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Artifact CUBE!
(657 Card Cube)
Blog Posts (20+)
Page 1 of 1+

Again, putting away cards after the update a while ago, and some other cards that stood out as cards to add.
Lotus Ring is a big upgrade to the battlegear. The boodt they both give is huge, but also costly. The bonus of vigilance gives so much extra when you have a massive creature, as if you're behind you can still pressure your opponent. The indestructible is also good, though the "sac for mana" ability seems... less useful.
Bloodtallow candle was added as a cheap artifact with a marginal ability for decks that wanted that sort of thing, but all the recent cantripping ones I've added are much better.
Eater is another strict upgrade, and a fun one at that - but in this case, Bonesplitter is still good enough to remain, whereas ensured scimitar is a bit sketchy. +1/+5 is a big defensive boost, but that's not really enough, and 3 to make it a 1/5 flier till eot is just too much.

After the last update, I came across this stack of cards that I'd intended to add, and just had forgotten about! Again, a lot of them play into there being more cog type artifacts allowing for sacrifice synergies.
Shrapnel Blast is a powerful card, but got removed for there not being enough fodder to make it all that good, but the recent changes hopefully make it decent.
Oh, and I picked up a Sandstorm Salvager in a recent draft, which I'd forgotten about, but is clearly a great card.

Mainboard Changelist+1, -0

I was putting the rare artifacts I removed in the last update into the box with my other chaff rare artifacts, and noticed a foil Argentum Masticore. There was also one spare sleeve for the CUBE! that was inside the box, on top of the rest of the CUBE! when I made the changes. I don't remember why it was there. Was it something I took out? Was it just somewhere to keep the last of the sleeves of that colour? No idea, but I thought I might as well use it, and add this.

There are a few cool cards in the CUBE! that sacrifice artifacts, like Orcish Vandal, Mukotai Soulripper, Penregon Strongbull, Sokenzan Smelter etc. But there's a huge lack of sacrifice fodder, so all these cards end up pretty disappointing.
So this update is mostly taking out boring/power-crept artifacts out for 1-2 mana artifacts that are good to sacrifice, and a small bump in cards that sacrifice artifacts for value.
The other adds are a small selection of Outlaws of Thunder Junction. There are also some Big Score cards I'd like to get - a lot of those are artifact matters cards, albeit some of them are prohibitively expensive.
Mauruding Dreadship and Sunder the Gateway are cards I wanted to add from MOM right away, but I just didn't have any copies, so had to buy some.
A conspicuous absence is Ichor Wellspring. I was surprised I didn't seem to have any, so added some to my Card Market order. But when it came to do the Shopping Wizard, Ichor Wellspring came back as a single card from a seller, costing about 5p for the card, and £1.50 for postage. I wasn't prepared to pay that much for an the card - but at some point in the future I'm sure I'll get one.
For cuts, the one that I'll other mentioning is Fury Charm. It's a strictly better Shatter! But honestly, having the useless time counters options is kind of annoying, so it got the cut for Explosive Derailment (that's probably going to be amazing in this CUBE!).

ThornThallid posted to Artifact CUBE! -
Mainboard Changelist+1, -1

Quirion Elves has been in the CUBE! for a while, and was added to help the 5 colour archetype out. It just occurred to me that Armoured Scraphorger is from All Will be One, so is a better fit to the CUBE! "rules" - any card from an "Artifact Set" can be added.

Wild Wanderer seemed odd to keep since scampering surveyor put the same card, but as an artifact.
Argothian Sprite isn't in a powerstone heavy format, making its pump ability too expensive.
Baloth Cage trap was sometimes too good. Turn 2, after your opponent plays something like a talisman is too much. A shame, because the non-trap 4/4 for 5 at instant speed is a good power level. But the only reason it's in here is the trap.

Scapwork mutt is the saddest cut here that I'm not sure was right.
I'm a big fan of For Mirrodin! The Equipment is generally not very good, but coming with a 2/2 makes for a good rate. And if you have Equipment matters creatures, generally quantity is better than quality of the equipment.

Overwhelming Remorse is a good spell, but not that exciting when your not self milling.
Powerstone Fracture is just a strictly worse annihilating glare.
Lingering phantom seems cool, but always plays worse than it seems.

I have no idea why, but there were two skilled animators in the list. I guess I found a foil, and added it not realising I already had one.
There was also an Etherium Spinner I found in there that wasn't in the list - so blue had too many cards and I had to find an extra cut.

A big update today (69 cards - nice! Though there are a small handful more I want to add but I don't have yet).
I haven't updated since Brother's War. That's quite a few sets ago, and with All will be One being an artifact set, and Lost Caverns of Ixakan being a stealth artifact set*, I had a lot of cards I wanted to add. Keeping the comments brief, as it's late and I'm tired...

*(Lots of artifacts in URW, but not ubiquitous enough for me to feel like I can run off-theme cards from the set, like I can with 'proper' artifact sets)

ThornThallid posted to Artifact CUBE! -

Removing some of the less than stellar cards. Weak equipment that no one wants to run, and vanilla artifact creatures that are not a good rate.
Maybe Chrome Steed is okay. If it's reliably a 4/4 for 4, that is still unusual outside of green, but still not something anyone wants to run. There are still other cards that should probably come out - As much as I kind of like it, I doubt anyone's playing Bastion Mastsdon any time soon. But I'll leave the coloured cards as easier cuts when I next need to add cards!
Jack in the mox is leaving because I can't get over the silver border. I don't like it!

ThornThallid posted to Artifact CUBE! -
Mainboard Changelist+1, -0

In the last update I removed Mindslaver. My thinking was that it's often not all that great, and if it is great, it's kind of obnoxious. But with further thought it's only really obnoxious in higher powered cubes that do things like recur it. So instead, it's merely often not great. Bit without repeatable recursion effects, it will sometimes be a suitable card to put in a deck that often presents a fun puzzle on how to use it to get yourself into a commanding position. Ultimately I got carried away cutting colourless cards that sometimes underperform, and I think Mindslaver should be in.

ThornThallid posted to Artifact CUBE! -
Mainboard Changelist+1, -1

So, as I said just below, I was not confident that I should remove Godo. So here I am, having just finished all the updates, and Godo's back in. For all the reasons I outlined below, and in addition to that the update is even adding 4 Equipment Creatures to red, making him even better.
It was a REALLY tough cut, but I've gone with Bloodshot Trainee. It's counterintuitive because the trainee is one of the equipment payoff cards. If you get an equipment in play that adds at least 2 to its power, it's incredible and will dominate games it's in. But the base state of a 2/3 for 3R is really bad. So that's the reason it's out. As per many red cuts, something of a shame, but I'm sure it's a better cut than Godo...

So looking through the CUBE!, there were a fair few cards in the colourless section that were clearly just weak cards - holdovers from when the CUBE! was a Mirrodin only CUBE!. Given that colourless cards didn't need to balance with the other colours, I could just add them with no cuts, so weak cards missed the culling! But time for them to go.
Scuttling Doom Engine is not too weak, but it's not very fun to play. Being on 6 or fewer life with one of these in play feels so bad.
Forsaken Monument is like the eldrazi I cut from the multicolour segment - too many coloured artifact creatures so it's not actually that good.
Skullclamp is also not too weak. But I cut it from my much more powerful PromoCUBE! for being obnoxiously overpowered, so it really has no business being in this CUBE!. Yes, there are more Disenchants/Shatters in this CUBE!, but that's not a good reason to keep it.

But with a WHOPPING 110 cards removed, and 98 cards added, this is by far the largest single update to any CUBE! I own (barring wholesale rebuilds like recently with my Commander CUBE! - but for that I deleted the first iteration, and uploaded the new version from scratch, so that may not even count).

Mostly removing cards that are off theme or not from an appropriate set.
Given that, I guess I could have removed Bloodbraid Elf instead of Tin Street Hooligan, but with Artifact Mutation and Vithian Renagades as two of the other options in RG, removing the third Shatter effect seemed more interesting.
The various Eldrazi seemed like they'd be good adds, being sideways synergistic with artifacts. But the proliferation of coloured artifacts means they never played as well as they seemed they might.

Surprisingly not too much to say here, despite 17 new cards. A lot of the cards removed were on the weak side. Rampant Growth is great, but its removal leaves only Quirion Elves as mana fixing that didn't come from an artifact set (it's preferable if more cards come from an on-theme set, after all).
The only card I'm a little sad to remove is Pulse of the Tangle. If you can meet the return condition, it's pretty great. But if you can't, Trained Armadon is pretty underwhelming.
One last-minute change I've just thought of. The CUBE! needs some fight spells for green to function, and necessarily many of them are off theme or not from artifact sets. One I'd added was Khalni Ambush - but as good at it is (Modal DFC lands are fantastic), having exactly 1 DFC land which was completely off theme bothers me. A quick look through my green removal spells and Bushwhack is an obvious add! A fight spell from an artifact set, and it even contributes to the 4+ colour decks - great.

By FAR the toughest section, but I guess that's going to happen when adding an enormous 24 cards! The cards I'm unhappy about cutting:

Bosh - classic car, and very powerful, but 8 mana in a red deck isn't very easy, and it especially stands out now that Prototype is an ability on several cards added.
Furnace Whelp - Just a solid card. It's been bettered by Arcbound Whelp, but there's noithing wrong with it for sure.
Scrapyard Mongrel/Vulshok Warboar - I like both these beefy 4 drops, and am sad to cut them.
Weldfast Monitor/Spin Engine/Vulshock Replica/Welder Automaton - I really like all these cards. I'm not quite sure why I do, but in the end they seemed like relatively low hanging fruit as very medium cards. But it's not like Blitz Automaton isn't at a very similar power level. I'd like to have kept them all, but SOMETHING had to go.
The final two on my list were really hard cuts, and maybe I'll reconsider them at a later date.
Godo - It's ability is great. It seems like a better Taj-Nar Swordsmith if you're getting anything that costs 2+. In addition to that, red is the second "equipment matters" colour, so it surely can't be right to cut the red creature that tutors an equipment? I cut it because it's marginally irritating to me that it's additional combat phase is really only great with a bunch of samurai, but really it's just an excuse to cut it.
Gadrak - I mean, this CUBE! seems like the ideal environment for it, right? Definite candidate for coming back in.

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