Aug 23, 2026 · 1 hr 1 min · 10 segments
In this episode of Powerful Nothing, Dan and James take a look at some underrated and underplayed cube cards, and discuss why they think you should give them a go in your own cubes!! Card Gallery…
Yeah, so the first one I've gone for is Stridehanger Automaton.
This is three generic mana for a 1-4 artifact creature construct.
It says Fopters you control get plus 1 plus 1, and if one or more artifact tokens would be created under your control, those tokens plus an additional 1-1 colorless Fopter artifact creature token with flying are created instead.
So this is, I think, quite an interesting little card because on first reading you think, oh, it's a three mana artifact.
It makes popters when you make artifact tokens.
It's probably just for the artifact deck, right? For your classic Mistress Workshop-y, Talarian Academy, whatever power level cube you might be at.
Artifact deck.
I think it's actually a lot broader than that, because it specifically cares about artifact tokens.
If you think about things like blood, things like food, things like treasure, clues, it feels like every other set at this point, we just have one of these as a theme.
And that means... sort of without really committing to building around this card in your cube, you'll have enough cards in there that you can probably make it work.
And that makes it, in the draft, a really fun little build-around.
I think it's kind of cool when you have build-around cards where... you can build around it in different ways in the same cube, right? It's not like every deck running Stride Hangar Automaton is going to look the same.
You might be triggering it with...
Yeah, you might have it in an artifact deck with, like, Chromehost Seed Shark and Third Path Iconoclast, and this is how you're triggering it.
But you also might have it in, like, a deck that makes loads of food or treasure or blood.
You could have, like, a red-black deck with a bunch of treasure.
For example, this can be amazing there.
Um...
We've seen food as a theme work in a bunch of cubes.
This is amazing in the food deck.
You just get a 2-2 flyer with all of your food.
That's really, really powerful.
Yeah, I like it when you get build-arounds where they actually have a broad range of decks where you can make them work.
But it's not free, right? You do have to change your pick order a lot when you have this card to try and make it work.
Yeah, so the first one I've gone for is Stridehanger Automaton.
This is three generic mana for a 1-4 artifact creature construct.
It says Fopters you control get plus 1 plus 1, and if one or more artifact tokens would be created under your control, those tokens plus an additional 1-1 colorless Fopter artifact creature token with flying are created instead.
So this is, I think, quite an interesting little card because on first reading you think, oh, it's a three mana artifact.
It makes popters when you make artifact tokens.
It's probably just for the artifact deck, right? For your classic Mistress Workshop-y, Talarian Academy, whatever power level cube you might be at.
Artifact deck.
I think it's actually a lot broader than that, because it specifically cares about artifact tokens.
If you think about things like blood, things like food, things like treasure, clues, it feels like every other set at this point, we just have one of these as a theme.
And that means... sort of without really committing to building around this card in your cube, you'll have enough cards in there that you can probably make it work.
And that makes it, in the draft, a really fun little build-around.
I think it's kind of cool when you have build-around cards where... you can build around it in different ways in the same cube, right? It's not like every deck running Stride Hangar Automaton is going to look the same.
You might be triggering it with...
Yeah, you might have it in an artifact deck with, like, Chromehost Seed Shark and Third Path Iconoclast, and this is how you're triggering it.
But you also might have it in, like, a deck that makes loads of food or treasure or blood.
You could have, like, a red-black deck with a bunch of treasure.
For example, this can be amazing there.
Um...
We've seen food as a theme work in a bunch of cubes.
This is amazing in the food deck.
You just get a 2-2 flyer with all of your food.
That's really, really powerful.
Yeah, I like it when you get build-arounds where they actually have a broad range of decks where you can make them work.
But it's not free, right? You do have to change your pick order a lot when you have this card to try and make it work.
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