I love Shriekmaw, and I'm not ashamed to say I've first picked it plenty of times. It's efficient early, it's great value late, and because it bins itself it's easy to abuse with recursion. If it ever gets outclassed and replaced in cubes, it'll be a really strange day for MTG.
-What is your favorite kill spell in cube?
Probably Song of the Dryads, because it hits just about everything, and it's in a color you don't usually expect such versatile removal from while still being flavorful.
-What's the most scared you've ever been?
Being on the 36th floor when an earthquake hit. The quake only lasted a few minutes, but the building swayed back and forth a lot longer. That's how earthquake resistant buildings are supposed to work, but it was absolutely terrifying at the time.
The bar's really gone up for Falter on a stick creatures lately, Glarewielder seems too inefficient compared to Ahn Crop Crasher, Goblin Heelcutter, and Markov Warlord. I think it can go to 0.
Looking in the trash, Eron the Relentless doesn't seem too bad. Five power with haste will often just get through when it's cast even if you can't leave up regeneration mana, and if you're attacking with regeneration mana open Eron's really hard to block profitably. I haven't actually run Eron, but with the dearth of playable red 5s, I have to admit I've been tempted.
JVP is the MVP! That card does so much for so little mana, it still kinda blows me away that they'd print a 2-mana planeswalker and a 1-mana planeswalker. It protects itself, it gives card advantage, and its ultimate ends the game, and that's after letting you loot cards away in the early game.
As for DFC's, I've never had a problem with letting people just pull it out of the sleeve and flipping it over. Like wtwlf, I also double sleeve with KMC Hypermats & Perfect Fits, and the fit isn't too snug to make flipping easy.
As for Elves of Deep Shadow, if the art weren't so cool, I really wouldn't be tempted to run it at all, since there are so many other options that don't require life loss. I'm already not running Avacyn's Pilgrim, Boreal Druid, or Wild Growth, all of which would go in before goth girl.
My favorite mana dork is probably Radha, Heir to Keld, since I have an EDH deck with her at the helm.
Also, I'm loving different people jumping in to do these! We have a pretty great community here and while I have endless praise for Spike Rogue's dedication to make this thread what it is, it's pretty cool seeing people happy to jump in too and hope it continues.
Me too! I'm happy to see this thread not only continuing, but evolving.
-Are you currently learning to do anything, like taking a specific class for a certification or going to school or etc?
I'm currently studying for the LSAT, and hoping to score high enough to get me into a decent law school.
My Secret Santa package just arrived today, here's a pic:
The foil Manglehorn is lovely, and this Control Magic is the very first Beta card I've ever had. They're very welcome additions to my cube, thank you so much!
Maybe off topic, but how do people feel about adding creature types where it seems obvious but for one reason of another it wasn't printed with the type?
The only example I can think of is Gnarled Scarhide; I'm pretty sure MaRo has stated it was intended to be a zombie,the only reason it wasn't printed as one was because it wouldn't fit in the type line. I would rate Gnarled Scarhide slightly higher if it could help push zombie tribal.
I prefer not to customize cards in any way. I've had enough drafters frown on some of the more offbeat non-tournament legal cards that WoTC has printed like Un-cards and Conspiracy cards, and to some extent even Commander cards for me to think it's a good idea for me to start altering the text of Magic cards in my cube in any way. So far as altering the type lines goes, I think this thread should illustrate pretty clearly how complex keeping track of type lines in Oracle text can be without complicating matters further by making your own changes to Oracle text. If you do want to do something like this, I really recommend discussing it with your playgroup first.
All that said, this thread isn't really the place to discuss card customization. I'd start a new thread in the main cube forum for that.
Edit: Clicked in from the main page without noticing this is the pauper forum, but still interested in opinions.
Peasant, actually, which is cubes with both commons and uncommons. My opinion is that Peasant cubing's a blast and you should give it a try!
I think that's a bit harsh, but it probably should not be played in the go-wide deck. It could perhaps be a finisher in a control deck? Either way, its grade should probably be based only on the honden-deck.
I agree, the only reason to add it to your cube is as part of a Hondens package. In a cube draft with the whole cycle it's not impossible that this could be the only Honden drafted by someone, but if it makes a main deck as a one-of, something's probably gone pretty wrong for that drafter. Still, assuming is only worthwhile as part of the Honden cycle, it deserves a 1.
How far is Enlarge from being a green Fireball? It is worse than normal removal that can end the game if it goes long..? Taken into account that "normal removal" is a fair bit worse in green than red, does it make sense to think of it like this?
It's probably a mistake to think of Enlarge as a removal spell, because there's no guarantee it'll kill what you want unless it's the only creature the opponent has untapped, but yeah, as a finisher it works a lot like a green Fireball.
Interesting card! The floor for it isn't too bad, as it's basically a Cruel Edict as long as your opponent has at least 2 creatures, and it has the potential to nab a whole lot more for just 2 mana. However, the fact that it does stone nothing when the opponent only has 1 creature will be a real problem in certain scenarios, against reanimator decks and the like. Still, I'd love to hear how this card works out in your cube. This is part of the same cycle as Fact or Fiction, right?
What do you do for a living?
I teach English to Korean university students.
What do you do in your spare time?
Magic's a big part of my spare time, of course, not only cube but also retail limited. When I'm not gaming I love binge-watching prestige dramas, studying languages (French, Spanish, and Korean), spending time with friends and my wife, and spoiling my 2 cats.
Incremental Growth - ??? Description - I don’t know. Is this good? It doesn't help as much as when you are behind compared to Incremental Blight, but it could represent hasty 6 damage if you've gone wide?
In retail limited, at least, it's a pretty serious bomb. It enables really large attacks, and it'll put most creatures well out of the range of most Peasant sweepers, while enabling a pretty big attack if you're at parity. This also provides more support for +1/+1 counter decks, so in the right cube this will do quite a bit more than just boosting P/T. Like any Overrun effect, it does stone nothing if you've fallen too far behind, but if you're anywhere near parity, this card's a huge swing. If you want an Overrun style card and you're actively supporting counters this seems like a legit choice to me. I like it at 2.
Enlarge - ??? Description - I don't know. I like this as an effect, but I'm not sure it is great. What do they do? Chump block and take a bunch of damage? If they have enough, do they gang block it so they can kill it and prevent potentially lethal trample damage? Suck it up and block with their lone Sentinel of the Eternal Watch or whatever? Have 0 blocks and just take 10 or so? You have to play around removal and it costs 5, but maybe there is something here?
Again, my only experience with this is in retail limited, and it was quite good as a finisher/removal in M14 limited. However, I like it a lot less for Peasant cube as the potential for blowouts with instant speed removal are a bit too high for my liking. Plus, we have much cheaper options for fight/punch style removal in green like Nature's Way and Clear Shot. 1 at best.
Nissa's Judgment - 2 (1?) Description - It develops your board while eliminating a threat (most of the time). A little on the expensive side though.
Agreed, with Clear Shot and Nature's Way the only reason to run this is for +1/+1 counter support, and even still it's awfully clunky. 1 at best.
The spoiling of Heirloom Blade is forcing us to take a second look at the type-lines of creatures in our cube, specifically the many creatures affected by the Grand Creature Type Update of 2007. We have a thread discussing this in the traditional cube forum, but I thought it might be helpful to adapt the relevant information there for Peasant cubes to this forum. There was a little bit of discussion on this already in the Commander 2017 spoilers thread, but there's enough going on here that I think this warrants its own thread for anyone who wants interactions with creature type-matters cards to go as smoothly as possible in their cube.
Here's a list of Peasant creature cards I know of whose type was officially changed in 2007, most of these do have a version available in print with the updated creature types, I've marked the ones that do not with an asterisk (*). However, some of the creatures with updated type lines, such as Savannah Lions, are only available with a gold expansion symbol:
Other Retconned Cube Cards That Probably Didn't Matter Until WoTC Decided to Print Heirloom Blade
For the sake of thoroughness, here are some cube cards that have updated types in their Oracle wording that probably won't matter, unless you're running something like Heirloom or other unusual tribes matter cards, or if new tribal enablers are printed in the future.
I've tried to be as thorough as I can, but I'm sure I've missed something, especially for those of you that are going unusually deep on certain themes. If anyone can think of any more potentially relevant tribal updates to cube cards please post them here.
I'm so glad to see this thread is still going strong!
Tri-lands are the best single cycle available for Peasant cubes, and if you're cube is hyper-budget enough that you need one or more cycles of non-rare lands this probably is the best choice at that price range as each land fixes 3 color pairs. However, they've never been on my radar for my rare cube. Lands that always ETBT are just too slow for this kind of format without a major upside, and for me the only cycle of ETBT duals with a good enough upside is the manland duals.
At 450 I'm running full cycles of ABU duals (proxied), fetches, shocks, and manland duals. The best cycle of duals that I'm not running right now is pain lands, which were a great placeholder for me while I was building my cube on a budget. You can always tap them for colored mana the turn you play them, and outside of the greediest of mana bases I found it unusual to take more than 2 damage from a pain land over the course of a game. I used to recommend them as the budget dual cycle of choice for new cubers, but they've spiked in price recently due to the advent of C, so now that honor probably falls to the check lands.
Hey guys, things are not getting any less busy for me, and I expect it to stay that way for quite some time. I'm just not going to be able to make a daily commitment to this thread anymore. However, that certainly doesn't mean this thread shouldn't continue if other people are interested in adding new cards and continuing the discussions here, and I'll pop in to add cards to the discussion as I can.
In that spirit, thanks for posting a card for today, Ravnic! Imperious Perfect is just a bit too clunky to work in most rare cube environments. Cast on turn 3, you'll be attacking with your first Grizzly Bear on 5. The buff for other Elves is nice, but most cubes don't really have a high enough density of them to make this that much more than a token generator. Master of the Wild Hunt is a better choice if you want this kind of effect because it doesn't require an ongoing mana commitment, you can still attack with Master after making your token, and it provides removal. If I wanted a second green token generator on a stick, I'd go with Mayor of Avabruck for its efficiency and more aggressive body, even if it's not as reliable.
Like wtwlf123, I'm only running tribal cards that do enough on their own so that their tribal synergy is just gravy, so
However, with 3 cards with Zombie tribal synergy, and plenty of other good-enough-on-their-own Zombie tribal cards, I'm seriously considering expanding on that to develop a Zombie tribal theme.
I love Shriekmaw, and I'm not ashamed to say I've first picked it plenty of times. It's efficient early, it's great value late, and because it bins itself it's easy to abuse with recursion. If it ever gets outclassed and replaced in cubes, it'll be a really strange day for MTG.
Probably Song of the Dryads, because it hits just about everything, and it's in a color you don't usually expect such versatile removal from while still being flavorful.
Being on the 36th floor when an earthquake hit. The quake only lasted a few minutes, but the building swayed back and forth a lot longer. That's how earthquake resistant buildings are supposed to work, but it was absolutely terrifying at the time.
Looking in the trash, Eron the Relentless doesn't seem too bad. Five power with haste will often just get through when it's cast even if you can't leave up regeneration mana, and if you're attacking with regeneration mana open Eron's really hard to block profitably. I haven't actually run Eron, but with the dearth of playable red 5s, I have to admit I've been tempted.
As for DFC's, I've never had a problem with letting people just pull it out of the sleeve and flipping it over. Like wtwlf, I also double sleeve with KMC Hypermats & Perfect Fits, and the fit isn't too snug to make flipping easy.
As for Elves of Deep Shadow, if the art weren't so cool, I really wouldn't be tempted to run it at all, since there are so many other options that don't require life loss. I'm already not running Avacyn's Pilgrim, Boreal Druid, or Wild Growth, all of which would go in before goth girl.
My favorite mana dork is probably Radha, Heir to Keld, since I have an EDH deck with her at the helm.
Me too! I'm happy to see this thread not only continuing, but evolving.
I'm currently studying for the LSAT, and hoping to score high enough to get me into a decent law school.
The foil Manglehorn is lovely, and this Control Magic is the very first Beta card I've ever had. They're very welcome additions to my cube, thank you so much!
Added, thanks.
I prefer not to customize cards in any way. I've had enough drafters frown on some of the more offbeat non-tournament legal cards that WoTC has printed like Un-cards and Conspiracy cards, and to some extent even Commander cards for me to think it's a good idea for me to start altering the text of Magic cards in my cube in any way. So far as altering the type lines goes, I think this thread should illustrate pretty clearly how complex keeping track of type lines in Oracle text can be without complicating matters further by making your own changes to Oracle text. If you do want to do something like this, I really recommend discussing it with your playgroup first.
All that said, this thread isn't really the place to discuss card customization. I'd start a new thread in the main cube forum for that.
Peasant, actually, which is cubes with both commons and uncommons. My opinion is that Peasant cubing's a blast and you should give it a try!
I agree, the only reason to add it to your cube is as part of a Hondens package. In a cube draft with the whole cycle it's not impossible that this could be the only Honden drafted by someone, but if it makes a main deck as a one-of, something's probably gone pretty wrong for that drafter. Still, assuming is only worthwhile as part of the Honden cycle, it deserves a 1.
It's probably a mistake to think of Enlarge as a removal spell, because there's no guarantee it'll kill what you want unless it's the only creature the opponent has untapped, but yeah, as a finisher it works a lot like a green Fireball.
I teach English to Korean university students.
Magic's a big part of my spare time, of course, not only cube but also retail limited. When I'm not gaming I love binge-watching prestige dramas, studying languages (French, Spanish, and Korean), spending time with friends and my wife, and spoiling my 2 cats.
Good point, I'm adding Lu Xun, Scholar General, Sun Ce, Young Conquerer, and Corrupt Eunuchs. Are there any other P3K creatures that see much C/Ube play I'm missing?
In retail limited, at least, it's a pretty serious bomb. It enables really large attacks, and it'll put most creatures well out of the range of most Peasant sweepers, while enabling a pretty big attack if you're at parity. This also provides more support for +1/+1 counter decks, so in the right cube this will do quite a bit more than just boosting P/T. Like any Overrun effect, it does stone nothing if you've fallen too far behind, but if you're anywhere near parity, this card's a huge swing. If you want an Overrun style card and you're actively supporting counters this seems like a legit choice to me. I like it at 2.
Again, my only experience with this is in retail limited, and it was quite good as a finisher/removal in M14 limited. However, I like it a lot less for Peasant cube as the potential for blowouts with instant speed removal are a bit too high for my liking. Plus, we have much cheaper options for fight/punch style removal in green like Nature's Way and Clear Shot. 1 at best.
Agreed, with Clear Shot and Nature's Way the only reason to run this is for +1/+1 counter support, and even still it's awfully clunky. 1 at best.
Here's a list of Peasant creature cards I know of whose type was officially changed in 2007, most of these do have a version available in print with the updated creature types, I've marked the ones that do not with an asterisk (*). However, some of the creatures with updated type lines, such as Savannah Lions, are only available with a gold expansion symbol:
Creatures Updated With "Human" Added to Their Type Line
Common Tribal Interactions: Silver-Inlaid Dagger, Hamlet Captain, Courageous Outrider
Mother of Runes
Pianna, Nomad Captain*
Lu Xun, Scholar General
Sun Ce, Young Conquerer*
Nekrataal
Sorceress Queen*
Wei Night Raiders*
Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed*
Fireslinger
Ghitu Slinger
Imperial Recruiter
Keldon Vandals*
Avalanche Riders
Corrupt Eunuchs*
Yavimaya Elder
Other Relevant Tribal Additions (the most common cube interactions are in parentheses)
Ghitu Encampment - Warrior (Blood-Chin Rager, Bramblewood Paragon)
Faerie Conclave - Faerie (Spellstutter Sprite)
Lu Xun, Scholar General -
LegendHuman SoldierSun Ce, Young Conquerer* -
LegendHuman SoldierDauthi Horror* -
BeastDauthi HorrorSorceress Queen* -
SorceressHuman WizardXiahou Dun, the One-Eyed* -
LegendHuman SoldierGuardian Idol* - Golem (Wing Splicer, Master Splicer, etc.)
Phyrexian War Beast - Beast (Advocate of the Beast, Krosan Warchief)
Other Retconned Cube Cards That Probably Didn't Matter Until WoTC Decided to Print Heirloom Blade
For the sake of thoroughness, here are some cube cards that have updated types in their Oracle wording that probably won't matter, unless you're running something like Heirloom or other unusual tribes matter cards, or if new tribal enablers are printed in the future.
Savannah Lions -
LionsCatSoltari Monk* - Soltari Cleric
Soltari Priest* - Soltari Cleric
Soltari Trooper* - Soltari Soldier
Soltari Champion* - Soltari Soldier
Clone -
CloneShapeshifterMerfolk Looter - Merfolk Rogue
Old Man of the Sea* -
MaridDjinnWaterfront Bouncer* - Merfolk Spellshaper
Dauthi Horror* -
BeastDauthi HorrorDauthi Slayer - Dauthi Soldier
Dauthi Marauder* - Dauthi Minion
Jackal Pup* -
HoundJackalFire Imp* - Imp
Elves of Deep Shadow -
ElvesElf DruidFyndhorn Elves -
ElvesElf DruidJungle Lion* - Cat
Llanowar Elves -
ElvesElf DruidKrosan Tusker - Boar Beast
Treetop Village - Ape
Wall of Blossoms - Plant Wall
Wall of Roots - Plant Wall
Cathodion - Construct
Juggernaut - Juggernaut
Su-Chi* - Construct
Triskelion - Construct
Cavern Harpy* - Harpy Beast
I've tried to be as thorough as I can, but I'm sure I've missed something, especially for those of you that are going unusually deep on certain themes. If anyone can think of any more potentially relevant tribal updates to cube cards please post them here.
Tri-lands are the best single cycle available for Peasant cubes, and if you're cube is hyper-budget enough that you need one or more cycles of non-rare lands this probably is the best choice at that price range as each land fixes 3 color pairs. However, they've never been on my radar for my rare cube. Lands that always ETBT are just too slow for this kind of format without a major upside, and for me the only cycle of ETBT duals with a good enough upside is the manland duals.
At 450 I'm running full cycles of ABU duals (proxied), fetches, shocks, and manland duals. The best cycle of duals that I'm not running right now is pain lands, which were a great placeholder for me while I was building my cube on a budget. You can always tap them for colored mana the turn you play them, and outside of the greediest of mana bases I found it unusual to take more than 2 damage from a pain land over the course of a game. I used to recommend them as the budget dual cycle of choice for new cubers, but they've spiked in price recently due to the advent of C, so now that honor probably falls to the check lands.
In that spirit, thanks for posting a card for today, Ravnic! Imperious Perfect is just a bit too clunky to work in most rare cube environments. Cast on turn 3, you'll be attacking with your first Grizzly Bear on 5. The buff for other Elves is nice, but most cubes don't really have a high enough density of them to make this that much more than a token generator. Master of the Wild Hunt is a better choice if you want this kind of effect because it doesn't require an ongoing mana commitment, you can still attack with Master after making your token, and it provides removal. If I wanted a second green token generator on a stick, I'd go with Mayor of Avabruck for its efficiency and more aggressive body, even if it's not as reliable.
Like wtwlf123, I'm only running tribal cards that do enough on their own so that their tribal synergy is just gravy, so
However, with 3 cards with Zombie tribal synergy, and plenty of other good-enough-on-their-own Zombie tribal cards, I'm seriously considering expanding on that to develop a Zombie tribal theme.
Spirit of the Labyrinth
BONUS QUESTION
What creatures with Blade of the Sixth Pride stats (i.e. 2CMC 3/1s) do you run?