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
Vorinclex // The Grand Evolution 7.5
Five mana 6/6 trample reach is hefty. That keeps you in control of the board, provides some threat, and some protection. A nice kickboard for a dork. EtB of getting two forests is better than it seems. It is a bit Yasharn, a bit Yayimaya Elder! Cards in hand, excess mana, and dud draws out of deck are translating more and more into proper value. We have sinks, loots, and just things like Old One Eye helping to turn spare stuff into gas. Not to mention we can find cycling Triomes with Vonrinclex should we directly wish to convert. All told this feels a lot like a massive threat with a near Divination bolted on, super Muldrifter. Multhumper if you will. I would absolutely play this just at the front end without and backside saga silliness. The activated ability is powerful too, it gives you a use for those extra lands and should be able to break a stall if for some reason you cannot punch through with your 6/6 fatty. Providing you can survive the mill 10 the saga will rain brutal power down upon the opponent. Free monsters, make everything huge, big fight in which all your stuff wins and all theirs dies followed by alpha strike. If somehow still alive, get Vorinclex back too! Just a massive amount of card and action with little to no weakness. Green too so expect all this kicking off from turn three...
Captive Weird 7
Comically this might be another of those cards blue needs to keep up. The total cost of 4 or 5 mana for a 3/3 and a card isn't good enough, Kavu Climber is not a cube staple. However, a 1/3 defender one drop is exactly how blue can stay alive long enough to leverage the powerful spells it has. Hard Evidence is a tool very like this which is presently getting a good amount of play in the slower blue based decks. While this is rather more mana than Hard Evidence it is also rather more board presence which is after all why we are playing them. A 1/3 fights back, it actually shuts down attackers rather than just fogging one. It is also a real card and not something that dies to a bounce or flicker, and then it turns into a reasonably meaty 3/3 that can pressure or trade or whatever is needed. I think this will not get cashed in as often as Hard Evidence but that does matter a little less as you get more body both on the front end and once you have cashed in as well. That is assuming you can play the card you exile which will mostly be the case. It is however another factor that delays and reduces the frequency of the activation. I am looking forward to this new world for blue where it has some relevant cheap dorks it can make and then gets to do novel stuff with convoke.
Pile On 7
Lethal Scheme is in my cube and performing very nicely thankyou. Just the other day I managed to gain 8 life with it thanks to a full convoke and Sheoldred in play. Got a couple of counters too! Pile On is much the same card with a couple of quality of life perks but a lower ceiling and average power level. Convoke with 2 or more dudes and Lethal Scheme is better, 1 or fewer and Pile On takes the prize. Removal is pretty premium in cube at present and these cards play really nicely in a world of lots of token chaff and little dorks. Having the ability to significantly interact at little or no open mana is amazing. It feels like the cube has more than enough room for another Lethal Scheme.
Ozolith, Shattered Spire 7
Seems a bit too convenient not to work out. It makes me think of Ranger Class. While not as good in the tempo department the Ozolith has some rather more serious scaling potential. As a 2 mana artifact that pays 2 to sorcery speed put a pair of +1/+1 counters on something we would have a card that is solid. A kind of Vulshok Morningstar that you could reequip additively and never lose the buff. A slow but relentlessly powerful equipment. Throw cycling onto that and your card becomes more playable and less reliant on always having a dork. This is all a nice floor and it doesn't consider this working passively or scaling with cards that take advantage of +1/+1 counters. All your Scavening Ooze, Tireless Tracker, Biophagus, Gala Greeters, etc, just casually getting a chunk better. That is a nice perk, a good raising of the ceiling. And then finally lets throw into the mix cards like Walking Ballista and Hangarback Walker which get bigger on being made, double their own growing potential, and benefit from the activated Ozolith counters more than other cards. You cannot have too many cards like this in your cube decks but this certainly seems like one of the very best on offer to green.
Invasion of Regatha 2
Front end is all a bit narrow and does not line up too well with the flipping of this. Do four to your face, and then what? Do anther 4 to this? That is not a good lining up of resources and as such this seems unplayable despite the relatively high powered collection of stuff that has the illusory appearance of working together.
Invasion of Innistrad 4
Flash is cool on a battle, especially a removal spell, but 4 mana is too much to kill a dork for the most part. The flip side is also surprisingly low impact. Sure, a pair of 2/2 tokens is nice, it is looking like a real wonky Ravenous Chupacabra. I think however only getting my dorks if I send five damage this way is a real turn off. I am just going to play cheap removal or removal with dorks that I get there and then. Obviously I'll be testing this as it is so new and different but expecting it to fall well short of Chupacabra.
Xerex Strobe Knight 5
Two spells is pretty easy to achieve in cube however it is still usually a bit of a detour. There is a lot of power potential here but a few too many bad cases or ifs for me to have any confidence in the card. This dies to all the removal easily and yielding no advantage. It does very little on the board right away either, it is holding off few threats and not something you want to be blocking with. I like the idea of slapping in for two each turn while also churning out 2/2 dorks but this is a long way from the norm. I think mostly the norm will be you losing tempo, and sometimes also card advantage, as they efficiently clear away your stuff.
Invasion of Kaldheim 6
Really cool and unusual design on this one. Love the control you have over the exiled cards you get to play and the tension on exiling more to draw more and the extra cost that comes with that. Ideally you want a massive hand full of super cheap spells so you can draw a whole new hand and lose nothing in the process. A nice 4 mana draw 7! In practice those big payoffs are going to be prohibitively slow to setup and you are looking much more in the 3 to 4 cards gained overall range with this. Still some nice value and utility but a lot fairer. The flip side is easy to get to and incredibly powerful. Not just Seismic Assault but one that offers a very reasonable degree of card advantage as it does so. This card makes me think of Vance's Blasting Cannons but all a lot faster and more powerful. You get your value right away rather than one a turn and then you continue to get value and don't have to pay mana to shoot stuff once flipped! As far as battles go this is one I am absolutely going to aim burn at to flip. I think you can quite happily play this in aggro or control decks should you wish. While the power feels there it is quite a late game card and might suffer from having 0 other cards in hand by the time you can afford to play this, be it in mana or game situation terms. Much as I am very impressed with this it smacks of being a bit luxury and fiddly. It probably winds up only being good in a couple of decks and only then some of the time. Mostly I suspect people will just gravitate to more direct stuff like planeswalkers and creatures.
Invasion of Karsus 6
Removal wants to be pure, cheap, and directed to purpose. This is a four mana spell with the power of a three mana spell. That likely has it dead in the water. The back end is fairly powerful and reasonably accessible and so perhaps we are going to try and play this like a big wonky Goblin Chainwhirler. Certainly this is enough monster that I am going to aim some burn at this battle rather than face at much lower life totals than most other battles so that is something. It is also a much more control and midrange card in general meaning they will likely be on higher life totals when this comes down! I can see a lot of lines where this comes down and stabilizes somewhat on turn four and then some kind of hasty evasive thing flips it the following turn and puts the game well out of reach.
Oracle of Tragedy 4
Mostly this just loots although the reshuffle is some utility I guess. In a world where blue really wants bodies and stats this has hope. If the blue convoke cards are getting it done then I am on board. Merfolk Looter reworked for a world of tempo. If you cast this and have it trade in combat somehow it is substantially better than a Looter. Just a safer more substantial and immediate play that does similar sorts of things. Much as I like this I always like the cheap dorks with like scry or whatever on them and they are rarely enough. I just think I would always rather have a Fblthp for the actual value on my speed bump or just a little Jace so as to have raw power and threat instead. I will absolutely be adding this so as to give convoke the best chance in blue but I anticipate it coming right back out again quickly.
Deeproot Wayfinder 7
At three mana this would be all wrong and nasty but at two I think I can overlook the various issues. If you make this with any sort of sac land turn two and start connecting there after, or just lucking out with the surveil and finding lands to put in the bin then you are going to just win. Card advantage, ramp, and card quality, all on the back of your not unreasonable two mana 2/3. One free land is going to be massive, let alone a couple. Yes, this dies to removal easily, doesn't dominate the board at all well, and does nothing if it cannot get through, or really late game at all. Even so, the investment is so low I am more than happy. It was not so long ago that Sylvan Advocate was a good cube card...
Ancient Imperiosaur 8
This is the green Murktide Regent. This will come out fast and end games faster. I can easily see this on turn 4 as a 12/12. And not just a 12/12 either, one with trample and ward thus making it an absolute beast to shut down. You will need very precise removal and quickly. Red decks are just dead to it, they need to keep all the little dorks that might convoke this out dead beforehand. Not much more to say than that, this is a very very big dork that is suitably protected and evasive to get away with just being stats. It is dodgy against mass removal but absolutely beastly against everything else. There are likely plenty of good routes to convoking this out as a near 20/20 bigboy and giving it haste for that one shot win. EoT March of the Multitudes sort of thing. I don't like this card much, it is very boring and so direct that it leaves little to the imagination. It is just good at lowering life totals through attacking.
Temporal Cleansing 3
At instant speed I think I might look to play this in cube but at sorcery I have no interest thanks. It needed to hit land or cost at most 3 to be sorcery speed appealing. If the convoke theme in blue really takes off this is not without hope but low starting power really work against this even then.
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