I actually cut this and the Izzet manland a while ago for the respective Canopy lands. While rereading the discussion here makes me want to reconsider this decision, I just think the Canopy lands are better. Maybe I'll redesign my Landsection as a whole to bring them back though, Manlands are insanely good!
The possibility of hitting several Combo-pieces off of Plunge into Darkness and having to exile all but one makes me never want to play with that card. I'll pick the other two.
What do you all think of masterpieces in cube? I have to admit, at first I was blown away and would have wanted every one for myself, but after having had some exposure to my Hangarback Walker and Daze (how do I change artwork shown here?) I came back to liking my Mirrodin Chrome Mox much better than the MP. Granted, the Inventions look nice, since the border matches the Artifact-theme quite well, but I think I prefer the original MTG-style to the exclusive feel of MPs in general.
How do people feel about the expeditions? I guess it's not even a question about blinging out your cube, since I'd rather have a foil Onslaught Fetchland than the expedition, but people might disagree.
Flavourwise I'm actually confused the card does not work like Master of Waves. So if you kill the Kraken, the Tentacles just start a life on their own, roaming the sea in search of prey?
Still like the card. Seems powerful, yet fair.
I actually came here to rant about how we again don't get an interesting white card - turns out I was wrong
Probably won't play it, since I don't really have experience with combo-archetypes and I can't expand my Cube beyond 540 since I'm mostly playing 1v1 or 4-player pods, but nice to see some action going on for the rest of you
I quite like the card as it stands, simply because the versatility of the card is something I like to see in my powerful (but non-power) Cube. I actually see it somehow as a control card, since it provides an early deadly blocker while potentially advancing my gameplan into the later stages by either setting up the graveyard for reanimation or delving, preventing myself from getting Brainstorm-locked and netting me some life.
The 1 point of toughness speaks against the role of it being like a Wall of Omens, but I believe it is comparable to Lone Missionary and I will definetly test it.
Any new opinions on this card? 1/1 seems very low impact, but I suppose flying can really offset this by getting a hit with a sword in or so. Also, I'm trying to fit in Reality Smasher, Thought-Knot Seer and Eldrazi Displacer, increasing my need for colorless producing lands.
Upping your cube-size to 720 is very interesting. As many have, I took a grest deal of inspiration for my cube from yours when it was 450. Your list was always extremely strong and powered, so I'm interested in how you manage to expand your cube while making minimal loss in power-level. Do you think the differential between best and worst cards in your cube will get very large at such a size, especially since you play the very best cards in the history of magic?
From thinking about it for a short time, I come to think that the main reason for doing this would be to increase consistency within archetypes that are served by the packages you create. While in and of itself not a bad idea, it collides with my personal goal that my cube is trying to achieve: Something different everytime without any form of hourlong brewing (except building the cube itself and thinking about changes almost daily :P).
Adopting package creation leads cube to more constructed-stylish outcomes. The basic idea of having packages is: "If you want one of this card, you will want all of them", which is the opposite of unexpected deck-composition that I so love about cube. I mean, I could make packages "Stoneforge Mystic, Umezawas Jitte, Recruiter of the Guard", or "Crucible of World, Life from the Loam, Ramunap Excavator", and while I'm sure I would extremely enjoy those packages, I would end up playing a smaller variety of decks over the long run, because I either assemble all the pieces or none. This last part is hinting at the more constructed-style gameplay you'll get. You either have Deck A because you managed to get package A, or you have Deck B because you got package B and so on.
I'm sketching it in a binary way and I know it's exaggerated, but without very in-depth analysis of the idea I wouldn't know where to stop with the package-density and the package-composition. I know for sure however that it leads into constructed-terrain, and that is not a place I want to be at, ever.
All in all, I don't see this idea being good for me as a permanent change of my Cube-environment. It might be nice however to once in a while allow for some more streamlined drafting, if there were some packages and every player can choose exactly one and build a very specific deck with it and the rest of the cards they drafted.
Doesn't this give all your creatures flash while making them uncounterable at the cost of losing ETB-triggers? That sounds very interesting to me. Maybe a bit too matchup-dependent, but for a green deck it actually sounds super-cool!
I want some more identity in my white section, but Moat is clearly outside my budget. The alternatives I've considered are Norn's Annex and Ghostly Prison. Any thoughts on an inclusion of such a card.
Second question: How important is the addition of Ravages of War when Armageddon is already in? If Ravages wasn't so expensive, I would've just added it, but like that I'm unsure. Maybe I'll buy a different artwork of Armageddon to mimick Ravages.
With the printings of Sword of Truth and Justice and Yawgmoth, Thran Physician, Cubes got a huge boost for counter-motivated strategies. I'm saying counter-motivated and not counter-centered, since I don't think there are enough cards viable whose inclusion is mainly cementing a Counter-archetype. However, many strong cards that already proved their worth in cube use counters, Umezawa's Jitte, Walking Ballista, Hangarback Walker, Tangle Wire, Deep Forest Hermit, Everflowing Chalice, Hexdrinker, Student of Warfare, Krenko, Tin Street Kingpin, every Planeswalker and maybe some other cards as well. All those cards don't need proliferate to be strong, but it would increase their playability further if there were possible proliferation-possibilities, and vice-versa, proliferating cards would benefit from the inclusion of counter-using cards.
What are cards you use or think are playable, that are basically capable of taking the exact (or close enough) spot of another card already existing in cubes, but that also have counter-synergies?
An example coming to mind is Staggershock, for which there exist several possible options with different advantages, but Staggershock supports the spells-matters archetype and is thus preferred by some cubers.
I personally think we're not quite at the point were one could really try to assemble counter-synergies in a draft reliably, but the Sword and Yawgmoth already walked a long distance to get us closer. What do you all think?
What do you all think of masterpieces in cube? I have to admit, at first I was blown away and would have wanted every one for myself, but after having had some exposure to my Hangarback Walker and Daze (how do I change artwork shown here?) I came back to liking my Mirrodin Chrome Mox much better than the MP. Granted, the Inventions look nice, since the border matches the Artifact-theme quite well, but I think I prefer the original MTG-style to the exclusive feel of MPs in general.
How do people feel about the expeditions? I guess it's not even a question about blinging out your cube, since I'd rather have a foil Onslaught Fetchland than the expedition, but people might disagree.
Still like the card. Seems powerful, yet fair.
Probably won't play it, since I don't really have experience with combo-archetypes and I can't expand my Cube beyond 540 since I'm mostly playing 1v1 or 4-player pods, but nice to see some action going on for the rest of you
The 1 point of toughness speaks against the role of it being like a Wall of Omens, but I believe it is comparable to Lone Missionary and I will definetly test it.
Adopting package creation leads cube to more constructed-stylish outcomes. The basic idea of having packages is: "If you want one of this card, you will want all of them", which is the opposite of unexpected deck-composition that I so love about cube. I mean, I could make packages "Stoneforge Mystic, Umezawas Jitte, Recruiter of the Guard", or "Crucible of World, Life from the Loam, Ramunap Excavator", and while I'm sure I would extremely enjoy those packages, I would end up playing a smaller variety of decks over the long run, because I either assemble all the pieces or none. This last part is hinting at the more constructed-style gameplay you'll get. You either have Deck A because you managed to get package A, or you have Deck B because you got package B and so on.
I'm sketching it in a binary way and I know it's exaggerated, but without very in-depth analysis of the idea I wouldn't know where to stop with the package-density and the package-composition. I know for sure however that it leads into constructed-terrain, and that is not a place I want to be at, ever.
All in all, I don't see this idea being good for me as a permanent change of my Cube-environment. It might be nice however to once in a while allow for some more streamlined drafting, if there were some packages and every player can choose exactly one and build a very specific deck with it and the rest of the cards they drafted.
Second question: How important is the addition of Ravages of War when Armageddon is already in? If Ravages wasn't so expensive, I would've just added it, but like that I'm unsure. Maybe I'll buy a different artwork of Armageddon to mimick Ravages.
With the printings of Sword of Truth and Justice and Yawgmoth, Thran Physician, Cubes got a huge boost for counter-motivated strategies. I'm saying counter-motivated and not counter-centered, since I don't think there are enough cards viable whose inclusion is mainly cementing a Counter-archetype. However, many strong cards that already proved their worth in cube use counters, Umezawa's Jitte, Walking Ballista, Hangarback Walker, Tangle Wire, Deep Forest Hermit, Everflowing Chalice, Hexdrinker, Student of Warfare, Krenko, Tin Street Kingpin, every Planeswalker and maybe some other cards as well. All those cards don't need proliferate to be strong, but it would increase their playability further if there were possible proliferation-possibilities, and vice-versa, proliferating cards would benefit from the inclusion of counter-using cards.
What are cards you use or think are playable, that are basically capable of taking the exact (or close enough) spot of another card already existing in cubes, but that also have counter-synergies?
An example coming to mind is Staggershock, for which there exist several possible options with different advantages, but Staggershock supports the spells-matters archetype and is thus preferred by some cubers.
I personally think we're not quite at the point were one could really try to assemble counter-synergies in a draft reliably, but the Sword and Yawgmoth already walked a long distance to get us closer. What do you all think?