Ravnic's Arena Cube - I wanna play with you

I've got this idea and than I just did it. I created a historic, arena cube, so I and hopefully many others can draft it online and then play it on the client. To make it less likely, that someone doesn't have the cards they drafted in their collection, or not the necessary wild cards, I kept it peasant. Everyone who drafts from time to time and has a handful of black and silver wild cards should have no problems getting their deck together. I also just feel more at home designing for that lower power level. Before I go into detail, one house rule:

There is one snow-covered basic of each in the cube. You have to pick it to be allowed to play as many of it (that specific basic) as you want. So you pick Snow-Covered Forest and only then you're allowed to add Snow-Covered Forests to your deck.



The cube surely isn't as refined as my other real life cubes, but how can it be, I just scrapped it together within a few days. I don't doubt it'll be fun, but it surely has to evolve and I am excited to get feedback from people among these boards who actually played it this time!

The idea is simple: You just go on the Link and draft a deck:

https://www.cubetutor.com/draft/178995

https://cubecobra.com/cube/playtest/15uc

Then you go to arena, add a deck (format limited) and rebuild it there. Now you can challenge anybody who also did this for games. No rules how often you can use your deck or anything, at least not from my side. Just have some fun.

The themes: I've chose to go with some broad themes for the beginning.

Landfall in {R}{G}{W}
Energy centered in {G}{R}{U} and a little bit in {B}
Lifegain centered in {W}{B} and a little bit in {G}
+1/+1 counters centered in {G}{W}{U} and a little bit in {B}{R}
Spellslinger centered in {U}{R} and a little bit in {G}{W}
Snow centered in {B}{G}{U} and a little bit in {R}

Classic Aggro, Control and Midrange decks are available in almost every color combination, and I tried to heavily minimize the number of cards, that can't stand on their own, so players will have a lot of freedom exploring stuff.

 
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If anyone is free later today, I'd be down for a couple test games. We could also connect via discord or such to have a little talk while gaming.
 
CT sucks, compared to CC in most regards, except the bots. They're just much better on CT, for example you have a realistic chance getting some fixing.

Happy you're happy :)
 
on Tuesdays and Thursdays after i put the kids to bed, i attempt to stream arena, i would love to play you on stream if the timing works for you! (i’ll play off stream too haha) but yeah i get what you mean about the bot AI
 
That sounds good. You couldn't find me, because I missed participating there so far. As I'm not really familiar with discord, how can I find it there?
 
Is the cube strictly peasant? I'd like to see some more artifact pay-offs for all the artifacts running around:

 
Could you work out the deck saving problems @blacksmithy ? If so, how have your games been?

Modin and I had some cool rounds, but I gotta say the cube plays faster than anticipated

Yes it is straight peasant @Modin did you feel like there were a lot of artifacts around? I didn't inted to add a lot,so I also didn't consider payoffs before
 
Oh damn, I didn't realize that. Well I guess most of them are pretty easy to replace. But I'll only replace those, that aren't available outside of the archive on arena, as for Sign in Blood for example, there is a version on Arena, maybe from the starter decks or something.

To be fair @japahn your first deck looks more cohesive to me. That being said, I have to keep an eye on control and maybe make it more viable. Everyone, please keep the feedback coming!
 
So some thoughts given ~15 games we played:

Snow
- Taking a snow basic is really, really good for the snow deck, and it only really needs one, so... it's kind of easy to be snow in terms of lands, and I like that.
- The bottleneck are the payoffs, and I like that most only need ~5 sources until they are good, and they are actually good (Berg Strider, Icebind Pillar, Boreal Outrider). Suggest adding Sculptor of Winter since it's good with any duals.
- Avalanche Caller and Spirit of the Aldegaard are what makes deep snow worth it, and The Three Seasons is a secondary payoff for going deep into the deck. Haven't tested Hailstorm Valkyrie, and I imagine it's another one that make it worth it. Narfi is interesting, I think I'd run it as a wincon in control given ~6 snow lands and also as zombies payoff.
- I like in general where the deck is. It felt powerful, but not large enough that it's railroaded, you have to find other stuff to fill the snow shell. I went with white control and some ramp. I can see anything else that's slow slotting nicely in here.

White
- The creatures are aggressive. Lots of them have triggers on attack and are bad at blocking. I think you want a good amount like that, but maybe swap some to support white midrange/control as well.
- Clever Lumimancer feels lost, only Clarion Spirit goes in the same deck, and white doesn't have many spells that justify WU or WR Spellslinger.
- Some cards point at an artifacts and/or an enchantments deck, there's enchantment density and Stone Haven Pilgrim, Trusty Retriever, and Archon of Falling Stars. I think those are false signposts? I actually like Pilgrim, but the other two can rarely be used well.

Blue
- Blue has a ton or card draw, and I think that makes it the best color in the cube. Maybe we have to scale back a bit or make other colors better at the long game.
- Faerie Vandal is surprisingly good.
- I like counterspells. Just wanted to say.

Other
- Do you think we can fit a couple of runes and Goldvein Pick? I think this is the right power level, and I love that package.
- I missed some mana sinks and ways to refuel outside of blue.
- We talked about adding the Campuses, but it's awkward because the combinations that want the snow duals are in general also the ones that have the Campuses.

Will write more when I have more time.
 
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hey! yeah i figured it out on phone eventually too. i drafted a bunch of value based decks that were definitely fun to play! my Jund ramp deck is my favorite but Japahn kept me honest with some sizzling tempo decks that had me on the back foot. i really like the value cards in the cube like the green Warden-something and all the deathrattle creatures, and hopefully i can draft some better decks around those soon and give aggro a better run for its money!
Snow is HELLA strong under current rules by the way
 
Black
(haven't played much with it)
- Black actually seems to be in a good sport in regards to value, it just needs to work a bit more than blue for it, but that's fine.

Red
- Red is in a good spot, aggro/control wise. Feels balanced to me.
- Landfall is just Akoum Hellhound and Skyclave Geopede? I don't think it's worth drafting around them, but I could be wrong as I have little experience with ZNR. Edit: Oh, Brushfire Elemental is actually the best one here, so it might be worth it. I don't know how to rate landfall :D

Green
(haven't played much with it)
- The curve is quite stacked on 3-drops and thin on 2-drops. With the only 1-cmc ramp being Llanowar Elves, I think green's playability would benefit a lot from adding more 2-drops.
- Mage Duel is a little weird as I don't see any other reason to be UG or RG Spellslingers. I'd swap it out for something for another deck, maybe Struggle for Skemfar?
 
Hey guys, sorry for not responding the last few days, life was a real challenge lately, but I'm on my way. Today or tomorrow I'd also have some time for playing!

So some thoughts given ~15 games we played:

Snow
- Taking a snow basic is really, really good for the snow deck, and it only really needs one, so... it's kind of easy to be snow in terms of lands, and I like that.
- The bottleneck are the payoffs, and I like that most only need ~5 sources until they are good, and they are actually good (Berg Strider, Icebind Pillar, Boreal Outrider). Suggest adding Sculptor of Winter since it's good with any duals.
- Avalanche Caller and Spirit of the Aldegaard are what makes deep snow worth it, and The Three Seasons is a secondary payoff for going deep into the deck. Haven't tested Hailstorm Valkyrie, and I imagine it's another one that make it worth it. Narfi is interesting, I think I'd run it as a wincon in control given ~6 snow lands and also as zombies payoff.
- I like in general where the deck is. It felt powerful, but not large enough that it's railroaded, you have to find other stuff to fill the snow shell. I went with white control and some ramp. I can see anything else that's slow slotting nicely in here.

White
- The creatures are aggressive. Lots of them have triggers on attack and are bad at blocking. I think you want a good amount like that, but maybe swap some to support white midrange/control as well.
- Clever Lumimancer feels lost, only Clarion Spirit goes in the same deck, and white doesn't have many spells that justify WU or WR Spellslinger.
- Some cards point at an artifacts and/or an enchantments deck, there's enchantment density and Stone Haven Pilgrim, Trusty Retriever, and Archon of Falling Stars. I think those are false signposts? I actually like Pilgrim, but the other two can rarely be used well.

Blue
- Blue has a ton or card draw, and I think that makes it the best color in the cube. Maybe we have to scale back a bit or make other colors better at the long game.
- Faerie Vandal is surprisingly good.
- I like counterspells. Just wanted to say.

Other
- Do you think we can fit a couple of runes and Goldvein Pick? I think this is the right power level, and I love that package.
- I missed some mana sinks and ways to refuel outside of blue.
- We talked about adding the Campuses, but it's awkward because the combinations that want the snow duals are in general also the ones that have the Campuses.

Will write more when I have more time.

Good catch on white, I would really like to make it more appealing for slower decks. And yeah, Lumimancer is probably a trap. I tried to epand the spell subtheme beyond UR, but for most colors it doesn't really get there. I didn't really planned and artifacts and enchantments theme, however it would be really cool to do some tricky stuff with sagas, that's why the enchantment recursion was there.

I'll keep an eye on blue, definitely willing to scale back on draw here.

The runes could be nice with enchantment bouncing, if I ever go deeper on sagas, but I need enough equipment to make them work really well I guess.

Black
(haven't played much with it)
- Black actually seems to be in a good sport in regards to value, it just needs to work a bit more than blue for it, but that's fine.

Red
- Red is in a good spot, aggro/control wise. Feels balanced to me.
- Landfall is just Akoum Hellhound and Skyclave Geopede? I don't think it's worth drafting around them, but I could be wrong as I have little experience with ZNR. Edit: Oh, Brushfire Elemental is actually the best one here, so it might be worth it. I don't know how to rate landfall :D

Green
(haven't played much with it)
- The curve is quite stacked on 3-drops and thin on 2-drops. With the only 1-cmc ramp being Llanowar Elves, I think green's playability would benefit a lot from adding more 2-drops.
- Mage Duel is a little weird as I don't see any other reason to be UG or RG Spellslingers. I'd swap it out for something for another deck, maybe Struggle for Skemfar?

I think those red (gruul) landfall cards are just good on their own, and it's not like there is much land bouncing going on anyways.

I would like to add another 2-drop anyways, but I also probably underestimated the effect of having less Rampant Growth variants. Mage Duel is similar to the Lumimancer, except it is probably much more playable in a low-spell-count deck. Struggle certainly fits better.

Did you guys feel like +1/+1 counters are too strong?

And how should we operate with changes? Are the cut cards banned from the decks?
 
Hey guys, sorry for not responding the last few days, life was a real challenge lately, but I'm on my way. Today or tomorrow I'd also have some time for playing!
Cool, ping me on Discord when you're free!

The runes could be nice with enchantment bouncing, if I ever go deeper on sagas, but I need enough equipment to make them work really well I guess.
Yeah, probably would need ~5 colorless equipment in the pool. Looking at the available pool now, colorless equipment hasn't been good lately. Could go Bonesplitter, Zephyr Boots, Goldvein Pick, Runed Crown... and then there's nothing good anymore. I think Ancestral Blade would be nice but it's white.

Did you guys feel like +1/+1 counters are too strong?

Neither of us drafted the deck.

And how should we operate with changes? Are the cut cards banned from the decks?

One idea to keep decks compatible with small changes:

I'd try to version as major/minor updates. The version we played is 1.0.0. If you swap a couple of cards, it becomes 1.0.1. If you make a major change, it ticks to 1.1.0. You can play decks within the same major version, so a 1.0.0 deck can be played with 1.0.1, but not with a 1.1.0.

What counts as a major update would be up to you, but I think it's fine to change major versions frequently.

Alternatively, decks could just be compatible with the same exact version (which is the same as all updates are major?).
 
So we played a couple more matches:


UB Control 2-0 BG Reclamation

Won the both games with Lay Claim. The first at very low life. The second stealing Revenge of Ravens. Dealt with Phyrexian Reclamation 3x over the course of the game and for a UB deck, it was weirdly good at killing enchantments with Pharika's Libation, Feed the Swarm, and Lay Claim. Control felt fun to play, as I had to decide whether I had to keep mana up or if I had to play to the board, and sequence removal so that Reclamation didn't get activated. Really fun and swingy game 1, in a good way.


WBr Midrange 0-2 WU Fliers

In the first game I was missing my splash for a while with [[Scrapper Champion]] (which is a bomb) and [[Fight with Fire]] in hand, then complained to blacksmithy and immediately drew a Mountain, then a red tapland. I was very far behind, but wiped his board with a kicked Fight with Fire while I swung with a big Scrapper Champion. I found a Draugr's Helm, but he had just played 2 chump blockers + a flier to take my last 2 life.

Game two I got overwhelmed by recurring Depose // Deploy even though I had a 6/6 [[Scrapper Champion]] attacking, it just got chumped.


WR Aggro 2-0 WU Fliers

Wanted to see an aggro vs aggro-control, and WR Aggro was just too fast. Won the first game with a Heroic Reinforcements for 18 (12 unblocked) after T1 Usher of the Fallen pumped out some tokens and Clarion Spirit made more. Second game started a little bit slower, but Skymarcher Aspirant ascended, again via Heroic Reinforcements, and took the win.



The games were really fun!

Most feedback is again about aggro. We were looking and there's not much interaction and not many good blockers in white and green. Here are some cards I think would be nice that don't hose aggro completely but are effective against it (some are blacksmithy's suggestion):



I suggest something not too drastic like +1 W, +2 B cheap removal, and +2 W + 1 B +2 G blockers since in a 360 the changes are pretty impactful, and it's easy to overcompensate.

Red is very well equipped to block, actually, with all the first strikers, and I don't think it needs much help. Blue has some high toughness creatures, so it's also good.



We also talked about how High Alert and Huatli, the Sun's Heart don't seem to be worth building around because there are so few creatures that get a meaningful buff from it.
 
Hey guys, thanks for all the feedback!

I will definitely look into aggro-speed-bumpers and I might up the removal count a little bit (with all the +1/+1 counter stuff, I feel like having removal is more important than in my main cube too). Also, I've noticed your talk about snow, and I want to reconsider some things. First, I like the system, but maybe I have to cut some of the better payoffs (or replace them), if I want to keep it like this? I've heard complains about Spirit of the Aldergard ...

This week, I will make an update, so keep the feedback coming!
 
Hey everyone, I'm coming forward with a question to everyone who has been drafting my arena cube and giving me feedback so far: What would you say, if I turned this into a group project?

There are two reasons for it: First, I barely have time to play it occasionally right now, and even less so to really analyze it and make worthy upgrades. I also have to update my main cube, the CCC, now, since I will have a one week vacation in august (hopefully) with some friends, and I can finally get really some games done their! Also, life's challenging sometimes. I got a second job to pay for my living and I want to give my best for my studies still.

The second reason kind of evolves from this. Some of you guys have played "my" cube far more than me and you already made great points and discovered some weaknesses, so I'm probably not even the right guy for this job currently - at least not all on my own.

So, here is my suggestion: Everyone is free to propose changes. You just have to post cuts and replacements in this very thread (preferably with some sort of explanation). Then your post has to get to two likes (again, it's just a first sketch of how we could do this), and regularly, I'd say twice a month (1st and 15th?) I'd go ahead and execute all of these changes on CT and CC. What do you think?

@japahn @blacksmithy @Modin @Rowan_CB
 
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