This post breakdown the monocolored cards with an offcolor ability section of this cube.


One goal of this cube is to provide an environment where most kinds of cards can be played. Cards with an offcolor ability exist and by this sole basis this cube should be able to receive them but they also are difficult to balance colorwise: a 20 card megacycle is the minimum to keep an equal playability of each color combinations.

A card like Momentary Blink can be played in a pure w deck but not in a pure u deck but it's surely better i a wu deck. One could also say that in a ww-u deck (white with a splash of blue), the card would be a better fit than in a uu-w deck as you may not have white mana early game to cast it. In this way, if a card with an offcolor ability would be included out of a complete cycle, it would be necessary to count fractions of cards to count what each bring to a color combination (and the fraction couldn't really be estimated accurately: would Momentary Blink count as 2/3 white and 1/3 blue ? 3/4 white and 1/4 blue ? how to coumpound it with other mechanics or colors that fill rapidly the graveyard and allow to cast the flashback as often as the normal cost ?).

Therefore a 20 cards megacycle seems the only way to include those cards. In this cube, to make the megacycle, I mixed mechanics and cycles from many sets and it's nice to have now this possibility. But more than often, there aren't a lot of good choices for cards with an offcolor ability: most of the time there's only one valid choice because most of these cards are horrible ! While no card is obviously unplayable in my final selection, this megacycle reflect the deficiency of MtG's 27 years card pool in is this regard.

NB: it's possible to find most cards with an offcolor ability in scryfall.com with: "ci!uw (o:aftermath or c!w or c!u)" in the search bar.

Off color "hybrid" megacycle

wu Momentary Blink 4/5 (multiple usages)
uw Saving Grasp 1/5 (too narrow)
ub Consign // Oblivion 2/5 (not efficient enough)
bu Rags // Riches 3/5 (moderate sweeper, aftermath too expensive)
br Strangling Soot 2/5 (too expensive)
rb Cut // Ribbons 4/5 (good removal and can finish an opponent)
rg Ancient Grudge 2/5 (too narrow)
gr Road // Ruin 4/5 (fine ramp in this cube, can kill almost any creature)
gw Travel Preparations 1/5 (doesn't do much, need two creatures)
wg Prepare // Fight 4/5 (efficient, sometimes breaks parity)
wb Lingering Souls 5/5 (oppressive staple)
bw Unburial Rites 4/5 (expensive but break parity almost every time)
bg Deadly Allure 2/5 (needs a creature and doesn't protect it)
gb Spider Spawning 2/5 (too expensive)
gu Tracker's Instincts 2/5 (too expensive)
ug Ongoing Investigation 3/5 (lots of mana to gain significant advantage)
ur Reduce // Rubble 3/5 (second mode irrelevant when cast late game)
ru Geistblast 3/5 (too expensive)
rw Onward // Victory 3/5 (modes dont synergize at instant speed)
wr Rally the Peasants 2/5 (too expensive)

Each card gets a grade: 0/5 means unplayable while 5/5 signal a first pick candidate, in between represent diverse levels of efficiency. Nine out of twenty cards have bellow average efficiency.

  • 1x 5/5
  • 5x 4/5
  • 5x 3/5
  • 7x 2/5
  • 2x 1/5

Only considering individual cards efficiency, this section wouldn't be worth including but these 20 cards bring value to the whole cube in spite of their lack of power.

A section that enable other cards

Not being a great section on a card by card basis, this section is however difficult to change or suppress. There's the already discussed balance of playables between color combinations wich kind of doom this section to be multiples of 20 cards deep. There's also the powerlevel matter: there aren't already 20 cards than one would dare to pick.

Adding to the injury, a contrario to the "normal" kind of hybrid cards which can be played fully in 24/32 color combinations (w-u can be played in w, u, wu, ub, bw, gw, gu, ur, rw, any tricolor except brg, any quadcolor and pancolor decks), a monocolored card with an offcolor ability can only be fully played in 7/32 color combinations (precisely: wu, gwu, wub, urw, rgwu, gwub, wubr and pancolor decks).

But it also happen that this section contribute to other aspects of the cube:

  • 20/20 cards are non-creature spells (19/20 are instant or sorcery) which are essential for Prowess archetypes.
  • 20/20 cards interract with the Graveyard wich is a core and fun aspect of MtG.
  • 19/20 cards have SelfRecursion wich gives more options to players and improve the intended gameplay.
  • 11/20 cards are instants and may be used as Combattrick (5 of them are aftermath instant/sorcery): suprising your opponent is one true way of breating the odds in an MtG game (it's also empowering).
  • 9/20 cards are Removal of some sort: reaching the confortable density of removals is quite hard in limited, having removals with some kind of recursion or other usage is often better than having a good removal.
  • 7/20 cards do two different things wich increase chances to make your cards work together.

All things considered, despite being a little quirky, if not disapointing on a card by card basis, this 20 cards section does a lot to enable mechanical themes and core parts of the game.

Finally, this section is a space for future cards of the same type: having it make sure that I'll always have a dedicated spot when awsome new monocolored cards with an offcolor ability will arise.


PS: I haven't spoke of cards with a more exotic offcolor ability like Alesha, Who Smiles at Death and there's a good reason: more colors means more combinations and would need a partial or an even greater cycle while there isn't allied color equivalent to the Tarkir creatures.