Usman The Rad
@usmantherad
usmantherad.com I've been writing and podcasting about cube since 2010. I'm also one of the people involved with developing the MTGO cubes and thepaupercube.com. linktr.ee/usmantherad
Limited absurd card != good in cube, but this is... Kiora Bests the Sea God-tier (73%.) Despite the lack of hype, in testing, she was absurd and rated her highly in my cube article about Marvel and how having flash really changes the game. Don't get left behind. usmantherad.com/2026/06/15/m...
I didn't get canned for those reasons (I mainly was bc my articles felt like I was at the bottom of the totem pole, like one of my cube reviews being pushed back *3 weeks*.) When I'd go back, it always seemed so weird how they'd have SEO as one of the tags for they'd use for their articles.
Had this as my cube's art for Reanimate (many many many many years before the Secret Lair) and it's likely my favorite. Piece of mind's a close one.
Since I'm done with the TMNT review and procrastiating making updates to my regular cube list, I had some thoughts on the roguelike cube idea that premiered at CubeCon 2025. The concept was to be something like a momir cube like in @rhysticstudies.bsky.social's video, drafting cards like this:
I wonder if this card's ability to be rainbow mana for creatures (which IIRC is one of the few ways to do so outside of a strict creature type or taps for colorless mana, which Ancient Ziggurat can't) would be getting more attention in cube if it wasn't for the token ability costing a bazillion mana
I haven't written something this long in a while. It'll be up tomorrow morning. :)
This was the deck, overall liked it and the rod was nice when I saw it in play when watching the player play the deck :)
After many many many many many attempts, I finally got a 7-0 in the Standard Metagame Challenge with UW flash deck that whooped me in one of the earlier runs. UW flash is one of my favorite archetypes (also in cube) so it was nice to get there with this. :)
Earlier this week in a cube draft when trying new cards out, I was the 7th drafter, so I sat in and intentionally didn't take Avatar/TMNT/new Lorwyn cards out so others could have more reps with the nstuf stuff. So I assembled this combo. It was great. :) (Also Wilderness Rec slaps in cube.)
Another W. Usually I took Booster Tutor highly when I had it back in the day but it was well before the FIRE years. Ofc gets better if you have good blue fixing.
This article talking about making #mtgcube changes was started by a @ryanoverdrive.bsky.social tweet from 2016. The article's been in the works for a while. I wanted to finish before CC, as I have an idea brewing for my one - my 60th cube design article. usmantherad.substack.com/p/going-thro...
I posted this as a response, since on my podcast I mentioned that the SM set was a flop era, and another podcast said that our podcast was saying UB was bad:
magic.wizards.com/en/news/mtg-... Some pretty interesting adds for the arena cubes.