If you can draft the pieces, it performs like an above-average aggressive archetype. With only 1-2 of them in your deck, you are probably better off with a generic aggro shell. But with more, the powerlevel really gets pushed over the top. Kudro was a great printing for that shell.
I see you cut Jace, Mirror Mage for Jace Beleren. Did you find Beleren better or did you add it back in because of the mill card from CMR? I've had Mirror Mage in my cube for a while, but haven't gotten a lot of reps with him. My gut says Jace Beleren is the superior card.
I see you cut Jace, Mirror Mage for Jace Beleren. Did you find Beleren better or did you add it back in because of the mill card from CMR? I've had Mirror Mage in my cube for a while, but haven't gotten a lot of reps with him. My gut says Jace Beleren is the superior card.
Cheers,
Jacob
Draw Denial is becoming a more important archetype in cube right now - both with the notion thief/ narset variants but also to hold back the Monarch.
Aw man, he was my cut for Tangled Florahedron, but I'll fiddle around with finding a replacement cut for Mayor too. Thanks!
I have to think more about the humans archetype - I don't feel the payoffs are really worth it and its relatively parasitic.
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I see you cut Jace, Mirror Mage for Jace Beleren. Did you find Beleren better or did you add it back in because of the mill card from CMR? I've had Mirror Mage in my cube for a while, but haven't gotten a lot of reps with him. My gut says Jace Beleren is the superior card.
Cheers,
Jacob
I like Beleren more, personally. Mirror Mage might be stronger, but the revealed draws and the potential 1-shot draws were bumming me out, so I switched back. Not to mention that Jace Beleren is so much stronger with Hullbreacher and Notion Thief. Super dirty with those cards.
Apologies if this has been addressed somewhere, but could you explain Sprout Swarm in the list and also why it’s a creature listed at cmc 7?
Also since you’re playing so many small creature combos in green plus Pod, I’m wondering what your experiences and thoughts are on Eldritch Evolution and Chord of Calling.
Sprout Swarm is an enabler for Polymorph and a combo card with Intruder Alarm. It's also a halfway decent token support card, and can provide sacrifice fodder in various decks. I treat it as an Xcc card, since it has so many different places in the curve it can be played at. All my Xcc spells I place at the top of my curve, which is why it's listed at 7.
Chord was cut after underperforming for a while. Fine card, but much weaker than the other creature tutors, IMO. Similar with Evolution. Fine card, but worse than the other options.
Sprout Swarm is an enabler for Polymorph and a combo card with Intruder Alarm. It's also a halfway decent token support card, and can provide sacrifice fodder in various decks. I treat it as an Xcc card, since it has so many different places in the curve it can be played at. All my Xcc spells I place at the top of my curve, which is why it's listed at 7.
Chord was cut after underperforming for a while. Fine card, but much weaker than the other creature tutors, IMO. Similar with Evolution. Fine card, but worse than the other options.
Sprout Swarm feels incredibly weak, even in intruder alarm shells. This feels like a "okay everywhere, never great". Similar to something like Thraben Inspector or Dragon Fodder
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Well making infinite creatures is pretty deece, so I can't say that it's weak with Intruder Alarm.
So ya, it's like a filler card ...that's also part of an infinite combo. More like a Voltaic Key kind of inclusion than a Dragon Fodder.
Have you actually played with/against the card in cube or are you just speculating? I was pretty skeptical, but the card has played far better than it looks. Ambushing attackers in green is surprising, making sorcery-proof Order fodder, works well in Ambusher flash shells, and it gets silly out of control when you have an army of critters at your disposal. I thought it was gonna be butt, but it's surprisingly versatile.
Well making infinite creatures is pretty deece, so I can't say that it's weak with Intruder Alarm.
So ya, it's like a filler card ...that's also part of an infinite combo. More like a Voltaic Key kind of inclusion than a Dragon Fodder.
Have you actually played with/against the card in cube or are you just speculating? I was pretty skeptical, but the card has played far better than it looks. Ambushing attackers in green is surprising, making sorcery-proof Order fodder, works well in Ambusher flash shells, and it gets silly out of control when you have an army of critters at your disposal. I thought it was gonna be butt, but it's surprisingly versatile.
Well I have a policy with cube cards and its very simple: If white wolf recommends it, its prob pretty good. I'll give it a try next time.
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All that being said, a lot of the value of the card comes from its versatility. At 720, I am supporting all the decks it can help support AND I have the real estate to find some room. If my cube was smaller, I don't know if it would make the cut.
Looking at your Change log on cubetutor you are putting back in some lands to increase the fixing available and taking out some gold cards. I don't see an edit with you removing the lands. Was there something I missed? Thanks.
Sorry about that. If you look at your updates on cubetutor, for example, Irrigated Farmland was in your original post and then a few weeks ago you took out Reflector Mage to add Irrigated Farmland. Looking back at the changelogs Irrigated Farmland was always in the cube, and there wasn't an instance where irrigated farmland was removed. Sorry for the confusion. Just wondering if I missed an update.
I’m wondering what your experience has been with Manifold Key and Voltaic Key. I know you support Time Vault combo, and the Keys also play well with some of the big mana artifacts. I’m wondering if you’ve given any thought to supporting big artifact / Time Vault combo a bit more instead of the second tier persist combo cards like Altar of the Brood (even though I don’t have experience with persist this seems lower tier than the artifacts that are also sac outlets).
The keys were too narrow for us. I ended up replacing the Key for Mirage Mirror when I added in the Dark Depths combo, since it works with both Depths and Vault. If I removed Depths and played Trinket Mage, I would re-add Manifold Key.
Altar of the Brood is a combo card, not an Aristocrats card. It primarily goes into decks that can demonstrate infinite loops that don't win the game on the spot. It's more of an Impact Tremors kind of effect than a Blood Artist kind of card. It upgrades infinite loops that don't immediately win the game into one that does. Funnily enough, the card has won games by milling (outside of combos) a surprising number of times, and some of my players have been playing it just for that, lol.
..........
On a separate note everybody, I've made a few recent small changes; log can be checked here:
- Nexus of Fate has proven its to be incredibly strong in giving you two consecutive turns, with is just insane, it doubles as a Thassa's Oracle where you mill your entire library and cast Nexus to take infinite turns and could incidentally be put under Arcane Savant/ Panoptic Mirror. I thought Nexus of Fate was bad, but its been incredible.
- Temporal Mastery was another card I selected because I like the interaction between Top of the deck tutor and Temporal + I wanted another dedicated payoff for miracles, I also have Dualcaster Mage + Twin Flame combo and Lutri in my cube and I was looking for a card I could copy and "win".
- I just have Panoptic Mirror in my cube to go infinite with these 2 + Time walk.
2) In terms of white 5 drops, I still recommend Cavalier of Dawn. It is very good. Yes it is triple white, but I've learned to value unconditional "Elf Within" style removals.
3) Riftwing Cloudskate is a card I really love - its a great answer for cheated into play creature, great aggro-tempo card, great in creature/ Pod decks.
4) I'm a little bit happy that the blue monarch cards didn't perform that well - I really wasn't sure what to cut for them and my blue section has already went 5 cards over the limit.
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Hey wtwlf - I was glancing through your cube again today and noticed you were currently running each of the Lightning Strike versions but you weren't running Magma Jet anymore. When I asked about those two cards a few months ago I felt like you gave a pretty good argument in favor of having Jet over Strike, so I was just curious - has your evaluation changed, or is there something about your current cube configuration that made you choose Strike over Jet?
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Cheers,
Jacob
Draw Denial is becoming a more important archetype in cube right now - both with the notion thief/ narset variants but also to hold back the Monarch.
I have to think more about the humans archetype - I don't feel the payoffs are really worth it and its relatively parasitic.
Vintage Cube Cards Explained
Here are some other articles I've written about fine tuning your cube:
1. Minimum Archetype Support
2. Improving Green Archetypes
3. Improving White Archetypes
4. Matchup Analysis
5. Cube Combos (Work in Progress)
Draft my Cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/d8i
I like Beleren more, personally. Mirror Mage might be stronger, but the revealed draws and the potential 1-shot draws were bumming me out, so I switched back. Not to mention that Jace Beleren is so much stronger with Hullbreacher and Notion Thief. Super dirty with those cards.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 49th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from MKM!
Also since you’re playing so many small creature combos in green plus Pod, I’m wondering what your experiences and thoughts are on Eldritch Evolution and Chord of Calling.
Thanks!
Chord was cut after underperforming for a while. Fine card, but much weaker than the other creature tutors, IMO. Similar with Evolution. Fine card, but worse than the other options.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 49th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from MKM!
Sprout Swarm feels incredibly weak, even in intruder alarm shells. This feels like a "okay everywhere, never great". Similar to something like Thraben Inspector or Dragon Fodder
Vintage Cube Cards Explained
Here are some other articles I've written about fine tuning your cube:
1. Minimum Archetype Support
2. Improving Green Archetypes
3. Improving White Archetypes
4. Matchup Analysis
5. Cube Combos (Work in Progress)
Draft my Cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/d8i
So ya, it's like a filler card ...that's also part of an infinite combo. More like a Voltaic Key kind of inclusion than a Dragon Fodder.
Have you actually played with/against the card in cube or are you just speculating? I was pretty skeptical, but the card has played far better than it looks. Ambushing attackers in green is surprising, making sorcery-proof Order fodder, works well in Ambusher flash shells, and it gets silly out of control when you have an army of critters at your disposal. I thought it was gonna be butt, but it's surprisingly versatile.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 49th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from MKM!
Well I have a policy with cube cards and its very simple: If white wolf recommends it, its prob pretty good. I'll give it a try next time.
Vintage Cube Cards Explained
Here are some other articles I've written about fine tuning your cube:
1. Minimum Archetype Support
2. Improving Green Archetypes
3. Improving White Archetypes
4. Matchup Analysis
5. Cube Combos (Work in Progress)
Draft my Cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/d8i
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 49th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from MKM!
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 49th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from MKM!
My list on CubeTutor is out of date. Only the CubeCobra list is currently being maintained.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 49th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from MKM!
I’m wondering what your experience has been with Manifold Key and Voltaic Key. I know you support Time Vault combo, and the Keys also play well with some of the big mana artifacts. I’m wondering if you’ve given any thought to supporting big artifact / Time Vault combo a bit more instead of the second tier persist combo cards like Altar of the Brood (even though I don’t have experience with persist this seems lower tier than the artifacts that are also sac outlets).
Thanks!
The keys were too narrow for us. I ended up replacing the Key for Mirage Mirror when I added in the Dark Depths combo, since it works with both Depths and Vault. If I removed Depths and played Trinket Mage, I would re-add Manifold Key.
Altar of the Brood is a combo card, not an Aristocrats card. It primarily goes into decks that can demonstrate infinite loops that don't win the game on the spot. It's more of an Impact Tremors kind of effect than a Blood Artist kind of card. It upgrades infinite loops that don't immediately win the game into one that does. Funnily enough, the card has won games by milling (outside of combos) a surprising number of times, and some of my players have been playing it just for that, lol.
..........
On a separate note everybody, I've made a few recent small changes; log can be checked here:
https://cubecobra.com/cube/blog/5d61aa23b8ec593ca4b76ca6/0
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 49th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from MKM!
- Nexus of Fate has proven its to be incredibly strong in giving you two consecutive turns, with is just insane, it doubles as a Thassa's Oracle where you mill your entire library and cast Nexus to take infinite turns and could incidentally be put under Arcane Savant/ Panoptic Mirror. I thought Nexus of Fate was bad, but its been incredible.
- Temporal Mastery was another card I selected because I like the interaction between Top of the deck tutor and Temporal + I wanted another dedicated payoff for miracles, I also have Dualcaster Mage + Twin Flame combo and Lutri in my cube and I was looking for a card I could copy and "win".
- I just have Panoptic Mirror in my cube to go infinite with these 2 + Time walk.
2) In terms of white 5 drops, I still recommend Cavalier of Dawn. It is very good. Yes it is triple white, but I've learned to value unconditional "Elf Within" style removals.
3) Riftwing Cloudskate is a card I really love - its a great answer for cheated into play creature, great aggro-tempo card, great in creature/ Pod decks.
4) I'm a little bit happy that the blue monarch cards didn't perform that well - I really wasn't sure what to cut for them and my blue section has already went 5 cards over the limit.
Vintage Cube Cards Explained
Here are some other articles I've written about fine tuning your cube:
1. Minimum Archetype Support
2. Improving Green Archetypes
3. Improving White Archetypes
4. Matchup Analysis
5. Cube Combos (Work in Progress)
Draft my Cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/d8i
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 49th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from MKM!
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 49th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from MKM!
My 36+ Commander Decks: TAPPEDOUT
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 49th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from MKM!