I didn’t try to optimize THAT play, but it looks like I did.

8-0 day 1 in Brussels Carried by my teammates

I was told to put Formidable Speaker in there, but it’s « cards that made me » and well, I made that one.

Le 8 février prochain, c'est la sixième édition du Phœnix Limited Championship dans le meilleur set de l'année (je connais pas les suivants mais je veux rien savoir). Et bien évidemment j'y serai ! Pour s'inscrire, ça se passe ici : pots.lydia.me/collect/phoe...

Oh, and a few bonus cards (reprints with gorgeous new arts and flavor texts!) for those who did the whole ride:

25. Vivi Ornitier And yeah, surprise! I saved the best and most controversial pick for last. Vivi Ornitier kinda destroyed standard, but I had a lot of fun in the process, and most importantly I've been impressed with how good it feels to cube with!

24. Wan Shi Tong, All-Knowing You may be familiar with a different owl, and I'm definitely trying both of them out in my cube, but as a blue Glorybringer of sorts with a few cute synergies (Brainstorm, Vendilion Clique...), All-Knowing was particularly appealing to me.

... but unfortunately not enough time to form a thorough opinion on them, so I'll just go with the two that hit me the hardest. 23. Abandon Attachments ... is the best Tormenting Voice effect yet, and beautifully depicts a turning point in the story.

22. Nia, Skysail Storyteller To the horror and dismay of my friend VladoTheImpaled, I'm going to include a card with the Hero creature type on this list. Where does that even come from? Anyway, Nia is a nice 2-drop that pushes one of the least stupid red themes and another cubable 3-color card.

21. Belion, the Parched I have no idea why, people tend to call this guy a different name. Hydro-something? Anyway, here's Belion, he's my emotional support sideboard slot for control match-ups in standard, and he's just thirsty.

20. Icetill Explorer Insects unite, evidently (Grist, the Hunger tide is happy). Icetill Explorer pushes a kind of deck that is not really my style, but it does it so well that I had to acknowledge it. "Lands" in cube needs a lot of interlocking pieces and Icetill Had All These provides them all.

19. Gene Pollinator Similar to Aetherdrift, Edge of Eternities is another "concept" set that messes with Magic's fantasy boundaries. However, I did like that limited format, and when I led the Cosmos Heavyplay meeting on the GW archetype, little Gene was the biggest card on any of my slides.

18. Hildibrand Manderville If you don't know it, just type "Hildibrand Manderville theme" in a search engine and take a listen. I went from "who the hell is this dude" to loving the character in a matter of minutes. And he's a serviceable token lord too.

17. Shelinda, Yevon Acolyte Here comes the second Vizier! Shelinda is even better than Warden of the Grove. It's just a great 2-drop for any GW deck in my cube, whether you're trying to go off with Kitchen Finks or with +1/+1 counters synergies.

16. Gau, Feral Youth Funnily enough, most of what I liked from Final Fantasy came from the Commander product (that, as a cube lover, I always sift through sooner or later). Gau is a little snowbally, but not more than, say, Luminarch Aspirant, and the growing body comes with an interesting quirk.

15. Quantum Riddler And it doesn't stop there... I had to mention the most infamous card of the bunch. I'm going to argue here that Riddler gets a bad rep: it's actually not busted, but it shines when surrounded by OTHER, busted cards that let you empty your hand. It's all Frog's fault, basically.

14. Consult the Star Charts 2025 shall be remembered as the year when card draw reclaimed its rightful place in the universe. We, tasteful blue mages, have been generously fed.

13. White Auracite Into Final Fantasy (worst set of the year... yet) we go. As someone who never played an FF game, that mess of narratives and obscure references was impossible to get into. However, with its beautiful Magali art and enjoyable gameplay as a top common, White Auracite earns a spot.

12. Rakshasa's Bargain Aaaand we finally round out Tarkir: Dragonstorm, a set I barely touched in limited, with another cube banger. 3-color cards are notoriously hard to include, so the hybrid nature of this one is a boon, considering it's not even bad at 4 mana!

11. Warden of the Grove The first "Vizier of Remedies" in this list. Yes, that's a relevant role: I have a well-known (at least in France) love for Persist combos. Being playable on its own as a beefy body, Warden of the Grove was the Arwen, Weaver of Hope upgrade I needed.

10. Stadium Headliner My taste in red early drops is... finnicky. I don't want them to snowball too fast and I look for a kind of subtlety that, historically, isn't red's forte. Headliner hits reasonably hard, acts as a token enabler and as a removal spell for big blockers in a pinch.

9. Heritage Reclamation Another slept-on cube card. Naturalize upgrades always catch my eye and Heritage Reclamation doubles as graveyard hate while cycling. As a disenchant effect, it's the new state of the art.

8. Molten Exhale This is a very personal favorite, as I imagine few people think much of Molten Exhale... but what can I say, the 10-year old me who loved dragons is still in here somewhere. Also, my cube happens to reward instant speed AND the 4th point of damage.

7. Winternight Stories I love a card that gives you many options with little text, and the discard part of Winternight Stories is at the level of Raffine's connive. Even with a creature in hand, you often debate getting rid of two cards... including, sometimes, the creature itself!

6. Elspeth, Storm Slayer I've always been a big Elspeth fan and her last incarnation didn't disappoint: probably the best 5-mana PW since T5feri. She closes out standard games incredibly fast, is a great token payoff for cube and the blue flare on her alt art is just gorgeous.

5. Brightglass Gearhulk This is a card I glanced past at first, being generally wary of these casting costs. It found its way into my cube since then, and WOW was it better than I thought. You can search for Saga, Scales, combo pieces like Luxior, Animation Module... and the body commands respect.

4. Quag Feast Legacy cube-playable removal is hard to find, but I was in for another one that could kill planeswalkers for cheap. The mill, the vehicle clause and the small tension against graveyard hate are all bonuses in my book.

3. Gastal Raider Neither a limited, constructed or cube card, really; I just love the pose, the atmosphere, the general Mad Max feeling. And playing Magic, win or lose, usually sates my hunger too.

2. Stock Up Now that's another breed of card. This thread is going to mix limited, constructed and (mostly) cube cards and Stock Up... well, it's everything at once. I could already smell power when I first read it, but underestimated how good it would feel. Also, the flavor is top-notch!