He talks about this a tiny bit starting on post #1067
So it's pretty obvious that, since university started, I've had no time for MTG, including updating my Pauper cube. I haven't even played the thing in months, and I've barely been on MTGS (as is pretty evident from these late replies).
I honestly don't know how I want to proceed. I definitely made a mistake leaving so abruptly without posting anything much - I just kind of left MTG and Pauper cubing by the wayside in soaking up all the new experiences that university gave me. While I don't think I will be able to return to being a community regular for Pauper cubing given everything I want to do, I'm definitely going to consider my options over the next few months and see if I can making cubing, at least in my real life, a regular thing again. In line with that, I'll try to put up a big update for the sets I've missed in the next two months and then go from there (probably not August, since all the time I have for MTG will be devoted to practising M15 for GP Sydney).
I understand that life gets in the way a lot of the time but I have to say for purely selfish reasons I hope you do decide to continue with this if you can, I've only completed the cube myself maybe a set ago and I've been looking forward to and counting on your changes as you know the cube a lot better then I do having an idea of what to cut and what to bring in and I'm willing to bet I'm not the only one in this boat. Either way I understand you have to do what is best for you.
Thanks for the vote of confidence! Honestly, with new set inclusions, the easiest thing to do is see what works in their repsective Limited formats and see if that is a sign it might have potential for Pauper cube. It doesn't always (e.g. the Heroic/Auras mechanics from Theros were very strong in that Limited format but for many, many reasons it is way less good in Pauper cube.), but that's usually a good place to start. For instance: Crowd's Favor intrigues me, and my experience with it in M15 Limited has made me more curious. Definitely going to try it out in cube, as another non-burn spell to play.
He talks about this a tiny bit starting on post #1067
Ah thank you!
Essentially Sinkhole didn't do enough to justify its inclusion. Its main purpose is to throw your opponent off lands in the early game (it has applications as well in disrupting them in the midgame, but that is usually way less backbreaking and often more worth just interacting with the board), and it didn't do it often enough to be good. It needs support that Pauper cube just doesn't supply, and all that kept it in the cube so long was its pedigree and illustrious history.
I'm almost done with my cube I'm wondering why you don't run Stone/Molten Rain? Did they just under-perform for you/was the tempo not substantial enough to keep them in?
They underperform heavily, but that's just the way I see things. I've never liked LD in Limited, I don't think they do enough unless they do a lot, and only Sinkhole has ever come close.
With Khans coming in I'm going to try and update my cube for all the sets I've missed before Khans release. Hopefully that means I can get it done by next week!
Comment: Trying out the Supply-Line Cranes because of its good performance in Limited. Test of Faith is a strong card, but we don't have much room for that kind of effect, so I'm cutting Carom for it. I'm willing to bank on the more splashy card over a solid entry, because this kind of effect deserves to be splashy.
Comment: Flayer Husk has always been disappointing, while Cogwork Librarian is a great effect that would be very interesting. Drafts always have random picks at the end that people really don't care about, and the Librarian can take the place of one while still impacting the draft.
Comment: The Lurking Automaton is always going to threaten being powerful, and in a cube of all powerful cards it can often be really hard to pick this over a card you really want P5 or P6. The War Beast has always been a filler card for the deck that needs it, and it's not really necessary now.
Comment: Both are very similar cards, except Covenant has a few advantages (hitting face and being splashable), which I think puts it over the Tendrils.
Comment: Crowd's Favor has been one of my favourite cards from M15 when I play Limited, but it's hard to deny that it is a fairly small effect. I like it, I think it's definitely efficient enough to be played, but I'm not quite ready to cut something from red to do it. And since Crowd's Favor has made Weapon Surge obsolete, this is a snug fit.
Comment: I was very excited about the Bond-Kin when it was spoiled, but as I think about it more it just feels more and more... awkward. So while I was all set to cube him at the beginning, now I'm feeling some testing is in order. Rubbleback Rhino is okay, but with the recent great green fatties (Hooting Mandrils being the most recent one), I don't feel like I'll miss him.
Comment: Both of these cards are quite similar, being able to be cast for cheap at the endgame, and honestly Treasure Cruise seems to be far more powerful in the deep endgame. I value Delve very cautiously when I'm thinking about casting things on-curve, but Treasure Cruise doesn't have that issue from the perspective of a lategame card. Being able to cast this T10+ and then dumping your new hand onto the battlefield in the same way seems like an amazing way to get back into a losing game.
Comment: The Skullhunter is an interesting effect that can be very powerful for the aggro card. The Interloper is yet another evasive 2-drop, which is very good but very replaceable.
Comment: The Scavenger is the world's most solid Snapping Drake, and can often be much better than that. The Shinobi has been in the cube for a while, and while it has often gotten the opponent, it does so rarely and almost always requires twisting.
Comment: The Dasher is an interesting card, the first real hastebear that we've gotten, but not so absurd that I'm willing to play him right away. The Souleater has been a solid addition, so I'm happy to add him into the main cube and slot Dasher into the Testing Zone in its place.
Comment: The Mandrils is very strong, and although I see it more as a 5-drop than a 4-drop, the Ambush is probably the weakest of my 4-6 mana big bros now.
Comment: A straight-up improvement, as far as I'm concerned, with a significant upside. One mana more doesn't matter much on this kind of card, and this card always lets your fattie beat your opponent's fattie. On the topic of Pit Fight, since I don't consider it a green card and RG multicolor is too tight for it, it's not really a consideration for me.
Comment: Honestly, I'm more excited by Longshot Squad than Hooting Mandrils, although I do admit it's a little worse. I'm very curious about how the Squad performs, as it can often be a 4/4 or 5/5 with reach in a slow, midrangey deck.
Karoos are better than Guildgates, although it isn't always intuitive why: they occur at the same speed, and the Karoos _can_ be more awkward to play on curve/susceptible to LD, BUT the most important thing is, an opening hand of a Karoo and another land is already 3 mana sources in 2 cards, which makes those hands easier to keep. Being two mana sources on one card reduces the pressure on you to draw more lands.
Gary (Grey Merchant of Asphodel, but people not familiar with the name) is a lot better than I initially thought, so you may have a point there. Pilferers have always been solid for a number of lategame decks, like GB or 5-color, but I could definitely see cutting it for Gary. Something to think about.
It's kind of unfortunate that I don't have the time to do these in a timely fashion these days, but that's life. Now that my exams for the semester are over, I can finally update the cube (in time for a roadtrip!).
Comment: Stingcourger is a unique card that can have real impact, but so often that impact comes in the form of simply a bad red Unsummon or Falter effect. That's always been sort of enough, but now that we have a great replacement in the form of Goblin Heelcutter. Heelcutter is a great aggressive curve-topper for any aggro deck.
Comment: Gurmag Angler is one beefy delve creature, a nice new finisher for control decks but also cheap enough because of delve to be usable at the top of an aggro deck's curve. The worst 3 drop from the black section seems like a suitable cut.
Comment: An improvement on the already great Savage Punch that we got in Khans of Tarkir, Epic Confrontation kicks out the weakest noncreature green card we've got so far.
Comment: From a little more experience with outlast as a mechanic, I've grown a lot less impressed with it, especially on large bodies where the bonus is smaller relative to the original body. As such, I'm doubting very much ever inluding the Squad in the main cube.
On the other hand, Glade Watcher is definitely a card I want to try out. It's a unique card that we've never really gotten, a great blocker than can double as a fair attacker when the time comes. Obviously made for a midrange or control strategy, which is uncommon for green's 2-drops. I'm not sure if it's actually good, but it's worth trying.
Comment: I really like the Rage - it's the first time we've gotten this kind of "5 damage to a creature or player for 5 mana" deal, although we've been making do with X-spells. I prefer this card to Aftershock, which was always in the cube to help red beat larger creatures and never really played with.
Comment: The Forces has always been an awkward card holding on because of he's sizeable body, but never great. 2 2/2s is almost as good as a 4/4 (it's actually a fair bit worse in significant situations), and without the awful cumulative upkeep.
Comment: A poor man's black Mulldrifter has promise, and I think it's a worthy inclusion. What to cut is a harder business to settle. I ended up having to choose between Sultai Scavenger - a good card, recently added, but not as efficient as I like - and the long-standing Warren Pilferers. Additionally, the Aven is similar to both cards - it's a flier like the Scavenger, and a way of generating advantage for the control deck in the lategame like the Pilferers. Ultimately it was the Pilferers that had to go - the Aven does a solid enough job better than the Pilferers.
MODERN MASTERS 2015
Modern Masters 2015 brought a lot of cards down to common, which is great for us! Let's see what made the cut.
Comment: There are tradeoffs to consider between these two cards, but the Sphere does what this kind of card needs to do: fix colours efficiently for the 3+ color decks.
Comment: The Gauntlets has always been my pet equipment: one that has merits through its sheer massive boost. But it's always awkward, and often you had to work ahrder than the effect warranted. It definitely earned a spot, doing something commons rarely gets (big equipment pumps), but now that we have a similar effect in Sickleslicer, which makes up for a little inefficiency for the 2/2 body it starts with. And as we all know from Vulshok Morningstar, +2/+2 is still a significant boost.
Comment: Despite the Jund activation, I consider Slaughtermaster a red card because 1) the 2/1 body it starts with is solid enough that it will just be played as a red card most of the time, and 2) the headache of making a wedge section just for Viashino Slaughtermaster is not worth it. But because I am intrigued by a cheap double-striker and its potential for interactions with cards like equipments, Auras and combat tricks, I want to try it. Kruin Striker is my weakest red 2-drop, often a 2/1, and so a worthwhile cut for something more interesting.
Comment: Slinger is another old card that has maintained its position in the cube because of a hesitance on my part to cut it, but it's always been awkward. The Dragonsoul Knight, while not crazy efficient or anything, is a concession to the 5-color ramp control decks that are a fixture in our play environment - I may as well throw those decks a delicious bone. Additionally, this choice was motivated by a desire to not remove an aggro 3-drop for a control 3-drop, and I think Slinger is a more midrangey card.
Comment: This is an interesting point in the cube's life. It was only a few years ago when a 3/1 common 2-drop with no downsides was very rare, and in a way overvalued because of this. But 3-power 2-drops have been far more common in recent memories, and it may be because Wizards realized something I didn't for quite a while: that the 1-toughness is already enough of a downside to nerf the card. Regardless, whereas Blade of the Sixth Pride was once a stalwart of the cube, now it's been replaced (of course, with Daring Skyjek in the cube, it's not like we've given up entirely on the 3/1 for 2). The Freeblade is an interesting card, very solid even considering I've had little experience with renown and am not sure how good it really is yet.
Comment: I don't think the Brute is all that great, but I think the core of my concern stems from being unfamiliar with menace overall. Well, now that it's an evergreen keyword mechanic, it's going to come up much more, so I'm going to have to learn more about it and get more certain about my evaluations of that card. In that spirit, I'm going to try out the Brute. The Dasher was never that exciting, even when I added it.
Comment: A 2/3 for 2 with a mild downside is quite strong, and a great defensive threat in normal Limited that can brick multiple 2/2s and help the control deck reach the lategame. Of course, creatures in cube are often better than 2/2 vanillas, so perhaps it won't translate well into cube. Additionally, it's hard to make room for it in the current black 2-drops line-up, because the aggro decks require such a density of cheap creatures that you don't have the room for defensive creatures. Despite all these issues, I'm still interested in the potential performance of this card, so I'm going to test it. Now that we have Treasure Cruise and even Enhanced Awareness, I've become less interested in Petals.
Comment: The Gearcrafter is a card that many are very enthusiastic about but that I'm just not seeing, and this is after I've used Sandsteppe Outcast in FRF limited to quite effective results. I just don't see this card being that great, but I am willing to try it. While I think the Cranes could be really good, I only have so much room for white high-drops and [card}Custodi Squire[/card] (also in the Testing Zone) is almost certainly better.
Comment: I'm sure I've seen Symbiosis before. I have to have! But somehow it's never clicked in my head that this card could be really good. Symbiosis has the obvious potential to be a cheap, massive blowout card, but I think it's important to recognize that those are rare occurences, and there are many times when this card is actually worse than Savage Surge (in situations where you only get an advantage out of one pump, it's worse than Surge because of the lack of an untap, and in situations when you only have one creature, it is actively bad). But I think on balance it has that potential for craziness that I like to see, and I'm happy to try out what may end up being a diamond in the rough.
The reason you don't see Symbiosis is that, on top of the drawbacks you already know about, it has the same problem as Auras by giving your opponent an easy 2-for-1. Kill one of the targets, fizzle the spell. It even has the potential to be a 3 for 1 for your opponent if you run both of your creatures into bigger guys to take advantage of the dual pump.
I've known about it and liked it since Legacy came out. It turns out to be about 33% epic for you, 33% dead, and 33% epic for your opponent
The reason you don't see Symbiosis is that, on top of the drawbacks you already know about, it has the same problem as Auras by giving your opponent an easy 2-for-1. Kill one of the targets, fizzle the spell. It even has the potential to be a 3 for 1 for your opponent if you run both of your creatures into bigger guys to take advantage of the dual pump.
I've known about it and liked it since Legacy came out. It turns out to be about 33% epic for you, 33% dead, and 33% epic for your opponent
Do you mean kill both? The spell should only fizzle if it has no legal targets upon resolution.
Although of course, the 2-for-1 potential is always there, but that was true for Savage Surge as well.
Haha, it should be worth testing for the crazy variance, in any case.
I'm looking to get back into Pauper cubing and was gonna use your cube as a base. My question is, is there any specific reason you didn't add any of the "commonshifted" vintage masters cards, like Battle Screech and co. to your cube? I see you already run Death Spark which is only common online, so I figure the Vintage masters one's should be fine as well.
Ah thank you!
My 360 Pauper Cube
CubeTutor
My 360 Core Set Cube
CubeTutor
Thanks for the vote of confidence! Honestly, with new set inclusions, the easiest thing to do is see what works in their repsective Limited formats and see if that is a sign it might have potential for Pauper cube. It doesn't always (e.g. the Heroic/Auras mechanics from Theros were very strong in that Limited format but for many, many reasons it is way less good in Pauper cube.), but that's usually a good place to start. For instance: Crowd's Favor intrigues me, and my experience with it in M15 Limited has made me more curious. Definitely going to try it out in cube, as another non-burn spell to play.
Essentially Sinkhole didn't do enough to justify its inclusion. Its main purpose is to throw your opponent off lands in the early game (it has applications as well in disrupting them in the midgame, but that is usually way less backbreaking and often more worth just interacting with the board), and it didn't do it often enough to be good. It needs support that Pauper cube just doesn't supply, and all that kept it in the cube so long was its pedigree and illustrious history.
My Pauper Cube ♤ The Pauper Cube Thread Common Knowledge — 1 2
With Khans coming in I'm going to try and update my cube for all the sets I've missed before Khans release. Hopefully that means I can get it done by next week!
My Pauper Cube ♤ The Pauper Cube Thread Common Knowledge — 1 2
My Pauper Cube ♤ The Pauper Cube Thread Common Knowledge — 1 2
JOURNEY INTO NYX
Carom → Test of Faith
Test of Faith → Supply-Line Cranes (in Testing Zone)
Comment: Trying out the Supply-Line Cranes because of its good performance in Limited. Test of Faith is a strong card, but we don't have much room for that kind of effect, so I'm cutting Carom for it. I'm willing to bank on the more splashy card over a solid entry, because this kind of effect deserves to be splashy.
CONSPIRACY
Otherworldly Journey → Custodi Squire (in Testing Zone)
Comment: The Squire is essentially a better Warren Pilferers, which at least must be considered.
Flayer Husk → Cogwork Librarian
Comment: Flayer Husk has always been disappointing, while Cogwork Librarian is a great effect that would be very interesting. Drafts always have random picks at the end that people really don't care about, and the Librarian can take the place of one while still impacting the draft.
Phyrexian War Beast → Lurking Automaton
Comment: The Lurking Automaton is always going to threaten being powerful, and in a cube of all powerful cards it can often be really hard to pick this over a card you really want P5 or P6. The War Beast has always been a filler card for the deck that needs it, and it's not really necessary now.
MAGIC 2015
Ashmouth Hound → Borderland Marauder
Comment: Obviously. Obviously! And cutting probably the weakest 2-drop for it, so not too hard.
Tendrils of Corruption → Covenant of Blood
Comment: Both are very similar cards, except Covenant has a few advantages (hitting face and being splashable), which I think puts it over the Tendrils.
Razor Golem → Triplicate Spirits
Comment: The best card in M15, easily! Cutting a long-standing mediocre creature that has finally found a replacement.
Weapon Surge → Crowd's Favor (in Testing Zone)
Comment: Crowd's Favor has been one of my favourite cards from M15 when I play Limited, but it's hard to deny that it is a fairly small effect. I like it, I think it's definitely efficient enough to be played, but I'm not quite ready to cut something from red to do it. And since Crowd's Favor has made Weapon Surge obsolete, this is a snug fit.
KHANS OF TARKIR
Rubbleback Rhino → Ainok Bond-Kin (in Testing Zone)
Comment: I was very excited about the Bond-Kin when it was spoiled, but as I think about it more it just feels more and more... awkward. So while I was all set to cube him at the beginning, now I'm feeling some testing is in order. Rubbleback Rhino is okay, but with the recent great green fatties (Hooting Mandrils being the most recent one), I don't feel like I'll miss him.
Gush → Treasure Cruise
Comment: Both of these cards are quite similar, being able to be cast for cheap at the endgame, and honestly Treasure Cruise seems to be far more powerful in the deep endgame. I value Delve very cautiously when I'm thinking about casting things on-curve, but Treasure Cruise doesn't have that issue from the perspective of a lategame card. Being able to cast this T10+ and then dumping your new hand onto the battlefield in the same way seems like an amazing way to get back into a losing game.
Vampire Interloper → Mardu Skullhunter
Comment: The Skullhunter is an interesting effect that can be very powerful for the aggro card. The Interloper is yet another evasive 2-drop, which is very good but very replaceable.
Okiba-Gang Shinobi → Sultai Scavenger
Comment: The Scavenger is the world's most solid Snapping Drake, and can often be much better than that. The Shinobi has been in the cube for a while, and while it has often gotten the opponent, it does so rarely and almost always requires twisting.
Torch Fiend → Immolating Souleater
Immolating Souleater → Valley Dasher (in the Testing Zone.)
Comment: The Dasher is an interesting card, the first real hastebear that we've gotten, but not so absurd that I'm willing to play him right away. The Souleater has been a solid addition, so I'm happy to add him into the main cube and slot Dasher into the Testing Zone in its place.
Elephant Ambush → Hooting Mandrils
Comment: The Mandrils is very strong, and although I see it more as a 5-drop than a 4-drop, the Ambush is probably the weakest of my 4-6 mana big bros now.
Prey Upon → Savage Punch
Comment: A straight-up improvement, as far as I'm concerned, with a significant upside. One mana more doesn't matter much on this kind of card, and this card always lets your fattie beat your opponent's fattie. On the topic of Pit Fight, since I don't consider it a green card and RG multicolor is too tight for it, it's not really a consideration for me.
Crusher Zendikon → Longshot Squad (in Testing Zone)
Comment: Honestly, I'm more excited by Longshot Squad than Hooting Mandrils, although I do admit it's a little worse. I'm very curious about how the Squad performs, as it can often be a 4/4 or 5/5 with reach in a slow, midrangey deck.
Guildgates → KTK "Refuges"
Comment: It didn't even take 2 years for them to make Guildgates obsolete. Goodbye beautiful guildgates, hello KTK Refuge lands.
My Pauper Cube ♤ The Pauper Cube Thread Common Knowledge — 1 2
My Pauper Cube ♤ The Pauper Cube Thread Common Knowledge — 1 2
My Pauper Cube ♤ The Pauper Cube Thread Common Knowledge — 1 2
Modern
RUBW Affinity
BGR Midrange
UWR Control
RG Titan Shift
RW Burn
GW Bogles
G Tron
It's kind of unfortunate that I don't have the time to do these in a timely fashion these days, but that's life. Now that my exams for the semester are over, I can finally update the cube (in time for a roadtrip!).
FATE REFORGED
Stingscourger → Goblin Heelcutter
Comment: Stingcourger is a unique card that can have real impact, but so often that impact comes in the form of simply a bad red Unsummon or Falter effect. That's always been sort of enough, but now that we have a great replacement in the form of Goblin Heelcutter. Heelcutter is a great aggressive curve-topper for any aggro deck.
Soulcage Fiend → Gurmag Angler
Comment: Gurmag Angler is one beefy delve creature, a nice new finisher for control decks but also cheap enough because of delve to be usable at the top of an aggro deck's curve. The worst 3 drop from the black section seems like a suitable cut.
DRAGONS OF TARKIR
Crushing Vines → Epic Confrontation
Comment: An improvement on the already great Savage Punch that we got in Khans of Tarkir, Epic Confrontation kicks out the weakest noncreature green card we've got so far.
Longshot Squad → Glade Watcher
Comment: From a little more experience with outlast as a mechanic, I've grown a lot less impressed with it, especially on large bodies where the bonus is smaller relative to the original body. As such, I'm doubting very much ever inluding the Squad in the main cube.
On the other hand, Glade Watcher is definitely a card I want to try out. It's a unique card that we've never really gotten, a great blocker than can double as a fair attacker when the time comes. Obviously made for a midrange or control strategy, which is uncommon for green's 2-drops. I'm not sure if it's actually good, but it's worth trying.
Aftershock → Sarkhan's Rage
Comment: I really like the Rage - it's the first time we've gotten this kind of "5 damage to a creature or player for 5 mana" deal, although we've been making do with X-spells. I prefer this card to Aftershock, which was always in the cube to help red beat larger creatures and never really played with.
Illusionary Forces → Ojutai's Summons
Comment: The Forces has always been an awkward card holding on because of he's sizeable body, but never great. 2 2/2s is almost as good as a 4/4 (it's actually a fair bit worse in significant situations), and without the awful cumulative upkeep.
Warren Pilferers → Vulturous Aven
Comment: A poor man's black Mulldrifter has promise, and I think it's a worthy inclusion. What to cut is a harder business to settle. I ended up having to choose between Sultai Scavenger - a good card, recently added, but not as efficient as I like - and the long-standing Warren Pilferers. Additionally, the Aven is similar to both cards - it's a flier like the Scavenger, and a way of generating advantage for the control deck in the lategame like the Pilferers. Ultimately it was the Pilferers that had to go - the Aven does a solid enough job better than the Pilferers.
MODERN MASTERS 2015
Modern Masters 2015 brought a lot of cards down to common, which is great for us! Let's see what made the cut.
Prismatic Lens → Sphere of the Suns
Comment: There are tradeoffs to consider between these two cards, but the Sphere does what this kind of card needs to do: fix colours efficiently for the 3+ color decks.
Leonin Scimitar → Sickleslicer
Comment: The Gauntlets has always been my pet equipment: one that has merits through its sheer massive boost. But it's always awkward, and often you had to work ahrder than the effect warranted. It definitely earned a spot, doing something commons rarely gets (big equipment pumps), but now that we have a similar effect in Sickleslicer, which makes up for a little inefficiency for the 2/2 body it starts with. And as we all know from Vulshok Morningstar, +2/+2 is still a significant boost.
Kruin Striker → Viashino Slaughtermaster
Comment: Despite the Jund activation, I consider Slaughtermaster a red card because 1) the 2/1 body it starts with is solid enough that it will just be played as a red card most of the time, and 2) the headache of making a wedge section just for Viashino Slaughtermaster is not worth it. But because I am intrigued by a cheap double-striker and its potential for interactions with cards like equipments, Auras and combat tricks, I want to try it. Kruin Striker is my weakest red 2-drop, often a 2/1, and so a worthwhile cut for something more interesting.
Ghitu Slinger → Dragonsoul Knight
Comment: Slinger is another old card that has maintained its position in the cube because of a hesitance on my part to cut it, but it's always been awkward. The Dragonsoul Knight, while not crazy efficient or anything, is a concession to the 5-color ramp control decks that are a fixture in our play environment - I may as well throw those decks a delicious bone. Additionally, this choice was motivated by a desire to not remove an aggro 3-drop for a control 3-drop, and I think Slinger is a more midrangey card.
My Pauper Cube ♤ The Pauper Cube Thread Common Knowledge — 1 2
Our last romp through the land of core sets! Let's see what we find.
Blade of the Sixth Pride → Topan Freeblade
Comment: This is an interesting point in the cube's life. It was only a few years ago when a 3/1 common 2-drop with no downsides was very rare, and in a way overvalued because of this. But 3-power 2-drops have been far more common in recent memories, and it may be because Wizards realized something I didn't for quite a while: that the 1-toughness is already enough of a downside to nerf the card. Regardless, whereas Blade of the Sixth Pride was once a stalwart of the cube, now it's been replaced (of course, with Daring Skyjek in the cube, it's not like we've given up entirely on the 3/1 for 2). The Freeblade is an interesting card, very solid even considering I've had little experience with renown and am not sure how good it really is yet.
Valley Dasher → Boggart Brute (in the Testing Zone)
Comment: I don't think the Brute is all that great, but I think the core of my concern stems from being unfamiliar with menace overall. Well, now that it's an evergreen keyword mechanic, it's going to come up much more, so I'm going to have to learn more about it and get more certain about my evaluations of that card. In that spirit, I'm going to try out the Brute. The Dasher was never that exciting, even when I added it.
Petals of Insight → Shambling Ghoul (in the Testing Zone)
Comment: A 2/3 for 2 with a mild downside is quite strong, and a great defensive threat in normal Limited that can brick multiple 2/2s and help the control deck reach the lategame. Of course, creatures in cube are often better than 2/2 vanillas, so perhaps it won't translate well into cube. Additionally, it's hard to make room for it in the current black 2-drops line-up, because the aggro decks require such a density of cheap creatures that you don't have the room for defensive creatures. Despite all these issues, I'm still interested in the potential performance of this card, so I'm going to test it. Now that we have Treasure Cruise and even Enhanced Awareness, I've become less interested in Petals.
Supply-Line Crane → Ghirapur Gearcrafter (in the Testing Zone)
Comment: The Gearcrafter is a card that many are very enthusiastic about but that I'm just not seeing, and this is after I've used Sandsteppe Outcast in FRF limited to quite effective results. I just don't see this card being that great, but I am willing to try it. While I think the Cranes could be really good, I only have so much room for white high-drops and [card}Custodi Squire[/card] (also in the Testing Zone) is almost certainly better.
Other additions!
Savage Surge → Symbiosis
Comment: I'm sure I've seen Symbiosis before. I have to have! But somehow it's never clicked in my head that this card could be really good. Symbiosis has the obvious potential to be a cheap, massive blowout card, but I think it's important to recognize that those are rare occurences, and there are many times when this card is actually worse than Savage Surge (in situations where you only get an advantage out of one pump, it's worse than Surge because of the lack of an untap, and in situations when you only have one creature, it is actively bad). But I think on balance it has that potential for craziness that I like to see, and I'm happy to try out what may end up being a diamond in the rough.
My Pauper Cube ♤ The Pauper Cube Thread Common Knowledge — 1 2
I've known about it and liked it since Legacy came out. It turns out to be about 33% epic for you, 33% dead, and 33% epic for your opponent
My Cube (DeckStats)
My Pauper Cube: 540 (CubeTutor link!)
Level 1 Judge
Modern
RUBW Affinity
BGR Midrange
UWR Control
RG Titan Shift
RW Burn
GW Bogles
G Tron
Do you mean kill both? The spell should only fizzle if it has no legal targets upon resolution.
Although of course, the 2-for-1 potential is always there, but that was true for Savage Surge as well.
Haha, it should be worth testing for the crazy variance, in any case.
Thank you! I haven't had the chance to cube much since I started university, but I still enjoy flexing my card evaluation muscles once in a while.
My Pauper Cube ♤ The Pauper Cube Thread Common Knowledge — 1 2
My Cube (DeckStats)
My Pauper Cube: 540 (CubeTutor link!)
Level 1 Judge
Haha no worries. Thanks! It's going to be a pain tracking one down where I live, but I enjoy testing old cards that are new.
My Pauper Cube ♤ The Pauper Cube Thread Common Knowledge — 1 2
I'm looking to get back into Pauper cubing and was gonna use your cube as a base. My question is, is there any specific reason you didn't add any of the "commonshifted" vintage masters cards, like Battle Screech and co. to your cube? I see you already run Death Spark which is only common online, so I figure the Vintage masters one's should be fine as well.
Karador, Ghost Chieftain
My 360 Pauper Cube
CubeTutor
My 360 Core Set Cube
CubeTutor