We're probably deviating from the inital topic of the thread by diving deeper and deeper into the matter of improving cubes, so, if anyone is bothered by that, we could perhaps continue this discussion in my own cube thread
Yeah, that's probably a good point, though my cube also has a
Figure of Destiny and a
Signal Pest, which technically work as "Red" creatures. But people do not seem to be high on the Pest in their cubes these days, so I might replace it with some red 1-drop.
I like
Signal Pest a lot since it's a 1-drop and it wears equipment really well, but it is admittedly a card with a large internal power band. While I wouldn't cut it, I can understand the position.
I'm also intrigued by the
Soul-Scar Mage, but I'm not sure: maybe again, I should better add a 1-drop that initially has 2 points of power for consistency reasons.
Since red decks have so many non-creature spells, the 1-drop prowess creatures
Monastery Swiftspear and
Soul-Scar Mage are both great cards. While it is usually beneficial for an aggro creature to have two power, it's not necessary. Supporting fast aggro decks is all about the density of turn-1 plays and not as much about what those cards actually do. Some number of 1-mana 2-power attackers are good, but they don't need to be every card. Having cards with varied ability suites for the 1-drop slot both add more variety to the cube and maintain the consistency of having the right number of 1s to keep aggro on track.
What do you think about
Stromkirk Noble in that role? I guess, in my cube decks play sth on t2 pretty reliably, so he'll have 2 power less consistently than a random
Jackal Pup (
Firedrinker Satyr from your list), but the card is interesting and I'm trying to justify including it over those.
Stromkirk Noble is neat. It's the type of card that needs backup from removal to reliably connect on turn two, but it can grow pretty quickly out of hand once it does. Cards like Noble are almost never played in a vacuum, as long as your red decks have some way to deal with a blocker on turn two, it should be fine. I think there are better red 1-drops, but
Stromkirk Noble is a good include if your goal is to just hit the correct density of red 1s.
And, if you had to choose between a
Firedrinker Satyr and a
Lightning Berserker, which one would you rank higher? The former attacks better without any investments, but the latter has more reach potential, as it seems to me.
I do not have much play experience with either, I'm only just adding
Firedrinker Satyr to my cube for the first time, and I'm only just adding
Lightning Berserker to my high-power cube after having good results with it in a peasant list. As a turn 1 play, I think I like
Firedrinker Satyr a little more since it can trade more profitably without necessarily needing a firebreathing investment when it attacks. As a top deck, I like
Lightning Berserker more because it can be a pseudo
Ball Lightning when dashed. I think the correct pick for you largely depends on wether or not you want another
Jackal Pup or you are fine with a more flexible 1/1. I like both of these cards more than
Stromkirk Noble and
Jackal Pup proper.
Sorry for not
Gingerbrute-ing, I tried it out after you had offered it some time ago and it performed pretty well, but my and my playgroup's verdict was it looks very unflavorful in a cube we're trying to build of older cards mostly. I agree that sometimes you should give priority to fun gameplay over flavor, but in this case the fun my duders (and me, of course) get from the cube being flavorul outweihgs this little gameplay-fun loss. Everyone has their own biases
It's cool! I forgot I had mentioned
Gingerbrute to you in the past
. I champion it because it's such an efficient beater (that every aggro deck can play!), but it often gets written off as a meme by the community because people go "haha funny cookie man." Everyone should at least try the brute, you did, so I'm happy
.
Also, don't you have any older (pre-XLN, as usual) green 3-cmc beaters in mind? I've got
Rhonas the Indomitable, but other than that my Gruul decks mostly seek proactive threes in Red, so I might be in the market indeed.
EDIT: You know what, I actually doubt if I should give my Green section more solid 3-drops. I feel my green midrange decks are where they should be in terms of power level, and if I allow for more "t2 cast a 4/4" scenarios, my Aggro players might get aggravated (no pun intended).
The thing about the 3-cmc green beaters is that the older options are best played when supplemented by the newer cards. Take a look at:
Call of the Herd is nice because it's sort of a pseud0-card advantage engine in green, meaning that it can help midrange decks in control matchups where it would otherwise succumb to a stream of counter spells and board wipes.
Mouth // Feed falls into a similar vein as
Call of the Herd, except it's better in midrange mirrors and worse against control. Some people have also had success with
Wolfir Avenger, but that card's regeneration ability makes it too hard for red decks to properly kill in my opinion. I think these cards are pretty good
, and they fill the roles needed. However, I'd really recommend playing at least
Thrashing Brontodon out of the list of newer cards to supplement them.
Thrashing Brontodon is a really nifty answer to problematic permanents such as Swords and Batterskulls, while still being a reasonable beater by itself. Plus, its over 3 years old at this point. It wouldn't be out of place in a cube trying to emulate an old MTGO legacy list.
Like you, I'm working to make my cube emulate a specific older play experience. The only difference is that I'm trying to make popular Standard and Modern decks from when I started playing draft able archetypes in my cube as opposed to creating an updated version of an old legacy cube. If you want to hear how I am handling new cards to upgrade retro themes, I'd recommend reading my
digging through time series in my cube thread. It's all very specific to what I'm doing, but it might be helpful in giving you a bigger framework of ways you can use new cards to update old themes.
