I have a Modern Cube; it's in my signature. I've only included cards I actually own in it, so it's missing a lot of staples, but hopefully it will be at least somewhat helpful.
wtwlf123 used to have one, and there are a couple others that I know of too. I can try to find those links as well.
Yesterday I picked up a Stormblood Berserker, a Chaos Warp, and an Edric, Spymaster of Trest. I definitely want to try out all three of these cards, as in the Commander cards' case I had to trade a lot for them due to their inflated price!
For Edric, I think the cut is certainly Voidslime. But I'm not sure what to cut for the Red cards. I feel that Red is my best section (in terms of "missing the fewest important Cube cards"... though my White might hold that title), so it makes it tough for me. I think the cards I'd be most willing/likely to cut are:
Barbarian Ring (But this can't be right, as it's a land and seems like a fine card! I'm just wondering if the pain throughout the game is worth maybe getting a Shock much later on in a game?) Goblin Wardriver (But I just re-added him!) Magus of the Scroll (But I hate cutting one-drops!) Stone Rain (This should probably be one of the cuts, but I value it more than most and like that it's more splashable than the other 3-mana LD spells)
I suppose in the long run it doesn't matter, as at some point I'm going to expand the Cube to 450 (at which point the cut cards will probably come back anyway), but I don't think I'm quite ready to do that yet. I feel like I need to collect more artifacts and lands before I do so.
I'll cut Keldon Champion instead of Hero for now. Eventually when I expand my Cube there'll still be room for the Champion. I love him and I've seen what he can do, but I haven't seen the Hero in action much, so I'll throw him back in.
I expect the Deathmantle to be bad and the black 2-drops to be somewhat decent, but I do love Disfigure and Liliana's Specter so their absences won't be permanent. I'll likely re-add them in my next update; I just wanted to see how the black creatures and Deathmantle (which was suggested by a friend) fare.
The Lodestone Golem will likely come back as well over the Deathmantle if I don't get a better artifact by then, but he has trouble making my final 40 sometimes. I always feel like the 4-mana spot is always a bit contested in my aggro decks, and I'm not sure when it's correct to run Golem and cut other four-drops and when it's not.
+ Frost Titan (I'd like to give this giant a second try since I traded for a DOTP one, but is four 6-drops plus Meloku and Inkwell too many finishers in Blue?)
+ Looter il-Kor (This is the first card with Shadow in the Cube.)
+ Phantasmal Image (Managed to pull a foil in a draft!)
+ Spellskite
- Conundrum Sphinx (I keep telling myself "But he's still a 4/4 flyer!" but I never end up playing him.)
- Daze
- Ninja of the Deep Hours (My group really likes this card, but I've always been unimpressed.)
- Spined Thopter (This card is fine, but it doesn't really seem to help Blue that much, and Blue needs more help than Red and White do in my particular Cube.)
+ Child of Night (I don't think this card is super-great or anything, but I'm interested to see how it'll play out.)
+ Grave Titan
+ Onyx Mage
+ Rune-Scarred Demon
- Disfigure (I doubt this cut is correct, but I don't really want to cut any of Doom Blade's friends.)
- Doomed Necromancer (It hurts to cut something that reanimates, but the fact that he has to wait a turn is a little annoying.)
- Liliana's Specter (This is just a second 3-drop being cut. It's not a bad card or anything.)
- Skeletal Vampire (He's vanished from most Cubes by this point, but he's been hanging out in mine since the beginning!)
I've lost against people with >40 card decks too before, so I can understand the feeling of frustration. However, I'm not so sure that the particular person the OP is talking about actually cheated or anything.
Consider that not everyone in the draft necessarily knows what they're doing. If the W/B player had, say, one or two inexperienced drafters to his right... it's not only possible but likely that he could have been passed those good cards. Newer drafters tend to have mindsets like "okay, I haven't even opened pack 1 but I like Green so I'm going to take every Green card I see. That will make this easier."
But even if all the players draft often, crazy things simply happen sometimes. Last night I got two copies of the same rare (Warstorm Surge) and multiple other rares (like 6 or 7 total rares), and the night before, the player I faced in the final round had threeMind Controls!
There are lots of ways this could have happened- Sorin's Vengeance and Sutured Ghoul require heavy black, some of the rares could have been foil, etc. I think the W/B player was simply in the right colors at the right time, got really lucky, and took advantage of his lucky day to play well and win the draft.
Some cards are going through a revolving door with this update. I missed the Prerelease due to a flat tire, but I'm going to try to draft a couple times this weekend so hopefully I'll get some good M12 cards!
+ Repulse (I really just kind of stuck something in to replace Tezzeret. I don't know if this was the best card to add, but I don't even remember why I cut it to begin with. Exactly how good is Repulse?)
- Tezzeret the Seeker (Tezzeret has only seen play like twice. I don't know if I really have enough artifacts to make him quite worth it. When the quality of my Cube increases, he should come back in.)
+ Thrun, the Last Troll
- Krosan Grip (This is a perfectly fine card, but I don't want to cut any of my other four drops for Thrun- at least not yet. Master of the Wild Hunt hasn't seen play in a while, but I like him more than most, and Oracle of Mul Daya is still being tested; it impressed me the past couple of drafts but I'm not sure how I feel about it overall. As for Grip... I feel like my Cube has too much artifact/enchantment removal in Green and not quite enough of the best Cube artifacts/enchantments that need to be destroyed. But this is not a permanent cut or anything.)
+ Life//Death (I'm hoping the all-foil Reanimator deck will provide me with better reanimation spells so I don't have to settle for cards like this.)
- Glissa, the Traitor (Plus I'm kind of biased against this card, which hasn't really done anything for me.)
+ Marsh Flats
+ Sunken Ruins (I don't even think this is better than Drowned Catacomb, but I've never played with Filterlands in my Cube before. I actually really like the M10 lands. I wish M12 had enemy color ones.)
+ Razorverge Thicket (Similarly, is this better or worse than Sunpetal Grove?)
- Drowned Catacomb
- Orzhov Basilica
- Sunpetal Grove
I too prefer the old art to Solemn, and mine's foil so I wouldn't want to replace it anyway. The M12 art creeps me out a little bit actually!
I know it's supposed to be Jens Thorén, but I've always thought it looks exactly like actor Kevin James, so my friends and I call the card Solemn Doug Heffernan.
Is there a reason we've speculated it as Emerald? Not all of the other 4 that we have aren't necessarily gems of any kind. Emerald makes me of Mox Emerald, and none of the other 4 are named after the other Moxes. I'm just wondering how sure the Emerald part is.
This is the same reason I don't think it's Emerald Mage. That seems like something they would consciously avoid doing.
Not that those two planeswalkers aren't fake or real or whatever but I don't like the argument that they do things the other planeswalkers have never done for why they would be fake. This is what I wrote in another discussion about it:
I love how people are saying these cards are fake because they do a bunch of things that other planeswalkers have never done. There are 21 planeswalkers in existence so far. They have barely scraped the surface of what these cards can do and people just assume they aren't going to innovate at all. It would be like someone who had only played with Alpha saying that Enchantments could never become creatures or that they would never create a new card type or that they would never make cards that cost more than one color to cast.
I actually agree with you about this argument, with one caveat. Some people were saying that they couldn't be real because they "didn't have ultimates." I feel that argument is invalid, so I agree with you there. Planeswalkers have already expanded on the original design space with Multiple + abilities, 4 abilities, and a different type of "ultimate".
But the reason I named (that they couldn't plus loyalty without creatures to target) is more of a design rule they prefer not to break because of inelegance/playability issues, not "we haven't done it before" issues. (Again, Sarkhan the Mad shows how they are willing to do this to some extent with an outside-of-the-box design, but he is designed in a different overall way from planeswalkers like Garruk Wildspeaker and Jace Beleren and the probably-fake Chandra and Garruk.)
Repost from what I said in the thread allegedly spoiling them:
- "Garruk Predator" doesn't make sense as a name; that would have a comma if anything. "Garruk Wildspeaker" is okay because Wildspeaker is his last name, and "Karn Liberated" and "Chandra Ablaze" read correctly because they don't sound like "jobs" or "titles" the same way "Predator" does. This name sounds like a breed of creature specifically created to kill Garruk Wildspeaker.
- Garruk also just looks like a sloppy design to me compared to any of the already-made planeswalkers. His abilities have little relation to each other and so far no Planeswalker card has been able to find itself in a situation where it can't increase its loyalty (minus weirdness like Armageddon).
EDIT: I forgot about Sarkhan the Mad, but he is specifically designed to have no way to increase his loyalty for outside-of-the-box design reasons. It seems strange that they would do that without a design in the vain of Sarkhan.
- Chandra, as many have said, doesn't fit the number crunch.
I like the design on Chandra, but I will be very surprised if these are real.
- "Garruk Predator" doesn't make sense as a name; that would have a comma if anything. "Garruk Wildspeaker" is okay because Wildspeaker is his last name, and "Karn Liberated" and "Chandra Ablaze" read correctly because they don't sound like "jobs" or "titles" the same way "Predator" does. This name sounds like a breed of creature specifically created to kill Garruk Wildspeaker.
- Garruk also just looks like a sloppy design to me compared to any of the already-made planeswalkers. His abilities have little relation to each other and so far no Planeswalker card has been able to find itself in a situation where it can't increase its loyalty (minus weirdness like Armageddon).
EDIT: I forgot about Sarkhan the Mad, but he is specifically designed to have no way to increase his loyalty for outside-of-the-box design reasons. It seems strange that they would do that without a design in the vain of Sarkhan.
- Chandra, as many have said, doesn't fit the number crunch.
wtwlf123 used to have one, and there are a couple others that I know of too. I can try to find those links as well.
For Edric, I think the cut is certainly Voidslime. But I'm not sure what to cut for the Red cards. I feel that Red is my best section (in terms of "missing the fewest important Cube cards"... though my White might hold that title), so it makes it tough for me. I think the cards I'd be most willing/likely to cut are:
Barbarian Ring (But this can't be right, as it's a land and seems like a fine card! I'm just wondering if the pain throughout the game is worth maybe getting a Shock much later on in a game?)
Goblin Wardriver (But I just re-added him!)
Magus of the Scroll (But I hate cutting one-drops!)
Stone Rain (This should probably be one of the cuts, but I value it more than most and like that it's more splashable than the other 3-mana LD spells)
I suppose in the long run it doesn't matter, as at some point I'm going to expand the Cube to 450 (at which point the cut cards will probably come back anyway), but I don't think I'm quite ready to do that yet. I feel like I need to collect more artifacts and lands before I do so.
I'll cut Keldon Champion instead of Hero for now. Eventually when I expand my Cube there'll still be room for the Champion. I love him and I've seen what he can do, but I haven't seen the Hero in action much, so I'll throw him back in.
I expect the Deathmantle to be bad and the black 2-drops to be somewhat decent, but I do love Disfigure and Liliana's Specter so their absences won't be permanent. I'll likely re-add them in my next update; I just wanted to see how the black creatures and Deathmantle (which was suggested by a friend) fare.
The Lodestone Golem will likely come back as well over the Deathmantle if I don't get a better artifact by then, but he has trouble making my final 40 sometimes. I always feel like the 4-mana spot is always a bit contested in my aggro decks, and I'm not sure when it's correct to run Golem and cut other four-drops and when it's not.
+ Savannah Lions (I got a foil copy of this for cheap. As far as I know, this is the last foil I'll ever need from 8th/9th Edition, so I won't ever have to worry about white borders again!)
+ Wall of Omens
- Goldmeadow Harrier
- Phyrexian Rebirth
+ Frost Titan (I'd like to give this giant a second try since I traded for a DOTP one, but is four 6-drops plus Meloku and Inkwell too many finishers in Blue?)
+ Looter il-Kor (This is the first card with Shadow in the Cube.)
+ Phantasmal Image (Managed to pull a foil in a draft!)
+ Spellskite
- Conundrum Sphinx (I keep telling myself "But he's still a 4/4 flyer!" but I never end up playing him.)
- Daze
- Ninja of the Deep Hours (My group really likes this card, but I've always been unimpressed.)
- Spined Thopter (This card is fine, but it doesn't really seem to help Blue that much, and Blue needs more help than Red and White do in my particular Cube.)
+ Child of Night (I don't think this card is super-great or anything, but I'm interested to see how it'll play out.)
+ Grave Titan
+ Onyx Mage
+ Rune-Scarred Demon
- Disfigure (I doubt this cut is correct, but I don't really want to cut any of Doom Blade's friends.)
- Doomed Necromancer (It hurts to cut something that reanimates, but the fact that he has to wait a turn is a little annoying.)
- Liliana's Specter (This is just a second 3-drop being cut. It's not a bad card or anything.)
- Skeletal Vampire (He's vanished from most Cubes by this point, but he's been hanging out in mine since the beginning!)
+ Koth of the Hammer
- Hero of Oxid Ridge (I feel this is weaker than my other four drops, including Keldon Champion which I shouldn't have cut for Urabrask that one time.)
+ Nim Deathmantle
- Lodestone Golem
+ Gelectrode
+ Venser, the Sojurner (I'd like to give him a try.)
- Azorius Guildmage
- Spellbound Dragon
Consider that not everyone in the draft necessarily knows what they're doing. If the W/B player had, say, one or two inexperienced drafters to his right... it's not only possible but likely that he could have been passed those good cards. Newer drafters tend to have mindsets like "okay, I haven't even opened pack 1 but I like Green so I'm going to take every Green card I see. That will make this easier."
But even if all the players draft often, crazy things simply happen sometimes. Last night I got two copies of the same rare (Warstorm Surge) and multiple other rares (like 6 or 7 total rares), and the night before, the player I faced in the final round had three Mind Controls!
There are lots of ways this could have happened- Sorin's Vengeance and Sutured Ghoul require heavy black, some of the rares could have been foil, etc. I think the W/B player was simply in the right colors at the right time, got really lucky, and took advantage of his lucky day to play well and win the draft.
+ Repulse (I really just kind of stuck something in to replace Tezzeret. I don't know if this was the best card to add, but I don't even remember why I cut it to begin with. Exactly how good is Repulse?)
- Tezzeret the Seeker (Tezzeret has only seen play like twice. I don't know if I really have enough artifacts to make him quite worth it. When the quality of my Cube increases, he should come back in.)
+ Goblin Wardriver (I'd like to try Red Sun's Zenith, but is 5 X spells too many for a Cube of my size? Comet Storm is a pet card of mine, so I wouldn't want to cut that either way.)
+ Keldon Champion
- Sudden Shock (I Demonic Tutored for this to kill Psychatog, which was pretty awesome and won me a game I would've otherwise lost, but now that that's happened I can rest easy as I cut it from my small Cube for now.)
- Urabrask the Hidden
+ Thrun, the Last Troll
- Krosan Grip (This is a perfectly fine card, but I don't want to cut any of my other four drops for Thrun- at least not yet. Master of the Wild Hunt hasn't seen play in a while, but I like him more than most, and Oracle of Mul Daya is still being tested; it impressed me the past couple of drafts but I'm not sure how I feel about it overall. As for Grip... I feel like my Cube has too much artifact/enchantment removal in Green and not quite enough of the best Cube artifacts/enchantments that need to be destroyed. But this is not a permanent cut or anything.)
+ Karn Liberated
+ Sundering Titan
- Myr Battlesphere (Myr Battlesphere is a great Cube card, but a friend wanted my copy and I can always get another one. )
- Prismatic Lens (Since I have all 10 Signets, this is often redundant.)
+ Life//Death (I'm hoping the all-foil Reanimator deck will provide me with better reanimation spells so I don't have to settle for cards like this.)
- Glissa, the Traitor (Plus I'm kind of biased against this card, which hasn't really done anything for me.)
+ Marsh Flats
+ Sunken Ruins (I don't even think this is better than Drowned Catacomb, but I've never played with Filterlands in my Cube before. I actually really like the M10 lands. I wish M12 had enemy color ones.)
+ Razorverge Thicket (Similarly, is this better or worse than Sunpetal Grove?)
- Drowned Catacomb
- Orzhov Basilica
- Sunpetal Grove
I know it's supposed to be Jens Thorén, but I've always thought it looks exactly like actor Kevin James, so my friends and I call the card Solemn Doug Heffernan.
That Chandra has an incorrect and fishy wording on its ability. It says:
"Chandra, Flame Adept deals X damage, divided as you choose to any number of target creatures or players."
But it should say:
"Chandra, Flame Adept deals X damage divided as you choose among any number of target creatures and/or players."
This time it's the Garruk that is the more believable of the two, though I still don't believe it's real until it is officially spoiled.
This is the same reason I don't think it's Emerald Mage. That seems like something they would consciously avoid doing.
I actually agree with you about this argument, with one caveat. Some people were saying that they couldn't be real because they "didn't have ultimates." I feel that argument is invalid, so I agree with you there. Planeswalkers have already expanded on the original design space with Multiple + abilities, 4 abilities, and a different type of "ultimate".
But the reason I named (that they couldn't plus loyalty without creatures to target) is more of a design rule they prefer not to break because of inelegance/playability issues, not "we haven't done it before" issues. (Again, Sarkhan the Mad shows how they are willing to do this to some extent with an outside-of-the-box design, but he is designed in a different overall way from planeswalkers like Garruk Wildspeaker and Jace Beleren and the probably-fake Chandra and Garruk.)
- "Garruk Predator" doesn't make sense as a name; that would have a comma if anything. "Garruk Wildspeaker" is okay because Wildspeaker is his last name, and "Karn Liberated" and "Chandra Ablaze" read correctly because they don't sound like "jobs" or "titles" the same way "Predator" does. This name sounds like a breed of creature specifically created to kill Garruk Wildspeaker.
- Garruk also just looks like a sloppy design to me compared to any of the already-made planeswalkers. His abilities have little relation to each other and so far no Planeswalker card has been able to find itself in a situation where it can't increase its loyalty (minus weirdness like Armageddon).
EDIT: I forgot about Sarkhan the Mad, but he is specifically designed to have no way to increase his loyalty for outside-of-the-box design reasons. It seems strange that they would do that without a design in the vain of Sarkhan.
- Chandra, as many have said, doesn't fit the number crunch.
- "Garruk Predator" doesn't make sense as a name; that would have a comma if anything. "Garruk Wildspeaker" is okay because Wildspeaker is his last name, and "Karn Liberated" and "Chandra Ablaze" read correctly because they don't sound like "jobs" or "titles" the same way "Predator" does. This name sounds like a breed of creature specifically created to kill Garruk Wildspeaker.
- Garruk also just looks like a sloppy design to me compared to any of the already-made planeswalkers. His abilities have little relation to each other and so far no Planeswalker card has been able to find itself in a situation where it can't increase its loyalty (minus weirdness like Armageddon).
EDIT: I forgot about Sarkhan the Mad, but he is specifically designed to have no way to increase his loyalty for outside-of-the-box design reasons. It seems strange that they would do that without a design in the vain of Sarkhan.
- Chandra, as many have said, doesn't fit the number crunch.