Saturday, 13 May 2023

Aftermath Preliminary Review Part I

 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 



Cosmic Rebirth 5

Good card but a bit gold, fair, and needing of setup to be good. I think for cube that Renegade Rallier will typically perform better and that is too gold and fair for cube already. Instant speed allows for some cool trickery or combo safety and the three life helps boost the overall power but it just isn't the kind of card you generally want in draft cubes. Recursion is just too conditional for the most part.





Death-Rattle Oni 5

Not a fan of how situational this is but no denying the ceiling here. A one mana flash 5/4 is good already, have that finish off a dork or two and the exchange is off the charts. How often you can engineer a situation anywhere close to that is another matter. I think this is probably close to good on average but incredibly polar in performance and that isn't really what you want either. This with a Goblin Bombardment is going to be utterly disgusting. It is certainly very easy to make this more ceiling than floor if you are packing enough Mogg Fanatic effects. 




Reckless Handling 2

A more expensive and restricted Gamble with a pretty negligible upside. I barely ever play Gamble in decks and would anticipate playing several other cards before this as well. Even so, two mana Tutors are never to be fully over looked.




Markov Baron 4

Love the convoke madness combo. In the right deck this card is great. That is a tribal vampire deck with a discard/madness sub-theme. It is very much not a drafting cube, you need to lord side of things to be firing, ideally the madness too, and in cube they will be pretty minor. The power on Markov Baron is however very high, so much so that this is making any vampire list and possibly taking vampires in his direction. It is a power level worth pandering too and cards like that are not so common. Aspiring Spike already trying this out in modern, and modern viability is a strong indicator of a cards raw power. 





Feast of the Victorious Dead 2

Powerful but too conditional. I might think about playing this in a deck that is empowered by lifegain triggers that also has a lot of sacrificing going on. 




Coppercoat Vanguard 4

Lovely little human tribal card. It is almost playable in drafting cubes with the human count being so generally high. Another one of those cards I can imagine pushing modern builds. 





Blot Out 7

I literally just replaced Soul Shatter with Sheoldred's Edict! In 1v1 Blot Out is mostly an upgrade to Soul Shatter. Exiling is a lot better than the capacity to get around Ivory Mask effects - of which there are few to none! This is a fine card, playable, fair, reliable, but dull. Put it in your cube if you need more removal or black cards or whatever. Don't if you don't! I am sure it will be edged out soon enough, these role filler cards that are on the mark for power level do not last long in this wild world of power creep.





Campus Renovation 0

Far too gold and expensive for anything really. Pretty narrow too.





Animist's Might 1

I guess I might play this in a mono green deck that was all or nearly all legendary dorks....





Filter Out 5

Sideboard tech against constructed decks or potentially some kind of way to go off with a bunch of 0 mana artifacts, or at least support better cards like Paradoxical Outcome! I think cube is a bit too creature based for this to shine but it can still have some pretty devastating results. In EDH this is looking like a staple, a baby Rift. 




Harnessed Snubhorn 1

Powerful effect but a bit too much work to get the payoff, even in a build around setting. Certainly too narrow for draft. 





Kolaghan Warmoner 4

Nearly powerful enough with a negligible dragon count. Any time the cube happens to have a high-ish dragon count, say, above 10, this is probably worth looking at. Otherwise just a nice little tribal tool.

 




Gold-Forged Thopteryx 2

I mean sure, there is a deck that will want this. It does useful, if narrow, things. Not a drafting card but one that does quite a lot for the cost. 




Drannith Ruins 3

A bit aimless for drafting cubes but probably starting to look worth it when there are strong synergies at play. 





Rebuild the City 6

This seems really powerful. For six mana you make 9/9 in stats over three bodies which is decent although too vanilla to be exciting. What is more exciting is the land side of things. That makes these tokens a whole lot harder to handle. They are immune to a whole bunch of removal effects for one. You might get to copy a land with a cool effect and get some bonus value or utility there. Lastly, this ramps you to nine mana and that is pretty massive in some situations as well. This is a powerful card with lots of utility. It is a bit six mana and three colours so this still needs to perform above expectation to stand a chance of lasting in the cube. In a lot of ways it isn't even better than Broodmate Dragon so I doubt this will be a feature. None the less, I do like it! 




Urborg Scavengers 7.5

This is pretty egregious. It just grows. A 3/3 basic that can gain a selection of potent abilities as it grows and that also can disrupt graveyards. This seems scarier than Graveyard Tresspasser and way way more powerful if you can flop hexproof or indestructible onto it. I am not sure I love the design here, the variance is a bit high. The floor is good enough that this is certainly cube worthy, the ceiling however will not be any sort of fun to play against and that is a problem. 





Tranquil Frillback 6

Nice utility but I think this is a bit fair and a bit situational. You need at least one of the effects to be meaningful which it often will not be. Then you just have a bad dork too high up the curve. This is playable but it is a long way from powerful. Generally I loke these kind of utility dorks to be proactive, ie, ones I can cast regardless of situation and then not lose their utility. Cankerbloom for example. This is a bit reactive and either sits in hand waiting to be useful or comes out well under powered. 





Deification 2

This is very very cool. It is however quite hard to make playable. I guess I might play this in a planeswalker tribal deck or in one that is a combo in which a walkers is a key part. Otherwise this is just too cute and narrow. 





Ayara's Oathsworn 6

An evasive Slith style card. Usually you get this to a 6/6 and that game is over already. The Tutor isn't bad or anything, it just isn't adding much. The trigger doesn't work if you hit walkers or battles which lowers the value of the evasion. Overall this is fine but a bit dull. The more aggressive your black the more likely this is a good include. Where my black is at I doubt this is getting enough play. 





Metropolis Reformer 5

Another very powerful card that is just a bit aimless. Unless you want these things it is just a mediocre dork. Hexproof will wreck some people, the life will annoy the odd deck. A lot of decks will just ignor the low stats and other effects and be entirely un-phased by it. This kind of card, even with this power level, are not typically good in cube. They do not lead to better games. 





Open the Way 1

I guess in 1v1 play you can tutor a specific land into play if you are otherwise running a fully MDFC mana base like oops all spells. Otherwise just a multiplayer card. 





Nahiri's Resolve 2

Very odd card indeed. Buff my dorks and slowly flicker them? The first half is creature based aggression and would be amazing on the three mana card. The flicker is a midrange value tool and something you want with lots of EtB effect dorks (and perhaps instant Wrath effects!). The marriage of these two effects I think just results in an overcost and overly narrow card. Powerful and fun but not really cube material. 





Spark Rupture 3

Cool and interesting but likely no longer good disruption. Certainly not someone you want to use to "animate" walkers of your own, that is never looking like a good plan unless you can alpha strike the turn you lay this. People are just not playing enough walkers in cube for this to do enough. Perhaps one day this gets good enough again. 




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