Yes Mitch you messed this one up...you messed it up BIG!!! Just kidding, you know I love you and that's why you're doing this practicing anyways. So I did the draft myself from start to finish to see how I would have ended up drafting it. Here's what I got:
Any deck you can make off this looks pretty good. Then again, how can I deck with 3 Mulldrifters and a Footbottom Fest be bad? I only have two complaints. 1) I never saw a single Dreamspoilers and 2) my removal is light. I do have 5 counterspells, 2 of them being faeries and 3 of those discard some cards faeries (although I doubt you play all 3). Yes I'm aware counterspells arn't removal, but I got lucky as all hell last pack and looking at it I can't really complain.
Now everyone do the same draft and show Mitch (Gemini Dreams) up
Pringlesman, I know you can do it! You don't have to be rich...I for one have only been playing since Kamigawa and I managed. But now I also have to be fair: I spent about $300 on it when I went to Daytona. I looked at the price of the cards, looked at my wallet and realized that the exchange rate really is as ridiculous as it sounds and I couldn't resist.
As for Gaea's Blessing, it's not so much about raw card power all the time. I mean if you look at the cube, there are several worse green cards if you compare it with Blessing in a vacuum. But the problem is, like my objection to Scepter, is it won't end up going in a lot of decks because the majority of the time it'll do nothing really relevant but cycle for one.
Also, I have no idea why Wizards tends to favour mono or two coloured so much, but they keep saying that they're trying to push it with new sets and expressed that they weren't terribly pleased with the amount of 3+ coloured decks in the last T2 as the format unfolded. So it doesn't surprise me that they built a cube that encourages this kinda thing also. With my cube there's so much mana fixing that the average deck ends up being 2 colours with one splash, and 2 splashes arn't even that uncommon. I'm not surprised that Wizards didn't want that kind of cube with their policy. I guess it's because they like the colours well defined and don't like the idea of any deck being able to do anything if you just throw in a few duel lands.
Thanks for the tips man, I'm new at this forum stuff so it's well appreciated. I still messed up on doing it, but I'll fix it tomorrow since I have classes tomorrow morning.
As for Pygmy Hippo, I completely lucked out. A good friend of mine whom I went to visit randomly had one in a stack. I just read it and for some reason couldn't stop laughing. I believe every cube should have one based on the fact that it's hilarious to even look at, let alone how funny it is when it works (my friend joked that he's going to take Legacy by storm after reading this thing for the first time).
Also, the reanimation spells I have, I've found, don't make for incredibly busted decks for a cube of that size. Entombing a Genesis is a lot scarier then a big creature most of the time, and my cube has answers shooting out of every colour for massive threats. It's just that, with this much, a lot of control decks end up having a reanimation subtheme. Oh well. Don't let Raya and Akroma go too late when drafting
And when it comes to cards like Perish, Boil, and Chill, I'm not the world's largest fan. A lot of the time I'll be hanging out or have some time at a tournament and me and one of my friends will do a quick one-on-one draft. Sometimes I just play like 5 one-on-ones in a row with a friend and that's my Magic intake for the day. As a result, I try to keep cards that sit in the sideboard to a minimum. I also don't like the idea of a red deck just going turn 4 Boil on some random control deck. It feels too much like "Oh that's cute that you got that and I happen to be playing blue. Guess I lose"
Some people find that that kinda thing just adds to the fun, but not me personally.
Speaking of one-on-one, I found an amazing draft format that only really works with cube and provides hours of drafting fun with one person. Remind me to post tomorrow if you care.
I agree with you that it can get insanly nuts, as you just pointed out. What I was saying though is consider this. His cube is large enough for 2 8 man drafts. What are the chances of getting more then 2 of those and a scepter?
Well Mitch, aka, GeminiDreams insisted I post my cube. And here, after fighting for an hour with tinypic, it is:
After sorting this baby, I've learned several new things:
Paladin en-Vec looks like an artifact (there's one in there by the way)
I lost my Vindicate
All my U/B spells have the same converted mana cost
I really, really like to reanimate creatures
And, to my unpleasant surprise, Ravnica duels look better then real ones.
I finally couldn't resist joining mtgsalvation since cube is my passion...
Anyways, after heavy testing with Scepter being in my cube since the beginning and having it been drafted dozens and dozens of times, me and my friends found it's much better in theory then in practice and ended up taking it out all together since the artifact slots are incredibly competitive.
What would happen is every now and then someone would stick a Fire/Ice on it or something and completely go to town, but more often it stayed in the sideboard. I've only played it once or twice in the roughly 10-15 times I've had it. The problem was, once you lay out your deck you realize you usually only have about 2 instants that cost 2 and if you played it anyways, it would end up just sitting in your hand like 70% of the time. And the thing with cube is, because of the sheer power levels of the cards, you can't afford to have a cute cards that could be busted every now and then, sit there and do nothing. More so then any other limited format I've ever played, cube is much harsher on things like mana flood, or you not being able to maximize your resources. Having a card in your hand that literally does nothing while you and your opponent battle it out with what are normally first picks, is very, very bad. When you weight the amount of times it's absolutely busted vs. the amount of times it does nothing and the every now-and-then when your opponent instantly responds with artifact removal, and the card's all of a sudden not that good.
For anyone who's never drafted a cube, you'd be down right amazed at what isn't good. For example, when I started mine I read a Starcity article that told me that after heavy testing they removed Skullclamp because it rarely did too much, I didn't believe them. Now, Clamp is only still in my cube because it's a personal favorite, but it still doesn't make the cut a lot of the time.
It's a really, really weird format, to say the least...
Eyeblight's Ending
Sentinel's of Glen Eldra
Skeletal Changeling
Spellstutter Sprite
Whirlpool Whelm
Thieving Sprite
Glen Eldra Pranksters
Skeletal Changeling
Captain Deathtouch
Boggart Loggers
Springleaf Drum
Ringskipper
Thieving Sprite
Mournwhelk
Mulldrifter
Ponder
Stonybrook Angler
Tideshaper Mystic
Faerie's Trickery
Boggart Sprite-Chaser
Broken Ambitions
Footbottom Feast
Faerie's Trickery
Ponder
Shimmering Grotto
Hoarder's Greed
Faerie's Tauntings
Protective Bubble
Mulldrifter
Sentinels of Glen Eldra
Douser
Mulldrifter
Spellstutter Sprite
Boggart Loggers
Hurly Burly
Inkfathom Divers
Deeptread Merrow
Thieving Sprite
Trash
Trash
Trash
Trash
Trash
Any deck you can make off this looks pretty good. Then again, how can I deck with 3 Mulldrifters and a Footbottom Fest be bad? I only have two complaints. 1) I never saw a single Dreamspoilers and 2) my removal is light. I do have 5 counterspells, 2 of them being faeries and 3 of those discard some cards faeries (although I doubt you play all 3). Yes I'm aware counterspells arn't removal, but I got lucky as all hell last pack and looking at it I can't really complain.
Now everyone do the same draft and show Mitch (Gemini Dreams) up
As for Gaea's Blessing, it's not so much about raw card power all the time. I mean if you look at the cube, there are several worse green cards if you compare it with Blessing in a vacuum. But the problem is, like my objection to Scepter, is it won't end up going in a lot of decks because the majority of the time it'll do nothing really relevant but cycle for one.
Also, I have no idea why Wizards tends to favour mono or two coloured so much, but they keep saying that they're trying to push it with new sets and expressed that they weren't terribly pleased with the amount of 3+ coloured decks in the last T2 as the format unfolded. So it doesn't surprise me that they built a cube that encourages this kinda thing also. With my cube there's so much mana fixing that the average deck ends up being 2 colours with one splash, and 2 splashes arn't even that uncommon. I'm not surprised that Wizards didn't want that kind of cube with their policy. I guess it's because they like the colours well defined and don't like the idea of any deck being able to do anything if you just throw in a few duel lands.
As for Pygmy Hippo, I completely lucked out. A good friend of mine whom I went to visit randomly had one in a stack. I just read it and for some reason couldn't stop laughing. I believe every cube should have one based on the fact that it's hilarious to even look at, let alone how funny it is when it works (my friend joked that he's going to take Legacy by storm after reading this thing for the first time).
Also, the reanimation spells I have, I've found, don't make for incredibly busted decks for a cube of that size. Entombing a Genesis is a lot scarier then a big creature most of the time, and my cube has answers shooting out of every colour for massive threats. It's just that, with this much, a lot of control decks end up having a reanimation subtheme. Oh well. Don't let Raya and Akroma go too late when drafting
And when it comes to cards like Perish, Boil, and Chill, I'm not the world's largest fan. A lot of the time I'll be hanging out or have some time at a tournament and me and one of my friends will do a quick one-on-one draft. Sometimes I just play like 5 one-on-ones in a row with a friend and that's my Magic intake for the day. As a result, I try to keep cards that sit in the sideboard to a minimum. I also don't like the idea of a red deck just going turn 4 Boil on some random control deck. It feels too much like "Oh that's cute that you got that and I happen to be playing blue. Guess I lose"
Some people find that that kinda thing just adds to the fun, but not me personally.
Speaking of one-on-one, I found an amazing draft format that only really works with cube and provides hours of drafting fun with one person. Remind me to post tomorrow if you care.
Well Mitch, aka, GeminiDreams insisted I post my cube. And here, after fighting for an hour with tinypic, it is:
After sorting this baby, I've learned several new things:
Paladin en-Vec looks like an artifact (there's one in there by the way)
I lost my Vindicate
All my U/B spells have the same converted mana cost
I really, really like to reanimate creatures
And, to my unpleasant surprise, Ravnica duels look better then real ones.
Anyways, comments, questions, concerns?
Anyways, after heavy testing with Scepter being in my cube since the beginning and having it been drafted dozens and dozens of times, me and my friends found it's much better in theory then in practice and ended up taking it out all together since the artifact slots are incredibly competitive.
What would happen is every now and then someone would stick a Fire/Ice on it or something and completely go to town, but more often it stayed in the sideboard. I've only played it once or twice in the roughly 10-15 times I've had it. The problem was, once you lay out your deck you realize you usually only have about 2 instants that cost 2 and if you played it anyways, it would end up just sitting in your hand like 70% of the time. And the thing with cube is, because of the sheer power levels of the cards, you can't afford to have a cute cards that could be busted every now and then, sit there and do nothing. More so then any other limited format I've ever played, cube is much harsher on things like mana flood, or you not being able to maximize your resources. Having a card in your hand that literally does nothing while you and your opponent battle it out with what are normally first picks, is very, very bad. When you weight the amount of times it's absolutely busted vs. the amount of times it does nothing and the every now-and-then when your opponent instantly responds with artifact removal, and the card's all of a sudden not that good.
For anyone who's never drafted a cube, you'd be down right amazed at what isn't good. For example, when I started mine I read a Starcity article that told me that after heavy testing they removed Skullclamp because it rarely did too much, I didn't believe them. Now, Clamp is only still in my cube because it's a personal favorite, but it still doesn't make the cut a lot of the time.
It's a really, really weird format, to say the least...