General 'walkers and "everything costs 4"

[Dom Harvey]

If Jace, Memory Adept is the older brother, sure. Otherwise, every U planeswalker has more play to it than Jace B, but it's still a great Cube card.

I like Tamiyo a fair bit, but if you're going with 1 in each colour you can't go wrong with the original Lorwyn 'walkers IMO.

 

[Dom Harvey]

If Jace, Memory Adept is the older brother, sure. Otherwise, every U planeswalker has more play to it than Jace B, but it's still a great Cube card.

I like Tamiyo a fair bit, but if you're going with 1 in each colour you can't go wrong with the original Lorwyn 'walkers IMO.

 

[Jason Waddell]

I would replace Chandra with Koth and Liliana with good Liliana if doing 1 per color.

 

[Eric Chan]

I don't know about the most play, but I'm with CML in that Jace Beleren and Garruk Wildspeaker are just about my two favourite walkers, too. Perfect blend of flavourful design, fun gameplay decisions, and being powerful without being oppressive. Garruk, in my books, is as good as it gets for planeswalker design.

 

[ahadabans]

If you guys ran two walkers per color, what would they be?

 

[CML]

This seems patently false. Anybody else thing JB has more play than his older brother?

doh, less than mind sculptor but more than AOT and Tamiyo. +2 vs. -1 is subtly difficult, i've read a few articles that made me say "wtf am i doing with baby jace" but sadly I can't find 'em

--two walkers--

ajani goldmane, ajani cop
baby jace, jtms
lilly, big sorin
good chandra, koth
garruk "OG" wildspeaker, another garruk (maybe fight garruk)

the funny thing is the quality of design falls off substantially after 2 walkers (or after 1 in B)

 

[Jason Waddell]

Lilly x 2 for black.

 

[CML]

yeah that's a lot better, Lilly is tons of fun in cube. i know i've said this before but i love how her power scales to that of the format and with tokens and stuff she's merely pretty good (in addition to enabling reanimator ... for either player)

 

[Dom Harvey]

Try Vess. 5(/6) is a nice amount of starting loyalty and if you untap with it they have to throw a ton of time/resources into taking her down. Alternatively you can just Vamp + Fog, or Vamp + untap which ends the game on the spot (also -2 for Bonfire/Entreat/Terminus, huehuehue)

 

[Goldenpineapple]

Koth pic: "much less one with a clock than red's flagship walker," "pure aggro planeswalker" etc.

Jace Beleren is the U walker with the most play to him, I think, something about his design and Garruk Wildspeaker's is just perfect

The difference between the clock of koth and chandra6 vs. other chandras and sorin markov is they require resources/abilities beyond being in play to do anything. There's a pretty big difference in vacuum clock vs. actual game when you have to attack for damage. And I would hardly say koth's - i pure aggro.

And I agree that Baby Jace has what wizards would call an elegant design, but I also think it's extremely boring. Almost no tension between + and -. I think architect is a fine balance of power for those who hate big jace. I still like tammy the most if I could only have one.

 

[Konge]

I've never been impressed with Vess. She just doesn't do much. On the other hand, I think LotV is one of the very best cards for cube.

 

[Eric Chan]

And I agree that Baby Jace has what wizards would call an elegant design, but I also think it's extremely boring. Almost no tension between + and -.

Whaaat that's crazy. When you're behind or the game is close it's often not obvious what to do with baby Jace, and sometimes (albeit very rarely) I think it's correct to do neither. Yes, when it's a blowout the right call is readily apparent, but most often I find lil' Jace makes for super interesting decisions, despite the outcomes being drawing cards one way or another.

 

[CML]

ahhhh the good ol baby jace 0, can't say I've ever used it or even considered it (tougher to think of a good spot for it than the oft-discussed lilly 0). JB is an easy card to play OK and a hard card to play well, there's a lot of tension between the typical JB deck trying to maximize its resources, but hating it when the opponent has the same. not that it's bad as, uh, Jace's Ingenuity but at worst it makes the game nice and smooth for everybody and isn't oppressive to play against (or oppressive-feeling).

vess is pretty cool. dom may make a convert out of me.

 

[Jason Waddell]

 

[Konge]

She's very good against control, but I find that against aggro, too often she's simply a five mana vampiric tutor.

 

[Jason Waddell]

Vess was terrible in my cube ages ago when it was much slower and durdlier and dragoner. Now it's gotta be just, like, marginally more effective than One With Nothing.

 

[James Stevenson]

I would say One With Nothing is just about perfectly effective at what it does.

 

[ahadabans]

If Vess is left to her own devices for three turns, she auto-wins the game in any deck that put any effort into supporting her. Her ultimate is significantly better than Living Death (a card I've never lost a game after resolving).

I'd say she's a tad bit better than One With Nothing. That just broke my sarcasm meter into a million pieces. Come on.