Thank you! You're right, at the moment the cube is just some union of collections of cards, I need to find some more glue between the archetypes. Varolz and the scavenge cards are good ideas, I forgot about that mechanic but feels good with the dredge archetype. I think we can find some counter synergies between the scavenge cards and the modular cards
Alvoi's Cube
- Thread starter alvoi
- Start date
Posting here because it's my topic but could interest someone else. I had an idea for a cube with only creatures (and fixing lands obviously), the idea came to me by looking at the list of combos that someone posted and I noticed that there were a lot of fun interactions between creatures like reveillark, karmic guide, mulldrifter, saffi eriksdotter etc but usually when I play with my main cube the creatures are just secondary and the games are won by the powerful spells. So I thought what if I made a cube with only creatures? Obviously we need 187 creatures and evoke and stuff like that but I think this could be a fun interesting idea. Do you have any suggestions? I'm really bad at creating cubes so I kinda need a lot of help
Well, MaRo always says, regarding the set Legions, which was all creatures, that designing for a gimmick is not a good reason for design. However, I think there is the potential, with how many creature cards we have in existence today, to make that work and have a fun cube. And you could certainly hook some people with that headline. But what are you going to do when they print the perfect red card draw that you wanted for your format, but it's a sorcery. Are you going to stick with the suboptimal choice?
TL;DR: I get the appeal and it could work, but is the restriction really worth it?
TL;DR: I get the appeal and it could work, but is the restriction really worth it?
Hello everyone, little update by me! Regarding the "Modern Masters" style Cube, I ended up putting a peasant rarity restriction a while ago, and it feels way closer to what I originally planned for it. Obviously I know that rarity is just a colour and I should mainly keep an eye on the power level instead, but having some constraint helps me as a guideline for keeping the Cube updated. I just added five cards from Outlaws, so here is the list: https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/alvoi-mma if you want to try it out and give me some advice, I would be grateful! Sadly I moved, hence I don't live anymore close to where my group of Magic friends was, but I hope to be back in the summer to try out the new cards of this Cube!
The archetypes are the same as in Modern Masters the original set, so azorius affinity, dimir faeries, rakdos goblins, gruul storm-suspend, selesnya tokens-thallids, orzhov rebels, izzet arcanes, golgari dredge, boros giants and simic domain. I have a couple of "silver-bordered" cards: Imaginary Friends, Buried Ogre, Lazier Goblin, Krosan Adaptation, the incredible Barry's Land, and a copy of How to Keep an Izzet Mage Busy where I added the "Arcane" subtype with a sharpie.
Sometimes I am not great at seeing if there are evident power level outliers in the Cube (meaning cards that are too strong or too weak), so I hope to get a couple of suggestions about that. Also, I made the cuts for the Outlaws cards very quickly, and maybe there are better changes to do. If you know some cards that fit the themes good, tell me, we cannot know all cards in the history of Magic, so probably there is a card that is perfect for this Cube and I don't even know it exists!
The archetypes are the same as in Modern Masters the original set, so azorius affinity, dimir faeries, rakdos goblins, gruul storm-suspend, selesnya tokens-thallids, orzhov rebels, izzet arcanes, golgari dredge, boros giants and simic domain. I have a couple of "silver-bordered" cards: Imaginary Friends, Buried Ogre, Lazier Goblin, Krosan Adaptation, the incredible Barry's Land, and a copy of How to Keep an Izzet Mage Busy where I added the "Arcane" subtype with a sharpie.
Sometimes I am not great at seeing if there are evident power level outliers in the Cube (meaning cards that are too strong or too weak), so I hope to get a couple of suggestions about that. Also, I made the cuts for the Outlaws cards very quickly, and maybe there are better changes to do. If you know some cards that fit the themes good, tell me, we cannot know all cards in the history of Magic, so probably there is a card that is perfect for this Cube and I don't even know it exists!
I did a draft of your cube
https://cubecobra.com/cube/deck/73d75cf0-260d-4fd5-8717-c34ae384990c
It was fun! A few things I noticed here: There was very very little fixing. I would highly recommend to add at least a couple cycles of simple tapped lands to reduce non-games. Also, I'm not sure the arcane stuff is working, many cards felt Werk even at that power level. And like other said, I would be careful to not copy MMAs biggest flaw: Being a drafting on rails format. But I gotta admit you've found some nice overlaps for your themes here and there.
https://cubecobra.com/cube/deck/73d75cf0-260d-4fd5-8717-c34ae384990c
It was fun! A few things I noticed here: There was very very little fixing. I would highly recommend to add at least a couple cycles of simple tapped lands to reduce non-games. Also, I'm not sure the arcane stuff is working, many cards felt Werk even at that power level. And like other said, I would be careful to not copy MMAs biggest flaw: Being a drafting on rails format. But I gotta admit you've found some nice overlaps for your themes here and there.
Thank you Ravnic! Yeah I think you found most of my current concerns with the cube ahah
Regarding fixing: I think it is partially desired, because I do not want people to play 4-5 colour nonsense with all strong cards and without synergy. That's why I followed the original MMA design and put only basic landcyclers as fixing: we have three full cycles (Gleam of Resistance, Eagles of the North and Landscaper Colos) plus a couple of "five colour" fixing lands, and the Vivids. I think this should be enough for two-coloured and maybe also three-coloured decks, but I am open to advice!
The arcane stuff... I don't know. I usually alternate between "the arcane deck is unplayable" and "the arcane deck is the most powerful thing I have played in my life". The problem is... I don't know which one it is! Since I have not yet played irl with the Cube, all of my testing has been just in the draft portion and not in the gameplay. Sometimes I think that How to Keep an Izzet Mage Busy is busted because it basically is a permanent that can't be interacted with, and permits perpetual milling, damage prevention, and remouval... some other times maybe the deck falls apart by itself. I hope next summer I will have time and friends to draft this Cube and see how the arcane deck works!
Yes, the drafting on rails is also one of my biggest concerns. That's why I am very happy for the printing of cards like Tribune of Rot, that I feel like is perfect for my Cube: it slots very well both in the BG Dredge archetype and in the GW Thallids archetype, but I would consider it also in a BR Goblins since the self mill and the tokens are very nice for cards like Warren Pilferers and Dark-Dweller Oracle, and it doesn't feel out of place even in any other black or green archetype.
One thing I was considering to prevent the draft to be too much on rails is to branch archetypes out of their original two-colour combination. For example, in MMA the Giants archetype is just Boros, but recently there have been many nice Izzet Giants (like Aegar, the Freezing Flame and Invasion of the Giants) so I could consider making the Giant archetype for example centered in Red, with the possibility of doing either RW or UR or even Jeskai Giants. A similar thing I already did for the Arcanes archetype, that branched into white for Candles' Glow and Ethereal Haze (so, Arcanes is either UR or WU or Jeskai, or even UB if we lean heavily into the mill plan, with cards like Stream of Thought and Mind Funeral). I could add black Saproling-makers, or red artifact-matters cards, or blue Storm payoff, etc etc. But then there is the risk that everything becomes a soup of colours, and I wouldn't like that too much...
Regarding fixing: I think it is partially desired, because I do not want people to play 4-5 colour nonsense with all strong cards and without synergy. That's why I followed the original MMA design and put only basic landcyclers as fixing: we have three full cycles (Gleam of Resistance, Eagles of the North and Landscaper Colos) plus a couple of "five colour" fixing lands, and the Vivids. I think this should be enough for two-coloured and maybe also three-coloured decks, but I am open to advice!
The arcane stuff... I don't know. I usually alternate between "the arcane deck is unplayable" and "the arcane deck is the most powerful thing I have played in my life". The problem is... I don't know which one it is! Since I have not yet played irl with the Cube, all of my testing has been just in the draft portion and not in the gameplay. Sometimes I think that How to Keep an Izzet Mage Busy is busted because it basically is a permanent that can't be interacted with, and permits perpetual milling, damage prevention, and remouval... some other times maybe the deck falls apart by itself. I hope next summer I will have time and friends to draft this Cube and see how the arcane deck works!
Yes, the drafting on rails is also one of my biggest concerns. That's why I am very happy for the printing of cards like Tribune of Rot, that I feel like is perfect for my Cube: it slots very well both in the BG Dredge archetype and in the GW Thallids archetype, but I would consider it also in a BR Goblins since the self mill and the tokens are very nice for cards like Warren Pilferers and Dark-Dweller Oracle, and it doesn't feel out of place even in any other black or green archetype.
One thing I was considering to prevent the draft to be too much on rails is to branch archetypes out of their original two-colour combination. For example, in MMA the Giants archetype is just Boros, but recently there have been many nice Izzet Giants (like Aegar, the Freezing Flame and Invasion of the Giants) so I could consider making the Giant archetype for example centered in Red, with the possibility of doing either RW or UR or even Jeskai Giants. A similar thing I already did for the Arcanes archetype, that branched into white for Candles' Glow and Ethereal Haze (so, Arcanes is either UR or WU or Jeskai, or even UB if we lean heavily into the mill plan, with cards like Stream of Thought and Mind Funeral). I could add black Saproling-makers, or red artifact-matters cards, or blue Storm payoff, etc etc. But then there is the risk that everything becomes a soup of colours, and I wouldn't like that too much...
So, little update, since MH3 is approaching and will probably bring a lot of cards for the Cube (at least, I hope, for now I am playing 17 cards from MH1 and 25 from MH2, the two most represented sets after –obviously– Modern Masters itself).
I decided that I want the archetypes to branch into more colours, because it would solve two of the problems: (1) the seemingly "drafting on rails" and (2) the fact that there are too many nice cards I want to add but are in the wrong colours.
For now, I think that I will do changes just to the archetypes in the Jeskai wedge, since they are the easiest. Indeed, Affinity/Modular was the WU archetype in MMA, but there are many red and red-white cards for the archetype, like Arcbound Shikari, Atog and the new Frogmyr Enforcer (yeah, I know that could be played also in a non-red deck, but I think it is at its most power in a deck that can play both sides, so I will count it as a red card I think). Similarly, the Arcanes deck was the UR archetype in MMA, but cards like Ethereal Haze and Candles' Glow (both of which are already in the Cube) look perfect for the strategy. To end, as I wrote last time, in Kaldheim there were many nice blue Giants, that could power up one of the worst archetypes in the Cube so far.
Hence, the plan is this:
• Affinity archetype, from WU to WUR (with a center in W)
• Arcanes archetype, from UR to WUR (with a center in U)
• Giants archetype, from RW to WUR (with a center in R)
This way I keep colour balance, while adding more possible decks. Indeed, if before one could just play Azorius Affinity, Izzet Arcanes or Boros Giants, now they can also play: Boros Affinity, Azorius Arcanes, Izzet Giants, or any Jeskai deck with one (or more!) of the strategies.
It would be nice to have also some mechanical cohesion between the strategies, but it is something that looks very hard since one is a tribal-creatures theme, one is an instant-sorcery theme, and the other is an artifact theme. But not everything is lost.
I haven't made any changes to the Cube yet, but I will soon (and I will post the progress, if you are interested).
I decided that I want the archetypes to branch into more colours, because it would solve two of the problems: (1) the seemingly "drafting on rails" and (2) the fact that there are too many nice cards I want to add but are in the wrong colours.
For now, I think that I will do changes just to the archetypes in the Jeskai wedge, since they are the easiest. Indeed, Affinity/Modular was the WU archetype in MMA, but there are many red and red-white cards for the archetype, like Arcbound Shikari, Atog and the new Frogmyr Enforcer (yeah, I know that could be played also in a non-red deck, but I think it is at its most power in a deck that can play both sides, so I will count it as a red card I think). Similarly, the Arcanes deck was the UR archetype in MMA, but cards like Ethereal Haze and Candles' Glow (both of which are already in the Cube) look perfect for the strategy. To end, as I wrote last time, in Kaldheim there were many nice blue Giants, that could power up one of the worst archetypes in the Cube so far.
Hence, the plan is this:
• Affinity archetype, from WU to WUR (with a center in W)
• Arcanes archetype, from UR to WUR (with a center in U)
• Giants archetype, from RW to WUR (with a center in R)
This way I keep colour balance, while adding more possible decks. Indeed, if before one could just play Azorius Affinity, Izzet Arcanes or Boros Giants, now they can also play: Boros Affinity, Azorius Arcanes, Izzet Giants, or any Jeskai deck with one (or more!) of the strategies.
It would be nice to have also some mechanical cohesion between the strategies, but it is something that looks very hard since one is a tribal-creatures theme, one is an instant-sorcery theme, and the other is an artifact theme. But not everything is lost.
I haven't made any changes to the Cube yet, but I will soon (and I will post the progress, if you are interested).
I would definitely branch out themes into other colors. I used to have the typical pair archetypes in my cube as well, and it just brought so many problems, it is really beyond me why wizards uses it for every set. Maybe because it is easy to draft, I dunno. But you end up with a lot of nongold gold cards. For example, in your list, Latchkey faerie is effectively a dimir gold card. Yeah, occasionally a deck without black will have enough faeries for it - and there are probably cards even harder to enable - but still it will make drafters go blue-black 98% of the time. Thereare two ways to avoid those traps: Either you can branch archetypes out into a third, maybe fourth color, OR you can focus on a pivot color that has 80% or more of the support for the theme and then oly add support cards in other colors, that are good elsewhere. Both ways work really well and can be combined, depending on the archetype.
I think throwing some painlands or such into the cube is very unlikely to result in 5-color good stuff. It's happening when the raw power level of good stuff cards of different colors can beat a synergistic two-color deck. I don't see that happening here, even with a lot more fixing. Believe me, I dislike 5-color good stuff more than most, I even support mono color in my cube quite strongly, and yet I would recommend for a little more fixing.
Regarding fixing: I think it is partially desired, because I do not want people to play 4-5 colour nonsense with all strong cards and without synergy. That's why I followed the original MMA design and put only basic landcyclers as fixing: we have three full cycles (Gleam of Resistance, Eagles of the North and Landscaper Colos) plus a couple of "five colour" fixing lands, and the Vivids. I think this should be enough for two-coloured and maybe also three-coloured decks, but I am open to advice!
I think throwing some painlands or such into the cube is very unlikely to result in 5-color good stuff. It's happening when the raw power level of good stuff cards of different colors can beat a synergistic two-color deck. I don't see that happening here, even with a lot more fixing. Believe me, I dislike 5-color good stuff more than most, I even support mono color in my cube quite strongly, and yet I would recommend for a little more fixing.
Okay, here I am, I already mentioned my new Cube project in henkdetenk's topic, but I also want to talk about it in... my topic (?)
Since I am not a very active member of the forum, like, sometimes I post here and there, maybe it's better if I do a bit of history of my experience with Cube. Since I discovered its existence, it has probably been my favourite MtG format. My problem with Magic has always been choosing, like, I love every colour in Magic the same, and I love a lot of different strategies, so when I was building decks for constructed formats I always had this problem of "choosing" my deck, and usually I ended up building 4/5 decks for any format I played since I was not able to choose. Hence, Cube is perfect for me, since I can just put different strategies and colours all in the same Cube, and draft different ones every time.
But the "choice" problem has then become a problem of: which Cube to choose? At the beginning, I built a power-max Cube with all the most powerful cards I owned, and I was buying new cards to make it stronger and stronger. But stronger cards doesn't necessarily mean better gameplay or more fun, so after a while (and after joining this forum) I took that Cube apart and tried new ways. Some day in the future I am sure I will build my power-max Cube again, but right now I decided to keep only one Cube built, since I am living away from my hometown (where all my Magic cards and MtG-playing friends are) so there is not much reason to have two or three Cubes built if I never play them. Better to have one and play that one when I can. So, for now, no power-max Cube, but some day I will build something along the lines of a Legacy/Vintage-level Cube, because I always liked those eternal formats and the high interaction and decision they bring.
After I dismantled my "Tier One" Cube, I decided I wanted a more synergistic and retail-draft-inspired draft, so at some point I settled on something akin to the Modern Masters expansion. That was a set I really liked (wow, it came out 11 years ago, I was almost calling it a "recent" set ahah) and in particular the draft experience was great. I tried various iterations of that Cube: singleton, non-singleton, Pauper, Peasant, only cards from Mirrodin to Alara, etc, but I feel it had a great problem of replayability, in the sense that a lot of the archetypes felt on-rail (come on, there are five tribal archetypes, Affinity, Dredge, Storm, and Mill with Dampen Thought... the only non-parasitic archetype was five-colour domain, lol). I still like a lot Modern Masters, and I still feel like that Cube was a very nice project that taught me a lot of things, but after drafting it a couple of times to me it felt more like 10 preconstructed decks mashed together, and drafting was just picking the right cards in the lane you chose.
Again, maybe this can be seen as a problem of "choosing", right? The Tier One Cube was nice because I was not choosing the cards, it auto-built from the strongest things I owned, the Modern Masters Cube had the archetypes already set in stone and I had no option of changing them! Because I couldn't choose what to change! Okay, since I am writing this, it feels like I have some problem that is prohibiting me to make decisions about anything in life, but I swear that in my daily life I am better than this. I can choose which marmalade flavour to put on my breakfast bread. But with Magic it feels so difficult! Also now, some people are trying to make me play EDH, and I am not able to choose a Commander, and I will probably end up building five different EDH decks, one per colour or something ahah. So yeah, please, don't judge me (not too harshly)...
So, this summer I was able to make a decision and... I built a Cube that's not mine! Namely, I really like the Cube design philosophy of this forum, and I have read many times about the "Penny Pincher" Cube by Grillo_Parlante, so I read the entire topic and then noticed most of the cards I didn't have for the Cube were very low-pricey, so I bought them all and built the Cube exactly as they did in 2016. I did a couple of drafts (and I am looking forward to do more of them!) and it is great! I really like how all the archetypes overlap, and I am discovering great synergy between some random commons and uncommons whose existence I completely forgot. So I am really liking to play this Cube, and I am not planning on dismantling it soon! I think I will keep on playing and drafting it for long.
But... it's not "my" Cube. The other two I had were something personal and made by me, even though they had a lot of flaws and I was never satisfied with them. Hence, I still have some desire to build a Cube where I make all the card choices, and I know this will be difficult for me because I hate to choose, but I also think that I have learnt a lot about Cubes from all my failed attempts with Modern Masters, and reading and playing the Penny Pincher Cube. So... here I am, starting a new Cube project! I have to say: this is a long-term project, in the sense that I don't have much free time in this period to play or even to theorycraft, and I also live far away from my MtG friends, and also I already have the Penny Pincher Cube built and ready to set a draft, so I don't feel the need to finish a list fast and/or to buy the cards too soon. But since I love talking about Magic, maybe even more than I love playing Magic itself, I am here hoping to talk about this with you!
The starting point of the idea for the Cube was with the MtG Foundations spoiler season, where we basically discovered that threshold and flashback are becoming evergreen mechanics. And this is crazy because in Odyssey they were... the only two mechanics! So this now makes Odyssey a... Core Set? Starting with this in mind, I had then the idea of making some Cube where everything revolved around the graveyard, with things like flashback, threshold, madness (from Torment, that's still Odyssey block), then delirium and dredge and delve and embalm and everything!
I still have not decided whether I want to keep it as a Pauper Cube (or Peasant, or without rarity restrictions), and whether to have it be singleton or like henkdetenk's with some cards in 3x and some others in 1x. Probably, though, the best thing is to do as Grillo_Parlante did for Penny Pincher. There is no need to restrict the rarity, since if the power level goal is reached, having an Aven Wind Guide or a Moorland Haunt to sustain your U/W tokens/embalm theme is not destroying the world, even though not all cards have a black expansion symbol. And also for singleton-wise: yeah probably I can try to make it mostly singleton, but if I really need that second copy of a very unique card, I shouldn't be stopped from adding it.
Right now, I am still thinking about the archetypes. I am keeping some notes on my desk about what cards I like in which situation, but everything can still change. I am pretty sure I want the embalm and eternalize cards for an Azorius theme (even though also the disturb cards from the latest Innistrad are nice), then surely the madness cards can be a nice Rakdos theme, but I don't want it to be too much restrained: cards like Basking Rootwalla and Circular Logic and Arrogant Wurm and Wild Mongrel HAVE to be in the Cube, at least for a nostalgia factor. So probably there will not be "THE madness deck" but the madness mechanic can be shared between different kinds of decks and strategies. I like the Lorehold thing from Strixhaven that cares about cards leaving the graveyard (Stonebound Mentor, Quintorius, Field Historian) and I like the soulshift mechanic from Kamigawa (yeah I am an OG Kamigawa lover, didn't you notice from the Kabuto Moth profile pic? I will try my best to put that card in this Cube, obviously), and also the U/R Burning Vengeance + flashback stuff, and maybe even some degree of self-mill in Sultai with Spider Spawning and Gnaw to the Bone and Lotleth Giant...
I have clearly many ideas, and I am not sure where to begin. I saw a post of Mondschwein in another topic where they said "you have to start somewhere" and talked about 2-drop creatures, so maybe I could do something similar, choose a cmc and pick the power level for the creatures of that cmc, and then go on. But I am not sure that I want to focus it on the 2-cmc side, because I once read an article by Ari Lax that stuck with me for A LONG time about the fact that Guilds of Ravnica was a great draft format because it was centered around 3/2 creatures for three mana. Here is the article for the curious. And another great format I loved in recent years was Kaldheim, that was ALSO centered around 3/2 creatures for three mana. So my idea is to start exactly with that: with 3-drops, and then following the advice by Lax to build a format that is dynamic enough to be still very centered around the battlefield, even though it is a "graveyard format". So cards like:
but before going to choose cards I want also to hear some advice from the community, and that's the reason of this post, that maybe came out too long. I am sorry if it was boring, and I know my English is not the best but I hope it was still understandable!
Since I am not a very active member of the forum, like, sometimes I post here and there, maybe it's better if I do a bit of history of my experience with Cube. Since I discovered its existence, it has probably been my favourite MtG format. My problem with Magic has always been choosing, like, I love every colour in Magic the same, and I love a lot of different strategies, so when I was building decks for constructed formats I always had this problem of "choosing" my deck, and usually I ended up building 4/5 decks for any format I played since I was not able to choose. Hence, Cube is perfect for me, since I can just put different strategies and colours all in the same Cube, and draft different ones every time.
But the "choice" problem has then become a problem of: which Cube to choose? At the beginning, I built a power-max Cube with all the most powerful cards I owned, and I was buying new cards to make it stronger and stronger. But stronger cards doesn't necessarily mean better gameplay or more fun, so after a while (and after joining this forum) I took that Cube apart and tried new ways. Some day in the future I am sure I will build my power-max Cube again, but right now I decided to keep only one Cube built, since I am living away from my hometown (where all my Magic cards and MtG-playing friends are) so there is not much reason to have two or three Cubes built if I never play them. Better to have one and play that one when I can. So, for now, no power-max Cube, but some day I will build something along the lines of a Legacy/Vintage-level Cube, because I always liked those eternal formats and the high interaction and decision they bring.
After I dismantled my "Tier One" Cube, I decided I wanted a more synergistic and retail-draft-inspired draft, so at some point I settled on something akin to the Modern Masters expansion. That was a set I really liked (wow, it came out 11 years ago, I was almost calling it a "recent" set ahah) and in particular the draft experience was great. I tried various iterations of that Cube: singleton, non-singleton, Pauper, Peasant, only cards from Mirrodin to Alara, etc, but I feel it had a great problem of replayability, in the sense that a lot of the archetypes felt on-rail (come on, there are five tribal archetypes, Affinity, Dredge, Storm, and Mill with Dampen Thought... the only non-parasitic archetype was five-colour domain, lol). I still like a lot Modern Masters, and I still feel like that Cube was a very nice project that taught me a lot of things, but after drafting it a couple of times to me it felt more like 10 preconstructed decks mashed together, and drafting was just picking the right cards in the lane you chose.
Again, maybe this can be seen as a problem of "choosing", right? The Tier One Cube was nice because I was not choosing the cards, it auto-built from the strongest things I owned, the Modern Masters Cube had the archetypes already set in stone and I had no option of changing them! Because I couldn't choose what to change! Okay, since I am writing this, it feels like I have some problem that is prohibiting me to make decisions about anything in life, but I swear that in my daily life I am better than this. I can choose which marmalade flavour to put on my breakfast bread. But with Magic it feels so difficult! Also now, some people are trying to make me play EDH, and I am not able to choose a Commander, and I will probably end up building five different EDH decks, one per colour or something ahah. So yeah, please, don't judge me (not too harshly)...
So, this summer I was able to make a decision and... I built a Cube that's not mine! Namely, I really like the Cube design philosophy of this forum, and I have read many times about the "Penny Pincher" Cube by Grillo_Parlante, so I read the entire topic and then noticed most of the cards I didn't have for the Cube were very low-pricey, so I bought them all and built the Cube exactly as they did in 2016. I did a couple of drafts (and I am looking forward to do more of them!) and it is great! I really like how all the archetypes overlap, and I am discovering great synergy between some random commons and uncommons whose existence I completely forgot. So I am really liking to play this Cube, and I am not planning on dismantling it soon! I think I will keep on playing and drafting it for long.
But... it's not "my" Cube. The other two I had were something personal and made by me, even though they had a lot of flaws and I was never satisfied with them. Hence, I still have some desire to build a Cube where I make all the card choices, and I know this will be difficult for me because I hate to choose, but I also think that I have learnt a lot about Cubes from all my failed attempts with Modern Masters, and reading and playing the Penny Pincher Cube. So... here I am, starting a new Cube project! I have to say: this is a long-term project, in the sense that I don't have much free time in this period to play or even to theorycraft, and I also live far away from my MtG friends, and also I already have the Penny Pincher Cube built and ready to set a draft, so I don't feel the need to finish a list fast and/or to buy the cards too soon. But since I love talking about Magic, maybe even more than I love playing Magic itself, I am here hoping to talk about this with you!
The starting point of the idea for the Cube was with the MtG Foundations spoiler season, where we basically discovered that threshold and flashback are becoming evergreen mechanics. And this is crazy because in Odyssey they were... the only two mechanics! So this now makes Odyssey a... Core Set?
Starting with this in mind, I had then the idea of making some Cube where everything revolved around the graveyard, with things like flashback, threshold, madness (from Torment, that's still Odyssey block), then delirium and dredge and delve and embalm and everything!I still have not decided whether I want to keep it as a Pauper Cube (or Peasant, or without rarity restrictions), and whether to have it be singleton or like henkdetenk's with some cards in 3x and some others in 1x. Probably, though, the best thing is to do as Grillo_Parlante did for Penny Pincher. There is no need to restrict the rarity, since if the power level goal is reached, having an Aven Wind Guide or a Moorland Haunt to sustain your U/W tokens/embalm theme is not destroying the world, even though not all cards have a black expansion symbol. And also for singleton-wise: yeah probably I can try to make it mostly singleton, but if I really need that second copy of a very unique card, I shouldn't be stopped from adding it.
Right now, I am still thinking about the archetypes. I am keeping some notes on my desk about what cards I like in which situation, but everything can still change. I am pretty sure I want the embalm and eternalize cards for an Azorius theme (even though also the disturb cards from the latest Innistrad are nice), then surely the madness cards can be a nice Rakdos theme, but I don't want it to be too much restrained: cards like Basking Rootwalla and Circular Logic and Arrogant Wurm and Wild Mongrel HAVE to be in the Cube, at least for a nostalgia factor. So probably there will not be "THE madness deck" but the madness mechanic can be shared between different kinds of decks and strategies. I like the Lorehold thing from Strixhaven that cares about cards leaving the graveyard (Stonebound Mentor, Quintorius, Field Historian) and I like the soulshift mechanic from Kamigawa (yeah I am an OG Kamigawa lover, didn't you notice from the Kabuto Moth profile pic? I will try my best to put that card in this Cube, obviously), and also the U/R Burning Vengeance + flashback stuff, and maybe even some degree of self-mill in Sultai with Spider Spawning and Gnaw to the Bone and Lotleth Giant...
I have clearly many ideas, and I am not sure where to begin. I saw a post of Mondschwein in another topic where they said "you have to start somewhere" and talked about 2-drop creatures, so maybe I could do something similar, choose a cmc and pick the power level for the creatures of that cmc, and then go on. But I am not sure that I want to focus it on the 2-cmc side, because I once read an article by Ari Lax that stuck with me for A LONG time about the fact that Guilds of Ravnica was a great draft format because it was centered around 3/2 creatures for three mana. Here is the article for the curious. And another great format I loved in recent years was Kaldheim, that was ALSO centered around 3/2 creatures for three mana. So my idea is to start exactly with that: with 3-drops, and then following the advice by Lax to build a format that is dynamic enough to be still very centered around the battlefield, even though it is a "graveyard format". So cards like:
but before going to choose cards I want also to hear some advice from the community, and that's the reason of this post, that maybe came out too long. I am sorry if it was boring, and I know my English is not the best but I hope it was still understandable!
My advice would be to build what you enjoy. I've built maybe 5 different iterations of my graveyard cube over the years, adding more complexity, cutting down, streamlining, growing to 720, breaking back down to 450. It's an ongoing process, and that's the fun part of it. There's never going to be a finished cube, at least not as long as you're interested in it. There's always more stuff to tweak, new mechanics to try or remove, etc.
I wouldn't worry too much about archetypes just yet, and I wouldn't worry too much about color pairs at all. I've got mine bleeding over wedges and shards. If you have cards that function in multiple enviroments, you don't have to worry too much about does it fit archetype x or y, and things will just grow naturally. An Unwavering initiate works fine as a playable in an aggro deck, can be milled in a self mill or discard deck, and provides a token in a token deck. That's 3 archetypes from one lousy common with a spear for a hand. Pick cards you want to draft. Put in cards you need for decks you want to build from your cube.
I wouldn't worry too much about archetypes just yet, and I wouldn't worry too much about color pairs at all. I've got mine bleeding over wedges and shards. If you have cards that function in multiple enviroments, you don't have to worry too much about does it fit archetype x or y, and things will just grow naturally. An Unwavering initiate works fine as a playable in an aggro deck, can be milled in a self mill or discard deck, and provides a token in a token deck. That's 3 archetypes from one lousy common with a spear for a hand. Pick cards you want to draft. Put in cards you need for decks you want to build from your cube.
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Just sayin this again a bit louder for people in the back
This is probably true, and this is also life. We can't reach perfection, and it is fine. Accepting it is the first step
You are right! Yeah maybe I am too used to thinking inside the box, talking about archetypes etc, but again, in a Cube like this I want everything to be synergistic with everything, so the goal should be to have cards that are fun to play and slot nicely in the desired environment! Thanks for the advice!
Sure! We seem to have the same general ideas, lol.