Rambunctious Mutt 0Rather over priced for a Disenchant on legs. Likely not even playing this in tribal. The art feels like something out of an Un set too.
Garruk Unleashed 7.5
This makes me thing of Elspeth, Knight-Errant. Make a dork or buff a dork and give it evasion. That latter part is the strength of both cards. It makes them exceptional planeswalker control cards. Not only is it hard to play a walker into these walkers, they can also both just come down and facilitate a planewalker kill there and then which is always a nasty surprise. Garruk also comes down on turn three a lot being a green card and that will make him really scary. Not the most exciting planeswalker but a rather effective one. Good tempo, control and reach.
Garruk's Harbinger 7
This seems pretty nuts. It is a 4/3 for 3. Ok. It has hexproof from black. Sure. It digs into your deck and finds Garruks or creatures when it connects. What? Come again? This is a 4/3 Ophidian with card selection? It triggers when it hits walkers? You can scale the depth of dig with power? Well, then. I guess that is a lot of card. Ohran Viper is the conservative control green Ophidian. This is the tempo one and it is quite something. It probably wins with one connection and seems really winning with two. It is a whole lot harder to handle in combat too. It trades into things well and will often force a double block which is likely a 2 for 1 at best and could easily result in a blow out with any sort of trick or removal. Certainly Viper can do this too but Viper isn't that much of a threat. It is value sure, but you can afford to let it hit you a bit if the game is not a value one. This Harbinger does 4 per hit which is murdering walkers and putting real pressure on life totals. Imagine this on turn two and Garruk on turn 3! Swing for 7 trample, kill any walker dead or start obliterating life totals all while digging 7 cards deep to find the next brutal play. Green has some very serious 3 drops in this set. Some of the weaker ones in cube might be looking a little nervous.
I like this a lot. It does a bit of something right away on curve thanks to the haste. Then it goes on to provide reach and value with the various abilities. Forcing through the small dorks for such a cheap cost is potent reach and is probably sufficiently good that you won't see the other ability used all that often. The downside to Subira is that without supporting gribblies she is just a 2/3 haste and that is reasonably well under par. Overall I would liken her closest to Pia Nalaar in power. Subira is a little higher potential but has a little more risk. One for the test pile what with red having such obscene power in the three slot.
Sporeweb Weaver 2
A good little blocker that is for sure. This won't kill much but it will hold off loads and in sufficient style that it will manage to prevent a lot of attacking all together. You would need a hell of a lot of 2/1 dorks to be attacking into this profitably. Sadly this isn't covering enough ground. There is no threat or value to be had from this. It is just mild board control. Powerful but undesirable. Potentially there is some combo with it and Rite of Passage and Goblin Bombardment for the infinite life/sized spider!
Thieve's Guild Enforcer 3Lots of potential here, in rogue decks, milling decks, and perhaps even flash decks. Sadly even with the mill there is just very little hope of this being a 3/2 enough of the time in my cube. The decks that fill up the bin quickly tend to delve or escape it away in short order. With those sorts of cards in abundance playing a card such as this is going to wind up badly for you.
Tempered Veteran 1
You can only play this for the first ability what with the second being so laughably poor. That makes this only a card you can play in a counters themed deck. Given that this card is pretty slow and pretty low powered too I do not expect this to see much, if any action.
Conclave Mentor 4
A Selesnya take on Winding Constrictor. The power is lower with less application and lower stats. The life gain isn't exactly exciting but it is something. You play this regardless when you can though. It is obviously only viable in a counters deck but it is the equivalent of a lord in such places and is one of your main sources of synergy and scaling. Nice to have other GX options to effectively open up the archetype. Too narrow for drafting with of course.
Goremand 1
Pretty poor to play normally and a little fair to bother cheating on. Close but not getting there for cube. Demon tribal?
Feline Sovereign 4
A good lord for a tribe that is starting to look pretty impressive. A bunch of good lords, a bunch of good one drops, a companion. Cats - coming to a top 10 tribal list near you!
Miscast 6.5This is a blend of Spell Pierce, Dispel, Mystical Dispute and Flusterstorm. The latter being the closest comparison. This isn't a hard counter but it is close to it in cube, and for it's cost. It is pretty narrow in range but not prohibitively so. I only ever see Dispel in sideboards for example. Miscast is that sort of spell but it is far closer to the realms of the generally playable. I don't expect it to make it in my cube what with hitting neither walkers nor creatures but I can fully see it in a combo cube, in sideboards, and plenty of other places. It is a cheap, efficient and effective tool. Even if it is a bit of a poor man's Flusterstorm. To be fair to it, just so long as you don't actually need it to counter spells with storm Miscast is going to be the better spell most of the time.
Liliana's Steward 5
This is an odd card. It does have some perks over Raven's Crime or Ravenous Rats but for the most part it is weaker than both. A 1/2 zombie is bad without a lot of synergy. One black and one card to force a discard, the next turn, is a poor rate. And, you never get the benefit of the body and the discard. All that aside, this will see play. It is cheap and affords utility and potential synergy. When you can easily recur cheap dorks or zombies, when you specifically want dorks in the bin, all sorts of reasons this could be superior to alternatives. No where near the power of Stitcher's Supplier but a similar card in cost, type, and general supporting/synergy roles.
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