Hello, and welcome back for another peasant set review! If the last modern horizons set is anything to go by, I was expecting a pretty good set for peasant cube, and boy! - did it deliver, with a banging list of new and brilliantly designed cards, so many that there are definitely notable cards I couldn’t fit into this one review, and cards that are definitely great relegated to honourable mentions. Let's begin!

1

It may be surprising to start out my list with such an unassuming 1 drop, but I believe this little flyer is continuing the recent trend of extremely valuable one drops, with a low impact kind of chipping effect to begin with, but with a great late game upside that carries a lot of the weight of this card. Equipment that grant flying are typically good even on their own, such as cliffhaven kitesail or even the older, not particularly great (but had to be shouted out) cobbled wings, so combining this with a great flying 1/1 that can synergise with things or even just chip damage is a match made in the - blind eternities.

2

Another consistent trend is that of excellent new land cycles, and this set is no exception, with land always playing a very crucial role in making a cube tick. This new cycle is exceptional for more than even three good reasons - they provide support if you want to cast hard core colourless mana eldrazi, they provide a cycling option if they are dead cards, and they trigger landfall, deck thin, they fix mana most importantly - the list goes on. They are simply excellent roleplayers.

3

Again, while I highlighted this particular card, here I am representing the whole of this new land cycle - these two colour duals are absurdly good, with no clear downside compared to running say a gain land, ping land, etc. I suppose some cubes run higher powered land support such as fetches and shocks, but this provides a very solid option for lower land powered cubes. Mechanics that provide modality like 2FCs and cyclers are always excellent and just elevate gameplay.

4

A brilliant and stand out common, there is nothing cursed about this marauder. At worst, it's a chainer's edict without flashback, and at best it's a chainer's edict stapled onto a solid creature - that dodges tokens too. Go figure.

5

Perhaps it’s surprising to see so many commons so high on the list, as uncommons are often more likely to be roleplayers in new sets, but here is another stand out card at common. The chrysalis is simply disgusting, as anyone who has experienced it first hand in limited can surely attest. While it is of course bolstered by the amount of support it has around it in MH3 limited, I think the malleable 2/3 or 4/5 reach body and the double ramp is easily enough value for it to be good without eldrazi synergy - and who knows, there are lots of potentially good eldrazi sitting around for it to be paired with anyway, if that is something you want to support more.

6

This downshifted angel will be the ruin of many players with powerful artifacts or enchantments lying around, that's for sure. With a flexible and reanimator enabling cycling ability, I think this angel might pack more synergy than it first appears. While hard casting it is clunky, ramping into or reanimating it could feel quite disgusting I think - though perhaps it may be limited by the colour it is in.

7

Me: What’s that? Three insanely useful new land cycles in one set? You must be joking, they’d never do that.

Them: It’s modern horizons.

Me: Ah, nevermind.

8

Is this better than growth spiral? Surely that's the question you must ask here. And what is the answer? Well, the answer is: it's probably better? Though growth spiral does give you an untapped land, I think the extra digging power of this new alternative makes it likely more attractive, especially in the later game when growth spiral is only topdecking, and the untapped mana is likely to not matter anymore.

9

Now this is an intriguing card. It’s kind of slow, maybe too slow, but if you’re willing to wait, it provides a ton of board presence and the final chapter is just beautiful (except for the inelegance of having to know whether you have the right mana cost left in your deck, haha), providing yet another tutor effect at uncommon (and in green, no less!), which I admit is becoming less surprising and more the norm in recent sets (see: lagomos, hand of hatred, lively dirge).

10

What a cute boi. Isn’t he so lovely? I just want to pet - oop. I’m dead. Ok.

It’s very hard not to mention this guy within the top 10, if nothing else for how great a callback this card design is. While artifacts aren’t always going to be a theme for black in cubes, this card surely makes a splash in those cubes. Or a - I don’t know. A splodge. It’s not blue. It’s not pteramander.

Honourable mentions

I can’t start the honourable mentions without noting that all of these cards would probably make the top 10 in any other set! Modern horizons is just stacked, as you might expect - it's not just the constructed landscape that is being reshaped every time, by monkeys, necropoli and other, more… avian culprits. But peasant too. Anyway…

Even without the flexible bestow ability, this creature is simply a very heavy hitter, growing to be a huge threat in a matter of turns without even needing support - and with support - well. It’s glyph - over. Glo - ver? (It’s ok. I’m out of touch. No need to tell me.)

I love the design of this card and its name. It all comes together very well. But besides that, it is strong and simply packs a punch. Another slam dunk two drop that could do well, especially, or perhaps essentially, if you have some way of triggering the landfall more than once in a turn.

Ok, whichever legend designed pondering mage must have had a recommission for this set. I love it! Compared to similar cards like cloudkin seer the visionary comes with a less aggressive body, but the upside from its etb - which is surely the most crucial and abusable part of the card - is so much higher. A great card that could probably be higher up the list.

One of my personal favourites from the set, the rebirth plays out pretty nasty, with an almost guaranteed two for one every time. It is four mana, which is hefty for a removal spell (and for a recover style effect) - but by doing both, it becomes the master of not one, but - but the master of, um, two. Pretty good.

Another great roleplayer that could be higher up the list, emrakul’s messenger is surely an upgrade in most situations for a card like faerie vandal, though I think assessing it as such doesn’t make much sense, as they are trying to do very different things. The messenger seems great in a more defensive, controlling shell, or even a ramp deck. It is also probably just better in general. But besides comparisons, the card is just very cool, very strong. A great cube centric fella.

Another very interesting green design, the vortex provides a similar payoff to something like imoti, celebrant of bounty, or up the beanstalk. I’m not sure how successful that is. The mana cost is cheap for how much potential value it can generate, though I wonder if garruk's uprising at three edges it out. Both cards suffer from doing nothing when they first come in, and it's the only reason I am not more excited to play this card.

Aw man. So many cool designs and call back mechanics in one set. I love this card, and it obviously has funny potential synergies if you have some fat token lying around. Though I believe its likely to be too situational to be actually as powerful as it seems. Even just generating the baseline of two tokens at first is kind of an ask. But who knows. In a cube that has good support for it, I think the card could pop off.

This card feels like it could have been a rare, when you look over at its brother from another mother, siege-gang commander. But anyway, besides that it's pretty great, putting many bodies on the board and threatening a ton of damage. Sling-gang lieutenant is a great already existing example of why this effect is so potent. The only thing I dislike about the new commander is that it requires quite an awkward mana cost in order to sac it’s tokens, likely limiting how many cubes would be able to accommodate it.

Perhaps you, as a reader, are also at your hope’s end after reading so much. I - hope - not. Ok, don’t worry, I’m leaving soon.

Mana tithe on a stick? A flying stick? Sign me up.

I saved the worst. And I mean the worst. Till last. Or the best? It is a matter of deep magical politics whether you believe these dreadmaw lookalikes are friendly flattery or deep disrespect to the god among common cards (print dreadmaw commander, you cowards). I’ll let you work out which side I’m on.

Thanks very much for reading! I’m glad you survived the trenches of my dad jokes and made it to the end. One last note is that in this set more than ever, there were definitely cards that I couldn’t include, or perhaps criminally missed out. For example: eldrazi ravager and breaker of creation are notable, but I figured not every cube will have the land to support them necessarily. Let me know what you think!

Check out my cube:
https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/612f2ab34683a2104492d24d