Welcome to part 1 of the Modern Horizons 3 mechanics articles for the Awesome Cube. Like its predecessors, Modern Horizons 3 is a massively influential set that will continue to impact many formats, including cube, for years to come. There are a disproportionately large number of cards and mechanics to discuss when it comes to these sets, and while it's incredibly exciting, it's also daunting. I've spoken before about my desire to evaluate and grade each and every one of Magic's mechanics, from Alpha to present day. While I previously wrote articles for Un-Mechanics and Supplementary Multiplayer Mechanics, I much prefer covering them as they appear organically in modern sets. Fortunately, Modern Horizons 3 has provided me with a unique opportunity to do just that.
Modern Horizons 3 features over ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY MECHANICS, and I'm going to discuss and grade each and every one of them. Obviously, this is going to take quite some time. So, in order to avoid writing the longest article in Magic history, I'm going to split it up into five separate articles. The first four are going to discuss and grade the various mechanics appearing in the set. I will not discuss the changelog itself during these articles. I will then cover the individual cards and changelog in article #5, sans mechanics discussion. As long as we're going on this journey together, I'm also going to discuss the legacy mechanics that appeared in Outlaws of Thunder Junction. Moving forward, I'm going to continue to discuss and grade legacy mechanics as they appear in future sets until I've graded them all, so look forward to them!
As always, I'll be grading these mechanics in two ways. The first will be a grade for the mechanic within a curated limited environment based on the design and gameplay it generates. I will not be taking any constructed applications into account, as it would be outside the scope of the article. The second will be a context grade based on how I expect it to perform, and be supported, within my own cube ONLY. The effectiveness of individual mechanics is as variable as the cubes themselves, and a mechanic that is a D in my cube may be an A in yours. I'll lay out the grading criteria below.
A - Contributes to interesting gameplay and deck building decisions, may have cross synergies, no baggage. Sparks joy.
Cube - Actively looking to include.
B - Works as intended, may have cross synergies and/or existing support structure, but has at least one developmental/design frustration.
Cube - Actively looking to include.
C - Mechanic is inoffensive. Does not spark joy or enhance an environment, but it does not create issues or confusion when considered.
Cube - Will include as appropriate.
D - Mechanic is functional, but has baggage, may not be supported properly, and/or has some frustrating lines of play.
Cube - Cards must excel in spite of mechanic.
F - Mechanic does not work as intended, is not supported, and/or contributes to an actively frustrating experience.
Cube - Excluded from consideration.
N/A - I won't be giving any mechanic this grade overall as all mechanics are intended by design to work within their own environment.
Cube - Mechanic does not function in singleton, two-player Magic and would therefore be unfair to grade within the context of my cube.
With that out of the way, let's jam!
Adapt N is an activated ability on creatures that was first introduced in Ravnica Allegiance as the keystone mechanic for the Simic Combine. When activated, you put N +1/+1 counters on the creature with adapt, as long as it currently does not have any +1/+1 counters on it. Much like devotion is an updated version of chroma, adapt is an updated version of monstrosity that smooths out some of the rougher aspects of the design. Namely, that the activation of the ability is tied to the existence of +1/+1 counters instead of an invisible status like "becoming monstrous". This removes any ambiguity from the mechanic, which vastly increases its playability.
Adapt acts as a mana sink that provides you with a way to scale your creatures into the later stages of a game, all while acting as both an enabler and payoff for +1/+1 counter strategies. Creatures with adapt frequently come with passive abilities that augment your creatures if they have +1/+1 counters (Incubation Druid and Temperamental Oozewagg), or triggered abilities that activate when counters are placed on them (Emperor of Bones). This means that they synergize excellently with creatures like Verdurous Gearhulk and Rishkar, Peema Renegade, while serving as fully functional creatures all on their own. It's important to pay attention to the functionality of creatures with adapt, because your valuation may change across the course of a game. Putting a counter on Incubation Druid with Rishkar, Peema Renegade in order to tap for additional mana without paying for adapt is a powerful interaction. However, doing so precludes you from using its adapt trigger later in the game, when you may value the 3/5 body more than the mana generation. In the absence of more +1/+1 counter generation, you can also use cards like Flickerwisp and Spitting Dilophosaurus to remove +1/+1 counters. While this doesn't benefit the first subsection of creatures with adapt, it does allow for repeated activations of the second.
While adapt succeeds as a smoothing mechanic with synergy upside in retail limited, cube play relies much more heavily on being able to take advantage of those synergies. This is because of the inherent delay between casting your creature with adapt, and being able to trigger its ability. It's much more difficult to find time to activate adapt in cube, as it will likely require you to take a turn off from casting a spell that may be more critical than putting a couple +1/+1 counters on one of your creatures. The design space for adapt is interesting and carries thematic and strategic weight, but it's heavily reliant on providing, and being able to take advantage of, associated synergies, particularly in cube.
Adapt Grade: B
Adapt Grade in Cube: C+
Adventure cards were first introduced as the flagship mechanic for Throne of Eldraine. They are modal permanent cards that have either an instant or sorcery embedded in them with the adventure subtype. You can either cast these spells for their permanent cost or for their adventure cost. If you cast them for the adventure cost, you resolve the adventure effect immediately, and the card itself is placed into exile, "on an adventure". You can then pay the permanent cost to resolve that effect at any time you could normally cast that spell. Adventures are an immensely popular mechanic, largely due to how well they balance thematic resonance with efficient, flexible gameplay that inherently provides card advantage.
Being able to choose between casting the creature immediately, and casting the adventure first and the creature later, is crucial to the success of the mechanic. Adventures ask players to make decisions regarding immediate and potential value, decisions that will not necessarily remain constant from game to game. These decisions become more involved when considering the differences between adventure cards themselves, as they often propagate very different play patterns. This design space can be leveraged to provide mechanical redundancy and depth to an environment's themes without increasing the overall number of cards.
Animating Faerie, Besotted Knight, Colossal Badger, and Crystal Dragon all support established themes while serving as functional creatures that can be played independently of those synergies. Cruel Somnophage, Altar of Bhaal, Aquatic Alchemist, and Brightcap Badger serve as both payoffs and enablers for dedicated draft archetypes. Bonecrusher Giant, Brazen Borrower, Mosswood Dreadknight, and Murderous Rider are all generically powerful and efficient cards that provide card advantage and board presence. Order of Midnight, Embereth Shieldbreaker, Rosethorn Acolyte, and Moonshae Pixie all provide narrow or situational effects that are not necessarily worth spending a whole card on, and may normally be relegated to sideboards, but can be put in your main deck because of adventure.
Because adventures necessitate moving cards between different zones multiple times, there is some unavoidable complexity engrained within the mechanic. Fortunately, the design has excellent readability whose ground work was laid by split cards, flip cards, aftermath, and modal cards in general. This familiarity limits potential confusion associated with the mechanic, allowing players to focus on the strategic gameplay decisions and story telling these cards promote. All of these positive aspects of design extend wonderfully to cube, and I look forward to the continued evolution and implementation of adventures in the future.
Adventure Grade: A
Adventure Grade in Cube: A
Affinity is a cost reduction mechanic that reduces the mana cost of a spell by 
for each permanent of the indicated type you control. This is inherently dangerous design space as it exists to circumvent one of the core tenants of the game, the mana system. It was particularly egregious in its initial implementation because the cost reduction was tied to artifacts, which, at the time, universally did not require colored mana to cast. This bypassed another core tenant, the color wheel, and resulted in players being able to cast spells without paying any mana at all, provided they were able to control enough artifacts. With the implementation of artifact lands, this was extremely easy to accomplish.
I say all of this not to lambaste affinity as a mechanic, but to show what happens when it's implemented poorly, and how easily it can be abused, if that's your prerogative. When linked to other permanent types, it can be much easier to control how rapidly, and to what extent, players can discount spells with affinity. By choosing less ubiquitous permanent types, and by increasing the number of colored pips in the casting cost, there's no reason why you can't print cards with affinity without destroying an entire metagame. In fact, understanding of the mechanic has improved so much that it's recently become deciduous, free to be printed in any set where it seems appropriate.
The concerns regarding affinity are at their most contentious when discussing constructed formats, as it's much more difficult to restrict the cards that it interacts with. When confined to a curated limited environment, affinity has the ability to be part of a high synergy draft archetype, it can be a part of a small package, or it can be featured on an interesting build around card, all without threatening to derail or define the format. It just requires careful consideration of permanent selection based on how frequently, and at what quantities, those permanents can be put into play. Attention must also be paid to the intended overall power level, density of effect, and snowball potential. While it can be done, there are so many risks associated with making affinity manageable that it's arguably not worth supporting outside of the occasional exception.
Affinity's playability in cube is likewise hindered due to these balance concerns, as I'm not looking to support an archetype with such streamlined intent. The most likely inclusions would be cards like Rebel Salvo or Tomik, Wielder of Law if they were pushed to the point where they were on rate without affinity reducing their cost, and way above rate with their colorless mana shaved off their cost. They would always require an investment of colored mana to cast, and they would be able to provide archetypal support without being unplayable in every deck that wasn't packed to the brim with their intended permanent type. With affinity becoming deciduous, I think it's likely that one of these style of cards finds its way into the cube at some point, I'm just not going to go out of my way to find it.
Affinity Grade: D+
Affinity Grade in Cube: D
Afterlife N is a triggered ability on creatures that creates N Spirit tokens whenever the creature with afterlife dies. Originally utilized as the Orzhov guild mechanic in Ravnica Allegiance, afterlife creates persistent threats that are resilient in the face of non-exile based removal and the natural attrition experienced through combat. It rewards players for aggressively trading their creatures both offensively and defensively while being naturally synergistic with sacrifice effects. It's a flavorful, elegant design that is easy to understand, but there are some legitimate developmental concerns that led to it not being pushed as hard as it could have been.
The main concern regarding afterlife is centered around just how powerful it is to create multiple Spirit tokens on a single trigger. Lingering Souls has demonstrated how oppressive this ability can be, particularly when you aren't paying a premium for the effect. As such, there aren't many creatures that are competitively costed with Afterlife N, where N > 1. Ministrant of Obligation, Orzhov Racketeers, Debtors' Transport, and Knight of the Last Breath are all well below rate creatures that are brought up to limited playability solely on the back of having afterlife 2 or afterlife 3. Seraph of the Scales is the only card that truly feels pushed, and it ended up being a very powerful card in its own limited environment. Its ability to play both offense and defense, while dissuading your opponent from interacting with it, completely dominated combat, making it somewhat difficult to play against. These kinds of creatures are fine in moderation, but can lead to a miserable limited environment in higher quantities. You can tell that R&D erred on the side of caution when it came to developing afterlife, and it's difficult to blame them in hindsight.
Afterlife is more of a natural fit within the confines of cube, where the synergy is appreciated and there are fewer power level concerns. Creatures with afterlife slot perfectly into any combination of 
aristocrats deck, and can provide 
go wide decks with threats that are much harder to keep off the board. They can even provide more controlling strategies with multiple early game creatures while conserving deck slots for more impactful noncreature spells. The biggest knock against it in cube is that these cards don't actually exist yet. While you can theory craft powerful cards, I'd like to see some actually make it to print before I grade it out too highly. After all, afterlife is only ever going to be supplementing an existing strategy, it doesn't really produce new decks and hasn't produced any cards that are all that interesting on their own. Nonetheless, I'd be thrilled to see more afterlife in a future set, if only to see where the design space can expand from here.
Afterlife Grade: C+
Afterlife Grade in Cube: B-
Amass, written out as amass [subtype] N, is a keyword action that either places N +1/+1 counters on an Army creature you control, or creates an Army creature token and then puts N +1/+1 counters on it. Across its multiple printings in War of the Spark, The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-Earth, and Commander Masters, there are currently three different Army creature token subtypes that can be generated: Zombies, Orcs, and Slivers. Fortunately, amassing a particular creature type doesn't mechanically impact how amass resolves beyond the affected Army token gaining the indicated creature type upon resolution. This allows you to play multiple types of amass cards alongside each other without negatively impacting their playability. Ironically, increasing the density of amass in your deck has complications of an altogether different variety.
Because amass always checks for the existence of an Army creature on the battlefield first, you can never use amass to create a second Army token. This means that while the first couple instances of amass in a deck will almost always result in the creation of a new token, each additional instance is increasingly likely to enhance an existing token instead. Since creating a creature token is obviously much more powerful than gaining +1/+1 counters, it's in your best interest to find ways to ensure that you make as many tokens as possible when playing with amass. This requires players to be conscious of how much amass they have in their deck, as well as promoting the use of sacrifice outlets as a way to profit from already having an Army token in play. The tension amass creates can make for some interesting deckbuilding and drafting decisions, and creates a broader design space than afterlife. There is space in an environment for amass strategies that care about making tokens as often as possible, while others care more about making their tokens as large as possible. These strategies play out very differently despite utilizing the same mechanic, and that's generally a positive for the longevity of a format.
Both the high barrier for entry and the singleton nature of cube contribute to creating an environment that essentially guarantees amass will always make a token upon resolution. There just isn't going to be the density of effect required to allow for any other outcome. While this results in a more reliable effect, allowing decks to game plan and sequence more effectively, it does remove some of the mechanical depth experienced in retail limited. Fortunately, cube decks would generally be much happier making tokens than putting meaningless +1/+1 counters on their 1/1 tokens. Not having to rely on sacrifice effects to achieve this outcome makes amass much more ubiquitously playable in cube, as stapling a creature token onto a spell or ability is just generically powerful. It's a little unfortunate that amass is restricted to the Grixis color pairs, because it prevents decks from taking advantage of the +1/+1 counter synergies. Being able to amass Elves or Humans isn't something that is currently possible, but I don't see any reason why future iterations of the mechanic couldn't expand to the other colors. After all, and are both primary in token generation so it's well within their color pie.
Amass Grade: B-
Amass Grade in Cube: B
Annihilator N is a triggered ability on creatures that forces the defending player to sacrifice N permanents whenever a creature with annihilator N attacks them. Annihilator was introduced in Rise of the Eldrazi and served as the mechanical identity of the colorless Eldrazi creatures, representing their role as Lovecraftian Galactus-like beings from the blind eternities. While not every Eldrazi had annihilator, it was so impactful that the two became intrinsically linked until the return of Eldrazi in Shadows Over Innistrad, notably sans annihilator.
The de-emphasis on annihilator as a defining feature of the Eldrazi was necessary from both a developmental and design perspective. Annihilator was immensely unpopular due to the oppressive nature of being forced to sacrifice multiple permanents repeatedly. Basically any creature with annihilator 2 or greater was miserable to play against, regardless of how expensive it was to cast. Even a card like Ulamog's Crusher was among the most desired commons in the set for its ability to break board stalls while promising eventuality.
Being given the choice of what to sacrifice didn't provide nearly as much balance as it might appear. Players rarely found themselves with enough excess lands to sacrifice without impacting their ability to cast spells. Sacrificing creatures could protect your mana base, but made it nearly impossible to profitably block the creatures with annihilator. This put players in a position where you needed to have an answer for these creatures either in hand or on board the turn they were cast. If you didn't, annihilator essentially prevented you from drawing into one. Because of this, it's almost impossible to print annihilator cards that could be cast during the developing turns. Players simply will not have the mana base or board presence required to both sacrifice permanents and continue playing an interactive game. It's no coincidence that cards with annihilator in Modern Horizons 3 are expensive and/or require colorless mana to cast, as it further restricts how reliably they can be played, limiting their impact as much as possible.
In addition to being challenging to develop, annihilator lacks interesting design space, cross synergies, and build around potential. There just isn't much that's interesting about the mechanic, and it doesn't mesh well with any existing infrastructure. Annihilator perfectly captures the essence of the Eldrazi in both form and function, it's just a shame that the resonance was unable to translate to satisfying gameplay.
Annihilator Grade: D-
Annihilator Grade in Cube: D-
Ascend is a keyword ability from Rivals of Ixalan that tracks the number of permanents you control. Once you control ten permanents, you receive a player designation called the City's Blessing for the remainder of the game. Certain cards provide bonuses for having the City's Blessing, but the actual benefits received for doing so vary from card to card. Tracking the number of permanents you control isn't difficult, but it does require your constant attention since each artifact, enchantment, creature, land, planeswalker, or token that enters, or leaves, play changes how close you are to ascending. This is a layer of bookkeeping that can be frustrating, particularly if your acquired benefit doesn't significantly impact the outcome of the game. Tracking and strategizing around ascend for several turns in order to grant Spire Winder +1/+1 just isn't worth the headache. Being able to take an extra turn with Timestream Navigator, or turning all of your Saproling tokens into Trained Armodons with Tendershoot Dryad are obviously much more exciting.
Because all lands count towards attaining the City's Blessing, ascend has a natural momentum and becomes easier to achieve as the game progresses. It has a landfall-esque quality to it that diminishes the frustration associated with drawing one too many lands in the late game, as they are actually contributing towards your desired board state. While most limited games will reach a state where both players are at least within striking distance, you can't expect to reach 10 permanents without actively playing to the board. Decks that play creatures and tokens are obviously much more likely to attain the City's Blessing than more reactive and controlling decks that rely on instants and sorceries.
Because it's so difficult to reliably attain the City's Blessing in any sort of reasonable amount of time, cards that require it to function, like Dusk Charger and Wayward Swordtooth are difficult to recommend for retail limited play. Cube has an even higher bar to clear for inclusion, but the principles remain the same. A card needs to be acceptable on rate, independent of ascend, in order to even be considered. Skymarcher Aspirant is an Elite Vanguard with late game upside and fits perfectly into aggressive creature decks, while Snubhorn Sentry is only playable if your deck would be interested in playing a Valiant Guard.
While cards with ascend could be printed that are both intended to be cast in the late game, and create multiple permanents, it feels like they would go against the spirit of the mechanic. The flavor and design of ascend is to gradually working towards something in order to enjoy a well-earned reward, not be guaranteed it by casting a single card. Outside of heavy-handed designs, there's just too much bookkeeping involved to be excited about ascend. You can add it to decks that are designed to go wide without too much issue, but it's unlikely to be the driving force in drafting those decks in the first place.
Ascend Grade: C-
Ascend Grade in Cube: D+
Battle Cry is a triggered ability first seen in Mirrodin Besieged as the keystone mechanic of the Mirran resistance. Whenever a creature with battle cry attacks, each other attacking creature gets +1/+0 until end of turn. While this is simple in theory, it does result in some surprisingly complicated combat math, particularly when there are multiple creatures with battle cry in play at the same time. Because battle cry only affects other attacking creatures, if two creatures with battle cry attack, they each get +1/+0 while every other attacking creature would get +2/+0. This "invisible" math bogs down combat a little bit every turn, but rarely leads to outright confusion or frustration.
Because creatures need to attack to trigger battle cry, they don't often trigger it more than once per game. Opponents are just so heavily incentivized to block the creature creating all the extra damage. Of course, this does force your opponent's hand in ways that can complicate blocking decisions and potentially allow you to attack with another creature you wouldn't otherwise be able to. Being forced to put something at risk to trigger battle cry limits how powerful it can be, but it results in a much more interesting mechanic than if you were able to treat battle cry as a pseudo Glorious Anthem.
Battle cry is at its most eloquent when it's used as a way for one and two drop creatures to provide late game value, particularly in decks looking to go wide with tokens. Simply adding battle cry to these creatures provides depth and nuance without increasing the complexity. It's perfectly serviceable on more expensive creatures that are expected to be played after you've already established your board, but those cards can no longer simply rest on the laurels of being efficient creatures. Battle cry is a workhorse mechanic in both form and function, which explains why it's been brought back as many times as it has despite never receiving rave reviews from the player base.
Battle Cry Grade: C+
Battle Cry Grade in Cube: C+
Battles are the first brand new card type since planeswalkers were first introduced way back in Lorwyn block. They are permanents that enter play under your opponent's control with a set number of defense counters. Sort of like reverse planeswalkers, these permanents can be attacked and dealt damage in order to reduce the number of defense counters on them. Once all counters have been removed, the Battle is exiled and returns to play transformed under your control where it can provide additional value. Whereas planeswalkers ask your opponent whether they value your life total or your planeswalker more, battles ask you whether you value your opponent's life total or the ability to transform your battle. This can create many interesting decisions, but just as often it creates frustration and unneeded complexity.
A significant amount of the equity in battles is tied up in your ability to transform them and being unable to do so can be disastrous. This tension is felt by both players and often feels much less interactive than it does with planeswalkers, largely because of the ability to both cast and transform a battle on the same turn. In order to prevent this from happening, a defending player must leave creatures back even if they have unopposed attacks and are at a stable life total. This is worth considering even if your opponent has yet to actually cast a battle. Doing so never feels rewarding as you are giving your opponent extra turns at the cost of preventing something that may not even be in their deck. Disregarding this possibility and having it happen to you anyway ends up feeling random and frustrating. This feeling of randomness can be alleviated by increasing the number of battles in an environment, but this is easier said than done.
There are also going to be plenty of decks that simply can't run battles in the first place. Control decks don't run enough creatures to be able to transform battles reliably. Aggro decks often can't afford to divert resources away from killing an opponent directly. Combo decks largely ignore turn to turn combat entirely unless they are actively winning the game. This means that the most common place for battles to end up is in those decks that don't mind a game being artificially lengthened but still rely heavily on the combat step; mid-range creature decks. Even these decks won't want to play more than a couple of battles as they begin to provide diminishing returns fairly quickly. After all, it's much harder to justify attacking a second or third battle unless your opponent is running some sort of life gain strategy. Leaving 3-4 damage on the table is one thing; leaving 10-12 damage is simply unnecessarily dragging out a game. Because of this, the best battles will be those whose power is front loaded and won’t require you to transform it to feel good about casting it.
While battles exist that fit that criteria, most of them are nearly identical to already existing cards. Given the choice between Invasion of Mercadia and Bitter Reunion, I’m going to select the card that accomplishes a similar task with much less complexity. As currently constructed, I don’t feel that battles are worth the added complexity and while there may be designers that are excited to test as many as possible, I’m not one of them.
Battles - Siege Grade: D+
Battles - Siege Grade in Cube: F
Bestow is a keyword ability on enchantment creatures that allows you to cast them as enchantment auras attached to another creature on the battlefield. They provide the indicated bonuses as an aura and become a creature themselves should the enchanted creature leave play for any reason, including when you are attempting to bestow in the first place. Bestow features a heavy amount of unwritten rules required to fully understand how the ability functions. While the short cut of "it works the way you want it to work" largely holds true, this still leads to a lot of confusion for those who are unfamiliar with the mechanic. The rules text for bestow already utilizes a lot of card space so for it to also be grossly insufficient at actually explaining how the mechanic works is, frankly, disappointing.
Once you understand how bestow works, it actually provides favorable gameplay that's evocative of the core themes and leads to interesting and meaningful game play decisions. Being empowered to actually use bestow creatures as auras without walking into blowouts every single game is immensely satisfying. Figuring out whether to bestow or hard cast your creatures is not always a straightforward decision, and it's one that often changes along with the flow of the game. The printing of bestow creatures like Hypnotic Siren expands this design space, giving you reasons to enchant your opponent's creatures instead of your own. Because every bestowed creature can threaten to become a creature itself, every single bestow card is essentially providing you with card advantage. This can be difficult to balance developmentally and is one of the reasons we haven't seen bestow very often. The other major reason is the mechanical and flavor ties to enchantment creatures, which simply do not appear on most planes and would not make sense to be included outside of very specific sets.
Bestow is the type of mechanic that I wouldn't want to see return with any sort of regularity. It has significant mechanical and developmental hurdles involved with playing it, it promotes a battlecruiser style of Magic that can feel stale after a while, and it requires a very specific flavor justification that just wouldn't resonate on every set. Despite these challenges, bestow does create interesting and satisfying game play decisions that rewards proper planning and sequencing. I enjoyed my time with Theros block limited, and bestow was a huge reason why. The flavor absolutely pops when it's done correctly, and I was excited to see it return in Modern Horizons 3 where I enjoyed playing with it again. The mechanic undoubtedly feels more special when surrounded by a supportive environment though, and that resonance is needed to justify some of the rules frustrations. As such, I actually think bestow is a little more suited to retail limited than cube, particularly because it allows some of the more simple and elegant designs to shine.
Bestow Grade: B
Bestow Grade in Cube: C
Bloodthirst is a creature keyword ability that served as the guild mechanic for the Gruul Clans during Guildpact. Creatures with bloodthirst enter play with the indicated number of +1/+1 counters if an opponent was dealt damage that turn. It can be written as either Bloodthirst N, where N is a number, or bloodthirst X, where X is the amount of damage dealt to an opponent that turn. Since bloodthirst specifies "damage" but not "combat damage", it will activate due to damage dealt from cards like Prodigal Sorcerer, Gut Shot, and, somewhat unintuitively, creatures with infect. It will not, however, activate from life loss caused by Marsh Flats, Ammit Eternal, or Basilica Screecher's abilities.
The prevailing lesson from bloodthirst has always been that it's much more difficult to deal combat damage to your opponent than it seems like it should be. Becuase of this, cards with bloodthirst almost always read better than they play. Bloodthirst was frustrating in Guildpact because of how difficult it was to make it work with cheap creatures like Scab-Clan Mauler, especially when they lost so much value when played off curve. Creatures that were bad without the extra +1/+1 counters, were often just bad. This got slightly better when bloodthirst returned to represent the vampires in Magic 2012. The introduction of more ways to turn it on outside of combat helped immensely. Putting it on simple creatures that were acceptable on rate without it, and above rate with it also greatly improved its playability. When used in this way, it was able to serve as a clear sign post for newer players that they should attack with their creatures and play a deck that's focused on being aggressive. It was largely very successful in this role, which made it a useful core set mechanic, rules frustrations aside.
Creatures with bloodthirst almost have to excel in spite of it, and only really work in the most aggressive decks possible. Between the infrastructure needed to properly support it, the amount of players that struggle understanding when it actually activates, and how useless its cards feel when you aren't ahead, bloodthirst is often more frustrating than fun if your goal is to play the most powerful cards. This makes it a bit of an awkward inclusion for cube, where its limitations really start to matter in ways that they don't in retail limited. There is value in mechanics that teach newer players to attack with their creatures, and bloodthirst definitely does that. Just because it's not powerful, doesn't mean it doesn't have a positive affect on a format, and as such, I think it made a lot of sense as a core set mechanic as opposed to one for cube.
Bloodthirst Grade: B-
Bloodthirst Grade in Cube: D+
Blood tokens first appeared in Innistrad: Crimson Vow to represent the sustenance consumed by vampires. They are a type of trinket artifact token created by a wide variety of cards in the vein of Clue, Food, Map, and Treasure tokens, etc. By paying , discarding a card, and then tapping and sacrificing the Blood token, you can draw a card. While requiring you to tap and sacrifice the token may seem strange at first glance, this allows for cards to create tapped Blood tokens that cannot be spent the turn they enter play. This restriction opens up additional design space and allows for tighter power balancing. While they can be cracked to draw a card, they can also be utilized creatively as either a discard outlet or as a resource to pay for effects.
Unlike looting, rummaging has always been situationally beneficial, as it's impossible to tell whether the card you will draw is more useful than the one you discarded. Because of this, Blood tokens are at their best either in the developing turns (when you desperately need a land or nonland card to play a functional game), or well into the late game (when you have a concrete idea of exactly what you need to draw). Hand smoothing at these stages of the game can significantly increase your win rate and the consistency of your deck. They also serve as a discard outlet for graveyard and discard matters synergies, which are conveniently already present in both and .
By providing card selection instead of outright card advantage, Blood tokens are less ubiquitously useful than Clue tokens, and more situationally and synergistically beneficial, like Map tokens. This presents itself further in how they affect an environment, as they tend to play better in aggressive decks than controlling ones. After all, synergies aside, replacing a redundant land with a random card is objectively more powerful than doing so with an actual spell. As aggressive decks tend to require fewer lands, they are able to knowingly improve their draw a much higher percentage of the time. Reducing the amount of times that your rummage makes your hand worse is key to maximizing Blood tokens, and aggressive decks are just able to do that more reliably.
The thematic ties between Blood tokens and vampires are so resonant that it would feel strange to see them present in a set with no vampires. Fortunately, vampires are one of 's characteristic races and, as such, they are present on most of the planes Magic frequents. This, alongside their ability to smooth basic draws in retail limited, make them yet another excellently crafted deciduous trinket artifact token. They do disproportionately benefit aggressive decks with lower land counts, which can affect format speed, but designers can account for this by controlling the quantity of Blood tokens in an environment. This factor is mostly nonexistent in cube, where they are basically guaranteed to be a miniscule percentage of the overall environment. There, they are able to serve as synergistic rectangles that provide marginal upside. They aren't objectively powerful enough to be the reason a card sees inclusion, but they can absolutely be a part of a card's appeal.
Blood Tokens Grade: B+
Blood Tokens Grade in Cube: B+
Cascade is a mechanic from Alara Reborn that causes your spells to chain into each other, resulting in multiple spells being cast off of a single card. Whenever you cast a spell with cascade, you exile cards from the top of your library until you exile a nonland card with lesser mana value. You may then cast that card without paying its mana cost, and put all exiled cards on the bottom of your library in a random order. If you cast the spell being cascaded into, the one being cast for free, it will always go on the stack and resolve before the initial spell with cascade. This can result in some rather confusing resolutions, particularly if you cascade into another spell with cascade, a split card, a modal double-faced card, cards with alternative casting costs, etc. While all of these corner cases have clearly established rules detailing how to resolve their particular instances, it requires intimate knowledge of the rule book, because it is not readily apparent in the rules text on any of the cards.
Cascade can be notoriously frustrating even when it isn't creating rules questions. Because you have limited control over what you cascade into (more on this in a minute), there is often a distinct separation between the expected and actual value that cascade provides. Players always expect to reveal a spell that costs just underneath the casting threshold, maximizing the mechanic's impact. This makes it extra frustrating when they reveal something that costs much less mana than they would be allowed, let alone when they reveal a spell that they can't cast at all. Revealing a Counterspell, a removal spell with no legal target, or some other situational card that doesn't apply to the current game state results in the revealed card being put on the bottom of your library with the rest of the exiled cards. Losing access to a card that you wanted to draw, but not cast, while receiving no additional upside in the process, devalues the card you originally cast. When combined, these factors really highlight the randomness associated with cascade in a negative light.
Players can, and do, reduce this randomness by constructing their deck in a way that guarantees a given result. While this makes cascade cards more powerful, it also makes the mechanic entirely prescriptive, essentially eliminating much of what makes it emotionally resonant in the first place. Cascade is built on bringing players on an emotional journey. When someone casts a card with cascade, everyone at the table leans in to get a better look at what is going to happen. Everyone holds their breath when a card is exiled, exhales when it's revealed to be something that can't be cast, and braces themselves again for the next card. The tension rises each time this occurs until a card is revealed that ends the chain. When that final card fails to provide an appropriate emotional response, the entire mechanic falls apart.
Cube accentuates many of cascade's shortcomings. The environment is powerful and synergistic enough to demand consistency out of the cards in your deck. This makes it difficult to include the expensive cascade cards that present the highest emotional ceiling. You're instead incentivized to play inexpensive and efficient cards that present a lower overall ceiling with the same craterous floor. The environment naturally mixes cards from different sets, allowing you to potentially cascade into one of the many cards that brings up confusing rules questions. While there are cards with cascade hat feel appropriate for cube, it's not a format built to highlight its strengths.
Cascade is a mechanic that is based on creating moments. Whether it be due to rules baggage, cascading into an underwhelming card, being unable to cast the cascaded card altogether, or players being incentivized to actively undermine the spirit of the mechanic, cascade just does not create the desired experience with enough regularity.
Cascade Grade: D
Cascade Grade in Cube: D-
Changeling is a keyword ability tied to the Shapeshifter subtype that grants its cards every creature type at all times. A spell with changeling is every creature type regardless of which zone it exists in, and all other cards that reference a given creature type would apply to the card with changeling. For example, Changeling Outcast can be returned to your hand with Wort, Boggart Auntie, tutored for with Merrow Harbinger, discarded to morph Putrid Raptor, and it gets +1/+1 from Imperious Perfect while it remains in play. Changelings open up all kinds of synergies in a format where creature types matter, and have historically produced a positive impact on those formats.
Changeling was first introduced in Lorwyn block as a way to increase the as-fan of each creature type in a given pack without changing the physical pack structure. This increased the chances of each kindred (tribal, at the time) strategy to be represented in a given pack, making it easier for players to pivot between strategies during the drafting process. Kindred sets, such as Lorwyn and Ixalan, have historically had much more linear draft strategies than other sets. This is because so few of the cards work in multiple strategies. For example, it's difficult to move off of 
Merfolk and into Faeries, even if is cut and is open, because so many of your arf cards are irrelevant without merfolk. You often have to completely abandon previous picks to do so, even if they are in the same color, simply because the creature types do not line up properly. Because changeling cards are every creature type, you can first pick Taurean Mauler or Changeling Berserker and know that they will make whatever deck you end up drafting. The same cannot be said about Incandescent Soulstoke which is absurd in 
elementals, and largely unplayable elsewhere.
For all the good that changelings do for kindred environments, they simply don't make sense anywhere else. My cube, for example, has little to no kindred synergies of any kind. If a player sees Crib Swap in a pack, they are going to assume that there is some way to take advantage of it being all creature types. Because of this, I wouldn't really want to include changelings in my cube unless a card is both simple and effective independent of it having changeling. The same goes for limited environments like Ravnica and Theros, which do not feature kindred strategies as part of their core design. Changeling is an important tool that designers can use to support kindred strategies in an environment, it's just important to keep in mind the messages that their presence sends to perspective drafters.
Changeling Grade: B+
Changeling Grade in Cube: D-
Cipher was introduced in Gatecrash as the guild mechanic for House Dimir. When you resolve a spell with cipher, it is put into exile and encoded on a creature you control. You may then cast a copy of that same spell whenever the chosen creature deals combat damage to an opponent. Because you need to exile the spell card to resolve the cipher ability, you cannot select a new creature once you have encoded your exiled spell onto it. The chosen creature and spell are linked until the chosen creature leaves play.
Cipher is a problematic ability from both a design and developmental perspective, which is particularly problematic when you consider that nearly every aspect of the mechanic contributes to this. Cipher, when working as intended, creates an extremely repetitive game play experience as one player is casting the same spell every single turn. While none of the cards currently printed with cipher lock an opponent out of a game per se, Undercity Plague and Mental Vapors flirt with the idea enough to suck the fun out of a game. Even something as innocuous as Midnight Recovery gets annoying when you're doing it every single turn. Accomplishing this is more difficult than it may appear though, something that is accentuated when you consider the reputation that saboteur cards have in modern Magic, particularly in cube.
Leveraging cipher requires you to both be in a position to attack, and have a creature that's capable of attacking successfully. This means playing cards with evasion and building your deck in a fashion that makes you actually want to attack. Control decks probably don't want to play any cards with cipher, since they're going to be spending most of the game trying to stabilize, not turn their own creatures sideways. The narrow band of playability extends to both deck choice and in game circumstance, making it difficult to maximize. This is exacerbated by the basic need for cards with cipher to be abnormally expensive. Consider the difference between Mental Vapors and Skull Fracture or Horrifying Revelation. Forcing an opponent to discard a single card of their choice, with no additional upside, is worth less than a single mana. Mental Vapors costs four mana because it would be completely cracked if you could cast it every turn before your opponent had a chance to develop their mana base.
In addition to playability concerns, cipher causes logistical problems as its cards are exiled in association with a card that remains in play. The rules term "encoded" has no basis aside from cipher, so it's difficult for players unfamiliar with the mechanic to understand at first glance. Cipher also allows you to cast sorceries, the only card type cipher can be printed on, repeatedly at instant speed. This is not intuitive at all, but unavoidable due to the wording of the mechanic. Cipher has a lot of mechanical complexity to go with its numerous game play issues, and it can't appear at a power level appropriate for cube without creating a degenerative game state. It functions passably well at lower power levels in retail limited, but it doesn't create an enjoyable experience, let alone justify all of the problems associated with it.
Cipher Grade: D-
Cipher Grade in Cube: F
Collect evidence N is a keyword action that allows you to exile any number of cards with total mana value N or greater from your graveyard for an additional effect. Collecting evidence has quite a lot of variability in its design both in how and when it can be triggered, as well as the actual effect you receive upon resolution. Despite being an obvious boon to decks that are able to fill their graveyard through non-routine methods, it does not require this additional synergy to be effective. Because you can exile multiple cards to pay for a single collect evidence cost, even decks playing mostly inexpensive spells can cobble together enough to pay for a single trigger through simple attrition. In decks designed to use the graveyard as a resource, it's yet another option in an ever-growing toolbox.
The only concerns with the mechanic in cube revolve around the tension experienced with exiling cards from your graveyard, as it's a limited resource that's being shared with delve, flashback, delirium, escape, and reanimation effects, among others. There's only so much room for these cards in a deck before they start to cannibalize each other. There does need to be restraint and thoughtful attention paid to both enablers and payoffs to ensure that the correct balance is achieved. That said, the relative size of my cube does allow enough room for these mechanics to breathe. It also provides play variety between drafts, as graveyard decks don't necessarily function the same way every time. Collect evidence significantly overperformed my expectations and was one of the more fun and interesting things to do in its limited format. It has a natural extension to cube play, and I expect future iterations to perform splendidly.
Collect Evidence Grade: B+
Collect Evidence Grade in Cube: A-
Connive was first introduced as the flagship mechanic of the Obscura crime family in Streets of New Capenna. When a creature connives you draw a card, discard a card, and then put a +1/+1 counter on that creature if you discarded a nonland card. Looting is already a fundamental part of the game and has long been used as a way to improve deck consistency and facilitate functional games. Looting is at its best when it's ensuring players hit their land drops in the early game, and as a way to replace superfluous lands drawn in the late game. It can also be used synergistically in decks that value their graveyard, allowing you to selectively place cards in that zone without having to cast them or experiencing card disadvantage.
Connive has all the aforementioned advantages of looting, but will sometimes cause players to make different discard decisions than they normally would. It also provides a significant benefit in hands that are digging for mana, as they are often forced to discard spells that they may not want to part with. It does require you to have a creature in play, however, so it's unlikely that you'll see too many instants and sorceries with connive like Lethal Scheme. Fortunately, controlling creatures is an expected part of both retail limited and my cube design.
Connive is a natural fit in both and due to their extensive graveyard synergies, while creatures are primarily interested in growing bigger with +1/+1 counters. +1/+1 counters becoming a more central theme in only makes connive feel more organically supported. My cube already features many creatures that loot as part of their suite of abilities, and I'd be very open to including those with connive as it's generally a better effect overall. Connive is flavor neutral enough that I could see it appearing again in a standard set without too many issues. My only knock against it is that because the flavor is so neutral, it feels more like a generic workhorse mechanic than something that sparky joy. This is a relatively minor complaint though, as it does make sense within its intended contexts, even if that justification doesn't really have memorable legs.
Connive Grade: A-
Connive Grade in Cube: A-
Convoke, first printed as the Selesnya Conclave guild keyword in Ravnica: City of Guilds, is a cost reduction mechanic that allows your creatures to help pay for its spells. Each creature you tap while casting a spell with convoke pays for or one mana of that creature's color. Because you can pay for both the colored and generic mana requirements, you can cast spells with convoke entirely by tapping creatures; no mana investment required. You can also use creatures to pay for convoke the turn they enter play, since convoke doesn't qualify as a tap ability that would be delayed due to summoning sickness.
Convoke rewards you for playing creatures by allowing you to cast spells that your available mana base would not normally allow. You can ramp into Flight of Equenauts way before you have seven mana, you can cast March of the Multitudes for an egregious value of X, or you can cast Meeting of Minds on your opponent's end step with no untapped mana. It's been successfully designed for aggressive go wide strategies in Ravnica and Magic 2015 Core Set, and it's been used to facilitate more reactive strategies in March of the Machine. It's a very flexible mechanic whose only real requirement is that you play creatures, something that every limited format is going to support.
Despite its flexible design space and rewarding gameplay, using convoke does come at a cost. Every creature you tap to convoke a spell at sorcery speed cannot be used as an attacker or blocker unless they have vigilance. Even convoking at instant speed prevents you from attacking while you wait to cast your convoke spell. This is a bit of a double-edged sword because on one hand, it forces the player with convoke to make meaningful decisions when it comes to combat and sequencing their spells. This makes the turn to turn game play more interesting by providing strategic complexity and depth. On the other hand, it tempers the overall power level of the average card with convoke, particularly when it comes to cube.
Outside of combo pieces like Chord of Calling and the occasional outlier, Wizards has been cautious with the general power level of convoke. While this is probably a good thing overall, as any cost reduction mechanic is inherently dangerous, it has resulted in it being underrepresented in cube relative to its quality as a mechanic. Convoke cards tend to be slightly overcosted on average, so that you can convoke them for a slight discount. It's difficult to justify cards that require additional work to reach that same mana efficiency, especially when it affects your ability to participate in combat. I'm not going to hold the lack of historical cube success against convoke though, because cards could easily be printed that would be at a power level appropriate for cube. Overall, the ability to smooth your opening hand and facilitate proper sequencing, while providing both synergistic and strategic game play, makes it an excellent limited mechanic both in retail limited and cube play.
Convoke Grade: A-
Convoke Grade in Cube: B+
Coven is an ability word introduced in Innistrad: Midnight Hunt that provides an effect or ability if you control three or more creatures with different powers. The term "power" refers to a creature's power in their power and toughness; it is not referring to their abilities or mechanics. Coven is a binary ability in that it is either active or inactive at all times, and it's nearly always one spell or ability away from changing states. This, in combination with the sheer amount of variety on hand in terms of when and how coven can provide its benefits, means that players need to be constantly assessing the game state and planning for slight variations that could turn it on or off.
Designed to represent the gathering of humans as they band together against the terrors of the night, coven has so far appeared exclusively on and cards, and almost always on creatures. This is likely because of how much easier to take advantage of a coven ability on a creature than any other card type. After all, that creature is already providing you with the first of three required powers. After playing with coven, I was surprised at how often I ran into situations where I had three creatures but only two different powers. While I was usually able to scrounge up a third power eventually, I very rarely ever reached a fourth. While this means that I was able to satisfy the coven requirement somewhat reliably, it also ended up being very easy to disrupt.
Oftentimes, players were a single removal spell or trade in combat away from losing coven, along with whatever bonuses it's currently providing. This is because creature power is heavily centralized between 1 and 3, particularly in retail limited. Far fewer creatures have a power of 0 or 4 or greater. Innistrad: Midnight Hunt featured a bevy of +1/+1 counter synergies in its limited format, and I still ran up against the issue of barely being able to scrape enough creatures together to satisfy coven. I actually found the amount of attention I had to pay to both sequencing and the timing on coven abilities more frustrating than satisfying. Some coven effects were one time only effects when a card entered play, others allowed a player to use an activated ability, others provided keywords to creatures, and still others provided static bonuses. It was all a lot to take in, especially when it was constantly a hair's breadth away from changing states.
Despite its execution on its initial release, I don't see a reason why coven couldn't expand into other colors. There could easily be a flavor justification for a coven of witches and warlocks on any number of planes, and the mechanical design space is broad enough to allow for additional designs. The advantages accrued from coven can be used to support any number of strategies. You can have aggressive coven decks that seek to push damage, mid-range coven decks that go over the top with larger creatures, or more controlling ones that grind out card advantage through advantageous board stalls. Its complexity can even be controlled through thoughtful restriction of when bonuses are accrued. Limiting all coven bonuses to within combat allows it to be used in a core set as a way to reward newer players for creating a solid curve of creatures.
Despite the interesting design space and potential for strategic game play, the lasting impact that coven had on me was one of frustration. The time I spent scrutinizing the board to make sure I wasn't missing any coven interactions, and planning for the potential for coven to be disrupted, resulted in me having less fun overall. It's a solid mechanic conceptually, it's just not one I want to experience again practically. While I'm not outright opposed to include cards with coven in my cube, the card in question would need to either spark joy or provide an important role in a key archetype to be included.
Coven Grade: C+
Coven Grade in Cube: D+
First introduced in Urza's Saga, cycling is a deciduous mechanic that gives you the option of casting a spell for its base rate, or paying a cost to discard it and draw a card at instant speed. There is an immense amount of design space available with cycling featuring variations in both cost and effect. By exploring this design space cycling has been used to increase the base playability of cards, smooth early game draws, and provide consistency to a format, all while providing opportunities for seeded synergies.
It's incredibly satisfying to be able to include cards like Dissenter's Deliverance and Hush in your main deck without having to worry about them getting stuck in your hand without a target. You can cycle Greater Sandwurm and Granitic Titan if you draw them in your opening hand, only to recur them later on in the game. Complicate and Fractured Sanity provide a modified version of their base effect when cycled. Fade From Memory and Bountiful Landscape experiment with different mana cost requirements for cycling, while Edge of Autumn requires no mana at all, instead requiring you to discard a card to cycle.
Cycling plays particularly well with graveyard and discard strategies as it serves as an enabler for both while providing the same base benefits. These advantages extend to both retail limited, where it has long served as format glue across its many iterations, and cube, where it's valued for decreasing overall deck size and increasing consistency. Its design space is so wide that there are entire recognized sub mechanics that have arisen from its use, the most prominent of which I will discuss on their own as we progress. As a whole, cycling is one of the best mechanics that Magic has produced due to its ubiquitous appeal both mechanically and strategically. My only issue with cycling is the complete absence of flavor justification, as it can feel extremely inorganic and lacking in resonance. Nonetheless, I'm always excited to see cycling return, and I don't see that changing any time soon.
Cycling Grade: A-
Cycling Grade in Cube: A-
Landcycling is a variant of cycling first introduced in Scourge that allows you to pay a cost to discard a card, search your library for a land card, and put it into your hand at instant speed. It exists in two varieties: basic landcycling and [land type]cycling. Basic landcycling allows you to tutor for any basic land, while [land type]cycling restricts you to only a land of the specified type. However, it does allow you to tutor for any land of the indicated type, including typed nonbasic lands like Godless Shrine. Outside of restricting what you are allowed to search for, landcycling is identical to cycling in every way from a mechanical perspective, including the lack of flavor justification. Strategically, however, there are some key differences.
While cycling provides you with an opportunity to trade one card from your hand for a random card from your deck, landcycling guarantees the replacement card will always be a land. This makes it much better when you are in danger of missing a land drop in the early game, and much less useful in the late game, when your mana base is established. Cycling vastly improves the playability of situational effects due to the ability to offer a chance at drawing a replacement card with functional value. Once your mana is developed, that opportunity is lost, rendering situational cards just as situational as if they didn't have cycling at all. This is why landcycling tends to come primarily on spells that are good in the late game, where it's able to provide the most value. This is not to say that landcycling is worse or less powerful than cycling, it's just functionally different.
Landcycling is able to promote many of the game play benefits of cycling proper, while really excelling in the early game as a way to mitigate noninteractive games experienced due to mana shortages. The lack of flavor justification is just as disappointing as with cycling, but it's easy to overlook when it's doing so much dirty work in stabilizing a format.
Landcycling Grade: A-
Landcycling Grade in Cube: A-
First introduced in Future Sight with the cards Vedalken Aethermage and Homing Sliver, [type]cycling allowed you to tutor for any wizard or sliver card, respectively. As seen with Sojourner's Companion, this can be expanded to include any creature or card type, including artifacts, enchantments, planeswalkers, etc. Regardless of what the named [type] is, it functions similarly to landcycling. You pay a cost to discard a card with [type]cycling, search your library for a card of the indicated [type], and put it in your hand. [Land type]cycling is technically a subset of [type]cycling, where [type] is any card type. However, I wanted to discuss it separately because when that [type] is any nonland card, it plays out very differently from a strategic perspective.
Like any tutoring mechanic, [type]cycling is most prominently used as a way to facilitate combos and broken synergies. It is very rarely utilized as a catch-all toolbox mechanic in favor of being abused degeneratively. This leads to repetitive gameplay as players continuously set up the same interactions game after game. I don't find these kinds of experiences particularly fun or enjoyable, and even if one does, it's difficult to argue that it hurts the longevity of a format once it's become a defining feature. Because of this, I tend to shy away from tutors in general in favor of more indirect card draw and card advantage mechanisms.
While cycling and landcycling improve the quality of play by improving consistency and reducing the number of nongames overall, [type]cycling does so to a degree that actively sucks fun out of a game. It's attacking a completely different problem in a way that puts most of the emphasis on the cycling ability, as opposed to managing a balance between the two. If cycling and landcycling are gently massaging a format into a more pliable shape, [type]cycling is a surgical extraction knife, digging for as much raw consistency as possible. This lack of nuance leads to less satisfying gameplay, and I'm not surprised that it's one of the future shifted mechanics that we haven't seen return in a standard level set.
[Type]cycling Grade: D-
[Type]cycling Grade in Cube: F
Deathtouch is a static ability that turns any damage dealt by a source to a creature into lethal damage. It does not matter how much damage is dealt, nor what the actual identity of the source is. As long as damage is dealt to a creature by a source with deathtouch, that creature is destroyed. Because deathtouch is dealing lethal damage, making a creature indestructible would prevent that creature from dying. Similarly, because a single damage from a creature with deathtouch is considered lethal damage, you can split that damage up as wide as possible to destroy multiple creatures when being double blocked in combat. This occurs regardless of how much damage you are dealing to each one. This is particularly effective when used in combination with trample, as you can deal a single damage to a blocking creature, and deal the rest to your opponent directly.
Deathtouch has gone through quite the transformation since its first iteration in Alpha. Initially triggering not on damage, but on blocking itself, deathtouch wasn't even a named mechanic until Future Sight, where it was still a triggered ability. It didn't become a static ability until its inclusion in the Magic 2010 Core Set. Deathtouch is now an evergreen mechanic, showing up in nearly every Magic set. Long since removed from its association with Basilisk and Cockatrice creatures, deathtouch has expanded to represent anything that is capable of killing another creature in one fell swoop.
This ranges from rats that only cost a single mana, to six mana vampires, to effects that grant deathtouch to creatures. Giving a creature deathtouch makes it inherently difficult to interact with in combat. This can be leveraged aggressively, defensively, or with a certain amount of trickery. Because it holds the potential for bogging down combat, it's generally not great idea to design cards whose primary function is blocking everything without risk of dying. Deathtouch would not be an appropriate ability to assign to Wall of Swords, for example.
When leveraged carefully, deathtouch can do a lot of good for a format by providing decks with a way to attack through board stalls created by Walls or other high toughness, low power creatures. It can also help slower decks, particularly ones, with a way to stave off aggressive starts by an opponent without having to use the few removal spells they have. This disparity in perceived value per actual impact can actually be quite annoying when a player is holding off an entire squad of creatures with a single Typhoid Rats. While experienced players know that they should just force their opponent to trade their deathtouch creature off with something, newer players are historically tentative to do this, resulting in some avoidable frustration. Deathtouch is a useful tool in a designer's tool kit, but requires careful consideration both in the quantity and quality of its use. It contains enough rules baggage and frustrating lines of play to put off some newer players, but it does provide a positive impact on formats overall.
Deathtouch Grade: B
Deathtouch Grade in Cube: B
Defender is a static ability on creatures that prevents them from being able to attack. Like deathtouch, defender originated in Alpha under slightly different circumstances. Originally tied mechanically to the Wall creature type, defender was not yet keyworded, and its rules text didn't even appear on cards. Being unable to attack was simply a property that was tied to being a wall in the official rules. It wasn't until Champions of Kamigawa that defender was officially keyworded, added to all wall creatures as functional errata, and started appearing on non-wall creatures as well.
Defender is obviously a defensive-minded mechanic that typically appears on low power, high toughness creatures. Since creatures with defender cannot attack, their role is to slow aggressive decks down, and allow for more controlling decks to stabilize the game state. While control decks can also accomplish this through removal and other interaction, playing to the board is particularly beneficial in multiplayer, where it is unlikely that you have enough interaction to account for every opponent. New players especially benefit from learning the importance of playing creatures, so it's critical to provide them with tools that support any deck strategy.
Defenders have gotten much more interesting in retail limited since the mechanic became keyworded, as it allows for new and interesting designs and strategies. Rise of the Eldrazi, Return to Ravnica, Dominaria United, and Conspiracy all had dedicated defenders-matter archetypes as part of their limited environment. The synergies in these decks included dealing noncombat damage to opponents based on the number of defenders you controlled, milling your opponent, tapping for egregious amounts of mana, and actually attacking with your defenders, including others. It can also be put on noncreature spells as a unique way to interact with an opponent which increases the as-fan of the mechanic without occupying too many of the available creature slots in a file.
Playing creatures with defender in retail limited without a dedicated subtheme has become a much less desirable prospect over the years. This is due to the rise in relative creature efficiency and immediate impact, and the importance of game tempo. Creatures need to do more than simply block in modern limited. While defenders like Wingmantle Chaplain and Floriferous Vinewall saw play in both draft and sealed, it had less to do with their ability to block and more to do with their abilities outside of combat. This extends doubly to cube play, where the density of effect isn't high enough to support any sort of defenders subtheme. As such, you'll see the occasional defender sneak into the list, but it will be cards like Wall of Omens or Wall of Roots, which primarily provide ancillary functions in addition to serving as a functional blocker.
Defender is an immensely flavorful mechanic that perfectly encapsulates the most defining feature of creatures that have the mechanic. It's simple, easy to understand, and promotes interactive gameplay. There's certainly power level limitations when played with modern cards, but that can be overcome by promoting creative synergies that provide additional reasons to play them.
Defender Grade: B+
Defender Grade in Cube: D
Delirium is a binary ability word that becomes active when you have four or more card types among cards in your graveyard. Because delirium only cares about card types, and not the individual cards themselves, you can reach delirium by having both Tree of Tales and Greater Tanuki in your graveyard at the same time. That would give you an artifact, land, enchantment, and creature among your two cards, successfully satisfying the delirium requirement. Delirium can be printed in any color and on any card type, and can provide upside in the form of static, activated, or triggered abilities, or an improved or additional effect as part of the resolution of a spell or ability.
While there are a lot of different card types, it's highly unlikely that any deck will have more than one or two planeswalkers, battles, and kindred cards combined. This means that the vast majority of cards in your graveyard will be creatures, instants, sorceries, artifacts, enchantments, and lands. Creatures, instants, and sorceries will find their way into the graveyard through normal gameplay and attrition through combat. However, since artifacts, enchantments, and lands do not commonly find their way into the graveyard, extra work must be done to accrue the final type. This is particularly true for delirium effects that have diminishing returns later on in a game.
This is usually accomplished through milling, discarding, playing fetch lands, etc. Regardless of the method, delirium only functions properly within the confines of an environment that actively cares about, and interacts with, the graveyard. This includes Shadows Over Innistrad block (where it was originally introduced), Modern Horizons 2, the recent Duskmourn: House of Horrors, and cube. In addition to requiring mechanical focus, delirium also requires proper deck building to be fully realized. You cannot simply include 17 lands, 15 creatures, 5 instants, and 3 sorceries and expect to reach delirium, regardless of how much mill you have. You need to actively include artifact creatures, enchantments, and find a mix of instants and sorceries at a rate you normally would not expect. If you can satisfy these requirements, delirium can lead to satisfying gameplay that rewards players who draft, build, and play thoughtfully. It also allows for a reasonable amount of interplay, as opponents can exile cards from your graveyard to turn it off, something that's much harder to accomplish than killing creatures for coven.
While monitoring the card types in each graveyard throughout the entirety of a game can be onerous at first, it's not too difficult once you get used to it. I use a d6 in front of each player's graveyard to indicate their current delirium count once the mechanic is introduced, and that has worked for me. Between crafting an appropriate environment and deck, the physical tracking of delirium, and the delay in achieving it, I usually don't go out of my way to play cards with delirium if it being active is necessary for them to be playable. As such, Dragon's Rage Channeler is the only card with delirium in my cube. That said, delirium is an excellent way to communicate to players that a graveyard strategy is supported. I love that it forces players to evaluate cards differently, often forcing them to change the construction of their deck creatively to accommodate it. I'm excited to add more delirium cards into my cube, especially as I look to increase the density of artifact synergies moving forward.
Delirium Grade: B+
Delirium Grade in Cube: B+
Delve is a cost reduction mechanic that allows you to exile cards from your graveyard to pay for the generic mana of spells with the ability. Each card you exile pays for towards the spell's casting cost. Originally introduced in Future Sight, delve is fairly straight forward and does not come with much rules complexity. Simply find ways to get cards into your graveyard, and some of your spells become cheaper. As with most cost reduction mechanics, there are significant developmental concerns that make designing cards challenging, but those are mostly restricted to constructed play. Very few limited decks are able to fill their graveyard sufficiently within the first two turns with any amount of reliability. This results in constructed staples like Dig Through Time, Treasure Cruise, and Murktide Regent being completely acceptable limited cards.
As a mechanic that is entirely focused on the graveyard, delve actually works quite awkwardly in environments that also care about the graveyard. This is because its only function is to remove cards from that zone, preventing you from utilizing those cards for any other mechanics or synergies. The graveyard is a very finite resource, particularly in limited, and there will not be enough cards to support delve, flashback, reanimation, delirium, etc. Delve is so resource hungry that it actually has diminishing returns with itself. Once you cast Treasure Cruise for , it's unlikely that you have enough cards remaining to cast Dig Through Time or Hooting Mandrills at a full discount.
This cannibalization of resources makes supporting delve in an environment like cube rather tricky. You cannot add every good card with delve into your cube and expect them all to function as intended in the same draft. Most decks only want 1-2 cards with delve at most, and even those are likely to run up against frustrating interactions the more supported your graveyard synergies are. Delve worked great in Khans of Tarkir limited because it wasn't competing with anything. You knew going in that every card that went to your graveyard could be used towards making those spells less expensive. That's just not the case in cube, where nearly every deck is able to interact with the graveyard to some extent.
Despite the design and developmental challenges, delve can be a satisfying addition to a limited format provided you craft the entire format around it. It needs ways to mill yourself, lots of cheap interaction, and a controlled amount of cards with the mechanic. If those criteria are met, it can work as intended without too much issue.
Delve Grade: C-
Delve Grade in Cube: D+
Devoid is a keyword ability that signifies that a card is colorless, regardless of the colors in the card's mana cost. First introduced in Battle for Zendikar block, devoid is intrinsically linked to the Eldrazi creature type as a representation for their interplanar existence. Flavor justification aside, devoid doesn't actually affect any part of gameplay or deck building on its own. It's not until you introduce cards that care about colorless spells and permanents that it becomes relevant.
Unfortunately, outside of sets that actually contain Eldrazi, this just doesn't come up all that often. Even artifact sets, which contain a higher than normal number of colorless permanents, rarely call out colorless by name. This is why artifact creatures exist, to support these synergies and provide the necessary as-fan to make limited archetypes functional. Colored artifacts have become such an engrained part of the game that there would be no value in referencing colorless just for the inclusion of a couple of devoid cards unless the Eldrazi were a main feature of the format.
You could conceivably include devoid cards with morph or manifest, since those mechanics do reference colorless permanents. However, those mechanics eat up a significant amount of the available complexity in a set and require a format to be crafted around their existence for play balance and flavor reasons. They just don't mix well with the Eldrazi, which also require significant framework to justify in a limited format. These elements could combine together in cube, but none of them show up at a rate that would allow for any meaningful interactions. Cards with devoid may be played in cube, but it's almost assuredly going to be completely coincidental.
Devoid is an interesting tool that can be used to provide depth to an Eldrazi set without breaking the color pie for colorless cards. However, it just doesn't provide any value outside of those confines, and even within those confines it's an incredibly narrow application. One could realistically argue whether or not devoid being a keyword is even worth the mechanical and comprehension complexity. This includes in cube where it exists largely as flavor text since there aren't any colorless-matters enablers or payoffs in my list. While I'm not opposed to including cards with devoid, there isn't a compelling reason to do so unless the card is independently justifiable.
Devoid Grade: C-
Devoid Grade in Cube: D-
Chroma is an ability word from Eventide that provides upside based on the number of the indicated colored mana symbols (pips) among specific permanents from a particular zone of play. Chroma counts pips from among cards in the graveyard, library, your hand, and the battlefield. It's further complicated because chroma can count pips from every card in one of these zones, or from among individual cards within a zone. The point here is that there is very little consistency across the nine cards with chroma, a fact that is not helped at all by the complete absence of any flavor justification whatsoever. Even the name "chroma" is simply a word to represent colors; it has no thematic resonance or lore significance with the world of Lorwyn/Shadowmoor. The inconsistencies in the execution of chroma, and the lack of any flavor to rely on for stabilization, make it a very difficult mechanic to both grok and care about. There aren't any mental shortcuts you can make that will simplify playing with chroma. You just have to read every card with the mechanic carefully to identify the specificities.
Chroma, like many of the future shifted mechanics in Future Sight, never felt like it was developed beyond its original prototype. It came from a very ambitious place, but it lacked many of the elements that make modern mechanics robust. This was frustrating at the time because there was clearly a lot of design space available to explore, and it did send clear signals that you could craft an entire environment around. It would take another five years for chroma to return, and it did so in the form of devotion, one of the keystone mechanics of Theros block. I'll speak more about devotion below, including aspects of the design that both mechanics share. For now, suffice it to say that it narrowed the design focus of chroma while providing flavor justification for caring mechanically about colored mana symbols.
Chroma is a particularly poor fit in my cube, as most of the decks are two color by design, and monocolored decks rarely come together. This is due in part to my pack collation and typical smaller draft pods, but I also intentionally do not include cards that promote playing those decks. It would feel disingenuous to the player base to send strong signals that such strategies are supported. As such, I don't currently play any cards with chroma, and since the mechanic is now defunct, I don't anticipate adding any in the future. Chroma, much like cascade, fumbled the execution of an excellent concept only to see it more fully realized in a new implementation that made the original mechanic obsolete. I think it's only fair to grade both accordingly, and save much of the conceptual praise for their successors.
Chroma Grade: D
Chroma Grade in Cube: F
Devotion was introduced in Theros block as a reworked Chroma to represent the amount of worship Gods were receiving from their subjects. Whereas chroma counted colored mana symbols on cards in various zones, devotion only counts from among those cards currently on the battlefield. This lowers the overall complexity significantly resulting in a mechanic that is both more consistent and easier to understand. You do still have to manually keep track of the colored mana symbols in play each turn though, which does become tedious with enough repetition. This can be mitigated somewhat by ensuring that most devotion payoffs are linked to one time effects. Casting a spell, counting the mana symbols, and resolving your effect is satisfying and rewarding for players regardless of skill level. Cards like the Gods themselves are more onerous to track, as you are constantly recounting to confirm whether they are creatures, and what would need to change for them to change states.
Formats with devotion tend to have a lot more permanents with multiple colored mana symbols in their casting cost than an average set. While this can make it generally more difficult to cast your spells, it also tends to result in more strongly supported monocolored strategies. Cards like Arbor Colossus, Pharika's Cure and Swordwise Centaur are much more playable than they would be in a format without devotion and the effects it has on its environment. Devotion forces players to evaluate cards differently, which results in unique draft strategies. It's important to limit the amount of devotion in a format though, lest you dissuade people from drafting multicolored decks altogether, which would be a death knell to a format's longevity.
Like chroma, my cube isn't set up to support the monocolored decks required to maximize devotion. I really only support and promote two color decks with any sort of intent. There is also an emphasis on limiting the amount of mana symbols in casting costs to ensure players can cast their spells reliably. As such, even standout devotion cards like Gray Merchant of Asphodel have struggled to find a foothold despite their obvious pedigree and potential. The only card with devotion I'm actually playing is Purphoros, God of the Forge, and I don't think he's ever become a creature since he was included in the list.
Devotion may require a highly specific environment both mechanically and thematically to function as intended, but it absolutely can serve as the linchpin mechanic in a set. It's the kind of mechanic that informs players about its environment upon being seen in a pack, and that kind of clout has real value, particularly for newer players. It may not be the best fit for my cube, but it's a mechanic I've grown very fond of over the years.
Devotion Grade: B+
Devotion Grade in Cube: F
Discover is an updated version of cascade, a mechanic I spoke about already. Cascade exiled cards from your library until you revealed a nonland card with a lesser mana value, and then let you cast that card for free. Discover N functions similarly, except that it allows you to cast the first nonland card with mana value N or less, instead. The casting of this card is optional, and if you choose not to cast it you may put it into your hand instead. This prevents situations where you reveal an uncastable Counterspell or Doom Blade and are left bereft of value. Lastly, whereas cascade triggered as part of casting a spell, discover can trigger in a number of different ways, but only after the initial spell has resolved. This allows your opponent to cleanly answer both effects with a single Counterspell, while cascade required multiple pieces of interaction.
Expectations vs. reality was always the downfall of cascade, and discover narrows that gap in a way that's pretty imperceptible. Players are still going to be disappointed when they discover something underwhelming, and exhilarated when they discover something close to maximum value. However, having the discover value and trigger timing be unrelated to the casting of the original spell allows for a greater amount of customizability, and controls the emotional swings by mitigating the perceived value. Zoetic Glyph and Primordial Gnawer both have discover 3, and it's going to be difficult to be disappointed with either result. After all, you've already gotten the full benefit of both cards by the time you discover, making it feel like an added bonus instead of the reason to cast the cards in the first place. It doesn't matter if you only discover a Spyglass Siren, your expectations have already been managed. If you cast Primordial Gnawer and cascaded into Spyglass Siren you'd likely feel miserable, even though you got the same value without having to wait for your creature to die.
I was pretty negative on discover during my initial set review, as I was unsatisfied with the random element and how it was implemented through gameplay. While I still don't particularly enjoy the base experience, I respect the changes that were made to cascade to improve its general playability and design. Separating discover triggers from the casting of spells reduces the comprehension complexity immensely, and being able to accomplish that while retaining the base experience of cascade should be applauded. It's still problematic developmentally in constructed, but the retail limited and cube experience is markedly improved. I'm still not going to go out of my way to include cards with discover, but I'm certainly not excluding them on principle, either.
Discover Grade: C+
Discover Grade in Cube: C
Dredge was first introduced as the Golgari Swarm keyword in Ravnica: City of Guilds and, as to be expected, it utilizes the graveyard as a resource. If you would draw a card while a card with dredge N is in your graveyard, you can instead mill N cards and return the card with dredge from your graveyard to your hand. Dredge can be triggered for every card drawn as long as you have a card in your graveyard with the ability. In instances where you draw multiple cards as part of a single effect, you can choose whether to dredge for each card as it is being drawn. For example, let's say you cast Divination with Darkblast as the only card in your graveyard. Your options are to draw two cards, draw a card and dredge Darkblast, or dredge Darkblast and draw a card. You can even dredge Darkblast, and then dredge again if you were to mill another card with dredge. You won't be able to cast Darkblast before you draw your second card to accomplish this though.
Dredge has a lot of comprehension complexity to work through, especially once you start playing it in an environment like cube. Cards like Brainstorm and Sylvan Library that involve drawing multiple cards, have replacement effects, and manipulate the top cards of your library while drawing cards, often have confusing rules interactions. Because you draw a card every turn, dredge requires players to constantly be aware of its presence, deciding each turn whether they should dredge or draw. While this complexity can be managed somewhat in retail limited, dredge has enough design and development problems that it's unlikely to be worth the effort.
Like any card or mechanic that's designed around doing the same thing every single turn, dredge contributes to a heavily prescriptive and repetitive game state. Stinkweed Imp bogs down combat completely by trading with everything and never leaving play permanently. Darkblast repeatedly punishes creatures with less than 3 toughness since you can cast it during your draw step and immediately dredge it back. Moldervine Cloak enhances one creature while dissuading trades. Some of this repetition is managed by the size of your deck, as there is a very real cap on how many times you can dredge Stinkweed Imp, particularly in limited. However, the threat of activation is often enough to impact the game since the first couple activations are usually relatively risk free. Alternatively, you can dredge Grave-Shell Scarab as many times as you want without really being impacted negatively. Keep in mind that every dredge is also filling your graveyard with other cards that you can likely make use of.
Selecting the correct number of cards that a player needs to mill is key to designing successful dredge cards. And while I normally wouldn't discuss constructed, a bit of dialogue has to be mentioned for this part to make sense. The threat of milling yourself to death basically does not exist in constructed because of the larger deck size. And while a card with dredge 20 could be designed to impose this restriction, it also runs into an entirely unrelated problem. Milling a large amount of cards is extremely powerful in a constructed format. Cards like Golgari Grave-Troll are never actually hard cast, as their only function is to dredge cards into your graveyard. Adjusting mana values doesn't really address this issue either, all you're going to do is lean into one of the other two problems.
It's almost impossible to print a playable card with dredge without it negatively impacting one or more formats. Either the dredge value is so high that it breaks constructed, it's low enough to create extremely repetitive game states in every format, or the card is just completely unplayable everywhere. There is a narrow band of playability that exists in limited, mostly because of deck size, but there are enough other ways to mill yourself that it just isn't worth messing around with it. I'm not playing any cards with dredge, and I'm not sure I would even consider new ones even if they were printed.
Dredge Grade: F
Dredge Grade in Cube: F
And that concludes part I of the Modern Horizons 3 mechanics article. I made it through the letter D, so there's still a long way to go. It's looking like this will be a four part article series before I'm able to move on to the actual set's changelog article. I'll be covering every mechanic from E to H in part II, and I expect it to be an article of similar length. If you have any thoughts on the mechanics discussed so far, feel free to let me know! Until next time, may all your packs contain a card for your cube.