Standard or Theme:Standard Snow Lands: No Average Number of Players:Made for 8 man drafts How Often Drafted:40~
Card Selection Proxies: Yes Powered: Sort of (Mind Twist, Sol Ring, Timetwister) Portal: No "Un" Cards: No
Banned Cards for Power-Level: None, will not. Banned Cards for Time Constraints: Shaharazad Banned Cards for "fun" factor: None.
Cube Design Standard or Multiplayer: Standard Sideboards?: Same as normal draft: the rest of your pool. Color Balance: Even Gold Balance: Even Hybrid/Split/Kicker as Gold: I sorted multicolor based on function. So Loam Lion is GW.
1st: Props on taking the initiative to get your own cube going! When I first heard of cube drafting, I never thought I would be able to get all the cards I wanted. Well, a year and a half later (after trading and selling), I'm down to only a handful of proxies! So don't be intimidated if you have a ton of proxies to begin with.
2nd: The best way to answer the questions you asked is to playtest and keep reading the forums. You'll often find convincing arguments just by reading other peoples' cube lists and resources like the card eval thread.
-Bomb-reliant. It seems that the aggressive or tempo based decks can't win fast enough. Someone ramps into a Tooth and Nail or just lands Drana and the game ends. I don't know if I should solve this by adding more answers to bombs? Or reducing the number of bombs?
You'll have to start by defining what you want your cube to be.
-Do you want it to have the best cards ever printed?
-Do you want to ban cards for being too powerful?
If you want to have the best cards printed, I would suggest not getting rid of those bombs. You're going to have to find a balance between the # of bombs in each color and the # of answers to those bombs. It just comes with time and research.
-Aggro. Sort of linked to above, but aggressive decks have a hard time winning. Multiple times what looked like an unstoppable RW aggro deck was stopped cold by every other deck. Solutions?
As others will tell you, aggro needs to be heavily supported in order to work. Make sure to have plenty of reach (cards that can finish when aggro stops):
-Black. I mention this in the black section, but black has issues. It has good removal, and the overall power level of the color isn't too far off other colors, but it can't seem to support a whole deck. It's always splashed. This also affects cards like Tendrils of Corruption, which obviously is bad in a splash. I want mono-black to have good cards, though, so I don't want to just cut all these cards.
There's nothing wrong with a color being best as a supporting color. As you read the forums and find awesome cards, your black section will improve.
i can tell you one problem with black is the creature/noncreature ratio. it's skewed toward noncreature hard enough where i wouldn't even bother running stuff like carnophage or sarcomancy since black/x aggro isn't going to be showing up very often at all. i'd try to get the two more even, rather than having twice as many noncreature spells. since i cut some black control cards for aggro creatures and discard i've been happier with how black has played in the cube.
When I see Healing Salve, I'm often like "Oh girl, I wish I could turn every card into this." Thanks they removed the gain life part, otherwise this would have been broken.
I find it hard to evaluate cubes that are using the guild style of organization. I'm like, "11 lands?? WTF?" only to realize that the other nonbasics are divided up between colorless and multicolor.
I'd suggest going with a smaller cube until you have the funds/means to make it bigger/better. I'd start off with 360, which would allow you to avoid playing cards like Nivix in your UR section and let you run only the better cube worthy cards.
I find it hard to evaluate cubes that are using the guild style of organization. I'm like, "11 lands?? WTF?" only to realize that the other nonbasics are divided up between colorless and multicolor.
this is just a matter of familiarity. i find the guild system to be more rational and easy to evaluate because i use it myself. i think everyone will get used to it eventually.
When I see Healing Salve, I'm often like "Oh girl, I wish I could turn every card into this." Thanks they removed the gain life part, otherwise this would have been broken.
this is just a matter of familiarity. i find the guild system to be more rational and easy to evaluate because i use it myself. i think everyone will get used to it eventually.
I am actually with calibretto here. I've been evaluating sets for 15 years by looking at it from the top down. There are X artifacts, Y lands, Z multicolor cards is familiar to 99.9% of Magic players. Organizing it another way poses more questions than answers for those not used to the system. I like to see that you're running 10 fetches, 10 shocks, 10 duals, 5 Signets, etc. It's much more useful to have this information off the bat rather than have to decipher your guild section.
On topic, I also agree that your cube might be too large for the start, but it'll be good to get more testing in. How many drafts have you done so far?
I have been so happy with the guild system. It provides me with a better way or organizing all of my 2-color support, and it allows me to break up cycles and hand-pick the best support I can use. It makes more sense to me to run it this way, and it's been easier for me to evaluate other cubes that also use this method.
Your black needs more creatures and less spells. It is that simple. Remove some removal (harhar) and see this colour get stronger.
Aggro decks need two specific things. First they need tons of cheap creatures. So you'll have to up your two and one drops. One drops rule but sadly good ones are not that plentifull. This might be hard at first as you will have to drop seemingly more powerful cards. But once you accept that speed matters just as much as brute power, your cube will become more balanced.
Apart from creatures aggro needs spells that either disrupt your opponents plans (à la Sinkhole, Winter Orb, Armageddon, Hymn to Tourach) or get those last points of damage in once your slower opponent stabilises (à la Fireball, Sulfuric Vortex, Overrun, Cursed Scroll,...).
The bombyness problem will be solved by solving your aggro problem. Building a deck around slower cards is possible but you will risk being overrun before you get your Bomb on the battlefield. Once your cube becomes better and more focused this problem will become less of a concern.
You could take a look at our cube. It is about the same size and should give you some ideas of cards you could try out or buy. It is powered but that matters less the nyou might think. Our cube is pretty balanced. Both aggro and control work well. So does ramp or various other archytypes (only reanimator still refuses to work).
Some colours are better then others in most cubes. In powered cubes blue generally has the higher power level. Red is a bit problematic as its creatures are not as good as the other colours'. But it the best support colour in our cube.
I don't have a problem with the guild system, it's just harder for me to critique a cube that uses it. When I look at lands and only see 11, my first instinct is to say, "You need more fixing." I just don't expect to see lands in a multicolored section. It's a fine way of organizing things, it's just harder for me personally to evaluate a cube that's sorted this way.
Your black needs more creatures and less spells. It is that simple. Remove some removal (harhar) and see this colour get stronger.
Aggro decks need two specific things. First they need tons of cheap creatures. So you'll have to up your two and one drops. One drops rule but sadly good ones are not that plentifull. This might be hard at first as you will have to drop seemingly more powerful cards. But once you accept that speed matters just as much as brute power, your cube will become more balanced.
Apart from creatures aggro needs spells that either disrupt your opponents plans (à la Sinkhole, Winter Orb, Armageddon, Hymn to Tourach) or get those last points of damage in once your slower opponent stabilises (à la Fireball, Sulfuric Vortex, Overrun, Cursed Scroll,...).
The bombyness problem will be solved by solving your aggro problem. Building a deck around slower cards is possible but you will risk being overrun before you get your Bomb on the battlefield. Once your cube becomes better and more focused this problem will become less of a concern.
You could take a look at our cube. It is about the same size and should give you some ideas of cards you could try out or buy. It is powered but that matters less the nyou might think. Our cube is pretty balanced. Both aggro and control work well. So does ramp or various other archytypes (only reanimator still refuses to work).
Some colours are better then others in most cubes. In powered cubes blue generally has the higher power level. Red is a bit problematic as its creatures are not as good as the other colours'. But it the best support colour in our cube.
Agreed. I would say close to most cubes have originally had issues similar to yours. The solution is likely to improve aggro until everything feels balanced.
When I see Healing Salve, I'm often like "Oh girl, I wish I could turn every card into this." Thanks they removed the gain life part, otherwise this would have been broken.
would you mind posting your changes? that will make it easier for people to see whether card swaps were improvements or not.
It was mostly a 150 card shrink, only about 10-15 replacements... should I list them all?
Right now I have a pile of all the cards I took out, I will just list those here. These might not have all been in the last list I posted here... I did a number of small changes over the last week or two.
It seems odd that people don't play the threaten effects. Could someone tell me what the reasoning is? Those are some of the top picks that we look for in red decks because it gives you some much-needed reach when the control player drops their bomb. Is it just that I don't have some of the other really good reach cards (Words, Vortex, Stormbind, etc?)
I find it hard to evaluate cubes that are using the guild style of organization. I'm like, "11 lands?? WTF?" only to realize that the other nonbasics are divided up between colorless and multicolor.
I'd suggest going with a smaller cube until you have the funds/means to make it bigger/better. I'd start off with 360, which would allow you to avoid playing cards like Nivix in your UR section and let you run only the better cube worthy cards.
This is what I did, lowered down to 360 until most of the colors started popping at the seams when upgrades would come then slowly move up to a set number.
It seems odd that people don't play the threaten effects. Could someone tell me what the reasoning is? Those are some of the top picks that we look for in red decks because it gives you some much-needed reach when the control player drops their bomb. Is it just that I don't have some of the other really good reach cards (Words, Vortex, Stormbind, etc?)
For me, I'd rather use that 3cc spell or 4cc spell for either A. Removal or B. Disruption or C. I nice fatty fat finisher that will stay around longer than one turn.
My cube used to be the same way, aggro was extremely hard to pull off and you basically had to draft white;black for it to work or no aggro for you. You have to cater to aggro, control has way too much help already when it comes to cubing. They have so many more options. Aggro has to be catered to because in constructed you can use 4 off's so you won't see many reprints with control there are just so many ways to push it over the edge. Its because of this you have to really dig for aggro. Low cc stuff, disruption, and sometimes, jsut not giving control any more help.
lavaclaw reaches and bituminous blast are the only really strong cards you're losing. i'd cut army ants and talisman of indulgence for these two. i know it may seem out of character for black red to want a etb tapped land and a 5 mana removal spell, but they're really good.
When I see Healing Salve, I'm often like "Oh girl, I wish I could turn every card into this." Thanks they removed the gain life part, otherwise this would have been broken.
Bit Blast was something I was unsure of at first as well, but it has constantly 2 for 1'd and once even 3 for 1'd me. Bit blast, kill my creature, into ftk, killed my other creature, then they have 1 creature over me, and killed two of own.
Brutal spell. I wish I could snag it in drafts but I've never got to run it
What do you guys think about Faceless Butcher? I see that it isn't in a lot of lists, but it's a removal spell on a decent body. Fairly comparable to Nekrataal no?
What do you think about the aggro/control balance? Or is that something that only comes from testing?
Ok I used your method to add up my creature ratio... some creatures I wasn't sure what to rate them as, so I ended up with a lot of midrange guys. Here is my count:
The ratio comes out to 1.2 (it should be 2!). SO obviously I need more creatures to support aggro fully. Would you recommend cutting more midrange cards or more control cards? Or should I cut about equal parts of each?
Updated through DGM (Sort of)
Basic Information
Cube Size:450
Standard or Theme:Standard
Snow Lands: No
Average Number of Players:Made for 8 man drafts
How Often Drafted:40~
Card Selection
Proxies: Yes
Powered: Sort of (Mind Twist, Sol Ring, Timetwister)
Portal: No
"Un" Cards: No
Banned Cards for Power-Level: None, will not.
Banned Cards for Time Constraints: Shaharazad
Banned Cards for "fun" factor: None.
Cube Design
Standard or Multiplayer: Standard
Sideboards?: Same as normal draft: the rest of your pool.
Color Balance: Even
Gold Balance: Even
Hybrid/Split/Kicker as Gold: I sorted multicolor based on function. So Loam Lion is GW.
My cube: http://cubetutor.com/viewcube/1884
L2 Judge
1st: Props on taking the initiative to get your own cube going! When I first heard of cube drafting, I never thought I would be able to get all the cards I wanted. Well, a year and a half later (after trading and selling), I'm down to only a handful of proxies! So don't be intimidated if you have a ton of proxies to begin with.
2nd: The best way to answer the questions you asked is to playtest and keep reading the forums. You'll often find convincing arguments just by reading other peoples' cube lists and resources like the card eval thread.
You'll have to start by defining what you want your cube to be.
-Do you want it to have the best cards ever printed?
-Do you want to ban cards for being too powerful?
If you want to have the best cards printed, I would suggest not getting rid of those bombs. You're going to have to find a balance between the # of bombs in each color and the # of answers to those bombs. It just comes with time and research.
As others will tell you, aggro needs to be heavily supported in order to work. Make sure to have plenty of reach (cards that can finish when aggro stops):
would all be examples of reach.
There's nothing wrong with a color being best as a supporting color. As you read the forums and find awesome cards, your black section will improve.
My Legacy-Legal Cube <--- Draft It!
wtwlf123's Classic Cube
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I'd suggest going with a smaller cube until you have the funds/means to make it bigger/better. I'd start off with 360, which would allow you to avoid playing cards like Nivix in your UR section and let you run only the better cube worthy cards.
MTGS Average Peasant Cube 2023 Edition
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this is just a matter of familiarity. i find the guild system to be more rational and easy to evaluate because i use it myself. i think everyone will get used to it eventually.
MTGS Average Peasant Cube 2023 Edition
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I am actually with calibretto here. I've been evaluating sets for 15 years by looking at it from the top down. There are X artifacts, Y lands, Z multicolor cards is familiar to 99.9% of Magic players. Organizing it another way poses more questions than answers for those not used to the system. I like to see that you're running 10 fetches, 10 shocks, 10 duals, 5 Signets, etc. It's much more useful to have this information off the bat rather than have to decipher your guild section.
On topic, I also agree that your cube might be too large for the start, but it'll be good to get more testing in. How many drafts have you done so far?
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Aggro decks need two specific things. First they need tons of cheap creatures. So you'll have to up your two and one drops. One drops rule but sadly good ones are not that plentifull. This might be hard at first as you will have to drop seemingly more powerful cards. But once you accept that speed matters just as much as brute power, your cube will become more balanced.
Apart from creatures aggro needs spells that either disrupt your opponents plans (à la Sinkhole, Winter Orb, Armageddon, Hymn to Tourach) or get those last points of damage in once your slower opponent stabilises (à la Fireball, Sulfuric Vortex, Overrun, Cursed Scroll,...).
The bombyness problem will be solved by solving your aggro problem. Building a deck around slower cards is possible but you will risk being overrun before you get your Bomb on the battlefield. Once your cube becomes better and more focused this problem will become less of a concern.
You could take a look at our cube. It is about the same size and should give you some ideas of cards you could try out or buy. It is powered but that matters less the nyou might think. Our cube is pretty balanced. Both aggro and control work well. So does ramp or various other archytypes (only reanimator still refuses to work).
Some colours are better then others in most cubes. In powered cubes blue generally has the higher power level. Red is a bit problematic as its creatures are not as good as the other colours'. But it the best support colour in our cube.
I feel compelled to repeat everything I hear
MTGS Average Peasant Cube 2023 Edition
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Also, if you want to look for some upgrades, check out the lonely card cube thread. Many upgrades to be had, and thanks for adding another cube.
Agreed. I would say close to most cubes have originally had issues similar to yours. The solution is likely to improve aggro until everything feels balanced.
L2 Judge
would you mind posting your changes? that will make it easier for people to see whether card swaps were improvements or not.
It was mostly a 150 card shrink, only about 10-15 replacements... should I list them all?
Right now I have a pile of all the cards I took out, I will just list those here. These might not have all been in the last list I posted here... I did a number of small changes over the last week or two.
Removed Cards
1 Kazandu Blademaster
1 Infantry Veteran
1 Emeria Angel
1 Ranger of Eos
1 Wing Shards
1 Ghostly Prison
1 Sunlance
1 Kataki, War's Wage
1 Kor Firewalker
1 Kor Hookmaster
1 Burrenton Forge-Tender
1 Glory
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Planar Cleansing
Blue
1 Arcane Laboratory
1 Spell Pierce
1 Legacy's Allure
1 Foil
1 Wonder
1 Mnemonic Wall
1 Azami, Lady of Scrolls
1 Spiketail Drakeling
1 Spiketail Hatchling
1 Cursecatcher
1 Sift
1 Pongify
1 Rhystic Study
1 Traumatic Visions
1 Ophidian
1 Master of Etherium
Black
1 Oversold Cemetery
1 Zombify
1 Mutilate
1 Marsh Casualties
1 Grave Pact
1 Ad Nauseum
1 Rend Flesh
1 Mind Sludge
1 Deathmark
1 Beseech the Queen
1 Rise from the Grave
1 Twilight's Call
1 Nirkana Revenant
1 Tendrils of Corruption
1 Corrupt
1 Phyrexian Plaguelord
1 Mogg War Marshal
1 Pyrokinesis
1 Anger
1 Spark Elemental
1 Kiln Fiend
1 Vulshok Sorcerer
1 Shrapnel Blast
1 Searing Blaze
1 Flame Rift
1 Price of Progress
1 Lava Spike
1 Flames of the Blood Hand
1 Tunnel Ignus
1 Quenchable Fire
1 Flame Wave
1 Cone of Flame
Green
1 Centaur Chieftan
1 Penumbra Kavu
1 Ondu Giant
1 Greenweaver Druid
1 Skyshroud Claim
1 Explosive Vegetation
1 Gaea`s Anthem
1 Hypergenesis
1 Awakening Zone
1 Recollect
1 Plummet
1 Sylvan Scrying
1 Kazandu Tuskcaller
1 Elvish Visionary
1 Crop Rotation
1 Nature's Claim
1 Worldly Tutor
1 Rampaging Baloths
Artifacts
1 Gold Myr
1 Silver Myr
1 Iron Myr
1 Leaden Myr
1 Copper Myr
1 Contagion Clasp
1 Steel Overseer
1 The Rack
1 Expedition Map
1 Cranial Plating
1 Selesnya Signet
1 Armadillo Cloak
1 Recoil
1 Bituminous Blast
1 Giant Solifuge
1 Vedalken Outlander
1 Cadaverous Bloom
1 Hearthfire Hobgoblin
1 Winged Coatl
1 Necrotic Sliver
1 Noggle Ransacker
Lands
1 Flooded Grove
1 Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion
1 Glacial Fortress
1 Golgari Rot Farm
1 Lavaclaw Reaches
1 Rootbound Crag
1 Darkslick Shores
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Cabal Coffers
1 Khlani Garden
1 Mosswort Bridge
1 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
1 Smoldering Spires
1 Sejiri Steppe
1 Kabira Crossroads
1 Tolaria West
1 Halimar Depths
1 Lonely Sandbar
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Stalking Stones
1 Darksteel Citadel
1 Miren, the Moaning Well
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
L2 Judge
L2 Judge
This is what I did, lowered down to 360 until most of the colors started popping at the seams when upgrades would come then slowly move up to a set number.
For me, I'd rather use that 3cc spell or 4cc spell for either A. Removal or B. Disruption or C. I nice fatty fat finisher that will stay around longer than one turn.
My cube used to be the same way, aggro was extremely hard to pull off and you basically had to draft white;black for it to work or no aggro for you. You have to cater to aggro, control has way too much help already when it comes to cubing. They have so many more options. Aggro has to be catered to because in constructed you can use 4 off's so you won't see many reprints with control there are just so many ways to push it over the edge. Its because of this you have to really dig for aggro. Low cc stuff, disruption, and sometimes, jsut not giving control any more help.
Brutal spell. I wish I could snag it in drafts but I've never got to run it
Bituminous Blast
Lavaclaw Reaches
Rampaging Baloths
Flooded Grove
out:
Army Ants
Talisman of Indulgence
Beast Attack
Coiling Oracle
What do you guys think about Faceless Butcher? I see that it isn't in a lot of lists, but it's a removal spell on a decent body. Fairly comparable to Nekrataal no?
What do you think about the aggro/control balance? Or is that something that only comes from testing?
L2 Judge
Not really. They kill it and get their guy right back.
It's okay, but with cards like Nekrataal, Shriekmaw and now Skinrender available... there's no room for him anymore.
You should really test it. But the 3:2:1 method works pretty well for paper balance, and then you can tinker with it after playtesting.
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What is the 3:2:1 method or where could I read about it? Is that like... creatures:spells:lands?? That doesn't make any sense...
L2 Judge
It's in my article (in my sig).
It's a balance between creature selection... aggro:mid-range:control.
3 aggro creatures for every 2 mid-range creatures for every 1 control creature.
..........
In that same vein, the 2:1 "pointing" method works just fine too.
Assign points to each creature in the cube.
Aggro creatures get 'pointed' as 2:0.
Mid-Range and universal creatures; 1:1.
Control-only creatures are 0:2.
The whole ratio for the cube should come out to close to 2:1.
That method is also discussed in the aforementioned article.
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Aggro: 56 creatures
Midrange: 55 creatures
Control: 39 creatures
The ratio comes out to 1.2 (it should be 2!). SO obviously I need more creatures to support aggro fully. Would you recommend cutting more midrange cards or more control cards? Or should I cut about equal parts of each?
L2 Judge
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