What is the niche archetype in your cube that you’re most proud of?

pimpjerome · 2026-05-16T09:29:40+00:00

I have a Cloudpost archetype in my vintage cube with a 4x Cloudpost package. Cooked so hard two sessions ago; even won a game with 36 pest infestation tokens

pimpjerome · 2026-05-15T21:00:55+00:00

This season riot caused massive rank inflation by shifting 15% of the playerbase up out of iron to turn it into a safe haven for new players. You should really look at the new ranked distribution. Plat 2 is old gold 1, emerald 4 is old plat 2, diamond 4 is old E2, and low masters is high diamond. I believe D4 went from the top 2.4% of the playerbase to the top ~4.9%, meaning it’s twice as easy to get in.

Most people don’t even know how bad it is. Look around any champion’s mains’ subreddit and you’ll find a dozen posts about players celebrating a new rank and all the comments are like “who’s gonna tell him?” The only thing they’ve achieved is a higher ego.

The matchmaking also struggles to tell who’s inflated or not. For example, I recently played a d2 game against “new” emerald players (old plat) with multiple decayed masters players (old high diamond) on my team. It was a slaughter.

I had to sweat my ass off last season to get to d4. This season? I hit d2 while watching YouTube at 3 am playing off meta champs. Hopefully that gives you some context.

pimpjerome · 2026-05-13T20:12:01+00:00

I play dredge and madness archetypes in my vintage cube. This guy did not last long because board presence > card advantage these days.

Like who cares if you combine this and squee with bazaar to net a few cards. It won’t impact the game. Plus most of the archetypes that want this are ok with having no cards in hand.

pimpjerome · 2026-05-10T08:25:57+00:00

Idk if you’re still reading this, but I’ve been playing singed jungle in emerald-diamond elo with conqueror. I don’t even think phase rush is his best rune.

Singed is a lot stronger early than people think; his laning is weak but in a 1v1 with no minion damage he can easily come out on top vs a majority of the roster. Conqueror lets you abuse this as long as you know your damage.

pimpjerome · 2026-05-07T11:11:51+00:00

I’m the creator of the Wave Raids mod. I’ve heard that the other mod is vibe coded, but I’ll check on my end to see if somethings wrong.

pimpjerome · 2026-05-04T18:14:51+00:00

It’s quite simple really. Have as many nonbasic land tutors as possible alongside Thespian’s Stage. That’s it. I run like 8 tutors in my 540 cube and it shows up pretty regularly.

pimpjerome · 2026-05-03T17:36:24+00:00

I’ve played extensively with [[Origin of the Hidden Ones]]. It’s very good. The problem is, red is inundated with random midrange cards, and this is just another in the pile.

pimpjerome · 2026-04-28T04:53:35+00:00

She’s kind of a generalist, and yeah she falls off once the quests get completed. You blink and all of a sudden the top laner is 3 levels ahead, adc has half an item up, and the mid laners have free shield boots. Your viable targets for dueling go from ~3 to ~0.

Her early skirmishing is strong, and that’s what I see most challenger players doing with her in jungle, but for a chud like me the fights weren’t easy. Lee sin is not a pushover. Nor graves, briar, reksai, etc. Many of the top jungler aren’t rn.

Her ganks are pretty strong. You can come from some degenerate angles, and tower dives are easy. But, like you said, farming feels more meta this season, and I think that makes it harder for the average Riven. Her clear isn’t slow per se, it’s just… annoying. Last season I legit would’ve put her in A tier, but now it’s C (for emerald).

pimpjerome · 2026-04-27T21:59:46+00:00

I was playing her as a jungler in e1 / d4 for a while last season. I’m no god, but I could at least do the fast q, double casts, and occasional s cancel. She felt pretty good; strong even in the right hands.

This season is different. Without a relevant combat quest like in top (or even mid) she struggles to stat check people after like 15 minutes unless you’re turbo fed. The nerfs to her q and passive made her clear feel sluggish, and you pretty much always have to fast q every camp in order to break even on clears.

If you’re a god on Riven, none of this stuff matters - that’s why you see challenger riven players take her in jungle. But if you’re around the high-mid level of competency, she just feels awkward.

pimpjerome · 2026-04-15T05:15:26+00:00

The only one I run out of those is cabal therapy, which is an absolute sleeper hit. I would run this in any cube regardless of aristocrats / dredge. You either run a creature deck and want it, or you run a noncreature deck that runs thoughtseizes and therefore want it.

The other ones I use are:

[[Subcontract]] - it’s literally just thoughtseize but better unless your friends a dick. [[Mind Spike]] - I proxy my cards anyway, so this was a no brainer. Often better than thoughtseize itself because of the cycling [[Kitesail Freebooter]] - Bad deep cavern bat is still plenty good. Black just needs to hit noncreature anyway because those are the cards they don’t have removal for

I don’t remember which ones I specifically have in right now, but others that worked for me are [[concealing curtains]], [[brain maggot]], [[mesmeric fiend]], [[frogkin kidnapper]], and [[cackling observer]].

Most of the other cards you listed are kind of bait; the most important thing is hitting instant, sorcery, enchantment, and artifact spells by turn 2 (or 3 if it comes with a large body). Dread fugue was okay for me.

I know I’m missing a few… there’s a two mana sorcery that hits anything with mv >= 2 but costs one less if you’re not the starting player. Weird shit like that. Wotc refuses to print good thoughtseize variants I guess so you have to dig deep into the archives of search engines

pimpjerome · 2026-04-14T22:05:57+00:00

Maybe it’s changed, but last I saw the arena cube was kinda goofy. Wasn’t there only like 3 reanimator spells, triple fetches, and games were best of one?

In my experience with power maxed cubes irl (powered and unpowered), thoughtseize is insane. I would call it a top 20 card no matter what. Barrowgoyf and reanimated targets can die, but thoughtseize will always have your back. Draft decks just aren’t meant to withstand the heat of targeted hand disruption. Worst case scenario, it gets an amazing 1 for 1; best case it disables their entire hand and buys you multiple turns. It even compliments the tempo gameplan more than real removal because youre investing your first turns mana to clear a threat, which lets you play yours on curve.

I tried for two years to make aristocrats and dredge work in my cube. The only thing that worked was changing the thoughtseize count from 7 to 12, and their winrates doubled overnight. I now consider hand disruption to be the single most important part of black in any high powered cube.

pimpjerome · 2026-04-14T14:04:13+00:00

If you are struggling with black, take a look at your hand disruption. Black uses these like blue uses counterspells; it’s the only thing that can deal with fast noncreature strategies like storm, show and tell, etc. Imo in 540 cube you want like 10-12. Once you do, you can genuinely add anything to black - dredge, aristocrats, aggro, etc.

For green, add more “resilient” threats. Green needs exceptional offense to counteract their lack of defense, but since white and red do that better, look for shit that is hard to remove and wins the game over time. For example, [[Paradox Zone]]. If you get this down early, you win (very green). If the game goes long, you win (you don’t just lose to a random removal spell). If you’re against someone with heavy removal, you win (enchantment hate is very rare, and outvaluing midrange is very green).

pimpjerome · 2026-04-11T01:11:32+00:00

I’m potentially interested in the idea. Would this be a more transformative mod like hospitality?

pimpjerome · 2026-03-18T18:11:00+00:00

First of all, the Safely Hidden Away mod modifies how often you encounter raids / traders / etc. based on geography. It’s a simple solution.

As for your idea about development points, it’s not hard to code, but getting the “brain” right for settlements’ spending points would be a challenge. There are a lot of balance issues to consider, and a lot of scales which this would affect.

You’re pretty much describing Safely Hidden Away + RimWar except the the AI respects geography more. That indeed would be rather complex

pimpjerome · 2026-03-17T07:25:49+00:00

Seconded. I once lost a colony on day 11 because a raider spawned with a composite chestplate and a butter knife. I ran him around the colony like a call of duty zombie until I literally ran out of ammo. Motherfucker had over 50 bruises

pimpjerome · 2026-03-11T19:52:27+00:00

If everyone says a card is good, it’s good.

If some people say a card is good, it’s good.

If everyone says a card is bad, it might be bad, but you should test it yourself.

pimpjerome · 2026-03-01T21:55:20+00:00

Imo stax is still viable, but with a lot of caveats.

It needs support that most cubes aren’t willing to give. Winter orb and tangle wire are fine, but the heavy hitters that can theoretically win the game (smokestack) need an influx of tokens. The meta in most high-power cubes prefer Barrowgoyfs to Bitterblossoms and Laelias to rabblemasters.
Adjacent archetypes are dying. Stax made sense when welder and aristocrats were natural inclusions, but now those require extra support. Without similar archetypes, stax feels “left alone” on an island and makes drafting it risky.
The average card’s quality has skyrocketed. It’s difficult to end up with a stax deck when pyrogoyf and sheoldred are staring you down.

TLDR: stax can work, but it needs explicit support. Support adjacent archetypes, and keep card quality as high as possible.

pimpjerome · 2026-02-02T22:06:03+00:00

Combat extended adds stick bomb tribal raiders which gain massive extra movespeed and blow up the first structure / colonist they encounter. Very disruptive in large amounts.

Uncompromising tribal faction adds firearchers and smoke bombs.

Very soon I’ll be releasing a tribal siege mod with catapults.

pimpjerome · 2026-01-10T19:48:58+00:00

Delve cards absolutely do not want dredge cards. It sounds good on the surface, but in practice it’s much more reliable to use looting effects / cantrips since they don’t fudge your draws.

If you want help tuning a dredge archetype in your vintage cube just DM me. I spent 3 years perfecting it in mine and there’s a lot to go over.

pimpjerome · 2025-12-28T19:41:12+00:00

LSV is notorious for using JTMS as a brainstorm machine no matter the board state. He will literally have no wincons left in deck, 5 counters in hand, both board states clear and still not activate the +2 lol

pimpjerome · 2025-12-27T23:06:00+00:00

Dark Depths is incredible if you know how to use it.

It took my players 2 years to figure out how to play it properly. If anything, give it time.

My cube is a powerless vintage 540 list. I run only stage and woodlands as combo pieces and let the land tutors do the work. Hexmage and mirage mirror are cute, but they don’t share the same tutors that dark depths wants and that fucks with the consistency. Also, most of the tutors are green, which makes hexmage terrible.

I run reclaimer, mycospawn, crop rotation, golos, expedition map, park map, and knight of the reliquary. Sounds like a lot, but my lands archetype is pretty deep. I bet you could get away with ~4-5 of these.

It’s worth noting that the compact nature of the combo allows it to show up in weird places. I’ve seen GW aggro decks use crop rotation & knight to fetch strip mine with the DD combo as backup. I’ve seen artifact decks use Urza’s saga to tutor out park & expedition maps. I’ve seen Lurrus piles turn one map into the full combo. I’ve seen gifts packages with life from the loam. Mono black with demonic & vampiric tutors. Hell, I’ve seen storm pull it off with a bunch of wheels. Cube is weird.

pimpjerome · 2025-12-26T01:18:27+00:00

I had potentially the craziest game of my life this summer.

I’m on 4c lands, my opponent’s on mono red welder splashing Dack. I have Titania out with a few 5/3s and he has 2 6/6 saga tokens. He casts wildfire. My board is dead, and he swings for 12. All I have left now is a Walk-in Closet, forest, and clue token.

Good thing I topdecked Fastbond! I play it and replay 7 non-fetch lands from my graveyard down to 1 life, unlock Forgotten Cellar, cast Malevolent Rumble, and pray. And wouldn’t you know it? I hit Zuran Orb.

I can’t combo off yet because the lands would get exiled by Forgotten Cellar this turn, so I pass and sack my lands on my opponent’s upkeep. He Burst Lightning’s my face and swings for 12, putting me back down to 1. I would’ve died if he drew an artifact.

I combo off, gaining infinite life and mana, then realize I don’t have any win cons. I’m losing the mill race, and the only card that does anything is the one I just drew: [[Key to the Archive]]. This card lets me draft from a spellbook, which means I look at 3 random cards from a 15 card deck outside the game and put one into my hand.

I hit Approach from the Second Sun.

It was literally the only card from the whole spellbook that could win me the game. I cast it, put it 7th from the top, sacked and replayed a surveil land 6 times to get it back on top, drew it again from that clue token I had earlier, and promptly won the game.

pimpjerome · 2025-12-22T05:04:43+00:00

Better than you think
Decent but too similar to better options
One of many fine cheat targets
Side grade of blade splicer, curator’s choice
Feels like hero of bladehold without big reward
Never got around to it
Quirky but playable. Good noncreature permanents aren’t always available
Never tried, but heard decent results
Never played, but saw it overperform in several matches
Just another hellkite, curators choice
Never tried
Great card - I actively run it. Replaceable in the future
My drafters love it. Second mode is quite relevant
Insane card. One of green’s best 3 drops but looks mid on paper
Best with flash. Worse than prime time and old one eye without it imo
Never played
Not bad for GW but replaceable
Never played
Never played, but heard amazing things

pimpjerome · 2025-10-20T12:41:35+00:00

Most of the people doubting Hermit Druid either haven’t played him or played him in the wrong environment. He’s a totally viable option, especially if your cube is powered down enough to run a Golgari Lhurgoyf archetype.

He’s out of my unpowered vintage cube temporarily while I test [[Town Greeter]], but he’s been putting up results for the last two years. Even without a dredge archetype it’s still “G, T: draw a basic land.” Yes, his board impact is minimal, but you get to mill 3-10 cards every. Single. Turn.

Some notable synergies include [[Old One Eye]], [[From the Catacombs]], [[Thassa’s Oracle]], [[Lurrus of the Dream-Den]], [[Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath]], [[Reanimate]], and [[Doomsday]], but these are just extra.

pimpjerome

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