General CBS

[ravnic]

Except a single infect creature doesn't work on it's own in a deck, that is trying to win by damage. Aether Swooper does. It could instead have charge counters placed on itself and "when ~ attacks, you may remove two charge counters from it. if you do, create a servo" to be almost the same card in my cube (the onl real advantag being that you don't lose the counters when it leaves the battlefield for recursion and bounce purposes).

So while energy could be parasitic, the way they designed it isn't so much. Their power level increases with more energy around them, but they do not work contrarily to what the rest of your deck tries to achieve.

 

[LadyMapi]

I said it was a terrible idea. And honestly, thinking about it more, I was crossing over some things in my mind — the only real problem with Energy is that it only showed up in two sets, and that we're unlikely to see it again (which kinda limits the usable cards). And yeah, it would be a balance nightmare, come to think of it...

Except a single infect creature doesn't work on it's own in a deck, that is trying to win by damage. Aether Swooper does. It could instead have charge counters placed on itself and "when ~ attacks, you may remove two charge counters from it. if you do, create a servo" to be almost the same card in my cube (the onl real advantag being that you don't lose the counters when it leaves the battlefield for recursion and bounce purposes).

Hold up. On the topic of crossing over mechanics (because I'm stuck on that, apparently)... what if you made "You can spend energy instead of removing charge counters" an explicit houserule? Or maybe just make some custom versions of "charge counter" cards that care about energy instead, for simplicity's sake.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

the only real problem with Energy is that it only showed up in two sets, and that we're unlikely to see it again (which kinda limits the usable cards).

Actually, MaRo most recently (in 2018) rated the mechanic a 6 on the Storm Scale, so while it's very dependent on them finding the right environment, they're definitely not unwilling to reprint the mechanic.

 

[whydirt]

Happy New Year! Hopefully we get to cube more in 2021!

 

[ravnic]

Please no pyrotechnics. You might scare someone.

 

[Erik Twice]

Is this an infinite mana combo with a bounceland? Or does it just generate a billion mana while returning all your opponent's creatures to their hand?

 

[whydirt]

How are you getting Snap back into your hand after the first round of spells?

 

[Erik Twice]

How are you getting Snap back into your hand after the first round of spells?

Ok, I'm an idiot. So yeah, that's good to hear, because it sounded broken as hell hahaha

 

[Brad]

What's the power level on this bad girl? Difficult to tell on stats alone because there's so many potential scenarios, but it looks like a cool card for a number of decks. Thoughts?

 

[ravnic]

I'd say it is compareable to Cloudgoat Ranger, maybe with a bit more power in potential synergies (blink, sacrifice, tokens). That's from my experience with it in a friend's cube, which is a bit higher in power level than mine but far from power max.

 

[Erik Twice]

I was going to disagree, but the cards are comparable. Cloudgoat Ranger is a pure beater that leaves a good chunk of its value on the board even when removed. Angel has more stuff going on, but she's easy to remove.

Personally, I've liked Angel a lot. She's fun to use and all her different modes are skill-testing. I also haven't found the lifelike+vigilance overbearing. I normally dislike lifelink because it tends to punish aggro.

 

[whydirt]

How often do you fabricate the tokens vs the counters?

 

[Velrun]

For me it’s been close to 50/50 but not quite. I think I create tokens a little more often than I add +1/+1 counters.

 

[ravnic]

For me it’s been close to 50/50 but not quite. I think I create tokens a little more often than I add +1/+1 counters.

+1

 

[Velrun]

+1

Sorry
+1/+1/+1 counters, yes. My bad

 

[LadyMapi]

I have two weeks before my classes start up again, so I'm debating about taking a crack at another mini-project. And part of me wants to do a Shard/Wedge minicube - 180 cards that all fall inside one three-color triad. So if I pick Naya (for example), there will be no Black or Blue cards.

So the real question is... what do people think would be the most interesting combination? Part of me thinks Temur or Sultai, but I'm very open to hearing arguments for other combinations.

 

[Mondschwein]

What's the power level on this bad girl? Difficult to tell on stats alone because there's so many potential scenarios, but it looks like a cool card for a number of decks. Thoughts?

Great card and definitely one of the most interesting hymn effects.
Geist-Honored Monk does also compare to it in a certain way. Love them both.

 

[ravnic]

Is there a sweet spot for color hate?



I could imagine that a very small dose adds a new sideboard tool, that makes sideboardig more appealing and also more approachable for newbies, who often don't have the knowledge and experience to realize which subtle changes can be helpful. And it would be a way to include the classic flavor of allied and enemy colors without destroying an even color and color combination balance in a cube.

What do we think?

The card I added are somehow not visible. They are Fiendslayer Paladin, Flashfreeze, Deathmark, Combust, Mold Adder, which I think would be cool choices.

 

[japahn]

I think it's an interesting tool to use for the reasons you provided and also to add some more depth to drafting - those late picks becomes more important. Some groups enjoy sideboarding, some groups don't. This is probably a super playgroup-dependant thing.

 

[Brad]

For hosing, the spells are a safer pick than the permanents. If your mono red opponent has a draw without 3 toughness, which isn't a hard thing to imagine, then Fiendslayer might be GRBS. Adder is likely safer, as it will get bounced or killed in most UB decks, but the spells have no potential to blow a game out.

 

[ravnic]

You're probably right. Maybe Celestial Purge would fit that group better.

 

[Brad]

Anyone do anything clever for tokens? I'll often cut a card because I know my players aren't going to dig through a pile of 20 different types of tokens. The Black Cube allows zombie tokens no problem, but I get pretty selective beyond that.

 

[whydirt]

Cards from the Clue board game for clue tokens. Little plastic coins (or foil wrapped chocolate coins if you're feeling frisky) for treasure tokens.

 

[Brad]

Cards from the Clue board game for clue tokens. Little plastic coins (or foil wrapped chocolate coins if you're feeling frisky) for treasure tokens.

While that's cute, maybe I wasn't clear what the problem is.

Spoiler: Example token set

That's 12 cards. Now my token pile consists of AT LEAST:
1 Snek
1 Wolf
1 Elephant
2 Thopters
1 Germ
1 Knight
2 Servos, but likely 10 Servos to be safe because there's likely more Fabricate around (plus blink)
1 Solder (without lifelink)
10+ Soldiers (with lifelink) to be safe on bigger or multiple casts.
5+ Treasures because he can make quite a few and there's likely more Treasures around
2+ Golem for blinks, likely other golems around (so more like 5+)
1 Food, likely more in environment
5 Clues, likely more
10+ Zombies

The problem I'm having is that telling my players "you can find a single Wolf in that pile of 50+ tokens" is a tall order. I'd sooner cut every card on this list that is the only instance of making X type of token.

I looked into only have 1-2 token kinds per color, but damn WotC likes to make a new thematic token for almost every color almost every set.

Currently I'm super trying to limit the number of types of tokens I have around.

Does anyone have a better solution than cutting all but a few token producers in order to limit the task of finding tokens?

 

[ravnic]

Keep them sorted. It is not as much work as it sounds like. I sort them by color and within that alphabetically. Finding the right tokens then is an easier task. But yeah, bringing a new token to the box has also been a tiebreaker with new cards for me.

I thought about the idea to have double faced tokens (by sleevin 2 together), but that just seems like more complication.