Double Stroke can enable some truly broken things in a Cube setting. 6 damage for one mana? 6 cards for one mana? 8 damage for two lands? Scry 4, draw 2 for one mana? 2 turns in a row for two mana? Discard 4 cards at random for 2 mana? Search your opponent’s library for two creatures & put them into play? Add 6 mana to your mana pool for one mana? Double Tinker? The list goes on & on. This card has done insane work already and we’ve only seen it in a few drafts. Double Demonic Tutor is just as crazy as it sounds. It would take something truly insane for me to pass this card in any draft pack. It competes with power and may be better than most if not all of them.
Backup Plan makes your start to every game better. Are you a control deck lacking in early action? An aggro deck lacking finishers? A combo deck needing specific pieces to work? A mediocre deck where you need to hit your bombs to win? Odds are you’ll see what you need in one of your openers. 35% of your deck is what you get to see between your two hands. Our early anecdotal evidence shows that the player has kept the second hand 7 out of 8 times. This card is easily first pickable and should be at least a top-30 Cube card as far as where it should be drafted.
Power Play is an interesting card as its clearly designed for a 1-game multiplayer format. For the last two years we’ve run a draft-only card with this effect that says “you win the opening dice roll for each match” and it’s played really well. I think letting a player go first in each game of each match is not the kind of effect I want in my Cube but I don’t deny its power. I will continue to run our “errata” version of it because it’s been a blast and I think it’s more along the lines of how Power Play would read if it was designed for regular 1-vs-1 games.
Advantageous Proclamation is one of the best Conspiracy cards. It’s innocuous on its face as it “only” reduces the size of your deck. This doesn’t have any visible effect on the board state but beneath the surface this does so much more. Seeing 20% of your deck in your first draw is awesome as is cutting the 3 worst spells in your deck. It also makes combo decks way better (if your Cube supports those) or even pseudo-combo decks like Reanimator. You can easily justify this as a first pick in any pack…especially since it makes any deck instantly better.
The first 4 cards listed here are all truly insane first-pickable cards. There’s a huge dropoff in card quality for the rest of the Conspiracy cards. That being said, the remaining cards are all quite playable and some are still high draft picks.
Have you ever seen an insane card later in a draft after you’re already established in your colors and thought, “I wish I didn’t have to pass this.” Now you don’t! Just take Unexpected Potential in a draft and run Dark Confidant in Boros, Garruk, Primal Hunter in control or Jace, the Mind Sculptor in anything. This is especially great if you took a card at the beginning of the draft and switched strategies. It also really throws off your opponent as the first time it’s cast in the draft they’ll have no idea that it’s coming. The surprise value will really “get” a lot of opponents for as long as this card is in the Cube.
Worldknit will be a card with some of the best stories from Conspiracy. I’m really having trouble properly evaluating this card. In early testing the Worldknit decks have done really well versus the traditional Cube decks. Grabbing a handful of planeswalkers, sweepers, O-Ring effects and sweet finishers has been too much for most decks to handle. Most of the decks I’ve drafted with this have been midrangey or slightly controllish. I’ve even drafted an aggro deck once but never got to play it out to see how it did. This card definitely gets worse as the draft progresses but I drafted it at the halfway point in a draft last week and still went 2-0 in a 4-man draft. Cards that are even better in a Worldknit deck? Vedalken Shackles, Rofellos and Spectral Procession. They are absolutely insane as you can play all lands of one color. As a point of reference here are some of the sweeter Worldknit decks I’ve drafted:
Token Subtheme: http://cubetutor.com/cubedeck/137763
Lots of Value: http://cubetutor.com/cubedeck/136032
Planeswalker Control: http://cubetutor.com/cubedeck/134925
Aggro: http://cubetutor.com/cubedeck/134544
The strength of Brago's Favor lies in its flexibility. Being able to make a 1-mana Time Walk, 2-mana Ashiok, 3-mana Hero of Bladehold, 4-mana Tamiyo, 5-mana Titan or 6-mana Karn is so powerful. The best thing about it is that you don’t have to decide until you build your deck. Light on 3-drops but heavy on 4-drops? Just move a card down one slot to help balance your curve. This card is definitely worth picking just below the insane cards of Cube but above most everything else.
Muzzio's Preparations is a card I initially dismissed as being terrible. “What creatures are worth wasting a draft pick just to give them a +1/+1 counter?” is what I thought. Kitchen Finks, Murderous Redcap and Glen Elendra Archmage all say hello. Infinite Kitchen Finks (infinifinks) has happened in multiple drafts. No sac outlet yet to live the full infinite life dream but just having a 3/2 that gains 2 life every time it dies is almost impossible for most decks to beat. You need to exile/pacify/lock it down or else you won’t be able to recover. In games where Kitchen Finks gets cast with Muzzio’s Preparations on it, the caster is 3-0. Big shock. Even without the insane recursion cards it’s still sweet making Goblin Guide a 3/3, Vengevine a 5/4 or starting Kalonian Hydra with 5 counters instead of 4.
Immediate Action adds a much-needed keyword to any card in your deck. Giving haste to *any* creature in your deck is quite strong and helps deal with Planeswalkers or finish off your opponent on what they think is a “safe” board state. Vengevine is great as a recurring creature but is also strong just being a 4/3 hasty guy for 4. It’s awesome to live the dream in Cube & haste up a Titan. So much value!
Secrets of Paradise makes any crappy 2-drop a Sylvan Caryatid in any color deck. Putting this on Wall of Omens or Omenspeaker to help block yet still ramp out the 4-drop is totally sweet. Being able to fix your mana and splash off of it is also really nice.
Iterative Analysis is probably the worst Conspiracy card I’m running but it’s still a middle-of-the-pack card in a typical draft. “Bolt you, draw a card” are pretty sweet words to say. Almost as sweet as casting any of the blue 1-drop cantrip spells off it to essentially draw 2 cards for 1 mana. This is the least flashy/exciting of the Conspiracy cards but it will always make your deck and always be worth picking in the middle of the pack. You can also stick it on your “worst” instant/sorcery to automatically improve the quality of your whole deck.
The Conspiracy cards are all really neat and should at the very least be tested in all Cubes. I think it’s unfortunate every time I see someone say they won’t play any of the Conspiracy cards because I feel like they’re depriving themselves of having even more fun through the drafting process and having ultra-cool effects during the games on cards that are actually Cubeworthy and not just “fun.”
TL;DR Test these cards & you won’t be sorry
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There's so many times that Arc Lightning sits awkwardly in hand, and this spell wouldn't have the same issue.
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If I had to make a decision, I would probably use printed creature types. If there was more tribal support in general, I would consider only using card printings where creature type matters Oracle.
I really wished they had made the white curse the creature spawner (W for spawning 1/1s, or 2W for spawning 2/2s), and make black curse drain a life from the victim everytime somebody attacks them. Parroting what somebody else said, odd that black curse is pretty much identical to last time.
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Without additional clue support, Briarbridge Patrol has to survive three combats for you to gain its secondary effect. By that point, you have the mana to hardcast the creature anyways. If we discount this, a 4 mana 3/3 echo 2 draw a card just doesn't seem good enough.
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Honorable mention to Malakir Familiar, which I misread initially as getting +1/+1 counters whenever you gain life. These solidify the possibility of a lifegain archetype in cube when paired with all those Blood Artist effects. It's sad that Zulaport Cutthroat is only one-sided, or it'd give us much needed redundancy. The cards with the highest chance of being cubeable are the ones that can benefit from lifelink hits, such as Ajani's Pridemate.
19. Ondu Rising
I actually find this card pretty interesting and found no serious mention of it. It has an emergency 1W lifelink to all your dudes, but primarily I see it as either a 5W 4/4 haste that also gives lifelink to your team or can be cast a turn earlier in a pinch if you don't want a 4/4 swinging. However, it probably compares unfavorably to Feudkiller's Verdict.
18. Valakut Predator
4/4 vanilla beater for just the low cost of 2R! The question is how long you can keep playing lands after T3. I see this is as a less all-in Fault Riders. Any keyword (First Strike, Haste, Trample) would put this card over the top and make it an instant include.
17. Akoum Stonewaker
Goblin Piker+++. Slinging Spark Elementals is great and all, but like somebody else said you have to activate it at least twice before it's better than just a Hellspark Elemental.
16. Mortuary Mire
Good card, but slow and also messes with your ability to draw lands early. You'd ideally want this land pretty late, at which point it's almost purely run as a spell. In that case, why not just run Death Denied or any of the other great Black Raise Dead spells?
15.Encircling Fissure
A Safe Passage/Embolden variant for anyone who wants it. This one is pretty good and can even generate a surprise blocker, but can't stop damage from instants and sorceries.
14. Vampiric Rites
If the two costs of this card were flipped, this would probably be Top 5 of this set. As it is, it's quite slow and I'm not sure if that's good enough. It's a great recurring sac-outlet, though.
13. Brood Monitor
I wish this cost 3GG instead so it'd be the Cloudgoat Ranger of green. This is so close, yet so far. It's still pretty functional and gets you to every late game bomb, but you would ideally want your 6 cost card to already be that late game bomb.
I was convinced after glancing at other people's lists. This is a solid Man-o'-War variant. It has 3 modes, too - U Slow Unsummon, 4U 3/3 tapped AEther Adept, 5U 3/3 hasty AEther Adept. With the last mode, you'll even get some surprise reach as blue.
11. Drana's Emissary
I don't like my black-white section that much. It just has a bunch of utility. This will slot in nicely over Kingpin's Pet as a pseudo-3/2 flyer.
10. Hedron Archive
Double Mind Stone seems good, especially as we finally get some real 6 mana finishers in Peasant over the past few expansions. Sentinel of the Eternal Watch, Skysnare Spider, Riverwheel Aerialists, and the glut of fatties from this set really appreciate a card like the Archive without being as all-in as Worn Powerstone. You can also setup Hedron Archive on T5 and cast a 3 mana spell.
9. Blighted Cataract
Honorable mention to the Black and Red Blighted lands, but Cataract is definitely the best. There will be times in the late game where you can both spare 7 mana and you need steam. Then again, my cube has greater support for a draw-go style control deck for blue.
8. Expedition Envoy
Boring but effective. We still haven't hit saturation for 1-mana 2/1's in white.
7. Bane of Bala Ged
After Artisan of Kozilek and Deathless Behemoth, this will be the third truly colorless Eldrazi I'm running. I like it much more than Ulamog's Crusher.
Pretty much does everything black wants. It's a sticky minion that can block profitably or push in for a little damage, before providing a second body for chumping/ramping/saccing.
5. Roil Spout
End game fatty for white blue that also generates a 2-for-1. Can be played early in a pinch.
4. Catacomb Sifter
Looks really good, I'm just going to have difficulty slotting it into a 3-card guild section. Competition is tough between Putrid Leech, Dreg Mangler, and Pharika's Mender.
3. Deathless Behemoth
Gives red, black, and white a strong end game creature.
2. Eldrazi Skyspawner
I think anyone who doesn't put Skyspawner in their top 5 is seriously underestimating it. It goes in every blue deck due to its amazing versatility. If you drop a land on T4 and the Scion survives, you get 5 mana to spend.
1. Plated Crusher
Colossal ramp/reanimation target. Possibly the best finisher we've ever gotten. Not quite as much stability and value as Pelakka Wurm, but just so much sheer power (and sticking power!) that it's crazy.
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