Hi! As the rankings have been streamlined in later times, I think that the most productive way of updating your cube is checking the lists, and replace the borderline or bad cards in the list with stapple and cubable ones. Specially if you want powerlevel above all, because that's the main criteria we are following here.
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Holiday Armadillo... Cloak
My 490 Pauper Cube
Modern frame only- Common on paper only - no functional copies, no strictly-betters - no subtype-matters
Anybody caring about giving a quick glance over my cube? I stopped updating it around AER since I was doing mainly constructed and GP prepping, and the few times I've done cube ever since were peasant so I've probably missed a lot. I have some vague archetypes here and there, but the cube could use a general overhaul in order to include the maximum amount of staples, archetypes be damned. I'm currently aiming for the strongest 360 with a healthy dose of aggro, midrange and control, and archetype cards should be strong on their own to warrant inclusion (think Rancor, Armadillo Cloak or Observant Alseid for GW Auras or Ingenious Skaab, Prescient Chimera or Archaeomancer for UR spells matter).
glancing over your cube id consider cutting those cards:
Phantasmal Bear - didnt like it, since it cant be pumped and usually doesnt add much to blue decks. Elusive Spellfist - too little impact Skittering Crustacean - too slow, we have better hexproofs now Archaeomancer - kinda outclassed by Salvager of Secrets
generally dont like the sac target based archetype in black. id rebuild the black section and build the sac archetype around recursion and threaten effects in red. cut those sac burn. I also miss Tortured Existence as payoff for your minor gy theme. Goblin Patrol - unplayable Sanguinary Mage - even worse spellfist Pouncing Jaguar - petcard of mine, but in the end it had to go Thundering Tanadon - nah Pulse of Murasa - also pretty much just a sb card Soul Manipulation - bad card and a lot of better options in dimir Horned Kavu - bad card and a lot of better options Inventor's Goggles - out of place
once in a blue moon elite might trade into some utility, but usually as you said wil just take out a blocker or non evasive attacker, so is basically a conditional lawkeeper for double the mana cost. it also only "goes nuts" with equipments that boost the toughness above the power of the stuff you want to provoke. and when the opponent play a t2 fireslinger into it, he must be braindead, in every other scenario he just shoots it asap.
soul manipulation is really bad. counterspells for 3 are bad in general, this one is conditional and isnt even a straight exclude (which also got moved into t2 by me). it could be an excusable option in a weak guild like golgari, but not in dimir
Deftblade Elite is amazing. Early it can trade off strong utility X/1s like Undertaker or Fireslinger. It also goes super nuts with auras or equipments. Drawn later in the game it's a brick wall that can roadblock every ground beater.
Soul Manipulation is super strong. Dimir is stacked as hell, but this is definitely a valid option. It's a straight up 2 for 1, that also gives you the card selection of choosing whatever creature you would like to return.
Apropos Prowess in general (e.g. Sanguinary Mage), it's simply a really bad mechanic. To trigger it constantly it often requires you to sequence your spells badly. Usually you want to play your instants an sorceries at the latest possible moment (2nd main or your opponents end step) and keep mana open to deny your opponent the information what you might have in hand. Even though theoretically it sounds nice to use any kind of noncreature spell as a kind of free combat trick there are actually very little spells you want to play during combat just to get a tiny +1/+1 push.
It doesn't sound that helpful, but my best advise is to simply use cube-comparison-tool from cubetutor. Simply compare your cube with updated lists from other people (link in my signature) and see which cards no one else is running and think why that might be and also see good alternatives.
Fireslinger can just tap in response to the untap and kill elite. And if you really want undertaker not to die you can also just activate its pitch ability. The way Provoke is worded any utility creature that taps to do the utility can always escape being killed.
If you want a 1-drop that kills other 1-drops, javelineers is way better.
I wanna say thanks for the attempt at helping out. If I may, I like to put out some constructive points:
-If a set shows 4+ new Staples it will likely be one of the greatest sets for Pauper in years
-Beware the allure of new "tech". Most cubes have been tuned for years and new shoe-horned cards will disrupt the balance easily
-Testing takes lots of time. So proving subtle increases in power is hard
-There is a once- or twice-per-year discussion on what 'Cubable' means. We've hammered it out to mean basically Top 15% of cards for Cube. A mechanic heavy set will likely synergize with itself. That is not great for Pauper, as it will do less well with 20+ years of broken and anomaly cards.
-Honestly, deep down, we all WANT 20+ new great cards per set. We live for major overhauls. But history has proven that is impossible.
-Curve is the vast majority of arguments. If you want new cards to overthrow older ones, they gotta do more than Cubables currently, not just tie or pale by a shade. Case-in-point: 1W 3/1's.
-Uprooting gold cards is the hardest uphill battle ever seen. Find 2-3 good talking points or it won't stick.
I also think Soul manipulation is a strong card for the cube. It might be conditional but the cube decks are usually full of creatures so it is not really difficult to find a target. Moreover, selecting a creature from the grave is good too, specially in control decks where creatures tend to have value on their own...
I too like it... BUT.. #MagicChristmasLand.
-Holding it open, they won't walk into it till late
-Holding open doesn't fix/improve boardstate
-Having a body worth turning means either Sac-able or Deathtouch, or it is very far gone.
-In a watered down cube, like mine, it is playable. But also cutable in your average 40.
-It doesn't push you into UB, and only really helps UB control. Tempo will SB it often
So I've updated the cube and gave it a good overhaul, but I still think there's some changes to make, specially in the Gold section. A topic I haven't seen discussed much is redundancy / consistency (IE functional reprints). I'm a big fan of having as many functional reprints of cards as possible, specially at lower costs in the curve.
For instance, right now I'm looking to add Angel of Mercy, Kitesail Corsair, Sentinels of Glen Elendra, Spire Monitor and maybe Cold-Water Snapper (Blue control decks usually only need one of those, but two being in the cube makes it so two Blue control drafters have access to the finisher), but maybe I'm going overboard with these kind of vanilla effects.
While cards like Centaur Courser and Welkin Tern are boring and far from bombs / first picks (and in case of Tern they die to a ping), they're the meat and potatoes of creature decks. However, at what point does it start being "too many"?
The difference is in the mana curve. You usually want more copies of low-cmc creatures, and less copies of high-cmc creatures. Aggro needs more redundancy than control. That's why functional copies of Welkin Tern are more needed than multiple copies of Sentinels of Glen Elendra.
That said, Angel of Mercy and Spire Monitor are bad for that CMC. Look for better cards, you will find them.
Disclaimer: If you happen to look at my cube, you won't find functional copies at all, but that is a design choice, not a contradiction with what I said here.
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Holiday Armadillo... Cloak
My 490 Pauper Cube
Modern frame only- Common on paper only - no functional copies, no strictly-betters - no subtype-matters
The difference is in the mana curve. You usually want more copies of low-cmc creatures, and less copies of high-cmc creatures. Aggro needs more redundancy than control. That's why functional copies of Welkin Tern are more needed than multiple copies of Sentinels of Glen Elendra.
That said, Angel of Mercy and Spire Monitor are bad for that CMC. Look for better cards, you will find them.
Disclaimer: If you happen to look at my cube, you won't find functional copies at all, but that is a design choice, not a contradiction with what I said here.
Yeah, I thought as much about the lower CMC copies, I'm just a redundancy freak and want to give drafters both options (in case someone else snags the finisher that they needed) and consistency in deckbuilding.
I'm curious about the Angel though, what other White 5 would you run in it's place considering you already run theusualsuspects? The other remotely interesting card would be Dawnfeather Eagle which I might as well swap for Angel now that I think about it, because it supports tokens and go wide while also still supporting blink.
The difference is in the mana curve. You usually want more copies of low-cmc creatures, and less copies of high-cmc creatures. Aggro needs more redundancy than control. That's why functional copies of Welkin Tern are more needed than multiple copies of Sentinels of Glen Elendra.
That said, Angel of Mercy and Spire Monitor are bad for that CMC. Look for better cards, you will find them.
Disclaimer: If you happen to look at my cube, you won't find functional copies at all, but that is a design choice, not a contradiction with what I said here.
Yeah, I thought as much about the lower CMC copies, I'm just a redundancy freak and want to give drafters both options (in case someone else snags the finisher that they needed) and consistency in deckbuilding.
I'm curious about the Angel though, what other White 5 would you run in it's place considering you already run theusualsuspects? The other remotely interesting card would be Dawnfeather Eagle which I might as well swap for Angel now that I think about it, because it supports tokens and go wide while also still supporting blink.
White fours are also loaded. How many fives do you feel you need?
The difference between CC2 and CC3 is huge. Unable to counter 2 drops and not interacting with the board later will just lose you the game.
I was under the assumption we kinda agreed that tempo>value in powerlevel driven cubes by now. The amount of creatures with high power and low cost only increased in the last couple of years. With the amount of 2/1s for 1 and 3/1s for 2 in the format you definitely dont want to build your deck around value.
So, while Soul Manipulation is a solid value card for slower cubes its still not very high on the powerlevel list. The same reason I dont like Dinrova that much btw.
Also, the format lacks bombs you want to bring back and control runs a lower creature base and usually some hexproof dude or similiar hard to kill as wincon. So most of the time you want to draw extra cards to find more counter, more removal, extra lands instead of bringing back a small roadblocker.
I pretend to try it as soon as I get the UMA copy I ordered, and finish my transicion to modern-border-only.
I want to try if it is a good replacement for Foresee. Instant >>> Sorcery, and I want to see if it can enable some fun synergies. Powerlevel-wise, though, the points of Al and Humprhey are 100% valid.
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Holiday Armadillo... Cloak
My 490 Pauper Cube
Modern frame only- Common on paper only - no functional copies, no strictly-betters - no subtype-matters
Hi folks, first, just want to say: This project has been incredibly useful in building my cube – thanks to everyone who's contributed!
I used a script to pull the ratings into a spreadsheet. (I did this for my own use, and then shared the spreadsheet with Al_Z_Heimer first, in case he wants to use it to help maintain this project – if not, I'll make some edits and share it here.)
I then compared the list of rated cards to a list of all cards that were printed at common before 2018 (as you know, some sets from 2018 haven't yet been rated, so I haven't included them, see below). So, here are the 47 cards that were printed at common before 2018, that are missing from the project (16 from Homelands, including Merchant Scroll):
I had a look at the list of cubes in the Cube Lists thread, and picked the cubes that had been updated in 2018, that had 360 cards, and that were (at least self-described as being) "powered". Those cubes are:
thats some interesting statistics
a lot of the "staples" are definitely no rated correctly. the wedge creatures seem a little bit outside of normal ratings since they become staple if you want to run 3-colored cards in the first place. they dont deserve to be staple in our usual approach though.
except maybe perstermite all those other [all] cards deserve staple rating.
the borderline cards probably all deserve cubable, although im not a fan of scoundrel
the other cards seem fine as cubable, since theyre strong but exchangeable
I had a look at the list of cubes in the Cube Lists thread, and picked the cubes that had been updated in 2018, that had 360 cards, and that were (at least self-described as being) "powered".
The last cube to be added to that list was three years ago. I'm not sure how Al curates the list, since he seems to have edited it in 2018, but the list also has multiple dead links. This data should be viewed with a pinch of salt. Most cubers, myself included, have migrated over to cubetutor for bookkeeping. So I would see this less as some sort of general tool for pauper cubers, and more as a snapshot of the four or five most prolific cubers on the forum. I would recommend checking the data on cubetutor in addition to this - they have a much broader base and it's a lot easier to update cubes on, with some amazing built-in tools for comparison (I'm thinking not just of update time, but also stuff like number of updates, date the cube was created, cube size etc).
That said, I do love the number crunching done here. Even if it's limited in scope, it's a lot of work that helps generate discussion and highlight some interesting trends.
Those initial multicolor cards seem... not good (Abzan Guide et al). Especially if most of those sample cubes are at 360 where you could be including much better monocolor/artifact/guild cards.
Not including Ambuscade seems weird, but green got some nice removal in the last few sets (most recently with Aggressive Instinct I think) which could lead to an interesting discussion on the best options here (two mana sorcery vs three mana instant?). I'm a bit behind since I cut Savage Punch at 540 not too long ago Thought Courier's lack of adoption seems weird too, but I guess it depends whether you want a third looter since Merfolk Looter and Looter il-Kor are probably universal adds already. Strangling Soot seeing the same level of adoption as Terminate is interesting. Thorn of the Black Rose - I initially dismissed this as the forums are a bit biased towards deathtouchers, but it's also popular on cubetutor. How often does it actually protect the monarchy, vs the times when it's stuck in your hand against creatures that can steal your monarch, vs times when you're ok with just drawing one card? Tandem Lookout seems overhyped. It's relatively easy to turn off, or not have a decent soulbond target to draw with.
I'm still baffled as to how Grasping Scoundrel got stuck with a borderline rating. If you want any kind of aggro in black, and most cubes do, you need this card. Firebrand Archer's rating should probably be upgraded. Palace Sentinels is another monarch card I was curious about. Does it do work?
Cursed Rack is not common on Gatherer. I'm not sure how Renaissance worked (is anyone?) but it probably isn't considered a common by very many people.
The five colored Conspiracy cards are a mini category of their own. Not sure how many people play a Conspiracy Pauper cube.
Also, in an infuriating move that happened quite a while ago now, Cube Tutor made its search FAR worse. At one time you could have used the Search feature to look for Pauper 360 Cubes and then sort then by Last Update. In that way you could have found all cubes on CT that met your criteria. But, as I said, that functionality has been missing probably for years now.
Finally, it might be worth cross referencing against a list of mtgo only commons as quite a few cubers don't count them as common
(that list might not be up to date as I'm not sure when it was published)
PS there is some weird Cube "philosophy" that makes it hard to base Staple status only by counting lists. For instance, Curse of Chains is better than Narcolepsy by being more castable -- UNLESS you apply a penalty by counting it as a gold card (one of your selected lists plays Narcolepsy only). There is not really a singular answer since in a vacuum that doesn't make sense. And, as already pointed out, functional reprints can be pretty random (Thought Courier).
PPS going above 360 doesn't hurt the project very much btw since you are looking for the points of DISagreement. You will definitely find lists at 450 that exclude cards that are listed as Staples (540 is a stretch for the pauper card pool)
I'd be happy to add more cubes to the analysis; however, the average CubeTutor 360 Pauper has these 4 Bad cards and 47 Borderline cards, so I want to be picky – i.e. limiting it to cubes that are more or less agreed to be "powered", that are regularly drafted and updated, etc. If folks know of any, let me know!
it might be worth cross referencing against a list of mtgo only commons as quite a few cubers don't count them as common
I filtered MTGJSON for common cards (used by CuteTutor, Scryfall, etc.), and only found these that were online only (and not already rated). I'm not sure if down-shifted promos are considered pauper, though:
When I did a personal project a few years ago similar to think I just looked in recent threads and noted who had posted. Almost everybody links to their cube tutor so it is pretty straightforward.
What I meant about Online Onlys is that since some people exclude them their raw counts probably won't correspond to their ratings in cases where they are cubeable or even staple (say, Elephant Guide).
Elephant Guide has become common in paper a few masters ago. But indeed, some of the cards not all of those cubes run are online only and therefore excluded by me.
I dont understand Pyredreams critcs about the list since you only picked the updated ones.
About those cards:
Compared to other removal, the green ones are bad. All of them. So if you go for powerlevel only there is no reason to include them. You only want to add them if you want to provide MonoG with at least some spot removal.
As i often mentioned here, i think the looters are horribly overrated in this format and usually much worse than cantrip spells. There are no deckfiller to loot away and a 1/1 it too fragile and card disadvantage. Therefore I dont run them.
Tandem Lookout on the other hand is direct card advantage and often can get a hit the moment it hits play, so it replaces itself and needs to be answered. You also can equip it with longbow and shoot for cards.
Grasping Scoundrel 2/1s are much worse than the 2/2s, even for 1. That its only a 1/1 on defense doesnt make it much better. Only if you want to push black aggro its ok to include them. Aka borderline, since most black sections tend to be more control oriented and usually it good enough to have both 2/2s.
The monarch cards are insane. With the amount of removal in the format I wonder how one could question their powerelevel. They are also played in pauper constucted.
My criticism doesn't particularly matter if the goal is just to provide a snapshot of those four cubes to discuss their individual differences. But using it as a prescriptive tool to draw some general conclusions about pauper cubes would be kind of sketchy. Four cubes is barely more than a two-cube comparison. Not to mention the individual biases and rules each cuber has.
As i often mentioned here, i think the looters are horribly overrated in this format and usually much worse than cantrip spells. There are no deckfiller to loot away and a 1/1 it too fragile and card disadvantage. Therefore I dont run them.
This seems wrong. No cube deck really contains "deckfiller". But depending on the situation, you may want to trade a land for a kill spell. Or a kill spell for a land. Etc. If looters are cut, it's not because they're overrated, but because the quality of blue's spells is so high that the looters become redundant.
The monarch cards are insane. With the amount of removal in the format I wonder how one could question their powerelevel. They are also played in pauper constucted.
This actually makes me question their inclusion even more. Removal spells in pauper are so efficient that you can easily turn this statement around and use it to point out how easy it is to remove a monarchy creature. I would also venture a guess that, aside from constructed environments being very different from limited, a constructed deck can much better protect their monarch investment since the entire deck can be built around abusing the mechanic. Not the same as limited.
Well, im feeling my arguments against looter are redundant
As I somewhere said earlier, first I dont see an upside of the 1/1 looter over the 2/1s for 3. Unless you are mana screwed you have enough options in the early game to do something else and the 2/1s at least can go face or trade when you dont loot. A 1/1 for 2 is just horrible in this format, because the lack of sweepers forces every deck to interact with the board from T1, otherwise you will lose the tempo/aggro game. And you also dont want to loot like a madmen and cycle to your bombs, because there are none. Anyway, I could agree to your argument, that all the blue draw and filterspells makes them "overrated", because theyre just bad compared to them, like a lot of other "good" cards are outclassed for us.
Maybe you misunderstand the monarch? I regularly did myself. The effect is not bound to the creature. You just need to play them and the effect stays in the game. Its a litte counterintuitive. So you dont need to protect anything but yourself from getting hit. Sure they are bad when you are behind on board, but a lot of cards are, those at least cycle themselves into another possible out.
In constructed theyre no build around cards, you just add them to normal decks that wants to win the grindgame.
In constructed theyre no build around cards, you just add them to normal decks that wants to win the grindgame.
So it only took me five minutes to look up Boros Monarch, which uses Battle Screech to both gum up the board and steal back the monarch, Kor Skyfisher to bounce monarch creatures and regain the monarch, cheap cyclers to get to the cards you need, and multiple copies of Palace Guards that can also re-trigger and regain the monarch. On top of a dozen cheap, efficient removal spells to further protect yourself.
That's what I mean by abusing it. I hope that clears it up, but I doubt how consistently that sort of deckbuilding can happen in Cube limited. I'm still waiting for actual cube experiences to provide some perspective.
In constructed theyre no build around cards, you just add them to normal decks that wants to win the grindgame.
So it only took me five minutes to look up Boros Monarch, which uses Battle Screech to both gum up the board and steal back the monarch, Kor Skyfisher to bounce monarch creatures and regain the monarch, cheap cyclers to get to the cards you need, and multiple copies of Palace Guards that can also re-trigger and regain the monarch. On top of a dozen cheap, efficient removal spells to further protect yourself.
That's what I mean by abusing it. I hope that clears it up, but I doubt how consistently that sort of deckbuilding can happen in Cube limited. I'm still waiting for actual cube experiences to provide some perspective.
In terms of actual Cube experience, its pretty much what you'd expect. If you're a little ahead, becoming the Monarch can put you a lot ahead.
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My 490 Pauper Cube
Modern frame only- Common on paper only - no functional copies, no strictly-betters - no subtype-matters
glancing over your cube id consider cutting those cards:
Deftblade Elite - reevaluating this, its just a glorified Gideon's Lawkeeper and only borderline in the end
Disenchant - i wouldnt run sb only cards. There are better options on creatures.
Marked by Honor - horrible
Phantasmal Bear - didnt like it, since it cant be pumped and usually doesnt add much to blue decks.
Elusive Spellfist - too little impact
Skittering Crustacean - too slow, we have better hexproofs now
Archaeomancer - kinda outclassed by Salvager of Secrets
generally dont like the sac target based archetype in black. id rebuild the black section and build the sac archetype around recursion and threaten effects in red. cut those sac burn. I also miss Tortured Existence as payoff for your minor gy theme.
Goblin Patrol - unplayable
Sanguinary Mage - even worse spellfist
Pouncing Jaguar - petcard of mine, but in the end it had to go
Thundering Tanadon - nah
Pulse of Murasa - also pretty much just a sb card
Soul Manipulation - bad card and a lot of better options in dimir
Horned Kavu - bad card and a lot of better options
Inventor's Goggles - out of place
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
soul manipulation is really bad. counterspells for 3 are bad in general, this one is conditional and isnt even a straight exclude (which also got moved into t2 by me). it could be an excusable option in a weak guild like golgari, but not in dimir
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
Fireslinger can just tap in response to the untap and kill elite. And if you really want undertaker not to die you can also just activate its pitch ability. The way Provoke is worded any utility creature that taps to do the utility can always escape being killed.
If you want a 1-drop that kills other 1-drops, javelineers is way better.
I wanna say thanks for the attempt at helping out. If I may, I like to put out some constructive points:
-If a set shows 4+ new Staples it will likely be one of the greatest sets for Pauper in years
-Beware the allure of new "tech". Most cubes have been tuned for years and new shoe-horned cards will disrupt the balance easily
-Testing takes lots of time. So proving subtle increases in power is hard
-There is a once- or twice-per-year discussion on what 'Cubable' means. We've hammered it out to mean basically Top 15% of cards for Cube. A mechanic heavy set will likely synergize with itself. That is not great for Pauper, as it will do less well with 20+ years of broken and anomaly cards.
-Honestly, deep down, we all WANT 20+ new great cards per set. We live for major overhauls. But history has proven that is impossible.
-Curve is the vast majority of arguments. If you want new cards to overthrow older ones, they gotta do more than Cubables currently, not just tie or pale by a shade. Case-in-point: 1W 3/1's.
-Uprooting gold cards is the hardest uphill battle ever seen. Find 2-3 good talking points or it won't stick.
Hope you keep up the fight!
Loose Change Pauper Cube-cast
Pauper Cube Article #1
Pauper Cube Article #2
Personal Enjoyment Cube
I too like it... BUT.. #MagicChristmasLand.
-Holding it open, they won't walk into it till late
-Holding open doesn't fix/improve boardstate
-Having a body worth turning means either Sac-able or Deathtouch, or it is very far gone.
-In a watered down cube, like mine, it is playable. But also cutable in your average 40.
-It doesn't push you into UB, and only really helps UB control. Tempo will SB it often
Loose Change Pauper Cube-cast
Pauper Cube Article #1
Pauper Cube Article #2
Personal Enjoyment Cube
For instance, right now I'm looking to add Angel of Mercy, Kitesail Corsair, Sentinels of Glen Elendra, Spire Monitor and maybe Cold-Water Snapper (Blue control decks usually only need one of those, but two being in the cube makes it so two Blue control drafters have access to the finisher), but maybe I'm going overboard with these kind of vanilla effects.
While cards like Centaur Courser and Welkin Tern are boring and far from bombs / first picks (and in case of Tern they die to a ping), they're the meat and potatoes of creature decks. However, at what point does it start being "too many"?
Thanks to DNC from Heroes of the Plane Studios for the sig
Check my Pauper Cube!
That said, Angel of Mercy and Spire Monitor are bad for that CMC. Look for better cards, you will find them.
Disclaimer: If you happen to look at my cube, you won't find functional copies at all, but that is a design choice, not a contradiction with what I said here.
My 490 Pauper Cube
Modern frame only- Common on paper only - no functional copies, no strictly-betters - no subtype-matters
Yeah, I thought as much about the lower CMC copies, I'm just a redundancy freak and want to give drafters both options (in case someone else snags the finisher that they needed) and consistency in deckbuilding.
I'm curious about the Angel though, what other White 5 would you run in it's place considering you already run the usual suspects? The other remotely interesting card would be Dawnfeather Eagle which I might as well swap for Angel now that I think about it, because it supports tokens and go wide while also still supporting blink.
Thanks to DNC from Heroes of the Plane Studios for the sig
Check my Pauper Cube!
White fours are also loaded. How many fives do you feel you need?
I was under the assumption we kinda agreed that tempo>value in powerlevel driven cubes by now. The amount of creatures with high power and low cost only increased in the last couple of years. With the amount of 2/1s for 1 and 3/1s for 2 in the format you definitely dont want to build your deck around value.
So, while Soul Manipulation is a solid value card for slower cubes its still not very high on the powerlevel list. The same reason I dont like Dinrova that much btw.
Also, the format lacks bombs you want to bring back and control runs a lower creature base and usually some hexproof dude or similiar hard to kill as wincon. So most of the time you want to draw extra cards to find more counter, more removal, extra lands instead of bringing back a small roadblocker.
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
If you want to run madness cards there are more versatile enablers like Sift or just plain looter.
The card is only useful in storm constructed (and banned there)
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
I want to try if it is a good replacement for Foresee. Instant >>> Sorcery, and I want to see if it can enable some fun synergies. Powerlevel-wise, though, the points of Al and Humprhey are 100% valid.
My 490 Pauper Cube
Modern frame only- Common on paper only - no functional copies, no strictly-betters - no subtype-matters
I used a script to pull the ratings into a spreadsheet. (I did this for my own use, and then shared the spreadsheet with Al_Z_Heimer first, in case he wants to use it to help maintain this project – if not, I'll make some edits and share it here.)
I then compared the list of rated cards to a list of all cards that were printed at common before 2018 (as you know, some sets from 2018 haven't yet been rated, so I haven't included them, see below). So, here are the 47 cards that were printed at common before 2018, that are missing from the project (16 from Homelands, including Merchant Scroll):
Cursed Rack (Renaissance)As I understand, the following sets from 2018 haven't yet been rated, so they have a high number of unrated commons (not listed above):
I had a look at the list of cubes in the Cube Lists thread, and picked the cubes that had been updated in 2018, that had 360 cards, and that were (at least self-described as being) "powered". Those cubes are:
- Humphrey: http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/4632
- Night_Hydra: http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/15538
- NoobinCube: http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/33113
- Al_Z_Heimer: http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/35213
- Usman: http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/10790(not listed above)
- Zephyr Scarlet: http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/11192 (not listed above)
- Prince_Reyson: http://www.cubetutor.com/cubeblog/648 (not explicitly powered)
- MonkRealist: http://www.cubetutor.com/cubeblog/7023 (not listed above, not explicitly powered)
I compared the cubes to the 188 Staple cards. Out of these cubes:Not included in any (3):
- Abomination of Gudul
- Abzan Guide
- Harvest Gwyllion
Only included in 2 i.e. 25% (1):- Thought Courier
Only included in 4 i.e. 50% (10):- Ambuscade
- Bonds of Faith
- Branching Bolt
- Curse of Chains
- Strangling Soot
- Tithe Drinker
- Azorius Signet
- Dimir Signet
- Izzet Signet
- Orzhov Signet
Only included in 5 i.e. 62.5% (24):Included in all (5):
- Evincar's Justice
- Goblin Heelcutter
- Ninja of the Deep Hours
- Preordain
- Thrill-Kill Assassin
Included in all but one i.e. 87.5% (15):- Beetleform Mage
- Burning-Tree Emissary
- Cartouche of Strength
- Daring Skyjek
- Kor Sanctifiers
- Peema Outrider
- Prismatic Strands
- Sandsteppe Outcast
- Sylvok Lifestaff
- Tandem Lookout
- Thorn of the Black Rose
- Triplicate Spirits
- Viridian Longbow
- Vulturous Aven
- Withdraw
Included in all but 2 i.e. 75% (26):a lot of the "staples" are definitely no rated correctly. the wedge creatures seem a little bit outside of normal ratings since they become staple if you want to run 3-colored cards in the first place. they dont deserve to be staple in our usual approach though.
except maybe perstermite all those other [all] cards deserve staple rating.
the borderline cards probably all deserve cubable, although im not a fan of scoundrel
the other cards seem fine as cubable, since theyre strong but exchangeable
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
The last cube to be added to that list was three years ago. I'm not sure how Al curates the list, since he seems to have edited it in 2018, but the list also has multiple dead links. This data should be viewed with a pinch of salt. Most cubers, myself included, have migrated over to cubetutor for bookkeeping. So I would see this less as some sort of general tool for pauper cubers, and more as a snapshot of the four or five most prolific cubers on the forum. I would recommend checking the data on cubetutor in addition to this - they have a much broader base and it's a lot easier to update cubes on, with some amazing built-in tools for comparison (I'm thinking not just of update time, but also stuff like number of updates, date the cube was created, cube size etc).
That said, I do love the number crunching done here. Even if it's limited in scope, it's a lot of work that helps generate discussion and highlight some interesting trends.
Those initial multicolor cards seem... not good (Abzan Guide et al). Especially if most of those sample cubes are at 360 where you could be including much better monocolor/artifact/guild cards.
Not including Ambuscade seems weird, but green got some nice removal in the last few sets (most recently with Aggressive Instinct I think) which could lead to an interesting discussion on the best options here (two mana sorcery vs three mana instant?). I'm a bit behind since I cut Savage Punch at 540 not too long ago
Thought Courier's lack of adoption seems weird too, but I guess it depends whether you want a third looter since Merfolk Looter and Looter il-Kor are probably universal adds already.
Strangling Soot seeing the same level of adoption as Terminate is interesting.
Thorn of the Black Rose - I initially dismissed this as the forums are a bit biased towards deathtouchers, but it's also popular on cubetutor. How often does it actually protect the monarchy, vs the times when it's stuck in your hand against creatures that can steal your monarch, vs times when you're ok with just drawing one card?
Tandem Lookout seems overhyped. It's relatively easy to turn off, or not have a decent soulbond target to draw with.
I'm still baffled as to how Grasping Scoundrel got stuck with a borderline rating. If you want any kind of aggro in black, and most cubes do, you need this card.
Firebrand Archer's rating should probably be upgraded.
Palace Sentinels is another monarch card I was curious about. Does it do work?
My Cube (DeckStats)
My Pauper Cube: 540 (CubeTutor link!)
Level 1 Judge
Cursed Rack is not common on Gatherer. I'm not sure how Renaissance worked (is anyone?) but it probably isn't considered a common by very many people.
The five colored Conspiracy cards are a mini category of their own. Not sure how many people play a Conspiracy Pauper cube.
Also, in an infuriating move that happened quite a while ago now, Cube Tutor made its search FAR worse. At one time you could have used the Search feature to look for Pauper 360 Cubes and then sort then by Last Update. In that way you could have found all cubes on CT that met your criteria. But, as I said, that functionality has been missing probably for years now.
Finally, it might be worth cross referencing against a list of mtgo only commons as quite a few cubers don't count them as common
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/commons-only-mtgo/
(that list might not be up to date as I'm not sure when it was published)
PS there is some weird Cube "philosophy" that makes it hard to base Staple status only by counting lists. For instance, Curse of Chains is better than Narcolepsy by being more castable -- UNLESS you apply a penalty by counting it as a gold card (one of your selected lists plays Narcolepsy only). There is not really a singular answer since in a vacuum that doesn't make sense. And, as already pointed out, functional reprints can be pretty random (Thought Courier).
PPS going above 360 doesn't hurt the project very much btw since you are looking for the points of DISagreement. You will definitely find lists at 450 that exclude cards that are listed as Staples (540 is a stretch for the pauper card pool)
I filtered MTGJSON for common cards (used by CuteTutor, Scryfall, etc.), and only found these that were online only (and not already rated). I'm not sure if down-shifted promos are considered pauper, though:
What I meant about Online Onlys is that since some people exclude them their raw counts probably won't correspond to their ratings in cases where they are cubeable or even staple (say, Elephant Guide).
I dont understand Pyredreams critcs about the list since you only picked the updated ones.
About those cards:
Compared to other removal, the green ones are bad. All of them. So if you go for powerlevel only there is no reason to include them. You only want to add them if you want to provide MonoG with at least some spot removal.
As i often mentioned here, i think the looters are horribly overrated in this format and usually much worse than cantrip spells. There are no deckfiller to loot away and a 1/1 it too fragile and card disadvantage. Therefore I dont run them.
Tandem Lookout on the other hand is direct card advantage and often can get a hit the moment it hits play, so it replaces itself and needs to be answered. You also can equip it with longbow and shoot for cards.
Grasping Scoundrel 2/1s are much worse than the 2/2s, even for 1. That its only a 1/1 on defense doesnt make it much better. Only if you want to push black aggro its ok to include them. Aka borderline, since most black sections tend to be more control oriented and usually it good enough to have both 2/2s.
The monarch cards are insane. With the amount of removal in the format I wonder how one could question their powerelevel. They are also played in pauper constucted.
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
This seems wrong. No cube deck really contains "deckfiller". But depending on the situation, you may want to trade a land for a kill spell. Or a kill spell for a land. Etc. If looters are cut, it's not because they're overrated, but because the quality of blue's spells is so high that the looters become redundant.
This actually makes me question their inclusion even more. Removal spells in pauper are so efficient that you can easily turn this statement around and use it to point out how easy it is to remove a monarchy creature. I would also venture a guess that, aside from constructed environments being very different from limited, a constructed deck can much better protect their monarch investment since the entire deck can be built around abusing the mechanic. Not the same as limited.
My Cube (DeckStats)
My Pauper Cube: 540 (CubeTutor link!)
Level 1 Judge
As I somewhere said earlier, first I dont see an upside of the 1/1 looter over the 2/1s for 3. Unless you are mana screwed you have enough options in the early game to do something else and the 2/1s at least can go face or trade when you dont loot. A 1/1 for 2 is just horrible in this format, because the lack of sweepers forces every deck to interact with the board from T1, otherwise you will lose the tempo/aggro game. And you also dont want to loot like a madmen and cycle to your bombs, because there are none. Anyway, I could agree to your argument, that all the blue draw and filterspells makes them "overrated", because theyre just bad compared to them, like a lot of other "good" cards are outclassed for us.
Maybe you misunderstand the monarch? I regularly did myself. The effect is not bound to the creature. You just need to play them and the effect stays in the game. Its a litte counterintuitive. So you dont need to protect anything but yourself from getting hit. Sure they are bad when you are behind on board, but a lot of cards are, those at least cycle themselves into another possible out.
In constructed theyre no build around cards, you just add them to normal decks that wants to win the grindgame.
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
So it only took me five minutes to look up Boros Monarch, which uses Battle Screech to both gum up the board and steal back the monarch, Kor Skyfisher to bounce monarch creatures and regain the monarch, cheap cyclers to get to the cards you need, and multiple copies of Palace Guards that can also re-trigger and regain the monarch. On top of a dozen cheap, efficient removal spells to further protect yourself.
That's what I mean by abusing it. I hope that clears it up, but I doubt how consistently that sort of deckbuilding can happen in Cube limited. I'm still waiting for actual cube experiences to provide some perspective.
My Cube (DeckStats)
My Pauper Cube: 540 (CubeTutor link!)
Level 1 Judge
In terms of actual Cube experience, its pretty much what you'd expect. If you're a little ahead, becoming the Monarch can put you a lot ahead.