MTG Salvation

Saw more action with Acolyte last night. She was really strong in a rakdos aggro deck and did serious work every time she hit the field.

Looking forward to reading about your draft method.

I've decided to test this guy out. I'm unable to ignore a 2 mana evasive Rabblemaster.

I got a few games in with Mu Yanling over the weekend. I was piloting a U/W tempo list and she was quite good for me. Not only does she defend herself by removing power form your opponent's creatures, but she allows for more aggressive attacks by worsening their blockers. She felt a lot like Serra, the Benevolent in terms of gameplay and I think Mu is pretty close to Serra in power. Big fan so far.

Hey MTGS cube community. I've been participating in these forums for the better part of a decade and have had fruitful and meaningful conversations with many of you during this time. My cube design has been highly influenced by the example and input of users here, like many of us my initial cube build was almost a carbon copy of wtwlf123's (at the time) 450 cube, thought I kept mine unpowered. I've since upped my size to 540 and become more exploratory and experimental in my inclusions.

Cube is my single favorite way to experience MtG and, like many of you, I have spent more time over the years theorizing, tinkering with, and trying to optimize my cube then actually playing it. Some of us here have the luxury of regular playgroups or even online drafts but I don't have the time to play that often or a playgroup large enough to fill out a full pod, except on rare occasions. Usually I'm playing cube with one or three other players, and at best I get to cube once a month. Over the past couple years of drafting my cube I've become dissatisfied with some elements of my design:

1) Power Differential
I've always excluded the P9 from my cube as well as other fast mana and crazy cards like Library of Alexandria, but I've included cards like Tinker, Natural Order, and Channel. As mega-fatties have gotten better over the years decks built around these effects were far and away the most powerful strategy in my environment. As an example, in a recent cube draft my opponent had crafted a fairly ideal Selesnya midrange deck, with mana rocks and a perfect curve. It folded to my Tinker/Reanimator deck every game. So much so that it felt like I was playing solitaire.It wasn't that fun. I've come to believe that some of these cheat effects are too far above the power curve to exist in an unpowered cube without unbalancing the environement.

2) Over Saturation of "Archetype" Cards
My cube, like many here, had evolved into what I've thought of as a rich palate of diverse and interesting archetypes that are more niche than the main theatres of Aggro/Midrange/Control. Tokens matter, spells matter, aristocrats, Wildfire/Upheaval, humans tribal, ect. These decks were powerful and a lot of fun when they came together but the hit rate was not as high as I'd like. If you can pull a Purphuros and a Secure the Wastes in pack one, great, but if you see them in pack three they are more than likely dead picks. If you grabbed a bunch of mana rocks hoping to go Wildfire/Upheaval but never saw these key pieces in the draft you ended up playing a bad control or ramp deck. Many of these more narrow archetypes sounded more fun in theory then they were in practice for my and my group.

3) Diluted Green - Lack of Midrange
Green had pretty much become a support color in my cube. Be it reanimator support, ramp support, aggro support, or combo support. It was rare that a base green deck was able to perform. This is because I was trying to push green in directions that were not in line with the color's strengths. What is green good at? Smashing face with beefy and hard to kill creatures, duh. In other words, midrange. I realized when looking through my green section that the vast majority of my three and four cost creatures were utility guys or archetype support. Ramunap Excavator, Oracle of Mul Daya, and Yavimaya Elder are cool cards, but they can't hold the front against aggro or put a clock on control decks. Green midrange was pretty much non-existent in my environment and, as a result, the overall ability of midrange to win games in my cube suffered. Green is the best color for midrange. Green is to midrange what blue is to control.

4) Not Enough Removal
Often times decks from my cube weren't able to find enough removal in draft to function optimally. Control decks were trying to hack it with one or two Wraths, as opposed to 3-5, and aggro decks often didn't have enough ways to clear blockers. I've noticed a general aversion to running too much removal in the broader cube community and that redundant removal effects can lead to "boring" gameplay. I've found the opposite to be true in my cube experience. Creature stalemates or getting stonewalled by a 4/4 because you can't kill it is pretty boring IMHO. Interaction is not.

5) Sacred Cows
"Sacred Cow" is a hot button phrase that seems designed to inflame a response from people that hold opposing viewpoints, and that's not what I'm trying to do. In my cube there were a lot of holdovers from yesteryear that I believe have been outclassed long since, but I hadn't cut them yet. Cards like Master of the Wild Hunt, Oracle of Mul Daya, Primeval Titan, Cultivate/Kodama's Reach Spectral Procession, Aetherling, Ratchet Bomb, Muldrifter, Pack Rat , or Baneslayer Angel. Mostly I was just rolling with conventional cube wisdom by keeping these in and hadn't really done much critical analysis of my own or ever considered them candidates for the chopping block. Some of them were fine in archetype decks but lackluster in more general builds. Other's were just inefficient.

Before I get into the specific changes I made in my cube, I need to give credit to Usman, SirFunchalot, buildingadeck, and Zolthux who were instrumental helping me identify under-performers and replacements. In the cube community we all stand on the shoulders of other's analysis and these guys have done loads of testing and analysis. Check out SirFunchalot's Discord server https://discord.gg/m4cuEdr for some excellent cube conversation and analysis.

THE CHANGES:
I wont go over every card as I've made over 150 changes, but I'll try and sketch out the general outline and identify some particularly noteworthy cards.

-Cards that only work or are at their ceiling only in specific niche archetypes got cut. Gone are specific token/aristocrats support cards. Gone is the artifact.dec. Purphuros, God of the Forge, Goblin Bombardment, Life from the Loam, Squee, Goblin Nabob, Reveillark ect.

-The top end of my cheat effects were too strong for the rest of my unpowered environment and got cut. This includes Tinker, Natural Order, Channel, Animate Dead, and Reanimate. I wanted to keep combo as a viable archetype so I added some tier 2 support across all five colors like Volrath's Shapeshifter in blue, Breath of Life and Karmic Guide in white, Champion of Rhonas in green, and Quicksilver Amulet/Thran Temporal Gateway in colorless. A turn 3-4 Griselbrand will still happen and still win games, but it will be a bit harder to make it happen and it won't be as oppressive or consistent.

-I drastically cut back on the amount and quality of my colorless ramp. No more Talismans or Signets. I want to protect green's identity as the color that ramps and green now represents a full two-thirds of the ramp effects in my cube. I did include 10-11 mana rocks as control needs some amount of ramp, but they typically come into play tapped and don't fix multiple colors. Cutting back on ramp severely reduced the viability of Wildfire/Upheaval decks, so those cards had to go.

-I cut all green aggro support and many of the flimsier mid-curve green utility creatures. Instead I added aggressively costed and/or hard to kill creatures like Wolfir Avenger, Troll Ascetic, Honored Hydra, Call of the Herd, and Beast Attack.

-Increased the amount of cantrips in blue and other colors (where possible). Cantrips are essential to contro's game plan and make literally any deck that can cast them run more smoothly. Every respectable blue one drop cantrip (a la Sleight of Hand and Opt) as well as several two CMC blue cantrips like Telling Time and Shimmer of Possibility. Black got a couple cheap draw spells in Night's Whisper and Ransack the Lab, and green even got some action with Winding Way and Oath of Nissa. Even tier two cheap draw effects are good enough.

-Increased the amount of interaction across the board. White got more O-rings and cheap removal, blue got more counters, black got more Doom Blade variants, and red got more burn.

-Added a few more wrath effects like Hollowed Burial and Anger of the God's to bolster control.

-I threw caution to the wind with regard to planeswalker caps. My white section went from 5 to 9 walkers, blue from 4 to 8, black (poor black) only has 4 good ones so no change there, red went from 4 to 6 and green went from 4 to 8. I also tossed in a bunch of multicolor walkers. Previously I had only considered walkers in competition with other walkers (i.e. not including Gideon Blackblade because I already had a 3 cmc Gideon) but I started looking at walkers more broadly. Walkers add a great deal of strategic depth to gameplay and I'd be happy to see every deck come to the table with 3+ walkers. Of particular note here is the inclusion of multiple Ajani's. Most Ajani walkers serve as repeatable anthems that can help aggro in the late game or speed up the clock of a midrange deck which is particularly helpful against control. We have a great deal more PW removal then we used to and creatures have also gotten more efficient which both serve to keep walkers in check.

-Reduced the overall curve of my cube. Cutting all the mana rocks reduced the viability of casting 8+ mana spells so top end finishers that can't be cheated into play easily like Ugin, the Spirit Dragon had to go. Cutting Ugin for Trusty Machete felt super weird

So to sum it all up, I cut a bunch of narrow cards and underperformers, added a bunch of removal and cheap card advantage, nearly doubled my planeswalker count, and slashed my curve. Cube is a lot of things to a lot of people. Some people like their cubes to be a collection of the most powerful cards ever printed and prioritize that over balance. Some people like to to have intricate archetypes with powerful synergy cards. My goal is pretty simple, I just want to have the tightest and most balanced draft and gameplay experience I can. Powerful cards are great and synergy is a built in part of the game but in my cube I want gameplay to reign king. My choices reflect my own particular environment and small playgroup and certainly wont be right for everyone. I hope at the very least this post raises some questions and helps you think critically about your own cube and how to make it the best it can possibly be for you and your playgroup.

Here is a link to my updated list. http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/3765

Check it out and let me know what you think! Any cards seem wildly out of place? Anything I'm not including that I absolutely should be?

@simpygdog, we aren't going anywhere! MTGS was purchased and will continue indefinitely. There is also a new site in the works that sounds super promising. The cube community will live on!

At the very least, cantrip drake makes blue Wall of Omens feel more likely I'm tempted too, but only one toughness is kind of a bummer.

I may be a tad early on this, but we have all of the mythics and rares and 75% of the uncommons so I'm going to go ahead and get this ball rolling. Below are the cards I'll be testing.

White:
-Winds of Abandon: Spot removal/sweeper are two sweet modes to have on one card. The downside is real but I think this has a decent chance to beat out Declaration in Stone.
-Serra The Benevolent: Serra Angel+ for 4 mana is crazy efficient. Not sure what I'll be cutting but this Walker is going to have her chance to shine in my cube.
-Giver of Runes: Not sure she'll earn a long term slot but "step-mom" seems easily good enough to try.

Blue:
-Urza, Lord High Artificer: Big fat duh. Either The Antiquities War or Whirler Rogue will be benched to give Urza a shot.
-Mist-Syndicate Naga: I'm higher on this card than most, but I adore blue tempo and this card perfectly embodies the blue tempo plan. Maybe I'm wrong about it. We'll see!

Black:
-Yawgmoth, Thran Physician: This guy does so much and I can't wait to see him in action. Aristocrats, tokens, and Recurring Nightmare decks weep for joy.
-Plague Engineer: I think this card is going to be a solid workhorse. Excited to try it out.

Red:
-Shenanigans: Based on the high evaluations from some users here I'm going to try this out over Release the Gremlins.
-Seasoned Pyromancer: Testing over Pia Nalaar and I think he'll do well.

Green:
-Deep Forest Hermit: I don't care for two functional copies of the same green 5 drop so I'll be slotting this in over good ol' Deranged Hermit.
-Hexdrinker: I think this stands to be one of the strongest green creatures in cube. Wooo!

Colorless:
-All five enemy Talismans will be coming in along with the original allied Talismans.
-Sword of Truth and Justice: Probably replacing Sword of War and Peace for a trial run. I think it's great but I could also see it being one of the weaker swords.
-Sword of Sinew and Steel: Cutting a non-sword artifact so I'll have 6 x/y swords. I think this one is going to be pretty strong in cube.

Lands:
-Prismatic Vista: The 11th fetch! This card rules.
-All 5 enemy "Horizon Lands" will be replacing the enemy colored pain lands I currently run. My 5 cycles will be: OG Duals/Shocks/Fetches/Manlands/Horizon Lands with Cycling Duals in the color combinations that don't have Horizon lands available.

Gold:
Wrenn and Six: I suspect this card is going to be very good in every format that can play it. Cube will be no exception.
Nature's Chant: Replacing Disenchant.

Here are a few cards I'm on the fence about:
Ranger Captain of Eos: There are a lot of good one drops this guy can get but he does seem a bit safe. Likely a pass.
Goblin Engineer: The more I think about this card, the more I like it, but I'm not sure the effect is needed in my cube. Still uncertain.
Echo of Eons: If I ever try out that Narset/Leovold package I'll probably try this too. It's probably good enough on it's own either way but I don't like a Time Spiral that leaves you tapped out.
Goblin Oriflame: I like this card but whether or not I test it depends on space I can create in my red section. TBD.
Soul Herder: I know it can't crack Azorious purely on power level, but I love the idea of a signpost for blink and this card is synergizes with like 1/3 of the creatures in my cube.

That's 25 cards that I'm definitely testing with a couple more likely to find there way in as well. I expect the lands and Talismans in particular to be huge quality of life improvements that will impact every draft. This is easily the best cube set of all time!

Wow this card is pretty sweet. Stiff competition is stiff, but if you want to try out a blinky blinky archetype card this is likely... the best one for cube? I'm seriously considering giving this a chance. It doesn't have as much raw power as some other Azorius options but it does exactly what I want my gold cards to do: support and reward archetype and synergy based drafting. I'm halfway towards talking myself into trying this out.

This may end up being too inefficient, but I think it is at least worth discussing. Into the Roil has been a solid cube performer for a long time and we are willing to pay a 1U kicker to draw an extra card. Is being able to give all of your instants and sorceries a 2U kicker worth trying?

Quote from Spike Rogue »

I'm a pretty godawful singer, but singing is something you can't always avoid here since noraebang (karaoke rooms) are all the rage here, and sometimes at work dinners they'll break out a karaoke machine and every teacher has to take a turn. As long as they keep asking me, I'll keep murdering Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A." for them.

This is incredible and you are now obligated to catch this on video and share here.

I would rather have a card in my deck that can hit all the targets even if it does cost two mana instead of one.

I think it has a lot to do with the size of your drafting group. The colorless section is small enough, and there are few enough fixing cards, that I wouldn't include it unless you get all/most of your cube drafted at a time. Some people make 540 to a varied experience more than having 12 friends. In that case colorless is not worth it.

On the other hand Glimpse drafting (as Wtwlf and others have devised) has been a great way to get smaller archetypes together.

Too much is made of facedown creatures' ambiguity, imo. Most of these cards are fine even when your opponent knows what they are.

Ambiguity is important for many morphs. It's true that some of them are good enough even if your opponent knows 100% what it is. A lot of them aren't. But it is a simple fact that they all get better when your opponent doesn't know what they are at any given time.

Take Stratus Dancer - arguably this is one of the worst ones if your opp knows what it is. So what are they going to do? Hold their spell and wait to draw into something else to bait the morph? Seems like he did his job just fine then.

Wait, what sort of logic is that? It's 'one of the worst ones' if your opponent knows what it is and yet it's preventing them from casting a spell? That's fine. Having them know it's Stratus Dancer is fine; having them think it's a Dancer but not sure is always better, because that is less information that the opponent has. I'm still happy with Dancer as my only Morph if need be, but playing bad Magic doesn't help to evaluate anything. Having my opponent treat my other morphs as though they might be a Dancer is a bonus.

And that's not even touching on the fact that morphs are just plain more fun when you don't know what's coming.

Again, stating that some Morph cards are OK even when fully telegraphed is not the revolutionary thinking some seem to think it is. Everybody has known that for years, and Exalted Angel has been fine on its own for many groups. Dancer is another one of these, but both of these cards are indisputably, objectively better when ambiguity is factored in.

Quote from wtwlf123 »

The second toughness doesn't matter much when it has to be blocked by 2 creatures, and flying is a better form of evasion ...especially with all the additional token support the cube has gotten. So I think that this card and the Interloper are at least even (if not edged towards the flying creature) unless you're boosting up multiple other warriors. And Interloper isn't a card that really interests me. This card just seems really subpar by cube standards.

Not to belabor the point but tokens are precisely why I like a second point of toughness on a two drop. The interloper dies to a lingering souls token. This guy can block and kill a token. And don't get me started on how good dividable burn has become as I keep pushing aggro more. My group is starting to feel red is a little too good (when it isn't overdrafted). I am trying to encourage more orzhov aggro.

And no question, subpar, but until my black two slot is filled with 6-8 cards on the level of Dark Confidant, Blood Ghast and Pack Rat, I will keep tinkering.

Quote from noshadowkick »

Oops, sorry about that, Salmo. As I think more about this card I wonder if I was initially too harsh. I bet Surrak swings for 5 hasty power 75% of the time you cast him, and midrange/ramp decks that run 5-7 drops go into beast mode with him on the field. I don't support green agro, but I do support "fast midrange" with cards like Experiment One and Wolfbitten Captive, and I feel like Surrak would be really strong in that deck.

Compared to Vengevine, he's +1/+1, almost always hasty, and has an ability that is much easier activate. I only cut Vengevine a few months ago and I would argue that Surrak is better.

I was probably too harsh in the OP.

First, no problem, I'm just joking/being an ass.

Second, I agree. Typically 1 or 2 of green's other creatures will trigger this. The from-the-GY ability of vengevine is relevant, but for me at least it was rare he came out of there and I think I'd prefer the extra P/T on that type of creature. Plus giving all your following creatures haste on a pretty consistent basis seems really strong;.

I think I beat you by a minute but yeah, I kinda agree. Though 5 power on a 4 drop is huge, this guy is probably better if you support green aggro? I don't know, this has been the hardest one for me to evaluate.

MODS IF YOU SEE THIS BEFORE YOU SEE THE OTHER THREAD FEEL FREE TO DELETE MINE

It's Arc-Blightning!

I think this card is WAY better than people are giving it credit for. Posts like this:

Quote from dschumm »

For 6 mana I want Elpeth

Makes me think you don't understand how to evaluate morph cards or mana investment over multiple turns. This isn't 6 mana any more than Student of Warfare is garbage because a WWW 3/3 first strike is unplayable. Man, Firebolt sure is a really bad Pyrotechnics, huh.

Quote from Asenion »

I don't know why they broke the cycle for this. It should have cost 5 like the others, it wouldn't have been too op.

They didn't break the cycle for this. The black one costs 3 to morph too.

..........

This hits 50+ creature cards in my cube. Plus cards that have their power modified by other cards too. If I can flip it, I've killed a 4+ power creature, traded with another creature and gained 3 life at the very least. If my opponent knows I have a Dragonslayer (or is afraid that this is what it could be) they may need to sandbag important big creatures until they can deal with the morph. That has a huge impact on the game, and can prevent your opponent from playing big threats. And if they do play a bigger guy, you can blast it and get a 3-power lifelinker. This card is actually really solid.

Mileage varies for everyone of course, but this is exactly the sort of card I want in cube. It encourages build-arounds, it slots (if quirkily) into a number of different archetypes, it forces good decision making, and the power level is often high but variable. We love it at ~375, and have no plans to take it out.