Changing Skullclamp to not kill 1/xs is a large enough change in how the card plays to the point I don't know if peasant experience really helps evaluate it. There just isn't any similar card to it. In that respect I'd say you're better off asking in a place for custom cards for better responses (this exact topic has had a thread in magic general), even if it's fine to post it here.
In terms of peasant I personally wouldn't play it without some pretty major changes: +1/+0 and draw 1, or upping the equip and cmc for instance. That's mostly coming from my minimal experience with it in fair matchups in traditional cube though, where it can brickwall removal and attacks.
If you want to make it less broken but still broken 3) or +0/+1 probably achieves that, but if you want a more balanced card you would need more major changes (equip and cmc to 2 is an easy one). The design before the printed card (there's a wotc article on it) was 3cmc +1/+2 2 equip for reference.
I'm not really sure a CMC or equip cost increase would effect the card's power that much.
My cube tends to be slower and I don't really see that much of a difference between 1-3 mana things. For example, I only run Lightning Bolt because I like the art on the original one, otherwise I'd play Ghostfire or Barbed Lightning or whatever in its place.
So while I don't see a big deal with overpaying by a mana or two, I also don't see a big deal with underpaying a little bit also. That's what makes Juzam Djinn and Gurmag Angler special.
That article was an interesting read btw, thanks.
I'm going with #3. I decided that I want to separate equipment that buffs creatures and utility equipment like say, Neko-Te.
I'm also thinking about ways to exploit #3 Skullclamp. It incentivizes drafting sac outlets and shunting damage with Banding to the creature holding it. Seems like an interesting build around.
#4 seemed like a nerf at first, but upon further realization if the card can't autokill creatures itself, you'd still be getting a power crept Slagwurm Armor or Accorders Shield.
I guess there is a #5 option, where it's -x/+0. I'll go to that next if #3 is still too silly.
I believe that this is an appropriate place to discuss Skullclamp, so I insist. It's an official card of the appropriate rarity and I'd like to discuss it within the context of a cube.
If you opened up a Skullclamp in a cube (let's say, your own cube) that didn't grant a power increase nor kill x/1's, would you still take it?
Is it just okay at that point? Unplayable? Would it still be a OP?
"Who defines "fixed" and who defines "reasonable"? Those words are subjective, not objective. What you are trying to do is make custom versions of a card - and "custom" is objective. There is a subforum for that."
I do, because it's my cube. I also asked you guys for your thoughts on the four different options I was considering, so you could weigh in on what you think is fixed or reasonable.
Everything concerning cube is custom. Why is it so unreasonable to discuss a fixed version of an otherwise broken staple peasant card here?
I recently purchased a foil skullclamp. Mhmmmm, foil Mirrodin block cards *drooling*.
The way it normally works is too good, so I'm considering sharpie-ing some errata on the inner sleeve. Which of these options seems the most reasonable?
1.) +1/+1. I believe this is how the card was originally intended to be but was changed last minute to have more of a "downside".
3.) The card just doesn't buff your creature at all and only provides the draw 2 on death. Still seems like a viable card, allowing you to trade/chump and start netting cards.
4.) The card actively makes it harder for your creature to die by buffing toughness. Like +0/+3 or something.
Why are you asking for a custom card opinion here? If you aren't going to run the card as printed, you are essentially making a custom card, which is not in the realm of this forum. Are you just trolling again by threatening to sharpie, and therefore destroy the value of, a $38 card? Or do you legit want a more balanced design - if so, go to custom cards, not here. This is the place to discuss the merits of running the card or not, not to redesign it.
1.) I double sleeve all of my cards, and I sharpie the inner sleeve when I do errata. I stated this originally.
2.) It's not a custom card, it's Skullclamp with some errata.
3.) I'm not trolling, I'm legitimately interested in the discussion about a more balanced version of the card.
4.) Last time I drafted my cube, I had to teach a new Magic player about banding and how it worked. And once she understood, she used it to good effect and enjoyed playing her banding deck.
I was also complemented on how good of an idea it was to sharpie off infect from Blighsteel Colossus and replace it with wither. This was by another relatively new player.
Both of these good ideas are things that the denizens of this forum wouldn't like. It's only experienced Magic players who get triggered by having to play with fixed versions of broken cards or Banding creatures or say, play Dark Depths for 30 mana as intended.
So I'm not really sure how I'm supposed to bring this up on here if you guys are going to treat reasonable ideas as a game of, "The floor is lava".
I thought Skullclamp was a Peasant cube staple, or at least one of the "Power 9" or whatever of Peasant. So I figured it would be appropriate to ask about it here.
But of course, Magic players are incapable of nuance. Either you run overpowered nonsense cards, or you don't. Not allowed to do the reasonable thing and just fix the card, right?
I recently purchased a foil skullclamp. Mhmmmm, foil Mirrodin block cards *drooling*.
The way it normally works is too good, so I'm considering sharpie-ing some errata on the inner sleeve. Which of these options seems the most reasonable?
1.) +1/+1. I believe this is how the card was originally intended to be but was changed last minute to have more of a "downside".
3.) The card just doesn't buff your creature at all and only provides the draw 2 on death. Still seems like a viable card, allowing you to trade/chump and start netting cards.
4.) The card actively makes it harder for your creature to die by buffing toughness. Like +0/+3 or something.
So I ended up adding some cards to my cube and the moxes made it back in. Decided to try them out, and they were just as I originally imagined.
They're just okay. Four turns in you draw the one that you found in the draft and now you're at 5 mana instead of 4. It's not really moxes that are busted in cube, it's land -> Mox -> Sol Ring -> Basalt Monolith -> pass the turn that's obnoxious. Without those other pieces they're not much better than Llanowar Elves.
They help storm a little and artifact synergies.
I even had one game where I played one first main phase and it pumped my friend's Wing Shards, lol.
Hmm.. I think I get what you mean. There’s no right way to make a cube, and the drafting mechanic makes it less unbalanced in general.
In making archetypes tho, I figured it’s more interesting to have colours act in a particular way. Sorta like having white as a weenie colour, and blue as a control colour and so on. I’m worried that all drafted decks would end up looking like mid range goodstuff decks.
Yeah, when my cube was still a Pauper cube I made red into Goblin Tribal.
I would purposefully avoid good stuff cards then. No Mulldrifter, no flametongue kavu, no Pack Rat or Sprout Swarm, etc. Go out of your way to play divinations and doom blades and disenchants instead of Mully D or Shriekmaw or Acidic Slime.
I have Splice Onto Arcane and spirits matter as a theme in my cube, for example. So I'm playing worse versions of spells just to have an environment with more synergy in it, or to get cards with better art, or to have a little clunkier, less good stuff environment where games are slower and drafting decisions actually matter.
I'm running Violet Pall over doom blade because it's prettier and I don't care that it costs 5 mana, **** it.
I've drafted good stuff cubes before and there isn't really any decision making involved. You're drafting the same on color cards in ranked power order and always slapping the best 23-24 cards from your pile together.
If your deck really needs removal, do you play Pull Under? Maybe. Do you have any other arcane spells to splice onto it? What's your curve like? Are you ramping to 6 mana anyways?
Those types of decisions don't exist with shriekmaw or doom blade or dismember or other top of the line removal spells.
I loved the UG snow archetype in Modern Horizons (the only one I liked more was UB Ninjas) and have been debating ever since to add it to my peasant cube as my UG pair is a bit directionless at the moment, but the problem was that I needed snow support. So since money isn't a problem for me I've been going back and forth between swapping all basics for Snow or seeding snow-covered islands and forests in one of each 3-4 packs, and was ultimately deciding in favor of the latter since Snow cards are powerful and their suppossed downside is that you have to draft snow basics to make them worth it as oppossed to them being free full value spells. Since Saltmaster has decided to default everything to Snow instead of making people earn their synergies, I guess I can confirm that seeding basics was the good idea.
I disagree, many snow cards aren't that much more powerful than their non-snow counter parts, so treating them as normal spells isn't that big of a deal. Skred is just a 1 mana doom blade, on thin ice is just a 1 mana journey to nowhere, etc.
I mean, either way is fine. I only have a handful of snow cards in my cube so making everything snow by default makes sense.
If one had an entire snow theme or archetype, it wouldn't be unreasonable to seed each pack with a snow land.
I'm always telling others that they shouldn't listen to anyone else and they should build their own cube instead of a consensus driven Nickelback cube. So if you don't like my ideas, feel free to build your cube the way that you want to and seed each pack with a snow land just to spite me or whatever. I'd still draft your cube if we met in person.
Want to trade drafts on cubetutor? I can't read signatures on my Windows Phone, so you'll have to send me a link to your cube.
I run artrolabe, into the north, the snow guildgates from cold snap, mouth of ronom, dark depths (as intended, with no Vampire Hexmage), Gelid Shackles, Cover of Winter, scrying sheets, and On Thin Ice.
I don't have 30-40 of each snow land and while I like the cold snap art, I still prefer other basics.
So I just have, "All basic lands are snow and damage is on the stack" written on one of the long boxes that holds my cube and I try to remember to remind everyone beforehand instead of running actual snow basics.
Plus, everything just being snow by default instead of having to go out of your way to draft it gets under the skin of many Magic players, which is proof that it's a good idea.
@Salt: I have both actually almost evenly. Technically Krosan Tusker, Elder Pine of Jukai, Yavimaya Elder and Sprouting Vines are not ramp since they don't increase your mana but more fixing both colorwise and landdrop wise. If I include these kinds in the count its more land based.
I get that fetching lands and not getting extra land drops per turn isn't strictly ramp per se, but ensuring that you can make land drops consistently sort of is so I count it as ramp.
If you're trying to hard cast Iname as One or some other 6-7+ CMC card, not missing lands drops will get you there faster than missing them.
I don't know what to call it really. I'll play an Orzhov Basilica in a Golgari or Mono Black deck just to "psuedo ramp" a little also.
I guess I'm arguing that ramp isn't strictly getting to 4 mana on turn 2 or what have you, it's more, "Having access to more mana than you normally would".
I have the 15 mana Flying Spaghetti Monster in my cube with the full intention of one actually having to pay 15 mana for Him. Anything that gets you there I view as ramp, lol.
What route do you guys go for green mana ramp? Mana dorks or cards that get you a bunch of extra lands into play?
Have you eschewed green ramp altogether? When my cube was still a Pauper cube I did that and included as many 4 mana 5/5's and 5/4's as I could and it was easily the best deck in my cube. I changed it back to ramp because shoving mono Gurmag Angler is a bit boring.
The only ramp dorks I have are werebear because I like the art on it (Carl Critchlow is my favorite artist) and it's interesting with Threshold and Qurion Ranger. I suppose I have Petalmane Baku too. The rest of the ramp is stuff like Kodama's Reach, Krosan Tusker, Elder Pine of Jukai, Yavimaya Elder, Sakura Tribe Elder, Sprouting Vines, etc. More land based stuff.
Find a few cube lists that you like, and imitate the way they're constructed to build a skeleton. Fill in the missing slots with cards you and you playgroup will enjoy and you're good to go.
Make sure to include enough mana fixing lands and don't include too many gold cards. Cheaper, easier to cast cards should get the nod over more expensive and harder to cast stuff. Most importantly, design a list that the people playing it most often will enjoy playing with. It doesn't do you any good to design a list that nobody enjoys playing.
I have a couple of articles in my sig that may be worth a look.
Cheers, and good luck!
I disagree. Build a cube that you enjoy. What I did was start with someone else's Pauper cube and changed it over time to what I like. That way someone already did all the work for me.
Depending on your color breakdown, you also don't *need* color fixing. When my cube was 360 cards and the colorless/artifact/land section was proportional to colored cards, the most common type of deck was a dual colored deck that was just fine with an 8/9~ split of basics. I drafted a COK Block cube that had zero fixing in it and it ended up being fine, no one really had any issue.
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Comments like this are a gigantic waste of time
- Mods Overall OP, this entire community and everything written about cube construction over the years is a gigantic waste of time. On one hand, this community will tell you how subjective fun is, and on the other tell you how important consensus is and berate you for daring to suggest Tidal Wave.
Fundamentally, the way draft works is inherently fair and has a smoothing effect. Even if something is broken, everyone had equal access to the cards in question. You could shuffle up a bulk box full of random cards and draft from that and end up with a draft environment that was 80% as good as your average cube or retail draft. Everything else is just kind of window dressing, despite what everyone dog piling me for saying this will claim.
You could start with the MTGO Vintage cube. That's a decent cube, start with that and change it to your liking. You could just take that cube and replace most creatures with something on the level of Urza's Avenger and have a sort of old school low powered environment.
Like, the "framework" of the cube could be real powerful like your mana base and spells, and then your creatures could be real low powered. That's an interesting mix, that's what I aim for in my cube. A card like Tinker is busted sure, but if the best thing one could cheat with it was an Obsianus Golem or whatever, it would be fair.
I use cube tutor exclusively. It's a website that functions on my windows phone which is something that gets more rare over time.
The website is fine, I see zero need for its competitors. People say its outdated but that's because they just want a flashier, less functional website because it's 2019, not because there is anything actually wrong with cubetutor. Same reason why the electric can opener exists, not because it actually needs to, but just because people are idiots and like new things even if they're not improvements/actual downgrades.
It's been down for me as well these past few days. I've been able to occasionally get through and log some changes but it's been spotty. Been considering donating to it to become a "member" or whatever it's called.
There's at least a little blame in liking Nickelback
Some of the banding cards are a bit weak as well, but like arcane, there is a very small pool to pull from. You don't need to make brutal cuts to these strategies (or you'll kill the strategy), but I have a hard time seeing Icatian Skirmishers going anywhere.
We put together some low power stuff sometimes and you are right that Icatian Skirmishers don't cut it. And that is in decks that use some of the other Icatian banders from Fallen Empires.
Yeah, the fact that it only conditionally grants the band first strike on attacking really makes it unplayable. Banding is better on defense because you only need one of the blockers to have banding in order to be able to redistribute the combat damage, and if it granted First Strike on defense it would be worth playing.
Some funny interactions I've noticed with Banding:
1.) It's both a counter to and has synergy with Maze of Ith. When your opponent goes to maze your banded creature, you can shunt all the damage to it and it gets prevented. Likewise you can Maze one of the attacking creatures in your own band and take no damage.
It's pretty cool that one of the most powerful cards in the game is countered by one of the weakest, most fair, most reviled keywords in the game, haha.
2.) It has synergy with other obscure combat abilities. Provoke, Bushido, Rampage (if Rampage didn't suck), Flanking, and Lone Sentry/Gorgon Recluse-esque abilities. Also has synergy with protection if you're into that sort of thing.
3.) With 2 1/1's both blocking in a band you can stop a 15/15 trample creature and not take any spillover trample damage. This is because the rules for trample are something like, "when you deal lethal damage to all creatures blocking it, deal the excess to the player" and banding allows you redistribute combat damage and not take lethal on both 1/1's if you don't want to.
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I put a pair of Brothers Yamakazi into my cube as a package deal card, meaning that you get 2 copies of BY by drafting the single card. When you draft it you reveal it and skip your next 2 draft picks unless it's the last card in a pack. You're still allowed to look at the packs you skip.
Up until now, the package deal cards in my cube haven't been "real cards", mostly just junk like Ornithopter, Shield Sphere, Tormod's Crypt, the artifact lands, Urza's Bauble, or lands like Tron or 6post, etc. Stuff that isn't really all that good individually (like say, fountain of youth or bone saw) or can't really be drafted normally (like Tron or Posts) but may be worth playing if you got it packaged with other cards.
My package deal cards are:
Ornithopter
Shield Sphere
Phyrexian Walker
Bone Saw
Tormod's Crypt
Fountain of Youth
3 of each UrzaTron land + Glasses of Urza + Urza's Chalice + Urza's Hot Tub + Urza's Engine
3 Cloudposts & 3 Glimmerposts
The one with Zuran Orb hasn't come up in a draft yet, but the other cards see play. Tron takes up a bunch of deck slots and makes drafting fixing necessary unless you're playing mono colored and also is harder to assemble without what it normally has in constructed to aid it like Expedition Map, albeit Hot Tub helps.
Hypothetically the zero mana artifact packages could also be used in storm. Hasn't been tried yet but seems okay if you get enough payoffs. The zero mana creatures and cards like Zuran Orb would also allow you to sit there and prolong games until you found your storm pieces.
Post is a bit better in this regard in that it only takes up 6 slots and gains you life. It's definitely the better of the two, however on average you only see about 3 of the lands in a normal game so while it's good it's not really breaking anything.
So if I have "real cards" in a package deal I want there to be a downside associated with it. Is that enough if a downside? Not enough? I made sure that it doesn't screw you if it's the last pick.
I'm also thinking about how to add a package deal of 4 copies of S.N.O.T.. Idk, is S.N.O.T. even good lol? I have trouble evaluating it because you're opening yourself up to getting two-fered. The floor is that you just get 4 1/1's in your draft pool with only 1 pick.
What are some thoughts on the Owling Mine combo in cube?
I have a bunch of "Wisdom" cards in my cube and the, "each player draws a card" cards have synergy with those and the 2-3 mill cards I have in my cube. Since some of the kill cards are artifacts like Ebony Owl Netsuke, they'd also synergize with Mycosynth Golem and Golem Foundry and whatnot.
Plus, they're symmetrical effects, which is something that's neat.
At first glance they seem like parasitic niche cards, but there are a lot of neat synergies.
I'm not really sure a CMC or equip cost increase would effect the card's power that much.
My cube tends to be slower and I don't really see that much of a difference between 1-3 mana things. For example, I only run Lightning Bolt because I like the art on the original one, otherwise I'd play Ghostfire or Barbed Lightning or whatever in its place.
So while I don't see a big deal with overpaying by a mana or two, I also don't see a big deal with underpaying a little bit also. That's what makes Juzam Djinn and Gurmag Angler special.
That article was an interesting read btw, thanks.
I'm going with #3. I decided that I want to separate equipment that buffs creatures and utility equipment like say, Neko-Te.
I'm also thinking about ways to exploit #3 Skullclamp. It incentivizes drafting sac outlets and shunting damage with Banding to the creature holding it. Seems like an interesting build around.
#4 seemed like a nerf at first, but upon further realization if the card can't autokill creatures itself, you'd still be getting a power crept Slagwurm Armor or Accorders Shield.
I guess there is a #5 option, where it's -x/+0. I'll go to that next if #3 is still too silly.
If you opened up a Skullclamp in a cube (let's say, your own cube) that didn't grant a power increase nor kill x/1's, would you still take it?
Is it just okay at that point? Unplayable? Would it still be a OP?
I do, because it's my cube. I also asked you guys for your thoughts on the four different options I was considering, so you could weigh in on what you think is fixed or reasonable.
Everything concerning cube is custom. Why is it so unreasonable to discuss a fixed version of an otherwise broken staple peasant card here?
I haven't invented a wholly new card.
1.) I double sleeve all of my cards, and I sharpie the inner sleeve when I do errata. I stated this originally.
2.) It's not a custom card, it's Skullclamp with some errata.
3.) I'm not trolling, I'm legitimately interested in the discussion about a more balanced version of the card.
4.) Last time I drafted my cube, I had to teach a new Magic player about banding and how it worked. And once she understood, she used it to good effect and enjoyed playing her banding deck.
I was also complemented on how good of an idea it was to sharpie off infect from Blighsteel Colossus and replace it with wither. This was by another relatively new player.
Both of these good ideas are things that the denizens of this forum wouldn't like. It's only experienced Magic players who get triggered by having to play with fixed versions of broken cards or Banding creatures or say, play Dark Depths for 30 mana as intended.
So I'm not really sure how I'm supposed to bring this up on here if you guys are going to treat reasonable ideas as a game of, "The floor is lava".
I thought Skullclamp was a Peasant cube staple, or at least one of the "Power 9" or whatever of Peasant. So I figured it would be appropriate to ask about it here.
But of course, Magic players are incapable of nuance. Either you run overpowered nonsense cards, or you don't. Not allowed to do the reasonable thing and just fix the card, right?
The way it normally works is too good, so I'm considering sharpie-ing some errata on the inner sleeve. Which of these options seems the most reasonable?
1.) +1/+1. I believe this is how the card was originally intended to be but was changed last minute to have more of a "downside".
2.) +1/+0. Comparable to other "Utility Bone Saws" like Specter's Shroud and Sylvok Lifestaff.
3.) The card just doesn't buff your creature at all and only provides the draw 2 on death. Still seems like a viable card, allowing you to trade/chump and start netting cards.
4.) The card actively makes it harder for your creature to die by buffing toughness. Like +0/+3 or something.
They're just okay. Four turns in you draw the one that you found in the draft and now you're at 5 mana instead of 4. It's not really moxes that are busted in cube, it's land -> Mox -> Sol Ring -> Basalt Monolith -> pass the turn that's obnoxious. Without those other pieces they're not much better than Llanowar Elves.
They help storm a little and artifact synergies.
I even had one game where I played one first main phase and it pumped my friend's Wing Shards, lol.
Yeah, when my cube was still a Pauper cube I made red into Goblin Tribal.
I would purposefully avoid good stuff cards then. No Mulldrifter, no flametongue kavu, no Pack Rat or Sprout Swarm, etc. Go out of your way to play divinations and doom blades and disenchants instead of Mully D or Shriekmaw or Acidic Slime.
I have Splice Onto Arcane and spirits matter as a theme in my cube, for example. So I'm playing worse versions of spells just to have an environment with more synergy in it, or to get cards with better art, or to have a little clunkier, less good stuff environment where games are slower and drafting decisions actually matter.
I'm running Violet Pall over doom blade because it's prettier and I don't care that it costs 5 mana, **** it.
I've drafted good stuff cubes before and there isn't really any decision making involved. You're drafting the same on color cards in ranked power order and always slapping the best 23-24 cards from your pile together.
If your deck really needs removal, do you play Pull Under? Maybe. Do you have any other arcane spells to splice onto it? What's your curve like? Are you ramping to 6 mana anyways?
Those types of decisions don't exist with shriekmaw or doom blade or dismember or other top of the line removal spells.
I disagree, many snow cards aren't that much more powerful than their non-snow counter parts, so treating them as normal spells isn't that big of a deal. Skred is just a 1 mana doom blade, on thin ice is just a 1 mana journey to nowhere, etc.
I mean, either way is fine. I only have a handful of snow cards in my cube so making everything snow by default makes sense.
If one had an entire snow theme or archetype, it wouldn't be unreasonable to seed each pack with a snow land.
I'm always telling others that they shouldn't listen to anyone else and they should build their own cube instead of a consensus driven Nickelback cube. So if you don't like my ideas, feel free to build your cube the way that you want to and seed each pack with a snow land just to spite me or whatever. I'd still draft your cube if we met in person.
Want to trade drafts on cubetutor? I can't read signatures on my Windows Phone, so you'll have to send me a link to your cube.
I don't have 30-40 of each snow land and while I like the cold snap art, I still prefer other basics.
So I just have, "All basic lands are snow and damage is on the stack" written on one of the long boxes that holds my cube and I try to remember to remind everyone beforehand instead of running actual snow basics.
Plus, everything just being snow by default instead of having to go out of your way to draft it gets under the skin of many Magic players, which is proof that it's a good idea.
I get that fetching lands and not getting extra land drops per turn isn't strictly ramp per se, but ensuring that you can make land drops consistently sort of is so I count it as ramp.
If you're trying to hard cast Iname as One or some other 6-7+ CMC card, not missing lands drops will get you there faster than missing them.
I don't know what to call it really. I'll play an Orzhov Basilica in a Golgari or Mono Black deck just to "psuedo ramp" a little also.
I guess I'm arguing that ramp isn't strictly getting to 4 mana on turn 2 or what have you, it's more, "Having access to more mana than you normally would".
I have the 15 mana Flying Spaghetti Monster in my cube with the full intention of one actually having to pay 15 mana for Him. Anything that gets you there I view as ramp, lol.
Have you eschewed green ramp altogether? When my cube was still a Pauper cube I did that and included as many 4 mana 5/5's and 5/4's as I could and it was easily the best deck in my cube. I changed it back to ramp because shoving mono Gurmag Angler is a bit boring.
The only ramp dorks I have are werebear because I like the art on it (Carl Critchlow is my favorite artist) and it's interesting with Threshold and Qurion Ranger. I suppose I have Petalmane Baku too. The rest of the ramp is stuff like Kodama's Reach, Krosan Tusker, Elder Pine of Jukai, Yavimaya Elder, Sakura Tribe Elder, Sprouting Vines, etc. More land based stuff.
I disagree. Build a cube that you enjoy. What I did was start with someone else's Pauper cube and changed it over time to what I like. That way someone already did all the work for me.
Depending on your color breakdown, you also don't *need* color fixing. When my cube was 360 cards and the colorless/artifact/land section was proportional to colored cards, the most common type of deck was a dual colored deck that was just fine with an 8/9~ split of basics. I drafted a COK Block cube that had zero fixing in it and it ended up being fine, no one really had any issue.
___________________________
Comments like this are a gigantic waste of time
- Mods
Overall OP, this entire community and everything written about cube construction over the years is a gigantic waste of time. On one hand, this community will tell you how subjective fun is, and on the other tell you how important consensus is and berate you for daring to suggest Tidal Wave.
Fundamentally, the way draft works is inherently fair and has a smoothing effect. Even if something is broken, everyone had equal access to the cards in question. You could shuffle up a bulk box full of random cards and draft from that and end up with a draft environment that was 80% as good as your average cube or retail draft. Everything else is just kind of window dressing, despite what everyone dog piling me for saying this will claim.
You could start with the MTGO Vintage cube. That's a decent cube, start with that and change it to your liking. You could just take that cube and replace most creatures with something on the level of Urza's Avenger and have a sort of old school low powered environment.
Like, the "framework" of the cube could be real powerful like your mana base and spells, and then your creatures could be real low powered. That's an interesting mix, that's what I aim for in my cube. A card like Tinker is busted sure, but if the best thing one could cheat with it was an Obsianus Golem or whatever, it would be fair.
Seems like an improvement, haha. I love Banding.
The website is fine, I see zero need for its competitors. People say its outdated but that's because they just want a flashier, less functional website because it's 2019, not because there is anything actually wrong with cubetutor. Same reason why the electric can opener exists, not because it actually needs to, but just because people are idiots and like new things even if they're not improvements/actual downgrades.
It's been down for me as well these past few days. I've been able to occasionally get through and log some changes but it's been spotty. Been considering donating to it to become a "member" or whatever it's called.
Yeah, the fact that it only conditionally grants the band first strike on attacking really makes it unplayable. Banding is better on defense because you only need one of the blockers to have banding in order to be able to redistribute the combat damage, and if it granted First Strike on defense it would be worth playing.
Some funny interactions I've noticed with Banding:
1.) It's both a counter to and has synergy with Maze of Ith. When your opponent goes to maze your banded creature, you can shunt all the damage to it and it gets prevented. Likewise you can Maze one of the attacking creatures in your own band and take no damage.
It's pretty cool that one of the most powerful cards in the game is countered by one of the weakest, most fair, most reviled keywords in the game, haha.
2.) It has synergy with other obscure combat abilities. Provoke, Bushido, Rampage (if Rampage didn't suck), Flanking, and Lone Sentry/Gorgon Recluse-esque abilities. Also has synergy with protection if you're into that sort of thing.
3.) With 2 1/1's both blocking in a band you can stop a 15/15 trample creature and not take any spillover trample damage. This is because the rules for trample are something like, "when you deal lethal damage to all creatures blocking it, deal the excess to the player" and banding allows you redistribute combat damage and not take lethal on both 1/1's if you don't want to.
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I put a pair of Brothers Yamakazi into my cube as a package deal card, meaning that you get 2 copies of BY by drafting the single card. When you draft it you reveal it and skip your next 2 draft picks unless it's the last card in a pack. You're still allowed to look at the packs you skip.
Up until now, the package deal cards in my cube haven't been "real cards", mostly just junk like Ornithopter, Shield Sphere, Tormod's Crypt, the artifact lands, Urza's Bauble, or lands like Tron or 6post, etc. Stuff that isn't really all that good individually (like say, fountain of youth or bone saw) or can't really be drafted normally (like Tron or Posts) but may be worth playing if you got it packaged with other cards.
My package deal cards are:
Ornithopter
Shield Sphere
Phyrexian Walker
Bone Saw
Tormod's Crypt
Fountain of Youth
Claws of Gix
Jeweled Amulet
Zuran Orb
Urza's Bauble
Mishra's Bauble
Spellbook
One of each of the 6 artifact lands
3 of each UrzaTron land + Glasses of Urza + Urza's Chalice + Urza's Hot Tub + Urza's Engine
3 Cloudposts & 3 Glimmerposts
The one with Zuran Orb hasn't come up in a draft yet, but the other cards see play. Tron takes up a bunch of deck slots and makes drafting fixing necessary unless you're playing mono colored and also is harder to assemble without what it normally has in constructed to aid it like Expedition Map, albeit Hot Tub helps.
Hypothetically the zero mana artifact packages could also be used in storm. Hasn't been tried yet but seems okay if you get enough payoffs. The zero mana creatures and cards like Zuran Orb would also allow you to sit there and prolong games until you found your storm pieces.
Post is a bit better in this regard in that it only takes up 6 slots and gains you life. It's definitely the better of the two, however on average you only see about 3 of the lands in a normal game so while it's good it's not really breaking anything.
So if I have "real cards" in a package deal I want there to be a downside associated with it. Is that enough if a downside? Not enough? I made sure that it doesn't screw you if it's the last pick.
I'm also thinking about how to add a package deal of 4 copies of S.N.O.T.. Idk, is S.N.O.T. even good lol? I have trouble evaluating it because you're opening yourself up to getting two-fered. The floor is that you just get 4 1/1's in your draft pool with only 1 pick.
Maybe skip the 3 next picks?
I have a bunch of "Wisdom" cards in my cube and the, "each player draws a card" cards have synergy with those and the 2-3 mill cards I have in my cube. Since some of the kill cards are artifacts like Ebony Owl Netsuke, they'd also synergize with Mycosynth Golem and Golem Foundry and whatnot.
Plus, they're symmetrical effects, which is something that's neat.
At first glance they seem like parasitic niche cards, but there are a lot of neat synergies.