MDT Unpowered Cube (450)

Fulcrum

Fulcrum

I drafted these 6 decks.

RG Wildfire










Jeskai Control










UW Control









GB Stax











Bant Upheaval











GW Aggro










Some Notes
  • Narcolepsy, Wall of Forest, Insidious Will, Gild, and Revive all seem out of place power level wise.
  • Mana Fixing on a whole felt pretty scarce and favored control/ midrange. This made me extremely hesitant to run cards like Hymn to Tourach and Strangleroot Geist. Additionally this made Boros Reckoner and Nightveil Specter feel unplayable.
  • I enjoyed the presence of the Big Mana Decks. Wildifre and Upheaval always feel really unique.
  • I think the presence of signets and other mana rocks will warp the format. This is neither good or bad but just is. They're necessary for the big mana decks and help control and midrange decks play out faster. It will probably help to design aggressive decks around this fact.
  • This may be just how I drafted but I would have liked more 1 drops in almost all of my decks.
  • Ponder, Dig Through Time, and friends will probably relegate things like Cathartic Reunion and Tormenting Voice to only being worth playing in reanimator decks. They'll see play in other decks but will probably feel bad or outclassed. Harmonize will probably feel lackluster a lot of the time. This is neither good or bad but just is.
 
MDT12

MDT12

Thanks a lot for the draft! How is it that I cannot see these drafts in my Cubetutor "decks" list btw?
Also, I noticed you guys see some Inovations (spell pierce, armageddon, wrath of god, slaughter pact, dark ritual, pithing needle (masterpiece tho)). However, in my list they are definitely from other sets and not the Masterpiece/Invocation versions because they are @$#!% difficult to read.

As to your notes:
* Narcolepsy, Wall of Frost, Insidious will, Gild are all replaced (had the cards incoming already). Gild was in there as a way to power down the removal, but removing Gild is probably just better. Revive will be replaced by Ramunap Excavator next week.
* The mana fixing in my IRL cube is a bit different. I run the utility lands, fetches and two cycles of pure dual lands (basically Guildgates with the text "comes into play tapped" removed). After the draft, people have access to 3x Evolving Wilds as well, which helps with the fixing (though not for aggro) and also with cards like ]The gitrog monster and Knight of the reliquary. However, for my cube to work on cubetutor, and not have all the OP fixing, I went for a middle-of the road representation.
* Glad you like the ramp/big mana decks! I personally love this archetype as well. I've removed two mana rocks from the list though (Sphere of the suns and Thought vessel), but should be enought to support the big mana decks.
* I have added Student of warfare and Kytheon, hero of Akros to my white list, as well as Goblin welder (hope this guys works in my cube), Zurgo Bellstriker and Grim Lavamancer and replaced Expedition Envoy, Frenzied Goblin and Goblin Bushwhacker. Bit of an upgrade more than an expansion of my 1 drops though.
* I added Cathartic Reunion basically as a way to feed BR Reanimator and to give GR/RW a way to cycle their hand. However, I can see that it is a bit lackluster, and replaced it with another red wincon in Kari Zev's Expertise.
* I've added some different late game cards such as Torrential Gearhulk and Avenger of Zendikar to further enable a spells matter theme (Gearhulk) and landfall/lands matter theme (Avenger).

Hope these changes bring the powerlevel a bit up in the cube. One card I added that I'm a bit sceptical about in terms of interactivity is Opposition. Do you guys think this card fits in my cube power level wise?
Also, I saw a card from Hour of Devestation that I think I like, but I'm not sure of whether it does enough in cube. I'm talking about Mirage Mirror. Let me know what you guys think!
 
MDT12

MDT12

I've made a huge amount of changes to my cube, and increased the powerlevel on average a bit further. I will write an extensive report of my changes, and how they affect the archetypes and colors, tomorrow.

Do you think that my power band is narrow enough as it is now, and where do you guys see the largest differences in power level?

Also, I usually don't draft with 8 people. Most of the times we are with 4, sometimes 6 but not more. Is it worth it to reduce my cube to 405 to make sure the archetypes become better visible during the draft?
To make sure we go through a larger portion of the cube (link below), I want to give all my drafters 6 packs of 12 cards, where we burn the last 4 of each so everyone ends up with 48 cards and if we are with 4 drafters we go through 280 of 443 cards (weird number, I know, but I'm still looking to reduce/fill the cube to make a more sensible number).

http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/82465
 
MDT12

MDT12

WARNING: Wall of Text incoming! Here is the update I mentioned above.

INTRODUCTION
Quite a big update of my cube. Had a couple of drafts last weeks and had a blast playing cube again. Was the first time drafting with the 2nd coming of my cube but it was generally very well received. However, in short, it felt like the cube could use more "spicy cards". To my drafters and myself, the cube felt really fair and aggro was pretty strong in general, though some very nice variety of decks were drafted. We had a three color (WBR) Stax deck win 3-0 one evening as well, which was fun to see. However, ramp and midrange fair decks (with the exception of a particularly stacked RG tempo deck) seemed to struggle a bit, as Uw/Ub control and Rx/Wx aggro decks were pretty strong.

Consequently, my idea was to spice up the cube a bit with some combo and build around cards that are generally run in more powerful cubes. I haven't been playing MtG for a long time (only 2,5-3 years at most) so I haven't played in a standard with all of the broken cards from the eternal formats. Though, Looter Scooter and Saheeli deserve a honorable mention here I guess. The rest of my playgroup also doesn't play a lot of cards from legacy/vintage and we mostly played casual so far.

However, these old powerful cards got me very excited and I feel my cube's power level is pretty close to the level where these cards can work so I decided I'd give it a go and pull the trigger on them. Though I always want to keep in mind that any particular strategy should always have its counters. The main cards where I see that this can be problematic are Tinker and Show and Tell, even though I don't include the major bad guys for this such as the Eldrazi lords, Wurmcoil Engine, Batterskull or the most degenerate pieces of fast mana such as Mana Crypt and the like. I already run a Splinter Twin but without Kiki-Jiki as I would feel that the archetype would be too powerful in comparison to other strategies.

CHANGES
So the main roleplayers that I decided to add with the latest batch of updates are:
Tinker
Show and Tell
Bribery
Vendilion Clique
Cryptic Command
Griselbrand
Bitterblossom
Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
Tanglewire
Fauna Shaman
Natural Order
Vengevine
Master of the Wild Hunt
Selvala's Stampede
Goblin Welder
Darett, Scrap Savant
Thundermaw Hellkite
Sundering Titan
Memory Jar
Vedalken Shackles
Baneslayer Angel

STRATEGY
So, in short blue and green have gotten the most love with some powerful archetypes to make the colors a bit more interesting. Blue felt to me like a very generic "Draw, Go" counter and draw play enabling color, while green was only about ramp and general good stuff creatures.

White
Well, basically white felt like it was good anyway. Aggro is supported decently, it can go wide for tokens and stax (Opposition), there are midrange/blink strategies possible and it has some nice finishers. Baneslayer Angel was put in for Angel of Sanctions but I think I like that card better than Karmic Guide or Cloudgoat Ranger so I'm a bit conflicted on my white 5-drops. Any experiences with Angel of Sanctions?

Blue
I want to try out if Tinker can be fair enough, because I have increased the artifact and general "non-creature permanent" hate quite a bit with additions of Seal of Cleansing, Release the Gremlins, Manglehorn and not to mention the other usual suspects such as Disenchant and the green/white O-ring effects. Show and Tell is obviously insanely powerful if you build your deck around it, which makes it quite a nice payoff card. As aforementioned, I don't run the extremest of all cards such as Emrakul or Blightsteel even though I can see that Sundering Titan can be equally oppressive. This card I run as a payoff card for Tinker/Goblin Welder decks as well though.

With Cryptic Command and Vendilion Clique blue's gotten a bit more powerful and flavorful midrange and control options. With the amount of aggressive decks, I feel that Bribery is a bit of a gamble card, but worth a try in the list. Vedalken Shackles is just very good, but maybe oppressive so I will keep an eye on that. Delver is out.

Black
Reanimator got a bit more powerful with the inclusion of the OG big daddy Griselbrand. Even though reanimator probably doesn't need much more support in the cube, Sheoldred, Whispering One doesn't seem to be overly powerful and maybe Griselbrand gives reanimator a bit more appeal. Bitterblossom, in addition to Smallpox give Stax decks a bit more support, make black a bit more disruptive and together with Gravecrawler and 1-mana zombies push black aggro a bit. I know, I've said that aggro is pretty strong but I want to have my drafters have the option to go black aggro as well when possibly combo decks start getting more powerful.

Green
Fauna Shaman is in general just a good card, but also aid my Golgari theme of reanimator/recursion. Natural Order feels a bit like the fair brother of Tinker but is still pretty good in a mana-dork-ramp-strategy. For ramp there are quite a few cards to build around now in the cube: Wildfire, Upheaval, Oath of Druids, Selvala's Stampede, Natural Order or just go big with mono green and artifact mana. Also added some more removal in green with Song of the Dryads and Manglehorn.

Master of the Wild Hunt is just a nice card for a BG stax deck or a midrange Gx deck. I've rebuilt gruul as a haste/beaters guild a bit more with Vengevine, Rancor and Xenagos, the Reveler. Hopefully, this works out because I really like this theme myself. A big finisher for this deck is the word-soup queen Samut, Voice of Dissent. Seems very good and a bit weird but wanted to try her out. Could possibly swap het out for something like Dragonlord Atarka though for (even more) RG ramp payoff.

Red
Red hasn't gotten anything really different, though I'm a big fan of Goblin Welder, Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast and Daretti, Scrap Savant. Again a artifact theme (I run the signets as well) but I really like artifacts. I've enjoyed building decks from Kaladesh in standard as well. Thundermaw Hellkite is a another nice big finisher for red decks that aren't Balls to the Wall aggro, because Goblin Dark-Dwellers is more of a support card for Spells Matter decks.

Pfff.....long story short: I've added some potentially broken cards to my cube! (though I hope I've changed my format in such a way that they won't be too warping - but hey I run the signets as well so it's a bit broken anyway).

EDIT: Also, I have a copy of Ramunap Excavator but I don't know whether it does enough without Crucible of Worlds or cards like Life from the Loam or redundancy for land destruction with Wasteland. What do you guys think?
EDIT2: formatting.
EDIT3: I'm sitting currently at 443 cards in my cube, which I don't like even though we never draft with more than 6 persons usually. I want to make it an even 450, which means I want to add 1 card per color and 2 other colorless/multicolor/lands. Any suggestions are welcome! I've also heard good things about Goblin Heelcutter as an evasive, aggressive creature. Do you guys like it?
 
MDT12

MDT12

Are these threads even being read btw? Otherwise I won't bother putting up another post in here and stick with lurking in the Cube Talk forums.
 
Dom Harvey

Dom Harvey

Contributor
I'm reading them, it's just hard to know what to say when the Cube is working from quite different assumptions. Maybe put the questions by themselves at the end? Will try to get to some of them tomorrow
 
MDT12

MDT12

Can someone take a peek at my cube and tell me if I'm doing something horribly wrong? The aim is a coherent unpowered cube with a high powerlevel, but not maxxed out. I've replaced a lot of cards recently and feel like this is the direction I want to be heading, however I don't have any experience with the current avg. powerlevel of my cube.

I know most of you don't like overly swingy cards like Show and Tell and Tinker, but I would like to experiment with them a bit since I haven't played with these cards yet at any moment in time. However, I was wondering if there are cards sitting in this cube could be better replaced (my knowledge of cards is not very good, as I'm still a pretty recent player) or otherwise removed. I don't know whether it's possible for me to go to 405 to narrow the power band, and I feel like 450 is a nice size for the archetypes that I'm looking for.
 
Alfonzo Bonzo

Alfonzo Bonzo

IT looks fine. It looks like a typical high power cube, which is what you're going for. There are a couple of cards that look relatively low power, like Liliana vess but it's difficult when everything is of a high level to get things stable. There's always an urge to power max to replace cards which don't do enough in the context.

I don't think you have enough lands though. You are playing about the same number as me at 360, but we tend to have higher land counts on these boards.
 
MDT12

MDT12

I will take a look at my land count. 50 is a bit low for 450, but 60 might be too much if I implement a full cycle. Which cycles are recommended here as an addition, manlands, painlands, checklands?
 
MDT12

MDT12

After having drafted the cube a couple of times, I came back on my decision to add remove all the signets. So I've added a few (and less) different mana rocks instead, including Chrome Mox and Thran Dynamo and a few of the other 2-mana rocks.

Notable cards added (some are really easy includes):


Of the includes, Skullclamp is the most risky in terms of oppressiveness but I decided I wanted to give it a go. If it gets abused too easily, I'll go out swiftly. Cloudgoat was removed because white has enough token support and Avacyn is really sweet (Angel of Sanctions was decent in testing but nothing spectacular). I want to have at least 1 Eldrazi Titan for Oath/Show decks which is why it's included. Emrakul 1.0 feels like too much of an instant win and Emrakul 2.0 is also a no-go because I don't like take the "take an extra turn" mechanic. I've added Dragonlord Ojutai because Brago never did much, EtB effects are already strong and Ojutai sits at 5cmc, where I feel blue is weakest. Arcane Denial is out, because it was never drafted because the card disadvantage is just unattractive. Spell Pierce is a nice counterspell for 1 mana, but might swap it for Negate or some other counterspell if it's not good enough. Bloodline Keeper was just too slow and durdly, Gonti looks like a sweet midrange/control threat.

Notable cards removed:


Rampaging Baloths was never drafted, where I'm guessing Primetime will be a lot more. Karmic Guide is white, a color that is never used in my cube for reanimator and as a value card it doesn't work because of the high echo cost. I wanted to reduce the amount of 2-mana green ramp spells and feel like Explore is better than Farseek or Rampant Growth. Moreover, I needed space for Sylvan Library which is just too good not to include. Scuttling Doom Engine doesn't do anything for me, whereas you almost always will get value off of Oblivion Sower. Compulsive Research is a fine draw spell but I have plenty and wanted some more interesting blue ways to remove things (Imprisoned in the Moon).

I would really appreciate a draft and will gladly repay the favor!

edit: how do I keep these ugly Invocations (like Spell Pierce here) from showing up as the card images?
 
MDT12

MDT12

Are there any easy to include archetypes or build around cards that I can add to my list without requiring a huge overhaul? I intend to include Sneak Attack eventually, but its still pretty expensive here and I want to ser how Show and Tell does in the current list.
 
MDT12

MDT12

Okay, I feel like I'm doing these posts just for myself so this will likely be my last post on this forum. I'm really making an effort with these posts and would appreciate any feedback on them, but am not getting any response except for some drafts and input by Miaou (thanks bud). I am not very active on this forum since my knowledge of MtG is limited and don't feel really adaquate to post on most subjects but I am a very frequent lurker on here. I know my cube doesn't really encapsulate the ideas that most of you have on here, but I try to balance it the best as I can.

However, not getting the interaction I was looking for has led me to quit this site. Have fun cubing everyone!
 
Hathaway

Hathaway

I drafted a UR control list with both Wildfires and it seems fun. Would have liked to not see Top in the cube, that card always killed games. Your mileage may vary.
 
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