MTG Salvation

Quote from Nm31Br13 »

**TLDR** Some of my cards got stolen, but the thief was an idiot and I got them back. Have your cards ever been stolen?

Not MTG, but I have a bit of a story. When I was 8 or 9, I went to a sleep over for a friend's birthday party. We had a decent night, although I was a bit pissed off when I couldn't get to sleep, and I woke to see my bag open. Note that I was the last to go to sleep and the first to wake up. Anyway, I didn't really think anything of it and went to go grab my copy of Pokemon Gold. Needless to say, it wasn't there. Neither was my Gameboy. I was super upset and I had no idea what had happened. I kept quiet about it until everyone had woken up and asked the kid whose party it was if he had seen it. He hadn't. He and I looked around for it for close to 2 hours, under couches and his bed, as well as him allowing me to look through all his stuff, although we had been friends for years and I didn't think he would take it. I was going to wait until his parents to get up to ask them to look through kids bags (I was too shy too ask) but two of the kids, neither I or my sleepover friend knew them that well, called their parents and said they had to go. I was really mad at them and insisted they stay, but they insulted me a bit and left. I'll admit that I cried pretty much all the rime for the next few days. I had a level 100 Blastoise from my Pokemon Blue who I was extremely attached to, digital as it may be, as well as a couple of shiny Pokemon and the loss of an expensive Gameboy and game, only one of which I have ever replaced.

The worst part is, my mom didn't listen to me and she ended calling out sleepover friend for stealing my game, and his parents didn't appreciate it that much. I never got to hang out with him after that. I lost a game and a friend that day.

Oh, and just so this isn't a complete off-topic post, I never had any cards stolen from me. Although I did accidentally steal a Flametongue Kavu from a cube once, given that a friend of mine had the exact same sleeves. I only noticed about 3 weeks later when I opened a pack and saw two in there! I realized that one was a CN2 printing, and asked my buddy if it was his, he said yes and we went on our merry way. No muss, no fuss.

Edit: I meant to say Kiln Fiend, not Flametongue Kavu.

Quote from Nm31Br13 »

**TLDR** Some of my cards got stolen, but the thief was an idiot and I got them back. Have your cards ever been stolen?

That's insane. I would never play with that player again, obviously. I'd also be pretty vocal about the incident with people in the group, so everyone else knows the player is a dope and a thief.

Quote from MikePemulis »

That's insane. I would never play with that player again, obviously. I'd also be pretty vocal about the incident with people in the group, so everyone else knows the player is a dope and a thief.

I told the two store owners and word quickly spread throughout both metas as they are both rather small. I haven't seen him since I called him out and I will certainly never let him near the cube again. haha

Quote from Xinaar »

The worst part is, my mom didn't listen to me and she ended calling out sleepover friend for stealing my game, and his parents didn't appreciate it that much. I never got to hang out with him after that. I lost a game and a friend that day.

This is the worst lose/lose situation I think I've ever heard. At least the Kiln Fiend ended up in the right hands. haha

Quote from Salmo »

Ever go back to read the beginning of this thread? It's a trip down memory lane, really interesting to see how far the format has come in 10 years.

I have, actually. There's a very early draft of my cube somewhere in those first few pages. We've come a long way.

On the subject of having cards stolen, I can fortunately say that I've not experienced that. However, I also don't normally play my cube in public. We're usually cubing in my basement and I'm surrounded by fairly close friends who I trust not to steal the cards. Mostly because they're all good dudes and wouldn't do that, but also because they like playing with these cards in cube.

I know Hour of Devastation isn't the best cube set... but I wrote an article for it anyways:

http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/the-cube-forum/articles-podcasts-and-guides/779523-set-p-review-my-top-20-hour-of-devastation-cards

Does anyone live in the Pittsburgh area?

Quote from Metamind »

Does anyone live in the Pittsburgh area?

I live about 90 min from pitt. Just moved so I have not found a cube group yet!

My top 20 article for Ixalan is up!

http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/the-cube-forum/articles-podcasts-and-guides/783178-set-p-review-my-top-20-ixalan-cards-for-the-cube

Anyone in the Omaha Metro area? I'm looking to revive my cube to the public. I used to host 8-16 man drafts at the LGS's around there but fell out of style when Commander pushed me out.

I have not updated my powered cube since Innistrad. (2011) So needless to say there are many great cards that have came out.

My cube was based on the fact that it could be expandable and it did work well until commander pushed cube out of my local scene. Well, 6 years is a long time in magic the gathering and many sets have come and gone since then.

Question is, how watered down are the 720 cubes now? Have we seen enough of the great cards from those 360/540 cubes of yore that 720 can really hold its own? I used to have the different levels of cube separated 360/540/720 ect to scale with the number of people. It was a lot of extra work but it kept things balanced in drafting.

Quote from Umaro »

I have not updated my powered cube since Innistrad. (2011) So needless to say there are many great cards that have came out.

My cube was based on the fact that it could be expandable and it did work well until commander pushed cube out of my local scene. Well, 6 years is a long time in magic the gathering and many sets have come and gone since then.

Question is, how watered down are the 720 cubes now? Have we seen enough of the great cards from those 360/540 cubes of yore that 720 can really hold its own? I used to have the different levels of cube separated 360/540/720 ect to scale with the number of people. It was a lot of extra work but it kept things balanced in drafting.

Some parts have received a ton of extra support (see: black 2s), other parts are just as bad and still remain bad in 720 (see: black 5s). But yeah, in 6 years time 720s have improved dramatically. You'll still be running some silly billy cards, but I'd look at some of the 'testing/results' threads in our 'archive' along with the set reviews to see how many good/great cards *aren't* being played in most cubes that would slot right into a 720 or even still be on the outside looking in.

The easiest way would probably be the set reviews. wtwlf does great ones that essentially summarize the pros/cons of the cards and while I know he hasn't gone back that far with them (at least archived here?) there's still a lot of cards he's covered in the timeframe he's done them.

What I have to be mindful of and the reason I did have my cube split (if I recall 360/540/630/720) was so I could on the spot host a 6 man draft and keep it with 360 cube, but at the same time if we had 12 people show up, it could adjust.

It would be a horrible draft if I had the packs of 360 mixed with the 720 and higher with no degree of balance.

I think you could potentially adjust the draft method and be just fine. I have a couple of alternative draft methods outlined in my cube thread that compensate for this problem.

Let's talk about lands in your deck.

How aggressive does your deck have to be to have 16 lands? How often do you go to 15, and what does that look like?

How often do you go to 18? Does anyone ever do more?

I find myself unthinkingly defaulting to 17 for almost everything. In very aggressive decks, I'll go to 16, but going one lower takes balls I just haven't got right now.

I range from 15 to 18 depending on my curve. A control deck with few/no non-land mana sources and multiple 6+cc cards might use 18. A hard aggro deck that's curve largely ends at 3 with maybe a couple of 4-drops might use 15. An aggressive deck with multiple 4s and perhaps a lone 5cc curve-topper will usually use 16, as will green ramp decks that are saturated with non-land mana sources. All other decks use 17. ABU moxen usually count as a land during deck construction.

If I have a number of signets, like 3-4+, that will drop my land count by one as well, but otherwise wtwlf kinda sums it up. I only go to 15 if my curve has, at the absolute most, one 4 drop at the top, and way more 1s and 2s than 3s.

The rarest is probably getting to 18 lands, as it's usually impossible to find cuts, but it happens more in the non-blue control decks as I'm OK running 17 lands in a deck with a bunch of card draw. BW control is sometimes a thing with all the wraths/removal available in those two colors and the black card draw, but I'm inclined to go to 18 lands if I don't have a lot of the card draw or in games 2 and 3 when the black card draw might not be as effective such as against aggro.

I think 18 is more common than it used to be. Control decks feature bigger game-closing threats than they used to (Emrakul, Ugin, etc) and if you aren't supplementing your mana with multiple rocks, 18 lands can be a good idea in more builds than that was true for in the past.

I've been enjoying this podcast:

https://p1p1podcast.com

Feels weird to post it in the 'articles' section as it's not mine, but they have good conversations about cube and a bunch of different view points on things cube-related.

I know at least one of them visits here, so if they see it, start a thread in the articles/podcasts section!

Quote from Salmo »

I've been enjoying this podcast:

https://p1p1podcast.com

Feels weird to post it in the 'articles' section as it's not mine, but they have good conversations about cube and a bunch of different view points on things cube-related.

I know at least one of them visits here, so if they see it, start a thread in the articles/podcasts section!

I dig it too. I don't listen to every episode, but I like their set reviews. And I added Empty the Warrens to my secondary lower power list to help out the UR spells matter deck on their recommendation. I'd also add that as much as I enjoy their opinions, the debates and arguing can get a little annoying.

From blogatog:

doopboopdoop asked: What planeswalker redirection rule change?

Starting soon, we are taking away the Planeswalker redirection rule and will instead tell you on the card specifically whether the card can target planeswalkers. All of the old relevant cards will have “player” changed to “player or planeswalker”.


I wonder how Earthquake and friends will work with this. There's also the corner case of being able to target a planeswalker if its controller has hexproof, but I don't think most cubes have any cards that grant players hexproof.

I'm on board with this rule as a seasoned player who (pretty much) fully understands the rules of the game. It makes so much more sense to point my Bolt directly at the 'walker than it does to point my Bolt at my opponent and then redirect that damage. It also opens up more design space where they can print burn spells specifically for Planeswalkers (or players).

The one thing I'm curious about is the relevant cards he's referring to. I'd like to see that list. I'd also hate to be the person who has to update any of the online databases to reflect that errata.

It was always a strange rule that I felt never made much sense. Then again, I never understood the roles of planeswalkers considering in the original game, I believe the player themselves are planeswalkers lol.

The players are planeswalkers, but you can call buddies to your fights.

Is MTGSalvation/curse ******* up for anyone else? Is it because of the supposed 50-70 people viewing these forums? Is that accurate?