The Cube According to Gatherer, Part 20 – Throwing Salt Over One’s Shoulder to Make a Fabulous Superstitious Goulash

 

For those of you just tuning in, Hello, and welcome to cooking cubes with John-Michael! I’m preparing a cube from random leftovers in the Gatherer Frigidaire.  But a pile of odds and ends doesn’t make for a well-balanced meal.  So for each random card added, I design an accompanying dish to belay the demands of a cruel and uncaring universe.  Sometimes I find simple patterns to mix and match and the cube gives me a break.  And sometimes the cube breaks me.

Enough dithering in the kitchen.  Gatherer!  What’s our first mystery ingredient?

 

 

The Timespiral block is full of weirdos, but I get off easy with Pouncing Wurm.  Leapwurm is a mid-range creature or a late game bruiser. It’s the sort of card you flip past while scanning a cube for anything exceptional.

Pouncing Wurm doesn’t require my support, so I get some design space breathing room.  Far be it for me to not take it.  Don’t read log 19.5. But in that half-log, I pooled together a list of missing mechanics that I felt would make the cube ‘feel more complete’.  Among other things, it seems we need two Naturalizes.

I can’t help but pull some inspiration from the cards Gatherer gives me.  This cube already features a +1/+1 counter theme, especially in Green.  And we previously designed replicate cards with odd costs.  I tossed these ingredients into the Ronco Showtime Rotisserie, set it, then forget it.  An hour later I came back and found this fabulous sizzling roast chicken:

 

 

Admittedly, I’m bothered by the similarities between this, and the replicating Smash and Aura Blast cards I designed. But there’s enough differences for Forward the Gift to feel like it’s doing its own thing.  Four mana is a lot for a naturalize. But scratch a few +1/+1 counters off your creatures, and the Gift can rip a board wide.  I also like how this card interacts with the aura theme in this set. Most auras are better than a few loose +1/+1 counters. So while you may be depowering your creatures, that’s nothing compared to the leftover shreds of your opponent’s disenchanted team.

Also, way to go Ralph Waldo Emerson for penning a line about paying it forward that sounds like a veiled threat.

Moving on!

 

It’s always great to see a vanilla common.  I know, I know.  Vanillas aren’t exciting.  But when you crack open a new pack of fifteen, it’s nice to comprehend one or two of those cards with a glance.

Panther Warriors comes at us bro with six power for five mana.  That’s good!  But it only has three toughness.  Oops.  Back in ’97, those were great stats.  I know people who traded out Erhnam Djinns for Panther Warriors that year.  Reasonably costed large Magic creatures without drawbacks were almost non-existent in early Magic.  So when Panther Warriors and Crash of Rhinos appeared in common, even the veteran players updated their decks.

Nowadays you can get a 5/5 for in common (thank you Colossapede.) But in Magic 2019, Wizards scaled back to 4/5 with Thornhide Wolves.  Flip 4/5 for 5/4. Give it +1/-1 and we get 6/3.  So maybe Panther Warriors still got legs.

I know I just made a list of mechanics the set needs, but I also need vanilla.  I’m digging through Jenny Scott’s epic poem “Love Song of Night and Day” (which totally is a thing.) Let’s see if another line inspires me. Of course it did.  I found this:

 

 

I mean, how was I supposed to pass on making a hippo-headed guard?  It may be a hippo, but Panther Warriors is our green vanilla. And the cube already has a black vanilla, so H-HG moved into the last logical color choice: blue.  Looking at the file, I noticed there was only one other two casting cost creature in blue, and that was Sinbad.  So H-HG received a cost .  There’s only two reasonable options for vanilla power and toughness at ;  2/1 or 1/3.  The art looks defensive, so I made him a 1/3.  I didn’t design this hippo; it demanded life and designed itself.

Let’s move on.  Sock it to me, Gatherer!

 

 

Oh, hello there Unhinged.  I’m sorry to tell you that I need to veto Red-Hot Hottie. I don’t have a problem with the idea of adding Unhinged cards.  But any card that requires my opponent to scream “‘AAAH’ at the top of [their] lungs” for the rest of the game is going to lead to less friendships than I’m prepared to live with.

Let’s try again:

 

Oh, hey there Untamed Wilds.  With all the over-costed and occasional broken cards the Legends team pushed through the system, it’s surprising they cost anything right.  But Untamed Wilds does good work fixing and accelerating mana bases.  It’s unfortunately out-classed by Rampant Growth, the gold standard of green ramp sorceries.  But sometimes you need that third color to enter the battlefield untapped.  It happens.

I prefer the original art.  Unfortunately, the original art comes with no flavor text.  I’d pair the Seventh Edition flavor text with the Legends art, but…

“No forest is so remote that the elves don’t know its secrets.”

NéNé Thomas’ Autumn birch trees and frosty mountains doesn’t resonate ‘Elfland’ to me.  So I stole an Aldo Leopold quote.  Legends includes quotes from William Shakespeare, the Bible, and The Woman at the Washington Zoo.  I’m sure A Sand County Almanac will be fine.

Once again, I’m presented with a card that doesn’t need contextual framing.  Gatherer is throwing softballs today.  Cripes.  I just jinxed myself.  Pfft.

What I’m getting at is I can ignore Untamed Wilds for the sake of hole filling.

 

 

We still need a Giant Growth variant. And we could always use another excuse to activate the ‘gain 3 life’ triggers.  So I designed a boring, practical card.  Then I double-checked to make sure this card didn’t already exist.  It doesn’t.  I’m always pleased when I discover something simple that’s bound to see print some day, but I get to claim first dibs.  Massify seems like such an obvious design however, that I’m more confused than excited.

Weird.  Well, it’s time to get jinxed.  Go on, Gatherer.  Do your worst.

 

 

Phyrexian Hulk.  The opposite happened.  I was gifted another super-simple card, and another vanilla creature to boot.  I am so screwed.

I will say, that while I dig the vanilla creatures, I’m running low on slots and need to flesh out certain mechanics.  But I see a vanilla creature: I make a vanilla creature.  Maybe that’s how Gatherer will jinx me.  Nothing but vanilla from here on down.

For now, though, there are tribal elements in this set to fill out.  I could use more spirits.  My first thought was that a straight vanilla spirit would seem weird, but it turns out there are already seven of them.  Guess one more won’t hurt.

Looking through the file, I guess we could use another one casting cost white creature.  Devout Harpist is doing all the heavy lifting in the one spot.  We could use a Savannah Lions.

 

 

Not much else to say about that one.  Let’s go Gatherer!

 

 

Liliana of the Dark Realms.  Ladies and Gentlemen, the jinx appears.  Gatherer not only gave me a planeswalker, it gave me a Liliana Planeswalker.  Why is that significant?  Because the only other planeswalker Gatherer put in the cube so far is Liliana of the Veil.

 

 

This cube only has two planeswalkers in it, and both of them are Liliana.  That’s very awkward.  I planned to add another planeswalker to help balance ‘of the Veil’, but waited to see if Gatherer would do it for me first.  Instead, Gatherer turned otaku and coated my cube with custom Liliana stickers.

What does one do when there’s only two planeswalkers in a cube, and both are Liliana?  Double down, accept the pattern, and design a third Liliana planeswalker.

 

 

I know the tiny text can be hard to read.  It’s not that there’s too many words.  Not really.  It’s the frame; the card would look fine if the frame was adjusted so that the top ability and bottom ability could push into the center ability’s space.  I’ll break it down, so you don’t need to strain your eyes.

[+1] You may sacrifice a non-token creature. If you do, create a 2/2 black Spirit creature token with indestructible that can’t block, and a 2/2 black Zombie creature token.

Liliana’s first ability tears your creatures in half, separating the body from the spirit. That’s three themes of the cube in one ability: Zombie tribal, Spirit tribal, and sacrifice.  I wish I could make the ability only sacrifice Humans, so we could get triple tribe on one card.  But that’s one restriction too many.  As it is, Liliana can only sacrifice non-token creatures at sorcery speed. And something tells me players won’t let Lillie get her hooks on their Shivan Wurm.

That said, this is still a useful ability in conjunction with cheap creatures, reanimation, enter the battlefield, leave the battlefield creatures, and sacrifice triggers.  Cruel to the Last’s first ability is niche, which is okay.  I don’t want one of the cube’s themes to be “Liliana or lose.”

Because her first ability may not fire off every turn, I gave Liliana a higher than average starting loyalty to make up for the discrepancy in staying power.

[-2] Draw two cards if you lost life this turn.

Another black theme in this cube is suicide. If you hurt yourself every turn, Liliana offers a sizable reward.

[-9] Exile all cards from all player’s graveyards. Target opponent puts that many cards from the top of their library into their graveyard. Put three creatures from that player’s graveyard on the battlefield under your control.

One more theme.  This time, it’s the blue/black mill threat. This ability rewards the ‘mill all players’ cards floating about and turns all that casual self-mill into fuel for a giant cannon aimed at your opponent’s library.  Even if your opponent is left with enough cards to keep playing, dragging three of their best creatures over to your side is bound to upset things.

Alright.  We got space for one more card.  Abracadabra Gatherer!

 

 

Oh.  Okay, Slave of Bolas.  Weird that we got a Bolas card after three Lilianas, but whatevs. I like that this gives us a red/black gold card, since we haven’t gotten any yet.  Undermine is already in blue/black.  I shouldn’t dwell on the color balance of gold cards in this set, though.  I’m almost three quarters of the way through, and this is the first time there’s been a cross-over of a two-color combination.  That sounds lucky to me.

With three Lilianas in the set, I want to design a card that’s better when you control a Liliana, in a similar vein to Arisen Gorgon or Liliana’s Elite.  Looking at my ‘needs’ list, it looks like I could use a discard spell.  I can do that.

 

Worst case scenario, this is a Mind Rot, a hardcast Gisa’s Bidding, or a Deadeye Tormentor which is now a zombie with literal dead eyes, and is no longer so obsessed with all that raiding.  These three choices run from good to great… if you were in control of the spell.  But you’re not, so you always get the worst option.  That is of course, unless you control a Liliana.

How much would you pay to roll these four abilities onto one card?  Moan of the Unhallowed seems to infer that a player could end pay over two turns to get similar results on one card.  That’s a misleading way to approach the cost of our imaginary spell.  But it helps highlight how much potential value Raise Mischief can represent.

That’s our last card for this week.  There’s only one more task: create a token creature.  I don’t like the idea of stitching together Liliana without making her new creature token.  So here’s our black Spirit:

 

If Jason Engle’s work seems similar to Magic: the Gathering’s style guide, that’s probably because he’s already illustrated M:tG cards.  You might recognize Bone Dragon or Nevermore or any of the sixty other cards he’s illustrated.  His artwork for ‘Spirit of the Burning Sky’, however, is for the Warlord card game.  And it radiates the idea of an unstoppable undead spirit.  Looks good to me.

Alright!  Twelve more cards down, and only 134 left to go!  You can continue on to part 21 here.  Or perhaps you’d prefer to check out the According to Gatherer archives?