Hi, I'm anotak and here's the 360 budgety cube I'm working on:
http://cubetutor.com/viewcube/2573
edit: http://tappedout.net/mtg-cube-drafts/arnold-in-raw-deal/
This is my first cube and it is mostly made out of cards me and a friend had laying around. I'm trying to cut it down to 360 cards (As I'm writing this it is 372). I haven't had the chance to make it as I'm still designing here but I figured I'd get some advice from the experts.
I've read a decent bit of articles on cube-building and I wanted to have some fun with some of these cards I don't get to use much. Should have the first draft within the next week or so as soon as I get a chance to buy the sleeves. I mostly have access to budgety cards from about Alara block and newer. I actually have a playset of all the uncommons and commons from ALA -> WWK and M10 except the uncommons from conflux... using my only Path to Exile in an EDH deck atm but I could take that apart maybe. I can take suggestions outside of these but those will be much easier for me to get considering my local playgroup.
out of date stuff:
Thanks in advance for having a look and any help y'all can offer!
http://cubetutor.com/viewcube/2573
edit: http://tappedout.net/mtg-cube-drafts/arnold-in-raw-deal/
This is my first cube and it is mostly made out of cards me and a friend had laying around. I'm trying to cut it down to 360 cards (As I'm writing this it is 372). I haven't had the chance to make it as I'm still designing here but I figured I'd get some advice from the experts.
I've read a decent bit of articles on cube-building and I wanted to have some fun with some of these cards I don't get to use much. Should have the first draft within the next week or so as soon as I get a chance to buy the sleeves. I mostly have access to budgety cards from about Alara block and newer. I actually have a playset of all the uncommons and commons from ALA -> WWK and M10 except the uncommons from conflux... using my only Path to Exile in an EDH deck atm but I could take that apart maybe. I can take suggestions outside of these but those will be much easier for me to get considering my local playgroup.
out of date stuff:
things about the cube itself:
- Storm Crow has etb storm: "When Storm Crow enters the battlefield, for each other spell cast this turn, put a 1/2 blue Bird creature token with flying named Storm Crow onto the battlefield" errata. a friend's peasant cube has this so most of the people locally are used to this. blinking it is nice.
- The only goal really is just to have a cube that's around that people can play once school starts up and people are back in town to play in large groups, last semester was EDH every week and while I love the format a lot of people seemed to be getting pretty tired of it
- I'm not really sure how to make aggro fun or good, because I'm not really an aggro player myself. Perhaps getting a better manabase would help a decent bit
- Is Evincar's Justice too good for this environment?
- My friend that's been giving me advice on the cube says black might be too strong here, he might be right, I guess I just need to playtest. I tend to play black more than anything else so that's probably biased me.
- Same friend feels that green only has 'elves into big stuff', I'm not sure what else green is really supposed to have though?
- I've read a lot of stuff saying tri-color cards aren't great in cube but for now I want to make that mistake on my own with a few drafts before I decide to take them out. I will be keeping a close eye on them though.
- Are there any absolutely awful 'why is this in here' cards?
- I'm not sure about the lands, for example I'm missing Vivid Crag (although I can probably find this pretty easily), and I only have Godless Shrine and Rootbound Crag from those cycles. Same with the two tainteds, but the tainted lands are an unbalanced cycle in the first place so I'm not sure it is worth running them at all?
- Tidehollow Sculler or Sin Collector?
- Auger Spree or Terminate or Bituminous Blast? Terminate seems like it is better than Spree, but Spree has the potential to be a combat trick and that's sort of neat. Bit Blast is a little bit different of a card, but cascade might be one of my favorite mechanics so it might be tilting me towards a card people will like less. I'm not sure if someone will want to grab a multicolor card to just have another generic removal spell or two unless it does quite a something a little extra though (like Putrefy/Mortify hitting another permanent type)
- Another friend said I have too much fixing, but I'm not sure how I feel about that. Related: are the borderposts too terrible?
- When is it worth it to run a mainly sideboard card like Relic of Progenitus?
- How do I know how much is too much removal?
- Any obvious themes I could fit in here? I've got elves, is it worth throwing in Nettle Sentinel + Heritage Druid? I've got hints of the izzet spells matter thing (but i need Kiln Fiend, Young Pyromancer. I own a Nivix Cyclops I'd have to add that in with them probably). I suppose I could also add rituals for storm, I put Grapshot because in my experience with MMA draft it's decent as fair removal/burn card as opposed to going nuts like usual. I'd have to find an Empty the Warrens but that wouldn't be too hard. I guess multicolor is a minor theme in the sense of most of my cards being from ALA and RTR, maybe I could finish out the Bant Sureblade cycle (enabled by borderposts too)? I could find some more blink cards too. Maybe Ethereal Armor or Mesa Enchantress would be worth running? Tokens?
- Mask of Riddles is probably my favorite card that I've never had the chance to actually cast so I hope it's at least decent.
- I'm not sure that I should run both Putrefy and Abrupt Decay. The latter card seems a lot weaker here than in constructed, perhaps I can throw in something like Necrogenesis in its spot or just cut it completely.
- Storm Crow has etb storm: "When Storm Crow enters the battlefield, for each other spell cast this turn, put a 1/2 blue Bird creature token with flying named Storm Crow onto the battlefield" errata. a friend's peasant cube has this so most of the people locally are used to this. blinking it is nice.
- The only goal really is just to have a cube that's around that people can play once school starts up and people are back in town to play in large groups, last semester was EDH every week and while I love the format a lot of people seemed to be getting pretty tired of it
- I'm not really sure how to make aggro fun or good, because I'm not really an aggro player myself. Perhaps getting a better manabase would help a decent bit
- Is Evincar's Justice too good for this environment?
- My friend that's been giving me advice on the cube says black might be too strong here, he might be right, I guess I just need to playtest. I tend to play black more than anything else so that's probably biased me.
- Same friend feels that green only has 'elves into big stuff', I'm not sure what else green is really supposed to have though?
- I've read a lot of stuff saying tri-color cards aren't great in cube but for now I want to make that mistake on my own with a few drafts before I decide to take them out. I will be keeping a close eye on them though.
- Are there any absolutely awful 'why is this in here' cards?
- I'm not sure about the lands, for example I'm missing Vivid Crag (although I can probably find this pretty easily), and I only have Godless Shrine and Rootbound Crag from those cycles. Same with the two tainteds, but the tainted lands are an unbalanced cycle in the first place so I'm not sure it is worth running them at all?
- Tidehollow Sculler or Sin Collector?
- Auger Spree or Terminate or Bituminous Blast? Terminate seems like it is better than Spree, but Spree has the potential to be a combat trick and that's sort of neat. Bit Blast is a little bit different of a card, but cascade might be one of my favorite mechanics so it might be tilting me towards a card people will like less. I'm not sure if someone will want to grab a multicolor card to just have another generic removal spell or two unless it does quite a something a little extra though (like Putrefy/Mortify hitting another permanent type)
- Another friend said I have too much fixing, but I'm not sure how I feel about that. Related: are the borderposts too terrible?
- When is it worth it to run a mainly sideboard card like Relic of Progenitus?
- How do I know how much is too much removal?
- Any obvious themes I could fit in here? I've got elves, is it worth throwing in Nettle Sentinel + Heritage Druid? I've got hints of the izzet spells matter thing (but i need Kiln Fiend, Young Pyromancer. I own a Nivix Cyclops I'd have to add that in with them probably). I suppose I could also add rituals for storm, I put Grapshot because in my experience with MMA draft it's decent as fair removal/burn card as opposed to going nuts like usual. I'd have to find an Empty the Warrens but that wouldn't be too hard. I guess multicolor is a minor theme in the sense of most of my cards being from ALA and RTR, maybe I could finish out the Bant Sureblade cycle (enabled by borderposts too)? I could find some more blink cards too. Maybe Ethereal Armor or Mesa Enchantress would be worth running? Tokens?
- Mask of Riddles is probably my favorite card that I've never had the chance to actually cast so I hope it's at least decent.
- I'm not sure that I should run both Putrefy and Abrupt Decay. The latter card seems a lot weaker here than in constructed, perhaps I can throw in something like Necrogenesis in its spot or just cut it completely.
Thanks in advance for having a look and any help y'all can offer!