I think we've all wanted at some point have tried to make +1/+1 counters work as an archetype. Sporeback Troll, I want you to be good so badly.
I think it's very very close to being a strong enough archetype with enough support. Some version or another of my cube (I'd have to look back through the various iterations) was a few cards shy of a really cubeable counters archetype. We just need another set of cards that care about counters in particular (e.g. Phantom creatures, creatures like the Dissension Grafters) or a lot more good cards that care just about the power of a creature like we have with Spikeshot Goblin, Aura Gnarlid (and Wandering Wolf and Skarrgan Pit-Skulk), Fling, etc.
I really like the Font cycle, just like I liked the Spellbomb cycles from Mirrodin blocks and the Capsules in Shards of Alara. They really help hold a format together around an artifact/enchantment theme. I do wish there was some better support for returning enchantments from the graveyard. Auramancer is quite good, but the quality drops off quickly after that. In looking at Gatherer for the words "return" and "enchantment" on cards, there are some interesting results (in the sense of, "Oh, isn't that a cute card idea.") For reference: Griffin Dreamfinder Mine Excavation Rofello's Gift Tragic Poet
Also showing up in that search is this gem: Remove Enchantments. Ah early Magic, you're so crazy.
Spikeshot Goblin has long been a mainstay in my Cube. Since the rate on him as a pinger is only just below average (1 mana is a lot more than 0, but Red decks can usually find the extra mana after the first few turns), he's quite reasonable without much aid. Throw some equipment on him, or, as I initially included, ways to generate and move +1/+1 counters and he becomes an excellent board control card. You can go full bore like I did with some of my early forays into building archetypes and also include some Untap cards for further synergies (though many of these enablers are only okay cards on their own).
Where this gets interesting is how you shift your spells a bit to further support this archetype. Say you start with some double strike spells like Double Cleave to make bigger damaging turns with a Kiln Fiend. Suddenly, you have a mono red direction available with pumping creatures and doing huge bursts of damage (think Scorchwalker Bloodrush + Double Cleave or Immolating Souleater + Double Cleave). With ways to pump creatures, effects that use power for damage are now much better: Fall of the Hammer, Soul's Fire, Fling. These first two cards work well in Green decks too, but the last card works with Black.
I know the kill spells in Rise, and the ones you list are all very good in Pauper cube, but were not so universally applicable in the environment, not just because of ramp, but because of the other strategies in the format built around dedicating resources to creatures already in play, including Aura Gnarlid, Kiln Fiend, Bloodthrone Vampire, and Levelers.
Vendetta is the only one of those three that is cheap and instant, and Vendetta has vastly diminishing returns in a format with walls, common 8/8 creatures, and larger ramp targets beyond that.
Flame Slash is very good early, but again, doesn't work as well against ramp targets or levelers or Aura Gnarlids that grow outside its range almost immediately.
Staggershock was solid at dealing with levelers or Bloodthrone early, but only if you catch them at the right time.
I didn't bring this up earlier, but the other way Rise dealt with the typical removal > creatures dynamic is to have token producers, which obviously leave creatures around afterward to make it so one removal spell isn't as big a downer. Only Staggershock among these three deals with two creatures, but not too well when it comes to most of the token makers.
All this is to say, there's no problem with having good removal in Pauper cube. I just think making the removal less universal and making it so evaluating each piece of removal for its actually relevant pros and cons in a draft is not only more conducive to strategies devoting resources to creatures like the mechanics in Rise, but also more interesting to draft.
To support Heroic or any other mechanic that relies on one large creature that is either ramped into or supplemented with Enchantments or other sort of effects requires adjusting the removal spells that exist around it. Formats like Rise of the Eldrazi and Theros did this by limiting the amount of cheap instant speed unconditional removal that was available to players. Pauper cubes tend to have lots of these spells by the nature of players simply selecting the highest powered versions of each type of card to include. If you want this sort of mechanic to work, you need to make the environment less hostile.
Voltron is when you attempt to put lots of enchantments or similar effects onto one creature. That's more all in than what usually happens in my Cube.
Since you draft Winston, yeah, you can't really afford to have cards requiring synergy floating around. Have you tried Grid Drafting? It's another two player draft format that allows for a bit more cohesion in the decks you draft as compared to Winston.
So...are we talking about Empyrial Armor anymore in this thread? I like the card quite a bit in giving White a different dimension to it's aggro decks. Often times, White aggro decks swarm out and win that way. In my cube, I started to push for more of a "Protect the Queen" style aggro deck, exemplified most by Kiln Fiend decks with counterspells, but appearing in White with various enchantments like Empyrial Armor and Ethereal Armor backed by protection spells. I think the White decks like this need more of a shell of support cards around them, particularly Enchantment support, but it's certainly doable. Shifting spells to seals, including more Bestow creatures, including enchantment removal spells (Dead Weight, Flowstone Blade, etc.), and putting in cards that care about Enchantments like Aura Gnarlid and Auramancer add a lot of texture to cubes by making creature enchantments less of a liability and more consistent a gameplan. Plus, sometimes you get to play Gush mid-combat with a creature enchanted with Empyrial Armor, which makes it all worth it.
Savage Surge should complement my other untap cards nicely. I was very pleased to see that become a Common (like it easily could have been in its first printing).
I think people may be overestimating the amount of changes that need to be made to support archetypes or sub-themes in the Cube. The method to increase the effectiveness of a certain strategy is to include cards that are best within decks of that strategy, but that does not mean that these cards are not also good in other decks.
Whenever I add cards to help archetypes, I make sure that if they are not powerful, they are at least versatile, if not both. Some people seem to associate themes with narrow cards. I support particular deck strategies and archetypes in my cube, but I don't run narrow cards. Whenever I add a card, I think of both the best case for the card, which is usually its application in an archetype I'm looking to support, and I also look at the merely good case for the card, its application in just a deck full of cards. If I can't picture the card being good in that sort of deck, I hesitate to include it.
Of course, my actual ideal solution when making changes is to include new cards to support one archetype that are simultaneously good in a completely different archetype! That may be just me.
I've got to say, I love seeing all this talk about shifting cubes more towards synergy and power rather than just pure power. Take it from me: you'll never go back.
Did not realize Phantom Nomad and Tiger were invincible to damage when they have some form of static boost, Aura, Equipment, or Trusted Forcemage.
Yeah, they're pretty resilient with just about anything else, which plays well with some other cards I'm using in the cube. Counters brought about my curiosity for the two Phantoms, but considering other cards I've recently added along with them brought them to my attention.
I am definitely in favor of playing with a +1/+1 counters theme, which you could probably guess. I do wish there were more uses for the counters, but I'm fine with most of the cards that gain them or give them because the counters themselves are fine value added.
The two cards I've recently started using to take advantage of the theme are Phantom Nomad and Phantom Tiger, but also because there are ways to gain benefits from using them without counters as well. When there are more viable cards in the future that benefit specifically from counters on similar levels, I will be happy to include them as well.
I think it's very very close to being a strong enough archetype with enough support. Some version or another of my cube (I'd have to look back through the various iterations) was a few cards shy of a really cubeable counters archetype. We just need another set of cards that care about counters in particular (e.g. Phantom creatures, creatures like the Dissension Grafters) or a lot more good cards that care just about the power of a creature like we have with Spikeshot Goblin, Aura Gnarlid (and Wandering Wolf and Skarrgan Pit-Skulk), Fling, etc.
Griffin Dreamfinder
Mine Excavation
Rofello's Gift
Tragic Poet
Also showing up in that search is this gem: Remove Enchantments. Ah early Magic, you're so crazy.
The UR Spells Archetype is certainly doable as there are already a higher number of powerful spells in these colors, so all it takes is the creatures that benefit from spells, which are all at least playable if not already cubable. There are creatures that benefit from casting spells: Kiln Fiend, Wee Dragonauts, Nivix Cyclops, Prescient Chimera, and creatures that benefit from having spells: Delver of Secrets, Goblin Electromancer, Archaeomancer, Izzet Chronarch, Anarchist, Scrivener.
Where this gets interesting is how you shift your spells a bit to further support this archetype. Say you start with some double strike spells like Double Cleave to make bigger damaging turns with a Kiln Fiend. Suddenly, you have a mono red direction available with pumping creatures and doing huge bursts of damage (think Scorchwalker Bloodrush + Double Cleave or Immolating Souleater + Double Cleave). With ways to pump creatures, effects that use power for damage are now much better: Fall of the Hammer, Soul's Fire, Fling. These first two cards work well in Green decks too, but the last card works with Black.
Now, for the RB Sacrifice archetype, you can put in more sacrifice effects in Black that are just on the cusp of being cubeable normally: Carrion Feeder, Viscera Seer, Bloodthrone Vampire, Dimir House Guard. You can put more creatures in Black that sacrifice well, like Festering Goblin, Dregscape Zombie, Butcher Ghoul, and Viscera Dragger, or you can just increase ways to return creatures that die, like Grim Harvest, Unearth, Tortured Existence, Death Denied, Breath of Life, and Angelic Renewal. As you can see from the last two, White gives you ways to extend the sacrifice theme as well: Doomed Traveler, Loyal Cathar, Elder Cathar, Thraben Sentry, Raise the Alarm. Continuing with tokens to sacrifice leads into Green with Scatter the Seeds and Sproutswarm, or back into Red with Dragon Fodder and Mogg War Marshal. This is the best aspect of the Sacrifice archetype. With just a touch of token production, BW, BG, or BR Sacrifice can work.
Vendetta is the only one of those three that is cheap and instant, and Vendetta has vastly diminishing returns in a format with walls, common 8/8 creatures, and larger ramp targets beyond that.
Flame Slash is very good early, but again, doesn't work as well against ramp targets or levelers or Aura Gnarlids that grow outside its range almost immediately.
Staggershock was solid at dealing with levelers or Bloodthrone early, but only if you catch them at the right time.
I didn't bring this up earlier, but the other way Rise dealt with the typical removal > creatures dynamic is to have token producers, which obviously leave creatures around afterward to make it so one removal spell isn't as big a downer. Only Staggershock among these three deals with two creatures, but not too well when it comes to most of the token makers.
All this is to say, there's no problem with having good removal in Pauper cube. I just think making the removal less universal and making it so evaluating each piece of removal for its actually relevant pros and cons in a draft is not only more conducive to strategies devoting resources to creatures like the mechanics in Rise, but also more interesting to draft.
Since you draft Winston, yeah, you can't really afford to have cards requiring synergy floating around. Have you tried Grid Drafting? It's another two player draft format that allows for a bit more cohesion in the decks you draft as compared to Winston.
Whenever I add cards to help archetypes, I make sure that if they are not powerful, they are at least versatile, if not both. Some people seem to associate themes with narrow cards. I support particular deck strategies and archetypes in my cube, but I don't run narrow cards. Whenever I add a card, I think of both the best case for the card, which is usually its application in an archetype I'm looking to support, and I also look at the merely good case for the card, its application in just a deck full of cards. If I can't picture the card being good in that sort of deck, I hesitate to include it.
Of course, my actual ideal solution when making changes is to include new cards to support one archetype that are simultaneously good in a completely different archetype! That may be just me.
Yeah, they're pretty resilient with just about anything else, which plays well with some other cards I'm using in the cube. Counters brought about my curiosity for the two Phantoms, but considering other cards I've recently added along with them brought them to my attention.
The two cards I've recently started using to take advantage of the theme are Phantom Nomad and Phantom Tiger, but also because there are ways to gain benefits from using them without counters as well. When there are more viable cards in the future that benefit specifically from counters on similar levels, I will be happy to include them as well.