2nd string cube

tibbelsandbitts

tibbelsandbitts

Ive decided on how id like the archtypes to look
Uw blink/ control
Ub reanimator/ control
Br sac aggro
Rg ramp
Gw tokens
Wb aggro (humans subtreme?)
Ur tempo/control
Bg grave recurring effects(sac works here)
Rw soldiers/ token
Gu ramp with blink

This is a jumping off point id like to think these could work together i may be wrong and i will try not to push any archtype too hard.

I know the 1st draft i played ug blink. I had fathom mage played sandsteppe mastadon and drew 6 cards. Felt good
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
Thats good: another step you could take would be to describe in more detail how you want each archetype to look. Thats not essential to do right now, but terms like "control" are really ambigious, and you will ultimately (i assume) want your control decks to feel distinct and fun. Some of that further identity you may have thoughts on right now, but some of it will develope organically from just playing the cube.
 
tibbelsandbitts

tibbelsandbitts

I have updated my cube with some improvements. I still have a lot to do
-I have cards i need to acquire like Preeminent captain.
-ive shaved alot of do nothing cards and added cards that fit better with multiple archtypes.
-ub will work with blink as well.

Any suggestions or criticism about what i have added or removed is welcomed. Thanks for all your help thus far.
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
I will say I've recently tripled up on nest invader and loved it. (Tokens, Ramp, Midrange, Pod, Sacrifice decks all love it)

I feel a bit weird about life/death. Death is okay, but I like that (assuming you want this kind of effect) reanimate and animate dead and their ilk hit both graveyards, and life mostly just kills people out of nowhere (Ironically)
 
tibbelsandbitts

tibbelsandbitts

I have the themes
UW: Blink
UB: Because blue is the color for blinking as my cube currently sits i feel this should be ub blink variant(though a good argument may convince me toward self mill grave shenanigans to go with gb)
BR: Aggressive Sac engine type stuff woot woot(blood artist, outpost siege, grim haruspex)
RG: Ramp into big stuffs(working on finding incentives)
GW: Tokens
WB: Token Sac engine humans sub theme if possible(skirsdag flayer and champ of parish as rewards?)
UR: Control (currently looking for a way to make it stand out)
BG: Grave recursion/ self mill (need to add some better recursion)
RW: Soldiers
GU:Rampy Blink(big guys have etb effects too heres lookin at you pelakka wurm)

Ok so over the next couple days I will be posting what I want to do with each color of my cube one at a time, and laying out what i would like to change and explaining my reasoning.

So here is white right now

OUT


another card i would love to remove is soul of theros I would like a creature good in a uw control deck.

IN


-Champion works well when splashing to other colors like black or red because i have quite alot of humans, while also being a soldier to fit the theme in white
-Arrester is a soldier but also fits well with the bounce theme by keeping a creature locked down if you can keep blinking it
-cenn's enlistment is replacing eyes in the skies because there are not alot of non 1/1 tokens to populate.(also it makes kithkin)
-Militia's pride is more aggressive and wont reward a sit back and watch blood artist deck(also makes kithkin)
-preeminent captain(KITHKIN!) is awesome
-tragis arrogance is better than divine reckoning and makes up for the lack of flashback by hitting artifacts and enchantments(maybe)

cards ive thought of adding but i can't decide on

 
tibbelsandbitts

tibbelsandbitts

My initial thoughts when it comes to blue

OUT


While looking though i felt i still need to iron some things out, but this is what i've got so far

IN


-I wanted to lower the curve and take out cards that didn't work well like stonybrook angler and stitcher geralf
-since at the moment ub isnt a graveyard shenanigans theme thought scour became sleight of hand
-there are alot of token producers and repulse draws a card so i figured echoing truth is the better option for spot bounce
-i wanted to change the counterspells

there were very interesting cards wingcrafter ninja of the deep hour void stalker linessa zephyr mage reef worm that I thought looked good but none fit the themes I have.

Blue no matter what is going to be the hardest color for me. especially when constrained to 50 cards. I feel more needs changed to fit the themes i've laid out, but this is my start
 
Aoret

Aoret

Developer
Just drafted it, there's a lot of fun stuff :) I feel like your curve is still a bit too high. I accidentally ended up in a BG ramp/controlly sorta deck just because I picked a couple of fatties early and then all I saw were more fatties. As a completely arbitrary reference point, I think I run about half the number of five drops that you do.
 
tibbelsandbitts

tibbelsandbitts

Skrap said:
Just drafted it, there's a lot of fun stuff :) I feel like your curve is still a bit too high. I accidentally ended up in a BG ramp/controlly sorta deck just because I picked a couple of fatties early and then all I saw were more fatties. As a completely arbitrary reference point, I think I run about half the number of five drops that you do.
Click to expand...

Thats fair. Im just at that point where i dont know what to cut except soul of theros.
 
tibbelsandbitts

tibbelsandbitts

Skrap said:
Just drafted it, there's a lot of fun stuff :) I feel like your curve is still a bit too high. I accidentally ended up in a BG ramp/controlly sorta deck just because I picked a couple of fatties early and then all I saw were more fatties. As a completely arbitrary reference point, I think I run about half the number of five drops that you do.
Click to expand...

Actually gray merchant could easily go
 
Aoret

Aoret

Developer
Some examples (didn't have time to get through all five colors)
Spectra ward, decree of justice, isleback spawn, dragonlord's prerogative (replace with cheaper instant speed draw), either rune-scarred demon OR baleful force but probably not both.

Like I say, you've picked fun cards that have a lot of play to them for the most part. I was struggling to find cuts too. It may be easier the more you get your color identities figured out. Best suggestion I can give you is to think of it like you only get to include X number of fatties (pick whatever target number you want), and then choose from the ones you're currently running which are the cream of the crop, go best with your themes, etc. That might make it easier to cut down. When I look at each of your inclusions in a vacuum I think to myself "oh! that looks fun to play!" which makes cuts impossible.
 
tibbelsandbitts

tibbelsandbitts

Skrap said:
Some examples (didn't have time to get through all five colors)
Spectra ward, decree of justice, isleback spawn, dragonlord's prerogative (replace with cheaper instant speed draw), either rune-scarred demon OR baleful force but probably not both.

Like I say, you've picked fun cards that have a lot of play to them for the most part. I was struggling to find cuts too. It may be easier the more you get your color identities figured out. Best suggestion I can give you is to think of it like you only get to include X number of fatties (pick whatever target number you want), and then choose from the ones you're currently running which are the cream of the crop, go best with your themes, etc. That might make it easier to cut down. When I look at each of your inclusions in a vacuum I think to myself "oh! that looks fun to play!" which makes cuts impossible.
Click to expand...

I've decided i need to cut these cards.



My quest at this point is to find replacements.
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
I did a few practice drafts and enjoyed them, but I think there is a stratum of good cards that kind of overshadow the second string cards you are trying to get people to draft and experiment with. When you look at the list, there is a core of good, efficent, mid-power level cards, and many of them I would hesitate to label second string. Just glancing across your 1 drop section, for example, stuff like stromkirk noble, gravecrawler, champion of the parish, and experiment one are all very powerful cards. At the same time there is stuff like kamahl, pit fighter, sandsteppe mastadon, bearer of the heavens, and preeminent captain. Its just very easy to go through the draft and ignore that latter class of cards.

I'm not sure which direction you ultimately want to go, but I do think you are at something of a junction point in regards to the cube's identity. Just off of your initial description, it reminded me a little bit of this Frank Lepore article, where he complains about how a class of super efficent creatures constricted what was playable, and how he wished some of the other fun looking cards had a chance to shine.
 
tibbelsandbitts

tibbelsandbitts

Grillo_Parlante said:
I did a few practice drafts and enjoyed them, but I think there is a stratum of good cards that kind of overshadow the second string cards you are trying to get people to draft and experiment with. When you look at the list, there is a core of good, efficent, mid-power level cards, and many of them I would hesitate to label second string. Just glancing across your 1 drop section, for example, stuff like stromkirk noble, gravecrawler, champion of the parish, and experiment one are all very powerful cards. At the same time there is stuff like kamahl, pit fighter, sandsteppe mastadon, bearer of the heavens, and preeminent captain. Its just very easy to go through the draft and ignore that latter class of cards.

I'm not sure which direction you ultimately want to go, but I do think you are at something of a junction point in regards to the cube's identity. Just off of your initial description, it reminded me a little bit of this Frank Lepore article, where he complains about how a class of super efficent creatures constricted what was playable, and how he wished some of the other fun looking cards had a chance to shine.
Click to expand...
I actually just made a decent sized change to my cube and those came out except for champion of the parish.
 
tibbelsandbitts

tibbelsandbitts

Grillo_Parlante said:
I did a few practice drafts and enjoyed them, but I think there is a stratum of good cards that kind of overshadow the second string cards you are trying to get people to draft and experiment with. When you look at the list, there is a core of good, efficent, mid-power level cards, and many of them I would hesitate to label second string. Just glancing across your 1 drop section, for example, stuff like stromkirk noble, gravecrawler, champion of the parish, and experiment one are all very powerful cards. At the same time there is stuff like kamahl, pit fighter, sandsteppe mastadon, bearer of the heavens, and preeminent captain. Its just very easy to go through the draft and ignore that latter class of cards.

I'm not sure which direction you ultimately want to go, but I do think you are at something of a junction point in regards to the cube's identity. Just off of your initial description, it reminded me a little bit of this Frank Lepore article, where he complains about how a class of super efficent creatures constricted what was playable, and how he wished some of the other fun looking cards had a chance to shine.
Click to expand...

That article brought back bad menories of losing to valakut. :( oh sadness.

I want to make a cube environment that can let cards like chandra ablaze, jalira master polymorphist, doomed necromancer and the like feel fun. And not just bad cards. Lookong through i see some cards ive added because of the archetypes I've built that might hurt the overall experience of the cube. So i want to try to fix that.

That said bearer of the heavens is a card that unless reanimated won't see play so it's probably safe to cut him
 
tibbelsandbitts

tibbelsandbitts

So how should i handle my land base. Most of you here have more experience with this than I. Should i proxy the original duels and fetches? So mana is never an issue or should I drop the tri lands and the vivids for the innistrad duels and the other bounce lands?
 
safra

safra

tibbelsandbitts said:
So how should i handle my land base. Most of you here have more experience with this than I. Should i proxy the original duels and fetches? So mana is never an issue or should I drop the tri lands and the vivids for the innistrad duels and the other bounce lands?
Click to expand...

proxy proxy proxy bruh! bad spells and good lands is way better than bad lands and good spells, vis a vis preventing nongames. can't recommend it more.
 
tibbelsandbitts

tibbelsandbitts

Ok. Thank you i will. I was on the fence but the more i thought about it the more i saw lands are just there to make the game playable. The cards should make it interesting
 
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