I'd cut Feldon for this, but I already cut Feldon a while ago. Has he really been that good for you guys? He literally did nothing for about ten drafts before we cut him...
Some context--I removed Wurmcoil Engine from my cube a while back for being too automatic a pick, and too stifling for aggro to fight through. I've been trying Scuttling Doom Engine recently, and it's been fine. Not fantastic, but fine.
Is Soul of New Phyrexia better, though?
(I also try to wait until rotation to buy many of my cards, so I'm only now looking seriously at the M15 cards. Any other suggestions for hidden value gems there?)
Out of curiosity, do you keep a list of smaller versions of your current cube--in other words, if your group wanted to do a classic 8-man 360, do you have a spreadsheet listing the cards you'd remove?
I'm about to update my copy of the Space Cube, and was wondering--what do folks think is the "definitional" powered 360 these days. The cubetutor average is pretty wonky, and now wtwlf is at 540...
I love morph and run as many as possible--heck, it was only this month I finally upgraded Zoetic Cavern into Mutavault. This is a slam dunk in my cube... So happy.
To take wtwlf's Phyrexian Arena thought experiment, I think he and TTF are saying "Phyrexian Arena would be worse if it had three loyalty and could be attacked, all other things being equal." Which is true. Salmo is saying "Phyrexian Arena would be better if it had "if destroyed, gain three life, all other things being equal." Which is also true. This world of odd counterfactuals is confusing!
A quick aside on how I try to weigh the drawback of giving your opponent a choice: Punisher cards are always worse than they would be if the opponent didn't have a choice, clearly. This is why they are vastly undercosted for their effects--Wizards bakes this into their design, and makes Vexing Devil when it would never make a 4/3 for R. But since opponents don't always make the right choice, the value you get from the card is in an ambiguous space between the BCS----WCS poles. And I think that the more complex the card and the more confusing the game state it engenders, the more mistakes your opponent might make, and the closer to the BCS the average value of the card is. If you think of planeswalkers as punisher cards, they're on the complex-misplay-provoking side of the spectrum, so the drawback of giving the opponent a choice is (relatively) mitigated.
In my experience, particularly with newer players or old players recently reintroduced to the game, people very frequently play suboptimally against planeswalkers. They feel like such a threat to folks to leave unmolested that even when my life total is in the red zone, they take a turn to eliminate the 'walker "just in case."
Something about the card type seems to provoke an overreaction, it seems. So yes, bad play--but I've come to count on the virtual lifegain they provide in close matches.
Getting back to the OP's post, cost is a huge issue, though. I started my cube with a box of draft rejects and $50, and played that thing to death, and had a great time. I've slowly ratcheted up the power level over the years with gifts, small purchases, trades, and donations from people who play the cube. But frankly, I probably had 90% of the fun with 10% of the cost with my original iteration. I always tell people just to build something and start drafting it. It's pretty much impossible not to have fun, and tinkering with the balance of the cube is endlessly interesting. And that way, you'll figure out if you and your playgroup actually like playing with powerful cards enough to spend the money, or even print a proxy.
I'm doing my first online rotisserie draft of my cube, and realized that ten of the first sixteen picks could be hit by Disenchant. It is only not maindecked in GW decks with multiple ETB-disenchant effects.
My favorite card is the only Un-card I run in my cube: Booster Tutor. It's absurdly powerful (we flip 14 cards from the undrafted cube box), skill-testing, and dramatic.
Some context--I removed Wurmcoil Engine from my cube a while back for being too automatic a pick, and too stifling for aggro to fight through. I've been trying Scuttling Doom Engine recently, and it's been fine. Not fantastic, but fine.
Is Soul of New Phyrexia better, though?
(I also try to wait until rotation to buy many of my cards, so I'm only now looking seriously at the M15 cards. Any other suggestions for hidden value gems there?)
Also, how about powered 450?
A quick aside on how I try to weigh the drawback of giving your opponent a choice: Punisher cards are always worse than they would be if the opponent didn't have a choice, clearly. This is why they are vastly undercosted for their effects--Wizards bakes this into their design, and makes Vexing Devil when it would never make a 4/3 for R. But since opponents don't always make the right choice, the value you get from the card is in an ambiguous space between the BCS----WCS poles. And I think that the more complex the card and the more confusing the game state it engenders, the more mistakes your opponent might make, and the closer to the BCS the average value of the card is. If you think of planeswalkers as punisher cards, they're on the complex-misplay-provoking side of the spectrum, so the drawback of giving the opponent a choice is (relatively) mitigated.
Sorry for getting so far off topic...
Something about the card type seems to provoke an overreaction, it seems. So yes, bad play--but I've come to count on the virtual lifegain they provide in close matches.
He can shrug dramatically to entirely enclose his head for protection. Obviously.
Oh, and this card is fantastic--I just hope it doesn't fit into any standard or modern deck, and it's not prohibitively expensive.
This is kicking my last WW creature out of my cube, if it's cheap enough in price.