The Hobbit Cube Set Review - Part Two | #104

This is part two of Powerful Nothings Cube Set Review for the Hobbit, where we cover all the cards we like in Red, Green, Multicoloured, Colourless and Lands.

Card Gallery: https://moxfield.com/decks/MO4UAWfX10SiksvZX45-yg

Timecodes:
0:46 - Red
27:36 - Green
45:44 - Multicoloured
58:29 - Colourless
1:03:26 - Lands
1:06:33 - Final Thoughts

Video Version: https://youtu.be/YAAZQystj94

Part One: https://youtu.be/gYickoXJspk

Cube Skeleton Episode: https://youtu.be/92aS4ZU_nd8

My Cube: https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/sweet
The Treat Yourself Cube: https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/treatyourself
James Cube: https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/ba642a54-a6c7-4587-b97e-1d95429c59b5
MTGO Vintage Cube: https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/modovintage

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Transcript

0:03

Hello everyone. Welcome back to Powerful Nothing and Magic The Gathering Cube podcast. I'm your host, Dan, and as always, I'm joined by James. James. How are you doing this week? I'm doing good. I'm doing good. We're fresh off of a Hobbit's prerelease, so we're therefore now experts on the sets, having played three rounds and I didn't have any drafts. So basically we know everything there is to know about it. Yeah, look at us. We've done research like actual playtesting. Aren't we good. And that's right. Yeah. Today we are back with part two of our cube set review for The Hobbit Magic The Gathering. Set a link to last week's episode. We're down in the show notes below, where we went over all the goodness from white, blue, and black. This week we're going to be covering everything else, right? We might as well kick off James, take it away with our first red card of the day. What do you think about Bothersome Noise Maker? Yes, a bothersome noise maker is one of read for a two creature goblin bard at uncommon. And it says whenever you cast a non creature spell a mass goblins one so a mass goblins in the similar way as we've amassed orcs and zombies in the past, we put a plus one plus one count for Nami we control. It's also Goblin. If you don't control an army, create A00 up army first. This card is fine. It's. We already have a bunch of versions of this effects, right? Things like third pass, iconoclast, the Vo pass prevail, trigger fight, different things, fail. Have some, some different quirks. But this one, the big difference is it's it's going tall. That's when going wide by, which is generally cannot be worse. And in the abstract, you trying you'd rather be making one ones than than growing the one that you have. The nice thing is, though, it's only one color. It triggers off any non creature spell. It's enough to be an artifact or, you know, some of them of some instance. Also I'll show you specific. There's just any non creature spell which is fairly nice. Listen I think in most cubes the homes for these cards have very, very want the long ones because that the benefiting from going wired in ways of fun and just attacking and blocking. Right. But I think peasant specifically, this can be very nice. And yeah, I think it will have some homes will, maybe you care about doing goblin stuff as well. Although very sexy, tend to be fairly creature heavy, so you're probably not getting as many triggers. There's not a lot wrong with a card, but I suspect that peasants is the only place we're actually going to see it. Yeah, I agree, I can see peasant or maybe like some lower powered level cube where actually, like, the power matters, if that makes sense. Like if you're doing things with, like, repeatable fling effects or something like that, then having that. Yeah, going taller, going beefier with one creature rather than going wide. That's kind of like one of the scenarios where you might actually want that. The other thing I think is like just this card as a creature, I think is one of the better bodies we've seen, like this being a two of two, two like they're normally two minus one ones or like two ones or like one threes or something like that. So just as a as a body for this type of effect. This one is quite good I think. But yeah. Yeah I think you could give an analogy like the traditional spells, something that is kind of wide rather than big. But yeah, there will be some cubes where this could be the card of choice. Let's keep going. We we're moving up to mythic next with another Gandalf. We have a red Gandalf. Gandalf. Goblins. Bane. It is two in a red for A23 legendary creature. Avatar. Wizard. It has an adventure called Flame Shape. Which is one red for a sorcery adventure. Look at the top two cards of your library. And I saw them face down for as long as they remain exiled. You may play them if you control a wizard. And then the creature part of Gandalf has. Whenever you cast a non-google spell, no questions. One was one until end of turn, and there was one damage to each opponent. Let's talk about the adventure side. First two mana to get access to two more cards is quite nice, but you have to follow up with the Gandalf to get anything because we have to have a wizard in play and I'm like, I know. In the last episode we touched on a little bit of yes, there are some wizards in cube in general, but realistically, if we're evaluating this card, we kind of native think about it in a vacuum. So realistically it's two mana. It's kind of like a two man investment that later when we cast our Gandalf, then we get access to the cards that we've dealt with it. The Gandalf itself. I think it's quite nice, like the the three mana creature part. Because it's the first part is kind of like a super prowess. It combines the two effects that we often see in, in these decks, kind of like with double dipping on, like spell slinging. Pay offs tend to tend to either be prowess or pinging our opponent for damage. With this one card, we get both of them, which is quite nice. Both of it's like like Gandalf. We're getting for more damage, like a prowess creature when we go spells, but also we are guaranteeing a ping each time we do something that is quite nice. And if I'm honest, that kind of makes up for it being three mana. The fact that we will get damage guaranteed whenever we cast spells off of it, it means that if if Gandalf comes down later, perhaps, and it's outclassed on the board, we can still cast spells to our damage that good damage. So that way I think it's quite nice. Like, my guess is that this isn't for high powered cubes, where because this specific spell slinger type decks haven't really worked there because everyone kind of draws your spells. But in a slightly more bad powered cube where spells. And so we support it. I think it's a a perfectly solid card. It kind of fits in that gap of it is a pay off for both, like like a monetary switch bit aggro style, establishing a deck or a more slower burn amount style attack. I think it's a solid card. What does what what do you think of Gandalf? James. Yeah, it's an interesting card for, The thing I quite like about it, compared to a lot of similar effects we get out of that for for cards for is for you're not on any sort of clock for when you have to use these cards. And you can how you play this card should be dictated by the information of what you exiled. Right. So, if you exile, say, a land and an expensive spell, it's you're probably not going to be able to set it up. So you play Gandalf plus the expensive spell in the same turn. But you still probably want to not cast Gandalf on three, so you want to cast it like, four. So you can go look Gandalf, get your landmarks right. But if you exile, say, a land and a cheaper spell, well, then maybe it's worth hanging on a couple of tens so that you have enough mana. Sancho. Gandalf, land up, spell all in the same turn and again and lock in all your value. And it sort of asks you to make a judgment call about how long you want to wait in order to guarantee getting more value out of this. Because I'll say no, it is. It is inherently a fairly mana intensive card. Right. It's it's 2 to 2 for adventure, three for fair value. Know five mana deep before you've cast any of the spells you exiled with that, but when it does all work, you're getting two cards and a very threatening creature for that mana. So it is a lot of value. If you have a wizards in your deck, I don't think that's essential, but it does. It means you can be a lot freer with when you play out. Gandalf. Right. Because, you're going to get, cast for the exiles cards later, even if they kill the Gandalf, which is is that makes a pretty meaningful difference, I think to have a card placed, it means you don't want to have to wait so long to cast Gandalf, but you're actually not getting that many triggers off. It might. Yeah. I don't think this is going in super high power level cubes, but, if you're doing wizards maths specifically, I think this is cool and blue red is normally the home for that. Yeah. If you're choosing just non creature spells matter then it's fine. But there's loads of payoffs for that. If you just like Gandalf, you can put that in for that reason, it's perfectly acceptable. Yeah, yeah, there's nothing wrong with a card like play, but it's it's. Yeah, it's not quite that up. I like how Q you know, I agree and like. Yeah, just, one thing with the adventure part, just having it on a creature that is quite nice is that it is just a way of getting an extra sorcery into your cube, kind of for free, because it comes on a creature that you kind of want in that deck. But yeah, kind of skipping Bane seems like a cool one. All right. The next one, James, I think we're both in agreement. Might not be a good card, but I think we both really like it. Talk to us about Getaway Barrel. Yeah. This concept you can't only make. We talk about gift cards. I like this card to. I guess my Bible is free to read for that fact. It says when this artifact is put into a graveyard from a battlefield in the field of a top 13 card. So if your library put a random creature card from among them onto a battlefield and put the vest on the bottom of your library at a random order. So the obvious thing about this card is that it doesn't really do anything. It does absolutely nothing, but I love it so much. If you're waiting for the bit where it has an activated ability, if it sacrifices it, then it is not fair. No. Which I'm all here for. I like it when you have to wait for a day for your cards. I think that makes cube more fun. Yeah. So obviously this card does nothing unless you can find a way to proactively sacrifice it. I think we can assume our opponent is not pointing chasseurs at this card. Unfortunately. If you can sacrifice it, it's okay, but it's still quite high variance, right? Because you're, you're looking at 13 cards and getting a creature at random. Sort of asking you to not have a ton of cheap creatures in your deck. I guess theoretically, the time I'm actually interested in this is when we're sacking it and having it. Yeah. So I'll say, like Goblin Wilder is kind of the the gold standard vibe of, as you know. But if you're doing like artifact sacrifice, see stuff in your cube, you'll have a bunch of ways to recover artifacts. And if you're getting multiple triggers off of this, it will be quite strong. You will want to make some consideration in tax bills, I think, to not have a bunch of super low impact creatures because you want, when you select that random you want to be be the, the creatures you care about. So a little bit more, yeah. Listen, you this is one for lower power level cubes for sure. Cubes where you need, you want to get some time to set up, and that's okay. And you need to work for your synergies because if this is competing against cards at a sort of self-contained value engine, then you should just play those cards, not this one. Because there's always work. But if it's a cube where you've got to work for your value a little bit more, I think this is kind of cool. And it's it's just pretty unique, right? Like we just don't see the sort of effects very often. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Like by the way, like I'm going to get down in my notes just like this. Like it's partly it's somewhere between a polymorph effect and a goblin welder effect. Like. And I think that's, that's a really it's a really unique space and like, yeah, the deck building constraint is it's definitely that like kind of like yeah. You want like your enablers like something like a goblin welder or an equivalent. And then effectively there's nothing until top end. The way to think about it is also it's similar to like a, a Re-Animator style deck, because you either want a way of getting it back so you can do it again, or you want to put like a 1010 into play or something like that. If you think of it in that vein, then like cars, like trash for treasure become really interesting with this kind of thing. Like, you can double, like, sock this to a trash or treasure, reanimate something back from your graveyard, and then also get your next big thing into play. Like that could be quite cool. Yeah, yeah, I got I think it is really cool. Like, like that. Like there is also like the, like not just the goblin. While the top takes there is like the arrest of scrap style of decks. It's like it's like aristocrats. But we're getting value from stacking artifacts. And this is a great artifact to sack. Yeah. For sure. There's so much interesting Naples Fest card V for manager C, I quite like as well, as even a five mana devotee creature of which, like, does trash refreshes after the attacks that attack that cards kind of cool. Also imagine we point an indomitable creativity at this. Let me try this. Yeah. So. Nice. Yeah. Yeah, I like this. This card kind of gets my, like, the brewer in me thing. And, yeah, I wanna do some cool stuff for this. Like, like, this seems like a slam dunk for that. Like, Yeah. I think weeks ago, we did an episode on a mono blue desert. The mono red desert is coming next. This seems like, like a really cool option there. That seems like a lot of fun. Oh, yeah. That sounds like. All right, but let's keep it going. We have. Next up we have Goblin Town flunkies. This is one and a red 311 creature, creature. Goblin soldier with haste. And when it enters, we are mass goblins. One. So this is our third mock war martial effect. Like after mock war martial and goblin instigator. Effectively, it's two mana for two goblin bodies. They've just proven to be really good and versatile and pauper cubes. And in, like, budget cubes. They're good in token decks, they're good. And aristocrat decks. The main body on this one having haste, I think, is, definitely an upside. Like, you get in for some damage early. That is quite nice. The token being a mass, being a mass goblin, I think is more interesting than a regular token. Like, it means that you like the base level is is just A11 goblin token. If there's no other mass in your cube, it is the same as the other as the other effects is just making you A11 goblin. I guess with the potential synergy of of of on counters. But that's not really something you see in red. But but where this gets a bit more interesting is like, if you have any other incidental goblin, a mass in your queue, because turning A11 into A22 will make it like a real creature that will trade with actual magic cards. My guys, you don't need all three of these in a cube. I think you run mock war martial for nostalgia. You run this one from a power level point of view, and then you probably leave the instigator at home. But if you have a large cube, if you have a 720 peasant cube, there's a world where just running all three of these is just going to fail the holes and so many decks in your cube that they'll just be solid. What do you think of this one, James? Yeah, guess which ones you're running. Sort of depends on what you're trying to do. If I'm right. If you're willing to just be Go Grove and you have a haste is nice. I think if you're sacrificing the original goblin walnut, multiple martial is certainly the best one. Be because it gives you three things to sacrifice rather than two, which is pretty big. Yeah. The thing of the mass token, I actually sort of see it as a downside. If you have a relative or a mass in your attack. I just think most of these decks would rather have 2117, two two. You know, like if you're putting multiple marshals in your deck, you want to go wide, right? In general, like you're going to have extra stuff to do with those bodies. So I suspect of why I saw, I think, why you putting these cards in, you know, I would agree. I just feel that there will be times where a board state where A22 will be quite helpful. Yeah. No, I'm not saying there won't be situations where it's better, but it's not like you have a choice. Right? But you know, it's. And I think probably more times than not you'd rather have two one ones than the two. You know, front of that makes sense. So you're the do you think this is the lowest of the mock fanatic. Oh that's sort of the mock war Marshall tier list. What's the other one between martial inverse of Goblin and stuff? It's just, one red for a one. One goblin that comes in and makes a goblin. I think maybe the haste makes this better than that. Casto. Because in reality, you probably don't have that much mass in your deck. And yeah, if you have zero of a mass cards, it doesn't matter if you have like 1 or 2, it really doesn't matter if you have like five, then it then this isn't one. One that comes with A11 right. But yeah. No, it's, it's it's a solid benefit, not the tendency for this effect. No. Makes sense. All right. We've talked about some Bilbo's. We've talked about some golems. Time to talk about the big bad. Let's talk about Smile the Magnificent. What do you think about this beefy dragon? Yes, magnificent. This may look so glorious. Yes. All right. Smoke from magnificent. Is two bad fat for a for three legendary creature Dragon. It's mythic fat has flying and haste. So for mana. For free flying. Haste already quiet. Beta. And whenever smoke attack deals damage equal to the number of treasures you control to any target. And at the beginning of your upkeep, create a treasure token. Yeah, this card is pretty nasty. For mana for free flying. Haste is already like very close to good enough to be honest. Yeah, it's very strong. Be set before you get to any of the rest of attacks. If you have no of a treasure generation in your deck, then the rest of the text is nice, but not a huge part of the card. I would say. Because you're getting no trigger for first attack for next one. Maybe you paying something down. Sure. You have a little bit of extra mana. That's nice. But on turn five and you're pretty aggressive. Leading deck. How much does it matter? And maybe you get soft pink. Pick off the next one on the second attack. But the thing is, if it's attacking sort of 3 or 4 times, the game's probably over so that the dispatch attacks didn't matter that much. But if you do have a very fast regeneration, this this gets fairly quite powerful because then it's, then it's potentially killing a creature on the first attack when it comes down. So even if they have a maple five next turn, you still got got a creature out of the way and kind some damage. You know, if you're really popping off with treasure, this is like. It's like a glowy thing that's one mana cheaper and doesn't have to exert. It's kind of absurd. It just goes again and again. Yeah. Also not something we generally talk about a ton in these set reviews, but this is like a ten out of ten for Topaz. I keep oh tight. Yeah that's a good point. Yeah yeah yeah because it's sick early right. Because it's getting you treasure generation but also late. Like if you're Max treasures this attacks for nine. And yeah, there's loads of ways to deal damage without having to invest management by cube. So and I like the fact that it's for mantis. You have to play a land in your hand or crack a treasure to get it. Not. It also does the thing right, where if we've all traded off cards and this is the only thing left, then it gets me back up to Max. Treasure. Yeah. But in invective that achieves also phenomenal. I would say. Yeah, this should be kind of renamed. That's a smug win prerelease. I'm pretty sure. Table one, prerelease was just two smiles smashing into each other. It was very good draw at first, but I. I quite like this guy. Like, I think I'm a little. So I think I'm a little higher on this all like on the pinging. The Newmar. Maybe because because I kind of see this as like effectively it's just growing in power every time. It's growing one by one in power. And and like, I like the flavor of this that effectively I like the flavor of this. It's kind of like it's wanting you to hoard your treasures. So it's a it deals more damage. That's really cool. I like I think you'll be like the way I'm saying the treasure is effectively, if it helps us cast, next dragon, if we can cast a six drop dragon on turn five, then we use the treasure. If not, we kind of keep it there and keep just going to face with it because it will attack before the first is down, then five, then six, then then and it will go up and that will kill your opponent very quickly. Yeah. Like like I think this is a very strong guard. Like like it will be undone by some annoying creatures, like, like any kind of, like 3 to 3 power fliers will get in this way quite easily. Like things like Flicker Wisp really ruin this today. But like, I can see this one being tested in like the highest power level cubes. Probably not sticking around too long, but like in any in any high powered cube that isn't like the most powerful, I think this would just be a solid card. And then in any, in any power level below that, probably very strong I think. Yeah. No, for sure. I think the issue it has is just it's four man and it's three toughness. It doesn't have an ATB, it doesn't have any sort of protection. So that that can be a little bit tough in those cubes. But You can still try. It is gonna, it's gonna kill. If your opponent doesn't kill it. It will kill them very quickly. Yeah. Smaug is definitely magnificent. All right, let's keep going. We have one more red card today. We have a saga, and it's called the Misty mountains. Cold. This is two and a red Grand champion saga with four, lore things with four steps. Thank you, James Foster with with four chapters that also create a treasure token. Then if you control four or more treasures, sacrifice this saga. If you do, create A66 red dragon creature token with flying. So I had this one a previous actually, and it's an interesting card like turn off to play it as intended. It's almost A66 flier with suspend for the three mana. It's kind of like it's like you, you play on three and then you do nothing. And then in 4 or 5 turns later, you get a creature that can attack. So so actually had five. So in so four times later you have a creature that can attack. The other way to think about this, which I think is quite nice, is that it's a monolith. So it's a three amount of rock that makes it manner of any color for a turn. And in games I played that previously kind of came out both ways. Like one game, my opponent wasn't pressuring me, so I just let it sit there, tick up, and then I killed my opponent with the six x dragon. The other games I played it on three and then use it to cast my other spells. I use it to ramp the other cards in my hand, and that utility is quite interesting. Like especially as Red can care about artifacts. And then going to the bin like we can do something with the treasure, but like the fact that with this I we have the choice of it's either a slow wind on or it's a monolith, or it's like a three minute rock that's more interesting than just a manner, a generic three mana rock. Like that choice is quite nice, does obviously get better if there's anything else with treasures, because like if we have four, if we have three treasures in play, when we play this, we will play this, make the fourth and then suck it straight away and make A66. We will have had to do work to get the other treasures, but like that is still an interesting payoff for that type of deck. So like I like this card. I think it's a cool build around, like, I don't think like power level wise is going to get anywhere near super high power level cuz like it's going to go in a cube that I think it's already fine running a three Manor Manor rock, and it's just looking for something more interesting. And in those cubes, I think this is more interesting than just like whatever the monolith variant from this set is, because we, we, we kind of get one every set now. But yeah, interesting card. Anyway. What do you think, James, for using it as a monolith. It isn't monolithic. Goes away after for sensei and like thanks for want to include left for not very quick in general. Yeah I would agree. But then this could. But then they don't become creatures that are that can win you the game though. That's kind of the trade off for getting. It's either a monolith for four turns or, win. Cool. Sure. But it's not life, right? Is the thing correct? It is either. Yes. You're kind of all in with either, basically. I mean, the nice thing is, if you do, you know, hold your treasures and wait for the dragon, the socket goes away when you get the dragon, but the treasures do not. So you do get a big injection of mana at that point, it's almost like after four tens, create A66 dragon and four treasures, because you have suddenly unlocked these four treasures that you had. Yeah. Had not cracked previously, so that's quite nice. If you have good like, catch up mechanisms that that could be okay, because I'm sort of assuming you're quite far behind at this point, because the thing is, you have essentially played three mana, do nothing, and on on turn three, if you if that's the plan. Right. Mostly I think I'm only interested if I have a ways to make treasure and speed this up a bit. So that just feels too slow to me. I think we have too many monoliths that are better at that job. So I would be interested if we had a sort of treasure focused package in the cubes and some specific treasure synergies. Then I could get on board. Outside of that, this feels very slow to me because it's just like, imagine you, you know, you pivot sometimes we don't do anything with your treasures. You're waiting for an if that puts you so far behind, just playing, playing three mana straight up do nothing on turn free. You cling on, you wait until ten seven when you finally get your dragon. I mean, if it's just like bounce for dragon, they'll kill for Dracula. Have. Yeah, as that's so bad for you know, you do have to make a choice to do either, but you can break that choice at some point. You don't have to like, like if you all. My assumption is you are still playing magic around this. You're still playing a one drop, a two drop, a four drop. Effectively, you have the choice of am I am I losing now? Okay, I will ramp to a bigger thing in my hand and that will catch me up. Or if I'm not being pressured, then I can win because I can I, I guess maybe the difference is I sort of see the monolith version. This is pretty bad light. I understand. It's like it's a backup. Will use sometimes, but like if we have interested in monoliths though, a bunch of very rarely powerful man left variants. Right? Like, something like the tablet from from district seven. Right. Tablet of discovery. We don't need to play this as a monolith. Now, I would agree. Like is what, like if you have other treasure, then I think it gets more interesting. But. Yeah. Yeah. No friend of, Yeah. Unlike some of the magnificent that kind of get in and gets better with treasure. This. You probably need it. Yeah. I'll go along with that. All right. Well, moving on to Green James. We have some cool little beasties to talk about. Talk to us about Bejeweled Warg. Yeah, but Jeweled Warg is a pretty good one. I think. So this is one a green for a three to creature wolf at where it has temple. And it says whenever this creature deals combat damage to a player, choose one. You can put a plus one plus one counter on target. Wolf. You control so most commonly itself. Or you can create a treasure token. This is just a pretty nice little pizza. Two out of three true fan plays already. Nice. That's nice. That is going to get in some damage in a lot of games, especially on the play. If you connect once, getting to over to a for free for just two mana is is is pretty powerful. And it's very nice as well. If I do have a blocker and you can't get the blocks out of the way, you could. You're still totally fine just sending this in. You trade to trample over, and you get a treasure out of it, and then you get to cast your fall prop. Also very nice. Listen, it's easy to kill, and it has to toughness, but it's fine on your two top. This isn't, The issue this card runs into, right? It's not. Is it a good enough way? It is. It? Plan for what? You know, Green Decks are trying to do. Yeah, exactly. Often green is trying to go a little bit bigger, and it's to talk some more about accelerating into more expensive stuff. And sure, this has the potential to accelerate, but it does not reliably accelerate. You, But if you're if you're supporting a more beat down the green deck and I quite like this. Yeah. You're going to make it a little bit like, like traditionally what Green Decks are looking for is like that they don't really care about two drops as much. It's more you play a rap like a line Earl style effect on one, and then on turn two you play a three drop, something like that. That's more where it's after. Like there is a world where we might like green is just be getting so many good, efficient betas. Like we got frenzied bail often from each of eternities, like last year, on top of just like many years of just having a great having having a lot of good power and toughness that kind of like, is there a world where like, like we've really kind of moved away from, like mono green, which is like all ram spells, like there's a world where like green aggro might just be getting enough bits to, put up numbers, like, like there's a world to kind of like, if this was a Boris card, this would be like in the top, like five most winning cards in all of cube or something like that, because it just goes in that deck. But like, green is getting more of these effects. Like, I think this card is bright. White is phenomenal. Like two mana for all that. Like there's a world where like, like I don't want all my cube decks to just be aggro. I do like the fact that green ramp is is different, but like, if you're playing around with it, like there's enough green aggressive cards now to do something like maybe there's a world where if you're looking to do something different, maybe you kind of maybe you make like maybe red green, you'll like aggro colors rather than Boris or something like that. Like, like there's definitely a way of doing it. Like, like I don't want a queue where every color is super aggressive because that's a different style of queue. But like, I think doing something with green is something that we should be looking at in the future. Yeah. So I think how green is tended to play out more recently and in the very high power level cubes is it is leaning aggressive. But the aggression is is still not really about virtues. It's like, yeah, it's more elements compared to, you know. Yeah, exactly. Because if you're about the twos, it is just a worse version of, of why, you know, it doesn't have the thing. Green doesn't have fights. It doesn't have the removals to play those. It's slightly grind tier games. Like a lot of what makes those white decks so strong is that. They can answer your opponents ways of stabilizing. You know, they have really strong interaction. And green doesn't cat fat. So green just means bigger and better rats. And there was way more disruption. Exactly. And this card is good, but it doesn't go over the top of what they're doing. And it doesn't, it doesn't necessarily progress you towards the big things you're trying to do. Like, I wouldn't be I would probably try it in a powered cube. So I think it is sort of one of the more powerful versions of what we've, what we've seen for this effect. But the cubes I would have more hope for is if you have a cube with some spells and it's very nice. Right. Like the tramples huge back. And once you get for once, it's, it's been very big. I'm standing right like that third point of toughness makes such a big deal. If you can get the first counter. Yeah, I think it's a good one. I think it's one people will definitely play with because it is just a strong card. But yeah, I think that yeah, we got finding the right home for it I think is going to be interesting. All right. Let's keep going with grain. We have beefy big green lad next with Bjorn the Fierce. It is three green green three, six six legendary creature. Best shapeshifter warrior with trample other bears. You control group is two plus two. And at the beginning of combat on your turn, put a triple counter on up to one target creature. You can draw. It becomes a bear addition to its other types. Then if you control three or more bears, draw two cards. So Jesus, this is a very big lad. We do generally see big green beef in every set. Now, effectively it's a card that if it comes down and isn't answered, you will just win the game. It in that kind of slot, we're kind of comparing it to cards like Elder Gaga, wrath, which is a similar sort of creature, but it makes you A33 every time it attacks. And like it's a thing of, like in a vacuum by itself. I think Elder Gaga was is stronger because you don't need any other cards to make it work. But where this is stronger is if you're going to reliably have a board state, you're going to reliably have other creatures, because this effectively turning your land or else turning any dorky little thing you have into a real creature, like turning a matador into A33 that can attack that turn like the turn Bjorn comes down is quite nice. And the other part as well. Yeah, yeah, you have that board state. When? When this is attacking, we are drawing that card because this is a bear. The creature we made last turn is a bear. The creature we made this turn is a bear drawing two cards and attacking for ten plus damage. He's very tempting. Like. Like. Yeah. The reason why I said, I think, I think autograph is technically stronger is because it works better in a vacuum. It's it's consistent. It's always going to do its thing. This will have the like this. This has the very high upside of potentially utterly blowing up your opponent. There will be games where you after board wipe you draw this and it's just A66 trample the five. The floor is not that low with this, but like the ceiling is incredibly high. And that's where it for me. It's quite tempting like it's worth mentioning, but I don't think we're forcing in a bunch of bears. As much as I would love to like, say, where bear is back on the menu, like, I don't think we're cramming in a lot of bears. I did look at the bears I have in my coop right now, and it's ursine monstrosity and vast and scavengers. They're both quite good three drop bears, but like, we're not building a bear type or matters deck within this. But like, if there's if it's incidentals, energy will come up. But like, yeah, this is another card that I think if you, if I saw it in a cube because the cube is on a like The Hobbit, I kind of any power level, I think this would be a decent card. And what do you think, James? Yeah, this is very strong as as five drops go. But as you say, we green was not hurting for five mana powerful creatures. But when the game if left under. Describe that. It's nice that it gives you the stats buff right away. It's just one thing to be wary of. It's not quite the same as, like two plus one plus one counters because of its potential to get blown out right. If I kill Bill and then comp and in combat, and then you have a creature strengths and and all of a sudden they have good blocks there. Yeah. There's some really annoying stuff with First Strike coming against this card that could utterly ruin you as well. That's true. I do need six first strike damage face. That might be a bit tricky. It could be. It's 2026. I'm sure that exists. Yeah, I a possum legion now. And if I, you know, Now, this is powerful. I don't see it as, like, meaningfully better than the other five drops. Greenhouse. But it's not worse either. You can put it in. If I don't kill it, it'll tell you when you've game. Yeah. I reckon if we went back through every set review we have done, there is a card in this slot. They're all within a percentile of each other. It's kind of run the like, I think. Like like there is like a technically best but it's not run. What you want is what is going to go in the go vintage cube for one iteration. And then the next big thing will come out of some battle going, as is tradition. Yes. As a tradition. Yes, exactly. That's fine. Nice. But from a big bear to a little bear. James, talk to us about Little Bear. Yeah. They've got this whole naming thing with a bear. This is in this set where they I think there's like 6 or 7 cards which are just various size of bears. I found it slightly offensive for ordinary bear with a 4 or 5, and ultimately it's a two. You know, this is stupid. Yeah, yeah. Then in middle earth, bears a bigger, I guess is the gist, I guess. So this little bear is A32, so I must be, Yeah. Little bear is three, two and a green. So female, a total for three to flash. It says when this creature enters, untap another target creature, you control. If that creature's a bear, put a plus one plus one count on that. So I think mostly why this is here is the. It's a piece to go infinite with sprint win. I don't think we were missing that. There's already some redundancy for that on top of the classic sea effects off and pasta might we have for the unruly crisis? I think it's called, two, three, three slash untap something. There's also but I think the bigger issue is why does your twin deck want to be green? So if there was a twin deck that was not blue, then this would be interesting, right? But I don't know if that really exists. And this isn't better in terms of stats. Right. Only having two toughness is is kind of tough. There's no evasion. So it's not particularly useful if you don't have the twin, Yeah. Like it does work. I just don't know that it's, But it's something that that was missing, I guess. Yeah. Traditionally split the twin is. Yeah. Blue. Red. Because, yeah, blue gives us protection for our combo and counter magic and then also gives us card selection to go find the combo. Like, I don't think green is as bad, like, okay. Firstly I let's caveat caveat this by saying that between combos is not strong enough to hype out for power cubes anyway nowadays. So we are playing it in a lower power level cubes. And in those environments, like, I don't think green is as bad as you might think it is like because green gives us creature tutors. Like if we combine creature tutors to get like, yes, it doesn't get spent it to em, but it does get Kiki jiggy that will work with this. So so we can get both parts of our combos with a creature tutor. And green does have more protection now than it used to. Like there is a lot more. Kind of like one mana instant speed creature gains hex proof or something like that, but that like, I'm not saying like, I don't think it's as good as blue because blue just has has way more powerful and more history with this type of stuff. But like, I don't think it's as terrible, if that makes sense. Yeah, I get where you're coming from. I guess the one place I could kind of see it is if where like a survival of the fittest stack, then this means. But without getting into blue, we can. It's two cards combo. We can we can go get alive. All right. With the Kiki canvas. Yeah, I sort of have some doubts that it could be worth trying. Yeah, I think I think the there is the one other application of this card is this is a common and in peasant like we talked about last year when I last I was a when we talked about head of the hunt like base level, kind of like the flash on this card does mean that it's kind of like a green doom blade. It's not as good as the snake with Death Touch, but like as intended with this card, you can flash it and then untap a big creature your opponent thought it was fine to attack into an and two for one. Them. Like that's kind of like the as intended, potentially. Probably not in proper, because Modern Horizons three has plenty of cards to go and pull up. But but like that isn't terrible. Like there is like a nice two for one aspect of this card that you could get. But yeah, the reason people are talking about it is for the Keystone Argus. Yeah, I think yeah. Poke for cubes. It's very powerful these days. Honestly. I'm not sure. What's that initiative in them. Yeah, I show so they. Yeah. You can flash in a lot better take initiative by teaching. Right. But maybe not to multicolored. Next up, have bard hair of green. It is two white and a blue for A44 legendary creature. Human archer. It has reach vigilance. And other creatures you control get plus one plus one. Whenever you attack, draw a card. So I think this is a solid top end for a creature base deck. Like it's a very decent standard body reach and vision is quite nice, and the anthem to our team is also going to be good. The car drawing attack we will always like I think so like I have no actual complaints about this card. I think in a mid powered cube this is a solid top end for your creature deck. The issue is more what is the right deck for this? And finding where it goes like a zombies beat down isn't the most common archetype that we hear in cube. I would say it is quite splash about, which is nice, and that's maybe where I could see it. Maybe seeing some play like it, just like tokens deck going wide with like token makers when the casting spells or just creatures that make tokens like, Adelene and Brahmas and like a bunch of, rabble monster effects and like, yeah, like at just like, go wide deck. And then this is effectively like a full manor top end, if that makes sense. I think it could be solid that. But like that is definitely one for more lower powered or mid powered cubes where like like like say my treat yourself cube where it's like all three color archetypes, that kind of stuff. Like, like I think specifically in Osiris is the worst place for this. I think I want to be splashing like green for some tokens, or red for some tokens of that kind of stuff, and then I'm a bit more into this card. But, what do you think of, Bard Gems? Yeah, I think honestly agree. Like, power level wise, this card is quite strong. Like, it has good stats. It has an impact on the board right away. It's often going to replace itself the same set that you play. There's not a lot to complain about really. As long as they don't have instant speed removal, they. Okay. You kind of get a decent amount out of this card. But yeah, the issue is fine. Blue light gold card gold spots are quite competitive. I think it's at a power level where you could put it in a lot of cubes and it would see play and be good, but it's not a that power level where it's really demanding to be putting those cubes and so when you're more looking at like the mid power level cubes, and often they want more synergistic stuff out of their gold slots. And as you say, it's a bit of a weird fit for that in blue. Like not really tend to be doing a blue, go wide thing. Like even when blue white is aggressive, which it normally isn't, it tends to be more like temporary with and you, you have a couple of facts. You don't have a super white board fight. So yeah, maybe like a band token stack or something, you could just kind of see it, but, if you just solve like for token stuff and want to get more of the cards in, like, you can totally just put this content and people will play. It's a good card. But yeah, it doesn't have, I'd say like a ton of fairly natural homes. I know it's odd because this creature doesn't have flying, but this creature in a is aureus fly deck is quite nice because buffing up like all your flies are, in theory, going to be slightly lower power level because the trade off is they have flying. They're going to repeatedly get through the damage. So that could be quite fun actually. Like it's a pay off for that deck. This isn't just a generic other flying creatures get plus one, but one thing where this will buff up your board and you're going to be attacking because your opponent can't block them. That could be nice, but sand ten fish kills per cent for this floor. Oh James, I'll have to love to hear. All right, James, you're up next. Talk to us about Chief Wargs company. Yeah for sure. Chief works Company is one a green up black for so many stats. It's A53 creature wolf at there. It has trample. It says it can't attack unless you control two or more of a wolves. But at the beginning of your upkeep, create a two to green wolf token. Yeah. Left left handed up. This is going to put a lot of power and a lot of toughness onto the battlefield. For just three manner it did. It is doing a lot. Instead of assuming you cast this on turn three and you don't have any other wolves and you probably don't have any other wolves, you're not you're not going to attack with this until turn five, right? So it's not the most aggressive card, but in just a grinding mid-range attack, this is going to do a lot for you. And it's nice, but it's not sort of asking you to have any kind of a anything else Thunderbolt. Right. It's it is just doing VAT on me and it can on its own and off the invaders tax. You don't want to devote a ton of slots to killing your opponent, right? Because you want. But this got you on for me. Follow you on all the other mid-range stuff. So having this not just powerful standalone fat, it's often what you want. Like, I quite like it for that, sort of that. I think, yeah, we have some strong options of this and pick out godly golds. Cosby sighs. But I think this is pretty good. I would be tempted to try it. And it's it's also very nice. But yeah, it can't attack unless you fearful wolves they can block. And you know, it's all trade for basically everything at five power and it, I think this is just going to be a pretty good fight creature. Like, sure. It does have the issue for it dies to a bolt and you not getting the wolf. So your next upkeep. But it's free mana. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's that's just about okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever else you were paying it, three would have died. Yeah, yeah. Like when I first saw this card, I was. I meant, I thought was like, oh, it's really slow. Why are people hyped on it? But then kind of the more I thought about was like, it's kind of just like one more mana for like a bitter blossom that spits out two to wolves. That's not like like, I think I like this. It's. Yeah, I'm definitely higher on this card the more I think about it. But like, I think I am like. And in terms of getting into a cube, I think I would still want like a bit of synergy, like I think I would want like maybe aristocrats touching green a little bit because then it does like it. The it's a token maker that is also a creature itself. So like it's all it's kind of like giving you stuff to if you want to sack you can or you can just go in on it and attack with it like I think I would like. I think I want a bit more synergy for it to come in, rather than just being a solid card by itself. Yeah, but phase two seconds are almost a bit good to sacrifice, you know. Yeah, I like that. Two twos and they're unlocking. This is a giant stuff. Yeah. No. Yeah. No. Yeah. Maybe it is. It is more the incidental aristocrat deck I should be saying. So like there's a blood artist in there, if that makes sense. Yeah. No. Cool card. Yeah, I think Chief Walker's company pretty solid. All right. We have a a sim card next with three drill. Sindarin Liege. This is two hybrid SIM hybrid. Simic for A23 legendary creature. Elf noble. It has other elves you can troll get plus one plus one and landfall. Whenever land you control enters. Create A11 green elf creature token, but it also has an adventure. It has Sylvan Rally, which is one hybrid is hybrid. Scimitar hybrid Simic for a sorcery adventure with mill for cards, then put up the two Lancaster among them into your hand. So I think this is a cool card if you're trying to support peasant as like if you if you don't support the lands deck in a peasant or lower power cube, I think it's it's quite solid there because it kind of does everything in one card that that deck once, like the first half is like a but the adventure part is like a more expensive, like mulch kind of effect. But we Milsom we mill some cards, we get some lands back. Normally there two mana, but we only get one land back. This being three mana is more expensive, but we do get two lands back, potentially from the four. Which I think is quite nice. It's just helping us keeping those lands in our hand. And then the creature side is effectively what a lot of those decks want to do. They want to be like, they want to be. They want to be rewarded when they play lands and to. This is spitting out tutus. Like to get our money back on this card, like to get our money back on the four mana we've invested. Realistically we need to play one land afterwards. And if that's an evolving wells, then we double dip. We do all the cool stuff with landfall. I think that's quite solid, like, like it has the thing of like with most common, like uncommon adventures, like neither side is individually the best of what it does. Like the I think a mulch is more efficient because it's cheaper. There's probably a three mana version of the creature effect, but the fact that we get both halves stapled to one card means that I think it's pretty good. And we'll definitely, I think, should see play if we're trying to support a land stack in those lower power level cubes, I'll quickly mention that, like, this isn't an elf matters card, but it does get better if you incidentally have like like the land of the elves, the cheap elves, you all you normally see in a cube naturally in your deck. They will get better with this card, but I wouldn't like put this in my cube thinking I need to. I need to then for like 100 elves in because it is a self-contained engine like it's a card from 2026. It's a self and it's it makes the elves that are powered up by the card. It's a self-contained thing. So I yeah, I think they're going to be pretty solid in in peasant games. Yeah. I think if you showed me this card even a couple of years ago, I there's no way I this was an uncommon guy. It's it's quite a recent thing. They started finishing these off self-contained value engines. So uncommon, with so much text. Yeah. This is a very strong one. Like, have it, like it would be a strong card even without the adventure. But the adventure, like, provides so much fuel for it. And it's just you're already a two for one before you've cast a creature. It's it's kind of nuts how much you get fun, from the start. Yeah. Like, if the adventure is going to find you want to land very reliably. You'll start fueling this, creating two twos, like. Yeah, sure. It's man of intensive, but in a peasant cube, this is giving you so much from one card. Even a they move this right away. You got a token out of that. You got two lands out of that, I don't know, I want more. You want your fall chops? Really? This isn't an elf specific card. It's just strong. I wouldn't even consider, like, oh, this a landfall card? I think it's just a good card. It's not even limited to blue green. I would put this in a lot of the white decks of you. I think this is just just going to be powerful and nice cubes in nice, pleasant cubes. Outside of pleasant, it's, you know, you have a lot more choice of things. Things have a similar effect when you start including there's fights. And then maybe you would just limit this to like, maybe if you're doing an elves thing or a landfall thing, then then you start considering it. But yeah, in Peasant cubes specifically, I think this is very, very strong. Yeah, going to be a good one. I did maybe when I was talking about, oh, this is what cards do it anyway. Anyway, so I did have a horrible realization that like at some point we're going to get this, but it's also a flip card. We had, I was reading in the future that the adventure flip is. Yeah. And not one I'm looking forward to. I flipped into a planeswalker. Oh my God. All right. That's not talk about that. We have some cool guys to finish up with. James, I, I like this one. Talk to us about Tom, Bert and William. Yeah. These are some good lads versus a fruitful old that, they get turned into stone, which I say cool. So Thomas and William, three. A black and a green for five. Five legendary creatures, full set in. Pay one and sacrifice another creature to draw cards equal to the sacrifice creatures power. Then discard a card and when Tom, Bert, and William die, a fairer creature return them for battlefield and fair. An artifact. I feel like the flavor is kind of missing here for me. Life isn't really dying. That's fine, you know. Yeah, I will, I think this was the time. They should have fought back day night, so I should have done that. Just one day night card in this, flavorful. Yes, but know. Yes, it's non optional flavor wise. And then when it becomes day, they become an artifact that would have been sick. Well, it could be if it ever becomes day, they become a. Not exactly. You've just got to keep it as knights for the whole game. That's fine, because it never has. Yeah, you don't have to worry about back and forth. It's only okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that would have been cool. That's not terrible. That's not terrible. Okay, okay. That isn't the card we have. So we have this one. It's it's not bad. It's that the issue is right. It's five mana. So it's hard to have, extra one up right away. And, sure, if they die, you keep the ability. But if they get exiled or dealt with in some other way, then you don't. That being said, it's it's decent stats and the it is nice that if they just point like black removal at this, you probably going to keep viability is is pretty good. Listen it's not one for like super high power level cuz it's like it's too expensive for thing which is been asking you to sacrifice more on board material and all this get your advantage. Right. You're just not going to have time for that in a lot of cubes. But for metal, a bit. Power level cube. I think this is quite nice. And green. Black does tend to be quite good at recursion. So stacking your big stuff thing, that could be pretty good. Like, maybe you have a recurring nightmare or something going to get your big creature back again. But there's some stuff you can do here for sure. Yeah, but pretty reasonable include, I think for a mid mid power level cube. Yeah. So like the reason why I added this one to the list, is for me, I, I yeah, I agree with everything James said. And does it just being a decent light like it's a decent value card. And the fact that it's A55 is like means that a worst case scenario. Doyle being able to attack with a troll for five minor. We love that. Like, yeah. Like I talked about this archetype a couple of times. Only set of using this. The, power matters archetype, because this is actually kind of the perfect card for that, because the ability to suck creatures and draw cards equal to that power is exactly what that archetype is after. After basically what we wanna do is play cheat. Like play. Juggle or something like that. Play a cheap big idiot sacrifice like get for some damage. As soon as I change, our opponent can block it, sacrifice it, draw a bunch of cards and then go again. Refill our hand. This is kind of perfect there, and especially the fact that it's an engine that if they remove, we still have the engine. Like, I also like the fact that like like it's also just the perfect signpost gold card for that archetype existing like if you see this and like juggling multiple and he like, you know what the deck is doing I play this, I play this, I attack when I can't attack, I socket, I draw 18 cards or whatever that stack. Yeah I'll go, I'm sorry. Draw 17, lose the game. Yeah, yeah. Cool. Yeah. I'm gonna. Yeah. That's like that's where I see this card potentially like having potential I think it's it's one where like I talked about like similar to red white off equipment. We've talked about this archetype a couple times. Might be one. We're actually need to kind of work out a cube for it to go into. But yeah, it does seem fun. I do want to give it a go. All right, we're moving on to a colorless sort of. Maybe we haven't organized the the best, James. Because I've only optimized what today is the Archon stone, which is definitely white. Don't worry about it. The Archon stone is five generic mana for a legendary artifact with creatures you control get plus one, plus one, and the beginning of your end step draw a card. But it also has an adventure. It has Seek the heart, which is two and a white for sorcery adventure. Search your library for legendary. Put your card, reveal it and put it in your into your hand. Then shuffle. So I think with this card both halves are solid. Like we wouldn't really run the legendary creature it by itself, but as it's half a card tacked onto something else that is a decent buff effect, I think it's solid. Like, specifically, it's specifically on the tutor part. If it said any legendary, I would really like this card, because then we could go and get a big planeswalker with it. I think that would be really good. But like, I think three manage to go and get a legendary out. My deck is a bit niche, like if we're not combo ING with it, what are we doing? We're just kind of getting like the best value creature. But then there's the question of what would be, what would we want this or just another value creature? The artifact half, I think again, almost one for five manor is fine. It's not the most broken. It obviously gets better if we're in an aggressive deck where we want to be attacking and buffing up the greatest, or if we're in tokens where there's a big difference between turning A44 into A55, or turning a bunch of one ones into two twos with doubling up the damage. We like that a lot more. The bottom part of the arc of the artifact we know is broken because effectively it gives us the monarchy, and that is quite good. It's the monarchy our opponent kind of can't ever take from us. We like that. My concern with this card is just five mana. I think both halves are slightly too expensive to see that much play. Like, I'm trying to think like what is the line with this card? Like, is it just cards in my deck or in my cube? What am I trying to do with it? And like best things I can come up with is like three mana go two to up like Adelene, or like something that make I legendary. That makes tokens because I'm I'm getting the most off of the five man apart because effect. I'm going three mana tutor for token maker for mana. Play that five mana play this I think we can do better. Like like if there was a like I did. Look at this. And currently there isn't a like sorcery. Like there isn't a legendary creature that's like a good board wipe. There's some like bad board wipes. But if if I could three mana, two draw up a board wipe, play my creature that wipes the board. Then I have the monarchy for the rest of the game. With this. I like that more. I don't know what Master Girl has done to to deserve this level of shade. Oh. That's all. Yeah, yeah. Okay. That one that's not made that scry for. If you type tag board white Masango does not come up but yeah like yeah girl. Yeah okay. That that that is a play pattern that I quite like. Like if we can do something like that I think that's solid. But like well I think I get across like that play button isn't going to come up as often as I want it to to make this card good as far. Yeah. I think it depends what sort of cube you're talking about. I think if you talk, this card is very man intensive and sure gives you an anthem, but it doesn't necessarily go in the decks for traditionally one time funds. But if we're in a cube where you have a bit more time, I think the cards quite strong. Like if you put this in your treat yourself cube, for example, which I'm not saying you should, but this would be a very strong card, not cube like fang. Yeah. And I guess in that cube I do have some of my combo pieces are legendary. Exactly like I think some of the food Matters combos, like a couple of them are legendary. So that's a, that's a that is is a plus. Like it is just giving you a lot of value. And the yeah Ivy artifact side is good. I think that'd be a decent chunk of a games where you don't have to be adventure. Right? Because you just have five men, and then you want to get your cards all going right away. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. I think there's there's not a lot wrong with the card. I think it's one of those things where it's, it's slow, so it's not going into powerful cubes. And then unless you're doing some legends Matter stuff, it's kind of not powerful in a super interesting way to me. Like it is kind of just like five managers, loads of stuff. Like you. It's kind of more like generic, like, yeah, just have the monarchy for the rest of the game, basically. This is because fine. I think if you're doing like a slow Legends mastery thing, then I could see it being quite cool otherwise. Like it's fine, but I think, of options. Yeah. No, I go along with that. James, we have one last card for today. Talk to us about Hobbit Hole. For sure. Hobbit hole is a land that common. It can tap in sacrifice for land to search for basic land. Can't put it up for battlefield taps and then shuffle. So it's an evolving wilds, but it also has halflings cycling for four mana. You can discard it and search a library for a halfling and put it into your hand. This is cool. I think there are some halflings that are generically good, like we talked about Bilbo had in the first part of his review for blue on my cards. Good. Gollum is quite good from this. There were a couple of decent halflings we got from Lord of the rings. Listen, it is like a strictly battle evolving wilds. Even if your cube has something like nameless inversion in it and the, shapeshifter removal spell VI cuts fine. I think I wouldn't put it in my cube either. Evolving wilds if I had just like, won the halfling because I think it's kind of annoying for players to like, have to think about the halflings aren't actually very many halflings in the cube. But I think if you have like 4 or 5 and then I would put this in because it's, it's the kind of cool little bit of upside to get you. If I think it's. Yeah. So like I think in like mid and high power level cubes, like all cubes where we have access to like rare lands, like there's, there's a combination of how many evolving worlds effects do we need? Like I like in my cube, I'm not cutting my evolving worlds. So even if even though this one is slightly better because like, I like the artwork on my Bob Ross Evolving wild. But like with this, this one like like like, in lower power level cubes, like I think Evolving Worlds is the most played cube card because of pauper and peasant like. It's just one of the best lands. If you're sticking to rarity and like in those cubes, you effectively you want every version of this effect available to you. So in lower bound level cubes and budget and pauper games, I think you slam hobbit hole along with evolving wilds terrain, morphic expanse, the. There's been like 3 or 4 versions of this since then and like like like yeah. And in those cubes as well, like the halfling cycling can be a bit nicer because like rosy cotton is a combo card. You can get that with this prosperous innkeeper, innkeepers, a combo card. You can get that with this. I think it is interesting. And yeah, I mean, and you mentioned that the changelings as well, like I think it's. Yeah, it's basically from like peasant down or of coop down. I think you slam all of them high up out of the cubes. You kind of pick the ones you want and like, yeah, if they print more halflings, then maybe they will get better. But, like, I think we need to kind of be in like, either back to middle earth or like Dungeons and Dragons to see any more. Yeah for sure. And we're kind of past the time where we can just put evolving Wilds in the high power level cubes anyway, like there's too many untapped versions of that effect. Snap. Yeah. No. That's it exactly. All right. That's going to do it for our set of you. But before we get out of here, main game is just going to have a quick chat about, the set itself because obviously we did previews and the cards we liked from the cube. So James, what was your thoughts? So prerelease, how does that play for you? I mean, prerelease was fun because prerelease is always fun. In case five new cards is great. In terms of have a set is play day. So I've done prerelease and I did like two arena drafts. I think I'm done. Yeah, I so I really liked the I really like prerelease. But at the time of figures, I think I said that like I feel that this is not the deepest format because like there's only five draft archetypes. It's effectively like. Pickpocket because this is a I think this is the last of the small sets that they're doing, like from next year. They've said that every set is going to be at least a video. And so this was like the last one where I think there's there's only like 200 cards, including like special printings and stuff. So like, it's not the deepest draft environment basically, but like, like in my prerelease, like saw a lot of the same cards. Yeah. I think small sets inherently pretty problematic for draft. This is a very, very this feels very, very basic. Like it's I think all the tactics are just pretty fast. Pretty. That's not a lot else going on. Like try and save juveniles in this draft so that like good luck to you. It is not happening. You can't put many expensive symbols in your deck. You kind of just need to build effects. Make sure you affecting the board every single game on turn two. And that's just the placement tree. And listen, I that's fine. But we've, we've just had a lot of those stats and. It's not like there's a bunch of interesting stuff going on. Once you've stabilized, it just feels like Corsetti, but not even in, like, really a good way, you know? And honestly, like the and sort of talking about the broader design of the set, like for a couple of cool cards that we talked about, but, I can get the same thing as, like from the first Lord of the rings that was like, oh, this is really cool. A lot of the designs felt very formulaic to me. And it has kind of felt to me like especially with a lot of these small sets, they don't get the same amount of effort put into them. Yeah. It's not like it's not like, oh, sure, there are fewer cards for the cards made for and of all like very original and fanatic like, but it feels like there's a lot of very cookie cutter designs in here like that. Aren't any new mechanics essentially. Right. Like we've got a mass goblins, which is just we've had a mass a bunch of times before. We've got the chroot, which is just connive, but you get a counter instead of like a token instead of a counter, like that's, say, basically, right. Equipment matters, you know, I mean, there's no, there's there's nothing new in here. And it feels like, feels almost feels like when they've gone to sell universes beyond two different franchises, it's like you get the premium option when you get a big set with cool designs like, Final Fantasy, or you can have a basic option where we get it, like give it to a couple of dudes to work on for a couple of months, and vel Val scraps something together for you. It's it's not gonna be bad investing. And it kind of feels like that's the that we've got, like, not to say that there aren't cool cards. I think, a few cards we've talked about, which are interesting for cube. I like for Bilbo, I like for Gollum. The there's a couple of good things to pass in. But as a set, there's a whole not an exciting one for me. Yeah, I do agree to an extent. Like I think they, The Hobbit is obviously not as rich as Lord of the rings, but there's still an I thought that was still more ground to be dug, if that makes sense. Although they could have delved a bit more greedily, let's put it that way. Yeah. Like when I was when I saw the kind of like the go gory archetype was like, it's it was about bears and wolves and like, I kind of. I get that a bit, but, like, I feel there's just more. I thought there was more stuff you could do, like, like, like, like a lot of the stuff from this set, like like, felt like it could just be from any set, if that makes sense. Like, like. Yeah. Like like like I like the card Chief Wilkes company, but like, that could be from any set. I think it was. I didn't feel this tied. I didn't get the flavors right. I think in terms of cause, like like there are some cosmos. I think we're both hyped by, like, oddly, I think we're both most hyped for Getaway Barrel just because I think it's just silly. And I'm kind of I don't really want to brew with it. I think the made like Bilbo thief in the night seems like a solid slam dunk. Like, I'm very glad I opened one that prerelease. Because that's going to be a slam dunk test for me. Were there any other cards that I you're thinking of of testing or playing and you'll keep James. I think, plunder of, troll shows a sort of big think twice. I quite like, I'm like, card cause decent in a slower cube. Bilbo for sure. I think my cards are pretty strong, and I can do some interesting stuff. Smaug for auto battler? Yeah, that seems tight. Yeah. Probably about it. I think for me, if I build a cube where I can justify, I guess, for a barrel, it will be at that. I've got Yu-Gi-Oh! Also, probably for Power Cube. I will put in, the Queen of tales. To be fair, I think that cost quite. Yeah. That was. Yeah, that was the other one that, like, has fortunately halved in price since our last recording session. James is now only $20 rather than 47 nominees. Yeah. That was yeah, that was one where I, I don't think I was high on it, but I'm also open to being wrong. And like, I think recruit did play quite well, for my testings with that. But yeah. Yeah, I think we did though. Could be a solid one. I think great Gilded Boat I thought actually played quite well as well. But again, one for like about cubes. Yeah. Yeah. I think that there are some cool cards in this. I think just it's kind of like, is it fair to say that maybe similarly to the films, they didn't hit as hot like The Hobbit didn't hit as hard as the Lord of the rings? Yeah, I think that's reasonable to say. But I guess at a minimum, actually, if you had a Lord of the rings token cube, you now get a bunch of stuff to expand it to, so that's at least art. There's a bunch more cool cards for that, which is nice. All right. But with that, James, I think we're going to leave Middle-Earth for the time being. Thank you very much. My pleasure. Yeah, always a pleasure. All right. Just to thank you all very much for listening. You have been listening to powerful nothing to make sure you subscribe to the podcast. Give us a five star review. Greatly helps us out. Until next week, it's goodbye from me. That's goodbye from James and we'll see you all soon. Goodbye.