I'm going to chime in and echo mrbrightside's comment. I don't like the changes you've made 100%, but ~95% goes a long way to when you're changing 20% of a cube. Your analysis and suggestions complete two goals well: improve the raw quality of the cube, and retain the essence of what the cube was originally designed for (via deduction, of course). This is the kind of cube content I love to read or hear about.
I think it would certainly be interesting to try, but doubling the mana cost while having the targets might not be worth the bonus of a card. I'd love to hear from someone who tested it though.
I've been playing with both cards. They haven't seen much play in my cube yet (few opportunities to cube) but I did once have someone Stifle and Bind my Kiki-Jiki (for defense w/ Lightning Angel) in consecutive turns to prevent me from winning against his army. Might not see a better story than that with these cards for quite a while.
Bind is another card that is better in tempo-oriented decks, and I have also tailored my green section with playing on the stack in-mind moreso than most cubes.
Prince sounds cool. I think it go with peasant and pauper. If you were looking for the P sound, at least.
Otherwise, probably traditional or regular.
I tend to use the words "regular" or "traditional" (as well as "unpowered") myself when referring to my cube. This lets the person I'm talking to know that it is the normal style of cube without any major theme changes/restrictions (like "Combo", or "Tribal", etc.), and is not format specific (like "Standard", when that word has specific connotations in Magic).
I feel like maybe either the token should be renamed or it should perform the function of actual Thunderbolt, to prevent confusion. It's a really flavorful card as-is, so I hesitate, but maybe there's another word you can use.
Drunken Reveler:
I think this one should be separated into two abilities. One is "Drunken Reveler attacks each turn if able." and the other is "Drunken Reveler must be blocked if able." (See: Goblin Fire Fiend)
Human Wave Tactics:
Consider perhaps "Play this ability only on your turn." This adds to the "wave" aspect of the card, and also prevents an Opposition/Glare of Subdual instant-speed soft lock effect in black, particularly with your intended skeleton resurrection sub-theme.
Master Trainer:
It's not as flavorful, but "Other Gladiators you control get +1/+1." gets the job done just as easily (slightly stronger) and is a lot more elegant. If you wanted, you could consider an ability with a moderate/high cost (3-4 mana?) that let you tap it and give another gladiator an additional bonus until end of turn to symbolize "training" that person with combat/fighting today.
Grima's Supplicant:
My thoughts on this card change depending on your intentions. I would consider changing this to "...dies, return up to two other skeleton creatures from your graveyard to the battlefield tapped." Or, if you want to be able to bring itself back, "...return Grima's Skeleton and up to one other target skeleton creature..."
I've used the common template that both targets and specifies "up to" for clarity, but returning without targeting is still a valid option if there's a specific reason for it.
Be aware that the ability to bring itself back is really powerful even though it costs 4 and is merely a 2/2. Determining whether you want this to be a Spike card or a Johnny card will be key.
Giant of Sunder Pass:
I really want to like this card, and the flavor is right (though I would expect a Giant to be red?), this may need to be bigger in general for it to work correctly, and may need either a helper ability or a different trigger, since even the loftly Sengir Vampire hardly ever grows in size. At the current size/abilities, I would expect this to be a 4-mana uncommon, and then be an average draft pick.
I'd also say that based on the experiences you've noted and the presence of fast mana definitely makes Capsize a better for your cube than a card that hasn't performed to its fullest for you in a while. I imagine it's a bit different than in my cube where fast mana is omitted, and I also just like build-around-ish cards like Gifts.
Recoil and this card in a deck would make me feel really cool. Now if I could get a Barrin's Spite into the cube somehow...
I can tell you're joking, but truthfully you are your cube's owner. You can do whatever you want, and if it means taking out a card with a higher objective power level to play with something that directs your drafts/games the way you want them to be drafted/played, you can do that.
It's the same reason I think arguing about where classifying cards is a no-win situation. If you'd rather have Far//Away than a gold card, or a hybrid card, or a black card, or a blue card, or would include it as an 'other' section card... just DO IT. You've made a conscious choice to include it over whichever cards you're taking out for it, and you (and perhaps your playgroup) are the one that determines that that is the best decision for what your cube needs and how it plays.
How has the balance between power-level of individual cards weighed against the 'fun factor' or 'uniqueness' of effects, affected what choices you made when including cards? Like, Zameck Guildmage (a decent draft pick, but not common in cubes) alongside cube powerhouse staples (Swords of X and Y). Your cube has a lot of these cards that look really fun to see what happens when they're put together, and less of the typical just 'best cards in magic' that many cubes have (I imagine this is partly due to how you started liking cube, with the booze cube).
Basically, it would be cool to know the decisions that led you to how you developed your list compared to others. Have you played some other cubes and just didn't want the same experience?
I figure whatever the answers are to these questions, it's probably cool to keep them in mind in the future whenever you update your cube, to make sure it's always the cube that *you* want to play.
Loved you on the Joy of Cubing episode. Keep up the 'whole being' awesome thing.
I really loved playing with this card while it was in Standard, and I had it in my cube for a long while as a tool that both control and aggro decks could use.
Unfortunately it's just very mana-intensive, so it's gotten cut in favor of more universally-powerful white creatures/spells. I could see trying it out again at 720. Also keep in mind, though, that it performs a lot like a 4-mana spell when you have the right mana and it might take a lot of cards in your cube before it can compare favorably to the majority of other 3- and 4-mana spells on average.
Gruul is so hard to break into, what about Burning-Tree Emissary? A very valid pick for RG agro imo.
Turn 2 - Burning-Tree Emissary and 2 drop?
Or
Turn 2 - Burning-Tree Emissary and 1 drop and bolt your 1 drop?
Seems pretty good.
Thoughts?
I'm not going to be playing Burning-Tree Emissary, but if it's good, it's likely be because it works well with equipment (play him + equip a sword/jitte in same turn).
Plus, not all the cubes are fully updated in eidolon's thread yet. At the end of the block, that number may go even higher. And ya, to go from almost nothing to having 20+% of the cubes using it is a pretty big swing.
I haven't had myself in his stats for a while and you could count me as playing the Pox package too.
I've been playing with both cards. They haven't seen much play in my cube yet (few opportunities to cube) but I did once have someone Stifle and Bind my Kiki-Jiki (for defense w/ Lightning Angel) in consecutive turns to prevent me from winning against his army. Might not see a better story than that with these cards for quite a while.
Bind is another card that is better in tempo-oriented decks, and I have also tailored my green section with playing on the stack in-mind moreso than most cubes.
I tend to use the words "regular" or "traditional" (as well as "unpowered") myself when referring to my cube. This lets the person I'm talking to know that it is the normal style of cube without any major theme changes/restrictions (like "Combo", or "Tribal", etc.), and is not format specific (like "Standard", when that word has specific connotations in Magic).
Cyclops Thundersmith:
I feel like maybe either the token should be renamed or it should perform the function of actual Thunderbolt, to prevent confusion. It's a really flavorful card as-is, so I hesitate, but maybe there's another word you can use.
Drunken Reveler:
I think this one should be separated into two abilities. One is "Drunken Reveler attacks each turn if able." and the other is "Drunken Reveler must be blocked if able." (See: Goblin Fire Fiend)
Human Wave Tactics:
Consider perhaps "Play this ability only on your turn." This adds to the "wave" aspect of the card, and also prevents an Opposition/Glare of Subdual instant-speed soft lock effect in black, particularly with your intended skeleton resurrection sub-theme.
Master Trainer:
It's not as flavorful, but "Other Gladiators you control get +1/+1." gets the job done just as easily (slightly stronger) and is a lot more elegant. If you wanted, you could consider an ability with a moderate/high cost (3-4 mana?) that let you tap it and give another gladiator an additional bonus until end of turn to symbolize "training" that person with combat/fighting today.
Grima's Supplicant:
My thoughts on this card change depending on your intentions. I would consider changing this to "...dies, return up to two other skeleton creatures from your graveyard to the battlefield tapped." Or, if you want to be able to bring itself back, "...return Grima's Skeleton and up to one other target skeleton creature..."
I've used the common template that both targets and specifies "up to" for clarity, but returning without targeting is still a valid option if there's a specific reason for it.
Be aware that the ability to bring itself back is really powerful even though it costs 4 and is merely a 2/2. Determining whether you want this to be a Spike card or a Johnny card will be key.
Giant of Sunder Pass:
I really want to like this card, and the flavor is right (though I would expect a Giant to be red?), this may need to be bigger in general for it to work correctly, and may need either a helper ability or a different trigger, since even the loftly Sengir Vampire hardly ever grows in size. At the current size/abilities, I would expect this to be a 4-mana uncommon, and then be an average draft pick.
Sweet! Congrats!
I can tell you're joking, but truthfully you are your cube's owner. You can do whatever you want, and if it means taking out a card with a higher objective power level to play with something that directs your drafts/games the way you want them to be drafted/played, you can do that.
It's the same reason I think arguing about where classifying cards is a no-win situation. If you'd rather have Far//Away than a gold card, or a hybrid card, or a black card, or a blue card, or would include it as an 'other' section card... just DO IT. You've made a conscious choice to include it over whichever cards you're taking out for it, and you (and perhaps your playgroup) are the one that determines that that is the best decision for what your cube needs and how it plays.
How has the balance between power-level of individual cards weighed against the 'fun factor' or 'uniqueness' of effects, affected what choices you made when including cards? Like, Zameck Guildmage (a decent draft pick, but not common in cubes) alongside cube powerhouse staples (Swords of X and Y). Your cube has a lot of these cards that look really fun to see what happens when they're put together, and less of the typical just 'best cards in magic' that many cubes have (I imagine this is partly due to how you started liking cube, with the booze cube).
Basically, it would be cool to know the decisions that led you to how you developed your list compared to others. Have you played some other cubes and just didn't want the same experience?
I figure whatever the answers are to these questions, it's probably cool to keep them in mind in the future whenever you update your cube, to make sure it's always the cube that *you* want to play.
Loved you on the Joy of Cubing episode. Keep up the 'whole being' awesome thing.
Yeah, these seem good to me, too.
Unfortunately it's just very mana-intensive, so it's gotten cut in favor of more universally-powerful white creatures/spells. I could see trying it out again at 720. Also keep in mind, though, that it performs a lot like a 4-mana spell when you have the right mana and it might take a lot of cards in your cube before it can compare favorably to the majority of other 3- and 4-mana spells on average.
I'm not going to be playing Burning-Tree Emissary, but if it's good, it's likely be because it works well with equipment (play him + equip a sword/jitte in same turn).
I haven't had myself in his stats for a while and you could count me as playing the Pox package too.
Yeah, I can NOT wait to play this guy.