Treasure Hunting: Urza's Block

Once in a while, I like to go over a subset of cards to see if there's anything fun/cool/good I (we as a peasant cube community) might have overlooked or forgotten about. Sometimes this yields nothing, sometimes I find a a handful hidden gems.

My friend and I are in the process of building an Urza's Block cube because that's the block we started playing Magic with. Looking at all the commons and uncommons again, made me wonder if I had overlooked something for Peasant Cube. (check out the Urza cube here, it's pretty awesome)

Let's go Treasure Hunting!


disclaimer: a glitch made me lose all the autocard links right after doing them. I don't have the time to do them all again at the moment, but I wanted to get the article out. So for the time being, I just linked the treasure.
(if anyone knows of a way I can autocard without linking everything separately, I'd love to hear it)

URZA'S SAGA

Cards currently in my cube from Urza's Saga (10): Disenchant, Zephid's Embrace, Duress, Exhume, Victimize, Diabolic Servitude, Arc Lightning, Fertile Ground, Worn Powerstone. I also run a functional reprint of Phyrexian Ghoul with another creature type.
Other cards I know people run: Acidic Soil, Cathodion, Confiscate, Dark Ritual, Corrupt (I think), Peregrine Drake, Pestilence, Rewind

Blasted Landscape - With the renewed attention cycle lands have gotten, may this be worth it for bigger cubes? The colored cycling lands are obviously worse than the Onslaught and Amonkhet ones, because I don't think I would run off-color cycling lands that enter the battlefield tapped. But what about an off-color cycling land that enters untapped? Aggro decks will not want this, but slower decks shouldn't find it too hard to run 1-2 colorless lands.

Exhaustion - Locking your opponent out of casting cards for a turn is very powerful, maybe even as close to a Time Warp effect as we can get. It doesn't tap anything, so you have to time it to get any effect from it. I can see this working out quite nicely in tempo decks.

Fog Bank - This is probably a card that's on people's radar, but I still wanted to touch on it. On paper, it always looks like exactly the card I want in certain decks. It blocks almost everything without dying, right? In practice, my opponent always seemed to have something to bypass this. At any rate, I think it's a decent card if you want it.

Priest of Titania - I'm not sure if people run this, but I've considered it may times. Paying two mana to play something that generates a mana is decent, even though it's not Llanowar Elves. Sure, it doesn't fix colors and can be destroyed, but jumping from 2-4 mana is something certain decks want. If you're going for consistency, play Wall of Roots or Devoted Druid. But, the reason I think Priest of Titania can be great for cube is that it gives you a fun little build-around without giving up much. Most ramp decks want Elves anyway, why not reward people by picking them up slightly higher and going nuts with Priest? I can even see full Elves tribal going together once in a blue moon with Priest and Imperious Perfect.

Symbiosis - This used to be nuts in its native draft format. It's not always easy to set up, but it can be back-breaking. Two mana is not a lot either for such an impactful spell. But, not every deck wants this and it's mainly good in matchups where creature combat is a thing.

Titania's Boon - Only if you're planning to go really deep on +1/+1 counter synergies. I found +1/+1 counter decks most effective when the creatures have native +1/+1 counters or your cards that put them on creatures aren't 1-shot effects. That said, this is not bad, and might be better than I give it credit for.

Windfall - I've played this, actually, but I still wanted to mention it here. It's the closest thing to Wheel of Fortune we have. It's just a little hard to use. In theory, this could be a cool refill card for aggro against control/midrange, and potentially for reanimate or other graveyard decks. I thought about mentioning Tolarian Winds (a card that has actually been played in constructed before), but decided it was too narrow, while Windfall also has uses outside of dumping your hand.

URZA'S LEGACY

Cards currently in my cube from Urza's Legacy (10): Mother of Runes, Radiant, Archangel, Miscalculation, Snap, Faerie Conclave, Bone Shredder, Phyrexian Reclamation, Unearth, Rancor, Treetop Village
Other cards I know people run: Avalanche Riders, Frantic Search, Ghitu Encampment, Ghitu Slinger, Ostracize, Opportunity,

Cloud of Faeries - There are probably cubes this is in and I've played it before. I can think of 4 reasons to run this: Spellstutter Sprite, land enchantments (Wild Growth & co), storm (and other things that care about casting multiple spells each turn), flyers matter. If you support only 2/4, I don't think Cloud is viable, but I thought it was worth mentioning it as an archetype glue card.

Forbidding Watchtower and Spawning Pool - The blue and green ones are played often, the red one I've cubed as well. The white and black ones, however, don't get as much attention. It probably has something to do with them being purely defensive, and having to keep up 3 or 4 mana each turn to blank a non-flying attacker is often too big of a price to pay. I do think that at least Forbidding Watchtower might have some merit as a land/wall split card for control decks.

Simian Grunts - This was amazing in its native draft format, basically acting as green removal. I wonder if this has some merit in peasant cube as well. A 3 mana 3/4 with echo is not something I'm happy to run, but the flash part might be fun to try.

Tinker - If only the common/uncommon Eldrazi were artifacts. I'd love to be able to play Tinker. Although, Tinker would probably be too good if it was good.

URZA'S DESTINY

Cards currently in my cube from Urza's Destiny (4): Sigil of Sleep, Keldon Champion, Yavimaya Enchantress, Thran Dynamo.
Other cards I know people run: Yavimaya Elder

Field Surgeon - Diversionary Tactics is still one of the most unexpectedly performing cards in my cube. Field Surgeon is obviously less good, but I can see it doing work in token decks. Imagine having a couple tokens and this in play, combat becomes a nightmare for your opponent. It doesn't solve hard-to-block creatures like Diversionary Tactics does, which probably makes all the difference. Man, I really wish this said 'creature OR PLAYER'.

Gamekeeper - This card has always intrigued me because it's so unique. It's the only green peasant-legal card that can put a creature from library to play. The fact that it's hard to control the outcome also makes it hard to evaluate. It's still just a 4 mana 2/2. If it dies and you hit a Llanowar Elves while milling removal or other premium spells, you give up so much. On the other hand, if you could build your deck where it's more likely to hit at least a 4-drop while filling your graveyard with stuff that you want to have in your graveyard.. I realize the last one is a total best case scenario, but it sounds like so much fun. The question remains however: what's the average?

Iridescent Drake - U/G Enchantment Aggro is one of my favorite archetypes to draft (I even wrote about it here). One of the inherent weaknesses of the deck is that it's somewhat fragile. Creatures with auras on them can turn every single enemy removal spell into a 2-for-1 for your opponent. This might help this problem a bit by re-using a premium aura spell, while also creating a flying threat. At the moment I don't think I run enough positive auras to make this consistently worth it, not in the least because it's also situational even if you do find enough auras for your deck.

Wall of Glare - Walls and good defensive cards are a tricky thing to balance in cube. You want slower decks to be able to stand up to aggressive decks, but you don't want to create an overly defensive format either. Against the right decks, this can hold off between 2 and 4 creatures per attack. If you pump it, or can prevent damage, Wall of Glare can stop upwards to entire boards. You do have to work for that to happen, making it somewhat of a build-around card. It also can't block flyers, is targetable, has 0 power and only goes into very defensive decks.
I can see it as a nice tool for defensive enchantment based decks, especially when you involve a card like Flickering Ward.

Top pick

The card I'm most likely to find room for is (drumroll):