Its very easy to slot Terminus + Entreat in your deck and have the deck work with top of the library manipulation.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I'm actively maintaining a comprehensive article to help explain to new cube players how some complex vintage level cards work in a cube environment. Vintage Cube Cards Explained
Without polluting the other forums, here are some ideas I have in my head in how to make some archetypes more competitive:
I would like Dark Depths to be in my cube, but the deck has consistently struggled with consistency.
There were three overall problems:
- All-in combo variants of Dark Depths is too easy too disrupt and hence not reliable
- Vampire Hexmage is double black and doesn't work well with the lands archetype
- We lack redundancy for Dark Depths, and hence single copy of one card combos need to be much stronger - i.e Time Vault
The problem with the more traditional lands archetype is it lacks redundancy in the from of Wasteland, Fastbond and Life from the Loam. It also is very non-interactive and very parasitic.
But on the other hand, we really don't need to go crazy with Life from the Loam to win the game - getting 1-2 triggers is often enough to pull the player ahead. Similarly, 1 Strip Mine is often enough - we don't need to blow up all their lands.
I feel the problem is I been thinking of the lands archetype as an entire archetype, but instead we should seek to break the lands deck into two parallel archetypes with overlapping components:
- Naya Landfall aggro - Aggressive deck with Wreen, Strip Mine, Wild Mongrel, Knight of the Reliquary that took advantage of the landfall mechanic.
- Temur Ramp - Temur control based strategy that has cards like Golas/ Field of the Dead etc.
The idea behind this deck is to play as a midrange deck with incidental landfall - thus better utilizing Deathrite, Elvish and Knight of the Reliquary as creature. It does not go insane with lands synergies.
Similarly, cards like Mirage Mirror, Magus of the Moon, Thespian Stage as enablers for the Dark Depths combo. Magus of the Moon could come into play first then removed, unlocking Dark Depths. All these cards are fine cards in this shell.
A skilled drafted could play a few cards such as (discard) Wild Mongrel, Seasoned Pyromancer, (sacrifice lands) Elvish Reclaimer, (blood moon) Magus of the Moon to mitigate the impact of drawing Dark Depths at a bad time.
Potential Adds:
- Crop Rotation - The extra lands for Deathrite, Knight, landfall triggers, growing reclaimer, sacrificing/ tutoring depths/ fetching Ancient Tomb is likely much better in an aggressive shell
- Magus of the Moon - This might be good in an aggressive deck as it needs some disruption against slower strategies.
Maybe
- Hex parasite - This can be an okay aggressive creature, persist creature and remove counters off Dark Depths. Its not the worst in an aggressive shell as a 1 drop.
One of the advantages of this shell is the opponent likely used their removal spells on your aggressive creatures and its much easier for Dark Depths to break through.
The deck would be in a control shell that uses lands as a way to incidentally gain value (primarily through discard). It has the Dark Depths combo as potential finisher as Thespian Stage/ Mirage are not too high opportunity costs for the deck and at worst it can discard bad engines.
Lacking finishers is not as punishing.
The emphasis is not go try to go crazy with Loam / Fastbond synergies, but getting 1-2 draws from Life from the Loam will likely pull the player ahead.
Potential Adds:
- Solemnity - This can be used with Urza's Saga to lock the saga at 2 to create constructs every turn.
- Blood Sun - The ETB of Dark Depths will fall off and it can shut off the opponent's Wasteland/ Utility lands (which is bad for a control deck), but it also shuts off your own fetches (which this deck likely plays more). It does cantrip so its not the end of the world.
They can both be more relevant in a control shell.
One of the advantages of this shell is its easier for you protect your combo in the late game with cards like Thoughtseize or Stubborn Denial.
3. Stars Align option:
This is the third option where the Dark Depths package is reduced to just the Dark Depths, Thespian Stage and Mirage Mirror - fine card on its own and can served as backup for Time Vault Combo.
In order for this to work, we need cards like Life from the Loam, Golas, Knight of the Reliquary and we do not add any additional support for this combo. The idea is the best variation of the deck requires Dark Depths + Thespian Stage / Mirage Mirror to work + 2 additional lands support card.
It comes together maybe once every 2-3 drafts as the lands deck can function entirely without it and at its worst, this just sits in the sideboard.
I'm actively maintaining a comprehensive article to help explain to new cube players how some complex vintage level cards work in a cube environment. Vintage Cube Cards Explained
I will be experimenting in the new few days with a 10th set of dual lands. This is an unusual choice given that most cubes run only 7-8 sets of dual lands at the 720 card pool.
The main reason for this change is that Sealed/ Grid has become my primary go to format for cube given the new lockdown restrictions as it becomes difficult to assemble large groups exceeding even 4 people. In these formats, tri color decks are the norm and without adequate fixing, slower based control decks especially artifact.dec that can take full advantage of the talisman have an unfair advantage over the rest of the field.
I'm actively maintaining a comprehensive article to help explain to new cube players how some complex vintage level cards work in a cube environment. Vintage Cube Cards Explained
But for the record I been wrong almost 80% of the time with these new "ideas"!
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I'm actively maintaining a comprehensive article to help explain to new cube players how some complex vintage level cards work in a cube environment. Vintage Cube Cards Explained
The first time I saw the deck list I just thought "Really? This pile of cards is good?". Then I watched him play it in action and just swept the mono white humans, Season's Past, Bant Company, Bant Tokens with his Plan A/ Plan B approach.
He had a game where he nearly won against a Kalitas, Languish, Ojutai with the threat of Westvale Abby and Collected Company.
I have a lot more respect for Collected Company and Westvale Abbey as a result - I also love the deck building and drafting aspects with these cards.
------------
The part I'm unsure about the creature combo decks right now is Altar of Dementia. I could have it replaced with Nantuko Husk.
Negative:
- Altar, Ashnod, Greater Gargadon, Goblin Bombardment allows the persist combo to operate in any of the non-blue colors. Losing 1 sacrifice outlet would restrict the archetype to primarily Jund/ Abzan
- Altar is much better at helping the combo go all in than Nantuko Husk
Positive:
- The husk is decent if the melira combo wants to play fair
- Playable inside the Aristocrats deck
Right now I would really like another Arcbound Ravager (I love affinity) or Carrion Feeder, but I'm going to keep the Altar as I don't want the persist decks to become Abzan or Jund.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I'm actively maintaining a comprehensive article to help explain to new cube players how some complex vintage level cards work in a cube environment. Vintage Cube Cards Explained
The story is 1 CMC mana dork is night and day with a 2 CMC mana dork - the bar for 2 CMC mana dork should really be Devoted Druid (2 emergency mana + combo), Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary (often 3-4 mana). I do play Sakura-Tribe Elder, but i'm not 100% in love with him.
There is a movement towards Utopia Sprawl and Wild Growth after the printing of Ignoble Hierarch and the full talisman cycle, we could remove all 2 CMC green mana dorks and replace them with a 1 CMC mana cost counter part.
I ran the numbers after cutting all the 2 CMC mana dorks and I felt needed 2 more 1 CMC mana dorks, hence i added:
- I feel Deathrite Shaman has the required threshold with Prismatic Vista, Sinkhole, Horizon lands, mirage fetches. It's not a perfect mana dork, but he could be very strong in a 3-4c deck that has 3-4 of these lands or in an aristocrats/ burn deck where his drain is relevant.
- Jeweled Amulet has been advocated by some cube curators. Its not a perfect mana dork but it does a very serviceable job in the artifact.dec, storm or combo decks (which my cube plays a lot).
This isn't to say I don't feel they're strong cards on their own - I personally could Jeweled Amulet as half a ritual and half a mana dork.
Because Jeweled Amulet and Deathrite are only "half" a mana dork, I felt I needed to add one more and I thought about Arboreal Grazer as a possible candidate, but I felt his ceiling was too low (but also no one else in the community considered him).
The alternative, I looked in the other direction and saw Collected Company - it allows you to potentially cheat 6 mana worth of spells for 4 mana + the instant speed is also relevant for catching up on tempo + assemble your combo. (This was an idea that was brought up in the Affinity forum post Mox Opal ban such that you can circumvent the loss of Opal with Goose + Company - but it didn't go too far there.)
I also thought about Eldritch Evolution for a similar role - it may make an appearance one day.
The idea is an aggressive or combo creature deck that normally would like to have 3-5 mana dork could play with 0.5-1 less (depending on the archetype) and play Collected Company and the deck would be equally good as if it had the 1 CMC mana dork.
I also found with more removal creatures, especially for planeswalkers like Grist, the Hunger Tide, the aristocrats deck could play a more controlling game and could operate with fewer mana dorks.
I extended this idea to Westvale Abbey and the theory is the aristocrats/ flicker deck would lose a 2 CMC mana dork (and hence they would have some slower draws), but this isn't as bad as their deck could play board stalls better than before.
The idea is the majority of these decisions are based on calculations I've ran. The rough idea is have rough estimates for both the minimum and recommended number of enablers for each archetype. (Green 1-drops, Red 1-drop etc.)
1. Strong enablers but are strong everywhere (0.5 Points) - Oko, Thief of Crowns - great for the artifact deck, polymorph deck etc, but you cannot expect this card to wheel at the same rate as Tezzeret or Hordeling Outburst.
2. Strong enablers but narrow (1 Point) - Lion's Eye Diamond / Entomb - great cards for storm/ reanimator, but they are narrow and you can expect them to wheel to the player drafting the archetype.
3. Weak enabler and also weak everywhere (0.5 Points) - Desperate Ritual in storm for example.
4. Weak enabler but overall good card (0.25 Points) - Cultivate in storm for example.
* The idea is if I determined I need 18 pieces of fast mana or 8 reanimation spells for storm/ reanimator to be consistent, I would need the numbers for my cube to roughly add up to that value.
What I found interesting is there have been a lot of cards printed recently in the first category recently that allows me to cut a lot of cards in the 3rd and 4th categories and add a few more cards into the second category.
I also don't claim to be an expert - but I like exploring and trying new things.
But thanks for reading this! I really like these conversations.
I'm actively maintaining a comprehensive article to help explain to new cube players how some complex vintage level cards work in a cube environment. Vintage Cube Cards Explained
The story I been seeing is these generic all-round cards are primarily sitting in sideboards and don't make the main deck primarily because of their power level and how these new cards are becoming more and more playable all around the cube.
I think Summer Bloom might be too narrow and the correct decision might be to go to 1 cultivate rather than 0. (My original theory was summer bloom would help storm + lands archetype - but it was a bit too swingy)
On the other hand, Collected Company has been decent - its not as narrow as most people think (especially in a more creature combo centric cube).
The third reason for this decision has to do with the new mulligan rule - I found this artificially reduces the need for enablers and opens up the opportunity for players to draft archetypes rather than fair decks.
I found creature decks need a minimum of 4 removal (including cards like Grist, the Hunger Tide). This number could go down if the deck is more combo centric or up to 5 if it a slower flicker archetype. Westvale Abbey allows this number of removal without diluting the mainboard plan by too much.
I didn't find the card as narrow as most people thought it would be and its opportunity cost isn't too high.
On the other hand, I found it provided a bit of a "fail safe" if your creature deck's curve is good, but their synergy might be weak, having a card like Westvale Abbey might help.
But either way, my playgroup will be playing this a bit more in the future and we'll see how it pans out.
I'm actively maintaining a comprehensive article to help explain to new cube players how some complex vintage level cards work in a cube environment. Vintage Cube Cards Explained
There has been a consistent trend on forum recently and I would like to put my thoughts down.
The general consensus among cube cards is you would like cards that are mid power level in their worst case and could be playable in a variety of archetypes.
The problem recently is that the new cards printed have both been incredibly powerful and incredibly flexible. I will use these cards as examples:
In the case of Ragavan, I cannot believe we have a 1 drop red aggressive creature that could be played as an enabler in a combo deck and not just an removal creature like Grim Lavamancer
Similarly, Oko has proven to not only be an incredibly strong card on its own, but it also produces artifacts for the artifact deck, creatures for aristocrats/ tokens/ Polymorph etc.
Falkenrath Pit Fighter is an incredible 1 drop on its own, but could also serve as a discard outlet for reanimator strategies.
On the other hand, Rankle's flexibility + haste means its incredibly strong on almost any board and sacrifice + discard makes it a strong Braids/ Smokestack style enabler.
Uro works as a ramp spell and a payoff at the same time, while buffering life and allows instant speed flicker shenanigans.
The problem with these cards is their powerful and flexibility allows them to essentially be played in any deck while at the same time serving as powerful stand alone cards in both fair decks/ archetype decks.
This creates two problems:
1. Weaker cards struggle to keep up - such examples the gap between cards like Heartless Act, Cultivate, Magma Jet that would otherwise be fine cards on their own struggle to keep up with the Oko/ Uros/ Ragavan etc.
2. Decks often have more playables than they should - This isn't a bad thing, but this pushes a lot of cards that are good everywhere out of mainboard play.
As a consequence, I believe cubes should be actively cutting the cards that are playable everywhere, but never great anywhere cards with more narrow cards and play incredibly well in 1-2 archetypes.
I believe in order for decks to have a fighting chance, they should play more high risk, high reward cards like Summer Bloom or Collected Company that may be narrow but are incredibly high reward to compete in a format filled with powerful Vintage level cards.
I'm actively maintaining a comprehensive article to help explain to new cube players how some complex vintage level cards work in a cube environment. Vintage Cube Cards Explained
This is a very generic 720 card Powered Vintage Cube.
Here are some modifications that are slightly different from other cubes:
- White has a much higher density of 1 drops than traditional 720 Powered Cubes. This is because competition for card slots in Black, Red and Green are much higher than White. I decided to move the 1-drops more to white and open up slots in Green/ Black and Red for other archetypes. 1 mana 2/1 are always strong (and necessary) in cube as a viable counterbalance to the powerful but slow blue decks. This allows white to shine in cube, where it traditionally was weak - it could not contribute very well to the most broken archetypes.
- Red has a mono Red Polymorph archetype. Traditionally, this was a red-blue archetype, however I moved it as a mono red archetype as it pairs better with Red's Sneak attack, Green's Eureka/ Oath as well as White's tokens. Blue did not provide much support for the archetype and competition for blue's slots are very tight. Polymorph archetype provides a second outlet for the red storm rituals which would otherwise become parasitic.
- There is the Blue-Black Inverter Combo. The cards all slot very nicely into other archetypes as Tainted Pact, Demonic Consultation are excellent tutors for other combos while Jace/ Inverter of Truth play a decent rule in
- There is the Intruder Alarm Combo to pair with the traditional UR Splinter Twin Combo. The cards slot nicely with the Twin pieces for additional untap, aristocrats cards, tokens or just midrange decks in general.
- Green has a lands package, primarily with red that focuses on playing extra lands a turn from graveyard/ off the top of the library. The deck could win through Ramp, Dark Depths Combo, Field of the Dead or recurring strip mine.
I'm actively maintaining a comprehensive article to help explain to new cube players how some complex vintage level cards work in a cube environment. Vintage Cube Cards Explained
- Terminus
- Entreat the Angels
both fine miracles cards on their own and are likely in the cube already.
Miracles support card:
- Vampiric Tutor
- Imperial Seal
- Mystical Tutor
- Lim-Dûl's Vault
- Jace, the Mind Sculptor
- Brainstorm
- Scroll Rack
- Aminatou, the Fateshifter
Its very easy to slot Terminus + Entreat in your deck and have the deck work with top of the library manipulation.
Vintage Cube Cards Explained
Here are some other articles I've written about fine tuning your cube:
1. Minimum Archetype Support
2. Improving Green Archetypes
3. Improving White Archetypes
4. Matchup Analysis
5. Cube Combos (Work in Progress)
Draft my Cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/d8i
I would like Dark Depths to be in my cube, but the deck has consistently struggled with consistency.
There were three overall problems:
- All-in combo variants of Dark Depths is too easy too disrupt and hence not reliable
- Vampire Hexmage is double black and doesn't work well with the lands archetype
- We lack redundancy for Dark Depths, and hence single copy of one card combos need to be much stronger - i.e Time Vault
The problem with the more traditional lands archetype is it lacks redundancy in the from of Wasteland, Fastbond and Life from the Loam. It also is very non-interactive and very parasitic.
But on the other hand, we really don't need to go crazy with Life from the Loam to win the game - getting 1-2 triggers is often enough to pull the player ahead. Similarly, 1 Strip Mine is often enough - we don't need to blow up all their lands.
I feel the problem is I been thinking of the lands archetype as an entire archetype, but instead we should seek to break the lands deck into two parallel archetypes with overlapping components:
- Naya Landfall aggro - Aggressive deck with Wreen, Strip Mine, Wild Mongrel, Knight of the Reliquary that took advantage of the landfall mechanic.
- Temur Ramp - Temur control based strategy that has cards like Golas/ Field of the Dead etc.
1. Naya Landfall aggro:
Possible cards for Naya Aggro:
- Elvish Reclaimer
- Knight of the Reliquary
- Deathrite Shaman
- Wrenn and Six
- Strip Mine
- Wild Mongrel
- Felidar Retreat
- Life from the Loam
- Sevinne's Reclamation
- Lotus Cobra
- Timeless Dragon
- Tireless Tracker
- Courser of Kruphix
The idea behind this deck is to play as a midrange deck with incidental landfall - thus better utilizing Deathrite, Elvish and Knight of the Reliquary as creature. It does not go insane with lands synergies.
Similarly, cards like Mirage Mirror, Magus of the Moon, Thespian Stage as enablers for the Dark Depths combo. Magus of the Moon could come into play first then removed, unlocking Dark Depths. All these cards are fine cards in this shell.
A skilled drafted could play a few cards such as (discard) Wild Mongrel, Seasoned Pyromancer, (sacrifice lands) Elvish Reclaimer, (blood moon) Magus of the Moon to mitigate the impact of drawing Dark Depths at a bad time.
Potential Adds:
- Crop Rotation - The extra lands for Deathrite, Knight, landfall triggers, growing reclaimer, sacrificing/ tutoring depths/ fetching Ancient Tomb is likely much better in an aggressive shell
- Magus of the Moon - This might be good in an aggressive deck as it needs some disruption against slower strategies.
Maybe
- Hex parasite - This can be an okay aggressive creature, persist creature and remove counters off Dark Depths. Its not the worst in an aggressive shell as a 1 drop.
Potential Cuts:
- Vampire Hexmage
One of the advantages of this shell is the opponent likely used their removal spells on your aggressive creatures and its much easier for Dark Depths to break through.
2. Temur Value Lands:
The deck would play cards like before:
Crucible of Worlds
Dryad of the Ilysian Grove
Life from the Loam
Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath
etc.
The deck would be in a control shell that uses lands as a way to incidentally gain value (primarily through discard). It has the Dark Depths combo as potential finisher as Thespian Stage/ Mirage are not too high opportunity costs for the deck and at worst it can discard bad engines.
Lacking finishers is not as punishing.
The emphasis is not go try to go crazy with Loam / Fastbond synergies, but getting 1-2 draws from Life from the Loam will likely pull the player ahead.
Potential Adds:
- Solemnity - This can be used with Urza's Saga to lock the saga at 2 to create constructs every turn.
- Blood Sun - The ETB of Dark Depths will fall off and it can shut off the opponent's Wasteland/ Utility lands (which is bad for a control deck), but it also shuts off your own fetches (which this deck likely plays more). It does cantrip so its not the end of the world.
They can both be more relevant in a control shell.
Potential Cuts:
- Vampire Hexmage
One of the advantages of this shell is its easier for you protect your combo in the late game with cards like Thoughtseize or Stubborn Denial.
3. Stars Align option:
This is the third option where the Dark Depths package is reduced to just the Dark Depths, Thespian Stage and Mirage Mirror - fine card on its own and can served as backup for Time Vault Combo.
In order for this to work, we need cards like Life from the Loam, Golas, Knight of the Reliquary and we do not add any additional support for this combo. The idea is the best variation of the deck requires Dark Depths + Thespian Stage / Mirage Mirror to work + 2 additional lands support card.
It comes together maybe once every 2-3 drafts as the lands deck can function entirely without it and at its worst, this just sits in the sideboard.
Potential Cuts:
- Vampire Hexmage
- Solemnity
No narrow support cards.
Vintage Cube Cards Explained
Here are some other articles I've written about fine tuning your cube:
1. Minimum Archetype Support
2. Improving Green Archetypes
3. Improving White Archetypes
4. Matchup Analysis
5. Cube Combos (Work in Progress)
Draft my Cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/d8i
The main reason for this change is that Sealed/ Grid has become my primary go to format for cube given the new lockdown restrictions as it becomes difficult to assemble large groups exceeding even 4 people. In these formats, tri color decks are the norm and without adequate fixing, slower based control decks especially artifact.dec that can take full advantage of the talisman have an unfair advantage over the rest of the field.
Vintage Cube Cards Explained
Here are some other articles I've written about fine tuning your cube:
1. Minimum Archetype Support
2. Improving Green Archetypes
3. Improving White Archetypes
4. Matchup Analysis
5. Cube Combos (Work in Progress)
Draft my Cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/d8i
But for the record I been wrong almost 80% of the time with these new "ideas"!
Vintage Cube Cards Explained
Here are some other articles I've written about fine tuning your cube:
1. Minimum Archetype Support
2. Improving Green Archetypes
3. Improving White Archetypes
4. Matchup Analysis
5. Cube Combos (Work in Progress)
Draft my Cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/d8i
I mean just seeing LSV play his black-green aristocrats during Shadows over Innistrad.
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/404377
The first time I saw the deck list I just thought "Really? This pile of cards is good?". Then I watched him play it in action and just swept the mono white humans, Season's Past, Bant Company, Bant Tokens with his Plan A/ Plan B approach.
He had a game where he nearly won against a Kalitas, Languish, Ojutai with the threat of Westvale Abby and Collected Company.
I have a lot more respect for Collected Company and Westvale Abbey as a result - I also love the deck building and drafting aspects with these cards.
------------
The part I'm unsure about the creature combo decks right now is Altar of Dementia. I could have it replaced with Nantuko Husk.
Negative:
- Altar, Ashnod, Greater Gargadon, Goblin Bombardment allows the persist combo to operate in any of the non-blue colors. Losing 1 sacrifice outlet would restrict the archetype to primarily Jund/ Abzan
- Altar is much better at helping the combo go all in than Nantuko Husk
Positive:
- The husk is decent if the melira combo wants to play fair
- Playable inside the Aristocrats deck
Right now I would really like another Arcbound Ravager (I love affinity) or Carrion Feeder, but I'm going to keep the Altar as I don't want the persist decks to become Abzan or Jund.
Vintage Cube Cards Explained
Here are some other articles I've written about fine tuning your cube:
1. Minimum Archetype Support
2. Improving Green Archetypes
3. Improving White Archetypes
4. Matchup Analysis
5. Cube Combos (Work in Progress)
Draft my Cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/d8i
The story is 1 CMC mana dork is night and day with a 2 CMC mana dork - the bar for 2 CMC mana dork should really be Devoted Druid (2 emergency mana + combo), Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary (often 3-4 mana). I do play Sakura-Tribe Elder, but i'm not 100% in love with him.
There is a movement towards Utopia Sprawl and Wild Growth after the printing of Ignoble Hierarch and the full talisman cycle, we could remove all 2 CMC green mana dorks and replace them with a 1 CMC mana cost counter part.
I ran the numbers after cutting all the 2 CMC mana dorks and I felt needed 2 more 1 CMC mana dorks, hence i added:
- Jeweled Amulet
- Deathrite Shaman
in addition to the Utopia Sprawl and Wild Growth.
- I feel Deathrite Shaman has the required threshold with Prismatic Vista, Sinkhole, Horizon lands, mirage fetches. It's not a perfect mana dork, but he could be very strong in a 3-4c deck that has 3-4 of these lands or in an aristocrats/ burn deck where his drain is relevant.
- Jeweled Amulet has been advocated by some cube curators. Its not a perfect mana dork but it does a very serviceable job in the artifact.dec, storm or combo decks (which my cube plays a lot).
This isn't to say I don't feel they're strong cards on their own - I personally could Jeweled Amulet as half a ritual and half a mana dork.
Because Jeweled Amulet and Deathrite are only "half" a mana dork, I felt I needed to add one more and I thought about Arboreal Grazer as a possible candidate, but I felt his ceiling was too low (but also no one else in the community considered him).
The alternative, I looked in the other direction and saw Collected Company - it allows you to potentially cheat 6 mana worth of spells for 4 mana + the instant speed is also relevant for catching up on tempo + assemble your combo. (This was an idea that was brought up in the Affinity forum post Mox Opal ban such that you can circumvent the loss of Opal with Goose + Company - but it didn't go too far there.)
I also thought about Eldritch Evolution for a similar role - it may make an appearance one day.
The idea is an aggressive or combo creature deck that normally would like to have 3-5 mana dork could play with 0.5-1 less (depending on the archetype) and play Collected Company and the deck would be equally good as if it had the 1 CMC mana dork.
I also found with more removal creatures, especially for planeswalkers like Grist, the Hunger Tide, the aristocrats deck could play a more controlling game and could operate with fewer mana dorks.
I extended this idea to Westvale Abbey and the theory is the aristocrats/ flicker deck would lose a 2 CMC mana dork (and hence they would have some slower draws), but this isn't as bad as their deck could play board stalls better than before.
The idea is the majority of these decisions are based on calculations I've ran. The rough idea is have rough estimates for both the minimum and recommended number of enablers for each archetype. (Green 1-drops, Red 1-drop etc.)
1. Strong enablers but are strong everywhere (0.5 Points) - Oko, Thief of Crowns - great for the artifact deck, polymorph deck etc, but you cannot expect this card to wheel at the same rate as Tezzeret or Hordeling Outburst.
2. Strong enablers but narrow (1 Point) - Lion's Eye Diamond / Entomb - great cards for storm/ reanimator, but they are narrow and you can expect them to wheel to the player drafting the archetype.
3. Weak enabler and also weak everywhere (0.5 Points) - Desperate Ritual in storm for example.
4. Weak enabler but overall good card (0.25 Points) - Cultivate in storm for example.
* The idea is if I determined I need 18 pieces of fast mana or 8 reanimation spells for storm/ reanimator to be consistent, I would need the numbers for my cube to roughly add up to that value.
What I found interesting is there have been a lot of cards printed recently in the first category recently that allows me to cut a lot of cards in the 3rd and 4th categories and add a few more cards into the second category.
I also don't claim to be an expert - but I like exploring and trying new things.
But thanks for reading this! I really like these conversations.
Vintage Cube Cards Explained
Here are some other articles I've written about fine tuning your cube:
1. Minimum Archetype Support
2. Improving Green Archetypes
3. Improving White Archetypes
4. Matchup Analysis
5. Cube Combos (Work in Progress)
Draft my Cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/d8i
I think Summer Bloom might be too narrow and the correct decision might be to go to 1 cultivate rather than 0. (My original theory was summer bloom would help storm + lands archetype - but it was a bit too swingy)
On the other hand, Collected Company has been decent - its not as narrow as most people think (especially in a more creature combo centric cube).
The third reason for this decision has to do with the new mulligan rule - I found this artificially reduces the need for enablers and opens up the opportunity for players to draft archetypes rather than fair decks.
I personally like cards like Westvale Abbey.
I found creature decks need a minimum of 4 removal (including cards like Grist, the Hunger Tide). This number could go down if the deck is more combo centric or up to 5 if it a slower flicker archetype. Westvale Abbey allows this number of removal without diluting the mainboard plan by too much.
I didn't find the card as narrow as most people thought it would be and its opportunity cost isn't too high.
On the other hand, I found it provided a bit of a "fail safe" if your creature deck's curve is good, but their synergy might be weak, having a card like Westvale Abbey might help.
But either way, my playgroup will be playing this a bit more in the future and we'll see how it pans out.
Vintage Cube Cards Explained
Here are some other articles I've written about fine tuning your cube:
1. Minimum Archetype Support
2. Improving Green Archetypes
3. Improving White Archetypes
4. Matchup Analysis
5. Cube Combos (Work in Progress)
Draft my Cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/d8i
The general consensus among cube cards is you would like cards that are mid power level in their worst case and could be playable in a variety of archetypes.
The problem recently is that the new cards printed have both been incredibly powerful and incredibly flexible. I will use these cards as examples:
Worst offenders:
- Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer
- Oko, Thief of Crowns
In the case of Ragavan, I cannot believe we have a 1 drop red aggressive creature that could be played as an enabler in a combo deck and not just an removal creature like Grim Lavamancer
Similarly, Oko has proven to not only be an incredibly strong card on its own, but it also produces artifacts for the artifact deck, creatures for aristocrats/ tokens/ Polymorph etc.
Lesser offenders:
- Rankle, Master of Pranks
- Falkenrath Pit Fighter
- Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath
Falkenrath Pit Fighter is an incredible 1 drop on its own, but could also serve as a discard outlet for reanimator strategies.
On the other hand, Rankle's flexibility + haste means its incredibly strong on almost any board and sacrifice + discard makes it a strong Braids/ Smokestack style enabler.
Uro works as a ramp spell and a payoff at the same time, while buffering life and allows instant speed flicker shenanigans.
The problem with these cards is their powerful and flexibility allows them to essentially be played in any deck while at the same time serving as powerful stand alone cards in both fair decks/ archetype decks.
This creates two problems:
1. Weaker cards struggle to keep up - such examples the gap between cards like Heartless Act, Cultivate, Magma Jet that would otherwise be fine cards on their own struggle to keep up with the Oko/ Uros/ Ragavan etc.
2. Decks often have more playables than they should - This isn't a bad thing, but this pushes a lot of cards that are good everywhere out of mainboard play.
As a consequence, I believe cubes should be actively cutting the cards that are playable everywhere, but never great anywhere cards with more narrow cards and play incredibly well in 1-2 archetypes.
Bringing Cultivate to a fight with Oko, Thief of Crowns is just not going to cut it.
I believe in order for decks to have a fighting chance, they should play more high risk, high reward cards like Summer Bloom or Collected Company that may be narrow but are incredibly high reward to compete in a format filled with powerful Vintage level cards.
In summary, in the future I will be promoting more narrow cards like Summer Bloom, Collected Company, Westvale Abbey.
Vintage Cube Cards Explained
Here are some other articles I've written about fine tuning your cube:
1. Minimum Archetype Support
2. Improving Green Archetypes
3. Improving White Archetypes
4. Matchup Analysis
5. Cube Combos (Work in Progress)
Draft my Cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/d8i
This is a very generic 720 card Powered Vintage Cube.
Here are some modifications that are slightly different from other cubes:
- White has a much higher density of 1 drops than traditional 720 Powered Cubes. This is because competition for card slots in Black, Red and Green are much higher than White. I decided to move the 1-drops more to white and open up slots in Green/ Black and Red for other archetypes. 1 mana 2/1 are always strong (and necessary) in cube as a viable counterbalance to the powerful but slow blue decks. This allows white to shine in cube, where it traditionally was weak - it could not contribute very well to the most broken archetypes.
- Red has a mono Red Polymorph archetype. Traditionally, this was a red-blue archetype, however I moved it as a mono red archetype as it pairs better with Red's Sneak attack, Green's Eureka/ Oath as well as White's tokens. Blue did not provide much support for the archetype and competition for blue's slots are very tight. Polymorph archetype provides a second outlet for the red storm rituals which would otherwise become parasitic.
- There is the Blue-Black Inverter Combo. The cards all slot very nicely into other archetypes as Tainted Pact, Demonic Consultation are excellent tutors for other combos while Jace/ Inverter of Truth play a decent rule in
- There is the Intruder Alarm Combo to pair with the traditional UR Splinter Twin Combo. The cards slot nicely with the Twin pieces for additional untap, aristocrats cards, tokens or just midrange decks in general.
- Green has a lands package, primarily with red that focuses on playing extra lands a turn from graveyard/ off the top of the library. The deck could win through Ramp, Dark Depths Combo, Field of the Dead or recurring strip mine.
Vintage Cube Cards Explained
Here are some other articles I've written about fine tuning your cube:
1. Minimum Archetype Support
2. Improving Green Archetypes
3. Improving White Archetypes
4. Matchup Analysis
5. Cube Combos (Work in Progress)
Draft my Cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/d8i