Community Project: 4-at-a-time Battlecruiser Cube

Kirblinx

Developer
Staff member
I think Ulamog is in "Game ruining bullshit" territory here.

As headmaster of the cube, I must agree this is the case. I was in a bit of a rush this morning and only just slammed all the recent additions into the cubetutor list and didn't give it much thought.
Yeah, maybe. If so,

is a good alternative.

I will allow this. Less swingy than Ulamog, can be chumped for days and even works with the *grumble* populate theme *grumble*.
 


So I feel like this cube is just asking for some self milling graveyard shenanigans. I like these cards because they provide some filtering for green even if you have minimal graveyard synergy and aren't the good ole entomb -> reanimate plan. Vessel might be a bit questionable, but if there aren't a lot of early plays, its probably fine. Also, enchantment density and stuff.
 


- Really obnoxious {R}{B} gem
- Fun cycle/removal card!
- Probably pretty silly in this format
- Cantrip + a little disruption for greedy manabases early; this plays a lot better than it looks in my experience
 

Kirblinx

Developer
Staff member
Turn 2 on the draw, spreading seas their newly played bounceland? Savage.
If Spreading Seas is too much, swap it out for Strategic Planning.

I don't think it is too much. It gives something to do early game which the cube needs.

ColonelSanders says the worse case scenario, which is turn 2 playing it on their freshly played bounceland. This means that the villian is going to replay their first land and probably pass. The player will then be on 3 land and can start playing threats, while the villian who was on the play, now feels like he is on the draw always being a mana behind.

It does seem a tad harsh, but no card advantage has been lost just one land drop (and possible colour screw). If it was bouncing or destroying the bounceland, then that is two lands worth of tempo loss which would put you at a SIGNIFICANT disadvantage.

While I would like to put Strategic Planning in as I feel it works more with what blue wants to do, I will allow the Spreading Seas, as I don't think it is too swingy for this cube.
 
ColonelSanders says the worse case scenario, which is turn 2 playing it on their freshly played bounceland. This means that the villian is going to replay their first land and probably pass. The player will then be on 3 land and can start playing threats, while the villian who was on the play, now feels like he is on the draw always being a mana behind.


I definitely wasn't saying it was too much. The format looks like its going to be even durdlier than I anticipated, so I'm 100% ok with there being downsides to running bouncelands. That being said, I have fetchable wastelands in my cube and my favorite card to cast is bloodbraid elf, so I may not be quite the target of this cube.

(also, someone else add some cards so I can add some cards!)
 

Kirblinx

Developer
Staff member
This seems like a good point as any to do a recap on what seems to be in the cube at this point.

Heavy Themes:
Enchantments - WBGru
Lifegain - WBGu

Lighter Themes:
Spells - URb
Artifacts - UR
Graveyard - Bgru
Big Tokens - WGru
Five-colour - UG? (there are a lot of artifacts and Bring to Light, that is it)

I guess things are still all over the place. White is still criminally underloved as a colour, although it keeps getting gold cards, just not enough pure white.

Curves are pretty high still. I know people like the big splashy things but we need to start adding some glue to do something until we get to that point.

Removal is about where I would like it to be percentage-wise I think. If we keep adding how much we have, we should be fine.

Let's give white some stuff I guess:


Something for both enchantments and tokens
A generically good bear that works with bouncelands
An enchantment, early play that protects future drops
Slow, clunky mass removal. Just what the doctor ordered.
 


I know, I know, I'm not helping the "too much multicolored white" cause, but these seem fitting. And Aurelia is a personal favorite.
 

Kirblinx

Developer
Staff member
This was already added; I'm not sure if Kirblinx was wanting to keep the list singleton or not, but a 7-drop seems like probably not the best thing to double up on.

I'm not against breaking singleton, but I won't outright say break singleton, as someone might try and be smart and put 4 of something silly in. I think it would be best to keep the list singleton, but will probably break it after the community submission have ended to strengthen specific archetypes.

Now to help bump up red since we have let white catch up.

I mentioned it in my OP, so I may as well add it.
The UR artifact deck needs some more support. Haste is pretty stronk in a world of sorcery removal
Card is so good. Also helps artifact theme.
The best spell copier for spell based decks. Now we just need good stuff to copy I guess.
 

Kirblinx

Developer
Staff member
This brings up something I was wondering about. What is the end goal? I understand the focus of the cube, but are we going to actually play it, or is it more of mental exercise?

It was more of a mental exercise and hopefully giving myself a solid foundation to build my own version of this sort of cube.

A day after I started the thread, there was a decent discussion about the grid drafts with the penny pincher cube and how it wasn't made for that. That it needed to be designed with grid draft in mind at the start. So I could have done a community project for that for everyone to draft later.

I might convert this into MTGO, but I should have stated that at the start and institute a budget restraint (don't put in any cards over 2 tix) as it could be rather expensive at this point :\
 

Kirblinx

Developer
Staff member
Well, I guess the thread has some to a bit of a standstill since there is no real incentive for people to add cards or to try and finish the cube. I've been thinking for a couple of days on what to do, but I don't really have any ideas. I seem to good at instigating ideas but trying to get people to follow them through to the end is a bit hard. Jason seems to be very good at doing this sort of thing.

I think Sigh and his Temur Advantage archetype discussion has absorbed everyone. The way he is throwing card ideas out there and people are responding is pretty great, he even got a decent amount of drafts for his cube done by the community due to people wanting to help out. I feel like there is something there that I could do here to liven it up, but due to the constraints of the four of a time nature and not wanting to make this cube all about me, I can't seem to find the answer.
Although, since everyone has Temur advantage on the brain throw some of the pieces in here. It should be low enough power to make them work ;)

My end goal at this point is to just finish off the cube so we (or maybe just I) can start doing some drafts and I can start tweaking this to make it something different and interesting.

Let's continue rolling this ball, black needs some creatures so lets throw in some cool stuff:

 

More fodder for Spirit Tribal!

I full intend to help see this project through. The only reason I stalled out on supplying cards was because I had no idea how to help push {U}{R} artifacts after your last post and got distracted since I'm used to checking elsewhere on the forums :oops:

Speaking of being elsewhere around the forums, I think it might help if you link to the thread in your signature; it'll help keep people's eyes on it when you post elsewhere on Riptide, and pull in some more help for people who may have forgotten about the project. Just a thought! :D
 
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