Ouch, another painful choice to make. This pack is stacked with great black stuff, but there's a BG shock land in there, which makes the fetch we have even better - and we really want BB on turn two...
I pick Overgrown Tomb and hope that Liliana or Sorin will wheel. I'd prefer to see Liliana in this case, but either would be awesome.
We've had pretty good results with Thick-skinned Goblin, I'd recommend it. The fact that red is really weak in the 2-drop creature department probably helps his case a lot though.
Twister and Spiral are awesome, give them a try and you'll understand why. If you more or less have control over the match and cast one of these, it's usually game over for your opponent.
I also don't like the cutting of Psychatog or Pouncing Jaguar. Those two should stay for sure, IMO.
In that post, it says OUT: Squee... is this wrong then?
Ah, I see... it got moved to the colorless section as it can be used by any deck that has some discard synergy going.
Psychatog can be great, but it's mainly a late-game control card, so it's kinda narrow. He very well might make it back in later though. The Jaguar didn't really fit in with the other green 1-drops, they are all about ramping. The echo just felt awkward.
I liked almost all the other ones. I'd have kept Crucible and Squee, but the rest of the changes were fine.
Wow, that has to be good news. Squee is still in by the way, maybe he'll convince me yet - I'll give any card a chance if the consensus says it's good.
What wouldn't you like about it in that situation? You can basically Strip your opponent every turn until they have no lands all for no mana or lost card advantage (you do "give up" your land drop, but you already had board advantage, right?). Crucible did take up a slot in your deck--a slot that makes you win.
Cheers,
rant
Well, the deck I mentioned went 0-2 (it was double elimination), and the Crucible was a dead draw once and played only a marginal role another time (just getting me back my land from my Mox Diamond). That was exactly what I was afraid of all along.
Obviously, I know it can be nuts (please give me that much credit), it's the swinginess of a combocard like that I don't like. You guys will probably lynch me for this, but I don't like Squee either, for the same reason.
But anyway, let's stop discussing this particular cut. Nothing you can say will make me like the card. Anyone see any change you did like?
I said I like to use Braids, Smokestack and Mists with my Crucible, and you made the assumption that those are it's only applications. Wasteland, Strip Mine, Dust Bowl, Barbarian Ring, All 10 Fetchlands, All of the Manlands, Armageddon, Balance, Catastrophe, Zuran Orb, Greater Gargadon, Mox Diamond, and simply being used to circumvent some of the discard drawbacks of blue draw spells, masticore pitching, or to aid in the recovery from LD and discard. I rarely ever construct a cube deck that wouldn't benefit from a Crucible in some way.
Sorry, I thought you had a 360 cube.
Anyway, it may be super for you, but I just don't like the card. I ran a deck with Crucible that also sported Strip Mine, Wasteland, Mox Diamond, Harrow and a fetchland, and I still didn't like it taking up a slot in my deck. I guess it's just personal preference - to each his own and all that.
It is basically just a labeling thing since obviously you'll be running all 5 Moxes but the land section actually seems like the most appropriate place for them, they are basically lands during draft and deck construction after all.
If you used 74 of each color and 69 "colorless", it'd be exactly the same, right? That's what I'm saying.
That's true. I guess it's a matter of aesthetics then.
About the Crucible, we don't run Constant Mists and our cube is a lot larger than yours, so it's much harder to get enough cards to make it worthwhile.
Eidolon:
Sorry, we just don't like the slow Ancestral Visions, and Time Warp was just too expensive to be very effective. Trygon Predator was never wow for us, but we'll see how Temporal Spring fares. We don't run pingers, so that's not much of a problem for Infiltrator. But again, we'll see how it does - it's easy to compare what would have happened if it had been a Slayer.
I see no reason to include the moxen in their colored sections. If you're playing all 5, it doesn't matter if you call them White cards or Artifacts. That relabeling tool is only important once you're deciding to run part of a cycle (like using the new manlands as gold cards and only using 2 of 'em) or when you're using 1 black nonbasic land and 4 blue nonbasic lands, and you need to relabel them for balance purposes. Otherwise, the label is just a label, and you may as well include Mox Diamond in your gold section.
The reason is that is makes sense, and it does make a difference because the color sections have not grown, which means that the cube is now smaller. Mox Diamond is of course not gold, it is a fixer - and you can find it in the section 'Fixers'.
First of all, it should be noted that we re-defined our sections and balanced our cube from there, as was discussed in the Paradigm Shift thread. For those who haven't seen it and are too lazy to go have a look:
Basically this is a way of categorizing according to how a card functions instead of for example its card type or its printed color. As a result of this, colored lands now go into the colored sections, there's a new colorless section for everything that can go into any deck (including colorless utility lands), and a fixing section for everything that fixes (including land and artifacts). Lastly, the multi-color section accommodates gold cards, hybrids, split cards, cards with different colored activation costs and cards that need other colors or lands to be playable (a few examples are Momentary Blink, Kird Ape and All Suns' Dawn). There is no longer a need for an artifact of land section since these are card types, and say little about how a card functions.
Moving around cards meant that cuts needed to be made in the color sections in order to balance them. Of course, some cards were also upgraded or swapped for global cube improvement (to lower curves, bolster archetypes, etc). I'll list the changes for each section below, but if you have the time please also have a look at the OP - it will give a much better idea as to what the results of these changes are.
IN-cards in italics are not new to the cube but were moved from a different section due to the re-organization.
The inclusion of Inkfathom Infiltrator in the black section is somewhat of an anomaly. When researching hybrids I realized that this card is actually a strict upgrade of Dauthi Slayer, but there's no room for it in the multi-color section. Running the inferior card because of this seemed wrong, so we decide to simply cut the Slayer for it and stick it in the black section. We'll see later if there's a better solution. We're giving Tombstalker and Bloodghast a test run based on your collective recommendations. And Skirge and Shortfang got cut simply because there were no other cards we were comfortable cutting in their stead.
A few underperformers, some upgrades (Farseek, Kodama's Reach). Krosan Grip gets a chance over Naturalize, on paper the split second looks more relevant than the additional 1. Doubling Season gets a chance to prove itself; it probably has the most synergy of the combo cards we run and it's in the ramp color, so 5 mana doesn't seem unattainable. Note that we forgot that All Suns' Dawn got moved to the multi-color section, so we actually have room for another green card. I'm thinking of giving Omnath, Locus of Mana a test-run.
Form of the Dragon got cut for the more versatile Comet Storm, Kaervek's Torch was upgraded to a Disintegrate, and the (in our opinion) weakest 2-damage burn spell got cut in favor of another 2-drop. I finally caved and my pet card Mana Flare left the cube for the re-introduction of the Encampment (manlands have been really good, and a 2/1 first strike is relevant enough). Since Squee got shipped to the colorless section the Mox could slot into Red without a fuss.
Another few underperformers, Story Circle departs because of my strong dislike of this card (sorry Hicham), and some swaps were made to lower the curve.
The workshop didn't have enough to work with, Crucible is unloved, Aeolipile got cut for being sub-par. This brings the net total down 2 cards, but that doesn't matter much.
The fixer section was expanded to 71 by the dual manlands and Undiscovered Paradise, making its return to the cube after the inclusion of several landfall cards.
This section was balanced 6-4 allied-enemy, the only exception being black-white which has 5 cards. Since 2 of these are hybrids that can easily fit in either of its colors, we didn't think this was a big deal.
Post-update Cube Overview
Colored sections: 75 each
Colorless: 64
Fixers: 71
Multi-color: 60
--------------------------------- TOTAL = 570
Which means the cube has become 10 cards slimmer.
That sums up the major FEB'10 update. Thanks for looking, comments are always welcome - and don't forget to have a look at the OP!
Also, with the current deck there is an outside chance of playing it turn 1. Picking Profane Command here is trying to be too cute by sticking with our 'theme'. There is a bomb in the pack, so let's pick it. For all you people who say 'but we want a card to get to the mid-range', Bitterblossom can also do a wonderful Forcefield impersonation.
Bitterblossom all the way.
-AA
Get cute by sticking with our quote unquote theme? Are you kidding? I don't think I ever resolved Profane Command without instantly winning the game. The command IS a bomb.
Bitterblossom is fantastic, but do not diss the Command.
I pick Overgrown Tomb and hope that Liliana or Sorin will wheel. I'd prefer to see Liliana in this case, but either would be awesome.
Twister and Spiral are awesome, give them a try and you'll understand why. If you more or less have control over the match and cast one of these, it's usually game over for your opponent.
I pick the Hymn.
Ah, I see... it got moved to the colorless section as it can be used by any deck that has some discard synergy going.
Psychatog can be great, but it's mainly a late-game control card, so it's kinda narrow. He very well might make it back in later though. The Jaguar didn't really fit in with the other green 1-drops, they are all about ramping. The echo just felt awkward.
Wow, that has to be good news. Squee is still in by the way, maybe he'll convince me yet - I'll give any card a chance if the consensus says it's good.
Well, the deck I mentioned went 0-2 (it was double elimination), and the Crucible was a dead draw once and played only a marginal role another time (just getting me back my land from my Mox Diamond). That was exactly what I was afraid of all along.
Obviously, I know it can be nuts (please give me that much credit), it's the swinginess of a combocard like that I don't like. You guys will probably lynch me for this, but I don't like Squee either, for the same reason.
But anyway, let's stop discussing this particular cut. Nothing you can say will make me like the card. Anyone see any change you did like?
Sorry, I thought you had a 360 cube.
Anyway, it may be super for you, but I just don't like the card. I ran a deck with Crucible that also sported Strip Mine, Wasteland, Mox Diamond, Harrow and a fetchland, and I still didn't like it taking up a slot in my deck. I guess it's just personal preference - to each his own and all that.
Land section? What is that, pray tell?
That's true. I guess it's a matter of aesthetics then.
About the Crucible, we don't run Constant Mists and our cube is a lot larger than yours, so it's much harder to get enough cards to make it worthwhile.
Eidolon:
Sorry, we just don't like the slow Ancestral Visions, and Time Warp was just too expensive to be very effective. Trygon Predator was never wow for us, but we'll see how Temporal Spring fares. We don't run pingers, so that's not much of a problem for Infiltrator. But again, we'll see how it does - it's easy to compare what would have happened if it had been a Slayer.
The reason is that is makes sense, and it does make a difference because the color sections have not grown, which means that the cube is now smaller. Mox Diamond is of course not gold, it is a fixer - and you can find it in the section 'Fixers'.
First of all, it should be noted that we re-defined our sections and balanced our cube from there, as was discussed in the Paradigm Shift thread. For those who haven't seen it and are too lazy to go have a look:
Moving around cards meant that cuts needed to be made in the color sections in order to balance them. Of course, some cards were also upgraded or swapped for global cube improvement (to lower curves, bolster archetypes, etc). I'll list the changes for each section below, but if you have the time please also have a look at the OP - it will give a much better idea as to what the results of these changes are.
Black
OUT:Dauthi Slayer, Laquatus Champion, Order of the Ebon Hand, Skittering Skirge, Nezumi Shortfang
IN: Inkfathom Infiltrator, Tombstalker, Bloodghast, Mox Jet, Volrath's Stronghold
The inclusion of Inkfathom Infiltrator in the black section is somewhat of an anomaly. When researching hybrids I realized that this card is actually a strict upgrade of Dauthi Slayer, but there's no room for it in the multi-color section. Running the inferior card because of this seemed wrong, so we decide to simply cut the Slayer for it and stick it in the black section. We'll see later if there's a better solution. We're giving Tombstalker and Bloodghast a test run based on your collective recommendations. And Skirge and Shortfang got cut simply because there were no other cards we were comfortable cutting in their stead.
Blue
OUT: Opposition, Equilibrium, Confiscate, Time Warp, Cloud Spirit, Rishadan Airship, Ancestral Vision, Clone
IN: Jace the Mind Sculptor, Sphinx of Jwar Isle, Pestermite, Vesuvan Shapeshifter, Mox Sapphire, Faerie Conclave, Tolarian Academy, Shelldock Isle.
Lots of cuts here, most of them because the cards had underperformed, were just too expensive to see much play, or just because we don't like them.
Green
OUT:Civic Wayfinder, Explosive Vegetation, Naturalize, Channel, Pouncing Jaguar, Kavu Titan, Heartwood Storyteller, Protean Hulk, Tooth and Nail, Cloudthresher.
IN:Farseek, Kodama's Reach, Krosan Grip, Arbor Elf, Doubling Season, Deranged Hermit, Mox Emerald, Gaea's Cradle, Treetop Village, Weatherseed Totem.
A few underperformers, some upgrades (Farseek, Kodama's Reach). Krosan Grip gets a chance over Naturalize, on paper the split second looks more relevant than the additional 1. Doubling Season gets a chance to prove itself; it probably has the most synergy of the combo cards we run and it's in the ramp color, so 5 mana doesn't seem unattainable. Note that we forgot that All Suns' Dawn got moved to the multi-color section, so we actually have room for another green card. I'm thinking of giving Omnath, Locus of Mana a test-run.
Red
OUT: Form of the Dragon, Mana Flare, Kaervek's Torch, Magma Jet, [CARD]Squee, Goblin Nabob[CARD].
IN: Comet Storm, Ghitu Encampment, Disintegrate, Plated Geopede, Mox Ruby.
Form of the Dragon got cut for the more versatile Comet Storm, Kaervek's Torch was upgraded to a Disintegrate, and the (in our opinion) weakest 2-damage burn spell got cut in favor of another 2-drop. I finally caved and my pet card Mana Flare left the cube for the re-introduction of the Encampment (manlands have been really good, and a 2/1 first strike is relevant enough). Since Squee got shipped to the colorless section the Mox could slot into Red without a fuss.
White
OUT: Orim's Chant, Cataclysm, Story Circle, Humility, Magus of the Disk, Stormfront Pegasus, Guardian Seraph, Galepowder Mage.
IN: Eight-and-a-half-tails, Kor Skyfisher, Steppe Lynx, Perimeter Captain, Mox Pearl, Karakas, Kjeldoran Outpost, Kor Haven.
Another few underperformers, Story Circle departs because of my strong dislike of this card (sorry Hicham), and some swaps were made to lower the curve.
Colorless
OUT: Mishra's Workshop, Crucible of Worlds, Aeolipile.
IN: Lodestone Golem
The workshop didn't have enough to work with, Crucible is unloved, Aeolipile got cut for being sub-par. This brings the net total down 2 cards, but that doesn't matter much.
Fixers
IN: Undiscovered Paradise, Creeping Tar Pit, Celestial Collonade, Lavaclaw Reaches, Stirring Wildwood, Raging Ravine.
The fixer section was expanded to 71 by the dual manlands and Undiscovered Paradise, making its return to the cube after the inclusion of several landfall cards.
Multi-color
OUT: Army Ants, Psychatog, Plumeveil, Azorius Guildmage, Glare of Subdual, Trygon Predator.
IN: Recoil, Momentary Blink, Loam Lion, Mortify, Temporal Spring.
This section was balanced 6-4 allied-enemy, the only exception being black-white which has 5 cards. Since 2 of these are hybrids that can easily fit in either of its colors, we didn't think this was a big deal.
Post-update Cube Overview
Colored sections: 75 each
Colorless: 64
Fixers: 71
Multi-color: 60
---------------------------------
TOTAL = 570
Which means the cube has become 10 cards slimmer.
That sums up the major FEB'10 update. Thanks for looking, comments are always welcome - and don't forget to have a look at the OP!
Get cute by sticking with our quote unquote theme? Are you kidding? I don't think I ever resolved Profane Command without instantly winning the game. The command IS a bomb.
Bitterblossom is fantastic, but do not diss the Command.