MTG Salvation

The Optimal Multiplayer Cube - 2013

Contents

1. Introduction
2. White
3. Blue
4. Black
5. Red
6. Green
7. Gold
8. Colourless
9. Nonbasic Land
10. Optimal Multiplayer Cube 2013
11. Budget Version
12. Legacy-Legal Version
13. Conclusion

Green

The green vote was completed on November 7th 2013.

The Top 40

The green section in a 360-card cube is 50 cards in size. As we are listing the top 80% we are after the top 40 cards in our power rankings for green. In order, these were:

1. Defense of the Heart (15.9)
2. Lurking Predators (11.7)
3. Primeval Titan (11.4)
4. Genesis (11.3)
5. Survival of the Fittest (10.0)
6. Sylvan Primordial (9.2)
7. Forgotten Ancient (7.0)
8. Doubling Season (6.6)
9. Green Sun's Zenith (6.2)
10. Tooth and Nail (6.0)
11. Verdant Force (4.9)
12. Eternal Witness (4.4)
13. Greater Good (4.3)
14. Priest of Titania (4.1)
15. Beast Within (4.1)
16. Seedborn Muse (4.1)
17. Rancor (3.2)
18. Genesis Wave (3.1)
19. Garruk Wildspeaker (3.0)
20. Asceticism (2.9)
21. Calming Verse (2.9)
22. Cream of the Crop (2.8)
23. Avenger of Zendikar (2.8)
24. Copperhoof Vorrac (2.7)
25. Thragtusk (2.6)
26. Soul of the Harvest (2.6)
27. Oath of Druids (2.4)
28. Primeval Bounty (2.3)
29. Natural Order (2.3)
30. Burgeoning (2.2)
31. Enchantress's Presence (2.1)
32. Ravenous Baloth (2.1)
33. Spike Weaver (2.1)
34. Woodfall Primus (2.0)
35. Hurricane (2.0)
36. Tornado Elemental (1.9)
37. Craterhoof Behemoth (1.9)
38. Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary (1.9)
39. Gutter Grime (1.8)
40. Silklash Spider (1.8)

Just outside of this list, on 1.7, was Death's Presence.

The Curve
These 40 cards give us the following curve for green:

 There are a few obvious problems with the initial curve:

• Our creature/spell balance is 19-21, which would have been almost perfect if we were in one of the symmetrical colours. We're not - we're in green, where we want to have two creatures for each spell, ideally. We want to aim for 26-14 here, so that we can match our blue section (which is 14-26).
• We're certainly fat with green fatties. Of our 19 creatures, 13 are CC5+ at the moment. It'd be nice to add some that are cheaper.

Fixing the Holes

Most of the struggle here with green is going to be getting the balance right. Everything else should fall into place fairly well following on from this.

Fixing the Creature/Spell Balance
Swapping seven spells for seven creatures is a big change. Firstly, the bottom seven spells were Gutter Grime, Hurricane, Enchantress's Presence, Burgeoning, Natural Order, Primeval Bounty and Oath of Druids. Some incredible cards in there, to be sure, but we could argue about how well some of them fit anyway.
The next seven creatures in the rankings were Hydra Omnivore, Nightshade Peddler, Kamahl, Fist of Krosa, Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger, Vigor, Elvish Piper and Scavenging Ooze. We're trying to fill in everything 4CC and down, so the Peddler, Piper and Ooze are great, but the other four? Not so much.
How about the next four that are 4CC or under? That's Predator Ooze, Immaculate Magistrate, Budoka Gardener and Lumberknot. Not brilliant, but not terrible either, so we'll keep 'em.
-1 Gutter Grime
-1 Hurricane
-1 Enchantress's Presence
-1 Burgeoning
-1 Natural Order
-1 Primeval Bounty
-1 Oath of Druids
+1 Nightshade Peddler
+1 Elvish Piper
+1 Scavenging Ooze
+1 Predator Ooze
+1 Immaculate Magistrate
+1 Budoka Gardener
+1 Lumberknot

Fixing the Curve
Wow, that was 90% of the work... our curve is now 2-7-4-10-7-10.
Let's do a final iron-out of that little dip around CC3. If we knock out three CC6+ cards for three CC3 cards, we get to 2-4-7-10-7-7. Gorgeous.
Our bottom three CC6+ cards are Woodfall Primus, Tornado Elemental and Craterhoof Behemoth, all creatures.
Unfortunately, there's no remaining 3CC critters that recieved votes! Back into 2012 we go... and we find Titania's Chosen, Heartwood Storyteller and... er... Rushwood Herbalist? Ooookay...
Hmm... maybe if we choose 3CC spells instead? From this year's vote, we get Enchantress's Presence, Downdraft and Fecundity. Downdraft is naff. But we've got Krosan Grip one spot further down. Not so naff.
-1 Woodfall Primus
-1 Tornado Elemental
-1 Craterhoof Behemoth
+1 Enchantress's Presence
+1 Fecundity
+1 Krosan Grip

Wonderful! But... now we've thrown our creature/spell balance back out... we need to add the next three creatures in for the worst three spells at the same CC. Then we're done!
We probably need to steer clear of CC6+ creatures... we've got plenty of fatty creatures already, and not many CC6+ spells to swap out.
The next three creatures are Mitotic Slime, Acidic Slime and Weatherseed Treefolk. Good creatures, but we've only got two 5CC spells, and one of them's Dub Season. One of those only, methinks.
-1 Asceticism
+1 Mitotic Slime
So we're now after 4CC creatures or less. The next two are Kavu Predator and Birds of Paradise. Nice!
So we're dropping our worst 1 and 2CC spells to get these two in. That would be Rancor and Cream of the Crop.
-1 Rancor
-1 Cream of the Crop
+1 Kavu Predator
+1 Birds of Paradise

That gives us the following...

 Budget Constraints

Once more, only two cards we're concerned by.

• Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary ($31.41)
• Survival of the Fittest ($37.54)

There aren't too many other cards that spam out loads of mana at 2CC like Rofellos. The creature with probably the best reputation here is Lotus Cobra (although Gyre Sage was certainly a card worthy of consideration).
We've also just dropped Cream of the Crop, which is probably about as close as we'll ever get to a repeatable search at 2CC not named Survival of the Fittest. Sorted!

Archetypes to Add
As we know, the mana curve for green now looks like this:
5-6-7-7-8-7
We've wound up with a decent curve for green. We want to keep it that way when adding an archetype for the final ten cards. Bear in mind that we want to maintain our creature/spell balance in green, so our ten cards want to have a ratio of six creature to four spells (or 7:3).
Green obviously has Elves as its first (and probably strongest) archetype, but there are many other ways to head. Here are a couple of examples:
Elves: Ezuri, Renegade Leader, Imperious Perfect, Joraga Warcaller and others will make this tribe dance. You can even throw Elvish Promenade in on the spells side to truly accelerate the tribe. Skyshroud Elf is a secret colour-fixer that works wonders in cubes.
Ramp: Besides using Elves to ramp, we can now also rely on other ramp methods in green. Overgrown Battlement, Vine Trellis and Yavimaya Elder, along with Rampant Growth, Explosive Vegetation and their friends, make it entirely possible to build a good ramp deck archetype in a cube. And that Avenger of Zendikar we threw in will love you for it.
Enchantments: We touched on this archetype in white, and it's just as viable in green. We already have eight enchantments in our list of green spells. Verduran Enchantress, Yavimaya Enchantress, Aura Gnarlid and Fugitive Druid have the potential to make this archetype work. Enchantress's Presence accelerates. Ancestral Mask is a 3CC win-con.

Example Elf Archetype
+1 Joraga Warcaller
+1 Ezuri, Renegade Leader
+1 Imperious Perfect
+1 Skyshroud Elf
+1 Wellwisher
+1 Llanowar Elves
+1 Jagged-Scar Archers
+1 Elvish Promenade
+2 other Elf-related spells of your choice (maybe even Nissa Revane if you're daring enough)

Example Enchanments Archetype
+1 Verduran Enchantress
+1 Aura Gnarlid
+1 Yavimaya Enchantress
+1 Bramble Elemental
+1 Fugitive Druid
+1 Dowsing Shaman
+1 Rancor
+1 Ancestral Mask
+1 Canopy Cover
+1 Epic Proportions