MTG Salvation

So, I am almost finished getting my cube together, and using yours as the template. The only change I made, I can't live in a world where Reflecting Pool isn't in my cube. T_T

Sorry Undiscovered Paradise. Maybe when I add the 630 expansion, I'll put ya back.

That's a fine change. I like Reflecting Pool a lot too.

Torment of hailfire. I am thinking about adding this card. Seems good, any thoughts?

I don't think Torment of Hailfire looks good at all. But if it's something you guys are interested in, go for it. Let us know how it plays.

Hey! Thanks for helping me start my own cube from way back (PMed you and got wonderful feedback in return)! Been following your cube for years, reading all your articles and comments on this thread and (most of) cubetutor.

Recently I started to wonder what exactly is your power ranking, based on your 540 list? I ask because my cube is not as big as yours. Often times I find myself trying to make cuts from your list in order to come up with a 360 one (It's funny how a Modern-only cube such as mine is always referring to a powered list such as yours, but anyways). Sometimes I get a glimpse of your thoughts on ranking certain color/cmc/guilds sections through your comments, but those are really the only info I can get.

Do you think it's difficult to rank cards of each cmc section in your entire list? Now your list on the forum is in alphabetical order. Wouldn't it be nice (educational even) to have it in power order? I know ranking is subjective but it should be reasonable for the creator to make a qualified judgement for his own cube. I mean I searched but I'm not sure if anyone has done it before. And I sure love to see how you would rank them (Your set review rankings were awesome). You are my cube mentor!

Thanks for posting! Glad you're enjoying the cube and the content.

I don't think they should be listed in "ranked" order. Too much of the evaluation is contextual, and it can change from update to update. So whet falls at #3 on my list of white 2cc creatures right now could very easily swap places with #4 or #5 over the course of a couple set updates, even if no other cards come into that specific section. And so much of what determines the "ranking" in comparison to other cards is preference and context in the rest of the cube that it might not do cube manager B any favors to assume their performance will be the same as cube manager A.

For example, I might rank Trinket Mage rather highly, but that information isn't useful to someone running an unpowered cube.

When cubes had more in common, the old P.R.E. rankings were fun and helpful. But now that cube managers can take their designs in so many different directions, I just don't think the information is as useful as it used to be.

Logistically, when someone's scanning a cube list to see what's in it, displaying it by Color -> CMC -> Alphabetical is important, IMO. It makes things easier to find and identify. And it makes it uniform with other people's listing formats.

It can be a fun exercise, but I think the data is losing value as alternative options become more and more competitive, and lists should be displayed in a uniform way to make them easy to review.

Thanks for the feedback!

Ah. I think I had been too familiar with the list that I completely disregarded the benefits for general viewers. Well, it sounded fun when it was in my head. Things that a bath can do to me

Ya, you're more familiar with the list than most, and can probably identify which cards are influenced by cube context and which aren't. But not all people can identify those interactions at first glance, and so the rankings won't be as meaningful for those folks.

But if you have any questions about specific card performance, just ask! I'm always willing to discuss any and all things cube.

Cheers, and happy cubing.

For what it's worth, I also frequently compare my own cube to wtwlf's (and a few others) using CubeTutor's compare two cubes function. I don't do this because I want to run the same cube as him, but because I know he gets more reps in than I do and our groups generally enjoy the same archetypes (Wildfire for life, yo). So if I see that he's trying out something sweet or something I maybe didn't consider initially, it benefits me to try that card out in my own cube. On that same note, though, I think it's important to not let the cube inclusions of others fully dictate what you put in yours. To use wtwlf's example of Trinket Mage, we included him for a bit, but ultimately cut him because my group and I just weren't impressed. That may be due to us really only cubing once or twice a month, bad luck, or even poor play, but it wasn't a popular card and frequently went last in drafts. You have to kind of find that happy middle ground when you're looking at other cubes for ideas and guidance. No one else's cube is a perfect card for card guide for what your group wants to be doing on cube night. Just because wtwlf's group loves a specific card or archetype doesn't mean it'll translate well to your own group. So look at the archetypes and cards that you and your group love and mix those in with the cube staples that support more generalized archetypes. For me that's the perfect recipe for cubing, especially at the 540 size where the's still quite a bit of wiggle room to support those pet cards and archetypes.

Wildfire for life, yo

Amen brother.

Question about your cube and playgroup: drawing from the midrange theater, what are your 3 strongest/best performing archetypes?

I assume you're talking about specific archetypes and not just generic goodstuff midrange decks?

If so, Wildfire shells, 'Lark/Recruiter ETB abuse decks and token/anthem builds are all quite successful.

Stax is more of an aggressive/disruptive deck, so I left that off. Reanimator and Sneak/Show are more combo, and the artifact.dec is often a more controlling deck. So I narrowed it down to those 3 above, which really play like generic midrange decks but they're archetype shells for sure.

If you're talking about a generic goodstuff deck in the midrange theater, you can't go wrong with GU.

Yes, I was referring to specific archetypes, thank you for the fine response.

Are goodstuff midrange decks even competitive in your playgroup? With such powerful cards and busted strategies available, it seems that an unfocused deck consisting of dudes and removal would be a little underwhelming, no?

Interesting thought on stax. I always conceived of that archetype as a prison-style resource denial strategy that would fall on the controlling end of the spectrum. Is your thought that you get ahead on board aggressively and then use the stax elements to help cement your advantage?

Are goodstuff midrange decks even competitive in your playgroup? With such powerful cards and busted strategies available, it seems that an unfocused deck consisting of dudes and removal would be a little underwhelming, no?

Absolutely not. My cube is constructed to balance archetype play versus generic theater play. It's about 50/50. I find the play in cubes that force players to construct an archetype or lose to be terrible. Drafting decisions are removed almost entirely, deckbuilding is largely automatic, and the replay value goes into the toilet.

Interesting thought on stax. I always conceived of that archetype as a prison-style resource denial strategy that would fall on the controlling end of the spectrum. Is your thought that you get ahead on board aggressively and then use the stax elements to help cement your advantage?

Usually, yes. If you look at the nature of the recursive cards, they're aggressive in nature. It's easier to have a Gravecrawler/Braids/'Blossom/Smokestack deck fall back as an aggressive shell than a controlling one. There are controlling/prison Abyss/Smokestack shells, but they're rarer than the Braids/'Crawler beatdown ones.

I’m really under the weather today and only have my phone to keep me company, so I thought I’d ask some random questions and pick your brain a bit (if you don’t mind!):

1) Some of your colors have really bloated sections at the 4CMC slot. Do you feel this way, and how many is “too many?” I’ve kind of had 9 as my baseline number at 540, but I eventually decided that the very narrow or niche cards (like Moat, The Abyss, or Daretti, Scrap Savant) I would consider “extras” since they are not wanted by the majority of people as they float around the table.

2) Is Sinkhole near the chopping block for you? It seems that getting rid of CC spells makes the cube better (more splashable cards, and easier on the manabases). This card has a short window for maximum effectiveness (T2 or T3 IMO). Of course, the effect can be devastating, and hey it’s nostalgic and old which is sweet. Thoughts?

3) Are you looking to upgrade any of the following, or are they “keepers”:
-Sram’s Expertise
-Glint-Sleeve Siphoner
-Yahenni’s Expertise
-Soul-scar Mage
-Monastery Swiftspear
-Stromkirk Noble
-Harsh Mentor
-Bosh, Iron Golem

4) If a new green 2 power 1-drop is printed, will you sub it in for Scythe Leopard, or will you add it to the posse and roll with 6 in the green section. Personally, studying the “half-aggro” green section you have makes me think that 5 is a sweet spot number, but perhaps you are looking to keep building the green aggro component? It’s gonna start getting tight over there with midrange, ramp (and super), fatty cheat, and tokens being supported along with aggro. Thoughts?

5) Dragonlord Silumgar, The Scarab God, and Hostage Taker all seem like good cards to me. I’ve only played with Silum (and he’s been gr8), but to my eyeball test it seems:
Scarab > Hostage > Silum
Which do you like the best and think will be the eventual winner of a Dimir slot?

6) How’s Erratic Portal doing? It looks like a slightly-more-expensive-functional-second-copy of Crystal Shard in a 540 setting. It seems that your blink/bounce is not explicitly supported, but just incidentally supported by cards that fit the job but also meet a certain bar-level of “goodstuffness.” Does Portal still cut the muster from this perspective?

As always I enjoy your feedback and opinions and look forward to your answers.

Cheers


Edit:

Sorry, I’m semi-delirious and forgot to ask one more, which was the original impetus for the post (doh!)

7) How have you and your group liked the GW and GB rocks? All the rocks have a baseline power that is reasonable, but the blue and red ones synergize with many more things that are going on within those colors, whereas Selesnya wants the ramp tacked onto a creature ususually for the various anthem/pump effects and Golgari has things like Rec/Sur that also benifit from creatures. Would something like Avacyn’s Pilgrim and Elves of Deep Shadow be decent alternatives or are the rocks just generally good enough to suffice without worrying about any synergies within the guild? (I suppose there is Oath of Druids, which is one archetype that welcomes the non-creature ramp)

1) The 4cc slot is competitive. The cards you mentioned are probably the most important includes, since they're build-around cards that enable decks and therefore don't really add to the 4cc redundancy the same way other additional generic goodstuff cards might.

2) It's one of the few CC 2cc cards that's good enough to stay in. There are too many good lands to completely purge the cube of effects that can deal with them, and if you want black aggro to be a thing, Sinkhole is one of the better cards. If you play Pox, it's more expendable, but without it, I have no plans on cutting it.

3) All of those cards will eventually be replaced with upgraded versions, hopefully.

4) I'd like more playable green 2-power 1-drops, if possible. Not looking to replace or remove any of the current ones ATM. Always throwing around the idea of playing one of the existing fringe ones more than I'm in the market for cutting ones I currently play.

5) Hostage Taker ≥ The Scarab God > Dragonlord Silumgar, IMO. I think Hostage Taker is the best card for that slot, but Scarab God fills a more needed role because of the lack of other good 5cc finishers in those colors. It'll ultimately be one of those two cards that occupies that slot, IMO, but Hostage Taker has been performing quite well.

6) I like Portal a lot. It plays really well as an ETB abuse enabler ('Lark/Alesha/Recruiter(s)/Feldon/Vat shells, etc) and it also plays really well with cards like Sneak Attack. I don't foresee it being removed any time soon.

Thanks for commenting!

Word. Thanks boss, that was fun.

Regarding answer #1: it seems you have a knack for answering questions without giving specific numbers on things. Is this on purpose? It makes some of your responses seem cryptic and I can’t tell if you are being coy intentionally or not! If you are trying to avoid being specific like that so that people don’t just blindly follow along, I get that. I’m interested in finding out things for myself anyways, it’s more fun. That one time when I got you to agree with me that a mana rock was worth about .67 of a mana I almost fell out of my chair from surprise! Lol

What do you think of Whip of Erebos? I’ve had that in there as a 4 in place of Yahenni’s and I can’t decide if I like it or not. Seems kinda swingy as far as its effectiveness.

Also, 7) above if you catch it.

Arigato

1) I don't think I'm being cryptic at all. I think you can run into an issue of having too many 4cc cards if they're all generic goodstuff cards. But if you dedicate those slots to cards like Moat, Purphoros, Daretti, Abyss, Tezz 2.0 and the like, those don't add to the saturation issue the same way that other cards do. So no, I don't find myself feeling oversaturated at that CMC.

I like Whip in the black devotion strategies. I don't like it as a generic include.

7) Not all mana rocks are created equal, but it's nice to have the options available to all drafters. GB "rock" decks featuring big creatures and sweepers, or WG ramp decks with creature wraths are really happy to have non-creature sources of ramp available to them. They're particularly useful for splashing when playing 3+ color control.

Thanks, sorry to be busting your balls so much on a nice Saturday— again, I’m feeling sick and a little out of my gourd.

7) That makes a lot of sense and I figured you might say that. The power to splash in 3 color decks is an attractive feature of the rocks.

About 1) yeah sorry didn’t mean it as a personal attack, I guess the posts that come off as vague or coy are unintentional and I should stop being so suspicious!! They always stimulate lots of independent thought on my part though in addition to me just smiling when I read them.


Happy Cubing and May the Force Be With You

Don't ever feel like you're over-posting here. I'm always happy to discuss any and all things cube.

1) To provide a better answer, I have had to cut a lot of good 4cc spells over the years to avoid over-saturation becoming an issue there. There are a ton of great 4cc spells I wish I could play, but can't, because of the issue you're describing.

7) As an aside, I haven't always played a full set of guild rocks. The blue ones are quite a bit better than the others. But since re-adding them, I'm finding lots of uses for the other ones, and I'm glad they're available to the players brainstorming those interesting brews.

Cheers, and happy cubing!

Great! Best.Sick.Day.Ever.

1) so what # of goodstuff 4CMC’s is too many per color?
I assume Parallax Wave and Hero of Oxid Ridge are two of the casualties you were talking about...

2) when I saw Sinkhole and Canyon Slough in the same list you had awhile back, it got me thinking about it in the first place. I think the Cliffs fit much better to help you cast those CC spells on curve. As an aside I still think that your list is .33 untapped duals short on fixing for Rakdos aggro, but that is hard to fix...

4) if you get more green 1 drops for aggro, would you consider other aggro green cards eventually, like Strangleroot Geist, Curse of Predation, and Vengevine to make your green have a full on aggro component? Any other green aggro cards that are good that I didn’t mention? And how in the heck would you find room for all that in green?!

1) It's going to vary from group to group. I think I've found an okay balance with the numbers I have.

Yes, those are some examples of good 4-drops I've had to omit.

2) Cliffs is safer, yes. Which is why it's in now.

4) It's hard to balance green. But I like my aggro green cards to be single-green in cost, so I think Geist and Vine are out. Currently, green aggro works just fine. I don't feel the need to bolster it with anything else other than maybe 1 or 2 more good 1cc creatures.

1) and what are those variances based off of (other than cube size and draft format, which is easily translated to another size/format with a calculator) from group to group other than personal whim? Is there an underlying principle at work that transcends the various group tendencies? How did you arrive at your number for your group, other than playtesting and iterating?

I’m not asking for a fish here (#), I’m really interested in learning how to fish though, if you catch my drift.

1) Playtesting inside your playgroup is the only way to balance it. It's just like everything else, you have to see how things work for your playgroup to determine success. What works for me may not work for you, based on a multitude of variables. You start with a certain number included, and you playtest over and over, tinkering with numbers between drafts, until you reach what works for your group.

I wish there was a magic number, but there's no substitution for what years of playtesting adjustments can do for balance within your playgroup.

1) but what are the multitude of variables? And when you have noticed what works, have you also noticed the underlying principle that made it work? (aka the “why”). Otherwise it’s like the monkeys on a typewriter producing Shakespeare