The Black Cube

[Brad]

The most anticipated post of the decade...

TL;DR https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/theblackcube

What is it?
The Black Cube is a cube where the majority of the cards are black. There's a lot of black removal, black graveyard synergies, black card draw, black aggro creatures, black midrange creatures, black finishers, black reanimation packages, black cards that care about other black cards, and black cards that care about swamps. Black does it all and black loves itself more than the other colors.

Why focus on one color?
I often play with two people and wanted to make a grid draft, but 5c grid draft sucks. A lot of people do a 4c grid draft to make the cards more playable on average, but it feels a bit disingenuous to kill 20% of the game. This color setup allows me to have a successful grid draft while playing all five colors.

Dual lands are useful in 25% of the decks rather than 10%. Fetches are useful in 100% of the decks instead of 70%. Draft picks become more universally playable and you never have an XY colored card floating in the last cards of the pack because no one is in that guild.

Cool Cards
You get to play a piece of these sweet utility land cycles like Castle Locthwain or Witch's Cottage that you normally wouldn't have room for. You get to run a devotion deck, which I personally adore. You get to run things that cost BBB and the quintuple hybrid cards that no one else can afford to run because the costs are so extreme. You get to run really powerful removal like Dark Betrayal and Celestial Purge that only costs you 5 cents to own.

Lame Cards
Graveyard removal is really difficult to find. I want to disrupt the graveyard decks, but so many cards are "exile all" type effects and those are incredibly punishing and inexpensive, typically. As a result, the yard disruption is fairly scarce. It hasn't been an issue yet, but it's a little weird.



https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/theblackcube
The list is pretty bloated. I need help from you guys on cutting.

 

[TekLazar]

So quick question what size of the cube are you shooting for? (450? 360?) I was going to jump in on cuts but I didn’t want to offer a bunch of advice that actually is different based on the size of your cube.

 

[Brad]

So quick question what size of the cube are you shooting for? (450? 360?) I was going to jump in on cuts but I didn’t want to offer a bunch of advice that actually is different based on the size of your cube.

Good question.

450-500. Not that concerned on the size. W=U=R=G but black will be 2-3x more cards than those. Probably ~50 per WURG and then don't really care about black or artifact count, as long as it fits in my box, which is 450-500.

 

[TekLazar]

Gotcha, in that case I would recommend getting rid of many of your tribal cards.
I've found 5 tribes where most don't have enough support just glancing through your list

Definitely don't have enough dragons, so I would get rid of all of the cards that care about dragons (you can search for it by putting dragon in the oracle text). I know Bladewing the Risen is sweet, but one player would have to grab almost every single dragon in your cube for him to be playable (and also some kind of discard outlets). It's just too much of a trap.
For vampires you likely need double the amount of vampires you currently have, thankfully there are a lot of incidental vampires, you could bleed (ha) into white with a few other aggro vampires, like Adanto Vanguard.
For warriors I only found Chief of the edge and Mardu woe-reaper that care about them, and again you need a lot more (or change the archetype)
Knights like Haakon, Stromgald Scourge are sick, but you need a lot more knights
BUT you also need to make sure you don't delete any zombies, cuz you need all of them right now (and probably like 5-10 more), but you're on the right track for zombies with good cards like Graveyard Marshal
(Thalia's Geistcaller is the only other tribal card I can find, but she gets a pass)


One problem I see right away is that three of these tribes are mostly RWB aligned (vampires, warriors, knights) and you "could" get two of these tribes to work at the same time (although your white and red sections would be bloated with tribal cards) you definitely can't get all three at the same time (unless you kicked out green and blue out of the cube I guess). So I really think you should pick only one of these tribes.

For a 450 cube you need about 45-60 cards in a tribe to really make it viable (50-67 for a 500 size cube) You essentially want the drafter who's in that tribe to get 10-15 cards. I know that's 10% or more of that cube, but tribes can be very parasitic. Cordial Vampire on an empty board is only okay, and trying to find those good cards usually leaves out the number of cards that you need to make the tribe viable. Changelings can help a lot but they're usually too strong or too weak lacking a happy middle.
You COULD seed the packs making sure that each pack got one or two cards of each tribe, and in that case you would likely only need like 5-10 more cards than the number of packs (3x # of players), but that's a lot of work to do each draft. Without seeding I think 3 tribes is the highest number a regular cube can support but that is pushing it. This is why most cubes only run humans cuz even you have 54 of them in a black based cube.

TL;DR
Dragons bad,
choose one? (two if you really like them) (-vampires -warriors -knights),
you need more cards for tribes or you need to cut a lot of these
(man I thrive way too much on being helpful)

 

[Brad]

The thing with all the tribes issues you're having is that they're all good when unsupported. I'll try to address any card that appears to be tribe-supporting.

Bladewing is the only card that actually needs another dragon to function, so he could go. Dragon's Hoard is a 3cmc ramp spell, which I want anyways. Regent is fine supporting itself. Sarkhan is a 3 mana looter, but could probably go as well.

The following vampies are a bit on my watch list already. Cordial is like a really good Malakir Cullblade, but I haven't seen it in play and maybe that isn't enough. Stromkirk Condemned seems maybe just bad either way, but I originally added it as a discard outlet. Falkenrath Gorger is a 2/1 for 1, so basically no loss there.
Kalastria Highborn is pretty good on her own, with a Shock Helix on death and impressive with any further support. A few of these are definitely more questionable than the other sections. A lot of the vampires are actually the madness deck.

Woe-Reaper is a yard removal spell with no additional support while being a 2/1 for 1. Chief is a 3/2 for 2 with no additional support. These are both fine cards on their own and I'd 100% be running Woe-Reaper if it were the only warrior in the whole cube. Someone might try to draft WB warrior aggro but they'll find themselves happily in WB aggro at worst.

The knights deck hasn't really been tested. I've always run Haakon, as getting a 3/3 for 3 with multi flashback is good on its own. Then Eldraine added some goodies. Blacklance Paragon seems probably decent on its own, being an acceptable body plus kind of a burn spell with the flash. Acclaimed Contender might be too rare to hit, I'll have to do math, but I'm also considering adding Zur and an enchantment package, which would increase the density of Contender, so it will sit in the list while I consider that.

All that said, probably going to kill a couple dragon-reliant cards and take another look at vampires, especially. I've tried to go with tribal cards that are good with no support, but there's definitely quite a few that are reaching and I should examine the tribal cards more closely. I'll do some counting and considerations later. Thanks.

EDIT: Adding a "Very Tribal" tag to anything where I don't think I'd still run it with no support in my deck. Like, I'd run Boneyard Scourge as a 4/3 flyer for 4, so it doesn't get the tag. But Relentless Dead does.


I counted for the asfan of removal and it was high, so I'm going to get it down to that 2-2.5 range. It was just over 3 on the first count.

 

[Nanonox]

As a warrior matters card that doesn't really care about warriors. It's a two drop Ophidian, that gets better if you have other warriors. Seems pretty good to me!

Also, looking at your list, I disagree that Cryptbreaker and Blacklance Paragon are very tribal. One is a repeatable discard outlet/token maker that can either be self-sustained or improved by tribal interactions and the other is just a solid piece of removal for 2 mana or a cheap beater or both if you are knight heavy. Both worse case scenarios seem fine by me tbh.

 

[Brad]

I'm trying to make cuts and you come give me a card to add?! Ya, it does seem pretty good. I think I previously cut it thinking the body wasn't in line with an attacking deck, but getting a card or two is a big deal.

Alright, nice. I was actually iffy on those two and marked them just to make sure I didn't overlook them later. I'll go untag them now. I also cut a few cards for being VERY tribal.

 

[Brad]

I cut all the vampires that really want other vampires.

Leaving the zombies because there's a lot more of them.

Lathliss, Dragon Queen? Seems like overkill, ya? You already have a 6/6 flyer, which is good on its own, but do you really need two more dragons on top of that?

Do we feel like Kethis, the Hidden Hand is fine as a 3/4 for 3? Is it good enough with zero activations? One activation? Unsure on that one.

EDIT: Just read Contender and it requires a knight in play. Whoops. It's out.

 

[TekLazar]

You actually have enough legendary cards that I think Kethis is at least worth testing, if he was only creatures I would say "nah" but since he's everything legendary might as well. Yawgmoth's Vile Offering is probably worse than he is.

I've tried to go with tribal cards that are good with no support, but there's definitely quite a few that are reaching and I should examine the tribal cards more closely. I'll do some counting and considerations later. Thanks. ((and the rest of the post))

So I get this reasoning because Falkenrath Gorger is better than Jackal Pup and Boneyard Scourge is the only 4 mana 4/3 flyer in black with no downside, but I just worry about your drafters. Maybe it's just cuz I'm biased and playing with not very experienced players, but my players would look at scourge in first pack and think "oh there's dragon tribal in this cube" and then depending on whether they want to go into that archetype they would pick or pass, not even thinking that just the flat vanilla body might be good enough to pick compared to the other cards in the pack. Same idea with Gorger, I know that there's no other 1 mana 2/1's in red with no downside, but my drafters wouldn't know that (cuz they don't look at scryfall), then they would decide whether to go into vampires because Gorger looks like vampire tribal support. But I have to assume that for my players, I don't know yours.

 

[Brad]

Alright. Don't actually own a Kethis, but I'll try to get one. You're right that he's probably right around the Vile power level. Vile is just black, though, so it seems less costly to run.

I've had success running these guys and no one has been disappointed, or at least no one told me they were. If you take Gorger and some vampires, you probably end up fine in BR aggro. Woe Reaper will be fine in most white decks. Etc. I'm feeling good about having cut the handful of tribe-focused cards, for sure.

Onder said I should try Zur, so that will be a little tweak later tonight. Not sure which Esper card to cut...

Choose 3:


Alela seems solid but not that exciting up front. Varina has me worried that a true zombie deck will filter 4+ cards a turn with her, which can deck the user or overwhelm the opponent. Zur seems like Alela. He's solid but takes a minute to get going. Sharuum has the list limited on what artifacts I'll run so that you can't get a shitload of value from her. Chromium seems like a pretty classic finisher but not too interesting.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Chromium is super hard to kill, and hits like a truck. Not a very interesting option if you ask me. I personally switched from Varina, which was underperforming, to Alela, which has been quietly good in testing. At the very worst it's a hard to cast Vampire Nighthawk, which is a decent baseline, but not really threatening enough to demand immediate removal. If you get the synergy running, though, you get a bunch of 2/1 flyers for free, which is a great reward. Also, you can drop it after you've made some flyers, say with Stolen by the Fae or Thopter Spy Network, as an anthem to throw off your opponent's combat math.

 

[Brad]

Ok. I'll get the Alela when I can. I'm looking for more artifacts right now and wanted thoughts on:


Nonblack swords? I've never actually played with swords before because protection is so unfun, but every deck has black removal spells to mitigate the protection issue. I also have above average artifact removal thanks to Orzhov exiling so many nonland permanents.

Ramp???

Spoiler

Currently running

Plus

And I very much don't want Jet Medallion because it will likely multi-ramp for 2.

Looking at these as possible additions:

Black talismans? They seem excessively fast, coming in untapped for 2.


Black manrocks? They seem a bit slow at 3cmc, but can hit in the late game. Not sure if the smaller ones are better than the big, mean dragons.


3c rocks? Might be better at this point to go ahead and add some 5c rocks instead.


Doubt it's either of these.


Ability to double add could be good.

 

[safra]

Alright. Don't actually own a Kethis, but I'll try to get one. You're right that he's probably right around the Vile power level. Vile is just black, though, so it seems less costly to run.

I've had success running these guys and no one has been disappointed, or at least no one told me they were. If you take Gorger and some vampires, you probably end up fine in BR aggro. Woe Reaper will be fine in most white decks. Etc. I'm feeling good about having cut the handful of tribe-focused cards, for sure.

Onder said I should try Zur, so that will be a little tweak later tonight. Not sure which Esper card to cut...

Choose 3:


Alela seems solid but not that exciting up front. Varina has me worried that a true zombie deck will filter 4+ cards a turn with her, which can deck the user or overwhelm the opponent. Zur seems like Alela. He's solid but takes a minute to get going. Sharuum has the list limited on what artifacts I'll run so that you can't get a shitload of value from her. Chromium seems like a pretty classic finisher but not too interesting.

Zur and Sharuum are the only two here that I feel at all alive while casting so for sure those two. Alela seems fine

 

[Chriskool]

If you're going to grid a lot, you may want to have a lesser percentage of removal, card advantage and high cmc. The numbers have felt weird compared to a typical cube. My novice grid drafting friends tend to focus overly on first picks and not rounding out their decks, so the average card power level is high but the decks often don't do anything in the early game. As a result, I've trended toward lowering premium removal, card advantage and bombs for interesting role players.

This cube stuff is tough to balance; GLHF

 

[Brad]

Black Artifacts
So, I've been quietly adding cards from new sets but not doing anything else recently. Currently exploring artifacts and enchantments as additional decks to run and as a way to buff that Esper section. I'll just make notes on it here for now rather than muddying my CC list further.

Spoiler

Just looked at black based right now.

I'm pretty against ETB effects. That said, how do people feel about Baleful Strix, Tidehollow Sculler, Noxious Gearhulk, and (sorta) Herald of Anguish?

Strix always felt subtly very powerful as a 2 mana +1 removal spell. Sculler is like a forced mulligan, but they can retrieve the card, so, I dunno. Gearhulk is a 6 mana ETB so a kill spell attached to it seems ok, but the life gain seems potentially game ending a lot of times? Herald costs "7," but might take over a game too easily on its own and gets to wreak a little havoc if not answered at instant speed.

I'm also still curious on ramp above. And especially curious what you guys think on nonblack Swords.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Baleful Strix is quite powerful, but because it's only a 1/1, it never feels overwhelming. It's still in my cube, despite overperforming for years now.
Tidehollow Sculler is completely fine, but be aware of sac outlets, because it uses the old wording (with two separate triggers, meaning the card is gone forever if you sac Sculler in response to the etb trigger).
Noxious Gearhulk is a complete swing. Not only do you remove their most powerful threat, you also gain a bunch of life. In addition, it has a high power, combined with menace, so it attacks pretty well too. I cut it for being too generically powerful.
Herald of Anguish is a cool seven drop, but it can become problematic if you can easily turbo it out on earlier turns. Even with only two artifacts around, you're looking at Baneslayer stats, with a (near) immediate discard attached, and if it survives it can start machine-gunning weenies or make combat math a nightmare in general. I cut this one too, though it's certainly more interesting than the Gearhulk.

 

[Brad]

Aritfact Post 2
Not including stuff I'm already running. These are considerations for addition.

Spoiler

Is Batterskull too good? I know it's in a lot of constructed Stoneforge packages.

And then maybe B signets and/or talismans and/or keyrunes...

Onder has 72 artifacts in 450 and supports Alela and Sharuum, so I'm gonna assume there's a reason and go for a similar number.

 

[blacksmithy]

My experience is that Batterskull is stupid, stupid good in cube. I’d pick it highly at almost any power level.

 

[Nemo]

This is my first time seeing this thread. I love this idea.

This cube might be able to accommodate some fun triple black mana costs:

 

[Brad]

Onder, that was basically exactly what I expected on those cards. Thanks for confirming that. And thanks, smithy. Haven't used BSkull since I was more powermax-ish. It's just a 4/4 for 5.

I've got a lot of intense hybrid costs and some BBB type stuff.

I had Pact but it basically ends every game it isn't answered in.
Bridge isn't a card you actually cast and probably ends a lot of games when it hits the bin early.
Prophecy is scary to kill yourself. I like Phyrexian Arena or Moldervine Reclamation more in that slot, I think?
Death Cloud is either in there or I intended to add it.
I'm thinking about if I want to put my drafters through the puzzle known as Doomsday.
Similarly, I don't know if anyone's ballsy enough to pay half their life. The card is definitely sweet and might need an inclusion. I was also looking at Pain's Reward. I'll add Infernal Contract to the list, as it's 35 cents. I'll see if anyone is bold enough to take it.
Geralf's Messenger is a bit much in my mind. Maybe if it had Persist.
I'm afraid that the artifact deck will require blue, which kinda knocks the Lich out of contention.

Phyrexian Obliterator is a real shame that it's sooo pushed.

I do run Ayara, First of Locthwain and Dread Shade.

I'll be updating the artifact list more later.

 

[Brad]

Still need to finish my artifact idea, but I'm going to add

 

[Chris Taylor]

Can people cast jace in your cube? o.O

 

[Brad]

Can people cast jace in your cube? o_O

It should be alright in the UB decks. I've got double fetch double shock plus black tricycles. The UB deck will probably see additional cards to fix colors if needed. 17 lands that can produce U/B, not counting B fetches grabbing Watery Grave. 23 if you count that. I'm gonna be running some number of Signet/Talisman/Keystones once I figure out which cmc I want those on.

It's not for certain, but we'll see. It's a cool card for what I'm after.

 

[Brad]

I was looking at

and realized that's potentially a LOT of life gain triggers.

I'm worried how this could affect aggro in the format, but let's look at our payoffs anyways...

Spoiler

A lot of it looks very poisonous, but a lot of the more recent printings look good. Vito is a huge payoff, so the poison is an alright trade. Witch of the Moors only needs one trigger to look good. Silversmote has a lot of potential for value. Resplendent Angel is a bit pushed but has a nice, solid base outside BW Life.

I don't think it's ready to go in just yet, but M20&21 had BW life as a deck, so I'm hopeful.

 

[Brad]

As for the artifacts, the list currently is up to 61 artifacts, plus a few cards that make artifact tokens. The only cards I'm running that explicitly need artifacts to succeed

Let me know what you think on that or if I missed any juicy ones. I've got other cards that have some association but aren't as desperate for artifact density, like Cranial Plating or Daretti, Scrap Savant.

I wanted to populate the list with lots of generally useful artifacts and light artifact tie-ins while keeping the number of narrow cards to a minimum. I'll probably start looking into a similar idea for enchantments soon.