Your eyes do not deceive you. I am definitely not Major_Luck, although I hail from the same lake-sodden state. Mr. Luck has had some rough times of late, with the passing of his grandmother and a lake-sized workload that does not pause, even for death. So I am here, apparently hypomanic judging from my current tone, just jazzed up to talk about the Cube 3.0. Tabasco and The Captain have been putting a lot of thought into the possible card choices for expansion. Kudos! You guys are awesome! I wish I would gotten behind you the first time you talked about expanding the Cube. I have always kind of felt like deciding what gets in the Cube is the most fun of the whole thing (CBG has said that he actually prefers cutting cards, proving he's batshit crazy). I wholeheartedly agree with all the proposed adds of the older cards. I thought we found a way to get Kinsbaile Cavalier in there, so maybe we put it in already but didn't change the list. I'll have to check. The Judgement Wishes were a particularly good suggestion that I had never even thought of. Good call! How Cloudthresher got missed I don't know. Obviously the original dual lands will be awesome for the Cube. Thanks to The Captain for agreeing to lend them. The Shadowmoor/Eventide cards are almost all good. But we currently have only 24 multi-colored cards in the entire Cube. That is exactly one per "pack" of 15 cards. By expanding the Cube we are in the pleasant position of being able to expand the percentage of multicolor cards without having to cut other good mono-colored cards. But there is still a limit to how hard we can push. As a result I think that the bar may need to be higher for the hybrid cards inclusion than the mono-colored Shadowmoor or Eventide cards. Still, most of the multicolor cards are really, really good. No one will disagree that Kitchen Finks or Murderous Redcap or Oona, Queen of the Fae deserve to be in the Cube.
Anyway, I did a quick count of all the proposed Shadowmoor/Eventide cards, and (with the proposed Power and older cards) the tally came out to about 105. So we are still around 75 cards short, if we can cram everything in there. I have been looking through some of our cuts from prior Cube versions, and came up with some other options for getting to 540. These are suggestions, feel free to refute them. These only include older cards, because Tabasco was so thorough with the recent sets.
White:
Blazing Archon
Soltari Crusader (I just like the idea of pumping for a shit load)
Stonecloaker (Versatile)
Soul Warden (How did this get cut?)
Knight of the Holy Nimbus (Maybe this is too many 2 mana Knights, but he's good)
Rule of Law (Control needs better tools in the Cube, Arcane Lab isn't good enough because Blue is so stacked. But in White, I think it works.)
Blue:
Ponder
Wonder (Another one that I don't know how we missed, especially because Blue always needs more creatures)
Meloku, the Clouded Mirror
Fathom Seer (Maybe. He's Gush on a dude, right?)
Mulldrifter (How did he not make the cut???)
Future Sight (Maybe? This is so sick in EDH, it seems like a card that translates well to Limited.)
Clone (Every creature is awesome. I want to copy them.)
Guile
Black:
Chainer's Edict
Slaughter Pact (Maybe? I don't know if it's the top tier of black spot removal, but it sure as hell makes things more interesting.)
Graveborn Muse (Another EDH port. It's a Hill Giant and a Phrexian Arena. Seems okay.)
Raise Dead (Classic.)
Ravenous Rats (When all your opponent's cards are awesome, discard is better.)
Funeral Charm (Ditto. Plus every once in a while it will be game-winning removal or pump.)
Duress
Rend Flesh and/or Eyeblight's Ending (Another few cards that are in contention for best spot removal in Black)
Last Gasp (Another maybe.)
Twisted Abomination
Red:
Threaten (Gets better with better creatures.)
Thundermare
Rolling Thunder (The most flexible red X spell, ever.)
Lash Out (Maybe?)
Guerrilla Tactics (Maybe?)
Ryusei, the Falling Star
Shivan Hellkite (Eh? Kills everything on the table eventually. Plus we need more Dragons, for flavor!)
Greater Gargadon (How did we miss this guy?)
Char (Maybe?)
Magus of the Moon (This "maybe" will totally depend on the saturation of non-basics after adding the ten duals. I see it as a potential hoser to four or five color decks, but don't know how it will pan out.)
Green:
Viridian Shaman (We already have the Sex Monkeys, but this reprint will become more useful if there's Moxen floating around.)
Civic Wayfinder (An Elf!)
Sylvan Scrying/Farseek (Find those duals!)
Chord of Calling (Think of the stoopid good targets!)
Weatherseed Treefolk (This was one of the last cuts we made to last Cube, and I always felt like they deserved to get in there.)
Squall Line (If we have to cut Hurricane so be it- this is way better.)
Artifacts:
Duplicant (Maybe, even though the creatures are great, the P/T isn't always amazing.)
Sundering Titan (Control decks rejoice!)
Jester's Cap (Maybe?)
Culling Scales (Again, for control decks.)
Oblivion Stone (Same.)
Mindslaver (Because... Why not?)
I don't know whether or not adding the last five Signets will negate this problem, but if we still want MORE fixing, I would add; Wanderer's Twig, Prismatic Lens, Coldsteel Heart, Spectral Searchlight and Darksteel Ingot.
Multicolor:
I kept these numbers small, since they're competing against a lot of good Shadowmoor and Eventide cards.
Terminate
Vindicate
Teferi's Moat (Again, trying to make control competitive)
Rumbling Slum
POWER:
Since someone who has actually PLAYED with the Power 9 has stated that it's better to include only some of them, I won't pretend to know any better. And obviously, proxies are the way to go with Power. Oddly, it's the proxies that make me uneasy. This is just me, but I kind of feel like if we add proxies, then we have no excuse for not adding other cards that were printed before Ice Age. I'm no Vintage player, but if we're allowing proxies, it seems like we have a burden for explaining why Library of Alexandria, Bazaar of Baghdad, and Mana Drain aren't in there. That's just me. What do you think?
Finally, is there any non-joke use for the phrase "We'll have to eat our way out?"
T
7 comments:
Great job TS. We can get a real Mana Drain, and I think Library, and Bazaar are worthy inclusions. There is a man who makes vintage proxies named ELD, and they look damn good.
The only card I have a quarrel with from your list is raise dead. I think Reanimate is so much better.
I can't believe we missed Meloku, I think it is funny that EDH (the format we stopped ourselves from playing) is the source of our inspiration for a slew of cube additions.
I don't think Magus of the Moon will have enough of an impact to be worth it. I have been wrong before
Finally here is a link so you can see the type of proxies I am talking about for the cube: http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=36051.0
even over reanimate or raise dead I would like to see unearth get in there. I didn't actually check to make sure it isn't already, I just kind of assumed.
Gentlemen! Gentlemen! We'll add BOTH Reanimate and Unearth. Point taken on Magus of the Moon. Let's see how the decks look first.
Are there any older (like pre-4th edition) cards that deserve inclusion, even if just in proxy form?
T
mishra's workshop and tabernacle at pendrell vale come to mind. Though perhaps not tabernacle just on the basis that i don't want to see the cube overly crowded with proxies.
I thought about listing Workshop, but I thought it would either be too strong, or too weak. It really depends on the number or artifacts we settle on.
Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale: Pendrell Mists or Magus of the Tabernacle would be viable replacements
I also think Wasteland and Strip Mine should have a place in here
I totally just cribbed these from Evan Erwin's video today. See what you think.
Pianna, Nomad Captain, Pestermite (for Kiki Jiki. At least it makes you play two different colors, unlike Painter's Servant Grindstone), Makeshift Mannequin, Barter in Blood, Keldon Vandals, Beacon of Destruction, Sonic Burst, Shard Volley, Plow Under (Tabasco and I talked about this), Primal Command, Tooth and Nail, Engineered Explosives, and Fires of Yavimaya.
Erwin decided to expand his Cube too, thouugh not by much (30 cards) and add a hybrid section seperate from multicolor. I don't think much of that idea, but A few more ideas thrown in and I think we'll be ready for step 2: cuts!
Ready CBG?
T
Is Celestial Crusader in here, because Evan cut Pianna in his cube for it
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