The reason why i have a peasant cube, is that i like an environment wich feels like Limited, but also contains some elements from constructed play, and also isn't too expensive as a student.
I started off with an "average" cube list, i found on cubetutor at that time, that contained the most played cards in cube. From there i started to further define archetypes and added some cards i like for flavor reasons (e.g. Savage Punch).
I also love to play high power level cards, but still avoided many "auto-picks" like Sensei's Divining Top, Force of Will or Sol Ring. Concerning focus on synergy- or raw-power-level cards i wanted to include enough cards to support synergistic decks, but also make "the classic control/aggro/midrange deck" work.
I dont know if i walked into the trap of containing too many multicolored cards, though a lot of fixing is included in the cube(bounce-lands, gain-lands, signets,taplands(considered breaking the "peasant-rule" by swapping them for pain-lands or fastlands to support aggro more), and i love Gold cards ;). Some Cycles were included, just to contain the full cycle, but (especially in the uncommon planeswalker cycle) what cards do you think could be cut, because of thir powerlevel?
The archetypes i decided on are the following, though im not sure if i will keep it this way: UW - Blink
I just love the Blink archetype and like that it gives many opportunities for synergies across archetypes. This archetype might be a slight touch oversupported, but i can live with that. UB - Saboteurs/Unblockable
For this archetype im a little scared that the cards contained are too generic-good, instead of synergistic. This might be okay, but i also might change some cards as i change other archetypes to create cross-synergies. RB - Sacrifice
I dont know if the ratio of enablers,sacrifice outlets and payoffs is good. One reason, why i probably cant figure it out is that the synergies to RW and BG are very strong and i find myself being three colors in quite a lot of my test drafts. RG - Beatdown/Chonky Creatures
Its also one of the coolest archetypes, though i dont know if the existing payoffs are good enough to include. Right now i also feel like im missing some agressive green creatures, instead of mana-dorks. GW - +1/+1 Counters
This is the archetype im most unhappy with. I feel like most cards are only playable in this archetype and are too bad in other decks. I also thought about changing the archetype entirely for "Enchantments", or moving the tokens archetype to these colors(which i believe would have the best support and synergies). WB - Aristocrats
Classic Aristocrats archetype. Also very good cross synergies to Rakdos and Boros. UG - Flash
The UG Flash archetype is another archetype that doesnt have too strong synergies right now. UR - Spells matter
This archetype might also be undersupported a little bit, but i think of it that basically any instant(/sorcery) spell is supporting this theme as long as you have the payoff. RW - Tokens
Im a little bit scared that this archetype is oversupported (dont know if that would be a bad thing), because Rakdos and Orzhov basically can use any card contained in this archetype. I wanted to change this archetype to "Equipments", but i dont know if the power level of most equipments is good enough compared to the rest of the cube. BG - Graveyard shenanigans
I dont know if this archetype is undersupported, but it can also make use of a lot of cards from Orzhov, and Rakdos cards.
The biggest problems i see are:
- Token strategies might be too present in the cube, which would make cards like Drown in Sorrow and Slice and Dice "must-pick"-cards. (I also think some cards, especially in green, that focus on tokens are a little out of place)
- Too low amount of agressive (1-3 cmc) green creatures?
What do you think about the cube? Any tips what could improve the playing experience? Any recommendations on the archetypes?
Thanks for reading this and im looking forward on what you think
Senseis divining top and force of will arent actually considered very high power level in peasant, by the way.
Without shuffle effects, top is underwhelming at best. And without too many "oops, I win" cards in peasant, force of will isnt worth the card disadvantage nearly as often as it is in eternal formats. I mean, it's still cubable, but nothing crazy.
//
I wouldn't get too bogged down in making sure every pair of colors has a unique sub theme. Merely putting in a bunch of interesting buildarounds (like goblin bombardment) and payoffs in as many colors as possible will naturally form the archetypes for you. So long as every color can contribute in the early game and in the long game (within reason), you'll be fine.
//
13 multicolored cards per color pair is definitely overkill. That's 130/540, or almost 1/4 of your cube!
By comparison, I have 3 multicolored cards per pair, getting me up to 30/420, or 1/14th. If I moved up to a 4th card, I'd definitely feel like I'm pushing the limit on how many dead draft picks there are but it might be alright. Any more than that and I'd see it as problematic.
That isnt even mentioning that the trilands are still dead in 40% of color pairs, contributing to the total number of dead cards per draft.
If you really must go hard on multicolor, you could cut... idk... a land and 3 spells per color pair and it would still be a lot left over. The incentive to play 3-5 color midrange and control is extremely high in this type of list, which means you probably have to account for that in one of the following 3 ways:
A) Embrace the craziness and gut the ability for people to play aggro. Go deep on control and midrange and combo.
B) fight this natural inertia by countering it in other ways. Cut some of the worse control/midrange cards and include a disproportionately high number of aggro cards. Maybe even some land destruction and more artifact destruction.
C) lower the amount of gold to be more in line with what others are doing. Maybe 10% of the cube instead of well over 20%. You'll still be pretty gold heavy but it wont warp the format so much.
I certainly think it is fun to have a Peasant cube with more focus on multicolored cards. It leads to decks which are stronger on average and rewards people for reading signals during draft.
For my cube, which is at 8 slots per guild (2 lands and 6 spells) and 512 cards (80/512 = 15.625%), I did eventually lean into Leelue's plan B.
I play a lot of cheaper artifact destruction where I can and cut a lot of the lower power 2-for-1s and early defensive cards. I try to keep out a lot of cards which profile as strictly "midrange" cards, since midrange decks have the ability to make so many cards work in their decks.
If you are looking to reduce your multicolor component, I also have a couple of suggestions:
1) Find land fixing outside of the guilds. The Thriving lands from Jumpstart are amazing and fit almost every deck. Vivid lands are good in almost every deck of the base color, but do have the potential to allow for "too many splashes."
2) Move theme support cards into mono-colored. Having some of the White +1/+1 support creatures from Khans would help take some burden off of the guild sections while also allow more interesting decks. A lot of random creatures have +1/+1 counters in Blue, Black, and Red.
I certainly think it is fun to have a Peasant cube with more focus on multicolored cards. It leads to decks which are stronger on average and rewards people for reading signals during draft.
I'm not under the impression that gold cards are stronger than monocolored cards by enough to make up for the fact that packs with multicolored cards in them have fewer options for you to choose from, kneecapping your ability to pick good cards for your deck as opposed to good cards that are coincidentally in your deck
It definitely looks like you have a good idea of what you're doing, so at this point I'd recommend playing it and changing based on what people like to play and what you find to be good rather than based on theory crafting. It's good to have archetypes in mind, but they don't really matter if no one's playing them or don't play them optimally. I would recommend adding Thriving lands, City of Brass, Gemstone Mine, and Aether Hub, since they're good options for lands that would let you cut down on fixing a bit since you don't need to be specific colours to play them. The untapped ones are also very good for aggro.
If you want to support green aggro you probably want more aggressive green 2 drops, but only if you want to support green aggro.
I'm in support of larger multicolour sections, but once you start going past 5 or 6 (non-land) cards I do think you get into multicolour cards not being unique enough to justify their inclusion. Sure, every BW deck will play Mortify, but it's not that much different than a mono B or W removal spell, so the problems that come with it being multicoloured aren't really worth it.
If you like the heavier focus on multicolour but have problems with people playing a bunch of 3+ colour midranged soup or have a bunch of gold cards never being played, all of Leelue's suggestions are good ways to deal with it. I would also pay attention to the signets in particular, since they really incentivize 3+ colour good stuff.
At 450 I run a gold system of 4 actual gold cards mostly for enabling the colour pair and one generically playable hybrid which keeps things consistent enough without too many dead cards.
I have been reading the Forum for quite some time now and now its the time i am creating my first post
I'd like to ask you for some tips, recommendations and thoughts about the cube im building for a year now.
This is the List im working on so far:
The reason why i have a peasant cube, is that i like an environment wich feels like Limited, but also contains some elements from constructed play, and also isn't too expensive as a student.
I started off with an "average" cube list, i found on cubetutor at that time, that contained the most played cards in cube. From there i started to further define archetypes and added some cards i like for flavor reasons (e.g. Savage Punch).
I also love to play high power level cards, but still avoided many "auto-picks" like Sensei's Divining Top, Force of Will or Sol Ring. Concerning focus on synergy- or raw-power-level cards i wanted to include enough cards to support synergistic decks, but also make "the classic control/aggro/midrange deck" work.
I dont know if i walked into the trap of containing too many multicolored cards, though a lot of fixing is included in the cube(bounce-lands, gain-lands, signets,taplands(considered breaking the "peasant-rule" by swapping them for pain-lands or fastlands to support aggro more), and i love Gold cards ;). Some Cycles were included, just to contain the full cycle, but (especially in the uncommon planeswalker cycle) what cards do you think could be cut, because of thir powerlevel?
The archetypes i decided on are the following, though im not sure if i will keep it this way:
UW - Blink
I just love the Blink archetype and like that it gives many opportunities for synergies across archetypes. This archetype might be a slight touch oversupported, but i can live with that.
UB - Saboteurs/Unblockable
For this archetype im a little scared that the cards contained are too generic-good, instead of synergistic. This might be okay, but i also might change some cards as i change other archetypes to create cross-synergies.
RB - Sacrifice
I dont know if the ratio of enablers,sacrifice outlets and payoffs is good. One reason, why i probably cant figure it out is that the synergies to RW and BG are very strong and i find myself being three colors in quite a lot of my test drafts.
RG - Beatdown/Chonky Creatures
Its also one of the coolest archetypes, though i dont know if the existing payoffs are good enough to include. Right now i also feel like im missing some agressive green creatures, instead of mana-dorks.
GW - +1/+1 Counters
This is the archetype im most unhappy with. I feel like most cards are only playable in this archetype and are too bad in other decks. I also thought about changing the archetype entirely for "Enchantments", or moving the tokens archetype to these colors(which i believe would have the best support and synergies).
WB - Aristocrats
Classic Aristocrats archetype. Also very good cross synergies to Rakdos and Boros.
UG - Flash
The UG Flash archetype is another archetype that doesnt have too strong synergies right now.
UR - Spells matter
This archetype might also be undersupported a little bit, but i think of it that basically any instant(/sorcery) spell is supporting this theme as long as you have the payoff.
RW - Tokens
Im a little bit scared that this archetype is oversupported (dont know if that would be a bad thing), because Rakdos and Orzhov basically can use any card contained in this archetype. I wanted to change this archetype to "Equipments", but i dont know if the power level of most equipments is good enough compared to the rest of the cube.
BG - Graveyard shenanigans
I dont know if this archetype is undersupported, but it can also make use of a lot of cards from Orzhov, and Rakdos cards.
The biggest problems i see are:
- Token strategies might be too present in the cube, which would make cards like Drown in Sorrow and Slice and Dice "must-pick"-cards. (I also think some cards, especially in green, that focus on tokens are a little out of place)
- Too low amount of agressive (1-3 cmc) green creatures?
What do you think about the cube? Any tips what could improve the playing experience? Any recommendations on the archetypes?
Thanks for reading this and im looking forward on what you think
Without shuffle effects, top is underwhelming at best. And without too many "oops, I win" cards in peasant, force of will isnt worth the card disadvantage nearly as often as it is in eternal formats. I mean, it's still cubable, but nothing crazy.
//
I wouldn't get too bogged down in making sure every pair of colors has a unique sub theme. Merely putting in a bunch of interesting buildarounds (like goblin bombardment) and payoffs in as many colors as possible will naturally form the archetypes for you. So long as every color can contribute in the early game and in the long game (within reason), you'll be fine.
//
13 multicolored cards per color pair is definitely overkill. That's 130/540, or almost 1/4 of your cube!
By comparison, I have 3 multicolored cards per pair, getting me up to 30/420, or 1/14th. If I moved up to a 4th card, I'd definitely feel like I'm pushing the limit on how many dead draft picks there are but it might be alright. Any more than that and I'd see it as problematic.
That isnt even mentioning that the trilands are still dead in 40% of color pairs, contributing to the total number of dead cards per draft.
If you really must go hard on multicolor, you could cut... idk... a land and 3 spells per color pair and it would still be a lot left over. The incentive to play 3-5 color midrange and control is extremely high in this type of list, which means you probably have to account for that in one of the following 3 ways:
A) Embrace the craziness and gut the ability for people to play aggro. Go deep on control and midrange and combo.
B) fight this natural inertia by countering it in other ways. Cut some of the worse control/midrange cards and include a disproportionately high number of aggro cards. Maybe even some land destruction and more artifact destruction.
C) lower the amount of gold to be more in line with what others are doing. Maybe 10% of the cube instead of well over 20%. You'll still be pretty gold heavy but it wont warp the format so much.
Good luck
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
For my cube, which is at 8 slots per guild (2 lands and 6 spells) and 512 cards (80/512 = 15.625%), I did eventually lean into Leelue's plan B.
I play a lot of cheaper artifact destruction where I can and cut a lot of the lower power 2-for-1s and early defensive cards. I try to keep out a lot of cards which profile as strictly "midrange" cards, since midrange decks have the ability to make so many cards work in their decks.
If you are looking to reduce your multicolor component, I also have a couple of suggestions:
1) Find land fixing outside of the guilds. The Thriving lands from Jumpstart are amazing and fit almost every deck. Vivid lands are good in almost every deck of the base color, but do have the potential to allow for "too many splashes."
2) Move theme support cards into mono-colored. Having some of the White +1/+1 support creatures from Khans would help take some burden off of the guild sections while also allow more interesting decks. A lot of random creatures have +1/+1 counters in Blue, Black, and Red.
https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/peasantsnowcube
-- Updated with Fallout Commander
The PioneWer Peasant CUbe
https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/pionewer
-- Updated with Murders at Karlov Manor
I'm not under the impression that gold cards are stronger than monocolored cards by enough to make up for the fact that packs with multicolored cards in them have fewer options for you to choose from, kneecapping your ability to pick good cards for your deck as opposed to good cards that are coincidentally in your deck
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
If you want to support green aggro you probably want more aggressive green 2 drops, but only if you want to support green aggro.
I'm in support of larger multicolour sections, but once you start going past 5 or 6 (non-land) cards I do think you get into multicolour cards not being unique enough to justify their inclusion. Sure, every BW deck will play Mortify, but it's not that much different than a mono B or W removal spell, so the problems that come with it being multicoloured aren't really worth it.
If you like the heavier focus on multicolour but have problems with people playing a bunch of 3+ colour midranged soup or have a bunch of gold cards never being played, all of Leelue's suggestions are good ways to deal with it. I would also pay attention to the signets in particular, since they really incentivize 3+ colour good stuff.
450 Peasant Cube:
https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/io8