MDT Unpowered Cube (450)

MDT12

MDT12

Hello everyone,

yesterday I made an introduction in the 'you draft mine, I'll draft yours' section of the forum before noticing that there is actually a designated section for cube blogs. So henceforth, topics revolving around my cube will be uploaded and updated here!

First of all, I hope everyone is doing well. I'll shortly introduce myself: I'm a 26 year old university student who mostly plays casual Magic. To be honest, I actually started playing Magic relatively recently (khans block). However, I immediately fell in love with drafting, mostly normal limited format, and decided I wanted to build a cube myself. With a little help of from my friends (read that again in Joe Cocker voice) I managed to get a nice cube selection quickly and have built upon that since. After receiving some good reviews and comments about my cube on the aforementioned forum topic, I get some trades/buys in and this is now my latest cube version: MDT Cube.

The goal of the cube is just to have a great time drafting (not unlike your cubes of course). By that I mean I would like to have a pretty high powerlevel, but don't want the 'end all be all' of high power cards in the cube. Most of my friends don't have cubes themselves and use mine regularly. Up until now, most drafts have been quite long due to card reading, but are very excited about cubing and I've only had major problems with Sol Ring so far in terms of 'unfairness'. (Sol Ring is now out.) As a student, I try to keep my cube relatively low price and therefore don't run fetchlands, shocklands or the old dual lands. This has its obvious limitations on the multicolor section, so I mainly focus on 2-color deck building.

With my cube being medium-priced, medium-power leveled I would like to hear what you think of it. Since I have only cubed a moderate amount of times with the same play group, I have no other reference and there are probably tons of things I can improve. Mostly, I'm just here to learn from the things you say and from the cubes you guys built. The archetypes are pretty standard:
  • Azorius: Control/Blink
  • Dimir: Control
  • Rakdos: Aggro/Burn
  • Gruul: Ramp/Big Things
  • Selesnya: creatures and tokens
  • Orzhov: Control/Lifegain
  • Golgari: graveyard matters
  • Simic: Flash/disruption
  • Izzet: Burn/spells matter
  • Boros: attacking with things
I'm not entirely sure if these archetypes are best represented in my cube as they are now. Moreover, I feel like maybe adding another card in the multicolor section of each guild would improve these archetypes but I'm afraid it would offset my mono color section too much. Especially because my fixing might not be sufficient enough. Please let me know what you think of the cube, its archetypes and some outlier cards. There is a plethora of drafted decks in the 'decks' section, if you want I can put some in this thread.

Here are some test decks I made from regular draft (8 man, 3x 15 cards) from the latest iteration of the cube:

Spells > creatures UR from CubeTutor.com









UW control from CubeTutor.com











Worldknit + chromanticore = good stuff from CubeTutor.com












Reanimator WB from CubeTutor.com










 
sigh

sigh

Again, welcome aboard! I'm liking a lot of the recent switches your CubeTutor is showing :). It's looking like a very solid draft right now, and it was certainly fun to draft! I'm happy to see the checklands and painlands replacing the common lands.

Your archetypes look good, but here's some things that might be of use:
  • Azorius: Control/Blink: Blink is a wicked fun archetype, also bleeding into Green really well, but it looks like your enabler count might be a little low. One that is well liked around here is galepowder mage
  • Dimir: Control: some situational spells that I'm not sure need to be that way: horribly awry could be essence scatter, for instance. Also highly recommend Compulsive Research and Thirst for Knowledge as part of the blue draw package
  • Rakdos: Aggro/Burn: imo, Spike Jester is a little underwhelming. I like Shambling Remains personally as a Rakdos dumb beater.
  • Gruul: Ramp/Big Things: Is this a popular deck? You have some wicked bombs to ramp into, and a nice ramp set up too.
  • Selesnya: creatures and tokens: I noticed Mirror Entity in white here, maybe as payoff for this section. I think by and large we've found the Entity to be too much. Play it and soon win with a board of big/big's.
  • Orzhov: Control/Lifegain: a little bit of a themeless theme, but it works
  • Golgari: graveyard matters: I've found animate dead to be a little strong. T1 Fiathless looting into T2 huge beater is just sooo backbreaking. Also you can steal opponents stuff. I'm a big fan of victimize, wich requires a little more set up, or basically any other reanimation spell that's a little slower on the curve. vigor mortis is sweet specifically for GB.
  • Simic: Flash/disruption: Fun theme but can be hard to pull off. The multicolor section looks good to set this up, at least. Maybe except Progenitor Mimic. 6 mana is all there.
  • Izzet: Burn/spells matter: Young Pyromancer
  • Boros: attacking with things: yeah. you've got things that do that.
One other pretty important section in your list that needs mentioning: The {c} sections. You've got a goodly number of {c} cards, or cards with colorless costs, but your fixing seems ill equipped to support it. I'm still tackling that problem in my cube, and I've got 45 cards less with the same number of painlands. I certainly hope you offer up wastes in the Basic lands, at least? The way that I'm handling it so far is: Only a very few cards, with strong payoff, and usually >= 4 mana. It's a cool theme, but still not even a theme I'm sure will work out in any environment (unless specifically tailored to {c}-matters). If some of those cards end up being issues or traps, I wouldn't hesitate to swap some out as needed. I'm already cutting at least one (dimensional infiltrator), and I've got some whacko support structure for the rest (boreal druid etc). If they are working out, then keep them by all means :).

Your land count might be a little low, but I could just as easily see cutting non-lands and keeping the land count the same. Is there a particular strategy behind 450, or is that what you've settled on? I know my cube used to be ~430 or so, but I've only been happy with each trim down towards 405. It was hard, but worth it, imo.

All in all, very cool design! I'm glad you've gotten into this project, to get some buddies together for repeated drafting fun :D.
 
MDT12

MDT12

Sigh, thanks again for taking a good look at the cube. First off, the 450 number is there so that we can play sealed with 4-5 people if we are playing with a smaller group. A couple of guys like it and we do it every now and then, but for the majority we do regular drafts or burn draft.

You've suggested some very interesting cards, the flavor I was looking for! I've added quite a few of them actually. As for the colorless mana, it is a problem and I also notice I am not playing those cards as much as I would like. Most of them have interesting effects on decent cards, but adding Wastes to your land base in a draft deck feels odd (I have 10 Wastes available for drafters, but most I've had anyone use was 2 I believe...).

Now bear with me. I've changed the deck again in a short amount of time, but something came to mind. When we draft IRL, its rather clear in what colors we are drafting relatively soon (drinking and playing you know how it goes). Our drafts could possibly benefit from stronger guild archetypes, and as I mentioned before I felt they were a bit weak before. Therefore, I've taken the liberty to add remove some weaker cards from my mono color bases, which gives me a better creatures/spells ratio, and added a card in each guild. Each guild now has access to 6 cards and 3 dual mana sources. In addition, I've added some more mana fixing lands and added some artifacts. Would you say that with the current fixing available this could work, or is having 6 cards per guild too much (the 10 tri-lands aid 2-color decks quite a lot, as each 2-color combination is 3x available in those 10 lands)?
 
sigh

sigh

MDT12 said:
Sigh, thanks again for taking a good look at the cube. First off, the 450 number is there so that we can play sealed with 4-5 people if we are playing with a smaller group. A couple of guys like it and we do it every now and then, but for the majority we do regular drafts or burn draft.

You've suggested some very interesting cards, the flavor I was looking for! I've added quite a few of them actually. As for the colorless mana, it is a problem and I also notice I am not playing those cards as much as I would like. Most of them have interesting effects on decent cards, but adding Wastes to your land base in a draft deck feels odd (I have 10 Wastes available for drafters, but most I've had anyone use was 2 I believe...).

Now bear with me. I've changed the deck again in a short amount of time, but something came to mind. When we draft IRL, its rather clear in what colors we are drafting relatively soon (drinking and playing you know how it goes). Our drafts could possibly benefit from stronger guild archetypes, and as I mentioned before I felt they were a bit weak before. Therefore, I've taken the liberty to add remove some weaker cards from my mono color bases, which gives me a better creatures/spells ratio, and added a card in each guild. Each guild now has access to 6 cards and 3 dual mana sources. In addition, I've added some more mana fixing lands and added some artifacts. Would you say that with the current fixing available this could work, or is having 6 cards per guild too much (the 10 tri-lands aid 2-color decks quite a lot, as each 2-color combination is 3x available in those 10 lands)?
Click to expand...
I'm liking the changes you are making. Lol @ city of ass. I won one of those once in some casual EDH thing.

Interesting note about sealed in cube: When you play sealed using MtG boosters, you actually only get 13 cards per pack (-1 for token card, -1 for basic land card). That ends up being 13*6 = 78 cards, foils aside. Cube packs are all gas. 15 cards of action. 15*5 = 75 cards, only 3 less! My group went to 5 pack sealed because this difference was so small and there wasn't as much decision paralysis. That mean's you could support an even 6 people, if they all agreed to play this way! Or, at the very least, have some new found breathing room for your cube size. How often do you draft/sealed? There's also a cool little thread about alternative drafting for <8 people: Here it is .

I'd say the exactly right number for multicolored sections is nearly impossible to come across. More multicolor seems fine! More multicolor cards can actually encourage fewer colors in decks, paradoxically, because there are fewer monocolored alternatives for splashing. Again, no hard and fast science to apply in this case. I'd say that multicolor cards can definitely help inform a direction to take, so this seems to line up with what you want. Your land count seems a little better now, and I agree that trilands make good 3-in-1 guildgates. At this point I'd have no better advice than simply testing and finding out if your environment does or does not like your changes (and of course reporting back!) :)
 
MDT12

MDT12

sigh said:
I'm liking the changes you are making. Lol @ city of ass. I won one of those once in some casual EDH thing.

Interesting note about sealed in cube: When you play sealed using MtG boosters, you actually only get 13 cards per pack (-1 for token card, -1 for basic land card). That ends up being 13*6 = 78 cards, foils aside. Cube packs are all gas. 15 cards of action. 15*5 = 75 cards, only 3 less! My group went to 5 pack sealed because this difference was so small and there wasn't as much decision paralysis. That mean's you could support an even 6 people, if they all agreed to play this way! Or, at the very least, have some new found breathing room for your cube size. How often do you draft/sealed? There's also a cool little thread about alternative drafting for <8 people: Here it is .

I'd say the exactly right number for multicolored sections is nearly impossible to come across. More multicolor seems fine! More multicolor cards can actually encourage fewer colors in decks, paradoxically, because there are fewer monocolored alternatives for splashing. Again, no hard and fast science to apply in this case. I'd say that multicolor cards can definitely help inform a direction to take, so this seems to line up with what you want. Your land count seems a little better now, and I agree that trilands make good 3-in-1 guildgates. At this point I'd have no better advice than simply testing and finding out if your environment does or does not like your changes (and of course reporting back!) :)
Click to expand...


Yeah I'm likely going to draft this quite a few times. I've done 2 now, and I'm really impressed at how much better the power level feels. I seem to consequently pick up 4-5 fixing lands and other artifacts. This is likely fine, even though quite a lot of them are tapped. In fast decks I will most likely play basic lands for the most part anyway. If you can, give it a try! The 2 decks I made are both really sweet and I get to at least 13-14 cards in each pack before missing out entirely. Here are some test draft decks I've completed:

Spells > creatures UR from CubeTutor.com









UW control from CubeTutor.com











Worldknit + chromanticore = good stuff from CubeTutor.com












Reanimator WB from CubeTutor.com











EDIT: oh and thanks for the sealed tip. I've actually never thought about it this way (meaning I thought 6 pack limited sealed would be 90 cards lol). It's good to keep the 5 pack sealed in the back of my head, if the group would get bigger for instance. I'd say we do sealed:draft about 1:5 times, so actually pretty regularly.
 
sigh

sigh

Tossed around a draft. Ended up in a mean-looking GR ramp deck. I suspected that it'd be a powerful (looking, at least) deck, and I don't think I was disappointed.

GR ramp from CubeTutor.com












Started this draft first picking Avenger of Zendikar. This was my cue into a ramp strategy, maybe. A second pick Greenwarden of Murasa secured my ideas on that. A few picks later, an Inferno Titan is somehow still in a pack, now RG. Honored Hierarch into Arbor Elf into Harrow = :). Ramp package on it's way in pack one! Last pick is Artisan of Kozilek, which makes me smile. Second pack is seriously mediocre for RG, pick Yavimaya Elder for value. Run into a magmaquake and then Palladium Myr, feeling good, and then I see:

Wut. A boon has fallen into my lap. This card is ridiculously good as a ramp spell, probably too good, especially considering how many entirely colorless bombs you have. Finish the second packs, picked up a Ghor-clan for some board stall breaking. Third pack is the Battle Ball. This is one of my favorite ramp targets, and with channel it's a no-brainer. Rest of the pack for flushing out some removal, getting some curve, etc.
One thing I definitely drafted into, or at least noticed, was the number of bomby cards. Maybe this was just a lucky 360, but my sideboard tops out with:
triskelion
Avenger of Zendikar
Progenitor Mimic
Bane of Bala Ged
Artisan of Kozilek
I probably should be running one more of these in board (Avenger, probably), but that's still some crazy potential and very high bomb count for one deck. Not sure what that means quite yet, though.
 
MDT12

MDT12

That's a mean looking deck, definitely my style. As you've noticed I do carry quite a bunch of big finishers, but I think you were just lucky today. You basically have 1 of the 2 big reds, a couple of the high greens and almost all the top end colorless. Needless to say, I would've picked all too if I could with that deck. A little versatility never hurts. Channel is a card I really want to try out. It seems a little over the power curve, but really needs a specific deck to work well, and can be punished by fast decks too. If it's too common to cast it, I'll probably take it out.
 
MDT12

MDT12

It's been a few days since I've been active on the forum, my apologies. I've been cracking some packs and doing some updates with the new Shadows over Innistrad sat. This set is a treasure chest for cube builders and there are flavourful cards in all ranks and rarities. I have some cards coming very soon, but I've managed to include the cards that I opened which are the following:

- (powerhouse 2-drop, waiting on Asylum Visitor too which I played IRL and it's just amazing)
- (nice creature engine, and just solid bear overall)
- (bye bye Jackal Pup)
- (solid aggressive 1 drop)
- (meh card, will take out soon again)
- (really interested if this ever works, I figure it to be a little too niche)
- (needed a second planeswalker and found him in a pack, seems good value but maybe too balanced?)
- (got a foil one of this baby, 4-drop gruul is crowded but have to try her)
- (I figure if you play this in aggro B/x builds, delirium will trigger quite easily and then it's just great value)
- (aggressively costed, card draw and become bigger when you mana sink. sign me up!)
- (powerhouse red 3-drop, amazing card)
- (trying this instead of Goblin Darkdwellers. Fireballing creatures for 2 seems good)
- (trying this as a niche removal card, and with 16 planeswalker atm in my cube not that uncommon to hit the delirium)

I've also made the decision to cut back again on my multicolor section (from 6 to 5 creatures/spells per guild in 450 cube seems more fitting after all) and within the guilds, and the cube overall, I've tried to limit the amount of high cost 'bomby' cards a bit more. Feel free to try out my cube:
(0)
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb

Onderzeeboot's Jeskai Blink from CubeTutor.com











Lots of fun choices. Picked good fixing a few times over cards that I would have really liked in this deck, but yeah, casting your spells is more important than anything. Happy with the red splash. FTK is an insane Brago target, and Alesha gets back a lot of creatures in this deck. I don't think I saw any OP cards this time?
 
MDT12

MDT12

Thanks for the draft! Deck certainly looks a lot of fun. There are some cards, like the Titans and some removal that push the power level a bit, but I've made some upgrades for low power cards that made quite a difference to even things out.
 
MDT12

MDT12

Pfiew, another week, another cube revision. This thing turns out to be quite the struggle (optimization that is). I kept receiving comments that there is still a pretty broad power level in the cube, and my approach was this time the following: remove the cards that are below or above the desired power level. This meant unfortunately cutting Sun Titan and some other sweet cards, and lower power cards like Elusive Spellfist, Jaddi Offshoot, Launch the fleet etc. Turns out that if you're used to having certain cards in your cube, you simply want to hang on to them even if the overall result is better. I've kept only cards that were supporting multiple archetypes and good on their own instead of those that rely too much on other cards or that fit only in single strategies.

Anyway, I'm now at 415 cards which is an odd number to be at for a cube but it's a new starting point for me. From here I can decide whether to go to 360 or 405 or back to 450 but with a bunch of new cards. I'll try this list out for a bit on CubeTutor and IRL drafts and see which option is best. If you'd like to check which changes I made and what the list looks like now, here is the Blog (it's a bit of a mess with many entries, apologies) and the List. For those who'd like to draft that can be done Here.

If you have comments, remarks, suggestions or anything else that is helpful please let me know because you guys are much more experienced than I am at cubebuilding. I'm trying to build a fun draft environment for everyone and not for me, so my own judgement of cards and the cube can be deceiving.

Some new decks for viewing:

Rakdos tempo from CubeTutor.com











Temur good from CubeTutor.com










 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
Maybe I need to put a quarter in the swear jar, but that looks midrange to me.
Also that's the loosest young pyromancer I've ever seen :p 3 spells?
 
MDT12

MDT12

Yeah you are right for both haha. Wanted to make it a bit more burn oriented at first, but not enough spells but forgot about the YP after. That pyro should def not been in there, rushed it a bit.
 
MDT12

MDT12

Again a pretty large list of changes to be made to the cube. I've removed a bit of the cards that don't really belong in any archetype and tried to enforce the mono color themes and their relation to the guilds. A bit of love for red burn spells, green ramp, black reanimator spells and creatures, blue spells and removed the worldknit/chromaticore "combo" as it kept being oppressive or counterproductive for good cube drafting. The list of changes:

Satyr Firedancer > Abbot of Keral Keep
Gray Merchant of Asphodel > Puppeteer Clique
Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind > Electrolyze
Nefarox, Overlord of Grixis > Profane Command
Wolfbriar Elemental > Yeva, Nature's Herald
Foul Renewal > Diabolic Servitude
End Hostilities > Day of Judgment
Wild Slash > Incinerate
Magmaquake > Earthquake
Pyrewild Shaman > Shrine of Burning Rage
Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker > Psychatog
Herald of Torment > Life // Death
Day's Undoing > Opt
Thunderbreak Regent > Fireblast
Ruric Thar, the Unbowed > Ghor-Clan Rampager
Chromanticore > Pithing Needle
Expedition Envoy > Kor Skyfisher
Commune with Nature > Explore
Cultivate > Kodama's Reach
Journey to Nowhere > Gods Willing
Removed Worldknit


Sample Deck:

Esper control from CubeTutor.com










Jund Midrange from CubeTutor.com










 
safra

safra

MDT12 said:
Also, I was wondering about the new Nahiri, the Harbinger. I've been thinking of replacing Tajic, Blade of the Legion or [Aurelia's Fury[/c] with her because she would probably enable a different playstyle in RW or RWx decks. Has anybody had experience with her?
Click to expand...
She's amazing. Splash damage on enchantments, feeds your yard, draws cards, and the ult is a real option that feels so, so good but doesn't always win the game that turn. (Angel of Serenity for three cards in your graveyard, get them all back, AoS for three of their creatures is DELIRIOUS CHICANERY).
 
MDT12

MDT12

MDT12

MDT12

Hello everyone, I'm back from my holiday and had some time to think about my cube and what I want to support further on (while adding cards from 415 to 450). I've decided to add support for the Wildfire decks (by adding Wildfire, Burning of Xinye, Pillage, Catastrophe, Upheaval) because I have quite a decent amount of mana rocks (although no power, Sol Ring and Mana Crypt of course). There is some more support for the sacrifice theme by adding Tragic Slip, Carrion Feeder, Innocent Blood, Braids, Cabal Minion. Added some more green spells (would have really like Birthing Pod, but sadly it's very costly for me to get one atm although I still 'added' it to my CubeTutor list already) but that's going to be included hopefully soon. Sulfuric Vortex is added to give the mono red/burn strategy a nod and upgraded some of the weaker blue spells. Hopefully this makes the list a little bit more interesting.

However, are there any more good 'Build around cards' for a 450 unpowered list? I think Smokestack would work, but might wait to see how Braids does in the cube.
 
MDT12

MDT12

Also, MASSIVE OVERHAUL in my lands section. This should make my cube and mostly aggro strategies much more playable and I hope you like it.
 
MDT12

MDT12

Hi guys! It's been a great while. That was due to me having to sell most of my cube because of some personal circumstances, however these were mostly financial. So I got back into rebuilding my cube recently because I still love the heck of it!

I have had to make some compromises, trying to find the balance between the power level, the card type I wanted and the price of some of the flavorful cards. Anyway, I just put it only on CubeTutor, I hope you guys like it. I will be checking in more often in the coming time, so if you draft mine, I'll draft yours!

http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/82465;jsessionid=757B2DC619B6DC86C00ABCF4FCA9D7DC

EDIT: Oh and sorry, I forgot to mention that there is little of the 'good' fixing. I have made proxies of the fetches, duals, shocks, checks and pain lands which I intend to make seperate 'land packs' of. So please don't worry about the fixing in the cube, it will be aranged for with proxies in a seperate land draft (as you can imagine, the $$ lands were the first thing I had to sell...).

Here is a draft of the deck in blue/white blink:

MDT12's draft of MDT Cube2 on 29/06/2017 from CubeTutor.com










 
MDT12

MDT12

Thanks! Also, I've gotten a ton of feedback already from some redditors at the mtgcube forum so decided to cut the list quite a bit (450 -> 410) to get rid of some of the draft chaff.
 
MDT12

MDT12

Hey guys, would you mind giving my cube a draft? You guys are basically the experts on cube building and drafting, and I will gladly repay the service. Doesnt need to be an extensive review, but if you find something odd/out of place, please let me know. I've spent the last two weeks building and tweaking (I know, two weeks is only the start) the cube, and I will have a bunch of people over next weekend (full 8 people draft., usually we are with 5/6) so if I need to make some changes I can do so in time. Some of them are very experienced players that I haven't played with yet (though they are good friends of friends so I trust them), but I know they have a powered cube as well, so I would like to give them a good and well-balanced experience. Thanks in advance, I know this type of stuff is something that is maybe not desired on the cube forum (only asking for drafts), but I am a long time lurker more than a poster. As I said, I will gladly draft you back or go go through your list or test something!

http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/82465
 
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