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
Horn of the Mark 7
Super cheap card advantage for an aggressive deck. It is a little on the conditional side, and it has a slight win more tendency towards it. Even so, I think this is cheap and powerful enough to offset those minor aspects. I do prefer the design of Glimmer Lens but this is at least playable in all the colours. I like that this will encourage some iffy attacks to trigger it as well. Cool card. Cheap and interesting.
Shire Sherrif 1
Cute to have this style of removal on a two drop dork however the condition is sufficiently hard to fulfil that you are not touching this in cube. Certainly all the merits of it costing less are undone by it needing that token. At which point just play one of the unconditional three drops. A cute card but a non-starter. I might play this in tribal but I am not playing it in a deck full of tokens, it needs a lot of that as just support, it needs actual payoff on top to be worth.
Spiteful Banditry 4
Like a tame Meathook Massacre. Treasure instead of drain and a single permissible trigger on it per turn. All on top of less effective, and equally costly mass removal. Much as this is clearly worse than Meathook, the Massacre is a very strong card. Banditry is still flexible mass removal with interesting upside. I think I am just going to be playing the likes of Earthquake in my red decks, just something that is cheaper or better at being mass removal. Treasure is cute but it is an aside not a direct upgrade and on removal that tends to harm more than help the card. I am actually more interested in mass removal on an enchantment as it allows for interesting synergies.
The Battle of Bywater 5
To narrow for cube I suspect. While it is going to be fairly easy to build around this in cube it is only going to be effective against a couple of archetypes and that is going to make it something you don't want to include. I probably prefer Dusk // Dawn as a cube contender as well for what that is worth.
Saradoc, Master of Bucland 6
A four mana 3/5 over two bodies is a fine enough start. Then the threat of getting a slew of extra 1/1s over time starts to make this look good. A juicy little Cloud-Goat Ranger nod to turn Saradoc into a more relevant body seems like it should be the icing on the cake to assure this is a cube staple. And I think it would be if it were not for one savage flaw the card has. By being linked to power when a creature comes into play the trigger has shocking synergy with anthem effects which are rife in white and exactly the sort of thing you want to play with a creature token generator. One anthem shuts off half of your triggers and Saradoc himself and two anthems effectively turn it all off. As such I don't see this appealing more than a nice consistent planeswalker and most of the established army in a can cards white already has access to.
Assault on Osgiliath 2
Without trample this is unreliable damage. On top of that it is hard to cast and fairly useless early. At 6 mana it starts to be more efficient face damage than Fireball but with no evasion that just doesn't matter. Perhaps you play this in a tribal deck where giving your team doublestrike might represent good alpha strike potential but it feels too narrow and not even that powerful.
Ringwraiths 5
These are pretty impressive. Noxious Gearhulk is not that much better than this. Gearhulk is better removal and immediate impact but it is more vulnerable and has no recursion. Gearhulk is decent these days too and -3/-3 is killing a lot of what Gearhulk is and a tiny bit of things that it isn't! Ultimately this will live or die by how much natural ring temptations there are in the cube. With a couple in your deck this looks great. With the power of this set it seems likely the cube will have enough tempt effects to be relevant for this. Ultimately I suspect this won't last but it is a good one. Certainly a nice alternative to Gearhulk.
Elvish Mariner 3
With enough support this starts to get impressive but there is certainly not enough support in your average cube. It would be pretty hard getting to the numbers needed for this so despite scry being a generically great effect this remains too narrow. Good to know that this random nobody fisherman is as hard as Elrond and Glorfindel though.
Goldberry, River-Daughter 6
Slow and situational. Two turns and a blue mana is an acceptable speed to be drawing cards with, especially when you have a somewhat useful 1/3 body to go with it. The issue is that you need permanents with other counters. No counters no draw and so this is no use in that department. Just play a looter or a Mazemind Tome like card. Goldberry is not just about card draw however and can be put to some pretty impressive uses. Persist and undying dorks spring to mind, as do sagas. You can keep sagas alive and pumping out value for longer, you can speed others up to get to the good bits. All lots of fun to be had with Goldberry but all narrow conditional fun. I think she will perform pretty well in cube but be one of those cards that is more cute than it is effective. As with all such things there is going to be a tipping point on support and synergies where she is good enough but I doubt many people cube are all that close to said tipping point presently.
Smeagol, Helpful Guide 5
A bit gold and needy. Mostly this dies and doesn't do much. Sometimes it will be annoying and sit in play milling you and giving you land. The mill could be good or bad. While this dude might be powerful he is a much more EDH card than a cube one. You can play this if you want to, it will be fine. There are just plenty of cards that do similar or different things that are more powerful or lead to better games, or indeed both. There is just so much good stuff now that it isn't so much about if the card is powerful enough for the cube but about having the least opportunity cost for inclusion. Smeagol feels like he comes with a lot of opportunity cost.
Galadriel of Lothlorien 3
Wow, really showing it to Elrond and Glorfindel with her extra toughness. Another mighty character laid low with measly stats and narrow wiffy waffy abilities. Sure, there is a 4/4 Galadriel with a bit more muscle but that doesn't take away from this miss. I am sure this is fine in a scry deck or a tempt deck but we are looking for a bit more than fine filler in narrow decks. This is a long way from good in any cube deck.
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