The Cube, According to Gatherer, Part 23 – Pet Cards

What’s your pet card?  Is there a card with so much potential you simply build enough decks around it?  Like with Intruder Alarm or Vanquisher’s Banner?  Is it a card you collect in vast quantities for no other reason than because the artwork strikes you, like with Commander’s Authority or Dwell on the Past?  Or maybe the flavor text never stops amusing you, like with Blood Mist or Sizzle?  It could be your first foil, or a card with a story attached to it.

I was once at a tournament where Kensuke Okabayashi was signing cards.  He was new to illustrating for Magic, with only Callous Deceiver and Junkyo Bell in his repertoire (not counting selections from his previous work on display.)  Consequently, his table was quiet compared to the other established Magic artists.  But digging through my collection, I found I owned one foil Junyo Bell.  So I brought it to him to sign.

 

 

As it turns out, this was the first time Kensuke saw a foil Junkyo Bell.  He was fascinated and a little moved.  After staring it at for a while, he signed it and gave it back.  It didn’t occur to me until after the tournament that I should have given him the card.  But, you know, missed opportunities.  That’s when I made up my mind that if I couldn’t give the card to him, that the next best thing I could do was learn to treasure this (admittedly) under-powered rare.  It got quite some use as I developed a relationship with a card that otherwise would’ve wasted away in my box of random foils to be later sold on eBay.

I’m talking about this because Gatherer, most randomly, fed me one of my pet cards for the cube.  Hi, I’m John-Michael Gariepy and I’m building a draft cube for Magic: the Gathering.  But I’m a lost-cause Johnny that can’t help but do things in the worst way possible.  Half of the cards in my cube are chosen at random, using the ‘Random Card’ button on Gatherer.  The other half the cards are custom designed by me to somehow make sense out of chaos.  I started this particular log talking about pet cards, because Gatherer fed me one of my classic pets.  If I’m buried with a Magic card some day, it would probably be this one:

 

 

Good old Standin’ Around Guys.  I used to put Standing Troops in way more decks than the white Yotian Soldier deserved.  I just had a goofy fascination with how they were the perfect pair of legs to walk an aura or combat trick into battle in ’00 and ’01.  I couldn’t get enough of enchanting these guys with Armadillo Cloak and swinging with my 3/6 trample, vigilance, lifelink creature on round four.  This, despite knowing I was setting myself up for card disadvantage when my opponent showed me a Terminate or Repulse.  I was so smitten by this card, I ran Llanowar Cavalry as Standing Troops five and six.  It was bad.  I knew it was bad.  But it was too much fun when it worked.

 

 

So far, when Gatherer handed me a vanilla creature with only keywords, I added a vanilla creature with only keywords for parity.  Not everything in a meal needs to be a complex melange of flavors.  Sometimes simple black coffee or plain white rice can help provide a base for the more complicated foods to contrast against.  I also need to shore up all the loose mechanics before I run out of slots.  And looking at my file, I see that I need to add a blue creature with a red activation.  Oh, and wall tribal could use another tool, too.

 

 

I’m playing fast and loose with what I consider a keyword mechanic.  Activated abilities that alter a creature’s power and/or toughness are so simple they can be easier to process than a great number of surprisingly complex keywords.  Does it matter if ‘Flowstone’ isn’t a literal keyword?  The purpose is to keep a handful of cards simple, and Pliable Tide fits that role nicely.

Let’s move on.  Hitting the random button again, I get:

 

 

Godo, Bandit Warlord.  Huh.  There aren’t any other Samurai in the set, and I don’t plan on making Samurai tribal a thing this late in the game.  But he still grants an extra attack phase, even if the only creatures that can attack in both phases need to be untapped when it happens.  (That small list of creatures includes Standing Troops.  Funny.)

The quasi-Relentless Assault is nice.  But many player ignore his tribal Samurai ability anyway, and are instead focused on Godo’s ability to bring his own equipment to the party.  So what equipment is in our set already?  Hmm.  There’s Blade of Burden from log 17 which gets better the more creatures you sacrifice to it.  Sacrificing creatures is a red mechanic in this cube, but it’s too specialized a choice to be Godo’s goto.

 

 

There’s also Head of Gold, which is a weirdo pile of abilities questionably cobbled together from a Revalations CCG card (Log 11 was particularly strange.)  Bonus points for being a Human tribal card… but it’s just as likely to steal Godo from your opponent.

 

 

Oh, and then there’s…

 

The Sword of Fire and Ice.  Also from log 17.  At first I was concerned there wasn’t one spectacular piece of equipment that Godo always wanted to grab.  I forgot the Sword was in here.  I’m no longer concerned.

Sword takes some pressure off, since it’s such a good card that it’s worth wasting a slot for Godo if you already got the sword.  In fact, it’s worth splashing for Godo with a couple Mountains even if the only equipment you got is the sword.  It’s like having two swords in your deck.  I mean, I’d do it.  Wouldn’t you?

But I want Godo to have something to do when Sword doesn’t pop up, so we need to add a handful of equipment to the cube.  Might as well get cracking.

 

 

I’ve been trying to create a ‘Masquerade Lord’ for a while now, but I couldn’t figure out how to tie it all together.  It turns out the answer was “make the lord a literal mask.”  Gain 3 life and +1/+1 counter themes from the cube were tacked on for good measure.  Originally, the attack trigger included something along the lines of “After combat, add . Spend this mana only to cast creatures named Aven Envoy.”  But while I still think that’s kind of funny, it’s a bit much.

I also made the casting cost , the equip , and adjusted the abilities accordingly.  Mostly, because I think it would be funny if somebody played an actual Aven Envoy on round one, then played the Messenger’s Mask on round two and swung on three with the real deal.

Okay, Gatherer.  What else ya got?

 

 

How weird that we picked up another creature with vigilance?  I almost want to rename this card to “Godo’s Hunting Falcon”.

Flying is always useful, but Sea Eagle stats are still weak.  The vigilance is nice, but without a body to support it, the Falcon is an overpriced Zephyr Sprite for fickle people who can’t decide between attacking or chump blocking.  Thankfully, there are plenty of auras in cube to beef the bird.  And more equipment now, I suppose.

Like I said before, when I get a vanilla creature with only keywords, I tend to add a vanilla creature with only keywords.  But I think we can bend my own arbitrary rules one more time to craft an equipment with only keywords.

 

Poking around, I noticed Wizards never made an equipment with only first strike and hexproof.  So here we are.  First strike and hexproof are decent enough additions to the Falcon, but that bird really needs a power and toughness boost.  What a greedy bird.  It’s fine.  There’s plenty of power/toughness boosting auras in the set, and hexproof makes those auras more practical.  You’re welcome.  Stupid greedy bird.

Swept Hilt might be too cheap.  I used Swiftfoot Boots as a guide, but that card is 4.174 stars… when ratings still mattered on Gatherer.  Meanwhile, Bladed Pinion still seems like a perfectly reasonable pick.  I suppose a little playtesting will tell me what I need to know.

Next!

 

Somebody made fan art of Composite Golem?  Oh, we’re rocking that.

Composite Golem, in concept, doesn’t seem all that broken.  Until you realize there’s a number of giant monsters in this cube, and this Golem might let you slip one out on round five.  Suddenly, Godsire, Bosh, Iron Golem and Spawnsire of Ulamog don’t sound like such ridiculous picks.

If this was log 10, I would make a card that either penalizes big creatures, or rewards decks with small creatures.  But I’m still on a kick to make sure all of the disparate parts make it into the cube before I grind down on one color in particular (Hello, Red.  It seems you’re behind Blue by seven cards as of right now…)  And there’s nothing particularly wrong with Composite Golem.  I’m happy it’s here.  It made sixteen (?!) cards with a converted mana cost over six a lot more reasonable (Technically, one of those cards has cycling, and another has delve.  But that’s still like dumping a 1x set of mythic rares from a large expansion into a cube… if all the mythic rares cost seven or more. Oh, and I guess there are an additional three cards with in their cost so…)

Blue is currently the card count leader, but I have two blue cards left that must be added.  So I might as well punch them out now, and not touch blue again for a few logs.  Here’s one of them:

 

 

My notes tell me I need a simple bounce Instant.  My notes also tell me I need a combat trick… but I don’t think I noticed that Velomorph is already in the cube, which instant speed clones one of your own creatures until end of turn.  It requires having two different creatures for it to work, so it’s not always ‘turned on’.  But the second mode of Unfetter can remove auras and equipment at instant speed, so it can be used as a sometimes trick too.  Let’s just presume the blue trick category is covered enough.

Trick aside, this card plays double duty since it’s also a strong reset button for an auramancer when staring down an occasional removal spell.  Grizzly Bears come and go.  But the auras attached to them may be priceless.

All right.  Let’s see what else I get:

 

Oh.  Oh!  Mox Pearl!  Is this… is this fair?

Because the Moxen are notorious for being among the most broken cards in the game.  In fact, Mox Pearl popped up as card number 11 in my 2014 update of the 10 Most Desirable Magic Cards, According to Gatherer (really?  2014?  Update?  The fact that I’ve been at this so long comes with some bittersweet reactions.)

If it’s too powerful for the cube, I need to veto it.  But… I’m not sure it is?  The moxen are broken because, when they replace lands, they accelerate decks beyond what is reasonable, sometimes leading to victory on round one.  But a single mox?  I’m not even sure it’s always a first draft pick.  Not if a card like Sword of Fire and Ice is in the same pack.

Don’t get me wrong.  This card is bonkers.  And under normal conditions, I would never consider it.  But Gatherer gave it to me randomly.  And I only want to use my veto power when I’m absolutely sure a card is inappropriate.  And I’m not sure.  I’m willing to play with it for a little while, and remove it later if it’s too polarizing.  But maybe it will only ever be spectacular.

 

Once again, I use alternate fan art when I find it.  This one was cropped from Jeremy Carver.

So… how do you follow up a card carrying member of the Power Nine?  I guess you don’t try.  I have one final blue card to strike off my list of ‘needs’.  Might as well do that now.

 

 

Phantom Frigate is the final piece in the Sedge Troll cycle.  I came at this card while trying to imagine a Sedge Troll in blue/white that would still be playable in mono-blue.  Because that’s the crux to cards like this.  If you would only ever draft this card in a white/blue deck, and never into a mono-blue deck, then I might as well make it multicolored and get it over with.  Blue has a long tradition with paying five mana for a 3/3 flyer in common, though.  These cards usually pick up a trinket bonus ability along the way, but Nimbus of the Isles shows that maybe even that’s negotiable.  Even if a 3/3 flyer for five isn’t efficient, it can sometimes get the job done.

Once we add a plains, however, we upgrade to Air Elemental stats with a bonus ability.  The set needs more spirit tribal, so I made the card a Spirit.  The card needed a unique white ability, so the activated ability became a Charge for spirits.  But there’s a razor’s edge problem with using Charge for spirits.  If the ability is too cheap, it would be super abusive in a tribal Spirit deck.  But if your deck only features one to three Spirits, an expensive activation for a minor bonus would read terrible.  What if you made a Spirit when you activated the ability, so the card always came with its own army to boost?

When you do an image search for “Flying Ghost”, Bing wants to show you a lot of pictures of The Flying Dutchman.  A ghost ship works for me.  Just change the Spirits to Spirit Pirates, and we’re done.

Unfortunately, while I didn’t mean to do this, my holistic design overlapped space with a card I previously designed…

 

 

Not a big deal.  The stats are mutable, and I was never a fan of this artwork for this card anyway.  Sometimes you just can’t find the blue ghost you’re looking for and need to give up after a certain point.  It’s kind of weird that it became easier to find appropriate images once I limited my search for ‘only pirate ghosts’.

 

 

There.  A lowered casting cost so both creatures more readily fit in the same deck.  The spirits tokens lose flying and become pirates to match the Frigate’s tokens.  And the Quartermaster’s power/toughness is changed to 1/5 to give the two cards different roles.  Quartermaster holds the ground, while Frigate flies over the top for victory.

Things are shaping up.  What’s the last item up for bid, Gatherer?

 

 

One additional reason why I like the overlap between the Frigate or the Quartermaster is that blue has a ‘creature numbers superiority’ theme.  Making a small pile of bonus Pirate Spirits feeds into that.  You would think a red card that dumps three creatures for three mana would bother me… but red and green share a sacrifice theme.  And it won’t get there unless there are ready creatures to sacrifice.

 

 

I was aiming for a red creature, but landed on this design.  And an animated paperclip popped up and said, “It looks like you’re designing a green card.  Would you like help?”

Oh, and in case you’re wondering ‘pomodator’ means ‘fruit-giver’.  And no, don’t bother looking it up.  I built that word out of the Latin roots.

Alright, it’s time to wrap things up with a token creature.  And since we introduced Spirit Pirates to the mix, let’s unearth one of our bespooked friends.

 

 

I try to match the illustrator with the image and link people to them whenever I can.  Especially with token creatures, since the artwork is the main feature for those frames.  But I can’t place this pirate.  Too many hack websites wanted to tell you twenty pirate terms they copied from other websites, and stole this image without linking back to where their material came from.

I’m sorry the Internet is like that sometimes.  Ah well.  I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised when pirates don’t act like gentlemen.

Head on over to log 24 here.  Or perhaps you’d prefer to peruse the rest of the According to Gatherer Archive?