Howdy, gamers! Last week I unveiled my picks for the top 10 Cubeable cards from Outlaws of Thunder Junction, but I still have a score to settle with the set. A Big Score! Today I’ll be going over my picks for the 10 most Cubeable cards featured in either The Big Score or Thunder Junction Commander!
What is The Big Score?
I wouldn’t expect a lot of players to know exactly what is going on with The Big Score, so I’ll offer some cliff notes on this selection of cards before we begin today. The Big Score is a collection of 30 mythic rare cards that appear in booster packs of Outlaws of Thunder Junction but were originally intended to be their own release. There’s a significant artifact theme among these cards and they’re dissonant enough from the main set that I wanted to highlight them separately the way that I did with The Jurassic World Collection.
30 cards isn’t that many, and a few cards from The Big Score are reprints, so that leaves room to highlight some cards from Thunder Junction Commander as well. Let’s go over the themes of these decks first.
Desert Bloom
Desert Bloom is a Naya deck with a Lands theme and a more specific focus on Deserts. There are some cool designs here, with Embrace the Unknown being a pretty exciting card that is just a little too inefficient to make my list. Sand Scout is similarly intriguing, but unfortunately the mention of Deserts makes the card too specific for most Cubes. This one is definitely worth taking a look at if your Cube is more focused on lands, and especially if you’re interested in Desert support!
Grand Larceny
Grand Larceny is a Sultai deck that has the unsurprising theme of stealing your opponent’s stuff. I generally shy away from effects like the one that Gonti, Canny Acquisitor offers just because you don’t have all that many cards to play with to begin with in 40-card formats, but there is definitely an audience for it. Savvy Trader is something of a standout from this deck for me as sort of Eternal Witness effect with upside, though it’s a little too inefficient to hang in a lot of Cubes. There is definitely some room to experiment with its unique cost reduction ability though, and I just may find myself picking up a copy for Spooky Cube!
Most Wanted
Most Wanted is a Mardu deck that keys off of assembling a team of outlaws, which refers to Assassins, Mercenaries, Pirates, Rogues, and Warlocks if you haven’t seen the word referenced in Magic yet. To be honest, there’s not much to see here if you’re not explicitly interested in typal synergies.
Quick Draw
Quick Draw is an Izzet deck that, you guessed it, cares about drawing multiple cards and casting multiple spells. There’s even a little Storm support peppered in! I generally enjoy the designs in this deck, though they are definitely and correctly rated for multiplayer Magic. I’m excited by cards like Lock and Load and Eris, Roar of the Storm, but they’re tough to really make work in 40-card decks. This deck did generate a couple nice hits for my list though. Speaking of, it’s time to count down my picks for the 10 most Cubeable cards from The Big Score and Thunder Junction Commander!
10. Pest Control
I absolutely abhor Pest Control, but I can’t deny that it will be making a good amount of Cubes. It’s a strong sweeper to clean up token decks when they get out of hand as well as a passable option for an Orzhov slot in Vintage Cube to answer all of the busted fast mana.
I find this card tremendously boring for being very specific and reliant on your opponent to make it terribly effective, and then when it is effective it is sometimes outright backbreaking. Add cycling to add noncommittal to the list of words to describe the card and it’s just very not for me. That said, I expect Do-Nothing Control fans to rejoice at this printing, and it will definitely make some playgroups happy.
9. Pyretic Charge
As is usually the case with my Top 10s from Commander products, some of the cards on my list today are quite niche. Pyretic Charge is unlikely to make as many Cubes as Pest Control, but it will be far more exciting when it does show up.
Sorcery speed is what ultimately kills this card for most environments, but a Trumpet Blast of sorts paired with a draw four can give aggressive decks a lot of staying power, and this is a solid curve-topper for a token strategy. I also like the use of plot here, allowing you to set up either for the ideal turn to pump your team or for when your hand is empty and you really want to draw those four cards. This is likely a card that will stick primarily to games of Commander and Commander Cubes, but it’s very charming all the same.
8. Transmutation Font
Speaking of niche cards, here’s another flagship for Game Objects Cube! It would be very easy to slot this card into a lot of Cubes if one of the options were to create a Treasure token, but even without that option I still like Transmutation Font for Cubes aiming for a modest power level. Pepper in some synergies with the tokens it generates and there’s a lot to like here.
The Tinker-esque half of the card is appealing, though I imagine you’ll be finding stuff like Academy Manufactor and Trading Post with this one rather than Bolas’s Citadel and Blightsteel Colossus. I’m happy to see another card that is so unique and effective in this space.
7. Crackling Spellsinger and Elemental Eruption
I could have given these cards each their own slot, but seeing as they’re both Storm cards that are weaker than the Brain Freezes and Mind’s Desires of the world I saw it fit to talk about these cards as a pair. Admittedly, they do offer slightly different incentives, but I see both contributing to less all-in versions of Storm.
Elemental Eruption is going to be solid to cast one or two rituals into at any point in the game. A Seething Song into two Dragons on turn four is nothing to sneeze at, and there are all kinds of other spells that are trivial to fit into the equation. If your Cube features Pyretic Ritual and the like this card is very appealing, and I do imagine that it will be more effective at actually closing games on average than Empty the Warrens both for being far more effective with lower Storm counts and for producing bodies that matter far more in the late game.
Crackling Spellsinger has funkier applications. The most immediately exciting options to me are to use it to give Lightning Bolt or Manamorphose storm. At five mana it’s going to be tough to try to play a mostly fair game with Crackling Spellseeker, but it’s not out of the question. Copying something like Pyrokinesis could also be kind of bonkers. It is likely that you will need to use some rituals to get much meaningful value out of Crackling Spellsinger, but it’s an exciting option for storm decks all the same, and is one that I would be interested in experimenting with in Vintage Cube.
6. Smirking Spelljacker
Five mana counterspells with some upside are something we’ve seen a few riffs on in recent years, though Smirking Spelljacker is the most powerful of the lot. A 3/3 flier with flash is a solid body, and stapling a Spelljack to that is outrageous. It’s also worth noting that the ability is worded in a way where you can even nab uncounterable spells!
It’s entirely possible that Smirking Spelljacker exists in a space where it’s too replaceable for Vintage Cube and too obnoxious for lower power levels, but it’s definitely an option to explore if you like big swings in games on cards with solid average use cases.
5. Sword of Wealth and Power
The newest addition to the sword of this and that cycle doesn’t offer protection from colors, but it does still leave a lot to like. Protections from instants and sorceries don’t offer any evasion, but they do help a lot in building a Voltron and attacking without worrying about most combat tricks. I think by now we all know how good Hexdrinker is with a third level up counter!
Making a Treasure on a hit trigger is fine if unexciting, and copying your next instant or sorcery won’t always matter all that much, but there are certain spells and specific games where this can come up in a big way. Mostly I just like the way that protection from instants and sorceries plays much better than protection from colors, offering more dynamic gameplay by allowing the opponent to block if they’re so inclined.
4. Nexus of Becoming
There was a time when I was all too happy to control a Staff of Nin, and while those days are long gone a one-sided Howling Mine is still an appealing start to a card, even at six mana. Factor in the ability to sort of cheat in something more expensive and you’ve got yourself a stew going!
The most immediate thoughts I have about casting Nexus of Becoming involve doing so off of Mishra’s Workshop and making 3/3 Emrakuls and Portal to Phyrexias, but I would play it in basically any ramp deck in any Cube. There are plenty of powerful cards to ramp into these days so ultimately this effect is fairly replaceable, but it is powerful and appealing all the same.
3. Sandstorm Salvager
When I think of supporting tokens decks in Cubes I am much more drawn to cards like Sandstorm Salvager than Pest Control! The green Blade Splicer is here, and while white is generally a better color for this sort of thing due to blink synergies this will still be a welcome inclusion in any Cube supporting a Selesnya tokens archetype. It’s worth noting that Sandstorm Salvager does make a Golem, so there’s synergy with Blade Splicer there, too.
The pump ability offering trample and being instant speed gives a lot to worry about for potential blockers. Many Cubes elect for green to be more of a ramp color than an aggressive color, but the more aggressive your green column is, the more appealing Sandstorm Salvager will be.
2. Collector’s Cage
On the topic of cards that pump at instant speed, Collector’s Cage is a wild combat trick on a stick that threatens to cast something busted out of nowhere with its hideaway ability. The card fits better in a tokens shell than aggressive decks flush with Savannah Lions both for having more bodies to target as well as the likelihood of a higher mana curve, but I expect it plays well in either shell.
Some of the appeal of Collector’s Cage comes from trying to hideaway something massive, though for my money a free spell is a free spell, and five looks is enough that you should get something worth your investment. There are plenty of other synergies to take advantage of just from adding counters to creatures, with Hardened Scales and modular both being significant features of my Artifact Twobert making this a slam dunk there. Despite being a fairly simple design, there’s a lot to like with Collector’s Cage.
1. Harvester of Misery
And finally, we come to the most blunt instrument on my list. A solid Reanimator target that also has a build-in discard outlet for itself that serves as a removal spell. I couldn’t replace Massacre Wurm in my Vintage Cube fast enough!
Harvester of Misery looks like a shoe-in for any high-powered Cube with a Reanimator theme, as well as a solid option for Control decks assuming that -2/-2 isn’t too oppressive against the aggressive decks in your environment. I don’t typically end up with a card best suited for Vintage Cube as the number one my lists, but it just happens that it’s the most immediately appealing home for any card from these releases.
Thunder Junction Commander is fairly light on Cube goodies, though that’s pretty typical of Commander releases tied to Standard sets. The Big Score doesn’t have all that many generally appealing Cube cards, but the well is deeper than you might expect for a 30-card list, with cards like Lost Jitte and Lotus Ring barely not making my list. I’m happy with these sets offer, and happier still that we didn’t have to endure another Aftermath release to get these cards!
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