Having recently returned to updating my cube after leaving it untouched for the last six months I think that I finally understand how to pitch the cube I'm trying to build. My gaming group are not magic players. They are boardgame players who occasionally play magic. This is important because it means that they often have a difficult time with more sophisticated decks like 3-4 color control and combo/reanimator.
After playing with my group for about a year, it has become clear that many cards that are considered to be "cube staples" by those on this forum were never being used by my playgroup. I've finally cut them. I'm not posting an update here, as it is all contained on the Blog tab on CubeTutor. These changes have changed the way I think about my cube. My goal is not to build the most powerful cube that can be built. My goal is to build a cube that people of different skill levels can play and all have fun. I think the best way of accomplishing that goal is to design a cube with a heavy focus on aggro and creatures. Thus, I now think of my cube as an Aggro themed cube. Control will always be viable, and I do support ramp, but my goal is for early game creature-based decks to be among the strongest options. If you look at my creature counts in the analysis tab on CubeTutor, you will notice that 41.4% of the cards in my cube are creatures, while in the CubeTutor 360 average cube 38.1% of the cards are creatures and in Wtwlf123's cube 35.8% are creatures.
With these newly stated goals in mind, I would love any feedback any of you might have on how I can best accomplish this goal. I'm pretty happy with the cube as it currently stands, but it is missing a few powerful cards that are too expensive to pick up now, but also too cheap to both making nice proxies for. Here are the pending changes as funds become available:
Knight of Meadowgrain -> Brimaz, King of Oreskos - $19
Merfolk Looter -> Snapcaster Mage - $26
Aether Adept -> Vendilion Clique - $54
Psionic Blast -> Cryptic Command - $44
Cyclonic Rift -> Bribery - $13
Smallpox -> Thoughtseize - $15
Doom Blade -> Damnation - $35
Experiment One -> Noble Hierarch - $52
Wild Mongrel -> Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary - $19
Call of the Herd -> Natural Order - $30
Spike Jester -> Geist of Saint Traft - $13
Knight of the Reliquary -> Vindicate - $18
Precursor Golem -> Karn Liberated - $36
Sword of Vengeance -> Umezawa’s Jitte - $30
Gemstone Mine -> Mana Confluence - $10
Thanks for the suggestions. They were helpful as always! I've gone ahead and edited the post to reflect the current changes after your feedback.
I am still going to be cutting the card drawing walls from white and green because they have been very lackluster every time they've actually made the main deck. I'll put them back in if I go up to 450 cards at some point.
The other thing to note is that I don't support combo at all with this cube so the loss of Reveillark, outside of it's combo capabilities, is not that bad. It's never won a game on its own, unlike its competitors Cloudgoat Ranger, Baneslayer Angel, and Sun Titan. I'm willing to be convinced otherwise, however.
After drafting a ton over the winter break, I've gotten pretty extensive feedback from my playgroup. The main complaint was with the strength of green ramp. The other complaint was that white aggro needed a little boost. Last, people have finally had enough of Sol Ring, so I'm hoping to find a replacement artifact. So, here are the current changes:
These are just some misc changes. I've been progressively cutting reanimator cards from the list and, as noted, my playgroup has complained about the brokenness of Sol Ring.
How does Entreat the Angels compare to Decree? We recently put Decree back to support tokens. Do you prefer Entreat the Angels?
Entreat costs one mana less to use even without miracle, and with miracle it is incredibly cheap. The only thing you lose out on with Entreat is the ability to cycle it, but Decree was rarely cycled back when we ran it.
I like both those cards and Disenchant way more than the Paladin. I'm working on cutting my cube down to 450 and Paladin is certainly getting cut. I don't see how it competes at 360.
He's been good for us, but dealt with easily. I'm happy to defer to your experience in this case and cut the paladin.
The Commander 2013 cards are finally up on CubeTutor, so my list is now fully up to date!
I don't like a lot of your cuts, and I think calling Dark Ritual, Time Spiral, and Wheel of Fortune combo cards is really selling them short. I also would run Disenchant in a cube of any size. Dark Ritual and Wheel of Fortune are pretty great in aggro decks and any control deck should want Time Spiral.
My cuts would be:
Silverblade Paladin
Gifts Ungiven
Liliana Vess
Devil's Play
I like many of your suggested cuts as Liliana, Gifts, and Devil's Play were all on the chopping block when I was considering what to drop for the new cards. You are probably right that the draw 6's are good in non-combo decks. It may just be our fault for not building our decks so as to use them effectively. I'll give them a stay of execution for a while, but they may not last the year.
However, I'm not a huge fan of cutting an aggressive creature like Silverblade Paladin in white to add a non-creature spell. Our W/x aggro decks already have a hard enough time getting enough creatures to be workable. If Disenchant stays, then how about cutting either Wall of Omens or Mana Tithe? I like both of these cards, especially Tithe, but cutting them hurts control more than aggro.
Leviathan hasn’t seen much play since we don’t really support artifact decks. Kira was a victim of the cut down to 360, and I’m glad to be bringing her back. Also, the Tinker plan for Leviathan never really gets off the ground since there aren’t a ton of mana rocks/cheap artifacts to sac to tinker. Those that are in the list typically get snatched up by G/x ramp decks. I think I will have to fully address the current Tinker situation in a future update. I either need to increase support for it with more cheap artifacts and big creatures or cut it entirely. Which would you prefer, given the rest of my list?
Gifts has never been great in my cube, while Thassa, on the other hand, is a great card even without devotion. But with all the devotion sources in my list I think she’ll be a high impact addition.
Liliana Vess has never gotten her ultimate off in my experience and her other abilities are decidedly mediocre. I'm hoping that the new curse will have a bigger impact.
I’m cutting Mind Twist not because it has been underperforming, but because everyone hates it. Every time someone taps out and says discard your hand the game stops being fun.
Finally got a Strix in the commander precon, so I’m adding it to Dimir and cutting another multicolored card. I decided to cut Venser since he seemed to be getting the least play out of the ~30 multicolor cards in my list.
I'll update my CubeTutor link with these updates once the Commander 2013 cards get added to the database.
Making a test swap to 360 unpowered is also a possibility after discussion with the players.
I'd love to see what your unpowered list would look like as I have an unpowered 360 that is already pretty similar to yours. I had actually asked my group if they'd like to play test adding power to my cube and I was surprised to find out that most wanted to keep it unpowered.
Newest update has been finalized into the change log. I've also renamed the thread to be about an unpowered cube, rather than a budget cube, after changing the proxy rules.
I've finalized the new set of changes. These changes are a result of deciding to increase the power level of my cube by allowing some proxies in (and because I've decided to move hybrid cards back to the multicolor section)
Since cards like Armageddon are necessary for aggro decks to keep up with control decks in the mid game, I decided that adding another one would help their cause. And it seemed like white aggro could use a bit more reach and I think that the angel is the perfect card for that. The other two changes are staples that I finally bought and I cut the only cards I could think of to fit them in.
Tonight we had our first draft with the 360 version posted in the OP:
2-1 U/B Control
2-1 G/B Reanimator/Ramp (Me)
1-2 Mono White
1-2 G/W Midrange
As usual, the swords, when they resolved, were backbreaking (especially sword of body and mind which I used to deck my opponent in a couple games). The control magic and clone effects were also pretty backbreaking since most of us were playing some big creatures. My loss in game two came on the back of a stolen Grave Titan, and mono white lost one of their games because of a stolen Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, which was subsequently cloned.
I'm seriously considering proxying the ABU duals and the fetch lands to improve the mana base of the cube. I might also proxy a couple cards that I'll never afford (e.g. Ravages of War, Mana Drain, Tarmogoyf, Library of Alexandria, etc.). A benefit of this is that the cube would no longer be a budget cube, merely an unpowered one, allowing for several more broken plays. But, I feel kind of weird about putting fake cards in the cube. So, does anyone here have experience with using proxies in the cube? What was your experience like?
Then I updated the mana base of the cube, improving it significantly. The next improvement will be to add fetches, but that will cost ~$250, so that is a long term goal.
I cut the vivid lands since they promote running 4-5 color control, an archetype I'm not interested in pushing. I replaced them with some general purpose colorless lands and snuck Cursed Scroll back in since I hadn't wanted to cut it in the first place.
Finally got around to picking up the shock lands. Following Rantipole's advice, I cut the bouncelands from the non-U color pairs and the check lands from the U color pairs since control decks like bouncelands.
Ranger of Eos -> Flickerwisp
I love Ranger, but flicker effects are really nice and tons of people seem to play the wisp. I figure there is a reason for that. I also can't find anything else that is cuttable in my white creature section.
Spear of Heliod -> Faith's Fetters
I love anthems, but Fetters is just too good to leave out of the cube. I had originally cut it because it is a card that hurts aggro, but I'm not sure that that is a good enough reason to exclude it any more. I'm not sure what else I would cut other than the anthem, but if people have suggestions, I'm open to them.
Tattermunge Maniac -> Spikeshot Elder
I don't know why people don't like the Maniac, but I don't see him in anyone's lists. On the contrary, Spikeshot seems to be in just about every list I look at. This would be a provisional change to see if Spikeshot can pull its weight.
Squee, Goblin Nabob -> Gore-House Chainwalker
Squee is great, but I don't run Survival of the Fittest, so his utility decreases greatly. On the other hand, supporting aggro is one of my primary goals in R and the Chainwalker is a nice addition for furthering that goal.
Steam Augury -> Electrolyze
Steam Augury sounded really nice, but the more I think about it, the fact that your opponent chooses which pile you receive makes it much less appealing. This is basically reverting a change I made a week ago where I cut Electrolyze for Augury.
Simic Sky Swallower -> Edric, Spymaster of Trest
I like both of these cards, but I only have room for 3 multicolor cards of each type. So one of them has to be cut. I've waffled back and forth between these two cards a lot, so I'm curious which one people prefer and why.
On the lands, I'd keep the bouncelands for the blue pairs and run the check lands in the others. Aggro decks don't love the check lands but they like them more than the bouncelands. I especially like the bouncelands in UR and UG.
Cheers,
rant
Not running a full cycle of lands seems like a reasonable way of supporting both archetypes. I'll try it out.
Another option, that I just thought of, would be to cut the vivid lands (which aren't great) and 5 other cards (probably a combo of colorless lands a couple artifacts) and just include all the shock lands without cutting any duals. That would move the list up to 4 lands for each color pairing (pain, shock, check, bounce). But, this might be a bit too much for a 360 card cube.
After playing with my group for about a year, it has become clear that many cards that are considered to be "cube staples" by those on this forum were never being used by my playgroup. I've finally cut them. I'm not posting an update here, as it is all contained on the Blog tab on CubeTutor. These changes have changed the way I think about my cube. My goal is not to build the most powerful cube that can be built. My goal is to build a cube that people of different skill levels can play and all have fun. I think the best way of accomplishing that goal is to design a cube with a heavy focus on aggro and creatures. Thus, I now think of my cube as an Aggro themed cube. Control will always be viable, and I do support ramp, but my goal is for early game creature-based decks to be among the strongest options. If you look at my creature counts in the analysis tab on CubeTutor, you will notice that 41.4% of the cards in my cube are creatures, while in the CubeTutor 360 average cube 38.1% of the cards are creatures and in Wtwlf123's cube 35.8% are creatures.
With these newly stated goals in mind, I would love any feedback any of you might have on how I can best accomplish this goal. I'm pretty happy with the cube as it currently stands, but it is missing a few powerful cards that are too expensive to pick up now, but also too cheap to both making nice proxies for. Here are the pending changes as funds become available:
Merfolk Looter -> Snapcaster Mage - $26
Aether Adept -> Vendilion Clique - $54
Psionic Blast -> Cryptic Command - $44
Cyclonic Rift -> Bribery - $13
Smallpox -> Thoughtseize - $15
Doom Blade -> Damnation - $35
Experiment One -> Noble Hierarch - $52
Wild Mongrel -> Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary - $19
Call of the Herd -> Natural Order - $30
Spike Jester -> Geist of Saint Traft - $13
Knight of the Reliquary -> Vindicate - $18
Precursor Golem -> Karn Liberated - $36
Sword of Vengeance -> Umezawa’s Jitte - $30
Gemstone Mine -> Mana Confluence - $10
I am still going to be cutting the card drawing walls from white and green because they have been very lackluster every time they've actually made the main deck. I'll put them back in if I go up to 450 cards at some point.
The other thing to note is that I don't support combo at all with this cube so the loss of Reveillark, outside of it's combo capabilities, is not that bad. It's never won a game on its own, unlike its competitors Cloudgoat Ranger, Baneslayer Angel, and Sun Titan. I'm willing to be convinced otherwise, however.
Wall of Blossoms -> Wolfir Silverheart
Deadbridge Goliath -> Terastodon
Birthing Pod -> Pelakka Wurm
Note: We don't currently have Avenger of Zendikar, Thornling, or Karn Liberated, but those are definitely on the radar for improving green ramp.
Wall of Omens -> Knight of Meadowgrain
Reveillark -> Lone Missionary
Note: I hate cutting these cards but I love all my white cards. I'm sure people would rather I cut something else, so I am open to suggestions.
Exhume > Contagion
Sol Ring > Worn Powerstone
These are just some misc changes. I've been progressively cutting reanimator cards from the list and, as noted, my playgroup has complained about the brokenness of Sol Ring.
Entreat costs one mana less to use even without miracle, and with miracle it is incredibly cheap. The only thing you lose out on with Entreat is the ability to cycle it, but Decree was rarely cycled back when we ran it.
He's been good for us, but dealt with easily. I'm happy to defer to your experience in this case and cut the paladin.
The Commander 2013 cards are finally up on CubeTutor, so my list is now fully up to date!
I like many of your suggested cuts as Liliana, Gifts, and Devil's Play were all on the chopping block when I was considering what to drop for the new cards. You are probably right that the draw 6's are good in non-combo decks. It may just be our fault for not building our decks so as to use them effectively. I'll give them a stay of execution for a while, but they may not last the year.
However, I'm not a huge fan of cutting an aggressive creature like Silverblade Paladin in white to add a non-creature spell. Our W/x aggro decks already have a hard enough time getting enough creatures to be workable. If Disenchant stays, then how about cutting either Wall of Omens or Mana Tithe? I like both of these cards, especially Tithe, but cutting them hurts control more than aggro.
WWW
DisenchantSilverblade Paladin -> Unexpectedly AbsentCutting the Paladin at Rantipole's recommendation for Unexpectedly Absent.
UUU
Inkwell Leviathan -> Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
Leviathan hasn’t seen much play since we don’t really support artifact decks. Kira was a victim of the cut down to 360, and I’m glad to be bringing her back. Also, the Tinker plan for Leviathan never really gets off the ground since there aren’t a ton of mana rocks/cheap artifacts to sac to tinker. Those that are in the list typically get snatched up by G/x ramp decks. I think I will have to fully address the current Tinker situation in a future update. I either need to increase support for it with more cheap artifacts and big creatures or cut it entirely. Which would you prefer, given the rest of my list?
Sea Gate Oracle -> True-Name Nemesis
Strict upgrade. Sea Gate Oracle was the most mediocre blue creature in my list.
Time SpiralGifts Ungiven -> Thassa, God of the SeaGifts has never been great in my cube, while Thassa, on the other hand, is a great card even without devotion. But with all the devotion sources in my list I think she’ll be a high impact addition.
BBB
Ob Nixilis, the Fallen -> Ophiomancer
Ob Nixilis has never really impressed and Ophiomancer should be decent. We’ll keep this change until we see how Ophiomancer works out.
Dark RitualLiliana Vess -> Curse of Shallow GravesLiliana Vess has never gotten her ultimate off in my experience and her other abilities are decidedly mediocre. I'm hoping that the new curse will have a bigger impact.
Mind Twist -> Toxic Deluge
I’m cutting Mind Twist not because it has been underperforming, but because everyone hates it. Every time someone taps out and says discard your hand the game stops being fun.
RRR
Wheel of FortuneDevil's Play -> Gore-House ChainwalkerCutting high mana cards that weren't being played in favor of strengthening R's strength: fast aggro.
WUBRG
Venser, the Sojourner -> Baleful Strix
Finally got a Strix in the commander precon, so I’m adding it to Dimir and cutting another multicolored card. I decided to cut Venser since he seemed to be getting the least play out of the ~30 multicolor cards in my list.
I'll update my CubeTutor link with these updates once the Commander 2013 cards get added to the database.
I'd love to see what your unpowered list would look like as I have an unpowered 360 that is already pretty similar to yours. I had actually asked my group if they'd like to play test adding power to my cube and I was surprised to find out that most wanted to keep it unpowered.
Mirari's Wake -> Exalted Angel (via a reclassification of Dryad Militant to G/W).
Unburial Rites -> Ravages of War (proxy) (via a reclassification of Lingering Souls to B/W).
Ajani, Caller of the Pride -> Elspeth, Knight-Errant
Parallax Wave -> Land Tax
Since cards like Armageddon are necessary for aggro decks to keep up with control decks in the mid game, I decided that adding another one would help their cause. And it seemed like white aggro could use a bit more reach and I think that the angel is the perfect card for that. The other two changes are staples that I finally bought and I cut the only cards I could think of to fit them in.
Sphinx of Jwar Isle -> Faerie Conclave
Cyclonic Rift -> Mana Drain (proxy)
Into the Roil -> Force of Will (proxy)
Frantic Search -> Remand
Replacing some under performing blue cards with some more powerful cards and giving blue its man land back.
Living Death -> Sarcomancy
Tidehollow Sculler -> Reassembling Skeleton (via a reclassification of Murderous Redcap to B/R)
Graveborn Muse -> Dark Confidant (proxy)
Sheoldred, Whispering One -> Ob Nixilis, the Fallen
Entomb -> Hero's Downfall
I noticed that I was missing a couple 1-2 drops in black so I cut a few more of the reanimator cards in order to better support black aggro.
Terminate -> Devil's Play (via a reclassification of Rakdos Cackler to B/R)
Mizzium Mortars -> Lightning Strike
Rift Bolt -> Chain Lightning
Some upgrades to my red burn cards.
Oracle of Mul Daya -> Tarmogoyf (proxy).
Phantom Centaur -> Vengevine
City of Traitors -> Hornet Queen (via a reclassification of Kitchen Finks to G/W)
Power upgrades while allowing for some unbalancing between the multicolor and colorless sections.
Fire // Ice -> Ral Zarek
Coldsteel Heart -> Sol Ring
Thran Quarry -> Wasteland (proxy)
Strict upgrades.
2-1 U/B Control
2-1 G/B Reanimator/Ramp (Me)
1-2 Mono White
1-2 G/W Midrange
As usual, the swords, when they resolved, were backbreaking (especially sword of body and mind which I used to deck my opponent in a couple games). The control magic and clone effects were also pretty backbreaking since most of us were playing some big creatures. My loss in game two came on the back of a stolen Grave Titan, and mono white lost one of their games because of a stolen Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, which was subsequently cloned.
Then I updated the mana base of the cube, improving it significantly. The next improvement will be to add fetches, but that will cost ~$250, so that is a long term goal.
Out:
In:
I cut the vivid lands since they promote running 4-5 color control, an archetype I'm not interested in pushing. I replaced them with some general purpose colorless lands and snuck Cursed Scroll back in since I hadn't wanted to cut it in the first place.
Out:
In:
Finally got around to picking up the shock lands. Following Rantipole's advice, I cut the bouncelands from the non-U color pairs and the check lands from the U color pairs since control decks like bouncelands.
Possible cuts to add them:
Ranger of Eos -> Flickerwisp
I love Ranger, but flicker effects are really nice and tons of people seem to play the wisp. I figure there is a reason for that. I also can't find anything else that is cuttable in my white creature section.
Spear of Heliod -> Faith's Fetters
I love anthems, but Fetters is just too good to leave out of the cube. I had originally cut it because it is a card that hurts aggro, but I'm not sure that that is a good enough reason to exclude it any more. I'm not sure what else I would cut other than the anthem, but if people have suggestions, I'm open to them.
Tattermunge Maniac -> Spikeshot Elder
I don't know why people don't like the Maniac, but I don't see him in anyone's lists. On the contrary, Spikeshot seems to be in just about every list I look at. This would be a provisional change to see if Spikeshot can pull its weight.
Squee, Goblin Nabob -> Gore-House Chainwalker
Squee is great, but I don't run Survival of the Fittest, so his utility decreases greatly. On the other hand, supporting aggro is one of my primary goals in R and the Chainwalker is a nice addition for furthering that goal.
Steam Augury -> Electrolyze
Steam Augury sounded really nice, but the more I think about it, the fact that your opponent chooses which pile you receive makes it much less appealing. This is basically reverting a change I made a week ago where I cut Electrolyze for Augury.
Simic Sky Swallower -> Edric, Spymaster of Trest
I like both of these cards, but I only have room for 3 multicolor cards of each type. So one of them has to be cut. I've waffled back and forth between these two cards a lot, so I'm curious which one people prefer and why.
Not running a full cycle of lands seems like a reasonable way of supporting both archetypes. I'll try it out.
Another option, that I just thought of, would be to cut the vivid lands (which aren't great) and 5 other cards (probably a combo of colorless lands a couple artifacts) and just include all the shock lands without cutting any duals. That would move the list up to 4 lands for each color pairing (pain, shock, check, bounce). But, this might be a bit too much for a 360 card cube.