General Artifact and Enchantment Themed Cube

[kevthewalker]

Could a cube which focuses around both these elements work out without the support getting too watered down (due to lack of space/focus)?

This theoretical cube would want to feature:
- metalcraft
- affinity
- equipment
- sacrifice

in addition to:
- constellation
- bestow
- auras

- Green would therefore become the top control color with its many naturalize effects and lifegain as a result of destroying said permanents.
- Red would be second at dealing with artifacts and have an artifact reanimation thing going ala Daretti, Scrap Savant and Goblin Welder.
- Black becomes the main aggro color with Disciple of the Vault and Glaze Fiend, for example. Also works well dealing with what little non-artifact creatures that exist.
- Blue reduces costs of artifacts and just works the best with having many of them.
- White deals with artifact-centric combat, ala equipment and enchantments as well.


I think it would be a nice change of pace from a conventional cube, just not sure how feasible it would be and therefore should one even start brainstorming the idea?

 

[GoblinSpy]

The only overlap I found between artifacts and enchantments was the theros weapons, removal and recursion. My current enchantment theme is more like aura/heroic than pure enchantment.

If you are going to do a whole cube about artifacts and enchantments I recommend that you go real heavy on artifacts because just about every deck wants good artifacts anyway. Enchantments doesn't have as many creatures so you will mostly have to deal with eidolons, archetypes and gods. But you can probably find other ways to reward enchantment focus as well, devotion and spirit tribe looks cool with Eidolons and Gods.

Green has a lot of hate that doesn't see much play elsewhere, this could be an opportunity to try it out. You can regulate that hate versus abilities like intimidate from other colors (which you should still be able to interact with if most of the creatures in your cube are artifacts).

 

[quanta]

In a weird way, I think making green the control color links together the artifact and enchantment themes via being hated on by the same thing. I think this might be a good cube to try out the green removal auras in. Plays well with an enchantress theme (as far as things that control wants, argothian enchantress mostly).

If you are going to do a whole cube about artifacts and enchantments I recommend that you go real heavy on artifacts because just about every deck wants good artifacts anyway. Enchantments doesn't have as many creatures so you will mostly have to deal with eidolons, archetypes and gods. But you can probably find other ways to reward enchantment focus as well, devotion and spirit tribe looks cool with Eidolons and Gods.

As far as creatures that rewards auras go, there are some interesting ones that are probably too narrow for most cubes. evershrike is one. If you decide to go the spirits route Goblinspy suggested (which I like), there's tallowisp. I'd probably break singleton on some key cards.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

I can't really comment too much on the enchantment themes, but I run an artifact theme. I think I have it pretty well fleshed out for lower power formats. In a word: splicers.

One comment I would make, is that I didn't have much success moving the theme into black. The cards you have to work with are stuff like disciple of the vault, glaze fiend, salvage slasher, and salvage titan which are all cards overly dependent on synergy to even function as cards. Black artifact decks were unpopular enough where I ended up cutting painsmith. If you are operating at any higher power level, there are no real options in black anyways.

Black does, however, have an eloquent negative relationship with any artifact theme, with terror style removal spells that can't touch artifact creatures, powerful card advantage discard like wrench mind that disproportionately impacts non-artifact decks, and creatures with fear that become better against artifact based strategies. There also are a few removal spells, such as gild, that add an artifact token to the battlefield.

The low power black artifact card that I would like to see be a thing is:



Its kind of a low power siege rhino, that looks sweet with black value recursion. Unfortunately, its so hard to get metalcraft cards going in cube if the card itself isn't an artifact.

 

[Diakonov]

I think you'll have the easiest time making it work if you stagger the support as follows.

Artifact Theme

Heavy: &

Medium:

Light: &

Enchantment Theme

Heavy: &

Medium:

Light: &

I agree with Grillo that I wouldn't rely on black for the core of an artifact deck, but there's a bit of support in there. I find black to be one of the better supporting colors just in general, given the variety of removal spells, tutors, targeted discard, card advantage, etc.

Executioner's Capsule
Whip of Erebos

These two require some devotion to black.
Phylactery Lich
Lashwrithe

Gold:
Baleful Strix
Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas