Building My Own Cube, pt. 13 – White

About two thirds of the white cards thusfar are creatures, which is a tad more than in normal sets, and their curve is pretty good. Now reason to mess with that. Maybe around ten of these should be creatures and maybe with a somewhat higher curve than before. On the other hand, there isn’t much removal, so I should emphasize that.

Removal

I don’t want the extremely efficient removal white has gotten over the years, such as [scryfall]Swords to Plowshares[/scryfall] or [scryfall]Path to Exile[/scryfall]. They are very good. Too good, in fact, which is why they haven’t been reprinted in Standard (or Modern even, in case of STOP) for ages.

[scryfall]Gideon’s Reproach[/scryfall] is good, conditional removal. Sometimes you will have to two-for-one yourself in order to remove the creatures, but that’s fine. Usually its enough alone.

[scryfall]Stasis Snare[/scryfall] gets rid of most things and has the added benefit of being a permanent, giving you devotion.

[scryfall]Silkwrap[/scryfall] is another such card, which can be very good against certain cards, such as Hydras.

[scryfall]Oust[/scryfall] seems like a nice tempo card. It does have the ability to screw with opponent too much, if that opponent’s mana isn’t cooperating, which might mean I can’t put it into the cube.

[scryfall]Abzan Advantage[/scryfall] is sort of removal for the gods, but can be hard to use sometimes. There aren’t that many enchantments in the deck, so I guess its in.

[scryfall]Banishing Stroke[/scryfall] can be extremely swingy, since you often don’t want to cast it early, if you’ve brought it in specifically to fight a god. Normally that kind of swinginess would deter me, but here I think I’ll just go with it.

I’ll also put one sweeper into the cube, but I don’t want to use [scryfall]Wrath of God[/scryfall]. I’d much rather use a five mana version, say [scryfall]Planar Outburst[/scryfall].

Creatures

The curve right now is 6 / 8 / 5 / 3 / 1 / 1 / 1. If I add ten creatures here, the right way would probably be 1 / 2 / 2 / 2 / 2 / 1, leaving us with a total of 7 / 10 / 7 / 5 / 3 / 2 / 1.

I have a few choices for the first one. 1/1 for 1 with First Strike might actually be pretty good in this format, but I think I’d rather put [scryfall]Selfless Cathar[/scryfall] in, because I like its ability.

For two-drops, there isn’t that much synergy with +1/+1 counters, but [scryfall]Ainok Bond-Kin[/scryfall] is pretty good on its own, as in a boardstall, it can grow out of opponents reach. [scryfall]Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit[/scryfall] can help with that.

First thing that comes to mind after that for three-drops is [scryfall]Abzan Falconer[/scryfall]. And continuing with that theme, [scryfall]Apex Hawks[/scryfall], which doesn’t gain any benefit from Falconer, but might from Bond-Kin.

For four-drops, I’ll put in [scryfall]Azorius Justiciar[/scryfall] for now, although I’m a bit worried the bounce available in the cube will make it obnoxious. On that note, [scryfall]Blinking Spirit[/scryfall], which can be a very expensive “prevent X damage” each turn.

For five-drops, and upwards, its beginning to be a bit of a problem. These are often gamechanging cards (as they should), but I don’t want too many of those in my cube. Still, they cant be too weak either. How many bombrare angels do I actually want? Not many. There’s quite a few fliers in white as it stands.

So, I’ll go with [scryfall]Elite Scaleguard[/scryfall] which can be pretty punishing, and [scryfall]Captain of the Watch[/scryfall], which has plenty of synergies within the cube. [scryfall]Scion of Vitu-Ghazi[/scryfall] should round this out nicely.

Others

This leaves us with three spots for other random spells, preferably combat tricks. I’ll go with two tricks and one enchantment.

[scryfall]Mighty Leap[/scryfall] and [scryfall]Artful Maneuver[/scryfall] are two, pretty basic, but good tricks.

[scryfall]Bonds of Faith[/scryfall] could be seen as removal (and should), but I’ll put it here. It could be an interesting cards, especially against the gods, where they can still be activated and the passive abilities work, and the Bonds can fall off.

One thought on “Building My Own Cube, pt. 13 – White

  1. I also really like the flavor side of Bonds of Fate + Gods. If the god is active (ie. a creature) their worshipers see them in different light and might abandon them.

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