For cube designers looking to stay up to date with the latest cards, new sets can cause a financial strain. Wanting to test out the newest value spell, bomb creature, or Planeswalker in your cube can be quite expensive when the card is concurrently in standard. No one enjoys buying an expensive card just to find out it isn’t what they expected in their cube.
With the release of Zendikar Rising, cards from Guilds of Ravnica, Ravnica Allegiance, War of the Spark, and Core Set 2020 rotated out of standard. With the exception of those playable in eternal formats, many cards from these sets can be picked up for cheap. In addition, we’ve now had over a year to test and discuss these sets.
This article picks the best budget-friendly upgrades rotating out of standard for your medium-powered cube. At the time that I write this, the 46 cards suggested below can be purchased for $41.58 (TCG market), and will instantly inject new life into your cube.
Part one of this article series covered high-powered cubes, and part three will cover rarity-restricted cubes. Let's get right into it:
Medium-Power Upgrade Module
One of my favorite hate-bears printed in recent years. Tithe Taker is a great curve-filler in both aggro and midrange. Hoses counterspells, removal, and combat tricks. Even in the mid- and late-game, Tithe Taker creates sequencing challenges for your opponent by forcing them to make more plays at sorcery-speed. Leaving a 1/1 flyer behind puts this card over the top. Lots of value packed into this two-drop.
Finale of Glory ($2.00)The white Finale can quickly reload your board with 2/2 vigilance tokens. Despite being sorcery-speed, I like it better than something like Secure the Wastes because the tokens are 2/2s, or even White Sun's Zenith because they have vigilance. Incredibly scalable, Finale of Glory gets increasingly more powerful the more you spend on it. However, I’m never disappointed with the floor of two 2/2s with vigilance for four. Ignore the last line of text, if you’re casting it for X=10, you are winning anyways.
A cross between Lingering Souls and Banisher Priest, Executioner is a bit of unique design space. I’ve actually been playing this one in my Unpowered Cube – but it is much more suited for low-to-medium-powered environments. Executioner forces your opponent to change their sequencing (i.e. destroy it before playing their threat, etc) – a gameplay element that I feel is often overlooked.
Venerated Loxodon ($0.32)Loxodon is great in midrange where you can afford to tap your dorks, tokens, and smaller creatures for a turn so that they are relevant attackers or blockers the following turn. Valuable even if you’re only convoking with one or two creatures, Loxodon can exploit a minor board advantage and turn it into a major one.
Make no mistake, Gideon is one of the best aggro three-drop “creatures” in white. A 4/4 with indestructible, Gideon gives one of your other attackers indestructible or vigilance (or much less frequently, lifelink). Excellent in aggro, not very useful elsewhere.
Planar Cleansing ($0.25)Cleansing hits everything, which is its main appeal. Artifacts? Yep. Creatures? Obviously. Planeswalkers? You know it. I generally like to play sweepers at four and five mana, but I’m fine including one six-mana sweeper in lower power as a reward for white-heavy decks. In the late-game, the difference between four and six is well worth it when you can clear a Skysovereign, Consul Flagship and a Vivien, Champion of the Wilds with your sweeper.
Cloudkin Seer extols its own virtues. A two-power flyer for three mana is a good rate. Drawing a card on ETB is efficient and useful in any situation. Plays well in blue tempo, midrange, and control decks.
Sphinx of Foresight ($0.37)For under $0.50, your cube gets a 4/4 flyer for 4 which gains you pseudo-card advantage each turn. Scrying three on your first turn is also powerful, as you’ll have this in your opener more often than you expect (17.5% of non-mulligan hands). A great top-end for tempo decks, a threat and card advantage engine for control decks, and an incentive for midrange decks to play blue.
If you can afford the triple-blue cost, Cavalier of Gales is an excellent body with lots of card advantage. Brainstorm on ETB and a scry 2 on death ensure smooth draws. A powerful payoff for committed blue players.
Dream Eater ($0.88)A slam-dunk finisher for blue. Having flash means you can hold up Dissolve or Murderous Cut until your opponent’s end step. Surveil 4 improves your next several draws while opening up synergies with graveyard interaction like Think Twice or Unburial Rites. On top of casting an instant-speed threat and gaining massive card advantage, Dream Eater also bounces any permanent your opponent controls – an incredible tempo advantage.
I’ve never cast Mu Yanling, but I’ve heard good things. While she has fairly predictable lines of play, Mu Yanling protects herself well. She slowly grinds out board advantage by downsizing creatures or creating 4/4 tokens. Her ult seems a bit too far out of reach, but if attained, generates a massive card advantage.
Commence the Endgame ($0.23)A six-mana draw spell that creates a creature and can’t be countered. While I certainly prefer Dream Eater over Commence, many mid-power cubes have room for both. At just under a quarter, it is a great budget inclusion to test out in your list.
Midnight Reaper is an excellent value engine which takes advantage of your own creatures dying. While the comparable Grim Haruspex doesn’t cost you a life, I would play Reaper alongside it.
Massacre Girl ($0.23)I initially overlooked Massacre Girl, but am a massive fan now. Her best use is simplifying complicated board states. Sweeping away one or two tokens can suddenly snowball into killing a Wingmate Roc or larger. She has great synergy potential in Blood Artist or Whip of Erebos decks. Finally, she leaves behind an excellent 4/4 menace body, which puts the beat-down on after clearing the board.
A rare red two-drop creature not focused on aggro, I appreciate Burning Prophet for the diversity that she brings to the slot. Prophet is most used defensively, where she can gain incremental value by scrying on every instant or sorcery you cast. However, she also has combat implications. For example, combine Prophet with an Abrade, and she can trade up with a 5-health attacker. Or, attack into two or three creatures with a Cast Down in hand to potentially blow out your opponent.
Skarrgan Hellkite ($0.58)Hellkite flexes effortlessly between an aggro top-end and a midrange beater. For aggro, a 4/4 flyer with haste is often enough to end the game. Midrange decks can afford to play a little slower, making Hellkite’s Chandra's Pyrohelix mode well worth it while grinding out a board state. Burning down creatures is a great way to remove blockers, and a repeatable instant-speed shock directly to your opponent can close out a game quickly.
As soon as Sarkhan enters the battlefield, it makes a 4/4 flyer – protecting himself and creating an instant threat. The following turn, Sarkhan transforms himself (and potentially other walkers too) into a 4/4 flyer, threatening to push 8+ damage in the air. His static is great for discouraging X/1s from attacking him, but can put crucial points of damage on larger creatures – for example, a 3/3 attacking into Sarkhan can now be removed by Magma Jet.
Electrodominance ($1.50)A Fireball that gives you an additional spell for free. Great for midrange and control decks looking to gain a board and tempo advantage over their opponent. While Electrodominance may not be the most efficient removal spell ever printed, gaining a free spell off of it – plus the ability to deal direct damage to your opponent’s face – makes this card a great value.
Strictly an aggro card, Mizzium Tank is a resilient three-drop. Tank will upgrade your Jackal Pup while squeezing another point of damage out of your Arc Lightning or Despise. Trample gives this card a great edge in pushing through damage.
Pelt Collector ($1.35)A signpost one-drop for cubes which support green aggro decks. Pelt Collector grows like Stromkirk Noble throughout the game, eventually gaining trample. Pelt Collector inspires a higher skill ceiling, rewarding players who sequence and prioritize their spells correctly.
Incubation Druid is a scalable two-mana dork. When she adapts, she becomes both a bigger board threat and bigger mana advantage. Unlike Sylvan Caryatid, Druid can only produce colors of lands you control, making her a bit awkward when you’re missing a color land.
Biogenic Ooze ($2.36)At its floor, Ooze is two 2/2s for five mana. From there, the card is all upside. An end of turn Basri's Solidarity on your Ooze tokens combined with the four-mana create a 2/2 Ooze at instant-speed can quickly get out of hand. A slam-dunk for medium-powered cubes looking for an army-in-a-can midrange creature.
Much like Finale of Glory, Voracious Hydra is solid at four mana but gets increasingly better the more mana you pour into it. For four mana, you can either have a 4/5 trampler, or you get a Breath of Fire stapled on a 2/3 trample creature – and Hydra scales from there. It is almost never a dead draw, and it is good at virtually every point in the game.
End-Raze Forerunners ($0.43)Is Craterhoof Behemoth too expensive for your budget? End-Raze is – quite literally – 100 times cheaper. While it isn’t quite as explosive as Craterhoof, it packs a punch by making your dorks, midrange creatures, and anything else lying around a sizable threat with vigilance and trample. End-Raze itself is a massive 7/7 beater with haste – this one ends the game 95% of the time it connects for damage.
I really wanted this to work in my Unpowered cube, but it just wasn’t good enough. Thankfully, I can play it in my lower-powered environment, where it’s a fun build-around akin to a weaker Birthing Pod. A great mana sink to dump mana into at end of your opponent’s turn, it can exchange a late-game dead draw into a five- or six-mana threat. Be wary of whiffs, however, as it isn’t always the most consistent.
Deputy of Detention ($0.79)Detention Sphere stapled to a 1/3 body. While it’s easier to remove than Sphere, it can be occasionally useful to have the effect on the body – you can block and attack with it, buff, reanimate, or flicker. Deputy is good against cards like Ashiok, Nightmare Muse, Midnight Haunting, Biogenic Ooze, and other cards which generate multiple of the same permanent. Compared to mono-colored variants like Fairgrounds Warden, Deputy has the advantage of hitting all nonland permanents.
Time Wipe is well worth its heavy mana cost commitment. Control decks often get trapped between deciding whether to play out their threat or wait until they can sweep. Now, control players can deploy their threat to help stabilize, then bounce it to hand when they go to sweep. Unlike Supreme Verdict, Time Wipe gives me a solid reason to want a multi-color sweeper.
Thief of Sanity ($1.23)Thief of Sanity is exactly what 
decks are looking for: an efficiently-costed threat which gains card advantage every time it connects for damage. Not much to say about this card other than it demands an answer or it can quickly accrue a sizable card advantage.
A solid pickup for 
aggro decks, Gruul Spellbreaker can be cast with haste or as a 4/4, depending on the situation. Its conditional hexproof forces your opponent to remove it on their turn, which can foil their plans of casting removal on your attack phase.
Flexibility and modality define Ravager Wurm. Opting to enter with haste can be useful when you are ahead on board and are looking to close out the game. Choosing to enter with a +1/+1 counter can give you some more board presence and create a formidable attacker the following turn. This decision also has implications on Wurm’s modality – the extra point of power and toughness can give it the edge when choosing the fight mode. Alternatively, destroying a land with an activated ability can be very useful in picking off a Mutavault or Castle Vantress.
Judith is an excellent three-drop in aggro decks. It buffs your one- and two-drops, preventing Rakdos Cackler and company from being shut out by X/3 blockers. When your creatures die, Judith pings any target – meaning the tiggers can either “trade up” with bigger creatures, ping off innocent X/1 bystanders, or deal damage directly to the face. In addition, Judith has great synergy with recursive creatures like Bloodsoaked Champion or Scrapheap Scrounger.
Sorin requires a bottom-up evaluation, as his most powerful facet is his -X. On the turn that Sorin comes into play, he can reanimate up to a three-drop and still survive. Alternatively, if you use his +2 on the turn he comes into play, you can reanimate up to a five-drop the following turn and still keep him alive. Grabbing a dead Woe Strider or Angel of Sanctions can change the tide of a game. His +2 is useful for picking off mana dorks, tokens, and dealing the final point of damage after combat – and it also puts him to an incredibly safe six loyalty. Finally, his static lifelink can either stabilize your life total or create a significant life padding, allowing you to play a little more aggressively.
There is a lot to love about Roalesk. A 4/5 flying trample for five mana is already a solid rate. He distributes two counters on ETB, which can buff your mana dorks into a more sizable presence or put a midrange beater over the top. His double proliferate on death makes removing him particularly tricky, because it threatens to turn those two +1/+1 counters – or any other counters lying around – into triple the impact.
Prime Speaker Vannifar ($2.24)A much-needed second copy of Birthing Pod. A well-loved build-around engine that synergizes with cards with ETB triggers (Llanowar Visionary), cards that create tokens (Blade Splicer), cards with flicker (Restoration Angel), card that recur (Murderous Redcap) – and a whole lot more. Prime Speaker Vannifar inspires interesting and skill-intensive deckbuilding and gameplay, and is a great pickup for just over $2.
A 3/2 with haste, Tajic provides significant upside. His mentor buffs the Venerable Knights and Earthshaker Khenras attacking alongside him. Both his passive and activated abilities are situationally-relevant, but I find Tajic’s damage output and buffs to be enough to play.
Ugin, the Ineffable ($3.06)Despite being a hefty six mana, Ugin’s +1 ability creates both board and card advantage. His -3 destroys lots of relevant cards – from Soul of Zendikar to Imprisoned in the Moon. I don’t value his static ability very highly, but it can be occasionally relevant in cubes with higher artifact and colorless counts. Being colorless allows you to slot Ugin in any color deck and makes him easy to cast.
The Temple Land cycle are my favorite ETB tapped land cycle, even over more expensive options like Fast Lands or Cycle Lands. Scrying one is excellent value, and medium-powered environments can afford the tempo lost by playing a tapped land. While the full cycle of Temple Lands are still in standard – the enemy cycle was reprinted in both M20 and M21, and the allied cycle was reprinted in THB – you can pick up the entire cycle of ten Temple Lands for 9.15 for the original artwork versions).
ConclusionsLooking for budget-friendly upgrades for your medium-powered cube? Now that standard has rotated, the 46-card module suggested above can be purchased for $41.58. Part one of this article series covered high-powered cubes. The final installment of this series will cover rarity-restriced cubes. Join me again next week!
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