Crucible has so many cool interactions, I think it's a staple. The things it can do range from the good (recurring Fetch Lands and dead manlands) to the broken (recurring Strip Mine or Horizon Canopy). Love this card.
For fantasy worlds, you have to hand it to Middle-Earth. It's so complete, with languages and history. Even if Westeros and a few others are now more detailed, Middle-Earth was one of the first and served as a world-building guide for modern writers.
I don't think I would run it, reusing fetches is sweet but it seems too strong for my environment along side Strip Mine. Doesn't do enough unless it's being broken.
Diskword is my favorite fantasy world, I have read most of not all of Terry Pratchett's book over the years but I always find something new when I revisit things. There are just so many fun little jokes in how the world works that make sense in the logic of the world but is wonderful absurdity to the reader.
I recently traded off a stack of EDH jank and draft leftovers for a slightly damaged copy of Crucible of Worlds, but I haven't actually had the chance to see it in action, so I can't comment on it other than to say that I'm looking forward to finding out whether it's all that.
In case you couldn't tell from my avatar, I'm quite enamored of the Star Trek universe. It's one of the most optimistic portrayals of humanity's future I know of, and I hope that one day we can live up to Gene Roddenberry's vision of us transcending national and racial differences to eliminate poverty and environmental ruin to free us all to maximize our potential and explore the universe. These days it seems like more of a leap of faith than ever to hope for this, but Roddenberry imagined the United Federation of Planets emerging after far more troubled times than anything we've lived through yet.
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465 card Unpowered cube thread. Draft it here and I'll be happy to return the favor.
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
It doesn't come together all the time for us, but I like it as a option. I've been enjoying Life From the Loam in the MODO color shifted cube (which is quite fun, btw) and want to bring that back to give Crucible a bit more juice.
The deep history of Westeros is cool, big ASOIAF fan.
Crucible of Worlds is an outstanding card. It has a TON of interactions in the cube that are powerful and allow you to generate big advantages over the course of the game. It's one of my favorite artifacts in the cube, and I'm constantly finding new ways to break it.
As you can tell by my avatar, Mid-World (Stephen King's alternate universe explored in The Dark Tower books) is my favorite fictitious world. However, Middle Earth simply has to be at or near the top of that list too. The depth, languages and history are so rich and immersive. It has had a big influence on modern pop culture, and has forever warped the way fantasy worlds are imagined.
I like the idea of Crucible, but I don't want it badly enough to shell out the dough for it. The potential for things like Crucible + Strip Mine also just isn't the kind of thing my group is looking for. It is one of the cards where I like the masterpiece art on par with the original. I like that the new art gives a true "crucible" vibe to it, but the original art gets the upper hand in terms of feeling like an epic birthplace of worlds and not just an object in a foundry.
Tons of great choices for fictitious worlds have already been mentioned and I agree with all of them. I'd also like to add Robert Asprin's Myth series, as well as, y'know, Dominaria. If you want to go by time spent daydreaming as a kid though, it's Star Wars hands down.
Crucible is a fine card, but I think it is overrated in my playgroup. Disclaimer: I believe it is of those cards that are much weaker in a large cube, as the number of synergy card doesn't increase when you go up in size. Crucible is often a do nothing card. With enough synergy it can be played, but you need quite a lot of it. Two fetches are clearly not enough, not even if you add a braids on top. You have a significant chance of drawing it without the synergy cards and then it is a terrible card. Even if you do have it, play it and recur a fetch, you might still have lands in your hand/freshly drawn, so you are not always going to gain card advantage from it before the game ends. Then you might be running out of life to pay, especially as you have spent tempo and a card doing nothing at least for the turn you have played crucible. How many extra land drops are worth 3 mana and a card, when spread over several turns? The answer must be higher than two.
Sometimes it gets played in a deck with Strip Mine and a Tezzeret to find it and then it is powerful. But too often in a large cube it does nothing. I've cut it before and will be fine doing so again.
Westeros is the world I've spent the most time reading about, just because the books are so long. A recent world I've read and liked is actually from Brave New World, I feel that I didn't get enough of it yet. It should be a dystopian world but eerily a great place to live in despite that.
I like Crucible, I want to include it when I make my cube larger to either 450. I plan on throwing in more of the man-lands, and so this can have more interactions at that point.
I prefer the promo myself.
Crucible is a great card that is either doing a lot of cool things in your deck or just not going in your deck. I will play it in a deck that does 5 or so mediumly powerful things with it (Harrow, Gargadon, looters, etc) or in a deck with 1 powerful thing and a few medium level things.
My favorite fictional world right now is probably the Hellboy universe. The comics books have been going on for more than two decades at this point and spans a ton of different series that all reference and build on each other. Right now the story is coming to a culmination of a ton of things in its 2nd big cycle of stories and is gearing up to go into the last one ever and I just finished a reread of everything out so far so its looming large in my mind.
My absolute favorite fictional universe is the Dark Tower and all of Stephen King's other connections.
Funny story. I left a box of 10th edition cards sitting in their original box opened, but unsorted in the corner of one of my shelves behind everything for a few years. Completely forgot about it. After rediscovering it, I fished through the rares, and found a perfect little Crucible of Worlds in it. It was nice. It's in my Jarad dredge EDH deck. I don't run it in the cube because I don't have that much mass stax effects, and I don't want to break fetchlands that hard.
I do like the Star Wars universe a lot. Also the Elder Scrolls fictional universe is fantastic. Playing through Morrowind again, and paying more attention to the lore this time, and seeing how fantastically well done the lore has been for the entire series.
Ulamog is cool, but there aren't any of the Eldrazi titans in my cube. I don't really have any kind of cheat package outside of artifacts. (Well, reanimator I guess, but that wouldn't work with Ulamog most of the time anyway.)
My only infinite combo is Kiki/Twin and I have two blue targets plus Zealous Conscripts and Great Oak Guardian to make sure it's super supported. It's my favorite cube archetype, and the fact that Great Oak Guardian not only makes infinite guys but also makes them infinitely big makes me giggle inside. Combined with the Tinker/Welder/Daretti stuff, I guess that makes UR a very combo-centric color pair in my cube.
I prefer all the new Eldrazi titans that can interact in the graveyard. So I don't run the old Ulamog anymore.
I think the only 2-card infinite combo in my cube is Soulfire Grand Master and Time Walk. But that's an incidental interaction, and it doesn't influence the inclusion(s) at all.
The new Eldrazis should only be played as redundancy to the new ones, certainly not over them. I play him because 3 eldrazis in 720 cards is too few to properly support an archtype. It is the most expensive card to cast in my cube.
Recently a great combo deck was played here. It had Eldrazi Displacer and Arcane Savant naming Time Spiral. It could combo out with four lands (requiring one to produce colorless), then you have infinite mana and play everything in your deck, including other incidental combos with Eldrazi Displacer and infinite mana. The combo is quite resilient too as even if Displacer has died/was discarded, it will be reshuffled into the deck. Also, Savant digs 7 cards deep for Displacer, and the deck also had Phantasmal Image, so it is a self-assembling combo.
I run Ulamog, the Ceasless Hunger instead. The cast trigger on Newlamog is much better and the attack trigger seals up any game in a hurry, and the fact that it can be reanimated is great. However, that doesn't stop me from running Kozilek, Butcher of Truth as my 2nd Eldrazi, which sees plenty of play in ramp and Sneak & Show shells.
My cube supports Reveillark and Splinter Twin combo, although the Twin combo sees a lot more play.
I think the only 2-card infinite combo in my cube is Soulfire Grand Master and Time Walk. But that's an incidental interaction, and it doesn't influence the inclusion(s) at all.
Yes. But I was just talking about 2-card combos in this example. Otherwise there are several more Walk combos with Regrowth critters and bounce effects, yes.
Ulamog is kinda meh, to be honest. I'm not really all that big of a fan of him compared to the other Titans and even compared to his new card. I like Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger much more, since it lets you reanimate and has a better cast trigger to reward that kind of thing.
As for combos, I've got Twin, some reanimator nonsense (if you count turn 1 Entomb -> turn 2 Reanimate a combo), 'Lark and Tinker stuff.
I like Kor Skyfisher. It has good early stats if you need that kind of body, but it can also help to re-use ETB triggers or get Land Tax active. Plus, it effectively costs 1 mana whenever you can pair it with a Mox, and it can even ramp you with Mana Vault and Mana Crypt.
I like to fish well enough, but I haven't been in a long time.
I didn't really care for Kor Skyfisher, but when I started expanding my cube, I needed another 2 mana white creature and lots of folks were running it. After drafting it a few times, I've found out just how useful it is.
I live in the middle of the flyfishing capital of the world, but I'm not a regular.
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I can't say I'm pleased to see you and must warn you I may have to do something about it.
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I like Skyfisher a lot for the reasons mentioned above. I also just always have a soft spot for cards I played with a bunch in their original limited formats.
I find fishing to be a pleasant enough activity, but it's not something I ever actively try to do. I've been a handful of times.
For fantasy worlds, you have to hand it to Middle-Earth. It's so complete, with languages and history. Even if Westeros and a few others are now more detailed, Middle-Earth was one of the first and served as a world-building guide for modern writers.
Cheers,
rant
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Diskword is my favorite fantasy world, I have read most of not all of Terry Pratchett's book over the years but I always find something new when I revisit things. There are just so many fun little jokes in how the world works that make sense in the logic of the world but is wonderful absurdity to the reader.
In case you couldn't tell from my avatar, I'm quite enamored of the Star Trek universe. It's one of the most optimistic portrayals of humanity's future I know of, and I hope that one day we can live up to Gene Roddenberry's vision of us transcending national and racial differences to eliminate poverty and environmental ruin to free us all to maximize our potential and explore the universe. These days it seems like more of a leap of faith than ever to hope for this, but Roddenberry imagined the United Federation of Planets emerging after far more troubled times than anything we've lived through yet.
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
Favorite world has to be Star Wars. I remember watching the movies as a kid a million times.
The deep history of Westeros is cool, big ASOIAF fan.
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As you can tell by my avatar, Mid-World (Stephen King's alternate universe explored in The Dark Tower books) is my favorite fictitious world. However, Middle Earth simply has to be at or near the top of that list too. The depth, languages and history are so rich and immersive. It has had a big influence on modern pop culture, and has forever warped the way fantasy worlds are imagined.
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Tons of great choices for fictitious worlds have already been mentioned and I agree with all of them. I'd also like to add Robert Asprin's Myth series, as well as, y'know, Dominaria. If you want to go by time spent daydreaming as a kid though, it's Star Wars hands down.
Sometimes it gets played in a deck with Strip Mine and a Tezzeret to find it and then it is powerful. But too often in a large cube it does nothing. I've cut it before and will be fine doing so again.
Westeros is the world I've spent the most time reading about, just because the books are so long. A recent world I've read and liked is actually from Brave New World, I feel that I didn't get enough of it yet. It should be a dystopian world but eerily a great place to live in despite that.
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I prefer the promo myself.
http://www.cubetutor.com/cubeblog/63569
My favorite fictional world right now is probably the Hellboy universe. The comics books have been going on for more than two decades at this point and spans a ton of different series that all reference and build on each other. Right now the story is coming to a culmination of a ton of things in its 2nd big cycle of stories and is gearing up to go into the last one ever and I just finished a reread of everything out so far so its looming large in my mind.
My absolute favorite fictional universe is the Dark Tower and all of Stephen King's other connections.
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I do like the Star Wars universe a lot. Also the Elder Scrolls fictional universe is fantastic. Playing through Morrowind again, and paying more attention to the lore this time, and seeing how fantastically well done the lore has been for the entire series.
Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
BONUS QUESTION
What infinite combos does your cube support?
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
My only infinite combo is Kiki/Twin and I have two blue targets plus Zealous Conscripts and Great Oak Guardian to make sure it's super supported. It's my favorite cube archetype, and the fact that Great Oak Guardian not only makes infinite guys but also makes them infinitely big makes me giggle inside. Combined with the Tinker/Welder/Daretti stuff, I guess that makes UR a very combo-centric color pair in my cube.
I think the only 2-card infinite combo in my cube is Soulfire Grand Master and Time Walk. But that's an incidental interaction, and it doesn't influence the inclusion(s) at all.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
Recently a great combo deck was played here. It had Eldrazi Displacer and Arcane Savant naming Time Spiral. It could combo out with four lands (requiring one to produce colorless), then you have infinite mana and play everything in your deck, including other incidental combos with Eldrazi Displacer and infinite mana. The combo is quite resilient too as even if Displacer has died/was discarded, it will be reshuffled into the deck. Also, Savant digs 7 cards deep for Displacer, and the deck also had Phantasmal Image, so it is a self-assembling combo.
The list on cube cobra
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My cube supports Reveillark and Splinter Twin combo, although the Twin combo sees a lot more play.
Time Walk also goes infinite in your cube with Eternal Witness and Crystal Shard, I remember you pointing this out to me a while back.
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The only ones I can think of off the top of my head is the Twin/lark combos.
As for combos, I've got Twin, some reanimator nonsense (if you count turn 1 Entomb -> turn 2 Reanimate a combo), 'Lark and Tinker stuff.
URW Control
WBG Abzan
GRW Burn
EDH
GR Rosheen Meanderer
BONUS QUESTION
Do you ever go fishing?
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
I like to fish well enough, but I haven't been in a long time.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
I love fishing. Try to get up to yellowknife every year to catch Lake trout on great slave lake.
Playing Magic >>>> Fishing
I live in the middle of the flyfishing capital of the world, but I'm not a regular.
EDH: UGEdric
Pauper: UR Delver
Modern: UGR Delver
Draft my cube: Eric's 390 Unpowered
I find fishing to be a pleasant enough activity, but it's not something I ever actively try to do. I've been a handful of times.