I like Snuff Out more than Contagion beacause I'd rather lose 4 life than a card and I like it more than Slaughter Pact because it can be totally free of mana. The turn after you cast the Pact is usually not that great.
This looks awesome man. A Ravnica cube is something I've been working on as well, but I'm not nearly as far along as you - so I might just profit off your hard work
One thing: how's the mana-fix for aggro? I worry that karoos, signets, keyrunes, and guildgates are just too slow for aggro decks - this leaves only shocklands, which would be pretty hard to come by in the pool, seeing there's only one of each per guild.
Have you considered tweaking the singleton rule? You could play singleton as printed, which let's you slot two shocklands per guild (old block and gatecrash). Something I've been toying with in my head. I believe the only other reprint that applies besides the shockland cycle is Skyknight Legionnaire and Putrefy. And the guildgates, but I don't think anyone would want to run two of each.
Dandy_Lions;9988446']How often will you get blocked with your red 2 drop?
On topic: I've come to the realization recently that green's problem with aggro isn't really the small creatures (Though I would like more stuff like experiment one so people can stop playing that terrible rootwalla) but the support cards.
Black adds cards like hymn and thoughtseize, red adds burn, white adds geddon and a bunch of other random stuff (anthemns, solid removal, evasion dudes)
Heck, even blue adds bounce and counterspells (And winter-orb esque things).
Green adds...dudes. Bigger dudes sure, maybe more resilient dudes, but they're still just creatures.
What does green bring? (Plow Under, I'll grant you. But that's still narrow. It might not even be in the draft)
I've had sucess with Ice Storm, Bramblecrush, and Creeping Mold. Plus mana dudes who can churn out 3 drops on turn two and then attack later. The other colors don't have that.
But really Green has always been a support color when it comes to Aggro. Its main thing is Midrange.
There are times when I would much rather draft a Vindicate than a B/W painland, so in that case including a gold card over a land has in fact upped the chance of that combination being played. Similarly, I'm sure if the worst gold card in any cube were replaced with the best fixing land available, I would be more likely to play that guild. My point is that balance is NOT numbers matching up. The more flexibility you give to (smart) cube builders, the better job they can do making sections as powerful as possible. Forcing their hand does not make for good balance.
This is the same reason I don't lock my casting costs in stone. Not running as many one drops in blue as in white might upset number balance, but it is good for draft and play balance, which is what I am interested in.
I think when it comes to resource management (lands, and the colors they provide) it's absolutely a numbers game - its the strategic crux of the game in general. Every deck needs to play one land per turn, and every deck needs to have their colors available to them when the player needs it. If you can't play the things you want, when you want, you're already losing the game.
I agree with casting costs, but the philosophy doesn't hold water with land mana-fixers IMO. I'm almost always not going to slot Vindicate into my deck without at least one mana-fixing land in my deck too (B/W or an any-color land).
That proportion often has nothing to do with how often a color pair gets drafted, or the actual balance of a cube. Additionally, there are "gold" lands that are not fixers, so balancing the number of lands in a guild often makes no sense for cubes.
"Nothing to do with" is quite the overstatement. If I'm not getting the lands I need to mana-fix I'm generally not going to the build my deck with that color pair (there are exceptional deck compositions of course).
The colorless lands compete with the colorless spells , the monocolored utility lands compete with the monocolored spells, so why shouldn't the multicolor lands compete with the multicolor spells?
Mana fixers need to be represented proportionally in each guild to give each guild an equal chance in being drafted. If you line them up against spell cards you're upsetting that proportion.
Colorless lands and monocolored lands aren't mana fixers so you can have them compete with spells without compromising deckbuilding ability.
Can you explain why Mirari's Wake is good? It always seemed like a "win-more" card and I don't know what kind of deck would want it (the ramp seems a bit overkill).
Black Vise is part of a small and important package of "reach" cards that Aggro usually needs to seal the game. I can't imagine getting rid of it in even the smallest of lists.
I'm working on a Ravnica themed cube as well (all six sets). My only concern is the top-heavy amount of guild cards, and how that might force people to draft more mana-fixing cards at the expensive of cards you need for your deck. Have you tried drafting an extra pack to address this?
I don't really agree with Ant's assessment of proxies in Cube, because when it comes to Cube the community has just as much a stake in the format's success as WoTC. Cube is a casual format created (and actively maintained by) its community; WoTC is (only incidentally) a provider of the cards.
If WoTC is allowed to capitalize on Cube via MTGO (as they've capitalized on other community-created formats, such as EDH), I think cubers, who only bolster the popularity of Magic anyways, are justified in proxying anything they want in the format they created and helped evolve.
Why is it a joke?
One thing: how's the mana-fix for aggro? I worry that karoos, signets, keyrunes, and guildgates are just too slow for aggro decks - this leaves only shocklands, which would be pretty hard to come by in the pool, seeing there's only one of each per guild.
Have you considered tweaking the singleton rule? You could play singleton as printed, which let's you slot two shocklands per guild (old block and gatecrash). Something I've been toying with in my head. I believe the only other reprint that applies besides the shockland cycle is Skyknight Legionnaire and Putrefy. And the guildgates, but I don't think anyone would want to run two of each.
I've had sucess with Ice Storm, Bramblecrush, and Creeping Mold. Plus mana dudes who can churn out 3 drops on turn two and then attack later. The other colors don't have that.
But really Green has always been a support color when it comes to Aggro. Its main thing is Midrange.
It's still pretty overstated
I think when it comes to resource management (lands, and the colors they provide) it's absolutely a numbers game - its the strategic crux of the game in general. Every deck needs to play one land per turn, and every deck needs to have their colors available to them when the player needs it. If you can't play the things you want, when you want, you're already losing the game.
I agree with casting costs, but the philosophy doesn't hold water with land mana-fixers IMO. I'm almost always not going to slot Vindicate into my deck without at least one mana-fixing land in my deck too (B/W or an any-color land).
"Nothing to do with" is quite the overstatement. If I'm not getting the lands I need to mana-fix I'm generally not going to the build my deck with that color pair (there are exceptional deck compositions of course).
And I'm not talking about non mana-fixing lands.
Mana fixers need to be represented proportionally in each guild to give each guild an equal chance in being drafted. If you line them up against spell cards you're upsetting that proportion.
Colorless lands and monocolored lands aren't mana fixers so you can have them compete with spells without compromising deckbuilding ability.
If so, do you think drafting four packs could be a solution, or does that make it too easy for people to build the deck archetypes they're going for?
If WoTC is allowed to capitalize on Cube via MTGO (as they've capitalized on other community-created formats, such as EDH), I think cubers, who only bolster the popularity of Magic anyways, are justified in proxying anything they want in the format they created and helped evolve.
How many sleeved cards can that hold?