Tanner's Cube (~500, Unpowered)

[Tanner K.]

http://cubetutor.com/viewcube/1135

This cube is definitely still a work in progress (they all are, right?), but I wanted to post here as a scratchpad for some of the ideas I'm working on. I'd also love any feedback or card suggestions.

There's only one unusual rule in this cube: Guildgates come into play untapped. This won't be an issue for long, as I'll be proxying dual lands and fetch lands when I get some time, but this was a good (cheap) alternative when first building the cube.

Themes:
White:
- Aggro
- Control
- Support (Fatties for Green ramp, token producers and flicker effects to support G/W Tokens)

Blue:
- Tempo
- Control

Red:
- Aggro/Burn
- Control Support (A few nice cards to support Green ramp, burn to support a standard aggro strategy)

Green:
- Ramp
- Tokens (Still a work-in-progress, see below)

Black:
- Aggro Support (A few good cheap creatures plus removal to support a White or Red-based aggro strategy)
- Reanimator
- Pox / Resource Denial
- Control
- Graveyard Recursion

To-Do List:
- Add Green/White tokens theme
- Increase token support in Selesnya section
- Add a few more token-producers in Green and White mid-range / top-end
- Consider more anthem effects (Honor of the Pure, Intangible Virtue?)
- Create some custom tokens once this section is solidified

- Revamp several multi-color sections (especially Izzet, Orzhov, Golgari, Dimir, Simic)

- Black - too many themes
- Revisit the Pox theme it see if it's sufficiently supported / worth keeping
- Graveyard Recursion likewise probably needs help
- Reanimator is reliant on fatties from other colors

- Replace the Guildgates with dual lands and fetch lands

- Look at cards to support a blue-focused artifact theme

Issues / Problems:

1) I'm not sure I like Swords or Wurmcoil Engine. All of them fit easily into nearly any deck and each one is an easy first-pick in any pack. I don't like cards that feel like they have to be first-picked out of any given pack. Also, while it's a small sample size, the last three drafts have been won by whomever picked up two swords. I feel that Wurmcoil Engine is comparable to the Titans in power level, but at least the casting cost on the Titans asks something of your deck.

2) Aggro is under-drafted. I think this is partly a function of my cube (I've been adding more aggro support after the last few playthroughs) and partly a function of my players, who mostly prefer control or mid-range strategies. As my drafters get used to seeing the aggro cards, we'll see if more aggro decks are drafted. If not, I may need to push aggro support even further.

3) I'm really interested in whether the Green / White token experiment will work out (I've not fully started adding cards to support this). I want Green to have an identity outside of ramp, and I'm not fond of Green aggro, especially as I'm already support aggro in White, Red, and Black already. With a focused Selesnya section, token generators and anthem effects in both colors, and flicker effects from White to bounce the token generators, I think a G/W tokens deck is quite viable. I do want to make sure that the tokens theme feeds back into the ramp theme by having creatures and spells worth ramping to, such as Hornet Queen and Deranged Hermit.

 

[Eric Chan]

Interesting list, Tanner. If you don't mind me offering you some advice, it feels like your cube could do with a stronger sense of direction. What I mean by that is that you'd do well to choose a target power level to aim for, and then strive to keep the majority of your cards in the range of that power level. I tried a sample draft of your cube, and was surprised to see Primeval Titan lining up alongside Spearbreaker Behemoth. Your list currently includes all of the Titans, along with powerful gamebreakers like Bonfire of the Damned, which all are cards that a lot of us have found to be environment-warping. At the same time, other cards like the aforementioned Behemoth had trouble being relevant even in their respective Limited formats. Now, it could be that a wide variance in power level is one of your cube's goals, and there's something to be said for having splashy bombs to break stalemates and provide fodder for good stories. But it feels like some belt tightening would help point you and your cube in the right direction, which in turn would help shape the archetypes you want to support. You probably want to make the call on whether you want to continue supporting Grave Titan and friends, or whether you want to make your cube environment friendly to things like Wing Splicer and Mossbridge Troll. It's really difficult to do both.

Moving onto your concerns, I suppose it's not too surprising that strong colorless cards are dominating your cube games. This has actually been discussed at length in various posts on this forum, where we've gradually discovered that Wurmcoil and the Swords are generally not good for cubes at large. In a cube with a pronounced disparity in power level, like yours, they become even more of an automatic first-pick, and I imagine your playgroup's picked up on that. Cards that make people feel bad for passing them don't do anyone any favours, because it kinda forces people to take the de facto Best Card over something that might be sweeter, but not as powerful in the abstract. So it's not a huge leap to go from there to cutting them.

If you want to see aggro play a more prominent role in your cube drafts, I'll put forth the suggestion to lower your curve. At the moment, you're a little heavy on drops from 3 cmc all the way up to 7 cmc, and low on spells that cost 1 & 2 cmc. It's hard to overstate how critical of a role the early drops play in boosting the profile of aggro decks; those decks really can't afford to sit around until turn three to play their first creature. As a very rough guide, if you want to give aggro more of a kick, I'd aim to follow a couple of approximate benchmarks: 1) have about half of your cube be creatures; 2) have about 15-18% of your non-land spells cost 1 mana; 3) have about 25-28% of your non-land spells costs 2 mana. Of course, none of that will automatically push aggro into the forefront without some explicit support for the archetype. But it still makes for a good reference point when you go about balancing and tuning your cube.

Keep us posted on how things go with your cube, though. I'd love to hear about what you do with your cube and where you take it, and draft reports are always great, too!

 

[Tanner K.]

Eric, that's a really useful post. I took a lot of your feedback and made some major revisions to my Cube (about 80 or 90 cards swapped around).

What I mean by that is that you'd do well to choose a target power level to aim for, and then strive to keep the majority of your cards in the range of that power level. I tried a sample draft of your cube, and was surprised to see Primeval Titan lining up alongside Spearbreaker Behemoth.

Speakerbreaker Behemoth (and a number of other cards, especially in Green) were remnants of when the Cube theme was "cards I already own". This last major revision should have trimmed out a lot of the low power-level cards.

Your list currently includes all of the Titans, along with powerful gamebreakers like Bonfire of the Damned, which all are cards that a lot of us have found to be environment-warping. At the same time, other cards like the aforementioned Behemoth had trouble being relevant even in their respective Limited formats. Now, it could be that a wide variance in power level is one of your cube's goals, and there's something to be said for having splashy bombs to break stalemates and provide fodder for good stories. But it feels like some belt tightening would help point you and your cube in the right direction, which in turn would help shape the archetypes you want to support. You probably want to make the call on whether you want to continue supporting Grave Titan and friends, or whether you want to make your cube environment friendly to things like Wing Splicer and Mossbridge Troll. It's really difficult to do both.

Moving onto your concerns, I suppose it's not too surprising that strong colorless cards are dominating your cube games. This has actually been discussed at length in various posts on this forum, where we've gradually discovered that Wurmcoil and the Swords are generally not good for cubes at large.

The Titans and Bonfire are staying for the time being, but they're very much on my watch list. I'm less concerned about them, as they at least require a color commitment, unlike the Swords or Wurmcoil. I'm hoping that increasing the power of the level of the Cube and streamlining some of the archetypes I'm supporting will help these cards be balanced in the Cube, but I'm definitely going to watch closely over the next couple sessions and decide if they're worth cutting.

Wurmcoil and the Swords are gone, and I've replaced them with a few additional items of equipment. I'm especially interested in Sunforger and Sword of Vengeance, which I haven't seen represented in too many lists. I'm also trying out Skullclamp, but I could easily see that getting pulled right back out again.

I've also slightly increased the artifact hate to temper the power of equipment. I definitely need to go back and change some of the vanilla cards like Disenchant into more interesting [card=Kor Sanctifiers]artifact[/card] [card=Dismantling Blow]removal[/card], but I've got some other pressing balance issues I want to work on first.

If you want to see aggro play a more prominent role in your cube drafts, I'll put forth the suggestion to lower your curve. At the moment, you're a little heavy on drops from 3 cmc all the way up to 7 cmc, and low on spells that cost 1 & 2 cmc. It's hard to overstate how critical of a role the early drops play in boosting the profile of aggro decks; those decks really can't afford to sit around until turn three to play their first creature. As a very rough guide, if you want to give aggro more of a kick, I'd aim to follow a couple of approximate benchmarks: 1) have about half of your cube be creatures; 2) have about 15-18% of your non-land spells cost 1 mana; 3) have about 25-28% of your non-land spells costs 2 mana. Of course, none of that will automatically push aggro into the forefront without some explicit support for the archetype. But it still makes for a good reference point when you go about balancing and tuning your cube.

I've adjusted my curve down slightly, but I think it could still use a bit more of a push that direction. It wasn't a major priority for this revision, but I'm going to assess this better in the near future.

I've cleaned up Black a little bit and removed the Pox package and cut down some of the Reanimate cards. I wasn't supporting Pox or Reanimator nearly well enough, so I've cut them to expand the cards supporting the other archetypes. I'm testing out the four Gravecrawler package along with some support for recursive creatures (Attrition, Goblin Bombardment). This might transition well into re-introducing Pox into the Cube, but I want to see the existing implementation in action.

Keep us posted on how things go with your cube, though. I'd love to hear about what you do with your cube and where you take it, and draft reports are always great, too!

Thanks again for all the feedback, it's been tremendously helpful. Hopefully I can get some draft reports together soon!