Usman+TrainmasterGT Foundations Cube Article

Now with pictures!

Welcome to the first Usman Jamil and TrainmasterGT Cube Set Review! In this article, we team up to cover the cards we’re most excited for in the new Magic: the Gathering: Foundations set.

Usman: While I don’t think this set is going to shake any foundations for cube, it’s looking to be a generally solid cube set. We put our thoughts down for both the main set and the supplemental ones in the same writing, since generally cube designers approach sets from the angle of single cards rather than strict rarity/sets. Adjust accordingly if your cube doesn’t.

TrainmasterGT: In this overview, we primarily evaluate cards in the context of our own Cube environments, both of which are fairly powerful. We tried to cover a range of potential contexts where applicable, but we don’t cover every base. Despite that, we have both played with many of these cards at this point in both our own and other Cube environments. We have first-hand experience with the cards discussed!

Naturally, let us start with the White cards.

White:

Sun-Blessed Healer -

Usman: I’ll fully admit that this is my love of dumb aggro beaters with late game potential impacting my evaluation of this.

One concern was that, when trying out new cards in a draft, this deck had Sun-Blessed Healer as an option but didn’t play it. Honestly, I think that was a correct call, with the other 2-drops being Virtue of Loyalty, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Flametongue Yearling and Smuggler’s Copter (which arguably is less of a creature/more of an equipment since it’s a vehicle.)

It could have arguably replaced the Untimely Malfunction, but another (undefeated) Boros deck had the same thing happen - but it at least came out of the sideboard, but was never drawn. Usually that doesn’t bode super well for it having long-term playability, but I really want it to get there.

It having lifelink can be either flavor text or absurd, given the matchup, but my base expectation of it is to be a 2-mana 3/1 with some kicker text - there’s a few cards that care about returning 2-mana creatures in this set with this and Raise the Past. There’s definitely some great 2-mana creatures that aren’t just piles of stats, and ones like Stoneforge Mystic, Ajani, Nacatl Pariah and even ones like White Orchid Phantom aren’t useless on turn 4. Ultimately, I ended up it being replacement-level in terms of raw power level.

TrainmasterGT: I like how Sun-Blessed Healer ties in with the “small guy reanimator” theme that has recently been pushed in white and black. I think this card has a lot of play to it, but I have found the average use case of this card is just low enough to make it unremarkable. However, the floor is reasonably high, which makes it a great option as a test! I think this card looks like a great time with some of the popular 2 mv Claim // Fame, Unearth, and Helping Hand targets like Young Pyromancer and Tarmogoyf.

Skyknight Squire -

Usman: I’m not really feeling this one, since it requires a couple of creatures to be worth the squeeze. It at least triggers off of tokens entering, which is a big help. It might get there as a tokens payoff, since it’s a steadily-growing threat with a token generator. But I’m currently already running a ton of white 2-drops and I don’t like this better than any of those - or anything else in my white section. Not that it’s bad, but I don’t really dig this one for my meta.

TrainmasterGT: Skynight Squire suffers from the same problem that plagues many other mini-scalers– while it has the potential to get very large, it doesn’t quite have the impact a player may want out of an aggressive creature at every stage of the game. That said, I think there are a couple of interesting things the card has going in its favor. First, I think the fact that this gains flying provides some valuable evasion which can help aggressive decks punch through the opponent. It takes a little while to get there, but I think it’s still pretty cool. Second, I think the “Cat” type is increasingly relevant. The people have spoken and WOTC has answered: cat decks are popular and people want more cats. As such, we’re starting to get more ‘cat typal’ cards that really increase the value of having incidental cats. Ajani, Nacatl Pariah from Modern Horizons 3 is probably the most powerful recent example of this trend, but the Foundations card Arahbo, the First Fang is another powerful option. We’re going to talk about this more later, but I think cats may have a bright future.

Celestial Armor -

Usman: It’s somewhat comparable to Maul of the Skyclaves but it’s a nice trick, but it’s a similar analogue due to the “snap on” functionality and ability to make something fly. It might get there as a store brand Maul as a way to consistently give things like Jacked Rabbit and Ocelot Pride evasion, with the ability to be a bad combat trick if need be. Still, those usually end up being more dream scenario than actuality.

TrainmasterGT: I’ll always take another cool Stoneforge Mystic target. Armor is nice because it’s designed to be used at instant speed– you can flash it in even when you don’t have a Stoneforge in play. I think that makes Celestial Armor a little bit weaker specifically when cheated, but it also means that the card is a little bit more consistent in its applications. Even when you draw Celestial Armor naturally, it can still be easily played without rotting in your hand.

Eidolon of Astral Winds -

Usman: My issue with this is that it doesn’t really go along with the game plan that enchantress decks tend to have - this is mostly increasing raw stats of creatures and generally, enchantress decks get there via attrition and value rather than pure beatdown.

TrainmasterGT: I have wanted to make an Enchantress deck work in one of my Cubes for years, but most of the enchantment payoffs have usually felt unplayable without a critical mass of enchantments. Artifact decks don’t tend to experience this problem to the same degree since ‘artifacts matter’ themes show up in sets more often and tend to be designed to be compatible with other archetypes. By contrast, cards that care about enchantments tend to only show up in sets where enchantments are a major theme, making the pool of powerful but flexible ‘enchantments matter’ cards much smaller. Eidolon of Astral Winds is a step in solving this issue. While a 2/4 vigilance baseline isn’t great, the fact that this card can pump a small creature into a 4/4 flier immediately gives it some good value just for playing it. I think this card has a pretty decent ceiling with just a couple other enchantments in the deck, especially in conjunction with cards that can make multiple enchantments.

Raise the Past -

Usman: Similar to the point with the Healer, there have been some great 2-drop creatures that aren’t just stat piles these days, and this mostly has potential in cubes that can make that deck work. I don’t really see myself cubing it for a while, but it’s something.

TrainmasterGT: Raise the Past is just asking to be part of a combo deck with Rally the Ancestors and Return to the Ranks and I am here for it. It does make me a little sad they kind of invalidated return, though. I think there are very few situations where this card doesn’t blow Return to the Ranks out of the water. Oh well, time marches forward and the show must go on!

Blue:

Kiora, the Rising Tide -

Usman: This was in a draft and it never made an 8/8, but the base mode was good enough as a 3/2 that sculpts the hand and the body felt substantial, even if it only having 2 toughness meant that it traded down with a lot of things in combat. It’d probably be more consistent with more cantrips/mill cantrips, fetchlands and other proactive things that got things into the graveyard, which might be a good payoff for a deck like Izzet/Dimir. I’d seen some comparisons to it and either Fable of the Mirror Breaker and Champion of Wits and counterintuitively, I’d found the former to be more close a comparison - at least when Kiora survived.

TrainmasterGT: I agree that there’s a lot of potential with this version of Kiora. It’s honestly surprised me how well this card has played in practice– her stats seem to indicate that she was meant to be more of a limited build-around for the retail draft environment. As you mentioned, she has managed to deliver as a card that falls between Fable of the Mirror Breaker and Champion of Wits, which I think is a good place for a card to be.

Usman: We did have another draft where the same drafter got Kiora out and they got Kiora to make an 8/8, which was pretty sweet. I’ve been meaning to go deeper on the Tolarian Terror/Eddymurk Crab plan and this is a nice payoff for it, since getting to threshold means those creatures get cheap.

Kaito, Cunning Infiltrator -

Usman: Oddly, this reminds me of Jace, Cunning Castaway as a planeswalker that spends most of its loyalty to make a small creature. It’s yet another in the line of cards that are mostly for blue tempo and middling elsewhere, and those kinds of cards tend to have a short shelf life in cube unless they’re making big strides to de-power their metagames. Look, I really love blue tempo strategies - I’ve played more Deceiver Exarchs and Pestermites in non-”Twin” decks than most of the cube population - but these kinds of cards tend to be really restrictive in use, and usually don’t do enough in cubes to be worth it.

TrainmasterGT: I don’t have a lot to add here– Kaito is cool!

Sphinx of Forgotten Lore -

TrainmasterGT: I love cards which can be fun build-arounds, especially when they fall in spots on the curve which don’t have a ton of great options at the moment. Sphinx of Forgotten Lore has the opportunity to be a Blue version of Dreadhorde Arcanist, but with the benefit of being able to recast larger spells more regularly.

Usman: Having flash really helps this to live up to its potential by giving it “blue haste” - usually these kinds of Snapcaster-lite creatures disappoint (Archmage’s Newt is a recent example) but having no restriction helps and having 3 toughness helps it to be a way to eat small creatures in combat. Cautiously optimistic that this gets there.

Plagon, Lord of the Beach -

Usman: I’ve not seen a lot of hype for this since it looks like a bad Commander build-around, but it’s fine as a floor as a 3-mana draw a card + body and gets significantly better with help. A surprisingly good amount of creatures in blue decks are able to naturally trigger the draw ability and colors like white tend to have a lot as well. Usually, it played to its floor of being a 3-mana creature that drew a card when it entered, ala Sea Gate Oracle, but was so much better even if it only drew 2. There was a game where it drew 3, which was pretty absurd, and its Doran ability is dirt-cheap enough to be a combat trick, too.

TrainmasterGT: Straight-to-Legacy cards designed for 1v1 play are pretty rare. Since Plagon was designed for the new-player Jumpstart product, he’s ended up landing in this super interesting space where he can actually be a pretty good midrange buildaround for Cube environments. Honestly the only issue I can see with this card is that he hangs more with “generically good” Cube cards than his fellow “big butts matter” cards. I guess I’d rather have more synergistic options for high power level environments than another mediocre synergy piece for a gimmicky deck in other spaces, although ideally he’d be able to do both.

High Fae Trickster -

TrainmasterGT: A mid-cost flash threat that turns all of your other cards into instants is pretty cool! The stats seem a little below where I would want something like this to be, though.

Usman: Generally, flash tends to get better as you have more of them and this pretty much just does that for your entire hand. I agree that having 2 toughness is annoying and makes it not that great as a combat trick to ambush an attacker. If you’ve read my content before, you know I love flash more than I should, so it may just be super weaksauce. Honestly, it probably is.

TrainmasterGT: I think that’s where I’ve landed on this card as well. It feels… fine to play. But it’s not mindblowing. I wonder if just having another cantrip would be better than this card in most decks. There’s a non-zero chance that is the case.

Usman: Yeah, that’s true; I’d wager that most sideboard spells in the average blue deck would be better than this. I get the feeling that giving it a 2 toughness was something done in development, which was likely the correct call but makes it so fragile.

Mischievous Mystic -

Usman: I’ve usually been eh on decks that try to go for the “draw more than 1” gameplan as a payoff type of card outside of decks that have a ton of cantrips or ways to repeatedly draw cards (the various flavors of Jace, etc.) Unlike Jolrael, Mwonvoli Recluse, it’s at least in-color for the color that likes to draw a lot of cards. I hate to pull the “if this is a theme in your cube” since it’s so cliche but… yeah.

TrainmasterGT: Improbable Alliance got the glowup of the century here, trading a second color and overcosted activated ability for a 2/1 flying body. Having played Improbable Alliance in the past, I can’t overstate how fun this effect can be in the right environment. However, I think this is still a card that requires the right environment, even if it’s less of an explicit buildaround than it’s predecessor. Notably, this is the second 2/1 flier for two that we’ve gotten in the past year that makes a token when you draw your second card each turn, following Emrakul's Messenger. I think Mischievous Mystic is much better, but still, there are kind of two of these now for singleton gamers.

Phantasmal Shieldback -

Usman: Maybe this gets there as a roadblock/defensive wall for blue decks, ala Hard Evidence and the Thraben Inspector duo, but this doesn’t draw a card until it dies. Still, it’s not a bad comparison, although you can’t “cycle” this, like with those creatures. That alone may make it so much worse, even if it only really underperforms vs small burn and with equipment.

TrainmasterGT: Phantasmal Shieldback not being a spell also makes it worse than stuff like Hard Evidence in my opinion– I like triggering all of my Young Pyromancer and Prowess effects or using Snapcaster Mage to flash back my one mana wall+draw combo. I feel like this card just isn’t quite doing it for me, chief. At least not without that weird Starfish we talked about earlier. But even then, both of the Inspectors and Hard Evidence also synergize with that card.

Drake Hatcher -

Usman: wait, this doesn’t even fly? Wut

TrainmasterGT: Well yeah, she’s the one who helps to hatch the drakes, not a drake herself! In all seriousness, I think Drake Hatcher is a pretty awesome cheap baneslayer. She can add a lot of pressure to the board by making Drakes while encouraging players to play into her Prowess ability. I wish she was a 2/2 or had a different secondary ability than Vigilance– right now, she seems a beast on defense, which could lead to some negative play patterns. But I still think the card is good.

Usman: My main issue with this is as a saboteur without evasion - they're generally worse than they look, and this needs some help to make things. It does block well, has vigilance and it may just get there as a blocker first that represents combat trickiness on attack via prowess, but I'm not feeling this one.

TrainmasterGT: I can see where you’re coming from here. I think the fact that this card is a bit better in reactive strategies is why it’s difficult to evaluate– it’s very good at blocking and chipping in while still defending, but it’s not actually great in the more proactive strategies where Prowess cards usually thrive.

Black:

Wriggling Grub -

TrainmasterGT: This seems like a fun card for Peasant Cubes and lower power environments, but I can’t see it making waves.

Usman: There was a big push to make sacrifice things more of a thing many years ago when Pox was in vogue. I do like that it makes a lot of warm bodies for things that want to sacrifice things but it does seem like that kind of thing, these days, is one in cubes that do so at the cost of sacrificing raw power.

Abyssal Harvester -

Usman: Partly a Magus, partly a way to be a way to proactively take advantage of removal by being able to tack on a free creature when something dies. I didn’t end up trying it out because it just seems to require the stars aligning, but I’d be happy to be wrong with it. Also works with your own sacrifice things but again, it doesn’t seem worth the squeeze.

TrainmasterGT: Every time I read this card I get really excited to start reanimating things, then I read the “that was put there this turn” and get sad.

Usman: My best guess is that this is to be a kind of “Morbid” kind of card that works in that way, instead of being a general value card. I’m likely really stretching here, for a card that I don’t even really like that much, haha.

Bloodthirsty Conqueror -

TrainmasterGT: Remember when “black 5 drops” were all the Cube community could talk about? Pepperidge Farms remembers.

Usman: I do wonder when the world collectively decided not to care much about those anymore. Might have been around when Doom Whisperer looked to be what people “were looking for” but wasn’t. Arguably, Unholy Annex is, but still.

TrainmasterGT: Unholy Annex is so cool. Duskmourn is honestly an underrated set. But if that’s the main takeaway for this totally unrelated card, I don’t think it spells good things for Bloodthirsty Conquerer.

Aphelia, Viper Whisperer -

TrainmasterGT: I would need to play with this one to make a judgement, but my gut says it’s probably not good.

Usman: My initial thought was “might actually not be terrible” since it can kinda be a Rabblemaster/Ophiomancer type thing but requiring mana to do that is annoying and makes me much less on board to play it.

Ozox, the Clattering King -

TrainmasterGT: I’ve had a few opportunities to play with this card. It is not terrible, but I don’t think this is a card I would want to put into a high-power Cube. I would consider it for a lower power environment with some cool sacrifice stuff going on– Ozox can act as a truly insane engine for that sort of environment!

Usman: Rendclaw Trow, kinda, for the modern age. At least it’s a 3/2. I do feel like a lot of these cards would have been seen as a boon years ago in the “pox days” but now? I think the issue now is that the sacrifice payoffs aren’t that great compared to just punching people with over-statted creatures and much more efficient things that combat those decks.

Blasphemous Edict -

Usman: Might be fine as a wrath for 5 that can be super cheap, but I don’t think I really like wraths at 5 that aren’t Sunfall or Harvester of Misery.

TrainmasterGT: I feel like this card is best in the matchups where it’s costing 1 mana. Is that very often? The answer depends on the Cube, but the answer is still probably no. It’s nice that this can kill indestructible things though.

Red:

Kellan, Planar Trailblazer -

TrainmasterGT: Gone are the days when Cube designers had to play every Jackal Pup or other one mana two-power creature with no ability or a downside in order to reach the density of payables required to make aggro decks work in limited. Still, I feel like cool cards in this space like Kellan here being printed is a good thing, since it gives designers more options in how they want to shape their one drops. It would be nice if designers had the option to replace cards like Embereth Veteran or Falkenrath Pit Fighter with cards that can do things more in line with what their Cube is trying to do. Kellan’s abilities are nice because they improve him while he’s on the battlefield. I also enjoy the fact that this card uses the Figure of Destiny format to tell Kellan’s story, from being a Farm Boy on Eldraine to being a true Cowboy.

Usman: One thing that I didn’t like when trying this out was that unlike a lot of Figure of Destiny types of cards, its middle ability doesn’t help it to survive in combat, since usually it was nice with cards like Figure of Destiny to represent a combat trick and to be able to be a ginormous threat later on. Usually, though, those creatures were small enough on their base size so that you had to mentally price that in when levelling it up; being a 2/1 for 1 helps - and the middle ability isn’t useless, but it was definitely the mode you kinda had to get through to get to the meat of the final mode, which was great. So, effectively, a 1 mana/6 mana split card, which was nice. It just felt somewhat overrated (but still good) as a threat for beatdown decks.

TrainmasterGT: I think you hit the nail on the head here. Kellan doesn’t scale as fast as his other Figure of Destiny friends, which could definitely cause problems in some circumstances. I still think he’s good as a red Savannah Lions variant, but I can understand why he may not live up to the hype.

Usman: I did have some decks that had it in the main, including one that I piloted, last week. I think someone (I forgot who, my apologies) said that this Figure also plays differently because you’ll usually scale it at EOT, at least for its middle ability. When I had it (in an undefeated Boros aggro deck pictured below) - it did the job where it was a 2/1 for 1 most of the time and usually didn’t get levelled, but it did trade up with a 5/5 (or was it a 6/6?) once. I’m likely going to keep it around for at least a set or two, but its text is a lot more real than a lot of the 2/1s for 1 that I’ve played over the years in red and white - I say this as I look at a Dryad Militant that’s on my desk.

+some number of basic plains and mountains.

Ivora, Insatiable Heir -

TrainmasterGT: This feels like another low-power synergy card to me. Is there more to this that I’m missing?

Usman: Honestly, I’m not sure, although I’m seeing it like a 3 mana 2/2 with a rummage. Red’s getting a few cards that care about discarding (Party Thrasher, Fable, Inti) and it may be playing a part in that. I’ve been trying it out and I’m kinda whelmed by it, as a Gray Ogre kind of thing.

TrainmasterGT: That’s… actually pretty cool! Maybe this card will do something cool in the future.

Usman: Some more good cycling cards could help with this - using some cyclers instead of cantrips gives a tradeoff of not working with prowess and those kinds of cards (Third Path Iconoclast, Monastery Mentor, etc) at the ability to be able to work with cards like this and, depending on cards in the grave, delirium. It’s something that I’ve been considering lately.

Searslicer Goblin -

TrainmasterGT: I love the fact that this card can be a sort of mini Goblin Rabblemaster if you turn on the Raid ability every turn. I dislike the fact that it is just Goblin Piker with better art if you can’t. I’m still going to play it because it perfectly fits the “2015 Constructed” vibe I go for in my Cube, but I would not be surprised if it doesn’t stick around forever.

Usman: Yeah, I think that gets to the heart of it - pretty good when enabled via attacking 1-drops but super super middling if it can’t attack. It’s a cliche that “aggro creatures get outclassed in the late game”, which I’d hear in the early years of cube design around 2012 for why supporting aggro is bad for cube (which was laughable then and super laughable now) but sometimes the opponent plays something to stonewall this and the body you get isn’t great since it’s a Goblin Piker. I saw a lot of hype for this and I wasn’t feeling it but I’m going to try it out in case I’m wrong.

General Kreat, the Boltbringer and Gornog, the Red Reaper -

TrainmasterGT: Kerat seems like another member in a long line of cards that are slightly worse than Goblin Rabblemaster (but are still worth considering because Rabblemasters are cool). What’s the story with Gornog?

Usman: I think it’s partly to be like an Ahn-Crop Crasher. Is it even better than it? I don’t even think so. Plus, we have like a billion more better 3s these days. Nifty with other warriors but, eh. Same with Kerat but I like that for peasant lists, since they don’t have a lot of good effects like that.

Green:

Scythecat Cub -

Usman: I think I'd be a lot more excited about this if I was including multiples of lands like fetches and lands like Fabled Passage, since it effectively trades the 3GG ability for caring about multiple landfall triggers in a turn. I'm thinking because of that, it'll likely be a store brand Bristly Bill but honestly? I think that's fine, but more lands like Fabled Passage should move the needle more (although I'll likely just include both, if so.).

TrainmasterGT: Yeah, this feels like Bristly Bill with extra steps. Scythecat Cub asks that you get multiple landfall triggers every turn in order to maximize value. By contrast, Bill just asks for landfall triggers at any point. As a result, the Cat has more opportunities for explosive plays in aggressive decks, whereas Bill can act as a mana sink and engine in the late game. Personally, I prefer Bill. It’s cleaner and more legible while also having a more consistent internal power band. I also like the art on Bill more, but that is entirely a personal preference!

It is worth noting that Scythecat Cub is a cat, which is an increasingly relevant creature type. This card fits really well into a base Green/White Zoo shell with Wild Nacatl, Loam Lion, Ocelot Pride, Nishoba Brawler, Fleecemane Lion, and Ajani, Nacatl Pariah. I could definitely see a cat deck being a thing in the future!

Usman: If anyone wants cat type.dek to work as a deck, it’s me. :) The new Ajani’s even a nice little payoff too.

Loot, Exuberant Explorer -

Usman: It’s nice that this is an Exploration that has some use in the late game, since their shelf life can be limited if drawn late or you’re just playing a land per turn/not doing unfair things like Zuran Orb/Fastbond types of things. Having the ability to just spin the wheel is somewhat similar to Urza, Lord High Artificer but with a much lower floor of general power level. It’s just so much mana, but green’s a good color to get to lots of mana. Still… eh.

TrainmasterGT: I have very little love for this little guy. It’s not really where I want to be on a four drop.

Spinner of Souls -

Usman: If this was an infomercial with Billy Mays or Ron Popeil (RIP), I’d say something like “It’s above rate, it does something when stuff dies, what’s not to love??” But there’s a few things that go against it - it doesn’t do anything when it itself dies (or tokens) but the rate is pretty good by 2024 creature standards. I’m a sucker for these kinds of things that work with creatures that effectively draw you another creature - Heirloom Blade, of course, and I’m pretty sure I’ve had the most Alchemy ranked wins with Xander’s Wake out of the sideboard for grindy matchups. Like with things with flash, I’m pretty sure I overrate this from my biases.

TrainmasterGT: I like these green three drops with four power and upside, but I feel like they still haven’t made one that quite lives up to the hype. Prowling Serpopard, Garruk’s Harbinger, Primal Adversery, and even Llanowar Greenwidow really haven’t lived up to the hype. Even the 4/4 Bloated Contaminator didn’t end up panning out for most of us, and that card is very good on paper! Maybe Spinner of Souls will break the cycle, but I kind of doubt that will happen.

Mossborn Hydra -

Usman: If Scythecat Cub feels like Dollar Store Bristly Bill, this feels like the clearance aisle. This may also be an example where including multiples of land fetchers helps more, since this can grow VERY fast.

TrainmasterGT: I generally agree with you there. I think this card is most at home in Cubes that have a landfall theme but don’t necessarily play a ton of efficient interaction. Mossborn Hydra compares favorably to something like Managorger Hydra in my opinion. If that card is good for a given Cube, this card would be a cool option to explore as well!

Misc:

Alesha, Who Laughs at Fate -

TrainmasterGT: This is another one of those cards that I’m excited about for the historical connections. I like how this version of Alesha still maintains the “little guy” reanimation effect of her predecessor, while being reformatted to match the wording on cards like Unearth. I think there are a lot of cool cases where this card can act like either a threat or a defensive piece, letting you throw waves of expendable creatures at the opponent only to regrow them with Alesha. My biggest problem here is that Rakdos is a super competitive space. Even if we drop the restriction on the number of cards per guild pairing (something which I think can often be a good idea, especially in well-established Cubes), there are just so many other good RB cards that Alesha feels a little outclassed. Having said that, I think she does a lot of the things I’m looking for out of a “versatile synergistic card,” and she fits a lot of my Cube’s goals in other ways, so maybe she is a good inclusion!

Usman: I’ve been running Kellogg in my cube for some time and it’s been a fan favorite - essentially tacking on an extra mana on Magda for haste and the ability to survive a lot of combat via first strike, and usually, that’s enough to make up for the mana upfront and the vulnerability to instant speed spot-removal. Overall, I still like Kellogg more for (generally) immediate impact and burst mana. I do like that, like Kellogg, she’s mostly going to survive combat and should raid something back. The question, usually, is if there’s enough payoff at “small reanimation” to be worth it. Sometimes it’s incidentally dead things, which is fine in chump attack scenarios. Other times it’s small creatures with ETB triggers. If I included it, it’d probably be my weakest Rakdos card, which doesn’t bode greatly.

TrainmasterGT: Man, Fallout was done so dirty by getting a Commander-only release instead of a full set like The Lord of the Rings. I forgot Kellogg even existed! I think that goes to show how much a card seeing play in competitive formats can shape the community’s perception of a card.

Koma, World-Eater -

Usman: What I like about this Koma is that it combines several traits in what I want from big-mana (or cheated) finishers: Immediate impact, protection and closing speed - Koma does well at all 3 of these, since it tramples through most things and its saboteur trigger creates a big enough board state for it to make a wall of bodies - similar to Grave Titan. I hadn’t made the comparison until now, but it pretty much is like a big Grave Titan that has really good protection via Ward for a billion mana.

TrainmasterGT: Koma, World Eater is such a step up for 1v1 Cube compared to his Commander-oriented predecessor (Koma, the Cosmos Serpent) that it’s not even funny. Foundations as a whole seems to be focused more on designs for clean 1v1 games of Magic as opposed to multiplayer formats. Hopefully this is a trend going forward and not a one-off!

Scrawling Crawler -

TrainmasterGT: Scrawling Crawler feels like one of those cards that would have been relevant for many Cubes 15 years years ago, but is a little too far below the curve to make waves today. Howling Mine on a stick is a cool idea, but I think we’re getting it too late to matter for most designers.

Usman: Mainly it seems to be there for decks that want a way to hose big draw spells, but the raw rate on the body is super mid, unlike cards like the Needlehead, Orcish Bowmasters and Sheoldred, the Apocalypse. The Howling Mine kinda helps this to be like Sulfuric Vortex (and triggering the extra draw on your upkeep at least helps this to be better,) but like that card, there’s much less of a need for cards that punish “do nothing” control like there was when Vortex was seen as a windmill slam game ender.

Sire of Seven Deaths -

Usman: Being worse than the new Koma isn’t a death warrant, but it’s definitely worse at the 3 things that make finishers good - and the Ward of 7 life can end up being just not enough to even matter, given the matchup. It’s something I’m trying out as a big-mana thing, but I don’t foresee its shelf life to be that long. Lifelink helps since, if it survives, you’re probably winning but it really just is middling at the protection angle.

TrainmasterGT: The Sire of Seven Deaths has the “cool factor” that I like to see in cheaty win conditions, but I agree that it’s worse than Koma in many situations. Is it weird that I still like it more?

Usman: I don’t think it’s weird, but its usefulness depends on the metrics used for how it’s being qualified - it’s worse as a finisher, since it doesn’t have a lot of evasion (menace), but it’s colorless, so it fits into a lot more decks. Availability of mana fixing does blur that line, since you can’t reliably splash Koma due to its double pips (well, not with that attitude :chrono: ), and it may be that colorless finishers should be graded on a curve anyway.

It’s something that I’d had on my mind with Stoneforge Mystic, where artifacts/colorless used to be where the power outliers lied, contextually, in a cube with cards like Sword of Fire and Ice being windmill slam p1p1s and now they’re just ok. We didn’t really need to grade on a curve since Wurmcoil Engine and Batterskull were very powerful, even outside of being safe picks/easy includes in decks. Maybe that’s just a sea change in expectations, and that Sire gets there on pure flexibility, but its relative lack of protection/removal resistance just makes me think it’s going to be lacking. I’m likely going to end up trying it out for some time, but if Aetherdrift brings a bunch of busted artifacts, that’s going to kill its shelf life in my cube.

TrainmasterGT: I think those are good points. Sire of Seven Deaths is also kind of similar to Phyrexian ‘George’ Fleshgorger. George is another 7 power creature that has Menace, Lifelink, and Ward, but it has the artifact card type and the ability to be cast as a prototype for three mana. While I try to steer away from like-to-like comparisons for cards that are doing something new and unique, I think the Sire has less going on than George, and George doesn’t see that much Cube play to begin with. If the flexibility isn’t enough for George to get there, why would the Sire be any different?

Usman: To be honest, this makes me look at George again as something to include - although I think the biggest gripe with it was that it had a base mode as a 3/3 lifelinker with evasion and ward, and it was generally fine out of 10. That and Vampire Nighthawk, both similarly statted, are good examples of how cubes have generally been more refined over the years, as Nighthawk used to be one of the better 3s. Arguably, Fleshgorger is a better 7-drop than something like Myr Battlesphere.

TrainmasterGT: I agree, I have been playing George since I got my foil copy and I have loved it ever since. It may not be as impactful as some of its fellows in the 7-drop slot, but the extra flexibility helps it to go the extra mile.

Anthem of Champions -

Usman: Might be more a mostly-white card? Issue with Selesnya in a lot of cubes is that it mostly is just “more”. Slightly better rates on things that exist (Knight of Autumn) but not really addressing what the *deck* needs. Mostly, Selesnya works on the axis of overpowering the enemy via 2-for-1s and value, and this doesn’t really do that. It mainly just makes your creatures’ rates better. Essentially, everything gets a Leonin Scimitar. I… think this has some potential but eh.

TrainmasterGT: Two mana anthems are nice, but I’m not seeing much out of this card. We just got Flowering of the White Tree a year ago and that card rarely sees Cube play, despite being better than Anthem of Champions and only being one color. I’m sure Anthem is a nice pick for some lower-power environments where the G/W archetype is some flavor of “tokens” or “go wide,” but I hesitate to say this card is a slam dunk for many Cubes outside of that context.

Kykar, Zephyr Awakener -

Usman: I’m not really feeling this one, honestly.

TrainmasterGT: I like new Kykar as a bridge between blink decks and prowess-y strategies. I think he goes well in either deck when given the right environment and has a lot of fun and interesting lines. All of that is a fancy way of saying I think the card is good in Cubes that can accommodate the lower power level of this card compared to some of the others we’ve discussed today.

Usman: Thanks for reading! You can find more of my Cube thoughts and my recently updated cube list onmy Linktree. If you would like to hear more from TrainmasterGT, you can read about his Cube on Riptdelab, or view the list on CubeCobra!