I drafted my cube for the first time in a very long time, and one specific piece of feedback was that drafters wanted more two-color gold cards to pull them into guilds. I do love a good gold card, but I'm wondering if there's a risk of having too many?
I'm currently looking at cutting 3 cards from each color plus 5 colorless cards to add two more cards to each guild for our next draft. My current guild card density is 9 dual lands, talisman & signet, and 5 other cards.
I'm currently thinking of making the following cuts:
White: Serra Paragon; Space Marine Devastator; Maul of the Skyclaves
Blue: Man-o'-War; Phyrexian Metamorph; Thassa, Deep-Dwelling
Black: Triarch Praetorian; Liliana, Heretical Healer; The Meathook Massacre
Red: Rabbit Battery; Pia and Kiran Nalaar; Rolling Earthquake
Green: Biophagus; Bala Ged Recovery; Oath of Nissa
Colorless: Metallic Mimic; Standard Procedure; Sword of Sinew and Steel; Sword of Truth and Justice; Mindslaver
And then likely making the following additions/changes:
WU: Geist of Saint Traft; Soulherder; Faramir, Prince of Ithilien (cutting Twining Twins, which was unpopular)
UB: Ertai Resurrected; Hostage Taker
BR: Rakdos Cackler; Fire Covenant
RG: Radha, Heart of Keld; Halana and Alena, Partners
GW: Voice of Resurgence; Ajani, the Greathearted (or Shalai, Voice of Plenty)
WB: Tidehollow Sculler; Vanishing Verse
UR: Prismari Command; Zoanthrope (not convinced, but it's an excuse to test)
BG: Deathrite Shaman; Life//Death
RW: Merry, Esquire of Rohan; Eomer, King of Rohan
GU: Hydroid Krasis; Mystic Snake
If Fire Bowman didn't have to sacrifice itself to deal the 1 damage, I'd definitely consider it, but I was on the fence due to that. It may still be good enough, though! Definitely worth consideration.
While I've enjoyed adding some Universes Beyond cards to my primary cube, I wondered if, with the release of the Fallout set, there were enough cards to build a 360-card Universes Beyond cube. For the purposes of this cube, anything that has a printing that isn't Magic IP is fine - the Godzilla series and Dracula series cards aren't part of the Universes Beyond brand, but they're allowed. There's also a minor bend to allow Portal Three Kingdoms in, specifically for Fire Ambush, as burn spells are far and few between.
Cube Size: 360 Breakdown: 42 each color, 10 each guild, 50 colorless Theme: Universes Beyond! Powered: No Sets Allowed: 40K, BOT, CLU, IKO (Godzilla Series), LTC, LTR, PIP, PTK (for now), REX, VOW (Dracula Series), WHO, assorted UB-branded SLD products, the Godzilla Series Hangarback Walker promo
Since it looks like others have mostly migrated to providing links to CubeCobra, I'll do that instead of listing the contents here in a spoiler. I'd love any constructive feedback! The hope is to have this improve over time - some slots have very slim pickings, while others have too many choices (there are a lot of multicolored cards in UB!). Green currently feels the closest to a normal color, since there are a fair number of mana elves available via LTC. No other colors really have access to 1-drops.
There are also some minor bends in color classification due to the high quantity of multicolor cards - cards that are monocolored with hybrid activation costs are classified as monocolored, regardless of the colors of activation. This applies to Frodo, Sauron's Bane and Tasigur, the Golden Fang. There's some inconsistency here with some other guild cards, which will be revisited if it becomes problematic.
I'm not sure this card is good enough, but it enables both token strategies and is good if you have cards that care about counters too. The base stats do just die to a Shock, but that also means that you're probably going to have a good chance of multiple evolve triggers, and the tokens will make more tokens too.
I'm not sure about the risk of it not surviving the initial turn cycle, but the go-wide potential seems really cool. At the very least, I'd love to get an Elk Mutant into the cube, even if just for a little bit.
EDIT: After a little more thought, there's a good chance that this will either do nothing or be win-more depending on the board state.
I don’t feel like rad counters are that much of an issue, even without the reminder text. It feels like it’s about as complex as the monarch (a little more complex, but goes away or can just end the game with this card). It’s definitely less complex than initiative/the ring tempts you/daybound.
That said, I dislike that they’re called rad counters but that the reminder card says “radiation”.
I don't get this at all. The card is cool, and I'm interested to see how it does in Constructed, but I have no interest in this for cube even though I run an unusually high number of lands.
I run 4 4-drops in red, and there are plenty of others that I'd add before this.
I'm not sure how good it will be, but I don't think the comparison to Deeproot Wayfinder holds up. Wayfinder has to connect to get any value, while this only has to attack. If there's a sizeable creature card exiled by it, choosing to block this can also be very difficult, especially if you have multiple options.
I don't think it's a top-tier card, but it looks like a fun value engine. Cracking Clues during combat on my own turn feels like really awkward timing, though.
I still run both Evolving Wilds and Terramorphic Expanse. I'm looking forward to adding this on top of them, because I also run some other fixing lands and I'm pretty confident Shimmerdrift Vale is worse than both (no Snow synergy in the cube).
I'm torn on this - the attack trigger is definitely interesting, and I agree it compares acceptably to Growth Spiral since it also "draws" Kellan. The main issue is if it's good enough to be a top 5 Simic. Uro and Oko won't be unseated, and I think I like Edric and Goose Mother more. This is pretty sweet if you can get it into the same deck as the Goose Mother, though. Maybe it's worth removing Sail into the West, but that's encroaching on the Wheels deck.
I run 9 sets of duals, and am considering adding a couple of them, but not all of them. I definitely rate it below ABUR/fetch/shock/Horizon lands and most manlands, and pathways/painlands for entering untapped, but am going to probably play:
Meticulous Archive over Irrigated Farmland (or maybe Seachrome Coast)
Undercity Sewers over Fetid Pools (or maybe Darkslick Shores)
Commercial District over Rockfall Vale
I think all the other lands I'm running are better on average for their respective guilds.
I do think these are probably better if you're playing multiple sets of fetchlands, but I don't do that so am not confident in how much better they are.
I'm currently looking at cutting 3 cards from each color plus 5 colorless cards to add two more cards to each guild for our next draft. My current guild card density is 9 dual lands, talisman & signet, and 5 other cards.
I'm currently thinking of making the following cuts:
White: Serra Paragon; Space Marine Devastator; Maul of the Skyclaves
Blue: Man-o'-War; Phyrexian Metamorph; Thassa, Deep-Dwelling
Black: Triarch Praetorian; Liliana, Heretical Healer; The Meathook Massacre
Red: Rabbit Battery; Pia and Kiran Nalaar; Rolling Earthquake
Green: Biophagus; Bala Ged Recovery; Oath of Nissa
Colorless: Metallic Mimic; Standard Procedure; Sword of Sinew and Steel; Sword of Truth and Justice; Mindslaver
And then likely making the following additions/changes:
WU: Geist of Saint Traft; Soulherder; Faramir, Prince of Ithilien (cutting Twining Twins, which was unpopular)
UB: Ertai Resurrected; Hostage Taker
BR: Rakdos Cackler; Fire Covenant
RG: Radha, Heart of Keld; Halana and Alena, Partners
GW: Voice of Resurgence; Ajani, the Greathearted (or Shalai, Voice of Plenty)
WB: Tidehollow Sculler; Vanishing Verse
UR: Prismari Command; Zoanthrope (not convinced, but it's an excuse to test)
BG: Deathrite Shaman; Life//Death
RW: Merry, Esquire of Rohan; Eomer, King of Rohan
GU: Hydroid Krasis; Mystic Snake
Cube Size: 360
Breakdown: 42 each color, 10 each guild, 50 colorless
Theme: Universes Beyond!
Powered: No
Sets Allowed: 40K, BOT, CLU, IKO (Godzilla Series), LTC, LTR, PIP, PTK (for now), REX, VOW (Dracula Series), WHO, assorted UB-branded SLD products, the Godzilla Series Hangarback Walker promo
Since it looks like others have mostly migrated to providing links to CubeCobra, I'll do that instead of listing the contents here in a spoiler. I'd love any constructive feedback! The hope is to have this improve over time - some slots have very slim pickings, while others have too many choices (there are a lot of multicolored cards in UB!). Green currently feels the closest to a normal color, since there are a fair number of mana elves available via LTC. No other colors really have access to 1-drops.
There are also some minor bends in color classification due to the high quantity of multicolor cards - cards that are monocolored with hybrid activation costs are classified as monocolored, regardless of the colors of activation. This applies to Frodo, Sauron's Bane and Tasigur, the Golden Fang. There's some inconsistency here with some other guild cards, which will be revisited if it becomes problematic.
https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/beyonder
I'm not sure this card is good enough, but it enables both token strategies and is good if you have cards that care about counters too. The base stats do just die to a Shock, but that also means that you're probably going to have a good chance of multiple evolve triggers, and the tokens will make more tokens too.
I'm not sure about the risk of it not surviving the initial turn cycle, but the go-wide potential seems really cool. At the very least, I'd love to get an Elk Mutant into the cube, even if just for a little bit.
EDIT: After a little more thought, there's a good chance that this will either do nothing or be win-more depending on the board state.
That said, I dislike that they’re called rad counters but that the reminder card says “radiation”.
White:
None
Blue:
None
Black:
None
Red:
Hellrider -> Headliner Scarlett
Invasion of Mercadia -> Demand Answers
Green:
None
Multicolor:
Fetid Pools -> Undercity Sewers
Thassa, Deep-Dwelling -> Lazav, Wearer of Faces (moving Rona to blue)
Edric, Spymaster of Trest -> Unruly Krasis
Colorless:
Shimmerdrift Vale -> Escape Tunnel
I run 4 4-drops in red, and there are plenty of others that I'd add before this.
I don't think it's a top-tier card, but it looks like a fun value engine. Cracking Clues during combat on my own turn feels like really awkward timing, though.
Interesting but might end up just outside.
Meticulous Archive over Irrigated Farmland (or maybe Seachrome Coast)
Undercity Sewers over Fetid Pools (or maybe Darkslick Shores)
Commercial District over Rockfall Vale
I think all the other lands I'm running are better on average for their respective guilds.
I do think these are probably better if you're playing multiple sets of fetchlands, but I don't do that so am not confident in how much better they are.