For my adventure cards, I'd like at least one of the two halves (if not both) to be at least somewhat close to being good enough.
Wraths have a similar problem as one drop aggro dudes. Control needs a certain density of the effect in order to be a viable archetype. For most sizes above 360, there aren't enough 4 mana wraths to fill the need. Thus we need to run a certain number of 5 mana sweepers. For my 540, I want roughly 12 wraths to be available in any given 8 man pod with a high degree of certainty, so that I can support up to 3 control decks. This means I need like 22-25 wrath effects in my cube. I fill this out with stuff from Pyroclasm, all the way up to 5 mana white sweepers like Fumigate and Time Wipe. The 5 mana wraths are all worse than their 4 mana counterparts, but they are do serve the purpose. For cubes running stuff like Fumigate in their white section, this is an extremely attractive alternative. Once control successfully execute's it's gameplan, a giant stalk of broccoli could win the game. You don't need the finisher to be spicy, but you do need it at the right time. This card is best viewed as a Wrath effect with Aftermath as opposed to a split card.
A slower unpowered battlecruiser type cube? ...maybe
Gotta disagree with you on this one. My cube is extremely low to the grown and has very fast games. 5 mana wraths hold up just fine.
I’m all about Witching Well! Didn’t make a thread for it because its a card that exists pretty deep down the cantrip rabbit hole, but I plan to play this at 540. Dig for lands early, refill later. Modern UW control decks play Heiroglyphic Illumination and this card compares very favorably.
It's the best Endless One variant. Trample is especially nice on scalable creatures. Cubeable, but no deck particularly wants / needs it, which relegates this to a filler card that can be played in any deck that doesn't involve Oath of Druids.
There's a pretty wide swath of aggro and midrange decks that would beg to differ
I think this critter is testable as a flexible finisher for control decks in cube. It's the best 2 mana wall of all time in the early game, and once your opponent gets Threshold it transforms into a solid vinisher. Note that the two lines of text are not connected, so if your opponent is on a fat graveyard and you want to attack you can go hellbent and still beat face in the air. 7 cards is a little steep, which is why I don't see this doing much work outside of control, but in those decks I think it looks pretty valuable.
Can be perfect fodder for the tinker deck
It's a Great ramp target, and can be played anywhere along the curve if your trying to make it to 6 mana, but area fealing pressure before you get there, slam this down as a 4/4 or 5/5 to buy yourself some time.
Fetchable with Trinket Mage, Imperial Recruiter, Recruiter of the Guard, Enlightened Tutor, Green Sun's Zenith, Demonic Tutor so not only is it castable in every color, but every color has cards that can fetch it if needed.
it gets passed the removal in the guild section, and can be played at 4 mana to get by most of the burn spells,
can be cast for 5 to either play around wildfire, or can slot right into that deck if needed.
In the artifact deck, it combos really nicely with Metalworker, and casting Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas to dig and find this is a pretty decent play considering you can play it the next turn and turn it into a 10/10
Did I mention that it has trample?
I pretty much run zero of these synergies and I'm still completely stoked for this guy. I run Endless One as a flexible, curve maximizing beater for Aggro/Midrange decks and this is Endless One +++. AFAIAC this is a cube staple
MarlKarx definitely could have been more delicate with his phrasing, but @BlackWaltz... not gonna lie playing as though your opponent does not have interaction seems pretty inept. Maybe I'm not understanding your philosophy here and you could expound a little more?
@Ryansaxe, we are talking apples and oranges here. Aggro is consistently the best deck in the MODO cube because it is only of the only decks that relies on effect density as opposed to synergy payoffs. Also, midrange is undersupported and there is a low amount of available interaction. This is a necessary trade-off that the MODO cube designers have chosen to make. In a cube of any size you have to choose between diversity and consistency. MODO cube runs stuff like Kiki-Twin, storm support, and Daretti in red over redundant burn effects like Volcanic Hammer and loads of one drops. In doing so they support a wide breadth of archetypes. I understand why they do this, it’s fun to draft crazy decks and draw the nuts. I built my cube this way for a long time as well but have recently overhauled my cube to favor consistency over diversity. Gone are Tinker, NO, reanimate, aristocrats, artifact synergies. All of it. I support three archetypes: Aggro, Midrange, Control. My blue section has over 20 cantrips and close to than many counterspells. I run 10 walkers in White and Green, each. I load up on as many 3/3 for 3 mana green stat monsters as I can fit in green. My red section has like 25 burn spells. Aggro. Midrange. Control. Instead of synergy cards (even broken ones) I overload on one drops, mana dorks, sweepers, and interaction. Mid curve threats are almost all chosen because of their stats and ability to apply pressure. In a cube like mine mono color, 10 one drop aggro decks need to be supported in order to compete with midrange decks that are sticking 5 mana walkers consistently on turn 3 and control decks that run 4+ sweepers and 6 variations of Ponder to find them. The danger for me isn’t that I will crowd out other archetypes, but rather that I will undersupport a full 33% of my cube meta.
I’m not knocking the MODO cube or the way you build your cube. I’ve read a lot of your cube content and I respect what you are trying to accomplish. I’m sure my approach seems pretty antithetical to yours
Everything I’ve written in this thread is simply to explain why I do what I do. I’m not trying to tell anyone else they need to follow suit. I personally prefer the bare-knuckle, interaction heavy gameplay that my environment produces over the diverse, synergy driven gameplay of other cubes.
Cards with baked in modality almost always play better than they look. This Guy can come down at any point in the game and help you get the lost mana efficiency out of your hand. Gadwick is no all star, but I’m guessing he’ll be a solid workhorse for me at 540z
Blue and green deal with triple pip mana costs better than the Mardu colors. As far as I'm concerned, Blue Devotion is a trap archetype in which the payoff is worth the deckbuilding constraints. Until we get more support at least.
Wraths have a similar problem as one drop aggro dudes. Control needs a certain density of the effect in order to be a viable archetype. For most sizes above 360, there aren't enough 4 mana wraths to fill the need. Thus we need to run a certain number of 5 mana sweepers. For my 540, I want roughly 12 wraths to be available in any given 8 man pod with a high degree of certainty, so that I can support up to 3 control decks. This means I need like 22-25 wrath effects in my cube. I fill this out with stuff from Pyroclasm, all the way up to 5 mana white sweepers like Fumigate and Time Wipe. The 5 mana wraths are all worse than their 4 mana counterparts, but they are do serve the purpose. For cubes running stuff like Fumigate in their white section, this is an extremely attractive alternative. Once control successfully execute's it's gameplan, a giant stalk of broccoli could win the game. You don't need the finisher to be spicy, but you do need it at the right time. This card is best viewed as a Wrath effect with Aftermath as opposed to a split card.
Gotta disagree with you on this one. My cube is extremely low to the grown and has very fast games. 5 mana wraths hold up just fine.
This looks like one of the better white sweepers for cube. Wrath the Board for 5 mana, get a free finisher later on. Love it.
There's a pretty wide swath of aggro and midrange decks that would beg to differ
I think this critter is testable as a flexible finisher for control decks in cube. It's the best 2 mana wall of all time in the early game, and once your opponent gets Threshold it transforms into a solid vinisher. Note that the two lines of text are not connected, so if your opponent is on a fat graveyard and you want to attack you can go hellbent and still beat face in the air. 7 cards is a little steep, which is why I don't see this doing much work outside of control, but in those decks I think it looks pretty valuable.
I pretty much run zero of these synergies and I'm still completely stoked for this guy. I run Endless One as a flexible, curve maximizing beater for Aggro/Midrange decks and this is Endless One +++. AFAIAC this is a cube staple
I’m not knocking the MODO cube or the way you build your cube. I’ve read a lot of your cube content and I respect what you are trying to accomplish. I’m sure my approach seems pretty antithetical to yours
Everything I’ve written in this thread is simply to explain why I do what I do. I’m not trying to tell anyone else they need to follow suit. I personally prefer the bare-knuckle, interaction heavy gameplay that my environment produces over the diverse, synergy driven gameplay of other cubes.
Thanks and good night