General Making broken cards fair

Velrun

Velrun

I have found Upheaval to be a below par cube card unless you run hyper ramp such as Sol Ring or specifically Psychatog like the 2002 Standard deck by John Finkel. It’s like Wildfire and can win games if you build around it, if opponent is caught off guard and if you have a lot of mana.

I have found Hymn to Tourach to be much stronger than Mind Twist unless you, again, run Sol Ring and friends. I would not run Hymn in a normal cube.

Mana Drain is Power 10 (along with Library of Alexandria but excluding Timetwister).
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
Wrench Mind is the well designed hymn
Though ideally you'd have to discard something really impactful like a planeswalker :p
 
Dom Harvey

Dom Harvey

Contributor
I maintain that Balance is fair and... some synonym for balanced

I've found Recurring Nightmare to be remarkably tame - it's hard to use in the Vintage/Legacy Cubes on MTGO and in other formats you don't have as much uncastable nonsense to cheat in with it

I feel the same way about Skullclamp too even though my Cubes are very heavy on token makers etc; I think it can be a cool engine card for those decks especially as just accruing card advantage isn't the guarantee of victory it felt like it was a few years ago

Sulfuric Vortex isn't oppressive, it's the best card for a particular strategy that puts the game on a clock that I think can be interesting and makes the automatic 'load up on lifegain' plan less reliable

Fractured Identity is incredible - LSV calls it the best non-power card in the Vintage Cube - but unlike the other cards here it's primarily reactive. If I'm stumbling or haven't developed anything good on the board yet, Identity isn't going to slam the door on me. Identity is also amazing at enabling great comeback stories and winning games that seemed unwinnable. It might be 'too good' still but on a different axis than these other cards

Oko... I don't know. I generally have a high tolerance for BS in Cube which inherently has more variety than Constructed (versus having to play against Oko in most of your matches in every format for months) and Oko can do some cool things but it also invalidates cool things more than basically any other card (even on this list!)

Upheaval is a problem thanks to other problems - namely fast mana like Grim Monolith. By itself it's a slow and situational card that can upset the apple card unlike any other card if the game goes long enough

It's hard for me to imagine a Cube where Demonic Tutor doesn't have a role - it's the definition of card that fits in any deck that can cast it. If you don't have other broken cards like the ones on this list and the power level of your Cube is more flat, Tutor is a good way to add more consistency to the cool stuff without just fetching the same game-winning bomb every time

Replenish is hard to make work but the ceiling isn't that high unless your Cube is built with that one card in mind - it's often a Refurbish/Resurrection equivalent

Maze of Ith makes games go longer and is obnoxious but isn't close to the line on power level
 
dbs

dbs

Dom Harvey said:
I maintain that Balance is fair and... some synonym for balanced

I've found Recurring Nightmare to be remarkably tame - it's hard to use in the Vintage/Legacy Cubes on MTGO and in other formats you don't have as much uncastable nonsense to cheat in with it

I feel the same way about Skullclamp too even though my Cubes are very heavy on token makers etc; I think it can be a cool engine card for those decks especially as just accruing card advantage isn't the guarantee of victory it felt like it was a few years ago

...

Fractured Identity is incredible - LSV calls it the best non-power card in the Vintage Cube - but unlike the other cards here it's primarily reactive. If I'm stumbling or haven't developed anything good on the board yet, Identity isn't going to slam the door on me. Identity is also amazing at enabling great comeback stories and winning games that seemed unwinnable. It might be 'too good' still but on a different axis than these other cards

Upheaval is a problem thanks to other problems - namely fast mana like Grim Monolith. By itself it's a slow and situational card that can upset the apple card unlike any other card if the game goes long enough
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This very strongly mirrors my experience. Balance, Fastbond, Oath of Druids have been exclusively fun and healthy for us. All three of these cards are unusual in the drafting portion (they change the evaluation of other cards you open quite a bit) and create unusual play patterns.

Recurring Nightmare and Skullclamp have likewise never been oppressive for us. They're good cards if you can support them. I suspect this depends on how the creature and combat orientation of your cube. I've especially loved Skullclamp. It's such a cool engine for decks that otherwise wouldn't be able to chew through card advantage. Right now I never want to cut it.

EDIT: additional note, I've found Library of Alexandria to be very medium. You'll definitely play it, but it's not particularly sought after.

On the other hand, Fractured Identity and Upheaval have both been very very pushed for us in terms of power-level. I cut Upheaval but not Fractured Identity for the reasons Dom highlighted. Upheaval was ending the game on the spot 99% of the times it was cast. Fractured Identity is maybe higher in raw pick-order but because it's reactive it serves a fundamentally different role that my players are happy with.

Compare the following two decklists which share some surface similarities:

Artifacts and Upheaval:

U(rb) Paradoxical Lantern from CubeTutor.com












Stasis w/ Fractured Identity:

Bant Stasis from CubeTutor.com












Every match with the Stasis deck was long, tense, and interactive. Fractured Identity was cast a lot (and snapped back a lot) but the games were still uniformly close.

The artifacts deck had the potential for back-and-forth interactive magic but instead ended with: "Alright, Upheaval?" "I concede."
 
Erik Twice

Erik Twice

Velrun said:
I have found Hymn to Tourach to be much stronger than Mind Twist unless you, again, run Sol Ring and friends. I would not run Hymn in a normal cube.
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I agree that Hymn to Tourach is not much weaker than Mind Twist. If I were strict, I wouldn't run Hymn either because it's also dumb. For me there are two big differences:

1) The BB cost. This is a surprisingly impactful limitation.
2) You can't wipe your opponent's entire hand with it. For me the issue is not so much the broken Mind Twist opening, it's when you play a signet and or another accelerant and it wins you the game if it's not countered.

I think one of the reasons to avoid cards like Mind Twist, Armaggedon and the like is that it gives non-blue control a chance. Only blue and perhaps black through discard can stop them, which automatically makes less decks viable.

Dom Harvey said:
I've found Recurring Nightmare to be remarkably tame - it's hard to use in the Vintage/Legacy Cubes on MTGO and in other formats you don't have as much uncastable nonsense to cheat in with it
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For me it's just that Recurring Nightmare is such a, well, recurring source of value at so little cost. It's a finisher, a mana sink, a combo piece, the best blink spell. It slots into any decks with creatures, not too differently from how Oppossition does.

It's not great in MTGO Vintage Cube because that cube is pretty shoddy and pretty much centered on a small amount of cards. Black is usually burdened with bad aggro cards or vampires or whatever that just can't compete with Tinker, Sneak Attack or Turn 3 Craterhoofs. But if you are playing fair, I think it's difficult for Recurring Nightmare not to be one of the best, most centralizing cards in the environment.
 
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