Set Prospective
Foundations
This article is part of our community-sourced Set Prospective series. We survey Cube designers before the set’s official release to document their first impressions of new cards.
Magic Foundations was heralded as a fresh start for Magic’s Standard ecosystem and the new-to-Magic experience. As a part of this strategy, the set includes evergreen Magic flavor, classic reprints, and 139 of brand-new cards that reinforce pillars of the Magic game engine. This is as close as we’ve had to a classic Core set in years — so how does Core compare in Cube?
Results
Despite most of the set being reprints, Foundations is a surprising hit among cube curators. Of our 182 respondents, the median cubist is testing 6 FDN cards, assigning a median rating of 6.2, and giving a median of 1 card a high rating (above 7.75). Foundations attracted slightly less total cube attention than MKM or OTJ, but if the enthusiasm for its 139 cards were scaled up to a full-size set, Foundations would outscore every other Standard set this year. To wit, one person is even testing 88 cards, which might be the largest percent since DarthPinkHippo took CLB by storm.
| Card | Testers▼ | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| Searslicer Goblin | 36.8% | 6.9 |
| Alesha, Who Laughs at Fate | 28.6% | 6.8 |
| Mischievous Mystic | 26.4% | 6.8 |
| Kellan, Planar Trailblazer | 25.8% | 6.8 |
| Sun-Blessed Healer | 24.2% | 6.5 |
| Sphinx of Forgotten Lore | 23.6% | 6.2 |
| Kiora, the Rising Tide | 20.3% | 6.2 |
| Goblin Surprise | 17.6% | 7.2 |
| Celestial Armor | 15.9% | 6.1 |
| Scrawling Crawler | 15.4% | 6.1 |
| Raise the Past | 13.7% | 5.1 |
| Faebloom Trick | 13.7% | 6.6 |
| Spinner of Souls | 13.2% | 5.6 |
| Firespitter Whelp | 13.2% | 5.9 |
| High Fae Trickster | 13.2% | 6.0 |
| Skyknight Squire | 13.2% | 6.2 |
| Vampire Gourmand | 12.6% | 5.7 |
| Refute | 12.6% | 6.3 |
| Koma, World-Eater | 12.1% | 6.1 |
| Infestation Sage | 11.5% | 5.1 |
| Drake Hatcher | 11.5% | 5.7 |
| Kykar, Zephyr Awakener | 11.0% | 5.8 |
| Mossborn Hydra | 10.4% | 5.8 |
| Anthem of Champions | 10.4% | 6.0 |
| Elementalist Adept | 9.9% | 7.0 |
| Joust Through | 9.9% | 6.2 |
| Abyssal Harvester | 9.3% | 5.4 |
| Vengeful Bloodwitch | 9.3% | 6.3 |
| Revenge of the Rats | 9.3% | 6.5 |
| Zul Ashur, Lich Lord | 8.8% | 7.3 |
| Dragon Trainer | 8.2% | 5.1 |
| Helpful Hunter | 8.2% | 5.6 |
| Bushwhack | 7.7% | 8.4 |
| Cephalid Inkmage | 7.7% | 6.1 |
| Sire of Seven Deaths | 7.1% | 6.6 |
| Archmage of Runes | 6.6% | 6.1 |
| Dreadwing Scavenger | 6.6% | 6.2 |
| Dropkick Bomber | 6.6% | 6.0 |
| Inspiring Paladin | 6.0% | 5.7 |
| Homunculus Horde | 5.5% | 5.5 |
| High-Society Hunter | 5.5% | 6.0 |
| Infernal Vessel | 5.5% | 5.2 |
| Kaito, Cunning Infiltrator | 5.5% | 5.2 |
| Elvish Regrower | 5.5% | 6.4 |
| Billowing Shriekmass | 4.9% | 5.9 |
| Sylvan Scavenging | 4.9% | 6.5 |
| Ambush Wolf | 4.9% | 6.2 |
| Arbiter of Woe | 4.9% | 5.3 |
| Dauntless Veteran | 4.9% | 5.1 |
| Ashroot Animist | 4.9% | 5.7 |
| Treetop Snarespinner | 4.4% | 7.2 |
| Stab | 4.4% | 7.2 |
| Needletooth Pack | 4.4% | 5.8 |
| Felling Blow | 4.4% | 7.1 |
| Electroduplicate | 4.4% | 4.6 |
| Leyline Axe | 4.4% | 5.3 |
| Nine-Lives Familiar | 4.4% | 6.9 |
| Felidar Savior | 3.8% | 4.3 |
| Cackling Prowler | 3.8% | 6.2 |
| Strix Lookout | 3.8% | 5.1 |
| Goblin Negotiation | 3.8% | 5.4 |
| Guarded Heir | 3.8% | 6.2 |
| Wardens of the Cycle | 3.8% | 4.7 |
| Elfsworn Giant | 3.8% | 5.9 |
| Crackling Cyclops | 3.8% | 4.1 |
| Rite of the Dragoncaller | 3.8% | 4.6 |
| Inspiration from Beyond | 3.8% | 6.0 |
| Perforating Artist | 3.8% | 6.3 |
Single Card Discussion
Found Fortunes
Roughly four Foundations cards are seeing widespead early adoption in Cube. The most popular of them is raiding over a third of our respondents’ cubes, bringing the combat-centric approachability of one of Magic’s cleanest keywords in a high-power package.
Slightly below Searslicer Goblin fall a trio of familiar patterns: a Rabblemaster-style snowballing attacker, a color- and enabler-shifted Young Pyromancer, and a Jackal Pup with upside. All three are clean, grokkably powerful designs that are open-ended enough to fit a wide variety of cubes.
Emphasis on clean: almost all the open-ended comments on our survey lauded the elegance of Foundations. All this praise might be the natural consequence of sampling the most-terminally-online segment of the most-enfranchised format of Magic about the first Core set in years, of course. Even so, Foundations is soothing the burnout that pervades the Cube zeitgeist.
“[The] simplicity of the set says: the fundamentals of Magic are amazing.”
Other Hits and Reprints
Goblin Surprise is FDN’s most popular common card, though rarity-restricted cubists should make a thorough search to take advantage of down-shifted reprints.
Meanwhile, cubists of all stripes have plenty of other reasons to scour the reprint list: newly affordable hits, updated rules text, new art and frame treatments, or all of the above!
Finally, I’d be remiss not to mention the Foundations Starter Collection. With about 270 non-basic cards in the set, it’s a great model for a beginner-friendly, budget-friendly cube for 2-4 players. Whether you want to copy-paste it into CubeCobra and modify it, or play it right out of the box at your LGS, I hope this particular iteration of Foundations introduces more folks to Cube!
Thanks, as always, to all our respondents. May your games of Magic be ones of depth and elegance.
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