I thought it would be fun to list some of our pet cards that we like in cube but don't seem to be run in many other cubes of similar size. (Recognizing, of course, that no one can really tell you your cube is WRONG. It's yours!) For me, I'm new to cube so it's something of a learning experience. But for other people, it might show us some cards we haven't thought of that could be strong.
I'll start with a few. Tell me why you wouldn't run these:
Sands of Delirium If you have other milling support, it's great of course, but I think it works really well in control mirrors as well as ramp decks. Reanimator/Dredge applications are bit more suspect. Nevertheless, it's flexible, and more overtly powerful in a format that uses 40 card decks than you might expect.
Mindslaver A card with CMC 6 needs to be a gamebreaker. This one is totally colorless, can be Tinkered for, and can end games by itself. Granted it varies a bit based on the board state, but it's a great feeling to pull off.
Might of Oaks At 8 life or less? Now you have to block my mana elves when I leave 4 open. Removal of basically anything you can chump block for 4 or a nasty surprise win.
Field of Souls Look at this enchantment. Now back to me. Look again. Your creatures are now Doomed Travelers. For white weenie or any other aggro, it gives you resilience you don't usually have. Get behind? This is the synergy you want to pair with your wrath effects.
I can tell you why I wouldn't run those. (Mostly because I like giving my opinions on things.)
Sands of Delirium: This takes about twenty-some mana to win the game. It's hard to control the game like you need to if your win condition is eating up your resources.
Mindslaver: Does nothing too often. Sure, it's a blow-out when it works, but so is Triskelion or Wurmcoil Engine. If you are comboing with it, then it's great, but there are better combos to win with.
Might of Oaks: If your creature is already a threat, then you're already winning or they'll kill it. If it *isn't* a threat, then they probably are saving removal for your threat. In that case, they'll kill your guy in response. If they don't have removal and your creature isn't a threat, then for 4 mana you'd be better off playing another threat. The great thing about Giant Growth is that it's only 1 mana and a card, so it can easily trade up. This card can't do that, since you have to give up your turn to cast it and a blocked 8/8 is just as good as a blocked 4/4. If there were more unblockable green guys maybe it would be better, but even then it's a narrow card.
Field of Souls: It's decent with recursion and sweepers, but there is some stiff competition at 4 cmc in white. All of them are answer-or-lose cards. Coupled with the fact that there is no immediate board impact, and Field of Souls is just not enough. (It is a sweet card, though.)
Here are my semi-unusual cards. Or, the ones I want to be slightly better than they are:
I think the value of Mindslaver is too situation dependent, the WCS is a 10 mana colourless timewalk, which has probably just eaten 2 turn of mana investment. I feel that unless you are lucky and they are holding relevant spells (like removal) then it's not worth the investment. The BCS is obviously insane, as is abusing it with Academy Ruins but that might have me on dishes duty for a month. :-P
Might of Oaks is a funny one, as a pseudo-removal spell it's dubious as you really have to do that on defense and 4 mana is quite telegraphed. Aggressively used I'd rather pay an extra mana something like Overrun or Overwhelming Stampede if the triple green scares you.
One of the big issues with Field of Souls is that it doesn't help you if you are winning cause your creatures probably aren't dying. As a defensive card it's decent and can buy a couple of turns but at that point why not run an extra wrath which are much more reliable at stabilising a game. The combo with a wrath is cute but when you need to wrath you can't waste the turn dropping this first, and if you do you'll probably have to lose some creatures on blocks and the wrath the tokens.
My turn, I really like Jaya Ballard, Task Mage, she turns all your cards into blue-vindicates, incinerates and eventually an inferno (awesome if she's holding a red sword). She's prolly best in a red control deck but she's a nice reanimator enabler and I'd actually play her in an aggro deck for some late game reach. The issues I see are that she's a grey ogre which is a bit dull but not the worse body, the summoning sickness is the biggest drawback I see on her but when active I'd much rather discard cards to her than to Wild Mongrel or Firestorm. [/fanboy] :-P
Shrug, I really like Mindslaver and have continued to run it all these years. It's unique, flavorful, and seldom (if ever) does 'nothing'. It's also abusive with Goblin Welder, as is told in this here article I wrote!
Hey, Snakeform can be decent when you've got to Skullclamp a Viridian Shaman or something... (that... isn't likely to happen?)
I will also second the notion that Jaya Ballard is awesome.
I'm also really curious about what people think of contamination. I imagined it would be like a black Armageddon, but all my black decks want white or green to make tokens to support it. It seems too conflicted, and hard to build into a deck.
Antknee
Nice story about the survivor draft, I'd love to run one of those but I don't have enough magic friends. :-(
The abuse of mindslaver was really cool but is it fun for your opponent when you can basically take all their turns that matter? Given my situation of playing 1 vs 1 most of the time, infinite or hard lock combos tend to suck the fun out of the draft if the other half happened to not get enough answers. This effects is lessened when there's 8 ppl in the draft to annoy. :-P
Retra
Woo! Finally someone else who likes Jaya. :-D
Black has the tools to support Contamination itself although assembling them may not always happen in draft but you have, Bitterblossom, Ophiomancer, Reassembling Skeleton, Bloodghast, Curse of Shallow Graves and Pack Rat. Checking your list, you run all but the Ophiomancer. I Guess Sheoldred and Grave Titan also help but feel like overkill. How many turns do you feel that you need to buy with contamination? Think it was Wtwlf that pointed out once that even if you never sac a creature it buys you a turn where your opponent can prolly do nothing. Geeze! Just thought of Sun Titan, which would let you have coloured mana but not your opponent.
I'll start with a few. Tell me why you wouldn't run these:
Sands of Delirium If you have other milling support, it's great of course, but I think it works really well in control mirrors as well as ramp decks. Reanimator/Dredge applications are bit more suspect. Nevertheless, it's flexible, and more overtly powerful in a format that uses 40 card decks than you might expect.
Mindslaver A card with CMC 6 needs to be a gamebreaker. This one is totally colorless, can be Tinkered for, and can end games by itself. Granted it varies a bit based on the board state, but it's a great feeling to pull off.
Might of Oaks At 8 life or less? Now you have to block my mana elves when I leave 4 open. Removal of basically anything you can chump block for 4 or a nasty surprise win.
Field of Souls Look at this enchantment. Now back to me. Look again. Your creatures are now Doomed Travelers. For white weenie or any other aggro, it gives you resilience you don't usually have. Get behind? This is the synergy you want to pair with your wrath effects.
Sands: If they blow it up before it wins you the game, it's accomplished nothing for you (unless Mill is your primary win condition).
'Slaver: The effect isn't consistently worth the amount of mana it costs to get it. I've rarely seen a 'Slaver activation that was actually worth 10 mana, and it was a really easy cut.
Might: Compares unfavorably to Stonewood Invocation, which is a card most cubes don't even play anymore. I'd gladly trade the extra +2/+2 for shroud and split second; it mitigates two of the biggest issues that come alongside a 4cc pump spell.
Field: Have you seen the suite of white 4cc noncreature spells? This just falls WAY short of competing with the better options.
I actually feel like this thread has the opposite purpose, eidolon. "Dark Horse" cards look bad and unusual, but are good in a traditional cube. This thread is meant to talk about pet cards, or cards that look really good on paper, but are just too unweildy, clunky, inconsistent, or weak in a traditional cube.
I really like Mindslaver. And it's been in and out of my cube. With the Welder back in, I might try it out again if I can find room.
I second (or third I guess) Snakeform. It's a surprisingly good card. Not only does it generally double as removal, it draws you a card, AND (most importantly) it stops leave the battlefield triggers. Not that I run Wurmcoil Engine, but it's one of the few solid answers for it (along with exile effects).
My card would be Grave Pact. I love that card, but it's too color intensive and costs one too much for cube unfortunately.
Here's my problem with Field of Souls: how many 1/1 flying creature tokens should this get you to make it worth the mana? If you had a 2WW Sorcery that said: Put X 1/1 flyers into play, what would X be to make it worth it? Spectral Procession is a good card, but losing the flexibility of the former, I would have to say X=4 to make it worthwhile. With this card, not only are you not guaranteed to get 4 1/1s, you also almost certainly have to wait several turns to get them! So I would want at least six tokens out of this to be worth the investment. I would consider it at 2W, as a reasonable analogue to Promise of Bunrei. Probably not though.
Not to mention the suite of insane options at the precise cost of FoS.
I'll start with a few. Tell me why you wouldn't run these:
Sands of Delirium If you have other milling support, it's great of course, but I think it works really well in control mirrors as well as ramp decks. Reanimator/Dredge applications are bit more suspect. Nevertheless, it's flexible, and more overtly powerful in a format that uses 40 card decks than you might expect.
Mindslaver A card with CMC 6 needs to be a gamebreaker. This one is totally colorless, can be Tinkered for, and can end games by itself. Granted it varies a bit based on the board state, but it's a great feeling to pull off.
Might of Oaks At 8 life or less? Now you have to block my mana elves when I leave 4 open. Removal of basically anything you can chump block for 4 or a nasty surprise win.
Field of Souls Look at this enchantment. Now back to me. Look again. Your creatures are now Doomed Travelers. For white weenie or any other aggro, it gives you resilience you don't usually have. Get behind? This is the synergy you want to pair with your wrath effects.
Sands of Delirium: This takes about twenty-some mana to win the game. It's hard to control the game like you need to if your win condition is eating up your resources.
Mindslaver: Does nothing too often. Sure, it's a blow-out when it works, but so is Triskelion or Wurmcoil Engine. If you are comboing with it, then it's great, but there are better combos to win with.
Might of Oaks: If your creature is already a threat, then you're already winning or they'll kill it. If it *isn't* a threat, then they probably are saving removal for your threat. In that case, they'll kill your guy in response. If they don't have removal and your creature isn't a threat, then for 4 mana you'd be better off playing another threat. The great thing about Giant Growth is that it's only 1 mana and a card, so it can easily trade up. This card can't do that, since you have to give up your turn to cast it and a blocked 8/8 is just as good as a blocked 4/4. If there were more unblockable green guys maybe it would be better, but even then it's a narrow card.
Field of Souls: It's decent with recursion and sweepers, but there is some stiff competition at 4 cmc in white. All of them are answer-or-lose cards. Coupled with the fact that there is no immediate board impact, and Field of Souls is just not enough. (It is a sweet card, though.)
Here are my semi-unusual cards. Or, the ones I want to be slightly better than they are:
Contamination
Mentor of the Meek
Funeral Charm
Teferi's Moat
Mul-Daya Channelers
Snakeform
Fettergeist
Might of Oaks is a funny one, as a pseudo-removal spell it's dubious as you really have to do that on defense and 4 mana is quite telegraphed. Aggressively used I'd rather pay an extra mana something like Overrun or Overwhelming Stampede if the triple green scares you.
One of the big issues with Field of Souls is that it doesn't help you if you are winning cause your creatures probably aren't dying. As a defensive card it's decent and can buy a couple of turns but at that point why not run an extra wrath which are much more reliable at stabilising a game. The combo with a wrath is cute but when you need to wrath you can't waste the turn dropping this first, and if you do you'll probably have to lose some creatures on blocks and the wrath the tokens.
My turn, I really like Jaya Ballard, Task Mage, she turns all your cards into blue-vindicates, incinerates and eventually an inferno (awesome if she's holding a red sword). She's prolly best in a red control deck but she's a nice reanimator enabler and I'd actually play her in an aggro deck for some late game reach. The issues I see are that she's a grey ogre which is a bit dull but not the worse body, the summoning sickness is the biggest drawback I see on her but when active I'd much rather discard cards to her than to Wild Mongrel or Firestorm. [/fanboy] :-P
Thread Cubetutor
My Other Cubes
Pauper Cube
One-Drop Cube
I like Mentor of the Meek quite a bit as well.
Fettergeist and Mul-Daya Channelers seem interesting. I might have to consider them.
http://www.quietspeculation.com/2011/06/teaming-the-cube-scg-invitational-and-survivor-draft/
I used to run Snakeform too, but it eventually got cut for being a combat trick when the removal has gotten too good.
-AA
I use descriptive language. Assume that I'm being nice and respectful. (I'll tell you when I'm not.)
My Cube: http://cubetutor.com/viewcube/9029
I will also second the notion that Jaya Ballard is awesome.
I'm also really curious about what people think of contamination. I imagined it would be like a black Armageddon, but all my black decks want white or green to make tokens to support it. It seems too conflicted, and hard to build into a deck.
Nice story about the survivor draft, I'd love to run one of those but I don't have enough magic friends. :-(
The abuse of mindslaver was really cool but is it fun for your opponent when you can basically take all their turns that matter? Given my situation of playing 1 vs 1 most of the time, infinite or hard lock combos tend to suck the fun out of the draft if the other half happened to not get enough answers. This effects is lessened when there's 8 ppl in the draft to annoy. :-P
Retra
Woo! Finally someone else who likes Jaya. :-D
Black has the tools to support Contamination itself although assembling them may not always happen in draft but you have, Bitterblossom, Ophiomancer, Reassembling Skeleton, Bloodghast, Curse of Shallow Graves and Pack Rat. Checking your list, you run all but the Ophiomancer. I Guess Sheoldred and Grave Titan also help but feel like overkill. How many turns do you feel that you need to buy with contamination? Think it was Wtwlf that pointed out once that even if you never sac a creature it buys you a turn where your opponent can prolly do nothing. Geeze! Just thought of Sun Titan, which would let you have coloured mana but not your opponent.
Thread Cubetutor
My Other Cubes
Pauper Cube
One-Drop Cube
Thanks. Didn't know how to search for this concept exactly. Apparently "dark horse" is what I needed to type.
EDIT: Actually, that looks more like "cards everyone says you SHOULD run that didn't seem good but then actually were."
Sands: If they blow it up before it wins you the game, it's accomplished nothing for you (unless Mill is your primary win condition).
'Slaver: The effect isn't consistently worth the amount of mana it costs to get it. I've rarely seen a 'Slaver activation that was actually worth 10 mana, and it was a really easy cut.
Might: Compares unfavorably to Stonewood Invocation, which is a card most cubes don't even play anymore. I'd gladly trade the extra +2/+2 for shroud and split second; it mitigates two of the biggest issues that come alongside a 4cc pump spell.
Field: Have you seen the suite of white 4cc noncreature spells? This just falls WAY short of competing with the better options.
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!
I actually feel like this thread has the opposite purpose, eidolon. "Dark Horse" cards look bad and unusual, but are good in a traditional cube. This thread is meant to talk about pet cards, or cards that look really good on paper, but are just too unweildy, clunky, inconsistent, or weak in a traditional cube.
My cube list on CubeTutor.
Both are very much under construction. Please stop by and talk about it!
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!
So? We don't have issues with necro'ing old threads here.
Draft my cube!
Watch me stream!
I second (or third I guess) Snakeform. It's a surprisingly good card. Not only does it generally double as removal, it draws you a card, AND (most importantly) it stops leave the battlefield triggers. Not that I run Wurmcoil Engine, but it's one of the few solid answers for it (along with exile effects).
My card would be Grave Pact. I love that card, but it's too color intensive and costs one too much for cube unfortunately.
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/modular-cube-5-colors.800/
Retro combo cube thread
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/retro-combo-cube.1454/
Not to mention the suite of insane options at the precise cost of FoS.
On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
You can also view it here at Cubetutor <---- please draft my cube!!
and you can also see it at DeckStats