I did a MAJOR rework of my cube, reducing the size from 400+ to 360 cards.
90% of the games I play are 1 v. 1, requiring only 90 cards at a time, and the other 10% of the time, are largely 2 v. 2 or the rarer 3 man team draft. I figure with 360 cards, that's exactly how many I'd need if I ever am able to get an 8-man draft, but more likely 360 cards will allow two of us to play four times before shuffling the cube.
I've been playing with 360 cards for about a month now and none of the people have really missed any cards that were taken out, not even the Ravnica bouncelands, which I feel was the biggest shock to the deck, although 10 Unlimited dual lands, 10 Ravnica duals, 10 fetchlands, and 5 WWK man lands provides more than enough mana fixing except for greedy 5CC drafters.
I've managed to get quite a few new staples in the last several weeks, including finally getting Armageddon, Umezawa's Jitte, Kokusho, Land Tax, Scroll Rack, Thirst for Knowledge, Barter in Blood, Vampiric Tutor, Chain Lightning, and Smokestack into the cube.
I keep getting asked when Jace TMS will get added to the cube, but I find that every time I have extra money available for the cube, I can't help but get cards like a foil Fireblast, foil Land Tax, or complete a cycle of foil other cards (Signets! The original 5 Lorwyn planeswalkers! All 10 fetchlands!)
On my "To Buy" list right now is Mox Diamond, Jace TMS, Force of Will, and Sword of Light and Shadow, as well as possibly getting more planeswalkers.
When I see Healing Salve, I'm often like "Oh girl, I wish I could turn every card into this." Thanks they removed the gain life part, otherwise this would have been broken.
I'd rather spend money on new Jace than foil fetchlands, adding something new and powerful to the cube should be more important than making it shinier.
I'd rather spend money on new Jace than foil fetchlands, adding something new and powerful to the cube should be more important than making it shinier.
I finally got Jace, The Mind Sculptor and a Sword of Light and Shadow and decided to make each section 50 cards, for a total of 400 cards. Most of the cards I added to go from 360 to 400 were originally in the cube when it was over 400 cards, but I also got a few new cards.
I finally got Jace, The Mind Sculptor and a Sword of Light and Shadow and decided to make each section 50 cards, for a total of 400 cards. Most of the cards I added to go from 360 to 400 were originally in the cube when it was over 400 cards, but I also got a few new cards.
New additions:
Sun Titan
Rout
Into the Roil
Koth of the Hammer
Pyroclasm
Chimeric Mass
Oblivion Stone
Mirari's Wake
Those are all great additions (including Jace 2.0)! Sun Titan and Mirari's Wake are two of my favorite cards in the cube. How are you liking the smaller cube size?
I like 400 more than 450 and I like 400 more than 360.
With more than 400, I was including some cards which were questionable and at 360, I was excluding some cards that I felt should be included (the artifacts used to be 40 and the lands were also 40).
With 400, the numbers work better, I can run 50 of each section, rather some other odd numbers.
My original premise, that we could run two-man Winston drafts and do four of them in a row and the fourth one wouldn't require counting since 360 = 4 * (45 * 2) turned out to be largely irrelevant, as doing three or fewer drafts means that 360 or 400 doesn't matter and doing more than four drafts means we have to shuffle up and count out for the fifth draft and beyond.
I really hated the idea of dropping the multicolor to less than 50, by running only 4 of each color combination. In B/G, Pernicious Deed obviously isn't going anywhere and Maelstrom Pulse and Putrefy are much too versatile to drop. That means losing either Putrid Leech or Spiritmonger, neither of which I would enjoy. Repeat for the other color combinations.
In order to make up for the fact that multicolor was staying at 50, the mono-colored sections were running some weird numbers, 46 or 47 to make the numbers work and it just wasn't worth the effort to maintain an arbitrary number of 360 as the total size. I'm much happier with 400, although I expect I'll be tinkering around with 5% of the cube for quite some time.
Looking back at the times when I was approaching 450, I can also see that my cube was starting to include cards like Pilgrim's Eye, Wipe Away, Rupture Spire, and even Sylvan Ranger, which I would hesitate to add unless my cube was considerably larger.
I would never cut Starstorm or Pyroclasm. The cards sexy lists are completely expendable. Inferno Titan is tremendously good and is noticeably missing in your cube. Slagstorm just got added to my 500 card cube and I think it's a dubious choice even at that size.
Nevinyrral's Disk is a staple at 360, so no way should you cut it here. Duplicant varies greatly in how good it is and RW is probably the color that least wants a signet. Juggernaut is good, but we have plenty of 4-mana beatsticks that are better than it now.
On JTMS, I haven't got it in my cube yet either, and I've been pimping the hell out of it and also buying stuff like Mana Drain, Nether Void, Mana Crypt etc.
I figure that I see Jace in standard decks enough as it is, so I don't feel a huge need to put him in my cube. When the time is right, and I can trade for him or get him at a reasonable price, I'll include him.
90% of the games I play are 1 v. 1, requiring only 90 cards at a time, and the other 10% of the time, are largely 2 v. 2 or the rarer 3 man team draft. I figure with 360 cards, that's exactly how many I'd need if I ever am able to get an 8-man draft, but more likely 360 cards will allow two of us to play four times before shuffling the cube.
I've been playing with 360 cards for about a month now and none of the people have really missed any cards that were taken out, not even the Ravnica bouncelands, which I feel was the biggest shock to the deck, although 10 Unlimited dual lands, 10 Ravnica duals, 10 fetchlands, and 5 WWK man lands provides more than enough mana fixing except for greedy 5CC drafters.
I've managed to get quite a few new staples in the last several weeks, including finally getting Armageddon, Umezawa's Jitte, Kokusho, Land Tax, Scroll Rack, Thirst for Knowledge, Barter in Blood, Vampiric Tutor, Chain Lightning, and Smokestack into the cube.
I keep getting asked when Jace TMS will get added to the cube, but I find that every time I have extra money available for the cube, I can't help but get cards like a foil Fireblast, foil Land Tax, or complete a cycle of foil other cards (Signets! The original 5 Lorwyn planeswalkers! All 10 fetchlands!)
On my "To Buy" list right now is Mox Diamond, Jace TMS, Force of Will, and Sword of Light and Shadow, as well as possibly getting more planeswalkers.
He's right, though
Joy of Cubing Podcast
My 600 Card Unpowered Cube
My Combo Cube
You crazy kids and your fancy foil cards...
New additions:
Sun Titan
Rout
Into the Roil
Koth of the Hammer
Pyroclasm
Chimeric Mass
Oblivion Stone
Mirari's Wake
Joy of Cubing Podcast
My 600 Card Unpowered Cube
My Combo Cube
With more than 400, I was including some cards which were questionable and at 360, I was excluding some cards that I felt should be included (the artifacts used to be 40 and the lands were also 40).
With 400, the numbers work better, I can run 50 of each section, rather some other odd numbers.
My original premise, that we could run two-man Winston drafts and do four of them in a row and the fourth one wouldn't require counting since 360 = 4 * (45 * 2) turned out to be largely irrelevant, as doing three or fewer drafts means that 360 or 400 doesn't matter and doing more than four drafts means we have to shuffle up and count out for the fifth draft and beyond.
I really hated the idea of dropping the multicolor to less than 50, by running only 4 of each color combination. In B/G, Pernicious Deed obviously isn't going anywhere and Maelstrom Pulse and Putrefy are much too versatile to drop. That means losing either Putrid Leech or Spiritmonger, neither of which I would enjoy. Repeat for the other color combinations.
In order to make up for the fact that multicolor was staying at 50, the mono-colored sections were running some weird numbers, 46 or 47 to make the numbers work and it just wasn't worth the effort to maintain an arbitrary number of 360 as the total size. I'm much happier with 400, although I expect I'll be tinkering around with 5% of the cube for quite some time.
Looking back at the times when I was approaching 450, I can also see that my cube was starting to include cards like Pilgrim's Eye, Wipe Away, Rupture Spire, and even Sylvan Ranger, which I would hesitate to add unless my cube was considerably larger.
- Mirror Entity
+ Mirran Crusader
- Vesuvan Shapeshifter
+ Keiga, the Tide Star
- Force Spike
+ Repeal
- Bane of the Living
+ Grave Titan
- Consuming Vapors
- Terror
+ Black Sun's Zenith
+ Go for the Throat
- Starstorm
+ Hero of Oxid Ridge
- Pyroclasm
+ Slagstorm
- Rampaging Baloths
+ Thrun, the Last Troll
- Berserk
+ Thornling
- Krosan Grip
+ Uktabi Orangutan
+ Phyrexian Revoker
+ Porcelain Legionnaire
+ Wurmcoil Engine
- Sword of Vengeance
- Chrome Mox
- Isochron Scepter
- Nevinyrral's Disk
+ Sword of Feast and Famine
+ Sword of Body and Mind
For white, I think Temporal Isolation and Martial Coup are the best cuts to keep the Entity.
In blue, Compulsive Research is not necessary and I don't even run it at 500 cards anymore.
Grave Titan obviously needs to come in. My choices for cuts would be Sudden Death, Nezumi Shortfang, or Ob Nixilis, the Fallen (he's really good though). Bane of the Living has been nothing short of amazing and I like it better than lots of other black cards.
I would never cut Starstorm or Pyroclasm. The cards sexy lists are completely expendable. Inferno Titan is tremendously good and is noticeably missing in your cube. Slagstorm just got added to my 500 card cube and I think it's a dubious choice even at that size.
I like Berserk, Krosan Grip, and Rampaging Baloths more than Harmonize or Green Sun's Zenith. Your cube actually lacks some green fat so I'd keep Baloths. Why don't you run Woodfall Primus?
Nevinyrral's Disk is a staple at 360, so no way should you cut it here. Duplicant varies greatly in how good it is and RW is probably the color that least wants a signet. Juggernaut is good, but we have plenty of 4-mana beatsticks that are better than it now.
Cheers,
rant
My Cube
CubeCobra: https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/5f5d0310ed602310515d4c32
Cube Tutor: http://cubetutor.com/viewcube/1963
I figure that I see Jace in standard decks enough as it is, so I don't feel a huge need to put him in my cube. When the time is right, and I can trade for him or get him at a reasonable price, I'll include him.
Juju Alters - Altered MTG Cards