Card/Deck Single Card Spotlight
- Thread starter Dom Harvey
- Start date
I've actually thought about that question multiple times, and I think it makes sense the smaller your playgroup is. When you have fewer drafters fighting over colours, there are good reasons to reduce the number of total colours and make sure people are overlapping and interacting during the draft portion.
I would cut white, because it has the least shenanigans going on out of all the colours. It provides support for your basic aggro, midrange, and control decks, but not a whole lot beyond that, and ties in less with many of the fun synergy archetypes that most of the other colours take part in. Red would be in contention, as a distant second, while blue, green, and black are all too sweet to consider cutting.
I would cut white, because it has the least shenanigans going on out of all the colours. It provides support for your basic aggro, midrange, and control decks, but not a whole lot beyond that, and ties in less with many of the fun synergy archetypes that most of the other colours take part in. Red would be in contention, as a distant second, while blue, green, and black are all too sweet to consider cutting.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
White has the most overlap with other colors. Every one of its core mechanics is duplicated in another color, except maybe temporary protection, though there is instant regenerate in black and hexproof in green. I would cut white.
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
White is great for exile effects, blink, pacifism effects, and temp protection. More imporantly its also a foundational color for a lot of a cube's aggro decks. The overlap that it has is important to take some of the pressure off of the other colors to specialize in certain effects. Would not cut.
The most expendable part of any cube i.m.o. is the multi-color section.
The most expendable part of any cube i.m.o. is the multi-color section.
FlowerSunRain
Contributor
I would cut blue 100% of the time and its not close.
Chris Taylor
Contributor
I'd cut shmurple
I'm glad someone finally said this. My shmurple section has been an issue from day one. All of those numerology spells, the hugbacks bleeding into GB territory and personal place, the split-hour effects making games grind on... I'm sure I don't even need to MENTION the issue of the juggalo face paint smearing all over the sleeves. It's a complete mess and I always run out of those tiny megaphone tokens. :/
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
No one is denying this, but the thought experiment was asking which of the four colors you would cut if you wanted to run a four-color cube. Exile effects can be found in black, blink in blue, pacifism is removal, and blue even has similar effects (Narcolepsy), and, as I mentioned, temp "protection" can be found in other colors as well (green, blue and black even). And while it is an important color for aggro, black attrition based aggro and red got you covered in that department as well. It's not really necessary for anything, though it is obviously better then other colors at some things. Of the five it's the safest cut though that will cost you the least in terms of mechanics and archetypes.
I've found what I like most about white is its low cost token generation, especially at instant speed, but I think even that could be approximated in other colours. I wouldn't really miss the two hundred variations on Savannah Lions, as most other colours have a couple of those that could be doubled or tripled up on for aggro support.
You all need Jesus!
So on a scale of brilliant to durdle, where does this end up? I'm looking for more incentives to have a fist full of lands. I actually like the fact that it can be played in a pretty dedicated mono green deck with cards like harrow and life from the loam.
So on a scale of brilliant to durdle, where does this end up? I'm looking for more incentives to have a fist full of lands. I actually like the fact that it can be played in a pretty dedicated mono green deck with cards like harrow and life from the loam.
I tried running that when I was trying to support GB Loam, and I'm afraid it's very, very low power level. Consider that it was printed in Modern Masters, and wasn't viable at all (though there were a number of problems with the dredge archetype in that format, in general). Five mana these days gets you a lot of power and toughness in green, and unless your format is trying to approximate a limited environment, it's a lot of setup work for a small payoff.
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
I think its a pretty big assumption that this should be the basis for the cut.
In addition, temp protection, blink, and pacifism effects are either not located in other colors, or lack the density to base an archetype around. Aggro is principally located in white, red, and black; control and midrange can draw from all 5 colors--chopping off one of aggro's main colors (if not its main color) seems like a really bad move.
Personally, if I had to choose one of the main colors to cut it would be green, as its kind of a security blanket color, and its cut would shake things up (I also think blue would be interesting).
You all need Jesus!
So on a scale of brilliant to durdle, where does this end up? I'm looking for more incentives to have a fist full of lands. I actually like the fact that it can be played in a pretty dedicated mono green deck with cards like harrow and life from the loam.
Forget about high-power bombs like Whisperwood... how does this card stack up, in terms of mana-to-P/T ratio, to something like Centaur Glade???
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
Its much easier to support in a self-mill deck than other alternatives, and very powerful. Outside of that though, I don't think its great.
Consolidate white and green into one color.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Yep, it is. If you want to shake things up you can easily cut another color. Every other color does something you won't easily find in other colors, so removing one of the other colors will probably have a more noticeable effect.
Temp protection can be kind of replaced by green (Vines of Vastwood etc.) and black (Boon of Erebos).
Blink can partly be replaced by blue (Ghostly Flicker), and leads to repetitive game states anyway. I wouldn't mourn for for its loss personally.
Pacifism effects can be found in blue (Narcolepsy) and are basically just white removal. Other cards do removal as well. I'm not going to argue that Pacifism and Doom Blade are exactly the same in all circumstances, but for purposes of limited play, they mostly act as a two mana removal spell. You can get those in multiple colors.
Finally, chopping off an aggro color just means you have to support it harder in other colors. Double up on the few green options. Put in more black and red options. Whatever. This is a fixable problem anyway.
if I had to cut a color to shake things up, I think I would cut red. It's by far the most one-dimensional color (though not as much as it used to be), and the removal of burn would have interesting consequences I think. Phyrexian Negator might even be cubeable again!
You all need Jesus!
So on a scale of brilliant to durdle, where does this end up? I'm looking for more incentives to have a fist full of lands. I actually like the fact that it can be played in a pretty dedicated mono green deck with cards like harrow and life from the loam.
It's sweet in my mono-black cube with multiple Stinkweed Imp, Lake of the Dead, and Dakmor Salvage. Other than that, no way.
I tried Worm Harvest as well. You need a best case scenario for it not to be out of place with other typical cube plays, and even then there are just other easier and more powerful things you can do for much less effort. I really like the idea of this card, but after playing with it some I'm convinced you'd have to have a very low power and heavily graveyard centric cube for this to be worth a slot. I think Grillo has had more success with it though, so he could be using it differently than I was.