MTG Salvation

I could definitely see that. In my admittedly very limited experience, the black decks in whydirt's cube tend to be a bit less suicidal and a little more drain-y (Basilica Screecher, Falkenrath Noble), so the life gain on Gift isn't as necessary.

I've just found that black has enough good creatures without lifeloss that you don't need to run many that are suicidal outside of the 1-drops. I think Mark of the Vampire is playable if you want that effect in black.

Well suicidal doesn't just mean self-inflicting guys. It also includes Cards that can't block like the dauthi.

Also, since I'm at 450, just 1 copy of this effect isn't enough for me.

First round of DGM updates:

IN:

• Spike Jester
  
• Baleful Strix
  
• Kingpin's Pet
  
• Trostani's Summoner
  
• Sylvok Lifestaff
  

OUT:

• Torrent of Souls
  
• Cavern Harpy
  
• Armadillo Cloak
  
• Blind Hunter
  
• Ulamog's Crusher
  

I was able to trade some of my prerelease prize packs for Baleful Strix, which was great for me since cube is the only format I need new cards for these days. With Summoner coming in, I feel I could spare a ramp target and Crusher seemed like the best one to drop. Rakdos gets even more aggressive with Spike Jester and Kingpin's Pet means I avoid rules questions about haunt, which is fine by me.

Gift of Orzhova is leaving soon, since I feel like the guild is already super supported by extort and Rites/Souls existing in the mono sections and the effect is semi-replaced by the addition of the Lifestaff. According to my spreadsheet color balancing formula gizmo, I'll need to cut a green card along with it to keep relative balance, which means adding two colorless to fill in the slots. Alternatively I can cut two colorless and add one each to W/U/B/R. Dunno which way I'll go yet.

I want to make room for Turn/Burn and Far/Away, but am not sure about the right cuts to make. I'll probably let other peasant cube managers be my guinea pigs for now. Gruul War Chant is insane and begs to be added, but the guild section is stacked, especially with 4-drops (Bloodbraid Elf and Ghor-Clan Rampager), so maybe I'll just rotate cards or something.

Totem-Guide Hartebeest is also on the watchlist to be cut. I really want it to be great, but unless you draft it early and can snag auras highly it seems to be sideboarded often. There are some other fun toys I want to test in white like Reconnaissance and Lashknife Barrier, so expect a swap soon.

Comments from the peanut gallery are expected and encouraged.

I like all of the changes, and as mentioned above, have made similar ones in my cube. I don't think I'm as high on Gruul War Chant as you are. It's a powerful effect, but it's just absolutely garbage if you're behind since it doesn't actually affect the board at all.

I totally agree about the Hartebeest and I'm trying to think of stuff to replace him with myself. One other change I've been considering lately is dropping Mortify for Orzhov Charm. With white/black having a bit of a life drain theme the life loss on the first mode shouldn't hurt too bad, plus the other modes are nice to have as well. I've also been thinking about completely overhauling the W/B section by replacing Gerrard's Verdict and Blind Hunter with Tidehollow Sculler and Maw of the Obzedat. I really just want to try out the Maw, and Sculler over Verdict could go either way, I just like it when my discard spells are also dudes.

I think Belfry Spirit is a good replacement for Hartebeest

Baleful Strix is baller...too bad you are dropping cavern harpy to make room for it, because those two in conjunction are pretty fun.

I think you should up your guild section by 1 each...maybe drop some of the less great hybrids and a couple artifacts to make room...

I hope I'm not out of line for posting this, but revengeanceful has uploaded his very similar cube up on cubetutor.com if you want to practice drafting. Here's the link: http://www.cubetutor.com/draft/72

You can get some pretty good decks since you draft a full set of 45 cards (I tend to only draft 40-42 to add a bit more tension instead of everyone ending up cutting staples due to having such a large pool).

revengeanceful, I have noticed that there are two copies of Spitemare, Ray of Command, Barter in Blood, and Suq'Ata Lancer in your list there, so you might want to delete one.

That's perfectly fine by me, I was actually holding off from posting the link since I didn't want to step on any toes. And thanks for catching the multiples, I had trimmed out a couple but I guess I missed a few.

No, it's totally cool! I'm actually addicted to the drafting gizmo. The drafting bot isn't super smart so I've been able to basically force whatever archetype I want each time.

I'm gonna wait and let the dev of cubetutor work out some of the bugs and kinks and then try to upload mine soon. Thanks for being an early adopter!

The drafting bots get better the more you draft as they start to learn your pick orders, so please, everyone, use the link that whydirt posted to help make my draft bots better!

So I've been thinking about Totem-Guide Hartebeest a little bit more. If I assume that I want to replace him with Belfry Spirit, then I'm probably also going to want to replace some Auras with non-Auras as well, since they lose a little bit of muster without the Hartebeest. I'm also just not a huge fan of Auras to begin with.

With that being said, if I were to replace the Hartebeest, here is how I think I would do it:
-Totem-Guide Hartebeest
-Goldnight Commander
-Griffin Guide
-Lust for War
-Oxidda Scrapmelter
-Elephant Guide

+Belfry Spirit
+Celestial Crusader
+Midnight Haunting
+Pillage
+Keldon Champion
+Fierce Empath or +Regrowth

This gives white a little bit more of a token theme, which I'm a big fan of personally, and removes some of the less exciting Auras for other cards that I've been trying to find room for. Pillage is in there as a way to replace some of the artifact hate that you get with Scrapmelter, and also in there with an eye towards supporting a land destruction subtheme in the future.

Lust for War isn't really a Hartebeest target. It's the closest red gets to Sulfuric Vortex in peasant and can definitely stand on its own merits, IMO.

I'm sad to see the Guides go because they're auras with value, but I can understand other people not liking them as much as I do. I think they actually work pretty well in token decks since they turn 1/1 tokens into legitimate threats without taking as much risk as putting an aura on a real creature.

Finally, I like Goldnight Commander better than Crusader because it interacts with tokens of all colors and not just white ones. The bat tokens from Belfry Spirit and the Myrs from Shrine of Loyal Legions stand out as being awkward with it.

I'm looking to make room for Empath, so let me know how it works for you.

Those are all totally fair points, and don't take my post to mean that I'm for sure making those changes. I was just tossing out my initial idea on how I would handle removing Hartebeest. I never really thought about Lust for War as a Sulfuric Vortex, but I can definitely see that argument. Goldnight Commander just strikes me as underpowered because he's really not that good on his own whereas Celestial Crusader is fine as a 2/2 flying flash, but I've never gotten to play with the Commander before so I could be wrong about him. Before I make any of these changes, I'll definitely think about things more.

EDIT: One other point in favor of keeping Lust for War is that the art is just plain awesome.

Lust for way isn't a sulfuric vortex. It is often way better than that.
For the low low cost of being interactive.
all signs point to "awesome"

Crusader has a better WCS since like you said a flash 2/2 flyer is never really a dead draw, but Commander has a crazy BCS is a fun toy for Johnny players to try and break. "Why yes, I will pop my Shrine for eight Myr tokens, giving my Commander and this spirit +8/+8. Enter combat." Basically it comes down to wanting a solid, if less exciting card, or something with higher variance.

Lust for War is the only cut I think is "wrong" from a power perspective, everything else is mostly just personal preference.

How has Lust for War been playing for you, before the cut. I really want to test it out... maybe. hah

Quote from whydirt

Crusader has a better WCS since like you said a flash 2/2 flyer is never really a dead draw, but Commander has a crazy BCS is a fun toy for Johnny players to try and break. "Why yes, I will pop my Shrine for eight Myr tokens, giving my Commander and this spirit +8/+8. Enter combat." Basically it comes down to wanting a solid, if less exciting card, or something with higher variance.

Lust for War is the only cut I think is "wrong" from a power perspective, everything else is mostly just personal preference.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I think I generally tend towards lower variance, more consistently solid guys, but I can absolutely see the upside of Goldnight Commander. And I can totally buy what you guys are selling on Lust for War, I'll definitely be leaving it in. I've never actually played with the card, so I was a little unsure of its power level.

Quote from whydirt

Crusader has a better WCS since like you said a flash 2/2 flyer is never really a dead draw, but Commander has a crazy BCS is a fun toy for Johnny players to try and break. "Why yes, I will pop my Shrine for eight Myr tokens, giving my Commander and this spirit +8/+8. Enter combat." Basically it comes down to wanting a solid, if less exciting card, or something with higher variance.

Lust for War is the only cut I think is "wrong" from a power perspective, everything else is mostly just personal preference.

Enter combat first.

Update!

IN

• Spined Thopter
  
• Clone
  
• Demonic Tutor
  
• Blood Artist
  
• Goblin Bombardment
  
• Pillage
  
• Rubblebelt Maaka
  
• Pestilence
  
• Golgari Charm
  
• Pillory of the Sleepless

OUT

• Telekinesis
  
• Air Servant
  
• Dead Reveler
  
• Ultimate Price
  
• Chandra's Outrage
  
• Oxidda Scrapmelter
  
• Genju of the Spires
  
• Gift of Orzhova
  
• Putrefy
  
• Mortify

NOTES
Air Servant is okay, but rarely gets to use its activated ability. Swapping it for Clone wasn't a hard choice. Telekinesis is a cool card, but I wanted Spined Thopter for the hybrid section.

Pulled Demonic Tutor out of my EDH deck and want to put Blood Artist back in for extort/bleeder decks. Ultimate Price and Dead Reveler are fine role-players, but neither is mandatory. Pestilence comes in for Gift of Orzhova due to how colors balanced out after moving the Shrines and Crystal Shard from the colorless section to their "home" colors.

Goblin Bombardment comes in for synergy with tokens, blood artist, and threaten effects. Pillage is coming in for Scrapmelter just to give red at least one utility LD spell to kill manlands. It's never a dead card, which is cool. Genju is fine, but I want to test Maaka as a modal pump/hill giant.

Putrefy and Mortify are fine, but boring. I wanted some cards with more character. As a bit of trivia, Gerrard's Verdict is now my only classic frame gold card.

Let me know how pillory does.

All of these changes make sense to me. I have a somewhat irrational dislike for Pestilence, so it's not going anywhere near my cube, but I can see why you'd want it. I'd be interested to hear how Rubblebelt Maaka works out for you.

I just wanted another black sweeper. I might bring in Dakmor Plague, Infest, or Crypt Rats instead depending on how things go. I also need to track down a Chimeric Idol so that I have more cards that interact well with sweepers.

What would you drop if you did manage to pick up a Chimeric Idol? I'm adding one to my cube in the near future, but I'm still up in the air as to what to take out for it. My gut says Cathodion, since they're similar cost and size.

Probably one of Cathodian, Palladium Myr, or Chronomaton.

Also, I got my list up on Cube Tutor so now you can pretend you're my friend IRL and draft my cube! Here's the link: http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/251

I haven't seen a lot of lists running Sickle Ripper, how does the card play for you? I think I actually like it a bit more than Child of Night as a french vanilla 2/1 for 2.