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M15 Pauper Thoughts: Oppressive Rays - Possibly a tool for white aggro? Spending one more mana to get a permanent Pacifism isn't a large ask, but three mana for one guy is a lot and would slow down controllish decks quite well. Heliod's Pilgrim - Finally, the enabler enchantment archetypes needed. Going straight in mine. Amphin Pathmage - An expensive Covert Operative, until you hit six mana and start sending two to the dome. I'm more interested in using this guy to fuel Cipher and Ophidian shenanigans than playing boring innate-unblockable guys like Invisible Stalker. Glacial Crasher - Great blue finisher and enables U/R without having 'instant or sorcery' written on it. I feel like MaRo wouldn't have greenlighted this. Frost Lynx - This feels like one of those 'should've been in Alpha' cards. Perfect tempo staple. Rotfeaster Maggot - A nice defensive card in a format where black can't do much with their opponent's dead guys. Shadowcloak Vampire - Nice replacement for Sengir at Pauper. Going right in. Crowd's Favor - Wins combat for a blocker for free, but I don't think it's better than Weapon Surge. Borderland Marauder - Best value red has at two. Score. Generator Servant - The other amazing two drop. Also notable for showing off red's fast mana mechanic without being a broken Storm card. Undergrowth Scavenger - Dredge has been hard to construct in Pauper, mainly due to a limited number of ways to exploit it, but this guy fits the bill. It's too bad he's vanilla for four mana.
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Jul 6, 2014 20:56
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It occurs to me that although I started the thread, and we've had some decent discussion, we haven't really had a whole lot going on in here. This kind of sucks! So, I figured that I'd have to create some sort of incentive, and I figure a good way to both do that and encourage some additional creativity, would be to create a  CONTEST!!!. So, let's get this show on the road. And our challenge of the day is...THE CUBER'S TOOLKIT Lately, Wizards has been putting out a lot of fantastic products outside of the usual Core Set/Block releases, many of them designed to give players a start into particular modes of play. Duel Decks and Deckbuilders Toolkits provide a nice place to start playing. The now-annual Commander decks have interesting decklists and new commanders to play with. Modern Masters (in theory, though not in practice) makes Modern more accessible. Conspiracy and Planechase both give you other ways to play. It's only a matter of time (hopefully) before Wizards attempts to sell something to cubers. Let's take a crack at making that product, shall we? ENTRIES Because I don't want to be comparing apples to oranges to zucchini to trout, I'll be suggesting a standard format for the Cuber's Toolkit: -180 cards--it should support 2-man drafts using the format of your choice (and you *can* specify your choice), up to 4-mans using... uh, I dunno. -No more than 10 mythics--this includes cards from before the Mythic rarity that would likely be Mythics if they were reprinted, such as Pernicious Deed in Conspiracy. -No more than 30 rares--Yes, this makes fixing difficult. There is some flex room for lower-tier duals here if it's that much of an issue, but not much, and I would much prefer you not go past it. -Try to have a balance between commons and uncommons. -No cards from the Reserved List. As much as we might wish otherwise, we aren't getting these. Sorry, Deranged Hermit! -Limit your value. There isn't a set boundary here, but if you're sticking Jace the Mind Sculptor, Jitte, and all the Fetches in, you're being delusional. Try to make this look like a product Wizards would actually make. -Give me a writeup. I'm not so good at this that I can look at a cube and immediately understand everything you're doing. Tell me what you've got going on, and then I'll be able to give you much better feedback. -This isn't a rule, but looking at old Limited archetypes and how MMA did things for inspiration should be a good start for you. -If you design *two* Cuber's Toolkits such that there's no overlap and you could combine them into a single starter cube, you are a goddamn boss and get unspecified bonus points. -If you have something that you feel puts my dumb idea of a Cuber's Toolkit's format to shame, feel free to submit it. -Please have entries on Cube Tutor. It's such a good site! DEADLINES The initial deadline for submissions is by July 20th. If this turns out to be too short, I can extend it, but expect that to be the cutoff. FABULOUS PRIZE(S) 1st Place: $10 StarCityGames gift card, or the forums upgrade of your choice. May increase with more entries. 2nd Place: If we get enough entries, this'll be a forums upgrade. I hate being nebulous and cheap, but my funds are a touch on the limited side ( 3rd Place: Probably nothing! If we get a good number of entries, *you* get to be the lucky MTGO-scraps-haver! People are welcome to offer additional prizes with whatever stipulations they want. Have fun! Get to cubing!
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Jul 7, 2014 01:54
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Lord Of Texas posted:Yes, when I say "don't treat your cube like a constructed deck" I mean "don't think that the only way to build a good cube is to optimize based on power level, like you would a constructed deck." A cube only has to be internally balanced - you don't play it against other cubes like a constructed deck, yet it seems like 90% of cube owners will only include a given card if it is the most powerful option for its slot. This is actually very helpful advice... me and my friends have collected thousands of cards between us (disposable income... pack cracking addiction.. etc) and so I may just be able to use my M14 onwards cards to create a proto-cube, and modify it with my M15 favourites once I get them. The thing that makes Cube attractive to me is that I can crack packs and never get the feel bads from getting sub-optimal cards as they might fit into my cube. Constructed seems to stray from the core experience of magic once it gets too serious and my group refuse to draft as they have a strange fear of rare drafting Serdain fucked around with this message at 03:14 on Jul 7, 2014 |
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Jul 7, 2014 02:40
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If Shivan Dragon isn't in your personal Cuber's Toolkit list of rares you've seriously misunderstood Wizards promotional branding
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Jul 7, 2014 04:24
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Quick question then: What are your thoughts on new cards being in it? While I understand that most cubing is done with typical cards that already exist and having new ones is messy, it's a bit odd just thinking of Wizards putting out a new side set without at least having a few new cards to help with the hype.
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Jul 7, 2014 06:12
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WhiteWolf- I try to be original but to be honest I take a lot of your card changes to heart and emulate them in My List. Hopefully you take my imitation as a form of flattery. That said, I am enjoying the poo poo out of the super ramp / artifact deck changes. I built Wildfire today and it felt 'just right' having Tolarian Academy and Goblin Welder. Others commented that having the mana doublers and Tooth and Nail, for example, made green feel (even) more powerful and have more of an edge against blue. The last deck I really want to try to make more appealing is the Token Deck. I think it's hard to pull off because it's pretty planeswalker and spell dependent. Also, I drafted Pox for the first time ever a few weeks ago. I took it pack 1 pick 2 and built a lightly splashed Dimir Pox deck out of it, and it was just absurd how breaking it was. Turning 1/1s sideways is a legitimate win condition with the deck. Curse of Shallow Graves is a major MVP in it, too.
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Jul 7, 2014 07:10
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Null1fy posted:Curse of Shallow Graves is a major MVP in it, too. My cube isn't powered and is actually probably a step further lower than that.
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Jul 7, 2014 08:10
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Spiderdrake posted:Is it good in any other archetypes? I'm maybe a bigger fan of the two curses than others. I think that it's phenomenal - it's half of a Grave Titan, and Grave Titan can trigger it! Any decks which can use tokens (Reanimator/Stax/Low-CC Swarm) love it.
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Jul 7, 2014 08:19
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Pox/Stax, B/X Tokens, X/b aggro. Those are the three decks that use Curse most often. It's pretty good. Not uncuttable, but solid. Null1fy posted:WhiteWolf- I try to be original but to be honest I take a lot of your card changes to heart and emulate them in My List. Hopefully you take my imitation as a form of flattery. That said, I am enjoying the poo poo out of the super ramp / artifact deck changes. I built Wildfire today and it felt 'just right' having Tolarian Academy and Goblin Welder. Others commented that having the mana doublers and Tooth and Nail, for example, made green feel (even) more powerful and have more of an edge against blue. The last deck I really want to try to make more appealing is the Token Deck. I think it's hard to pull off because it's pretty planeswalker and spell dependent. Hey man, if you're enjoying making similar changes that I make, awesome! :p We've been enjoying the extra archetypes. Green has been on a tear recently, but blue is still king (except for the aggro decks at the table, they're good at dethroning it). The super-ramp deck is a lot of fun though. The Pox/Stax archetype is a blast, as you say. It's crazy how good the mutually punishing effects are when you can make them even the slightest bit asymmetrical.
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Jul 7, 2014 12:32
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Ramos posted:Quick question then: Well, you can do it, but I do encourage you to keep it limited--I'm grading the cube as a whole, not the design of individual cards within it. Make sure there is a good reason for each card you create. (Also, I don't know how well that works with cubetutor, so keep that in mind.
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Jul 7, 2014 14:14
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The Lord of Hats posted:Well, you can do it, but I do encourage you to keep it limited--I'm grading the cube as a whole, not the design of individual cards within it. Make sure there is a good reason for each card you create. (Also, I don't know how well that works with cubetutor, so keep that in mind. It doesn't work at all with cubetutor, so no new cards then. Thanks for the help.
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Jul 7, 2014 14:19
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The Lord of Hats posted:It occurs to me that although I started the thread, and we've had some decent discussion, we haven't really had a whole lot going on in here. This kind of sucks! So, I figured that I'd have to create some sort of incentive, and I figure a good way to both do that and encourage some additional creativity, would be to create a Here is my tentative submission. I might work on it up until June 20th. It's based loosely on what are currently the 'best' cards in the price range. WotC online cubes have used many of these cards, though because of the reserved list I couldn't otherwise have added cheap rares that are banned. Null1fy's 180 Card Cuber's Toolkit It has 23 of WUBRG, 2 cards of each guild, 2 lands of each guild, 15 artifacts and 10 generic / colorfixing lands. In each of the 5 colors there are 3 rares and 2 mythic rares (A titan and a planeswalker). In each guild there's a Rare and usually an uncommon. Artifacts has 3 rares and there are 2 rare lands. Null1fy fucked around with this message at 20:23 on Jul 7, 2014 |
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Jul 7, 2014 20:19
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I posted in the limited thread a few days ago but here's the real thread this should have gone in: My buddies and I are getting a little older and have less and less time to get together and play (and less and less disposable income) so I've decided to put a cube together so we can play limited together on the cheap (using 99% cards we have laying around). We just finished a list and haven't drafted it yet but I was wondering if any Cube Veterans could provide me some feedback on what you think would work and what wouldn't work. It's a 4-man, 180-card cube. http://deckstats.net/decks/3554/102667-cube Any feedback would be helpful!
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Jul 9, 2014 01:39
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Balon posted:I was wondering if any Cube Veterans could provide me some feedback on what you think would work and what wouldn't work. Here's some thoughts on specific colours: White Auriok Champion hoses red quite badly, a lot of people avoid 'protection from x' in cubes for this reason. Eidolon of Rhetoric is quite narrow. Dictate of Heliod provides strong support for tokens but is well-above the power level of the rest of the section, compare to Oathswon Giant (which could be upgraded to Geist-honoured Monk to support the token theme). White aggro is weak, with no cube staples like Elite Vanguard/Savannah Lions or Stormfront Pegasus. There is a bit of a Heroic/bestow theme, you could add some of the other strong cards of this archetype like Heliod's Emissary - generally the bestow creatures will do more work in cube because they requite less set-up to work. Blue Too many bombs, control decks don't need that many. I'm not sure the mill theme will actually work. The best mill decks in limited formats either milled opponents out very efficiently with one or two cards (Consuming Aberration in RTR block) or relied on a high degree of synergy and redundancy (Dampen Thoughts added mill to removal and draw spells). There's an absence of counterspells in blue, which will create an even greater tendency towards games being decided by bombs and make it hard for tempo decks to prevent control decks from stabilising. Consider more blue tempo spells and creatures such as Silent Departure, Vaporkin, Skywinder Drake and Frost Breath. Bident of Thassa and Standstill already support this strategy. There is a lack of card filtering and draw (Divination, Foresee, Preordain). Thassa's Emissary could go in if you are supporting heroic/bestow (white has better heroic creatures than blue though). Black Illness in the Ranks is too narrow, consider something like Drown in Sorrow. There is a bit of a lack of focus or identity in black, but this is a problem with the colour itself really (as recognised by Maro and others). A couple of strong cards like King Macar and Silence the Believers (both especially strong in a slow format) stand out. Black could do with a few more strong one and two drops (such as Tormented Hero, Diregraf Ghoul) as well as some of its powerful 2 for 1 creatures such as Nekrataal and Skinrender. Blood Artist is more effective than Deathgreeter and can help support sacrifice themed decks. Red This looks like the weakest colour to me. For example, Blazing Salvo is quite a weak 'punisher' card and Titan's Strength is quite weak outside a set with lots of heroic creatures (Magma Jet does a better job than either). Again, there is a need for more solid one and two drops (Firedrinker Satyr, Stormblood Beserker, Plated Geopede). Aggro isn't the only route red can go down, some people play it as the primary control colour and make blue one of the main aggro colours, whilst others have tried to develop a token theme. But it is the most usual role for red. Green I think that with somewhat weak removal and aggro in the rest of the cube, the big creatures in green make it a strong colour. Straightforward 'dinosaur' decks are likely to squash decks running the so-so smaller creatures from other colours. Experiment One and Reverent Hunter are aggro creatures without much support in the rest of this colour, Vine Trellis and Sedge Scorpion are cards that will slow the tempo of most games down. Green could be diversified with a bit more ramp like Llanowar Elves or Cultivate. Artifact I recommend running Bonesplitter in place of Sword of the Meek - good cheap equipment gives a big boost to aggro. There are a couple of cards here that are over the curve, namely Razormane Masticore and Grafted Wargear (although Grafted Wargear is one of the few really strong aggro cards in the cube). Sphere of Resistance might be a bit narrow. I think that, in general, if you are on a budget and are designing a cube then looking at the commons and uncommons in a recent core set can be helpful. The post-M10 core sets tend to be pretty well balanced and pretty clear in terms of the core archetypes of each colour.
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Jul 9, 2014 08:08
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My multiplayer cube is almost ready; it's gone through one little alpha playtest and the two people I played with really liked it. Designing for multiplayer limited is hard, but I took some cues from Conspiracy and also my years of experience with Commander. It sucked not being able to include the fun chaos cards like Eye of the Storm because no one would draft them no matter how fun they were. Aggro is the hardest thing to design; I'm still not entirely happy with red - I want its theme to be "bleed everyone else dry", but too much "deal X damage to each player" and it'll be overpowered. I was toying with the idea of some archetypes in different colors, but decided against these archetype-specific cards because I wanted to keep the cube small; it'll mostly be used for four or five player drafts. I wanted to turn down the power level a little from even unpowered cubes to keep the game flowing. My main goal is to make the decks feel like half-size Commander decks. 50-card decks seem like what everyone should be shooting for. I'm concerned about Canal Dredger and Worldknit's power level in a cube. Canal Dredger is insane when last picks are good and there are sometimes five packs per player, and Worldknit is great when every card is playable. But I want to have some fun with them before I possibly take them out. Anyone have any comments for it? List is here.
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Jul 9, 2014 19:20
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Some random thoughts: Blood Frenzy is a fun political card/trick for red. Royal Assassin seems like it could a fun mirror image to Intrepid Hero. Even though they're worse as being pure mana rocks, I'd consider cluestones or keyrunes in place of signets just because they have additional value as lategame topdecks. Black is lacking some good spot removal. White gets Path and Swords, so I'd look to Doom Blade/GftT as equivalents for black. Browbeat is still a terrible card.
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Jul 9, 2014 20:05
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I think you should have Standstill in blue. It's like an ancestral recall for you and two other people!
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Jul 9, 2014 20:22
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For my newest project I'm looking to include lots of cards with strong resonance/top-down flavor and would love some recommendations of cards that may not see regular play in other cubes. Think things like Pacifism, Black Cat, or Hired Torturer. I'm okay with things that are underpowered since I'll be balancing power level across all the colors.
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Jul 15, 2014 01:54
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Build a Kamigawa Block Cube. 
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Jul 15, 2014 02:08
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Kamigawa and (oh lord don't let JerryLee read this) the Lorwyn super-block have a ton of great top down stuff. You might try assembling, for example, a U/B rogues deck, which just oozes roguish flavor. One of my favorites is Prison Term, actually.
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Jul 15, 2014 22:02
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Are any of the conspiracy cards or those draft altering artifact dudes worth having in a cube?
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Jul 21, 2014 19:40
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I think a Conspiracy Cube would be a cool idea. Maybe have a set of cards you could replace them with off to the side in the event that you want to do a non-Conspiracy draft with roughly the same cube.
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Jul 21, 2014 19:47
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Molybdenum posted:Are any of the conspiracy cards or those draft altering artifact dudes worth having in a cube? If you allow them, most all of them are amazing.
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Jul 21, 2014 20:46
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Molybdenum posted:Are any of the conspiracy cards or those draft altering artifact dudes worth having in a cube? Lore Seeker and Canal Dredger are just ridiculous. I think that Canal Dredger averages 2-3 playables if he's drafted in the first round of packs. The rest of them (Deal Broker, Cogwork Librarian, AEther Searcher) are also very good in their own right.
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Jul 21, 2014 21:18
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So I have been and am continuing to feel really lazy. I haven't updated my cube since Theros, so I have nothing from Born of the Gods, Journey Into Nyx, or M15 in there yet. What cards from those sets are worthy of inclusion in a Powered Cube? Current list: http://cubetutor.com/viewcube/4787
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Jul 22, 2014 22:48
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BaronVonVaderham posted:So I have been and am continuing to feel really lazy. I haven't updated my cube since Theros, so I have nothing from Born of the Gods, Journey Into Nyx, or M15 in there yet. A hell of a lot, especially at 600. Here's an abridged list for what I had in my 465: Theros: Purphoros, God of the Forge Sylvan Caryatid Elspeth, Sun's Champion Xenagos, the Reveler Soldier of the Pantheon Spear of Heliod Lightning Strike Firedrinker Satyr Polukranos, World Eater Tormented Hero Born of the Gods: Brimaz, King of Oreskos Courser of Kruphix Kiora, the Crashing Wave Journey into Nyx: Banishing Light Master of the Feast Mana Confluence Gnarled Scarhide Conspiracy: Council's Judgement Grenzo, Dungeon Warden Dack Fayden Paliano, the High City Agent of Aquisitions Lore Seeker Deal Broker Canal Dredger Cogwork Librarian AEther Searcher M15: Goblin Rabblemaster Altac Bloodseeker Generator Savant Reclamation Sage Borderland Marauder Nissa, Worldwaker Ajani Steadfast Chasm Skulker I may have missed some, especially since at 600 you can take picks I have to cut.
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Jul 23, 2014 18:16
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Null1fy posted:A hell of a lot, especially at 600. Here's an abridged list for what I had in my 465: Thanks, it's somewhere to start. I have almost everything you have from Theros. Lightning Strike is the same as Searing Spear, so that doesn't make it (Spear has a bitchin' promo version, so it wins). Gruul already has very strong multicolor spells and a planeswalker (Domri), so Xenagos didn't make it. Black may already have the most OP low curve creatures as it is, so Tormented Hero got the cut, though he is always an option to replace another creature later. The others I will have to think on for a while and see where I can make cuts while also preserving the balance, since right now things play pretty evenly. The only obvious one is switching Mana Confluence for City of Brass, that's a no-brainer, though it will have to wait for me to get another one. I'm trying to avoid Conspiracy, though. It's SO tempting, but as much as I'd love to be the guy taking two pieces of power off a Librarian, I know I'd hate playing against the guy who got to do that (as would everyone else hate playing against me if I was the lucky bitch that time). Cute idea, but the effect is a little too powerful in cube. Something like Dack might make it, though, Izzet is by far the weakest multicolor section....
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Jul 23, 2014 18:24
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If Izzet needs help, Dack's Duplicate is crazy good in a powered cube. A Clone effect with haste and an additional upside is really sweet.
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Jul 23, 2014 18:36
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BaronVonVaderham posted:Lightning Strike is the same as Searing Spear, so that doesn't make it (Spear has a bitchin' promo version, so it wins). It shouldn't be one or the other in a 600 card cube. It should be both. BaronVonVaderham posted:Gruul already has very strong multicolor spells and a planeswalker (Domri), so Xenagos didn't make it. Xenagos is easily better than Manamorphose or Violent Outburst BaronVonVaderham posted:Black may already have the most OP low curve creatures as it is, so Tormented Hero got the cut, though he is always an option to replace another creature later. The more 1 drops you have in Black/Red/Green/White the more viable aggro decks are. You shouldn't think in terms of quality but quantity when it comes to one drops. The best is having about 8-9 for each color that can be drafted from (including those in guilds). BaronVonVaderham posted:The others I will have to think on for a while and see where I can make cuts while also preserving the balance, since right now things play pretty evenly. The only obvious one is switching Mana Confluence for City of Brass, that's a no-brainer, though it will have to wait for me to get another one. Again, it should not be one or the other but both. BaronVonVaderham posted:I'm trying to avoid Conspiracy, though. It's SO tempting, but as much as I'd love to be the guy taking two pieces of power off a Librarian, I know I'd hate playing against the guy who got to do that (as would everyone else hate playing against me if I was the lucky bitch that time). Cute idea, but the effect is a little too powerful in cube. Strongly consider Dack Fayden (you have a freaking powered cube, man), Dack's Duplicate and at least Council's Judgement. I can abide by you not having Grenzo (even though he's a loving monster) and Paliano since it alters drafting mechanics but the aforementioned three are incredibly, incredibly good cards.
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Jul 23, 2014 20:31
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Ebethron posted:Hey there. Generally, aggro will have quite a hard time in this cube. Cubes seem to favour control decks, with aggro needing a lot of support in the form of efficient one and two-drop creatures. Control decks don't need a lot of support, control players can hoover up the removal from a few different colours and they only need one or two bombs per deck. There are also cards in the cube that shut down aggro completely, like Propaganda and Ghostly Prison. Aggro decks have no outs to these cards in cube. Without support for aggro, midrange decks are weakened and the usual paper-scissors-stone of aggro-midrange-control won't operate. Instead, the control decks will run more and more bombs to go over-the-top against one another. Thanks for all the feedback here - it was really helpful. I ran the cube as-is for the first time and a few of the issues you mentioned rang really true. Namely that Red wasn't good enough and Blue was too good (3 of the 4 players splashed Blue). I purposely avoided counterspells in Blue as there's a new player in our group and, when polled about his least favorite aspect of Magic he said counterspells. So, in the interest of keeping him (and other newer players that will run this cube) involved they went out the window. That being said, feedback from the players themselves hit the following points:
There aren't enough heroic triggers. There needs to be more encouragement of cross-color builds. White's removal is too good. Blue/Black Mill was fun and good! Red was boring - no incentive despite big flying dragons. No incentive to run creatures >6CC (Red Dragons were laughed at, Scourge of Fleets was last-picked) In the end we played a 4-player multiplayer game and some single player. A UW aggro deck took down multiplayer thanks to Daxos w/ Grafted Wargear mainly. UB Mill took down singleplayer handily. I've made some tweaks to the list, added in more auras and some more themes - there are now 3 slivers in every color as well as a Sliver Hive in land and Red is populated with Goblins! http://deckstats.net/decks/3554/102667-cube Once again, feedback is appreciated.
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Jul 28, 2014 18:17
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quote:I purposely avoided counterspells in Blue as there's a new player in our group and, when polled about his least favorite aspect of Magic he said counterspells. So, in the interest of keeping him (and other newer players that will run this cube) involved they went out the window. Removing counterspells isn't very productive though. It would be similar to removing burn from red. He's going to have to play against a real blue deck at some point. quote:Each color needs a draw engine. I don't agree that each color needs a draw engine. White is the worst at drawing cards with red a close second. Having a lack of good draw motivates players to go into a second colour if draw is what they need, which creates interactive drafting and deckbuilding. Heroic can be difficult to support in a cube, but taking a quick glance at your list I can definitely agree. Multicolour builds go back to the first point, but a good way of supporting it is adding tons of colourfixing. I run 41 nonbasic lands in my 360 cube and they're always the first to go in a pack. White having good removal is a problem when it comes to Swords to Plowshares and Path to Exile. Maro's pointed this out on his blog a few times. Shifting to Oblivion Ring-style removal is excellent as it's still very powerful but is more fair. Note that you'll have to run some maindeck-able removal for Oblivion Ring if you want to use this, such as Acidic Slime and Disperse. I'm glad to hear dimir mill worked out! I've always found it difficult to balance in cube because of the smaller deck size. What's most important is that everyone you play with has a good time. Feel free to ignore all this advice if it means you'll have a better time. Red does seem fairly boring. I'm not sure if you're going for a goblin tribal theme, because that's hard enough in a 360 cube where you can devote many slots to it. In my cube, red is best known for burn, and the main deck with red is Izzet Delver/Young Pyromancer. People like casting lightning bolt. Tribal is very dangerous in limited as a) drafting becomes mindless as you simply snatch up any goblin that happens to come your way, and b) many of these cards will go around the table and become dead because they only work in the one deck. I'm not saying you can't do it, I'm just saying it's incredibly hard to do right. Are you sure you're supporting the ramp deck? They need lots and lots of Llanowar Elf variants combined with aggressive fatties like Pelakka Wurm that change the game if and when they hit. Try drafting your cube a few times while cutting hard to the ramp deck from Pack 1 Pick 1. If you get a deck that you think is reasonably powerful, then either your playgroup simply doesn't like ramp, or the other deck archetypes are even better.
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Jul 30, 2014 06:46
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This isn't really related to actual cube construction or play, but I thought I'd get some opinions. Later this year I'm planning to visit back home and, since apparently all my old friends have also (re)started playing Magic, bringing my cube with me. I'm probably gonna proxy the whole thing and bring that, just to hedge against the handful of things that can go wrong with international travel, so I realize I can do pretty much anything I want with the art on the cards. Have any of y'all ever played with an "alternate art" cube? Was it a fun novelty, or was it frustrating to have to make sure each card was what you thought it was? For what it's worth, I'm planning to have all titles/rules text/etc. completely legible, and decidedly not going for the "sexy anime babes on everything" look. Johnny Landmine fucked around with this message at 07:10 on Jul 30, 2014 |
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Jul 30, 2014 06:59
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 It works on occasion with cards that people are already pretty familiar with, but generally my friends tend to not care unless I ended up replacing some really atrocious art. I still find it a lot of fun to do though. And yeah, I know you said you aren't, but it's worth repeating, never use full art except on lands. Even then, it's probably best not to unless everyone is exceedingly familiar with the different lands.
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Jul 30, 2014 07:14
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I like that Tundra! Yeah, I'm planning on Zendikar or Unhinged-style duals but full text for everything else including shocks and fetches. In my experience "Land - Plains Island" gets the message across well enough to skip on the "(Tap: Add W or U to your mana pool)" reminder text, but I've already cubed with a few people who'd never played with shocks or fetches before, so those are keeping their rules text. Getting to put proper Oracle text on every card is also a plus, though I will admit that the temptation to change Necromancy's card text to "it does pretty much what the name makes you think it does, don't worry about it" is pretty strong.
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Jul 30, 2014 07:25
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Ramos posted:
 That's probably my most popular alternative shockland. I can see, especially using that frame, why it might be misleading, but really as long as you point out what you're playing when it drops, I haven't found proxies with alternate full art to be a problem. Other examples, because I like showing off art:           Most were custom jobs for individual tastes, but the revised duals are by far the most popular except for perhaps the power 9 and I run those in my own cube. I have at least a half dozen versions of those with varying art and frames.
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Jul 30, 2014 15:18
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Hopping Ghost posted:This isn't really related to actual cube construction or play, but I thought I'd get some opinions. Later this year I'm planning to visit back home and, since apparently all my old friends have also (re)started playing Magic, bringing my cube with me. I'm probably gonna proxy the whole thing and bring that, just to hedge against the handful of things that can go wrong with international travel, so I realize I can do pretty much anything I want with the art on the cards. Have any of y'all ever played with an "alternate art" cube? Was it a fun novelty, or was it frustrating to have to make sure each card was what you thought it was? can i ask how you plan going about this? i just got back into the game and maybe missing something
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Jul 30, 2014 15:45
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ptkfvk posted:can i ask how you plan going about this? i just got back into the game and maybe missing something get a printer and find some cool art and then print off some cards. then put them in sleeves.
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Jul 30, 2014 16:13
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ptkfvk posted:can i ask how you plan going about this? i just got back into the game and maybe missing something You can make higher quality ones than what was described above using foils and acetone to strip the ink off, then printing the proxies onto clear transfer paper and gluing to the now blank foil. This sounds super shady but the cards would never pass any kind of inspection, they are clearly not real. Makes for awesome cubing.
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Jul 30, 2014 17:43
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After watching several Vintage Masters drafts, I've been looking at Astral Slide as a possible inclusion in my cube. The problem is that whilst it is a powerful card in the right deck, it is both extremely narrow and does nothing on its own. There's also an element of any deck it is included in being built around the effect it gives, although obviously that generally means cards with cycling and creatures with good comes-into-play abilities, both of which are fine on their own. Unfortunately I do not get to cube as often as I'd like, so in lieu of testing this I'm just going to lay out my thoughts for feedback. The main issue is that in order to support Slide, there must be a critical mass of cyclers in the cube. Having a quick look through my list (found here, though it's currently kind of in the middle of an update) shows I currently have a grand total of two: Decree of Justice and Miscalculation. The question is then how many cube-viable cyclers are there, and how many cards can we afford to run just because they have cycling? I think that there's a pretty good argument for cards like Krosan Tusker, Undead Gladiator and Eternal Dragon, and some cubes probably run these already, but cards like these drop off pretty quickly. It's probably not too much of a stretch to include some cycling lands - I prefer the Slippery Karst type over the Tranquil Thicket type, as they are more easily run off colour, but are cards like Wild Dogs, Cloud of Faeries or even Akroma's Vengeance really strong enough any more? I don't want to include cards that don't fit in any other deck than Slide - the lands at least synergise with Life from the Loam/Fastbond/Crucible, and the others are strong enough in their own right. A secondary issue is that I at least would want to spread things through at least 2-3 colours other than white, so that if you draft Slide you're not forced into the same deck every time. Green-White with Life from the Loam and Eternal Witness and White-Black around Undead Gladiator for unlimited cycling and Nekrataals both seem pretty reasonable, but how do you build White-Blue or White-Red? Should these be supported? I hate the feeling in cube of it being a bunch of archetypes the designer has shuffled together and it's just my job to try and reassemble these from the packs I'm given, and I think this is a real possibility with Slide due to the limitations of the cards available. I'd be interested to know if anyone has already tested Astral Slide, and if so what the results are, and if not whether you think I'm crazy to even consider it.
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Aug 9, 2014 13:04
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I've got a Modern Peasant Cube that I want to add the odd Wrath effect to. I realize that all proper Wrath effects are rare, so I was going to make an exception. (List is here Modern Peasant Cube). Three questions spring to mind: 1. Is this a stupid idea that will make playing the cube terrible? 2. How many Wraths belong in a 360 card Cube? 3. Which ones? I was thinking that higher cost Wrath effects might be less unbalancing - either Solar Tide or Final Judgement in white, and maybe either Extinguish All Hope, Hex or Life's Finale in black. There is also a list of cards in the newest post of the cube blog - any must-includes or rejections would be helpful if you have the time.
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Aug 11, 2014 14:41
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