Throne of Eldraine Preliminary Review Part IX

Wildborn Preserver 6.5

This seems fairly powerful in a level up sort of way. This is just a two drop bear like Scavenging Ooze that grows into a more serious threat over time. Preserver can grow much quicker and more easily than Ooze but it has neither lifegain nor graveyard disruption capacity. Preserver seems to be a good early threat, a good mana sink and an all round convenient card. The flash and reach help a decent amount too. This ultimately holds off anything and will often snipe down a faerie, thopter, or spirit token. Not the most exciting card but a good one. A cross between Sylvan Advocate and the Ooze, and better than the former too I think, which has been a reasonably effective cube card so far.





Hypnotic Sprite 4

This reminds me of Mystical Dispute except the upside is not having a juicy one mana Leak but instead getting a "free" 2/1 flier some time later on. Basically it is always a subpar counterspell and the upside, while somewhat assured, is not all that interesting. It isn't always going to be that relevant and is often off theme. I think this will see some play, it likely has decent abuses with bounce effects which are common in blue. Most spells cost three or less so this will afford some solid soft locks. Although good in those settings it seems to aimless and low powered to make it in the drafting cube. I will give it a quick test to be sure but it seems rather on the fair side. It does have a bit more application in a tribal setting where the dork mode gains a bit of power.





Syr Carah, the Bold 2

Nice to have this kind of effect on a body now but sadly at five it appeals a lot less than the enchantment and planeswalker alternatives at four. There is a tiny bit of Experimental Frenzy about this as you can just chain off burn spells which is pretty nice. Much as that sounds great Syr Carah is going to be dead before you get to untap and have your fun almost always. With enough ways to protect it then you probably don't have the time or the deck composition to really abuse the card.






Claim the First Born 6

This has a real chance of being good in cube. It is just so cheap for the swing it can bring. Most of the dorks in cube are things it hits, it is just spot removal too when they have dorks with sac outlets or  you have one yourself. Threaten effects are decent and this is the best one for the faster formats. It will steal powerful dorks and do so at key stages of the game while allowing for other things to  be getting done. This should average out to be a significant amount of face damage. It generally removes a blocker which we can call two damage on average but it obviously has a much higher ceiling than that. I suspect it will also do somewhere between two and three on average for the damage it does as well. This makes it a great Lava Spike, a great finisher, a great planeswalker control tool and sometimes even a removal spell. It is all a bit situational however and so that is the only real hurdle this has to deal with. On paper Reckless Charge is insane but in practice it is generally rather fairer. This feels like a similar sort of card but being disruptive I think it will perform better.


Worthy Knight 3.5

Easily the best tribal knight card we have yet seen. The Hero of Precinct One for knight decks if you will. As with Hero, you will not need that high of a trigger count for this to be impressive. Too high for the drafting cube but a lock in for those tribal builds extending potentially beyond just knights. It is cheap and generates threat and value passively. It is a huge synergy payoff while also being a benefactor of your other synergies.









Charming Prince 7.5

Is it a Bear? Is it a Charm? It is both! And a quality name to help get you there too. This is impressive I think. It does what you want from a Charm while being a suitably proactive play. I think you will be happy playing this in a fairly wide selection of builds even if it is best suited to the more proactive ones. It has scry, a flicker or some life. Scry is always good and does make this a pretty reasonable turn two play just to set you up nicely while progressing your own position. It is still great later on when you are digging for more specific things. Sure, it is low value for a card but it isn't useless by any means. Odds on it is more use than a lot of your other two drop things. Even a Wall of Omens doesn't help you find a specific out as quickly as this can! Lifegain is always something you can take but it is not so often that important. When it is however it is game winning. This is basically a cheap tempo two for one against red burn decks. It is a couple of extra cards in a black deck full of life for cards options and that sort of thing. Lastly we have the flicker mode which is the least often viable and still not always useful but when it is it is comfortably the most powerful. If you can flicker anything with a useful EtB effect, which is many cube dorks, then Charming Prince is potent value. It is a bit sneaky too, you can target things you own so you can steal things back than have been stolen. It is an until EoT effect too so if you have ways to flash him out he can be used to save another cards from spot or mass removal if you are willing to martyr the Prince! Obviously there is the effective untap option too. Mostly it will be about getting bonus 3/3 golem tokens and clues from your Blade Splicers and Thraben Inspectors. You want to use this for the flicker basically and the more you build to that the better it will be. You will never be unhappy however when you use it for the other modes. This has good design, good balance and should play really well too. I expect to see this getting more action than Flickerwisp although I do also expect to see those cards played together a lot of the time. This is a card this is getting its high rating from suitability and playability rather than power. There are higher powered or more efficient ways to do any of the modes offered already.



Outlaw's Merriment 1

Much as I love this it is pretty poor. It just looks really mediocre when put next to other token generators. Elspeth and Gideon both afford more immediate impact, control and power. Cards like Krenko and Hero of Bladehold offer way more tempo and game ending threat. Then of course we have cards like Assemble the Legion which just blow this out of the water for being an inevitable and hard to remove threat. I love the design, flavour and feel of this card. Sadly it needed to make the token right away for this to oust Assemble from the top spot of cards like it. It does cost one less and is probably better for the first two triggers as well meaning this is a good three turns ahead of Assemble but that isn't really the point. You play these because they are hard to remove enchantments, their relative sloth is the cost of that. If you don't need the safety or threat diversity you are absolutely playing one of the many faster acting threats over this or Assemble.



Scorching Dragonfire 6.5

Incendiary Flow becomes instant and gains the ability to exile planeswalkers at the cost of no longer being able to hit face. This is an overall downgrade in cube as it is less playable but in general I think it is a more potent card. In cube what this is comparing to is Lava Coil or Abrade. It is a good midrange and control card but a dodgier aggro one. This will be good anywhere you play it but I expect I will ultimately cut it for more rounded and flexible burn. In standard it should be great however. Perhaps even making it into modern if more small cards need dealing with using exile.










Syr Elenor, the Discerning 0

Overpriced for the effect and not a very exciting body to make up for that which makes the difficulty in targetting her a minor perk at best. I'll take Mulldrifter over this everyday of the week, or Fblthp the Lost.







Stolen by the Fea 1

This comes close to being good but falls short. At instant speed it would have been great. Bouncing any kind of non-land would have been a huge help too. Both of those perks and this would have been a premium card but as it is I don't see it getting enough love. You can't overshoot on X meaning you can only get as many tokens as their most expensive dork and your available mana. Being doubly restricted makes this weak as a late game blow out card and as an early tempo play. Certainly there are times this will be absolutely game winning but they will be too irregular while the average performance of the card will be mediocre.

Throne of Eldraine Preliminary Review Part VIII

Kenrith, the Returned King 1

Well now this looks mightily like an EDH card! Quite a spicy one for a Training Grounds too. While this has some cute things going for it Kenrith is mostly just a five mana 5/5 dork. With time and mana and being alive he wins the game but for those initial five mana he is pretty terrible. There are many cards that are better right away and still many that are much better right away. The same is true of cards that win the game with time and or mana. There are even a good number of such cards that are better at both. Really, the best thing about this is having a rounded commander than gives you all the colour options without having to commit much to any.







Once and Future 4

This has a number of things going for it that make it very possible it sees play. Instant is a good start and makes it playable in a control setting and better in some combo decks too. The control over being able to put cards into hand or on top of your library is amazing too. This is a fantastic thing to pair with miracles for example. There are many combo reasons to want things in the deck rather than the hand. This can be a double Regrowth and give you a nice two for one or it can be a one for one with library setup like a Brainstorm. Versatile and convenient. Sadly I suspect it is only going to feature in combo decks, it needs things in the bin and it is a big tempo cost which make it unlikely to get that much action in the drafting cube.
 


Emry, Lurker of the Loch 6.5

This card seems pretty foolish to me. Stitcher's Supplier was the thing driving all the Hogaak sillyness. This mills more when you don't have that sac outlet. This seems like the best self mill tool for a number of decks and a decent option on one in many more. But Emry is not done yet. Not only is she a Stitcher's Supplier but also a bit of a Goblin Welder. Seat of the Synod, Mishra's Bauble, Emry feels like an obnoxious and easy start. Tap to draw a card is certianly not what Stitcher's Supplier is lacking. I suspect this will result in new decks in modern at the very least. Perhaps some existing decks will shift to incorporate this or perhaps some entirely new ones will emerge, perhaps both. In my drafting cube I fear there is too little artifact support for Emry to shine but in almost any constructed setting she seems really powerful and abusable. The cost reduction aspect also makes her a super impressive commander. This will get used in combo loops, to find, setup and protect combos, just for value. This is one of the most versatile support cards I have seen, especially considering power level on top of that.


Lochmere Serpent 4

To me this seems just a little shy of good enough. It has a few things going against it. To make this an effective threat you need to invest not just mana but also lands into it. Sacrificing three lands to kill someone with this could be ruinous if that plan gets held up. Obviously being gold just ups the bar on what this card needs to do to make it. My last gripe is that this doesn't have enough stabilizing power. Even Aetherling can effectively untap after attacking and get in on the blocking too. All this can do is toilet your swamps for a poor return on life. Flash is lovely on a big blue threat and recursion is nice too but not lovely enough. I will give this a little chance to prove me wrong but it seems rather unexciting and demanding for a six drop.





Covetous Urge 6.5

If it were not for how nutty Gonti is I might disregard this for being a low tempo card. The thing is, this is pretty much a Gonti with a Coercion replacing the body. All told those things are fairly comparable in value. This doesn't have the hidden information aspect of Gonti which is a big part of the power he has in cube however this does do much more to disrupt and generally will have more in the way of selection. Assuming you cast this on turn four and they have nothing in play they will be 10 cards into their deck meaning they should have at least five things you can steal. Later in the game will be more options on stealing too. The usual diminishing returns on hand disruption into a game do not apply to this card. Sadly this is pretty poor against a beatdown. If your opponent has just flopped their hand onto the board this is not only a bad tempo play but also one that isn't going to give you the options you need anywhere near reliably enough. You might have to take the Glorious Anthem because it will kill you but it does nothing to help your plan. At that point you wish you have just run a Duress! This is also far harder to cast than Gonti even if it is a bit more flexible in the colours you can run it with. My gut says this is a little too slow and awkward to quite cut it but it is pretty close and well worth thorough testing to find out.


Feasting Troll King 2

Cute card but I don't think it is quite there and is one of those cards that is basically unplayable as a result. This is like a Carnage Tyrant that trades all it's protection effects for just one mediocre protection against a Wrath. It also has the mild utility of gaining life and blocking making it better against some aggro decks. Not really why you play cards like this. It is pretty powerful and is a lot more powerful if you have some impressive food generation engine but it looks like it isn't ever doing much in cube.









Clackbridge Troll 3

The flavour wins just keep coming! This is a scary card. It is both very powerful but also a little dangerous. There will be plenty of occasions where you just can't play this because the goats will kill you. They might have Purphoros, or Goblin Bombardment, or a pile of Anthem effects. You flop out your troll, they let you go to attacks, you have to stay back to block else you die and all you really did was give your opponent a Time Walk and a bunch of fodder tokens. The best case scenario for this is probably something like having a Plague Engineer on goats and getting to just smack for 10 a couple of times into an empty board. The more likely outcome is you make this and it gets killed or bounced or stolen and that is a pretty bad outcome too. Even the contained mode of drawing 3 cards and gaining 9 life over three turns and then getting to beat for 8 is pretty poor. It is late in the day for slow resource gains and bad as either an aggro tool or a control tool as such. Just too much risk for what it offers with too much control given to your opponent. I will test this to make sure but it seems like a really bad take on Abyssal Persecutor. I do at least prefer it to Desecration Demon which other people seem to love, but I hate, so not really counting for much when coming from me.


Robber of the Rich 3

Much as I love stealing my opponents cards to use against them this seems a little bit hopeful in too many places. It needs to get to the attack step alive, you need to have fewer cards in hand, you need to not exile a land card, and based on how it seems to work you will only get to play that spell if Robber is alive. This probably means he needs to survive combat to get much value. You might hit an instant that is useful right away but odds on not. Presumably you are two mana down on the first turn he attacks and so he is unlikely to get useful value there. I think this needs to attack and survive twice before it does much in the way of value gaining. The body and stats are almost the best thing about this card and they are not enough on their own that is for sure. I will test this just to confirm that it is bad but it certainly seems that way.




Trail of Breadcrumbs 4

I like this a lot, it makes me want to build food decks! There is probably not going to be enough food stuff in cube for this to get much done. You would need consistent access of about 3 per game minimum before this starts to look impressive. I want to do a silly Ironworks deck using this and food as a way of going off! When you take away the mana cost to sac food Trail of Breadcrumbs starts to look vastly more powerful. Even if that doesn't get the tools to work I will be doing a midrange food themed deck, seemingly in Golgari, and this will absolutely feature. This card does have some potential applications as a support card in that it generates two permanents on the cheap that are relatively hard to clear. Ultimately those cards will not cost you very much either. You can turn on a lot of things and power up a bunch of others with this and when you are done with that you can have three life and a Sleight of Hand! Lovely.





Curious Pair 2

This is very low powered but it is cheap, versatile, abusable, and good at supporting a lot of things. A food token seems to do quite a lot and this is as cheap as they come(without a discard outlet it seems now at least...). The 1/3 body is pretty naff but it is something. I wouldn't be shocked to see this as a supporting card in a number of quirky decks in a number of formats. I will be playing it in my food decks that is for sure! Doubtful it has any hope of drafting cube though, things really need power these days and that is the one thing this lacks.

Throne of Eldraine Preliminary Review Part VII

Doom Foretold 5

This is a weird new take on a Smokestack or Braids type of card. It is far fairer in that it cannot brutalize people's land and lock them out of the game, and that is likely the downfall of this card too. Certainly it is better designed but without the ability to abuse it then it is possibly a bit too symmetrical for heads up play. I like that it can't hit tokens either which ensures you cannot randomly have your effect made useless. If you build with things like Bloodghast then you will be getting a lot of advantage out of this on a player with some board. As the penalty for failing to trigger this is not all that bad you need to put it in a deck that forces some reaction and thus can't afford to play nothing as a way to clear it. You want to force people to try and play through it. At least players without boards tend to have things in hand so you should get full value out of the trigger when it matters. While I would play a 2/2 Vigilance for four that drained for two, draw a card and made them discard it wouldn't be amazing. Somewhere between a Solemn Simalcrum and a Seige Rhino! The gold colouring is a bit of a turn off but probably not enough to stop it getting action. The thing is that not being an actual creature makes this a lot worse even if you could always immediately trigger it. It is harder to recur or flicker or tutor or generally abuse. Best case for this is forcing a sac on a specific high powered card or two and then triggering. Immediate trigger isn't bad but it is just a bit of value, all told I prefer Mulldrifter. Prolonged use of this as a sac outlet is where you want to be and that is going to be too hard to engineer consistently in draft. A decent card that has some interesting applications, good design and reasonable power level.


Oakhame Ranger 1

Nice flavour and feel but ultimately all just far too much mana for the returns. This only gets a 1 for the unique card attributes that might in some way allow for obscure abuses. This is never getting play in a fair capacity.














Questing Beast 7

Three lines of good text is usually enough to push a card with both stats equal to the CMC into cube. This has at least four and I would say six! This is a very naughty card indeed and despite being a bit odd it is probably just too much card not to get cube action. This doesn't feel a million miles away from Glorybringer. It will be a fantastic answer to planeswalkers a lot of the time. It is great at racing. Great against weenie decks and big fat fatties and great against protection effects. It also seems as if it is especially unfair with Fog effects. It is pretty basic however, make it, attack face. I do like a bit of a choice when it comes to a card and this is very much not a thinker.


Wishclaw Talisman 5.5

Now this is another card that absolutely terrifies me. It is really quite potent in a fair few different lights. In a deck where you are winning the turn you tutor this is just a 3 mana Demonic Tutor that you can split into 2 and then 1 mana as you like and that provides potential on board support for things like metalcraft. In the right sort of deck you are also perfectly happy just getting a tutor for three and giving your opponent the option on one for one for both of you. You are always a tutor up on your opponent unless you lose on the turn they use their free tutor. Still, good reactive decks should be able to control things well enough to get good value from this. Then we have all the actual abuses of this card rather than just playing it as intended. Obviously we have the finding of Brooding Saurion with this and greedily eating all three tutors! The same can be done well with Aminatou's -1 ability. Any generic Flicker effect is a help as well with this. I have not looked into what else works with this but if you can abuse this with untap effects then it is truly foolish. If it is only flicker and regain control of owned cards then it is still most interesting. So, while this card is amazing looking and measures up against Demonic Tutor pretty well I don't expect it to work out in the drafting cube. The tempo in cube is so extreme that spending this much mana in a non-tempo way is hard to justify. Cards are powerful and versatile and archetypes are very deep in their pool of such cards. You just don't need tutors in non-combo cube decks very often. Impulse has been a superior card to Demonic Tutor in my cube for a fair while now. But yeah, the maths on this card makes it look better than Demonic Tutor! You pay 1 card and 4 mana for two Demonic Tutors. You do conceded 1 Demonic Tutor to your opponent for no card cast to them but it costs them a mana to use. Reduced down that winds up as 1 card for 1 Demonic Tutor at 1.5 total mana! Powerful. Obviously not quite as foolishly good as 1 card and 5 mana for three Demonic Tutors. So yeah, mostly good in most places and absolutely ridiculous in a few.


Embercleave 6

Tough to know how to rate this as it is both very very powerful but also rather win more. On average the more dorks you attack with the smaller they are. That isn't too big of a deal however. I am very happy paying two for this even if I only have 1/1s down. Equally I am very happy to pay five for this if it is going to equip a 4/4 dork. Unlike Temur Battlerage this is an ongoing effect and as such you really don't need it to one shot your opponent. This should deal a bunch of burst damage, or bait removal on a weak target, this will then sit in play like a cheap Kessig Wolf Run and turn most of your dorks into really scary threats. So, if you have some dorks and some mana and are in a position to attack then this is a potent threat, explosive burst, and a scary ongoing threat. If you have no dorks, little mana, or are just getting really savagely beaten up and need to be on the defensive then this is in the poor to useless range. I am not in love the polar nature of the card but it certainly has the power to demand testing. My guess is that it is one of those cards that always seems quite impressive when used but doesn't get used enough.


Wicked Wolf 6.5

A Hill Giant that comes with an EtB fight and has a narrow regeneration ability (disguised as an indestructible effect!). Even if you completely disregard the food element of this card I think it is probably good enough. The power is reasonably low but it does more of what green needs than most alternatives. In many ways it is Garruk Relentless in creature form. While Garruk might be superior in a stable game the Wicked Wolf is far better when from behind as it can kill and then block. Taking damage as a creature is also far less permanent than a planeswalker. Really this is just a nice little green take on Flame Tongue Kavu. The Kavu measures up a little better but it being a red card while this is a green ultimately makes this far far better than the Kavu. Red has no trouble dealing with pesky utility dorks while they are the bane of green decks. If there is much food around then this does get rather better too. I think I prefer this to Polukranos just because it kills things so much quicker and cheaper. It would be pretty funny if the 3/3 knocked the 5/5 out of the cube.


Witch's Vengeance 6.5+

This looks mostly like a sideboard card at first but there is a little bit of me that wonders? There is a fair amount of the main creature types as well as a lot of profession/class style tags. Add to that the fact that colours do tend to have a much higher concentration of certain creature types and you might well have a strong removal spell. This doesn't need to average that much over 50% of  creatures on your opponents board to be good. You should almost always be able to kill something, just in terms of effect the floor on this feels not worse than much of cheaper the black spot removal. Sure it costs one or two more putting it firmly in the camp of the powerful black removal but this has some really serious ceiling on it too. It is a bit Arc Trail in that worst case it is a bad Shock (or Last Gasp) and best case it is a Wrath! You will generally be able to hit more than one of your opponent's creatures without hitting any of your own. My guess is that this is hitting no less than 60% of creatures on average. If you clear their first two plays or kill off three things (with at least two cards worth of investment in them) in the midgame then this should pretty much seal the deal for that game. Finale of Eternity has been doing a lot of work for black lately in cube and this has a similar feel to it. At the very worst this card is a cheap, effective one sided anti-tribal mass removal spell that you can play in an aggro deck or a control one. At best it is that while also being a bit of a cheaper Finale of Eternity too.


Giant Killer 6

This is a tapper with a lot of upside but one big drawback. Paying two to tap a thing when you can pay one is silly move. You play tappers to tap things and so being worse at the primary role is a bit of a bummer. That means you have to look at this more as an all round utility card. A 1/2 body is some utility but pretty negligibly better than that of a Gideon's Lawkeeper in this instance. That means we are leaning fairly heavily on the adventure being worth running a bad tapper. Is a three mana Reprisal good? Well, a two mana one isn't but then that is down to it being fairly restrictive. You can play this and get value from it when there are no fatties to kill. Is this actually a good Reprisal rather than a bad tapper? Perhaps but there are tappers in the cube while there is no Reprisal so perhaps those two things are roughly the same potency anyway. This card is pretty close to the mark all told. I will test it out and find out which side it lands on. Lovely design though. I hope it makes it for that alone. I also hope it makes it because it is way more interesting than a Law-Rune Enforcer or even Goldmeadow Harrier

Throne of Eldraine Preliminary Review Part VI

Mystical Dispute 6

Really impressive way of improving on Gainsay style effects. This is playable as a bad Mana Leak. Not great but certainly not bad, it will be better than Cancel in the early game and not much worse than Mana Leak when it stops being as good as Cancel. That is the floor of the card. The ceiling is being a one mana counter that hits any target and is pretty near to hard given the cost. Spell Pierce is amazing and when against blue this is more than 50% harder as well as broader. Blue is a pretty common colour too. A third of your opponents being in blue doesn't seem far off the mark. That makes this actually perform pretty reasonably in a general sense. Sadly I still don't think it will last in the drafting cube as it is ultimately still a SB card, just one you can run main without it hurting too much. You will still almost always board it out when you are not facing a blue mage. Overall however I rate it as one of the best blue on blue sideboard cards. It has great design and great playability too which very few sideboard cards can say for themselves. This will get a lot of action in a lot of formats.


Faerie Guidemother 6.5

This is pretty close to the mark. If the adventure was an instant it would be a sure thing for cube but as it stands it is going to need some testing. This has loads of perks but it also has a few issues. It is neither all that much total return for the card investment nor is it all that exciting as any sort of tempo play. You are only using the Gift of the Fae when you have a planeswalker to take out, a player to finish off, or nothing else to spend your mana on. It doesn't progress your position in any way beyond some face damage. The 1/1 flier is then both very late to the party and not overly impactful by itself. There are strong counter arguments to this all too though. White lacks reach and so a versatile card that can go over the top without prior warning is massive. That is a big part of what Elspeth Knight-Errant does in aggressive white lists after all. The argument about the late and low power 1/1 flier is that you typically run Anthems or equipment in white weenie and so all you really need are bodies. Most of the time this should be useful to your plan even in turn four or five. There is also the flexibility to make this without going on the adventure which is acceptable and occasionally useful. Lastly there is the power to somewhat abuse this with bounce cards like Kor Skyfisher for lots of reach. Adventure cards do stand to make cards like Skyfisher rather better going forwards and I expect it to make a strong return to the fold. As to this lasting we shall have to wait on the testing.


Wicked Guardian 1

Generally just too slow, situational and fair for the kind of filler support card this is. Ideally it would be scaled back to a 2, perhaps 3 drop at which point it might start to have some appeal. As it stands I doubt I would play this even in an enrage themed deck...













Wildwood Tracker 2

So I don't rate this very much which is pretty nutty feeling as I always rate two power one drops... I think that is testament to the extent of power creep recently. This just looks awful. It is a 2/2 in combat but a poxy one toughness dork when removal is concerned. It is also in need of a little bit of support. It should get that most of the time easily but it does suck a massive amount when you don't. In a green stompy deck I might play this if I was really focusing on one drops but that is the only place I can see it presently. It would be one of the weaker cards in that list and it would be a pretty weak deck.


Echanted Carriage 0

Well this is flavour to the max. I even quite like all the cartoon amine Brothers Grimm feel of the set in general. Sadly this particular vehicle, while a flavour win, is a power fail. It is just a bit fair all round for the cube. Five is too much for what this does, even as a colourless card.













Turn into a Pumpkin 0

Another nicely flavoured card but sadly I like my Into the Roils and Blink of an Eye cards to have the option not to kick them. A food is a long way off making up for the inability to play this for two mana when you need to.



Once Upon a Time 9

Pretty sure this is going to eat a ban one day. I am kind of surprised to see this printed. Zero mana spells that draw cards are incredibly dangerous. The seemingly innocuous Gitaxian Probe is utterly bonkers as a support card and did wind up banned all over the shop. While this performs a different role to Probe it is still a very dangerous card. In normal constructed situations this is going to allow people to cut lands from their decks. It is going to make combos using lands or creatures far more consistent. It is also going to do the same for any other deck playing those things even if they are not synergy driven! A free Adventurous Impulse with nearly twice the dig goes a really long way to setting up your hand. Assuming your deck has the ability to cast this and has at least a 50% total count of dorks and lands I can't see not running it. Even the floor on this card is impressive. At two mana it makes Seek the Wilds ashamed to exist, and I have played Seek before and not been too unhappy with it. Once Upon a Time looks a card deeper and it is an instant. That makes it compare reasonably well to Impulse, a card apparently too good to have in modern! Obviously you need a very high creature count for this to compare with Impulse but still, for a floor that is absolutely amazing. This has made green creature based decks a lot lot better in all formats. In cube they do need some consistency love and this does the job well. It is the land you need, the one drop ramp you need, the big fatty payoff you need. It is the Elvish Spirit Guide speed boost, the Devoted Druid combo piece. Gurmag Angler loves it. Delirium spells love it. Tron loves it. Being able to improve the quality of your hand and start to fill up the bin without card or mana cost is amazing. The only cost of running this is when it isn't your first spell and you have the tragedy of having to pay two mana for your good Impulse... It is a huge flavour win and a card I am both excited and scared by.


Brimstone Trebuchet 1

Bollocks can you hit something flying with a Trebuchet. Even a hot air balloon feels like it would be a challenge. Reach on this is flavour fail of the most unforgivable kind - the physics kind. Blah blah blah magic. The only reason we are actually talking about this is that it is an artifact with a tap effect to do damage. Feels like there are some ways to turn this into infinite or at least sufficiently finite amounts of damage. Comically however I don't think this is good enough to find work in a knight tribal deck!









Murderous Rider 8

This will see an awful lot of play. It has just supplanted Hero's Downfall as the premium mono black spot removal card in cube. This might even be an 8.5/10 card based on how much play it will get rather than the raw power of it. It is all about Swift End. You just really want your threat killers to be instant if possible, especially in control. Instant is comfortably worth the two life and immediately puts this well above Ruinous Path or Never // Return. Anguished Unmaking gets more action than Vindicate too while we are banging that drum. So, we get a better card than the sorcery options as we are playing this for the adventure primarily but do we get better upside too? Simply put, yes. Return gives a 2/2 token for one more mana and entirely consumes the card. The exile is nice but hard to make valuable with such a slow expensive spell. Ruinous Path needs 7 mana all at once to turn a land into a dork which is powerful but comes up infrequently, probably 4% of casts or so. Rider is a much more relevant, playable and cost effective body. It is actual value that is worth having regardless of archetype. It helps to offset life costs. It is more easily abused due to the creature type too, if you mill it you can get it back. You can bounce it to kill more stuff. You can tutor it with more things more efficiently that many removal options. Even the attempt to balance it for other formats with the going to the bottom of your library on death is potentially more of a bonus in cube. While it prevents some exploits with Raise Dead effects it does wildly improve something like Survival of the Fittest. The broad playability, convenience, flexibility and potential synergies with this thing are pretty damn impressive. It is a solid core cube card and it does it a decent bit better than anything else. I expect this to see a vast amount of play. The kind of card that is rarely left out of a deck when in a pool. Pretty comfortable top ten black cube cards in terms of play.

Throne of Eldraine Preliminary Review Part V

Knight's Charge 3

Another supremely potent tribal payoff card for knights. In some ways this is worse than a Glorious Anthem as it doesn't improve the combat potential of your knights. On the flip side it is lifegain and unblockable damage both of which have some big positives. Knights are generally pretty good in combat anyway. What tips this over Anthem is that you get a personal instant speed Patriarch's Bidding on the card as well. That is an impressive second wind. Sure, 8 mana is going to be a very tall order for a knight deck, especially a heads up one. The game is likely going to have to be going in to double digits of turns. Those are the games against midrange and control decks and that is where this effect will be most useful. It will just be a bit of an I win button should you get there. It will force riskier lines from your opponents even if you never get there too. Nice to have inevitability on your Anthem! Still, a card exclusively for tribal knights isn't seeing all that much love, certainly no drafting cube love.


Banish into Fable 3

This is a bit of a messy card which puts me off it rather. It is certainly good and powerful but it is kind of annoying too. It is gold, it is expensive, it wants support, it is a soft answer rather than a hard one. I am sure there are more awkward aspects to this card that those too. It is playable without support, not good but still does stuff and that annoys me too! If it were just a do nothing without artifacts or enchants then we could rule it out but it isn't and so this might well see some mild play. When you tick all the boxes getting to bounce three things and put down three 2/2 knights at instant speed you will have drastically altered the board state in your favour. Far more so than most good six drops from Inferno Titan, to Elspeth Sun's Champion to Dream Eater. Banish into Fable fully powered up is beastly. It will crush midrange and possibly control too but it needs loads of setup and Cyclonic Rift is vastly easier, more convenient, more effective against aggressive decks, and generally just as likely to be the swing you need. Or even Flood of Tears or Crush of Tentacles. So yes, this is powerful, it has a higher ceiling than a lot of comparable cards but it is just a little needy to the get amount of attention it needs to be a cube staple.


Thorn Mammoth 2

This seems like a big upgrade to Foe-Razer Regent which itself was not terrible by any means. This is a bigger body for more effective immediate removal. It then offers you the ability to fight stuff in an ongoing capacity which gives a lot of board control. A 6/6 trample does some reasonable work too. Much as this is a powerful card that can dominate a game and a rare example of solid removal in green I fear it is not going to do all that well in cube. By seven mana green wants to be closing the game not controlling it. This is vulnerable to the things green is vulnerable too and doesn't really solve the problems it faces. Green is fine at just having better stuff in the late game, it doesn't need to kill threats, it needs to kill utility dorks. This will look good because it will do a lot of winning when it comes down and it will look like it is dominating the game, which it will be. The trick to appreciating why this isn't so strong is to count the number of times it is in hand but un-cast when the game is done or indeed how much quicker the game would have been over in your favour when you do make it. Avenger of Zendikar kills a whole lot faster than this most of the time! Craterhoof kills immediately!


Taste of Death 0

Really big Barter in Blood. Six is far too much for removal, especially one so unreliable. This isn't a wrath but it isn't spot removal either. It will counter the +1 of a Sun's Champion sometimes which is laughable. Just play cheaper Wraths or much much cheaper Edicts. I like food but not at the cost of a terrible card.














Workshop Elders 0

Lol, a 7 mana 4/4 with an upkeep effect. The partial Wonder ability does not move this out of the ranks of the unplayable.




Shimmer Dragon 2

Now this is very impressive in an artifact deck. It is pretty much a bigger Consecrated Sphinx with hexproof. That is outstanding but it is also rather surplus to requirement most of the time. Artifact decks don't need to play cards like Consecrated Sphinx, amped up or otherwise. They have cards like Urza, Karn, Sai, Thoughtcast, and so on and so on. If you have the artifacts to support the Dragon you have them to support cheaper more powerful tools. This doesn't make it unplayable. It is still a Mahamotti Djinn at worst. There are things that just happen to generate a bunch of artifacts that you could pair this with in a control deck like Spell Swindle. A couple of cards like that and Shimmer Dragon starts to seem quite appealing. Too narrow for draft and so marginal outside that I don't suspect this will be seen much at all but it will certainly be impressive when we do. Power is not what holds this back!


Silverwing Squadron 0

Far from exciting in multiplayer, shocking slow crap in heads up.

















Embereth Skyblazer 0

Not a bad card but a long way from competing with the alternatives in a heads up setting. Would you like this or a Rekindling Phoenix? Pia and Kiran Nalaar? Not even close to close.


Chittering Witch 1

This rather suffers the lack of opponents in heads up play too. It is fine but over cost and under powered for 1v1. It still does the things you play a card like this for, sac outlets, multiple bodies etc but you have to want exactly this offering of such things to play this. Generally you will play a better card like Yawgmoth for the sac outlet and a better card like Ophiomancer or Lazotep Reaver for the bodies. There is a balance to condensing synergies to open up deck space and this one falls far too short of the power threshold.










Gluttonous Troll 1

A reasonable threat and sac outlet but pretty slow and boring. The EtB value is poor which helps make it scale less unfavourably into heads up play at least but does make it rather more vulnerable to removal. Much like Chittering Witch it is a somewhat condensed synergy card that is too low on power to appeal all that often.





Faerie Formation 2

This reminds me of Docent of Perfection even though they operate fairly differently. Perhaps it is just the immediate cost, stats and making of 1/1s that is all I am going on! What I learned from testing Docent is that things that generate armies as the result of doing things really want to be lower on the curve. Things at five and greater want to have an immediate impact rather than a gradual one over time. Mesmerizing Benthid is the kind of five drop you want as it is good against removal spells and against aggression. Formation and Docent are good against neither. Formation is powerful but it is mana intense, slow and vulnerable. It is also another half cocked card. Want cards? Play Consecrated Sphinx or Muldrifter Want 1/1 fliers? Then play Rogue Refiner and cards of that nature. In a deck with appropriate cost reduction and mana generation effects this does start to get rather more exciting rather quickly but I still struggle to see where exactly I am playing it.






Steelbane Hydra 0

While this has some reasonable scaling with mana compared to other green creatures with the ability to Naturalize things the extortionate cost of the low end on this card makes it utterly unplayable. It is six mana to do a single naturalize essentially at sorcery speed and go 1 for 1 in the process. Ouch. Way to make Desert Twister look good. At ten mana this is obviously a big dork with the ability to keep any offending artifacts or enchantments at bay but that is a long way of redeeming this card in heads up play.

Throne of Eldraine Preliminary Review Part IV

Rosethorn Acolyte 1

While the body is fairly rubbish it does at least do things. What I can't get away from is the adventure. It just feels like it will have an abuse. Perhaps it is somehow good with a card like As Foretold? Cheap cards that make mana need keeping an eye on even the seemingly bad ones. Shame it is a sorcery.














Steelcore Lance 0

A knight "payoff" card that I wouldn't play in a tribal knight deck. Awkward.






Shinechaser 0

Meh. Too many hoops to jump through to get your slightly above par dork. You need it to hit 3/3, it is still bad as a 2/2 in cube. Not a strong contender for a tribal card either as it is rather the wrong colours.











Arcanist's Owl 2

A big old Glint Nest Crane affair. You get more stats and more range on your targets with the Owl but the cost rises from a nice cheap support card to that of a hefty action card. The kinds of deck full of artifacts and/or enchantments are not too excited for Phantom Monster. In some kind of midrange deck this would be great but in that setting it is going to have too few targets. I can't see this getting much play as a result of all that. Being an artifact itself is a big help in making the cut in some synergy deck but the casting cost might well rule it out then. Artifact decks often have a lot of colourless production or reduction effects which this is poor with.


Witch"s Oven 3

Almost guaranteed to see play somewhere being so cheap but probably not in any sort of way it was intended to be used. It is at least somewhat restricted as a combo card as it has to tap to sac but it does have some upsides beyond the lovely mana cost. It is obviously not colour restricted as Carrion Feeder or Goblin Bombardment are. It does something useful for you too unlike Despotic Scepter! You might play this in a deck with a food theme, you might play it in a deck with a sacrifice theme. Narrow on both accounts but still.









Keeper of Fables 1

This seems impressively powerful for an uncommon. The stats are OK for the cost and the effect is powerful. It works alright by itself and rather nicely with a wide board of elves. Despite being a decent looking card it is a bit slow and fair for a five drop by today's cube standards and I actually don't think it comes close to cutting it. Utter bomb in limited but five drops in cube want to win games, not slowly generate value.






Belle of the Ball 2

An OK knight support card but far from a good one. Good enough for singleton tribal play and nothing more. If a standard version is running this it probably isn't a great deck.











The Royal Scions 5

This is supremely powerful but I also have mixed feeling about it. It is a three mana planewalker with two good +1 abilities that take it all the way up to six loyalty. That is a terrifying start. The only thing that keeps this potentially fair is the fact that, while good, both plus abilities have their limitations. Neither directly provide card advantage or do anything to the board. One is card quality and fueling the bin, the other is a sorcery speed until end of turn creature buff. At best the latter kills off a planeswalker, it probably just gets in a bit of face damage and can just do nothing at all with no dork in play. A loot is good but it is pretty slow and expensive in this form. The most concerning thing about The Royal Scions is their total lack of ability to protect themselves. When ahead then all is great but when behind this is super easy to freely attack down or just ignore. It obviously has a big old loyalty buffer which will absorb a lot of damage when it is being attacked to death which is something but I am not sure that a partial and optional Fog effect really carries much weight at all. Lots of loyalty is only all that exciting if you are doing a lot with it. The ultimate is at least a very serious threat and does mean you can only ignore this to a point. You either have to have won the race before they get to 8 or do it a few points of damage here and there to keep it at bay. Dack is a similar card in many ways and while I prefer the design of this offering I think Dack will remain the premium cube Izzet 3 mana walker. Dack is a far more potent looter and offers a really game swinging -2 that is immediately card advantage and effects the board in a big way. This makes Dack more polar and rather more tedious to play against but that will not help the Scions to keep a drafting cube slot. Being such a generic card I don't see them getting that much play in my constructed events. Standard is the best shot this has at being good.


Tome of Legends 2

You could use this in a proliferate deck that didn't have a commander. In such a deck this would be a very potent card draw tool both in cube and standard. In a deck with a commander this seems like one of the absolute best card draw tools on offer in the whole format. I suspect this will be one of those cards that just winds up in most such decks. Pretty naughty printing a card like this in the way Wizards have. Enjoy being milked by Hasbro all you commander players. Enjoy it and then expect to be milked again...









Mace of the Valiant 0

This takes ages to power up, starts out terribly and offers no evasion to go with any potential big buffs it might one day offer. This card is balls.









Syr Gwyn, Hero of Ashvale 1

This is a very fun card but it is all a bit far up the curve to really have any chance of performing in 1v1. You need another knight and an equipment in play for Gwyn to do anything the turn he comes in and that is a must for a card so far up the curve. Then you are likely getting value which is not really what you want from a 6 drop. The only use I can see for this in 1v1 is a combo kill where you have enough equipment and the appropriate knight to one shot when this comes down. Seems silly and bad.




Alela, Artful Provocateur 5

What do you get when you cross Sai, Master Thopterist with a Vampire Nighthawk and some Favourable Winds? Basically this it seems. All of those previous cards are powerful but two of them are quite specific in what they do. Alela does require supporting to some extent to perform. Combined with her very gold casting cost I suspect she will not be worthy of the drafting cube. That being said I think she is powerful enough as a floor and broad enough in her scope for suitable support cards that she will not need much support at all to do well. I think she will often be a commander for Esper builds by the fact that there are fairly few solid options on such things.







Korvold, Fae-Cursed King 2

A big, card drawing, growing, sac-outlet of a dragon. In a list that wants things to sac off other things then this is an option that brings a lot of power along with that support. As a general card this is playable but not all that impressive. Just drawing a card, probably at a 1 for 1 rate is not too impressive. A five mana 5/5 flyer with a loot as an EtB effect would not get much love. God-Eternal Bontu is just a more impactful and more playable option to this. As a commander however the three colours goes from a drawback to a big plus and gives you a decent synergy option with a broader scope for colours. This is a card I expect to see a lot as a commander and barely ever elsewhere which makes it well designed and well placed in terms of product.