Core 2020 Conclusions and Additions

Glad to see a good number of reprints here simply for the breather it gave on card reviewing! A nice calm 10 posts to get it all covered compared to the madness of Horizons and War of the Spark. The flip side of that however is that there are far fewer noteworthy cards. There are only a couple of cards I would normally call lock in cards and they are both Chandras!. The list of things I wish to test is down a lot on the last few sets and the number of those I expect to make it is minimal. The power of the last few sets has made the bar for entry to the cube noticeably higher making for fairly slim pickings from Core 2020.

While this set does relatively little for the drafting cube it does offer a healthy amount to singleton constructed formats. Not the most in terms of quantity but some really fun cards I look forward to building and playing with. There is also a few cards that could do well in modern. It seems pretty evident that Modern Horizons was developed around the same time and that the two sets shared out some of the cards between them. Some under supported tribes also get some good love. All in all a good little set.

I would be happier if I got a new one or two mana drafting cube staple even if it were just a new take on Opt or something. I fear the impact this set will have on games will be pretty minimal as it is. We might well have no Core 2020 cards left in the cube by the end of the year. With the more interesting cards being pricier, gold or otherwise narrow they will appear in fewer decks and impact games a lot less when they do show up.

It would seem as if 8/10 and higher cards according to my scale are no longer printed in standard legal sets which is probably sensible but also not ideal for my purposes. When I started doing this blog a 5/10 card was the point at which you started to have a good chance of lasting in the drafting cube and that has crept up and up over time. It seems to have jumped up a bunch just this year too with increasing numbers of 7/10 cards not lasting any time at all. With 7.5 ratings being the new lock in figure and no 8/10 cards coming out in most sets I envisage a fairly stagnant drafting cube going forwards. This in turn means I will spend more time experimenting with more exotic cube designs. I have just finished an extensive couple of months testing out a combo only version of the cube which I will be writing up shortly. Any way, going off on a tangent now so lets just list the noteworthy cards from this set;




Hopeful Testers; (best to worst roughly)

Chandra, Acolyte of Flame
Chandra, Awakened Inferno
Skyknight Vanguard
Ancestral Blade
Apostle of Purifying Light
Flood of Tears
Vivien, Arkbow Ranger
Cavalier of Gales
Cloudkin Seer
Cavalier of Night
Hanged Executioner
Mu Lanying, Sky Dancer
Corpse Knight




Unlikely to make it cards for testing;

Knight of the Ebon Legion
Glint-Horn Buccaneer
Shared Summons
Nightpack Ambusher
Spectral Sailor
Cerulean Drake
Elvish Reclaimer
Agent of Treachery
Marauding Raptor
Field of the Dead
Ravenous Hydra
Cavalier of Flame



Stuff for Constructed Cube of note;

Lotus Field
Mystic Forge
Kethis, the Hidden Hand
Manifold Key
Icon of Ancestry
Yarok, the Desecrated
Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord
Kykar, Wind's Fury
Rotting Regisaur
Lightening Stormkin
Brought Back
Tale's End
Thunderkin Awakener
Barkhide Troll
Bag of Holding
Salvager of Ruin
Healer of the Glade
Colossus Hammer
Vampire of the Dire Moon
Drawn from Dreams
Season of Growth
Starfield Mystic
Retributive Wand
Kaalia, Zenith Seeker
Empyrean Angel
Ajani, Strength of the Pride
Chandra, Novice Pyromancer
Scheming Symmetry
Cyptic Caves
Yarok's Fenlurker
Chandra's Regulator