Ive always been a big fan of Browbeat, because it basically always does what burn wants. It either deals 5 for 3, which is huge or draws 3 cards which basically equals 6-9 dmg worth of burn. I always got the "opp choice is bad" and after playing with it I must say, sometimes its awesome, but when the games are close it will often lose you the game, because it doesnt deal the neccessary 3dmg to finish the opponent and every other random bolt would do. You draw 3 instead and die the next turn.
And Dash doesnt even contribute with both modes to the same archetype. Deal 5 is aggro, while countering is control. And while the surprise factor of getting countered from black might work sometimes, you probably almost always better off playing just another removal. Which is less fun, but more effective. And as long as there are Doomblades and co in your cube, nobody who want to win will play DH
Ive always been a big fan of Browbeat, because it basically always does what burn wants. It either deals 5 for 3, which is huge or draws 3 cards which basically equals 6-9 dmg worth of burn. I always got the "opp choice is bad" and after playing with it I must say, sometimes its awesome, but when the games are close it will often lose you the game, because it doesnt deal the neccessary 3dmg to finish the opponent and every other random bolt would do. You draw 3 instead and die the next turn.
And Dash doesnt even contribute with both modes to the same archetype. Deal 5 is aggro, while countering is control. And while the surprise factor of getting countered from black might work sometimes, you probably almost always better off playing just another removal. Which is less fun, but more effective. And as long as there are Doomblades and co in your cube, nobody who want to win will play DH
Stopping your opponent from doing something so you can better damage and kill them, or just directly bringing their life total closer to zero seems to fit all the archetypes in my cube except for the sole Infect creature in there.
Everyone on /r/pauper said that Foil wouldn't be good because, "It's card disadvantage, you're 3 for 1'ing yourself!" And now Gush & Foil are dominating the format and they still don't think anything is wrong with the format.
Add that to my general skepticism about things in general and contrarian viewpoints and tastes, and the more I hear a platitude the less credit I give it.
I think we're arguing semantics here. It's not that I'm arguing that it's top tier or even a good card, I'm just arguing that it's merely okay.
If there are enough other merely okay cards in the cube then it's playable. I've taken out a bunch of the high end "bombs" like Sprout Swarm, Ghostly Flicker, Guardian of the Guildpact, and Coalition Honor Guard.
I'd play it if I had a majority black deck. I wouldn't take it over Doom Blade or Gary (Peace Be Upon Him), but it's respectable.
thing about the "foil" example is, humans on average are pretty studpid. there is no swam intelligence with us, only swam stupidity. there are enough studies in psychology for this. on bigger forums you wont get any better ideas than thinking yourself. that might make you the 1 of 100 that gets the insight or one of the dudes that are totally delusional. and on the internet, the numbers are even worse because most sane people do more produtive things than posting on the webz.
thats why the average pauper cube on cubetutor is a mess as well.
but, i consider this little corner of the internet the "expert" forum for paupercubes, because we are a very small minority dedicated to it for years and while we disagree when it comes to personal preferences we are usually not that far off from getting the playablity right. and i dont want to brag about it, because its just a number, but im playing magic for 23 years now lol.
Yeah the average cube can be a pile, but with enough data it averages out. That's the whole point.
Case in point:
On cubetutor, there are 3,401 cubes with Pauper in their name at the time of this post.
Out of those, 58 of them run Dash Hopes.
Out of those, 20 of them can be considered recent (updated since 2018).
In total, only 1.7% of all pauper cubes on cubetutor run the card. That's a fraction of the playerbase.
If we're talking about current, updated cubes, the number drops to 0.58%. That's a fraction of a fraction.
I don't know about you, but that seems pretty much in line with my previous conclusion. Like I said, opinion doesn't need to be taken as factual, but I think the data speaks for itself. And it's an essential tool in these conversations because now our ideas can be supported by evidence. It can help confirm what we already knew, or disprove an old idea and force us to rethink inclusions.
The best part? This work took me all of five minutes. How would you even begin to collect this data without a site like cubetutor?
but thats what i wanted to point out. being in the minority doesnt mean youre wrong running certain cards. for example, i run Ivory Giant its a staple cards in my monoW or heavy W aggrodeck and thats one of the best decks in my cube. running the search at 360 and pauper in the name there are only 34! running it. only 11 of them updated in 2018!
that only tells me that 99.99% of the paupercubes on cubetutor are uninspired casual cubes
No, dude. Ivory Giant is super overcosted and slow at this point. It has corner cases where it can shine, but that doesn't make it 360 worthy. It's the definition of a role-player. Similarly, I might recommend Acridian to players looking for an early control creature in an aggro-heavy cube, but I won't pretend that it's 360 material.
Whatever problem you have with cubetutor, I hope you get over it someday. It's far too useful to just ignore.
Giant and probably a bunch of other cards I run are dedicated to the existing archetypes. Sure Giant loses a lot of value past turn 3 or so, but even then its still useful to force the last points of damage after the opp did stabilize with blockers. No, its not one of the all around isnta slam in any deck card, but im not close to cutting it at this point. For W you can just suspend it at any point of the game and basically finish it when the timer is up.
again, 99% of cubebuilder just randomly slam commons together and i wonder how many of the saved cubes are actually played. if you dont want to think outside the box, fine but statistics dont help building a finetuned cube.
I also run Acridian btw
so doing a countercheck on Heavenly Qilin
a whopping 6 cubes run it. 3 of them updated in 2018. one of them is ALs
is it a bad card? no. id say its a staple card, but none of the casuals even knows it.
I don't think that cube data means much. All it demonstrates to me is that people are averse to playing fun, fair, interactive magic and can't tolerate playing cards that are merely okay. They just want to play "Multiplayer Solitaire" where no one is competing with them or can stop them from doing their cool thing.
The dominance of "euro game" board game design where everyone is converting cubes of one color into another color for victory points and only incidentally interacting with the other players proves this.
A cube full of cards like Dash Hopes or Acridian or (overpriced) Morph or Banding creatures means that they have to actually interact with their opponent, which means they won't be able to do Their Cool Thing (tm) unabated.
I had a friend tell me that my cube was filled with terrible cards, meanwhile he shows me his cube that he's working on and it's full of uninteractive combo BS.
So when I hear , "Dash Hopes is a terrible card" all that goes through my head is, "I can't combo off turn 3, this cube is garbage!" Or, "This card doesn't break the game, trash."
Ivory Giant seems like an okay card. I took it out of my cube because there were other cards I found more interesting.
I don't think that cube data means much. All it demonstrates to me is that people are averse to playing fun, fair, interactive magic and can't tolerate playing cards that are merely okay. They just want to play "Multiplayer Solitaire" where no one is competing with them or can stop them from doing their cool thing.
The dominance of "euro game" board game design where everyone is converting cubes of one color into another color for victory points and only incidentally interacting with the other players proves this.
A cube full of cards like Dash Hopes or Acridian or (overpriced) Morph or Banding creatures means that they have to actually interact with their opponent, which means they won't be able to do Their Cool Thing (tm) unabated.
I had a friend tell me that my cube was filled with terrible cards, meanwhile he shows me his cube that he's working on and it's full of uninteractive combo BS.
So when I hear , "Dash Hopes is a terrible card" all that goes through my head is, "I can't combo off turn 3, this cube is garbage!" Or, "This card doesn't break the game, trash."
Ivory Giant seems like an okay card. I took it out of my cube because there were other cards I found more interesting.
Just out of curiosity, and not that its getting old or anything, but how long are you planning on airing your burning vendetta(s) in your forum posts?
Do you truly want other peoples' opinions on what constitutes fun to you? Because that isn't even an intelligible request, right? Otherwise, there may be some confusion as this is a Message Board and not your personal Sounding Board for every grudge you're still holding on to (which is all of them).
Kamino Taka here seems like my account wasn't properly linked.
I agree that cubetutor isn't the end all be all in terms of playable cards but saying "but statistics dont help building a finetuned cube." is just not correct. Just because many people do things a certain way doesn't mean it's the best, but it certainly means it's not the worst. Cubetutor helps with that alot.
Just saying that all those people are casuals is not a valid argument for or against cubetutor as you can neither proof they are nor can others proof they aren't,and that just comes of as a bash rather than an argument.
A card that is good in one cube isn't neccesairly good in another cube. Thats why I like arguments like these
Giant and probably a bunch of other cards I run are dedicated to the existing archetypes. Sure Giant loses a lot of value past turn 3 or so, but even then its still useful to force the last points of damage after the opp did stabilize with blockers. No, its not one of the all around isnta slam in any deck card,
No, dude. Ivory Giant is super overcosted and slow at this point. It has corner cases where it can shine, but that doesn't make it 360 worthy. It's the definition of a role-player. Similarly, I might recommend Acridian to players looking for an early control creature in an aggro-heavy cube, but I won't pretend that it's 360 material.
Over stuff like this
meanwhile
Angelic Purge Augur of Bolas and Brainstorm and a bunch of other very questionable cards are in the average 360 cube. facepalm.
So when I hear , "Dash Hopes is a terrible card" all that goes through my head is, "I can't combo off turn 3, this cube is garbage!" Or, "This card doesn't break the game, trash."
As the latter only state Opinions without really backing up those opinions.
The underrepresentation of Heavenly Qilin and the amounts of Brainstorm is enough statistical evidence to proof my statement.
You cant argue that Giant doesnt belong in the average 360 because its not strong in every deck (and take CT as evidence), but Brainstorm or Augur of Bolas do. Those cards are beyond trash everywhere.
If you think that its just an opinion that the cards I mentioned are bad I suggest reading the last 3 years of discussion and the evaulation thread or build and play the average cube and see for yourself.
But, the masses thought for centuries the earth is flat, they cant be wrong, right?
I've been lurking here for a while as part of a significant Cube renovation, but avoided joining the forums. I just joined up to show my Cube, which is heavily informed by the "Evaluate Everything" project and is in kind of the polishing stages of a work in progress. You can see my Cube here. Some notes on the Cube:
The goal is not quite a "powered" cube, as I find that particular experience pretty unfun (just going to say because of the most recent posts that this is 100% a matter of preference, not an indictment of those who disagree). However, I do want powerful cards, and if someone's reaction to a card is "why is this in here?", I want there to be a pretty straightforward answer that revolves either around deceptive power level (Troubled Healer) or archetype support (Lotus-Eye Mystics, which I'm still not 100% sure about). For this reason, I prefer a 450 card Cube. Right now I'm at 402, but right now I feel like I have enough of a skeleton to fill my cube with either less obvious or less distinct picks.
The big change that I made is that I want to support a few more archetypes. I don't want to do the "an archetype for every pair" thing, because I think that puts things too much on rails, but I like the idea that a Cube archetype explains why I would choose one card over another card of comparable power. Currently, the archetypes or themes include:
Graveyard (all over, I like graveyard synergy)
Extort (WB, synergizes with Flashback in particular)
Spells Matter (Still figuring out a bit)
Auras (Probably currently a little overdone, I don't like how much it hurts fatties right now)
Morph (Not an archetype, but I like how the mechanic plays)
Tokens
I'm also looking at supporting a Sacrifice subtheme a bit more.
You might also notice that my multicolor section looks a little bit funky. This is because I really dislike the practice of making bad picks to "balance" multicolor sections, and I would rather just count cards based on how they play. So, for instance, my Golgari section consists of 5 cards, but only counts as 3.5 Green and Black cards for my overall color totals. So Putrid Leech is worth 1 Black and 1 Green, while Canker Abomination is worth .5 Green and .5 Black since either color would play the card independent of the other. This also applies to basically colorless cards, like anything with Phyrexian mana. This is an imperfect method, but I actually really like it so far and don't see a compelling reason to stop. I especially like how it lowers the threshold for inclusion for effects that people would actually play, but that aren't really strong enough on their own to warrant inclusion. As of right now, my color distribution looks like:
White: 78
Blue: 71.5
Black: 77
Red: 77
Green: 77
So, Blue suggestions are most appreciated, but part of the reason for these changes is that I am a Blue player at heart and I want to force Blue to play a little bit more with themes instead of just getting by with better cards because it's my favorite color.
Also, aesthetics aren't the end-all, be-all for decision making, but they do matter. I still really want to cut the Monarch cards because I hate that mechanic (it simply does not make sense to players, I've run a few Monarch cards for a while and they're consistently underdrafted because nobody knows what they do), I'm torn as to how much I want to run the Conspiracies, and whether or not something has a foil printing matters... More than it should.
Well, OK, I think that's enough for now. If anyone has any feedback on this list, I'd really appreciate it!
welcome. on a quick overlook, nothing seems really out of place. cards that are on the low end are Ojutai's Summons not enough impact Kruin Striker too fragile Werebear never reaches threshold in your current configuration Scion of the Wild often a worse/unreliable Centaur Courser Noggle Bandit tons of better options in izzet and there are also a lot of unblockable 2/2 for 3 around and they all lack impact
whats also noticable, the curve is off. you lack 2 drops in almost every color, especially black and white and you might want to spend at last 20 more slots exclusively on 2 drops. you want to end with around 15 2 drops in each color, except blue at 450
I also couldnt identify any archetypes. at the moment your cube more or less looks like a goodstuff cube. if you like gy synergies you can build the whole cube around it, except white all colors can support it. looting and selfmill in blue, recursion, threshold, all kinds of stuff in bg, flashback in red
have a look at my T2, I run a bunch of archetypes there but banned all cards from my T1, in case you miss something.
The underrepresentation of Heavenly Qilin and the amounts of Brainstorm is enough statistical evidence to proof my statement.
You cant argue that Giant doesnt belong in the average 360 because its not strong in every deck (and take CT as evidence), but Brainstorm or Augur of Bolas do. Those cards are beyond trash everywhere.
If you think that its just an opinion that the cards I mentioned are bad I suggest reading the last 3 years of discussion and the evaulation thread or build and play the average cube and see for yourself.
Those cards are beyond trash everywhere.
How so it literally brickwalls almost all your one and 2 drops in your cube while having the upside of drawing a card. I do play the Giant in my cube but the reason I do is because i also have a strong white weenie theme in there. I run Augur in there as well and even without the card draw it is a rather decent blocker. Yes it also doesnt fit in every deck but it fits in more than the giant IMHO.
Offtopic
But, the masses thought for centuries the earth is flat, they cant be wrong, right? True But its also true that just because one guy thinks the world is flat even though everyone else belives its round doesn't make his claim valid now does it? Like I said before I don't agree with you often, but I'll listen when you make reasonable arguments. However sometimes you do stuff like this where there is no reasoning behind the things you say or use invalid arguments like "those are all casuals" when you yourself don't know them, disagree with their choices purely to disagree. And when you do that even your valid points drown in the argument. And nobody profits from that.
I really dont want to discuss CT any longer, because its such a grotesque topic. Its absolutely logical that the majority of players are casuals, because only a very small minority invests the time to go deep into pretty much any topic ever. But in the snowflake society everybody is an intelligent expert ofc.
Augur pretty much never draws a card. 1/3 is not a stellar statline anyway (id be surprised if it "brickwalls" more than 30% of my 2 drops), but there are like hundreds of 2 drops with it and almost all are better. Heck, better run one of the 1/3 flyer then.
Its only in so many cubes because they just add constructed commons into their cubes like Brainstorm.
But whatevs, if you find any useful things there, go on, but dont use them as arguments regarding card choices.
welcome. on a quick overlook, nothing seems really out of place. cards that are on the low end are Ojutai's Summons not enough impact Kruin Striker too fragile Werebear never reaches threshold in your current configuration Scion of the Wild often a worse/unreliable Centaur Courser Noggle Bandit tons of better options in izzet and there are also a lot of unblockable 2/2 for 3 around and they all lack impact
whats also noticable, the curve is off. you lack 2 drops in almost every color, especially black and white and you might want to spend at last 20 more slots exclusively on 2 drops. you want to end with around 15 2 drops in each color, except blue at 450
I also couldnt identify any archetypes. at the moment your cube more or less looks like a goodstuff cube. if you like gy synergies you can build the whole cube around it, except white all colors can support it. looting and selfmill in blue, recursion, threshold, all kinds of stuff in bg, flashback in red
have a look at my T2, I run a bunch of archetypes there but banned all cards from my T1, in case you miss something.
Thanks for the feedback! Every card that you mentioned other than Noggle Bandit is a bit of an "archetype" (more in a minute) card, so if they stand out on that basis they're doing their job. Of course, I want the cube to consist of "defensible inclusions that add texture," not "bad cards that suggest a theme but aren't good enough to support that theme." If Tokens decks don't want Striker or Scion, or Spells decks don't run Ojutai's Summons, then we're in a bad place.
Werebear and Noggle Bandit are older and not-quite-"archetype" cards. If the Cube isn't good enough to support Werebear, which I do disagree with you on but also keep in mind when drafting and think is a fair point, then I would rather add a bit more support for graveyard strategies then cut the Bear. It is almost a perfect example of what I'm going for, really- a card that at least faces some competition for its slot, but that its inclusion over comparable cards suggests something about the broader design of the Cube. Noggle Bandit I actually like quite a bit and consider pretty underrated. It's at least comparable to Deathcult Rogue, and these guys are great examples of why I like running Hybrid like I do. They're not bombs or even particularly high picks, but lots of decks like to pick them up as role-players. Also, remember that I'm not overly worried about balancing individual color pairs, just overall number of cards of a color. But, like I said, I appreciate the feedback- a real point of the update was to make sure there was a reason that everything was there, and knowing what stands out to people really helps with that.
The two-drops are definitely an issue that I am aware of and one that I would like feedback on. I'll re-examine Tier 2 in particular. One of the many reasons for the update and the focus on "archetypes" was that with each set, it kind of feels like the only things that get "pushed" at Common anymore lean heavily towards aggressive strategies. I'm not really an agro player. I want to support agro, because it's part of Magic, fun for a lot of people, and has its charms, but I really don't want it to be dominant. It seems like most of the two-drops are just sort of... There. Like, they're good, but they don't really do or support anything super interesting and usually just push out more interesting strategies. I want to add more two-drops, but I want them to do something more than be a generically good two-drop. Daring Skyjek is a great example of what I'm looking for- There's lots of competition for these stats and some may even be better than it, but its presence helps push towards a bit more of a go-wide strategy that rewards you for running tokens. I am VERY interested in more cards like that if anyone has suggestions, though!
"Archetype" is a bit of a misnomer. I think "synergy" is a stronger word, and even that may be a bit misleading. I want my Cube to basically look like a Common Cube. I want all the greatest hits, so calling it a "good stuff" cube really isn't far off. But if my sole interest is power level, then it turns into a bit of an agro pile that I just don't really want to support. So I'm working on adding a light finish of synergy that maybe encourages some unusual choices that give the Cube some "texture" or individual flavor, but that don't necessarily feel out of place with the "good stuff" cards. I guess you could characterize it as adding a method to how "pet cards" get added. WB Extort isn't exactly a deck, but White and Black have a lot of Extort cards, and when you have a lot of extort cards cheap spells that you can cast multiple times get a lot better than they normally appear. Spells matter cards like Seeker of the Way get a little better when you have some incentive to fill out your curve with cards that both make tokens and trigger Prowess, like Raise the Alarm. So I don't want to hit people over the head with an archetype and say "draft this plz," I want the cards to work together in ways that might surprise them.
With that said, I'll re-examine Tier 2. The absence of most of the "heavy hitters" definitely throws off evaluations there, but it does seem like a decent place to look for more interesting cards. Thank you again!
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Its hard to build a paupercube that doesnt end with everybody in midrange decks. Pauper also lack really choices that go beyond winning with creatures attacking aka some sort of aggro. In the end every deck ends as either tempo-aggro or control-aggro. Black is more or less the only color that can support some sort of heavy control because it has access to some boadclears, but the bigger the cube the tougher it gets to draft all the neccessary tools.
If you want to stay at 450 goodstuff is a good start, but id evolve the cube more towards archetype or synergy driven. Just go on gatherer and look up all commons with the keyword "graveyard" and you might imagine some really interesting options. you can do the same with other keywords as well.
my t1 runs spells matters and my t2 runs tokens and the mentioned cards are in neither of them
There are quite a few interesting 2 drop options available. Blue has a bunch of utility creatures. black has sac outlets, green has some ramp
Eh, we'll see. I get what you're saying in general but haven't given up the fight yet. I will say that if this synergy basically works in my Cube, but it feels weird by not having as many two drops as is normal, then I think that speaks to me not needing so many two-drops more than it speaks to a lighter touch with synergy not working. We're still in development, though.
EDIT: In case it's not coming through, one thing that might help for this info is that Cubing is not exactly new for me. I've had some version of my Common Cube for over a decade. This mostly is a drastic revision inspired be me falling behind on updates on account of a move and getting back into playing Magic as anything other than a casual fan.
I do kinda feel like you and I mean different things by "spells matter," or at least are looking for different things. That's cool though, and I'm not really committed to Summons. No Scion for tokens is a more meaningful issue.
I've looked at Gatherer for this stuff before, don't worry- it kind of spawned from my interest in a pure "graveyard cube." The problem is that Cube just seemed miserable to play unless you were an extremely enfranchised player- it was like Odyssey block if your biggest problem with that block was that it wasn't Spike-y enough. Common Cube goodstuff works with almost any player, but the better players get an advantage through recognizing synergy when it appears.
If you have examples of spicy two-drops, I'm open to them. Blue's utility creatures have seemed more generically fine than interesting or exciting? Like, great, I can get a middling blocker with some library manipulation? Black has sac outlets but many of them feel VERY out of place and feel like easy bottom-dwellers. Green could probably use more ramp, though- even though it's not necessarily a focus, ramp strategies being as bad as they were was a major inspiration for change.
I'm already running all of those other than Blind Zealot (which is *probably* cool enough to warrant inclusion, but it loses points for being a removal spell with modest synergy). I think how often people run some of these even with competition would surprise you. Hybrid counts for A LOT.
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Goodstuff is what newer players should start off with, because it's easier to evaluate cards based on standalone power if you don't have enough experience to evaluate different archetypes.
As of what archetypes are viable or T1 or whatever, that's a very old debate that has never found any satisfying answers.
Also, apparently my account along with every single post I ever made was deleted because I was unable to see some alleged popup that was supposed to tell me to accept something because I disable all popups for obvious reasons, so don't expect to hear from me again around here.
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"Someday, someone will best me. But it won't be today, and it won't be you."
Also, apparently my account along with every single post I ever made was deleted because I was unable to see some alleged popup that was supposed to tell me to accept something because I disable all popups for obvious reasons, so don't expect to hear from me again around here.
I'm not the biggest fan of shadow because they're essentially unblockable, but your cube seems to be very removal laden so they should be fine. I have 2 Horsemanship and a Fear creature in my cube, so whatever.
I drafted mono removal essentially. I like playing midrange because I think it's maximally interactive and therefore most fun way to play. Half of my deck are basically copies of Pacifism.
I like how you categorize colors, except for Phyrexian Mana stuff. I have zero qualms counting Porcelain Legionnaire as a colorless creature and at least as far as my cube goes, it's a solid option in any deck. I drafted Rakdos Burn/Goblins last time I played and still put it into my deck. That card is probably constructed playable in Pauper Mono Green Stompy. I agree that many things are put into dual colored slots just to fill space, not because they're actually that good.
You could make an argument that ThunderIng Tanadon is a green creature because 4 life is actually kind of a cost for it, but even then, eh. I moved it to colorless in my cube because I wanted to open up a slot in green for another fun card.
Nothing really dictates that you have to have an equal amount of cards for each color. If you like the cube the way it is now then don't feel the need to change it just because you're short a handful of blue cards or whatever.
Its absolutely logical that the majority of players are casuals, because only a very small minority invests the time to go deep into pretty much any topic ever.
Agreed. But not everyone who isnt here but is on ct is a casual. In addition to that casuals tend to copy stuff that works.
So it with only the two creatures in consideration:
It bricks 67% Of all your Onedrops with killing 48%
It bricks 42% of all your Twodrops with killing 21%
It Bricks 36% of all your Threedrops with killing 4%
Sure thats a niche way to look at that but if you Curbe is filled with lots of 2 powered creatures and lots of 1 toughness creatures 1/3s are a nice early deterent for decks that usually have more than average spells anyway namely control decks. And With 22 Control relevant Instants and Sorceries in just its color alone. I think the niche of Augur of bolas in your cube is wider than the Ivory giant one, so I think Augur would be a nice addition to your cube and picked generally higher that the giant.
I'm not the biggest fan of shadow because they're essentially unblockable, but your cube seems to be very removal laden so they should be fine. I have 2 Horsemanship and a Fear creature in my cube, so whatever.
I drafted mono removal essentially. I like playing midrange because I think it's maximally interactive and therefore most fun way to play. Half of my deck are basically copies of Pacifism.
I like how you categorize colors, except for Phyrexian Mana stuff. I have zero qualms counting Porcelain Legionnaire as a colorless creature and at least as far as my cube goes, it's a solid option in any deck. I drafted Rakdos Burn/Goblins last time I played and still put it into my deck. That card is probably constructed playable in Pauper Mono Green Stompy. I agree that many things are put into dual colored slots just to fill space, not because they're actually that good.
You could make an argument that ThunderIng Tanadon is a green creature because 4 life is actually kind of a cost for it, but even then, eh. I moved it to colorless in my cube because I wanted to open up a slot in green for another fun card.
Nothing really dictates that you have to have an equal amount of cards for each color. If you like the cube the way it is now then don't feel the need to change it just because you're short a handful of blue cards or whatever.
Thanks!
For what it's worth, I'm not actually a huge fan of Shadow either. It has its place, and I do think evasion is an important part of the game, but the generically decent two-drop Shadow creatures are a lot of what I'm thinking of when I think about 2-drops that just sort of generically see play and push out some slightly slower or more interesting strategies. I agree that removal.dec makes it manageable, but I also really feel like I have too much removal right now. The aura strategy is tough to support.
The Phyrexian counting is basically a concession to some drafting biases more than anything else. Legionnaire is basically a colorless card agro card, but the color printed on the card seems to give people more pause than it should. Orzhov decks probably want Gitaxian Probe more often than not, but the number that run them wouldn't necessarily support that thought. With that said, I'm not fundamentally opposed to just making them Colorless, since they basically are anyway.
My big example from Cubetutor is the near-universal adoption of Court Hussar in UW, making it more ubiquitous than Sea Gate Oracle. I just don't think there is any reason for that to be the case. Hussar is marginally better in WU, but goes in far fewer decks (and has less incidental synergy). If a card isn't good enough for a monocolor section, I don't want to run it in a multicolor spot just so I can say the section is balanced.
I support general color balance, but I think that balance looks different in other colors. People just don't draft all ten pairs equally often, or in the same way. It would not be hard for me to fill Blue up with cards that I like and are good enough- I would just like to prioritize archetype stuff first.
EDIT: Also, just a quick aside on Brainstorm: I ran it until very recently, but was never under the impression that it was any good. In fact, I repeatedly referred to it as the worst card in my Cube. What I liked about it, though, was that it was basically our equivalent of a "junk rare." You know, like how sometimes people overvalue cards that are mediocre at best in their limited environment because of their reputation as Constructed powerhouses. People seemed to get excited when they saw it and got to play with it, and there was a certain power to "this card is a format defining common that is pretty bad here" for fostering a feel for what makes our Cube special. I doubt that's what's happening for everyone who includes it, but I do think that there is a certain curation aspect to Cubing that earns certain noteworthy cards more of a pass than they deserve on power level alone, and I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing. Also, I cut it, so clearly I no longer think it's worth it.
Hussar is more a case of Azorius not being particularly great. If you really want to be critical, some cubers might point out that Azorius still has this issue all the way up to regular powered cubes (Oblivion Ring / Detention Sphere, Wrath of God / Supreme Verdict). To me, it's more a case of wanting extras of that effect. The body is good at holding off attackers and the ETB puts you ahead on card selection. But its stock would probably go down dramatically if we got a second Oracle (Dimir Informant didn't cut it, sadly).
RE: Augur of Bolas - as the joke goes, this card's text really says: When Augur of Bolas enters the battlefield, look at the bottom three cards of your library. Then again, I consider Delver a bit of a miss for most cubes, but if cubers really want to contort their blue sections into something that can accommodate more of a spells-matters theme, I suppose it's possible to make it work.
And Dash doesnt even contribute with both modes to the same archetype. Deal 5 is aggro, while countering is control. And while the surprise factor of getting countered from black might work sometimes, you probably almost always better off playing just another removal. Which is less fun, but more effective. And as long as there are Doomblades and co in your cube, nobody who want to win will play DH
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
Stopping your opponent from doing something so you can better damage and kill them, or just directly bringing their life total closer to zero seems to fit all the archetypes in my cube except for the sole Infect creature in there.
Everyone on /r/pauper said that Foil wouldn't be good because, "It's card disadvantage, you're 3 for 1'ing yourself!" And now Gush & Foil are dominating the format and they still don't think anything is wrong with the format.
Add that to my general skepticism about things in general and contrarian viewpoints and tastes, and the more I hear a platitude the less credit I give it.
I think we're arguing semantics here. It's not that I'm arguing that it's top tier or even a good card, I'm just arguing that it's merely okay.
If there are enough other merely okay cards in the cube then it's playable. I've taken out a bunch of the high end "bombs" like Sprout Swarm, Ghostly Flicker, Guardian of the Guildpact, and Coalition Honor Guard.
I'd play it if I had a majority black deck. I wouldn't take it over Doom Blade or Gary (Peace Be Upon Him), but it's respectable.
Ignoring what Magic players say isn't the answer, it's listening to what they have to say and doing the exact opposite that's correct.
thats why the average pauper cube on cubetutor is a mess as well.
but, i consider this little corner of the internet the "expert" forum for paupercubes, because we are a very small minority dedicated to it for years and while we disagree when it comes to personal preferences we are usually not that far off from getting the playablity right. and i dont want to brag about it, because its just a number, but im playing magic for 23 years now lol.
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
Case in point:
On cubetutor, there are 3,401 cubes with Pauper in their name at the time of this post.
Out of those, 58 of them run Dash Hopes.
Out of those, 20 of them can be considered recent (updated since 2018).
In total, only 1.7% of all pauper cubes on cubetutor run the card. That's a fraction of the playerbase.
If we're talking about current, updated cubes, the number drops to 0.58%. That's a fraction of a fraction.
I don't know about you, but that seems pretty much in line with my previous conclusion. Like I said, opinion doesn't need to be taken as factual, but I think the data speaks for itself. And it's an essential tool in these conversations because now our ideas can be supported by evidence. It can help confirm what we already knew, or disprove an old idea and force us to rethink inclusions.
The best part? This work took me all of five minutes. How would you even begin to collect this data without a site like cubetutor?
My Cube (DeckStats)
My Pauper Cube: 540 (CubeTutor link!)
Level 1 Judge
that only tells me that 99.99% of the paupercubes on cubetutor are uninspired casual cubes
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
Whatever problem you have with cubetutor, I hope you get over it someday. It's far too useful to just ignore.
My Cube (DeckStats)
My Pauper Cube: 540 (CubeTutor link!)
Level 1 Judge
again, 99% of cubebuilder just randomly slam commons together and i wonder how many of the saved cubes are actually played. if you dont want to think outside the box, fine but statistics dont help building a finetuned cube.
I also run Acridian btw
so doing a countercheck on Heavenly Qilin
a whopping 6 cubes run it. 3 of them updated in 2018. one of them is ALs
is it a bad card? no. id say its a staple card, but none of the casuals even knows it.
meanwhile
Angelic Purge Augur of Bolas and Brainstorm and a bunch of other very questionable cards are in the average 360 cube. facepalm.
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
The dominance of "euro game" board game design where everyone is converting cubes of one color into another color for victory points and only incidentally interacting with the other players proves this.
A cube full of cards like Dash Hopes or Acridian or (overpriced) Morph or Banding creatures means that they have to actually interact with their opponent, which means they won't be able to do Their Cool Thing (tm) unabated.
I had a friend tell me that my cube was filled with terrible cards, meanwhile he shows me his cube that he's working on and it's full of uninteractive combo BS.
So when I hear , "Dash Hopes is a terrible card" all that goes through my head is, "I can't combo off turn 3, this cube is garbage!" Or, "This card doesn't break the game, trash."
Ivory Giant seems like an okay card. I took it out of my cube because there were other cards I found more interesting.
Ignoring what Magic players say isn't the answer, it's listening to what they have to say and doing the exact opposite that's correct.
Just out of curiosity, and not that its getting old or anything, but how long are you planning on airing your burning vendetta(s) in your forum posts?
Do you truly want other peoples' opinions on what constitutes fun to you? Because that isn't even an intelligible request, right? Otherwise, there may be some confusion as this is a Message Board and not your personal Sounding Board for every grudge you're still holding on to (which is all of them).
I agree that cubetutor isn't the end all be all in terms of playable cards but saying "but statistics dont help building a finetuned cube." is just not correct. Just because many people do things a certain way doesn't mean it's the best, but it certainly means it's not the worst. Cubetutor helps with that alot.
Just saying that all those people are casuals is not a valid argument for or against cubetutor as you can neither proof they are nor can others proof they aren't,and that just comes of as a bash rather than an argument.
A card that is good in one cube isn't neccesairly good in another cube. Thats why I like arguments like these
Over stuff like this
As the latter only state Opinions without really backing up those opinions.
You cant argue that Giant doesnt belong in the average 360 because its not strong in every deck (and take CT as evidence), but Brainstorm or Augur of Bolas do. Those cards are beyond trash everywhere.
If you think that its just an opinion that the cards I mentioned are bad I suggest reading the last 3 years of discussion and the evaulation thread or build and play the average cube and see for yourself.
But, the masses thought for centuries the earth is flat, they cant be wrong, right?
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
I've been lurking here for a while as part of a significant Cube renovation, but avoided joining the forums. I just joined up to show my Cube, which is heavily informed by the "Evaluate Everything" project and is in kind of the polishing stages of a work in progress. You can see my Cube
here. Some notes on the Cube:
The goal is not quite a "powered" cube, as I find that particular experience pretty unfun (just going to say because of the most recent posts that this is 100% a matter of preference, not an indictment of those who disagree). However, I do want powerful cards, and if someone's reaction to a card is "why is this in here?", I want there to be a pretty straightforward answer that revolves either around deceptive power level (Troubled Healer) or archetype support (Lotus-Eye Mystics, which I'm still not 100% sure about). For this reason, I prefer a 450 card Cube. Right now I'm at 402, but right now I feel like I have enough of a skeleton to fill my cube with either less obvious or less distinct picks.
The big change that I made is that I want to support a few more archetypes. I don't want to do the "an archetype for every pair" thing, because I think that puts things too much on rails, but I like the idea that a Cube archetype explains why I would choose one card over another card of comparable power. Currently, the archetypes or themes include:
Graveyard (all over, I like graveyard synergy)
Extort (WB, synergizes with Flashback in particular)
Spells Matter (Still figuring out a bit)
Auras (Probably currently a little overdone, I don't like how much it hurts fatties right now)
Morph (Not an archetype, but I like how the mechanic plays)
Tokens
I'm also looking at supporting a Sacrifice subtheme a bit more.
You might also notice that my multicolor section looks a little bit funky. This is because I really dislike the practice of making bad picks to "balance" multicolor sections, and I would rather just count cards based on how they play. So, for instance, my Golgari section consists of 5 cards, but only counts as 3.5 Green and Black cards for my overall color totals. So Putrid Leech is worth 1 Black and 1 Green, while Canker Abomination is worth .5 Green and .5 Black since either color would play the card independent of the other. This also applies to basically colorless cards, like anything with Phyrexian mana. This is an imperfect method, but I actually really like it so far and don't see a compelling reason to stop. I especially like how it lowers the threshold for inclusion for effects that people would actually play, but that aren't really strong enough on their own to warrant inclusion. As of right now, my color distribution looks like:
White: 78
Blue: 71.5
Black: 77
Red: 77
Green: 77
So, Blue suggestions are most appreciated, but part of the reason for these changes is that I am a Blue player at heart and I want to force Blue to play a little bit more with themes instead of just getting by with better cards because it's my favorite color.
Also, aesthetics aren't the end-all, be-all for decision making, but they do matter. I still really want to cut the Monarch cards because I hate that mechanic (it simply does not make sense to players, I've run a few Monarch cards for a while and they're consistently underdrafted because nobody knows what they do), I'm torn as to how much I want to run the Conspiracies, and whether or not something has a foil printing matters... More than it should.
Well, OK, I think that's enough for now. If anyone has any feedback on this list, I'd really appreciate it!
Commanders:
Toshiro Umezawa
Rona, Disciple of Gix (Pauper)
Ojutai's Summons not enough impact
Kruin Striker too fragile
Werebear never reaches threshold in your current configuration
Scion of the Wild often a worse/unreliable Centaur Courser
Noggle Bandit tons of better options in izzet and there are also a lot of unblockable 2/2 for 3 around and they all lack impact
whats also noticable, the curve is off. you lack 2 drops in almost every color, especially black and white and you might want to spend at last 20 more slots exclusively on 2 drops. you want to end with around 15 2 drops in each color, except blue at 450
I also couldnt identify any archetypes. at the moment your cube more or less looks like a goodstuff cube. if you like gy synergies you can build the whole cube around it, except white all colors can support it. looting and selfmill in blue, recursion, threshold, all kinds of stuff in bg, flashback in red
have a look at my T2, I run a bunch of archetypes there but banned all cards from my T1, in case you miss something.
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
Those cards are beyond trash everywhere.
How so it literally brickwalls almost all your one and 2 drops in your cube while having the upside of drawing a card. I do play the Giant in my cube but the reason I do is because i also have a strong white weenie theme in there. I run Augur in there as well and even without the card draw it is a rather decent blocker. Yes it also doesnt fit in every deck but it fits in more than the giant IMHO.
Offtopic
But, the masses thought for centuries the earth is flat, they cant be wrong, right? True But its also true that just because one guy thinks the world is flat even though everyone else belives its round doesn't make his claim valid now does it? Like I said before I don't agree with you often, but I'll listen when you make reasonable arguments. However sometimes you do stuff like this where there is no reasoning behind the things you say or use invalid arguments like "those are all casuals" when you yourself don't know them, disagree with their choices purely to disagree. And when you do that even your valid points drown in the argument. And nobody profits from that.
Augur pretty much never draws a card. 1/3 is not a stellar statline anyway (id be surprised if it "brickwalls" more than 30% of my 2 drops), but there are like hundreds of 2 drops with it and almost all are better. Heck, better run one of the 1/3 flyer then.
Its only in so many cubes because they just add constructed commons into their cubes like Brainstorm.
But whatevs, if you find any useful things there, go on, but dont use them as arguments regarding card choices.
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
Thanks for the feedback! Every card that you mentioned other than Noggle Bandit is a bit of an "archetype" (more in a minute) card, so if they stand out on that basis they're doing their job. Of course, I want the cube to consist of "defensible inclusions that add texture," not "bad cards that suggest a theme but aren't good enough to support that theme." If Tokens decks don't want Striker or Scion, or Spells decks don't run Ojutai's Summons, then we're in a bad place.
Werebear and Noggle Bandit are older and not-quite-"archetype" cards. If the Cube isn't good enough to support Werebear, which I do disagree with you on but also keep in mind when drafting and think is a fair point, then I would rather add a bit more support for graveyard strategies then cut the Bear. It is almost a perfect example of what I'm going for, really- a card that at least faces some competition for its slot, but that its inclusion over comparable cards suggests something about the broader design of the Cube. Noggle Bandit I actually like quite a bit and consider pretty underrated. It's at least comparable to Deathcult Rogue, and these guys are great examples of why I like running Hybrid like I do. They're not bombs or even particularly high picks, but lots of decks like to pick them up as role-players. Also, remember that I'm not overly worried about balancing individual color pairs, just overall number of cards of a color. But, like I said, I appreciate the feedback- a real point of the update was to make sure there was a reason that everything was there, and knowing what stands out to people really helps with that.
The two-drops are definitely an issue that I am aware of and one that I would like feedback on. I'll re-examine Tier 2 in particular. One of the many reasons for the update and the focus on "archetypes" was that with each set, it kind of feels like the only things that get "pushed" at Common anymore lean heavily towards aggressive strategies. I'm not really an agro player. I want to support agro, because it's part of Magic, fun for a lot of people, and has its charms, but I really don't want it to be dominant. It seems like most of the two-drops are just sort of... There. Like, they're good, but they don't really do or support anything super interesting and usually just push out more interesting strategies. I want to add more two-drops, but I want them to do something more than be a generically good two-drop. Daring Skyjek is a great example of what I'm looking for- There's lots of competition for these stats and some may even be better than it, but its presence helps push towards a bit more of a go-wide strategy that rewards you for running tokens. I am VERY interested in more cards like that if anyone has suggestions, though!
"Archetype" is a bit of a misnomer. I think "synergy" is a stronger word, and even that may be a bit misleading. I want my Cube to basically look like a Common Cube. I want all the greatest hits, so calling it a "good stuff" cube really isn't far off. But if my sole interest is power level, then it turns into a bit of an agro pile that I just don't really want to support. So I'm working on adding a light finish of synergy that maybe encourages some unusual choices that give the Cube some "texture" or individual flavor, but that don't necessarily feel out of place with the "good stuff" cards. I guess you could characterize it as adding a method to how "pet cards" get added. WB Extort isn't exactly a deck, but White and Black have a lot of Extort cards, and when you have a lot of extort cards cheap spells that you can cast multiple times get a lot better than they normally appear. Spells matter cards like Seeker of the Way get a little better when you have some incentive to fill out your curve with cards that both make tokens and trigger Prowess, like Raise the Alarm. So I don't want to hit people over the head with an archetype and say "draft this plz," I want the cards to work together in ways that might surprise them.
With that said, I'll re-examine Tier 2. The absence of most of the "heavy hitters" definitely throws off evaluations there, but it does seem like a decent place to look for more interesting cards. Thank you again!
Commanders:
Toshiro Umezawa
Rona, Disciple of Gix (Pauper)
If you want to stay at 450 goodstuff is a good start, but id evolve the cube more towards archetype or synergy driven. Just go on gatherer and look up all commons with the keyword "graveyard" and you might imagine some really interesting options. you can do the same with other keywords as well.
my t1 runs spells matters and my t2 runs tokens and the mentioned cards are in neither of them
There are quite a few interesting 2 drop options available. Blue has a bunch of utility creatures. black has sac outlets, green has some ramp
there are quite a few evasive 3 drops and the better ones bring a little more to the table Dauthi Marauder Blind Zealot Soltari Visionary Thalakos Scout
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
EDIT: In case it's not coming through, one thing that might help for this info is that Cubing is not exactly new for me. I've had some version of my Common Cube for over a decade. This mostly is a drastic revision inspired be me falling behind on updates on account of a move and getting back into playing Magic as anything other than a casual fan.
I do kinda feel like you and I mean different things by "spells matter," or at least are looking for different things. That's cool though, and I'm not really committed to Summons. No Scion for tokens is a more meaningful issue.
I've looked at Gatherer for this stuff before, don't worry- it kind of spawned from my interest in a pure "graveyard cube." The problem is that Cube just seemed miserable to play unless you were an extremely enfranchised player- it was like Odyssey block if your biggest problem with that block was that it wasn't Spike-y enough. Common Cube goodstuff works with almost any player, but the better players get an advantage through recognizing synergy when it appears.
If you have examples of spicy two-drops, I'm open to them. Blue's utility creatures have seemed more generically fine than interesting or exciting? Like, great, I can get a middling blocker with some library manipulation? Black has sac outlets but many of them feel VERY out of place and feel like easy bottom-dwellers. Green could probably use more ramp, though- even though it's not necessarily a focus, ramp strategies being as bad as they were was a major inspiration for change.
I'm already running all of those other than Blind Zealot (which is *probably* cool enough to warrant inclusion, but it loses points for being a removal spell with modest synergy). I think how often people run some of these even with competition would surprise you. Hybrid counts for A LOT.
Commanders:
Toshiro Umezawa
Rona, Disciple of Gix (Pauper)
As of what archetypes are viable or T1 or whatever, that's a very old debate that has never found any satisfying answers.
Also, apparently my account along with every single post I ever made was deleted because I was unable to see some alleged popup that was supposed to tell me to accept something because I disable all popups for obvious reasons, so don't expect to hear from me again around here.
- Last Word
That sucks, but it seems you can get your account back by posting to this thread: https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/community-forums/community-discussion/804002-for-my-account-was-just-deleted-users
I drafted your cube. Seems fine.
I'm not the biggest fan of shadow because they're essentially unblockable, but your cube seems to be very removal laden so they should be fine. I have 2 Horsemanship and a Fear creature in my cube, so whatever.
I drafted mono removal essentially. I like playing midrange because I think it's maximally interactive and therefore most fun way to play. Half of my deck are basically copies of Pacifism.
I like how you categorize colors, except for Phyrexian Mana stuff. I have zero qualms counting Porcelain Legionnaire as a colorless creature and at least as far as my cube goes, it's a solid option in any deck. I drafted Rakdos Burn/Goblins last time I played and still put it into my deck. That card is probably constructed playable in Pauper Mono Green Stompy. I agree that many things are put into dual colored slots just to fill space, not because they're actually that good.
You could make an argument that ThunderIng Tanadon is a green creature because 4 life is actually kind of a cost for it, but even then, eh. I moved it to colorless in my cube because I wanted to open up a slot in green for another fun card.
Nothing really dictates that you have to have an equal amount of cards for each color. If you like the cube the way it is now then don't feel the need to change it just because you're short a handful of blue cards or whatever.
Ignoring what Magic players say isn't the answer, it's listening to what they have to say and doing the exact opposite that's correct.
So it with only the two creatures in consideration:
It bricks 67% Of all your Onedrops with killing 48%
It bricks 42% of all your Twodrops with killing 21%
It Bricks 36% of all your Threedrops with killing 4%
Sure thats a niche way to look at that but if you Curbe is filled with lots of 2 powered creatures and lots of 1 toughness creatures 1/3s are a nice early deterent for decks that usually have more than average spells anyway namely control decks. And With 22 Control relevant Instants and Sorceries in just its color alone. I think the niche of Augur of bolas in your cube is wider than the Ivory giant one, so I think Augur would be a nice addition to your cube and picked generally higher that the giant.
Thanks!
For what it's worth, I'm not actually a huge fan of Shadow either. It has its place, and I do think evasion is an important part of the game, but the generically decent two-drop Shadow creatures are a lot of what I'm thinking of when I think about 2-drops that just sort of generically see play and push out some slightly slower or more interesting strategies. I agree that removal.dec makes it manageable, but I also really feel like I have too much removal right now. The aura strategy is tough to support.
The Phyrexian counting is basically a concession to some drafting biases more than anything else. Legionnaire is basically a colorless card agro card, but the color printed on the card seems to give people more pause than it should. Orzhov decks probably want Gitaxian Probe more often than not, but the number that run them wouldn't necessarily support that thought. With that said, I'm not fundamentally opposed to just making them Colorless, since they basically are anyway.
My big example from Cubetutor is the near-universal adoption of Court Hussar in UW, making it more ubiquitous than Sea Gate Oracle. I just don't think there is any reason for that to be the case. Hussar is marginally better in WU, but goes in far fewer decks (and has less incidental synergy). If a card isn't good enough for a monocolor section, I don't want to run it in a multicolor spot just so I can say the section is balanced.
I support general color balance, but I think that balance looks different in other colors. People just don't draft all ten pairs equally often, or in the same way. It would not be hard for me to fill Blue up with cards that I like and are good enough- I would just like to prioritize archetype stuff first.
EDIT: Also, just a quick aside on Brainstorm: I ran it until very recently, but was never under the impression that it was any good. In fact, I repeatedly referred to it as the worst card in my Cube. What I liked about it, though, was that it was basically our equivalent of a "junk rare." You know, like how sometimes people overvalue cards that are mediocre at best in their limited environment because of their reputation as Constructed powerhouses. People seemed to get excited when they saw it and got to play with it, and there was a certain power to "this card is a format defining common that is pretty bad here" for fostering a feel for what makes our Cube special. I doubt that's what's happening for everyone who includes it, but I do think that there is a certain curation aspect to Cubing that earns certain noteworthy cards more of a pass than they deserve on power level alone, and I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing. Also, I cut it, so clearly I no longer think it's worth it.
Commanders:
Toshiro Umezawa
Rona, Disciple of Gix (Pauper)
RE: Augur of Bolas - as the joke goes, this card's text really says: When Augur of Bolas enters the battlefield, look at the bottom three cards of your library. Then again, I consider Delver a bit of a miss for most cubes, but if cubers really want to contort their blue sections into something that can accommodate more of a spells-matters theme, I suppose it's possible to make it work.
I know some cubers have enjoyed success with the sac bears, stuff like Sultai Emissary, Doomed Dissenter, Butcher Ghoul, maybe more niche stuff like Abyssal Gatekeeper. You can overlap a bit with green/white thanks to stuff like Young Wolf/Brindle Shoat and Martyr of Dusk/Doomed Traveler/Hunted Witness, plus all of white's Raise the Alarm-type spells. It looks like you already have two premium sac outlets in the form of Carrion Feeder and Plagued Rusalka, but I think Phyrexian Ghoul / Nantuko Husk are sort of the poster boys for this kind of deck at common. If you really want to signpost it you also have Golgari Rotwurm in GB. Grim Harvest used to be a strong card (it might still be, but the Recover rules text was far too much of a hassle for us), so bringing back essentially double the creature in the form of sac bears could do some work.
My Cube (DeckStats)
My Pauper Cube: 540 (CubeTutor link!)
Level 1 Judge