Sacrifice decks, Wildfire decks, Balance/Upheaval shells, or really any slower midrange deck that will have the time to let it threaten the opponent from suspend. It fizzles the opponent's removal spells, blanks lifelink in combat, and can have a pretty profound impact on the game just while suspended. It does a lot for a single R. And, it can be a backup fatty for decks that are playing red and might need a spare.
It's pretty funny that more than half the Ultimate Masters "masterpieces" for lack of a better word are in your cube! Have any of them caught your eye wtwlf? I really like the Eternal Witness. Tbh, I've never liked any the artwork for the card before now. Mana Vault also looks really nice.
How do people shuffle large cubes? We normally just put all the cards on the table and mix them like when cooking a soup. Not sure if it's the most effective way but is quicker than shuffling a bunch of 60-card piles.
I pile shuffle them into about 50 piles ahead of the draft. Doesn't take too long. I pile them face-up, it is a nice way to review the cube contents before a session. Sometimes I am reminded of a card that I don't have much play with that I want to try. I riffle the piles a bit as I gather them up and put them back in the box. Then there is further randomization when we make the packs later on.
How do people shuffle large cubes? We normally just put all the cards on the table and mix them like when cooking a soup. Not sure if it's the most effective way but is quicker than shuffling a bunch of 60-card piles.
My P9 and OG Duals are Collector's Edition.
I split the thing up into about 12 piles and shuffle the piles into one another a bunch of times until it's sufficiently randomized.
I have been searching high and low for discussion on Jeweled Amulet. This card seems perfect for my list, and I can't believe I just stumbled upon it in your Cube... How long have you run it, and has the re-chargability made it significantly better than a Lotus Petal? Thanks!
Yes, much better than Lotus Petal. Petal is probably better in a 3-color aggro deck or dedicated combo, but Amulet is better everywhere else. I've been running it for about 6 months or so, and I like it quite a bit.
What do you think about Staggershock instead of two copies of Arc Lightning? It's an instant so it works better in spells matters and countermagic decks, you can play it eot after there are 2 valid targets and effectively almost immediately send 4 damage across 2 bodies, which I think on average is better than 3 damage divided as you choose (how often will there be three high value x/1s).
I played Staggershock for a while, and it just wasn't as good. The immediate impact of the 3 damage is better at dealing with resolved 'walkers, and it can kill 2 targets right away, and it can deal with 3-toughness creatures (which often serve s problematic roadblocks against early pressure). They're also better against tokens and mana dorks. There are instances where Staggershock is better, but on average, I much preferred the two Arc Lightning variants.
I think Keg is better. Getting enough counters on Bomb to deal with planeswalkers is a tall order, especially since the rule change stopped the destruction of transformed cards. With that utility gone, the edge it has over Keg is largely gone. But Keg can kill manlands and activated land-creatures, so even with no time spent on leveling counters, it can be a Pithing Needle of sorts against every manland and cards like Koth, 5cc Nissa and others. And manlands can be really problematic for control decks, so Keg being a nice maindeckable out to token armies, 1-2cc aggro beaters AND manlands gives it an edge over Bomb, IMHO.
Fiery Confluence is a really good card. It took a very small hit with the 'walker damage rule change, but it's still a flexible/powerful spell that can be a 1-sided Shatterstorm, a scaleable sweeper effect and a form of significant reach. It's probably worth a slot at 405, even with the competition at the 4cc spell slot being as high as it is.
First off your cube is a work of art and the time and energy you put into helping the community is very impressive, thank you!
My question is around black aggro. My eyes got opened by the SGC-cube and how weak the creator feels that black aggro is.
What are you seeing from when your cube is played? Are the black 1-drops actually winning games or are they either in the bad decks or sidelined completely? Have you toyed with just dropping the early black aggro and switching to midrange/support?
Black aggro is just fine. In fact, it's quite good. There are a lot of fundamental design decisions that I completely disagree with when it comes to that SCG cube list.
Black's aggro does some good things for aggro's bad matchups. The disruption is powerful against archetype strategies, the efficient removal is good against midrange decks, and the recursive nature of the threats is good against control. The self-damage can make it problematic in the aggro mirror, but that's okay. Every deck has a weakness.
Remember that part of a successful aggressive gameplan is critical mass. While the disruption/removal can be useful to support other decks like Orzhov/Rakdos aggro, if you start getting cut on 2-power 1-drops in your other color, you're going to need the black aggro creatures to have your early game saturation filled. Especially in a medium-sized cube, where you can't oversaturate white or red with 1-drops to compensate.
Black also has other strategies that can utilize the aggro beaters too. Most of them are either recursive or make your other recursive creatures work, so in decks with Braids/Skullclamp/Smokestack, most of those aggro beaters are actually good at supporting multiple decks.
I agree with him in that a lot of people that sit down to cube don't want to play the Gravecrawler beatdown deck. They want to do splashy and exciting things when they cube. But players that want to win will use all the pieces of the buffalo to do so, and that means exploring aggressive strategies of all angles.
Hey there. First of all I just want to commend you for all the hard work and diligence put into this thread.
I’m brand new to cubing and am using your cube list as a starting point. A few questions I’m hoping you can answer:
1. If I want to add some cards, is there typically a multiple by which you increase each color? Say, for example, I want to add Avenger of Zendikar to green. Does that mean I’d have to add another card to each color? Is it better to add 5, 10, etc to each color instead of 1?
2. Are miracle cards typically not great in cube due to lack of library manipulation? There’s a bit of scrying/card draw in your cube list but I don’t think I saw any miracle cards.
3. You’re fully powered so I’m assuming there aren’t any budget restrictions or cards you would add if money wasn’t an issue?
I had a list of things I wanted to ask but have forgotten the rest. I’m sure it’ll come to me.
I appreciate the comments about my cube, and I'm glad you like the look of the list.
1. If you wanted to add cards, I'd keep the color distribution the same, so I'd add/remove stuff in equal batches. But if there's a handful of cards you want to add in, just make some changes and customize the list to what you want. Cut like Thornling for Avenger or whatever and just start customizing the list for your playgroup.
2. Miracle cards are just too hard to control, and they have too much variance for my taste.
3. Correct, there is nothing excluded for budgetary reasons.
I remember a few of the other questions I was going to ask.
1. What do you do when cards from your cube are part of playsets? Do you take them out of your cube and use them for decks or do you keep the cube intact? The reason I ask is because for the more expensive cards it’s hard for me to justify owning 5 copies lol.
2. Where do you get the storage box for your cube? I like the wooden one you have. Would be nice to get something neat for storage.
3. Do you typically prefer OG foils for cards or promos? What about Alpha/Beta vs judge promos (for something like Demonic Tutor, for instance). I prefer the oldest printing possible, or typically whatever is most valuable.
2. The wooden one is actually a custom recipe box. If you google those, there's a bunch of different vendors that can make them. I actually use a CubeVault now though, since I outgrew the wood box.
3. I typically run the older versions of cards when possible. Nothing beats Alpha/Beta. Then I prefer classic signed cards, old frame foils, alters, and then new/promo foils last. If you look at the visual spoiler for my cube, you can see my obvious preferences. However, when a new frame comes out, I try to select at least one card from that frame so I can represent it historically in my cube. So I have 1 expedition, 1 invention, 1 invocation, etc. I try to choose those based on fit and overall aesthetics.
You’re awesome. Thank you again. One more (probably obvious) question:
Do you provide basics? If so, which do you use and are they stored with the rest of the cube? Since my collection is rather vast I’ve been tasked with building a cube for a housewarming party for a group of friends. I appreciate all advice!
All my basic land info is in the post under the OP in this thread. Yes, I provide them, yes, they're with the cube, and I use one of every promo/full-art/special basic land ever printed.
How highly are swords valued in your cube? My playgroup reached a point awhile ago where swords felt overbearing to play against so we don't include them usually but I'm wondering if that's simply down to my playgroup's style or if they are actually the higher powered picks we envision them as.
I just wanted to thank you for all the work you put in here on mtgsalvation in terms of answering questions about cube, stating your opinion, always backed up with reasonings, and, very importantly, do this all on a very respectful level! I created my first cube this summer and am constantly reading opinions here on mtgsalvation to reevaluate the decisions I've made.
There is one thing I could not find a good answer to - maybe emphasizing that it is a difficult question to adress in objective terms:
A core concept of many cube-discussions is power, and the term "Power" is synonymous with P9 for many people. It is then surely a question of taste to include cards from P9 and those with similar strengths in cube (e.g. Sol Ring/Recurring Nightmare) or to not do it.
I'm struggling with a different interpretation of power though. I once saw a formulation along the lines "If you decide to always remove the top-performers (which would in the strongest cubes be the P9 and cards alike), where do you stop? There will always be a selection of best picks in any pack, so the line to draw is arbitrary.".
I can understand this reasoning, but my issue is slightly different. I wish to have the cards of lowest power in my cube to not be miles away from the cards of highest power. There should of course be cards only fitting a theme, like Life from the Loam or Tinker, but in their respective niche they should be respectable and powerful picks (which these two definetly are). It it hence not only a question of adjusting the maximum power-level, but a question of simultaneously adjusting the maximum and the minimum power-level that makes for a fun cube, as far as I see it. Where the maximum and the minimum lie in comparison to all magiccards is a question of taste. I do think though that for a well-working cube, they should always be close enough to one another for every card in the cube to have deserved its spot.
Consistently thinking this through then might lead to a tier-categorization of cubes instead of the binary "powered/unpowered".
Maybe I'm completely off the track and miss something vital in the nature of cube, but for now I think this is an important consideration and it would be an immense help to see some sort of tier-list, extending through all colors simultaneously (probably impossible, but aim for the best) and telling you, which cards in your cube are just off-limits (The generalisation of the idea not to consider Primeval Titan and Colossal Dreadmaw to belong to the same tier, extending it to comparisons along the lines of Goblin Guide versus Isamaru, Hound of Konda).
Keep up the good work and a happy new year!
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My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
I pile shuffle them into about 50 piles ahead of the draft. Doesn't take too long. I pile them face-up, it is a nice way to review the cube contents before a session. Sometimes I am reminded of a card that I don't have much play with that I want to try. I riffle the piles a bit as I gather them up and put them back in the box. Then there is further randomization when we make the packs later on.
My P9 and OG Duals are Collector's Edition.
I split the thing up into about 12 piles and shuffle the piles into one another a bunch of times until it's sufficiently randomized.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
360 card powered Chicago cube:
https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/e7r
2020 Numerical Power Rankings:
https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/the-cube-forum/cube-card-and-archetype/817969-2020-numerical-cube-power-rankings
2018 CubeTutor Power Rankings:
https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/the-cube-forum/cube-card-and-archetype/803301-cubetutor-power-rankings-2018-by-color-and-cmc
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
Cheers, and happy cubing!
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
My question is around black aggro. My eyes got opened by the SGC-cube and how weak the creator feels that black aggro is.
What are you seeing from when your cube is played? Are the black 1-drops actually winning games or are they either in the bad decks or sidelined completely? Have you toyed with just dropping the early black aggro and switching to midrange/support?
Black's aggro does some good things for aggro's bad matchups. The disruption is powerful against archetype strategies, the efficient removal is good against midrange decks, and the recursive nature of the threats is good against control. The self-damage can make it problematic in the aggro mirror, but that's okay. Every deck has a weakness.
Remember that part of a successful aggressive gameplan is critical mass. While the disruption/removal can be useful to support other decks like Orzhov/Rakdos aggro, if you start getting cut on 2-power 1-drops in your other color, you're going to need the black aggro creatures to have your early game saturation filled. Especially in a medium-sized cube, where you can't oversaturate white or red with 1-drops to compensate.
Black also has other strategies that can utilize the aggro beaters too. Most of them are either recursive or make your other recursive creatures work, so in decks with Braids/Skullclamp/Smokestack, most of those aggro beaters are actually good at supporting multiple decks.
I agree with him in that a lot of people that sit down to cube don't want to play the Gravecrawler beatdown deck. They want to do splashy and exciting things when they cube. But players that want to win will use all the pieces of the buffalo to do so, and that means exploring aggressive strategies of all angles.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
I’m brand new to cubing and am using your cube list as a starting point. A few questions I’m hoping you can answer:
1. If I want to add some cards, is there typically a multiple by which you increase each color? Say, for example, I want to add Avenger of Zendikar to green. Does that mean I’d have to add another card to each color? Is it better to add 5, 10, etc to each color instead of 1?
2. Are miracle cards typically not great in cube due to lack of library manipulation? There’s a bit of scrying/card draw in your cube list but I don’t think I saw any miracle cards.
3. You’re fully powered so I’m assuming there aren’t any budget restrictions or cards you would add if money wasn’t an issue?
I had a list of things I wanted to ask but have forgotten the rest. I’m sure it’ll come to me.
Thanks in advance.
1. If you wanted to add cards, I'd keep the color distribution the same, so I'd add/remove stuff in equal batches. But if there's a handful of cards you want to add in, just make some changes and customize the list to what you want. Cut like Thornling for Avenger or whatever and just start customizing the list for your playgroup.
2. Miracle cards are just too hard to control, and they have too much variance for my taste.
3. Correct, there is nothing excluded for budgetary reasons.
Good luck! Cheers, and happy cubing!
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
I remember a few of the other questions I was going to ask.
1. What do you do when cards from your cube are part of playsets? Do you take them out of your cube and use them for decks or do you keep the cube intact? The reason I ask is because for the more expensive cards it’s hard for me to justify owning 5 copies lol.
2. Where do you get the storage box for your cube? I like the wooden one you have. Would be nice to get something neat for storage.
3. Do you typically prefer OG foils for cards or promos? What about Alpha/Beta vs judge promos (for something like Demonic Tutor, for instance). I prefer the oldest printing possible, or typically whatever is most valuable.
2. The wooden one is actually a custom recipe box. If you google those, there's a bunch of different vendors that can make them. I actually use a CubeVault now though, since I outgrew the wood box.
3. I typically run the older versions of cards when possible. Nothing beats Alpha/Beta. Then I prefer classic signed cards, old frame foils, alters, and then new/promo foils last. If you look at the visual spoiler for my cube, you can see my obvious preferences. However, when a new frame comes out, I try to select at least one card from that frame so I can represent it historically in my cube. So I have 1 expedition, 1 invention, 1 invocation, etc. I try to choose those based on fit and overall aesthetics.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
Do you provide basics? If so, which do you use and are they stored with the rest of the cube? Since my collection is rather vast I’ve been tasked with building a cube for a housewarming party for a group of friends. I appreciate all advice!
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
I just wanted to thank you for all the work you put in here on mtgsalvation in terms of answering questions about cube, stating your opinion, always backed up with reasonings, and, very importantly, do this all on a very respectful level! I created my first cube this summer and am constantly reading opinions here on mtgsalvation to reevaluate the decisions I've made.
There is one thing I could not find a good answer to - maybe emphasizing that it is a difficult question to adress in objective terms:
A core concept of many cube-discussions is power, and the term "Power" is synonymous with P9 for many people. It is then surely a question of taste to include cards from P9 and those with similar strengths in cube (e.g. Sol Ring/Recurring Nightmare) or to not do it.
I'm struggling with a different interpretation of power though. I once saw a formulation along the lines "If you decide to always remove the top-performers (which would in the strongest cubes be the P9 and cards alike), where do you stop? There will always be a selection of best picks in any pack, so the line to draw is arbitrary.".
I can understand this reasoning, but my issue is slightly different. I wish to have the cards of lowest power in my cube to not be miles away from the cards of highest power. There should of course be cards only fitting a theme, like Life from the Loam or Tinker, but in their respective niche they should be respectable and powerful picks (which these two definetly are). It it hence not only a question of adjusting the maximum power-level, but a question of simultaneously adjusting the maximum and the minimum power-level that makes for a fun cube, as far as I see it. Where the maximum and the minimum lie in comparison to all magiccards is a question of taste. I do think though that for a well-working cube, they should always be close enough to one another for every card in the cube to have deserved its spot.
Consistently thinking this through then might lead to a tier-categorization of cubes instead of the binary "powered/unpowered".
Maybe I'm completely off the track and miss something vital in the nature of cube, but for now I think this is an important consideration and it would be an immense help to see some sort of tier-list, extending through all colors simultaneously (probably impossible, but aim for the best) and telling you, which cards in your cube are just off-limits (The generalisation of the idea not to consider Primeval Titan and Colossal Dreadmaw to belong to the same tier, extending it to comparisons along the lines of Goblin Guide versus Isamaru, Hound of Konda).
Keep up the good work and a happy new year!