Face Shredder (cut)
Power 4
Design 4
To any who are able to get this particular MtG reference, I salute you. As for the card, it is a little cumbersome and low power to really get much action. Neither stats nor discard are something one desires to invest in so heavily and with such a late game card. To make this work as a six drop it likely needs some key words to push the body side of things and I avoided that across the cycle for the sake of cleanliness. This is the worst performing of the lot although in part I think that is because black initially had better options at the top end which other colours were not so blessed with. Really the fix for this is to scale it back to a five or four drop so that the ability comes online at a point where it is still useful. Not overly in a rush to set about fixing cards that are likely not fun for those involved and that is exactly what this card smacks of.
Faerie Thunder (banned)
Power 9
Design 2
Just clearly an over cooked card. I was hoping to get away with it somehow as I knew this was pushed. The somehow being that blue didn't really want this card for any specific archetype so pushing it wouldn't be too damaging, turns out power creates demand.... who would have thought?! The reasoning behind it being so pushed is that I wanted to have it super efficient to just flashback, a bit like a madness card, but still something you might play without access to things that get it in the bin. Three felt like too much up front cost to fulfil the latter clause. Forcing something from two sides at once doesn't often leave much room to manoeuvre hence this winding up so poorly tuned. The fix was actually relatively simple but it did require a rework as the tokens became 2/2s and felt more like Drakes than Faeries. As such I made a new card for the flavour necessitating this being banned rather than reworked.
Fanatic (cut)
Power 3
Design 2
Mogg Fanatic has not aged too well and Wild Cantor was never a card you saw outside of combo. This is a modal card where none of the modes quite cover the card cost which is a bad starting point. This is filler but it is aimless and so it really only saw play when otherwise severely lacking. I essentially replaced this with a 2/1 Mogg Fanatic which is much more suitable, pointed, appropriately powered, and clean. It does one thing well rather than several things badly.
Farm
Power 6
Design 8
This should probably make and check for Farmers or Peasants or something and not just Humans so that it interacts less with the rest of your deck. Other than that I am pleased with Farm on many fronts. It is interesting, different and flavourful. It is a very white Bitterblossom kind of card that offers some scaling, burst, and versatility. Just by itself it makes me want to design more food cards to help enable this. While I have used this in control to buy time and in aggro to scale with anthems it is quite hard to find homes for this. I don't know if it is just ignorance of the unknown and if it will get more used or if it is just a somewhat narrow card. Regardles of whether it lasts in the homemade cube it is one of my best designed fortifications. It looks and feels right while being mechanically interesting and different.
Fatality (banned)
Power 6.5
Design 4
Modelled on Fatal Push but with variable cost rather than variable effect. In practice I like the concept of this card but as with all the "catch-up" cards I cut it as the mechanic just fails. I may try to rework this one if I find myself in need of more removal but I am pretty sure I don't and thus won't.
Field of Spears
Fiery Command (reworking)
Power 9
Design 5
This is quite cute, although I am not entirely sure why the final mode is treasure now I look back on it. Feels like it should either repeat the pattern and do 1 damage to each non-creature, perhaps even 2. Or be some form of artifact removal. Regardless, this is too convenient as an effect, being highly versatile while still being on or above rate. The only mitigating factor is the high red cost intensity which isn't enough of a fix nor a good one to be leaning on too much in a cube meta. There is a Boros card in the format that is very similar to this and that is likely to wind up just being considered the rework. I don't like cards that there is no requirement for redundancy stepping in the design space of others.
Finnegan Djinn 7
Power 6
Design 7
Homage to the original Erny who dominated the scene when I picked up the game. Quite a lot of love is needed to modernize the low powered stats package of Erny and becoming a modal Nature's Lore felt on theme and suitable. This guy is fine, reasonable value, reasonable tempo and a healthy dollop of utility. I play him in most of the heavy green decks I make and he performs fine. I tend to find I rarely evoke him which likely means I am putting too much low end and cheap support in my decks rather that saying all that much about this guy. All round I am pretty happy with this. He is a little lacking in downside but he certainly makes up for that by not offering that much ceiling either. Just stats and a land. A two for one but slowly and likely with something that offers little. While I might poo poo generic stats the 4/5 is one of the all time greats. A meaningful clock, resistant to lots of removal, and able to kill and survive fighting with most other dorks in the 1-4 price range that you tend to see.
Feisty Barricade
Power 8
Design 8
Homage to Wall of Roots. This is one of my favourite cards in the set. It plays so well and is super interesting without feeling too broken. Being a one drop that can pay back mana right away this is comfortably one of the most explosive sources of ramp on offer. Having only three charges of mana to offer however makes it rather more like a ritual style card and rather less like a land, mana rock or mana dork. Wall of Roots has five charges and as such it is rare that you run out. This thing runs dry fast and needs some care as to how and when you use it. The Barricade also rapidly loses potency as a blocker as you use those charges up. A unique and explosive mana source as well as an effective early defensive tool adds up to quite the potent card. While not oppressive or broken feeling it is certainly one to watch, it is very much a "yet" on those claims. And even if not broken it is certainly in the upper tears of power as things stand. Playing this into another one drop ramp spell is the most explosive you can be in the homemade cube. Being the fastest is always worth something.
Feldspar Powerstone
Power 8
Design 6
Fell Angel (reworking)
Power 8.5
Design 4
Not enough down side on this one to make it interesting. There is an exploit rework in the pipeline that should help. It will make this bigger and cheaper but need to sac to remove. While not over powered this card was just winding up in every single deck that could play it including most green based multicoloured decks. Giving it a clause stops it being such an auto include and makes the card more interesting to play with as well.
Fetid Dead (cut)
Power 6.5
Design 4
Originally this card had no mana cost on the sac option. It was basically Seal of Murder (Doom). Turns out the Seals, while mechanically very clean and nice cards, do not play well. People do not like to know their fate ahead of time. It is very disheartening to play a threat into an on board answer etc. The free to use ones also allow for action with impunity really mitigating any risk with the card. I tried to fix that issue by adding in a cost but then I made a card that was too risky as you needed to hold mana up else get if easily sniped away and lose value. Along comes another fix to solve that issue and the result is a card that is messy and inelegant. The first printing of this looked good as it was so direct and simple, it just didn't play well. This new version is just something I am sufficiently not proud of that I don't want to play it even if it is mechanically fixed. The proper solution here is to make this more of a 4 or 5 mana card and up the statline significantly. Then the cost of sacrificing is losing board presence and potentially net mana and you don't need the problematic activation costs.
Fire Elemental (cut)
Power 6
Design 3
Top down design aimed at spicing up these original Alpha elemental cards (hence the keeping of the original names). Not being very good at making generic fatties I wound up pushing all four far more than I should have and each needed reigning in substantially. I think this triggered in combat even when it wasn't involved, always had first strike, and probably had ward 2 as well! All told the card was oppressive and not fun for anyone. It is still high on the power level but being a bit more aimless in what it does stops it being something you always see to the point that it has been cut.
Fire Mage Apprentice (cut)
Power 3
Design 4
I under hit this fairly significantly. On the face of it this seems reasonably fair. The problem is that this does nothing at all unless you have mana to put into it and not even all that much when you do. It is the double whammy of poor value and poor tempo. You need to kill off multiple things with it and doing that is no easy feat. This should have been a 1/1 and could likely get away with being a 2/1 and not go over the top. Probably 2/1 with a 1R cost or 1/1 with a colourless mana cost to activate are the sweet spots for this card at the power level the format is. While this is low power it is certainly not unplayable as it has some nice scaling and synergies. It is still a thing you can get going with early but this is something you do to plug a hole rather than because you want to. Certainly it is a fail compared to the much simpler Fire Mage. I am still trying to understand the balance of the pinger a bit better and find I keep designing more so the odds on this ever needing a rework are pretty low. Hopefully my oversupply of the pingers will mean I end up with some good ones left at the end.
Fire Mage
Power 6
Design 8
Tim got shifted back where he belongs and power crept to a more upto date and reasonable cost. This card is clean, on point, and really useful in red. It lets you be so much more efficient with your burn as removal. The low tempo this offers and the meagre toughness are the perfect ways to keep the card in check. This is such a win where Apprentice was such a fail and that is pretty fascinating. If I were to make some functional reprints of cards in the homemade cube this would be a strong contender for that.
Firefist (banned)
Power 8
Design 3
Not the most egregious of the catch up cards either in play or power but a design fail none the less. Generic burn is not missed as there is a healthy does of it available and so I just cut this one.
Firesight
Power 6
Design 8
Red flavoured card quality akin to Sleight of Hand. This is instant and has buyback as a means of compensating for not being a draw based effect. While a very powerful card the cost is real and the effect not in as much demand as you might expect. Overall my format is super consistent thanks to the various cyclers and other good support cards. Firesight would be played in most red decks in most other cubes but in mine the tempo cost is a turn off for the aggro decks and the awkwardness of use and land cost to fully use are a turn off for the slower decks. This still gets play but not as much as I was expecting given the impressive power level. Exiling cards is also a pretty real cost in my cube, the slower decks are not happy to risk such things. You can kill yourself with this by permanently losing one of your big game ending cards. If unplayed cards went back on the bottom, or even in the yard then this card would get a whole lot more action. I am unlikely to change it however as it seems good enough and it is best to keep things clean. I simply made a lot of ways to cash in excess land or sink excess mana as well as lots of consistency. That means this card is fighting against a lot of competition and not getting the play you might think it deserves based on power level.
Flail Fanatic
Power 7
Design 7
This was an attempt to make a Kari Zev like dork. Low impact and threat but hard and risky to stop in combat. It is certainly one of the best one drop aggro dorks as it is hard to stop and reliably gets in a bunch of damage if not removed. Much as it is likely more pushed than I would have initially liked, the format needs cards that push games towards a conclusion and for that I am grateful. My aggro offerings in the one slot tend to be 2/1 beaters with a bit of utility or a very minor perk so this nicely bucks that trend and offers some welcome variation. This is a welcome aggro threat that is tenacious in combat and early to deploy but that doesn't do any sort of snowball nonsense.
Flame Shaman
Power 8
Design 7
A distillation of flippy Chandra, who turned out to be one of the most beloved cards among magic players I quizzed over what they enjoyed. This has definitely been a design win in that people want to play it and it plays reasonably. It has good scaling potential without being a dud outside of the heavy red decks. It does however look like it needs a bit of dialling back. Might well wind up as a 1RR 1/1 and if that isn't enough then we might lose the haste instead. Certainly this is a scary card I have seen win a bunch of games. Very fun but close to the edge on danger levels.
Flame-Tongue Dragon
Power 9
Design 6
Can we guess what the hommage is here? Take a creature, give it +0/+1 and flying for an extra mana cost and you tend to have a relatively interesting sidegrade. Monastery Swiftspear and Stormchaser Mage for example. I was expecting this to be a little worse than the original Kavu and it very much wasn't. The different way dorks scale when given the same change is something I find fascinating. Expect some more cards designed in this way to come! Lifting this guy to the skies and buffing the back end really helped cover the weakenesses of the origianl Kavu and pushed it to one of the best cards in the set. Your thing is dead and I have a big threatening dragon! This has even had a little nerf from a 4/4 down to a 4/3 as I initially thought it would be underwhelming. Turns out basing balance and design principles on removed logic without probing the precise context too closely leads to missing the mark! This is a very good card. Powerful reliable two for one on a significant body.
Fleabottom Assassin (cut)
Power 8
Design 3
There are some things to like about this card but it is one of those that falls to the logistic challenges. It is not clear just from reading it how many counters this gets to apply, nor when. Is it two bounty counters or three (that usefully kill dorks), and do you get one for becoming level 1 etc? At two counters this is OK in terms of power balance but it is a wildly swingy and unfun card. This will three for one with tempo if not answered but a simply Shock will answer it and net a four mana advantage affording a horrendous tempo swing in the other direction. The clear fix is to make it only ever able to bounty up one creature and adjust the costing and wording accordingly. That will solve the ease of understanding issue while also reducing polarity. I have not worked too hard on this one though as the problems don't end there. I am not a huge fan of the level up mechanic aesthetically, I thought I was a fan because when it first came out I loved it. Since then we have had plenty of cards that allow a degree of mana sink and so that unique aspect of levelers is no longer such a draw. Lastly, this has that Seal of Answer aspect of being no fun to play into. A few too many moving parts with this one made it hard to get right on the first couple of goes and seeing what kind of card it is to become makes me reluctant to try much more at it.
Flickering (retuning)
Power 9
Design 4
This was my attempt at an Ephemerate and it missed pretty hard, somehow managing to be more oppressive! The original version is shown here but I have fixed it somewhat by adding a W cost to the flashback. The first cast of this is pretty damaging, the second free one is just backbreaking. This card protects against spot and mass removal. It works with all permanent types. But mostly it just copies EtB triggers for massive value and tempo. This is the sort of thing white players like to do so it doesn't need anywhere near this kind of pushing to make it playable. I was copying Ephemerate closely as it is one of the few popular white cards to play with because players enjoy it and are drawn to it. Even with a significant nerf this still clocks it at a healthy 8/10 on the power rating and is still closely being watched. There are some scary EtB triggers out there making this represent one of the most reliable means of getting an effective mana advantage.
Flickering Spirit (cut)
Power 2
Design 1
Attempt at remaking Blinking Spirit. The question is why one would do that. The card never played well. Why am I trying to power creep a badly designed card? And why did I then do such a poor job of it? This is too limp to be worth the cost at any point, so what if you can save it? And yet there was I thinking it might be too good and slapping on limiting stipulations regarding buffs. If you could still stack damage this card might look a bit more viable. I can lose the last line of text and add a toughness and it still wouldn't be good enough I don't think. But that is well and good because as soon as it is "good enough" it sees play and people get to hate it and being around it. Quickly. I could do a better job on this but I am not going to bother as it is never going to be a fun card.
Floral Fortitude (retuning)
Power 7
Design 5
Part of a cycle of dorks with this effect and a colour pie appropriate key word. The cycle came in the second print run after learning how thin and in demand the top end was. This one was the clear best of the cycle with trample making it quite the threat and green making it quite easy to achieve the devotion. Higher devotion makes them less interesting and dynamic, and without varying the number from colour to colour a higher devotion makes a lot of the others unplayable. The way to bring this one to a more reasonable power level is simply hit the stats, either a 6/6 or 6/5 feeling like the way to go.
For the Horde! (cut)
Power 8
Design 4
I was fond of this card in terms of flavour and nostalgia however it was the first to highlight a problem with my design philosophy in general. Turns out game logistics are a thing and I had not considered them at all in design before we got to the testing stage. Up steps a card like this which has an impressive amount of power to offer and so it gets a bunch of play. This healthy dose of play on a card that makes six distinct tokens shows quite what a phaff that can be. I very quickly sourced a load of tokens but that only half solved the problem. Turns out creature tokens really want to be X/X not X/Y, and ideally fully vanilla too. This lets you easily represent them with dice. All the tokens here are lopsided in stats and have keywords making it essential to have properly made tokens so as to keep track. Much as I like the card and felt it played well, and even with all the supporting tokens, it is just a lot for one card, a bit like the various enter the dungeon stuff or the lesson/learn stuff. The novelty doesn't outweigh the extra effort required. Now in designing I am a lot more cautious about what range of tokens I'll put on a card and the potential ways to clean up cards that dump out a load of game pieces. This card was a very large lesson card and did great work in steering the direction of the homemade cube. It would work well on Arena! But we can do better for an irl game.
Force Shield (banned)
Power 7
Design 1
One of my biggest misses on design. This starts life as a hard to interact with stopper of fun. Cards that prevent things other people are trying to do are unpopular. This shits on your day and then slaps you in the face with that final extra hurdle time walk mode tacked on at the end. No one wants second helpings of shit and that is all this offers. This isn't oppressively powerful, it is just the worst in terms of game play.
Forgettery
Power 6
Design 8
One of the things I enjoyed most in this project was trying to make interesting and fair versions of core types of cards. The sidegrades on Llanowar Elf, Thoughtsieze, Shock/Bolt and all that good stuff. Hand disruption was the hardest of this group to do but some of the most satisfying when it pays off. Hand disruption is already on thin ice when it comes to card design and is hard to get right. It doesn't take much before a card goes from being an all format staple like Thougthsieze and Inquisition, to a comedy card that sees no play. Further to that they have a dodgy play style that can make them even more awkward in a limited setting. With all that in mind I am relatively happy with this bad boy. It has the floor of being a slow cantrip Peek making missing not the disaster it usually is. It also technically has the ability to snag any spell making it never a dead card and the issue for things like Duress. Lastly it adds a layer of complexity by making you think about the types of cards you might want to hit or have the best odds on hitting. It is somewhat harder to use than most discard spells and so it is yet to see as much play as I think the power of the card commands. Perhaps I am just biased, Cabal Therapy is one of my all time favourite cards and this is about as close as you can get to such things and have them viable for a cube setting.
Formation Fighters
Power 6
Design 6
I am quite pleased with this card, it is about right on power level, very white in feel, and arguably interesting and option rich. That being said, it doesn't get tonnes of play and doesn't seem to excite anyone. I put this down to more of a problem with white in general than this card. It is a colour that I struggle most to make fun cards for and it very much seems if Wizards have the same problem. The real reason this is not coming up all that often is that it only really wanted by the player trying to use anthems in their deck and they only have room for a couple of cards this pricy. It is vying for a very small sector of the market. For this kind of card to crop up lots you need to make it over powered somewhat and I would rather not, especially where protection is involved. I have seen this used as a stabilizing board control card that does have the capacity to sink mana and push through for both midrange and control. It is fine in flicker decks as well with a decent value EtB trigger. A very middle of the road card being fine in several places.
Formulate (banned)
Power 5
Design 2
Same as all the other catch-up cards it would seem, certainly those beginning with F! Cut because we don't like the mechanic but not missed because it is such a well covered core card effect. I like this less than most of these cards as the range is most felt. There are a lot of decks that are happy to play one mana card quality with rather fewer happy to play two mana card quality. A kind of polarity that is extra bad on a catch-up card!
Fort (cut)
Power 7
Design 5
I have nerfed this down to only giving a +0/+1 buff to an untapped dork as it was being surprisingly potent. The Fort really acted like one! It was a bit too much of a free upside on a mana rock. And given the mana hungry nature of the format this mana rock was seeing continual play and consistently perfoming well above expectation or what is reasonable. While still good the scaled back version is a lot more reasonable. I have also eased the demand on mana rocks such that this is a lot less played. The colour demand in the cost is a real turn off when faced with some choice. Where I sit now is that mana rocks with a colour requirement on them are a lot more limiting than colourless ones. It was an interesting exploration of design space but it isn't optimal for a cube to use them. This is a parasitic card, and while only in a minor way, it doesn't need to be and so I have cut it and those like it.
Fountain of Youth (cut)
Power 4
Design 5
A very bland and vanilla card. I like the way I made a Chromatic Star style card that is good to sac but that breaks the mould on being colour fixing. There is some cool tension between getting you card and gaining life and/or giving away life. The problem is that this is too minor of a card, you need synergy to have any reason to consider this in most lists. A super slow control deck may look at this but only if they have a means to recycle their used cards as this is too low impact and deck thinning otherwise. I would need some kind of lifegain payoff for this to get much attention I fear.
Fragmented Grassland (reworking)
Friend of the Small (retuning)
Power 8.5
Design 6
I had to doc design points as I failed to use art that is otherwise commonly used. Also in need of a nerf as it has been too much card. Mostly that is the fault of my eagerness to make tokens. This guy has copied a 4/4 Angel too many times! Nerfs include making a 3/3 and/or removing one of the populate triggers, probably the EtB one. The card already offers value with the adventure so adding more reliable value seems over the top. Generally pretty pleased with how was able to use advanture modes to make abilities like populate a little more consistent and thus playable. I love the flavour of this one and look forward to his return to the fold once appropriately powered.
Freebooter (retuning)
Power 8.5
Design 5
This is just too much convenience in one card. It is a perfect tool to curve with and offers too much back in return. There is just almost no downside to this little dork. However you wind up using him he assures your early turns are useful. I will drop the toughness to 1 but I am not sure even that will be enough. The fix following that is making the cost RR or perhaps even gold but at that point the card feels a bit ugly or is too hard to play in many decks. I do like that red sets itself up more with treasure cards than cantrips with their early plays. Generic Esper two drops are typically ones that gum up the board without costing you card resources and it is nice to have some variation. This card will at least avoid some nerfing/cutting because I like what it is doing.
Freyalise's Device (retuning)
Power 9
Design 6
Colourless Pernicious Deed, the only nerf compared to Deed being inability to instantly use. No real problem, deploy this and leave it sat there as a threat. An incredible and powerful control tool that does let most of the colours play control but can also be a bit oppressive. I would rather give more counter play options to this than nerf it but something does need to shift as this is very much on the edge of becoming too much. Best and cleanest plan is to tac a mana on the cost. Cleanest to do on the casting cost but much more of a nerf than putting on the activation. Probably try the former and coming in untapped as a mild consolation to the significant price hike. This is absolutely the kind of card that needs to be on the low end of power
Frog Song (cut)
Power 7
Design 2
While cute this is too narrow in scope while offering a bit too much free utility. This somewhat breaks the game, if and only if you are a Simic player. Being a one off you cannot just lean on it to be able to cast really heavy blue spells in your green deck. It is a bit Arcum's Astrolabe but instead of universal playability it is a parasite on cube space. Being green I dropped the mana cost on this one from two to one. There are other cards like this but this is easily the most unreasonable of them. They alls eem cute and inoffensive but they are strong candidates for being banned rather than cut, for what little practical difference that will make! Doubly dodgy as I think I made 3 out of a possible 20 resulting in a very lopsided cycle...
Frontier Fort (retuning)
Power 5.5
Design 6
I rather undershot on power level for almost all of this cycle. They are very poor fixing and while not low powered manlands they are generally pretty low impact. This is pretty well on colour and on theme for Boros. It offers a pretty aggressive rate on damage output for mana input just by itself and it starts to look very dangerous if you are getting to mentor with it. This all just doesn't happen often enough to harm your mana base for in all but the clean and crispest of mana bases. I think I'll throw an extra stat at this, a one toughness land is pretty terrifying to animate and super hard to attack with. A 2/3 might even be preferable to a 3/2.
Frost Elves (cut)
Power 4
Design 3
This felt like I was being all clever in design but in practice this is not a clean card. People would play it if forced to but generally it was avoided because it was confusing and unpleasant. I felt like it offered choice in an interesting way but it is all just a bit awkward. I'll likely have another crack at a one mana dork than can tap for two but it will be cleaner and remove the convoluted choices. It will certainly be more than a tweak away from this. While this card can offer some impressive burst it is sufficiently late on that you can just achieve that same burst with a couple of ramp spells with less risk and more flexibility. The power simply isn't there. It affords less returns than a Llanowar Elf making it a bit hard to get overly excited.
Frost Mage (cut)
Power 4
Design 4
Little Man-o-War. Surprisingly not that exciting. It sits in a sad place between value bounce and tempo bounce. You don't feel like you got a cards worth of value as a 1/1 isn't much of a body and a bounce isn't often value. Equally the tempo is unimpressive, Unsummon has it well beat there with a load of trickery to boot. This card is fine but you are only playing it if you lack low end, have real uses for the body, or some other abuse like ongoing flicker. Tap and stun counter would likely have been more thematic but more of a side grade than the power up this could use.
Fruit of the Forest
Power 7
Design 4
Eight is a punitive amount of life against aggressive decks while being of little use most other places. I have tuned this back to a mere 5 life gain and it seems a lot more reasonable as such. Mostly you play this as a land in your deck but it adds a bit of utility. After testing the first set of one mana basic land cyclers I found them to be a really positive impact on the format so I flooded the market with them to see what point they stopped getting endless play. It feels like about three per colour is a nice place to be for a cube. As to what kind is another matter. The situationally useful but overly narrow stuff like this is a bit polar but equally, it is one of the better ways to get some kinds of effect represented in a cube like format.
Forest Guidance
Power 8
Design 6
A homage to Guided Passage. While this does much the same thing, it does so rather slower thus allowing it to be reasonable in a single colour. Slow pace is not so problematic when the land comes first and you are trying to extend the game somewhat, else why are you in the market for drawing cards? All told a very convenient little three for one that affords zero tempo. This is the card that most made me want a key word for this effect, a kind of cascade type into draw rather than casting. Seek feels best but got pilfered by the online only cards I think. If this recurring mechanic were keyworded this card would have 9 words, of which two thirds would be "seek" and "a" making it a very very clean saga indeed!
Forest Wall
Power 7
Design 8
A sidegrade on the classic Llanowar Elf. While this can help a bit curtailing aggression it is only able to hold off something small and only if not used for mana. This makes it overall a somewhat worse body than a Llanowar. It is at least rather more durable in the face of things like burn and that makes up for the lost utility of a powered attack-able body. This little card hit every metric I was aiming for in initial brief, the only reason I have not rated it higher on the design front is that it is just a bit, basic, obvious and unimaginative. Doesn't stop it being one of my favourites! Delightful art helps with that rather.
Fungus Forest
Power 9
Design 6
One of those experiment cards. Looks like there should be a cycle of these but I didn't bother as I fully expected this to be too good. I was expecting the various substantially weaker versions of this land to be too good too though and they were way off good enough, which is why we wound up here. This is a 3rd print run card dipping in a toe just to see. This is ramp, card advantage, and fixing. It has the fixing and value of a Ravnica bounce land and then it has the gall to effectively ramp like some Ancient Tomb as well! The cost for all this? Just coming in tapped and stating tapped. That equates to a mere two mana, only double the price of a conventional EtB tapped land. Now, you could argue that this is the exact same as just playing an Explore, and it is this logic that convinced me to try it. And yes, so far this card has proven a lot more reasonable than I would have expected. However, it still feels too good. I still throw this in the green decks and I laugh when I have land untap effects. If I were making a cycle of these it would just be the green ones, that would do a nice job of filling in from the six non-green Powerstone cards. If the format sped up to current cube levels then I might be able to more reasonably get away with these lands. At the current pace they are just too much free value. They are too convenient just to pop in. I am not sure if I could suitably balance these and keep them neat and clean. Making them more like the Poswerstones with exert to use the two mana mode and a colourless mode is a direction, as is the Ancient Tomb life payment. I might look at such things if the card feels like it is actually wanted in the format and makes it a better place. Certainly an interesting, informative and thought provoking experiment even if I don't wind up with any double lands in the format.
Fury of the Gods
Power 8
Design 3
Six is likely the correct costing for instant speed mass removal. I have since made this triple white in an attempt to calm this down a bit. In a world of vehicles, haste dorks, and manlands the humble sorcery speed Wrath is an underwhelming card. This card feels like Wrath used to feel, back in 2005, when the board lay still and you gained value and tempo and a window in which to take over the game. I may well end up cracking and have to made this a six drop, or at least model as it is done on Route, but appropriately power crept. This is one of those cards that would be fine in other cubes but is that bit more playable and punishing in the homemade cube.
Futile Fugue (banned)
Power 8
Design 2
While not directly as powerful as an instant speed Wrath this is a disheartening card that blanks a lot of the opponents stuff. It is not a feel good card. Not only can it ruin an opponents day, it is quite the polar card and can just as easily wind up ruining your day. Have no dorks while getting your face smashed in by a 6/6 and spending your turn to curtail those beats down to a 5/5 and it doesn't feel like you did all that much. This is one of those cards that should seem fair if you look at it purely with logic and game mechanics. As soon as you bring feeling and experience into the picture this quickly and clearly becomes a full on red flag of a card. If you don't need something and it makes things worse then that is the easiest cuts you are ever going to make.
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