So, after running this past my own playgroup in the last 24hrs, they're balking add the Thopter Engineer and Thopter Spy Network swaps, but good for everything else. I think I can live with that.
These all generally seem like good swaps. I'd personally take out Prophetic Flamespeaker for Thopter Engineer because I find the card a bit too inconsistent for my tastes. I don't really like Thopter Spy Network even in this strategy, especially since the magpie ability only goes off once per attack as opposed to once per creature. The token production is ok but too slow and conditional for me at that cost. If you're looking for something that has synergy with the artifact strategy that also fits into that CMC slot, Master Transmuter is worth considering.
Yeah, excellent point on the Spy Network - hadn't had the penny drop that Bident of Thassa was going to net you more cards across a single attack. So I think Bident stays.
And oh crap yes Master Transmuter. That thing has been on my "I Should Get Around To Adding That To My Cube" list for aaaaages.
How are you expecting the artifact archetype to come together? You seem to be missing a couple of the standard enablers (it looks like you're intentionally leaving out Tinker, but what about Daretti?), and the curve toppers in artifacts look to be on the weaker side outside of Wurmcoil Engine (no Sundering Titan, Myr Battlesphere, Scuttling Doom Engine, or Soul of New Phyrexia). Are you aiming towards a tokens / go-wide sort of strategy with control elements? Then maybe something more like Eldrazi Monument or Akroma's Memorial are the curve-toppers that you're looking for.
And yeah, Hangarback is really good in this deck.
Yah, that's something I'm still working out in my own brain. Myr Battlesphere was in until just a couple of months ago. We've dropped it to test out Deceiver of Form. But I suspect we might unswap that if Deceiver turns out to be underwhelming. Sundering Titan won't get a gig due to my playgroup haaaaaaating land destruction, but Scuttling Doom Engine and Soul of New Phyrexia are fair calls. I've considered both in the past, and they've both never quite made it in.
The Monument and the Memorial are excellent suggestions, too - I've considered chasing copies of them for a long time, and we've already been considering dropping Panoptic Mirror, so there's already a slot there for either one. Given we're planning on spamming the board with Thopters, I suppose Eldrazi Monument is likely the better option of the two, given the archetype we're building?
So, after running this past my own playgroup in the last 24hrs, they're balking add the Thopter Engineer and Thopter Spy Network swaps, but good for everything else. I think I can live with that.
If you're purposefully excluding Daretti, then another artifact deck enabler worth considering is Trash for Treasure which also happens to be same CC as Thopter Engineer. Thopter Engineer is an ok card in my implementation of the archetype, but she's more of a placeholder until something better comes along as opposed to a key piece of the deck.
Yah, that's something I'm still working out in my own brain. Myr Battlesphere was in until just a couple of months ago. We've dropped it to test out Deceiver of Form. But I suspect we might unswap that if Deceiver turns out to be underwhelming. Sundering Titan won't get a gig due to my playgroup haaaaaaating land destruction, but Scuttling Doom Engine and Soul of New Phyrexia are fair calls. I've considered both in the past, and they've both never quite made it in.
The Monument and the Memorial are excellent suggestions, too - I've considered chasing copies of them for a long time, and we've already been considering dropping Panoptic Mirror, so there's already a slot there for either one. Given we're planning on spamming the board with Thopters, I suppose Eldrazi Monument is likely the better option of the two, given the archetype we're building?
I think Eldrazi Monument is the better choice over the Memorial, though I'd probably also try to include a couple more token spammers in my list if I wanted to use the Monument as a finisher.
Since there's not that much room to play around in 360, I try to prioritize big artifact creatures over Eldrazi. They interact better with the rest of the Cube, and without the artifact archetype I feel R is really flailing around for relevancy in MP Cube. I think Battlesphere at least is pretty necessary to support the archetype in the direction that you're taking it, if you prefer wide over tall I can understand not running Inkwell or Sundering Titan. I'd probably still look for another couple of big splashy artifacts in the 7+ slots if you want the deck to come together consistently.
Since your approach is a bit different, perhaps you can consider the original Voltrons?
Thopter Squadron The cost to body ratio is a bit painful compared to modern creatures but it's well within hard castable range and could also help token strategies in other colors. Unlike the others this one also plays well with the new thopter tokens from the Origins cards.
Tetravus It's a little bit wonky in that you can only transform it during your upkeep but unlike the others, the transformation is free.
Pentavus Has the advantage of being the biggest, but that's about it.
Triskelavus He can also ping, but the cost / body ratio on this one is pretty rough.
What about a card like thopter Assembly Surely there are ways to abuse this without going infinite and just getting good value out of the card, especially in MP. Big investment having to wait to untap, but u/r thopters feels like fun. U/G for doubling Season trouble.
I mean it's as fair as any other 6 drop. We were discussing this card today ourselves in a powered environment, just to add more options for the achetype.
We really need to get Metalworker back into our cube
The full spoiler is out! It generally looks like a pretty strong set, but unfortunately the best cards seem to be in the low-cost aggro support in black and red. Still though, the planeswalkers look interesting even if I don't think I'll be testing them out personally.
Taking 2 white cards and replacing them with multicolored cards is a pretty big thing - it wipes out two solid cards that are playable in 10 multicolored schemes and puts cards that are playable in only 4.
The new innistrad seems like quite a cool set, but there wasn't much I was interested in for EDH cube. Of the preorders I made, only the following are earmarked for edh inclusion and testing:
I will probably pick up Arlinn and Nahiri down the road, when their prices (hopefully) go down.
My 1-drop cube made out like a bandit this set!
EDIT: some additional cards I think are worth looking at, but I'm not likely to include right away:
Anguished Unmaking - an obviously great removal card. I recently swapped out vindicate in favor of the instant speed utter end. This new card further complicates matters by being a 3 cmc instant removal with a negligible (for edh) live cost. I still want to do more testing with utter end, and see whether it's inability to hit lands is really the sticking point compared with the more famous, but sorcery-speed vindicate.
open the armory - it flew under my radar that a pretty neat voltron tutor had been released in this set at uncommon. I like this card, but due to a lightly enforced policy of down playing tutors in my cube, I think I am going to pass.
cryptolith rite - turning every creature into a birds of paradise is a tempting effect, but I am just too uncertain about having the necessary creatures on the board that this card provides a sufficient ramp boost. I think in a constructed animar deck this card would do well, but I'm not sure about it in my cube; maybe as a replacement for something like animist's awakening down the road...
Taking 2 white cards and replacing them with multicolored cards is a pretty big thing - it wipes out two solid cards that are playable in 10 multicolored schemes and puts cards that are playable in only 4.
Oh, my Cube is a general MP Cube, not an EDH one. Color identity issues don't really play a part for my Cube, and I subscribe to the organizing cards in the colors that'll be used to play them philosophy. Avacyn plays as white even though she flips to red, and the red ability on Nahiri's Machinations is pretty much superfluous.
I'm curious about the community's thoughts on the following archetype I'd like to support...
I still haven't felt that the "artifact.deck"-deck has ever properly materialized in my edh sessions, so a few key cards such as metalworker, chief engineer, grand architect are starting to come under fire from my group. A person I correspond with on cubetutor asked if I'd ever considered running thopter spy network, which has gotten me thinking about the following "artifact" package in U/R:
Basically thopter tokens + card draw. Some of these cards I am already running such as pia and kiran, hangarback, and the bident, but including stuff like thopter engineer, whirler rogue, etc, will take some more shuffling of cube contents.
Is this too narrow an archetype for a 650+ card cube? Am I missing some other obvious synergies?
Thanks!
Late edit: Jeez, didn't see that cadaverous bloom had posted pretty much the same topic a few days ago... will check in up thread... sorry about that!
I'm curious about the community's thoughts on the following archetype I'd like to support...
I still haven't felt that the "artifact.deck"-deck has ever properly materialized in my edh sessions, so a few key cards such as metalworker, chief engineer, grand architect are starting to come under fire from my group. A person I correspond with on cubetutor asked if I'd ever considered running thopter spy network, which has gotten me thinking about the following "artifact" package in U/R:
...
Late edit: Jeez, didn't see that cadaverous bloom had posted pretty much the same topic a few days ago... will check in up thread... sorry about that!
Haha! Snap!
To follow on, I have made the following five changes after discussion with my playgroup:
I suspect I will still drop Metalworker for Hangarback Walker when available, and probably try and find a way of getting Myr Battlesphere back into the cube. After that, it should be good enough.
That said, I believe you are missing Memnarch in your list, Dolono? Is that right, looking at your CubeTutor list? If he is, I'd get him in - he would send Grand Architect utterly insane, for one.
[quote from="Dolono »" url="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/the-cube-forum/cube-card-and-archetype/193777-the-multiplayer-edh-cube-thread?comment=1348"]
That said, I believe you are missing Memnarch in your list, Dolono? Is that right, looking at your CubeTutor list? If he is, I'd get him in - he would send Grand Architect utterly insane, for one.
Thanks for the feedback. I believe I had memnarch in an earlier version of the cube, but may have cut him for being a bit too mono-blue in application.
Out of your change log above, I would see if you can re-incorporate bident and chasm skulker. The bident's "draw cards when creature hits" clause is worth doubling up on, since you're trying to support evasive token thopters. Chasm skulker is just a great inexpensive blue creature, and one that benefits immensely from clone and token doubling effects (similar to reef worm and the like). It also synergizes nicely with your thopter spy engine ~ accumulating +1s and squids as you draw cards off thopter tokens.
Out of your change log above, I would see if you can re-incorporate bident and chasm skulker. The bident's "draw cards when creature hits" clause is worth doubling up on, since you're trying to support evasive token thopters. Chasm skulker is just a great inexpensive blue creature, and one that benefits immensely from clone and token doubling effects (similar to reef worm and the like). It also synergizes nicely with your thopter spy engine ~ accumulating +1s and squids as you draw cards off thopter tokens.
Yep, Bident has stayed in. Chasm Skulker had to go, though... no-one was playing it, alas.
On the plus side, I've also been able to acquire Master Transmuter and Eldrazi Monument. They'll be going in pretty easily to bolster the ranks for this archetype (and holy moley do I want to pair the Transmuter up with Feldon of the Third Path... shenanigans!).
Now, for a topic that deserves a separate post.
Last cube match out, one of my playgroup mentioned how he'd heard tell of EDH cubes and wondered how they did it. So I had an opportunity to go off on a five-minute tangent with them all on the different possibilities. And the basic response can be summed up as "Let's try all of them!"
So it'll take me a while to source enough quality EDH generals (and/or replacement cards for those already in my cube). In the meantime, we at least have another gameplay option that we want to give a shot... Lore Seeker + a 15-card booster loaded with hard-to-cast stuff.
So my basic thought was to have a sideboard of 15 cards, one card from each shard, one from each wedge, and one card for each single colour with a triple-colour CC (or more). Help me out with my choices!
Bant: I don't really have much in this guild available ATM, but I think the card I want to source is Wargate. Rafiq and Jenara are obviously also options, but I might want to save them for a future EDH generals expansion. Esper: I have Sphinx of the Steel Wind suited up and ready to go here (or a foil Magister Sphinx if my playgroup prefers). Sen Triplets is a future option. Grixis:Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker has to be the card here. I think I'm probably going to run Cruel Ultimatum here until I get one. Jund: I have Kresh or a foil Madrush Cyclops to run here for now. Long-term, it probably needs to be Hellkite Overlord, I guess. Naya: This is a really tough slot to choose. I have Meglonoth, Tamanoa and Titanic Ultimatum available. Mayael or Godsire may be better.
EDIT: Oh, cool fun... official playgroup response is "It's a secret booster, so keep it secret - don't tell us what's in it (but your plan looks awesome, let's rock it)". So this would be your opportunity to choose which secret surprises to stick in the Lore Seeker booster for my playgroup...
I actually don't like tribal in my cube. 2 reasons : most tribal cards are mediocre or bad when outside the tribe and you need a critical mass of them for the deck to come together. That means that your draft will be pretty boring if you are going tribal. Is it an elf? I need to take it to reach critical mass. That also means that there are more dead picks. You included specific tribal cards instead of cards with broader function that can be used by more decks.
If I were to go tribal it would be a few cards that are still powerful on their own. I like goblins for example.
They are all solid on their own and have nice synergy (token and aggressive). Now if you wanted to add tribal, I could see a few specialized picks to help the archetype. Like :
and others I forgot. You could probably do the same with zombies to get the Gravecrawler working! (Especially with the 2 new ones from SOI)
Mill
No experience with it, I'll let others talk about it!
Artifacts
I don't know about white support for artifacts (haven't tried), but I can tell you Izzet is great! Goblin Welder, Hoarding Dragon and the ones you mentioned are great. Plus red and blue are good at dumping cards in the GY for the red cards. The best "white" card for the archetype might just be Sphinx of the Steel Wind. But you aren't really supposed to cast it
U/B/R Mill: In order to make this archetype stronger we have added red to merge the draw/discard hand effects that also exist. Think wheel of fortunereforge the soul and Creature like Psychosis Crawler. The usual suspects are all included in an attempt to create enough redundancy to make drafting a deck possible. Mesmeric Orb is a card we have not put back in, but it truly takes the archetype into the land of chaos if it's not removed quickly. People grumble when Ulamog, the ceaseless wonder attacker but people really complained about an early Orb so it's on hiatus.
We originally had a plethora of tribal elements in the cube and Miaou hits the nail on the head. The cards also need critical mass to really be fun, but it gets old real quick. Rather, we play what we feel are the best tribal cards not for tribal, but rather to support archetypes that the group finds fun. If the deck occasionally has a large tribal aspect, this is more by accident then by design.
As for artifacts, we have just put the u/r theme together ourselves. It's fun, and again I think the key is to include splash options IF it makes sense to do so. A cube gets tired if it's just two color decks all day every day. Were trying to offer enough support for people to make 3 color decks a possibility.
Remember, there is no one "correct cube". Rather it's a continuous evolution of cards/archetypes coming and going. Last year I was so hellbent on making the "perfect" cube (especially with all the resources out there) that it drove me crazy. It wasn't until about 3 months ago that I realized it's the journey not the destination that makes cube so much fun.
I make sure to keep certain cards/archetypes on the sidelines so that they may easily be reinserted into the cube if a particular change doesn't play out well.
What do you guys think about archetypes in your MP cube? Specifically, I'm interested in the following:
a) What is your opinion on "tribal" archetypes such as Zombies, Elves, Humans etc.? Is it even viable? At what cube size? (I play 450)
The reason I'm asking is pretty much because I really want to add Gravecrawler to my cube because, well, the guy's insane.. but I would need to make sure that people would be able to pick up enough zombies and don't want to play sub-optimal cards because of this..
As someone whose cube started out almost 50% Lorwyn, I can talk a lot about tribal in cubes.
It all depends on the relative strength of the individual cards, and this is where some tribes fall down. I started out with all sorts of Lorwyn tribes in my cube - Goblins, Kithkin, Soldiers, Knights, Zombies, Elves, Elementals, Merfolk. I've dropped Goblins, Kithkin, Elementals and Merfolk:
Kithkin were first overboard. Yes, their top-end was not too bad (Brigid, Hero of Kinsbaile is pretty good), but the support cards are uncubable by themselves. Never in a million years would you draft Wizened Cenn in a vacuum in Multiplayer.
Goblins could not get to critical mass. There are a few good goblins that are fun to cube with (e.g. Krenko), but nothing to push it over the top with. You're pretty much restricted to token spamming with Krenko, Goblin Warrens and Purphoros.
Merfolk had some pretty good base cards in Lorwyn, but lacked a true finisher. Again, it spammed tokens (using Summon the School and Stonybrook Schoolmaster)... but Wanderwine Prophets is the finisher for the archetype, and it is impossible to resolve in cube, really.
Elementals had their moments - there are lots of bomby RG Elementals out there. But no-one wanted to cube with the support cards (e.g. Incandescent Soulstoke, which was ending up as a last-pick).
Zombies and Elves are hanging on in my cube, but they are losing cards. Let's look at the two that really work - Knights and Soliders.
Knights in my cube are a bunch of strong draftable critters (e.g. Mirran Crusader, Hero of Bladehold, Paladin en-Vec), backed up by two tribal lords (Knight Exemplar and Kinsbaile Cavalier). Mirran Crusader in particular is a fairly high pick, and you can often find yourself holding a couple of Knights towards the end of Pack 1 and staring down at either the Exemplar or Cavalier in your pack and having the whole thing come together. These guys are pretty brutal holding equipment, too - Knights With Sticks is a thing in my cube. What pushes it over the edge as an archetype is that the individual Knights are all really handy creatures on their own outside of the archetype. The two lords are not first-picks, but they really make the other cards sing when they're together. I have picked the Exemplar P3P1 before, but I've also seen it last-picked - entirely dependent on whether someone's drafted the entire archetype or not.
Soldiers are basically an army in a can for me - I have Assemble the Legion, Captain of the Watch and Knight-Captain of Eos as high picks. The rest of the Soldiers are just good cards that you fall into, and also basically happen to be Soldiers for the most part.
Also, I see a LOT of MP cubes have added Priest of Titania, which would suggest an Elf Tribal theme, but most people don't even play that many elves apart from the Priest and maybe Llanowar Elves and Elvish Mystic..
Which brings me to my remaining two tribes - Elves and Zombies. My problem with these two in my cube right now is that they don't really have much to finish with right now. They do cute things, and they have some strong cards and combos, but I'm probably one to two cards short of making them truly viable.
I still have quite a few Elves in my cube, even though I've recently dumped Ezuri. I run Priest, Rofellos, Elvish Harbinger, Nullmage Shepherd and Imperious Perfect in green. The Harbinger is actually really good - at the very least, it fetches you Deathrite Shaman / Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord / Glissa, the Traitor / all the other incidental Elves you'd ever want to run. Nullmage Shepherd is great in token decks, but I probably need to make it Reclamation Sage. No-one ever used Ezuri as the Elf insta-Overrun, though. I suspect you'd probably need to token out the tribe or something. Win via Shaman of the Pack / Immaculate Magistrate? I dunno. It's not like you'd pick those cards high if you hadn't drafted Elves, though. Imperious Perfect still gets played for its token generation - these two don't offer anything else above their tribal elements.
I still have some key Zombie cards in the cube - Death Baron and Grave Betrayal are both awesome here. Lord of the Undead remains in, and has its uses, but I suspect something broader, like Hell's Caretaker, is probably better. I used to have Noxious Ghoul in, and it is bonkers with Gravecrawler and Grave Betrayal. Undead Warchief has only recently been dropped too. Plenty of good Zombies to play around this tribe, though.
I have also gone very close to having Rakdos Vampire Tribal - it's really just lacking a few lower-in-the-curve guys. I would cube with Vampire Nighthawk, Olivia Voldaren and Falkenrath Aristocrat all day long. Some of the new Vampires coupled with some of the older ones (e.g. Butcher of Malakir, Malakir Bloodwitch) has the potential to at least be viable. I just think it tends to be missing the Knight Exemplar-style tribal lord that really pushes it way over the top ATM.
b) Many people seem to favor a "mill" theme for U/B in their cubes but I'm not a huge fan of dedicated support..Consuming Aberration sure seems like a great card but it doesn't even need other cards to work, right? So, if I don't want to support mill for U/B.. what other choices does Dimir really have? Suggestions?
My Dimir section is very much Aberration, a couple of mill cards, and the rest is Dimir Control. Dimir is very control/steal oriented if you move away from mill. I haven't got Baleful Strix in my list, and I probably should. Shadowmage Infiltrator remains fantastic. Havengul Lich and Dragonlord Silumgar are both cards you probably want to be playing (the Lich is a Zombie, too).
If I wasn't running the mill cards, I'd likely have Sygg, River Cutthroat in too. Strix / Havengul / Silumgar / Sygg / Infiltrator is a good strong start for a non-mill Dimir guild.
c) I'm also curious as to what color combination works as the best artifact abuse deck.. CadaverousBl00m seems to favor Azorius as it has things like Scourglass , Fountain Watch and Hanna, Ship's Navigator but lately I've seen a lot of talk about Izzet Artifacts because of things like Pia and Kiran Nalaar, Daretti, Scrap Savant, Dack Fayden and Scrap Mastery, etc.
Izzet SEEMS stronger to me.. but I don't know and am quite the noob in regards to MP cube experience..should I support both Azorius AND Izzet as artifact centric guilds or maybe cut one of them out?
I am just moving into Izzet artifice in my cube, yes.
That said, the equipment work that white does makes it worth keeping as well. I don't see too many problems with making blue the premier artifact colour in the cube, and then throwing both red and white a bone each (as white is usually equipment-centric, while red has a tendency to be more artifact-creature-centric, thanks to Feldon of the Third Path and all those Thopters).
Even if I for some reason dump Stoneforge Mystic and Stonehewer Giant from my cube one day, I will still run the hell out of Hanna, Ship's Navigator, though - incredible card that sees a lot of love in my cube. Some of the horrible things I've seen done... (and just when you think you've gotten rid of her, Sun Titan brings her back!)
Artifact.dec has never come together in my cube the way I have observed it in constructed edh. I am going to make a go at U/R thopter tokens, but I've been slowly but surely cutting stuff like metalworker, while putting chief engineer, grand architect, baleful strix, and sharuum on my watch list.
Artifact.dec has never come together in my cube the way I have observed it in constructed edh. I am going to make a go at U/R thopter tokens, but I've been slowly but surely cutting stuff like metalworker, chief engineer, grand architect, baleful strix, and sharuum on my watch list.
I mis-edited my post above. I did cut metalworker, and have put the other cards on that list on watch.
It may be an EDH (color identity-driven) vs multiplayer cube thing, but it's starting to feel like the strix is holding up a valuable dimir slot. It's certainly a interesting rattlesnake card, but I'm starting to feel as though I can find something with a bit more utility and synergy than a flying deathtouch wall of omens ~ I'm considering one of the following as a potential inexpensive replacement: disciple of deceit, unfulfilled desires, inkfathom witch, cavern harpy, shipwreck singer, siren of the silent song, or cemetery puca.
Try using the "compare cube" function on cubetutor (under the community tab) with any cubes you see here on the multiplayer thread. Cards you see consistently across folks cubes would probably be representative of multiplayer "staples."
Here's a comparison between ours to get you started, but try sussing out the cube #s of other folks here, and plug them into the comparison. It might give you faster results than soliciting advice on an entire FFA list.
I mis-edited my post above. I did cut metalworker, and have put the other cards on that list on watch.
It may be an EDH (color identity-driven) vs multiplayer cube thing, but it's starting to feel like the strix is holding up a valuable dimir slot. It's certainly a interesting rattlesnake card, but I'm starting to feel as though I can find something with a bit more utility and synergy than a flying deathtouch wall of omens ~ I'm considering one of the following as a potential inexpensive replacement: disciple of deceit, unfulfilled desires, inkfathom witch, cavern harpy, shipwreck singer, siren of the silent song, or cemetery puca.
I'd still happily play Baleful Strix over any of those. Too good a defensive card, and too useful later in the game with blink effects.
Out of the others you suggested, the only ones I'd likely even consider are Cavern Harpy and Cemetery Puca. The Harpy probably needs a janky combo or two to sit alongside (like the classic Aluren combo). Puca is not bad, but there are plenty of other cards with a similar effect. Body Double, for example, is arguably better (it at least is capable of comboing with Reveillark in the old-fashioned way).
I own about 1/3 to 1/2 of the cards but need to acquire a lot of them in the next months..
Since I don't want to buy cards that I won't even put in the final cube, I would really like some feedback on what you guys think of the list..any glaring omissions? Cards that don't work in your opinion? Cards to cut? Anything is super appreciated!
I took the remnants of my "old" 450 card duel-cube and from there on out built this by looking at a) Cadaverous Bloom's Optimal 2015 Cube and b) Prid3's 540 Vintage Cube
No worries, I'll steal a look when I have a chance. If not today, it'll be sometime next week (as I'm off on hols for a few days).
So this is where my cube is at in these slots when it comes to tokens, and I'm literally about to throw Primal Vigor into the mix. I can't wait to throw a Blade of Selves on something with Primal Vigor out, and then sit back and wait for the looks of horror to slowly spread across my opponents' faces.
So that's obviously too much. I can see myself dropping the Herald of the Host. I could drop Baneslayer Angel not because of power level but because she is kind of generic. I'm not playing swords of X&Y so I could cut Stonehewer Giant. Thoughts on all this?
Knight-Captain and Sigil of the Empty Throne are pretty much only in my list because they fit into draft archetypes. Miraculous Recovery is the only other card I'd not bother considering - it's fun because it's instant, but it's pretty niche.
I've had Cloudgoat Ranger, Karmic Guide and Reveillark in in the past, and they've all been dropped out. Stonehewer has gone close a couple of times as well (given I also have Stoneforge Mystic in my list).
I'd imagine you probably want to have somewhat of a similar balance to me, given you've only listed three spells there. So I'd keep the spells and pick five creatures.
I'd absolutely not cube without Baneslayer Angel and Wingmate Roc - they're both fantastic. I suspect I'd say the same about Archangel Avacyn if I had one.
From there, I'd probably pick your poison with the last two. I'd definitely consider Sunscorch Regent - it plays similar to Consecrated Sphinx, in that it's a large flier with a massive payback, but also a complete removal magnet.
So pick two out of Archon of Justice / Cloudgoat / Herald of the Host / Karmic Guide / Reveillark / Stonehewer / Sunscorch? Looking at your list (which I'd imagine is somewhat out of date, given the Swords of X&Y are still in there), I'd be tempted to go with Herald of the Host (horrid with Dub Season / Mimic Vat / Recurring Fricking Nightmare) and Karmic Guide.
If you've added Vizkopa Guildmage since, I'd switch the latter to Sunscorch Regent.
If you've added more sac outlets since, I'd switch the latter to Archon of Justice.
That last slot is tight.
Yeah, excellent point on the Spy Network - hadn't had the penny drop that Bident of Thassa was going to net you more cards across a single attack. So I think Bident stays.
And oh crap yes Master Transmuter. That thing has been on my "I Should Get Around To Adding That To My Cube" list for aaaaages.
Yah, that's something I'm still working out in my own brain.
Myr Battlesphere was in until just a couple of months ago. We've dropped it to test out Deceiver of Form. But I suspect we might unswap that if Deceiver turns out to be underwhelming.
Sundering Titan won't get a gig due to my playgroup haaaaaaating land destruction, but Scuttling Doom Engine and Soul of New Phyrexia are fair calls. I've considered both in the past, and they've both never quite made it in.
The Monument and the Memorial are excellent suggestions, too - I've considered chasing copies of them for a long time, and we've already been considering dropping Panoptic Mirror, so there's already a slot there for either one. Given we're planning on spamming the board with Thopters, I suppose Eldrazi Monument is likely the better option of the two, given the archetype we're building?
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If you're purposefully excluding Daretti, then another artifact deck enabler worth considering is Trash for Treasure which also happens to be same CC as Thopter Engineer. Thopter Engineer is an ok card in my implementation of the archetype, but she's more of a placeholder until something better comes along as opposed to a key piece of the deck.
I think Eldrazi Monument is the better choice over the Memorial, though I'd probably also try to include a couple more token spammers in my list if I wanted to use the Monument as a finisher.
Since there's not that much room to play around in 360, I try to prioritize big artifact creatures over Eldrazi. They interact better with the rest of the Cube, and without the artifact archetype I feel R is really flailing around for relevancy in MP Cube. I think Battlesphere at least is pretty necessary to support the archetype in the direction that you're taking it, if you prefer wide over tall I can understand not running Inkwell or Sundering Titan. I'd probably still look for another couple of big splashy artifacts in the 7+ slots if you want the deck to come together consistently.
Since your approach is a bit different, perhaps you can consider the original Voltrons?
I mean it's as fair as any other 6 drop. We were discussing this card today ourselves in a powered environment, just to add more options for the achetype.
We really need to get Metalworker back into our cube
I'm only looking at two cards at the moment:
Archangel Avacyn replacing Geist-Honored Monk
Nahiri's Machinations replacing Eight-and-a-Half-Tails
What's on everyone else's lists?
Taking 2 white cards and replacing them with multicolored cards is a pretty big thing - it wipes out two solid cards that are playable in 10 multicolored schemes and puts cards that are playable in only 4.
WUBRGPauper Battle BoxWUBRG ... and why I am not a fan of Wayne Reynolds' Illustrations.
The new innistrad seems like quite a cool set, but there wasn't much I was interested in for EDH cube. Of the preorders I made, only the following are earmarked for edh inclusion and testing:
Thalia's Lieutenant - a replacement for the very temporary serene steward
Duskwatch Recruiter - test over wall of blossoms
Tireless Tracker - unsure of what this will replace
Asylum Visitor - probably will replace macar...
I will probably pick up Arlinn and Nahiri down the road, when their prices (hopefully) go down.
My 1-drop cube made out like a bandit this set!
EDIT: some additional cards I think are worth looking at, but I'm not likely to include right away:
Anguished Unmaking - an obviously great removal card. I recently swapped out vindicate in favor of the instant speed utter end. This new card further complicates matters by being a 3 cmc instant removal with a negligible (for edh) live cost. I still want to do more testing with utter end, and see whether it's inability to hit lands is really the sticking point compared with the more famous, but sorcery-speed vindicate.
open the armory - it flew under my radar that a pretty neat voltron tutor had been released in this set at uncommon. I like this card, but due to a lightly enforced policy of down playing tutors in my cube, I think I am going to pass.
cryptolith rite - turning every creature into a birds of paradise is a tempting effect, but I am just too uncertain about having the necessary creatures on the board that this card provides a sufficient ramp boost. I think in a constructed animar deck this card would do well, but I'm not sure about it in my cube; maybe as a replacement for something like animist's awakening down the road...
"Personally I love high-riak, low-reqars gambles. Life's best with a decent amount of riak. And f*** reqars."
Oh, my Cube is a general MP Cube, not an EDH one. Color identity issues don't really play a part for my Cube, and I subscribe to the organizing cards in the colors that'll be used to play them philosophy. Avacyn plays as white even though she flips to red, and the red ability on Nahiri's Machinations is pretty much superfluous.
I'm curious about the community's thoughts on the following archetype I'd like to support...
I still haven't felt that the "artifact.deck"-deck has ever properly materialized in my edh sessions, so a few key cards such as metalworker, chief engineer, grand architect are starting to come under fire from my group. A person I correspond with on cubetutor asked if I'd ever considered running thopter spy network, which has gotten me thinking about the following "artifact" package in U/R:
Thopter spy network, whirler rogue, thopter engineer, thopter assembly, hangarback walker, pia and kiran nalaar, krark-clan ironworks, maybe deepfathom skulker, foundry of the consuls
synergizes with stuff like... bident of thassa, coastal piracy, sharding sphinx, ruination guide
Basically thopter tokens + card draw. Some of these cards I am already running such as pia and kiran, hangarback, and the bident, but including stuff like thopter engineer, whirler rogue, etc, will take some more shuffling of cube contents.
Is this too narrow an archetype for a 650+ card cube? Am I missing some other obvious synergies?
Thanks!
Late edit: Jeez, didn't see that cadaverous bloom had posted pretty much the same topic a few days ago... will check in up thread... sorry about that!
"Personally I love high-riak, low-reqars gambles. Life's best with a decent amount of riak. And f*** reqars."
Haha! Snap!
To follow on, I have made the following five changes after discussion with my playgroup:
I suspect I will still drop Metalworker for Hangarback Walker when available, and probably try and find a way of getting Myr Battlesphere back into the cube. After that, it should be good enough.
That said, I believe you are missing Memnarch in your list, Dolono? Is that right, looking at your CubeTutor list? If he is, I'd get him in - he would send Grand Architect utterly insane, for one.
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Thanks for the feedback. I believe I had memnarch in an earlier version of the cube, but may have cut him for being a bit too mono-blue in application.
Out of your change log above, I would see if you can re-incorporate bident and chasm skulker. The bident's "draw cards when creature hits" clause is worth doubling up on, since you're trying to support evasive token thopters. Chasm skulker is just a great inexpensive blue creature, and one that benefits immensely from clone and token doubling effects (similar to reef worm and the like). It also synergizes nicely with your thopter spy engine ~ accumulating +1s and squids as you draw cards off thopter tokens.
"Personally I love high-riak, low-reqars gambles. Life's best with a decent amount of riak. And f*** reqars."
Yep, Bident has stayed in. Chasm Skulker had to go, though... no-one was playing it, alas.
On the plus side, I've also been able to acquire Master Transmuter and Eldrazi Monument. They'll be going in pretty easily to bolster the ranks for this archetype (and holy moley do I want to pair the Transmuter up with Feldon of the Third Path... shenanigans!).
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Last cube match out, one of my playgroup mentioned how he'd heard tell of EDH cubes and wondered how they did it. So I had an opportunity to go off on a five-minute tangent with them all on the different possibilities. And the basic response can be summed up as "Let's try all of them!"
So it'll take me a while to source enough quality EDH generals (and/or replacement cards for those already in my cube). In the meantime, we at least have another gameplay option that we want to give a shot... Lore Seeker + a 15-card booster loaded with hard-to-cast stuff.
So my basic thought was to have a sideboard of 15 cards, one card from each shard, one from each wedge, and one card for each single colour with a triple-colour CC (or more). Help me out with my choices!
Bant: I don't really have much in this guild available ATM, but I think the card I want to source is Wargate. Rafiq and Jenara are obviously also options, but I might want to save them for a future EDH generals expansion.
Esper: I have Sphinx of the Steel Wind suited up and ready to go here (or a foil Magister Sphinx if my playgroup prefers). Sen Triplets is a future option.
Grixis: Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker has to be the card here. I think I'm probably going to run Cruel Ultimatum here until I get one.
Jund: I have Kresh or a foil Madrush Cyclops to run here for now. Long-term, it probably needs to be Hellkite Overlord, I guess.
Naya: This is a really tough slot to choose. I have Meglonoth, Tamanoa and Titanic Ultimatum available. Mayael or Godsire may be better.
Abzan: I have Karador ready to go here. But I probably need to consider Siege Rhino, Anafenza or Doran.
Jeskai: Needs to be Narset, Enlightened Master, basically.
Mardu: Needs to be Crackling Doom.
Sultai: I have The Mimeoplasm or Damia ready to go. Or I could grab a Sidisi somewhere.
Temur: I have Animar ready to go here.
White: For now, I can choose from Reya, Akroma, Angel of Serenity or True Conviction. White Sun's Zenith and Avacyn probably need to be considered, though.
Blue: Blatant Thievery is already in my main cube. There are so many other options here, my stars... for now, I can run Thought Reflection, Mind Over Matter, Amnesia, Lorthos or Stormtide Leviathan. Long-term, I may want Future Sight, Teferi or even Cryptic Command.
Black: For now, Grave Pact or Sorin Markov. Long-term, pick one of Griselbrand, Phyrexian Obliterator, Necropotence, Army of the Damned, Death Cloud...
Red: I already have Insurrection in my main cube. This probably needs to be Magmatic Force for now. But do I want Moonveil Dragon, Gratuitous Violence or Kiki-Jiki long-term?
Green: Easy. Genesis Wave, no question.
EDIT: Oh, cool fun... official playgroup response is "It's a secret booster, so keep it secret - don't tell us what's in it (but your plan looks awesome, let's rock it)". So this would be your opportunity to choose which secret surprises to stick in the Lore Seeker booster for my playgroup...
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I actually don't like tribal in my cube. 2 reasons : most tribal cards are mediocre or bad when outside the tribe and you need a critical mass of them for the deck to come together. That means that your draft will be pretty boring if you are going tribal. Is it an elf? I need to take it to reach critical mass. That also means that there are more dead picks. You included specific tribal cards instead of cards with broader function that can be used by more decks.
If I were to go tribal it would be a few cards that are still powerful on their own. I like goblins for example.
They are all solid on their own and have nice synergy (token and aggressive). Now if you wanted to add tribal, I could see a few specialized picks to help the archetype. Like :
and others I forgot. You could probably do the same with zombies to get the Gravecrawler working! (Especially with the 2 new ones from SOI)
Mill
No experience with it, I'll let others talk about it!
Artifacts
I don't know about white support for artifacts (haven't tried), but I can tell you Izzet is great! Goblin Welder, Hoarding Dragon and the ones you mentioned are great. Plus red and blue are good at dumping cards in the GY for the red cards. The best "white" card for the archetype might just be Sphinx of the Steel Wind. But you aren't really supposed to cast it
My 450ish 1vs1 cube
U/B/R Mill: In order to make this archetype stronger we have added red to merge the draw/discard hand effects that also exist. Think wheel of fortune reforge the soul and Creature like Psychosis Crawler. The usual suspects are all included in an attempt to create enough redundancy to make drafting a deck possible. Mesmeric Orb is a card we have not put back in, but it truly takes the archetype into the land of chaos if it's not removed quickly. People grumble when Ulamog, the ceaseless wonder attacker but people really complained about an early Orb so it's on hiatus.
We originally had a plethora of tribal elements in the cube and Miaou hits the nail on the head. The cards also need critical mass to really be fun, but it gets old real quick. Rather, we play what we feel are the best tribal cards not for tribal, but rather to support archetypes that the group finds fun. If the deck occasionally has a large tribal aspect, this is more by accident then by design.
As for artifacts, we have just put the u/r theme together ourselves. It's fun, and again I think the key is to include splash options IF it makes sense to do so. A cube gets tired if it's just two color decks all day every day. Were trying to offer enough support for people to make 3 color decks a possibility.
Remember, there is no one "correct cube". Rather it's a continuous evolution of cards/archetypes coming and going. Last year I was so hellbent on making the "perfect" cube (especially with all the resources out there) that it drove me crazy. It wasn't until about 3 months ago that I realized it's the journey not the destination that makes cube so much fun.
I make sure to keep certain cards/archetypes on the sidelines so that they may easily be reinserted into the cube if a particular change doesn't play out well.
As someone whose cube started out almost 50% Lorwyn, I can talk a lot about tribal in cubes.
It all depends on the relative strength of the individual cards, and this is where some tribes fall down. I started out with all sorts of Lorwyn tribes in my cube - Goblins, Kithkin, Soldiers, Knights, Zombies, Elves, Elementals, Merfolk. I've dropped Goblins, Kithkin, Elementals and Merfolk:
Zombies and Elves are hanging on in my cube, but they are losing cards. Let's look at the two that really work - Knights and Soliders.
Knights in my cube are a bunch of strong draftable critters (e.g. Mirran Crusader, Hero of Bladehold, Paladin en-Vec), backed up by two tribal lords (Knight Exemplar and Kinsbaile Cavalier). Mirran Crusader in particular is a fairly high pick, and you can often find yourself holding a couple of Knights towards the end of Pack 1 and staring down at either the Exemplar or Cavalier in your pack and having the whole thing come together. These guys are pretty brutal holding equipment, too - Knights With Sticks is a thing in my cube. What pushes it over the edge as an archetype is that the individual Knights are all really handy creatures on their own outside of the archetype. The two lords are not first-picks, but they really make the other cards sing when they're together. I have picked the Exemplar P3P1 before, but I've also seen it last-picked - entirely dependent on whether someone's drafted the entire archetype or not.
Soldiers are basically an army in a can for me - I have Assemble the Legion, Captain of the Watch and Knight-Captain of Eos as high picks. The rest of the Soldiers are just good cards that you fall into, and also basically happen to be Soldiers for the most part.
Which brings me to my remaining two tribes - Elves and Zombies. My problem with these two in my cube right now is that they don't really have much to finish with right now. They do cute things, and they have some strong cards and combos, but I'm probably one to two cards short of making them truly viable.
I still have quite a few Elves in my cube, even though I've recently dumped Ezuri. I run Priest, Rofellos, Elvish Harbinger, Nullmage Shepherd and Imperious Perfect in green. The Harbinger is actually really good - at the very least, it fetches you Deathrite Shaman / Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord / Glissa, the Traitor / all the other incidental Elves you'd ever want to run. Nullmage Shepherd is great in token decks, but I probably need to make it Reclamation Sage. No-one ever used Ezuri as the Elf insta-Overrun, though. I suspect you'd probably need to token out the tribe or something. Win via Shaman of the Pack / Immaculate Magistrate? I dunno. It's not like you'd pick those cards high if you hadn't drafted Elves, though. Imperious Perfect still gets played for its token generation - these two don't offer anything else above their tribal elements.
I still have some key Zombie cards in the cube - Death Baron and Grave Betrayal are both awesome here. Lord of the Undead remains in, and has its uses, but I suspect something broader, like Hell's Caretaker, is probably better. I used to have Noxious Ghoul in, and it is bonkers with Gravecrawler and Grave Betrayal. Undead Warchief has only recently been dropped too. Plenty of good Zombies to play around this tribe, though.
I have also gone very close to having Rakdos Vampire Tribal - it's really just lacking a few lower-in-the-curve guys. I would cube with Vampire Nighthawk, Olivia Voldaren and Falkenrath Aristocrat all day long. Some of the new Vampires coupled with some of the older ones (e.g. Butcher of Malakir, Malakir Bloodwitch) has the potential to at least be viable. I just think it tends to be missing the Knight Exemplar-style tribal lord that really pushes it way over the top ATM.
My Dimir section is very much Aberration, a couple of mill cards, and the rest is Dimir Control. Dimir is very control/steal oriented if you move away from mill. I haven't got Baleful Strix in my list, and I probably should. Shadowmage Infiltrator remains fantastic. Havengul Lich and Dragonlord Silumgar are both cards you probably want to be playing (the Lich is a Zombie, too).
If I wasn't running the mill cards, I'd likely have Sygg, River Cutthroat in too. Strix / Havengul / Silumgar / Sygg / Infiltrator is a good strong start for a non-mill Dimir guild.
I am just moving into Izzet artifice in my cube, yes.
That said, the equipment work that white does makes it worth keeping as well. I don't see too many problems with making blue the premier artifact colour in the cube, and then throwing both red and white a bone each (as white is usually equipment-centric, while red has a tendency to be more artifact-creature-centric, thanks to Feldon of the Third Path and all those Thopters).
Even if I for some reason dump Stoneforge Mystic and Stonehewer Giant from my cube one day, I will still run the hell out of Hanna, Ship's Navigator, though - incredible card that sees a lot of love in my cube. Some of the horrible things I've seen done... (and just when you think you've gotten rid of her, Sun Titan brings her back!)
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"Personally I love high-riak, low-reqars gambles. Life's best with a decent amount of riak. And f*** reqars."
I am not sure how you cut baleful stix ?
There is just so much value in this card and it doesn't require artifact.dec to make it great.
It may be an EDH (color identity-driven) vs multiplayer cube thing, but it's starting to feel like the strix is holding up a valuable dimir slot. It's certainly a interesting rattlesnake card, but I'm starting to feel as though I can find something with a bit more utility and synergy than a flying deathtouch wall of omens ~ I'm considering one of the following as a potential inexpensive replacement: disciple of deceit, unfulfilled desires, inkfathom witch, cavern harpy, shipwreck singer, siren of the silent song, or cemetery puca.
"Personally I love high-riak, low-reqars gambles. Life's best with a decent amount of riak. And f*** reqars."
Here's a comparison between ours to get you started, but try sussing out the cube #s of other folks here, and plug them into the comparison. It might give you faster results than soliciting advice on an entire FFA list.
http://www.cubetutor.com/comparecubes/7844/219
"Personally I love high-riak, low-reqars gambles. Life's best with a decent amount of riak. And f*** reqars."
I'd still happily play Baleful Strix over any of those. Too good a defensive card, and too useful later in the game with blink effects.
Out of the others you suggested, the only ones I'd likely even consider are Cavern Harpy and Cemetery Puca. The Harpy probably needs a janky combo or two to sit alongside (like the classic Aluren combo). Puca is not bad, but there are plenty of other cards with a similar effect. Body Double, for example, is arguably better (it at least is capable of comboing with Reveillark in the old-fashioned way).
No worries, I'll steal a look when I have a chance. If not today, it'll be sometime next week (as I'm off on hols for a few days).
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GR has a lot more haste enablers like Sarkhan Vol, Fires of Yavimaya, etc, which means that its token production tends to be a lot more explosive. Red gets effects like Marton Stromgald, Tears of Rage, Shared Animosity, etc that can turn a reasonable number of tokens into an unreasonable amount of damage.
Alternatively, you could go with a more Goblins lean in GR. Green doesn't have a ton of goblins, but it does offer some stuff like Boggart Ram-Gang, Tin-Street Hooligan, Wort, the Raidmother, Boartusk Liege, Vexing Shusher, and a few others. This can still be a tokeny theme as well, as a lot of red's best token generators are Goblin tokens - Mogg War-Marshall, Beetleback Chieftain, Siege-Gang Commander, Krenko's Command, Dragon Fodder, etc, and goblin lords like Goblin Chieftain are great support for this.
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I already have Cathars' Crusade, Mobilization, Emeria Angel, Hero of Bladehold and Captain of the Watch producing tokens in white. Somehow, Vitu-Ghazi Guildmage has also survived in my Selesnya section, thanks to its unlimited Populate ability (I suspect if I'm ever going to drop it, it's going to have to be for The Dryad Triad). I've also got Imperious Perfect, Deranged Hermit and Giant Adephage in green.
Once I move into Gruul, I already have Xenagos, the Reveler, Huntmaster of the Fells and Dragonlair Spider tokening it up, so it's a natural extension here, too.
If you go the whole hog with Naya, you usually have Assemble the Legion in the mix, too.
So this is where my cube is at in these slots when it comes to tokens, and I'm literally about to throw Primal Vigor into the mix. I can't wait to throw a Blade of Selves on something with Primal Vigor out, and then sit back and wait for the looks of horror to slowly spread across my opponents' faces.
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Here is what I want to play :
So that's obviously too much. I can see myself dropping the Herald of the Host. I could drop Baneslayer Angel not because of power level but because she is kind of generic. I'm not playing swords of X&Y so I could cut Stonehewer Giant. Thoughts on all this?
My 450ish 1vs1 cube
My white 5-drops currently look like this...
Creatures: BSA / Knight-Captain of Eos / Stonehewer / Sunscorch Regent / Roc.
Spells: Cathars' / Miraculous Recovery / Sigil of the Empty Throne.
Knight-Captain and Sigil of the Empty Throne are pretty much only in my list because they fit into draft archetypes. Miraculous Recovery is the only other card I'd not bother considering - it's fun because it's instant, but it's pretty niche.
I've had Cloudgoat Ranger, Karmic Guide and Reveillark in in the past, and they've all been dropped out. Stonehewer has gone close a couple of times as well (given I also have Stoneforge Mystic in my list).
I'd imagine you probably want to have somewhat of a similar balance to me, given you've only listed three spells there. So I'd keep the spells and pick five creatures.
I'd absolutely not cube without Baneslayer Angel and Wingmate Roc - they're both fantastic. I suspect I'd say the same about Archangel Avacyn if I had one.
From there, I'd probably pick your poison with the last two. I'd definitely consider Sunscorch Regent - it plays similar to Consecrated Sphinx, in that it's a large flier with a massive payback, but also a complete removal magnet.
So pick two out of Archon of Justice / Cloudgoat / Herald of the Host / Karmic Guide / Reveillark / Stonehewer / Sunscorch? Looking at your list (which I'd imagine is somewhat out of date, given the Swords of X&Y are still in there), I'd be tempted to go with Herald of the Host (horrid with Dub Season / Mimic Vat / Recurring Fricking Nightmare) and Karmic Guide.
If you've added Vizkopa Guildmage since, I'd switch the latter to Sunscorch Regent.
If you've added more sac outlets since, I'd switch the latter to Archon of Justice.
That last slot is tight.
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