Treasure Hunting: Ice Age block

Oh man, apparently it's been over 3 months since I last posted! Sometimes life gets in the way, I guess. I just haven't had the time to cube a lot, let alone write about it.

Anyway, while we wait for the full Amonkhet spoiler to come out in a couple of hours, I have a bit of free time on my hands to do something I consider one of the more fun things of cubing:

Treasure hunting!

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.

In this particular case, this post about Brine Shaman in the Rando Cube Card of the Day thread over on MTGSalvation made me want to look into Ice Age block. Ice Age, Alliances. I know Coldsnap is technically part of this block, but I don't buy it.

Let's Go!

ICE AGE

Cards currently in my cube from Ice Age (8): Swords to Plowshares, Dance of the Dead, Counterspell, Incinerate, Pyroclasm, Fyndhorn Elves, Wild Growth, Fire Covenant.
Other cards I know people run: Icy Manipulator, Dark Ritual, Binding Grasp, Ray of Command.

Brine Shaman - See the discussion in the Rando Cube Card of the Day thread

Dreams of the Dead - What a weird card. It's expensive (4 mana), adds a hefty upkeep cost to the returned creature AND works only on white and black creatures. However, adding an extra use to creatures like Shriekmaw, Bone Shredder and Cloudgoat Ranger is powerful. Probably not good enough, but in the right cube I can see this doing some work.

Freyalise's Supplicant - If this rounded up, this would've been a fun card for G/W token decks. Its current state makes it a little too hard to use, I think.

Hymn of Rebirth - Cool card, this one. It's a tad too slow for most cubes, but man is it fun (and surprising) to reanimate a fatty from your opponent's graveyard in G/W. White, btw, has more reanimate spells (Miraculous Recovery is another fun one). I've considered pushing reanimate in white some more for a real color-twisted feel. Currently, my G/W decks have enough stuff going on that I don't think I needsomething like this.

Jeweled Amulet - If you play this on turn one, you can charge it up and have 3 mana on turn 2. Basically, it lets you alternate between having -1 mana and +1 mana during your turns. I have no idea if this is any good.

Orcish Lumberjack - Another weird ramp spell, this one having a slightly higher cost but also a very high payoff. It's a strictly R/G card, so you'd have to make room for it, but it ramps like crazy if you can manage a stream of forests. Turn 1 Lumberjack, turn 2 Phantom Centaur sounds like fun. But, even if you have a forest to sacrifice every turn, you won't get past a certain point of mana. So, use with caution.

ALLIANCES

Cards currently in my cube from Alliances (0): none
Other cards I know people run: Arcane Denial, Contagion, Force of Will, Phyrexian War Beast, Pillage, Pyrokinesis.

Balduvian Dead - A mana too expensive for my taste, but turning your dead creatures into 3/1 attackers for a turn (or additional sacrifice fodder) is interesting. It reminds me of Rakdos Guildmage, which is better overall, probably.

Death Spark - Recurring damage is always interesting. This requires smart play, and will not work in every deck/matchup. I do remember this being quite good back in the day.

Hail Storm - Green's Pyroclasm, sort of. The biggest drawback is that green often is often more aggressive than not, taps out on its own turn often, or has enough X/1s that also get wiped out by this. Still, I have been drafting U/G control decks more and more lately, and those can definitely make use of Hail Storm.

Surge of Strength - Peasant's Blazing Shoal? Represents a lot of damage for only 2 mana. Berserk is probably the better finishing pump spell with card disadvantage, and only a single color. This intrigues me though, but it being a multicolor card gets me down. If it was mono-red, I'd be more inclined to try it.

Yavimaya Ants - Not a hidden gem per se, because I do think most of the peasant cube community is aware of this card, but I still wanted to mention it. If you support fast green aggro in your cube, this is good. It reminds me a bit of Giant Solifuge in a way.

Top pick

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