The issue isn't really spot removal that's really strong in peasant, but in a way I have weakened spot removal a lot with token makers. Lots of small creatures.
Well, I am "printed in a modern legal set" peasant so a few of those cards I can't use. I actually recently weakened a lot of of my red token removal for more creatures. Rolling thunder and Smoldering Werewolf.
Well I played swiss pairings since I haven't seen all the decks, but I asked everyone what their first pick was.
The GR player complained they had no enchantment removal for my intangible virture even though there is some in green but those cards were sucked up by the GB and BW players. I mean he still managed to punch through me with a Ghor-clan rampager for 10 but it was already too late for him. The one red wrath pyroclasm was hate drafted by the mono-red player. Basically, whenever a "hate card" is in my draft it just tends to float around until late and end up in the "wrong" hands.
I need more ways to wrath or interact positively with tokens without destroying your own board in the process since all the decks are super creature/token based themselves and have those cards feel pickable when there are just so many good cards about.
My Guild slots are super tight there are a number of good options for flexible hate there but the casting restrictions makes them not as flexible as I'd like. I did at some point have Raging Swordtooth in my cube for example and the classic trigon predator
Does anyone have experience getting the right amount of hate and getting players to actually pick it when there are so many great cards going around?
I actually didn't know Marsh flitter existed until it came up when discussing the Sling-gang. Fallen angel's 5 mana 3/3 base is just too small for my liking.
Does anyone have experience getting the right amount of hate and getting players to actually pick it when there are so many great cards going around?
I only draft with 6+. Drafting less now since I've moved around a bit and etc, but I still get in around 15-20 drafts a year.
I don't know what you mean by "the right amount of hate." My cube doesn't have the restriction of modern-only or lower power or anything like that, but I don't have any problems with swarm-style decks, control decks etc. Swarm decks aren't as popular here, but they crop up every once in a while and there never has been any major problem with them.
Also, Guild slots are very subjective. What I consider a staple, others may not be running, and they may think I'm crazy for not choosing their favorites.
Is there any real payoff for playing an enchantment theme? The cube I'm building is not tier 1 by any means.
I've noticed that it would be really easy to add an enchantment theme just by playing cartouches and trials (which are all pretty decent and form a nice little theme themselves) alongside some Seals (Seal of Doom, Seal of Cleansing, Seal of Primordium, and Seal of Fire) and my favorite enchantment support card, Flickering Ward. Rancor for good measure, plus some good white enchantment based removal.
All the pieces are there, and it wouldn't really tax the environment, since a lot of these cards fill crucial roles. But is there any reason to use them? Satyr Enchanter exists, but beyond that, it looks like we're left with low quality stuff like Forgeborn Oreads and Blightcaster. Sure you can get going with Blightcaster + Flickering Ward, but I'm not just trying to set up two card combos. None of the support seems playable outside of the enchantment theme, which makes it parasitic, which is a problem.
Thanks for the card ideas, I'll look deeper into them. Most of my cards are already set but I've found a few that I'll shove in, like the 2 mana 0/5 that gains you a life every turn.
Is there any real payoff for playing an enchantment theme? The cube I'm building is not tier 1 by any means.
I've noticed that it would be really easy to add an enchantment theme just by playing cartouches and trials (which are all pretty decent and form a nice little theme themselves) alongside some Seals (Seal of Doom, Seal of Cleansing, Seal of Primordium, and Seal of Fire) and my favorite enchantment support card, Flickering Ward. Rancor for good measure, plus some good white enchantment based removal.
All the pieces are there, and it wouldn't really tax the environment, since a lot of these cards fill crucial roles. But is there any reason to use them? Satyr Enchanter exists, but beyond that, it looks like we're left with low quality stuff like Forgeborn Oreads and Blightcaster. Sure you can get going with Blightcaster + Flickering Ward, but I'm not just trying to set up two card combos. None of the support seems playable outside of the enchantment theme, which makes it parasitic, which is a problem.
As an aside, there are payoffs at rare if you're willing. Mesa Enchantress and Serra's Sanctum.
I do have Mesa Enchantress. It was actually printed at uncommon once, though that's not a huge thing for me. Serra's Sanctum is over $100, so that's right out. I'll never own a copy, and this is a super budget cube anyway.
Good call on those commons. I wish there were more cards that were 23rd playable without an enchantment theme, but it looks like Aura Gnarlid is about the best I can hope for. Eidolon of Blossoms is what I really need. It's the least parasitic one out there, but I don't have an extra.
there are some less obvious enchantment cards, like aerie worshippers and pheres-band raiders for example. but overall i think the archetype is too parasitic, especially the payoff cards.
there are some less obvious enchantment cards, like aerie worshippers and pheres-band raiders for example. but overall i think the archetype is too parasitic, especially the payoff cards.
Yeah, the substance is great, but the payoff is really bad. Such a shame. I don't think there's really a payoff card that's more playable outside the archetype than Aura Gnarlid, and that's basically Scathe Zombies. Even with rares, it gets super thin after Eidolon of Blossoms. That sucks. There are so many great enchantments that want support! I guess we should wait until Theros II.
Flickering Ward is just itching to do something. It's ten times better than Whip Silk, and that card has serious potential too.
The floor of being a bear is worse than it used to be, but Dreampod Druid.
I also believe Sphere of Safety to be an important key in these decks. Plus, white and blue of course has lots of enchantment based removal which can be used to up the enchantment count, and with sphere + ghostly prison + Propaganda you have your pillow fort.
I guess you have already realised that enablers isn't the problem, but Shadows over Innistrad gave some enchantments to sacrifice to power delirium. If green touches graveyard decks in your cube you could consider running Vessel of Nascency as your Mulch-effect. Original Ravnica also had ETB-auras like Galvanic Arc.
I also believe there was another dedicated thread to the theme created when Mesa Enchantress was first downgraded, so you could go digging through the archives (although with the whole EU data management user-wuipe thing there is a chance that it got lost).
I don't think something like enchantment tribal is parasitic. Pacifisms are already good, so you're not really going out of your way to draft parasitic cards by drafting as many Pacifisms as you can.
Sure, cards like Mesa Enchantress are parasitic, but not every card needs to be generic good stuff, some slots can be devoted to parasitic payoff cards.
Btw salt, just to add on to your previous post, cards like lightning helix and terminate are part of an ideological divide that we've had for years.
Some people recognize that they are going to put in the color appropriate decks 100% of the time and think that fits their criteria. Other people, like myself, want their gold cards to offer as much uniqueness as possible while subtracting as little raw power as possible.
Like, if I only get 2 or 3 slots, I wouldnt want to miss out on something really interesting because mortify or terminate exists.
The problem with a card like Mesa Enchantress is not that it's parasitic, it's that you need other parasitic cards to support it. How many enchantments in white does the typical cube have? My 420 cube has 11 (out of 66 total white cards). And that's by far the largest amount out of all colors. Now imagine that most of these enchantments are universally playable (and thus get drafted by almost anyone drafting white), what do you end up with if you draft an enchantment deck?
Mesa Enchantress is decent if you draw 2 cards from it and it's only good if you draw 3+ cards. How many enchantments do you need in your deck to do that (again, reliably)? That's not going to happen unless you deliberately add enchantment cards that aren't good enough outside of enchantment.dec.
I don't mind a few cards that are parasitic if they work well enough in a deck you can reasonably draft with cards that work in many different decks (such as Exhume, Favorable Winds or Radiant, Archangel), but Mesa Enchantress is certainly not one of them.
The problem with a card like Mesa Enchantress is not that it's parasitic, it's that you need other parasitic cards to support it. How many enchantments in white does the typical cube have? My 420 cube has 11 (out of 66 total white cards). And that's by far the largest amount out of all colors. Now imagine that most of these enchantments are universally playable (and thus get drafted by almost anyone drafting white), what do you end up with if you draft an enchantment deck?
Mesa Enchantress is decent if you draw 2 cards from it and it's only good if you draw 3+ cards. How many enchantments do you need in your deck to do that (again, reliably)? That's not going to happen unless you deliberately add enchantment cards that aren't good enough outside of enchantment.dec.
I don't mind a few cards that are parasitic if they work well enough in a deck you can reasonably draft with cards that work in many different decks (such as Exhume, Favorable Winds or Radiant, Archangel), but Mesa Enchantress is certainly not one of them.
Exhume and Radiant Archangel aren't parasitic cards, they're just good/decent cards in any deck with the potential to get nuts with specific cards.
Pacifisms and auras like Ethereal Armor or Hyena Umbra are always good. You can pile those into white and green and there you go.
Exhume and Radiant Archangel aren't parasitic cards, they're just good/decent cards in any deck with the potential to get nuts with specific cards.
Pacifisms and auras like Ethereal Armor or Hyena Umbra are always good. You can pile those into white and green and there you go.
Exhume is pretty much exclusively playable in ub reanimator and maybe somtimes in gb graveyard. In any other deck the chance that it does nothing or is even actively bad for you is far too high.
Radiant, Archangel is slightly less parasitic, but in Peasant it's simply not good enough outside of a dedicated uw skies deck. Serra Angel is mediocre at best in peasant so no one right in their mind would draft Radiant over other cards in a deck with just 4-5 other fliers unless he was absolutely desperate for card #23, which doesn't really happen very often in cube.
If you start to put in all kind of pacifisms effects over other, better removal spells and auras (that are parasitic on their own, like Ethereal Armor) in numbers that simply aren't needed for non-enchantment decks then you do exactly what I say. You add cards that are normally not good enough and that have no/hardly any place outside of the enchantment deck just to make that one parasitic card more playable.
Exhume and Radiant Archangel aren't parasitic cards, they're just good/decent cards in any deck with the potential to get nuts with specific cards.
Pacifisms and auras like Ethereal Armor or Hyena Umbra are always good. You can pile those into white and green and there you go.
Exhume is pretty much exclusively playable in ub reanimator and maybe somtimes in gb graveyard. In any other deck the chance that it does nothing or is even actively bad for you is far too high.
Radiant, Archangel is slightly less parasitic, but in Peasant it's simply not good enough outside of a dedicated uw skies deck. Serra Angel is mediocre at best in peasant so no one right in their mind would draft Radiant over other cards in a deck with just 4-5 other fliers unless he was absolutely desperate for card #23, which doesn't really happen very often in cube.
If you start to put in all kind of pacifisms effects over other, better removal spells and auras (that are parasitic on their own, like Ethereal Armor) in numbers that simply aren't needed for non-enchantment decks then you do exactly what I say. You add cards that are normally not good enough and that have no/hardly any place outside of the enchantment deck just to make that one parasitic card more playable.
Decent cards that get better with specific cards aren't parasitic.
Mesa Enchantress and something like Goblin Caves is parasitic. Their floor is that they're useless. The floor of a 5 mana 3/3 flier is that you paid an extra mana for Phantom Monster, that doesn't make the card unplayable. Exhume is still a decent card, you just can't play it when your opponent has something devastating in their graveyard. They probably won't.
How are pacifisms not good? Is this that Magic player thing where everything short of Swords to Plowshares is, "literally unplayable garbage I'd never draft your cube again, ugh"?
And Ethereal armor for +1/+1 or 2 seems fine. It's a decent card that gets better with synergies. I don't see the problem, that's just good cube design.
Cards that don't end up in any deck outside of the specific deck they are meant for are parasitic. Exhume is clearly such a card and Radiant, Archangel is also such a card, though to a slightly lesser degree as it at least has a small chance to end up in a random midrange and/or token deck as card #23.
You can only have so much removal. If you play cards that are worse just to make Mesa Enchantress work you already start to change your cube design just to make that one card work. And even if you do that replacing Swords and Path with Pacifism effects won't nearly be enough, you're bound to run a lot more enchantments than a typical cube would to make a card like Enchantress work.
Ethereal Armor without other enchantments is not good enough, not even close. The problem is not that it would be unplayable garbage if it ended up in a deck, the problem is that in a typical cube it simply would never end up in a deck because without proper support it's way worse than at least 23 other cards a drafter could pick from a typical cube draft.
This generally seems to be the problem with your approach. Of course you can lower your whole cube power level so much that Ethereal Armor on its own would be a very decent card that ends up in a deck, but I don't think that's what we talk about here. You can only have 23 nonland cards in your deck and you draft 45 cards, so the quality of a card is determined by the quality of the other cards in the cube.
If a card always ends up on spot #24+ when you build your deck it doesn't matter that it's not 'unplayable garbage'. All that matters is that it's useless in the context of that specific cube as it simply never gets played.
I ended up cutting almost all the cards I really wanted to try. Why do people play such tiny cubes? There's no room to play around! But since I'm moving on an airplane, I really do need to fit it into one small box. Otherwise, I don't see a reason not to go to something like 900 cards, and actually play the fun stuff. To get down to 425 I ended up cutting some of the most basic cards like Sea Gate Oracle, Fire Imp, and Snuff Out, not to mention the more interesting stuff I actually wanted to try.
The most experimental card I ended up trying is Spirit Cairn. I have a lot of discard outlets. Maybe that won't work out though. I should note that I have no interest in making this cube "tier 1".
Here's the cube. I'm going to test it soon. Feedback is appreciated.
What big mana creatures do people run in their cubes? Like 7 mana or greater? I run very few cheat cards, so I'm looking to see what people run. I just put worldspine wurm into my cube, seems exciting to fairly ramp to 11 mana and play some ****huge monster.
Cards that don't end up in any deck outside of the specific deck they are meant for are parasitic. Exhume is clearly such a card and Radiant, Archangel is also such a card, though to a slightly lesser degree as it at least has a small chance to end up in a random midrange and/or token deck as card #23.
You can only have so much removal. If you play cards that are worse just to make Mesa Enchantress work you already start to change your cube design just to make that one card work. And even if you do that replacing Swords and Path with Pacifism effects won't nearly be enough, you're bound to run a lot more enchantments than a typical cube would to make a card like Enchantress work.
Ethereal Armor without other enchantments is not good enough, not even close. The problem is not that it would be unplayable garbage if it ended up in a deck, the problem is that in a typical cube it simply would never end up in a deck because without proper support it's way worse than at least 23 other cards a drafter could pick from a typical cube draft.
This generally seems to be the problem with your approach. Of course you can lower your whole cube power level so much that Ethereal Armor on its own would be a very decent card that ends up in a deck, but I don't think that's what we talk about here. You can only have 23 nonland cards in your deck and you draft 45 cards, so the quality of a card is determined by the quality of the other cards in the cube.
If a card always ends up on spot #24+ when you build your deck it doesn't matter that it's not 'unplayable garbage'. All that matters is that it's useless in the context of that specific cube as it simply never gets played.
I was going to continue this discussion , but I won't ever convince you of my side of the argument and you probably won't convince me of your side. So instead of getting banned again for daring to have an opinion, I'll say this: It's your cube, if you're uncomfortable running fair exhume or fair ethereal armor or pacifisms, that's fine and you're allowed to build your cube in any way that you want.
I wanted to make some cheat targets available in every color, but most of mine are rares, since they don't make as many uncommon fatties. I'm playing Krosan Tusker, Archetype of Endurance and Breaker of Armies at uncommon, and I'm thinking about adding Ulamog's Crusher, since it's a pretty fair annihilator. I really like Artisan of Kozilek, but I don't have an extra one. I know that Pelakka Wurm and Plated Crusher are kinda considered standard big-mana cards.
For really REALLY big creatures, you have to use rares. I know you play rares anyway. Desolation Twin is nice and big, but unfortunately you don't get the twin unless you hardcast it. There are a lot of jank rares that cost seven or more mana. But most of them are really pretty bad. End-Raze Forerunners is cheap and ends the crap out of games.
I find blue to be the best color for fatties outside of green. From my main cube, Phyrexian Ingester, Goliath Sphinx, Colossal Whale, Diluvian Primordial and Stormtide Leviathan are all good and fair cards in blue. Inkwell Leviathan is not as fair. White has the fewest options. Red has some big, dumb dragons, and black has some big, clever demons, but they don't have nearly as many good budget options as blue or green. That sucks because black is the best reanimate color, and red is a great color to support reanimator. Metalwork Colossus and Sphinx of the Guildpact are nice colorless ones. I haven't tried Meteor Golem, but it looks good to me. Sundering Titan is the real deal, but it's a little less fair. I think everything I've suggested is pretty cheap.
I end up modifying my reanimator suite for ETB value over size (because there is so much point and click removal) especially in UB just repeatedly reanimate Mulldrifters and shriekmaws and dinrova horror
Phitt's definition of parasitic makes sense to me. If something is unplayable outside of the normal aggro-to-control schemes, that's parasitic.
By that definition, I think it's not fun at all to build a cube without parasitic cards. Parasitic cards are harder to evaluate, since you'll have to take into consideration what synergies you have and are hoping to pick up later in the draft, more so with cards that are just good regardless. I don't want my drafts turning into 'pick the best cards and win'.
EDIT: I dislike the term 'parasitic' for these cards. Can we call them 'archetype cards' or 'archetype-specific cards'. Parasitic is a word used to discribe things like the Energy mechanic from Kaladesh, not for individual cards.
Well, I am "printed in a modern legal set" peasant so a few of those cards I can't use. I actually recently weakened a lot of of my red token removal for more creatures. Rolling thunder and Smoldering Werewolf.
Well I played swiss pairings since I haven't seen all the decks, but I asked everyone what their first pick was.
First picks: seating order going left
Me (GW): Lightning bolt
Almost Mono red: rakdos Cackler
UW flyers: Mulldrifter
GB: Dread return
BW: Crystal Shard
GR: Mowu, loyal companion
UR: Crainial plating
UB: Fatal Push
The GR player complained they had no enchantment removal for my intangible virture even though there is some in green but those cards were sucked up by the GB and BW players. I mean he still managed to punch through me with a Ghor-clan rampager for 10 but it was already too late for him. The one red wrath pyroclasm was hate drafted by the mono-red player. Basically, whenever a "hate card" is in my draft it just tends to float around until late and end up in the "wrong" hands.
I am thinking of adding Mask of Immolation for more mortarpods and I guess Flame sweep although red doesn't have a lot of flyers.
I need more ways to wrath or interact positively with tokens without destroying your own board in the process since all the decks are super creature/token based themselves and have those cards feel pickable when there are just so many good cards about.
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
Peasant cube: Cards I own
By the way I love your black sac theme section. Carrion Feeder, Bloodthrone Vampire, Nantuko Husk, Sling-Gang Lieutenant, and Virtuous Aven. I have very similar. I love that deck when it comes together. Any reason why the omission of Marsh Flitter and Fallen Angel? Just curious.
I did a gatherer search and I found some good options
Savage Alliance
Dagger Caster
Firespout
put Smoldering werewolf back in
Artifacts and enchantments
Thrashing Brontodon well this is facepalming obvious (I still had Qasali Pridemage when this was first printed)
Wickerbough Elder
Sprouting Renewal
Whispmare
Does anyone have experience getting the right amount of hate and getting players to actually pick it when there are so many great cards going around?
I actually didn't know Marsh flitter existed until it came up when discussing the Sling-gang. Fallen angel's 5 mana 3/3 base is just too small for my liking.
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
Peasant cube: Cards I own
I don't know what you mean by "the right amount of hate." My cube doesn't have the restriction of modern-only or lower power or anything like that, but I don't have any problems with swarm-style decks, control decks etc. Swarm decks aren't as popular here, but they crop up every once in a while and there never has been any major problem with them. I feel it. I just like the idea of a 3/3 flier swinging into a Jetting Glasskite, and after no blocks, no pump. The threat of activation is real.
What are some cards like Lightning Helix and Control Magic that are kind of "vanilla" staple uncommons?
Ignoring what Magic players say isn't the answer, it's listening to what they have to say and doing the exact opposite that's correct.
Here's a quick list of some I'd consider staples:
Cloudgoat Ranger
Ghostly Prison
Mother of Runes
Swords to Plowshares
Control Magic
Whirler Rogue
Blood Artist
Cast Down
Go for the Throat
Shriekmaw
Vampire Nighthawk
Guttersnipe
Young Pyromancer
Flametongue Kavu
Abrade
Eternal Witness
Rigdescale Tusker
Pelakka Wurm
Lingering Souls
Tri-lands
I'd put some others that I consider staples, but apparently they aren't played by everyone for power reasons.
Also, Guild slots are very subjective. What I consider a staple, others may not be running, and they may think I'm crazy for not choosing their favorites.
2023 Average Peasant Cube|and Discussion
Because I have more decks than fit in a signature
Useful Resources:
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EDHREC
ManabaseCrafter
I've noticed that it would be really easy to add an enchantment theme just by playing cartouches and trials (which are all pretty decent and form a nice little theme themselves) alongside some Seals (Seal of Doom, Seal of Cleansing, Seal of Primordium, and Seal of Fire) and my favorite enchantment support card, Flickering Ward. Rancor for good measure, plus some good white enchantment based removal.
All the pieces are there, and it wouldn't really tax the environment, since a lot of these cards fill crucial roles. But is there any reason to use them? Satyr Enchanter exists, but beyond that, it looks like we're left with low quality stuff like Forgeborn Oreads and Blightcaster. Sure you can get going with Blightcaster + Flickering Ward, but I'm not just trying to set up two card combos. None of the support seems playable outside of the enchantment theme, which makes it parasitic, which is a problem.
Low-power cube enthusiast!
My 1570 card cube (no longer updated)
My 415 Peasant+ Artifact and Enchantment Cube
Ever-Expanding "Just throw it in" cube.
Yavimaya Enchantress
Aura Gnarlid
Ethereal Armor
Heliod's Pilgrim
There is also a 5 mana 2/5 version of Heliod's Pilgrim, forgot what it's called.
As an aside, there are payoffs at rare if you're willing. Mesa Enchantress and Serra's Sanctum.
I made all of white's removal enchantment based in my cube.
Ignoring what Magic players say isn't the answer, it's listening to what they have to say and doing the exact opposite that's correct.
I do have Mesa Enchantress. It was actually printed at uncommon once, though that's not a huge thing for me. Serra's Sanctum is over $100, so that's right out. I'll never own a copy, and this is a super budget cube anyway.
Good call on those commons. I wish there were more cards that were 23rd playable without an enchantment theme, but it looks like Aura Gnarlid is about the best I can hope for. Eidolon of Blossoms is what I really need. It's the least parasitic one out there, but I don't have an extra.
Low-power cube enthusiast!
My 1570 card cube (no longer updated)
My 415 Peasant+ Artifact and Enchantment Cube
Ever-Expanding "Just throw it in" cube.
Flickering Ward is just itching to do something. It's ten times better than Whip Silk, and that card has serious potential too.
Low-power cube enthusiast!
My 1570 card cube (no longer updated)
My 415 Peasant+ Artifact and Enchantment Cube
Ever-Expanding "Just throw it in" cube.
I also believe Sphere of Safety to be an important key in these decks. Plus, white and blue of course has lots of enchantment based removal which can be used to up the enchantment count, and with sphere + ghostly prison + Propaganda you have your pillow fort.
I guess you have already realised that enablers isn't the problem, but Shadows over Innistrad gave some enchantments to sacrifice to power delirium. If green touches graveyard decks in your cube you could consider running Vessel of Nascency as your Mulch-effect. Original Ravnica also had ETB-auras like Galvanic Arc.
Have a look at the archetype-thread, in case I left something out.
I also believe there was another dedicated thread to the theme created when Mesa Enchantress was first downgraded, so you could go digging through the archives (although with the whole EU data management user-wuipe thing there is a chance that it got lost).
Cubetutor Peasant'ish-Funbox
Project: Khans of Tarkir Cube (cubetutor)
Sure, cards like Mesa Enchantress are parasitic, but not every card needs to be generic good stuff, some slots can be devoted to parasitic payoff cards.
Ignoring what Magic players say isn't the answer, it's listening to what they have to say and doing the exact opposite that's correct.
Some people recognize that they are going to put in the color appropriate decks 100% of the time and think that fits their criteria. Other people, like myself, want their gold cards to offer as much uniqueness as possible while subtracting as little raw power as possible.
Like, if I only get 2 or 3 slots, I wouldnt want to miss out on something really interesting because mortify or terminate exists.
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
Mesa Enchantress is decent if you draw 2 cards from it and it's only good if you draw 3+ cards. How many enchantments do you need in your deck to do that (again, reliably)? That's not going to happen unless you deliberately add enchantment cards that aren't good enough outside of enchantment.dec.
I don't mind a few cards that are parasitic if they work well enough in a deck you can reasonably draft with cards that work in many different decks (such as Exhume, Favorable Winds or Radiant, Archangel), but Mesa Enchantress is certainly not one of them.
My Old School Battlebox
My Premodern Battlebox
Exhume and Radiant Archangel aren't parasitic cards, they're just good/decent cards in any deck with the potential to get nuts with specific cards.
Pacifisms and auras like Ethereal Armor or Hyena Umbra are always good. You can pile those into white and green and there you go.
Ignoring what Magic players say isn't the answer, it's listening to what they have to say and doing the exact opposite that's correct.
Exhume is pretty much exclusively playable in ub reanimator and maybe somtimes in gb graveyard. In any other deck the chance that it does nothing or is even actively bad for you is far too high.
Radiant, Archangel is slightly less parasitic, but in Peasant it's simply not good enough outside of a dedicated uw skies deck. Serra Angel is mediocre at best in peasant so no one right in their mind would draft Radiant over other cards in a deck with just 4-5 other fliers unless he was absolutely desperate for card #23, which doesn't really happen very often in cube.
If you start to put in all kind of pacifisms effects over other, better removal spells and auras (that are parasitic on their own, like Ethereal Armor) in numbers that simply aren't needed for non-enchantment decks then you do exactly what I say. You add cards that are normally not good enough and that have no/hardly any place outside of the enchantment deck just to make that one parasitic card more playable.
My Old School Battlebox
My Premodern Battlebox
Decent cards that get better with specific cards aren't parasitic.
Mesa Enchantress and something like Goblin Caves is parasitic. Their floor is that they're useless. The floor of a 5 mana 3/3 flier is that you paid an extra mana for Phantom Monster, that doesn't make the card unplayable. Exhume is still a decent card, you just can't play it when your opponent has something devastating in their graveyard. They probably won't.
How are pacifisms not good? Is this that Magic player thing where everything short of Swords to Plowshares is, "literally unplayable garbage I'd never draft your cube again, ugh"?
And Ethereal armor for +1/+1 or 2 seems fine. It's a decent card that gets better with synergies. I don't see the problem, that's just good cube design.
Ignoring what Magic players say isn't the answer, it's listening to what they have to say and doing the exact opposite that's correct.
You can only have so much removal. If you play cards that are worse just to make Mesa Enchantress work you already start to change your cube design just to make that one card work. And even if you do that replacing Swords and Path with Pacifism effects won't nearly be enough, you're bound to run a lot more enchantments than a typical cube would to make a card like Enchantress work.
Ethereal Armor without other enchantments is not good enough, not even close. The problem is not that it would be unplayable garbage if it ended up in a deck, the problem is that in a typical cube it simply would never end up in a deck because without proper support it's way worse than at least 23 other cards a drafter could pick from a typical cube draft.
This generally seems to be the problem with your approach. Of course you can lower your whole cube power level so much that Ethereal Armor on its own would be a very decent card that ends up in a deck, but I don't think that's what we talk about here. You can only have 23 nonland cards in your deck and you draft 45 cards, so the quality of a card is determined by the quality of the other cards in the cube.
If a card always ends up on spot #24+ when you build your deck it doesn't matter that it's not 'unplayable garbage'. All that matters is that it's useless in the context of that specific cube as it simply never gets played.
My Old School Battlebox
My Premodern Battlebox
I ended up cutting almost all the cards I really wanted to try. Why do people play such tiny cubes? There's no room to play around! But since I'm moving on an airplane, I really do need to fit it into one small box. Otherwise, I don't see a reason not to go to something like 900 cards, and actually play the fun stuff. To get down to 425 I ended up cutting some of the most basic cards like Sea Gate Oracle, Fire Imp, and Snuff Out, not to mention the more interesting stuff I actually wanted to try.
I did end up keeping a high enchantment count (not hard to do) and including a few enchantment matters cards: Ajani's Chosen and Eidolon of Blossoms (I found an extra copy!) Without rares, there would have been no point. Enchantress's Presence and Doomwake Giant are cards I have my eye on. Mesa Enchantress didn't make it.
The most experimental card I ended up trying is Spirit Cairn. I have a lot of discard outlets. Maybe that won't work out though. I should note that I have no interest in making this cube "tier 1".
Here's the cube. I'm going to test it soon. Feedback is appreciated.
Low-power cube enthusiast!
My 1570 card cube (no longer updated)
My 415 Peasant+ Artifact and Enchantment Cube
Ever-Expanding "Just throw it in" cube.
I was going to continue this discussion , but I won't ever convince you of my side of the argument and you probably won't convince me of your side. So instead of getting banned again for daring to have an opinion, I'll say this: It's your cube, if you're uncomfortable running fair exhume or fair ethereal armor or pacifisms, that's fine and you're allowed to build your cube in any way that you want.
Ignoring what Magic players say isn't the answer, it's listening to what they have to say and doing the exact opposite that's correct.
Thorn Elemental and Slinn Voda, the Rising Deep also come to mind as uncommon options.
For really REALLY big creatures, you have to use rares. I know you play rares anyway. Desolation Twin is nice and big, but unfortunately you don't get the twin unless you hardcast it. There are a lot of jank rares that cost seven or more mana. But most of them are really pretty bad. End-Raze Forerunners is cheap and ends the crap out of games.
I find blue to be the best color for fatties outside of green. From my main cube, Phyrexian Ingester, Goliath Sphinx, Colossal Whale, Diluvian Primordial and Stormtide Leviathan are all good and fair cards in blue. Inkwell Leviathan is not as fair. White has the fewest options. Red has some big, dumb dragons, and black has some big, clever demons, but they don't have nearly as many good budget options as blue or green. That sucks because black is the best reanimate color, and red is a great color to support reanimator. Metalwork Colossus and Sphinx of the Guildpact are nice colorless ones. I haven't tried Meteor Golem, but it looks good to me. Sundering Titan is the real deal, but it's a little less fair. I think everything I've suggested is pretty cheap.
Low-power cube enthusiast!
My 1570 card cube (no longer updated)
My 415 Peasant+ Artifact and Enchantment Cube
Ever-Expanding "Just throw it in" cube.
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
Peasant cube: Cards I own
You seriously need to reassess the reason why you got banned.
Phitt's definition of parasitic makes sense to me. If something is unplayable outside of the normal aggro-to-control schemes, that's parasitic.
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
By that definition, I think it's not fun at all to build a cube without parasitic cards. Parasitic cards are harder to evaluate, since you'll have to take into consideration what synergies you have and are hoping to pick up later in the draft, more so with cards that are just good regardless. I don't want my drafts turning into 'pick the best cards and win'.
EDIT: I dislike the term 'parasitic' for these cards. Can we call them 'archetype cards' or 'archetype-specific cards'. Parasitic is a word used to discribe things like the Energy mechanic from Kaladesh, not for individual cards.