Sardaukar (side lined)
Power 5
Design 7
Periodically I would just slap two obscure abilities with an overlap that I had not used yet onto a card and then try to see if I could make that resonate. This got a bonus one for free! Graft is handy in that it just works with dorks and counters and that represents a lot of what goes on in cube and with magic mechanics. Outlast was the starting place as a thing to work somewhat with graft and tick a few things off. It was a bit dull at just that and turned out to be a good place to tuck away a spot of heroic fairly harmlessly. I like how this panned out but it doesn't quite have the raw power to see it better than a support card and, in turn, it doesn't quite have the archetypes out there yet that want what this offers. Persist is the best thing to use this with as it can perpetually reset them. This is all well and good but there needs to be a bit more payoff and a bit more high quality incidental payoff cards like Walking Ballista kicking around too for this to have much chance.
Saheeli's Bauble (cut)
Power 3
Design 4
Turns out having a two turn delay on your card is incredibly painful. If you need action and you draw this you basically never play this card again. Draw it early and it is a free energy and that is great, perhaps even a free energy and a prowess trigger. Pleasant free mild upside however is not worth soul crushingly sad late game top deck. Further to that, the format really doesn't need more wheel spinning do nothing cantrips. I was sad to cut these but they are very much the sort of card you want in a constructed setting, not a limited one.
Samuel, the Officious (retuning)
Power 7
Design 4
I got a bit lost on the way with this one and made the card a little messier than I would like. I realized too late in the design process how broken this could be with certain sagas and had to fix the +1 in a really clumsy way. I had become too attatched to the card and couldn't move away from the design so forced it in a way I now regret a little. I didn't ever really fix the saga issues as you can still get multiple back to back same stage saga repeats easily, and that is still pretty broken with the right ones. Further to all this issue with the +1 the -2 is also a problem, mostly due to quite high starting loyalty. Being able to back to back take things out has proved pretty crushing. It is no Dack Fayden but having this come out on curve and kill a mana rock or some such is brutal. I am now tempted to try and rework the first ability into some other card and just give this a passive activation cost reduction for clues. Certainly a lot cleaner. Whatever I do, I need to adjust the starting loyalties and the disenchant costs accordingly such that he cannot do two back to back off the bat. Either -3 to use if starting at 4, or more likely stay -2 and start with 3.
Sanctifier
Power 7
Design 6
This is played an awful lot. It just kills things super effectively and is on useful legs. One of the best things to flicker, really good to recur. Clean, pure, and suitable. The power isn't off the charts by any means, it just does the thing. While it is on the more boring end of things I am OK with that as it is such a reasonable and interactive card. It doesn't feel nice when the game goes on a bit and they find ways to abuse it, you feel like you have lost when this has killed more than one thing in any given game. Worse than just feeling like you lost, you feel like you got a bit ripped off! Mostly can't complain at a card that is so simple, so reasonably powered, and such a staple in the format. Sounds like that is a win.
Sanctuary
Power 7
Design 6
This can just be a green counterspell. Hit the right removal spell and that is game over. That doesn't tend to be how this plays out, mostly it is a forest, but it is a nice dimension to add. I like non-blue colours having a smattering of this kind of thing. It keeps people honest and lets other colours play a more involved game. This originally cost one but at one mana the blowout potential was far too great, it is already an inherently swingy sort of card. Two mana is still reasonably pushed but presently that feels OK. This feels a bit whiter than green but at least not outside the realms of a green card.
Sand Dancer
Power 7
Design 7
This is now a 3/1 and still remains the aggressive red players favourite means of having late game value. This even gets play in control decks where it is an OK thing to flop out on the board or discard and use in a fairly cavalier way that still gives you a mechanism to usefully convert late game excess lands into gas. Board presence early and something to do late is basically all bases covered and so despite clearly leaning on the aggro side of things this guy gets about in all the archetypes!
Sandstorm Ambush (cut)
Power 2
Design 2
A bit of an aimless card. Situational too. I was aware there was a lot of creature tokens in the format and wanted to calm that down a bit. Sadly I just totally missed the mark with this card. Not only is it conceptually not well considered but it is also executed poorly. No desire to "fix" this. I think I missed so far than any fix to this card will result in something that has no real relation to this card.
Sapphire Dragon
Power 5
Design 6
Part of the cycle of six mana dragons named after their Mox colour. This is a popular one but not a very impressive one. It is slow to do all that much and doesn't offer the sort of thing you want on a big dork. I want big spells to finish the game, I can get card draw far cheaper and in such a way that it will help me get to and play my big six mana spells. This isn't even value and threat, it is a big sad or. Sure, you can pump a load of blue into this and do a bit of everything but that is more utility than anything else. The efficiency isn't wild. Ward 2 is nice but on a six drop it isn't the protection you want it to be. Spot removal will still tend to favour the one doing the killing on a ward 2 six drop. People however like powerful things, they like drawing cards, and they like big flying dragons. We are all playing Magic after all. And so despite being lack lustre in function and power this badboy gets a load of action. He draws some cards, attacks a bit. Magic continues, choices are made, and players seem happy so that all seems well and good. I'll leave that all well alone.
Sara, Sulky Selkie (retuning)
Power 7
Design 4
A little lopsided due to one of the +1 being outstanding and the other being unimpressive. Quite probably these should be 0 on the stun and +2 on the scry. Being not only gold but also Simic has resulted in this being the new card I have seen the play of least. It is a fairly generic walker you are going to stick in most Simic decks, even those with three or more colours. Cheap planewalkers are typically quite good, they can snowball win a game if all goes well and are usually acceptable at the floor. The floor here is effectively 3 mana draw a card and take at least two damage away from something else. Not impressive but decent for a floor. I like this one, with the loyalty changes I think it will be super reasonable, almost a bar to compare other walkers to for balance. That being said, I am not sure how well she will play. Tapping dorks isn't all that fun.
Savage Baloth
Power 6
Design 7
Clean simple green beasty. Penumbra is the value guy, this is the tempo one. Green 4 mana 4/4s feel really on point, 4 life from a Baloth is on point. All round just a clean card that does enough to be quite playable.
Savannah, Lana Ding-Dong
Power 6
Design 6
Value, mana, life. This little lady does it all, and yet remains impressively fair. She is very gentle and small in the things she does, none of which protect her. She can be ignored somewhat or killed with relative ease as you see fit. A very green feeling card. Turns out you can get away with a lot more on walkers when they don't protect themselves. Even if you just drop this down, get a land and then lose her to an attack you don't feel bad about it and that is pretty much the floor. Often enough this winds up being a land or two, a chunk of life and all while ultimately mana positive!
Scavengers (cut)
Power 1
Design 3
More than one problem here. Bit of a do nothing, and rather lacking in power. Could be viable if an appropriate synergy were suitably pushed. Generally a bit better to have cards that are a little more playable in their own right for limited settings and so I don't see there being much chance of me returning to this.
School (cut)
Power 6
Design 4
One of those ideas that is fine, a bit different, but that just has better solutions. Colourless mana rocks are just always going to be superior for the health of a cube. This was actually quite impressive card quality and put in a good shift. One of the best in the cycle which came as a surprise. This could be scry 1 and still be fine. Regardless, I have replaced it with wider appeal tools because the needs of the many outweigh etc.
Scragaldy Dragon
Power 8
Design 6
This dragon is more Phoenix than dragon! The egg now also requires RR to sac which helps keep this a little calmer, originally it was just a tap! This is a large flying dork with recursion and a very useful mana sink. This solves a lot of problems and can end games slowly through resistance or quickly without. Cards like this have somewhat highlighted the need for more reasonable graveyard interaction. While I have managed to significantly speed up games with my tweaks and new cards there is still a real tendency for the late game winners to be those who have yard based stuff and dodge disruption for it. One of my more complicated cards but I am reasonably happy with that on this one. It is relatively flavourful and performs its job well.
Scrap Catapult
Power 9
Design 7
This was a bit of a sleeper at first but is slowly establishing itself as one of the premier cards in the set. It was modelled on Goblin Bombardment. The intent was to keep it a bit more contained and reasonable with an effective activation cost to use each turn beyond the first. That was a nice design, it does help keep the card interesting for all players. I did however increase the range of fodder to include artifacts, and it turns out I also made a bunch of stuff that just churns out artifacts. As such this thing is very easy to run in any old deck and can be supported with ease. It can even toss itself making it not even dead when lacking any support. Sac outlets are real handy to avoid exile effects, fog things like lifelink, and countering spells with bonus effects but just one of your things as a target. This is disruption as much as it is anything else. And it is also a great reach card to end the game and a good support card to empower some of your other cards.
Scrapper (reworking)
Power 5
Design 6
This probably wants to be a four mana spell, at five it doesn't quite have the punch. At four I am either making him a 1/1 or making one less Servo on EtB. His power is fine, it is just that suitability holding him back. This has seen a reasonable amount of play both in energy decks and artifact decks. It is a good utility sort of card. It is not a great threat, it doesn't push damage through that well and that can be a bit of an issue for such a high end card. Scrapper brings support for other artifacts, decent defensive board presence, and some ongoing value. All good things. The reason Seige Gang Commnder works in this slot is because you can attack more more profitably with the crew and even if nothing gets through the Gang can dish out 8 damage at face representing quite a lot of reach. This dude isn't reach and as such performs a lot less well in the five slot up against an array of scary dragons.
Scope Out
Power 8
Design 6
A busy an option rich card for one that has no non-keyword words on it. This is just a card quality spell but it is quite a hard hitting one. A land if needed which is a big part of the work you want from your card quality spell. If you are fine for lands and just want to curve then this is looking at 3 cards and giving powerful selection on those cards. Surveil generally better than scry and either better than the likes of Ponder when you must keep all or nothing. This is a one mana card quality spell that looks deep and lets you pick and chose a lot more freely than other cards of the same depth. It is even instant. Scope Out has almost everything going for it. The price for all this convenience? Investigate instead of drawing a card. Pretty steep but worth it. The saving grace being that you only have to pay for your card back when you are not island cycling. So, when you have the mana to spare you pay a costlier rate but not when not. That is a kindness that keeps the card as one of the more played card quality spells in blue. Some decks like artifacts and can put the clue to better use than just drawing.
Scour
Power 7
Design 7
A bit of an Abrade. This managed to hit a sweet spot of playability. I have typically hated removal that only hits tapped dorks, it is a real tedious clause. The perks of exile and the alternative enchantment hitting mode are just enough sweetener to get people to play this. It is interesting, it has some counter play to it while being a fairly clean and cheap card. It is hard to make removal interesting and playable. It is hard to make it balanced and simple. Somehow this does both. I didn't even put any real effort into this card, it was just padding out the ranks and it wound up being a real winner.
Scrototem (sidelined)
Power 6
Design 7
As yet the format has not consistently been aggressive enough or high enough tempo for this to shine. The power level still seems reasonable and so I will simply return this for another test and trail once I think the tempo is there. As far as the design goes this is one of my personal favourites. I love the art, the name, the effect, the potential. This card has it all. It reminds me somewhat of Black Vice, all be it a bit less punishing. Both can be scary early and rather less impressive late. This at least has rather more options going for it as to how it may be used. Sadly I fear that this is probably going to be overly polar and never play quite as nicely as I had hoped. Turns out that if you can give away a card of no relevance other than this it is utterly brutal. A kind of soft lock. The same is true of land late game. If everyone has enough mana this is just a very hard to stop card. Perhaps anyone can pay to destroy this, it is just the controller that gets to draw. That certainly fixes the issues encountered in testing but it might well be a little wordy to template.
Sea Charm (cut)
Power 2
Design 3
Just play an Island. That is mostly what this is doing. The other abilities are too narrow, low powered, and not inline with any plan blue has. This has all the same issues most of the Charms in this send find, with the added problem of being lower powered and less useful than most.
Sea Mist
Power 5
Design 5
One of the few cards I led with in a really underpowered form. No one likes getting Fogged out of a game. Fog can feel like Time Walk in the right situation and I didn't want people feeling all sad about the Time Walk land... At three this has Fogged little and impacted little but it has seen play. I am not sure I am in any rush to find out how it plays at two. Perhaps fine, but if not fine then certainly an unpleasant experience. While this works best in blue it feels more like a white card (mechanically speaking) and Fog is traditionally a green effect. Bit of a mess, perhaps a bit unnecessary. Nice to at least represent Fog in some way being such a core foundational card in the game.
Sea Seer (retuned)
Power 5
Design 6
I thought this was going to be all exciting and powerful. It is neither. I have buffed it to a 1/1 and the card still sees mediocre levels of play. As far as card quality goes this is slow and doubly risky. Either they kill it and you lose value, or you use it too much and waste too many resources to be able to win the long game. People are just playing one shot card quality over this. Or looting that comes without the risks or with extra perks. The other thing keeping this down is how little payoff their is for graveyard stuff. There is plenty that uses the bin but it isn't powerful enough to stock it solely for the purpose of that. You are best just using your cards and then going to the bin. Kind of stunned that I can lop a mana of Merfolk Looter and still not have a bomb, a card that was a staple in cube all the way till Looter il-Kor and remained playable all the way until Origins and JVP setting the new tone for a looter. Struggling to think of any two drop I have had in the cube ever that wouldn't be broken as a one drop. Starting to wonder if I should try and colour shift this to red or black? (mechanically at least, not giving them a merfolk!)
Seal of Affliction (cut)
Power 3
Design 3
Here we have a Rack effect stuck on a low powered card you might use to support the Rack. As such, this card tricks you into thinking it has self synergy. Use this to discard and lose the Rack effect etc. Certainly both halves should work usefully in deck built to do such things but that it is the realm of constructed. In limited this is a low powered card and/or a situational one. The only powerful thing this does is as instant speed discard allowing you to negate an opponents draw for the turn assuming it isn't an instant and that they are hellbent. So, not narrow at all either. So yeah, this is a potentially useful constructed tool but not useful in limited, and not really an interesting card in either. One thing I will say in favour of this card is that you can find some interesting tensions and self support by giving Seal cards some static effects. This is not the best example but it was certainly one of the first that helped open the door to more.
Seal of Aggression
Power 7
Design 6
I though putting fight on a Seal effect would solve it. Allowing for instant speed use, one mana deployment, and zero mana use all make fighting a viable removal strategy for green. Turns out a fight is still just a bit low powered and conditional for people to want to play them. Green found other ways to solve problems without having to resort to fight tools. I stuck forestcycling on this to encourage play and it worked but it hasn't resulted in much more fighting going down. Cycling a seals are a bit at odds, one you want to hold in hand and the other you want to flop down. Ideally this card would have both options being obtained via the same play path. It should probably go up to two to deploy as well as it is all a little bit free to play as it stands. Not even sure that is a problem given what it is actually trying to do.
Seal of Abundance
Power 7
Design 7
I like how this is just a Fertile Ground but in Seal form. I like how this is an interesting way to get a double mana at some point if needed. What I don't like is auras on my lands, it is messy and confusing. Don't know if other people have this issue? Not sure if it counts as a real issue but it does slightly harm my enjoyment of this card which otherwise seems simple, clean, and interesting. Generally if I am paying two mana for my ramp in green I want a nice secure land in play at the end of it and that is keeping this as a real fringe card.
Seal of Impulse
Power 5
Design 6
This is one of the best examples of a way to use a Seal. In many ways this is just a "plot" card. You are using the Seal aspect of this card to be mana efficient and to maximize potential returns when you do use it as returns for these kinds of effect will usually depend on available mana. This isn't a feel bad for the opponent, it doesn't sit there taunting them and foretelling their doom. This is card that works with itself mechanically while remaining clean and reasonable. Where this falls down is power level. There is lots of powerful draw in my format such that you don't need to risk cards like this. Red is also typically playing a bigger curve than it does in other cubes and so the odds on not being able to get a two for one with this are greater. Lots of big cycling cards in the format also hurt the reliability of this tool. I may try and find a way to up the power of this, perhaps just letting you exile three or something as I do like the design. Just unexpectedly weaker and narrower due to several combining and unaccounted for factors in the meta. Typical that the cleanest and best example of the Seal cycle just randomly struggles to get there on power level. Obviously great in the aggro decks but come midrange and control and it that playability drops quickly.
Seal of Learning (cut)
Power 2
Design 4
Had this in both investigate and just draw a card on sac modes and it turned out to not make much difference. It was mostly about the slow acting and negligible contribution to the power of a deck that saw this getting little to no play. The format is sufficiently consistent to not want this. In all situations people just preferred a card that did a bit of scry like things and drew the card in all one go and not this back loaded as much as you want but real slow card quality attempt.
Seal of Lightning (cut)
Power 7
Design 5
Big Seal of Fire. Not as oppressive as hard removal and counterspells but certainly more oppressive than Seal of Fire. This card is OK, better than most Seals but not something I would go so far as to call interesting or exciting. Burn it turns out is something I find relatively easy to design and something consequently not in short supply. That means I can rather cherry pick the most interesting and fun card on offer rather cutting into this cards chances. I have essentially reworked this into a card due in the 4th print run that is simply a Searing Spear with the plot mechanic. Plot is rather more reasonable being sorcery speed restricted and still counterable when deployed. It also provides some interesting tension as you can hold in hand and retain the ability to play at instant or plot it to use mana more efficiently. A simple rework looks like much the same card at face value but upon a bit of a probe it is better in a several ways.
Seal of Negation (banned)
Design 1
Power 6
This started as Seal of Negate and was one of the most horrendous cards to play against. I then tried to calm that down with a kind of Standstill vibe and ended up just making a total mess of a magic card. This has been everything from oppressive to a mechanical eyesore. Shame as I love the art on this one.
Seal of Rebirth (cut)
Power 6
Design 6
While this is technically one of those proactive help yourself Seals it is also a tedious I'm getting back the thing you just killed card. It felt comradery with its fellow Seals and became a feel bad card as well! Not too savagely. The main failing of this isn't low power or bad play or bad design but lack of support. If I had managed to get a slower Golgari base graveyard archetype going this would have been a lovely supporting tool that worked in all dimensions. I do really like this one and hope to reinstate it. This was used as a ramp card more than anything else which wasn't a problem but was not the intended design.
Seal of Regrowth (cut)
Power 5
Design 6
I thought this would do a little better than it did. Proactive Regrowth with a little sweetener of life for delaying use. The Regrowth two for one cards have been amazing but this cheaper option hasn't tempted anyone. The card just has no real reason to be played, and so despite being fine, it just isn't played. There are no cards so unique or so important that you need them back nor is there any shortage of more limited suitable Regrow effects. This fails simply because it is not needed. The power is fine, the play is fine (or should be) but it is just not the thing needed. Shame as I love the aesthetic on this one, look and feel are on point.
Seal of Protection (banned)
Power 8
Design 2
White couldn't let blue have all the tedious oppressive cards to hate one. This horror show is not a fun card. The only thing in its favour is that it supports aggressive decks rather than control ones and they were certainly the underdogs early on in the formats meta. It didn't play at all well, it was basically a hard counter to all the things you cared about and let you over extend with near impunity and thus would utterly overwhelm opponents. It didn't always work out, sometimes it came at the wrong time and not being a threat itself can result in it being a dead draw. This isn't holding any equipment or crewing any vehicles. This makes it polar, oppressive, and not fun.
Seal of Punishment (cut)
Power 4
Design 2
This is just a random flavour fail. I have slapped two red things on a card that is unrelated to this things. As such this does a bit of emersion braking and is just a bit of a general fail. The Seal aspect would be fine but it is suffering all the same problems as Seal of Impulse without much in the way of upside.
Seal of Splitting (cut)
Power 5
Design 3
Narrow and really dangerous. Set this up right and you can do some really gross things. Time Walks and X spells, the sort of things you should have to tap out for else they are a bit game ending! Mostly this didn't come off or see much play, but I fear than as soon as it started to it would become real unpopular. The main problem with this card is the polarity, often doing little or nothing and every now and again doubling up a massive spell and winning the game.
Seal of Souls (reworking)
Power 7
Design 5
Very little reason to have this as a Seal. It is a proactive card and as such you are cracking it immediately most of the time. Very occasioanlly you avoid over extending with it and just sit with it in reserve should they Wrath. All told this card just eats up extra time. It needs casting twice, once at sorcery speed, then again, cracking it at their EoT to resolve the effect. Might as wll just make it instant or sorcery and speed the whole proceedings up. I am fine with the card, a kind of power crept Raise the Alarm. A signpost white aggro card saying weenie dorks that attack and scale with buffs. The power is quite high but it does be a synergy card ideally requiring both archetypal support and direct support. This is not that impressive without some sort of creature buffs.
Seal of the Dead (cut)
Power 3
Design 6
Found a way to make Raise Dead a bit more interesting. Still just a Raise Dead though and if Seal of Regrowth is failing to make waves I'm sure you can imagine how underwhelming this one was. I will likely revisit this as I hope to do with the many mill support cards however I fear this one will remain too low impact and slow to appeal even in this fictional meta I am imagining. The issue is that this is a slow grindy card and a lot of the self mill payoffs want to be a bit more fast paced and punchy. This is no Stitcher's Supplier.
Seal of Vision (banned)
Power 9
Design 1
Jesus christ, if ever you wanted to feel violated by a magic card, play against this. What a cataclysmic error this was. I thought it was a quirky little Peek effect, but no, this is a full sex offender level of voyeur. In a slow format with relatively low random elements determining outcomes this is a bomb. Obviously with any information card, it is only as good as the skill of the people playing it, but I play with competent people who can ensure your plans don't work if they can seem them coming. Well worth that card investment. Although this can't be abused in the same way a free card can and so not as dangerous a combo tool as Gitaxian Probe I would argue this is far more oppressive on an information front. It was more unpleasant to play against and felt more restrictive. It is somewhat like playing in a soft lock, except it is basically free to apply said lock. Easily my biggest miss in terms of expected power versus actual result. Assumed this was innocuous and was quite taken aback at how antisocially this plays. I am somewhat shocked Urza's Glasses don't get more love, perhaps I shall try a pair out in cube!
Search for the Grail (reworking)
Power 8
Design 6
This is just a bit too good. It is a 3 for 1 with some tempo and some tutoring involved. I really like the art and flavour but do appreciate the need to tone this down a little in power. I think a bump up to four mana and then a little extra on one of the initial modes might be the right change. Much as this is one of the saga cards I do like most I am in no rush to fix it as there is quite the over supply on that type. Much as I love a saga they do want to be reserved for cards worthy. Too many bog down the game making it all that easier and more important to trim those not working quite right. This only makes 2 tokens and 1 shuffle happen which is relatively tame for a saga in my meta.... Kindof proving why I need fewer. Even so, it is more upkeep and happenings than most non-saga cards in the set. Important to get right if it is to be included.
Season of the Spider (reworking)
Power 9
Design 2
Speaking of sagas not working quite right... I was trying to balance this on Ishkanah and tossing in some power creep. I missed extremely hard. Spiders are a very defensive dork and so the normal drawback of saga being slow not so much of an issue here as wildly stabilizing. You almost always live to see this out and usually gain a pile of life, value and tempo in the process. 5/10 in stats spread across 4 bodies and all with reach is a long tedious task to wade through. They have a range of super efficient blocks and will take really efficient trades, like your 5/5 dies and they lose a pair of 1/2 tokens to take it out. Anywho, this is all too much. Not sure this is something I should put too much effort into trying to fix. I love a Giant Spider but too much spider is not a good thing for the game. The game seems healthier when the power is greater than or equal to the toughness where dorks are concerned. Too much the other way then we all sit around watching the paint dry.
Season of the Vampire (reworking)
Power 9
Design 3
While this is more powerful than Season of the Spider it is less oppressive. It doesn't shut down a game in quite the same way and so with a bit of toning down this has a chance of being a good card. At first I was reluctant to make the vampire smaller as it is a tribute to Sengir. Probably just making it a 3/3 is enough. I might go ham and cut a bat or a blood as well just to make sure. Cards this generically good in limited settings also don't benefit from high power level. They quickly become boring staples.
Segovia
Power 9
Design 6
Selesnya Command (retuning)
Power 8
Design 4
This is one of those just enough cards that looks a little narrow at first glance but plays rather well. This is a big blowout in combat and can pretty easily be free. It offers loads of utility and has really impressed. So much so it is going to cost five going forwards, and may need further toning down. The degree to which it can cause blowouts is sufficient egregious that a little calming is required.
Selqet (cut)
Power 2
Design 3
Low power, no real archetypal support, and boring to boot. Much as I quite like the various keyword gaining 2/1 dorks this one is coming up near the bottom of the pile. They are neat and cute but they are not exactly the most involved or exciting of cards and are slowly getting cut to make way for spicier offerings. This was one of the first to go and mainly that is just because black is really not about making cheap beaters. Only red and white seem to be doing that well presently, blue is 3rd best at it too! Black really has the least demand for the 2/1 one drop.
Sengir Socialite (reworking)
Power 8
Design 4
This was almost reasonable... I like aspects of the design concept but it is too good. The combo of being sac outlet, drain payoff, and hard to answer is oppressive. I am not sure the direction to go with on this one. The old 0/1 body seems like a good starting place but it is going to need more than that to get this to where it is needed. I am shocked this played as well as it did given how egregious it also is! Going to take my time with this one and will not be missing too hard in the mean time! I over supplied the market with Blood Artist support cards and so I can afford to cut some without any replacement or urgency on a fix. Cards that can be this level of naughty merit the extra attention to getting right.
Serengeti (cut)
Power 5
Design 4
Send to the Void
Power 6
Design 6
A fine catch all card with a kicker for being heavy black. You play this kind of card as insurance, when you are deficient in the removal department and need those answers. Or you play it when you are a mostly black deck and get quite a solid two for one removal spell that feels a lot like the black Cryptic Command.
Shadow Hunter (cut)
Power 3
Design 2
I was messing around with unblockable effects as a means to apply more pressure to planeswalkers. As far as testing the waters went I did relatively poor job. Especially in this one. Shadow is just a dodgy mechanic and this is no exception to that. The ability to remove it for a bit isn't fixing it enough. This in an uninteractive, low power, and niche card all at once. It is also a bit of a design mess.
Shadow Priest Class (cut)
Power 9
Design 2
The ominous inevitability of this made it a real pain to play against. A bit like those Seal cards. Ultimately this was stealing a guy and that was probably going to be too much. Sometimes even the sheild is a bit much... This was a very unfun card to play into. Even after nerfing down the level three cost to seven the card still felt oppressive. To make this viable I think I'll need to just drop the third ability for something else all together, perhaps Zombify. This is very much one of those cards I am in no rush to try and fix, it didn't play all that well and has a whole lot of text to plough through.
Shadowshock (reworking)
Power 4
Design 5
Black Shock! Decent enough cheap removal spell. Could probably be instant. Really does go to show quite how well the quality of cheap red removal is relative to other colours. This is perhaps a bit statementy and complex for what it is, which is cheap simple role filler, but it does play fine. Playing well is the main thing and thus far that has kept this just about going. I feel like a steep escalate cost on this would make it more interesting. Presently the tempo is not high enough in the format to get this any play, people just play much more reliable two mana removal spells. Things would need to speed up quite a lot for this to get play over your standard Go for the Throat style cards.
Shadowy Tutor (cut)
Power 5
Design 6
I considered doing a cycle of these but felt it wise to test the waters first in the most suitable colour first. Turns out without combo and with all that consistency there was scant need of tutors, especially ones that came with penalties. Ultimately I reworked this card quality concept from tutor form into card quality form in the "Incantation" cycle and they are proving a lot more popular and playable! Should I find a way to include some more combo like synergy this might start to seem Vampiric Tutor levels of good but I think that is a way off yet. Likely the sort of thing I would need to directly engineer.
Shady Snoop
Power 6.5
Design 5
While I don't find this to be the cleanest of designs this does play really rather well. A bad looter in black is apparently a lot more interesting than a good one in blue. That is a bit harsh, this isn't exactly a bad looter, it is just a cost adjusted one. Your first loot costs 2 mana like most other looters, it just comes a turn sooner and can be split up. It is subsequent loots that get more costly looking... If you are about the discard it is a lot better than most other loots! If you have artifact synergy or just other clues you need to pop then it is arguably better too. I have liked this card sufficiently that it makes me want to try making some more black looter style cards. Putrid Imp has always been a pet hate of mine.
Shallotodred (retuning)
Power 8
Design 5
Mini Sheoldred is still real scary. The life from this adds up fast and makes it a real threat. The escape on top of that is just fuel on that fire. This is a solid card you can play pretty much anywhere. Reach, sustain, and value. All good things, and offered in a way that can appeal to most. Happy enough with this but find the phyrexian mana in the escape a little over the top. Probably just make this five straight to recur and have it be cleaner.
Sheltering Spirits
Power 6
Design 5
Just a little Restoration Angel. Does all those flickery things and is quite a nice synergy piece. It is less powerful than the angel, just a less significant body that puts in rather less work once in play meaning you want a bit more out of that flicker. I would have expected this to be more powerful as the EtB is still the thing but apparently not. Really this is just a support card. It is fine, it helps but it isn't quite the card you might expect.
Shepherd of the Land
Power 8
Design 6
Big Golos like treefolk dude. This is a surprisingly rounded card. The value from the land is nice, the body is a good means to defend with, and the ability allows you to apply impressive closing pressure. This is the sort of thing you are looking for at the higher parts of the curve in cube.
Shield Mage (retuning and cut)
Power 2
Design 3
Not enough card to make waves in cube. Not only is blue not packing a tempo list that might want this, but even if it were I cannot see this making the cut. Perhaps with flash, or a little bit more in the way of stats. Neither a 1/1 nor either of the effects are worth a card, barely half a card, ensuring getting value from this is a hard task. A flash 2/1 might limp over the line and actually help a blue tempo deck. This soggy 1/1 didn't get a look in.
Shock Troopers (cut)
Power 7.5
Design 4
Quite an imposing little dork. Very hard to block, trades up incredibly effectively in combat. This is rounded enough that you just play it anywhere. Mostly it is an aggressive dork but the lifelink and ability to shock stuff give it more than enough power and scope to appeal to midrange and control too. Ultimately I cut this for being a bit boring and a bit parasitic. You play this when you can just on power level reasons. It is however just a two drop filler dork in gold which isn't great use of that cube spot. Practically I should remove the lifelink or the first strike but I am fine just ignoring this and replacing it with more exciting and deserving gold cards. The card is OK, it plays fine, it is the kind of power you want to see in a gold card and isn't too oppressive with that because it is gold. It just doesn't fit with my ideal design philosophy for gold cards as a cube curator.
Shockwave (retuning)
Power 8.5
Design 5
At instant speed this was substantially too good. Curtailed down to a sorcery and it remained strong but wasn't quite so dominant. A bit of a shame as instant is a lot more interesting and I have a larger bias towards sorcery in my burn than I would like. This is basically just a Firebolt now with a bit more punch to it.
Shocpt
Power 7
Design 6
Shock plus Opt... The name is a little jarring, should probably just be a real name and not some silly word play. Regardless, this is a nice little card. Slap a scry on a Shock and you have yourself a very reasonable card. Just one of those staple cards that power creep has edged out of viability which we have brought back into the fold with a nice scry subsidy. Scry is universally good and brings us that desirable consistency. This gets aimed at the face for no real added pressure, simply for that scry. Not loads, but enough to make it interesting. I have always hated Magma Jet. You have to pay for the scry there and get a sub par and off theme burn spell for your troubles. Here, you still get a burn spell that is just about on rate, such that the scry feels a lot more free. This just about straddles the line and becomes a burn spell and a utility spell.
Shrine of Clarity
Power 8
Design 7
Shrine of Control
Power 8
Design 7
Shrine of Devotion
Power 8
Design 7
Shrine of Growth
Power 8
Design 7
Shrine of Intrigue
Power 8
Design 7
Shrine of Life
Power 8
Design 7
Silted Delta
Power 8
Design 7
Simic Command (cut)
Power 4
Design 6
I designed this card a long time ago and it has just been power crept out of being at all exciting. This probably predates things like Treasure Cruise. Certainly Expressive Iteration. A draw two for two mana without any drawbacks or preconditions was pretty impressive back then, even if one was a land. Add a smattering of mild utility on that, make it instant, and you have a really high rate card advantage/quality spell. Fast forward to now and we have a card you are not playing because more powerful raw card advantage effects exist all over the shop and a gold card quality spell is pretty awkward. I like this card, I think it is oddly elegant despite being quite wordy. Sadly it lacks the power and goes against what I want in gold making it a pretty easy cut.
Shrine of Rebirth
Power 8
Design 7
Shrine of Retribution
Power 8
Design 7
Silver Citadel
Power 6
Design 5
Grove of the Burnwillows meets City of Brass. Oddly this card is pretty unpopular. The slow decks know how many life they will give away and the quick decks usually don't want to give any away. It does transpire that it is better in line with how you want to support aggro and control to have the cost of fixing paid in life of your own rather than in gains for the opponent. This would explain why there is so much free design space in the otherwise very crowded world of dual lands. This does see play but mostly in heavy gold decks or decks with really dodgy mana. Most seem to avoid running this if they can. Probably worth the slot it takes up being so universal, but it isn't a fun card or a very liked card so there is that against it.
Simic Confluence (reworked)
Power 9
Design 2
Utterly ruinous. Turns out Simic cards are really hard to do, either they are broken or they suck. Wizards have this problem too... This was too versatile and too convenient. You just get to six mana and then time walk whatever they do while clearing their board or filling up yours with 3/3s. Sometimes surprise 9/9, sometimes one sided board clear. Waaay to swingy for an instant. Very unpopular to those on the receiving end and rightly so. Presently trying this out with a much heavier colour cost (2UUGG) but it might need to become a seven drop or be reworked into a sorcery. None of these fixes are good, they are generally making the card more parasitic in a cube. This implies the card has some rather more fundamental issues and may well not be worth the effort of trying to fix.
Simm, Slow and Steady (reworking)
Power 4
Design 4
The only planeswalker to underperform. This just doesn't do enough. Energy is slow. Scry is low value and a stun is just stall. In a deck full of Wraths this has a place but it is still quite a vulnerable card. Wraths do not protect walkers nearly as well as you might hope in cube. I am working on some buffs to this guy but he is getting a bit overly wordy.
Simone of Sengir
Power 8
Design 6
I quite like a Zulaport Cutthroat effect on a walker. Different, interactable but removable too. This is a fine enough walker but it is a little polar. More to do with how cheaper planeswalkers function than the card itself. Simone has been on the fringes of too good for a while but then so have a lot of the walkers, I am hoping to edge my way closer to a slightly higher tempo meta where all the walkers are a little weaker. Should I fail generally, or somehow just specifically in Simone's case I will try and work this into a 4 drop. Likely the same but with kinder or more powerful loyalty rates and abilities. That will certainly stop the card being as snowbally, or just dropping dead to a bit of surprise damage. I could also downgrade the tokens into those 0/1 self harm gimps rather than go to four mana. Either way, the fine tuning of the walkers is something I'll hold off on until the format is a bit more consistent in power level.
Singing Trees (cut)
Power 6
Design 1
Sinister Altar (reworking)
Power 5
Design 6
I thought this was good but it does not seem to appeal. I thought it was good support for aristocrats builds and good general utiltiy. A kind of black take on Scrap Catapult. I don't know if it just wasn't given enough time to establish itself or what. I am going back in with a colourless design to see if broadening the scope attracts more interest and shows people how to use it.
Sinister Undertaking (retuning)
Power 8
Design 5
This is a kind of black Solemn Simulacrum. Some board, some value, ultimately about a 3 for one. This is much more them down than you up. In a world full of tokens and value this is not as impressive as it looks but it was still a little clean and easy to play. It was rarely ever bad and was sometimes back breaking. I have increased the coloured cost to 2BB so as to stop it seeing quite so much play. Last strike seemed flavourful and reasonable to use. It is only an unglued mechanic but it is functional and intuitive. I may use it some more as it has some intriguing and different scaling. It is impressive how much of a shit it takes on a dude. I think it is one of those things where by on smaller dorks it is more punishing. Certainly here it feels roughly the same as getting a 0/1 plant or a decayed zombie...
Sisters of Silence (cut)
Power 5
Design 3
I tried to hide the various lame effect things in gold. This was a Thalia style card and luckily it didnt get much action. Not sad about that, it would have likely been tedious and less than fun to play against. I don't love the way there is memory on this card either, seems inelegant. I should just pick a lane rather than try for this broad stroke approach.
Sizeable Serpent (cut)
Power 3
Design 3
I spent way too long on this one, I wanted to represent islandhome and wanted to do so on a card that wasn't unplayable, nor overly complex. This is OK but not good. It is just stats really, a good blocker and a mediocre attacker. Super easy to chump and unless whacking a blue player, only hitting every other turn. No dice. May go for a rework at some point as I do like a big blue fishy.
Skirk Caves (retuning)
Power 5
Design 5
Not enough punch, going to change this to a 3/1 or 3/2 and hopefully it will appeal more. A bit more power will make the menace work harder and payoff a bit better for that mana investment. As with this whole cycle, it wasn't the lack of power in the dork that was the issue so much as the lack of power in the fixing, I just plan on fixing them by adding power to the dork half.
Skirk Fanatic
Power 6
Design 6
The goblins of Skirk clearly pack more punch than their Mogg cousins! This is simply the original Fanatic brought upto speed. I thought this would be a bit more fun, interesting and dangerous that it is. What it infact is is a card that is entirely fine and reasonable and feels like we have always had it, or at least should always have had it. Without damage on the stack the Fanatic, of either ilk, is simply a much more reasonable card. This play well, is interesting as far as a one drop goes, and is pretty spot on for power level. The problem is more of familiarity. I have played a lot with Mogg and don't find this to be exciting. I can see this perfectly good card getting side lined for something a bit spicy or different.
Skirk Raids (reworking)
Power 8.5
Design 5
This is simply too good. It applies continual free pressure. It can snowball and win by itself, or it can simply facilitate your win by applying mild pressure while simultaneously stockpiling mana for you. I'm not 100% sure how to tone this down, it needs it but it is also the kind of card that seems sensitive to change, I fear I could easily make this unplayable with a seemingly minor nerf. It does very much need it, this got play in every red deck from aggro to control including as a splash card. That is clearly a whoopsie!
Skirk Salvagers (retuning)
Power 7.5
Design 5
This does the job it is supposed to do. It might do it a bit well. It is very easy to cram some artifacts into your own list so that this is counter ready regardless of your opponent. If you make this with a couple of activations up your attack is going to be pretty brutal. Still early days in testing for this 3rd printrun card but I may need to limit the ability to sorcery speed to stop it dominating combat. Good aggro and midrange card that performs an important role in the meta.
Skirk Scrap Skank (reworking)
Power 8
Design 4
I was trying to hit a kind of red Monastery Mentor vibe. I missed and made some kind of storm horror show Future Sight combo card. The simple addition of tapped to the junk made would do most of the work in solving this self fuelling card advantage engine. Once you slow the self fuelling aspect the card becomes wildly more reasonable and is probably fine. Nice little perk for artifact decks and prowess decks alike. Viable source of value from aggro through midrange.
Skirk Witch
Power 5
Design 5
I think I might have overdone the "Skirk" cards, certainly a lot more represented than any other part of the MtG world. This was part of the help the aristocrats push and actually one of the cards that I was most worried about being a little oppressive. Thus far it has not been found offensive of abused. Indeed, it is one of the less oppressive cards to come from that push. This is also a direct homage to Skirk Prospector, one of my favourite little cards. To my mind, the best goblin, the humble goblin at the heart of all the cool things goblins get upto. The power rating is only 5 presently but it could easily jump right to 7 or more once I work out how to use this or make something it is abusive with.
Skelion Suit (reworking)
Power ?
Design ?
I was trying to hit a sweet spot between Triskelion and Walking Ballista. I failed pretty hard. I have had multiple designs of this and sat with them for a while knowing they were wrong, either too good or too poor. Change one small thing and the card suddenly becomes the other. Certainly cheap damage sources in colourless pose an extra challenge. Any time I think I have a solution it reads like an essay. Practically I think we are going to have to lose the living weapon part ultimately. Just one of those cards that is taking a lot more work. Some I get right immediately, most I get right with a tweak or two, the odd card I fiddle with non-stop and never quite find myself happy. This is the latter.
Skillizek (retuning)
Power 5
Design 5
Just a dumb dork. The mild graveyard synergy is nice and will hopefully give it a nice little boost This is somewhat of a card you want in the three drop slot clogging up the works as a four drop. It simply lacks the raw power to really excite and therefor only occasionally gets play as top end padding. I have cut the cost to 3B to make it more appealing but really I need to make it a 5/4 as well to have it stand too much chance. The better approach might just be to appease the demands and make it a 4/3 trample for 3. It might need to be 1BB then, and the unearth cost becomes more of the question. Likely needing to be 4 at that point. To the more seasoned magic player it might be more obvious why the cost and stat line are as they are (Skizzik) but I am not above losing a tribute to make something function better mechanically.
Sky Captain (retuning)
Power 8
Design 6
I like this one, mostly because it is a novel way to have a white team buff, but also because I think radiance is a dodgy mechanic and I'm into this application of it. This iteration of the card is a little oppressive. Mostly because it is a really scary threat with other stuff and a surprisingly reasonable one by itself. This having flying makes it really hard to take out in combat and as such you can swing with your team, dump your whole mana into buffs such that you mostly trade boards and get some damage through, and then be in a position to quickly and easily kill them with the Captain. I am trying a version presently which just adds a white phyrexian mana to the cost of activation. This is OK but rather too minor of a fix. It certainly isn't enough to offset how ugly it is on the card. Better solutions would be a smaller body, be that 1/3 or 2/2. While a solution in the right sort of direction unless the life cost on the aggressive card, it is a somewhat polar solution. The card is the same problem when unanswered, just a bit easier to answer. I could make the cost 2W, likely a bit steep. I could allow it to pump both sides to stop it being so steep but I fear that could result in too much board preservation leading to new problems. I could make the cost 3W but make it +2/+0 just so that it was more awkward. That last of those sounds best but this is not a card that we need to rush a solution for. It might need to be renamed the Trumpeting Sky Captain if reworked to give the +2/+0! The imbalance isn't shocking as it stands and the play patterns are mostly fine. This is very much a card I wish to keep in some form or other, a white radiance based buff for mana. Hopefully the end result will not be wildly different from this.
Sky Charm (cut)
Power 7
Design 4
One of the very best Charm cards being a universally playable counterspell that cycles and with added extras. The creature mode is least useful and least powerful but when you do use it it typically saves you from otherwise certain death! Always a nice thing to have on your counterspell. Not only is this a playable cheap counterspell, it is a huge feel bad when it gets you. It is basically a messy Censor. A little bit universally played for my liking without it ever really feeling great for any of the players. Pretty reasonable power wise, on point flavourwise, just the other aspects of the card where design let it down...
Sky Sprite (cut)
Power 3
Design 3
A little do nothing. Flash adds very little. Ward basically just says buff me in some way. Without equipment or auras this is a pointless card. It presents far too little pressure or relevance. You need to scale those upsides and that isn't really what blue or cubes tend to be about. Pretty hard to force skies style decks it turns out. You are only likely to do so with overpowering cards or making some off pie things. This dork isn't the way.
Skycloud Canopy
Power 8
Design 6
Skywinder
Power 7
Design 6
Just a big flample Simic finisher. Nothing to clever or exciting here. It is big, it is recursive. It is evasive. Eventually it will get the job done and requires some sort of serious answer or a better clock. Obviously great in energy decks where you can have it be even safer or empower other cards upon arrival.
Slash and Burn (cut)
Power 3
Design 6
Apparently this is not what green mages are looking for, or at least not in cube. Four goes seems reasonable. You are getting 4 mana back for your one investment, and it is really hard to disrupt. Four mana is more than most elves and birds make. I don't know if this is actually bad or it is just a perception thing but it was very much the least played ramp spell. People just don't want to commit to the 0 for 1 on card advantage. I can't imagine Dark Ritual would do that well in this format either. I wonder if I made this red how appealing it would be? I don't think upping the counters to five would make an appreciable difference but there has to be a number where the card suddenly does appeal as an effective one mana Rampant Growth.
Slith Arctreader (reworking)
Power 4
Design 3
Firstly this shouldn't be RR, that is just nostalgia for the original Slith. The problem this card really has is an awkward mismatch of power and suitability. In energy he is a bit hard red and aggro, he wants to apply pressure and have plentiful little removal spells to clear the path. Then he can be super versatile offering a good supply of energy or a threat that is easy to grow, cheap to deploy, and capable of impressive burst. Outside of energy decks it is basically just a Slith with skulk and that is a long way off enough more card to keep up with 20+ years of powercreep! The other thing this fails at doing is being relevantly different or better in design than Longtusk Cub. Not only have I ripped off a card, I have made a less clean, less good, less elegant version which feels like a big error.
Sliver Colonist
Power 5
Design 6
I felt compelled to include both slivers and a WUBRG card somewhere in the set and this felt like a two birds, one stone solution. I'm not sure I really hit the mark with this card in terms of flavour but it does do some good representing! This card provided a fascinating case study of metagames if nothing else. In the very first release this was the power card. It was the most powerful of the top end game closing threats, which itself was the impressively tight bottleneck of the set. Fixing certainly wasn't a bottleneck. One of the main archetypes was five colour good stuff. The only two variants were really if this was main deck or companion! Fast forward even just to the 2nd print run and that bottleneck is sufficiently widened that this dork doesn't get a look in anymore. Plenty of the other decent original top end cards still do see play despite Sliver Colonist feeling better beforehand and getting none now. The difference between them is usually the effort. Other good cards typically just require you to be in the colours. This requires you to be in all the colours, and perhaps forgo mono cards. That was worth it when it meant you could add another high powered threat to your deck. Now it really isn't. Sliver Colonist is a village well and everyone needs to drink and so everyone goes to the well. But then along comes plumbing and pipes the water to you instead and no one goes to the well anymore. It isn't that water went bad, it is just easier to get other ways. This is a known facet of magic, I have just never seen it so stark and clear, so all or nothing in one meta change before.
Smoked (cut)
Power 3
Design 3
This isn't good enough unless you are hitting tokens, which in turn makes it too narrow and situational. To make this viable it needed to be Into the Roil where the kicker isn't needed to draw when targetting tokens. I'll rework this to be that if I find the format hungry for some more bounce in blue. Not something I have yet found to be the case.
Snake Stick Wiggle Witch (reworking)
Power 3
Design 4
Another bounce spell woefully underpowered. This card isn't super exciting but I really like the name and how it ties in with the art. As such I am trying to push this a bit and get it sufficient love that I get to say it a bit more. On the cutting slab presently I have this with an extra toughness and wither. Buffs certainly but not really super meaningful or helping directly with anything. It still looks like an aimless cheap dork, just a less weasley one!
Snake Surprise
Power 8.5
Design 6
God damn this card. Gets me every time. I designed it. I named it. And I lose to it constantly. I just don't seem to be able to learn. I have played 30 years of magic and it has conditioned me into not respecting green and its instant game. Arguably this card is a little strong. It is certainly on the swingy side. I would nerf it but it seems to keep my playgroup happy as it is seemingly always me on the receiving end of it. Bam, I lose my best attacker or two, traded for the deathtouch dork and they have a a couple of tedious snakes left over. I did have to make some tokens for this one as this produces multiple tokens with uneven stats and varying keywords. Without the token support this card uglies up and confuses a board state rather.
Snow Globes (cut)
Power 3
Design 6
One of the many iterations of Chromatic Star I designed and then found rather unneeded with the generally strong fixing in the format combined with a desire to avoid playing too much in the way of cards that just cycle off. I really like the feel of these dudes but they are clearly just a support tool and without strong synergies there is no need of them. Not entirely sure how they managed to dodge the snow frame treatment either now that I sit here reviewing them!
Sol Prism
Power 8.5
Design 7
I really like this but I think mostly because I like playing it. It is a little overpowered, essentially a Talisman for every colour that splits the cost up. Technically it does cost three total but as you can deploy it for one and get one back immediately it is coming online a turn sooner, and usually for effectively zero that it is very close to a Talisman. Indeed it has some perks, you can play your one drop, and a EtB tapped land on turn two while also deploying this on turn one as well. The Talisman would force more tedious sequencing. Much as this is likely just the best mana rock in the set it is not actually broken and does have some time where it is a bit annoying. I am disinclined to tweak it as it is such a different card while also being quite clean and simple. They wouldn't print this now, it would come in tapped at the very least. This sort of thing is just a bit dangerous in a world of Paradox Engines and storm combos. In my nice safe core set cube environment this is just a novel mana rock with decent power and a unique path up the mana curve.
Soldier Class (cut)
Power 7
Design 5
I originally tried to model this such that you could attack and equip yourself as it were, akin to how it worked in Hearthstone. Turns out that is not something you can template on a card, certainly not within the single level of a class frame... As such this was reworked to this which is workable and suitable and all that jazz but feels pedestrian by contrast. What I don't like about this card is that is it pure linear choices all the way in draft and building. It isn't even that interesting to play with considering it is relatively option rich and has a lot going on. Basically you play this in your Boros aggro and tempo decks. It is fine in all the metrics so you just get three OK cards for the price of one. The most interesting choice this card poses is if you can wheel it in draft when you are building some Boros list.
Solomon's Orb (cut)
Power 4
Design 5
We all need a Zuran Orb! This was more for me than anything else, I knew this wasn't getting play unless there was accidentally some broken combo with it. I started playing when Ice Age came out, Zuran Orb was everywhere. It was in every deck. It has just been such a strong and permanent feature of my magic experience that I had to give a nod to it. Indeed, my Orb is way more interesting and useful! It just isn't the sort of card you really want in a limited setting. A much more dangerous and eye opening card in the constructed world however. I look forward to trying some of those with this cube and seeing if I can break this one.
Soothing Incantation
Power 7
Design 6
This might be the second best of the Incantation cycle. Green has reasonable access to card quality which should reduce the stock in it however green has a couple of other things going on. Green likes to ramp. That puts strain on consistency. You are not just after curving spells and mana, you are trying to find a ratio of lands, ramp, and action. As such a card quality spell that greatly increases your odds on achieving the right balance of those things goes a really long way. Green can well afford the mana and needs the help. I am typically happy playing more card quality cards in my green decks than my blue decks, all of which ensure this gets a lot of action.
Sorcerer's Tower (retuning)
Power 4
Design 5
This is a little underwhelming as I balanced it on the equivalent statline and keyword combo on a dork not really considering the scaling implications of that on a land. When you are investing two to three mana in animating a land there are a few situations, either you are tapping out to pressure a walker on curve, or you are trying to stall a bit and not do stuff to over extend, or most likely, you don't have much else to do. In all these settings it is much harder than usual to sensibly trigger prowess and consequently the ability is worth a lot less on a manland than it would be a on a two drop with a comparable set of stats. So, we are going to simply make this a 2/3 and move on. It will then be a reasonable rate and have some interesting play to it beyond what a vanilla or static keyword manland might have.
Soul of the Earth
Power 5
Design 6
The concept for this remained the same but the numbers have moved about a bit. I had an 8/8 that put counters on to ping, that was OK but a little slow acting and not very threatening. This dude outputs damage a lot faster and ultimately rather more meaning he has to get a lot less done with the body. That is handy as a big body without evasion is hard to do to much useful with. Soul of the Earth is now just a big old Shock station! He might get a could of swings in for good measure, threaten to block etc but mostly he is just a big slow source of damage. There is easily room for some more power here. A 7/7 is probably OK, a keyword would go a long way. The best thing to do for a card so simple is to lower the cost. At five mana I think a card like this of comparable power level would see a lot more action, be it a 4/4 that Shocks or a 6/6 that pings or some point between those. The one issue this thing has is the relatively slow action. Sure, you get some "immediate" value but unless your Shock is landing hard the immediate value you get back if this just dies to a spot removal spell is negligible. Even if they untap and Wrath and you have gotten to use a pair of Shocks this thing still isn't wild value. You still really want to untap with this thing in play and that is why it makes a less appealing six drop than it would as a five mana rework.
Soul Spike (cut)
Power 6
Design 3
I feel like in some regards this is a technically well designed card. In others however it very much isn't. In the context of well suited to cube and fun to play it fails pretty hard and those are the most important metrics for the task at hand... As with any card like this, it is simply swingy and polar. The got you for one mana vibe isn't one that we want to do much of and this one certainly isn't one that is worth it.
Soulfire (banned)
Power 7
Design 2
Just a messy and unnecessary design. This is a wrong response to something being too good in a meta. Direct counters to things create polar swingy environments. Ideally just tweaking the conditions of the meta is how to solve problems like planeswalker dominance. This card is fine, I just don't like it. It is not how I wish to represent.
Souls (cut)
Power 7
Design 6
I mostly like this as does everyone else. That being said, I do not love the life clause, it is fiddly. This card gets load of play and probably does need a nerf beyond being a gold Bitterblossom without a life cost I just have yet to think of a better cleaner one than this. Much as this is a strong card it is not one that has affected games that much. I wouldn't attribute many wins to this card, if any. It is simply too slow acting and too reasonable to do the damage. None of the slow token generator cards performed well and I am sure it is just because they afford too much reaction time. This is starting to get a bit thin, it is seen often and is just a bit tedious. Not It is an odd cut as power is right, play is high, and the flavour is reasonable. I think people will just have more fun in a world without this.
Sower (retuning)
Power 3
Design 3
Love this card but I rather undersold it power. This should be at least a 1/2 and could probably get away with being a 2/1 too. Not entirely sure why this taps the plains rather than just costing W to use, somehow it makes it more flavourful, like you are using the land to sow into rather than extract mana from. Think I might like to rework this to a card that can return plains to hand rather than just tapping them. A bit more dynamic and interesting, although I don't think I have much in the way of Land Tax style cards to benefit from lower land counts.
Sower of Dread
Power 6
Design 5
This has been changed to a single target. It makes it much more of a Ravenous Chupacabra which is a bit boring. Boring is however rather better than periodically really swingy, which it was. Play this turn four and kill like three dorks and that game is likely pretty done. This had that Arc Trail of old vibe to it, but it kept pace with the game by scaling up too. All the various 187 dorks in the homemade cube are really popular and perform well so I do need to keep this on the tamer end of things which in turn keeps it in very familiar waters when looking at the various 187 dorks already in print.
Spectral Horizon
Power 8
Design 7
The Prismatic Vista of the set and consequently the best sac land. There isn't loads of synergies with sac lands but there are certainly some. More so than for most other types of land, and this is great fixing on top of all that. The only realm qualm I might have with this is that it is fixing that favours slower decks over quick ones.
Spellbind (sidelined)
Power 6
Design 8
This will increase in stock as tempo increases. I feel like this card would perform better in real cubes than it does in mine because they have higher tempo. I am really pleased with making a non-blue counterspell effect that feels entirely on the money as far as colour pie goes. And without being unplayable garbage! This is a Remand style card that goes hard on the tempo at the cost of value. It is less universally playable than Remand but it will have a real Memory Lapse crushing certainty to it sometimes when played to make up for that. This is a counter that hits anything and is almost always a hard counter for at least that turn, sometimes far longer. You are getting a whole lot of mana back from this unless aimed at a zero mana spell, in which case you are still breaking even! I also really like that other colours have ways to interact with the stack a bit more. That way always the issue with Naya colours back in the day, they were just so cold to certain things and made so linear and less interesting as a result. Much as this has a lot of game, it is not the game people want in the homemade cube. The white tempo decks don't really want to hold up two mana, nor concede card advantage. I will try and revisit this card when there seem to be places that might want it but for now it is just taking up space.
Spellsinger (cut)
Power 5
Design 3
This is really white but it is also really boring and mediocre. It isn't fun to play or to play against. The main design wiff for this one is failing to make the body at all worth having. This needed to be a slightly more relevant body and then the disruption would be a nice perk. As it is the whole packing has little allure. The disruption isn't worth the card, nor is the body and they combine to make a lack lustre spell. Probably this want to be replacing ward with something else proactive. The absence of fun from a card like this provides me no incentive at all to try and rework this into a more suitable iteration.
Spell Splutter Sprite
Power 6
Design 6
Remand but rather than a card you get a 1/1 flyer. Certainly less value but there is tempo and synergy on offer. The right sort of flicker can make this a soft lock. The right archetype can put the body to good use. Even just as a bit of stall it is totally fine and well worth that card disadvantage feel it somewhat gives. This is a worse card than the white Spellbind just reviewed and comparable in most ways. This however gets a whole lot more play because blue can afford wasting cards to gain tempo a lot more and often actively wants to. Further to that, blue loves to hold up mana.
Spelunking Expedition
Power 8
Design 6
This is one of the most played cards and that should come as no surprise. This just does it all. These are all good things but not the kind of thing that is worth a card. Combined they absolutely get there. Some card quality, some board presence, and some mana. It is like a Voldaren Epicure but generally better. Much as this probably should be toned down a little I fear it would rapidly soar past the unplayable point with too much tinkering, or at least wind up a bit clumsy. The only thing that jumps out as an option is a tapped treasure. The advantage of the treasure a bit sooner is that it can get you out of a bind. The later treasure is typically just powering out a big thing a turn ahead. Certainly the quicker treasure can do this too but why remove a safety net? Between the loot and the treasure this is likely sorting you out for early curving. The goblin tends to do the least but it is a footing and will either buy you time or help apply pressure as required. This ultimately costs you a card but in a format where value is easy to find the full spectrum setup and support this offers is well worth that card. It is the every man's Faithless Looting. I like what it does for the game and as such I am disinclined towards toning it down despite it clearly being one of those cards that is over the top on power level.
Spire School
Spirit Song (cut)
Power 8
Design 3
As with all of these, they were a bit narrow on the one hand and a bit convenient on the other. They sort of fundamentally break the game more than I expected. They look and feel lovely but they do not play quite so well in cube.
Spitting Hydralisk
Power 7
Design 7
Interesting card but also a swingy and cumbersome one. You really want to hold off on this till you have rather more than four mana. In turn that implies this should perhaps be scaled back to a three drop of somewhat smaller ultimate stature and initial counter stack! I have not been unhappy with how this plays despite those early accusations and so I have not seen fit to tinker. Having this killed before you do any relevant pining feels bad because you paid four for something and got nothing much back beyond probable tempo loss and potential value loss. When that happens to an incidental or bargain basement effect because the Hydra cannot shed sufficient counters in time you feel like you got bent over. This is why you often want to hold such that you can immediately do something. Not always possible and hence the clumsy. All told, a 5/5 and four pings for a card and 8 mana split is a reasonable deal. Good on cards, less good on mana. Great on options and directness. Nice pure stats and damage. Hard to go wrong. Even some cute synergies here and there. The odd awkward interaction for your opponent. Ancient Hydra was the inspiration for this, I always liked how that card played and felt like it could take quite the injection of power given how ancient it now is and how much creep has happened since then!
Stalemate (banned)
Power 6
Design 1
Standstill isn't the most fun magic card, it can be quite interesting, and people do love drawing cards, and so it has some merit. This, this horror design has no merit. Not in play at least. Either it is not doing much and just being tedious, or it is hard locking someone out the game in a devastating way. You see it coming, you then have to wait and eventually smack yourself in the face with it, ultimately losing to it in a long and desperately unfun way. The symmetry makes it narrow. The non-creatures makes it polar. The Seal style disruption makes it miserable.
Stampeding Herd
Power 9
Design 5
I wanted Overrun but slightly more playable. A mini Craterhoof Behemoth is predictably the end result. I have toned this down several times already and it is still one of the best tools in the format to end the game. I don't hate this iteration, and while it is still one of the consistently best performing cards I am now confident that as the meta shifts slightly to where I want it, this will sit where I want it in power too. You need tools like this. They are like keystones in a format. I used to think that was the one drops but they are much more akin to the foundations if we are sticking to architectural metaphor. In a format it is most important to have things as precisely calibrated and balanced around these pivotal keystone cards. I want this to be an 8/10 in the format and am well on my way to getting there.
Standard Bearer (retuning)
Power 6
Design 5
Lots of white dorks were given battlecry as a means to make for a more dynamic array of anthem effects for the colour. While anthems are the perfect support card for white aggressive they are also a little polar in that they do nothing at all without dorks. Putting anthem effects on dorks does lower their average power and reliability specifically as an anthem but it does also raise their floor rather and make them perform more consistently and interestingly. This dude does the job pretty well but represents rather more on the anthem side of things being quite small in stature but also having ward to keep it that little bit more alive. The stats are about right although this will be toned down to a 2/1. Responsible for some of the more explosive starts. While a suitable role filler card this is a little boring and a little polar, and as such it is a card I would happily replace. There isn't much to choose between this and an Accorder Paladin so not really pushing the untrodden. This is one of those cards where I am trying to design something that has already been optimized and so all my offerings are unexciting and feel a bit off. This just wants to be Accorder Paladin and can't be.
Steam Cart
Power 6
Design 8
Fond of this one although it is about as fillery as it gets. Got yourself a deck with a reasonable dork count? Then you can play this! This is sort of free value and threat diversity. The tempo isn't wild but it does a really good job of letting you extend without over extending. The power here is very reasonable, most of it is in the fact you are not paying card resources. The stats you get and the crew cost all leave a little to be desired. Despite that I find myself playing this a lot. I am never unhappy with it. It never feels like the game winner but equally it never puts up a poor performance. I love how vehicles play but it is hard to make them playable without giving them the living weapon treatment of supplying them with a ready made crew. The card draw here isn't quite crew but it does go a long way to making up for a lack of them. It lets you get away with a relatively simple and low powered vehicle design so you can just appreciate the simple mechanics of of how they play. It provides for a whole heap of in game options. I have considered dropping the crew cost to 1 but given how much I already play this it doesn't need a buff. Sure, it wouldn't break the card but if it ain't broke don't fix it springs to mind.
Steelforge Mystic (cut)
Power 4
Design 5
Low tempo, mild value, artifact tutor. All the various Trinket Mage cards up the curve in one. The low stats and broader target range here make this more of a tutor and less of a two for one. While this is a fine card that would see plenty of action in the right places I did not create the right place. Most of my artifacts are support or fill in cards. They are plugging a hole in your build or just being a mana rock or something. Few are your big win conditions and fewer still seem to be high synergy pieces you are trying to combo off with in some way. As such you just don't much want this dude. You want card quality in a cheaper and more generic sense, or some card advantage. And so that is what people did as neither of those things are in short supply. Steelforge Mystic didn't get a look in despite seeming pretty reasonable.
Stii, Foresighted (retuning)
Power 8
Design 6
People love Future Sight, slap it on a planeswalker. Jobs a goodun. Give it a scry to facilitate the passive and the potential to grow in loyalty, and some blue means to protect itself. This card basically made itself. I have lopped the scry down to being a +1 ability just to make Stii a little softer. While this is a lot of card it is quite hard to use well. Blue has a lot of instants and reactive tools that this isn't superb with. That keeps this a little more contained. If you could just fire off little white dorks or red burn off the top with this then it would be a whole lot scarier. Initially in design this cost 2UUU as another nod to Future Sight but this would harm the playability of the card in cube and so here we are.
Stiflevine (cut)
Power 7
Design 4
I knew that this was the kind of card that is a little narrow. I gave it cycling and cost it to be able to cantrip to solve these issues. This made the card playable but it didn't make it play well. The card is somewhat parasitic just sitting there taking up a gold spot and just being a bit of a might as well card. In play it is so polar, it never feels good, it is just one of those, oh, I had this, I didn't get round to cycling it off yet and you randomly walked into in a game losing way. So while this card is plenty playable and powerful enough for cube, it isn't an advisable include if you are looking for the best experience. This is too pure of a Stifle and as such is much more a sideboard card trying to be a real boy. And as we all know, sideboard cards are not great cube cards.
Stifling Sprite (cut)
Power 3
Design 3
Another card that is too much of a Stifle and not enough of anything else to do much in cube. This is more polar but less feel bad that the last one, either you get value with a stifle or you don't with a 1/1 flyer... This is mostly just unplayable being very low powered, situational, and the kind of card that isn't well supported by archetypes.
Stream of Fire
Power 7
Design 8
This is the card Magma Jet wishes it was. Look at cards or burn, but mean it when you do! While I do not love sorcery speed burn this can at least do stuff at instant speed thanks to cycling. While this isn't the most exciting of cards it is a role filler, it is very clean and simple and direct, and it does a very reasonable job. It is somehow option rich while feeling like a Portal card. It just makes games better. There are some spicier and more interesting burn spells kicking around but few as kind and playable and reasonable as this. It may seem super boring but I think cards like this are a massive part of why my cube seems to play so well.
Strength in Numbers (reworking)
Power 8
Design 6
This is a really dangerous card and should probably be Negate and not a hard counter. The only thing stopping this being brutal in my cube is the lack of heavy blue creature decks, especially those trying to take advantage of tempo. This gets pretty cheap pretty quick in the right deck and is about as swingy and brutal an interactive card can be throughout the mid and late games. This is one I am keeping a firm eye on even after downgrading it from a hard counter to a Negate! I do really approve of blue counters that somehow need or scale up with dorks. Flare of Denial is a really interesting and well designed card, and with free counters, that is a near impossible task! This is no Flare in power or design but it along the right path and that is to be approved of.
Strip
Power 6
Design 7
Just a slightly better Ulcerate or Disfigure. Card is reasonable cheap black removal that feels pretty on point. As tempo becomes more important this will rise in value. Perfectly fine as it is but often over looked for more reliable harder removal in the current relatively low tempo format.
Stoic Sphinx (cut)
Power 3
Design 3
I was trying to make an Aetherling come Morphling come Blinking Spirit style finisher. The thing is, what makes these cards good control finishers is what makes them badly designed magic cards. Conceptually I was off to a loser with this one. Either it is playable and oppressive, or barely playable and rather boring and ineffective. This iteration sits below the power threshold. I had version that had shroud as basic and five mana versions. I failed to find the sweet spot, because I suspect no such things exists.
Study (side lined)
Power 4
Design 4
This probably needs a scry bolting on after the draw. That or the prowess archetype needs a real push, which I am trying with my fourth print run. This is really just wheel spinning if not supporting something directly. Like, it is a prowess support card and it has an array of graveyard synergies. It just doesn't do very much very efficiently by itself. Giving it a scry might well mean removing instant speed. For now I am just going to wait and see how this develops with the meta rather than tinkering with the design.
Storm Entity (reworking)
Power 4
Design 5
I wanted a nice generic threat as payoff for a prowess style deck. This fits the bill but is probably still a bit narrow. Really this needs flash and/or prowess to really push it to where it needs to be. It is too easy to get clogged up with this in hand, forced into inefficient lines or over extent with this. The card has a decent ceiling but it is not anywhere near powerful enough on average to be worth the risk of the card, which is problematic when we take a step back and consider cube inclusion justifications. This isn't getting much action out of the prowess deck, so it really does need to do rather more than it does.
Subsume (cut)
Power 8
Design 5
Exlude given the old gold treatment. This is a pretty brutal card to walk into. It never feels good and can feel game ending. While I do quite like this as a tool for Simic so as to combat dorks a bit better it is a bit too feel bad to be worth it. I actually feel like the way to go with this card is to make some kind of remove Soul fight split or modal card, perhaps with some kind of fuse or flashback.
Succubus (reworking)
Power 3
Design 4
This just misses the mark on power. It probably wouldn't see much play without the drawback. To appeal this has to be at least a 3/3, and can then likely afford more life concession. Make the card interesting and relevant rather than just another one drop vanilla dork black doesn't want.
Sultai Elf
power 7
Design 6
After the Nayan Elf design I felt I needed a Sultai one for symmetry. This Dimir Signet affair is interesting but slightly more complex than ideal for a mana dork. It does have some really lovely synergies with powerstones and can enrich your manabase with colour. More typically however it is awkward and stops you ramping out 1GG three drops. The transmute is thus far merely dressing. I am surprised how little it has been used so far, especially as the cycling elf has been cycled away plenty and likely represents better value than this, being locked to one drops as it is. Certainly if there is synergy at hand this will start to scale up a lot faster than cycling. Regardless, I am happy with where this sits. It gets plenty of play, is interesting enough to merit the complexity, and it can afford to relatively gain or lose power and still be within a reasonable tolerance for the format.
Sun Charm (cut)
Power 2
Design 2
I think I was too busy trying to get all the various effects onto cards and finishing off cycles to consider if anyone was going to want what I was making. Clearly this card is a massive do nothing. Only one mode is worth a card and all it does is cycle. The other modes are rarely relevant. The two narrow abilities don't even really have much overlap and so there are not going to be many corner cases where this just works well. Easy cut, you don't want this kind of chaff gumming up the works. This is a constructed card, and a fringe one at that.
Sundering Colossus (cut)
Power 4
Design 4
The design brief here was make a Sundering Titan than wasn't quite so polar. This was played early on but was a little bit slow to really get going even then. Probably this wants reworking into a six drop or making it a little punchier with better power stats and evasion mechanics. No trample was a large part of what made Sundering Titan such a bad finisher! This just doesn't really work fast enough to be a lock peice, not that it was intended as such. But it kind of had to be because it isn't proactive enough nor threatening enough to be a proper top end threat. It missed the mark but that is because I was beign unrealistic. If you want fun, fair and balanced cards then you don't want to be making stuff that fucks with people's lands. That struggles to be any of the things we want!
Sungrass Plains
Power 8
Design 6
Support Troops (retuning)
Power 7
Design 5
These have had a toughness lopped off. This is one of the many cards where I simply took two common abilities for a thing that in some ways have tension between them and slapped them on said thing. It is pretty easy to trigger this, usually more than once. And if it isn't then it is really easy to put the exalted to good use. This is fundamentally a card that can attack, that buffs attacking, and usually wants to go in archetypes that do a lot of attacking. This is a useful body while in play, typically does something when it comes in, and usually dies into a card. All nice on theme convenience.
Sword of Ward (reworking)
Power 7
Design 4
This iteration got complained about a lot and so I hit it with the nerf bat. I think this original version is broadly fine. Praps the ward is a little high. The nerf took the ward to 1 but also changed the -1/-1 counter into gaining a Blood token which really took the sting out of swinging with this. It also makes it a bit token heavy. With blood instead of removal I would only give this a 5/10 power rating at best, it is barely playable. The sort of thing you might play if your threats are a bit toothless rather than because you actually want the card. A sensible end product is going to look most like the card below, I just need to figure out how to make it sufficiently powerful that it is playable, without it offending sensibilities. Too much Jitte and Fire and Ice PTSD.
Swords to Pawn Shops
Power 6
Design 6
No prizes for working out the inspiration here. This is a fine enough removal card that is good early and late with a little dodgy dip in performance in the mid game. Giving away two or three Treasure when a player has access to 3-5 mana and still has gas in hand is pretty dangerous. Even so, this is one mana instant speed exile quality removal with no restrictions. This gets the job done and so it gets play. The drawback just makes it interesting.
Sylvan Ascetic (retuning)
Power 7
Design 5
This is just a simplification of Paradise Druid. Retuning to ward 1 as it is basically hexproof for as long as matters. Regardless, this is a nice clean mana dork in the two slot. Fixing, ramp, and a slightly more relevant and secure body to go with that. A template for what a mana dork must do above and beyond one drops to get a look in with cubes. This gets an awful lot of play, partly because it is powerful and reliable but I think also because it is a very well known quantity, there is a familiarity with what this card is doing for you.
Sylvan Battlemaster (reworking)
Power 6
Design ?
This is fine but a little aimless. I made a couple of cycles of five and six drop dorks for the first expansion for the homemade cube to solve some of the top end bottleneck issues. This was a design to order job. I didn't have an army in a can card and so I made this elf squad. I was never happy with it because it never felt like it did anything interesting or novel or clever. As such it has been and continues to be tinkered with. It didn't help that I made a bunch of other top end cards at a very similar point and so I got a bit lost in the sauce of trying to make them distinct rather than trying to make individual cards that were good.
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