MTG Salvation

I toyed about at designing a peasant cube about a year ago, played it a few times with a friend via tappedout.net and it was fun (cube always is) but a bit durdley. Last week I came across a few articles on here about cube theory and it inspired me to try again with a standard cube build.

Here's the first draft, I'm aware I'm running some pet cards over some staples but I have to make some concessions to budget and my existing collection. At least for the time being.

Thanks to wtwlf123 for writing the article I read, also hope you don't mind, I "quoted" your cube list to help with the formatting.



Thanks for reading, I welcome any advice offered so I can make tweaks if needed before I start sourcing the cards I don't own.

I was planning to remove those bits as I didn't alter them much.

I'd be glad to hear your opinion as to a more accurate assessment. Without playtesting the cube a bunch I'm not sure how accurate i can be.

Thanks

Oh! Good point, I removed most/all the aggro from green but didnt change the ratings.

Yeah I'll prolly just remove the ratings as when I try to classify cards I end up getting a bit confused due to the over-lap of mid-range with the other two.

One thing I'm not sure about is if I'm running sufficient mana-fixing lands, I had a quick check through the forums and I saw a lot that were running all 10 duals/shock/fetches and some additional 5 colour lands. Will only running 20 lands make a big impact?

Right... I was afraid of that. Gonna have to make some tough cuts I think as I need to free up around 16 Slots. Cutting one card from every section would give me that. Might cut more from colourless as the utility section is pretty big and I should be able to trim it.

I'm not an aggro player by nature so I get a bit confused when building those sections. Lands that are good for aggro would be ones that dont enter tapped, without investing in shocks and fetches, the 10th Ed pain lands and the Scars-block lands should be good right?

I'll prolly add the Zendikar man-lands as I really like them but ran out of slots originally.

Thanks for the advice.

Edit: I've trimmed 1 from each colour and guild and 5 colourless, which let me add 20 more land, Couldn't think of an enemy colour cycle to use other than the Ravnica bounce-lands or the Innistrad check-lands and I have the former already. Hopefully this should work out ok?

Also altered Green a bit to be more ramp focussed, basically by cutting all the Self-pump 1 drops and a few other mid-range cards.

That's not bad, was wondering how many of those changes were less than optimal, the Stronghold/Helix was basically a coin flip.

What's your opinion on my black section? It originally had more aggro cards with a bunch of the 2/x 1 drops, but then I decided to make it more controlling and try for a staxy theme. Is there anything that looks really out of place or missing given that theme? I've never actually played a stax deck so i'm a bit unsure of it.

I'll see how things go with the lands, if I keep everything in cycles then I should be able to see if they work or not in certain colour combinations. Start with everything as equal as possible then adjust things to fit.

Been working on some pretty big edits, could almost be classed as a rebuild. Decided to support artifact decks more so blue gets Tinker type stuff and the artifacts help support black Stax and red Wildfire decks.

In doing so I'm considering adding power to the cube as the fast mana will really help the artifact decks and help make the cube games much more distinct and memorable. I'll prolly not add all 9 pieces, Lotus, Mox and maybe one of blue's 3 pieces (which would people reccomend?).

The other debate is my lands, I'm currently running 7 cards per guild (see spoiler below for list). I'm thinking of upgrading the lands to the ABU duels, shocks and fetches but I really like the man-lands and at that point they have some strong competition.


What are people's experience with the manlands? Do you think they fit in this list?

The list I'm working with also has all 5 vivids along with Reflecting Pool, City of Brass, Mirrodin's Core, Thawing Glaciers and Grand Coliseum for 40 total colour fixing lands. Compared to other 360 lists that's above average as most seem to run 30 guild and maybe 3 of the 5cc lands.

Thanks for any advice, the mana base is starting to make me go cross-eyed.