MTG Salvation

4B
Legendary Creature - Frog Spirit
9/3

I would assume this card is not going to make it into most people's cubes, but I'd like to hear opinions nonetheless, and maybe some general discussion on vanillas. MaRo has mentioned the idea of a mythic vanilla a couple times. This is not mythic, but I feel it might as well have been. If someone is in the market of including cards in their cubes based on uniqueness and not just raw power level, I think Yargle should be up for consideration.

Good black five-drops are notoriously missing from standard powered and unpowered cubes. Yargle dies to absolutely everything, doesn't pass the Vindicate test, has no evasion and no noticeable synergies, unless you count the fact that relatively few creatures can block it profitably a "synergy". On the other hand, it is the biggest, dumbest vanilla beater you can get for five mana. How big and dumb does a big, dumb beater have to be to make its way to a cube? I assume every cube manager has a threshold at which they would consider an extremely undercosted beatstick instead of value creatures, even if the trend lately has been to replace the likes of Baneslayer with creatures that pass the Vindicate test.

EDIT. Agh, should have been the SCD tag. Woops. Seems I can't edit it.

9 power is nice, 3 toughness is not. My vanillas need a bit more.

One day, a meme cube will rise up to supplant all others. And on that day I know exactly what card I’ll be first picking.

maybe we will get a mythic 3/3 vanilla 1 drop some day. when we visit the flintstones plane.

Bambam Rubble, Club Child
R
Legendary creature - Human
3/3

I would not run a infinite/infinite vanilla creature for 5 mana in cube.

Quote from LucidVision »

I would not run a infinite/infinite vanilla creature for 5 mana in cube.

I would run a creature that kills in one shot, doesn't die to any damage effects, and cost 5 mana.

I mean... this guy gets stonewalled by a Porcelain Legionnaire.

Quote from TheTennesseeFireman »

One day, a meme cube will rise up to supplant all others. And on that day I know exactly what card I’ll be first picking.

Is it Storm Crow?

Quote from Salmo »

Quote from LucidVision »

I would not run a infinite/infinite vanilla creature for 5 mana in cube.

I would run a creature that kills in one shot, doesn't die to any damage effects, and cost 5 mana.

Absolutely. I mean, I might run a 9/5 for five mana in black given the lack of competition. Would curve nicely into a Wildfire. Here's to hoping they make an actual competitive legendary vanilla in the next set.

I think this card is completely and unacceptably terrible in a cube environment.

Quote from wtwlf123 »

I think this card is completely and unacceptably terrible in a cube environment.

What about my amphibian-themed cube though?

Oh, well in that case...

Quote from Cythare »

Quote from TheTennesseeFireman »

One day, a meme cube will rise up to supplant all others. And on that day I know exactly what card I’ll be first picking.

Is it Storm Crow?

Spinter Twin, obviously.

Quote from Salmo »

Quote from LucidVision »

I would not run a infinite/infinite vanilla creature for 5 mana in cube.

I would run a creature that kills in one shot, doesn't die to any damage effects, and cost 5 mana.

I actually thought more about it after posting this , and I would probably test that Though I was thinking it would die to deathtouch, not sure if you define that as a damage effect.
That might be my minumum testing requirement for a vanilla creature for 5 mana though.. (assuming not many synergies in the cube, like fires of yavimaya +give creature trample)

Obviously card the OP posted is not close (it's comically bad and not even good in basic limited without fling or aura keyword synergies), but assume his intention was to discuss about minimum vanilla creature power thresholds.

I meant lethal damage not so much deathtouch, but that's ultimately a corner case and would have no bearing on its inclusion, and yeah this creature is not that or close.