Cliffside Rescuer
There are probably more uses for this card than we can really foresee. Protection from player really does a lot. But it would have to do a lot to justify the stats. It's playable in peasant, but it's not rocking the world. EDIT: Whoops, somebody made a thread for this card. Oh well.
Mass Diminish
I think this is better than it looks. Not quite cubeable, but not far off. It sets you up for a one-sided wrath off of things like Goblin Sharpshooter or a Pestilence activation, and being able to do it again makes it work kinda like a Moment's Peace in a pinch. Again, this isn't quite there, but it could work in the right low-power environment.
Wall of Stolen Identity
Wall of Clone-geon Geists. This is a strange mash up, but we've all seen Clone, Dungeon Geists, and walls enough to know that this will generally range from okay to very good. Mainstream cubeable? No. But definitely a strong card.
Nightmare Unmaking
For budget players, there are not a lot of good options for black wraths. White has loads of them, but black has only a few. This is a perfectly viable option, exiles, and sometimes allows you to break parity. That's not nothing.
Backdraft Hellkite
No haste, no good. That would be the prevailing attitude. Still, this has reasonable Air Elemental stats, and an attack trigger that's really to die for. The ability is very attractive to those building a spellslinger or graveyard archetype, and it supports those things on a solid goodstuff body. This is exactly the kind of card that makes a low-power environment work. Wildfire Devils hits a lot of the same points as this card, and fell just short of making the list. Stats matter. But this dragon will never hit the mainstream until it stops failing the Vindicate test.
Dockside Extortionist
There are environments that want this. Everybody else is fine without it.
Selesnya Eulogist Centaur Courser stats just aren't what they used to be. Nevertheless, if the graveyard hate and populate are both relevant things, this can be a decent card. But like basically everything on this list, it's only remotely useful in an already lower power environment.
Chainer, Nightmare Adept
This is my favorite card in the set. This card would be dynamite if guild slots weren't like they are. Seriously, this card is great. One of the biggest reasons to play a bigger cube is that you get to free up some of those sweet sweet guild slots. You can discard the creature you want just for the haste if you don't have anything better to do. The Fume Spitters, Mogg Fanatics, and Spore Frogs are dancing in their graves, not to mention Fleshbag Marauders. Discard your fattie now, ramp it out later. Or just reanimate it. Chainer does it all. Alas for wonderful guild cards.
Tahngarth, First Mate
Eh, this can be a lot of fun in multiplayer. If you are building a multiplayer cube, you are probably more interested in fun than power anyway.
Volrath, the Shapestealer
This is a very powerful card, and it's totally playable. But nobody's going to play it when even those with dedicated tri-color slots already have phenomenal options. But hey, maybe you are trying to build a -1/-1 counter archetype, AND you have room for a Sultai card. That's not actually crazy.
i think volrath is a cool option for a sultai card as leovold, emissary of trest is hard to cast on curve and his price range just might be way out of range for people looking to test. Just saw he has dropped in price considerably! still though volrath is a cool card and is also cool from a lore point of view.
wall of stolen identity probably would have made lots of cubes 5 years ago but that has become such a stacked slot.
good job highlighting some cards for people just starting up a cube or running lower powered lists though.
i think volrath is a cool option for a sultai card as leovold, emissary of trest is hard to cast on curve and his price range just might be way out of range for people looking to test. Just saw he has dropped in price considerably!
Leovold was expensive because he was busted in Commander.
So busted he was eventually banned, in fact. Hence the price drop. Being reprinted helped, too, I guess. (A UMA mythic isn't exactly a high supply increase).
Cliffside Rescuer
There are probably more uses for this card than we can really foresee. Protection from player really does a lot. But it would have to do a lot to justify the stats. It's playable in peasant, but it's not rocking the world. EDIT: Whoops, somebody made a thread for this card. Oh well.
Mass Diminish
I think this is better than it looks. Not quite cubeable, but not far off. It sets you up for a one-sided wrath off of things like Goblin Sharpshooter or a Pestilence activation, and being able to do it again makes it work kinda like a Moment's Peace in a pinch. Again, this isn't quite there, but it could work in the right low-power environment.
Wall of Stolen Identity
Wall of Clone-geon Geists. This is a strange mash up, but we've all seen Clone, Dungeon Geists, and walls enough to know that this will generally range from okay to very good. Mainstream cubeable? No. But definitely a strong card.
Nightmare Unmaking
For budget players, there are not a lot of good options for black wraths. White has loads of them, but black has only a few. This is a perfectly viable option, exiles, and sometimes allows you to break parity. That's not nothing.
Backdraft Hellkite
No haste, no good. That would be the prevailing attitude. Still, this has reasonable Air Elemental stats, and an attack trigger that's really to die for. The ability is very attractive to those building a spellslinger or graveyard archetype, and it supports those things on a solid goodstuff body. This is exactly the kind of card that makes a low-power environment work. Wildfire Devils hits a lot of the same points as this card, and fell just short of making the list. Stats matter. But this dragon will never hit the mainstream until it stops failing the Vindicate test.
Dockside Extortionist
There are environments that want this. Everybody else is fine without it.
Selesnya Eulogist
Centaur Courser stats just aren't what they used to be. Nevertheless, if the graveyard hate and populate are both relevant things, this can be a decent card. But like basically everything on this list, it's only remotely useful in an already lower power environment.
Chainer, Nightmare Adept
This is my favorite card in the set. This card would be dynamite if guild slots weren't like they are. Seriously, this card is great. One of the biggest reasons to play a bigger cube is that you get to free up some of those sweet sweet guild slots. You can discard the creature you want just for the haste if you don't have anything better to do. The Fume Spitters, Mogg Fanatics, and Spore Frogs are dancing in their graves, not to mention Fleshbag Marauders. Discard your fattie now, ramp it out later. Or just reanimate it. Chainer does it all. Alas for wonderful guild cards.
Tahngarth, First Mate
Eh, this can be a lot of fun in multiplayer. If you are building a multiplayer cube, you are probably more interested in fun than power anyway.
Volrath, the Shapestealer
This is a very powerful card, and it's totally playable. But nobody's going to play it when even those with dedicated tri-color slots already have phenomenal options. But hey, maybe you are trying to build a -1/-1 counter archetype, AND you have room for a Sultai card. That's not actually crazy.
Low-power cube enthusiast!
My 1570 card cube (no longer updated)
My 415 Peasant+ Artifact and Enchantment Cube
Ever-Expanding "Just throw it in" cube.
price range just might be way out of range for people looking to test. Just saw he has dropped in price considerably! still though volrath is a cool card and is also cool from a lore point of view.wall of stolen identity probably would have made lots of cubes 5 years ago but that has become such a stacked slot.
good job highlighting some cards for people just starting up a cube or running lower powered lists though.
Leovold was expensive because he was busted in Commander.
So busted he was eventually banned, in fact. Hence the price drop. Being reprinted helped, too, I guess. (A UMA mythic isn't exactly a high supply increase).
Low-power cube enthusiast!
My 1570 card cube (no longer updated)
My 415 Peasant+ Artifact and Enchantment Cube
Ever-Expanding "Just throw it in" cube.