With the Streets of New Capenna Prerelease now in the rearview mirror, we’ll be able to get our hands on cards from the new set this week. I had high expectations for the gold cards in New Capenna, but looking through the file, it seems that they played it very safe with regard to most things three-color. Perhaps there was fear of printing the next Siege Rhino or, worse yet, Genesis Ultimatum.
I dove into the particulars of three-color cards in a Cube before we had the full preview. Unsurprisingly, there aren’t fully three-color gold cards in Streets of New Capenna that I find all that exciting for Cube. As I stated in that article, lands and hybrid spells are exceptions here, though I was hopeful for some absurd Naya card to really shake things up. Oh well.
Now that we know all the cards in the set and have even started to play with some of them, it’s time to identify which cards will be most impactful in the world of Cube. There are some standouts for rarity-restricted Cubes like Inspiring Overseer, which is likely to be a Pauper Cube slam dunk, though for the purpose of my Top 10 lists I don’t adjust for impact given restrictions given that the range of restrictions a person could have for their own Cube is infinite. Without further ado, let’s break down my picks for the Top 10 cards from Streets of New Capenna for Cube!
10. Sanctuary Warden
Shield counters are a new mechanic introduced with Streets of New Capenna, and while they seem weak to opponents with access to fiddly damage sources like Vulshok Sorcerer, they are powerful in the face of or in conjunction with sweepers like Wrath of God. Sanctuary Warden also gives you the ability to convert its shield counters into card advantage when you don’t expect them to be useful or when you need to draw to something, so there’s a lot to like about this card.
The significant downside is, of course, that the card costs six mana. This is a bigger issue for nonwhite creatures that have to contend with the good titans, but Sun Titan is pretty weak, and I like Sanctuary Warden over Sun Titan in most environments. The card is no Elspeth, Sun’s Champion, but it might end up being the second-best white six. That might mean that Sanctuary Warden won’t make a lot of Cubes that aren’t greater than 360 cards, but a lot of folks seem to like larger Cube sizes anyway.
As I was whittling my list of potentials down to ten, I found myself with a few six-drops vying for the bottom of my list. Sanctuary Warden edged out All-Seeing Arbiter largely due to blue having much better competition in the six-drop slot, though I do also see shield counters with the option to draw a card as more relevant than drawing some cards and bubbling an opposing creature as well. I’d expect All-Seeing Arbiter to see a good amount of Cube play as well, but it is a less significant printing when adjusted for color.
9. Vivien on the Hunt
At the top of the scrum of relevant new six-drops is Vivien on the Hunt. A planeswalker just generally has higher value over replacement than a creature, and Birthing Pod is a Cube archetype that is often fine but not quite there. Vivien does cost six, but at least it does something when you can’t get a Pod chain going.
While Vivien is worse than Birthing Pod in the best Birthing Pod decks with regard to mana efficiency, Vivien is a better card on average. Spending six mana to draw some cards or make a 4/4 isn’t a lot of immediate action, but it is at least something on an empty battlefield.
Similar to white sixes, green sixes are also fairly middling. I only really like Primeval Titan when there are land-driven archetypes such as Field of the Dead and Dark Depths, and the average Cube is more likely to be interested in a Birthing Pod archetype than that sort of thing. Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider and to a lesser extent Carnage Tyrant are better individual cards in the green six department though, so ultimately the question is one of whether you’re interested in driving archetypes or more powerful individual cards.
8. Professional Face-Breaker
The red three-drop slot has way too many options, but Professional Face-Breaker has good types and good abilities. I’ve been fond of Captain Lannery Storm in the Arena Cubes, and menace plus making Treasure off your other creatures is a powerful trade-off with haste and Lannery’s marginal pump ability.
Professional Face-Breaker is going to be weaker than cards like Goblin Rabblemaster; Laelia, the Blade Reforged; Seasoned Pyromancer; Bonecrusher Giant… actually quite a lot of red threes. But I like what the card offers as a game piece. Red can do a lot with access to some fast mana and/or card advantage, and I’d pick this card pretty highly in the Arena Cubes, if not in Vintage Cube.
It’s worth noting that we get more and more Treasure support all the time, and while Professional Face-Breaker works perfectly well on its own in an aggressive deck, it’s also something of an engine card in a deck that’s otherwise good at generating Treasures. I adore Treasure Map as a Cube card, and Grim Hireling is on my list of cards that I want to Cube with but haven’t yet. We’re also getting closer all the time to Academy Manufactor being a great card even in a singleton environment.
Devilish Valet is another red three that I had on my list of considerations, but I believe that it offers a lot less as an individual card than Professional Face-Breaker. It’s very cool to think about curving Devilish Valet into Pia and Kiran Nalaar, and I’m very excited to pair the card with Rally the Ancestors in Spooky Cube, but it’s definitely weaker abstractly as a red three.
7. Jinnie Fay, Jetmir’s Second
If I’m advocating for Academy Manufactor, then it’s hard to say that Jinnie Fay, Jetmir’s Second doesn’t already have a lot of awesome interactions. The fact that Jinnie Fay can occupy a mono-green, Gruul, Selesnya, or even Naya slot also makes it easier to fit into a Cube than a lot of other three drops. When you consider that Gruul and Selesnya are among the least exciting two-color pairs for most Cubes, Jinnie Fay’s relevance is amplified.
A three-mana 3/3 probably marks the floor for considering a card like this, but if that floor is acceptable in a particular Cube, then many generically powerful cards play great with Jinnie Fay. You’re better off if your Garruk Relentless makes tokens with haste, but you’re really cooking when you combine Jinnie Fay with the aforementioned Treasure Map or a card like Secure the Wastes.
Jinnie Fay is more of a synergy card than a generically powerful one, but Jinnie Fay puts a lot of token themes over and also just plays very well with a lot of powerful cards that happen to make tokens. A three-mana 3/3 that is somewhat difficult to cast won’t clear the bar for most Cubes on its own, but it’s also the case that most Cubes will have a lot of incidental synergies with Jinnie Fay and that Jinnie Fay will be very powerful in a lot of Cubes if you curate an environment with intentional token themes.
6. Ob Nixilis, the Adversary
Ob Nixilis, the Adversary is possibly the most hyped card from Streets of New Capenna. For Cube, the card seems dramatically weaker than Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast, but then, Daretti is too powerful for a lot of Cubes. Ob Nixilis is a cool role-player for sacrifice decks that plays well if you have a good sacrifice shell, but is middling in terms of best sacrifice cards. I would pick Woe Strider over Ob Nixilis almost every time.
That said, Ob Nixilis is one of those three-mana planeswalkers that can get under control decks and pressure the opponent to react before you can execute the ultimate. Whether you’re using the -7 to actually finish your opponent or just to draw seven cards, you’ll be sitting pretty. That said, we don’t evaluate planeswalkers in terms of their ultimates. The +1 and -2 abilities are both fairly weak.
Ob Nixilis will be solid in Cubes of a similar power level to the Arena Cubes. If you can curve something like Lazotep Reaver into Ob Nixilis, you’ll put a lot of pressure on your opponent to act early. This won’t often be effective against aggressive decks or fast combo decks, but should be effective against controlling ones.
You can gather from this assessment that I’m colder on Ob Nixilis than most. I expect the card to show up in many Cubes and be more or less fine. The card just gives your opponent a little too much agency and doesn’t impact the battlefield quite enough. I imagine it will play much better in formats where you can play multiples by virtue of using the first copy to make a token and set up casting the second with the casualty “kicker.”
5. Rigo, Streetwise Mentor
I haven’t really seen any chatter around Rigo, but I like this card a lot. A cheap creature with a shield counter that allows you to draw cards as an attack trigger? Sign me up! I already consider Legion’s Landing to be one of the best white one-drops for Cube, so moving towards a higher volume of one-power creatures instead of Savannah Lions doesn’t seem all that difficult. Rigo also comes from the same cycle as Jinnie Fay, which allows the card to occupy a mono-white, Azorius, Selesnya, or Bant slot. A three-mana 2/2 isn’t a great rate, but there’s a lot to like otherwise.
Rigo clashes a little with Anthem effects that are common to white Cube sections, but I believe that the shield counter offers decent value even when you have an Anthem and that you will sometimes only draw one or the other anyway if your deck has both. I like the look of Rigo in most any Cube that features Spectral Procession, and the fact that Rigo can occupy an otherwise tough-to-fill Selesnya slot while playing in mono-white is meaningful.
Rigo’s types are horrendous as a Cat Citizen, and white threes are a fairly crowded space, so I can see this one succeeding in fewer Cubes than I initially estimate. A lot of what I like about this card is rooted in the fact that Cubes should be cutting a lot of their white threes anyway, and in Rigo being an above-average Selesnya card.
4. Tainted Indulgence
Sometimes great Cube cards are just generally unexciting effects at a good rate. Tainted Indulgence is actually pretty close to Chart a Course in power level on balance, but Chart a Course is great, and I rarely exclude it from my Cubes. An instant is more powerful than a sorcery, but the requirement to attack to net a card is much easier to accomplish than having five different mana values in your graveyard.
All that aside, Dimir is surprisingly short on great two-color gold cards historically. There’s just too much mill garbage, and parasitic stuff like Dimir Spybug simply doesn’t work in most environments. There are some hot ones like The Scarab God and Hostage Taker, but Cubes with five or more gold slots for two-color pairs usually have an expendable Dimir card or two. Whether you’re using Tainted Indulgence as Reanimator support or just solid card selection, I expect the card to have a very high rate of play in most environments.
3. Tenacious Underdog
Black aggressive decks are still hurting for some more great one-drops, but I’m not one to look a gift two-drop in the mouth. Tenacious Underdog has awesome abilities and great types, and it can block! What’s not to like?
Well, if black isn’t an aggressive color in your Cube, the card won’t be a good fit, and that’s still true of a lot of Cubes. Tenacious Underdog does fit into sacrifice themes better than lots of black twos, though, so it has a wider range than cards that are purely aggressive. I had kind of assumed that using the blitz ability from the graveyard would cause you to exile the Underdog, but it seems that you can use and reuse that ability, which is a big deal in grindier games.
Tenacious Underdog won’t be able to hang in a lot of high-power Cubes just as a matter of aggressive black decks not being supported, but I expect the card to excel in the Arena Cubes and really any Cube with any sort of aggressive slant to black.
2. Scheming Fence
By contrast, Scheming Fence is the card on my list that will be at its best in Vintage Cube. An answer to mana rocks that then gives you the mana advantage that you turned off for your opponent? Awesome. A 2/3 for two is kind of whatever, but that’s a low mana cost and the body is quite good against a lot of aggressive decks.
Scheming Fence also plays well in lower-power environments, as there will almost always be permanents to shut off. While the card can’t steal the abilities of planeswalkers, it can at least stop your opponent from using their abilities.
Azorius is another two-color pair that isn’t all that deep with great options, and as such I expect Scheming Fence to make a lot of Cubes. It’s worth noting that it’s quite common for Azorius slots to be dedicated to control decks with sweepers like Supreme Verdict, and in environments that really lean into this, Scheming Fence will be an awkward fit for this color pair. As long as creatures are somewhat desirable in a blue and white deck in a given Cube, though, Scheming Fence will be a great fit.
1. Triomes
My issues with Triomes are documented now, but I can’t deny that this cycle is quite popular and will show up in a lot of Cubes. It will even show up in some of mine!
I’ve deliberately left mana-fixing lands off previous Top 10 lists, but Triomes are actually near the top of the list when it comes to lands that facilitate Cubes with a heavy multicolor focus. While I don’t believe them to be the best fit for a lot of Cubes, they are among the most powerful lands ever printed. I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of this cycle in the digital Cubes now that it’s complete, and these will be staples for a lot of physical Cubes as well.
I’d hoped that Streets of New Capenna would have stronger offerings in the realm of three-color gold cards for the allied shards, but it seems that most of the power points there went to lands. All the same, the set offers a lot of new Cube goodies, even if they weren’t the ones I necessarily wanted. If I could minorly edit the set, I’d push the hybrid cards just a little harder, but some of them are still quite good, and I’m reasonably pleased with what we got.
