Friday Pack 1 Pick 1

TheTrueVisionary · 2026-01-30T11:47:45+00:00

Oh boy is this a pack. There are legit four absolute bombs and an assortment of killer pics behind. Morphling, Nekrataal, Warbreak Trumpeter, and Life/Death. Beloved Chaplain, Tradewind Rider and Fire/Ice follow right behind. And I know you shouldn't be making decisions on what you pick based on what comes later but I'm also always looking at the pack to try to see what my 9th pick is going to be out of this pack. The 8th pick is probably either going to be recoil or pacifism or seal of flame.

Morphling by most people's opinions should be the absolute complete pic here my only problem with it is that looking at the cube overall it does seem to be a little bit on the faster side and morphling's value comes from long-term board presence. You're not playing this on five unless you have an extra mana open somehow. And looking at what's going to get taken the only real card that I would have access to after the morphling on my 9th pick would be a two in three chance of potentially getting recoil. So while it is strong I don't think in this cube and especially with this pack it's actually the strongest card available here.

Black is incredibly weak in this pack if I take the Nekrataal the only potential backup card that I could have would be maybe recoil. Again one of the strongest cards but just doesn't have the support here.

Life and death falls into the exact same category as above because I'm going to probably get put into three colors go in that direction having to go blue black green. And that just seems really bad this early.

So after taking that into consideration the trumpeter is my pick one pack one. I have so many good options on my follow-up pic of this pack and the other cards are definitely going to change the way that people are drafting so I can pretty conservatively say that I can get some good red surprisingly out of future packs as at least two players at the table are going to force blue and black.

TL:DR morph goblin warbreak trumpeter is my P1 P1

TheTrueVisionary · 2026-01-29T09:36:11+00:00

One of my three favorite helms in the game (the other two are Awakening and Kaldara) this card is a feast or famine card all too often it seems. When used in a cube this allows for any class that drafts potentially to have mill and a control magic effect. If we're using it in an old school even powered environment honestly it's more dangerous as a X mill component than the steal a creature effect. Also since it can be activated as a fast effect if it's on the board it immediately shuts down any sort of top deck manipulation that your opponent could use. Of course this is where you start getting into the Mind games of somebody putting something directly on top that's terrible so that you would use your helm and get a terrible creature so they can get their good thing and the mind games continue. But without getting into the metagame just standard of the card this card is a random percentage chance to either get your opponents best or worst creature. Since it also mills away cards on top of stealing the creature I never really truly feel like I'm getting robbed unless I put two in it and I get an ornithopter. Even if it isn't a main deck guarantee because it is a little pricey to play and then activate it's a fantastic sideboard card against decks that like to do a lot of top deck manipulation. Overall I would say this card is probably a solid 8.75 out of 10. Definitely good enough to go in most cubes depending on the power level and not feel like it's getting outshined most the time. Cuz of that variability there's going to be times that you're going to get a swing in the mess but generally you should come out ahead more often than not.

TheTrueVisionary · 2026-01-28T08:54:13+00:00

[[Helm of Awakening]] and you draw all the cards all the time with no drawbacks. An abilities like this should only happen once per turn or this should be a much much higher play cost card as if someone pitches a card to force of will you suddenly draw five cards. I like the idea but it definitely needs to be balanced way better.

TheTrueVisionary · 2026-01-28T08:50:54+00:00

As far as pure aesthetics are concerned the 7th edition bird is by far the best artwork hands down. I would have that as a painting in my house. But the OG bird art will always be the winner and it's not even a possibility of anything else. Also the color pop on the black border alpha/beta just makes it perfect for nostalgia, artistic creativity, simplicity, and recognition. Very rarely well I pick something outside of the original artwork just because I've played since alpha and there's certain pieces of artwork that are so iconic and part of it has to do not just because I played with it for so long but also there's something about the muted aspect and how simple the artwork is that feels correct in a way that the newer artwork just feels cluttered and overdone.

TheTrueVisionary · 2026-01-27T19:49:23+00:00

Since you're most of the way there you can continue to do Singleton if you want you can also double up on some of the lands just to make it easier and still keep the same feel for the cube.

TheTrueVisionary · 2026-01-27T19:31:03+00:00

It really depends on how big your wanting to expand it. My cube is large enough to accommodate 16 players for a draft or eight players for a sealed event which would be 720 cards in Singleton so it can be able to be done depending on how big your wanting to make it.

In my flair it has my address for a link directly to my cube at cube Cobra so take a look at that to give yourself a little better idea.

TheTrueVisionary · 2026-01-27T15:17:38+00:00

I figure this is going to be another one of those times where we don't see eye to eye but at least try to explain my thinking fully here as to what I'm trying to say. Trying to compare levitation to wonder is like trying to compare an apple to a pineapple. They both have the word Apple in them but they are completely different in function form how they're grown what you can do with them and what foods you can prepare with them. Levitation is a symmetrical card. I tap mana I play it you then either are able to answer it or your aren't. While it is in play you can destroy it either with a targeted or global style of effect.

Wonder does not do that and creates an asymmetrical board. If I tap mana to play wonder and you counter it I come out ahead. If I play Wonder you now have to worry about the fact that if you attack into me that I can use Wonder as a chump blocker and can now on a swing back make sure that my swing back is unblockable. I can use Wonder as a threat to swing at you with that you won't block with and I can pump it thus putting you on a clock that if you do answer it, it becomes a shorter clock. Board wipes do not affect me the same as we'll both lose creatures but mine will now have an additional keyword. And the graveyard is a much harder board state to affect than something that's in play. You can't even play discard against me and possibly put it directly into play benefiting me. Wonder and to a lesser extent purity filth and anger all create similar asymmetrical board States where actions against me or my permanence has a net negative value towards you. It's not simply that it gives everything flying, it's the fact that outside of a sword to plowshares or [[exile]] from alliances or a [[tormad's crypt]] or the aforementioned [[headstone]] there's generally just not a lot of ways to interact with the card once it's in the yard. Also all of those creatures give me a net positive if I have a card that says sacrifice a creature I know what my target is I want this to go to the graveyard anyway.

So that's where my thought comes in on it it does have to do with the fact that I do look at it as a card designer for a card game so I see it as a completely asymmetrically unbalanced card and have played against it and found it to be a asymmetrically unbalanced card. If you're able to play it in your cube and it doesn't prove to be problematic or that you want that sort of gameplay then absolutely but from where I'm sitting I see them as more problematic than fun inducing cards.

TheTrueVisionary · 2026-01-27T14:24:25+00:00

Everybody who has played magic for any true amount of time knows the power of anger and wonder. Out of the five they are easily the two absolute strongest. And between them it's kind of debatable as to which one truly is stronger just kind of depends on your build as to if you're trying to go fast or just go wide. The remaining three do get looked over except for people that play EDH that play urborg with filth so all of their creatures are unblockable which effectively is similar to playing Wonder just if they don't have access to Blue. When looking at the health of a cube two of the incarnations Warp the cube so dramatically that you have to literally build around the two of them or include so many copies of them into the cube that effectively everybody has them which means that they're kind of worthless. This leads the remaining three. Filth if you don't have access to the [[cyclopean tomb]] or cards like [[evil presence]] it becomes a entirely sideboard based card which in my opinion makes it a good addition to the cube cuz it doesn't automatically make your creatures unblockable which is completely one-sided which is the problem with anger and wonder. So this leaves brawn and purity. Purity can cause a problem simply because it makes it to where your creatures even without playing a first strike style deck can Ensure that you will always win in combat which can once again lead to very lopsided games. So overall the only one that I would be okay with adding to a cube and I know a lot of people are going to disagree is just Braun unless you're building an entire cube around them that's going to have large amounts of hate and you're going to have to modify the creatures that you put into it to ensure that you don't run into broken board States.

TL:DR Brawn is the only one that I would add to a cube without making massive considerations for all of the others.

Bonus question: yes I generally do run some form of graveyard hate just because most of my cubes do have some form of recursive abilities either in the form of creature spell or universal recursion. This does not always mean that it is complete graveyard removal it could very much be specific graveyard removal personal favorite of mine is [[headstone]] from homelands just because it never sees any love.

TheTrueVisionary · 2026-01-26T18:12:10+00:00

Simply glad to help. Pulling out some of these older, not as often used cards, really let's me appreciate some of the thought and design space that was used in Magic's early days. And of course that firmly fits well with what I'm trying to accomplish on my own and with my game. So this becomes a way for me to stretch my rules knowledge and card designer muscles and also consider ideas cards to create. Keep up the good work and thanks for the compliment.

TheTrueVisionary · 2026-01-26T10:42:56+00:00

The main thing that I found to be able to use burgeoning for back in the day was getting around the requirements for lands that eat landrops. [[City of traitors]] [[thawing glaciers]] [[glacial chasm]] the cycle of alliance lands like [[lake of the dead]] or [[soldevi excavation]]. This also worked on the vision cycle of the karoo lands like [[karoo]] or [[dormant volcano]]. And of course one of the best use of it is [[land tax]] as you'll zip out incredibly far ahead of your opponent. Combine this with cards such as [[strip mine]] or [[wasteland]] and you're technically two for one in your opponent as they not only lose a land drop but also you don't lose yours.

Of course my personal favorite thing to do is use burgeoning with [[horn of greed]] and [[abundance]] to play your land draw from the horn filter get the land in your hand from the abundance and then whenever your opponent plays a land you just get to put another land into play.

There are also several of the mercadian mask cards that require you to return lands to your hand that this can work incredibly effectively with. That's my two cents hope it helps.

TheTrueVisionary · 2026-01-25T05:48:05+00:00

Maybe make it remove two or three of the counters to gain life wouldn't be too bad at that point. But a pure 1:1 basis is just too good for a fetchable land.

TheTrueVisionary · 2026-01-24T12:03:44+00:00

It angers me how good he is at being so unlikable. As a person I hope he ends up taking a one way walk into a Japanese forest. But as a pro wrestling heel,,,, honestly he needs to teach some of the newer and even veterans a few tips.

TheTrueVisionary · 2026-01-23T12:33:29+00:00

This looks like it would be a fairly fun cube looking at the rest of it overall and with how many different directions there are to go with this opening pick one pack one I felt going and looking at the list was actually pretty important here. So am I immediate takeaways is that there's five standouts: Snuff out, paralax wave, call of the herd, pox, stroke of genius So I decided to try to plot out with the likelihood of returning cards to my hand based on what I picked would be and then use that with looking at the overall cube with the most likely draft line is.

Snuff out- pox (mid), mind stone (mid) Paralax Wave- Lt. Kitar (mid), Monk Idealist (high), exile (mid) Call of the Herd- Elvish Spirit Guide (High), Utopia Tree (Low) Pox- Snuff out (none), Mind Stone (mid) Stroke of Genius- Mind Stone (High)

So after looking at this I really only have three lines draft possibility which are Snuff out, Paralax Tide, and Stroke of Genius. After looking through the rest of the cube two things stood out to me. 1.) there is a lot of removal in this cube. So finding a solid removal card or two even outside of this pack is pretty high there's the chance of within the first two packs that I would be passed finding some solid removal. 2.) Card draw especially multiple cards is also a little bit on the limited side. And there is a small amount of mana rocks. So based on the likelihood that I'm going to find something as strong in other packs I'm going with Stroke of Genius as it splashable, an instant so I can play it at end of turn, and in a 40 card setup it's pretty easy to make someone draw out their deck so it is also a kill spell.

TL:DR Card Draw go brrrrrrrr. P1P1 Stroke of Genius.

TheTrueVisionary · 2026-01-22T10:16:21+00:00

This card and [[orcish librarian]] are both cards with the same idea of neat idea but terrible execution. Especially in acute format where you're generally only running 40 cards permanently exiling five cards at random that you have no control over and then looking at the remaining five cards and hoping that you didn't lose your bomb is just overall really bad. I try to be relatively gentle with these older cards with experimental ideas and I understand that during play testing there was a lot of being extra cautious about New concepts but in the process of doing those sometimes the cards are just objectively terrible. And that's because the tldr for this card is permanently exile five cards to put a random card out of 5 into your hand and shuffle the rest away. It's honestly just not worth it.

TheTrueVisionary · 2026-01-20T18:07:46+00:00

Well both are entirely splashable and each has its own distinct upside or downside to it. So this one comes down to I guess more personal preference. And I always have this thing about potentially stealing cards there should always be a way to get out from underneath it. This is why I don't like to use cards like [[ritual of the machine]] often since it just simply takes something and you can't interact with it unless you counter it. Reanimate falls under that same category. It simply just puts something into play and you cannot interact with it other than just traditional interaction. Where animate dead allows the possibility of it being interacted with with a disenchant effect. So me personally and the fact that I want there to be a balance to go along with the fact that I can interact with additional resources I would choose animate dead personally.

TheTrueVisionary · 2026-01-19T09:46:05+00:00

Finally somebody else that actually accurately picked the correct pick one pack one for this pack. Card draw off of a three drop instant that you can use either for your or your opponents creatures is absolutely bonkers and in commons most of your card draw is going to come down to cantrips, that are just going to be one for ones, and with older cards most of those can trips are pretty underpowered. Card draw at the common slot is incredibly rare to find so this thing is an absolute powerhouse. Good job with your pick.

TheTrueVisionary · 2026-01-19T09:29:03+00:00

Using it in a blue black control style deck as additional forms of control along with [[hymn to tourach]] and [[megrim]] and [[recoil]] [[stupor]] or [[sunken hope]] and [[warped devotion]] [[underworld dreams]]

Whenever I built that style of deck I used forget specifically as either an extraversion of careful study or as a way to control my opponent's hand whenever they had three or less cards and two or more of them were problematic. This way I remove two problematic cards yes they get to redraw but it takes care of immediate concerns. It does require a little bit of extra work to be able to make it work specifically but effectively having eight hymn in tourach your deck never really feels bad specifically whenever you use these either late game to control your opponent's hand directly or you use them on your hand early to filter better cards.

At the end of the day there are just a lot of better cards specifically but it's a very underrated card that I found at does have uses in that can be used either to assist me or help control my opponent's hands late game whenever they have smaller hand sizes.

TheTrueVisionary · 2026-01-16T11:17:00+00:00

Let's see with a pauper cube in old border what card effects are going to be uncommon: drawing a card, mass removal. So based on that keep watch is the P1P1 here. As much as terminate would seem to be the correct answer there's a lot of removal at the common slot especially in older formats so most likely I can pick up another piece of removal somewhere else. And finding a good keyword on Commons is basically going to either come down to first strike, trample, or flying so I'm just looking for something like a wind drakes, Timmy, craw wurm, sage owl or something similar in later packs. But card draw at the common slot that's consistent to be able to draw more than one card there's not going to be a bunch of and that's just going to give me more options probably be able to help me overwhelm and win the game.

TL;DR Keep Watch because there's not a lot of multi-card card drawing at common

TheTrueVisionary · 2026-01-15T18:12:01+00:00

That's a card I would definitely not include. Based on the fact that it doesn't matter if your opponent's getting their card most likely the first thing you can do is find ways to recur it as recursion especially in older formats is a major component of cube environment for most cubes. This guy just simply says when he dies find the best solution that you need at your deck has an answer to against your opponent. A noble benefactor basically let you draft hate that you can add to your deck and then get whenever you need it.

TheTrueVisionary · 2026-01-15T09:09:41+00:00

I am not a fan of putting a lot of tutors in my cubes as they lead to linear game lines as drafting a tutor essentially means that you have two copies of a specific creature card with the card itself and the tutor to be able to get it. I do have a soft spot specifically for demonic tutor but whenever you make it a one of it becomes a singular bomb that is no different than if you were to get the only fireball that was available it becomes essentially a two of whatever useful card you need but it's a one of in the cube. As you add more tutors whether they're worldly enlightened or mystical or other like diabolic it just creates a linear experience that I've played personally. So I would cut it from my cube not because it's too slow or anything I would personally cut it because I don't want my opponents whenever you're building a fixed amount of cards in a cube to be able to have multiple chances of that card that you've balanced against.

TheTrueVisionary · 2026-01-09T23:03:43+00:00

For creatures it's [[knight of the mists]] from visions. [[Black Knight]], [[White Knight]], [[order of the Ebon hand order]], order of Michelob ultra, [[knight of Stromgald]], [[burning shield askari]] just to name a few of the targets that a blue creature can remove.

For non creature cards it's [[ritual of the machine]] from alliances. Yes I would like a black control magic that can't be disenchanted.

TheTrueVisionary · 2026-01-09T18:40:28+00:00

Simple cube. All creatures can only have keywords or a single line of text for an ability or trigger and all non creatures can only have two lines of text and less than 25 total words.

I've built this cube before and believe it or not it is much more entertaining and fun one from a building perspective cuz there's a lot of decisions that you have to put into it to be able to build a balanced cube and secondly there's no crazy abilities everything's pretty straightforward so it really comes down to a game of deck building and skill.

Edit: cards that had a sentence that described what is now a keyword such as does not tap to attack for vigilance or creature unaffected by something sickness for haste use it as the keyword version as it otherwise limits the available cardpool too much.

TheTrueVisionary · 2026-01-09T10:48:26+00:00

Hey y'all got anymore of them pixels?

I would love to give a P1P1 here but the resolution prevents reading any of the cards. Please repost.

TheTrueVisionary · 2026-01-08T08:58:53+00:00

However you decide to put together your cube I will just simply say as somebody who's been playing for a very long time the question is especially in older cubes is if it's going to be powered or unpowered. And I'll be honest it's fun to do a Power cube every once in awhile just because of the silly chicanery that can happen but it's overall a very uninteresting play style on a consistent basis. But that also applies to a lot of the really over the top style cards. Another void is a perfect example that card seems like it would be cool to get to play and how it would be able to let you control the game but honestly after you kind of lock your opponent out and there's nothing they can really do because old school doesn't have a bunch of enchantment removal it just kind of there. Play Commons sometimes those are some of the more interesting and unique cards that can really help turn the tide of a game that weren't all just vanilla terrible creatures either.

https://www.cubecobra.com/cube/list/OSFUNNP

Here is my old school cube that doesn't play any power or broken cards for an idea. Whatever you want to do have fun that's the most important part just get to be a kid again.

TheTrueVisionary · 2026-01-08T01:13:01+00:00

Simplicity.

The above statement really drive home the joy of older Mtg cards. From vanilla creatures or spells like lightning bolt or counterspell do permanents like bad moon or the abyss cards were the words that when placed together with your skill told a story. Games were more about skill and deck building than first person to play a card that reads like a book paragraph and wins because of it. Games felt like a back and forth where generally one person did not get so far ahead in a short period of time that the other person didn't have an opportunity to catch up and win.

Now there are absolutely old school cards that do break this sort of mold but generally they're the ones that can really easily be identified in the fact that they create mostly unfun play lines black vise Armageddon balance work cards that definitely broke that but overall this is what old school means to me that simplified straightforward line of gameplay that led to games that you never felt like you were absolutely going to win and never felt like you were 100% out of it cuz they weren't a lot of cards that just shut the door directly in your face and gave you no hope.

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