4 - Staple - Cards with enough base power that your cube is less powerful from their omission. They are cards that are likely to never rotate out of your cube unless you ban them for being too good. 3 - Strong - These are solid cards that get the job done. Their exclusion is probably an indicator that you are actively not supporting a popular deck / archetype / effect. 2 - Playable - These are good cards, but they are either interchangeable (e.g. lots of removal, aggressive red 2-drops) or are build-around cards that need a little support to be good (Favorable Winds). 1 - Niche - These cards aren't usually considered great, but might be included to support some obscure archetypes, specific interactions, or if going deep on a particular type of deck / archetype / effect. No reason to cube - There isn't a reason to cube these over options. You might find some perfectly 'playable' cards here, but there is little reason to put them into your cube in the first place unless you are intentionally depowering an effect.
Assault Formation - 1 Description - It needs some support, but it's a unique effect. You need to have enough low power / high toughness creatures that this can take advantage of. You might need to stretch a little, but if you start with creatures that fit that criteria that are playable elsewhere that's a good start. Anchors - Supports -
Corpsejack Menace - 2 Description - As a baseline, a 4/4 for 4 is at least acceptable if you don't get benefits from the trigger; you might even include it in a deck without any potential to take advantage of the synergy. That said, you aren't cubing it without giving it some support. It's a power enough effect that can provide a lot of value in the right deck. Might be tempered somewhat by virtue of being a Golgari card without a huge amount of independently good black +1/+1 cards. Anchors - +1/+1 counters Supports -
Heroes' Bane - 2 Description - You get a slightly below par baseline, but it can become a difficult to deal with threat. It doesn't have trample, but if it survives after a single activation, it's going to be almost impossible to kill in combat. Anchors - Supports -
Hoarding Dragon - 1 Description - At worst it's a red Air Elemental which some decks might want, with some quirky upside if you've drafted an artifact or two, giving you an insurance plan if it dies. It can represent value, but there isn't anything particular that stands out. Might be worth considering if you have an artifact matters theme to get triggers / benefits when it dies (and if it doesn't, you are probably hitting them for 4). Anchors - Supports -
Indulgent Tormenter - 2 Description - Assuming this draws you a card every turn AND you get to swing in for 5, this is excellent. Your opponent gets some choice, so if you haven't been pressuring them and you can't attack with this they might just lose some life, but if the worst case scenario is being on the back and needing to trade your 5/3 to stay alive before you get your first trigger, that still doesn't seem terrible. Anchors - Supports -
Ivy Elemental - 1 Description - It's always going to be smaller than whatever you could cast for the same mana cost. It's flexible, but you are probably going to feel slightly underwhelmed in most cases when you cast it. Probably the only reason to give it real consideration is if you are pushing +1/+1 counters themes pretty hard. Anchors - Supports - +1/+1 counters
Mahamoti Djinn - 1 Description - It's blues biggest evasive creature, but it does cost 6 mana and is otherwise somewhat uninteresting. Given that it is a french vanilla, the main consideration is on how power and toughness and power line up in your cube, particularly against other creatures with flying / reach. Skysnare Spider is only one card, but if you have that and enough similar creatures around the same cost or cheaper that can tussle with the Djinn, then it's value goes down. Anchors - Supports -
Rosheen Meanderer - 1 Description - It's probably going to be a vanilla 4 mana 4/4 most of the time, which might still be a decent enough rate that you will be willing to include it decks that can't take advantage of the mana ability. It's pretty obvious what you are looking to support this with, though you have to reach a bit; there aren't too many X spells or creatures with X abilities that are highly playable. You would probably want a handful of them before considering cubing this. Anchors - Supports -
Bladewing the Risen - It's not great value for 7 mana on its own, and returning another Dragon is going to pretty rare.
Bogbrew Witch - I only see this working out if you offer the package in a single pick.
Dragon Tempest - Dragon triggers are pretty rare at peasant, and just giving flying creatures haste isn't going to be consistent enough to be worth a card.
Sanguine Bond - It's going to be too inconsistent. For it to be worth a card and 5 mana investment, you probably need to be gaining at least 5 life shortly thereafter. Not impossible, but not something you couldn't achieve just by playing different cards without all the conditions and set up.
Hoarding Dragon essentially reads "draw an artifact card from your deck if this dies". It's kind of a weird, delayed tutor effect which doesn't work if your opponent exiles the dragon. The fact that you exile the card and can't draw it isn't too significant, that card might just as well have been the last card in your deck. Besides, it's a may ability.
I don't think this is particularly great, but a 4/4 flyer is still a 4/4 flyer and even getting a Pacification Array or an Isochron Scepter is pretty good. There are good things you can do with it in a sac/reanimator shell, making sure you get your Mortarpods and so on.
I'm struggling to think of a deck that really wants Mahamoti Djinn
6-drops with no ETB effect and no ramp support (aka... not green)... pretty bad.
I think it might actually be a bit worse than Air Elemental. Getting to that sixth mana source is ROUGH.
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Hoarding Dragon is probably about as good as Murder of Crows in terms of upside over Air Elemental. Good at very different times, but I think it adds up to about the same.
The problem with Corpsejack Menace is that black offers very little in terms of +1/+1 counters cards. It's a good card, clearly, but it's like imagining a Rakdos "spells matter" card.
If Mahamoti Djinn had been downshifted three or four years ago, it probably would have been a slam dunk in peasant, but now it's just not where you want to be. The only downshift that I included at 360 was Indulgent Tormenter and even that was because I thought the card was interesting. I wouldn't rank it higher than a 2.
Perhaps I'll drop Mahamoti Djinn down to 1 based on the above. Perhaps it's value depends on tuning your cube based on how toughness and power line up in your cube.
i0, on the topic of ramp in blue, I suppose there are mana rocks; would you see it as a card Simic ramp would play? Or even in that case are you looking at other blue 6 drops?
I know black doesn't have as many top tier or highly playable +1/+1 counter cards, but I don't think that is a huge knock against Corpsejack Menace. Worth pointing out perhaps in the description, but I still think it is a fine card. It made it into my last swap, but I haven't had a chance to cube and see it in play yet. I'd expect that Golgari decks would lean on green for the counters, or be a splash in a Selesnya deck. I've pointed out that the floor is acceptable to put it into decks without synergy, but I should add that the reason to CUBE it is having enough other cards that provide or come with counters since you are taking up a gold slot.
To put it a bit provocatively: Do you really want to spend a Golgari guildslot on a card is only going to be splashed in Selesnya decks and mono-green decks?
That's an issue, even if the powerlevel is there, particularly if you want your gold cards to signal archetypes.
I re-read my post, and I probably came across that I expect it to only turn up in heavy green decks or Selesnya splashes, which wasn't my intent. More likely perhaps. I can see where you are coming from through. I'm sure I'll try and draft the 'Corpsejack Menace deck' because I like the synergies, but I'd also see it being drafted later in the draft when you've established yourself in a Golgari graveyard deck and you've just naturally drafted a few cards with +1/+1 counters. It would be different if the base rate was worse; it if was 3/3 or cost 5, you'd need to lean more on getting triggers to make up the value and I'd definitely be more down on the card.
I just checked my cube and I have less +1/+1 counters in black than I thought (I'm trying to figure out what I took out Thrill-Kill Assassin for, seems weird to be missing). I'll see if I can get in some reps and see how it turns out.
It's not even just 'signal' so much as 'how good is it in an average Golgari deck' which is... not particularly good. It's also at an awkward point in the curve; you'll of course sometimes draw your Unleash idiots after your 4-drop, but if they're in the same hand you really want to play the 1's and 2's first (duh).
Base rate is totally fine, but a "zero color" 4/4 for 4 isn't particularly great (Su-Chi) nor is a "half color" one (Rosheen).
Mahamoti at 1 is fine. In Simic it's fine. It's not unplayable otherwise, just... really unexciting.
Made some adjustments. Couple of cards that people had identified were missing.
Reanimate - 3 (2?) Description - A single mana to get back a creature is usually an amazing deal. While it can support actual reanimator decks (with the appropriate discard / self-mill support) most decks are happy to play it to cheaply get back a threat. An aggro deck that can get back something that costs 2-4 cmc alongside another threat maintains solid pressure. Larger creatures lose more life, but the mana saving is almost always worth it if you've got something else to do with the rest of your mana and sufficient life total. Anchors - Supports - Reanimator
Zulaport Cutthroat - 1 Description - It's usually worse than Blood Artist, as the ability to trigger off all creatures is more significant than the occasional times you want this type of creature to get into combat. Nevertheless, you may want to include this as additional support for sacrifice themes. Anchors - Sacrifice Supports -
Cutthroat is probably a 2, it's narrow but super strong in tokens/sac decks. At least as good as, if not substantially better than, stuff like Erg Raiders.
I honestly don't think either of the black 2/1 flyers are that worth inclusion until you're up past the 450 mark. I'd rank them all at 2.
Cutthroat should be a 2. I think it's fine once the cube starts getting larger and you want to include it in addition to Blood Artist to support the sacrifice archetype.
Reanimate, imo, should be a 4. I can't imagine building any cube of any size and not including it. There are plenty of ways to support that archetype, even in peasant. It's also great as just a value spell in midrange decks to bring back a dead Nekrataal.
I was going to explain why I thought it was a three, since I have memories of it sticking in my hand or costing too much life... But I couldn't figure out if this was more common than "1 mana, pay 4 or 5 life, get the best creature and win"
I'd be down with Reanimate at 4. Aside from it costing like $15, I'm skeptical of anyone's reason for not putting it into a 360 list.
I'd put Wasp at 3. No blocking restriction is huge upside for midrange decks and in aggro mirrors. I mean, colors are different, but the Pegasus cards in white are 3... it's not exactly like we're talking about Strafe vs Sunlance here in terms of card competition, seems like black 2's and white 2's fill pretty similar roles so I'd default to giving Wasp the same grade.
On Zulaport Cutthroat... I guess these ratings are considered primarily on the basis of singleton. If you ever had to pick between Blood Artist and Zulaport Cuthroat, would you always choose the Blood Artist? Are there any decks where you would say; this is the deck where having a point of power will matter more? What I'm trying to get at is, is Zulaport only considered as an almost strictly worse Blood Artist because we don't have a second Blood Artist with a different name? If I was considering Zulaport Cutthroat, I think I'd just cube a second Blood Artist.
Same argument that came up about Briarpack Alpha and Briarhorn. Briarhorn was still considered playable, even though it is strictly worse.
I suppose ultimately the question I'm trying to ask (because I suspect I'm in the minority) is, how highly should we consider strictly worse cards (or almost always worse in the same role). I understand wanting redundancy of effects, but you can have similar effects that fill a similar role but still offer different enough lines of play or different interactions. Borderland Marauder and Gore-House Chainwalker is probably a good example.
When we first rated Vampire Interloper, there was no Olivia's Bloodsworn or Wasp of the Bitter End. Olivia's Bloodsworn offers some rare but occasional upside over the Wasp, but Vampire Interloper is strictly worse than both of them, and I'd actually be more inclined to re-rate it 'No reason to cube'.
Maybe it's just a personal hang-up about playing strictly worse cards in the same cube. To be clear, I'm not talking about general power level. I de-power removal for example, and play some 'niche' cards which aren't particularly powerful but provide somewhat unique effects or support archetypes I care about. However I suspect outside of tuning removal and 'banning' the bombs, there isn't really a need to play a worse version of much else.
Maybe give Interloper a 1 and add to the desription that it's perfectly fine but also the 3rd best version of that creature? That way someone who wants 3 2/1 flyers still finds them.
On Blood Artist vs Zulaport Cutthroat, I'd say that yes, I would pretty much always pick Blood Artist given the option between the two. Blood Artist just puts out massive amounts of life swings because it's not limited to only your creatures dying. It can often be the sole reason your opponent isn't swinging in on a complicated board state just to clear things up. Cutthroat is certainly good, but I don't think the 1 power is that relevant in comparison and I don't know that I'd want both in a small cube unless I was heavily pushing a sacrifice deck and valued that ability over an attacker of some sort. I think Blood Artist at 3 and Zulaport Cutthroat at 2 is correct.
In the event of similar cards like this, I think it's best to evaluate them based on the order they'd probably be included. Borderland Marauder does what Gore-House Chainwalker does, but it also blocks, so I'd include it first before I started looking at Chainwalker as an option. So, depending on the amount of competition in that slot, I'd say it was ok to rate Marauder higher than Chainwalker despite their similarity. I'd say that's the same for the three flying black 2/1s. Wasp at 3, Bloodsworn at 2, and Interloper at 1 seems like a fine ranking. I don't know that any of us want our entire black 2-drop sections to be all flying 2/1s.
However I suspect outside of tuning removal and 'banning' the bombs, there isn't really a need to play a worse version of much else.
?????????
Looter il-Kor vs Merfolk Looter
Joraga Treespeaker vs Llanowar Elves
Dauthi Horror vs Nezumi Cutthroat
Bonesplitter vs Trusty Machete
Man-O'-War vs Frost Lynx
Fact or Fiction vs Deep Analysis
Diregraf Ghoul vs basically any other black 1-drop
Preordain vs Serum Visions
The right side are basically all cards that lose 100% of the time if head-to-head in the same booster pack but are still very much cube staples or at least very solidly playable and highly rated here. Most of them aren't 'strictly' worse in the way the term is usually used, as would be the case with Lightning Bolt vs Lightning Strike (and Strike is still a staple as well), but if one is literally always a higher draft pick, that distinction doesn't really matter
Maybe give Interloper a 1 and add to the desription that it's perfectly fine but also the 3rd best version of that creature? That way someone who wants 3 2/1 flyers still finds them.
Yeah, I think this is how this will end up, though now we are near the end of the first phase, I might review the classifications before going back and pulling up groups of cards that fill a role and see how they stack up.
On Blood Artist vs Zulaport Cutthroat, I'd say that yes, I would pretty much always pick Blood Artist given the option between the two. Blood Artist just puts out massive amounts of life swings because it's not limited to only your creatures dying. It can often be the sole reason your opponent isn't swinging in on a complicated board state just to clear things up. Cutthroat is certainly good, but I don't think the 1 power is that relevant in comparison and I don't know that I'd want both in a small cube unless I was heavily pushing a sacrifice deck and valued that ability over an attacker of some sort. I think Blood Artist at 3 and Zulaport Cutthroat at 2 is correct.
In the event of similar cards like this, I think it's best to evaluate them based on the order they'd probably be included. Borderland Marauder does what Gore-House Chainwalker does, but it also blocks, so I'd include it first before I started looking at Chainwalker as an option. So, depending on the amount of competition in that slot, I'd say it was ok to rate Marauder higher than Chainwalker despite their similarity. I'd say that's the same for the three flying black 2/1s. Wasp at 3, Bloodsworn at 2, and Interloper at 1 seems like a fine ranking. I don't know that any of us want our entire black 2-drop sections to be all flying 2/1s.
I think the differences between Borderland Marauder and Gore-House Chainwalker is more pronounced. Chainwalker can benefit from +1/+1 counter synergies, and if you are behind it can come down as a 2/1 when Borderland Marauder can't threaten 2 toughness creatures as a blocker.
Given the comments here, Zulaport Cutthroat can go to 2.
However I suspect outside of tuning removal and 'banning' the bombs, there isn't really a need to play a worse version of much else.
?????????
Looter il-Kor vs Merfolk Looter
Joraga Treespeaker vs Llanowar Elves
Dauthi Horror vs Nezumi Cutthroat
Bonesplitter vs Trusty Machete
Man-O'-War vs Frost Lynx
Fact or Fiction vs Deep Analysis
Diregraf Ghoul vs basically any other black 1-drop
Preordain vs Serum Visions
The right side are basically all cards that lose 100% of the time if head-to-head in the same booster pack but are still very much cube staples or at least very solidly playable and highly rated here. Most of them aren't 'strictly' worse in the way the term is usually used, as would be the case with Lightning Bolt vs Lightning Strike (and Strike is still a staple as well), but if one is literally always a higher draft pick, that distinction doesn't really matter
I don't think I put my point across well enough. I don't really have a problem with cards being worse in a role, as long as they aren't strictly worse. I don't think one card always being picked higher than another, even in the same deck, invalidates that. If those cards are less powerful in the aggregate but offer some different lines of play or corner cases (that are actually possible in your cube) then I'm ok with that.
In a deck with self-mill cards or looting, Deep Analysis can do something Fact or Fiction can't do. If you Commune With Nature and reveal Deep Analysis, you can get some value off that. I can't imagine it ever being correct to pick Deep Analysis over Fact or Fiction, or include it in a deck if it comes down to picking only one of them no matter what synergies you have. Basically, I don't mind saying "This card is worse in the aggregate than some other card, but in X% of board states / game situations it will be better." X% might be small, but I'm ok with that. It's why I don't really agree with the bolded quote above.
Merfolk Looter can chump when you are behind, or even threaten a X/1 if you are getting beaten down by aggro. Joraga Treepseaker can't accelerate you if you don't have 2 lands, and sometimes dies to instant speed removal while you invested a couple of extra mana in a level up. Nezumi Cutthroat I can't really argue with, mainly because Dauthi Horror is so good. Trusty Machete, sometimes that extra toughness will matter in a game. Frost Lynx can tap down a creature with an ETB ability that you would never want to bounce. Sometimes Diregraf Ghoul will come down when you need Carnophage to chump to survive your opponents next turn.
Removal has certainly come up as an exception to my above 'guidelines' if that is what you want to refer to them as. I think that is mainly due to the fact that the quality of older removal was so good. I recall someone in these threads saying that if we cubed the best 50 red cards, it would mostly be made up of burn. It's not that we need that 50th burn spell (or whatever), just that it still compares well to the non-removal spells in our cubes. I sometimes found these tricky to rate for that reason; how far down do you go? Volcanic Hammer (rated no reason to cube) is strictly worse than Lightning Strike (rated 'Playable', but I think if you swapped it in a pool of drafted cards, most red decks would still be including it in their deck.
I guess that is where the discussions on this forum come in. It's made me rethink the point I raised on Zulaport Cutthroat, as the point of power will matter sometimes.
@bacchus2: I think what you're saying is a fair assessment and those situations do come up, but I don't think they come up often enough to warrant ranking them higher or lower based on that small percentage. Going back to Gore-house Chainwalker and Borderland Marauder, you're right that if the cube has a +1/+1 counters matters theme, creatures with unleash may be valued a little higher than normal. I think for the purposes of this ranking that these cards need to be evaluated more in a vacuum than with all of the small percentages of archetypes and instances that might make them better than another similar card. It should certainly be noted that Chainwalker really shines in a +1/+1 counters matter environment, but in general, I think it's correct to include Marauder first when putting together a more generic "good stuff" cube.
The difference between "strictly worse" and "strictly worse in drafting and deckbuilding, but I guess it can chump-block" just seems so arbitrary. I'd still put Volcanic Hammer at 2, or go back to the first post here and edit/delete the part that explicitly says: "... None of these considerations are taken into account for the purpose of these evaluations. Only the general power level of the card."
Some of this discussion goes back to my 'classification vs. ranking' discussion. I don't like using the numbering system (0-4) because it looks more like we are actually ranking the cards from best to worse. But people wanted numbers because they couldn't remember the meaning of the labels. We could argue about the exact merits of Borderland Marauder, Gore-House Chainwalker, Thriving Grubs and War-Name Aspirant as (mostly) 3/2's for 2 and actually rank them and put them in the order we would personally cube them, but they are mostly around the same power level and serve the same purpose. (For reference, Marauder and Chainwalker are currently 'strong', and Thriving Grubs and War-Name Aspirant are 'playable'; I think Thriving Grubs is a bit better than Borderland Marauder, but still very close).
Each of those classifications still has a power range within it. I think sometimes we have slipped away from thinking about cards and putting them in their classification, and focused on 'slightly better card got classified X, so this should go in the classification below it'. I'd rather put most of those cards in the same classification, and let the description talk about the tiny edges that might influence which specific ones you might include in your cube.
i0, I went back and looked at the section where your bolded line is. That is in reference to color pie and flavour specifically. Perhaps I should just change that say that color pie or flavour does not influence the rating of a card. Unless you meant something else?
I'll think about whether we need to update the classification descriptions. I tend to think of them more in terms of, 'how much support do I need to give this card to make it decent?' but that is not perfect either. Probably the main points of contention that come up during this project:
- Should the top tier cards for certain theatres of play be considered 'staples'? Jackal Pup is currently a staple, but if you don't support red aggro (yes, I get that most if not all of us do, but it is possible for this card to be bad in a cube).
- What happens when there are lots of good cards that fill the same role? (This normally comes up when a new card gets released that is similar to existing played cards). Do they all go in the same classification, even if you might not have space to play all of them? Do you drop them all a classification because there are now so many options? Do classification descriptions need to be updated to reflect that? At the highest level, this applies to Shriekmaw and similar creatures; they are all great but you probably don't want to play them all.
- How do we classify cards that are either strictly or clearly worse than a number of other options, but still compete with the average power level of the peasant card pool? This is primarily aimed at removal like Volcanic Hammer, but would still apply elsewhere as well.
Genuinely interested in hearing your thoughts. We might not all agree perfectly on the final classifications and ratings (and where would the fun be in that!) but this is a community project so your opinions matter.
4 - Staple - Cards with enough base power that your cube is less powerful from their omission. They are cards that are likely to never rotate out of your cube unless you ban them for being too good.
3 - Strong - These are solid cards that get the job done. Their exclusion is probably an indicator that you are actively not supporting a popular deck / archetype / effect.
2 - Playable - These are good cards, but they are either interchangeable (e.g. lots of removal, aggressive red 2-drops) or are build-around cards that need a little support to be good (Favorable Winds).
1 - Niche - These cards aren't usually considered great, but might be included to support some obscure archetypes, specific interactions, or if going deep on a particular type of deck / archetype / effect.
No reason to cube - There isn't a reason to cube these over options. You might find some perfectly 'playable' cards here, but there is little reason to put them into your cube in the first place unless you are intentionally depowering an effect.
Assault Formation - 1
Description - It needs some support, but it's a unique effect. You need to have enough low power / high toughness creatures that this can take advantage of. You might need to stretch a little, but if you start with creatures that fit that criteria that are playable elsewhere that's a good start.
Anchors -
Supports -
Corpsejack Menace - 2
Description - As a baseline, a 4/4 for 4 is at least acceptable if you don't get benefits from the trigger; you might even include it in a deck without any potential to take advantage of the synergy. That said, you aren't cubing it without giving it some support. It's a power enough effect that can provide a lot of value in the right deck. Might be tempered somewhat by virtue of being a Golgari card without a huge amount of independently good black +1/+1 cards.
Anchors - +1/+1 counters
Supports -
Heroes' Bane - 2
Description - You get a slightly below par baseline, but it can become a difficult to deal with threat. It doesn't have trample, but if it survives after a single activation, it's going to be almost impossible to kill in combat.
Anchors -
Supports -
Hoarding Dragon - 1
Description - At worst it's a red Air Elemental which some decks might want, with some quirky upside if you've drafted an artifact or two, giving you an insurance plan if it dies. It can represent value, but there isn't anything particular that stands out. Might be worth considering if you have an artifact matters theme to get triggers / benefits when it dies (and if it doesn't, you are probably hitting them for 4).
Anchors -
Supports -
Indulgent Tormenter - 2
Description - Assuming this draws you a card every turn AND you get to swing in for 5, this is excellent. Your opponent gets some choice, so if you haven't been pressuring them and you can't attack with this they might just lose some life, but if the worst case scenario is being on the back and needing to trade your 5/3 to stay alive before you get your first trigger, that still doesn't seem terrible.
Anchors -
Supports -
Ivy Elemental - 1
Description - It's always going to be smaller than whatever you could cast for the same mana cost. It's flexible, but you are probably going to feel slightly underwhelmed in most cases when you cast it. Probably the only reason to give it real consideration is if you are pushing +1/+1 counters themes pretty hard.
Anchors -
Supports - +1/+1 counters
Mahamoti Djinn - 1
Description - It's blues biggest evasive creature, but it does cost 6 mana and is otherwise somewhat uninteresting. Given that it is a french vanilla, the main consideration is on how power and toughness and power line up in your cube, particularly against other creatures with flying / reach. Skysnare Spider is only one card, but if you have that and enough similar creatures around the same cost or cheaper that can tussle with the Djinn, then it's value goes down.
Anchors -
Supports -
Rosheen Meanderer - 1
Description - It's probably going to be a vanilla 4 mana 4/4 most of the time, which might still be a decent enough rate that you will be willing to include it decks that can't take advantage of the mana ability. It's pretty obvious what you are looking to support this with, though you have to reach a bit; there aren't too many X spells or creatures with X abilities that are highly playable. You would probably want a handful of them before considering cubing this.
Anchors -
Supports -
I don't think this is particularly great, but a 4/4 flyer is still a 4/4 flyer and even getting a Pacification Array or an Isochron Scepter is pretty good. There are good things you can do with it in a sac/reanimator shell, making sure you get your Mortarpods and so on.
6-drops with no ETB effect and no ramp support (aka... not green)... pretty bad.
I think it might actually be a bit worse than Air Elemental. Getting to that sixth mana source is ROUGH.
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Hoarding Dragon is probably about as good as Murder of Crows in terms of upside over Air Elemental. Good at very different times, but I think it adds up to about the same.
There's... uh, as mono-color payoffs:
And as random playables that get counters
and then...??? The fourth best card to get counters might seriously be Dead Reveler
I think Corpsejack Menace is not worth a guild slot.
MTGS Average Peasant Cube 2023 Edition
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i0, on the topic of ramp in blue, I suppose there are mana rocks; would you see it as a card Simic ramp would play? Or even in that case are you looking at other blue 6 drops?
I know black doesn't have as many top tier or highly playable +1/+1 counter cards, but I don't think that is a huge knock against Corpsejack Menace. Worth pointing out perhaps in the description, but I still think it is a fine card. It made it into my last swap, but I haven't had a chance to cube and see it in play yet. I'd expect that Golgari decks would lean on green for the counters, or be a splash in a Selesnya deck. I've pointed out that the floor is acceptable to put it into decks without synergy, but I should add that the reason to CUBE it is having enough other cards that provide or come with counters since you are taking up a gold slot.
That's an issue, even if the powerlevel is there, particularly if you want your gold cards to signal archetypes.
I just checked my cube and I have less +1/+1 counters in black than I thought (I'm trying to figure out what I took out Thrill-Kill Assassin for, seems weird to be missing). I'll see if I can get in some reps and see how it turns out.
Base rate is totally fine, but a "zero color" 4/4 for 4 isn't particularly great (Su-Chi) nor is a "half color" one (Rosheen).
Mahamoti at 1 is fine. In Simic it's fine. It's not unplayable otherwise, just... really unexciting.
Reanimate - 3 (2?)
Description - A single mana to get back a creature is usually an amazing deal. While it can support actual reanimator decks (with the appropriate discard / self-mill support) most decks are happy to play it to cheaply get back a threat. An aggro deck that can get back something that costs 2-4 cmc alongside another threat maintains solid pressure. Larger creatures lose more life, but the mana saving is almost always worth it if you've got something else to do with the rest of your mana and sufficient life total.
Anchors -
Supports - Reanimator
Zulaport Cutthroat - 1
Description - It's usually worse than Blood Artist, as the ability to trigger off all creatures is more significant than the occasional times you want this type of creature to get into combat. Nevertheless, you may want to include this as additional support for sacrifice themes.
Anchors - Sacrifice
Supports -
Also, looking at black 2's for comparison, we somehow have Vampire Interloper at 3, Wasp of the Bitter End at 3... and Olivia's Bloodsworn at 2?
Or maybe Olivia's Bloodsworn is also a 2? hmm hmm hmm.
Cutthroat should be a 2. I think it's fine once the cube starts getting larger and you want to include it in addition to Blood Artist to support the sacrifice archetype.
Reanimate, imo, should be a 4. I can't imagine building any cube of any size and not including it. There are plenty of ways to support that archetype, even in peasant. It's also great as just a value spell in midrange decks to bring back a dead Nekrataal.
MTGS Average Peasant Cube 2023 Edition
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430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
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I'd put Wasp at 3. No blocking restriction is huge upside for midrange decks and in aggro mirrors. I mean, colors are different, but the Pegasus cards in white are 3... it's not exactly like we're talking about Strafe vs Sunlance here in terms of card competition, seems like black 2's and white 2's fill pretty similar roles so I'd default to giving Wasp the same grade.
Same argument that came up about Briarpack Alpha and Briarhorn. Briarhorn was still considered playable, even though it is strictly worse.
I suppose ultimately the question I'm trying to ask (because I suspect I'm in the minority) is, how highly should we consider strictly worse cards (or almost always worse in the same role). I understand wanting redundancy of effects, but you can have similar effects that fill a similar role but still offer different enough lines of play or different interactions. Borderland Marauder and Gore-House Chainwalker is probably a good example.
When we first rated Vampire Interloper, there was no Olivia's Bloodsworn or Wasp of the Bitter End. Olivia's Bloodsworn offers some rare but occasional upside over the Wasp, but Vampire Interloper is strictly worse than both of them, and I'd actually be more inclined to re-rate it 'No reason to cube'.
Maybe it's just a personal hang-up about playing strictly worse cards in the same cube. To be clear, I'm not talking about general power level. I de-power removal for example, and play some 'niche' cards which aren't particularly powerful but provide somewhat unique effects or support archetypes I care about. However I suspect outside of tuning removal and 'banning' the bombs, there isn't really a need to play a worse version of much else.
EDIT: Reanimate can go to 4, I'm down with that.
In the event of similar cards like this, I think it's best to evaluate them based on the order they'd probably be included. Borderland Marauder does what Gore-House Chainwalker does, but it also blocks, so I'd include it first before I started looking at Chainwalker as an option. So, depending on the amount of competition in that slot, I'd say it was ok to rate Marauder higher than Chainwalker despite their similarity. I'd say that's the same for the three flying black 2/1s. Wasp at 3, Bloodsworn at 2, and Interloper at 1 seems like a fine ranking. I don't know that any of us want our entire black 2-drop sections to be all flying 2/1s.
MTGS Average Peasant Cube 2023 Edition
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?????????
Looter il-Kor vs Merfolk Looter
Joraga Treespeaker vs Llanowar Elves
Dauthi Horror vs Nezumi Cutthroat
Bonesplitter vs Trusty Machete
Man-O'-War vs Frost Lynx
Fact or Fiction vs Deep Analysis
Diregraf Ghoul vs basically any other black 1-drop
Preordain vs Serum Visions
The right side are basically all cards that lose 100% of the time if head-to-head in the same booster pack but are still very much cube staples or at least very solidly playable and highly rated here. Most of them aren't 'strictly' worse in the way the term is usually used, as would be the case with Lightning Bolt vs Lightning Strike (and Strike is still a staple as well), but if one is literally always a higher draft pick, that distinction doesn't really matter
Given the comments here, Zulaport Cutthroat can go to 2. I don't think I put my point across well enough. I don't really have a problem with cards being worse in a role, as long as they aren't strictly worse. I don't think one card always being picked higher than another, even in the same deck, invalidates that. If those cards are less powerful in the aggregate but offer some different lines of play or corner cases (that are actually possible in your cube) then I'm ok with that.
In a deck with self-mill cards or looting, Deep Analysis can do something Fact or Fiction can't do. If you Commune With Nature and reveal Deep Analysis, you can get some value off that. I can't imagine it ever being correct to pick Deep Analysis over Fact or Fiction, or include it in a deck if it comes down to picking only one of them no matter what synergies you have. Basically, I don't mind saying "This card is worse in the aggregate than some other card, but in X% of board states / game situations it will be better." X% might be small, but I'm ok with that. It's why I don't really agree with the bolded quote above.
Merfolk Looter can chump when you are behind, or even threaten a X/1 if you are getting beaten down by aggro. Joraga Treepseaker can't accelerate you if you don't have 2 lands, and sometimes dies to instant speed removal while you invested a couple of extra mana in a level up. Nezumi Cutthroat I can't really argue with, mainly because Dauthi Horror is so good. Trusty Machete, sometimes that extra toughness will matter in a game. Frost Lynx can tap down a creature with an ETB ability that you would never want to bounce. Sometimes Diregraf Ghoul will come down when you need Carnophage to chump to survive your opponents next turn.
Removal has certainly come up as an exception to my above 'guidelines' if that is what you want to refer to them as. I think that is mainly due to the fact that the quality of older removal was so good. I recall someone in these threads saying that if we cubed the best 50 red cards, it would mostly be made up of burn. It's not that we need that 50th burn spell (or whatever), just that it still compares well to the non-removal spells in our cubes. I sometimes found these tricky to rate for that reason; how far down do you go? Volcanic Hammer (rated no reason to cube) is strictly worse than Lightning Strike (rated 'Playable', but I think if you swapped it in a pool of drafted cards, most red decks would still be including it in their deck.
I guess that is where the discussions on this forum come in. It's made me rethink the point I raised on Zulaport Cutthroat, as the point of power will matter sometimes.
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Each of those classifications still has a power range within it. I think sometimes we have slipped away from thinking about cards and putting them in their classification, and focused on 'slightly better card got classified X, so this should go in the classification below it'. I'd rather put most of those cards in the same classification, and let the description talk about the tiny edges that might influence which specific ones you might include in your cube.
i0, I went back and looked at the section where your bolded line is. That is in reference to color pie and flavour specifically. Perhaps I should just change that say that color pie or flavour does not influence the rating of a card. Unless you meant something else?
I'll think about whether we need to update the classification descriptions. I tend to think of them more in terms of, 'how much support do I need to give this card to make it decent?' but that is not perfect either. Probably the main points of contention that come up during this project:
- Should the top tier cards for certain theatres of play be considered 'staples'? Jackal Pup is currently a staple, but if you don't support red aggro (yes, I get that most if not all of us do, but it is possible for this card to be bad in a cube).
- What happens when there are lots of good cards that fill the same role? (This normally comes up when a new card gets released that is similar to existing played cards). Do they all go in the same classification, even if you might not have space to play all of them? Do you drop them all a classification because there are now so many options? Do classification descriptions need to be updated to reflect that? At the highest level, this applies to Shriekmaw and similar creatures; they are all great but you probably don't want to play them all.
- How do we classify cards that are either strictly or clearly worse than a number of other options, but still compete with the average power level of the peasant card pool? This is primarily aimed at removal like Volcanic Hammer, but would still apply elsewhere as well.
Genuinely interested in hearing your thoughts. We might not all agree perfectly on the final classifications and ratings (and where would the fun be in that!) but this is a community project so your opinions matter.