MTG Salvation

cmon shizzle some nizzle man

i dont care too much about magic names. since im from germany we had horribly stupid card names since translations were a thing.

I dont even know if its appreciated to give feedback, but here is not much going on, so..

1. The blink archetype is really strong, I dont see it in T1 for know, because its somewhat slow and eats too many borderline slots. It fits very well in my T2 for now, although it kinda lacks the premium blue spell suite there.
2. The card can be really unfair, especially when equipped on sth like Aven Fleetwing
3. T1 for sure
4.
5. Although theyre definitely better removal, i recently even cut them from my T2. T1 has better stuff with Doom blade and Terror, although they dont hit black stuff, it barely matters. But for T2 they were just too boring and I prefer more interesting removal like Seal of Doom or Executioner's Capsule there, because they open some synergies.
6. Longbow is definitely strong on its own, fetchable with Trinket Mage and most people seem to overlook, that you can reequip and shoot more then once a turn. Fire Whip is also quite good.
7. If you support tokens, those are mandatory. Emrakul's Hatcher is bonkers and I dont get why we didnt see Sengir Autocrat at common yet.
8. Never makes the cut for me. Somehow draw 2 seems not enough.
9. Feels slow even in my T2
10. Staple card.

cycle lands. I really want to add them, but there is now way I could open 5 slots in my T1 for them and for T2 they dont add enough utility. Besides T2 decks usually are happily flooding, because they can use tons of mana.

coiling oracle. its too random and 1/1s for 2 quite useless. I also think, that Simic has a pretty strong guild with

• Snakeform
  
• Beetleform Mage
  
• Shambleshark
  
• Frilled Oculus
  

Tortured Existence - I run it in my T2 and it works well with the madness theme on top of the usual (dredge) stuff
Wander in Death - dont like it. We have stuff like existance or plain old graverdigger variants, which are all better.
Spiketail Drakeling - T1 stuff for me here. Almost a manaleak on a Winddrake. Top5 blue creature def.
Tandem Lookout - super strong in the right deck. T1 for me as well.
Claws of Wirewood - idk, seems most of the time its a lavaspike for 4, I like Deadshot Minotaur
Thrashing Mossdog - in and out in my t2, in the end out, because 3 power for 4 mana is not efficient enough and the slot is stacked. I could easily run like 15 creatures there
Simian Grunts - T1 as well, pretty broken card in my book.
Sluiceway Scorpion - T1 Maybe because Golgari lacks better or maybe because I think DT is OP
True-faith Censor - a durdle card for exert decks, but it didnt stay long in my T2
Shimmering Grotto - paying 2 mana for a colored one is just too bad



Zealot kinda lacks shadow
Slow Motion - yup. In T1 my curve seemed too low and nobody picked it so it ended in T2 where nobody picks it either. Most underrated card ever.
Martys+WoH - currently in my T2, WoH was T1 for long. While it seems good, its outclassed by non blockable stuff like menace. Also red control just wants more burn. Martyr I tried few years ago and it never found a deck, but I give it another chance.
Rukh Egg is nice when you run a sacrifice archetype.

That said, the sac arch is bonkers in my T2. So broken that I almost consider it T1 worthy. Threaten+sac is just unfair. Also it rounds up so well with tokensupport in red. Most underrated or misunderstood archetype here

WK - not a common
Dimir - Harpy can be quite strong if you come into durdle mode. Too bad we dont get to that quite often. The Shaman just never works.


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Since I run 2 cubes Im pretty sure I run a lot of controversial stuff in T2, but in T1 as well so lets see about that one.

The most controversial for sure has been Ghazbán Ogre, but it was the only way to support fast aggro for years. Now we have 2 Savannah Lions and Jackal Pup, so it was finally time to say goodbye. The archetype shifted from RG to RW now.

Second card I remember being controversial here is Empyrial Armor. Man this card is just insane and easily got me 3-0 with my monoW last week. Ususally it starts like Oakenform and then groqs bigger and bigger. Extra brokeness points when you slam it on Phantom Nomad

it seems i run quite a few more unsual cards in my T1, but idk about controversial. so i pick cards i like that are more rare.

War Falcon - a flying savannah lion in heavy white decks, since everyone is a knight or a soldier.
Vampiric Link one mana removal or a safety net. pretty good
Mogg Conscripts since we got Dash in Khans those are pretty good for fast aggro
Empty the Warrens with just another spell already quite strong. In my cube storm 3 or 4 is not unsual as well.
Returned Phalanx/Glade Watcher - I need some defense thats not useless later against all those fast aggrocards and those are pretty solid. Glade Watcher basically has no drawback, since for CC4 you already get 5 power beater in green. The black one is a little "slower"
Jolrael's Centaur this guy is soo annoying. And in removal heavy cubes mvp.
Nivix Cyclops+Wee Dragonauts - not neccessarily controversial, but i want point out, that spell matters still is a very powerful archetype.
Whispersilk Cloak Al thinks the card is crap, I rate it in the Top10 most broken commons. Its not good in the superaggro decks, but every midrange deck just wins with it.
Fertile Thicket When I was searching for playable fixing I recently discovered it and its rated pretty bad in the evaluation thread, thats why i never knew about it (and think the thread is misleading too often), but its basically a evolving wilds that taps for green, which is pretty good. It can also interact with bouncelands. Top1 sleepercard for me.
For the same reasons I also run Halimar Depths, which interacts with some more stuff.

yes, both are updated and balanced/playtested each like 4 drafts last week xmage ftw.

I consider my T1 pretty balanced lol. At least when it comes to archetypes. The colors have their restrictions of course, since blue is mainly a support color and black is really dedicated to control. To me it made no sense to balance each color to a jack-of-all-trades when I started the cube. Thats obviously open for interpretation, since for example by powerlevel of color rabid bite is the best green removal, but by powerlevel of cube its definitely not as strong. That said, it makes for more interesting decks/drafts, when each color can do everything.

Its interesting, that I get the critique my cube seems unbalanced, although most cubes suffer hard to support aggro in the first place and they all end up in midrange fiesta.

Of course I also think as well, both of my cubes are quite good, but I more and more come to the opinion that 360 is too small for paupercubes. The cards are not complex enough to really change the experience. The decks will always end up more or less the same. So THE list is probably 540 or even 720 and I will soon mix my 2 cubes together. That way you cant start the draft with the set goal to pick a certain archetype since you dont know whether the cards are even in the pool.

But at least I agree with Al, that Styborskis Cube is a horrible mess and I feel one of the main reasons people dont like paupercube, because his is the most known.

Quote from Merovingiann »

Archetype only, I guess, even if 4/4 for 5 is not bad per se.

The card is definitely a T1 card if your cube supports enough lifegain. Its easily a strong Orzhov card in most cubes, since everybody should run a certain amount of lifelink there, especially since we got Mesa Unicorn and Bishop's Soldier. But also black got a certain amount with Child of Night, Cartouche of Ambition, Gray Merchant of Asphodel and so on. Totally bonkers with extort and Recumbent Bliss

yeah its back and forth, especially on the part how to behave on so called public forums.
this forum is a meeting point on the internet to help find people other people that share the same interest. its working like the marketplace in town. but the moment you go to a subforum of a subforum it becomes only semipublic. because certain communities meet there regularly and discuss topics under their label. so, we (pauper guys or peasant guys) are like a small group of people standing in the corner of said marketplace. would you just gatecrash their conversations, just because the marketplace is a public forum? certainly not, especially when the guy you are talking to makes it clear he doesnt want to talk to you. yeah sure, he cant forbid you to continue talking to him (by law), but who is the person thats rude? and then you call the cops because he gets upset?

its basically the same scenario i described with the pub. maybe you understand it this time?

just because youre on the internet, that doesnt mean basic social behaviours wont apply.

it actually feels really weird that its necessary to explain that to grown ups.

i advocate for the smaller sacrifice theme for quite a time now, so im happy you got some feedback on it, although i cut the witch in my cube since its so fragile and quite useless without recurring sac effects. i run the enlistment in my t1 though, so its "banned" in my t2.
i also repeat myself by saying neither the sac nor the token archetype belong into spike cubes, because they demand too many slots, so you have to cut too heavy on individual strong cards and its relatively weak to staples like pestilence plus id most likely would add cards like electrickery to fuel the powerlevel wheel. i feel the archetype would need something like breeding pit to become t1

cant say too much about slow motion though, although i did run it in t1 for a while and now its in t2 it rarely gets picked, let alone played. it felt too fair in my t1 because of the low curve and it doesnt neccessarily grants tempo advantage since you have to recast it for 3.

Welcome to the world of cubing!
You probably found this thread because youre interested to build your first cube without spending insane amounts of money or the risk to lose cards during drafts. Well, its pretty simple to start a cube. Just start with cards from your collection and build something playable

The basics:

A cube is a customized singleton "expansion" made for limited games from all released card of magic, generally for drafts. A normal cube has 360 cards to provide 8 players with 3 "packs" at 15 cards each. Before you start, you just shuffle your cube and make the "packs". Its helpful to keep them in the center of the table, otherwise it might confuse players whats the pack and whats the drafted cards. Other common cubesizes are 540 and 720. The smaller the cube the better you can support archetype strategies, but after a couple of drafts it might become boring to always see the same mix of cards.

You can apply additional rules to your cube, like commons only (pauper) or uncommons as well (peasant) or only modern cards and so on. We are focussing on pauper here.


Card distribution:
An average draftdeck in normal limited formats consists 17 lands and 23 spells with the distribution:

CC1: 3
CC2: 6.5
CC3: 6.5
CC4: 4
CC5: 2
CC6+: 1

So when building your cube, you should scale up that ratio as a rule of thumb.
We are at a point in paupercubing where we can build a cube, Ill call the "SpikeCube(SC)" from now on, where the curve has become roughly 1 less mana on that distribution. So keep that in mind when your aiming for the "powered" cube we often refer to as well on this forum. The Spikecube basically just includes the strongest cards and archetypes. Another philosophy in building is the "JohnnyCube(JC)" which aims for a more thematic and varied meta.
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/timmy-johnny-and-spike-2013-12-03

The archetypes:

Core archetypes:
There are 3 (4) core strategies in magic with 2 substrategies

Aggro (A): This archetype wants to win with creatures that basically always want to attack face. Spells are mainly used to clear blockers or burn the opponent down.
There also apply the 2 substrategies
Tempo: This strategy runs a very low and efficient manacurve and tries to cheat on mana while disrupting opponents development.
Ramp: This strategy also cheats on mana with effects that speed up the mana development to get higher costed spells faster than the opponent. Its not a viable approach in Spikecubes, because the removal is so efficient, that the tempostrategy always will be stronger.

Control (C): This strategy wants to control the board and trades or kills everything the opppnent plays. With cardadvantage effects you will win on ressources and eventually establish a finisher. It ususally runs more spells than aggro. To use this strategy you basically have to run boardwipes (sweeper) which pauper only has access to in black (weak ones in red)

Midrange (M): Basically the mix of both worlds. You trade spells and win with either with aggression and/or cardadvantage. In standard limited or Johnnycubes most decks end in this strategy.

(Combo) (O): This strategy want to win or turn the game with a big swing in one or very few turns. It usually uses hand and library manipulation to find its combo pieces and tries to ignore what the opponent does. There are no pure combodecks in pauper, alhtough there are winning card combinations that can be included in midrange or controldecks.

Theme archetypes (T):
These strategies dont focus too much on the gamepace, but on effects and keywords.
The best working themes in Spikecubes are:
Hexproof/Aura - more or less assambles itself in SC´s because it will contain some amount of hexproof and aura cards anyway.
Spells Matters - there are a bunch of very efficient creatures for that theme and will include itself most of the time as well
Otherwise the SC will focus on the core strategies.

Viable themes for JC´s can be found here


Card evaluation:
To find the best 360 cards for the SC, we already had an existing thread. It has become too inconsistend and outdated lately, because wizards changed a lot of its limited design philosophy in the last couple of years and to have a more updated and overseeable thread i started this one.



The categories:

Trash
below average,ignored, never cube it. mostly stuff before limited were a thing at all.

Filler
this card has the average value. Its usually included in every standard limited environment and mostly ignored in cubedesign. But they can be used when you start with your first cube. To save work I will not list those. Check gatherer or the old evaluation thread when youre missing a card. Feel free to demand borderline status.

Borderline
Average+0.5 - this card is slightly above curve and will often be an theme archetype card that will raise its value. Lately most filler cards in new sets are at least borderline.

Cubable
Average+1 - above curve, most of them time staple in the corearchetype

Staple
Average+1.5 - insane value for its casting cost and useful in any deckstrategy

When I feel like it, ill also add the strategy it belongs to (A,C,M,O,T - see above)

kinda sad theyre wasting really good artstyle on an unplayable set and leave the normal magic with generic boring *****

My Changes for now: (Out > In)
→ Wildwood Tracker > Jewel Thief
→ Goblin Trailblazer > Mayhem Patrol
→ Benalish Cavalry > Inspiring Overseer
→ Blossoming Sands > Botanical Plaza
→ Rugged Highlands > Racers' Ring
→ Tranquil Cove > Skybridge Towers
→ Bloodfell Caves > Tramway Station
→ Dismal Backwater > Waterfront District
→ Wind-Scarred Crag > Lorehold Campus
→ Swiftwater Cliffs > Prismari Campus
→ Thornwood Falls > Quandrix Campus
→ Scoured Barrens > Silverquill Campus
→ Jungle Hollow > Witherbloom Campus

I will likely cut the Campi/Draw Lands when the next Thriving Cycle is out and go down to 10 Bounce Lands + 10 Thriving Lands and thus create 5 Slots for other things.

New Capella Review

White

Backup Agent - Weak to Borderline. While it is not strictly true that this is a weak card, it lacks behind other white 2 mana value creatures. Having Ephemerate utility pushes it up slightly more, the reality is most of the time the counter isn't going to matter.

Boon of Safety - Borderline. Mostly you'd just want God's Willing or Apostle's Blessing. The good thing about shield counters is you can jam them on an earlier turn and still receive the benefit. Let's wait and see how shield counters play before giving a final verdict.

Brokers Initiate - Borderline. This is probably going to be the most interesting one of this cycle because 0/4s for one are really good at blocking non-evasion threats while staying out of Strangle range. The downside of being a 0/4 is negated when you can turn it into a 5/5 threat late game. This card is probably decent, but a little bit too narrow for most cubes.

Buy Your Silence - Weak. Well, it is technically playable; 5 mana is just too much. Especially compared to Oblivion Ring, which these days is on the weaker end of white answers as most of the time you'd prefer a 2 mana answer that deals with creatures only.

Celebrity Fencer - Borderline to Cubeable. Token spam is a meta strategy. This comes down on turn 4 and is a bit small to begin with, but between Battle Screech and Triplicate Spirits this has the potential to be a legitimate threat. Still this has no rules text other than alliance and is still vulnerable to removal (which is the most cliché piece of pauper criticism).

Dapper Shieldmate - Weak to Borderline. The shield counter doesn't balance out the fact that this is a weak card. It only gets +2/+0 during your turn. I'm giving the shield counter the benefit of the doubt, but I don't foresee many people running this.

Gathering Throng - Bad* with the caveat that this is ran in singleton. A vanilla 3/1 for 3 is pretty bad when there are 3/1 for 2 with upside. It goes without saying that this gets pretty good when there are tutorable targets.

Hold for Ransom - Cubeable. Pacifism with a minor downside is still strong card. In control strategies the opponent with more realistically reach 7 mana making this worse, but even then they only get a card out of it, not their creature back. In aggro strategies, this may as well not have any downside. This is just better than Trapped in the Tower which I personally run. So yeah, I think this is a good card. Also you can enchant one of your own creatures to (badly) cycle a card.

Inspiring Overseer - Staple. This along side that green creature we'll get to are probably the two cards of the set everyone is going to be playing from this set. Cloudkin Seer is already a good card. The colourshift to white is a big deal because white has historically been lacking in card draw, and having a decent evasion treat that cantrips goes a long way to patching up one of white's greatest weaknesses: running out of cards. And one extra life to boot never hurt any one.

Kill Shot - Borderline. You'd play it if better answers didn't exist.

Raffine's Guidance - Cubeable. About on par with Sentinel's Eyes because you don't have to worry about running out of resources, but Eye's provides vigilance and costs less mana to bring back. Any cheap white aura that negates auras' typical downside is probably going to be good enough. While I don't see this running away with games — it isn't that much better than Leonin Scimitar — it is going to find a home in white aggro somewhere.

Raffine's Informant - Cubeable. Quite a bit better than Fissure Wizard. I'm not sure how strong looting is in white, but I suspect it's pretty decent. The upside of this card is quite good, you get a 3/2 for 2 and loot a bad card from your hand, but even in the case where you don't do that, you still get a 2/1 and a looted land. I suspect this is going to find a home is quite a few cubes.

Revelation of Power - Borderline. The upside on this is very good, lifelink and flying allow for both strong offensive and defensive plays — a big life point swing can be no joke in a lot of games. Still that's looking at this card optimistically. Realistically, their aren't going to be many creatures with counters running about, so in those cases it is just going to be a bad combat trick. The ceiling for this card is decent, but the floor is low. And most cases it's not going to be reliable either. Now if this was one mana, we'd been talking...

Sky Crier - Bad. Healer's Hawk is good because it is so cheap. 2 mana is probably too expensive. The activated ability is cute, but giving your opponent draw is just not worth it.

Speakeasy Server - Cubeable. 3 power fliers for 5 have been on the narrow end of cubeable. Most cubes out compete them, but there are some cubes where it is the right fit. We've seen this lifegain ability of a few creatures before, although in most cases they have countered themselves, but none of them have had flying except Shepherd of Heroes. Shepherd of Heroes is close in effect. Party is such an annoying mechanic to draft around in pauper cube, but the guaranteed 2 life and 4 toughness make the Shepherd better on an empty board. Speakeasy Server is more for token spammed boards where it can be gaining in the upwards of 4 life, putting you out of burn range and providing a decent flier to actually close out games.

Conclusion: White got a lot of good cards this set. Hold for Ransom, Inspiring Overseer, Raffine's GuidanceRaffine's Informant, Speakeasy Server are all the cubeable cards, with Inspiring Overseer being the stand out.

This is really good info (thriving). I see "cliffgate" mountain version. And as Humphrey mentioned, the roo lands and 10 thriving would set up your mana very well.

Ok Inspiring Overseer is clearly the best card in the set. A better Cloudkin Seer is clearly ridiculous.

Something for those with a sacrifice theme. Edit: Actually I think this goes well with a lot of stuff. And its more interesting than the generic hasty dudes like shred freak.

I actually played my friend peasant cube this weekend, and the Synthesizer was decent. I've added it to my cube also.

I'm adding

• Ambitious Assault
  
• Coiling Stalker
  
• Greater Tanuki
  
• Jukai Preserver
  
• Mirrorshell Crab
  
• Moon-circuit Hacker
  
• Tales of Master Seshiro
  
• Uncharted Haven
  

maybe's

• Chainflail centipede
  
• Iron Apprentice
  
• Experimental Synthesizer
  
• Moonsnare Prototype
  
• Mukotai Ambusher
  
• Simian Sling
  
• Skyswimmer Koi
  
• Thundersteel Colossus
  
• You are already dead
  

To me, Network Disruptor is a little odd in that its a 1 drop that you dont want to play on turn 1. So it gets outclassed very easy (and you have better things to do with more mana later). I think id rather have something frost lynx at that point. But I would love to hear other's thoughts

So if you Ninjutsu it in and it deals damage to a player, then that turn it's just a draw rather than a loot, which would be the case for all future turns. The cheaper Ninjutsu and far more reasonable casting cost to body ratio is quite nice, but then again, how often were you actually casting Ninja of the Deep Hours? Additionally, after you get in once and draw your card with Ninja of the Deep Hours, you're likely not getting in again unless you can pick it up and Ninjutsu it again off of a flyer or unblockable creature, so... this kind of leads me to believe that this Moon-Circuit Hacker will be just as good if not better.

Quote from Humphrey »

is the project dead or just on ice until you find the mood to update?

As I said before I'm no longer motivated to do this on my own. I would only continue updating this project if it becomes a comunity driven effort. As long as no one else is willing to put in some work this project is laid on ice and can be considered dead. Again if someone is interesed in keeping this alive, the work isn't to evaluate the cards, but to actually include the missing cards directly into the posts. We are about 6 sets behind now and talking about around 600 missing cards right now, which is definitely several hours of work, so if anyone has some time to kill and cares about this project, feel free. Evaluating all the cards is probably only around 10% of the work, especially since evaluations for most cards have already been posted in this thread somewhere.

If there should be some interest to keep this updated here is how you can help if you want:
1) CTRL + C the section you want to edit and CTRL + V it into text editor or whatever.
2) Add the missing evaluations and save it.
3) CTRL + C the updated version and CTRL + V it into a pm to me and I will replace it with the original.