This article talks about Marvel Super Heroes’ impact on cube.
As this article is my 75th set review for cube, I’ve learned to refine my method over time, but I’ve found that seeding cards into my own cube (tl;dr it’s currently a “Legacy-lite cube”) and getting in several reps before the prerelease has worked well. That said, my own cube isn’t the sole context of evaluation as this uses a generalist non-thematic perspective for evaluation; as someone who works on the Magic Online Vintage Cube and the “Official Pauper Cube” list and is familiar with cubes across the power level spectrum, keeping various environments in mind via my ratings scale is always forefront in my mind.
For this article, as there’s approximately a billion cards across the main set and its supplementals, I worked with Kai, who’s been doing some great cube articles.
“Hey everyone, my name is Kai and I write cube articles and set reviews on Substack at Storm Count 1! Usman was gracious enough to collaborate with me on this set review and it has been a pleasure to work with him to get this review written and edited for all of you. Although I haven’t been writing for too long, I have been playing Magic for about the past decade and a half. I am actively managing a Powered Vintage Cube as well as a bar cube called The Beer Cube. I’m excited to share my perspective from these cubes with you all today. If you do enjoy it, feel free to check out my Substack as well.”
Before we get to talking about the individual cards, I’ll go over some big-picture things from the set (click here if you want to skip all of that.)
Power-up
I’ve been looking at these power-up cards as prototype-style creatures with 3 modes:
- Their “prototype” cost, which is the power-up creature’s mana value.
- Their “non-prototype” cost, which is the cost of powering them up after being cast.
- Their “prototype with kicker” cost, which is the power-up creature’s cost being paid after the creature has been out for a turn.
These 3 modes’ flexibility have really helped on these, especially with ones like Captain Marvel, Earth’s Protector and Brawn, Amadeus Cho, to be able to be played early and then offer late-game potential, or to just cast them for their “full cost”, which was also useful against countermagic, since you don’t have to commit all of your mana when casting them. Generally, they’ve played in that order, where they’re played via “prototype” most often, and then kicked later on the least.
Self-Discard
Since Aetherdrift, red getting benefits for discarding has been getting tools for making it a very real archetype, which you’ve likely seen if you play Standard. This set continues that trend.
Artifacts and Legends, Oh My!
Cards like Vision Quest, Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur and Ultron, Artificial Malevolence are definitely improved from decks that have a lot of artifacts. Similar for the cheap legends, especially the 1-mana ones, for cubes that care about explicit legend support through Mox Amber, Flowering of the White Tree, Yoshimaru and Merry, Esquire of Rohan, even if the set’s 1-drop legends are – on their own – not very powerful.
Skip to:
White:
Jennifer Walters
Usman:
Power: 4 Vibes: 4.5
I’ve been looking at this as about the same or slightly worse on the front side as Voice of Victory, with some knobs for and against it (doesn’t get stonewalled by 2/2s, worse burst damage and worse for things that care about tokens, but eats 2/2s in combat) but her flipping into a much bigger threat helps for long-game potential, provided the deck has access to green mana. Decks that have been playing her without that access still have found her to be solid, but having incidental access to green mana (or just playing her in Selesnya) helps to unlock a very real 6/6 mode.
I found that the MDFCs from the Spider-Man set flipped occasionally, when played for the cheap side, but they were essentially aspirational on-board kicker if the game went late. She-Hulk doesn’t do much against non-damage based removal, but it’s nice that she makes it so that your 6-mana investment doesn’t get punked by a Doom Blade on your turn.
Kai:
A 2/3 with a silence effect on your turn isn’t enough to excite me on its own. Sure, it has upside if it flips, but modal casting cards like this rarely flip in practice, so don’t bank on it. The body and the silence effect are fairly costed, which means it’ll see play on both sides of the aisle, but it’s not a windmill slam in the first eight picks. At best, it’s wheel value for white aggro or combo decks.
Selesnya is weak enough in my Powered Cube that it could sneak into a slot, but it doesn’t have enough to hold down a regular slot. If you’re running one of these white 2-drop silence creatures, pick this or Voice of Victory, not both.
Night Nurse, Healer of Heroes
Usman:
Power: 4 Vibes: 4
This essentially trades the ring text that Samwise the Stouthearted has, which usually just read as skulk in a singleton world, for lifelink and the ability to bring back things if milled/discarded, which has already come up. My major concern, like with Jennifer Walters, is that there are already so many good white 2-drops but there’s likely room for this too as I’ve already seen it get something back when discarded, and with that being more of a real archetype in red, that’s a nice way to help those decks.
Kai:
This card is a pretty easy evaluation for me since at the end of the day, it is just a strictly better Samwise. Samwise sat mostly fringe on my paper cube for a while because of the Ring mechanics and lack of the IT factor. I think adding lifelink is enough to get it off the chopping block for the next year or so.
Royal Talon Fighter Jet
Usman:
Power: 4 Vibes: 2.5
I saw a comparison on Reddit to this being compared to Esika’s Chariot when cast for X=2, where it makes enough power to crew itself which brought me on board to liking this. You do get less stats when cast for 4 mana, since you have a smaller vehicle and tokens, and losing the vehicle means you’re left with a lot less stats, which was a big upside of the Chariot – having some resiliency when many of green’s 4-drops lack against removal. This much is obvious – it’s worse than Chariot when cast for 4 mana, but thankfully, that’s not where evaluation ends.
When testing this, in this undefeated Boros deck, we found that while it was good at X=2, it scaled up to the later stages of the game well. When X=3, it was incredibly hard for the opponent to attack on the ground anymore, since getting 3 tokens a turn gummed up the ground so well, making attacking difficult for the opponent to get through.
There’s some synergy with +1/+1 counters to make this potentially make more tokens than for its initial X cost, as a way to boost Selsnya-based decks, but that’s mostly secondary, as my opinion of this rose from trying it out.
Kai:
I initially missed this card in Spoiler season so I want to shout out Usman for bringing my attention to what looks to be my favorite white card in the set. This card reads similarly to Jacked Rabbit and feeds the token strategies I have had so much fun drafting in the MTGO Vintage and Arena Powered Cubes. Although maybe being a little bit of “the dream”, landing this with a Securitron Squadron, an Adeline, and/or an Ocelot Pride would appear to be back breaking. The flying and X cost give it ways to finish off games in the mid/late game that similar cards like Esika’s Chariot just don’t provide. I think if you have any amount of token synergy, it is definitely worth taking a look at this card.
Captain Marvel, Earth’s Protector
Usman:
Power: 4 Vibes: 4.5
With this Captain Marvel’s “prototype” being able to be flashed in combat, her role played much differently than the usual Baneslayers since it could be a great draw-go finisher. Archangel Avacyn is an obvious analog as a flying 5-drop with flash, but I’ve found that it plays pretty differently by swinging the game from being large and having lifelink and if she ate something in combat, usually that was gg.
The bonus mode of her being a 7-mana 6/5 indestructible is nice too, even if it hasn’t come up very often (since it costs so much.) It’s hard to underestimate how much having flash really moves the needle on this, by being able to get around some (but not all) of the vulnerabilities of “Baneslayers” doing nothing in the face of sorcery-speed spot removal. After all, this still dies to a Doom Blade, but found that having flash at least makes the timing window narrower.
Kai:
Captain Marvel gives the mono-white builds a great end-game finisher that the color’s needed in higher powered environments. This reads very similarly to the five mana dragons (Bonehoard Dracosaur and Glorybringer) that are seen a lot in red decks and should provide mono-white and white midrange decks a great finisher. Flash, flying, and lifelink are some of the most relevant keywords in limited environments and also having a baseline body of 5/4 for five mana seems incredibly strong.
This is my favorite card with power-up from this set, mostly due to the fact that the ability works well with the flash speed of the card. The effect grows and makes her indestructible for an additional two mana (pending you power her up the turn she comes down), which feels fairly costed.
Midnight Angel Armor
Usman:
Power: 2 Vibes: 4
It’s at least cheap to equip and getting +3/+3 and flying (and vigilance, too) is an unprecedented rate for equip 3 as you generally don’t get evasion and a large stat boost for 3 mana since you usually get one but not both. Unfortunately, you get a Serra Angel’s worth of stats when cast, which ain’t great by 2026 standards. The main payoff for this is in decks that could theoretically use a Serra Angel, have it meaningfully contribute to its gameplan and has enough fodder to throw things into the air for a decent cost, which could be another nod to Selesnya-based decks, but it may just also be a secondary function for an equipment that does so much for 3 mana. I haven’t heard a lot of hype for this and I’m cautiously optimistic for this but that may be my love of living weapon-style cards being a bad influence, and it may just be actually unplayable. It probably is.
Kai:
Midnight Angel Armor falls into the trap of cube equipment that aren’t cheap and aren’t impactful enough to be wanted to be tutored and cheated by a Stoneforge Mystic. I could see this card being incredibly solid in slower environments where there is a strong equipment or modified synergy but that may be too niche for me to look too hard at. We’ve seen 4/4 flying, vigilance cards be relevant in the past (looking at you Serra Angel), I don’t think there’s enough here for this to not be a bottom five pick in a pack in 2026.
Avenge
Usman:
Power: 2 Vibes: 4
It’s a Fumigate but cheaper. The floor of being a 6-mana wrath is just atrocious, though, and not really worth it, as I found.
Kai:
It acts as a conditionally costed Day of Judgment with minor upside, which is just well below par in 2026. I feel like I would almost never want this over any of the 4-cost white wraths, Winds of Abandon, or even Settle the Wreckage.
The Mind Stone
Usman:
Power: 1.5 Vibes: 4
Unsurprisingly, The Soul Stone wasn’t that great since it required so much setup. I’m not even sure if this is better, since it doesn’t require a sacrifice and is cheaper to activate. I’m primarily seeing this as a midrange way to accelerate and utilize the blink side as a plan B, but I’ve been so far pretty underwhelmed by this.
Kai:
The Soul Stone was not good or fun and this card has the same template text. Having a late game mana sink for a repeatable blink effect could be interesting in some lower powered cube environments but in my opinion, feels better for Commander. As a blink enjoyer myself, this card just doesn’t excite me.
Red Guardian, Super Soldier
Usman:
Power: 1.5 Vibes: 3
As much as I love cards with flash, white 3s already have a lot of options and this one lacks a lot of the immediate impact that a lot of the marquee 3s have, and requiring the creature to deal damage sucks.
Kai:
Looks exactly like a card that I will overdraft. Runs into the same problem with the white three drop slots being so competitive. Love the fact that the creature it destroys doesn’t have to do damage to you and can turn a simple 1/1 chumpblock into a flash speed Ravenous Chupacabra for one less mana. Honestly, I have this as one of the top uncommons of the set for lower power environments.
Blue:
The Wondrous Wasp and The Wasp, Winsome Avenger
Usman:
Wondrous Wasp: Power 2.5 Vibes 2
The Wasp, Winsome Avenger: 3 Vibes: 2
The Wondrous Wasp locking down a creature is a nice tempo play, but only removing abilities is marginally useful for targeting creatures with passives, like Sheoldred, the Apocalypse which have passives/non-combat abilities. These might just be another one of those “tempo decks want it but nothing else does” types of blue 2-drops, but I’m more optimistic about the Winsome Avenger variant, since it’s one of the most aggressive Goblin Heelcutters we’ve seen as a way to continually get blockers out of the way, since it can throw a wrench for racing math.
I’m just unsure if any of these are better than Floodpits Drowner.
Kai:
I really, really, really want to like Wondrous Wasp and I feel like it has great upside as a 2 mana disruptive creature with flash. It struggles into flash targets with strong ETBs but I feel like it’s got just enough disruptive capabilities to be seen at all levels of cube. I don’t necessarily feel like it’s going to feel like the most exciting card all the time, but similarly to Faerie Mastermind, I think it’s going to always overperform the eye test.
Lockjaw, Slobbering Teleporter
Usman:
Power: 3.5 Vibes: 3
This is another 2-drop tempo card for blue, but plays more proactively for pushing a ton of damage through. My main concern for this sticking around in cubes is that a lot of blue decks aren’t interested in this effect, but the payoff’s certainly there since it’s a permanent stat buff, at worst, when casting non-creature spells and in decks like Izzet aggro, getting this to cause a friend to be unblocked represents a very quick clock that can’t just be chump blocked.
Kai:
I absolutely adore the style of card that Lockjaw, Slobbering Terror brings to the table. To me, this reads as a step-cousin to Phelia, focusing more on pump and unblockable than blink value. What draws me to the card is how anti-blue it feels. Forcing blue decks to play noncreature spells in the first main phase will feel awkward for a lot of decks, but the payoff of a +1/+1 counter and two unblockable creatures is sweet. This card will thrive most in artifact decks (specifically the Karnstruct decks), getting damage through and preventing board stalls, since casting your artifacts in main phase one isn’t as detrimental as it is in other blue decks.
Rescue, Pepper Potts
Usman:
Power: 2 Vibes: 2
Similar to Sunpearl Kirin. Bouncing an artifact makes it one of the better pound-for-pound threats but unsure if that’s enough to make up for the times when it’s a worse Kirin. It’s still likely fine for tempo decks and decks with a lot of ETB creatures, but the ceiling’s nowhere near as high as Lockjaw’s.
Kai:
This reads as a lot of text and a lot of doing things with a really wide range between the ceiling and floor. A baseline flash 2/1 flier with a positive ETB or ability will almost always be good at a baseline but the ability to protect creatures from removal and reset monoliths or The One Ring is good enough that I wouldn’t mind running it in tempo, midrange, and artifact decks.
Bruce Banner
Usman:
Power: 1.5 Vibes: 4
As one of the early previews, I’ve been trying this for a while and I’ve not been impressed, at least by what he represents on his blue side, since the draw ability being sorcery speed was just so bad and made me think of Jushi Apprentice… and not in a good way. The ability to flip over into a giant beatstick was mana-efficient, but it just felt like a midrange card that didn’t do enough in base blue, Gruul decks splashing blue or Temur. It did find The Hulk side to be nearly impossible to block but even as a 6-mana 8/8, that mode also just felt underwhelming.
Kai:
Bruce Banner seems to fall into the category of cards that are spoiled early to induce hype for the set for the Commander players. The cost to draw isn’t terrible but being restricted to sorcery speed goes against the draw-go play style that this card would normally play well in. The flip side is actually very interesting and I think has way more potential to see play than the front. It creates interesting game decisions with pseudo-unblockability and I think is pretty fairly costed for what it’s worth. If this had sneak attack playability, I think the power level goes up multiple levels.
We Say Thee Nay!
Usman:
Power: 2.5 Vibes: 1.5
The obvious analog is Make Disappear, but this plays pretty differently as that spell was best in decks with a lot of expendable creatures that you didn’t mind losing, and usually those were attacking. Make Disappear making a copy is also a slight upside since the opponent can’t just Negate this, but that may just be more of a blue-on-blue matchup concern. This requires the creatures to be untapped and I’m weary if it’s an upgrade. It likely isn’t.
Kai:
In lower power environments, I think this card is actually quite good. To this day, I still feel like Mana Leak is a superbly fair card in most environments and with the counter spell being a conditional pay two or four, it kinda fits the same sort of niche. I think when trying to find a two mana counter spell, I prefer both Mana Leak and Make Disappear over this but could definitely see an argument to slot this in if your cube is more creature heavy or blue is too strong.
Victor Timely, Wily Tycoon
Usman:
Power: 2 Vibes: 1.5
I haven’t heard a lot of hype for this riff on Goblin Dark-Dwellers, as being able to flash back 4-mana instants and sorceries has been nice to get back wraths and being able to be played off of a single blue pip has been useful like in this undefeated 4-color deck. Even if the creature is overall worse than Goblin Dark-Dwellers, for the most part, it didn’t matter too much. It likely won’t survive the year outside of rarity-restricted/thematic cubes run it, but I’ve liked it so far.
Kai:
I think Victor Timely, Wily Tycoon is one mana reduction and one reduction in power and toughness from being super playable. This effect of playing out of the graveyard like this is pretty unique for blue and I think gives a lot of cool avenues with repeat Time Walk and Ancestral Recall with a body at best and a second copy of an Aether Spellbomb at worst.
Black:
Black Widow, Super Spy
Usman:
Power: 3.5 Vibes: 4
Somewhat a Bob/Bronco, somewhat an upgraded Reno and Rude. The failback of getting a +1/+1 is nice for when you get something you can’t do anything with, even if its trigger is guaranteed to be a non-land, which occasionally happened when this revealed a 4+ mana card on turn 3. As AlanYuan on MTGSalvation pointed out, Ayara’s Oathsworn is an analog for a saboteur with menace that hardly sees play these days, but this at least has played better so far by being able to usually guarantee value when it connects, which I’ve seen happen some times.
Kai:
Black Widow answers the question of what happens if we made a black Ragavan that can’t miss a spell from your opponent’s library. If the card hits and the spell is castable, you’re able to cast it using mana of any color. If you can’t (or don’t want to) cast it, Black Widow just gets bigger and harder to deal with later. Tack on menace to make it harder to block as it gets bigger and you’ve got yourself one of the stronger black two drops we’ve seen in a while.
Viper, Cruel Conspirator
Usman:
Power: 2.5 Vibes: 4
Another card that I’ve not seen much hype for, it’s been decent as a small threat that lets other things push through damage, somewhat like Exalted, where this can make a singular attacker something that an opponent really doesn’t want to block since it either trades (deathtouch) or potentially kills what could block it, if it can pump over blockers. So far, it’s been testing decently well as a filler-tier aggro beater.
Kai:
This is one of the cards that really grabs my attention right off the bat, just by how versatile it is. I don’t think this card is anywhere close to a bomb but I think it provides a clear ability to end and/or prolong games with its two abilities. It plays really well with any sort of evasive creature (Dauthi Voidwalker, Deep-Cavern Bat, Shriekmaw) and threatens to win the game as fast as you can produce black mana. I think the black pip on the activated abilities restricts the decks in which this card thrives to probably mono black or Bx decks. However, if you end up in either of those, I think you would be incredibly happy to find this in your main deck.
Doctor Doom
Usman:
Power: 2 Vibes: 2
It’s a pile of stats, as a Grave Titan-ish card. This didn’t really do a whole lot, since the creatures being 3/3s without evasion made this feel mopey and didn’t have the big-game impact you’d want from a 6 mana card, if played fairly. The card draw also felt too slow and it overall just felt “meh.”
Kai:
My initial impression of this card was that it was going to be a strict upgrade over the Grave Titan that I’ve had in my cube for the longest time. After looking at the card longer, I feel less and less sure that there’s enough here. Six mana to bring in a total statline of 9/9 is worse than Grave Titan. The lack of an ability to grow your board is a strict downgrade to Grave Titan and giving itself indestructible with a painful draw doesn’t make up for its shortcomings. The card is trying to tell two stories: I want to be reanimated and I want to play the game slow and outvalue opponents. Since reanimator decks in cubes typically want to go fast, I think the card is too slow on either front to do what it actually wants to do.
Dark Deed
Usman:
Power: 2 Vibes: 2
This is mostly a worse Sear, since this usually just kills whatever it’s pointed at and can’t hit planeswalkers like Sear can, as I’ve seen Last Gasp effects shrink something very few times over the years but I’m concerned with how many things this can’t kill, which is significantly worse than other things like Go for the Throat, Power Word Kill and friends.
Kai:
I like this card as a removal spell in sealed and draft. I don’t like the mana cost in a powered cube environment. It’s good enough if there are a lot of small indestructible creatures or you want to utilize a more unique/flexible way for a removal spell slot but I don’t think this one is anything to write home about.
Hammerhead, Maggia Boss
Usman:
Power: 1.5-2 Vibes: 2
As a monocolor Bartolomé del Presidio, I mainly was interested in this card for decks with a lot of fodder for this. It was initially drafted in a B/R deck that didn’t have a lot of fodder, so it was mostly just a Goblin Piker, and this really needs either a way to take advantage of things dying/being sacrificed or being able to reliably get a couple of sacrifices in to make this worthwhile. The floor is just so bad, though, to make me think the potential for getting a 4/3 with some hoops to go through is probably not worth it.
Kai:
Hammerhead: cool shark, mid card. The blowouts that I see that come from these sacrifice-pump cards are just the ultimate feels bad. Without any evasion or protection, I just don’t want to run it. I don’t like Carrion Feeder (which is arguably better out of the box than Hammerhead) or Bloodthrone Vampire in a powered environment. Maybe, I’m just being a hater but the benefit of getting two +1/+1 counters from tokens being sacrificed at the end step is just not a good enough reason for me to run this card.
M.O.D.O.K.
Usman:
Power: 2 Vibes: 2
I feel like this is better than it looks, but I keep seeing 5 mana for a 2/2 and my gut (potentially unfairly) thinks it looks bad because of minimal impact. Surveiling multiple times without requiring extra mana is usually dangerous territory and gating it behind life loss does limit how often it can realistically be done, especially when behind, but being able to unlock a large lifelinker is something. Killing small things also seems like it could be subtly useful, since it just shuts off token generation for 1/1s. I never was able to get in reps with this but I would be unsurprised if this was actually great.
Kai:
This card has a lot of text and a lot of things going for it. It fits in that weird spot where it feels like it’s got a foot in the water of the reanimator, tinker, and midrange pools while not excelling at any of them. Repeated draw-discard for life feels strong and it does have lifelink to keep your life total healthy while conniving. For some reason, they also just stapled on a line of text to shrink your opponents creatures, which could be relevant in some matchups.
Doctor Doom, Unrivaled
Usman:
Power: 1.5 Vibes: 4.5
So far, I’ve not been impressed by this, at least in fair environments that aren’t looking to turbo-kill someone with this, since it’s been mostly just a slow Phyrexian Arena-style effect and has to tap to win the game, which other similar alt-wincons (Thoracle, 1UUU Jace) don’t have to do and although something being a worse version of something else doesn’t make it unplayable, it requiring a turn cycle to do its thing is a very real issue and in testing, we’ve not found it to be great as a 4/4 lifelinker. The Thoracle combo decks also generally have few creatures, and having to wait a turn cycle to do its thing does make this a removal magnet in those matchups and compared to similar black 4s like Elegy Acolyte, I liked the latter more.
Kai:
For all of my Thassa’s Oracle fans and Doomsday fans out there, enjoy a worse piece in every aspect. This card is further proof that putting the text, “You win the game” on a card doesn’t make it good. Painful draw as a tap ability on a four drop is just going to be too slow whether you’re playing fair or unfair. A 4/4 for four with lifelink is fine and on par but I just don’t see any world where you run this over Oracle, Lab Man, or Jace.
Klaw, Sonic Subjugator
Usman:
Power: 1.5 Vibes: 4
The floor isn’t great (but also not awful) but gets much better with at least something in the graveyard. Probably one of those “great in retail limited, super mid in cube” types of cards like Thought-Stalker Warlock. The non-Lorien Revealed LoTR landcyclers do help to make this more than a 2/2 Ravenous Rats. Like the Warlock, this is probably a “great in retail limited, really mid in cube” type of card.
Kai:
This reads as a great limited uncommon but not much more. I like the discard on a creature but from my experience with Concealing Curtains, three mana is just too late a lot of the time. On one hand, you’re able to hit lands if they reveal those to you. On the other hand, you’re not even guaranteed to see all the cards in their hand. I probably won’t be running this card.
Red:
Lady Spider, Maybelle Reilly and Living Laser
Usman:
Power: 3 (Lady Spider), 3-4.5 (Living Laser) Vibes: 3
Both of these are more support for red discard, and I do like how Lady Spider is less all-in than the Hobgoblin that cares about discarding.
Living Laser has a ton of burst damage potential if you just discard a card and discarding 2 cards via something like a Faithless Looting is a nearly unprecedented rate of burst damage. Its floor isn’t the worst as a 4-power source of flying haste for 5, which is where we’ve traditionally seen hasty dragons at before, and while I don’t think a deck without ways to reliably trigger it would want to touch Living Laser, the potential’s high enough to be solid.
Kai:
I don’t personally have enough discard/madness support to mindlessly throw these cards in my cube. However, if you do have enough discard to support these, I think they both can find an important role in those cubes. Like Usman said, Living Laser basically turns Faithless Looting or Wheel of Fortune into game wins and I definitely like it more than Lady Spider. However, Lady Spider at two mana with residual value from discard like Inti should be good enough if you have enough to support it.
Batroc, the Leaper
Usman:
Power: 4 Vibes: 3.5
Somewhat a Flametongue Yearling but being able to go face which is where this shines, since this can be played on an empty board if need be, even if the 2-mana mode of being a Grizzly Bears is atrocious and something mainly for when you desperately need a blocker. At 4 mana, it really starts to pick up and act more like a Pyrogoyf (funnily, another card that was initially underrated due to being compared to Flametongue Kavu) but this losing out on dealing damage via non-cast ways to bring it into play (blink, reanimation, etc) is a drawback. It’s been playing pretty well when cast on 4 with some aspirational upside, so I’m still cautiously optimistic that its flexibility gets there.
Kai:
I have very mixed feelings about Batroc. On one hand, it is a vanilla 2/2 for two if you don’t cast it for kicker, which is objectively bad in 2026. However, once you start kicking this card, it becomes a bomb. Pyrogoyf is one of my favorite and strongest cards in cube now and this acts very similarly. With Batroc kicked once, he is a bad Pyrogoyf and when he’s kicked twice, it’s a better Pyrogoyf. This evaluation scales with as many times as you can kick him. Moral of the story when looking at this card: it costs at least 4 mana and bad Pyrogoyf is still good enough for powered cube.
Thor, God of Thunder
Usman:
Power: 3.5 Vibes: 4
I saw a comparison between this and Practiced Scrollsmith, which was good in SOS limited but didn’t get much further than that. This serves a different role of hasty beatstick than Living Laser and other hasty dragons, where this plays more like a big pseudo-Eternal Witness that can also Plague Wind an opponent with a couple of triggers. This really does feel like a “if you untap with this, you win” type of card, which usually is the Kiss of death for cards that have minimal impact if the creature dies, but being able to cast the targeted card until the end of your next turn really helps for it to be a very real board control card. The pure damage potential, especially with mana-discounted cards (Pyrokinesis, Mine Collapse) makes me think this could be solid.
Kai:
Bold prediction of the set review: this card is going to be a premier Rx control/midrange finisher for a while. A 5/5 flier for five is at par and the ETB almost guarantees that you’ll get some value out of his second ability (you know how I feel about flashing back spells). Any counter spell, kill spell, or extra turn if you’re lucky, just churns damage at your opponents and anything they control. Even better, pitch cards like Force of Will and Pyrokinesis or delvers like Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time can just end games on the spot. This is one of the best, fair control/spellslinger finishers we’ve seen in a while.
Vision of Love
Usman:
Power: 3 Vibes: 3
Abandon Attachments is one of the few Instant-speed rummage effects, and being able to sacrifice a random artifact is a nice upside to turn this into some major card advantage. A solid role-filler for non-aggro red decks.
Kai:
At worst, you’re discarding a card to draw two cards at instant speed. At best, you get to sacrifice a clue/blood/treasure to draw two cards at instant speed. It’s a textbook high floor, low ceiling card that is a good filler at the red two drop spell slot. I’m not quite sure I’ve got a slot for it right now but it’s definitely good enough to see play at all levels.
Hawkeye, Master Marksman
Usman:
Power: 3 Vibes: 3
A 2/2 with first strike and reach is fine, and requiring mana to fire off arrows is annoying, but it can do lots of things, including drawing if hellbent, but requiring a mana to do his thing concerns me since it’s so easy to say “oh, it’s just one extra mana” when that can be a very real cost. The undefeated Boros deck used it with Vehicles a few times to get it to fire off arrows even when not attacking, and that’s likely going to be more of a thing if Star Trek gives us more playable Vehicles.
Kai:
I am (and forever probably will be) a sucker when it comes to fast 2/2s for two with relevant keywords. Hawkeye attacks super well in the first couple of turns both due to first strike and his Net ability, and has the flexibility with his Trick Arrows ability that is hard to come by at this mana cost. I think the rummage effect will be the most commonly used one but it is nice to see three relevant and fairly costed abilities on an attack trigger.
Mjölnir, Hammer of Thor
Usman:
Power: 2 Vibes: 4
On its front, its ETB is really mana inefficient, so it’s mostly relying on getting there with its flexibility and the ability to cheaply get thrown onto worthy legends. It’s been performing decently well in testing, although a concern is that both functions of the card address similar scenarios (creatures) but different functions of that (small vs large creatures) and it’s been fine as a grind tool for red decks. Currently, there’s enough legends for this to be a sideways legend payoff and it wasn’t too difficult for this to find something worthy (like The Reaper, King No More.) I don’t think this is playable in a deck without at least 3 red legends, which may be a bridge too far when packs aren’t seeded with a ton of legends, but I really want to like this, since turning a red legend into a much stronger threat is no joke.
Kai:
With the ETB and mini board wipe being a little underwhelming, I think the card is being a little undervalued. Similarly to Hawkeye, I think one of the strongest things in cube, and limited in general, is flexibility. This card has it although a little overpriced. A four mana Flame Slash is bad but a five mana removal spell and damage doubler for your biggest legendary is pretty good. It does have a lot of conditions (even with the flexibility) it needs to meet to be at its full strength but I think it’s probably worth a look given the amount of legendary creatures Wizards is pumping out.
Quicksilver, Brash Blur
Usman:
Power: 2 Vibes: 3
As another early preview card, I’ve had a few reps with this and it’s mostly just been fine as a 1/1 haster with the ability to become bigger, somewhat like Greasewrench Goblin but it being a 1/1 without help has been a notable knock against this. I’ve never seen its Leyline ability come up, either.
Kai:
This card just isn’t giving me a lot. Out of all of the red one drops we’ve seen over the years, I think this is one that I feel the least excited about. Although insane to say, I don’t think playing a 1/1 haste creature on turn 0 is good enough.
Green:
Mole Man, Moloid Master
Usman:
Power: 4 Vibes: 1.5
There’ve been several green Crucible-types of effects and they’ve mostly been mid outside of Icetill Explorer, since their on-board presence usually was weak if you weren’t getting back fetchlands. I’ve really liked this, much more than Ramunap Excavator, due to being able to make chump blockers. Although it looks like a minor upside, it was surprisingly more useful than expected, since – even as 1/1 chumpers – they were enough to make racing difficult and a fetchland triggering multiple landfalls were enough to grind a ground assault to a halt. It’s not Icetill-tier but I’ve still liked it.
Kai:
It seems like every set, we get another card that shows that the designers want green lands to be better in cube. Although there have been misses, this seems to be a hit from my first impression. Mole Man reads as a mini Icetill Explorer that substitutes out the double land drop for building a board and going wide. It can also work as a self-miller when needed too as the tokens it creates do have a may ability for milling cards. I don’t think this card pushes the lands decks (which haven’t been as strong as they used to be) to the next level but I think it’s a super valuable piece which earns its spot in higher powered cubes.
World War Hulk
Usman:
Power: 1.5-3.5 Vibes: 4
What I like about this is that the ceiling on this seems very good if you’re running the cheaty shenanigans, as most of the targets like Etali, Primal Conqueror, Worldspine Wurm and friends. (This was actually pretty under my radar but Kai got me back on board. Thanks!)
Kai:
When I look at World War Hulk, I see it as a second copy of sneak attack. In most of those decks (that aren’t running Eldrazi), the top cheat targets are normally Etali, Torsten, or Worldspine Worm, which fortunately for us, are all red or green. This gets those expensive creatures in for a discount and threatens a game ending swing if both the creature and saga stay around for a turn or two. Although it is a bit of an ask, I think the initial value from just the first step is enough to be considered in decks that want to cheat in these big red and green bombs.
The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl
Usman:
Power: 2.5 Vibes: 2
Like Hit-Monkey and Hulk, Strongest There Is, they were fine but replaceable when played. This having a built-in mana sink to where, if she was able to attack and survive, being able to make 3 squirrels for 4 mana was great to gum up the board.
The deck that played it was a base-green (not mono-green) that played this; 1GGG is a steep entry fee but available mana fixing does help to make something like this less painful to cast. Still, it does limit the decks that can realistically play it.
Kai:
If your cube supports a strong mono green archetype, The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl is definitely strong enough to see some play. The three green pips in both the casting cost and activated ability cost are pretty restrictive, but the 4/4 and 1/1 bodies on entry and doubling season effects aren’t bad for the CMC. I do still run both Opposition and Deep Forest Hermit in my powered cube so, although squirrel support is a weird combination of words, there may be a slot for it still in environments that benefit off of wide boards.
Mister Immortal
Usman:
Power: 2 Vibes: 4
It’s at least 2 power, which Reassembling Skeleton never had. Costs more to recur but that’s likely fine. It’s definitely worse at being a machine-gun sac fodder with something like Goblin Bombardment, and in decks that couldn’t proactively sacrifice it, it felt like a middling threat since it was, at the end of the day, still just a Goblin Piker who wouldn’t go away, which was easy enough to ignore.
Kai:
Self reanimator effects aren’t great in a powered cube environment, and Mister Immortal really isn’t much of an exception. The color pie break by putting this in green instead of black is interesting but not interesting enough. A vanilla 2/1 is still a vanilla 2/1, and I’m reminded more of that with the reanimation cost being so expensive.
Multicolor:
Okoye, Mighty and Adored
Usman:
Power: 5 Vibes: 4.5
Selesnya cards have historically fallen into the “existing cards with better rates” archetype which doesn’t tend to help its role in cubes as a miniboss-but-not-final boss. Her ability to buff the team is already great and the ability to make a crack back at the opponent making it so that losing the monarch isn’t just a strict downgrade, as I saw in testing that if the Okoye player took damage, they could have won the game on the swing back. (I’m not faulting the player for not seeing the line, since it’s not even released yet and a pretty new angle of attack.)
It’s also likely good enough to splash, which tends to be a bar for including in a multicolor section. Thankfully, this is.
Kai:
This card may just be the best bomb of the set. Adding monarch or initiative to any card is enough to get me to look at it and this is no exception. Taking the monarch on entry, handing out +1/+1 counters like they’re candy, and providing double strike AND trample to help take back the monarch is an insane value combination. Selesnya has needed some help for a little bit and this basically provides a fantastic card in any cube space, and probably the second best card in monarch/initiative heavy cubes (Just behind Seasoned Dungeoneer)
King T’Challa
Usman:
Power: 4.5 Vibes: 4
I’ve found Faerie Mastermind to be fine (but not great) in cube and this likely is from it triggering off of both your and the opponent drawing multiple cards, but I’ve already been very impressed with this in its cube showing so far and it’s draw trigger has been live often, since it can be proactively done without a 3U entry fee It wasn’t difficult for this to draw multiple cards in a match, and because of how strong its draw ability was, it was pretty common for it to be cast and never flipped to its harder-hitting side.
Kai:
King T’Challa doesn’t jump off the page at first, but the power is there. Drawing an extra card on your turn is already easy to enable in 2026, and T’Challa just rewards you for doing it. That’s the floor, before you even factor in that it triggers on your opponents’ draws too.
The back half holds up just as well. A hard beater with damage prevention that draws on player damage is exactly what you want stapled to the other side of this card. It’ll probably be rare to see but it’ll be hard to find a time where you get mad about having options.
Wolverine, Fierce Fighter
Usman:
Power: 4 Vibes: 4
I like this as a Mawloc variant, as FTK-style creature that kills something and has haste to continue beating down. It’s hard to kill, too, at least in combat and against red burn, but still can die to Doom Blades, but for the times when it doesn’t, its raw damage output makes up for that potential liability.
Kai:
This is a weird card to say the least. A four mana fight effect doesn’t seem bad for clearing blockers and haste means you can hit hard if they only have one blocker with toughness three or less. His other ability is weird and I think the corner cases where it matters (double burn spell or block and burn spell) are few and far between. I unfortunately don’t think this is able to contest any cube’s Gruul four drop slot that currently runs Minsc and Boo.
Cloak and Dagger, Entwined
Usman:
Power: 4 Vibes: 3.5
This being able to play both sides of a matchup, where this can be a 3-mana disruption effect, really helps for this to shore up different game states. One of the other upsides is when this is cast to be a Fiend Hunter, but then seeing a more threatening card in hand, and taking that instead, is an oft-overlooked upside, along with it just giving you a free look at the opponent’s hand. The upside is hard to quantify but it’s nice when you get free information and I’ve liked how this plays into the disruptive beatdown plan that Tidehollow Sculler and other cheap black hand hate supports.
Kai:
This is one of the most unique cards that I saw during spoiler season and I kinda love it. A creature that exiles your opponent’s best creature is good but a creature that does that and gives you the choice of whether their best thing is on the board or in their hand is better. Staple lifelink and deathtouch on there too and this card just becomes an incredibly flexible and flavorful Orzhov card.
Quicksilver, Speedster
Usman:
Power: 3.75 Vibes: 3
Hitting for 6 with haste/flash is highly efficient for 5, and it makes me somewhat think of a red dragon by its pure damage potential. The ability to give other things flash if it survives combat could be useful too but I’m the main draw is how well it represents a lot of damage, even as an unexpected blocker which is how it’s played out so far.
Kai:
This card comes down late but can really surprise your opponents with the sheer amount of value that it provides. It has a relevant body for its cost and the ability to give flash is not to be ignored. While good as an attacker, cards that require tapping (Smuggler’s Copter, Harmonized Trio) can ensure that you are always able to cast your cards at flash speed if pesky blockers get in the way.
Archnemesis
Usman:
Power: 3.75 Vibes: 4
Weird multiplayer text aside, this does a great job of being like a Thief of Sanity saboteur effect (that doesn’t have to wait a turn cycle to attack) that deals a couple of damage and draws a card, assuming that there’s fodder to attack. I did find that not doing anything without things to attack was a real issue, though.
Kai:
It feels like a weird effect for cube but I guess it’s got a niche. Card draw on attack vs. on combat damage is much better and the drain effect is also good. The four health swing is relevant if you can keep attackers on the ground.
Dragon Man, Reformed Robot
Usman:
Power: 3.5 Vibes: 4
If it’s reliably a 3-power creature, that it can represent a very real clock that is very difficult to deal with, since it can just recur back without too much of a cost. When trying it out, it was pretty reliably a 3+ card, and being able to boost its power when boosted via a big instant was nice too. Mostly a midrange and control finisher but a solid one.
Kai:
I think this is one of the cards that I have a little higher than Usman. The potential of this card, specifically in artifact decks, is at the moon. A 3-5 power flier feels like about the floor for this but the casting from the graveyard is super relevant. If it gets milled or killed, discard your treasure cruise to recast it as an 8/5 flier for four. As long as this doesn’t get exiled, this card will always feel like a threat, regardless of your opponent’s board state.
First Family
Usman:
Power: 2-3.5 Vibes: 4
Somewhat a sideways storm card, and somewhat a card that shines in decks that utilize General Rokiric. The potential to draw 4 cards and gain 4 life is high (but not broken, like many Simic cards) and hybrid cards can help to get there, but this may just be too middling in decks without ways to get small storm counts to push this into being able to draw 4 consistently.
Kai:
I love my five color slop piles. I don’t really like this kind of card draw. Despite it being sorcery speed, I think I prefer Mind Into Matter to First Family since you can get the benefit of cheating something into play. I don’t think it’s crazy to run it, but I definitely won’t look at you crazy if you don’t.
Hybrid:
Brawn, Amadeus Cho
Usman:
Power: 3.75 Vibes: 4
This played decently well, as Elvish Visionary’s been a quietly good performer in decks but never quite was able to make the big leagues in cube. Being able to power itself up and being able to be played in blue makes me think it has some potential.
Kai:
This feels like a pretty good filler card if you need a card in a sealed or draft pool. I don’t think this is good enough to crack green or blue two drops (just hybrid things) in a powered cube due to its low floor. Even at the ceiling, a 5 mana 1/1 that draws and gets +1/+1 counters equal to the number of cards in your hand feels strong but not Powered Vintage strong.
Stature, Young Avenger
Usman:
Power: 3 Vibes: 2.5
A 2/2 that can become a 4/4, the juice is how many times it’ll punch for 4 to be worth it as a Philosophy of Fire-type card that represents a clock via burst damage. I haven’t gotten in reps with this yet, but one attack as a 4/4 should probably be worth it and a couple should definitely be worth it in red decks. I don’t see that same utility in green, so I mostly just see this as a red card, ala Firespout.
This is another one of the uncommons that you’d love to see with a couple cheap spells in your prerelease sealed pool. The best thing that this does is hit hard as a 4/4 when needed and make blocks for weaker fliers a little awkward. I don’t see much more cube potential here.
Artifacts/Colorless:
The Fantasticar
Usman:
Power: 3-5 Vibes: 2
A storm card that does something when it isn’t lethal (this should be, usually.) It has the highest ceiling of the set’s cards by far, since it represents so much damage. I’m unsure if decks that can’t reliably make this turn into 4 4/4s will be worth playing in a deck, but I’m unsure if even that’s the case, since it’s just so much damage – I used to play Togglodyte as a pseudo-creature that represented burst damage, and this could just be that in fair decks.
Kai:
As a resident storm drafter, I kinda love everything about the Fantasticar. In a spellslinger oriented deck, it’s hard to imagine that this card isn’t a 4/4 creature whenever you want. I think the card would be fringe playable without the last block of text but that just pushes it over the edge for me. With this on the board, it puts a lot of pressure on your opponents to leave up creature interaction or flying blockers due to the fear of being blown out for sixteen hasty damage in the air.
Iron Man Armor
Usman:
Power: 4.5 Vibes: 4
This has good stats and it snaps onto something for free which, on its own, has been great. I’ve seen comparisons to Maul of the Skyclaves, which is fair considering how few “snap on” equipment give flying. It’s nice that it can also be an evasive damage source (even if it requires mana) by turning it into a creature if you have nothing else to put this on, as a Karnstruct; the additive distraction may make it look like “just an artifact-matters” card but the ability to put this onto something else to give a very real stat boost and flying for just 2 mana isn’t to be disregarded, as I’ve already seen it perform well in aggressive cube decks with a low artifact count.
Kai:
I’ve undervalued Karnstruct cards before and I’m not doing it again. Iron Man Armor comes in already attached to one of your creatures, which is a strong start. Three mana for +2/+1 and flying is fine on its own but not terribly exciting. The Karnstruct clause is what pushes it over. No creature to equip? Pay two and it becomes one. The flexibility alone makes this worth a close look, and the stats and evasion it provides are genuinely reasonable for the cost.
Galactus, Devourer of Worlds
Usman:
Power: 2-4 Vibes: 4
It’s a big dumb cheat target but one that at least triggers on entering the battlefield. Likely one of the better ones due to his resiliency and evasion and since it being a big flampler lets it usually kill in 2 hits.
Kai:
A new variation of Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre doesn’t bring me joy but it does have me theorycrafting reanimator builds with the effect. The best part of this card is that it works with the entire set of flash, reanimation, sneak attack, and channel which is hard to find on colorless threats. I have this in contention as a top threat you’d be happy picking early for any of those archetypes.
The Vision
Usman:
Power: 3.5 Vibes: 4
This has been decent as The Vision’s triggers can pay for itself with a few cheap instants and sorceries as I feel like this is fine if it cantrips once and you’re happy with it after the second cantrip – which is usually the primary mode. I do like how you can use instants to protect this while also giving the ability to just cantrip if the opponent doesn’t have any interaction, and I’ve been jokingly calling this The One Ring. Flying and vigilance helps it peck in for damage while holding the fort, and when closing the game out, the ability to give it double strike has been nice, although it’s been the least-used mode.
Kai:
While probably good enough, this is another one of the cards that doesn’t excite me right away. I think it has just the right mix of abilities that the card will see higher level cube play but it’s right on the line. The two main things that it does have going for it is repeatable card draw and indestructiblity, which are both strong in their own right. I wouldn’t count on this card staying in cubes for very long.
Cosmic Cube
Usman:
Power: 2 Vibes: 5
I’d be remiss to not talk about this on flavor alone, as this plays as a fair Doors of Durin. This played decently well in midrange decks, even if it couldn’t cheat something big into play – usually just putting a 4-drop into play was good enough although there were times when it whiffed, which was awful. Ward 2 helps, but I keep going back to thinking this is just a worse Nexus of Becoming.
Kai:
Five mana would be steep if this card wasn’t a colorless artifact. The effect is super cool and I would look to draft this card in mono green ramp or aggressive artifact decks. I think this card will eventually find its place among flex, value artifacts like Nexus of Becoming or Palantir of Orthanc.
Gleaming Bastion (and the other lands)
Usman:
Power: 3 Vibes: 2.5
From trying these out, they remind me a lot of the Verges as lands that usually tap for either type of mana, and being able to immediately tap for a color of requested mana has been clutch, like with Seachrome Coast-style lands. These are nice in cubes without a lot of fixing as relying on basic lands, as cube mana bases tend to be in the middle ground from constructed and retail limited. I don’t think these are “needed” in cubes, which is why I’d rated them pretty middling, but they’ve played well in my experience.
Kai:
I think these lands would be a fine addition if you don’t want to run one of the OG duals, the man lands, or the fast lands. They’re interesting and provide a unique way of color fixing but just don’t beat out any of the classic cube lands. These lands aren’t bad but with only half of the set out now, I’m not planning on even trying these out.
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Scales used for rating cards:
I use a couple of scales to rate a card, via power and “vibes.” The former is pretty self-explanatory like normal set reviews, like from LSV’s set reviews that talk about a card’s impact in a limited format:
Also, I’ve been using something from Scuffle D. Lux’s set reviews by noting a power level band for some cards that have variable power level based on context in some cube formats where factors like speed and effectiveness of removal, format considerations and explicit support change how a card can perform.
The latter is an approximate rating for “vibes.” It’s harder to quantify, but it’s a rating to describe non-power related factors and, as Universes Beyond sets tend to throw a wrench into that, I’m mostly just looking at that scale based on general vibes rather than in the context of it being a Marvel card.
Examples, using the vibes scale for the latter:
- Fuel the Flames: Power: 3, Vibes: 1
- Daretti, Rocketeer Engineer: Power: 1, Vibes: 4
- Opera Love Song: Power: 4.5, Vibes: 3
- The Endstone: Power 3-4, Vibes 5
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