To make it work with the Persist combo, keep the "opponent gains control of it" effect on the stack while you let the persist triggers and ETB triggers enter and leave the stack above it; resacrificing the creature in response, and never letting the Idol leave your control.
hey wtwlf! i saw in another thread that you were quite excited about Kher Keep. while my cube is probably too small to run Polymorph, I do run a fairly light Aristocrats package, Braids/Stax, Skullclamp, etc. do you see Kher Keep doing well in smaller lists with sacrifice, but not Polymorph support? it's something I'd love to try out! plus, i've been looking for a red "spell land" for a while!
It might not hurt to try. Obviously the more uses it has the better the justification for playing it gets. I play it because it helps the Polymorph deck ...but as long as it's in there, we've been using it in multiple different sacrifice shells and stuff. It's a cool card. BUT, I don't know if I'd still be playing it if it weren't for the value it brings to Polymorph. It's one of those cards (like a lot of the storm cards, for example) that only make the cut because of how important they are to a specific deck, but once they're in there, players explore other uses for them.
Just wanted to thank you again for all the creative work you distribute via MTGS. I'd like to do some experimenting myself, but I don't have a playgroup for testing and would like to use my time for my studies.
It's cool to see you promoting fresh ideas now and then, and even though I sometimes feel like creating a copycat-cube from yours or other people here, it's the best I can do. I simply wait for the day when my favourite archetypes, Lands and Stax get a bit more love, although I don't have high hopes for Stax unfortunately, since it seems to have fallen out of grace at WOTC.
I noticed that both your cube (on cubecobra) and the MODO Vintage cube are running more blue cards than the other four colors.
Is this a recent change? I seem to remember your cube was usually color balanced.
What caused this change for you and how has it played out?
Obviously we all know blue is the best color in cube and I often wish I could squeeze in more blue cards, but I haven't wanted to upset the color balance by going heavier blue for fear of weakening aggressive strategies more compared to control and combo.
It's color balanced once hybrid cards and pseudo-colorless cards that get classified in the mono-colored sections are factored in.
Blue has the smallest number of hybrid cards in my cube, AND it has the most cards that are classified as blue cards that can be stolen by non-blue decks (Metamorph, Spellskite, etc) ...so it has the most mono-colored cards to compensate.
It's color balanced once hybrid cards and pseudo-colorless cards that get classified in the mono-colored sections are factored in.
Hi,
Long time lurker here. Sorry for the bad english, it's not my native langage; i'll try my best.
Wtwlf, could you please elaborate on the color balance in your cube? It is a very interesting way to put things and to open some design spaces.
I'm thinking of doing the same for my powered cube and i would like to understand it fully.
Sorry for the long post, i'll try to make it as clear as i can ;).
Looking at your cubecobra list, here are some asumptions on how you achieve perfect color balance, please tell me if i'm right.
1-
All the cards in the colored sections can be moved in the colorless section.
This one is quite obvious, as those cards are often played in any deck that wants them.
Examples: Porcelain Legionaire, Gitaxian Probe, Scrapheap Scrounger, Mox Ruby, Gaea's Craddle.
2-
All the hybrid cards count as both their colors, because they can be played in either color.
Examples: Rakdos Cackler counts as a red card and a black card; Manamorphose counts as a red card and a green card; Life/Death (although not really hybrid) counts as a green card and a black card.
3-
All the mono colored cards in you gold section count as their primary color.
Examples: Avacyn's Pilgrim counts as a green card; Najeela counts as a red card; Wild Nacatl counts as a green card, Soulfire Grand Master counts as a white card.
Now, onto some questions:
4-
How do you deal with the signets/talismans? Do you count them as colorless cards, or as both their respective colors?
Example: is Golgari Signet a colorless card, or is it both a green card and a black card?
A double off-color signet could be played in the artifact.dec for example, so i don't know how you see things there.
5-
What about cards with off-color flashback? Do they count as cards from their main color?
Examples: Lingering Souls is a white card, Unburial Rites counts as a black card.
6-
On cubecobra, only 3 cards (Aminatou, Nicol Bolas and Leovold) from your list are not labeled as "Played outside section". What is your design rule about your 3+color section as a whole?
7-
How do you count each of those cards?
- Sphix of the Steel Wind? (my guess: blue card -tinker.dec, and black card -reanimator.dec)
- Hellkite Overlord? (my guess: black card -reanimator.dec, and green card -cheat fatties.dec)
- Progenitus? (my guess: green card -cheat fatties.dec)
- Golos? (my guess: colorless card)
- the 5 Triomes? (my guess: they count as each of their 3 colors)
- Noble Hierach, Wild Nacatl, Warden of the First Tree, Soulfire Grand Master, Alesha, Najeela: alredy discussed above in 3-.
That's it.
Thanks a lot for your time, and hopefully i'll be able to get a better understanding of your classification system, and update my powered cube (expanding it to 720 in the meantime) using it.
It's not a perfect science, because different playgroups will use cards with "flexible classifications" differently.
1) Correct. Cards like Porcelain Legionnaire are sorted in white, but don't count towards white's cap, since it's often played in non-white decks. Blue has the most of these kinds of cards sorted in blue. So if my maximum number of mono-colored cards in a section would be 90, blue's is 95 because there's 5 cards that can be stolen by non-blue decks in there.
2) Partially correct. They get assigned "points" based on which colors can realistically play them without the other color. Something like Rakdos Cackler might allow me to count it as both a black card and a red card, but something like Life // Death might only assign points to black.
3) That's pretty much correct, ya.
4) They're essentially colorless cards sorted in the guild sections. It doesn't matter where they're sorted, since I play all 20 anyways.
5) Usually, yes. It depends on how difficult/critical the off-color flashback is. And again, cards like Unburial Rites can be treated differently since it's sometimes played where the white mana is even more critical than the black mana.
6) As a design rule, hard 3-color cards are kept to a minimum. I want each wedge/shard to be represented, but beyond that, I try to maximize cards that can be used in multiple guilds rather than cards that need those 3 specific colors to work.
7) I play them in decks that want to play them, and I sort them where they're sorted. Each group is going to have to figure out what they want their 3+ color section to look like.
At the end, the balance winds up really close. I think the biggest gap that I have between sections is a card and a half once I factor in "stolen" colorless cards and hybrid classifications. It's actually closer now than it was when my numbers across each section were perfectly identical.
I guess the "points sytem" you are using is what kept me from figuring out your classification by myself.
Time to work on a system of my own (unless you want to explain yours in detail, but i don't want to clog-up this thread with my kind-of unrelated questions), and expand my 540-powered to 720 by adding some cool archetypes such as Persist and Polymorph :).
I kinda just did explain my system in detail, lol. A card is a point. Each section has a target number. Cards that get stolen by other colors add to the total number of cards that can be in a section, and hybrid cards count add cards into those sections from their respective guilds. Tinker with the numbers until they're relatively balanced.
Eheh, i thought there was a very complex system going on, given that you mentionned your biggest gap between sections being "a card and a half" ;). My bad.
[eddit :] And, if i may ask, what are your target numbers for each section ?
Target number of 90 cards per mono-colored section. I'm +/- 0.2 cards off of 90 when averaging all 5 colors here. Which is pretty close. A couple over on blue, and just under a card and a half short on white. But this makes sense, considering how many blue cards can get robbed by non-blue decks, and how few blue hybrid cards there are in the cube.
6 true gold cards per guild. I'm 100% with my guild gold card targets. This is much simpler to balance, for obvious reasons.
Just tinker around with it until you and your playgroup are getting a consistent and balanced experience. Like I said, specific numbers will vary from one group to the next based on their propensity to draft certain cards outside of their color identities. So my exact numbers shouldn't be your exact numbers. Just mess with the system and your sections until it makes sense for you.
I was doing some brainstorming and happened upon a card I once cubed with a long time ago, Sprout Swarm. I quickly thought of your recent inclusion of Polymorph, and checked your list to find you've already included it! I'm curious, how are you liking it? Do you feel it pulls enough weight in Polymorph decks? Howabout outside them?
Well, it pulls archetype duty in both Tokens, Bant Flash and Polymorph. And put pulls combo duty in Intruder Alarm. It's been great in those four decks for sure, but it hasn't seen a ton of play in generic goodstuff decks yet, so I don't have much feedback on it there. I think it's a really cool card to draw when you're flooded, and it's nice to be able to ambush early pikers and bears with it. But it's mainly included for those 4 decks.
Well, it pulls archetype duty in both Tokens, Bant Flash and Polymorph. And put pulls combo duty in Intruder Alarm. It's been great in those four decks for sure, but it hasn't seen a ton of play in generic goodstuff decks yet, so I don't have much feedback on it there. I think it's a really cool card to draw when you're flooded, and it's nice to be able to ambush early pikers and bears with it. But it's mainly included for those 4 decks.
I feel the card is way too under powered.
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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
If you're referring to tossing it into a random goodstuff deck, you may be right. I don't really know because I haven't used it that way yet. But if you're talking about using it in the decks it's included to shine in, you're just wrong, lol.
Well, it pulls archetype duty in both Tokens, Bant Flash and Polymorph. And put pulls combo duty in Intruder Alarm. It's been great in those four decks for sure, but it hasn't seen a ton of play in generic goodstuff decks yet, so I don't have much feedback on it there. I think it's a really cool card to draw when you're flooded, and it's nice to be able to ambush early pikers and bears with it. But it's mainly included for those 4 decks.
I completely overlooked how it can work well in Intruder Alarm, that's pretty fun.
Thanks for sharing your experience! I'll keep this in mind as I make my next round of changes.
Hello wtw, thanks for all the effort on cube community.
Would like to ask about your decision replacing dust bowl with thespian stage.
Also if there is any more information regarding seasoned Pyromancer.
Regards
Giorgos
Have you considered adding Into the North into your cube as a 2 mana color fixer + fetches Dark Depths?
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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
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!
Just wanted to thank you again for all the creative work you distribute via MTGS. I'd like to do some experimenting myself, but I don't have a playgroup for testing and would like to use my time for my studies.
It's cool to see you promoting fresh ideas now and then, and even though I sometimes feel like creating a copycat-cube from yours or other people here, it's the best I can do. I simply wait for the day when my favourite archetypes, Lands and Stax get a bit more love, although I don't have high hopes for Stax unfortunately, since it seems to have fallen out of grace at WOTC.
Have a nice day!
Resarox
And I also want a new Braids/Smokestack variant really badly, but I'm not holding my breath either.
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!
Glad Polymorph is working out so well. I just don't have room at 465, especially after shoehorning in the Persist combo.
Cheers,
rant
My Cube
CubeCobra: https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/5f5d0310ed602310515d4c32
Cube Tutor: http://cubetutor.com/viewcube/1963
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 noticed that both your cube (on cubecobra) and the MODO Vintage cube are running more blue cards than the other four colors.
Is this a recent change? I seem to remember your cube was usually color balanced.
What caused this change for you and how has it played out?
Obviously we all know blue is the best color in cube and I often wish I could squeeze in more blue cards, but I haven't wanted to upset the color balance by going heavier blue for fear of weakening aggressive strategies more compared to control and combo.
360 card powered Chicago cube:
https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/e7r
2020 Numerical Power Rankings:
https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/the-cube-forum/cube-card-and-archetype/817969-2020-numerical-cube-power-rankings
2018 CubeTutor Power Rankings:
https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/the-cube-forum/cube-card-and-archetype/803301-cubetutor-power-rankings-2018-by-color-and-cmc
Blue has the smallest number of hybrid cards in my cube, AND it has the most cards that are classified as blue cards that can be stolen by non-blue decks (Metamorph, Spellskite, etc) ...so it has the most mono-colored cards to compensate.
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!
Hi,
Long time lurker here. Sorry for the bad english, it's not my native langage; i'll try my best.
Wtwlf, could you please elaborate on the color balance in your cube? It is a very interesting way to put things and to open some design spaces.
I'm thinking of doing the same for my powered cube and i would like to understand it fully.
Sorry for the long post, i'll try to make it as clear as i can ;).
Looking at your cubecobra list, here are some asumptions on how you achieve perfect color balance, please tell me if i'm right.
1-
All the cards in the colored sections can be moved in the colorless section.
This one is quite obvious, as those cards are often played in any deck that wants them.
Examples: Porcelain Legionaire, Gitaxian Probe, Scrapheap Scrounger, Mox Ruby, Gaea's Craddle.
2-
All the hybrid cards count as both their colors, because they can be played in either color.
Examples: Rakdos Cackler counts as a red card and a black card; Manamorphose counts as a red card and a green card; Life/Death (although not really hybrid) counts as a green card and a black card.
3-
All the mono colored cards in you gold section count as their primary color.
Examples: Avacyn's Pilgrim counts as a green card; Najeela counts as a red card; Wild Nacatl counts as a green card, Soulfire Grand Master counts as a white card.
Now, onto some questions:
4-
How do you deal with the signets/talismans? Do you count them as colorless cards, or as both their respective colors?
Example: is Golgari Signet a colorless card, or is it both a green card and a black card?
A double off-color signet could be played in the artifact.dec for example, so i don't know how you see things there.
5-
What about cards with off-color flashback? Do they count as cards from their main color?
Examples: Lingering Souls is a white card, Unburial Rites counts as a black card.
6-
On cubecobra, only 3 cards (Aminatou, Nicol Bolas and Leovold) from your list are not labeled as "Played outside section". What is your design rule about your 3+color section as a whole?
7-
How do you count each of those cards?
- Sphix of the Steel Wind? (my guess: blue card -tinker.dec, and black card -reanimator.dec)
- Hellkite Overlord? (my guess: black card -reanimator.dec, and green card -cheat fatties.dec)
- Progenitus? (my guess: green card -cheat fatties.dec)
- Golos? (my guess: colorless card)
- the 5 Triomes? (my guess: they count as each of their 3 colors)
- Noble Hierach, Wild Nacatl, Warden of the First Tree, Soulfire Grand Master, Alesha, Najeela: alredy discussed above in 3-.
That's it.
Thanks a lot for your time, and hopefully i'll be able to get a better understanding of your classification system, and update my powered cube (expanding it to 720 in the meantime) using it.
Cheers!
1) Correct. Cards like Porcelain Legionnaire are sorted in white, but don't count towards white's cap, since it's often played in non-white decks. Blue has the most of these kinds of cards sorted in blue. So if my maximum number of mono-colored cards in a section would be 90, blue's is 95 because there's 5 cards that can be stolen by non-blue decks in there.
2) Partially correct. They get assigned "points" based on which colors can realistically play them without the other color. Something like Rakdos Cackler might allow me to count it as both a black card and a red card, but something like Life // Death might only assign points to black.
3) That's pretty much correct, ya.
4) They're essentially colorless cards sorted in the guild sections. It doesn't matter where they're sorted, since I play all 20 anyways.
5) Usually, yes. It depends on how difficult/critical the off-color flashback is. And again, cards like Unburial Rites can be treated differently since it's sometimes played where the white mana is even more critical than the black mana.
6) As a design rule, hard 3-color cards are kept to a minimum. I want each wedge/shard to be represented, but beyond that, I try to maximize cards that can be used in multiple guilds rather than cards that need those 3 specific colors to work.
7) I play them in decks that want to play them, and I sort them where they're sorted. Each group is going to have to figure out what they want their 3+ color section to look like.
At the end, the balance winds up really close. I think the biggest gap that I have between sections is a card and a half once I factor in "stolen" colorless cards and hybrid classifications. It's actually closer now than it was when my numbers across each section were perfectly identical.
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!
Time to work on a system of my own (unless you want to explain yours in detail, but i don't want to clog-up this thread with my kind-of unrelated questions), and expand my 540-powered to 720 by adding some cool archetypes such as Persist and Polymorph :).
Thanks for your time, and happy cubing!
Best of luck with the expansion!
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!
[eddit :] And, if i may ask, what are your target numbers for each section ?
6 true gold cards per guild. I'm 100% with my guild gold card targets. This is much simpler to balance, for obvious reasons.
Just tinker around with it until you and your playgroup are getting a consistent and balanced experience. Like I said, specific numbers will vary from one group to the next based on their propensity to draft certain cards outside of their color identities. So my exact numbers shouldn't be your exact numbers. Just mess with the system and your sections until it makes sense 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!
I was doing some brainstorming and happened upon a card I once cubed with a long time ago, Sprout Swarm. I quickly thought of your recent inclusion of Polymorph, and checked your list to find you've already included it! I'm curious, how are you liking it? Do you feel it pulls enough weight in Polymorph decks? Howabout outside them?
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 feel the card is way too under powered.
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
If you're referring to tossing it into a random goodstuff deck, you may be right. I don't really know because I haven't used it that way yet. But if you're talking about using it in the decks it's included to shine in, you're just wrong, lol.
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 completely overlooked how it can work well in Intruder Alarm, that's pretty fun.
Thanks for sharing your experience! I'll keep this in mind as I make my next round of changes.
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!
Would like to ask about your decision replacing dust bowl with thespian stage.
Also if there is any more information regarding seasoned Pyromancer.
Regards
Giorgos
Stage is in for Dark Depths combo.
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!
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