Normal cubes are okay, but there are already so many existing cubes out there to choose from so I decided to do something a little different. This thread is features my latest themed cube and I guess the best way to describe it would be to start with this:
General Information
Cube Size: 272 Cards
Players: 4-6
Perfect Color Balance: Yes, kind of.
There are 48 blue cards.
There are 35 white and 35 black cards.
There are 28 red and 28 green cards.
There are 14 hybrid gruul cards.
The cube is blue heavy because both bant & grixis share blue.
The cube has a hybrid gruul section because both bant & grixis can cast hybrid gruul spells.
Perfect CMC Balance: No
Errata: No
Dollar Value: ~$750
General Ideas
The goal was to create a format that "felt like M13" but played like a cube.
I've enjoyed M13 drafts so far. There are plenty of interesting archetypes that you draft in M13, including a couple "fun" decks.
There are 225 cards because M13 has 234 cards and 5 of those are basic lands. 225 is the closest "cube appropriate" card count.
The cube contents are limited to black bordered, non-foil cards with a modern frames (with few exceptions), meaning:
Most of the cards are Modern legal.
Some cards are from promotional sets like Ajani vs. Nicol Bolas and Commander's Arsenal.
There are no timeshifted cards.
Every M13 card has either been kept in the cube or replaced with:
Exalted - The very first thing I did when "updating M13" to build this cube was to bring over all the old Shards of Alara exalted cards into the set. In M13 exalted was a white & black mechanic, but the overwhelming amount of exalted from Shards of Alara has shifted it heavily into bant. This means that the "Exalted Deck" gets cards like Rafiq of the Many, Finest Hour, Noble Hierarch, Qasali Pridemage, and Sovereigns of Lost Alara. There are a total of 31 cards with exalted and they form the foundation of the Bant Midrange archetype in this cube. (Although, there is still an opportunity for a black splash for cards like Nefarox, Overlord of Grixis if you want to go real deep.)
Grixis Control - Durdly grixis decks were some of the most fun M13 decks to draft. These decks were spell heavy, had lots of removal, lots of draw, and relied on a few bombs to finish games. Grixis decks control the game early in order to buy time to play massive bombs in the late game, including spells like Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker.
Goblins - Going goblins was always fun if you got enough copies of Goblin Arsonist, Mogg Flunkies, Arms Dealer, and Krenko. All of that is still in the cube, except now you have access to Siege-gang Commander, Guttersnipe, and a few others. And being part of grixis, goblin decks always have the option of splashing blue or black.
Vampires - Going vampires was always a trap in M13. If you were unfamiliar with the format, opening Vampire Nocturnus normally did nothing for you. But in this cube, vampires make up the bulk of grixis "dragons." There are enough small vampires to go aggro and enough big vampires to end the game.
Trading Post - A Trading Post deck was probably the most fun deck to draft in M13 so I had to bring it over the cube. I kept Elixir of Immortality, Chronomaton, and Staff of Nin and gutted everything else in favor of more powerful artifacts such as Thran Dynamo, Voltaic Key, and Pentavus.
Felidar Sovereign - If you drafted M13 enough, every once in a while you'd bump into someone who went deep on life gain, relying on cards like Rhox Faithmender, Bloodhunter Bat, and Mark of the Vampire. These decks were never really very good and I think one of the biggest missed opportunities by WotC in M13 was including Serra Avatar over Felidar Sovereign. Once you put Felidar Sovereign into the mix and if you increased the quality of life gain spells with cards like Congregate, Timely Reinforcements, and Celestial Mantle, you suddenly have a deck. Many of these cards also fit nicely into other archetypes. Serra Ascendant for example is an obvious life gain spell, but it also works great with exalted.
Esper - This cube may heavily push bant & grixis, but no one says you have to stick to those colors in the end. There is white & blue fixing and there is blue & black fixing. There just isn't white & blue & black fixing. But you still have the piece to put together an esper deck with reasonable mana if you get your hands on the right cards.
Gruul - Hybrid gruul cards are included in the cube to balance out the color pie, but maybe red/green is the way to go? You might begin with a hybrid card or two and then pick up Searing Spear. The next thing you know you're passed a Thragtusk. And before you know it, you have a nice pile of cards that is neither bant nor grixis. Just know there will be absolutely no fixing for you except for Chrome Mox, Gilded Lotus and Manamorphose.
The Color Pie
Bant - There are plenty of bant colored gold spells in the cube, but most of them are creatures. Half of the land & artifact fixing in the cube is for bant colors.
Grixis - There are plenty of grixis multi-colored spells including all the charms (grixis, dimir, rakdos, izzet) and split cards. Again, between the two shards, grixis is very heavy on noncreature spells and has plenty of removal. Half of the land & artifact fixing in the cube is for grixis colors.
Blue - Because blue is a part of both bant & grixis, I felt that I was okay to have the power level of blue spells be higher than the other colors. Every player is going to be fighting over blue spells after all.
Gruul - If you look at the diagram above, because bant & grixis both share the color blue, I felt like the other end of the color pie needed something extra to tie it all together. I decided to include hybrid red & green cards in the cube to increase competition among picks during the drafting process (the same role that blue plays). Spells like Manamorphose, Firespout, and Giant Solifuge can all be used by both shards.
Random Design Notes
Grixis Walkers - The mono-colored M13 planeswalkers are out and only Nicol Bolas returns, but this time he brought some friends. There are also 2 monocolored planeswalkers in blue, black, and red. (There are zero white or green planeswalkers.)
X-Spells - I felt like I had to balance the amount of x-spells in each of the colors so Rosheen Meanderer would have an equal chance to fit in any player's deck. There are 2 in each color.
+1/+1 Counters - There is a +1/+1 counter sub-theme in the cube at that theme can be traced all the way back to the M13 rings. When you have things like Steel Oversser, Trikelion, Pentavus, Triskelavus, Spike Feeder, Spike Tiller, Forgotten Ancient, and Mikaeus, the Unhallowed, you can create some pretty interesting interactions. And when you throw in creatures like Scuzzback Marauders in a set with many ways to generate +1/+1 counters, mediocre creatures suddenly become very good if you drafted the right cards. Even creatures like Chronomaton, Quirion Dryad, and all the vampires w/Bloodthirst add to the flavor (I think). You'll noticed that the only counters in the entire cube are either +1/+1 counters on creatures and loyalty counters on planeswalkers. This is intentional. I think there is value in streamlining these kinds of things in a format. Everything becomes very clear (and noob friendly).
I find the idea very interesting, but I think it will be really hard to get comments about balance without testing it.
A few questions, still. 4 Jaces in 225 cards might be too much. Also, they dont fit very well the 'aggro-ish' role you want Bant to have. The other only one PW you have is NB, which obviously belongs to Grixis.
Maybe you should play stuff like Elspeth 1 or Ajani 3.
I find the idea very interesting, but I think it will be really hard to get comments about balance without testing it.
A few questions, still. 4 Jaces in 225 cards might be too much. Also, they dont fit very well the 'aggro-ish' role you want Bant to have. The other only one PW you have is NB, which obviously belongs to Grixis.
Maybe you should play stuff like Elspeth 1 or Ajani 3.
Anyway, the idea looks interesting.
Hm...
You might be right about Jace. I guess the Mind Sculptor is the only one that can actively bounce creatures and at least provide some tempo. I'm not sure if I want to change it yet. They're just a lot of fun to play with. (Well, maybe not Memory Adept.)
edit: After a little bit of thought, I think I'll just get rid of all the Jaces and leave Nicol Bolas as the only planeswalker. This means I'm also swapping out Magmaquake in favor of Earthquake. I'll probably also fit Hurricane in here somewhere for some symmetry. But I still want to keep blue as the most powerful color. I'll need to replace the Jaces with something spicey.
I originally put in Beacon of Unrest in place of Rise from the Grave. Beacon of Destruction seemed like a reasonable straightforward burn spell. And Beacon of Tomorrows seemed fine. And the Zeniths were in to include bant spells that also re-shuffled back into your deck while providing bant with x-spells for Rosheen Meanderer.
I'm a little afraid of Primordial Hydra. It just might be too strong. You either have removal and the game goes on or you don't and you lose within 2 attacks. Not sure if that's fun or not. But there might be enough removal so I'll give it a shot. (But green in general is probably the weakest color... so it might be worth it.)
This has to be the sweetest cube idea I've ever seen, I don't exactly have any input to give you since this cube would definitely require hands on testing to do. But man if I ever decide to build another cube this is definitely #1 on my list. I'll be interested in seeing how this cube evolves for you!
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Want to Cube but don't have one? Check the map if anyone is in your area and get cubing!
This has to be the sweetest cube idea I've ever seen, I don't exactly have any input to give you since this cube would definitely require hands on testing to do. But man if I ever decide to build another cube this is definitely #1 on my list. I'll be interested in seeing how this cube evolves for you!
Thanks.
At $400 for the whole cube, part of the reason I put this together was because of how cheap it is. The most expensive cards are Thundermaw Hellkite and Noble Hierarch. Then there's Blinkmoth Nexus. After that there are maybe 15 cards at ~$10. And everything else is less than $5.
I'm a paranoid person and if I ever bring this anywhere, I won't be giving strangers thousands of dollars worth of cards to strangers. And the cube only supports 5 people... and 1-2 of those will probably be people I know... so that means only 2-3 strangers with the rest of us keeping watch on a very small, inexpensive cube?
I've decided to replace it with Triskelion instead.
It's much weaker than Wurmcoil Engine, but it still gains value with Trading Post, it's a nice pair for Pentavus, and both Pentavus & Triskelion were already in M11. (And core set cards are kind of a theme in this cube.)
I originally replaced Serra Avatar with Felidar Sovereign from the originally M13 list, but in the end I think it may just be too fun of a card to not include in a cube with a life gain theme.
Creature auras are really supposed to be a bant thing and Elder Mastery never really fit other than the fact that I needed anther UBR card. I've decided to replace it with Slave of Bolas and break my "gruul only" hydrid rule just this once.
Nicol Bolas was feeling a little lonely as the only planeswalker--there were 6 planewalkers in M13 after all--so I decided to bring in both Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas and Sarkhan the Mad.
They were both lieutenants of Nicol Bolas in the actual MTG lore, so it's no coincidence that they're in grixis/Nicol Bolas colors.
Tezzeret is the planeswalker the Trading Post deck ever wanted and I think Sarkhan will have a place with both vampires & goblins.
Sarkhan can act as a sacrifice outlet and vampires have the whole Blood Artist / Falkenrath Noble thing going on.
And the goblin token strategy will have plenty of goblins to sacrifice.
And now with 3 planeswalkers (one of which can steal creatures and two others that can creature huge monsters), you can go full grixis walker control if you pick up the right cards during the draft.
I'm also bringing in Solemn Simulacrum to take the place of Triskelion. I know I just added the Triskelion, but Solemn is just better. I originally didn't want to include it because I wanted to minimize 5-color fixing, but I think I'll make an exception. He's just too perfect for the Trading Post deck.
Since Tezzeret is now in the cube, I'm kind of obligated to run the remaining grixis M13 rings.
This cube is more and more becoming a "Core Set Cube" instead of an "M13 Cube." There are still many traces of M13, but I'm just not handcuffing myself to that mold as much anymore.
I've removed all the elf & merfolk lords from the cube. Goblins & vampires were the only "real" tribes anyway. The other lords were just side things that never got picked. Now I just made it official and dismantled the other tribes.
Doom Blade, Go for the Throat, and Ultimate Price always bothered me because they were so similar. At least Negate, Essence Scatter, and Mana Leak will have you playing them all very differently every single game. I also love the simple text of "Destroy target creature" on Murder. (It's the same reason I'm using Blaze instead of Fireball.)
Chandra's Phoenix, Firewin Phoenix, and Magma Phoenix are all in. I think they give another dimension to deck building and are perfect for any "creature-less" / planeswalker deck strategies.
More Vampires - There just weren't enough vampires before. It was too hard to bring the tribe together in a draft. Unlike the goblins who generate many goblin tokens at a time, all of the vampires come in singles.
Dark Ritual - This is a card that I was a little afraid of, but I think the black aggro deck needed a little more power to compete with the bant exalted deck.
Fauna Shaman & Elvish Piper combo is in. Green was feeling a little too one dimensional and now it can attack from a different angle.
I've decided to test out how 3 more grixis planeswalkers would play. Jace Beleren, Liliana of the Veil, and Chandra, the Firebrand are all in. If they don't work, I'll pull them out, but I think it's worth testing.
Eternal Witness & Mwonvuli Beast Tracker are in to continue a green theme I started with Fauna Shaman & Elvish Piper. Green is now the color of searching for silver bullets.
Bramblecrush is in as an additional answer for planeswalkers.
Primal Huntbeast is mostly in because it felt wrong for Mwonvuli Beast Tracker to be included without at least one target with hexproof.
Smallpox and Liliana can both kill Primal Huntbeast, but they also work well with all the phoenixes.
Angelic Destiny is very powerful, but I think there are probably enough answers to creatures that don't actually kill the creatures. It also continues the bant aura theme.
Flashfreeze is my new pet card for the cube. Since both bant & grixis share the color blue, both shards can cast the spell. And since bant includes green and grixis includes red, that means that both shards have active targets.
This cube is awesome! I'd love to draft it. I really enjoy how you've built multiple themed cubes that are built to create a specific draft environment.
Have people had trouble casting the triple hybrid mana Gruul cards like Boggart Ram-Gang or Boartusk Liege? They seem much more like R/G gold cards than true flexible hybrids. Or maybe you're okay with someone occasionally building a Gruul deck?
This cube is awesome! I'd love to draft it. I really enjoy how you've built multiple themed cubes that are built to create a specific draft environment.
Have people had trouble casting the triple hybrid mana Gruul cards like Boggart Ram-Gang or Boartusk Liege? They seem much more like R/G gold cards than true flexible hybrids. Or maybe you're okay with someone occasionally building a Gruul deck?
Right. Those 2 cards in particular don't go in the regular grixis or bant decks, they go in the goblin deck. Because so many of the gruul cards are goblins, you can actually put together a pretty good red-heavy deck that's just straight up goblin tribal. And even that has some options because you can end up with a goblin deck that splashes green for a Thragtusk or whatever as strange as that sounds.
On the other hand, a 3/3 haste wither creature in a green heavy deck with some exalted sounds kind of deadly (attacking with a 4/4 or 5/5 wither creature on turn 3? or even on turn 2 with Noble Hierarch?), but I haven't been able to live the dream yet.
So even though the cube is set up as a Bant vs. Grixis cube, you still have a couple options.
I've been thinking about trying to squeeze Misty Rainforest and Scalding Tarn. Only these 2 because they're the only fetch lands on color in modern borders. Maybe take out Mystifying Maze and one of the artifacts. Or maybe the panoramas which are a little underwhelming (but on theme). Not sure yet. (Mystifying Maze is turning out to be too good against exalted and this cube doesn't have much land destruction.)
edit: I really want to increase the size of my cube, but I've decided to control myself until Wizards prints more exalted cards. Exalted is supposed to be the main mechanic for the cube and if I just start adding cards, it'll start to get watered down. As of now, I'm only looking to include Core Set cards, exalted cards, and hybrid gruul cards. Maybe some modern legal artifacts or random grixis spells, but that's about it.
I've bumped the cube card count from 225 up to 270. The exalted theme might be a little watered down, but I think it still works. I won't go over every single card change, but here are some of the highlights:
More Removal - One of my latest changes before this was to finally add the titans. They made sense because they like to attack (for exalted) and they're really cool. The problem is that they're also really powerful. More removal was needed.
Trading Post Deck Greatly Upgraded - I've added a full cycle of artifact creatures that climb up the CMC ladder from 0 to 7. I've also added many more noncreature artifacts that also climb up the CMC ladder from 0 to 7. On top of that, Trinket Mage & Treasure Mage are in to help fetch them out and make the decks run smoother.
ETB Creatures Expanded - Together with Trinket Mage & Treasure mage, I've also added creatures like Goblin Matron and a few others to go along with Eternal Witness, Auramancer, and Archaeomancer. In a singleton format, I like how these tutor type cards play.
Grixis Walkers Expanded - Blue, Black, and Red have all received a 2nd planeswalker (Koth of the Hammer, Liliana Vess, and Tezzeret the Seeker). White & Green still don't get any just because I want bant & grixis to play as differently as possible.
More Fixing - I've added the bant & grixis talismen (from Mirrodin) and the 10th Edition Pain Lands. A total of 10 additional lands and mana rocks.
Mutiplayer Option - Sometimes you just want to play a multiplayer FFA. The cube already featured cards like Earthquake, Hurricane, Congregate, Day of Judgment, and Planar Cleansing. Now it also has Soul Warden, Auriok Champion, Blood Artist, Falkenrath Noble, Innocent Blood, Smallpox, Barter in Blood, and Coat of Arms.
Counters Simplified - The only counters that appear on cards are now either +1/+1 counters on creatures and loyalty counters on planeswalkers. (Technically, there are a few creatures with wither... but I give a pass on those and tuck them under the +1/+1 counter umbrella.) I realized that the only other counters were being generated by Ratchet Bomb & Djinn of Wishes. They were nice cards, but for the sake of streamlining the cube they had to go and it was an easy cut.
Bigger & Better - There is a running theme in the cube that involves more expensive (but better) versions of other cards. I've expanded this theme:
edit: I don't think I need Howling Mine or Mind Stone. All of the signets and talismen provide plenty of 2 cmc noncreature artifacts for the cube.
edit: I've decided to bring in Troll Ascetic & Thrun, the Last Troll. Because of this, I've also added more sacrifice effects (Innocent Blood, Small Pox, Barter in Blood). I'm a little afraid of turn 3 Troll Ascetic into turn 4 Angelic Destiny, but I'll try it out. Nut hands happen in cube.
As others have said, I can't really make many useful suggestions for a cube this far out there. But man, what a cool concept! And the execution looks spot on.
As others have said, I can't really make many useful suggestions for a cube this far out there. But man, what a cool concept! And the execution looks spot on.
Please, post some draft breakdowns and decklists!
Sure.
I'm just waiting on a bunch of cards in the mail (after the bump to 270 cards). I'll have to test it, but it all looks fine to me.
Also, here's a more concise description I plan to include with the cube:
Cube Design
Rafiq of the Many vs. Nicol Bolas is basically a “Bant vs. Grixis” cube with an M13 design philosophy. It was originally designed to be an updated M13 cube, but it quickly turned into a “core set cube” with additional exalted cards from Lorwyn Block and a few hybrid gruul cards from various sets. ‘Exalted’ was the primary mechanic of M13 and Rafiq of the Many is the biggest and baddest exalted creature that has ever been printed. Nicol Bolas on the other hand was an M13 limited bomb in a format where Grixis Control was one of the most fun archetypes a player could draft.
All gold and split cards in the cube are either Bant or Grixis colored. Every multicolored bant card is a creature and every multicolored grixis card is a spell or planeswalker. With rare exception, all mana fixing produces either bant or grixis colored mana. In short, while there is nothing forbidding other color combinations from being drafted, specific support exists exclusively for bant and grixis.
The reason why the blue section is so large is because both bant and grixis share the color blue. Similarly, this is the same reason why equal portions of the red and green sections were split into a combined hybrid gruul section. The idea is to promote competition for picks among bant and grixis players during the draft process – an essential component for any good draft format.
With rare exception, the only additional keyworded ability found on cards is ‘exalted’.
With rare exception, the only counters that appear on permanents are +1/+1 counters on creatures and loyalty counters on planeswalkers.
Decks made from this cube are designed to be played in either 1-vs-1 matches or in a multiplayer free-for-all.
In the end, the goal was to create a format that still felt like M13, but now played like a cube. By focusing on two specific 3-color combinations, the cube is able to support a relatively large amount of multicolored spells supported by a generous amount of specific color fixing. Roll it all up and you get a very streamlined and focused draft environment.
Common Archetypes
Bant Exalted – These decks tend to put on the pressure, curve out, and continue piling on the pressure. They have access to white auras, green pump, and blue bounce spells to help out tempo their opponents. Grixis Control – These decks are removal filled, counter based decks, fueled by mana acceleration and are as grindy as they get. Note: All planeswalkers in the cube are in grixis colors. Trading Post – Many artifacts have been included exclusively to support this M13 favorite. Many of these artifacts cycle well between your hand, battlefield, and graveyard. Note: There is very little artifact removal in the cube. Life Gain – Serra Ascendant and Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant are both game changing cards once their controller has 30+ life. And Felidar Sovereign represents the only alternate win condition in the cube. Tribal Goblins – This deck represents the most aggressive archetype in the cube. It begins with a high concentration of cheap creatures and ends with a mass token strategy, all supported by burn. Esper Control – While “esper” multicolored spells and fixing are nonexistent, it’s still possible to cobble together enough azorius and dimir cards to support this counter heavy, card drawing, life gaining deck.
It's a 1-page insert type thing to have ready (along with a cube list) so people have a better idea on what they're getting themselves into. Or people can just draft it cold. Makes no difference to me.
edit: Updated enchant creature section. With all my recent changes, I realized that there were very few auras left for Sovereigns of Lost Alara to take advantage of. With my new focus on keeping a multiplayer option for the cube, I've decided to bring in the bant colored vows from Commander:
I was looking for something that kind of mimic'd what Thragtusk was doing and these 2 were the closest I could find. It felt wrong that green didn't have the biggest creature in the cube. The only reanimation spell is Zombify and there aren't too many enablers, so I think it should be fine. And with Phantasmal Image & Clone, it should be really fun in multiplayer FFA. (I really wish Rapid Hybridization/Pongify was green.)
edit: Just as I thought, Angelic Destiny has just become too powerful, especially with Troll Ascetic and Thrun, the Last Troll. Angelic Dstiny is out. Still looking for more auras, so I'm going to try out this pair:
Skinshifter and the spider began feeling a little out of place. They were decent creatures on their own but I wanted something a little more interactive. The cube in general has adopted a +1/+1 counter subtheme that can be traced all the way back to the M13 rings. Ring of Kalonia combos well with these 2, but so do other creatures like Mikaeus, the Lunarch, Triskelion, Pentavus, and Scuzzback Marauder. Spike Feeder also slots in well into a bant or selesnya life gain deck. Spike Tiller does a decent job at creating a little army of critters, but it's also a kind of skill tester card in those times where the correct play is to turn your opponent's land into lands and then destroy them.
edit: I've decided to give black a little more flavor and have added a global enchantment twist to the cube. There are only 3 other global enchantments in the cube right now and they all have exalted. This also means that there is very little enchantment removal. 3 black enchantments in:
If you count black planeswalkers in Liliana and Sorin, a monoblack or grixis player could climb the cmc ladder all to the way to 5 and 6. Coincidentally, all 3 enchantments play very well together. In a way, you can say that this change evens out the global enchantments between bant & grixis, now having 3 each. Grave Pact also turns out to be another answer for Giant Solifuge, Ascetic Troll, and Thrun -- something I always want to keep in check.
I think black needed to be tightened up a little bit. I've decided to get rid of Zombify as one of my cuts. I don't have too many discard outlets in the cube because it doesn't really support reanimator, but a lucky draw of turn 3 EOT Izzet Charm into turn 4 Zombify, reanimating a Grave Titan, turned out to be too strong of a play. It was an unwinnable scenario for the opponent. With Zombify out of the way, I feel comfortable adding something like Zombie Infestation into the cube and purely a zombie token generator. There are still combos you can pull off with things like Squee, Goblin Nabob or any of the 3 Phoenixes, but all discard outlets are much less broken without a reanimation element to ruin everyone's fun.
edit: This should be the final change until M14. I'm removing Mindslaver and Spine of Ish Sah. With Beast Withing and Terastodon, the spine wasn't that necessary. And Mindslaver was getting a little too annoying for some people. There was already a similar effect with ultimate Sorin, but that seems more fair. The truth is that they were only included in the cube because I needed another 6cmc artifact and 7cmc artifact for Treasure Mage to fetch. I'm giving up on that just so the cube plays better.
Only the enemy colored fetch lands exist in modern borders, so these 2 are in and the others are out. This actually works out perfectly, because there are only allied colored Talisman from Mirrodin. With both the 4 Talisman and these 2 fetch lands, the fixing for each 2-color pair evens out.
As others have said, I can't really make many useful suggestions for a cube this far out there. But man, what a cool concept! And the execution looks spot on.
Please, post some draft breakdowns and decklists!
With a 270 cube, it can now support up to 3 sealed decks. Here's an example of a deck made from a sealed pool I put together:
(I should have probably had 18 land minimum, but it worked out in the end.)
I crushed both of my opponents. It was just the sickest grixis deck in this format. The only problem with it was a relatively low amount of fixing, including only 4 nonbasic lands and zero manarocks. Because of this, I decided on a heavy UB deck with a very light red splash (Rosheen Meanderer, Earthquake, Inferno Titan).
Rosheen Meanderer is one of my favorite pet cards in the entire cube. It lets you do some of the most broken things and you can easily first pick it because it fits in both bant & grixis. It's power is completely dependent on your other picks, but it's always fun to first pick it just for the chance to do something broken. With 3 x-spells in my pool I knew I was going to have some fun.
Time Warp + Titans & planeswalkers is always fun.
Fog Bank, Frost Breath, Solemn Simulacrum, some removal, and some counters was enough to buy time for the bombs.
Dark Ritual might be one of the most broken cards in the cube. With 6x double & triple black spells, the ritual did a lot of work. Even a turn 2 Solemn Simulacrum was more than worth it.
If I built it again with 18 land, I think I could have cut the Staff of Nin. I didn't really need it with 3 titans and 2 tutor effects to help fetch those titans.
The deck really could have used a few mana rocks. The only times I lost was times where I was stuck on mana and spells that were too expensive.
EDIT: Here is another deck that was also very fun for very different reasons!
The Trading Post & Gain Life/Felidar Sovereign decks represent the closest thing to combo decks in this cube and this deck managed to merge the two together. This might be one of the most fun decks I've ever put together.
The deck's biggest weakness is the lack of removal. It relied solely on Beast Within and Master of the Wild Hunt to manage the board. I probably should have just cut Rafiq for a Hurricane that I had. But at the time, it just felt wrong to cut Rafiq.
More Notes:
I actually had the Sovereigns of Lost Alara + Celestial Mantle combo and chose not to run it! Because of Trading Post together with all the tutors and graveyard interactions, I chose to focus the deck on being more artifacts heavy and there really wasn't a place for enchantments.
I had both Nature's Lore and Wood Elves in my pool and chose to go with the elves just because I had a pair of signets already and I wanted another good target for Sun Titan.
EDIT AGAIN: Here is an example of themed deck that just didn't have enough punch:
This deck kind of has a lot of things going for it, but there just aren't enough win conditions. The win conditions that are in the deck are just too slow to make a difference.
Notes:
Trinket Mage & Treasure Mage have 2 targets each.
Every single card except for Nicol Bolas can be cast with only blue mana.
Both Akroma's Memorial and Voltaic Key work well with Chronomaton, Steel Overseer, and Clockwork Hydra when piling on the +1/+1 counters.
The only games this deck ever won was from a well timed Mind Control on an opposing titan. Nicol Bolas just didn't have enough of a supporting cast to impact the board.
In the end, it turned out to be a poor deck in general.
EDIT MORE: And here's my latest creation; a pretty good example of the rare Gruul Goblin deck:
This is a pretty good version of that deck, but it's not perfect:
There is no Siege-Gang Commander or Arms Dealer. Squee, Goblin Nabob combos with Rummaging Goblin, but not much else. I just needed more playables.
The great thing about this deck is that there are so many gruul cards that get double bonuses from Boartusk Liege.
I was able to get both the red & green rings. They pull double duty on the gruul creatures and they also combo with Scuzzback Marauders, resetting the persist every upkeep.
Another minor problem was that there weren't too many targets to copy with conspire from Wort, the Raidmother. There is no Searing Spear, Chandra's Fury, Explosive Impact, or Blaze.
Burning-Tree Emissary & Manamorphose are 2 of only a few cards that can fix for gruul in the cube.
There is a trick you can do with Manamorphose + Firespout + Forest which allows the deck to pay for Firespout without using red. This is a neat trick if you only want to hit fliers.
After a little more testing, the only part of the cube I'm not completely satisfied with yet is the artifact section. It's close, but I think I need to drop a few of them. I'll be updating the artifacts in the next few days.
This deck started out a little rough, but it ended up really good. I first picked Siege-Gang Commander and was trying to force goblins, but they never came. Instead, ended up picking both Falkenrath Noble and Blood Artist and went for a Red/Black token style deck that splash blue.
With Siege-Gang Commander, Grave Titan, and Goblin Rally, I had really good token producers which fueled the noble/artist combo.
Goblin Matron was also an all-star, also fueling the noble/artist. In general, I'm really liking how all of the tutor/regrowth type cards (Treasure Mage, Trinket Mage, Fabricate, Auramancer, Archaeomancer, Fierce Empath, etc.) fill out the deck. I will run any tutor with as little as 2 targets. And for this deck, both Ember Hauler and Siege-Gang were both great targets. I just think they're so important for this singleton format where you can really start crafting your deck as the draft unfolds where you're looking for specific tutor targets.
Rosheen Meanderer was great, as always. I got 3 of the 10 x-spells (2 per color) and they're always a blow out when you can bump x by 4. And this is another example of picking one card which really gives you a mission during the draft on which other cards you should be valuing more.
Thrun was just unbeatable once it got enough counters on it, especially with Ring of Kalonia.
This isn't a strict "Exalted Deck", but when you pile a few exalted creatures on top of all the +1/+1 counters going around, you can begin pushing through a lot of damage.
Even Serra Ascendant was a really good target with lifelink. My only chance of getting to 30+ life was with Forgotten Ancient + Spike Feeder, but that never happened... and I didn't really need it when I won.
The deck only really had problems when my opponent had a lot of removal to answer all my little dorks. Then if I stalled on 2-3 more draws, it was just too little, too late. At that point, the only card that really gets the deck back into the game was Thrun as just a big dumb blocker and then find a way to make him bigger.
I think Manamorphose may quietly be one of the best cards in the cube. It has obvious interactions with creatures like Talrand, Sky Summoner, Forgotten Ancient, Quirion Dryad, and Guttersnipe, but it also fixing for these 3 color decks, it can be regrowthed as a simple cantrip, and it just fits into almost every deck. If you draft it, you just know there's a really good chance it's going to make your deck.
Quirion Dryad in general has been kind of funny from what I've seen. And I think it all has to do with the dedicated Gruul section of the cube. It's very possible to draft a bant deck with the dryad as the only monogreen spell.
"My Cube is Done™"
-Ninja_Bob, May 4th, 2013
My cube is done. I'm really happy where its at and the whole point of getting into cube was so I could sell of the rest of my collection and get out of magic. I know there will probably be more cards that I would want to add (especially in core sets), but I'm going to resist the temptation until Exalted is brought back again. Once they decide to bring back Exalted, I'll expand this cube some more and hopefully hit at least 360. Until that time, I'm not going to buy a single Magic card.
(I don't want to do that now because I don't want to dilute Exalted as a main mechanic.)
The good thing about cards like Mox Opal, Trinket Mage, and Treasure Mage is that they don't really fit into many other decks other than the Trading Post deck. During the draft, this means that you can usually count on certain cards to wheel. Normally, I think this is bad design for a cube (cookie cutter archetypes), but I loved the "Trading Post Deck" a lot in M13 and I wanted it to work here.
I really like the Staff of Domination / Trading Post "combo." Technically, they don't combo with each other at all, but they compliment each other very well. They both combo with every other artifact creature in the cube in different ways and in general, they give you so many on board options once they hit the table. If you can stall the game long enough and have enough mana, I don't think there are many ways for you to lose.
Also note that with a relatively large blue section in this cube, this mono blue style deck is easier to assemble than any other mono colored deck. (Although, there are more players at the table that can fit blue cards in their decks.)
edit again: I don't have the exact decklist, but I tried to put this Exalted deck back together. It went undefeated and only lost a game to a grixis deck that had a lot of low cost removal (doom blade, searing spear, murder, etc.).
There are a total of 13 cards with exalted and this is as close to "The Nut Exalted Deck" as you're going to get. There are a few missing pieces like Noble Hierarch, but you can't have everything and the deck is still really good without it.
Most of the cards are self-explanatory, but the deck even has an aura/enchantment sub-theme. Sovereigns of Lost Alara has obvious synergy, but Sun Titan can also fetch the vows or Spirit Mantle from the grave after you get 2-for-1'd.
In this deck Vow of Wildness & Vow of Duty can actually be turned into decent removal since the deck also packs Spirit Mantle & Holy Mantle for your creatures to sneak by later, if necessary.
What is a deck really going to do against a turn 2 Sigiled Paladin into a turn 3 Ardent Plea? Not to mention that 5 of the 8 cards that cost 2 or less mana also have exalted -- meaning you're attacking with a 5/5 first striker on turn 3. God help your opponent if you drop an Sublime Archangel or Rafiq of the Many of turn 4.
This is the type of deck that just gives you free wins with the right hands.
I've decided to include (black bordered) foil cards in modern borders if non-foil versions of those cards don't exist. So far this includes: Mox Diamond, Crosis, the Purger, and Merchant Scroll.
Treva, the Renewer & Crosis, the Purger are in and Sphinx of Uthuun & Sphinx Ambassador are out. The sphinxes used to rule the skies as the biggest fliers in the cube, but they were never really getting drafted. The Invasion dragons come down a turn earlier to match the titans, they're big enough to trade with the titans, and they continue to promote Bant & Grixis. Treva fits the life gain theme and Crosis will fit in nicely as a Grixis Control Finisher. CMC of 6 really has become the sweet spot for all fatties in this format. And as of right now, only Pentavus, Triskelavus, and Terastodon have a CMC greater than 6.
Contagion Clasp & Contagion Engine are both in. I really like how these 2 simple artifacts with proliferate really bring together the +1/+1 counter sub-theme found in the cube. A lot of cards can place +1/+1 counters on other creatures (Mikaeus, the Lunarch, Forgotten Ancient), but then there are other cards that don't interact at all (Quirion Dryad, Sengir Vampire). With proliferate, now they all matter. This also introduces an interesting element where the +1/+1 and -1/-1 counters cancelling each other out also now matters. And on top of +1/+1 counter strategies, these 2 artifacts are exactly what Grixis Planeswalker decks are looking for.
I've also decided to include Supply/Demand (bant split card) to pair with Rise/Fall (grixis split card). Before I added Crosis, every grixis card was a noncreature spell. So now that I've given grixis a creature, I thought I'd give bant a noncreature/nonenchantment spell to even things out. And I like split cards, so Supply/Demand is in.
Replaced Mind Shatter with Death Cloud and also added Rakdos's Return to the list. I had to balance out the x-spells since Supply/Demand gives another one to Selesnya. Rakdos's Return is strictly better than Mind Shatter so Mind Shatter had to go. And Death Cloud actually fits the theme of the cube, being a bigger & bigger version of Smallpox.
There are now a total of 12 x-spells, all color balanced (2 white, 2 blue, 2 black, 2 red, 2 green, 1 selesnya, and 1 rakdos). This is important to keep a p1p1 Rosheen Meanderer open to all color combinations for pick 2.
This deck had 2 ways to win. It could either get an easy with with Crosis and/or Grave Titan or it could set up a board state where Death Cloud blows up the world (usually involving Tezzert the Seeker or have enough creature tokens to sacrifice).
Also note that the only x-spell in the deck for Rosheen Meanderer is Death Cloud. (Worth it.)
Pretty good life gain cards, but the Spelltwine might have been a little too ambitious. With Time Stretch as a target, it was a little too tempting to leave on the sidelines. And... maybe the Time Stretch itself was equally ambitious with no real way to hard cast it except for Primeval Titan or a Hierarch/Palladium Myr combo head start.
Game 1
On the play, the Bant deck mulled to 6 and cast a turn 1 Serra Ascendant. On turn 2, the Grixis deck casts Smallpox, leaving the Bant player with 1 land, 0 creatures, and 3 cards in hand. It took a few more turns after a Grave Titan got copied with Phantasmal Image, but 1 Unsummon later and it was all over.
Grixis Leads 1-0
Game 2
The play of the game was on turn 6 when the Grixis player had a Gilded Lotus, Talisman of Dominance, Izzet Signet, and Mox Opal on the battlefield and casts Death Cloud where x=8. It became a top deck war after that, but with so much artifact mana available, it was just a matter of time before they could find their win condition.
Grixis Leads 2-0
Game 3
Normally a turn 2 Signet into turn 3 Dark Ritual + Grave Titan is a problem. But not when that Grave Titan is answered with a Vow of Wildness and then 3 turns later that same Grave Titan is hit with a Mind Control. The turn 3 Grave Titan transformed into a 9/9 Grave Titan + 3 additional exalted triggers.
Grixis Leads 2-1
Game 4
A turn 3 Palladium Myr into a turn 4 Primeval Titan was the difference. The turn before the Grixis player was setting up a huge Death Cloud, but with all the extra lands, the Bant player would actually end up ahead. So instead, the Grixis player played a turn 5 Grave Titan. Unfortunately, it just get Mind Controlled the next turn.
Now facing a Palladium Myr, Primeval Titan, and Grave Titan, they have no choice but to play some more artifact mana and Death Cloud for 3. At this point the Bant player is at 11 and the Grixis player is at 17. The Grixis player top decks a Servant of Nefarox and the Bant player top decks a Fauna Shaman. It's not too long before they also have a Thragtusk, Felidar Sovereign, and Rhox Faithmender online. The game ends after a 6/6 flying Serra Ascendant hits the table.
Series Tied 2-2
Game 5
Kind of a funny game 5 where an early Knight of Infamy + spot removal got the Bant player down to 6 life until a Rhox Faithmender + Phantasmal Image hit the battlefield. After that it must have been 5 turns of mana flood for both players as a Rhox Faithmender + 1 exalted beat in for 2 and gain 8 life per turn. By the time the Bant player got a Fauna Shaman into Felidar Sovereign, they were at 58 life.
Normal cubes are okay, but there are already so many existing cubes out there to choose from so I decided to do something a little different. This thread is features my latest themed cube and I guess the best way to describe it would be to start with this:
General Information
General Ideas
The Cube
1 Akrasan Squire
1 Serra Ascendant
1 Soul Warden
1 Aven Squire
1 Knight of Glory
1 Sighted-Caste Sorcerer
1 Auriok Champion
1 Sigiled Paladin
1 Attended Knight
1 Auramancer
1 Guardians of Akrasa
1 Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant
1 Rhox Faithmender
1 Sublime Archangel
1 Battlegrace Angel
1 Serra Angel
1 Felidar Sovereign
1 Sun Titan
1 Mikaeus, the Lunarch
1 Righteous Blow
1 Raise the Alarm
1 Rebuke
1 Vanquish
1 Timely Reinforcements
1 Captain's Call
1 Congregate
1 Divine Verdict
1 Day of Judgment
1 Planar Cleansing
1 Hail of Arrows
1 Spirit Mantle
1 Vow of Duty
1 Angelic Benediction
1 Holy Mantle
1 Celestial Mantle
1 Phantasmal Bear
1 Augury Owl
1 Merfolk Looter
1 Phantasmal Image
1 Dawnray Archer
1 Frontline Sage
1 Scroll Thief
1 Treasure Mage
1 Trinket Mage
1 Wind Drake
1 Æther Adept
1 Clone
1 Outrider of Jhess
1 Archaeomancer
1 Mist Raven
1 Phantasmal Dragon
1 Talrand, Sky Summoner
1 Thieving Magpie
1 Frost Titan
1 Force Spike
1 Ponder
1 Preordain
1 Unsummon
1 Essence Scatter
1 Mana Leak
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Negate
1 Redirect
1 Twincast
1 Divination
1 Frost Breath
1 Cancel
1 Foresee
1 Concentrate
1 Sleep
1 Talrand's Invocation
1 Evacuation
1 Tidings
1 Time Warp
1 Spelltwine
1 Time Stretch
1 Condescend
1 Mind Spring
1 Vow of Flight
1 Threads of Disloyalty
1 Mind Control
Blue Planeswalkers
1 Jace Beleren
1 Tezzeret the Seeker
1 Duty-Bound Dead
1 Blood Artist
1 Child of Night
1 Knight of Infamy
1 Bloodghast
1 Vampire Hexmage
1 Bloodrage Vampire
1 Servant of Nefarox
1 Vampire Nighthawk
1 Duskmantle Prowler
1 Falkenrath Noble
1 Vampire Outcasts
1 Vampire Nocturnus
1 Bloodlord of Vaasgoth
1 Sengir Vampire
1 Grave Titan
1 Nefarox, Overlord of Grixis
1 Dark Ritual
1 Innocent Blood
1 Doom Blade
1 Go for the Throat
1 Ultimate Price
1 Smallpox
1 Mind Rot
1 Murder
1 Barter in Blood
1 Diabolic Tutor
1 Essence Drain
1 Sorin's Vengeance
1 Death Cloud
1 Diabolic Revelation
1 Phyrexian Arena
1 Grave Pact
Black Planeswalkers
1 Liliana Vess
1 Sorin Markov
1 Goblin Fireslinger
1 Mogg Fanatic
1 Mogg Flunkies
1 Ember Hauler
1 Arms Dealer
1 Goblin Matron
1 Guttersnipe
1 Rummaging Goblin
1 Chandra's Phoenix
1 Firewing Phoenix
1 Beetleback Chief
1 Krenko, Mob Boss
1 Magma Phoenix
1 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Inferno Titan
1 Shock
1 Krenko's Command
1 Searing Spear
1 Act of Treason
1 Hammer of Bogardan
1 Chandra's Outrage
1 Chandra's Fury
1 Goblin Rally
1 Insurrection
1 Blaze
1 Earthquake
1 Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded
1 Chandra, the Firebrand
1 Noble Hierarch
1 Deadly Recluse
1 Fauna Shaman
1 Quirion Dryad
1 Court Archers
1 Fierce Empath
1 Wood Elves
1 Spike Feeder
1 Troll Ascetic
1 Elvish Piper
1 Forgotten Ancient
1 Rhox Charger
1 Kessig Recluse
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Thragtusk
1 Spike Tiller
1 Primeval Titan
1 Terastodon
1 Primordial Hydra
1 Giant Growth
1 Titanic Growth
1 Beast Within
1 Recollect
1 Might of Oaks
1 Ranger's Path
1 Overrun
1 Hurricane
Green Enchantments
1 Vow of Wildness
1 Scuzzback Scrapper
1 Tattermunge Maniac
1 Burning-Tree Emissary
1 Gruul Guildmage
1 Vexing Shusher
1 Boggart Ram-Gang
1 Rosheen Meanderer
1 Giant Solifuge
1 Boartusk Liege
1 Scuzzback Marauders
1 Wort, the Raidmother
1 Manamorphose
1 Pit Fight
1 Firespout
1 Ethercaste Knight
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Giltspire Avenger
1 Rafiq of the Many
1 Rhox Bodyguard
1 Waveskimmer Aven
1 Sigiled Behemoth
1 Sovereigns of Lost Alara
1 Treva, the Renewer
1 Ardent Plea
1 Finest Hour
Bant Split Cards
1 Supply/Demand
Grixis Creatures
1 Crosis, the Purger
Grixis Spells
1 Dimir Charm
1 Izzet Charm
1 Grixis Charm
1 Cruel Ultimatum
1 Rakdos's Return
1 Unscythe, Killer of Kings
Grixis Planeswalkers
1 Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker
Grixis Split Cards
1 Fire/Ice
1 Pain/Suffering
1 Rise/Fall
1 Spite/Malice
1 Steel Overseer
1 Alloy Myr
1 Palladium Myr
1 Triskelion
1 Pentavus
1 Triskelavus
Other Artifacts
1 Chrome Mox
1 Mox Diamond
1 Mox Opal
1 Elixir of Immortality
1 Contagion Clasp
1 Staff of Domination
1 Thran Dynamo
1 Trading Post
1 Contagion Engine
1 Staff of Nin
1 Azorius Signet
1 Selesnya Signet
1 Simic Signet
1 Talisman of Progress
1 Talisman of Unity
Grixis Fixing
1 Dimir Signet
1 Izzet Signet
1 Rakdos Signet
1 Talisman of Dominance
1 Talisman of Indulgence
1 Ring of Evos Isle
1 Ring of Kalonia
1 Ring of Thune
1 Ring of Valkas
1 Ring of Xathrid
1 Adarkar Wastes
1 Bant Panorama
1 Breeding Pool
1 Brushland
1 Flooded Grove
1 Glacial Fortress
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Hinterland Harbor
1 Mystic Gate
1 Seaside Citadel
1 Sunpetal Grove
1 Temple Garden
1 Wooded Bastion
1 Yavimaya Coast
1 Blood Crypt
1 Cascade Bluffs
1 Crumbling Necropolis
1 Dragonskull Summit
1 Drowned Catacomb
1 Graven Cairns
1 Grixis Panorama
1 Shivan Reef
1 Steam Vents
1 Sulfur Falls
1 Sulfurous Springs
1 Sunken Ruins
1 Underground River
1 Watery Grave
1 Cathedral of War
Themes & Archetypes
The Color Pie
Random Design Notes
Links
Thread | Draft
Thread | Draft
A few questions, still. 4 Jaces in 225 cards might be too much. Also, they dont fit very well the 'aggro-ish' role you want Bant to have. The other only one PW you have is NB, which obviously belongs to Grixis.
Maybe you should play stuff like Elspeth 1 or Ajani 3.
Anyway, the idea looks interesting.
Hm...
You might be right about Jace. I guess the Mind Sculptor is the only one that can actively bounce creatures and at least provide some tempo. I'm not sure if I want to change it yet. They're just a lot of fun to play with. (Well, maybe not Memory Adept.)
edit: After a little bit of thought, I think I'll just get rid of all the Jaces and leave Nicol Bolas as the only planeswalker. This means I'm also swapping out Magmaquake in favor of Earthquake. I'll probably also fit Hurricane in here somewhere for some symmetry. But I still want to keep blue as the most powerful color. I'll need to replace the Jaces with something spicey.
Thread | Draft
OUT:
I originally put in Beacon of Unrest in place of Rise from the Grave. Beacon of Destruction seemed like a reasonable straightforward burn spell. And Beacon of Tomorrows seemed fine. And the Zeniths were in to include bant spells that also re-shuffled back into your deck while providing bant with x-spells for Rosheen Meanderer.
IN:
So I replaced the beacons & zeniths with more core set cards and green, white, and blue still have their x-spells.
Stormtide Leviathan might actually work with Master of the Pearl Trident and acceleration like Gilded Lotus and Thran Dynamo.
I'm a little afraid of Primordial Hydra. It just might be too strong. You either have removal and the game goes on or you don't and you lose within 2 attacks. Not sure if that's fun or not. But there might be enough removal so I'll give it a shot. (But green in general is probably the weakest color... so it might be worth it.)
Thread | Draft
The Great Cube Map!
My Powered Cube
Draft it here!
Thanks.
At $400 for the whole cube, part of the reason I put this together was because of how cheap it is. The most expensive cards are Thundermaw Hellkite and Noble Hierarch. Then there's Blinkmoth Nexus. After that there are maybe 15 cards at ~$10. And everything else is less than $5.
I'm a paranoid person and if I ever bring this anywhere, I won't be giving strangers thousands of dollars worth of cards to strangers. And the cube only supports 5 people... and 1-2 of those will probably be people I know... so that means only 2-3 strangers with the rest of us keeping watch on a very small, inexpensive cube?
Sounds like a plan, right?
Thread | Draft
I've decided to replace it with Triskelion instead.
It's much weaker than Wurmcoil Engine, but it still gains value with Trading Post, it's a nice pair for Pentavus, and both Pentavus & Triskelion were already in M11. (And core set cards are kind of a theme in this cube.)
OUT:
Wurmcoil Engine
IN:
Triskelion
Thread | Draft
OUT:
IN:
(I've also just posted the new Crack-a-Pack #9 after I made these latest changes.)
Thread | Draft
Notes
OUT:
IN:
EDIT: Major update. 23 more cards swapped out:
OUT:
IN:
A couple things are going on here:
Even more changes; the flood gates are open:
OUT:
IN:
Thread | Draft
Have people had trouble casting the triple hybrid mana Gruul cards like Boggart Ram-Gang or Boartusk Liege? They seem much more like R/G gold cards than true flexible hybrids. Or maybe you're okay with someone occasionally building a Gruul deck?
Right. Those 2 cards in particular don't go in the regular grixis or bant decks, they go in the goblin deck. Because so many of the gruul cards are goblins, you can actually put together a pretty good red-heavy deck that's just straight up goblin tribal. And even that has some options because you can end up with a goblin deck that splashes green for a Thragtusk or whatever as strange as that sounds.
On the other hand, a 3/3 haste wither creature in a green heavy deck with some exalted sounds kind of deadly (attacking with a 4/4 or 5/5 wither creature on turn 3? or even on turn 2 with Noble Hierarch?), but I haven't been able to live the dream yet.
So even though the cube is set up as a Bant vs. Grixis cube, you still have a couple options.
I've been thinking about trying to squeeze Misty Rainforest and Scalding Tarn. Only these 2 because they're the only fetch lands on color in modern borders. Maybe take out Mystifying Maze and one of the artifacts. Or maybe the panoramas which are a little underwhelming (but on theme). Not sure yet. (Mystifying Maze is turning out to be too good against exalted and this cube doesn't have much land destruction.)
edit: I really want to increase the size of my cube, but I've decided to control myself until Wizards prints more exalted cards. Exalted is supposed to be the main mechanic for the cube and if I just start adding cards, it'll start to get watered down. As of now, I'm only looking to include Core Set cards, exalted cards, and hybrid gruul cards. Maybe some modern legal artifacts or random grixis spells, but that's about it.
Thread | Draft
I've bumped the cube card count from 225 up to 270. The exalted theme might be a little watered down, but I think it still works. I won't go over every single card change, but here are some of the highlights:
edit: I don't think I need Howling Mine or Mind Stone. All of the signets and talismen provide plenty of 2 cmc noncreature artifacts for the cube.
edit: I've decided to bring in Troll Ascetic & Thrun, the Last Troll. Because of this, I've also added more sacrifice effects (Innocent Blood, Small Pox, Barter in Blood). I'm a little afraid of turn 3 Troll Ascetic into turn 4 Angelic Destiny, but I'll try it out. Nut hands happen in cube.
Thread | Draft
Please, post some draft breakdowns and decklists!
My $40 MTGO cube
Draft my cube at Cubetutor!
Sure.
I'm just waiting on a bunch of cards in the mail (after the bump to 270 cards). I'll have to test it, but it all looks fine to me.
Also, here's a more concise description I plan to include with the cube:
Rafiq of the Many vs. Nicol Bolas is basically a “Bant vs. Grixis” cube with an M13 design philosophy. It was originally designed to be an updated M13 cube, but it quickly turned into a “core set cube” with additional exalted cards from Lorwyn Block and a few hybrid gruul cards from various sets. ‘Exalted’ was the primary mechanic of M13 and Rafiq of the Many is the biggest and baddest exalted creature that has ever been printed. Nicol Bolas on the other hand was an M13 limited bomb in a format where Grixis Control was one of the most fun archetypes a player could draft.
- All gold and split cards in the cube are either Bant or Grixis colored. Every multicolored bant card is a creature and every multicolored grixis card is a spell or planeswalker. With rare exception, all mana fixing produces either bant or grixis colored mana. In short, while there is nothing forbidding other color combinations from being drafted, specific support exists exclusively for bant and grixis.
- The reason why the blue section is so large is because both bant and grixis share the color blue. Similarly, this is the same reason why equal portions of the red and green sections were split into a combined hybrid gruul section. The idea is to promote competition for picks among bant and grixis players during the draft process – an essential component for any good draft format.
- With rare exception, the only additional keyworded ability found on cards is ‘exalted’.
- With rare exception, the only counters that appear on permanents are +1/+1 counters on creatures and loyalty counters on planeswalkers.
- Decks made from this cube are designed to be played in either 1-vs-1 matches or in a multiplayer free-for-all.
In the end, the goal was to create a format that still felt like M13, but now played like a cube. By focusing on two specific 3-color combinations, the cube is able to support a relatively large amount of multicolored spells supported by a generous amount of specific color fixing. Roll it all up and you get a very streamlined and focused draft environment.Bant Exalted – These decks tend to put on the pressure, curve out, and continue piling on the pressure. They have access to white auras, green pump, and blue bounce spells to help out tempo their opponents.
Grixis Control – These decks are removal filled, counter based decks, fueled by mana acceleration and are as grindy as they get. Note: All planeswalkers in the cube are in grixis colors.
Trading Post – Many artifacts have been included exclusively to support this M13 favorite. Many of these artifacts cycle well between your hand, battlefield, and graveyard. Note: There is very little artifact removal in the cube.
Life Gain – Serra Ascendant and Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant are both game changing cards once their controller has 30+ life. And Felidar Sovereign represents the only alternate win condition in the cube.
Tribal Goblins – This deck represents the most aggressive archetype in the cube. It begins with a high concentration of cheap creatures and ends with a mass token strategy, all supported by burn.
Esper Control – While “esper” multicolored spells and fixing are nonexistent, it’s still possible to cobble together enough azorius and dimir cards to support this counter heavy, card drawing, life gaining deck.
It's a 1-page insert type thing to have ready (along with a cube list) so people have a better idea on what they're getting themselves into. Or people can just draft it cold. Makes no difference to me.
edit: Updated enchant creature section. With all my recent changes, I realized that there were very few auras left for Sovereigns of Lost Alara to take advantage of. With my new focus on keeping a multiplayer option for the cube, I've decided to bring in the bant colored vows from Commander:
+1 Vow of Duty
+1 Vow of Flight
+1 Vow of Wildness
There are still only a few auras, but they're all pretty good targets.
I've also decided to spice up some of the green removal. Bramblecrush & Acidic Slime are out and these 2 are in:
+1 Beast Within
+1 Terastodon
I was looking for something that kind of mimic'd what Thragtusk was doing and these 2 were the closest I could find. It felt wrong that green didn't have the biggest creature in the cube. The only reanimation spell is Zombify and there aren't too many enablers, so I think it should be fine. And with Phantasmal Image & Clone, it should be really fun in multiplayer FFA. (I really wish Rapid Hybridization/Pongify was green.)
edit: Just as I thought, Angelic Destiny has just become too powerful, especially with Troll Ascetic and Thrun, the Last Troll. Angelic Dstiny is out. Still looking for more auras, so I'm going to try out this pair:
+1 Spirit Mantle
+1 Holy Mantle
edit: A pair of spikes are coming in and Skinshifter and Silklash Spider are coming out:
+1 Spike Feeder
+1 Spike Tiller
Skinshifter and the spider began feeling a little out of place. They were decent creatures on their own but I wanted something a little more interactive. The cube in general has adopted a +1/+1 counter subtheme that can be traced all the way back to the M13 rings. Ring of Kalonia combos well with these 2, but so do other creatures like Mikaeus, the Lunarch, Triskelion, Pentavus, and Scuzzback Marauder. Spike Feeder also slots in well into a bant or selesnya life gain deck. Spike Tiller does a decent job at creating a little army of critters, but it's also a kind of skill tester card in those times where the correct play is to turn your opponent's land into lands and then destroy them.
edit: I've decided to give black a little more flavor and have added a global enchantment twist to the cube. There are only 3 other global enchantments in the cube right now and they all have exalted. This also means that there is very little enchantment removal. 3 black enchantments in:
+1 Zombie Infestation (cmc=2)
+1 Phyrexian Arena (cmc=3)
+1 Grave Pact (cmc=4)
If you count black planeswalkers in Liliana and Sorin, a monoblack or grixis player could climb the cmc ladder all to the way to 5 and 6. Coincidentally, all 3 enchantments play very well together. In a way, you can say that this change evens out the global enchantments between bant & grixis, now having 3 each. Grave Pact also turns out to be another answer for Giant Solifuge, Ascetic Troll, and Thrun -- something I always want to keep in check.
I think black needed to be tightened up a little bit. I've decided to get rid of Zombify as one of my cuts. I don't have too many discard outlets in the cube because it doesn't really support reanimator, but a lucky draw of turn 3 EOT Izzet Charm into turn 4 Zombify, reanimating a Grave Titan, turned out to be too strong of a play. It was an unwinnable scenario for the opponent. With Zombify out of the way, I feel comfortable adding something like Zombie Infestation into the cube and purely a zombie token generator. There are still combos you can pull off with things like Squee, Goblin Nabob or any of the 3 Phoenixes, but all discard outlets are much less broken without a reanimation element to ruin everyone's fun.
edit: This should be the final change until M14. I'm removing Mindslaver and Spine of Ish Sah. With Beast Withing and Terastodon, the spine wasn't that necessary. And Mindslaver was getting a little too annoying for some people. There was already a similar effect with ultimate Sorin, but that seems more fair. The truth is that they were only included in the cube because I needed another 6cmc artifact and 7cmc artifact for Treasure Mage to fetch. I'm giving up on that just so the cube plays better.
+1 Misty Rainforest
+1 Scalding Tarn
Only the enemy colored fetch lands exist in modern borders, so these 2 are in and the others are out. This actually works out perfectly, because there are only allied colored Talisman from Mirrodin. With both the 4 Talisman and these 2 fetch lands, the fixing for each 2-color pair evens out.
Thread | Draft
With a 270 cube, it can now support up to 3 sealed decks. Here's an example of a deck made from a sealed pool I put together:
1 Fog Bank
1 Merfolk Looter
1 Phantasmal Image
1 Blood Artist
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Rosheen Meanderer
1 Frost Titan
1 Grave Titan
1 Inferno Titan
Spells (11)
1 Dark Ritual
1 Mana Leak
1 Negate
1 Ultimate Price
1 Dimir Charm
1 Frost Breath
1 Murder
1 Time Warp
1 Earthquake
1 Mind Shatter
1 Diabolic Revelation
1 Liliana Vess
1 Sorin Markov
Artifacts (1)
1 Staff of Nin
Lands (17)
1 Drowned Catacomb
1 Shivan Reef
1 Steam Vents
1 Underground Sea
4 Island
7 Swamp
2 Mountain
(I should have probably had 18 land minimum, but it worked out in the end.)
I crushed both of my opponents. It was just the sickest grixis deck in this format. The only problem with it was a relatively low amount of fixing, including only 4 nonbasic lands and zero manarocks. Because of this, I decided on a heavy UB deck with a very light red splash (Rosheen Meanderer, Earthquake, Inferno Titan).
Sickest Plays:
Other Notes:
EDIT: Here is another deck that was also very fun for very different reasons!
1 Fauna Shaman
1 Aven Squire
1 Sigiled Paladin
1 Fierce Empath
1 Wood Elves
1 Elvish Piper
1 Master of the Wild Hunt
1 Sublime Archangel
1 Rafiq of the Many
1 Thragtusk
1 Felidar Sovereign
1 Sun Titan
1 Pentavus
1 Raise the Alarm
1 Timely Reinforcements
1 Congregate
1 Beast Within
Planeswalkers (1)
1 Tezzeret, the Seeker
Artifacts (5)
1 Elixir of Immortality
1 Simic Signet
1 Selesnya Signet
1 Thran Dynamo
1 Trading Post
1 Adarkar Wastes
1 Brushland
1 Breeding Pool
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Bant Panorama
5 Forest
6 Plains
1 Island
The Trading Post & Gain Life/Felidar Sovereign decks represent the closest thing to combo decks in this cube and this deck managed to merge the two together. This might be one of the most fun decks I've ever put together.
Notes:
More Notes:
EDIT AGAIN: Here is an example of themed deck that just didn't have enough punch:
1 Chronomaton
1 Steel Oversser
1 Trinket Mage
1 Treasure Mage
1 AEther Adept
1 Phantasmal Dragon
1 Clockwork Hydra
1 Triskelion
1 Ponder
1 Divination
1 Mind Spring
1 Fire/Ice
1 Spite/Malice
Enchantments (2)
1 Threads of Disloyalty
1 Mind Control
Planeswalkers (1)
1 Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker
1 Voltaic Key
1 Talisman of Dominance
1 Talisman of Indulgence
1 Izzet Signet
1 Sculpting Steel
1 Gilded Lotus
1 Akroma's Memorial
Land (17)
1 Cathedral of War
1 Watery Grave
15 Island
This deck kind of has a lot of things going for it, but there just aren't enough win conditions. The win conditions that are in the deck are just too slow to make a difference.
Notes:
In the end, it turned out to be a poor deck in general.
EDIT MORE: And here's my latest creation; a pretty good example of the rare Gruul Goblin deck:
1 Scuzzback Scrapper
1 Burning-Tree Emissary
1 Mogg Flunkies
1 Ember Hauler
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Rummaging Goblin
1 Bogart Ram-Gang
1 Giant Solifuge
1 Boartusk Liege
1 Krenko, Mob Boss
1 Scuzzback Marauders
1 Thragtusk
1 Inferno Titan
1 Wort, the Raidmother
1 Shock
1 Pit Fight
1 Manamorphose
1 Firespout
1 Beast Within
1 Chandra's Outrage
1 Goblin Rally
Artifacts (2)
1 Ring of Kalonia
1 Ring of Valkas
12 Mountain
5 Forest
This is a pretty good version of that deck, but it's not perfect:
After a little more testing, the only part of the cube I'm not completely satisfied with yet is the artifact section. It's close, but I think I need to drop a few of them. I'll be updating the artifacts in the next few days.
Thread | Draft
1 Blood Artist
1 Knight of Infamy
1 Ember Hauler
1 Goblin Matron
1 Falkenrath Noble
1 Rosheen Meanderer
1 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Grave Titan
Spells (9)
1 Innocent Blood
1 Doom Blade
1 Searing Spear
1 Fire/Ice
1 Rise/Fall
1 Goblin Rally
1 Blaze
1 Earthquake
1 Mind Shatter
1 Phyrexian Arena
Planeswalkers (1)
1 Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker
Artifacts (4)
1 Talisman of Dominance
1 Talisman of Indulgence
1 Izzet Signet
1 Gilded Lotus
Lands (17)
1 Crumbling Necropolis
1 Shivan Reef
8 Swamp
7 Mountain
1 Noble Hierarch
1 Serra Ascendant
1 Deadly Recluse
1 Aven Squire
1 Ethercaste Knight
1 Spike Feeder
1 Forgotten Ancient
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Rhox Bodyguard
1 Triskelion
1 Mikaeus, the Lunarch
1 Righteous Blow
1 Giant Growth
1 Manamorphose
1 Mana Leak
1 Divination
1 Recollect
1 Concentrate
1 Time Warp
Planeswalkers (1)
1 Jace Beleren
Artifacts (3)
1 Talisman of Unity
1 Talisman of Progress
1 Ring of Kalonia
1 Adarkar Wastes
1 Brushland
1 Hinterland Harbor
1 Flooded Grove
6 Forest
6 Island
1 Plains
I think Manamorphose may quietly be one of the best cards in the cube. It has obvious interactions with creatures like Talrand, Sky Summoner, Forgotten Ancient, Quirion Dryad, and Guttersnipe, but it also fixing for these 3 color decks, it can be regrowthed as a simple cantrip, and it just fits into almost every deck. If you draft it, you just know there's a really good chance it's going to make your deck.
Quirion Dryad in general has been kind of funny from what I've seen. And I think it all has to do with the dedicated Gruul section of the cube. It's very possible to draft a bant deck with the dryad as the only monogreen spell.
"My Cube is Done™"
-Ninja_Bob, May 4th, 2013
My cube is done. I'm really happy where its at and the whole point of getting into cube was so I could sell of the rest of my collection and get out of magic. I know there will probably be more cards that I would want to add (especially in core sets), but I'm going to resist the temptation until Exalted is brought back again. Once they decide to bring back Exalted, I'll expand this cube some more and hopefully hit at least 360. Until that time, I'm not going to buy a single Magic card.
(I don't want to do that now because I don't want to dilute Exalted as a main mechanic.)
edit: Here was another fun deck:
1 Chronomaton
1 Steel Overseer
1 Fog Bank
1 Phantasmal Image
1 Frontline Sage
1 Trinket Mage
1 Treasure mage
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Pentavus
1 Triskelavus
1 Unsummon
1 Ponder
1 Frost Breath
1 Cancel
1 Sleep
1 Tidings
Enchantments (1)
1 Mind Control
1 Mox Opal
1 Azorius Signet
1 Staff of Domination
1 Trading Post
Lands (18)
18 Island
edit again: I don't have the exact decklist, but I tried to put this Exalted deck back together. It went undefeated and only lost a game to a grixis deck that had a lot of low cost removal (doom blade, searing spear, murder, etc.).
1 Akrasan Squire
1 Knight of Glory
1 Sighted-Caste Sorcerer
1 Sigiled Paladin
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Wood Elves
1 Dawnray Archer
1 Auramancer
1 Sublime Archangel
1 Rafiq of the Many
1 Battlegrace Angel
1 Sun Titan
1 Sovereigns of Lost Alara
1 Pit Fight
1 Day of Judgment
Enchantments (6)
1 Spirit Mantle
1 Vow of Duty
1 Vow of Wildness
1 Ardent Plea
1 Holy Mantle
1 Finest Hour
Artifacts (1)
1 Simic Signet
Lands (18)
1 Cathedral of War
1 Seaside Citadel
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Breeding Pool
1 Wooded Bastion
1 Sunpetal Grove
8 Plains
4 Forest
Thread | Draft
A couple changes:
I've also decided to include Supply/Demand (bant split card) to pair with Rise/Fall (grixis split card). Before I added Crosis, every grixis card was a noncreature spell. So now that I've given grixis a creature, I thought I'd give bant a noncreature/nonenchantment spell to even things out. And I like split cards, so Supply/Demand is in.
Replaced Mind Shatter with Death Cloud and also added Rakdos's Return to the list. I had to balance out the x-spells since Supply/Demand gives another one to Selesnya. Rakdos's Return is strictly better than Mind Shatter so Mind Shatter had to go. And Death Cloud actually fits the theme of the cube, being a bigger & bigger version of Smallpox.
There are now a total of 12 x-spells, all color balanced (2 white, 2 blue, 2 black, 2 red, 2 green, 1 selesnya, and 1 rakdos). This is important to keep a p1p1 Rosheen Meanderer open to all color combinations for pick 2.
Thread | Draft
1 Knight of Infamy
1 Trinket Mage
1 Servant of Nefarox
1 Falkenrath Noble
1 Clone
1 Rosheen Meanderer
1 Beetleback Chief
1 Crosis, the Purger
1 Grave Titan
Spells (8)
1 Dark Ritual
1 Unsummon
1 Go for the Throat
1 Smallpox
1 Forsee
1 Pain/Suffering
1 Fire/Ice
1 Death Cloud
1 Tezzeret the Seeker
Artifacts (6)
1 Mox Opal
1 Mox Diamond
1 Elixir of Immortality
1 Izzet Signet
1 Talisman of Dominance
1 Gilded Lotus
Land (24)
1 Steam Vents
1 Shivan Reef
1 Underground River
1 Watery Grave
1 Sulfurous Springs
5 Swamp
4 Island
3 Mountain
This deck had 2 ways to win. It could either get an easy with with Crosis and/or Grave Titan or it could set up a board state where Death Cloud blows up the world (usually involving Tezzert the Seeker or have enough creature tokens to sacrifice).
Also note that the only x-spell in the deck for Rosheen Meanderer is Death Cloud. (Worth it.)
1 Noble Hierarch
1 Serra Ascendant
1 Merfolk Looter
1 Fauna Shaman
1 Phantasmal Image
1 Palladium Myr
1 Frontline Sage
1 Auramancer
1 Rhox Faithmender
1 Thragtusk
1 Battlegrace Angel
1 Felidar Sovereign
1 Primeval Titan
1 Mana Leak
1 Frost Breath
1 Sleep
1 Spelltwine
1 Time Stretch
Enchantments (3)
1 Vow of Wildness
1 Mind Control
1 Finest Hour
Artifacts (1)
1 Talisman of Unity
Lands (17)
1 Cathedral of War
1 Yavimaya Coast
1 Wooded Bastion
1 Glacial Fortress
1 Hinterland Harbor
5 Forest
5 Island
2 Plains
Pretty good life gain cards, but the Spelltwine might have been a little too ambitious. With Time Stretch as a target, it was a little too tempting to leave on the sidelines. And... maybe the Time Stretch itself was equally ambitious with no real way to hard cast it except for Primeval Titan or a Hierarch/Palladium Myr combo head start.
Game 1
On the play, the Bant deck mulled to 6 and cast a turn 1 Serra Ascendant. On turn 2, the Grixis deck casts Smallpox, leaving the Bant player with 1 land, 0 creatures, and 3 cards in hand. It took a few more turns after a Grave Titan got copied with Phantasmal Image, but 1 Unsummon later and it was all over.
Grixis Leads 1-0
Game 2
The play of the game was on turn 6 when the Grixis player had a Gilded Lotus, Talisman of Dominance, Izzet Signet, and Mox Opal on the battlefield and casts Death Cloud where x=8. It became a top deck war after that, but with so much artifact mana available, it was just a matter of time before they could find their win condition.
Grixis Leads 2-0
Game 3
Normally a turn 2 Signet into turn 3 Dark Ritual + Grave Titan is a problem. But not when that Grave Titan is answered with a Vow of Wildness and then 3 turns later that same Grave Titan is hit with a Mind Control. The turn 3 Grave Titan transformed into a 9/9 Grave Titan + 3 additional exalted triggers.
Grixis Leads 2-1
Game 4
A turn 3 Palladium Myr into a turn 4 Primeval Titan was the difference. The turn before the Grixis player was setting up a huge Death Cloud, but with all the extra lands, the Bant player would actually end up ahead. So instead, the Grixis player played a turn 5 Grave Titan. Unfortunately, it just get Mind Controlled the next turn.
Now facing a Palladium Myr, Primeval Titan, and Grave Titan, they have no choice but to play some more artifact mana and Death Cloud for 3. At this point the Bant player is at 11 and the Grixis player is at 17. The Grixis player top decks a Servant of Nefarox and the Bant player top decks a Fauna Shaman. It's not too long before they also have a Thragtusk, Felidar Sovereign, and Rhox Faithmender online. The game ends after a 6/6 flying Serra Ascendant hits the table.
Series Tied 2-2
Game 5
Kind of a funny game 5 where an early Knight of Infamy + spot removal got the Bant player down to 6 life until a Rhox Faithmender + Phantasmal Image hit the battlefield. After that it must have been 5 turns of mana flood for both players as a Rhox Faithmender + 1 exalted beat in for 2 and gain 8 life per turn. By the time the Bant player got a Fauna Shaman into Felidar Sovereign, they were at 58 life.
Bant Wins! 3-2
Thread | Draft