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
Arwen, Weaver of Hope 4
Powerful and a good synergy card. It is however the wrong sort of power for cube, it is too conditional and ongoing. Cube wants front-loaded unconditional power. Arwen also is a 2/1 so she is getting bodied by some embarrassing removal and you just can't afford to have that happen on your three mana spells that are not doing much else.
Assemble the Entmoot 3
Easy to scale and generally pretty cool and flavourful. I reckon I could gain a lot of life with 4 or 5 mana free to do so. That is a lot of big treefolk! You can even do it at instant speed and really cause some problems. You need a lot, and ideally of the right kind, of life gain for this. Sure, it has a high ceiling but it also has a super low floor making it a build around only. Powerful enough to be the thing you build around rather than just part of a life gain plan which is impressive.
Denethor, Stone Seer 6
What a flavour win. This card almost tells the whole story. As for cube playability I am not so sure. The monarch is not a very good mechanic in cube. It is way too matchup and context dependant and performed all over the place. It was on average positive, sometime you would hand the opponent a victory though. Anywho, this is a lot of card. The scry and body keep it real early and a Bolt is good any day of the week It should also equate to at least a card back thanks to the monarch and ability to use at instant speed. All that should be a real help in keeping the monarch and then winning. A 4 mana Bolt isn't great but add a card, 2 scry, and the use of a 1/3 body prior to it for a bit and I think we have a good value card. Sadly what we also have is a gold card. Not a full gold card but you are certainly not playing this without access to red. You need that Bolt to make this enough card. I think this might have crept into cube if it were all blue but as it is I think it lands the wrong side of the mark.
Eomer, King of Rohan 8
This is a monumental amount of card. Even the floor does an impressive amount and the floor feels pretty rare. I am going to assume a 3/3 average for my appraisal although I suspect in practice it will be higher. It doesn't matter too much though, there is a point at which it is winning the game regardless of how big it got! The monarch is at its most secure in white red, they have the best removal and the best pressure. White and red dominate the board well. It turns out the board is also much easier to dominate when you have shot something and have a doublestrike dude helping out. Much as you can throw the game by introducing the monarch the risk of doing so seems relatively minor here. Indeed the odds on drawing multiple monarch cards seems pretty good with this. Even just working with 1 card and a 3/3 body Eomer is nuts. Fury is totally nuts in cube. It is rarely evoked and it never draws cards for you. It also can't shoot face. Eomer just feels like a scarier Fury with much better scaling potential. Imagine playing Samut's Sprint on this as it comes in, that is 4 damage anywhere and another 8 in combat without any other humans! This card will over perform a lot more than it will under perform. It is still pretty dangerous at its flaw. This is absolutely both enough card, and exactly the type of card to allow me to get passed any issues with the monarch in cube. I very much expect the monarch aspect of this card to be a significant perk overall too. Some design issues resulting in a somewhat polar card but plenty of power to get passed those problems.
Farmer Cotton 5
Impressive little card that should see a lot of play in a lot of synergy decks. Probably both March of the Multitudes and Secure the Wastes outperform this in cube for various reasons. The pretty much leaves this as a build around. Don't however be fooled into thinking that makes this a narrow card, or one with a low floor, or even general low power. Farmer Cotton is none of those things.
Forth Eorlingas! 8
Good power, impressive scaling. The monarch is likely not doing too much here as I think the game is going to be fairly well done once this is played! Even so, mostly just a healthy perk. Not only is the rate on this card as good as it gets for token generation it comes with haste and minor evasion really adding to the punch this offers. As quickly as the three mana mark is this equivalent to Fireball to the face damage output and beyond that point it leaves Fireball in the dust. This is good pressure and control whenever you chose to play from about four mana. It should end the game most casts much later on from that. Perhaps a little dull but efficient and direct. It is a big finisher X spell but it is also a source of card draw and board presence too somehow.
Galadhrim Ambush 1
Overkill if you empower it yourself with lots of attacker and if you don't it is conditional and likely terrible.
In the Darkness Bind Them 5
So three 3/3 menace dorks, three tempts from the ring, and a threaten. For 5 mana that is obviously fantastic value. Over four turns is a bit of a downer but at least there is fairly consistent board presence on offer. Power wise and suitability wise this should be passed the threshold for cube play but the three colour aspect brings this back below I would think. This just feels too fair for a three colour card.
Lossnarch Captain 5
I do not like the statline here at all, especially on a card needing to live a bit. That being said, immediate tap down with human scaling and the first strike all offset that well. This card does a lot of things, appropriate things and done well. It is just a bit overly risky for where I want to be. Flash would probably be enough to break it, some toughness would do it too!
Lothlorien Blade 4
Reminds me a bit of Skysovereign Consul Flagship. Green has most evles and most wants this but then elves are pretty small. No one is scared of the Llanowar Elf wielding this. Five to equip kind of just rules this out beyond that, way too risky. You are just folding to any interaction if you try and pull that stunt into open mana.
Monstrosity of the Lake 2
Ten is too much mana really for anything in cube! Sure, this has 2 and 5 mana modes and while the two mana one can save your bacon early and the five mana one has some meat on it's bones neither are close to efficient thus rendering this mostly unworthy of cube attentions.
Oath of Eorl 5
Lovely feel, design, and flavour. This is close to cube worthy except that I think Forth Eorlingas! is just all round better. It has much more flexible casting, more immediate impact, and far mroe impressive scaling. I might still just chose to play Assemble the Legion over this, the idea being that if I can handle some slow I might as well go real slow and assure that my card will be able to eventually win! Oath of Eorl sits in a kind of middle ground, and that can be a good place to be, but I don't think that is the case here. It is just not quite enough and is competing for a very small space in the cube.
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