Secrets of Strixhaven Cube Review Part 2: Individual Cards for Cube

Ryan Overturf concludes his first impressions Cube review of Secrets of Strixhaven, going over individual appealing cards for Cube! 

Transcript

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What's up, gamers? Welcome back to 180 MTG. My name is Ryan Overturf, and today is part two of my Secrets of Strixhaven Early Impressions Cube Review. So last week was part one. I went over the mechanics and themes. So any card featuring a new mechanic or keyword, ability word, that's something I talked about last week. This week I'm talking about more individually appealing cube cards. So if you want to hear about cards with prepared other new mechanics, you want to go back and listen to last week's episode. This week I'm just going in Wooberg order, talking about stuff that does not play heavily into the sets themes. Of course, there's going to be some instants and sorceries this week, uh, because not just going to talk about only instants and sorceries on the sets and mechanics episode, because there are cards that care about instants and sorceries, that's way too specific. That one tries to cover more new mechanics kind of stuff. And also some of the cards today are going to be a little bit more niche, but they're not going to be new keywords. So they're going to be kind of existing niches or some stuff that's more tangential to the major set themes. So some broadly appealing stuff, some stuff that is appealing in specific and unique new ways. But we're going to go in Wooberg order and just talk about a lot of cards. So let's dive in. First up is ceaseless conflict, this one coming from the commander decks, three white, white versus sorcery. Destroy all creatures, then create a 3-2 red and white spirit creature token for each non-token creature you controlled that was destroyed this way. So a five mana sweeper, this one gives you a little bit something back if you have to destroy one of your own creatures. Of course, a non-token creature, very much more common if you have a sweeper, you'll be able to make some token creatures often off of the back of planeswalkers. That can be a common recipe for a control or a mid-range deck. Ceaseless Conflict allows you to play a little bit more comfortably into your own sweeper using non-token creatures, just casting your creature spells, kind of daring your opponent to commit more to the battlefield so you can get more with your sweeper. Five mana has generally just kind of felt like a more appropriate mana value for sweepers than four for a lot of cube environments. For me, four can really feel like a hate card. Wrath of God can be really tough to defeat with an aggressive deck unless you have a lot of really powerful cards, which granted, creatures in most recent years have kind of shown up and tipped the scales to be more powerful than Wrath of God for any number of reasons, being sticky creatures, having haste, generating value, what have you. But it's kind of a normal game with modestly powerful cards. A five mana sweeper plays a little bit more. Ceaseless conflict is a good way to just be a sweeper. If you control no creatures, you do at least get to destroy your opponent's creatures in a way that doesn't just totally end the game. You have to spend five mana, you kind of have to tap out for this kind of thing. And then if you play cards like Wall of Omens, that can be a really nice way to set up ceaseless conflict, just value cards that kind of ask your opponents to play a little bit wider on the battlefield, and then you get something back when you fire off your five mana sweeper. Some cool build-around potential there with ceaseless conflict, where you can play into that value creature kind of game. This is one that I don't think is quite there for the highest power cubes, and it can be too strong for the lowest power cubes. So you're looking at this when you want a sweeper somewhere in the middle, and it is cool to set up that synergy. It actually does kind of excite me to play Wall of Omens in a curve into Ceaseless Conflict. Often, Wall of Omens is like a fine card. You do some blocking while you set up something else. And if the wall of omens plays particularly well into your sweeper, which it would with ceaseless conflict, it's actually kind of a cool synergy to explore. So Ceaseless Conflict is not a card that I have slotted for any of my cubes, but I do think it has some cool texture to offer to the world of cube broadly. Next up is Erode. Erode is a one white mana instant. Destroy target creature or planeswalker. Its controller may search their library for a basic land card, put it on the battlefield, tapped, then shuffle. So this is clearly very similar to Path to Exile. Couple differences. Path to Exile did, of course, exile the creature it targeted, and then also Path to Exile could only target creatures. So a road is a destroy effect. It's not going to be an answer, a permanent answer that is to sticky creatures, but it can target planeswalkers. This is a nice upgrade or side grade for mid-range environments, environments like the original recipe tubert that are long on creatures and planeswalkers and really involves playing to the battlefield. The downside of giving your opponent basic land that will cost you, but the flexibility here is really nice. We get a lot of stuff in this space. You know, get lost is a card that can destroy a creature, a planeswalker, or an enchantment, but it costs two and you give your opponent two maps. Erode only costs one. As far as the downside of what you get your opponent, giving them a tapped land versus giving them two maps, those are pretty comparable downsides. But for the most part, being an instant that costs one that can target a creature or a planeswalker, that's just really good flexibility, and that's just a really efficient rate. So Erode definitely is going to play pretty well in mid-range style cube environments. And moving right along to blue, the first blue card I want to talk about is way more niche and specific. This one does come from one of the commander decks, and it is Expansion Algorithm, Blue Blue X Sorcery, Proliferate X times. Really basic card, does what it says on the tin, three words of text, and then some reminder text telling you what proliferate does, which is choose any number of permanents and/or players, then give each another counter of each count of counter already on that permanent or player. So this, of course, very loudly is going to go into a cube like Proliferate Cube. I would be very surprised if Carmen Clumperens did not have her hand in the design and or development of expansion algorithm. But anywhere where you have like a counters theme going on, even if you just have a number of planeswalkers, proliferating can really come into play there. And this is just a lot of immediate access to a lot of proliferating. We have a number of cards that have some kind of trinket text, some kind of effect that also proliferate. Often proliferate is kind of the trinket text on other effects. We have some stuff like contagion claps that will let you proliferate turn over turn, card's bastion, very similar there. But this is just a ton of proliferate up front. That's all this card does, and it does a lot of it. I think I'm gonna give this one a try. I'm at least gonna think about experimenting with this in 30 to 50 Feral Hogs. I do have a decent clip of proliferate there. I don't want to make it so as a deck that really easily just ends the game outside of combat, but I am interested in trying expansion algorithm out. I think that it might be the kind of thing where it will be deflating to have a game end this way. There's some cards that can give your opponent a poison counter just by casting them on resolution. There's a couple instances and sorceries that do that, and maybe it makes it too possible or too easy to build a deck that just destroys your opponent's Razor Swines and just wins easily a proliferate with a card like expansion algorithm, but it's worth exploring because I did always kind of like the idea of inviting some exploration in the zero or very few Razor Swine space, though it is something that could easily see being too powerful or not fun. Uh specifically, so not fun that if it's powerful at all, every time it works, the game is pretty deflating. So it's one I'm gonna watch, but it's one I want to try. An expansion algorithm really plays in other cubes that are heavily invested in any kind of counter esteem. Next up is a card that has gotten some buzz for constructed potential across multiple formats, and that is flow state, one and a blue for a sorcery. Look at the top three cards of your library, put one of them into your hand, and the rest on the bottom of your library in any order. If there is an instant card and a sorcery card in your graveyard, instead put two of them into your hand and the rest on the bottom of your library in any order. So we've never had fully two mana draw to in magic. There's always been some kind of extra text, maybe a downside, maybe something you had to work for to fully get the two mana draw to. Like the distance between ancestral recall and the second best card that draws cards has been pronounced. It's been something you've always had to work for. Flow State kind of asks you just to play cards that are good. You do need an instant and a sorcery in your graveyard, so it's something you have to monitor, both in cube curation if you want to make flow state something as part of your environment, and then as a drafter, making sure that you don't just have spells, but you have instants and sorceries. But there's still plenty of playable and powerful instants and sorceries. This is the kind of card that, you know, because of that delta between Flow State and Ancestral Recall and a lot of other powerful draw spells, you won't feel the absence of a card like Flow State in a vintage cube, but it's one that will play there. It's one that is very reasonable to have any kind of cube that has a prowess kind of theme. It just becomes a two for one if you jump through the hoops, which admittedly are pretty minimal hoops to jump through, but there's going to be games where this is just two mana and you only get one of the top three cards, and that's at sorcery speed, that is weaker than anticipate. Anticipate is a card that is too weak to show up in a lot of, even limited environments. I'm often pretty unhappy to have an anticipate in my draft deck. Two mana is a real amount of mana, even at any kind of modest power level. The more the game happens on the battlefield, the less interested you are in this kind of thing, especially at sorcery speed. So it's one that I don't think is something you absolutely need if you're going to play at a high power level for any kind of extra card draw or prowessy kind of theme. I actually think it's more modest than a lot of people are interpreting it as. It's one I'm definitely going to be trying and constructed. It's one that I'm not super interested in trying in Cube. I think that if you have a cube that wants to do prowess and that you want to give the prowess player access to some card advantage with a little bit of a hoop to jump through, it's absolutely fine. That's just something I really moved away from in the Tempo Tubert and doesn't fit a lot of my other designs. Cool card, strong card, pretty replacement level at any power level though. So Flow State is a card that I would be happy enough to see in a cube, but it's not something that I think you really need to clamor for. And that's going to bring us into black. The first black card I want to talk about is Arnon Death Bloom Botanist. Arnon Deathbloom Botanist is a 3 mana 2-2 for 2 in a black, a legendary vampire druid with death touch that says whenever a creature you control with power or toughness, one or less dies, target opponent loses 2 life, and you gain two life. So this is restrictive as far as blood artist effects go because it only cares about small creatures dying, but then it's a double blood artist whenever a creature with power or toughness one or less dies. So doubling up on Blood Artist effect, that is a really powerful thing. And a lot of sacrifice decks, a lot of support for sacrifice decks, it does come in the form of 1-1 tokens or just small creatures that are very cheap to cast, stuff that you can recast from your graveyard, your blood gas, your grave crawlers. This card plays great with both of those, given that they only have one toughness. This is something that I think can really loudly signal that you are supporting a sacrifice deck. It is going to cause a drafter to really select the kind of things that they're supposed to be drafting in this style of deck. Sacrifice decks tend to be defined by having small creatures and a lot of them. So Arnon, Deathbloom, Botanist very much plays in the historic traditional sacrifice space, a cube card that I'm pretty excited to try out. On the topic of cards that play well with Gravecrawler, the next black card I want to talk about is Post Mortem Professor. One and a black for a 2-2 zombie warlock. This creature can't block. Whenever this creature attacks, each opponent loses one life and you gain one life, and then for one and a black, you can exile an instant or sorcery card from your graveyard to return this card from your graveyard to the battlefield. So somewhat reminiscent of Scrap Team Scrooger, and it only has two power, but that attack trigger will make your opponent lose a life and you gain a life, which does mitigate some of the cost of the post-mortem professor not being able to block. It does mean you'll have a harder time against three toughness creatures, of course, just being a 2-2, but I do believe that post-mortem professor is an appealing card that can play in the zombie space. It is kind of interesting that the recursive ability on postmortem Professor involves exiling an instant or sorcery card from your graveyard. So a sacrifice deck, a zombie type of deck, there's not going to be a ton of instance of sorceries, but there should be enough to recur it one or a couple three times. It does open up other interesting space though with the post-mortem professor, where you could use this as the win condition for a control deck. You have a bunch of instance of sorceries, maybe they're card draw effects, removal spells, sweepers. You use those to keep your opponent off the battlefield, and then you have this sticky creature that so long as your opponent doesn't have an exile effect, will eventually win the game. I do think that that is actually pretty cool for a lower-powered cube. So Postmortem Professor is one that I can see playing in a couple different spaces. It is a card I'd be pretty happy to see in Cube. And that brings us to Railzaric Guest Lecturer, a three mana planeswalker with four abilities. So Railzaric Guest Lecturer is one black black for a three loyalty legendary planeswalker rail, has a plus one to surveil two, a minus one that says any number of target players each discard a card, a minus two that returns target creature with mana value three or less from your graveyard to the battlefield, and minus seven, flip five coins. Target opponent skips their next X turns, where X is the number of coins that came up heads. So that minus seven is kind of the inverse of the original Rails Eric taking up to five extra turns on coin flips. You have a plus that gives you some card selection, maybe you can put some stuff in your graveyard if you can take advantage of that with flashback, with sticky creatures, a minus one that normally will make your opponent discard a card, but you can also make yourself discard cards if they would be useful in your graveyard for any kind of recursion, delve, madness, a lot of reasons where you might want to use that minus one on yourself. The minus two is kind of unearthed, just bring a small creature from your graveyard to the battlefield. All these abilities are appealing. The plus one is, of course, the least appealing, no impact on the battlefield, no inherent card advantage, but some card selection and a powerful ability is all the way down in the minuses. Rails Eric is a card that I think is going to play best if you are doing something inherently in the graveyard, if Surveil 2 can sometimes turn into draw a card. This is one you could play in a mid-range environment. There's enough going on here where you could just play this, minus it a couple times, have your opponent discard cards. It'd be a kind of a glorified mind rot. I am personally interested in Railzariric Guest Lecturer for Spooky Cube, which is an environment that's going to do a lot with the graveyard, and also we'll incentivize you sometimes to target yourself to make yourself discard a card to trigger madness and cast something for cheaper. I really like the design of Railsaric Guest Lecturer. I think that the stats there aren't quite up to snuff to just play this on rate generically in a cube, but if you're doing anything in the graveyard, if you have some discard synergies to take advantage of, there's a lot you can do with this planeswalker. And three mana is not very much mana for our planeswalker, so Railzari Guest Lecturer likely to find a home in a good number of cubes. And that's going to bring us into red. The first red card I want to talk about is flashback, which is technically the lore hold mechanic for this set. But flashback doesn't have flashback, it merely gives flashback. So this is a one red mana instant that says target instant or sorcery card in your graveyard gains flashback until end of turn. The flashback cost is equal to its mana cost, so you can just give something in your graveyard flashback. That's what Snapcaster Mage does, and that card certainly is very popular in Cube, though stapling this onto a creature very much changes the texture. Red does have this in its color pie. This is reminiscent of the card Recoup from Odyssey, which was a sorcery that itself had flashback and could give a sorcery in your graveyard flashback. And that's a card that has seen some play. It's been a number of years, I think, but it did used to be a vintage constructed playable card. Flashback is something that just opens you up to cast your most powerful spells multiple times. Maybe plays a little bit more in the combo space than the control space, the way that Snapcaster Mage can be like a tempo-y kind of thing with lightning bolt. Using flashback to give you more access to lightning bolts, that is fine. But this is really going to play at its best in an environment where your most powerful cards are quite a lot more powerful than your other cards, which is not to say that flashback is a tremendously exciting vintage cube card, but it is to say that if you have Demonic Tutor, Ancestral Recall, Time Walk, Flashback as a way to get access to them a second time, is a lot of the appeal of Snapcaster Mage in those environments. I could very much see this one fitting into a vintage cube. You do have to pay the mana for the card you flashback. This isn't really cheating anyway, it's just kind of a value card. If you have a prowess theme, I think it's pretty reasonable to play this just because it's kind of going to give you two prowess triggers inherently. By only costing one, it's just very likely you'll be able to double triple spell on a turn where you cast flashback, being an instance really nice too, of course, because it can play with things on your opponent's turn. You can use flashback to access counter spells or mana drain a second time, which is quite powerful, but just that flexibility where you don't have to use this on your own turn the way that you did with Recoup. So this is not necessarily on the level of Snapcaster Mage, but it is more access to your most powerful cards, and this plays pretty well in a number of different red archetypes. More access to maybe your payoff card in a storm deck, and just any nuts and bolts stuff. It's not the end of the world if you use flashback to cast a preordain a second time. Flashback is a very cool card, I'm sure it's going to find a home in a lot of cubes, and where I think it's going to have the most value over replacement is going to be in those environments with instant and sorcery power level outliers, just giving yourself higher access to those cards. And that brings us into green. The first green card I want to talk about is Environmental Scientists, one and a green for a 2-2 human druid. When this creature enters, you may search your library for a basic land card, reveal it, put it into your hand, then shuffle. Rest in peace, Borderland Ranger. Pour one out for Civic Wayfinder. These are cards that I have cast quite a lot in a number of different cubes. It has been a long time since those cards have been impactful, certainly at the highest power level of cubes, but this kind of effect that is very appealing. A lot of lower power level cubes, just giving you some card selection, making sure you hit your land drops in green, and sampling that into a two-mana 2-2. This is what I'm going to find a spot for in the original recipe, Tubert, just getting on the battlefield, fixing your mana, making sure you hit your land drops. Really nuts and boltsy kind of thing. This is something that a lot of people are going to point to as explicit power creep, which is technically true, but it has been years since Borderland Ranger was competitive. I think it's really easy to point to the thing that's just the same thing, but a mana has been shaved off. But with how strong creatures have gotten otherwise, to make up for how historically more powerful spells were for a long time in the history of magic, this is the kind of thing where it makes sense to shave a mana off. I'm pretty happy to see this upgrade, because this is still a pretty modest card. And that brings us to planar engineering. Three and a green for a sorcery, sacrifice two lands, search your library for four basic land cards, put them onto the battlefield tapped, then shuffle. So this is something that's kind of like a super harrow. You have to sacrifice two lands. It's not an additional cost, notably. You sack them on resolution, so you can't just get blown out by a counter spell. You have to find four basic lands. They could be the same basic land, they could be different basic lands. Only finding basics does restrict how much this card can do, but there are a few things that this does better than other cards in this space that make planar engineering kind of exciting. And that's getting four lands all at once means four simultaneous landfall triggers. There's a lot of things that can make use of that. And being able to find four different basic lands if you're playing a Field of the Dead deck that maybe you have to double up on some basics as long as you have four different kinds. You can maybe sacrifice some of the ones that you're redundant on, go find four different land names. You can get your field of the dead going. This is a card that can go find four basic mountains. This could maybe enable Valicut the Molten Pinnacle or Amiria the Sky Ruin. You could turn this on with Planar Engineering if you have some typed duels to facilitate that kind of thing. And that can make that more real. That's something that I have seen in some cubes. I've experimented with a little bit in some designs that I've looked at. And it's really parasitic space. There's only so many cards that play in that space. But planar engineering, if you're doing landfall, if you care about basic land types, you care about different basic land. Names. There's a lot of ways to take advantage of this card. Finding four lands all at once, getting four simultaneous landfall triggers, there's definitely synergies and engines to explore with planar engineering. And it's a card that I expect will find a home in some cubes for sure. And that's going to bring us into gold cards. The first gold card on my list is Arc of Hunger, two red-white for an artifact. Whenever one or more cards leave your graveyard, this artifact deals one damage to each opponent and you gain one life. And it also says tap, mill a card, you may play that card this turn. So this does play in that lore hold card leaves your graveyard space. But this is also just kind of a one-sided howling mine. You can mill a card, you can play that card this turn. Every turn when you activate Arc of Hunger. So the first turn you play it, it's unlikely, at least on turn four, you'll immediately be able to do much with that milled card. But then every turn going forward, you can play the card. It's not just cast spells. So if you mill over a land, you can play it. As long as your mana curve is not unreasonable, you'll be able to cast almost anything. This is something you would have to make use of right away. You can only play that card this turn, which depending on your mana curve, depending on what you need to accomplish on a given turn and the texture of your hand, you won't always be able to make use of Ark of Hunger. So it's going to be the most useful if you're in a space where you were otherwise taking advantage of cards leaving your graveyard. Milling a card is meaningful if you're playing in the graveyard space, if you have other synergies that can play in that way. That static ability though, if you have other reasons that a card could leave your graveyard, especially if you could do it one at a time, this represents a good chunk of damage, and importantly, gaining a life every time you trigger Ark of Hunger's static ability. So a decent card advantage card, kind of an engine building piece for cards leaving your graveyard, a cool one to explore for cube. I don't personally have any plans for Ark of Hunger, but I've been talking about how red-white can be a problematic color pair for graveyard matters kind of cubes. So Ark of Hunger, likely to find a home, at least in some of those spaces. Next up is Cauldron of Essence. Cauldron of Essence is an artifact for one green black. It says whenever a creature you control dies, each opponent loses one life, and you gain one life. And then for one green black, tap, sacrifice a creature, return target creature card from your graveyard to the battlefield, activate only as a sorcery. So this card is Recurring Nightmare. Kind of. So some give and take, some differences between Recurring Nightmare and Cauldron of Essence. The big thing about Recurring Nightmare, well, like I guess the loudest immediate difference is that's a mono black card. This is green black. Recurring Nightmare has this thing where your opponent can't actually ever destroy it if you're savvy about it, because you return it to your hand as part of activating it. So with Recurring Nightmare, you would always cast it, immediately return it to your hand. There's never a window where your opponent could hit it with a disenchant. Cauldron of Essence does have to just stay on the battlefield. It's also an artifact, not an enchantment. I'm a big Grixis guy. I've never destroyed an enchantment in my life. So artifact, at least to my eyes, somebody who's cast a lot of abraids, a lot easier to answer an artifact than it is to answer an enchantment. But there's some upside here too. You have that clause that whenever a creature you control dies, each opponent loses a life and you gain a life. So this does kind of play naturally into a sacrifice shell. You can loop through your worst creatures, your sacrifice fodder to rebuy your best creatures, whether that's some big token maker, something busted like a revelarc that gives you a lot more recursion, even just making sure you always have another blood artist so you can have double blood artist effects going on. This having a blood artist baked into the Cauldron of Essence. This is a really powerful card. It is a really repetitive card in terms of play patterns, very similar to Recurring Nightmare. It's less of the the game is just about this thing than Recurring Nightmare because Recurring Nightmare is really only vulnerable to counter spells. The fact that Artifact Destruction can play against Cauldron of Essence does make it a little bit more fragile. Even still, the play patterns on this card aren't great. I would say Cauldron of Essence is something I'd be looking at for like a legacy cube. It's not quite up to snuff for a vintage cube. Maybe if you have a powered cube that has a sacrifice theme, Cauldron of Essence could play there. Really good with Grist the Hunger Tide, but mostly I would say Cauldron of Essence is for very high power level cubes. That brings us to Dina's Guidance. This card's super cool. Dina's Guidance is an instant for one black green. Search your library for a creature card, reveal it, put it into your hand, or graveyard, then shuffle. So it's three mana, so it's more mana than In Tomb or Elodamri's call, but you do get to choose are you putting the card in your graveyard or into your hand? It only tutors for creatures, but it does so at instant speed. This can be an enabler for a reanimate style deck, or you can just put a good creature to cast into your hand. Some flexibility there. On rate, Dina's guidance isn't really screaming to be played. You are kind of paying for what you get here, but I do really just like this flexibility. If you're in a kind of cube where you have a recursive, a reanimate kind of deck, but you're looking at four mana spells like Zombify to put the creature back, then this is a gold card that's a little bit more expensive to cast than busted in Tomb. So this card is it's powerful, it's flexible, it's not immediately obvious where it would find a home, but it's something I would really want to mess with if I was trying to go for a powerful but not fully broken reanimator shell, which is a difficult line to tread, but I do think Dina's guidance is a cool tool for that kind of space. And that's gonna bring us to Excava the Risen Past. This one also coming from the commander decks. This is a red, white, gold card, two red, white for a 3-3 legendary spirit horse with flying and haste. Whenever Excava attacks, return up to one target artifact, creature, or non-aura enchantment card with mana value three or less from your graveyard to the battlefield with a finality counter on it. That card becomes a 1-1 spirit creature with flying in addition to its other types, and of course the finality counter means if a creature with a finality counter on it would die, you exile it instead, so you can't keep recurring the same thing with Excava. That said, it's a really cool form of recursion, and also just 4 mana for 3-3 flying haste. Just good stats here. This plays into that lore hold theme of cards leaving your graveyard, but more than that, Excava the Risen Past is just a really strong rate card. You could put this in any kind of red-white deck. Oftentimes, red-white is gonna have a lot of roots and creatures, but if you're playing with artifacts, if you're playing with enchantments, there's a number of different cards that you would happily bring back from your graveyard with this attack trigger here. And 3-3 flying ace for four, that just hits hard. That's enough stats that I think you could justify Excava going all the way up to vintage cube. This is enough value that I wouldn't want it at a lower power level cube. But if you have an appetite for some recursion, and I would say at least like uh you're probably looking at a modern or a legacy power level cube for this kind of thing. This is, of course, you know, not a card that was printed into standard. This is a lot of rate here, but it's a really cool form of recursion, and because it plays with uh enchantments and artifacts and also creatures, and also because those finality counters means you can't keep looping the same thing. I think the play patterns here are interesting. There's some cool stuff to explore with Excob of the Risen Past. Definitely is one of those red-white cards that plays in a graveyard space, so something to think about there, but just a really nice value card with uh some stats that move, a good beatdown card. Excob of the Risen Past, likely to play in a lot of different cube environments. Next up is Fix What's Broken. Fix What's Broken is a four-mana sorcery for two white black as an additional cost to cast, fix what's broken, pay X life, return each artifact and creature card with mana value X from your graveyard to the battlefield. So that variable X is fully set by the amount of life you pay, fix what's broken, always costs four mana. So it has the same mana value as Zombify. If you use it just to bring one thing back, then that extra life cost being a two-color card, that is downside. But if you're looking at a space where it's reasonable to bring back a bunch of different creatures, you'd be a lot of stuff at the same part of the mana curve. Specifically for a sacrifice deck, fix what's broken really makes sense. You can get back a lot of two mana creatures, maybe some of them are blood artery effects, maybe some of them make tokens, you can get a sacrifice outlet on two mana, you can put a lot of stuff with different effects for that kind of archetype at the same spot of the mana curve, fix what's broken. It's very likely that if you explore that kind of space, there'll be different numbers that are appealing in different games. And also sometimes you'll bring back multiple large things. Maybe you just have two five mana creatures in your graveyard. Might be worth five life to bring them both back. This is a cool card that definitely plays in the sacrifice space. And then sometimes if you put this card in your cube, like you're just gonna end up with a six mana creatures in your graveyard, and you'll be able to play kind of like a modest reanimate slash zombify kind of card. I think this card does a lot of different things. You can build around it in different ways, which makes it really cool to explore. I'm not currently planning on putting in Spooky Cube. I think it it does play very similar to Rally of the Ancestors, and that's a specific card that I want to highlight for aesthetic reasons, for that card's history and constructed magic. But Fix What's Broken would definitely play in that environment, and I'm not saying it's a non-starter. I could very much see slotting Fix What's Broken into Spooky Cube, and I do think it's a very cool cube card, especially if you are exploring sacrifice synergies. And that brings us to Lorehold the Historian. So all five of the Strixhaven schools of magic, they have an elder dragon representing them, and all five elder dragons make an appearance here in Secrets of Strixhaven, and I'm gonna talk about all five of them. The first one is Lorehold the Historian, three red white for a 5-5 legendary elder dragon with flying and haste. Each instant and sorcery card in your hand has miracle 2, and at the beginning of each opponent's upkeep, you may discard a card if you do draw a card. So giving every instant and sorcery in your hand miracle means that as you draw, you want to do a miracle check. Make sure your cards don't touch your hand so you can represent that it is the card you drew for turn. All of your instants and sorceries have miracle 2. This isn't going to matter for your really cheap stuff, you know, your your Sword Supplash ears, your lightning bolts. That's irrelevant. But it is important that if you do top deck a sorcery, if you use this discard ability on your opponent's turn, you can cast a sorcery at instant speed by paying its miracle cost. That's an aspect of why Terminus was such a powerful card in Legacy for so long. You could use some means like Sensei's Divining Top to draw it on your opponent's turn. You are able to miracle cards whenever you draw them, so long as it's the first card you drew every turn. So that second clause to discard a card on your opponent's upkeep and then draw a card, that's gonna give you an option to maybe miracle something. Now, sweeper effects like Terminus are not gonna be at their best with Lorehold. You want to keep this 5 mana, 5-5, flying haste dragon in play. Kind of the least cool thing about Lorehold is that it'll very quickly close just with these stats. This is a stat box that makes it more of a commander card. But at reasonably high power levels, it's a pretty cool effect to have in play, especially if you have some stuff like time warp, some really cool, splashy dramatic effects that are discounted when you miracle when you only pay them for two. And if you have a lot going on at this kind of power level, lore hold is a big, swingy, fun effect. I like lore hold the historian, doesn't fit any of my cubes. I think it's a little bit weak for vintage cube, but at legacy cubes or something at a highish power level like that, seems like a really cool and fun card to play with. I am just going alphabetically here, so I'm gonna get to the other dragons, but first the next card is Mind Into Matter. This is a green, blue, gold card for X, green, blue as a sorcery, draw X cards, then you may put a permanent card with mana value X or less from your hand onto the battlefield tapped. So Brain Geyser card that was very powerful in old magic. If you play something like an old school cube that's like all cards from 93 to 94, blue, blue, draw X cards, busted. You can bear your opponents in card advantage. When it comes to 2026 magic, the modern era of magic, so much of the game is on the battlefield. Just playing a card that draws extra cards, especially at sorcery speed, can put you very far behind. That's where this next clause on Mind into Matter comes into play. The ability to put a permanent card with mana value extra or less from your hand right onto the battlefield means you get to commit to the battlefield. Notably, it puts the card on the battlefield tapped. Some of that is that you can just put a land out. They want you to put lands tapped. You know, often if you are ramping in this way, you'll see that kind of clause. If you put a creature on the battlefield, you know, making it so that the creature enters tapped, you won't be able to block with it right away. But this does open up kind of cool space if you're drawing into planeswalkers. It doesn't matter at all if you put a planeswalker on the battlefield tapped. You can still use its abilities and get going with that right away. So Mind into Matter, it helps you a little bit in terms of making a draw X card something that is viable and potentially competitive in modern magic. It doesn't make it so you really you can't put like a haste thing into play and attack right away. You can't block with the creature you put into with Mind into Matter. There is some cost to spending all your mana on this, but specifically, if you're playing a mid-range deck, if you have planeswalkers and that's what your environment's about, mind into matter can play really powerful that way. This is the kind of card that I'm really hesitant to put into the original recipe tubert. I think it's a little too easy to bury your opponent in cards with this kind of effect, especially with all the planeswalkers in that environment. A lot of creatures with enter the battlefield abilities that can do something that turn that you mind into matter. It's a little strong for that environment. It's a bit weak for something like a vintage cube, but if you're into high power, you like drawing extra cards, mind into batter could fit into a high powered cube that makes brain geyser and that kind of effect a little bit more appealing in modern magic. Alright, back on the Elder Dragon train. Next up is Prismari the Inspiration, 5 Blue Red for a 7-7, legendary Elder Dragon with Flying and Ward pay five life, instant and sorcery spells you cast have storm. So sort of a thousand-year storm that you can reanimate. I don't know how much more I could possibly say about this card. It's like this giant dragon. If you can get onto the table, it's very easy to close the game with lightning bolts, lightning bolts being lightning bolt with storm, of course. Really easy to turn just a small sample of spells into lethal somehow, or enough advantage from drawing cards or maybe taking extra turns to easily close the game. This is the kind of card where you could put it as kind of an interchangeable reanimate target. I think it's always been cool. I've always enjoyed the reanimate storm hybrid decks in powered cubes and very high level, I mean very high power level cubes. So I really enjoy reanimating Prismari the Inspiration, the same kind of decks that I would enjoy reanimating Gristlebrand and then trying to cast a bunch of dark rituals and draw spells and storm cards and trying to win the game with the Tin Fins kind of reanimator deck that went for combo finishes, not just reanimating a creature and attacking and blocking. So Prismaria the Inspiration, very much slotted explicitly for very high power level cubes. I guess similar to the Blue Emeritus that casts Ancestral Recall, it's too strong to end up in low powerful environments, and maybe too low impact to really make a mark in high-powered environments, but it's so cool, and I really like the idea of reanimating Prismario the Inspiration, so I would be happy to see this in like a vintage cube or even the right texture of Legacy Cube. If you have some storm stuff going on, or just a lot of spells, if you have some rituals, and really even just give me a Gataxian probe and a lightning bolt. I'm probably pretty excited to try to cook something up with Prismario the Inspiration. Very cool card. And this brings us to the other four ability planeswalker from Secrets of Strixhaven. Professor Delian Fell, a Golgari, or rather Witherbloom Planeswalker, 2 Black Green for a legendary planeswalker Delian. Starts on five loyalty, first ability, plus two, you gain three life. Then it has a zero, you draw a card and lose one life. Minus three, destroy a target creature, and minus six, you get an emblem with whenever you gain life, target opponent loses that much life. So immediately you have a four-mana planeswalker. If you use the plus two, not much impact on the battlefield outside if you have a seven loyalty planeswalker, which is a huge number. You could alternatively start on five, use that zero, draw a card, lose a life. So you're just kind of replacing itself immediately. And then the minus three destroyed other creature that helps protect itself. You can influence the battlefield immediately with Professor Deli and Fell. Really good return immediately for a four-mana planeswalker there. The weakest, of course, is just gaining the life, but that is how you get up to that emblem that says whenever you gain life, your opponent loses that much life, which self-contained with the first ability, plus two gain three life, will make your opponent lose life. So you have a win condition. Granted, it's going to take some time to execute that, but it is all baked into Professor Deli and Fell. Really cool value card, protects itself, plays to the battlefield. You can draw extra cards, but you don't get to gain loyalty when you're doing that. So you have to think about sometimes you are going to need to activate that plus two ability, even though gaining speed life is not very strong. So I think that that texture is really cool. And despite having four abilities, this is generally kind of modest. Of course, you know, most planeswalkers are going to be really powerful in environments that are not built around having some planeswalkers in the spread, but once an environment is amenable to some amount of planeswalkers, this looks like a block of text that is going to fit well into that kind of environment. I intend to try this one out in the original recipe tubert, and I expect to like it there. You have just that texture of some value, kind of a mini-game you can play with the plus two and the minus six, and it can protect itself and immediately destroy a creature. So a lot going on here to liken a four mana planeswalker when it comes to Professor Deli and Fell. Pretty cool cube card for a modest to high-ish power level cube. Which brings us to our next Elder Dragon, Quandrix, the Proof, 4 Green Blue, for a 6-6 legendary Elder Dragon with flying, trample, and cascade. That also says instance and sorcery spells you cast from your hand have cascade. So that from your hand claws means that you can't just cascade and have this giant chain off of cards that don't normally cascade off of Quandrix. But generally, you're going to be cascading into an extra spell every turn. 6 mana, 6-6, flying trample body, really good return on what you pay for Quandrix. Replaces itself by getting to cast a free spell on that cascade the turn you cast it, so no real risk in putting this card into your deck. Of course, the game generally won't last very long if you're able to control Quandrix for a short number of turns, just because 6 mana 6-6 flying trample tends to close the game pretty quickly. So this is one that has a lot of generic power. I I don't hate the idea of trying this in the original recipe tuberc, but I do expect that it would just give too much value too quickly and would really eclipse some of the other six mana options in that cube. So I'm unlikely to actually do that, but Quandrex the Proof is a very cool card. Which brings us to kind of a weirdo, something of a build-around in resonating loot, a four mana artifact for two blue red, says lands you control have tap and two mana of any one color. Spend this mana only to cast instant and sorcery spells. And it also says tap, draw a card, activate only if you have seven or more cards in hand. So this is something that actually operates in space really similar to the card Wilderness Reclamation, which is an enchantment that untaps all of your lands uh at the end step. So you get a lot of mana to cast instance. Resonating loot's really forward about giving you a lot of mana to cast instance. It doubles up all your lands for mana for instance and sorceries. So those two would play with a lot of the same cards. The resonating loot can play with more sorceries. You'll be able to cast bigger sorceries where Wilderness Reclamation doesn't necessarily help you do that. It's space that I don't really enjoy in Cube. Wilderness Reclamation is actually one of my least favorite standard decks of all time, really monopolizes the game actions, really makes it so what your opponent is trying to do doesn't matter. Once the deck gets its engine going, the game's kind of over, but it also kind of goes on for a long time after that. But big, flashy, big mana effects, they can be really fun, at least for the player executing on them. This is the kind of card that I would look for for a cube like Live the Dream Cube to do something big and flashy. Resonating loot is a big effect, but it is something that I would expect does not necessarily lead to the most dynamic games. Certainly very cool to have in a commander environment, like a commander cube kind of setup. Resonating loot, it's gonna be for some people more than it is for me. I have no intentions of really ever cubing with this card, but I can see a lot of players really enjoying casting resonating loot. And now it's dragon time. Once again, we're on to Silver Quill the Disputant, two white black for a 4-4 legendary elder dragon with flying and vigilance that says each instant and sorcery spell you cast has casualty one, which is that Streets of New Capenna ability. As you cast those instants and sorceries, you may sacrifice a creature with power one or greater. When you do copy the spell, you may choose new targets for the copy. So this is something that allows you to get some mileage and like a sacrifice shell, anywhere where you're gonna have some amount of cheap creatures laying around, or you can even sacrifice larger creatures if you have a big enough spell that you want to copy or an important enough spell where getting a copy will be valuable for you. Silver Quill represents a ton of value, especially in conjunction with cards like Lingering Souls, if you're making a bunch of tokens. There's all kinds of wild stuff you can do with this. You could definitely open up some storm combo space, copying spells there with dark ritual and tutors and drawing extra cards. There's just all kinds of wild things you can do. Silver Quill the Disputant is the kind of card that I don't think texturally fits necessarily in something like a powered cube and a vintage cube, but I think you can tweak it a little bit if you have a lot of cheap creatures hanging around, if there are other reasonable reasons to cast lingering souls, then using Silver Quill to Disputants to copy your ancestral recalls, your time walks, it very much plays in that space. And I wouldn't mess with Silver Quill in much lower power levels than that. I know if I put Silver Quill into Spooky Cube, it would just immediately take over games. As soon as you copy one spell, you've probably won. And it's also a four mana, four-four flying vigilance. Those stats aren't messing around. This card is really strong. I think specific legacy or vintage cubes can kind of tailor some of the gameplay around this card. But if you try to play it at lower power levels, expect Silver Quill the Disputant to be more like Silver Quill the Dominant. Really a powerful card, really flashy effect, really cool, but I would make sure to try this only at pretty high power levels. Next up is Vibrant Outburst, an instant for one blue and one red. Vibrant Outburst deals three damage to any target. Tap up to one target creature. I am a fan of burn that can hit players in the face as well as hitting creatures in planeswalkers, so I like that. In general, the rate of dealing three damage for two mana, the incinerates, the lightning strikes of the world, I am generally unhappy to see those rates in cube that are just not very strong cards, especially if you get out of a strictly old-bordered type of cube. You can just do a lot better than this. Even there, you have it next to Lightning Bolt. It's just supplementing stuff that already exists or is weaker versions of existing things. And Vibrant Outburst is a gold card, which makes it a tougher sell. That said, if you are in a prowess kind of space, if you're in an environment that's about a lot of damage races, vibrant outburst can be really useful for cutting down a planeswalker, you know, both dealing damage to a planeswalker directly and tapping a blocker so you can get in. It can be useful for fighting over the monarchy when you get into that space too. Tapping a thing is just, I think, often going to be more useful upside than the gain three life on lightning helix. Blue red is also more interested in burn spells than red white often is, just because red white is going to be playing more with white cards that are trying to grind value over longer games, play more attrition fights, where blue red will often be trying to steal games and taking advantage of nickel and dime burn spells, where Electrolyze is really happily in any blue-red deck, and sometimes it goes upstairs. Lightning Helix just kind of often finds itself not being able to kill something, whereas Blue Red is often more interested in actually going for that burn plan. So these lightning strike style cards are typically more welcome in a blue-red deck than a red-white deck. And there is something cool you can do with vibrant outburst. I was just thinking about the ability to tap up to one target creature. There is some space here to put vibrant outburst in a deck with like heroic or valiant things, and using this to trigger your own abilities. So for example, you go into combat, you attack with some heroic or valiant creature before blocks, or maybe even after blocks, you cast Vibrant Outburst, and you select to tap your creature that was already attacked, trigger heroic or valiant, get a plus one, plus one counter or whatever, maybe get an extra card off the top with an Ember Heart Challenger. Some interesting stuff you can do with this one. I'm likely to try this in the tempo tubert. I have been changing that environment a bit, moving away from all of the card advantage stuff. So I'm kind of interested in trying this over expressive iteration there. It is by no stretch of the imagination a stronger card, and that's actually kind of why I'm looking at it as something that can play, that isn't about card advantage and has interesting texture in combat. So Vibrant Outburst, definitely one that's going to find a home in some cubes. And that brings us to Vicious Rivalry, two black green for a sorcery as an additional cost to cast this spell, pay X life, destroy all artifacts and creatures with mana value X or less. So this is a four mana sweeper in green black, so it forces you to play two colors. Green is a little bit tough for a lot of these pernicious deed style cards, because a lot of your green cards, a lot of the appealing green cards are creatures, very often mana creatures. Birds of Paradise into Vicious Rivalry is not the most exciting thing to curve into, but you do get a massive sweeper here. This is all artifacts and creatures. Part of the idea is that maybe with some rampant growth, some other green acceleration, you can get a giant creature on the battlefield and then Vicious Rivalry take care of your opponent's smaller stuff. Vicious Rivalry could play in like a vintage cube. You know, it cleans up all the artifact mana. You could really do some damage to your opponent. It's just difficult to find a way to actually position yourself with this kind of card. I'm kind of a critic of cards even like balance in powered cubes, where there's specific setups where balance can play, but really everywhere where you can take advantage of balance, you could also be taking advantage of something proactive that actually ends the game. If you have a lot of artifact mana and your opponent doesn't, like there's just so many interchangeable parts that can win the game for you, Vicious Rivalry is trying to do the opposite thing. It's trying to have your opponent cast all the artifact mana and then use Vicious Rivalry to clean up. It's definitely a powerful card. It can be backbreaking if you're doing artifacts matter, and there's like the cost of life, which technically can balance it, but there's a long history and magic of life as a cost not being that meaningful of a cost in games. So this is one that I'm just generally not very excited about for cube, but it is clearly powerful. You can use this as a sweeper if that's something you're into in your environment for creatures and or artifacts. I could see vicious rivalry being part of the texture of some people's powered cubes. It's not one that I especially like for cube, though. A powerful card as it may be. And we have one final elder dragon in Witherbloom the Balancer. Six black green for a 5-5 legendary elder dragon. That's a lot of mana, but fear not because Witherbloom has affinity for creatures. It costs one less for each creature you control, has flying and death touch, and gives your instant and sorcery spells you cast affinity for creatures. So largely, if you're playing in the space of like Lanowar Elves, cheap mana creatures, you'll be able to get Witherbloom on the table very quickly, and you'll start being able to cast instants and sorcery spells at a discount. Green and black are not colors that are really known for being build-arounds for instance and sorceries, but going into a third color, be it blue or red, there's a lot of instance and sorceries that you can get a discount on when you go into Jund or into Soultai here. Witherbloom the Balancer is less obviously into the combo space than the other elder dragons in the cycle here. I think this one actually plays more modestly and reasonably, where you have giant 5-5 flying death touch that has that affinity discount and lets you cast some stuff for cheaper. This is something I could see fitting into a more modest cube if you have some stuff that uh you want to build around with this. A card like Restock, I think would be really cool with Witherbloom the Balancer. Stuff like Plow Under could be filthy with it. I would say that this is still gonna be for moderately high power level cubes. You are getting a lot of stats here. Controlling creatures is pretty easy to do, so it's not difficult to imagine casting Witherbloom for not very much mana. Also, just any instant and sorcery, which is going to be a lot of cards, become quite powerful if you are then giving them a discount, even though green and black might not be the colors that center your strongest in instants and sorceries. If you have mana that can support three color decks or there's splashable stuff, like getting access to a fireball effect that's discounted with affinity can be a ton of damage. And granted, you're going to be in the late game. You have this eight mana card that, you know, even though it has a discount, it takes some setup. We're going to be in the mid or the late game when Witherbloom comes down. Witherbloom the balancer is certainly a high impact card. I don't see it necessarily making a meaningful impact on powered cubes going all the way to the highest power level. There's some stuff you could definitely do if you scale it back a little bit to a legacy cube. I do suspect that Witherbloom would be totally bonkers if you tried to slot it into a lower power level cube. So somewhere in the middle high side of the power band is likely where Witherbloom the Balancer could find a home in cube. And then we're on to lands. The commander decks is actually where all of the lands we're about to discuss come from. We have finally made it to the completion of the two-color cycling land cycle and the battle land cycle. So you have Coastal Peak, the Blue Red, Island Mountain enters tapped, cycles for two, umbral expanse, the black-white, the plain swamp that enters tapped and cycles for two. You have eclipsed step, the black-white, the planes swamp that enters tapped unless you control two or more basic lands, and squirched geyser, the island mountain that enters tapped unless you control two or more basic lands. So now you have all 10 entries into these cycles. Personally, for me, the two color cycle lands I think are very appealing. I think they have better incentives than triombs. They are a cycle of lands that I am going to have in at least two different cubes. I'm likely going to be getting more copies of these cards and trying them out in more environments. Now that they're RL 10, I really like the way that the two colors cycling type duels play. The battle lands, the enter tapped, unless you control two or more basics. I'm less into those ones, but the R-typed duels, definitely something you can play with. Now that there are all 10, I'm going to be keeping my eyes open for maybe a kind of environment where I would want to play with that kind of thing. These were part of a standard format where four-color decks just kind of ran over the format. Uh, just guy black, just four-color decks were a big part of that format because of fetch lands and typed duels. So they are strong enough to make four color mana work, certainly in conjunction with fetch lands. These are not weak lands, they just play a little bit weird. The thing that they care about with the two basic lands means they're a little bit more inclined to see play in two maybe three-color decks, certainly in the absence of fetch lands. So they're kind of modest, they are typed, I like them. I just don't have plans for them currently, whereas the two-color cycling lands I am actively excited about. I have those in 30 to 50 Feral Hogs. I have them in uh cube I haven't really put anything out about. I have a all one mana value cube that I've been working on that the two-color tap cycling lands are definitely one of the land cycles I like in that environment. So completion of two-color tap cycling duels, awesome. Completion of battle land cycle, love to have a full cycle. And then there's also a new cycle introduced in these commander decks. So all five enemy color pairs now have these typed duels that say this land enters tapped unless your opponent controls eight or more lands. So you have turbulent fen for black green, turbulent more for black-white, turbulent springs for blue-red, turbulent step for red-white, turbulent wilderness for green-blue. So I guess the turbulent lands. These are typed duels. That restriction, your opponent needing eight lands, these are very commander-coded, but it's not a non-starter that somebody would want these for a cube, especially if you were looking for singleton ways to have more typed duels. I talked about the card Valicut the Molten Pinnacle, which cares about controlling a lot of mountains earlier in the podcast. So another named typed duel that could also play with like Field of the Dead. If you are playing a singleton environment, certainly to make Valicut work, just the awareness of more tapped type duels, that is not nothing, though I don't expect these ones to be a cubed anywhere near as much as these other cycles. These seem like largely commander cards, especially given the existence of tapped type duels at common, albeit those will never enter untapped. It is rare in a two-player game that you'll have these lands enter untapped because your opponent controls eight or more lands. So I don't have a ton to say about these turbulent duels, but it is cool that they exist. And that is going to be a wrap on my Secrets of Strixhaven Early Impressions Cube Review. The set looks awesome, prepared to a really strong new mechanic that is going to make its mark on the cube world. I'm really excited for these additional completed cycles of duel lands. And yeah, there's just a lot of cards that I need here. The first Strixhaven set was awesome. I'm really happy with the return to Strixhaven, more stuff in the instance and sorceries matter space as a big prowess guy. I love all of that. And this set just looks really cool to me. So thank you for listening, everybody, for doing whatever you do to support the podcast, liking, reviewing, commenting, sharing, subscribing, all that jazz. And I'll be back next week talking more cube. Later, gamers.