General CBS

Which 6 cards in your cube across your colored and gold sections do you enjoy casting/playing with the most? I'll start:



I guess my common theme is just that I really like extracting maximum value from the cards that I draft and playing grindy decks. If I ever see a wrath effect early in draft, I will almost always try to slot into some UW/UB/Esper Control build as a first choice unless it completely dries up. Cryptic Command is just my favorite card of all time to play with, it's just so satisfying to fire off a timely one and flip games. Braids allows you to attack decks on a different axis and really grind away with small advantages which I love to do. Kavu is probably just the splashiest red creature ever and will always find a home in any red deck either as just another value ETB creature or as an aggro curve-topper. Courser being able to smooth draws out and the interactions with various TOL manipulation cards has just kept it as an All-Star ever it was printed. Finally, I absolutely love Meren as the GB Grind posterchild. It's got great art, a good sized body at 3/4, a fair ability that doesn't completely bust a game open on ETB, and it's easy to interact with. It's all I ever wanted.

EDIT: Added my main myr
 

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Meren has been so over the top in my cube that I had to cut her. Really fun to play with, but when you play against her you really get that sinking feeling in your stomach that things are slowly (or quickly) spiraling out of your control. The worst thing is that she basically has the flagbearer ability, because if you destroy something else she'll just get it back. Even worse, she's in the colors that are best at recursion. If you destroy her, there'll be an Eternal Witness or a Necromancy to pop her back into play, and continue where she left off, because the experience counters stay on you! There aren't many cards that make me feel as hopeless as Meren, and the only real solution to her are exile effects. Anyway, you clearly run a higher power level cube than me, so maybe that was just my environment :)

Also, you forgot artifacts!



Apparently I have a thing for uncommons :) Extricator just tickles all my fancies. I love delirium as an effect, and the ability to sac anything is great. It also works very well with revolt (more on that in a bit), and when you hit delirium it transforms into a powerful board presence. Really, what more can you ask for from a white uncommon 3-drop?
Rise is probably my favorite build-around. Just bounce / counter / burn / destroy everything your opponent does, while digging for the 12 zombies. Aw yeah :)
Collective Brutality is a lovely card that does everything black wants to do. Stymie a quick start from the aggro opponent? Check. Kill a utility creature that's about to get annoying? Check. Remove that Counterspell your opponent is holding to thwart your future plans? Check. Dump a fatty in the graveyard so you can Necromancy it next turn? Check!
Frenzied Fugue has been a bit of a recent revelation for me. I only added it this month, but the card is fantastic! Usually Threaten effects are used to get a blocker out of the way and smash in for some extra damage, but then your opponent gets his annoying blocker back, and you're back to square one. Not only does Fugue solve this problem, it also targets permanents, which makes it especially fantastic. Your opponent plays a planeswalker? No sweat, steal it! Your opponent plays an annoying artifact? No sweat, steal it! Et cetera, et cetera. Card is awesome!
Greenbelt Rampager is the little elephant that could. It just hits so many checkmarks in my cube. It triggers evolve like a boss (there's two Experiment One in my cube), it generates energy for cards that care about that (quite a lot in my cube), it triggers revolt, and oh yeah, it's also a giant 3/4 beater on turn 2 if you need it to be that.
Stockpile is one of those cards that can silently take over a game. I am thinking hard about breaking singleton on this one. I had two in a retail draft a while ago, and when I actually got both in play things got out of hand fast. It's also a very good roleplayer in the cube, triggering revolt (obviously), adding artifact creatures to the board for the Servo lords in my cube, just smoothing out draws with the scry ability, and of course playing nice with Braids, Cabal Minion and the next card.
Good old Smokestack. When will WotC finally put you in a (nonfoil) modern frame so I can add 60 of you to my cube? I love this effect (Braids is in the top 3 black cards for me), and Smokestack gives it to all colors and can totally reset a game if you need it to. Or you find ways to break the symmetry with cards like the aforementioned Hidden Stockpile, recursive creatures, token generators, a low curve (so you can afford to sac lands), et cetera. If I see one pack one I'll snap it up and draft around it. If I see one pack two I'm heavily tempted to do so. If I see one pack three and I'm not already in a strategy that can use Smokestack, I rage quit (ok, not really, but I'll be really sad).
 
Seems I did forget artifacts. There's only one correct answer here:



My favorite roleplayer in all but the most aggressive of decks where I'd rather be spamming 2/1 creatures. Even then, a shock on a body isn't half bad. The little Myr that could is such a workhorse trading up with x/3 creatures, a roadblock that can snipe down any x/2 on the board, and it readily slots into any 3-4C monstrosity by buying you time until you can set up your manabase. If I'm ever drafting a UB Tezz or an artifacts centered deck, aside from obvious payoffs, this is the card that I most want to see come my way.
 

James Stevenson

Steamflogger Boss
Staff member
For booster tutor do you use a cube pack or a retail pack?

We've always used a cube pack, which makes it pretty wild. I've always wanted to try it with a real pack (especially an Arabian Nights booster) but I never have any packs. So cube it is.
 


This was basically my first standard deck. My event deck came with one Thragtusk and buying a second one for $15 was one of my first big magic purchases. I was never able to justify shelling out $40 for a playset of Restoration Angels. What could've been.
 

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Deadeye Navigator is such a beast in cube. If you don't remove it the minute it hits the battlefield you're royally screwed. Not only are you never going to be able to remove it again, unless you play mass removal, it's a monstrous combo with all of the above etb trigger cards, and those are not usually the only options in cube. Thing gets out of hand unpleasantly fast.
 

Kirblinx

Developer
Staff member
I wanted to contribute to the:
Which 6 cards in your cube across your colored and gold sections do you enjoy casting/playing with the most?

But I have a feeling that these are pet cards that people don't understand and are niche build arounds that I have left in just for me:



Actually, I think I just have a thing for self-mill, now that I look at it. The only real outlier here is Zealous Conscripts as it is just a awesome game swinging card. The rest create interesting sub-games within a normal game of magic:
How much value can I get from Rally?
How can I get my deck to 0 cards to win with the Lab Man?
How can I kill my own Persecutor?
How many tiny dudes do I need to draft to get CoCo to work?
Can I afford to attack with Sidisi for value?
Why did you do play the Orb, I don't understand what is happening!?

Rally should probably be cut one day, as people never know how to use it (although the one time someone rallied back a Scuttling Doom Engine + Cartel Aristocrat will forever remain with me). If I didn't pick that then Secure the Wastes is probably next. It is such a flexible and strong card that no one generally expects.
 
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