japahn's Cube

[japahn]

japahn's Cube List

http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcurve/4494


History

I've had this cube for around 5 years. It's been played quite a bit and has undergone a lot of changes. It started off as a bunch of good/interesting cards I had from my collection, which meant the power level was all over, and slowly morphed into a more cohesive list. For a while, I had weekly drafts with it and even documented the drafts in a blog, though lately I've played it mostly with my wife, though sometimes we manage to put together 5-6 people.

I have to say that from the first cube draft, running Plague Sliver into Second Thoughts, I've been completely hooked to the format, which brought me and a bunch of friends back to MtG. For more experienced players, I believe it's the best format ever.


Philosophy

This is the core philosophy, and these should guide the discussion.

High power level - Nothing against lower power levels, but this cube wants the appeal of playing historically good cards and powerful interactions. The second format I play the most is regular limited, so I want a contrasting power level.

Interactivity - Though non-interactive fringe decks are interesting to have (burn, mill, combo), the intention is that this is 5-10% of matches. There should be answers to any threat.

Each deck is unique - It's amazing how many different decks with different strategies have been in the history of MtG. Cube should provide a wide variety of decks so that each cube deck feels different and replayability is maximized.

Each game is unique - Cube games are memorable. I maximize the interactions between cards, versatility and unique effects for that. Manabarbs creates so many good stories that it's worth coping with its power.


Current state

This are characteristics that are NOT the core philosophy, so they can and have changed with time, though not lightly.

Singleton - This is a singleton cube, because I find it's more fair to ask people to remember "there is one of each card" than "there is one of each card, except there are 2 of A, B, C, D, 3 of E and F, G and H are squadroned and you can take 3 out of this binder after the draft". Elegance is important, and keeping it closer to a regular draft makes it much easier to get limited players hooked.

Flat power level - I don't run anymore cards that are traditionally considered unbalanced: power, Swords (though I did run Light and Shadow for quite a while), Batterskull, Jitte, Clamp, Show and Tell, Eureka, Wurmcoil, Recurring Nightmare and similar things. Auto picks are stupid, though it's hard to draw the line.

Few planeswalkers - More of a corollary to the previous point, I run few planeswalkers, and only to support archetypes that need it. Although it's improved a lot in the last years, planeswalkers are traditionally very strong, and, in my opinion, so good that they blank other card types in environments that are not blistering fast. Grillo put this in words much better than I can.

540 - I like variety, and I think that's about the highest I can get away with without diluting narrow strategies too much.

Mainly 2 and 3 color decks - For a long time, 2 was viable and 3 was greedy. I've increased the quality of the duals and with the Khans trilands, 3 is now as common as 2. Making monocolored strategies tier 1 is bad for variety and makes the environment too fast. Making 4 or 5 colored strategies tier 1 is also bad for variety, and makes the environment too slow.

Skill intensive - We play Magic for a mental challenge. My cube tries to mitigate luck factors (mana problems, unbeatable cards) and have cards with a wide range of efficiency and uses.


Archetypes

I've tried out strong built-in archetypes for a while and found that putting together decks was too luck dependent, and they also violated "each deck is unique". For these reasons, I stepped back towards mostly good stuff but keeping some of the most natural and least poisonous synergies in

• Graveyard (UBG)
• +1/+1 Counters (WGR)
• Sacrifice (BRG)
• Artifacts (UR)
• Spells matter (UWR)
• Lands (RG)
• Enchantments (WBG)
• Tokens (WR)
• Skies (WU)
• Burn (R) - minor
• Reanimator (UB) - minor, subset for Graveyard
• Blink (WUr) - minor

Spoiler: Original list of archetypes

• Reanimator (BU)
• +1/+1 Counters (GWR) - strong theme
• Sacrifice (RBG)
• ETB (WRG) - strong theme
• Artifacts (UR)
• Spells matter (UWR)
• Burn (R)
• Lands (RG)

However these are just additional options to the traditional aggro/midrange/control/aggro-control. I don't aim to make any colors faster or slower, to support a wider spectrum of decks. Even blue, traditionally control, has lots of tempo cards and evasive beaters. On the other end, red, traditionally a beatdown color, does overload on offensive creatures, has sweepers, and a midrange plan.


Problems

1. I'm satisfied with the variety of decks that are successful running these basic strategies, but I've had trouble balancing that with the synergistic strategies listed above. It seems like they get either unbeatable and warp the format or tier 2.
2. As skill intensive as cube is, I feel like playing a cube match consumes 10x the brain power of a limited match. I get more tired with 3 cube matches than 7 rounds of limited, and while this is alright to me, the complexity is intimidating to newer players, and the fatigue is much worse for them. My cube is extremely non-NWO. What are your opinion on this? Is it a factor for you? How to keep the decisions interesting but have fewer of them? I already avoid cards like Lim-Dul's Vault and Sensei's Divining Top for this reason.
3. WRG contain the strongest synergies (+1/+1 counters and ETB). I haven't been able to spread non-poisonous synergies more evenly into U and B (though with the new Origins cards, UR artifacts has been very promising).
4. The balance between aggro, midrange and control is hard to find. I think everyone struggles with that, but whatever tips you have to measure and deal with it are welcome.

 

[RavebornMuse]

Hey there! Glad to see a new face posting up in the lists section! I'm going to open with some general comments on your core post, and then try to address some thoughts geared towards your list. If I say anything that doesn't interest you, feel free to ignore it.

You state that you consider your philosophy to be geared towards a high power level, which surprises me, because I would consider your format to be actually fairly mid-powered, at best. On a theoretical 10-point scale of power, your cube sits around a 5.0 to me, personally. Note that there's nothing wrong with that - lower power tends to actually be way more fun and promotes more interactivity (which is your second point) - but I just wanted to say that I consider myself to be one of the higher-powered cube designers here, and so our definitions are likely out of sync!

You also state that you're sticking to singleton for "elegance" and to "keep it closer to a regular draft". Note that regular drafts (if you mean booster drafts) are virtually never singleton, and, in fact, rely on a delicate latticework of giving players an abundance of thematic tools at common and uncommon that expect you to pick up duplicates to maximize on the plan they present. While I respect your decision to stay singleton, I would encourage you to interrogate that idea vigorously as you push your development. It's intimidating breaking singleton - I know, I was there once, too! But you come to realize that Magic's own booster draft format is entirely built around the idea that collecting more copies of commons and uncommons can reinforce a theme, and providing plentiful opportunities to bolster little strategies is actually a lot of fun, for you and your drafters. It does prove to be a small "gotcha!" moment if you don't warn your most experienced drafters that the cube is non-singleton - for example, they may think they're in the clear because they've seen their opponent use X removal spell, play their threat, and then lose it to... X removal spell, which they now felt "safe" from. This added tension of "what if they have another copy?" tends to be off-set by the player's own potential to think "I'm glad I got another copy of this card!", as well. You don't really need to give a detailed list; just say "there are multiple copies of some cards in the cube to reinforce particular archetypes; if you want to see the whole list, you can check out this URL and you'll see duplicates highlighted in dark green!", or something to that effect if you really want to be very obvious about it. It's a really good idea, though, to double up on some things. Now, certainly, running 3 copies of Elspeth, Knight-Errant is going to lead to some real soulcrushing drafts, but your format loses nothing by running, say, two Magma Jets, which is an excellent, easy card to double up on, that provides red with some more interesting, complex lines of play than just "tap two mana, use this instant, you take 2/3 damage". Just think about it, and if you want to try the idea, feel free to run it past the rest of us; we're all developing a strong understanding of what can stand to be doubled (or tripled!) up on, and we're here to help.

Flat power level is another tricky point; I like this a lot, but it's hard to achieve. The hardest part about flattening the power level, I think, is in watching your removal suite and your 4+ drops. I think you're more or less on the right track with your picks, but a few of them look a bit suspect compared to other options.

Addressing your typically 2-player draft format and archetype issues: If you're primarily drafting with 1 other player, I would strongly, strongly suggest you cut to no more than 460. 540 is nice; you have tons of cards that can be put into tons of different decks, and that's fun! But the problem that bears out in that is structuring any kind of incentive. If you want your format to require a lot of thought, then you have to craft it mischievously and carefully, laying out, very carefully, a collection of multipurpose tools that get more valuable when played together, and that can tie into more than one strategy. The problem with so many cards is that while, yes, every deck is different, the decks may often lack any formal planning; it's just Player A drafting a good curve of "aggressive-ish" red cards, or "midrange-y" green cards. While this provides diversity in the literal sense, if your drafters aren't actually trying to draft into some kind of strategy, the games will tend to be less about trying to play into a particular plan and more about playing your good cards when you've got the mana and disrupting your opponent's good cards when you've got the mana; the archetypes, being virtually non-existent, will lead to less of the diversity that matters: match diversity. If it's just rock 'em sock 'em green versus red aggro blitz, that's gonna be the same sort of match no matter what token producer or fat 4-drop shows up. A match of G/R +1/+1 counters-matters versus W/U spells-matters midrange-control, on the other hand, will feel very distinct and diverse compared to, say, G/R super-haste/ramp versus W/U aggro-bounce. If you sow wild seeds, what you will get is actually much less elegant or sophisticated than if you carefully plan what you plant in the environ.

Note that this can go poorly if you pick bad themes, which is a common mistake a lot of players make; they want to transfer, literally, some cool constructed deck into their cube. But constructed is not limited. Faerie tribal cards, for example, will just either a) go undrafted, or b) get picked up and put into a very similar deck each time they're played (or c - ran as unpleasant filler, making drafting the cards feel even less exciting due to the associated that-sucked-last-time memories). While faerie tribal is a very fun deck to construct, it bears out plainly bad in virtually any cube format. Well-developed archetypes for cube, on the other hand, are loose and free-ranging and give you little rewards that get bigger the deeper you go; those are fun. To do this, though, you'll need to make some big cuts, because the more variance in your cube, the more archetype support you need, and even then, too high variance will ruin your schemes anyway, as players become frustrated getting cool value-engines (like, say, Xathrid Necromancer) and not enough enablers (in this case, good, cheap humans). I know it's hard to cut back (I went from 600 down to 460, I know that pain!), but honestly, your cube will end up being tons more fun for it for you and your wife if you both are primarily drafting together. You'll have some tough spots, some "ah man, but this is such a neat card!" moments, but if you can cut down, you'll have tons more fun. Note that even at 460, if your draft process sees even 270 cards (Glimpse, 2-person draft mode), that's still only 59% of your cube, which leaves tons of room for variance without making it feel bullshitty.

In response to your problems - issue one is briefly touched upon above. The issue is that, without more focus on archetypes, your decks will be "diverse", but not skill-intensive or strategy-friendly. This will lead to the exact problem you describe: the strategy-centric decks will dominate (because they are building towards a clear plan that can win, which typically always triumphs over generic "well this is a good 4-drop I guess" deckbuilding), or they will be tier 2, because the cards do not come together, or the archetype/strategy does not compete (see: Reanimator deck, typically Tier 1/2, makes Worm Harvest decks, already a bad deck, look unplayably bad). The best way to satisfy this: clean up your archetypes, and think big and wide. Remember, don't be too literal; trying to put every Shaman Tribal card, or every token-making white card, or whatever, into the cube, will lead to the unfun/bad decks; instead, keep an eye towards what sort of deck will actually want the card. Evaluate all your cards that way. Ask yourself: is Abzan Beastmaster doing anything in my cube? Does it tie in well with my walls and high-toughness creatures, or does it rarely get put into decks? Does it need more cards that it works with, or should it come out? (note: I think the Beastmaster can work - it's just an example to get you thinking!)

Problem #2, I think, again, ties into the loose archetype problem. Limited drafts are much easier than cube drafts, because the strategies they support are far less complex, and further, they DO support specific strategies - you really can't even avoid them, most of the time, which is why formats like Innistrad are so revered; the archetypes were packed in really well, and offered a lot of different directions, so you didn't feel constrained by the pool. I think that cutting the size of your cube and focusing your archetypes will lead to more engaging matches. You are likely getting fatigued on matches for the same reason Powered cube drafters get fatigued; just playing goodstuff decks over and over can actually be really tiresome, because your plays don't feel like they matter, and it's hard keeping track of both your deck, which has a very shaky plan at best, and your opponent's plays, which also may not seem to make a whole lot of sense.

#3 - This is a typical problem, because U and B can be pretty unfriendly. I think UR artifacts is generally a Tier 3 strategy, so be careful with it. In general, the key is to look through and see what archetypes blue can contribute to, and what archetypes blue can produce on its own (and do the same with black). Blue has a pretty sick line of bounce, tapdown, and creature-stealing creatures now; using that line-up and promote some cool tempo decks. Blue also has good card selection, enabling any combos you have (which will actually appear more often at a smaller cube size if you reduce). Black is a bit trickier to blend in, but the recursive elements it can provide make it a strong base colour, which also solves the problem of making it pair-friendly. Not to toot my own horn, but if you check out my list, you should see some of the packages I have in U and B that are friendly with the other colours; tap them as you will! Without more specifics to go on, it's hard to make direct recommendations, because I feel pretty strongly that you probably need to cut down your list (if it's mostly for 2-players now) and re-focus some of the archetypes.

#4 - Count. Your. Removal. This is very key to working a balance. I count anything that can deal with a creature for multiple turns; bounce isn't counted in this list unless it's on a body (Venser, Shaper Savant and Remand both go in the main count, for example) or is en masse (see: Cyclonic Rift on Overload). See where it falls on your mana curve for each colour. Does white have too many 1 cmc removal spells? Does white have too many 5 cmc removal spells? Does it have enough boardwipes? Etc. Do this for each colour. Make a note, mentally, of how restrictive it is, and consider how that plays into your plans. KEEP THE CLOSEST EYE ON RED. Many a decent cube is ruined by a red section that has crazy powerful burn, making it the best aggro colour, and the best colour to splash for aggressive decks to use for reach and early removal. Don't let your cube slip into this trap! If red is showing up too often, likely, its removal is too good. Adjust accordingly. Ideally, you want about 15~19% of your cube to be removal, and to balance it well across colours. Keep in mind that, for example, giving Red 7 wraths, white 2 wraths, and black no wraths promotes very specific control relationships and strategies in your cube. Spread your removal out carefully, make sure it's occurring at all the right points, and make sure all the colours you want to let do control have solid control finishers. Personally, I like my removal to be flavourful. White's removal tends to be more conditional/expensive, but it has a lot of efficient board wipes and clean removal. Red has a managed level for how strong its burn is, with some solid X-spell wrath effects. Blue relies on counters and bounce, mostly on creatures (too much bounce can be a bad, bad thing. Be careful). And black has really efficient, cheap removal, because I like that about black. That's just how I chose to manage things; feel free to balance as you see fit.

What else ruins aggro-midrange-control balance? In my opinion, in order...
- Midrange cards are clearly much better
- Aggro cards are boring
- Too few aggro cards
- Removal is absurdly cheap and plentiful
- Removal is absurdly rare and too conditional
There are a million more things that wreck this balance, but these are the first places to look, I think!

If you want some particular card-by-card feedback, it'll have to wait until I have some more free time, as I don't typically like to review such a large list; I can't get a "feel" for what it wants to be doing as easily as a smaller one. But hopefully this is enough to chew on for starters!

 

[japahn]

Oh man, the wall of text D: Thanks very much for taking the time to write all this.

Let me answer a couple of points and get the discussion going.

First, I took a look at your cube, and it is a bit more powered than mine, but I'd say it's close. If you removed your ~15 most powerful cards, I think they'd be on the same power level. I have run a lot of those in the past, but removed them to make the power level flatter. For a 2-player environment playing glimpse draft, having powerful cards is alright, but I dislike what it causes in group drafts. I felt dirty casting Tangle Wire and Wolfir Silverheart, so after a lot of thought I removed them. What cards in my list do you consider low power and can recommend a replacement for? I'm always looking to swap out outperformers for good ones.

About singleton, I should've said instead "Classic Cube Draft Format", meaning [a pool of cards, from which 3 packs of 15 are made, they are drafted, then players build a 40+ card deck adding basic lands]. I don't like breaking singleton because I think cube owners already have a large enough information advantage knowing the list compared to other players that I don't want to add "which cards are duplicated" to that information. I understand some archetypes only get decent when breaking singleton, and I accept I can't seed them successfully.

About normal drafts having duplicates, the distribution of cards is determined and made clear by its rarity. That's fine and keeps people on an even field. But imagine if regular collections had each common at a different amount and that wasn't marked on the card. You'd have to memorize the table to draft optimally. That's why I think singleton is better for people who are not familiar with your cube. I may one day get rid of this restriction, but I don't mind the constraints it creates.

On cube size - I have gone down from ~570 to 450 recently and started feeling a lack of variety, even in 2 player drafts (we see 200 cards each draft in 2 players). It felt like I had to cut a lot of possible archetypes and the ones present felt forced. So I went back to 540 and it felt better.

#2: It's not that I get figuratively fatigued of seeing the same deck. I get literally mentally fatigued of thinking so much, because drafting has too many options, deck building has too many options, and decks are difficult to play well. I am worried that too much complexity is a barrier to newer players that makes them dislike the format. Addressing this without dumbing down the format is hard.

#3: I see you have the recursive aggro theme in black, and a bit of reanimation. To which colors are they tied? What other themes did I miss?

#4: I agree a lot of the balancing HAS to do with removal count and conditions. I have made the conscious decision of favoring 3, 4 and 5 damage burn over 2 for example, to make red less good against aggro and give red aggro more tools against midrange. I'd like to know more about what people do with their removal to balance the macro archetypes.

 

[Quirk]

How's the +1/+1 counter theme been working out for you, by the way? Drafting your cube I think the first pack I opened had a Stalwart Aven next to an Upheaval, which seemed a bit of a power gulf - but looking at your list more generally there's something of a theme going on. Does the synergy provide enough to make up for the lower power of the individual cards?

 

[japahn]

Thanks for taking the time to look at my cube. About the problems you pointed out on the drafts in cube tutor:

• I think the excess of 6-drops was due to me not prioritizing them much and training the cube tutor AI not to, and you prioritizing them. Also, I had just added some of them (to push slow control more) so they the AI was pretty much ignoring those. That said, I dial back a little bit on them.
• There really is a lack of sacrifice fodder (the sacrifice deck is BGR - combinations of two of those should work, too). I was just about to update the cube with some extra fodder, and based your feedback I added even a bit more. Kozilek's Predator, Blisterpod, Emrakul's Hatcher, Carrier Thrall, Ophiomancer, Pawn of Ulamog went in. Please let me know if you know of other good fodder, because I still feel that's not enough.

Still haven't seen anyone break Upheaval because there isn't much ramp, so getting the 9 mana to Upheaval + 3-drop is more of a control finisher option. I'd say 80% of the time it's a reset trigger and 20% a combo finish.

Stalwart Aven is there as filler for skies and counters, but definitely on the lower end of power level. There are many 2/1s and 2/2 in the cube, so a 1/3 blocker is decent, and 2/4 (though a turn late) is great.

As for the counters theme, it was too pushed a few updates ago, it had a lot of nut draws, so I dialed it back a little. Generally you're looking at an aggro midrange with 2-3 colors between W, G and R with a bunch of 2-4 mana creatures that produce counters and some of Elite Scaleguard, Curse of Predation, Volt Charge, Hardened Scales, Cytoplast Root-Kin, Patron of the Valiant, High Sentinels of Arashin, Abzan Falconer as payoff. It's vulnerable to wraths and grindy control decks, but killer against aggro, midrange and slow control.

 

[Quirk]

I did try putting together an Upheaval deck, but as you say, the density of ramp effects is a bit on the low side. Maybe adding some Eldrazi spawn will change that.

I think I was a little unlucky with the sacrifice deck not to pick up Bloodsoaked Champion or Reassembling Skeleton - some of that's just a consequence of themes being diluted over a larger cube I think, it's possible to see a lot of red and black cards that don't contribute so much to the theme, and the bots don't help, as they'll blindly pick up e.g. a Reassembling Skeleton for a deck with no synergy.
However, looking at other fodder: Hordeling Outburst would be pretty good I think, it gives you three bodies for three mana. Rotting Rats has synergy with your reanimation strategy as well as providing two sacrificeable bodies - or for a more aggressive option, I think Jason's running Shambling Remains.
You might want to watch cards that make a lot of bodies on the basis that you're running Opposition and it doesn't take that much to make it into "I win".

To move onto more general comments, there does seem to be a bit of a variance in power level generally - you've got some creatures that would comfortably hold a spot in a powered cube (e.g. Goblin Rabblemaster, Monastery Mentor, Dragonlord Ojutai, Bloodbraid Elf) and some more iffy limited fare (e.g. Shambling Ghoul, Leafcrown Dryad, Thopter Engineer, Peace Strider). I think Skysnare Spider may not be up to the standard of your other sixes, though good green six drops are relatively hard to come by. I'm very much unsure of Ornithopter, Brass Man and Runed Servitor - they turn on Thopter Spy Network, and get pumped by Steel Overseer and Chief of the Foundry, and I guess there's Cranial Plating, but they're so bad even after being pumped once that I very much doubt I'd ever run them. I don't know how viable artifact early drops really are at all, but Chronomaton looks better than Brass Man to me and Gust-Skimmer possibly better than Runed Servitor.

Thopter Assembly might work quite well with your artifact pay-off cards. Five thopters is a lot of thopters.

 

[Quirk]

Oh, also, you might want to watch Sylvan Safekeeper and Titania, Protector of Argoth - that's a pretty filthy combo that isn't getting shut down by anything short of a wrath.

 

[japahn]

Yeah, you shouldn't have to rely on a couple key cards for any archetype - the size of the cube is there to bring variance, and I aim to only include themes that have critical mass for 1 drafter. The latest sets have been really, really good at non-poisonous support. After my update you should be able to draft the sacrifice deck much easier, though I haven't tested yet.

About the suggestions for sacrifice:

• Hordeling Outburst - tempted to run this, the only thing I don't like about it is that the decks that most want it tend to be 3-color or 2 with strong colored symbols (think anthems) and it's 1RR. Also, red 3-drops are tight. So won't put it in for now, but definitely on the wait list.
• Rotting Rats - this has been in and out, because theoretically it's great but for some reason no one picks it. I think people are very averse to discarding their own cards and spending a card on a 1/1s is basically card disadvantage. Good chance to go back in soon though, because it goes so well with sacrifice and is a rare playable [?] black graveyard enabler.
• Shambling Remains - this card is awesome. It's not in because it competes in the most stacked guild for me, and since I already have Rakdos Cackler as pure aggro card there (with the others all tending to aggro), I don't want to commit another slot. Another great suggestion, could go in someday.

I'm aware people think Opposition is broken, and I see how it can be. The thing is, this thing has been in and out of the cube for years (out because no one was drafting it!), and I still haven't seen anyone draft a deck that breaks it consistently. Blue does not synergize well with tokens otherwise, and doesn't have that many creatures, so it's a risky deck, relying on Opposition for synergy. Yes, sometimes it just wins, but as long as it's that inconsistent and requires some building around, that's fine by me. What kind of decks usually break Opposition?

There's definitely some variance in power level. I remove complete outliers, but let me answer why those cards you pointed out are there:

• Goblin Rabblemaster is strong, but fragile (2 toughness is very easy to remove) and blockers deal well with it - especially given it attacks on turn 4. Hasn't been even much above average here. If someone manages to draft a goblin deck that abuses it, that's fine. It's a hard enough deck to draft.
• Monastery Mentor needs to be built around, and in a way that is not easy to do in white. He IS good in the spells deck (WU, WR, WUR), but again, 1 point of toughness, 2 if buffed with one spell, kind of easy to kill. He will take some games when people fling removal at him and it gets Remanded making monks in the process, but this is a lot to go right and aggro-control needs some pushes to be tier 1.
• Dragonlord Ojutai is a real outlier. He's a gold card though, which need to be stronger to make up for the lost flexibility in the draft. Commiting early pays off. He's a great finisher, yes, but not a great stabilizer. It's on the too powerful watchlist, but Kolaghan is way, way higher on that. Dashing it is very, very good.
• Bloodbraid Elf is, again, a gold card, so I'm ok with it being better than most. It's not oppressive though - doesn't stabilize (well, not reliably), it's a 4-mana 2 for 1 which is okay.

What are you saying about "limited fare", this is limited Let me defend their honor:

• Shambling Ghoul is being tested, on the verge of being cut due to being... uninteresting. The format is good for 2/3s though, so this is better than it looks.
• Leafcrown Dryad is a rare proactive 2-drop enchantment that does something by itself. It's also a beater to get Gx aggro critical mass. It's a blocker against the skies deck that I have postulated to be nuts vs green, and those pesky spirit tokens. I just added it, let's see if it lives up to the hype *cough*
• Thopter Engineer goes in the burn deck (the thopter pings, starting on the same turn), control (1/3s are good blockers, modular blockers are better than single blockers, ergo this is better than a 2/4 on defense), artifacts (haste is op, this blocks on the ground while thopters kill), sacrifice and tokens (two bodies). It's an ok card to blink too. I've been quite happy with it.
• Peace Strider was also a new addition. I think you'll be right about this one, though I want to test it.
• Skysnare Spider is one I'm testing. This thing is so crazy in Origins limited, and has some strengths that it's hard to find. First, it eats dragonlords and other fliers, which is really important to green. Second, it does so while keeping pressure. Third, the 6 toughness means it's completely out of range of any single conditional removal spell or conditional board wipe. Fourth, it doesn't have an ETB ability, and I really miss the days when creatures weren't all spells with side-effects "oh look I get a 2/2". If you can protect this thing from Doom Blades, it will take games. That's all theory, I haven't been able to test it yet in cubes.
• Ornithopter is on the verge of being cut, though it's very good with equipment (which are the real Spy Network enablers).
• Brass Man is a 1/3 blocker for 1. This looks really bad, but is so good against aggro. Mostly used as sideboard, but rewarding discrete sideboard picks over cards that will be cut goes well with the skill intensive philosophy. It also double blocks like a boss. Oh, and he's one
• Runed Servitor is also on the verge of being cut. I think your Gust-Skimmer suggestion is great, I'll do that in the next update.

I ran Chronomaton for a long time, and it was really, really bad. There was this one game in which it was the source of inevitability for several turns, and the game became about chumping him... until the guys drew whatever removal and it just died. The biggest problem is that you need a constant investment, and keep it in defense (like Hangarback Walker, except it doesn't get better when it dies - it just dies). Getting it 4/4 to be bounced is the worst feeling of the world. The lack of speed plus the vulnerability to removal made it bad enough that only the artifacts deck was ok with playing it, and I don't like cards that go in one single deck and are even mediocre there.
Thopter Assembly is very interesting - I had completely forgot about this card. It looks vulnerable to removal and slow (play, next turn it bounces, the following turn attack with thopters), but as a colorless control finisher, it could be fine. I don't know if it will be all that great in the artifacts deck, except if it's combined with almighty Thopter Engineer. Which is a flavor win. Ordering.
I'm generally more lenient with artifacts because I run a large artifact section. The reasons: 1. Artifacts can be run in any deck, so they are more likely to have someone interested. This creates more drafting decisions and less 15th picks. 2. My booster building process works well when my artifacts section is 60 cards (colored sections are 72 for perspective). 3. The artifacts deck gets critical mass easily.
Sylvan Safekeeper + Titania really is dirty - though 2 card combos are inconsistent enough in cube that I think I'm ok with that. The combo can be disrupted by trying to kill the Safekeeper and forcing it to sac lands - which Time Walks the combo.
Again, thanks for the comments - I hope I'm not being too stubborn with that. If you have different experiences with any of those cards, I'm curious to hear and try to make sense of why the difference - metas are delicate and subtle. Or I might just have a crush on Brass Man, who knows.

 

[Quirk]

I'm aware people think Opposition is broken, and I see how it can be. The thing is, this thing has been in and out of the cube for years (out because no one was drafting it!), and I still haven't seen anyone draft a deck that breaks it consistently. Blue does not synergize well with tokens otherwise, and doesn't have that many creatures, so it's a risky deck, relying on Opposition for synergy. Yes, sometimes it just wins, but as long as it's that inconsistent and requires some building around, that's fine by me. What kind of decks usually break Opposition?

Adding to a white tokens build is pretty dangerous - you run Lingering Souls, Battle Screech and Secure the Wastes; these would be practically game over with Opposition, and Lingering Souls and Secure the Wastes go into many of the blue cube decks I draft on MTGO. Siege-Gang Commander or Pia and Kiran Nalaar would do a similar job for red. Powering up your green mana dorks can get there too, but I sometimes find it more difficult to draft a creature-heavy UG deck that's powerful when it doesn't draw Opposition (though, if I get Overrun as well... the theme pays off).

Basically, any "tokens" card that is powerful enough to run without token synergies can happily go into a blue deck, and if you have four or five creatures out when it hits the table it's very hard to beat. I have lost with it a bunch myself by compromising power level to draft cards that make more bodies; I think this is incorrect, as you really don't need very many bodies for it to be powerful.

Goblin Rabblemaster is strong, but fragile (2 toughness is very easy to remove) and blockers deal well with it - especially given it attacks on turn 4. Hasn't been even much above average here. If someone manages to draft a goblin deck that abuses it, that's fine. It's a hard enough deck to draft.

Rabblemaster's been my best card in MTGO cube on a number of occasions. If it's not dealt with instantly, it's filthy.

Consider: you keep a hand without a two-drop or a removal spell on the draw. Turn 3 they drop Rabblemaster, ping you for 1. You can drop a perfectly decent three-drop - say, Nighthawk, or Sea Gate Oracle, or Taurean Mauler, or Managorger Hydra. They remove your blocker, hit you for a further 6. You're 7 life down, and even if you draw removal this turn, they're two goblins up. If you drop another blocker, your opponent is swinging for 8 and has three goblins left after trading.

Or - topdeck mode. Clear board and you're both drawing off the top. They play Rabblemaster, you draw land: again, 7 damage.

It's bad in a board stall, but backed with removal, Rabblemaster is serious business, and did a lot of work in Constructed. It goldfishes so fast after landing and leaves tokens behind. The "must attack" clause is an issue and prevents it from being completely busted, but it's a really strong red 3-drop. Spending a Pacifism effect turns it into Goblin Assault.

Monastery Mentor needs to be built around, and in a way that is not easy to do in white. He IS good in the spells deck (WU, WR, WUR), but again, 1 point of toughness, 2 if buffed with one spell, kind of easy to kill. He will take some games when people fling removal at him and it gets Remanded making monks in the process, but this is a lot to go right and aggro-control needs some pushes to be tier 1.

He has 2 toughness and prowess, not 1, it's the tokens it makes that are 1 toughness with prowess. Again, very much a removal check. Have been destroyed by this in Limited games before too. If you don't deal with it very quickly, you're going to be in trouble. There's a reason it sees play in Legacy.

Being removable doesn't mean it will be removed. This was after all what people said about Baneslayer Angel - it "dies to removal". It did, but often people didn't have the removal, and then they just lost. A lot of the other cards I'm digging at are cards that as a control deck I'd be actively happy to see my opponent play; I can ignore them for ages. Take 2 damage from a bear per turn until I outclass your guys/sweep your board? Don't mind if I do. Rabblemaster and Mentor are kill-on-sight in the early game or post sweep.

If you have a lot of board stalls I can see Rabblemaster being worse, but it seems to me Mentor would only get better in that situation.

What are you saying about "limited fare", this is limited

That was toned down; I meant some of these were last picks in their respective draft formats (Runed Servitor, I'm looking at you...)

Leafcrown Dryad is a rare proactive 2-drop enchantment that does something by itself. It's also a beater to get Gx aggro critical mass. It's a blocker against the skies deck that I have postulated to be nuts vs green, and those pesky spirit tokens. I just added it, let's see if it lives up to the hype *cough*

There are a lot of better green beaters than Grizzly Bears, and I don't think reach on a 2-drop does enough for a defensive deck to want it. The enchantment synergy is the single thing I can see going for it - if it can reliably be Bears+draw a card it's very playable, but I think mostly it won't be.

Thopter Engineer goes in the burn deck (the thopter pings, starting on the same turn), control (1/3s are good blockers, modular blockers are better than single blockers, ergo this is better than a 2/4 on defense), artifacts (haste is op, this blocks on the ground while thopters kill), sacrifice and tokens (two bodies). It's an ok card to blink too. I've been quite happy with it.

It goldfishes worse than a hasty Grey Ogre; Burn does not want it . Control might, but it would much rather have Sea Gate Oracle or a removal spell. Artifacts... well, some of the artifact creatures supporting the theme seem on the weak side, hence my concern. Maybe you don't really need the weak ones to make a good deck - and I'll accept a hasty Myr Battlesphere will wreck anyone's day. Sacrifice and tokens would probably be happy with paying a mana less for Krenko's Command or Dragon Fodder.
I don't actually hate this, it's just rather underpowered compared to Rabblemaster and most of your other three drops.

Skysnare Spider is one I'm testing. This thing is so crazy in Origins limited, and has some strengths that it's hard to find. First, it eats dragonlords and other fliers, which is really important to green. Second, it does so while keeping pressure. Third, the 6 toughness means it's completely out of range of any single conditional removal spell or conditional board wipe. Fourth, it doesn't have an ETB ability, and I really miss the days when creatures weren't all spells with side-effects "oh look I get a 2/2". If you can protect this thing from Doom Blades, it will take games. That's all theory, I haven't been able to test it yet in cubes.

Hey, Reprisal is conditional removal. More seriously, though, it feels to me that it's good against red and some black removal, very bad against most white removal and blue bounce, and not really the answer you're looking for against Lingering Souls and Battle Screech. Also it gets chumped all day.
Again, I don't hate it, but it's some way short of your Titans.

Brass Man is a 1/3 blocker for 1. This looks really bad, but is so good against aggro. Mostly used as sideboard, but rewarding discrete sideboard picks over cards that will be cut goes well with the skill intensive philosophy. It also double blocks like a boss. Oh, and he's one

3 toughness is outclassed so fast, though... and it's such a bad top-deck. Sure, it deals with half a Hellspark Elemental, but, for the job it does, compare something like Perimeter Captain or Sidisi's Faithful.

I ran Chronomaton for a long time, and it was really, really bad. There was this one game in which it was the source of inevitability for several turns, and the game became about chumping him... until the guys drew whatever removal and it just died. The biggest problem is that you need a constant investment, and keep it in defense (like Hangarback Walker, except it doesn't get better when it dies - it just dies). Getting it 4/4 to be bounced is the worst feeling of the world. The lack of speed plus the vulnerability to removal made it bad enough that only the artifacts deck was ok with playing it, and I don't like cards that go in one single deck and are even mediocre there.

Right, but nobody's chumping Brass Man, and it swings out of the gate for as much damage as Brass Man does. I get the feel-bads, and it is slow, and I'm not playing it myself. However, your 1/1 with outlast does play well with your +1/+1 counter theme.

Thopter Assembly is very interesting - I had completely forgot about this card. It looks vulnerable to removal and slow (play, next turn it bounces, the following turn attack with thopters), but as a colorless control finisher, it could be fine. I don't know if it will be all that great in the artifacts deck, except if it's combined with almighty Thopter Engineer. Which is a flavor win. Ordering.

I guess I got to the point that you had some kind of lord and 5 2/2 flying thopters and went "that looks like a won game". You're right though, it's pretty slow, though it's a lot of flying power.

Sylvan Safekeeper + Titania really is dirty - though 2 card combos are inconsistent enough in cube that I think I'm ok with that. The combo can be disrupted by trying to kill the Safekeeper and forcing it to sac lands - which Time Walks the combo.

Well, if I drop Safekeeper turn 4, it's another removal check. Do I have a land and Titania? For your removal, you can put off finding out for a turn...

Again, thanks for the comments - I hope I'm not being too stubborn with that. If you have different experiences with any of those cards, I'm curious to hear and try to make sense of why the difference - metas are delicate and subtle. Or I might just have a crush on Brass Man, who knows.

Hey, we all have pet cards. I've got a suspicious-looking Kurkesh, Onakke Ancient in my list right now in the hope that one day I'll get to live the dream with Trading Post...