MTG Salvation

I had mixed feelings about Teetering Peaks in my Pauper cube. I think I like it more than Keldon Megaliths, but I don't think I would play it in a normal cube featuring rares and uncommons.

I guess that illustrates how much I don't like Megaliths now that I think about it.

I can't speak for wtwlf, but I like Encampment significantly more in control (first striking blocker is solid, and sometimes that 2/1 will be able to close out games for you), and I feel like it's a toss up between Encampment and Ring in aggro. Having Encampment come into play tapped can hurt an aggro deck's curve a lot (but sometimes playing a second one drop on turn 2 or a second two drop on turn 3 is acceptable), but taking 3 or 4 damage from a Barbarian Ring in an aggro mirror can cost you some games. Granted, being able to Shock things is valuable to aggro decks, allowing their one-and-two drops to trade up.

To continue on what eidolon and wtwlf said, even if you do some amount of damage to something with your last card-in-hand, you have to basically still have 1RR open to do 1 extra damage to it.

Even using it to "top off" a burn spell is cumbersome and expensive. Ghitu Encampment will almost always be better and I feel like Barbarian Ring will usually be better.

I'm going to scour this thread once again with some free time I have tonight, but I figured I'd post right now while I'm thinking about it.

I'm about to start working on a custom box for one of my favorite board games I own, Small World, including trays for each race's tokens and slots for all the other various tokens and pieces. It's going to be an exercise in drafting and design, and by the end I get the feeling I'll either be passionate about it or want to never do the same sort of thing again. The project seems really fun right now, though, and I'm enjoying measuring things and planning out how to make my trays and so-on.

Long story short, I can keep this thread updated on how my box is coming, and if anyone would like for me to try it with their cube, I'd be open to doing that for the cost of materials and a little bit extra for labor.

Edit: I'm going to mostly be working with cardstocks, and I'm going to make a vinyl sticker/wrapper for the top of the box, in typical board game fashion.

I can totally see that. Colorless answer to Planeswalkers/Equipments and other fringe stuff that also helps you find your next answer/threat/land.

Putting a greater emphasis on combat, like Bolas suggested, would be a good idea but make sure not to go off the deep end. A bunch of inefficient creatures can lead to a cluttered, stale, and un-attacking game. Granted, the combat tricks you mention would probably help with this.

This thread might be useful to you. I remember someone working on a "modular" cube with a bunch of inefficient, "modular" cards (like Charms).
A list of cards with "Choose one" in their text.

Even if you don't want to make a tribal cube, you could make a subtle tribal theme in one color or across a few colors, then include cards like Shared Triumph or Adaptive Automaton.

I like the way you think, Ralphino! Sorry I didn't respond sooner. Sorry about that, March has been a pretty isolated and uninspiring month for me.

Kuldahar's suggestion of Cider Pact has manifested like so:
Cider Pact 0
Greek Instant {R}
(~ is black.)
Destroy target nonblack creature.
At the beginning of your upkeep, Pay B and Drink 2. If you don't, you lose the game. (To Drink 2, take two drinks.)

I want to make this a cycle, so far the only other one I've come up with is Pact of Inebriation.
Pact of Inebriation 0
Greek Instant {R}
(~ is blue.)
Counter target spell.
At the beginning of your upkeep, Pay UU and Drink 2. If you don't, you lose the game. (To Drink 2, take two drinks.)

Also, the most daunting and discouraging part of this project for me so far has been naming all of the drinking component shocklands and fetch lands. Anyone have any ideas for helping with that?

For my tribal cube:
Vulcad Artisan 1W
Creature - Fox Artificer {R}
When ~ enters the battlefield, you may search your library for an Equipment card, reveal it, put it into your hand, then shuffle your library.
T, tap an untapped Knight, Soldier, or Warrior you control: you may put an Equipment card from your hand onto the battlefield.
1/2

Vulcad Seer 1W
Creature - Fox Wizard {U}
Whenever you cast a Fox spell, you may search your deck for an Aura with Enchant Creature, reveal it, put it into your hand, then shuffle your library.
1/3

So you think either of these should be tweaked? I'm tempted to let the seer search for any enchantment cards, as I'm not sure if I'll have enough auras to make him fun to cube with.

Oh, there's also Deform.
Deform 2B
Enchantment - Aura {C}
Enchanted creature loses all creature types and abilities and is a colorless 0/1 ooze.

Going off of your suggestions:

Surrogate Vanguard:
When ~ deals combat damage to a player, that player may tap target land, that land doesn't untap during its controller's next untap step.

Surrogate Skyhunter:
Flying
When ~ enters the battlefield, exile a card from your hand until ~ leaves the battlefield.

Okay, as per your advice, I feel like all of them are now reasonable colorless two drops, all being french vanilla 2/1's whose abilities are at least clumsy to be useful.

Here's what I came up with:

I'm very self-conscious of the white, blue, and black ones being boring copies of each other, though.

I groan at the thought of having to play against any of those Oblitterator guys. That means I like them, for the record.

Can you guys help me with that surrogate cycle I posted earlier? It's in a spoiler, so it might have been overlooked. Or it might have just not been spicy enough to garner criticism. My favorite was the black one:

Surrogate Nightstalker (2/B)
Creature - Shapeshifter
Changeling
~ is colorless.
~ has intimidate as long as you control more creatures than your opponents.
2/1

There's no particular reason for the surrogate cycle to be colorless, but I decided to make that a thing anyways because I like the template for colorless non-eldrazi cards. There will likely be a few more colorless changelings outside of this cycle, so perhaps my set will punish them with noncolored targets, like Sunlance and Doom Blade. The idea is to give everyone access to more "glue" cards for tribal interactions by making 2/1's for 2. This cycle gives the fringe benefit of giving each color an aggressive 2-power one-drop as well!

I like Atrax, the Tanglespinner more than I like Primal Tangle. It's obviously more pushed, but Primal Tangle is (in a lot of cases) just a strictly worse Winter Orb. If you really wanted to make Atrax spicy, you could try pushing his power or toughness like Bolas suggested, but have him still function like Winter Orb with the being untapped clause. I don't know if aggro really wants its creatures to let up the pressure when attacking, though.

If you've got a sliver cube, custom or not, I imagine you'll basically win every game you cast Alpha Sliver if your opponent doesn't immediately remove it. If I'm understanding the way the rules work, your slivers would all be 5/5's and still be getting the plusses from Muscle Sliver, or whatever.

Oracle of Mirrodin Pure is a little unexciting to me. Having to wait a turn for my card to do stuff is pretty unexciting for a control deck and a 2/2 for 3 is not an especially sizable blocker.

Reason and PyreDream, your designs have lost touch with the fact that I want to produce changeling tokens. (Not that I ever explicitly said that.) The idea is to have a multicolor card for each color pair that can repeatedly trigger tribal interactions for my custom tribal cube!

I think Giantbaiter is most in line with what I'm thinking of, and it's not hard for me to give the token the changeling keyword. My concern is that it's harder to utilize than the first two designs I suggested (Haunting Ancestors and Commune Emissary). Have any suggestions for other color pairs? Cards that would allow me to repeatedly trigger tribal interactions, ideally even enters-the-battlefield ones.

I was originally going to make a cycle of french vanilla 2/1's for each color's equivalent of a 1W casting cost for extra tribal "glue" in my set, but I decided to make a spicier cycle that allows even more glue! I present the "Surrogate" cycle. Help balancing it between the colors would be appreciated; and the black one, Surrogate Nightstalker, is my favorite.

The Surrogate guys serve as 2/1's for 2, which I feel like is a staple of cube's base efficiency and feeling, but they also can be 2-power one-drops which are important to cube aggro. The fact that they can be cast in any color deck means they can help "glue" any tribal deck together.

Edit: Oh! I meant to tell you, Bolas, the Mindsculptor, I like both of those designs a lot. I think Double Fury is definitely playable in both aggro and control, and Goblin Firebomber is a really interesting design.

Funny it worked out like that. I made it a */* rather than X/X because I couldn't decide how to word the X.

Suggestions for making it more elegant? Giving it more flavor? Tuning it better?

There was some negligence on my part. I meant for the token to come in tapped and attacking, and go away EoT (potentially "dying" for the occasional synergy). Similar to Giantbaiting.

If it dies EoT, I think the token should have trample. Do you think Protection from Blue would add a whole lot to a guy like this? Maybe also "~ can't be countered?"