Idk if calling those above cards marginal at 540 is the same as being a hater lol. I will admit, this thread makes me happy. I am glad to see the card pool for these kinds of things grow as i love the archetype and if I ever expand into the 720 range, I may consider it a bit more.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
LEGACY|UWStonebladeCOMMANDER|UBGThe Mimeoplsm Ooze & Aghhs!MODERN|UWAzorius Control THE JUICE[BOX]³ CUBE
I was just messing with you dude. Run whatever you want. But those cards are all fine, and they help make the deck tick. So if you ARE interested in the Polymorph package, it can be done with cards that work very well in other archetypes too. All of those cards, and the others in the OP, have been seeing play in a variety of different decks. So hate on them if you want to, but they're all defensible cards.
I know you are just meesin' :P. I have been toying with building a second Cube that is power free, so can curate an entirely different experience, so I will watch the thread for that - most certainly.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
LEGACY|UWStonebladeCOMMANDER|UBGThe Mimeoplsm Ooze & Aghhs!MODERN|UWAzorius Control THE JUICE[BOX]³ CUBE
And you're right about some of those cards in smaller cubes, it's hard to make room the smaller the cube gets. But it's been fun, powerful and exciting in my cube, and I wanted to spread the word.
How is this going for you? I don't know how many Reps you get with Cube these days. Have you tried Dwarven Mine From Throne of Eldraine? I found it helps the cause.
- Excited about this card, Phyrexian Mana allows you to EOT gain control of creature then Polymorph. I could be interesting for Aristocrats deck to remove a hard to deal with blocker/ steal creature for sacrifice. I also would like to see this card in aggressive archetypes as an "answer" to the Polymorph/ reanimator decks themselves. The card could also be incredible for Stax decks. The Phyrexian mana could allow this card to be played in any archetype.
- This card has been pretty good in the Rakdos/ Jund Sacrifice deck for Standard. I will give this card a try to temporarily help out the Aristocrats deck, but most likely this is going to come out after a short experiment. I will likely test out one of these three, I think Wrangle might be a good card for its mana cost/ damage. The problem is this isn't instant speed.
This could definitely be useful for the Polymorph deck.
- I'm not too excited about this card, especially given this card's converted mana cost for the Polymorph deck. But what I do like about this card is that it could be a good "answer" to planeswalkers allow you to steal them before they ultimate. I'm not going to add this into my cube, but it definitely a possibility if Planeswalkers get out of control + the previous two cards have strong performances.
- I really want another Act of Aggression that is instant speed at 3 CMC. This is unfortunately the next closest card. The saving grace for this card is its second effect, sacrifice the creature to deal damage - this could be nice to help land the final damage with a Aristocrats build
I'm going to give Act of Aggression and Wrangle a try
I'm actively maintaining a comprehensive article to help explain to new cube players how some complex vintage level cards work in a cube environment. Vintage Cube Cards Explained
- Excited about this card, Phyrexian Mana allows you to EOT gain control of creature then Polymorph. I could be interesting for Aristocrats deck to remove a hard to deal with blocker/ steal creature for sacrifice. I also would like to see this card in aggressive archetypes as an "answer" to the Polymorph/ reanimator decks themselves. The card could also be incredible for Stax decks. The Phyrexian mana could allow this card to be played in any archetype.
- This card has been pretty good in the Rakdos/ Jund Sacrifice deck for Standard. I will give this card a try to temporarily help out the Aristocrats deck, but most likely this is going to come out after a short experiment. I will likely test out one of these three, I think Wrangle might be a good card for its mana cost/ damage. The problem is this isn't instant speed.
This could definitely be useful for the Polymorph deck.
- I'm not too excited about this card, especially given this card's converted mana cost for the Polymorph deck. But what I do like about this card is that it could be a good "answer" to planeswalkers allow you to steal them before they ultimate. I'm not going to add this into my cube, but it definitely a possibility if Planeswalkers get out of control + the previous two cards have strong performances.
- I really want another Act of Aggression that is instant speed at 3 CMC. This is unfortunately the next closest card. The saving grace for this card is its second effect, sacrifice the creature to deal damage - this could be nice to help land the final damage with a Aristocrats build
I'm going to give Act of Aggression, Wrangle and Grab the Reins a try. I'm not sure how many of these effects will stay in the cube.
Frenzied Fugue would probably be the best option since you don't need to cast it + a Polymorph effect on the same turn. Plus I consider it to be the best overall Threaten effect after Zealous Conscripts.
I didn't realize the END OF TURN and NEXT END STEP difference. Act of Aggression will allow you to upkeep, steal the creature then sacrifice it to SmokeStack.
Unfortunately this isn't as good as I theorized.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I'm actively maintaining a comprehensive article to help explain to new cube players how some complex vintage level cards work in a cube environment. Vintage Cube Cards Explained
@Breathe: RE:Threaten Effects - I would only want ones that would allow me to play Polymorph effects on curve (or at least on T5 at the latest). So they would either need to be instants that cost 4 mana or less, or need to be attached to an effect that I can activate for free. Sarkhan Vol does this, and is already in my cube. Frenzied Fugue can do it too, though I don't want to add in anymore red 4cc cards. Are there any more that fit that criteria? The deck already has access to a bunch of other creature theft effects that work better for this purpose, so I'd need a pretty strong argument to use a Threaten effect instead, and I can't think of any that work well in this strategy that I don't already play.
How is this going for you? I don't know how many Reps you get with Cube these days. Have you tried Dwarven Mine From Throne of Eldraine? I found it helps the cause.
It's going really well. Deck is awesome, fun and consistent.
The 3 mountain clause on Mine is way too painful, IMO. Would be awesome for a mono-red variant though, which people are exploring in constructed, ATM. But these decks are almost always at least 2 or 3 colors, so I don't see the Mine working out in this format. I think Khalni Garden is the better version of this effect in the cube, but that doesn't quite excite me either.
I just stumbled over Indomitable Creativity, which provides an interesting option for the Polymorph deck. Judging from the experiences here, the triple-red manacost might be too prohibitive, but the ceiling on this card is super-cool.
EDIT: Well I missed the fact that it turns everything into an artifact or a creature, instead of turning artifacts into artifacts and creatures into creatures.
I am going to try this in my cube. I think Yidaro, Wandering Monster is a creature that is unusually suited to the Polymorph deck. It is in the right color with Transmogrify, Reality Scramble, and Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast. If drawn Yidaro can be cycled away relatively inexpensively and return to the library. I doubt the clause of being cycled will happen four times, but hey, it is on the table as well. Haste and trample are both key words that play well with Yidaro as a pay off as well.
Are there other creatures that have the ability of returning to the library from the hand?
Has anyone tried Yidaro, Wandering Monster?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Don't sweat the petty things and don't pet the sweaty things.
We don't support this archetype in the giant cube, but we do have this card. I can feedback that our experience with it as follows:
Giant cube has it listed as a 1R Instant for slots. Functionally, the group treats it as 1R: Draw a card. If third time activating this, gain a 8/8 Trample + Haste. As a self-recurring draw spell has been the primary function of the card, which works well in almost any deck built with red. The times three trigger happens rarely, but is exceedingly fun when it does.
It's also been hard cast as a value beater, been Sneak Attacked in, is popular in the GR Ramp decks.
It's a nice card, regardless of if you put it in your 2 CMC or 7 CMC slots. I strongly applaud it.
could also be used. Ideally, this is not the best usages for these walkers, but they could be used.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I'm actively maintaining a comprehensive article to help explain to new cube players how some complex vintage level cards work in a cube environment. Vintage Cube Cards Explained
They're mentioned in the OP in the paragraph that discusses animating other kinds of permanents (and to beware of their interaction with Reality Scramble, in particular).
I want to share something I found with this archetype:
I just didn't feel we had enough support for an all-in polymorph deck and even if the deck came together, I never felt it was stronger than the similar Show and Tell/ Reanimator decks. I found a good approach for this archetype is to push it closer to how standard Aetherworks Marvel functioned where the deck plays similar to a control deck, relies on multiple marvel spins and eventually relying on hard casting the threats in the late game.
Out of the 5 effects, 2 of these effects are recursive (Lukka + Reality) and 2 of the effects allow multiple sacrifices (Divergent + Indomitable). I felt we can loosen the requirements of no cheap creatures to a maximum of 3-4 cheap creatures.
I feel the archetype would work well a big red shell with Generator Servant/ Vessel of Volatility/ Orcish Lumberjack and the drafter could splash into Green for redunancy with Eureka, Oath, Selvala's Stampede + Ramp or Blue or black to help setup the combo.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I'm actively maintaining a comprehensive article to help explain to new cube players how some complex vintage level cards work in a cube environment. Vintage Cube Cards Explained
I'm wondering if its possible to re-open this archetype 4+ years later given how strong the fatties are and the number of enablers printed just in the last 2 years:
The problem I had with this archetype was how vulnerable Emarkul was to sorcery speed removal, but with the insane power level of Archon of Cruelty / Atraxa, Grand Unifier / Astral Dragon etc. I think its more worthwhile to build your deck around a single creature to polymorph into.
The last thing is I felt red has become almost a purely aggro color, with storm, wildfire and twin becoming less and less competitive. I'm thinking of bringing this archetype back, but relying more on cards like Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast / Reality Scramble / Proteus Staff to less all-in but allow the deck to have multiple spins if necessary.
Disclaimer - I'm not someone that has multiple sessions to test, I would like to hear feedback from other players before trying anything new.
I'm not confident in my appraisal, but I think it could be a "funsies" archetype that mostly gets ignored in the draft but occasionally comes together into something original/sweet/competitive.
You probably need ~3-4 high quality fatties to make it work as well as a couple other cheat spells in the deck for redundancy.
You'd also want to add a few token makers to the cube that are maybe 95% good enough for cube at the moment.
The power level when it all comes together is likely high enough to be a viable cube strategy, but it will be too inconsistent
overall for a maximum competitive cube environment.
If you are simply looking to do fun, different stuff in a mildly competitive enviornment, it's worth a shot.
I'm wondering if its possible to re-open this archetype 4+ years later given how strong the fatties are and the number of enablers printed just in the last 2 years:
There's better token generators, but its enablers are still very slow / weak in comparison to things like reanimator / cheaty face / Natural Order / Tinker / etc. Reanimator has gotten huge buffs with more discard outlets and things like Unmarked Grave / Persist, and Flash works better in every other cheaty face archetype since they can actually play midrange value creatures too. A vast majority of the best monarch / initiative enablers being creatures means it's hard to compete with other midrange decks that can go all in on monarch / initiative. I think the other cheaty face archetypes just eat too much of Polymorph's lunch and are just far better in general in a Vintage cube setting.
I'm wondering if its possible to re-open this archetype 4+ years later given how strong the fatties are and the number of enablers printed just in the last 2 years:
There's better token generators, but its enablers are still very slow / weak in comparison to things like reanimator / cheaty face / Natural Order / Tinker / etc. Reanimator has gotten huge buffs with more discard outlets and things like Unmarked Grave / Persist, and Flash works better in every other cheaty face archetype since they can actually play midrange value creatures too. A vast majority of the best monarch / initiative enablers being creatures means it's hard to compete with other midrange decks that can go all in on monarch / initiative. I think the other cheaty face archetypes just eat too much of Polymorph's lunch and are just far better in general in a Vintage cube setting.
Yah. Tinker, Sneak Attack, Natural Order, Flash, Channel etc. are very strong and it is hard to compete.
I've seen Indomitable Creativity become competitive in Pioneer/ Modern and I COULD see a world where Creative/ Lukka are more competitive as Lukka guarantees a higher CMC and Creativitiy where X=2+ can be powerful.
I am convinced that if you're trying to go Lingering Souls into Polymorph, this is likely a lost cause.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
THE JUICE[BOX]³ CUBE
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!
Idk if calling those above cards marginal at 540 is the same as being a hater lol. I will admit, this thread makes me happy. I am glad to see the card pool for these kinds of things grow as i love the archetype and if I ever expand into the 720 range, I may consider it a bit more.
THE JUICE[BOX]³ CUBE
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!
THE JUICE[BOX]³ CUBE
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 think we should look into the cheap threaten effects.
Act of Aggression
- Excited about this card, Phyrexian Mana allows you to EOT gain control of creature then Polymorph. I could be interesting for Aristocrats deck to remove a hard to deal with blocker/ steal creature for sacrifice. I also would like to see this card in aggressive archetypes as an "answer" to the Polymorph/ reanimator decks themselves. The card could also be incredible for Stax decks. The Phyrexian mana could allow this card to be played in any archetype.
This is a card I strongly recommend.
Claim the Firstborn/ Wrangle/ Act of Treason
- This card has been pretty good in the Rakdos/ Jund Sacrifice deck for Standard. I will give this card a try to temporarily help out the Aristocrats deck, but most likely this is going to come out after a short experiment. I will likely test out one of these three, I think Wrangle might be a good card for its mana cost/ damage. The problem is this isn't instant speed.
This could definitely be useful for the Polymorph deck.
Word of Seizing
- I'm not too excited about this card, especially given this card's converted mana cost for the Polymorph deck. But what I do like about this card is that it could be a good "answer" to planeswalkers allow you to steal them before they ultimate. I'm not going to add this into my cube, but it definitely a possibility if Planeswalkers get out of control + the previous two cards have strong performances.
Grab the Reins
- I really want another Act of Aggression that is instant speed at 3 CMC. This is unfortunately the next closest card. The saving grace for this card is its second effect, sacrifice the creature to deal damage - this could be nice to help land the final damage with a Aristocrats build
I'm going to give Act of Aggression and Wrangle a try
Vintage Cube Cards Explained
Here are some other articles I've written about fine tuning your cube:
1. Minimum Archetype Support
2. Improving Green Archetypes
3. Improving White Archetypes
4. Matchup Analysis
5. Cube Combos (Work in Progress)
Draft my Cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/d8i
-
View User Profile
-
View Posts
-
Send Message
StaffFrenzied Fugue would probably be the best option since you don't need to cast it + a Polymorph effect on the same turn. Plus I consider it to be the best overall Threaten effect after Zealous Conscripts.
My High Octane Unpowered Cube on CubeCobra
Unfortunately this isn't as good as I theorized.
Vintage Cube Cards Explained
Here are some other articles I've written about fine tuning your cube:
1. Minimum Archetype Support
2. Improving Green Archetypes
3. Improving White Archetypes
4. Matchup Analysis
5. Cube Combos (Work in Progress)
Draft my Cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/d8i
It's going really well. Deck is awesome, fun and consistent.
The 3 mountain clause on Mine is way too painful, IMO. Would be awesome for a mono-red variant though, which people are exploring in constructed, ATM. But these decks are almost always at least 2 or 3 colors, so I don't see the Mine working out in this format. I think Khalni Garden is the better version of this effect in the cube, but that doesn't quite excite me either.
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!
Scroll Rack and Brainstorm seem like great adds (if you have the budget for the former).
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!
EDIT: Well I missed the fact that it turns everything into an artifact or a creature, instead of turning artifacts into artifacts and creatures into creatures.
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!
Are there other creatures that have the ability of returning to the library from the hand?
Has anyone tried Yidaro, Wandering Monster?
We don't support this archetype in the giant cube, but we do have this card. I can feedback that our experience with it as follows:
Giant cube has it listed as a 1R Instant for slots. Functionally, the group treats it as 1R: Draw a card. If third time activating this, gain a 8/8 Trample + Haste. As a self-recurring draw spell has been the primary function of the card, which works well in almost any deck built with red. The times three trigger happens rarely, but is exceedingly fun when it does.
It's also been hard cast as a value beater, been Sneak Attacked in, is popular in the GR Ramp decks.
It's a nice card, regardless of if you put it in your 2 CMC or 7 CMC slots. I strongly applaud it.
This user has language problems due to their mental health problems and sometimes may not use the best wording to explain their thoughts.
Draft the "'What Is This Nonsense?'" casual cube.
Gideon Blackblade
Gideon of the Trials
could also be used. Ideally, this is not the best usages for these walkers, but they could be used.
Vintage Cube Cards Explained
Here are some other articles I've written about fine tuning your cube:
1. Minimum Archetype Support
2. Improving Green Archetypes
3. Improving White Archetypes
4. Matchup Analysis
5. Cube Combos (Work in Progress)
Draft my Cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/d8i
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 just didn't feel we had enough support for an all-in polymorph deck and even if the deck came together, I never felt it was stronger than the similar Show and Tell/ Reanimator decks. I found a good approach for this archetype is to push it closer to how standard Aetherworks Marvel functioned where the deck plays similar to a control deck, relies on multiple marvel spins and eventually relying on hard casting the threats in the late game.
I opted for these 5 and stayed in mono-red:
Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast
Reality Scramble
Transmogrify
Divergent Transformations
Indomitable Creativity
Out of the 5 effects, 2 of these effects are recursive (Lukka + Reality) and 2 of the effects allow multiple sacrifices (Divergent + Indomitable). I felt we can loosen the requirements of no cheap creatures to a maximum of 3-4 cheap creatures.
I feel the archetype would work well a big red shell with Generator Servant/ Vessel of Volatility/ Orcish Lumberjack and the drafter could splash into Green for redunancy with Eureka, Oath, Selvala's Stampede + Ramp or Blue or black to help setup the combo.
Vintage Cube Cards Explained
Here are some other articles I've written about fine tuning your cube:
1. Minimum Archetype Support
2. Improving Green Archetypes
3. Improving White Archetypes
4. Matchup Analysis
5. Cube Combos (Work in Progress)
Draft my Cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/d8i
- Cryptic Coat
- Nettlecyst
- Threads of Disloyalty -> I would count this given how strong 2 CMC creatures are
- Glimmer Lens
- Virtue of Loyalty
etc.
The problem I had with this archetype was how vulnerable Emarkul was to sorcery speed removal, but with the insane power level of Archon of Cruelty / Atraxa, Grand Unifier / Astral Dragon etc. I think its more worthwhile to build your deck around a single creature to polymorph into.
The last thing is I felt red has become almost a purely aggro color, with storm, wildfire and twin becoming less and less competitive. I'm thinking of bringing this archetype back, but relying more on cards like Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast / Reality Scramble / Proteus Staff to less all-in but allow the deck to have multiple spins if necessary.
Disclaimer - I'm not someone that has multiple sessions to test, I would like to hear feedback from other players before trying anything new.
You probably need ~3-4 high quality fatties to make it work as well as a couple other cheat spells in the deck for redundancy.
You'd also want to add a few token makers to the cube that are maybe 95% good enough for cube at the moment.
The power level when it all comes together is likely high enough to be a viable cube strategy, but it will be too inconsistent
overall for a maximum competitive cube environment.
If you are simply looking to do fun, different stuff in a mildly competitive enviornment, it's worth a shot.
Last Updated 02/07/24
Streaming Standard/Cube on Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/heisenb3rg96
Strategy Twitter https://www.twitter.com/heisenb3rg
-
View User Profile
-
View Posts
-
Send Message
StaffThere's better token generators, but its enablers are still very slow / weak in comparison to things like reanimator / cheaty face / Natural Order / Tinker / etc. Reanimator has gotten huge buffs with more discard outlets and things like Unmarked Grave / Persist, and Flash works better in every other cheaty face archetype since they can actually play midrange value creatures too. A vast majority of the best monarch / initiative enablers being creatures means it's hard to compete with other midrange decks that can go all in on monarch / initiative. I think the other cheaty face archetypes just eat too much of Polymorph's lunch and are just far better in general in a Vintage cube setting.
My High Octane Unpowered Cube on CubeCobra
Yah. Tinker, Sneak Attack, Natural Order, Flash, Channel etc. are very strong and it is hard to compete.
I've seen Indomitable Creativity become competitive in Pioneer/ Modern and I COULD see a world where Creative/ Lukka are more competitive as Lukka guarantees a higher CMC and Creativitiy where X=2+ can be powerful.
I am convinced that if you're trying to go Lingering Souls into Polymorph, this is likely a lost cause.