Help with cube.

Some basics about my cube:

So far it is 540 because i have a play group that hits up to 12 people and I want my cube to be able to support all of those people at one time. (I am included in that 12 man head count)

Cube goals: Tempo feel
Balanced Colors
Steady Flow with Varied Ideas
each Color combination of the guilds being distinct and pronounced (each one provides each of the 10 cube themes)
a distinct feel to the game when supplementing the mono colors with The artifacts
the currently 40 fixer lands not being critical but nice
great if attained Great bombshells for late drops, but early cards still being great draft picks.


Azorius: Classical Control
Dimir: Hand Hate with a splash of deck hate (very light on this second point)
Rakdos: AGGRO FONDU PARTY!
Gruul: Ramp and Smash
Selesnya: Tolkens and Anthems
Orzhov: Reanimator
Golgari: Graveyard manipulation that is not direct reaninimation
Simic: +1/+1 counters and Clones
Izzet: Spell Gatling Gun
Boros: Combo Aggro

As far as what i mean by temp is a cube where you can design a deck and have cards in it that range from 1-x where x is the highest casting cost that would feel most comfortable casting in the cube draft consistently on your turns. in this case i aimed for 6-10 as the target (see jin-gitaxus). Kind of a 1-2-3-4 sort of feel. as i have also listed I do not want to punish players for trying to play outside of the late game bombs by supporting early agro, but I also don't want to over detract from what i want my cube to feel like.

Currently i just went through a massive overhaul and trimmed some fat off the top side to give more of the early game cards some love. I am still having issues Identifying the Draft Trash cards in my cube and balancing it by up-scaling it/side-grading cards around to give it the tempo flow that i want while not detracting from the idea of having pronounced guild themes. A redditor directed me here and let me know that you guys would be the best source to help me refine and imporove my cube design as a whole.

Link to cube: http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/51700

Thank you very much for the feed back. Especially if your feed back touches on if or if not the cube meets or falls on the goals listed here.
 

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Welcome!

Aside: I think this thread should be in the Cube Blogs section, maybe a moderator can move it?

Anyway, my first question to you is: what's your definition of Tempo? We've had a lot of discussion over that word here, because everybody thinks it means something different. You say you want a Tempo feel to the cube, but that doesn't mean much if we don't know what Tempo means to you.

My second question is can you write down the ten themes? It really helps a lot when you don't have to figure that out on your own.
 
Azorius: Classical Control
Dimir: Hand Hate with a splash of deck hate (very light on this second point)
Rakdos: AGGRO FONDU PARTY!
Gruul: Ramp and Smash
Selesnya: Tolkens and Anthems
Orzhov: Reanimator
Golgari: Graveyard manipulation that is not direct reaninimation
Simic: +1/+1 counters and Clones
Izzet: Spell Gatling Gun
Boros: Combo Aggro

As far as what i mean by temp is a cube where you can design a deck and have cards in it that range from 1-x where x is the highest casting cost that would feel most comfortable casting in the cube draft consistently on your turns. in this case i aimed for 6-10 as the target (see jin-gitaxus). Kind of a 1-2-3-4 sort of feel. as i have also listed I do not want to punish players for trying to play outside of the late game bombs by supporting early agro, but I also don't want to over detract from what i want my cube to feel like.
 
Based on what you have described I am guessing that your cube is heavily value oriented with dynamic back and forth games. (I tend to define tempo in a more constructed sense - play a threat and protect it while keeping your opponent off their game. This can tint towards Zoo with bolts to clear blockers to Jeskai Control with bolt to kill attackers.) Correct me if I am misunderstanding your intentions.

Something that would help us get a better sense of what you are trying to achieve with your archetypes is posting a link to a list of cards in your cube. Without it all we can concretely give you is conjecture based on what you have stated. (I use CubeTutor.com as it allows me to simulate an eight-man draft.)

A couple of questions on your archetypes:
  • Dimir Hand Hate - What is there in Blue (U) that would be able to help you in this arena, and what is your win condition? (Please tell me you are running Head Games.:) )
  • Golgari Graveyard Shenanigans - Are you planning on using things like dredge or something more tame like scavenge. There could be some juicy interactions with orzhov or simic depending on which route you go.
  • Izzet - My best guess is that you are using the Kiln Fiend/Delver of Secrets archetype. But, Spell Gatling Gun a little, and is a better descriptor of a spell heavy burn deck (more mono-R than UR) or storm (asks a lot of your cube to support).
  • Boros Combo Aggro - What combos are you trying to use or are you attempting to use pump spells? The later has some interesting synergy with Bloodrush from Return to Ravnica Block.
Sorry if I am overwhelming you, but to quote Onderzeebool: "Welcome". I am sure everyone here would love to help you improve your cube and experiance. If you have any questions feel free to ask.
 
Based on what you have described I am guessing that your cube is heavily value oriented with dynamic back and forth games. (I tend to define tempo in a more constructed sense - play a threat and protect it while keeping your opponent off their game. This can tint towards Zoo with bolts to clear blockers to Jeskai Control with bolt to kill attackers.) Correct me if I am misunderstanding your intentions.

Something that would help us get a better sense of what you are trying to achieve with your archetypes is posting a link to a list of cards in your cube. Without it all we can concretely give you is conjecture based on what you have stated. (I use CubeTutor.com as it allows me to simulate an eight-man draft.)

A couple of questions on your archetypes:
  • Dimir Hand Hate - What is there in Blue (U) that would be able to help you in this arena, and what is your win condition? (Please tell me you are running Head Games.:) )
  • Golgari Graveyard Shenanigans - Are you planning on using things like dredge or something more tame like scavenge. There could be some juicy interactions with orzhov or simic depending on which route you go.
  • Izzet - My best guess is that you are using the Kiln Fiend/Delver of Secrets archetype. But, Spell Gatling Gun a little, and is a better descriptor of a spell heavy burn deck (more mono-R than UR) or storm (asks a lot of your cube to support).
  • Boros Combo Aggro - What combos are you trying to use or are you attempting to use pump spells? The later has some interesting synergy with Bloodrush from Return to Ravnica Block.
Sorry if I am overwhelming you, but to quote Onderzeebool: "Welcome". I am sure everyone here would love to help you improve your cube and experiance. If you have any questions feel free to ask.
Don't Apologize because Criticism and Questions are how my cube is going to improve. I will try to adress your questions in order.

Link to Cube: There should be one in the op, but to simplify things i will provide a second link to those currently reading this and scrolling through comments: http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/51700

Dimir Hand Hate: I actually just updated this whole archetype today. It is combo mill and hand hate. It is meant to try and bleed the deck out. The mill cards don't go over more than 4-5 per hit, and I think i only have 2 that hit more than one time for the sake of balance. As far as discard goes, i have a good amount of that in the cube, and there are solid universal win conditions such as exanguinate, Ob-nixilis of the black oath, the titans, the gear hulks, the preadors, and more that pair well with a black blue hate deck already inside of the cube to allow the deck to either go a more control oriented chip damage (pack rat, carion feeder, drana) build or a fatty stall build. Though i am always looking to get more ideas and better balance against other archetypes

Golgari: Right now the current selection of deathrite, Jarad, Merren, Kurozda guildmage, and Marizek are how i am going with this idea, and then taking token generators like Pack rat, and white token gen cards like Twilight Drover, or Thraben doomsayer for the creatures to sacrifice is how i planned to fuel it. Not to mention the abundance of other direct animator cards in the cube. I am not sure how to really support this kind of idea because i am not sure if dredge is the best way to support this or if going with other kinds of recursion cards is the way to go (undying, persist, ect)

Izzet: This is another archetype that I gave some more love to, I put in several copy cat cards like Reiterate, reverberate, twincast, and wild richocet to spice up the risk of just shelling out spells. Not to mention i added in a couple of storm cards like empty the warrens and Grape shot. I was considering adding in Past in Flames#mce_temp_url# as well, but again i am not to sure how i want to work this one. I want izzet to be the spell slinger archetype that is really good at it, but i also dont want it to be the top draft pick over other ideas. Jace's Sanctum? Cloud Key? Mizzix, This izmagus? Curious Humunculous?

Boros: The combo in question is chaining the anthems you get from aurellia, iroas, and equipment, or other various effects like extra attacks (See agravated assault + f&f) in order to max out your aggro and push hard against an opponent. for this I have Angelic Skirmish, New Odric, Legion Loyalist, the fore mentioned cards, and few solid equips to pump up your power houses to frightening levels. That WAS the goal here. Thoughts?
 

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Some general tips. This is known information for regulars, so I put it in spoiler tags, but it is still very useful if you're new here! :)

Put the link to your cube in your signature. It's easier for people to click in your sig than to scroll back to the first post every time they want to look at your cube. Especially because this forum has a very handy feature where it scrolls to the first unread post when you revisit a thread.

Use card tags, [ c ]cardname[ / c ], to highlight cards. E.g. Lightning Bolt.

Use card image tags if you want to really focus on some cards, like this:

[ ci ]cardname 1
cardname 2
cardname 3
...[ / ci ]

This will put card images for the listed card next to each other. Of course you can also use it with just one card. E.g.



If you want to use smaller images (still recognizable, saves space), use [ ci=small ]cardname 1
...[ /ci ]. E.g.


I get the feeling your cube has a lower power ceiling than regular cubes, like most cubes over here, so one card I wanted to highlight from your post above is Meren of Clan Nel Toth. She was pretty oppressive in my cube. At four toughness she is hard to remove for red based decks (which is going to be a good number of your opponents since you are {B/G}). Even if they manage to get rid of her, if you have even just one other reanimation or regrow the spell in your deck, you can replay her and your opponent is immediately back at square one, because she will reanimate your whole graveyard eventually. Also, keep in mind that the experience counters stay, so when she comes back she will immediately start doing insane things at her previous level. It's just my experience with the card, but I'm guessing she's much, much stronger than your baseline.
 
I get the feeling your cube has a lower power ceiling than regular cubes, like most cubes over here, so one card I wanted to highlight from your post above is Meren of Clan Nel Toth. She was pretty oppressive in my cube. At four toughness she is hard to remove for red based decks (which is going to be a good number of your opponents since you are {B/G}). Even if they manage to get rid of her, if you have even just one other reanimation or regrow the spell in your deck, you can replay her and your opponent is immediately back at square one, because she will reanimate your whole graveyard eventually. Also, keep in mind that the experience counters stay, so when she comes back she will immediately start doing insane things at her previous level. It's just my experience with the card, but I'm guessing she's much, much stronger than your baseline.


Thanks for the heads up on the merren oppression. i did not figure her to be super bad but if your play time with her is that bad, would you say [c]Savra, Queen of the Golgari[/c] would be a fair sub for her?
 

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Thanks for the heads up on the merren oppression. i did not figure her to be super bad but if your play time with her is that bad, would you say [c]Savra, Queen of the Golgari[/c] would be a fair sub for her?
Heh, you got a size tag mixed up with the card tag. I was wondering why it wasn't working :)

Anyway, yeah, Safra is cool, if you have enough sacrifice outlets. Cards like Evolutionary Leap, Carrion Feeder, and Fleshbag Marauder are great with her. She's definitely lower power level than Meren!
 
I took a quick look at your list and I just wanted to say that I'm not a big fan of the mill cards you've included. The ones that I saw were Dakra Mystic, Hedron Crab, Dampen Thought, and Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver. Ashiok is powerful enough I think that it can be run as theoretically the only mill card but the cards feel out of place and are not as strong as things like Glimpse the Unthinkable or Jace Memory Adept. Another problem is that 4 cards is basically 0 density and it can lead to drafters incorrectly going into a theme and ending up with cards that have 0 use.

tldr: If you want to support mill, increase the density and power of the cards (This seems unfun), otherwise just cut these cards completely.

Mesmeric Orb is a kind of interesting card.

I don't like Thada Adel, Acquisitor in a list without moxes. It feels like it'll be a 2/2 that lets you look at your opponent's deck as majority of the time. It also has the Bribery problem of punishing players for playing a certain card type.

Reanimate + Entomb + Animate Dead seem way too strong for a cube at this power level. Maybe cut them or bring the rest of the power level of the cube up.

Your powerband is very wide. Wrath of God v. Mizzium Mortars, Void Stalker v. Phantasmal Image, etc. Maybe try to cut some of the stronger cards or weaker cards depending on what kind of environment you want.

I am not a fan of Day's Undoing and Time Reversal
 

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Fulcrum, I'ma let you finish, but Hedron Crab is one of the best mill cards of all time. Of all time!

Seriously though, that card is swell, especially if you run some number of fetches. I would rather run a second Hedron Crab than the first of any of your other mill spells (well, Ashiok excluded). You don't run any fetches though, is that a budget consideration? Would you consider proxies? If not, you could also run a couple of Terramorphic Expanses, which would help with casting gold cards as well! I'm advocating breaking singleton here, because really, cube is a custom draft format, your custom draft format, not highlander. If your cube needs multiples of a certain effect, you have the power to add them. Also, no advocate of singleton cube has ever given me a reasonable explanation why running a Terramorphic Expanse and an Evolving Wilds is okay, but running two Expanses isn't, and once you make that logical leap, it's easy to see that if your format needs eight Expanses, adding eight Expanses is the right way to go.

Some alternative reanimation spells that work better in a less powerful environment:



Of which you already run Dread Return! :) Seriously though, Necromancy is the perfect reanimation spell. At three mana it is cheap enough to feel like you are actively playing a reanimator strategy, but expensive enough that the game is not just over on turn 2.
 
Fulcrum, I'ma let you finish, but Hedron Crab is one of the best mill cards of all time. Of all time!

Seriously though, that card is swell, especially if you run some number of fetches. I would rather run a second Hedron Crab than the first of any of your other mill spells (well, Ashiok excluded).


I think you're right, I think my bigger issue is the density of mill cards. Hedron Crab seems a lot better when you can reliably get multiples into play. I agree with Onderzeeboot about getting fetchlands into the format.

My favorite thing anybody ever did with Hedron crab was,

Sacrifice



Put into play



 
I took a quick look through your cube and drafted it. From what I saw the most appealing cards to pick were high converted mana cost good stuff (Titans, Gearhulks, etc.) and ways to cheat them in. The synergy between colors, and removal to an extent, did not really show up. On the removal part I would like to add that the more appealing pieces tended to be multicolored. This leads me to think that you have more of a battlecruiser type cube (think Rise of the Eldrazi at its best or Commander/EDH).

The cost of having a battlecruiser cube is that aggro, in a traditional sense, gets pushed to the side in order to allow players to focus on their bombs. Nothing wrong with it, just a different and interesting style of magic.

The issues that I can see potentially popping up for you are the wide power band that others have mentioned and the lack of obvious archetypes. (The archetype anchors tend to be a little too weak for my taste most of the time compared to Sword of X and Y and the like. But, I also do not like protection as mechanic in limited for a number of reason.) Both of these issues could be helped by breaking singleton so that you will have enough cards that specifically indicate an archetype exists (Sphinx's Tutelage, for example) while properly raising or lowering the mean power level of your cube to taste.
 
Thada: My Play group wants her in the cube for one, two i can not afford to drop 10 grand on moxes. SO that is not happening. There are ways to make a card fun with out putting the power 9 in a cube.

On the note of general mill: I am not playing Glimps or Jace Memory adept in a format where that is 25% of the deck. Yes lets take out 3/4 your deck by turn 3 just by you existing in the game.

On the note of power band: I have been trying to tighten it quite a bit over the last few days. and mizzium mortars starts at 2 and is versatile vs starting at 4 and being static. Mizzium was also and upgrade over what it replaced.
on your note of reaimation: I have been working to level out the list quite a bit. but again, actions are being taken as things are pointed out.

On the note of Reanimation cards: It is an interesting to break the singleton rule for the cube, which would allow for a lot of more interesting dynamics, but it could also detract from a few of the flavorful pick that my playgroup added to the cube as a whole. I will set up a second copy of my cube and see how that turns out without singleton attached here in a day or so. Today is pretty hectic for me.

On the note of a full non singleton Overhaul: That seems like it could Turn out quite nicely: 2-3 of's in the cube could be good if i can figure out which ones presently in it should be kept and which should go.

On the not of simic mill: that is not the arcetype i am doing.

On note of fetch lands: I did just put in the fast lands but was debating the fetches over them. The issue i have with fetches is that people mass draft them and i don't like the kind of draft environment they create as they are the dumb easy pick and it feels super unhealthy to me.

Golvin: I have listed my archetype goals, Segregated the guilds and focused in on their goals inside of the cube over the last few days. If you have any cards that would help to bolster the ideas of what the currently presented archetype ideas are, I would LOVE to hear it as i want the 10 guild sections to be able to cleanly play with the cube.
 
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