i ran the full flicker combo with great success in my johnnycube for quite a while, so i eventually moved it into spike. unfortunately i was unable to test it there up until now.
while spike has more removal, it also has the better counterspells.
you def want to keep it monoU
while its true there is lots of draw, my cube doesnt give you the time to durdle around and waste a turn doing nothing. Thats why I pretty much only run Cruise, Gush and Drifter.
the only slower draw i consider worthwhile is Rush of Knowledge, which in the right deck is a draw7 in pauper and wins the game more or less on the spot.
Whispers seem somewhat playable, since they just cycle if in need. Capsize is completely unplayable these days, since you need 12! frkn mana before it ever really does something. It certainly beomes worse and worse over time, because even commons now need or have etb effects.
I added signet very late to my cube and what they basically did was 5 drops to become playable. Before the curve more or less ended at 4 with Blastoderm.
but signets are op!!11. thats why styrboski doesnt run them!
we are goin in circles over the topic, but early ramp like manaleves can get you a tempoadvantage into 3 and 4 drops, which can be valuable. i dont recommend mv6 stuff anywhere.
paladin seems nice, thanks for recommending. i dont have any slots for mv5 creatures though.
i think if you really want big green to be a thing you could cut all doomblades from the cube and replace them with weaker stuff like Last Gasp and Nameless Inversion while not losing too much powerlevel.
i tried to make lumberjack working a hundred times over the years (since iceage) and i always failed to do so. unlike rogue elephant who works on its own, you now need to spend 2 cards and a turn to get your early threat (forest and lumber) that dies as easily to doomblade and co.
Please don't accuse people of not knowing anything about X format. Not everything has to be optimal / max power, your words are very discouraging and unwelcoming to newer players
I think the correct amount of signets is 1-2 max, depending on your curve. At least in my cube they dont actually just bring 5 drops a turn earlier, but actually make them somewhat playable in the first place. The meta is pretty fast and a lot of games are decided with 4 lands in play.
They also allow for easy splahses into a 3rd color, I really like them.
ive to go back to my tier3, it got tons of cards with ravnica and mh. All the +1+1 stuff and tribals will make it an excellent cube. http://www.cubetutor.com/visualspoiler/4709
Slivers could be really interesting with the old slivers having all slivers have... if you get into some sort of mirror match
too bad they "reworked" aka destroyed what made slivers slivers in the last set. just another example how disconnected r&d actually is. Or I guess they wanted to finally kill the popularity, since they put sliver queen on reserved in the first place... /rant
anyway, global sliver effect plays either pretty interesting or horrible even only running a bunch of changelings can definitely be pretty annoying against the sliver deck.
i try to draft/playtest it soon.
hm ok i misread the hauler. each kind of counter, not each counter. so it doesnt double. yeah, then its not good enough.
no comparison link there. since ill play the cube on xmage the program will play it correctly. makes the interaction worse though, but still interesting. no t2 potential then though.
the combat damage is dealt at once to the Kor which then triggers single point of damage for each activation to the targeted creature, its not triggered like one chunk of combat damage.
so nobody interested in discussing the fringe stuff? everyone exhausted from the previous posts or is everybody on timeout lol?
building the T3 I (re)discovered a bunch of interesting stuff. nothing Tier1 worthy ofc, but maybe still interesting for downpowered cubes.
First the mentioned Kor interaction. It even works in-color with cards like Wall of Resistance. Too bad there are only 2 Kor at common right now.
Cards I think are reasonably interesting:
Drelnoch unless it gets removed directly it seems quite good. With some sort of pump it can get quite scary. Dreamspoiler Witches with a bunch of cheap spells it can be devastating in cubes with some amount of x/1s. Iirc it was pretty good in lorwyn limited as well. Dead Ringers probably the worst wording of all magic (besides illusionary mask) and not oracle rewording whatsoever. But hitting 2 creatures of the same color isnt hard to do and double removal for 5 is good. Quarry Hauler was noticed but dismissed in the akh spoiler season, but already pretty solid in a deck that just runs something like Travel Preparations or any creature that comes with at least 2 +1+1 counters or more Ivy Elemental Ethersworn Shieldmage rated bad in evaluation and dismissed as artifact dependent card, but its an artifact itself, so its a pretty solid combat trick/pseudoremoval on its own
also potentially interesting are the Chromatic Sphere variations. They are solid fixing, replace themselves and open some amount of interesting artifact synergies, especially in white. Leonin SquireTrusty Packbeast
while spike has more removal, it also has the better counterspells.
you def want to keep it monoU
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
the only slower draw i consider worthwhile is Rush of Knowledge, which in the right deck is a draw7 in pauper and wins the game more or less on the spot.
Whispers seem somewhat playable, since they just cycle if in need. Capsize is completely unplayable these days, since you need 12! frkn mana before it ever really does something. It certainly beomes worse and worse over time, because even commons now need or have etb effects.
I added signet very late to my cube and what they basically did was 5 drops to become playable. Before the curve more or less ended at 4 with Blastoderm.
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
we are goin in circles over the topic, but early ramp like manaleves can get you a tempoadvantage into 3 and 4 drops, which can be valuable. i dont recommend mv6 stuff anywhere.
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
i think if you really want big green to be a thing you could cut all doomblades from the cube and replace them with weaker stuff like Last Gasp and Nameless Inversion while not losing too much powerlevel.
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
- Steveman
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
They also allow for easy splahses into a 3rd color, I really like them.
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
swarm is tough to balance, i had to even add sandstorm
signets are pretty strong, i definitely run them over a 2nd pair of duals, but i aim for raw power
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
too bad they "reworked" aka destroyed what made slivers slivers in the last set. just another example how disconnected r&d actually is. Or I guess they wanted to finally kill the popularity, since they put sliver queen on reserved in the first place... /rant
anyway, global sliver effect plays either pretty interesting or horrible even only running a bunch of changelings can definitely be pretty annoying against the sliver deck.
i try to draft/playtest it soon.
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
no comparison link there. since ill play the cube on xmage the program will play it correctly. makes the interaction worse though, but still interesting. no t2 potential then though.
the cube is linked there, but here takes this one http://www.cubetutor.com/visualspoiler/4709
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t
building the T3 I (re)discovered a bunch of interesting stuff. nothing Tier1 worthy ofc, but maybe still interesting for downpowered cubes.
First the mentioned Kor interaction. It even works in-color with cards like Wall of Resistance. Too bad there are only 2 Kor at common right now.
Cards I think are reasonably interesting:
Drelnoch unless it gets removed directly it seems quite good. With some sort of pump it can get quite scary.
Dreamspoiler Witches with a bunch of cheap spells it can be devastating in cubes with some amount of x/1s. Iirc it was pretty good in lorwyn limited as well.
Dead Ringers probably the worst wording of all magic (besides illusionary mask) and not oracle rewording whatsoever. But hitting 2 creatures of the same color isnt hard to do and double removal for 5 is good.
Quarry Hauler was noticed but dismissed in the akh spoiler season, but already pretty solid in a deck that just runs something like Travel Preparations or any creature that comes with at least 2 +1+1 counters or more Ivy Elemental
Ethersworn Shieldmage rated bad in evaluation and dismissed as artifact dependent card, but its an artifact itself, so its a pretty solid combat trick/pseudoremoval on its own
also potentially interesting are the Chromatic Sphere variations. They are solid fixing, replace themselves and open some amount of interesting artifact synergies, especially in white. Leonin Squire Trusty Packbeast
T2 powpercube Value https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/37t