How do people plan on including the gold hybrids like Slave of Bolas? There are three of each combination. They look quite good so far, and I am thinking about including one of each trio in a new sub-section. I really like the Twinclaws, Slave of Bolas and Bant Sureblade, so far.
I also love Cascade and hope to play plenty of them!
What about this guy:
Lords of Forgotten Alara*
:4mana::symw::symu: Creature - Spirit
Exalted
Whenever a creature you control attacks alone, you may search your library for an Aura card that can enchant it and put it into play attached to that creature. If you do, shuffle your library afterwards.
I agree with the power creep statement, but Rhox Brute seems a little under the current curve considering we just got Rosheen Meanderer, 4/4 that is easier to play and that has a good ability.
Rhox Brute is a very good limited card though, and 4/5 may have been a little strong for limited at common, IMO.
I think the Cerodon, the Leech and the Bolt are all interesting. The Leech is quite above the curve at 2 mana IMO; I could see that being printed at 1BG not long ago. The R/W drafted from my Cube are often Boros-style blistering aggro decks, but that's no reason not to include a cool card. Lightning Bolt + mini Orim's Chant for 3 seems nice.
I agree perfectly with Topper. I know this card won't hit the big money as far as value is concerned, but I would be stoked to open it in a booster, even more so in draft. I WILL be playing this in my Zombie deck!
As far as Thrax not needing Blue, that is a fair point to make. I understand the difficulties in representing all three colours on every tri card, though, and there are more glaring examples than Thrax, like Rhox War Monk or Jenara. Thraximundar is perhaps flavour-wise not Blue either, hence the general malcontent.
If we get a few cards which make you shrug and wonder where one of the colours went in the printing process, then I'll deal with that. As long as there aren't too many! Thrax should have been R/B, though.
Good choices, I think Grave-Shell Scarab has underperformed for me too in Cube. I love it in my old Golgari deck but it hasn't done the business in the cube!
Nath on the other hand has been pretty good.
I'm not sure about cutting Torrent of Souls though, but I agree Bituminous Blast needs a place.
Miscalcul8ed Risk, if you read my earlier posts then you will see why I believe there is no need to balance each section in of itself, or even keep them separate. Basically it boils down to the fact that one extra card or one less that may be playable in mono- rather than multi-coloured decks, but over the whole Cube, the difference is negligible. Just my two cents as you say! I like your hybrid choices very much though, I agree that Cankerous Thirst is very good and that split cards should be treated in this section (if you keep it apart).
Still the question has not been answered: WHY set yourself 5 hybrids per colour? I have demonstrated that this does not in any way whatsoever benefit your Cube. If you have 5 pet hybrids for a given pair then play them, but still don't say that all the other pairs have to follow suit. I'm gonna go ahead and sig this pretty soon so I don't have to keep reiterating it!
You're saying that the hybrids play a different role entirely. This role is to be played in mono-colour decks. The reason behind including gold cards at all is because they offer either unique or very powerful effects. Simply put, there haven't been enough good hybrids printed that do that.
The logic behind including hybrids with multi (and split) is simple: they ARE multicolour. And as I pointed out, unless you want a totally insanely huge multi/hybrid/split section, you are better off cutting the hybrids to a smaller section, as the weakest of the three groups. If you want to put 5 in then go ahead, but you are massively massing out on on gold cards that are far better IF you limit yourself to five of those as well.
However to restate my main point: if a colour has hybrids that totally blow compared to the gold choices (U/B for a good example, although actually nearly every colour pair in reality) then exercise a little thought, and play less hybrids and more gold cards to strengthen the pair
By the way, some of the hybrids in Evan's cube are complete woof - like Augury Adept? If you play this against an opponent with a pulse, you will see it isn't anywhere near good. Certainly not in a cube as finely honed as Evan's. My cube would have to be 1200 cards before I considered some of those.
Remember I used to do exactly what you are advocating, and pick 5 hybrids for each pair and 6 multi. Until I realised that it doesn't make any sense.
On the other hand, I don't disagree with you that there are 10 playable cards for each pair. I play more than ten (in my admittedly large cube) and am happy with most of my inclusions! However like I said, only about 2-4 of each pair are hybrid because they are usually weaker.
Someone get to finding gold replacements for some of those hybrid cards
I don't even play the demon in my Cube. I would rather have dragon, but I'll stick to my guns and stay with Stuffy Doll. I think the Dragon is better though.
Instant
Destroy all blocking creatures and all blocked creatures.
Seems good in RW, albeit useless on an empty board and isn't card advantage. Extreme quality advantage in any token-heavy build though.
I also love Cascade and hope to play plenty of them!
What about this guy:
Lords of Forgotten Alara*
:4mana::symw::symu: Creature - Spirit
Exalted
Whenever a creature you control attacks alone, you may search your library for an Aura card that can enchant it and put it into play attached to that creature. If you do, shuffle your library afterwards.
4/5
Rhox Brute is a very good limited card though, and 4/5 may have been a little strong for limited at common, IMO.
And Goblin Tutor looks a good card, I want a copy for my Cube.
As far as Thrax not needing Blue, that is a fair point to make. I understand the difficulties in representing all three colours on every tri card, though, and there are more glaring examples than Thrax, like Rhox War Monk or Jenara. Thraximundar is perhaps flavour-wise not Blue either, hence the general malcontent.
If we get a few cards which make you shrug and wonder where one of the colours went in the printing process, then I'll deal with that. As long as there aren't too many! Thrax should have been R/B, though.
Nath on the other hand has been pretty good.
I'm not sure about cutting Torrent of Souls though, but I agree Bituminous Blast needs a place.
Just typical, I wait ages for my duel deck to arrive from the US - and I miss the post and have to trek to the warehouse to pick it up! Darn!
The general consensus is that the White deck is the slightly better one, I take it?
You're saying that the hybrids play a different role entirely. This role is to be played in mono-colour decks. The reason behind including gold cards at all is because they offer either unique or very powerful effects. Simply put, there haven't been enough good hybrids printed that do that.
The logic behind including hybrids with multi (and split) is simple: they ARE multicolour. And as I pointed out, unless you want a totally insanely huge multi/hybrid/split section, you are better off cutting the hybrids to a smaller section, as the weakest of the three groups. If you want to put 5 in then go ahead, but you are massively massing out on on gold cards that are far better IF you limit yourself to five of those as well.
However to restate my main point: if a colour has hybrids that totally blow compared to the gold choices (U/B for a good example, although actually nearly every colour pair in reality) then exercise a little thought, and play less hybrids and more gold cards to strengthen the pair
By the way, some of the hybrids in Evan's cube are complete woof - like Augury Adept? If you play this against an opponent with a pulse, you will see it isn't anywhere near good. Certainly not in a cube as finely honed as Evan's. My cube would have to be 1200 cards before I considered some of those.
Remember I used to do exactly what you are advocating, and pick 5 hybrids for each pair and 6 multi. Until I realised that it doesn't make any sense.
On the other hand, I don't disagree with you that there are 10 playable cards for each pair. I play more than ten (in my admittedly large cube) and am happy with most of my inclusions! However like I said, only about 2-4 of each pair are hybrid because they are usually weaker.
Someone get to finding gold replacements for some of those hybrid cards