DFT review

I like to organize my thoughts on new W cards into little reviews. I rate cards on a scale of 0-10, with 10 being high. Solid cards that provide direction and support the cube's themes will get high scores -- except that cards don't just have to justify their own inclusion, they also have to be suitable relative to whatever might get cut. Cards lose points for being power level outliers, for costing more than a few $$$, for having irrelevant text, and/or for feeling too much like a commander card. Every card from main expansion sets get reviewed, and appropriate other cards get collected into the reviews along with them.

Waxen Shapethief -7- A flash clone. It only works on your own things, but it has cycling, and it even works on artifacts too. Seems like copying fliers or big green guys will give this plenty to do, if only there's a good cut.

Wickerfolk Indomitable -5- A black artifacts payoff, and it can moonlight as a graveyard payoff. It's another one of those cards that I lean towards including because it make things like Whir of Invention seem much less out-of-place. But the payoff is really just not that high.

Wreckage Wickerfolk -10- A black mirror to wary thespian. It flies so it looks nice in UB, and it's an artifact to boot. An black has so many good cuts.

Wretched Doll -8- Another black artifact 2-drop that surveils. I'm enamoured with this guy, even if it's worse than the flier.

Webstrike Elite -5- A reach watchwolf / slice in twain split card. As long as it's not too strong, I quite like having this softest of hate cards around. In particular, I like that the GG cost gives you a reason to watch your manabase rather than play max-greed 5cc.

Winter, Cursed Rider -9- An aggressively-statted UB 2-drop that gives you a bonus for playing a bunch of artifacts. And Maybe this will provide the wonderful opportunity to have a new kind of UB deck! And while this doesn't have spectacular synergy with normal UB decks, I think it's come time to ask why Whispering Madness is ok to not fit that description either.

Willowrush Verge -7- A strong GU dual, conveniently the colour pair that most wants to splash. I don't like the design aesthetics of this as a strictly better Island, but this is limited where "strictly better" is not super meaningful. We have to ask if we want to cut Waterlogged Grove for this, and honestly I have not been loving the asymmetry of Grove (as the one painland in the cube) so I want to try the swap. The biggest issue is this being a rare worth a few $$.

Wastewood Verge -4- The same thing but BG, the second-best colour pair. This one has to compete with Woodland Cemetery, and that's more of a tossup, where I think the less-pricey one wins.

Wild Roads -2- A tapland that cracks for a 1/1 sounds like quite a reasonable card. But all the text about vehicles sounds quite misleading in an environment with 1 crewable vehicle. When you combine that with the fact that this is too weak for most green decks, and doesn't have huge upside anywhere, I think we can pass on this one.

Walking Sarcophagus -4- A colourless piker, this is below-rate, but not by so much that it's embarrassing. I really don't like the idea of needing the Engines emblem just for this guy that's gonna simply trade anyways. And there is actually a better colourless 2 already.

Wreck Remover -7- A super reasonable artifact dude. This is a lot closer to actually solving a deck's curve problems than some of the cube's other artifact guys.

Bonus

Wardens of the Cycle (FDN) -8- A BG gold card that wants creatures to die on your turns. This trigger asks you to be playing some kind of sacrifice deck, and while there aren't a ton of enablers there certainly aren't zero. Of course you could also just try to attack and trade, but BG in this cube might be the least-aggressive colour pair so that seems suspicious. Finally, this guy is an Elf, which is a super relevant tag on a green card. Options on the chopping block are: Winding Constrictor, a two-drop with an ability that I reference a lot but which doesn't come up much in gameplay; Winter, a new legend that is a gy payoff and enabler mashed together; or Woodwraith Corrupter, an awkward ramp payoff that is here mostly for nostalgia points.

Wrathful Red Dragon (CLB) -4- Wrathful Raptors, but with flying instead of trample. I don't like how swingy this is, although I hesitate to call it too strong for the cube, since it does die to a hundred different removal spells. But that card was borderline, and this is more dislikeable, and the whole thing sure isn't something I want to lean into.

Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver -2- UB Zombie tribal. There are a handful of zombies, and this can at least pretend to be a cool build-around, but this isn't enough to deserve a coveted gold slot.

Wizened Mentor (DRC) -5- A white bear that maybe makes an endless army of 1/1s. Or, more likely, it's just glory seeker. Who knows.

Willowdusk (C21) -8- This old BG lifegain card finally got an mtgo printing. I think this synergy card hits a nice sweet spot, where it's no trivial upside if you can get the ability off every turn, but that also doesn't just win you the game on the spot. Repeatable counters are also nice with Winding Constrictor, assuming we're not cutting that.