I previously had the Future Sight duals in as a separate cycle. To avoid two copies of Graven Cairns, which is also in the SHA/EVE filter cycle, I have replaced one with Sulfurous Springs. In addition, Karplusan Forest replaces Grove of the Burnwillows, as G/R is an aggro pair and doesn't want opponents gaining life.
I didn't add them, mainly because Grove of the Burnwillows is a big pile of suck. The rest of them are at least playable. I guess this begs the question of do you add a cycle if one of the cards in that cycle is much worse than the rest? Or do you just pick and choose the good cards from the cycle and not care about the symmetry of completing it?
In other news, Doomed Necromancer was spotted leaving the Cube sometime this afternoon. The word on the street is that Smother is due to take his place.
Two power cards get in. What are the best applications for Timetwister? Rainbow Efreet is wicked fun, but not the CA machine it once was pre-M10. Rushing River wasn't the best so can be easily cut.
+ All 10 ABUR duals.
The original and best duals now have proxies and go straight in without cuts.
Again, I'm cutting a very good card. Standstill is a house but didn't always fit into the right decks and would go unpicked. A hard creature counter for 1U will see a lot of play.
I'm confused, I'm sure I was running the Vandals. They are great. The hounds are alright but not up to par nowadays... I think these could be printed at 5/5 in the current standard.
Again, I thought I was running this. What's going on?! I decided a while back to remove Jokulhaups. The card is clearly a house. The problem has been though that red rarely wants to destroy all creatures artifacts and lands. I'll leave that to white!
Shiny Sunstone proxy makes the grade, I have high expectations of this card! Relic is great but Reanimator isn't good enough to warrant the hate right now.
Hell yeah on the Power upgrade! It's the only way to fly.
I like all the cuts except for one. Even with the M10 rules, Rainbow Efreet is an unkillable finisher. One of my fav's. I would easily cut Wonder or Master Transmuter first, if you're looking to cut a 4CC blue creature.
To answer your question about Timetwister, I like it the best in counter-burn. Once you re-fill your hand, you'll have all the gas you need to go on and win from there. It's great in any (albeit rare) U/x aggro deck (more likely a X/u aggro, really) to reload after emptying to the table. Use it the same way you use Wheel of Furtune... to reload once spent.
Silent Edge's Tidbits of Wisdom: The Lewis Theory - When the presence of a single card makes every other card in your deck better (see Lewis, Ray). The Rubber Edict - You'd rather have it and not use it, than need it and not have it. The Shotgun Wedding - Don't commit early unless you absolutely have to.
They haven't come up in a draft yet I'm afraid. From my contructed exploits, however, they are very good. Assuming you have a basic land in your hand, they are basically a ABUR dual in your hand. I like them more for control, obviously, but they aren't slouches in aggro either. T1 Mountain into T2 Dragonskull Summit T3 Swamp is a sweet play, mimmicking Graven Cairns.
I made another change today:
One gold card is cut from each pair. This means that allied colours now have 11 cards per pair, and enemy pairs each have 10. In addition, I cut one card from each allied trio, going to two per trio. This should tighten the multicolour section up a little - even though my Cube encourages multicolour, the gold/hybrid cards were ever so slightly too frequent in draft. There should be a good number now. I'll make the changes to the OP list.
Yeah, I was revising my OP and started wondering if I should have broken down the 3-colors into Shards/Wedges, and it seems like the right answer, but I had a 4+ color group that had 4 cards that I shifted into 3+ color to include Hellkite Overlord.
I'll give the M10 duals a run after I see some more feedback from other players. I can see them being decent to strong, but I like my lands right now and don't really want to upset them =)
Silent Edge's Tidbits of Wisdom: The Lewis Theory - When the presence of a single card makes every other card in your deck better (see Lewis, Ray). The Rubber Edict - You'd rather have it and not use it, than need it and not have it. The Shotgun Wedding - Don't commit early unless you absolutely have to.
I'll give the M10 duals a run after I see some more feedback from other players. I can see them being decent to strong, but I like my lands right now and don't really want to upset them =)
The M10 duals are lands I'd like to try out. The fact that they didn't print all ten of them is really what makes me not want to put them in. Where are the enemy lands? Give me those WOTC and then I'll give them a go in my cube. I don't want to run five pain lands and five M10 lands. That seems.... off to me.
Sounds fine to me calibretto. After all, we already have two whole sets of Fetch lands that don't have enemy colour counterparts... I would recommend replacing the allied painlands with them.
The M10 duals are lands I'd like to try out. The fact that they didn't print all ten of them is really what makes me not want to put them in. Where are the enemy lands? Give me those WOTC and then I'll give them a go in my cube. I don't want to run five pain lands and five M10 lands. That seems.... off to me.
calibretto
THIS!!
Why does WOTC always feel compelled to print stuff in allied colors all the time? Is it so we value the enemy colored stuff more?? Look how long it took for us to get enemy pains after the allied pains came out in Ice Age. Invasion CIPT lands only had the allied cycle. We'll probably never see enemy fetches, and now they came out with a sweet dual-cycle, only to leave enemy duals on the bench again.
I'll go out on a limb here, and say that if they had printed a full 10-dual land cycle in M10, I would've found space for them -- most likely replacing the Pain Lands. Having only 5 of them makes it difficult to justify their existence in the Cube, unless I split them like I did with Talismen/Signets, which I'm not interested in doing (would enemy Talismen have killed them??).
Silent Edge's Tidbits of Wisdom: The Lewis Theory - When the presence of a single card makes every other card in your deck better (see Lewis, Ray). The Rubber Edict - You'd rather have it and not use it, than need it and not have it. The Shotgun Wedding - Don't commit early unless you absolutely have to.
Sounds fine to me calibretto. After all, we already have two whole sets of Fetch lands that don't have enemy colour counterparts... I would recommend replacing the allied painlands with them.
Well, I wish that my set of ten fetch lands in my cube included the enemy colors and not just two sets of the five allied pairs. That actually kinda sucks, IMO. I don't want to split up a section. Call me crazy, and maybe it's my OCD kicking in, but I just couldn't run just the enemy pains.
Sweet. LoA! The best cube card joins your cube at last.
Just so you can say a friendly voice said it...
"You know, this statement isn't totally true. I would take Sol Ring before LoA. It's just tempo. You need to have the right deck built around LoA for it to work right, and what if they use LD? You can't use LD on a Sol Ring, thus Sol Ring > LoA !!#$#$"
...now that THAT'S out of the way...
...congrats Goodking on adding the best damn Cube card to your Cube
...and congrats wtwlf123 on post #2000
Silent Edge's Tidbits of Wisdom: The Lewis Theory - When the presence of a single card makes every other card in your deck better (see Lewis, Ray). The Rubber Edict - You'd rather have it and not use it, than need it and not have it. The Shotgun Wedding - Don't commit early unless you absolutely have to.
Mainly upgrades here. I've decided to cut the kaldra equipment - the helm is the first to go. I like Wispmare but want Kongming to buff tokens and the like. I replaced Goblin Matron with a good burn spell and Goblin Warchief with the better lord, Goblin Chieftain. He's just about okay on his own and will be fun with all my goblin token makers. Who knows, maybe one day I'll get my hands on a Goblin Trenches.
Silent Edge's Tidbits of Wisdom: The Lewis Theory - When the presence of a single card makes every other card in your deck better (see Lewis, Ray). The Rubber Edict - You'd rather have it and not use it, than need it and not have it. The Shotgun Wedding - Don't commit early unless you absolutely have to.
Overall I'd say excellent changes, man. I don't think you'll miss any of the cards you removed. And Mind Twist is one of the best damn cards in the cube, hands down. No contest.
I want to push token archetypes, and Rise is a good way to acheive this. With a single Honor of the Pure or Glorious Anthem out, the first strike becomes relevant.
Priest can combo with blink, or help to play silly costed fatties like Visara the Dreadful. Putrid was only good as a reanimator enabler, but I found myself not needing it.
Arcane Denial is well-loved by some forum members. About time I tried it out. Curiosity is a fantastic card, but Blue lacks targets. I may well add its planeshifted cousin instead.
RoG is inferior to Icy, but Icy is really good and a second won't hurt. I had WSC for the shroud, before I realised that I already have Lightning Greaves which is miles better.
I'm removing most of my colour hosers. They aren't liked and are unfun against the respective colours. Leafing through my old binder I came across LSS, which could be an insane beating in tokens or WW, two archetypes to which I'm devoting attention currently. Anyone else tried it?
Another Elf Pattern tended to just make a creature unblockable. I want a stronger creature presence in green, as well as upping the artifact destruction quote. First strike is also nice for green, on a 3-power critter, especially with Giant Growth effects.
Well this sucks. After staying in every morning all week waiting for my FTV:E to show up, I email the seller to find out where the hell it is. Apparently they were 'massively underallocated' and 'aren't able to send me FTV:E'. I was actually the first person to pre-order FTV:E from them on eBay - in fact from any seller, way back in June, no less! - for around £50, so how the hell so they figure that I shouldn't have been allocated one? They couldn't even be arsed to tell me that the set wasn't going to come ever, not even four days after release; I had to chase it down myself to get the bad news. Had they informed me before, I could at least have pre-ordered from elsewhere.
Are they keeping them and splitting them for singles or what? I don't know whether to be more mad at the seller or at WotC for making the product so ridiculously unattainable in Europe. It's a farce. I see sellers on eBay splitting boxes and even having the gall to sell empty FTV:E boxes afterwards and it makes me angry that well-meaning collectors and players can't get a single copy.
I guess I could go trade a Berserk and Strip Mine in the forums, but I really wanted the whole shebang - packaging and the excitement of opening and everything, you know? So much for that...
I blame WotC for making the thing so ridiculously unattainable, period. Not just in Europe (however, yes, it seems like it's quite a bit harder to find on your side of the pond), but also here in the US. The retailers that do have them either want an arm and a leg for the box set, are selling the singles from it; also for an arm and a leg, or refuse to sell it at all and instead are giving it out as prize support for tourneys. Not only can I not afford an arm and a leg for it, but I also don't play constructed Magic anymore, so how's a brother s'posed to get his hands on one of these? It's ridiculous.
Sounds like a good change.
I didn't add them, mainly because Grove of the Burnwillows is a big pile of suck. The rest of them are at least playable. I guess this begs the question of do you add a cycle if one of the cards in that cycle is much worse than the rest? Or do you just pick and choose the good cards from the cycle and not care about the symmetry of completing it?
This sounds like a good change, as well.
My Eternal Cube on CubeTutor| |My Reject Rare Cube on CubeTutor| |My Peasant Cube on CubeTutor
I used to write for MTGS, including Cranial Insertion and cube articles. Good on you if you can find those after the upgrade.
The list on cube cobra
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+ Black Lotus, + Moxen.
These go in without cuts.
+ Time Walk and Timetwister // - Rainbow Efreet and Rushing River.
Two power cards get in. What are the best applications for Timetwister? Rainbow Efreet is wicked fun, but not the CA machine it once was pre-M10. Rushing River wasn't the best so can be easily cut.
+ All 10 ABUR duals.
The original and best duals now have proxies and go straight in without cuts.
+ Desolation Angel, - Identity Crisis.
Identity Crisis is great, but the Angel is just better.
- Intet and Vorosh.
The wedges are now unbalanced, but these NEVER saw play. I'd rather have anything 15th pick.
+ Essence Scatter, - Standstill
Again, I'm cutting a very good card. Standstill is a house but didn't always fit into the right decks and would go unpicked. A hard creature counter for 1U will see a lot of play.
+ Soltari Priest, - White Knight
Soltari Priest is the better creature, I have decided. Pro-red is better than pro-black on weenies.
+ Wydwen, the Biting Gale, - Sphinx Summoner
Sphinx is a fine card, but I don't run anywhere near enough artifact creatures to make it worthwhile. Wydwen is all kinds of solid.
+ Keldon Vandals, - Lava Hounds
I'm confused, I'm sure I was running the Vandals. They are great. The hounds are alright but not up to par nowadays... I think these could be printed at 5/5 in the current standard.
+ Lash Out, - Jokulhaups
Again, I thought I was running this. What's going on?! I decided a while back to remove Jokulhaups. The card is clearly a house. The problem has been though that red rarely wants to destroy all creatures artifacts and lands. I'll leave that to white!
+ Mycoloth, - Marshdrinker Giant
Mike comes back. Marshdrinker was occasionally devastating but not as good as Mike against non- U/B control.
+ Priest of Titania, - Sylvan Tutor.
bondafong may have been right about keeping the Priest. Is Sylvan Tutor the right cut?
+ Mercenary Knight, - Hidden Horror
Straight update - better cost, better creature type.
+ Sunstone, - Relic of Progenitus
Shiny Sunstone proxy makes the grade, I have high expectations of this card! Relic is great but Reanimator isn't good enough to warrant the hate right now.
On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
I like all the cuts except for one. Even with the M10 rules, Rainbow Efreet is an unkillable finisher. One of my fav's. I would easily cut Wonder or Master Transmuter first, if you're looking to cut a 4CC blue creature.
To answer your question about Timetwister, I like it the best in counter-burn. Once you re-fill your hand, you'll have all the gas you need to go on and win from there. It's great in any (albeit rare) U/x aggro deck (more likely a X/u aggro, really) to reload after emptying to the table. Use it the same way you use Wheel of Furtune... to reload once spent.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 49th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from MKM!
Wonder --> Rainbow Efreet
On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 49th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from MKM!
How have the M10 duals be treating you?
NorCal Crew Collective Cube on Cube Tutor
My 2009 Cube Draft Article - "With The First Pick..."
2009 Official Cube Power Rankings
2010 Official Cube Power Rankings
2014 Official Cube Power Rankings
Silent Edge's Tidbits of Wisdom:
The Lewis Theory - When the presence of a single card makes every other card in your deck better (see Lewis, Ray).
The Rubber Edict - You'd rather have it and not use it, than need it and not have it.
The Shotgun Wedding - Don't commit early unless you absolutely have to.
Twitter: @archplus3
I made another change today:
One gold card is cut from each pair. This means that allied colours now have 11 cards per pair, and enemy pairs each have 10. In addition, I cut one card from each allied trio, going to two per trio. This should tighten the multicolour section up a little - even though my Cube encourages multicolour, the gold/hybrid cards were ever so slightly too frequent in draft. There should be a good number now. I'll make the changes to the OP list.
On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
I'll give the M10 duals a run after I see some more feedback from other players. I can see them being decent to strong, but I like my lands right now and don't really want to upset them =)
NorCal Crew Collective Cube on Cube Tutor
My 2009 Cube Draft Article - "With The First Pick..."
2009 Official Cube Power Rankings
2010 Official Cube Power Rankings
2014 Official Cube Power Rankings
Silent Edge's Tidbits of Wisdom:
The Lewis Theory - When the presence of a single card makes every other card in your deck better (see Lewis, Ray).
The Rubber Edict - You'd rather have it and not use it, than need it and not have it.
The Shotgun Wedding - Don't commit early unless you absolutely have to.
Twitter: @archplus3
The M10 duals are lands I'd like to try out. The fact that they didn't print all ten of them is really what makes me not want to put them in. Where are the enemy lands? Give me those WOTC and then I'll give them a go in my cube. I don't want to run five pain lands and five M10 lands. That seems.... off to me.
calibretto
MTGS Average Peasant Cube 2023 Edition
Follow me. I tweet.
On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
THIS!!
Why does WOTC always feel compelled to print stuff in allied colors all the time? Is it so we value the enemy colored stuff more?? Look how long it took for us to get enemy pains after the allied pains came out in Ice Age. Invasion CIPT lands only had the allied cycle. We'll probably never see enemy fetches, and now they came out with a sweet dual-cycle, only to leave enemy duals on the bench again.
I'll go out on a limb here, and say that if they had printed a full 10-dual land cycle in M10, I would've found space for them -- most likely replacing the Pain Lands. Having only 5 of them makes it difficult to justify their existence in the Cube, unless I split them like I did with Talismen/Signets, which I'm not interested in doing (would enemy Talismen have killed them??).
NorCal Crew Collective Cube on Cube Tutor
My 2009 Cube Draft Article - "With The First Pick..."
2009 Official Cube Power Rankings
2010 Official Cube Power Rankings
2014 Official Cube Power Rankings
Silent Edge's Tidbits of Wisdom:
The Lewis Theory - When the presence of a single card makes every other card in your deck better (see Lewis, Ray).
The Rubber Edict - You'd rather have it and not use it, than need it and not have it.
The Shotgun Wedding - Don't commit early unless you absolutely have to.
Twitter: @archplus3
Well, I wish that my set of ten fetch lands in my cube included the enemy colors and not just two sets of the five allied pairs. That actually kinda sucks, IMO. I don't want to split up a section. Call me crazy, and maybe it's my OCD kicking in, but I just couldn't run just the enemy pains.
calibretto
MTGS Average Peasant Cube 2023 Edition
Follow me. I tweet.
Armadillo Cloak --> Behemoth Sledge
Wild Pair --> Master of the Wild Hunt
Elvish Piper --> Wolf-Skull Shaman
Viashino Sandstalker --> Thunderblust
Knight of the Skyward Eye --> Veteran Armorer
Blinding Angel--> Militia’s Pride
Blinkmoth Nexus --> Library of Alexandria
More Soldiers for white, card upgrades for green, and an LoA. Happy days.
Cards to be added next update:
On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 49th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from MKM!
On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
Hey! Sweet, I didn't even notice.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 49th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from MKM!
Just so you can say a friendly voice said it...
"You know, this statement isn't totally true. I would take Sol Ring before LoA. It's just tempo. You need to have the right deck built around LoA for it to work right, and what if they use LD? You can't use LD on a Sol Ring, thus Sol Ring > LoA !!#$#$"
...now that THAT'S out of the way...
...congrats Goodking on adding the best damn Cube card to your Cube
...and congrats wtwlf123 on post #2000
NorCal Crew Collective Cube on Cube Tutor
My 2009 Cube Draft Article - "With The First Pick..."
2009 Official Cube Power Rankings
2010 Official Cube Power Rankings
2014 Official Cube Power Rankings
Silent Edge's Tidbits of Wisdom:
The Lewis Theory - When the presence of a single card makes every other card in your deck better (see Lewis, Ray).
The Rubber Edict - You'd rather have it and not use it, than need it and not have it.
The Shotgun Wedding - Don't commit early unless you absolutely have to.
Twitter: @archplus3
Out:
In:
Mainly upgrades here. I've decided to cut the kaldra equipment - the helm is the first to go. I like Wispmare but want Kongming to buff tokens and the like. I replaced Goblin Matron with a good burn spell and Goblin Warchief with the better lord, Goblin Chieftain. He's just about okay on his own and will be fun with all my goblin token makers. Who knows, maybe one day I'll get my hands on a Goblin Trenches.
On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
I jacked my friend with one of those for 5 on Turn 3. He was pissed.
I can't wait to see how Captain of the Watch and Thrashing Wumpus (July's Cube Card of the Month!) perform next weekend!
Sphinx of the Steel Wind has been getting a lot of chatter lately...
NorCal Crew Collective Cube on Cube Tutor
My 2009 Cube Draft Article - "With The First Pick..."
2009 Official Cube Power Rankings
2010 Official Cube Power Rankings
2014 Official Cube Power Rankings
Silent Edge's Tidbits of Wisdom:
The Lewis Theory - When the presence of a single card makes every other card in your deck better (see Lewis, Ray).
The Rubber Edict - You'd rather have it and not use it, than need it and not have it.
The Shotgun Wedding - Don't commit early unless you absolutely have to.
Twitter: @archplus3
calibretto
MTGS Average Peasant Cube 2023 Edition
Follow me. I tweet.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 49th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from MKM!
I want to push token archetypes, and Rise is a good way to acheive this. With a single Honor of the Pure or Glorious Anthem out, the first strike becomes relevant.
Nether Traitor --> Undead Gladiator
UG is a good recurring creature (and a Zombie!). Nether Traitor nether worked out for me.
Anger --> Goblin Patrol
Solid red aggro goblin replaces overcosted haste-enabler.
Saltblast --> Arrest
Arrest was missing for a long time. I wanted Saltblast as a way for white to deal with problem lands etc., but it is 1 too much to be useful.
Heidar, Rimewind Master --> Sleep
Heidar was a house at times, but easily dealt with. Sleep should be generally useful.
Riptide Survivor --> Merfolk Looter
Looter number three: a functional copy of Thought Courier, but the effect is too useful not to have.
Putrid Imp --> Priest of Gix
Priest can combo with blink, or help to play silly costed fatties like Visara the Dreadful. Putrid was only good as a reanimator enabler, but I found myself not needing it.
Crypt Angel --> Grim Tutor
I have a foily full art Grim Tutor proxy freshly made, I can't wait to try it. Crypt Angel was occasionally useful but the recursion was too narrow.
Curiosity --> Arcane Denial
Arcane Denial is well-loved by some forum members. About time I tried it out. Curiosity is a fantastic card, but Blue lacks targets. I may well add its planeshifted cousin instead.
Whispersilk Cloak --> Ring of Gix
RoG is inferior to Icy, but Icy is really good and a second won't hurt. I had WSC for the shroud, before I realised that I already have Lightning Greaves which is miles better.
Celestial Purge --> Leonin Sun Standard
I'm removing most of my colour hosers. They aren't liked and are unfun against the respective colours. Leafing through my old binder I came across LSS, which could be an insane beating in tokens or WW, two archetypes to which I'm devoting attention currently. Anyone else tried it?
Pattern of Rebirth --> Glissa Sunseeker
Another Elf Pattern tended to just make a creature unblockable. I want a stronger creature presence in green, as well as upping the artifact destruction quote. First strike is also nice for green, on a 3-power critter, especially with Giant Growth effects.
Deftblade Elite --> Loxodon Gatekeeper
Just on trial here. Kismet on a 2/3 Soldier could be irritating to play against.
Straight adds:
Moat
Ankh of Mishra
Gifts Given
Silvos, Rogue Elemental
These should be self-explanatory!
On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
Are they keeping them and splitting them for singles or what? I don't know whether to be more mad at the seller or at WotC for making the product so ridiculously unattainable in Europe. It's a farce. I see sellers on eBay splitting boxes and even having the gall to sell empty FTV:E boxes afterwards and it makes me angry that well-meaning collectors and players can't get a single copy.
I guess I could go trade a Berserk and Strip Mine in the forums, but I really wanted the whole shebang - packaging and the excitement of opening and everything, you know? So much for that...
/rant
On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
MTGS Average Peasant Cube 2023 Edition
Follow me. I tweet.