on a creature when it enters the battlefield) as long as you have one other creature to start the combo chain off with. So if you support the persist combo, you’re playing multiple Unicorn effects anyways, and this gives you an extra way to use those effects.
What I Don't Like: Without the Unicorn combos (or a deep +1/+1 counter theme) I think this card loses a decent amount of its appeal.
Verdict: I would play this in any cube size that supports the persist combo, but it’s probably relegated to medium- to large-sized cubes if you don’t. Good card though. I like the 5-toughness for Languish and Wildfire shells, and there’s a lot of incidental +1/+1 counter interactions to find value with. Overall it’s a good, splashable creature.
Seasoned Hallowblade
A white …discard outlet?!
What I Like: The more that white starts to brush graveyard strategies, the more appealing white discard outlets start to sound. But ignoring that for a moment, this creature is just a good creature. This is like an Adanto Vanguard that swaps the 4 life cost for a discard cost, but always has 3 power (making it better on defense and more palatable for non-aggro decks). Each time you discard a card to this creature, you’ll be recouping a full card’s worth of value. But there are three different tiers that that cost can fall into. At face value, you discard a card whenever this creature would die. Exchanging a card in hand for a 3-power creature on the board. Worth it. But you can also find ways to mitigate the discard; pitching lands to it when you have a Crucible/Loam costs you nothing. Discarding a Gravecrawler or Bloodghast costs you next to nothing. Just pure card advantage when they’re being discarded in a situation where you’d otherwise be losing your 2-drop. But there’s a third tier too, one where you can actually use the discard to your advantage. Like pitching an Elesh Norn to it and reanimating it with an Unburial Rites, for example. Or setting up a powerful play with Karmic Guide. These are rarer in white than in other colors, but having access to these kinds of cards might make white a more attractive tertiary color for graveyard-centric decks than before.
What I Don't Like: It seems unfitting for white to get access to arguably the best unconditional discard outlet we’ve ever seen.
Verdict: This card is a good beater, and will be valuable in pretty much every creature deck. If you can put it into decks that can either mitigate the discard cost, or even use the discard to your advantage …even better. I think this is a good card for cubes in the 450+ card range. Perhaps smaller if you can use the discard in white effectively, and maybe larger if you have no discard synergy at all.
Barrin, Tolarian Archmage
A truly legendary Man-o’-War.
What I Like: This is the enhanced version of Man-o’-War that I’ve been waiting for. Not only can it target planeswalkers in addition to creatures, but when you use it to reset one of your own permanents (to abuse ETB triggers or reset ‘walker loyalty or whatever) you draw a card. Even without any repeatable bounce engines, those two upsides put it ahead of its competition. Even if you weren’t running one of those effects before, this one is better enough that it might be worth adding anyways. Karakas makes this a very powerful engine. It adds card draw to your Kor Skyfisher cost. If you play Gush on your turn, you can draw a 3rd card. If you Daze a spell on your turn, you can draw. If you can bounce/replay creatures with Crystal Shard or Erratic Portal, you get to draw additional cards. And it’s great fun with Meloku… This card is one of those cards that is good at face value and gets better with a few random synergies. But don’t fall into the trap of additive distraction. You don’t need a bounce engine for Barrin to be good. That ability adds enough extra value with his own ETB trigger to make him awesome. It’s definitely not flavor text, even without a Meloku or Shard.
What I Don't Like: I suppose a 2U cost or a 3rd toughness would’ve been asking too much…
Verdict: I like this card a lot. I’ve been waiting for an exciting Man-o’-War variant to spice things up, and I think this is that card. I would happily play this at 450+ cards, and would definitely take a close look even at 360 to see if I could find room; especially if I had a few bounce engines to pair with it.
Thanks for reading everybody! Please comment below to discuss!
Cheers, and happy cubbing.
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https://www.hipstersofthecoast.com/2020/02/unofficial-magic-event-cubecon-announced-for-may-23-25-2020/
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(by destroying your opponents swords)
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yes, AFAIK
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*****ty for Cube, but good for the formats that Wizards sell packs.
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List looks solid. Don't know about the sb.
Personally, i don't like emrakul in breach lists without summoning trap. I would go -3 emrakul +1 pact +1 farseek +1 chandra.
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