I'm on board with your list of staple/cubable. Its hard to tell on the borderline cards. Some are "just a smidge short of cubable" while others are more like "I guess I wouldn't object too much if someone insisted on cubing this"
With that said, im even more surprised you are such a big fan of Ambushcade, because direct removal is what green does worst. It actually doesnt really belong to the color historically. About your question, green doesnt want to be reactive, it want to be proactive and the cartouche does this. Its not only a decent removal, you can just play it to grant trample or support the aura archetype. Its definitely the much better card. And at CC3 and with a big enough creaute needed, Ambush isnt even a reliable removal.
I agree with you but in my experience if you have a Cube grouper larger than two or three like-minded people there are going to some players who want/expect green to dabble in removal.
Celestial Flare might indeed be a little overrated, but its one of the few spells that can kill hexproof guys, so its nice to have around. Also creature with bigger toughness than 5 are not that uncommon. Much lategames stuff is 4/5 or 5/5
I'm not entirely sure how good Celestial Flare is but if you have powered cube, hexproof gets old REALLY fast and people are going to demand answers to it or just agitate for getting rid of it entirely.
Dont know why ppl run the Seedsculptor. Actually it was received quite well in the spoilerseason back then. Its definitely much better than the beetle, a 2/3 for 2 is above curve.
There are always going to be players who look for above curve defensive bodies. Part of why I think it is too hard to maintain a powered cube is that outside of tournaments (and even then..) most people would rather cater to personal preferences. For example, I have at least one player who won't play unless there are enough Walls available. I don't know of anyone who thinks Ironshell Beetle is good though in Cube though. But some players definitely do like the +/1/+1 counters theme so even the Beetle probably isn't outlandish.
Thanks for going deeper on this. In the past, regular cubes had dedicated number-crunching people who could set this up as its own thread with mod support. Usually they solicited participation from forum members first - that might help if you're casting about for more 360 cubes. There's several cubers like Usman, Marl or Izor who probably have 360s lying around somewhere, plus possible lurkers who could donate their lists to such a project
Thanks I don't think I'll go deeper on this project, as I'm mainly using these cubes to inform my own cube, and 8 is about enough. I already have Usman's cube; Izor's cube isn't available in text format; and since Marl has responded to my earlier posts, I assume he would have shared his cube
We're way too eclectic to have a set cube or even stick to cube as a format. I mostly like to play around with cube design as an exercise.
In constructed theyre no build around cards, you just add them to normal decks that wants to win the grindgame.
So it only took me five minutes to look up Boros Monarch, which uses Battle Screech to both gum up the board and steal back the monarch, Kor Skyfisher to bounce monarch creatures and regain the monarch, cheap cyclers to get to the cards you need, and multiple copies of Palace Guards that can also re-trigger and regain the monarch. On top of a dozen cheap, efficient removal spells to further protect yourself.
That's what I mean by abusing it. I hope that clears it up, but I doubt how consistently that sort of deckbuilding can happen in Cube limited. I'm still waiting for actual cube experiences to provide some perspective.
In terms of actual Cube experience, its pretty much what you'd expect. If you're a little ahead, becoming the Monarch can put you a lot ahead.
When I did a personal project a few years ago similar to think I just looked in recent threads and noted who had posted. Almost everybody links to their cube tutor so it is pretty straightforward.
What I meant about Online Onlys is that since some people exclude them their raw counts probably won't correspond to their ratings in cases where they are cubeable or even staple (say, Elephant Guide).
Cursed Rack is not common on Gatherer. I'm not sure how Renaissance worked (is anyone?) but it probably isn't considered a common by very many people.
The five colored Conspiracy cards are a mini category of their own. Not sure how many people play a Conspiracy Pauper cube.
Also, in an infuriating move that happened quite a while ago now, Cube Tutor made its search FAR worse. At one time you could have used the Search feature to look for Pauper 360 Cubes and then sort then by Last Update. In that way you could have found all cubes on CT that met your criteria. But, as I said, that functionality has been missing probably for years now.
Finally, it might be worth cross referencing against a list of mtgo only commons as quite a few cubers don't count them as common
(that list might not be up to date as I'm not sure when it was published)
PS there is some weird Cube "philosophy" that makes it hard to base Staple status only by counting lists. For instance, Curse of Chains is better than Narcolepsy by being more castable -- UNLESS you apply a penalty by counting it as a gold card (one of your selected lists plays Narcolepsy only). There is not really a singular answer since in a vacuum that doesn't make sense. And, as already pointed out, functional reprints can be pretty random (Thought Courier).
PPS going above 360 doesn't hurt the project very much btw since you are looking for the points of DISagreement. You will definitely find lists at 450 that exclude cards that are listed as Staples (540 is a stretch for the pauper card pool)
The difference is in the mana curve. You usually want more copies of low-cmc creatures, and less copies of high-cmc creatures. Aggro needs more redundancy than control. That's why functional copies of Welkin Tern are more needed than multiple copies of Sentinels of Glen Elendra.
That said, Angel of Mercy and Spire Monitor are bad for that CMC. Look for better cards, you will find them.
Disclaimer: If you happen to look at my cube, you won't find functional copies at all, but that is a design choice, not a contradiction with what I said here.
Yeah, I thought as much about the lower CMC copies, I'm just a redundancy freak and want to give drafters both options (in case someone else snags the finisher that they needed) and consistency in deckbuilding.
I'm curious about the Angel though, what other White 5 would you run in it's place considering you already run theusualsuspects? The other remotely interesting card would be Dawnfeather Eagle which I might as well swap for Angel now that I think about it, because it supports tokens and go wide while also still supporting blink.
White fours are also loaded. How many fives do you feel you need?
Am I that far off? I think I might be a little bit liberal, shown by the split ratings, but I the ratings are mostly based off of existing cards. Do you have any specific reasons to knock my ratings down?
If your ratings were correct Guilds would have 7 Cubeable or better cards of which up to 3 would be Staples and then two more possibly Cubeable cards (I'm omitting Bull-Rush Bruiser which isn't from Guilds). Two of the cards in question would have to be upgraded as well since they already exist and are widely considered to fall short of Cubeable status (Siege Wurm, Spinal Centipede)
In all, that would be one of the strongest sets in memory
Three of these -- Waterknot, Exultant Skymarcher, and Orazca Frillback are functional reprints. IF they are cubeable they all fall on the low end IMO (and I'm not really sold on any of them tbh).
Giltgrove Stalker isn't really a strictly worse Wandering Wolf because just as is, wolf can be blocked by 2/X's unlike stalker. I think wolf may be more a borderline archetype card, since it require a decent amount of equipments/auras to make use of it's full potential, or at least as good as Stalker.
I didn't notice that. Good call.
I was going to mention this as well as Stalker plays a little different than Wandering in practice.
I think that is a fine start since you have been fairly conservative in handing out "cubeable" ratings. From there everyone can quibble over specific cards. The only one that popped out to me is Jungleborn Pioneer which gives you (basically) a Gladecover Scout when it enters which matters for cubes with an hexproof+aura theme (which is a sizeable chunk of them since it tends to be quite powerful at the pauper level).
hm yeah, maybe i overrate the hand a bit, but it was an allstar while playing. thrill kill ended up being 1/2 in my cube most of the time, so its hardly better.
the 2nd toughness (in blocker mode) is a big improvement for Thrill-Kill
nah, its better against ping effects. in combat it doenst matter. 1/x are hardly a threat. but being able to also attack for 2 as well is an upside for me.
semantics. I agree that it is a big improvement in one area (pings) and not so much another (surviving combat). The question is how much weight to assign it overall. It certainly counts for something as an extra toughness is far from cosmetic.
hm yeah, maybe i overrate the hand a bit, but it was an allstar while playing. thrill kill ended up being 1/2 in my cube most of the time, so its hardly better.
the 2nd toughness (in blocker mode) is a big improvement for Thrill-Kill
I think the project needs to at least give a nod towards consensus regarding staple status, which rules out Hand of Silumgar. I wonder how many cubers think Hand is better than Thrill-Kill Assassin..
I agree with you but in my experience if you have a Cube grouper larger than two or three like-minded people there are going to some players who want/expect green to dabble in removal.
I'm not entirely sure how good Celestial Flare is but if you have powered cube, hexproof gets old REALLY fast and people are going to demand answers to it or just agitate for getting rid of it entirely.
There are always going to be players who look for above curve defensive bodies. Part of why I think it is too hard to maintain a powered cube is that outside of tournaments (and even then..) most people would rather cater to personal preferences. For example, I have at least one player who won't play unless there are enough Walls available. I don't know of anyone who thinks Ironshell Beetle is good though in Cube though. But some players definitely do like the +/1/+1 counters theme so even the Beetle probably isn't outlandish.
We're way too eclectic to have a set cube or even stick to cube as a format. I mostly like to play around with cube design as an exercise.
In terms of actual Cube experience, its pretty much what you'd expect. If you're a little ahead, becoming the Monarch can put you a lot ahead.
What I meant about Online Onlys is that since some people exclude them their raw counts probably won't correspond to their ratings in cases where they are cubeable or even staple (say, Elephant Guide).
Cursed Rack is not common on Gatherer. I'm not sure how Renaissance worked (is anyone?) but it probably isn't considered a common by very many people.
The five colored Conspiracy cards are a mini category of their own. Not sure how many people play a Conspiracy Pauper cube.
Also, in an infuriating move that happened quite a while ago now, Cube Tutor made its search FAR worse. At one time you could have used the Search feature to look for Pauper 360 Cubes and then sort then by Last Update. In that way you could have found all cubes on CT that met your criteria. But, as I said, that functionality has been missing probably for years now.
Finally, it might be worth cross referencing against a list of mtgo only commons as quite a few cubers don't count them as common
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/commons-only-mtgo/
(that list might not be up to date as I'm not sure when it was published)
PS there is some weird Cube "philosophy" that makes it hard to base Staple status only by counting lists. For instance, Curse of Chains is better than Narcolepsy by being more castable -- UNLESS you apply a penalty by counting it as a gold card (one of your selected lists plays Narcolepsy only). There is not really a singular answer since in a vacuum that doesn't make sense. And, as already pointed out, functional reprints can be pretty random (Thought Courier).
PPS going above 360 doesn't hurt the project very much btw since you are looking for the points of DISagreement. You will definitely find lists at 450 that exclude cards that are listed as Staples (540 is a stretch for the pauper card pool)
White fours are also loaded. How many fives do you feel you need?
If your ratings were correct Guilds would have 7 Cubeable or better cards of which up to 3 would be Staples and then two more possibly Cubeable cards (I'm omitting Bull-Rush Bruiser which isn't from Guilds). Two of the cards in question would have to be upgraded as well since they already exist and are widely considered to fall short of Cubeable status (Siege Wurm, Spinal Centipede)
In all, that would be one of the strongest sets in memory
Back Alley G has the following:
Exultant Skymarcher
Kitesail Corsair
Waterknot
Grasping Scoundrel
Moment of Craving
Goblin Trailblazer
Swaggering Corsair
Orazca Frillback
with a maybe to Giltgrove Stalker
I suggested Jungleborn Pioneer as a candidate to add.
Three of these -- Waterknot, Exultant Skymarcher, and Orazca Frillback are functional reprints. IF they are cubeable they all fall on the low end IMO (and I'm not really sold on any of them tbh).
While there is not a direct comparison for Swaggering Corsair since red has no Centaur Courser there is Cathodion
Also, for reference black has Vampire Lacerator and Carnophage for 1 mana vs Grasping Scoundrel
I was going to mention this as well as Stalker plays a little different than Wandering in practice.
semantics. I agree that it is a big improvement in one area (pings) and not so much another (surviving combat). The question is how much weight to assign it overall. It certainly counts for something as an extra toughness is far from cosmetic.
the 2nd toughness (in blocker mode) is a big improvement for Thrill-Kill
So Blue would probably look something like:
Ninja of the Deep Hours
Looter il-Kor (??)
Man-o'-War
Eldrazi Skyspawner
Illusionary Forces
Mulldrifter
Errant Ephemeron