Long time lurker, eventually managed to put together his first cube

Greetings everyone, first of all i want to thank you guys for the awesome work you have all done putting together a place like this when the discussion about this awesome format can thrive.
I actually enjoy myself more while reading about your updates/ideas/whatever than i do whith all other mtg-related stuff on the net.
sooooo coming to my cube , here is the link :http://www.cubetutor.com/cubeblog/69262.

I don't have any particular idea or theme that are holding the list together( even if i'm pretty certain THERE are some archetypes i want to push)or making my cube among the others, although i think that the genesis of my cube could be helpfull for those who're reading and have found themself in the situation i was(am?)(being a complete noob xD).

The only costraint i had building this was the budget of the cards: i avoided putting in cards that cost more than a couple of bucks for two reason :
  • i'm poor xD;
  • i really like low power level enviroment, where " bad " cards are given their time to shine: in the end this was the purpose of my cube in the first place.

I hosted my first draft last week and we enjoyed it quite a bit, but i know the list have issues and i'd like to hear a feedback from you guys.
In the draft we 've had( sorry i don't have any recorded lists) the two top lists were both on Selesnya colors: one was playng aggro whith heavy emphasis on +1/+1 counters sinergy the other playng all the top-end cards.
Here the concern is about the powerlevel of some individual cards like Citadel Siege,Troll Ascetic or Polukranos, World Eater
The other "cohoesive" deck which came together (and i'm pretty happy about that, since it was a deck i wanted to see played) is the U/B aggro decks which ended 2-1 and performed very well.

The other decks were drafted by people whith waay less drafting experience and were just pile of solid picks in 3 or even 4 colours: i took this as a particularly concering signal:maybe archertypes DO need some refinement if people just "get lost".
Other issues:
  • power level disparity(eg polukranos vs bramblewood paragon): cube started off as a paesant one, but i added rares and mithycs cause my playgroup likes to "big": then some cards compare pretty poorly whith one another;
  • archetypes are preety loose: it's my first cube afterall and in some choiches i've been drove by personal taste (bramblewood paragon , we're looking at you once again);
  • No one played RED: maybe no one wanted to be force to play aggro, but the lack of the natural predator for durdly mindrage strategies was clear;
  • the removal seemed scarce: maybe because everyone avoided red and maybe too much removal is condensed in the burn spells;
talkin about archetypes here a brief summary of what each color pais is about:
  • Azorius: the gold cards support the blink theme,(not really supported in the relative monocolor sections though);
  • Dimir: the gold card are all about attacking, i really tried to push the "saboteurs " theme for this guild;
  • Rakdos:must admit that this is just a pile of cards whith some cards pivoting archetypes (tymaret/aristocrats & kolaghan/go wide) and 2 two just solid picks;
  • Gruul: the archetype of choiche here is ramp/monster, the samut feels a little out of place;
  • Selesnya: even if the archetype is not really clear, all the cards played out pretty well(maybe dromoka commond is a little above the power curve..)
  • Orzhov: distruptive aggro &aristocrats, nothing more to say here ;
  • Golgari: just "goodstuff" and worm harvest which is an early experiment to see if the land theme is worth pursuing;
  • Simic: here come the trouble since simic is my favourite guild and the card choice reflects that, big flashy overpowered toys(my bad);
  • Izzet : a little mess, but overall pretty solid cards(or at least playable);
  • Boros: tokens!!!
I think we should be able to draft once again this weekend, and i hope this time all the colors will get played and that least 2 players will be willing to draft low to the ground decks so that i'll be able to see if the disparity in power level(i.e. polukranos winning games left and right whith BIG X activation,emeria shepard and trostani summoner HARD casted and winning games) is real or just a product of the lack of (real) aggro strategies.
After theese initial balance issues will be tackled i'll start to work on making archetypes more cohoesive.
I'd really like to give my cube a strong graveyard theme,scattered across all the colors and colors pairs: whith flashback,reanimator,madness , cycling all making an appareance.

Soooo i'm really looking forward to hear anyfeedback from you, and any ideas about archetypes,cards i could include will be well accepted.




p.s. sorry for bad english,i'm not used to write ""wall"" of text in english( ya i know it's 2018...), i hope it's at least readable.
 
Your English is okay IMO!

I can give more feedback later but I did some practice drafts. Every time I was able to get Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time. I think these cards are stronger than everything else in your cube.
The decks:

UWr control from CubeTutor.com












BUG control from CubeTutor.com












bant value + drake combo from CubeTutor.com












the last one is fun, it has ghostly flicker + peregrine drake + eternal witness but no way to use infinite mana except Ongoing Investigation.

IMO you don't have enough 6-7 mana creatures outside of {G}. You don't need a lot but right now you only have 1 in W and 0 in UBR. You also have Sagu Mauler and some artifact 'fatties' but IMO its too hard to play control and midrange without 'finisher' creatures. You have non-creature finishers instead but some of them - like Assemble the Legion - are much harder to stop than any big creature.

I think these cards are too weak:


and these are too strong:

other people can probably name more cards, I wanted to focus on test drafting.

Welcome to Riptide Lab!
 
Thank you for your thoughtful answer and for the cool decks you put together!
The advices you gave are also very sound and i'll probably starting by cutting DispelRetreat to EmeriaAssemble the Legion,Wayfaring Temple and Tormented Hero to make space for some beefy creatures.Maybe the full cycle of the 'souls' could work?
About Dig and Cruise i can see my self switch those for other card advantage blue spells, but for now i'd like to tests those a little more( in the draft we have had for istance Bygone Bishop and Grim Haruspex drew way more cards and were perceveid as stronger/unfair/whatever...)
 
Greetings everyone, first of all i want to thank you guys for the awesome work you have all done putting together a place like this when the discussion about this awesome format can thrive.
I actually enjoy myself more while reading about your updates/ideas/whatever than i do whith all other mtg-related stuff on the net.
sooooo coming to my cube , here is the link :http://www.cubetutor.com/cubeblog/69262.
Hello Swoopydo, welcome to the site!

I didn't have a chance to do a full analysis on your list, so I am going to make a couple of really quick reccomendations based off of what you said in your posts and a short skim of your list.



I wholeheartedly agree with Safra, you should replace both Akroan Hoplite and Assemble the Legion. There are better Boros tokens enablers. I'm going to suggest Honored Crop-Captain and Heroic Reinforcements. Honored Crop-Captain is going to add 2 more power to the board for each attack you make, and it pumps your entire team, making it better against targeted removal. Heroic Reinforcements is a standard and draft all-star which can be used as a mini overrun effect while still producing tokens.

I really like Kolaghan, the Storm's Fury, but I do not think you're running enough dragons to make her 100% amazing. I run 9 dragons in my list and she is still mostly just a big beater. The only reason I still even include her is nostalgia at this point. She's a great card, but additional support is required for her to be amazing. I would start by adding at least 3 of the following: Thunderbreak Regent, Verix Bladewing, Bone Dragon, Demanding Dragon, Nesting Dragon, Akoum Hellkite, Kukusho, Evening Star, Moltensteel Dragon, and Noxious Dragon. Some of these might be too good for your list, play it by ear. If you end up running a lot of dragons, Boneyard Scourge and Sarkhan, Fireblood are nice options.

Overall, I think you have a pretty decent looking list. You need to add some fatties to WUBR colors. You might also want to cut your gold section down to 3 cards per color. Unless you have a lot of fixing, I can tell you from experience it can be too hard for drafters to play all of the gold. I can tell you right now that 31 ways to fix your mana is going to lead to people having trouble playing all of there spells.

Thanks,
GT
 
All sound advices! it's really cool to be in the place where the first thing to do is to add fatties :D: lot of fun to be had!!
i'm waiting for at least another playtest IRL before any update, but maaan getting people to cube is hard!!

P.S. on the dragon subtheme: I love dragon as everyone else but i feel that between commander 2018,Iconinc master, M19 mtg-nerds had they dose of giant reptiles this year. I can see my self add more in the future (i really like Sarkhan's looting ability) but for now i think i'll keep kolaghan as 5 damage to face spell( or cut her in the process of cutting down gold cards)
 
All sound advices! it's really cool to be in the place where the first thing to do is to add fatties :D: lot of fun to be had!!
i'm waiting for at least another playtest IRL before any update, but maaan getting people to cube is hard!!

P.S. on the dragon subtheme: I love dragon as everyone else but i feel that between commander 2018,Iconinc master, M19 mtg-nerds had they dose of giant reptiles this year. I can see my self add more in the future (i really like Sarkhan's looting ability) but for now i think i'll keep kolaghan as 5 damage to face spell( or cut her in the process of cutting down gold cards)


I'm not saying you need to support a dragon sub theme, I'm just saying you should add a couple more dragons.
 
So after a big hiatus i eventually managed to host another draft with a slightly updated list(same link).
We were 5 this time and all of the players were pretty un-experienced players, whith some first timers magic players so i don't think i can really extrapolate any usefull information from the decks built ( one of the players used archeomancer+ghostly flicker just to recur ponder while he had peregrine drake in hand for instance xD).
But i can for sure attest one thing: this single draft reignited my love for the game and i'm back to "honey-moon" phase when you just spend hours day-dreaming about cards, combos and decks.
Infact even if the players were pretty un-experienced we all had a great time, which i think is the most important thing to pursue as cube designers.

Now back to the serious talking, things that worked:
  • +1/+1 counters deck come together pretty naturally and i can see why since it's pretty straightforward;
  • upping the quality of removal was much needed and i'm pretty happy with it right now;
  • i managed to slip into the list some tricolor cards which i'm pretty happy with: Butcher of the Horde ,Abzan Ascendacy & Villainous Wealth
Things i'd like to fix/change:
  • some themes still feel a little lackluster like the lands decks( i don't think that Emeria Sheperd and other payoffs do enough right now);
  • aggro decks still not come together and its pretty disappointing since a lot of slots are occupied by some stupid 1CC or 2cc dorks that weel a lot, so i'm thinking to revamp "traditinioal curve-out" aggro decks completely pushing more organic theme instead( eg. tokens, madness, recursive dorks black, maybe somekind tribe ... i don't know :()
Things i'd like to try out in the forseeable future:
  • Passing all my finals :rolleyes:;
  • Jeskai Ascendacy(followed by more convoke spells maybe or pushing a Chief Engineer or Inspiring Statuary package )+Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper: i want to inject more tri-color cards here and there and the combos are too sweet to pass up;
  • prayng that the " changeling " theme in Modern Horizons delivers us some good dorks, so that i can keep in the cube my beloved stupid tribal lords (sage of fables, oona 's back guard and the likes..);
  • I'll probably up the card count to some undefinied number: playng with ""noob"" players give me the freedom to sacrifice consistency in favor of variety/fun( meaning that the lack of said consistency will not be felt by unexperienced players as much as it would be by more knowledgeables ones).
and i just want to thanks you all riptiders for the community you've build cause this site continue to deliver top quality mtg related content and made me discover a way to play magic that reignited my love for the game.
(as always sorry for the bad english, with these posts i'm taking the opportunity to train my writing skills)
 
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