Welcome to the Throne of Eldraine Cube Update! I'm also going to be adding Commander 2019 as well. My first impressions of Eldraine was that it was a cool set but didn't translate that well to cube as there weren't a ton of individually powerful or synergistic cards with the current cube strategies. After further reflection I've found that the cards are a lot more interesting than I previously thought. This has a lot to do with Adventure as a mechanic just being phenomenal at both smoothing draws and providing variable options for deck building and game play. A little aside on the mechanic so I don't have to cover it every time but you need to be careful when casting the spell part of Adventure cards. If it doesn't resolve for any reason the card goes to the graveyard instead of exile and you aren't able to actually cast the creature. This lowers the playability of a lot of the more borderline Adventure cards as you really need to have both a relevant spell and creature to succeed. One or the other won't cut it under most circumstances. With that in mind, let's get underway!
White
In Out
I really like Faerie Godmother a lot but you will have to be very careful firing off Gift of the Fae in cube. The removal is excellent which really punishes combat tricks and creature amplifiers, especially ones done at sorcery speed. Due to the inherent risk mentioned before with Adventure cards, this means the bar is set quite high for required impact but white really does need to do something with its aggro plan. It's boring and people really don't play it. This provides a little bit of variance and gameplay while allowing your smaller creatures to remain relevant later into a game. The sorcery speed on Gift of the Fae doesn't matter as much as you'd think because it provides flying which takes most blockers out of the equation. You can't use it defensively, but that's not what white is trying to do anyway, and certainly not on such a small body. This should play well with larger creatures as well, letting them jump over combat to deal a lot of damage out of nowhere. I'm cautiously optimistic.
I tried, I really did. I get that a lot of people really like Steppe Lynx but it just doesn't perform consistently enough in cube. You really have to work for that two power and the fetch land argument just doesn't hold water in a large cube where you don't have the frequency of fetch lands. It's just not that good.
In Out
Venerable Knight has an upside that is just as marginal as that of Soldier of the Pantheon except that it doesn't have protection and it doesn't have a clause that has to be paid attention to all throughout a game. There aren't that many knights in cube so this is on the chopping block when more marginally better Savannah Lions are printed in the future. Maybe one of them will be actually exciting someday.
In Out
Law-Rune Enforcer was on my watch list and I'm glad I kept it there as it's really proven its salt in other cubes. My favorite part about this card is that it's pushed as much as is reasonable as an extra toughness lets it dodge just a few removal spells and not needing to may colored mana to tap feels great but fair. As I expected, the ability just taps nearly anything you would ever want to tap anyway and I'm looking forward to giving another tapper a try.
I really like Valorous Stance as a modal option to keep opponents on their toes and give white some reactive spells. However, the second mode just isn't used that often. So many of the must answer threats have less than four toughness making this really awkward. Some decks only have one or two targets in their whole deck which makes this more of a sideboard card in most cases.
In Out
Ephemerate has been getting exceptional reviews in cubes and I'm excited to finally have a blink spell worth its salt. The first trigger is very flexible, allowing you to counter removal spells, save your creatures in combat, surprise your opponents with a sudden blocker to provide pseudo-vigilance, or just provide you an extra ETB effect on demand. The rebound is only able to provide you with an extra ETB effect but since Rebound is a may you don't need to worry about having to cast it if there isn't an advantage to doing so. Either way, the cost to effect ratio on this card is massive and it's easy to get your mana's worth even if you can't profitably use the Rebound. When you can, it's going to feel extremely satisfying. You are getting a whole lot for a single mana.
I really like Mana Tithe and it was functioning as expected but it just doesn't fit naturally into many white decks. Ephemerate is going to be much more synergistic with the creature heavy white builds while retaining some of the "surprise" functionality that Mana Tithe provided.
In Out
Charming Prince goes a long way towards making a 2/2 body playable. Relevant at all points in the game it will never really be bad and the ceiling is very high depending on the game state. Gaining 3 life can be huge in a race and if you have a relevant ETB effect, the blink allows you to play offense and defense. The Scry 2 will always be live and can help some questionable hands become very playable. It's also a great blink target itself as all of these are great on a second trigger should there be that synergy in your deck.
I've been really disappointed with the whole cycle of Megamorph cards. The 2/2 bodies aren't impactful in cube and while the abilities have been fine, they have just been so slow. Aggro decks aren't interested in taking two turns for this effect, especially given there might not be any targets.
In Out
Ancestral Blade is essentially a Grizzly Bear that drops off and supports other creatures when it dies or isn't relevant anymore. Equip 1 has proven to be very powerful and I've been relatively happy with cards like Leonin Scimitar. This provides a creature in addition and white really appreciates equipment that won't be gobbled up by other aggro/tempo decks.
The more I take out the dedicated artifact/enchantment removal the better I feel about it. Decks just don't want to main deck it and without power and pseudo-power there isn't as much of a draw for it. White has access to plenty of answers for noncreatures and I would rather open up a slot for something that furthers the decks actual game plan.
In Out
This is largely a swap to even up the creature only and non-creature targeted answers in white with the removal of some of the Disenchant variants. Pacfism is the weakest of the creature removal and while it's been passable, there is a lot of cheap removal that is better than it already.
In Out
Sun Titan has always been the most "fair" of the titan cycle largely because it's actually possible to miss with its ability. Sometimes you don't have a graveyard and sometimes you only have one target so you hit on the cast but can't gain further value on attacks. The first trigger is usually very good and that's what Sevinne's Reclamation provides. I actually think this ability is going to play out better delayed a couple turns than if you got all the value up front. It allows you to only cast the flashback when you have targets instead of with Sun Titan's pseudo-rebound. You almost always get back a creature with the ability but I've seen fetch lands and enchantments return too on occasion. This is an interesting way to supply white with card draw and works well with both graveyard decks and grindy mid-range decks as well.
I really wanted Mastery of the Unseen to work out but it has the same problem that Hidden Dragonslayer. The 2/2 body just isn't good enough, especially on a card as slow as this one. The life gain doesn't have enough impact when you don't have other face down creatures in your deck and while the repeated Manifest is great, it's also very expensive and prevents you from being able to both Manifest and turn face up in the same turn. This provides interesting game play decisions but lowers the power level below what is necessary for cube.
In Out
I've been really happy with Armageddon in white decks as it allows them to attack from a unique angle and really punish control decks. Lately, white aggro decks have been underrepresented and in the interest of pushing up their power and consistency a bit, I'm adding in the functional reprint in Ravages of War. Due to the large size of my cube it still won't come up in every draft but this should bump up the amount of times the deck has access to the effect.
Force of Virtue lived down to all the low expectations and experiences others had for it. Four mana is just too much for an anthem and the advantage of being able to drop it at the end of your opponent's turn for "free" didn't make up for that. Having to pitch a card in order to cast this for free is much more taxing in white than it is in other colors. White just doesn't have as many ways to recoup the card disadvantage and, especially in aggro decks that want to be playing the anthems, they can't afford to get rid of something relevant. This relegated Force of Virtue to almost exclusive casting on your own turn.
Watch List
We've seen cards like Harmonious Archon before, most notably with Godhead of Awe. A giant flier that shrinks all other creatures while its in play. Godhead of Awe played out poorly mostly because of its prohibitive casting cost and blowout potential if its removed in combat. Harmonious Archon is easier to cast (albeit more expensive), has a bigger body and makes multiple creatures on ETB. If this is removed, it leaves something behind and plays very well with blink. Because all of the power is in the main creature, if the Archon is removed, everything goes back to normal which could set up a huge blowout depending on what's exactly engaged in combat. If you are going wide when this is cast, this threatens to end the game immediately. If you are behind on board, this evens the playing field in numbers and P/T. It doesn't take away any abilities though so the actual power level is going to very wildly depending on what the exact board state is. It seems to fit really well into tokens shells but awkwardly elsewhere. It's a great creature to reanimate early but in mid-range shells that plan to go over the top of their opponent it loses a lot of steam, actually shrinking your own creatures. It's potentially very powerful but it's also narrow, difficult to control and largely dependent on board state to maintain its value. I'm going to put it on the watch list to get some data from other cubes that test it.
Realm-Cloaked Giant is my favorite card from the set and one that I desperately want to work out in cube. Five mana wraths are very borderline for cube as they have to have significant upside in order to be included. The only one I'm currently running is Fumigate because it works so well in control, gaining back life lost during stabilization. I have room for one more but only if it's perfect. Cast Off is a five mana wrath that will kill Everything Except The Titan Cycle. The bonus comes in the form of a 7/7 vigilance for 5WW which is obviously well below cube standards. But that's not what the question is. The question is whether allowing players to attach a large creature to a wrath is good enough for cube. This allows control decks to have what is essentially a free late game threat stapled to a card they already will play. I think it's good enough but enough people are negative on it that I want to give it some air to breathe and see how it plays out in testing. My cautious opinion is that this will find its way in cube before too long but I'm going to be patient with it.
Didn't Make the Cut
Giant Killer is the combination of the worst part of Valorous Stance (see above) and being an expensive tapper. If I'm adding a tapper in it's going to be Law-Rune Enforcer and not something as mana greedy as this.
Shepherd of the Flock is one of the Adventure creatures that misses the mark because of lack of synergy. The body is only playable in an aggressive deck but they don't have much use for Usher to Safety. If it blinked the creature to play it would be more interesting but in aggro decks bounce to hand is almost as good as actual removal. Without that, a 3/1 for 1W hasn't been good enough in years.
Didn't Make the Cut
Hushbringer is going to either be an easy include or an easy exclude based entirely on how happy you have been with Hushwing Gryff. I don't really like it so this is an easy pass for me. The ability is just too hard to make asymmetrical and it plays as more of a sideboard card. It's powerful when it works but it really restricts your deck building ability because there are so many good ETB cards you can be playing. If this only hit opponents it would be much different.
I really wanted this card to be good but it took me like five readings to understand just how bad this is. I get that the flavor is to make a whole bunch of tokens and then your Doomed Artisan dies and you can suddenly attack with all of them but good lord is it slow and unreliable. While you are waiting for your tokens to develop you have a 1/1 that you also can't attack with either. At some point your opponent has to start considering how damaging it would be if you get to turn on your Sculptures but it's far more likely that they just kill you in the meantime.
Didn't Make the Cut
Kenrith reminds me a lot of Obelisk of Alara which has been a cube staple for years. I've always been really happy with Obelisk as it has consistently over-performed expectations. The best part about Obelisk? The gain five life. It's so much more than people think when you can do it each turn. Kenrith can do it twice each turn. That's insane and basically puts the game out of reach for any aggro deck if you can untap. It's also incredibly un-fun. People want to look at the other abilities for card advantage and haste nonsense but the real value is playing this in a white control deck and just gaining 10 life a turn until they kill it. That's not the kind of card I want to play with or against so this is an easy pass.
I just can't get excited about Castle Ardenvale. I get that it's a land and therefore basically automatically gets played in any deck playing white but the effect is just so slow and low impact. Five mana or a 1/1 is a terrible rate. You don't often completely run out of things to do in cube and this is so expensive that you can't do anything but make a token if you choose to make one. I feel like 99% of the time you are going to be just playing this as a bad Plains and while it is technically better and has a very high main deck percentage, it's also a very low pick, low impact and isn't worth cutting a different card.
Kenrith reminds me a lot of Obelisk of Alara which has been a cube staple for years. I've always been really happy with Obelisk as it has consistently over-performed expectations. The best part about Obelisk? The gain five life. It's so much more than people think when you can do it each turn. Kenrith can do it twice each turn. That's insane and basically puts the game out of reach for any aggro deck if you can untap. It's also incredibly un-fun. People want to look at the other abilities for card advantage and haste nonsense but the real value is playing this in a white control deck and just gaining 10 life a turn until they kill it. That's not the kind of card I want to play with or against so this is an easy pass.
I just can't get excited about Castle Ardenvale. I get that it's a land and therefore basically automatically gets played in any deck playing white but the effect is just so slow and low impact. Five mana or a 1/1 is a terrible rate. You don't often completely run out of things to do in cube and this is so expensive that you can't do anything but make a token if you choose to make one. I feel like 99% of the time you are going to be just playing this as a bad Plains and while it is technically better and has a very high main deck percentage, it's also a very low pick, low impact and isn't worth cutting a different card.
In Out
Hypnotic Sprite is on the lower end of blue cards to be sure but I think it's a clear upgrade over Stratus Dancer so it has an easy in. The body isn't great for the cost and Mesmeric Glare doesn't hit the most impactful cards later in a game but both together means its never irrelevant. There are enough cheap cards in cube that the counterspell is never really dead like Mana Leak gets later in a game. Most removal is three mana or less so this hits all of that as well as early game plays and utility spells. I can see this getting swapped out within the next year but I like the decision making and game play this provides.
More megamorph, same problems. Namely, the 2/2 body just isn't big enough and there aren't enough morph cards to make the mystery interesting. The option for the evasive body is nice and the flip ability is relevant but I just think that Hypnotic Sprite does both better.
In Out
I've been waiting for a card like Fae of Wishes for a long time. An early game blocker for control decks that is relevant in the late game. This is a great defensive body should you draw it early and the ability to return it to your hand (albeit an expensive one) allows you to really use both sides of the card no matter when you draw it. Granted is a fantastic effect as all cube decks have way more playables than they need so getting something out of your sideboard that is relevant and powerful is almost trivially easy. Most decks should be able to get multiple cards to choose from and I love anything that lets more of your draft picks become helpful for your deck.
Fblthp served his purpose as an early roadblock, gaining a couple of life and drawing a card. He played out exactly as I expected and was replaced roughly as quickly as I expected. No surprised here, it's just way less powerful than Fae of Wishes and serves the same purpose.
In Out
Brazen Borrower will be a great card for tempo decks and serves as one of the few cubeable cheap bounce spells. The flash is a little awkward at first glance since you won't be able to surprise your opponent with it if you've already casted Petty Theft but it's really only upside. Even if you tried to surprise block with it you can only trade due to the 1 toughness so you were never going to blow someone out with it in that way. Since Petty Theft is an instant you can cast it and then immediately cast Brazen Borrower on the same turn, essentially using the flash ability as intended. Telegraphing the flash also has the bonus upside of letting you mask counter magic without setting off alarm bells since you have an obvious reason to leave up mana on your opponent's turn. This will play out really nicely.
Pestermite has been cut from cube about five updates in a row only to survive on last minute edits. It has been consistently underwhelming and never combos off with Kiki-Jiki due to the cube size (by design). Brazen Borrower is just a much better version of the same card.
In Out
Midnight Clock is my cube sleeper card from the set. Almost nobody is talking about this card but I think it's great. A three mana mana rock is not ideal but control decks will still play it even if it doesn't fix your mana. This swings up to twelve surprisingly quickly while also letting you cast your spells. It's not difficult to throw an extra counter on at the end of a turn if you don't have anything better to do and the subgame of trying to prepare for Midnight is interesting for both players. Timing this so you draw the cards at the right time is skill testing and seven cards is an absolute ton. Shuffling your graveyard and hand prevent too many shenanigans from occurring but also increases the density of relevant cards that can be drawn. Seven cards is a ton and winning from there shouldn't be too challenging.
As Foretold performed just as I had expected which is both good and bad. When it was good it was incredible but there were also games where it did absolutely nothing. Casting it without being able or needing to take advantage of it for a couple of turns is common. When you are able to string card draw together with instants its absurd but the floor is extremely low. I'm glad I was able to play with it but I think Midnight Clock is going to be more consistent and impactful.
In Out
Gadwick, the Wizened is nice because he is playable at smaller values of X and just gets incrementally better the later you cast him. The real key is the tap ability that removes blockers on any blue spell and can tap down attackers with instants at the start of their turn. Triple blue is a little rough but this isn't a card that needs to be played on curve to succeed. The fact that this comes with a creature attached to it makes it MUCH better than something like Blue Sun's Zenith and the like even without flash. Leaving a road block behind makes it much more defensible to take a turn off to refill your hand and when ahead or at parity the tap ability can put the game away with all the cards you drew. Best played as a finisher but serviceable at other points in the curve, Gadwick goes well in all varieties of blue decks and should be a solid card as long as you are playing Islands.
Talrand is a cool engine card that suffers badly in cube from lack of redundancy and fragility. Playing this on curve is dangerous as you will not be able to make a Drake until your following turn, which leads to getting no value if it is removed from play. If you wait until later in the game you likely aren't maximizing your Drake triggers which badly hurts its performance. Since it doesn't attack or block well all of its value is tied up in the Drakes and it just always gets killed before building the army.
Didn't Make the Cut
The first time I read this card I thought it milled you for two instead of your opponent. If that was the case I would add this as a cheap roadblock that both sets up your future draws and gets your graveyard synergies started. Unfortunately, it only mills your opponent which, with no mill interactions in cube, only sets THEM up for graveyard synergies. Now it's an easy pass.
Vantress Gargoyle looks so much better than it actually plays. It will not be able to attack until late in the game as seven cards is a LOT of cards to get into a graveyard. Some creature based decks will never get that far without help. The symmetrical mill is great here as it turns on your graveyard while building towards being able to attack, but it's slow in that regard and it sets your opponent up for any interactions they might have. Once it can start attacking it will be a relevant threat but it won't be as a tempo play, it's going to be as a control finisher. The real problem is that during the middle portions of games it won't actually be able to attack or block, rendering it useless outside of slow milling. Four cards to maintain in hand is a lot and even with card draw it inhibits your ability to commit to the board. Control decks want to hit their land drops to get to their late game spells so it's not as easy as just holding back on a land drop or two if you need to block. This will be quite good in slow, controlling builds that are heavily reactive with card draw but largely unplayable in every other shell. If you have a need for an early game defensive blocker that turns into a late game threat that can't block in control shells, this will work well for you. Just realize that no other configurations are likely to work. That functionality is too narrow for me.
Didn't Make the Cut
I've never been a fan of cards like Mass Diminish in cube despite their blowout potential, largely because they only target a single creature and are worse than a straight removal spell. Mass Diminish targets everything but at sorcery speed which renders the card kind of useless. Flashback is pretty big here if you are ahead because it gives you two turns of almost unimpeded attacks but there are also a lot of board states where this just doesn't do anything.
Kadena's Silencer falls under the same blanket that the other Megamorph cards do. The turn face up ability here probably plays better than it looks but you can't really hold up mana for this type of thing unless they have a planeswalker in play. It doesn't attack or block well and even when it flips the body isn't anything special.
Didn't Make the Cut
If you have an artifact sub theme in blue both of these cards should receive serious consideration. Animating Faerie is a lot of value for the investment and while the noncreature restriction limits its power, it asks something of the deck builder which always makes for rewarding gameplay. Emry is an absolute house, but only if you play artifacts. Being able to rebuy cheap artifacts with meaningful effects or creatures is potentially game breaking. Milling four to set her up and not requiring mana to activate is huge. She should probably be an auto include in any cube supporting blue artifacts. Sadly, I'm not so the appeal isn't there for me.
Didn't Make the Cut
Cloudkin Seer has been great in cube so far but the two power has been a huge reason why. It threatens the opponent's life total just enough to be annoying. Tome Raider doesn't really do that relegating her to defensive duty. That's still useful but not worth a cube slot.
I like Faerie Formation quite a bit but ultimately it's just not better than the existing options. It's splashable and has a nice body for the cost but the ability is glacial. You can't actually attack with any additional tokens until two turns after you cast this which is an eternity for what should be a finisher. Drawing cards is nice but at the cost provided this needs to be winning the game, not setting you up for four turns down the line.
I like Faerie Formation quite a bit but ultimately it's just not better than the existing options. It's splashable and has a nice body for the cost but the ability is glacial. You can't actually attack with any additional tokens until two turns after you cast this which is an eternity for what should be a finisher. Drawing cards is nice but at the cost provided this needs to be winning the game, not setting you up for four turns down the line.
Didn't Make the Cut
Castle Vantress has the same failings as Castle Ardenvale, above. It's an extremely overcosted ability, here 2UUU for Scry 2. That's intense for card selection. Your deck has to be extremely slow to want to play this and while, yeah, most blue decks will just slot this in the main if they have it they aren't wasting high picks on this and they aren't going to actually use the ability that frequently. It just isn't worth cutting a card for. That's true of this whole cycle.
In Out
Order of Midnight might be the best Gravedigger they have ever printed. Splitting up the costs on this card is huge because if you have this in your opening hand you can just slam it down on turn two to pressure your opponent instead of having to wait for something to go to your graveyard. Later in the game you can cast Alter Fate with and immediately cast Order of Midnight or you can split them up to recast whatever you return immediately. Raise Dead is a powerful effect that just isn't worth a card but when you attach it to a good body you get something much better. Not being able to block hurts the creature a little bit but it should fit into several different decks regardless. This is how I like my black tempo creatures, supporting multiple shells.
See conversations above about disappointments with Megamorph cards. The same applies here although this one is at last a little closer to inclusion due to the evasion on the main body.
In Out
As a cheap removal spell its slightly awkward that this doesn't answer early game plays. Being a sorcery also hurts quite a bit. It hits a good percentage of cube though and will ultimately answer the most dangerous threats and take away graveyard interactions through exiling.
Fatal Push has the opposite problem as Epic Downfall. It's an instant but only deals with extremely early game threats and cube doesn't revolve around them the same way that constructed does. Revolt was the key cog here as it's proven much more difficult to trigger than initially hoped. You just don't have the sacrifice engine lined up properly when you need to answer a larger creature enough of the time. Its much more common to just fire this off on anything you can when you trigger Revolt instead of the other way around.
In Out
Murderous Rider is insane. Hero's Downfall is already a very good cube card and adding a creature onto it is incredible. The life loss is offset by lifelink on the 2/3 and even though the body isn't great if you have to cast it by itself, you are getting it for free because of how good Swift End is. This a perfect cube card.
Consuming Vapors is fine but expensive and slow. You really feel forced to wait for multiple targets even when it's correct to fire it off with only one thing in play. The life gain is the main draw here for black but giving your opponent control hurts a lot in an environment playing so many tokens and utility creatures.
In Out
In order for Rankle to be good enough for cube it has to be used as an engine card in a deck that wants to be attacking. It can do a lot but it's going to be important to break the symmetry. Evasion and haste are huge in order for this type of creature to work out as they typically haven't been great in cube. You can easily break the discard if you have no cards or care about the graveyard which covers almost all of black's potential decks. The sacrifice works well in RB as they are aggressive and care about sacrifice or BW as they have tokens. Note that this doesn't say other creature so you have to sacrifice Rankle if he is your only creature. The card draw should work well in any deck but is the most difficult to break symmetry. Nonetheless it will be triggered due to the extra damage lending it better overall to decks that care about their opponent's life total. It's also very good if your opponent is short on mana and you aren't as you can use the cards faster than they can. This adds up to a card that should make the main in most decks that are playing black. I'm just not sure how good it actually is. All that value is entirely dependent on hitting your opponent, not attacking. While you can trigger multiple abilities it's not always going to be correct to do so. It's a fascinating card in terms of both deck building and gameplay and I don't know how I can't include it despite the concerns.
I like Bloodline Keeper more than most both as a repeatable source of tokens and as an inevitable win condition. Unfortunately, it plays out more like a one note planeswalker than anything else. It makes a token each turn and then eventually can ultimate but it usually doesn't get to that. The game play is in deciding when you should stop making tokens are just start attacking with the 3/3 but having to untap to gain any value is a lot to ask when your bonus is just a 2/2. This has played out a lot like a flying Imperious Perfect and is cut for the same reasons.
Didn't Make the Cut
Piper of the Swarm works well thematically in a lot of black decks. Repeated token making is very strong for the Orzhov and Rakdos decsk in particular. Control decks will like the Mind Control effect and it can act as an early blocker against aggro. The problem is that the rate of token production is incredibly slow and mana intensive. Two mana is a lot and it's going to be difficult to justify spending turns making tokens in the early to mid game. Late game you need more immediate impact as this can't just drop down and take control of something with other creatures laying around. With no rat support in cube this takes five turns to use its last ability. That's just not going to happen and if they kill the Piper the rats lose menace making them largely worthless.
Tutoring to your hand is a very powerful effect and the first trigger of Wishclaw Talisman is likely going to be fantastic. Giving your opponent an opportunity to do it to is a real cost though. You likely won't be using the first wish unless it wins you the game and your opponent certainly isn't going to give you the third wish if they can help it. What I don't like about this card is that it just doesn't play out like it reads. The correct play is to just not use it unless you are going to win. People are going to misplay with this card badly. The risk is real and while it's skill testing, it's also really misleading about its intended purpose. For combo cubes this is probably good enough as just another tutor but not for mine.
Didn't Make the Cut
Ayara, besides having a name I consistently misspell and mispronounce, is an interesting card for those pushing black devotion as a mini-theme. I'm not so her mana cost is prohibitive instead of a main draw. Taking that into consideration, she just doesn't do enough. Free sacrifice outlets always end up more powerful than they look but limiting the sacrifice to black creatures further limits the decks that can play her. The body is also really anemic as she likely can't attack at all and not being able to sacrifice herself limits her usefulness when behind.
Nightmare Unmaking is a fancily worded Austere Command. While I like that card I don't like this one. You can build your deck to make this more controllable on your end but you have no control about what your opponent does. That's a lot of investment to hope the board lines up properly.
Didn't Make the Cut
I really don't like The Cauldron of Eternity at all without dedicated self mill. Once you cast it you can no longer fill your graveyard in the normal way which cripples its long term usefulness. Paying two life per reanimation really limits the amount of times you can reasonably reanimate anyway. It's likely going to cost 4 or 6 mana but if you are casting it for 6 you only have two targets in your graveyard regardless if they are even good targets. It's probably better to wait it out until you have a full yard allowing you to cast and activate this on the same turn. It's strong but very awkward in decks that care about graveyard, turning off most synergy as soon as you cast it.
Didn't Make the Cut
See Castle discussion above. The drawback on this isn't really that bad as you just don't use it when you have cards in hand. That said, it's again not something I want to make cuts for.
Red
In Out
Ash Zealot was a fine but unexciting two drop and the ceiling on Robber of the Rich is much higher. The reach is largely useless as you won't be blocking with this often although it's a nice bonus that is essentially free. The attack clause is the main draw here. Red aggressive decks should have less cards than opponents on average as they are playing cheaper, more aggressive cards. Despite having nearly zero other rogues in cube, this triggers the turn you cast it and you can cast the card even if this dies in combat. The concern is that this doesn't hit lands, plummeting the number of useful cards this can hit. I still think this is an upgrade over Dire Fleet Daredevil but mostly only because of how disappointing that has been. This is very much on the edge and it's continued inclusion will depend on how it performs.
Dire Fleet Daredevil really underwhelmed without being able to control if your opponent has targets in their graveyard. When they did, this was fine as it usually casted a removal spell or card draw. When it missed though it feels terrible and if you are playing this on curve you feel way behind. The floor is just too low.
In Out
This is just an obvious upgrade form a sorcery to an instant. Other than that it's identical. Easy!
In Out
Bonecrusher Giant is an incredible value creature. It's a burn spell that doubles as a solid creature that punishes your opponent for removing it. It attacks and blocks well for the cost and aggressive red decks will love the mana efficiency on both ends. One of the easiest inclusions for cube in years.
Najeela was on the fence since its power is entirely caught up in being able to attack and having the warrior theme work out since the WUBRG ability is impossible to actually trigger. Without a critical density of warriors, the only way to make tokens is for her to actually attack herself which is a terrible proposition with her anemic body and lack of haste. I'm happy to get rid of one of these variants anyway as I don't want all of red's three drops to be identical in theme.
In Out
Tialt is going to give you one less token over the course of its tenure than Hordeling Outburst but the tokens it does make do a lot more. Being able to trade up or pick off smaller creatures or just go to the face is a lot of flexibility, especially considering the sacrifice outlets. Not allowing life gain isn't a huge bonus but when it's relevant it will be significant for the red deck. This overperformed every time I saw it in play and I think it will do similarly in cube.
In Out
Rampaging Ferocidon was on the watch list way back when and I think it's finally time to get it in the cube. The body is really solid and other 3/x creatures with menace have played out well. The gain life clause is mostly filler but the real gas is the damage ability. It's symmetrical but easy to break as this slots really well in go tall red decks that aren't trying to kill with tokens. Due to red's damage output you don't have to deal much with this to really hinder their game plan.
Alesha is a gold card, plain and simple. I tried putting her into the red section but it just hasn't worked out. It's only played with white or black and it's just not played if it can't use the ability. I'm not putting it in either of those gold sections so I'm just going to cut it entirely. The ability is cute but not really in line with what red is trying to do.
In Out
I was really disappointed with Ilharg, the Raze Boar. It fit well in the decks I thought it would and the death trigger played out as well as I'd hoped. The problem is that if you didn't have something to join with it, it was really boring. If you did, you don't get the creature back until end step which means you can't recast it after combat. That's the most common thing people kept wanting to do and it doesn't let you do that. It was an awkward feeling and played much worse than the other Gods. I took Goblin Dark-Dwellers out for Ilharg initially and after the poor playtesting with Ilharg I'm just reversing the swap. Dark-Dwellers was always solid so it's a welcome re-addition.
In Out
Embercleave is a really interesting card and will make combat a nightmare, something that is rather unique in cube. I'm always looking for unique effects in cube that support underrepresented strategies and this does a great job of boosting red mid-range decks. The go wide red decks can still play this and be happy due to the cost reduction but mid-range decks will be best suited to take advantage of the actual abilities the equipment provides. This has game winning potential out of nowhere and can really turn the tide in a single combat. It has such a huge effect that I'm okay with the slightly expensive Equip cost. The combination of abilities really allows you to attack whatever creatures you want to as you are almost guaranteed to take out their best blocker or just deal maximum damage to their life total. Just be careful of potential removal in response as it's quite weak to that.
I loved Outpost Siege when it first released because it was an extremely unique effect in red and provided a huge boon to more mid-range red decks which badly needed support. In the years since we have received a couple more cards like it that have taken away its uniqueness. The Dragons ability was almost never used as it was difficult to control and usually the Khans ability just won the game faster anyway. This is now the worst version of this effect in cube and Embercleave does a better and more unique job of boosting the mid-range red decks.
In Out
Red, unlike the other colors, doesn't have any lands in its colored section. That, combined with the homogeneity of red's non-creature spells means I am always looking for new effects. Castle Embereth provides a team wide boost in power that you can use on offense or defense that hits all your creatures, even your non-red ones. This helps it fit into a wider array of decks than just the heavily red aggro decks. It's that flexibility and uniqueness of effect that lets it get in the cube, unlike the other castles which either were redundant effects or were fighting other lands for existing slots.
I like Nightbird's Clutches just fine but it never made main decks as it's obviously very awkward drawn late when behind or when you don't need to clear a path of blockers. The flashback was potentially devastating but heavily telegraphed which let your opponent play around it pretty easily.
Didn't Make the Cut
Fervent Champion really needed a relevant ability beyond the first strike and haste but neither of those last two will matter in cube at all. Knight tribal isn't a thing and equip costs don't need to be reduced. We've had cards like this before and they have played poorly so I don't expect this to be any different.
Embereth Shieldbreaker seems like a slam dunk for powered cubes as a cheap way to deal with non-interactive and game breaking artifacts but in un-powered cubes it's just not needed. There are a lot of variants of this card and I haven't played them in a while and don't miss them.
Didn't Make the Cut
Anje's Ravager is a really interesting card that seems to slot pretty well in the red graveyard based decks. Attacking each combat is a bit awkward if you are curving out so it's best held in hand until later in the game. As always, discarding and then drawing is a real risk if you aren't abusing it by having no cards in hand and not having any form of evasion almost guarantees this to be blocked by whatever means necessary. The body is fine but it's likely to only get one attack in per game and while you can draw into removal to cast before blockers are declared, it's a little too all-in and the floor is way too low for my preferences.
Slaying Fire compares quite favorably to an old time cube disappointment in Flame Javelin as it's much easier to cast if you don't have triple red, still having an effect for three mana even if it is reduced. It's closest competition that's still in the cube would probably be Char with the big different being that you don't have to worry about losing two life which hasn't proven to be too big of a liability. Ultimately it comes down to personal preference and I don't want to push mono-colored as a viable strategy due to my playgroup size and this is a strong signal that mono-red is a preferred archetype. If that's something you like in your cube then it's certainly not an embarrassing addition.
Didn't Make the Cut
Wildfire Devils fails the vanilla test pretty badly as it trades down with nearly everything. Having an ETB helps a lot but it's just so difficult to guarantee value. I've been burned by these types of cards before as it's just really impossible to rely on opponents to have quality spells in their graveyard. If it was a random spell in your graveyard it would be much better but choosing a random graveyard raises the chances you blank a lot. Again, the floor is just too low.
I first read Opportunistic Dragon as being able to steal any creature and I loved it. Only being able to take a Human or artifact greatly reduces its usefulness as missing becomes a real possibility. Red four drops are already so game breaking that a card really needs guaranteed value to make the cut. Despite the good body, it's not enough.
Didn't Make the Cut
The ceiling on Torbran is insane as he is able to threaten lethal very quickly through burn spells or through go wide support. The floor through is quite low as you really do need to me almost mono-red to make this worthwhile. In a regular two color deck you run the risk of just having him be a vanilla 4/4 for 1RRR. That is well below cube standards. Like with the other Adamant cards, I don't want to be pushing people to be mono colored because we just can't support it with the way we draft. If mono red is supported in your cube, this should be heavily considered as a curve topper in any red deck.
In Out
Mana elves are a big part of green's identity and I love being able to add one in that is able to make mana of any color. Gilded Goose has to alternate turns making mana but can critically make one the turn after it enters play. In losing the ability to make mana every turn you gain the flexibility to block one power creatures and put Food tokens in play at the end of turn. The food tokens do cost mana so making one is a real cost but having access to a little bit of life gain is huge when you draw the Goose late and don't need or can't use the mana anymore. The only thing that might hold this back is being too slow. I'm looking forward to finding out though.
Boreal Druid is a regular mana elf that makes colorless mana. I'm interested in trying out the Goose and this is the weakest elf for sure.
In Out
Wildborn Preserver is an insane card and I'm shocked I don't hear more people talking about it. It guarantees that you are able to use all of your mana each turn and it goes great in green as it has the least access to useful instants to hold mana up for. This only needs to get a single counter to be above curve and any more gets out of hand quickly. Reach and flash are great bonuses and can help this be more than a vanilla beater. Coming down so early in the game allows it to scale as the game progresses and even late game you only need a single creature afterwards to grow this quickly with your extra mana.
I added Kraul Harpooner as a main deck way for green to deal with fliers but what it ended up being was a Plummet as it can almost never survive the fight. Only boosting power really hurts as it allows it to trade up, but ensures it's always a trade. That's not what I had envisioned.
In Out
Questing Beast isn't really anything other than a stats monster and cube only has so many spots for those types of creatures as they don't further particular strategies and aren't really that fun or interesting. That said, this is quite the stats monster. Passes the vanilla test and you add in three relevant keywords that make it a good attacker with evasion and blocker. Preventing combat damage is irrelevant and largely annoying as it adds text to an already text heavy card. The last ability won't be relevant at all until it is extremely powerful and people might forget it exists but it's a solid bonus on an already pushed card.
Polukranos was printed in an age where the body was way above the curve and it didn't have to rely on its Monstrous ability for value. Now that creatures have only continued to improve, it really does need to rely on that ability and it's never been great. It's really only ever kills a single small creature and while that's fine, it's also not exactly exciting on a large vanilla creature. It was always solid but rarely exciting and was really awkward if you were behind on board as it takes two turns to get your value.
In Out
The Great Henge is a really interesting card and one that I wouldn't be surprised to see overperform consistently. It just does so much and it furthers green's existing strategy well. It ramps, gains life to offset more aggressive decks, draws cards and makes your creatures larger which does matter despite what people say about green. At five mana this is great and it's playable but less exciting at six. This means you need a single creature with power 3 or greater in play and that's not unreasonable no matter what color combination you are in. Green non-creature spells are always looking for innovation and lag well behind the other colors so I'm going to test cards like this because the bar for inclusion is so much lower. I'm optimistic.
I like Travel Prep but it just doesn't see play outside of Selesnya decks which isn't that surprising. The power is in the flashback and you just don't want to be playing this for just the first trigger that often. The Great Henge has much higher upside and is going to be played in more decks.
I like Travel Prep but it just doesn't see play outside of Selesnya decks which isn't that surprising. The power is in the flashback and you just don't want to be playing this for just the first trigger that often. The Great Henge has much higher upside and is going to be played in more decks.
Watch List
I really like the idea of having a ramp spell that becomes useful if you draw it late in the game. Beanstalk Giant gives you a slightly inefficient ramp spell with the upside of drawing a large vanilla creature late in the game. Neither spell is particularly close to making the cube on their own but together they could. I'm putting it on the watch list in the same way as Realm-Cloaked Giant in white, above. It's likely that it's either both or neither as they are very similar in their level of play.
Thorn Mammoth can do a lot of damage if it is able to survive but due to the wording of its ETB trigger, your opponent can remove it in response to the fight resolving. This means you aren't actually guaranteed value and while a 6/6 trample for 4GG is good enough (see Primeval Titan), you need more than that. Luckily, this is a great top deck late as it provides removal and a relevant body and it turns your future draws into more removal spells as it should be able to win nearly any fight it is involved in, not to mention multiple triggers for multiple creatures per turn. While ahead or at parity it is also great, shutting the door on blockers before they are able to participate in combat and allowing for attacks the turn you cast it. The fail case exists but there are just so many other scenarios where this is very solid. It's going on the watch list while I assess my big green mana targets.
Thorn Mammoth can do a lot of damage if it is able to survive but due to the wording of its ETB trigger, your opponent can remove it in response to the fight resolving. This means you aren't actually guaranteed value and while a 6/6 trample for 4GG is good enough (see Primeval Titan), you need more than that. Luckily, this is a great top deck late as it provides removal and a relevant body and it turns your future draws into more removal spells as it should be able to win nearly any fight it is involved in, not to mention multiple triggers for multiple creatures per turn. While ahead or at parity it is also great, shutting the door on blockers before they are able to participate in combat and allowing for attacks the turn you cast it. The fail case exists but there are just so many other scenarios where this is very solid. It's going on the watch list while I assess my big green mana targets.
Didn't Make the Cut
If Once Upon a Time didn't have the free clause people wouldn't even be talking about it as we have seen this effect before and it rarely performs well. I'm not impressed by this card at all when you don't have the redundancy of multiple copies or combo potential that you do in constructed. If the revealed cards went to the graveyard I would strongly consider adding this but they don't. Being an instant matters much less in green than it does elsewhere. I'm not interested in this since it furthers no strategies and the cost reduction is nice but just doesn't matter in cube the way people seem to be thinking it does. Keep in mind this is card selection, not card advantage so outside of improving mulligans or questionable starting hands, this isn't even very good casted when you get it free. That early in the game you don't really know what you need most whether it be land or creatures so you are rewarded much more so for being patient and casting this later in the game. This just isn't that good in cube.
Kenrith's Transformation's only draw is that it replaces itself. I don't like Beast Within as an effect in cube as I've discussed at length before and this does the same thing but only targets creatures and is a sorcery. Drawing a card doesn't make up for these pitfalls. If you really like green to have access to this effect you can do worse, but I'm not up for it.
Didn't Make the Cut
Lovestruck Beast is a very pushed three drop but all of it's value is caught up in having access to the 1/1 token as you do not want to be playing this if you can't attack. The sequencing can be awkward when you have to wait an extra turn because you don't have the extra mana and while you can rely on other 1/1 creatures there aren't a ton outside of mana elves which are already heavy removal targets. It's just too easy to turn off without token support.
I really like Ohran Frostfang's design but it's just so terrible if you are behind. It has a very defensive body but doesn't have deathtouch unless it's attacking meaning it will have trouble killing things that it blocks. This snowballs quickly when ahead or even if you just have a single evasive threat. Green doesn't really go evasive as much as it goes over the top though and for the most part if you are hitting with a couple of creatures you are probably just going to win the game. This is just an awkward fit in most decks and five drops are filled with things that give immediate value and can't be answered with a single removal spell.
Didn't Make the Cut
Feasting Troll King is a huge, monster that attacks and blocks well and gives you the choice of reanimation or life gain depending on your personal needs at the time. Unfortunately, that last part only exists if you cast him from your hand, not reanimate him. This puts him in an awkward spot since his casting cost has quad green in it. Green is most able to pay for a quad color cost and you are rewarded for doing so.
Castle Garenbrig is easily the least exciting of the Castle cycle as all it does is ramp one mana or fix your mana for green if you need more than two. It's fine and will likely make the main deck of any green deck but it's not worth a slot in cube. Every time you add a card, you have to take something out. This doesn't support any specific archetypes and is incredibly boring.
Didn't Make the Cut
Gingerbrute, despite amazing artwork, is essentially just an unblockable 1/1 which relegates him strictly to all-in aggro decks and while he is fine there, it's also not really exciting or needed.
Golden Egg is an Arcum's Astrolabe that costs 1 more for the chance to gain life later in the game. That's a useful ability but one of the advantages to Astrolabe is that you can play it mostly without disrupting your mana curve as a single mana is reasonable to fit in. That lines this up closer to something like Mind Stone where you get your card up front but lost the ability to ramp. The ramp on Mind Stone is one of the main reasons it gets played. Both of those cards are on the lower end of power for colorless so you can see why this, less powerful and convenient than either, doesn't quite measure up.
Didn't Make the Cut
Stonecoil Serpent has protection and even though it's from mulitcolored only, it's still an ability that goes against my cube philosophy. This is a decent curve filler but doesn't do much to excite beyond that.
Didn't Make the Cut
Outlaw's Merriment is an interesting card that reminds me a lot of Assemble the Legion except that it goes tall instead of wide. Outlaw does nothing the turn you cast it, which is crushing for a card that costs four mana. The following turn you get a random token with haste that isn't even guaranteed to be able to attack depending on the board state. If your opponent has a 3/3 then two of these modes do nothing. That's not a lot to ask for and this is a real investment for such a card. Boros's other cards in guild end games faster and are more threatening.
In Out
Garruk, Cursed Huntsman competes directly with Garruk, Apex Predator so a direct comparison is all that is needed to asses his cube status. For one fewer mana you get the same starting loyalty but the inability to tick up. Apex Predator can pump up by one to commit to the board. Apex Predator goes tall with larger individual threats while Cursed Huntsman goes wide. Both can tick down to destroy problematic permanents while Apex can also answer planeswalkers. The only difference here being gaining life versus drawing cards. Both are good in Golgari as it's more grindy but drawing cards is probably better in most matchups. The ultimate of both are game ending but only Apex Predator has a clear path to achieving it. Huntsman threatens to ultimate the following turn but only if the opponent allows it. It's great with sacrifice effects present in black but can be somewhat awkward in some instances. Cursed Huntman is going to be better when behind as you can stabilize easier making multiple bodies while threatening to go ultimate immediately. The difference between six and seven mana is also gigantic, even in decks with ramp. Your opponent can't just ignore that amount of wolf tokens forever and I like the side synergies with sacrifice effects a lot.
Didn't Make the Cut
I see some people talking about Escape to the Wilds so I wanted to address it. This is not a draw five. This is only good if you cast it late in the game when you have excess mana lying around and it's value is also heavily dependent on how you have your Gruul list set up. If you have it as more of a rampy deck then this is going to be closer to a tutor for a finisher than anything else in which case I'd rather just play something like Shared Summons because it searches your whole deck. You are likely getting to cast the top two or three cards depending on mana costs and that's a lot to ask over two turns for five mana. If the cards aren't even better than what's in your hand (like if you need to cast removal instead of the small value creatures you flipped up) you don't even get any value at. This is only going to be good for either casting one impactful spell or a couple small ones and hitting your land drops. Not worth the investment.
In Out
Niv-Mizzet, Parun's only weakness is its incredibly onerous casting cost but considering you aren't going to be casting him until the late game anyway it's a little less severe of a drawback. Niv comes down and is guaranteed to get you value. If removed, you get to draw a card and deal a damage and it can't be countered. If it survives to your turn, you can really go off the walls with value and it's an excellent finisher for a deck that should have a lot of cheap instants and sorceries to trigger it with. It's a perfect signpost card for Izzet and rewards drafters for moving in which is exactly what I want guild cards to do. Niv-Mizzet is incredibly fun and rewarding to play with while being the only expensive card in the guild as well.
It might seem weird cutting such a clear cube staple in Fire // Ice but I think it is correct. One of the reasons I like gold cards so much is because they can be clear signals to drafters why they should be entering into a two color combination. Izzet badly lacks that at the moment. So many of Izzet's cards are instants that do various things but are also really redundant with what the colors Blue and Red can already do on their own. They aren't interesting or exciting for people to draft. They are all variants of each other. Fire // Ice has been outclassed by the competition and while it's still good enough it's the third card variant in the guild and the weakest.
Didn't Make the Cut
The only competition The Royal Scions face is Dack Fayden so we can make a direct comparison again. For the same cost you get two additional starting loyalty but after using a strictly worse plus one you end up at only one more loyalty. The different between single looting and double looting is extreme and Dack raises in loyalty twice as fast as The Royal Scions do. The middle ability is difficult because it varies wildly in value. Dack sometimes can't even trigger it but when he does it is game breaking. The Royal Scions should be able to trigger it more consistently but for a lower impact. The Royal Scions clearly have the better ultimate as Dack's is largely irrelevant in cube. The choice here is between three abilities that all have lower impact or an insane plus and swingy minus. I'm going with Dack strictly because it works better in the Izzet decks. It's close though in unpowered cubes where Dack loses a lot of value with fewer artifacts running around. Ultimately, the deciding factor is that The Royal Scions only play well in tempo while Dack plays well in both tempo and control. Izzet is capable of playing both sides so I want the planeswalker that is able to as well.
Didn't Make the Cut
Doom Foretold isn't nearly reliable enough to fit the bill and while it does support a tokens deck it also really relies on the opponent playing along with your game plan. If your opponent plays a wrath or is going wide themselves then this isn't doing what you need it to do. The discard and life loss triggers hit whoever can't sacrifice, not just the opponent meaning it punishes you if you aren't ahead already and while this symmetry can be broken it's a big investment for a non-guaranteed payoff.
In Out
I had originally cut Daretti because I didn't like his supposed play pattern. He looked too close to the stock planeswalker designs of plus 1 make a dude, minus one kill spell, ultimate that will never happen. Not being able to sacrifice an artifact to cast a needed removal spell the turn you cast him can hurt quite a bit as well. So why am I adding him back in? It turns out the Rakdos deck really, really needs a steady supply of undesirable bodies in order to make their play pattern work out. Daretti does that in spades as the defender subtype doesn't really matter if you are sacrificing them as fodder and Rakdos doesn't have a ton of repeatable token makers. All of those cards are very high picks as well. Three mana is a very low investment for a planeswalker as well and they almost always turn out to be powerful.
I like Vial Smasher a lot but he has two main problems that ended up working against him. The first is that he doesn't do anything the turn you cast him so if your opponent has removal they can just punish you immediately. The second is that it doesn't send any sort of signal towards what Rakdos is trying to do. It's good but it doesn't inform the drafters of anything other than be aggressive. That's not even necessarily a requirement for Rakdos making this only playable in certain builds of Rakdos. Daretti sends a more clear signal that small, disposable bodies are more important than burn.
Didn't Make the Cut
Chainer is a powerful card if you can successfully build around it but it doesn't really push people into the sacrifice deck as much as it pushes into a reanimator shell. Rakdos can use the black part of the pie for reanimation effects but that's not what it's trying to do. This also likely can't do anything the turn you cast it unless you have an extra card, a creature in the yard and enough mana to cast it. That's not likely. The value here is entirely tied up in the ability because this isn't going to be participating in combat unless it's completely unopposed. I think this is a little too expensive for something with such low initial impact and number of things that have to go right to gain value. The ceiling is very high but a lot has to go your way to get there.
Stormfist Crusader is a good investment for the mana cost and comes with guaranteed value if you can manage to untap with her. Simultaneous card draw has proven to be very difficult to abuse in cube unless you are a very low to the ground aggro deck as it's just too difficult to guarantee that you are going to be the one able to use it more effectively. This is really only good if you play it on curve or if your opponent is very low on life. If you are behind on life or mana this becomes very dicey as you are now being punished for casting your creature. The menace is a nice addition but there are just going to be too many times when this is a very awkward top deck. Rakdos is aggro but it's not blistering aggro and you aren't always going to be able to kill your opponent before they are able to make use of the extra cards.
In Out
Oko is competing against Nissa, Steward of the Elements. Nissa is a strange card in that it scales as the game progresses so I won't take into account her mana cost in the same way as usual. Oko is also strange in that his abilities don't look like much on their own but they work together in a tangled web of interactions to dramatically improve the overall power. The first advantage Oko has is his massive starting loyalty relative to his cost. Nissa has to work for it and she will cost six mana to get the same starting loyalty. At values where X at six or more Nissa can immediately ultimate which is likely game inning but that doesn't happen in practice. The most likely scenario is she is casted for X=4, plus two and tries to ultimate the following turn. At low values of X she is virtually useless beyond scrying and while that sets up her middle ability it also leaves her uncastable if you are behind on the board. Oko has so much starting loyalty and is so cheap that you might actually be able to cast him and just let him take a hit without worrying about him. He is good when behind with the food production adding life, good when ahead because he can downgrade or upgrade creatures or food tokens into 3/3 creatures and his ultimate allows you to trade his food or bad creatures for opposing threats. He is just so much more impactful than Nissa at almost all points in the game that I can't justify not adding him in in her place as much as I like her fit in Simic.
In Out
If you run Evolving Wilds or Terramorphic Expanse then this is a strict upgrade over either as it allows all of your lands four and up to enter untapped. While this isn't perfect for aggro decks it is enough of an upgrade that I'm willing to swap out one of my under-performing lands for more general mana fixing.
I really like Mystifying Maze as a fixed Maze of Ith both in terms of power balance and playability but there are a couple of problems associated with it in cube. Firstly, it is prohibitively expensive to actually activate. Five mana means that you have to take your entire turn off in order to give yourself the ability to activate this. That is a big cost to Fog a single creature. The other problem is more cube-centric. The difference between removing from combat, a-la the original Maze of Ith, and blinking is staggering in cube. There are so many creatures with ETB effects that you are giving your opponent the ability to trigger that you will often only be able to target half of your opponent's creatures. This is way too restrictive even for a utility land. I would much rather increase the density of general fixing, especially considering that only a handful of deck would even want to play Mystifying Maze in the first place.
Throne of Eldraine was a surprisingly good set for cube as the Adventure mechanic proved to be a formidable value machine and I love the play patterns and strategic advantages it creates for savvy players. Commander 2019 on the other hand was underwhelming, only a handful of cards were close and none of them were slam dunks. Next on the docket is a return to Theros where devotion and enchantments are likely to make a return. We will see what that means for cube but I'm not terribly excited about all the heavy mono-color support as it's not what my cube is really trying to do. Either way, I expect to get some good cards to talk about. Happy cubing, all!
