Wow, I think people are being way too harsh on you. You told the group your deck was pretty good and offered to switch but they declined your offer, either out of arrogance or faux politeness. I think anything above and beyond that is a waste of time. You shouldn't have to spend 10 minutes playing 50 questions with a new group or laying out every possible combo in your deck to figure out exactly where they draw the line on what is and isn't okay. If a group has something they don't like that's a default part of the game like infinite combos, it's their responsibility to notify a new member of that before starting the game, not after. It's often completely arbitrary and I've found that a lot of groups that are not experienced don't even know whether they're okay with something until someone actually does it to them. I remember describing a deck to a pod of casual players and they said it didn't sound that bad, then I played it against them (janky combo deck) and they were pissed at the end and told me to never play that deck again. And in another case I asked a new playgroup if they had any special restrictions and they said no, but they didn't tell me until after we were 30 minutes in that they allow silver-bordered cards (before Unstable) and Wish cards to pull broken stuff out of their binders as needed, and I was completely blindsided.
I think the only mistake that you made was to keep pushing after the group was clearly demonstrating to you that they were not interested in facing reality by throwing shade at an L2. I think in that case I would have politely said "hey guys, I think we're at an impasse here, I know that I'm right but I think there is a mismatch between our decks here and out of respect for your group I'm just going to scoop up my cards and let you guys continue on without me." At the point you got a certified judge to confirm your victory, you had done everything you could possibly do.
Rules issues can be tricky especially with players that have been playing a long time but have literally never bothered to look at the Comp rules or even know it exists. I have literally shown the relevant section of the Comp rules to long time casuals during rules disputes and they refuse to acknowledge it because if doesn't jive with their experience or internal logic or whatever. Oh, but if their friend comes over that's been playing with them forever but isn't even a judge agrees with me, then they believe me. It can be very frustrating and in casual games it's usually not worth the extra effort.
Oblation stopped being good as soon as the tuck rule changed. White has plenty of ways to exile any type of permanent without 3-for-1-ing themselves. Unless they're about to die, a 3/3 token is less valuable to the opponent than drawing 2 cards, and even though Song is regrettably sorcery speed, it's a great way to permanently remove an opponent's commander from the game until they find enchantment removal. Because it turns the creature into a land, unlike Lignify and Darksteel mutation they can't just sacrifice it or play a removal/sweeper spell after the fact to put the card back into the command zone, they have to specifically have either enchantment or land removal.
I don't understand why Cube builders don't just take collateral instead of going to extreme measures of printing out 400 proxies or only cubing with your closest friends. Drivers license, car keys, or mobile phone,and you don't get it back until Ive counted and verified your pool when youre finished playing.
At the very least, ask to see the photo ids of the people you don't know personally and write down their full name. I was especially glad I started doing this after I found out that one of our new players I didnt know was using a fake name on facebook for who knows what reason.
You don't have to bust out the jank or throw caution to the wind just because you're cubing with strangers.
Oh no, it's not a hard requirement, I just personally prefer modern frames over old ones and I'll hunt down the Duel Deck or Commander version of a card if it exists, but I really like that card, although it will probably have to wait until I can expand the size of my cube. The only real restriction I have on this cube is no cards that cost $10 or more that aren't planeswalkers.
I see what you're saying about Arcane Denial vs Rune Snag. I'm wary of cutting Blue's draw spells, which are currently down to 4 (FoF, BSZ, Ingenuity and Opportunity). I personally like cards like Rune Snag and Mana Leak more than cards like Arcane Denial, but I see your point that Rune Snag is redundant alongside Mana Leak and Arcane Denial will create more variety which is needed in a 360 cube (the constraints of which I am now starting to feel more than I thought I would). Alright, Arcane Denial back in Rune Snag out, I'll have to wait until I have enough cards to expand the size of my Cube to get Rune Snag back in there.
I may have been unclear above, but Heartless Summoning got instantly cut for Reckless Spite. Heartless Summoning can be a really awesome card when you're pairing it up with things like Wurmcooil Engine, Steel Hellkite and Massacre Wurm and was really fun to play in Standard, but I realized my Cube had too many fatties that pooped out tokens (which doesn't work well with Heartless) so I'll be keeping the card in my back pocket for a time when my Cube maybe becomes more friendly to it.
I really like Vault Breaker over Rummaging Goblin, for some reason I thought it triggered when it dealt damage. I think Firestorm is a bit too narrow though.
You've convinced to bring back Aether Adept and I've cut Guard Gomazoa instead. I'm also cutting Muzzio for Grand Architect, Muzzio was supposed to be an enabler for the artifact deck but his ability is just too slow and too weak, Grand Architect provides serious ramp for the Artifact deck and I'm surprised I forgot about this card for so long. It's also really good with Talrand or Master of Waves.
Cut Arcane Denial for Icefall Regent. Dungeon Geists has been really good in the playtest games I've done, and Icefall Regent has proven itself in standard. I cut Future Sight for Inkwell Leviathan, I know Future Sight is powerful but it's hard to play, Inkwell adds a finisher for the artifact deck that is not a high pick for other decks and adds a target for the U/B Reanimator deck. This was a hard cut, if anyone thinks there's a different card I should cut for Inkwell instead I'd love suggestions.
Was worried about whether Agent would be worth it, then drafted solo on Cube Tutor. Was Green/Blue, then got passed a pick 3 pack 2 that was stacked with red and green cards which also had the agent in it, so I took the agent and then started taking red fixing, and this is what came back.
Considering this card is drafted face up, do you think anyone would send around a pack like that to someone with an Agent, even if they didn't know I was in Green?
After Spike Rogue's suggestions and solo drafting some more, here are the most recent changes:
Black: Empty the Pits // Abhorrent Overlord - A better Black finisher that also fits into the devotion and reanimator decks Unburial Rites // Buried Alive - Too many reanimation spells, not enough discard outlets. Also sent a false signal about White. Drown in Sorrow // Heartless Summoning // Reckless Spite - Tried to give the Reanimator decks another angle to cheat out fatties, but too many of my fatties make tokens. Replaced a removal spell that only aggro would want. Vampire Interloper // Oona's Prowler - Was trying to stay budget here, but realized that Black really needed discard outlets
Blue: Aether Adept // Merfolk Looter - Man-o-War felt homeless in this Cube, Looter helps enable U/B Reanimator and is good in any Blue deck
Red: Goblin Welder // Rummaging Goblin - Welder was too narrow and B/R Reanimator is THE reanimator deck in this cube and it needed help. Same as Looter, fits well into other decks.
Gold: Deathrite Shaman // Life//Death - After my last post asking for a replacement for Deathrite, I thought of looking at split cards and found this. Doesn't quite fit the cycle, but sometimes you have to break aesthetics for function, it still basically acts as a green card or a black card. Woodcreek Liege would also be a good candidate for that slot, but that card currently costs $10 so it's out for now.
Colorless: Palladium Myr // Deal Broker - I actually cut him because I dislike his draft ability, I find it never actually goes off (at least in CNS drafts) but I needed a colorless looter for reanimator so I threw him back in. Pristine Talisman // Perilous Myr // Agent of Acquisitions - Added Perilous Myr for synergy with Heartless Summoning or something, then just threw in another draft matters card instead when I cut Heartless Summoning. Scuttling Doom Engine // Precursor Golem - Needed better cards to get people to play the artifact deck, not sure if this is better or worse than Scuttling Doom Engine but it frees up the 6 drop slot in artifacts and is suprisingly much cheaper
Black has gotten a lot of changes recently, but I feel like it's almost there in terms of balance, I find myself drafting black on Cube Tutor much more often now, with aggro, control and reanimator all feeling pretty viable. Now Blue is becoming my problem color, I never seem to want to draft blue based on my first few packs. This was the reason I added the 3 Mind Control effects and a 2nd planeswalker to each color so I could add Tamiyo and then 4 meh planeswalkers, but I'm still not seeing enough cards in P1 to pull me into Blue.
Spike Rogue, thank you for the comments and encouragement, I have taken much of the unexpectedly abundant feedback to heart and made a lot of changes to my cube while still trying to maintain, and also refining my original vision for this cube, which is now a cube that emulates the power level and pacing of an Extended or large Standard format while sticking to cards that cost $10 or less. Doing a ton of solo drafts on Cube Tutor (and looking at other people's draft decks as well, thanks everyone!) helped me to identify which colors and which archetypes needed a boost, and which archetypes were too linear or parasitic to be worth supporting. Being able to play a bunch of games on the MTGO Legacy Cube was probably the biggest eye opener for me, especially drafting with and against Red and White aggro and learning which cards are needed to make that deck fun and exciting for both players and which cards make those games miserable. Playing the MTGO Legacy Cube gave me a benchmark to compare my own cube to and helped me figure out how to craft the the types of games I want to see in my own cube.
Thank you for the individual card suggestions Spike Rogue, some of them I totally agree with and some of them are borderline or seem weak but actually have a purpose, I will address each below.
Echoing Truth - This card is here mainly to give Blue an answer to White, Green and Red's token making that doesn't cost 5+ mana. I like it because it doesn't completely hose R/W tokens if they've got a mix of goblins, wolves, beasts or soldiers and it isn't a dead card against other archetypes like Aetherize would be. I also like that this card has a strategic depth to it where a mediocre player might see a card that is "bad" in a singleton format, but an astute player will realize it's utility against all the token generating cards they've been passing and feel clever when they get a 2-for-1 with a card that they wheeled. Into the Roil is currently on the short list of cards to possibly add, but I want to see if Echoing Truth can fill that role first before I weaken the card even further by adding Into the Roil. Of course, once I finally get to test my Cube (don't know when) I might be completely wrong and this card goes completely unpicked and unplayed.
Corrupted Conscience - I had never thought of Infect as being a downside to this card, most likely a relic of my 40 life mindset, but you are totally right. Will be cutting this for Persuasion.
Ravenous Rats - Completely agree with you, originally this card was part of a theme in black of small value creatures grinding out the opponent, but that theme was cut early and this was a relic of that. I cut it yesterday for Thrill-Kill Assassin and then cut that for Blood-Chin Rager from DTK to help black aggro (which coincidentally has a lot of warriors in my cube) get through green's fat on the ground.
Diabolic Edict/Chainer's Edict - I will keep these in mind, although for now I am okay with having slightly weaker versions just because I've been spending a ton of time and store credit figuring out which commons and uncommons I'm missing IRL and ordering them from the LGS.
Empty the Pits - This card is not uncuttable, but it has a specific purpose that is not just to make tokens in black. Theoretically, this card is here as a finisher for the various flavors of Dimir and Grixis removal-heavy Control decks, that a Grixis drafter can rely on getting passed if it's opened so that they can focus on grabbing all the Black and Red removal and blue counterspells first that they will be competing with the aggro decks for. BBBB should not be unpayable for a finisher if your are a control deck going into the late game. If anyone knows of a Black card that can fill this role and is a higher profile, please let me know, I am open to suggestions for this slot.
Tuktuk the Explorer - Yep, pretty much just waiting to find the right card so I can cut this guy. Right now candidate #1 is probably Pyreheart Wolf, although looking over my Cube red is pretty light in artifact removal so Manic Vandal might be the pick, as unexciting as I find that card to be.
Blasphemous Act - I think I put this card in to give red access to a sweeper that doesn't just kill little dudes, although my perception of its castability in 1v1 may be warped by my experiences with Aristocrats in past Standard formats. Now that I think about it, I can't really think of a deck that would want this card that doesn't already have access to better sweepers in black, white or blue. I will probably convert this slot into a artifact removal slot for red, so any suggestions there would be nice.
Wolfir Avenger - Very observant of you to notice this. It pained me to cut this guy, as I've always wanted him to be good, but I am trying to enable a Human tribal aggro deck in Green White, which is why Isao got the nod over this, they are very similar cards. I have a feeling that Green is currently overloaded with Artifact/Enchantment removal and that Reclamation Sage will get cut to bring Avenger back in to support Green based aggro alongside Dungrove Elder and Strangelroot Geist. I like Ainok Survivalist better than Reclamation Sage, since Survivalist creates interesting mind games against Blue opponents if you have 5 mana of whether or not to counter your morph, whereas Sage gets auto-countered if they are trying to protect an important permanent.
Orzhov/Simic/Izzet Hybrids - Simic and Izzet hybrids are there to enable devotion cards in red and blue, the Orzhov card is mostly just there to complete the cycle. White and Black are not really hurting for spot removal, so Unmake is not needed here, especially since it is pretty much a gold card that doesn't enable devotion in black.
Another card that I need help with is Deathrite Shaman. I haven't tested it yet, but with no fetchlands, the card feels like a black Grim Lavamancer and a complete do-nothing in green, which I am not excited about considering the card's price tag. Need some help with what to put into the G/B hybrid slot.
The Hybrid cards in my cube serve 2 purposes. 1 is to solve the conundrum of giving the aggressive colors (not blue) access to more 1-drops without taking up too many card slots in an already cramped and crowded Cube. Dryad Militant gives both green and white another aggressive 1-drop while only taking up 1 card slot in the Cube instead of 2, which is valuable in a 360 Cube. The other is to provide enablers for devotion sub-themes in red blue and black that either fit into 2 devotion colors (again, the concept of a Cube-equivalent 2-for-1) or are still playable in the colors that aren't using devotion. I admit the devotion rewards are pretty thin I probably need to put Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx back in the cube to make it worthwhile (which means a very unaesthetic 41 lands and 79 artifacts), but these 2 caveats mean that I am mostly looking for creatures as my Hybrid cards.
Ugin's Nexus - You're right, this card is a D in the narrow situations I envisioned it being played in (Trading Post, Daretti, Welder) and a complete F in all other regards. I cut it yesterday for Hall of Triumph to give aggro decks another tool.
Edit: Wow, looking back at my Cube Tutor blog, it's amazing that I only started working on this cube just 2 weeks ago and it's already come so far and only about 15 cards away from being completely sleeved up and ready to draft IRL. I've made so many changes and learned so much, it feels like I've been working on this thing for over a month.
Every time the Rules Committee makes a change, people have to be reminded that the official ban list is not meant to create competitive balance, it is meant to create a fun format.
Commander is not a competitively balanced format, never will be and isn't supposed to be. Commander will never be a format that could be played on the Pro Tour. That's what makes it fun. If you come into Commander thinking that the format is balanced and fair no matter who you play against, you have the wrong idea. The secret to Commander is not the ban list, it's the playgroup and the attitude you bring to the game.
Anyone cutting Terminus or Hallowed Burial are going to be sad when someone plays Uril or Sigarda with a Darksteel Plate.
Degenerate decks that are built to rely on and abuse their Commander always include anti-tuck measures like sac outlets and tutors anyway, while everyone else that didn't include 10 sac outlets and 10 tutors in their deck has to suffer through getting their Commander tucked while the offending Commander sits safe in the command zone. You think tuck keeps the format safe, but in reality it's usually the innocent players that get punished the hardest by tuck spells.
There's a lot of ways to shut down a Commander without tucking it, the "lazy deckbuilders" are not the ones that play a format called Commander and expect to play with their Commander, it's the ones that are crying about unanswerable Commanders while the rest of us are finding ways to deal with Commanders that aren't tuck.
Here's a starter list for the less industrious deck builders that think tuck is the only way to stop someone's General:
Nevermore
Null Chamber
Declaration of Naught
Runed Halo
Lignify
Darksteel Mutation
Humility
Song of the Dryads
Pithing Needle
Arrest
Faith's Fetters
Voidstone Gargoyle
Phyrexian Revoker
Invoke Prejudice
I am pretty new to Edh, and only know of rules listed on official Wizards places. Is this as n official rule that sanctioned events must follow? Such as local Edh night at a shop? Ty
Yes, Wizards doesn't make the rules for Commander, the Commander Rules Committee does.
I don't know if you were looking at the right cube, I had Grand Abolisher, Gather the Townsfolk and Raise the Alarm as 2-drops in white. But in general you are right, there was a dirth of 2-drops in white and green.
I have done an overhaul of my Cube based on the advice I'd gotten here and elsewhere.
I gave Green, White and Black boosts to their aggressive suites of 1 and 2-drop creatures. I also added a cycle of hybrid creatures in each guild, mostly to accommodate the inclusion of Dryad Militant and Rakdos Cackler, but also to help enable some of the Devotion cards that are in Cube that needed support. I'm not sure about the B/W hybrid card I chose, any suggestions would be appreciated.
Green feels much more draftable now that I've cut some of the crappier creatures like Imperiosaur and Ant Queen and removed the parasitic dredge cards.
After playing some solitaire games I realized the taplands were hurting the midrange decks more than the control decks, so I added the 10 Pain lands as was suggested, which won't be too difficult since I realized I own most of them and they will be rotating soon. As was promised, they do wonders for enabling 2-color midrange and aggro decks without helping the control decks. I also swapped out Promenade and Spire for Mirrodin's Core and Tendo Ice Bridge, which are much less punishing omni fixers but don't allow for anything truly crazy in regards to deck-building.
I also swapped in Domri Rade for Decimate after I realized Decimate is unplayable in 1v1 and Domri is only $7 and is a good card to draw people into Green.
Thank you everyone that commented and drafted my Cube, I will def return the favor and draft some people's cubes on this forum, that also seems like a great way to get card ideas for my own cube.
Spike Rogue, thank you for posting that list, it's very helpful to just have suggestions to look through. I think your description of aggro was perfect, which is why I have tried to keep a leash on it in my cube. I dislike games where one player doesn't actually get to play because their opponent beat them so fast it felt like they got mana screwed. And when aggro is focused on volume and speed, it either mana screws the opponent by winning on turn 5 or it crashes and burns horribly, making all of its games feel very one-sided. I want the aggro in my cube to be less lightning fast and more resilient and synergistic. I want creatures with hexproof, undying and ETB effects to beat control instead of just dumping out efficient vanillas and hoping they don't have a wrath.
I know that a meta dominated by control can be just as unfun as a meta dominated by blitz decks, but forcing control and midrange to rely on taplands for its fixing was supposed to be a boon to the aggro decks that focused on one color with a splash. I'm not completely against swapping out the Gates and Gains for Pains and Checks, but I think I would want to try a couple of actual drafts and see if the format is way too slow and control dominated and see if mana bases and aggro needs to be improved as a result.
I have had a chance to draft my cube a lot through Cubetutor, and something I've noticed is that green, particularly green big stuff, feels a lot less desirable than the other colors. I think I want to make green a little more focused, and I'd also like to introduce a mono-green aggo archetype that features lots of resilient threats like strangleroot geist and predator ooze. Any suggestions for how to improve green in my Cube?
I think the only mistake that you made was to keep pushing after the group was clearly demonstrating to you that they were not interested in facing reality by throwing shade at an L2. I think in that case I would have politely said "hey guys, I think we're at an impasse here, I know that I'm right but I think there is a mismatch between our decks here and out of respect for your group I'm just going to scoop up my cards and let you guys continue on without me." At the point you got a certified judge to confirm your victory, you had done everything you could possibly do.
Rules issues can be tricky especially with players that have been playing a long time but have literally never bothered to look at the Comp rules or even know it exists. I have literally shown the relevant section of the Comp rules to long time casuals during rules disputes and they refuse to acknowledge it because if doesn't jive with their experience or internal logic or whatever. Oh, but if their friend comes over that's been playing with them forever but isn't even a judge agrees with me, then they believe me. It can be very frustrating and in casual games it's usually not worth the extra effort.
At the very least, ask to see the photo ids of the people you don't know personally and write down their full name. I was especially glad I started doing this after I found out that one of our new players I didnt know was using a fake name on facebook for who knows what reason.
You don't have to bust out the jank or throw caution to the wind just because you're cubing with strangers.
I really like Vault Breaker over Rummaging Goblin, for some reason I thought it triggered when it dealt damage. I think Firestorm is a bit too narrow though.
You've convinced to bring back Aether Adept and I've cut Guard Gomazoa instead. I'm also cutting Muzzio for Grand Architect, Muzzio was supposed to be an enabler for the artifact deck but his ability is just too slow and too weak, Grand Architect provides serious ramp for the Artifact deck and I'm surprised I forgot about this card for so long. It's also really good with Talrand or Master of Waves.
Cut Arcane Denial for Icefall Regent. Dungeon Geists has been really good in the playtest games I've done, and Icefall Regent has proven itself in standard. I cut Future Sight for Inkwell Leviathan, I know Future Sight is powerful but it's hard to play, Inkwell adds a finisher for the artifact deck that is not a high pick for other decks and adds a target for the U/B Reanimator deck. This was a hard cut, if anyone thinks there's a different card I should cut for Inkwell instead I'd love suggestions.
Considering this card is drafted face up, do you think anyone would send around a pack like that to someone with an Agent, even if they didn't know I was in Green?
Black:
Empty the Pits // Abhorrent Overlord - A better Black finisher that also fits into the devotion and reanimator decks
Unburial Rites // Buried Alive - Too many reanimation spells, not enough discard outlets. Also sent a false signal about White.
Drown in Sorrow // Heartless Summoning // Reckless Spite - Tried to give the Reanimator decks another angle to cheat out fatties, but too many of my fatties make tokens. Replaced a removal spell that only aggro would want.
Vampire Interloper // Oona's Prowler - Was trying to stay budget here, but realized that Black really needed discard outlets
Blue:
Aether Adept // Merfolk Looter - Man-o-War felt homeless in this Cube, Looter helps enable U/B Reanimator and is good in any Blue deck
Red:
Goblin Welder // Rummaging Goblin - Welder was too narrow and B/R Reanimator is THE reanimator deck in this cube and it needed help. Same as Looter, fits well into other decks.
Gold:
Deathrite Shaman // Life//Death - After my last post asking for a replacement for Deathrite, I thought of looking at split cards and found this. Doesn't quite fit the cycle, but sometimes you have to break aesthetics for function, it still basically acts as a green card or a black card. Woodcreek Liege would also be a good candidate for that slot, but that card currently costs $10 so it's out for now.
Colorless:
Palladium Myr // Deal Broker - I actually cut him because I dislike his draft ability, I find it never actually goes off (at least in CNS drafts) but I needed a colorless looter for reanimator so I threw him back in.
Pristine Talisman // Perilous Myr // Agent of Acquisitions - Added Perilous Myr for synergy with Heartless Summoning or something, then just threw in another draft matters card instead when I cut Heartless Summoning.
Scuttling Doom Engine // Precursor Golem - Needed better cards to get people to play the artifact deck, not sure if this is better or worse than Scuttling Doom Engine but it frees up the 6 drop slot in artifacts and is suprisingly much cheaper
Black has gotten a lot of changes recently, but I feel like it's almost there in terms of balance, I find myself drafting black on Cube Tutor much more often now, with aggro, control and reanimator all feeling pretty viable. Now Blue is becoming my problem color, I never seem to want to draft blue based on my first few packs. This was the reason I added the 3 Mind Control effects and a 2nd planeswalker to each color so I could add Tamiyo and then 4 meh planeswalkers, but I'm still not seeing enough cards in P1 to pull me into Blue.
Thank you for the individual card suggestions Spike Rogue, some of them I totally agree with and some of them are borderline or seem weak but actually have a purpose, I will address each below.
TL;DR - Cut/Cutting: Corrupted Conscience, Ravenous Rats, Tuktuk the Explorer, Blasphemous Act, Augury Adept, Ugin's Nexus
Borderline: Empty the Pits, Wolfir Avenger/Reclamation Sage, Manic Vandal/Pyreheart Wolf, Orzhov/Golgari Hybrid Card.
Not Cutting: Echoing Truth, Simic/Izzet Hybrids.
Echoing Truth - This card is here mainly to give Blue an answer to White, Green and Red's token making that doesn't cost 5+ mana. I like it because it doesn't completely hose R/W tokens if they've got a mix of goblins, wolves, beasts or soldiers and it isn't a dead card against other archetypes like Aetherize would be. I also like that this card has a strategic depth to it where a mediocre player might see a card that is "bad" in a singleton format, but an astute player will realize it's utility against all the token generating cards they've been passing and feel clever when they get a 2-for-1 with a card that they wheeled. Into the Roil is currently on the short list of cards to possibly add, but I want to see if Echoing Truth can fill that role first before I weaken the card even further by adding Into the Roil. Of course, once I finally get to test my Cube (don't know when) I might be completely wrong and this card goes completely unpicked and unplayed.
Corrupted Conscience - I had never thought of Infect as being a downside to this card, most likely a relic of my 40 life mindset, but you are totally right. Will be cutting this for Persuasion.
Ravenous Rats - Completely agree with you, originally this card was part of a theme in black of small value creatures grinding out the opponent, but that theme was cut early and this was a relic of that. I cut it yesterday for Thrill-Kill Assassin and then cut that for Blood-Chin Rager from DTK to help black aggro (which coincidentally has a lot of warriors in my cube) get through green's fat on the ground.
Diabolic Edict/Chainer's Edict - I will keep these in mind, although for now I am okay with having slightly weaker versions just because I've been spending a ton of time and store credit figuring out which commons and uncommons I'm missing IRL and ordering them from the LGS.
Empty the Pits - This card is not uncuttable, but it has a specific purpose that is not just to make tokens in black. Theoretically, this card is here as a finisher for the various flavors of Dimir and Grixis removal-heavy Control decks, that a Grixis drafter can rely on getting passed if it's opened so that they can focus on grabbing all the Black and Red removal and blue counterspells first that they will be competing with the aggro decks for. BBBB should not be unpayable for a finisher if your are a control deck going into the late game. If anyone knows of a Black card that can fill this role and is a higher profile, please let me know, I am open to suggestions for this slot.
Tuktuk the Explorer - Yep, pretty much just waiting to find the right card so I can cut this guy. Right now candidate #1 is probably Pyreheart Wolf, although looking over my Cube red is pretty light in artifact removal so Manic Vandal might be the pick, as unexciting as I find that card to be.
Blasphemous Act - I think I put this card in to give red access to a sweeper that doesn't just kill little dudes, although my perception of its castability in 1v1 may be warped by my experiences with Aristocrats in past Standard formats. Now that I think about it, I can't really think of a deck that would want this card that doesn't already have access to better sweepers in black, white or blue. I will probably convert this slot into a artifact removal slot for red, so any suggestions there would be nice.
Wolfir Avenger - Very observant of you to notice this. It pained me to cut this guy, as I've always wanted him to be good, but I am trying to enable a Human tribal aggro deck in Green White, which is why Isao got the nod over this, they are very similar cards. I have a feeling that Green is currently overloaded with Artifact/Enchantment removal and that Reclamation Sage will get cut to bring Avenger back in to support Green based aggro alongside Dungrove Elder and Strangelroot Geist. I like Ainok Survivalist better than Reclamation Sage, since Survivalist creates interesting mind games against Blue opponents if you have 5 mana of whether or not to counter your morph, whereas Sage gets auto-countered if they are trying to protect an important permanent.
Augury Adept - You're right, I will probably go with Judge's familiar to increase my stable of 1-drops.
Orzhov/Simic/Izzet Hybrids - Simic and Izzet hybrids are there to enable devotion cards in red and blue, the Orzhov card is mostly just there to complete the cycle. White and Black are not really hurting for spot removal, so Unmake is not needed here, especially since it is pretty much a gold card that doesn't enable devotion in black.
Another card that I need help with is Deathrite Shaman. I haven't tested it yet, but with no fetchlands, the card feels like a black Grim Lavamancer and a complete do-nothing in green, which I am not excited about considering the card's price tag. Need some help with what to put into the G/B hybrid slot.
The Hybrid cards in my cube serve 2 purposes. 1 is to solve the conundrum of giving the aggressive colors (not blue) access to more 1-drops without taking up too many card slots in an already cramped and crowded Cube. Dryad Militant gives both green and white another aggressive 1-drop while only taking up 1 card slot in the Cube instead of 2, which is valuable in a 360 Cube. The other is to provide enablers for devotion sub-themes in red blue and black that either fit into 2 devotion colors (again, the concept of a Cube-equivalent 2-for-1) or are still playable in the colors that aren't using devotion. I admit the devotion rewards are pretty thin I probably need to put Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx back in the cube to make it worthwhile (which means a very unaesthetic 41 lands and 79 artifacts), but these 2 caveats mean that I am mostly looking for creatures as my Hybrid cards.
Ugin's Nexus - You're right, this card is a D in the narrow situations I envisioned it being played in (Trading Post, Daretti, Welder) and a complete F in all other regards. I cut it yesterday for Hall of Triumph to give aggro decks another tool.
Edit: Wow, looking back at my Cube Tutor blog, it's amazing that I only started working on this cube just 2 weeks ago and it's already come so far and only about 15 cards away from being completely sleeved up and ready to draft IRL. I've made so many changes and learned so much, it feels like I've been working on this thing for over a month.
Commander is not a competitively balanced format, never will be and isn't supposed to be. Commander will never be a format that could be played on the Pro Tour. That's what makes it fun. If you come into Commander thinking that the format is balanced and fair no matter who you play against, you have the wrong idea. The secret to Commander is not the ban list, it's the playgroup and the attitude you bring to the game.
Degenerate decks that are built to rely on and abuse their Commander always include anti-tuck measures like sac outlets and tutors anyway, while everyone else that didn't include 10 sac outlets and 10 tutors in their deck has to suffer through getting their Commander tucked while the offending Commander sits safe in the command zone. You think tuck keeps the format safe, but in reality it's usually the innocent players that get punished the hardest by tuck spells.
There's a lot of ways to shut down a Commander without tucking it, the "lazy deckbuilders" are not the ones that play a format called Commander and expect to play with their Commander, it's the ones that are crying about unanswerable Commanders while the rest of us are finding ways to deal with Commanders that aren't tuck.
Here's a starter list for the less industrious deck builders that think tuck is the only way to stop someone's General:
Nevermore
Null Chamber
Declaration of Naught
Runed Halo
Lignify
Darksteel Mutation
Humility
Song of the Dryads
Pithing Needle
Arrest
Faith's Fetters
Voidstone Gargoyle
Phyrexian Revoker
Invoke Prejudice
Yes, Wizards doesn't make the rules for Commander, the Commander Rules Committee does.
I have done an overhaul of my Cube based on the advice I'd gotten here and elsewhere.
Cuts: Enchantments Matter, Dredge, Guild Gates, Tapped Fetches, 1-mana Omni-lands.
I gave Green, White and Black boosts to their aggressive suites of 1 and 2-drop creatures. I also added a cycle of hybrid creatures in each guild, mostly to accommodate the inclusion of Dryad Militant and Rakdos Cackler, but also to help enable some of the Devotion cards that are in Cube that needed support. I'm not sure about the B/W hybrid card I chose, any suggestions would be appreciated.
Green feels much more draftable now that I've cut some of the crappier creatures like Imperiosaur and Ant Queen and removed the parasitic dredge cards.
After playing some solitaire games I realized the taplands were hurting the midrange decks more than the control decks, so I added the 10 Pain lands as was suggested, which won't be too difficult since I realized I own most of them and they will be rotating soon. As was promised, they do wonders for enabling 2-color midrange and aggro decks without helping the control decks. I also swapped out Promenade and Spire for Mirrodin's Core and Tendo Ice Bridge, which are much less punishing omni fixers but don't allow for anything truly crazy in regards to deck-building.
I also swapped in Domri Rade for Decimate after I realized Decimate is unplayable in 1v1 and Domri is only $7 and is a good card to draw people into Green.
You can see all the changes I made in the blog here: http://www.cubetutor.com/cubeblog/25193
Please let me know what you think and how I can improve this Cube further.
Spike Rogue, thank you for posting that list, it's very helpful to just have suggestions to look through. I think your description of aggro was perfect, which is why I have tried to keep a leash on it in my cube. I dislike games where one player doesn't actually get to play because their opponent beat them so fast it felt like they got mana screwed. And when aggro is focused on volume and speed, it either mana screws the opponent by winning on turn 5 or it crashes and burns horribly, making all of its games feel very one-sided. I want the aggro in my cube to be less lightning fast and more resilient and synergistic. I want creatures with hexproof, undying and ETB effects to beat control instead of just dumping out efficient vanillas and hoping they don't have a wrath.
I know that a meta dominated by control can be just as unfun as a meta dominated by blitz decks, but forcing control and midrange to rely on taplands for its fixing was supposed to be a boon to the aggro decks that focused on one color with a splash. I'm not completely against swapping out the Gates and Gains for Pains and Checks, but I think I would want to try a couple of actual drafts and see if the format is way too slow and control dominated and see if mana bases and aggro needs to be improved as a result.
I have had a chance to draft my cube a lot through Cubetutor, and something I've noticed is that green, particularly green big stuff, feels a lot less desirable than the other colors. I think I want to make green a little more focused, and I'd also like to introduce a mono-green aggo archetype that features lots of resilient threats like strangleroot geist and predator ooze. Any suggestions for how to improve green in my Cube?