MTG Salvation

i run war falcon over savannah lions by now and is imo the best aggressive onedrop. he blocks alone just fine btw.
the overall amount of soldiers is less relevant than the curve you plan to play. so a critical amount of 1 and 2 drop soldiers/knights works best.

same with titania. if you run all the maneelves, the priest should reliably tap for GG, which is a thing.

Martys Soul kinda has the problem that its power is offset when you need to tap 3 creatures, so its a tempoloss in the race. its also tough to play it on curve. I really like it with raise the alarm though.

Wildfire Elemental needs enablers, outside of spells, so it doesnt fit every red. you also want swarm.

Ruthless Invasion may not look very impressive on paper, so its overlooked

Lifecraft Cavalry - F. Boar seems just better at cmc4

Woodreaders are just great, so idk. maybe ppl want more fat.

of the 3 4drops, you need to decide what you want. aggro or value. I run boar and shaman as a split.

Dreamtail Heron was the only blue card i added from those sets.

Hi, I've been a long time lurker and post very rarely. I wanted to reintroduce myself and say that I finally updated my pauper cube except for Zendikar Rising (which might be 0 cards anyway).

I put my cube in my signature.
The archetypes are token swarm, token sacrifice, burn, ramp stompy, aggro, control, and a minor +1/+1 counter theme.

I haven't been able to draft it in years, so it's hard to get feedback.
To rectify this I made many many updates while constantly comparing it to the cubes of the most active members in this thread and the mtgo pauper cube.

In my mind my cube kind of straddles the line between spikey and archetype johnnyness.

although i like that you run 560 cards because it makes drafts more interesting, its impossible to evaluate the cube from a sheer overview.
its hard on 360 already.

traps in bigger cube can always be creature/spell ration and underdeveloped archetypes, because an unlucky shuffle can produce horrible packs.

Quote from Hourof »

Hi, I've been a long time lurker and post very rarely. I wanted to reintroduce myself and say that I finally updated my pauper cube except for Zendikar Rising (which might be 0 cards anyway).

I put my cube in my signature.
The archetypes are token swarm, token sacrifice, burn, ramp stompy, aggro, control, and a minor +1/+1 counter theme.

I haven't been able to draft it in years, so it's hard to get feedback.
To rectify this I made many many updates while constantly comparing it to the cubes of the most active members in this thread and the mtgo pauper cube.

In my mind my cube kind of straddles the line between spikey and archetype johnnyness.

Hello,
Zendikar Rising has a few decent cards, it's just that the party mechanic is a solid pass for us which rules out a lot of the set.

Akoum Hellhound is the most obviously good playable, considering people have been playing Steppe Lynx and this is essentially just that except red.
Bubble Snare, 1 mana to shut down a creature is quite good. The kicked version is overcosted, but regardless is playable removal. Although really it's the cheapness that makes this fine since you can disable a creature and hold countermagic.
Roil Eruption is better than Volcanic Hammer. The only real downside is with aggro you don't ever expect to make it to make it to 7 mana. It's about on par with Searing Spear for slower durdlier decks, which is to say quite good.

Makindi Ox is boarderline playable. Mostly because there is very little competition for 5 mana white creatures. In saying that it does get pushed out by more tuned aggro.
Likewise for Shepherd of Heroes. If warriors, wizards and rouges were more prevalent then this would certainly see play. Close, but not that close, mostly because sketchiness of party more than anything else.

I had a look through your cube. It seems to be filled with a lot of borderline cards, which make it difficult to get focused decks because the second half of the packs will be full of the undesirables. Consider trimming size or just systematically going through the Everything reviewed and try swapping out cards for the cubeables there.
Winston draft and sealed pools can be a great way to get a couple of games here and there when you're having difficulty rounding up players for a pod. Cards which are underperforming can become apparent from playing a few games even without doing a full draft. You do need to cut some slack for strategies which require a critical mass of some effect in order to be playable. But unless you know something is meant to play a specific roll, if a can isn't pulling its weight in a couple of games then it probably has to go.

Thank you so much for looking through my cube and for the feedback!!
I am considering bubble snare and roil eruption, but I'm waiting for downshifts in commander legends to upgrade because my packs are all sealed up in cubamajigs haha!

I made it extremely close to the pauper cube list on MTGO that Caleb Gannon has a lot of videos of him drafting on youtube. Seemed a lot of fun on there even with suboptimal includes which is why I wanted to emulate the MTGO list.

The other reason why it's so big is that I wanted a lot of unplayable commons to see the light of day, and at the end of the day it would be impossible for me to cut down to a 360 list.

The only arbitrary rule i've imposed on it is only including New border cards which I neglected to mention in the OP.

Thanks again for the review!

The arbitary "new bordered cards only" rule helps to include a lot of commons that might not be optimal but can still be fun and synergistic.

I'm considering putting Gnarlid Colony and Hagra Constrictor in my list as well for +1/+1 counter and persist card synergy.

heh, as much as i like matching borders only, id probably go for old border only then ;D

there are way more weird cards in the old sets that never saw any play and they look so much better..

new frame cards were already designed with drafting in mind, so you more or less end up with a wotc like environment.

I was looking through a couple of pauper cubes on Cube Cobra and I came across these cards: Fade Away, Brindle Shoat, Ramosian Rally, Aven Fogbringer, and Predatory Nightstalker, some of them I'd never seen before. I especially like the look of Fade Away.

Fade Away is cubeable, but obviously a high variance card.

Do people still run the Ravnica Karoo lands (Azorius Chancery etc)? I think the turn 2 play is important for a lot of decks so I've been tending to cut them. Their effect is still really strong, but I feel having all 10 in cube is a bit over kill.

Quote from Reinventing the Wheel »

Do people still run the Ravnica Karoo lands (Azorius Chancery etc)? I think the turn 2 play is important for a lot of decks so I've been tending to cut them. Their effect is still really strong, but I feel having all 10 in cube is a bit over kill.

They do give you the exact same tempo disadvantage as any other tapped land, except, that you and up with an additional card in your hand. Cutting fixing because of 2 drops is not a good reason. It's not like you usually play 10 tapped lands in a deck.

cutting duals (which all etbT) is not a good idea unless you want to enforce monodecks (why). And the Karoos are by far the best, good players run offcolors even. Ill never cut them.
let the players decide if they want to play a 2 drop or fix their mana.

the cards up there are known and were run by this community (especially nightstalker)
I obv ignore it and the pig, because theyre online only commons.
Fade Away indeed seems kinda interesting, but it gives the opponent the choice, so he will most likely sac lands and just kill you.

I think I'll keep all Ravinca Karoos in for the meantime.

Magic Online commons are officially categorised as commons, though it is weird to play them since some of them never have received paper printings at common. I haven't included them so far, but I'm considering them now for the next order of cards.

The guildgates are already fine cards and the ravnica karoos are effectively that +1 land in your hand. For any borderline playable spell in cube people would realize how incredible they would become if you added 'draw a land from your deck' to their text box, but for some reason people keep missing the fact that the karoos do exactly that and they think they're less great than they are.

Those kinds of cards are where you'll see the difference between a fine limited player and a great one. The latter will not only pick them highly but also put them in the deck when they're only half on color, as Humphrey said. That is with the exception of super aggressive decks with tons of 1 and 2 drop creatures, but that should go without saying.

With new mulitoclor cards coming in Strixhaven I was just looking at my existing multicolor section and possible alternatives and I got stuck when thinking about Orcish Lumberjack, which always seemed to me, like it might have potential. I don't think it's magical christmas land, when you evaluate a onedrop on having it on turn 1, so what then.
When you play it turn 1 and follow up with a forest you have access to 5 mana, if you are willing to maybe get 2 for 1ed. The question is, how broken is a 5 drop on turn 2 and is it worth it to sac your 2nd land for it? I don't have that many 5 drops in RG, but Entourage of Trest feels kind of unbeatable on turn 2 and Silverback Shaman can make up for the card disadvantage, if it gets killed. I'm normally not a fan of saccing lands early in the game, but this is no Rogue Elephant, that gets bolted in the blink of an eye. I'm talking about being ahead 3 turns worth of mana on turn 2. Any thouhgts on the Lumberjack?

Edit: If you go all in, any consecutive forest means, that you get access to 5 mana again.

i tried to make lumberjack working a hundred times over the years (since iceage) and i always failed to do so. unlike rogue elephant who works on its own, you now need to spend 2 cards and a turn to get your early threat (forest and lumber) that dies as easily to doomblade and co.

Maybe when we get some good ward creatures (mostly because ward is less restrictive than hexproof) will Orcish Lumberjack be good. Ramp targets just aren't that good at common since everything can be answered for little mana and setting yourself back a land will cost more in the long run. Orcish Lumberjack has never been good for me when I've tried it out.

Thanks for the responses. I guess it simply has too much variance and unless you ramp into hexproof/shroud guys with it's simply not good enough.

I've been impressed by Garenbrig Paladin. "Can't be blocked by creatures power 2 or less" basically reads unblockable in most match ups. Adamant is easily playable off an Elvish Mystic. I put it in because it was strong in Eldraine limited and it still is good here. Sure, Garenbri Paladin can get answered like most threats, but the point is it has to get answered because it is going to race really well.

paladin seems nice, thanks for recommending. i dont have any slots for mv5 creatures though.
i think if you really want big green to be a thing you could cut all doomblades from the cube and replace them with weaker stuff like Last Gasp and Nameless Inversion while not losing too much powerlevel.

Bit late to the discussion, but ramp is generally very weak in Pauper due to the lack of classic payoffs, which are cards that affect the board in a massive way and gve you an insurmountable advantage. If you look at other formats such as regular cube or constructed those payoffs are never just big creatures, they are usually planeswalkers or powerful non-creature spells with the exceprion of green which gets some creatures that have enough abilities printed on them to make it worth ramping into them.

In Pauper we get close to zero expensive cards that are worth giving up card advantage early in the game (by playing less spells in your deck and by drawing expensive stuff before you can cast it) to ramp them out ahead of time. The only real payoffs we have are the buyback spells, the few Hexproof creatures and maybe a few more.

That said, I think the big dude cyclers are a pretty decent ramp payoff as well, simply because they're never dead in the early game. I still play one in each color and 2 or 3 in green. In a topdeck war those creatures will most likely win you the game and you stil get value from them early on.

tl;dr: We're a format where Signets and mana Elves can go last pick sometimes, I don't think this is a format where Lumberjack is great. It's funny how context-dependent ramp is considering the aforementioned cards are first-pickable in vintage cube. At the same time we first pick stuff that would never even make vintage cube to begin with,

but signets are op!!11. thats why styrboski doesnt run them!

we are goin in circles over the topic, but early ramp like manaleves can get you a tempoadvantage into 3 and 4 drops, which can be valuable. i dont recommend mv6 stuff anywhere.

I think ramp is mostly UG. Nowadays we nearly have an overabundance of good card draw spells in blue (e.g. Mulldrifter, Behold the Multiverse, Hieroglyphic Illumination, Rain of Revelation, Compulsive Research, Winged Words, Treasure Cruise), which is why I still really like my Signets in UX control decks. There is also of course Capsize and all the monarch stuff and if you want to go real deep into ramp, Whispers of the Muse isn't unplayable.

There are also some good cards in black, like First-Sphere Gargantua, Twisted Abomination, Death Denied, Disturbed Burial and cards like Font of Return and Grim Harvest give you more options to fuel mana into.

I think it's possible to support ramp in pauper, but it's different from ramp in other cubes, since there aren't really any cards that just need a lot of mana and then win the game on the spot. It's mostly about being able to play all the cards you draw/return in blue or black, so you don't die with 7 cards in hand.

Like Humphrey said the 1 mana ramp is mostly a boost for the early turns, which is useful, even for aggro and midrange. A turn 1 elf into a turn 2 Hungry Spriggan into a turn 3 Trumpeting Herd is pretty annoying to deal with. The idea of the Lumberjack wasn't really to ramp out something big, but simply to cheat on mana during the early turns to enable something stupid, but card advantage is crucial in pauper and unless your ramped play has hexproof or shroud it doesn't really make much sense.

while its true there is lots of draw, my cube doesnt give you the time to durdle around and waste a turn doing nothing. Thats why I pretty much only run Cruise, Gush and Drifter.
the only slower draw i consider worthwhile is Rush of Knowledge, which in the right deck is a draw7 in pauper and wins the game more or less on the spot.
Whispers seem somewhat playable, since they just cycle if in need. Capsize is completely unplayable these days, since you need 12! frkn mana before it ever really does something. It certainly beomes worse and worse over time, because even commons now need or have etb effects.

I added signet very late to my cube and what they basically did was 5 drops to become playable. Before the curve more or less ended at 4 with Blastoderm.

What are the thoughts on the Flicker Combo, aka Archaeomancer and alike + Displace/Ghostly Flicker/Ephemerate?

It's quite viable in constructed Pauper and really fun if you manage to assemble it. The problems are:
-There aren't that many great etb-effects for Displace/Ghostly Flicker, especially white is lacking. The good etb-effects are mostly in blue/black.
-We probably have way more spot removal on average to fizzle the combo compared to constructed.

On the other hand:
+Ephemerate doesn't rely on etb-effects but simply returns an unlimited amount of instants/Sorceries, but then again White doesn't really have the premium cards in that department.
+If you bring Peregrine Drake into the Displace/Ghostly Flicker mix you can actually assmble infinite mana.