Phyrexia: All Will Be One Preliminary Review Part VII

 

Staff of Compleation 1

Over cost and hard to use a lot due to life requirements. Not sure where you might want a card like this other than EDH. There is a lot of functionality so I am certain people will put it to use. I am a lot less confident that those people will find winning uses for it in cube settings however....

Minor Misstep 3

Isn't this what Prince Andrew got into all that bother over? This is no Mental Misstep that is for sure, and something to be thankful of! A broader range might seem nice but the difference in mana cost from 0 to 1 is always going to blow target range out of the water for power level. Minor Misstep is much more in the camp of Nix (shocker!) and Spell Snare. While it is a lot more playable in cube than Nix it is still less playable than Spell Snare as well as a lot less powerful. The best you can do with Misstep is go 1 for 1 on all resources while Snare lets you get a mana advantage. Snare also doesn't blow hard when on the draw which is an issue here too. This could do very well in formats like modern and legacy where one drops dominate however in cube they are too low value and infrequent to invest in a card like this. 

Mesmerizing Dose 2

Another attempt to lure me into a card with proliferate! These sort blue removal auras are not really good enough. The random janky proliferate isn't going to change that sadly. Removal is never where you want your bolt on perks to be located. 

Vanish into Eternity 2

Really cool design but I think one mana somewhere too costly to be viable. 

Tyrannax Rex 5

A better designed version of Carnage Tyrant thanks to ward generally being a better mechanic than hexproof as far as gameplay goes. Also thanks to haste giving Rex a bit of immediate impact and sorcery speed mass removal play around. While this is a solid green threat with a lot of muscle and reach I fear it is too far up the curve. Worth a test but I can't see why I am not just playing cheaper cards to this in my decks and cubes. It is not like I am shy of options if I want hard hitting stats or hard to interact with bodies. This certainly doesn't seem like a poison card and so the toxic isn't needed for this to be good but it is a small help even when played with no other sources of poison. 

Capricious Hellraiser 7

The ceiling on this is mental. A RRR 4/4 flier is a very tidy starting place. A free spell on the back of that gets pretty outrageous. That could be Ugin?! It could be Ruinous Ultimatum. And it really doesn't need to be. A humble two mana spell on the back of your high tempo threat is going to be really swingy. This card feels very Bloodbraid Elf to me! I had gotten myself all ready to poo poo this now based on it being too hard to consistently get 9 cards in the bin however this is still pretty foolish as a six drop. Especially if you have some control over your own graveyard. You need to hit a good card for this to be worth six mana but it doesn't have to be outrageous. Any planeswalker or really most three or more mana spells. Like, I am very happy with Fable of the Mirror-Breaker, Fiery Confluence, Outpost Seige, Burn Down the House, a Chandra etc. Red being red you should be able to consistently hit a shock at the very least and a 4/4 flyer with an EtB Shock is not the worst floor. Considering the various upsides this can offer it feels worth testing. I suspect a bit narrow and random for my liking but it would be remis to fully overlook. Certainly I think it packs more than enough average power to overcome slight narrow and random limitations. 

Sword of Forge and Frontier 4

As far as the design of the Sword I like it. It is very on flavour and I like the way the abilities complement each other. It is an elegant Sword. It is still however a Sword and even Fire and Ice is starting to look pretty tired in cube. Tired and never really something that played too well. Protection is just a sucky ability and randomly owns games. I am glad we are in a world were less of these things plague formats. This is a fine card but it is unlikely to get much cube love with there being so many Swords to chose from, a clear best that isn't this, and a dwindling demand for them....

Swooping Looking 2

Boring but some deck will want this as support somewhere along the line. 

Jawbone Duelist 2

Quite good for poison decks if they happen to be white. This is cheap and can apply a lot of counters fairly quickly while being a little trickier than your usual customer to block. 

Noxious Assault 1

This would be cool with infect creatures but with toxic ones the pump is rather less impressive. Odd design. Cool in some ways but seemingly missing the point in others. Not a cube card regardless. 

Bilious Skulldweller 3

Sure, these things pair up nicely and result in a good one drop in a collection of toxic, poison, and/or deathtouch builds. If you are black and need a one drop with the right key words this is going to be there for you! A classic cheap filler card. 

Phyrexia: All Will Be One Preliminary Review Part VI

 

Nahiri, the Unforgiving 7

Finally a three mana walker in Boros colours. Just waiting on Selesnya now to get one of these. Nahiri isn't all that in terms of power but it is none the less pretty welcome. Boros colours are fantastic at supporting walkers, and indeed the payment of life costs if needed! Nahiri is decent at protecting herself with a high loyalty count and a +1 that ensures the most threatening dork in play attacks your face rather than hers. Mostly Nahiri is a loot station, or rummage station, that powers out any other yard based stuff while ensuring good consistency. If good consistency isn't enough to take the game her 0 ability should be able to apply a good amount of pressure in the mid to late game. I think this is a weaker card than the Royal Scions while being fairly similar overall. Even so, I think Boros hungers for this sort of thing enough that it will last decently in cubes. I like the card overall too, a nice design for a Boros walker and a nice safe way to implement a walker that can cost three or four mana. 

Mondrak, Glory Dominus 7

This is going to be a valuable card in this set. Being an Annionted Procession is a big deal for EDH and one that can be a commander too! Popular this will be. Powerful it is too, such that it may well wind up being a player in standard. It is cheap to turn it indestructible and can be done in response to things giving this some real game. It is a bit the best of both worlds, you don't have to use the ability but it will often feel like you have regardless. Double tokens in cube is nice, it works with a lot of stuff but it is too narrow and effect by itself. The big deal is coming on a meaty 4/4 for four that can become indestructible. That all adds up to being a lot of card. Very reminiscent of the gods from Theros. I expect this to be a solid cube card and a fun one. Play wise this is probably on the line as so many cards are, it is the fact that it is fun and cool too that will help this last in the cube. 

Jace, the Perfect Mind 7

Awkward. Mill cards are not balanced around 40 card lists and as such play all kinds of wrong. This Jace is threatening because it can mill out way too easily. As a means of drawing cards or controlling the board this card is fine. Perhaps clearing the bar for cube power level but only just if so. It is the mill three and the mill 3X that will just make this a very tedious card in cube. It will end a lot of close long games out of nowhere and so I am disinclined to even test this. Sure, it is probably fine, an OK and rounded walker that can also just win the late game. If you want to force fast acting games then this will be fine, it might not even be good enough. If however you want nice close games they will often be slower and this will not enhance your experience. Probably this is a little worse than Narset (3) and a little better than Architect of Thought. 

Slaughter Singer 2

Build around toxic low curve support. Good in that one potential place... A lot of cards will be coming in that category from this set it would seem. 

Annex Sentry 5

Nice high toughness is cool here. Hitting multiple permanent types and only being a single white mana all appeal as far as this kind of dork goes. The toxic is fairly irrelevant. The cap on CMC for exile targets however is not and is likely too problematic for this to get much cube love. The card is fine and will hit most things and do what you want it to a lot but those key times you really need to clear a big Glorybringer or whatever and can't will just render this unplayable in contrast to the alternatives, despite the perks this comes with. 

Experimental Augury 7

This might be peak excitement. It is a proliferating card quality spell. It is all my favourite things and it is reasonably well pushed. Anticipate is fine, it is playable. Instant speed proliferate can do quite a lot of work. The problem with most proliferate cards is when they fail to do any useful work the floor of the rest of the card is unacceptably low. Here it is not and so we might finally have a cube playable proliferate card! Happy days. This is no bomb, and it is quite polar. Blue is also a trickier place than most to get much back from proliferate, so this is not a card for every cube. I am a bit too into my proliferate to be cutting this anytime soon. Much more the sort of thing I will try and support more so that it looks better!

Bladehold War Whip 6

I don't much like this but it does seem good in a very cube sort of way. A 3 mana 2/2 doublestrike is OK. Below the curve but not by a lot and very threatening and on theme for a Boros card. The equip text is minor but the ability to reequip once your token is dead is significant. It will let you turn a lot of things into real threats. I am probably slightly overrating that as I am old and mana sinks used to be hard to come by. These days paying five mana to give a dork doublestrike is a big old risky investment and not exactly an efficient one. All in all this can't have the power level to make it, especially being cheap and gold, but it is certainly very close to there and should absolutely be looked at for those budget cubes. 

Atraxa, Grand Unifier 5

Somewhere between Niv Mizzet Reborn and Muldrotha the Gravetide exists this Atraxa. In some cheat in decks this will do a very good impression of Grisselbrand. Even on just one hit Atraxa will hit fewer cards total than a Griseldaddy pop but she will hit some gas a bit more reliably, and critically not at life cost. Atraxa is too pricey to be good in cube if you are not cheating her into play. She is too much value and not enough board control or finishing power for a card that far up the curve, let alone that gold. EDH is obviously the main employer of this card, with a little bit of moonlighting in cool combo decks going on as well. Also - battle eh? Buffs to delirium and Goyf incoming! Lets see quite how cheaply we can cast an Emrakul for etc...

Sheoldred's Edict 7.5

A two mana Edict given a quite necessary push to bring it in line with current removal needs and standards. Soul Shatter had just about become too weak for cube and Sheoldred's End looks to be a reasonable replacement. It is not better as such, just being cheaper is a big deal. This Edict is a good planeswalker removal tool and a great early game removal spell. It is in the mid game where you will have to work a bit at having it be good removal. When you need to kill a 3-5 drop but all this is doing is killing a 1-2 drop then your card is a sad card. Soul Shatter didn't have a very high ceiling but it kept a reasonable floor thanks to the highest CMC stipulation. Sheoldred's Edict has nothing like that and so the floor on it is still a bit shakey. I do not see myself using it to kill tokens very often but it is nice to be able to specify. Mostly it is nice that there is a non-token creature mode. It is the prevalence of tokens in cube that has kept most Edicts non-viable. Removal is certainly increasing in value in cube with the utter brutality of most creatures. The ability to select and tune your removal suite is welcome and this will help a lot on that front. Getting around ward and other protection effects was always one of the biggest draws to Edict effects, and those protective abilities are on the rise alongside removals increased popularity. I expect this to get enough play and perform fine. It is not that much better than the many iterations of Go for the Throat, if at all. It is however sufficiently different and interesting without having to compromise too much on anything to be a popular cube card.

Ossification 7

Seems clean and solid. This is On Thin Ice (or at least the way I allow the use of snow land in my cube) but it has the ability to hit planeswalkers too. This isn't top tier removal but it is very playable indeed. It is likely better than Fateful Absence for a more proactive deck and likely a little worse for a control deck. What is so good in cube about removal like this is that while it undulates above and below a card like Fateful Absence in power level based on where you play them you can still play these cards in all the various archetypes. Cheap, broad, reliable removal. Fantastic. Yes, this can be undone with the very few instances of enchantment removal in cubes, or the even fewer instances of things that blow up basic lands. And no, it is not instant, or flash or whatever. For a card this cheap and broad however I would not expect anything like that. This just gets the job done and lets you carry on playing the good game of magic. The card itself isn't good and exciting but it lets you have your excitement with your other good fun cards and so that is a win. Dull cards - the unsung champions of good games. 

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.