Future Cycle

[GalacticTraveler12]

Managed to set up a weekly draft, and starting to see some trends emerge. Feedback has been decent, but has echoed a concern I've been having as well: it feels too much like Limited. By this I mean, the synergy payoffs aren't spicy enough, many of the cards are unexciting, and the games lack the splashy plays that provide emotional spikes. I think one of the issues may actually be the power level; at some point powering down a cube results in diminishing returns, as many interesting, complex cards are too strong for the cube. The result, as I've seen here, is being forced to play a large amount of near-vanilla creatures that fail to inspire. White has by far the biggest problem with this. As a result the gameplay has more depth than retail draft but feels a bit dry.

Another issue has been balancing aggro v. control. The retro dynamic of weak, largely ETB-less creatures, has had some extreme effects on the format. Basically, no cards are required to push 'aggro', because aggressive decks just run the most efficient cheap creatures available, and still manage to put extreme pressure on slower decks. These creatures may take small chunks out of your life total, but as control decks lack powerful ETBs to stabilize, aggro has insane inevitability. Basically, games run very long (8+ turns) but slower decks have no 'time' to durdle since they are constantly struggling to stay afloat. It's a really weird dynamic, that you kind of have to see to believe, but it forces you to tilt the balance towards control through some combination of the following:

• Power up removal, to make trading 1:1 a better proposition for control
• Add a bunch of strong wraths, to provide card advantage and a board reset
• Give slower decks powerful ETBs to stabilize
• Add more fog effects, lifegain and tokens to help control survive
• Provide control with strong blockers

I am going to try a variety of these options, focusing on a removal upgrade with small buffs to the ETB suite, blockers and other ways to help these decks stabilize.
Finally, I am considering running a slightly wider power band to accommodate some stronger payoff cards, especially relating to the graveyard, as that is the area that feels the most lacking. I have this vision of graveyard 'engines' of sorts where durdling translates to card advantage and board presence, and I feel like spells need to get stronger to both make durdling possible and boost its redundancy through better draw/tutor effects.

Major changes incoming!

 

[sigh]

I wonder if Aggro is the primary format "villain", to focus more on adding wraths that hit those decks harder than others. Some possibilities:


Adding cards like Wrath of God can have equally extreme effects on slower environments as having the retro creature dynamic, from a different angle, dragging every non-agro creature deck into things along with agro. The card is very, very strong, and I caution immediately stepping straight up to that level.

 

[inscho]

You can also incentivize Control by adding some finishers that help you turn the game around once they land....that can attack and not leave yourself vulnerable. Things like:



Not sure if any of those fit your power level, but there are lower powered equivalents that are escaping me. Right now you don’t really have anything quite like that.

 

[sigh]

Serra Angel!!

 

[Alfonzo Bonzo]

Id be interested to see where you go with these changes. I think your analysis of the problems are spot on, particularly the vanilla creatures issue. It's depressing to have to fill your deck with them when you're pushing for a synergy deck.

I'd be cautious about going heavy handed with wraths as an aggro counter, it feels like a higher power response and you have other knobs to twiddle. I'd look at efficient blockers and life gain first. Life gain particularly as you have reach through ramuntap ruins. You might want to focus on Artifact blockers as well due to your heavy colourless manabase to allow for consistent early interaction.

Rather than etbs, could you look at raising the number of spell 2 for 1's to use strategically to support control? More cantrip type effects rather than arc lightning.

It'd be cool if you could get Serra Angel in as a high pick, relevant card.

 

[GalacticTraveler12]

Not sure if any of those fit your power level, but there are lower powered equivalents that are escaping me. Right now you don’t really have anything quite like that.

Yeah, many of those are too strong, but Sifter Wurm looks pretty cool, especially with Sneak Attack or in Baron decks. For top-end green creatures, I already run:



Would Sifter Wurm be one too many green fatties? I could see cutting Jungle Delver for it. Anyways, on the subject on finishers, Disciple of the Ring has been great, having a lot of play to it and requiring some setup. It's basically a more interesting, low-power Morphling.

It'd be cool if you could get Serra Angel in as a high pick, relevant card.

Serra Angel is certainly neat and iconic, but it does contribute to the vanilla creature problem. It might be worth it to give control a boost, but ideally I'd run something with more play to it. Maybe one of these?

Adding cards like Wrath of God can have equally extreme effects on slower environments as having the retro creature dynamic, from a different angle, dragging every non-agro creature deck into things along with agro. The card is very, very strong, and I caution immediately stepping straight up to that level.

Yeah, actual Wrath of God probably isn't a good idea, but I wanted to emphasize how strong spells can be in this type of environment. In fact, most of the high-power TOL tutors are probably fine, because they are card disadvantage and don't impact the board. It could be interesting to leverage this dynamic of weak creatures and strong spells, to give a format powerful draw/tutor effects and combo potential while retaining access to a wide variety of themes through low-power creatures. I think there's a lot of untapped design space in formats where certain effects are valued much higher or lower than they are usually. For example, if a format was based around enchantment engines, weak enchantment removal such as Kithkin Spellduster could offer interesting counterplay, despite not being as strong in a vacuum as most of the cards in the cube.

Anyways, I will continue to search for suitable wraths, and I agree that the old control/spells dynamics were much too polarized, and not something to emulate.

Rather than etbs, could you look at raising the number of spell 2 for 1's to use strategically to support control? More cantrip type effects rather than arc lightning.

Do you have any examples? One issue with cantrips, is that you get no immediate value, something that these slower decks desperately need. Wraths are the most obvious way to give control 2-for-1s, and were the primary way retro control decks stabilized, as opposed to today where ETBs carry much of that burden. I'm curious as to what other methods you can cite.

 

[Alfonzo Bonzo]

Sifter Wurm looks really good here. It tramples, so you can fling a few green deserts at it to trample over for the win.

Shefet monitor is really a 4CC instant, so I think you can fit it in. I'm not feeling a lot of love for root elemental though, but maybe it plays better than it looks?

Airdrop aeronauts was really cool when I played it in limited, and certainly requires some set up, so would be good. Archon is fine, but a little dull, and there just really isn't much play to angel of sanctions.

Re cantrips, I suppose I was thinking along the lines of:



Repulse in terms of giving you time to get to the later game and give your larger CC spells more relevance, and recover as way to trade early, and then rebuild your board and lean on card advantage for the win.

Oh, and I was thinking that



Might be a cool colourless blocker.

 

[GalacticTraveler12]

So recently I've been down on a lot of games. Board games, card games, you name it. For over a year, I've been sort of searching for the 'platonic ideal' of strategy games, expending tremendous amounts of time and money, and going through several projects, including my Pokemon cube (which seems to be getting worse and worse as I change it), this magic cube, and recently, curated 60-card Pokemon decks. Meanwhile my small strategy board game collection sits on the shelf, and the few times I sit down to play one I am left with a bad taste in my mouth. The most promising of these games and projects, are the Pokemon decks and a few board games I have my eye on. Still I fear sufficient testing will reveal issues with those as well.

I have learned a lot about design in the past year, and that may be helpful down the road. But there are a couple lessons that I think condemn this cube, which has quickly been growing stale and unbalanced.

Deserts, and other manabases short on fixing, are in my view unsuited to traditional cube design for one major reason: 3+ color decks really open up a format, giving it far more deckbuilding possibilities and ensuring a much deeper format. I say traditional, because I think by somehow restructuring cube drafts, so that Deserts and fixing can coexist, one could tap the Deserts' potential without destroying one's manabase. But I am far too burned out to consider something of this magnitude, and besides that a Desert manabase has other issues, namely Painted Bluffs and the cycling Deserts being mostly garbage.

So if designing around Deserts isn't a good idea, what does this cube have to offer that better-tuned ones cannot? The Penny Pincher 2.0, Alfonzo's cube, and many other great cubes here explore very similar themes (graveyard, artifacts) yet are much better tuned and developed. With about $115, I could convert my cube to the Penny Pincher 2.0, and this option is sorely tempting. Having established a regular playgroup, I feel obligated to provide a great cube and that one would require essentially no effort or money to maintain.

So yeah, that's where I'm at now . Luckily(?) I'm going to be stuck at home for a week (on break and having moderate flu symptoms) so I'll have lots of time to figure things out.

 

[inscho]

How about replacing the Painted Bluffs with cards that don’t suck, like the vivids, Ash Barrens, Evolving Wilds? Maybe include more basic land cycling cards? Deserts are to some extent self-sufficient so you don’t need an insane amount. Shift it to more of a sub-theme?

Alternatively, what about all lands are drafted a la Desert Cube? Then you’d have room for all deserts without sacrificing space for fixing?

 

[Chris Taylor]

I'm (obviously) totally in favor of writing "desert" on otherwise fine lands.

I imagine your afraid that's a symptom and not a cause, but I think it's worth trying at any rate

 

[Alfonzo Bonzo]

Sounds like you might be pretty bummed out on games and could do with taking a break, probably doesn't help if you're not feeling well too.

I wouldn't feel too disheartened, like as you've said you've learnt from what you've been doing and it takes a lot of energy to run a fairly unique cube like yours.

I personally agree that having good access to fixing allows for cool decks, but does come at the risk of having good stuff decks if you aren't careful. Worth bearing in mind that there are good retail sets without particularly good fixing (like Innistrad) that are deep, so good fixing by itself doesn't solve things.

When you change a lot of cards at once you can get a bit lost and overwhelmed. I find it's useful to go back and start again with some of your foundations, only really adding things which support your themes and principles robustly. It helps you find your core and gives a sense of perspective. I think Incho does something similar.

You might want to experiment by cutting back on some of the deserts to give more room for fixing, but also to make the desert deck a bit scarcer and having to fight for it, rather than it being quite so in your face. I think you'd need to make your themes related to the deserts quite solid though, so there is something to play with.

There is a lot to like in your cube, and there's a lot of good interactions that you don't get to see in most places, so it would be a shame to lose that.

As an aside I've been messing around with a cube outline based on yours. Don't think I'll build it but it's a fun experiment. Might be some ideas there you find useful:

http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/95360

You might want to think about having a backup cube that you use when you're messing around with your main cube or want a break. Maybe a relatively inexpensive pauper cube perhaps? Or a battle box or something?

 

[inscho]

When you change a lot of cards at once you can get a bit lost and overwhelmed. I find it's useful to go back and start again with some of your foundations, only really adding things which support your themes and principles robustly. It helps you find your core and gives a sense of perspective. I think Incho does something similar.

Oh yeah, I went through this cycle once every week from the day I registered on this forum up until about 3 weeks ago.





What do I do once I get a shred of contentment with my format?

I start to design a new cube, because I hate myself.




Hang in there. It may not get better, but you start to get used to the pain.

 

[GalacticTraveler12]

Thanks for the support, everyone. I think what I need to do is identify what makes my cube unique, and really emphasize those aspects, to prevent it from being a worse version of another cube.

Really like the idea of adding 'Desert' to fixing lands. Maybe cutting all the Painted Bluffs and some cycling lands for about 16 ash barrens would do the trick. Adding some vivids, not as deserts but just fixing, might help as well.

When you change a lot of cards at once you can get a bit lost and overwhelmed. I find it's useful to go back and start again with some of your foundations, only really adding things which support your themes and principles robustly. It helps you find your core and gives a sense of perspective. I think Incho does something similar.

Sounds like a great idea! I'll try to find time soon.

A lot of my friends and I are interested in getting into Pauper (especially since Card Kingdom is close by) so that might be a good replacement while I sort things out.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Maybe desert the onslaught cycling lands jnstead, 16 copies of a single colorless card is sure to blend into the background, even if it is a format lynch pin

 

[astraedm]

I have experience with running a million ash barrens and it makes the mana quite good for most drafters. The average number per drafter came out to around 2 or 3, but for your cube specifically the issue is that the Barrens rarely actually hits the board, so it doesn't intersect with a lot of your sac a desert effects. I love the card to death though, so if it's in your budget (it spiked a bunch recently) I'd recommend trying them out.

 

[GalacticTraveler12]

Yeah I might have to wait for a reprint, $8 x 16 is a lot. Still, I like the tension where early game you might want fixing, but in the late game you can sac it to a desert. It's a neat way to encourage players to either run a mono-colored desert deck (using ash barrens as sac fodder) or enable 3+ color decks.

 

[GalacticTraveler12]

So after a bit of a break, I've gotten deep into cube design again. Now that Ash Barrens are affordable again I've been able to grab some for testing, and sketch out a new list based around them, errata'd to be Deserts.

Ash Barrens is powerful, cycling fixing, and that provides us a few new avenues to go down.

Cycling/Discard matters gets a boost:


And we finally have enough density for Astral Slide!


Not only does Slide have general utility, but here it enables Revolt and provides a great way to flip the 3-color morphs, similarly to the Slide/Exalted Angel decks of the past.

And those aren't the only new themes coming in. With this new list I am attempting to flesh out a lot of the random archetype pieces I had lying around, adding payoffs to some nascent ideas in the original cube. For example -1/-1 counters:



Enchantment subtheme:


Tap/Untap


As well as giving graveyard and Zombies some more support.

Some cubetutor drafts:

UG Lab man from CubeTutor.com

BG Sacrifice from CubeTutor.com

RW Token Storm from CubeTutor.com

UW Mill Control from CubeTutor.com

BU Reanimator from CubeTutor.com

 

[GalacticTraveler12]

So, I haven't updated this cube blog in two years, but I've actually been working on it and drafting it a decent amount since. While in hiding, I spied on Alfonzo and Inscho a lot and tried to strike out from the very Penny Pincher-based design I was running after I increased my power level a bit. Anyways, I finally have a list on cubecobra that I think will resolve a lot of old problems I've had with this cube, and I'm pretty excited about it, so let's do essentially a new-cube post!

cubecobra here: https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/153a

Overall, the list today is different from 2018 in that:
-power level is higher
-shifted around color identities
-new archetypes
-aggro is better
-payoffs for slower archetypes other than artifacts are better, while stuff like Tinker is gone
-addition of painlands
-no fixing deserts
-multicolor cards are better
-trying to make monocolor a thing

The best place to start would probably be archetypes:

Cycling: aggro, control
Madness: aggro
Artifacts: aggro, control
Sacrifice: aggro-midrange
Lifegain: aggro, control
Self-mill: midrange-control
Berserkers: aggro
Wide/tokens: x anything other than
Spells: control
Ramp: midrange

This represents a lot of changes from the traditional Penny Pincher-inspired color identities. The biggest change would be the embracement of cycling as a primary white theme, replacing Boros artifact aggro with cycling aggro:


As a result, artifact aggro has has been moved from being a Jeskai theme to Grixis, though slower artifact builds still have a home in Jeskai. I made these changes because artifact aggro felt like the only cool thing white did (and it still was a very underdrafted color), and because I wasn't in love with existing Grixis aggro variants. Cycling as an actual theme has so many more payoffs than two years ago, including Flourishing Fox, Valiant Rescuer, Savai THundermane, and Fists of Flame, and we got some other nice cycling cards in Ikoria as support. Plus, it has always been a natural fit for this cube--especially when cycling costs are colorless. This is because aggro decks in a low-fixing environment really need an angle to increase their consistency, whether that means Chromatic Stars, being able to cycle half of one's cards, or playing green fixing that can go in more aggressive decks. Having every non-green deck rely on Chromatic Stars would be boring, so adding Boros cycling as a major aggro flavor was a no-brainer.

TLDR of this paragraph: aggro decks in low-fixing environment couldn't all rely on Chromatic Stars, that's boring. So now colors that can do cycling aggro (RW) are doing that, green decks are getting by with whatever fixing they have, and Grixis uses Chromatic Stars.


Grixis artifact aggro:


I had no issue creating Grixis aggro decks that could rely on Chromatic Stars, since I had always found Rakdos Madness a bit on-rails and unappealing to my play group. Izzet aggro never even had a clear identity, and the return-to-hand theme that Dimir Ninjas suggested always felt weird to me in an environment without bouncelands or a major return-to-hand theme in white. I had never run many ETB lands to synergize with bouncelands and Kor Skyfisher (because the Deserts take up so much space), and the lack of bouncelands meant there was no random mana generation in blue for UW decks to exploit by playing their spells over and over again. Return to hand as a theme is really nice when you need more mana sinks in your environment, but when you're running sac deserts, you already have enough--those mana sinks actually reduce the amount of mana you have access to by saccing a land.

TLDR of this paragraph: manabase didn't support return-to-hand theme, playgroup never liked Madness, Izzet had no aggro theme, so could easily make Grixis aggro about artifacts.


Lifegain:


this is a kind of random addition. I always had an extreme concentration of Pox-like stuff in Orzhov which made every Orzhov draft an extremely over-supported rendition of token, artifact, and sacrifice themes. And I wasn't adding return-to-hand to fill the void, so I decided to try out lifegain. My players (lots of beginners) think the theme is fun, which is a plus. I'm not married to my current implementation, but I think I like making lifegain an aggro theme that overlaps with go-wide, another theme Orzhov can do well. This means sacrifice has become a much smaller theme in these colors and is relegated to slower midrange-y builds.


Lands:


the big addition here is 3x painlands. I'm proxying these for now (jsome of them are expensive), but I was getting a little tired of 3c decks being so difficult to run, and I didn't know what to do with my land section anyways. So now you can play fixing lands, though it'll cost you life, which helps preserve a mood of at least constrained fixing, even though it's no longer completely absent. The other nice thing about these lands is the ability to tap for colorless. I'm trying out



to try to entice people to play mono-colored aggro decks using random painlands and some of the deserts as a colorless source. I think it could be cool, and those effects (especially Thought-knot seer) seem powerful enough to justify the hassle. Having chromatic diversity (different # of colors in decks) is hard to achieve with weak fixing, but it really improves replay value, so this is my attempt to broaden it a bit with mono-colored decks.


Multicolor cards:


I've embraced the philosophy that multicolor cards should be noticeably better than monocolored equivalents. This creates a wider power band and some excitement while just making good sense from a draft standpoint--especially in a low-fixing environment, these cards really are harder to fit into a deck. I also have an irrational love of the Rhino. It's just so much value handsome.


A couple of remaining concerns:
-is the current version of mill playable?
-how can I create more mini-archetypes (especially single-card archetypes)?
-there's a little blink subtheme in UW, but I'm not sure there are enough nice ETBs to justify it
-is red too strong/interesting compared to other colors?

And finally, here's some decks (I'm just putting links because cubecobra doesn't have a RL export format--is there some easy way to do this?):

RW Cycling: https://cubecobra.com/cube/deck/60a2ebfc0ac67510505390e9
GB Self-mill combo: https://cubecobra.com/cube/deck/60a50f03321e46107ac0a1cf
Rb Sacrifice: https://cubecobra.com/cube/deck/60a2befe116d05104a32bbd9
Ru Artifacts/Madness: https://cubecobra.com/cube/deck/60a6d525c0b931107d58c650
BW Eldrazi aggro: https://cubecobra.com/cube/deck/60aea17ce9fefc107ca0c8a4
UB Artifact aggro: https://cubecobra.com/cube/deck/60b11e66127cd85781d8dc08
GB Madness/artifacts: https://cubecobra.com/cube/deck/60a2e9860ac6751050536efc
RG Sneak/Daretti/Greater Good: https://cubecobra.com/cube/deck/60a548f32745a96acad7f406

Some of these lists are a bit rough and there's been a few changes since, but they should still get across the basic idea.

 

[inscho]

-how can I create more mini-archetypes (especially single-card archetypes)?

I've stared at this question for close to an hour now lol.....maybe it's because it's been a particularly long Monday at work on little sleep, but there's a lot of ways to answer this. Can you explain what you mean, and what the end goal is? Like what isn't happening enough in your list? Or what are you seeing in other's lists that you want capture here?

I've seen the term "mini-archetypes" come up more lately...are we still just dealing with loose cube lingo or is this now a more specific term like the use of "baneslayers" that has evolved in other outside chats?

I have comments on the other questions, but I want to hear more about this question before I start making any observations/suggestions/recommendations.

 

[japahn]

I think SpaceWalker4 is talking about archetypes that don't take up all of the deck, but are small packages you include in a deck.

There are very few ways to achieve that:
- Tutor effects like Gifts Ungiven, Doomsday, Runed Crown, Cunning Wish
- Whole deck packages like Thassa's Oracle or (in constructed) Hermit Druid and Goblin Charbelcher
- Effects that are strong enough (relative to the power level of other things in the environment) that you are ok with being inconsistent (Pestermite + Splinter Twin, Rune of Might + Goldvein Pick) but are also scarce, so you can't fill your deck with them.
- Easiest of all: breaking singleton

 

[GalacticTraveler12]

Yeah, that was a bit unclear but japahn hit it on the head I think. I think the kind of card I'm most looking for would be the single-card archetypes like Thassa's, but anything that sends an existing theme going in a new way is great. In the example of Thassa's Oracle you take the self-mill strategy and turn it up to 11, whereas another card that I recently saw someone (I think inscho?) talking about that I'm interested in is Thousand-Year Storm. This one is slightly different in that I have a fairly small instant/sorcery subtheme in UR that would normally not be an entire deck, but seeing this card in the end of pack one/start of pack two lets you use existing cards like UR discard cards as spell tempo support to craft a "new" archetype.

I think all of these cards are basically a way to add both spiciness and replayability to the format, and feels like a cool easter egg for drafters to unlock. It's somewhat rare to find a neat build-around you just happen to have support for, but I'm always hoping to find more.

 

[Alfonzo Bonzo]

Yeah, this is something I'm planning to think about more. The obvious one that I run is Demonic Pact, which is maybe a too high for your power level?

Two other things I'm playing, which don't necessarily necessitate a whole deck built around them but ask the drafter to consider what direction they take their deck in are:



They might not seem like build arounds by themselves, but they're much more subtle, but they ask you to re-evaluate what you're drafting/building without requiring a lot of other real estate.

There's also something like Path to the World Tree which if you're like me will send you straight into five colour madness.

Would you consider Together Forever in that too? I'm not playing a huge amount of counters matters, but I think it makes for an interesting way to consider sacrifice loops.

 

[GalacticTraveler12]

Yeah, this is something I'm planning to think about more. The obvious one that I run is Demonic Pact, which is maybe a too high for your power level?

Two other things I'm playing, which don't necessarily necessitate a whole deck built around them but ask the drafter to consider what direction they take their deck in are:



They might not seem like build arounds by themselves, but they're much more subtle, but they ask you to re-evaluate what you're drafting/building without requiring a lot of other real estate.

There's also something like Path to the World Tree which if you're like me will send you straight into five colour madness.

Would you consider Together Forever in that too? I'm not playing a huge amount of counters matters, but I think it makes for an interesting way to consider sacrifice loops.

I like Demonic Pact, I just have pretty few ways to bounce it back to hand compared to your list, so I've never tried it. Definitely a cool card though. I think my power level is getting fairly close to yours, although it's probably a case of the strong cards in my environment being the average cards in yours. You definitely have better fixing, and I think Wall of Omens, Crystalline Crawler, Curator of Mysteries, and Solemn Recruit, for example, are too strong for my cube. Anyways, I keep finding myself pulling cards from your list, especially your black section, and then deciding they're just a wee overpowered for mine (read: Fain, Massacre Girl, Rankle). They're good cards though and I think I might have to keep Rankle and just do a bit of copy-paste action to turn it into a 3/2 .

What do you often see Necrotic Ooze paired with? Fain seems good, since that card is pretty busted. Selesnya Eulogist would be strong sometimes. Probably Kenrith is the best case scenario? I'm having trouble gauging if it would have game in my list.

Woodland champion is neat. Almost a little afraid of the Treasure Map scenario, but with Spider Spawning I don't anyone could ever actually get mad. Random spidery 7/7s are certified fun imo. From a spike perspective, should be fairly appropriate power level, and present some sequencing decisions. I'll see if I can find room.

Is path actually a strong payoff? land tutor side compares poorly to edge of autumn , and a 2/2, 2 damage, and 2 cards is fine, but at 7 mana and 5c it could probably be ending games or at least turning scales 75/25 in your favor. Angel of the Ruins is a 2 mana land tutor as well, and its 7 mana version seems pretty equivalent without requiring 5c, being reanimatable, etc (albeit, I'm pretty sure angel of the ruins is a first pick in my cube).

I'm super enticed by Together Forever and I've been thinking about it since I saw it in your list, just a bit worried about double pips on a card that would be best in a black or red-heavy deck. At least it would encourage Wx sacrifice decks where white isn't just a splash. I should probably just cut Feat of Resistance for it. Thanks for all the neat ideas!

 

[Alfonzo Bonzo]

I like Demonic Pact, I just have pretty few ways to bounce it back to hand compared to your list, so I've never tried it. Definitely a cool card though. I think my power level is getting fairly close to yours, although it's probably a case of the strong cards in my environment being the average cards in yours. You definitely have better fixing, and I think Wall of Omens, Crystalline Crawler, Curator of Mysteries, and Solemn Recruit, for example, are too strong for my cube. Anyways, I keep finding myself pulling cards from your list, especially your black section, and then deciding they're just a wee overpowered for mine (read: Fain, Massacre Girl, Rankle). They're good cards though and I think I might have to keep Rankle and just do a bit of copy-paste action to turn it into a 3/2 .

Yeah, my power level is a bit higher than yours, and you've picked up some of the contenders for more powerful. Rankle is definitely at the top of the curve, as is Fain (but he can be killed relatively easily before he gets going). I think Massacre Girl is fine if you're playing Realm-Cloaked Giant. But if I was playing morph I'd so be playing Bane of the Living, which you are, so I think it's fine.

What do you often see Necrotic Ooze paired with? Fain seems good, since that card is pretty busted. Selesnya Eulogist would be strong sometimes. Probably Kenrith is the best case scenario? I'm having trouble gauging if it would have game in my list.

There's nothing in particular that Ooze is a combo with in the cube, just different options. Yes, it's nuts with Fain. But maybe you have Mindless Automaton and Triskelion in your graveyard? Maybe you're just beating down with Seasoned Hallowblade in your opponents graveyard? Maybe you make it unblockable with Ghostly Pilferer and then burn them out with Mindshrieker? There's no Grislebrand combo's just cool interactions.

Is path actually a strong payoff? land tutor side compares poorly to edge of autumn , and a 2/2, 2 damage, and 2 cards is fine, but at 7 mana and 5c it could probably be ending games or at least turning scales 75/25 in your favor. Angel of the Ruins is a 2 mana land tutor as well, and its 7 mana version seems pretty equivalent without requiring 5c, being reanimatable, etc (albeit, I'm pretty sure angel of the ruins is a first pick in my cube).

Path is a 5 for 1 - one card for a land, bear, burn, 2 cards, and a drain swing for 4. I think it's edge of autumn that compares poorly . It's the green Cruel Ultimatum!

As an aside do you really have a ramp theme? There's only five cards I can tell, one of which is Hour of Promise. Not saying that's wrong but your primer talks about ramp as an archetype and I'm not sure if that's a little misleading?

I'm super enticed by Together Forever and I've been thinking about it since I saw it in your list, just a bit worried about double pips on a card that would be best in a black or red-heavy deck. At least it would encourage Wx sacrifice decks where white isn't just a splash. I should probably just cut Feat of Resistance for it. Thanks for all the neat ideas!

If you do, might be worth looking for another card to cut for it as Feat of Resistance is super nice with it, giving a create a counter to make it eligible for return.

Have you thought about playing more into the colourless eldrazi theme? If it's going to work anywhere it will with your mana base. These are some things I think you might be interested in?:



Also, instead of Fire Diamond, how do you feel about?:

 

[GalacticTraveler12]

Yeah, my power level is a bit higher than yours, and you've picked up some of the contenders for more powerful. Rankle is definitely at the top of the curve, as is Fain (but he can be killed relatively easily before he gets going). I think Massacre Girl is fine if you're playing Realm-Cloaked Giant. But if I was playing morph I'd so be playing Bane of the Living, which you are, so I think it's fine.



There's nothing in particular that Ooze is a combo with in the cube, just different options. Yes, it's nuts with Fain. But maybe you have Mindless Automaton and Triskelion in your graveyard? Maybe you're just beating down with Seasoned Hallowblade in your opponents graveyard? Maybe you make it unblockable with Ghostly Pilferer and then burn them out with Mindshrieker? There's no Grislebrand combo's just cool interactions.



Path is a 5 for 1 - one card for a land, bear, burn, 2 cards, and a drain swing for 4. I think it's edge of autumn that compares poorly . It's the green Cruel Ultimatum!

As an aside do you really have a ramp theme? There's only five cards I can tell, one of which is Hour of Promise. Not saying that's wrong but your primer talks about ramp as an archetype and I'm not sure if that's a little misleading?



If you do, might be worth looking for another card to cut for it as Feat of Resistance is super nice with it, giving a create a counter to make it eligible for return.

Have you thought about playing more into the colourless eldrazi theme? If it's going to work anywhere it will with your mana base. These are some things I think you might be interested in?:



Also, instead of Fire Diamond, how do you feel about?:

I'll try to find room for Ooze, definitely seems like a card that needs to be tested to fully evaluate. I still think Cruel Ultimatum is a few levels above Path but 5c payoffs are something I'm always looking to try. You may be right about that ramp package. I think my literal train of thought three years ago was "Edge of Autumn triggers Dunes of the Dead, guess ramp is a thing now". That specifically has been a nice card to have, partially due to the Dunes interaction and also just the fact that both fixing and gaining tempo is good even when ramping isn't your deck's "thing", but actual ramp historically hasn't seen much play. One of the main reasons for that was the lack of a real top end in previous versions of the cube, and even the current version was a bit light until @Nanonox drafted it a bunch (eternally grateful btw) and pointed it out. However in the ramp attempts they were able to put together there seemed to be a decent amount of ramp spells themselves:

6 ramp effects counting treasure maps. So it could be thing potentially. Forcing ramp to see what happens:

Probably needed some recursion, but ignoring that, is this enough in the way of ramp spells/payoffs? Is this a ramp deck that would appeal to ramp players? I'm not sure I have the best grasp of what the archetype should actually look like; it's definitely one of the rougher ones in my cube.

Together Forever could go in for Apostle's Blessing instead.

I know the Eldrazi stuff is cool, but it's hard for me to get over how the way a lot of those cards have no thematic overlap with the rest of the cube. I like casting cost cards that can go in any deck with enough colorless sources a lot more than colored cards with activation costs, because they tend to provide a stronger payoff and can tempt any deck to splash them. Thanks for reminding me of Mirrorpool, that should definitely be in here. I think the other Eldrazi cards I would look at are matter reshaper and endbringer. One of my main goals for these cards would be to tease out monocolor builds and create an experience where you're picking up any duals and deserts you can to try to hit 6-8 sources. That would definitely require 4-5 Eldrazi cards at least but maybe adding mirrorpool and matter reshaper would get me there? Doubling up on spatial contortion is an option I guess, albeit a strange one.

I definitely like the ability of the totem to do something later in the game. I'm not sure if a 2mv rock is too good, a 3mv rock too slow, or both, but it's definitely worth a shot for being a bit more interesting/better for gameplay than the fire diamond.