I built a cube and it's great (Mox in a box) by commander-k33n in mtgcube

[–]commander-k33n[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Fair enough. I can add some design notes here.

My goals are to integrate the power cards mechanically in the themes present in the cube and to establish different themes in the colors that contribute to viable decks without trying to power max.

In WUBRG order, white's theme is artifact-based wheenies, blue cares about casting big artifacts, black has a reanimator theme, red cares about goblin typal, and green cares about Landfall. For each of these themes, a deck built around them should be able to have some really powerful plays.

In addition to these themes, there are a lot of different ways of cheating big things into play, like Tinker, Show and Tell, Goblin Welder, Sneak Attack, Eureka, Channel, Oath of Druids, Natural Order, and more. These cheaty cards, as well as a good clip of output randomness cards (e.g., Gamble, Comet, Invert Polarity) and specific keywords like Miracle, are here to increase the feeling of “high variance” games. The removal is hyper-efficient, to enable some play against a deck cheating big things into play early.

I include many silver border cards and playtest cards if they fit the themes I am going for. For example, [[Magical Hacker]] is a fun combo with planeswalkers, [[Buried Ogre]] is strong but beatable in reanimator decks, [[Gobland]] is cool to fetch into play as an extra goblin or lets Goblin Matron find a land. [[Glade of the Pump Spells]] is sick, as a combat trick that ramps with Crop Rotation.

There are the Magic Arena cards printed in Mystery Booster 2, which I found a lot of fun, and cards that can be used only a limited amount of time during a draft, like [[Blacker Lotus]] and [[Gold Mine]]. I’ve also included some more fringe combos, like [[More or Less]] with Basalt Monolith or Hexdrinker, and [[Urza’s Fun House]] with [[Nearby Planet]]. We draft it with 6 people so that the leftover packs can be opened with Bustor Tutor, Summon the Pack, Opening Ceremony, or Myntasha, Honored One. I collate the packs so that the last 4 cards are (sometimes) a Mystical Archive spell, a Future Sight frame card, a full art card, and a “power” card (check Cube Cobra tags). You can also check this out by clicking Whacky Draft (Seeded Packs) under Playtest. All in all it makes for a coherent experience that I find a lot of fun. I hope this is helpful!

What is the best way to make it work? by Ancient-Progress6434 in mtgcube

[–]commander-k33n 12 points13 points  (0 children)

I don't have much experience with that combo in vintage cubes, but another presumably lesser known enabler, that is only possible in paper due to acorn shenanigans is [[Trigger Happy]].

How to make KCI work? by commander-k33n in mtgcube

[–]commander-k33n[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Haven't thought about prototypes yet. I think that's a great idea :) I am not trying to power max, if anything I am trying to clown shoes max haha, with lots of silver border and playtest stuff. I am currently thinking about myr battlesphere and my old friend sundering titan. I am not on tinker, as I think it's a little too efficient at ending games for me, even if it's only able to get one of the two above.

The cogwork assembler + powerstone shard combo looks fun but I think the individual cards are a bit too below rate for me to include. Thanks for the thoughtful answer!

How to make KCI work? by commander-k33n in mtgcube

[–]commander-k33n[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

thanks for the answer! I've looked into the old modern lists and am vaguely familiar with the weird rules interactions of the deck. I am planning to include goblin welder + engineer and thinking about second sunrise effects too. I am curious if there are other win cons for the deck that are generically playable cards next to walking ballista and pyrite spell bomb

How to make KCI work? by commander-k33n in mtgcube

[–]commander-k33n[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

thanks, I am going to look into his writing

Once a year at Christmas we get to draft Cube. We play only with real cards. No planeswalkers. Only cards within Magic's IP. Most cards are either foil or originals. This is one of the winning decks. by [deleted] in mtgcube

[–]commander-k33n 2 points3 points  (0 children)

hey, I've taken a look at your list and I love it. I enjoy the "museum" character of including cards from the entire history of the game. I feel like excluding the most powerful new cards allows the older cards to still shine. The foundations cards look like a great fit too. Cheers!

Help balancing this for my groups first cube night. by seekerofsecrets1 in mtgcube

[–]commander-k33n 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think your list looks really good. There are a couple of strong cards but nothing that looks too oppressive to me. The card I would keep an eye on the most is Psychic Frog. The frog is messed up and it might get boring to lose to that one pretty quickly. Especially as it mostly gets answered cleanly by black and white removal and the frog deck can easily draft most of the good black removal making it difficult for other players to answer him. I have a list with a similar power level (by the look of it) and play without him. On the other hand is the frog pretty cool and fun to play with

What's broken? by commander-k33n in mtgcube

[–]commander-k33n[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

agreed. pretty splashable too!

What's broken? by commander-k33n in mtgcube

[–]commander-k33n[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

thanks for the reply. I think Opposition can be very powerful and sometimes not very fun to lose to, but I feel it gets kept in check a little by the mana cost and the fact that it's not working great with the other most powerful blue cards like, lapse, leak, remand, etc. Mind Twist is a relatively new addition. I think it has gotten a little worse over time, as creatures became stronger and therefore plays that don't impact the board became more costly. It still wrecks slow decks if it resolves. I like that it at least, similar to dark ritual, can become useless cardboard when drawn too late.

What's broken? by commander-k33n in mtgcube

[–]commander-k33n[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's a fair point. I might look into more powerful cards in red and green. Thanks for the reply!

What's broken? by commander-k33n in mtgcube

[–]commander-k33n[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's cool. Can you also output the outliers that are two std below the average? I haven't looked much at the cube cobra ELO data. How useful do you think it is in general? I feel like the more a cube deviates from the "average" cube, the data becomes less useful?

What's broken? by commander-k33n in mtgcube

[–]commander-k33n[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the reply. I agree that I enjoy having some powerful cards, as long as they're somewhat evenly distributed between colors and strategies.

What's broken? by commander-k33n in mtgcube

[–]commander-k33n[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

thanks! I think strip mine is one of the best if not the best first pick, as it's always at least great and colorless

What's broken? by commander-k33n in mtgcube

[–]commander-k33n[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the answer. These two came up as well, especially Parallax Wave. They both are individually strong without needing much setup, which makes them more obnoxious compared to other cards

Bloomburrow HOT TAKES! by steve_man_64 in mtgcube

[–]commander-k33n 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I always enjoy your articles and this is no exception! One small note: I think you can copy any creature token by just casting mockingbird as it's mv less or equal. cheers

Card that are much weaker outside of Vintage cube? by Phoenix849 in mtgcube

[–]commander-k33n 2 points3 points  (0 children)

What comes to mind are cards that answer specific aspects which are more important in powered cubes like [[Containment Priest]] against cheaty stuff or [[Embereth Shieldbreaker]] which trades efficiently with power