2nd string cube

[tibbelsandbitts]

http://www.cubetutor.com/visualspoiler/36610

Above is my beta v.2.0 of my 2nd string cube.

Its a 360 card cube and every 2 color pair has a theme.

Uw: is blink (though control is also viable)
Ub: is tempo with blink creatures and blacks aggressive creatures
Br: is aggro / sacrifice for value
Rg: ramp to fatties also x spells
Gw: tokens
Wb: it can be just aggro but can value sac as well.
Ur: primary control colors
Bg: self mill grave recurring
Rw: soldiers
Gu: blink with the ability to sneak fatties into play with gamekeeper/ elvish piper/jalira/braids.

The goal is still to play cards that dont usually see play. So please dont laugh at chandraa ablaze, tibalt, braids, or galepowder mage.

There is still some smoothing out to do. And suggestions and thoughts are welcome and appreciated.

 

[James Stevenson]

This is really cool, I love this sort of thing. Personally, since I'm not a talented cube designer, I would keep throwing it together from interesting cards, and then trying hone it towards archetypes when you see some emerging. Many people on this forum have had success with assigning each color-pair an archetype, and designing their cube from there. Could work?

If I think of any cards I like, I'll post

 

[tibbelsandbitts]

Thank you.

 

[James Stevenson]

Also, your avatar is the bee's knees.

 

[Aoret]

I like the way you described your vision for this. I'm eager to see where it ends up!

There are a handful of cubes in this subforum that might have goodies for you to borrow. There was a month or two where all the cool kids where trying their hand at lower power level graveyard/innistrad-like cubes. I did one. It was shitty and balanced terribly, but you might cherry pick a few appropriate cards from it depending on where your power level lies. Best advice is to do a deep dive on any lists that look like they're on a lower power level because they're likely to have weird forgotten fun cards that don't make the cut in a Riptide A cube 360.

 

[tibbelsandbitts]

Ill start looking thanks for the advice

 

[shamizy]

Yeah, I like the idea behind cubes like these. I have my normal cube which I devote most of my resources towards, but I've been floating around the idea of a 2nd cube in my head over the last couple of months. I've just been too lazy to lay it out on paper and actually put in the time to research potential archetypes and cards I wanna try out. I'd definitely take a look across various lists on here, many of us are prone to trying out wacky things in ours lists from time to time and they sometimes stick.

 

[Kirblinx]

So I am wondering what the loose term for 'second tier' means. Is there any sort of ruling as to what can and can't go in? Is it something like the Hipster Cube, where it didn't allow cards from the Cubetutor Top 450? Just trying to get a handle on what you are looking for before I start suggesting cuts and additions.

Gave your list a couple of drafts and it seemed pretty cool. Probably the most fun one was this one:

Open the Door from CubeTutor.com

Cards like Door To Nothingness are pretty cool and I can see why you want to do this kind of cube, to allow cards like this to thrive. Still a pretty awkward card that will barely ever go off but I would have never built the deck if the card wasn't in there.

 

[tibbelsandbitts]

There are alot of cards that never see play or were okay in their respective formats that have been lost to time. Cards that would never be put in a good cube, yet some are too good for a bad cube.

I dont want to have to play cards like delver or mulldrifter for instance, but for a long time blue couldn't hold its own. Blue has been my greatest challenge with this cube. I feel mill as an achetype is inherently too strong in a limited environment, and well blue isn't known for its powerful creatures.

Ive thought about how to make door to nothingness feel less akward before. Either by making ramp better, or adding sunburst/ domain cards. I just assumed i was over thinking.

 

[tibbelsandbitts]

I dont really have a set standard for what can't go in. Im just looking for insight. I know sometimes when designing a cube one can get tunnel vision and miss something amazing and fun, and everyone has a different way of looking at/ playing cube so i will welcome any suggestions.

 

[tibbelsandbitts]

So I am wondering what the loose term for 'second tier' means. Is there any sort of ruling as to what can and can't go in? Is it something like the Hipster Cube, where it didn't allow cards from the Cubetutor Top 450? Just trying to get a handle on what you are looking for before I start suggesting cuts and additions.

Gave your list a couple of drafts and it seemed pretty cool. Probably the most fun one was this one:

Open the Door from CubeTutor.com

Cards like Door To Nothingness are pretty cool and I can see why you want to do this kind of cube, to allow cards like this to thrive. Still a pretty awkward card that will barely ever go off but I would have never built the deck if the card wasn't in there.

Ok ive drafted it on cube tutor alot trying something new each time.
-White needs more support for uw blink to be a thing.
-i would love a better direction for the non blink side of blue. I scoped some nice cards out of other threads and i think iblike grixis illusionist over delver.
-i need to replace some of the do nothing cards. Dragon style twins is a card i never wanted to touch in this environment.
-rw aggro needs to step away from tokens.
- i need to evaluate how to support a 5 color theme without taking up slots with cards that wont fit in other decks.

 

[Aoret]

Ok ive drafted it on cube tutor alot trying something new each time.
- i need to evaluate how to support a 5 color theme without taking up slots with cards that wont fit in other decks.

I think I know the answer to at least this one. Play good mana first; double shock double fetch (get on the proxy train if you aren't already. If you make foil proxies they look better than real cards anyway). That by itself opens a window for 4c/5c good stuff to happen if the majority of your drafters ever slip on picking mana all at once. From there, throw in a couple pieces of reasonably fair artifact mana that support splashing into too many colors. Mox diamond, Sphere of the Suns, Chromatic Lantern come to mind. Basically you want stuff with significant enough disadvantages stapled on that your UW control decks aren't just always using the artifact mana to ramp into their wraths a turn sooner (two of those three cards still do that, but they at least have to consider whether they want the effect instead of it just being a no brainer).

From there I think it's a matter of tuning your gold section to both do its day job and also support tasting the rainbow. In my experience this means something along the lines of less Azorius Charm and more Bituminous Blast. I'd say most of your gold section already leans closer to the Bit blast side of the spectrum (being easily splashable if I'm already in one of the colors, and relevant enough late game that I'm not embarrassed if it takes a couple extra turns to finally drop that mountain).

I think the most important thing to accept about this is that you're probably never going to make 4c/5c into a premium, top tier archetype in your cube without doing a lot of undesirable shit to the rest of your environment. As someone who started playing during Alara (a child of alara?) I get the appeal of it, but I think the best thing you can do for your environment is create the opportunity for this to happen only occasionally without going too deep to explicitly support it.

 

[tibbelsandbitts]

I understand that 5c will never be premium. I dont expect it to be the best. But when it comes together id like it to be good.

As far as the lands go i wanted to play lands that didn't get a ton of attention either. Thats why i have the pain lands and bounce lands. I could see replacing those or the vivids and skarg rage pitts is less than desirable.

 

[tibbelsandbitts]

I think I know the answer to at least this one. Play good mana first; double shock double fetch (get on the proxy train if you aren't already. If you make foil proxies they look better than real cards anyway). That by itself opens a window for 4c/5c good stuff to happen if the majority of your drafters ever slip on picking mana all at once. From there, throw in a couple pieces of reasonably fair artifact mana that support splashing into too many colors. Mox diamond, Sphere of the Suns, Chromatic Lantern come to mind. Basically you want stuff with significant enough disadvantages stapled on that your UW control decks aren't just always using the artifact mana to ramp into their wraths a turn sooner (two of those three cards still do that, but they at least have to consider whether they want the effect instead of it just being a no brainer).

From there I think it's a matter of tuning your gold section to both do its day job and also support tasting the rainbow. In my experience this means something along the lines of less Azorius Charm and more Bituminous Blast. I'd say most of your gold section already leans closer to the Bit blast side of the spectrum (being easily splashable if I'm already in one of the colors, and relevant enough late game that I'm not embarrassed if it takes a couple extra turns to finally drop that mountain).

I think the most important thing to accept about this is that you're probably never going to make 4c/5c into a premium, top tier archetype in your cube without doing a lot of undesirable shit to the rest of your environment. As someone who started playing during Alara (a child of alara?) I get the appeal of it, but I think the best thing you can do for your environment is create the opportunity for this to happen only occasionally without going too deep to explicitly support it.

Ive thought about expanding the gold section a bit by taking out mono colored cards that were similar

 

[Aoret]

I'd caution you against increasing gold density any further unless you're specifically going for a gold format sort of feel. That said, I think pushing gold density too high is something all cube designers do once, so if you haven't done it yet, it might be worth doing just to convince yourself it's not the greatest plan the same way the rest of us have.

Have you read up on Utility Land Draft? That might be a better place for your misfit lands than the main draft. It's possible that with sufficiently low power level, worse lands are fine, but I can personally confirm that running really good lands (even double fetch double ABU dual!!!) works well even when your format is closer to retail limited in power level than it is to cube. Painlands are probably fine as they're supportive of aggro. I'd be a bit worried about running bouncelands unless control is struggling. I've always thought vivids and filterlands were kind of cool, but I've heard people speak negatively about them. With the vivids I think it's just mechanical clunkiness (it's physically awkward to tap a land with a dice on it and also decrement the dice, they're not easy to pile neatly, etc)

 

[tibbelsandbitts]

I see your point and the utility land draft is interesting. I just didn't want to have to proxy a lot of cards, but the playability is far more important than my ptoxy preference.

My next goal is to try to fit archtypes. So im gonna draft some more and get ideas. Thanks for the help

 

[tibbelsandbitts]

I'd caution you against increasing gold density any further unless you're specifically going for a gold format sort of feel. That said, I think pushing gold density too high is something all cube designers do once, so if you haven't done it yet, it might be worth doing just to convince yourself it's not the greatest plan the same way the rest of us have.

Have you read up on Utility Land Draft? That might be a better place for your misfit lands than the main draft. It's possible that with sufficiently low power level, worse lands are fine, but I can personally confirm that running really good lands (even double fetch double ABU dual!!!) works well even when your format is closer to retail limited in power level than it is to cube. Painlands are probably fine as they're supportive of aggro. I'd be a bit worried about running bouncelands unless control is struggling. I've always thought vivids and filterlands were kind of cool, but I've heard people speak negatively about them. With the vivids I think it's just mechanical clunkiness (it's physically awkward to tap a land with a dice on it and also decrement the dice, they're not easy to pile neatly, etc)

One last question. How many lands is the right amount. This is my first 360 cube. And i dont want to over represent.

 

[Aoret]

I run 45 and it hasn't felt like too many. I think you're more than okay. Archetypes are the fun part IMO! Don't hesitate to make sweeping changes to your list while you're still getting things figured out early on.

Hit me up if you need help making your proxies look like this.

Finally, run Mistmeadow Witch

 

[tibbelsandbitts]

I love mistmeadow witch

 

[tibbelsandbitts]

I run 45 and it hasn't felt like too many. I think you're more than okay. Archetypes are the fun part IMO! Don't hesitate to make sweeping changes to your list while you're still getting things figured out early on.

Hit me up if you need help making your proxies look like this.

Finally, run Mistmeadow Witch

Those are pretty proxies

 

[Kirblinx]

Ok ive drafted it on cube tutor alot trying something new each time.
-White needs more support for uw blink to be a thing.

What kind of support? The blinking kind:


Or the value kind?:


Some possible cuts:
Accorder Paladin: Fairly generic, doesn't even support your mini soldiers theme. Speaking of which, I wonder if this guy is worth a chance...
Akroan Skyguard: I could exactly 3 ways in white to trigger him. Seems like a trap.
Paragon of New Dawns: I am not a big fan of the paragons (in any of the colours), unless there is some token theme going on to get use of the buffs. They just cost that 1 too much to make them worth it. This is probably the closest to being useful (with the worst ability) due some token makers, but Angel of Jubilation is just better anyway.
Reya Dawnbringer: I don't know if anyone is getting to 9 mana, especially in white.
Eyes in the Skies: Not enough larger tokens around to make the cost worth it. Yay I just paid twice as Raise the Alarm to give them flying!
Return to Dust: Do I really want a narrow card to cost that much for no real reason?

-i would love a better direction for the non blink side of blue. I scoped some nice cards out of other threads and i think iblike grixis illusionist over delver.

Grixis Illusionist is alright. You just need a reason to run him. Some sort of domain theme I guess would be the way to go. Some more cards that help go down this path:



I don't know what the payoff is going to be for this theme, but could be something sweet to delve deeper into.

-i need to replace some of the do nothing cards. Dragon style twins is a card i never wanted to touch in this environment.
-rw aggro needs to step away from tokens.

The do nothing cards will come out when you realise what cards/archetypes you like the most and try to expand them. I wouldn't worry about them too much at this point in time, just keep a list, or tag them in cubetutor (with something like 'cuttable') so you can remember which ones should be the first to go when you figure out what to put in.

Is there any reason why RW needs to go away from tokens? Has been done too many times? Other possible themes would be Metalcraft/Artifacts, Tribal: Spiritcraft/Giants, Walls, Doublestrike pump (like MM2015).
You do have a fair amount of decent support for the archetype (Impact Tremors says Hello!), so you may need to cut a decent amount of cards if you don't want it to be a thing.
But before I move onto the next comment, I would love if this became a thing:

- i need to evaluate how to support a 5 color theme without taking up slots with cards that wont fit in other decks.

I have a feeling this may collide with the Grixis Illusionist portion that I mentioned. Makes a theme of domain to allow reckless splashing. But in doing this you are creating a possibly insular archetype. I mean, who would really want to play a Grixis Illusionist unless you were playing 3+ colours? It is a 1-drop that doesn't really do a whole lot.

There is a fine line between incentive cards and support cards. I prefer incentive cards as they are decent enough to be played on their own but give you a nudge in an archetype direction if you choose to follow it.
Support are cards that are cards that aren't that great by themselves but will wheel around to the person who needs them for their archetype. Having a decent mix makes drafts go smoother.

I had to stop there as that is probably too deep for me to go into, as I am not too far into this cube design thing to be able to paraphrase accordingly. Plus it is 2am in the morning, I am eating ice-cream while wearing three layers of clothing, while cricket is being played on the TV in the background. I would question my sanity.

 

[tibbelsandbitts]

What kind of support? The blinking kind:


Or the value kind?:


Some possible cuts:
Accorder Paladin: Fairly generic, doesn't even support your mini soldiers theme. Speaking of which, I wonder if this guy is worth a chance...
Akroan Skyguard: I could exactly 3 ways in white to trigger him. Seems like a trap.
Paragon of New Dawns: I am not a big fan of the paragons (in any of the colours), unless there is some token theme going on to get use of the buffs. They just cost that 1 too much to make them worth it. This is probably the closest to being useful (with the worst ability) due some token makers, but Angel of Jubilation is just better anyway.
Reya Dawnbringer: I don't know if anyone is getting to 9 mana, especially in white.
Eyes in the Skies: Not enough larger tokens around to make the cost worth it. Yay I just paid twice as Raise the Alarm to give them flying!
Return to Dust: Do I really want a narrow card to cost that much for no real reason?

Grixis Illusionist is alright. You just need a reason to run him. Some sort of domain theme I guess would be the way to go. Some more cards that help go down this path:



I don't know what the payoff is going to be for this theme, but could be something sweet to delve deeper into.

The do nothing cards will come out when you realise what cards/archetypes you like the most and try to expand them. I wouldn't worry about them too much at this point in time, just keep a list, or tag them in cubetutor (with something like 'cuttable') so you can remember which ones should be the first to go when you figure out what to put in.

Is there any reason why RW needs to go away from tokens? Has been done too many times? Other possible themes would be Metalcraft/Artifacts, Spiritcraft (maybe), Walls, Doublestrike pump (like MM2015).
You do have a fair amount of decent support for the archetype (Impact Tremors says Hello!), so you may need to cut a decent amount of cards if you don't want it to be a thing.
But before I move onto the next comment, I would love if this became a thing:


I have a feeling this may collide with the Grixis Illusionist portion that I mentioned. Makes a theme of domain to allow reckless splashing. But in doing this you are creating a possibly insular archetype. I mean, who would really want to play a Grixis Illusionist unless you were playing 3+ colours? It is a 1-drop that doesn't really do a whole lot.

There is a fine line between incentive cards and support cards. I prefer incentive cards as they are decent enough to be played on their own but give you a nudge in an archetype direction if you choose to follow it.
Support are cards that are cards that aren't that great by themselves but will wheel around to the person who needs them for their archetype. Having a decent mix makes drafts go smoother.

I had to stop there as that is probably too deep for me to go into, as I am not too far into this cube design thing to be able to paraphrase accordingly. Plus it is 2am in the morning, I am eating ice-cream while wearing three layers of clothing, while cricket is being played on the TV in the background. I would question my sanity.

For white. I was looking for value which you provided thank you very much.

Preeminent captain its a yes on alot of levels. 1 kithkin 2 there are alot of soldiers. 3 battleshaper seems fun. How did i miss this

With illusionist i saw the ability to hurt your opponents mana base early on in a blue deck. Too cute? Yea probably.

I wanted a move from tokens because i didn't want all naya centered around it, but in retrospect that isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Thank you for the detailed information its very appreciated. Ill update my cube tonight after FNM when i buy things and make changes.

 

[Kirblinx]

For white. I was looking for value which you provided thank you very much.
With illusionist i saw the ability to hurt your opponents mana base early on in a blue deck. Too cute? Yea probably.

I only realised when I was typing up that last reply that Grixis Illusionist that it only targets a land 'you control'. I was all ready to give some possible islandwalkers to make use of the effect until I re-read the card. I guess I wasn't the only one that thought it was better than what it actually is.

 

[tibbelsandbitts]

Also all the cards you named were on the cut list, along with
Dragon style twins
Disdainful stroke
Prognostic sphinx
Quiet contemplation
Other paragons (aside from green)
Thopter engineer
Comet storm
Soul of shandalaar
Honored hierarch
Armillary sphere

 

[tibbelsandbitts]

I only realised when I was typing up that last reply that Grixis Illusionist that it only targets a land 'you control'. I was all ready to give some possible islandwalkers to make use of the effect until I re-read the card. I guess I wasn't the only one that thought it was better than what it actually is.

Perhaps i thought it was Tideshaper mystic