On Puncturing Light vs Judge Unworthy: I think that's another point up for Judge. high powered/low toughness creatures are generally more common and better than low powered/high toughness dudes. I'm not sure though, I'd have to look through the cube again.
Removal:
Oblivion Ring Do I really need to justify this? Only Faiths Fetters and Journey to Nowhere even comes close in white removal spells.
Arrest: Generally an oblivion ring for creatures only that doesn't give them etb shenanigans. Hardly amazing, but it's removal. Probably second best here.
Kor Chant: Lets you block any guy and kill it, or if your blocker has power not less than that creatures toughness, then you'll normally 2 for 1. Also excellent against burn. Possibly better than Arrest even, but it's more conditional and I don't think I'd pick it higher.
Cage of Hands: Overcosted. Honestly, I'm considering cutting this for Judge Unworthy/Puncturing Light. Thoughts? Sweepers aren't non-existent here though, and in the same deck they can be brutal. It's also nice that you don't have to worry about putting it on a smallish creature, even if 4W is a hefty cost to move it.
Recumbent Bliss: Yeah, the life could be relevant. But not as relevant as the 1 extra, I'd avoid this.
Hobble: I find this terribly underrated. Sure, it's a control support card and can only sit in the sideboard of an aggro deck most of the time, but cantripping removal is soooo good. I'll probably swap this back in for Cage of Hands, actually.
Global Pumps: I only play one, Marshalling Cry. In general though, I find them incredibly overrated. They rely a lot on board position and aren't nearly as brutal as their normal cube counterparts (anthems and overruns).
Marshaling Cry: While the pump itself isn't quite as good, the thing that is good about it is its flexibility. As a topdeck on an empty board, cycling is good and you also get the pump later. That also applies to any other situation when you don't have any board presence, of course. Also, giving only +1/+1 is not terrible at all as it's likely that, if one of the others would kill them then the vigilance will stop you from dying and the additional anthem the next turn could quite likely finish them off. It's harder to counter and can cycle, making it better against control, too. I could go on, but I think you get it. Being a flexible card in a niche where the cards are generally not flexible at all is a good thing.
Righteous Charge: Up to everyone to judge themselves, if you ask me. It's not very flexible, but providing you have decent board position you can almost always get a pretty large life/creature swing with it.
Fortify: It's wider in application than Righteous Charge, but not to the point of Marshalling Cry. It can hose mass removal and burn, which is always nice, but I always get the feeling that it's never worth the mana at all. Not being able to make irrelevant dudes into dudes that force your opponent to chump is much worse than relying on your creatures to not get blocked, due to evasion or size or whatever, to win the game. I don't think that just making your small dudes trade with their big dudes is worth the conditions and the mana, as although it does give you good incremental advantage, that's not what you're looking for in a deck with Fortify.
Other
Empyrial Armour: I really think that this is a great card. It's in a rather strange
place to be in common cubes, but the card itself is really powerful and can be a total beating.
Holy Light: I'm still not at all sure what I think about this one. It seems decent in aggro and decent in control, but it still needs to prove its worth.
Repel the Darkness: Really good. Hits through for final damage in aggro decks, gains quite a lot of life in control, and does both in midrange. Oh, and you draw a card.
Cage of Hands: Overcosted. Honestly, I'm considering cutting this for Judge Unworthy/Puncturing Light. Thoughts? Sweepers aren't non-existent here though, and in the same deck they can be brutal. It's also nice that you don't have to worry about putting it on a smallish creature, even if :4mana::symw: is a hefty cost to move it.
It's good in theory, but I've never been able to utilise the bounce as any more than a mana sink and for options. I really need to cut this sooner or later.
Yeah, but especially here, an early threat and a late threat are likely to be around the same size, unless they're green. When there's hardly anything bigger than a 3/3, Garruk's Companion becomes as relevant a removal target as pretty much anything else. Because of this, the return to hand clause of Cage of Hands doesn't seem great at all. Of course, there are exceptions, and when you get beaten down by a Garthan Raiders, you'll definitely want that Cage of Hands.
Edit: Garruk's Companion is hardly a good example, because it's green. But you get what I mean.
I've used the move ability substantially more, but still less than ten times. It's not that fair saying it costs 5, as 2 at the end of their turn and 3 in your turn is hardly as hard as 5 mana, but it still is rather hefty. I'll take it out.
Faith's Fetters is ridiculously good. Seriously. Breath of Life/False Defeat are Pauper's reanimator tools, but for 4 mana, and with such meagre pickings, they're not really as good. Still, solid. Blinding Beam is pretty hot. I wouldn't call it ridiculous, like Faith's Fetter, but solid. Inspired Charge doesn't seem worth it to me. It'd be cool it if was +2/+2, or +3/+0, but as it is I have other options. Gleam of Resistance is good earlygame and fair lategame. Nothing to shout home about. Excise is bad removal. I must relinquish it immediately. Divine Verdict is also bad. D:
I know you have finished CMC 3, but no love for Protective Sphere? This card is ridiculous in a 5 colour control style of deck and getting it early really makes me want to go that route. I would run it over something like Safe Passage or Repel the Darkness. [/lurk]
I know you have finished CMC 3, but no love for Protective Sphere? This card is ridiculous in a 5 colour control style of deck and getting it early really makes me want to go that route. I would run it over something like Safe Passage or Repel the Darkness. [/lurk]
I don't like Protective Sphere. It's 4 mana, worthless against small weenie decks, doesn't work with combat well and the largest number of colors a deck usually is is around 3.
Even against weenie, unless they are all 1/1's it can still save a lot of damage. Against some decks it is awesome, they have to spend a million turns beating you down with their 5/5s to kill you. Most cubes should already have the fixing to support 5C control decks, but I guess its not everyones favourite archetype.
I haven't tested any normal drafts - only winston draft. More colours is much more common in winston draft because the card quality is lower - sort of like sealed with more choices.
Faith's Fetters The best white card. Not to start that debate again, but it is crazy good anyway.
Blinding Beam I really don't get why this is meant to be better than Repel the Darkness. I don't know about you, but in my cube I expect a topdeck to be better than 1: Two target creatures don't untap during their next untap step. Though I should probably run it anyway.
Breath of Life/False Defeat - Decks are never mono white here (and if they ever are, they suck) and I'd be more than happy to run this in any two colour combination with white apart from WR, where it's already excluded because of the nature of the curve. I really quite like them.
Inspired Charge The forth best creature pump spell, in my opinion. 4 mana is hardly a given in aggro, and even if you do have 4, there are lots of reasons you might want to keep a land up. Still, not bad.
Gleam of Resistance Only very slightly better than the landcycling on it, which isn't terrible, but is hardly exciting. I wouldn't run it, but won't fault anyone for running it.
Divine Verdict These tricks are trademark obvious. And this isn't even worth the mana anyway. I'd prefer Path of Peace, which is pretty damn bad all up.
Excise Even worse than it looks on paper. Absolutely terrible here, at least.
Final thoughts on white: After cutting False Defeat, I realised how stupid it was to cut one but not the other (Skywatch Patrol is different, since it's just to smooth white's curve). So, I'm going to try out Inspired Charge in place of Breath of Life.
Skywatcher Adept: It's hardly great (same with most of the others) but it can upgrade from a 1 mana 1/1 to a relevant flier and then to a pretty heavy beater if you've got spare mana. The main thing I don't like about it is that it almost always demands a lot of mana early (and like other 1 drops, is hardly good late game) in blue where tying up mana early is almost always going against your gameplan.
Mistblade Shinobi: Unlike Ninja of the Deep Hours, this really isn't too good after it gets dropped. Sure, if you get the hand which lets you go 1st turn evasive creature into second turn mistblade and replay the creature, it's an investment that its probably worth it. However, you're often returning something that costs more mana than that and its ability is almost irrelevant after it has been played, as, barring tappers, they'll always block it unless they don't control a creature.
Kraken Hatchling: I'd never run it over Steel Wall (which isn't very good anyway), and I don't think that the redundancy is necessary. If you do, then run it.
Wind Zendikon: Goes against blue's strategy of controlling resources, as a simple removal spell can 1 for 1 you and put you behind on tempo. It its, however, quite good in blue based aggro decks, but until I see anything even close to decent along those lines, I don't think I'll try to support them.
Others: Hapless Researcher: Decent enough, but again blue aggro support which never goes into any deck.
Final thoughts on white: After cutting False Defeat, I realised how stupid it was to cut one but not the other (Skywatch Patrol is different, since it's just to smooth white's curve). So, I'm going to try out Inspired Charge in place of Breath of Life.
I don't think you'll be disappointed with this change. Charge might not make every deck, but Breath was quite often the worst card anyone would draft and it would hardly get played. Yes, I'm aware of the land cyclers, but those aren't nearly as prevalent as decks running bears and swinging for the fences. Breath of Life is just too fair, even for Pauper.
I just don't think U needs any of these cards. They are all essentially support for decks that U as a color doesn't need or support very well itself.
Skywatcher Adept-Just too hefty of an investment needed for this to make it, imo. I'm not saying the card itself is terrible, just that I don't think U should make room for every possibly playable creature when its noncreature section is so good ad it has plenty of "real" fliers anyway. If you have an aggro deck, you'd rather play multiple threats or use your mana to remove blockers and if you have a control deck, you need your mana up for answers and you have better finishers anyway. The versatility doesn't justify the cost, imo.
Mistblade Shinobi-The trick is obviously good, but it's just too small to be worth it past the first bounce. You are returning a creature which somewhat negates the fact that your opponent had to as well; obviously cost of each creature matter somewhat in the tempo aspect. Basically, if you return a cheap creature of your opponent's, the tempo is pretty much nil and if you return something huge to your opponent's hand, they'll still be able to block Mistblade when they recast it.
Kraken Hatchling-Bad. It's worse than Steel Wall(Naturalize effects aside, obv.), which has been just terrible here.
Wind Zendikon-Just comes down to supporting a deck that a color doesn't need or have. It's like giving r and w really expensive card draw spells to help nurture RW draw-go.
Hapless Researcher- Not worth it. It sacs itself to cycle a card, so you end up down a card to do what? Save 3 damage when you block? It doesn't actually do anything that none of your other cards couldn't do.
Martyr of Frost--The best one drop that isn't getting played still isn't worth it. It's either a 1/1, which U doesn't need, or it's a counterspell that is both visable and somewhat hard to utilize. It's a counterspell that dies to removal spells and has next to no combat significance otherwise.
Sage of Epityr--Nope. The effect is only ok, much worse than pretty much any spell that blue has and it doesn't beat any viable creatures U has either. Just do that if you think about running this guy, go down your list and ask yourself card-by-card if you would replace any of them with Sage.
Blue is the least aggressive color, so I don't see the need to give it aggressive cards that are bad in control decks.
But at the same time, if you want to push blue aggro, 1 drops like Skywatcher aren't bad. But I agree, blue doesn't have must going for it in the 1CMC section.
I'm probably going to cut Mistblade Shinobi later, when we get into the 2 and 3 CMC sections.
But at the same time, if you want to push blue aggro, 1 drops like Skywatcher aren't bad. But I agree, blue doesn't have must going for it in the 1CMC section.
I'm probably going to cut Mistblade Shinobi later, when we get into the 2 and 3 CMC sections.
One or two blue "aggro" creatures does not equal pushing aggro. Pushing aggro means a lot more than just the 1 cmc section. It has to permeate between the 0-4 sections. I don't feel blue has or needs the support, so why give the color a pick 15 for draft or an occasional 23rd playable aside from niche cards?
The problem with Wind Zendikon is that it puts together two resources - a creature and a land - into one resource. It's the same thing as almost any aura; one simple removal spell will kill both cards. But in the case of Zendikon, you're not losing an aura (since Zendikon is more of a creature enchanted by the land), but a land.
Good meaning they are fliers, but not needed and that's what I'm getting at. Not actively bad, but they are 23rd cards at best, imo. Cubes should be tight enough they don't have room for these. The times they are good probably won't outweigh the times they are mediocre. I don't play these cards and I see UW skies plenty.
I agree with you. Skywatcher Adept isn't that good and probably will* get the cut. But I'm not going to cut it for another control tool; I do believe that one or two more blue aggro cards can push it to being playable, so when I cut the Adept it'll be for another blue aggro card, preferably in the 2CMC section to keep it aggressive.
Well, Lanxal has spoken, and apparently an inexperienced cuber's opinion is an opinion nonetheless. I've only ever really played with Lanxal's cube, so all my opinions are based on what I see going on in there. But yeah, I guess I'll be contributing. Sometimes.
Skywatcher Adept - Personally, I reckon this is the most powerful one-drop creature blue has. It's a nice turn one play, and can be a mana-sink towards mid-game (although blue rarely needs a mana-sink). Also, it can be a nice beat stick should it survive that long. That being said, its still not an amazing card.
Mistblade Shinobi - Cool effect, but not quite good enough. It's fun early-on, but ultimately, it'll be hard to keep the bounce happening over and over again.
Kraken Hatching - It's like (insert bad card here), but WORSE!
Wind Zendikon - I actually really like this card. It's a one-drop flyer, and efficient, cheap beat-sticks are a commodity in Blue. It seems to add a little twist on Blue, so its not just the colour that bounces and counters stuff.
Hapless Researcher - It's a nice card, but the effect is ultimately too weak to be worth a slot in cube.
Martyr of Frost - Not that good. Either an insignificant 1/1, or an awkward to use counterspell. Neither are particularly attractive.
Sage of Epityr - Actually pretty cool, but there are better cards that fill in the role of a draw filter. Also, it's not even scry. Oh and it's 1/1.
But yeah, just my one-fiftieth of a dollar.
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WHITE NONCREATURE 3CMC
6 Oblivion Ring
6 Arrest
5 Kor Chant
4 Prismatic Strands
4 Cage of Hands
3 Safe Passage
3 Repel the Darkness
3 Fortify
2 Righteous Charge
2 Marshaling Cry
1 Recumbent Bliss
1 Holy Light
1 Hobble
1 Empyrial Armour
My Pauper Cube ♤ The Pauper Cube Thread Common Knowledge — 1 2
Removal:
Oblivion Ring Do I really need to justify this? Only Faiths Fetters and Journey to Nowhere even comes close in white removal spells.
Arrest: Generally an oblivion ring for creatures only that doesn't give them etb shenanigans. Hardly amazing, but it's removal. Probably second best here.
Kor Chant: Lets you block any guy and kill it, or if your blocker has power not less than that creatures toughness, then you'll normally 2 for 1. Also excellent against burn. Possibly better than Arrest even, but it's more conditional and I don't think I'd pick it higher.
Cage of Hands: Overcosted. Honestly, I'm considering cutting this for Judge Unworthy/Puncturing Light. Thoughts? Sweepers aren't non-existent here though, and in the same deck they can be brutal. It's also nice that you don't have to worry about putting it on a smallish creature, even if 4W is a hefty cost to move it.
Recumbent Bliss: Yeah, the life could be relevant. But not as relevant as the 1 extra, I'd avoid this.
Hobble: I find this terribly underrated. Sure, it's a control support card and can only sit in the sideboard of an aggro deck most of the time, but cantripping removal is soooo good. I'll probably swap this back in for Cage of Hands, actually.
Global Pumps: I only play one, Marshalling Cry. In general though, I find them incredibly overrated. They rely a lot on board position and aren't nearly as brutal as their normal cube counterparts (anthems and overruns).
Marshaling Cry: While the pump itself isn't quite as good, the thing that is good about it is its flexibility. As a topdeck on an empty board, cycling is good and you also get the pump later. That also applies to any other situation when you don't have any board presence, of course. Also, giving only +1/+1 is not terrible at all as it's likely that, if one of the others would kill them then the vigilance will stop you from dying and the additional anthem the next turn could quite likely finish them off. It's harder to counter and can cycle, making it better against control, too. I could go on, but I think you get it. Being a flexible card in a niche where the cards are generally not flexible at all is a good thing.
Righteous Charge: Up to everyone to judge themselves, if you ask me. It's not very flexible, but providing you have decent board position you can almost always get a pretty large life/creature swing with it.
Fortify: It's wider in application than Righteous Charge, but not to the point of Marshalling Cry. It can hose mass removal and burn, which is always nice, but I always get the feeling that it's never worth the mana at all. Not being able to make irrelevant dudes into dudes that force your opponent to chump is much worse than relying on your creatures to not get blocked, due to evasion or size or whatever, to win the game. I don't think that just making your small dudes trade with their big dudes is worth the conditions and the mana, as although it does give you good incremental advantage, that's not what you're looking for in a deck with Fortify.
Other
Empyrial Armour: I really think that this is a great card. It's in a rather strange
place to be in common cubes, but the card itself is really powerful and can be a total beating.
Holy Light: I'm still not at all sure what I think about this one. It seems decent in aggro and decent in control, but it still needs to prove its worth.
Repel the Darkness: Really good. Hits through for final damage in aggro decks, gains quite a lot of life in control, and does both in midrange. Oh, and you draw a card.
Draft it on Cubetutor!
It's good in theory, but I've never been able to utilise the bounce as any more than a mana sink and for options. I really need to cut this sooner or later.
My Pauper Cube ♤ The Pauper Cube Thread Common Knowledge — 1 2
Edit: Garruk's Companion is hardly a good example, because it's green. But you get what I mean.
Draft it on Cubetutor!
I've used the move ability substantially more, but still less than ten times. It's not that fair saying it costs 5, as 2 at the end of their turn and 3 in your turn is hardly as hard as 5 mana, but it still is rather hefty. I'll take it out.
Draft it on Cubetutor!
WHITE NONCREATURE 4+/XCMC
6 Faith's Fetters
4 Breath of Life
4 Blinding Beam
2 False Defeat
1 Inspired Charge
1 Gleam of Resistance
1 Excise
1 Divine Verdict
My Pauper Cube ♤ The Pauper Cube Thread Common Knowledge — 1 2
Breath of Life/False Defeat are Pauper's reanimator tools, but for 4 mana, and with such meagre pickings, they're not really as good. Still, solid.
Blinding Beam is pretty hot. I wouldn't call it ridiculous, like Faith's Fetter, but solid.
Inspired Charge doesn't seem worth it to me. It'd be cool it if was +2/+2, or +3/+0, but as it is I have other options.
Gleam of Resistance is good earlygame and fair lategame. Nothing to shout home about.
Excise is bad removal. I must relinquish it immediately.
Divine Verdict is also bad. D:
My Pauper Cube ♤ The Pauper Cube Thread Common Knowledge — 1 2
I don't like Protective Sphere. It's 4 mana, worthless against small weenie decks, doesn't work with combat well and the largest number of colors a deck usually is is around 3.
My Pauper Cube ♤ The Pauper Cube Thread Common Knowledge — 1 2
I haven't tested any normal drafts - only winston draft. More colours is much more common in winston draft because the card quality is lower - sort of like sealed with more choices.
Blinding Beam I really don't get why this is meant to be better than Repel the Darkness. I don't know about you, but in my cube I expect a topdeck to be better than 1: Two target creatures don't untap during their next untap step. Though I should probably run it anyway.
Breath of Life/False Defeat - Decks are never mono white here (and if they ever are, they suck) and I'd be more than happy to run this in any two colour combination with white apart from WR, where it's already excluded because of the nature of the curve. I really quite like them.
Inspired Charge The forth best creature pump spell, in my opinion. 4 mana is hardly a given in aggro, and even if you do have 4, there are lots of reasons you might want to keep a land up. Still, not bad.
Gleam of Resistance Only very slightly better than the landcycling on it, which isn't terrible, but is hardly exciting. I wouldn't run it, but won't fault anyone for running it.
Divine Verdict These tricks are trademark obvious. And this isn't even worth the mana anyway. I'd prefer Path of Peace, which is pretty damn bad all up.
Excise Even worse than it looks on paper. Absolutely terrible here, at least.
Draft it on Cubetutor!
My Pauper Cube ♤ The Pauper Cube Thread Common Knowledge — 1 2
Onwards to Blue!
Blue Creatures 1CMC
5 Skywatcher Adept
2 Mistblade Shinobi
1 Kraken Hatchling
1 Wind Zendikon
An interesting section, since Drahcir doesn't have any 1 drops and it's pretty much slim pickings.
Thoughts on Hapless Researcher? Seems interesting, but ultimately I think blue's creatures is way too tight.
What about Martyr of Frost?
Sage of Epityr seems interesting, although the tiny body many mean it becomes very irrelevant. Thoughts?
My Pauper Cube ♤ The Pauper Cube Thread Common Knowledge — 1 2
My Pauper Cube ♤ The Pauper Cube Thread Common Knowledge — 1 2
Mistblade Shinobi: Unlike Ninja of the Deep Hours, this really isn't too good after it gets dropped. Sure, if you get the hand which lets you go 1st turn evasive creature into second turn mistblade and replay the creature, it's an investment that its probably worth it. However, you're often returning something that costs more mana than that and its ability is almost irrelevant after it has been played, as, barring tappers, they'll always block it unless they don't control a creature.
Kraken Hatchling: I'd never run it over Steel Wall (which isn't very good anyway), and I don't think that the redundancy is necessary. If you do, then run it.
Wind Zendikon: Goes against blue's strategy of controlling resources, as a simple removal spell can 1 for 1 you and put you behind on tempo. It its, however, quite good in blue based aggro decks, but until I see anything even close to decent along those lines, I don't think I'll try to support them.
Others: Hapless Researcher: Decent enough, but again blue aggro support which never goes into any deck.
Draft it on Cubetutor!
I don't think you'll be disappointed with this change. Charge might not make every deck, but Breath was quite often the worst card anyone would draft and it would hardly get played. Yes, I'm aware of the land cyclers, but those aren't nearly as prevalent as decks running bears and swinging for the fences. Breath of Life is just too fair, even for Pauper.
Skywatcher Adept-Just too hefty of an investment needed for this to make it, imo. I'm not saying the card itself is terrible, just that I don't think U should make room for every possibly playable creature when its noncreature section is so good ad it has plenty of "real" fliers anyway. If you have an aggro deck, you'd rather play multiple threats or use your mana to remove blockers and if you have a control deck, you need your mana up for answers and you have better finishers anyway. The versatility doesn't justify the cost, imo.
Mistblade Shinobi-The trick is obviously good, but it's just too small to be worth it past the first bounce. You are returning a creature which somewhat negates the fact that your opponent had to as well; obviously cost of each creature matter somewhat in the tempo aspect. Basically, if you return a cheap creature of your opponent's, the tempo is pretty much nil and if you return something huge to your opponent's hand, they'll still be able to block Mistblade when they recast it.
Kraken Hatchling-Bad. It's worse than Steel Wall(Naturalize effects aside, obv.), which has been just terrible here.
Wind Zendikon-Just comes down to supporting a deck that a color doesn't need or have. It's like giving r and w really expensive card draw spells to help nurture RW draw-go.
Hapless Researcher- Not worth it. It sacs itself to cycle a card, so you end up down a card to do what? Save 3 damage when you block? It doesn't actually do anything that none of your other cards couldn't do.
Martyr of Frost--The best one drop that isn't getting played still isn't worth it. It's either a 1/1, which U doesn't need, or it's a counterspell that is both visable and somewhat hard to utilize. It's a counterspell that dies to removal spells and has next to no combat significance otherwise.
Sage of Epityr--Nope. The effect is only ok, much worse than pretty much any spell that blue has and it doesn't beat any viable creatures U has either. Just do that if you think about running this guy, go down your list and ask yourself card-by-card if you would replace any of them with Sage.
Pauper Cube
I cube, I play EDH, and I can't afford Legacy. The other formats can suck it.
Pauper Cube
I cube, I play EDH, and I can't afford Legacy. The other formats can suck it.
But at the same time, if you want to push blue aggro, 1 drops like Skywatcher aren't bad. But I agree, blue doesn't have must going for it in the 1CMC section.
I'm probably going to cut Mistblade Shinobi later, when we get into the 2 and 3 CMC sections.
My Pauper Cube ♤ The Pauper Cube Thread Common Knowledge — 1 2
One or two blue "aggro" creatures does not equal pushing aggro. Pushing aggro means a lot more than just the 1 cmc section. It has to permeate between the 0-4 sections. I don't feel blue has or needs the support, so why give the color a pick 15 for draft or an occasional 23rd playable aside from niche cards?
Pauper Cube
I cube, I play EDH, and I can't afford Legacy. The other formats can suck it.
The Zendikon and Skywatcher are good in the U/W flyers archetype.
My Pauper Cube ♤ The Pauper Cube Thread Common Knowledge — 1 2
Pauper Cube
I cube, I play EDH, and I can't afford Legacy. The other formats can suck it.
My Pauper Cube ♤ The Pauper Cube Thread Common Knowledge — 1 2
Skywatcher Adept - Personally, I reckon this is the most powerful one-drop creature blue has. It's a nice turn one play, and can be a mana-sink towards mid-game (although blue rarely needs a mana-sink). Also, it can be a nice beat stick should it survive that long. That being said, its still not an amazing card.
Mistblade Shinobi - Cool effect, but not quite good enough. It's fun early-on, but ultimately, it'll be hard to keep the bounce happening over and over again.
Kraken Hatching - It's like (insert bad card here), but WORSE!
Wind Zendikon - I actually really like this card. It's a one-drop flyer, and efficient, cheap beat-sticks are a commodity in Blue. It seems to add a little twist on Blue, so its not just the colour that bounces and counters stuff.
Hapless Researcher - It's a nice card, but the effect is ultimately too weak to be worth a slot in cube.
Martyr of Frost - Not that good. Either an insignificant 1/1, or an awkward to use counterspell. Neither are particularly attractive.
Sage of Epityr - Actually pretty cool, but there are better cards that fill in the role of a draw filter. Also, it's not even scry. Oh and it's 1/1.
But yeah, just my one-fiftieth of a dollar.