Themed cube, Volrath vs Gerrard

[Jonas]

So, I have another cube that I'm working on beside the one that I just tore apart and started building up, and it is this. I have placed some pretty severe limitations on my card choices for this one. I've always liked the flavor of the cards in the Rath cycle, the struggle between Volrath and Gerrard, and after that Crovax and whatnot is very fantasy and high stakes, millenia of planning etc. The rules for a cards inclusion is as follows:

All legends that are among the crew of the Weatherlight gets to go in the cube, and their antagonists throughout the saga can join in too. That gives me the following legends:


Then, for the other cards in the cube, one of the legends in the pictures above has to be featured on the card somehow, either in the art of the card, or in the flavor text. This has led to quite few creatures, and a suprising amount of enchantments.
This is, as you might already have guessed, not a cube that tries its best to have a high powerlevel, but rather a flavorful draft environment. What I am trying to do, is trim the cards down from 360 to 270, since most of the time we aren't more then 4-6 people drafting anyway.
The cards that are exempt from the legendary clause are the artifacts that are part of the Legacy Weapon, and the lands, since there needs to be some fixing, and these are the places where the story takes part anyway.

So I guess what I am asking for is suggestions for cuts, and any feedback in general for the idea. Would you play it? Do you hate it? Does it seem interesting at all? Me, I love the idea of it and really want to draft and play it

Also, forgot to link it: http://cubetutor.com/visualspoiler/5088

 

[Alfonzo Bonzo]

I'm not really a flavour guy and I would imagine for this to be a success that it would have to played with players that love the flavour too or have some nostalgia connection to it too. I would certainly play it once or twice but from a curiosity point of view.

The fact the cube is designed from a flavour perspective would imply that it's not deliberately balanced from a play perspective. That's probably fine for the first few times and would be an interesting exercise to try to work out what are the 'best' decks are. It would also be useful to see what cards stand out as strong and could make a transition to a regular cube.

I guess this is a long way of saying that I would just play it a few times as is and see what's good and what's terrible/goes last/stays in sideboards and if you want to keep playing it then tweak away. And proxy.

General comments: creature count seems a bit low. Some of the lands while nostalgic are pretty horrible. Worth playing multiples of chromatic sphere? Don't like sideboard cards like choke (also not very fun)

Great to see the Ramos pieces in there, I love those cards.

 

[Jonas]

Good points, all in all. It is supposed to be something that I pull out once in a blue moon, when we happen to be five players or something, and play multiplayer games and the like. The sideboard cards will be the first ones coming out now that aim to take it down to 270 cards. Hopefully lowering the card count and keeping all the creatures in will make it a bit less lopsided towards creatures too.
Thanks for having a look

Oh, and good call on multiple chromatic spheres, will do that. Might double up on the ramos pieces too.

 

[FlowerSunRain]

Salt Flats just has the most epic art, I really need to just sharpy over the "comes into play tapped" line and run it over Caves of Kolas.

Cubewise, I think this design is above my paygrade. With such a small cardpool that isn't easily accessible or synergistic, its going to be really hard to make suggestions/create and refine archetypes. I think Alfonzo has the right idea: absolutely stuff it with flavor, play it till the nostalgia level is at 11, and enjoy it until it becomes obvious the cube is completely broken.

 

[Jonas]

There is always the possibility that I drop this theme and just limit myself to a cube from these blocks