Chris Taylor
Contributor
Make sure your removal is shit tho. End of turn doom blade seems like insanity against Lord of shatterskull pass
RESURRECT DEAD ON PLANET JUPITER
- Thread starter Fulcrum
- Start date
I've been having cube design "writer's block" for about a month now that I'm trying to move past.
I found this card the other day. It seems like a super neat engine that mimics Rally the Ancestors even though this is far more restrictive.
Really want to pair it with stuff like Grave Pact and Attrition along with creatures like Extricator of Sin, Doomed Traveler, and Blood Artist.
I've been thinking a lot about this modern Puresteel Paladin brew I played against a couple of years ago and its applications for cube.This decklist is from before Walking Ballista was printed and Sword of the Meek's unban. They would most certainly be in the list today.
The deck is an equipment toolbox deck that searches up various equipment depending on the matchup.
It really grind things out with different combos.
Basilisk Collar + Viridian Longbow
Sylvok Lifestaff + Mortarpod
And enjoys a steady stream of cards from Puresteel Paladin and Stone Haven Outfitter.
It's an interesting deck for sure and something I'd like to try porting to cube. More to come later.
I found this card the other day. It seems like a super neat engine that mimics Rally the Ancestors even though this is far more restrictive.
Really want to pair it with stuff like Grave Pact and Attrition along with creatures like Extricator of Sin, Doomed Traveler, and Blood Artist.
I've been thinking a lot about this modern Puresteel Paladin brew I played against a couple of years ago and its applications for cube.This decklist is from before Walking Ballista was printed and Sword of the Meek's unban. They would most certainly be in the list today.
| Creatures (15) 4 Puresteel Paladin 4 Stone Haven Outfitter 4 Spellskite 2 Trinket Mage 1 Hangarback Walker Artifacts (14) 4 Flayer Husk 1 Sylvok Lifestaff 1 Basilisk Collar 1 Viridian Longbow 1 Mortarpod 1 Paradise Mantle 1 Lightning Greaves 1 Sword of Fire and Ice 1 Batterskull 2 Mox Opal Spells (8) 4 Path to Exile 4 Steelshaper's Gift Enchantments (1) 1 Ghirapur Aether Grid | Lands (22) 4 Flooded Strand 4 Arid Mesa 1 Windswept Heath 6 Plains 1 Hallowed Fountain 1 Sacred Foundry 2 Ghost Quarter 1 Moorland Haunt 1 Academy Ruins 1 Inkmoth Nexus | Sideboard (15) 4 Wear//Tear 2 Dismember 3 Timely Reinforcements 1 Relic of Progenitus 1 Grafdigger's Cage 1 Pithing Needle 1 Engineered Explosives 1 Aven Mindcensor 1 Vulshok Battlemaster |
The deck is an equipment toolbox deck that searches up various equipment depending on the matchup.
It really grind things out with different combos.
Basilisk Collar + Viridian Longbow
Sylvok Lifestaff + Mortarpod
And enjoys a steady stream of cards from Puresteel Paladin and Stone Haven Outfitter.
It's an interesting deck for sure and something I'd like to try porting to cube. More to come later.
One of the biggest roadblocks in making progress on the borderpost cube is that whenever I try adding cards to the file it generally ends up feeling like a "normal" cube with a bunch of 3-color 2-drops and borderposts thrown in with only half of the guilds supported. This really stumped me so I decided to take a step back and dig into the Cube Blog archives for ideas. One of the lists that really ended up resonating with me was the Charm Cube (WHICH CHROME WON'T LET ME LINK TO), which had a sort of emphasis on morphs, which happen to have the same casting cost as the borderposts. That's basically what I'm trying to hash out now, balancing a cube around 3-cmc mana rocks and 3-cmc 2/2s.
I've een thinking about morphs a lot of because of this and this is why they've become super appealing to me not only for borderpost cube but for cubing in general.
1. There's been a general trend of moving away from ETBs here and morphs seem like an interesting way to fill that void. In the early game you can get your ETB effect in what amounts to two payments, the 3 mana cost to play a creature face down and the additional cost to unmorph it. I like that this gives your opponent the opportunity to interact with your value play. In the late game when you have access to a bunch of mana you can play what amounts to really expensive ETB creatures. Den Protector is a 5-mana Eternal Witness, Thelonite Hermit is an 8-mana Deranged Hermit, etc.
2. Morphs add a bunch of combat tricks to a format. Combat tricks don't really have a home in cube because of the efficiency of removal but turning a creature face up could provide a format with a similar feel. I like that turning a creature face up feels like a hybrid between a trick or effect that's on the board and something that's hidden in hand. The whole having 2 morphs in play also adds to this feeling of tension and mystery that again is super appealing to me.
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One of the cycles of lands that I'd like to include in the borderpost cube are the time spiral storage lands.
Proliferate makes these an interesting way to ramp and when combined with treasure, create an interesting ramp and color fixing identity in grixis with some possible artifact synergies. Incoming card dump.
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Interesting reanimator/flicker hybrid. Do I want the spell effect now or the creature later?
I've een thinking about morphs a lot of because of this and this is why they've become super appealing to me not only for borderpost cube but for cubing in general.
1. There's been a general trend of moving away from ETBs here and morphs seem like an interesting way to fill that void. In the early game you can get your ETB effect in what amounts to two payments, the 3 mana cost to play a creature face down and the additional cost to unmorph it. I like that this gives your opponent the opportunity to interact with your value play. In the late game when you have access to a bunch of mana you can play what amounts to really expensive ETB creatures. Den Protector is a 5-mana Eternal Witness, Thelonite Hermit is an 8-mana Deranged Hermit, etc.
2. Morphs add a bunch of combat tricks to a format. Combat tricks don't really have a home in cube because of the efficiency of removal but turning a creature face up could provide a format with a similar feel. I like that turning a creature face up feels like a hybrid between a trick or effect that's on the board and something that's hidden in hand. The whole having 2 morphs in play also adds to this feeling of tension and mystery that again is super appealing to me.
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One of the cycles of lands that I'd like to include in the borderpost cube are the time spiral storage lands.
Proliferate makes these an interesting way to ramp and when combined with treasure, create an interesting ramp and color fixing identity in grixis with some possible artifact synergies. Incoming card dump.
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Interesting reanimator/flicker hybrid. Do I want the spell effect now or the creature later?
I explored some of the proliferate ramp in my decision cube. Alongside the storage lands I had
Also tech
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Your first two black reanimation spells exile, so you'd need a sac effect to get the dragon bonus.
Also tech
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Your first two black reanimation spells exile, so you'd need a sac effect to get the dragon bonus.
I explored some of the proliferate ramp in my decision cube. Alongside the storage lands I had
Also tech
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Your first two black reanimation spells exile, so you'd need a sac effect to get the dragon bonus.
I forgot about Pentad Prism too. How did it work for?
I like the idea of building a card advantage engine with Etched Oracle. Might be janky but I like the idea.
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That's right about the dragons. I guess Apprentice Necromancer would fit better or maybe a focus more on Leaves the Battlefield over dies. Either way, there's the general idea, I'll expand later (in like a few months which has been the trend it seems).
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Forgot to mention in the above post that I've been really interested in these cards
An experience I've had with reducing the amount of burn in a red section is that players will still try to force those burn heavy, mono-red decks and then be upset that their deck wasn't properly supported and that there needs to be more burn in the cube. The cards listed above although expensive, seems to mitigate that problem to an extent. Maybe your deck doesn't need as many burn spells if you can just reuse the same ones to assemble a late game reach engine. Maybe I'm off-base here I'm really hopeful about these cards.
The rocks were fine, they don't need proliferate to be good, but it's cool when they do. These and the storage lands push you towards expensive/x-spells which is interesting in itself. The first couple of rocks can also be grabbed by trinket mage, so there's lots of cool little things you can do, which creates a different flavour of format.
I'm playing hammer, it's the original and best. You're right, it gives you that slow inevitability, and reinforces red control. Also good to be discarded early, and great with pyromancers goggles.
I'm playing hammer, it's the original and best. You're right, it gives you that slow inevitability, and reinforces red control. Also good to be discarded early, and great with pyromancers goggles.
I finally got over my "writer's block" and was able to be a little satisfied with something I threw into cubetutor. I'm looking for help identifying the following things before I take this to my group for testing if anyone has an abundance of time.
List | Visual Spoiler |
Philosophy: Delude myself into thinking this is a low powered list when it's actually not. Try not to go too deep down the rabbit hole on weird archetypes. Try to include iconic and recognizable cards. Mana base of Shocks, Checks, Bouncelands, and Filters positively reminds of both Ravnica Block Standard formats. Be mindful of blue card draw spells so Faithless Looting and friends can compete. Shoot for interactive games. (whatever that means)
Here's a short description of the things I'm trying to support
- Flicker/ Blink : Uses flicker spells to reuse ETB effects. (Not entirely satisfied with this)
- Ninjas : Utilizes Ninjas to reuse ETB effects and accrue advantage from their saboteur abilities.
- Madness : Utilizes looting effects to sculpt hands, discard for value, and power out large threats.
- Kicker Ramp : Ramp deck that uses kicker spells to bridge the early and late game.
- Midrange Tokens : Uses medium sized tokens and anthems to pull ahead on the battlefield.
- Aristocrats/ Lifegain : Sacrifice for value. Gains life for value. (Orzhov honestly feels like it needs work)
- Graveyard Toolbox : Grave pulses and self mill allow the graveyard to function as a second hand
- Saboteurs : Uses combat tricks and evasion to push through saboteurs.
- Wheels.dec : Uses cards like Magus of the Wheel to power up cards like Flameblade Adept and Chasm Skulker.
- Aggressive Tokens : Uses small sized tokens in conjunction with burn and cards like Goblin Bombardment and Furystoke Giant.
These color pairs feel thematically tied together.
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+
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My group wants me to try to support a dredge deck. I tried to throw in a lot of dredgers and recursive threats but I'm not sure if the deck is cohesive. Possible sources for inspiration and refinement include Vintage, Modern, and Legacy Dredge, Modern Stitcher's Supplier decks, the Spider Spawning Deck from Innistrad.
Contractually obligated to include Coiling Oracle.
Hopefully that wasn't too long/ confusing. I wasn't really going to go into this much detail but here we are.
- Overpowered Cards
- Underpowered Cards
- Cards that don't make sense in the context of this cube
- Undersupported Themes
- Spicy Cards for Consideration
List | Visual Spoiler |
Philosophy: Delude myself into thinking this is a low powered list when it's actually not. Try not to go too deep down the rabbit hole on weird archetypes. Try to include iconic and recognizable cards. Mana base of Shocks, Checks, Bouncelands, and Filters positively reminds of both Ravnica Block Standard formats. Be mindful of blue card draw spells so Faithless Looting and friends can compete. Shoot for interactive games. (whatever that means)
Here's a short description of the things I'm trying to support
- Flicker/ Blink : Uses flicker spells to reuse ETB effects. (Not entirely satisfied with this) - Ninjas : Utilizes Ninjas to reuse ETB effects and accrue advantage from their saboteur abilities. - Madness : Utilizes looting effects to sculpt hands, discard for value, and power out large threats. - Kicker Ramp : Ramp deck that uses kicker spells to bridge the early and late game. - Midrange Tokens : Uses medium sized tokens and anthems to pull ahead on the battlefield. - Aristocrats/ Lifegain : Sacrifice for value. Gains life for value. (Orzhov honestly feels like it needs work) - Graveyard Toolbox : Grave pulses and self mill allow the graveyard to function as a second hand - Saboteurs : Uses combat tricks and evasion to push through saboteurs. - Wheels.dec : Uses cards like Magus of the Wheel to power up cards like Flameblade Adept and Chasm Skulker. - Aggressive Tokens : Uses small sized tokens in conjunction with burn and cards like Goblin Bombardment and Furystoke Giant.These color pairs feel thematically tied together.
+++ My group wants me to try to support a dredge deck. I tried to throw in a lot of dredgers and recursive threats but I'm not sure if the deck is cohesive. Possible sources for inspiration and refinement include Vintage, Modern, and Legacy Dredge, Modern Stitcher's Supplier decks, the Spider Spawning Deck from Innistrad.
Contractually obligated to include Coiling Oracle.
Hopefully that wasn't too long/ confusing. I wasn't really going to go into this much detail but here we are.
Dom Harvey
Contributor
Thank you to everyone that contributed some drafts! Got to see a lot of neat things and got useful feedback through the comments on cubetutor.
I really like how well the graveyard elements in both Red and Green ended up coming together in this deck. The Rosheen Meanderer seemed a little lackluster until I remembered that it could power out ribbons as well. Either way, it sent me on the hunt for more x-spells that play well with green and white.
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Ended up reflecting on the list over the past couple of days and ended up making these changes. The main goal was to try to get black to a place I'm happy with and solidify a theme for which ended up with me doubling down on the sacrifice for value stuff and letting most of the lifegain stuff go (at least mentally).
Made small changes in other colors to try to cut some awkward/ undersupported cards.
Booster Tutor and Summon the Pack will be back once I figure out how to best implement them.
I really like how well the graveyard elements in both Red and Green ended up coming together in this deck. The Rosheen Meanderer seemed a little lackluster until I remembered that it could power out ribbons as well. Either way, it sent me on the hunt for more x-spells that play well with green and white.
_______________________________________________________________________
Ended up reflecting on the list over the past couple of days and ended up making these changes. The main goal was to try to get black to a place I'm happy with and solidify a theme for
which ended up with me doubling down on the sacrifice for value stuff and letting most of the lifegain stuff go (at least mentally).Made small changes in other colors to try to cut some awkward/ undersupported cards.
Booster Tutor and Summon the Pack will be back once I figure out how to best implement them.