I think blue aggro is barely supported in my cube, I ended up cutting a lot of blue tempo cards when shrinking the cube a bit. That included Delver, Daze, Snap, Ninja, etc. I may revisit the archetype, as I love the cards in constructed formats typically, but they felt weak as one-offs etc.
Now that you mention it, Ingester may be too weak these days. I've been meaning to throw in the blue saga from DOM, but unsure if it can just be a replacement for ingester?
Bane I think seems like an easy direct swap for Crusher, thanks!
You bring up a good point w/ cackler (and I guess hybrid cards in general). Since they're hybrid mana, they could fit in a lot more decks than a gold card would. I'll have to look into this a bit more and perhaps swap out the cackler!
Now that you mention it, Ingester may be too weak these days. I've been meaning to throw in the blue saga from DOM, but unsure if it can just be a replacement for ingester?
Don't forget that Ingester is blue removal, which is pretty rare. A control deck can play Ingester and be happy with the 2-for-1. The saga is a tempo card, so it fills a different role. Depends on what you want to do with your cube.
You bring up a good point w/ cackler (and I guess hybrid cards in general). Since they're hybrid mana, they could fit in a lot more decks than a gold card would. I'll have to look into this a bit more and perhaps swap out the cackler!
It is interesting to me that because they have a two-color color identity that people automatically categorize them the same way as gold cards, when this doesn't really make sense.
Even when I get my sealed pools and I sort everything into piles, I put hybrids in with colorless.
Broken record time: I count a hybrid card as half of each color. So rakdos cackler and murderous redcap together make one red and one black card. Kitchen finks, snakeform, and turn to mist would total up to be one green, one blue, and one white card.
Good hybrids are hard to find, but I also started counting signets this way.
Unfortunately, many of the original ravnican guildmages aren't playable in one of their two colors (azorius guildmage) so calling those hybrid would be dishonest.
Y’all work too hard for zero 6-8man drafts per decade. I admire your dedication.
I put RC in its appropriate guild slot like 6 years ago and called it a day. I didn’t notice an imbalance in yesterday’s 6man draft, nor in any of the other three dozen drafts this year. Therefore I highly doubt the theorycrafting matters.
I wouldn't notice any imbalance if I had one more blue card than white either. You could have 55 black cards, 57 blue, and 56 of everything else, plus an extra selesnya gold card to boot. I'm sure you'd never notice.
I doubt most people would notice if you had 60 of one colour and 50 of another.
For basically everything discussed here, outside of maybe evaluate everything, no one would be able to notice the difference of any particular choice unless it was specifically mentioned. But those choices do add up, which is why we're discussing them.
You all can do the number crunching for me. Report back to me with a comprehensive analysis report of where Rakdos Cackler should be and have it on my desk by the morning. I'll make sure my choices of where to put a single card doesn't unbalance my cube.
For guild-slots I feel like it is a bit more relevant. Still probably not relevant, but guild-slots are often "seeds" or "key" to arhcetypes, as well as "safe" picks for that archetype. So if Radkos cackler is supposed to signal a B/R aggro deck, it is not guaranteed that the BR aggro drafter will get the cackler, whereas Fleetfeather Cockatrice will float to the UG-flash drafter with much higher consistency.
My opinion is that this eventually comes down to personal preference on some level. We have access to so many variations of multi-colored cards that I do not think it is possible to have a consistent standard, nor do I particularly want one.
Just going through the multi-colored cards in my CUbe, I see Azorius Guildmage, Ribbons of Night, Firespout, Lingering Souls, Fire // Ice, Integrity // Intervention, Ongoing Investigation, Wild Nacatl, Rise // Fall, and Dismember. These cards do not always fit cleanly into a guild or specific color. If you cast Fire 90% of the time and Ice 10% of the time, is Fire//Ice a red spell or an Izzet spell? Would you ever play Ongoing Investigation in a deck without any green sources? Do you prioritize black-producing non-basics over other cards to help mitigate the life loss of Dismember? The answers to these questions are usually specific to the CUbe manager and their CUbe's style.
I would say try and be consistent within your own CUbe, but otherwise categorize cards as you think best for your gameplay and management style.
You all can do the number crunching for me. Report back to me with a comprehensive analysis report of where Rakdos Cackler should be and have it on my desk by the morning. I'll make sure my choices of where to put a single card doesn't unbalance my cube.
Yeah, we get it, you don't care.
But some of us actually like to talk about these minutia. You don't have to respond to these if you continue to not care.
(Come to think of it, I think bane of bala ged and/or breaker of armies is regarded as better than ulamog's crusher. I run none of them, though).
I run all three, along with Artisan of Kozilek in my kids' cube, and with a gun to my head, I'll say that Breaker of Armies is the best of the bunch. It performs as advertised (i.e. it breaks armies). Artisan is probably second, and Bane of Bala Ged and Ulamog's Crusher are probably about equal behind them.
I like the fact that Breaker of Armies is not an automatic derp-swing - you pretty much have to turn it sideways along with some other guys, resolve a combat or two, and generally interact with your opponent. It also causes some interesting play choices, in my experience (e.g. do I truly care about removing Breaker of Armies if I can at least get a saproling on the board to block it every turn, or do I just want to get rid of the 4/4 next to it that I can't block?).
Artisan's value is partially in bringing back the nastiest thing in your graveyard along with bringing its bad self along for the ride (and by the time you can resolve Artisan, you've usually got something dead and horrible).
Bane and Crusher are pretty much Eldrazi derp-swing.
Sup everyone, been reading these forums for a while - you guys have put together a lot of great information and discussion, so thanks for that!
I've been maintaining a cube for about 7 years now. Initially it was fully pauper, but in the last couple years I've transitioned it into peasant (and recently I've even been thinking about expanding to peasant+ by including painlands, the only thing holding me back is that the allied color pains are still a bit expensive since they didn't get reprinted in M15).
At the moment, I mostly draft it with player counts of 2-5, using grid drafts for 2/3 players and 5 packs of 9 for 4-5.
I finally got around to uploading it to cubetutor after my most recent update - I had previously just been using google sheets. The last round of changes was aimed at starting to promote a bit more archetype based play - tokens, sacrifice, enchantments etc. I'm a bit wary of adding cards that are too narrow in use and I also don't want to promote too linear drafting strategies, but I've been liking the small synergies that had already been popping up from stuff like crystal shard + ETB effects, tokens + pump effects, blood artist + sacrifice effects etc. so I thought I'd try to expand the possibilities for those sorts of things. Not necessarily full on decks, but synergies that promote more dynamic card evaluation during the draft, and more satisfying payoffs at playtime.
The changelog in cubetutor doesn't show the last changes since this was the first time I had uploaded it, but here are some of the newest additions I'm looking to try out:
Let me know if you have any feedback for it - I haven't tried out the latest changes yet, but it's been working out well for the last few years anyway! Feel free to give it a draft, I'm interested in seeing how you all build decks as well - I always find the deck build almost as tough as the draft itself since you always end up with a surplus of playables (though I'm hoping the newer archetype focused cards will assist with that).
For the record, there are other rare lands you can run instead of pains, like city of brass, reflecting pool, and grand coliseum.
Dual lands I think lead to worse draft experiences by diluting the pool with a lot of cards that have narrow audiences. At least with manlands they add something to gameplay.
Yeah true, I guess my primary motivation for wanting to add the pains is to give two color aggro decks more support. I feel like the tris and karoos are already plenty for multicolor control and midrange decks, but having the only sources of fixing ETB tapped makes it tougher for decks trying to curve out. A lot of my aggro decks end up being mono color or close to it for that reason. I've also been eschewing CC costed 2 drops for the most part as well.
Did several drafts of control through the cube. Drafted reasonably consistent lists. Each time I thought I was happy, and I sorta missed having bounce lands in my cube.
(Even though I don't like duals in cubes)
Nice, yeah the bouncelands are nice for control especially. I like having a fair number of lands available - as long as decks aren't devolving into 5 color goodstuff every time, which they haven't been, they just make for fewer games lost to color screw and more interesting card combinations across colors. I haven't found them to dilute the card pool too much, since the general power level is fairly high across the board, if you are 2 or more colors you'll basically always end up with a surplus of playables, so a few duals just end up being free includes in terms of deck slots. In more mana hungry control decks you can even play bouncelands that are only half on color.
I should try drafting control again - I used to draft almost exclusively grixis control back when the cube was pauper only, but now that it's peasant I've been wanting to prove to my playgroup that low-curve aggro was viable so I've been drafting that a lot recently. It has the added benefit of punishing their more durdley builds in a more dramatic fashion, so I've been hoping it would sharpen their deckbuilding skills (they are mostly more casual/newer players).
For the record, there are other rare lands you can run instead of pains, like city of brass, reflecting pool, and grand coliseum.
FWIW, City of Brass was an uncommon in it's first printing in Arabian Nights, so you can run City and technically not be breaking into peasant plus territory.
I'm showing my age a bit here, but is kor skyfisher still doing work? I find myself less and less interested in picking them up when drafting even if the body is fine.
On the other hand, considering that I depowered my cube pretty hard and... I may have left my on deck binder a few miles away from where I live, I was looking at Angel of the dawn as a stand in. I can't seem to figure out if it's reasonable enough as a stop gap measure.
Skyfisher has been still pretty good for me. A lot of the time it's a 1 mana 2/3 flyer you play along with something else on the turn you start missing land drops. A 2/3 flyer itself ends up staying relevant into the late game, and the bounce ability of course just picks up incidental value in the mid-late game when you can rebuy an ETB.
Angel of dawn seems decent, particularly for token strategies, but I feel like it's notably weaker than the other 5 drop white creatures, which are all pretty premium - though I guess if you're in the business of cutting Cloudgoat ranger, then that's no big deal.
So with this one, I found myself trying to shoehorn in a discard archetype.
I had Hymn, Hyppie, Liliana's Specter and Duress high up in the list, and not a lot else. So some of the last adds were Raiders' Wake and Larceny. I remember Raiders' Wake being pretty annoying in IXL Limited, and I've seen Larceny in some lists. Does anyone run a hardcore discard theme in their cube?
I've actually got Fell Specter in my kids' cube - it behaved pretty well at M19 pre-release.
I think blue aggro is barely supported in my cube, I ended up cutting a lot of blue tempo cards when shrinking the cube a bit. That included Delver, Daze, Snap, Ninja, etc. I may revisit the archetype, as I love the cards in constructed formats typically, but they felt weak as one-offs etc.
Now that you mention it, Ingester may be too weak these days. I've been meaning to throw in the blue saga from DOM, but unsure if it can just be a replacement for ingester?
Bane I think seems like an easy direct swap for Crusher, thanks!
You bring up a good point w/ cackler (and I guess hybrid cards in general). Since they're hybrid mana, they could fit in a lot more decks than a gold card would. I'll have to look into this a bit more and perhaps swap out the cackler!
LegacyUBRDelverRBU
Don't forget that Ingester is blue removal, which is pretty rare. A control deck can play Ingester and be happy with the 2-for-1. The saga is a tempo card, so it fills a different role. Depends on what you want to do with your cube.
It is interesting to me that because they have a two-color color identity that people automatically categorize them the same way as gold cards, when this doesn't really make sense.
Even when I get my sealed pools and I sort everything into piles, I put hybrids in with colorless.
Broken record time: I count a hybrid card as half of each color. So rakdos cackler and murderous redcap together make one red and one black card. Kitchen finks, snakeform, and turn to mist would total up to be one green, one blue, and one white card.
Good hybrids are hard to find, but I also started counting signets this way.
Unfortunately, many of the original ravnican guildmages aren't playable in one of their two colors (azorius guildmage) so calling those hybrid would be dishonest.
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
I have found it makes for fun cubing either way.
I put RC in its appropriate guild slot like 6 years ago and called it a day. I didn’t notice an imbalance in yesterday’s 6man draft, nor in any of the other three dozen drafts this year. Therefore I highly doubt the theorycrafting matters.
Doesn't make it right
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
For basically everything discussed here, outside of maybe evaluate everything, no one would be able to notice the difference of any particular choice unless it was specifically mentioned. But those choices do add up, which is why we're discussing them.
Cubetutor Peasant'ish-Funbox
Project: Khans of Tarkir Cube (cubetutor)
Just going through the multi-colored cards in my CUbe, I see Azorius Guildmage, Ribbons of Night, Firespout, Lingering Souls, Fire // Ice, Integrity // Intervention, Ongoing Investigation, Wild Nacatl, Rise // Fall, and Dismember. These cards do not always fit cleanly into a guild or specific color. If you cast Fire 90% of the time and Ice 10% of the time, is Fire//Ice a red spell or an Izzet spell? Would you ever play Ongoing Investigation in a deck without any green sources? Do you prioritize black-producing non-basics over other cards to help mitigate the life loss of Dismember? The answers to these questions are usually specific to the CUbe manager and their CUbe's style.
I would say try and be consistent within your own CUbe, but otherwise categorize cards as you think best for your gameplay and management style.
https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/peasantsnowcube
-- Updated with Outlaws of Thunder Junction
The PioneWer Peasant CUbe
https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/pionewer
-- Updated with Murders at Karlov Manor
Yeah, we get it, you don't care.
But some of us actually like to talk about these minutia. You don't have to respond to these if you continue to not care.
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
I run all three, along with Artisan of Kozilek in my kids' cube, and with a gun to my head, I'll say that Breaker of Armies is the best of the bunch. It performs as advertised (i.e. it breaks armies). Artisan is probably second, and Bane of Bala Ged and Ulamog's Crusher are probably about equal behind them.
I like the fact that Breaker of Armies is not an automatic derp-swing - you pretty much have to turn it sideways along with some other guys, resolve a combat or two, and generally interact with your opponent. It also causes some interesting play choices, in my experience (e.g. do I truly care about removing Breaker of Armies if I can at least get a saproling on the board to block it every turn, or do I just want to get rid of the 4/4 next to it that I can't block?).
Artisan's value is partially in bringing back the nastiest thing in your graveyard along with bringing its bad self along for the ride (and by the time you can resolve Artisan, you've usually got something dead and horrible).
Bane and Crusher are pretty much Eldrazi derp-swing.
My Stupidly Large Number of Current Decks
PucaTrade with me!
The Multiplayer Power Rankings
Cube: the Gittening (My Multiplayer Cube) - MTGS Cube List | @ CubeTutor
The N00b Cube (Peasant cube for new players) - MTGS Cube List | @ CubeTutor
I've been maintaining a cube for about 7 years now. Initially it was fully pauper, but in the last couple years I've transitioned it into peasant (and recently I've even been thinking about expanding to peasant+ by including painlands, the only thing holding me back is that the allied color pains are still a bit expensive since they didn't get reprinted in M15).
At the moment, I mostly draft it with player counts of 2-5, using grid drafts for 2/3 players and 5 packs of 9 for 4-5.
I finally got around to uploading it to cubetutor after my most recent update - I had previously just been using google sheets. The last round of changes was aimed at starting to promote a bit more archetype based play - tokens, sacrifice, enchantments etc. I'm a bit wary of adding cards that are too narrow in use and I also don't want to promote too linear drafting strategies, but I've been liking the small synergies that had already been popping up from stuff like crystal shard + ETB effects, tokens + pump effects, blood artist + sacrifice effects etc. so I thought I'd try to expand the possibilities for those sorts of things. Not necessarily full on decks, but synergies that promote more dynamic card evaluation during the draft, and more satisfying payoffs at playtime.
The changelog in cubetutor doesn't show the last changes since this was the first time I had uploaded it, but here are some of the newest additions I'm looking to try out:
amongst others!
Anyway, here's a link to my list: http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/124025
Let me know if you have any feedback for it - I haven't tried out the latest changes yet, but it's been working out well for the last few years anyway! Feel free to give it a draft, I'm interested in seeing how you all build decks as well - I always find the deck build almost as tough as the draft itself since you always end up with a surplus of playables (though I'm hoping the newer archetype focused cards will assist with that).
Dual lands I think lead to worse draft experiences by diluting the pool with a lot of cards that have narrow audiences. At least with manlands they add something to gameplay.
Anyway I'll draft
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
(Even though I don't like duals in cubes)
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
I should try drafting control again - I used to draft almost exclusively grixis control back when the cube was pauper only, but now that it's peasant I've been wanting to prove to my playgroup that low-curve aggro was viable so I've been drafting that a lot recently. It has the added benefit of punishing their more durdley builds in a more dramatic fashion, so I've been hoping it would sharpen their deckbuilding skills (they are mostly more casual/newer players).
FWIW, City of Brass was an uncommon in it's first printing in Arabian Nights, so you can run City and technically not be breaking into peasant plus territory.
MTGS Average Peasant Cube 2023 Edition
Follow me. I tweet.
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
On the other hand, considering that I depowered my cube pretty hard and... I may have left my on deck binder a few miles away from where I live, I was looking at Angel of the dawn as a stand in. I can't seem to figure out if it's reasonable enough as a stop gap measure.
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
So I dont need replacements or anything
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
Angel of dawn seems decent, particularly for token strategies, but I feel like it's notably weaker than the other 5 drop white creatures, which are all pretty premium - though I guess if you're in the business of cutting Cloudgoat ranger, then that's no big deal.
So with this one, I found myself trying to shoehorn in a discard archetype.
I had Hymn, Hyppie, Liliana's Specter and Duress high up in the list, and not a lot else. So some of the last adds were Raiders' Wake and Larceny. I remember Raiders' Wake being pretty annoying in IXL Limited, and I've seen Larceny in some lists. Does anyone run a hardcore discard theme in their cube?
I've actually got Fell Specter in my kids' cube - it behaved pretty well at M19 pre-release.
My Stupidly Large Number of Current Decks
PucaTrade with me!
The Multiplayer Power Rankings
Cube: the Gittening (My Multiplayer Cube) - MTGS Cube List | @ CubeTutor
The N00b Cube (Peasant cube for new players) - MTGS Cube List | @ CubeTutor