This is probably my favourite build around card in Black. When you get it going, man, it feels crazy. So much value. I generally end up in B/G and look for guys like Acidic Slime, Rec Sage, Nekretaal etc to start looping. You can lock them out and start beating. I also like it in Green for Regrowth effects as sometimes they get your Rec Nightmare and your decks engine stalls.
I had to show my playgroup of newer players exactly what the card did, since then unless I open it, I don't get it anymore.
I built a Cube not knowing of a forum dedicated to people discussing Cube. I thought my Cube was amazing but looking back, it was fundamentally flawed and terrible but still fun enough to play. My Cube since then has gone through about 300 cards worth of changes, trying to support archetypes and themes and it was still fun to play. I eventually started to angle my Cube towards a more "traditional" 360 unpowered Cube, getting the more powerful card for the slot 90% of the time. My group enjoy this the most and so do I.
Having wtwlf123's (and other's) dedication, opinions and feedback on Cube, in my opinion, is fantastic and he is a pillar of the Cube community. Whether or not you agree or disagree on things he says and other prominent members of the forum, having them around, even if they don't certain cards or ideas, makes this forum and community tick. This sentiment is echoed to anyone who contributes.
I am pretty impartial and probably don't offer much as I am pretty firm in the "play whatever you want, I don't care" camp but am thankful for the passionate people who start threads (like this one), evaluate cards, test them, try them out and offer feedback for others. I think encouraging everyone to do more often is probably a good thing.
Sorry if this is off topic, so I'll make it on topic; regarding power level, doing what suits you and your group, I think, is always going to the be best. There is no point pushing your agenda and being upset when it isn't universally accepted.
Sol Ring is good, cheap and accessible. If Black Lotus was reprinted a bunch of times in Commander pre-cons and could be picked up for $2, I guarantee people would be running it in their unpowered Cubes.
I run Sol Ring in my unpowered Cube because my playgroup don't mind it, if you draft it and you get it in your opener, cool, your opponent has to beat you but also in unpowered Cube I can go Entomb into Griselbrand on Turn 2. Do you take that out also?
I think it is down to what is accepted in your group. I also think Sol Ring is better than Black Lotus.
I also run Chromatic Lantern, Gilded Lotus and Coalition Relic.
I was only thinking about this morning. After playing a bunch of Shadows limited/sealed, a format where the removal is bad/rare/mainly sorcery speed so combat tricks go way up in value and was wondering how any of that could translate over to Cube. Removal is pretty fantastic in most Cubes which makes combat tricks less likely to hit and therefore less desirable. I have thought about powering down the removal and included some top combat tricks from all colours to see how this changes the game play at all. Does it make combat more exciting or am I watering down a format that doesn't need combat tricks to be exciting/complex and varied? I have plenty of Flash creatures, instant burn/removal, creatures with ETB effects, Planeswalkers etc. During a draft, will a Titan's Strength even be picked up early enough and will it make the 23/24/25?
I have settled on this for me and my playgroup. We will be happy having variance in the sets that Wizards produce and really enjoy drafting the sets with bad removal/great combat tricks and vice versa, however Cube is Cube. Removal is great, combat tricks will end up being less so.
Regardless, I enjoy following the development and thought processes and watching people trying to change and improve their own formats to suit themselves and their play groups.
I was building a U/r deck on the weekend and picked up Thing in the Ice as my 3rd pick of pack 3 which was great as the deck I was building for perfect for this. The deck ended up only having three creatures, Mulldrifter, Spellskite (funnily enough, a horror) and Thing in the Ice and out of the spells, 15 were instants/sorcery so this ended up being a perfect shell. Finally getting to play this was great and it ended up playing out how I thought, it blocked great when you got it down early, ate removal spells and when it lived, it flipped and won me the game. One turn, playing Preordain, Serum Visions and Dismember to knock it down to 1 and then a Searing Spear to my opponents face the next turn and bouncing back their team and hitting for 7 was nice.
I got lucky picking it up so late that the deck I was building, Thing in the Ice, was perfect for but if you pick it early and build around it, the deck it goes into is very fun to play.
I think what you run out the Don, Primus, Hasslehoof and HQ is list dependent. I don't play Terastodon currently. Hoof is either the best or the worst of that lot but my group love the Hoof so the Don isn't played.
Side note: As a rule, I play cards the group likes more and will play over the "better card". We like playing cool, fun and sometimes swingy cards. Primus and HQ are probably the best here, but because of the groups preference we play the Hoof!
How has Avacyn been playing? She was always going in to my Cube, just a matter of getting one, well, I bought a sneaky Booster at lunch and what do you know, I now own Avacyn, so she is in. Any surprises or interesting decks she is going into?
This guy came out last in a draft last night and performed very well. Turn one for 1, turn two for 1 and flipped and then was evasive, he ended up putting in about 8-10 damage before being stopped. I think the flip has been better than renown for us. Goblin Glory Chaser was never main decked.
Quick update to the above. Tireless Tracker made it into the pool last night and into the main deck of a Selesnya deck with Mirari's Wake, Oracle of Mul Daya and Courser of Kruphix. In game two my opponent was dropping lands off the top with Oracle of Mul Daya and Courser of Kruphix getting a Clue for each of these, tapping one land to draw a card off each Clue which allowed him to dig deeper into his deck for his win con's. Tireless Tracker ending up swinging in as an 12/11 along with an army of mates for lethal a few turns after this. This card was pretty instrumental in his game two victory as most turns he was seeing 3-5 extra cards.
This is the kinda shell where Tireless Tracker will shine and I probably wont be able to take him out of the Cube for a long time as the dude playing him is in love and seeing this all play out, I will agree, the card was great. Let's see if he continues to perform.
I think the quality and abundance of exiling in Cube makes this guy significantly worse than in SOI limited. In SOI limited, I got WRECKED by this dude twice, I saw it coming and couldn't do anything which was sad. I done got did. The indestructible wasn't too bad but the Trample and Haste was killer. Going all in on this guy in SOI limited seems like a solid plan but 6 for 1'ing yourself with this guy, your timing would want to be pretty epic, i.e. a miracle top deck as if they see this coming, you can get wrecked.
I opened this guy in my pre-release and ended up in a U/g deck with some Clue synergies (along with Jace and Startled Awake) and really enjoyed how this guy played, so much so that I have added him. Sneaky card draw to Green I think is really cool and there is potentially more upside in a higher powered environment, like Cube, for him to be great. Oracle of Mul Daya, Fetchlands, etc.
He could end up being an easy cut later on but I really enjoyed this guy, enough to warrant giving him a shot and see if he gets drafted and what he does.
I really like this Sorin. He is completely different to our one true Cube lord (of Innistrad) but I kinda don't want my Orzhov section to be a platter of Sorin's. Based on this, i'll be giving Grim Sorin a miss. I run a Cube league (8 rounds) with my Cube and after each season I do like to switch cards to mix things up but I still think LoI is that much better that Grim wont see the light of day, well, be doubled sleeved inside a box.
Looks like I came to right place at the right time for this. I am going to be removing the Eldrazi come SoI, we tested it, no one really tried it and shoehorning it into a 360 didn't work too well, however...
Reality Smasher made it into two of my decks as the only <> creature, I had some Painlands and mana rocks for him and he was better than good each time. The <> was never an issue and when he came out the game ended a turn or so after. He reminds me of how pushed Thragtusk and Thundermaw were at the time. The Haste and Trample is huge and I think he is a good pay off for the drafter that gives him a go. I have not got to see Thought-Knot in a deck yet but want to keep these two in and take out the other "coloured" Eldrazi and see what happens, Displacer may stay too.
TLDR. Reality Smasher, in my experience is good enough without skewing your Cube to support <>.
I had to show my playgroup of newer players exactly what the card did, since then unless I open it, I don't get it anymore.
Having wtwlf123's (and other's) dedication, opinions and feedback on Cube, in my opinion, is fantastic and he is a pillar of the Cube community. Whether or not you agree or disagree on things he says and other prominent members of the forum, having them around, even if they don't certain cards or ideas, makes this forum and community tick. This sentiment is echoed to anyone who contributes.
I am pretty impartial and probably don't offer much as I am pretty firm in the "play whatever you want, I don't care" camp but am thankful for the passionate people who start threads (like this one), evaluate cards, test them, try them out and offer feedback for others. I think encouraging everyone to do more often is probably a good thing.
Sorry if this is off topic, so I'll make it on topic; regarding power level, doing what suits you and your group, I think, is always going to the be best. There is no point pushing your agenda and being upset when it isn't universally accepted.
I run Sol Ring in my unpowered Cube because my playgroup don't mind it, if you draft it and you get it in your opener, cool, your opponent has to beat you but also in unpowered Cube I can go Entomb into Griselbrand on Turn 2. Do you take that out also?
I think it is down to what is accepted in your group. I also think Sol Ring is better than Black Lotus.
I also run Chromatic Lantern, Gilded Lotus and Coalition Relic.
tl;dr Cloudgoat Ranger is great but we recently dropped him.
I have settled on this for me and my playgroup. We will be happy having variance in the sets that Wizards produce and really enjoy drafting the sets with bad removal/great combat tricks and vice versa, however Cube is Cube. Removal is great, combat tricks will end up being less so.
Regardless, I enjoy following the development and thought processes and watching people trying to change and improve their own formats to suit themselves and their play groups.
I got lucky picking it up so late that the deck I was building, Thing in the Ice, was perfect for but if you pick it early and build around it, the deck it goes into is very fun to play.
Side note: As a rule, I play cards the group likes more and will play over the "better card". We like playing cool, fun and sometimes swingy cards. Primus and HQ are probably the best here, but because of the groups preference we play the Hoof!
This is the kinda shell where Tireless Tracker will shine and I probably wont be able to take him out of the Cube for a long time as the dude playing him is in love and seeing this all play out, I will agree, the card was great. Let's see if he continues to perform.
He could end up being an easy cut later on but I really enjoyed this guy, enough to warrant giving him a shot and see if he gets drafted and what he does.
Reality Smasher made it into two of my decks as the only <> creature, I had some Painlands and mana rocks for him and he was better than good each time. The <> was never an issue and when he came out the game ended a turn or so after. He reminds me of how pushed Thragtusk and Thundermaw were at the time. The Haste and Trample is huge and I think he is a good pay off for the drafter that gives him a go. I have not got to see Thought-Knot in a deck yet but want to keep these two in and take out the other "coloured" Eldrazi and see what happens, Displacer may stay too.
TLDR. Reality Smasher, in my experience is good enough without skewing your Cube to support <>.