I think it's rare to find a cube that runs one of those if not any at all. Beast Within has the best argument, and even then I haven't run that in a long time.
I've found that 3-4 strong tempo effects like LD, Tangle Wire, Parallax Tide, and Winter Orb are plenty for mid-range to consistently beat the weakest archetype: control. Mid-range is by far the best cube strategy if you construct your cube solely around individual cards' power levels instead of forcing archetypes and going out of your way to concentrate cards during drafting to help players find archetype support cards.
Skyship Plunderer seems decent in generic mid-range. Blue is probably the most stacked color, though, and I'm not sure what to cut for this.
We have not found this to be true in our group. Dedicated archetype strategies like artifact.dec, reanimator, ramp/combo, tinker, and yes even generic control routinely trounce "goodstuff" midrange decks. I firmly believe that archetype support in cube increases the overall powerlevel of the environment rather than decreasing it.
I have player temporal spring and fallow earth from time to time and they serve Simic Tempo quite well. And there are times when I grab the wasteland, strip mine, and rashidan poart and do ambivalentduck is talking about.
I thank the example deck could use Rishkar and Baral's Expertise from the new set as well. But alas I like simic tempo much more than my group does. They only ever want to pair green with blue to protect fatties in their ramp/upheaval deck or win with 9/9 tokens from Kiora.
I firmly believe that archetype support in cube increases the overall powerlevel of the environment rather than decreasing it.
There's zero question that a concentrated reanimator deck with all the support cards will be "goodstuff.dec" every time. It's pretty similar to saying that a Vintage combo deck will almost always trounce a cube deck. My point was that 3-4 strong tempo spells do a lot more than 3-4 strong control spells in an otherwise mediocre shell.
Mid-range is by far the best cube strategy if you construct your cube solely around individual cards' power levels instead of forcing archetypes and going out of your way to concentrate cards during drafting to help players find archetype support cards.
That seems like a incorrect statement. Seriously? Midrange slugfest decks beating control decks? Seems unlikely...
Midrange is by far the weakest archetype in cube. It needs specific pieces in order to become powerful, and that's only where I have to agree with you. A midrange deck with a couple of mana dorks and a couple of fatties is bad. A deck with a couple of dorks, a couple of fatties and Opposition can be good.
I've found that 3-4 strong tempo effects like LD, Tangle Wire, Parallax Tide, and Winter Orb are plenty for mid-range to consistently beat the weakest archetype: control. Mid-range is by far the best cube strategy if you construct your cube solely around individual cards' power levels instead of forcing archetypes and going out of your way to concentrate cards during drafting to help players find archetype support cards.
I ...simply don't agree with any of this. No cube I've ever played with has reflected anything close to these statements. This might be true of your cube and your playgroup, but I can almost call this factually incorrect as a blanket statement to cube as a format. Cards' respective power-levels change based on context, so I'm not even sure how you'd begin to measure the statement you have made above. Like the "most powerful" cards all have context to determine such a thing; what metric are you using for "best" here? And I think by only including the intrinsically most powerful cards (if that's the metric you're using here), control winds up with a significant measurable advantage against the field. It's only when you intentionally include underpowered but necessary cards to bolster the other theaters that aggro and midrange become viable cube strategies. Basically the opposite of what you're saying above.
Best and best in context are VERY different things. Library of Congress is the best card in the game.
The claim you're making is pretty bizarre: just because your playgroup likes your cube and you're defining contextual power level relative to that, you're claiming that there's no set of perturbations to your list that would produce lists that consistently beat control lists drawn from your present cube. It's pretty obvious that without house rules keeping Library of Congress out of the basic land box, turn 1 wins rule the format.
Library of Congress is a card on MODO used for development and testing. It has the following abilities:
Library of Congress counts as a basic land.
You may pay 0 rather than pay the mana cost for spells that you play.
You may play nine additional lands on each of your turns.
0: Choose up to nine cards you own from outside the game and put them into your hand.
0: End the turn.
0: Search your library for a card and put that card into your hand. Then shuffle your library.
0: Choose up to nine cards you own from outside the game and shuffle them into your library.
0: Draw a card.
0: Target creature gains haste until end of turn.
0: ~this~ deals one damage to target creature or player.
0: Untap target permanent.
0: Tap target permanent.
0: You gain 50 life.
0: Destroy target permanent.
0: Return target permanent to its owner's hand.
0: Return target card from your graveyard to your hand.
0: Add to your mana pool.
0: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool.
It's one of the better 2/1 flyers for 1U. If you're in the market for something like that, this and Dimensional Infiltrator are what you want. I recently cut both since I really didn't want / need them and had to make room for other things.
I think it's rare to find a cube that runs one of those if not any at all. Beast Within has the best argument, and even then I haven't run that in a long time.
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We have not found this to be true in our group. Dedicated archetype strategies like artifact.dec, reanimator, ramp/combo, tinker, and yes even generic control routinely trounce "goodstuff" midrange decks. I firmly believe that archetype support in cube increases the overall powerlevel of the environment rather than decreasing it.
I thank the example deck could use Rishkar and Baral's Expertise from the new set as well. But alas I like simic tempo much more than my group does. They only ever want to pair green with blue to protect fatties in their ramp/upheaval deck or win with 9/9 tokens from Kiora.
There's zero question that a concentrated reanimator deck with all the support cards will be "goodstuff.dec" every time. It's pretty similar to saying that a Vintage combo deck will almost always trounce a cube deck. My point was that 3-4 strong tempo spells do a lot more than 3-4 strong control spells in an otherwise mediocre shell.
https://www.cubecobra.com/cube/list/p420
Midrange is by far the weakest archetype in cube. It needs specific pieces in order to become powerful, and that's only where I have to agree with you. A midrange deck with a couple of mana dorks and a couple of fatties is bad. A deck with a couple of dorks, a couple of fatties and Opposition can be good.
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I ...simply don't agree with any of this. No cube I've ever played with has reflected anything close to these statements. This might be true of your cube and your playgroup, but I can almost call this factually incorrect as a blanket statement to cube as a format. Cards' respective power-levels change based on context, so I'm not even sure how you'd begin to measure the statement you have made above. Like the "most powerful" cards all have context to determine such a thing; what metric are you using for "best" here? And I think by only including the intrinsically most powerful cards (if that's the metric you're using here), control winds up with a significant measurable advantage against the field. It's only when you intentionally include underpowered but necessary cards to bolster the other theaters that aggro and midrange become viable cube strategies. Basically the opposite of what you're saying above.
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The claim you're making is pretty bizarre: just because your playgroup likes your cube and you're defining contextual power level relative to that, you're claiming that there's no set of perturbations to your list that would produce lists that consistently beat control lists drawn from your present cube. It's pretty obvious that without house rules keeping Library of Congress out of the basic land box, turn 1 wins rule the format.
https://www.cubecobra.com/cube/list/p420
Library of Congress counts as a basic land.
You may pay 0 rather than pay the mana cost for spells that you play.
You may play nine additional lands on each of your turns.
0: Choose up to nine cards you own from outside the game and put them into your hand.
0: End the turn.
0: Search your library for a card and put that card into your hand. Then shuffle your library.
0: Choose up to nine cards you own from outside the game and shuffle them into your library.
0: Draw a card.
0: Target creature gains haste until end of turn.
0: ~this~ deals one damage to target creature or player.
0: Untap target permanent.
0: Tap target permanent.
0: You gain 50 life.
0: Destroy target permanent.
0: Return target permanent to its owner's hand.
0: Return target card from your graveyard to your hand.
0: Add to your mana pool.
0: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool.
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