Do I cycle this to give deathtouch to one of my creatures? Or simply hard cast it forfor an 8/8?
No, you don't. You cycle it to make your 1-drop trade up and then you reanimate it
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- Thread starter James Stevenson
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No, you don't. You cycle it to make your 1-drop trade up and then you reanimate it
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
I played my cube today! Woo! Boros aggro won the finals against orzhov aggro, both decks playing 15 lands and ending the curve on three drops. Wild. Have I pushed aggro too hard?
Boros aggro won the finals against orzhov aggro, both decks playing 15 lands and ending the curve on three drops. Wild. Have I pushed aggro too hard? 
Ok so I'm thinking of putting a cube together after not having drafted in a while, and started out at the lands end of it. Is running 60 lands at 360 too much? I'm thinking 10 lands for stuff like vivid lands and evolving wilds, and then the following for each guild section:
This would be for a kind of peasant cube but with some rares.
This would be for a kind of peasant cube but with some rares.
No, that's a good number.
The shocklands seem a bit more powerful than the rest of this bunch but otherwise I like the spread. Perhaps you could replace the shocks with pain lands?
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Also, consider the decks you want to support. Multicolored aggro decks need untapped duals, so if you want to support those, consider more untapped sources, like the Pathways and the (already mentioned) painlands. If you don't want to support aggro, your list above is fine, though I agree with Train that shocklands are a cut above the rest of your options.Ok so I'm thinking of putting a cube together after not having drafted in a while, and started out at the lands end of it. Is running 60 lands at 360 too much? I'm thinking 10 lands for stuff like vivid lands and evolving wilds, and then the following for each guild section:
This would be for a kind of peasant cube but with some rares.
I feel like there is a clear ladder among those
Stomping Ground > Rootbound Crag > Temple of Abandon > Highland Forest > Gruul Turf
I agree with Onde. If you want to support aggro, you will need some untapped duals. Pain, Pathway, Horizon, Fetch, Fast.
Stomping Ground > Rootbound Crag > Temple of Abandon > Highland Forest > Gruul Turf
I agree with Onde. If you want to support aggro, you will need some untapped duals. Pain, Pathway, Horizon, Fetch, Fast.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Gruul Turf is probably better than Highland Forest in a lot of cases, potentially even better than a scryland. The ability to tap for two mana is strong.
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Andy (of Lucky Paper Radio) runs 80 I think
I don't mind CIPT lands, and I still want to aim somewhat for peasant, so I'm probably going to stick to this combination. I'll just be mindful of double pip cards and keeping the average mana value low.
Good to know 60 is an alright number. Thanks for the feedback!
Good to know 60 is an alright number. Thanks for the feedback!
Hey cube people, after our attempt at a group project seemed to be a little troublesome to keep updated, I created a arena peasant cube myself to play with friends online. Obviously you all can be my friends too and draft it for some friendly matches and testing pruposes
https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/1mkkq
https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/1mkkq
Hey cube people, after our attempt at a group project seemed to be a little troublesome to keep updated, I created a arena peasant cube myself to play with friends online. Obviously you all can be my friends too and draft it for some friendly matches and testing pruposes
https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/1mkkq
just gave it a whirl. Definitely took me a few picks to get a grasp on the power level, faced some tough decisions and ended up with a nice temur spells deck. The fixing seems absurdly good. I'm around for the next little bit if you want to get a game in.
Hey cube people, after our attempt at a group project seemed to be a little troublesome to keep updated, I created a arena peasant cube myself to play with friends online. Obviously you all can be my friends too and draft it for some friendly matches and testing pruposes
https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/1mkkq
I already did an update that turned out a little bigger than anticipated. Now the removal deck should be slightly weaker but still good (I won every game with it and every match against it yesterday), while Counters, Selfmill and Lifegain should have a little more potential within the meta. Oh, and I tried to integrate Temur Energy, which should give the proliferate cards more targets and add a whole new archetype to the draft!
If anyone wants to play, just text me
Chris Taylor
Contributor
I just wanna give a shoutout to a mechanic we all love and heap some praise on it: Ward fucking rocks
And not just because it's not hexproof, though it does deserve praise for that as well (not that they've stopped with that bullshit)
I was watching Jeff Hoogland's spoiler review of the Alchemy cards and his breakdown of Rimewall Protector stuck something in my head I've been turning over since.
Rimewall Protector is a 3 mana creature with ward 1, so if you consider the average removal spell (we're talking standard/historic here) is 2 mana, it trades even on mana while providing a good body and some hard to evaluate level of ETB value.
The four toughness might be notable but given standard's current big players (Esika's Chariot, Goldspan Dragon, Adeline, Resplendent Cathar, and Old-Growth Troll) make 3 damage removal spell less valuable than 4 point removal, both of which are options so that point is a bit moot. However something like this could come into play in your cube:
If there's two things I love it's:
-Volt Charge and no other proliferate effect
-Karnstructs in any form
Bronze Guardian, a card I'm increasingly convinced only I love the more I hear about it, has a toughness that DOES matter. Now it's a 5 mana card, so your opponent needs to kill it with a 3 mana removal spell for it to be trading neutrally on mana. This can happen, there's plenty of playable 3 mana removal spells, and maybe your cube is all about murder, but what I like is mine isn't; it's doom blades as far as the eye can see, and this card still works.
As above, if we assume removal spells to be 2mv in general you'd be trading down on mana, but the five toughness means you're likely to need two red removal spells unless somehow you're playing the wendy's twitter cube.
The double strike also means that trading a small creature and a single burn spell to try and dodge paying for ward twice is a harder piece of the puzzle as well, as your creature might just get struck out.
You can try and shrink it down over the course of a few turns by pointing removal spells at other artifacts, but it gives them ward 2 as well so this plan is still awkward, but (in classic ward fashion) still doable.
Iymrith, Desert Doom has the lovely "Ward - Huge While Untapped (TM)" which does lean a bit harder into the "aren't you glad this isn't hexproof" angle but I still love letting people choose their shields down moments.
Ward - Pay N Life feels more like a consequence than something that shapes your play patterns, but I think that's more because it changes how your opponent plays around it in a more fluid way. Afterall, people have more life to play with than mana on a given turn for the most part, but you only get so much. This might just be a visibility problem, where it feels "free" the turn your creature dies but actually benefits you when they're on the squeeze five turns down the line cursing putting infernal grasp in their deck
As well there is the absolutely brilliant "Ward - Discard a card" which as I understand it we all think is excellent but personally I haven't actually seen a card with that text I want to run.
Also I love this mechanic because I get to do shit like this and bring Lightning Greaves back to my cube without tilting out:
And not just because it's not hexproof, though it does deserve praise for that as well (not that they've stopped with that bullshit)
I was watching Jeff Hoogland's spoiler review of the Alchemy cards and his breakdown of Rimewall Protector stuck something in my head I've been turning over since.
Rimewall Protector is a 3 mana creature with ward 1, so if you consider the average removal spell (we're talking standard/historic here) is 2 mana, it trades even on mana while providing a good body and some hard to evaluate level of ETB value.
The four toughness might be notable but given standard's current big players (Esika's Chariot, Goldspan Dragon, Adeline, Resplendent Cathar, and Old-Growth Troll) make 3 damage removal spell less valuable than 4 point removal, both of which are options so that point is a bit moot. However something like this could come into play in your cube:
If there's two things I love it's:
-Volt Charge and no other proliferate effect
-Karnstructs in any form
Bronze Guardian, a card I'm increasingly convinced only I love the more I hear about it, has a toughness that DOES matter. Now it's a 5 mana card, so your opponent needs to kill it with a 3 mana removal spell for it to be trading neutrally on mana. This can happen, there's plenty of playable 3 mana removal spells, and maybe your cube is all about murder, but what I like is mine isn't; it's doom blades as far as the eye can see, and this card still works.
As above, if we assume removal spells to be 2mv in general you'd be trading down on mana, but the five toughness means you're likely to need two red removal spells unless somehow you're playing the wendy's twitter cube.
The double strike also means that trading a small creature and a single burn spell to try and dodge paying for ward twice is a harder piece of the puzzle as well, as your creature might just get struck out.
You can try and shrink it down over the course of a few turns by pointing removal spells at other artifacts, but it gives them ward 2 as well so this plan is still awkward, but (in classic ward fashion) still doable.
Iymrith, Desert Doom has the lovely "Ward - Huge While Untapped (TM)" which does lean a bit harder into the "aren't you glad this isn't hexproof" angle but I still love letting people choose their shields down moments.
Ward - Pay N Life feels more like a consequence than something that shapes your play patterns, but I think that's more because it changes how your opponent plays around it in a more fluid way. Afterall, people have more life to play with than mana on a given turn for the most part, but you only get so much. This might just be a visibility problem, where it feels "free" the turn your creature dies but actually benefits you when they're on the squeeze five turns down the line cursing putting infernal grasp in their deck
As well there is the absolutely brilliant "Ward - Discard a card" which as I understand it we all think is excellent but personally I haven't actually seen a card with that text I want to run.
Also I love this mechanic because I get to do shit like this and bring Lightning Greaves back to my cube without tilting out:
Think you've managed to sell me on Bronze Guardian actually.
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Only here can I wax poetic about how a card manages to occasionally trade card/mana neutral as a 5 drop for ~400 words and somehow that ends up being a selling point
I should clarify: This isn't a dig. I do actually run this card, after all
I should clarify: This isn't a dig. I do actually run this card, after all
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It does fit quite nicely as another golem to go with a "soft" tribal theme with Master Splicer et al. and is also a general artifact incentive that fits the power level I'm looking for : )
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Technically it's not a subset, but ward, hexproof, protection, and shroud are all adjacent mechanics. Some of these are far more egregious in gameplay than others, and ward is a very respectable 'fix' for my major complaints with hexproof.
Nice, I missed the counter part!
Yeah it's a really nice fix to those problematic mechanics, and with the high level of flexibility they gave themselves in it's execution, they have a lot of room to work with in getting the power level right.
I also like the "counter the first spell/ability that targets this" type of ability as a version of creature protection. "Ward: Discard a removal spell and pay it's costs".
Mwah, protection and shroud holds for all players... expensive ward (uncounterable left out of the equation) is essentially hexproof... ward of 1 or 2 could be okay. Still, I would rather have a shroud variant of ward like the glasskite. If something holds for both players it makes the game more interesting.
Magic went through the new world order paradigm which essentially ment less words, less complexity, and only pros (lords only holds for your creatures to almost no backsides) for the controller. It seems to be reversing to more complexity but still only upsides, which made the game less interesting for me (as did dumbing down).
They sadly left some mistakes intact.
Protection is a bit random, but pre 8th edition it was not a problem. It all went to shit with the swords of x and y.
Also, I got a bit of flack for pointing out that mechanics were a subset of kicker, but now everyone is praising ward? It is (uncounterable left aside) practically a broader version of hexproof. This leaves me a bit confused.
this was actually super relevant in STX limited, where several key creatures had Ward, but one of the premium red removals was uncounterable. it’s a cool interaction if usually kinda niche
you got flack because mechanics aren't actually subsets of other mechanics most of the time*. you can make mechanics behave like other mechanics by creative usages, but that doesn't make them subsets. Even ward 15 is still not hexproof (especially in EDH), and the uncounterable thing definitely can't be left aside, as blacksmithy notes.
they are their own thing. Ward is being praised because it's excellent (and focused. It does one thing, creature protection). Kicker is hated on because it's not excellent (generic and too broad)
*Just one reason that Overload, for an example, isn't even an actual "subset" of kicker:
they are their own thing. Ward is being praised because it's excellent (and focused. It does one thing, creature protection). Kicker is hated on because it's not excellent (generic and too broad)
*Just one reason that Overload, for an example, isn't even an actual "subset" of kicker:
- If you cast a card "without paying its mana cost," you can't pay any alternative costs. You can pay additional costs such as kicker costs. If the card has mandatory additional costs, you must pay those.
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