The Hobbit Cube Review: New Mechanics and Themes

Ryan Overturf begins his first impressions Cube review of The Hobbit, going over the set's mechanics and themes! 

Transcript

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What's up gamers? Welcome back to 180MTG. My name is Ryan Overturf, and this week begins my first impressions cube review of the Hobbit. This week talking about mechanics and themes in the set, and then next week I'll be talking about individual cards for their merits in Cube. The Hobbit doesn't have a ton of additional cards beyond the main set, but there are scene boxes with some mechanically unique cards, and then there's something, there's a different setsible cards that are being called part of the Hobbit Commander. There's not commander decks, there's not a separate booster release. You're going to get some mechanically different cards in the collector boosters, they'll show up some amount of the time. And then those cards that you can only get in collector boosters for now. There's not that many of them, and I believe that they're all going to be featured in a later product release called the Battle of Five Armies, which I think is like a box set where you're going to get all of them. I don't know for sure, but there's not a ton of those cards, so absolutely not worth talking about as a fully separate thing and doing a separate episode. I'm going to lump those cards in today, and when they come up, I'll make a point to uh say when I'm talking about cards that are not just in the main booster release. Much of what's happening in the Hobbit is returning mechanics. We're seeing a lot of stuff that we saw in the Lord of the Rings set when that came out a couple years back, and some stuff from other sets as well. There's a few new mechanics, and then there also are a number of minor themes. I think the world building in this set is pretty cool as well. So we're talking about kind of a lot of cards, uh, mostly stuff at a lower power level today, but some of the stuff with the mechanics and themes of the sets, they can be stronger, so this is not necessarily a power-focused discussion, but I'm certainly going to be starting with some cards at a lower power level that are very charming. And they are in fact the cards that appear first in the file by virtue of being colorless creatures. This is something that I think is kind of delightful about the Hobbit, and something I wasn't sure about how they were going to execute, with the Hobbit being a much shorter story with kind of fewer story beats as well than the Lord of the Rings, where the Lord of the Rings and other universes beyond releases often involve using the same character on multiple different legendary permanents. And the Hobbit does give us some of those characters with multiple cards, but what I really enjoy about this set is just how many animals are rolling around, just showing how many cool animals are in this world and just making up a lot of the limited environment with these animals. So we start with just three colorless creatures. They're not artifacts, they're certainly not Eldrazi. These are just common animals. The first being a long-bodied gray dog, three mana 2-2 dog with flash and reach, and when it enters, you create a tapped treasure token. Just a lot of modest value in the space of mana fixing and getting that treasure token on a colorless creature. Flash and reach means this card can matter in combat at lower power level and rarity restricted cubes. Definitely in a popper cube, this being a common, a flash body that blocks a small flyer is pretty significant in a lot of popper cubes that I have played. And making a treasure token is pretty meaningful. There's only so much mana fixing in the way of mana fixing land cycles at low rarities. So long body dog seems like an awesome card to slot into a lower powered cube. And I do think that it's the most appealing of the three options, but the other two are worth talking about. Old Thrush is another common two-mana one-two bird with flying. When it enters, you gain two life, and you may search your library for a basic land card, reveal it, shuffle and put that card on top. So this is just one of those cards that can let you fix your mana if you're willing to give up your next draw step because you don't get the card, you're not making card advantage. There's a lot of stuff in this space for a similar or the same mana value that will put a land into your hand, or go find a land and put it on the battlefield. But this is a colorless option. You can play it in any deck, and so it's just something that's really nice. Quality of life finesses the game, lets you fix your mana if you're a little bit desperate for it. And a one-two flyer, I was just saying with the dog how like small flyers are something that can matter a lot in a popper cube. So a one-two for two that gains two life, that's a real text box. So ultrash could definitely show up in some of these rarity restricted, lower power level cube environments as well. And finally, there's Troop of Ponies, a two-mana, two-one horse with two tap, sacrifice this creature, search your library for up to two basic land cards, reveal them, put one onto the battlefield tapped, and the other into your hand, then shuffle. Troop of Ponies is an uncommon, so it's gonna have its work more cut out for to try to make space into a cube where it's a little bit easier at lower power levels and commons only for the other two to show up. Troop of Ponies, though, does actually generate you some card advantage. It finds two lands, gives you access to both, one on the battlefield, one into your hand. Very similar to the card Burnished Heart, a little bit cheaper, a little bit less in the mana ramp space because one of the lands does go into your hand, but getting a land on the battlefield, making sure you have another land drop, that's a pretty good return for a two-mana creature. This is definitely for more modest power levels, really good, just kind of generic card to have as fixing in a retail limited environment. And Troop of Ponies, very charming card that I would be happy to see in a lower-powered cube. And then one of the sub themes going on in the Hobbit is there's a little bit of typal support for many of the relevant creature types in the world of Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit. You're not getting like a ton, like a fully fleshed out deck for most of these creature types, but you are getting just a kind of a one-off card for many of them that does kind of open up some interesting space. The first one is definitely the most narrow, but it does some cool stuff. It's Hobbit Hole. It's a land that you can tap and sacrifice to search your library for a basic land card, put that on the battlefield, tap, then shuffle, or as halfling cycling for four. So for four mana, you can discard Hobbit Hole from your hand, search your library for a halfling card, reveal it, put it into your hand, then shuffle. There's not a ton of halfling creatures to tutor for, and there's even fewer that are worth paying four mana for the trouble, but that's kind of getting away from the significance of this card and the potential cube relevance, which is just that Evolving Wilds or the original Terramorphic Expanse, these lands you can just tap and sacrifice to go find a basic land type of your choice, are just solid fixing for a lot of cubes. Absolutely, when you get into lower power level and definitely rarity restricted environments, this is a common, it can go into popper cubes. So it's just like a kind of a fine card as a baseline for a lot of environments. And then even if you aren't necessarily searching for halflings, anything that cares about any creature type can then work with changelings. So Hobbit Hole could go find nameless inversion. Like there's some relevant changelings that you can drum up with this, so that's gonna matter more or less in some environments, but just an Evolving Wilds card with some additional trinket text is always worth paying attention to in the world of Cube. And then the creature type that has the most support in the set is going to be elves. There's a decent clip of elves matters cards, not a ton, but more to build a deck in a more unique and novel space and elves. Just like the Lord of the Rings, elves are going to be in more of a blue-green space than green-black, where we often see certainly Lorwin is a spot where green and black is solidified as the elf color pair, but more in blue-green, certainly the green base, as ever, with elves in magic. But I'll talk about a few of the elf cards here. Uh the first is Cantankerous Keepers. Cantankerous Keepers costs five and a green for a four-three elf soldier with affinity for elves, so it costs one less to cast for each elf you control. And when Cantankerous Keepers enters, you mill four cards and put all elf cards from among them into your hand. So clearly, this is a card is going to care about controlling a lot of elves. And elf decks, you know, when you are playing a type of deck, you're going to have a lot of elf creatures. You'll get the discount here. And then also many elves, like the most iconic elves, Lanoir Elves, stuff in that space, do just tap for mana. So an elf deck should be able to cast Cantankerous Keepers for pretty cheap. And then it's not uncommon for an Elf Matters deck to have stuff in the space of Winding Way or uh Lead the Stampede, cards that are trying to look at your top cards of your deck to try to get some more creatures into your hand. So Cantankerous Keepers being both a creature and specifically an elf that gives you kind of this volume to potentially draw more elf cards is very useful in an elf deck trying to get a critical mass of elves, and also a 4-3 that you could potentially cast for one. Pretty significant if you're trying to get on any kind of a beatdown plan. So it's kind of questionable value. You mill four cards, a little bit random in what you're able to add to your hand, but as compared to cards like uh gather the pack, lead the stampede, anything of that nature, Cantankerous Keepers is at least itself always going to be a creature. Another nice elf card is Thrandwill's Company, two green blue for three, four elf soldier. It says as long as you control another elf, you may play an additional land on each of your turns and has landfall. Whenever a land you control enters, put two plus one plus one counters on target creature you control, it gains vigilance until end of turn. Notably, this card letting you play in another land if you have an elf is not actually that appealing of a synergy because Strandwill's company doesn't have any ability to play extra lands from any other zone. Can't play lands out of your graveyard or the top of your library, anything like that. So a four-drop that lets you play extra lands, unless you're doing something like trying to play a little bit longer games and sandbagging a bounce land, you're not actually getting a ton with the ability to play extra lands outside of some access to play lands from another zone or drawing extra cards on a different card or otherwise giving you access to additional land drops. So with Randy Wheels Company, that first line of text and that elf synergy is kind of the least remarkable thing about the card. But that landfall ability giving you two plus one plus one counters when you play a land, that's a pretty good output on landfall. Your creatures can get out of hand really quickly, and any ability to make extra land drops, like this is going to play well with bounce lands and kind of like a slower, medium-powered cube, and taking advantage of that because you're not getting extra material, you're just getting larger creatures you already control with the landfall on Thranduel's Company. So a pretty cool card, does play in kind of the modest power level space that I expect a lot of typal cubes to play at. So I do like this design, even though it is kind of funny that the elf synergy is pretty much the least remarkable thing about Thranduel's Company. And then one more Elves Matter card, certainly the most significant. This is Elven Passage. This is a rare land. You can tap it, pay one life, sacrifice it, and search your library for a basic land card, put it on the battlefield tapped, then shuffle, and then you may behold an elf, so reveal an elf from on the battlefield or in your hand, and if you do, you untap the land that you found. So this is kind of a cross between Evolving Wilds and Prismatic Vista. You always have to pay the life, but you do need to have an elf for the land enter untapped. So if you don't have an elf, this is just an Evolving Wilds that costs you a life. So a little bit worse, but like I was saying, Evolving Wilds does just play in a lot of cubes, and then this gives you more strength if you are playing elves. It's kind of like a fetch land that can trigger landfall, it can be meaningful for those synergies. That is more appealing for a green deck where the majority of elves are going to be, and then it is also going to play well with changelings and you know other stuff that can randomly insert elves into other spaces. So elven passage is pretty cool, and a lot of that is that green tends to be the color that's most interested not only in elves, but also in landfall. So this is a card that is good at fetch land, that's going to make landfall more powerful, more consistent, more appealing, and that does speak to what is often happening in green. So really nice design for that. And the card does just play. If you're a little bit hard up for mana fixing, you'll play in Evolving Wilds that costs a life in a deck that just needs a little bit more consistent mana, even if you have no elves to behold to speak of. So Elven Passage, really cool design. It has incentives that push it towards a specific deck, and then it does just play otherwise. So it's not parasitic, even though it can be specific for the thing that it's most trying to do. I do think it's possible that the text about elves will cause some players that would be able to make use of this card in a deck that has rougher mana more likely to pass it than they would be to just draft an Evolving Wilds, for example. But all the same, I do like the design on Elven Passage. It's going to fit best in a cube that is doing elves and landfall, having both of those things matter, but it can just play anywhere, which is why I think that is such an appealing potential cube card. Another classic creature type in Goblins sees some representation in the Hobbit. This one in its most classic color pair, black and red. Big card to talk about here is Bulg's Company, a rare for black red, a 2-2 goblin soldier, has haste as long as you control another goblin and you can tap Bog's Company, sacrifice another goblin, and add black red. So a little bit of mana acceleration here potentially. It can just be a 2-2 haste if you're curving out and you're beat down goblin deck. And that mana ramp that matters for sure when it comes to goblins, especially if you're playing with some really expensive top end. Even cards like Siege Gang Commander, Bolus Company can be very meaningful in ramping you into that. Or if you're going all the way up to Muxis Goblin Grande, really nice mana acceleration towards that kind of thing. Also, just kind of anywhere you have a mana sync, maybe some way to draw extra cards, being able to sacrifice a goblin token to make two mana is a big deal. And goblin tokens at the low part of the mana curve tends to be the hallmark of many goblin decks. Stuff like Horling Outburst, a classic Mog War Marshal, a lot of cards that play really well with Bull's company. Just a card is going to slot really well into almost any goblin deck and a cube that involves actually having rares. Kind of the biggest restriction there is that rarity, where goblins, I think that I see them more often in peasant cubes, cubes that only have commons and uncommons. But if you are going all the way up to rares, and definitely if you're going to higher power levels, if you're going to play with Muxus, or if you're a sicko that likes to cube with Skull Clamp, if you have Skull Clamp and a cube with goblins, Bulg's Company is just going to be a staple for an environment like that. And then it can just play with a lot more modest stuff as well. A sacrifice outlet that makes mana and is just like, you know, kind of an on-curve body, like a fine thing, a two-mana 2-2 that sometimes has haste. Pretty reasonable card. So Bulg's Company is very specific, but it does play very well with a lot of things that it claims to play well with. Really nice for many different textures of goblin decks. And while we're on the topic of goblins, one of the returning mechanics in the Hobbit is going to be amass. You're going to be amassing goblins, not zombies like War of the Spark, amassing orcs, I think is what we had in Lords of the Rings, but we're amassing goblins in the Hobbit. And definitely the marquee card for that mechanic in the Hobbit is going to be Bothersome Noisemaker. One in a red for a 2-2 goblin bard that says whenever you cast a non-creature spell, amass goblins one. So what you do when you amass, if you don't have an army, you make a zero zero army. It's going to have the corresponding creature type as well. So if you're amassing goblins, you make a zero zero goblin army, and then you put a plus one plus one counter equal to that amass number. So with Bothersome Noisemaker, you're amassing goblins one, you make a zero zero army, put a plus one plus one counter on it, it's a goblin. And that is relevant when it comes to talking about type of synergies and changelings, because if you have changeling, it means you have an army. So you don't make a token, you just grow your changeling. That's important to know if you want to mess around with the mass in your cube. And then the other thing about a mass, when you look at bothersome noisemaker, there's an immediate way, two immediate ways, I guess, maybe three, kind of depending on what's going on in your cube. This card can compare favorably to young Pyromancer, which just makes a 1-1 elemental when you cast an Instant or Sorcery. Bothersome Noisemaker is a 2-2 to Young Pyromancer is 2-1. It triggers off of non-creature spells, so it plays more in that prowess space when you get into Mishra's baubles, that sorts of things, that's going to trigger Bothersome Noisemaker where it would not trigger Young Pyromancer, and it's a goblin. That's a creature type that can definitely matter. I mean, I'm talking about typal here, right? But then where bothersome noisemaker can be weaker than young pyromancer, the thing about amassing is you can never get two tokens. If you have an army, you are just putting plus one, plus one counters on your army. And the strength of young pyromancer often is that you can go wide. You make chump blockers, you can build a large army. Uh, I guess maybe I shouldn't be saying army, you build a large battlefield, you get a bunch of creature tokens, and you can attack back is a real threat there. Like you get the combination of blocking and attacking, so you can kind of soak up a lot of damage with those blockers and then threaten a lethal or a very high damage output crackback with young Pyromancer. Where with something that consistently amasses armies, you can make one very large token, but that can all be knocked down immediately by one Tile Me removal spell from your opponent, so it can be less threatening there. You can definitely take advantage of Sacrifice Outlets here, get a lot of value with Bothersome Noisemaker, but it is not just an upgrade over your pyromancer. And I think that in a lot of contexts and games, it actually will play a lot weaker. That has been the historic impact of a mass in gameplay. The fact that you can only go wide on one creature does make this mechanic a little bit more vulnerable, but a two-mana 2-2 with a relevant creature type that triggers off of any non-creature, Bothersome Noisemaker is a real card. And I think that it is kind of good that it has sort of a quote unquote drawback where you're just making one big token instead of many tokens. This is a card that you could realistically go all the way up to powered cube. I think it's one of those ones that's kind of like replacement level for a 540 card powered cube, but it can scale nicely with an environment. Just a solid card. I think bothersome noisemaker is going to be one of the most cubed cards from the Hobbit. And another creature type seeing a little bit of support. It's not a type that I see a lot of type of support for, but it does kind of work as an offshoot of werewolves, and other werewolf cards also pump wolves, but here is just a wolf matters card in Chief Worgs Company. One black green for a 5-3 wolf with trample. It can't attack unless you control two or more other wolves. Can always block. And at the beginning of your upkeep, you create a 2-2 green wolf creature token. So over the course of a couple turns, Chief Worgs Company naturally makes the requisite wolves for it to be able to attack. Now, if you have other wolves in your environment, then it makes it so that you can just play the Chief Worgs Company and possibly attack on the fourth turn with it. And that could be pretty powerful. I mean it's a 5-3 trample for 3 mana, makes a wolf token every turn. The output here is pretty high. I like the way that this plays better if you're getting up to older other wolf stuff, but then I also like that this is just a fine card to cast, makes value turn over turn. And as a 5-3, it is vulnerable to a lot of removal spells. So you know, anything that is kind of an army in a can, value turn over turn, it's always meaningful that it dies to lightning bolt, chain lightning. So Chief Wars Company, it is strong. You know, definitely one of those rares that reads like it would be a game-winning bomb in many older limited environments, and then it's kind of like at the middle tier or replacement level with cards today. But Chief War's Company, it's a cool card. I like the way that it plays if you want to do Wolves Matter, or that it just plays as a card. It'll be nice in a sacrifice deck, making a token every turn, and that also opens up some space to play it alongside Young Wolf, maybe Magic's most iconic wolf these days. So some cool stuff happening with Chief Wargs Company. I don't expect it to make into any in my cubes, but it's a card that certainly plays in cube broadly. And now for the creature type that was most expected from the Hobbit, Dwarves. A really significant one here comes from one of the scene boxes. This is Philly and Killy Joyous. Two and a red for a 3-3 legendary dwarf bard with haste. Tap, add red red, spend this mana only to cast dwarf equipment and saga spells. So a 3 mana 3-3 haste, that's just a body that can show up. It's reasonably powerful if you're just an aggressive deck trying to get your opponent dead. 3 mana 3-3 haste does still play. There's a lot of different versions for the highest power levels that'll have additional tactic abilities that are more appealing than 3 mana 3-3 haste. But 3 mana 3-3 haste is certainly something that can get the job done. And if you're doing anything with dwarves, this is a mana accelerant for dwarves. It's of course a dwarf itself, so it plays with the other dwarf cards. And then that mana ramp for equipment and sagas, that's going to be very significant. This allows you to curve, which is a huge mana burst, which notably can't be used to pay equip costs, but casting equip spells and then immediately equipping them is pretty easy when you have a creature that just taps for two mana to help you do that. So Affiliate and Kelly Joyous, definitely a slam dunk. If you're going to be going into the dwarf space, dwarves tend to really play with equipment. Some more cards I'll be talking about are going to highlight more of that happening here. And this is one that's going to be very specific, but even if you're doing equipment matters at all, and if you're going heavy on sagas, there's more and more sagas all the time, having a creature that can generate mana for that, while also just being this baseline really efficient body. This is a card that is rated for today's magic. So Philly and Killy Joyous, while fairly specific, is one that I expect to see more cube mileage than a lot of other cards, largely by virtue of just having really good stats as a baseline. 4 or 2 and a red, so not very hungry on color mana requirements either. And then the other dwarf and equipment matters card, of course, the lead dwarf, Thorin, Mountain King. We were all expecting to see Thorin here, Thorin Mountain King, 3 and a red for a 3 4 legendary dwarf noble with trample. When Thorin enters, you attach any number of target equipment you control to target creature you control, and when one or more equipment becomes Attached to that creature this way, that creature deals damage equal to its power to up to one target creature. So something in the flame tongue kavu space, but then it's attached to just a card that gives you some snap-on ability to move equipment around. So you get some free equips here as a baseline, four mana, three, four trample. This is a real body. So if you playing in the equipment matter space, I guess this isn't a dwarf matter card at all, actually. This is just an equipment matter card. It happens to be a dwarf, but it's going to play really well with Philia and Killy. And then Thorin Mountain King. I think that for equipment deck, there's so much in the space of maybe drawing extra cards, stuff that moves equipment around. But this kind of card, I think that Thorin Mountain King breaks the mold in being sort of that flamethone kapu, so you get value and interaction. And then as being this ability to move equipment around for not paying their equipment costs, being attached to just a creature that is solid value itself. That's not the only thing it's doing. Thorin Mountain King does stand out as one of the stronger options that exists for equipment matter stacks in Cube. And then a typo card is going to play the best with dwarves, but is kind of interesting. We're going to be talking more about adventures a little bit later, but this card does have adventure and falls into typal and makes some dwarfs tokens. I think that this card does stand out for typal synergies. An unexpected party. Two white white enchantment. It has an adventure at the door. It's a sorcery, two white and X. Create X22 Red Dwarf creature tokens. And then an unexpected party itself, that four mana enchantment, as this enchantment enters, choose a creature type. Creatures you control of the chosen type get plus two plus two. So you can just play this as a double anthem in any kind of typal deck. So kind of anywhere where you can really efficiently make a lot of tokens. An unexpected party is going to be a really nice curve topper for just a massive pump effect there. And then the fact that you have an adventure that makes a bunch of tokens of the same creature type, there's clearly that A B there where if you have nothing going on, you can cast at the door, make a bunch of dwarves, and then unexpected party can make your dwarves into formidable threats. Uh literally formidable, they'll be four fours. But then an unexpected party choosing any creature type gives us a little bit more play to show up in kind of any typal environment if you're making a bunch of tokens of any creature type, taking advantage of changelings, of course. This does seem to be one of the stronger typal anthem effects that we've ever seen. Really useful in that regard. This is kind of, for my sensibilities, a little bit boring in the typo space. It's just kind of a game ender and it's also a big value card, so it's kind of like pretty high power level in that mid-rangy typal space. So I think it's very specific in the kind of cubes that want it, but an unexpected party will be a pretty strong uh high value overreplacement card for the environments that do want it. And then one more creature type getting a little bit of typal support is human. Bard's company, gonna be our marquee human card here. Two white blue, two, three, human citizen that says you may cast this spell as though it had flash if you control another human, and then other creatures you control get plus one plus one. So it's an anthem for all of your creatures, but it can be cast with flash if you have a human, so it naturally plays better with humans and is a human itself. And then it has a new ability, recruit. When this creature enters or attacks, you recruit. So how do you recruit? You draw a card, then discard a card, and if you discarded a non-LAN card, create a 1-1 white human soldier creature token. So recruit naturally is going to play there in a human type of environment because the tokens you make are humans, kind of similar to connive, where you loot, and then if the card you discarded has to have to be a non-LAN to get the value additionally, but instead of getting plus one plus one counters, recruit gives you one-one tokens, which can often be more useful, going wide, getting those chump blockers, kind of what's talking about with young Pyromancer, and just making a bunch of tokens, especially with Bard's Company being an anthem for those tokens. Really nice to be able to loot and get some value for a spell without casting that spell, especially if it's something that's inopportune for the moment. And if you are a little bit flooded, you can always just discard lands, get some card selection that way. So bards company seems like a really strong human matters card, and recruit is just a really useful mechanic. So let's talk about some more recruit cards appearing in the Hobbit. Truly, there are not a ton, and recruit is just a really strong mechanic. So it looks like they didn't want to push it super hard. The Queen of Dale is one of the standouts. The Queen of Dale is one and a white for a 2-1 legendary human noble that says whenever opponent casts their first non-creature spell each turn, you recruit. So again, you draw a card, then discard a card, and if you discard it a non-land card, you create a 1-1 human soldier creature token. Thing about the Queen of Dale is that you have no agency over your opponent casting non-creature spells, but if they're just casting creatures, then you'll be able to navigate the game pretty effectively. Creatures tend to be pretty interactable, even just off of attacking and blocking. There's no penalty for you casting non-creature spells. The worst case scenario with the Queen of Dale is your opponent uses some creature with an entrance effect and just answers it immediately. But generally, you will often be able to do some amount of recruiting with the Queen of Dale. It's not the most value. You don't have any control over how much you get to recruit, but it does trigger on both players' turns. So even if they want to end step use a removal spell, a non-creature removal spell, you'll get to recruit at least that one time with the Queen of Dale. So a reasonable value card, it's one that is not going to be a high priority for many cube decks because again, you really want to be building something where you have agency over your deck's output and can kind of scale on your own terms. But the Queen of Dale is a fine card that will usually give you something in a game of magic. Most opponents will be casting some non-creature spells. And then a recruit card that I really like is Great Gilded Boat. Two and a blue for a 4-4 vehicle. Whenever you attack, you recruit, and this is just where you attack, not with the boat itself. So any attack with any creature, the boat will let you recruit every turn as long as you're making an attack, and then it crews too. So this is that kind of a vehicle that over time starts to give you the material to crew itself. It doesn't just matter on an empty battlefield. You have to have some creatures here, but some additional card filtering there, the ability to churn out some tokens, it's pretty significant on a vehicle. I would say that Great Gilded Bow is not going to scale up to the highest power levels. At three mana, you're going to have a lot more options for card selections that aren't about even something as broad as attacking. It's still a specific thing that you have to care about. Great Gilded Bow is going to be more for modest cubes, but I think this is one that will likely make it into Spooky Cube. Being an artifact can matter for Delirium, being a discard outlet there matters for graveyard stuff, for madness, making human tokens matters. There's human type will happen there. That's one of the things I really like about Recruit, making a creature token that has such a significant and broadly supported creature type here. So Great Gilded Boat is a card I think can play really well in a lot of modest cubes. And if you care about those specific things, graveyards, humans, there's some significant upside there as well. One of the significant themes in the Lord of the Rings release was food, which isn't really reprised in the same way in the Hobbit, but there are a couple very significant food matters cards in one of the scene boxes, so I do want to shine some light on those. The first is Bilbo Fellow Conspirator, two and a green for a two-three legendary halfling citizen. If you would create a food token instead, create a food token and a treasure token. So this is kind of in the same space as Academy Manufactor, which is a card that says if you were going to make a food, a treasure, or a clue, then you make all three instead. Whereas Bilbo only triggers off of making foods, so it is specific, you have to be caring about food, but then you get a food and a treasure. So there's no card draw, there's no clue here, but this is noteworthy because if you're not familiar with Academy Manufactor and how it works to have multiple Academy Manufacturers, the effect is actually multiplicative. So if I have two Academy Manufacturers and I was to say make a food token, then they replace one and then the other. So that food is going to become a food, a treasure, and a clue, and then that food, that treasure, and that clue, because of the second manufacturer all going to become a food, a treasure, and a clue. So normally you just make a food token. With one manufacturer, you make three game objects, and with two manufacturers, you make nine game objects. You end up making three of each. The effect on Bilbo is slightly different. You know, of course it only triggers off food, but then it also makes a food and a treasure token instead of all three. So if you were to control an academy manufacturer and a Bilbo fellow conspirator, I believe how you sequence the replacement effects does matter. So if you make a food, what you can do is first apply Bilbo, make a food and a treasure, and then the Academy Manufactor is going to make a clue, a treasure, and a food instead of those two tokens. So you get six, two of each of the game objects that the manufacturer makes. But if you first apply the manufacturer, you're gonna make a food. Now you make a food, a clue, and a treasure, and then apply Bilbo. Then you would make a food plus a treasure because Bilbo replaces your food, but then just a clue and a treasure, so you would get four game objects. But I believe that with the two replacement effects, you can get six because they can multiply if applied in the correct order. Now, this is all really crunchy. It involves a lot of moving parts, making a lot of tokens and differently name tokens. And what I do want to say while I'm talking about this multiplicative nonsense is that I was recently working on food in one of my cubes, and I had Academy Manufactor and a Phrexia Metamorph, so I played a game where I cloned my Academy Manufactor and was making nine game objects anytime I made one game object. And after that draft, I decided I climbed to the top of the mountain. I don't ever want a draft with Academy Manufactor again. It's a card that I think is very cool. But then in practice, with actually pushing the power level of the card, it just gets kind of stupid. Like it's hard to keep track of in an actual game. It becomes less about playing a game of magic and then you're bored just moving a bunch of tokens around and the game is over, but there's still all this kind of headache, mathy stuff happening. But some people have an appetite for that. If you want to do busted, nonsensical, multiplicative token stuff, Bilbo, fellow conspirator, will help you do more nonsense with your Academy Manufacturer strategies. And another much more straightforward food banners cards from the scene box is bag and banquet. 6 mana artifact. When this artifact enters, create three food tokens. Tap, add one color list for each food you control. So by itself, it makes three foods and then can tap for three mana because you have three foods. Clearly, the mana is going to scale there as you make more foods. It's meaningful because the bag and banquet taps for a bunch of mana, so you can sacrifice a bunch of foods, so it's a big life gain card and or a big mana ramp card. You pay for what you get, it costs six. But if you're looking at kind of a big mana, big food thing happening in a cube, bag and banquet is a card to be aware of. Now let's get back into the main set, talk about a new mechanic. The mechanic is storied, which is very similar to the city's blessing, sort of a spiritual successor there. Storied says if you control three or more artifacts, legendaries and or sagas, you have an enduring story for the rest of the game. So kind of some kind of emblem token represented that you have an enduring story, and then you just have that, it can't be interacted with, it just exists and you have it. And then the things you're checking for storied are the same things that you check for for historic, so it's gonna play in the space anywhere you're interested in historic stuff. Storied is just very similar texturally. The first storied card I want to talk about is Philly the Pathfinder, three and a white for a 2-2, a legendary dwarf scout. It has storied, so again, if you control three or more artifacts, legendaries, and or sagas, you have an enduring story for the rest of the game. As long as you have an enduring story, creatures you control get plus one plus one. So this becomes a glorious anthem effect. And it does pump itself, so it would become a 3-3 itself. And whenever Philly or another non-token dwarf you control enters, create a 2-2 red dwarf creature token. So another dwarf matters card for 4 mana, you get 2-2-2, so 4-4 worth of stats. Because Philly is himself legendary, this is your first permanent towards your your uh enduring story, it's a legendary, then you just need an artifact and or a saga to toss into the mix, and you don't have to have different ones, you can just have three legendaries. The token itself is non-legendary, but it's another body, and then if you get that enduring story, you have six six worth of bodies, which isn't bad for four mana across two bodies. This isn't like a vintage cube card, but definitely if you're playing in that kind of space with historic matters, and I think that largely you're gonna want to be in a dwarf type of cube or have some amount of dwarfs. Clearly, if you're playing in kind of the Lord of the Rings universe, uh stuff with the Hobbit, a lot of cards from these sets, you'll have a good clip of dwarves. Of course, also a good clip of legendaries, plenty of sagas in the set as well. Artifacts aren't hard to come by here either. So Philly the Pathfinder, kind of modest, but good example of a decent output on this storied ability, and another card that does kind of stand out in that dwarf matter space to really go wide, and then also having that glorious anthem baked in here, pretty significant for applying pressure. And then another storied creature, which also happens to be another dwarf and equipment matters card, is Killy the Resourceful, one in a white for a 1-2 legendary dwarf scout, has storied. So once again, as a legendary, Killy will count towards generating its own enduring story. And as long as you have an enduring story, you may pay zero rather than the pay the equip costs of the first equip ability you activate each turn. And whenever another dwarf or equipment you control enters, draw a card. This ability triggers only once each turn. So a card that's very similar to Pure Still Paladin, drawing cards when you make equipment, reducing the cost of equipping to zero. For both of those, it's only the first time you do it with Killy, but also at one and a white instead of one, instead of white white, rather, uh it's much more splashable. It's really easy to make Killie work in a Boros deck, or even going into three or more colors because of that one generic mana and the casting cost. And it also is kind of the case in Q, where in Constructed, the extreme end for Pure Steel Paladin are combo decks. Uh, Cheerios is uh what the deck is called where you have a bunch of zero mana equipment. It's called Cheerios because of that zero, that circular shape in the mana cost there. And you play a bunch of equipment and like draw 20, 30 cards or whatever, and you like grave shot your opponent for lethal, so it becomes like a combo deck. But in terms of just cards you would reasonably put in a 40 card coherent limited deck, you're not going to be playing like 20 equipment. You'll maybe have some living weapon, some stuff that has a snap-on ability, so that you can easily put more equipment in your deck, but there's only so much room in a 40 card deck for equipment that are just equipment. You know, granted, with Job Select and other stuff, uh for mirrored in, there's more and more equipment that do make creatures, but even still, you're only gonna get up to such a high a volume. Just drawing one card or a small number of cards and then having another way to free equip is very meaningful for a lot of stuff in the equipment space. So Akkilly the Resourceful seems like a really good tool there. And also, if you're caring about equipment, it's gonna be pretty easy to get that enduring story with all those artifacts rolling around. So pretty cool card in that space. The Hobbit also introduces something called a hone counter. There's only two cards that reference this, and there's not a lot of design space here, but let's just talk about this new mechanic. What hone counters are they're counters that go on equipment, and that equipment gets an additional plus one plus oh to the equipped creature. So one of these cards is Dwelen Weapon Master. It's one and a red-white hybrid for a 2-1 legendary dwarf warrior with first strike. When Dwelin enters or attacks, put a hone counter on each equipment you control, so then all the equipments in play when you trigger this ability are gonna give an additional plus one plus oh to equip creatures. Not a tremendously consequential ability there. I like the high use of hybrid mana, so Dwelin Weapon Master can go into any Boros deck. Boros tends to be the home for equipment, but generally there's just not a lot going on with home counters, but I do want to acknowledge the new mechanic here, which is also featured on Sting Bilbo's sword, a two mana legendary equipment with flash. When Sting enters, put a hone counter on Sting for each creature target opponent controls, attach Sting to up to one target creature you control, so it does snap on, or it equips for three mana. It doesn't naturally do anything, it only gives plus one plus oh for each creature an opponent controls when you cast Sting. It has flash, so some surprise factor there, but it's contingent on your opponent having creatures, so it probably means it's showing up with flash when a creature is getting blocked. So this seems like a very low consequence card. It doesn't seem like it's going to be the kind of card that's appealing for most cube environments, and it is just one of the two cards that use hone counters. Neither of them strike me as terribly remarkable. Kind of weird to introduce a new mechanic for this very small space. Um, it does kind of make sense for Sting to do this. Like this is a neat design, but not a very appealing card. And then another new mechanic that's actually just kind of a rehashing of something that we've seen before that also only appears on two cards is we have axe tokens now, which are equipment that give equip creature plus one plus oh and equip for two. So one of these cards is Iron Heels Blacksmith, one and a white for a 1-1 dwarf artificer with double strike. When it enters, you create a colorless equipment artifact token named Axe, which, like I said, equip creature gets plus one plus oh and equips for two. Two mana, one one with double strike with a little bit of upside, is something that we have gotten a lot of different flavors of recently. It's a body that just kind of plays in cube, getting that plus one plus oh on a double striking creature, like getting that free equipment there. That is something that you can make more use of, this small double striking creature. It's gonna play in the equipment space, giving you that artifact. It's going to be meaningful if you're trying to craft an enduring story, so that's gonna be an aspect of retail limited for the Hobbit. This card does not have great types, but it is a dwarf, specifically if you are playing in the Lord of the Rings universe. That's gonna come up in a big way. In general, Iron Hills Blacksmith, a little bit forgettable, but it does have that uh new-ish mechanic of making the axe token. And then our other axe-making card is Dane Ironfoot, two and a red for a 1-4 legendary dwarf warrior. When Dane enters, create a colorless equipment artifact token named Axe, where the equipped creature gets plus one plus oh and equip two. When you do, attach it to a creature you control. So naturally, Dane would end up being equipped and being a two-four. And whenever Dane attacks, each equipped attacking creature gains double strike until end of turn. So you can also use that axe, put it on something that naturally has more power. When Dane starts attacking, you can spread the double strike around to other equipped creatures. A decent equipment matters, double strike matters, dwarf and a warrior, some stuff going on with Dane, but not among the most powerful three-drops ever printed, specifically with synergies with any of these creature types, or equipment or artifact tokens mattering. There is some stuff to like about this for Cube though. And that leaves one more mechanic to talk about, of course, a returning mechanic that we see more and more of all the time, which is adventure. Very at home in the world of Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit. A lot of adventures going on and the stories being told. There's some pretty cool riffs on adventure here. I think a lot of times when we think of adventure, and definitely if you look at some of the earlier implementations, absolutely true in Throne of Eldrain, where adventure was just like this value thing, all upside. You get two cards for only playing one card. The Hobbit has a lot of implementations that are less clear two for ones. Often the adventure costs more than the creature, or maybe there's something kind of situational happening here. So these are not as much just straight value cards as we have historically seen with adventure. These cards do require a little bit more specificity, which I think generally does make them better designs over just cards that are strong because they're strong and they're two for ones. So I have a few adventures picked out to talk about. Let's start with Bofor Reliable Guardian, 1 mana, 1-1, Legendary Dwarf Scout. The Adventure is one and a white for an instant. Target artifact or creature you control gains hexproof and indestructible another turn. So that's a two-mana protection spell, a little inefficient in that space. And then a Bofor is a 1 mana 1 1 dwarf scout with lifelink, which is also a little bit inefficient in the creature space. 1 mana 1 1, even with lifelink, is just not that remarkable. It's often not a very appealing individual card there. So you have kind of two things that you pay for what you get. They're not great rates in either department, but it's two kind of like fine cards. Cards, and if you want to leverage the adventure, you have to wait for a spot where you have two mana up and can meaningfully leverage hexproof and or indestructible as kind of a trick there. And then you have a 1 mana 1-1 lifelink, which if you want that kind of body typically at all, you would want to be casting it on the first turn. So very modest card, which is kind of cool to see in the adventure space. Pofrey Reliable Guardian, it's not a card I expect to show up in too many cubes, but I do like the implementation there and is a good fit for more modest environments that are interested in that kind of two for one you have to work for in the adventure plus creature space. Next up is Bilbo Luck Wearer, one and a blue for a 1-1 legendary Halfling Rogue. Bilbo can't be blocked, and whenever Bilbo deals combat damage to a player, draw a card, then discard a card, and then the adventure, burglars plot, a sorcery for four and a blue, exchange control of two target non-land permanents that share a card type. So a take on leisure domain, or I guess the more recent card Switcheroo, an adventure that kind of lets you do that. But it's a five mana effect that is generally less appealing than other stuff in the space. It's clearly worse than just a control magic. You have to give something up, but you can still make use of this, giving your opponent a token for a real card that has the same card type, be it a creature or an artifact, can be quite meaningful. And then two mana, one one that can't be blocked and lootes on hit. I mean, I've played a lot of looter ill core in cube in my time. This is just a reasonable card to cast on turn two, and once again, you have that tension there where you have a five mana kind of situational adventure, so a more expensive adventure, and then there's a creature where if you want to cast it at all, you want to cast it on the early turns. So there's a decision to be made there. If you want to leverage this adventure, you're going to have to give up on something earlier, or you know, you do get more mileage top decking this later. When you have a bunch of mana, you can freely use the burglar's plot, assuming you have something worth exchanging for something you're your opponents, and then you get the uh luderil core kind of effect after that as an adventure, so it's upside there. So there is something happening there where if you top deck this later, you get more mileage because of the adventure, but then in the early turns, it does add a little bit of tension and some dynamism in your decision making and how you want to navigate the early turns of the game. So really cool implementation there. I will say that for a lot of lower-powered cubes, Bilbo Luck Wearer, just like the creature on this, is the shape of a card that I've happily played in a lot of cubes. Definitely, if you have like equipment matters for this can't be blocked creature that also loots when it hits, this is not a weak card. It certainly has a little outclassed in 2026 Magic at the highest power levels. This is a pretty strong creature as far as games that I have enjoyed playing for many years, and then upside the adventure is nice. The design is still cool in that you are kind of choosing to wait for the adventure in some of the games. And that brings us to most decrepit old bird. This one's a little bit more in the classic value adventure space. So most decrepit old bird is a one blue mana, one one flying with threshold, where if you have threshold, it gets plus one plus one. So plus one plus one if you have seven or more cards in your graveyard. And the adventure helps there. The adventure is a sorcery for one in a blue called Speak Secrets, where you mill four cards and put an instant or sorcery card from among them into your hand. So it's that mill draw where you're top four, you have to have an instant or a sorcery to get a card back here. But I mean you always get a card back, right? Because it's an adventure creature. So if you cast speak secrets, then you're gonna have most decrepit old bird on retainer, which will often be a 2-2 flyer for one mana. Which uh, you know, if you cast just the most decrepit old bird in turn one, it doesn't give you any of that mill. It's just a flying man, but it can get larger later. You know, threshold is something that is not all that challenging to turn on, especially if you have more self-mill stuff going on. It generally is not that difficult. Definitely if you design around enabling it to have threshold in the spells matter space, Delvero Secrets, Murktai Regent, the kind of cards you would put alongside them, make establishing threshold pretty easy, and most decrepit old bird really plays well with a lot of these cards. I do tend to shy away from a lot of this stuff with the very selective kind of impulse draw where you're not guaranteed a card, but because this is an adventure, it doesn't necessarily matter as much if you miss on that mill if you don't find an incident or sorcery. And the right here, also just like having a one-mana often 2-2 flyer, most decrepit old bird is pretty strong in a space of something that I'm pretty sympathetic to. Like that card draw is not guaranteed, and then also it is just a creature that is pretty fragile. So the extent that Insect Elaboration can be a game-winning card, it is still very fragile. Even with the second toughness, most decrepit old bird will die to most removal. So this card is stronger than a lot of older cards that play in the space. Like I think this card is a higher pick than Delverose Secrets, even in an environment that does facilitate that kind of gameplay. But I also think Delver's Secrets is a pretty modest and kind of weak cube card, so it's cool to have a little bit of an upgrade in that space. And then another really cool take on adventure and card advantage and how to relate the two without just always giving you upside all the time is Gandalf Goblin's Bane, two and a red for a 2-3 legendary avatar wizard. Whenever you cast a non-creature spell, Gandalf gets plus one plus one till end of turn and deals one damage to each opponent. So kind of a cool prowessy thing there. And the adventure, flame shape, one and a red for a sorcery. Look at the top two cards your library and exile them face down. For as long as they remain exiled, you may play them if you control a wizard. So a two-mana card bottling effect where it's not durational, but it is contingent on controlling a wizard. So this is a wizard matter card, just self-contained, you can just put Gandalf in a cube, and there are kind of cool decision points around how you leverage the cards you exile with flame shape, trying to sequence so you can guarantee you'll control Gandalf long enough to actually make use of those cards. Or if there's just more wizards in your environment, you'll be able to more reliably use this as a card advantage card. So it becomes more powerful the more you build around it, but still just as a self-contained card, this is kind of close to a stronger, just regular adventure card that gives you a lot of value. But because the two into the three is enough mana, or at least in the early game, you're not guaranteeing you're gonna have access to that card advantage. There's some pretty cool texture here. I really like the design of Gandalf Goblin's Bane. Kind of a cool Wizards Matter if you're into it, or just uh a slightly difficult to leverage, interesting sequencing card advantage spell if you don't go into the Wizards Matter space. Next up is a card that's a bit more in the classic adventure space, just a value card, Thranduel Sindarin Liege, two, and then two green blue hybrid for a two-three legendary elf noble. It says other elves you control get plus one plus one, and has landfall. Whenever a land you control enters, create a 1-1 green elf creature token, and the adventure is Sylvan Rally, 1 and 2 green blue hybrid for a sorcery, mill four cards and put up to 2 land cards from among them into your hand. So not only does the adventure naturally curve into the creature 3 into 4, the adventure is also useful for finding lands, which then feeds the creature's landfall ability, and then having a card that generates value makes tokens on landfall, and then as long as Thranduel stays in play, gives all those tokens plus one plus one. A lot of good value output here. The rate is a little bit dated, but at uncommon, this can definitely hold its own in a peasant cube environment. A really solid value card for any kind of self-mill landfall shenanigans at more modest power levels. Thranduel Sandaran Leash is just kind of like a value card that is kind of just inherently powerful. Like what it is is a rate card. It is not pushed by today's standards, but it really is just a card that you play because it is appealing and kind of strong. So yeah, want to find an environment that's calibrated to the power level here, but this card will really perform if the cube is properly calibrated around this power level. A strong value card, more of a classic adventure there. Which brings us to my precious, a three mana legendary equipment. Equip creature has hexproof and can't be blocked, equips for two mana, and you also have to pay two life to equip. And then the adventure allure of power, one in a black instant as an additional cost to cast this spell, sacrifice a creature, draw two cards. So slightly disjointed there. Once again, you have that tension. You can either have a creature you want to proactively sacrifice, and then you can curve a lure of power into my precious. More often, I think this is uh the kind of spell where a lure of power is good to react to a removal spell. Like it's not that good of a return on your mana to just sacrifice a random creature unless it has a die trigger you're trying to trigger for whatever reason, maybe morbid, you know. If you have something going on beyond just casting a lure of power becomes more appealing, and the equipment here is fine. Hexproof can't be blocked, that's reasonable, but two mana and two life is not free to equip. So this is another adventure card where how you want to play with it is kind of interesting. Do you want to try to leverage a lure of power? Does that mean you have to wait for an opportunity based off of the way that your opponent is playing the game? I like the design of My Precious, pretty flavorful, pretty evocative of the things that the ring does in this world, so it's a cool design. I think on rate, pretty modest cube card, not one that's going to make its way into my cubes, but I do think that unblockability is pretty nice. A sacrifice outlet tacked onto something else is pretty cool. Can definitely play in a space. If you have like sacrifice and equipment in the same cube, this is an interesting bridge card to explore. You know, Bloodghast also is gonna play pretty well with something like that, so there's some natural ways you can make use of it. I do like the design of My Precious quite a lot, even if I don't personally plan to pick up a copy. And one last adventure card is the Arkinstone. Five mana legendary artifact, creatures you control get plus one plus one. At the beginning of your end step, draw a card. The adventurer seek the heart is two and a white for a sorcery. Search your library for a legendary creature card, reveal it, put into your hand, then shuffle. So this is another adventure that kind of naturally the adventure is cheaper than the card that goes on the adventure, so it curves that way. But its free mana tutor for a legendary creature card is pretty inefficient. You'd want something very specific that you're going to find, whereas the Arkansone itself is more of a generic value card, a one-sided howling mine with a glorious anthem. That all said, a one-sided howling mine with a glorious anthem is a pretty strong value card. So a lot of generic rate here. This is another more classic adventure card. You know, for that reason, maybe I should be talking about this next week in terms of just individual cube cards. But at that, uh, this is just kind of stats. This is not something that I'm really excited to cube with. You know, I put it in my deck, I would draft it relatively highly depending on the power level of the cube, because the output here is strong. But this this card doesn't do anything that's like really interesting, unique, specific. It is just a rate card, and that is kind of more classic adventure, and it's fine, there's nothing wrong with cubing with this, but it certainly does not speak to my sensibilities or something that I am clamoring to get a copy of. The Arcanistone's pretty neat, but it is just kind of like a strong card in the not strong enough for powered cube space. I mean, you could play this in like a 540 card powered cube. Maybe this shows up in the digital powered cubes, and it would be like fine there. But it does kind of end up in this zone of cards I don't usually personally cube with, where it's powerful without being broken and doesn't necessarily speak to any synergies or strategies. But that's gonna do it for my look at the new mechanics and themes of the Hobbit. Now the apply for cube next week when I'll be back talking about individual cards that don't have these mechanics, that don't really fall into these themes, just kind of individual designs and what they mean for cube. So check that out next week. Thank you for listening, as always, for taking the time to like, comment, share, subscribe. I always appreciate that. And I'm also on Patreon now. If you really like what you heard, you can subscribe over on Patreon, patreon.com forward slash 180MTG. If you did want to monetarily support the podcast, get access to the Discord there. I'd certainly appreciate that. But thank you for listening, and I will be back next week talking more cube. Later, gamers.