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
Cabaretti Ascendancy 2
This is probably drawing half a card a turn with a scry equivalent otherwise. That is fine but it is super narrow needing three colours and a type concentrated deck. Viable for a handful of constructed builds but not something worth running in cubes.
Extraction Specialist 3
This reminds me of Alirios, Enraptured which did perform fairly well in cube. Extraction Specialist is more powerful but it has that Achilles heel of needing a target in the bin to be good and that makes it not good. Cards that are just good value filler cannot have hoops to jump through, it just ruins them. Plenty of power here just insufficient reliability.
Witty Roastmaster 2
Nice effect but leaning towards the narrow, especially when the body is not something you really want or that merits the mana cost. Think I'll be playing both Impact Tremors and God of the Forge for my red token decks before I resort to this. Playable for sure but low power both in relative and nominal terms.
Aven Heartstabber 7
A kind of Baleful Strix. This supports and is supported by mill while Strix is more of an artifact synergy card. Strix does rather more for you right away while this offers more ultimately. Five mana values is not a trivial task but it is also something that will naturally happen with time as well. A two drop that eventually replaces itself with a card and has some threat about it and some board presence prior to that all add up to a very playable card. Being a gold support card is the only thing working against this but it looks too good to miss out on cube just because of that. Overall Strix is still better but I'll not hold it against this card too much. I still run both Ice-Fang Coatl and Coiling Oracle in my cube so there is room for this and Strix I suspect too. Mill 2 is not to be sniffed at, especially in Dimir. That is typically equating to two mana or over half a card thanks to the high frequency of delve, escape, flashback, and other yard based mechanics. Mire Triton got a reasonable amount of play just as mill support and Stitcher's Supplier still does. This offers actual value and more impressive board presence than those on top of that mill support.
Angel of Suffering 2
A kind of Crumbling Sanctuary on legs, or wings I guess. Mill instead of exile is nice as it can be used to empower other synergies but in practice this isn't really something you want in 40 card decks. By the time you are making five drops in cube you have drawn at least 25% of your deck and have less than 30 cards meaning that you have a very real chance of lowering your effective life total by playing this, as well as potentially opening yourself up to losing too many relevant cards to be able to win a game even if you do not get milled out. Cool card but more for EDH than cube.
Hoard Hauler 1
Can't rely on players having artifacts and so this is pretty useless and will play like a mediocre common. If you consistently made a couple of treasure I would be into this, it would be cool and playable but still not all that powerful as treasure on turn five has somewhat limited utility.
Dusk Mangler 1
Quite cute to cheat into play then flicker a bunch but if you are going to those lengths you can do more powerful stuff. Mangler is basically unplayable without support at which point it becomes unplayable by contrast to alternatives.
Sanguine Spy 5
The sac outlet is pretty costly for not all that much return. The body is OK but not exciting. The best bit is the potential to draw cards but it is hard to setup and somewhat costly on life. This card does a lot from a lot of different angels but it doesn't do any of them all that well. Worth a test simply for being a lot of things but I suspect it isn't getting enough done to compete in cube anymore.
Jinnie Fay, Jetmir's Second 2
Needs a lot of support and isn't even that powerful then. Sure, turning some food into doggos is cute but is it worth playing this card? The answer is almost always going to be no. Certainly some build around potential but more for fun than anything else.
Scheming Fence 2
A Pithing Needle (that can't proactively name something not in play) on legs that somewhat borrow the ability. Legs make it vulnerable and it is hard to say how useful the stealing of the ability is. It has quite the range. Stealing walker abilities would have made this rather more impressive, even as it is most of the time shutting down planeswalkers is going to be the best thing you can do with this dork. All told this is too much messing around for cube. It is gold and it depends on what your opponents are up to. Sometimes it will win games on the cheap by itself, often it will be a 2/3 with little effect beyond that. Ultimately you are just going to play removal over this because removal is kind of what you are trying to do with this and a proper removal spell will do that better. Potential in sideboards for specific uses or just in a kind of hatebears deck.
Void Rend 6
This is too clean not to see some play. Instant speed removal that hits any non-land target is great. That is worth three mana. Slap on uncounterable and you add a not insignificant amount of value. The reason you want removal cheap and clean is to increase the chances it happens. That is all you really care about. The power in removal comes from knowing what to kill and when to do it and so maximizing that range is all you really need removal to do in order that it be powerful. Slapping on bonus perks that do ancillary fluff like drawing cards or making tokens and such do not add nearly as much as you might think. Annihilate is a whole lot less good than Murder for example. Anyway, uncounterable is one of the few things you can slap on removal as a perk that actually improves it. Shame for this that it misses manlands but card is none the less very good. It isn't so much better than the alternatives to be something I am going to both playing in my cube simply down to three colour narrowness. That however does not mean the card is anything but fantastic. It is almost all of the good parts of Assassin's Trophy, Abrupt Decay, and Vindicate rolled into one. If this exiled and could target manlands it would be the perfect removal spell! As it stands it is not enough better than the alternatives to make up for the narrowness of cost and will only be seeing constructed style play in my cubes.
Bootlegger's Stash 1
This excites me a lot but it is very much a fun card rather than a good one. This needs a lot of setup and time to do all that much... Aaand all it does it make treasure so you need more things to then do with that treasure. A total orgy of a card for EDH even if it is not there for 1v1 play. Cheating it out doesn't even bypass the sloth of this card as you will not have many lands by then to churn out treasure. Best use for this seems to be Time Sieve but that card already has infinite combos with quicker and more convenient enablers.
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