Top 10 Cards from 2008

I thought this year might mark the calm before the storm,  a sort of lull before the power creep in dorks really went nuts. Not so much... While not a busted year it has some very strong cards and a lot of depth as well. This is actually the first year that finds creatures becoming the focus of my top 10 lists certainly in terms of those that attack! This implies that it was around this time that creatures were taken up a gear. I had always thought it was Zendikar block that marked the start of the marked power creep but seems that is a couple of years too late. Perhaps it is more to do with good all round cards with really high playability and less to do with raw power. Certainly the many well designed cards from this era feel like they have aged far better than most of the older cards and those of comparable ages. The year is made up of Shards of Alara, Eventide, Morningtide and Shadownmoor and is thus more sets than most previous years and is more new cards than any year previous too. Along with power creep this trend of more sets and cards has continued. In principle I like more cards as it is more chances on cool things but in reality I would just prefer a cleaner 3 or 4 releases a year with less than a thousand cards with less of the chaff cards reaching print! Here are some of those cards from this year I don't consider chaff before we got to those golden ten!



Manamorphose
Spectral Procession
Dragon Fodder
Knight of the White Orchid
Ad Nauseam
Ajani Vengant
Angelsong
Tri (Shard) Lands
Bant Charm
Blightning
Bloom Tender
Boggart Ram Gang
Chameleon Colossus
Countryside Crusher
Cruel Ultimatum
Curse Catcher
Elvish Visionary
Esper Charm
Etherium Sculptor
Ethersworn Canonist
Firespout
Fulminator Mage
Guttural Response
Heritage Druid
Master of Etherium
Mistveil Plains
Murderous Redcap
Mutavault
Murmuring Bosk
Nettle Sentinel
Oblivion Ring
Painter's Servant
Pili-Pala
Preeminent Captain
Ranger of Eos
Raven's Crime
Regal Force
Relic of Progenitus
Reveillark
Shard Volley
Sharuum the Hegemon
Slippery Boggle
Smash to Smithereens
Swans of Bryn Argoll
Sygg, River Cutthroat
Tezzeret the Seeker
Tidehollow Sculler
Wickerboug Elder
Wilt-Leaf Liege
Woodfall Primus
Wurm Harvest






10. Devoted Druid

While this little two drop has nowhere near the power level in cube as he does in constructed he is none the less a solid little card. Two mana ramp effects have to be pretty impressive in green to make the cube and Druid lives up to the task. He is not quite so exotic as some of the alternatives but he more than makes up for that in reliability. You don't need to make land drops (Lotus Cobra) or have forests in play (Roffellos) for Druid to output mana as you do for the other two drops that ramp for more than one mana. You just slap Devoted Druid in your deck and he will do his job regardless of how the deck looks. The one off burst ramp for two that Druid gives you is incredibly potent. That one big hit of double ramp combined with the ongoing ramp for one gives you both a head start or later nitro boost as well as greater speed in the rest of the race! Spectral Procession likely has done more work over the years in cube than Druid but being so colour intense makes it one of the narrowest cards still in my cube so I gave the 10th spot to Druid (and have some regrets now that I am reviewing things).


9.   Flickerwisp

This badboy has just remained a cube staple since release. The body is fine enough being relatively little mana for a decently high threat level card. The effect however is just so immensely useful that it pushes Flickerwisp to a pretty good spot. The list of things this regularly does is long but here goes; re-triggering an EtB effect on your own cards, untapping a land to gain an extra mana on your opponent's turn, giving a creature psuedo vigilance, killing a token, resetting planeswalker loyalties, preventing a creature from blocking, resetting a level up, evolve or otherwise growing on investment creature, unflipping flip cards, regaining control of stolen cards, refreshing depletion cards such as the new sagas, lowering a land count periodically to empower effects like Tithe, and possibly some more! Flickerwisp is a highly creative card as well as a nicely interactive one. It is a great example of good card design and leads to some great interactions.


8.   Bitterblossom

I have never been a huge fan of this card. It has an aggressive lean and yet it is incredibly slow to take effect. A great tool against control decks but also a liability in some cases. I have seen people just die to their own Blossom with some comedy cards holding back the tide of Faeries. Architect of Thought is one of my favourite counters! Back in 2008 tempo was sufficiently low that Bitterblossom was just a solid card, overrated in cube but none the less a strong threat. Over time power creep made Bitterblossom weaker and narrower however changes to my cube design as well as emerging new archetypes have made up for that. More grinding midrange games, less combo, more general versatility in cards, and more things checking for card types have all wound up empowering Bitterblossom. It is strong in delirium decks and strong in Blood Artist decks while remaining an option in most black lists. Bitterblossom is a cheap source of ongoing value with plenty of archetype suitors for it.


7.   Figure of Destiny

This one drop used to be the hot sauce. He was pretty comfortably the best one drop beater ever made in magic at the time and was a huge boost to both aggressive red decks and white weenie decks. While Figure is still a great card he is not a high tempo one drop play, either costing you a single mana for a 1/1 or two mana for a 2/2. Both these stat lines are low tempo for their cost and make Figure more of a flex card than a pure aggro card that he once was. Figure pads out the one drops nicely while giving you more mid and late game. Being able to level up at instant speed makes Figure rather more complicated to play with and against than the level up dorks. It does lead to a more interesting card and goes a long way to offsetting the low tempo aspect of the card. Great design all round. A clever way of making a hybrid mana one drop not overly flexible in where it can be played like the next card. Figure has a great power level and is packed full of option density. I would love to see more creatures that can "level up" at instant speed.


6.   Kitchen Finks

Pretty mental this being in the bottom half of this list. Finks was easily one of the most powerful creatures in the game for a long old time. Finks was loads of tempo and loads of value. It hard countered red aggro and could be played by black green midrange decks or blue white control decks with ease. It was sufficiently aggressively statted that proactive beatdown decks would want to play it too. Finks was playable in every sense of the word, because of the hybrid mana, because it is tempo and value at the same time, because is good in most situations, in most decks and against most decks. Finks is even a part of a reasonable combo deck! Finks is still great but power creep has been mostly focused on creatures and so there are a lot of things now on a similar power level. A lot of those are more focused at what they do and can edge out Finks from lists he would once have been an auto include in. Finks now feels most like a card you use to hedge with if you feel weak to aggro or removal rather than something so good that you just play it. I like where it sits for power level relative to the rest of the cube now. Historically it was too good with its highly flexible hybrid cost, it had the power level of a real gold card such as Knight of the Reliquary.


5.   Vendilion Clique

Another three drop dork with three power to adorn this list. It would seem that power creep has set the lower bar somewhere a little before 2008 as this is where we are starting to see a more noticeable tick up in creature count. Clique is an all round great card a bit like the Finks and the Wisp. It is a pokey proactive threat, it is a useful disruptive tool and information gathering device and it can be used well in controlling reactive decks thanks to the flash. Clique is even a bit of a card quality dork with the emergency self targetting loot option when you are short on lands or are desperate for something. Clique has further parallels to the other three power three drops on the list. It is all about playability and they all have it. These three mana utility dorks bridge the gap with tempo and value, power and low cost and as such are all in the rare group of dorks you find in aggro, midrange and control builds. This is even more impressive when you consider how reasonable these cards seem in terms of power level relative to the cube. Well, that is the case now at least, Clique and Finks both seem rather over powered in 2008 and indeed outside of the eternal formats!


4.   Negate

One of those classic hits and quite possibly one of the last of the really clean colour defining core cards. Negate is the balanced Counterspell. It is like all the solid but fair black removal. Deal with something for two mana but with a restriction that makes things interesting. I play Negate a lot, more than most other countermagic. It is less onerous that the universal hard counters like Force of Will, Cryptic and actual which all need much heavier blue commitments. Things like Remand, Mana Leak and other playable counters are a lot softer and less reliable than I would like. Negate is the perfect two colour deck counterspell. It is easy to cast and deals with all the non-creature things while the other colour your blue is paired with can deal with the creatures! It is a cheap hard counter and it stays that way. As I think the correct mana cost for actual Counterspell tuned for cube power is two and a half mana there is no clean and balanced "Counter target spell" card, they all need tweeks to be balanced. Due to this Negate is the poster boy for countermagic and blue. Negate is the bar by which other counters get compared, or at least it should be from a design perspective.


3. Glen Elandra Archmage

A monstrous card and quite the counter to the previous Negate. I have lost several games to feeling safe with my Negate plus Doom Blade in any sort of fight over game winning spells and then they flop out a Glen and my well laid plans crumble. Glen utterly crushes control decks being one of the best tools against them. Obviously two Negates in one card is a big deal however it is much more than that. It is partly that Glen stalls the game while makes the small aerial beatdown offered meaningful. More than that it is having access to a pair of Negates at one mana a shot. That gives extreme control over any big turns or plays and even lets you be proactive. You can just start running stuff out knowing you have a couple of hard counters to respond to their answers. Glen is a fine card against most lists being, if nothing else,  a pretty reasonable blocker if needed against the aggro decks. Glen is quite like Mother of Runes in midrange games as well and generally forces a two for one in addition to some awkward plays. Glen locks down a lot of situations, a one to punch of Glen and planeswalker in whichever order is most appropriate will win a lot of games. Counter based trickery and flicker effects can provide even more lockdown brutality. Many a concession has been the result of a reset Glen!


2.   Filter Lands

Really interesting and quite potent dual lands. Interesting in that they scale poorly with themselves and colourless producing lands. Interesting in that they provide not just a single fix but a double fix. In a deck with BB and WW cards to cast filter lands are your best fixer while in a deck with BW, BR and RW cards to play a filter land will be a liability for two of those. In the more general sense filter lands are comparable to the check lands in that they fix for two colours and typically produce useful mana immediately from turns two onwards. Filter lands can cast colourless things but not many decks have colourless one drops they actively want to make on turn one. The colourless component got a boost in utility with the Eldrazi cards from BfZ which is cute! Filter lands are one of the best cycles of dual lands in terms of power level and complexity. They have a much greater range on their potential performance than other lands while sitting in a good average spot that remains highly playable. I hope to see the rest of the one off duals from Time Spiral block done soon, or at least Burnwillows and Canopy! The others are more dubiously needed and a bit harder to balance in the case of River of Tears. You would need a cycle of 20 to do all variants of it as it is not symmetrical in how it treats the colours it fixes, like if you were to do a full cycle of the Tainted lands from Torment. .



1.   Elspeth, Knight-Errant

In cube Knight-Errant reaches her full potential. In constructed she was decent but was rather outclassed by alternatives. In cube the different meta suits Elspeth perfectly and she is a force to be reckoned with. I am sure I have said it a lot but Elspeth is the reason I cut the power from my drafting cube initially. Everyone was just super board with Sol Ring, Mana Crypt and Black Lotus leading to turns one and two Elspeth. It was just so unrecoverable with there being little to no removal back then for planeswalkers. Obviously there was loads of reasons to ban the power but it was Elspeth that really brought those issues to peoples attention! In cube Elspeth is the king of planeswalker fights. If your planeswalker doesn't read "destroy target planeswalker" in some capacity then Elspeth is going to win that fight. Elspeth is one of very few walkers who can not only protect herself well with both blockers and high loyalty while also threatening so effectively. Elspeth can usually be played after someone else's planeswalker and instantly take it down by sending some little dork to the skies. Most planeswalkers are not good plays if there is already an Elspeth in play. Boards in cube get very cluttered and planeswalkers are common and powerful. Elspeth thrives in that environment. Certainly she is not as powerful as Jace the Mind Sculptor but she absolutely out performs him in cube. There is loads of counterplay to Jace, such as haste dorks, EtB triggers on dorks, just a couple of cheap dorks etc. There is very little counterplay to Elspeth. Either counter her or have direct removal like Dreadbore for her. Planeswalkers are a little hard to compare across the board these days with there being a pretty large disconnect between the 3 mana ones, the 4 mana ones and the 5 or more mana ones. For cube I have called Elspeth the best planeswalker since 2008 and I still mostly hold by that claim. I certainly still think she is the best of the 4 and 5 mana walkers on offer in cube although it is a close run thing. It is probable that the more polar cheap and expensive walker groups have a few in their ranks that have surpassed Elspeth in cube performance but as said, they are not directly comparable cards due to how and where you can play them. Another aspect of Elspeth's extreme cube power is that you can play her in any speed of deck. She is a great finisher threat for white weenie. She is an incredibly strong play for a midrange deck and she is also a pretty desirable walker in the control decks and this is all because she is so well able to play offense or defense as required and does so well. In control she works wonders with Wrath effects as without direct removal people are forced into over extending onto the board to try and take her down. Very much one of whites best cards in cube and a little underrated due to how much better she is in cube than in other formats.

Mono White Approach .dec

This is an Approach of the Second Sun deck that a friend of mine devised. He was making it UW which likely is a better build but I challenged him into going mono and he rose to it fantastically. The list below is how I would build the deck given what I learned from my mates build. We had a good old chat about the build after our games and discussed many ways you could go with the deck. We both concluded that adding in either blue for dig, draw and permission or black for tutors and hand disruption would be the best direction to take this list but it was still highly competitive in it's untuned mono white state. Being creative and successful at the same time in mono white is a pretty big deal so my mate gets top marks for that!

The advantage of going mono in cube is two fold, it typically increases your consistency but it also means you don't have to fight over things as much and can get on with picking the most powerful things you want for your deck. Another advantage of going mono when building new decks is limiting yourself and the build. Restricting your options helps you focus in on the key aspects of the deck's plan, I find even though I will have a weaker deck it will be more on the money strategically. It will point me in the best direction for when I do chose to complicate things. With a mono deck you learn the weaknesses quicker and we will get to that after the list;


23 Spells

Path to Exile
Condemn
Enlightened Tutor
Mana Tithe

Tithe
Land Tax
Orim's Chant
Thraben Inspector

Abeyance
Treasure Map
Scroll Rack
Wall of Omens

Unexpectedly Absent

Renewed Faith
Forsake the Worldly
Gideon of the Trials
Council's Judgement

Settle the Wreckage
Wrath of God
Cast Out


Elspeth, Sun's Champion

Approach of the Second Sun

Decree of Justice

17  Lands

Secluded Steppe
Mistveil Plains
Myriad Landscape
Mage-Ring Network
Arch of Orazca
12 Plains



The deck performed very well and, as any mono white control deck should do, utterly wrecks aggro decks. Where a list like this is more vulnerable is to hand disruption and permission. The scariest hand disruption are things like Doomfall and Thought Knot Seer as they exile. If you get your Approach exiled you are winning with 1/1 tokens, or more likely, not winning. You have counter play to hand disruption in the Scroll Rack and even the Mistveil Plains and you shouldn't expect as much of it as counterspells. To fight those we have Abeyance, Orim's Chant, Mana Tithe and an uncounterable threat in Decree of Justice. The Decree made me want to try out Azor's Gateway in the list as it is such a good mana dump and the list wanted more dig and filter too. Had I gone with Azor's Gateway I would have probably wanted to go deeper down the rabbit hole and pack Walking Ballista. A deck like this is certainly one of the best homes you are going to find for the crazy flip card. It may sound like overkill packing so much anti permission things but with such a good matchup against creature based things I think it is the way to go unless you have prior meta knowledge. If you want a bit more protection again hand disruption you can play a conservative Gilded Light or a heavy hitting Leyline of Sanctity.

The other weakness this list has is an over reliance on the Scroll Rack Land Tax combo. Not only do you want to find and resolve these cards but you want to keep them in play for ages and ideally keep the Tax active all the way to seven mana! I was strongly considering things like Boarder Posts and Khalni Gem to make that a reality. I defeated the deck once with a well timed World Breaker killing a Scroll Rack on the turn he played his 1st Approach with six cards remaining in hand. I was dead the following turn had I not and I was probably dead if I played another land and turned his Tax on again. I would also have probably still lost had he had a shuffle effect in hand so as to clear past the 6 plains on the top of the deck! You can partially protect these key cards with Spellskite or if you wanted to go super deep some Rebuff the Wicked technology!

The better plan, as mentioned, is going blue or black and using their tools to find the Approach. White has no dig or tutor effects for sorceries nor does it have much in the way of card draw at all. Palace Jailer feels a bit risky in a deck with so few creatures. Pursuit of Knowledge always feels risky! Karn, Scion of Urza would be great except that if you +1 him and happen to hit your Approach and they can deal with the Karn you shot yourself in the foot pretty hard. Artifacts present some value options, the Treasure Map proved outstanding in the games. My mate played Solemn Simulacrum too which is passable filler but feels a bit low impact these days. This list is a pretty reasonable housing for Isochron Scepter with a number of strong targets and a tutor for artifacts naturally in the deck. With the addition of some cheap cantrip cards, perhaps over some of the cyclers, you could give this deck a whole extra dimension whilst also partially solving the card draw issue. Sometimes you will just get a nice annoying Unexpectedly Absent, Path or something, sometimes you will get powerful disruption and ongoing draw with Abeyance and sometimes you will randomly steal games with the Orim's Chant combo. If going the Scepter route I would try and play Hallowed Moonlight as a nice utility draw card to go alongside Abeyance. I would probably also replaced the Renewed Faith with Blessed Alliance. While you are doing cheesy things like Scepter locking people why not throw in cards like Moat to further abuse your Enlightened Tutor at the mere cost of peoples enjoyment and your popularity! Winning with Moat or Worship is like winning at Street Fighter by spamming the E. Honda slap or Baraka's lightning thingy. No one had fun or felt good. A reference even older than Moat itself!

Given this list plans to win by playing 14 mana worth of 7 drop or indeed making a whole boat load of tokens with a Decree it is going to want a lot of mana. The sooner it has at least 7 the sooner it can think about winning. Ramp sounds like an obvious inclusion but I think it is a little bit dangerous, you don't want to hurt your consistency, this is more of a control deck than a combo deck. I'd rather take a little longer to get there and increase my chance of doing so and that is feasible with white's tools. I like Solemn Simulacrum as it is both ramp and value at once. That is also why I have only used lands as ramp tools in this list. Mage-Ring Network was the only land ramp my friend played and it was excellent. It might be the best ramp land option for this list which is impressive given the strong list of alternatives. I wanted to run Temple of the False God but didn't want to dip too low on the land count, ideally I want to be cycling that Steppe! I considered Ancient Tomb as well bet felt that a little extreme. Two lands in one feel like a two for one and a free Explore which is perfect for the list and comes at relatively little cost. It is certainly a huge perk for the mono approach. Pearl Medallion was considered and my mate even ran a Mox Diamond but I didn't feel the burst merited the card disadvantage even though I love it when a Medallion comes out! If I wanted more ramp I would likely go for a Wayfarer's Bauble so that I could go that bit deeper on colourless lands that can ramp as well. Bauble also doesn't feel like it costs you a card in the same way as the bursty options.

My mate ran Terminus which was fine. You could go heavier miracle and pack the Divining Top and the Entreat the Angels (the latter over the Decree as a neat swap) and that would also be a fine way to go. I don't think the deck needs it to compete and not having miracles is totally fine as well, better running no miracle things than building in a bad miracle theme, so my list is safer and on that front and user friendly! Much like the Scepter package this miracle theme is an optional bolt on to add some depth and bite but it should be done once you have mastered the underlying base deck first for best effects.

My mate ran Ugin, the Spirit Dragon and Gideon Jura. I actually had the Gideon of the Trails in one of my decks and the emblem was pretty good against this list! Ugin is obviously fantastically powerful but it is over the price of the Approach and doesn't bring anything new to the table. White is the colour of exiling all the non-land things after all! I feel like a Martial Coup would get more work done.

This deck being mono, having a high curve and a low colour requirement allows you to pack a lot of colourless lands. Mostly these are best used as ramp cards but you can patch over some of the issues the deck has. I used the new Arch to add in some card draw although Geier Reach Sanitarium might be a better option. My mate ran Rishadan Port which is probably the most powerful and rounded of the options. Boseiju, Who Shelters All is another way to combat permission if you are that keen. If I was going down that route I think I would want a Weathered Wayfarer to help me find it.

Despite being mono there was a wealth of options for this deck. While it may be better with access to more colours it is really nice to know you can make it work in just the one. It makes it a lot more viable for the more exotic constructed style formats in cube. The list has other strengths as well, having a card that literally says "win the game" on it is a big deal. There isn't a lot of counterplay or defense to that for a lot of archetypes and it gives you that lovely certainty of inevitability. It isn't even that slow if you can get the Rack with a decent hand size on the go which does usually mean also having Taxed but still, this list can win on turn seven, up to two turns sooner if you pack some more extreme ramp. That is all quicker than an Entreat deck will do and those are about as punchy and quick as control decks tend to be excluding the pseudo control decks like Splinter Twin. There is also more counterplay to Entreat kills. One good suggestion on how to build this deck is like an Astral Slide deck from back in Onslaught block. Amonkhet brought lots of lovely new cycling cards to run with it and they seem like a nice overlapping set of strategies. I have been meaning to do a post Amonkhet cycling deck for ages now but can't work out what colours to do it in, let alone how to go about building it. I suspect I will try and refine that before going for some combi deck containing both elements. Approach feels like a slightly improved Aetherling in a lot of ways and is a very space efficient way of enabling your control deck to win games. It might actually be worthy of a drafting cube slot!?!

Top 10 Cards from 2007

This the biggest year for cube since '93 looking at things chronologically, as we are. It turns out that many of the big names from the Lorwyn (big) block come from the first set and not the following three. Time Spiral block continues with its exotic and useful nature with both Planar Chaos and Future Sight offering up some juice. I think I only have 13 or so of the cards from this year presently in my cube but scanning down this list I have had a huge number of these cards in cube for extended periods and could well see some making a return. Interesting cards, solid cards and powerful cards left right and center! I am very fond of all the blocks that contribute to this year too, I just like how they look and feel.

Shelldock Isle is also a card I ultimately banned. While also supporting cheat in mechanics and thus big creatures like Emrakul, Ulamog, Griselbrand and the like the Isle was simply far too good. It is super easy to setup, hit randomly or with a Tutor or Brainstorm effect. It is then very easy to turn on. Shelldock frequently fired off in the midgame, from like turn five and would usually represent such a swing that the game would be won. The cost of playing Sheldock was very little as well considering how game breaking it is. It is like playing an Ancestral Visions except you also get an Island with it at the start and late game the suspend is reduced to 1! Oh, and it would frequently generate a bonus 12 mana Tolarian Academy style now and again... All in all far too good in cube and a fairly easy cut. Even without cards with vast CMC Shelldock is pretty oppressive, 20 cards left in a deck occurs in most games and rapidly. To be a comparable power level to 60 card decks it would need to trigger on a practically empty library in 40 card decks. The next youngest card I have banned is Grim Monolith and one can appreciate the greater understanding of the design team as magic has aged. If Shelldock functioned as intended as per 60 card decks it wouldn't need banning.






Sunlance
Aquitect's Will
Augur of Skulls
Austere Command
Autie's Hovel
Aven Mindcensor
Body Double
Boom / Bust
Briarhorn
Cloudgoat Ranger
Cloudthresher
Coalition Relic
Crib Swap
Dakmor Salvage
Dawn Charm
Daybreak Coronet
Doran, the Siege Tower
Dryad Arbor
Gaddok Teeg
Gathan Raiders
Gilt-Leaf Palace
Glittering Wish
Goldmeadow Harrier
Graven Cairns*
Grove of the Burnwillows
Harmonize
Horizon Canopy
Imperious Perfect
Kavu Predator
Keldon Marauder
Lignify
Logic Knot
Mad Auntie
Magus of the Moon
Merror Reejerey
Mesa Enchantress
Mirror Entity
Mistbind Clique
Muldrifter
Nameless Inversion
Narcomoeba
Oblivion Ring
Pact of Negation
Pestermite
Porphyry Nodes
Primeval Command
Profane Command
Rebuff the Wicked
Rites of Flourishing
River of Tears
Scion of Oona
Seal of Primordium
Secluded Glen
Silvergil Adept
Simian Spirit Guide
Slaughter Pact
Sower of Temptation
Spellstutter Sprite
Springleaf Drum
Stingscourger
Stonecloaker
Street Wraith
Summoner's Pact
Sword of the Meek
Thorn of Amethyst
Tolaria West
Tombstalker
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Venser, Shaper Savant
Vivid Lands
Whitemane Lion
Windbrisk Heights
Wispmare



10. Tarfire

Just a Shock when you cast it but rather more than a Shock at the times you are not casting it. Initially this was exclusively a tribal card for the synergies it offered with Ringleader, Recruiter and Matron however it has made its way into the drafting cube since the arrival of delirium. Tarfire is easily the most playable of the cards with the tribal type. Most decks are pretty happy throwing in some cheap burn. Tarfire now enjoys a supporting role for Emrakul, the Promised End, Tarmogoyf and all the delirium cards. Having cards that put themselves in the bin when you play them, while being useful effects, that have multiple types, and low costs are what delirium decks want from a support card. Tarfire would be good at supporting those cards even if the tribal type wasn't as super rare as it is on playables.




9.   Jace Beleren

Original Jace and the first of the three mana planeswalkers. Beleren is a testament to good design, the card has been in the cube since it was printed and has seen plenty of play yet has never seemed over powered. Beleren is more limited than your typical walker in that he is only really card draw. Although he can also be a win condition that is only if you have gained complete control as per most planswalker ultimates. You usually won before you go there. Beleren offers no utility beyond card draw prior to that point which is what makes him a unique walker. Fortunately Jace is good enough and versatile enough at what he does to be fine with just doing card draw. A +2 ability on a three mana walker is normally oppressive, see Ashiok, but as Jace concedes cards to do this and doesn't really become more threatening himself it is interesting and balanced. The choice to both draw or just draw yourself and the choice of attacking Jace or ignoring him is often a difficult and interesting choice for both players and that, on top of being so fair, is what makes him such good design.


8.   Mana Tithe

I liked the colour shifting of things, I think it was done with more than sufficient restraint to cause any problems or homogenization. White also really needed the love in terms of interesting cards, interactive cards and option dense cards. White is fine on power level, playables, archetypes and so forth but my god is it a dull colour. Very few white cards pull me to the colour but this blue card does a good job of it! I feel like Force Spike sits well in white, it certainly sees a lot more play than the blue version but that is largely due to blue having a lot of options for that kind of thing that is often used over Spike. White also puts Mana Tithe to better effect than blue can as it has lots of cheap proactive threats and mana denial disruption on many of those. If they are under pressure from either of the Thalia's for example a Mana Tithe is going to be rather more effective.



7.   Ponder

While Ponder and Brainstorm are the two most played card quality cards in constructed formats where they are legal they are rather overrated in cube and often weaker than the simple scry options. Without an abundance of sac lands and other shuffle Ponder offers less card quality than scry cards typically. It is a superior digging tool but again, most cube decks are looking for overall consistency and not just dig capacity. Combo decks often want direct dig but all other kinds of deck just want overall consistency for the most part. Ponder is still a great card and still a premium one drop it just turns out that it is only 4th or 5th best of the cards that do the same sort of thing in a cube without combo. This low rating and dull report on the card make it sound worse than it should. I will happily play Ponder in any deck, even without any sac lands. It is still a great card and one of the most played in my cube. Rarely is it left unpicked or unplayed and rarely do I think someone is playing it when they shouldn't be. Ponder is great, just not Preordain great! This version is ugly despite Tedin being the artist of most of my favourite spells I have never been a big fan of his humanoid depictions. I was glad when the Msets brought this out with new art.


6.   Tarmogoyf

Another card that is overrated in cube based on its strength in constructed. Certainly Goyf remains one of the most efficient creatures in cube as it is in modern however with just the one copy in cube it is much harder to house the Goyf in a way that makes good use of his huge stats. Just a random fat dork is a bit aimless. It will get removed if needed or chumped if needed and will rarely dominate the game. In modern you trade off resources and quickly and so you want the card you have left over to wrap things up quickly. In modern Goyf is almost a combo card with Thoughtsieze as it ensures you can play it on turn two already Bolt proof. In cube it is far more common to have a big board stall. Gofy is getting rather better in cube at present with delirium cards and other graveyard based synergies being common and powerful. Despite most older creatures getting worse over time Gofy is one of the very few that is getting better. It is still way better in constructed than cube and was never a bad card in cube.


5.   Shriekmaw

A lovely little card that seems to find its way into most black decks. A two mana sorcery speed Terror is fine. It is playable enough and that is what tends to matter with cards that have different modes of play. Shriekmaw gives you some early options while being a reasonably weighty late game card if held onto. Five mana removal is poor as is a 3/2 partially evasive dork however it is good value and usually good tempo when combined. Critically, the pricey nature of the powerful end is dramatically reduced in risk by having a useful two mana mode. Evoke is a great mechanic and this is the best of the cube cards with it on. Evoke is also a nice way to get dorks in the bin be that for flipping Heretical Healers or empowering delirium or providing targets for recursion effects. Spell effects at spell costs on creatures is also really nice for mainly green tutor and dig effects. A really great all round card that is exactly what you want in cubes. 

4.   Garruk Wildspeaker

One of my favourite planeswalkers. Great design for both flavour and power level. Garruk never felt like he got as much love as he deserves. While green has lots of strong walkers I think Wildspeaker remains the best in cube. The best thing about Garruk is that he costs very little mana. If you plus him with just normal lands in play the turn you make him he has only cost you two mana effectively. If you can flop out something else alongside your Garruk then you have had a huge swing of a turn. Garruk plus lands that tap for more than one, or just Garruk off the back of ramp is all very bursty. Garruk also protects himself as all the good four drop walkers should. The ultimate on Garruk also helps more than most planeswalkers ultimates to push his power level. It works well with green and the making of 3/3 beasts, it can happen the turn after Garruk hits play and it often threatens to end the game. Garruk is one of the most common planeswalkers to force a bad attack or a bit of burn just to keep him off his ultimate. Despite his versatility and power he is not all that disruptive and so has always been fairer than the bomb walkers.


3.   Damnation

The black Wrath of God and probably better than the original simply due to greater redundancy in white. This is a great colour shifted card as it is entirely appropriate. Black feels like it should have Wrath and as of 2007 it does so that is great. A Day of Judgement shifted over as well would be nice! Black having access to decent, reliable mass removal adds depth to the colour and ensures it is a strong pairing for a control deck. There are not many core cards (those with few words that do one thing cheaply) that can be colour shifted and not seem to break the colour pie. I would love to see Shock in another colour for example but it would feel wrong. Damnation doesn't at all and is a huge win on that front as well as the power aspect. The art is a wonderful counterpoint to Wrath of God as well.




2.   Cryptic Command

No one is a stranger to this bad boy or what it does. A huge pull to blue and a huge buff to some of the other best blue cards. Luckily for Cryptic Command filter lands arrived before it did! After taking a break from the game in 2006 I didn't really get back into MtG until 2009. I had vaguely kept the cube upto date but I wasn't following events or metas. I was pretty oblivious to the potency of this card and rather underrated it. It reeked of Dismiss and bad Repulse and it took a bit of persuading me to add it to the cube. There are those who do not let me forget my very very off evaluation of this beast to this day. Thankfully I am rather better at appraising cards these days, although most of it is just recognizing bias. I was biased against Cryptic for many reasons, not least being triple blue to cast. Cryptic was not in my cube for a couple of years and that is frankly shameful, even as a super casual as I was at the time.


1.   Thoughtseize

One of the all time great cards. I rate this up there with Force of Will. In a lot of ways it is better. I would certainly rather be playing Thoughtseize on turns one and two than Force! That becomes less true when you have a powered cube, then it is all about going first and having lots of power! Thoughtsieze is easily the best non-land card in modern, arguably in legacy and not far off in cube. Thoughtsieze provides complete information and almost full control. It is a one for one trade for a minor tempo cost. It gives you a plan and takes away theirs. I think this effect is so colour defining for black and so interesting and skill intense that I would like to keep it in the game and have more similar effects printed so as to allow for more cube redundancy. I would also like to see more cards that protect against discard effects. The problem with this card in modern is the lack of counterplay, not so much the power level of the card, although that is also very very high!

Winners and losers so far this year

I didn't get round to doing one of these for RIX, in part because RIX offered fairly little and much of that was obvious. Real life also picked up the pace rather too... Despite several cubes with Domniaria cards I am yet to get a feel for those not on this list. Pricier cards and narrower ones take much longer to appraise than the cheaper and more basic cards as will be mostly found on this list.


Adventurous Impulse - win

Cheap and reasonable card quality always seems to get played. Yes, this is rather weaker in effect than Oath of Nissa but Sleight of Hand is worse than Serum Visions and it gets plenty of play. This is just a nice little way to smooth out a deck and increase consistency. Most decks are 40% land and of the non-land cards most green decks are well over 50% creatures meaning you are rarely dipping below 70% targets in decks that can play this and that is fine.

Unwind - big lose (cut)

No idea what I was thinking here really getting all excited about this. Rewind is not an upgrade on Cancel and so Unwind isn't an upgrade on Negate. Indeed, Unwind is 50% worse than Negate in the ways it is worse while Rewind is only 33% worse than Cancel. Having played with this a small amount I quickly saw how rose tinted goggles had managed to sneak this relatively turdy card through. I have only once cast it and had use for the mana I gained while I have been inconvenienced several times by the higher upfront cost. 



Cast Down - win

Not much to say here, black just got some nice redundancy in its two mana removal suit. This is better than Doom Blade and slightly worse than Go for the Throat. It is seeing play and being exactly as one might expect such a card to be.


The Flame of Keld - lose

I am not looking to cut this yet but it is not looking great for this little card. It is just a bit too narrow for a drafting cube I think, even one with a nicely low curve like mine. 



Dauntless Bodygaurd - win

Predictably good. Elite Vangaurd is fine and you don't need much extra on a fine one drop to have a great one. Of the various 2/1s for W with upside Bodyguard is comfortably top 4, probably only behind Kytheon and other spice on this list, and with Kytheon being a legend you expect a bit more gas from him. 

Wizard's Lightning - lose

This feels a bit too much like an Izzet card and that is my issue with it. While you only need the cost reduction effective for 1/3rd of the time or so to be comparable to a Lightning Srike I think that is only something you can achieve in the Izzet tempo builds. Red only has 3 wizards in my cube leading to a far less than 1/3rd active cost reduction rate and most other colours don't add wildly to that. I know mathmatically you would want the cost reduction active half the time to equate to Lightning Strike but I think the value of cost variance is worth that bit more. Two mana is 100% more than one mana while three is only 50% more than two. In other words the option to have a Lightning Bolt is worth more than the cost of having an Open Fire over a Lightning Strike. Despite this lower bar needed I don't think this is there for cube.



Seal Away - big lose (cut)

This pretty much sucks the big one in cube despite how well it seems to be doing in standard. The only decks you want this in are slow ones that are not into attacking much or early. Those decks have access to far better cards like Condemn and Wing Shards. You don't want to over do it on narrow cards in cubes and certainly not for low powered risky ones like Seal Away. There are not enough tap effects to use Seal Away at all proactively and that makes it unfavourable looking compared to Immolating Glare on the narrow end of options and more relevantly Baffling End and Journey to Nowhere on the more rounded alternatives. 


Ghitu Lavamancer - win

A mate summed this up nicely with "I like that new one drop, it is like a bad Swiftspear." Turns out bad Swiftspear is pretty close to, if not, top five red tempo one drops. This is reliably online by the midgame and does a great job of helping to curve and lowering the cost of your deck without hitting the power level of it. 

Skymarcher Aspirant - big win

Yeah, this dork is nuts for a one drop. He is not losing any value or tempo by playing him out on turn one but he has a vastly better late game than basically all the competition. Turns out getting the blessing is super easy in cube. By turns five or so my aggro white decks were getting it done even with disruption and trades going down. You can get 30% of the way there on turn one with a simple Thraben Inspector. Fliers are big game in cube and turning into one is lovely. This guy is a great play on turn one and a significantly better cheap card than most when drawn or surviving to the late game.



Direfleet Poisoner - big lose (cut)

This is either bad removal or a bad dork. It is too hard to make it a card you might want, too situational in how you can use it and just too low impact even when it is working out for you. 



Revenous Chupacabra - big win

Already this seems to be the premium in 187 dorks. You just want your dork to kill their thing and this does that very well. Skinrender is a little bigger but who cares when it fails to kill the relevant thing it needed to. 


Thrashing Brontodon - win

A 3/4 is pretty beastly, it gets a lot of work done and is hard to shift. Seal of Cleansing is also loads of utility. Lovely to have this effect on a playable card outside of gold. 


Warkite Marauder - mild lose

Just too narrow really. You need to want a 2/1 flier to want this, the effect is great but it is the secondary aspect of this card. Not many decks want a 2/1 flier. I have certainly had this be good but the problem is how often that happens. 

Top 10 Cards from 2006

This was an exotic year with the new world of guilds coming to life and the quirky start to Time Spiral block. I have always been a huge fan of Time Spiral for its design, I love how it went outside the box in so many ways and hope to see another set like it one day soon. Time Spiral block has a higher than usual contribution towards combo than most other modern blocks. It had a lot of adventurous design but unlike many other adventurously designed cards it didn't feel like it broke any thing too badly. Coldsnap also greatly contributed to the exotic feel of the year. It brought yet more diverse flavour with yet more mechanics. 2006 visits more planes and story lines than most other years. Coldsnap also had free spells and some other old flavourings contained within. I always feel like 2006 is the year most likely to contain hidden and forgotten gems! Coldsnap was received poorly at the time but I think it has aged wonderfully. I think mostly people were spoilt with Rav block and looked unfavourably on the things around it for their relative merits.


Spell Snare
Shock Lands again
Bounce Lands again
Signets again
Simic Sky Swallower
Coiling Oracle
Academy Ruins
Ancient Grudge
Angel's Grace
Burning Tree Shaman
Castigate
Celestial Crusader
Counterbalance
Dark Depths
Dread Return
Electrolyze
Empty the Warrens
Rise // Fall
Field Marshal
Flagstones of Trokair
Ghost Quarter
Gigadrowse
Greater Gargadon
Grape Shot
Green Seeker
Hatching Plans
Jotun Grunt
Krosan Grip
Lightning Axe
Lightning Storm
Living End
Lotus Bloom
Magus of the Candelabra
Magus of the Scroll
Martyr of Sands
Marty of Frost
Might of Old Krosa
Mortify
Mystical Teachings
Penumbra Spider
Perilous Research
Prismatic Lense
Protean Hulk
Proclamation of Rebirth
Quicken
Repeal
Riftbolt
Riftwing Cloudskate
Rite of Flame
Scryb Rangers
Scrying Sheets
Serra Avenger
Shattering Spree
Silhana Ledgewalker
Skred
Smallpox
Snapback
Spell Burst
Stromgald Crusader
Sudden Shock
Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
Terramorphic Expanse
Think Twice
Tin-Street Hooligan
Trickbind
Trygon Predator
Urza's Factory
Vesuva
Wee Dragonauts
Wheel of Fate
Wild Cantor
Wipe Away
Yavimaya Dryad




10.   Ohran Viper

For the past few years this has been in and out of my cube a bit. It sits in the role of a green value dork but Ohran Viper needs to survive to attack and then get through to face before it is offering card advantage. This doesn't happen super often, Viper eats a lot of removal and is blocked almost whenever he can be. Fortunately you don't need Viper to draw you cards to be good. You have generally won if you manage to get him in at all, not just because one damage and a card is so back breaking but more because there is a very good chance that if it just happened it will be happening again the next turn too. You were ahead to get him in once and you will be more ahead as a result of doing so. What makes Viper a good card is the combination of its high threat level and its deathtouch. Either you bait an immediate answer for a mere three mana or you get to trade up nicely or you get to win! Viper on the turn two is especially brutal and super common in green! Even when you can't attack with Viper he will still sit back and threaten to trade with their best attacker which is usually a tempo win at 3 mana. He holds off most cheaper dorks very well too. Against control the Viper is at its best where they have few cheap creatures to block it with, most of which have low power and high toughness thus being awful blockers. While a fair card by cube standards in terms of power level it is a uniquely positioned card that winds up seeing more play than any of the other creatures that generate cards when they attack like the classic Ophidians and Shadowmages. Viper is a win more card like those others but Viper is substantially better when behind and actually does relevant work. Shadowmage is just a Lumengrid Warden when not able to attack and that is dire.

9.   Condemn

I have mixed feelings on this one. I like how it is a nicely balanced, or fixed, Swords to Plowshares. I dislike that it is narrow in that aggressive decks should never play this. There is a decent argument for this being the 2nd best creature kill spell in white control decks after Swords. Basically there is an argument for Condemn being superior to Path to Exile in those places. It just doesn't matter all that much overall because of how unplayable this is in aggro decks while Path gets better in them. Much as I am all about the widely playable cards I don't feel I can be too choosy with white removal. While it might have the best of the removal it doesn't have the depth of removal that other colours do and so this rare high performance offering seems unwise to pass up on. Condemn is towards the lower end of things in terms of play that it gets. Much like black Doom Blade effects, restriction to attackers effects suffer diminishing returns and each new addition that trumps an old one in that group (Settle the Wreckage) has appreciable impact on the value of the others.



8.   Boreal Druid

Easily the weakest of the one drop ramp dorks and arguably the weakest of all the one mana ramp cards (excluding silly things like Honered Hierarch). Boreal Druid is good because it is a reliable mana source you can make on turn one. It is only bad because all the other cards that do that do it better! In the same way that Sleight of Hand is easily the worst of the card quality spells we have Boreal Druid for green ramp. Someone has to be last but it doesn't mean such things are not worth playing! Indeed Boreal Druid now has some advantages in some situations. It is nice fixing for some Eldrazi! Cube is great for bringing these low end performing cards within a grouping to the forefront. When you need one mana card quality or one mana ramp dorks you play what you have to the desired number. Sleight and Boreal Druid see less play than the others in their group but they still see more play than a lot of cube mainstays.


7.   Mogg War Marshal

The most tokens you can make for the least mana. Very much a support card but one of the best in those roles. In any of the go wide or token strategy decks War Marshall is something you really want to pick up. It is all about the scaling. A 2 mana Arc Lightning with a Goblin Bombardment, six cards in one with a Skullclamp, 6 damage with a Purphoros, +3/+3 to a Carrion Feeder and so on and so forth. Mogg War Marshall is also unique in that it is the only cheap token generator that gives you the tokens there and then, for no extra mana, that is a dork. All the others are spells which is both a pro in some builds and a con in others. War Marshall is a pure support card in that it is actively quite weak (4 mana for slow 3/3 stats or 2 mana for a 2/2 worth of stats also partially delayed) when played on its own. The best thing it does without support is mimic a Fog (also poorly)! On the positive side though, it is one of the best token support cards going and winds up in most goblin decks as well as any token deck with red in it.


6.   Utopia Sprawl

Certainly in the bottom three one mana ramp cards in my cube for play (along with Arbor Elf and Boreal Elf) but one of the most powerful when used well. The combination of Arbor Elf and Utopia Sprawl can afford four mana on turn two! That is actual Sol Ring good, none of this Treespeaker pretender nonsense. I have seen that into Garruk Wildspeaker for a turn three nine mana with 3 ramp cards and none of them Cradle or Rofellos! This is turning into more of a plug for Arbor Elf than one for Sprawl! Utopia Sprawl is great because it is super hard to disrupt unlike mana elves, it is fixing as well as ramp and used after turn one it has haste effectively. The only real drawback Sprawl has is that you have to find specifically a forrest to put it on which limits your construction options and typically lowers the consistency of the Sprawl. Otherwise it would be Birds of Paradise levels of good, often better.


5.   Mishra's Bauble

A bit of a sleeper that came into power with the advent of delve and delirium mechanics. It was the prevalence of this card in modern that brought it to my attention as a serious card for general use. A zero mana cycler with any upside is a pretty big deal but the delay on the draw is real when using cards like this. It is a big delay on action and will concede initiative in most cases when off the top late game. In the early game it initially denies you some information on your own state as well as lowering your potential option power (as in, it might not actually lower your option density but any options it does bring will be less potent than actual cards you could play). If you have the synergies, or indeed you just lack the playables, then the Baubles are your friends and the perks grossly outweigh the drawback. Mishra's is substantially better than Urza's in almost every way. Mishra's combos with sac lands and other shuffle and mill effects to act rather like a scry. It is also a much more pertinent and unique piece of information to have than things in hand. Lots of cards let you see someones hand and you can infer a lot about it but little does tops of library. You certainly can't deduce information that is unknown to your opponent as well as you! Mishra's Bauble can keep you at a state of perfect information for a whole three turns in combination with a Peek effect. It can be scry, it can be a mana with delve, enable delirium at no cost, trigger prowess effects, reduce hand size etc. Highly versatile card with minimal cost. A card I now play rather a lot.


4.   Search for Tomorrow

A unique card in that it is essentially one mana ramp but it does so via lands like your typically two mana Rampant Growth cards. Just in terms of ramp it is somewhere between a one drop Elf and a Rampant Growth. Search doesn't accelerate you to a 3 drop like most other one drop ramp cards but rather to four the turn after like most two mana ramp cards. Unlike those however Search lets you use your mana for other things on turn two itself. While less powerful ramp than an Elf Search is a more
powerful effect overall. Getting actual lands into play is much safer than playing a 1/1 and has other ongoing benefits and synergies. I have found a balance of creature and land ramp effects are my general preference in cube so as to retain some good speed but not become overly cold to a Wrath. Obviously this depends rather on your exact build, I wouldn't be running this in an Elf deck! In most cases I am keen to run this when I have the option, I think it is top two non dork ramp with Explore.






3.   Chromatic Star

We have had a lot of these in short succession with Terrarion in 2005 and the Sphere a few years prior to that. Star has the best of all the variants, it draws right away, it draws even when you sac it for alternate uses, and it can be used to fix mana immediately as well. There are a few random occassions Sphere is better such as using Yawmogth's Will but otherwise this is where you want to be. It is the premium in colour consistency enhancers and one of the best support and filler cards there is. Barbed Sextant is a touch weak although it has seen some use but there is certainly space in the cube for more cards like this should they print one of sufficient quality. Chromatic Star is near the bottom of my cube for power level but actually one of the more frequently played cards.






2.   Ancestral Vision

A pretty good "fixed" Ancestral Recall. You can abuse this a bit with cascade and As Foretold but by the time you have set that up the broken drawing three for little or no mana is rather less potent than the unfettered version. The vast majority of the time Visions is something you just play and wait on. It is a pretty tasty turn one play but gets worse at a quicker rate than most hand disruption cards. Obviously the slower control decks gravitate towards this more but it is actually much more risky for those kinds of decks to invest a card and a mana for so long before any returns are to be had. A good number of games end with Visions still suspended and no surprises that the significant majority of those end in a loss to the Visions player. Cube is slow enough that you can pack this in more aggessive decks and usually risk less by doing so. This is especially the case if you have much in the way of looting or other filtering to pitch the later Visions away. It isn't so much that Visions is a great card but more the case that most other draw options cost too much mana and so are too much of a tempo hit. Of the pure draw options this is one of relatively few cards that feels playable. Obviously fantastic when it works out but a little on the polar side.


1.   Looter il-Kor

I am continually impressed with this little dude. He is the all in one Smuggler's Copter! A loot every turn is worth a card and two mana. The unblockable 1/1 body is what propels the il-Kor version above the classic Merfolk option. Even with nothing else going on at all Looter tends to get in a good three damage a game often over five which is a decent chunk of bonus pressure and leads to Looter being a strong aggro card. The option to forgo a loot and ping a planeswalker is always nice to have and acts as a bit of a deterrent. What makes Looter really get out of hand is when you can flop a Sword of Fire and Ice on him or something and turn him into a really scary threat. Looter il-Kor is the original Search for Azcanta! Looter is a little more vulnerable but offers better card quality and better pressure while having less build incentives attached to it. Looter is not more powerful than Search but it is more playable and it is a lot closer in cube than you might think given the two cards great disparity in performance in constructed formats. Looter il-Kor is unique in that you probably consider him a utility card but he does also apply pressure and has a tempo component, all be it an unusual one. Thus far in these lists, in nearly 15 years worth of magic there are only a couple of dorks that are there to attack with, Jackal Pup, Isamaru and they are both rather low on lists. There are a couple more that do do some attacking but it is very much not what they are there to do like Eternal Witness and Dark Confidant. Looter is the first card that is about attacking to top a list.