I started playing in 1995 I believe. At the time, 4th Edition, Chronicles, and Ice Age were the newest sets. Sure I was casual, but as with anything I would have preferred to be competitive.
Legacy and Extended were my favorite formats. I quit constructed some time around 2007-8. I still kind of like reading about new/evolving Legacy decks.
I shared a ~500 card cube with two other players, which was unpowered, but 95% complete. But those two couldn't work out their personal differences and pulled their own cards out of the cube and sold them.
I personally quit constructed as I realized over time that Wizards goal was not to make a great game, but to make a profit. I just can't bring myself to pay for their product.
I have played chess since 2008 and I couldn't be happier. Everyone is on equal standing regardless of financial situation. There is much greater depth to the game.
I feel badly about the current situation with the counterfeits. But, this is exactly the kind of thing Wizards is setting themselves up for, by being so greedy.
I haven't updated this thread in a while. My friends and I have been playing disc golf all summer, so the cube kinda took a backseat. Now that the weather is getting colder, we have starting playing Magic again. There have been a few changes to the cube, and I am pretty gonna have to take the whole cube apart and retype the entire list, because I am not sure what is in and out anymore. We have collected pretty much all the cards that we can find and can afford, and have decided to proxy the rest so that our cube is "complete." Here is a list of the cards we are going to proxy:
Do all of those cards look like decent additions to a 500 card cube? We like to playtest anything that is close. We also like to push aggro and artifacts. Are there any other cards from newer sets that I've missed?
As for red, looking over the cube comparison thread, the only cards that we don't play are Keldon Champion, Hearth Kami, and Spikeshot Elder. Do those cards have a place in our cube?
Can you give us some recommendations for blue and red cards? Please look at our wishlist and tell us what else we could add. Those will be the two thinnest colors once we have everything we need. Or do you think we should cut our other colors down? If we are going to cut Ancestral Visions and Negate, blue will be even smaller.
As previously stated, we celebrated Paul007's birthday with an all day cube party. We started by massively updating the cube. You may have seen some of the changes before, but here is our official add and cut lists:
So again, any comments would be appreciated. We are also considering cutting Duplicant. Do you think it has a place in our deck? And finally, we cut Broodmate Dragon. What are your thoughts on the playability of three color cards in our cube?
Our manabase is not finished yet, but we decided to cut the slack. The only lands left in the deck that won't make our final manabase are the allied painlands, which we kept as placeholders until we can obtain the Onslaught fetchlands.
And for those interested, even after cutting all of those lands, our cube now contains 327 cards.
I can certainly understand how Rude Awakening and Thawing Glaciers, while good cards, serve too narrow a purpose to be useful in a wide variety of decks. Are you guys suggesting we play Woodfall Primus and Terastadon? And if so should we be considering Mold Shambler as well?
2) You can't ramp to that 8 mana effectively, since you want to have 8 lands and not 8 mana worth of mana elves/mana rocks.
I have had games where I have cast with a Llanowar and a Talisman or something of the sort and 12 hasty damage has won the game. This has never been much of a problem for me.
Quote from Strange »
3) If you don't kill your opponent, you're probably going to lose a lot of your manabase in the scuffle.
Yes, if they have Route or Starstorm you will lose the game. But, otherwise, by the time you cast it, you should be able to judge by their cards in hand and the board position whether or not you will win the game with it. I never cast it unless it will win me the game, and at that point it won't matter what your manabase looks like.
Quote from Strange »
4) By the time I have 8 lands in play, I probably don't need 16 damage to end the game. If I do, I'm in such a bad position that even this insane sorcery isn't going to pull me out.
I can't count the number of games that I shouldn't have won that Rude Awakening has pulled out for me.
Quote from Strange »
5) It isn't a creature, so there's no way for me to cheat it into play
Yeah, but that is part of it's unique ability. Sure, you can't reanimator it. But it is hasty damage coming at your opponent that wasn't there until your main phase.
Edit: It is an 8-drop though, so it is unplayable in aggro. It only functions as a finisher. And it doesn't really interact with the other cards in the cube.
We know we need a major revision to our manabase. It is just a matter of time until we can collect the Ravnica duals and fetchlands. I think I already posted this but our future manabase looks like this:
probably Simic Growth Chamber and Izzet Boilerworks- I think we are going to add the blue signets as artifacts instead of counting them towards the land spots
Thanks for all the recommendations the last couple of days. These are the cards that we have in our collection and bought that we will add to the cube:
Another topic for your discussion: Our philosophy with this cube has always been to keep adding cards as long as they are of a certain power level. Obviously, this cube is not finished and we have plenty of cards that we can still acquire. The only reason we had been cutting cards was to take out cards that were not powerful enough and also to maintain balance between colors. We don't really have any set size in mind for our cube at the moment, but we feel we have a nice power level and we would like to maintain that. Basically, every card in the cube should feel like something that you would be happy to have in your deck.
quitequiter was nice enough to give us some cuts for the cards we are adding. Here is my request: Look through our entire deck, and give us any cards that you think do not belong. Whether we have cards to replace them now, or whether we would cut them in the future. Let us separate the wheat from the chaff.
Edit: SDKSman just bought some more cards. I added them to the list above.
Legacy and Extended were my favorite formats. I quit constructed some time around 2007-8. I still kind of like reading about new/evolving Legacy decks.
I shared a ~500 card cube with two other players, which was unpowered, but 95% complete. But those two couldn't work out their personal differences and pulled their own cards out of the cube and sold them.
I personally quit constructed as I realized over time that Wizards goal was not to make a great game, but to make a profit. I just can't bring myself to pay for their product.
I have played chess since 2008 and I couldn't be happier. Everyone is on equal standing regardless of financial situation. There is much greater depth to the game.
I feel badly about the current situation with the counterfeits. But, this is exactly the kind of thing Wizards is setting themselves up for, by being so greedy.
Also, we need to add alot of the cards that were released this summer. Here is the list of cards we plan to add from Commander and up.
Do all of those cards look like decent additions to a 500 card cube? We like to playtest anything that is close. We also like to push aggro and artifacts. Are there any other cards from newer sets that I've missed?
And out of the blue cards, I feel at least we should add Into the Roil and Repeal. I like Tezzeret the Seeker too, but my cubemates disagree.
As for red, looking over the cube comparison thread, the only cards that we don't play are Keldon Champion, Hearth Kami, and Spikeshot Elder. Do those cards have a place in our cube?
Also, here are some other cards I found in the cube comparison thread. Should we be running Stoneforge Mystic, Gatekeeper of Malakir, Liliana's Specter, Juggernaut, Lodestone Golem, and/or Crystal Ball?
Finally, should we be running Sarkhon Vol over Giant Solifuge?
Here are the blue cards for 360 card cubes on the cube comparison thread that we don't play and aren't already on our wishlist:
Fauna Shaman
Survival of the Fittest
Pouncing Jaguar
Wall of Roots
Albino Troll
Braids, Cabal Minion
Dauthi Horror
Black Knight
Wurmcoil Engine
Inferno Titan
Mirran Crusader
Ronom Unicorn
Kami of Ancient Law
Stormfront Pegasus
Mistral Charger
We included duplicates of Stormfront Pegasus and Kami of Ancient Law for testing purposes.
Our cube now clocks in at 342 cards.
Can you give us some recommendations for blue and red cards? Please look at our wishlist and tell us what else we could add. Those will be the two thinnest colors once we have everything we need. Or do you think we should cut our other colors down? If we are going to cut Ancestral Visions and Negate, blue will be even smaller.
We need to add Wall of Roots. I can't believe I forgot about that card.
Possible adds:
Jungle Lion
Pouncing Jaguar
Albino Troll
Mistral Charger and Stormfront Pegasus
Possible cuts:
Ancestral Visions
Exhume
After the overhaul, the decks looks like it will be squarely in the 360 range once we are able to acquire all the staples we need.
http://deckstats.net/deck-524117-e7d522813f768eb2b9a838e903910f94-en.html
Our opening post is updated with the current decklist.
Several cards were either added or retained on a 'testing' basis:
Waterfront Bouncer
Slagstorm
Accorder Paladin
Terastodon
Negate
Thawing Glaciers
We would be interested on any thoughts you have on those cards. Also, we are thinking about adding:
Dismiss
Ninja of the Deep Hours
Thieving Magpie
So again, any comments would be appreciated. We are also considering cutting Duplicant. Do you think it has a place in our deck? And finally, we cut Broodmate Dragon. What are your thoughts on the playability of three color cards in our cube?
Beyond all these changes we also have Survival of the Fittest, Marsh Flats, Fauna Shaman, Wurmcoil Engine, Inferno Titan, Mirran Crusader, and Pithing Needle coming in the mail.
Our manabase is not finished yet, but we decided to cut the slack. The only lands left in the deck that won't make our final manabase are the allied painlands, which we kept as placeholders until we can obtain the Onslaught fetchlands.
And for those interested, even after cutting all of those lands, our cube now contains 327 cards.
Triskelion is awesome. He isn't going anywhere.
I have had games where I have cast with a Llanowar and a Talisman or something of the sort and 12 hasty damage has won the game. This has never been much of a problem for me.
Yes, if they have Route or Starstorm you will lose the game. But, otherwise, by the time you cast it, you should be able to judge by their cards in hand and the board position whether or not you will win the game with it. I never cast it unless it will win me the game, and at that point it won't matter what your manabase looks like.
I can't count the number of games that I shouldn't have won that Rude Awakening has pulled out for me.
Yeah, but that is part of it's unique ability. Sure, you can't reanimator it. But it is hasty damage coming at your opponent that wasn't there until your main phase.
Edit: It is an 8-drop though, so it is unplayable in aggro. It only functions as a finisher. And it doesn't really interact with the other cards in the cube.
Darksteel Ingot is already out of the deck. I just neglected to take it off the list. Whoops!
I also have the four blue Signets ready to be added and/or Simic Growth Chamber and Izzet Boilerworks.
Another topic for your discussion: Our philosophy with this cube has always been to keep adding cards as long as they are of a certain power level. Obviously, this cube is not finished and we have plenty of cards that we can still acquire. The only reason we had been cutting cards was to take out cards that were not powerful enough and also to maintain balance between colors. We don't really have any set size in mind for our cube at the moment, but we feel we have a nice power level and we would like to maintain that. Basically, every card in the cube should feel like something that you would be happy to have in your deck.
quitequiter was nice enough to give us some cuts for the cards we are adding. Here is my request: Look through our entire deck, and give us any cards that you think do not belong. Whether we have cards to replace them now, or whether we would cut them in the future. Let us separate the wheat from the chaff.
Edit: SDKSman just bought some more cards. I added them to the list above.
Some of these cards are common to the list he previously posted. Which ones do you think belong in our deck?
Also, do you think we should play Evolving Wilds and Terramorphic Expanse?