I'll echo that this is the opposite of Purphoros in terms of functionality. You get the most value out of Purphoros by saving cards for later; Hazoret rewards a more aggressive play style. Purphoros is a bit limited in terms of archetypes; Hazoret could potentially be used outside of aggro due to surviving fires and wraths and still being a creature. Hazoret can be a surprise-I-win kind of topdeck on an empty board, whereas a topdecked Purphoros does nothing.
In terms of potential cuts if Hazoret is to be included/tested, I think red might not need as many strictly aggro four-drops as it has in most cubes nowadays. As said here before, we have Fleetwheel Cruiser as a recent addition, and in general red aggro doesn't want that many fours in its main. There's also the factor of the drafting mechanics around red aggro-viable cards: at least in my group, almost everyone in the table will pick red burn highly in the first pack, and everybody knows Rx aggro is great. This often leads to just one player playing red as their primary aggro color because others have decided to just keep what burn they managed to pick and build something else.
I'm pretty sure Ancestral might be just too good, but I might be willing to at least consider all of the others myself. Maybe. I generally think that many cards and strategies become better (or viable) in a powered environment, and in unpowered are extremely fair in that you have to get lucky or jump through hoops to get the payoff, Mind Twist being a great example. I see you're running Jitte in unpowered: FWIW I agree with the choice, but I also think that a cube that's fine with Jitte (and Grim Monolith) should be okay with Mind Twist. Jitte can get out of hand with arguably less work than Mind Twist in unpowered. Mind Twist is like Tinker, in that it can be ridiculously good early on with fast mana and "just good" without it.
Channel is a difficult beast and I have no experience with it outside of powered. I guess here you'll just have to ask if your cube is okay with a potential turn 2 Newlamog. It does limit your choices though, less so than e.g. Show and Tell.
Time Walk and Mana Drain are silly, but at least Mana Drain makes you commit to blue to some extent. It's... weirdly conditional removal and fast mana in the same card? Time Walk is probably too busted since a standard unpowered cube has all the general ways to abuse it, but I'd argue it's still not as silly as drawing three for one mana.
About Library: Nick Nobody of the MTG Cube Blog actually argued that Library is A-OK and fair in unpowered (http://mtgcube.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/card-spotlight-library-of-alexandria.html). Interesting arguments, but I personally would say that Library is one of the few cards that actually becomes more broken in unpowered because of the different environment. Namely, since unpowered (usually) has no fast mana, control decks can't play the alternative cheaty route as easily - meaning a deck can't have a potential turn 1 Blightsteel through Tinker - and thus won't usually be dumping their hand fast. This makes Library just universally better, because while you're right to first-pick it and build with the card in mind, you won't be faced with the temptation of also picking all the power and trying to play a turn 2 Karn. Library is hands down the best card a slow deck in an unpowered environment could ever play by a ridiculously wide margin.
Kind of related to the subject: I can't be bothered to find it now, but there was once a great discussion on the cube subreddit about "the perceived fairness of a format vs. the actual fairness". The idea was that few people can take games as analytically as some more abstractly oriented, competitive folks. Many people react with more bad feelings to getting their creatures countered than getting their creatures killed; many people decide to not run Mill Jace due to unfairness or uninteractivity instead of the card being hit-or-miss, because milling is just "annoyingly boring"; I assume people would also rather lose to a perfect aggro curve-out than a ridiculously early fatty. In short, people like "interactivity" and not losing early even though some games that take several turns may actually have been decided on turn 2 already, the player(s) just didn't acknowledge this. I'm probably preaching to the choir here, but ultimately the choice should be made with your players' preferences and psychologies in mind.
@Spikerogue: Thanks, I'll probably pick up a copy of
I'm going to swap in Shrine of the Burning Rage and give it a whirl in my unpowered version. The card is stellar in peasant cube.
As a side question, would you guys recommend Rancor or Curse of Predation without explicit green aggro support in a cube? I was considering going Curse to help green support tokens.
It's hard for me to rate the red cards since they serve many different purposes, but I would usually try to replace like with like, so either Marauders (considering Shrine an aggro card) or Defiance (considering it flexible burn). I'd lean towards cutting Marauders. That said, my experience of Shrine in powered/unpowered is kinda lackluster - it's slow, it only hits once, and everyone is running artifact removal.
I have a soft spot for Curse of Predation. Something about it makes it feel like a card that shouldn't be in a traditional cube, but then you try it and suddenly you end up with a board full of pumped-up Bitterblossom tokens and a very sad opponent. I think adding those cards without the green aggro one-drops is fine. Green is already pretty nice with token decks since it has the Garruks, good general purpose two-drops and a bunch of Regrowth effects to reuse your token generators.
I like DRS in cube, but I wouldn't call it a one-mana 'walker in a cube context. The reason it's so good in Legacy (and apparently in Vintage) is that in those contexts it will almost always have each of its modes active, especially the first one. In cube it's more a cool utility creature that can work as extra reach in Bx decks, keep you alive, hose reanimator and do all sorts of other nifty stuff, but it's pretty rare to have all of these modes active and relevant at once. It's not completely bonkers, and as such I wouldn't fault people for running more premium BG removal or something funny like Life/Death over it.
Shardless Agent seems like the default include in most Simic sections, but as has been stated on these forums also, it has some anti-synergy in the UG tempo decks since cascading into counterspells is really meh. (Honestly, I've personally felt that the Agent is a three-color card in disguise, best fit for decks that are just splashing blue. I might even go crazy and actually run it but categorize it as Temur.) Meanwhile, Rogue Refiner will always draw you a card and hit for one more damage. Coiling Oracle has an extremely lackluster body for a cmc2 gold card, but it can randomly ramp you. What do you think? Am I dumb to even consider other options than Agent?
Mauler's stock might go up if you support (in addition to aggro) a heavy reanimator or fatty cheat package (I once had it in a Tooth and Nail deck with the original Emrakul), but otherwise I think I'd rather have the card that doesn't require other cards to have upside.
That said, I'd like to ask the people who mention Tinker synergies etc: what kind of deck do you see running both this card and Tinker/Welder plus something to cheat into play? My Tinker decks tend to be of the type where the deck could also potentially cast the cheat targets by playing the long game (similar to running Natural Order in creature-based ramp), but I really don't see that happening with this card. Do you just randomly splash blue in red aggro to run Tinker and maybe a Wurmcoil? The idea seems even more far fetched to me than actually running Alesha and Hornet Queen in the same deck.
Maybe I just don't know how to play, but I've probably never picked Bribery in cubes where I've come across it. I like this more, casting cards for free is cool and this can actually do some work against aggro decks (unlike Bribery most of the time).
I like this more than Dauthi Horror for sure (at 540 unpowered). Dauthi Horror deals 2 per turn a bit more reliably but I don't feel black really needs that card, whereas an extra CA piker is always welcome. Besides being a bit more reliable, the Horror has all the cons of this card (ie. it dies to everything), and it can't block (can be relevant in aggro mirrors).
I wish they made a 2/1 for 2 that simply drew a card on ETB.
Wurmcoil and Gideon Jura are not good if you want to support aggro in an un-powered environment
I see statements like this quite often and they really confuse me because from what experience I have with powered and unpowered cubes, I think you should have as much if not more powerful anti-aggro cards for control decks in unpowered as in powered, definitely not less than in powered.
I think aggro is generally a bit better in unpowered. In powered cubes, aggro decks don't necessarily benefit that much from the most degenerate fast mana because aggro decks tend to have tight requirements for colored mana. Sure the aggro decks in powered can be a bit faster than in unpowered, but this is balanced by the fact that the control and midrange decks have more "unfair" tools available. In unpowered, aggro is still really, really fast, but control most likely just can't Tinker into Myr Battlesphere on turn 2. I think the biggest argument for running Signets in unpowered is that it allows for control decks to Wrath on turn 3.
Bottom line: nine times out of ten my aggro decks in powered are about as fast as my aggro decks in unpowered, so I don't see a reason to specifically protect aggro in unpowered.
1) It'll be an Exemplar foil. That means severely limited printing, but let's be honest, even an Exemplar printing will probably double the current (minuscule) supply. There won't be enough demand to support an overly-inflated price. Prediction: $200.
2) It'll be a regular foil. That means (relatively) lots of them on the market. Ravages of War is probably more played as a popular Cube card, and the judge foil is under $50 (for people looking to get into Vintage, this isn't the barrier to entry). Prediction: $85.
I admit I haven't tested them extensively, but I actually like this version of Sorin a bit more than the others. Though I think Solemn Visitor and Lord of Innistrad are much closer than most seem to think. I mean, Sorin SV and Sorin LoI fill a pretty similar role in aggroish BW decks, but I just like giving lifelink to the whole team a bit more than a single lifelinker, and I like the ability to produce 2/2 fliers a bit more than the ability to produce 1/1 lifelinkers. Sorin LoI has a better ult, but I don't think that's going to be relevant most of the time. Either of these 'walkers is most likely going to die pretty soon after hitting the board: LoI will leave behind a 1/1 and/or an unremovable anthem, SV will leave behind a 2/2 and/or some extra life gained. I find it hard to say either is hugely better than the other, so it's mostly a personal preference.
Also, all of the other top cards in BW are what I would call pure value, I think it's nice to have a good curve topper for a specific archetype rather than a more basic value walker.
Since some of the replies claim that Mana Vault is not too broken for unpowered and some claim it is, I'd like to know a bit more about how you come to these conclusions. Have the people who don't want Vault in their unpowered tested with it? How much testing have the people who run it done? I've been kind of torn on Vault and Monolith in unpowered but erred to the side of caution.
I sadly don't have a pic of my pretty unspectacular box, so I can't really contribute to the main discussion of the day.
I wish this card had a reminder text about gaining haste (or would simply have haste). It seems not obvious, and it's a very important part of the effect. Absolutely needs to be explained to new and non-regular players. I'm wondering, was that some kind of errata or change in wording that made suspend cards enter the battefield with haste, or was it always like that?
All the Suspend creatures that had enough room in their text box for reminder text, in the original Time Spiral, have the Haste wording.
Funnily enough, I remember MaRo explained in one of his articles (something about what he's learned through mistakes in game design) that when they playtested the Suspend cards, the Suspend mechanic explicitly did not give the card haste when it was cast, but no matter how many times they explained this, players would try to immediately attack with their Suspend creatures once they were cast. Apparently most players found it more intuitive, I'd assume that they thought something like "the card has been on the table for so long, surely I don't have to wait another turn".
On the flipside of the coin, I too find myself sometimes forgetting that I can attack with Gargadon right away. It's a great card but I agree it's one of those cube inclusions that just needs to be explained to newer players, and it's kinda sad it couldn't have the reminder text.
How long would this article be? There's tons to say, so I guess it depends on how brief you want to keep it.
However brief, I would add some specifics to the talk about archetypes: the ideas of archetype-specific cards, general goodstuff cards and cross-pollination should at least be briefly mentioned. The basic idea that a cube card can be either "just good" in the environment, really extremely good in a specific archetype, or good in several archetypes: and that if you want to enable several archetypes, you should have cards that are good in several of them, not just separate archetype cards. And that though cube is an amazing limited format, it's still a limited format, which leads to restrictions on what archetypes you can enable.
In terms of potential cuts if Hazoret is to be included/tested, I think red might not need as many strictly aggro four-drops as it has in most cubes nowadays. As said here before, we have Fleetwheel Cruiser as a recent addition, and in general red aggro doesn't want that many fours in its main. There's also the factor of the drafting mechanics around red aggro-viable cards: at least in my group, almost everyone in the table will pick red burn highly in the first pack, and everybody knows Rx aggro is great. This often leads to just one player playing red as their primary aggro color because others have decided to just keep what burn they managed to pick and build something else.
Channel is a difficult beast and I have no experience with it outside of powered. I guess here you'll just have to ask if your cube is okay with a potential turn 2 Newlamog. It does limit your choices though, less so than e.g. Show and Tell.
Time Walk and Mana Drain are silly, but at least Mana Drain makes you commit to blue to some extent. It's... weirdly conditional removal and fast mana in the same card? Time Walk is probably too busted since a standard unpowered cube has all the general ways to abuse it, but I'd argue it's still not as silly as drawing three for one mana.
About Library: Nick Nobody of the MTG Cube Blog actually argued that Library is A-OK and fair in unpowered (http://mtgcube.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/card-spotlight-library-of-alexandria.html). Interesting arguments, but I personally would say that Library is one of the few cards that actually becomes more broken in unpowered because of the different environment. Namely, since unpowered (usually) has no fast mana, control decks can't play the alternative cheaty route as easily - meaning a deck can't have a potential turn 1 Blightsteel through Tinker - and thus won't usually be dumping their hand fast. This makes Library just universally better, because while you're right to first-pick it and build with the card in mind, you won't be faced with the temptation of also picking all the power and trying to play a turn 2 Karn. Library is hands down the best card a slow deck in an unpowered environment could ever play by a ridiculously wide margin.
Kind of related to the subject: I can't be bothered to find it now, but there was once a great discussion on the cube subreddit about "the perceived fairness of a format vs. the actual fairness". The idea was that few people can take games as analytically as some more abstractly oriented, competitive folks. Many people react with more bad feelings to getting their creatures countered than getting their creatures killed; many people decide to not run Mill Jace due to unfairness or uninteractivity instead of the card being hit-or-miss, because milling is just "annoyingly boring"; I assume people would also rather lose to a perfect aggro curve-out than a ridiculously early fatty. In short, people like "interactivity" and not losing early even though some games that take several turns may actually have been decided on turn 2 already, the player(s) just didn't acknowledge this. I'm probably preaching to the choir here, but ultimately the choice should be made with your players' preferences and psychologies in mind.
It's hard for me to rate the red cards since they serve many different purposes, but I would usually try to replace like with like, so either Marauders (considering Shrine an aggro card) or Defiance (considering it flexible burn). I'd lean towards cutting Marauders. That said, my experience of Shrine in powered/unpowered is kinda lackluster - it's slow, it only hits once, and everyone is running artifact removal.
I have a soft spot for Curse of Predation. Something about it makes it feel like a card that shouldn't be in a traditional cube, but then you try it and suddenly you end up with a board full of pumped-up Bitterblossom tokens and a very sad opponent. I think adding those cards without the green aggro one-drops is fine. Green is already pretty nice with token decks since it has the Garruks, good general purpose two-drops and a bunch of Regrowth effects to reuse your token generators.
Rogue Refiner vs. Shardless Agent vs. Coiling Oracle?
Shardless Agent seems like the default include in most Simic sections, but as has been stated on these forums also, it has some anti-synergy in the UG tempo decks since cascading into counterspells is really meh. (Honestly, I've personally felt that the Agent is a three-color card in disguise, best fit for decks that are just splashing blue. I might even go crazy and actually run it but categorize it as Temur.) Meanwhile, Rogue Refiner will always draw you a card and hit for one more damage. Coiling Oracle has an extremely lackluster body for a cmc2 gold card, but it can randomly ramp you. What do you think? Am I dumb to even consider other options than Agent?
That said, I'd like to ask the people who mention Tinker synergies etc: what kind of deck do you see running both this card and Tinker/Welder plus something to cheat into play? My Tinker decks tend to be of the type where the deck could also potentially cast the cheat targets by playing the long game (similar to running Natural Order in creature-based ramp), but I really don't see that happening with this card. Do you just randomly splash blue in red aggro to run Tinker and maybe a Wurmcoil? The idea seems even more far fetched to me than actually running Alesha and Hornet Queen in the same deck.
I wish they made a 2/1 for 2 that simply drew a card on ETB.
I see statements like this quite often and they really confuse me because from what experience I have with powered and unpowered cubes, I think you should have as much if not more powerful anti-aggro cards for control decks in unpowered as in powered, definitely not less than in powered.
I think aggro is generally a bit better in unpowered. In powered cubes, aggro decks don't necessarily benefit that much from the most degenerate fast mana because aggro decks tend to have tight requirements for colored mana. Sure the aggro decks in powered can be a bit faster than in unpowered, but this is balanced by the fact that the control and midrange decks have more "unfair" tools available. In unpowered, aggro is still really, really fast, but control most likely just can't Tinker into Myr Battlesphere on turn 2. I think the biggest argument for running Signets in unpowered is that it allows for control decks to Wrath on turn 3.
Bottom line: nine times out of ten my aggro decks in powered are about as fast as my aggro decks in unpowered, so I don't see a reason to specifically protect aggro in unpowered.
It's an Exemplar foil according to the person who posted the picture: https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/5d1nd0/new_judge_foil_imperial_seal/da12g44/
(Was e.g Ravages of War an exemplar foil or not? If it was, I might be carefully optimistic about the price here.)
Also, all of the other top cards in BW are what I would call pure value, I think it's nice to have a good curve topper for a specific archetype rather than a more basic value walker.
I sadly don't have a pic of my pretty unspectacular box, so I can't really contribute to the main discussion of the day.
All the Suspend creatures that had enough room in their text box for reminder text, in the original Time Spiral, have the Haste wording.
Funnily enough, I remember MaRo explained in one of his articles (something about what he's learned through mistakes in game design) that when they playtested the Suspend cards, the Suspend mechanic explicitly did not give the card haste when it was cast, but no matter how many times they explained this, players would try to immediately attack with their Suspend creatures once they were cast. Apparently most players found it more intuitive, I'd assume that they thought something like "the card has been on the table for so long, surely I don't have to wait another turn".
On the flipside of the coin, I too find myself sometimes forgetting that I can attack with Gargadon right away. It's a great card but I agree it's one of those cube inclusions that just needs to be explained to newer players, and it's kinda sad it couldn't have the reminder text.
However brief, I would add some specifics to the talk about archetypes: the ideas of archetype-specific cards, general goodstuff cards and cross-pollination should at least be briefly mentioned. The basic idea that a cube card can be either "just good" in the environment, really extremely good in a specific archetype, or good in several archetypes: and that if you want to enable several archetypes, you should have cards that are good in several of them, not just separate archetype cards. And that though cube is an amazing limited format, it's still a limited format, which leads to restrictions on what archetypes you can enable.