Welcome to W. B. Rug's Wall Emporium! :eek: What a savings!
Ahem! Hi! I'm bumbeh and I like drafting. My first draft was with a friend's Innistrad C/U set and I still enjoy that format quite a bit. My first cube was a theme cube - mostly just jamming in cards that feel "magical" or have cool mechanics. A Vorthos/Johnny cube with a splash of Timmy. For cockatrice drafting only.
This time around, I'ma actually own the cards for in-person drafting. So to limit my search space and keep costs down, I'm only doing Commons and Uncommons. I can make some proxies but I'm mostly buying 9 cent cards to fill the cube.
If any of you folks would like to help me pick cool C/Us for this cube, that's fantastic!
Design goals:
1: I'll provide a different experience from my friend's cube. Her cube looks pretty similar to the CubeTutor 450, so let's avoid "CUBE STAPLES!".
2: Play around with some slightly uncommon archetypes, namely: defenders matter, +1 counters matter, and "sometimes black doesn't do combat, it just drains you to death".
3: Avoid single card bombs like Jetting Glasskite or Ninja of the Deep Hours in favor of cards that blossom with a little bit of support, like Slith Strider or Riddlesmith.
Color Pie:
The stuff in the spoiler is NOT important. Skip it unless you're super curious.
(TL;DR for the above: We're doing this primarily because Abzan is nifty, I don't enjoy playing or facing Esper, and I don't want to just copy Khans by doing five wedges.)
in my friend's cube is heavy on the value EtBs, like Phyrexian Gargantua, Shriekmaw, and Gravedigger. That naturally leads towards Dimir gameplay which is not a focus in this cube. So my primary supported wincon for black is to hide behind blockers while draining your life away. Classic evil villain stuff. Lowest emphasis on the Combat phase out of all 5 colors. I will be sad if this ends up being too boring of a gameplay style, but I want to try it. Including scary finishers that make players feel nervous about being below 10 health against Black is key, I think, to keeping the tension high.
As far as other wincons, Black also has some ability to particpate in the Outlast game that White and Green enjoy, or combo with Red for more direct burn to the face and sacrifice/death triggers. Black needs some "pay life" cards to take advantage of widely available lifegain in the cube.
Black's opinion on the Wall / Anti Wall game: black loves walls, and is happy to ignore your Walls by bleeding you out with life loss. Black therefore does not need wallbusting tech.
is the home of the greatest number of wallbusting cards. Whether it's cards that directly blow up Defenders, cards that nuke already-damaged creatures, acts of treason or "cannot block this turn" effects, Red hates walls. Testing will show whether it has too much wall hate or not.
Red is our most straightforward color in this Cube. It wants to punch you in the face with creatures early, punch you in the face with creatures hard, and polish you off with a little burn as needed. As stated, Red likes to sac stuff with Black.
Red Blue will probably be the purest, scariest aggro pairing, vaulting over blockers in order to draw cards and clobber.
is not as much about punching you in the face as it is about poking you in the eye. Tempo/looters are the name of the early game here. Theoretically, you use the looting to draw more looters to poke more eyes, powering through removal by drawing more creatures. I This creature-spam technique can trigger Evolves, and the evasive creatures will occasionally swing for massive damage thanks to Green or Red instants.
Blue control sees a lot of play in my friend's cube, so I aim to go light on that and see how it goes.
Blue doesn't build walls or smash them very much, but will endeavor to fly over or walk through the walls. Blue also packs the odd P/T swapping effect for entertaining results against creatures that are all toughness.
wants to go big. Whether that means ramping into big green creatures, putting down a horde of white or blue weenies, or spraying +1 tokens all over everything, green wants to build-a-bear, awaken the bear, and then Bear Punch you. I want green decks to actually use green creatures, because I feel like green is often a backup singer in a normal cube. I think the way to do this is to ensure the biggest, sexiest creatures are green, so while you might primarily cast other colors in the midgame, your biggest lategame creature options will have 2 to 4 green mana symbols on them.
Green is a Defenders Matter color. Green likes to ramp behind walls and then bring the big bad beasties. It doesn't have great ways to remove annoying walls, but past a certain point green will turn trampling beasties sideways and the walls will have to either get chumped or get out of the way.
has the least clear identity. Right now, my idea of White isn't very different from other Cubes, though that's not necessarily a problem. White likes having a lot of creatures on the field, combat tricks, and spot removal. White is participating in Defenders, +1/+1 tokens and Outlast, and is the home of Lifegain Matters. WB hides behind the walls to drain you, but WG buffs up and attacks you. WB might end up dabbling in some Auramancy. White is likely to see some Battalion or Battle Cry action, which will work well for people who want to play or despite the low amount of official support for those pairings.
None of the artifacts are going to be show stoppers, because you shouldn't lose due to not having arti removal. Artifacts are going to let Green do the bulk of the ramping, but artifacts might help with the fixing. Overall, artifacts are going to play a pretty quiet role so that there's room for multicolor cards to be loud and exciting.
Power Level:
I might be able to pilfer some cards from Eric Chan's list. I'm with him on the "lower power = more variety" train. Though snapcaster mage obviously can't fit into my cube.
On Gatherer, my rule of thumb is to focus on cards that have a community rating between 3.0 and 4.0. It's not a hard rule, because ratings are subjective and vary wildly according to format, but it helps focus my search. I've seen some 4.2 cards that look like they wouldn't break my cube, but at 4.4 on up things get a little bomb-like.
Help Wanted:
As you can see, I already have a pretty clear idea about the direction I want to head. But I have a long way to go. So if you can suggest C/U stuff that fits the themes, that's the biggest help I'm looking for. I'd also like to know if white's themes are too muddled, or if black's theme is too monolithic. I've probably got some rookie mistakes.
Here's the cube in its current state, it's quite unfinished but at least my goals are clear!
Last thing. Here are the archetypes I think I'm going for. Some of these are probably not actually Archetypes, but I don't know how else to phrase / think of them.
I apologize so much for all of this text. And thank you very much if you find the time to read this and help me fill up the cube.
Ahem! Hi! I'm bumbeh and I like drafting. My first draft was with a friend's Innistrad C/U set and I still enjoy that format quite a bit. My first cube was a theme cube - mostly just jamming in cards that feel "magical" or have cool mechanics. A Vorthos/Johnny cube with a splash of Timmy. For cockatrice drafting only.
This time around, I'ma actually own the cards for in-person drafting. So to limit my search space and keep costs down, I'm only doing Commons and Uncommons. I can make some proxies but I'm mostly buying 9 cent cards to fill the cube.
If any of you folks would like to help me pick cool C/Us for this cube, that's fantastic!
Design goals:
1: I'll provide a different experience from my friend's cube. Her cube looks pretty similar to the CubeTutor 450, so let's avoid "CUBE STAPLES!".
2: Play around with some slightly uncommon archetypes, namely: defenders matter, +1 counters matter, and "sometimes black doesn't do combat, it just drains you to death".
3: Avoid single card bombs like Jetting Glasskite or Ninja of the Deep Hours in favor of cards that blossom with a little bit of support, like Slith Strider or Riddlesmith.
Color Pie:
The stuff in the spoiler is NOT important. Skip it unless you're super curious.
Khans is the hotness and seeing the surprisingly non-boring commons in Khans made me want to start this cube. I especially love Abzan. Abzan + RoE = Defender Matters. (Also, +1/+1 counters matter.) Defenders can stall a game out, though, so that also means Anti Wall cards to punch damage through. So Walls and Anti Walls are a thing.
Knowing that I like Abzan, I next decided that Orzhov is the core part of it for me. You know what that means: extort! So the default, officially supported Orzhov game inside the Abzan game is to hide behind defenders and other blockers while draining your opponent's life down, then hitting them with a big sorcery, ETB, or sac finisher along the lines of Wall of Limbs.
I initially thought my color wheel was going to look like GWBUR. And I started putting the cube together that way. But that means WBU would be one of my shards/wedges and... oh gosh please no. BU in general is already a natural combo and it can lead to un-fun games against a Control Deck Of Doom. So players will surely be able to make Dimir decks due to the natural synergies of BU and maybe even WBU decks, but I don't want to support it directly.
You'll recall that Orzhov is already locked in and I'm excited about it, therefore because I want WB to happen but I don't want WBU to happen, that means my color wheel can only work in two ways: W-B-R-U-G or W-B-G-U-R. The latter is just 5 wedges straight up, Khans style. That would be straightforward and easy. Of course, due to me being a big fat Johnny who likes to pretend that I'm creative, I will not do this obvious and natural thing!
So our color pie encourages Abzan, Temur, Mardu, Bant and Grixis. Dual-color support will be strongest for, ,,, and . Compared to the other way (Khans-style 5 wedges), we miss out on supporting and . I'm a little nervous about supporting Izzet, I feel like Izzet is naturally a very strong pair in draft, but we'll see.
I don't think Bant's Exalted will actually see play, because it's janky. But it's easy to tie Bant cards to each other with +1 counters stuff. Unearth might actually get some action, it's a fun effect that doesn't spiral out of control as easily as real Reanimator stuff does.
Now I'm sad to lose Boros, Boros is a lot of fun, BUT so is Rakdos. Rakdos plays into the aforementioned sacrifice game, and it means Black "loss of life" win cons can be paired with Red FACEBURN. I don't mind missing out on Golgari because what we get instead is Simic. Simic takes the traditionally most straightforward color and pairs it with a color that does a lot of fun tricks and shenanigans, which can be a lot more dynamic and exciting than the ramp/reanimator stuff of Golgari.
Incidentally, the color combinations that aren't overtly supported include many color combinations that naturally work well even without support, I think. Jund decks will probably happen. Dimir decks will certainly happen.
Knowing that I like Abzan, I next decided that Orzhov is the core part of it for me. You know what that means: extort! So the default, officially supported Orzhov game inside the Abzan game is to hide behind defenders and other blockers while draining your opponent's life down, then hitting them with a big sorcery, ETB, or sac finisher along the lines of Wall of Limbs.
I initially thought my color wheel was going to look like GWBUR. And I started putting the cube together that way. But that means WBU would be one of my shards/wedges and... oh gosh please no. BU in general is already a natural combo and it can lead to un-fun games against a Control Deck Of Doom. So players will surely be able to make Dimir decks due to the natural synergies of BU and maybe even WBU decks, but I don't want to support it directly.
You'll recall that Orzhov is already locked in and I'm excited about it, therefore because I want WB to happen but I don't want WBU to happen, that means my color wheel can only work in two ways: W-B-R-U-G or W-B-G-U-R. The latter is just 5 wedges straight up, Khans style. That would be straightforward and easy. Of course, due to me being a big fat Johnny who likes to pretend that I'm creative, I will not do this obvious and natural thing!
So our color pie encourages Abzan, Temur, Mardu, Bant and Grixis. Dual-color support will be strongest for
, ,,, and . Compared to the other way (Khans-style 5 wedges), we miss out on supporting and . I'm a little nervous about supporting Izzet, I feel like Izzet is naturally a very strong pair in draft, but we'll see.I don't think Bant's Exalted will actually see play, because it's janky. But it's easy to tie Bant cards to each other with +1 counters stuff. Unearth might actually get some action, it's a fun effect that doesn't spiral out of control as easily as real Reanimator stuff does.
Now I'm sad to lose Boros, Boros is a lot of fun, BUT so is Rakdos. Rakdos plays into the aforementioned sacrifice game, and it means Black "loss of life" win cons can be paired with Red FACEBURN. I don't mind missing out on Golgari because what we get instead is Simic. Simic takes the traditionally most straightforward color and pairs it with a color that does a lot of fun tricks and shenanigans, which can be a lot more dynamic and exciting than the ramp/reanimator stuff of Golgari.
Incidentally, the color combinations that aren't overtly supported include many color combinations that naturally work well even without support, I think. Jund decks will probably happen. Dimir decks will certainly happen.
(TL;DR for the above: We're doing this primarily because Abzan is nifty, I don't enjoy playing or facing Esper, and I don't want to just copy Khans by doing five wedges.)
in my friend's cube is heavy on the value EtBs, like Phyrexian Gargantua, Shriekmaw, and Gravedigger. That naturally leads towards Dimir gameplay which is not a focus in this cube. So my primary supported wincon for black is to hide behind blockers while draining your life away. Classic evil villain stuff. Lowest emphasis on the Combat phase out of all 5 colors. I will be sad if this ends up being too boring of a gameplay style, but I want to try it. Including scary finishers that make players feel nervous about being below 10 health against Black is key, I think, to keeping the tension high.As far as other wincons, Black also has some ability to particpate in the Outlast game that White and Green enjoy, or combo with Red for more direct burn to the face and sacrifice/death triggers. Black needs some "pay life" cards to take advantage of widely available lifegain in the cube.
Black's opinion on the Wall / Anti Wall game: black loves walls, and is happy to ignore your Walls by bleeding you out with life loss. Black therefore does not need wallbusting tech.
is the home of the greatest number of wallbusting cards. Whether it's cards that directly blow up Defenders, cards that nuke already-damaged creatures, acts of treason or "cannot block this turn" effects, Red hates walls. Testing will show whether it has too much wall hate or not.Red is our most straightforward color in this Cube. It wants to punch you in the face with creatures early, punch you in the face with creatures hard, and polish you off with a little burn as needed. As stated, Red likes to sac stuff with Black.
Red Blue will probably be the purest, scariest aggro pairing, vaulting over blockers in order to draw cards and clobber.
is not as much about punching you in the face as it is about poking you in the eye. Tempo/looters are the name of the early game here. Theoretically, you use the looting to draw more looters to poke more eyes, powering through removal by drawing more creatures. I This creature-spam technique can trigger Evolves, and the evasive creatures will occasionally swing for massive damage thanks to Green or Red instants.Blue control sees a lot of play in my friend's cube, so I aim to go light on that and see how it goes.
Blue doesn't build walls or smash them very much, but will endeavor to fly over or walk through the walls. Blue also packs the odd P/T swapping effect for entertaining results against creatures that are all toughness.
wants to go big. Whether that means ramping into big green creatures, putting down a horde of white or blue weenies, or spraying +1 tokens all over everything, green wants to build-a-bear, awaken the bear, and then Bear Punch you. I want green decks to actually use green creatures, because I feel like green is often a backup singer in a normal cube. I think the way to do this is to ensure the biggest, sexiest creatures are green, so while you might primarily cast other colors in the midgame, your biggest lategame creature options will have 2 to 4 green mana symbols on them.Green is a Defenders Matter color. Green likes to ramp behind walls and then bring the big bad beasties. It doesn't have great ways to remove annoying walls, but past a certain point green will turn trampling beasties sideways and the walls will have to either get chumped or get out of the way.
has the least clear identity. Right now, my idea of White isn't very different from other Cubes, though that's not necessarily a problem. White likes having a lot of creatures on the field, combat tricks, and spot removal. White is participating in Defenders, +1/+1 tokens and Outlast, and is the home of Lifegain Matters. WB hides behind the walls to drain you, but WG buffs up and attacks you. WB might end up dabbling in some Auramancy. White is likely to see some Battalion or Battle Cry action, which will work well for people who want to play or despite the low amount of official support for those pairings. None of the artifacts are going to be show stoppers, because you shouldn't lose due to not having arti removal. Artifacts are going to let Green do the bulk of the ramping, but artifacts might help with the fixing. Overall, artifacts are going to play a pretty quiet role so that there's room for multicolor cards to be loud and exciting.Power Level:
I might be able to pilfer some cards from Eric Chan's list. I'm with him on the "lower power = more variety" train. Though snapcaster mage obviously can't fit into my cube.
On Gatherer, my rule of thumb is to focus on cards that have a community rating between 3.0 and 4.0. It's not a hard rule, because ratings are subjective and vary wildly according to format, but it helps focus my search. I've seen some 4.2 cards that look like they wouldn't break my cube, but at 4.4 on up things get a little bomb-like.
Help Wanted:
As you can see, I already have a pretty clear idea about the direction I want to head. But I have a long way to go. So if you can suggest C/U stuff that fits the themes, that's the biggest help I'm looking for. I'd also like to know if white's themes are too muddled, or if black's theme is too monolithic. I've probably got some rookie mistakes.
Here's the cube in its current state, it's quite unfinished but at least my goals are clear!
Last thing. Here are the archetypes I think I'm going for. Some of these are probably not actually Archetypes, but I don't know how else to phrase / think of them.
Archetypes that are officially intended:
WB drain/gain. WB pump from lifegain and sac triggers.
WG midrange. WG defenders.
GU card advantage/evolve creature spam (so... tempo?)
UR aggroaggroaggro
RB sac/burn
The three-color stuff seems to just be a mash of the relevant two-color themes. Is that normal or should I find a way to give them a unique identity?
Light graveyard interaction, sac, burn (Grixis)
+1 counters matter (Bant)
Outlast pump from behind walls (Abzan)
All the best removal + weenie rush (Mardu)
Ramp+card advantage+fatties (Temur)
Not-officially-supported things that probably work fine because they naturally work fine. If there are ways to discourage GoodStuff decks that'd be cool to know about.
Jund goodstuff
Boros battalions
Dimir control
Jeskai weenie aggro
RDW
blue or green centric Goodstuff
WB drain/gain. WB pump from lifegain and sac triggers.
WG midrange. WG defenders.
GU card advantage/evolve creature spam (so... tempo?)
UR aggroaggroaggro
RB sac/burn
The three-color stuff seems to just be a mash of the relevant two-color themes. Is that normal or should I find a way to give them a unique identity?
Light graveyard interaction, sac, burn (Grixis)
+1 counters matter (Bant)
Outlast pump from behind walls (Abzan)
All the best removal + weenie rush (Mardu)
Ramp+card advantage+fatties (Temur)
Not-officially-supported things that probably work fine because they naturally work fine. If there are ways to discourage GoodStuff decks that'd be cool to know about.
Jund goodstuff
Boros battalions
Dimir control
Jeskai weenie aggro
RDW
blue or green centric Goodstuff
