Cube Size: 635 Cards
Breakdown: 60 Generals, 74 WUBRG, 100 Guild, 105 Colorless
Theme: EDH/Commander
# of Players: 3 - 8
How Often Drafted: about once per quarter
Cube Design
Standard or Multiplayer: Multiplayer
Sideboards?: Yes
Even Color/Identity Balance: Yes
Gold Balance: Yes
Hybrid/Split/Kicker as Gold: Yes
Color Triggers as Gold: Yes
Perfectly Balanced CMC: Hell no
Snow Lands: No
EDH/Commander Rules Variations
Generals Draft: Generals are seeded, one to a pack after the main cube packs have been assembled.
Draft Structure: 5 packs of 15 cards; 5 packs of 12 for 60 card deck building & "shorter" draft sessions
Deck Construction: 67 card deck (= about 40 business cards and 26 lands +1 General in the command zone)
Starting Life: 40/Player
The Cube - last repost 1/29/17 (cube size ruduction 675 -> 635, preliminary Aether Revolt changes)
I'm doing most of my updating in cube tutor these days, so the contents in the spoiler will usually be a bit out of date. I will periodically re-post the entire contents sections, when the cube accumulates enough changes to warrant it. -D
8/20: Big ol' expansion: added 75 cards and, with some new acquisitions, made a number of substitutions. I will probably add an extra 1-3 lands once FtV Realms is released.
2/24/12: Charmbreaker Devils -> Dragon Mage I thought I owned a copy of CBD, added in DM for Scion, as a surrogate for Nicol B.
2/23/12: Cube and lands are fully sleeved! Working on reinforcing card stock proxies to increase rigidity/minimize difference in feel from normal cards.
2/22/12: Expanded to 640 cards. Sleeving and final tweaks underway.
2/17/12: First draft uploaded. Cube is still just a list. Additions/subtractions during this phase will, for the most part, be undocumented.
Sept-Dec 2013: Cleaned up cubetutor.com entries, changes will be tracked exclusively through that site ~ periodic updates to mtgs entry.
4/1/2013: Major reposting of cube list: cards organized by CMC now, for better clarity and ease of cube analysis and comparison
10/29/12: Changed the names of a couple wedge color combinations in the general section.
Added a "watch" section to help me remember changes I'm considering
8/20/12: Expanded cube again.
4/3/12: Changed cube thread's name. Cleaned up info section a bit
3/30/12: Added commander cube links section
3/26/12: new, second op added for containing change log.
2/22/12: "Final" list updated. Updated cube info.
2/17/12: fixed spelling; cleaned up cube list; added basic info; fomatting post.
x Random Thoughts and Session Notes
Sept: In a big process of de-proxying the cube.
8/7/12: expanded main cube section by 75 cards
4/2/12: All shard/wedge cards have been removed. Added new generals.
3/26/12: Thinking of cutting 1 of each main-cube shard slot (enigma sphinx, cruel ultimatum, etc) and replace with either 1 low cmc "card quality" slot per color (rampant growth, magma jet, etc), or one of each Mox. Also considering adding an additional general of each guild/shard/wedge, increasing the total to 60. Once I acquire the helm, gonna add in Kaldra-tron for use with Sisay, general beats (probably cutting darksteel plate, sword of war and peace and whispersilk cloak in the process).
2/29/12: Watch list: mind twist; chopping block: spine of ish sah; 5 vivid lands, all omni-colored cards
2/23/12: Brain fried after working on this. Looking forward to restocking my trade binder with newly freed copies of many edh staples. Need to establish list of cards to be retained for on-the-fly constructed edh decks.
2/23/12: Note to keep on eye on how playable numerous triple blue cards are. The quantity caught my eye while sleeving.
Links to Other Commander Cubes
These were extremely helpful as I developed my own cube...
Hey there, want to congratulate you for the first EDH Cube on MTGSalvation. Tell us how it goes. Would love to see some cube pictures soon.
I would play Vivids in an EDH cube. Horde of Notions and the two other 5 color legends will be very hard to play without Vivids.
Thank you, but I unfortunately can't take credit for being the first on mtgs. There's a user, Wildfire393, who had posted a commander cube, in the commander section (http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=376059). His list, along with the aforementioned "top 50" threads were an enormous help in getting this first draft completed.
I've also heard other commander players talking about their commander cubes, so there might be others squirreled away that I just didn't track down.
I'll put some thought into the vivids. I specifically didn't add the shock lands, because I wanted a more utility-based rather than fixing-based nonbasic land section, but there might be no getting around this. I also was intending for the horde and scion to be tempting cuts to 5 colors, if a player got them early enough in the draft.
Sure EDH is a slower format, but dude, that is a really high mana curve. We are talking about an avg cmc of 4.27, while most cubes here have 3.0 or less. If you ignore the x spells, the number of your cmc 7+card is more than twice as high as the number of 1 drops.
The high density of cards that require 2 or even 3 colored mana could also prevent you from casting spells on curve.
Thanks for the analysis, Eidolon. Those curve charts you've posted will be a huge help. This is literally a fresh off the spreadsheet first pass, so I'm expecting a lot of tweaking.
The way I do general selection is by including a 16th card in each pack, in a special sleeve. The general can be picked any time a normal card can be, though you cannot make a general pick if you already have from that pack - this is to stop someone from picking multiple generals per pack and locking the other players out of having a general. There is a possible case where the 16th pick for a player is a general where they've already got one, I've handled this by having them switch last picks with the nearest person to them who has not picked a general. However, I'm not certain this is strictly necessary, as a last-pick general is frequently not useful for (either) player, so might as well be any other last-pick card. Generals may be switched to a regular sleeve for use as part of a deck, and non-general legendaries may be switched into the general sleeves for use as generals - this allows monocolor or five-color to be played.
Your generals are mostly pretty similar to mine, with a few exceptions. Some of those seem fine (Di Corci over Bolas, Dralnu over Wrexial, Vhati over Nath, Jhoira over Nin, Olivia over Lyzolda), but a few I think you might have difficulty with: Sygg, River's Guide - Are you running enough Merfolk for this to be really worthwhile? I see only one (Thada Adel), which means Sygg's ability more or less only affects himself. Ith, High Arcanist and Grand Arbiter Augustin IV are solid choices if you don't want to track down a Rasputin Dreamweaver. Geist of Saint Traft also works if what you're looking for is an aggro/voltron general with protection. Phelddagrif - Personally, I hate group hug. Also, Rubinia already gives you a controllish general, so why not Rafiq/Jenara for a more aggressive Bant general? Stonebrown, Krosan Hero - You might want to double-check how many tramplers you have in your cube before committing to this guy. He tends to thrive alongside some traditionally-bad cards like Garruk's Companion and Ball Lightning, or at least Brawn and Akroma's Memorial Rith, the Awakener - This is more of a preference, but I find him to be much worse in the token-making department than Hazezon Tamar. If you just want beef, Uril, the Miststalker is where it's at. Captain Sisay - You really need to be aware here of how many legendary permanents you have in G/W/Colorless, as with too few she becomes very lackluster.
Also, pay a mind to how many 5-power RWG creatures and how many RWB Angels/Demons/Dragons you have to make Kaalia of the Vast and Mayael the Anima worthwhile. I've intentionally bumped up my 5+-power Angel/Dragon numbers since originally creating the cube in order to make both of these more viable (and also improve my R and W which were lackluster where they were at).
Lands: I run 60 lands and include the Shocks, passing on the Vivids. I think the Shocks are generally better than the Vivids, but it means trimming some of your other numbers to make room for them. Apart from that your lands seem pretty similar, though I don't run the Worldwake Manlands, instead preferring to run other utility lands.
Black: Nothing seems terribly wrong here, though how good is Tainted Pact?
Red: Much better than my initial draft of Red was. Imperial Recruiter would be good to add if it's in the budget. Chandra Ablaze is actually generally the superior Chandra in EDH, and is certainly worth a slot
Multi: Sovereigns of Lost Alara is great on paper, and then you realize you have barely any auras in your list. The only one it works with that I can see is Eldrazi Conscription, which is cute but probably not worth the slot as he's worthless without it. Thopter Foundry/Sword of the Meek is cute, but it seems overly hard to assemble, and neither piece is that great on their own.
If you want two 5-color generals, I'd suggest Child of Alara as the second over Scion. Trying to build a 5-color mana base AND snag enough dragons to make him work seems very difficult.
Colorless: I run one of every signet for additional color fixing and ramp. I run a few more artifacts than you do though.
Final notes:
Your cube is currently smaller than mine. I run 600 cards + 40 generals, which allows me to support 8 players (5 packs of 15 each is 75, x8 = 600, with 1 general per pack). I like the 8-player dynamic, because every card is in play, and it can support things like two mono-colored decks at one table. Plus then, you can split into two 4-player games for actually playing - a 5 or 6 player game gets really messy, and you don't want to force anyone into a 2-player game, because that does not support EDH well. I've done a few drafts at 5-6 players and two at 8, and I like the 8 better.
I believe my composition was originally aimed to be 80 of each color, 40 lands, 80 Artifacts/Colorless, 80 multicolored, but I bumped lands up to 60 at the cost of 4 of each color, and my 1 5-color card is "borrowed" from the colorless, so my totals are 76 of each mono, 81 multicolored, 79 Colorless, 60 Lands.
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Thanks for the detailed reply. I've been constantly tweaking the original list using yours and a few friends of mine's suggestions. I've made quite a few of the substitutions you've mentioned because they were sound, so I'll mainly be responding in the negative.
our cube is currently smaller than mine. I run 600 cards + 40 generals, which allows me to support 8 players (5 packs of 15 each is 75, x8 = 600, with 1 general per pack). I like the 8-player dynamic, because every card is in play, and it can support things like two mono-colored decks at one table. Plus then, you can split into two 4-player games for actually playing - a 5 or 6 player game gets really messy, and you don't want to force anyone into a 2-player game, because that does not support EDH well. I've done a few drafts at 5-6 players and two at 8, and I like the 8 better.
I'm actually trying to go in the opposite direction from this. I can completely understand your logic here, but due to the typical size of my play group(s), my aspiration would be to cut this down to a four person cube! Right now, my list is between that and ballooning into the normal 8-person cube. I'd like to get a feel for how popular it is, and how often I get to run it, before drifting in either direction.
Sygg, River's Guide - Are you running enough Merfolk for this to be really worthwhile? I see only one (Thada Adel), which means Sygg's ability more or less only affects himself. Ith, High Arcanist and Grand Arbiter Augustin IV are solid choices if you don't want to track down a Rasputin Dreamweaver. Geist of Saint Traft also works if what you're looking for is an aggro/voltron general with protection.
Most Sygg lists I've encountered do rely on him as the sole beneficiary of his ability, so my intent was to use him as a voltron commander. But I have decided to sub in Geist, because he's a bit more interesting mechanic-wise.
Phelddagrif - Personally, I hate group hug. Also, Rubinia already gives you a controllish general, so why not Rafiq/Jenara for a more aggressive Bant general?
Grif is intended as a voltron, rather than group hug general. I might consider Jenara or Treva, but Rafiq was specifically excluded as he's largely considered unfun by the circles I play with.
Stonebrown, Krosan Hero - You might want to double-check how many tramplers you have in your cube before committing to this guy. He tends to thrive alongside some traditionally-bad cards like Garruk's Companion and Ball Lightning, or at least Brawn and Akroma's Memorial
Added the memorial, and I will examine the number of innate tramplers later. I'm not being shy about proxying cards I don't own in this cube, so no need to qualify card suggestions with concerns about budget.
Rith, the Awakener - This is more of a preference, but I find him to be much worse in the token-making department than Hazezon Tamar. If you just want beef, Uril, the Miststalker is where it's at.
You noticed the lack of auras, when discussing Sovereigns, and that affected by decision to exclude Uril. He's also close to being in the Rafiq club for despised generals. I might try out Hazezon if I build find a good pic for a proxy, but his "tokens die when he does" clause has never sat right with me.
Lands: I run 60 lands and include the Shocks, passing on the Vivids. I think the Shocks are generally better than the Vivids, but it means trimming some of your other numbers to make room for them. Apart from that your lands seem pretty similar, though I don't run the Worldwake Manlands, instead preferring to run other utility lands.
Colorless: I run one of every signet for additional color fixing and ramp. I run a few more artifacts than you do though.
Shocks were another conscious exclusion. I just think that the vivids and man lands give the cube more personality than another 10 duals. If color fixing turns out to be a disaster, I'll reconsider this issue. I feel similarly about signets, where I hate how many slots they take up.
White: Couple things missing at first glance - Adarkar Valkyrie, Condemn, Hallowed Burial, Knight of the White Orchid, Luminarch Ascension, Akroma, Angel of Wrath. Ethersworn Canonist, Mirran Crusader, and Spirit en-Dal (who should be a creature) seem weak, though I know you are trying to fill in your curve a little.
Blue: Draining Whelk, Hinder, Faerie Trickery, and Spell Crumple are missing from my favored counterspell suite (as is Mana Drain, but that's for understandable budgetary reasons). Proteus Staff, Spin Into Myth, and Capsize being missing makes me think that your spot removal is also too light. Jin is out of place in spells.
A lot of these suggestions are great, but I've been specifically excluding tuck effects. Testing will determine whether certain generals and creatures (like Ulamog) are too powerful to leave unchallenged by effects like these.
Black: Nothing seems terribly wrong here, though how good is Tainted Pact?
I love tainted pact in constructed edh. It's saved my bacon in a few games, when you need to furiously dig for an answer or combo piece. I've replaced it with tragic slip, as another ulamog slaying effect.
Red: Much better than my initial draft of Red was. Imperial Recruiter would be good to add if it's in the budget. Chandra Ablaze is actually generally the superior Chandra in EDH, and is certainly worth a slot
I'm a bit concerned that CA won't shine in anything but mono red, but I'll give her a shot. I love Chandra III because of her splashability.
Green: Seedborn Muse is notably missing.
My green sections feels particularly tight to me. If someone runs Omnath out the gate, I'll take that as a sign that this effect would be appreciated.
If you want two 5-color generals, I'd suggest Child of Alara as the second over Scion. Trying to build a 5-color mana base AND snag enough dragons to make him work seems very difficult.
I'd like to see how a couple of drafts go before making this switch. If scion proves worthless without D Tyrant and Nicol B, I'll make the swap them. Scion is such a crowd favorite.
I'll hopefully get this thing sleeved and played in the next two weeks. Then I'll have some better impressions of how the cube runs.
Thanks for the detailed reply. I've been constantly tweaking the original list using yours and a few friends of mine's suggestions. I've made quite a few of the substitutions you've mentioned because they were sound, so I'll mainly be responding in the negative.
Glad to help!
I'm actually trying to go in the opposite direction from this. I can completely understand your logic here, but due to the typical size of my play group(s), my aspiration would be to cut this down to a four person cube! Right now, my list is between that and ballooning into the normal 8-person cube. I'd like to get a feel for how popular it is, and how often I get to run it, before drifting in either direction.
I've had very little trouble getting to 8 people in my experience. I fee like 4 people with the current pack numbers would be very restrictive, as that'd be 300 cards, which is probably only 40 of each color + 100 to split between lands/artifacts/multi.
Most Sygg lists I've encountered do rely on him as the sole beneficiary of his ability, so my intent was to use him as a voltron commander. But I have decided to sub in Geist, because he's a bit more interesting mechanic-wise.
Grif is intended as a voltron, rather than group hug general. I might consider Jenara or Treva, but Rafiq was specifically excluded as he's largely considered unfun by the circles I play with.
One thing to keep in mind about Voltron is that you only run 12 pieces of equipment, and they get drafted fairly highly (in my experience, them being colorless and of high general value), along with maybe two buffing auras. Getting enough buffs to go "true" voltron may be very difficult. If you definitely want to support a voltron option, I would suggest adding a few more equipment that are really only good in dedicated voltron - clunkier buffs like Argentum Armor/Sword of Kaldra, amplifiers like Fireshrieker, Inquisitor's Flail, Grappling Hook, or things like Golem-skin Gauntlets that want you to go specifically voltron.
Added the memorial, and I will examine the number of innate tramplers later. I'm not being shy about proxying cards I don't own in this cube, so no need to qualify card suggestions with concerns about budget.
You noticed the lack of auras, when discussing Sovereigns, and that affected by decision to exclude Uril. He's also close to being in the Rafiq club for despised generals. I might try out Hazezon if I build find a good pic for a proxy, but his "tokens die when he does" clause has never sat right with me.
If you sac Hazezon before your next upkeep, you still get the tokens, and they can't be exiled. He's really quite powerful.
Shocks were another conscious exclusion. I just think that the vivids and man lands give the cube more personality than another 10 duals. If color fixing turns out to be a disaster, I'll reconsider this issue. I feel similarly about signets, where I hate how many slots they take up.
Fair enough. I may be cutting the green signets myself for a bit more room, since I run a lot of Rampant Growth effects in green.
A lot of these suggestions are great, but I've been specifically excluding tuck effects. Testing will determine whether certain generals and creatures (like Ulamog) are too powerful to leave unchallenged by effects like these.
Well, you aren't entirely excluding tuck if Chaos Warp and Bant Charm are in the mix. I can see specifically excluding Blue's tuck, but I definitely recommend including White's to make it better as a color on the whole.
I love tainted pact in constructed edh. It's saved my bacon in a few games, when you need to furiously dig for an answer or combo piece. I've replaced it with tragic slip, as another ulamog slaying effect.
I may have to try it out myself. I feel like it's better in constructed because you can easily run a 3-color deck with few or no duplicate lands. Here, all decks are generally stuck with 20+ basics, which makes it very hard to avoid duplicate collision.
There are a few other black cards that could remove Ulamog. Ashes to Ashes or Sever the Bloodline can be used to get rid of him more permanently.
Quote from [I"m a bit concerned that CA won"t shine in anything but mono red, but I"ll give her a shot. I love Chandra III because of her splashability.[/quote »
CA's best ability is the mini Wheel of Fortune, which doesn't require red at all.
[quote]My green sections feels particularly tight to me. If someone runs Omnath out the gate, I'll take that as a sign that this effect would be appreciated.
Seedborn shines in Omnath, but where it mostly shines is GU(x) decks, where it can be used to play threats while still maintaining counter mana.
I'd like to see how a couple of drafts go before making this switch. If scion proves worthless without D Tyrant and Nicol B, I'll make the swap them. Scion is such a crowd favorite.
I'll hopefully get this thing sleeved and played in the next two weeks. Then I'll have some better impressions of how the cube runs.
Sounds good. Best of luck.
If you're looking for sleeves, I've been loving mine - KMC's Super series. Very durable, and very affordable if you go through potomacdist.com. You can get 800 for $48, which should suit your needs.
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Thanks again for the thought provoking reply. In short, most of your ideas were very persuasive.
Hazezon I'm going to wait on, as the group I play with is either returning or casual players, so understanding how to game him will probably be lost on most of my group.
I've substituted Argentum Armor over E Conscription for voltron purposes. I will see if I need to add some additional swords of x and x, or fireshrieker to make that play style work.
You got me on the bant charm, but that card and chaos warp aren't nearly as cruel as hinder. I might try to add in spell crumple eventually, as its a personal fav in U/x constructed. As for tuck/exile in white, I'd probably add in crib swap before condemn, but I'll see with testing.
If you wouldn't mind suggesting something to remove in green in favor of seedborn, that would be appreciated! I can't decide what to cut!
The more I mull over it, the more this cube seems destined to balloon into an 8 person. What I'll probably do though, is just enfold the 40 generals into the main cube, and boost the subsections to make 600 total. I'm pretty confident that I can instruct my player to MAKE SURE YOU DRAFT AT LEAST ONE LEGEND!
For sleeves, my FLGS likes to buy limited edition and eccentric packs, so I've picked up 19 50-sleeve packs of ones with Mayan Pyramids + calendars. I'm an avowed skeptic, but enjoy the kitsch of hidden hostory/conspiracy stuff. I'm currently using 100 on my godzilla themed horde, but I can easily transfer these oven when and if the time comes to expand.
How many lands have you sleeved for your cube? 250 or 300?
Thanks again for the thought provoking reply. In short, most of your ideas were very persuasive.
Hazezon I'm going to wait on, as the group I play with is either returning or casual players, so understanding how to game him will probably be lost on most of my group.
I've substituted Argentum Armor over E Conscription for voltron purposes. I will see if I need to add some additional swords of x and x, or fireshrieker to make that play style work.
You got me on the bant charm, but that card and chaos warp aren't nearly as cruel as hinder. I might try to add in spell crumple eventually, as its a personal fav in U/x constructed. As for tuck/exile in white, I'd probably add in crib swap before condemn, but I'll see with testing.
If you wouldn't mind suggesting something to remove in green in favor of seedborn, that would be appreciated! I can't decide what to cut!
The more I mull over it, the more this cube seems destined to balloon into an 8 person. What I'll probably do though, is just enfold the 40 generals into the main cube, and boost the subsections to make 600 total. I'm pretty confident that I can instruct my player to MAKE SURE YOU DRAFT AT LEAST ONE LEGEND!
For sleeves, my FLGS likes to buy limited edition and eccentric packs, so I've picked up 19 50-sleeve packs of ones with Mayan Pyramids + calendars. I'm an avowed skeptic, but enjoy the kitsch of hidden hostory/conspiracy stuff. I'm currently using 100 on my godzilla themed horde, but I can easily transfer these oven when and if the time comes to expand.
How many lands have you sleeved for your cube? 250 or 300?
The problem I see with including the generals in with the regular cards is that it increases the size of your multicolor by a fair amount. I like having my multicolor section fairly large (5 of each of the 10 2-color pairs, 3 of each of the 5 Shards, and 1 from the enemy wedges which have little to pick from) as a way to encourage people to go into specific color combinations and to include enough key effects, especially for combos like Grixis and Selesnya that have a lot of very key cards. This is also why I include cards like Gauntlet of Might, Omnath, Locus of Mana, Cabal Coffers, Chandra Ablaze, etc to encourage monocolored decks.
Having 40 generals in with all of the multicolored means either that your multicolored is going to be very large (which cuts into your mono and potentially leaves you with a lot of cards that aren't usable in most decks) or that your available non-general multicolored cards are going to be very small.
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I probably didn't make this point clearly, but I'd only include the generals in the main cube if I were to increase it to 600+ cards. In fact, I've included a section in the first post for an additional 87 cards (bringing the total to 600).
I probably didn't make this point clearly, but I'd only include the generals in the main cube if I were to increase it to 600+ cards. In fact, I've included a section in the first post for an additional 87 cards (bringing the total to 600).
Well, keep me in the loop for how it develops.
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Are you bringing this to gamma on Sunday? If so, I am definatly there! This looks like a blast to play.
A few thoughts:
- I love the rules revision for relaxed identities and what not. It should be the thing that makes this format tick.
- I personally would not slave to the cubes curve as one would do with a "regular" cube, being that this is a multiplayer cube. Just ensure there are ample low drops for a few players, but not set it so everyone is playing sligh EDH.
- as for distribution of generals, I believe there are 3 scools of thought on how to do it.
-pack 1 is all gold legends and people draft generals from that
-1 random gold legend per pack, like the timeshifted cards
-shuffled in with the rest of the cube and drafted as normal
Either way would work for me, but the last option could really gimp someone
All in all, the list seems fine (even though I'm sad you didn't put Rafiq in. It seems that shop hates everything I play or have played, Haha). The only thing you can really do now is test, which I will be happy to assist with.
Traumatize - Dedicated Mill is pretty bad in EDH. If you want to run a dedicated mill card, might I suggest Tunnel Vision? It can combine with tuck spells for an often-lethal mill, or it can be used as a self-tutor that also fuels the graveyard - target yourself naming Living Death, Replenish, or similar and set yourself up for a game-winning next turn.
Toshiro Umezawa - This guy is very rarely what he's cracked up to be. Black has very few good instants, and I'd wager that you aren't running quite enough spot destruction effects to let him reliably flash back countermagic. Try Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed for another black recursion effect that can hit non-creatures.
Nantuko Shade - He's "just" a relatively efficient pump-beater. Why not tack a Shade ability onto some solid utility with Nirkana Revenant instead?
Troll Ascetic - Another cheap efficient beater who does little else. I guess he can carry equipment fairly well, but Silhana Ledgewalker seems to do that better with evasion + hexproof if that's your goal here. Gaea's Revenge is a nice removal-protected beater who carries equipment very well.
Other than those few standouts, looks good!
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Good suggestions, as usual. I actually thought I had a few of those in the list already (the revenant). I'm in the process of sleeving right now, and will make some of the substitutions when I get around to each of the colors.
Angel of FA -> Requiem Angel
Traumatize -> Tunnel Vision
Toshio -> Nirkana Revenant
N Shade and Troll Ascetic I'm going to hold onto for the moment, in the interest of creating some semblance of a mana curve.
RE: Size of the cube - What's wrong with drafting 4-mans out of a 600-card cube? It would increase card variance between drafts, which actually seems like a plus when drafting with people who enjoy EDH.
RE: Generals - I wouldn't have the generals in the packs at all, because the idea of drafting around them and then not seeing the general that you need opened is not fun.
Option A: an auction, something similar to the Auction of the People from the Invitational. Have each player write down the name of the general they want. If no overlap, great - go and play. If there are two people that want the same general, they can bid cards in opener and/or life points against each other to get the one they want. The less life you're willing to start with, the better your bid (ie 7 cards 35 life would beat 7 cards 36 life). Going down a card in hand is better than any life bid (ie 6 cards 40 life is better than 7 cards 10 life). Each person takes turns bidding until nobody wants to go anymore, and the winner gets the general, but starts games at the life and cards he bid. The others have to select another general.
Option B: a generals-only pack where you split ALL available generals into packs, give each player a pack, and pass them around the table once. That gives everyone a decent shot at the general they want, plus a chance to pick up a backup in case the one they want gets spiked by somebody else. No need to go around the table more than once since at that point everyone has seen all the available generals and nobody can run more than one anyway. I'd personally favor this option.
I'd also recommend that either of these be done after the draft. If you pick generals before the draft it locks you into a strategy for your general and makes the actual drafting less interesting.
EDIT: This doesn't leave the generals in the draft, where they'd probably be high picks for their non-General properties. You could probably leave legendary guys that are worth drafting in the packs, and then have a separate bunch of generals for the options above, with the condition that you can't play a second copy of a legend that happens to be in both pools.
Thanks for the reply, Markslack. It didn't take me very long to scrap the whole plan of a smaller cube and just bloat it to the 640 card monster it is right now. I'm also planning making a discreet general drafting/auction phase the norm for each draft, rather than shuffling the generals into the main. I like your idea of the real quick and dirty secret ballot selection process, which can be done when time constraints are high. Any thoughts on how players can get access to unselected, on color generals as cards for their main decks, after the ballot? For instance, someone picks Zedruu and someone else picks Gwendlyn, but both want Niv Mizzet for their deck. Another auction?
The sleeving proces is all finished now; brain and eyes completely destroyed by endless spreadsheet, paper check list, and card box rifling! Hopefully I can take it for a spin in the next two weeks!
Finally got a session with the cube in; 5 players total.
We started with a general draft where 8 cards were dealt to each player, and the packs were drafted. I landed up taking all of the grixis and bug generals, plus niv mizzet, dralnu, and a couple others that I've since forgotten. This part of the draft was enjoyable, although debate ensued over the utility of this phase, considering players were told they could cut to mono colored decks if they picked those legends from the main cube. In the end everyone landed up using one of the bi or tri colored generals. I didn't get a great sense of how much the general phase helped inform players color selections. I personally decided on concentrating on Grixis, cutting to U/R, or U/B depending on what I felt was being drafted.
Here's what we landed up playing:
Me: Gwendlyn Grixis control/combo (I had all the makings of the cabal coffers + deserted temple + urborg, tomb of yawgmoth combo AND the hated mikaeus, the unhallowed + [c]triskelion[c] combo as well)
Player 2: A very polished Geist Voltron deck
Player 3: Kaerveck
Player 4: Vhati il-Dal
Player 5: Olivia Voldaren
Everyone seemed very satisfied by their drafting options, although it took an incredibly long time (5 packs of 15 cards).
The game turned out to be a huge success IMO, with enormous back and forth power swings. Everyone had at least a moment in front runner status, and no one landed up completely dominating the board. The end game was a tense three-way battle between Kaervek, Vhati, and Geist, with Geist eventually pulling off an attrition-style win using powerful equips.
All in all it was a successful draft, and now I'll be starting to pay attention to cube mana curves, color composition, and less useful cards.
I put together a 7 person draft last night. The draft portion took about an hour. Deck building was another 1/2 hour. 2 sessions were played lasting about 2 1/2 hours total.
The two pods landed up as
Oona - goodstuff control + urborg/coffers shenanigens
Sek'Kuar - wrath-happy control
Mayael - fatty ramp + a very effective burn subtheme via pandemonium
Winner = Sek'Kuar cleaned up after a vicious fight between oona and mayael
Ruhan - voltron
Kaalia - Aggro
Riku - control
Jhoira - U/R good stuff with minor combo
Winner = Kaalia. Ruhan and Jhoira were apparently knocked out early, leaving a convoluted fight between Kaalia and Riku. The game appeared to be decided by an all out vault of the archangel supported bum rush by Kaalia.
Once again I was very happy with how the draft went. Everyone seemed pleased with their draft selections and felt that they were able to build quality, functional decks.
The spectre of CMC curve was raised on first examination of the packs, but honestly didn't seem to affect the actual gameplay. Most of the games really got started on turn 4+, which I don't think is too much of a problem, given the intent behind the cube being slower games. It hasn't become apparent whether certain generals are being excluded due to this (edric comes to mind).
As I've stated previously, I need to take a hard look at the viability of triple mono-colored cards (vigor, azami, ect) and probably should skim off some of the really top heavy creatures and spells in favor of things like ramp and manafacts.
i have an edh cube up and running and one thing I have done to put the curve down and create less "dead" picks is limit the number of things with triple color costs, either the triple single costs or the wedge/shard cards. In their favor, I have a disproportionate number of artifacts.
i have an edh cube up and running and one thing I have done to put the curve down and create less "dead" picks is limit the number of things with triple color costs, either the triple single costs or the wedge/shard cards. In their favor, I have a disproportionate number of artifacts.
Thanks for the reply. What's the size and composition of your cube?
Granted I haven't gotten too many sessions under my belt, but no one I've drafted with has reported any real "dead pick" phenomenon so far. Among some of the participants there was definitely some initial shock at the high CMC's of their packs, but everyone seemed capable of putting together fully functional, archetype-conforming decks (aggro, combo, voltron, good stuff, etc). Slower games seemed the norm for this cube, but that's something I was honestly hoping for. With the draft portion of each night easily taking an hour+, I'd feel remiss of the resultant games were over too quickly.
Cutting down on many of the triple mono-colored cards is something on the docket revision-wise, but is already very conceptually daunting as it would involve removing some staple edh cards (cryptic command, vigor, woodfall primus... off the top of my head) that I;m not certain I'm prepared to do.
As for the quantities of wedge /shard cards, I've been thinking about cutting one from each main-cube shard and either replacing them with a low CMC card for WUBRG (things like magma jet, brainstorm, rampant growth, etc), or putting in a mox of each color.
in my opinion, one of the thing that has worked well is running more of the low casting cost alternatives like the brainstorms, ponders, impulse etc along with the big fat bombs.
The green portion of my cube is saturated with mana ramp, the blue portion with small draw, the black portion with targeted removal and graveyard recursion, etc.
In general, I have built my EDH cube to make turning creatures sideways interesting. When turning creatures sideways is important, then things like the Vows start being interesting spells.
My cube is 800 cards (including the generals)
90 of each color
120 colorless
80 lands
80 guild
5 packs of 15 cards each
Generals are divided up into two groups depending on the mood of my group. We either draw one of the 10 tri color dragons and roll with that, or we place one of the 50 generals into each pack to be drafted as normal.
Personally, I prefer drawing a dragon, feels more EDH-ish :). Just as long as I dont whammy out on Numot or Treva (though I do love BANT).
I do the same thing with my EDH cube. I just pull a general at random and make the deck with that.
One interesting thing I have started doing with my EDH cube is doing a BYOG (bring your own general). I have a large pool of generals to select from, pretty much every major EDH general, but this way, people can draft exactly how they want and then use the general they want. It has really opened up the draft.
Another method I have used is having a random draw of the ten legendary shard dragons. That's an interesting format as well.
I have a bit bigger cube so I have a few shard cards...only the big bombs. Things like the ultimatums, planeswalker nicol, etc.
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Basic Information
Cube Size: 635 Cards
Breakdown: 60 Generals, 74 WUBRG, 100 Guild, 105 Colorless
Theme: EDH/Commander
# of Players: 3 - 8
How Often Drafted: about once per quarter
Cube Design
Standard or Multiplayer: Multiplayer
Sideboards?: Yes
Even Color/Identity Balance: Yes
Gold Balance: Yes
Hybrid/Split/Kicker as Gold: Yes
Color Triggers as Gold: Yes
Perfectly Balanced CMC: Hell no
Snow Lands: No
Card Selection
Proxies: Yes ~ some world championship cards, proxies for ABUR Duals (owned but left out due to theft concerns)
Powered: No
Portal: yes
"Un" Cards: Nope
Other Cards: Yes; Conspiracy Hidden Agendas and Path of the Hero cards, available only via lore seeker bonus pack.
Banned Cards for Power-Level: sunder, Griselnizzle, Emrakul
Banned Cards for "fun" factor: sensei's divining top, obliterate, luminarch ascension,magister sphinx, sorin markov, mind twist, Sundering Titan, identity crisis
Cards on the watch list: Expropriate, Arcane Savant
EDH/Commander Rules Variations
Generals Draft: Generals are seeded, one to a pack after the main cube packs have been assembled.
Draft Structure: 5 packs of 15 cards; 5 packs of 12 for 60 card deck building & "shorter" draft sessions
Deck Construction: 67 card deck (= about 40 business cards and 26 lands +1 General in the command zone)
Starting Life: 40/Player
The Cube - last repost 1/29/17 (cube size ruduction 675 -> 635, preliminary Aether Revolt changes)
I'm doing most of my updating in cube tutor these days, so the contents in the spoiler will usually be a bit out of date. I will periodically re-post the entire contents sections, when the cube accumulates enough changes to warrant it. -D
Generals
1 Brago, King Eternal
1 Ephara, God of the Polis
1 Rasputin Dreamweaver
Dimir
1 Lazav, Dimir Mastermind
1 Dragonlord Silumgar
1 Wrexial, the Risen Deep
Rakdos
1 Grenzo, Dungeon Warden
1 Olivia Voldaren
1 Rakdos, Lord of Riots
Gruul
1 Dragonlord Atarka
1 Omnath, Locus of Rage
1 Wort, the Raidmother
Selesnya
1 Rhys the Redeemed
1 Karametra, God of Harvests
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
Orzhov
1 Athreos, God of Passage
1 Karlov of the Ghost Council
1 Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter
Golgari
1 Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
1 Meren of Clan Nel Toth
1 The Gitrog Monster
1 Ezuri, Claw of Progress
1 Rashmi, Eternities Crafter
1 Prime Speaker Zegana
Izzet
1 Keranos, God of Storms
1 Jhoira of the Ghitu
1 Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind
Boros
1 Aurelia, the Warleader
1 Iroas, God of Victory
1 Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
Jund
1 Adun Oakenshield
1 Prossh, Skyraider of Kher
1 Kresh the Bloodbraided
Naya
1 Marath, Will of the Wild
1 Gahiji, Honored One
1 Hazezon Tamar
Bant
1 Derevi, Empyrial Tactician
1 Roon of the Hidden Realm
1 Rafiq of the Many
Esper
1 Oloro, Ageless Ascetic
1 Sharuum the Hegemon
1 Ertai, the Corrupted
1 Marchesa, the Black Rose
1 Nekusar, the Mindrazer
1 Thraximundar
Jeskai
1 Zedruu the Greathearted
1 Narset, Enlightened Master
1 Numot, the Devastator
Mardu
1 Alesha, Who Smiles at Death
1 Kaalia of the Vast
1 Queen Marchesa
Junk
1 Anafenza, the Foremost
1 Ghave, Guru of Spores
1 Karador, Ghost Chieftain
BUG
1 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
1 Damia, Sage of Stone
RUG
1 Animar, Soul of Elements
1 Riku of Two Reflections
1 Surrak Dragonclaw
White
1 Serra Ascendant
1 Containment Priest
1 Oreskos Explorer
1 Relic Seeker
1 Selfless Spirit
1 Spirit of the Labyrinth
1 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Thalia's Lieutenant
1 Wall of Omens
1 Brimaz, King of Oreskos
1 Bygone Bishop
1 Eldrazi Displacer
1 Fiend Hunter
1 Flickerwisp
1 Hallowed Spiritkeeper
1 Hushwing Gryff
1 Mangara of Corondor
1 Mirror Entity
1 Recruiter of the Guard
1 Stonecloaker
1 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
1 Angel of Finality
1 Gisela, the Broken Blade
1 Hero of Bladehold
1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
1 Restoration Angel
1 Archangel of Thune
1 Baneslayer Angel
1 Cataclysmic Gearhulk
1 Karmic Guide
1 Reveillark
1 Sun Titan
1 Yosei, the Morning Star
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Emeria Shepherd
1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
1 Avacyn, Angel of Hope
1 Ajani, Caller of the Pride
1 Ajani Steadfast
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
Instants
1 Cloudshift
1 Path to Exile
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Valorous Stance
1 Oblation
1 Faith's Reward
1 Return to Dust
1 Secure the Wastes
1 Unexpectedly Absent
1 Collective Effort
1 Council's Judgment
1 Sram's Expertise
1 Wrath of God
1 Tragic Arrogance
1 Austere Command
1 Planar Cleansing
1 Terminus
1 Martial Coup
1 Storm Herd
Enchantments
1 Land Tax
1 Blind Obedience
1 Rest in Peace
1 Aura of Silence
1 Duelist's Heritage
1 Ghostly Prison
1 Grasp of Fate
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Citadel Siege
1 Cathars' Crusade
1 Spear of Heliod
Blue
1 Gilded Drake
1 Lighthouse Chronologist
1 Looter il-Kor
1 Phantasmal Image
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Stratus Dancer
1 Wharf Infiltrator
1 Willbender
1 Chasm Skulker
1 Grand Architect
1 Jace's Archivist
1 Muzzio, Visionary Architect
1 Thada Adel, Acquisitor
1 Thassa, God of the Sea
1 Vexing Sphinx
1 Faerie Artisans
1 Glen Elendra Archmage
1 Master of Waves
1 Phyrexian Metamorph
1 Reef Worm
1 Sakashima the Impostor
1 Sower of Temptation
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
1 Whirler Rogue
1 Arcane Savant
1 Deepglow Skate
1 Mulldrifter
1 Vesuvan Doppelganger
1 Deadeye Navigator
1 Keiga, the Tide Star
1 Inkwell Leviathan
1 Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
1 Jace Beleren
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage
Artifact(s)
1 Crystal Shard
1 Bident of Thassa
Instants
1 Arcane Denial
1 Counterspell
1 Cyclonic Rift
1 Reality Shift
1 Capsize
1 Forbid
1 Ghostly Flicker
1 Cryptic Command
1 Evacuation
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
1 Dig Through Time
1 Manifold Insights
1 Rite of Replication
1 Bribery
1 Time Warp
1 Crush of Tentacles
1 Recurring Insight
1 Time Spiral
1 Curse of the Swine
1 Treasure Cruise
1 Expropriate
Enchantments
1 Mystic Remora
1 Equilibrium
1 Imprisoned in the Moon
1 Monastery Siege
1 Propaganda
1 Retreat to Coralhelm
1 Rhystic Study
1 Leyline of Anticipation
1 Opposition
1 Thopter Spy Network
1 Treachery
1 Mind's Dilation
1 Academy Ruins
Black
1 Asylum Visitor
1 Blood Artist
1 Bloodghast
1 Nezumi Graverobber
1 Pack Rat
1 Zulaport Cutthroat
1 Big Game Hunter
1 Bone Shredder
1 Coffin Queen
1 Drana, Liberator of Malakir
1 Flesh Carver
1 Fleshbag Marauder
1 Grim Haruspex
1 Magus of the Will
1 Ophiomancer
1 Crypt Ghast
1 Disciple of Bolas
1 Erebos, God of the Dead
1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
1 Sewer Nemesis
1 Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed
1 Bloodgift Demon
1 Custodi Lich
1 Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief
1 Puppeteer Clique
1 Shriekmaw
1 Sidisi, Undead Vizier
1 Grave Titan
1 Kokusho, the Evening Star
1 Massacre Wurm
1 Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
1 Rune-Scarred Demon
1 Sheoldred, Whispering One
1 Avatar of Woe
1 Liliana of the Veil
1 Liliana Vess
1 Ob Nixilis Reignited
Artifacts
1 Whip of Erebos
Instants
1 Tragic Slip
1 Malicious Affliction
1 Dismember
1 Hero's Downfall
1 Sudden Spoiling
1 Wretched Confluence
1 Wake the Dead
Sorceries
1 Innocent Blood
1 Reanimate
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Night's Whisper
1 Buried Alive
1 Read the Bones
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Damnation
1 Syphon Mind
1 Beacon of Unrest
1 Living Death
1 Black Sun's Zenith
1 Exsanguinate
1 Profane Command
1 Army of the Damned
1 Decree of Pain
1 Animate Dead
1 Bitterblossom
1 Waste Not
1 Bottomless Pit
1 Necromancy
1 Phyrexian Arena
1 Words of Waste
1 Dictate of Erebos
Lands
1 Cabal Coffers
1 Volrath's Stronghold
Red
1 Dragonmaster Outcast
1 Goblin Welder
1 Abbot of Keral Keep
1 Ashling the Pilgrim
1 Grenzo, Havoc Raiser
1 Humble Defector
1 Kari Zev, Skyship Raider
1 Dualcaster Mage
1 Feldon of the Third Path
1 Goblin Rabblemaster
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Goblin Spymaster
1 Hanweir Garrison
1 Imperial Recruiter
1 Magus of the Wheel
1 Taurean Mauler
1 Viashino Heretic
1 Volatile Chimera
1 Hero of Oxid Ridge
1 Krenko, Mob Boss
1 Ogre Battledriver
1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
1 Purphoros, God of the Forge
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
1 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Stormbreath Dragon
1 Thundermaw Hellkite
1 Urabrask the Hidden
1 Zealous Conscripts
1 Inferno Titan
1 Runehorn Hellkite
1 Scourge of the Throne
1 Balefire Dragon
1 Akroma, Angel of Fury
1 Bedlam Reveler
1 Bogardan Hellkite
1 Chandra, Pyromaster
1 Daretti, Scrap Savant
1 Koth of the Hammer
1 Chandra, Flamecaller
Artifacts
1 Hammer of Purphoros
Instants
1 Chaos Warp
1 Rack and Ruin
1 Wild Ricochet
1 Savage Beating
1 Magmaquake
Sorceries
1 Shattering Spree
1 Cathartic Reunion
1 Mizzium Mortars
1 Anger of the Gods
1 Collective Defiance
1 Hordeling Outburst
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Fiery Confluence
1 Mizzix's Mastery
1 Descent of the Dragons
1 Rolling Earthquake
1 Subterranean Tremors
1 Tempt with Vengeance
1 Volcanic Vision
1 Blasphemous Act
1 Goblin Bombardment
1 Impact Tremors
1 Repercussion
1 Outpost Siege
1 Pandemonium
1 Sneak Attack
1 Splinter Twin
1 Dictate of the Twin Gods
1 Rage Reflection
1 Warstorm Surge
1 Vicious Shadows
Green
1 Birds of Paradise
1 Joraga Treespeaker
1 Ainok Survivalist
1 Den Protector
1 Duskwatch Recruiter
1 Gyre Sage
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Sylvan Caryatid
1 Champion of Lambholt
1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Eternal Witness
1 Managorger Hydra
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Selvala, Heart of the Wilds
1 Shaman of Forgotten Ways
1 Skullwinder
1 Tireless Tracker
1 Yavimaya Elder
1 Caller of the Untamed
1 Oracle of Mul Daya
1 Polukranos, World Eater
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Acidic Slime
1 Kalonian Hydra
1 Mycoloth
1 Seedborn Muse
1 Titania, Protector of Argoth
1 Bane of Progress
1 Greenwarden of Murasa
1 Rampaging Baloths
1 Regal Behemoth
1 Hornet Queen
1 Craterhoof Behemoth
1 Terastodon
1 Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger
1 Decimator of the Provinces
1 Nissa, Voice of Zendikar
1 Garruk Wildspeaker
1 Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury
1 Garruk, Primal Hunter
1 Nissa, Vital Force
Instants
1 Tribute to the Wild
1 Unravel the Aether
1 Beast Within
1 Hunter's Insight
1 Krosan Grip
Sorceries
1 Farseek
1 Rampant Growth
1 Regrowth
1 Cultivate
1 Eldritch Evolution
1 Kodama's Reach
1 Explosive Vegetation
1 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Rishkar's Expertise
1 Selvala's Stampede
1 Genesis Wave
1 Exploration
1 Hardened Scales
1 Cryptolith Rite
1 Survival of the Fittest
1 Sylvan Library
1 Beastmaster Ascension
1 Song of the Dryads
1 Defense of the Heart
1 Frontier Siege
1 Greater Good
1 Parallel Lives
1 Doubling Season
1 Mana Reflection
1 Gaea's Cradle
Multicolored
1 Azorius Guildmage
1 Reflector Mage
1 Venser, the Sojourner
1 Azorius Signet
1 Mirrorweave
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Celestial Colonnade
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Temple of Enlightenment
1 Tundra
Dimir
1 Baleful Strix
1 Notion Thief
1 Havengul Lich
1 Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
1 Dimir Signet
1 Breathstealer's Crypt
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Temple of Deceit
1 Underground Sea
1 Watery Grave
1 Sire of Insanity
1 Rakdos Signet
1 Rakdos Charm
1 Fire Covenant
1 Cauldron Dance
1 Dreadbore
1 Badlands
1 Blood Crypt
1 Lavaclaw Reaches
1 Temple of Malice
Gruul
1 Sarkhan Vol
1 Xenagos, the Reveler
1 Artifact Mutation
1 Treacherous Terrain
1 Gruul Singet
1 Raging Ravine
1 Kessig Wolf Run
1 Stomping Ground
1 Taiga
1 Temple of Abandon
1 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Ajani, Mentor of Heroes
1 Aura Shards
1 Mirari's Wake
1 Selesnya Signet
1 Gavony Township
1 Savannah
1 Stirring Wildwood
1 Temple Garden
1 Temple of Plenty
1 Angel of Despair
1 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
1 Orzhov Signet
1 Vindicate
1 Unburial Rites
1 Merciless Eviction
1 Godless Shrine
1 Shambling Vent
1 Scrubland
1 Temple of Silence
Golgari
1 Lord of Extinction
1 Vraska the Unseen
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Necrogenesis
1 Pernicious Deed
1 Golgari Signet
1 Bayou
1 Hissing Quagmire
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Temple of Malady
1 Trygon Predator
1 Fathom Mage
1 Master Biomancer
1 Progenitor Mimic
1 Kiora, Master of the Depths
1 Simic Signet
1 Breeding Pool
1 Lumbering Falls
1 Temple of Mystery
1 Tropical Island
Izzet
1 Dack's Duplicate
1 Dack Fayden
1 Ral Zarek
1 Izzet Signet
1 Steam Augury
1 Desolate Lighthouse
1 Wandering Fumarole
1 Steam Vents
1 Temple of Epiphany
1 Volcanic Island
1 Duergar Hedge-Mage
1 Ajani Vengeant
1 Nahiri, the Harbinger
1 Boros Charm
1 Assemble the Legion
1 Boros Signet
1 Needle Spires
1 Plateau
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Temple of Triumph
Colorless Artifacts, Eldrazi, and Lands
1 Kozilek, the Great Distortion
1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
Planeswalker(s)
1 Karn Liberated
1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
Artifact Creatures
1 Lore Seeker
1 Myr Retriever
1 Burnished Hart
1 Junk Diver
1 Cogwork Librarian
1 Crystalline Crawler
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Psychosis Crawler
1 Duplicant
1 Soul of New Phyrexia
1 Steel Hellkite
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Myr Battlesphere
1 Hangarback Walker
1 Blightsteel Colossus
Artifacts
1 Everflowing Chalice
1 Mana Vault
1 Skullclamp
1 Sol Ring
1 Altar Of Dementia
1 Blade of Selves
1 Coldsteel Heart
1 Doubling Cube
1 Fellwar Stone
1 Grim Monolith
1 Inquisitor's Flail
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Mind Stone
1 Nim Deathmantle
1 Smuggler's Copter
1 Swiftfoot Boots
1 Sword of the Animist
1 Torpor Orb
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Basalt Monolith
1 Chromatic Lantern
1 Coalition Relic
1 Commander's Sphere
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Cultivator's Caravan
1 Darksteel Ingot
1 Darksteel Plate
1 Fireshrieker
1 Loxodon Warhammer
1 Mimic Vat
1 Oblivion Stone
1 Phyrexian Altar
1 Rings of Brighthearth
1 Sculpting Steel
1 Sword of Body and Mind
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
1 Sword of War and Peace
1 Worn Powerstone
1 Coercive Portal
1 Deathrender
1 Ghirapur Orrery
1 Krark-Clan Ironworks
1 Nevinyrral's Disk
1 Panharmonicon
1 Thran Dynamo
1 Vedalken Orrery
1 Batterskull
1 Gilded Lotus
1 Mind's Eye
1 Caged Sun
1 Mindslaver
1 Akroma's Memorial
1 All Is Dust
Colorless Lands
1 Ancient Tomb
1 Arid Mesa
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 City of Brass
1 Command Tower
1 Dark Depths
1 Evolving Wilds
1 Flooded Strand
1 Geier Reach Sanitarium
1 High Market
1 Inkmoth Nexus
1 Mana Confluence
1 Marsh Flats
1 Maze of Ith
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Myriad Landscape
1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1 Opal Palace
1 Paliano, the High City
1 Polluted Delta
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Strip Mine
1 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Vesuva
1 Wasteland
1 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills
Ultra-Nutty Lore Seeker Pack
1 Brago's Favor
1 Double Stroke
1 Emissary's Ploy
1 Hymn of the Wilds
1 Muzzio's Preparations
1 Power Play
1 Unexpected Potential
1 The Explorer
1 The Harvester
1 The Savant
1 The Vanquisher
1 The Warmonger
1 The Warrior
Cube Tutor
Updated: 12/6/2016
LINK
"Personally I love high-riak, low-reqars gambles. Life's best with a decent amount of riak. And f*** reqars."
Sept 2013+
Changes will be recorded/tracked using cube tutor.
6/15 - Dragon's Maze Changes:
1 Teysa, Envoy of Ghosts
1 Varolz, The Scar Stripped
Black
1 Blood Scrivner
Boros
1 Legion's Initiative
1 Deadbridge Chant
Gruul
1 Gruul Ragebeast
Izzet
1 Mizzium Transreliquat
1 Turn/Burn
1 Ral Zarek
1 Debt to the Deathless
Rakdos
1 Sire of Insanity
Simic
1 Plasm Capture
1 Ghost Council of Orzhova
1 Skullbriar, the Walking Grave
Black
1 Mindslicer
Boros
1 Razia's Purification
1 Gleancrawler
Gruul
1 Savage Twister
Izzet
1 Cerebral Vortex
1 Stitch in Time
1 Nucklavee
1 Death Grasp
Rakdos
1 Spiteful Visions
Simic
1 Coiling Oracle
4/20
Acquire -> Cyclonic Rift
4/9
Stinkweed Imp -> Crypt Ghast
4/6:
Mnemonic Wall -> Archaeomancer
3/31/2013
Cut all 5 Moxes (proxied)
IN: Chromatic Lantern
Doubling Cube
Torpor Orb
Everflowing Chalice
Grafdigger's Cage
3/28/2013
1 Felidar Sovereign
1 Requiem Angel
Blue:
1 Soothsaying
1 Concentrate
Black:
1 Reaper from the Abyss
1 Nightmare Incursion
1 Hammer of Bogardan
1 Recoup
Green:
1 Moldgraf Monstrosity
Orzhov:
1 Necromancer's Covenant
Dimir:
1 Memory Plunder
1 Burning-Tree Shaman
Generals:
1 Dralnu, Lich Lord
1 Radha, Heir to Keld
1 Experiment Kraj
1 Luminate Primordial
1 Angel of Serenity
Blue:
1 Mystic Remora
1 Opposition
Black:
1 Sepulchral Primordial
1 Lord of the Void
1 Molten Primordial
1 Hellkite Tyrant
Green:
1 Sylvan Primordial
Orzhov:
1 Merciless Eviction
Dimir:
1 Whispering Madness
1 Clan Defiance
Generals:
1 Lazav, Dimir Mastermind
1 Borborygmos Enraged
1 Prime Speaker Zegana
2/2/13
Primal Rage -> Increasing Savagery
1/6/13
Vendilion Clique (proxy) -> Daring Apprentice
2012 Changes
12/21/12:
Elderwood Scion -> Armada Wurm
Jace, the Mind Sculptor (proxy) -> Tamiyo, the Moon Sage
12/16/12:
Identity Crisis -> Death Grasp
Masked Admirers -> Yeva, Nature's Herald
12/10/12:
Nantuko Shade -> Nether Traitor
Samurai of the Pale Curtain -> Rest in Peace
Mirari -> Mycosynth Lattice
12/1/12:
Bruna, Light of Alabaster -> Rasputin Dreamweaver
Howling Mine -> Grim Monolith
11/25/12: Spelltithe Enforcer -> Avacyn, Angel of Hope
Berserk -> Fastbond
11/21/12:
Momentary Blink -> Mirrorweave
11/13/12:
Angelic Arbiter -> Battlegrace Angel
11/1/12: Swift Silence -> Supreme Verdict
Putrefy -> Vraska the Unseen
Dragon Tyrant -> Utvara Hellkite
Shatterstorm -> Vandalblast
Argentum Armor -> Eldrazi Conscription
Izzet Guildmage -> Nivix Guildmage
Oct 12: Imperial Recruiter -> Mizzium Mortars
9/7: Testing Nath of the Gilt-Leaf -> Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Big test: Proxied Intuition -> Gifts Ungiven!
9/5: IN High Market & Scrying Sheets
Flameblast Dragon -> Rimescale Dragon
Treacherous Urge -> Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon (got a foil one)
8/20: Big ol' expansion: added 75 cards and, with some new acquisitions, made a number of substitutions. I will probably add an extra 1-3 lands once FtV Realms is released.
1 Rafiq of the Many
1 Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund
White
1 Admonition Angel
1 Aven Mindcensor
1 Michiko Konda, Truth Seeker
1 Restoration Angel
1 Spelltithe Enforcer
1 Wall of Omens
1 Akroma's Vengeance
1 Armageddon
1 Balance
1 Mobilization
1 Rule of Law
1 Terminus
1 Unquestioned Authority
Blue
1 Aeon Chronicler
1 Ludevic's Test Subject
1 Mulldrifter
1 Sakashima's Student
1 Deep Analysis
1 Foresee
1 Hinder
1 Remand
1 Spelljack
1 Time Stop
Black
1 Blood Artist
1 Bloodline Keeper
1 Extractor Demon
1 Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni
1 Reassembling Skeleton
1 Stinkweed Imp
1 Eyeblight's Ending
1 Makeshift Mannequin
1 Night's Whisper
1 Reanimate
1 Recurring Nightmare
1 Dragon Tyrant
1 Dragonspeaker Shaman
1 Hound of Griselbrand
1 Jaya Ballard, Task Mage
1 Slobad, Goblin Tinkerer
1 Furnace of Rath
1 Goblin Bombardment
1 Magma Jet
1 Rage Reflection
1 Word of Seizing
Green
1 Great Sable Stag
1 Imperious Perfect
1 Multani, Maro-Sorcerer
1 Primordial Hydra
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Somberwald Sage
1 Creeping Corrosion
1 Primal Rage
1 Tribute to the Wild
1 Wild Pair
Guild
1 Momentary Blink
1 Master Warcraft
1 Mindleech Mass
1 Gleancrawler
1 Decimate
1 Nucklavee
1 Necromancer's Covenant
1 Defiler of Souls
1 Loxodon Hierarch
1 Cold-eyed Selkie
1 Altar of Dementia
1 Darksteel Plate
1 Howling Mine
1 Journeyer's Kite
1 Mana Vault
1 Sword of Body and Mind
1 Sword of War and Peace
1 Lodestone Golem
1 Molten-Tail Masticore
1 Myr Battlesphere
1 Myr Retriever
1 Stuffy Doll
Lands
1 Ancient Tomb
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Reflecting Pool
1 Rishadan Port
1 Scorched Ruins
7/21/12: Rasputin Dreamweaver -> Bruna, Light of Alabaster
Crib Swap -> Battle Mastery
Washout -> Devistation Tide
Some more Bruna magic to come...
7/20/12: Heartless Summoning -> Disciple of Bolas
7/10/12: Gwendlyn di Corci -> Sedris, the Traitor King
Scavenging Ooze -> Masked Admirers
Fecundity -> Far Wanderings
Birthing Pod -> Wolfir Silverheart
windfall -> concentrate
6/27/12: diabolic vision -> baleful strix
6/23/12: Mind Twist -> Nihil Spellbomb
Night's Whisper -> Nantuko Shade
Dwarven Miner -> Zealous Conscripts
Dwarven Blastminer -> Boom // Bust
6/2/12: Planechase 2 changes
Stonebrow, Krosan Hero -> Thromok the Insatiable
Grimgrin, Corpse-Born -> Vela the Night-Clad
Whirlpool Warrior -> Etherium-Horn Sorcerer
Sabretooth Nishoba -> Elderwood Scion
Emeria, the Sky Ruin -> Desolate Lighthouse
5/17/12: Swerve -> Izzet Guildmage
Joiner Adept -> Deranged Hermit
Arashi, the Sky Asunder -> Soul of the Harvest
Spirit en-Dal -> Silverblade Paladin
Mindshrieker -> Brainstorm
Magma Jet/c] -> Mad Prophet
5/9/12: time stretch -> Deadeye Navigator
5/8/12:
Ambition's Cost -> Ancient Craving (picked one out of a commons box for 10 cents)
5/4/12:
Nantuko Shade -> Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed
Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle -> Slayer's Stronghold
4/16/12: Out -> In
Psychosis Crawler -> Winter Orb
Razia, Boros Archangel -> Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
4/10/12: Out -> In
Brutalizer Exarch -> Silhana Ledgewalker
Withering Boon -> Necropotence
4/4/12: Proxied up a cool rasputin dreamweaver, so Ith, High Arcanist is out.
4/2/12: 20 New Generals in; Shard/Wedge cards out
In:
1 Bladewing the Risen
1 Ith, High Arcanist
1 Nath of the Gilt-Leaf
1 Uril, the Miststalker
1 Experiment Kraj
1 Jenara, Asura of War
1 Numot, the Devistator
1 Grimgrin, Corpse-Born
1 Adun Oakenshield
1 Razia, Boros Archangel
1 Animar, Soul of Elements
1 Nicol Bolas
1 Teneb, teh Harvester
1 Ghost Council of Orzhova
1 Vorosh, the Hunter
1 Zur the Enchanter
1 Oros, the Avenger
1 Radha, Heir to Keld
Out -> In
Spelljack -> Diplomatic Immunity
Harmonic Sliver -> Qasali Pridemage
Evangelize -> Prison Term
Mageta the Lion -> Angelic Destiny
Vhati il-Dal -> Skullbriar, the Walking Grave
Sphinx of the Steel Wind -> diabolic vision
broodmate dragon -> Artifact Mutation
Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker -> Wrecking Ball
Naya Charm -> Armadillo Cloak
Bant Charm -> Steel of the Godhead
Fervent Charge -> Mortify
Research // Development -> Stitch in Time
Crime // Punishment -> Putrefy
Odds // Ends -> Duerger Hedge-mage
Bound // Determined -> Coiling Oracle
3/28/12: 'nuther big edit in favor of reducing curve:
Out -> In
vengeful pharaoh -> boneshreder
pestilence demon -> abyssal persecutor
helldozer -> innocent blood
verdant force -> vorinclex, voice of hunger completing praetor cycle for possible new phyrexia minigames
empyrial plate, darksteel plate and sword of war and peace -> Kaldratron
cutting back on 3-color
Titanic Ultimatum -> rampant growth
Madrush Cyclops -> magma jet
Enigma Sphinx -> impulse
Cruel Ultimatum -> Withering Boon
Finest Hour -> Soul Snare
Adding 10 additional cards:
lightning bolt
treacherous urge
vendillion clique
Mangara of Corondor
Harrow
+all 5 Moxes
3/22/12: mordant dragon -> moonveil dragon
3/8/12: Out garruk's packleader -> In azusa, lost but seeking
3/3/12: First Substantial Change - Omni-colored cards and vivid lands out; trying to lower curve slightly
dragon tyrant -> Charmbreaker Devils
Horde of Notions -> Grimoire of the Dead
Maelstron Nexus -> Vedalken Orrery
Scion of the Ur-Dragon -> Darksteel Plate
Wrecking Ball -> Falkenrath Aristocrat
guided passage -> research // development
myr battlesphere -> coldsteel heart
Spine of Ish Sah -> mirrorworks
vivid crag -> Shatterstorm
vivid creek -> into the roil
vivid grove -> regrowth
vivid marsh -> kokusho, the evening star
vivid meadows -> revoke existence
2/23/12: Cube and lands are fully sleeved! Working on reinforcing card stock proxies to increase rigidity/minimize difference in feel from normal cards.
2/22/12: Expanded to 640 cards. Sleeving and final tweaks underway.
2/17/12: First draft uploaded. Cube is still just a list. Additions/subtractions during this phase will, for the most part, be undocumented.
x Watch Log
Date: N/A
Out -> In
Watch
-
-
Wants/Considering
Obzedat, Ghost Council
x Forum Post Change Log
Sept-Dec 2013: Cleaned up cubetutor.com entries, changes will be tracked exclusively through that site ~ periodic updates to mtgs entry.
4/1/2013: Major reposting of cube list: cards organized by CMC now, for better clarity and ease of cube analysis and comparison
10/29/12: Changed the names of a couple wedge color combinations in the general section.
Added a "watch" section to help me remember changes I'm considering
8/20/12: Expanded cube again.
4/3/12: Changed cube thread's name. Cleaned up info section a bit
3/30/12: Added commander cube links section
3/26/12: new, second op added for containing change log.
2/22/12: "Final" list updated. Updated cube info.
2/17/12: fixed spelling; cleaned up cube list; added basic info; fomatting post.
x Random Thoughts and Session Notes
Sept: In a big process of de-proxying the cube.
8/7/12: expanded main cube section by 75 cards
4/2/12: All shard/wedge cards have been removed. Added new generals.
3/26/12: Thinking of cutting 1 of each main-cube shard slot (enigma sphinx, cruel ultimatum, etc) and replace with either 1 low cmc "card quality" slot per color (rampant growth, magma jet, etc), or one of each Mox. Also considering adding an additional general of each guild/shard/wedge, increasing the total to 60. Once I acquire the helm, gonna add in Kaldra-tron for use with Sisay, general beats (probably cutting darksteel plate, sword of war and peace and whispersilk cloak in the process).
2/29/12: Watch list: mind twist; chopping block: spine of ish sah; 5 vivid lands, all omni-colored cards
2/23/12: Brain fried after working on this. Looking forward to restocking my trade binder with newly freed copies of many edh staples. Need to establish list of cards to be retained for on-the-fly constructed edh decks.
2/23/12: Note to keep on eye on how playable numerous triple blue cards are. The quantity caught my eye while sleeving.
Links to Other Commander Cubes
Wildfire393's Cube
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=438050
LostCondottiere and Theogony IX's EDH Cube
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=411812
Portland Commander Cube
http://www.onegeneraltorule.com/commander-cube-list
MtgSalvation Commander "Top 50" lists
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=252037
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=388001
Infinite combos and/or very good card synergies thread
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=395024
"Personally I love high-riak, low-reqars gambles. Life's best with a decent amount of riak. And f*** reqars."
I would play Vivids in an EDH cube. Horde of Notions and the two other 5 color legends will be very hard to play without Vivids.
Thank you, but I unfortunately can't take credit for being the first on mtgs. There's a user, Wildfire393, who had posted a commander cube, in the commander section (http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=376059). His list, along with the aforementioned "top 50" threads were an enormous help in getting this first draft completed.
I've also heard other commander players talking about their commander cubes, so there might be others squirreled away that I just didn't track down.
I'll put some thought into the vivids. I specifically didn't add the shock lands, because I wanted a more utility-based rather than fixing-based nonbasic land section, but there might be no getting around this. I also was intending for the horde and scion to be tempting cuts to 5 colors, if a player got them early enough in the draft.
Thanks for the analysis, Eidolon. Those curve charts you've posted will be a huge help. This is literally a fresh off the spreadsheet first pass, so I'm expecting a lot of tweaking.
-Dolono
"Personally I love high-riak, low-reqars gambles. Life's best with a decent amount of riak. And f*** reqars."
The way I do general selection is by including a 16th card in each pack, in a special sleeve. The general can be picked any time a normal card can be, though you cannot make a general pick if you already have from that pack - this is to stop someone from picking multiple generals per pack and locking the other players out of having a general. There is a possible case where the 16th pick for a player is a general where they've already got one, I've handled this by having them switch last picks with the nearest person to them who has not picked a general. However, I'm not certain this is strictly necessary, as a last-pick general is frequently not useful for (either) player, so might as well be any other last-pick card. Generals may be switched to a regular sleeve for use as part of a deck, and non-general legendaries may be switched into the general sleeves for use as generals - this allows monocolor or five-color to be played.
Your generals are mostly pretty similar to mine, with a few exceptions. Some of those seem fine (Di Corci over Bolas, Dralnu over Wrexial, Vhati over Nath, Jhoira over Nin, Olivia over Lyzolda), but a few I think you might have difficulty with:
Sygg, River's Guide - Are you running enough Merfolk for this to be really worthwhile? I see only one (Thada Adel), which means Sygg's ability more or less only affects himself. Ith, High Arcanist and Grand Arbiter Augustin IV are solid choices if you don't want to track down a Rasputin Dreamweaver. Geist of Saint Traft also works if what you're looking for is an aggro/voltron general with protection.
Phelddagrif - Personally, I hate group hug. Also, Rubinia already gives you a controllish general, so why not Rafiq/Jenara for a more aggressive Bant general?
Stonebrown, Krosan Hero - You might want to double-check how many tramplers you have in your cube before committing to this guy. He tends to thrive alongside some traditionally-bad cards like Garruk's Companion and Ball Lightning, or at least Brawn and Akroma's Memorial
Rith, the Awakener - This is more of a preference, but I find him to be much worse in the token-making department than Hazezon Tamar. If you just want beef, Uril, the Miststalker is where it's at.
Captain Sisay - You really need to be aware here of how many legendary permanents you have in G/W/Colorless, as with too few she becomes very lackluster.
Also, pay a mind to how many 5-power RWG creatures and how many RWB Angels/Demons/Dragons you have to make Kaalia of the Vast and Mayael the Anima worthwhile. I've intentionally bumped up my 5+-power Angel/Dragon numbers since originally creating the cube in order to make both of these more viable (and also improve my R and W which were lackluster where they were at).
Lands: I run 60 lands and include the Shocks, passing on the Vivids. I think the Shocks are generally better than the Vivids, but it means trimming some of your other numbers to make room for them. Apart from that your lands seem pretty similar, though I don't run the Worldwake Manlands, instead preferring to run other utility lands.
White: Couple things missing at first glance - Adarkar Valkyrie, Condemn, Hallowed Burial, Knight of the White Orchid, Luminarch Ascension, Akroma, Angel of Wrath. Ethersworn Canonist, Mirran Crusader, and Spirit en-Dal (who should be a creature) seem weak, though I know you are trying to fill in your curve a little.
Blue: Draining Whelk, Hinder, Faerie Trickery, and Spell Crumple are missing from my favored counterspell suite (as is Mana Drain, but that's for understandable budgetary reasons). Proteus Staff, Spin Into Myth, and Capsize being missing makes me think that your spot removal is also too light. Jin is out of place in spells. I personally hate Trade Secrets, as it often turns the game into a 1-on-1, and Master of Etherium seems a little weak.
Black: Nothing seems terribly wrong here, though how good is Tainted Pact?
Red: Much better than my initial draft of Red was. Imperial Recruiter would be good to add if it's in the budget. Chandra Ablaze is actually generally the superior Chandra in EDH, and is certainly worth a slot
Green: Seedborn Muse is notably missing.
Multi: Sovereigns of Lost Alara is great on paper, and then you realize you have barely any auras in your list. The only one it works with that I can see is Eldrazi Conscription, which is cute but probably not worth the slot as he's worthless without it.
Thopter Foundry/Sword of the Meek is cute, but it seems overly hard to assemble, and neither piece is that great on their own.
If you want two 5-color generals, I'd suggest Child of Alara as the second over Scion. Trying to build a 5-color mana base AND snag enough dragons to make him work seems very difficult.
Colorless: I run one of every signet for additional color fixing and ramp. I run a few more artifacts than you do though.
Final notes:
Your cube is currently smaller than mine. I run 600 cards + 40 generals, which allows me to support 8 players (5 packs of 15 each is 75, x8 = 600, with 1 general per pack). I like the 8-player dynamic, because every card is in play, and it can support things like two mono-colored decks at one table. Plus then, you can split into two 4-player games for actually playing - a 5 or 6 player game gets really messy, and you don't want to force anyone into a 2-player game, because that does not support EDH well. I've done a few drafts at 5-6 players and two at 8, and I like the 8 better.
I believe my composition was originally aimed to be 80 of each color, 40 lands, 80 Artifacts/Colorless, 80 multicolored, but I bumped lands up to 60 at the cost of 4 of each color, and my 1 5-color card is "borrowed" from the colorless, so my totals are 76 of each mono, 81 multicolored, 79 Colorless, 60 Lands.
Currently Playing:
Legacy: Something U/W Controlish
EDH Cube
Hypercube! A New EDH Deck Every Week(ish)!
I'm actually trying to go in the opposite direction from this. I can completely understand your logic here, but due to the typical size of my play group(s), my aspiration would be to cut this down to a four person cube! Right now, my list is between that and ballooning into the normal 8-person cube. I'd like to get a feel for how popular it is, and how often I get to run it, before drifting in either direction.
Most Sygg lists I've encountered do rely on him as the sole beneficiary of his ability, so my intent was to use him as a voltron commander. But I have decided to sub in Geist, because he's a bit more interesting mechanic-wise.
Grif is intended as a voltron, rather than group hug general. I might consider Jenara or Treva, but Rafiq was specifically excluded as he's largely considered unfun by the circles I play with.
Added the memorial, and I will examine the number of innate tramplers later. I'm not being shy about proxying cards I don't own in this cube, so no need to qualify card suggestions with concerns about budget.
You noticed the lack of auras, when discussing Sovereigns, and that affected by decision to exclude Uril. He's also close to being in the Rafiq club for despised generals. I might try out Hazezon if I build find a good pic for a proxy, but his "tokens die when he does" clause has never sat right with me.
Shocks were another conscious exclusion. I just think that the vivids and man lands give the cube more personality than another 10 duals. If color fixing turns out to be a disaster, I'll reconsider this issue. I feel similarly about signets, where I hate how many slots they take up.
A lot of these suggestions are great, but I've been specifically excluding tuck effects. Testing will determine whether certain generals and creatures (like Ulamog) are too powerful to leave unchallenged by effects like these.
I love tainted pact in constructed edh. It's saved my bacon in a few games, when you need to furiously dig for an answer or combo piece. I've replaced it with tragic slip, as another ulamog slaying effect.
I'm a bit concerned that CA won't shine in anything but mono red, but I'll give her a shot. I love Chandra III because of her splashability.
My green sections feels particularly tight to me. If someone runs Omnath out the gate, I'll take that as a sign that this effect would be appreciated.
I'd like to see how a couple of drafts go before making this switch. If scion proves worthless without D Tyrant and Nicol B, I'll make the swap them. Scion is such a crowd favorite.
I'll hopefully get this thing sleeved and played in the next two weeks. Then I'll have some better impressions of how the cube runs.
"Personally I love high-riak, low-reqars gambles. Life's best with a decent amount of riak. And f*** reqars."
Glad to help!
I've had very little trouble getting to 8 people in my experience. I fee like 4 people with the current pack numbers would be very restrictive, as that'd be 300 cards, which is probably only 40 of each color + 100 to split between lands/artifacts/multi.
One thing to keep in mind about Voltron is that you only run 12 pieces of equipment, and they get drafted fairly highly (in my experience, them being colorless and of high general value), along with maybe two buffing auras. Getting enough buffs to go "true" voltron may be very difficult. If you definitely want to support a voltron option, I would suggest adding a few more equipment that are really only good in dedicated voltron - clunkier buffs like Argentum Armor/Sword of Kaldra, amplifiers like Fireshrieker, Inquisitor's Flail, Grappling Hook, or things like Golem-skin Gauntlets that want you to go specifically voltron.
If you sac Hazezon before your next upkeep, you still get the tokens, and they can't be exiled. He's really quite powerful.
Fair enough. I may be cutting the green signets myself for a bit more room, since I run a lot of Rampant Growth effects in green.
Well, you aren't entirely excluding tuck if Chaos Warp and Bant Charm are in the mix. I can see specifically excluding Blue's tuck, but I definitely recommend including White's to make it better as a color on the whole.
I may have to try it out myself. I feel like it's better in constructed because you can easily run a 3-color deck with few or no duplicate lands. Here, all decks are generally stuck with 20+ basics, which makes it very hard to avoid duplicate collision.
There are a few other black cards that could remove Ulamog. Ashes to Ashes or Sever the Bloodline can be used to get rid of him more permanently.
Seedborn shines in Omnath, but where it mostly shines is GU(x) decks, where it can be used to play threats while still maintaining counter mana.
Sounds good. Best of luck.
If you're looking for sleeves, I've been loving mine - KMC's Super series. Very durable, and very affordable if you go through potomacdist.com. You can get 800 for $48, which should suit your needs.
Currently Playing:
Legacy: Something U/W Controlish
EDH Cube
Hypercube! A New EDH Deck Every Week(ish)!
Hazezon I'm going to wait on, as the group I play with is either returning or casual players, so understanding how to game him will probably be lost on most of my group.
I've substituted Argentum Armor over E Conscription for voltron purposes. I will see if I need to add some additional swords of x and x, or fireshrieker to make that play style work.
You got me on the bant charm, but that card and chaos warp aren't nearly as cruel as hinder. I might try to add in spell crumple eventually, as its a personal fav in U/x constructed. As for tuck/exile in white, I'd probably add in crib swap before condemn, but I'll see with testing.
If you wouldn't mind suggesting something to remove in green in favor of seedborn, that would be appreciated! I can't decide what to cut!
The more I mull over it, the more this cube seems destined to balloon into an 8 person. What I'll probably do though, is just enfold the 40 generals into the main cube, and boost the subsections to make 600 total. I'm pretty confident that I can instruct my player to MAKE SURE YOU DRAFT AT LEAST ONE LEGEND!
For sleeves, my FLGS likes to buy limited edition and eccentric packs, so I've picked up 19 50-sleeve packs of ones with Mayan Pyramids + calendars. I'm an avowed skeptic, but enjoy the kitsch of hidden hostory/conspiracy stuff. I'm currently using 100 on my godzilla themed horde, but I can easily transfer these oven when and if the time comes to expand.
How many lands have you sleeved for your cube? 250 or 300?
Thanks!
-Dolono
"Personally I love high-riak, low-reqars gambles. Life's best with a decent amount of riak. And f*** reqars."
Thing I'd be most likely to cut from your green is Arashi, the Sky Asunder.
The problem I see with including the generals in with the regular cards is that it increases the size of your multicolor by a fair amount. I like having my multicolor section fairly large (5 of each of the 10 2-color pairs, 3 of each of the 5 Shards, and 1 from the enemy wedges which have little to pick from) as a way to encourage people to go into specific color combinations and to include enough key effects, especially for combos like Grixis and Selesnya that have a lot of very key cards. This is also why I include cards like Gauntlet of Might, Omnath, Locus of Mana, Cabal Coffers, Chandra Ablaze, etc to encourage monocolored decks.
Having 40 generals in with all of the multicolored means either that your multicolored is going to be very large (which cuts into your mono and potentially leaves you with a lot of cards that aren't usable in most decks) or that your available non-general multicolored cards are going to be very small.
Currently Playing:
Legacy: Something U/W Controlish
EDH Cube
Hypercube! A New EDH Deck Every Week(ish)!
"Personally I love high-riak, low-reqars gambles. Life's best with a decent amount of riak. And f*** reqars."
Well, keep me in the loop for how it develops.
Currently Playing:
Legacy: Something U/W Controlish
EDH Cube
Hypercube! A New EDH Deck Every Week(ish)!
"Personally I love high-riak, low-reqars gambles. Life's best with a decent amount of riak. And f*** reqars."
A few thoughts:
- I love the rules revision for relaxed identities and what not. It should be the thing that makes this format tick.
- I personally would not slave to the cubes curve as one would do with a "regular" cube, being that this is a multiplayer cube. Just ensure there are ample low drops for a few players, but not set it so everyone is playing sligh EDH.
- as for distribution of generals, I believe there are 3 scools of thought on how to do it.
-pack 1 is all gold legends and people draft generals from that
-1 random gold legend per pack, like the timeshifted cards
-shuffled in with the rest of the cube and drafted as normal
Either way would work for me, but the last option could really gimp someone
All in all, the list seems fine (even though I'm sad you didn't put Rafiq in. It seems that shop hates everything I play or have played, Haha). The only thing you can really do now is test, which I will be happy to assist with.
Angel of Flight Alabaster - How many spirits do you have here? About the best I see this doing is enabling Yosei locks. Maybe try Requiem Angel instead, who can produce a fair number of tokens? Emeria Angel and Iona, Shield of Emeria are both also solid angel options.
Traumatize - Dedicated Mill is pretty bad in EDH. If you want to run a dedicated mill card, might I suggest Tunnel Vision? It can combine with tuck spells for an often-lethal mill, or it can be used as a self-tutor that also fuels the graveyard - target yourself naming Living Death, Replenish, or similar and set yourself up for a game-winning next turn.
Toshiro Umezawa - This guy is very rarely what he's cracked up to be. Black has very few good instants, and I'd wager that you aren't running quite enough spot destruction effects to let him reliably flash back countermagic. Try Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed for another black recursion effect that can hit non-creatures.
Nantuko Shade - He's "just" a relatively efficient pump-beater. Why not tack a Shade ability onto some solid utility with Nirkana Revenant instead?
Troll Ascetic - Another cheap efficient beater who does little else. I guess he can carry equipment fairly well, but Silhana Ledgewalker seems to do that better with evasion + hexproof if that's your goal here. Gaea's Revenge is a nice removal-protected beater who carries equipment very well.
Other than those few standouts, looks good!
Currently Playing:
Legacy: Something U/W Controlish
EDH Cube
Hypercube! A New EDH Deck Every Week(ish)!
Angel of FA -> Requiem Angel
Traumatize -> Tunnel Vision
Toshio -> Nirkana Revenant
N Shade and Troll Ascetic I'm going to hold onto for the moment, in the interest of creating some semblance of a mana curve.
-Dolono
"Personally I love high-riak, low-reqars gambles. Life's best with a decent amount of riak. And f*** reqars."
Black:
Bloodghast, Nether Traitor, Reassembling Skeleton - the Trifecta of recursion creatures.
Bone Shredder - another Shriekmaw effect
Green:
Wood Elves/Yavimaya Dryad - A few more ramp guys
Viridian Shaman/Viridian Corrupter - A few more artifact hate guys
Currently Playing:
Legacy: Something U/W Controlish
EDH Cube
Hypercube! A New EDH Deck Every Week(ish)!
RE: Generals - I wouldn't have the generals in the packs at all, because the idea of drafting around them and then not seeing the general that you need opened is not fun.
Option A: an auction, something similar to the Auction of the People from the Invitational. Have each player write down the name of the general they want. If no overlap, great - go and play. If there are two people that want the same general, they can bid cards in opener and/or life points against each other to get the one they want. The less life you're willing to start with, the better your bid (ie 7 cards 35 life would beat 7 cards 36 life). Going down a card in hand is better than any life bid (ie 6 cards 40 life is better than 7 cards 10 life). Each person takes turns bidding until nobody wants to go anymore, and the winner gets the general, but starts games at the life and cards he bid. The others have to select another general.
Option B: a generals-only pack where you split ALL available generals into packs, give each player a pack, and pass them around the table once. That gives everyone a decent shot at the general they want, plus a chance to pick up a backup in case the one they want gets spiked by somebody else. No need to go around the table more than once since at that point everyone has seen all the available generals and nobody can run more than one anyway. I'd personally favor this option.
I'd also recommend that either of these be done after the draft. If you pick generals before the draft it locks you into a strategy for your general and makes the actual drafting less interesting.
EDIT: This doesn't leave the generals in the draft, where they'd probably be high picks for their non-General properties. You could probably leave legendary guys that are worth drafting in the packs, and then have a separate bunch of generals for the options above, with the condition that you can't play a second copy of a legend that happens to be in both pools.
The sleeving proces is all finished now; brain and eyes completely destroyed by endless spreadsheet, paper check list, and card box rifling! Hopefully I can take it for a spin in the next two weeks!
-Dolono
"Personally I love high-riak, low-reqars gambles. Life's best with a decent amount of riak. And f*** reqars."
We started with a general draft where 8 cards were dealt to each player, and the packs were drafted. I landed up taking all of the grixis and bug generals, plus niv mizzet, dralnu, and a couple others that I've since forgotten. This part of the draft was enjoyable, although debate ensued over the utility of this phase, considering players were told they could cut to mono colored decks if they picked those legends from the main cube. In the end everyone landed up using one of the bi or tri colored generals. I didn't get a great sense of how much the general phase helped inform players color selections. I personally decided on concentrating on Grixis, cutting to U/R, or U/B depending on what I felt was being drafted.
Here's what we landed up playing:
Me: Gwendlyn Grixis control/combo (I had all the makings of the cabal coffers + deserted temple + urborg, tomb of yawgmoth combo AND the hated mikaeus, the unhallowed + [c]triskelion[c] combo as well)
Player 2: A very polished Geist Voltron deck
Player 3: Kaerveck
Player 4: Vhati il-Dal
Player 5: Olivia Voldaren
Everyone seemed very satisfied by their drafting options, although it took an incredibly long time (5 packs of 15 cards).
The game turned out to be a huge success IMO, with enormous back and forth power swings. Everyone had at least a moment in front runner status, and no one landed up completely dominating the board. The end game was a tense three-way battle between Kaervek, Vhati, and Geist, with Geist eventually pulling off an attrition-style win using powerful equips.
All in all it was a successful draft, and now I'll be starting to pay attention to cube mana curves, color composition, and less useful cards.
"Personally I love high-riak, low-reqars gambles. Life's best with a decent amount of riak. And f*** reqars."
The two pods landed up as
Oona - goodstuff control + urborg/coffers shenanigens
Sek'Kuar - wrath-happy control
Mayael - fatty ramp + a very effective burn subtheme via pandemonium
Winner = Sek'Kuar cleaned up after a vicious fight between oona and mayael
Ruhan - voltron
Kaalia - Aggro
Riku - control
Jhoira - U/R good stuff with minor combo
Winner = Kaalia. Ruhan and Jhoira were apparently knocked out early, leaving a convoluted fight between Kaalia and Riku. The game appeared to be decided by an all out vault of the archangel supported bum rush by Kaalia.
Session 2
Oona
Ruhan
Jhoira
Mayael
Winner = Mayael via eldrazi + avenger of zendikar beats
Once again I was very happy with how the draft went. Everyone seemed pleased with their draft selections and felt that they were able to build quality, functional decks.
The spectre of CMC curve was raised on first examination of the packs, but honestly didn't seem to affect the actual gameplay. Most of the games really got started on turn 4+, which I don't think is too much of a problem, given the intent behind the cube being slower games. It hasn't become apparent whether certain generals are being excluded due to this (edric comes to mind).
As I've stated previously, I need to take a hard look at the viability of triple mono-colored cards (vigor, azami, ect) and probably should skim off some of the really top heavy creatures and spells in favor of things like ramp and manafacts.
"Personally I love high-riak, low-reqars gambles. Life's best with a decent amount of riak. And f*** reqars."
Thanks for the reply. What's the size and composition of your cube?
Granted I haven't gotten too many sessions under my belt, but no one I've drafted with has reported any real "dead pick" phenomenon so far. Among some of the participants there was definitely some initial shock at the high CMC's of their packs, but everyone seemed capable of putting together fully functional, archetype-conforming decks (aggro, combo, voltron, good stuff, etc). Slower games seemed the norm for this cube, but that's something I was honestly hoping for. With the draft portion of each night easily taking an hour+, I'd feel remiss of the resultant games were over too quickly.
Cutting down on many of the triple mono-colored cards is something on the docket revision-wise, but is already very conceptually daunting as it would involve removing some staple edh cards (cryptic command, vigor, woodfall primus... off the top of my head) that I;m not certain I'm prepared to do.
As for the quantities of wedge /shard cards, I've been thinking about cutting one from each main-cube shard and either replacing them with a low CMC card for WUBRG (things like magma jet, brainstorm, rampant growth, etc), or putting in a mox of each color.
"Personally I love high-riak, low-reqars gambles. Life's best with a decent amount of riak. And f*** reqars."
The green portion of my cube is saturated with mana ramp, the blue portion with small draw, the black portion with targeted removal and graveyard recursion, etc.
In general, I have built my EDH cube to make turning creatures sideways interesting. When turning creatures sideways is important, then things like the Vows start being interesting spells.
My cube is 800 cards (including the generals)
90 of each color
120 colorless
80 lands
80 guild
5 packs of 15 cards each
Generals are divided up into two groups depending on the mood of my group. We either draw one of the 10 tri color dragons and roll with that, or we place one of the 50 generals into each pack to be drafted as normal.
Personally, I prefer drawing a dragon, feels more EDH-ish :). Just as long as I dont whammy out on Numot or Treva (though I do love BANT).
I used the cube for constructed edh yesterday, whipping up a deck based on the random selection of a general; in this case jenara, asura of war.
"Personally I love high-riak, low-reqars gambles. Life's best with a decent amount of riak. And f*** reqars."
One interesting thing I have started doing with my EDH cube is doing a BYOG (bring your own general). I have a large pool of generals to select from, pretty much every major EDH general, but this way, people can draft exactly how they want and then use the general they want. It has really opened up the draft.
Another method I have used is having a random draw of the ten legendary shard dragons. That's an interesting format as well.
I have a bit bigger cube so I have a few shard cards...only the big bombs. Things like the ultimatums, planeswalker nicol, etc.