I have too much of an appreciation for aggro to let it atrophy in any of my formats. Trust me, it's in no danger. (This isn't the MTGS Cube.)
I'm certain we've already discussed here or elsewhere why Lone Missionary sucks, but it basically boils down to this: He doesn't meaningfully (let alone profitably) block or attack, especially compared to other 2 drops in his color. He's just a piker that gains life. Not worth a slot outside Peasant.
I don't run Missionary now, but I wouldn't exactly say it sucks. A Piker can still trade just fine with most 1-2 drops and even some 3-drops, and 4 life is a lot to gain from a 2-drop with a relevant body. If you support the blink archetype, it's quite good there, and that 4 life makes a huge difference in aggro mirrors. I don't really support blink, so I'm happier with Seeker of the Way and Hidden Dragonslayer as my lifegaining white 2-drops, and I see you're already running Seeker and Knight of Meadowgrain. If you want to run something less color intensive than KoM, Hidden Dragonslayer and Lone Missionary both seem like reasonable replacements.
I have too much of an appreciation for aggro to let it atrophy in any of my formats. Trust me, it's in no danger.
Your cube does have a lot of aggro support, so throwing your control decks an extra bone or two probably makes sense. Perimeter Captain is notorious for shutting down aggro decks hard because it effectively blanks 2 aggro attackers until the opponent finds removal, though, so you really do want to keep an eye on it.
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465 card Unpowered cube thread. Draft it here and I'll be happy to return the favor.
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
I cut Knight of Meadowgrain a long time ago and still run Missionary. It's awesome in the situations already discussed but I also like it in WB aggro as a way to offset Bob/Bitterblossom damage while still putting an acceptable aggro body on the table.
Lone Missionary is a surprisingly effective cube creature, with a lot of powerful interactions. And it's playable in a wide variety of decks. It's a much, much better cube card (in card strength, diversity and synergy) than a creature like Perimeter Captain is.
So, subpar in combat. I don't know about your formats, guys, but mine has very few creatures Missionary can trade with, and most of those are 1 drops. So, as a blocker, it will usually just chump. All in all, that's pretty bad value, especially compared to its peers (strike 1). Additionally, I don't expressly support blink (strike 2). And, as some have noted, I could actually do with cutting down my white 2 drops, not increasing them (strike 3).
Mark, specifically to your point about Missionary being more versatile than Perimeter: I agree. One of the reasons I dislike and exclude walls in my formats (for the most part) is the fact that they're so binary. All they do is block, and generally whatever utility a player is likely to get out of them will be due to them blocking (passive and dependent play rather than active and independent play). All that said, you can't dispute the argument that Perimeter is better than Missionary as a blocker.
Sidenote here: Whilst I, like most of the community, generally agree that versatility is paramount when picking cards for cube, I do also value strength in specialization. It's a balancing act, really. (Not balance as in power level, but balance as in right vs left.) This is why I prefer Sad Sorin over Sorin, Lord. The former's abilities are just objectively stronger (in a vacuum), and he's better in his more narrow rule of aggro curve topper than the latter is as more general value/utility tool.
Anyway, we're spending a tad too much time arguing over cards that, I stress again, are all basically placeholders. I'll see how each of the Captains performs and make future cuts based on those findings. I don't expect both to last more than 6 months (unless the next 2 Standard sets are truly abysmal in terms of new playables).
Anyway, we're spending a tad too much time arguing over cards
There's never too much time spent arguing cards
But to answer some of those questions:
I run it, it's great, but blink/recursion is a super popular deck here. If you don't see decks that abuse ETB triggers on a consistent basis, then Lone Missionary is prob not for you.
Also I agree with SIC that Lone Missionary is prob not 360 material, but there are a LOT of GREAT cards that aren't 360 material or are borderline, so we have to keep context in mind. Not saying that Lone Missionary is GREAT (though I def think it's at minimum good) but 360 is a tough one to crack into and I don't think a card not making a 360 isn't indicative of its power level for bigger cubes. (Also I think he's overrating the FS aspect in regards to the life gain--at the end of the day if that 4 life is saving you, it's saving you no matter if the Missionary lives or not, and 4 additional life is often a HUGE hurdle for aggro decks to overcome.
And SIC cutting it from a powered 360 is different from cutting it from a 450 modern-legal cardpool cube.
Captain can be better as a blocker, but trading off with with an attacking creature and guaranteeing the 4 life gained is often more impactful, even in the role Captain is supposed to be playing. So even in a dedicated control deck looking to have an anti-aggro card, Captain is only situationally better. In all other cases, Missionary will be superior, AND it'll be playable in a ton more decks, and be a far more interesting and abusable card.
I don't think they're even remotely close in terms of their cube-worthiness.
Yeah, the flicker/recursion value deck isn't a thing in any of my formats. A little too slow and durdly.
Shifting gears just slightly, I'd like to offer up just a handful of informal watchlist cards I'm expecting to cut from white (depending on EMN/etc). Hopefully this will better illuminate my thought process:
I've noted this earlier, but I definitely want to lower the number of vanilla 2/1s in White, since having a bunch of redundant designs is kinda antithetical to what cube is (in most managers' minds, anyway). Plus, white's not exactly hurting for cheap beaters. Hopefully I can swap out Vanguard and Lion for more unique designs like Kytheon, Champion or even Thalia. (I don't necessarily need to swap 1-drop for 1-drop.)
Both the Captains, as mentioned, are placeholders. Neither had me super excited on paper, but I've come to understand that each is stronger than it looks in the right deck. I'm aware of the density at the 2 slot, and am eye both Seekers for the cuts there. Admittedly, I'm pretty close to running exclusively staples in this section (and I've come a long way from my White Knight days).
Finally, Shield is mostly there as a pseudo-counterspell that can double as a fog for planeswalkers. I'll openly admit it's a tad niche, but those moments where your opponent attempts to kill a walker and you just blank them are epic (also goes great with Prowess guys, of course).
Call it the lesser multicolor purge. I've taken some of the critiques of my Gold section(s) to heart, especially Mark's claim that I'm holding on to too many cards. These cuts amount to the weakest, most indefensible inclusions (mostly placeholders, and bad ones at that). I'm now at a 65 vs 85 split between multi and colorless. I can't promise that I'll stick to these numbers, but I'm sure gonna try.
The main catalyst for these cuts was my realization that Fleecemane's time had come. It's not a bad card by any means (which made cutting it all the more painful), but it just doesn't do anything terribly novel or important for its colors. Cards like Stormblood Berserker and Kalonian Tusker already serve similar roles. And I was kidding myself thinking that the Monstrosity ability was relevant enough to keep it in. With the loss of Fleece I felt it was fair to toss a few other cards across the guilds to (sort of) balance things out.
As to the includes, I'll be brutally honest and say that I wasn't terribly jazzed about most of them. Hellkite and Soul both fail the Terminate test (at least until untap) and require extra mana to function optimally. I'd literally cut them in a heartbeat for something even marginally better. Still, I was at a loss for includes and they topped the list. Growth (as a colorless free spell) and Scepter were cards I've had success with in Peasant and wanted to try here, but there's no telling for sure. Dust seems a tad expensive, but the potential for it to be a Plague Wind was enough to sway me.
Legion is literally a placeholder for something (anything) better from EMN. I'm currently debating some of the new gold cards and feel like at least one of them has to be good enough. (Right?) We'll see in a week or so.
As to the includes, I'll be brutally honest and say that I wasn't terribly jazzed about most of them.
Well that won't do. Cuts are hard, so you should be excited about trying your new cards. Since you're not happy with those inclusions, I'll try to suggest some cards I think might be worth getting excited about.
Hellkite and Soul both fail the Terminate test (at least until untap) and require extra mana to function optimally.
Soul of New Phyrexia and the entire Soul cycle technically passe the Terminate test, but I agree that it's too clunky for cube. Have you considered trying Scuttling Doom Engine and Myr Battlesphere over those colorless six-drops? Both can close out a game mighty quickly if you can untap with them. The Myr tokens from Battleball may not look like an exciting consolation prize if the ball gets killed, but they can still win a game or stack block and trade off with something fairly big. SDE can close games out like it's nobody's business, and the death trigger can also kill planeswalkers. I know Masticore's off the menu for you, but you might like Molten-tail Masticore. The discard on upkeep clause probably looks harsh, but a Masticore is often the last card you'll need to cast to win.
You might also try adding some beefy mana rocks instead of some of the colorless cards you don't care for. Coalition Relic and Gilded Lotus are Modern legal, and both have been doing great work in my cube.
FWIW, I don't think Isochron Scepter or Mutagenic Growth are bad cube cards. Scepter can be a really fun and powerful build-around and having even a few good instant speed combat tricks add an element of surprise to combat, especially a free one like Mutagenic Growth. However, I don't expect All is Dust to work out well in your cube, it's too expensive for non-ramp decks, and your ramp decks are probably better off just running the much cheaper colored ramp spells.
Assemble the Legion is a pretty good control finisher, IMHO, but if you don't need that or it doesn't work out maybe Nahiri, the Harbinger will be better for you.
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450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
(I'm really down on its borderline evasion ability).
Sure, you'd rather it have flying or trample, but it'll be relevant a lot more often than you probably think. Even when an opponent can block, SDE's evasion means it pretty much has to be with a relevant creature, and not just a token or a mana dork that's outlived its usefulness.
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465 card Unpowered cube thread. Draft it here and I'll be happy to return the favor.
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
A huge part of assembling a balanced, diverse format is including cards you're not necessarily in love with personally. Challenging one's preferences and comfort zone is what leads to better formats. I think it's important to recognize this as a principle of cube design/management and be honest about it when discussing inclusions/exclusions. Also, there's a lot of value in outlining why card cons (especially it comes time for future cuts). Yes, I'd like to be more enthusiastic about certain includes, but that's not always what's in the cards (no pun intended).
I've already gone over my feelings on the 6-drops, so...yeah.
I've been looking for a reason to cut mine for a while. I subscribe to a "minimal/no feel-bads" policy when it comes to card functionality and Mine was blatantly breaking this. Also, I just generally feel like mana fixing should be more archetypically narrow and as non-punishing as possible (this is why I love the Tango lands and only tacitly support the Pain lands).
One of the odd things I've come to realize about ETBs is that they really don't crop up quite as often as people assume. One of the reasons I cut Kiki (and will probably cut Flickerwisp soon) is the fact that I cant't make the ETB deck without going out of my way to support it. (And if you know me, you know that watering down my cube to support a durdly, niche archetype just isn't something I'm down for.)
I say all of the above to give context for the addition of Maze. It's by no means an obvious slam dunk, but in a format where the vast majority of creatures don't have meaning ETB triggers it's a pretty safe pseudo removal effect.
SDE is here on a temporary visa. I've talked this card down for a while and I really haven't changed my mind so much as admitted to myself that no better options currently exist for my purposes. As soon as WotC sees reason and starts printing better colorless payoff cards in the 5 to 8 mana range I'm sending him home.
Archive kinda violates my policy on both ramp cards and feel-bads, and I cringe at the possibility of someone dead-drawing this have having to spend basically their whole turn cycling it. Still, it's something other cubers seemed to like and my group had been thinking about it earlier.
The cuts are cards the gang just hasn't enjoyed much. The includes are a mixture of YOLO picks and placeholders. Much less ho-hum here though. I'm excited to see what makes it through the full update next week and into Kaladesh. (Spoiler alert: Encrust is on shaky ground.)
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I'm officially proposing we retire the word "insane" from the MtG vocabulary.
"The best way to be different is to be better" - Gene Muir
I would play Claustrophobia over Encrust. And all three of the cards you cut. EDIT: By that I mean all three of the cards you cut are prob better than Encrust, and I'd play some number of them over Claustrophobia too. Spike Rogue is right though, Claustrophobia and Curse of Chains are better.
The worst part of playing Mystifying Maze isn't opponents getting to re-use their creatures' ETB effects, it's that you have to keep paying 5 mana every time you use it.
Archive kinda violates my policy on both ramp cards and feel-bads, and I cringe at the possibility of someone dead-drawing this have having to spend basically their whole turn cycling it.
Being able to pay 6 mana, possibly even spread over 2 turns, to exchange a card that you don't need right now for 2 new cards is a really good worst-case scenario. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by Hedron Archive.
I'm certain we've already discussed here or elsewhere why Lone Missionary sucks, but it basically boils down to this: He doesn't meaningfully (let alone profitably) block or attack, especially compared to other 2 drops in his color. He's just a piker that gains life. Not worth a slot outside Peasant.
I'm officially proposing we retire the word "insane" from the MtG vocabulary.
"The best way to be different is to be better" - Gene Muir
Cubes:
Modern Banlist Cube
Monocolor Budget Cube
Your cube does have a lot of aggro support, so throwing your control decks an extra bone or two probably makes sense. Perimeter Captain is notorious for shutting down aggro decks hard because it effectively blanks 2 aggro attackers until the opponent finds removal, though, so you really do want to keep an eye on it.
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
Cheers,
rant
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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!
"Despite how much I love Lone Missionary, I think it’s time in my cube is coming to an end. In a world of 3/1s for 2, a 2/1 is looking less and less attractive, and when you get one with first strike, Lone Missionarys [sic] ability against aggro doesn’t look so good."
So, subpar in combat. I don't know about your formats, guys, but mine has very few creatures Missionary can trade with, and most of those are 1 drops. So, as a blocker, it will usually just chump. All in all, that's pretty bad value, especially compared to its peers (strike 1). Additionally, I don't expressly support blink (strike 2). And, as some have noted, I could actually do with cutting down my white 2 drops, not increasing them (strike 3).
Mark, specifically to your point about Missionary being more versatile than Perimeter: I agree. One of the reasons I dislike and exclude walls in my formats (for the most part) is the fact that they're so binary. All they do is block, and generally whatever utility a player is likely to get out of them will be due to them blocking (passive and dependent play rather than active and independent play). All that said, you can't dispute the argument that Perimeter is better than Missionary as a blocker.
Sidenote here: Whilst I, like most of the community, generally agree that versatility is paramount when picking cards for cube, I do also value strength in specialization. It's a balancing act, really. (Not balance as in power level, but balance as in right vs left.) This is why I prefer Sad Sorin over Sorin, Lord. The former's abilities are just objectively stronger (in a vacuum), and he's better in his more narrow rule of aggro curve topper than the latter is as more general value/utility tool.
Anyway, we're spending a tad too much time arguing over cards that, I stress again, are all basically placeholders. I'll see how each of the Captains performs and make future cuts based on those findings. I don't expect both to last more than 6 months (unless the next 2 Standard sets are truly abysmal in terms of new playables).
I'm officially proposing we retire the word "insane" from the MtG vocabulary.
"The best way to be different is to be better" - Gene Muir
Cubes:
Modern Banlist Cube
Monocolor Budget Cube
There's never too much time spent arguing cards
But to answer some of those questions:
I run it, it's great, but blink/recursion is a super popular deck here. If you don't see decks that abuse ETB triggers on a consistent basis, then Lone Missionary is prob not for you.
Also I agree with SIC that Lone Missionary is prob not 360 material, but there are a LOT of GREAT cards that aren't 360 material or are borderline, so we have to keep context in mind. Not saying that Lone Missionary is GREAT (though I def think it's at minimum good) but 360 is a tough one to crack into and I don't think a card not making a 360 isn't indicative of its power level for bigger cubes. (Also I think he's overrating the FS aspect in regards to the life gain--at the end of the day if that 4 life is saving you, it's saving you no matter if the Missionary lives or not, and 4 additional life is often a HUGE hurdle for aggro decks to overcome.
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And SIC cutting it from a powered 360 is different from cutting it from a 450 modern-legal cardpool cube.
Captain can be better as a blocker, but trading off with with an attacking creature and guaranteeing the 4 life gained is often more impactful, even in the role Captain is supposed to be playing. So even in a dedicated control deck looking to have an anti-aggro card, Captain is only situationally better. In all other cases, Missionary will be superior, AND it'll be playable in a ton more decks, and be a far more interesting and abusable card.
I don't think they're even remotely close in terms of their cube-worthiness.
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!
Shifting gears just slightly, I'd like to offer up just a handful of informal watchlist cards I'm expecting to cut from white (depending on EMN/etc). Hopefully this will better illuminate my thought process:
1x Elite Vanguard
1x Savannah Lions
1x Perimeter Captain
1x Precinct Captain
1x Relic Seeker
1x Seeker of the Way
1x Faith's Shield
I've noted this earlier, but I definitely want to lower the number of vanilla 2/1s in White, since having a bunch of redundant designs is kinda antithetical to what cube is (in most managers' minds, anyway). Plus, white's not exactly hurting for cheap beaters. Hopefully I can swap out Vanguard and Lion for more unique designs like Kytheon, Champion or even Thalia. (I don't necessarily need to swap 1-drop for 1-drop.)
Both the Captains, as mentioned, are placeholders. Neither had me super excited on paper, but I've come to understand that each is stronger than it looks in the right deck. I'm aware of the density at the 2 slot, and am eye both Seekers for the cuts there. Admittedly, I'm pretty close to running exclusively staples in this section (and I've come a long way from my White Knight days).
Finally, Shield is mostly there as a pseudo-counterspell that can double as a fog for planeswalkers. I'll openly admit it's a tad niche, but those moments where your opponent attempts to kill a walker and you just blank them are epic (also goes great with Prowess guys, of course).
I'm officially proposing we retire the word "insane" from the MtG vocabulary.
"The best way to be different is to be better" - Gene Muir
Cubes:
Modern Banlist Cube
Monocolor Budget Cube
Out:
In:
Call it the lesser multicolor purge. I've taken some of the critiques of my Gold section(s) to heart, especially Mark's claim that I'm holding on to too many cards. These cuts amount to the weakest, most indefensible inclusions (mostly placeholders, and bad ones at that). I'm now at a 65 vs 85 split between multi and colorless. I can't promise that I'll stick to these numbers, but I'm sure gonna try.
The main catalyst for these cuts was my realization that Fleecemane's time had come. It's not a bad card by any means (which made cutting it all the more painful), but it just doesn't do anything terribly novel or important for its colors. Cards like Stormblood Berserker and Kalonian Tusker already serve similar roles. And I was kidding myself thinking that the Monstrosity ability was relevant enough to keep it in. With the loss of Fleece I felt it was fair to toss a few other cards across the guilds to (sort of) balance things out.
As to the includes, I'll be brutally honest and say that I wasn't terribly jazzed about most of them. Hellkite and Soul both fail the Terminate test (at least until untap) and require extra mana to function optimally. I'd literally cut them in a heartbeat for something even marginally better. Still, I was at a loss for includes and they topped the list. Growth (as a colorless free spell) and Scepter were cards I've had success with in Peasant and wanted to try here, but there's no telling for sure. Dust seems a tad expensive, but the potential for it to be a Plague Wind was enough to sway me.
Legion is literally a placeholder for something (anything) better from EMN. I'm currently debating some of the new gold cards and feel like at least one of them has to be good enough. (Right?) We'll see in a week or so.
I'm officially proposing we retire the word "insane" from the MtG vocabulary.
"The best way to be different is to be better" - Gene Muir
Cubes:
Modern Banlist Cube
Monocolor Budget Cube
Well that won't do. Cuts are hard, so you should be excited about trying your new cards. Since you're not happy with those inclusions, I'll try to suggest some cards I think might be worth getting excited about.
Soul of New Phyrexia and the entire Soul cycle technically passe the Terminate test, but I agree that it's too clunky for cube. Have you considered trying Scuttling Doom Engine and Myr Battlesphere over those colorless six-drops? Both can close out a game mighty quickly if you can untap with them. The Myr tokens from Battleball may not look like an exciting consolation prize if the ball gets killed, but they can still win a game or stack block and trade off with something fairly big. SDE can close games out like it's nobody's business, and the death trigger can also kill planeswalkers. I know Masticore's off the menu for you, but you might like Molten-tail Masticore. The discard on upkeep clause probably looks harsh, but a Masticore is often the last card you'll need to cast to win.
You might also try adding some beefy mana rocks instead of some of the colorless cards you don't care for. Coalition Relic and Gilded Lotus are Modern legal, and both have been doing great work in my cube.
FWIW, I don't think Isochron Scepter or Mutagenic Growth are bad cube cards. Scepter can be a really fun and powerful build-around and having even a few good instant speed combat tricks add an element of surprise to combat, especially a free one like Mutagenic Growth. However, I don't expect All is Dust to work out well in your cube, it's too expensive for non-ramp decks, and your ramp decks are probably better off just running the much cheaper colored ramp spells.
Assemble the Legion is a pretty good control finisher, IMHO, but if you don't need that or it doesn't work out maybe Nahiri, the Harbinger will be better for you.
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
I'm officially proposing we retire the word "insane" from the MtG vocabulary.
"The best way to be different is to be better" - Gene Muir
Cubes:
Modern Banlist Cube
Monocolor Budget Cube
Also, follow us on twitter! @TurnOneMagic
Sure, you'd rather it have flying or trample, but it'll be relevant a lot more often than you probably think. Even when an opponent can block, SDE's evasion means it pretty much has to be with a relevant creature, and not just a token or a mana dork that's outlived its usefulness.
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.
Out:
I've already gone over my feelings on the 6-drops, so...yeah.
I've been looking for a reason to cut mine for a while. I subscribe to a "minimal/no feel-bads" policy when it comes to card functionality and Mine was blatantly breaking this. Also, I just generally feel like mana fixing should be more archetypically narrow and as non-punishing as possible (this is why I love the Tango lands and only tacitly support the Pain lands).
In:
One of the odd things I've come to realize about ETBs is that they really don't crop up quite as often as people assume. One of the reasons I cut Kiki (and will probably cut Flickerwisp soon) is the fact that I cant't make the ETB deck without going out of my way to support it. (And if you know me, you know that watering down my cube to support a durdly, niche archetype just isn't something I'm down for.)
I say all of the above to give context for the addition of Maze. It's by no means an obvious slam dunk, but in a format where the vast majority of creatures don't have meaning ETB triggers it's a pretty safe pseudo removal effect.
SDE is here on a temporary visa. I've talked this card down for a while and I really haven't changed my mind so much as admitted to myself that no better options currently exist for my purposes. As soon as WotC sees reason and starts printing better colorless payoff cards in the 5 to 8 mana range I'm sending him home.
Archive kinda violates my policy on both ramp cards and feel-bads, and I cringe at the possibility of someone dead-drawing this have having to spend basically their whole turn cycling it. Still, it's something other cubers seemed to like and my group had been thinking about it earlier.
I'm officially proposing we retire the word "insane" from the MtG vocabulary.
"The best way to be different is to be better" - Gene Muir
Cubes:
Modern Banlist Cube
Monocolor Budget Cube
Out:
In:
The cuts are cards the gang just hasn't enjoyed much. The includes are a mixture of YOLO picks and placeholders. Much less ho-hum here though. I'm excited to see what makes it through the full update next week and into Kaladesh. (Spoiler alert: Encrust is on shaky ground.)
I'm officially proposing we retire the word "insane" from the MtG vocabulary.
"The best way to be different is to be better" - Gene Muir
Cubes:
Modern Banlist Cube
Monocolor Budget Cube
Also, follow us on twitter! @TurnOneMagic
The worst part of playing Mystifying Maze isn't opponents getting to re-use their creatures' ETB effects, it's that you have to keep paying 5 mana every time you use it.
Being able to pay 6 mana, possibly even spread over 2 turns, to exchange a card that you don't need right now for 2 new cards is a really good worst-case scenario. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by Hedron Archive.
450 card Peasant cube thread. Draft it here.