MTG Salvation

Up-to-Date list (Updated 9/18/2014 through Magic 2015) can be found at: http://cubetutor.com/viewcube/921

This is, I believe, the third major revamp of my Cube list. The original list was posted in the EDH forums here. The first and second revamp were never cataloged, but I can list the changes roughly here:

First Revamp:
Cut down the Goblin theme in Red section. Cut Norin and support from red section. Added more Dragons to Red Section. Added more Angels to White section. (This added more support for Kaalia and Mayael). Cut Sundering Titan.

Second Revamp:
Cut 2-color cards from 6 per pair to 5 and 3-color cards from 3 per shard to 2. Cut the weakest wedge cards, making it asymmetrical. Included colored lands with their color identity (so colors with an ability land in addition to Dual/Fetch/Shock lost one more card). Included signets with their color identity. Cut green signets. Added several AVR cards. Increased colorless count. Cut Time Magic.

Third Revamp:
Further cut 2-color cards and shard cards by 1 per color, adding 3 additional monocolored cards per color. Added banned cards. Increased Combo support. Added some M13. Added a second Planeswalker per color.

Future Updates will hopefully be tracked here with +'s and -'s.


Why one Mox?
A) I felt I wanted another Sol Ring/Mana Crypt-type hypermana. Not enough of them that someone is likely to get multiples, but a single piece more.
B) Red is still by far the weakest color, so Mox Ruby adds something to that.
C) It's the only Mox I own. I don't get to play with it much at all, and I'd like to.


Why banned Cards?
These are primarily cards that I feel should not be on the banned list (with a few exceptions - Fastbond, Recurring Nightmare, and Balance are probably too powerful if you can build around them and will be on the watch list). In a limited environment, they are much more difficult to break, so they are ripe for non-abuse use. They are cards people don't normally get to play in EDH, which I find to be exciting. This is the same reason I include expensive older cards like Bazaar, Tabernacle, and P3K stuff.
Specific banned card addressing:
Protean Hulk - Assembling enough pieces to make him infinite-lethal on death is going to be incredibly difficult, especially as most of those pieces are high picks already. Also, as there is no Carrion Feeder/Viscera Seer, he needs a free-repeating sac outlet to be infinite on death, rather than a one-shot.
Painter's Servant - I'm actually worried this is going to be too weak here. It only meaningfully interacts with Iona, Savra, Lyzolda, Ulasht, Momir, and Teysa, and only with Iona does it do something fantastic without further support.
Staff of Domination - The only card in the entire cube that lets this go infinite is Rofellos, and you either need to be mono-green or fairly late game to get that. It's a strong tool in ramp decks too, but by no means broken.
Panoptic Mirror - Without Time Magic, this is "merely" very strong.
Kokusho, the Evening Star - With battlecruisers like Primetime, C Sphinx, etc running around this guy is not all that scary.


What Subthemes does this Cube Support?
I try to encompass most of the EDH experience in the Cube, with the exception of Chaos and Group Hug decks, as I personally find them to be griefer decks that ruin the EDH experience. Decktypes I support are:
Goodstuff/Control - Removal, Wraths, Countermagic, Draw, Tutors, etc
Ramp/Cheaty - Ramp spells, mana stones, manacost cheaters (Sneak Attack, reanimation, etc), Fatties, big/X spells, etc
Durdle/Tokens - ETB guys, Sac outlets, token generation, recursion, mass pump, ETB/Dies triggers, tap creatures for effects, etc
Voltron - Evasive legends, equipment, creature buffs, Equipment Tutors, etc
Combo - 2-card Combos, Tutors, etc
Artifact - Artifacts and cards that support them

What Combos does the Cube have available (and why)?
I consider infinite combo to be a part of the EDH experience. As such, I have included several combos in the Cube. They are going to be difficult to assemble, as most of the constituent cards have their own powerful uses, and tutors are top picks, so players will be rewarded if they can assemble a combo in deck construction and then in a game. Additionally, as most of these combos do not involve any of the Banned-in-EDH cards, this is to demonstrate that degenerate things and banned things are not identical. Listed below are some of the most commonly-assembled combos, generally 2-piece, some require a sac outlet or an outlet for the mana generated.
Combos:
Kiki-jiki + Zealous Conscripts
Kiki-jiki + Restoration Angel
Kiki-jiki + Thornbite Staff
Kiki-jiki + Karmic Guide
Karmic Guide + Reveillark
Saffi Eriksdotter + Karmic Guide
Saffi Eriksdotter + Reveillark
Saffi Eriksdotter + Sun Titan
Mikaeus the Unhallowed + Triskelion
Leyline of the Void + Helm of Obedience
Earthcraft + Squirrel Nest
Palinchron + Riku
Palinchron + Phantasmal Image
Palinchron + Corpse Dance
Palinchron + Deadeye Navigator
Palinchron + Mana Reflection/Caged Sun/Gauntlet of Power/Mirari's Wake
Palinchron + Sneak Attack
Rings of Brighthearth + Basalt Monolith
Rings of Brighthearth + Deserted Temple (+land that taps for 5+)
Mana Reflection + Basalt Monolith
Mana Reflection + Grim Monolith
Painter's Servant + Iona
Rofellos + Staff of Domination
Recurring Nightmare + Palinchron
Chancellor of the Spires + (someone else's) Spitting Image/Rite of Replication/Heat Shimmer
Mind Over Matter + Niv Mizzet/Azami/Arcanis
Capsize + Doubling Cube


Isn't Green Too Powerful?
I've been asked this at least once. Green is very, very powerful. However, it's also very, very popular. It's not unusual to have half of any given table in Green, and just about every Green Bomb (Primetime, Gen Wave, TnN, Avenger, Cradle, Survival, etc) are first picks. I've built Mono-green in two different drafts, and ended up with too few threats to go the distance. It also doesn't help that in both of those drafts I ended up in a game against Oona, who loves to aim her Exile cannon at Mono-colored decks.
In short, yes Green is powerful, but it is balanced out by the fact that it is usually stretched thinner than any other color.

Changelog

Quote from Theogony_IX

Solid list so far man! A couple cards caught my eye for our cube too. I'm still working my way through it, but on first glance I feel like your generic utility effects could use a boost, basic non-creature removal being the most significant. We've tried to include quite a few of them in our cube, and still, finding enough of them for everyone can be difficult in our drafts at times especially for the mono colored decks who are fighting with another drafter for that color. You may want to keep an eye on how often non-creature permanents build up on the board unchecked.

Hmm... I'll keep that in mind. The number of generic answers has come down slightly, as a lot of the multicolored cards I used to run were answers (things like Recoil, Dismantling Blow, and Violent Ultimatum).

Off the top of my head though, I feel like there are a good amount.
White has Dust to Dust, Aura of Silence, Oblivion Ring, Return to Dust, Mangara of Corondor, Archon of Justice, Oblation, Karmic Justice, Martyr's Bond, Faith's Fetters, Banishing Stroke, Planar Cleansing, Akroma's Vengeance, and Austere Command. - This area in particular is one of White's strengths and focus areas.
Red has Viashino Heretic, Shattering Spree, Shattering Pulse, Hoard-smelter Dragon, Into the Core, Chaos Warp, Aftershock, Goblin Welder, Tuktuk Scrapper, and sort of Decree of Annihilation.
Black has very little in this department, nor can it, but it does have Gate to Phyrexia.
Green has Krosan Grip, Relic Crush, Acidic Slime, Indrik Stomphowler, Brutalizer Exarch, Primal Command, Woodfall Primus, Terastodon, Beast Within - I could maybe fit another few in here, but Green is probably the tightest on spots.
Blue has very little in the way of permanent removal, but it does have Capsize, Devastation Tide, Tidespout Tyrant, Venser, Shaper Savant, Cryptic Command, Frost Titan, and Tamiyo, the Moon Sage (sort of on these last two) - Again, I could maybe add a few here, like a couple more bounce effects? Wipe Away, Tradewind Rider, Temporal Adept?
Colorless has Steel Hellkite, Karn Liberated, Nevinyrral's Disk, Oblivion Stone, and All is Dust. Not really anything else I could add here besides narrow things like Engineered Explosives/Powder Keg, or Spine of Ish Sah, which people complained about (lack of things to abuse it with I guess)
Multicolored has a number of options still like Aura Shards, Hull Breach, Decimate, Vindicate, Angel of Despair, Maelstrom Pulse, Putrefy, Pernicious Deed, Trygon Predator, Duergar Hedge-Mage, Bant Charm, Crime // Punishment.


Edit: With some more thought on this, I'm open for suggestions for non-creature answers to include, as well as what can be cut for them. Here are some thoughts, please weigh in.

White: We've got a lot here already. The only ones I could see including that aren't in here now are Admonition Angel and Serenity. Maybe lose Serra Avatar and Reverse the Sands (two holdouts from my lifegain theme). Maybe do Elspeth Tirel over Ajani Goldmane for another Disk effect.
Red: Not really sure what I could add here. I could put Mox Monkey back in, but he never saw much play. I could add some more ETB artifact destruction guys like Ingot Chewer, Maniac Vandal, Oxidda Scrapmelter, or Keldon Vandals. Off-kilter options would include Werewolf Ransacker (probably can flip him pretty frequently with the pace of EDH games), Goblin Vandal. Could alternately include mass wipes like Pulverize/Shatterstorm/Builder's Bane/Hammer Mage, or maybe decent single-shots like Pillage, Fissure Vent, Mogg Salvage. Recommendations? Recommendations for cuts?
Blue: As I mentioned, a little more bounce could come in. I could also add some Confiscate type effects, like Take Possession, which I recently cut. Top contenders to be cut here are Control Magic, Overwhelming Intellect, Gather Specimens, and Myojin of Seeing Winds (I don't think two 10-mana drawsticks is strictly necessary).
Black: Nothing I can do here, besides maybe a little more LD (that counts as non-creature permanent destruction, right)? Helldozer?
Green: I'm all ears as to what I can cut here, but it's not brimming with chaff. Possible includes would be Wickerbough Elder, Mold Shambler, Viridian Zealot, Nature's Claim, Nullmage Shepherd, Rain of Thorns, Stomp and Howl, Woodripper.

Quote from Theogony_IX

Right, right, I wasn't saying that those effects were nonexistent, just that they seemed a little light to me. You're colorless section is larger than any other section in your cube by quite a bit. Artifacts will most likely be running around like crazy.

In white, with things like Banishing Stroke and Oblation, players will most likely hold on to those as long as they can to snag a general with them. Either that or they will have to sacrifice those effects on artifacts/enchantments and not have them for the generals. Effects like Karmic Justice and Archon of Justice are largely under your opponent's control as to when or whether they happen. Though, your sac outlets are a bit greater than ours so maybe not as much with Archon, but still to some extent. And Faith's Fetters will never be able to do anything against the static effect permanents that are problematic. Maybe some of Elspeth Tirel, Devout Witness, Return to Dust, and Magus of the Disk could find their way in.

Your in a tough spot with blue cause that's just not really blue's thing. Memnarch is a decent answer to artifacts in blue. I like the idea of keeping Take Possession. That's a card I'd like to find room for in our cube at some point.

In black it's the same thing. I'm gonna try to get Gate into our cube in the next update as well. I would watch how your lands interact with the game before adding more LD to black. It is an option, though it may not be necessary. Honestly, I would put Wasteland, Tectonic Edge, and maybe Rishadan Port in first if you see lands taking over games too often.

I personally think Ingot Chewer is the best etb shatter on a body in red. The cheap evoke cost can come in handy for those explosive fast mana starts. We were also thinking about adding Shatterstorm into our cube just to better deal with the build up. I think we decided to go with Hammer Mage though instead because it can be directed in your favor a little bit better for the cost of possibly being removed before it can be used, but there's lots of haste in red so that can be less of an issue. Not sure if that will stay though. At any rate, I would probably add all three to your cube.

In green I'd probably add Mold Shambler, Wickerbough Elder, Rain of Thorns, and possibly nature's claim as well. The body off Viridian Zealot seems a bit superfluous in the edh meta, whereas the instant speed and 1-mana cost does not.

As far as cuts go.

In white:
Chancellor of the Annex - This matters more in the early game and less as the game goes on. The tax will become less and less significant to the game barring some corner cases.

Reverse the Sands - Not a bad card, but I prefer cards that win the game in those higher cost slots.

Emeria, the Sky Ruin - This will rarely get turned on outside of mono white decks. Even in 2 colored decks, it's been hard to get Valakut turned on and it only requires 5 other mountains, not 7.

One of your equipment tutors (Probably Steel Shaper's Gift) - If I counted correctly you have 15 equipment in your cube. That is a healthy number. If your drafters are anything like mine, they will be fighting to get that equipment, and unless you're drafting 8-mans regularly there might not be enough to make all those tutors active every time a person draws one. I think you could stand to lose one.


Blue:
Tidespout Tyrant - Creatures isn't really blue's strong suit. Having this guy take over a game on the regular will be challenging. In the right deck, he'd be a powerhouse though so . . .

Trinket Mage - In a constructed deck, this guy would be an mvp I'm sure, but in limited getting the right number of 1 or less artifacts in your deck can be tough.

Gather Specimens - This is a great card when cast at the right moment. But that's a lot of mana to keep open to ensure value when you can't construct your whole deck to function off instant speed spells.

Black: - I think your good here.

Red:
Mogg War Marshal - 3 1/1's for four mana seems bad to me.

Mindclaw Shaman - Outside of the early game you will probably end up whiffing with this guy more than you get that amazing spell, paying 5 for a 2/2. Too much variance for my liking.

Chancellor of the Forge - How often does this guy net you more than 1 goblin when he's not in your opener?

Goblin Matron - Having enough Goblins in your deck to make this card worth taking up a spot seems like it would be pretty difficult with only something like 9 goblins in the cube. And even then, I would want to make sure there was enough variety amongst those goblins to make them worth searching up in a variety of scenarios.

Green:
Honestly, I think you have more than enough ramp. I think you could cut some of the smaller ramp spells like Farhaven Elf, Dawntreader Elk, Nature's Lore, or Three Visits. It know that's blasphemy or whatever, but the ramp spells that generate card advantage are way better in my opinion and do more for your game plan than spending a card to play an extra land.

The last thing I will say is that, I would probably try to increase the color fixing available in the cube. I'd cut one from each multicolored section and add in a dual land for that section. The bouncelands are amazing and would be my choice. I would also cut a couple of your colorless cards to add in some rainbow lands like City of Brass, Grand Coliseum, etc.

My colorless section is the largest, but bear in mind that that includes my colorless and 5c lands, of which there are 22. Colorless also should be large because the most decks can play those spells, and colorless cards for the basis of one major and one minor archetype (Voltron, Artifacts), and are very necessary to monocolored decks' function.

I AM running Return to Dust, by the way.

As far as cuts:

Chancellor is on my list to replace with something, she's mostly there as an Angel and 5-power dude. Angelic Arbiter and Serra Avatar are also slated to come out. I like Emeria because I try to have some incentive to go into mono in each color. Black has Coffers, Revenant, and lots of BBB costs. Blue has UUU/UUUU costs. Red has Gauntlet of Might, Koth, and some RRR costs. Green has Rofellos. With white, Emeria is really the only incentive you can offer. Reverse the Sands is definitely on the chopping block. Gift can probably come out, I have heard complaints of too many equip tutors and not enough equips.

Tidespout I would be very reluctant to cut. He's just such a powerhouse. Trinket Mage might come out, but almost all of the 1cmc artifacts are worth searching for (sol ring, top, crypt, mox ruby, skullclamp, expedition map, etc). Gather Specimens is on my list of things to chop.

War Marshal can probably meet the axe. Chancellor is only okay, but he does lead to some blowout plays with things like Riku, Kiki, Rite of Replication, and Craterhoof Behemoth. Mindclaw Shaman just got added, so I'll keep and eye on how he performs. Matron I like: if you look at my goblins, I do have a variety of effects - Land destruction, creature destruction, artifact destruction, token generation, and of course Kiki and Goblin Welder, who are both fantastic. Like with Trinket Mage, sometimes tutors are less about options and more about redundancy on your best effects.

Green: I feel very reluctant to cut my 2-mana ramp, because its existence is how I justified cutting the green Signets. I'd be more likely to look to three mana, at the (IMHO) overrated Cultivate/Reach and Yav Elder.


The other problem with running these answer cards is, just because they're in the cube doesn't mean people will put them into their decks. I don't know about you, but in my meta people would rather run big splashy cards and ramp than answers, unless they're running a Durdle deck and the answers are in creature form.

As far as mana fixing goes, I was going to suggest that you devote too MANY slots to it. The bouncelands and manduals/filters seem very excessive to me, people seem to have no problem with the fetch/shock/dual trifecta. If anything, you are right that I should have a few more global fixers like City of Brass and Forbidden Orchard

Quote from Theogony_IX

I just got done digging through your list for cards to include to mine and LC's cube. Now we're going to have to adjust our recent update just to get them in. So many amazing cards in your list.

Like I said, just keep an eye on how often your non-creature permanents start to build up to take over games because no one has answers. If they never do, then you're fine. In our group, they do quite regularly and people were making mention of it. But that's probably because our group also likes the big flashy spells more than the utility, except for those building the police deck, but the longer we play the cube the more we respect and look for the answers in our drafts, and even hate draft them, deciding to run a few more of those over the flashy spells.

Even without the 2-mana green spells in our cube, green still doesn't need any help from the mana rocks. I'm not sure that I would call Cultivate/Reach or Yav Elder overrated. Their all 2 for 1's in green, Yav Elder being a 3 for 1, which doesn't normally get card advantage, and the extra lands are rarely ever a bad thing in edh cube. Unless I'm running a 2-4-6 game plan in my deck (Like Wolf Run decks did for a long time, which would be highly unusual in cube), I'd rather pay an additional colorless, get (almost) the same effect as the 2-mana ramp, guarantee I'm fixed on colors, and have the card I spent replaced in my hand as well.

For your guild lands, your cube is 80 cards short of twice the size of my 360 cube and you run the same land package. At 450, I ran 4 land per guild. These numbers being in line with the ratios most cubes on these boards use. Granted at 530 in the edh cube, the mana fixing was amazing, but the color costs of the cards were way high as well, so we didn't think much of it. With the cube size increase that will probably spread it out to just perfect at 5 per guild pair at around 600 cards. Even the way it is now, a person will stumble on color requirements every once in a while. I can guarantee you that adding the fourth to your cube will not over saturate it at all and in my opinion would still be light. For reference, check out Starslayer's 600 card cube.

For Goblin Matron, how often do all of those goblins end up in the same deck for the matron to tutor up? How often do they all show up in the same draft? How often does Matron show up late in the draft and the red drafter didn't think to snatch up all of the previous goblins early enough just in case she did show her face? Just like Trinket Mage, put her in the right deck with all of the right cards and you have an MVP. What I question isn't their power. It's their consistency. How often will all of the right pieces come together to make them worth the deck slot? In my experience in cube with cards like that, not often enough.

For the rest of your responses, yeah, that all makes sense. I tend to err on the side of consistency as opposed to potential when I'm evaluating a card. Making sure, you get what you need when you need it in cube has been everything in my experience.

Again though, thank you for posting your list. Your list brought to my attention a great many cards that I wasn't aware of before and has greatly increased the quality of mine and LC's cube even in the last day or two. Quality work, my friend, and very exciting to see.

Thank you very much for your input. I'll certainly keep an eye on it in the upcoming drafts I get to play. I'm also considering printing some "survey" sheets with questions about picks (what were your first/last picks each pack, did you play them), the impact of the banned cards/combos, if fixing was sufficient, etc.

Drafted with 7 people tonight. Was a blast. I decided to force mono-red, and it paid off big time. I managed Gauntlet of Might, Gauntlet of Power, Caged Sun, Doubling Cube, Koth of the Hammer, Sculpting Steel, and Gilded Lotus as mana boons, and was regularly generating 12-30+ mana. I had several fetches with Crucible of Worlds and Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle. I nabbed Kiki, as well as Zealous Conscripts and a number of other great targets. It would have been the perfect deck for Goblin Matron, having a ton of good goblins including Goblin Settlers, Siege-gang Commander, Outrage Shaman, but Matron ended up in the cards that were left out because of the 8th person.

Other decks in the draft included Damia Self-mill/Reanimator, Mimeoplasm Goodstuff Control (yeah, they got that way backwards), Karador Durdles, Sedris Goodstuff, Teferi Control, and Kaalia.

Several banned cards were drafted - Karador had Kokopuffs, I had Staff, Kaalia had Painter (with Iona no less), Damia had Fastbond, Teferi had Panoptic. The only one that really showed up in games though was Fastbond, and to pretty hilarious effect - the Damia guy had out Extractor Demon when a wrath hit with 13 creatures in play - I Sudden Seizing'd his Demon and milled him down to 3 cards, basically taking him out of the game but giving him a final hurrah. He proceeded to use that hurrah to cast Praetor's Counsel to return his entire yard to his hand, drop Fastbond and drop a dozen lands, getting an army of Rampaging Baloth tokens in the process (and threatening to drop Damia to skip his draw when he ran out of cards). It was impressive , but certainly not degenerate (and he lost to Mindslaver in the next turn). He also had Loam, Strip Mine, and a ton of fetches, but Azusa (which he also had) played just as well with those.

Edit: it occurs to me that Mwonvuli Beast-tracker may not quite make the grade. Green itself has only I believe 5 targets for it (Acidic Slime, Primeval Titan, Woodfall Primus, Rampaging Baloths, Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger), and there are only a handful in other colors (Harvester of Souls, Grave Titan, Wurmcoil Engine, Charnelhoard Wurm, Mana-charged Dragon, Akroma, Angel of Wrath, Akroma, Angel of Fury, Sigarda, Host of Herons, Blightsteel Colossus, Glissa, the Traitor, Damia, Sage of Stone).

Also, a couple of other observations from the Draft:
Mana Fixing - the consensus was that there was enough, it was just on you to grab it if you needed it.
Artifact and Enchantment Hate - There were some times when artifacts and enchantments sat around longer than they probably should have. But just about everyone had drafted pieces of artifact and enchantment hate that they had then left in their sideboard. If I do add more, it needs to be in the form of dudes, as dudes tend to be the most highly included.

Quote from Dolono

For the durdle archetype, have you not enjoyed using doubling season or parallel lives? Seems like an interesting omission given the explicit facilitation of the token archetype. I'm working on an expansion of my own cube, and I've been trying to come up with ways of better facilitating Rhys and Edric shenanigans. One addition I'm hopeful about is imperious perfect. Most good opponents will murder her on sight, but she interacts with lots of elves in the deck, and can provide tokens and chump blockers until you can get a way of exploiting them online.

How useful have you found non-basic land hate such as blood moon and magus of the moon to be? There've been times where urborg + coffers has spanked the board and everyone wishes they had some hate for it, but rarely do I see a density of non-basics that requires a ruination to solve.

Finally, how's luminarch ascension worked out for you? The few times I've ever seen that thing played, it got real ugly for the caster, as in the whole table turned around and made a swimming pool in their ass.

A couple others...

I read your report on managing a mono red deck, but valakut seems pretty weak for a red slot. Not that there's much better in the red land slot, except maybe the new hellion land.

Is mogg war marshal part of some explicit combo or synergy?

Looks great!

I had Doubling Season in and it was recently cut for not pulling its weight. However, in the same changes that involved cutting it, I did add more token support, like Nemata, Grove Guardian, Wolfbriar Elemental, Sacred Mesa, Squirrel Nest, Mobilization, and a few others, as well as bumping up walkers to 2 per color over 1. Maybe I'll find a way to slot it back in. Parallel Lives seems particularly narrow though. Imperious Perfect seems interesting, but I'm not sure how many elves I've got to support it, not running Rhys myself. (I'm also really holding out for some better UG legends in Gatecrash, as neither Momir nor Edric has been particularly popular).

I originally had the 'Moon effects as a way to further bolster the Monored list possibility, as well as for a potential answer to powerful nonbasics. However, when I built monored, I ended up leaving Magus in the sideboard, as I didn't want to turn off my own Valakut, Kher Keep, and other nonbasics. They seem like good ideas to remove, especially if I can fit in another LD spell in place of one of them (like Avalanche Riders or Dwarven Blastminer).

Luminarch's Ascension is ridiculously powerful, but don't let its 2 CMC fool you. Dropping this card early is a terrible idea, as you will be quickly ganged out of the game in an attempt to turn it off. When it is good is later in the game, when you've established a board and some powerful control, or when you can drop it in the same turn as a Wrath effect, to give you likely 3 counters before anyone can attack with a creature. It's definitely a skill-tester.

Valakut was an MVP in my deck. Steal a Primetime, Kiki it, get 4 bolts on top of the 12 power I get to swing with. Land, Solemn, Kiki Solemn, clearing out creatures and whittling down life. It also seems fine in GR decks. It's mostly a mono-only card, but as I said before, I want to be able to encourage and support mono-colored decks, rather than have everyone build 3c Goodstuff all the time.

War-marshal is just a token-generating dude. He plays very well with Kiki, and is a decent target for things like Cloudstone Curio and Mimic Vat. I suppose he could be Goblin Assault or something instead.

If anyone is going to be at Worldcon in Chicago this weekend, I'll be there and will likely be bringing the Cube, and could probably be convinced to draft it.

Quote from Dolono

Have any of the new legends and/or spoiled cards piqued your interest? I'm strongly considering Jarad, once the DD is released, probably in Nath's slot. I like the old Niv better, and probably won't include Ispera, even though I like her a lot.

All three of the spoiled legends so far are interesting, but I'm not sure I'd want to run any of them over my existing legends for their colors. I am particularly interested in the Gatecrash legends, however. My GU, BW, RG, and UB could all use some shaking up.

Quote from Dolono

Same here. I'm not as worried about U/B, but the other three could really use a shot in the arm. There's so few legends in B/W and G/U that I'm really excited to see what kinds of design space they open up in those colors. Things that seem encouraging to me include recent legends like Bruna, that really show that wizards is putting lots of thought into build-around-me generals.

I don't know if this is unlikely this late in the spoiler season, but I'm also really hoping we see another cycle of guild liuetenants, unless they are saving these for sinker.

Yeah, I could see the lieutenants going either way. This isn't that "late" in the spoiler season, considering previews just started and the pre-release isn't for three more weeks. I definitely hope we see them one way or the other though, because many of these colors could use another additional option.

As far as my dual-colored generals go, here are my thoughts:
I like to have the two generals for a color pair have different possibilities, they should go into different types of decks. I also like for their mana costs to be fairly divergent from one another. Through these two factors, it's easier to differentiate between the two, and it makes general drafting less about just wanting the colors. If possible, generals should be flexible enough to fill multiple decktypes or slot into a 3-color general's deck.
WU: I'm very happy here. Hanna plays Artifact control very well (and fits very well in Sharuum and decently in Rafiq as a way to recur equipment). Rasputin lets UW play Ramp. They're both controlish decks, but they play out very differently.
UB: While I like both of these generals, they're both 6 mana, they both like Milling, and they're both midsized control value beatsticks. I'd definitely like to replace one of them with something else (likely Oona, as her ability is just a hair too strong in a limited format with decks of a smaller size). I'm not a huge fan of any of the existing UB legends, though I may try out Vela as a token/Durdle option if the Dimir legends aren't too hot.
BR: Very happy here. Lyzolda provides a good Aggro/Token general, and Olivia is a powerful control general. Their mana costs are close, but their playstyles are so wildly different that it's fine.
RG: Not happy with Ulasht here. Both generals produce Tokens, but Wort is far and away the better option. I never see people pick or play Ulasht, and he just seems inferior. I'd like to see a RG legend with a different playstyle to bring in.
GW: Happy as a clam here. Saffi supports Tokens/Durdle as well as Combo. Sigarda is a great goodstuff general, and plays voltron very well.
WB: Despite the fact that these legends cost drastically different amounts, the fact that they both rely on creatures to sac pushes both of them into the Tokens/Durdle archetype, which I'd desperately like to fix. Hoping for a 6-8cmc Control-Goodstuff type general in Orzhov from Gatecrash
BG: Happy here. Glissa plays Artifacts or Voltron, Savra plays Tokens/Durdle. Their mana costs are close, but they're very different and both very good in their own way.
GU: Edric sucks. Like, straight up. I love him in regular EDH, but that's with a huge stack of 1-mana evasive dudes. I tried to force him once, and trying to aggro out on the back of Wood Elves-type creatures just does NOT get there. Momir is fine, if a little narrow. I'd honestly replace them both, but I'm hoping at least to be able to replace Edric.
UR: These are fine. They're both a little controllish, but Nin is cheap and aggressive/political, while Niv is expensive and goodstuff/combo-y.
RW: I actually need to update the first post, as Brion was replaced with Gisela before I'd even posted this cube. With Gisela and Jor, I'm happy with my Boros generals. Gisela plays goodstuff/fatties, while Jor likes Artifacts and Tokens.

As far as shards/wedges go, I'm strongly considering replacing Sek'kuar or Kresh with Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund, as Sek and Kresh are too similar at the moment.. Meirike could come out if there was an Esper general I felt more strongly about, but she's fine and she's seen play a few times. I'd definitely also replace both of the RWU generals given better options, particularly Zedruu, who would require too much unique support.


As far as newly spoiled cards from the set go, here's the changes I'm considering at the moment:
Azorius Guildmage -> Supreme Verdict - The mage is a little on the weak side, and another sweeper never hurts. Might slot in something else here if U/W comes up with some other ridiculous goodie.
Putrefy -> Vraska, the Unseen - I've been trying to remove the most vanilla options in the gold cards, and Vraska seems like a bold "exciting" upgrade to a flexible destruction effect.
Fire Covenant -> Dreadbore - I'm a fan of the Covenant, but the Bore has a more unique effect in hitting PWs. Something more exciting could go here too.
Izzet Chronarch -> Something - Nothing yet seems exciting enough here, but the Chronarch has to come off as he's a worse, more color-intensive version of several cards I'm not even playing (Archeomancer, for example). I'm sure something will pop up. I'm also willing to bring out the Dominus and Suffocating Blast depending on what other options we get here.
And as for Selesnya, my card section there is the tightest of any of the gold cards, so I'm just hoping they don't spring something crazy on us.

Just drafted again last night.

I got a P1P1 Recurring Nightmare last night and decided to see how badly I could break it. The resulting deck was INSANE: Karador at the helm, Survival of the Fittest, Fauna Shaman, Greater Good, Bazaar of Baghdad to feed the Nightmare, tons of cheap utility creatures as early sac fodder to it, Sol Ring, Mana Crypt, Exploration, Fastbond, Life from the Loam, a half-dozen Fetchlands, and a number of fatties like Grave Titan, Craterhoof Behemoth, Terastodon, Yosei, the Morning Star, Sheoldred, the Whispering One, Protean Hulk, and to top it off, Mikaeus, the Unhallowed + Triskelion.
In short, it was the stone cold nuts. About the only cards that I could have hoped for that I didn't see were Birthing Pod, Primeval Titan, Sun Titan, Eternal Witness, Skullclamp, Crucible of Worlds, and Strip Mine.

And I lost both games I played with it.

There was a lot of table talk during the draft, so everyone knew to gun for me from the beginning, and the Sharuum player chose to mainboard a Tormod's Crypt, knowing how bonkers my deck was. I got matched with Sharuum, Rafiq, and Damia, and the Sharuum and Damia players were the only other two at the table who'd done EDH Cube drafts before.

Game one, my opening hand contained Recurring Nightmare and Mana Crypt, and I drew into Survival on turn two. Easy win, right? I drop survival on t3 with a green up and prepare to set up a crazy chain, with Reassembling Skeleton to pitch to the survival. Damia drops Nevinyrral's Disk, Sharuum is dead in the water on two lands but can at least drop a Tormod's Crypt. I get to Survival a few times, but then Disk takes out my board and Crypt takes out my yard.
Over the course of the game, I have exactly one opportunity to cast Nightmare where it wouldn't be countered, I had creatures in play to sac, and I had creatures in my yard to recur (Tormod's Crypt comes back at one point aimed at me again) - and the creature I recurred was some utility creature. Damia's got a huge amount of mana, and restocks his hand several times with Damia and then later with Necropotence. He then drops Havengul Lich and begins harvesting my graveyard, all the while leaving up mana to be able to counter RN if I try to drop it (and he's Forbid'd something before, so I know he has it in hand). There are a couple of points where, if he didn't have a counter, I could cast RN and just win the game (recurring and sacking Protean Hulk twice into Mike and Trike, and later just recurring Mike with Trike on the board), but he never leaves me an opportunity.
He's trying to set up infinite mana with Palinchron + Gaea's Cradle, but Sharuum's other contribution to the game is occasionally tapping Homeward Path to keep Damia's Lich-returned creature count to a minimum, keeping him off of this mana. In the meanwhile, Rafiq has been just slow-rolling a combination of Sun Titan, Equilibrium, Sword of Light and Shadow, Wurmcoil Engine, and Nim Deathmantle to not really any serious effect, but at a detriment to Damia's lifetotal.
It finally comes down to my last turn before Damia can go off. He's got counter mana available for a single counter, so I can't resolve my RN and win, but I manage to, using Blood Artist, Greater Good, and Triskelion, drain him down to two points of life, completely emptying my library in the process. I cast RN to draw out his counter (as if it resolved, I could recur Trike and finish him, then recur Mikeaus and kill the table), then cast Karador, sac Blood Artist to Greater Good (Drawing 0), recast him, and sac him to greater good again, killing Damia but leaving myself dead on my next draw step.
Sharuum is just barely getting his legs under him at this point, so Rafiq goes on to finish him off with his unblockable 10/10 Wurmcoil.

The second game, I get into a good (but not game-wining) position with a fairly packed board including a Grave Titan, and am poised to untap and cast Craterhoof Behemoth from my graveyard to take out at least one player, when Sharuum manages to go off with Azami, Lady of Scrolls + Mind over Matter, cycling through his deck as many times as he wanted with an Eldrazi to shuffle over, letting him cast Memory Jar repeatedly to deck everyone out, with Glen Elendra Archmage support for Damia's Force of Will. RN never showed up, and as I picked up my deck, it was the bottommost card.

The other pod was three players completely new to EDH cube and fairly new to EDH, and one person who I think did the Cube once before. The decks were Thraximundar Grixis control, Gisela R/W Goodstuff (was almost Kaalia, but he didn't have enough black he felt to try and push it), Saffi Eriksdotter Tokens, and the last deck I am blanking on now.

Quote from Dolono

Karador has been a monster in most of our sessions too. I think a lot of great cards for him (flesh bag, etc) aren't high picks for most other generals, allowing someone selecting him to run away with tons of schwag. Even inexperienced drafters/edh players in my group have put together very threatening lists using him. I think he ought to be a good benchmark for whether your edh cube runs a sufficient amount of grave hate and in diverse colors (unfortunately, Karador being in G/W/B allows for them to hate draft many of the tools that otherwise would be good at fighting his strategy).

/2 cents

Current grave hate cards in my cube are:
Withered Wretch
Bojuka Bog
Leyline of the Void
Tormod's Crypt
Relic of Progenitus
Stonecloaker
Scavenging Ooze
Nightsoil
Primal Command
Nezumi Graverobber

(This doesn't include Reanimate effects like Necromancy, Coffin Queen, Chainer, Dementia Master, and Geth, Lord of the Vault who can reanimate opponents' creatures at instant speed which can effectively be gravehate, nor does it count various creature exile effects like False Prophet, Final Judgment, Swords to Plowshares, and similar, and exiling counterspells like Dissipate and Time Stop, which can prevent graveyard shenanigans from cropping up in the first place).

So the only colors without available graveyard hate cards are Blue and Red. Red really doesn't have any good options here, and all blue has are cards that reshuffle graveyards like Time Spiral and Mnemonic Nexus - I should probably include Time Spiral though anyways because it's an awesome all-around card. I'm also considering adding Vessel of Endless Rest as light graveyard hate plus a mana rock.

The biggest problem I've found with Graveyard hate is that people are reluctant to draft it and more reluctant to play it. This is why I've tried to focus on gy hate cards that are good cards on their own, like the exile/reanimation cards, Scavenging Ooze/Nezumi Graverobber, and Primal Command. Leyline of the Void is another good one because of its combination with Helm of Obedience (though I haven't seen anyone yet try to assemble this combo, it should be pretty easy to do as neither piece has been a very high pick). When RtR hits, I'll probably add Rest In Peace as another Leyline for HelmLine as well as just being a powerful graveyard hate card.

Quote from Dolono

Most of the folks who draft my cube are inexperienced and/or returning players, and I find it pretty enjoyable to discuss edh theory and strategies as we play and draft, including stuff like grave hate, and making well-rounded decks to deal with diverse archetypes. I don't get to draft as close to the amount I'd like, but it's fun to see some of the players making real progress in deck building and in the sophistication of their plays. Despite being a "casual" format, edh cube has been a good crucible for improving everyone's game. I've seen considerably less "new players getting shut out of games," and more nail biting experiences (in a good way) using the cube than I ever did with constructed edh.



I love TS and similar cards (wheel of x, etc) whenever I'm playing Niv. Too bad there wasn't any weird in RtR that benefits from card draws; only the usual playing instants and sorces.

I've mostly been drafting my cube at my local EDH group (after a player walked off with three dual lands after a cube draft at my store early in the year), so most people are pretty familiar with EDH. This week was kind of unusual because three of my buddies who mostly play modern (but were familiar with Draft/Cube) got in, as did the girlfriend of another friend of mine, who'd been playing magic for a little while but was relatively new to EDH (just having a Commander Precon). The other players, apart from me, were three EDH regulars - one who regularly builds top tier competitive decks like Momir Vig Elfball, one who is pretty tightly bound by his budget, and one who's been playing EDH for a few months but hasn't quite latched on at the fever pitch some of us have.
On a usual cube week, it's all people with at least the experience of the last guy, and usually a pretty nice split between competitive and more casual EDHers. It's interesting sometimes to see different people's takes on things - one guy once first pick hate drafted Jace, the Mind Sculptor because he hated the card so much and never wanted to see it played. Kaalia of the Vast tends to be pretty popular, though I have yet to see a truly cutthroat build for her - I may have to try forcing this next time, if only to see if my adjustments for her and Mayael have been sufficient.

As for Time Spiral, I am running Wheel of Fortune, Wheel of Fate, Chandra Ablaze, Memory Jar, Reforge the Soul, and Windfall. I would definitely like to get Time Spiral in there because I love draw7's, but blue is very tight. Maybe over one of the clunkier counters.