MTG Salvation

I'm still looking for comments on the previously suggested changes. Also, based on the under/overrated discussion, the following cards are missing from my cube which probably shouldn't be. Some of them were in and were later cut, and some are just mistakes.

Dark Ritual
Sinkhole
Time Spiral
Upheaval
Wildfire
Fireball
Rishadan Port
Grand Coliseum

I've updated some of the changes to reflect these, but I'm also looking for suggested cuts or whether I should just add them and wait to make a decision.


From blue the things that jump out at me as worth cutting are Dream Halls. Also, I notice that blue has TON of 2U creatures and 2UU creatures. I kinda think that cutting one of them might be right, and I jump to either Pestermite or Trinket Mage. Of the two, I think Pestermite is stronger on its own, but Trinket Mage is stronger in the context of a deck. That'll get me the 2 blue sorceries I'm looking for. Stifle maybe?


In red I'm thinking Earthquake or something similar for Wildfire, since they serve the same general purpose. Maybe Goblin Assault? I think Flowstone Flood has pretty good potential for red decks, as repeatable LD is pretty ridiculous, otherwise that'd be the cut for sure.


As for the lands, I think I'm just going to add one land, and maybe cut Tolarian Academy for the other. Academy is ridiculous once it starts getting out of hand. However, it typically doesn't get out of hand unless you really build around it. Considering that everyone already drafts artifacts highly, I don't think its feasible to really draft "the artifact deck" on a regular enough basis.


In black, I'm thinking cutting sickening shoal and Grim Tutor. Grim tutor hardly ever gets played, and is much more of a color commitment than Imperial seal. Besides, black already has a lot of BB and one BBB card, I'd like to make it a little more splashable.

I'm going to argue this point on Mirri's Guile. Maybe I'm playing sylvan library wrong, but I don't often draw extra cards off of it. 4 life seems a little steep for one card in most situations. I also don't think that those niche situations make that huge of a difference. I don't think I've seen too many cubes running Words of War, and there aren't that many cards that care whether or not you drew a card.

Basically, you shouldn't be paying 4 life for a single card in the cube, even if you know what it is, and the niche situations don't make that much of a difference in my mind

There's 2 substantial posts in this thread, and I'm already learning something. Apparently my group way undervalues mox diamond, as that's frequently coming around between 10th and 13th pick.

there's also quite a few cards that we aren't even running which may or may not be debatable inclusions.



I think the most overrated card on black's list is Dark Confidant. That isn't to say that it's not really, really good, because it is. However, I'd take either Phyrexian Arena or Graveborn Muse over it. If I'm playing black, I'll play Arena or Muse no matter what style of deck i'm playing. I'm only going to play confidant if I'm playing a deck with a pretty low curve. I don't want to take 4+ damage for extra cards if I can take 1 instead.

Liliana is pretty overrated too as far as I'm concerned. Once in awhile it's absolutely insane. I've seen someone get mindtwisted for their hand and then Liliana locked them out of any cards they didn't play on their own turn. HOwever, most of the time, LIliana is just a Vampiric Tutor, which is occasionally repeatable. I'd prefer just to draw a few extra cards, or cheaper tutor effect.

As far as underrated cards I'm going to have to say Profane Command and Kokusho. Profane command is all you could ask for in any black based deck. It's reach, removal, and recursion all in one card, which gets better and better the later the game goes. What more could you possibly want from a card? I mean, I'd love for it to do a little more in the early game, but in the mid to late game it's absolutely gamebreaking.

Kokusho is the same way, and is a common first pick in our drafts. There's an archetype that people play which we call "How many times can I play Kokusho?" At worst, kokusho is a 5/5 dragon. At best, it trades for creatures or removal against aggro, and wins you attrition wars in control matches. No one wants to deal with kokusho, because there choices are either to swing into it with, typically, smaller creatures, or to kill it and give you a free 10 point life swing.

My favorite black card not on the list has to be either Phyrexian Reclamation or Skeletal Scrying. Reclamation is a lot like recurring nightmare, albeit a little worse. It recurs Krosan Tuskers, Mulldrifters, Shriekmaws, and generally gives you easy ways to reuse great effects.

Skeletal Scrying is a ridiculous tool for both aggro and control. Aggro loves a modular night's whisper to refuel during the midgame, and control loves digging for more answers.




For blue, I have to say the most overrated card is probably Time Walk. Now, I love taking extra turns. But there are a lot of cards like time walk where people talk them up like you win when you cast them. However, it seems like just as often as it allows someone to get way ahead on tempo or swing for the win, it's essentially a cantrip when someone's digging for an answer to a bad board position. Now, it's still a first pickable card, and is still absolutely ridiculous, but I think it's a little overrated.

Underrated, I'm surprised Gifts Ungiven isn't WAY at the top of the list. i'll first pick this card without any hesitation, because you can set up gifts stacks that just win the game. I mean, seriously, Gifts for All Suns' Dawn and bombs. Gifts for combo pieces. Gifts for just 2 cards to get Recurring Nightmare or Genesis going. I'm more than happy to keep hands of mana and gifts ungiven because I know I can win if gifts resolves.

Why isn't standstill on the list? This is everything a blue deck could want. In aggro, it's tempo. Control doesn't want to give you extra cards, but if they don't play a spell, you probably win. Against aggro, they have to let you draw into answers, either through standstill or by not playing things. Standstill is absolutely insane for my group.





Overrated for green would have to be tooth and nail. Sure, sometimes it's absolutely bomby, but what isn't in the cube? How often do you cast it with entwine? I don't typically get up to 9 mana unless its a control mirror, in which case I'll just hardcast my bombs and save myself the slot tooth and nail is eating up.

Underrated would have to be All Suns' Dawn. That thing is crazy every time I see it get cast. granted, most of the time whoever picks it up immediately moves into 5cc where it's a green yawgmoth's will, but it's still been ********ly good every time I see it cast.

There are two cards I'm surprised didn't make the list. The first of which is MIrri's Guile. Does the ability of sylvan library to draw extra cards once in awhile make it that much better than Mirri's Guile? Card selection is almost as good as card advantage, and has been awesome for me since its addition.

The second card is Primal Command. This is tempo, lifegain, removal, tutoring, anything you could possibly want from a green card. Sure, shuffing up libraries is kinda lame most of the time, but it can mess up graveyard engines. Besides, I have seen it let someone win by decking out their opponent.

Another card I just thought of is Channel. Once you manage to do crazy things with channel, you realize why it should never get cut from the cube. You don't realize just how many cards cost X until you've picked up an early channel. MIrror entity? Sigil of distinction? Decree of Justice? Darksteel Colossus, Tooth and Nail, Banefire. Even just playing some spells a couple of turns early really, really good.




Overrated for red is probably Chandra. Sure, planeswalkers are nuts. But what does she usually do? come down and remove a creature, then get killed on the backswing. I've never seen her ultimate go off, and I've never seen a game which she changed the outcome much more than any other burn spell would have.

Underrated spells...probably a lot of red spells are underrated actually. I think a lot of cubes focus a lot on burn, rightfully so. But what would other colors be liked if their spells only did one thing? If blue ONLY drew spells? Green ONLY ramped mana or tutored for creatures? They'd become a lot worse than they currently are. Versatility is important. Consequently, my underrated and not on the list sections are going to be the same.

Aftershock should probably be on that list. It's a swiss army knife of red spells. Gamble is really good too, in almost any kind of deck. Heat Shimmer can easily get out of hand, especially if you heat shimmer an Eternal Witness repeatedly.




If anything, I think Isamaru is overrated for white. There are lots of amazing aggro spells for white. I would first or second pick most of the cards on that list. Isamaru is not a first pick for me, and I probably wouldn't start looking at it seriously until 4th or 5th pick.

Underrated, probably Faith's Fetters. Like was said previously, it's absolutely ridiculous, turning off a problem permanent and gaining a turn's worth of life against aggro is crazy good.

I'm surprised that Spectral Procession and Cloudgoat Ranger aren't on the list. Token generation is a great way for white aggro and midrange decks to gain some card advantage.

I'm also surprised that Mirror Entity isn't on the list. I will build my deck around mirror entity if I pick it up early. It's great with tokens, great with early drops, or is just a great way to make overextending unnecessary.


Why didn't parallax wave make the cut? There's absolutely no reason something which removes blockers, protects you from wraths, AND allows you to reuse CITP effects shouldn't be on the list.

Lastly, I'm surprised Austere command didn't make the cut. being able to wrath away just your opponent's stuff while leaving much of your board intact is a ridiculously powerful effect.






the artifacts all seem pretty reasonable to me. They are all really, really good, and are more or less in the right order as far as I'm concerned. I'm a little surprised that Chimeric Idol didn't make the cut.







I'm a little surprised that Desolation is as high as it is. It's not been that exciting in my experience, and there are a lot of things that I would prefer to have. I think that Finks is a little overrated too. It's a fine creature, but there are lots of things that I would take over it.

Underrated: probably giant solifuge. It's pretty shroudy, hasty, and tramply.

there are a few cards I'm not sure why they didn't make the list. bituminous blast and Ajani Vegeant to start with. Mirrorweave is another card that's NUTS for aggro. Turning all of your guys into lords, or the most powerful creature on the board is really good. I've had someone mirrorweave everything into a jungle lion so I couldn't block.

I also think that Cauldron Dance should have made the list. Recurring Nightmare is good, so is Sneak Attack. Therefore, Recurring Nightmare + Sneak Attack is good, even as a one shot effect.

I also sorta wish that Selkie Hedge-Mage had made the list. It's actually surprisingly good in U/G decks. It's ridiculous tempo. Man-o'-War + lifegain + chump block is insane against aggro, and will single-handedly allow you to stabilize.


Lastly, the lands. I'm pretty much in agreement with the lands, though there are two that I think should have made the cut that didn't.

Shelldock Isle and Windbrisk Heights are CRAZY good. Free spells are always good. Free spells that have now gained flash are even better. Have you ever played a parallax wave at instant speed after blockers are declared? Have you ever played an Akroma as a surprised blocker? Besides. Meloku + Shelldock isle is a GREAT combo for control decks.

Here's my list of proposed changes by color. I appreciate any comments about the changes, some of them are sort of extreme, namely white.

Alright, time to address some comments:


A lot of the glaring omissions aren't there because in the times I've cubed, no one wants to play with them.

Upheaval, disenchants, and Thieving Magpies are examples of these. The people I cube with just don't play with them, stupid as that may be.

Anyway, the only card I'm really going to defend is Stifle. Stifle has been nuts for us, and has been around since they ran dreadnaught in the cube (not really sure why it was in though.) The ability to stifle Nevvy's Disk, Recurring Nightmare, Surivival of the Fittest, etc is absolutely nuts. Stifle opens up some pretty insane tempo opportunities, even just with fetchlands and the like.

Part of why it's so good is that its obscure enough that no one really tries to play around if until they've seen it. Even then, it can be pretty difficult to play around.



I have two real questions about blue before I finalized my changes to the color. The first is: what are the best 2 or 3 counters that I'm missing? I don't think I can add too many more without skewing the color a little too much. My guess would be Miscalculation, Forbid, and something else. Maybe Misdirection? That seems okay at first blush.

Secondly, I want to know if Blue-based aggro is a reasonable archetype to push in the cube. If so, what are some important cards to run? I've tried a little bit by adding faerie stompy esque cards, but good 1 and 2 drops are hard to come by in blue, and aggro decks that start on turn 3 are awful.

Quietus Spike is only REALLY good when you have pingers. In my experience, pingers are sub-par in the cube. Consequently, quietus spike isn't really that exciting.

The problem with Naginata is the restriction on what it can be equipped to. A lot of aggro creatures are 1/x or 2/x. Once you hit 3/x, you're getting into midrange, which is a kind of no man's land. No one wants to draft the midrange deck.

I'll finalize my thoughts about changes and post them up either tonight or tomorrow morning.

What do you all think of Diabolic Servitude? It seems alright as a repeatable effect, kind of a more long-game animate dead or a worse Recurring Nightmare. Is it better or worse than Phyrexian Reclamation or Yawgmoth's Agenda?

What about Suffocating Blast? It seems like more often than not if could be a 2 for 1, but requiring both targets makes it seem a little bit narrow.

How good is Land Destruction as a theme in Red/Green/Black? Is it good enough that something like Flowstone Flood can act as a red Capsize?

Quote from Simic_Mongoose

Just as Konfusius only looked at white, I only looked at artifacts (for now).

I'd take out all the mana artifacts that cost 3 or more. They're very control oriented, and not very effective.

Your creatures all look decent, except for Metalworker and maybe Scuttlemutt. Pro tip: artifact creatures never really got good until Mirrodin block. Aside from Masticore, that's where you want to look for solid artifact creatures. Grim Poppet is nice, because unlike Trike, it can shoot stuff and then still be a 4/4.

I'd say more equipment. Especially a bigger variety of effects on equipment. The ones you have now are all worth keeping.

Trip Noose is definitely a keeper. Ensnaring Bridge... not so much.

I'm hesitant to cut the mana artifacts. I'm only playing 3 or 4, and those are for the control decks. There are no signets to serve as acceleration, and so these are serving the function of both fixing and acceleration that signets typically fill. Most of them are relatively high picks most of the time, and so I hesitate to cut them.

I can sorta see cutting metalworker. It goes against my goal of not catering to specific archetypes, and is pretty narrow.

some more specific questions:

Why should scuttlemutt, Darksteel ingot, coalition relic et all get cut? What makes them not worth it? Does the 1 mana difference from signets really change that much?

What other equipment are worth playing? Mask of Memories? Grafted Wargear?

Is Grafted Skullcap worth it? Seems like it'd be alright for some all in aggro decks.

Quote from makenfunny

Hmm, some quick things.

There are a few cards in your cube I noticed that are hurt quite a bit by losing combat damage.

Rainbow Efreet, Waterfront Bouncer, Stonecloaker, Morphling. A lot of people still like morphling, but I think it's a lot of mana to pump into a 5 drop that can't even kill a 3/3 and live to tell about it.

Thanks for pointing those out. I still like morphling, as the ability to gain shroud and untap and whatnot is still really good, but the others certainly lose a lot of value.

Some creatures I've always like that you don't have are Teferi, Glen Alendra Archmage, Calciderm, Kodama of the North Tree, Thunderblust (trust me), kira, great glass spinner, and Kird Ape.

I doubt you'll be able to make metalworker worth it.

There are some other ridiculous mana sources I see you don't have. Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, and Ancient Tomb are all very good.

A good way to make white aggro good is to add more cards like Winter Orb or Hokori. But seeing as you don't mind functional reprints and have the geddon and it's clone, Hokori might be overkill. Soltari Champion is another good card to consider. I would probably play Captain of the Watch, but I don't think that means cutting Cloudgoat (who is better).

Archmage is definitely in the cube. Teferi got cut because no one wanted to play him. Same went for Kodama and Kird Ape. Kira is a great replacement for Rainbow Efreet though.

I cut out some accelerators because the acceleration seemed to help control MUCh more than aggro. With Vault, crypt, and tomb, control decks were consistently able to play T1 signet, T2 wrath/removal/card draw, T3 Bomb. That's not really that interesting to me, and I don't want to eat up infinite cube slots with vanilla acceleration that's just acceleration. It might allow for strong plays, but it also cuts into the card quality, as far as I'm concerned.

Is there a reason not to add Captain of the Watch? You get effectively more power than you do from cloadgoat, though you don't get the option of flying over. The reason i want to fit it in is there's a little bit of a token subtheme to this cube. I've found that tokens are a reasonable way to provide card advantage to several colors which really need it; namely Red, White, and Green. It also gives aggro and midrange decks mechanisms to effectively deal with wrath effects, and makes blink effects ridiculously fun to play with.

I've got a couple of changes in mind, though I'm not sure it's quite the magnitude of change which is necessary. I'll throw a list together and post some changes later tonight. I appreciate the input thus far.

I like both Shining Shoal and Harm's Way, but I think that Harm's Way is probably better.

I can see most of what you suggest; I'd probably be tempted to add a few cards before making substitutions, because there are a lot of things I just can't see cutting.

I never liked Knight of Meadowgrain when I cubed, which is why it was cut for Knight of the White Orchid.

Probably going to add Elite Vanguard and the 2cc pegasus from M10 for a little more aggro, and probably sub in Pianna and/or Soltari Champion.

What about Silence or Abeyance as psuedo time walks or to play around counters and force through bombs like geddon or wrath? These seem like reasonable additions, even if they aren't quite as exciting as Chant or Time Walk.

Reserved for updates.

Alright, this is my first attempt at constructing my own cube after playing with a few others after visiting some friends. Some of the primary goals I had when putting this together were:

1. I wanted to be sure to push aggro enough, which I'm sure I didn't. I think that there are some good components, but I couldn't find enough strong early drops in several colors.

2. I didn't want to push narrow archetypes like reanimator unnecessarily, with cards that are only good in certain combinations.

3. I wanted to limit the amount of multicolor, and try to keep the numbers of each color close, but not exactly equal. If white has 2 or 3 fewer cube-worthy cards than others, that's fine.

4. I'm really sure that I have a lot of cards that do almost exactly the same thing, which is something that I want to avoid. Quick example: Battlegrace Angel and Exalted Angel serve almost identical purposes. A little bit of repetition is fine, but I wouldn't have Baneslayer Angel in addition to those other two, one will have to be cut.

I haven't added M10 to this as of yet, so I'd appreciate suggestions as to that as well. I'm really looking for any comments, specific cuts or overarching ideas both.

All the cards are sorted by color, card type, and CMC in that order. Here's a few thoughts I have about the cube as a whole. I should probably cut a few multicolored cards. It hasn't hit the point that the cube is saturated with them, but I feel like they're going to show up a little more often than I'd like. I also feel like the average cost of the cube is a little too high. I think I need to cut a few high end cards in most of the colors and start adding things at the lower end of the curve to encourage interaction and aggro play.

I'm also looking at cutting a few cards which seemed good on the first rush through, but which really seem like they won't contribute much most of the time that they get played. Anything that I'm considering cutting will show up in BOLD.

Lastly, here's a few questions:

1. How much does land destruction contribute to red aggro? Is it necessary? Is it worth the "unfun" factor it has for most casual players?

2. How much should black be about reanimation/recursion? What else does black do? I've been running into the same problem with black that I do for red. Red burns things, and that's about it. Black recurs things, and that's just about it besides the staple removal spells.

3. How many WW spells are too many at that cost slot? No one plays WW in my friend's cube because you have to commit to it so heavily so early. I don't want to have that problem. There aren't terribly many good 1W creatures though. I've been running into this problem in a lot of colors, actually, and it really seems like something people tend to ignore. I want my beaters to be splashable so that I can actually cast them on turn 2 if I'm playing 2 colors.

4. How many wrath effects makes too many wrath effects? How many can be in the cube before aggro isn't viable enough?

I'm sure I'll think of more to add.