The only scenario where I could see him making it into my cube is where I shave the weakest reanimation spell and reanimator decks need to lean more in looting rather than naturally having 5-6 reanimation redundancy.
Just dropping by to say you got a really nice cube.
I think just having a cube is nice - I had a lot of fun with cubes of all sizes. I've had fun with a hyper competitive 540 card Vintage Cube and a 2000+ mega cube. Its just awesome to play a group to play.
This is a very generic 720 card Powered Vintage Cube.
Here are some modifications that are slightly different from other cubes:
- White has a much higher density of 1 drops than traditional 720 Powered Cubes. This is because competition for card slots in Black, Red and Green are much higher than White. I decided to move the 1-drops more to white and open up slots in Green/ Black and Red for other archetypes. 1 mana 2/1 are always strong (and necessary) in cube as a viable counterbalance to the powerful but slow blue decks. This allows white to shine in cube, where it traditionally was weak - it could not contribute very well to the most broken archetypes.
- Red has a mono Red Polymorph archetype. Traditionally, this was a red-blue archetype, however I moved it as a mono red archetype as it pairs better with Red's Sneak attack, Green's Eureka/ Oath as well as White's tokens. Blue did not provide much support for the archetype and competition for blue's slots are very tight. Polymorph archetype provides a second outlet for the red storm rituals which would otherwise become parasitic.
- There is the Blue-Black Inverter Combo. The cards all slot very nicely into other archetypes as Tainted Pact, Demonic Consultation are excellent tutors for other combos while Jace/ Inverter of Truth play a decent rule in
- There is the Intruder Alarm Combo to pair with the traditional UR Splinter Twin Combo. The cards slot nicely with the Twin pieces for additional untap, aristocrats cards, tokens or just midrange decks in general.
- Green has a lands package, primarily with red that focuses on playing extra lands a turn from graveyard/ off the top of the library. The deck could win through Ramp, Dark Depths Combo, Field of the Dead or recurring strip mine.
Oath of Nissa and Traverse the Ulvenwald have both been very good cards, but I cut them from my cube because I've found that decks frequently cut them from their 40 because they have too many playables.
I personally think both Wild Growth/ Utopia Sprawl are both good green 1 CMC ramp, in addition to the 9-10 mana dorks. This is probably good enough to make it into my cube, but its just the competition for every card slot is so damn high right now ...
A 6 mana 6/6 trample, haste is likely not strong enough to break it into 720 card cube, but it is still a very strong creature. I call it a "Let me live the Dream" card that allows you to play him on turn 6, curve into a planeswalker + Ultimate.
Prismari Command is so good that I proxied one up and added it into the cube early. Check in with the CubeCobra list for updates!
It looks like a pretty cool card.
I will have to add that I'm a bit disappointed that storm has been cut from your cube - cards like Black Lotus and Time Spiral lose a bit of excitement for me ...
Vivien > Freyalise. Removing Flyers is critical. Adding a mana dork at this stage of the game is pretty insignificant.
Radha is decent 3 drop creature in any GR deck. Escape to the wilds requires a bit of a GR lands theme for it to really shine.
God- Eternal Bontu > Cavalier. Triple black is a non-starter. Menace is hell of an ability in cube - its insane for pushing damage.
Orcish Hellraiser > Rimrock Knight. Unfortunately, red 2 drops have gotten so good, these two didn't even warrant a discussion. However, Orcish is stronger in a red aristocrats shell.
I just want to mention how much I love this discussion - I really the direction of "why I play X and what does it take to make him good".
- I'll have to give Dire Fleet Daredevil a try - but the "problem" is there are too many good red 2 drops!
- Eidolon is a bit of a non-starter for myself because of its double red. I recently had to cut Knight of the Holy Nimbus and put Knight of the White Orchid on watch list because of their double white casting cost.
- Suppose your have a two color or tri color deck, you can have a pretty good 82%/ 75% consistency with just basics already. This is assuming the Tri color deck starts its curve at 2 as tri color decks are usually midrange/ control and the spells only require a mana of a single color. This is very good numbers already for limited, without considering Dual lands.
- Two color decks can achieve constructed level consistency with just 2 additional lands (Or Talisman/ Signets). Tri color decks required closer to 6-7. If you don;t anticipate on playing stuff like Cryptic command in Grixis Control or Sinkhole in mardu aggro, drafting only 3-5 dual lands in these colors is already pretty good at keeping your archetype consistent.
Suppose I'm drafting a Mardu Aristocrats deck, I have this in mind:
- 4-5 Dual lands
- 3-4 Sacrifice Payoffs
- 3-4 Sacrifice Outlets
There should be a curve of roughly:
4 1-drops
4 2-drops
4 3-drops
4 4-drops
I find once you have a rough idea of the curve distribution/ removal, payoffs etc/ number of lands, it becomes much easier and these addon changes aren't really needed.
- Another point is I find some guilds would benefit from additional dual lands, while others do not. One example is Dimir. I added Sunken Hollow and Fetid Pools as additional fixing and cut two guild cards because this archetype would like additional islands for Vedalken Shackles, High Tide, Counterspell, Cryptic Command and often this is splashed inside a tri or 4 color shell. (And the options in this guild a bit subpar)
Similarly, some tri color pairs are rewarded with a tri land rather than a tri spell for similar reasons. I find these surgical adjustments have made a huge difference and changes like drafting lands separately aren't really needed.
Goblin Engineer
Wheel of Fortune
Seasoned Pyromancer
Faithless Looting
Daretti, Scrap Savant
and for Izzet:
Izzet Charm
Dack Fayden
Prismari Command
The Royal Scions
The only scenario where I could see him making it into my cube is where I shave the weakest reanimation spell and reanimator decks need to lean more in looting rather than naturally having 5-6 reanimation redundancy.
I think just having a cube is nice - I had a lot of fun with cubes of all sizes. I've had fun with a hyper competitive 540 card Vintage Cube and a 2000+ mega cube. Its just awesome to play a group to play.
This is a very generic 720 card Powered Vintage Cube.
Here are some modifications that are slightly different from other cubes:
- White has a much higher density of 1 drops than traditional 720 Powered Cubes. This is because competition for card slots in Black, Red and Green are much higher than White. I decided to move the 1-drops more to white and open up slots in Green/ Black and Red for other archetypes. 1 mana 2/1 are always strong (and necessary) in cube as a viable counterbalance to the powerful but slow blue decks. This allows white to shine in cube, where it traditionally was weak - it could not contribute very well to the most broken archetypes.
- Red has a mono Red Polymorph archetype. Traditionally, this was a red-blue archetype, however I moved it as a mono red archetype as it pairs better with Red's Sneak attack, Green's Eureka/ Oath as well as White's tokens. Blue did not provide much support for the archetype and competition for blue's slots are very tight. Polymorph archetype provides a second outlet for the red storm rituals which would otherwise become parasitic.
- There is the Blue-Black Inverter Combo. The cards all slot very nicely into other archetypes as Tainted Pact, Demonic Consultation are excellent tutors for other combos while Jace/ Inverter of Truth play a decent rule in
- There is the Intruder Alarm Combo to pair with the traditional UR Splinter Twin Combo. The cards slot nicely with the Twin pieces for additional untap, aristocrats cards, tokens or just midrange decks in general.
- Green has a lands package, primarily with red that focuses on playing extra lands a turn from graveyard/ off the top of the library. The deck could win through Ramp, Dark Depths Combo, Field of the Dead or recurring strip mine.
I personally think both Wild Growth/ Utopia Sprawl are both good green 1 CMC ramp, in addition to the 9-10 mana dorks. This is probably good enough to make it into my cube, but its just the competition for every card slot is so damn high right now ...
Braids, Cabal Minion
Yawgmoth, Thran Physician
Rankle, Master of Pranks
I feel this is where you want to be with aristocrats top ends.
Green 4 CMC have gotten really competitive recently:
Magus of the Order
Oracle of Mul Daya
Garruk Wildspeaker
(Ramp)
Questing Beast
Collected Company
Garruk Relentless
(Midrange)
This is where Green 4 CMC should be.
It looks like a pretty cool card.
I will have to add that I'm a bit disappointed that storm has been cut from your cube - cards like Black Lotus and Time Spiral lose a bit of excitement for me ...
Vivien > Freyalise. Removing Flyers is critical. Adding a mana dork at this stage of the game is pretty insignificant.
Radha is decent 3 drop creature in any GR deck. Escape to the wilds requires a bit of a GR lands theme for it to really shine.
God- Eternal Bontu > Cavalier. Triple black is a non-starter. Menace is hell of an ability in cube - its insane for pushing damage.
Orcish Hellraiser > Rimrock Knight. Unfortunately, red 2 drops have gotten so good, these two didn't even warrant a discussion. However, Orcish is stronger in a red aristocrats shell.
- I'll have to give Dire Fleet Daredevil a try - but the "problem" is there are too many good red 2 drops!
- Eidolon is a bit of a non-starter for myself because of its double red. I recently had to cut Knight of the Holy Nimbus and put Knight of the White Orchid on watch list because of their double white casting cost.
- Suppose your have a two color or tri color deck, you can have a pretty good 82%/ 75% consistency with just basics already. This is assuming the Tri color deck starts its curve at 2 as tri color decks are usually midrange/ control and the spells only require a mana of a single color. This is very good numbers already for limited, without considering Dual lands.
- Two color decks can achieve constructed level consistency with just 2 additional lands (Or Talisman/ Signets). Tri color decks required closer to 6-7. If you don;t anticipate on playing stuff like Cryptic command in Grixis Control or Sinkhole in mardu aggro, drafting only 3-5 dual lands in these colors is already pretty good at keeping your archetype consistent.
Suppose I'm drafting a Mardu Aristocrats deck, I have this in mind:
- 4-5 Dual lands
- 3-4 Sacrifice Payoffs
- 3-4 Sacrifice Outlets
There should be a curve of roughly:
4 1-drops
4 2-drops
4 3-drops
4 4-drops
I find once you have a rough idea of the curve distribution/ removal, payoffs etc/ number of lands, it becomes much easier and these addon changes aren't really needed.
- Another point is I find some guilds would benefit from additional dual lands, while others do not. One example is Dimir. I added Sunken Hollow and Fetid Pools as additional fixing and cut two guild cards because this archetype would like additional islands for Vedalken Shackles, High Tide, Counterspell, Cryptic Command and often this is splashed inside a tri or 4 color shell. (And the options in this guild a bit subpar)
Similarly, some tri color pairs are rewarded with a tri land rather than a tri spell for similar reasons. I find these surgical adjustments have made a huge difference and changes like drafting lands separately aren't really needed.