Eager Brawler (cut)
Power 6
Design 4
As discussed, the catch-up mechanic was a failure. This card however is one of my favourite of the bunch as it gives the right kind of assist to the archetype most affected by the dice roll. This is very very good as a one drop and a little below par as a two drop, although still very on-theme and perfectly playable. Much as I don't normally like a polar card when it is direct opposition to the polarity of going 1st/2nd it is much more of a perk than a problem. I like the elegance of pairing menace and rampage and so I might try and rework this card into one without catch-up but that plays very similarly.
Eagle Boy Power Head (cut)
Power 7
Design 4
This is a working title name I didn't get round to sorting out before I got to printing. Never mind. Some old Offspring song the inspiration here... Part of the cycle of very pushed protection from token cards. This is stepping on a lot of toes in the design space. Plenty of white cards do the Plains thing, and the blue protection from tokens dork is a two mana flier. All round this thing is pretty devoid of inspiration. It is a powerful and playable card with a few mildly interesting aspects to it but it isn't needed and it certainly isn't neat. I do like protection from tokens but I think white would do better with a more aggressive card in that form. Perhaps the Kami of Ancient Law / Ronom Unicorn card should do it. Vigilance always felt a bit tossed on. There is an aspect to designing a set where you have a bunch of floating effects you want on cards but don't quite make a card by themselves and there is an art to pairing them with the best other partial cards. It was not applied well here.
Earth Elemental
Power 6
Design 5
For some reason I had this as a four drop in first printing and it was absolutely obscene. Like, super Siege Rhino obscene. This was the premium dork of the set right at the start and that you would stretch to play in any build. Just really hard to answer and really high threat level in an overly efficient package. It still gets play at five mana where all the real good stuff starts to appear. That being said, it is getting below average play and hasn't far to fall before it is in the cut zone. Much as this could be tuned up by a stat to bring it more in line I am more keener to keep this as is to reflect the original as much as possible. This is what a "vanilla" dork has to look like in cube to have much chance of getting play. Just a bunch of keywords to get you where you need to be power wise. This is just a playable cube vanilla dork, just a card for the combat step. Flavourwise this is very red but mechanically it reps more of a green dork.
Eastern Port of Saprazzan
Power 9
Design 6
You could probably print these now, certainly in some formats. Sac lands plus things you can find untapped equate to better fixing and synergies than these. The legendary status of these would harm them for use in multiples in many formats too. Initially these are eye openingly powerful but when you really get down to it they are fine. In cube they are even better of a design as they are each three dual lands in one thus offering real card economy. These do a great deal of work as generic partially off colour dual lands and that does a great job of making the format consistent. You don't need quite as much space dedicated to fixing etc. One issue these lands can lead to is an over bearing four and five colour list just using the best gold cards. My attempt to balance this was to offer a lot of cards that empowered decks going mono. Inconsistency is a shocking negative feedback mechanism to use as a balancing tool in design and so bad fixing is not how I want to keep people from just making multicoloured piles of good stuff.
Easton, Mute Mentor
Power 7
Design 6
This design arose from the school of ripping off the design of cards that are really popular in real magic. Scion of Urza is simply enjoyable, it can be played anywhere, is fine anywhere but has a degree of scaling to him that makes him that much more tantalizing. I tried to evoke the feeling of that card while adding a bit more.
Edge of the Desert (cut)
Power 4
Design 5
Quite cute and flavourful but too much of a phaff to really be considered good design. I rather over supplied the answers to non-basic lands without really making any that and sufficiently threatening to merit needing any sort of answer. So, while this card is reasonably balanced, it is doing a job no one needs and not as well as alternatives. Being a colourless utility land it was taking up space and so needed to go.
Eladamri's Saga
Power 8
Design 6
Another card design based on an enjoyed card. Urza's Saga the card getting plagiarized here.. Very much following the same format but transposed to green. This has been playing exceptionally well, perhaps a touch too well. The only change I might make is raising the cost of making a dork to 2G. That would be a pretty significant change and it is still early days. The reason being that it is a bit easier to scale these boys up and a little harder to remove them. A red deck that has to chew through them with burn is just going to be bullied rather by it. This is the third and most recent print run so has had the least testing. Another concern I have for this one is cards that let you get lands back from the bin. I think you would get bored of this one fast if it never went away properly! I actually have a whole cycle of these, one for each colour, in the works. That many is likely too many but we may well find another cool card or so when it comes to testing them. If not we will at least do some learning. Unsurprisingly they are more of a departure from the original design than this which is really not very dissimilar to Urza's Saga.
Elder Land Wurm
Power 6
Design 6
Huge effect but one that people struggle to evaluate. I have liked this and I like it more thanks to the reactions this gets. Unprintable in real magic due to the likes of Siesmic Assault, and frankly just commander in general! In cube however this is rather more suspect. The value of extra lands is typically minor by the time this comes out, and unlike Primeval Titan this is offering no ramp either. Further to that there is scant in the way of oppressive utility lands on offer. You can't go fetch Wolf Run and win with it for example. This is still quite a beating though. If it is killed it just felt like a lot of value. Your draws will be good for the rest of the game and you have a very full hand. Should they not have removal for this it gets somewhat awkward thanks to needing a bigger than average chump. This has been made a 5/7 not a 7/7 so as to make it that bit less egregious on that front. One area not often considered when evaluating this is how much it reduces your own life expectancy by. Pull 8 lands out of your deck and suddenly you are on a clock to decking yourself. Only relevant in some settings but absolutely relevant in cube! There is an argument for making this only find basic land but it is already underpowered. No sense in making it duller!
Eldrazi Confluence
Power 6
Design 7
A common design trick of mine to make cards more viable for cube is to find a way for a card to support its own narrow aspects somehow. Here the forecast ability allows you to cast this card in any deck regardless of your access to colourless mana on lands. All told, this isn't that hard to cast anyway but it is always nice to be sure, to avoid being a dead weight card. I actually made this as I was trying to inject a bit more artifact and enchantment removal to the format. Making cards colourless helps with that rather! This card is OK, the power is mediocre. It is a tool you play as insurance rather than raw power. That being said, it is easy enough to get a three for one with this. I could make it instant if it needs a boost in power but for now it is happy enough. The more universal cards do seem slightly better off under tuned.
Electric Dragon
Power 9
Design 6
The Glorybringer of the set. Only a Forked Bolt and required to connect but synergy with other energy cards and no need of exerting all keep this in the very top tier of threats in my cube. Very direct, very red, all wrapped up in a pretty efficient package resulting in a card almost never left out of decks that can play it. This kind of card is a cube staple. The only thing I dislike about this card is the somewhat clumsy way it has to be worded.
Electrified Baloth
Power 7
Design 6
The Hill Giant that could. Basically this is just a rejigged Bristling Hydra. By itself it is a little less oppressive but it is a rare example of a card that is likely more polar than the inspiration. I vaguely wanted a kind of one shot kill synergy potential archetype. As such I produced a bunch of dorks that can pump for the turn using energy. This is one such dork. And being both quite big to start and able to become indestructible, it is one that does most work in combat as well. If you have to block this then it is going to mess up your board quickly. This Baloth is OK with no energy support, reasonable with some, and scary in an energy deck. While this isn't the most exciting or original card it is the kind of card my cube lacks depth in and so it it very welcome.
Electroshatter (cut)
Power 7
Design 4
Versatile but no where near the play you might expect. I think all the extra energy text puts people off when really this is just a Shatter with landcycling for 1 - and thus should be very good. It is infact a lot better than Shatter in most cases as it exiles and will mostly leave you some energy left over. I might just rework this into straight Shatter with the landcycling and see if that gets it some play. I really like the way that the various "Harnessed Lightning" cards play in game. They have a real feel of balance to them. You feel clever for having some energy left to do the big thing you need above what the single spell offers, and you feel like you got value when you have some left over. So with that in mind I don't really want to rework this, I like where it is and am mostly confused by its lack of play. Perhaps the lack of imagination on the aesthetic side of things puts people off too? It is painfully unimaginative....
Electrostatic Bombardment
Power 5
Design 5
While this is certainly a touch underpowered it is versatile and direct with reasonable synergies. This could easily be buffed to instant and no one is going to be upset about it but it shouldn't need it. I could probably even get away with making this a one drop instead. A lot of these energy cards do look and feel similar at a glance which is perhaps a bit of an oversight. I am presently writing these reviews alphabetically and in doing so I am seeing a lot of similar cards. That being underplayed energy cards and I am not sure what to do about it. If it is just the wordier cards being slower to settle in peoples minds or if people just don't like energy. The problem being that if you cut too many of the supporting cards the whole archetype falls down. I feel trapped between wanting to buff and/or cut cards that seem underplayed while not wanting to fiddle around with cards that seem on point.
Elemental Shaman Class (reworking)
Power 8.5
Design 4
Cone of Flame super plus! I just overdid almost all these class cards. They were pushed regardless and then I managed to land a meta where things like this were better than they would be in other cubes and that was then just these being dominant. This is a nerfed version of the original and it is still too good. This card is three good cards in one that work well together and do things you almost always want. I should have made use of the cards that only need one generically good bit to squeeze more conditional and situational stuff in.
Elemental Shrine
Power 8
Design 7
These are great. They predate the actual surveil lands and so are not quite such a lazy ripoff as they might look like. I tossed on the 2 life mode to make these a bit more rounded and to be efficient on space within the duals section. I wanted a chunk of life to be on the mana base cards and these lands seemed like the safest place for it. Lands that EtB tapped have a higher bar in cube than in places like standard and commander and so make for an easy place to give a little push. These being fetchable and offering card quality are a massive consistency boost to the cube and have been really impressive but it in a healthy way. The life mode is certainly used less but it is in the 20-25% region of the time which makes it a meaningful extra.
Elk Umbra (cut)
Power 5
Design 5
Bit of a trick, bit of a buff, bit of protection. Cheap, useful and broad in application and yet somehow still not receiving very much play. These kinds of cards always struggle to get spots over cards that do something by themselves. Add to that a format that is quite keen on testing total deck power and these cheap fluffer cards are quick to the chopping block. If I push tempo or push synergies that relate to this like auras then it should jump back into the fold. This is not a weak card, it is just not a desirable card presently.
Elvish Explorer
Power 6
Design 6
The landfall enabler. Technically this will fuel infinite landfall triggers, capped only by total lands in your deck, and the more curtailing limit to land drops you have per turn. This might get out of hand should too many Explore/Azuza style effects crop up in my homemade cube but presently there are no where near enough. This is just a low tempo slow value engine. In it like Courser of Kruphix except it trades board presence for reliability on getting free lands. Much as this looks good it can often be outclassed by a Civic Wayfinder. This fails to find your 4th mana source when you are stuck on three. Equally it is more of a 4 drop if you want to guarantee that free land. Despite this not blowing many minds on power level or performance it is a very popular car which I take as a win.
Elven Rampart (cut)
Power 2
Design 3
It's a Squirrel Nest, a better one in fact being cheaper and able to sink mana into making multiple tokens a turn. You can make reach dorks too! And yet no one wants this card, just making a load of dorks slowly doesn't tend to have much of an effect on games. Squirrel Nest has not been a good card.... really ever. Combo card sure, but otherwise just not impressive. I'm not yet sure if we want a card like this, and then, if we do, how to make it something that actually appeal.s
Elvish Gardener
Power 8
Design 5
Part of a third print run cycle of dorks aimed at controlling graveyards. The bin has become too important of a zone to ignore fully and so more tools to do so were needed. This cycle were all a little pushed so as to ensure I could get them play and test them. This one was a bit good and needs the ward brought down to 1. I might even restrict the use to sorcery speed, or increase the mana cost to two. Turns out instant speed counters are powerful! Very easy to mess up combat. Although it needed to be, this is a lot more card than Scavenging Ooze.
Emerald Dragon
Power 6
Design 6
Quite the game ender, the recursion cost was upped to 7 from 5 which slowed things down a bit but really didn't do much to stop this card performing the job at hand. A two mana discount from 13 to 11 is not very significant when split over two turns.. Really this just commands a more permanent answer than most, be that graveyard hate or a more exile based solution. Otherwise this dude is going to bring and end to proceedings, and sooner than you might think with this being green. Turn 4 is reasonable for this to hit play and once down you really can't be tanking much of this with your face. I literally designed this as a tool to facilitate game ending and am happy with the results. It is about right in terms of timing and pace although it can feel a bit much if it curves out and you are not in a position to cope! It is just a role filler, not so powerful you are building around and towards it, just something you are happy to play in that position when you need it.
Emerald Dragonfly (cut)
Power 2
Design 3
Cute enough but really why? Not powerful enough by itself and thus mostly just too narrow for cube. This was clearly only going to work as a synergy tool, and being so low impact itself, would need very impressive synergy cards. Very likely ones that are too good. This is a cool card for constructed but for cube draft it is not what we are looking for.
Emerge from the Woods
Power 6
Design 6
Much as I am a fan of this it is a little slow. It is a classic example of a card I tuned down in the first development stage but didn't need to as I had powered up the cube with the new cards. Initially this was only 1G to activate and as such it provided a lot of consistent value. At three to use it gives surprisingly significant reduction in returns. While this isn't super easy to interact with it is also a late game, zero tempo, card advantage tool with some degree of deck building requirement. With all those caveats that seems more than fine. It was certainly fun playing with this card out in a deck of high creature density alongside low cost. This is the sort of thing that could let a stompy deck exist in base or mono green. I have since returned to using the original version that scrys for just 1G and it is playing well.
Empowering Mantle (cut)
Power 3
Design 3
Too much of a do nothing by itself despite fairly good rate, synergy potential, and high threat level. To get these kinds of cards to see play in a cube environment they need pushing on power level to a point where they often cease to be fun. I am not sure how to proceed with such cards as it stands. Living weapon/for Mirrodin! are really the solution to narrow equipment but this is going to have to cost a hefty chunk to more to come with a dork. There isn't too much wiggle room in the design space either. A project I'll embark upon if I manage to get any sort of +1/+1 counter synergy archetype doing anything.
Encased Lotus (cut)
Power 6
Design 7
Comically well balanced with an impressive degree of play complexity given the simplicity of design. A kind of super Signet, likely shoudl have called it "Lotus Signet". Arguably too much so. Mana sources can get a bit tedious if they are taxing too much brain space. Interesting and fair card but perhaps not a good design given the role it is performing. If I had made a card this simple, interesting, and complex for almost any other role than mana production I would consider it a huge win but on a mana source it really could just be a drawback. I have trimmed this to accommodate the six mana rocks from the latest set. Ultimately I suspect I will want it back as I love the interaction this has with powerstones. A good card by itself and able to turn the mana from upto two powerstones into real mana. Not to mention its own artifact type further supporting that aspect of synergies. It is just an easy card to cut when trying to test things.
Enchanted Carpet
Power 8
Design 7
Really big fan of this one. While it seems fine on power level the meta it exists in is mana hungry and so ramp is at a premium. This is a versatile card that struggles to be a dead card and so I find myself playing it whenever I have access to it. It feels like how the manlands should feel, it has a real Mishra's Factory in early MtG feel to it. While never being broken it consistently performs well where ever I play it and so it likely needs calming down a little. This could be crew 2, or just come in tapped. As I have found with a lot of cards, there is every chance that by the time I come to "fix" this the meta will have shifted such that the original printing is the optimal pegging and the new card isn't cutting it. My present hope is that the influx of rather more powerful mana rocks drops this to a point where I am not just auto playing it without any need of a nerf.
Enchanter Class (reworking)
Power 5
Design 4
A bit of an oddball card that is very hard to mechanically weave into a deck that supports it, or that it supports fully. Even so, it is still quite a lot of card and doesn't need to be firing on all cylinders to clear the bar. This kind of card is really the final icing on the format cake. As such I have put them on the back burner a little while the more core aspects settle around them, then I can figure out a bit more where I should go with this. This was very much a top down card design which is why it stands out as having no obvious role or home within the meta. When it is played it is typically for just one mode. And it is not played often enough to merit cube inclusion thus far, so any rework is going to have to improve upon that first and foremost. Top down design is interesting, informative, and produces some of the best cards. It also throws up duds and dead ends, for which this is strongly looking like the part.
Encroaching Mists (cut)
Power 2
Design 2
A double design fail in that this is one of those situational non-threat, non-answer cards that is pretty hard to include in limited decks, with the added bonus that, if you do manage to house it, it doesn't play well in a fun game sense kind of way. Sure, it technically works as a design and feels a bit clever and elegant, but in terms of the actual game, this is a fail.
Encroaching Wasteland (cut)
Power 2
Design 4
Much like the Edge of the Desert card, this is too fiddly and a bit too cute. It is a card no one needs in the meta that has too many cleaner and better competitors. A fairly easy card to cut. Perhaps it can make a return if I manage to wildly over do it with a load of nonbasic land designs further down the line...
Energize
Power 5
Design 6
The energy Giant Growth. This is a lot lot more card than Giant Growth. It is an energy ritual if you need some energy in a pinch. It is a scalable combat trick that should give you some energy leftovers giving it a Harnessed Lightning Vibe. Or, it is a fatal Berzerk/Tainted Strike/Temur Battle Rage that ends the game in combo style. It is likely too good for any sort of constructed setting and yet it is still fringe as far as cube play goes, despite ample energy support. Non-threat, non-answer cards just really struggle to appeal in cubes these days. The only tweak I could think to make to this is a wording one allowing you to play it without any targets. Mild convenience on the ritual mode but not enough to do anything significant. I am a fan of this card but probably I shouldn't "waste" a cube slot on it. That being said, I am reluctant to trim too many of the energy cards and so for now this is getting a pass. I have found that typically a cube can support around one pure combat trick card. That number does often dip to a point where none is the optimal and this happens when you have a bunch of modal cards with combat trick aspects to them that eat away at the demand for such things. Knowing combat tricks are hard to find space for I baked some in to these more playable cards which in turn has made it much harder for things like this. This should be good enough.
Energized Elemental
Power 5
Design 6
A filler curve beater with some choices on the go, as well as some synergy. The card is fairly low power but it sits pretty well in a couple of archetypes and has had a surprising amount of play, performing reasonably consistently. I could easily power creep this a bit. It could get another toughness or come with another energy, both would be fine and the card would remain reasonable. It gets a lot of play presently, not for power level but for suitability and flexibility.
Energy Capacitor (reworking)
Power 5
Design 3
Too fiddly and low powered. Wizards just put out a very similar card in MH3 that was waaay better designed. This is a card you want clean and clear and it just isn't. It is one of those cards I am reluctant to cut as the energy archetypes need a critical mass to perform. I am also loathe to try and tune it as what I should tune it to now exists! I need to find some inspiration that is sufficiently different to the real card and sufficiently better than this to tune into. I really love this art and want to keep it in the cube! Perhaps we need to go more Mana Vault in direction somehow?!
Red Energy Field
Power 8
Design 6
This is in the E section despite very clearly beginning with R. Another thing you sometimes miss when you are not checking your work alphabetically is that you might name different cards the same thing. In the first and second print runs I had an "Energy Field" card. This name is an imaginative solution to that... This is a powerful control tool offering either a Pyroclasm or a kind of ongoing Pestilence pinger sort of affair. This is a cornerstone card of energy based control decks. I like how this plays. What I like less is the way it looks, which is pretty messy and slow work trying to understand. This is one of those cards that gets a pass for being a bit of a design mess as it both plays well and does good work in bringing the meta to where I want it. It may even be a bit too good and as energy control gets better that might become evident. With the current balance it seems fine, all be it on the strong end, but it certainly one I will be keeping a watchful eye on as the meta ebbs and sways.
Blue Energy Field
Power 5
Design 6
Versatile counter magic that is really only playable in an energy deck unless things have gone pretty horribly wrong for your non energy deck. This is Spell Burst in a non-energy deck which is a straight up bad counterspell. In an energy deck this gains two extra modes over Spell Burst and becomes quite the tempting tool. Gain X energy at instant speed is as versatile as you are deep in the energy theme. Equally, hard counter for a single blue mana hits hard when you have some spare energy pooled up. I don't love cards that are archeytype exclusive but in practice you are going to need some. If I am to have energy only cards then at least have them versatile ones like this. Plausible I wind up cutting this for the relatively low power as there is not much room to tweak this one.
Energy Leak
Power 6
Design 9
Mana Leak in Harnessed Lightening form but also actually Quench and not Mana Leak. Counterspells are not enjoyed by many so keeping them on the fairer side is preferable. This spell can get around the weakness of Mana Leak if you can find some means to dump extra energy into it. This has had plenty of play and performed pretty well all told which is impressive given how low the power level of this is, both relatively and nominally. Also super stoked to have this as the first exact copy of a real card, really not the one I would have predicted when first making them!
Energy Pig
Power 4
Design 6
One of the cards people really detest the name on, apparently the salt pig reference was a bit dated for most! Not exactly aiming at my demographics with that one. This has a real Hearthstone card vibe to it, just a 2/1 with a mild perk. You play this for the energy, but the 2/1 body makes it playable. Broadly this is filler and really just for the more tempo based energy decks. There is a lot of value to be had here in terms of return for the mana but a whole lot less of that in terms of return per card. Presently the meta places more value on the latter relative to most other cube like formats and so this dude remains underwhelming. Probably clinging on to a slot because of the energy numbers. That and being super cute! For a card so simple, and seemingly narrow and linear, this thing plays really well. Having a relevant EtB on a card so cheap is nice.
Energy Shock
Power 6
Design 6
Its a Shock, its a little Harnessed Lightening. When Wizards already hit the nail on the head with their card design the best thing to do is just take a little sidestep and keep as much of what makes the card good as possible. This is not a high powered card but it is very playable and does retain those pleasant play patterns of its big Lightning brother. And holy hell did MH3 dump all over this one with power creep. I am almost embarassed for Wizards that I, an inexperienced fanboy am showing more restraint in my design process than they are. This is a good card, it gets a lot of play, it didn't need to be any better. At least Galvanic Discharge is a common so wizards cannot be so directly accused of printing cards to sell product, but I am still going to indirectly accuse them of it.
Energy Storm
Power 6
Design 6
A big red "damage all dorks" card but with the energy treatment. More notably this card does X+1 damage by itself, rather than X or X-1 which is the norm for most red mass removal. This buff makes the card rather more viable. Red removal has historically suffered from not being able to answer meatier on curve dorks, especially on the draw. If it isn't doing what you need it to then it isn't playable, and if your mass removal isn't playable that rather gimps the prospects of your control strategies. Red already has some other issues in regards slower builds so I wasn't too worried about buffing up the mass removal a bit. Thus far it seems like I was mostly on the money as red control builds have been viable and fun without seeming overly good. It is doubly important cards like this exist and are viable as I put all the energy cards in Temur meaning no access to the size indifferent black and white Wraths.
Energy Tapping
Power 6
Design 7
You might think this would be unreasonable if Attune with Aether is ban worthy but it was perfectly fair. This is much more the sort of thing that makes constructed decks oppressively good and consistent rather than limited decks. You play this in decks with some degree of energy payoff and it is quite a nice little card that costs you very little and typically returns a little more somewhere down the line. Very happy with this, a card I like casting, which really should be one of the primary tests of a card designs success. Another card I had restraint on, I was so close to another hit with this one on the design match bingo game that I am now playing with Hasbro. Just a mere instant/sorcery difference, and that is a small one right? For what it is worth this card might look like it is a pure energy archetype card but in practice you can run it with just a couple of other energy cards and have it perform surprisingly well. It is like paying one mana ahead of time to give your next card with kicker, that kicker paid for free! Lovely.
Energy Vortex
Power 6
Design 7
This was me learning more about what fun cards were and what sort of thing would make people want to go in a direction. This card says to most people "come, play with energy cards, I'll give you lovely gifts." Playable as both a payoff and support card. Fair in terms of power but none the less quite a pull on players. It isn't even as if card draw is hard to come by in the meta. It is the scaling and synergies and ceiling which all work to make this quite appealing.
Engulf
Power 8.5
Design 6
Born out of a drive to push mono coloured card. This is clearly very potent in a heavy red deck and still absolutely fine elsewhere. I fear this should likely be downgraded to simply investigate with adamant trigger, failing that it should perhaps not be able to hit players or something. While a long way from broken it is the kind of rounded card that simply cannot be left in the board when playable. I would like this to stop hogging all the deck space and so a little nerf would be welcome. As far as pushing designs to make mono coloured decks more appealing, it certainly worked alongside the rest of the cycle and other cards aimed at achieving those goals.
Enhancement Shaman Class (retuning)
Power 9
Design 4
At three mana this is absurd. It offers nothing bad, just immediate value and tempo followed with a lot of threat and reach, all in one card. First and foremost this needs to cost 4 up front. It is good enough without further levels at three, at four it is still pretty decent. Not only is this quite the attacking all in one package, it is somewhat of a complete curve topper, you can just flop this down and toss mana at it and stand a reasonable chance of winning off the back of it. Even 4/4/5 costing might be too potent and require and exrtra mana or two on the latter levels. Retuning implies minor tweaks but this is getting some pretty major ones before being allowed back into the fold. There was a time I had the wolves at 2/3 in early development as another Hearthstone reference.
Enlightening Bolt
Power 8
Design 5
A little bit too clean and good. Would likely be a better card at instant and replacing the draw with investigate, you might even be able to take it to a three damage effect. Sorcery limits the range of play but it is so unreasonably efficient that you are playing this in 100% of places that support it mana wise, and likely more a bunch that don't as well! In practice this is just an iteration of Engulf, both being cantrip burn with an attempt to balance with high mana colour intensities. This is an example of a card that is too clean and too direct. You just can't hope to balance it as it is either unplayable or something you will play 100% of the time.
Enlightening Helix (cut)
Power 5
Design 7
This came into being simply as I felt clever with the design. This is very effective creature/planeswalker removal that concedes some life which is a nice flavourful Swords to Plowshares and Fiery Justice call back. Yet it has the ability to go face, all be it incredibly inefficiently... unless you can find away to deny or abuse the opponent gaining life? While I might think this is clever it is pretty low power in addition to being gold. You could obviously up the damage to 6 or lower the life to 2 to power it up a bit but that is pretty far down the list of priorities. I am over subscribed on Boros cards and the low end of power is far less pressing to tune than high end.
Enlistment Officer
Power 6
Design 6
The inspiration for this is somewhere between Monastery Mentor, Rabblemaster, Ophiomancer, and Precinct Captain. I think white should have token producing dorks and this was about the most middle of the road and clean I could make one that felt both white and packed the right sort of punch to be playable. This is solid in an Anthem deck and can be OK as a defensive dork but it is a long way from oppressive in either. If you manage to pick up a lot of other soldier creatures then this doubles up as mass removal protection which can be pretty exciting in an aggressive deck going wide. This one looks a bit better than it is. Slowly churning out tokens has proven less effective than expected in the meta, doubly odd given that the meta is slower than most other cubes.
Erg Ogre (banned)
Power 8
Design 1
An egregious card. I was trying to represent the Chittering Rat style card with the added fix that it wasn't a dud on an empty handed player. Power wise this is an oppressive and punishing two for one with tempo and disruption. You play this whenever you can. Design wise it is a total failure. No fun to play against at all, and easily abused as a way to lock people out of the game. Cards like Plow Under are the Magic equivalent of forgetting to save a game and having the computer crash and require you to redo the last hour or so of play. Devastating, disheartening, and disenfranchising. The less of this shit the better. Even as a 2/2 this guy would have been horrendous. Just no point trying to fix a card that is so fundamentally unpleasant.
Ersatz Myr
Power 8
Design 7
Highly played little mana rock on legs. A long way from broken but perhaps a little too pushed. A 1/2 is likely the correct line here. Mostly this is worse than a mana rock as it is vulnerable without offering too much utility as a body. That being said, when you have buffs and other nefarious uses for those bodies the value picks up quickly. Bodies are generically useful in magic and provide a bunch of extra game. So yes, a worse mana rock than the highly desired mana rocks, but also a little bit extra on the side to make up for that. When you get that Time Walk chump block, or get to keep a planeswalker in play, suddenly this card is doing work.
Everglades (cut)
Power 5
Design 3
A less successful cycle of asymmetrical dual lands. You basically always play these lands in all but the really multicolour decks. It is hard to have so many good duals that this isn't making the cut in a 3 colour list. The thing is that exert is such a massive cost that in practice these are little more than Swamps - or whatever the corresponding main colour is. They didn't do enough to fix to be worth the cube slot. They are one of those awkward underwhelming cards that is certainly playable because there is usually no cost to playing them but that don't do anywhere near enough actual work to merit inclusion in the format.
Excommunicate (cut)
Power 7
Design 3
Not only was this a little bit good it was also a design miss. I was hoping to make a card that had a gold feel and power level to it that was not a useless card when that colour pairing wasn't being used. This card never really saw play as a black card. It always came with the capacity to use the escalate. While mildly interesting I didn't feel the payoff was worth it. It adds a lot of time in deck building housing these kinds of thing as a super splash and the format just felt cleaner without them. There were 10 such cards which varied quite a lot in effect and power but all got cut at the same time, and quickly for this reason. Some were good, some were bad, some were powerful, some where less, but they all took up slots that could be given to more appropriate cards.
Execute
Power 8
Design 5
This simply always gets played. It does a useful interactive thing without ever being dead or punishing. Very splashable if you need such things and never oppressive. Much as I was trying to design low power high playability cards for this set I fear I overdid it with this and a few others. A card you are always playing just isn't that interesting. This is getting a high power rating from that top end playability. A game is about choices and while this presents a good amount in game I am not as yet convinced it is worth that trade off in building. Mostly I resent cards that get universal play, I want to see all the cards getting love, not stuff getting sidelined because of poor design choices. As with all things, very much a balance, as cards like this do lead to the kind of game play I wanted to encourage. The fix here, if at all is likely just making this sorcery or heavier black in the cost. Perhaps a tiny life cost? As this isn't oppressive and leads to good games I am as yet reluctant to cut it. The more it is there getting all the play the more I will think on how to improve the card.
Exhaust Ducts
Explored Lands
Power 7
Design 7
Well this looks rather wrong thanks to some erroneous reminder text! Certainly the first draft of this entered tapped and exerted and everyone except me thought it was unplayable garbage. I took off the exerted bit and it still doesn't get much love. I think I play this as much as everyone else combined. Apparently card draw isn't quite as exciting when it is guaranteed to be a land! If your mana base can support it you likely should be playing this. Certainly a card that comes with consistency gains at a general cost of slowing you down a bit. In many ways this is a kind of Concealed Courtyard. A little more convenient but a little less abusable. I do like that value feeling that bounce lands provided and this is the closest I have managed on that front with my various designs. That is at least a win.
Exploring Impulse
Power 8
Design 7
This is Adventurous Impulse but one card deeper looking. You could say that is 33% better but it isn't, it is more than that. The deeper you look the less chance you have of wiffing as well as the better chance you have of hitting what you want, the more chance you have an actual choice between two things you might want etc. It scales up in a non linear way and as such is really quite the power house. Still a card without tempo gains or value gains and so something I deem fun and fair. It even comes with somewhat of a deckbuilding stipulation. It ultimately trades a tiny amount total deck power for consistency, a bit of a theme in my homemade cube... It is absolutely one of my favourite all round cards which probably says a lot more about me than it does about this! Casting this just feels great. It feels clean and green and it looks lovely.
Exoplasm (cut)
Power 3
Design 6
I thought this was going to be really cool, a kind of Lumiarch Aspirant with a universal modular. The issue is just speed here. No ability to use the turn you make it while still coming down as a 1/1 is weak. The poor synergy between it tapping to buff itself and the modular makes it a poor aggressive tool as well. This needs a rework to make it more functional as a beater. Likely changing the tap to a passive that only hits it, and then giving it graft or something as well. I had some mild synergy with counters but certainly not enough to make this appeal. I think this might even be better in the real cube than in the homemade one which really shines a light on how poorly this performed. This is just slow and vulnerable.
Exterminate
Power 7
Design 5
Unimaginative high tier gold removal. Terminate was already a strong card, this is directly better with a mode that will not be used all that often but will be highly significant when used. Terminate was one of those rare cards that performs better in formats like modern than it ever did in cube. It always had insufficient power above the competition to seem worth it. While I don't love the design here it is clean and appropriate and will play pretty well. It is dull auto include gold removal and so I will happily cut it for more interesting larger Rakdos cards but as yet Rakdos is not a colour pair I have found myself making an abundance of designs for.
Extreme Weather Event
Power 7
Design 7
Desert Twister inspired and modernized. Really fond of how this one plays. Being such a poor rate when it comes to removal means this isn't quite the same level of auto include as Execute or many of the others that have this form of cycling cost. Extreme Weather Event doesn't at all feel like it breaks the colour pie and plays very nicely. This offers choices and interaction at all stages of proceedings. Big fan. Unintentionally this is one of the best interactive spells I made for green despite trying pretty hard. Turns out just making them very expensive is a reasonable direction to go in.
Eye of Justice (cut)
Power 3
Design 3
Bland beater. In a weenie deck this is too risky in terms of eggs in one basket. There are simply too many things that will end your five mana investment in a very unfavourable way for you even if you can supply the devotion consistently. As a tool for a slower deck this has no appeal either as the odds of making it devoted are low. This is unsuitable rather than underpowered but either way, it is a cut and a design fail. Funny how I made a cycle that were very similar in terms of nominal power but in practice were wildly different in terms of play due to their suitability.
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