I actually was just going ask the same question. I have not posted much (at all?) to these boards but I've been lurking here for quite a few years. I'll be in Vegas, and I want nothing more than some hot hot cube action. If anyone is in Vegas and is looking for a couple of friendly extra cube folks (I'll have a friend with me) please give me a shout and I'll happily draft cube with you!
Thanks all for the replies (meant to respond earlier but got lazy then didn't want to necro my own thread)
Big Jim-
I liked artifacts in MMA, but I can see what you mean about being isolated and blink fitting in with the value creatures you would include in other colors. On the topic of isolation, how does the BR Sac theme fit in with its various shards and wedges?
Also, has anyone fooled around with a tempo/bounce based archetype in simic? It seems like the bounce fits well with a UW blink strategy on your own value creatures, well with the midrangey green ramp so you can get ahead stay ahead, and well with whatever blue control elements there end up being.
Oooh, Pod is a good idea - another neat card that just doesn't shine in a singleton environment. Is there anything else that behaves similarly to Pod? It could probably sit at uncommon since it takes so much work to be good. Persist could also work well with a more grindy value based reanimator theme.
BR Sac Stuff definitely seems like it could work, and could potentially spill into some of the tokens theme. Tempt With Vengeance + Goblin Bombardment + Blood Artist would be a fun way to win out of nowhere. Could also spill over with the spells matter subtheme via Young Pyromancers.
As a dedicated Limited Resources acolyte, I cannot bring myself to play fogs, even when they are good (really I just think you need so many darn fog effects that it's not practical. I do like prison decks though, and turbo fog is almost that)
I've been lurking here for a while, so figured I ought to make an inaugural post something long and of interest to no one but myself:
I was staring at a copy of Mind's Desire today, willing it to be better in Cube, when several ideas I've been kicking around came together. I have a fully powered cube, which I love dearly, but a few members of my playgroup find it a little too much (the complaint I've heard is too many of the spells DO too much, which seems like the point to me). I've also built a draft set of ROE and INN using the 3-2-1-1 method, which I feel has worked out pretty well, but is a bit tame for my tastes. I really enjoyed MMA, and was in the process of building a draft set, when I decided that it might be more fun to build my own custom limited set from existing cards which sits between a normal magic expansion and cube in terms of power level, complexity, interaction and archetypes. Good stuff decks should be buildable and fine, but going into a dedicated archetype and building well would reward you with a better deck.
I think having a dedicated archetype per color pair would be a good starting point (taking a note from MMA for sure), and I would want all the theaters (aggro, midrange, control, combo, combinations thereof with some luck) to be represented either in the archetypal expressions or just available to hack together. I think the structure would work out best if commons were backbone and worked at least decently in most of the color pairs you could make, uncommons were the real meat of the archetypes, and the rares pushed you super hard in a specific archetype direction, but weren't singularly unbeatable - real build around me cards (which have been discussed quite a bit around here).
The archetypes I though up so far are as follows, with some card thoughts included - lot's of holes here, could use some help:
Azorius - artifacts, ala MMA? Blink?
Orzhov - stax (braids and bitterblossom at rare, stax, gravecrawler, bloodghast at unc)
Dimir - reanimator? (rec. nightmare at rare?) artifacts instead of in UW?
Izzet - spells matter / storm (Mind's Desire, Wheel of Fortune at rare, Empty at uncommon)
Rakdos - ??? probably something aggressive. The sacrifice deck from M14 was interesting.
Golgari - Dredge
Gruul - ??? all I can think of is midrange beats, which is not much of an "archetype:, and maybe Wildfire of the back of some mana dorks rather than artifacts
Boros - ??? probably something hyper aggressive
Selesnya - Tokens? Super ramp (Mirrari's Wake being the thing that made me think that way)
Simic - ??? tempo of some sort is the only thing that immediately pops to mind, with Edric and Opposition being pretty tempting rares
Any feedback at all appreciated as I start to rough out a list (especially of the "man, I did this like 3 years ago, here is my list variety").
Big Jim-
I liked artifacts in MMA, but I can see what you mean about being isolated and blink fitting in with the value creatures you would include in other colors. On the topic of isolation, how does the BR Sac theme fit in with its various shards and wedges?
Also, has anyone fooled around with a tempo/bounce based archetype in simic? It seems like the bounce fits well with a UW blink strategy on your own value creatures, well with the midrangey green ramp so you can get ahead stay ahead, and well with whatever blue control elements there end up being.
BR Sac Stuff definitely seems like it could work, and could potentially spill into some of the tokens theme. Tempt With Vengeance + Goblin Bombardment + Blood Artist would be a fun way to win out of nowhere. Could also spill over with the spells matter subtheme via Young Pyromancers.
As a dedicated Limited Resources acolyte, I cannot bring myself to play fogs, even when they are good (really I just think you need so many darn fog effects that it's not practical. I do like prison decks though, and turbo fog is almost that)
Thanks for the thoughts.
I've been lurking here for a while, so figured I ought to make an inaugural post something long and of interest to no one but myself:
I was staring at a copy of Mind's Desire today, willing it to be better in Cube, when several ideas I've been kicking around came together. I have a fully powered cube, which I love dearly, but a few members of my playgroup find it a little too much (the complaint I've heard is too many of the spells DO too much, which seems like the point to me). I've also built a draft set of ROE and INN using the 3-2-1-1 method, which I feel has worked out pretty well, but is a bit tame for my tastes. I really enjoyed MMA, and was in the process of building a draft set, when I decided that it might be more fun to build my own custom limited set from existing cards which sits between a normal magic expansion and cube in terms of power level, complexity, interaction and archetypes. Good stuff decks should be buildable and fine, but going into a dedicated archetype and building well would reward you with a better deck.
I think having a dedicated archetype per color pair would be a good starting point (taking a note from MMA for sure), and I would want all the theaters (aggro, midrange, control, combo, combinations thereof with some luck) to be represented either in the archetypal expressions or just available to hack together. I think the structure would work out best if commons were backbone and worked at least decently in most of the color pairs you could make, uncommons were the real meat of the archetypes, and the rares pushed you super hard in a specific archetype direction, but weren't singularly unbeatable - real build around me cards (which have been discussed quite a bit around here).
The archetypes I though up so far are as follows, with some card thoughts included - lot's of holes here, could use some help:
Azorius - artifacts, ala MMA? Blink?
Orzhov - stax (braids and bitterblossom at rare, stax, gravecrawler, bloodghast at unc)
Dimir - reanimator? (rec. nightmare at rare?) artifacts instead of in UW?
Izzet - spells matter / storm (Mind's Desire, Wheel of Fortune at rare, Empty at uncommon)
Rakdos - ??? probably something aggressive. The sacrifice deck from M14 was interesting.
Golgari - Dredge
Gruul - ??? all I can think of is midrange beats, which is not much of an "archetype:, and maybe Wildfire of the back of some mana dorks rather than artifacts
Boros - ??? probably something hyper aggressive
Selesnya - Tokens? Super ramp (Mirrari's Wake being the thing that made me think that way)
Simic - ??? tempo of some sort is the only thing that immediately pops to mind, with Edric and Opposition being pretty tempting rares
Any feedback at all appreciated as I start to rough out a list (especially of the "man, I did this like 3 years ago, here is my list variety").
Thanks!