Dan, Big Beast Lover
Power 8
Design 6
All round powerful walker. Dan feels pretty green and sits somewhere between a typical Vivien and a Nissa at that price. The utility is high here as is the power. You don't need to be heavy green to play Dan but it does up both the power and the utility. All three modes active immediately obviously help made this versatile but when you throw a mana ability allowing for follow up plays as well as tutor effects to enable all sorts of things it can do, the versatility is about as high as it gets on a 3 ability walker. I have at times been tempted to slap a -1 on the 4/4 mode but it shouldn't need it. There are far more oppressive walkers out there than this and this is the thing green does well. With my general push towards a format where the power of walkers is a little diminished I think this will easily wind up about where I want it, a nice 7/10 power card.
Dark Deeds
Power 6
Design 7
The escalate cost is now 3. This is because it was just a bit too easy to get a reasonable tempo two for one. Most of the time you can get a pair of dorks with this with a value of about five mana. If you are paying 4 for that it is good, especially when the card is so flexible prior to then. While not premium two mana removal it is able to kill most things you need it to early on, and then later it puts in that more impressive shift. With escalate set at three mana the card is much fairer and no longer the first spot removal spell on the team sheet. Now there is a real choice between a card than can offer value or a card that is going to be more reliable. I like how this plays and I am pleased to have found the very elusive design space where an answer card gets to be interesting while still being playable next to cleaner more reliable but boring removal. I also feel I managed to do reasonable justice to some of the narrower ways black has of killing stuff in its arsenal.
Dark Supplicant
Power 6
Design 6
Fixed bob! Not even fixed really, nerfed would be the better description. At least as far as the ability goes, as it is more typically around the 1.5 life cost per trigger with Bob. The reason this is "fixed" is that you can play it anywhere regardless of the big delve spells your deck might want to play. You can play this without having to worry about the things you are playing with it so much. The extra toughness seemed a reasonable way to compensate for the likely higher overall life cost involved in running this dork. Overall this has been fine. A long way from broken but perfectly serviceable little dork for many an occasion.
Dead Mage (cut)
Power 4
Design 4
A kind of protection dork. Quite good in the face of mass removal and some cute combo applications with aristocrat type synergies. Mostly however this is a low statted dork that does little in combat. As a non threat used mostly to protect threats it transpires you are better off skipping the middleman and just playing a threat over this. Probably this wants to be like a 3/2 with menace or some such to entice you in. Sounds a bit over powered then... As it is I found the card unexciting and unenticing.
Deadly Bees (reworking)
Power 3
Design 2
I've been struggling to find the sweet spot on this one where it is playable but not an auto include. I have had a bunch of designs and play tested a couple but it is always either an unplayably slow Shock or a Shock on legs that is a bit too convenient to pass up. This one pictured is the former. Green doesn't want a Seal of Fire so much that it is willing to give it summing sickness and the ability to be removed easily while still sick. I do like the idea of green having some more fight adjacent dorks but it is a lot harder to get right than I imagined it would be.
Death's Whisper
Power 8
Design 7
Given that this is just a strict upgrade to Night's Whisper and that Night's Whisper remains one of the best card draw spells in all of magic this was always going to be a bit extreme. Even in my cube where the rate to draw cards is reduced this is still an appealing tool. This is a 3rd printrun card and so it is young in the testing process. I strongly suspect this is going to wind up having a B or 1B cost added on to the flashback. It is just so often four cards for two mana! That is a lot. There are loads of chaff tokens floating about that you are more than happy to turn into cards. Some decks are actively looking to sacrifice stuff. I love how this slots directly into most black synergy decks with both graveyard and sacrifice themes on the go. My sort of card, also other people's sort of card too, and not a disruptive one either so I am somewhat happy having it over tuned.
Death-Tongue Demon
Power 8
Design 6
A very potent dork already the recipient of some tuning! The card itself is about reasonable on power level but the various synergies with it push it rather. Probably it should only work at sorcery speed but then probably it would need a reasonable toughness boost as well given how much of a nerf that would be. As it is the card does very well interacting with things. It is a great defensive card able to block one dork then shoot another before either can damage things. It is a delightfully easy removal spell to recur on the cheap thanks to being a dork. I find I just tend to play this. It is never dead and does the sorts of things you need. The high power ranking is bolstered by this high suitability to task in a limited setting. Creatures are the main synergy thing and work with most stuff from Raise Dead through to vehicles and equips.
Decay (cut)
Power 6
Design 3
I did a cycle of stealth gold cards that were supposedly playable without the second colour, but improved with it. Much as the idea felt clever and the cards worked out surprisingly reasonably it is not the sort of thing you want in cubes. These just take up pack space and are more cute than anything else. Fundamentally by their nature they are either over powered at one end or underpowered at the other. And as such, either make a proper gold card or a mono card and get that balance as close to the desired point as possible. This is not the way to sneak gold cards into the cube without having them be parasitic. I think these cards would be good for a constructed setting but they are off for limited cube.
Deceitful Tutor (cut)
Power 4
Design 4
In a world without combo this is not the thing. It is very cute with Donate effects but they are not common in any form of magic. Sure, this guy can find the Donate effect but that is then a lot of mana to setup a fairly fragile and low powered synergy! Combo cubes would like this but midrange cubes really don't have any interest in a low powered and somewhat dangerous little walking Vampiric Tutor! This is one of those cards that is way to dangerous for Wizards to ever print while it is woefully underpowered for the kinds of thing it might be getting upto in the homemade cube.
Deirdre Delierdre
Power 8
Design 8
One of the more powerful and more exciting companions. While enticing and interesting Deirdre does rather lead to the longer and grindier of games, which is already what the homemade cube offers! This has been nerfed to only allow one use per turn and added a one mana cost to do so. It was simply too hard to disrupt and ensured victory in a slow and tedious way assuming you can survive the mid and early game. Generally it seems that people like the different deck building challenges that this offers and it is certainly a card worth building around. In terms of appeal and creating something a little different this is the companion that I am most pleased with and wish to try and recreate for the other pairings as best as possible. It is quite ambitious as companions are already some of the most complex cards to design. It is however necessary as poorly designed companions are not just taking up space, they are likely making the whole format worse too. Deirdre Delierdre does tend to wind up in a deck that you only play best of one with which is sort of a problem. It is nice to have those epic long games but having them near mandated is a bit much. The card is well liked enough that we are all looking past that presently but it does need keeping in the back of ones mind.
Delayed Gratification
Power 6
Design 6
A half price Tormenting Voice with slow returns. Low cost, nice hellbent scaling, and some mild discard synergy have seen this get decently above average play of the card quality effects on offer in the homemade cube. It isn't even that it is that good, it is just broadly suitable, low cost filler.
Deliferation (cut)
Power 2
Design 3
Far too narrow to see any play. Mostly this just cycles and so mostly you have no reason to play it. It offers no real synergy with your own cards unlike proliferate mechanics and so it is really hard to scale this to a point of being useful. I am not even sure you would bring this in against a deck with loads of counters on stuff. Certainly this has some cool ceilings but mostly it is a blank and that is not what you want in your cubes. This is one of those purely for constructed intrigue and potential cards.
Demonic Visions
Power 8
Design 6
I wanted to push the boat out a bit given how poorly tutor cards had performed in the cube so far. When consistency is high, power level is very even, and there is no combos to speak of then there is scant need of tutors, certainly at the cost one normally finds them in the magic world. So I made this and have been fairly happy with it. It is certainly well above the curve and is something you are happy playing in most decks than can support it. I mind that less with a gold card, and also a card with as bad a tempo as can reasonably be found. This is certainly a dangerous card and one to keep an eye on as the format develops. I have certainly never felt safer as a control player passing with two mana up and this plus a two mana counterspell on an otherwise empty board. This is absolutely a control card and helps support that archetype while giving little to others. Control already being stronger than I would like might wind up getting this trimmed if some egregious combo doesn't. For now this surprisingly fair powerful card is safe at least.
Den of Thieves
Power 6
Design 6
A tame land that is still somewhat surprising to me. As established already, these are fairly poor fixing. Therefor you want to be playing this for the animation aspect and it isn't that impactful. This looks like more card than a Mutavault or Mishra's Factory but in practice it is really just an expensive iteration of those cards. All are effectively colourless lands than animate into two power dorks, this one costs twice the price at way more coloured demands. This whole cycle could be pushed a little in power. Against manlands you need removal that is instant and not unable to hit lands. You cannot be killing them with a Chain lightning or an Anguished Unmaking. I was aware of this when creating removal for my cube and so not only did I slightly undertune the manlands, I also made removal capable of handling them, resulting in some very low impact cards. You still mostly play these when you have them but they often don't do more than a straight land and even less frequently change the result of the game.
Deny
Power 7
Design 7
Somehow this is a design triumph. I was sure this card was either oppressive, or at least unplayable. Seems to be just about on point. I had earmarked it as the Force of Will of the set but it is much more Pact of Negation. It would likely be more problematic if the format were faster and swingier but in the slow and steady seas of my homemade cube this is absolutely fine, interesting in fact. Weighing up the costs of running it in the first place, and then either casting it or cycling it are all pretty interesting. I am happy playing this in tempo lists and control ones. It is good on turns one and two and gets a bit dodgy later on. One of those cards you never like to have to use but are grateful that you had it when you do.
Derderm Djinn
Power 8
Design 7
This was a little larger and was a touch too good. Scaled back a bit and this is roughly where I want it. The card is a little dangerous with certain buffs as it can become a bit of a Visara the Dreadful! Even so, that isn't all that much of a problem. This is just a fair card that really helps keep overall consistency in games high. It helps green doubly so as green likes consistency between its mana and gas more than most, while also struggling a bit with creature control. This has had loads of play, done lots of different things, and been exactly as I had hoped it would be in terms of performance.
Descent (cut)
Power 6
Design 3
As discussed "catch-up" is just a bad, confusing mechanic that has no place in the cube. This card is fine but not something you want to play. Just a bit polar in performance and random to boot. The kind of card I would pad a deck out with should it have the sort of holes needing plugged that this offers. It is never a card I am excited about.
Desoul (cut)
Power 6
Design 5
Token generation is a big part of most cubes these days and efficient ways to answer them are consequently reasonable value. Repulse has been putting in good work in the cube recently and so I wanted to spread that love about a bit. I like where this lands power wise. It is one of the more interesting removal spells I have produced, giving options without being universal. Removal is a long way from the bottleneck in the homemade cube however and as such this tends to get left on the side lines in favour of removal with wider target range, even if it is less efficient. There is just something a little off with this in terms of feel. There is something about it betraying the fact it is not a real card.
Dues Decree
Power 8
Design 6
On point mass removal that feels appropriate for a big gold card, and appropriate flavour wise too. Certainly a powerful card you need to have on your radar but once you are aware of it, combined with the relatively restrictive high mana and colour intense cost, Dues Decree is not too oppressive. If you can cast this reasonably consistently around curve then you probably should play it. I have seen decks on the aggressive side running this and it felt correct, not unlike slapping a Settle the Wreckage, or even the incubate Wrath, into an aggressive list.
Devourer
Power 7
Design 7
This was a top end attempt at an anti control tool from the 3rd print run. The unsubtle approach to getting past counterspells with this one, not bothering with tricksy flash or low cost, this just has diplomatic immunity. The annihilator is far more likely to punish a control deck with their lower count of tokens and general board clutter. Probably it is doing nothing a lot of the time but a 5/5 trample is picking up the slack that any ineffective annihilator might have. This just does a reasonable job of being awkward to handle by slower reactive decks while still packing a substantial punch. Being able to crew it yourself without need of resolved dorks prevents it winding up dead either. So far powerful but not oppressive. A relatively successful attempt to bring annihiliator to the lower cost brackets.
Dimble
Power 6
Design 7
A kind of Miscalculation. Arguably this forecast should be on a Cancel type counterspell and this should just be the U/2 cycling super mild upgrade to Miscalcuation. Regardless, I like the free minor forecast on a reactive spell. It is just interesting choices all round for very little extra. This has seen a little less play than the black forecast removal offering, mostly because this is quite a soft counter that becomes less useful as the game goes on. The black removal spell stays hard and so you are happy holding it. Dimble is certainly forcast less for this reason even when taking play difference into account.
Diminish (cut)
Power 3
Design 3
Impressive scaling does not make up for the poor low end performance of this card. It just has really pathetic removal power at low mana values. To be a spot removal spell you need mass removal mana and to be mass removal you need game winning mana. This is an example of where scaling and utility cannot save a card. This could easily be instant speed and it would still lack the raw power to carry it. I like how clean it is but it misses the mark harder than most of my cards.
Dimir Confluence
Power 7
Design 7
Engineered to be part of a cycle of these big powerful modal gold spells. It turned out rather well I thought and really divides opinions. People rate it all the way from bad to good which I find interesting. It is certainly seeing enough play to retain a cube spot. I was concerned prior to testing that the ability to send three lands back to hand would be devastating, especially if accelerated out. Certainly it can be painful but it is a long way off a Plow Under. I like how this card solves lots of problems and has lots of modality without feeling disjointed, an auto include, or overly generic. It is expensive and somewhat unreliable for removal which keeps it at the appropriate power level. I really like how you can slide the scale from value to tempo with this as well, pure tempo in bouncing three things or pure value in having them discard three, or somewhere in the middle as required.
Dingus Ring
Power 7
Design 5
The version printed below is a relatively uninteresting card. Oddly it was the most skipped trigger by a long long way. People just don't expect to have passive, non-creature based stuff on equipment. It is unintuitive and as such bad design. I wanted to make the card more unique than existing cards but in practice that should have been a secondary concern. I was aiming at a more contained Skullclamp style card but somewhat missed the mark. Not only was this a little on the pricy side to compete with Skullclamp, it also stops dorks going to the bin. This is a real no no for loads of synergies and makes this card a little less appealing whenever it finds itself providing anti-synergy. Aristocrats sac decks just don't want this despite being in love with Skullclamp! Ultimately I just changed the scry 1 trigger to a +1/+0 buff to equipped dork and that provided for a much more rounded card that sees a tonne of play. I may even rework the card a little more, the stat buff, while minor, does make the dork in question more relevant than I would have liked. Some kind of mild protection or perhaps evasion would have gone down better I think.
Dingus the Aloof
Power 7
Design 6
A reworking of Consecrated Sphinx. I did a fair amount of tweaking to this and over time it came more and more to resemble it's inspiration. Ultimately this draws fewer cards but is wildly safer to deploy thanks to the flash. You should stand to at least cantrip this, and/or murking some attacker. A great top end control and midrange threat, all be it a somewhat dull one. Consecrated Sphinx is a fun card but it is overly polar, this solves that polarity issue somewhat but likely results in being a little too ubiquitously viable. If card draw was as valuable in my homemade cube as it is in real magic formats this might be edging towards bomb status. Luckily this is a threat that is actually not that threatening, while also being a little scary just to sit around with for too long as it might well end up decking you!
Dip
Power 7
Design 6
I thought this would be too much but it was actually the fairer of the Ephemerate cards I made, including Ephemerate itself. This is just a nice clean cube thing, either saving a guy or reusing an EtB. People enjoy it, it is a fun archetype and it gives white nice identity. These non-threat, non-answer cards need to do a lot to get a look in which is why this is only about right and not the really really good it looks like it should be.
Discharge (cut)
Power 5
Design 4
Cute little energy support card with reasonable scaling. The thing is, this is pretty poor value until pretty late in the game, like five lands in play minimum. It is super narrow and basically does nothing without a reasonable energy payoff making it also situational. Sure, that is all fixed with the cycling mode but not really enough. This is more the cool kind of thing that helps a constructed format out, not something you want so much in the limited settings. Further to that, the moment this starts to look good it is probably quickly pretty unfair. It isn't going to take too much in the late game for this to represent an Ancetrall Recall or a Might of Oaks or something equally game winning or broken.
Disempower
Power 9
Design 5
A card aimed at improving overall game quality. This ticks all the right boxes on an individual card level but does contribute to some trends in my homemade cube. This is consistency incarnate! Land when needed, answer when needed. This card is cheap to use and helps to stop you from losing games in common tedious ways to lose games. This card is very pushed and that itself isn't really the problem. Disempower has never once been egregious. Two mana and a card to answer something is fair. It is super hard to milk extra value when at sorcery speed. Ultimately all Disempower does is down power both players and slow down the game. Great if you want long, skill intense chess like games. The real issue with this card is that you are just always playing it. I knew this in design and didn't care. Now I am more inclined towards making it a three mana spell so that there is more of a choice when it comes to deck inclusion. At that point I start to be tempted to make it instant....
Disenchantment Crucible (cut)
Power 7
Design 4
I never liked the vulnerability of mono coloured decks to certain things. I am all for the colour pie but inability to interact with certainly things makes a lot of slower mono decks unviable. I made this as a way to help provide tools to all the colours so as to facilitate slower mono decks. This was a little over tuned, while 2WW or 2 and 4 life to Disenchant something and draw a card are not that exciting, the flexibility in means of payment this card offers, not to mention the general supporting utility it offers, all pushed it a little over the top. I played this a lot. That would be fine except for the other issue that came up in testing which is simply that this card is confusing visually. It is hard to tell if it is white or colourless Phyrexian mana and this just gets in the way of game play. It uses up more cognitive power than I want for such a simple filler card. I tried a version with a little reminder text about the colour but it just made the card messy and ugly and so I just went for a full re-work and cut this effort.
Dismaying Spectre (cut)
Power 4
Design 3
It's a fixed Hyppie! But boring it turns out. It isn't fun to play against as it is taking away your fun cards and it isn't that exciting to play with, you just fear for your small flimsy dork. Power, polarity and chaos are what made the original so infamous, this card may be a fix in a design sense but it utterly loses all the things that make Hyppie so iconic. Even if this was there on power level it is just a bad card that provides an experience no one enjoys regardless of which side of the table you are sat on.
Domestic Gurdy
Power 5
Design 6
Part of a cycle of big fat near vanilla five drops. I like these simpler dorks as they help set the colour pie while remaining pretty playable. Very much a filler sort of card but playing fairly well. They see below average play and perform in a very medium sort of way as you might expect. That being said, as far as filler cards go, these are way more impactful than most. When you actually do flop it down, the other five drops might laugh it the very limited common power level, but the many other cheaper cards still quake at the massive size of the bugger. Gurdy dominates the board and can really shut down a game if there is no removal or evasion. Always feels a bit embarrassing when this thing is kicking your arse. This is a very pure sort of baked in card quality. A great way to help you tune a deck. No white deck really wants a 5/7 dumb dork for five mana and a card but the option on such things? Most white white decks are in for that from time to time. There is something refreshing about playing a 5/7 vigilance in cube. A big card that is simple is just so rare and add a nice bit of cosy comfort to the game!
Doomsday Device (reworking)
Power 8
Design 6
I wanted more all clear reset cards and spammed out a couple in the image of past cards. This was a mashup of Disk and Oblivion Stone. It ended up being rather messier than I would like. It is also over performing a little and has pushed control far beyond where I would like it to be. As such I am trying to tone these back without making them unplayable. Sadly I fear there is going to be a bit more back and forth with this one than I might like. The tipping point is going to shift with the meta and being such a fine line for these kinds of cards is going to take some pinning down. The fateful hour got slapped on as some flavour but probably needs removing so as to clean the whole thing up. The problem with the clear all cards is that they tend to hit the things that people play so as to reduce the risk of Wraths. People over extend diversely so as to battle the control deck and then just fold to a card like this. A bit of multidimensional problem as it requires a delicate balance between Wraths, dorks, noncreature threats, and this kind of card.
Dragon Wagon (retuning)
Power 4
Design 6
Generic colourless big boy with mana sink utility. This is very good with the powerstone game plan but a little over costed for general use. Arguably I should work persist in as baseline, or at least make it a bit easier to get this out with the persist protection option. Really you want this with a total of seven mana so that you have a good shot of untapping with it and it is more of a six mana threat. It is pretty threatening but it is very mana intense. If you dedicate all your mana to it over a couple of turns then it should win for you but that is a tall order and not without risks. My present plan to retune this is simply cost it at 4 to get down. Time will tell if that is too pushed. I do expect it to see a lot more play at that!
Drainage Channels
Power 8
Design 7
By far and away the best thing to come from the "catch-up" mechanic was this simple land cycle. They addressed the play/draw imbalance in the game and provided some nice clean dual lands with the much desired basic land types. These lands noticeably improved the cube but they had the grotty mechanic that kind of ruined them. Unlike the other catch-up cards I just cut these we found a way to keep in essence while getting shot of the clunky mechanics that play badly. I was also a touch lazy with the art on some of these and just used some basics, which I now can't use IRL as it is confusing. This is just some Ravnica world swamp I think and it really confuses me when I see it in Swamp form rather than this homemade dual.
The reworked version below isn't perfect as it isn't immediately clear if it is counting itself but it works as intended and doesn't require remembering things and keeping tabs. It is quite easy to work out how it should work just by knowing the design intent, these were to be tapped on the play and untapped on the draw, which they almost always are in the relevant early stages of the game.
Dreadnought (cut)
Power 5
Design 6
Top down design that shows. I was relatively happy with how I managed to get islandhome onto a card without it feeling too bad. This was a little underpowered initially and so recieved a few tweaks to the numbers and has wound up looking quite a lot like Skysovereign, Consul Flagship. The combination of you needing to pack islands and this needing crew to do anything make it a little bit needy for such a big investment. Green would be very much into this if it was at all able to reliably source useful islands.... This is odd in that I like the design, and the card is powerful, but I still don't think it is a great fit for a cube. The design is good because it is flavourful and interesting, not because it is a well positioned limited card. This is just a bit narrow for such a big card. You don't get many slots for the big cards so you need them to be real suitable! The deck with islands and a reliably ready crew of three is not a deck we see enough to allow for this kind of luxury.
Dredging
Power 6
Design 5
A card utterly unprintable in any real format due to how abusable it would be. Dredge is already a loathed archetype. Faithless Looting has received bans. This is a very dangerous card! I wanted it to total 3 mill per loop not 4 but I really hated the lop sided feel of mill 1 dredge 2 and mill 2 dredge 1. All told the card has been pretty spot on for the cube and gets play when it supports other graveyard synergies. A touch on the narrow side but useful low cost enough for me to be more than happy leaving it in. I think this would be too good in my main cube with the likes of Treasure Cruise and Hogaak keen to abuse it. In the homemade cube however self mill is rather more risky and has less in the way of game ending pay offs! If the homemade cube power creeps enough while continuing to get good yard based cards then this will need to have an eye kept on it but it is fine for now. Arguably even good! Just a reusable black sorcery speed Mental Note.
Dryad (cut)
Power 5
Design 4
In principle I like this card but in practice it has played less well than I would like. Obviously forestwalk is a bad ability but I figured on this small inoffensive dork that had actual synergy with it we would all be ok. It transpires not, absolutely lost games to this being made massive and killing me because I was silly enough to have forests. As a ramp tool this is a little slow and unreliable. It is more exciting as a mid to late game tool giving you the ability to really over power the opponent through better draw quality and superior mana production. The card is quite cute but narrow and polar. Removing forestwalk will only solve half those problems too. This is one of those cards I thought was clever design but in practice was a bad design that played badly as a result!
Dungeon
Power 5
Design 5?
The first go I had at this as seen below was wildly underpowered. These kind of low impact fortifications need some vague value thing bolted on to have any real appeal. I have fiddled with this a bit and slapped a cantrip on there to make it more playable but in all likelihood even that isn't quite enough to excite. Still learning a lot about this new card type so for the most part the fortifications remain an interesting experiment.
Reworked version
Dwarven Machinist (cut)
Power 5
Design 5
Somehow this Stoneforge wannabe got no love in my cube. He is low threat and impact and apparently just too narrow. The vehicles and equipment are not exciting or abundant enough to be tutoring. There is no way you can cheat out expensive cards with this making it a low tempo play. I could probably make this a 2/1 and that would make it enough of a card by itself with enough tempo backing it up to get action. I could let it tap for mana to produce the cards it finds? Mostly it just didn't feel like this was a card I wanted all that much and so I cut rather than tweaked. It is powerful enough to see play in the right conditions too so forcing it felt unjustified.
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