BIG update. Too much has happened to contain it in a simple in-out-log (partially because I lost track), so there's just the updated list. Enjoy:
Cube Size: 450 Breakdown: 69 Each Color, 40 Guild, 30 Land(plus the guild ones), 35 Colorless Type of Cube: Silverblack, Peasant, C/Ube, call it what you want; I only include cards printed as commons or uncommons Average Number of Players: 2 (Winston, Solomon, Cascade etc.) How Often Drafted: several times a month Location: Near Bern, Switzerland. If you want to play with it, don't hesitate to PM me. Version: Complete AVR update, June 2012
Card Selection Proxies: Only for testing purposes Portal: I like Fire Imp too much to exclude him Snow: Not opposed per se, but no card strong enough, no snow basics "Un" Cards: No Banned Cards: Sol Ring and Library of Alexandria are banned because what's a clear first pick in powered 360s can't be quite fair in peasant cubes. Land Tax is waay too strong too. Skullclamp got cut. Only cards that are really uncommon or common according to Gatherer are considered, hence no Juzám Djinn or such.
Furthermore, I choose not to play with cards that feel out of place. Chill to the Bone, while undoubtably powerful, feels awkward in a non-snow environment to me. For the same reason, I exclude shadow guys, morph (except for Gathan Raiders, which are strong enough even without the element of surprise), and some black removal mostly. I don't run any cards that hose a single color besides Knight of Infamy. Errata: No, all cards are played according to their oracle wording.
Cube Design Standard or Multiplayer: Standard Sideboards?: Yes, but no sideboard specific cards in cube Cards Sorted As Played/As Written: As Played
I got into cubing when I read of Tom LaPille's cube, then of Adam Styborski's Pauper cube and eventually, it must have been summer 2010, my buddy suggested actually making an own one. It initially included rares, that is to say those rares that I had lying around. Drana was an absolute bomb, for instance. It was horrible by any standards, but already tons of fun. In December 2010, I started to take things more seriously, limited the cube to uncommons and commons to give it more profile. We still experimented a lot with some horrible cards. As of fall 2011, the cube sleeves were upgraded from crappy transparent ones to Ultra Pro matte black and the feeling is incomparably better. That somehow made me more serious in the card choices, I'm a lot more critical with new cards since it feels more "serious". Shortly afterwards, I decided to kick all white-bordered cards and that improves the feeling of the cube by quite a huge margin again.
I play with Konfusius' Cube regularly. It's always a very valuable source of input, so thanks for that (and for the awesome gameplay experience). It's also his cube thread's opening post that I used to generate this, so thanks again.
There are tons of other people who have contributed, so thanks to my buddy Adrian, with whom I cube most of the time, to all the guys around the forums here, and to everyone who has donated cards or let me trade favorably for the cube.
Special thanks to anyone who is willing to offer critical advice on the cube.
White is the color with the most creatures, making it a very potent offensive color. There are a great many one- and two-drops, assisted by a few fliers in the upper mana slots they can make for a great aggressive deck. I'm very happy with the token subtheme, it's proven very strong in practice. I'm always looking for more token pumpers than just two. White can contribute little to control decks, except for great removal.
Blue's main strength lies in control. You might notice the early creatures with a big butt. They are unorthodox, but they have proven vital for a blue slow deck to overcome creature-based decks. I try to make blue tempo viable through cheap evasive beaters and tempo spells like bounce spells. I am always looking for more good blue tempo cards. Blue contributes virtually nothing to fast aggro.
Black is an allrounder color. It has aggressive early drops as well as the tools to stall to a late game. It loves to grind out the opponent, and that's something to be aware of since these attrition wars can be uninteresting. I am experimenting with a reanimator subtheme here. No Entomb makes it a little hard to fill the graveyard, that's why combining with blue or red for looting is usually necessary for black reanimator. The only thing black fails to have is four- and five-drops that just smash face, as would be crucial for midrange strategies. I've been trying to stack up on GY and sacrifice shenanigans. This change is still somewhat underway.
Red is highly aggressive. What's known as "sligh" is pretty potent in this format since some of the best burn ever is here. Surprisingly, red can also contribute a lot to control decks with the multiple-target burn. It doesn't contribute real finisher creatures to that, though. Red's creatures usually run the risk of becoming outclassed as the game progresses. I am thinking of a suicidal/token subtheme. Not sure where to take this, though.
Green essentially has two paths to go: midrange or ramp. Midrange in this case means accelerating to 4-5 mana and then playing hitters like Blastoderm, ramp means reaching 6+ mana as quickly as possible. Green's main strength are the super efficient creatures, but it lacks in creature removal. Note that I deliberately excluded green aggressive one-drops. The two-drops are there, but the one-drops use up too much space in the cube seeing as they're pretty narrow and not even that good.
I decided to implement the guild system with my cube for maximum flexibility. R/W for instance wants neither a Karoo nor a Signet, so it gets two extra spells. Every guild has five cards. I like the flexibility that this gives me, though there are obviously holes. Boros is stuffed to the brim with, uh, nothing, while I could Selesnya twice with cards I'm happy with. Currently, we're in a kind of super-kafkaesque transition before Gatecrash, so nothing's set in stone here. I think I'll go up a card per guild, but that's uncertain as the most shallow guilds are in GTC.
So, the hybrid cards. In a convoluted calculation, I cut a monocolored card for every two hybrids of that color. That can lead to either adding two A/B hybrids and cutting one each of A and B, or adding an A/B, a B/C and a C/A hybrid for an A, a B and a C.
And because no one reads the spoilers, here's a few bullet points that might give you more understanding of the cube than the full list. Just a few statements of what's in and what's not.
White has a strong token subtheme. Intangible Virtue is the poster child. It certainly helps that most of white's tokens fly.
Green has some token action going on as well, so that kinda supports the white token strategy. Green's token cards, however, are less of the Midnight Haunting variant and more of either the Imperious Perfect (one a turn) or Grizzly Fate (huge ones) variant.
Red is getting a - surprise - token subtheme. The token cards are worse than in white or green, but the idea is to have these tokens be rather suicidal with Battle Cry, Tears of Rage, Raid Bombardment, Hissing Iguanar... We're not using the tokens per se, but we use them to activate lots of abilities. Goblin Bombardment is the poster child for this. This is not fully implemented yet and might turn out to be disastrous...
Black has gotten a major overhaul and is looking waay better than before. Black can sacrifice too, with Thoughtpicker Witch and Carrion Feeder. To this purpose, black has quite some "multiple" creatures in Marsh Flitter, Moan of the Unhallowed, Pawn of Ulamog, Reassembling Skeleton etc. This overlaps with red's suicidal tokens.
Blue has a rather strong tempo component and I like that. Blue and white can blink a little.
What I've liked a lot in blue are early defensive creatures. In my experience, these are crucial to blue control's success.
The cube is at a point where everything works as desired, that's why I'm experimenting with more unorthodox choices. Might add some character to the cube.
Specialities about the cube: U tempo, B aggro, R slow-ish are supported. G aggro is not.
Currently trying to support tokens in all colors but blue, in different ways: W pumps them, B sacrifices them, R suicides them, G has decent-sized ones.
cube list outdated
*literal C/U definition according to gatherer
**some cards are banned. Library of Alexandria, Land Tax, Sol Ring.
To get things going, I'll suggest a few changes that I plan to make in the near future. Discuss whether or not you like them, suggest alternate outs/ins et cetera. It's this time of year again when I go through my cube and cull the weak. I've found two to three cards per color, so it was about time...
Survival Cache and Alabaster Mage are not worth it anymore in my cube, that's why I would like to cut them. Stonecloaker and Descendant are cards I've seen in other peasant cube lists. Momentary Blink --> Cloudshift is to test of Momentary Blink is justified as a white card.
I'm once again starting with cuts. Wing Splicer looks promising, I have no idea how Bouncer escaped me so far and the AVR cards look very promising so far. Crystal Shard and Standstill look a lot more exciting than Volition Reins and the playable, but unexciting Divination.
The Rats lead to grinding games which I don't like too much and the other cards have been given their time to shine, but they didn't, so they're being cut. I'll probably wait until AVR to decide what should come in.
Is the first one reasonable? I honestly don't know which I prefer. Perfect looks very good and the strength of another one-mana accelerator outweighs the repetitive gameplay it can create.
Anything I've left out? Any stupid card that's still in?
Specialities about the cube: U tempo, B aggro, R slow-ish are supported. G aggro is not.
Currently trying to support tokens in all colors but blue, in different ways: W pumps them, B sacrifices them, R suicides them, G has decent-sized ones.
cube list outdated
*literal C/U definition according to gatherer
**some cards are banned. Library of Alexandria, Land Tax, Sol Ring.
Had a (very) quick scan through and I noticed you're not running Trusty Machete? I think it's better than Vulshok Morningstar if nothing else, although ideally I'd run both.
I always thought a worse Bonesplitter is bad. Might be that this extra toughness ends up pretty relevant. Might add it over Chalice of Life...
Specialities about the cube: U tempo, B aggro, R slow-ish are supported. G aggro is not.
Currently trying to support tokens in all colors but blue, in different ways: W pumps them, B sacrifices them, R suicides them, G has decent-sized ones.
cube list outdated
*literal C/U definition according to gatherer
**some cards are banned. Library of Alexandria, Land Tax, Sol Ring.
Specialities about the cube: U tempo, B aggro, R slow-ish are supported. G aggro is not.
Currently trying to support tokens in all colors but blue, in different ways: W pumps them, B sacrifices them, R suicides them, G has decent-sized ones.
cube list outdated
*literal C/U definition according to gatherer
**some cards are banned. Library of Alexandria, Land Tax, Sol Ring.
Descendant has always been ok, never amazing. He pretty much only gets played in slow-ish WU decks around here. He's a fine dude, but I've considered cutting him for something more aggressive.
I like Chittering Rats. A lot. I tried to create a grindy BG Rock archetype in my cube with value dudes, some removal and a bit of reanimation, and that guy is a stable.
All six of these cards have been in my cube as some point. I prefer Growth to Explore, but I think they're both fine cards. I like people being able to draft a four or five color deck if they're willing to commit heavily to green and prioritize mana fixing. Emissary has been ok, not spectacular, but he's great in the BG deck I mentioned. The Ambush is lackluster, in my opinion.
Thanks for your feedback. I like the "grindy BG rock", as you described it, to exist and I think there's still enough support for it, 3 mana 2/2 with an ETB ability seems to be black and green's strength. I would like my black to become a little more smash-face-y after I had drafted a pretty cool BR aggro and decided I wanted more of that. So fewer black value cards and more black beaters.
Might add the rats back in at some point in the future.
Coastal piracy has worked like once or twice over here, and that's quite a long time ago. I absoultely love Ophidians, but Coastal Piracy has never really done enough to justify a four mana enchantment that doesn't affect the board. If you're connecting with blue, you're either a controlling blue deck that's finishing, in which case Piracy is win more, or you're a blue tempo deck à la UW skies and in that case you might as well play a bounce spell, a beater, or hold up mana for a counter. Piracy is admittedly good in the second scenario, but not good enough to make up for the times it does nothing.
Specialities about the cube: U tempo, B aggro, R slow-ish are supported. G aggro is not.
Currently trying to support tokens in all colors but blue, in different ways: W pumps them, B sacrifices them, R suicides them, G has decent-sized ones.
cube list outdated
*literal C/U definition according to gatherer
**some cards are banned. Library of Alexandria, Land Tax, Sol Ring.
I'm glad that you've made your list public. The fact that you run 450 cards means we get to see choices that don't fit other peasant cubes.
Quick question though. Any particular reason that you include Student of Warfare? That card happens to be a rare.
Oopsie. That's from the cube list I tapped to make my own. That escaped my eyes somehow. Will fix it of course, this has nothing to do in a peasant cube.
Specialities about the cube: U tempo, B aggro, R slow-ish are supported. G aggro is not.
Currently trying to support tokens in all colors but blue, in different ways: W pumps them, B sacrifices them, R suicides them, G has decent-sized ones.
cube list outdated
*literal C/U definition according to gatherer
**some cards are banned. Library of Alexandria, Land Tax, Sol Ring.
So... in the middle of a medium-sized cube update, and already thinking of a big one:
I'm getting really intrigued by the idea of reducing my guild section. A lot. I consider cutting the guild section to 40 cards (-19), adding the refuges (or, where the refuges are in place of the karoos, the karoos), adding 9 colorless cards, mostly utility lands, and then maybe one card per color. This would mean the following:
Less multicolor. Most everyone who's done something similar is very happy with it and if I see what I'm cutting, I don't feel too sad for it. In GW and GR, there are a few hard cuts, but everywhere else, it's not too hard. It's effectively 3 cards per combination, with RW getting an extra card instead of the karoo because no one wants that.
More fixing. I run a lot less than most and a little more couldn't possibly hurt.
More utility lands. I like Konfusius' "lotsa lands" experiment and there are a few that should be considered here.
The cards being cut would be:
Esper Cormorants
Deft Duelist
Recoil
Cavern Harpy
Torrent of Souls
Terminate
Firespout
Gruul Signet
Ancient Grudge
Behemoth Sledge
Enlisted Wurm
Selesnya Signet
Mortify
Jilt
Deadly Allure
Life//Death
Stun Sniper
Snakeform
Leafdrake Roost
As I said, nothing is too sad except for Enlisted Wurm and Behemoth Sledge. The adds would be:
Tectonic Edge
Stalking Stones
Dread Statuary
Quicksand
Desert // the utility lands, are these reasonable?
Trusty Machete
Mortarpod
Darksteel Sentinel //Miscellaneous Artifact stuff that I happen to like
Prismatic Lens? Coldsteel Heart? Pierce Strider? Any other cuts for one of these?
I'm pretty fond of the outs, but not too sure on the ins. Any feedback, alternate cuts, alternate adds, or other stuff you notice are as always very welcome. I'll probably do a huge overhaul once I have the AVR cards.
Specialities about the cube: U tempo, B aggro, R slow-ish are supported. G aggro is not.
Currently trying to support tokens in all colors but blue, in different ways: W pumps them, B sacrifices them, R suicides them, G has decent-sized ones.
cube list outdated
*literal C/U definition according to gatherer
**some cards are banned. Library of Alexandria, Land Tax, Sol Ring.
Mortify
Does Orzhov really want a signet over this?
Snakeform
Has Lorescale been performing better than this? Id personally drop Lorescale Coatl over this. Snakeform has been very good removal for those colors while the Coatl just doesnt do enough and gets killed easily before hes able to make a difference.
Tectonic Edge
I personally like Ghost Quarter just a little bit better than Tectonic but I also run both in my cube right now.
Desert
I have some reserved feelings about this card. Is this going to reliably help against aggro? I dont fault you for trying it out tho and would like to hear your results with it.
Mortify
Does Orzhov really want a signet over this?
Snakeform
Has Lorescale been performing better than this? Id personally drop Lorescale Coatl over this. Snakeform has been very good removal for those colors while the Coatl just doesnt do enough and gets killed easily before hes able to make a difference.
Tectonic Edge
I personally like Ghost Quarter just a little bit better than Tectonic but I also run both in my cube right now.
Desert
I have some reserved feelings about this card. Is this going to reliably help against aggro? I dont fault you for trying it out tho and would like to hear your results with it.
Thank you for your feedback. Why do you prefer Ghost Quarter over Edge? Quick activation speaks for the Quarter, actually screwing your opponent for the Edge. I can't really destroy a fixing land with the Quarter, and I can wait with an utility land until my fourth turn. Is it the extra mana?
The multicolor alternatives: You're probably right.
The mana stones: Mortify over Orzhow Signet means I'd only have five signets left and I love me some mana stones too, I once had a deck with five of them in Konfusius' unpowered 450. Letting you play big-impact spells early is pretty good. My choices would probably be Mind Stone (already in), Coldsteel Heart, Guardian Idol (what about that?), Prismatic Lens in that order. Four plus the signets feels alright.
In other news, is Barbarian Ring good? and how about Keldon Megaliths?
Specialities about the cube: U tempo, B aggro, R slow-ish are supported. G aggro is not.
Currently trying to support tokens in all colors but blue, in different ways: W pumps them, B sacrifices them, R suicides them, G has decent-sized ones.
cube list outdated
*literal C/U definition according to gatherer
**some cards are banned. Library of Alexandria, Land Tax, Sol Ring.
Barbarian Ring is only playable in aggressive decks with a decent amount of burn spells. Even then, it's difficult to activate reliably. I'm thinking about cutting it. I don't have any experience with Keldon Megaliths, but it certainly seems playable.
How is Stitched Drake working out for you? I want to run him to better support blue tempo, but the UU in his casting cost is really discouraging me as blue would be the secondary color in most decks he would see play in.
How is Stitched Drake working out for you? I want to run him to better support blue tempo, but the UU in his casting cost is really discouraging me as blue would be the secondary color in most decks he would see play in.
I don't feel like I have enough data right now. The UU is prohibitive and might be a reason why I don't have enough data: It's not maindecked too often. However, it does exactly what you (and I) want: Help Ux skies decks.
By the way, AVR holds quite a lot for that archetype. The flying Jellyfish and the new Serendib are both very valuable for that kind of deck.
Specialities about the cube: U tempo, B aggro, R slow-ish are supported. G aggro is not.
Currently trying to support tokens in all colors but blue, in different ways: W pumps them, B sacrifices them, R suicides them, G has decent-sized ones.
cube list outdated
*literal C/U definition according to gatherer
**some cards are banned. Library of Alexandria, Land Tax, Sol Ring.
I think Fettergeist is probably less ideal for Ux skies than Stitchded Drake. I cant see wanting to drop him if there is more than one other creature on the field...
Have you ever considered Wormfang Drake? I ran him in my previous cube which was about the size of yours but he didn't make the cut for this time around. He was great in control/midrange decks with a strong ETB theme. Also, a card that I absolutely LOVE for UB is Cavern Harpy, in the right deck it can be pretty close to unbeatable and creates endless loops with ETB creatures. I'm not running it now but that is only because I can't seem to find one.
I noticed your colorless section is really tight. There a couple really high quality artifact creatures that you should consider including.
Darksteel Sentinel: This guy is so good! He is usually drafted very high for us and is one of the stronger creatures in my cube.
Pierce Strider: Hill Giant sucks, but Hill Giant with Lightning Bolt stapled to it with no color requirements is really, really good. It fits into Aggro, Reanimator, Blink, ect...
Okay, Fettergeist is probably really not stellar in skies. I tried out Wormfang Drake, but the problem was that this doesn't add a body to the table. I like what it's trying to do, namely being a relevant body whilst enabling EtB shenanigans, but it never worked. Cavern Harpy is being cut because I severely downsize my multicolor section. It is a sweet card, but it hasn't worked since last summer or so, it doesn't do something that its color combination typically wants and it's outclassed by other UB cards.
Part of the consequence of the multicolor downsize is a land/colorless upsize, which will feature the refuges, a few utility lands and the cards you mentioned. How many fixing nonbasics do you run? I've always run very, very few of them and I'd like to change that now. Adding both refuges and the original tapduals seems a little redundant as well as unfair to enemy color pairs, but I guess there's no fix for the latter... Are the fetches good?
Specialities about the cube: U tempo, B aggro, R slow-ish are supported. G aggro is not.
Currently trying to support tokens in all colors but blue, in different ways: W pumps them, B sacrifices them, R suicides them, G has decent-sized ones.
cube list outdated
*literal C/U definition according to gatherer
**some cards are banned. Library of Alexandria, Land Tax, Sol Ring.
I run about 40 non basics in my cube, and I could probably cut that down to 35 without a sweat. My land section is the ony part of my cube that is not strictly common/uncommon as I run pain lands for the color pairs that support aggro (basically all the ones without blue)
Rough list:
5 Vivids
5 Shards of Alara Tri-Lands
City of Brass
Mirrodin's Core
Gemstone Mine
Rupture Spire
Terramorphic Expanse
Evolving Wilds
4 Blue karoo lands from Ravnica block
6 Pain lands that dont have blue
5 Refugees
Treetop Village
Faerie Conclave
Ghitu Encampment
Mishra's Factory
Stalking Stones
I'm sure I'm missing some here... also, it's not perfectly balanced. I need to work on this section of my cube a little bit.
I don't think there is a way to make the land section fair to the enemy pairs without using rares, which is something I'm not comfortable with.
The Mirage fetches seem fine, but they're not any better than the Invasion tap lands (except for a few random scenarios like landfall or shuffling for Top).
Thanks for the statements, looks like I'm not too far off with my land count, at least after the update. People around this forum recommend 10% lands in cube, but in peasant, it seems that there are not enough fixing lands to accomplish that. I'll jubilate the day they print enemy color duals.
BG probably prefers the Karoo and Tainted Field doesn't quite do what I want it to, namely allow me to curve Knight of Meadowgrain into Vampire Nighthawk. Also, awfully hard to balance. I might cut Orzhov Basilica for it to see how it performs...
Specialities about the cube: U tempo, B aggro, R slow-ish are supported. G aggro is not.
Currently trying to support tokens in all colors but blue, in different ways: W pumps them, B sacrifices them, R suicides them, G has decent-sized ones.
cube list outdated
*literal C/U definition according to gatherer
**some cards are banned. Library of Alexandria, Land Tax, Sol Ring.
As you might have read in the posts above, I'm on the point of making a medium-sized restructuring which, among other things, adds more lands. One of the lands I'm going to add is Stalking Stones, it's not in yet. Therefore I have no data about it... I'm really not sure if it will ever be good at all, my plan is to throw it in and see what happens. The big update is not taking place until after the prerelease of AVR, when I have the new cards and one or two to sell online to buy the cheap commons no one is carrying around with them.
Specialities about the cube: U tempo, B aggro, R slow-ish are supported. G aggro is not.
Currently trying to support tokens in all colors but blue, in different ways: W pumps them, B sacrifices them, R suicides them, G has decent-sized ones.
cube list outdated
*literal C/U definition according to gatherer
**some cards are banned. Library of Alexandria, Land Tax, Sol Ring.
Stalking Stones is not an exciting card. But it's perfectly playable in control decks that don't have enough threats. If I think my manabase can support it, I'll usually run it in my control decks (though, if I'm splashing a third color, that's pretty unlikely). I don't know of anything better to replace it with, so its spot in my cube is secure for now.
Anyway, I wanted to ask NewbornMuse about a few specific cards in this list.
Totem-Guide Hartebeest: Are there really decks with enough auras in them to support this guy?
Plasma Elemental: How often does this get played? He seems so fragile.
Hunter's Insight: I remember thinking I wanted to try this out when M12 was released, but apparently I never got around to it. Has this been good?
Stalking Stones is great if your mana base doesn't have issues and you think you can/should get to 6 mana, because then you can run it as a land. If you ever happen to get to 6, you can convert it to a hill giant. The ability for a land to be drafted and not take up the slot of a playable is an excellent upside.
I agree with the general consensus on Stalking Stones. It will probably never win you a game by itself, but in a 2 color control deck it can be a solid card. Not to mention the Tempest art is pretty cool.
Good question actually. I've never compared the two directly, but now that you mention it.. Alright, let's do this:
Hunter's Insight has the chance to draw you, like, a ton of cards* as opposed to the steady stream that Triumph of Ferocity provides. Insight draws them the moment you pay three mana, Triumph makes you wait a little longer, though it can potentially draw more cards if the game goes long. I'd say that's a slight advantage for Insight.
Then there's the conditions. Triumph requires you to have the biggest dude on board. From my experience, green can accomplish that pretty easily, so it should be fairly easy to activate. Hunter's Insight is a little tougher, you need your non-Blastoderm beater to connect. That's not happening too often, that's usually the creature they block and not the one they let through. Insight is also weak to response removal. I think the conditions point goes to Triumph, as it helps satisfy its own requirement by drawing you extra cards.
What about the times it goes horribly wrong, when you can't activate either and are behind on board? Obviously, neither one does anything in that scenario and they have the same cost, so that's even. However, what if you manage to catch up? You can play Triumph before the fattie if you have nothing else to do. Once you do land your fattie, you're probably still outnumbered, so your fattie won't be able to attack unblocked, if you can afford to attack at all. Clear point to Triumph.
All in all, it's probably the Triumph. Green Phyrexian Arena looks solid and Hunter's Insight is maybe a little too high variance. It's funny because when I started writing this, I didn't know what I'd end up with in the end, but now I think it's pretty clear.
* I once was in magical christmasland where a suspended Keldon Halberdier came back, I burnt the opponent's blocker, played Invigorate and Hunter's Insight for eight cards. I won that game..
Totem-Guide Hartebeest doesn't require you to play a lot of auras, you just need one. It's not a toolbox card but a card advantage generator. Even if Pacifism is the only target you have, a 2/5 that fetches a removal is nice in my book. I agree that my aura count is currently a little low, I might raise it a little in the future if that happened to come easy.
Plasma Elemental was experimental and didn't make it. I will cut it when shiny new AVR cards are there.
Specialities about the cube: U tempo, B aggro, R slow-ish are supported. G aggro is not.
Currently trying to support tokens in all colors but blue, in different ways: W pumps them, B sacrifices them, R suicides them, G has decent-sized ones.
cube list outdated
*literal C/U definition according to gatherer
**some cards are banned. Library of Alexandria, Land Tax, Sol Ring.
I was thinking pretty much the same thing with regards to Triumph of Ferocity. There are an abundance of chump blockers in the format, especially in white, that can keep the fatty fatty from connecting.
Have you thought about Thunderous Wrath? I want miracle to work! This seems like its Peasan't best chance... though without mircale it is a bit pricey. However, your cube is 450 and you seem to be pretty open to experimenting
Cube Size: 450
Breakdown: 69 Each Color, 40 Guild, 30 Land(plus the guild ones), 35 Colorless
Type of Cube: Silverblack, Peasant, C/Ube, call it what you want; I only include cards printed as commons or uncommons
Average Number of Players: 2 (Winston, Solomon, Cascade etc.)
How Often Drafted: several times a month
Location: Near Bern, Switzerland. If you want to play with it, don't hesitate to PM me.
Version: Complete AVR update, June 2012
Card Selection
Proxies: Only for testing purposes
Portal: I like Fire Imp too much to exclude him
Snow: Not opposed per se, but no card strong enough, no snow basics
"Un" Cards: No
Banned Cards: Sol Ring and Library of Alexandria are banned because what's a clear first pick in powered 360s can't be quite fair in peasant cubes. Land Tax is waay too strong too. Skullclamp got cut. Only cards that are really uncommon or common according to Gatherer are considered, hence no Juzám Djinn or such.
Furthermore, I choose not to play with cards that feel out of place. Chill to the Bone, while undoubtably powerful, feels awkward in a non-snow environment to me. For the same reason, I exclude shadow guys, morph (except for Gathan Raiders, which are strong enough even without the element of surprise), and some black removal mostly. I don't run any cards that hose a single color besides Knight of Infamy.
Errata: No, all cards are played according to their oracle wording.
Cube Design
Standard or Multiplayer: Standard
Sideboards?: Yes, but no sideboard specific cards in cube
Cards Sorted As Played/As Written: As Played
I got into cubing when I read of Tom LaPille's cube, then of Adam Styborski's Pauper cube and eventually, it must have been summer 2010, my buddy suggested actually making an own one. It initially included rares, that is to say those rares that I had lying around. Drana was an absolute bomb, for instance. It was horrible by any standards, but already tons of fun. In December 2010, I started to take things more seriously, limited the cube to uncommons and commons to give it more profile. We still experimented a lot with some horrible cards. As of fall 2011, the cube sleeves were upgraded from crappy transparent ones to Ultra Pro matte black and the feeling is incomparably better. That somehow made me more serious in the card choices, I'm a lot more critical with new cards since it feels more "serious". Shortly afterwards, I decided to kick all white-bordered cards and that improves the feeling of the cube by quite a huge margin again.
I play with Konfusius' Cube regularly. It's always a very valuable source of input, so thanks for that (and for the awesome gameplay experience). It's also his cube thread's opening post that I used to generate this, so thanks again.
There are tons of other people who have contributed, so thanks to my buddy Adrian, with whom I cube most of the time, to all the guys around the forums here, and to everyone who has donated cards or let me trade favorably for the cube.
Special thanks to anyone who is willing to offer critical advice on the cube.
White is the color with the most creatures, making it a very potent offensive color. There are a great many one- and two-drops, assisted by a few fliers in the upper mana slots they can make for a great aggressive deck. I'm very happy with the token subtheme, it's proven very strong in practice. I'm always looking for more token pumpers than just two. White can contribute little to control decks, except for great removal.
1 Gideon's Lawkeeper
1 Mother of Runes
1 Steppe Lynx
1 Icatian Javelineers
1 Doomed Traveler
1 Perimeter Captain
1 Soul Warden
1 Accorder Paladin
1 Kor Skyfisher
1 Knight of Meadowgrain
1 Lone Missionary
1 Mistral Charger
1 Stormfront Pegasus
1 Wall of Omens
1 Loyal Cathar
1 Cloistered Youth
1 Keening Apparition
1 Blinding Mage
1 Youthful Knight
1 Ballynock Cohort
1 Timely Reinforcements
1 Fiend Hunter
1 Burrenton Bombardier
1 Midnight Haunting
1 Voiceless Spirit
1 Stonecloaker
1 Aven Riftwatcher
1 Kor Hookmaster
1 Attended Knight
1 Troubled Healer
1 Kor Sanctifiers
1 Calciderm
1 Master Splicer
1 Goldnight Commander
1 Glimmerpoint Stag
1 Battle Screech
1 Seraph of Dawn
1 Spectral Procession
1 Meadowboon
1 Celestial Crusader
1 Cloudgoat Ranger
1 Shepherd of the Lost
1 Totem-Guide Hartebeest
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Sunlance
1 Harm's Way
1 Mana Tithe
1 Hyena Umbra
1 Cloudshift
1 Intangible Virtue
1 Journey to Nowhere
1 Shelter
1 Pacifism
1 Shrine of Loyal Legions
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Guardians' Pledge
1 Ghostly Prison
1 Excommunicate
1 Rally the Peasants
1 Windborne Charge
1 Blinding Beam
1 Mammoth Umbra
Blue's main strength lies in control. You might notice the early creatures with a big butt. They are unorthodox, but they have proven vital for a blue slow deck to overcome creature-based decks. I try to make blue tempo viable through cheap evasive beaters and tempo spells like bounce spells. I am always looking for more good blue tempo cards. Blue contributes virtually nothing to fast aggro.
1 Phantasmal Bear
1 Delver of Secrets
1 Kraken Hatchling
1 Wing Crafter
1 Nephalia Smuggler
1 Azure Mage
1 Welkin Tern
1 Dream Stalker
1 Halimar Wavewatch
1 Waterfront Bouncer
1 Fog Bank
1 Merfolk Looter
1 Man-o'-War
1 Fettergeist
1 Sea Gate Oracle
1 Skywinder Drake
1 Calcite Snapper
1 Stormbound Geist
1 Tandem Lookout
1 Latch Seeker
1 Talrand's Invocation
1 Tower Geist
1 Thieving Magpie
1 Clone
1 Mist Raven
1 Control Magic
1 Mnemonic Wall
1 Murder of Crows
1 Riftwing Cloudskate
1 Mulldrifter
1 Jetting Glasskite
1 Benthicore
1 Errant Ephemeron
1 Daze
1 Brainstorm
1 Force Spike
1 Ponder
1 Preordain
1 Mana Leak
1 Miscalculation
1 Counterspell
1 Memory Lapse
1 Standstill
1 Turn to Frog
1 Impulse
1 Remand
1 Exclude
1 Repulse
1 Frost Breath
1 Psionic Blast
1 Frantic Search
1 Crystal Shard
1 Compulsive Research
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Grasp of Phantoms
1 Foresee
1 Into the Roil
1 Deep Analysis
1 Dismiss
1 Drake Umbra
1 Mindculling
1 Capsize
Black is an allrounder color. It has aggressive early drops as well as the tools to stall to a late game. It loves to grind out the opponent, and that's something to be aware of since these attrition wars can be uninteresting. I am experimenting with a reanimator subtheme here. No Entomb makes it a little hard to fill the graveyard, that's why combining with blue or red for looting is usually necessary for black reanimator. The only thing black fails to have is four- and five-drops that just smash face, as would be crucial for midrange strategies. I've been trying to stack up on GY and sacrifice shenanigans. This change is still somewhat underway.
1 Diregraf Ghoul
1 Vampire Lacerator
1 Fume Spitter
1 Pulse Tracker
1 Thoughtpicker Witch
1 Carrion Feeder
1 Wretched Anurid
1 Nezumi Graverobber
1 Vampire Interloper
1 Blind Creeper
1 Fledgling Djinn
1 Knight of Infamy
1 Thrill-Kill Assassin
1 Nezumi Cutthroat
1 Reassembling Skeleton
1 Hypnotic Specter
1 Liliana's Specter
1 Vampire Nighthawk
1 Phyrexian Rager
1 Ogre Marauder
1 Necrogen Scudder
1 Demonic Taskmaster
1 Fleshbag Marauder
1 Pawn of Ulamog
1 Skinrender
1 Marsh Flitter
1 Moan of the Unhallowed
1 Howling Banshee
1 Faceless Butcher
1 Corpse Connoisseur
1 Sengir Vampire
1 Phyrexian Gargantua
1 Twisted Abomination
1 Grixis Slavedriver
1 Skeletal Wurm
1 Duress
1 Raven's Crime
1 Unearth
1 Undying Evil
1 Tragic Slip
1 Reanimate
1 Animate Dead
1 Chainer's Edict
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Dismember
1 Go for the Throat
1 Hymn to Tourach
1 Doom Blade
1 Terror
1 Exhume
1 Night's Whisper
1 Smallpox
1 Rise//Fall
1 Stupor
1 Victimize
1 Infest
1 Buried Alive
1 Diabolic Servitude
1 Pestilence
1 Skeletal Scrying
1 Barter in Blood
1 Incremental Blight
1 Death Denied
Red is highly aggressive. What's known as "sligh" is pretty potent in this format since some of the best burn ever is here. Surprisingly, red can also contribute a lot to control decks with the multiple-target burn. It doesn't contribute real finisher creatures to that, though. Red's creatures usually run the risk of becoming outclassed as the game progresses. I am thinking of a suicidal/token subtheme. Not sure where to take this, though.
1 Mogg Fanatic
1 Goblin Arsonist
1 Reckless Waif
1 Frenzied Goblin
1 Stonewright
1 Goblin Gappler
1 Stormblood Berserker
1 Plated Geopede
1 Kruin Striker
1 Ember Hauler
1 Torch Fiend
1 Goblin Bushwhacker
1 Mogg War Marshal
1 Dragon Fodder
1 Gore-House Chainwalker
1 Goblin Wardriver
1 Keldon Marauders
1 Ashmouth Hound
1 Fire Imp
1 Manic Vandal
1 Cunning Sparkmage
1 Skirk Shaman
1 Fervent Cathar
1 Splatter Thug
1 Guttersnipe
1 Hissing Iguanar
1 Avalanche Riders
1 Flametongue Kavu
1 Goblin Ruinblaster
1 Bloodfray Giant
1 Beetleback Chief
1 Keldon Champion
1 Keldon Megaliths
1 Ghitu Encampment
1 Burst Lightning
1 Chain Lightning
1 Faithless Looting
1 Firebolt
1 Lightning Bolt
1 Flame Slash
1 Reckless Charge
1 Incinerate
1 Magma Jet
1 Pyroclasm
1 Searing Spear
1 Shrine of Burning Rage
1 Hellspark Elemental
1 Fire//Ice
1 Arc Lightning
1 Brimstone Volley
1 Molten Rain
1 Pillage
1 Stone Rain
1 Staggershock
1 Lust for War
1 Raid Bombardment
1 Pyrohemia
1 Cone of Flame
1 Shower of Coals
1 Slice and Dice
1 Rolling Thunder
Green essentially has two paths to go: midrange or ramp. Midrange in this case means accelerating to 4-5 mana and then playing hitters like Blastoderm, ramp means reaching 6+ mana as quickly as possible. Green's main strength are the super efficient creatures, but it lacks in creature removal. Note that I deliberately excluded green aggressive one-drops. The two-drops are there, but the one-drops use up too much space in the cube seeing as they're pretty narrow and not even that good.
1 Joraga Treespeaker
1 Llanowar Elves
1 Fyndhorn Elves
1 Young Wolf
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Strangleroot Geist
1 Viridian Emissary
1 Wall of Blossoms
1 Wall of Roots
1 Ambush Viper
1 Beastbreaker of Bala Ged
1 Darkthicket Wolf
1 Wild Mongrel
1 Jade Mage
1 Albino Troll
1 Gatstaf Shepherd
1 Uktabi Orangutan
1 Yavimaya Elder
1 Borderland Ranger
1 Civic Wayfinder
1 Phantom Tiger
1 Hungry Spriggan
1 Wolfir Avenger
1 Imperious Perfect
1 Imperiosaur
1 Blastoderm
1 Lumberknot
1 Briarhorn
1 Briarpack Alpha
1 Wickerbough Elder
1 Cudgel Troll
1 Druid's Familiar
1 Indrik Stomphowler
1 Sprout Swarm
1 Bestial Menace
1 Stingerfling Spider
1 Grizzly Fate
1 Howlgeist
1 Phantom Wurm
1 Deadwood Treefolk
1 Pelakka Wurm
1 Roar of the Wurm
1 Walker of the Grove
1 Treetop Village
1 Rancor
1 Search for Tomorrow
1 Giant Growth
1 Abundant Growth
1 Seal of Primordium
1 Rampant Growth
1 Fertile Ground
1 Quest for the Gemblades
1 Vines of Vastwood
1 Krosan Tusker
1 Harrow
1 Snake Umbra
1 Triumph of Ferocity
1 Boar Umbra
1 Spidery Grasp
1 Savage Silhouette
1 Overrun
1 Blessings of Nature
Yeah. Colorless cards.
1 Porcelain Legionnaire
1 Spined Thopter
1 Perilous Myr
1 Wall of Tanglecord
1 Palladium Myr
1 Juggernaut
1 Galvanic Juggernaut
1 Peace Strider
1 Pierce Strider
1 Ulamog's Crusher
1 Artisan of Kozilek
1 Trusty Machete
1 Vulshok Morningstar
1 Mask of Memory
1 Mortarpod
1 Loxodon Warhammer
1 Mutagenic Growth
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Mind Stone
1 Guardian Idol
1 Everflowing Chalice
1 Coldsteel Heart
1 Tumble Magnet
1 Vessel of Endless Rest
1 Thunderstaff
1 Serrated Arrows
I decided to implement the guild system with my cube for maximum flexibility. R/W for instance wants neither a Karoo nor a Signet, so it gets two extra spells. Every guild has five cards. I like the flexibility that this gives me, though there are obviously holes. Boros is stuffed to the brim with, uh, nothing, while I could Selesnya twice with cards I'm happy with. Currently, we're in a kind of super-kafkaesque transition before Gatecrash, so nothing's set in stone here. I think I'll go up a card per guild, but that's uncertain as the most shallow guilds are in GTC.
1 Azorius Signet
1 Plumeveil
1 Arctic Aven
1 Dimir Aqueduct
1 Psychatog
1 Ribbons of Night
1 Baleful Strix
1 Rakdos Carnarium
1 Blightning
1 Crimson Muckwader
1 Bituminous Blast
1 Gruul Turf
1 Kird Ape
1 Flinthoof Boar
1 Bloodbraid Elf
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Behemoth Sledge
1 Juniper Order Ranger
1 Orzhov Basilica
1 Mortify
1 Lingering Souls
1 Unburial Rites
1 Izzet Boilerworks
1 Izzet Signet
1 Electrolyze
1 Izzet Charm
1 Golgari Rot Farm
1 Dreg Mangler
1 Putrid Leech
1 Putrefy
1 Lightning Helix
1 Skyknight Legionnaire
1 Duergar Hedge-Mage
1 Simic Growth Chamber
1 Shardless Agent
1 Trygon Predator
1 Temporal Spring
So, the hybrid cards. In a convoluted calculation, I cut a monocolored card for every two hybrids of that color. That can lead to either adding two A/B hybrids and cutting one each of A and B, or adding an A/B, a B/C and a C/A hybrid for an A, a B and a C.
1 Dryad Militant
1 Kitchen Finks
1 Rakdos Cackler
1 Murderous Redcap
1 Tattermunge Maniac
1 Snakeform
1 Frostburn Weird
The rest of the lands. The cycling lands are there for testing, but as my lands are not exactly too abundant, I might keep them for a while.
1 Terramorphic Expanse
1 City of Brass
1 Mirrodin's Core
1 Transguild Promenade
1 Mishra's Factory
1 Desert
1 Tectonic Edge
1 Dread Statuary
1 Stalking Stones
1 Arcane Sanctum
1 Crumbling Necropolis
1 Savage Lands
1 Jungle Shrine
1 Seijiri Refuge
1 Jwar Isle Refuge
1 Akoum Refuge
1 Kazandu Refuge
1 Graypelt Refuge
1 Lonely Sandbar
1 Barren Moor
1 Forgotten Cave
1 Tranquil Thicket
1 Vivid Meadow
1 Vivid Creek
1 Vivid Marsh
1 Vivid Crag
1 Vivid Grove
And because no one reads the spoilers, here's a few bullet points that might give you more understanding of the cube than the full list. Just a few statements of what's in and what's not.
White has a strong token subtheme. Intangible Virtue is the poster child. It certainly helps that most of white's tokens fly.
Green has some token action going on as well, so that kinda supports the white token strategy. Green's token cards, however, are less of the Midnight Haunting variant and more of either the Imperious Perfect (one a turn) or Grizzly Fate (huge ones) variant.
Red is getting a - surprise - token subtheme. The token cards are worse than in white or green, but the idea is to have these tokens be rather suicidal with Battle Cry, Tears of Rage, Raid Bombardment, Hissing Iguanar... We're not using the tokens per se, but we use them to activate lots of abilities. Goblin Bombardment is the poster child for this. This is not fully implemented yet and might turn out to be disastrous...
Black has gotten a major overhaul and is looking waay better than before. Black can sacrifice too, with Thoughtpicker Witch and Carrion Feeder. To this purpose, black has quite some "multiple" creatures in Marsh Flitter, Moan of the Unhallowed, Pawn of Ulamog, Reassembling Skeleton etc. This overlaps with red's suicidal tokens.
Blue has a rather strong tempo component and I like that. Blue and white can blink a little.
What I've liked a lot in blue are early defensive creatures. In my experience, these are crucial to blue control's success.
The cube is at a point where everything works as desired, that's why I'm experimenting with more unorthodox choices. Might add some character to the cube.
450, Peasant*, unpowered**
Specialities about the cube:
U tempo, B aggro, R slow-ish are supported. G aggro is not.
Currently trying to support tokens in all colors but blue, in different ways: W pumps them, B sacrifices them, R suicides them, G has decent-sized ones.
cube list outdated
*literal C/U definition according to gatherer
**some cards are banned. Library of Alexandria, Land Tax, Sol Ring.
White:
Survival Cache --> Stonecloaker
Momentary Blink --> Cloudshift (AVR)
Alabaster Mage --> Descendant of Kiyomaro
? --> Emancipation Angel
Survival Cache and Alabaster Mage are not worth it anymore in my cube, that's why I would like to cut them. Stonecloaker and Descendant are cards I've seen in other peasant cube lists. Momentary Blink --> Cloudshift is to test of Momentary Blink is justified as a white card.
Blue:
Plasma Elemental --> Wing Splicer
Coastal Piracy --> Tandem Lookout (AVR)
Negate --> Waterfront Bouncer
Remove Soul --> Ghostly Flicker (AVR)
Volition Reins --> Crystal Shard
Divination --> Standstill
? --> Latch Seeker (AVR)
I'm once again starting with cuts. Wing Splicer looks promising, I have no idea how Bouncer escaped me so far and the AVR cards look very promising so far. Crystal Shard and Standstill look a lot more exciting than Volition Reins and the playable, but unexciting Divination.
Black:
Abyssal Specter --> ?
Chittering Rats --> Demon Taskmaster (AVR)
Tortured Existence --> ?
The Rats lead to grinding games which I don't like too much and the other cards have been given their time to shine, but they didn't, so they're being cut. I'll probably wait until AVR to decide what should come in.
Red:
Mogg Flunkies --> ?
Kuldotha Ringleader --> ?
Time for cuts, but no viable replacement. Fill with AVR cards or generic burn.
Green:
Rampant Growth --> Explore
Viridian Emissary --> Imperious Perfect
Wilt-Leaf Ambush --> Fyndhorn Elves
Is the first one reasonable? I honestly don't know which I prefer. Perfect looks very good and the strength of another one-mana accelerator outweighs the repetitive gameplay it can create.
Anything I've left out? Any stupid card that's still in?
450, Peasant*, unpowered**
Specialities about the cube:
U tempo, B aggro, R slow-ish are supported. G aggro is not.
Currently trying to support tokens in all colors but blue, in different ways: W pumps them, B sacrifices them, R suicides them, G has decent-sized ones.
cube list outdated
*literal C/U definition according to gatherer
**some cards are banned. Library of Alexandria, Land Tax, Sol Ring.
I always thought a worse Bonesplitter is bad. Might be that this extra toughness ends up pretty relevant. Might add it over Chalice of Life...
450, Peasant*, unpowered**
Specialities about the cube:
U tempo, B aggro, R slow-ish are supported. G aggro is not.
Currently trying to support tokens in all colors but blue, in different ways: W pumps them, B sacrifices them, R suicides them, G has decent-sized ones.
cube list outdated
*literal C/U definition according to gatherer
**some cards are banned. Library of Alexandria, Land Tax, Sol Ring.
360 Modern Cube
Cubetutor
EDH Decks
WGTrostaniWG
WURZedruuWUR
Twitter
450, Peasant*, unpowered**
Specialities about the cube:
U tempo, B aggro, R slow-ish are supported. G aggro is not.
Currently trying to support tokens in all colors but blue, in different ways: W pumps them, B sacrifices them, R suicides them, G has decent-sized ones.
cube list outdated
*literal C/U definition according to gatherer
**some cards are banned. Library of Alexandria, Land Tax, Sol Ring.
Descendant has always been ok, never amazing. He pretty much only gets played in slow-ish WU decks around here. He's a fine dude, but I've considered cutting him for something more aggressive.
How did Coastal Piracy play out? I've wanted to try it out in my cube, but I haven't been able to find a copy.
The rest of these changes look fine, although I am a fan of Remove Soul.
I like Chittering Rats. A lot. I tried to create a grindy BG Rock archetype in my cube with value dudes, some removal and a bit of reanimation, and that guy is a stable.
More burn is good.
All six of these cards have been in my cube as some point. I prefer Growth to Explore, but I think they're both fine cards. I like people being able to draft a four or five color deck if they're willing to commit heavily to green and prioritize mana fixing. Emissary has been ok, not spectacular, but he's great in the BG deck I mentioned. The Ambush is lackluster, in my opinion.
My Type 4 stack (Cube Tutor link)
Might add the rats back in at some point in the future.
Coastal piracy has worked like once or twice over here, and that's quite a long time ago. I absoultely love Ophidians, but Coastal Piracy has never really done enough to justify a four mana enchantment that doesn't affect the board. If you're connecting with blue, you're either a controlling blue deck that's finishing, in which case Piracy is win more, or you're a blue tempo deck à la UW skies and in that case you might as well play a bounce spell, a beater, or hold up mana for a counter. Piracy is admittedly good in the second scenario, but not good enough to make up for the times it does nothing.
450, Peasant*, unpowered**
Specialities about the cube:
U tempo, B aggro, R slow-ish are supported. G aggro is not.
Currently trying to support tokens in all colors but blue, in different ways: W pumps them, B sacrifices them, R suicides them, G has decent-sized ones.
cube list outdated
*literal C/U definition according to gatherer
**some cards are banned. Library of Alexandria, Land Tax, Sol Ring.
Oopsie. That's from the cube list I tapped to make my own. That escaped my eyes somehow. Will fix it of course, this has nothing to do in a peasant cube.
450, Peasant*, unpowered**
Specialities about the cube:
U tempo, B aggro, R slow-ish are supported. G aggro is not.
Currently trying to support tokens in all colors but blue, in different ways: W pumps them, B sacrifices them, R suicides them, G has decent-sized ones.
cube list outdated
*literal C/U definition according to gatherer
**some cards are banned. Library of Alexandria, Land Tax, Sol Ring.
I'm getting really intrigued by the idea of reducing my guild section. A lot. I consider cutting the guild section to 40 cards (-19), adding the refuges (or, where the refuges are in place of the karoos, the karoos), adding 9 colorless cards, mostly utility lands, and then maybe one card per color. This would mean the following:
Less multicolor. Most everyone who's done something similar is very happy with it and if I see what I'm cutting, I don't feel too sad for it. In GW and GR, there are a few hard cuts, but everywhere else, it's not too hard. It's effectively 3 cards per combination, with RW getting an extra card instead of the karoo because no one wants that.
More fixing. I run a lot less than most and a little more couldn't possibly hurt.
More utility lands. I like Konfusius' "lotsa lands" experiment and there are a few that should be considered here.
The cards being cut would be:
Esper Cormorants
Deft Duelist
Recoil
Cavern Harpy
Torrent of Souls
Terminate
Firespout
Gruul Signet
Ancient Grudge
Behemoth Sledge
Enlisted Wurm
Selesnya Signet
Mortify
Jilt
Deadly Allure
Life//Death
Stun Sniper
Snakeform
Leafdrake Roost
As I said, nothing is too sad except for Enlisted Wurm and Behemoth Sledge. The adds would be:
Seijiri Refuge
Jwar Isle Refuge
Rakdos Carnarium
Kazandu Refuge
Selesnya Sanctuary //the extra fixing lands
Tectonic Edge
Stalking Stones
Dread Statuary
Quicksand
Desert // the utility lands, are these reasonable?
Trusty Machete
Mortarpod
Darksteel Sentinel //Miscellaneous Artifact stuff that I happen to like
Prismatic Lens? Coldsteel Heart? Pierce Strider? Any other cuts for one of these?
I'm pretty fond of the outs, but not too sure on the ins. Any feedback, alternate cuts, alternate adds, or other stuff you notice are as always very welcome. I'll probably do a huge overhaul once I have the AVR cards.
450, Peasant*, unpowered**
Specialities about the cube:
U tempo, B aggro, R slow-ish are supported. G aggro is not.
Currently trying to support tokens in all colors but blue, in different ways: W pumps them, B sacrifices them, R suicides them, G has decent-sized ones.
cube list outdated
*literal C/U definition according to gatherer
**some cards are banned. Library of Alexandria, Land Tax, Sol Ring.
Does Orzhov really want a signet over this?
Snakeform
Has Lorescale been performing better than this? Id personally drop Lorescale Coatl over this. Snakeform has been very good removal for those colors while the Coatl just doesnt do enough and gets killed easily before hes able to make a difference.
Tectonic Edge
I personally like Ghost Quarter just a little bit better than Tectonic but I also run both in my cube right now.
Desert
I have some reserved feelings about this card. Is this going to reliably help against aggro? I dont fault you for trying it out tho and would like to hear your results with it.
A couple other fixing lands to conisder is Mirrodin's Core and Gemstone Mine.
Im a big fan of mana rocks so Id personally add Prismatic Lens and Coldsteel Heart while also looking at possibly Everflowing Chalice and/or Darksteel Ingot.
360 Modern Cube
Cubetutor
EDH Decks
WGTrostaniWG
WURZedruuWUR
Twitter
Thank you for your feedback. Why do you prefer Ghost Quarter over Edge? Quick activation speaks for the Quarter, actually screwing your opponent for the Edge. I can't really destroy a fixing land with the Quarter, and I can wait with an utility land until my fourth turn. Is it the extra mana?
The multicolor alternatives: You're probably right.
The mana stones: Mortify over Orzhow Signet means I'd only have five signets left and I love me some mana stones too, I once had a deck with five of them in Konfusius' unpowered 450. Letting you play big-impact spells early is pretty good. My choices would probably be Mind Stone (already in), Coldsteel Heart, Guardian Idol (what about that?), Prismatic Lens in that order. Four plus the signets feels alright.
In other news, is Barbarian Ring good? and how about Keldon Megaliths?
450, Peasant*, unpowered**
Specialities about the cube:
U tempo, B aggro, R slow-ish are supported. G aggro is not.
Currently trying to support tokens in all colors but blue, in different ways: W pumps them, B sacrifices them, R suicides them, G has decent-sized ones.
cube list outdated
*literal C/U definition according to gatherer
**some cards are banned. Library of Alexandria, Land Tax, Sol Ring.
Barbarian Ring is only playable in aggressive decks with a decent amount of burn spells. Even then, it's difficult to activate reliably. I'm thinking about cutting it. I don't have any experience with Keldon Megaliths, but it certainly seems playable.
My Type 4 stack (Cube Tutor link)
I don't feel like I have enough data right now. The UU is prohibitive and might be a reason why I don't have enough data: It's not maindecked too often. However, it does exactly what you (and I) want: Help Ux skies decks.
By the way, AVR holds quite a lot for that archetype. The flying Jellyfish and the new Serendib are both very valuable for that kind of deck.
450, Peasant*, unpowered**
Specialities about the cube:
U tempo, B aggro, R slow-ish are supported. G aggro is not.
Currently trying to support tokens in all colors but blue, in different ways: W pumps them, B sacrifices them, R suicides them, G has decent-sized ones.
cube list outdated
*literal C/U definition according to gatherer
**some cards are banned. Library of Alexandria, Land Tax, Sol Ring.
Have you ever considered Wormfang Drake? I ran him in my previous cube which was about the size of yours but he didn't make the cut for this time around. He was great in control/midrange decks with a strong ETB theme. Also, a card that I absolutely LOVE for UB is Cavern Harpy, in the right deck it can be pretty close to unbeatable and creates endless loops with ETB creatures. I'm not running it now but that is only because I can't seem to find one.
I noticed your colorless section is really tight. There a couple really high quality artifact creatures that you should consider including.
Darksteel Sentinel: This guy is so good! He is usually drafted very high for us and is one of the stronger creatures in my cube.
Pierce Strider: Hill Giant sucks, but Hill Giant with Lightning Bolt stapled to it with no color requirements is really, really good. It fits into Aggro, Reanimator, Blink, ect...
Part of the consequence of the multicolor downsize is a land/colorless upsize, which will feature the refuges, a few utility lands and the cards you mentioned. How many fixing nonbasics do you run? I've always run very, very few of them and I'd like to change that now. Adding both refuges and the original tapduals seems a little redundant as well as unfair to enemy color pairs, but I guess there's no fix for the latter... Are the fetches good?
450, Peasant*, unpowered**
Specialities about the cube:
U tempo, B aggro, R slow-ish are supported. G aggro is not.
Currently trying to support tokens in all colors but blue, in different ways: W pumps them, B sacrifices them, R suicides them, G has decent-sized ones.
cube list outdated
*literal C/U definition according to gatherer
**some cards are banned. Library of Alexandria, Land Tax, Sol Ring.
Rough list:
5 Vivids
5 Shards of Alara Tri-Lands
City of Brass
Mirrodin's Core
Gemstone Mine
Rupture Spire
Terramorphic Expanse
Evolving Wilds
4 Blue karoo lands from Ravnica block
6 Pain lands that dont have blue
5 Refugees
Treetop Village
Faerie Conclave
Ghitu Encampment
Mishra's Factory
Stalking Stones
I'm sure I'm missing some here... also, it's not perfectly balanced. I need to work on this section of my cube a little bit.
I don't think there is a way to make the land section fair to the enemy pairs without using rares, which is something I'm not comfortable with.
The Mirage fetches seem fine, but they're not any better than the Invasion tap lands (except for a few random scenarios like landfall or shuffling for Top).
My Type 4 stack (Cube Tutor link)
BG probably prefers the Karoo and Tainted Field doesn't quite do what I want it to, namely allow me to curve Knight of Meadowgrain into Vampire Nighthawk. Also, awfully hard to balance. I might cut Orzhov Basilica for it to see how it performs...
450, Peasant*, unpowered**
Specialities about the cube:
U tempo, B aggro, R slow-ish are supported. G aggro is not.
Currently trying to support tokens in all colors but blue, in different ways: W pumps them, B sacrifices them, R suicides them, G has decent-sized ones.
cube list outdated
*literal C/U definition according to gatherer
**some cards are banned. Library of Alexandria, Land Tax, Sol Ring.
450, Peasant*, unpowered**
Specialities about the cube:
U tempo, B aggro, R slow-ish are supported. G aggro is not.
Currently trying to support tokens in all colors but blue, in different ways: W pumps them, B sacrifices them, R suicides them, G has decent-sized ones.
cube list outdated
*literal C/U definition according to gatherer
**some cards are banned. Library of Alexandria, Land Tax, Sol Ring.
Anyway, I wanted to ask NewbornMuse about a few specific cards in this list.
Totem-Guide Hartebeest: Are there really decks with enough auras in them to support this guy?
Plasma Elemental: How often does this get played? He seems so fragile.
Hunter's Insight: I remember thinking I wanted to try this out when M12 was released, but apparently I never got around to it. Has this been good?
My Type 4 stack (Cube Tutor link)
Cubetutor link - 380 Peasant Cube
Hunters Insight v. Triumph of Ferocity?
Good question actually. I've never compared the two directly, but now that you mention it.. Alright, let's do this:
Hunter's Insight has the chance to draw you, like, a ton of cards* as opposed to the steady stream that Triumph of Ferocity provides. Insight draws them the moment you pay three mana, Triumph makes you wait a little longer, though it can potentially draw more cards if the game goes long. I'd say that's a slight advantage for Insight.
Then there's the conditions. Triumph requires you to have the biggest dude on board. From my experience, green can accomplish that pretty easily, so it should be fairly easy to activate. Hunter's Insight is a little tougher, you need your non-Blastoderm beater to connect. That's not happening too often, that's usually the creature they block and not the one they let through. Insight is also weak to response removal. I think the conditions point goes to Triumph, as it helps satisfy its own requirement by drawing you extra cards.
What about the times it goes horribly wrong, when you can't activate either and are behind on board? Obviously, neither one does anything in that scenario and they have the same cost, so that's even. However, what if you manage to catch up? You can play Triumph before the fattie if you have nothing else to do. Once you do land your fattie, you're probably still outnumbered, so your fattie won't be able to attack unblocked, if you can afford to attack at all. Clear point to Triumph.
All in all, it's probably the Triumph. Green Phyrexian Arena looks solid and Hunter's Insight is maybe a little too high variance. It's funny because when I started writing this, I didn't know what I'd end up with in the end, but now I think it's pretty clear.
* I once was in magical christmasland where a suspended Keldon Halberdier came back, I burnt the opponent's blocker, played Invigorate and Hunter's Insight for eight cards. I won that game..
Totem-Guide Hartebeest doesn't require you to play a lot of auras, you just need one. It's not a toolbox card but a card advantage generator. Even if Pacifism is the only target you have, a 2/5 that fetches a removal is nice in my book. I agree that my aura count is currently a little low, I might raise it a little in the future if that happened to come easy.
Plasma Elemental was experimental and didn't make it. I will cut it when shiny new AVR cards are there.
450, Peasant*, unpowered**
Specialities about the cube:
U tempo, B aggro, R slow-ish are supported. G aggro is not.
Currently trying to support tokens in all colors but blue, in different ways: W pumps them, B sacrifices them, R suicides them, G has decent-sized ones.
cube list outdated
*literal C/U definition according to gatherer
**some cards are banned. Library of Alexandria, Land Tax, Sol Ring.
Have you thought about Thunderous Wrath? I want miracle to work! This seems like its Peasan't best chance... though without mircale it is a bit pricey. However, your cube is 450 and you seem to be pretty open to experimenting