Ummm there's quite a few. Not sure what you're looking at.
The Black Cube
- Thread starter Brad
- Start date
I read your post about running an artifact theme in your cube so I decided to give it a try. I'm not sure what you have in mind but so far it seems you are going overboard and trying to force it when just a few cards would do. Even when going the Mirrodin route, I think you can do it without as many parasitic cards.
For example
These cards are very narrow and low-power yet demand a high amount of artifacts to work. The same problem exists with the affinity cards:
Sure, these are powerful but they all go in the same aggro "get as many artifacts as possible" deck. You also have some cards that don't do much beyond being artifacts and that I would avoid even in dedicated builds:
I think you can remove most of these cards and focus the theme on fewer, more versatile cards like:
Sadly, many of the most versatile cards are higher power than your cube would allow, like the Gearhulks:
With all this, I can reduce the cards that absolutely need artifacts to just seven and still have the archetype pop up often.
Note that the spells theme and the artifact theme clash a bit since stuff like Young Pyromancer don't trigger off artifacts.
Hope that helps
For example
These cards are very narrow and low-power yet demand a high amount of artifacts to work. The same problem exists with the affinity cards:
Sure, these are powerful but they all go in the same aggro "get as many artifacts as possible" deck. You also have some cards that don't do much beyond being artifacts and that I would avoid even in dedicated builds:
I think you can remove most of these cards and focus the theme on fewer, more versatile cards like:
Sadly, many of the most versatile cards are higher power than your cube would allow, like the Gearhulks:
With all this, I can reduce the cards that absolutely need artifacts to just seven and still have the archetype pop up often.
Note that the spells theme and the artifact theme clash a bit since stuff like Young Pyromancer don't trigger off artifacts.
Hope that helps
The future list is much lighter on the artifacts. I wanted a Mirrodin vibe from the current list, hence the more artifact focused cards.
https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/6122f7fa3e6e1a103df54540
Not sure how I should organize the lists. I guess I could swap this one for the main one now. Going back to the cube's roots.
EDIT: Link in signature is list I'm working on, as it's bound to be the real list.
Give me the same post but for enchantments lol.
Not sure how I should organize the lists. I guess I could swap this one for the main one now. Going back to the cube's roots.
EDIT: Link in signature is list I'm working on, as it's bound to be the real list.
Give me the same post but for enchantments lol.
In the Customs Thread, I've reworked the mana base. TLDR: It's more resilient and black-centric. I'll post the full thing once it's done. For now, I'm looking at what lands I run that aren't yet replaced:
Manlands that are there to support the artifact theme as well as any deck that would take a manland. Not sure these need replacing. Neither is particularly interesting, but they have their place. Being colorless is a good enough drawback.
Decent manland. Not entirely sure who wants it. The mana base seems like it has shifted enough that this isn't as alluring as it once was.
I'm not really sure I even need this. Seems easily replaced by some custom utility land that does something more interactive with my themes.
This is good, but I can see it being a bit more. Maybe it's a BG tapland. Maybe it taps for G instead of C and that leads to some kind of cycle.
These are just alright lately. I've made a recent effort to increase the number of ways to utilize a ton of mana, so hopefully that brings these back to life a bit. The curve got too tight and there was nowhere for all this mana to go. No reason to mess with these two yet, I don't think.
I guess my question from here is probably personal... How much do I want to custom? It's been only fixing so far, which feels like a way to cover up some holes in how lands translate to a draft and save some serious cash in the process. If I start customing utility lands, it's kind of a new can of worms.
Manlands that are there to support the artifact theme as well as any deck that would take a manland. Not sure these need replacing. Neither is particularly interesting, but they have their place. Being colorless is a good enough drawback.
Decent manland. Not entirely sure who wants it. The mana base seems like it has shifted enough that this isn't as alluring as it once was.
I'm not really sure I even need this. Seems easily replaced by some custom utility land that does something more interactive with my themes.
This is good, but I can see it being a bit more. Maybe it's a BG tapland. Maybe it taps for G instead of C and that leads to some kind of cycle.
These are just alright lately. I've made a recent effort to increase the number of ways to utilize a ton of mana, so hopefully that brings these back to life a bit. The curve got too tight and there was nowhere for all this mana to go. No reason to mess with these two yet, I don't think.
I guess my question from here is probably personal... How much do I want to custom? It's been only fixing so far, which feels like a way to cover up some holes in how lands translate to a draft and save some serious cash in the process. If I start customing utility lands, it's kind of a new can of worms.
Don't let your dreams be dreams. Cans can be closed. Give it a go Brad.
considering that you have to pay shipping for customs, it’s best economically to make a BUNCH at once and then select which ones you’re running at any given point
Eh, print out your own customs or use the ol pen and paper proper prototype style.
F U C K W O T C
U
C
K
W
O
T
C
THIS IS NOW A CUSTOM CUBE THREAD
Adventure lands. Shoutout to @Mown for the concept of the first card in each color combination.
The first card in each color combination is supposed to be a card that you could play tapped turn 1 when a little desperate, but you'd also like to cast it early and played it untapped for value right after.
The second is kind of a middle of the road card. It would be cool to cast it for value, but you're not too upset to play an untapped painland,
The third in each cycle is mostly meant to be a land, but gives an exciting effect as the game goes late. The spells are intended to be somewhat memorable when cast.
Whichever Adventure land you draw, more options will lead to fewer mulligans and fewer nongames.
U
C
K
W
O
T
C
THIS IS NOW A CUSTOM CUBE THREAD
Adventure lands. Shoutout to @Mown for the concept of the first card in each color combination.
The first card in each color combination is supposed to be a card that you could play tapped turn 1 when a little desperate, but you'd also like to cast it early and played it untapped for value right after.
The second is kind of a middle of the road card. It would be cool to cast it for value, but you're not too upset to play an untapped painland,
The third in each cycle is mostly meant to be a land, but gives an exciting effect as the game goes late. The spells are intended to be somewhat memorable when cast.
Whichever Adventure land you draw, more options will lead to fewer mulligans and fewer nongames.
Tri Lands
Not much to say about these. I didn't make the latter two of each color combination fetchable because they come into play untapped for free.
Dual Lands
I placed the four utility lands first in this album, as they're the most interesting. I'm a little worried that Fortresses will prove too weak, as they enter untapped and cannot be fetched. However, a surveil can be very powerful.
Between the six Bolt-lands and the duals here, there are 18 fetchables.
Fetches
Thirteen various fetches.
Bonus
I'm not going to add any Cabal Coffers style lands or anything like that just yet. I like having the fixing done and there's already 60 lands total.
Not much to say about these. I didn't make the latter two of each color combination fetchable because they come into play untapped for free.
Dual Lands
I placed the four utility lands first in this album, as they're the most interesting. I'm a little worried that Fortresses will prove too weak, as they enter untapped and cannot be fetched. However, a surveil can be very powerful.
Between the six Bolt-lands and the duals here, there are 18 fetchables.
Fetches
Thirteen various fetches.
Bonus
I'm not going to add any Cabal Coffers style lands or anything like that just yet. I like having the fixing done and there's already 60 lands total.
I don't really like one of these, but maybe I'm wrong. I won't say which unless someone else agrees with me lol.
EDIT: Castle Guardian now has this text box:
EDIT: Castle Guardian now has this text box:
It's more of a Guardian now. Idea credit to @blacksmithy
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I'm able to edit the albums on imgur, but it doesn't show changes here. I wasn't super happy with my 3 mana card, so I made this adaptation from @blacksmithy
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Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Nice 
Assorted thoughts:
For the W/B hybrids, I feel pretty strongly that the Dream-Den Protector ought to have flying. It has four whole wings!!
The card you don't like from that cycle is the anthem + spectral procession, right?
At any rate, these cards feel balanced, interesting, and very classic magic. I think the latter is due to them only having a single ability, for the most part. I'm a fan!
I know that you were digging the sins cycle in the other thread but were having an issue figuring out where to put them. Given that your color wheel is B>>U/R>W/G, maybe UBR ( ) for one of the last three and then either BRG/WUB or RWB/BUG for the last two, with similar mana costs (or 3 of the central color/black hybrid and and 2 of the outside hybrids). Currently you don't have sloth, envy, or lust--I could see BUG sloth, UBR envy, and WRB lust working thematically.
For the W/B hybrids, I feel pretty strongly that the Dream-Den Protector ought to have flying. It has four whole wings!!
The card you don't like from that cycle is the anthem + spectral procession, right?
At any rate, these cards feel balanced, interesting, and very classic magic. I think the latter is due to them only having a single ability, for the most part. I'm a fan!
I know that you were digging the sins cycle in the other thread but were having an issue figuring out where to put them. Given that your color wheel is B>>U/R>W/G, maybe UBR (
) for one of the last three and then either BRG/WUB or RWB/BUG for the last two, with similar mana costs (or 3 of the central color/black hybrid and and 2 of the outside hybrids). Currently you don't have sloth, envy, or lust--I could see BUG sloth, UBR envy, and WRB lust working thematically.True. I'll swap that for lifelink, which I wasn't too happy to add to the card, honestly.
Actually. no. Should it be? Lol. If you didn't choose the right card, then maybe it was the design process that got into my head. The card I didn't like actually looks better to me today
Thanks. Not trying to do the 500 effects Questing Beast bullshit if I don't have to.
Maybe they could fall into the 6 tricolors and 1 mono black or something. I'll have to think on this one, for sure.I know that you were digging the sins cycle in the other thread but were having an issue figuring out where to put them. Given that your color wheel is B>>U/R>W/G, maybe UBR (
Think I'll spend some time today porting real MtG cards into a Universes Beyond frame to "flag" them as real in my cube. Shocks, fetches, Consider, some of the recursive one drops, Faithless Looting, etc, are too good to not run just because I'm moving into customs.
My design question from there is: Should I take a lot of the good scry cards like Magma Jet and simply swap them into good surveil cards? Feels a little lame and it's theoretically a color pie break, but it seems like all upside once you get past that. I could also only do it on UB cards if the pie break seems too much, but every color other than white has good ways of getting things into the yard, anyways.
My design question from there is: Should I take a lot of the good scry cards like Magma Jet and simply swap them into good surveil cards? Feels a little lame and it's theoretically a color pie break, but it seems like all upside once you get past that. I could also only do it on UB cards if the pie break seems too much, but every color other than white has good ways of getting things into the yard, anyways.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
For a black cube, that seems super appropriate. Consider how all colors got cards with Phyrexian mana, despite life payment, typically, being only a black and red thing; or threshold appearing in all colors in Odyssey block, when not every color usually cares about your graveyard.
As I look for "must have" cards to port, I'll make some notes here for potential customs. Feel free to give any input.
And some cards I don't want to make any changes to:
Let me know if you agree or disagree. There's a lot more than I expected, but maybe some familiarity is a good thing.
prized amalgam/vengevine type cards with different triggers
i gotta get a handful of adventures in each color. theyre so cool.
note: i need to add "adventure" to the subtype of all those lands
some bbb guys who are good
is 4 mana braids too weak?
make some more interesting delve dudes
maybe make a whole black-centric Mythos cycle
make some stuff that enables demonic pact
some kinda ogre battlecaster
a couple x spells with semi early uses like shivan devastator
gb half a gifts ungiven but only for creatures
dodgy jalopy with a more meaningful power setting
bladecoil serpent cycle seems difficult but cool
smokestack but not idk
maybe 3-5 black utility lands
i gotta get a handful of adventures in each color. theyre so cool.
note: i need to add "adventure" to the subtype of all those lands
some bbb guys who are good
is 4 mana braids too weak?
make some more interesting delve dudes
maybe make a whole black-centric Mythos cycle
make some stuff that enables demonic pact
some kinda ogre battlecaster
a couple x spells with semi early uses like shivan devastator
gb half a gifts ungiven but only for creatures
dodgy jalopy with a more meaningful power setting
bladecoil serpent cycle seems difficult but cool
smokestack but not idk
maybe 3-5 black utility lands
And some cards I don't want to make any changes to:
Let me know if you agree or disagree. There's a lot more than I expected, but maybe some familiarity is a good thing.
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Infernal Grasp and Night's Whisper already had the pay 2 life on them.
Wendigo is based off of Toxic Abomination, but it needed a bit of a push. pB on Scavenge due to it being more green to add counters.
Eclipse Blade is an effort to find and effect for WB costed at 1pWB that makes sense when cast for both 1B and 1WB.
G and W are open to suggestions. I'd also love to do 2-3 more Phy cards of each Bx combo. I like giving my players small decisions to make. It makes the game more skill intensive without making it drastically more complicated.
EDIT: I'll add Phy mana reminder text.
EDIT EDIT: Plunderer's Cost should be renamed. There isn't necessarily a cost, unlike Ambition's Cost, which I borrowed from.
Wendigo is based off of Toxic Abomination, but it needed a bit of a push. pB on Scavenge due to it being more green to add counters.
Eclipse Blade is an effort to find and effect for WB costed at 1pWB that makes sense when cast for both 1B and 1WB.
G and W are open to suggestions. I'd also love to do 2-3 more Phy cards of each Bx combo. I like giving my players small decisions to make. It makes the game more skill intensive without making it drastically more complicated.
EDIT: I'll add Phy mana reminder text.
EDIT EDIT: Plunderer's Cost should be renamed. There isn't necessarily a cost, unlike Ambition's Cost, which I borrowed from.