Discussing Hannes's Cube

[Hannes Versmissen]

Introduction

A cube in it's infancy, and a Cube-designer in the same stage of his designing-career. 

Resulting from Jason's suggestion to branch of into a new topic, I Started this one to discuss my cube.

Philosophy

I'm aiming towards a Skill-Testing and Interesting cube. 

Drafting it, building decks and Game play itself should be interesting and refreshing.

Power-wise, It's should benefit from an array of cards akin to Burning-Tree Shaman, Which Posses Power, Saw play in their respective format, and only occasionally pop up in an eternal format. another good example would be Shadowmage infiltrator

Power and toughness should be minimal. 3/3's should be considered to be quite strong cards, and Vorapede should be crowned king of creatures. some of the bigger ones are in there to keep reanimation and ramp viable

Specific Problems

I don't have a clue what i'm doing.

[Hannes Versmissen]

Jason's Comment.

Hannes: 

I looked through your list for a bit. My initial advice is to try and figure out what you want your cube experience to be about. The most basic element of this is power level. Your cube has the mark of many new cubes, where it sometimes feels like a pile of cards from your collection. By this I mean, the power levels are all over the place. You have some Titans in there, and also cards like Taunting Elf. As you mentioned in the store, having overpowered bombs can lead to bad games. What might be practical, for the moment, is to have a lower power level in mind and focus on filling out whatever themes you want. When we grid drafted with your set, it felt like raw power level played a bigger part than synergy, which I know is not what you're looking for. 

One of the great things about being at a lower power level is that you have so many more cards from Magic's history to choose from. Card selection versus power level is shaped like a pyramid, and at the high power levels there just are not many cards there. This forces me to use cards sometimes that aren't that interesting or fun. You have the luxury of going the other way with it. 

When I looked to your list, I clicked on the "Starting Hand" button and just kept clicking "New Hand". When you do this, you'll see the cards next to each other, and see the ones that excite you, the ones that bore you, the ones that scare you. I really got excited by cards like Fathom Mage, Rakka Marr, Ghostly Flicker, Prey Upon and Thromok, The Insatiable. Cards that are not the highest raw power level, but in the right deck can be super exciting. 

Another consideration is the speed of your environment. All your non-basics come into play tapped. 

What could be really fun for you is to identify some themes you want to incorporate, and get on Gatherer and go wild finding things. Also, I know finding cards can be difficult, and out local store sells things for way too much money. If you need some help, I get paid by ChannelFireball in store credit and can pick up a pile of cheap hard to find cards for you. 

Thanks jason. I'm gonna try to "flatten" the powerlevel in the  cube as well as possible, and craft some themes. 

On the speed: I'm intrested in aquiring a set of "painlands", and have traded 4 of them so far. There are only 351 cards in the cube so far, so after cutting one card, i'm going to add the 10 pain-lands.

Lastly , thanks for the offer, I'll be sure to hand over a list once i get my theme's fleshed out!

Would it be a good idea to maintain a list of where i have my "dream-cube" at ?

[Hannes Versmissen]

Forgot the list :

http://deckstats.net/decks/2457/7306-hannes-s-cube-16-03-13-/en

[Jason Waddell]

For a long time I maintained two list, my actual list and my "dream-cube" list, if you will. I think it's a good exercise, but make sure not to get too nit-picky with it. My cube never became my "dream list", it was just a starting place. It helped me think about layers of archetypes and really hammer out what I was trying to do. Often you'll have an idea based on a couple of cards for an archetype, then later you'll realize you don't really have much there. 

Also, having an "eventual" list in mind saves you a ton of money. One thing I found early is that I would trade for cards that were "good", then a month or so later drop them from my cube never to be seen again. The other thing I would warn against is to not be to rigid with your cardpool. Just as you need to pull from >100 cards in your collection to tweak a constructed deck, you need more >360 "cube cards" in your collection to build a cube with. You'll always be hesitant to try certain cards if you don't actually have them. Now that I have other cards lying around, I can just swap as I see fit. This will happen naturally of course (growing your collection), just make sure not to trade everything away for cards in your "dream list", especially if you're not getting great trade value. Also, there's a guy at our store (Johan) who owns like every card and basically gave me all the commons and uncommons in my cube, and sold a lot of the rares to me on the cheap. Maybe you can hit him up!

[Hannes Versmissen]

I'm gonna try some stuff, and post ideas here when i flesh them out past "vague"

I wasn't aware Johan owned that many cards though, thanks for the tip !

A first idea i'll be looking into is a green aggro deck including Wild mongrel and Roar of the Wurm. I'm feeling there might be more synergy here.

[FlowerSunRain]

One thing I noticed about this cube that I immediately liked was that most of the staple sweepers are missing.  This makes a great basis for a mid-range slugfest type of cube that focuses on boardplay between creatures.  I'd look to this direction in the short term while you figure out where you want to build towards.  Slice and Dice and Chain Reaction are interesting choices that put red in as a primary control color rather then the usual blue or white, which is fun.  The huge number of walls is also interesting, but I'm not sure how it plays.

I would highly recommend removing Supreme Verdict, Ajani Vengent, Inferno Titan, Grave Titan and Moltentail Masticore at least for now.  They seem like they would be much too bomby for your environment.

I think you have a very good start here.

[Hannes Versmissen]

Thanks FSR !

Supreme is Acting as my only "real" sweeper, and it's cost of 1WWU makes sure only one type of deck will play it.

I'm gonna replace it with Gwafa Hazid, Profiteer. This card leans more towards interaction, and helps shut down oversized threats.

I think currently blue is slightly underpowered overall. i'll adjust that.

What i'm currently thinking for your recommendations

Supreme V. -> Gwafa Hazid

Ajani V. -> Firemane avenger (more combat)

Grave T. -> Lashwrite (push monoB)

Inferno T. -> Nihilist Glee (who needs fixed colors)

Molten-T. M. -> (10th Painland-spot)

[FlowerSunRain]

That sounds fun.  I had to look up Nihilistic Glee, I didn't remember what it did.  I thought it was sadistic glee, which probably isn't what you want.

Definitely think about putting Supreme Verdict back in at some point.  I like the idea that you could have gold cards that do something powerful and specific that no other card in the cube does. It both gives the combo a special role and allows people to play around it once they know your colors.  Unfortunately, a couple color combos lack that sort of card (red/blue, I'm looking at you!).

[Hannes Versmissen]

I think Tibor and lumia is able to get you some results, if you (c/d)raft your deck correctly. However they don't really rank high, even for what i'm aiming for.

However i don't think there is anything that provides more options for UR than mercurial and Tibor/Lumia.

[FlowerSunRain]

Most of the good red/blue cards are just efficiency cards.  Electrolyze, Prophetic Bolt and Izzit Charm are all reasonable, but completely interchangeable with other cards.  I do enjoy electrolyze, though.

My favorite red/blue card is gelectrode, no contest.  Its in the perfect two color combo to utilize the effect.  But still isn't very unique.

Tibor and Lumia does seem a little disappointing, but if you run very few fliers in your cube, I can see the effect being valuable.  Harmattan Efreet was a stud in Mirage limited.  Its too bad they don't have flying to start with.  Worst case scenario as a hill giant is pretty sad.

I think Mercurial Chemister and Nim, the Pain Artist are the two most interesting red/blue cards but neither one would really call me into the color.

[Hannes Versmissen]

I posted a "Dream-list" : http://deckstats.net/decks/2457/7414-hannes-s-dream-cube-17-03-13-?saved=1&lng=en

I've been working on a Discard-theme in green. Cards are: 

Enablers:

Wild Mongrel

Dawnstrider

Fauna Shaman

Gruzighost

Gigapede

Fodder:

Basking Rootwalla

Masked admirers

Nimble mongoose

Were-bear

Golgari Brownscale

Vengevine

Brawn

Acorn harvest

Grizzly fate

Reach of branches

Roar of the wurm

Now these all seem really nice and all that, but i'm having troubles finding decent discard-outlets without jumping to other colours. I though about doubling up on Wild Mongrel or Fauna Shaman, but didn't do so yet mainly because i'm not that apt at crafting a cube yet, and don't really feel whether or not that would be worth the effort.

Also, as always, the Creatures stay of relatively small size, (Gruzighost, Gigapede and roar of the wurm stick out as having a really high power, and vengevine as well is pushing the limit of "strong")

And minor updates happened to the actual list, According to FSR's suggestions, and some other minor details changed. http://deckstats.net/decks/2457/7306-hannes-s-cube-16-03-13-/en

Op zondag 17 maart 2013 00:55:53 UTC+1 schreef FlowerSunRain het volgende:

[Jason Waddell]

I think it's important to make sure your themes span multiple colors, so that there's some room to maneuver when drafting. You have cards like Vampire Hounds and Grave Scrabbler that do really cool things. I would also recommend Squee, Goblin Nabob, and perhaps Stinkweed Imp. Another really fun build-around card at that level is Tortured Existence. Darkblast? There are also cards like Rotting Rats, Viscera Dragger, Dregscape Zombie, etc. I would do a gatherer search on 'Madness' and 'Unearth' mechanics. There are some madness burn spells too. 

[Hannes Versmissen]

Thanks jason!

I already have a Stinkweed imp in, and added Tortured excistence to the Dreamcube. I'll look around, but support is already present in the form off 4 looters, wonder/anger/, sphinx of losts thruths, pack rat, undead gladiator, nightshade assasin, death rattle and maybe some reanimation or wathever. More Madness/unearth/flashback does sound intresting. I'll look around !

Some new bullet points.

-> I'm implementing a naya-controll deck that can camp behind icy manipulator/ajani/glare of subdual alongside a Token-generator or two like elspeth/vithu-ghazi/kher keep.

What i'm missing to actually push it into a control direction instead of a Ramp direction seems to be something akin to counterspells. Does anyone have plans/ideas for a similar type of deck ? I'd love to hear about it.

-> I'm thinking about removing as many creatures as possible from blue, only leaving behind 2-3 finishers and some utility. Is anyone familiar with decks that played no creatures, but still stood strong against creature-heavy decks ?

As i'm building an "underpowerd" cube, I'd like to know about scrapped ideas from your cubes, that didn't make the cute because they didn't perform well enough. any givers ?

Op maandag 18 maart 2013 12:18:18 UTC+1 schreef Jason Waddell het volgende:

[Hannes Versmissen]

Jason seems to be disliking Hornet queen. Lets see weather or not a plethora of red sweep spells can keep her in check.

http://deckstats.net/decks/2457/7414-hannes-s-dream-cube-18-03-13-?saved=1&lng=en

Op dinsdag 19 maart 2013 00:17:50 UTC+1 schreef Hannes Versmissen het volgende:

[FlowerSunRain]

One of my friends maintains a underpowered cube that I enjoy playing a lot.  His "rule" is that he runs any card I don't run (obviously not including very powerful cards I don't run as they would be harmful to his cube).  Next time we play I'll take notes on some of the cards I thought were particularly fun that might have escaped your attention.

[Jason Waddell]

You're calling upon our wastebasket of broken dreams?

In my very first cube I tried out a steal and sacrifice theme that was executed terribly. Now I'm coming full circle on that one it looks like. 

I tried Dream Halls. It was never put together. Ever ever ever. 

Worked on a Storm support package and hated it. 

My issue with cards like Hornet Queen is that they bring little joy and lots of frustration. Besides, the decks that run red sweepers won't be the ones carrying about ramp decks anyways. You run almost entirely tapped lands, so aggro will be slower and then get infinitely moated (worse, even) by Hornet Queen. That's just my own personal hatred though, feel free to disregard. :)

Decks can be played with few creatures, but I'd be careful on forcing that on your drafters. Colors should have things to do at all areas of the mana curve. Maybe you make this more spell based, but even in a more powerful cube (or perhaps especially so), we really wanted cards like Augur of Bolas to create board presence early in the game. If your players decide to just run a couple finishers in their deck, they'll still have the option. I'd just be careful. 

[Hannes Versmissen]

Storm and Dream halls are Terrible theme's to be honest.

Hornet queen should prove to be fair against most of the archetypes, but i guess i'll have to eventually cut her for being a reanimate-able Target that basically counts as being akin to a one sided wrath if disposed with through combat.

Anyone up for thios archetype: Aggro reanimator. Looking around, i saw some versions running something similar, but i noticed this little trinket:

open with putrid imp,two Basking rootwallas, Dread return and a bomb. That's a non-interactive powerplay right there. But here's where it gets intresting. Cutting one of the rootwallas, makes sure you have to look for something akin to Bloodghast for example.

The large overlap with the Green Discard package makes me wanna look into this further.

G/B re-animation/discard seems fun. I might be doubling up on Dread return and Roar of the worm.

Op dinsdag 19 maart 2013 20:56:58 UTC+1 schreef Jason Waddell het volgende:

[Jason Waddell]

If you are looking for an aggro-reanimator package, I would look towards Unearth and Smallpox. I'm running both of these in my cube, and they are both powerful and synergistic in the right deck, without being completely broken. There are a lot of great 2- and 3-drops out there that wouldn't mind being unearthed. Worst case you cycle it. 

Yeah, doubling up on cards can be fun. As you're seeing, you can start with singleton, then once you have an archetype or strategy you want to push, you come to realize where the limitations of the singleton format lie, and where breaking it can add a lot of value. 

Also, I don't know how much you have to protect against the complete god-hands in design. Sacrificing 3 creatures is a pretty significant cost. In my cube people were winning games by just skipping a land-drop and casting reanimate on Turn 2. 

It's also important to consider that how a reanimator archetype performs is extremely multifaceted. How many counterspells are you running? What are the costs of the reanimation spells? The density of discard outlets? How many colors are these spread across? How fast are your aggro decks? What are the mana disruption elements? What are your removal spells? How good are the reanimation targets? Do other decks want the cards that go into a reanimator deck? Are these decks actually a fun component of your environment?

So a lot of ideas can work, but in the end it comes down to execution. And that takes a lot of time and iteration. But the first step is trying it, so just get out there and get your hands dirty with these ideas. You're going to have a lot of fun!

[Hannes Versmissen]

I'm getting near the point where Green has more weeny aggro than white, and red preffers to go midrange/grind.

W/R looks to be a Control deck, and the cerry on top of the Shard: W/R/G Planeswalker Midrange. (that one's still under construction, and will hel lift the powerlevel.)

Jason: Smallpox is presently in there, and unearth is a great suggestion ! I'll have to aquire one as soon as possible. (at first i read cycling as buyback, something that later dissapointed me greatly. I was already Unearthing and sacrificing Brindle Shoats.)

My late response was due to school, and since exam's have mostly passed I'll be able to invest time into cube again. I'll post an updated list soon.

.

Op zaterdag 23 maart 2013 12:44:02 UTC+1 schreef Jason Waddell het volgende:

[Hannes Versmissen]

I'm slowing down Red. Immensly.

I'll post a Summary of my red section, and maybe some notes on some of the cards.

Burn Spells

Seal of Fire

Lightning Bolt

Burst lightning

Incinerate

Brimstone Volley

Fireblast

Fling

Beacon of Destruction

 

Sweepers

Pyroclasm

Chain Reaction

Caldera Hellion

Slice and Dice

Wildfire

Destructive Force

 

Defenders

Rage Nimbus

Vent Sentinel

Battle Rampart [OUT][Pitchstone wall (might play well with a madness deck, most likely not); Hanweir Watchkeep (plays well with sweepers, especially wildfire); Aether Membrane]

Planeswalkers

Chandra Nalaar

Koth of the Hammer

 

Finishers

Havengul Vampire (Again great with the sweepers once it gets past 3/3 status)

Bloodray Giant

Charmbreak Devils (recursive sweeps)

Rakka Mar

Zealous Conscripts

Hound of Griselbrand (survives)

Markov Blademaster (not a true finisher)

Chancellor of the forge [OUT][Inferno Titan (might be too strong still)]

Wrecking ogre

Ruinous Minotaur

Keldon champion

Archwing Dragon

Taurean Mauler

 

The underlined ones are the ones i have high hopes for.

Cards not mentioned yet.

Kiln fiend

Hellspark Elemental

Slith Firewalker

Stormblood Berserker

Krenko's Command

Dragon Fodder

Goblin Rally

Soulbright Flamekin

Mog Flunkies [OUT please]

Ancient Grudge

Skirk Shaman [?]

Goblin Bushwacker (except for the Goblin-tokens Kind-off out of place) [possible OUT] 

There's support for the deck in all other colors in the form of permanent-removal and some tempo-cards. 

Mentionable Artifact-support

 

The talisman-cycle for ramp (2 on color)

Mindstone

Trading Post

Icy manipulator

Lux cannon

Plague Boiler

Mimic Vat

Platinum angel (?)

Masticore

[Molten tail masticore to be added]

I want it to Be slower, Crueler and to basically breathe pure evil. from lashing down a green aggro deck To sweeping down onto any Mid-range multicolored monstrosities.

I'm hoping that any of you know some great suggestions :) 

tl;dr : Mono-red Control.

[FlowerSunRain]

I love this red direction. 

Some other cards you might be interested in:

Pyrohemia.  Its pestilence, but red.  You probably never played Urza's Block draft, but Pestilence is basically the best limited card in the classic era of Magic.  This card is spot on for your red section and might even be too good?

Jaya Ballard, Task Mage, Orcish Artillery, Fireslinger, Cinder Pyromancer, Goblin Sharpshooter.  Interesting pinger creatures for board control.

Crater Hellion.  If you think Inferno Titan might be too good, try this guy.

Wall of Earth.  It blocks almost everything and survives every sweeper.  Surprisingly strong for 2 mana.

Volcanic Fallout.  If 3 toughness is supposed to be strong, I would run this over Slagstorm if you want another creature.

Flowstone Overseer.  A beastly control creature in a slower cube, might be too bomby though.

Pyromatics.  A weaker dividable burn spell that is probably fair and useful in your cube.  Stuff like arc lightning might be too efficient.

[Jason Waddell]

I'll be interested in seeing how it comes together. It looks like you're taking things in an unconventional direction with red, which is exciting, but you'll have to keep an eye on how it all plays out. Traditionally aggro is used in environments to prevent the format from becoming slow and bomby. Of course, there are dozens of knobs to twist and adjust, and green as an aggro color could certainly be exciting. 

If you're going with a lot of red-sweepers, there are some possibly interesting cards out there. Vulshok Refugee, for example. Firespout as a sweeper?

If you go with pingers, I really like Cunning Sparkmage and Basilisk Collar. 

I would also start to think about how you want red to connect with the other colors. 

[Hannes Versmissen]

@FSR: Thanks for the Comments and Cards !

Some quick thoughts on each card

Pyrohemia might be overpowering in the format, but i'll give it a shot before writing it off.

I don't actually like Jaya Ballard Outside of constructed. The outright Brutal hate on blue might just get her straight into unfun-land for blue opponents. just to try and prevent wins by default, i'll leave her out until the dust settles. [noted for later]

Crater Hellions a terrifying card. It scares me. Reanimate-able sweepers seem fun, I'll be sure to try and trade one.

Volcanic Fallout: Blue has many 2/2's or less. I should have one loafing around; but i'm not to keen on pushing uncounterable. maybe later [noted for later]

I'm sorry to say, but i dislike flowstone as a theme. It's a great way to get 2-for-1'd on mana, and generally tends to advocate bad decisions.

Although mana-intensive, i like pyromatics (or a similar, dividable card)

@Jason: 

I love Vulshok Refugee. How could i forget him. He works great with everything.

Firespout is Certainly going in. Green always had a problem with fliers, and red can certainly handle even more inferno.

I have some pingers in the cube, but i don't know wich ones. I just shuffled though. Might look for them later today. 

I'll have to trade for a Basilisk colar that's in a better condition than mine. A good suggestion though ! (mine's good, maybe even just poor. found it on a table, but it still makes my doran deck tick though) 

A card i Forgot

Magebane Armor [Allstar in here, as wel as against it]

Cards added to the think-tank

Thundermare [Lovely little thing. might bring in a Timbermare as well]

Vithian Stinger

Spitemare / Boros reckoner [Certainly awsome, potentially broken]

[Jason Waddell]

Blasphemous Act?

[Hannes Versmissen]

A great suggestion again, but one i'll have to postpone, whether i want it or not. The format can't handle such brute force yet. Chain Reaction is already pushing it, and blasphemous deals an insane 13 damage. I can't possibly move in Reckoner or Spitemare together with Blaspemous without regrets.

[Jason Waddell]

Depends on your point of view. Reckoner is some pretty sweet anti-Act tech. :P

[Hannes Versmissen]

If interest is shown, i might start hosting a regular Cube-draft After the standard-format on Saturday ends at my LGS. (aka my cube might see regular play ! happy me.)

Onto Red !

An updated Version as of this morning :

Burn Spells

Seal of Fire

Lightning Bolt

Burst lightning

Incinerate

Brimstone Volley

Fireblast

Flame Javelin

Beacon of Destruction

 

Sweepers

Pyroclasm

Chain Reaction

Caldera Hellion

Slice and Dice

Wildfire

Destructive Force

Molten Disaster

 

Defenders [Out]

Planeswalkers

Koth of the Hammer

Chandra Nalaar

Chandra Ablaze

 

Creatures

Stormblood Berserker

Kiln fiend

Hellspark Elemental

Soulbright Flamekin

Cunning Sparkmage

vulshok Sorcerer

 

Taurean Mauler

Markov Blademaster

Ruinous Minotaur

Countryside Crusher

Havengul Vampire

Archwing Dragon

Keldon champion 

Bloodfray Giant

Rakka Mar

Hound of Griselbrand

Moltensteel Dragon

Zealous Conscripts 

Urabrask the Hidden

Charmbreaker Devils 

Chancellor of the forge

Kamahl, Pit fighter

 Akroma, angel of fury

 

Leftover Spells

Krenko's Command

Dragon Fodder

Ancient Grudge

Reiterate 

Goblin Rally

Reds suns Zenith

Devil's play

OUT list [9 cards]

Fling --> Flame Javelin 

Rage Nimbus --> Countryside Crusher 

Vent Sentinel --> Moltensteel Dragon

Battle Rampart --> Red suns Zenith

Wrecking ogre --> Urabrask

Slith firewalker --> Devil's play 

Mog Flunkies --> Molten Disaster

Skirk Shaman --> Chandra Ablaze

Goblin Bushwacker --> Reiterate

? --> Kamahl, Pit fighter *

? --> Akroma, angel of fury *

Changes to come

Pyrohemia [Out: ? , i might not even need this one.]

Crater Hellion [ OUT : Chancellor of the forge ? While it is certainly one of the weaker cards, i like the board-presence it can create. However it's non-interactive with the Sweepers ]

Vulshok Refugee [ OUT: Stormblood berserker/ kiln fiend ?]

 

 

[ * I forgot the cards that came out for them. Those cards might not even be red ]

Interations with other colors:

Planeswalkers: The great number of planeswalkers red has acess to with only a simple splash, provides great control and finisher power.

Domri Rade

Sarkhan vol

Ajani Vengeant

Sarkhan The mad.

Intresting interactions: 

Swans of Bryn Argoll : either a splash to white or one to blue can put this card on board alongside the damage-based sweepers for infinite card-advantage

Nin the pain artist : works great alongside the swans, But can also munch creatures About to die. A great source of card-advantage.

Thromok: Eat your Goblin tokens and early threedrops, get a 25/25, clean the slate and go in for the kill. (no longer fling-able, so it should be an interactive kill still.

Now that Red is getting two strong identity's, either as an aggressive splash color filling out removal and mid-range drops in gruul/naya, or a main control color, (and sometimes a third one as one of the colors in a planeswalker friends-abomination) The other colors are Looking much less cohesive. I'll be slowly moving into another color, trying to give each color the same amount of Identity.

[Hannes Versmissen]

I should post an updated list.

Just added a third White Suns's Zenith in a bout of insanity.

Op zaterdag 16 maart 2013 21:40:51 UTC+1 schreef Hannes Versmissen het volgende:

[Hannes Versmissen]

A fully updated and edited list is up :

http://deckstats.net/decks/2457/7306-hannes-s-cube-5-04-13-/en

I'd highly appreciate it if someone read it and provided me with a second opinion.

[FlowerSunRain]

I like your set up, like I said before, but some things to note.

You have a very slight aggro presence, you the bigger, more powerful creatures/planeswalkers will generally always be able to be cast.  As such, certain cards will probably have a disproportionate chance of winning the game.  Ajani Vengent, Elspeth Tirel, Wolfir Silverheart all come to mind.  I like how you've eliminated a lot of the superbomby creatures, but remember that without a strong pressure game, big drops as average as Charmbreaker Devils "might" be strong.

I think Gideon Jura will be extremely powerful in this environment.  As in, suffocating.

It seems that most of the major action occurs at the 4-5cc level.  This is where (most, no all) of the gamewinning creatures start to come down.  Make sure that all of your 3 drops provide strong utility, or else they'll risk being trumped.  Cards llike stronghold assassain, thraben doomsayer and jace's archivist are perfect creatures for the 3 spot in your cube. 

Your token makers might need more support.  Think about adding a couple more anthem or mass pump effects.  I haven't drafted your cube, but it seems like the token decks might be weak.  Red has tons of sweepers and basically every creature in the cube can beat up a token.

I think you have a good amount of removal.  Its much less like a regular cube and more on par with regular limited.  This is pretty fun, but do note that the removal you do have is extremely strong.  I think that's fine, but do note that these cards (swords, snuff out, etc.) are probably "must take".

Constant mists might be annoying in this environment.  I run moment's peace even though its probably a weaker card for my fog variant.

I can't wait to see you go over each color like you did with red. 

[Eric Chan]

Hey Hannes, I haven't really looked at your list until now, but it looks pretty interesting. You have a lot of fresh ideas that I'm not qualified to comment on - I'll leave that to the experts here. I'm more of a meat and potatoes kind of guy when it comes to cube, so I have a few comments about the cube structure:

- Aggro support. Right now, it looks like the curve of your cube is heavily concentrated on 2 and 3 drops, with a healthy dose of 4 drops as well. This might make it tough for your typical aggro decks to gain traction. They need a critical mass of one drops to be viable. Stormblood Berserker stands out to me as someone who really needs a buddy, because he's the definition of a two drop that gets better alongside a one drop. I guess I'm worried that a lot of the aggro two drops are a trap right now, because it's hard to draft an aggro deck with a well defined curve.

- Spells vs creatures. You have a nice mix of power level when it comes to the creature base. The spell side of things, though, looks way stronger. From planeswalkers like Elspeth, Gideon, and Garruk, to premier removal spells like Swords to Plowshares and Dismember, to universal answers like Counterspell and Control magic, your spells pack a wallop that your creatures can only dream of matching. You could find that people nabbing spells do better than the ones focusing on creatures. I think that's fine if you want to create an old-school environment with that feel, where the games aren't dominated by combat but rather by powerful spells, but it's something to be careful about.

Let us know how it goes!

[Hannes Versmissen]

I took my time to reply on the both of you, because i wanted to write out a decent reply.

@FSR: Of the first cards you mentioned, most are on trial. Ajani V. and Elspeth 1.0 are both part of a naya-colored pack of planeswalkers, wich i'm trying to push as a subtheme.

Gideon 1.0 is part of these as well, but i'm really testing him. Friday he ruined a draft by overpowering a gamestate in a USA deck against a naya midrange. he gets one last chance, but after that i'm gonna move him into the "rejected" department, and use him in EDH or something similar.

The token decks do not have an intent to attack. They generally are oppressive Control decks containing tap-abilities like icy manipulator, ajani V., opposition and glare of subdual.

I'm looking towards Haze of Rage and Centaur Chieftain though. I still need one or two in white before moving those in. (Silver Seraph, while awsome, isn't really an option. i'd love to find a way to get him in there.)

Capabira vindicator and Ajani Goldmane look fun, Marshall's anthem is playing into a subtheme i'm working on (white reanimation)

Constant mists is on "Gideon-watch". It gets only Two strikes before it's out. It hasn't seen play yet, but if it does, and it proves to be un-fun twice, it'll get cut.

Eric: On aggro, i'm looking for decent green one drops. i'm not gonna push any other aggro-colors for now, since i don't really feel a need for more than one color, with some splash-support.

one's i'm looking at:

Deepwoord Wolverine

jungle lion

Uktabi drake

nettle sentinel

young wolf

Spire tracer

Stampede Driver

Rogue elephant

scyte tiger

Skarrgan Pit-skulk [love this one]

mold adder [?]

Experiment one

nimble mongoose [maybe two, but that's for the next reply]

Joven's ferrets

Seedcradle witch

Dryad militant

Tattermunge maniac

I realize this is a long list. It'll condense into a more solid shape in my next post, where i'm going to tackle green, and post a list of what i want to move towards for that color.

The spells do get 'nabbed' , and those games do go really long. i'm still new though to cubing though, and currently feel that the spells keep the creatures "in check". 

I'll be working on Covering green now ;)

[Hannes Versmissen]

Green overhaul

So as i promised above i'll go over green in the same way i went over red, and maybe i'll even try to step up my game.

my current list contains the following cards

Manafixers-ramp

1 Birds of Paradise

1 Wall of Roots

1 Dawntreader Elk

1 Werebear

1 Lotus Cobra

1 Sakura-Tribe Elder

1 Garruk Wildspeaker

There is no ramp in here that doesn't have a second use , so don't expect to grab together a dedicated ramp deck regularly.

Attacking Bodies

1 Wild Nacatl

1 Basking Rootwalla

1 Wolfbitten Captive

1 Wild Mongrel

1 Strangleroot Geist

1 Skinshifter

1 Albino Troll

1 River Boa

1 Wolfir Avenger

1 Awakener Druid

1 Splinterfright

1 Arrogant Wurm

1 Wolfbriar Elemental

1 Vorapede

1 Thornling

1 Wolfir Silverheart

1 Golgari Grave-Troll

1 Maul Splicer

1 Primordial Hydra

1 Call of the Herd

1 Roar of the Wurm

As mentioned by eric, this lacks 1mana bodies

Defensive bodies

1 Wall of Blossoms

1 Brindle Shoat  [token is more offensive]

1 Gilt-Leaf Ambush

Utility bodies

1 ulvenwald tracker

1 Acidic Slime

1 Stingerfling Spider

1 Fauna Shaman

1 Eternal Witness

1 Stampeding Wildebeests

1 Haze Frog

1 Woodfall Primus

Utility spells

1 Prey Upon

1 Lignify

1 Constant Mists

1 Regrowth

1 Beast Within

Finishers

1 Lure

1 Rude Awakening

So far so good. These cards are supposed to be an aggressive Green section, preferably discard-oriented.

So far this amounted too ...

1 Wild Mongrel

1 Fauna Shaman

what a letdown ! Only two creatures there to pitch your Madness card to. So far for these guys ...

1 Basking Rootwalla

1 Arrogant Wurm

1 Roar of the Wurm

1 Werebear

1 Splinterfright

1 Golgari Grave-Troll

Well, it's only a meager amount of support for the archetype anyways.

Enter the updated package.

Manafixers-ramp

1 Birds of Paradise

1 Werebear [Tr]

1 Lotus Cobra

1 Sakura-Tribe Elder

1 Garruk Wildspeaker

Aggresive bodies

1 Dryad militant

1 Tattermunge maniac

1 Experiment one

1 young wolf

1 Rogue elephant

1 scyte tiger

1 Skarrgan Pit-skulk

2 Basking Rootwalla [M]

1 Nimble mongoose [Tr]

1 Wolfbitten Captive

2 Wild Mongrel [Di]

1 Strangleroot Geist

1 Skinshifter

1 Albino Troll

1 River Boa

1 Wolfir Avenger

1 Splinterfright [Mill]

1 Golgari Brownscale [Dr]

2 Arrogant Wurm [M]

1 Call of the Herd [F]

1 Awakener Druid

1 Wolfbriar Elemental

1 roar of the wurm [F]

1 Vorapede

1 Thornling

1 Wolfir Silverheart

1 Golgari Grave-Troll [Dr]

1 Gurzigost [Di]

1 Gigapede [Di]

1 Maul Splicer

1 Primordial Hydra

Flexible Bodies

1 Kavu titan [2/2 or 5/5]

1 kavu primarch [3/3 or 7/7]

Defensive bodies

1 Wall of Blossoms

1 Gilt-Leaf Ambush

utility

1 caller of the claw

1 ulvenwald tracker

1 Acidic Slime

1 Stingerfling Spider

1 Woodfall Primus

1 Fauna Shaman [Di]

On theme spells and utility

1 regrowth

1 Mulch

1 Howling gale [F]

1 Moldervine cloak [Dr]

1 Eternal witness

1 Narcissism [Di]

Other utility

1 Prey Upon

1 Lignify

1 Regrowth

1 Beast Within

1 Naturalize

1 Quiet Disrepair

Finishers

1 Lure

1 Rude Awakening

1 Stampede Driver [Di]

1 Centaur Chieftain 

It's a bit too large, but that's because i want to recap again Later, when i gave it a good second thought and got to reflect on some comments ^^

[Eric Chan]

Hey Hannes, I think you're going in the right direction in general. I disagree with you on one principle, though.

On aggro, i'm looking for decent green one drops. i'm not gonna push any other aggro-colors for now, since i don't really feel a need for more than one color, with some splash-support.

I'm gonna stop you right there. At the risk of sounding pushy, I feel it's necessary to emphasize the importance of supporting aggro in most, if not all of your colours across the board. If you've been keeping up with Jason's articles, you'll know that mono-colour aggro doesn't generally result in the best decks. Rather, the most powerful aggro decks are typically two colour, and on rare occasion, three. Supporting aggro in a wide variety of colours allows players to naturally combine them and come up with a nice mix of aggro decks from one draft to the next. But pushing the archetype only in green will mean a couple of things: first, there are only enough cards to allow one player at the table to go into aggro; and second, they'll end up with roughly the same deck each time.

Now, you may be asking: Why is it important so support aggro at all? Couldn't I just excise aggro from the cube altogether, and be done with it? The answer is, yes, you could. I've played cubes with minimal to no aggro support. If that's the feel of the cube you're going for, you could certainly take it in that direction. But I will warn you that the games played won't resemble anything close to your typical constructed or even limited match of Magic. Without the checks and balances that the typical aggro / midrange / control trifecta provide for one another, games boil down to slamming five, six, seven, and eight drops against each other, and seeing who can land the biggest haymaker and be the last man standing. That can be fun for a while, but in the long run, there's not a lot of subtlety if everyone's trying to achieve the same goal of going over the top. The best draft strategy quickly becomes apparent to everyone at the table. Aggro decks provide the important function of policing the slow, durdly decks, keeping them honest and making sure they play a fair game. Without the fast aggro decks, the default strategy is typically going larger than the next guy. Cube environments are more strategic and provide more tension when you can go under the midrange deck, in addition to over.

Now, that's all a bunch of theoretical gobbledygook, but my advice in real terms would be to try and provide support for aggro in most, if not all, of your colours. It's interesting that you choose green to push aggro in, because that tends to be one of the weaker aggro colours, so I might try to make sure that a colour like white, which is traditionally strong in aggro, has the proper support. Then you could pick blue or black, and fill out the aggro quotient there as well.

Taking a step back from the discussion of aggro support for a second, I think that another principle to keep in mind is that as a cube designer, you want to ensure that a wide variety of archetypes are supported. We all have our biases and preferences as players, and we need to be careful not to bake those into the draft formats we design. Even if you're, say, a dedicated control player at heart, it's important to remember that not all of your players will share your playstyle, and that you want to enable them to draft decks that they enjoy. Supporting archetypes at each end of the spectrum goes a long way to crafting a good cube draft experience for your group.

I hope you don't take this post the wrong way, as I like your ideas in general, and a lot of the card selections you're making sound like great experiments. And you may have already thought about all of the topics I've already discussed here. But, just in case you haven't, I thought I might give you a few morsels to chew on.

[Jason Waddell]

To echo Eric a bit, one of the classic ideas of Magic is that you either want to be a lot faster or a little bit slower than your opponent. This is what causes the "rock paper scissors" dynamic of "aggro midrange control". Just like in rock-paper-scissors, if there is one move underrepresented, the balance quickly breaks. 

This is not only in terms of strength, but the total proportion of your draft environment. Imagine that only 10% of the decks are "rock". We drift towards an environment where it's almost always most profitable to play "scissors". If you can't be a lot faster than the opponent, then everybody tries to be a little bit slower. Hence, dragon Magic. 

There's nothing sacred about aggro decks. The reason Magic writers hammer "support aggro" home over and over is that it's the most common mistake. People are drawn to the bigger splashier spells. But we could also imagine a world where for whatever reason control is not being supported properly. Then we'd all be writing "support control" all over the place. 

Personally, I enjoy there being a wide variety of viable aggro color combinations. It's fun to see the different angles, and play Izzet aggro one week, Orzhov the next and Gruul / Naya / whatever the next time. Not all of them are equally viable (I never play straight Simic aggro, for example, but I do play Bant or RUG or BUG aggro).

[Hannes Versmissen]

I'm looking into white batallion/battlecry overlap + indestructiblity effects for the white aggro. Black will get madness and discard + basic black aggro. blue will get one or two aggressive creatures, so people can use the many 2 mana counterspells to craft aggro-control decks.

I'll post "decent coverage" later on.

Sidenote: I'm really impressed by the sudden surge in activity. Slightly overwhelming but cool !

[Hannes Versmissen]

As of this morning i'm running 3 Basking rootwalla and 2 Illusory Angels.

[Hannes Versmissen]

I hosted my forst 6-player game this evening, and got the most amazing experience about cube so far. The incredible and positive feedback was overwhelming :D

[Jason Waddell]

Sweet, care to share what the decks were / give a tournament report?

[Hannes Versmissen]

After 6 PM i'm home from work. I kept the drafted decks intact including sideboard, so i might be able to whip up something interesting ;D

[Hannes Versmissen]

"Slow" is my middle name.

Here are the crafted decks, with their pilots and main assets !

0-3 : Hannes ("i'm a Terrible drafter when i want to force something") with BGw aggro

Nothing too intresting here. Tombstalker and Sorin V2 were backup-plans that got wiped out a bit too easy

0-3 : Johan with WGR "control"

The deck lacks some strong removal, wich seemed to make it hard for him to get into the lategame.

2-1 : Toon with WRb Aggro

Misjudging Molten disaster was a pitfall for his deck. Leaving contryside crusher, dust elemental and desecration demon out of the deck when playing silverblade paladin might be another one.

His deck had a powerfull and quick execution though, and was effective at doing it's "thing".

2-1 : Annelies with BR midrange

A true two-color deck featuring a slew of removal and some large and home-hitting midrange drops like urabrask and rakdos pit dragon.

2-1 : Glenn with UGbw Basking control

Glenn built a deck for nostalgia's sake, that hit the "finals" of the small draft.

It featured a Trading post, and quite a few other outlets to power out blocking basking rootwallas while gaining four life.

Hoofprints of the stag, and many artifact creatures like tidehollow strix and shard agent pulled the deck togheter.

3-0 : Yoeri with WUg ETB

Master biomancer, Venser and conjourers closet really seemed to mesh well syngergistically.

Sunblast angel was a great assent to him !