Attack on Cube (2021 Update)

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Hey, congratulations on becoming a father! Newborns are a real time sink, but don't worry, eventually you'll get your life back! That might take 18 years though ;) Also, your new job is selling cubes? Where do we sign up? :D

Did one draft, lots of hints at different viable themes. A lot of high cmc cards though, might be the packs, but might also be something to monitor? There's only room for a few high cmc cards in each draft deck after all, especially with all those Evolving Wilds filtering out lands from your deck.
 
Brainstorm's in! I chose not to break singleton, but I could always be convinced to change my mind. I have a problem of not knowing when to stop once I start including multiples, though. (See my squad cubes for proof of that lol)
Onder, I left you a very long comment about the mana cost in your draft, but I'll reiterate the gist of it here: in construction I did end up with what felt like a lot of high cost cards. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing, because I wanted to create a dynamic of play analogous to two heavyweights trading punches. However, you're right that the nature of the manabase may make my glut of 5 and 6 cost cards difficult to actually cast. I think in revisions I may try to skew the top of my curve down towards the 3-5 range and away from the 4-6 range. But then again, I want to make sure it's broke before I fix it.
EDIT: Also yes I am selling cubes, but stock is limited to my personal collection. I don't want to break forum rules, but if you're interested in buying one, PM me and let's talk turkey.
EDIT 2: selling cubes is not my new job. If only, if only, if only. My actual jobs are journalism and retail management. Guess which one I want to do and which one just pays the bills?
 

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
EDIT 2: selling cubes is not my new job. If only, if only, if only. My actual jobs are journalism and retail management. Guess which one I want to do and which one just pays the bills?

;)

Another point of feedback: XCCC spells are hard to cast, especially if you want to encourage splashing. CC spells are also hard on the mana base. An additional problem with this cube is that there is no fixing that is good at supporting these hard to cast spells, as you're only working with Evolving Wilds. I think you need to look really, really hard at the cards below and decide whether they're absolutely essential to one of the themes. Most of these should definitely be replaced I feel.



Likewise, you should probably make sure there are enough 2C options available next to the 1CC option, so people don't get locked out of part of their hand when they have to choose which basic to fetch. As is you'll be hard pressed to cast all your three drops in, say, your WB deck no matter whether you play Plains, Plains, Swamp or Plains, Swamp, Swamp. I'm not going to list all of the cards, but I see a lot of double mana symbols.
 
Hmm... Some of those are definitely expendable. But I have to say I'm not super worried about someone having 3 of one color at 7+ mana. The CC cards do need to be subjected to review, though. Except bloodghast.
 

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
I think the two cards that add the most (and are hard to replace) are Bloodghast and Pelakka Wurm. Seismic Assault is really unique, but super hard to cast. I'ld personally would replace that with Stormbind, which is secretly an awesome card, and a good replacement for Borborygmos in the Gruul slot if you ask me! :)
 
From Onder's list, I'm looking to cut Distress, Smallpox, Ash Zealot, Eidolon, and Overrun. The other card are either expensive enough to offset the restrictive cost, or important enough to the overall cube that they warrant the inclusion. I don't really expect anyone to be casting Assault on curve; IMO it would be completely overpowered in this list at, say, 2R. There's just too many ways to make it a lock via recursion, which is what I want, but i don't want it to be easy.
 

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
The fixing btw seems really easy, so I don't think you have to worry about that. Its really easy because you of course don't have to prioritize lands, since they are all the same.

Sesmic assault has been a historical underperformer for me. I also think you would be much better off with stormbind.

There isn't a lot to facilitate discard fodder, limited ramp, and borbo is way above the cubes power level.
 
I have just returned to this forum after FOUR YEARS, and it is so good to see so many of the same people here!
This cube turned up while I was cleaning out my basement last week. I have been drafting it on CT and did a couple IRL 2-player dark drafts... I can’t help but wonder how it could be tweaked with four years worth of new cards to try!
 
Okay, after running a bunch of draft sims, there are some cards that just seem really awkward even in their “home deck.” So i’m hoping some cool stuff has printed since 2016 that maybe can fill these slots?
Here’s my short list of cards to replace:
Galvanoth - was supposed to tie together “spells” and “top of deck.” but wow is this card just... bad. 5 mana is the top of curve for most decks and this thing just screams “bench me!”
Extractor Demon - he checks a lot of boxes for the cube themes, but just doesn’t feel exciting in any of the many decks that COULD use him. Maybe i’m just biased against him?
Dinrova Horror - that new UB stitcher gal from M21 looks like an easy replace here? am i missing anything?
Unexpected Results - another “topdeck” dud. i would want either a ramp card or some kind of “pull goodies from top of deck” card here.
Magmaw - love the sac effect, hate the 5 cost.
Distress - i think i want something that costs 1B and does a similar thing as this?
 
Draft report!
Bwr Sac and Smack vs UGb Mill.
Both decks won 1 and then we switched to anime for the night.
Big all stars were:
Tymaret and Blood Artist for Bwr
Trepanation Blade and Consuming Aberration for UGb.
Posting decklists as photos, hope that’s OK...
F85F2482-5B6A-4B5F-B6BE-7D37CB569B06.jpeg 43373BDD-774B-4B1B-B44C-0E5C1659477F.jpeg

MOD EDIT: Kirb here, just wanted to see the decklists, so put them in riptide style insteadL

Bwr Sac and Smack









UGb Mill








 
there has been a lot of top deck support in recent years!
so a big update is happening on this cube: i’m downsizing it to focus on designing for 2-player dark draft and 4-player normal draft, with upsize modules that have nonbasic lands and multiplayer scaling cards.
general themes i’m looking to push in the new build are much the same:
-GRAVEYARD GRAVEYARD GRAVEYARD
-lands matter
-noncreature spells
-top of deck
-Humans
...with some smaller themes built in as “packages” that will hopefully provide sideways draft opportunities every few games. such as Reveillark and company (“power less than 2” type cards), Burning Vengeance, Spider Spawning, etc.
any suggestions for those themes in recent years? or just relevant search terms i can punch into ManaBox?
Thanks so much for all the feedback already, and the warm welcome!
 
I’ve started completely rebuilding this cube to update it from 2016 to 2020. I’m also adjusting it to better suit my expected playgroup, which is 2-4 players.
The manabase is still a bunch of Evolving Wilds, and that drives the graveyard focus of the rest of the cube, but i’ve simplified the supporting themes somewhat to better support a smaller cube size. Each “large theme” has explicit payoff cards in 4 colors, and my goal is for as many of the supporting/payoff cards as possible to overlap among multiple themes:
-Lands Matter UBRG
-Enchantments Matter WUBG
-Artifacts Matter WUBR
-Spells Matter WURG
-Humans Matter WBRG (also including the “power 2 or less” clause as a payoff for this theme)

So with that in mind, here is my “first draft” of the white section. Now i just need to cut this down to about 25 cards!

 
First of all, you don't have the 40 Wilds in the list. I want them in there, because that's fucking brilliant. It's the weakest of the most flexible lands, giving everyone plenty of access to fixing, but not very well. I love that. Your mana base also costs $500+ less than mine, which is awesome.

I also like to start with an excessive list and cut away at it, so I'm with you there.

That said, why does this pack have Ray of Distortion right next to Nesting Dragon? This pack has me choosing between the woefully inefficient Mire's Malice against the ETB +1 tempo beast known as Goblin Dark-Dwellers. I could find more, but the point is that your power level is all over the place. Take a look at your best card and worst card in each color and/or each cost and I'm sure you'll see a massive disparity. Thraben Standard Bearer vs Champion of the Parish are your two white 1 drops and there's no consideration at all in anyone's mind ever about which of those is the better card. You're gonna have standouts, but it needs to be within reason. You said something doesn't feel right, and I think a lot of your stronger cards are likely invalidating your weaker cards.

From there, you have a lot of cards that are secretly guild cards. That's to say that they only go in one deck, similar to how a multicolor card would. Kor Spiritdancer is dead outside of an aura deck. Restoration Specialist, on the other hand, gets to be a 2/1 for 2, which may or may not be appropriate for your format, I haven't delved into it that deeply. Assuming a 2/1 for 2 does some decent hitting, it's a serviceable attacker with upside in the right deck.

Keep in mind, some of these are appropriate to have around, but a high density of them ends up leaving fewer picks for all the decks. I personally am going to run an enchantments deck, but it's going to have just a handful of resilient payoffs in addition to swapping my removal suite to be more enchantment heavy rather than having a ton of cards that specifically need enchantments around.

I'm just gonna list the stuff I think is narrow in white as a start and you can decide how you feel about each card and probably expand from there.
Kor Spiritdancer, Soulcatcher, Auramancer, Favored of Iroas, Trusty Packbeast.
Also, Eternal Dragon just does such a better job than Noble Templar and Dearly Departed seems weird as a 6 mana white weenie support.

I know the list is intentionally bloated right now, so hopefully this will help get it down. I have a lot more individual cards to pick on, but I'll let you do the bulk of it before I continue. Ask yourself how your archetype support cards look in other decks. If they're a 0/2 for 2 or a 12 mana double counter (Fervent Denial), you can probably do better. Looking at your list, you have done better (Sinister Sabotage). So, I think you're too bloated and over extending on archetype support.

Good luck and I'll be back to check in.
 
thanks very much for the feedback! you’re spot on about the power level, i myself haven’t decided where it should be and so it’s all over. and the narrow cards is another big issue. i think that’s where my anxiety about my theme choices is coming from- some themes are just kind of poisonous and maybe my mistake is including them in the first place!
i am working on a more focused list in Manabox and will import over to the cube list ASAP. thanks again!
 
I keep just getting super stressed out looking at my current list, so it’s back to the drawing board.
Gonna move back towards a more traditional cube structure, but keep the Wilds and a few nods to them in the design rather than building literally everything around their presence.
With that in mind, I’m starting with the guild section and expanding out!
I’d like to have 3-4 reps per guild, and in general they should either demonstrate that guild’s “main deck” or just be hella cool.
So here’s my first draft of the guild reps, with cuts needed in GB, GW, and most of all, UG, where lots of things look cool to me and I’m not totally sure what theme I even want!
 
The cube is now totally rebuilt from scratch and migrated to CubeCobra!
There are still some cuts to make, and some wide power band issues to solve, but it’s eminently draftable!
Please use 6 or fewer seats when drafting since it’s a small cube.
 
thanks so much for drafting!
Recurring Nightmare is probably going to come out before i ever actually play a draft with real people. but i like slamming it on simulated drafts and cackling, because i have issues XD
 
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