I adamantly disagree, Oko is still 100% the best multicolored card in cube for us, and still definitely better than Minsc and Boo as absurd as that sounds lol. Oko has similarly gotten worse for us in the past year, but that's been in large part due to the increase in PW removal we've added, in largest part due to Oko itself, and Oko is still unbelievably broken. It also helps that Oko is in the most powerful color combination in our cube.
Obviously different formats, so it's only natural that the best cards are different, but just thought I'd share the other side of the coin.
I'd adamantly disagree, Comet has still been in a league of its own (alongside other multicolored first-pickables like Oko, Thief of Crowns, Minsc & Boo, Timeless Heroes, Atraxa, Grand Unifier, and Lutri, the Spellchaser ) for us, but I'm not gonna sit here and sully the good name of Eorlingas lmao. Formats might be a little different but Comet is definitely a clear higher pick for us and sees more play. Those round out our #1&2, and I'm expecting the new Heartflame Duelist to end up being our third best boros card, card looks fantastic too.
Heartflame Duelist1W
Creature - Human Knight
Instant and sorcery spells you control have lifelink.
3/1
//
Heartflame Slash 2R
Instant - Adventure
Heartflame Slash deals 3 damage to any target.
---
We're always looking for more playable burn, and this fits the bill. Open Fire is obviously bad in this format, but strapped to a reasonably statted 2 drop is exciting. When we played Soulfire Grand Master a few years ago the spell-lifelink didn't prove to be super useful, but I don't think that plays an important role in this cards playability.
There is something to be said about how this compares to Bonecrusher Giant, one of the best 3 drops in our cube, in that the curve of 2-->3 is immensely important to what makes the card so good, and that this card encourages you to skip out on the 2-for-1 by playing out the 3/1 body before casting the burn. Not a big fan of that, but the opportunity for an Open Fire that draws you a Blade of the Sixth Pride still seems really strong.
I don't think we have space for this in our cube as I think its probably the 5th best UG land, but this does seem fantastic. Being able to swing into fatties or represent 5+ trample damage is big game. Definitely better much than Lumbering Falls too yea
This looks terrific imo, and I would adamantly disagree that you can't play this in mono red, seems like a perfectly playable fit there. You can also play this in any base blue deck that's merely splashing for some small amount of red as a third or fourth color, as the creature side isn't going anywhere and can get mileage later in the game too.
The removal spell is no Petty Theft since it's sorcery speed, and that might end up making this play much more fairly that how ridiculous Brazen Borrower has preformed the past few years. But bottom line for us is that it's a decent aggressive red 2 drop, a slot where we don't feel there's lots of competition, and in base blue decks it shouldn't be too difficult to sneak a few red sources in for the backend reward the same way we seem to always manage to get spare black sources for Scrapheap Scrounger in our non-black decks. All of that outside of the setting of base red-blue decks, where this should be quite strong.
Barring both side of this card being hugely disappointing, which would be a big surprise to me, this seems decently strong and at worth the test.
Wow, this looks amazing. Would be very surprised if this didn't end up being the second best Golgari card. I've played quite a bit of Tenacious Underdog in constructed and honestly it's never felt very good to me, and this card is nothing like it (in a good way).
This looks incredibly easy to generate 4-for-1 value with or better, is cheap to cast and use in all aspects, is a great topdeck, offers card draw for combo decks, is splashable, and even has tribal synergies for those that care about it. Adventure cards almost always play better than they look, and this already looks great so can't wait to play with it. So far all the new enemy colored adventure creatures have been so pushed, the UB seems mediocre but hopefully the other allied color ones are just as good.
At the beginning of your upkeep, if Arden Angel is in your graveyard, roll a four-sided die. If the result is 1, return Arden Angel from your graveyard to the battlefield.
4/4
---
Might be too slow and inconsistent, but I like the potential. Seems pretty awful if you're casting it, only really good if you're discarding it, but what power-level would the average case scenario be for a card like this?
the sheer volume of historic cards vs token producers overwhelms those light correlations.
The big difference is that Staff of the Storyteller triggers itself and doesn't need a deck full of tokens to be good, where this needs needs to go in a dedicated historic deck to be even halfway decent. Historic is essentially hybrid for artifacts / legendary matters. Artifacts matters is obviously a very big thing, but most artifacts matters decks that I've played would be lucky to have a 25% hit rate with Sarah. Even if it was 25%, that's an awful rate in my book for this effect (see Oracle of Mul Daya / Courser of Kruphix effects vs Vizier of the Menagrie type cards). Legendary matters is a bit more fringe. Like I said before, a lot of legendary matters cards are just generically good on their own, where this isn't.
Staff of the Storyteller is a good card on its own and is GREAT when you surround it with token generators. Tireless Tracker is good because you literally don't have to build around it and can be a legitimate threat on its own. Sarah is awful on its own and is just a much worse Tireless Tracker that you have to bend over backwards for. It has a lot of hoops to jump through to be better than other value 2-cmc creatures like Charming Prince / Samwise / etc.
I'm with LucidVision on this one. I could completely envision a world where this falls flat and isn't good enough long term to stick around, but it would 100% be because of the body, not because of the cards. You are dramatically underestimating how often this triggers, like immensely. I went through recent pictures of decklists we had and of the white creature-based decks I was able to find, there wasn't a single one without at least a quarter of the deck being hits, with a few being more than a third. The anemic 2/1 body and the once-per turn clause are both disappointing, but as-is if this sticks it will draw you multiple cards, almost assuredly more than a Staff of the Storyteller which has been good in its own right.
I will mention, I've seen you post your 3-0 cube decklists on CubeCobra (which is helpful btw thank you for doing that) and in just a passive scroll through it does seem like you're legendary and artifact count is lower than ours, probably closer to 8 for most of your listed white creature decks. I'm not sure why, maybe it's a byproduct of 375 to 540, but our decks averaging 2-5 more artifacts and legendaries than yours could be why this discussion seems to be going in different directions for different users.
Regardless, we'll probably try this and see how it plays for us, especially if we can get our hands on the beautiful cartoon Tardis art version. My one primary concern is as Alan Yuan mentioned that Dark Confidant is still great but not the powerhouse it once was, and this representing typically fewer cards than that that while you are still forced to invest mana for the cards is definitely disappointing. The upside obviously being that you can get a clue immediately á-la Thraben Inspector and that it's white, a color that desires this effect a lot more than our black decks.
My experience has been similar to Alan Yuan's too, where great green 2s are still great, but you don't tend to need to play as many in the same way that other colors do since your curve tends to jump from 1-->3 more often than not.
Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary is great at 2 since you can Green Sun's Zenith or Worldly Tutor for it off of a T1 Dork and and Lotus Cobra plays closer to a 1 drop than a 2 drop off a T1 Dork as well. We play cards like Fauna Shaman and Tarmogoyf because they're great, but green has the fewest 2s of any color for us since there isn't as much inherent necessity to include them since green curves skip 2s more often than not. Like our playgroup is still playing cards like Eidolon of the Great Revel and Dreadhorde Arcanist in 2023 in red since we just need a critical mass of red 2s for our aggressive decks, and feel no such pressure for our green aggressive decks.
I do think this would be better in red, but not because of synergies but just because red 2s are not great and this is much better than most of them lol
Besides that, green artifact midrange decks have been pretty decent for us and do pop up sometimes. We've even considered testing Tireless Provisioner, Gala Greeters, and even Fae Offering before but never ended up having space to try them, specifically the Provisioner.
And Kitchen Finks sees plenty of maindeck play for us in all sorts of non-white green decks since the guaranteed lifegain+body is so good vs aggro off of creature tutors, and I don't think there's reason to expect this preforms particularly worse than that.
Whenever you cast a historic spell, investigate. This ability triggers only once each turn. (Artifacts, legendaries, and Sagas are historic. To investigate, create a Clue token. It’s an artifact with , Sacrifice this artifact: Draw a card.”)
Doctor’s companion (You can have two commanders if the other is the Doctor.)
2/1
There was a thread not too long about legendary matters payoffs with cards like Yoshimaru, Ever Faithful/Frodo Baggins/Mox Amber, and this obviously seems like a perfect fit for that. However, I am also curious about this cards applications outside that setting too. Is this capable of generating enough clues off of incidental legendaries and artifacts in cubes without purposely heightened legendary counts? And if so, is this good enough for white aggressive and midrange decks, or is this just too slow? Artifact synergies are good too
When Tough Cookie enters the battlefield, create a Food token. : Target noncreature artifact you control becomes a 4/4 artifact creature until end of turn. , , Sacrifice Tough Cookie: You gain 3 life.
2/2
I'm a big fan of this. The artifact synergy is cute, but bottom line this is a creature with decent stats and a good etb, is great vs aggro, and can represent 6 or even 10 damage in the mid-to-late game. I'm really impressed, especially in powered cubes where stray non-creature artifacts are substantially more common in the late game, and can even let this represent hasty burst damage in a color that ordinarily doesn't have access to that particularly often.
We also cut Otawara, Soaring City and the rest of the non-Boseiju cards from the cycle since they were either too slow on the channel end so they almost never got discarded, or in Eiganjo, seat of the Empire's case it was only getting pitched in control decks, which felt kind of narrow but could be worth a reinclusion.
This can fix mana, and has a super proactive useful ability. And this thing isn't just popping up here and there, so far this is seeing tons of modern play. I'm gonna have to test this.
With that said, if you're looking for more cantrips them incorporating them in non mono-blue places like Arcum's Astrolabe, Ice-Fang Coatl, or Expressive Iteration can be helpful and is what we opted for.
Another direction you can go is with cheap cycling cards with other powerful modes, like Censor/Lonely Sandbar/Edge of Autumn. These are essentially cantrips, and tend to get cycled most of the time but have additional value that I'd personally prefer over Sleight of Hand/Consider/Opt/Portent/etc unless I was really married to the spell synergy aspect of my cantrips.
I should mention, if we're counting Impulse as a cantrip, then Supreme Will might work for you too seeing as we've played both and the latter is definitely better imo.
Obviously different formats, so it's only natural that the best cards are different, but just thought I'd share the other side of the coin.
Heartflame Duelist 1 W
Creature - Human Knight
Instant and sorcery spells you control have lifelink.
3/1
//
Heartflame Slash 2 R
Instant - Adventure
Heartflame Slash deals 3 damage to any target.
---
We're always looking for more playable burn, and this fits the bill. Open Fire is obviously bad in this format, but strapped to a reasonably statted 2 drop is exciting. When we played Soulfire Grand Master a few years ago the spell-lifelink didn't prove to be super useful, but I don't think that plays an important role in this cards playability.
There is something to be said about how this compares to Bonecrusher Giant, one of the best 3 drops in our cube, in that the curve of 2-->3 is immensely important to what makes the card so good, and that this card encourages you to skip out on the 2-for-1 by playing out the 3/1 body before casting the burn. Not a big fan of that, but the opportunity for an Open Fire that draws you a Blade of the Sixth Pride still seems really strong.
The removal spell is no Petty Theft since it's sorcery speed, and that might end up making this play much more fairly that how ridiculous Brazen Borrower has preformed the past few years. But bottom line for us is that it's a decent aggressive red 2 drop, a slot where we don't feel there's lots of competition, and in base blue decks it shouldn't be too difficult to sneak a few red sources in for the backend reward the same way we seem to always manage to get spare black sources for Scrapheap Scrounger in our non-black decks. All of that outside of the setting of base red-blue decks, where this should be quite strong.
Barring both side of this card being hugely disappointing, which would be a big surprise to me, this seems decently strong and at worth the test.
This looks incredibly easy to generate 4-for-1 value with or better, is cheap to cast and use in all aspects, is a great topdeck, offers card draw for combo decks, is splashable, and even has tribal synergies for those that care about it. Adventure cards almost always play better than they look, and this already looks great so can't wait to play with it. So far all the new enemy colored adventure creatures have been so pushed, the UB seems mediocre but hopefully the other allied color ones are just as good.
Arden Angel
Creature — Angel
Flying
At the beginning of your upkeep, if Arden Angel is in your graveyard, roll a four-sided die. If the result is 1, return Arden Angel from your graveyard to the battlefield.
4/4
---
Might be too slow and inconsistent, but I like the potential. Seems pretty awful if you're casting it, only really good if you're discarding it, but what power-level would the average case scenario be for a card like this?
I'm with LucidVision on this one. I could completely envision a world where this falls flat and isn't good enough long term to stick around, but it would 100% be because of the body, not because of the cards. You are dramatically underestimating how often this triggers, like immensely. I went through recent pictures of decklists we had and of the white creature-based decks I was able to find, there wasn't a single one without at least a quarter of the deck being hits, with a few being more than a third. The anemic 2/1 body and the once-per turn clause are both disappointing, but as-is if this sticks it will draw you multiple cards, almost assuredly more than a Staff of the Storyteller which has been good in its own right.
I will mention, I've seen you post your 3-0 cube decklists on CubeCobra (which is helpful btw thank you for doing that) and in just a passive scroll through it does seem like you're legendary and artifact count is lower than ours, probably closer to 8 for most of your listed white creature decks. I'm not sure why, maybe it's a byproduct of 375 to 540, but our decks averaging 2-5 more artifacts and legendaries than yours could be why this discussion seems to be going in different directions for different users.
Regardless, we'll probably try this and see how it plays for us, especially if we can get our hands on the beautiful cartoon Tardis art version. My one primary concern is as Alan Yuan mentioned that Dark Confidant is still great but not the powerhouse it once was, and this representing typically fewer cards than that that while you are still forced to invest mana for the cards is definitely disappointing. The upside obviously being that you can get a clue immediately á-la Thraben Inspector and that it's white, a color that desires this effect a lot more than our black decks.
Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary is great at 2 since you can Green Sun's Zenith or Worldly Tutor for it off of a T1 Dork and and Lotus Cobra plays closer to a 1 drop than a 2 drop off a T1 Dork as well. We play cards like Fauna Shaman and Tarmogoyf because they're great, but green has the fewest 2s of any color for us since there isn't as much inherent necessity to include them since green curves skip 2s more often than not. Like our playgroup is still playing cards like Eidolon of the Great Revel and Dreadhorde Arcanist in 2023 in red since we just need a critical mass of red 2s for our aggressive decks, and feel no such pressure for our green aggressive decks.
Besides that, green artifact midrange decks have been pretty decent for us and do pop up sometimes. We've even considered testing Tireless Provisioner, Gala Greeters, and even Fae Offering before but never ended up having space to try them, specifically the Provisioner.
And Kitchen Finks sees plenty of maindeck play for us in all sorts of non-white green decks since the guaranteed lifegain+body is so good vs aggro off of creature tutors, and I don't think there's reason to expect this preforms particularly worse than that.
Sarah Jane Smith
Sarah Jane Smith
Legendary Creature — Human Detective
Whenever you cast a historic spell, investigate. This ability triggers only once each turn. (Artifacts, legendaries, and Sagas are historic. To investigate, create a Clue token. It’s an artifact with
Doctor’s companion (You can have two commanders if the other is the Doctor.)
2/1
There was a thread not too long about legendary matters payoffs with cards like Yoshimaru, Ever Faithful/Frodo Baggins/Mox Amber, and this obviously seems like a perfect fit for that. However, I am also curious about this cards applications outside that setting too. Is this capable of generating enough clues off of incidental legendaries and artifacts in cubes without purposely heightened legendary counts? And if so, is this good enough for white aggressive and midrange decks, or is this just too slow? Artifact synergies are good too
Tough Cookie
Artifact Creature — Food Golem
When Tough Cookie enters the battlefield, create a Food token.
2/2
I'm a big fan of this. The artifact synergy is cute, but bottom line this is a creature with decent stats and a good etb, is great vs aggro, and can represent 6 or even 10 damage in the mid-to-late game. I'm really impressed, especially in powered cubes where stray non-creature artifacts are substantially more common in the late game, and can even let this represent hasty burst damage in a color that ordinarily doesn't have access to that particularly often.
This can fix mana, and has a super proactive useful ability. And this thing isn't just popping up here and there, so far this is seeing tons of modern play. I'm gonna have to test this.
With that said, if you're looking for more cantrips them incorporating them in non mono-blue places like Arcum's Astrolabe, Ice-Fang Coatl, or Expressive Iteration can be helpful and is what we opted for.
Another direction you can go is with cheap cycling cards with other powerful modes, like Censor/Lonely Sandbar/Edge of Autumn. These are essentially cantrips, and tend to get cycled most of the time but have additional value that I'd personally prefer over Sleight of Hand/Consider/Opt/Portent/etc unless I was really married to the spell synergy aspect of my cantrips.
I should mention, if we're counting Impulse as a cantrip, then Supreme Will might work for you too seeing as we've played both and the latter is definitely better imo.