MTG Salvation

750 CARDS

LIST CURRENT AS OF 7 APR 2012:

DECKSTATS LINK: http://deckstats.net/deck-855495-bcfc7d524ae2427ffd3af95295d30bee-en.html

GOOGLE DOCS LINK: https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AibgWfz0ukmOdDNhOHlucjcxUi1wVy00NDhLbDUtUlE&hl=en_US


CUBE PHOTOS

GREEN PICTURES 1

GREEN PICTURES 2

WHITE PICTURES 1

WHITE PICTURES 2

RED PICTURES 1

RED PICTURES 2

BLACK PICTURES 1

BLACK PICTURES 2

BLUE PICTURES 1

BLUE PICTURES 2

ARTIFACT PICTURES 1

ARTIFACT PICTURES 2

GOLD PICTURES 1

GOLD PICTURES 2

LAND PICTURES 1

LAND PICTURES 2

LAND PICTURES 3

CUBE LIST

GREEN: 96 (67 creature, 29 spells)
WHITE: 96 (58 creatures, 38 spells)
RED: 96 (54 creatures, 42 spells)
BLACK: 96 (53 creatures, 43 spells)
BLUE: 96 (38 creatures, 58 spells)
ARTIFACT/COLORLESS: 90
GOLD/HYBRID: 65 (the numbers of each combination varies)
LAND: 115
300+ SNOW BASIC LANDS

BANNED LIST:
SWINGY CARDS I'M NOT A HUGE FAN OF:

Quote from Redfalcon

All I could see at a glance is that you are playing Gaea's Skyfolk, which never makes the cut in the finished decks. I would replace it with Leafdrake Roost. It's actually quite good.

Actually, to tell you the truth the most recent cube draft I did was UG Tempo featuring Skyfolk and friends getting in there with the best of them. I actively try to include a relatively heavy aggro element throughout all the colors, so playing cards like Skyfolk and Azorious First-Wing are necessary inclusions. If I didn't actively do so, the cube would end up being a just a bunch of big mana finishers (I have possibly too many of these already), and that's not how I desire drafts being. Still, thank you for your suggestion and hopefully I can spark some new ideas for you to try for your own cube.

Gaea's Skyfolk is not bad, it's nothing exciting of course, but if you are in UG, it will consistently make your deck.

I find that you have way too many mana creature in green. Particularly small elves. I found that the more of those you have, the more it either prompt you to play near mono green (which is almost never a good idea), or green gets significantly weaker in comparison to the other colours, since everyone else can just shore up on fixing/acceleration with artifacts and non-basics, then the colour green becomes underdrafted. I found that focusing on the recursion part for green, such as adding things like Restock, All Suns' Dawn and Holistic Wisdom, etc, tends to boost green's presence overall in the cube.

I noticed your playing Diabolic and Vampiric Tutor, but not Demonic Tutor. Ever think of playing a booster tutor? With your cube being so big it coule be interesting.

To Pringlesman, The Diabolic over Demonic issue is a typo. Thank you for pointing that out. As for Booster Tutor, it doesn't appear to be able to be consistently good enough for inclusion. Most of the cards here (despite the high numbers) are still far more powerful than anything in most booster packs.

To Andar, If Lin-Sivvi was solid enough on her own, she would definitely be included. The same applies to cards like Ramosian Sergent. These cards were amazing in constructed decks built to abuse their abilities, but like cards like Arcbound Ravager and Goblin Warchielf, when separated from those decks they fail to compare favorably to other cards with similar costs.

Thanks to both of you for your suggestions.

Darkmindtone : you did understand he meant, make a booster of 15 cards with your cube and use that for Booster tutor
imo, that could be very powerfull ..

I've been working on my initial additions from Shadowmoor, which will possibly change once I get some time with the cards (see first post for additions). I decided to handle Gold by making it slightly larger, and giving the allied colors more slots than enemy colors. This makes sense in the long run anyways because there are more and better mana fixing for allied colors in comparison to their enemy counterparts (more dual cycles, Talismans, etc).

I also was able to do some editing with my Cube such as removing Jitte and Shackles for power/fun reasons. I don't know about the rest the cubes out there, but around our area, those two cards were getting worse than Mind Twist ever was. Just dominating whenever they appeared, and completely lopsided. They forgave awful misplays and deckbuilding decisions and cut out a large amount of skill and interactivity from games they appeared in. There are two cubes in our area, and we both came to the conclusion that those two cards should be excluded for better games overall. What's the general opinion of everyone else on this subject (other than those who have an "anything goes" approach such as including Power 9, Mind Twist, etc). Thanks.

Now that the spoiler is out, I've updated the Cube to reflect what it will initially look like until time with the new cards possibly changes things. The cards added are as follows:

Green:
Twinblade Slasher
Wicker-Bough Elder
Bloom Tender

White:
Archon of Justice
Flickerwisp
Hallowed Burial
Recumbent Bliss

Red:
Hateflayer
Thunderblust
Unwilling Recruit

Black:
Ashling the Extinguisher

Blue:
Wake Thrasher
Dream Fracture

Gold:
Restless Apparition
Stillmoon Cavalier
Unmake
Dominus of Fealty
Creakwood Liege
Deity of Scars
Duergar Hedge-Mage
Figure of Destiny
Hearthfire Hobgoblin
Overbeing of Myth
Snakeform
Spitting Image

Artifacts:
(none)

Land:
Cascade Bluffs
Fetid Heath
Flooded Grove
Rugged Prarie
Twilight Mire

Have you thought about including both Earthcraft and squirrel nest in your green list of cards. Both cards are powerful ont here own and it adds an intersting combo that you amidited to not having many of.

I've thought about Squirrel Nest before, but there isn't too many slots for non-creature spells in that color and it will often break down into: turn target land into Maze of Ith. Earthcraft, while interesting, is probably not powerful enough on it's own to warrent the slot. Think of it like in a traditional limited format. It probably wouldn't end up making your 22-23 spells, and it would be similar here I imagine. Getting combos together is relatively difficult with the size of my Cube. Tinker and Darksteel Colossus doesn't even happen very often since it requires both of those cards and usually multiple other artifacts. Lukily there are redundant powerful artifacts for Tinker to work with, and a few other ways to cheat out Colossus (Tooth and Nail, Pattern of Rebirth). Still, thank you for the suggestion, as I may sometime give Squirrel Nest a shot to see how it plays out. I do like it's synergy with cards like Glare of Subduel, Overrun, and the famous combo with Opposition to name a few.

Anybody seen the new Hellkite Overlord card yet?

Hellkite Overlord
:4mana::symb::symr::symr::symg:
Creature - Dragon
Flying, trample, haste
:symr:: Hellkite Overlord gets +1/+0 until end of turn.
:symb::symg:: Regenerate Hellkite Overlord.
8/8

I'm pretty sure that will be playable in Cube once it's released. It's easily comparable to Akroma, Rorix, etc in that it's a huge, hasted creature. It's essentially immune to black and red removal like Akroma, and Firebreathing and Regeneration seem like icing on the cake.

I'm a huge fan of the new red Eventide dragon (HAteflayer), as he combos well with dance of the dead

On a more serious note, since akroma cannot be brought back by animate dead like spells, he is BY FAR, the best reanimation spell target you can find for a cube.
HAste negate the reanimate drawback, especially with firebreathing, and he is immune to allmost any Spot removal being black and regenerating.
Really strong addition.

Quote from Sheed

There're better reanimation targets to be had.

I wouldn't be so sure. It kills a turn faster than Akroma or Spirit of the Night. Pretty sure this is the single best reanimation target ever printed unless I'm missing something since you can't bring back Darksteel Colossus.

As for Hateflayer, he's such a beast. Essentially a 10/10 for 7 where half of his damage can either go straight to the dome or a creature at instant speed (wither too!). He's like a red Visara or Avatar of Woe except better most of the time.

We did a cube session last weekend, drafted reanimator, featuring a turn 1 :
Land mox dark ritual, Thoughtseize, entomb Hateflayer, dance of the dead on it.... Really nice turn 3 kill

The overlord is far better than akroma in fact, because of the animate dead spells that can't target akroma.

And as you, i dont see a nicer reanimation target than it, but perahps i'm missing some cards.

I very much agree on Hellkite Overlord. With the FNM Thirst for Knowledge possibly being from Alara, I see Hellkite as one of the #1 reanimation targets...well, ever. He's faster than the defacto targets, he has regeneration, firebreathing...daaaamn.

He goes directly into the cube, does not passes go, and does not collect $200.

However, I disagree strongly with the removal of Jitte and Vedalken Shackles. While we don't have Shackles in the cube (for reasons I can't recall), I do know the power and unfun-ness of an active Jitte going crazy. That's why I've tried to include as many answers to these cards as possible in each color (particularly artifacts such as Sol Ring and troublesome lands like Library of Alexandria).

That's why I've made an effort for more artifact destruction in my cube (Keldon Vandals) and I try to sort of watch the trends of my cube drafts. What is the latest 'defacto' best card/deck? RecSur is always popular and powerful, and so is blue/x control. The more powerful the blue and enchantment hosers are, the less defacto those become.

Maybe it's just me, but I feel you can fix the lopsidedness of some cards by increasing the hate on the 'other side'.

Quote from Sheed

Fair points. I usually like to be able to hardcast the creatures as well, which is why I made the point of saying that if you're looking for tri-color cards, this is your guy, but if your cube is mana-fixing light, skip it for Akroma or something else.

However, this cube has a good amount of fixing in green, so Overlord looks much better here than in many.

Playing reanimator, you'ill often be in a strong B deck, often splashing U and perhaps w or r, so in my honest opinion, it won't be easier to cast akroma (Triple White) in any reanimator archetype in cube than casting the overlord....

@Evan : The main problem i see in upping the number of artefact destruction to deal with jitte, or land destruction to deal with library, is that you allways finish to play some bad cards and i dont reallylikethat.

Quote from misterorange

However, I disagree strongly with the removal of Jitte and Vedalken Shackles. While we don't have Shackles in the cube (for reasons I can't recall), I do know the power and unfun-ness of an active Jitte going crazy. That's why I've tried to include as many answers to these cards as possible in each color (particularly artifacts such as Sol Ring and troublesome lands like Library of Alexandria).

That's why I've made an effort for more artifact destruction in my cube (Keldon Vandals) and I try to sort of watch the trends of my cube drafts. What is the latest 'defacto' best card/deck? RecSur is always popular and powerful, and so is blue/x control. The more powerful the blue and enchantment hosers are, the less defacto those become.

That way of dealing with problems works very well for a more traditional sized cube. If I had something along the lines of a 400-500ish card cube, I would very likely go the route you have, and included Power and the rest of the cards since the likelihood of mostly everyone drafting something broken is much higher when the card pool is as concentrated as yours. When I went to 720, the variance increased quite a bit, so the proxied power I had included in it became extremely warping. Same with Mind Twist, Library, and the like.

I had cards like Ingot Chewer and more green/white disenchant effects, but those were almost always relegated to the sideboard until you faced a bomb you couldn't handle. Often times you still didn't draw the correct answer for the correct threat in post-board games either. Jitte and Shackles were in there for a long time, but it was becoming very difficult to manage those cards in this format since it only took a few turns with each of them active to completely dominate the board. I may have been rash in removing them completely without trying more options, but the players around here seem to be in agreement that our drafts have been a lot more enjoyable without the extreme warping effect those cards had on games.

So in the end, it may have been (probably was) the wrong thing to do, but the players are happy so it's worked out.

The Overlord seems awesome, and with my Cube pimp rules I must get one from FTV: Dragons (same with Form, and Kokusho, at least). I love adding awesome reanimate and Tooth and Nail targets, but I'm a little worried about being able to obtain a copy.

LMK if any of you Cubists out there can get a hold of one!

-AA

After playing some Cube a few days ago we came to the conclusion that Wake Thrasher is the complete nuts. He was easily the biggest creature on the board almost the entire time he was out (dwarfing a Cloudthresher ain't no joke)!

I was lucky enough to get a box of dragons as well. Hoping for good things from the Overlord...

Hah! That's awesome. I didn't really think of Wake Thrasher as one that was insta-cube worthy, but sounds great...

Wake Thrasher, huh? Maybe I will have to try that out, even though our blue cards don't need any help Oh, and I was able to score some Dragons for a non-inflated price! All I have to do now is flatten them out...going well so far, but we shall see!

-AA