Hi, wtwlf123. My playgroup recently have played a lot with your CUBE, and a problem troubles one of my friends a lot.
He's very into Reanimator deck / Sneak Attack deck, these kind of unfair deck. But he find it very hard to play against blue deck which has a lot of counterspell. So he is wondering, whether some card that protect the spell will do in CUBE or not, such as "Mana Short", "Veil of Summer", "Slience" or even "Boseiju, Who Shelters All".
Personly I think that may be ""Mana Short"Veil of Summer", "Slience" or even "Boseiju, Who Shelters All" is not good enough for that they are not very wildly useful, but "Mana Short" is a good card, it can be use in unfair deck to protect the key spell and also can be used in midrange deck as a half-time-walk.
So I'm wandering what do you think of thest cards? Can they work in your cube list?
In the end, thanks a lot for your CUBE list, it brings us a lot of fun.
I think it's important for countermagic to be an answer to broken strategies, so I think it's a bad idea to add in more cards that remove that line of defense. I also think that reanimator decks have plenty of ways to interact with countermagic to push their combo spells through. Play more Duresses and Thoughtseizes.
That being said, if you want to play those kinds of cards, go ahead. Veil is a fine cube card if you want more of those kinds of effects. Mana Short and Silence are terrible though, IMO.
It's important to have different decks have good and bad matchups. Counterspell decks are good against middling combo decks. But they're bad against aggro. Everything has a tradeoff, and it's important to have that balance, IMO. Plus, the decks have tools to combat those strategies already; I wouldn't personally add in bad, narrow answers just to shore up one bad matchup that will be dead cards in every other situation. Just my $0.02.
Hey wtwlf, I noticed that you added a ton of chromatic star/egg variants to your cube. Would you mind elaborating on how those playing out? I like the idea of more 1 cmc artifacts, but am a bit worried they will just become filler cards with no unique impact. Do they simply cycle or do they add new dynamics to the cube? Thanks, love your stuff.
They smooth out early draws, fix mana, fill the graveyard for delve/delirium/etc., add extra food for Wurmlets and Welders, provide chainable permanents for Emry and Conduit, trigger your Push and Sam effects, lower your curve, trigger prowess, and most importantly, they allow you to play a "smaller" deck so you can increase the density of your most impactful cards. As cube games become more dependent on drawing your most powerful cards, playing a "3X-card" deck because you have eggs and baubles to churn through your library is a desirable outcome. The fact that most decks can also find at least a couple of additional interactions with them is just a pure upside. They have felt pretty nice so far.
I am interested in how these eggs end up playing out. As cube has become more powerful, with the ever-increasing presence of "win-by-themselves" cards, I have found aggressive mulligans to be a key component to gameplay. While eggs/chromatic star do smooth out draws midgame (and slightly reduce deck count) I have also found they hinder effective mulligan decisions. I still play both baubles because of their rate and cheapness, and could still defend the chromatic/sphere star based on their effects, but the eggs seem (to me) like one step too far. Would need to have a lot of synergies, more than I can see at first glance most likely. Let us know how those perform!!
Sorry if that last response was a little curt. Let me try again:
They're solid so far, and some are certainly better than others. I'm testing them out to see how they play and how they contribute. Ultimately they might not pan out, but I want to give them a fair shake and enough playtime to properly evaluate.
I've really liked Sphere/Star so far. Entering untapped makes them more tolerable draws outside of the early game. And fixing mana of any color has proved to be quite important. The eggs and the Terrarion/Rockets are on my watchlist. Perfectly fine cards, but not as universally valuable as Chromatic Sphere/Star have been so far.
I didn't see you add Orcish Lumberjack. I'm so happy to see someone else playing it! I love this card so much. Not great, but tons of fun on turn 1 / turn 2 if you can activate his ability!
I didn't see you add Orcish Lumberjack. I'm so happy to see someone else playing it! I love this card so much. Not great, but tons of fun on turn 1 / turn 2 if you can activate his ability!
Ya, it's been in and out of my cube a few times. Sometimes feels quite powerful, and other times falls flat. But it can lead to some explosive plays!
Midrange decks needed the help, and the saturation is fine at 540. Old school midrange decks with mana rocks into 4-6cc threats aren't nearly as popular as they were before. Providing those decks with the tools needed to succeed keeps them alive in the draft pool. They still get demolished by traditional draw-go control decks, and aggro was running rampant without dedicated midrange support. So running the extra set incentivized drafting midrange, and it's been a good payoff. They're not good control cards outside of playing maybe 1 or 2 in a deck for some extra fixing. Control decks that are saturated with mana rocks aren't really control decks anymore; they become more like midrange decks that just lose in the control mirrors, lol. So more mana rocks ≠ better control decks. They make control decks better by passing those mana rocks and putting more midrange decks in the pool for them to beat up on.
I created an account just to ask your experience with the Elvish/Simian Spirit Guides :p.
I have always just liked them as cards in general, but my assumption would be that in a singleton environment the acceleration they offer would be too inconsistent to warrant a slot. (This might also be a bad assumption informed by the fact that I have really never seem them on a list before...) Have they been impactful includes for you?
There are times where they feel great, because the card they're accelerating out is so powerful that it makes up for the card disadvantage required to play it. There are other times where they don't feel particularly worth it. I like them in decks where they can serve double-duty, like decks that want to pitch it to Fury or discard it to Survival or something. I don't know if they're going to be in forever, but I think they're worth experimenting with.
Thank you very much for the insight! I think I will find some room for them in my list to see how they play out there
If you're interested in hearing my thoughts:
- I think its fine with a high density of Monarch/ Initiative mechanic and a few 5-6 CMC combo such as Sneak Attack/ Selvala's Stampede etc.
- Its not really a fun card IMO - It leads to too many feast/ famine moments. I think its fine if people are used to playing legacy/ vintage decks, but beyond that I wouldn't recommend it.
I had a similar experience when I supported the Thassa's Oracle / Demonic Consultation combo, where both cards are very powerful, but they weren't really fun and there really wasn't really anything interesting about the deck (unlike Splinter Twin) where it can be in multiple different builds.
I am always down to hear peoples' experiences with cards!
I actually play with zero Monarch or Initiative (I think they are very neat mechanics, I just wanted slots to support other things), but I assume you refer to them being important to help mitigate the card disadvantage associated with the Spirit Guides' Mana Accel Ability?
I try and support some higher CMC combo archetypes, and these are what I am hoping the Spirit Guides will beef up. As for them being potentially unfun/ uninteresting, that is something I would have to experiment with and find out if I feel the same.
I am coming at them from the angle of 'I find this effect is incredibly unique and want to see what shenanigans it can create'. Maybe once the curiosity is actually satiated I won't find them as neato
Hey wtwlf, I noticed that you added the lotr land-cyclers. I happened to have added them at the same time as you (with timeless dragon replacing the white one which has proven deceptively strong, and Id encourage re-considering). I assume you did this mostly to boost fixing, but also to improve reanimator, and to give decks options when flooding.
I was thinking, now with these added, how do you feel about the card persist? I think it gains a lot of equity after this change by going t1 cycler, t2 persist. The same also holds true of the evoke elementals (persisting grief, fury or solitude can all be gamebreaking, plus shriekmaw and muldrifter are strong too). Also, I was looking at my reanimation targets, and most of them are actually non-legendary. The only real exceptions these days are atraxa, griselbrand, and maybe elesh norm / 10 cmc ulamog. Besides this, all the artifacts, green fatties, and a lot of good value creatures (titans, chaos defiler, archon, etc..) are surprisingly non-legendary. Also, I have been noticing the loss of life with reanimate and life/death recently, and this doesnt have that problem. I think Im going to add it, but was curious if you would reconsider it too (plus timeless dragon!).
Also thanks for the set review. I always look forward to it.
I'm always on the lookout for stuff like that as the context of the cube changes with time.
Long answer short: who knows?
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
He's very into Reanimator deck / Sneak Attack deck, these kind of unfair deck. But he find it very hard to play against blue deck which has a lot of counterspell. So he is wondering, whether some card that protect the spell will do in CUBE or not, such as "Mana Short", "Veil of Summer", "Slience" or even "Boseiju, Who Shelters All".
Personly I think that may be ""Mana Short"Veil of Summer", "Slience" or even "Boseiju, Who Shelters All" is not good enough for that they are not very wildly useful, but "Mana Short" is a good card, it can be use in unfair deck to protect the key spell and also can be used in midrange deck as a half-time-walk.
So I'm wandering what do you think of thest cards? Can they work in your cube list?
In the end, thanks a lot for your CUBE list, it brings us a lot of fun.
That being said, if you want to play those kinds of cards, go ahead. Veil is a fine cube card if you want more of those kinds of effects. Mana Short and Silence are terrible though, IMO.
It's important to have different decks have good and bad matchups. Counterspell decks are good against middling combo decks. But they're bad against aggro. Everything has a tradeoff, and it's important to have that balance, IMO. Plus, the decks have tools to combat those strategies already; I wouldn't personally add in bad, narrow answers just to shore up one bad matchup that will be dead cards in every other situation. Just my $0.02.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/the-cube-forum/articles-podcasts-and-guides/829594-set-p-review-my-top-20-march-of-the-machine-mom
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
They're solid so far, and some are certainly better than others. I'm testing them out to see how they play and how they contribute. Ultimately they might not pan out, but I want to give them a fair shake and enough playtime to properly evaluate.
I've really liked Sphere/Star so far. Entering untapped makes them more tolerable draws outside of the early game. And fixing mana of any color has proved to be quite important. The eggs and the Terrarion/Rockets are on my watchlist. Perfectly fine cards, but not as universally valuable as Chromatic Sphere/Star have been so far.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
Ya, it's been in and out of my cube a few times. Sometimes feels quite powerful, and other times falls flat. But it can lead to some explosive plays!
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
I've noticed you've been running both signets and talismans for a bit now. What prompted you to run both? How has that been during the drafting phase?
I've been thinking of doing something similar but was worried there would be too many midrange/control decks.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
I created an account just to ask your experience with the Elvish/Simian Spirit Guides :p.
I have always just liked them as cards in general, but my assumption would be that in a singleton environment the acceleration they offer would be too inconsistent to warrant a slot. (This might also be a bad assumption informed by the fact that I have really never seem them on a list before...) Have they been impactful includes for you?
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
If you're interested in hearing my thoughts:
- I think its fine with a high density of Monarch/ Initiative mechanic and a few 5-6 CMC combo such as Sneak Attack/ Selvala's Stampede etc.
- Its not really a fun card IMO - It leads to too many feast/ famine moments. I think its fine if people are used to playing legacy/ vintage decks, but beyond that I wouldn't recommend it.
I had a similar experience when I supported the Thassa's Oracle / Demonic Consultation combo, where both cards are very powerful, but they weren't really fun and there really wasn't really anything interesting about the deck (unlike Splinter Twin) where it can be in multiple different builds.
I actually play with zero Monarch or Initiative (I think they are very neat mechanics, I just wanted slots to support other things), but I assume you refer to them being important to help mitigate the card disadvantage associated with the Spirit Guides' Mana Accel Ability?
I try and support some higher CMC combo archetypes, and these are what I am hoping the Spirit Guides will beef up. As for them being potentially unfun/ uninteresting, that is something I would have to experiment with and find out if I feel the same.
I am coming at them from the angle of 'I find this effect is incredibly unique and want to see what shenanigans it can create'. Maybe once the curiosity is actually satiated I won't find them as neato
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/the-cube-forum/articles-podcasts-and-guides/830605-set-p-review-my-top-20-wilds-of-eldraine-woe-cards
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/the-cube-forum/articles-podcasts-and-guides/831092-set-p-review-my-top-20-lost-caverns-of-ixalan-lci
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
I was thinking, now with these added, how do you feel about the card persist? I think it gains a lot of equity after this change by going t1 cycler, t2 persist. The same also holds true of the evoke elementals (persisting grief, fury or solitude can all be gamebreaking, plus shriekmaw and muldrifter are strong too). Also, I was looking at my reanimation targets, and most of them are actually non-legendary. The only real exceptions these days are atraxa, griselbrand, and maybe elesh norm / 10 cmc ulamog. Besides this, all the artifacts, green fatties, and a lot of good value creatures (titans, chaos defiler, archon, etc..) are surprisingly non-legendary. Also, I have been noticing the loss of life with reanimate and life/death recently, and this doesnt have that problem. I think Im going to add it, but was curious if you would reconsider it too (plus timeless dragon!).
Also thanks for the set review. I always look forward to it.