Timbers First Budget Cube - help

T

TimberWolf

Hi everybody,

I recently started a budget cube with some friends. I am the only one with a more or less active Magic history, but we are all keen on card games. Somehow, I became responsible for our cube project (never saw that comming ;) ) and I read quite a lot of primers / starters / how-to's and designed my first cube (like in "my first cube ever(TM)" ).

General Information
As most players are not regular Magic players, I try not to introduce too many keywords and the level of complexity as it is at the moment works more or less fine (we are all playing the Call of Cuthuluh LCG, so complex card interactions are less of an issue). I did not include Planeswalker, as I do not really like the concept of them and most good ones are quite expensive working against the "budget" idea.The cube is a small 360 card highlander-type as I try to include as many cool cards as possible and we are typically 6 or 8 players.

Cube Aims
The cube is intented to provide some fun games once in a while, even for players not super used to Magic. The basic idea is to enable powerfull two-color decks, while also providing enough cards to enable mono colored play if somehow a color is wide open (never occured till now, thogh) and enough mana fixing to splash a 3rd color. The card quality is intended to be as equal as possible to make every card in the cube playabla in the environment. The color pie is respected and as few "off color effects" (i.e. Timespiral cards) as possible included. Nevertheless, the power level of the cube is intended to be quite high with multiple bombs and haymakers for everybody. At the same time, I try to keep it on a low budget, so no Imperial Seals, Bobs, etc...
For color roles, White is supposed to support both aggro style (WR) as well as more controlling decks (WU, WG, maybe also WB). Traditionally, white attracks most players in the cube due to cheap, efficient creatures, tokens as well as fattys, (mass)removal and some graveyard interactions.
Blue is control only, only very few early creatures, most spells, card draw. Works (so far) well with White. Black is also a nice addition, due to Blacks removal, combined with Blues conters and large creatures. I would like to buff UG a bit, as well as RU, as they seem to be not too interesting right now. I think loosing some mind-control / copy cards might also be in order.
Black hast quite a lot removal and a vampire focus. Works nice with White for a Graveyard deck (too good atm in my opinion). At the moment, lacks a bit of the "evil" fealing, i.e. paying life for effects. Otherwise, seems quite popular.
Red has most burn spells, dragons and hard aggro stuff. Works very well in RB as well as RW. Seems fine as it is, though some finetuning with some spells seems necessary (noone every plays earth quake, so I maybe should change it).
Green is the color with the most problems at the moment. While RG works quite well, GW is not super attactive, though I was able to draft a swee RW deck once. Green has enough ramp, I think, though some fatties are not as sought after as the ones from the other colors, which should not be the case. Cards such as Genesis Wave for card advantage as well as more value fatties might help...?

Cube List
I created a cubetutor page for easy reference and changes tracking as well as allowing people to train draft the cube:
http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/16410

Feedback Sofar
We did some drafts already with the presented list and it seems blue is a bit too strong while green is a bit weak. Black misses some "life as resource" effects to strengthen its color pie identity. In the games sofar, Uw control, Wu control and espacially BW drain/recursion was extremely powerfull. Aggro was quite ok after playing all guildgates as shocklands (maybe I will be able to get the ones missing in my collection on a cheap somewhere sometime). Sofar, no three colored deck was successfull, though UBr was more or less acceptable, though maybe it depends on the players.


Anyhow, any feedback / card changes are welcome as I am (as said above) quite a noob coming to cube design :)

[EDIT] added some more explanation about which general roles colors are supposed to have[/EDIT]
 
Q

quanta

I've drafted a few decks so far. I think you've got enough fixing. Power level seems in the middle overall.

How has Equilibrium been? It seems pretty cool, but I have no idea how it'd typically affect the game.

So far I only have a few thoughts on specific cards. Grim Poppet seems pretty weak to me and not very interesting. He's competing with Myr Battlesphere and Steel Hellkite in your cube which are both way stronger. Elvish Archdruid and Elvish Promenade seem a bit out of place to me. You've only got 9 elf or elf token makers total. The payoff doesn't seem that high either. Maybe by clearing out part of your elf package you can make room to buff green some since you're finding it a bit weak. Nature's Claim seems too narrow to me; I'd rather run an ETB creature like Reclamation Sage or Conclave Naturalists. Or a bit broader ETB creature Acidic Slime.
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
The power band seems pretty wide, with titans living alongside calcite snapper. Players may start min/max it by jamming color fixing ramp with whatever are the best cards in the draft, and ignoring the rest of the cube.
 
T

TimberWolf

Thanks for the input :)

Yeah, removing the elf package might me the right call, might add another ramp creature and some artifact-removing creatures seems like a great idea. Grim Poppet will be cut and I think the Myr Battlesphere also gets the axe due to some players missing additional myrs in the cube to fully use its ability. I will think about some cards and update the cube.

The Calcite Snapper actually works quite well to stem early aggro, though I am definitely open to suggestions about changing it so someting else.
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
Its not so much that you need to cut calcite snapper, as it would be good to narrow the powerband. Right now you have essentially two cubes: a lower powered one with slower synergistic cards, and a higher power one with raw power. The raw power cards will eventually drown out the rest of the cube when people realize they can negate many strategies via raw assertive pressure.

So you could cut cards like grave titan and myr battlesphere and replace them with stuff like kamagawa dragons, or maul splicer. Alt you could cut cards like calcite snapper and run objectivly powerful value creatures like sea gate oracle or augur of bolas
 
T

TimberWolf

Thanks for the replies everyone :)

@ Grillo: Yeah, I understand what you mean, so I will try to increase the overall level (see changes below).
@ quanta: Equilibrium works indeed quite nice, either in tempo decks to remove blockers or in RU to jiggle e.g. FTK, so far, I really like the card in the environment :)

Cube Changes
Ok, bear with me, this might be a bit longer. I though about your comments, espacially Grillo's and I am thinking about doing some major changes to narrow the powerband of the cube. I am not sure all the changes are correct, but well, mabe it's a start (for more comments :p ).
[EDIT] ok, changes implemented in the cubetutor list :)



Out
In
Well, the idea is to weaken the UW archtype a bit (esp. removing the wall, as everybody seems to hate playing against it) and trying to equalize on power level. Not sure about Arcanis, though, just wanted to have an excuse putting him in the cube...
 
RavebornMuse

RavebornMuse

Some thoughts...
- I personally don't like Brave the Elements, at all. If you want a protection effect, Emerge Unscathed or Gods Willing provides that without allowing an entire white army to swing in for the win in a really unexciting way.
- Similarly, I don't like Bathe in Light. Cards that let an entire army swing in for the win against an opponent who's creatures are mostly one colour don't really lead to fun victories, and this is compounded significantly by your extreme shortage of counterspells in blue, making it nearly impossible to stop such shenanigans. I'd cut both of those cards and never look back.
- Launch the Fleet has always disappointed me in limited, and I don't think it does enough, even in cube.
- Honor of the Pure is an easier-to-cast Crusade that only affects your creatures. Personally, I barely think anthems on their own like this are playable, but anthems that affect only your own creatures are drastically better. I would never play Crusade unless I was mono-white, but I might play Honor of the Pure.
- Cenn's Enlistment doesn't do enough to justify its high mana cost in your cube; it's a bit too weak.
- Mirror-Sigil Sergeant similarly feels too weak for your environ, and does not compare favourably to Sun Titan at all. Generally, it's a good idea to consider all the cards in a slot (ie, all white creatures that cost 6 mana), and ask yourself: "If I saw all these in a pile, and each of my drafters picked one and I got stuck with whatever one was left, which one would I be least satisfied to be left with, and which one do I think would most often go first?" Because, while there may be niche strategies around, say, the Sergeant, the reality is that, more often than not, running the Sun Titan would be drastically better, pay off every time aside from some of the time, and be more exciting.

- Magus of the Jar is an exciting effect, definitely, but much too narrow. I'd put in something a bit better.
- Mystic Retrieval feels wayyyy too expensive to be ran in your environment. If you want a recursive spell, I think Call to Mind is better even if it can't be flashed back, but I also generally don't think spells like this are useful enough outside of a very, very high-powered environment.
- Gifts Ungiven is a fantastic card that I really love, but is extremely hard to play well and is best, again, in super-powerful environs. I worry it is more of a trap in your cube than it appears to be. Keep an eye on it.
- Peel From Reality is generally just bad. Silent Departure has a lot more appeal going for it; you want to bounce your own stuff much less often than you'd think.
- Thirst for Knowledge feels pretty bad here, since you have so few artifacts.

- Cannibalize is pretty bad, especially when considering you have powerful removal like Doom Blade available. Drop it for something better, or weaken all your removal. This is one of those "power band" issues Grillo pointed out; having cards that are drastically worse than other options leads to people winning simply by assembling all the "good cards", which makes the "not good cards" a lot less fun. This is a common factor in typical draft environs, but one we, as cube designers, must strive to avoid.
- Attrition is so powerful and brutal to your opponents that even I don't run it, and I have a reputation for running really powerful, busted garbage in my cube. I'd suggest you cut it and never look back.
- Nirkana Cutthroat is too much work for too little gain. Level up creatures have it hard in cube because there's generally a good supply of removal, making them overcosted and punishing to players who actually try to run them.
- Cards like Fallen Angel need a lot of sacrifice support, which you don't seem to be providing. Also, it's a lot worse than white's fliers in the same mana slot. I'd cut it for a cheaper creature to fill out black's curve.
- Cabal Patriarch and Skeletal Vampire are both really bad. Remember that comparison up in my white review, about comparing all the cards in a spot on the curve? In this scenario, Grave Titan is absurdly more powerful than Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni, but she's at least playable. Compared to those other two? I can't imagine anyone running them, or being happy to get stuck with them when the other options are soooooo much better.
- Increasing Ambition feels a bit too weak anywhere, and that counts true here, too. I'd cut it.

- Arc-Slogger seems terrible. It's perhaps the worst 5-drop creature in your cube. The body is okay, but the effect is dreadful.
- Furnace of Rath is just really bad.
- Cone of Flame is extremely powerful. Keep an eye on it.
- Spearbreaker Behemoth is basically unstoppable in your cube. I'd cut it, for power-level concerns, even if it does cost a ton of mana.
- Why Font of Fertility instead of Rampant Growth or Explore?
- Corrosive Gale is just kinda bad sideboard material. I'd cut it. If you really want to deal with fliers in green, why not some Epic Confrontation action, or more Reachers?

- Caged Sun doesn't seem to do much of anything here.
- Sphere of the Suns and Coalition Relic are both on drastically different power levels. Cut one and add another mana rock, like Mind Stone, which is very middle-of-the-road.
- Darksteel Axe is just a bad Bonesplitter. If you wanna keep singleton, I guess.. but it is pretty underwhelming.
- Archon of the Triumvirate seems way too slow to do anything.

Other considerations...
- Blue looks a bit pitiful. Ideally, you should be running around a dozen counterspells minimum; as it stands now, blue has much less ability to control the game than white does, which is a real let-down, seeing as how white is also much more powerful, creature-wise, than blue is. As it stands, I see very little reason to go into blue; white looks very superior. A good way to help blue is to give it more cheap spells, because blue wants to interact early and drop bombs late in a "typical" environment, but there's lots you can do aside from that. Peek at my cube list (it's in my signature) and other lists around the forum for some ideas.
- Black needs 2-drops. Badly.
- Green looks extremely powerful; most of its spells are dedicated to land ramp, and its late-game creatures are all very powerful. Consider nipping some of those ramp spells for more varied effects, or trimming back the late-game cards in green. As it stands, you seem to want to give all the colours big cards, which is a fine idea, but some of them look awfully silly compared to their green late-game companions. Seeing as green can ramp into their late-game creatures, this problem is amplified a bit. A good way to fix this issue is to peel away a bit of ramp from green and swap some of those expensive, undesirable creatures in other colours for creatures lower on the curve. As it stands, black and blue both kinda feel like they're standing around picking their teeth for the first 3-4 turns while white, red, and green all come out swinging. A few more early creatures in black and some better spells in blue (and/or better creatures) could help that problem a lot.

Your list has some interesting choices! My only concern is that the power level is still a bit wild, making some of the fun cards hard to justify with such mean cards floating around.
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Listen to this man! Except for the comment about your black six drops. Cut Grave Titan and don't look back! Cabal Patriarch is actually fairly interesting, as activating the first ability feeds the second ability, and -4/-4 is a big debuff! Skeletal Vampire is a really decent creature. Both pale in comparison to Grave Titan, but that is entirely Grave Titan's fault. A lot of people over here routinely cut Titans from their lists for being oppressive, and guess which one is the worst culprit? (PS. Primeval Titan is a lot of fun, and Sun Titan offers a lot of interesting interactions as well, though vigilance on a 6/6 is a pain in the ass).
 
T

TimberWolf

Thanks a lot for the feedback and suggestions :)
I will go thorugh all slots and think about the card choices again and will update everything after going through my collection with what I can come up with. Grave Titan and Attrition might be a bit of a too hard lock, true :D
Might also cut the other Titans and the suggested cards might definitely fit better into the cube.
 
Rasmus Källqvist

Rasmus Källqvist

Warwolt's Equilibrium Grave Titan Control from CubeTutor.com












Got this draft down. It's very fresh to play a cube with so many 2011-2012 era cards that I didn't know existed. I started playing 2013, so this was pretty exciting. Go budget cubes! Probably follow the other peoples suggestions about thightening power bands and focusing and all that, but beyond those details I think this cube's looking sweet.

Edit: It would appear as though this deck has gotten my fancy. I'm just sitting in my head thinking up lines of play. You'll have to be the judge, but is equilibrium + frozen aether potentially quite powerful and oppressive? As long as you can keep on playing creatures you can hard lock a creature since they won't ever get a chance to both play and untap it. That is while you're rebuying skinrender triggers and getting card advantage out of entomber!
 
T

TimberWolf

So, I updated the cube list (again ^^) and tried to follow your recommendations to go through each card slot. Maybe some choices are still sub-optimal, though I tried to use mainly what I have available. I cut back some ramp, changed quite a lot of creatures, added U and B 2-drops as well as some counter and used better removal. Comments are, as always, very much appreciated :)
I did some tough choices, but I tired to get rid of all "cute" cards which I like but might not be appropriate for the powerlevel...
See here: http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcurve/16410

@ Rasmus: Yeah, Equilibrium, till now, is mostly used to gain value from your own creatures and sometimes remove a blocker, though the combination with frozen aether is also nice (never got it assembled, the aether tends to be blown up quite fast when it hits play).
 
T

TimberWolf

So, we finally were able to get some games with the new list (see link in post above, inbetween: shameless push).
The drafted decks were much better in power level, though blue was a bit overdrafted in our 3 drafts. Somehow, most of my cube meta seems to prefer drafting horrendously cluncky control decks consisting of removal, counter, and 3 wincondition creatures (and loosing horrible to humble low-curve rakdos / boros decks XD ).
The only cards I hear some grumbling about are the two shroud creatues (Inkwell Leviathan and Simic Sky Swallower) as well as Myr Battlesphere. The first two because of low interaction possibilities (even though I have less of an issue with them) and the latter because everyone thinks, its too expensive for what it does. I am therefore considering dropping the sphere at least (the other two will stay for the moment I think) for something else. I am not even sure it needs to be a high-costed creature, maybe a small equipment to push aggro might be enough.
I will also keep an eye on Equilibrium. While it is not game breaking, I am considering switching it for Rhystic Study.
Interstingly, since changing the cube, more and more three-color decks emerge, so maybe putting some more "three color rewards" might be a good idea, too...
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
That sounds about what I would expect from a more casual playgroup: myr battlesphere should go because "its too expensive for what it does", blue overdrafted, and clunky control decks.

Your midrange decks don't look too oppressive, so hopefully they will grow out of it after a while.

Way back when I ran a higher powered cube, myr battlespehere also wasn't seen as very impactful, but that was because I was running too high a density of powerful, non-conditional removal than, so a non-ETB creature kind of sucked. Maybe thats part of the problem?

How's hunting pack?
 
T

TimberWolf

Yeah, maybe I have to change some removal to be more conditional and more artifact-friendly or just change the sphere to something with 6 or less mana cost as Steel Hellkite is fine and sees regular play.

Hunting Pack has seen play in two decks and it ranged between "blowout" in a Simic deck after some massive card draw spam EOT, resulting in 5 beasts with pseudo-haste, to "ok" in a Gruul deck with 3 beasts. So far, it seems fine, though people seem to have to get used to how the "Storm" part of the card affects mana costs.
I am also seriously considering putting soemthing like Vines of the Vastwood in the cube to give green one or two of the better pump spells to represent some tricks with open mana, which is, at the moment, basically non-existent and remove one ramp and one creature to prevent it from becomming too powerfull.
 
Kirblinx

Kirblinx

Developer
Staff member
Hi there!

I did a couple of drafts of your cube and it seemed pretty cool in the lower-powered section with some interesting inclusions like Incremental Blight (such the blowout card I never see in cubes anymore)!

The decks came out decently enough and the fact that I could recklessly splash up to five colours and feel I have the manabase to support it makes me feel like the land ratio in the cube is in a good place.

I felt a little trapped with my black aggro deck, as I didn't see the other aggro cards (Pain Seer would've been sweet). Looking at the visual spoiler there seems to be enough to support this archetype so maybe I just had some bad luck. The fact that I salvaged it into some grindfest of a sacrifice deck made me happy enough to keep cards like Vampire Lacerator (who don't really have another archetype they fit into) in the cube as that subtle nudge.

Plus that 5 colour blink deck I made looked pretty sweet. Would love to play that in a real match.

Here are some cards I haven't really seen that are in your cube and am wondering if you have seen them do any good before.
May even give you an idea on some cards to cut (or repivot for archetype support)


The weakest cards here I feel are Belanish Commander, Quest for the Gravelord, Blinding Flare and Oran-Rief Recluse.

I would go explain further, but I am half asleep and just didn't want to leave it there. I'll add some reasoning later if you want to know why I think they are weak. But for now, I sleep.
 
T

TimberWolf

So, back from vacation, right into Cubing^^
Thanks for the replys, I would like to jear your reasoning :)
While I agree to some of the cards, I think some of them are quite strong. From the last short list, I would not cut tje flare as it gives red nice reach in the late game, the others seem like a good plan, though I will have to think about some flyer hate for green...
 
Kirblinx

Kirblinx

Developer
Staff member
Okay, so for some reasoning:

Blinding Flare: I have never been a fan of these cards. I would prefer Nightbird's Clutches over the flare, just because of the second use. Sure they give you reach, but so does burn and creatures. They can also help you while you are behind. This is only ever used as the final or second last swing, and your creatures may have died by that point. That and the heavy red commitment makes this only good in mono red. Does mono red want this?

Benalish Commander/Goblin Assault: These are just painfully slow and do nothing or not a lot by themselves. I feel that Mobilisation and Rabblemaster are better versions of these cards. The assault I can sort of see being alright with Gargy and Bombardment so it can stay, but the commander doesn't have these synergies or a decent number of soldiers in the cube (I counted 6) plus 4 mana and 3 turns for 4 power doesn't seem like value for money.

Quest for the Gravelord: This is a pretty terrible top deck and a lot of work for just a 5/5. Sure you paid 1 mana for it, but your opponent can do so much to make sure this ever comes online.

Oran-Rief Recluse: Is sub-par for either cost. Generally green doesn't really need flying defence, it just goes bigger or you rely on another colour to stop the flying. You could just have something like Thornweald Archer or not even a creature like Bow of Nylea.

The rest I am just going to go through quickly:
Magus of the Disk: Don't know why white would want this when they have 2 wraths that don't take a turn.
Havengul Runebinder: Does blue have enough creatures in the yard?
Wonder: Is this ever playing in a blue deck? Seems like BG dredge card.
Kederekt Leviathan: Does blue want an 8 drop? Has this ever been cast?
Festering Goblin: Seems out of place, every other early drop in black is aggro.
Necrotic Ooze: Didn't see enough abilities to make it worth it.
Magus of the Coffers: Is mono black a thing? Why does it need to ramp?
Butcher of Malakir: I feel there are just better 7 drops.
Seismic Assault: No real support (where is loam?).
Nimble Mongoose: Such Nimble, much mongoose. (I don't think green is aggressive enough to warrant him).
Spawnwrithe: Is outclassed by every other 3 drop so can't see him getting a hit in.
Brawn: Does everything need trample to require playing such a mediocre 4 drop?
Genesis Wave: Requires WAY too much mana to make it worthwhile.
Plumeveil: At least this isn't Wall of Denial :p
Adventuring Gear: A little too unreliable and can lead to frustration.
 
T

TimberWolf

Thanks for the reply :)

I will start by changing the 4 cards and will watch out for the rest and will give some updates how often they are played.
I know that both the Magus as well as the Leviathan are played quite a lot as a late board reset while Wonder has a home in U/W and U/G decks where is results in a flying hore more often than not. The Goblin is nice as an early aggro deterrent in U/B controlish decks as it typically can trade 2 for 1 early on. The green cards might be the first candidates to cut...
 
T

TimberWolf

Hello everyone (mind, this might be a year old thread but the cube by itself is sill existent and everything...),

I am back from one year abroad and my group wants to cube draft again :D

That said, they actually did quite a lot of drafting during my absense and the cube evolved a fair bit. After going through the cube I was finally able to update cubetutor for the new version (which reeeeeeealy sucks to do if someone did change the analoge cube but not the digital one and you go through every card and stuff -.-).

So here's the updated version - it somehow moved away from beeing a budget cube to something with at least some (more) expensive cards in it (they really seem to like it...).

I think the introduction of the aura theme is interesting as is the overhaul of the red small creature package. It also seems that green is still underdrafted comparing green power level to the other colors, but that might be me with my green-tinted googles :)

I would like to humbly ask again for some input, can we keep the cube this way or do you spot some major flaws which should be redeemed?
 
japahn

japahn

Why do you have Deceiver Exarch without Splinter Twin or Kiki-Jiki? Leftover?

Isn't Wolfir Silverheart oppressive at that power level?

Doesn't the Auras theme get blown out by removal consistently? I think some creatures with hexproof are be necessary to make it work.
 
T

TimberWolf

Thank for your reply :)

The Earth definitely seems like a leftover and I will exchange it for something else. I only saw one dedicated aura deck up to now and it worked quite well. It was W/u using some counters to prevent most in-response removel and the umbra really seem to do a decent job once they are online. Nevertheless I am also quite septical how good the aura theme is and will watch it closely. Some hexproof creatures seem to be a good idea sprinkled over green and blue maybe.
The Wolfir didn't seem too much of an issue till now though I can see your point. Will put on the watch list as well.

The Silverhearth
 
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