Wow, it's been a long time since I updated this, so I may as well do it now. These are all pre-RTR changes:
First, in order to make the cube more new-user friendly, I've removed the morph cards, finally. I'm perfectly aware that most of these cards are good enough to make the cut in 360, but they were causing too much confusion for a lot of people.
I want to give Stifle a shot, and the new Liliana has been getting good enough reviews that it's worth trying, too. The rest are pretty straightforward.
Ajani is a casualty of my cap of planeswalkers to 3 per color. If they start printing more cards like Dreadbore, I will remove this cap, but for now, it stays. Stonewright was pretty durdly.
Raven's Crime was a failed experiment, and Profane Command was my least favorite black midrange/control card. Smallpox is a more interesting, unique effect, and I'm excited to test it, especially given JeffDerek's ravings about how good black is in his cube now.
Gargadon gets cut for simplicity reasons--people never remember how the heck suspend works. If they ever print it with reminder text then it'll go right back in. For now, it's one unique effect swapped with another. Dragonlord has always underwhelmed, so it's out.
Rootwalla has too much history and too many fun interactions (especially with the forthcoming RTR cards) that it deserves a spot over the blah Slasher. The other cuts are for the sake of lowering the curve
What's been wrong with Cryptic or Deep Anal? One is a swiss army knife, the other is a 4-1 card advantage which plays well with discard effects. I could possibly see not including them at this size, but certainly not for the cards you're adding for them.
Drawing 2 cards at sorcery speed for 4 mana isn't my idea of a good cube card. Drawing 4 cards at sorcery speed for 6 mana and 2 life also isn't my idea of a good cube card. Believe me, I'm aware that I stand alone on this (except for Fredo and Hicham), but neither I nor my playgroup ever put this into our decks, so it's out. Also: I'm ashamed to admit that I laughed at Deep Anal. I'm 12, apparently.
As for Cryptic, I like the versatility but the mana cost is too restrictive. I've never understood why people are so quick to dismiss the difficulty of getting to UUU, when nobody at 360 plays Necropotence or Geralf's Messenger because they're BBB.
I always assumed suspend was a fairly simply mechanic. What's so hard about it?
I've found that not having the mechanic explained on the card is a steep barrier to entry for new players, especially when it's a mechanic that isn't repeated anywhere else on any other cube card. I've had way too many confused people ask and ask again what the card does, so we've decided to take it out for now.
I feel you should be including both the shaman and indrik stomphowler. I'd rather see y ou lose Call of the Herd, Wild Dogs, Rofellos, or Seal of Primordium.
Hmm, I think you're right. I enjoy the heck out of both of the Seals because of how they alter the board state, but it's much more defensible to keep Seal of Cleansing when it's in the same color as Enlightened Tutor or Sun Titan or Parallax Wave. Thanks for keying me to that. Changes updated!
Okay folks, time to solicit some feedback. I'm upping each guild count by 1, to 4 per guild. This means that I'll have to cut 2 cards per colored section to account for the difference. 5x2=10 and all that. This is what I'm thinking of cutting:
Blue: Arcane Denial, Stifle
Black: Doom Blade, Liliana of the Dark Realms
Red: Zealous Conscripts, Goblin Patrol
Green: Pouncing Jaguar, Indrik Stomphowler
White: No freaking idea what to cut
Any ideas what to cut in white? I was considering cutting at least 1 creature in the overcrowded 2cc and 3cc sections, but any and all advice is welcome.
I've moved Phyrexian Metamorph and Porcelain Legionnaire to the colorless section, as they so often find themselves in decks of all colors. Meanwhile, I've left Dismember in black since it plays primarily as a black card.
I've decided to tone down (temporarily) the pet archetypes I've been running, so out goes Griselbrand, Natural Order, and Dance of the Dead. I've finally accepted that Arcane Denial just isn't as good as Condescend. Poucing Jaguar and Goblin Patrol are good not great, and with the better aggro hybrids, not necessary. I don't care for the artifact deck, so for now LDV goes in place of Tezzeret, Angent of Bolas or Baleful Strix. I'm sure that most of the weaker guild adds will be replaced in Gatecrash.
Liliana isn't good enough for 360, and black doesn't need any more midrange support. Life // Death is a casualty of the reduced archetype support. Chandra's Phoenix never really worked the way I wanted it to. Shred Freak isn't great, but the hybrid aspect pushes it beyond Bit Blast, I think.
I'm aware that most people are rating Vraska as the 5th or 6th best Golgari card, but she's so splashy and fun that I'm super excited to give her a whirl.
I don't think I needed an extra mana elf with the removal of NO; Venser is too awesome not to run, and Hellkite is more or less a strict upgrade on Conscripts.
Whew! That's a total of 18 changes, or 5% of my cube. Of those 18, a full 8 are from RTR. What a crazy powerful set.
You're cutting Liliana twice?
BTW, I think Hellrider would be at least as good as Sarkhan Vol, if Sarkhan were monocolored.
Ooops! One of those Lilianas is supposed to be Dance of the Dead; thanks for the catch!
And yeah, I don't think Sarkhan is all that great, but Hellrider seemed like the obvious cut of the overstuffed 4CC creature section. Do you have a suggestion for something else?
I think you're taking the exact opposite tack to my brother and I in terms of cube building philosophy.
We throw in archetype support in place of cards that are basically "filler". I'd rather have Channel in my Cube than something like Acidic Slime which seems like it gets routinely passed in core set formats, let alone a powered Cube environment.
I mean, I think Hellrider is the best red 4CC cr in a straight-up aggro (though some might say Avalanche riders). If you don't want to cut the other 4 drops its a bit tricky... though I don't think your 4 slot is THAT crowded (sneak attack doesn't really count). I'd say Molten Rain or Chandra, depending on your build. But it totally depends on the kinds of decks you want to foster.
KBH, I'm kind of interested in hearing how that's worked out for you. You mainly winston right? I'm having a bit of a pickle trying to figure out how to do adequate archetype support in a winston format. BTW, I don't think Acidic Slime is filler at all. I never pass it if I am in green.
I mean, I think Hellrider is the best red 4CC cr in a straight-up aggro (though some might say Avalanche riders). If you don't want to cut the other 4 drops its a bit tricky... though I don't think your 4 slot is THAT crowded (sneak attack doesn't really count). I'd say Molten Rain or Chandra, depending on your build. But it totally depends on the kinds of decks you want to foster.
KBH, I'm kind of interested in hearing how that's worked out for you. You mainly winston right? I'm having a bit of a pickle trying to figure out how to do adequate archetype support in a winston format. BTW, I don't think Acidic Slime is filler at all. I never pass it if I am in green.
We do all sorts of crazy ways of drafting actually. Sometimes we each draft more than one deck. We don't really follow a formula, sometimes we just make something up
I picked Acidic Slime to emphasize the point, I think hes ok as well but it wouldn't have been as dramatic if I'd said Knight of Meadowgrain or something.
Power Conduit: You're right, Hellrider deserves a spot, so out goes Sneak Attack, which is better with a few more larger creatures than I currently run.
KBH: Trimming beloved archetypes is the curse of running a tighter list, I suppose. Depending on the day you ask me, I either agree with your philosophy, or I don't. Today, I don't. Although Channel seems like it would be bonkers in a 360 cube with a higher density of Swords. Hmmmm.
Okay, so I've decided to end the arbitrary tyranny of 360 cards, and bump up to 400. I think the RTR update allows me to do that without diluting the power level of the cube too significantly. Plus, the nice round number appeals to my OCD, as well as allowing me to be at the sweet spot with guild cards (10%).
Anyway, before I get to the adds, I'm going to start by adding an additional guild land for mana-fixing purposes. I'm leaning towards these lands:
My thinking is that, because I support aggro/tempo more than most, I should probably run the pain lands for consistency's sake. Is that the correct decision? Advice is very much appreciated!
I don't think that's a strict upgrade at all. Not being able to target gold or colorless creatures is a bigger drawback than being able to target black creatures. Especially since a lot of them will wind up in your own pool.
Of those, 10 of them are black, which means Doom Blade can't touch them, either. Another 3 are monocolored, and 2 more have hexproof. Which means the only 9 cards that Doom Blade can hit that Ultimate Price can't are:
Whereas I'm running 23 black creature cards. Obviously some of those 23 will be in my pool if I'm running Doom Blade, but probably not enough to bring the number equal. So is the average black creature I'm running more dangerous than the average creature in the above list?
I've really been enjoying the way my new black section has been playing, so I've decided to double down, temporarily, on its new direction. Here are a list of cards I'm looking to fit in:
Nezumi Graverobber is out because I don't want to nerf the graveyard deck. Arena is too slow for my cube, and has been for the past several sets now. Dance of the Dead is the weakest of the value reanimate spells I run. Doom Blade is the worst spot removal I run, and the playgroup as a whole have always been massively disappointed with the 1B edicts.
That leaves me with 1 cut to make. I'm considering either Profane Command or Consuming Vapors, for curve reasons, but I'm not too sure. Do you guys/gals have any thoughts on the matter? Are the cuts I'm making totally off-base? If so, what would you suggest?
Some playtesting results, since this is the new hot topic on these boards:
Contamination: Too few recurring threats to make this card worthwhile in a 400 card cube ... for now. This is a card that has the potential to be completely bonkers as more and more graveyard-y creatures get printed. I'm going to pass on this, for now.
Innocent Blood: Plays as you expect. It's a 1-mana edict with a drawback. It's also one of the few cards that makes me not mind being on the play. Will only get better with more recursive threats, like many of these cards. With the caveat that testing is thus far limited, I think it's a toss up between this and Chainer's Edict.
I keep wanting Tragic Slip to be good, but it's just not reliable enough.
Shade has fallen out of favor 'round these parts, so I'll join the rest of you all and take it out. I wanted to give Phoenix another go-round after wtwlf pointed out its great synergies with the rest of the pox package. Elemental was widely considered the weakest 2-drop in the This or That thread, and as I agree with that assessment, it's out for now.
Red seems to be a commonly paired color to go with black in the Pox style decks, and the Phoenix is both a good creature to sacrifice and a good creature to discard, and there's a lot of effects in that archetype that are looking for both.
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First, in order to make the cube more new-user friendly, I've removed the morph cards, finally. I'm perfectly aware that most of these cards are good enough to make the cut in 360, but they were causing too much confusion for a lot of people.
Exalted Angel -> Mirror Entity
Willbender -> Stifle
Bane of the Living -> Liliana of the Dark Realms
Blistering Firecat -> Hearth Kami
Nantuko Vigilante -> Naturalize
I want to give Stifle a shot, and the new Liliana has been getting good enough reviews that it's worth trying, too. The rest are pretty straightforward.
The M13 changes:
Ajani Goldmane -> Ajani, Caller of the Pride
Stonewright -> Searing Spear
Ajani is a casualty of my cap of planeswalkers to 3 per color. If they start printing more cards like Dreadbore, I will remove this cap, but for now, it stays. Stonewright was pretty durdly.
And now for some tweaks to the rest of the cube.
Enclave Cryptologist -> Faerie Conclave
Cryptic Command -> Psionic Blast
Deep Analysis -> Condescend
I've never liked any of the cards I'm cutting, despite their exalted opinion on these boards. Cube operator, know thyself.
Raven's Crime -> Inquisition of Kozilek
Profane Command -> Smallpox
Raven's Crime was a failed experiment, and Profane Command was my least favorite black midrange/control card. Smallpox is a more interesting, unique effect, and I'm excited to test it, especially given JeffDerek's ravings about how good black is in his cube now.
Greater Gargadon -> Sneak Attack
Kargan Dragonlord -> Zealous Conscripts
Gargadon gets cut for simplicity reasons--people never remember how the heck suspend works. If they ever print it with reminder text then it'll go right back in. For now, it's one unique effect swapped with another. Dragonlord has always underwhelmed, so it's out.
Phantom Centaur -> Treetop Village
Indrik Stomphowler -> Viridian Shaman
Twinblade Slasher -> Basking Rootwalla
Rootwalla has too much history and too many fun interactions (especially with the forthcoming RTR cards) that it deserves a spot over the blah Slasher. The other cuts are for the sake of lowering the curve
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Drawing 2 cards at sorcery speed for 4 mana isn't my idea of a good cube card. Drawing 4 cards at sorcery speed for 6 mana and 2 life also isn't my idea of a good cube card. Believe me, I'm aware that I stand alone on this (except for Fredo and Hicham), but neither I nor my playgroup ever put this into our decks, so it's out. Also: I'm ashamed to admit that I laughed at Deep Anal. I'm 12, apparently.
As for Cryptic, I like the versatility but the mana cost is too restrictive. I've never understood why people are so quick to dismiss the difficulty of getting to UUU, when nobody at 360 plays Necropotence or Geralf's Messenger because they're BBB.
I've found that not having the mechanic explained on the card is a steep barrier to entry for new players, especially when it's a mechanic that isn't repeated anywhere else on any other cube card. I've had way too many confused people ask and ask again what the card does, so we've decided to take it out for now.
Hmm, I think you're right. I enjoy the heck out of both of the Seals because of how they alter the board state, but it's much more defensible to keep Seal of Cleansing when it's in the same color as Enlightened Tutor or Sun Titan or Parallax Wave. Thanks for keying me to that. Changes updated!
Seal of Primordium -> Indrik Stomphowler
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Blue: Arcane Denial, Stifle
Black: Doom Blade, Liliana of the Dark Realms
Red: Zealous Conscripts, Goblin Patrol
Green: Pouncing Jaguar, Indrik Stomphowler
White: No freaking idea what to cut
Any ideas what to cut in white? I was considering cutting at least 1 creature in the overcrowded 2cc and 3cc sections, but any and all advice is welcome.
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Guild Adds:
Cuts:
I've moved Phyrexian Metamorph and Porcelain Legionnaire to the colorless section, as they so often find themselves in decks of all colors. Meanwhile, I've left Dismember in black since it plays primarily as a black card.
I've decided to tone down (temporarily) the pet archetypes I've been running, so out goes Griselbrand, Natural Order, and Dance of the Dead. I've finally accepted that Arcane Denial just isn't as good as Condescend. Poucing Jaguar and Goblin Patrol are good not great, and with the better aggro hybrids, not necessary. I don't care for the artifact deck, so for now LDV goes in place of Tezzeret, Angent of Bolas or Baleful Strix. I'm sure that most of the weaker guild adds will be replaced in Gatecrash.
Other RTR changes:
Out -> In
Liliana of the Dark Realms -> Pack Rat
Life // Death -> Vraska, the Unseen
Chandra's Phoenix -> Ash Zealot
Terminate -> Dreadbore
Bituminous Blast -> Rakdos Shred-Freak
Liliana isn't good enough for 360, and black doesn't need any more midrange support. Life // Death is a casualty of the reduced archetype support. Chandra's Phoenix never really worked the way I wanted it to. Shred Freak isn't great, but the hybrid aspect pushes it beyond Bit Blast, I think.
I'm aware that most people are rating Vraska as the 5th or 6th best Golgari card, but she's so splashy and fun that I'm super excited to give her a whirl.
Other, non RTR changes:
Out -> In
Absorb -> Venser, the Sojourner
Zealous Conscripts -> Thundermaw Hellkite
Arbor Elf -> Thragtusk
I don't think I needed an extra mana elf with the removal of NO; Venser is too awesome not to run, and Hellkite is more or less a strict upgrade on Conscripts.
Whew! That's a total of 18 changes, or 5% of my cube. Of those 18, a full 8 are from RTR. What a crazy powerful set.
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BTW, I think Hellrider would be at least as good as Sarkhan Vol, if Sarkhan were monocolored.
Ooops! One of those Lilianas is supposed to be Dance of the Dead; thanks for the catch!
And yeah, I don't think Sarkhan is all that great, but Hellrider seemed like the obvious cut of the overstuffed 4CC creature section. Do you have a suggestion for something else?
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We throw in archetype support in place of cards that are basically "filler". I'd rather have Channel in my Cube than something like Acidic Slime which seems like it gets routinely passed in core set formats, let alone a powered Cube environment.
KBH, I'm kind of interested in hearing how that's worked out for you. You mainly winston right? I'm having a bit of a pickle trying to figure out how to do adequate archetype support in a winston format. BTW, I don't think Acidic Slime is filler at all. I never pass it if I am in green.
We do all sorts of crazy ways of drafting actually. Sometimes we each draft more than one deck. We don't really follow a formula, sometimes we just make something up
I picked Acidic Slime to emphasize the point, I think hes ok as well but it wouldn't have been as dramatic if I'd said Knight of Meadowgrain or something.
KBH: Trimming beloved archetypes is the curse of running a tighter list, I suppose. Depending on the day you ask me, I either agree with your philosophy, or I don't. Today, I don't. Although Channel seems like it would be bonkers in a 360 cube with a higher density of Swords. Hmmmm.
My Cube on Cube Tutor
Anyway, before I get to the adds, I'm going to start by adding an additional guild land for mana-fixing purposes. I'm leaning towards these lands:
RW: Battlefield Forge
GW: Horizon Canopy
BW: Caves of Koilos
RG: Karplusan Forest
RU: Shivan Reef
RB: Sulfurous Springs
UG: Yavimaya Coast
GB: Llanowar Wastes
UW: Celestial Colonnade
UB: Creeping Tar Pit
My thinking is that, because I support aggro/tempo more than most, I should probably run the pain lands for consistency's sake. Is that the correct decision? Advice is very much appreciated!
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Even with a tempo/aggro push, I don't think I'd run painlands in UR. I'd probably run Sulfur Falls; I'd consider Hinterland Harbor as well.
Cheers,
rant
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White
Blue
Black
Red
Green
Colorless
Thoughts?
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Doom Blade -> Ultimate Price
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I don't think that's a strict upgrade at all. Not being able to target gold or colorless creatures is a bigger drawback than being able to target black creatures. Especially since a lot of them will wind up in your own pool.
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Of those, 10 of them are black, which means Doom Blade can't touch them, either. Another 3 are monocolored, and 2 more have hexproof. Which means the only 9 cards that Doom Blade can hit that Ultimate Price can't are:
Whereas I'm running 23 black creature cards. Obviously some of those 23 will be in my pool if I'm running Doom Blade, but probably not enough to bring the number equal. So is the average black creature I'm running more dangerous than the average creature in the above list?
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I don't know, but you forgot all the colorless creatures and most of the manlands, which Ultimate Price can't target, and Doom Blade can.
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The cuts I'm considering for these cards are:
Nezumi Graverobber is out because I don't want to nerf the graveyard deck. Arena is too slow for my cube, and has been for the past several sets now. Dance of the Dead is the weakest of the value reanimate spells I run. Doom Blade is the worst spot removal I run, and the playgroup as a whole have always been massively disappointed with the 1B edicts.
That leaves me with 1 cut to make. I'm considering either Profane Command or Consuming Vapors, for curve reasons, but I'm not too sure. Do you guys/gals have any thoughts on the matter? Are the cuts I'm making totally off-base? If so, what would you suggest?
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Contamination: Too few recurring threats to make this card worthwhile in a 400 card cube ... for now. This is a card that has the potential to be completely bonkers as more and more graveyard-y creatures get printed. I'm going to pass on this, for now.
Innocent Blood: Plays as you expect. It's a 1-mana edict with a drawback. It's also one of the few cards that makes me not mind being on the play. Will only get better with more recursive threats, like many of these cards. With the caveat that testing is thus far limited, I think it's a toss up between this and Chainer's Edict.
I keep wanting Tragic Slip to be good, but it's just not reliable enough.
Pox is a blowout. Nether Traitor and Reassembling Skeleton play as you imagine they would, which is to say, wonderfully. The Abyss hasn't seen play.
So here are the changes, now reflected in the changelog:
Cuts -> Adds
Kokusho, the Evening Star -> Reassembling Skeleton
Dance of the Dead -> Pox
Nezumi Graverobber -> Nether Traitor
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Nantuko Shade -> Carrion Feeder
Hellspark Elemental -> Chandra's Phoenix
Shade has fallen out of favor 'round these parts, so I'll join the rest of you all and take it out. I wanted to give Phoenix another go-round after wtwlf pointed out its great synergies with the rest of the pox package. Elemental was widely considered the weakest 2-drop in the This or That thread, and as I agree with that assessment, it's out for now.
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