Phyrexia: All Will Be One Preliminary Review Part V

 

Mindscape Apparatus 2

Fun card but in practice never getting played over two mana alternatives. Sure, cost reduction of two or three sounds great but there are fewer and fewer spells that benefit from those larger reductions and even fewer still that you can afford to play. Flash helps this a lot and makes it something some control decks might consider but I do not see this being used in a combo deck which are the common places to see cost reducers. Regardless of where you try and play this, it being a four mana investment that does nothing by itself is going to be really hard to overcome. A can just about imagine an EDH deck having the time and support to make this do impressive things. 

Malcator, Purity Overseer 3

Oh look, a golden Blade Splicer with a silly ceiling. In cube we can generally assume that we are not getting many extra EoT golems. Blade Splicer is great but take away first strike and add in gold and we are suddenly a long way from interesting. I'll play this happily in the right sort of deck but I am not sure what that is or if it even exists? Is it flicker based or artifact based? This might clear some hurdles but it very much falls at the being golden one. You need to be a whole lot better than the playable mark this hits. 

Tyvar, Jubilant Brawler 2

Love a three mana walker but this is too narrow for drafting cube. The +1 is often irrelevant, it is only a mana if you have the right dork, it is often just vigilance if it manages to do anything at all. Equally the passive ability affects almost nothing in cube beyond mana dorks. The -2 is fine but a little risky and narrow. None of it is great on curve nor high tempo. It is only really value if you get to effectively -2 twice and does that sounds powerful or game breaking? Nope. There are some decks where this is good support but they are constructed only and few in number.

Kaya, Intangible Slayer 5

This isn't a cheap magic card! Hexproof is a big deal on a walker however, it means you basically need to kill it with combat. There are a few mass removal effects that hit walkers but not enough to be relied upon. It is the reverse, or the other half of The Wanderer and their ability being to not be attacked by more than one dork. Nice design, interested to see how they play. Both are a little scary as they limit interaction and might well be too polar to be fun. Also, killing a 6 loyalty walker in combat that can +2 or just -3 to answer something and get a 1/1 token copy of it! That is no easy feat and I suspect one we will not often see. Kaya is going to be a real challenge to race as well with that +2 ability draining for 3 a turn. All in all Kya is very hard to answer and very hard to beat. This you would hope for from a seven mana card. The 0 ability is odd, I am not sure why we are giving away scrys but sure. This is fine if you are not ready to kill your opponent yet but also do not need to stabilize the board either. All in all Kaya is very powerful and well rounded as far as a suite of abilities go. Her only downside is being a seven drop. Titan of Industry and Ugin the Spirit Dragon are it for cards above 6 mana in my cube and there are not all that many at six either. Kya looks great but the bar is so high for seven drops that I can barely see it! Judging if Kaya has what it takes to clear it is hard and needs testing. Statistically no, very unlikely to clear it. 

Mirran Safehouse 3

Cute tool for some decks, most likely EDH gates decks, Dark Depths and other singleton land based combos. Not a powerful card nor an easy one to make use of but unique and serving a purpose. 

 

Skrelv, Deflector Mite 7

A Giver of Runes that looks like it has more to offer but in practice is probably just a bit worse. Skrelv can't block, it has one less toughness, it can be Shattered, it costs life or mana to use, it doesn't prevent damage so does not help assist on blocking duty or against mass damage effects like Pyroclasm. Skrelv also only protects against coloured spells. All these things given up from Giver of Runes just for toxic? In a poison deck this is great, elsewhere it is almost a blank. It will be very rare to kill with poison and just Skrelv as the source of that.  It is also unlikely that the cube will have that many more poison guys. Despite my very long list of ways this is worse than Giver of Runes Skrelv still likely gets play in cube. Cheap dorks are good, especially in white. Cheap dorks that have ongoing utility are really good. Being an artifact will likely be a perk as often as it is a downside. And then there will be those hero stories where the toxic does come up. Skrelv isn't broken but he is very suitable and powerful enough. 

Glissa Sunslayer 7

First strike and deathtouch is a naughty combo. Very hard to block this and do anything other than be a chump. Further to that Glissa offers some serious value when she connects. We seem to be in a world now where the limited power of dorks that do nothing right away is well appreciated by design teams and as such we are getting absolute monsters like this. The power here is off the chart if removal cannot be found for it. Glissa can be some kind of Questing Beast, a Trygon Predator, a Thieving Magpie with punch. Much as I hate this kind of polar card that puts you behind if answered well and snowballs if not, doubly so when they are a cheap gold card, this just has too much power and utility to overlook I think. Three mana is not so much that you are very behind even when they find the optimal removal spell. It is certainly a lot less devastating than with four or five drops. Power wise this is a comfortable 8/10 card but I am dropping it to seven for being a cheap gold card. Like, I am always playing a Gix in my cube before this despite Gix having less raw power just because Gix is mono coloured. 

Ezuri, Stalker of Spheres 1

Overcost, narrow, and gold. I like proliferate but I am not sure this is a card I want with or for such things. 

The Filigree Sylex 6

Just a Ratchet Bomb with more. It seems pretty unlikely that this is going to that relevant with other oil counter effects and equally it seems like it will be super rare to fire this off for 10 damage. Overall then the most different thing this has going for it in cube is the legendary status! Ratchet bomb is a fine card, I use it to balance things out when it all gets a bit low to the ground and wide. We are right at the other end of the meta at present and so there are not balancing Ratchet Bombs in my cube either. When next we swing that way I'll toss this in and it will do good work for a couple of months and then no longer be necessary and the pendulum moves off in the other direction. 

Soulless Jailer 2

Sideboard tool only really. Does far too little by itself to be a consideration for drafting cubes and maindecks. 

Lukka, Bound to Ruin 5

A fine walker but in gold I fear this isn't enough. It compares really poorly to Torch of Defiance which is a better mana producer, a better source of value, and a more reliable removal tool. Lukka is fine, mana is great, making bodies is useful, and removal is grand. This is all topped off with some flexibility in costs. Lukka is about right power and utility wise to compete with the lower end mono coloured walkers in my cube but being gold at that point just rules it out.

Vraska, Betrayal's Sting 7

Vraska does what Lukka fails to do by being mono coloured and therefor of sufficient power to break into cube. Partly this is because black has some of the weakest 4 and 5 mana walkers going. Basically Vraska is Ob Nixilis Reignited but with some cute things going on. Being that little better than Ob is all it really takes when you are so similar. Both have effectively a +1 to draw a card and lose a life. Vraska nicely does hers with a proliferate for some cute scaling potential. Both can pay loyalty to answer a dork. Vraska costs one less loyalty to do so and gets around things like indestructible and on death triggers however does concede a treasure in the process. Overall I would say that is a decent upgrade. If desperate you could use one of your own dorks for ramp and fixing! Both have ults that are such a long way off that you are rarely ever seeing them. Drawing cards and killing stuff is just going to win games way before you get to the ult loyalties. Even so, if Vraska lives that long you can have some reasonable expectation of her being able to kill by herself with the ult thanks to the ability to proliferate the following turn. A fine thing to have on a walker that didn't need it to perform. The variable casting cost is really nice. It makes Vraska a fine five drop or a meaty six drop. It makes her a lot more splashable than Ob as well. Vraska is a great example of a card with relatively low power but great option density, synergy potential, and suitability. Ob has lasted a long time just on suitability as he has pretty poxy power by todays standards. Vraska is a long overdue and welcome replacement for him.

 

Phyrexia: All Will Be One Preliminary Review Part IV

 

Unctus, Grand Metatect 2

A downgrade on Grand Architect without shedding any of that narrowness. There are places I might play this but three is generally quite the top end spot for those sorts of places so outside of EDH and those spacious 100 card decks I cannot see a place for this in singleton. The artifact decks don't love colour intense cards either so this isn't even competing well with cards like Sai, let alone Nettlecyst or Etched Champion.

Norn's Wellspring 2

A cheap means to cash in on dead dorks. Every pair of dead'ns gives a Preordain. Cool. Four dead dorks and this has paid for itself comfortably. Sadly four dead dorks is a thing for aggro decks to do and they are not into skipping the option to apply pressure. This might well just come out too late for them. I like that it works with tokens but all I prefer my value to come in proactive or more reliable ways. The price here is right but the suitability is off. I do want to have a little play with this but I don't really feel like I need to test it... I much prefer Transmogrants Crown to this as it does something on top of the value, despite not being quite so good at the value side of things. 

Blade of Shared Souls 1

While this is a very cool design being interesting and unique, it is still a Clone. Clones are polar cards that don't play all that well, and those that only target your own creatures are typically also just bad in addition to these other issues. 

Archfiend of the Dross 2

Cards with the word Dross in the title have always been synonymous with shit. Dross Crocodile anyone? This is a reworked Abyssal Persecutor. One in which you lose trample, gain a draining passive, and gain a time limit on when you need the card gone by. At least you can win with Archfiend in play but it is quite a scary times card. No trample means you will need a healthy amount of removal, not just to hit their blockers but also to trigger the drain. You have three attacks with this before it turns on you and ends your life. Yes, you can sac or kill if yourself if it isn't getting the job done but this requires cards and increases the risks. I don't see this as much better than Persecutor and that card hasn't been exciting in cube for ages. Just big stats do not excite. Risks and hoops to jump through reduce a lack of excitement to strong dislike. Sometimes the drain will be too much for people, but not often enough to overall make this at all good. I was pretty wrong about Sheoldred which does have some similarities to this, being a 4 drop with stats, a drain passive, and no real other value. The thing about Sheoldred is that the power level is a lot higher and it comes with no baggage at all, it is all upside with Sheoldred. All in all Archfiend fails to break the Dross curse. 

Graaz, Untoppable Juggernaut 2

I see this more as a take on Craterhoof Behemoth than anything else. This is a card you flop and alpha strike with and not a card you deploy and win with over a couple of turns. Not many decks have lots of weenies but want a big artifact instead of a green dork. Perhaps some Mycosinth Golem affinity brew. Sounds like a lot of fun but also sounds like a weak version of other decks. Overall there is just not much demand for what this offers. 

Melira, the Living Cure 6

This is a whole lot of Watchwolf! In cube I expect the poison slowing to be irrelevant however the other ability is also good. A very strong Dauntless Bodyguard style card. This is very much one of those cards that is comfortably there on power level but is not just a gold card for which there is less space, but also the wrong kind of gold card. I have found you want that top end pull rather than the low mana value deck padding, even if it is premium quality padding! This will play well in cubes across the board, it will just not see enough play or impact drafts enough positively to be a card I want to run. 

Black Sun's Twilight 7

Curious. As removal this is shockingly bad always costing you tempo to use and being clunky and slow. As a big value blowout play it is quite juicy late on. It reminds me of the various 5 mana saga removal spells; Elspeth Conquers Death and The Eldest Reborn. It is a bit faster acting that the sagas but costs a little more. It can also be used earlier in the game if needed. As a six drop this should be utterly game winning, even just getting back something like a Gonti or three drop should still be a devastating swing. Instant is scary too allowing you to kill their thing at EoT and attack with your thing right away. I think this has a shot in cube, I do not love the card but it is the right sort of thing. Usable early, lots of options, direct, but also some powerful scaling into the late game. I don't love it, I see myself using it a lot at two mana to kill one drops and that kind of general sad inefficiency. Bad as that will feel at the time a card that can stop you dying early and does a good job of winning late is hard to pass up. 

Vindictive Flamestoker 7

Nothing wrong with this. A 1/2 for R that cashes in for 4 cards later down the line. This is bad in the face of mass removal as it will not do all that much as a body only to die before you can use it. Against spot removal it is great just thanks to being a one drop meaning you are likely never losing tempo. Six oil counters is a lot to get but you are perfectly happy firing this off for four mana or so, really, whenever you run out of gas the price for four cards will be right and you should be able to afford it. This feels like a Bomat Courier that is easier to draw cards with and generally a little safer. It isn't a bomb by any means and may just be weaker than a Phyrexian Dragon Engine as a refuel card. One drops with draw 4 on them absolutely excite however and so this is getting every chance to prove itself in cube. If it were not for mass removal effects this card would be straight up outstanding but the risk is obviosuly getting it killed incidentally for free while you charge it up and this costing you a card rather than gaining you three as you had hoped..

Encroaching Mycosinth 1

This is a lot to pay for a do nothing. Obviously a build around only card but seemingly not a great one even at that. 

Bloated Contaminator 6

Dangerous card that is clearly quite a big push for toxic green decks in standard. I presume this can proliferate the first toxic counter making it toxic 2. Even without the toxic a 3 mana 4/4 trample that proliefrates on combat damage is quite exciting. Lots of counters in cube that we want to multiply! This is a bit vanilla and really needs support to work that proliferate angle. Ultimately while this is very powerful I think it isn't the kind of card to last in cube. Not without a desire to force certain synergies at least, in which case this is a useful leverage tool. 

Monument to Perfection 2

Fun card with one of those achievements to unlock but not a powerful card, even if the spheres and locuses prove powerful. EDH can likely do cool things with this.

Ria Ivor, Bane of Bladehold 2

Too situational and narrow. Certainly powerful with a terrifying ceiling but not a good fit for cube. 

The Monumental Facade 3

One of those really cool enabler cards that will have some lovely synergies and likely crop up in loads of standard decks. For cubes however this is not going to be working for enough cards to get a look in. A build around only. 

Mirrex 6

One turn of fixing and a land that is always ready to use is already not that bad of a land. To then also have the ability to throw out toxic tokens is pretty impressive. It is cheaper to use than Castle Ardenvale too! Yes, they can't block so it is offense only but even so, this is a very efficient land all round with fairly little drawback. I suspect it is a little too slow for cube but it still needs testing due to that high looking power level. 

Phyrexia: All Will Be One Preliminary Review Part III

 

0 - unplayable in 40 card singleton

1 - effectively unplayable

2 - has low tier constructed decks it might go in

3 - has mid tier constructed decks it does go in

4 - pretty powerful stuff with several potential homes, able to perform well in lower powered cubes

5 - powerful stuff that is either just too narrow or has too many superior alternatives

6 - fringe cube worthy

7 - cube worthy

8 - cube staple

9 - unpowered cube bomb

10 - powered cube bomb 

Migloz, Maze Crusher 5

High power and high utility. This is a whole lot of stats for the mana and can grow, evade, or even Disenchant. Practically this is a little riskier than it looks as it is still very easy to fall behind in tempo playing this to no immediate effect on the game. As far as cube goes it is not at all the kind of card I am looking to include in the gold sections either and that is what kills it. As a mono card, red or green, perhaps even powered down a little, this would be very much in the cube. Taking up a gold slot however and it isn't adding enough to the environment for the high opportunity cost of playing it. 

The Seedcore 2

This is pretty narrow, a kind of Pendlehaven for mites! I am only playing this in a deck with both some phyrexians and the ability to give my opponents poison counters. Even then the cost of it sometimes/often being colourless is large and so we are a long way off an auto include in the only place you can play this. 

Argentum Masticore 2

This is pretty polar. Fail to answer this and it can chew through your whole board while beating the bejesus out of you. Alternatively, Shatter this for fun, or Mind Twist their hand away and watch as they put this in the bin, or just watch them put lands in the bin as they fail to tread water with this expensive road block. The risks here are high and so this is not a tool I am interest in playing with even if the ceiling has allure. Even the protection makes this more polar. It is the sort of thing the card needed to not blow but instead of being a delightful ward 2 or 3 it is a filthy protection from random thing which leads to poor play experiences. 

Venerated Rotpriest 3

A very powerful one drop indeed. This is the kind of thing that really pushes the viability of constructed poison decks. An auto include in any 40 card green based ones. Not the kind of thing we want to play with or even encourage in limited setting however.

Zenith Chronicler 2

Because gold based decks are so rampant and powerful we needed more things to hose them? Pretty sure this is just a cute EDH toy. 

Red Sun's Twilight 0

Too narrow for maindeck anything and not even a good sideboard card. If you want to kill lots of artifacts you want to do it cheaply and there are many tools far better than this for that.

Venser, Corpse Puppet 2

A very powerful magic card if we are adding the parts together but the need of proliferate and the fractured nature of poison cards keeps this pretty fair. It is going to be near impossible supporting this with enough proliferate in cubes even if you wanted to and you really shouldn't want that! 

The Mycosinth Gardens 3

Cute little fixer than can jump ship and go become something else. Some utility, some potential Stalking Stones style land threat. Not a bad card but too aimless for cube although I am sure this will find homes in all sorts of places being quite the unusual card. 

White Sun's Twilight 1

Seven is a lot for a Wrath, we can Wrath and put stuff into play for six, and we can put stuff into play that isn't massively narrow. This seems to pricy for poison decks to use for the tokens and for control decks to use as removal. That all feels like it leaves this with no potential to speak of. 

Kethek, Crucile Goliath 2

A fun cascade style Birthing Pod effect. If you can abuse this with prototype or affinity effects that let you cheat out high mana value cards then Kethek can be scaled up but is that worth it? It isn't reliable or all that exciting in cube and seems like too much effort elsewhere. This is fine and fun but also narrow and fair with problems over consistency as well. 

Skrelv's Hive 6

On paper sounds good but in practice not great I suspect. It reminds me of Dreadhorde invasion which was vastly worse than Bitterblossom. Tokens than can't block are weak, being 1/1s doesn't help them attack well. They are only effectively 2/1s if unblocked and able to do those 10 hits themselves. The lifelink is late in the day at best and pretty low impact. You would do well to get back more than the life you paid for each mite. All in all I don't see this. White is the colour of Anthems and equipment so I do need to try this. It is a very cheap source of ongoing fodder. It is however so much worse than Bitterblossom that white has a whole lot of contextual benefits to make up for. White has plenty of ways to churn out tokens as well so it has to really want specifically the things this offers, that being no ongoing mana investment, reliability, low upfront cost, and relatively hard to remove. Otherwise it is just going to play things like Precinct Captain, Spectral Procession, planeswalkers, Castle Ardenvale, etc, etc. 

Kemba, Kha Enduring 2

Not enough support to be worth running this in cubes. Might not offer enough punch to find a slot in equipment heavy decks. It is the all in one body and Sigarda's Aid in the worlds of Colossus Hammer but even there it seems a bit awkward.

Urubrask's Forge 6

This is a slow threat but it does a lot of things well. This is impressive reach that needs an unconventional answer. You cannot Wrath this away or Fatal Push it. You need a Shatter effect or at least a willing first strike dork to live and remain on defence. Forge also scales up both by itself and if you happen to have any sort of sac outlet to pair it with. Red is not at all short of threatening 3 drops but this one does feel very well suited to cube even if it isn't packing quite the same power levels as the best of the red three drops. Six turns in play affords this 21 points of damage. Slow compared to comparable creatures but far harder to stop, both in combat and with removal. Far more relentless but equally zero defensive properties. Not always a problem in red but noteworthy none the less. I think this will be pretty good when it is played but not get as much play as it needs. It is a bit linear for slower decks and a bit slow for the aggressive ones. 

Evolved Spinoderm 3

Someone wanted to revisit the classic Blastoderm and came up with this. Considering how much better dorks have gotten since Masques block and given this is a rare not a common it is really not much of an improvement on the original. This is meaty and gives you some time to safely buff it up if you like. By itself it is just fatty limited to three attacks. If you can sneakily find ways to oil it up then it could be devastating but as it stands I am not too interested. I like my threats to stay in play by themselves. Hexproof for a couple of turns is nice but without a way to properly abuse that I am unimpressed. Really this is just another polar card. Sometimes it is utterly negated by some Baneslayer style card while others it is unstoppable and does critical damage by itself. 

Ovika, Enigma Goliath 2

Big and gold and thus already somewhat out of the running for cube. Ward helps but not quite enough here. You really want to be untapping with this and still have some gas in hand to deploy. That is too much to ask and so we can move on past this very powerful fatty. 

Mercurial Spelldancer 5

They might as well have called this a hoop jumper. This is like a really bad Glint Sleeve Siphoner. It takes a billion years to gain any advantage and mostly dies before getting there. You also need to play this in a deck with spells that are useful to copy, be that ones that draw cards or ones that kill things. Try playing this with mostly counterspell effects and you have a sad card. This is fine, the unblockable aspect is relevant and the ability to actually block adds a good amount of utility to this card which many other similar such cards lack. This probably plays fine in cube and could hold onto a slot if there were more in the way of aggressive and evasive blue decks. 

Tablet of Compleation 2

Way too slow for ramp and way too slow for draw. Slapping both together doesn't do much to help with this speed issue. 

Geth, Thane of Contracts 2

This is likely just unplayable in cube with it being so hard to build with. The tempo hit from this is real and the upsides are hard to really abuse. Either play Recurring Nightmare style things, or Zombify type things. I wouldn't want this anywhere, it is either too slow, too vulnerable, or too detrimental to my own plans. The best thing about Geth is just being a 3/4 for 3 and thus an OK body to flop into play. He might then have some cute utility with your many Nekrataal effect dorks. Sadly that upside is just paling in comparison to the downside of giving your stuff -1/-1 on average. 

Phyrexia: All Will Be One Preliminary Review Part II

 

Blue Sun's Twilight 7

Dominate with some tweaks. The mana reduction being the main one which turns a really clunky card into one with some potential game to it. This steals a token at 2 which is somewhat relevant in cube these days. I would say BST is good in the early game, a little underpowered and situational in the mid game and pretty nuts in the late game. When, at 7 mana, you can not only have this as a Control Magic but also a Clone it is all a bit swingy. That late game power answer on top of a fairly versatile and swingy card in the lead up to that is grand. It isn't going to do much if you are getting curved on but that isn't the most common way to lose in cube by a long shot, even my midrangy one. It is far more common for little awkward or snowbally cards to do critical damage or for a swarm of one and two drops to happen. In those cases this is more reasonable protection, arguably better than Control Magic simply by being something you can flop out at two and three mana and still stand to get a tempo two for one. I do not inherently like this sort of card but I have to concede that this is absolutely one of the most viable contenders for cube of cards like this. One could argue it is a fixed Control Magic. It doesn't have that foolish back and forth swing of being able to take their best on curve dork and just win off the back of that if they can't answer it. Equally it avoids being too narrow like Threads of Disloyalty. It will be interesting to see how this performs, I don't like it but objectively I see this panning out. More for being viable removal in blue than directly being a great card or anything. On a little side note there seems to be a new glut of cards that scale well into the late game like Crackle with Power. Things that you include in your deck as early plays, such as the new prototype cards, that when you peel them in the late game they offer substantially more power. These turn out to be really valuable in cube at present with low curve and high tempo stuff being critical to have in abundance, which in turn makes proper top end game winners and cards that can push through a win being hard to find and include. Cards like this let you have something to get playing early but allow you to win pretty hard if you can make it late with them. 

Karumonix, the Rat King 2.5

Sure, a tribal rat man. Mostly a commander card but I will play this in a rat deck, perhaps even the odd poison and ninja decks. Build around only although sufficiently reasonable as a commander to do a lot of work empowering an otherwise very limp tribe. 

Green Sun's Twilight 6

Fascinating. This starts life as a shonky cycler, moves through a middling Divination patch and then winds up looking like a Tooth and Nail! In terms of hit rate you want a deck that is 50% dorks and 50% lands. That isn't a million miles off what heavy/mono green decks look like in my cube presently although it is rather closer to 40% of each and 20% stuff that is going to be a miss. Am I ever cycling this on turn one for G? Yes, probably if I am light on lands, but that chance of wiffing does make that a pretty dodgy play. You are already some statistical percentage towards a mulligan if that is your line so such hands are automatically things you are more likely to ditch. How about trying to get that Night's Whisper feel? Even with exactly 50/50 mix of lands and dorks in deck firing this off at X=1 is only resulting in hitting both fractionally above 50% of the time. In reality it will be under a third of the time you double hit, with a good 4% chance to wiff all together also helping to lower the average draw. Not something you are going to do eagerly but none the less something you will do relatively happily. You do at least get to chose the best dork or the best land when you hit the same type twice! You can even go nuts and increase your odds on hits by playing Dryad Arbor for that double type scaling! Arbor really loves a Green Sun at any time of the day! At X = 2 through 4 we are just looking at reliable card advantage and selection. You still always get a land so the value is less saucy than the card quality but it is all good. It is just a thing you are more than happy doing whenever you have spare mana, the need of setting up, or a lack of other stuff going on. The only time it is really awkward is when you are behind on tempo and have nothing to do (but not 6 or more total mana). Then you have to make the awkward call of only spending a bit on X in the hope you will find and hit a dork you can still play that turn or going full X and taking the tempo hit. Gross, but pretty interesting! 

Once you hit six mana this card gets really good as it is likely value and selection with minimal tempo costs and potentially tempo gains. Find a six drop dork or bigger and you are up on mana. Otherwise just get a lot of choice on which dork you want as well as a free land for not much cost at all. I guess as the land you get is untapped you can technically make tempo gains from a mere five drop but that is trickier. All in all I think this is a great card. It has a very wide range of what it is actually doing for you but they are all things that are pretty appropriate for whatever stage of the game you are at. I really like it, it is a touch clunky and risky but it is super interesting. Normally I hate cards that dig into big dorks and play them for you as I would just much rather have another fatty in my deck. This bypasses that downside by being able to mimic a cycler, or Divination, or Night's Whisper early and thus manages to increase your top end threat density while also improving your low end consistency rather than reducing your top end threat density as cards like Tooth and Nail necessarily do. I want this card to succeed in cube. I love me card quality and card draw. This is clunky and risky and that is scary but I am hopeful it has enough range and power to offset that. In reality the viabiltiy of this card comes down to the % of misses you have in your green cards and decks in your cube meta. Much below 80% targets in a deck and I am going off this fairly fast. I think therefor for most cubes this will not be worth it. For mine right now I have some hope but I cannot envisage it surviving much in the way of meta changes. A seasonal sort of cube card!  

Kaito, Dancing Shadow 5

I like this guy but is he good? He does 3 really good planeswalker things. 0 to draw a card is clean and solid. The +1 is a reliable utility tool that can force through attackers to enable the passive or simply work defensive duty. Flopping a walker and negating their attacker is a time old tradition among most decent planeswalkers. Just poising to untap and offer utility backed up and protected by open mana! The -2 offers some very significant board development to help stabilize a game. Often walkers suck because when you play them late they are just ignored. The -2 really helps make a late Kaito do work recovering a game. Some life gain, a blocker, and the potential to trade up are all great. It is likely why Kaito can't start with 4 loyalty as back to back -2 would put a lot of games out of reach. Sadly it is that low loyalty that makes me think this is not going to cut it in cube. I fear this is too easily burned or sniped out with evasive and hasting dorks that too little value will be had from him. The passive is great but it is narrow and win more. If you are full of Steel Raven then it is super juicy but in cube it will not enjoy that kind of luxury. Yes, the +1 supports the passive but the -2 doesn't really. Sure, the passive scales nicely with your EtB dorks but again, this is super win more. Mostly this is a card is just a little risky. If leaning on the token you get blown out by so many things. Equally, if you are leaning on the +1 to keep Kaito safe a single spot removal spell will put you behind in tempo with no card advantage to show for it. I do like this card but it feels like a really weak version of the three drop Kaito. This is more fun for sure and will be cooler in EDH but it does not have the look of a cube card. Fine, but not good. 

Conduit of Worlds 6

This is one of those cards that rings danger alarm bells. I think it is just about balanced, or counter-balanced, to the point where it isn't going to be oppressive in cube. It reminds me somewhat of Wilderness Reclamation but as a value source rather than a mana source. This is unlimited action but only in a world where you are on curve, or have mana sinks, or abundant permanent cards with flash. If your deck is just a pile of normal stuff in a normal curve the one card per turn limit is going to really crimp the power of this thing. Just making a 3 drop on turn 8 when everyone has at least 6 mana sounds like a losing play. You need to be doing more than that and that is what makes Conduit a little narrower than it might appear. It has some real vibes of Lurrus in that you need specific kinds of cards that let you play around the drawback effectively. This is no real issue in cube with plenty of lands doing the job by themselves with cards a plenty also happy to drink all your excess mana. You can play a sensibly curved deck with Crucible and still have it represent all the gas. So, is unlimited gas worth it for four mana? In a world not so long ago that would be a firm yes but in this age where tempo dominates and you can get plenty of gas from cards that are not tempo negative such as Toskie or The Great Henge or just a simple Tireless Tracker I am not so sure. Certainly going to give this a test as it is quite the big ticket item but I can see it getting cut the next time I trim the fat (longer than a test but likely just before the next set drops). 

The Eternal Wanderer 7

Six is a big old ask from any cube card in 2023 and for planeswalkers it is basically terminal. Sun's Champion is my only remaining walker over five mana (other than Ugin the Spirit Dragon) and she is feeling tired and limp these days. This does have 4 immediately useful abilities. The passive makes it hard to attack profitably or deal with in combat quickly, the latter is a big part of what keeps walkers balanced so this will do pretty well against go wide decks and those without removal that directly targets walkers. The +1 flicker is something I have wanted to see on a mono white walker for a while but on a card with the right mana cost to be widely usable as opposed to being far too late to the party! I want a three drop with flicker not a six drop. The 0 is fairly meaty but it is slow. My gut is that it is bad on a six mana walker but that is because other walkers do not have the passive that The Eternal Wanderer enjoys, with the limitation on being attacked I think the 0 is probably decent enough. Some OK safety and some reasonable pressure with decent scaling potential. Really this is all about the -4 which is a Wrath of sorts. A very good one if they have bad dorks and good dorks. A very poor one if they just have the one fatty. I am not a big fan of the polar situational Wrath but on an otherwise reasonably safe and rounded walker I am OK with it. While the passive does not work smoothly with the -4 as both leave you vulnerable to one big threat the +1 does at least calm that problem and buy time to change the game state. I certainly do not think this is a bomb but it does look at the very least to be a strong challenge at Sun's Champion, which is the bar to clear for six mana walkers in my cube.

Dragonwing Glider 7

Big fan of this card. It is basically a red Maul of the Skyclaves. You pay 2 more mana to deploy this and one more to re-equip it but you get a living weapon style effect of a 2/2 to slap under it. What I like about Glider is that it offers a really good degree of reach. Have this in play long enough and it should be able to close the game. It turns anything into a relevant threat pretty much and it does this without being a weak play on curve or even just on the turn you make it. It hits hard and fast and demands an answer. It is not a bomb by any means with 4 power flying haste dorks with upside in red for days. The perks here are in safety of threat. You are playing this to kill people which it will do if not answered and in doing so it will typically generate some value. Either you get a free 2/2 token or you get to keep the threatening equipment. Power wise this is nothing to rock the boat but suitability wise I think this is one of the better options. It is especially brutal with Stoneforge Mystic and is probably the most exciting thing you can pair with it in cube with the classic Batterskull being a bit weak by itself and a defensively leaning card. This is a nice proactive equipment you are happy to play for 3RR when you can't pay 1W for it! Living weapon is the fix to equipments allowing you to play more than one or two in your 40 card deck. For Mirrodin! is a bit of a mouthful as far as key words go but it is a welcome return in as far as mechanics go.  

Top 8 Vehicles (again, but 5 Years Later)

 

I did one of these best vehicle lists five years ago and it has rather changed since! We have recently had three releases set in more modern worlds where the flavour of vehicles makes more sense and a lot of vehicles did indeed see print in those sets. Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty, The Streets of New Capenna, and the 40K commander stuff. Five of the cards on this top 8 are from those three release. Power has crept a lot since Kaladesh and the introduction of the card type. Vehicle design has also improved resulting in more interesting and better suited options. It is no shock that the new stuff is quite spicy! I usually do a little bit on the cards that failed to make the list. There are obviously some niche ones you don't play in drafting cubes but that do have a role to play in constructed settings but beyond that there were not too many of note. Those on this list presently do represent the significant bulk of cards you should be considering. The only three I even considered beyond those on the list were Golden Argosy, Nautiliod Ship, and Heart of Kiran. The former two are fun but a bit win more. Heart however has fallen a long way from grace. Unsurprisingly the fate of Heart is rather bound with planeswalkers as it is both an amazing tool to pressure them as well as a good thing to be powered by. With less planeswalkers on both sides of the aisle the less interest there is in Heart.  

Mysterious Limousine 8th

I am likely as surprised as you are to find myself putting this here. It is one of those cards I just threw into the cube to play with because it was differerent and I wanted to see how it felt. I had no expectation that it would last in the cube however it has wildly outperformed expectations and seen fairly consistent play. The power level of the Limo is not impressive but the utility really is. It is so many different cards and effects in one depending on what you are after. As with all vehicles it is a threat you can deploy that is immune to creature removal until you allow it to be otherwise. Typically always avoiding the sorcery speed stuff. Oddly starting to take over a niche primarily occupied by planeswalkers. Walkers are now typically a bit too vulnerable to lean on and don't offer quite the punch a vehicle does on any given turn. So what is all this utility I am on about? How is this different to a big Banisher Priest? In many ways, thankfully for the Limo! It is far harder removal for one. If you need something to stay out of the game then you can simply be careful about crewing the Limo and you stand a much higher chance of it being a hard removal spell. It can also really go to town on tokens. Answer one the turn it comes down, crew and attack and take out another, primed and ready to answer more there after. This is decent against 1/1 thopters and 2/2 zombies but there are increasingly 4/4 tokens kicking around, direct copy token too, all of which stand to make this a fairly good value removal spell. Lastly there is the coolest use for this which is flickering out your own stuff. Usually this is to re-trigger EtB effects but sometimes it is just some extra protection against mass removal. Just some random three drop under this will allow you to quickly setup a board position and pressure so long as you can find 2 power to crew from your hand. Equally, a couple of nice EtB triggers on dorks you cycle in and out of play will get out of hand very fast indeed. Even if you trade this off in combat on the first attack you will have had two flickers from it which in the era of prototype dorks, is pretty tasty. I can imagine that easily averaging a card and something else, a removal effect, a 3/3 golem, that sort of juice. You do not need to tag that much on to this card to make it look like clearly good value. 

Unlicensed Hearse 7th

This is a funny one in cube. We are now pretty comfortably at the point where there are enough graveyard synergies on the go that all decks will make some use of them and those that fail to do so are wasting resources. Even so, some decks fill the bin slowly and make minimal use of it while others lean on it pretty hard. That ultimately still leaves this as a fairly polar card that you cannot control the power of fully. Sometimes it will be a beating and others it will be fine and that is not the kind of card design I like including in my cube. The other thing I don't love about this is that it is just a big pile of stats. It gets away with this a bit by being so cheap, growing fairly quickly, and with the general perks of the vehicle card type. I certainly rate this over Tarmogoyf and there is more than a passing similarity between the cards. Goyf is also making a bit of a comeback in this age of good delirium cards and high tempo. The thing that keeps Herse something I am happy including in my cube is that you can empower it yourself. Just so long as you can fill up your own bin with some aplomb and don't need to reply on it too much for your other cards then this is a fine include. I wouldn't want to run this maindeck in a green or white creature heavy deck as there is every chance this fails to grow to a sensible size in time to be relevant. In a more spell and disruption heavy deck that is putting cards into both bins this thing is easily able to become a 4/4 and a 6/6 in time to dominate the mid and late game board. Fantastic sideboard tool as well. This controls yards at a very good pace and is a decently good threat into the mix. It is the new and improved Scavenging Ooze for all. Growthing threat and yard control but with none of that tedious low tempo mana investment. Hearse is a fine card with reasonable uses that is really making a name for itself with an impressively high raw power level. 

Reckoner Bankbuster 6th

We have had a pleasant little run of cards like this starting with Treasure Map, then moving and improving on with Mazemind Tome, and now this little gem. This is very much another card that offers utility rather than raw power. Three is a high crew cost and means this only really adds a net of one power to the board. It reduces the general reliability of this as threat, certainly any sort of early threat. That isn't really what this card is about however. I am not putting this in my deck as a threat, I am putting it in because I want more value and it is looking like a good option because it doesn't concede much threat. The mere fact that my opponent must consider it as a threat works heavily in its favour. It is exactly this sort of thing that is provoking the decline of planeswalkers. You could just have this in play but if I make a planeswalker all you need is a three power dork to lay and my walker is probably easting four damage in the face. Being a threat or value as the game demands is an effect you want in your cubes as they will make games more consistent and enjoyable. Have a nice curving hand full of dorks, then Bunkbuster is giving them psuedo-haste and acting like a robust two mana 4/4. Find yourself flooding out and Bankbuster is a good way to sink a bunch of mana and draw into gas, while becoming gas itself! The total deal of a 4/4, a 1(3 as crew)/1, a treasure, and three cards is well worth the 8 mana total cost given that you can break it up into small chunks at your convenience. Doubly so as you get access to that 4/4 and some of the cards before you are fully paid up! I have simply found I love playing with this card. I like having it in play and tend to feel good about things when I do. 

Thunderhawk Gunship 5th

A sneaky 40K card here and one I might easily be underrating due to relatively little experience playing it thus far. This ends games very effectively. It also does so while being a nice safe high value play even when from behind. It has all the merits Grave Titan was so revered for while also being able to push and close a game. This is still mostly 10/10 in stats and 3 bodies even if sometimes you can only use 8/8 and 2 of them. It is still a lot. The giving everything flying is the real shocker here. It just means so many games are just over if this gets to attack. It is pretty hard to stop it doing that. Instant speed removal for a six toughness dork? This is a very good card. It is everything you want from a top end threat. The only thing stopping it being oppressive is that six is quite a tall order in cube these days. This is a card you play in a dork heavier deck, in part to help with crewing duty but mostly to benefit from getting sent to the skies. While most cube decks these days qualify I am finding that those decks generally seem to stop before reaching six on the curve. 

Skysovereign Consul Flagship 4th

I am not a lover of this card but there is no denying its power in cube like environments. It is the Glorybringer that all can play. Obviously clunkier than the dragon and a little less effective on the control side of things but a much more tenacious threat to make up for it. Skysovereign is a powerful threat that usually offers value, tempo, utility, and pressure. The main floor of the card is the need of crew. Being so much card it comes late enough that it can find itself being the only thing and it is a pretty sad play without crew. Doubly so if it comes down and fails to do anything useful with the 3 damage! I think this would perform better if it were scaled back a little so as it give it more chance of having that all important crew. Answers to this are not easy to come by and taking it out in combat is even rarer. Trying to race this is no kind of fun either. I think a lot of why I don't like this card is that when playing against it I often feel like I get to a position where I am just hoping they do not draw something that can crew it, if they do I lose on the spot and that isn't the kind of game state I enjoy! I have seen a lot of manlands getting animated just to crew this recently which speaks volumes to the power of this bad boy. 

Night Scythe 3rd

Seemingly low power card that I wouldn't be surprised if most readers had either forgotten about or simply never even seen. While this clearly lacks the punch of many of the flashier vehicles calling it low powered feels like a disservice. Equally this card is an absolute options factory without outwardly having that appearance. This is 5/3 of total stats, on two bodies, with partial evasion. That is a pretty good deal power wise for three mana. Coming with a 2/2 token and just having crew 2 itself makes this a very accessible and reliably active vehicle. This is a pig to protect against and a pig to attack past. You kill the token and it crews up a blocker meaning two removal spells are needed to get passed it. The low toughness of Scythe isn't a big downside as you have that much more control over when it is a creature than with other 3/1 fliers. This is alike to Blade Splicer except it is harder to get out of play, more threatening, and playable in all the colours. It is the kind of card I find I rarely fail to play if I have access to it. It isn't like slam first pick or a core card I lock in my list right away but it does seem to be added eventually! 

Smugglers Copter 2nd

Ousted from the top spot this little beast is still an excellent card but things have caught up with it a little. Power creep has obviously been steep but it has specifically targetted removal and dorks. Dodging removal was a big part of why Copter was so powerful but these days it feels as if the card is fairly easy to take down, or at least compared to when the card was first out and so utterly rampant. Although crew is a low cost it is not nothing which means any two mana instant speed removal typically trades positively with Copter. My Searing Spear just tapped your dude! We also just now have cards like Ledger Shredder that put some perspective on the reduced power of Copter relative to the field. I still play it in most decks that will reliably crew it. The card is very rounded being a well statted evasive threat that offers card quality. It often does good work but it rarely gives that much in the way of actual value or even that much actual tempo. 

Esika's Chariot 1st

Pretty comfortably the best vehicle to date. This is the complete threat. It is a total of 8/8 stats minimum which is rather nuts at four mana. It is spread over three bodies, it is extremely hard to completely or efficiently answer, and it even provides ongoing value. Potentially scaling value I might add. You get to copy any token and I have certainly managed far better than a mere 2/2 cat! It is even utility as sometimes clues are more exciting than more cats. This thing beats the hell out of you if you fail to hinder it in some way. Vehicles that come with dorks who can crew are pretty fixed, they don't suffer the same rapid diminishing returns that traditional vehicles and equipment do. You can play this in your deck pretty much as if it were a dork without having to worry too much about your dork count or ability to reliably crew it. It got to the point where this was sufficiently good that people were splashing for it! Green has never really been splashed for much, it is the one normally doing the splashing! This is another card that really put the boot in on Grave Titan displaying a scarily comparable play pattern and clock at two thirds the mana cost! The most common way I saw this pulling ahead was just coming down on curve with little to nothing else relevant on either side of the board and looking like a beating. The defending player would then not have an answer to the Chariot itself and would do something inefficient to one of the cats, say a Searing Spear again! Just in the fleeting hope that they wouldn't then be able to crew it but they inevitably would and the cats would multiply and the game would be over soon there after. A very hard card to beat indeed. This is still the highest pick green card in my cube edging out the like of Birds of Paradise by being that much more unique and game ending. There enough mana ramp cards, there are either too many or too few cards of this foolish a power level!