This thread is kinda under construction. I mean to include comments on my card choices, cards that I want to include but currently don't own, cards that I own but don't want to include, and so on. Feel free to comment and make suggestions!
About this cube:
I started building my cube in late 2007, shortly after it had been previewed at the Magic Invitational. It just sounded like a ton of fun, so after reading a few articles by Evan Erwin, Tom LaPille and others, I started scrambling together my own. I didn't have a too extensive collection (and I still don't), so I lacked a ton of cube staples, and I didn't have too much experience with it either, so a lot of linear archetypes were in my cube for a while. Such as Goblins, Storm, Enduring Ideal. These were removed pretty fast as soon as I realized that unless exactly one player was drafting them, in which case it usually worked out, either all the narrow cards like Rituals, Goblin Piledriver and Soltari Confinement were last-picked in every pack, or two people fought over the same deck when there was clearly not enough cards to support two drafters. So after that, the cube became a midrange-cube with a lot of slow cards and manafixing, and aggro was generally underpowered. Since that I've been working on solving that, and as of right now I'd say the control cards and the aggressive parts of the cube are almost equally strong, when considering there are usually about 5 control drafters and 3 aggressive drafters at every draft.
The cube is still focused on control. This is based on personal preference of the players that usually draft it. Also, I am a frequent traveler, and I find Winston-drafting cube an activity very suitable for Airports and the like, and so it is built partly with that in mind. There are some cards that are included simply based on the drafters' preferences, like Brainbite. I do not own power, and I would not include power in my cube even if I did. I think some cards are just too good, and Moxen and Time Walk and cards like that can lead to unfun games. Granted, I have some cards that are pretty unfair, like Sol Ring and Mind Twist, but those are sort of on a "watchlist", and will be removed if we feel like they are just too good/unfun. I currently don't plan on including cards from joke sets (Unglued, Unhinged), and I probably won't, unless I get persuaded to do otherwise.
I have a few "placeholder" cards in my cube. I don't own all 10 original dual lands - just 8 - but I don't want to make the manabase unbalanced, so in place of Taiga and Tundra I have Rootbound Crag and Glacial Fortress. It is similar with the last Worldwake manland I don't have: Raging Ravine. In its place I currently have Grove of the Burnwillows.
Right now I'm situated in Trondheim, Norway, so anyone who happen to live there (I think I should already know you then, though) or otherwise just visit the city are welcome to play! Just take contact with me via pm or email (sveinungbj at hotmail dot com). We are starting to hold organized cube drafts with ratings and everything every Friday after the local FNM
Quick statistics:
Total number of cards: 431
Number of cards in each color: 55
Multicolored cards: 59
Artifacts and other colorless cards: 37
Lands: 60
Creatures: 184
Spells: 186
Aggessively-minded cards: 232
Control-minded cards: 238 (there are some overlaps)
The first thing I notice is that you play more multicolor than any single mono colored section. That is something that most people recomend against unless your buidling a multicolor specific cube.
I would probably cut down to 40 cards (4 each color combination)
These are usally the most used in each 2-color combination, cut down to 4 of these options and youw ill be good.
If you type out the list of your cards (preferably here), I can do the sorting for you.
Thanks for the offer, but I have a pretty extensive Excel file that does everything like that for me
@Pringlesman: I agree that the ratio of multicolored cards to single-colored cards is a little skewed right now, but I'm meaning to add more cards to my cube, as soon as I can get my hand on some decent red and black cards. Once I get that, I'll up the number of cards in each color to 60 as well, which makes it more balanced.
@eidolon232: Those cube comparison results were really interesting. Voice of All and Crovax (just out of the white cards) are two cards I don't at all consider cutting, but still they have an exclamation mark next to them (which probably indicates that they are almost unique to my cube, or close to).
Among other cards with an exclamation mark attached to them, I feel I should mention Deadwood Treefolk. In our experience, this guy is an absolute all-star, and just insane in various recursion engines. I'd highly recommend it. Wayfarer's Bauble is another cute little card that has performed very well for us, especially in controlling non-green decks.
Heh, after talking to my friends at today's cube draft, I decided to cut the Voice of All (I needed to cut a white card to make room for the newly obtained Glorious Anthem). I've always thought it was pretty good, but my friends disagreed, so we cut it.
Today's changes, after some kind donations:
+Glorious Anthem
+Control Magic
+Creeping Tar Pit
+Man-o'-War
-Mind Control (was pretty much a placeholder for Control Magic)
-River of Tears (100% a placeholder for Creeping Tar Pit)
-Repeal (a little unexciting, and Man-o'-War replaces the bounce effect)
-Voice of All
i would highly recommend you re-sort your cube by creature and noncreature, and by converted mana cost. sorting alphabetically is really unhelpful for those trying to analyze your list. eidolon actually did this for you a few posts ago, so it will be a simple cut and paste process.
When I see Healing Salve, I'm often like "Oh girl, I wish I could turn every card into this." Thanks they removed the gain life part, otherwise this would have been broken.
I'd keep Repeal. While "unexciting", it's a solid answer to non-creature permanents, it's splashable, and it cantrips. I'd play both Man-o'-War and Repeal in most every cube.
I agree with above. It would be helpful if you sorted your list a bit better. In my signature I have a link to my Cube Thread FAQ. There is good stuff in that.
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Calvin and Hobbes Cube Tutor
I've been working on cutting down on expensive cards lately (thanks for the advice, I certainly agree now that I've thought about it), and here are the changes I made over the course of the weekend:
Pretty happy with these changes (with the obvious exception of Jace). I realize this makes for some uneven numbers here and there, but I'll fix that as soon as I obtain cards I'm happy to include.
I'm not sure how good Skithiryx will be, but I'm going to try him out, and remove him if he doesn't get the job done.
Myr Battlesphere seems like an awesome late drop in theory, and I'm expecting it to be quite good.
I included Cancel because I love counterspells, and I don't own the old counterspells that are better than it (like Miscalculation, Dissipate, Dismiss). Also, I have a sweet foil Cancel, heh
Not sure if Oxidda Scrapmelter is good enough, and it's likely that I'll replace it pretty soon.
The new Masticore also seems like it requires a lot of work, but the payoff is so huge that I can't really see how it can be bad.
I'm not convinced that Steppe Lynx fits in the cube since you don't necessarily have infinite fetchlands, but I'm at least going to try it out.
I discovered some new sweet cards this weekend that I'm going to try getting my hands on, like Strands of Night and Avenger of Zendikar (I was obviously aware of the existence of this card, but it had never occured to me before that it would be sweet in the cube, but I think it is). Going to update my "wishlist"...
As always, comments and suggestions are greatly appreciated Thanks for the feedback so far, been of great help. I will also try to put up some lists sorted by CMC, updated photos, etc.
@Cancel: I agree, after thinking about it. I think this used to be a perfectly defendable placeholder card in my cube, but now that I've been cutting high-CC cards left and right, I don't think it's close to pulling its weight in this updated version of my cube. But regarding the strictly better new Cancel - Metalcraft won't happen in 99/100 of the scenarios, so I intentionally chose Cancel because it was foil
@Tombstalker: I can see where you're coming from, and the reason it used to be kinda mediocre can again be attributed to the high average CMC of my cube, which made it difficult to cast it early for less than 4BB. But as I'm lowering the average CMC, it gains value. Probably putting it back in for that reason, as it's definitely been weak until now.
@Goblin Bushwhacker: I think this card is pretty good in the red decks this cube supports. That said, it certainly is no more than a placeholder card, and will be swiftly removed as soon as I can get a Goblin Guide or a Kargan Dragonlord or something. Also, it is in Portuguese foil
@Strands of Night: Honestly my impression is just based on watching it unfold in a few games, so I can't say for sure that it's good. But it looked sweet, so I at least want to try it out.
@Diabolic Servitude: Ah yes. That card is quite amazing, and is for sure going in if I can get one.
i've been over this several other places so the short version is, the dude costs a whole lot of colored mana if you want to protect him, and he is useless unless you win with him. i don't mean useless as in bad or disappointing, i mean literally useless. he has to win the game all by himself and if he almost gets there, it's the same thing as doing absolutely nothing. poison plays well with nothing except other poison (which won't be in the cube) so you can't look at his haste or damage the same way you'd look at normal haste or damage. if i mill most of your library with nemesis of reason or take down most of your life total with hellkite charger and then they get killed, the rest of my deck can finish the job. unfortunately this is not the case with skitheryx.
wow, i guess the short version is still kind of long.
I'm not convinced that Steppe Lynx fits in the cube since you don't necessarily have infinite fetchlands, but I'm at least going to try it out.
even without any fetchlands he's good. why would a 2/3 attacker for W be bad?
When I see Healing Salve, I'm often like "Oh girl, I wish I could turn every card into this." Thanks they removed the gain life part, otherwise this would have been broken.
Yeah, I removed Skithiryx again before even trying him out. Fairly obvious that he's going to do nothing, when you think about it.
Regarding Steppe Lynx: There's no guarantee that you're going to hit land drops every turn, it pretty much can't block, and it's a miserable topdeck. That's why I was a little hesitant. Going to see how it performs before removing it again, though. Might very well be good enough despite the downsides.
In an aggro deck all this doesn't matter, since you want to kill our opponent within 4 turns and the chances of having hitting your first 4 land drops are still very high, as long as you keep at least 2 lands. After you have your 4-5 lands out, and you haven't already won, you usually keep back the lands in your hand, which mean that a Lynx would get a few attacks later if you drew him from the top.
The fact that it is a bad blocker is also irrelevant, since you don't block with your creatures in a beatdown deck unless it would kill you otherwise.
If everything goes according to theory, then true, it doesn't matter. But that's not how it always works out in practice. Four-turn kills in cube are absolutely the exception rather than the rule (unless your cube is immensely skewed towards aggressive strategies), and the supposed scenarios of "turn 1 Steppe Lynx, 4 land drops in a row along with a curve, kill you" aren't likely to happen all the time. The card is just very unstable and at the same time narrow. I am adding it because I'm guessing it's good enough, but I can't agree with how you're presenting the card.
Quote from eidolon232 »
I really dislike the following changes in black
+Phyrexian Rager
+Living Death
-Braids, Cabal Minion
-Makeshift Mannequin
Rager and Living Death I haven't tried before, now I will. Phyrexian Rager has been a playable Pauper card for a long time, and Living Death sounds like fun to build around. Braids and Mannequin have both been quite unimpressive. They are too narrow (and lack the support to have decks around them), and are easily disrupted.
Quote from eidolon232 »
Green has also gotten a smaller piece of the cake when it comes down to the quality of the new cards.
I am not into maintaining a collection or trading or buying cards, so I add what I get. Colors aren't 100% evenly matched, that's just how it is, and I don't think it's much I can do to prevent this. It gets balanced out at the draft table, since blue is, for instance, more sought-after than green anyway. For example, I'm not going to cut the non-green Titans because I don't have the green one yet, since it's all about creating a fun draft format, not necessarily equilibrium
turn 1 Steppe Lynx, 4 land drops in a row ... aren't likely to happen all the time
I disagree. I've never failed to attack at least 3-4 straight times with a turn one Steppe Lynx. Sometimes with fetches and ramp spells. He's a very consistent beater.
The card is just very unstable and at the same time narrow.
the card is neither unstable nor narrow. it consistently attacks for 2 and while it only goes in aggro, that's no more narrow than any aggro or control only card.
When I see Healing Salve, I'm often like "Oh girl, I wish I could turn every card into this." Thanks they removed the gain life part, otherwise this would have been broken.
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This thread is kinda under construction. I mean to include comments on my card choices, cards that I want to include but currently don't own, cards that I own but don't want to include, and so on. Feel free to comment and make suggestions!
About this cube:
I started building my cube in late 2007, shortly after it had been previewed at the Magic Invitational. It just sounded like a ton of fun, so after reading a few articles by Evan Erwin, Tom LaPille and others, I started scrambling together my own. I didn't have a too extensive collection (and I still don't), so I lacked a ton of cube staples, and I didn't have too much experience with it either, so a lot of linear archetypes were in my cube for a while. Such as Goblins, Storm, Enduring Ideal. These were removed pretty fast as soon as I realized that unless exactly one player was drafting them, in which case it usually worked out, either all the narrow cards like Rituals, Goblin Piledriver and Soltari Confinement were last-picked in every pack, or two people fought over the same deck when there was clearly not enough cards to support two drafters. So after that, the cube became a midrange-cube with a lot of slow cards and manafixing, and aggro was generally underpowered. Since that I've been working on solving that, and as of right now I'd say the control cards and the aggressive parts of the cube are almost equally strong, when considering there are usually about 5 control drafters and 3 aggressive drafters at every draft.
The cube is still focused on control. This is based on personal preference of the players that usually draft it. Also, I am a frequent traveler, and I find Winston-drafting cube an activity very suitable for Airports and the like, and so it is built partly with that in mind. There are some cards that are included simply based on the drafters' preferences, like Brainbite. I do not own power, and I would not include power in my cube even if I did. I think some cards are just too good, and Moxen and Time Walk and cards like that can lead to unfun games. Granted, I have some cards that are pretty unfair, like Sol Ring and Mind Twist, but those are sort of on a "watchlist", and will be removed if we feel like they are just too good/unfun. I currently don't plan on including cards from joke sets (Unglued, Unhinged), and I probably won't, unless I get persuaded to do otherwise.
I have a few "placeholder" cards in my cube. I don't own all 10 original dual lands - just 8 - but I don't want to make the manabase unbalanced, so in place of Taiga and Tundra I have Rootbound Crag and Glacial Fortress. It is similar with the last Worldwake manland I don't have: Raging Ravine. In its place I currently have Grove of the Burnwillows.
Right now I'm situated in Trondheim, Norway, so anyone who happen to live there (I think I should already know you then, though) or otherwise just visit the city are welcome to play! Just take contact with me via pm or email (sveinungbj at hotmail dot com). We are starting to hold organized cube drafts with ratings and everything every Friday after the local FNM
Quick statistics:
Cards I mean to include once I obtain them:
-Humility
-Karmic Guide
-Leonin Arbiter
-Moat
-Dissipate
-Mana Drain
-Sinkhole
-Strands of Night
-Chain Lightning
-Kargan Dragonlord
-Avenger of Zendikar
-Ohran Viper
-Primeval Titan
-Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
-Sylvan Library
-Undermine
-Venser, the Sojourner
-Cursed Scroll
-Masticore
-Memory Jar
-Phyrexian Processor
-Staff of Domination
-Raging Ravine
-Taiga
-Tundra
-Thawing Glaciers
My Cube!
Changelog:
+Glorious Anthem
+Creeping Tar Pit
+Man-o'-War
+Lodestone Golem
-Mind Control
-Voice of All
-River of Tears
-Repeal
-Platinum Angel
-Smokestack
-Crovax, Ascendant Hero
-Visara the Dreadful
-Grinning Demon
-Tombstalker
-Sengir Nosferatu
-Akroma, Angel of Fury
-Skizzik
-Flameblast Dragon
-Ryusei, the Falling Star
-Iridescent Angel
-Grave-Shell Scarab
-Nucklavee
-Firemane Angel
-Shivan Wurm
-Obelisk of Alara
-Cloudthresher
-Spectral Force
+Steppe Lynx
+Cancel
+Skinrender
+Grasp of Darkness
+Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon
+Liliana's Specter
+Mogg Fanatic
+Goblin Bushwhacker
+Oxidda Scrapmelter
+Blood Knight
+Molten-Tail Masticore
+Myr Battlesphere
+Sylvan Ranger
+Elves of Deep Shadow
+Phyrexian Rager
+Tombstalker
+Bone Shredder
+Animate Dead
+Vampire Nighthawk
+Sorin Markov
+Earthquake
+Goblin Guide
+Ghitu Slinger
+Masked Admirers
+Civic Wayfinder
+Sejiri Merfolk
+Probe
+Pilgrim's Eye
+Twilight Mire
-Cancel
-Malakir Bloodwitch
-Guul Draz Assassin
-Braids, Cabal Minion
-Makeshift Mannequin
-Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon
-Oxidda Scrapmelter
-Goblin Bushwhacker
-Lava Spike
-Awakening Zone
-Sylvan Ranger
-Brainbite
-Llanowar Wastes
+Mana Tithe
+Dismantling Blow
+Crusade
+Catastrophe
+Repeal
+Force Spike
+Mind Control
+Dismiss
+Miscalculation
+Yawgmoth's Will
+Oona's Prowler
+Living Death
+Barter in Blood
+Yawgmoth's Bargain
+Fireblast
+Firebolt
+Stone Rain
+Fireslinger
+Crater Hellion
+Koth of the Hammer
+Search for Tomorrow
+Woodfall Primus
+Joraga Treespeaker
+Primal Command
+Thornling
+Burning-Tree Shaman
+Tidehollow Sculler
+Frost Titan
-Disintegrate
-Conundrum Sphinx
My cube's top 10 cards!
1. Sword of Light and Shadow
2. Recurring Nightmare
3. Sol Ring
4. Mulldrifter
5. Mind Twist
6. Cryptic Command
7. Skullclamp
8. Vedalken Shackles
9. Umezawa's Jitte
10. Sword of Fire and Ice
I would probably cut down to 40 cards (4 each color combination)
These are usally the most used in each 2-color combination, cut down to 4 of these options and youw ill be good.
WU - Absorb, Plumveil, Wall of Denial, Azorious Guildmage, Grand Arbiter IV, Momentary Blink
UB - Shadowmage Infiltrator, Recoil, Oona, Queen of the Fae, Psychatog, Undermine
BR - Void, Bituminous Blast, Blightning, That BR specter, Terminate, Murderous Redcap
RG - Kird Ape, Giant Solifuge, sarkhan Vol, Stormbind, Bloodbraid Elf
GW - Loam Lion, Qasali Pridemage, Kitchen Finks, Behemoth Sledge, Mirari's Wake, Loxodon Hierarch
WB - Mortify, Vindciate, Stillmoon Cavalier, Desolation Angel, Gerrard's Verdict
BG- Maelstrum Pulse, Pernicious Deed, Spiritmonger, Putrid Leach, Putrify
GU - Voidslime, Trygon Predator, Mystic Snake, Simic Sky Swallower
UR - Fire/Ice, Prophetic Bolt, Electrolyze, Gelectrode, Niv MIzzet
RW - Lightning Helix, Ajani Vengetta, Figure of Destiny, Brion Stoutarm, Duegor Hedge Mage.
I would take those 20 slots you gain by cutting multicolor and pump up your artifact section.
Calvin and Hobbes
Cube Tutor
Thanks for the offer, but I have a pretty extensive Excel file that does everything like that for me
@Pringlesman: I agree that the ratio of multicolored cards to single-colored cards is a little skewed right now, but I'm meaning to add more cards to my cube, as soon as I can get my hand on some decent red and black cards. Once I get that, I'll up the number of cards in each color to 60 as well, which makes it more balanced.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
Among other cards with an exclamation mark attached to them, I feel I should mention Deadwood Treefolk. In our experience, this guy is an absolute all-star, and just insane in various recursion engines. I'd highly recommend it. Wayfarer's Bauble is another cute little card that has performed very well for us, especially in controlling non-green decks.
Today's changes, after some kind donations:
+Glorious Anthem
+Control Magic
+Creeping Tar Pit
+Man-o'-War
-Mind Control (was pretty much a placeholder for Control Magic)
-River of Tears (100% a placeholder for Creeping Tar Pit)
-Repeal (a little unexciting, and Man-o'-War replaces the bounce effect)
-Voice of All
i would highly recommend you re-sort your cube by creature and noncreature, and by converted mana cost. sorting alphabetically is really unhelpful for those trying to analyze your list. eidolon actually did this for you a few posts ago, so it will be a simple cut and paste process.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
Calvin and Hobbes
Cube Tutor
-Jace The Mind Sculptor (not by choice, it wasn't mine, and he had to get it back :()
-Crovax, Ascendant Hero
-Visara the Dreadful
-Grinning Demon
-Tombstalker
-Sengir Nosferatu
-Akroma, Angel of Fury
-Skizzik
-Flameblast Dragon
-Ryusei, the Falling Star
-Iridescent Angel
-Grave-Shell Scarab
-Nucklavee
-Firemane Angel
-Shivan Wurm
-Obelisk of Alara
-Cloudthresher
-Spectral Force
+Steppe Lynx
+Cancel
+Skinrender
+Grasp of Darkness
+Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon
+Liliana's Specter
+Mogg Fanatic
+Goblin Bushwhacker
+Oxidda Scrapmelter
+Blood Knight
+Molten-Tail Masticore
+Myr Battlesphere
+Sylvan Ranger
+Elves of Deep Shadow
Pretty happy with these changes (with the obvious exception of Jace). I realize this makes for some uneven numbers here and there, but I'll fix that as soon as I obtain cards I'm happy to include.
I'm not sure how good Skithiryx will be, but I'm going to try him out, and remove him if he doesn't get the job done.
Myr Battlesphere seems like an awesome late drop in theory, and I'm expecting it to be quite good.
I included Cancel because I love counterspells, and I don't own the old counterspells that are better than it (like Miscalculation, Dissipate, Dismiss). Also, I have a sweet foil Cancel, heh
Not sure if Oxidda Scrapmelter is good enough, and it's likely that I'll replace it pretty soon.
The new Masticore also seems like it requires a lot of work, but the payoff is so huge that I can't really see how it can be bad.
I'm not convinced that Steppe Lynx fits in the cube since you don't necessarily have infinite fetchlands, but I'm at least going to try it out.
I discovered some new sweet cards this weekend that I'm going to try getting my hands on, like Strands of Night and Avenger of Zendikar (I was obviously aware of the existence of this card, but it had never occured to me before that it would be sweet in the cube, but I think it is). Going to update my "wishlist"...
As always, comments and suggestions are greatly appreciated
My cube
My cube on Cube tutor
I'm OP_Forever. I'll be putting this in my signature for a while so everyone know I change my nickname.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
@Tombstalker: I can see where you're coming from, and the reason it used to be kinda mediocre can again be attributed to the high average CMC of my cube, which made it difficult to cast it early for less than 4BB. But as I'm lowering the average CMC, it gains value. Probably putting it back in for that reason, as it's definitely been weak until now.
@Goblin Bushwhacker: I think this card is pretty good in the red decks this cube supports. That said, it certainly is no more than a placeholder card, and will be swiftly removed as soon as I can get a Goblin Guide or a Kargan Dragonlord or something. Also, it is in Portuguese foil
@Strands of Night: Honestly my impression is just based on watching it unfold in a few games, so I can't say for sure that it's good. But it looked sweet, so I at least want to try it out.
@Diabolic Servitude: Ah yes. That card is quite amazing, and is for sure going in if I can get one.
i've been over this several other places so the short version is, the dude costs a whole lot of colored mana if you want to protect him, and he is useless unless you win with him. i don't mean useless as in bad or disappointing, i mean literally useless. he has to win the game all by himself and if he almost gets there, it's the same thing as doing absolutely nothing. poison plays well with nothing except other poison (which won't be in the cube) so you can't look at his haste or damage the same way you'd look at normal haste or damage. if i mill most of your library with nemesis of reason or take down most of your life total with hellkite charger and then they get killed, the rest of my deck can finish the job. unfortunately this is not the case with skitheryx.
wow, i guess the short version is still kind of long.
even without any fetchlands he's good. why would a 2/3 attacker for W be bad?
Regarding Steppe Lynx: There's no guarantee that you're going to hit land drops every turn, it pretty much can't block, and it's a miserable topdeck. That's why I was a little hesitant. Going to see how it performs before removing it again, though. Might very well be good enough despite the downsides.
I've obtained a number of cards now, and here are some recent changes (also upped colored cards to 55 each from 50):
+Soltari Priest
+Mana Tithe
+Dismantling Blow
+Crusade
+Catastrophe
+Repeal
+Force Spike
+Frost Titan
+Mind Control
+Dismiss
+Miscalculation
+Repulse
+Phyrexian Rager
+Oona's Prowler
+Living Death
+Barter in Blood
+Yawgmoth's Bargain
+Tombstalker
+Bone Shredder
+Animate Dead
+Vampire Nighthawk
+Sorin Markov
+Earthquake
+Fireblast
+Firebolt
+Stone Rain
+Fireslinger
+Crater Hellion
+Koth of the Hammer
+Goblin Guide
+Ghitu Slinger
+Masked Admirers
+Search for Tomorrow
+Woodfall Primus
+Joraga Treespeaker
+Primal Command
+Thornling
+Civic Wayfinder
+Sejiri Merfolk
+Burning-Tree Shaman
+Tidehollow Sculler
+Probe
+Pilgrim's Eye
+Twilight Mire
-Cancel
-Malakir Bloodwitch
-Guul Draz Assassin
-Braids, Cabal Minion
-Makeshift Mannequin
-Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon
-Oxidda Scrapmelter
-Goblin Bushwhacker
-Lava Spike
-Awakening Zone
-Sylvan Ranger
-Brainbite
-Llanowar Wastes
And I also moved Kird Ape to multicolored from red.
I'm not sold that all of these additions are good ones, but I like to try out cards
If everything goes according to theory, then true, it doesn't matter. But that's not how it always works out in practice. Four-turn kills in cube are absolutely the exception rather than the rule (unless your cube is immensely skewed towards aggressive strategies), and the supposed scenarios of "turn 1 Steppe Lynx, 4 land drops in a row along with a curve, kill you" aren't likely to happen all the time. The card is just very unstable and at the same time narrow. I am adding it because I'm guessing it's good enough, but I can't agree with how you're presenting the card.
Rager and Living Death I haven't tried before, now I will. Phyrexian Rager has been a playable Pauper card for a long time, and Living Death sounds like fun to build around. Braids and Mannequin have both been quite unimpressive. They are too narrow (and lack the support to have decks around them), and are easily disrupted.
I am not into maintaining a collection or trading or buying cards, so I add what I get. Colors aren't 100% evenly matched, that's just how it is, and I don't think it's much I can do to prevent this. It gets balanced out at the draft table, since blue is, for instance, more sought-after than green anyway. For example, I'm not going to cut the non-green Titans because I don't have the green one yet, since it's all about creating a fun draft format, not necessarily equilibrium
I disagree. I've never failed to attack at least 3-4 straight times with a turn one Steppe Lynx. Sometimes with fetches and ramp spells. He's a very consistent beater.
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the card is neither unstable nor narrow. it consistently attacks for 2 and while it only goes in aggro, that's no more narrow than any aggro or control only card.