MTG Salvation

That's much better, and it's a really sweet design. If I was supporting the Grixis artifact deck, I'd play that card for sure.

Blackmailer BB
Creature -- Prolly not a zombie for flavor
When ~ enters the battlefield, target player reveals three cards from his or her hand and you choose one of them. That player discards that card.
2/1


Black really needs better disruption creatures...

Quote from wtwlf123

That's much better, and it's a really sweet design. If I was supporting the Grixis artifact deck, I'd play that card for sure.

Thanks! It would be better in blue, but blue has Tolarian Academy already. Even if you are only UB or just U, Urabrask's Forge would be still ok, since producing 2 is still valuable on a land without a major drawback.

Quote from Retra

Blackmailer BB
Creature -- Prolly not a zombie for flavor
When ~ enters the battlefield, target player reveals three cards from his or her hand and you choose one of them. That player discards that card.
2/1

I like this one. An upgrade to Ravenous Rats both in combat power and discrd effect. Plus, just like with Blackmail, you can hit yourself to set up some reanimation on turn three.


Etherium Thoughtshaper 1U
Artifact Creature – Human Artificer
T: Add 2 to your mana pool. Spend this mana only to cast artifact spells or activate abilities of artifacts.
3: Draw a card, then discard a card.
1/3

A mixture of Thought Courier and Vedalken Engineer. The best cards for supporting narrow archetypes like the artifact deck are those that can also go into other archetypes. And this one can enable reanimation decks or just typical control decks, too. Being a 1/3 means that it is a decent blocker against small aggro critters and being able to loot multiple times during later turns can provide some value in longer games. The downsides are that it dies to artifact hate and that looting costs at least 1.

Myr Slaver 6
Artifact Creature – Myr
When Myr Slaver enters the battlefield, put three 1/1 colorless Myr artifact creature tokens onto the battlefield.
Sacrifice a Myr: Myr Slaver deals 1 damage to target creature or player.
Sacrifice a Myr: Add 1 to your mana pool.
1/1

I think Triskelion could stand a bit of an upgrade.

Drainpipe 4
Artifact
T: Put a sludge counter on Drainpipe.
T: Each player sacrifices a permanent for each sludge counter on Drainpipe.

A fairer version of the beloved, but overly powerful Smokestack: This card's sacrifice will always be symmetrical and it is harder to ramp it up to two or more counters (you can't force a sacrifice the turn you turn the counters up). On the other hand, you can chose not to sac anything, simply by not using the second ability. Apart from using activated abilites instead of upkeep triggers, I tried to reference Smokestack by using a thematically fitting one-word name and by using more evocative counters than simple charge counters.

Mana Flood - 1GU
Enchantment
At the beginning of each player's first main phase, if that player has more than one card in hand, he or she discards a card. If he or she does, that player skips playing his or her first land this turn, and puts a colorless land token onto the battlefield with "t: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool."

Mandatory universal discard for your opponents is a little out of color for a Simic card. Blue usually only gets Windfall burst effects which are more symmetrical, or the extremely rare one-shot blue-flavored discard spells (Wistful Thinking, Piracy Charm, Venarian Glimmer).

My take:

Manamorphosis 1GU
Enchantment
Players can't play lands.
At the beginning of each player's first main phase, that player may discard a card. If he or she does, that player puts a colorless Utopia land token onto the battlefield with "T: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool."

Making it a may ability really destroys the value of the card. I really don't want to spend a card allowing my opponent to have first crack at fixing their own mana and securing their land drops. It was meant as a thematic counterpart to Manascrew. However, I wouldn't call it discard because it doesn't actually result in fewer available cards. It's more of a forced transformation of spells into lands, which is rather Simic in flavor. It does look a bit oppressive for todays magic standards though.

I'm still spitballing ideas for a custom tribal cube. I've decided that I want each color pair to get a tribal "glue" card, and I'm grasping at straws right now.

Here are two I've come up with:

Haunting Ancestors 1WB
Creature - Spirit
Flying
Haunt
When ~ enters the battlefield or a creature it haunts dies, put a colorless 1/1 spirit with changeling onto the battlefield.
2/2

I think this one's sort of pushed. It gives you more raw power than Kingpin's Pet, and has the potential to give you two tribal triggers. It's solid without tribal interaction but potentially bonkers with especially useful tribal interactions and/or lords.

Commune Emissary GU
Creature - Shapeshifter
Changeling
Creatures you control have changeling.
2/2

This is really straightforward. It gets you tribal triggers and interactions, and guarantees you further ones. Nothing special on its own, but can make tribal cards shine when they otherwise wouldn't.

I like the idea of a Geist of Saint Traft-style card that would put a Changeling token into play tapped and attacking, but I'm not sure how to flavor it and I'm also not sure how to tune its numbers.

Any suggestions?

I really like both of these but I think the but haunt always complicates it for me. What about just making it a changling with a death trigger that makes another changling? If you wanted to get crazy give it undying.


Universal Ancentors1WB
Creature - Spirit
Changling
Undying
Flying
When ~ dies put a 1/1 spirit token with changling onto the battlefield.


I guess I just want to break Xathrid Necromancer and Champion of the Parish.

The Commune Emmissary is nice, and probably great in a tribal cube. I would love him with Battlecry as well but that is asking too much from a bear I think.

As far as a Geist creature, I am thinking maybe a Hero of bladehold/ooze variant.

Ooze Operator 2UG
Creature -Shapeshifter
Hexproof
When Ooze Operator attacks put two 1/1 Ooze tokens with Changling onto the battlefield tapped and attacking.
2/4

Or mono-colored and a little more on flavorful

Sounder of the Hunt2GG
Creature - Human Shaman
Hexproof
When ~ Attacks put a 4/4 Spirit token with trample and changling tapped and attacking. Exile this token at end of combat.
3/3

I feel like Haunting Ancestors is exactly where I want it to be. Haunt is not elegant, but I like how the card interacts with itself as well as others in theory. I'm glad you like Commune Emissary.

I decided to put the Geist-idea into Red/Green. I appreciate your suggestions, but I want ideas for color pairs I haven't had ideas for yet!
CARDNAME 1RG
Creature -
When ~ attacks, put a red and green */* giant creature token with changeling onto the battlefield. That creature's power and toughness are equal to the number of attacking creatures you control.
2/2

I'm nervous about how fragile it is, but it definitely encourages you to go stompy with your red/green deck. Also don't really know how to fluff it, but I kind of stole inspiration from Giantbaiting.

The token comes in tapped and attacking, ya?

The token should have Trample, and the main body needs something ...maybe pro:blue? It's just nowhere close to Geist in terms of power as it stands.

Edit: Oh, I see that the token doesn't die at EOT. If the token stays, it's certainly a lot more powerful.

There was some negligence on my part. I meant for the token to come in tapped and attacking, and go away EoT (potentially "dying" for the occasional synergy). Similar to Giantbaiting.

If it dies EoT, I think the token should have trample. Do you think Protection from Blue would add a whole lot to a guy like this? Maybe also "~ can't be countered?"

It'll die after combat because the number of attacking creatures hits 0, making it a 0/0.

Funny it worked out like that. I made it a */* rather than X/X because I couldn't decide how to word the X.

Suggestions for making it more elegant? Giving it more flavor? Tuning it better?

Would it make sense if it just boosted itself instead?

Changeling Marauder 1RG
Creature - Shapeshifter
Changeling (This creature is all creature types at all times.)
Trample
Whenever ~ attacks, it gets +X/+X until end of turn, where X is the number of attacking creatures you control.
2/2

Would you actually cube that card?

Maybe not, but it's about the same power level as the previous card.

IT'S A GIANTBLOSSOM

Giantbaiter 1RG
Creature - Goblin Shaman
Haste
Giantbaiter attacks each turn if able.
Inspired - Whenever Giantbaiter becomes untapped, put a 4/4 red and green Giant creature token onto the battlefield.
2/2

Hi.

New to this thread but have been cubing for a few years and have a custom card cube as well. Let's have some starters.

I've yet to test this out but I think it's pretty good for a 2 drop.


Ditto for this card



Btw, @ PyreDream. I like inspired cards that have no cost to them. Good card. Flavorful IMO

Reason and PyreDream, your designs have lost touch with the fact that I want to produce changeling tokens. (Not that I ever explicitly said that.) The idea is to have a multicolor card for each color pair that can repeatedly trigger tribal interactions for my custom tribal cube!

I think Giantbaiter is most in line with what I'm thinking of, and it's not hard for me to give the token the changeling keyword. My concern is that it's harder to utilize than the first two designs I suggested (Haunting Ancestors and Commune Emissary). Have any suggestions for other color pairs? Cards that would allow me to repeatedly trigger tribal interactions, ideally even enters-the-battlefield ones.

I was originally going to make a cycle of french vanilla 2/1's for each color's equivalent of a 1W casting cost for extra tribal "glue" in my set, but I decided to make a spicier cycle that allows even more glue! I present the "Surrogate" cycle. Help balancing it between the colors would be appreciated; and the black one, Surrogate Nightstalker, is my favorite.

The Surrogate guys serve as 2/1's for 2, which I feel like is a staple of cube's base efficiency and feeling, but they also can be 2-power one-drops which are important to cube aggro. The fact that they can be cast in any color deck means they can help "glue" any tribal deck together.

Edit: Oh! I meant to tell you, Bolas, the Mindsculptor, I like both of those designs a lot. I think Double Fury is definitely playable in both aggro and control, and Goblin Firebomber is a really interesting design.

Primal Tangle RG
Enchantment [R]
Players can't untap more than one land during their untap steps.

Needs more aggro!

Atrax, the Tanglespinner RG
Legendary Creature - Spider
Reach
Players can't untap more than one land during their untap steps.
2/1

On Atrax, the Tanglespinner:

Winter Orb abilities tend to fall under White rather than green or red. If you want to keep it as a spider, perhaps it's more fitting as white/green. As a legendary spider, making it a 2/3 or even 3/3 wouldn't be that unimaginable.

Also, I'm not sure if this is a pattern because I keep seeing Gruul cards lol.

Btw, my custom cube has a Sliver theme (focus on multicolor) and an artifact theme. Artifacts are numbered equally as the 5 individual colors in my cube.

I like Atrax, the Tanglespinner more than I like Primal Tangle. It's obviously more pushed, but Primal Tangle is (in a lot of cases) just a strictly worse Winter Orb. If you really wanted to make Atrax spicy, you could try pushing his power or toughness like Bolas suggested, but have him still function like Winter Orb with the being untapped clause. I don't know if aggro really wants its creatures to let up the pressure when attacking, though.

If you've got a sliver cube, custom or not, I imagine you'll basically win every game you cast Alpha Sliver if your opponent doesn't immediately remove it. If I'm understanding the way the rules work, your slivers would all be 5/5's and still be getting the plusses from Muscle Sliver, or whatever.

Oracle of Mirrodin Pure is a little unexciting to me. Having to wait a turn for my card to do stuff is pretty unexciting for a control deck and a 2/2 for 3 is not an especially sizable blocker.

@ Zovc: YEs. Alpha Sliver alters the power and toughness of each Sliver you control. So if one has Muscle Sliver, both itself and Alpha Sliver will be 6/6. It's really strong, but not obnoxious.

As cube enthusiasts, I'm sure many of us are annoyed sometimes we don't have completed cycles, or cycles that do not feel balanced. I'm a fan of good cycles, and wished also that some cards can be made into cycles. Such as the Obliterator cycle. I've competed them and all of them play very well at all points of the game. (Take note I designed all of them way before Theros block came out)

Here's the blue one


I agree that Oracle of Mirrodin Pure seems meh, but many a times it's not a just a Grey Ogre. Those that draft artifacts will be greatly rewarded becasue they're many artifact "lords" to complement the strategy. Like Clandestine Asura

Thanks Zovc. I think the last GW spider we got was probably Invasion (Ancient Spider) while we got a much more recent RG one (Dragonlair Spider) and I just enjoyed the idea of a legendary trickster spider that ran around tangling things up I think you're right that white should get the taxation slice of the color pie, but red also likes to occasionally straight-up hurt or diminish its enemies when they cast spells (Manabarbs, Stranglehold).

Also, shouldn't we get Obliterator-type cards that are a little closer to the original idea of damage = stuff? That way we have the luxury of choosing the best out of five rather than being stuck with one bad version

Phyrexian Excisor UUUU
Creature - Horror
Flying
Whenever a source deals damage to Phyrexian Excisor, you may draw twice that many cards.
5/5

Phyrexian Devastator RRRR
Creature - Horror
Haste
Whenever Phyrexian Devastator is dealt damage, it deals that much damage to target opponent and each creature they control.
5/5

Phyrexian Harvester GGGG
Creature - Horror
Hexproof
Whenever a source deals damage to Phyrexian Harvester, you may search your library for that many land cards and put them onto the battlefield, then shuffle your library.
5/5

And a blank for white. Feel free to come up with your own though!