Good morning, everyone. It has been a few months now since I ventured into the wonderful world of the peasant cube (this is my almost definitive list https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/sp8 ). One of the main questions I am asking myself concerns the role of white in this type of format. Besides the aggro strategy (supported by mono white, Boros), and the midrange strategy (Orzhov, Azorius, Selesnya), is it also possible to develop more control strategies in white color? I see that many lists play cards like Kirtar's Wrath or other very slow control cards, but I don't understand in which deck they can be played. Perhaps it is possible to play Azorius control by increasing cards like Wall of Omens or Custodi Squire?
Thanks to anyone who will respond.
I think many white creatures may do a double job as attackers or blockers depending of your vision. Some examples I run in my Cube, but not all, just in case you would like to play azorius control. Not many of them are good to block green fatties with trample, for example (you should exile or counter those spells) but these cards help to stop aggro while you gain time to cast a wrath or play your wincons.
If your opponent kills these creatures with a burn spell to be able to attack, that’s not so bad for you if the damage doesn't go to your face. The case is you need to find a way to stabilize the game with some good blockers, specially if they have lifelink or gain some life. If they have spot removal, well they were to use it on any creature you played, but maybe you can counter it in the mid game.
Peasant is a creature format. So pure control decks, like you see in constructed, almost without creatures, are really hard to see. More than control, many times you play a tempo game, where you play a creature with some ETB, or with Vigilance, so you can block at any moment while pressuring your opponent not losing a blocker.
I agree that "control" in peasant is much more creature focused. In Azorius in particular, I think that takes the form of value creatures and flicker effects. Combining Soulherder or Ephemerate with Reflector Mage or Cloudblazer is a ton of value and keeps you alive long enough to convert that into a real stranglehold on the game. I don't agree that all the cards Mat listed are strong enough for peasant cube, but you can definitely see how that type of card will stabilize a game long enough for you to find a way to win. I'll also put in a good word for Combat Thresher, which is basically Wall of Omens if it became a 3/3 double strike after you blinked it.
Board wipes are weird in peasant cube, because I find they either don't really fit into a gameplan or are completely backbreaking. I don't run Kirtar's Wrath because all of my white decks are creature-focused. But on the other hand, I had to cut Aether Gale and all the Golden Demise variants, because Gale almost always won the game on the spot whenever it was cast, and Demise does the same but only against aggro and tokens decks. The two that I still play are Aetherize and Fire Covenant. Aetherize hits a real sweet spot where it really slows down an opponent without completely taking them out of a game, and it fits in both control and tempo. Covenant is crazy strong, but at least in my environment creatures are big enough that you actually have to pay a considerable amount of life to make it a true board wipe.
One last thing to consider is how narrow or broad your cards are. You do need some number of narrow cards to really signal and enable specific archetypes, and to send signals / reward good drafting when they wheel. But mostly, I like to lean towards cards that more than one deck will want, because it makes the draft more interesting, the decks more varied, and is more efficient with your cube slots. If you have 20 cards that are amazing in control but dead everywhere else, that's 20 cards that most drafters will be completely unable to use. I find Azorius blink has a lot more cross-pollination with other archetypes than a more traditional WU control would have, so I prefer that in my cube.
I will second that anti-aggro sweepers can seem very polarizing, but where I am now most decks are mostly full of cards that die to 2 damage, especially outside of green. Aetherize is very spotty but seems to just win when it works.
Fire covenant is my vote for strongest spell in peasant and even if you pay 11 life to it you usually just win. At least that was my experience many years ago before I banned it.
Soulherder can be very distasteful to many people since it often is just a removal check for your opponent. It's really, really easy for it to take over.
Elite guardmage vs cloudblazer is an interesting place to look. Someone I know also likes chrome courier but sometimes I think they're smoking the real good **** so don't take my word for it.
I do run kirtar's wrath (and the black 6 mana wrath) and haven't found it to be an issue even though white has the most creatures. You can still build your decks to rebuild better than your opponents or to just be on the slower side on average.
I also agree with the sentiment that narrow cards should be rare, and hyperaggro/very controlling cards are narrow
//
I no longer have any love for big creatures that don't do anything right away, so serra angel is a no-go for me. By contrast Grey Knight Paragon has made me feel very safe when it's in my hand.
//
Also where did all these smart new people come from?
Also where did all these smart new people come from?
That's what I'm sayin'.
Hey! Them's fightin' words!
To Leelue's specific points:
Golden Demise etc - I have found that control remains dominant in my environment, despite my best efforts. Maybe it's because I tend to play with less enfranchised players who wouldn't touch a blue card if their lives depended on it, so I tend to get passed very potent Dimir and Grixis decks. In any case, while I like these in theory as peasant-level sweepers, I find them too punishing against an archetype that just doesn't need to be punished. It also rubs me slightly the wrong way that a 3-mana card can undo whole strategies like Spider Spawning or Rise From the Tides.
Fire Covenant - I'm curious what the average toughness was in your cube when this was banned, and what it is now. I have plenty of 3-5 toughness creatures running around, to the point where I can't always afford to make this better than a 3-for-1. That's still great, don't get me wrong, but not overbearing. The only reason it's currently on my watch list is the aforementioned dominance of control. As far as "best card" in peasant... honestly, it's not even close. Mana Drain, Skullclamp, Sol Ring, Ancient Tomb, Cabal Coffers, Karakas, Library of Alexandria, Maze of Ith, Strip Mine... whoops, got on a bit of a land kick there. You get my point. I don't even think it's the strongest card I run - I think Mother of Runes, Palace Jailer, Reanimate, Grafted Wargear, and even Goblin Bombardment are all stronger.
Soulherder - Is it a removal check? Maybe. It does require you sticking a 3-mana 1/1 with something else worth blinking on the board, and even then if all you're doing is drawing an extra card each turn, it's totally beatable. But let's say it is a removal check. In my 400-ish cards, I have 50 removal spells, 13 counterspells, and half a dozen bounce spells or other ways of handling it. Honestly, if you're playing against UW and don't have something to deal with it, that's kind of on you. Fundamentally, I think I'm just more ok than some other people with having power outliers... within reason. It helps with drafting in a number of ways, and makes games exciting.
Elite Guardmage was in my cube when it was bigger and I had a couple extra guild slots. I like it a lot, but slightly prefer Cloudblazer. Chrome Courier might make sense if you're really pushing artifact synergies, but I agree with you that it's easily worse than the other 2.
Grey Knight Paragon - a very strong card that I would run if I wanted to support more defensive white decks.
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My peasant cube list: Uncommonly Good (only uncommons, with rare lands)
Soulherder - ...if all you're doing is drawing an extra card each turn
I didn't say "best card", I said best spell. It might be ambiguous depending on the audience, but I meant it even more specifically than "nonland card", but instant/sorcery. And I would put Fire Covenant up against reanimate and even mana drain. And a couple the rest of the nonlands in that list too.
I didn't say "best card", I said best spell. It might be ambiguous depending on the audience, but I meant it even more specifically than "nonland card", but instant/sorcery. And I would put Fire Covenant up against reanimate and even mana drain. And a couple the rest of the nonlands in that list too.
I would say that a preponderance of people not only don't like to lose to the same action over and over, but REALLY don't like it. See: the unpopularity of retrace and buyback in both the playerbase and the developers.
There's just something psychologically different between a card incrementally beating you and a card dominating the boardstate.
I would say that a preponderance of people not only don't like to lose to the same action over and over, but REALLY don't like it. See: the unpopularity of retrace and buyback in both the playerbase and the developers.
Flashback is also one of Magic's most universally loved mechanics, so some people probably do like casting their spells repeatedly. You mostly identified cards that are extremely hard to interact with. I have played against Capsize where you hope you can hit removal in time to destroy YOUR OWN permanents in response.
There's just something psychologically different between a card incrementally beating you and a card dominating the boardstate.
I would ask you to clarify which of these two you prefer, but it is extremely clear based on your Cube construction that you greatly prefer incrementally beating your opponents. A lot of the cards in your Cube do multiple things like have adventures or create tokens or give extra counters. And another lot of the cards are incremental value engines that can help take over a game. But, do not worry, the removal is underpowered to deal with them.
There are times when snatching a victory by squeezing value out of every card feels great. There is also the paralysis of every single card having multiple decision points and generating more and more varied game pieces. It can also be very frustrating to deal with opponents hitting tbeir conditional engine cards EVERY turn. You found another token to sacrifice to Lulu, Loyal Hollyphant this turn or you killed my 2nd creature with Armix, Filigree Thrasher and you hit another land off Sarinth Steelseeker.
Cloudgoat Ranger into Soulherder means my opponent cast a 5 drop followed by a 3 drop the next turn and I had no answer and I lose and then we play another game. Or my deck has 8 ways to interact with that combo, so I have an answer. That is a better gameplay experience than someone triggering Fae Offering twice to slowly bury me in card advantage and gain 6 life.
I would say that a preponderance of people not only don't like to lose to the same action over and over, but REALLY don't like it. See: the unpopularity of retrace and buyback in both the playerbase and the developers.
Flashback is also one of Magic's most universally loved mechanics, so some people probably do like casting their spells repeatedly. You mostly identified cards that are extremely hard to interact with. I have played against Capsize where you hope you can hit removal in time to destroy YOUR OWN permanents in response.
Flashback's not in this category, as the spell's guaranteed to go away afterwards after one repeat. It doesn't trigger the psychological defeatism Leelue's talking about.
Orzhov Advokist was the one that triggered this in me. It felt so disheartening to think that not only did I need to find removal for the Advokist, I'd also need to find removal for the other creature my opponent was pumping up, as they started off with having a slightly larger creature than me. Every opponent's upkeep I was climbing a brick wall that after every two rows of stone climbed would get two more masoned on top of it. And it was just one card that did it.
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I wish all archetypes could be equally hated. Or loved, but the former better reflects the mindset of the vocal portion of the player base. My 540ish Peasant Cube on Cubetutor
As I see it, if Soulherder/Inspiring Overseer is fine, but Soulherder/Cloudgoat Ranger does not make a “good” game of Magic, the real issue is not about the same action “over and over,” but rather about a powerful action “over and over.”
I also think the reason these actions got compared to the psychological defeatism of buyback and retrace is that buyback and retrace are infamously difficult to interact with.
When the question comes to interaction, I will tell you that part of including powerful cards in Cube is including as much powerful interaction as possible to deal with them.
If you instead build your cube to tone down all the interaction, but leave in a variety of repeatable, incremental advantage engines, I think there are plenty of situations that would invoke defeatism.
“Death by a thousand cuts” is also considered torture, you know?
As I see it, if Soulherder/Inspiring Overseer is fine, but Soulherder/Cloudgoat Ranger does not make a “good” game of Magic, the real issue is not about the same action “over and over,” but rather about a powerful action “over and over.”
“Death by a thousand cuts” is also considered torture, you know?
The first sentence is basically just plagiarizing my post, so yeah that's what I meant.
I don't know how you'd balance Soulherder on the razor's edge, where it is worth playing (meaning it has reasonable odds of being alive for multiple turns) and where it is not soulcrushing half of the time.
"Cloudgoat Ranger into Soulherder means my opponent cast a 5 drop followed by a 3 drop the next turn and I had no answer and I lose and then we play another game... That is a better gameplay experience than someone triggering Fae Offering twice to slowly bury me in card advantage and gain 6 life."
...why aren't you able to race fae offering down? It's a 3 mana do nothing that barely made it into my cube, and when it finally does trigger it doesn't change how anyone attacks or blocks that turn. Or why aren't you building your own engine to compete with it? You reeally should be able to do one or the other. As for it being a worse experience than autolosing to an army of CGRs, there's no accounting for taste.
//
I initially liked advokist. Thought it was a fun minigame. But I've learned that when cards force the entire game to revolve around them, there had better be a good reason to include it, and yeah it's a bit much.
I don't know how you'd balance Soulherder on the razor's edge, where it is worth playing (meaning it has reasonable odds of being alive for multiple turns) and where it is not soulcrushing half of the time.
That's not the only criteria of "worth playing." In fact, some people like these big haymakers and trying to counter them with their own plays. And when someone suggested that earlier in this thread, it was immediately compared to Magic design mistakes.
The point is that some people like different things out of Magic and out of Cube. I presume the reason Vintage Cube is the most popular version of Cube is the power level. I built my Cube to have a similar experience at the Peasant level and people like drafting it the same way people like drafting other cubes.
Cloudgoat Ranger + Soulherder is a two card combo that costs 8 total mana and that starts with a measly 1/1 creature as the main removal target. A sorcery speed Shock is enough to deal with it. And it doesn't even necessarily end the game just because it's around for 2-3 turns either. 3-9 bonus 1/1 tokens doesn't spell immediate death, not even in peasant cube.
Magic is not chess and if you try to turn it into chess you will not only fail, but you will create the most boring limited environment possible. For me at least. There has to be a balance between insane powered cube plays that end the game out of nowhere and boring fair creature combat with weak removal spells. If your opponent casts a 5 mana Cloudgoat Ranger (which is a powerhouse on its own) and then a Soulherder the next turn and you have no way to deal with either of these creatures within the next 2-3 turns and you can't deal with a bunch of tokens either then you would have lost anyway most likely or yes, you were completely out of luck because you didn't draw any of your removal spells. But that's Magic and has nothing to do with the combo.
Also, how can someone run a card like Curse of Predation and complain about Soulherder? Curse of Predation doesn't need a specific creature to work well and there is no reliable way in an average cube deck to remove it at all. The only 'reasonable' way to deal with it is to keep the enemy board clear of creatures or to win before it can do anything.
It's cube design and as such it's a matter of taste, I know that Leelue wants his cube to be as fair as possible where no win feels like it came out of nowhere just because someone played a single powerful card. But from my pov if you try too hard to turn Magic into a fair, predictable game you will turn it into a boring game where all the magic is literally gone.
EDIT: Also, Stasis is my favorite deck in Premodern and old school and I don't mind if someone plays a deck like that against me. If I feel a game loss is inevitable I can always scoop. My playgroup likes that style of Magic as well. So much for psycholgical defeatism. I don't like Commander and the 'don't do anything that makes me feel bad/don't play cards with a high salt score' attitude commander players usually have as that's not what Magic is about to me. Tastes are different.
I have never played commander, but I was pretty sure that "silly nonsense that ends the game out of nowhere" was the bread and butter of how those games end.
This is also what I would tell you about the Cloudgoat Ranger/Soulherder deck. Why doesn't your deck have powerful cards or powerful interaction?
Beating a fringe-playable-at-best slow engine vs a format's spike in power are not in the same ballpark. Dishonest comparison. The likely avenues through which you can beat Fae Offering are legion, one branch of which importantly is over time. Also, man you really seem to be hung up on the thought that my lack of Bolt/Path/Swords is somehow a detriment to beating a 1/1. I have interaction. One just has to have it in hand or basically lose.
Also, how can someone run a card like Curse of Predation and complain about Soulherder?
Curse of predation/Shallow graves were both banned from my cube for many years. I am testing them out now to see if the absurd power creep of the last few years has caught up to them. I'm also tracking their winrates every draft. Right now they're 8 and 5. Hardly absurd. Lower than the winrate of the best common in MH3 draft: Writhing Chrysalis.
I even have them on my cubecobra with the tag "Possible Ban". I'm not blind to the reputation of these cards.
But from my pov if you try too hard to turn Magic into a fair, predictable game you will turn it into a boring game where all the magic is literally gone.
I don't know why it's so common for people to hear that I shave the outliers out of my cube and for them to talk about it like I am running a core set.
Some absolute doof I was talking to recently said "I don't like 'flat power cubes' because all the interesting cards are gone". I asked him what kinds of cards are missing, and he listed something like 7 cards: all of which were either in my cube or removed from my cube for being too weak. Power is not a synonym for interesting. That's how there (was) even a pauper community here in the first place.
Seems like this is a pretty good way to wrap up the discussion. People obviously aren't going to convince each other about specific card choices, but that's okay. Different people can like different things.
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My peasant cube list: Uncommonly Good (only uncommons, with rare lands)
People obviously aren't going to convince each other about specific card choices
Well maybe not the people directly involved in the conversation, but lurkers without strongly ingrained opinions either way usually benefit from such arguments. Even the somewhat vicious ones.
Thanks to anyone who will respond.
If your opponent kills these creatures with a burn spell to be able to attack, that’s not so bad for you if the damage doesn't go to your face. The case is you need to find a way to stabilize the game with some good blockers, specially if they have lifelink or gain some life. If they have spot removal, well they were to use it on any creature you played, but maybe you can counter it in the mid game.
Peasant is a creature format. So pure control decks, like you see in constructed, almost without creatures, are really hard to see. More than control, many times you play a tempo game, where you play a creature with some ETB, or with Vigilance, so you can block at any moment while pressuring your opponent not losing a blocker.
Market Gnome (blocker, draws and lifegain)
Outlaw Medic (blocker and lifelink, draws)
Wall of Omens (good blocker and draws)
Tax Collector (not released yet, gains you time)
Thraben Inspector (blocker and draw)
Resolute Reinforcement (flash, two blockers)
Cathar Commando (flash and power 3 to block and kill)
Spirited Companion (chumpblocker and draw)
Sunhome Stalwart (first strike to block)
Aerial responder (flyer with vigilance and lifelink, good body, solid card)
Archetype of Courage (great card to defend)
Ardenvale Tactician (trick and blocker with good stats)
Fairgrounds Warden (Removal on a creature)
Fiend Hunter (more removal on a creature)
Inspiring Overseer (blocker with flying draws a gains 1 life)
Mage's Attendant (two bodies, a tax effect to slow your opponent)
Porcelain Legionnaire (3 power with first strike, awesome blocker)
Prava of the Stee Legion (good body, mana sink to create tokens if you didn'y cast nothing)
Glimmerpoint Stag (solid body with vigilance, could kill an enemy token)
Witch Enchanter (blocker with hate or land)
Githzerai Monk (crazy card to attack or defend for a turn)
Alabaster Host Intercessor (helps with mana in the early game, removal later)
Serra Angel (your white wincon 1)
Atraxi Warden (your white wincon 2)
Angel of the Ruins (your white wincon 3, helps with mana early)
Sentinel of the Eternal Watch (your white wincon 4, taps their best attacker EACH COMBAT, also vigilance)
My Omniscience Draft Cube
My Commander Cube
My Pai Gow Cube
My Two-Headed Giant Cube
Board wipes are weird in peasant cube, because I find they either don't really fit into a gameplan or are completely backbreaking. I don't run Kirtar's Wrath because all of my white decks are creature-focused. But on the other hand, I had to cut Aether Gale and all the Golden Demise variants, because Gale almost always won the game on the spot whenever it was cast, and Demise does the same but only against aggro and tokens decks. The two that I still play are Aetherize and Fire Covenant. Aetherize hits a real sweet spot where it really slows down an opponent without completely taking them out of a game, and it fits in both control and tempo. Covenant is crazy strong, but at least in my environment creatures are big enough that you actually have to pay a considerable amount of life to make it a true board wipe.
One last thing to consider is how narrow or broad your cards are. You do need some number of narrow cards to really signal and enable specific archetypes, and to send signals / reward good drafting when they wheel. But mostly, I like to lean towards cards that more than one deck will want, because it makes the draft more interesting, the decks more varied, and is more efficient with your cube slots. If you have 20 cards that are amazing in control but dead everywhere else, that's 20 cards that most drafters will be completely unable to use. I find Azorius blink has a lot more cross-pollination with other archetypes than a more traditional WU control would have, so I prefer that in my cube.
Fire covenant is my vote for strongest spell in peasant and even if you pay 11 life to it you usually just win. At least that was my experience many years ago before I banned it.
Soulherder can be very distasteful to many people since it often is just a removal check for your opponent. It's really, really easy for it to take over.
Elite guardmage vs cloudblazer is an interesting place to look. Someone I know also likes chrome courier but sometimes I think they're smoking the real good **** so don't take my word for it.
I do run kirtar's wrath (and the black 6 mana wrath) and haven't found it to be an issue even though white has the most creatures. You can still build your decks to rebuild better than your opponents or to just be on the slower side on average.
I also agree with the sentiment that narrow cards should be rare, and hyperaggro/very controlling cards are narrow
//
I no longer have any love for big creatures that don't do anything right away, so serra angel is a no-go for me. By contrast Grey Knight Paragon has made me feel very safe when it's in my hand.
//
Also where did all these smart new people come from?
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
It's the new generation of peasanters. We are the ol' timers buddy.
My Peasant Cube thread !!! (380 cards)
Draft my Peasant Cube on Cube Cobra !!!
Awww...
Hey! Them's fightin' words!
To Leelue's specific points:
I didn't say "best card", I said best spell. It might be ambiguous depending on the audience, but I meant it even more specifically than "nonland card", but instant/sorcery. And I would put Fire Covenant up against reanimate and even mana drain. And a couple the rest of the nonlands in that list too.
If Soulherder is just next to a... uh... inspiring overseer, sure that's beatable. But Chupacabra? Cloudgoat ranger? That's not really a "good" game of magic.
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
Gotcha. I agree with that.
Agree to disagree? That sounds like good magic to me. The game's gotta end sometime.
There's just something psychologically different between a card incrementally beating you and a card dominating the boardstate.
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
Flashback is also one of Magic's most universally loved mechanics, so some people probably do like casting their spells repeatedly. You mostly identified cards that are extremely hard to interact with. I have played against Capsize where you hope you can hit removal in time to destroy YOUR OWN permanents in response.
I would ask you to clarify which of these two you prefer, but it is extremely clear based on your Cube construction that you greatly prefer incrementally beating your opponents. A lot of the cards in your Cube do multiple things like have adventures or create tokens or give extra counters. And another lot of the cards are incremental value engines that can help take over a game. But, do not worry, the removal is underpowered to deal with them.
There are times when snatching a victory by squeezing value out of every card feels great. There is also the paralysis of every single card having multiple decision points and generating more and more varied game pieces. It can also be very frustrating to deal with opponents hitting tbeir conditional engine cards EVERY turn. You found another token to sacrifice to Lulu, Loyal Hollyphant this turn or you killed my 2nd creature with Armix, Filigree Thrasher and you hit another land off Sarinth Steelseeker.
Cloudgoat Ranger into Soulherder means my opponent cast a 5 drop followed by a 3 drop the next turn and I had no answer and I lose and then we play another game. Or my deck has 8 ways to interact with that combo, so I have an answer. That is a better gameplay experience than someone triggering Fae Offering twice to slowly bury me in card advantage and gain 6 life.
https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/peasantsnowcube
-- Updated with Bloomburrow
The PioneWer Peasant CUbe
https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/pionewer
-- Updated with Murders at Karlov Manor
Flashback's not in this category, as the spell's guaranteed to go away afterwards after one repeat. It doesn't trigger the psychological defeatism Leelue's talking about.
Orzhov Advokist was the one that triggered this in me. It felt so disheartening to think that not only did I need to find removal for the Advokist, I'd also need to find removal for the other creature my opponent was pumping up, as they started off with having a slightly larger creature than me. Every opponent's upkeep I was climbing a brick wall that after every two rows of stone climbed would get two more masoned on top of it. And it was just one card that did it.
My 540ish Peasant Cube on Cubetutor
I also think the reason these actions got compared to the psychological defeatism of buyback and retrace is that buyback and retrace are infamously difficult to interact with.
When the question comes to interaction, I will tell you that part of including powerful cards in Cube is including as much powerful interaction as possible to deal with them.
If you instead build your cube to tone down all the interaction, but leave in a variety of repeatable, incremental advantage engines, I think there are plenty of situations that would invoke defeatism.
“Death by a thousand cuts” is also considered torture, you know?
https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/peasantsnowcube
-- Updated with Bloomburrow
The PioneWer Peasant CUbe
https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/pionewer
-- Updated with Murders at Karlov Manor
The first sentence is basically just plagiarizing my post, so yeah that's what I meant.
I don't know how you'd balance Soulherder on the razor's edge, where it is worth playing (meaning it has reasonable odds of being alive for multiple turns) and where it is not soulcrushing half of the time.
"Cloudgoat Ranger into Soulherder means my opponent cast a 5 drop followed by a 3 drop the next turn and I had no answer and I lose and then we play another game... That is a better gameplay experience than someone triggering Fae Offering twice to slowly bury me in card advantage and gain 6 life."
...why aren't you able to race fae offering down? It's a 3 mana do nothing that barely made it into my cube, and when it finally does trigger it doesn't change how anyone attacks or blocks that turn. Or why aren't you building your own engine to compete with it? You reeally should be able to do one or the other. As for it being a worse experience than autolosing to an army of CGRs, there's no accounting for taste.
//
I initially liked advokist. Thought it was a fun minigame. But I've learned that when cards force the entire game to revolve around them, there had better be a good reason to include it, and yeah it's a bit much.
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
That's not the only criteria of "worth playing." In fact, some people like these big haymakers and trying to counter them with their own plays. And when someone suggested that earlier in this thread, it was immediately compared to Magic design mistakes.
This is also what I would tell you about the Cloudgoat Ranger/Soulherder deck. Why doesn't your deck have powerful cards or powerful interaction?
The point is that some people like different things out of Magic and out of Cube. I presume the reason Vintage Cube is the most popular version of Cube is the power level. I built my Cube to have a similar experience at the Peasant level and people like drafting it the same way people like drafting other cubes.
https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/peasantsnowcube
-- Updated with Bloomburrow
The PioneWer Peasant CUbe
https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/pionewer
-- Updated with Murders at Karlov Manor
Magic is not chess and if you try to turn it into chess you will not only fail, but you will create the most boring limited environment possible. For me at least. There has to be a balance between insane powered cube plays that end the game out of nowhere and boring fair creature combat with weak removal spells. If your opponent casts a 5 mana Cloudgoat Ranger (which is a powerhouse on its own) and then a Soulherder the next turn and you have no way to deal with either of these creatures within the next 2-3 turns and you can't deal with a bunch of tokens either then you would have lost anyway most likely or yes, you were completely out of luck because you didn't draw any of your removal spells. But that's Magic and has nothing to do with the combo.
Also, how can someone run a card like Curse of Predation and complain about Soulherder? Curse of Predation doesn't need a specific creature to work well and there is no reliable way in an average cube deck to remove it at all. The only 'reasonable' way to deal with it is to keep the enemy board clear of creatures or to win before it can do anything.
It's cube design and as such it's a matter of taste, I know that Leelue wants his cube to be as fair as possible where no win feels like it came out of nowhere just because someone played a single powerful card. But from my pov if you try too hard to turn Magic into a fair, predictable game you will turn it into a boring game where all the magic is literally gone.
EDIT: Also, Stasis is my favorite deck in Premodern and old school and I don't mind if someone plays a deck like that against me. If I feel a game loss is inevitable I can always scoop. My playgroup likes that style of Magic as well. So much for psycholgical defeatism. I don't like Commander and the 'don't do anything that makes me feel bad/don't play cards with a high salt score' attitude commander players usually have as that's not what Magic is about to me. Tastes are different.
My Old School Battlebox
My Premodern Battlebox
Beating a fringe-playable-at-best slow engine vs a format's spike in power are not in the same ballpark. Dishonest comparison. The likely avenues through which you can beat Fae Offering are legion, one branch of which importantly is over time. Also, man you really seem to be hung up on the thought that my lack of Bolt/Path/Swords is somehow a detriment to beating a 1/1. I have interaction. One just has to have it in hand or basically lose.
Speaking of...
Curse of predation/Shallow graves were both banned from my cube for many years. I am testing them out now to see if the absurd power creep of the last few years has caught up to them. I'm also tracking their winrates every draft. Right now they're 8 and 5. Hardly absurd. Lower than the winrate of the best common in MH3 draft: Writhing Chrysalis.
I even have them on my cubecobra with the tag "Possible Ban". I'm not blind to the reputation of these cards.
I don't know why it's so common for people to hear that I shave the outliers out of my cube and for them to talk about it like I am running a core set.
Some absolute doof I was talking to recently said "I don't like 'flat power cubes' because all the interesting cards are gone". I asked him what kinds of cards are missing, and he listed something like 7 cards: all of which were either in my cube or removed from my cube for being too weak. Power is not a synonym for interesting. That's how there (was) even a pauper community here in the first place.
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
Seems like this is a pretty good way to wrap up the discussion. People obviously aren't going to convince each other about specific card choices, but that's okay. Different people can like different things.
Well maybe not the people directly involved in the conversation, but lurkers without strongly ingrained opinions either way usually benefit from such arguments. Even the somewhat vicious ones.
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
I do too. Going back to edit my posts to not get warnings is so much work
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
My Peasant Cube thread !!! (380 cards)
Draft my Peasant Cube on Cube Cobra !!!