Lol Something about that phrase sounds so wrong to me. (No offense to our pal with the sweet cube and the unintelligible username!)
- Lots of super sweet spells matter cards of late making those kinda cards more viable.
- I dig that the legacy (commander) products get to flaunt modern design philosophy a little and give us more access to powerful spells as opposed to focusing on sweet creature combat like we do in this day in age.
- Duskmantle seems super cool! I can't wait to see more blue and black sections built around advantageous tempo gains instead of the standard control decks and ideas. Love support for stuff like that.
- Many people have been taking another look at gravecrawlers and old mana denial tricks like contamination with the influx of new decent zombies.
- Grey merchant of asphodel has been seeing tonnes of tryouts in my end of the net. I'm not too sold yet though. I do love black life gain. Whip of Erebos is a card I'm pretty pumped about.
- TSG was really nuts about Lifebane Zombie. I can kinda get it.
Black has been getting little strides in terms of cube building and seemingly so have red sections.
I dislike that it makes a lot of effects less impactful on the game, and thus show up much much less in competitive play or unless someone has made an effort to make it relevant in a limited format. The extra couple of times I have the choice of making the less obvious decision are nice, but I think there are a lot of cards I would like soooooo much more if I could push a little bit more out of creatures during combat.
I think I liked creature play an awful lot more back then, I felt so much more safe and in control of my doorknobs, and spells that interacted with creatures felt more interesting. Now I think I'm a lot less excited to be attacking and getting tricksy, but I guess that's the way the cookie crumbles, yes? My reasonable understanding of priority management will keep me above the water, but damn do I miss fighting jittes with elders etc.
I had a thought I wasn't sure everyone would agree with when I was replying to the Deranged Outcast thread:
Anyone else wish damage still went on the stack? Wasn't that just like a way more fun game?
What do you think? A lot of cards got less sweet. Are decisions more or less tanky now? Getting cute with stacking damage and abilities was really where it was at for me. I feel like I was way more excited to run sac abilities and then was more pumped about graveyard junk too. I guess things like ribbons of night were less defensible back (when baloths were ravenous) then, and aristocrats is still totes a deck, so maybe I've got it all wrong.
One of my buddies runs a human sub theme I think I'm going to buy him one of these and make him try it. Humans are super sweet. So many incidental bonuses, and the weird phasing considerations on champions of the parish are totally fun. Reminds me of playing with evolve in limited.
Xathrid is super cool and so is Ranger of Eos.
Anyone else wish damage still went on the stack? Wasn't that just like a way more fun game?
What do you want your blue 1cc section doing? What job do you find those creatures lacking at? I can understand if you mean that there are just very few U cost spells that are exciting to cube, but you've listed quite a number there that you don't like and I'm kinda curious what you were looking for.
If you aren't really interested in turn 1 pressure or 1cc attackers and blockers for blue, more spells and maybe the odd looter style guy might be in order.
There was some chat on the lab about designing a NU-Lavaclaw because it isn't very well loved among those super sweet cards. What do you think of my dumb idea?
Sandshark Valley
Land (R)
Sandshark Valley enters the battlefield tapped. T: Add B or R to your mana pool. BR: Sandshark Valley becomes a 4/1 black and red elemental creature until end of turn. Target opponent is in big trouble.
tonnes of types of cubes out there mate. I've found playing my friend's Modern Cube is pretty sweet. The modern design philosophy leaves you with way fewer fatty cheater decks and unfair gambit decks.
His was the first cube I played with a 20 Fetch 20 Shock environment and I love it to death, that mana base really keeps you on your toes and has an impact on the metagame while allowing multicoloured aggro to totally be a thing and fixing to feel very adequate. I even picked it up for my peasant list. Boy are formats more fun when the compromises you make for your mana are constructed caliber and not based on arbitrary restrictions. Filter lands and man-duals are super sweet too!
Access to more shocks and fetch lands totally make things like deathrite or kird ape more of a thing too. Lots of cards get waaaaaay sweeter.
- Boy is it exciting to see all the super sweet formats designers are coming up with on this branch of one of the sweetest games ever!
- I am so pumped to get in on some powered cube sometime soon! What a fun treat!
- So glad they are pushing special releases that don't necessarily impact every format! It will teach card designers that power level and print-ability is all environmental and even in some cases it's teaching cube masters about being thoughtful and tasteful with inclusions vs environments (by example, and also lol true name dirtbag is probz already teaching people a few lessons).
- Totes glad I have no interest in playing constructed standard! It looked so cool at first but thank god it showed its true colours before I bought anything!
- So many more weird limited design projects after hits like MMA and innistrad draft. Can't wait to see the ways people come up with to make costless limited more diverse!
Here's an example of one of the sweeter wildfire decks I've seen playing my buddies semi powered cube. I have a a draft wrap up and deck display over on riptide lab Decks that have 3-0'd your cube
Okay my buddy Chris totally took a crack at the archetype in his wildfire primer! I was cubing with that guy since like Mirrodin so he probably knows a thing or two by now.
Woo I am no longer the expert!
Flower Sun Rain is totally smart and probably knows way more about utility land draft combos and precarious balances with strip effects than me.
His land section breaks his modern rule with onslaught fetchlands but beyond that they are all modern legal cards or the sweetest of commander cards. It's easist to imagine as 20 shocks, 20 fetches, 4 dual-man-lands, horizon canopy and 5 filter lands I think. I think there are other ones that are considered super sweet enough to be spells like wolf run and treetop village but the modern rider keeps a lot of the classic wonders from being a question. It's amazing how much impact the little things make but boy have I been trounced by tec edges before.
Including mana disruption in your cube / land draft becomes a much tougher question you have to consider when designing a format when things like wasteland, port and strip mine are on the table. Those cards are totally in the spell cube section of just about any vintage/rare cube id make though. Definitely deserving of making tough decisions over and something you want to be thoughtful with the availability of.
You could just make your cube into legacy by making all the cards low cost and high impact and give everyone super access to strip mine like lands but I probz wouldn't. I like that Jason has set it up so the availability of the strip effects in his cube feel sorta even and something you can / will have to count on.
If you are trying to sell players on it, just confront them with it! Also build in little strategies into your cube that incentivize always having access to some zany utility lands. It's not too big of a stretch to think of.
Man after my own heart!
And yea! This card isn't a grim monolith, but how much fun is grim monolith really?
- Lots of super sweet spells matter cards of late making those kinda cards more viable.
- I dig that the legacy (commander) products get to flaunt modern design philosophy a little and give us more access to powerful spells as opposed to focusing on sweet creature combat like we do in this day in age.
- Duskmantle seems super cool! I can't wait to see more blue and black sections built around advantageous tempo gains instead of the standard control decks and ideas. Love support for stuff like that.
- Many people have been taking another look at gravecrawlers and old mana denial tricks like contamination with the influx of new decent zombies.
- Grey merchant of asphodel has been seeing tonnes of tryouts in my end of the net. I'm not too sold yet though. I do love black life gain. Whip of Erebos is a card I'm pretty pumped about.
- TSG was really nuts about Lifebane Zombie. I can kinda get it.
Black has been getting little strides in terms of cube building and seemingly so have red sections.
I think I liked creature play an awful lot more back then, I felt so much more safe and in control of my doorknobs, and spells that interacted with creatures felt more interesting. Now I think I'm a lot less excited to be attacking and getting tricksy, but I guess that's the way the cookie crumbles, yes? My reasonable understanding of priority management will keep me above the water, but damn do I miss fighting jittes with elders etc.
What do you think? A lot of cards got less sweet. Are decisions more or less tanky now? Getting cute with stacking damage and abilities was really where it was at for me. I feel like I was way more excited to run sac abilities and then was more pumped about graveyard junk too. I guess things like ribbons of night were less defensible back (when baloths were ravenous) then, and aristocrats is still totes a deck, so maybe I've got it all wrong.
Xathrid is super cool and so is Ranger of Eos.
Anyone else wish damage still went on the stack? Wasn't that just like a way more fun game?
What do you want your blue 1cc section doing? What job do you find those creatures lacking at? I can understand if you mean that there are just very few U cost spells that are exciting to cube, but you've listed quite a number there that you don't like and I'm kinda curious what you were looking for.
If you aren't really interested in turn 1 pressure or 1cc attackers and blockers for blue, more spells and maybe the odd looter style guy might be in order.
Sandshark Valley
Land (R)
Sandshark Valley enters the battlefield tapped.
T
BR: Sandshark Valley becomes a 4/1 black and red elemental creature until end of turn. Target opponent is in big trouble.
His was the first cube I played with a 20 Fetch 20 Shock environment and I love it to death, that mana base really keeps you on your toes and has an impact on the metagame while allowing multicoloured aggro to totally be a thing and fixing to feel very adequate. I even picked it up for my peasant list. Boy are formats more fun when the compromises you make for your mana are constructed caliber and not based on arbitrary restrictions. Filter lands and man-duals are super sweet too!
Access to more shocks and fetch lands totally make things like deathrite or kird ape more of a thing too. Lots of cards get waaaaaay sweeter.
Think about AEther Mutation, but that card is hardly removal.
Whats your idea here?
We counting glare of subdual here?
- I am so pumped to get in on some powered cube sometime soon! What a fun treat!
- So glad they are pushing special releases that don't necessarily impact every format! It will teach card designers that power level and print-ability is all environmental and even in some cases it's teaching cube masters about being thoughtful and tasteful with inclusions vs environments (by example, and also lol true name dirtbag is probz already teaching people a few lessons).
- Totes glad I have no interest in playing constructed standard! It looked so cool at first but thank god it showed its true colours before I bought anything!
- So many more weird limited design projects after hits like MMA and innistrad draft. Can't wait to see the ways people come up with to make costless limited more diverse!
Decks that have 3-0'd your cube
Okay my buddy Chris totally took a crack at the archetype in his wildfire primer! I was cubing with that guy since like Mirrodin so he probably knows a thing or two by now.
http://riptidelab.com/wildfire-primer/
Flower Sun Rain is totally smart and probably knows way more about utility land draft combos and precarious balances with strip effects than me.
His land section breaks his modern rule with onslaught fetchlands but beyond that they are all modern legal cards or the sweetest of commander cards. It's easist to imagine as 20 shocks, 20 fetches, 4 dual-man-lands, horizon canopy and 5 filter lands I think. I think there are other ones that are considered super sweet enough to be spells like wolf run and treetop village but the modern rider keeps a lot of the classic wonders from being a question. It's amazing how much impact the little things make but boy have I been trounced by tec edges before.
Including mana disruption in your cube / land draft becomes a much tougher question you have to consider when designing a format when things like wasteland, port and strip mine are on the table. Those cards are totally in the spell cube section of just about any vintage/rare cube id make though. Definitely deserving of making tough decisions over and something you want to be thoughtful with the availability of.
You could just make your cube into legacy by making all the cards low cost and high impact and give everyone super access to strip mine like lands but I probz wouldn't. I like that Jason has set it up so the availability of the strip effects in his cube feel sorta even and something you can / will have to count on.
If you are trying to sell players on it, just confront them with it! Also build in little strategies into your cube that incentivize always having access to some zany utility lands. It's not too big of a stretch to think of.