So I was reading the comments in another thread when a poster mentioned Sol Ring being in a cube but not the power 9 and how it was silly to call the cube unpowered. I've played for a long time, and know that their are lots of cards that are ubiquitous in various formats, but for a cube, what are the bright line cards, if there are any, that make it powered or not in your mind? In other words, if the cube is supposed to have been culled from a large collection, but remain unpowered, what do you expect to NOT be there? Does Mana Crypt or Mana Vault rise to that level? Mind Twist?
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I have a different expectation and hope for an unpowered cube.
I expect anything that isn't power 9.
I hope there isn't Mana Drain, Sol Ring, Library of Alexandria, Umezawa's Jitte. My line of thinking being that I don't want to see cards I'd take over power 9 cards in a powered cube. Mind Twist, and a few other cards are on the bubble in my mind, but probably ok.
So I was reading the comments in another thread when a poster mentioned Sol Ring being in a cube but not the power 9 and how it was silly to call the cube unpowered. I've played for a long time, and know that their are lots of cards that are ubiquitous in various formats, but for a cube, what are the bright line cards, if there are any, that make it powered or not in your mind? In other words, if the cube is supposed to have been culled from a large collection, but remain unpowered, what do you expect to NOT be there? Does Mana Crypt or Mana Vault rise to that level? Mind Twist?
It's not silly to call a cube with sol ring unpowered. This is because there are to main elements to the power 9: power and price. If you're not running proxies (like me for example) then the reason for not running power may come down to price.
We really need to start differentiating between unpowered for power reasons, and unpowered for budget reasons, because the two cubes are vastly different.
We really need to start differentiating between unpowered for power reasons, and unpowered for budget reasons, because the two cubes are vastly different.
Definitely this.
My cube is price-unpowered. I'll very happily slip in power the second I acquire any.
Just got to say, you've definitely earned distinction as an MTGS hero
Quote from Stardust »
Because he's the hero MTGS deserves, and the one it needs right now. So we'll global him. Because he can take it. Because he's not just our hero. He's a silent guardian, a watchful protector. An expired rascal.
Quote from LuckNorris »
ExpiredRascals you sir are a god-like hero.
Quote from Lanxal »
ER is a masterful god who cannot be beaten in any endeavour.
So with those sentiments in mind, if I wanted to build an unpowered cube for power reasons, i.e. I want an environment that's fast and robust but not degenerate, what are the cards I should consider as over powered?
So with those sentiments in mind, if I wanted to build an unpowered cube for power reasons, i.e. I want an environment that's fast and robust but not degenerate, what are the cards I should consider as over powered?
The follow up to this is how do you feel about fast mana? Is it a no go (not even mana rocks/signets) a some go (signets and mana rocks, but nothing free or crazy underscosted, like moxen) or an everything but the uber broken (no Sol ring, Lotus, Mana Crypt)?
I have a different expectation and hope for an unpowered cube.
I expect anything that isn't power 9.
I hope there isn't Mana Drain, Sol Ring, Library of Alexandria, Umezawa's Jitte. My line of thinking being that I don't want to see cards I'd take over power 9 cards in a powered cube. Mind Twist, and a few other cards are on the bubble in my mind, but probably ok.
I wouldn't include Umezawa's Jitte in that list. It's obviously good, but there are cards in all 5 colors and maybe a sword or two I'd probably take over it.
I've never understood "powered" to pertain to anything other than power nine, since that's in their nickname and doesn't include anything other than those nine cards.
I wouldn't include Umezawa's Jitte in that list. It's obviously good, but there are cards in all 5 colors and maybe a sword or two I'd probably take over it.
Obviously I disagree, but I'll try to explain why. I consider it a stronger card than any of the swords for a few reasons, it's incredibly flexible, it doesn't have to hit a player to be active, and you can play + equip on turn four with no acceleration.
As for colored cards there are really only blue cards I consider more powerful than it in a vacuum. I'm curious what cards in other colors rank ahead of it for you.
I've never understood "powered" to pertain to anything other than power nine, since that's in their nickname and doesn't include anything other than those nine cards.
I think it is similar to "Time Walked an opponent" or "strictly better". Very few, if any, cubes ban only those nine cards, so restricting the definition to that, makes the word almost meaningless.
So with those sentiments in mind, if I wanted to build an unpowered cube for power reasons, i.e. I want an environment that's fast and robust but not degenerate, what are the cards I should consider as over powered?
Those are the responses I got when I asked a similar question. 'Powered' can be called a scale - after the obvious Power 9 there are several cards that come up repeatedly. From that post, in what seemed to be the order people ranked these:
Sol Ring
Mana Crypt
Black Lotus
Moxes
Ancestral Recall
Time Walk
Library of Alexandria
Timetwister
Mana Drain
Mind Twist
Balance
Mana Vault
Jitte is in there somewhere too.
For my unpowered pre-Urza-block cube, I don't run any of the power 9, and I don't run Mana Crypt, Sol Ring or Library of Alexandria, but the rest are fair game. I do run Mind Twist - it is really, really good, but without being able to run it out too early consistently via Sol Ring or Moxes, it's not overbearingly good. I don't own a Mana Drain so I don't really have an opinion on it. I run Balance and Mana Vault. I would run Timetwister if I owned one.
Timetwister is usually considered part of the classic power 9, but in my opinion it isn't on the same level as those mentioned in the first catagory (don't get me wrong it is a very powerful card but if someone had a cube with only it in from the classic power 9 and labeled it unpowered I would not complain)
Mind Twist is an evil card - but not bad enough to consider "power" - especially if the fast mana is removed. Personally I've lost more games to Recurring Nightmare and Bitterblossom than Mind Twist so in my mind this should not be considered a power card
Edit: Balance is another I'd consder up there that I missed. Again not nearly as bad when you remove the fast artifact mana from a cube though so i'd put in in the same catagory as Timetwister
If you're going to stick with 9 cards, I'd definitely include Sol Ring and exclude Time Twister. Mana Crypt probably also deserves to get cut as well, making for 10 cards that are too strong.
There are a ton of cards that are too good for unpowered cubes. The power 9 and fast mana are hardly the most powerful cards in the cube. Banning Timetwister or even Black Lotus and allowing cards like Balance, Jitte and Armageddon is funny to me. But to each their own, I suppose.
Since the aim of my cube is to replicate the "feel" of Magic as my players and myself know it, the banned list for power reasons I've had in place for years is:
1. Black Lotus
2. Time Walk
3. Sol Ring
4. Mind Twist
5. Ancestral Recall
6. Mana Crypt
7. Mana Vault
8. Library of Alexandria
9. Mox Emerald
10. Mox Sapphire
11. Mox Jet
12. Mox Ruby
13. Mox Pearl
14. Mana Drain
15. Black Vise
The only change I've made was removing Grim Monolith and adding Black Vise. Generally, the experience of playing my cube can be said to be similar to the power-level and "feel" of Legacy. That means that cards like Jitte, Balance, etc are still very powerful, but don't have that truly degenerate feel that the cards in the above list have. There are a number of other cards I don't include in my cube because I don't really like their effects, but for the most part these 15 are the primary culprits from my experience.
If the line is "more powerful than Timetwister", then there are maybe 50 cards that should be banned. That's why I don't understand traditional "power 9-less" unpowered cubes.
We really need to combine all the threads that discuss this topic into one. There's gotta be like 6 or more that talk about this very subject, and we're always saying the exact same things each time.
I think labeling cubes by "power" is a very loose term and brings in a whole semantic meaning that is different for different people
What the Power 9 represents for me is not a group of powerful cards, but a group of obscenely undercosted ones. Every piece is undercosted by at least 2 compared to modern design. Even Timetwister fits this description.
Having undercosted cards is not bad per se. There is no one arguing about removing Tarmogoyf because it's undercosted. But I find it healthy to leave out the obscenely undercosted stuff like Time Walk and all the undercosted fast mana. The point here is that most cubes are already defined by very mana efficient cards and a bunch of undercosted ones. I don't want to skew that further by including undercosted fast mana to quickly cast the other undercosted cards. I'd rather stay closer to the mana efficient treshold whenever possible.
Since the aim of my cube is to replicate the "feel" of Magic as my players and myself know it, the banned list for power reasons I've had in place for years is:
1. Black Lotus
2. Time Walk
3. Sol Ring
4. Mind Twist
5. Ancestral Recall
6. Mana Crypt
7. Mana Vault
8. Library of Alexandria
9. Mox Emerald
10. Mox Sapphire
11. Mox Jet
12. Mox Ruby
13. Mox Pearl
14. Mana Drain
15. Black Vise
The only change I've made was removing Grim Monolith and adding Black Vise. Generally, the experience of playing my cube can be said to be similar to the power-level and "feel" of Legacy. That means that cards like Jitte, Balance, etc are still very powerful, but don't have that truly degenerate feel that the cards in the above list have. There are a number of other cards I don't include in my cube because I don't really like their effects, but for the most part these 15 are the primary culprits from my experience.
I agree with this list, except I put Black Vise over the Moxes and decided to keep keep the cut above the Moxes instead. The reasoning being that I love Moxes and have found them to be fine as the top obvious picks for the newer players in my group.
The Black Vise on the other hand, for some reason, they never understood and kept putting in their control decks. When this happened a few times I just removed it partly on power level and partly because it makes people play sucky swingy cards.
I don't understand people using Mana Drain in these discussions, sure it's a powerful card.. sometimes. However, it has a way too low worst case scenario of costing you two mana every turn, as well as a couple of pretty poor match-ups such as most aggro decks.
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I mean, it's better than ancestral recall.
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I expect anything that isn't power 9.
I hope there isn't Mana Drain, Sol Ring, Library of Alexandria, Umezawa's Jitte. My line of thinking being that I don't want to see cards I'd take over power 9 cards in a powered cube. Mind Twist, and a few other cards are on the bubble in my mind, but probably ok.
It's not silly to call a cube with sol ring unpowered. This is because there are to main elements to the power 9: power and price. If you're not running proxies (like me for example) then the reason for not running power may come down to price.
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Definitely this.
My cube is price-unpowered. I'll very happily slip in power the second I acquire any.
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The follow up to this is how do you feel about fast mana? Is it a no go (not even mana rocks/signets) a some go (signets and mana rocks, but nothing free or crazy underscosted, like moxen) or an everything but the uber broken (no Sol ring, Lotus, Mana Crypt)?
I wouldn't include Umezawa's Jitte in that list. It's obviously good, but there are cards in all 5 colors and maybe a sword or two I'd probably take over it.
I've never understood "powered" to pertain to anything other than power nine, since that's in their nickname and doesn't include anything other than those nine cards.
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Obviously I disagree, but I'll try to explain why. I consider it a stronger card than any of the swords for a few reasons, it's incredibly flexible, it doesn't have to hit a player to be active, and you can play + equip on turn four with no acceleration.
As for colored cards there are really only blue cards I consider more powerful than it in a vacuum. I'm curious what cards in other colors rank ahead of it for you.
I think it is similar to "Time Walked an opponent" or "strictly better". Very few, if any, cubes ban only those nine cards, so restricting the definition to that, makes the word almost meaningless.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=390785
Those are the responses I got when I asked a similar question. 'Powered' can be called a scale - after the obvious Power 9 there are several cards that come up repeatedly. From that post, in what seemed to be the order people ranked these:
Sol Ring
Mana Crypt
Black Lotus
Moxes
Ancestral Recall
Time Walk
Library of Alexandria
Timetwister
Mana Drain
Mind Twist
Balance
Mana Vault
Jitte is in there somewhere too.
For my unpowered pre-Urza-block cube, I don't run any of the power 9, and I don't run Mana Crypt, Sol Ring or Library of Alexandria, but the rest are fair game. I do run Mind Twist - it is really, really good, but without being able to run it out too early consistently via Sol Ring or Moxes, it's not overbearingly good. I don't own a Mana Drain so I don't really have an opinion on it. I run Balance and Mana Vault. I would run Timetwister if I owned one.
Other potential considerations:
And if people call all fast mana over powered they should not have:
Timetwister is usually considered part of the classic power 9, but in my opinion it isn't on the same level as those mentioned in the first catagory (don't get me wrong it is a very powerful card but if someone had a cube with only it in from the classic power 9 and labeled it unpowered I would not complain)
Mind Twist is an evil card - but not bad enough to consider "power" - especially if the fast mana is removed. Personally I've lost more games to Recurring Nightmare and Bitterblossom than Mind Twist so in my mind this should not be considered a power card
Edit: Balance is another I'd consder up there that I missed. Again not nearly as bad when you remove the fast artifact mana from a cube though so i'd put in in the same catagory as Timetwister
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My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
1. Black Lotus
2. Time Walk
3. Sol Ring
4. Mind Twist
5. Ancestral Recall
6. Mana Crypt
7. Mana Vault
8. Library of Alexandria
9. Mox Emerald
10. Mox Sapphire
11. Mox Jet
12. Mox Ruby
13. Mox Pearl
14. Mana Drain
15. Black Vise
The only change I've made was removing Grim Monolith and adding Black Vise. Generally, the experience of playing my cube can be said to be similar to the power-level and "feel" of Legacy. That means that cards like Jitte, Balance, etc are still very powerful, but don't have that truly degenerate feel that the cards in the above list have. There are a number of other cards I don't include in my cube because I don't really like their effects, but for the most part these 15 are the primary culprits from my experience.
(list not current)
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(list is always current)
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Planeswalkers make it rather one-sided as well.
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What the Power 9 represents for me is not a group of powerful cards, but a group of obscenely undercosted ones. Every piece is undercosted by at least 2 compared to modern design. Even Timetwister fits this description.
Having undercosted cards is not bad per se. There is no one arguing about removing Tarmogoyf because it's undercosted. But I find it healthy to leave out the obscenely undercosted stuff like Time Walk and all the undercosted fast mana. The point here is that most cubes are already defined by very mana efficient cards and a bunch of undercosted ones. I don't want to skew that further by including undercosted fast mana to quickly cast the other undercosted cards. I'd rather stay closer to the mana efficient treshold whenever possible.
I agree with this list, except I put Black Vise over the Moxes and decided to keep keep the cut above the Moxes instead. The reasoning being that I love Moxes and have found them to be fine as the top obvious picks for the newer players in my group.
The Black Vise on the other hand, for some reason, they never understood and kept putting in their control decks. When this happened a few times I just removed it partly on power level and partly because it makes people play sucky swingy cards.
I don't understand people using Mana Drain in these discussions, sure it's a powerful card.. sometimes. However, it has a way too low worst case scenario of costing you two mana every turn, as well as a couple of pretty poor match-ups such as most aggro decks.