General The implications of a red cube?

[Reinert]

Hi, new cube builder here. I’m planning to amass cards, of all rarities, for my first cube over the next year. I want my cube to be Red, as in all cards have red in its mana cost (as well as possibly other colors) or are colorless, since red is my favourite color. I imagine the division of cards to be along the lines of: 93 Red, 43 times each R/X, 30 lands, 30 colorless artifacts and 35 3+ color cards. =360. Hybrid cards will count as R/X. Some of the implications I could image of such a cube would be:
- Red becomes colorless in a sense, since it’s sort of a base color.
- And in that sense mana fixing will be easier.
- The cube might facilitate agro decks too well, since it won’t have mana rocks, few counter spells and that red is the color of aggression, but I hope very much my choice of cards can mitigate this.
- People might have too little/too much interest in drafting the multi coloured decks. Also deck diversity might be hard to achieve.
- Other?
I hope some of you can help me shed light on other implications and help me be aware of pit falls when I construct my red cube. Any form of advice is welcome.

Edit: Added colourless artifacts.

 

[Ferritovore]

Cool project. It will be difficult for us to advise you due to how unusual your cube is. But if you get a list together I'll test this with you on cockatrice!

A few random red cards that I think are cool but rarely find a home in a normal list:
Aether Membrane(in general Planar Chaos will have a TON of good includes for a list if you want it to be all red, yet full of variety, since PC stretched red's color pie out)


battle rampart
hanweir watchkeep
rage nimbus
vent sentinel



Long story short, walls which can survive Pyroclasm, for a control player

 

[Onderzeeboot]

If you want a Wildfire archetype, I think mana rocks are much more reasonable to include. They don't have to be 2 mana rocks either, 3 or 4 mana rocks are fine as well, since you're trying to get to six mana. Hedron Archive, Pristine Talisman (multiples maybe, because life gain in moderation is a pretty sweet mechanic in a base red cube?) and the recent Seer's Lantern are all sweet cards for the red control decks.

 

[Reinert]

@Ferritovore Thanks for the suggestions, I’ll keep a lookout for Planar Chaos cards and red defenders. And I’ll keep in mind the 3 toughness, that might be a good thing to balance around if i get enough deal 2 damage cards. Also thanks for the offer of testing with me cockatrice, i'll keep it in mind, but the list is far from done. I own so far 84 cards i want in my cube, out of a final of 360 cards.

@Onderzeeboot Looked up the Wildfire archetype and it seems fun to support, so I’ll keep an eye out for the card and Burning of Xinye. But think i will be inconsistent, since the only red mana rocks, i could find on gather, were Firewild Borderpost and Veinfire Borderpost with oddballs like Mana Cache. And for now i really want to adhere to the red only rule for my cube.
On the topic of life gain though, that could indeed be sweet to include, sort of as the opposite to burn. And that could help control decks to last to late game.

 

[blacksmithy]

Are you planning to include colorless/artifact cards? Artifact synergy is a fairly important part of reds color identity.

 

[Aston]

If not mana rocks then something like Mana Flare could work for the big mana deck? I was going to suggest Gauntlet of Might but that's not technically red I suppose.

 

[Ferritovore]

The mana rocks were more a suggestion for their tendency to survive a Wildfire, than for big mana

 

[Reinert]

Are you planning to include colorless/artifact cards? Artifact synergy is a fairly important part of reds color identity.

No, I don't plan on colourless cards, from artifacts to eldrazies. That's also a thing I’m curious about if it's doable. This is mainly due to that I want a red cube and that me and my friends have so many rocks in our commander decks, that a change could be nice. Even if it makes the cube fell less red, as long as it is fun. But thanks for pointing it out So i Guess Slobad, Goblin Tinkerer will have no home here.

@Aston Mana Flare is a nice card and unfortunately Gauntlet of Might isn't red, but for big mana i could also run some R/G ramp cards, but yes @Ferritovore i understand.

 

[Alfonzo Bonzo]

This looks like loads of fun. I'll give it some more thought, but off the top of my head you'd want to look at how you would support aggro, control and midrange (and decide if you want combo or not). I've actually seen a list on cubetutor that has put this together. I'll link it later as it's bookmarked at home.

It would be a shame not to include artifacts, partly as it plays into a part of reds identify, but also because there's lots of cool cards that would shine here. Gauntlet of Might has already been mentioned, but also things like:



One of the more interesting parts is how you handle enchantments as red can't typically remove them. Do you only play aura's or do you risk them. Not having artifacts to help remove enchantments hurts too. Means that things like Goblin Bombardment or Outpost Seige can never be removed...

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Yeah, maybe it's just me, but it would be a shame to just ignore these because you don't want to run artifacts:



Wizards has been working hard to give red another angle than hardcore aggro, why ignore that? It's not like half of your cube is going to be artifacts



Red has some cool tools as well in the artifact section!

Also, are you planning to break singleton in specific cases? There's no reason you couldn't run two Wildfires instead of one Wildfire and one Burning of Xinjinsgnsooduoiuhdfl. Saves you a bunch of money!

 

[Chris Taylor]

Aww gauntlet of might affects your opponent.

 

[Ferritovore]

You could limit yourself to artifacts that mention the word "red", or artifacts that use or generate red mana. If you need a rule to stick to.

 

[Alfonzo Bonzo]

This looks like loads of fun. I'll give it some more thought, but off the top of my head you'd want to look at how you would support aggro, control and midrange (and decide if you want combo or not). I've actually seen a list on cubetutor that has put this together. I'll link it later as it's bookmarked at home.

It would be a shame not to include artifacts, partly as it plays into a part of reds identify, but also because there's lots of cool cards that would shine here. Gauntlet of Might has already been mentioned, but also things like:



One of the more interesting parts is how you handle enchantments as red can't typically remove them. Do you only play aura's or do you risk them. Not having artifacts to help remove enchantments hurts too. Means that things like Goblin Bombardment or Outpost Seige can never be removed...

Here you go, here's that mono red cube from cubetutor

http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/21584

 

[vennythekid]

Hm. This idea sounds awesome actually. How do you feel about running multiple copies of cards?

Me spewing ideas:

Control:


Midrange:


Aggro:


TOL Manipulation: (depending on if you want colorless artifacts)

This one might need another way to manipulate the top of your library, but since so many red cards utilize this mechanic it might be worth looking into.

Flashback/Graveyard/Storm:

I think if there's a place to have Storm in cube (and have it not be poisonous), it might be a mono-red Cube. This would need a lot of balancing though probably. Obviously, this list has cards of wildly different power levels.

Ramp/Devotion:

Use Nykthos to power out giant red fatties.

Combo Decks:

I'm sure there's something cooler here than these.

 

[Alfonzo Bonzo]

There's lots of cool red lands to play as well:



Plus more!

 

[Reinert]

Wow, wow wow guys. Thanks for the suggestions and ideas. Glad you all think this a fun idea

One of the more interesting parts is how you handle enchantments as red can't typically remove them. Do you only play aura's or do you risk them. Not having artifacts to help remove enchantments hurts too. Means that things like Goblin Bombardment or Outpost Seige can never be removed...

True, I’m not sure how to tackle this, expect not to go overboard with enchantments. Also cards in R/G like Thunderscape Battlemage could go a little way. Your idea of only using auras is a fun one and using mostly auras could help a bit without removing the card type entirely from the cube. I’ll keep an eye out for good auras. Good call, thanks for pointing it out, it's something to think about.

It would be a shame not to include artifacts, partly as it plays into a part of reds identify, but also because there's lots of cool cards that would shine here.

Wizards has been working hard to give red another angle than hardcore aggro, why ignore that? It's not like half of your cube is going to be artifacts

You could limit yourself to artifacts that mention the word "red", or artifacts that use or generate red mana. If you need a rule to stick to.

True and I think you guys are right in that it would be a shame to leave out artifact red. So artifacts are going in, in moderation, since it would give deck diversity and meet what people expect to see in a red cube. It was foolish of me to exclude them from the beginning and I’m also myself fond of artifacts, but I think it was because I was afraid of good stuff non red related cards like Wurmcoil Engine or cards doing very “unred” things.

Also, are you planning to break singleton in specific cases?

How do you feel about running multiple copies of cards?

Well, i'm new to cube so i was going to go with the tested and true strategy in terms of singleton and also multiple copies of a card seems complex. But no i don't mind breaking it, if its’ for a good reason. What sort of card do you guys imagine i could benefit from by breaking singleton?


Also @vennythekid many many thanks for the suggestions/ideas of archetypes, its a great help

There's lots of cool red lands to play as well

Here you go, here's that mono red cube from cubetutor
http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/21584

Very true, i'll keep a lookout in trades for lands as well. And many thanks for the link, full of good ideas. I’ll bookmark it aswell.

 

[Chriskool]

I played one of these about 5 years ago and this is what I remember:

• Archetypes were: "Wildfire" artifact ramp-control, Goblins (aggro or midrange), blitz aggro, aggro venturing into midrange, all-in red (Seething Song, Sneak Attack, Mana Flare and big CMC creatures).
• Enchantments were very powerful, but cards like Nevinyrral's Disk and Oblivion Stone were included.
• Due to the prevalence in burn spells and haste creatures, life totals mattered a lot more than in traditional cube.
• Protection from red cards were no fun.
• Attempting to breaking symmetry on cards was harder with most opponents having access to similar tools.
• The cube felt like it had a pretty low average mana cost even with a non-trivial amount of cards 6CMC and more.

 

[Ferritovore]

i don't mind breaking it, if its’ for a good reason.

The first good reason is this:

@I’ll keep an eye out for the card and Burning of Xinye

If you're already willing to run "functional reprints", then you're already breaking singleton but only when Hasbro runs off the same card twice with two or more different names (llanowar elves, fyndhorn elves, mana elves, elvish mystic, small elven turd, etc). So if burning+wildfire is cool for you, you might as well save yourself a ton of cash and just run two wildfires. And if you're running two wildfires, you might as well run two Abbot of Keral Keep cuz it's a really cool card that works in a lot of decks!

Many other reasons to break singleton are in the "breaking singleton" thread linked in here: http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/forum-gems-the-best-buried-bits-and-blurbs.1109/unread

 

[whydirt]

A monocolor cube seems like free license to try out all the poisonous themes that wouldn't work in a traditional cube. Other possible themes:

• Elemental tribal
• Dragon tribal
• Equipment matters
• Suspend/vanishing/time counters
• Cycling + Lightning Rift
• Going wide - Goblin Goon, Kolaghan Forerunners, Outnumber
• Power matters (Spikeshot Goblin, Bloodshot Trainee & friends)

 

[safra]

Many other reasons to break singleton are in the "breaking singleton" thread linked in here: http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/forum-gems-the-best-buried-bits-and-blurbs.1109/unread

There's also a solid (imo) roundtable on what we each get from moving past the singleton restriction.

1: How do you meaningfully choose where to break singleton?

2: How many copies of those cards do you run? How big is your cube?

3: How have your drafters, whether regulars or not, reacted to the breaking of the singleton restriction?

4: Which one card should other people add a second copy of to their Cubes, and why?

 

[Mondschwein]

For over a year now, I sometimes feel the urge of buildung a mono blue cube. There would be so many possibilities:
- Control
- Tempo
- Skies Aggro
- Artifacts Matter
- Spells Matter
- Storm/Tide Combo
- Merfolk

Then I actually did think about an UR-cube. It would push every of those archetypes as red brings the best aggro cards and some good cards for tempo, Artifacts, Spells and Storm. It's my favourite colour combination, too. You got me to rethink over that idea with this thread. The next level would be cutting white and green from a common riptide cube, though, as those three colours are the oftenly highest contested ones.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

It would be funny to just collapse green and white and run basic Savannahs in the basic land station

 

[Mondschwein]

Now that is a sexually appealing idea.