Just in time for Dominaria United… I’m going to discuss Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty for cube!

I’d like to say that this was done as an intentional lookback at the set, but lately I’ve just had a harder time writing these articles when I’ve not been cubing regularly.  I don’t meticulously update my cube on a near-daily basis like when I was cubing weekly and there’s no longer a pile of cards on my desk with cube card rotations (to the happiness of my cats, at least) but I’ve still kept up with the cubing communities and talk about cube when I’m not posting cat pictures.  Hopefully, these words still provide some use as you look back at what impact Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty had in cube.

Depending on your cube, Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty either ranks as a middle-of-the-road set or one that can push your cube and provide some cogs and payoffs for artifact (and enchantment, kinda) strategies – supporting these strategies may be more of a topic of another article since support requires more than just adding these cards.

I’ll be breaking these sections down by general “goodstuff” types of cards and cards that are more at home in cubes with more thematic leanings.  As usual, I’ve sorted the cards by approximate interest, but it isn’t a definitive ranking.

WHITE

The Wandering Emperor – whether it’s playing the role of Embercleave-at-home, a Neck Snap that makes a 2/2 with vigilance or a source of slow and steady marching troops, The Wandering Emperor may very well be the best white planeswalker ever printed.  

It’s one of those white cards that works phenomenally in all stripes of white decks and having flash gets around a problem that planeswalkers have in control decks – since tapping low on your own main phase requires a threat to be something massive to justify tapping out and because of that, it generally tends to play more of a control role but it’s still playable in aggro decks, depending on how high your aggro decks curve up.

For the most part, white 4s have that same type of play pattern – being strong but generally being tap-out cards.  Because of their strength (Wraths, Geddons, etc) there’s a trope that white 4s are impenetrable in cube, but this punches well into that weight class.  If you’re limiting planeswalkers, it’s an easy swap for something like Elspeth, Knight-Errant, but there’s likely better cuts elsewhere.

March of Otherworldly Light – cards like Prismatic Ending and March of Otherworldly Light usually trade down on tempo, but the flexibility of being a catch-all removal spell for most troublesome permanents – planeswalkers aside – is great for cube decks with Prismatic Ending being more powerful but March being easier to play in most cube decks.  Like with The Wandering Emperor, being able to deploy this at instant speed also makes sure that you aren’t tapping low to get rid of something, which can be a problem with cards like Banishing Light and Oblivion Ring, since they can give the opponent a window of opportunity to cast another haymaker.  Achievement unlocked if you hit a creature land as it’s easy to hold a white mana open for them if you see a creature land being played and expect it to attack.  

The 5 “Channel” lands –  The same points with the Eldraine castles apply, where they’re all generically good cards that make the final 40 of most cube decks.  Since they enter the battlefield untapped without a drawback, they’re better than the MDFCs from Zendikar Rising and their upsides are generally good enough to feel fine picking up in a draft.  They’re not super exciting, but they’re nice meat-and-potatoes cards that subtly increase winrates of decks that play a lot of basic lands.  While having legendary creatures to make the channel modes cheaper is fine, it isn’t required and is mostly gravy.  Inclusion is mostly if you’re ok with these kinds of cards taking up the “slot” of something else.

Farewell is one of the better 6-mana wraths printed in the last few years if you’re in the market for one, since it wipes boards of everything except planeswalkers.  Arguably, this is a dagger in battlefields with planeswalkers but generally, when you’re a control deck, you’re favored against midrange and you’re likely siding this out in the control mirror, since a 6-mana tap out effect isn’t really doing much there.  Relatively whelming.

The Restoration of Eiganjo plays like a somewhat like a card like Brimaz, King of Oreskos meets a small Reveillark type of effect as something to hold the fort.  Streets of New Capenna brought Extraction Specialist, which plays the role better for aggressive decks but in decks with ways to proactively make use of the 2nd chapter, it has some merits in slower decks, but I’ve not been that excited with it.

Ao, the Dawn Sky and the rest of the legendary dragons are riffs on the original Kamigawa dragons that got the modern creature power level treatment and all mostly fall under the same role – as a tap-out creature that doesn’t do a lot when cast, but protect themselves with death triggers.  Ao holds the fort with vigilance and makes it so that your 5-mana investment is holding double duty on defense (somewhat like a Baneslayer Angel type of card) but in a world where we got cards like Wandering Emperor, the issue with Ao and the other new Kamigawa dragons is that they still don’t quite do enough for a cube threat these days.

Similarly with the invoke cycle – created as a mono-color analogue for the ultimatum cycle, compares decently in a small pool like Standard and Alchemy for mono-color payoffs, but pales when taking the entire history of the game into effect, when similarly powerful cards don’t require having quad-typed mana.

Kyodai, Soul of Kamigawa suffers a similar fate, since it doesn’t really get there as a 5-color payoff or a flash threat when compared to competition.

….

Michiko’s Reign of Truth plays well in artifact and enchantment heavy decks, especially those with cheap creatures.  It isn’t uncommon for this to burst 5 damage out of nowhere with this, and with cheap creatures to boost, it can decide games quickly.  Leaving behind a large body doesn’t hurt either.  It’s similar to Cranial Plating but offering support for both artifact and enchantment archetypes, if that’s what your cube does.  

Lion Sash is a fine midrange hate card – its rate is too low as an aggressive threat since it starts out too small to really start beating down, but it’s more of a midrange insurance plan to make tokens and mana elves into gigantic beaters – especially if things like fetchlands and cheap creature removal (that doesn’t exile) is abundant in your cube.  It’s also nice for buffing cards like Stoneforge Mystic, if that’s something that you enjoy.

Banishing Slash is solid disenchant with some spread; it’s something we saw with other disenchant types of cards like Fracture and Abrade.  Being sorcery speed is a bummer, and the “balance” (caring if you control both an artifact and enchantment) won’t happen too often, but it’s something to consider if those stars align.  If not, it’s merely ok.

Hotshot Mechanic – it’s a 2/1 for 1 – and one of the worst ones, but it’s an artifact for cubes that support artifacty shenanigans, similarly to how Toolcraft Exemplar does.  We’re thankfully at the point where you likely have the pick of the litter for 1-drops rather than jamming all of the 1-drops to hit critical mass (although some cubes still tend to run too low on them.) 

In artifact-heavy aggro decks, having decent bodies that happen to enable other artifacts help to subtly boost those strategies and Hotshot Mechanic works in that vein – it’s still best on turn 1 and loses value over the course of the game, but artifact-caring decks will find its value diminish slower over the course of the game.

Cloudsteel Kirin is a mediocre body with an expensive equipment cost and overall, it doesn’t really do much.  The only real value is that it’s an artifact creature for decks that care about it, but I wouldn’t advise playing this.

BLUE

BLUE

Oddly, blue comes out without much from this set, at least generically.

Tezzeret, Betrayer of Flesh – a planeswalker that’s fine as a buildaround that requires artifacts to work to do his thing, and can’t do his thing on his own unlike a lot of good standalone walkers that can solo a game.  I posted a tweet about it and the responses said that between 6-10 artifacts is the right spot to put it in a cube deck.  Justin Parnell noted that:

“I think the min is 7 where I am actively looking to play it, but I’d consider it around 5 depending on the how that +2 interacts with the rest of my deck.”

Which illustrates how the mana discount interacts with tools available, since it works with signets (but not talismans) and works incredibly well with equipment, although blue decks with a lot of equipment generally don’t have a high creature count.  You can probably do better for a 4-mana main phase threat, depending on your cube, but it’s a fun build around if it’s something that excites you and your drafters.

Mirrorshell Crab and Mnemonic Sphere – These are essentially upsides on some marginal effects and are artifacts for cube decks that care about those kinds of things.  Unfortunately, their modality is weakened by their base modes (3 mana counter/1 mana draw with no additional effect) are pretty mediocre by cube standards.  Consider mainly if being an artifact is relevant.

Moon-Circuit Hacker, The Reality Chip and Thousand Faced Shadow – years ago, fellow cube fanatic Kranny wrote an article about enabling blue-based tempo and more creature-combat focused strategies to blue on Coolstuffinc: https://www.coolstuffinc.com/a/enabling-blue-based-tempo-or-%E2%80%9Cblueggro%E2%80%9D-in-your-cube 

In many cubes, these cards will likely not have a home due to the low number of small creatures, since the creatures played are more on the Mulldrifter value side than something like an Isamaru type of creature and cards like the ninjas and The Reality Chip rely on having early creatures to be useful.  If you’re looking for a change in blue’s direction, check out the article linked and if so, these could help.

Moonsnare Prototype – objectively, this may be the most powerful card for blue in the set, since it helps decks accelerate and has a fine fail-safe mode when acceleration doesn’t matter, but it’s mainly confined to decks that employ a lot of low-cost artifacts and/or creatures.  These kinds of low-to-the-ground blue strategies were the strategies that arguably got the biggest boost in the set, but it’s hard to argue if they’re better payoffs than the historic blue payoffs that have been in cube decks.  

Mindlink Mech somewhat falls in line with the previous cards, but tends to work better with cards that have good attack triggers like Titans.  But in most cube blue decks, it’s hard to justify playing a card like this which is reliant on something else to do something.  

Jin-Gitaxias, Progress Tyrant – these days, you can do better for cheat targets with cards like Serra’s Emissary; this is one that’s more on the “fair” side of the spectrum where it isn’t just game over if cheated into play – but likely something that requires being dealt with quickly (but then again, that applies to most cheated permanents.) 

…..

BLACK

Soul Transfer – As a Hero’s Downfall type of card, it’s not bad as being a catch-all card to kill planeswalkers and creatures, although with the increase in these types of cards, including Bloodchief’s Thirst, it’s in a similar boat to aggro 1-drops where you likely don’t need to jam every variant these days.  A 1BB sorcery isn’t the best rate for the job, but it’s fine enough to have it in the final 40 of a deck, but it’ll likely be in considerations of cards to cut in the final deck more often than big hitters.  The recursion mode doesn’t matter too often, but it’s nice when it does, and it’s generally more often a “kicker” to have when you happen to have “balance.”  For non-aggro black cards, it’s amongst the better cards in the set.

Assassin’s Ink, on the other hand, doesn’t offer the same decent floor rate that Soul Transfer has, as it’s only really fine at 1BB and only really provides a bonus if you have “balance.”  Include only if decks are able to hit “balance” consistently and/or if your cube meta really needs another planeswalker hate tool.

A lot of the other inclusions are mainly for black aggressive decks, with some nods to sacrifice strategies.  The latter tends to be more popular in cubes than the former, but I’ve lumped these together since they generally tend to have similar parts in decks – small creatures and utilizing them, whether as warm bodies or to deal damage.

….

Okiba Reckoner Raid, Blade of the Oni, Dockside Chef and Mokutai Soulripper all fall into the category of being aggressive support creatures, and being low-to-the-ground beaters with synergies with other archetypes (some more explicitly being sacrifice-centric, like Dockside Chef and Soulripper) if that’s something that your cube is into, with the exception of Okiba Reckoner Raid, which is mostly just a cheap aggressive creature that can’t block.  Inclusion mainly depends on how deep you are for supporting black aggressive decks; if I saw any of these in a pack, I’d assume black aggro decks are a thing in your cube. 

Nashi, Moon Sage’s Scion and Biting-Palm Ninja illustrate the feast/famine dichotomy of how saboteurs are reliant on some type of evasion, as ones without evasion like Nashi generally hit once, and never hit again, unless you’re able to control the board well – but this also depends on how much cube decks play to the board in your meta.  I was never really impressed by these, even in low-to-the-ground aggro decks.

Tatsunari, Toad Raider is one of the few black enchantment payoffs, but it’s a very good one if your cube heads in that direction, since the tokens are a strong grind engine.  It does mean that black enchantment-based decks have to lean on another color, but color pairs like GB tend to do that anyway.

RED

Fable of the Mirror-Breaker – as a slower History of Benalia, it’s able to create a pair of 2/2s but works best in decks that can take advantage of the ephemeral nature of the cloned creatures, either via ETB triggers (Mulldrifters) or ways to get value out of the creature and making a pair of creatures stands up to removal decently well as well.  One of the better midrange tools, in a color that generally leans aggressive.

Kumano Faces Kakkazan –  Red aggro decks love to load up on their 1-drops to start the clock early, and this saga’s second chapter helps to make up for its lost damage, as it’s essentially a 1-drop with haste that can’t attack (or block) on the second chapter.  Being able to hose death triggers isn’t useless in certain matchups, but it’s mostly just a 1-drop beater with some upside, since the decks that want a 1-drop beater are generally ones that have no problem getting a +1/+1 bonus from the 2nd chapter, but being able to ding planeswalkers is a nice little bonus too.

Experimental Synthesizer – if your cube’s red decks curve low (like topping out at 3 mana), it’s easy to take advantage of Experimental Synthesizer’s virtual card draw.  It has some sacrifice synergies as well, but the main draw for this is to act like a Think Twice for low-to-the-ground red decks, as they’re able to reliably get to use the exiled card and use the 2/2 vigilance to supplement their beatdown plan.

Rabbit Battery – As the best reconfiguration creature, it has a lot of upside by making subsequent threats able to have haste. Being able to “hide” against mass removal is nice as well, since a subsequent threat allows the red aggro player to riposte against a wrath incredibly well while being a decent threat on its own.  Reconfiguration also helps with a common issue with equipment being useless without something to wear it – and while a Raging Goblin isn’t a huge threat, it’s at least something to deal damage .  Being an artifact helps decks that care about artifacts as well, but it’s not really required and it’s just one upside on top of others (unlike Hotshot Mechanic, which is mostly just a 2/1 beater for W with some flavor text.)

…..

Twinshot Sniper plays somewhat similarly to cards like the Lorywn evoke elementals – Shriekmaw and Mulldrifter (something that Zolthux had referenced during preview season) – where their evoke abilities have a fine-ish base mode, but can do something if cast later in the game.  

The problem with cards which are “jack of all trades, master of none” becomes more illustrated when they have a base rate that isn’t that competitive on-rate where their rates aren’t competitive on-rate.  In some cases, this flexibility can result in a package that has enough of a spread to make it worthwhile, and it’s something that I’ve talked about in cube reviews over the years, but due to the low damage from being channeled, the flexibility doesn’t matter as much.   If your cube has ways to take advantage of recursion and/or it being an artifact, its stock rises, though.

Reinforced Ronin – although this looks like a 2/2 for R like Goblin Guide, it isn’t one at all – it’s more like a small Lava Spike with buyback that can be cycled.

Counterintuitively, Reinforced Ronin’s value is mostly dependent on how clear boards are and how much your cube’s decks play to the board in the early stages of the game, since that determines if it truly acts like a direct damage source. Think back to when Slash Panther was playable in Vintage – its best use was to clear opposing Jace, the Mind Sculptors – because the meta made it so that a 4/2 haste without evasion could reliably attack a Jace, although being able to be cast early with cards like moxen and Mishra’s Workshop certainly didn’t hurt.

Without actively thinking about it, it can hard to determine how often the path is clear for Reinforced Ronin to consistently attack, but if it’s something that interests you, I’d advise to keep a lookout for those board states and how often they come up.

Lizard Blades and Ogre-Head Helm are fine creatures that can do things in the later stages of the game when your creatures start to get outclassed, but their base rates are on the weak side, especially Lizard Blades.  Cubes that care about artifact counts will find these more useful, though.  I asked fellow cube fanatic and MTGO Vintage Cube trophy fiend @Matt_grenier about them, since he has them in his cube and he noted as follows:

“They’re okay. It’s hard to call them individually great, but they’re pieces of the puzzle. Red can stand to take a power hit, so having synergy creatures is good.”

Goro-Goro, Disciple of Ryusei – like the whole “balance” theme, there isn’t really much payoff for the modified theme that’s in this set and there isn’t really enough critical mass to make it work in cubes, so the dragon ability is mostly just more gravy than the reason to play the card.  Overall, it just doesn’t do enough.

GREEN

Careful Cultivation is only really worth noting that it’s a mana elf for 1G virtually has “flash,” which can surprise opponents by being able to cast something on t3 (somewhat like Growth Spiral) since rampy decks can have problems against control decks, since a lot of their threats are tap-out, and being able to do things like this can help.  I’ve never really seen the aura mode do anything, but it’s something too.

Kappa Tech-Wrecker can help cheap creature decks (that have consistent access to green mana on turn 2, and consistent access to 1-drop beaters) disrupt artifact and enchantment heavy decks.  Deathtouch does help it get some extra value in the later game, and it almost always trades up, which is nice.  Its value is mostly contingent on whether blowing up a mana rock on turn 2 is something that will dictate games or not (mana rocks, etc.) 

Shigeki, Jukai Visionary – Much like The Wandering Emperor, being instant/flash helps to make cards much stronger, especially if they’re big-mana plays. Shigeki is somewhat in that vein, since channeling this instant speed doesn’t telegraph what you’re doing when the opponent has a turn to react/prepare, which was a weakness of cards like Wildest Dreams.  The creature mode isn’t terrible either, since it’s self-contained where you can play it early, bounce it and use that to accelerate.  

Still, Shigeki doesn’t get around the general mana inefficiency of cards like Wildest Dreams, since it’s a lot of mana (4 to start.)  But, it can provide drafters with payoffs for playing the 1-for-1 game with the opponent and then burying the opponent after channeling this for a large amount of mana, when the big channels feel Sphinx’s Revelation-ish where it generally wins the game.  Arguably, that’s what any big mana spell should do, though.

…

Commune With Spirits, Weaver of Harmony and Generous Visitor all generically support enchantment-based decks with creatures.  It’s similar to how they play in Standard with cheap enchantments and creatures, and utilizing creature beatdown as a gameplan, rather than full-on value gameplans.  Commune With Spirits has use in both types of enchantment deck as a pseudo-tutor with a fail case of getting a land if need be, and is the most universally playable of the three.

Jugan Defends the Temple and Kodama of the West Tree both support decks that boost creatures.  Cubes that go deep on counters and tokens may want to look into these, but most cubes likely won’t.

Miscellaneous

Kaito Shizuki has been great as a self-contained value walker that makes a creature to defend itself or to enable card drawing – generally, if the ninja is able to attack unimpeded, Kaito’s able to run away with the game by being a personal Howling Mine.  Unlike cards like the other ninjas in the set, having other attackers is hardly required and it’s a stellar value card for Dimir, Esper, Grixis and black decks to splash for.

Eater of Virtue is another Bonesplitter that isn’t strictly better or worse, moreso strictly… different.  Eater of Virtue is a good example of an artifact that “leans” towards certain colors – and while aggro artifacts do that anyway, this does that even more so.  

It’s worst in colors like black due to the non-synergy with recursive creatures, since the exile trigger is a may, but it works significantly better in colors like red and white.  Giving Eater double strike is the best case most of the time, but haste is a much more common and close second by being able to make aggro creature able to function more like burn spells when the opponent’s at death’s door, and first strike is a subtly powerful ability in small creature mirrors.  I wouldn’t just replace Bonesplitter with this in your cube if you have Bonesplitter, but consider it as another part of a cheap creature support suite that supplements Bonesplitter, not replaces it. 

Containment Construct – The body is pretty weak by 2022 creature standards, and some of the payoffs with it may not look that great, like essentially drawing a Fiery Temper and having to pay full retail cost for it.  That said, sometimes it’s small micro-payoffs in a deck that can combine together to be a good gameplan – since having the ability to retail cast Fiery Temper for free isn’t the best payoff, but can work when combined with other payoffs as well.  

Reckoner Bankbuster lacks the subtle ability to sculpt your draws like with Mazemind Tome, which helped make it playable in those decks – as a failsafe thing to do.  It’s kinda slow, but can act as a pseudo-Fires of Yavimaya type of effect to make big beefy creatures able to crew it, and to be able to draw cards when not.  Artifacts are strong enough where this likely doesn’t make the cut in a lot of cubes, but it’s a subtle nod to big creature midrange if you want to throw a bone to that archetype.

Colossal Skyturtle is mainly worth consideration as a reanimation target that can dump itself into the graveyard and has some protection, but unless your cube has a constraint, you can do better.  Similarly with The Kami War as a 5-color payoff.

Tamiyo, Compleated Sage is not bad as a way to recur midrange threats and lock down annoying things, but it’s far lower than what Simic can do these days.

>>>≥>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Enthusiastic Mechanaut / Jukai Naturalist – anyone who’s played against a Jukai Naturalist knows how much of a lightning rod it is since it has a decent body and saves so much mana while it’s out.  The density of cheap artifact/enchantments in a deck will determine just how much of a lightning rod cards these are, but they’re nice for bolstering those archetypes.

Check out my Linktree, with links to my Twitter and podcast here! – @Usmantherad | Linktree