Decree of Silence is nuts in Jhoira in particular and is extremely abusable. Stuff like Hex Parasite gets silly. It's cool as an overpriced uncounterable Dismiss as well.
Decree of Silence is nuts in Jhoira in particular and is extremely abusable. Stuff like Hex Parasite gets silly. It's cool as an overpriced uncounterable Dismiss as well.
Decree is also very good in Hanna, Ship's Navigator, as you can use it late-game as an uncounterable Dismiss with buyback for 5WUUU, or to hardcast multiple times.
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I'm really excited about Decree as well. I think that card is going to cause more grief than Time Stretch, but people will like it because at least their is the hope that you might be able to play around it.
So the expansion was added in full last night and we were able to get down to some games. We decided to play four player sealed with four pools of 144 cards so we could see the entire cube and all the new additions. It was an absolute home run.
The table ended up being Riku, Mimeoplasm, Hanna, and Ghave. As far as new cards are concerned, the Riku player (Theogony himself) at one point got the Deadeye Navigator/Mnemonic Wall engine up and running, with Blatant Thievery in his graveyard. Ouch. In addition, he also had a wildly explosive play around turn 7 or so that consisted of Mana Geyser and Doubling Cube, in which he Rolling Earthquaked the table for 26(!). The Mimeoplasm player was able to Green Sun's Zenith for Myojin of Life's Web. The Hanna player (myself) followed this with Sakashima the Impostor (copying the Myojin), and removing the divinity counter to put Steel Hellkite, Sphinx Ambassador, and Iona into play. The Ghave player also crippled both the Riku and Hanna decks in the same game by kicking a Sadistic Sacrament, then buying it back with Praetor's Counsel.
Overall, a resounding success. Some definite standout new additions from last night were, in no particular order: Doubling Cube, Mnemonic Wall, Sakashima, Mirrorworks, Sadistic Sacrament, and Myojin of Life's Web.
Oh, a bit more on Mirrorworks, which was in the Hanna deck...this card was insane! Everyone was blown away by it. I was playing Hanna prison and over the course of two turns was able to double Sol Ring, double Solemn Simulacrum, double Smokestack, and double Mimic Vat. Talk about virtual card advantage, Mirrorworks just completely blows the board away if built around correctly. The double Sol Ring, double Solemn play came in one turn and floored pretty much everyone. Totally insane.
Quickly, we are making a few minor changes.
Generals
Odric, Master Tactician -> [CARD]Michiko Konda, Truth Seeker
[/CARD]
Theogony and myself feel strongly about pushing prison strategies within white. With that said, Odric just didn't fit that theme, and overall hasn't seen much play. We both like Michiko and the prison feel she brings as mono white's general.
Additionally, we are also looking at making a few more general changes. The playgroup feels very strongly about including a Bant general somewhere within the general pool. Rafiq will likely be coming back. However, with the way we've structured the general pool and color splitting, we have to look at what will come out and what will go in with Rafiq to keep the colors evenly split between all 32 generals. So in addition to Rafiq, we will likely be adding a BR general. We'll keep you guys updated.
As far as other changes are concerned, we're only making two minor changes in white:
Theogony felt strongly about including another artifact/enchantment wrath effect in the expansion. After Mirrorworks blew the board out of the water last night, the deal was sealed. Purify is going in. Baneslayer Angel has never been more than a dumb beater for white, so we wanted to include yet another token generator that can further facilitate certain prison strategies (namely Humility).
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Mobilization sounds great in a zur or bruna list. I may need to try that one out myself. I also support Michiko. Stax is something I'm starting to increase support for in my cube as well, although I need to get my hands on stuff like smokestack and ensnaring bridge, and probably proxy up a tabernacle.
Thanks for the updates on your cube. It's enjoyable hearing about such an active communication and revision process between you guys and your group. Development on mine is a pretty solo affair, other than posting in these boards.
For the most part it's just LC and myself, but we make pretty good team with him bringing a good eye for card evaluation, and myself bringing good cube theory. It's nice though (sometimes) when our players give their input as well, and they're not shy about it. They catch things that we both miss, or confirm things that we've suspected. Cube is complex though, so sometimes we need to just ignore it.
At any rate, something I was excited about with last night's game that I'd like to comment on more is the Deadeye NavigatorMnemonic Wall pair. That was the interaction that LC sold me on when trying to include the Wall while I underestimated it. It allowed me to pull off the multiple Blatant Thievery plays, but I actually ended up closing out the game with that pair Seedborn Muse and Time Stop. I was also holding Final Fortune in case my Muse was removed.
Out of my deck, from my perspective, the MVP's were definitely Mnemonic Wall and Time Stop. Thumbs from me for the new includes as well.
More or less, none of these generals were performing as expected, so we decided to give them a cut. Theogony and I put a great deal of effort into attempting to maintain a cutting edge selection of generals. When we see our playgroup continuing to stick to the same generals draft after draft, and ignore other options, we feel change is in order.
First of all, massive LOL @ Phelddagrif. But we're all excited to see this ridiculous hippo in action. As discussed a few posts back, we've been looking to add a Bant general. We didn't feel Rafiq was exciting enough for our big, explosive multiplayer games, and we eventually landed on Phelddagrif - not a bad beatstick, evasive, and HIGHLY political. Just what we're looking for. Nin and Adun are both coming back in the pool, as we felt neither had the chance to truly shine. We like the way Nin functions with her fellow Izzet general, Niv Mizzet, and vice versa. We've all born witness to how insanely powerful Hanna can be over the past few weeks, so Adun seems just as good if not better in certain ways. We're also filling the currently vacant Jund general slot. We needed a BR general to round out our split, and landed of Karvek. Seems pretty explosive, and gives Rakdos a pseudo-prison option if a player decides to go that route over Olivia.
Zur the Enchanter is a general both Theogony and I have heard a tremendous amount about in competitive EDH. We never felt like the cube could support him, but after looking over the specs, it just might. It will be an experiment for the time being, but both of us think it can work. If it doesn't, Ertai the Corrupted will likely go in its slot.
We are adding a handful of cards to better support Zur.dec in both blue and white. We've seen in most constructed Zur decks, his targets are centered around a voltron strategy and tempo. Neither are very well supported in the cube, so Zur.dec will likely function as a big toolbox. These are the changes we're making to support this:
I've added some cube analysis and strategy/effects counts in the second post of the thread for any who are interested. The lists of cards is based off the current list. I will attempt to keep it updated as the cube is updated.
Do you guys have a way of systematically keeping track of (under)performing cards, or do you just hash things out verbally after the session? I'd like to do more cataloging personally, but my drafts and games are just too messy to keep good track of pools + deck contents. At the very least I'm interested in keeping track of which generals get used and in what deck archetypes.
I don't think there really is way to "track" performance outside of the way Nof does it. She records every deck list and sideboard and tracks each cards main deck vs sideboard percentage. I'm not a big fan of this process though if it's the only method of tracking performance. I think there are too many factors that go into deck building and drafting for the numbers alone to reflect performance accurately. Some really good cards are hate drafted and don't make the main deck. Some cards are really good, but are removed to make room for cards that better fit a strategy. Some cards get cut because the drafter managed to pick up an excess of that effect and is cutting something that's overly redundant for an effect that their deck is light on.
Any time one of us, including the rest of our playgroup, notices a card we think is underperforming, we comment on it after the game is over (or sometimes in game if we're angry) so that everyone can keep an eye on it from both sides of the game. If it turns out to really mess with an opponent's game plan, but isn't something the person playing it would be able to notice, that opponent might talk about it in game. Usually we wait until after it's been drafted and seen play a few more times though, then we discuss it and come to a conclusion. I feel that way we really get a holistic view of the card. If there is just can't seem to come to an agreement on a card, we'll leave it in the cube (or leave it out of the cube as the case may be) for a while, and post a question here on the forums.
Our cube is so diverse and offers so many different deck options and strategies its pretty difficult to keep an honest record of what's being played/not played and what should be cut. For example, last night I put together a Mimeoplasm deck that played very few instants and sorceries. Snapcaster Mage and Mystical Tutor were two of my last cuts in building the deck. Does this mean both cards should be cut from the cube? Absolutely not.
Like Theogony said, we keep a pretty rigorous mental checklist of what cards are being played to potential and we're always discussing it with the group, often in-game. With the general pool, we're very active in keeping it fresh and competitive. If any one general is not being played, or fails to perform when played, it's cut very quickly for something different.
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As we've documented in this very thread, Theogony and I just expanded the cube by a large amount to fit in a full eight man draft. In doing so, we were exposed to a lot of cards we simply had no idea existed and/or were playable in EDH. In the beginning, EDH was a very foreign format to most of our playgroup. We all had a lot of experience in constructed, but only one of our playgroup members had some experience in EDH. So this has all been a learning process for most of us. Moreover, Theogony has maintained a very Spikey 360 cube for a few years now, so most of our cube knowledge came from that. We included things like Brainstorm, Force of Will, etc. simply because we knew they were powerful cards. It's only recently dawned on us that there are more powerful options within the EDH vacuum.
So with all that said, I took it upon myself to really begin researching constructed EDH, different card choices, what is played in format regularly, what works, what doesn't. This update reflects that research.
Two things going on here. With black, Chainer seems to be one of the most popular reanimator black generals of choice, reanimation is still black's strong suit in this cube, so this seemed like a logical upgrade. As far as blue is concerned, we find ourselves continually moving the blue pool away from instants and sorceries and into permanents. Talrand simply doesn't have the support anymore. We've all bore witness to the awesomeness that is Sakashima recently, so we felt he'd make a pretty incredible general.
Moar prison. This cube gets more Spikey by the day, and thus white gets more prison support. Pretty much all of these changes reflect the clear direction of our white pool, being both prison and tokens.
Simple upgrades. Spelljack is a card that should have been in the cube long ago. Theogony really believed Willbender is a solid include, despite my reluctance. Take Possession simply adds to the already strong theft suite in blue.
Definitely adding some griefer here. Crossroads, Slash, Attrition, and Oppression are all strong Zur targets. Black needed another sweeper, hence Life's Finale, and Myojin speaks for itself. Hopefully, it doesn't cause too much rage at the table.
A huge list of upgrades here. Warstorm Surge has probably been one of red's strongest performers recently within the cube, so we've tried to add similar effects. Obsidian Fireheart is just a brutal creature, as is Homura. Depending on how Homura performs, he may become our next new mono red general.
Another large list of upgrades. These inclusions are mostly full of spells we simply didn't know existed. Defense of the Heart, Deadwood Treefolk, et al are all played extensively in constructed EDH. Green is about going over the top, and we feel most of these cards fit that bill.
We had no idea Garruk Relentless technically counted as a BG card in EDH, so we had to come out of green. However, he was too good to axe completely, so he's going right into BG's pool within the multicolor section. Worm Harvest simply a casualty here.
We're monumentally excited about all of these new includes. Satchel, the Portals, Amulet, and Voltaic Key shenanigans should add a whole new level of broken to our games.
I'd replace haunted crossroads with phyrexian reclamation. HC is just too much tempo loss, when there are other awesome repeatable resurrection options available.
Just curious - how did the recent banning of Primeval Titan affect the decks people draft their decks in your cube? From the game recaps posted previously in the thread, there always seems to be at least several green players, and I can imagine Primeval Titan is easily a first pick for all of them.
Just because they banned it in commander, doesn't mean you have to remove it from your cube :D. I don't know how LC and T feel about these things, but some of us edh cubers have specifically added banned cards to our lists for thrills, and based on the assumption that it's harder to abuse them outside of constructed commander.
Were I to put together a constructed deck using my cube, of course I'd conform to the banned list though.
Primeval Titan has been removed from the cube per sticking to the official banned list. Theogony and I have been sticklers about maintaining an up to date banned list within our cube. Understandably, cube is different than constructed, but we feel that if the powers that be believe a card is too powerful for the format of EDH, it should not be in the cube.
Green is always a heavily played color in our cube because mana advantage in these long, swingy games is at a premium. Primeval Titan will definitely be missed, but I don't feel that it nerfs green too hard. Primeval Titan is always a high, high pick, often first pickable. However, there are other extremely powerful green ramp spells (Boundless Realms, Mana Reflection, et al) that, if resolved, will usually win a game. Removing Prime Time definitely nerfs players ability to draft utility lands.dec and tutor their way to a locked board state.
As far as updates go, we've been spending a lot of time on the 360 cube lately, but we've ironed out some changes with the release of Return to Ravnica:
Primeval Titan has been removed from the cube per sticking to the official banned list. Theogony and I have been sticklers about maintaining an up to date banned list within our cube. Understandably, cube is different than constructed, but we feel that if the powers that be believe a card is too powerful for the format of EDH, it should not be in the cube.
Green is always a heavily played color in our cube because mana advantage in these long, swingy games is at a premium. Primeval Titan will definitely be missed, but I don't feel that it nerfs green too hard. Primeval Titan is always a high, high pick, often first pickable. However, there are other extremely powerful green ramp spells (Boundless Realms, Mana Reflection, et al) that, if resolved, will usually win a game. Removing Prime Time definitely nerfs players ability to draft utility lands.dec and tutor their way to a locked board state.
As far as updates go, we've been spending a lot of time on the 360 cube lately, but we've ironed out some changes with the release of Return to Ravnica:
Interesting. The only questionable inclusion I see here is Epic Experiment. Do you think it's going to be possible to pack enough instants/sorceries for it to be worthwhile?
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Just curious - how did the recent banning of Primeval Titan affect the decks people draft their decks in your cube? From the game recaps posted previously in the thread, there always seems to be at least several green players, and I can imagine Primeval Titan is easily a first pick for all of them.
Yeah, LC is right. Prime Time was undoubtedly one of green's best creatures if not one of the entire cube's best creatures, but green is stacked with enough really good cards that it isn't too much of a detriment to the color to lose it. However, I personally will miss the "Who gets the Prime Time?" wars as every blue players is quick to drop a clone or theft, every red player is quick to drop a threaten, every black player is quick to kill it and reanimate it, and white players . . . well they rely on one of their other colors to try and snag the titan for themselves.
Sticking to the banned list is a preference call, and in my opinion is no different than choosing to construct an unpowered traditional cube over a powered traditional cube. The randomness of the card pool makes the presence of those overly powerful cards much less oppressive and abusive than in a constructed format, and that makes building an edh cube with them just fine. But like LC said, they're banned in the format for a reason and not having to deal with how oppressive they can be, even in cube, is just fine by me.
Interesting. The only questionable inclusion I see here is Epic Experiment. Do you think it's going to be possible to pack enough instants/sorceries for it to be worthwhile?
I mentioned to LC that you would be skeptical about this inclusion, but after some discussion we're fairly confident that it can be abused well enough in the right deck. I don't think it's an autoinclude in every deck, but I do think it will be strong in most decks. There are enough valuable effects from the spells you would include in an average u/r deck that we're confident the Epic Experiment should be fairly game breaking in terms of card advantage and tempo. Hopefully testing will bear this out.
I mentioned to LC that you would be skeptical about this inclusion, but after some discussion we're fairly confident that it can be abused well enough in the right deck. I don't think it's an autoinclude in every deck, but I do think it will be strong in most decks. There are enough valuable effects from the spells you would include in an average u/r deck that we're confident the Epic Experiment should be fairly game breaking in terms of card advantage and tempo. Hopefully testing will bear this out.
Fair. Please do let me know how it turns out.
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As I've discussed before Theogony and I have always tried to maintain a cutting edge general pool, in which each general is attractive, powerful, and relevant. Any general deemed useful "only for its colors" is bad news bears, as far as we're concerned. With that said, most of these generals fit that bill. They were either not being played (Grimgrin, Dralnu), too narrow to be useful (Kaalia, Zur), or just plain not good enough considering other options (Michiko). Zur in particular was an experiment we tried a while back. Zur decks certainly popped up and were buildable, but we quickly discovered that shoehorning Zur targets into a WUB deck made the deck, in fact, way worse. Zur's exclusion prompted a look at some of the targets we shoved into the regular pool, as well as some other tweaks and experiments.
We're excited with Elesh Norn being the new mono white general. She's an obscenely powerful card. We now feel that each mono color general really brings a lot to the table and is attractive for their color.
Quick note on Prison. Ghostly Prison effects are simply something I believe aren't phenomenal in these big multiplayer games. These kind of effects only really start to have a taxing effect if played in multiple copies, which is hard to do here.
More good stuff, more theft, moar blue being blue. Theogony is particularly excited about Counterlash and Ertai. Venser and Willbender were just two creature we didn't feel brought enough to the table.
We're moving away from the slow, incremental CA stuff in black and moving back into griefer. This cube has become about insane play after insane play. We're hoping griefer curbs this a bit.
Another round of experimental stuff in red. Red remains the worst color in the cube and Theogony is very resistant to putting mass land destruction into red full force to increase its power level. Without that, red is a little lost as a primary color. We're hoping to find a good degree of reach within the color to make it more attractive.
Just a couple neat additions to colorless. Karn is a very popular card in EDH so we felt he would be nice here. We also don't have any kind of a Platinum Angel effect, so we thought we'd add that, as well. Scroll Rack hasn't performed particularly well, so we thought we could cut it.
We'll keep the thread updated. We're really going to hammer a lot of games out with a big crowd on Wednesday, so we'll let everyone know how things go.
As I've discussed before Theogony and I have always tried to maintain a cutting edge general pool, in which each general is attractive, powerful, and relevant. Any general deemed useful "only for its colors" is bad news bears, as far as we're concerned. With that said, most of these generals fit that bill. They were either not being played (Grimgrin, Dralnu), too narrow to be useful (Kaalia, Zur), or just plain not good enough considering other options (Michiko). Zur in particular was an experiment we tried a while back. Zur decks certainly popped up and were buildable, but we quickly discovered that shoehorning Zur targets into a WUB deck made the deck, in fact, way worse. Zur's exclusion prompted a look at some of the targets we shoved into the regular pool, as well as some other tweaks and experiments.
We're excited with Elesh Norn being the new mono white general. She's an obscenely powerful card. We now feel that each mono color general really brings a lot to the table and is attractive for their color.
These mostly seem like good changes. Zur did always seem a bit narrow to me for cube, Sharuum, while narrow, parasitizes on something that you can run without really screwing anything else up (artifacts).
Quick note on Prison. Ghostly Prison effects are simply something I believe aren't phenomenal in these big multiplayer games. These kind of effects only really start to have a taxing effect if played in multiple copies, which is hard to do here.
I can't see ever cutting Lark, as I'm a huge fan of value dudes. The rest of these changes seem fine, but I'd take Lark over Archon or maybe Faith's Reward.
More good stuff, more theft, moar blue being blue. Theogony is particularly excited about Counterlash and Ertai. Venser and Willbender were just two creature we didn't feel brought enough to the table.
Hm... I don't like these changes much at all. I mean, Prop and Dip Immune are fine cuts, and Proteus Staff is a good inclusion, but I don't like any of the other four. I'm currently in the process of trimming some of the 6+-cost counters from my cube, as they just end up being far too clunky. Counterlash seems considerably worse than Spelljack and Commandeer, which I think are the only two I'm down to running. Gather Specimens is also either recently out or on the chopping block, just due to its clunkiness. Ertai, Wizard Adept is an okay guy, but he's hella fragile and requires you to untap in order to get an expensive NoStick. I'd take Venser, Shaper Savant over him every day of the week.
I'm also a huge fan of Equilibrium, but maybe that's just a pet card of mine. Not big on Temporal Mastery, as I've found Time Magic to be pretty unfun, and this one isn't even all that powerful due to the exile clause.
We're moving away from the slow, incremental CA stuff in black and moving back into griefer. This cube has become about insane play after insane play. We're hoping griefer curbs this a bit.
The Abyss is a stronger "griefer" effect than Anowon/Magus, if you can find/afford one. I also would not cut Arena, I'd keep that over Scrying, personally. If you're trying to work more towards attrition-based games and less towards gigantic plays, Arena > Scrying. (This is also a good reason to trim the blowout 6-mana counters)
Another round of experimental stuff in red. Red remains the worst color in the cube and Theogony is very resistant to putting mass land destruction into red full force to increase its power level. Without that, red is a little lost as a primary color. We're hoping to find a good degree of reach within the color to make it more attractive.
I'm a little confused as to your goal here. Breath of Fury can be nice, but you might be better off with Relentless Assault or World at War, since those are less likely to be blown out by a simple creature removal spell or chump blockers. Confusion in the Ranks is mostly griefy and will stall games with complicated board states. Mass Mutiny is a good inclusion. Acidic Soil is decent, as it does give you some of that "reach". Braid of Fire seems out of place unless there are a lot of Firebreathing type abilities in your red section. Mizzium Mortars gets my seal of approval.
Just a couple neat additions to colorless. Karn is a very popular card in EDH so we felt he would be nice here. We also don't have any kind of a Platinum Angel effect, so we thought we'd add that, as well. Scroll Rack hasn't performed particularly well, so we thought we could cut it.
We'll keep the thread updated. We're really going to hammer a lot of games out with a big crowd on Wednesday, so we'll let everyone know how things go.
Rack and Chalice are both popular and powerful cards in my cube, but if these changes work for you, roll with it.
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I don't know if this is feasible for you guys, but why not just increase the size of your cube? Based on your recent change, 600-odd maybe doesn't seem like it's covering all your needs/desires.
In practice, my 747 feels a teensy bit large to me, but as wildfire pointed out in his post, you guys seem to be cutting very respectable cards in favor of certain (IMHO) 2nd stringers.
Thank you for your input, both of you, the feedback is definitely why we post here.
Just to follow up on your remarks. We really haven't seen Lark do a whole lot here, but maybe we cut it prematurely. I was the one who suggested that but so I'll be keeping an eye on it during our games and trying to force it more to see what kind of value it really can provide outside of the combo.
I personally wanted to see more of a counter magic presence in blue, so we looked for cards that could provide a good amount of value in that regard. I really don't find the expensive theft-counters to be all that clunky except for the ones that are restrictive in their targets such as Commandeer and Gather Specimens. I think I personally prefer Counterlash to Gather Specimens for that reason, but Gather Specimens has it's applications, and LC wants to see it's performance. Ertai, Wizard Adept is another along that vein, and is a card that requires an answer in a short window or becomes something of a pain for the rest of the table . . . theoretically at least. And just like Ertai, Temporal Mastery is in for testing.
Being an enchantment makes The Abyss a serious deal. It is definitely on the line just waiting to jump in, but we're going to test out the rest of the griefer cards to see if we can even stand to play with them before The Abyss joins the party.
I have reservations about both World at War and Breath of Fury and agree that WaW as probably the better of the two. LC and I both misunderstood Braid of Fire thinking it added the mana in during your main phase, so that was a definite false start. We'll be keeping Ingot Chewer and not including Braid of Fire.
@Dolono: A lot of these changes are really just to see if we can find some hidden gems. Cube is very, very different from constructed magic and while EDH is closer to cube than normal constructed is, building a specific strategy is different that trying to pull it out of a draft. There may be some cards they work very well in the cube that would never see the light of day in constructed EDH. The rest of the changes fall into this light for me.
On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
Decree is also very good in Hanna, Ship's Navigator, as you can use it late-game as an uncounterable Dismiss with buyback for 5WUUU, or to hardcast multiple times.
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The table ended up being Riku, Mimeoplasm, Hanna, and Ghave. As far as new cards are concerned, the Riku player (Theogony himself) at one point got the Deadeye Navigator/Mnemonic Wall engine up and running, with Blatant Thievery in his graveyard. Ouch. In addition, he also had a wildly explosive play around turn 7 or so that consisted of Mana Geyser and Doubling Cube, in which he Rolling Earthquaked the table for 26(!). The Mimeoplasm player was able to Green Sun's Zenith for Myojin of Life's Web. The Hanna player (myself) followed this with Sakashima the Impostor (copying the Myojin), and removing the divinity counter to put Steel Hellkite, Sphinx Ambassador, and Iona into play. The Ghave player also crippled both the Riku and Hanna decks in the same game by kicking a Sadistic Sacrament, then buying it back with Praetor's Counsel.
Overall, a resounding success. Some definite standout new additions from last night were, in no particular order: Doubling Cube, Mnemonic Wall, Sakashima, Mirrorworks, Sadistic Sacrament, and Myojin of Life's Web.
Oh, a bit more on Mirrorworks, which was in the Hanna deck...this card was insane! Everyone was blown away by it. I was playing Hanna prison and over the course of two turns was able to double Sol Ring, double Solemn Simulacrum, double Smokestack, and double Mimic Vat. Talk about virtual card advantage, Mirrorworks just completely blows the board away if built around correctly. The double Sol Ring, double Solemn play came in one turn and floored pretty much everyone. Totally insane.
Quickly, we are making a few minor changes.
Generals
Odric, Master Tactician -> [CARD]Michiko Konda, Truth Seeker
[/CARD]
Theogony and myself feel strongly about pushing prison strategies within white. With that said, Odric just didn't fit that theme, and overall hasn't seen much play. We both like Michiko and the prison feel she brings as mono white's general.
Additionally, we are also looking at making a few more general changes. The playgroup feels very strongly about including a Bant general somewhere within the general pool. Rafiq will likely be coming back. However, with the way we've structured the general pool and color splitting, we have to look at what will come out and what will go in with Rafiq to keep the colors evenly split between all 32 generals. So in addition to Rafiq, we will likely be adding a BR general. We'll keep you guys updated.
As far as other changes are concerned, we're only making two minor changes in white:
Journey to Nowhere -> Purify
Baneslayer Angel -> Mobilization
Theogony felt strongly about including another artifact/enchantment wrath effect in the expansion. After Mirrorworks blew the board out of the water last night, the deal was sealed. Purify is going in. Baneslayer Angel has never been more than a dumb beater for white, so we wanted to include yet another token generator that can further facilitate certain prison strategies (namely Humility).
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Thanks for the updates on your cube. It's enjoyable hearing about such an active communication and revision process between you guys and your group. Development on mine is a pretty solo affair, other than posting in these boards.
"Personally I love high-riak, low-reqars gambles. Life's best with a decent amount of riak. And f*** reqars."
At any rate, something I was excited about with last night's game that I'd like to comment on more is the Deadeye Navigator Mnemonic Wall pair. That was the interaction that LC sold me on when trying to include the Wall while I underestimated it. It allowed me to pull off the multiple Blatant Thievery plays, but I actually ended up closing out the game with that pair Seedborn Muse and Time Stop. I was also holding Final Fortune in case my Muse was removed.
Out of my deck, from my perspective, the MVP's were definitely Mnemonic Wall and Time Stop. Thumbs from me for the new includes as well.
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Generals
OUT
More or less, none of these generals were performing as expected, so we decided to give them a cut. Theogony and I put a great deal of effort into attempting to maintain a cutting edge selection of generals. When we see our playgroup continuing to stick to the same generals draft after draft, and ignore other options, we feel change is in order.
IN
First of all, massive LOL @ Phelddagrif. But we're all excited to see this ridiculous hippo in action. As discussed a few posts back, we've been looking to add a Bant general. We didn't feel Rafiq was exciting enough for our big, explosive multiplayer games, and we eventually landed on Phelddagrif - not a bad beatstick, evasive, and HIGHLY political. Just what we're looking for. Nin and Adun are both coming back in the pool, as we felt neither had the chance to truly shine. We like the way Nin functions with her fellow Izzet general, Niv Mizzet, and vice versa. We've all born witness to how insanely powerful Hanna can be over the past few weeks, so Adun seems just as good if not better in certain ways. We're also filling the currently vacant Jund general slot. We needed a BR general to round out our split, and landed of Karvek. Seems pretty explosive, and gives Rakdos a pseudo-prison option if a player decides to go that route over Olivia.
Zur the Enchanter is a general both Theogony and I have heard a tremendous amount about in competitive EDH. We never felt like the cube could support him, but after looking over the specs, it just might. It will be an experiment for the time being, but both of us think it can work. If it doesn't, Ertai the Corrupted will likely go in its slot.
We are adding a handful of cards to better support Zur.dec in both blue and white. We've seen in most constructed Zur decks, his targets are centered around a voltron strategy and tempo. Neither are very well supported in the cube, so Zur.dec will likely function as a big toolbox. These are the changes we're making to support this:
White
Hero of Bladehold -> Solitary Confinement
Blue
Declaration of Naught -> Copy Enchantment
Stormtide Leviathan -> Copy Artifact
Control Magic -> Diplomatic Immunity
As always, we'll keep the thread updated and let everyone know how this works!
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"Personally I love high-riak, low-reqars gambles. Life's best with a decent amount of riak. And f*** reqars."
Any time one of us, including the rest of our playgroup, notices a card we think is underperforming, we comment on it after the game is over (or sometimes in game if we're angry) so that everyone can keep an eye on it from both sides of the game. If it turns out to really mess with an opponent's game plan, but isn't something the person playing it would be able to notice, that opponent might talk about it in game. Usually we wait until after it's been drafted and seen play a few more times though, then we discuss it and come to a conclusion. I feel that way we really get a holistic view of the card. If there is just can't seem to come to an agreement on a card, we'll leave it in the cube (or leave it out of the cube as the case may be) for a while, and post a question here on the forums.
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Like Theogony said, we keep a pretty rigorous mental checklist of what cards are being played to potential and we're always discussing it with the group, often in-game. With the general pool, we're very active in keeping it fresh and competitive. If any one general is not being played, or fails to perform when played, it's cut very quickly for something different.
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As we've documented in this very thread, Theogony and I just expanded the cube by a large amount to fit in a full eight man draft. In doing so, we were exposed to a lot of cards we simply had no idea existed and/or were playable in EDH. In the beginning, EDH was a very foreign format to most of our playgroup. We all had a lot of experience in constructed, but only one of our playgroup members had some experience in EDH. So this has all been a learning process for most of us. Moreover, Theogony has maintained a very Spikey 360 cube for a few years now, so most of our cube knowledge came from that. We included things like Brainstorm, Force of Will, etc. simply because we knew they were powerful cards. It's only recently dawned on us that there are more powerful options within the EDH vacuum.
So with all that said, I took it upon myself to really begin researching constructed EDH, different card choices, what is played in format regularly, what works, what doesn't. This update reflects that research.
Generals
Geth, Lord of the Vault -> Chainer, Dementia Master
Talrand, Sky Summoner -> Sakashima the Impostor
Two things going on here. With black, Chainer seems to be one of the most popular reanimator black generals of choice, reanimation is still black's strong suit in this cube, so this seemed like a logical upgrade. As far as blue is concerned, we find ourselves continually moving the blue pool away from instants and sorceries and into permanents. Talrand simply doesn't have the support anymore. We've all bore witness to the awesomeness that is Sakashima recently, so we felt he'd make a pretty incredible general.
White
Seal of Cleansing -> Crack Down
Increasing Devotion -> Darien, King of Kjeldor
Kor Sanctifiers -> Yosei, the Morning Star
Gideon Jura -> Rule of Law
Moar prison. This cube gets more Spikey by the day, and thus white gets more prison support. Pretty much all of these changes reflect the clear direction of our white pool, being both prison and tokens.
Blue
Brainstorm -> Spelljack
Force of Will -> Coastal Piracy
Omniscience -> Take Possession
Sakashima the Impostor -> Sakashima's Student
Mystic Speculation -> Equilibrium
Cackling Counterpart -> Willbender
Simple upgrades. Spelljack is a card that should have been in the cube long ago. Theogony really believed Willbender is a solid include, despite my reluctance. Take Possession simply adds to the already strong theft suite in blue.
Black
Nekrataal -> Myojin of Night's Reach
Chainer, Dementia Master -> Geth, Lord of the Vault
Phyrexian Obliterator -> Attrition
Snuff Out -> Disciple of Bolas
Diabolic Servitude -> Phyrexian Reclamation
Mind Twist -> Mind Slash
Diabolic Intent -> Oppression
Chainer's Edict -> Life's Finale
Definitely adding some griefer here. Crossroads, Slash, Attrition, and Oppression are all strong Zur targets. Black needed another sweeper, hence Life's Finale, and Myojin speaks for itself. Hopefully, it doesn't cause too much rage at the table.
Red
Kargan Dragonlord -> Unwilling Recruit
Faithless Looting -> Obsidian Fireheart
Warp World -> Vicious Shadows
Greater Gargadon -> Kumano, Master Yamabushi
Magus of the Moon -> Dragonmaster Outcast
Siege-Gang Commander -> Homura, Human Ascendant
Keldon Vandals -> Manic Vandal
Avatar of Fury -> Stalking Vengeance
A huge list of upgrades here. Warstorm Surge has probably been one of red's strongest performers recently within the cube, so we've tried to add similar effects. Obsidian Fireheart is just a brutal creature, as is Homura. Depending on how Homura performs, he may become our next new mono red general.
Green
Exploration -> Budoka Gardener
Garruk Relentless -> Defense of the Heart
Elderscale Wurm -> Restock
Vernal Bloom -> Rude Awakening
Harmonize ->
Momentous FallBramblecrush -> Creeping Corrosion
Wickerbough Elder -> Lurking Predators
Krosan Tusker -> Deadwood Treefolk
Realms Uncharted -> Soul of the Harvest
Another large list of upgrades. These inclusions are mostly full of spells we simply didn't know existed. Defense of the Heart, Deadwood Treefolk, et al are all played extensively in constructed EDH. Green is about going over the top, and we feel most of these cards fit that bill.
Multicolor
Worm Harvest -> Garruk Relentless
We had no idea Garruk Relentless technically counted as a BG card in EDH, so we had to come out of green. However, he was too good to axe completely, so he's going right into BG's pool within the multicolor section. Worm Harvest simply a casualty here.
Colorless
Mox Diamond -> Druidic Satchel
Cauldron of Souls -> Quicksilver Amulet
Memory Jar -> Prototype Portal
Crystal Ball -> Planar Portal
Thawing Glaciers -> Voltaic Key
We're monumentally excited about all of these new includes. Satchel, the Portals, Amulet, and Voltaic Key shenanigans should add a whole new level of broken to our games.
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"Personally I love high-riak, low-reqars gambles. Life's best with a decent amount of riak. And f*** reqars."
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Just because they banned it in commander, doesn't mean you have to remove it from your cube :D. I don't know how LC and T feel about these things, but some of us edh cubers have specifically added banned cards to our lists for thrills, and based on the assumption that it's harder to abuse them outside of constructed commander.
Were I to put together a constructed deck using my cube, of course I'd conform to the banned list though.
PS: Planescape FtW!
"Personally I love high-riak, low-reqars gambles. Life's best with a decent amount of riak. And f*** reqars."
Green is always a heavily played color in our cube because mana advantage in these long, swingy games is at a premium. Primeval Titan will definitely be missed, but I don't feel that it nerfs green too hard. Primeval Titan is always a high, high pick, often first pickable. However, there are other extremely powerful green ramp spells (Boundless Realms, Mana Reflection, et al) that, if resolved, will usually win a game. Removing Prime Time definitely nerfs players ability to draft utility lands.dec and tutor their way to a locked board state.
As far as updates go, we've been spending a lot of time on the 360 cube lately, but we've ironed out some changes with the release of Return to Ravnica:
Generals
None.
White
Mikaeus, the Lunarch -> Angel of Serenity
Samurai of the Pale Curtain ->Rest in Peace
Blue
Overwhelming Intellect -> Cyclonic Rift
Void Stalker -> Mind Over Matter
Black
Dread -> Grave Betrayal
Green
Primeval Titan -> Worldspine Wurm
Deranged Hermit -> Relic Crush
Dosan the Falling Leaf -> Hunting Wilds
Rancor ->Cultivate
Red
Taurean Mauler -> Utvara Hellkite
Shattering Spree -> Vandalblast
Multicolored
Behemoth Sledge -> Armada Wurm
Azorious Guildmage -> Supreme Verdict
Invoke the Firemind -> Epic Experiment
Izzet Chronarch -> Nivix Guildmage
Fire Covenant -> Havoc Festival
Putrefy -> Jarad's Orders
Necrogenesis -> Vraska the Unseen
Tarnished Citadel -> Chromatic Lantern
Helm of Possession -> Tormod's Crypt
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Interesting. The only questionable inclusion I see here is Epic Experiment. Do you think it's going to be possible to pack enough instants/sorceries for it to be worthwhile?
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Yeah, LC is right. Prime Time was undoubtedly one of green's best creatures if not one of the entire cube's best creatures, but green is stacked with enough really good cards that it isn't too much of a detriment to the color to lose it. However, I personally will miss the "Who gets the Prime Time?" wars as every blue players is quick to drop a clone or theft, every red player is quick to drop a threaten, every black player is quick to kill it and reanimate it, and white players . . . well they rely on one of their other colors to try and snag the titan for themselves.
Sticking to the banned list is a preference call, and in my opinion is no different than choosing to construct an unpowered traditional cube over a powered traditional cube. The randomness of the card pool makes the presence of those overly powerful cards much less oppressive and abusive than in a constructed format, and that makes building an edh cube with them just fine. But like LC said, they're banned in the format for a reason and not having to deal with how oppressive they can be, even in cube, is just fine by me.
I mentioned to LC that you would be skeptical about this inclusion, but after some discussion we're fairly confident that it can be abused well enough in the right deck. I don't think it's an autoinclude in every deck, but I do think it will be strong in most decks. There are enough valuable effects from the spells you would include in an average u/r deck that we're confident the Epic Experiment should be fairly game breaking in terms of card advantage and tempo. Hopefully testing will bear this out.
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Fair. Please do let me know how it turns out.
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Generals
OUT
IN
As I've discussed before Theogony and I have always tried to maintain a cutting edge general pool, in which each general is attractive, powerful, and relevant. Any general deemed useful "only for its colors" is bad news bears, as far as we're concerned. With that said, most of these generals fit that bill. They were either not being played (Grimgrin, Dralnu), too narrow to be useful (Kaalia, Zur), or just plain not good enough considering other options (Michiko). Zur in particular was an experiment we tried a while back. Zur decks certainly popped up and were buildable, but we quickly discovered that shoehorning Zur targets into a WUB deck made the deck, in fact, way worse. Zur's exclusion prompted a look at some of the targets we shoved into the regular pool, as well as some other tweaks and experiments.
We're excited with Elesh Norn being the new mono white general. She's an obscenely powerful card. We now feel that each mono color general really brings a lot to the table and is attractive for their color.
White
Ghostly Prison -> Twilight Shepherd
Solitary Confinement -> Karmic Justice
Windborn Muse -> Blazing Archon
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite -> Phyrexian Rebirth
Quick note on Prison. Ghostly Prison effects are simply something I believe aren't phenomenal in these big multiplayer games. These kind of effects only really start to have a taxing effect if played in multiple copies, which is hard to do here.
Blue
Propaganda -> Proteus Staff
Diplomatic Immunity -> Ertai, Wizard Adept
Willbender -> Counterlash
More good stuff, more theft, moar blue being blue. Theogony is particularly excited about Counterlash and Ertai. Venser and Willbender were just two creature we didn't feel brought enough to the table.
Black
Graveborn Muse -> Cabal Coffers
Syphon Mind -> Anowon, the Ruin Sage
Praetor's Grasp -> Magus of the Abyss
We're moving away from the slow, incremental CA stuff in black and moving back into griefer. This cube has become about insane play after insane play. We're hoping griefer curbs this a bit.
Red
Squee, Goblin Nabob -> World at War
Mogg Infestation -> Confusion in the Ranks
Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle -> Mass Mutiny
Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs -> Acidic Soil
Hoarding Dragon -> Mizzium Mortars
Another round of experimental stuff in red. Red remains the worst color in the cube and Theogony is very resistant to putting mass land destruction into red full force to increase its power level. Without that, red is a little lost as a primary color. We're hoping to find a good degree of reach within the color to make it more attractive.
Green
Perilous Forays -> Awakening Zone
We've wanted Zone in the cube for a while. Forays was the best cut.
Multicolor
No changes
Colorless
Scroll Rack -> Karn, Silver Golem
Everflowing Chalice -> Platinum Angel
Just a couple neat additions to colorless. Karn is a very popular card in EDH so we felt he would be nice here. We also don't have any kind of a Platinum Angel effect, so we thought we'd add that, as well. Scroll Rack hasn't performed particularly well, so we thought we could cut it.
We'll keep the thread updated. We're really going to hammer a lot of games out with a big crowd on Wednesday, so we'll let everyone know how things go.
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These mostly seem like good changes. Zur did always seem a bit narrow to me for cube, Sharuum, while narrow, parasitizes on something that you can run without really screwing anything else up (artifacts).
I can't see ever cutting Lark, as I'm a huge fan of value dudes. The rest of these changes seem fine, but I'd take Lark over Archon or maybe Faith's Reward.
Hm... I don't like these changes much at all. I mean, Prop and Dip Immune are fine cuts, and Proteus Staff is a good inclusion, but I don't like any of the other four. I'm currently in the process of trimming some of the 6+-cost counters from my cube, as they just end up being far too clunky. Counterlash seems considerably worse than Spelljack and Commandeer, which I think are the only two I'm down to running. Gather Specimens is also either recently out or on the chopping block, just due to its clunkiness.
Ertai, Wizard Adept is an okay guy, but he's hella fragile and requires you to untap in order to get an expensive No Stick. I'd take Venser, Shaper Savant over him every day of the week.
I'm also a huge fan of Equilibrium, but maybe that's just a pet card of mine. Not big on Temporal Mastery, as I've found Time Magic to be pretty unfun, and this one isn't even all that powerful due to the exile clause.
The Abyss is a stronger "griefer" effect than Anowon/Magus, if you can find/afford one. I also would not cut Arena, I'd keep that over Scrying, personally. If you're trying to work more towards attrition-based games and less towards gigantic plays, Arena > Scrying. (This is also a good reason to trim the blowout 6-mana counters)
I'm a little confused as to your goal here. Breath of Fury can be nice, but you might be better off with Relentless Assault or World at War, since those are less likely to be blown out by a simple creature removal spell or chump blockers. Confusion in the Ranks is mostly griefy and will stall games with complicated board states. Mass Mutiny is a good inclusion. Acidic Soil is decent, as it does give you some of that "reach". Braid of Fire seems out of place unless there are a lot of Firebreathing type abilities in your red section. Mizzium Mortars gets my seal of approval.
As Forays is one of my personal favorite cards, I can't endorse this change. Rude Awakening to cut instead perhaps?
Rack and Chalice are both popular and powerful cards in my cube, but if these changes work for you, roll with it.
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Update changes are reflected in the original update post.
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In practice, my 747 feels a teensy bit large to me, but as wildfire pointed out in his post, you guys seem to be cutting very respectable cards in favor of certain (IMHO) 2nd stringers.
"Personally I love high-riak, low-reqars gambles. Life's best with a decent amount of riak. And f*** reqars."
Reveillark in white and not adding Faith's Reward.
We're keeping Venser, Shaper Savant, and not including Counterlash.
We're keeping Phyrexian Arena and not including Skeletal Scrying.
We've decided to include World at War rather than Breath of Fury.
Thank you for your input, both of you, the feedback is definitely why we post here.
Just to follow up on your remarks. We really haven't seen Lark do a whole lot here, but maybe we cut it prematurely. I was the one who suggested that but so I'll be keeping an eye on it during our games and trying to force it more to see what kind of value it really can provide outside of the combo.
I personally wanted to see more of a counter magic presence in blue, so we looked for cards that could provide a good amount of value in that regard. I really don't find the expensive theft-counters to be all that clunky except for the ones that are restrictive in their targets such as Commandeer and Gather Specimens. I think I personally prefer Counterlash to Gather Specimens for that reason, but Gather Specimens has it's applications, and LC wants to see it's performance. Ertai, Wizard Adept is another along that vein, and is a card that requires an answer in a short window or becomes something of a pain for the rest of the table . . . theoretically at least. And just like Ertai, Temporal Mastery is in for testing.
Being an enchantment makes The Abyss a serious deal. It is definitely on the line just waiting to jump in, but we're going to test out the rest of the griefer cards to see if we can even stand to play with them before The Abyss joins the party.
I have reservations about both World at War and Breath of Fury and agree that WaW as probably the better of the two. LC and I both misunderstood Braid of Fire thinking it added the mana in during your main phase, so that was a definite false start. We'll be keeping Ingot Chewer and not including Braid of Fire.
@Dolono: A lot of these changes are really just to see if we can find some hidden gems. Cube is very, very different from constructed magic and while EDH is closer to cube than normal constructed is, building a specific strategy is different that trying to pull it out of a draft. There may be some cards they work very well in the cube that would never see the light of day in constructed EDH. The rest of the changes fall into this light for me.
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