Inscho's Graveyard Combo Cube

[inscho]

I don't think SFM is overbearing. It can singlehandedly tie an equipment package together (a good thing), works with stuff like blink, and is only as powerful as the equipment it can find. As long as you don't include Batterskull you should be fine.

Yeah, you are right. That said, it’s never felt quite right when I’ve tried to run it in the past. SFM would likely outshine Trinket Mage/Emry in a tempo build making blue’s contributions less appealing….when the goal is to incentivize leaning into blue. If I raised the power level of my cube, SFM would be among the first cards I’d consider.


Glory is an interesting one

 

[Nanonox]

I like Signal Pest, you could also consider



As an evasive beater that wears equipment well. It's an artifact to be recurred by Emry or bypass Canonist too.

---

I think you could justify running Clique, SFM, Venser or Borrower, but Smuggler's Copter is too strong IMO.

Brazen Borrower plays great and promotes the creature fall aspect of White which is neat.

You could also consider this beefy flash creature:



Goes great with the tokens in White and pairs nicely with recursive creatures in Black.

---

I posted about it in the Crimson Vow thread, but is there any merit to

?

It's a blink enabler to be sure, but there is play to it: save creatures from a wrath or remove blockers for a turn all while making some clues is great.

 

[inscho]

I like Signal Pest, you could also consider

As an evasive beater that wears equipment well. It's an artifact to be recurred by Emry or bypass Canonist too.

I've never thought highly of skirge tbh, is it any good? It is pretty saucy with Cranial Plating and Nettlecyst….but seems pretty underwhelming otherwise.

I think you could justify running Clique, SFM, Venser or Borrower, but Smuggler's Copter is too strong IMO.

Brazen Borrower plays great and promotes the creature fall aspect of White which is neat.

I’m pretty sure I’m going to give borrower a go in place of Barrin, Tolarian Archemage. But I’m not sure how it promotes creature fall?

You could also consider this beefy flash creature:

Goes great with the tokens in White and pairs nicely with recursive creatures in Black.

I was looking at this a bit yesterday, and I think it could be pretty good in my cube. There’s all sorts of ways that countering a triggered abilities could be fun….like with Sneak Attack.

I like the idea of having a counterspell on a stick with things like Skaab Ruinator. It’s a shame all the good blue 4 drops are UU costed. It’s more thematic and maybe at a more appropriate power level than Venser

I posted about it in the Crimson Vow thread, but is there any merit to

?

It's a blink enabler to be sure, but there is play to it: save creatures from a wrath or remove blockers for a turn all while making some clues is great.

Also an interesting suggestion. I’m not sure if I like this over any cards in my current 3-card section:

Soulherder
Ojutai's Command
Migratory Route

 

[Nanonox]

Borrower: What I meant is it could be a good target for the creature fall cards.

Vault Skirge: Not special, but evasive, beater that has small equipment synergies. A little worse than Gingerbrute, but colorless 1 mana value creatures are great IMO as they add to the density to all colors.

 

[Mown]

Cutting Barrin seems questionable considering he's probably one of the better bridge cards between white and blue. Blue offers some of the stronger etb-creatures in your cube to use with Ephemerate, Soulherder and Prince, Barrin included, and he turns your Usher to Safety and Kor Skyfisher into cantrips. Not to forget Welcoming Vampire, Reveillark, or Reclamation. He seems like a much bigger incentive to play UW tempo than Borrower does.

 

[inscho]

That’s a great point. What I didn’t say was that I was considering including borrower alongside Venser, Shaper Savant. Venser can do some cute things like returns itself like Kor Skyfisher for things like Welcoming Vampire, but also remands a spell or bounces lands…which is brutal with blink.

But I consider Borrower + Venser to be goodstuff in that they are objectively great on their own, and all decks will likely want them. Their power overshadows their potential synergies. I don’t run many creatures like that. What I don’t want to see in my drafts are decks that are just the best value creatures and removal.

As you so perfectly articulated, Barrin is a better fit for synergy. I might be making more problems than I would be solving with that substitution!

 

[Erik Twice]

I think you are on the right path with your posts on Azorius Tempo and your updates. The only thing I see that may not work out is Trinket Mage. It's a very versatile card but the power level is low, much lower than Emry. I found it suffered heavily from 24th card syndrome which is I cut it. I would be wary of trying to tweak the cube around it because it might be just easier to replace him.

 

[inscho]

I think you are on the right path with your posts on Azorius Tempo and your updates. The only thing I see that may not work out is Trinket Mage. It's a very versatile card but the power level is low, much lower than Emry. I found it suffered heavily from 24th card syndrome which is I cut it. I would be wary of trying to tweak the cube around it because it might be just easier to replace him.

I can understand your rationale. For now, I really like the duo of the Mage and Emry asserting the trinkets subtheme in blue. There's some overlap between the two, but Emry requires a certain volume of artifacts in your deck unlike the Mage. Decks that only have a small toolbox of key artifacts or an important combo piece tend to prefer Trinket Mage:



Combo decks often like the certainty of getting the card they need in hand right away. Emry gives your opponent a window to interact whether it be by killing Emry or exiling the card you need from your graveyard. I find that Emry really thrives in contexts like Dimir Dredge...where the recursion is more generalized, because you aren't searching for specific cards, and the self-mill is valuable in and of itself.

 

[sigh]

One thing I might recommend in trying to push a tempo context for Mage is inclusion of another equipment or two at 1CMC so the Mage can serve as a fairly reliable Stoneforge Mystic variant. My goto 3rd choice:

 

[inscho]

Small change:

Out:



In:



I like Revoker, but I don't run a high volume of planeswalkers or autonomously backbreaking permanents. Most cards in my cube rely on other cards to be good. There's no Survival of the Fittest or Recurring Nightmare and there's not a lot of artifact acceleration. It just feels a bit like low impact filler.

Still looking to find space for:


Potential cuts:
Elspeth Conquers Death: Fine card, but super slow, clunky, and wordy. The speed is ticking up in my environment, and think this might be a little too cute. It was a lot more fun when I ran a heavier number of enchantments like The Eldest Reborn with Restoration Specialist

Stream of Thought: I'm still thinking of cutting the target player mill suite, and this is perhaps the most expendable of the trio (Ashiok, Dream Render and Wall of Lost Thoughts being the other two). The shuffle effect is pretty valuable, but maybe a bit more of a luxury than a necessity.

or

Memory Deluge: Slotted in to give Control a boost. I'm not sure it's really necessary.

===

Thinking about Elspeth Conquers Death and reanimation in general: I'm beginning to feel that my format's speed has increased enough and my removal suite has improved enough to give Reanimator a little more juice without being overbearing. I'm thinking about adding:



Probably in place of Victimize.

Titanoth Rex and Grief are the only cards that could be overbearing with an early Persist, but that's only two cards. Grief isn't a necessity and could easily be replaced by Duress or Kitesail Freebooter. Pesist is a little cheesy with Entomb, but Entomb is such a hot commodity in the format that it will be rare that the same player ends up with both, and if they did they would still need to have both in an opening hand with no other available tutors.

===

While I'm talking about important archetypes that are beginning to feel a bit outclassed with the increasing speed of the format. I'm looking at:



To give land destruction some earlier plays. Death Cloud costs 5 mana to have more impact than Pox (and costs triple black)...the combination of being narrow and slow may see it squeezed out of the list soon. That said, Death Cloud for 3BBB is still pretty backbreaking. I like having some high risk/high reward cards, and Death Cloud is a bit of a pet card. Braids, Cabal Minion could possibly be the cut instead. Black having access to Braids, Rankle, and Smoketack at 4 mana is a bit congested.



Feels pretty good.


EDIT: Forgot to reply to Sigh...woops

One thing I might recommend in trying to push a tempo context for Mage is inclusion of another equipment or two at 1CMC so the Mage can serve as a fairly reliable Stoneforge Mystic variant. My goto 3rd choice:

This is a good suggestion. I need to think about how I feel about increasing the amount of equipment. I'm already running Bonesplitter, Bloodforged Battle-Axe, Cranial Plating, and Nettlecyst. I see how the added redundancy would be useful for Azorius Tempo specifically with the artifact theme and evasion.

 

[sigh]

This is a good suggestion. I need to think about how I feel about increasing the amount of equipment. I'm already running Bonesplitter, Bloodforged Battle-Axe, Cranial Plating, and Nettlecyst. I see how the added redundancy would be useful for Azorius Tempo specifically with the artifact theme and evasion.

Yeah the added redundancy can really help with the consistency of an equipment plan in a tempo-aggro deck, if only to give a bit more leeway in the draft for other decks to also take an equipment or two without impacting a Trinket Mage or other specific plan. Shadowspear is another option if the lifelink doesn't turn you off from it.

 

[inscho]

Some changes incorporating the thoughts from the other day:

Out:


In:


Notes:
- I like having the 3rd reanimation spell in white so I'm going to give Miraculous Recovery another chance. It's not great, but I think I like it more than ECD.
- Extractor Demon is narrow, but Zombie Infestation is narrow. I miss what the Demon brings to the sacrifice combo deck..
- Radha is a great card, and Borbo is fun, but I'm trying to shake things up in Gruul and I like adding a Wildfire-resistant body in Living Twister, and a strong card for Gruul Berserkers which has lost some of its luster with the increasing strength of the artifact aggro decks.
- As a high profile Welder target, I prefer Mindslaver to incentivize an angle of attack that isn't so creature-centric. God-Pharoah's Gift stepped on the toes of the Welder-Reanimator strategies in a way that didn't feel productive, and dredge decks are too fast for Gift in general.

Edit: Infestation is the cut not Reggie.

 

[inscho]

The return of Extractor Demon has me thinking more about the cards that foster the type of plays and sequences that get me excited to draft a strategy. Many of the cards I'm drawn to challenge you to find ways to utilize them. In the past I ran a lot of these types of cards, and as a result older versions of my cube felt more like a puzzle to solve than a space for creativity. Over time, I've dialed back on these idiosyncratic cards in an effort to reduce the cognitive load on drafters, increase the margin for error, and foster exploration. Now the complexity is found in how densely card synergies weave together...there's more points of intersection....more opportunities to pivot....there's less pressure on the drafting experience.

That said, I crave the sequencing found in more degenerate cubes, and I gravitate towards cards that generate extreme outcomes or encourage extreme deck construction. Unlike Extractor Demon that is a bit more challenging to build around, I'm trying to think about approachable cards that take an average strategy and dial it up a couple of notches.

Some cards I'm looking at again (in varying degrees of approachability):



I've posted about this many times before, but it remains a bit of an internal struggle regarding the direction to take my cube. I'm straddling the line between synergy cube and combo cube. I want higher highs than a synergy cube without the arms race of a combo cube.

I want to sacrifice my lands to Greater Gargadon and deal lethal damage with a 24/24 Berserked Countryside Crusher

I want to flip most of my deck into my graveyard with Mesmeric Orb and kill you with Flamewake Phoenix, Phoenix of Ash, and Ox of Agonas

I want to "Mind Twist" my opponent with Raven's Crime and The Gitrog Monster

I want to Death Cloud the board away and kill you with Zombie Infestation tokens made from discarding Squee, Goblin Nabob and Master of Death

That kind of stuff.

 

[landofMordor]

Wait @inscho you're in Philly too? Slide into my pms (discord?) and let’s scheme a cube night. Have you been to Philly Game Shop?

 

[inscho]

I am. Been here for 10 years! PMs have been slid into

 

[inscho]

I'm almost always tinkering around with a higher powered version of this cube. I typically take things too far and the strong cards overshadow intricate synergies and inevitably everything falls apart. Here is a working list that feels a bit more promising:

https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/1vnnj

It would require switching out close to 50 cards, but I really like the decks that are coming out of this. They feel just a little bit stronger, but still nuanced and interesting:

Simic Turboland

Selesnya Berserkers

Temur Madness

Azorius Tempo

Gruul Aggro Loam

Orzhov Artifactocrats

Boros Artifact Aggro

Mardu Welder Reanimator

I need to do some more tweaking....particularly to give slower strategies and control a boost. The counterspell suite may need to improve (force of will?), and removal dialed in a little more. I also want to see if Yawgmoth's Will is a reasonable include, but I'm doubtful.

BTW...I finally took the time to read Cemetery Protector and much to my chagrin realized that it doesn't have the functional landfall I thought it did. Needing to play the land is such a bummer.

 

[landofMordor]

Uro and Kroxa in this high-power list feel extremely sus, and exemplify the high end of your power outliers here... I also wonder why Force of Will is your first choice for additional counterspells instead of, like, Rune Snag and all the other high-floor counterspells you're not running. And again in the context of Uro and Kroxa, I notice that the only removal capable of killing those Titans are 3-4 black spells and 2-3 white spells, plus counterspells.

Those are just observations, which I think are 90% objective, but permit me to combine them into a subjective analysis:

You state that the power outliers tend to dominate when you try increasing the power level. Meanwhile, Uro and Kroxa reign supreme over your threat suite, many of which cannot be answered cleanly by the depowered removal that exists in this cube (Timeless Dragon, Rankle, Ethereal Forager, Master of Death, Elspeth, Jace are other examples). (Sure, Ob Nixilis' Cruelty can handle the majority of those, but there's only 1 copy of it in your list and every drafter at the table will want it. Same for O-Ring, etc etc.) All this leads me to suspect that it's a dearth of quality removal that's allowing the power outliers to take over games and overcome synergies through raw card quality, because one unanswered Uro yields as much resources as four Aristocrats cards put together. So I suspect there's tension in trying to increase threat power while decreasing removal quality/quantity, such that the extreme of this scenario looks like VOW Limited where Halana & Alena are nigh-unbeatable.

---

As an example, here's a draft that started Urza's Saga into Kroxa into about 10 removal spells: https://cubecobra.com/cube/deck/61a78a60ae31151028c39539. I might have mis-built for your environment, but the robust sideboard should have me covered in case I need to bring in more creatures or whatever. I also made the mistake of passing a late Bloodsoaked Axe, which would be my prime Saga target if I had a brain. Anyways, my point is I don't think I'll be punished by playing your format's best removal and best threats. Or if I am, it will be to a lesser degree than the poor synergy player who has to draw their cards in the right order and fight through all my removal. As a drafter, every decision I make is theoretically in the pursuit of win equity. If I can make decisions which offer the same increases in win equity as "synergy decks" without incurring as much risk in the draft portion, then I'll usually make that choice.

 

[inscho]

I appreciate the thoughtful observations. I'm really glad you chimed in as your Theseus cube experience can definitely shed some light on design flaws in my format. This cube is an attempt to design a space with a fairly high spell velocity, but maintain a lot of the flavor of a slower synergy cube. Balancing the two is a bit of tightrope walk. I don't cube as often as I'd like, and I don't participate in constructed magic anymore to see some of these newer cards in heavy action.

Uro and Kroxa in this list feel extremely sus, and exemplify the high end of your power outliers here

Uro yields as much resources as four Aristocrats cards put together. So I suspect there's tension in trying to increase threat power while decreasing removal quality/quantity, such that the extreme of this scenario looks like VOW Limited where Halana & Alena are nigh-unbeatable.

You are probably right about both. They both do exactly what I want, and I've intentionally turned a blind eye towards them. Their power likely outweighs their synergistic value. I have both in the physical version of the cube (OP and linked in sig) which makes them even more egregious. Fortunately, neither are a design necessity and can easily be replaced with other cards.

I also wonder why Force of Will is your first choice for additional counterspells instead of, like, Rune Snag and all the other high-floor counterspells you're not running.

One of the joys for me with this cube is that most of the glue spells (counterspells, discard, removal, etc) have a mechanical tie-in to my format. This is very loose personal criteria that is sometimes disregarded and can easily be picked apart, but essentially I prefer things like:



over



Each of the first 5 cards has an objectively better analogue available, but each has reasonably good velocity, and an element that allows for more points of synergy intersection. Fast flavor.

So when a card like Force of Will comes to mind over a vanilla counter like Rune Snag, I'm thinking of the velocity of Force of Will and the trade off for that velocity. I feel like I often see it included out of nostalgia, power misevaluation, or in a combo/max velocity environment. In my experience, FoW tends to underwhelm in environments that are step or two slower or light on singularly game-breaking cards.

My cube is reasonably fast for a synergy cube, but significantly slower than The Ship of Theseus or the Mox Cube. There's not a lot of must answers, and there's a lot of recursion. In theory, FoW would be underpowered to playable in that context. However, in my cube hellbent can be a real positive....between things like Anje's Ravager, Lupine Prototype, Asylum Visitor, Windfall etc.....there are lots of ways to convert that card disadvantage into a positive synergy scenario. So the idea is that Force would be pretty average in my cube until elevated within a particular deck context to become above average to good.

And free spells are fun.

I don't think I'll be punished by playing your format's best removal and best threats.

This is something I don't want to completely negate as it's nice for new drafters to have something familiar to fall back on. That said, I don't want the best removal + best threats deck to be objectively better than the synergy deck. There needs to be a payoff for more nuanced deck construction.

This is where I have trouble turning the heat up with this cube. A handful of removal and acceleration upgrades can really throw everything off.

Your example deck is on the cusp for me. Maybe 2-3 premium cards north of comfortable. However, there is a lot that I still like about the deck, and there's some really clever things going on. You've given me a lot to chew on, and I think the Elder Giants are a cut.

Thanks again for your comments.

 

[landofMordor]

One of the joys for me with this cube is that most of the glue spells (counterspells, discard, removal, etc) have a mechanical tie-in to my format. This is very loose personal criteria that is sometimes disregarded and can easily be picked apart, but essentially I prefer things like:
...
Each of the first 5 cards has an objectively better analogue available, but each has reasonably good velocity, and an element that allows for more points of synergy intersection. Fast flavor.... In theory, FoW would be underpowered to playable in that context. However, in my cube hellbent can be a real positive....between things like Anje's Ravager, Lupine Prototype, Asylum Visitor, Windfall etc.....there are lots of ways to convert that card disadvantage into a positive synergy scenario. So the idea is that Force would be pretty average in my cube until elevated within a particular deck context to become above average to good.

Part of me loves the Riptide Way (TM) of carefully curating these bread-and-butter effects. I've used it myself, although those cubes don't usually hold my interest long enough to merit full threads.

But another part of me wonders if "synergy" is even a real thing. What I mean is -- if a drafter makes all their decisions to increase win equity, then they pick a card based on its expected contribution to win equity (what I'll define to be "power"). Rate cards have most of their power localized on the single card -- Lightning Bolt and Ponder and Counterspell. But all cards also have some amount of their power distributed in their interactions between cards -- even Bolt has synergy with 6 other Lava Spike effects, and at a more basic level Bolt has synergy with red-producing lands because you need to be able to pay its cost. And every synergy in Magic comes with risk. (What if Mountains are bad in this format? What if I topdeck Lava Spike when I needed Bolt to kill that creature?) So there's this power/risk tension that's at the core of drafting.

In other words, I really empathize with this:

This is where I have trouble turning the heat up with this cube. A handful of removal and acceleration upgrades can really throw everything off.

Because right now there's a lot of power contained in the rate of your threats, absent synergy. And there's not as much power contained in your removals' rate. (EDIT: see my later post where I recant this sentiment; it only applied to this removal lined up vs. actual Titans.) But this can degenerate into that VOW-like bomby format where intricate Training synergy doesn't matter. On the other hand, too much good rate removal can degenerate into MID limited where only the mulldriftery-est proactive cards survive the onslaught of Doom Blades.

So I totally see how turning the knob on win equity between rate/synergy on just one of the threat/interaction classes of effects, can knock down the whole house of cards. It's almost like this format needs the silly synergy-maximizing stuff like Countryside Crusher to be the Tier 0 strategy if the pieces come together, and the rate-maximizing strategy needs to be Tier 1, where it's a safer pick but doesn't come with as high an upside. Your original GCC probably does that, if I had to guess without ever drafting it. As for the high-power test...

Honestly, quickly looking at the Compare page of your two versions -- https://cubecobra.com/cube/compare/61a3f283c806ea103c920d60/to/inscho -- you're swapping out mediocre chonkers for medium-to-good chonkers. They're both fundamentally low power, considering the entire spectrum of Magic (4x fixing lands per guild, no combo, high mana curves, etc). But the higher-power list adds more to the top end of the power distribution with Balance and Young Pyromancer and Urza's Saga (also bonkers-good) and such. So maybe you can balance by adding more but equally weak interaction to the list? Ie, give players more ways to fight the new bombs, but not at such favorable rates that the removal prices out your old synergy standbys.

(Sorry, I used your thread to ramble and/or procrastinate work, haha! Thanks for sparking the thoughts with your updates!)

 

[inscho]

Because right now there's a lot of power contained in the rate of your threats, absent synergy. And there's not as much power contained in your removals' rate. But this can degenerate into that VOW-like bomby format where intricate Training synergy doesn't matter. On the other hand, too much good rate removal can degenerate into MID limited where only the mulldriftery-est proactive cards survive the onslaught of Doom Blades.

So I totally see how turning the knob on win equity between rate/synergy on just one of the threat/interaction classes of effects, can knock down the whole house of cards.

This is spot on, and I've likened this cube's design to a house of cards many times in the past. The balance is very precarious. It's why I make a new list every other week attempting to introduce cards that unlock top end outcomes for archetypes, only for it be a complete failure and delete it out of frustration.

It's almost like this format needs the silly synergy-maximizing stuff like Countryside Crusher to be the Tier 0 strategy if the pieces come together, and the rate-maximizing strategy needs to be Tier 1, where it's a safer pick but doesn't come with as high an upside.

Not almost. I absolutely do need this silly synergy maximizing stuff to be Tier 0 for the format to be a success in my eyes. I touched on this a few days ago. One of the main goals of this cube is to mimic the velocity and sequences found in a more degenerate pool of cards using a less than degenerate pool of cards. The lower powered card pool allows for more space for texture and subtly....granularities....novelty and weirdness. It's less of a feeling of an arms race than the average combo cube which aids in the general vibe of exploration and creativity that I'm trying to foster.

I've played this game for about 25 years now, and winning isn't as fun as it used to be. Magic has grown to be more about socializing and novelty than maximizing win equity for me. How I win is just as important to me as winning. I often draft with the intent of creating strange and memorable game states and sequences. My drafters often draft just to see what is possible to pull off in the cube.

So yeah, the rate-maximizing strategy should still be reasonably competitive, but a well-crafted synergy deck should be generally better.

Honestly, quickly looking at the Compare page of your two versions -- https://cubecobra.com/cube/compare/61a3f283c806ea103c920d60/to/inscho -- you're swapping out mediocre chonkers for medium-to-good chonkers. They're both fundamentally low power, considering the entire spectrum of Magic (4x fixing lands per guild, no combo, high mana curves, etc).

Yeah, I mean high powered in a relative sense. The current alternate list is just a slightly higher powered version, but is very much within the same ballpark.

But the higher-power list adds more to the top end of the power distribution with Balance and Young Pyromancer and Urza's Saga (also bonkers-good) and such. So maybe you can balance by adding more but equally weak interaction to the list? Ie, give players more ways to fight the new bombs, but not at such favorable rates that the removal prices out your old synergy standbys.

Possibly. I've felt pretty good about the density of removal thus far, but I could probably stand to add a couple more pieces. CC isn't indicative of IRL drafts, but your sample draft was stuffed to the gills with removal, and I don't know how often I want that to manifest. I’m open to suggestions if you have some you think would be particular good here.

I think it might be more about being more selective in the types of bombs that are introduced. The Elder Giants are that formidable trifecta of value, recursion, and large bodies. Significantly increasing the amount of graveyard hate would make them more reasonable, but that would jeopardize other strategies. It's easier to just remove them, they aren't important enough to warp the cube around.

A card like Young Pyromancer is great because it does fun cool stuff at a good rate, but it dies to literally everything. Balance is one of the reasons I'm interested in increasing the power level of the cube. I really want it as a build-around and an additional resource denial piece in white. Cataclysm is great, but there aren't many other pieces that aren't underpowered or overpowered.

 

[landofMordor]

I've played this game for about 25 years now

*long whistle in appreciation*

Yeah, I mean high powered in a relative sense. The current alternate list is just a slightly higher powered version, but is very much within the same ballpark.

Of course! No shade. I just mean to say that since they're in the same ballpark, I think you're probably able to apply the majority of your usual card eval/balancing heuristics in this environment too. Despite our theorizing about houses of cards, I don't think Cube is such a chaotic system that 50 swaps as subtle as the ones you made (considering you already cut Uro/Kroxa) will have significant higher-order effects.

I've felt pretty good about the density of removal thus far, but I could probably stand to add a couple more pieces. CC isn't indicative of IRL drafts, but your sample draft was stuffed to the gills with removal, and I don't know how often I want that to manifest. I’m open to suggestions if you have some you think would be particular good here.
...
A card like Young Pyromancer is great because it does fun cool stuff at a good rate, but it dies to literally everything. Balance is one of the reasons I'm interested in increasing the power level of the cube. I really want it as a build-around and an additional resource denial piece in white. Cataclysm is great, but there aren't many other pieces that aren't underpowered or overpowered.

Removal at its best is Magic's premier tool for catching up when you fall behind. But, to crib from Patrick Sullivan a bit, when destructive interaction is priced to move in every color, the game can start to revolve around such effects. Reflecting on this spectrum, and looking back again at the deck I built, I think I may have been off-base advising more removal per se. An observation of your cube is that the interaction's power level is bimodal but skewed:

Most of your removal is premium, format-defining interaction spells that would easily see heavy Standard play. Examples: Prismatic Ending, Unholy Heat, Fatal Push, Inquisition, most of the burn spells, KCommand, Collective Brutality, most of your countermagic. Having some of these cards is a way to pull synergy drafters into a splash for premium removal which unlocks new synergies, or they provide direction to newbie drafters, as you mentioned when discussing rate-optimizing strategy. So I like some of these, but this is the majority of your removal.

The minority is kinda bizarro interaction that is an obvious plant for a synergy deck but (IMO) is weak enough that even the synergy deck would only pick it if it's late pack 3 and they're short on interaction. Examples: Raven's Crime, Flame Jab, Forbid (which I'd guess is difficult to pull off), Foul Play, Wretched Confluence, Collective Defiance.

So 90% of the power of your interaction is located in the cards themselves, and not in synergistic interactions between cards. A drafter optimizing for rate will get a ton of good removal, which disrupts the opponent's synergy deck. And since the best class of cards vs. removal is proactive rate cards that get their money even if Doom Bladed --> my Kroxa/Saga deck. So... what if you kept the same as-fan of removal, but imposed efficiency hurdles on some interaction to push the average removal power towards the lower end?

For example, what about Magmatic Sinkhole over Unholy Heat? You remove the ceiling of Heat mercilessly dunking on Oracle of Mul Daya, but preserve the ability to catch up vs. the opponent's Tombstalker. Fatal Push to Strangling Soot achieves a similar move. Pacifism or that Amonkhet sacrificey version over Prismatic Ending. I've played many cards in this vein in my low-power synergy cube and my Eldraine Remixed format. Especially in the former cube, where I needed to consistently answer Aura'd-up monsters, while still allowing the Auras player to get their jimmies instead of getting blown out.

Sorry for another long post But TL;DR: i recant my suggestion for more removal to answer the newly added bombs. My revised suggestion is to weaken your average removal spell overall, so that they answer bombs without smothering synergy through their sheer rate.

 

[inscho]

*long whistle in appreciation*

lol...that might've come across as braggadocious when all I meant to say was that I'm getting old and jaded

Of course! No shade. I just mean to say that since they're in the same ballpark, I think you're probably able to apply the majority of your usual card eval/balancing heuristics in this environment too. Despite our theorizing about houses of cards, I don't think Cube is such a chaotic system that 50 swaps as subtle as the ones you made (considering you already cut Uro/Kroxa) will have significant higher-order effects.

I didn't take it that way at all. I'm really enjoying the conversation.

The subs like Stream of Thought out for Mental Note aren't going to change all that much for sure.

Inclusions like Balance, Land Tax, Fastbond, Noble Hierarch, Ignoble Hierarch, Chrome Mox, and Mox Diamond are the potential agents of chaos. Typically mana elves wouldn't be a big deal, but I haven't run acceleration with a cmc < 2 in a while (outside of gilded goose), and that does have some format implications.

Removal at its best is Magic's premier tool for catching up when you fall behind. But, to crib from Patrick Sullivan a bit, when destructive interaction is priced to move in every color, the game can start to revolve around such effects. Reflecting on this spectrum, and looking back again at the deck I built, I think I may have been off-base advising more removal per se. An observation of your cube is that the interaction's power level is bimodal but skewed:

Most of your removal is premium, format-defining interaction spells that would easily see heavy Standard play. Examples: Prismatic Ending, Unholy Heat, Fatal Push, Inquisition, most of the burn spells, KCommand, Collective Brutality, most of your countermagic. Having some of these cards is a way to pull synergy drafters into a splash for premium removal which unlocks new synergies, or they provide direction to newbie drafters, as you mentioned when discussing rate-optimizing strategy. So I like some of these, but this is the majority of your removal.

The minority is kinda bizarro interaction that is an obvious plant for a synergy deck but (IMO) is weak enough that even the synergy deck would only pick it if it's late pack 3 and they're short on interaction. Examples: Raven's Crime, Flame Jab, Forbid (which I'd guess is difficult to pull off), Foul Play, Wretched Confluence, Collective Defiance.

So 90% of the power of your interaction is located in the cards themselves, and not in synergistic interactions between cards. A drafter optimizing for rate will get a ton of good removal, which disrupts the opponent's synergy deck. And since the best class of cards vs. removal is proactive rate cards that get their money even if Doom Bladed --> my Kroxa/Saga deck. So... what if you kept the same as-fan of removal, but imposed efficiency hurdles on some interaction to push the average removal power towards the lower end?

For example, what about Magmatic Sinkhole over Unholy Heat? You remove the ceiling of Heat mercilessly dunking on Oracle of Mul Daya, but preserve the ability to catch up vs. the opponent's Tombstalker. Fatal Push to Strangling Soot achieves a similar move. Pacifism or that Amonkhet sacrificey version over Prismatic Ending. I've played many cards in this vein in my low-power synergy cube and my Eldraine Remixed format. Especially in the former cube, where I needed to consistently answer Aura'd-up monsters, while still allowing the Auras player to get their jimmies instead of getting blown out.

You make a really great point here, and it reveals an area of weakness in my card evaluation. Not all removal has to be Lightning Bolt or Path to Exile to be considered premium. This is where being on the pulse of constructed magic would be more helpful. I don't realize just how strong some of these removal pieces actually are. This issue hasn't come up through drafting, because most of my players aren't drafting with win equity regarded above all else....All of that premium removal tends to get scattered about and never stands out as problematic. People want to win, but they want to build decks they feel like playing. My drafters are all pretty good players, and make interesting decks, but it's far from a group of Spikes. This is where your experience becomes immensely valuable, and I expect that your participation in a future cube night will bring even more useful observations (and I'm looking forward to hanging out irl).

With all of that in mind, I think Magmatic Sinkhole over Unholy Heat is a perfect example of a positive removal substitution. I'd honestly debated between those two and Mine Collapse. Mine Collapse vs Magmatic Sinkhole is an interesting debate. Exiling from your graveyard is a substantial cost in this cube, and I try and limit the amount of delve for that reason.

Other subs between the two lists that I can undo are:

Angelic Purge over Prismatic Ending

Tragic Fall over Fatal Push

Cast Out over Oblivion Ring

But TL;DR: i recant my suggestion for more removal to answer the newly added bombs. My revised suggestion is to weaken your average removal spell overall, so that they answer bombs without smothering synergy through their sheer rate.

Yeah, I think this path is more sympathetic to my design goals.

Sorry for another long post

There's a lot of ways to spend your time on the internet, and taking the time to make considered thoughtful posts is always appreciated.

 

[TrainmasterGT]

Wow this has been one of the best exchanges all year!

 

[landofMordor]

All this leads me to suspect that it's a dearth of quality removal that's allowing the power outliers to take over games and overcome synergies through raw card quality,

It's funny that this is where I started, and then after a couple days I had the same conclusion (power outliers too strong) but completely reversed my guess as to the cause (removal too strong). Goes to show what a good cube conversation can do, I guess! (well, i guess it also emphasizes just how much removal Uro and Kroxa dodge, haha)

PS --

With all of that in mind, I think Magmatic Sinkhole over Unholy Heat is a perfect example of a positive removal substitution.

I'd probably start by guessing that Standard-but-not-Historic-powered removal and "premium draft" removal is perfectly fine in this list, O-Ring included. Sure, O-Ring can answer any synergy piece or any bomb, but it's never doing so at an insane tempo advantage, and it can still be Naturalized at a loss. On the other hand, I'd be extremely leery of removal which sees heavy Modern play, and to a lesser extent Pioneer/Historic play (Unholy Heat, K-Command, and the other spells I mentioned above). Just to make the arbitrary line in the sand I drew in my previous post a little more precise.

 

[Galmara]

I hope I'm not about to necro your thread without permission, but I just want to say that I've drawn a lot of inspiration from your list. I especially like your higher power level version, after you took out the most egregrious outliers in regards to power. In particular the red section with madnes/hellbent theme is really cool, and facilitate some way cooler decks than your typical "attack and burn" that you see from some lists. I am partial to fast paced magic with many sequencing decisions per turn (I played Grixis death's shadow for several years to moderate succes), and I have because of that (not a great reason, I know) implemented a somewhat lower curve in most colors.

Enough about my cube... I guess I just really wanted to say thank you. Without the fruitful discussions in this thread, and your imaginatve cube construction, my cube wouldn't be half the fun I find it to be now