The Black Cube

[Brad]

Angels Tribal Post
I'm kind of investigating every theme I can right now in the hopes to maximize the number of available decks.

I'm not sure what power level I want to end up at, either. This means my lists of 'maybes' will be a little whack.

As such, here's my Angels post

Spoiler: Angels

Kind of bases itself on the flexibility and power of Righteous Valkyrie, Retribution, and Kaalia. Those all feel a little high powered, but a lot of the angels seem pretty easy to add in. Reminds me of a Warriors or Humans tribal theme where it isn't too parasitic.

 

[Brad]

Life Gain Post, Post-STX

Overlaps with the Angel idea pretty well. Didn’t re-list the Angels here.

Spoiler: ”Currently Running”

Spoiler: ”Easy to Add”

Spoiler: ”Maybe”

Spoiler: ”Probably Not Quite There”

Spoiler: ”Pay Life”

All the lifelink overlaps with Kathril, Aspect Warper, which ties into the menace and deathtouch posts. There's a handful of nice keyword-potpourri payoffs. The cards are wordy as shit because they list every keyword they work with, but a quick scan of the list is all that's needed once you know what's going on.

A lot of this life gain is pretty easy to fit in, it's just a matter of which payoffs are going to be worth their weight in poison.

I'm thinking again about attempting an artifact and an enchantment theme, as well. I think I tried to go too high on the density last time and it ended up looking stupid. If you figure 23 nonlands per deck, maybe a drafter who's big into a themed deck needs like ?6-12? cards that fit that deck, depending on what the payoffs are asking for.

Labyrinth Raptor can get by on much fewer payoffs because it isn't asking for much, being a decent attacker on its own and simply asking you to draft other, more specific, attackers. Eidolon of Blossoms is going to need quite a higher density to make sure it can recoup the 1-2 cards required to make it respectable and it's asking for a lot more.

Still, aiming for half your deck being enchantments is only 12 cards, 27% of your draft pool. It's difficult to calculate, but here's some speculation: Not everyone is going to chase every enchantment in the draft pool. Maybe there's 2 enchantment drafters (seems high, as the payoffs are few), so that's 24 maindeck enchantments. Maybe the other 6 players pick up 2 per deck, so that's another 12 maindecked. That's 36/360, 10%, of the draft pool being played as enchantments with high-end guesses. If there's one real enchantment deck, it drops to 26/360, 7.2% of the pool. Convert those to asfans and you only need an asfan of 1-1.5, call it 1.75-2 to be conservative. Obviously, this is MUCH easier to achieve with artifacts being so flexible.

I think that 1-2 narrow payoffs and/or 3-5 not-so-narrow payoffs with an asfan as low as 1 can be enough to get certain themes going and add some depth to the draft. Overlap of themes is going to be critical for increasing the number of options available, but my black section is deep and readily available to every drafter.

 

[Brad]

+1/+1

I need maybe 1-2 more decent payoffs beyond these, I think. These guys have well-statted bodies, so the theme stands a chance.

Spoiler: ”Currently Running”

Spoiler: ”Easy to Add”

Spoiler: ”Maybe”

Spoiler: ”Probably Not Quite”

 

[Brad]

With a heavy heart, I have reduced the number of different kinds of tokens in the cube so that players will actually get the correct token.

A moment of silence:

And more...

It does feel a lot cleaner to me, though. Marionette Master as an artifact payoff is the key thing keeping Servos active. If Master goes, the other Servo cards will follow. Inklings and BW Spirits look really awesome with Teysa, Orzhov Scion.

The currently available tokens are 2/2 Zombie, Inkling, 1/1 White Flying Spirit, 1/1 BW Flying Spirit, Servo, Germ, and Copy. The number of ways to get copies could be a bit confusing. Embalm, Eternalize, Mimic Vat, Feldon, Mist-Syndicate Naga, Sublime Epiphany... A lot to keep track of with the same looking token if several copiers are out at once. There's still a lot of cuts to do (HELP ME), so some copiers could come out.

 

[TrainmasterGT]

This seems extremely viable here since you run so many "gold" cards in your non-black section. 81 gold cards at 532 is way more than most cubes would ever even consider fielding. It would be even better if you could find a way to add more U/B and R/B cards to the Cube.

Definitely test this.

 

[Brad]

I actually just cut it because I originally added it as a life gainer and you don't control when it triggers, but it's definitely still being considered.

The list is way too bloated right now and I'm not too sure where I'm going to end up in the war of accessibility vs complexity. That one is pretty simple, though.

UB probably isn't removing it without being multicolored or monoblack and red's going to have monored burn in the list. If it's soft to BR, a Lion is totally decent, if uninspiring.

 

[Nanonox]

Looking at your list was pretty daunting as I am not 100% sure what you are trying to support.
In red I see some GY, discard, spells, sacrifice, menace and artifact archetype cards in addition to some beaters.

If you want to reduce bloating, you could either try to reduce the amount of supported archetypes or have it so your beaters fit better within the archetypes (easier said than done!).

An example could be to cut a card like Labyrinth Raptor and instead add a Dreadhorde Butcher that plays well in the sacrifice deck and still gets damage across.

 

[Brad]

Looking at the list probably is inherently daunting because there's no true multicolored section to browse to see what the archetypes may be. The graveyard isn't really an archetype as much as it is a feature of the format.

That said, I'm definitely trying to see if the black centric build can enable a lot of archetypes. I already know everyone should be in black, which gives a lot of opportunity to seed it with cards for numerous decks. Is that a correct assumption? It's hard to say. I could totally get to a point where I feel unable to cut to 450 and support this many things. I feel like I could maybe manage to support every black based deck. Like I could get themes that are Bw and Br but maybe not BW and BR, if that makes sense. Anything that leans more heavily into black than the paired color has a good opportunity to be supported, according to the current theory, which... might be wrong. *shrug* I feel like I have to explore this concept and dismiss it before I go for something simpler.

I've been considering lowering the power level a bit further to give me a larger pool of cards to pull from to get added flexibility from the options.

 

[Brad]

I cut reanimator.
The slots spent on big guys and reanimation spells were numerous.

I also wasn't a big fan of the play pattern. Pray to discard/mill an uncastable card to the graveyard, then pray you have the 4-5 mana sorcery in your hand to exploit it. If you do AND they don't have the removal spell, you're guaranteed a win. Anything else and the deck has a tough time. The deck is really high variance when built as the classic, greedy reanimator.

This makes the graveyard more of a way to get value rather than the place where the reanimator deck discards its entire game plan. As a result, grave hate can get stronger because it won't fully obliterate one to two players every draft. Reanimator specifically locked me out of instant speed grave hate, as well. Cremate in response to reanimation is such a blowout.

Other Updates
lifegain.dec: Theme began all over in Abzan. Cards like Karlov of the Ghost Council are simply too shitty if you're not hitting the life gain. So, I cut the theme from White and have it in BG only now. In fact, the only payoffs are Witch of the Moors, Veinwitch Coven, Nightmare's Thirst, Blossoming Bogbeast, and Sproutback Trudge. Pretty small price to add a subtheme. Trudge and Thirst are being watched.

Artifacts: Again, the theme was too large. It's been reduced to 3-5 cards that directly care about artifacts and the artifact density is ~50/450 right now.

Enchantments: Basically WBu for Zur. Looking into fleshing out WB next.

Tokens: Centered around Teysa, Orzhov Scion, most of the tokens are WB. Lots of Inklings and Afterlife. Also converted some cards into making Servos to help with artifacts.

Menace: Labyrinth Raptor is pretty good on its own. Nearly unblockable. I'll leave it and see if it works out. One slot to develop an aggro subtheme seems worth the risk.

Madness?: Going to look into this soon. I used to dislike it, but that was 4-5 years ago and I had fewer ideas.

Burn: I changed up the burn suite. It was really exile-focused. This meant not as many spells could hit players. I switched out a few creature-only-exilers for some generic 1R: deal 3 to any target.

Discard?: I wanted a deck that would pick apart the opponent's hand, but I decided it probably won't work here because you'd frequently enable them to pitch something for value. It might be able to come in with reanimator gone? That's definitely the most heartbreaking thing to enable for your opponent.

That might be it for now. Still struggling with my design goals vs what my beginner/intermediate players will need. They used to just deal with it, so maybe designing with them in mind a bit will be sufficient.

EDIT: I cut Doomsday because it's maybe the least friendly card possible to beginners and intermediates.

 

[Brad]

Madness?

Spoiler: Probably

I think part of where my old theme went wrong was relying on Gorger->Vampire and it was more like Vampire Tribal with Madness baked in. Gorger is pretty sweet as a Lion+, though.

Spoiler: Maybe

Mana cost on Eruption is concerning.

Next, we will need some discard outlets. This is actually the hard part. Or it was. It might be different now.

You really want to discard for 0-1 mana. You can't afford to spend many mana on a draw+discard spell and also afford the Madness cost a lot of the time. Previously, this meant running some pretty poor cards that said "Discard a card:..."

Blue does this really well with looters, but the blue madness cards are low in quantity and quality, but it could provide a supporting role. Green is also somewhat supportive. Still, we're looking at BR here.

Spoiler: Probably

Condemned looks like a tribal card, but it's actually a BB Mongrel once a turn.

Spoiler: Maybe

And it should go without saying that all this potential discarding plays well with the rest of the graveyard stuff going on. Let me know if I missed anything or if it's a shit idea.

 

[inscho]

Hellbent/Madness in Rakdos has been a staple in my cube for years. I don't go terribly deep into the madness mechanic specifically, because so many of them are awkward, but I do utilize a lot of madness adjacent effects (many you've listed here). I'm a big fan of the idea.

Might be worth checking out Zubat's cube on CC: https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/i50

They go deeper into madness than I do

 

[TrainmasterGT]

Condemned looks like a tribal card, but it's actually a BB Mongrel once a turn.

I don't think this card is anywhere close to Wild Mongrel in terms of power level. I think you need a lot of dedicated outside of some madness cards for this one to cut it in most environments. I think your cube is in a unique position for Stromkirk Condemned to be good because is not difficult to acheive here. However, I think you would benefit from having extra vampires/cards that trigger from cycling or discarding/recursive idiots to gain value from this. Losing reanimator also doesn't help this guy's case In my opinion.

For a card which primarily acts as a discard outlet, I think Olivia's Dragoon is actually better than this.

 

[Brad]

I hated Dragoons when I had it. Feels like such a bad card.

I currently have 15 vampires and will add 8 more with this Madness package. Cards outside those 23:

Spoiler: Vampires I Could Add

Damn. WotC really made most vampire cards tribal. Missed out on a few due to the fact they'd be the only one making a specific kind of token.

That said, Condemned is the lowest pick in the "Probably" section.

 

[sigh]

Do you avoid DFCs? Otherwise I'd definitely recommend heir of falkenrath

 

[Brad]

Yes :'(

The physical manipulation really sucks.

 

[blacksmithy]

i agree completely on DFCs

 

[inscho]

It's really a bummer that the DFCs are so awkward, because I really enjoy the design of many of them in theory.

 

[Brad]

Added Madness. Added a few extra vampires on top of that.

Added a couple burn spells. I'm alright pushing the removal asfan a little high off semi-removal. I tried to update my burn spells to all have the current rules wording, but I wasn't about to cut Incendiary Flow over it, so I just did what I could.

I'm not in love with my Jund slots, but I don't think there's much to be done there. Thrinax is too annoying.

Would appreciate critiques or advice. I'll take any food for thought.

 

[Nanonox]

Victim of Night

Seems a little random in what it hits and what it doesn't. Are you actively trying to buff the Vampire/Zombie decks?

I drafted a deck with Magus of the Coffers and Nirkana Revenant, but no real payoff for going really big. So I left them in the board. I had amazing removal and a bit of card filtering. I would have liked more of it.

Other notes is that at your cube size, I feel the life gain angle is a bit of a trap. I saw 2 cards in green as payoffs, but nothing else. Feels like a trap (even though to be fair, the overrun dude is solid on it's own, it's just sending the signal that lifegain is supported).

I'll try to add more thoughts, but tomorrow!

 

[Brad]

I like 2 cmc removal spells to have an actual drawback. None of this Heartless Act stuff. Victim feels closer to a Doom Blade here.

Yeah, I've been doing some drafts and cut Magus when I saw it. It doesn't have anything to go up to. Revenant has its own mana dump, so that will stay for now. Worst case scenario, you have a 10/10+ (if you had a lot of non-swamp lands) attacking.

Yeah, the life gain is supposed to be a pretty small theme. I'll try to draft it.

Drafting lands feels kind of bad without fetches, so I added $400 to the list. Unfortunately, I cut the Tainted cycle for them. A lot of the original motivations are being cut: quintbrids, Tainteds, Tendrils of Corruption, etc, but that's ok. Other small tweaks like removing cards as I see them during draft, too.

EDIT: Two BG life drafts done. I think you guys can view the drafts of my cube? Both had first pick Veinwitch Coven.

 

[Brad]

I need mild blink targets. I don't want to tempo ETB +1 anyone out of the game, but the options were too few when drafting it.

Maybe I need an Ephemerate or something? Resetting Demonic Pact is a plus for any flickers. I also run some Ninjas to pick things back up.

Spoiler: Blink Me

That list is super long, and like half mill, but it's mostly to show the power level of ETB I'm after. Searching "ETB" will take way too long.

 

[Nanonox]

I take back the life gain comment I made, I missed some of the key cards. The first deck looks really solid. I would like to see this open up to Abzan though but that is because I like broader themes and that might not line up with your design goals.

Some random thoughts:

Are you doing a spells matter theme? I see Professor Onyx, Rise from the Tides, Witherbloom Apprentice and maybe Crypt Ghast as signals. You could go harder with Bolas's Citadel (See below), Sedgemoor Witch, Dragonsguard Elite, Leonin Lightscribe and other cards that hit multiple notes for you. Otherwise it feels like you are sending some mixed signals.
For the Witch I know you are avoiding too many token types, but the pests seem so perfect for what you are doing.

Are you actively supporting an enchantment theme? I see 2 constellation cards. It feels like either the start of a theme, some leftovers from a past theme or a kind of trap, where you go into the draft thinking there will be more support than there actually is.

Some cards for you to consider for no other reason that I like them as ways to tie together multiple of your archetypes.

Bolas's Citadel: sacrifice, spells and life gain.
Deathless Knight + Dina, Soul Steeper: Sacrifice and life gain together (+ devotion for the knight).
Mortality Spear: Solid removal that supports life gain.
Dusk Legion Zealot: ETB, cheap sacrifice fodder, draw smoother.
Reyhan, Last of the Abzan: Counters and sacrifice
Vault Skirge: Artifacts + life gain + counters
Epochrasite: Artifacts + sacrifice + ETB + counters
Metallic Mimic: Artifacts + tribal + counters
Triskelion: Artifacts + ETB + counters

Cards I am curious about (either weaker than the rest or not sure why they are here):

Lawless Broker: seems below curve compared to the other 3 drops.
Hooded Blightfang: Distracting I guess. Maybe a theme to explore with Chevill, Bane of Monsters, Fynn the Fangbearer and Primal Might/Ram Through spells.
Spined Thopter is in blue, but Porcelain Legionnaire is in colorless. ARGGGGGG.

I'm not sure this is helpful, as I feel I don't have a good understanding of how you are building your archetypes, so I am just throwing around what I like to see. I can continue if it helps, otherwise ignore me and move on

 

[Nanonox]

I'm in the middle of drafting a +1/+1 counter deck and here are more random thoughts

There is some overlap to be had between artifacts, counters and sacrifice in BG. In addition to the +1+/1 counters payoffs (like Hardened Scales), you have Marionette Master, Verdurous Gearhulk, Weaponcraft Enthousiast, Stonecoil Serpent.

Adding some of these could add some layers to the deck and allow to connect different themes together.



Triskelion and Pentavus can serve as fatties that work well with Vesperlark (see Inscho's posts around the forum).

Glissa + artifacts that bin themselves is really powerful. I added Implement of Ferocity as an example to show you can tailor these to your needs (in this case supporting counters theme). If you have a bunch of cheap ones, then cards like Bloodsky Berserker and Clarion Spirit become easier to trigger. You have Emry, Lurker of the Loch who can take advantage of them too. In red, they would trigger Mayhem Devil. The cheap artifacts just seem like they could be a nice foundation to a bunch of archetypes. The dream would be to have Korvold, Fae-Cursed King in there as a Jund card, but that is probably too powerful.

Steel Overseer + Animation Module can build a pretty big army fast and they go well with the cards I first mentioned.
I realize that this is the Black Cube not the Artifact one, but they do tie things nicely.

Once again, this is me doing my thing, not yours so take what you want and leave the rest.

 

[Brad]

I take back the life gain comment I made, I missed some of the key cards. The first deck looks really solid. I would like to see this open up to Abzan though but that is because I like broader themes and that might not line up with your design goals.

I had it more into Abzan, but the theme itself is so borderline poisonous that I contained it to BG with BGw as a support color sometimes. No payoffs in W.

Are you doing a spells matter theme? Sedgemoor Witch, Dragonsguard Elite, Leonin Lightscribe and other cards that hit multiple notes for you. Otherwise it feels like you are sending some mixed signals.

I'm kind of doing spells matter, but I don't really think it needs direct support. Get some spells. Simple enough.

Is that Witch not crazy good? I always felt like Yung Peezy kinda spammed the fuck out of everything and was way too good at 2 MV. I also feel like Dragonsguard grows out of hand pretty fast, no? And the cat seems like absolute hell to block against, but could be fine. I'd really love your analysis on those three cards against my power level.

Are you actively supporting an enchantment theme?

Just starting this or looking into it, ya.

Bolas's Citadel: sacrifice, spells and life gain.

I had it, but a 6MV spell that requires you to have life seemed a little questionable. I can't afford to run many 6s, ya know?

Deathless Knight + Dina, Soul Steeper: Sacrifice and life gain together (+ devotion for the knight).

The 2 toughness on Knight seems really shit and Dina seems too narrow for lifegain. Her sac ability is kind of redeeming, but it's two pretty borderline abilities.

Mortality Spear: Solid removal that supports life gain.

Again, I had this but the BG removal currently there is much better without conditions. Paying 4 to hit one thing is a bit rough as plan B.

Dusk Legion Zealot: ETB, cheap sacrifice fodder, draw smoother.

Been eyeing this dude for sure, especially now that I'm looking into blink.

Reyhan, Last of the Abzan: Counters and sacrifice

I feel like this leaves behind too much when it dies. Maybe I'm wrong? Feel free to tell me that I am, because the card is sweet. It's been in and out of the list several times.

Vault Skirge: Artifacts + life gain + counters

I've never liked 1/1 for 1 that' supposed to attack, but I'll add it. I feel like a decent number of people use it, so I might be wrong. Added and changed the MV to 1 and the color to C.

Epochrasite: Artifacts + sacrifice + ETB + counters

Kind of a confusing little bastard. It ticks a lot of boxes, but I'm concerned that suspend 3 is going to be too slow here.

Metallic Mimic: Artifacts + tribal + counters

I'm gonna put this in my mental maybeboard. The tribal part has me hesitant.

Triskelion: Artifacts + ETB + counters

Is this actually good? I've used it before and it felt like a bad deal for the MV.

Lawless Broker: seems below curve compared to the other 3 drops.

Yeah... Definitely on the chopping block. It's really shitty Reyhan lol.

Hooded Blightfang: Distracting I guess. Maybe a theme to explore with Chevill, Bane of Monsters, Fynn the Fangbearer and Primal Might/Ram Through spells.

Definitely a little questionable, but it's a hell of a blocker outside the DT deck. Fynn's too narrow, but I gave Chevy the add. Might and Ram lose their appeal when every deck has access to black's removal, unfortunately. AFR has the Deathtouch Machete incoming as a little addition for Blightfang.

Spined Thopter is in blue, but Porcelain Legionnaire is in colorless. ARGGGGGG.

Whoops.

I'm not sure this is helpful, as I feel I don't have a good understanding of how you are building your archetypes, so I am just throwing around what I like to see. I can continue if it helps, otherwise ignore me and move on

It's super helpful. Even a bad idea spawns some thought, and this was all good.

There is some overlap to be had between artifacts, counters and sacrifice in BG. In addition to the +1+/1 counters payoffs (like Hardened Scales), you have Marionette Master, Verdurous Gearhulk, Weaponcraft Enthousiast, Stonecoil Serpent.

I love Fabricate for that reason. Counters, tokens, and artifacts in one keyword. Is Verdurous too good? Added that yesterday. Might post some of these to Single Card Spotlight later.

Spoiler

Triskelion and Pentavus can serve as fatties that work well with Vesperlark (see Inscho's posts around the forum).

Again, are these even good? That's a lot of mana.

Glissa + artifacts that bin themselves is really powerful.

This is a pretty smart package which once again makes me regret my inability to run Executioner's Capsule. My only hesitation here is spreading the artifact theme too thin across all the colors. I'm not sure I have the density of artifacts to do that. I had a Daretti deck going in red, but took it out for the same reason. Maybe I can achieve the artifact density needed, but I feel like the power level needs to be a little low to pull off some of the swaps needed for that. Not sure.

The dream would be to have Korvold, Fae-Cursed King in there as a Jund card, but that is probably too powerful.

Yeah, I had this guy but he's kinda scary. Especially with the re-added fetches.

Steel Overseer + Animation Module can build a pretty big army fast and they go well with the cards I first mentioned.

Steel seems too narrow and Module is only a good pick if the counter deck gets really fleshed out, but it's been on my radar.

 

[Brad]

Clues make their return to the token pile:


Thopters make their return to the token pile:

Sai makes me concerned similar to Sedgemoor and Yung Peezy, but artifacts seem harder to spam? Tezz can protect himself, a trait I dislike in walkers, but only a little and it's 5 mana.

And more:

Pod had been cut due to wordiness, but fuck it. I opted against Vital Splicer right now because it'd be a four color deck to hang out with its friends.