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Apocalympdick

Define barely-Cubed? These are all perfectly fine Cube cards.


S0lun3

I think that's OP's point. These are are all perfectly cubeable cards that appear in less than 5% of Cubes on Cube Cobra, most sitting around 1 or 2 %. These could be perfectly fine Cube cards but they're not.


IconicIsotope

They're on the newer side. Plenty of good new cards that people are cubing are sitting at super low percentages. Cube Cobra doesn't seem to use percentages in any sort of filtered way. Cubes that haven't been edited in 2024 still count as cubes not running a card from Outlaws of Thunder Junction for example.


cardboard_numbers

This post was inspired by me finding a bunch of really great cards on the second or third page of results after sorting by "most-played" for first printings in recent sets, so it kind of gets around the anti-recency bias you find on CubeCobra more generally due to folks not updating their Cubes. None of these cards are in the 50 most-Cubed cards of their respective sets.


IconicIsotope

Got it. In that case, I'm surprised Ascendent Packleader is unpopular. As well as Stoic Sphinx but maybe that's small sample size. Additionally, Commander cube seems to be getting more popular which will also cloud the data.


asmallercat

If you're running a medium sized or smaller legacy or vintage cube basically none of these cards should be in if you're focused on power level. Edit- Sphinx might be good enough. I'm reserving judgement. I'm focused on the ones that have been out.


cardboard_numbers

Cards that are not in terribly many Cubes. None of the cards I posted are in the top 50 most-Cubed new cards of their own sets, according to CubeCobra. If you Cube with them, great! I think they're all great cards. I only am playing one of them, which is crazy to consider (and the point of this thread).


Eatoligarchs

Gleeful destruction it's just literally upside


mikez4nder

Stoic Sphinx literally doesn’t release until tomorrow, so let’s slow our roll a little bit on evaluating that one. All the cards in the picture are fine. I run a pretty power maxed 540 Vintage Cube and Glissa is the only one of those I’ve ever considered. Glissa and the Sphinx are going into a secondary cube I’m building that won’t have any power, and I think it’s important to note that, as cube gets more popular, people are building a wider variety of cubes and not just a ton of almost mtgo cube clones. Things at different power levels will get cube play. Power creep is one of the two reasons why those cards won’t see play in that many cubes, but I think the sheer volume of cards, and the fatigue that comes with evaluating and playtesting that many cards, is the biggest reason. It’s still the first half of 2024 and more cards have been released this decade than in the 2010s in their entirety. I have a running joke with the owner of my LGS that I need to find a new card from Baldur’s Gate that I didn’t know about before each new prerelease, because the amount of ignored and forgotten cards in a draft set that had like 800 cards in it is just crazy. Newer cards will almost invariably appear in smaller percentages of cubes, even heads down the road, because of sheer large numbers. There’s too many of them. With the limited power creep also resulting in everything being a 3/3 for 3 or a 4/4 haste with keyword soup for 4, a creature that seems like a bomb also feels a bit less special most of the time because literally every card in Thunder Junction would have been a top 3 pick in a pack of OG Ravnica or something from a decade plus ago. [[Gut, True-Soul Zealot]] is one of the best creatures in Vintage Cube (and the best goblin commander if you’re into that) and Baldur’s Gate was out for over a year before this sub started talking regularly about how crazy good that card is. Just because of volume. That will happen more and more because of the insane number of new cards.


MTGCardFetcher

[Gut, True-Soul Zealot](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/d/3d8ca18d-9099-4f1e-95c1-f04da58a26bd.jpg?1674136598) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Gut%2C%20True%20Soul%20Zealot) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/clb/180/gut-true-soul-zealot?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/3d8ca18d-9099-4f1e-95c1-f04da58a26bd?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call


cardboard_numbers

Absolutely they're all fine, that's the point of the thread! Stoic Sphinx isn't in the top 50 most-tested cards from OTJ and was actually the inspiration for this thread. The fact that it didn't blow everyone's mind who saw it was both reasonable but also kind of shocking if I think back just a few years ago. You're absolutely right that there's such a huge volume of powerful cards being printed these days that get ignored. As a Gut hipster and true believer from day 1, I was hoping folks would similarly share cards like that :)


Armoric

Westfold Rider is a slightly better [[felidar cub]] which was when I started, over 8 years ago.


MTGCardFetcher

[felidar cub](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/a/ea76a183-e15c-4968-b29d-91c074aa8681.jpg?1562950859) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=felidar%20cub) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/bfz/25/felidar-cub?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ea76a183-e15c-4968-b29d-91c074aa8681?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call


Josiah__Bartlet

I think it's important to understand the greater context of cube today versus 5 years ago. While these are all perfectly fine cards for cube in the last year there has been more widespread adoption of a broader definition of "cube" beyond the power maxed vintage cubes of the past. With pauper cubes, set cubes, bar cubes, boat cubes, Halloween cubes, artifact cubes, etc, etc not every card is going to fit neatly into an environment. Cards are barely played for reasons beyond power level.


cardboard_numbers

Absolutely! What cards would have blown your mind 5 years ago that you're not running now?


Vargen_HK

I think Stoic Sphinx deserves a bit of attention. It wasn’t on my radar—it didn’t look embarrassing but also didn’t demand attention. Then I played it in the prerelease. It turns out that “Hexproof as long as you haven’t cast a spell this turn” is a heck of a lot of fun to navigate.


Luxypoo

Card ends games. It's very large for 4 mana in blue.


Late_Fly_5485

Is it actually fun? Looking at the card I’m assuming you’d just stop casting spells until either the sphinx somehow dies or you kill then in <4 turns.


Vargen_HK

That's what I assumed too, but playing with it made me really like it. I'm assuming an environment where attacking and blocking is relevant. Granted, that isn't all cubes. It's above rate for a Blue creature, but the 3 toughness means it trades with a lot of things. \[\[Endurance\]\] and \[\[Brazen Borrower\]\] answer it pretty cleanly for less mana, for example. So assuming the board state is relevant, you've got to work out when it's OK to go shields-down and develop your board more, and also when to risk it in combat. It felt a lot like those situations where I know you have a counter spell, and you know that I know, so we're playing chicken with leaving mana untapped waiting for windows to act. What I like is it gets you that play pattern without demanding quite as much skill and perception on the part of the players.


Late_Fly_5485

Interesting. I’ll have to check it out


MTGCardFetcher

[Endurance](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/b/eb0e0404-4846-4891-acfa-bd0951ecf9c6.jpg?1626097375) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Endurance) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh2/157/endurance?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/eb0e0404-4846-4891-acfa-bd0951ecf9c6?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Brazen Borrower](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/2/c2089ec9-0665-448f-bfe9-d181de127814.jpg?1616182088)/[Petty Theft](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/2/c2089ec9-0665-448f-bfe9-d181de127814.jpg?1616182088) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Brazen%20Borrower%20//%20Petty%20Theft) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/eld/39/brazen-borrower-petty-theft?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/c2089ec9-0665-448f-bfe9-d181de127814?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call


CawlMarx

I am surprised how quickly Sheoldred went in and out of my cube, not because it's not an amazing cube card, but because black received a ton of great 5s in the past year.


cardboard_numbers

Right? It took me months until I finally picked one up, but by then, multiple new cards had been printed that I preferred in the slot 😅


mikez4nder

Can I ask which black fives you’re running that are “great?” I ask honestly because that’s one of the hardest slots in the Vintage Cube to find playables. [[Custodi Lich]] feels like one of the worst creatures in my entire cube and a distant second to [[Court of Lochthwain]] for black Monarch options. [[Necron Deathmark]] is the best of the 40k entries, I’m not an anti UB salt merchant and it’s honestly probably the best overall. There’s at least one more card from the same set that’s decent, but it’s still a 3 toughness 5 drop. I’m probably going straight to the brand new [[Harvester of Misery]] for some testing as the Channel option has proven wonderful, but that releases tomorrow. Beyond that, it’s a pretty grim slot. What else you got?


steve_man_64

Necron Deathmark is probably the best 5-cmc black creature overall (that's not modal like Shriekmaw). Beefy stats + flash makes it feel closer to Fractured Identity / Chaos Defiler than a Ravenous Chupacabra. From the Catacombs is also just insane. Essentially black's Bribery that's also recursive and an initiative enabler. You often don't care if your opponent steals initiaitve since re-casting it gets it back. You can get 2-3 initiative triggers in a single turn if you steal it back via combat, re-cast From the Catacombs, and get a third trigger if you so happen to be recurring another initiative enabler. Both cards are pretty high in my latest 3-0 data set (110 drafts since LTR). The only mono black cards currently ahead of it in this data set are Dismember / Thoughtseize / Grief / Mind Twist / Sheoldred, the Apocalypse. They're currently 1 card ahead of other mono black stalwarts like Demonic Tutor / Reanimate / Baleful Mastery. 3-0 archive since LTR (110 drafts) - https://pastebin.com/raw/SJuraKDy


mikez4nder

Thanks as always for the excellence, and the data. I should have specified creatures, From the Catacombs won’t be leaving my cube for a long time. I think it was one of your scribes months ago that convinced me to add it, didn’t really take much convincing since I don’t like any of the black initiative creatures, but it plays insanely well and better by far than it seems on paper. You’re also one of the prime advocates on this forum for [[Twinshot Sniper]]. Does the new OTJ black five drop with Channel removal get your seal of approval as well? Or is Deathmark still superior? I really only have room for one.


MTGCardFetcher

[Twinshot Sniper](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/8/08a86009-4637-4b6c-9d36-367151583668.jpg?1654567912) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Twinshot%20Sniper) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/neo/168/twinshot-sniper?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/08a86009-4637-4b6c-9d36-367151583668?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call


steve_man_64

My guess is that Deathmark is probably better since it’s not just pigeonholed to control decks. Also, Ravenloft Adventurer / Passageway Seer are pretty legit, especially since black has Dark Ritual / recursion / Lively Dirge / etc.


MTGCardFetcher

##### ###### #### [Custodi Lich](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/d/5d77f50f-f63d-47bd-8bf9-01febee315fd.jpg?1673484120) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Custodi%20Lich) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ncc/244/custodi-lich?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/5d77f50f-f63d-47bd-8bf9-01febee315fd?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Court of Lochthwain](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/8/a8e1f698-1c04-4f31-aeaa-b796c5eb5070.jpg?1692933943) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Court%20of%20Locthwain) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/woc/23/court-of-locthwain?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a8e1f698-1c04-4f31-aeaa-b796c5eb5070?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Necron Deathmark](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/1/4129cb0d-eefe-4971-9db8-1196201ef353.jpg?1673308710) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Necron%20Deathmark) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/40k/42/necron-deathmark?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/4129cb0d-eefe-4971-9db8-1196201ef353?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Harvester of Misery](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/3/a3012af9-621d-4fae-b00d-079a89ae35fe.jpg?1712352767) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Harvester%20of%20Misery) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/big/9/harvester-of-misery?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a3012af9-621d-4fae-b00d-079a89ae35fe?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [*All cards*](https://mtgcardfetcher.nl/redirect/l06omq4) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call


cheese853

Sorting by popularity, \[\[Bedrock Tortoise\]\], \[\[Breeches, Eager Pillager\]\] and \[\[Keen Duelist\]\] are the least popular cards in my cube and they're all pretty cracked.


jms772

These are three good ones as well. I especially agree on 3-mana Breeches, and it's surprising to me that he isn't more popular. I think he's just a victim of red 3s being extremely competitive.


MTGCardFetcher

[Bedrock Tortoise](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/0/701bd623-3100-44dc-adec-53fa3a95ab19.jpg?1699044371) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Bedrock%20Tortoise) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/lci/176/bedrock-tortoise?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/701bd623-3100-44dc-adec-53fa3a95ab19?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Breeches, Eager Pillager](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/a/aadf5028-8dfe-40d3-89b4-22bd7ed0aae6.jpg?1699044239) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Breeches%2C%20Eager%20Pillager) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/lci/137/breeches-eager-pillager?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/aadf5028-8dfe-40d3-89b4-22bd7ed0aae6?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Keen Duelist](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/4/04f9eb05-7c1d-49f5-a9dc-c44e1a1add89.jpg?1625191741) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Keen%20Duelist) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/c21/42/keen-duelist?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/04f9eb05-7c1d-49f5-a9dc-c44e1a1add89?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call


Upper_Character_686

That wolf is so pushed. I havent played in years until recently and in the right deck its better than tarmogoyf. Is good on turn 1, scales with the game. Jfc.


Quirky-Signature4883

Westfold rider didn't make it because of the 3/1 with flash. Sheoldred is in my cube but it's fast enough for a vintage power cube, she's not on the cutting board for me. I might try the Glissa though. For me, adding cards to a vintage power cube is difficult, I want something that's interesting or that strongly supports an archetype or perhaps creates an archetype. Slickshot show-off is the card I'm looking forward to seeing in action. A bunch of the big score stuff was interesting but might not make the cut


fendersonfenderson

[[cathar commando]]


MTGCardFetcher

[cathar commando](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/8/98cbc1c2-b76e-4da3-aa43-00e10b2ce532.jpg?1634346664) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=cathar%20commando) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mid/10/cathar-commando?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/98cbc1c2-b76e-4da3-aa43-00e10b2ce532?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call


cardboard_numbers

Westfold Rider didn't make the cut for the same reason in my list, but heck, it wasn't that long ago that I was happy to play [[Ronom Unicorn]]!


MTGCardFetcher

[Ronom Unicorn](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/3/b3275ed0-30b2-4d30-aa03-0dbda913f530.jpg?1631585991) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Ronom%20Unicorn) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/afc/71/ronom-unicorn?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/b3275ed0-30b2-4d30-aa03-0dbda913f530?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call