Set Prospective
Warhammer 40,000
This article is one of our set prospectives, a series in which we survey the Cube community about the cards they intend to play in their cubes from a particular set. Our survey is conducted between the set’s full-spoiler and official release and is meant to measure and document Cube designers’ first impressions of new cards.
Magic’s biggest crossover release yet, the Warhammer 40,000 Commander decks bring 168 new cards to the Cube designer’s palette. Supplemental products tend to get less attention in from the Cube design community, possibly due to cards not getting visibility in competitive or Constructed formats, or being tailored to multiplayer games. Warhammer 40K is a bit of an exception and our survey received almost 100 responses.
Designers responding to the survey are giving a median number of 4 cards a try, with one designer even testing 29 new cards!
| Card | Testers▼ | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| Old One Eye | 49.3% | 7.3 |
| Triarch Praetorian | 44.0% | 5.9 |
| Mawloc | 36.0% | 6.8 |
| Necron Deathmark | 33.3% | 6.2 |
| Chaos Defiler | 33.3% | 7.9 |
| Night Scythe | 26.7% | 5.6 |
| Sicarian Infiltrator | 24.0% | 5.5 |
| Biophagus | 18.7% | 5.3 |
| Royal Warden | 17.3% | 5.5 |
| Hormagaunt Horde | 14.7% | 4.1 |
| Primaris Eliminator | 12.0% | 5.3 |
| Pink Horror | 10.7% | 5.9 |
| Noise Marine | 10.7% | 6.4 |
| Sanguinary Priest | 9.3% | 6.2 |
| Zephyrim | 8.0% | 4.1 |
| Triumph of Saint Katherine | 8.0% | 5.7 |
The key to the relative success of the set seems to come down to power level and simplicity of a number of the cards. While many supplemental sets lean hard into a particular mechanical theme, Warhammer 40,000 sports many top-down designs complete with flavor words and flexible mechanics.
The most-tested cards, Old One Eye and Triarch Praetorian, offer a tremendous amount of value to players. They will synergize favorably with other cube effects, but don’t need much support to be a value-add for a cube player. Mawloc comes close behind, a scalable and interactive threat that is unlike many other 
available to Cube designers.