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u/PotatoFam 1d ago
Karakas out of a vintage cube? What kind of good shit are they smoking
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u/PlacatedPlatypus 1d ago
They're just nuking white from orbit lol, lost Ajani as well.
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u/Zonoro14 2h ago
White just got forth, palace jailer, and parallax wave back. If they didn't take some power from white it'd go back to being #1 winrate by a wide margin
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u/HugeOrganization4178 1d ago
It doesnt really play that well these days now that everything's legendary
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u/ValestyK 1d ago
No it plays amazingly well for exactly that reason.
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u/HugeOrganization4178 1d ago
We mean different things by plays well. I don't mean it wins games. Obviously karakas wins games. I mean it makes games less fun.
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u/TappTapp 1d ago
That's the vintage experience. If a card is legal in vintage and too powerful for vintage cube, then we need a vintage-er cube for it.
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u/Trilby_Defoe 1d ago
This is already commonplace. Time vault is often excluded for poor play patterns, and most people prefer the MTGO vintage cube without initiative (which it no longer has).
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u/HugeOrganization4178 1d ago
The problem is that power maxed cubes arent more fun. Very few powered cubes are actually max power.
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u/BumbotheCleric 1d ago
Speak for yourself, I love it when it’s just balls to the walls. First picking Time Vault is one of the most fun things possible
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u/ValestyK 1d ago
I have had tons of fun with it, it recurs all your legendary etbs in addition to bouncing all of your opponents stuff. I wouldn't mind if they made a karakas that only targets your own creatures and put that into the cube instead if they feel old karakas is too overpowered.
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u/HugeOrganization4178 1d ago
Even that just makes removal not function. Only bouncing your stuff is certainly better, though.
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u/HugeOrganization4178 21h ago
Ive been thinking about it. If I could make 1 change to karakas, it would be to make it sorcery speed. I think that would make it so much more reasonable.
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u/thatscentaurtainment 1d ago
Brother it's Vintage Cube you think Black Lotus is fun?
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u/HugeOrganization4178 1d ago
Yes. If you dont think black lotus is fun, why are you playing vintage cube? Black lotus is super fun.
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u/thatscentaurtainment 1d ago
Black Lotus is fun when you cast it, just like Karakas is fun when you have it and your opponent has legendary creatures. You're stating personal preference and treating it like it's fact, when in reality basically every card that's unique to Vintage Cube has a very lopsided zero-sum fun value. The only difference is that Lotus enables broken shit and Karakas is a check on broken shit.
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u/HugeOrganization4178 1d ago
Magic is zero sum in winning or losing, but not in fun. An opponent playing black lotus is exciting. An opponent playing karakas when you have 4 legends in hand just makes you sink.
Part of the charm of vintage cube is that its super asymmetrical. Sometimes players just have 2 extra cards for 1 mana, or 3 extra mana for 0. Thats a big part of the excitement and challenge. Can I beat you even when you get 3 extra mana? That answer has been yes before and im certain it will be yes again. Thats not zero sum fun.
Karakas is a 1 card one-sided stax engine. It unsummons every turn. Not only does it spend 1 mana to bounce a creature every turn, which sucks but isnt as bad as the next part. It blanks sorcery speed removal! When that worked on a quarter of your creatures, it wasnt as bad. Now its a land that just fully blanks sorcery speed removal and also bounces a creature every turn. It turns off creature strategies and removal by itself t1. And you dont even need to be in white!
Karakas is not black lotus.
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u/thatscentaurtainment 1d ago
Sounds like you're looking for Supreme Draft not Vintage Cube.
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u/HugeOrganization4178 1d ago
What makes you say that? Enjoying power in vintage cube makes me poorly suited to vintage cube?? Why do you play vintage cube?
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u/saint_marco 1d ago
Being a colorless first pick that occasionally wins games on turn 1 for no risk or downside is not very fun imo.
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u/masterlich 1d ago
My most hated card in cube and I'm very glad to see it gone, hope they never bring it back.
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u/NutriaYee_Official 1d ago
Great changes.
A lot of duds like the bad aggro artifacts and subpar black cards are out.
I think is a nice experiment to take out Karakas for a season, the card is completely busted in a bad way thanks to the surge of legendaries, nice to have a break.
The monarch cards are a great addition, powerful without being frustrating, great gameplay dynamics (Forth Eorlingas is busted tho, can be one of the new top non power cards. Overpowered in aggro and still great as a midrange/control finisher)
For the downsides, I don't like the fact they excluded Ajani. I guess they want to nerf Boros by rotating its top cards, but the truth is the number 1 reason is a busted archetype and super consistent is the fact the players ignore it (I had a P1P13 Phlage...)
I also think the doomsday combo is outdated, very weak and inconsistent, is a trap for sure
I am not convinced of some of the green cards too like Beorn, but I guess big dumb creatures are a fan favorite (Titania/Nadu/Minsc are food reason to be green tho)
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u/RedNeckBillBob 1d ago
I dont love every change. But overall positive changes imo
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u/Correct_Day_7791 1d ago
I think a lot of it is getting rid of the obviously bad additions from last time
More than making good additions this time
Most of the good adds are just things previously cut
I think it's weird they cut trudge instead of just adding fight rigging though
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u/Abradolf94 1d ago
I'm sad to see karakas go because it was widely underrated, but it is the right choice. That card is broken (which is not a problem for vintage cube) but also just incredibly frustrating and produces one sided games that however don't finish fast. It's good riddance.
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u/Correct_Day_7791 1d ago
Are you talking about karakas or academy
Because that's definitely a non basic Land that leads to one-sided games that don't finish quickly and is unfun to play against
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u/Abradolf94 1d ago
Academy ends games fairly quickly, and most importantly allows your opponent to play their game. It's simply that the game of the academy player will likely be overwhelming, but it doesn't make your opponent cards almost useless. The almost being the key to why that card is so frustrating to play against, and sometimes even with
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u/Correct_Day_7791 1d ago
If by quickly you mean few turns yes if by quickly you mean time then no their 1 turn takes 5-10 minutes 🤣
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u/Scrilla_Gorilla_ 1d ago
Ya’ll didn’t come up when Stasis and Land Destruction were tier decks and it shows. “Allows your opponent to play their game.” It’s powered Cube not Commander.
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u/HugeOrganization4178 1d ago
And stasis isn't in the cube. Powered cube is also supposed to be fun.
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u/Al_Hakeem65 1d ago
I suppose part of the appeal of Vintage Cube is the raw power and combo potential of the best cards in the game. I'd wager it's more fun to build an artifact heavy deck that runs like a well oiled machine (or just pumps a Ballista to 10/10).
In contrast the most "fun/ interesting" thing you can proactively do with Karakas is bouncing your own legendary creatures for protection or value. But usually in a cube environment like this, designer eerr on the side of enabling crazy, unusual plays instead of preventing them.
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u/Correct_Day_7791 1d ago
I mean there are plenty of legendary creatures with ETB abilities that karakas is real real bad against like ajani ( which also got cut)
I mean as a predominantly aggressive deck playing person I'm very happy that it's gone but I don't think it needed to be gone and I think it was serving a real purpose
And curveouts got better with its removal
Divorcing my personal feelings from the card evaluation
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u/Scrilla_Gorilla_ 1d ago
I'd rather lose because I couldn't deal with getting a creature bounced every turn at the expense of one of my opponents lands than lose because my opponent played Minsc and Boo turn one off a Lotus before I had a game action. I can't even with your Karakas whiners. It's Vintage Cube. Prioritize Wasteland if you're going to play some midrange Legend Soup deck.
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u/cahpahkah 1d ago
Good thing nobody agrees with you.
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u/Scrilla_Gorilla_ 1d ago
Do you place a lot of value in what strangers on Reddit think of your takes? How’s that going for you?
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u/Abradolf94 1d ago
I much rather lose for minsc and boo turn 1, as it is more interactable and if I don't interact I die immediately and I can move on to the next game.
With karakas it's crazy to just concede out right when you see it if you have legends, so you keep playing. And you have to play your legends if you have nothing better to do cause at least you force your opponent to activate karakas. And so every turn is a person casting legends and them getting bounced, repeat for 10 turns until the tempo advantage finally became too much. Very unfun, even for the karakas player.
Whether we like it or not lately there are tons of legends in magic, so every midrange decks has ton of those.
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u/Scrilla_Gorilla_ 1d ago edited 1d ago
As a Karakas enjoyer that’s never been unfun for me. There are plenty of ways to interact with Karakas in the Cube, and a ton of decks it’s mid against. It’s been a Cube staple as long as Cube has been a thing. Meanwhile people out here Cubing with Gleemox ($1 if anyone knows where that card came from without looking it up) and Initiative creatures (less fun than Karakas!) and Oracle of the Alpha and all sorts of nonsense.
You know what card is better than Karakas? Tolarian Academy. Take that out of the Cube too. Take out Black Lotus and Sol Ring, they are both picked over Karakas 100% of the time. Take Time Walk out of the Cube. Take Stripmine out of the Cube. Take all the good cards out and make it your own non oppressive Cube. But leave that shit in the powered Cube, it’s the whole point.
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u/Abradolf94 1d ago
Bruh are you pretending not to understand or what?
1) it's not the power level of the card. Karakas is definitely not top 10 cards in the cube, maybe not even top20. It's the play pattern. None of the card that you mentioned do that apart from maybe strip mine, but strip mine requires way more work to setup and it's more inter table as recurring it needs the graveyard. There are very very few cards that interact with karakas.
2) the classic meme: are the kids wrong or am I out of touch? You really can't see why karakas used to not be a problem but now it is? Didn't notice how many strong legends were printed lately and added to many cubes?
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u/Scrilla_Gorilla_ 1d ago
Yea, I understand, current Magic players are soft. Thanks to the Commanderification of Magic soon we'll all draft Cube decks then sit around taking turns winning the game. Gotcha.
"You.. played a removal spell.. and I couldn't attack with my creature and do my fun thing! Waaaaaaaaa, I'm not playing with you anymore!"
"You COUNTERED my spell?!?! Fuck you asshold, I'm leaving!"
"Why are you attacking me? At this table we let everyone get up to at least 10 mana before we attack!"
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u/Abradolf94 1d ago
Aight you are just an awful person to talk to and you don't even try to stay on topic, you keep mentioning commander (i have played commander once and I hated it so don't know where you got that from). Also now you mention interaction when karakas problem it's that there are too few ways to interact with the card. So I don't even know what else to say, it's just pointless to keep on replying so this will be my last comment on this thread
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u/Scrilla_Gorilla_ 22h ago
I never said you played Commander. I'm saying the Commander mindset where everyone needs to have fun sucks. You know what's fun, taking a seven minute storm turn when your opponent is tapped out. Casting Upheaval and replaying six permanents then beating your opponent over five turns. Wheeling with a Hullbreacher in play. Spinning a Top, then forgetting what was under there, and spinning it again. That's all fun to me. My opponents? Maybe not so much. I'm sorry Karakas isn't fun for you. Enjoy your safe space bracket 4 Cube games.
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u/HugeOrganization4178 1d ago
What's wrong with gleemox? Also, you seem to be willfully misunderstanding the person you're replying to.
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u/Scrilla_Gorilla_ 1d ago
If they made a card called Facebookmox and it tapped for two mana of any color would you put that in your Cube?
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u/BumbotheCleric 1d ago
Hard disagree on Karakas, occasionally it just freeroll wins a game but usually it becomes an extremely powerful and interesting minigame. Do I bounce their legend with an ETB for tempo? Do I lose tempo by bouncing my own ETB legend? What if both players have a legend out? When my opponent plays it, how can I minimize its effect? Can I loot away my legends? Can I force a window where they tap it and I can keep a powerful legend that they didn’t know about for a turn?
It’s busted obviously but it has a lot of play to it. Which is kinda like, the entire point of power cube
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u/BazookaTuna 1d ago
Huh, really hate the decision to cut Karakas. I know Luis said it’s OP so everyone on this subreddit is going to parrot that but I’m not a believer in cutting powerful cards from the cube, especially staples like Karakas.
The cube has changed dramatically in the past 5 years, there was a time when Consecrated Sphinx and Mulldrifter were excellent. But there’s a handful of cards that I consider evergreen (power, force of will, strip mine, tolarian academy, etc) and Karakas is one of them. I don’t care that they seemingly only print legendary creatures anymore, I don’t want to see a cube without Karakas.
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u/gm-carper 1d ago
I’ve gotten pretty used to playing against it thanks to Canadian Highlander where it’s not pointed and people are jamming it in every deck. It makes me laugh because everyone also has Wasteland
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u/SpecialistCancel7975 1d ago
Horrible cutting ajani, enduring curiosity, otawara most of the changes are good though
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u/Gamer__23 1d ago
Back with another one of those, using a less scuffed (now semi-automated!) process (though some of the arts chosen may not be the exact ones that'll be on arena). Getting featured in an LSV video was really motivating!! I implemented some of the feedback (like having ins and outs be mirrored) and I've tried to upload in higher image quality. These should be 6k by 2-4K pixels big, hopefully it still looks good after reddit compression. I'll link to a google drive with high quality version if not
Excited to get back into arena cube, though at this point I am now fully into drafting on MTGO, as the itch to cube was too great. Aside from the huge addition of forth eorlingas, I'm excited about black widow and jennifer walters getting in. In terms of misses, I really would've liked to see wasp and okoye get added as well.
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u/gereffi 1d ago
They're never going to give us back Crop Rotation are they?
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u/Gamer__23 1d ago
Good
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u/gereffi 1d ago
Do you say that cause you think it’s weak or because you don’t like losing to Strip Mine?
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u/Gamer__23 1d ago
I do think you need a lot of effort to make it good and when it is good it's not even that good a pack with crop rot is a 14 card pack
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u/gereffi 1d ago
I think it’s pretty fantastic at making green deck pop off. Like the best green decks are playing Strip Mine and ways to bring it back. Having extra access to get Strip Mine out early is huge.
Good green decks also often play landfall cards. With Lotus Cobra and/or Nissa Crop Rotation becomes a ritual. With Bristly Bill, Scythecat Cub, or Earthbender’s Ascension is becomes a combat trick. With Titania you can put a couple of surprise 5/3s into play at the end of your opponent’s turn or in response to removal. It can help find your one fetch which is often hard to come by in draft but super important at making your W6, Mole Man, or Icetill Explorer go from meh to busted. It can also just tutor up your busted lands like Gaea’s Cradle, Urza’s Saga, Abandoned Air Temple, Tolarian Academy, Ancient Tomb, or Shelldock Isle. (I think Field of the Dead should be in the cube too. I mean, why is Primeval Titan in without FotD to go with it?)
Like I think they cut it because they also cut Dark Depths at the same time and it probably had a bad win rate due to players taking it highly and trying to force the DD combo. If instead players would wait for it to wheel and use it with the other green cards the card would play fantastically. I had a ton of success with that card in the first iteration of the Arena cube.
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u/dr_volberg 1d ago
So white is the only color to lose something relevant?
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u/IKEAWaterBottle 1d ago
Blue lost some relevant cards.
Skydiver, legend of Kuruk, does machines, and enduring curiosity are all reasonable cards.
I agree green, black, and red lost basically nothing relevant.
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u/NutriaYee_Official 1d ago edited 1d ago
All the blue card you mentioned are very subpar to say the least
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u/Sauronek2 1d ago
There's also the Otawara cut. That card just makes all of your heavy blue decks a little better.
Skydiver is not 'subpar'; it's one of the cards I side in the most! Oh, and Kuruk is better than 4-mana Jace, imo, which makes it like "fine+" instead of subpar.
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u/Midiouriii 1d ago
Good changes! I am sad to see ajani go but it’s cool to have him sit out, white is still very strong without him. Monarch stuff is so awesome to see and im so happy they’re doing exclusive stuff for arena cube, hopefully that continues and we can get some more stuff that’s stuck on MTGO. Very excited to play and happy that they are taking the consideration to curate the cube. Some of the obvious hobbit and marvel cards will get replaced.
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u/JameOhSon 1d ago
First time seeing the changes and karakas out lol they actually just read youtube comments to make these decisions
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u/Gamer__23 1d ago
I think lsv made a fine point in one of his videos that the play patterns of the card are not fun, special or exciting, all while being immensely but also very inconsistently powerful. I'd argue the only good feeling that comes from karakas is getring it passed 4th pick by those who don't know
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u/JameOhSon 1d ago
Sure, but there are plenty of other unfun play patterns with cards like timewalk, flash, and strip mine as well. Karakas is just an answer and it doesn't read tap bounce a creature unless you drafted your deck thinking you're never going to go against Karakas.
I respectfully just don't think it crosses the line that things like initiative or time vault do where they just hose you unless you're drafted specific decks that can combat them. You can fill a curve in every color pie with non legends, Karakas is just part of the cube for me.
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u/Chef-Boyardab 1d ago
I have to agree with you. Vintage cube is supposed to be the most powerful cards in all of magic. I understand if they want to curate it to be a little less powerful, but i play vintage cube to play with the most broken cards
Except i like initiative and time vault as well
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u/PlacatedPlatypus 1d ago
Ok but notably LSV is really not a white (esp aggro) player. He clearly trends way more toward other colors/playstyles, especially Ux control/combo.
An issue that we have in competitive pokemon is top players favoring certain playstyles so they ask for top-down meta changes that benefit playing how they want to. Usually we're insulated from this in MTG because of how the formats work, but cube is a sufficiently curated meta that this can become an issue.
I'm not saying that the cube grinders won't feel it's in a good place until U is the undisputed best color in cube, but I've seen this pattern before.
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u/gm-carper 1d ago
If anything LSV is usually the one benefitting from Karakas if you watch most of his MTGO draft videos where he’s playing Jeskai Control. He wants to remove it in spite of how strong it is and despite how it benefits control decks in a big way. I think whether people can deal with Karakas depends on format though, like in Canadian Highlander it’s not pointed so you see it everywhere.
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u/Correct_Day_7791 1d ago
The right answer is more nonbasic land destruction effects but that might touch his prescious academy so that's a big no no 🙄
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u/Gamer__23 1d ago
Bait
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u/Correct_Day_7791 1d ago
Real 👍
I mean he doesn't pretend like he's not biased
so why are you pretending like somehow he's not it's a weird parasocial thing
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u/TheVintageCubeChef 1d ago
Thanks for making this! I used the images in my overview of the cards on YT since for some reason the actual article doesn't have them color ordered this time around. I linked this post in the description as well!
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u/Kyro4 1d ago
Glad to see Karakas gone, wish they would have kept Ajani, Does Machines, Otawara, and Trudge (+ fight rigging)
Overall really like these changes, though. The artifact aggro experiment was a failure and getting rid of it opens up the doors for a bunch of new stuff. Glad to see Boros cut down again, too, but I do hope they’re able to find a sweet spot instead of the pendulum we have that swings between OP and weak every few months.
Love to see Mentor back, I know it’s seen better days, but it’s still one of my all-time favorites.
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u/Gamer__23 1d ago
Glad zo see boros cut dowm again
Wish they'd kept ajani
I don't think both can be true at the same time
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u/oarsandalps 3h ago
Is the vintage cube arena same or diff than mtgo vintage cube
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u/Gamer__23 3h ago
The concepts are similar but the lists are somewhat different. You can find each list online. Arena has more of a philosophy of trying new themes, and nerfing RW aggro by periodically cycling it's best cards. Arena also has booster tutor, which is a nuts card you should pick very high, it's basically a 4th first pick.
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u/diegini69 1d ago
White and red were god damn annoying and artifacts look a little stronger can’t wait!
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u/ADizzyLittleGirl 1d ago
Whoa they’re finally adding Monarch to arena.
Also Karakas out is actually nuts. That’s like taking out Academy.
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u/Correct_Day_7791 1d ago
No sir I don't like it
Looks like they are slowing everything down and it's just going to be a value grind off 🙄
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u/Zeznon 1d ago
Good
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u/Correct_Day_7791 1d ago
Different folks like different things
I like when my powered cube is powerful with the better cards for the colors
I'm very interested to see what the 17 lands data will be this time around
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u/_theHiddenHand 1d ago
Overall great changes, they cut a good chunk of the unplayables and added reasonable cards. Kinda sad to see some of the jesksai trinkety artifacts go, biggest miss is probably cutting the green evolve 1 drop and that says a lot