Servicing My UnPowered Vintage Cube - #85

In this episode of Powerful Nothing, Daniel and James take a look at their Unpowered Vintage cube, and give it a bit of a service. We finally have the talk about some of the tests and pet cards that might need to get cut, and talk about how we're going to rebalance Daniel's main cube to make it more fun for all who play it.

Sweet Unpowerd Vintage Cube: https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/sweet

Time Codes:
0:58 - Overview of Unpowered Vintage cube
15:07 - Discussing potential cuts
52:06 - Archtype updates
1:12:14 - Checking numbers

Card Gallery: https://moxfield.com/decks/qqm_QiTnOU6AhMO5-xEs9w

Video Version: https://youtu.be/l4P0UJP-rI4

Cube Skeleton: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vSgfAJTKN3-HsyK-gXPFN6cBtyHYABNdr4Jl5uZuz0qccijjcZRLPzYPppEdrvKwrLd44MCoWrMLyg9/pub

My Cube: https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/sweet
The Treat Yourself Cube: https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/treatyourself
James Cube: https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/ba642a54-a6c7-4587-b97e-1d95429c59b5
MTGO Vintage Cube: https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/modovintage

Social Links: https://linktr.ee/toosweetmtg

Runaway by Diamond Ace | https://soundcloud.com/diamond-ace-music
Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com
Creative Commons / Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0)
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en_US

Transcript

0:03

Hello everyone. Welcome back to Powerful Nothing and Magic The Gathering Cube podcast. I'm your host, Dan, and as always, I'm joined by James. James. How are you doing this week? You. Well yeah I'm figures, man. I'm figures. How are you doing? I'm good. Yeah, I'm doing all right. Thank you. I'm excited to talk about today's episode, because I get to talk about one of my favorite things. Not just cube. I get to talk about my cube today. The plan is, what we're going to do is we're going to do a little, cube service, a little checkup on my main cube. Before we get into that, however, do make sure that you give the podcast a, like, thumbs up and all that goodness. And also, there will be time codes down below if you want to jump around, along with a link to a video version on YouTube, as well as a link to a card gallery where we'll put up any card that we talk about. We are quite good at reading cards, but sometimes we forget because we're in the heat of the moment. So if you want to follow along with some nice pretty pictures, those are some ways you can do it. But yeah, let's jump into our main topic for today, which is yeah, it's been a little while since I've made a, update to my cube. We haven't drafted my main cube in about 3 or 4 months, and that's not really because there's no, because we're not we've not been cubing. The reality is we now like between me and New James, we have five cubes. So, so we've just been playing a lot more other cubes and a lot more kind of like two or like four players to all star environments as well. Yeah. For sure. The, the cube creation has, has got somewhat out of hand. The options are extensive. And I need more games, I need more. We do need more. And it's always. It's always good. It's always kind of more fun. Just a shiny new thing. Right? But, Yeah, I think your cube has always been been really good to draft. It has certainly been on quite a journey, I would say, over the course of its existence in terms of like power level and just play experience. Yeah, definitely. And yeah. Yeah. And and yeah, I don't think there's anything particularly broken about it. And like it is still my favorite magic thing that I like. Like if I had to keep one thing in, in my magic, it would be my main, I still call it my main cube, so it kind of shows you where we are, but yeah. Yeah, I think what it needs the point of today, it's just kind of do a bit of a check in and do a tuneup. And it's basically there's been a bunch of things that I have been testing in it that I think it's probably worth us having a chat about, and basically the reason why we're doing it on the podcast and the reason why James is here is because he's going to give me some hard truths on how some of them may have worked, and some of them may have not have worked and like part of it as well as I, I was looking at the numbers in terms of like or basically I've been quite good when I've made updates and changes to my cube that like, oh, I'll if I take a two drop out, I'll put a two drop in. But like every now and then that's kind of like slightly better. Oh, I'll put the I'll sort this two drop from a three drop, that kind of thing. But I haven't done a check in numbers in about five years. So some are a little off. And that's going to be something as well that we're gonna be looking at today. Hopefully these are some things that kind of like if you're thinking about doing a big update to your cube, you can get some use out of this. I think they probably just start actually with a quick overview of my cube. So kind of set the scene where we are with it. So it's a 540 unpowered vintage cube. So it runs a lot of the broken cards, but it doesn't run things like fast manner. There's no Moxon, there's no power nine. It was at a point a few years ago where it effectively was power, but without the power. But so so we had it's like every card, all the initiative, all the for dealing as mains do. We've come down a little bit from that but not all the way. And that kind of balancing is something we're going to be talking about today. Yeah for sure. It's I think there was a point where your cube was actually like for busted decks were as busted as as really good vintage cube decks. You know, when we had like, we had consoles and we had the initiative and, and yeah, I mean, we're not we're still not a million miles off that, you know, we've we've lost super busted cars, but I think we've still got the, you know, psychic fogs and for phalanxes of well, well, it's in there. Right. So it's, it's a pretty high power level cube at this point. Yeah. One thing with it is that I've always I've always tried to keep it up to date with new cards that have been coming out. That's been a little bit harder the last six months or so, but I've done the maybe board for it has been updated even though there hasn't been a main change. But yeah, yeah, it's it's always been a decent power level, but it's kind of gone from being quite high power to very high powered, like, like like when it was first built, there was no combos in it at all. And then we added a bunch of combos and then I kind of but some of those have stayed in, some of those have come out and just it's I do feel like it's a more rounded environment now. Some other things that are worth mentioning with my cube and these are going to be some of the things that are things we're going to be touching on today. These are like the additional extra things that my cube has that I've been kind of, I think have made my cube unique. But one of the things I'm talking about is, is the juice worth the squeeze? So all the basics in my cube are snow lands. We play with companions as written, so that means you don't have to. So all the companions in the cube are like how they were originally printed. You don't have to pay the additional three to put them to move it as source, to speed from your command zone into your hand. If that's too good, that is something we're going to be talking about today. I also run double fetches. So two of every fetch lands and there are some draft matter cards. So the things like clockwork librarian and law seeker in here, these are only do three things in the draft. They don't do things outside of it. The other thing with my cube is that when you get to five wins, you get to permanently add a card. So my cube is actually I say it's a 540. It's actually a 543. James, you've added two cards more than anyone else because, you got to ten wins. You added you added fast bond and insidious roots. Great choices. I think I'll stand behind five. Yeah. The insidious roots has been. There's been a bit of a chat, but honestly, I think these these, these first two additions have definitely been, my win rates in this cube quite a lot because I keep, I keep kind of enforcing them, but I see verbally. But, Yeah, I think that's a cool angle though. But people get to add cards, right? Yeah. It's. Yeah. Oh, what you're saying. Yeah, it's a nice reward thing. The kind of people who are invested in Play the Cube a lot get to have. But also, yeah, as you said it, it does trainwreck like like the people who add them feel like, Ooh, I've added this card. I must draft it and, like, yeah, it's a nice level check that you train wreck yourself, which seems somewhat varied to add fast button and then not fast back and know. But yeah, in terms of some of the things about the cube, like a lot of the archetypes and kind of decks you can build in it are similar to what you would see in other high powered level cubes. Like there will obviously be a link down to the cube if you want to see specific archetypes. Yeah, most of the busted decks you see in Vintage Cube. About that. There is a version of Re-Animator. We have things like Dream Halls, we have sneak in show, we have flash, we have doomsday and had, we have like Naidoo decks, we have storm. So like all of the packages and, like, kind of two color decks that you would expect from power hypercube are here with some sort of differences. Like, one of the main differences in my cube is that, there's a higher emphasis on artifacts. It's not an artifact cube, but there is an artifact deck, specific, like mono brown or mono brown. Touching rectus a little bit here and there. Artifact value or, artifact aggro deck that I really like, but it's definitely a having that having that many artifacts does warp the numbers a little bit compared to a regular cube. Yeah for sure. And I think it's it's quite a different artifact deck than the one people are maybe thinking of if they're familiar with, with, popular power cubes. But it's not so much that big mana blue deck, although certainly can make a lot of mana, but it's also, there's a pretty big emphasis on, like, red and black artifact creatures, right? Make can play out very much as a beat down deck. Yeah, exactly. The, the big Mana artifact deck isn't really in this, but like, the go wide one that you see the things that take advantage of things like, just saga and those kind of cards, like, those are like, that is that is what Green White is doing in this group. So so so so just in. But but just in general there's a higher density of, of artifacts and there's something that I quite like about it. So moving on to what we're going to be talking about today. One of the things I kind I want to get from today is effectively where my cube is going from now, because, as I said, I think it's at a good place. But I think there are things like there are definitely some power outliers. And there I think you need some balancing. I think I need to talk about some of the things that I've talked about the start, like in terms of like the snow lands, the companions, kind of like where do they fit in power level now? Because for a long time it was push it as hard as you can, always play the new hotness and realistically, I like what I've enjoyed about cube over the last year primarily is being able to make the environment that you want, and that's kind of where I'm the aim of this is to kind of pull it back from being the most powerful cube possible to being a strong and good power level cube. But giving room for for me to play more cards I like and letting them shine rather than like the cards. I like just being power ripped out by the biggest, dumbest initiative creature. For example. I think like the the way I've written it down is from a power level point of view. I want Glory Bringer to be a quite a good card. Like Joy bringer is in the vintage cube. That's what I believe now. But no one's. But it's not like a high pick. And I'm not saying it's going to be the strongest card, but like I want in this cube for it to be good, to pay five mana, an attack with a cool dragon, and importantly as well, one thing I really want from this cube is I don't just want the best thing that someone can do as a deck is just draft good cards. I kind of want them to at least have to build something, but that's why previously I've cut cards like Maneskin, Boo and Forte Lingus because some people were just putting these in a deck and that's what they were winning with. It wasn't forcing them to do anything interesting, if that makes sense. So I think my power level point of view, what I'm after is an environment where synergy cards can compete with efficiency cards. So there will still just be raw, efficient cards in there. Like, like like Lightning bolt is still going to be in here. It doesn't really synergize with anything. It's just raw and efficient. But to like compare it to the powered cube on arena right now, the Boris deck, it, the Boris deck. I just don't want to be. I'm just playing good cards and turning them sideways. I kind of want there to be a little bit of synergy that makes it stronger, which probably means lowering the power level of the cube enough so that those type of decks can exist. I think that's a good way of explaining what I'm after. Yeah, for sure. I think it's of speaks to a slightly bigger issue with building cubes these days. Where have, because wizards have made a lot of FUD ups in the last sort of five, ten years that are very explicitly trying to be higher than standard power level. Right? The, like, Modern Horizons is kind of the, the archetypical thing. Right. But also but you know, there's also, Lord of the things. As for, commander decks, which possibly includes cards that you would never include a standard legal set, right? And if you just take the best cards and put them in a cube, then those things are very, very loud, you know, because they're and it kind of breaks down the old way when you talk about power levels of cubes, where we talk about like, this is a modern cube, this is a legacy cube. The vintage cube, because actually, you know, outside of for power, the best cards, the best cards of the cards for, for modern horizons that have some commander decks that have, but have a lot of things right for this sort of product. And it can very easily end up in a spot where it's not fit, because they're coming for new cars that are coming through standard don't matter, but on those feels like, you know, further Commons and the modern horizons cards have a vase sometimes, you know, like you compare psychic fog to of of like, you know, the two drops, so it's fins in sand and it's just, it's a completely different power level, right? By design, like face cards. It's just built for a different format. But again, we do, like, need to bear that in mind. Ice cube designers fight, like, do we? How big do we want the power level spread to be here? Because you just need to be conscious to avoid this thought that it feels like all of a cube is about that. And it's about how many of these token cards did you open, and how many of them can you manage to put in your deck? Yeah, I completely agree with that. I think one thing as well, which I forgot to kind of talk about in like the overview part, but like there was a there was a period of time where my cube was the only real, the only cube readily drafted in our play group. So I did feel a bit more of, a push to just make it, like, as good, like as good as it could be with like in terms of, like the cards available so that so that's I think one reason why there's so many like there's always been like Modern Horizons cards and like what's the hardness or broad type on what is get in there, that kind of stuff. I've not really had the space to take a step back and be like, but what, what, what do I like? What is everyone actually like doing? And that's kind of more what this update is about, I think, because, because, well, one of your cubes is a is a power cube. I know that you're you're thinking of making some changes about the modern horizons cards, but there is still that high power level cube where you can do the bump the most broken things in our play group. And just that it's more readily available with on things like arena. Yeah. So if I wanted to draft a power cube or a high powered cube, I could just again buy that tablet and, load up arena. So, so, so it's less of a thing that I need from my own personal cube. I think there's actually talk about some cards, and I think this might be one of the. I will admit, this one is self-inflicted because wizards realized they couldn't do something too strong and fixed it. And I chose to ignore that. And that is companions as written. This one's down. I feel like my own fault. It's. Yeah, basically in my cube, as it has, it has been since they've been introduced. We play or we have played with companions as written. So that means that yeah. As it went over earlier, you can just cast them from the command zone. You don't have to pay the three to put them into your hand. They. Yeah, they just styled outside the game. You know, you still have to do the deck restriction thing, but they are just there. There's no downside to them. Specifically, Loris, I think has been very good. Like, Loris is already quite a strong card and especially I in my cube, where I've also been leaning into like things like delirium as well as the artifacts deck, when there's a lot of little baubles that kill things. Loris is actually, I think, the main issue here, but this is such a cool card. Like like things like Loot Tree, I think is actually kind of I don't I'm kind of fine with that one. Not having the tax. And same with what's the combo one. What's the red white combo one? James Z yeah. So I, Z is not in my cube now, but when it has been in, I, I feel like that one's actually fine from power level point of view without the command attack specifically. Low risk though, is really back breaking without a come on the textbook and it's cool and people build around it. But my thinking is people would still build around it even if it had the new rules. I know you've won at least one, if not two of my cubes with a low risk deck. What do you think about, oh, about the companion rules not playing the fixed versions. Is that a good idea? And then specifically Loris on top of that, yeah, I think there's this really powerful idea. It's it's just not hard to build a good color control deck without any expensive permanents and let us just gives you such inevitability, you know, and you build it with ways to buy back your lowest. This is kind of all of your late game is built around it, and your early game is just one for one interaction. And it can be very powerful, you know, and it's, And fact, you know, that's a good plan anyway. You know, that's that's a good plan. If you have to invest three manors, put it into your hand and, and take over in the late game, that the fact you can just get it rolling so much earlier was so such, so much less of an investment is, it's very strong. I think, the. Yeah, I think if you run Z of then absolutely. Like no taxes is a cool thing to do with that because, cars pretty hard to get to work like, it's pretty hard to just be able to companions that or at all restrictions. Very real. I guess you could do you know. Yes. Companions are, as written love that says pay freeze. Put it into your hand that says there is a yeah, you can cast it. There are versions of both that that it's something I've considered because. Because it is technically possible. Similar like it feels kind of like running Oracle of the Alpha in a paper cube. That's the one that conjures the power nine until it is technically possible, but is a good idea because like there are printings of all the other of, I think most companions now with the new rules. And obviously you have the original printings with the original rules technically, but doable, but well, on top of everything we've to talk about from a power level point of view, there is also the conversation of whenever there's something unique about your cube, and you have to explain it to people at the start, that is an additional thing. A lot of. So like we've had games where someone news drafted it and I thought I had explained it, but it didn't. But they kind of they like they they didn't hear it or they didn't understand what I was saying. And it didn't come up until like a game where you were playing against them and it changed the way that they changed their view of the game because they thought, oh, they're playing a lower mistake. They have to do this. The misunderstanding is no one's fault. But as a cube designer, I've done something outside the box. Therefore, is it my fault, do you think, James? I don't know, like, what do you think about that? Yeah, it's. It's funny. Often we talk about, the complexity thing is making it more accessible to new players. But that was a literal process. That man has one upvote. So, I don't think I sat, Yeah. No, it is very true. Every additional thing you need to explain before the draft, it's a cost. It's only worth paying that cost if the payoff is feel, you know, because it does get, you know, you don't want to be sitting there for was part of the explaining. Oh, this card's a bit different, and this card works like, best because people will forget, and it just makes it, slightly more annoying stance when it's your first time, right? It doesn't matter if, the people in the group who have drafted this cube a ton of times because it's only one thing that's different from previous drafts, that's easy. But when it's a new person who's sitting down, then it's just too many things, right? So you need to manage for a level that I think is is important. Yeah, yeah, I agree, I there's it. Because the other thing as well as like all of my cubes have been built before, things like cube clash or cube competitions have come up and is a thing of just I think I'm quite good at building cubes. But there's when you put it out in the wild, it's just the if I'm building a cube for our play group, I no doubt these will get drafted because people like these cars. So you just start throwing it out into the wild and other people drafting it like you have not less control, but like there's more variables and more things that can go not to plan and I think something like companions is respect, not playing the rules of magic. As people know, the rules of magic seems like a starting point for confusion. So I think and also because people will still play Lloris, I think, I think effectively it means I'm probably cutting lottery and the other companions in here, but keep Lloris but just play it like the rules everyone knows. I think that seems quite a simple fix for this one, like I thought. I think it was a cool experiment and I'm glad I did it, but I think like and in super high power level cubes, it does make the other companions more attainable. But but for the power level I want to play with, I don't think it's it's working. Yeah. No, I, I totally agree actually. I think, the companion rules work fine as, as, as described in magic. And so there's not really a reason to change that. And Lotus is so good and lowest is kind of a coolest one anyway, to me, if we're not running Z anyway. And that doesn't matter. Lutfi to me is not like that cool of a card. So I don't think like Luchi being less powerful is is a big deal, because the cool bit about companions to me is, is you're paying the cost, right? Is it's the build around aspect which she doesn't have, with the loot tree is sometimes actually better with the updated rules because it's because it's so free. It's good to just have a thing you can pitch to your furies and your force of asleep higher consciousness and. Right. And you can't do that from the, from the command. So, so, yeah, I, I would not consider that like a reason. So, yeah, I think reverting back to, to regular command of companion rules is, is probably a good move. No, I think that's sensible. Keep put a pin in pitch, elementals. We'll get back to them in a little bit. Two cards that I think it probably stayed in a little bit too long for the power level that I want from this. And we're not going to spend too long talking about specifically these ones, because we do talk about them quite a bit, because they come up so, so often at, gut and broadside one, but is for the power level I'm after. Like they both stayed in one because I cut all the initiative cards and my wife refused to, draft my cube if I cut any more of her favorites. But, specifically because I was doing stuff with artifacts and these are quite cool and good, they're like, gut and bombardiers can both take, the little things that your artifact deck is making and turn them into profit, and they're really good there. But the issue is that just really good in general. And like, and and in the update before this, I did I did cut I did cut men's bamboo, I did cut, for their links. I kind of like we'd already cut the very top level. Just I win cards like, like like the single cards that are just like game warping by themselves. But I feel gut and broadside fall into that category still. Would you go along with that, James? Yeah. What's this? Kind of a shame, because they're very cool cards, actually. Like, they're really cool. Yeah, because like, mints can be, for example, to me is not a very cool card, but it's just powerful. Whereas the gun and broadside sort of tell you they're built around fighting, they tell you to run things to synergize with them so that is there's good sack fodder. But you kind of don't actually need to. It's kind of a lie, you know, because they're at such a high power level that they, they even when you don't build around them at all, they're still very powerful. Like, guts needs you to have played a creature to attack on turn two. It's nice to think. And then, like, even if you had nothing else to to sack, you just turn your suit off into a full on menace. That's really good. Both sides just end games out of nowhere. It's. Yeah, it they're not. Actually, they don't play out as the cool build around the cards that they could have been like. Like you can build decks for maximize from a little bit more, but that that tends to take them from like an A to an A plus. You know. Yeah. Well, it's it's also the thing of just the decks that I was thinking of these cards being like synergistically and just aren't getting them because people are first picking them because their gut and broadside bombard is, is the other is the other part with it. So yeah, I for a while I've known this power outliers. I'll have to break it to the wife. The, the other two. I think power outlets from a aggro point of view is Guide of Souls and Ocelot Pride. We know from, like, all other cubes that run them that these are very strong magic cards. I think I just need to. I think they're just too efficient. Like, specifically like ocelot pride. I it's it's a and that's the first thing I think they're really cool cards. I like what they do and I like the reach that they give. But I just think they're just too good and efficient and that they are powered, that higher power than I think the cube can take. Would you go along with that, James, in terms of just like there is a difference now between like like there's a pack for me, I think a power cube and an unpowered cube, like it's not just the nine powered cards. There is a upper echelon of power level. And do you think ocelot, Pride and Guide of Souls fall into those? Yeah, they're both very stable. And they really put a lot of pressure on the opponent to be able to interact almost right from the suffer game, like, And unlike cards we've seen in the past, like vagabond, for example. Vagabonds is great if you have it on turn one and get to attack and it's built in, but it is pretty dead after that, right? Like it will once to have a couple of blockers out of Bhagavan never does anything again. That's not true of God of Souls. And it's not true of our swap fight. So, yeah, the. It's such a wild world, by the way, where we're like, oh, yeah, good balance, like a beta one job. But I kind of it kind of is if you compare that to these, but yeah. Yeah, I kind of favor maybe visa a bit to push to a power level. We're going for like ocelot Pride has. Why does it have first like an Lifelink as well on top of it. Yeah it's yeah it's incredibly pushed. So yeah. So so I there's a world where I, I don't know, I really like ocelot Pride and it does some cool stuff, but like I think just just having all of having both of them in I think is too much. But basically student of warfare is coming back in. And another card I feel is kind of where we are with that. All right. We've also discussed that this card is quite strong, but psychic frog James this was a later addition to my cube, so it hasn't done too many broken things, but I think that's more because we haven't I haven't drafted enough with it in my cube. Just because I haven't seen it do broken things in my cube. It's kind of like the effectively we are doing a baton restricted announcement for my cube. So we're kind of thinking about, well, this this will impact this. So okay. Frog is yeah. I, you know, if this strong card, do you feel that it falls in that upper echelon to. I'm kind of trying to avoid I do to me it's like for worst sort of marginalized because it's busted without actually being interesting and synergistic. Very rarely. You just have to be able to put it in your deck. It's great on turn two, it's great on turn ten. Like it? It is so powerful. But that interaction can almost never kill it. It's very hard to move to certain colors. You can't very block X, it can game flying. You can't even attack into it. Most of the time they just dump cards. And when combat and then the cube face cards by attacking you. Yeah. I think if we're cutting for the rest of these Modern Horizons cards, we, I suspect psychic folk need to go. Yeah. All right, the next one is one of those ones where I feel this is going to be a hard conversation. Nor do James I really like, nor do, but I know that it's messed up. Immediately banned in every format. Oh, no. It's still, oh, still legal in Vintage and Oath Breaker. Let's go. But, I really, for me, nada did fill a gap that I was looking for and that it was a creature combo that was good in 2020, like in 2025 and 2026, it was a creature combo that actually did work. Some of the logistics I didn't like about it, like the keeping track of like how which we just done what is a bit of a pain. And it did lead to some long games. In my cube at time of recording. Well, it might keep in this current state. We went quite hard with the energy packets like we had, nor do we had separate illusionist for another self mail thing. But we also had like like I, like I was running Lightning Greaves and I was also running Zuko. Like the actual factual combo from the modern deck. Zuko is a one man, equipment with equipped zero, so you can just basically instantly go off. You can equip it to a creature, you can reequip it to the same creature that counts as triggering it. And by that point, you're just going really ham and you're getting a bunch of nasty triggers. I think that whole package is too good. Do you think Naidoo is too good, or is there a world where the deck can still exist if I replace it, like because Zuko can also be found quite easily by a bunch of tutors, including as a saga? Is it a case of I replace it with love square boots and then you have a mana? Like it's not just I assemble my combo bits, I go off immediately because it's free. Do you? Yeah. What do you think, James? I think it was still be very powerful to me. It doesn't make like. I don't know if I'd even rather have Chauvin lightning Greaves in my Nazi deck. Because Greaves, if when you if you do your fang and past return, you can leave the greaves on Naidoo and they can't kill Naidoo, right. Which is pretty important. And Greaves is just like a better car generally. I could see maybe, maybe if you cut all the free ones. So you cut greaves and kind shikoh. And you just leave it with like. Yeah, like boots and stuff, but you have to pay for. Plus, I guess we have like 50 balances. Cut, cut. Right. And and we do have spring hunting and JuCo as well, specifically in here as well. And that could be cool. You know, and, you know, you should keep it because. You want to keep it, you know, like it's your cube. But part of life without cubes. We want to play with Cosby, like. Right. And if that's not do then like, I think you can make it work. It's it's going to be a powerful card from the one of the more powerful cards. But I don't think it's, you know, it's not in the same category as all the others we've talked about, because you do actually have to do some work to make it very good. Like, if not, do this one, for better things to do in the cube. And people are fighting for pieces like I. Yeah, maybe that's fine. You know, I think for we had a couple of times and it was very new people got all the pieces because no one really realized how good it was. No one was very speaking on them. Maybe it can exist without those free ones. You have to work a bit harder. Maybe that's like a reasonable pace. Should be. Yeah, yeah, I think that's fair. I think I the thing I, I'm struggling with a little bit, and it's an argument to keep it in I think is even with reducing the power level a little bit, it's still going to be a powerful cube. And I still and if we're not going to be in a world where, I cut, I cut like these top ten power level cards and GQ spent a twin is immediately back on the menu or possessed combos is immediately. Therefore what this what works for a power level in this point in this cube? I really think that that from a creature combo point of view, I know I do is probably the one that can still hang. And I want that to be in my cube. I want creature combos in my cube because they are cool and and and yeah, as you said, it's it's not just here is my gut. It just works. Oh, here's my approach. It just works like you have to combine it. It's a it's a combo. It's specific cards coming together. I'm fine with a plus B equals profit. I'm not fine with A equals profit as an example. Yeah for sure. I think we can be in a spot where creature combos, if you have a creature converse invite is like titanium stuff is in which is cool. So we can choose. Yes. And also actually a nice little crossover card. Fab. We cannot sell them. Safe keeper is like a pretty nice enabler for both of those things. Because Sylvan Safe Keeper is a free way to trick and not to. But you can't keep doing it forever, right? And you're not necessarily going up for material all the time. So it's a it is like much harder work. But it's also cool in that it works with, with titanium. No. Those sylvan safe keeper is the one mana one one that you can sucker land to give a creature shroud. Yeah. So. Yeah. Yeah. Triggers your I and protects as well. That is quite hot. I think that's been in in the past, but I think it. Yeah, that's come out at some point. I think this kid's been around for like eight for like seven, eight years at this point. So a lot of cards have been in and out. But yeah. Yeah, I think that yeah, I think that could be a nice, cool addition. All right. The next one, in terms of power level, I, I want to talk about pitch elementals and like free spells, like, I like things like force of Will, things like, like fire blast and mind collapse and power kinesis and stuff and like, is there a world where like, like I think we are now kind of at the point in terms of power level where the conversation is, are these now in that top tier or are these just below it? I think some of them might be like, there's a world where do I want, like solitude and fury in this cube? Like, what do you think, James? Yeah. Very powerful. I mean, if you want to just tame them down a bit, you could be like, cook, cut Fury, heat, power, Kinesis, for example. Like, But. Yeah. So, they're going to be some of the more powerful cards because we still have a lot of we're still going to have a lot of haymakers in and the free spells when you can, can dictate your opponent's fight without spending mana. It's almost like you you broke serve, right? You you got the play back in the game. Because you you answered very fast and apply your own fat, that being said, to a certain extent, the, A lot of the reason they're so busted is that we have the super powerful snowball cards. So if some of those come out, maybe these, become a little bit less sort of essential. To two of your decks. But yeah, I think that, like, certainly pretty reasonable cuts because especially the the Fury and the pyro Kinesis ones can be very punishing for like specific attacks in a way which isn't always healthy. I think, a lot of fearful ones I think are fine. Like grief is is really good. If you go like grief and then reanimate for grief is quite cool. But generally, just like averting or grief on turn one is not really, is not it? It's like, I think you'd rather have a brain maggot or something on turn attack. Be like a deep cavern. Yeah, like endurance is. I mean, you probably hate endurance because it interacts with that graveyard, but, it's it's not an outstanding card. Power level. Oh, would it shock you to know it's not in the queue? Checks out. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Graveyard hags. Absolutely not. No, it is a thing of. I think I do like the, I like, so I like all these cards that I've talked about in terms of a power level point of view. I liked minis going to. I liked for their links. I thought they were awesome. Cards by eight is finding that balance. And it's I think I think solitude stays because I, I'm fine with you having to pitch a card to answer something. And I think because white has the flicker, I'm kind of here for it. And I can also just hear the mono white players yelling at me if I cut that. And it's also my only white five drops. So, you know, you got gotta yeah, I could, I could see specifically having fury mine collapse fire blast and pyrotechnics is having four three red damage spells. I think that could be a bit much. I think I'm leaning towards, I think changes to red and white are something I'm going to get to in a little bit. And, and as a package point of view, I'm thinking of changing the way that those work. So I but up top I'm thinking of the ones that just do creatures. So I think mine collapse and park and is because one thing that we see in some of the more powerful cubes nowadays, it's just the it's like housed and like super cheap interaction. Not is so much more important because you have to answer things like, ocelot pride and, and like broadside and like cheap creatures. If you take out those cheap snowball threats, it does mean you technically need less interaction. So that is a nice thing as well. With this change, just bringing the power of down. But something to consider. So so so free space for free. The elementals might be not be as broken in them because they're not. You're answering their for dropped rather than answering. That's normally one drop, for example, or something like that. It's less of a thing you have to have and is more of a nice to have. Yeah for sure. Like, and it's not that you don't need interaction, right. But you don't need for extraction to always be that way on turn one by like, yeah, you can play look up maybe some of sort of three manner of removal that gives you a bit of value rather than having it all be concentrated. One or 2 or 0. Mama. Yeah, I would agree with that. I think those are the main ones that I have flagged from, from the times we've played it, them being, I think, an issue like, like there's other powerful cards in here, like things like. Or if I think could be quite a snowball. I think everyone in their cube will know which cards they see the most. And I think it is a conversation you need to have with your play group and with yourself. If you're not trying to do the most broken thing, if you try to do the most broken thing, then go home for a bit, go home for a bit. But like, we've even seen like like in the last episode, we talked about the arena cube, how they've had to tone down things because of player enjoyment and like it is important, I think, for everyone to work out what are the most like? Are the same cards winning every time? And is that a problem? And should you make a change? Because at the end of the day, people are more likely to play a cube if there's that variety, I think. But just moving on to some other things. Some of the things I mentioned at the start, specifically on how my cube is constructed, all of the basics in my cubes are snow lands. The benefit of this is I get to run Snow Matters cards. The negative of this is that I have to run snow. Snow basics and the artworks are ugly like the ones I had available to me. Are the modern horizons like two ones because they were the most reasonably priced. My hot take is the snowball snow basics. Apart from the very early ice age, printings are ugly or are 1 million pounds because you need like 40 or 50 of them. James, we're going to talk about how currently the only snow create snow card in my cube is ice height Golem a single snow manner for a two to snow artifact creature. Golem. Do you do you think I feel I know the answer to this. Do you think this is worth it? Iron. Nice cubes, I feel I don't really care that much what the basics look like, but to me, it's not even worth it to have to say before the cube. All the state. Oh, the basics of snow. I, I don't know, man. Like, I'm sure there's another one of us factory chain cops. I, I know you love AI cycle, and, so good is it good? Is it three? It's it's one. Cubes as one, I reckon. This one. More cubes and doomsday. I yeah, but people remember casting the dune. Same of environment. Casting the outside guard. That's a reasonable, yeah. That's that. No. Is it like, this is one I know of? I so a bigger part of this is just from a logistic point of view. I have three cubes. They're all in the same sleeves. I have one land station, and especially now I've built an old bordered cube. It is jarring seeing it being this. I'm wet. This might just be a me thing, but for me, I find it jarring playing a nice, awesome looking old board, a cube with modern horizons, flat snow lands that just feels high. Yeah, well, I think generally in cube, you know, play the cards that bring you joy and, build the basic land station. But frankly, I'm not. And, I yeah, I'm sure, like, find a command attack to put your eyesight color then. And these are the, I would say is is had a good run. It has and so, so when when it came in we were also running other snow matters cards. We were running things like frostbite which is a slightly better. Oh it's a shock for creatures. But as a bolt if you have a snow permanent, we are running dead of winter, which is a, snow based board wipe. Which was cool. And and like ice flanker wattle got a bit better, obviously with snow cutter. So, so like there was a reason why things came in, but they've not been power crapped. We've not had any snow since Modern Horizons one. And for everyone keeping track, there have been two more modern horizons since then to add more broken cards. So so I, I feel like it's one where I'm going to change them for the artworks of old Borderlands. I like, and I will replace Ice Side Golem, but it's something I could see coming back if they do another snow set in the future if if there's a reason to do it, and I think it's worth it. But because the only card is one card, it's a bit much. Yeah for sure. Also, how are we running all snow play six and we didn't have scrying sheets that I can't say sack. Which one? Scrying sheets. The land where it's like curse land and you can pay some snow mana. And look at the top card for library. And if it's a snow card, you put it hand. Oh, that's pretty cool, actually. No, sorry. There was some, I think. No, sorry. There is other snow synergy in here that I've just remembered, because it's been a minute since I've looked at my cube. We are running instead of rampant growth, we are running into the North, which is one of the green for sorcery research lab for a snow land card. Put it into play. Tap and shuffle your library. That is hot because that also specifically gets dark depths. That is cool. Actually, I like that as a payoff. Maybe still not left mystery basics. I would, I would I would agree that darkness has had its own separate issues, but, and that's also very much a thing of that's the cube builder being too clever. I don't think people I don't think anyone's ever done that. I think I've brought it up several times, but I don't think anyone's ever done so. That's very much a sign of let's just chop that one off. All right? So that was a experiment that I just kept in for too long. This next one I think is worked, but not in the way I was anticipating. So my cube for quite a while now has had double features. So I have five dual lands of each color, but two of them, fetch lands and two of them are fetch a ball lands. So for for resources we have flood is dry and flood and hallowed fountain tundra. And then a custom land so that white blue is artifacts. So therefore it has the greater tide bridge artifact land in there. Then on top of that, we also have ten tri ohms. This has meant that mana is really free in my cube, which is both a good thing and a bad thing. There's been long periods where just green soup decks have just run rampant, like the green decks running, mincing booth for sailing. This the, unset dog, that kind of stuff like, they just ran rampant for ages because they could also splash whatever they wanted. Double fetches have been really good for, like, the land stack. So things like landfall, like Lotus. Cobra is fantastic in this cube because you have so many fetch lands stuff like, like that. Like, I think the ominous deck in my cube is actually quite good, but that's because you have access to so many fetch lands. It also means that the drafting environment is quite nice, because even if you're not drafting your lands that highly, you're still going to get to fetch land or two. And that is quite nice. But the do you from your experience, James, I think I know where I am on this now. Do you feel like it's it's still a good thing or is breaking Singleton for fetch Lands as an experiment? How do you think it's been? I think it's fun. I do like for it. It made for land pay off a much better, and enabled them, I think, to coexist with some fairly powerful stuff. But we had in in a way that wouldn't have been possible wise. So that was cool. But it does. It does feel like, A little bit too free some of the time. Like, I really like building the, the, greedy multi-color decks. But I'm fine having to work for it, you know, that that sort of adds to its where you feel like you've really got there because you got full fat fans, rather than, I get loads of fat slots every time, you know, and there are like, you know, you can add quote unquote fetch lands that aren't these fat, do the same things in terms of enabling those stacks. Right. Like you've got the, I think prismatic visto and that you could that okay. Yeah. We have we have this from fable passage, actually, and. Okay. Yeah, we're kind of maxed out on those, but, I think those stacks still have, especially if we're taking out some of the pile of outliers that those stacks can, can probably hang without the double features. Because I plus plus, if you take out the fat sands, you guys brought in the surveillance and the Slayer lands are quite cool. So, yeah, I could I. Yeah, I don't think it's a huge deal, but I'd, I'd probably lean towards kind of cutting the second fat I do. The thing is, I do really like the lands deck. I kind of don't want to nerf that too much. As a way of controlling everyone's ability to splash. Like, how do you feel about cutting the tri omes instead of the second fetch lands? I know you could covet firearms. I'm not for that. So I'll keep double fetch and cut the trims. Yeah, that could be interesting. Yeah, cut first frames for most for, like, surveillance, I think so, yeah, yeah. We have ten trims in here. Like I just put in ten. Like like. Yeah. Keep it like that. I like the land count on my cube is actually slightly higher I think, than an average cube. But I do like that. So maybe there's a world where yeah, I could try, try have just made everything super free. Like even in regular cube like even gives not doing that double fetch. So that could be something. Yeah, I, I quite like that. Plus, I mean, I think the, the soup decks will become less prevalent just because you're cutting some power outliers. Right. Like one of the reasons to draft the multicolor decks. Now, it's not just I get to play my own nerf. It's also I drafted this broadside bombardiers. I'm a psychic falcon. I'd like to play dice and suddenly, you know. Yes, I think I, I think it was in my. Yeah, it wasn't like I lost, yeah. Your damage control deck splashing the fourth island. Guess the classic. Even the sideboard. Classic that. Yeah, yeah. That's cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think that's a good touch on, like, some of the things I've been testing and some power out lines. I do want to touch on some archetype stuff and some numbers up before we finish up for today. So I think that's actually touch on those. There's some real archetypes and packages that I'm running that I want to that I would like your opinion on. James, if you think they work, given the power level that we're going for, like, in my cube there is a wheel's deck. So the deck that's trying to cast Wheel of Fortune and Profit or cast, Time Spiral and Profit. Oh, I forgot actually, that time twister was technically in my case, so sort of power, but not really. Oh, the power is the worst one. Doesn't count. It's trying to cast those in profit, but there's no shielded. And there's no bow masters in here because those feel two, that there's some of the damage ones. There's the Punisher ones. So this thing is like how breaches in here. There's, there's an asset part to veil. So, so so there's the ones that stop your opponents from drawing the cards, but you get the cards. There's those ones in here. Do you think that still works as a deck, James? Yeah, I think that totally works, actually. Because I also really like, fight your supporting dream holes in a pretty extensive way for wheels. Very important for that deck. We have Fast bond, and the cube for wheels are great with that. I actually kind of like that. You have to do something more interesting with your wheels than just, you know, here's a bowman, here's a wheel. Although I think, like, to me, I'm interested that you included whole VHS still, because to me is still in the same category as the Bowman and the shields, it fairly in there. Okay. Just simple. It's like you go into seven. Yeah, exactly. Like the game is over. Like, I know it's technically you know, they're not dead. But in my mind for games I have a lot of concrete like because something like not that you have to play on your ten untap for that, plus you're wheeling and then you probably can't cast all these spells right away. So if you're behind the board, there's still a game going on, right where there's no feature because you just gain seven mana from your wheel. To me, the game is mostly over. Once you you fold feature wheels. But, yeah, I think those those cards fairly still work. Yeah. Like final set we could do. We have a level two level tackle. One I think we do have. Yeah, we do have level. Yeah yeah yeah. Positive. Yeah I, I, I like the little package. I think it's good because also there's just a lot of stuff that is naturally good with we also I like the fact that can sometimes want a twist. Right. Just that once it turned out really quickly. If we have decks for care about stocking up for graveyard, they can want a Wheel of Fortune, you know? I think it's face cards are actually more interesting when you have to do something different with them. No. That's good. That's. Yeah, that's good to hear. I, I'm a big fan of the wheels and, and my worry was that they wouldn't work without some of the big payoffs. But that's good to know that they would. I'm kind of. Yeah, I might for keeping them. I've made a note to probably cut a whole bunch of them. But, like. Yeah, I think there's some other things I think I can add them. Some, like cards for pay off. Some of that. I think that could work. The next thing I want to touch on is Re-Animator. So I have effectively all the reanimation stuff. Like, we even have all the insane speed stuff in here because we support flash, but we don't have a track to Gristle brand or our kind of cruelty like our big, nasty black spells. Abomination, grave Titan, troll of cars of doom and freaks in flesh. Gorgeous. In red, we have things like trumpeting console and summon yet, and in green we have like wood for prime as well. Spine worm and volt bone tyrant. Like, do you think that's a good enough spread for this, or do you think having one of them in here, like I think it's red, I think was probably the weakest of those three. Could you see Gristle Brand maybe coming back in, or do you think from a parallel point of view they would be too much? I think given where, you know, still having entomb and reanimate and animate dead. I don't mind for package we have now. It's I think we it's interesting. We kind of still have fully powered slash sneak attack stuff, right. Like we have for the, world spine world forward full time. This. But. And, you know, I feel that leaves flash specifically in a very powerful place because it is such a cheap way to do that. But, That's fine. Yeah, because every cube is going to have, you know, some, some, some sights, I think this is a pretty good place for reanimate stuff. I quite, I, I can see we probably need to dial that back one of the axes if we're going, you know, taking out for, Vermont Horizon stuff. Right? You don't want to just be going to one to intend to animate my track. So, and I generally like powering down the targets as an approach, because that means that you still get to do your powerful thing that you drafted around pretty consistently. But you the game is maybe still going on after you've cast your animate. No, I think that's it. Yeah, I, I think there's definitely some changes I think I can make to it. But yeah, there is a power level between brand attraction arc on and the rest. I think like there's going to be like a big black demon. I think I can add just so it specifically has a top end for Re-Animator. Like, I'm was going to Skyfall type demon and Manor Value descending. It's also kind of one of his thoughts, which can change quite frequently. Right? Like we just get new giant creatures fave actually, and you can just swap them in and out, you know? Here we go. Vilest broker of Bloods. I do know this card. Eight manor eight eight flying back pay a black, pay to live stock, I guess minus one, minus one, minus one. And whenever you lose life, draw that many cards. Yeah, that one's very good. That seems real. I'm pretty positive I own one as well. Oh, you know which one is really powerful? Actually, the one from Dusk Moon. Who was the big baddie in dustman? It's that card. Oh, vulgar. Of that one. So. Yeah. Yeah, that card's very powerful. Just nine out of nine. Yeah. Okay, I like that. Yeah, yeah, it's I want, I feel I want some kind of big iconic thing that is just for Re-Animator to kind of. I want Re-Animator to feel like it's doing Re-Animator. I think, if that makes sense. So, yeah, so vulgar of Terror Eater, I think. Could be. Could be a good one. Another one. Another thing that I've noticed as an issue in my in this cube is, so I'm this cube really pushes artifact aggro as a deck. I really like it. I think it's awesome. It's a really cool, different type of aggressive deck. It plays more uniquely than, like, mono white on one or red have in the past. It's using artifact synergies to build this engine and really push through for damage. But there is definitely a tension point between artifact creatures and artifacts with living weapon because because they don't like they're really good. So like an example, for example, is a card like, like netlist. So three generic mana for an artifact equipment with living weapon, which means when it comes into play, it's attached to A00, and equipped, which I guess was one performance, one for each artifact and on charm, which you control and as equipped for two. So in the deck where you're doing all the cool stuff. This is really good. We love that it's another artifact, but it doesn't work specifically with things like like Steel Overseer that lets you put counters on what your artifact reaches because it's not an artifact creature, it's an equipment. Similarly with, cranial ram, that's kind of the same thing, but just for power. But it was, the, the one that was banned in pauper before it was even printed. That I've always felt as a tension point. Do you think I should just cut the equipment? Like I'm still going to keep, like, cauldron complete? Because that's a cool thing to do with, with Stone Forge Mystic. But the cheaper living weapon ones. Do you think they're worth running in this if they don't have that synergy with other artifact creatures? I mean, a lot of the artifact payoff stuff does count number of artifacts for for fan creatures, right? It's mostly so, like steel overseer. What I feel for that cast specifically about artifact creatures, I kind of feel like a lot of the lifting weapons are pretty cool, and people can just deal with it because, like, a card fight I think isn't in currently, but just because it's fairly new base, quite cool is, Kobe steel closer, which is again, I'm. It doesn't say living weapon, but it has that same thing, right? If a guy creates tokens and attaches to them, and, you know, like still have to say it's a cool card, but it's I think it's fine that it doesn't work with obvious that you can, Well, I think it's still pretty powerful. No. That's it. And so the other cards it didn't work with was, score pack. Lorde. The, one that gets artifact creatures. You can summon up his own mental. Yeah. That card by card is pretty powerful. Actually, I was that I remember being like, quite impressed by that card when that's my totem tastic against me. To me, it doesn't mean we have to cut the cool ones. Like like Nestle says, I would certainly keep I think, yeah, that does just go in other artifact decks, I guess. Exactly. To the what? The white. Yeah. The white blue deck in this is very go white. And that is a reward that I could see it. I could see cranial ram coming out though, I think. Yeah, I suppose yeah. Like Cyberman patrol as well. It doesn't. But equally with cranial them, it's that one almost justifies itself as an equipment like, like if you can cast it, it's basically a cranial place, like it's basically a cranial placing. Right. So even if sometimes you have to accept it like that's, that's kind of okay. Right. Yeah. I think it's like I've worth bearing in mind is maybe it's like a tie breaker when you're not sure between the artifact creature and the living weapon, but, I think a lot of the living weapon cards you have in do kind of just survive themselves, you know? No, no, no, that's good to hear. Yeah, I, I maybe I just like school a not too much. That could be that it doesn't perfectly synergize with this pet card of mine. Therefore that trash. No that's fine. No, no, no, that's good to hear. Yeah, yeah it's I, I really like that deck and I think that, that like. Yeah I think, I think in general I think I might, I might I need to look at the numbers of it. And there is a world where just, I can't go to nation artifact aggro cause like the, the they still need to go in other decks as well. So like we are running things like Pause and Legionnaire and those kind of things but like I because because that will go in the mono white aggro deck as well. But I think I do need to look at kind of overlap between my aggro decks where possible. And not just be like, oh, they have to be all in work with this one deck. A bit of variety I think is going to be good. That does actually touch us onto, fixing specifically aggro. As we touched on, I'm planning on cutting cause like Guide of Souls and Ocelot pride and broadside and gut. But I still want cards like Parallax Wave. I know Parallax Wave, I think is the most broken white card, but I have more of a connection to that card because it's awesome and has been around for longer. So there's more feelings with it than a card like Ocelot Pride, for example. Without just cutting all the powerful cards like that, there's a danger when you're changing archetypes and and lowering power level that kind of like, I don't want to go back to a few years ago where just Boris wasn't viable at all because there was a long period of time where you had to be mono white or a red, and you couldn't do Boris. But we basically swung the pendulum too far the other way. We need to find somewhere in the middle, kind of like like, Do you think that is a good tactic, or should I just make red be burned again? Should I just make white be white weenie again? Like, what do you think would fit in this power level of cube? I think we can cut for, the modern horizons, power level of aggro cards. And we still have quite a lot of pretty powerful aggro stuff left in the last few years. Right. Like, Steel Crest is very good. The new figure of Destiny card is fairly powerful. Oh, I do like that one fable. Yeah, I, I think that white would probably just naturally be pretty good with, The thing that hurts it by is adding stuff like, student of warfare, which really pushes you down the monocle of it. That's better. Yeah. But I think naturally it won't go back to being look at my seven lines, you know, because that was the reason we were monoculture a lot of the time. Right? Was for, we really want to go like, one valve, 12 free drop. And it's a little bit less of an about now because the, the fees in the falls are more powerful. But I think that there is a power level below, below some outside side. The days where we can still justify, we can sell justified being boss and, you know, you have some push bar skulls cards in, like, I think fledge is a pretty cool Modern Horizons card. That one I think, I would say could probably stay, and is it is like a reason to commit to dollars, right. Because it has that white white, red red escape costs. FOB is also like soup. I, I think there's a far we will feel very powerful in this new version of the Keith because we've removed like, a lot of stuff. It was a fun. Right. Yeah, it does it very much is a like doing stuff with experience counters is very extra if that makes it like it's it's the, it's the symptom of, this is a broken card. I mean, honestly, I think just given the way cubes a lot of teams have played out over the last few years, I struggle to get into the mindset of worrying about, is Baba going to be good enough? You know? So yeah, it'll be fine. I mean, yeah, maybe. Yeah, plays out, but I'll just go into 17 lands and cut broadside and gut for whatever the next tier down. Yeah yeah yeah. We'll give that a go at the last deck in package I want to check on is a deck I love, but it's one I feel I might have pushed in the wrong direction a couple of times. And that's like the discard deck. Like it's been in out on my cube a bunch of times. Like as full on madness. Like we were running both arrogant worm variants at some points, like, I get the feeling it's more of like a, it's built around what it's built around Hogarth and some just the stronger cards. But like, how far can we go with this deck, James? Like I one as back on the menu to get our venge vine into play or like what? How like I know this is one that they were testing in the industry, but, within the last six months or so, like, what do you think? Respectable cards that would work at the power level we're going for here. Yeah. I thought it played great in the modo cube. Like it wasn't. You know, it wasn't probably completely optional to be out there first sticking to off Baghdad, but, like, you could trophy with this out of Baghdad, you know. And that was pretty cool. And it certainly felt like something where if you moved it to a just slightly less powerful cube, it could really flourish. So I think some of the key cards really were sort of bizarre survival of the fittest, you know, to a lesser extent, things like partitioning, the, the key enablers if you're doing the hokey stuff, but it also blends really well if you're doing the mod that base this, discard massive stuff. Those are things that can work either separately or together. A couple of cards that really stuck out to me for that modo version, which works fairly well. Monument to Endurance is fairly fun, actually. And surprisingly strong. That's for free mana. Whenever you discard it card, you choose one that hasn't been chosen. This time you can draw a card, make treasure. Feel free to your opponent. So that, like. Yeah, like with Bazaar, it goes. It goes very hard, but, it works very well for survival as well. I'll just add a, any discard that let you know you're getting you're getting a card. But, but yeah, I think venturing en route while as you can go that deep if you, if you want to both route one, I think if you, if you're going visual as you've got, you've got a double up. Yeah. Another one that I think actually makes a big difference for this stack is when you have your, your engine going, you want to be killing them, then you don't want to be waiting too long. So stuff like anger I think is quite good or something like Detective's Phoenix. Because often, especially if you're going with survival, you can, you know, obviously you have access to all the creatures in your deck, so it's just an extra mana to go through and, and go on the way, for example. And then your how that's going to have heights. And that's a really big deal. Now that's got no. So, so anger and Justice Phoenix are currently in. But that's that's the discard deck in here is more delirium. There is more leaning into tamagotchis variants. So we have Tamagotchi. We have assignment strategy, which is effectively a better Tamagotchi. We have Barigo and we have, pirate glyph. I'm assuming. Yeah, I think this feels a little bit better as a package so I can see myself maybe now, like I'm talking. Yeah. Even though I'm downgrading my the power level more of a cube a little, or leveling out the power level of my Q from outliers time ago. If it's probably on the chopping block, you would say. Yeah. Doesn't do a lot, does it? I mean, it's good with pirate Glyph. Exactly. But that's about it. Right. Of and that's kind of just a big idea. No, exactly. No I'd agree. Yeah. I, I really like the discard deck, but yeah, it's a bunch of different iterations, but I think there's now a good level to it. We're not going. There's no dredges coming in. I'm not going that far again, not on this update anyway. Awesome. So the last thing that I think is important to do is a check, for any cube. If it's been a while since you've posted, since you've done this, or it's been a while since you've built it is to just double check the numbers of your cube. When you built your cube, you will have had some kind of guide, in terms of how many numbers of each color to start with. A good thing to do is if you if you have nothing written down, just compare it to a comparable cube of a similar power level. So if you're building a power cube, look at the Mego Vintage Cube to see how roughly how many cards of each, like how many white two drops, how many white three drops. And like use that as a like you don't feel the need to copy it like for like, but it'll give you a rough base. When I've done this with mine, I've noticed that, yeah, there's a few places where my numbers have skewed a little bit, and these are places that I think I need to make cuts or changes to make it in a more balanced environment. The main ones, well, red one drops. My cube has only three. Real red one drops Vo carrier, which is arguably not a red one drop. Goblin world. And Raghavan, we have she even devastated what is technically a red one drop, but that's more here to make the curve look good. That is noticeably lower than templates or than other cubes. The reason for that is because my red threes are a little bit beefier. That's where the power level with things like broadside and gut that we've talked about cutting has kind of been lying. So with that, I think it's quite an easy swap for me. I think it's I'm cutting broadside and cut and actually adding in more one drops to make that aggro deck. Actually be more aggro and less of the ancient tomb deck that my wife really likes. I mean, she never drops my cube again if I remove it, but I think that's what kind of. I think that seems like a good place to start like that. What do you think of that, James? Yeah. Makes sense. I think the only fantasize, where you're already off the template, right? Is that you have a way bigger color section than most of those cubes. And for example, I cards, like I said, I column, I argue is kind of a red one for like I think you have for putting black cards in the on that deck. So you're saying I should keep it then? I'll cut it for different red ones. You could cut it for a card. Like, clockwork. Percussionists is really cool. Doesn't require, a snow mana is a red one drop, and it's not fat creature. Little haste, dude gives you a card back when it dies. Wow, I really did. Did I do prerelease for this one? I have not seen this monkey toy or have it done. They went quickly into my, chat box. Yeah, yeah, it does look like quite. Yeah, yeah yeah I yeah. When it dies, you can actually talk to your library and play them into the next time. That's pretty hot. I spent a card a bunch that will go in another deck. Yes. It's actually effectively a second Beaumont courier. The second place that I noticed that my numbers are really off is green threes. I have nine green threes and only three green fours and only two green fives. That as a curve doesn't really work. Green. Yes. The power level of. Oh yes. The manor value of strong cards has come down, but not to that extent. Like our four drops are only Oracle of Moly duly questing Beast and Venge Vine. I think we need a bit more beef or a bit more punch in those four drops. So I think that's definitely a place I definitely a place I need to make some changes. Yeah. Green force, you have to see that there's some really strong sort of beat down for drops, right. Very, very hasty guys. So I think there's plenty of add to add another one, which could be interesting if you're looking for green force is we already have Titan. Yeah. You could add a bail off time for a bit of redundancy in that fact. Yeah. There's Bayless Prime and or a Boyd are both on my list of cards to add to this. The both cards that have been sat in the cube since, edge intelligence that's about on the shelf behind me. So yeah, I think they definitely need to come in. I think the main thing with blue with, with green threes is there's so many bloody land for cards that all do a similar sort of thing, but they're all good utility but all cost one green. Green for some reason. But yeah yeah yeah yeah. Doing that check I do think is important for anyone who is looking to just like check that cube is still function because because it is the thing of just like when you first build a cube, all your ratios will be spot on. Everything will draft and be nice and smooth, but the more time that goes away from that, the more likely you are to drift in certain ways. And like, yeah, as James mentioned, like like. Every cube will have its own differences. Every cube differences. Like like again, like mine doesn't fit those numbers because I have a higher amount of enchantments and artifacts. Because I'm doing the delirium deck, I'm I have a higher density of artifacts because I'm doing an artifact deck, and I have slightly more land, so just the raw numbers don't work, but you can kind of just generally see like like, I mean, I was comparing mine to a deck skeleton. Like, I think a regular deck skeleton will have like, like between 7 and 10 red one drops and I have three. That's quite a sign that I need to look at that. And I think it's important to keep those in mind. And I will put a link in the show notes down to a skeleton that I use quite commonly. It's one that I've put together, just I'm looking at a bunch of different cubes. It's a good starting point if you want to make a cube yourself or if you want to, but you want to update your numbers again, it's it's not gospel. You don't need to stick to it. Exactly. But if you're breaking from it, think why. Like yeah, makes sense. I it's I guess it's if even if you're not necessarily going to make big changes from investing to know where your cube differs from, then the average I guess know is like. And also there are obviously things like, charts and averages and Cube Gober is one of the good things about it. You can see if like like the overall kind of like like if the average color or. Yeah, if the average color or creature is more or less mana, that's also a way you can adjust it using tools in Inkigayo, but you don't have to copy a skeleton. Exactly. But yeah, they're all good tools to keep in mind. All right. I think that's where we're going to end it for today. James, thank you for your help with this one. Yeah. As we kind of started on my cube is my favorite bit of magic. Like, and it's not just a collection of cards like, I have so many, like old arts or so many things that, like, so many cool cards, I kind of mean something to me. And also, we obviously have all the memories that we have over the last couple of years. So yeah, it's something I want to get back on the docket and get back into the rotation soon. Yeah, yeah. Thank you for your help going through it today. Yeah, I know it's a pleasure. I look forward to drafting the updated version. Right. So this is going leave it for today. Just leads me to thank you all very much for listening. If you made it this far, please consider giving the podcast a five star review. Give us a thumbs up, tell a friend all that good stuff. Until next week. It's goodbye from me. I say bye from James and we'll see you all soon. You'll take a goodbye. Ooh.