Jackal Pup and Firedrinker Satyr are different cards.
And ya, Confluence and City are different. Port, Icy, Tangle Wire, Lantern ...there are several cube cards that interact with the City damage that don't impact Confluence.
Probably going to be an unpopular opinion / hot take, and obviously Mana Confluence and City of Brass are still awesome fixing cards that should be in most cubes, but I'm wondering how "uncuttable" they really are in this day and age of fetchable tri-lands like Raugrin Triome and cards like Prismatic Vista, Fabled Passage and Ash Barrens.
It's not that those cards are better than Mana Confluence (and actually 3 of the 4 are probably worse in a vaccum, only Prismatic Vista may be better in a vacuum), but rather that:
1) the tri-lands have the knock-down effect of increasing the power and flexibility of fetch-lands like Polluted Delta.
2) Cards like Prismatic Vista, Fabled Passage and Ash Barrens have great synergies with cards like Brainstorm, Sensei's Divining Top, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Dig through Time, Treasure Cruise, Tasigur, the Golden Fang, Deathrite Shaman, Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath, Wrenn and Six, Life from the Loam and Crucible of Worlds. There's so many cards that either benefit from shuffle effects or feed off the graveyard.
3) Thinning your deck - the previous 3 cards plus the original fetchlands really provide a non-negligible value by removing a land you don't want to draw in the late game from your deck. This gives you more live draws and also lets you improve consistency by starting with a higher land count. If you play 18 lands and 22 cards and fetch on turn 1 on the draw for example, you on average have 14.4 lands left in your deck (out of 32), or 45% of your deck. A single fetch reduces that to 13.4 lands out of 31 cards, or 43%. If you draw 10 more cards through the rest of the game, you are going to draw an extra 0.18 relevant non-land cards. Nothing ground breaking, but marginal card advantage basically for free stapled onto an already great card should not be ignored. Obviously blue based control decks with lots of draw effects should gain the most from this - it's easy for those decks to draw 20 cards over the course of a game and they also tend to have shuffle effects. Anything you can do to recur the land and fetch again will just increase the thinning value you are getting from a single card.
City of Brass and Prismatic Vista, while great cards, really don't have these types of synergies and side benefits that other fixing lands (especially the fetches) do. For me, they seem like bubble cards at 360 (50/50% if you should play, depending on what you are trying to support), although they still should be in almost every 450+ list and likely staples at 540 and above for a long time to come.
And ya, Confluence and City are different. Port, Icy, Tangle Wire, Lantern ...there are several cube cards that interact with the City damage that don't impact Confluence.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
My 450 Cube
It's not that those cards are better than Mana Confluence (and actually 3 of the 4 are probably worse in a vaccum, only Prismatic Vista may be better in a vacuum), but rather that:
1) the tri-lands have the knock-down effect of increasing the power and flexibility of fetch-lands like Polluted Delta.
2) Cards like Prismatic Vista, Fabled Passage and Ash Barrens have great synergies with cards like Brainstorm, Sensei's Divining Top, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Dig through Time, Treasure Cruise, Tasigur, the Golden Fang, Deathrite Shaman, Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath, Wrenn and Six, Life from the Loam and Crucible of Worlds. There's so many cards that either benefit from shuffle effects or feed off the graveyard.
3) Thinning your deck - the previous 3 cards plus the original fetchlands really provide a non-negligible value by removing a land you don't want to draw in the late game from your deck. This gives you more live draws and also lets you improve consistency by starting with a higher land count. If you play 18 lands and 22 cards and fetch on turn 1 on the draw for example, you on average have 14.4 lands left in your deck (out of 32), or 45% of your deck. A single fetch reduces that to 13.4 lands out of 31 cards, or 43%. If you draw 10 more cards through the rest of the game, you are going to draw an extra 0.18 relevant non-land cards. Nothing ground breaking, but marginal card advantage basically for free stapled onto an already great card should not be ignored. Obviously blue based control decks with lots of draw effects should gain the most from this - it's easy for those decks to draw 20 cards over the course of a game and they also tend to have shuffle effects. Anything you can do to recur the land and fetch again will just increase the thinning value you are getting from a single card.
City of Brass and Prismatic Vista, while great cards, really don't have these types of synergies and side benefits that other fixing lands (especially the fetches) do. For me, they seem like bubble cards at 360 (50/50% if you should play, depending on what you are trying to support), although they still should be in almost every 450+ list and likely staples at 540 and above for a long time to come.
360 card powered Chicago cube:
https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/e7r
2020 Numerical Power Rankings:
https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/the-cube-forum/cube-card-and-archetype/817969-2020-numerical-cube-power-rankings
2018 CubeTutor Power Rankings:
https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/the-cube-forum/cube-card-and-archetype/803301-cubetutor-power-rankings-2018-by-color-and-cmc
Lurrus can't play lands, FYI.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
EDIT: Oh, it's because it says cast, not play. Good catch, thanks
360 card powered Chicago cube:
https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/e7r
2020 Numerical Power Rankings:
https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/the-cube-forum/cube-card-and-archetype/817969-2020-numerical-cube-power-rankings
2018 CubeTutor Power Rankings:
https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/the-cube-forum/cube-card-and-archetype/803301-cubetutor-power-rankings-2018-by-color-and-cmc
It also says permanent spell, not permanent card, and lands aren't spells.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!