Where would one want to play this card?
It's not aggressive, since you lose a lot of tempo investing 2 Mana on turn 4 for no immediate payoff - it's not really helping control vs aggro, since you wouldn't want to disable a blocker.
Midrange? Or control mirror?
If you are willing to stretch the definition a bit by saying the core of the Cube should at least consist of mechanics that originated from these times, you could definetly import a Persist-archetype. Use Kitchen Finks and Murderous Redcap and maybe some other Persist-creatures as payoffs and Blasting Station, Spawning Pit and maybe some other sacrifice outlets - the only thing you then have to include from outside is something that closes the loop like Renata, Called to the Hunt, Grumgully, the Generous or Good-Fortune Unicorn. The last three are not really from the sets you like, but I'd say Grumgully is very defendable as a Goblin that would fit into Lorwyn and the Unicorn is kind of okay.
There has been some discussion about Torrential Gearhulk versus Aetherling in the "This or That" Thread, so I wanted to collect the reasons that made me include Gearhulk over Aetherling at 540 unpowered.
Flash and the natural ability for a 2 for 1 have made Gearhulk the superior play compared to Aetherling in my Cube when playing from behind. I have found this to be critical, since there often were games where deploying Aetherling didn't work - partly because Aetherling does feel like a 7-drop to me. Maybe I was just unlucky and the opponent just always had the answer ready, leaving me without progress and finishing the game.
With Nightpack Ambusher and Mayor of Avabruck, there is some real payoff for playing on the opponents turn, making the Flash on Gearhulk even more valuable (although playing two spells is a bit of nonbo with the Mayor). Assembling a Simic Flash deck in my Cube is very strong, and support keeps coming in, the latest piece being Hullbreacher.
I'm trying to support an artifact-deck, which is somewhat difficult in unpowered. Gearhulk as an artifact is a nice little synergy that I have found useful some times. A counter-argument to this would be pointing to the inherent weakness to removal due to being both an artifact and a creature, which indeed is true.
With Sublime Epiphany, there now are three supreme Instant-targets for Gearhulk - Cryptic Command, Mystic Confluence and Sublime Epiphany. It is sad that Gearhulk does only work with instants and I had games where I clenched my teeth over the inability to cast Wrath of God from the graveyard, but there are powerful instants in Cube, enough to make the ability work in the majority of games I think.
I do not think Torrential Gearhulk is a better finisher than Aetherling, but I think it has more useful synergies and can be deployed with success in more situations, which makes me play the former over the latter.
Steel Leaf Champion is an excellent aggressive 3-drop, which is hard to justify due to the color-requirements. If you're in monogreen however it hits superhard and ignores most tokens, which is nice.
What is a sacred Cow?
Specifically, these are cards that are nearly ubiquitous that may be reaching a point where their time is passed.
What are everyone else's thoughts?
Happy New Year!
I agree with some cards you mentioned, but not all - however, I want to give my opinion on the matter as a whole.
After the first two years min-maxing my Cube according to what is strongest, strongly relying on the data I got from MTGS and from draft-nights, I realised that there are cards that, while becoming weaker and weaker, I definetly want to play. The cards becoming weaker is due to the increased powerlevel of cards created these days, where every permanent has a spell tacked onto it and has to be a 2 for 1 at least to be worth it.
I identified these cards and a few more as the fixed stars I want to align my Cube experience to. I want to play those cards, so I will, and if that means not playing all the very strongest cards I don't care. Otherwise I couldn't play my Cube as is since I don't have P9 and similar. Now, if they print a Braids with CMC 3 (which they'll never ever do), I will cut the original Braids for that - it's not about the specific card, but rather about the effect and the archetype the effect opens in the Cube. These cards are not uncuttable, but I will only replace them with cards with similar or the same effects or something I enjoy even more.
I don't want to discourage people using the concept of sacred cows to discuss cards that lost a lot of their power due to the competiton of new cards - but one should not fall prey to the belief that as a Cube curator one is at the mercy of Wizards and the FOMO regarding new pushed cards.
In my opinion, drafting lands together with the rest of the pool puts more emphasis on the draft as a whole, which I like. I don't think I'd ever want to draft the lands seperately. Sure, sometimes you get unlucky and none of the lands you want show up, but if it happens all the time people simply need to improve their drafting.
Not really. Living in Europe makes the Secret Lairs a no-brainer to not obtain, since the shipping is so expensive. Also, I actually love the original art of Damnation over pretty much any art they might ever release, since it reminds me of Chibaku Tensei from Naruto. I guess the only artwork I would take over it would be something depicting the Circles of Hell as in the Divina Commedia by Alighieri.
Don't get me wrong, the Seb McKinnon Secret Lair looks absolutely amazing!
Regarding the "Metal" Secret Lair - I'm no fan. Too much of a style-break from a usual Magic card for me. If I wanted something similar, I would ask a friend to make me an altered art. This way I also have a nice memory of my friend coming along with the card.
I have to admit, my last Cube session dates somewhat far back in this year, so I can only give you an approximate overview. Against midrange, it is a bit too coinflippy for my taste, since many midrange-decks also have access to answers to the card by simply removing it. And if your gameplan revolved around not getting hit and you devoted resources to it, a Disenchant or an Oblivion Ring hurts. And that is what happened somewhat often. However, I will say that the card got quite a bit better with number of Flash-creatures rising. In those decks, the protection you want to work around perfectly aligns with the gameplan of ambushing random attackers with Nightpack Ambusher, Shark Typhoon, Archangel Avacyn, Brazen Borrower, Restoration Angel, etc. This happend a few times, but Luminarch Ascension is by no means the only payoff for such a playstyle.
My verdict would be: Completely skippable, but strong sideboard card.
I've been playing Luminarch Ascension for a while - just swapped it for Court of Grace - and the card has been solid. Very Polar in nature, it mostly was a sideboard card, and if that's not your thing maybe the card isn't for you. When it's good, it's gamewinning, when it's bad, you wasted two mana or have a dead draw.
Definetly gets more interesting with possibilities to limit/discourage attacking, like Constant Mists or Thalia, Heretic Cathar.
Many themes are unoptimized - I don't feel like putting in significant amounts of money, since my basic Cube is expensive enough, so I went with what I had lying around. Still some ideas are quite good, if I may say so myself
While working on it I started to agree with your two points against a full Jumpstart format. One being the inequality in powerlevel and the other being the fact that some themes cannot be fully fleshed out in a pack. Nonetheless, the upside of a format completely void of deckbuilding (at least on a pedagogical level) outweighs these downsides for me, put I'm stoked to see your re-interpretation of the format!
Can't one just play this as a value-engine in a Reanimator shell? I mean, it is a "discard"-outlet for fatties preparing a reanimation immediately. Sounds also really good with Karmic Guide, provided the guide is in hand. Also nice if in Abzan colors and you can use Worldly Tutor as a second copy of Entomb. Same goes with Vampiric Tutor, and Brainstorm should also be fun, allowing you to put creatures on top of your library if you don't have a discard outlet but have a reanimation spell. It also won't stop you from drawing a reanimation-spell, which is nice.
The real downside is the revealed hand I think.
I think building a Peasant Cube for starters (on paper) is really your best bet when starting on a budget. If you then feel like spicing things up, nothing will and should stop you from adding rares. As the others have said, upgrading to rare Lands is one of the best things you can do, since it is really nice to be able to play the spells you have in your hand.
If you have something built you can share the list here so maybe we can assist you with some comments or suggestions.
Here you can have a look at what I have been able to assemble so far. The powerlevel is somewhat restricted, since I want to build the majority of all half decks with cards I already own and my exceptional stuff is in my cube. (All the cards in this jumpstart are listed as foils, which is of course not the case for my cards^^ It's just convenient to sort for foils and immediately see non-foils, which are new cards I added so I can adjust their tags to the respective half deck in a mass edit. This might be a neat trick for using CubeCobra if you want to manage a list there as well.)
Sort the list by 'Tags' to see the different names of the half decks.
I didn't include basics in all the half decks in this list, since I couldn't bother with looking those numbers up^^ Special lands are mostly there though. A rule of thumb is that every two-color half deck gets one Evolving Wilds and every monocolored half deck gets one corresponding land of the vivid-cycle from Lorwyn, so for example Vivid Crag.
Also, half decks are a bit flexible on number of cards, since I felt there are some things that need a critical amount of cards to function well. Especially Golgari Dredge, which simply needs enough creatures/cards to not mill itself. Combining two half decks results in minimum 40 cards per deck though, meaning every half deck has at least 20 cards (including basic lands).
I feel the same way - I don't see anything in this card for cube and don't see myself picking this over anything.
It's not aggressive, since you lose a lot of tempo investing 2 Mana on turn 4 for no immediate payoff - it's not really helping control vs aggro, since you wouldn't want to disable a blocker.
Midrange? Or control mirror?
I do not think Torrential Gearhulk is a better finisher than Aetherling, but I think it has more useful synergies and can be deployed with success in more situations, which makes me play the former over the latter.
Happy New Year!
I agree with some cards you mentioned, but not all - however, I want to give my opinion on the matter as a whole.
After the first two years min-maxing my Cube according to what is strongest, strongly relying on the data I got from MTGS and from draft-nights, I realised that there are cards that, while becoming weaker and weaker, I definetly want to play. The cards becoming weaker is due to the increased powerlevel of cards created these days, where every permanent has a spell tacked onto it and has to be a 2 for 1 at least to be worth it.
So I sat down and drew out a "core" of my Cube, consisting of those cards that, almost no matter what, I want to keep having in Cube because I love playing with them. Some examples: Mana Tithe, Flickerwisp, Land Tax, Thing in the Ice, Opposition, Braids, Cabal Minion, Profane Command, Greater Gargadon, Fireblast, Wildfire, Tireless Tracker, Life from the Loam, Smokestack.
I identified these cards and a few more as the fixed stars I want to align my Cube experience to. I want to play those cards, so I will, and if that means not playing all the very strongest cards I don't care. Otherwise I couldn't play my Cube as is since I don't have P9 and similar. Now, if they print a Braids with CMC 3 (which they'll never ever do), I will cut the original Braids for that - it's not about the specific card, but rather about the effect and the archetype the effect opens in the Cube. These cards are not uncuttable, but I will only replace them with cards with similar or the same effects or something I enjoy even more.
I don't want to discourage people using the concept of sacred cows to discuss cards that lost a lot of their power due to the competiton of new cards - but one should not fall prey to the belief that as a Cube curator one is at the mercy of Wizards and the FOMO regarding new pushed cards.
Don't get me wrong, the Seb McKinnon Secret Lair looks absolutely amazing!
Regarding the "Metal" Secret Lair - I'm no fan. Too much of a style-break from a usual Magic card for me. If I wanted something similar, I would ask a friend to make me an altered art. This way I also have a nice memory of my friend coming along with the card.
My verdict would be: Completely skippable, but strong sideboard card.
Definetly gets more interesting with possibilities to limit/discourage attacking, like Constant Mists or Thalia, Heretic Cathar.
I've been brainstorming some ideas myself and managed to put some packs together - https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/5fa471bc57aea647df001a7d
That's what I've come up with so far, sort by Name Tag if you want to see the different packs.
Many themes are unoptimized - I don't feel like putting in significant amounts of money, since my basic Cube is expensive enough, so I went with what I had lying around. Still some ideas are quite good, if I may say so myself
While working on it I started to agree with your two points against a full Jumpstart format. One being the inequality in powerlevel and the other being the fact that some themes cannot be fully fleshed out in a pack. Nonetheless, the upside of a format completely void of deckbuilding (at least on a pedagogical level) outweighs these downsides for me, put I'm stoked to see your re-interpretation of the format!
The real downside is the revealed hand I think.
If you have something built you can share the list here so maybe we can assist you with some comments or suggestions.
Sounds like an amazing Christmas present!
Here you can have a look at what I have been able to assemble so far. The powerlevel is somewhat restricted, since I want to build the majority of all half decks with cards I already own and my exceptional stuff is in my cube. (All the cards in this jumpstart are listed as foils, which is of course not the case for my cards^^ It's just convenient to sort for foils and immediately see non-foils, which are new cards I added so I can adjust their tags to the respective half deck in a mass edit. This might be a neat trick for using CubeCobra if you want to manage a list there as well.)
Sort the list by 'Tags' to see the different names of the half decks.
I didn't include basics in all the half decks in this list, since I couldn't bother with looking those numbers up^^ Special lands are mostly there though. A rule of thumb is that every two-color half deck gets one Evolving Wilds and every monocolored half deck gets one corresponding land of the vivid-cycle from Lorwyn, so for example Vivid Crag.
Also, half decks are a bit flexible on number of cards, since I felt there are some things that need a critical amount of cards to function well. Especially Golgari Dredge, which simply needs enough creatures/cards to not mill itself. Combining two half decks results in minimum 40 cards per deck though, meaning every half deck has at least 20 cards (including basic lands).