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Jeremy's Cube

By ibjeremy

Score: 1

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Description

The contents of my cube. It is an unpowered cube with strong fixing and minimal combo. There are some strong synergies and several different playable archtypes. Aggro, midrange, tempo, and control all have multiple color combos. The cube is symmetric as far as two color pairs go (i.e. each pair has an even number of cards and fixing). There are 360 cards in it. I haven't played it enough that I feel there is a need to have a much larger cube. There is enough variation already that I don't think there's a need to go up to 540. That, and that I haven't had a need to support 10 players.

There are 42 cards of each color. Artifacts or lands that require a single color I counted as that respective color. This means Vedalken Shackles, Spire Golem, and Academy Ruins are blue. Karakas would count as white for these purposes, even though any color deck could play it. There are 32 artifact cards and currently no other colorless, non-land cards, but I am not opposed to them. There are 38 total lands. Each color pair has an ABU dual land, a fetch land, and a Ravnica bounce land. There are three additional lands for color fixing and three lands that act as mana denial. There are two colorless man lands.

There are 80 gold cards (8 of each pair). I considered hybrid cards as gold for this. I also consider are card that needs two colors to be used optimally gold, like Momentary Blink or Flinthoof Boar as gold cards. While they can be played in a deck without both cards, they are definitely not on par otherwise.

I decided not to include cards that require extremely strong single color commitment as you need to strongly commit to having many cards that reward mono or near mono colored decks in the cube. I feel this is too restrictive on the cube.

There is single target land destruction, but I decided not to run mass land destruction. I don't think my cube friends would be a fan. I personally don't mind it, but I'm not the only one playing.

Colorless (98)

Land (52)

Artifact (36)

Creature (7)

Unknown (3)

  • 1x Consuming Vapor
  • 1x Jotun Grunts
  • 1x Stomping Grounds

Gold (97)

Creature (56)

Instant (22)

Sorcery (8)

Enchantment (7)

Planeswalker (4)

White (51)

Creature (34)

Instant (7)

Enchantment (3)

Sorcery (6)

Planeswalker (1)

Blue (49)

Creature (22)

Instant (21)

Sorcery (3)

Enchantment (2)

Planeswalker (1)

Black (51)

Creature (23)

Sorcery (12)

Planeswalker (1)

Artifact (1)

Enchantment (7)

Instant (7)

Red (51)

Creature (32)

Sorcery (10)

Instant (8)

Planeswalker (1)

Green (53)

Creature (37)

Sorcery (6)

Planeswalker (1)

Land (1)

Artifact (1)

Enchantment (4)

Instant (3)

pookypuppy6 says... #1

How did you go about deciding what would be in your cube? You seem to have a lot of powerful cards, and then also things like Errant Ephemeron or Thrill-Kill Assassin that I would have thought would easily get outclassed. Did you have a system or do you just pick what cards you like without a precise plan?

August 5, 2013 9:13 p.m.

ibjeremy says... #2

Errant Ephemeron is actually a ridiculous card in most draft formats. He is an easy first pick in Time Spiral, and a strong one in Modern Masters. He works in tempo based blue (and particularly blue green) and in control decks. He's suspended on turn 2 or 4 as a way to sneak in a finisher while keeping counter magic, removal, and general disruption open. He fills a niche that is actually rather rare. He's a 2 mana finisher that you can fire and forget.

Thrill-Kill Assassin is actually put in a surprising number of cubes. He is used to support aggro decks that want to splash black. Unfortunately, most black creatures are actually rather poor in aggro. The few that are strong, are heavy black and nearly impossible to splash. I don't want mono black (or other mono colored decks) to really be a major or pushed thing in my cube, so Gatekeeper of Malakir and Dauthi Slayer are out.

Thrill-Kill Assassin himself is actually rather scary in limited. As a 2/3 with deathtouch, he will actually require a bit of an investment to kill in limited. He has enough toughness he'll rarely trade with 2 drops, usually just wiping them out when on the attack. And since he has deathtouch, he's guaranteed to trade for another piece of cardboard. And if your 2 drop eats a removal spell, he's definitely worth it. But late game, he can still do something, but he becomes very defensive. Being a 1/2 with deathtouch (if drawn late), he can still hold off your opponents largest non-evasive threat. Having your threats act as proxy removal late game or if you're losing is fantastic. He's no where near broken in constructed, don't get me wrong, but he can do some damage in draft formats where you can't just run 1/2 your cards as removal spells, guaranteeing one on turn 2.

And I'm sure Nezumi Cutthroat and Dauthi Horror stand out, they're just evasive 2 drops. They aren't award winners, but they usually sneak in 6 damage, which is a great deal for 2 mana in aggro.

It's also important to include role players in your cube if you want certain archtypes to be possible. If you don't have some aggressive early drops (and some defensive and utility ones), then those archtypes just won't have the support to be viable. You can't just put the most powerful cards in, regardless of overlap and mana cost, or you'll end up with unplayable, weird shaped decks.

Overall, yeah, there are more powerful cards than Thrill-Kill Assassin , but he fills the role he needs to fill.

That said, there are some pet cards in there; ones that I like but need to go (Pit Keeper ). This is definitely an unfinished version.

I'm very tired, so I'm going to bed now, but I'd be glad to clarify anything anything that seems odd to you.

August 9, 2013 3:37 a.m.

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Cards 450
Date added 11 years
Last updated 10 years

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