MTG Salvation

Lol, apologies for some of the irksome behavior :P.

I also come back to your lists throughout the year. It sounds like a lot of work to go through all of the lists, but I think it might be worth it. Maybe it's because I'm not really active on MTGS anymore (I do read stuff periodically), but I think it's fun to see how the average MTGS user differs from the general public.
But, whatever you decide on, I will happily browse the end result.

- I haven't tried more guild slots. We went with 1 per guild and stuck with it. I think you can safely go up to 20. We tend to have enough playables every time so a couple extra cards that are undesirable for a drafter shouldn't make the format that much worse. I've thought about trying it myself more than once and might go that route as well. At the moment I have enough trouble cutting mono colored cards as is, so it's going to be rough if I do.

- Note that we count the hybrids as 'colorless' in this cube. In a slightly lower powered cube I'd love to run more of them because they are so flexible.

- The mana feels alright. I'd rather have some of the untapped multilands like City or Gemstone Mine instead of Evolving Wilds, but since the cube only runs cards that have an uncommon printing in the new frame they're out. Thriving/Vivid cycles instead of duplicates should work like a charm. The biggest reason we went with multiple Wilds is that they also work Brainstorm and Mayhem Devil. Also, they give me a couple of flexible slots to work with should I need to make room for something, whereas running a whole cycle feels more set in stone.

- I took out Skullclamp for power level reasons. Even though every deck should have some answers to it, the card is just too overpowering. It basically invalidated all other cards in a pack as one of the few autopicks in the cube. Sprout Swarm, Mother of Runes and Palace Jailer are on my watch list. They have a tendency to take over the game when not answered quickly. Isochron Scepter is very powerful as well, but needs a certain deck style and needs to be built around. Other cards I've cut are Sensei's Divining Top and Aether Vial, both for being powerful but inconsistent. I think they're fine to run, but have gotten some OMG BROKEN reactions from players as well. Top went very well with the fetchland package though.
If you're looking at a non-modern frame cube, the obvious ban is Sol Ring. I'd advise you to be careful with lands like Maze of Ith and Library of Alexandria (most cubes ban this one) as they are super powerful, are hard to interact with and can lead to bad experience. On the other hand, a small cube is easier to balance because you see more cards out of the cube. Running Wasteland, Strip Mine, Pillage, Acidic Slime, and maybe 1 or 2 more goes a long way towards giving each deck at least 1 or 2 outs to such a powerful land.
In the end, it's up to you where you want the powerlevel to end up. We went with quite a high power level for this one, so more cards are acceptable. I wouldn't fault anyone to cut down a bit and cut the abovementioned cards, along with the Curses, Warhammer, Bombardment, Grafted Wargear and such.

- I prefer 'Minneapolis draft' for 2 players, something Ryan Overturf seems to have thought up (he's also the Twobert guy, he basically made 180 cubes popular over the last year). It's 8 packs of 7 and you pick 1, pick 2, pick 2, burn 2. It's fast and you don't table as much with 2 players.
We don't draft with 4 as much, but when we do we just draft 3x15. We've also done 3x15 with 2 players and burn a random card in between picks to emulate a 3rd and 4th player.

Edit: 180 lends itself very well to themed cubes. I made a very fun artifact matters cube last year that has plenty of cool cards that are too narrow to make it into regular peasant cubes but work well as a collection.

Quote from SaltMaster 5000 »

When I stated that I'd like to play Dark Depths without the combo and as the card was intended I was called shallow minded and it was implied that what I was saying was a crazy out of line idea.

It looks like you feel you need to defend yourself a lot for your views.
When looking at the above (which I read as what your stance was all along), I don't think anyone would call you crazy. I wouldn't. But it's slightly different from what I thought your point was after reading the discussion for the first time.

Nuance is the key here. 'Combo is not Magic' is different than 'some unintented interactions are problematic'. 'Playing the game as was intented by Richard Garfield' is different than 'Playing Dark Depths as the card was designed'. 'I prefer to' is different than 'People should'.

Strong words, definite statements and generalization get answered with more of the same. Which is fine if that's what you're looking for and when it's needed. It can also be unhelpful when you want people to understand the nuance of your point.

Tl;dr: what you mean is not always what people understand. The words you use matter.

--

More on topic: I'm not a fan of game-winning 2 card combos in my cubes and try to avoid them. However if the cards are good enough on their own and have a lot of synergy with the rest of the cube, I might choose to keep them in regardless. Especially when the combo is hard to find or requires a very specific setup or situation to work. I had both Midnight Guard and Presence of Gond in my tribal Peasant Cube, and both were doing a lot of cool things. I cut the guard though, because I don't want random game wins off the combo.

Not sure when mtgsalvation will shut down, and where these discussions might migrate.

But, I wanted to say I’ve enjoyed being part of this community. Thanks for the discussions, insights and general passtime.

I've been wanting to do some more in-depth writing about my peasant cube and its many (fringe) archetype and build-arounds.
Instead of doing it all at once in an opening post on here, I figured I might as well take the time to build it and write it blog-style in chunks so I can write whatever, whenever I feel like it, without having to worry about formatting or the task feeling too daunting.

Anyway, it's up at:

peasant-cube.blogspot.com

If you'd rather check out single articles/blogs:

Modern Horizons set preview for Peasant Cube (June 1st, 2019)
Building your format (May 26th, 2019)
One becomes three (April 4th, 2019)

Winds of Change (November 22nd, 2018)
Guilds of Ravnica preview for Peasant Cube (September 25th, 2018)
Masters 25 downgrades review (March 3rd, 2018)
Treasure Hunting: Onslaught Block (February 10th, 2018)
Archetype overview (February 10th, 2018)
I just (don't) like it (February 5th, 2018)
Stats and numbers: cards per set (January 10th, 2018)
Treasure Hunting: Urza's Block (January 10th, 2018)
2017 in review (January 9th, 2018)
Three months in: evaluating Ixalan (January 9th, 2018)

Archetype: Black/Red Reanimate (September 24th, 2017)
Iconic Masters downgrades for Peasant Cube (September 9th, 2017)
Amonkhet set preview (+ my top 5 cards) for Peasant Cube (April 14th, 2017)
Treasure Hunting: Ice Age block (April 14th, 2017)
Top 10 Aether Revolt cards for Peasant Cube (January 7, 2017)
2016 in review (January 5, 2017)

Card Spotlight: Fires of Yavimaya (December 14, 2016)
Card Spotlight: Psychic Spiral (November 18, 2016)
Archetype: White/Blue (Prison) Control (November 10, 2016)
Cube update November 8, 2016 (November 8, 2016)
Stats and numbers: Build-around cards (November 7, 2016)
The Metagame Clock and Peasant Cube (November 7, 2016)
Top 5 Commander 2016 cards for Peasant Cube (October 31, 2016)
Archetype: Blue/Green Enchantment Aggro (October 31, 2016)
Card Spotlight: Diversionary Tactics (October 31, 2016)

All feedback is welcome and appreciated!

And, if someone has a request for a future topic/archetype/card: shoot

So excited about Valiant Changeling! It should be great in my tribal peasant cube.

I absolutely love the references in this set. Goblin Oriflamme (misprinted Alpha Orcish Oriflamme cost 1R). Segovian Angel (Segovia is a 'small' plane: Segovian Leviathan. Also the planeswalkers mentioned in the flavor text are from the original rules book, I think). Set's a flavor homerun afaic.

Yeah. We like it in various spell-based decks as a way to get over the top faster and a back-up win condition. I guess it depends how hard you want to push the spells deck and how often you see decks with enough medium-to-large spells for it to matter.

I understand your argument (and don't disagree), but it can be made the other way around. 'Lands' would be the *only* type that we vote on by card TYPE, while the other cards are classified by color identity. If Green can have creatures, spells, artifacts and lands.. why can't colorless? Colorless just means 'playable in any deck', just like white means 'playable in any deck with white'.

Also, to be entirely accurate in the light of actual 'colorless' being the 6th color now and most colorless cards counting as 'generic', maybe we should rename the category to 'Top 20 colorless/generic cards'?

And the Top 10 Lands could become: 'Top 10 fixing/enhancing lands' (better wording needed here). Ancient Tomb, for example should go into this category as well.

Poll Closed!

- We're going to vote on a Lands Top X.
- All lands go into Lands top X (except lands that produce a single color, or require colored activation costs)

New post up:

Masters 25 downgrade review

Peasant Cube on a Budget - The Wrap-Up
We made it! How does the cube look?

Comment Hidden

Quote from Jaytron »

I started off with the average cube, and with some great advice here, turned into a more even 540 cube: http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/98055

This is a bit of a meta question, but how do you evaluate how your cube is doing? What needs to be cut/added? If a card is too powerful to add? How do you even decide on cube size really?

• Is everbody having fun? If not, why?
• Are there cards that create bad gameplay experiences? (bad gameplay = gameplay you/your group don't/doesn't like)
• Are there cards that always make games one-sided affairs? (this may actually be fine with you, see above)
• Are there enough cards for the archetypes you want to support? Is there too little/enough/too much removal? (see my ASFAN thread, for archetypes you want to aim for a minimum of 0,75 in my experience)
• Are there archetypes that noone plays?
• Are there cards that noone plays?
• Are there cards that people want to see in the cube?

I started off with the average cube, and with some great advice here, turned into a more even 540 cube: http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/98055

This is a bit of a meta question, but how do you evaluate how your cube is doing? What needs to be cut/added? If a card is too powerful to add? How do you even decide on cube size really?

I'll never understand why people care so much about what other people do when those things aren't affecting them in the least little bit and they aren't hurting anyone. Case in point, a cosplayer has success in that trade and opens a Patreon where fans can donate to support such a thing. While I, personally, really enjoy content (pics, posts, articles, interviews) by that cosplayer, I actively choose not to support that Patreon. That is my choice. Others also have the same choice to support and that choice can be made for whatever reason they want. Maybe it's because they find the cosplayer attractive. Maybe it's because they're just generous. It could be 100 different things. The point is, they have every right to be able to support whatever Patreon they wish. I will never understand why someone would care so much that this cosplayer is able to make a living "playing dress-up" that they need to make YouTube videos complaining about it. And not just complaining about it, but blowing it completely out of proportion and saying some really hurtful and messed up things about the person in question. I just don't get that short of aggression at all.

And, for me at least, I apply this to most things in society. Let people do what makes them happy as long as that thing doesn't hurt anyone else. This is the question I tend to ask people when they start ranting about how <insert any controversial topic> is bad or wrong. Why do you care? How does that affect you and your day to day life? For a lot of us, it's hard enough to just be happy in this life without someone taking a dump all over you and the things you love. Why would anyone want to make someone that unhappy? Rule number one in life: Don't be a dick. It's really not that difficult.

Quote from leadfeather89 »

Go look around and find some cool cards and put them in. Do your own homework.

Or, we could help him instead

Did you run into a new kind of rankings project?

It makes bears.
I'd play it.
My play group loves winning with bears.
It's like winning twice.

I don't think Mill as an "archetype" is particularly healthy. It's linear and doesn't synergise well with much else (especially in a singleton format). Mill as a wincon (Psychic Spiral, Sphinx's Tutelage, etc) on the other hand is fine. I don't think it needs to be pushed more than that to be interesting.