Im at 540, definitly thinking about adding in a more tempo theme into blue. coralheim and voidmage + new guy will be interesting. Gonna have to count my wizards though for voidmage.
I don't have really high expectations for Voidmage Prodigy, but I'm willing to test him over Willbender as a replacement Morph to see how it plays in the blue devotion tempo package.
We all used to run Voidmage Prodigy on this forum back in the day. He's a cool card for sure.
He was in my classic cube for a while, and did decent work there. The biggest problem we had with him was that he was at his best in tempo, which wasn't a deck that wanted a heavy commitment to blue. Well, with that potentially changing, I might be able to give it the nod again over Willbender, at least temporarily to test it out.
The number of random wizards in the cube is high enough for him to be potentially decent as your morph guy. There are loads! I was considering Riptide Laboratory for a while which is dirty with stuff like Glen Elendra Archmage and Snappy.
Ya, there's lots of Wizards, which adds some fun deckbuilding interactions too. You can always combine the effect with some kind of recursion engine or Mimic Vat for some Ertai, Wizard Adept action.
Drafted a tempo blue/green deck with the devotion centric changes. The deck did really well, posting a 5-1 draft winning record. Lost my match to the guy who drafted opposition away from me!
Here are some notes on the cards I played:
Identity Nemesis (Getting the french one, true-name is lame): The stone cold nuts. Completely unfair with a sword. If the opponent is not ahead in the race, they are going to lose to this card. Sparked conversations about power level, and if this card was unfun/format breaking.
Curse of Predation: Whoa. This card was an absolute monster and either closed out games or turned them around. Going to be in the cube for a very long time.
Master of Waves: When I could make 4 or more tokens, master was great. This was the case 90% of the time, although I had to work at it a bit. I made sure to draft a lot of 1UU cards. Control magic was a great enabler for this deck and the ramp helped me set up really strong turns with master. Worked quite well with edric =).
Coralhelm Commander: Solid roleplayer who was always useful. His final level works nicely with the other merfolk and decided a game for me with Identity Nemesis in play.
Frostburn Weird: Played very well in another deck. Quite happy to see it perform outside of what it was included for. (was in a totally crazy Grixis aggro deck that went 4-2, which packed 10+ 1 drops, ral, ancestral, equips, and an Upheaval).
Final thoughts:
The deck did very well. I am glad I drafted fixing HIGHLY. The deck was quite tough on the mana base and playing green for birds etc was very helpful.
I will be waiting eagerly for a really good UU and U drop for this deck, otherwise, quite happy with how it turned out.
PS: Brought Boros Reckoner back in to do some work with the red god. That combination was very, very scary.
I've never been a fan of Wake Thrasher, but I could see re-testing it if one of the 1UU creatures I'm adding in doesn't work out well.
Talrand is on my radar, and I have a foil one sitting in my on-deck binder. It's okay for tempo if there's enough spells, but it's really more of a "spells matter" card, which I'm not pushing right now.
Thrasher can hit hard, but the lack of evasion and the amount of time it spends as a 1/1 is what kills it for me. I like the other aggressive 3-drops I'm bringing in a bit more.
Really looking forward to seeing the changes. Had a rotisserie draft (first draft since i made the cube!) today with a cube not far off yours (well, 90 extra cards). Used your cube as a blue print since i've always enjoyed the look of your cube. Had a ton of fun today and ended up in a Grixis artifact deck which was redicilously fun.
Will have to see if i enjoy the non-artifact theme change though!
Basically, artifact-centric stuff (other than Tinker) is out, and a blue devotion tempo package is included. Combined with the C13 update at the same time.
Basically, artifact-centric stuff (other than Tinker) is out, and a blue devotion tempo package is included. Combined with the C13 update at the same time.
That's pretty much the path I took, and we really didn't miss the couple of blue cards that were gone. Artifacts was still easy enough to pull off, and I think we may want to keep the academies. Now I am just going to have to refine the choices.
We did this for blue:
Tezzeret the Seeker ->>> Coralhelm commander
Inkwell Leviathan ->>> Aether Adept
Trinket Mage ->>> Identity Nemesis
Gifts Ungiven ->>> Master of Waves
Capsize ->>> Kira, Great Glass Spinner
Gifts was a hard choice. But steam augery helped carry some weight, but the reanimator decks LOVE gifts, so I want to get it back in.
That's the very reason my cube is at 555. I love being able to play with cards that I like and making cuts is a bit easier. Although, even at that size I often find it hard to make cuts. We're really starting to get to a point where there are easily 450 cards that could be considered staples.
Ya, and when you support different strategies, different cards become auto-includes for those decks. It's becoming a much more dynamic place, where cubes can have very different lists without using any truly questionable cards.
I look at adding and removing cards nowadays more in terms of rotation rather than cuts. Sure some cards are occasionally going to be rotating permanently, but it's easier removing favorites and old staples knowing that there is a good chance that a card will return once the draft environment needs some refreshing. There has been a dramatic increase in design flexibility in the last two years, and that's a pretty cool place to be in if you're a cube builder looking to keep things fresh.
When I do set updates, the cards I remove almost always go into the on deck binder. There are some exceptions, of course. Sometimes new cards just don't perform at all. Cards are either getting upgraded or new archetypes are being implemented or old archetypes are being supplemented. It's a good age for cube owners.
On another note, I'm anxious to see your tempo blue additions. (This also makes me wish Kojiro were still around. He was always a big proponent of temp/aggressive strategies in blue.)
I look at adding and removing cards nowadays more in terms of rotation rather than cuts. Sure some cards are occasionally going to be rotating permanently, but it's easier removing favorites and old staples knowing that there is a good chance that a card will return once the draft environment needs some refreshing. There has been a dramatic increase in design flexibility in the last two years, and that's a pretty cool place to be in if you're a cube builder looking to keep things fresh.
When I do set updates, the cards I remove almost always go into the on deck binder. There are some exceptions, of course. Sometimes new cards just don't perform at all. Cards are either getting upgraded or new archetypes are being implemented or old archetypes are being supplemented. It's a good age for cube owners.
Ya, when I "cut" cards now, they just slide into my on-deck binder until they're needed again. There are very few cuts (if any anymore) that truly have no chance of seeing cube play again some time in the future.
On another note, I'm anxious to see your tempo blue additions. (This also makes me wish Kojiro were still around. He was always a big proponent of temp/aggressive strategies in blue.)
The bomb devotion cards are what made me really want to "push" that decktype. Blue tempo is already really good in my cube. But it's usually in the form of X/U or XX/u decks, and I'm interested to see how these UU/x tempo decks play out in the long run.
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On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
He was in my classic cube for a while, and did decent work there. The biggest problem we had with him was that he was at his best in tempo, which wasn't a deck that wanted a heavy commitment to blue. Well, with that potentially changing, I might be able to give it the nod again over Willbender, at least temporarily to test it out.
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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!
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 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
Here are some notes on the cards I played:
Identity Nemesis (Getting the french one, true-name is lame): The stone cold nuts. Completely unfair with a sword. If the opponent is not ahead in the race, they are going to lose to this card. Sparked conversations about power level, and if this card was unfun/format breaking.
Curse of Predation: Whoa. This card was an absolute monster and either closed out games or turned them around. Going to be in the cube for a very long time.
Master of Waves: When I could make 4 or more tokens, master was great. This was the case 90% of the time, although I had to work at it a bit. I made sure to draft a lot of 1UU cards. Control magic was a great enabler for this deck and the ramp helped me set up really strong turns with master. Worked quite well with edric =).
Coralhelm Commander: Solid roleplayer who was always useful. His final level works nicely with the other merfolk and decided a game for me with Identity Nemesis in play.
Frostburn Weird: Played very well in another deck. Quite happy to see it perform outside of what it was included for. (was in a totally crazy Grixis aggro deck that went 4-2, which packed 10+ 1 drops, ral, ancestral, equips, and an Upheaval).
Final thoughts:
The deck did very well. I am glad I drafted fixing HIGHLY. The deck was quite tough on the mana base and playing green for birds etc was very helpful.
I will be waiting eagerly for a really good UU and U drop for this deck, otherwise, quite happy with how it turned out.
PS: Brought Boros Reckoner back in to do some work with the red god. That combination was very, very scary.
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Talrand is on my radar, and I have a foil one sitting in my on-deck binder. It's okay for tempo if there's enough spells, but it's really more of a "spells matter" card, which I'm not pushing right now.
I think UB is too deep for Sygg.
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Thrasher can hit hard, but the lack of evasion and the amount of time it spends as a 1/1 is what kills it for me. I like the other aggressive 3-drops I'm bringing in a bit more.
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Will have to see if i enjoy the non-artifact theme change though!
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That's pretty much the path I took, and we really didn't miss the couple of blue cards that were gone. Artifacts was still easy enough to pull off, and I think we may want to keep the academies. Now I am just going to have to refine the choices.
We did this for blue:
Tezzeret the Seeker ->>> Coralhelm commander
Inkwell Leviathan ->>> Aether Adept
Trinket Mage ->>> Identity Nemesis
Gifts Ungiven ->>> Master of Waves
Capsize ->>> Kira, Great Glass Spinner
Gifts was a hard choice. But steam augery helped carry some weight, but the reanimator decks LOVE gifts, so I want to get it back in.
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If I always had 10+ drafters I might go back up to 540. Right now I get a steady 8, so 450 is perfect. But I do miss that card adding flexibility.
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It also makes cuts a lot easier!
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Cheers!
On another note, I'm anxious to see your tempo blue additions. (This also makes me wish Kojiro were still around. He was always a big proponent of temp/aggressive strategies in blue.)
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Ya, when I "cut" cards now, they just slide into my on-deck binder until they're needed again. There are very few cuts (if any anymore) that truly have no chance of seeing cube play again some time in the future.
The bomb devotion cards are what made me really want to "push" that decktype. Blue tempo is already really good in my cube. But it's usually in the form of X/U or XX/u decks, and I'm interested to see how these UU/x tempo decks play out in the long run.
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!