This might only be interesting to me, but I have some OCD about the frames in my cube. I only play modern-frame, non-foil cards for consistency. So all the reprints have me excited as well. Nice to see them dipping into stuff like PTK. So here are some "new" cards that have me excited. Let me know if I missed any:
And very sad to see another reprint set go by with no Armageddon, Strip Mine, Sinkhole, etc. I feel that good LD is what suffers the most with the modern-frame-no-foil restriction.
As much as I like the idea of 4 landfall triggers in a single turn with this card and a fetchland, I think it's not as good as Regrowth, Farseek, or even Rampant Growth in most cases. Maybe an option for bigger cubes though.
Of the 11 cards spoiled so far, I don't see anything that's a slam dunk even for 720. The Theros spoilers were much more exciting from a cube perspective. But lets hope the next few days prove me wrong.
Instant speed vs. exiling. Most cubes seem to run disenchant, but is this strictly out of nostalgia, or are there valid reasons to value instant speed so much more than exile?
Both enter the battlefield tapped and provide two colors.
The scry 1 with these could help you find another land if you need it, and the bounceland gives you a land drop for next turn as well.
The scry 1 could also help you NOT find a land if you are flooding whereas the bounceland has better synergy with things that untap lands. This seems to be the major trade-off to me: more flexibility for less combo potential. I'd give these the slight edge in most cases.
Yeah that's really the problem. Selesnya has some of the best gold cards already, and you can only run so many. I'd certainly play things like Kitchen Finks and Knight of the Reliquary over this.
R/W would be a perfect place to put a land destruction theme, and it would work great in contrast to a ramping monster deck. How great would it be to see a modern-frame black-border Armageddon?
Thanks, I always like seeing what other people come up with. There is no way I would run Eternal Witness over Grand Arbiter Augustin IV, just for the mana costs involved. You are a brave man.
This looks like it has a lot of potential as a white weenie deck. But white doesn't really have enough cards to mono-white. Lingering Souls begs for black, but Sprout Swarm and Kamhal say otherwise. So what would you do? Try to force it into mono-white? Splash Green? Splash Black? Both?
I'm pretty inexperienced with cube building, so I am open to any and all feedback.
Restrictions
This is an unpowered cube. As a rule, I try not to spend more than $10 on a card. Aether Vial is the most expensive thing in here at the moment I believe.
My OCD side insists that every card be black-bordered, modern-frame, and non-foil. As you can imagine, I am very appreciative of all the powerful reprints that have shown up in duel decks over the years.
I have no particular goal about the size of this cube and would be willing to increase or decrease the amount of cards.
Archetypes
Mostly, like any cube, the basic archetypes should be here. Control, Zoo, Mono-red, ramp, etc.
However, there are a few other things at play here. For one, this cube is very heavy on artifacts. Partly, I just like artifacts. But also, there are lots of cards, especially in blue, that center around them.
There are also enough infect cards in here that you can go for that alternate win condition. I really like alternate win conditions, but they are hard to pull off in limited. So I try to include infect cards that can work reasonably well on their own, like Viral Drake.
There are some minor tribal themes in every color except blue (which focuses on artifacts, as mentioned). Green has elves, White has soldiers, Black and Red share vampires and goblins.
Concerns
There are some extremely minor milling, reanimator, and mana denial/land destruction themes in here. I think this is where there is the most room for improvement. They either need to be shored up or simply removed.
It's possible that some artifacts should be cut. There may simply be too many, even for a cube that is intentionally heavy on them.
Finally, I am a very poor judge of if any of these archetypes is too strong. If it looks like there is a clear, unbalanced favoring of one type of deck, that is a serious concern for me and I welcome all suggestions on fixing it.
Thanks for the input everyone! I'm definitely going to throw in Lavinia since my cube has some minor soldier tribal going on anyway (and not much blinking). Seems like a good choice. Revelation would be great, but I don't have one currently and right now they are probably about as expensive as they'll ever be, so I'll probably sit tight until Ravnia rotates and it gets reprinted in MM2 or something. Thanks all!
I could have sworn I saw a "this or that" thread in the cube forums somewhere, but I can't seem to find it. Hopefully this is in the right place.
I'm looking for a powerful U/W card to put in my U/W slot at 5cc or above. Right now, I have Righteous Authority in, and it seems to be a pretty low pick most of the time. Thinking about either Isperia, Supreme Judge or Sky Hussar. I've also seen a lot of cubes playing Drogskol Reaver. Any opinions on what should be in this slot and why? Thanks!
If the tron lands are in, the land list is almost totally settled:
219 L Academy Ruins
220 L Ancient Ziggurat/Blinkmoth Nexus/Blinkmoth Well
221 L City of Brass
222 L Urza's Mine
223 L Urza's Power-Plant
224 L Urza's Tower
225 L Vivid Crag
226 L Vivid Creek
227 L Vivid Grove
228 L Vivid Marsh
229 L Vivid Meadow
Also excited to see these reprints just for price reasons:
And very sad to see another reprint set go by with no Armageddon, Strip Mine, Sinkhole, etc. I feel that good LD is what suffers the most with the modern-frame-no-foil restriction.
Instant speed vs. exiling. Most cubes seem to run disenchant, but is this strictly out of nostalgia, or are there valid reasons to value instant speed so much more than exile?
Both enter the battlefield tapped and provide two colors.
The scry 1 with these could help you find another land if you need it, and the bounceland gives you a land drop for next turn as well.
The scry 1 could also help you NOT find a land if you are flooding whereas the bounceland has better synergy with things that untap lands. This seems to be the major trade-off to me: more flexibility for less combo potential. I'd give these the slight edge in most cases.
Thanks, I always like seeing what other people come up with. There is no way I would run Eternal Witness over Grand Arbiter Augustin IV, just for the mana costs involved. You are a brave man.
This looks like it has a lot of potential as a white weenie deck. But white doesn't really have enough cards to mono-white. Lingering Souls begs for black, but Sprout Swarm and Kamhal say otherwise. So what would you do? Try to force it into mono-white? Splash Green? Splash Black? Both?
I'm pretty inexperienced with cube building, so I am open to any and all feedback.
Restrictions
This is an unpowered cube. As a rule, I try not to spend more than $10 on a card. Aether Vial is the most expensive thing in here at the moment I believe.
My OCD side insists that every card be black-bordered, modern-frame, and non-foil. As you can imagine, I am very appreciative of all the powerful reprints that have shown up in duel decks over the years.
I have no particular goal about the size of this cube and would be willing to increase or decrease the amount of cards.
Archetypes
Mostly, like any cube, the basic archetypes should be here. Control, Zoo, Mono-red, ramp, etc.
However, there are a few other things at play here. For one, this cube is very heavy on artifacts. Partly, I just like artifacts. But also, there are lots of cards, especially in blue, that center around them.
There are also enough infect cards in here that you can go for that alternate win condition. I really like alternate win conditions, but they are hard to pull off in limited. So I try to include infect cards that can work reasonably well on their own, like Viral Drake.
There are some minor tribal themes in every color except blue (which focuses on artifacts, as mentioned). Green has elves, White has soldiers, Black and Red share vampires and goblins.
Concerns
There are some extremely minor milling, reanimator, and mana denial/land destruction themes in here. I think this is where there is the most room for improvement. They either need to be shored up or simply removed.
It's possible that some artifacts should be cut. There may simply be too many, even for a cube that is intentionally heavy on them.
Finally, I am a very poor judge of if any of these archetypes is too strong. If it looks like there is a clear, unbalanced favoring of one type of deck, that is a serious concern for me and I welcome all suggestions on fixing it.
Cube Tutor Link
I'm looking for a powerful U/W card to put in my U/W slot at 5cc or above. Right now, I have Righteous Authority in, and it seems to be a pretty low pick most of the time. Thinking about either Isperia, Supreme Judge or Sky Hussar. I've also seen a lot of cubes playing Drogskol Reaver. Any opinions on what should be in this slot and why? Thanks!
219 L Academy Ruins
220 L Ancient Ziggurat/Blinkmoth Nexus/Blinkmoth Well
221 L City of Brass
222 L Urza's Mine
223 L Urza's Power-Plant
224 L Urza's Tower
225 L Vivid Crag
226 L Vivid Creek
227 L Vivid Grove
228 L Vivid Marsh
229 L Vivid Meadow