I've made a bunch of changes to the cube, mostly cycling cards from the maybeboard in and out to match my design goals.
Prison/Stax
I've come to terms with the fact that I love prison decks and want them to be part of the cube. I started playing with Revised and hateful cards have been a part of Magic forever. So I've added some more disruptive pieces to the cube to increase their density. Port is no
Strip Mine, but it does lock up Academy/Cradle and mess with curves. I'm not quite there yet including
Strip Mine as the non-games it can create is too risky for my tastes. The two drops are a nuisance in the right deck and can stumble the opponent long enough to beat down.
These three have great play patterns IMO because they don't lock you out of the game. They restrict your options and force you to play off curve. The hatebears are also just 2/2s so easy to answer.
In -> Out
->
Swapping BIG for BIG.
Tarmogoyf is an early game beater, but not much else. It’ll be bigger than Sandman until the late game but being able to discard the Vilan for value or recur it when out of gas is relevant upside. Green decks tend to have plenty of lands on the battlefield meaning that Sandman should smack hard. I don’t love having a ton of generically big creatures that don’t do much else, so I’d rather not play both (unless I support
Berserkers again or something).
/
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With
Tarmogoyf out of the picture, I’d like to revisit
Nethergoyf. I disliked the two Goyfs having different GY requirements, so it was one or the other.
Nethergoyf’s recursive ability opens up synergy in the same way Sandman’s does. To make room, I’ll be cutting either Scrounger or Praetorian. Praetorian goes off with Welder/Engineer/
Reanimate, whereas Scrounger is significantly easier to recur. Scrounger is also better at triggering cards like
Gau, Feral Youth and
Insidious Roots, but Praetorian can block and has evasion.
Curious on your thoughts here.
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When I added
Ragost, I had forgotten about
Oswald. Being a single-color tutor effect is more important now than when I last had Oswald in the cube. I’ve since
added some spicy targets, as well
as the classics. If I had more lifegain or food related synergies, I would reconsider
Ragost.
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My fast mana is based on card disadvantage (
Mox Diamond,
Lotus Petal,
LED), but
Mox Opal avoids that restriction. It is also limited in the decks that can use it, so I’ll be swapping it out for
Chrome Mox that goes into any deck that wants it and has the built in disadvantage for consistency's sake.
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With the addition of
Teshar and
Oswald, I am interested in a cheap artifact removal spell that can be used to boost synergies. I am also contemplating adding
Displacer Kitten which would make good use of the Bauble.
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I miss cheating
Griselbrand into play as a nonsense card with huge swings. Reanimator Storm is a real thing and I’m here for it. Out of my cheat cards, only
Tinker and
Goblin Welder cannot use it. That still leaves
Oath of Druids,
Show and Tell,
Shelldock Isle and
Sneak Attack alongside
all the Black reanimator cards.
Ruins is really niche and significantly less splashy than the iconic Demon. It’s at its best in a Simic self-mill shell. But that archetype has gotten a boost thanks to
Gifts Ungiven,
Time Warp and
Cryptic Command to go with
Eternal Witness effects.
To add redundancy to the combo cheat package, I am testing
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Dream Halls fuels discard and draw 7 combo decks alongside the cheat angle. Chariot is a rock solid one, but also doesn't really fit with the low curving or combo ideas. It's a solidly midrange card, a macro archetype theatre I am avoiding to support.
I could use another colored fatty to cheat out, but I am not sure which one to select. I'd want one that is combo-oriented rather than a value piece. If you have strong arguments for any or other fatty suggestions, I'd be down to listen.
Horror goes off with 0 mana artifacts for infinite Storm and is very good at dealing with a cluttered board.
I am not sure what the Dragon does tbh. I imagine that every time you cheat it in, you'll have a different outcome which is appealing.
Lumra has the potential to put all your lands onto the battlefield, I'm sure you'll figure things out from there.
Hulk probably has some combos, but I haven't mapped them out. You have to jump through an additional hoop of sacrificing it though, making it an A+B+C+D combo! Seems excessive.
The artifact Titan is sweet as a card that works with both
Dream Halls and
Tinker which are rare. The cube is full of noncreature artifacts you can attack with, making it a
Craterhoof Behemoth of sorts. Less combo and more brute strength though.
I think these changes make sense with the direction the cube is going in. The biggest question mark is the added cheat package redundancy which isn't strictly needed but fun to test at least.
