I don't run Exalted Angel. I started playing during Khans and never cared for Morph, and that's one of the beauties of playing cube: you don't have to play with mechanics you don't like. I'm missing out on a few cards, but for now, it doesn't bother me.
My favorite Morph card is one that's never cast.
House rule: as an addition cost to cast Hymn to Tourach, you have to howl like the wolf in the delightfully cheesy art.
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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.
EDH: UGEdric
Pauper: URDelver
Modern: UGRDelver
Draft my cube: Eric's 390 Unpowered
I have never cast Exalted Angel, nor do I currently run it. Seems powerful though, and I really like the artwork on the different printings!
I like morph a lot and run quite a few in my cube. I think my favourite morph card is Den Protector. That card is bonkers.
I hope they bring morph back again soon, at the same time I wish they scrapped manifest as a mechanic. It watered down the overall morph concept and needlessly complicated the game.
If you run this, do you run it as part of a bigger Morph theme?
I do run this card, and it remained in my cube even when I cut all my other morphs at one point. Now I have 1 morph per color, and it's comfortably Exalted Angel.
What's your favorite Morph card?
It probably is Exalted Angel, but Den Protector is certainly getting up there.
Either Usman or Antknee (I can't remember which, sorry guys!) has Sharpied his Exalted Angel to give it Exalted as a house rule. What house rules does your playgroup have?
It's AA that has the Exalted Exalted Angel. We don't currently run any house rules.
Big Exalted Angel fan. I think it has been in every single version of my cubes. She's my favorite morph by far.
I do not really run a morph theme, per se. I do have some morphs and depending on where my power level is at I may run more or less. Morph is a bit clunky as a mechanic, and IMO it's not aging well with the power creep.
Only two house rules at present, but very open to this sort of thing:
1. Artifact lands are freely available along with basic lands (really helps the artifact deck).
2. Mana burn. We still have it. Used to also play 6th edition rules, but I think everyone agrees it's less complicated without. I even finally conceded this point.
I still like Exalted Angel, even though she isn't as outstanding as she once was. She also reminds me of one of my favorite (and most successful) standard decks of all time: Astral Slide. So, there is definitely some nostalgia involved. I just wish there were a new border version with the old art. I think the original art is miles above the two new ones.
If you run this, do you run it as part of a bigger Morph theme?
I don't believe that there needs to be a morph theme in order to justify running any morph cards. Yes, they are getting better the more of them you run. However, even without the bluff aspect, morph is a fine tool to get attacking earlier to deal with color screw. Right now, I run 9 morph cards, at least one in each color. So, the typical 2-color deck does have a bit of bluffing involved when it comes to morphs.
What's your favorite Morph card?
Exalted Angel, for the above reasons. So many good memories.
Either Usman or Antknee (I can't remember which, sorry guys!) has Sharpied his Exalted Angel to give it Exalted as a house rule. What house rules does your playgroup have?
1) We house-ruled Winter Orb to work as printed even when the Oracle text still included the tap clause. It was the only card in my cube that was counter-intuitively working differently then printed, so we ignored the invisible tap clause in order to not confuse people. When they dropped that Oracle errata, playing Orb like that was no longer a house rule. Now that we have a black border version with the old (and now also new) wording, I play it like that. No need for card-specific errata, which I heavily dislike.
2) For a couple of years, we allowed a "free seven" mulligan. We dropped that with the introduction of the scry mulligan. This means that my cube is now house-rule-free, which I am very happy with.
It's just been set after set of Eldrazi, so I'm glad that we won't be seeing them again for a while.
As I said, there were only three sets over the course of a year, a large one and two smaller ones. Just like it would have been under the old block model. So, the amount of Eldrazi sets was totally fine. Note that this allowed them to do one set for each of the three Titans, like they originally planned before they switched to the 2-set block model.
I've played Exalted Angel since 2008. It was so powerful back then that it saw play in every white deck, even aggro. Since then white three drops have exploded. It can still see play in aggro decks, but nowadays it is either a side card or last resort. Too much investment for a card that dies to all removals, this is bad against control and really feels like a hoser against red decks. This is amplified with the printing of Gisela, the Broken Blade. Hidden Dragonslayer will likely outlive the iconic angel in my cube as it is both filling more roles, offering functions that are in higher demand and is in a less competitive slot, despite being weaker in vacuum.
You certainly do not need a morph package for EA to be good. She's actually one of the better reason why other morphs could be a must kill cards on sight when they are face down, at least for aggressive decks. My favorite morph is Den Protector.
I love Exalted Angel, but decided to cut the few morph cards I had out of the cube because they were just too predictable. I do like the mechanic, though, and Exalted Angel is still strong, regardless.
Favorite morph was probably Ebonblade Reaper because I love stupid suicide black. I ran a morph deck with it and Raven Guild Master as my two sneaky threats.
If you run this, do you run it as part of a bigger Morph theme?
What's your favorite Morph card?
Either Usman or Antknee (I can't remember which, sorry guys!) has Sharpied his Exalted Angel to give it Exalted as a house rule. What house rules does your playgroup have?
We don't run it.
Probably Fathom Seer.
Not many house rules, per se, but we have ~30 custom cards.
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I primarily play limited, so most of my spoiler season comments view cards through that lens.
Not many house rules, per se, but we have ~30 custom cards.
I'd say that counts.
I've never run Exalted Angel, it seems clunky and my white 4-5 drop slots are already stacked. Paying 3 to morph it, then hoping it survives to untap with it the next turn seems like a dicey plan.
I've been a really big fan of the "Power Rangers" from DTK, and I'm running all of them besides Silumgar Assassin - which I liked quite a bit, but it fell to competition from the sudden increase in playable black 2s and 3s. I wasn't playing the first time Morph came out, but I played a lot of limited during KTK-FRF-DTK block(s), and I developed a soft spot for Ruthless Ripper. Getting to trade with anything out of nowhere while Shocking your opponent for free was sweet. It's not quite strong enough for the main cube, but she has a happy home in my Peasant cube.
We have a tradition in Suwon of announcing all pimp as soon as it's played. Now that my cube's more than 70% pimped, though, it only really applies when we play limited or EDH. We also sometimes play what we call "Flavor Wars", where you read the flavor text on each card you play before you reveal it. If your opponent can guess what the card is, it's automatically countered.
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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.
Since I missed P&K Nalaar: I think she's in the top three red 4-drop creatures alongside FTK and Hellrider / Hero of Oxid Ridge. She's essentially 4-cmc Siege-Gang Commander that supports artifacts, tokens, and fits like a glove in everything else.
I'm a big fan of Exalted Angel in slower decks. I don't slot her too much into aggro as much since we've just been getting a glut of amazing 3-cmc creatures. She has a great combination of stats and abilities. Being a 4/5 with "lifelink" is a huge problem against most red based decks, and having morph makes her very versatile.
I don't really support a morph theme; I play 1 morph in every color except white (which has 2) and black (which currently has none). The (mega)morph cards I'm currently running now are good on their own, but even before DTK I was playing with Exalted Angel and a few other older morphs like Bane of the Living and Blistering Firecat but didn't exactly support a morph theme.
I don't have any "house rules" but I do ban Upheaval whenever we're playing multiplayer and not 1v1, anybody who has Upheaval in their cardpool gets it replaced with Cyclonic Rift.
As we did with fetches, shocks, and checks, let's take this opportunity to discuss the original duals as a cycle. The ABU duals cycle was voted #8 in the 2015 Power Rankings for lands, beating out every cycle of duals except for ONS/ZEN fetch lands, so there's no serious question about whether or not these lands deserve to be considered a staple based on power level. Nevertheless, there's still plenty to talk about regarding the silver standard for mana fixing.
Do you run this cycle, and if so, what effect does (not) running the ABU duals have on your cube's environment?
How highly do you pick ABU duals when you draft, and which one(s) are you most likely to first pick?
Are your cube's ABU duals the real deal, proxies, or a mix?
Would you recommend proxying the ABU duals for a newer cube?
All of the ABU duals are named after real geographical features, which ones have you visited?
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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.
I do not currently own any ABU duals and am not running proxies, so none currently in the cube. I look forward to picking them up over time. I have fond memories of playing with them as a pre-teen lol.
I value them extremely highly but tend to not take them early enough (still new to cubing). If a dual wheels I grab it but don't take first pass enough.
I visited Badlands this summer and it was breath taking! Hard to describe how intense the landscape is, there are long fields of golden wheat that run along the jagged rock faces that add to the contrast.
They're currently not in my cube, but it's a long-term dream to add them (replacing the shocklands). I've got a Savannah and Taiga... just need to chase the expensive pieces of hardware.
Would they be drafted any higher than the shocklands? Probably not, but I'd still appreciate them.
I am a month removed from spending a day on a Tropical Island - Magnetic Island, off Townsville in Queensland. Highly recommended.
Do you run this cycle, and if so, what effect does (not) running the ABU duals have on your cube's environment?
Dual Lands create the essential flawless mana feeling in my cube. They also encourage drafters to play too many colors which irritates me more than anything, so there is that.
How highly do you pick ABU duals when you draft, and which one(s) are you most likely to first pick?
Blue Duals are first pickable, Bayou coming next at 2-4, Taiga Scrubland and Badlands 4-6, then the rest with Plateau coming last.
Are your cube's ABU duals the real deal, proxies, or a mix?
I am currently in the process of upgrading to beta, so proxy atm.
Would you recommend proxying the ABU duals for a newer cube?
I would definitely suggest doing so, trying these out will give you some context to analyze the format and decide what design parameters you would like to use. All of the ABU duals are named after real geographical features, which ones have you visited?
I began my cube as a budget cube, and I took a lot of pride in running only authentic Magic cards (and some World Championship Editions)... until a friend gave me a set of Chinese fake ABU duals. I tried them, and I'm glad I did. Fetch lands do so much more with access to ABU duals as well as shocks, tri-color aggro decks are feasible, and 3+ color control decks work much better when they can cast spells on time without hurting themselves. Even if you never want to proxy anything else, I really recommend proxying the ABU duals if the price of the real thing is out of reach.
I don't usually first pick duals or fetches unless a pack is extremely weak, but I pick them quite highly once I have a pretty good idea of my primary color pair(s). The only dual lands I do typically take P1P1 are Celestial Colonnade and Creeping Tar Pit, not only because they're in color pairs I really enjoy playing, but also because they double as excellent finishers in those colors.
Volcanic Island - Jeju Island, South Korea and Isla de Ometepe, Nicaragua. Both are fantastic places.
Tropical Island - I've been to quite a few in SE Asia and Central America. Probably my favorite was Koh Phi Phi, Thailand.
I don't have any "house rules" but I do ban Upheaval whenever we're playing multiplayer and not 1v1, anybody who has Upheaval in their cardpool gets it replaced with Cyclonic Rift.
That's a really good idea, and I could see doing something similar with Armageddon because I hate mass land destruction in multiplayer.
ABU dual locations I've visited:
...Tropical Island - I've been to quite a few in SE Asia and Central America. Probably my favorite was Koh Phi Phi, Thailand.
Hey, that's where my wife and I honeymooned! Nice place indeed.
I remember in Theros where people were pushing devotion so this guy bumped into some list, and everyone's favorite jellyfish was bumped out.
I remember when people were pushing humans to help champion of the parish and this came in while everyone's favorite jellyfish was sitting on the bench temporarily.
I don't run either at 390.
As an aside ruthless ripper felt like cheating in limited, fate reformed was so much fun despite ugin and citadel siege being free wins.
I remember in Theros where people were pushing devotion so this guy bumped into some list, and everyone's favorite jellyfish was bumped out.
I remember when people were pushing humans to help champion of the parish and this came in while everyone's favorite jellyfish was sitting on the bench temporarily.
Those seem like terrible decisions.
That being said, I like Adept, and think there's room for him at the largest sizes.
AEther Adept is a fine card and I play it since I still support Devotion, but have been looking for other things to do with blue lately so that might not last too long.
UNPOPULAR OPINION: Blue is a loose color at 540 unpowered.
Without power and support of the artifact deck, I actually find blue to be one of the more loose colors in my cube (but still probably the most powerful). I support devotion because if I don't I'll find myself oversaturating blue with other functions like clones and reanimation support. Anybody else feeling my dilemma or have I just not been digging hard enough?
Aether Apedpt was solid everytime I ran it but even with devotion and human interests over the years the double blue felt too harsh vs. the man-o-war so I think that swap is bad. At this point I would recommend even people playing larger cubes to pass as I find all of the following more interesting and better as bounce creatures. Waterfront Bouncer - 630 (Lower depending on your cube build) Reflector Mage -360 Level Harbinger of the Tides - 450 Level Venser, Shaper Savant - 450 Level Riftwing Cloudskate - 630 Level
I like flexible mana costs and flash vs the vanilla 2/2. And Man-o-War is just haning in there as the mana cost is easy in X/U tempo decks
My favorite Morph card is one that's never cast.
House rule: as an addition cost to cast Hymn to Tourach, you have to howl like the wolf in the delightfully cheesy art.
EDH: UGEdric
Pauper: UR Delver
Modern: UGR Delver
Draft my cube: Eric's 390 Unpowered
I like morph a lot and run quite a few in my cube. I think my favourite morph card is Den Protector. That card is bonkers.
I hope they bring morph back again soon, at the same time I wish they scrapped manifest as a mechanic. It watered down the overall morph concept and needlessly complicated the game.
My favorite morph is the blue power ranger from dragons of tarkir. Stratus dancer I think? Good body + good effect.
I cut cards when I need to errata them. I want anyone to be able to pickup and play my cube.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=484979
I do run this card, and it remained in my cube even when I cut all my other morphs at one point. Now I have 1 morph per color, and it's comfortably Exalted Angel.
It probably is Exalted Angel, but Den Protector is certainly getting up there.
It's AA that has the Exalted Exalted Angel. We don't currently run any house rules.
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Agree with wtwlf on the best morph: Exalted or Den Protector.
No house rules in my cube.
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I do not really run a morph theme, per se. I do have some morphs and depending on where my power level is at I may run more or less. Morph is a bit clunky as a mechanic, and IMO it's not aging well with the power creep.
Only two house rules at present, but very open to this sort of thing:
1. Artifact lands are freely available along with basic lands (really helps the artifact deck).
2. Mana burn. We still have it. Used to also play 6th edition rules, but I think everyone agrees it's less complicated without. I even finally conceded this point.
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/modular-cube-5-colors.800/
Retro combo cube thread
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/retro-combo-cube.1454/
If you run this, do you run it as part of a bigger Morph theme?
I don't believe that there needs to be a morph theme in order to justify running any morph cards. Yes, they are getting better the more of them you run. However, even without the bluff aspect, morph is a fine tool to get attacking earlier to deal with color screw. Right now, I run 9 morph cards, at least one in each color. So, the typical 2-color deck does have a bit of bluffing involved when it comes to morphs.
What's your favorite Morph card?
Exalted Angel, for the above reasons. So many good memories.
Either Usman or Antknee (I can't remember which, sorry guys!) has Sharpied his Exalted Angel to give it Exalted as a house rule. What house rules does your playgroup have?
1) We house-ruled Winter Orb to work as printed even when the Oracle text still included the tap clause. It was the only card in my cube that was counter-intuitively working differently then printed, so we ignored the invisible tap clause in order to not confuse people. When they dropped that Oracle errata, playing Orb like that was no longer a house rule. Now that we have a black border version with the old (and now also new) wording, I play it like that. No need for card-specific errata, which I heavily dislike.
2) For a couple of years, we allowed a "free seven" mulligan. We dropped that with the introduction of the scry mulligan. This means that my cube is now house-rule-free, which I am very happy with.
As I said, there were only three sets over the course of a year, a large one and two smaller ones. Just like it would have been under the old block model. So, the amount of Eldrazi sets was totally fine. Note that this allowed them to do one set for each of the three Titans, like they originally planned before they switched to the 2-set block model.
Uril, the Miststalker RGW -- Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre C -- Vhati il-Dal BG -- Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer RW -- Animar, Soul of Elements URG
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker R -- Maga, Traitor to Mortals B -- Ghave, Guru of Spores BGW -- Sliver Hivelord WUBRG
You certainly do not need a morph package for EA to be good. She's actually one of the better reason why other morphs could be a must kill cards on sight when they are face down, at least for aggressive decks. My favorite morph is Den Protector.
No erratas here.
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Favorite morph was probably Ebonblade Reaper because I love stupid suicide black. I ran a morph deck with it and Raven Guild Master as my two sneaky threats.
Pretty great, a 4 drop that is good for red midrange, control, and aggro.
Reservedly excited.
Yep, although I'm aware they're dead.
For sure, should any ever exist.
Also, I'd say that the ROE Eldrazi were an A+, the EMN Eldrazi and A-, and the BFZ block Eldrazi ~ a C+.
We don't run it.
Probably Fathom Seer.
Not many house rules, per se, but we have ~30 custom cards.
Interested in Custom Card Creation.
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(filter->rarity to see in set rarity).
I'd say that counts.
I've never run Exalted Angel, it seems clunky and my white 4-5 drop slots are already stacked. Paying 3 to morph it, then hoping it survives to untap with it the next turn seems like a dicey plan.
I've been a really big fan of the "Power Rangers" from DTK, and I'm running all of them besides Silumgar Assassin - which I liked quite a bit, but it fell to competition from the sudden increase in playable black 2s and 3s. I wasn't playing the first time Morph came out, but I played a lot of limited during KTK-FRF-DTK block(s), and I developed a soft spot for Ruthless Ripper. Getting to trade with anything out of nowhere while Shocking your opponent for free was sweet. It's not quite strong enough for the main cube, but she has a happy home in my Peasant cube.
We have a tradition in Suwon of announcing all pimp as soon as it's played. Now that my cube's more than 70% pimped, though, it only really applies when we play limited or EDH. We also sometimes play what we call "Flavor Wars", where you read the flavor text on each card you play before you reveal it. If your opponent can guess what the card is, it's automatically countered.
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
I'm running several morphs, but I don't make it a point to include one in each color.
My favorite morph would probably be the angel, but Stratus Dancer is up there as well. I love a good Ux tempo deck.
As far as house rules, we have two. 1. Don't be a dick. 2. Free mulligans. If you think about abusing rule number 2, see rule number 1.
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I'm a big fan of Exalted Angel in slower decks. I don't slot her too much into aggro as much since we've just been getting a glut of amazing 3-cmc creatures. She has a great combination of stats and abilities. Being a 4/5 with "lifelink" is a huge problem against most red based decks, and having morph makes her very versatile.
I don't really support a morph theme; I play 1 morph in every color except white (which has 2) and black (which currently has none). The (mega)morph cards I'm currently running now are good on their own, but even before DTK I was playing with Exalted Angel and a few other older morphs like Bane of the Living and Blistering Firecat but didn't exactly support a morph theme.
I don't have any "house rules" but I do ban Upheaval whenever we're playing multiplayer and not 1v1, anybody who has Upheaval in their cardpool gets it replaced with Cyclonic Rift.
My High Octane Unpowered Cube on CubeCobra
Tropical Island
As we did with fetches, shocks, and checks, let's take this opportunity to discuss the original duals as a cycle. The ABU duals cycle was voted #8 in the 2015 Power Rankings for lands, beating out every cycle of duals except for ONS/ZEN fetch lands, so there's no serious question about whether or not these lands deserve to be considered a staple based on power level. Nevertheless, there's still plenty to talk about regarding the silver standard for mana fixing.
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
I value them extremely highly but tend to not take them early enough (still new to cubing). If a dual wheels I grab it but don't take first pass enough.
I visited Badlands this summer and it was breath taking! Hard to describe how intense the landscape is, there are long fields of golden wheat that run along the jagged rock faces that add to the contrast.
Would they be drafted any higher than the shocklands? Probably not, but I'd still appreciate them.
I am a month removed from spending a day on a Tropical Island - Magnetic Island, off Townsville in Queensland. Highly recommended.
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Do you run this cycle, and if so, what effect does (not) running the ABU duals have on your cube's environment?
Dual Lands create the essential flawless mana feeling in my cube. They also encourage drafters to play too many colors which irritates me more than anything, so there is that.
How highly do you pick ABU duals when you draft, and which one(s) are you most likely to first pick?
Blue Duals are first pickable, Bayou coming next at 2-4, Taiga Scrubland and Badlands 4-6, then the rest with Plateau coming last.
Are your cube's ABU duals the real deal, proxies, or a mix?
I am currently in the process of upgrading to beta, so proxy atm.
Would you recommend proxying the ABU duals for a newer cube?
I would definitely suggest doing so, trying these out will give you some context to analyze the format and decide what design parameters you would like to use.
All of the ABU duals are named after real geographical features, which ones have you visited?
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I don't usually first pick duals or fetches unless a pack is extremely weak, but I pick them quite highly once I have a pretty good idea of my primary color pair(s). The only dual lands I do typically take P1P1 are Celestial Colonnade and Creeping Tar Pit, not only because they're in color pairs I really enjoy playing, but also because they double as excellent finishers in those colors.
ABU dual locations I've visited:
That's a really good idea, and I could see doing something similar with Armageddon because I hate mass land destruction in multiplayer.
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
Hey, that's where my wife and I honeymooned! Nice place indeed.
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Aether Adept
So is Man-o'-War's strictly worse younger sister still good enough for your cube?
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
I remember in Theros where people were pushing devotion so this guy bumped into some list, and everyone's favorite jellyfish was bumped out.
I remember when people were pushing humans to help champion of the parish and this came in while everyone's favorite jellyfish was sitting on the bench temporarily.
I don't run either at 390.
As an aside ruthless ripper felt like cheating in limited, fate reformed was so much fun despite ugin and citadel siege being free wins.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=484979
Those seem like terrible decisions.
That being said, I like Adept, and think there's room for him at the largest sizes.
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UNPOPULAR OPINION: Blue is a loose color at 540 unpowered.
Without power and support of the artifact deck, I actually find blue to be one of the more loose colors in my cube (but still probably the most powerful). I support devotion because if I don't I'll find myself oversaturating blue with other functions like clones and reanimation support. Anybody else feeling my dilemma or have I just not been digging hard enough?
My High Octane Unpowered Cube on CubeCobra
Waterfront Bouncer - 630 (Lower depending on your cube build)
Reflector Mage -360 Level
Harbinger of the Tides - 450 Level
Venser, Shaper Savant - 450 Level
Riftwing Cloudskate - 630 Level
I like flexible mana costs and flash vs the vanilla 2/2. And Man-o-War is just haning in there as the mana cost is easy in X/U tempo decks