I'm an avid lover of vintage cube. My friends also love to cube, so we decided to make a custom cube with cards we designed. We call it the "Busted Cube", since the power level of all the cards is through the roof. As a project, we decided to design The Power 15 - 3 noncreature cards of each color that are incredibly powerful. We designed the cards to be on the same power level as Ancestrall Recall, Mana Drain, and Time Walk, which are the blue ones.
I'd love to get some feedback on how these cards balance within each other. I know these cards are broken. I simply want to know if any of them are unpowered/overpowered relative to the average power of all of them.
Infernal Blossoming 1R
Instant
Infernal Blossoming deals 6 damage to target creature or player.
Chaotic Outburst 1R
Instant
Chaotic Outburst deals 3 damage to target creature or player.
Cascade, cascade
Emotive Enthrallment R
Instant
Gain control of target creature or artifact until the end of turn. Untap it, and if it's a creature, it gains haste until the end of turn. At the end of turn, you may sacrifice that permanent.
Infernal Blossoming feels to be just about the right power level, and we haven't seen much of Emotive Enthrallment. We know that Chaotic Outburst is too busted - you always hit moxen and other stupid things. Can anyone think of a way to tone it down?
Starcrystal Cage 1W
Enchantment
When Starcrystal Cage enters the battlefield, exile target permanent until Starcrystal Cage leaves the battlefield.
2W: Exile Starcrystal Cage, then return it to the battlefield under its owner's control.
Equilibrium Decree 1WW
Enchantment
Whenever Equilibrium Decree enters the battlefield or at the beginning of your upkeep, destroy target permanent you don't control and target permanent you do control.
Relic of Rallatra W
Enchantment
At the beginning of your upkeep, choose one --
- Create a 1/1 white Soldier creature token.
- You gain 3 life.
- Creatures you control get +1/+1 until your next turn.
Since there's an enchantment subtheme in the cube, we decided to make these enchantments. It's hard to evaluate them because of this, but Equilibrium Decree has been back-breaking many times. Overall I think these cards are the most underpowered.
Oath of Judas B
Sorcery
Target opponent reveals his or her hand, and then you and that player each secretly name a card from it. That player discards those cards.
Mephistopholean Ritual 1B
Sorcery
Search all libraries, hands, and graveyards for a card and exile it face down. For as long as that card remains exiled, you may look at it, you may play it, and you may spend mana as though it were mana of any type to play it. Shuffle all libraries searched this way.
We all love Mind Twist, so we decided to keep it as one of the power. Mephistopholean Ritual is insane, and might be too overpowered. We haven't seen much of Oath of Judas, but it has taken 2 lands and ended the game essentially on turn 1 before.
Gift of Yggdrasil 1G
Sorcery
Search your library for two lands and put them onto the battlefield tapped. Then shuffle your library.
Anthogenesis2GG
Instant
Create a 1/1 green Saproling creature token for each permanent you control.
Provenance Refuge G
Enchantment
At the beginning of your upkeep, choose one --
- Create a 1/1 green Elf creature token with haste and "T: Add G to your mana pool".
- Until your next turn, whenever a player casts a creature spell, draw a card.
We are quite happy with the power level of the Green power.
My Cubes - The Busted Cube. A fully functional, almost 100% custom cube. The project started out by asking "What if other colors got cards on the power level of Mana Drain,Ancestral Recall, and Time Walk?" Draft and enjoy!
Timetwister simply can't stand your impudence! How could you possibly dethrone it from its rightful status as a power card? And you replaced with a mere jumped-up Counterspell at that! There is an excellent reason why Timetwister is THE P9 card for combo decks.
Joking aside, while Ancestral Recall and Time Walk perform the same functions as lesser cards for a much lower cost, Timetwister, alongside Black Lotus, are the only P9 members with a unique text box; that is, no other cards do the same things as them in the exact same way. The key element connecting the entire P9 is a low mana cost, so a mana-intensive addition like Starcrystal Cage should be right out.
Chaotic Outburst's only problem is that it lacks that vintage feel to it. I think it's important that the card feel like power cards instead of simply being strong.
Personally, I'd go in a different direction instead of making a second direct damage spell that competes with Infernal Blossoming.
Chaotic Outburst
Sorcery
Add to your mana pool.
Cascade.
It's the perfect "mid-size" ritual between Black Ritual and Seething Song and potentially grants you a mox for an additional mana.
Or... you can take it in the opposite direction and make this a super cascade card.
Chaotic Outburst
Sorcery
Cascade X times.
Boom. This becomes a reverse Mind-twist card (that puts random permanents into play instead of ripping random cards from the hand) that is actually useful with high mana.
It's not a rule, but it is preferable to post cards as text for ease of readability and for those who cannot load images for whatever reason. You can post images too, if you choose.
This offering is going to be hard to parse. I spend a lot of time considering card balance, your goal is to make cards that are inherently overpowered, but to balance them against each other and against the most brokenly overpowered real cards in Magic. These are certainly very powerful.
Infernal Blossoming does feel like something that might have gotten printed in Alpha as "the rare lightning bolt"
Chaotic Offering is incredibly powerful. If you feel that it is too powerful, and want to avoid Moxen, drop cascade and spell out a similar effect that doesn't hit Moxen.
"~ deals 3 damage to target creature or player. Reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal two cards with converted mana cost 1. Cast those cards without paying their mana costs, and put the rest on the bottom of your library in any order."
It's wordy, but it's a direct way to avoid all 0-cost cards while otherwise hitting the same cards that it does now.
Starcrystal Cage is devastatingly strong, but given the environment I suppose it might work? It's going to nail mana sources most of all, if you play first you can eat your opponent's first land, essentially a white Sinkhole.
Provenance Refuge is certainly strong, but I have a very hard time judging it, so I wont.
Mephistopholean Ritual is certainly an upgrade over Demonic Tutor, does Demonic Tutor really not live up in your power environment?. It needs a shuffle clause to account for viewing the libraries. This card does everything, I'd say it's too powerful, even sitting next to things like Time Walk and Balance. It's a Demonic Tutor and a Praetor's Grasp. It's also a Thoughtseize, plus lets you play the card you seize. It's also a Regrowth. It' also a Memory Plunder (sort of). And on top of all those options, you get to ignore color requirements. And even more than just having all those options, you don't need to decide which one you want to use until you're already looking at every card in the game. I think the only downside is that it would take so long to search all those zones.
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I'm an avid lover of vintage cube. My friends also love to cube, so we decided to make a custom cube with cards we designed. We call it the "Busted Cube", since the power level of all the cards is through the roof. As a project, we decided to design The Power 15 - 3 noncreature cards of each color that are incredibly powerful. We designed the cards to be on the same power level as Ancestrall Recall, Mana Drain, and Time Walk, which are the blue ones.
I'd love to get some feedback on how these cards balance within each other. I know these cards are broken. I simply want to know if any of them are unpowered/overpowered relative to the average power of all of them.
Infernal Blossoming 1R
Instant
Infernal Blossoming deals 6 damage to target creature or player.
Chaotic Outburst 1R
Instant
Chaotic Outburst deals 3 damage to target creature or player.
Cascade, cascade
Emotive Enthrallment R
Instant
Gain control of target creature or artifact until the end of turn. Untap it, and if it's a creature, it gains haste until the end of turn. At the end of turn, you may sacrifice that permanent.
Infernal Blossoming feels to be just about the right power level, and we haven't seen much of Emotive Enthrallment. We know that Chaotic Outburst is too busted - you always hit moxen and other stupid things. Can anyone think of a way to tone it down?
Starcrystal Cage 1W
Enchantment
When Starcrystal Cage enters the battlefield, exile target permanent until Starcrystal Cage leaves the battlefield.
2W: Exile Starcrystal Cage, then return it to the battlefield under its owner's control.
Equilibrium Decree 1WW
Enchantment
Whenever Equilibrium Decree enters the battlefield or at the beginning of your upkeep, destroy target permanent you don't control and target permanent you do control.
Relic of Rallatra W
Enchantment
At the beginning of your upkeep, choose one --
- Create a 1/1 white Soldier creature token.
- You gain 3 life.
- Creatures you control get +1/+1 until your next turn.
Since there's an enchantment subtheme in the cube, we decided to make these enchantments. It's hard to evaluate them because of this, but Equilibrium Decree has been back-breaking many times. Overall I think these cards are the most underpowered.
Oath of Judas B
Sorcery
Target opponent reveals his or her hand, and then you and that player each secretly name a card from it. That player discards those cards.
Mephistopholean Ritual 1B
Sorcery
Search all libraries, hands, and graveyards for a card and exile it face down. For as long as that card remains exiled, you may look at it, you may play it, and you may spend mana as though it were mana of any type to play it. Shuffle all libraries searched this way.
Mind Twist
We all love Mind Twist, so we decided to keep it as one of the power. Mephistopholean Ritual is insane, and might be too overpowered. We haven't seen much of Oath of Judas, but it has taken 2 lands and ended the game essentially on turn 1 before.
Gift of Yggdrasil 1G
Sorcery
Search your library for two lands and put them onto the battlefield tapped. Then shuffle your library.
Anthogenesis2GG
Instant
Create a 1/1 green Saproling creature token for each permanent you control.
Provenance Refuge G
Enchantment
At the beginning of your upkeep, choose one --
- Create a 1/1 green Elf creature token with haste and "T: Add G to your mana pool".
- Until your next turn, whenever a player casts a creature spell, draw a card.
We are quite happy with the power level of the Green power.
The blue ones are Mana Drain, Ancestrall Recall, and Time Walk.
What do you guys think of the power level of these cards relative to the overall power level of all 15? I've included some pictures for reference!
Regular 450 unpowered cube (with some custom cards) - 450 Unpowered
Joking aside, while Ancestral Recall and Time Walk perform the same functions as lesser cards for a much lower cost, Timetwister, alongside Black Lotus, are the only P9 members with a unique text box; that is, no other cards do the same things as them in the exact same way. The key element connecting the entire P9 is a low mana cost, so a mana-intensive addition like Starcrystal Cage should be right out.
Chaotic Outburst's only problem is that it lacks that vintage feel to it. I think it's important that the card feel like power cards instead of simply being strong.
Chaotic Outburst
Sorcery
Add to your mana pool.
Cascade.
It's the perfect "mid-size" ritual between Black Ritual and Seething Song and potentially grants you a mox for an additional mana.
Or... you can take it in the opposite direction and make this a super cascade card.
Chaotic Outburst
Sorcery
Cascade X times.
Boom. This becomes a reverse Mind-twist card (that puts random permanents into play instead of ripping random cards from the hand) that is actually useful with high mana.
This offering is going to be hard to parse. I spend a lot of time considering card balance, your goal is to make cards that are inherently overpowered, but to balance them against each other and against the most brokenly overpowered real cards in Magic. These are certainly very powerful.
Infernal Blossoming does feel like something that might have gotten printed in Alpha as "the rare lightning bolt"
Chaotic Offering is incredibly powerful. If you feel that it is too powerful, and want to avoid Moxen, drop cascade and spell out a similar effect that doesn't hit Moxen.
"~ deals 3 damage to target creature or player. Reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal two cards with converted mana cost 1. Cast those cards without paying their mana costs, and put the rest on the bottom of your library in any order."
It's wordy, but it's a direct way to avoid all 0-cost cards while otherwise hitting the same cards that it does now.
Starcrystal Cage is devastatingly strong, but given the environment I suppose it might work? It's going to nail mana sources most of all, if you play first you can eat your opponent's first land, essentially a white Sinkhole.
Provenance Refuge is certainly strong, but I have a very hard time judging it, so I wont.
Mephistopholean Ritual is certainly an upgrade over Demonic Tutor, does Demonic Tutor really not live up in your power environment?. It needs a shuffle clause to account for viewing the libraries. This card does everything, I'd say it's too powerful, even sitting next to things like Time Walk and Balance. It's a Demonic Tutor and a Praetor's Grasp. It's also a Thoughtseize, plus lets you play the card you seize. It's also a Regrowth. It' also a Memory Plunder (sort of). And on top of all those options, you get to ignore color requirements. And even more than just having all those options, you don't need to decide which one you want to use until you're already looking at every card in the game. I think the only downside is that it would take so long to search all those zones.