So I've dabbled in pretty much every major format short of Vintage and have been a pretty die hard Commander player for a fair few years now and am thinking of trying my hand at cube. I've drafted cube before (normal, unpowered shenanigans and Commander cube), but have never built one myself. I churned through a number of ideas at first. Powered was too expensive, even with proxies. Pauper didn't let me do the things I wanted to do. So, I decided on something along the lines of the MTGO Legacy cube. I want powerful cards and synergy, but without worrying about Mana Crypts and power.
I have a budget, but I'm willing to look into most cards worth including. I can always proxy until it seems like a good time to pick the pricier cards up.
I built it with archetypes in mind. I made lists of the decks I think would be cool to draft and filled cards in, then mashed it all together and did some touch ups. I immediately noticed some cards were missing that really should be in there and did what I could to include them, but some are still on the sidelines.
The archetypes I focused on were:
- U/x control
- U/x tempo
- G/x ramp
- White Weenie
- R/x aggro
- G/B/x Rock
- W/x tokens
- Reanimate/Sneak and Show (cuz I have to include some broken stuff)
Do I hone in too much on those archetypes at the expense of others? Am I missing any huge styles of play? Will this cube offer a diverse enough play experience?
I also tried to keep in mind the basic skeleton recommended to me of: 50 cards of each color, 60 multicolor, and 50 colorless/non-basics. The numbers are obviously off, but I tried to keep it in the ballpark. I don't need a strict adherence to these numbers, but I think keeping close to them is a good idea for the time being. At least, until I get a better handle on balancing the cube.
I want to keep it small right now because of the monetary commitment, the difficulty of managing such a beast for the first time, and because at the moment I don't have a large group of people wanting to cube. 360 isn't a hard cap for me, so if you think the breathing room that pushing it to 450 (even 540 at the most) will make this easier, then I'll look into it.
Any and all help is extremely appreciated. Thanks in advance.
I love it in my Daretti deck alongside Rings of Brighthearth and Crucible of Worlds. If I can get it out with one of those artifacts, I'm getting some really good value and even without them it's worth the tempo loss to keep the lands flowing.
Sunforger. Ravnica is a really cool block and Sunforger is my favorite card from the whole block and possibly all of Magic. It's just delightful how much fear one little artifact can instill in people. One red and one white untapped and I can represent ANYTHING. Counter magic, removal, combat tricks, or divine retribution. Even without additional colors it gets a ton of value from colors that don't often get so much. One of these days I'm gonna end up making a 5-color deck just to have the greatest Sunforger toolbox of all-time.
I'd cut Custodi Squire. I don't like cards that hinge on my opponents choosing how much value I get.
Kaho, Minamo Historian seems like he's just begging to be murderized before you can get much value out of him. And then you're out those tutored instants.
Medomai the Ageless isn't bad by any means, but it doesn't have any real synergy with the rest of the deck.
Rishadan Brigand is another card I don't love because it gives opponents the choice.
You might not wanna replace Prismatic Lens with one of my suggestions, but there are probably better mana rocks to run. Sky Diamond or Marble Diamond, maybe.
Cloudgoat Ranger makes tokens that can make him big and flying. If you can blink him a few times you can start tapping a lot of tokens and make him huge.
Whirler Rogue isn't out yet, but once Origins comes out he's gonna go right in my Brago deck. Looks awesome.
Sea Gate Oracle doesn't draw as efficiently as Mulldrifter but it does let you choose the best of the top two cards of your deck.
Fireshrieker gives Brago two triggers per combat as well as letting him kill faster. Silverblade Paladin does something similar.
Mystic Remora is good in the early game, but with Brago it has some staying power. Mid to late game you can continually flicker it to reset the upkeep cost.
Sphinx of Uthuun costs a lot of mana, but if you can flicker him a couple times it gets ugly.
Evolutionary Leap seems like an attempt at fixing Survival. Not fantastic, but pretty cool. Definitely worth a slot in my old Intent Unexpected Results deck.
I definitely want to try Pupil of the Rings because his first ability seems really powerful, but his second ability seems really weak, and his third and fourth only seem okay. I may be undervaluing those last two abilities because he can give or take away blockers at a moments notice and play politics effectively with them. Five mana is quite a bit for a card that durdles, but I do love my durdly, value decks. Might tempt me into making a Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest deck.
Does the Dragon shtick on Crux of Fate work out well for you? Like ISBP said, you're a bit Wrath-heavy. This or one of the Plague Wind effects could be cut.
Is running both Vengeful Rebirth and Volcanic Vision necessary? They cost an awful lot. Replacing one with a cheaper Regrowth or Noxious Revival lets you keep one of the cool, splashy recursion spells and still have some more efficient options.
Your general is a constant source of card draw, but it costs three each time and you seem to Wrath a lot. Putting some more card draw in the 99 might help you out. Graveborn Muse, Bloodgift Demon, Underworld Connections, and the like.
How has Krosan Tusker worked out for you? I was always a bit disappointed in how he performed for me. Casting him was a feel bad play, cycling him for three mana only to get the land into hand always felt like I could be playing a better spell for ramp or card draw. He did work out better in a more recursion-focused deck, but this doesn't seem to have a graveyard focus.
If you plan on keeping your Wrath count high, Beacon of Unrest could be really good for you.
Other than corner case decks like Oloro "All the draw and lifegain shenanigans just for the sake of it!" decks, I think Mono-Red decks that run lots of looting effects are the only ones that will make much use of the Archive.
Black and Blue already have an abundance of better card draw, Green generally draws in huge bursts like Garruk, Primal Hunter and Shamanic Revelation which probably don't need the help and would rather play more threats anyway, and White probably doesn't have enough draw effects to make good use of this in the first place. If Wizards doesn't abandoned Red's looting then this card will be able to charge up those okay effects that are kind of necessary into something more profitable. It wouldn't be an all-star, but it would help.
And if nothing else, it's definitely getting a test run in my Daretti deck and that's good enough for me lol.
I'm looking to add Tinker in and I want a few more cheap mana rocks as sac fodder. I also support Wildfire in the cube, if that makes any difference.
So I've dabbled in pretty much every major format short of Vintage and have been a pretty die hard Commander player for a fair few years now and am thinking of trying my hand at cube. I've drafted cube before (normal, unpowered shenanigans and Commander cube), but have never built one myself. I churned through a number of ideas at first. Powered was too expensive, even with proxies. Pauper didn't let me do the things I wanted to do. So, I decided on something along the lines of the MTGO Legacy cube. I want powerful cards and synergy, but without worrying about Mana Crypts and power.
I have a budget, but I'm willing to look into most cards worth including. I can always proxy until it seems like a good time to pick the pricier cards up.
Here's my first draft:
http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/34356
I built it with archetypes in mind. I made lists of the decks I think would be cool to draft and filled cards in, then mashed it all together and did some touch ups. I immediately noticed some cards were missing that really should be in there and did what I could to include them, but some are still on the sidelines.
The archetypes I focused on were:
- U/x control
- U/x tempo
- G/x ramp
- White Weenie
- R/x aggro
- G/B/x Rock
- W/x tokens
- Reanimate/Sneak and Show (cuz I have to include some broken stuff)
Do I hone in too much on those archetypes at the expense of others? Am I missing any huge styles of play? Will this cube offer a diverse enough play experience?
I also tried to keep in mind the basic skeleton recommended to me of: 50 cards of each color, 60 multicolor, and 50 colorless/non-basics. The numbers are obviously off, but I tried to keep it in the ballpark. I don't need a strict adherence to these numbers, but I think keeping close to them is a good idea for the time being. At least, until I get a better handle on balancing the cube.
I want to keep it small right now because of the monetary commitment, the difficulty of managing such a beast for the first time, and because at the moment I don't have a large group of people wanting to cube. 360 isn't a hard cap for me, so if you think the breathing room that pushing it to 450 (even 540 at the most) will make this easier, then I'll look into it.
Any and all help is extremely appreciated. Thanks in advance.
TL;DR - Cube n00b needs HELP!!
Counterspell, Arcane Denial, and Dissipate are all really cheap counters I'd run over Clash of Wills.
Grasp of the Hieromancer is a bit low impact.
Talent of the Telepath seems fun, but there's a reasonable change you won't get anything good with it.
Kaho, Minamo Historian seems like he's just begging to be murderized before you can get much value out of him. And then you're out those tutored instants.
Medomai the Ageless isn't bad by any means, but it doesn't have any real synergy with the rest of the deck.
Rishadan Brigand is another card I don't love because it gives opponents the choice.
You might not wanna replace Prismatic Lens with one of my suggestions, but there are probably better mana rocks to run. Sky Diamond or Marble Diamond, maybe.
Cloudgoat Ranger serves a similar role to Urbis Protector.
Whirler Rogue isn't out yet, but once Origins comes out he's gonna go right in my Brago deck. Looks awesome.
Sea Gate Oracle doesn't draw as efficiently as Mulldrifter but it does let you choose the best of the top two cards of your deck.
Fireshrieker gives Brago two triggers per combat as well as letting him kill faster. Silverblade Paladin does something similar.
Mystic Remora is good in the early game, but with Brago it has some staying power. Mid to late game you can continually flicker it to reset the upkeep cost.
Sphinx of Uthuun costs a lot of mana, but if you can flicker him a couple times it gets ugly.
Angel of Finality is graveyard hate you can flicker.
Almost all of those are both under a dollar and good enough to pull weight in my non-budget Brago deck.
Same. Brago appreciates being unblockable. =)
Does the Dragon shtick on Crux of Fate work out well for you? Like ISBP said, you're a bit Wrath-heavy. This or one of the Plague Wind effects could be cut.
Is running both Vengeful Rebirth and Volcanic Vision necessary? They cost an awful lot. Replacing one with a cheaper Regrowth or Noxious Revival lets you keep one of the cool, splashy recursion spells and still have some more efficient options.
Your general is a constant source of card draw, but it costs three each time and you seem to Wrath a lot. Putting some more card draw in the 99 might help you out. Graveborn Muse, Bloodgift Demon, Underworld Connections, and the like.
How has Krosan Tusker worked out for you? I was always a bit disappointed in how he performed for me. Casting him was a feel bad play, cycling him for three mana only to get the land into hand always felt like I could be playing a better spell for ramp or card draw. He did work out better in a more recursion-focused deck, but this doesn't seem to have a graveyard focus.
If you plan on keeping your Wrath count high, Beacon of Unrest could be really good for you.
And are you avoiding black tutors intentionally? Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, Diabolic Tutor, Beseech the Queen, Increasing Ambition, Dark Petition, etc. They come in all shapes, sizes, and prices.
And props to running Xira. She's one of my favorite old school legends. =)
Black and Blue already have an abundance of better card draw, Green generally draws in huge bursts like Garruk, Primal Hunter and Shamanic Revelation which probably don't need the help and would rather play more threats anyway, and White probably doesn't have enough draw effects to make good use of this in the first place. If Wizards doesn't abandoned Red's looting then this card will be able to charge up those okay effects that are kind of necessary into something more profitable. It wouldn't be an all-star, but it would help.
And if nothing else, it's definitely getting a test run in my Daretti deck and that's good enough for me lol.