Roasting My Cube From 2023 - EPISODE 100!!!

We made it to 100 episodes!! To celebrate we're taking a look back at my cube as it was when we releases our first episode back in May 2023, talking about what worked, and a lot about what didn't.

Timecodes:
0:45 - Overview of the Cube
9:26 - Attraction Package
15:58 - Salvager Combo
22:58 - Humans & Werewolves
25:47 - Aristocrats
29:32 - Madness & Graveyard
37:57 - Artifact Aggro
41:02 - Pod Deck
44:40 - Top of Deck Matters
53:32 - Other Combos
1:04:16 - Any We Would Try Again?

Cards Gallery: https://moxfield.com/decks/JvyuKBdNBkaRPFvUDjNw2g

Video Version: https://youtu.be/mDxFKr6Ekm8

Cubelist from May 4th 2023 - https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/226a4bd4-9f46-4299-86c6-85afc9745afd

Comparison to current list
https://cubecobra.com/cube/compare/226a4bd4-9f46-4299-86c6-85afc9745afd/to/2sweet

Cube Skeleton Episode: https://youtu.be/92aS4ZU_nd8

My Cube: https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/2sweet
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

Substack: https://substack.com/@powerfulnothing

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

0:02

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. The podcast has turned 100. How are you feeling? Yeah, it's centenary week. It's, it's an exciting time. We've, it it's helping me cope with my sense of grief over England's World Cup exits. We we go onwards. We continue. Four more years of podcasting, four more years of, it's, It's all good times. Oh, no, I don't need to wait four more years. I have a good. I have a good feeling about the Lionesses bringing it home next year. But anyway, James, this is a new podcast. Let's talk about Dubai. So yeah, because this is, 100th episode, we wanted to look back in some way. What we thought would be fun is what we're gonna be doing today is we're going to be looking back at my cube as it was when we started the podcast we found in Cube Cobra. We have found the list from when we started, and there are some questionable tests that, shall we say, basically James going to be ripping and roasting me, for some of those choices. And I'm going to try and defend it as best I can before we get into that episode. As always, there will be a card gallery down in the show notes below. If you want to have a look at the cards that we're talking about, as well as a link to the YouTube version, if you want to see the pretty pictures move around the screen while you're down there, please consider giving the podcast a five star review. Thumbs up, tell a friend all that good stuff in the show notes as well. There will also be a link to our new Substack that we've recently launched. We don't really have a full schedule planned for this yet. It's basically going to be if we think there's something interesting that we want to write about, we're going to put it in the Substack. Some things are better written than they are that talked about on a podcast. I recently released an article kind of going over the Cesc, going over the cube skeleton that we did a few episodes ago, just in a bit more detail for everyone's benefit. So check that out if you think it would be helpful for you. All right, let's move it back to episode 100. So a link to the current version of my cube and to the old version will be down in the show notes below as well. So in our first couple of episodes. So I think it's best if we first like place where the cube is in terms of the timeline of magic. So our first episode came out on May 4th, 2023, and our first EP, our first two episodes were set reviews for March of Machines. So those are the most recent sets at the time in context. In terms of magic, this is a few months before the Lord of the rings set came out, which, as we remember, was a modern legal set. And obviously this is about six months or so before Modern Horizons three came out. So we're kind of in this area of like where the initiative and cube exists. That's super powerful. But we don't have this kind of influx of just really stupidly powerful, like one off cards, like, I think, like gut had been printed at this point, but like, Broadside Bombardiers is like six months away, that kind of thing. So kind of we're at this point where, like the power level of cube is getting really quite high, but but we haven't been fully overtaken by just individually powerful cards yet in terms of the power level of my cube is also in a bit of a weird spot, like we have the full wheel deck in my cube, we have shielded and we have all the wields. We don't have bow master yet, but when it gets printed in a couple of months, it does come in and as I it does. And we also do have the full initiative package. And by that I mean we're running like every rare card as initiative including like is it several item like the artifact that has initiative as well. And in this cube as well as time. We also have cars like Minsk Bamboo, we have comet, Stellar Pop, we have the full Re-Animator package. We have things like our cone of Cruelty, we have Gristle Brand, we have a track set and a couple of notable combos in terms of cube as well. Of my 540 car, of my 540 cube, about 300 cards of the same. And one thing I did notice when I was checking out the comparison is that like the curve, like like I've done a big rebuild of my cube recently, and even in 2023, like the curb is noticeably higher, like it's noticeably a thicker curve, as it were. And like James, I want to throw this to you because. Because like, from your end, like you were we would cubing a lot of this cube at the time because at this point in our history, this was like the only cube around this, like before you built your cube, this is before I put my second, third and fourth and fifth. Given what kind of stuff like, what do you remember of this cube at the time when we first launched the podcast? Yeah. So I think it was in a slightly weird spot at this point where the initiative was in, but I think the initiative hadn't been around that long at this point. And we are all still coming to grips with just how powerful the initiative was. And when a cube has as much initiative in as this one does, like, as you say, we've had, we've got kind of all of them. And that means it's going to crop up in loads of games. And it puts this weird limitation on actually the sort of tax you can build. Like you really can't play attrition, even move the control decks that can't take the initiative back because you can kill all the creatures and it doesn't matter because they just have the initiative and they go out of bounds and you never take it back. And then you die. It's why the initiative is different from monarchy, right? Like, you can win those games where your opponent has the monarch. You can't win those games where your opponent has finished. So I think it was in a weird place from that point of view. But I will say, I don't think it's a horrible thing because, like, it would be a bad thing if it was in that state for like two years and we were playing it every week, you know, like we'd all get really bored. But, it is kind of fun when those busted new mechanics come out. Like, you just go in a little bit of a journey where everyone figures out, like, that's actually it. It's sort of metagame shift, right? In the way how that happens with constructed formats, right? Like, despite our best predictions, for example, vintage, very broken up for a moment by the fantastical. What do you mean, I called that, yeah, yeah, yeah. By, I mean mine. I mean, I'm good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good. Good. I still maintain it's not like getting killed, but, Yeah, apparently it's a doomsday back up win condition. Now. Yeah, yeah, that's what I. It know. What is it? Tell me. Doomsday Marvel. It's marvelous. Okay. Really good. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. The vintage is really broken at the moment by that card, and it's like, on the one hand. Yeah, that would be really annoying if you're, like, going to a paper tournament and you, you know, you're not going to want to pile the cards to play, the best fantasy card deck or whatever. But if you're just messing around online, then it's quite fun to go on this little journey and figure out what the new metagame looks like when it's all like fantastic cars versus, but, the disenchant false and and collect truths, right? And in a similar way, it's like interesting to see what happens when the cube goes through this really big shift and everyone's figuring out like, what actually wins in the world where you have initiative appearing and in 50% of games. So I think it's like, fine to put it in for bet and then probably a good idea to come after a while, you know. Yeah, exactly as well. Kind of like also like I think like what I, what I'm aiming for, for the cube is definitely changed between when we started the podcast and like how the cube list is now. At the time when we started the podcast, I effectively was trying to make this cube as powerful as possible. I like like this is an unpowered cube. It's always been an unpowered vintage cube, but like, but like apart from the fast manner, like the cards in the cube at the time were like the most powerful cards. It looked like it was pushing all the it was pushing all the broken things that Vintage Cube was trying to do, but also with full initiative and that kind of stuff. So like, there's a world where kind of like if you took a deck from a powered vintage cube and this cube like they would, the decks would look very similar. Yeah, for sure. If you took a powered cube, then moved the power nine plus, like solving and whatnot. And compared it to this cube. This cube would probably be more powerful than most of them. I would suggest, yeah. The the power level is super high, and it's, it does put some limitations on what the other packages you can surpass. And I feel like that's probably acknowledged and not that's not. I'm just looking at the first thing I need to talk about today. Jesus Christ, like the power level of this, there's this is something I think that we might come back to at the end, but I think it's worth saying, like the power level of this cube, definitely limited the ability for us to test some of the packages in some of the cars that we're gonna be talking about today. Yeah. I think it's something I've definitely learned more as a cube builder, as I've kind of continued my journey as kind of like I've spent more time building cubes and building different cubes. This is like being better at finding that balance of power a bit more. And just when you're trying to push things as high as you can, you really can't test things like, like like, let's, let's talk about the attraction package that I was testing when we started the podcast. So in the cube, I was running a card called Deadbeat Attendant. This card is one in a black for a creature vampire employee. It is A11 and when it enters, you open an attraction. Now this is a card from infinity. And in that draw format, you drafted an attraction deck. I wasn't doing the draft attraction deck. Basically, if you dropped a deadbeat attendant, I gave you a ten card attraction deck. And, like, what opening attraction means is basically, you take a card from that deck and you put it onto the battlefield, and, like, all the attractions are like little artifacts that give you, like a little incremental bit of value. They, like all had an effect and basically basically at a point on your turn, you would they would make you roll a dice. And if you roll the numbers highlighted on the attraction, you would get that effect. Like a good example is a card like Ferris wheel. This is an artifact attraction with visit. It has its its two target creature that hasn't been phased out with this attraction. That creature phases out until you roll a three or less while rolling to visit your attractions. And like once a turn. Yeah, you would roll the dice. And on this one, on the on the swing. Now it shows a four or 5 or 6. If you roll a four or 5 or 6, you would visit that attraction and get this effect. I, I think it's worth saying very quickly that we knew this didn't work. Like normally I'm very hot on. If you test something in your cube, you need to give it time to breathe. You need to make sure that it kind of people get the chance to do it fully. And this lasted one draft. This did so badly. This lasted one draft like. And I, I think I think the most egregious thing about this test is I cut sort of fire and ice for deadbeat attendant James. Thoughts on that. Yeah, this seems horrendous to be out there. Like, do I have to draft VR transitions? No no no no no no no. I gave like a whole ten card deck for it. Okay. You just give me an attraction track after the draft. Yeah. Okay. So I think there's a few reasons why this is terrible. Like, firstly, it's like I open, I sit down to a draft, it's like, oh, yeah, you know, here's a cube. I've, I've not looked at the changes because I probably didn't look at the changes. I just sat and Tab and I opened my pack. And then I see that the attendant. And now I have to ask you what an attraction is. Most likely, I think I think most I think more than 50% of forgive for if you probably there's a good chance I wouldn't know what the attraction did right. Then you have to explain what an attraction is in the draft and how it works, and that I get the deck of attractions for free. That's all, like, non-obvious and even then. Right? I'm. Unless I actually go and look through that deck of attractions. My draft of a of a draft, I don't really know how good for dead the attendant is. Right. And even and even then it's, you know, it's a very unfamiliar mechanic with the dice falling and stuff, and not that you can't do any of that stuff, but it's like a big new cognitive load for for draft. Right? And it's like you're taking my time and mental energy to look at this thing and decide whether I want that beta sentence. And I feel slightly betrayed when, when it's a fucking deadbeat attendance and it's terrible. And it's kind of like you've just wasted my, my mental energy by reading all this nonsense about a Ferris wheel. And obviously I'm going to take for Ben Skidoo or whatever. Instead, you know, because that this attendant is not a car that belongs in the mid 72 format, like I think you could, I think there's a cube, you could do this and it's not like an inherently bad thing, but it's an inherently bad thing for what is basically a powered cube. Yeah. No, I would agree. So like this I think this doesn't work on a couple of levels. So I kind of like why it went into my cube is like I was starting to try and support, like the Irish to scrap style of deck where like you're putting artifacts into play, you're stacking them for value. Like, like in theory, this gives you something to say to a goblin welder or something to stack for value away, like the mental load part for me, I think is the most prevalent because like, this is my one test of ever adding a sub deck to a cube like we've seen it a bunch on like arena with cause like like like like with the spell books, that kind of stuff. Like this is the first time I've ever added something like that. I'm like, it's. This is why I've never added cause like Oracle of the Alpha or anything like that. That kind of adds like, like the arena only mechanics to like a paper cube because like, this does work in like a similar way. And yeah, like, yes, you can support it but like, but you can't really support it that much because I was like thinking like, well, what happens if I add a second traction creature that opens an attraction and like, well, then I need two decks, because what happens if that dropped drafted by different players and then it becomes like a massive, like a real unbelievable pain and yeah, like like the end, the extra mental workload and like was very prevalent from the start. And it's like that was my one time testing it and I've never tried it again. I've never the juice was never really worth the squeeze with this. Yeah for sure. And I think it's always worth thinking about with this stuff. Right. Like what is the group for your designing your cube for and for our group, it's like everyone has played loads of magic, but we all like very good magic players. That doesn't mean well, can they know what an attraction does? Because it came out like last week or whatever, and it's all nonsense and it's not in any real format. And I'm generally quite reluctant to put in cards where reading the card does not explain my card. Yes, I completely agree. And reading that beach attendant tells you very little about that. Which standard, you know. Yeah. No, you're really correct. Like reading this card. Like it doesn't even give you a signal. Like on the card that it's for an artifact deck. And I think that, like. Yeah, like, I don't know what everything else I can completely agree. It's it's something that I've learned, I think in, like, there's a world where this stuff can be cool, but like, in that world, you actually draft the attractions as well. I think that's kind of that's how you actually make it work. And I think that's more interesting. Rather than just having a one off card, that kind of just confuses things. And yeah, the fact that this is an A cube with a card like Minion Blue is kind of ugly. Just like we can just be doing more powerful things. A potentially more powerful thing is a card that we, recently testing at this time. And that was Orac Salvages. This is three in a white for a creature. Human soldier is A24 and has the activated ability for one one and a white return target artifact with mana value one or less from your graveyard to your hand. So this card has seen play in a bunch of high powered cubes because it goes infinite with cards like Black Lotus. And obviously Black Lotus wasn't in this group at the time, but we did have lines I diamond. So this is an infinite mana combo with lines I diamond. I think why this got cut around this period of time is that it was a bit too niche. Like I generally found the deck really didn't come together that much in this cube. Like I wasn't really running any tutors at this time. And I think two card combos like that kind of struggle. And this is also before the time where we kind of really worked out was what the best thing to do with Lines of Diamond was. And effectively like we now know, we now know it's underworld breach like brain freeze combo. I quite like for salvages combo, actually. I mean, it's not, It's not one that's going to get played, you know, every single draft by any means, but it's kind of one of those where it's just one slot, you know, because you already have all the other cards that you want for that combo in here. Right. So normally the combo right is you have, you have all three arc salvages line side diamond is infinite mana because you keep discarding your hand, you make three white mana. He pay two of it to a turn that is infinite amount of of any color. And but you have no cards in hand, so you need a way to go through your deck. And that looks like, if a spell bomb. Pyrite spell bomb, chromatic star, chromatic sphere. All these cards join you. You're taking that thought with infinite mana, and then you need a win condition. We, the pyrite spell bomb above mentioned is kind of easiest, but something like walking blister also works. And you already have all of these cards in. Right? So it is literally just one slot for the like salvages asking for and like, sure, a bunch of traps you won't get paid, but the ones where it does, it's like this completely new deck, right? It's, it's it's a very unique thing. And I feel like that is worth that is powerful when it comes together. Like, it doesn't it doesn't come together very often, but when it does, it's fairly powerful, and that's cool. So I think for that reason, I kinda like it, but, I will say it's, it is a little bit better in stuff like powered cubes, but just because you have a little bit of redundancy because there's Lotus as well as diamonds and I've obviously in here it's just diamond. But now I do generally genuinely like the, the salvages combo. I have it in my power cube. Obviously the only reason it isn't in like the Modo cube or the arena cube, for example, is just that it's very long to execute on Magic Online, right? Yeah. Tracks. Yeah, it's a lot of clicking. But yeah. Like exactly, exactly what is obviously on paper, you know, you just say I now have infinite mana and that's, that's much nicer than this I think. 20 minutes on, may I demonstrate my loop? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. And also I think like, maybe there's a world where it could come back into my cube now and like, maybe for, like, super powered, like maybe still for high power level cubes. I'm not sure like personally about it just because the government is Cuban, that kind of stuff. Like, like there's just so much creature removal now. Whereas in mind, because I brought the power level down, like in the current version, there's a world where this could actually come in and like, could do quite well. Another card that I want to shout out to, I was testing, another niche one, similar to the dead attendant style of thing. And in that it was from infinity. It's a card called Trigger Happy. This is one and a read for an instant that says choose a trigger. The ability of target permanent. It triggers you control that ability. So for what it's worth, if it's been printed back in the day, this would have been a silver border card. Technically not tournament legal come illegal, that kind of stuff. But it's cube. We can do what we want. And the reason why I was testing it is that, primarily as a way of trying to push dark depths. Now, this is very much like the peak of me going, like, how can I get dark depths to work? I like dark depths. It's cool. What can I do to push it? And turns out the solution in 2026 is just to cut dark depths. But trigger happy is an interesting one because it lets you for two mana, like, activate your dark depths and make the 2020 Squiggly fish. This is a card that I don't think we actually kind of fully like. Activating an ability or triggering ability is a very unique thing to do. But like, it went in for dark depths and it never really came off like like James, do you remember ever seeing this card? Like, activating a Dark Depths when I had it in my cube? Now, I don't think I ever solved that spell down the stack. I liked the idea in that it's it's one of face cards where you put it in your deck for dark steps, but some other kind of fun stuff will happen with it. And I enjoy cards like that, but, I think we have now all just accepted for Dark Depths. It's a trap, right? It's. The thing is, for 2020, indestructible is is is kind of two beatable? Actually, there's enough bounce, enough exile that that it's all a bit tough. I also don't like that we didn't have Silvan Safe Keeper here because, I think that's actually quite an important card for the depth stuff. If you're gonna try and make it work. Plus is also a really important piece for Titania, which is in the cube. But yeah, I think I appreciate we were trying with Dark Depths. It's a cool card. I wish it worked. It. It's actually just bad. I think. Yeah, I do agree. I kind of like, in this kind of weird pointing cube, we're kind of like, we hadn't really locked in on, like, what green is really looking like. It kind of like in this cube. It's all over the place. Like, we're kind of at the tail end of, like, we know mono green isn't really good enough, but we don't really know what comes next. And like, we don't have the redundancy of like the of Prime to really kind of push the loungy style deck. But there's a world where like in 2033, one of the better things to be doing is like leaning into, like titanium and like fast ball stuff and like, maybe that's what we should have been pushing at this time, rather than like focusing on the dark DEP style of Lands Deck. Yeah, either way, I do think Trigger Happy is an interesting card, and I just don't think, I don't think like, I might give it the time was the right home for it, but yeah, maybe it's one I look at in the future. If I can think of some more cool things to do with it. Another change I want to talk about. This is quite a big one, actually, because I for a long time I was really trying to push, like, humans in this cube. Like, we just recently cut when we, started the podcast, like, cause, like, champion of the Parrish and Thanos attendant. These are kind of like humans pay offs. Along with a card like Torrens Fest of angels. This is one that, like, makes you humans when you cast creature spells. The reason for that is because also before this, before we start the podcast, I also just cut my werewolf package, and that's something I really wanted to make work like. I pushed that for ages, but I just really ended like no one really started drafting it. Like. Like I thought it was cool because, like, my goal was kind of like Nya is kind of doing humans, but like Celestia specifically is pushing the humans, gruel. It's pushing werewolf. So you kind of have cause like Mayor of Ava Brook has like a overlapped card for both decks. I thought it was quite cool. But I think, like the biggest issue at this time is like, why would someone draft like Tolliver? Like a werewolf? Lord, when you can just draft the Minsk combo? And I think that's kind of the biggest issue with this deck at the time. Yeah, it's it's just the thing like where the cards require you to build around them to be good credit cards. When you get there, they need to be better than the cards that don't need building around, right. And tovala in the best possible tovala that you could have built in. This cube is still worse than Minsk can do. So what? Why? You can import five. I like failures, Lieutenant. Can't be better than white Plume adventure. You can't construct for that. That happens. Right? So, they all end up not being worth the effort. It's a thing. Yeah, I completely agree. I think this is probably the most obvious example of me not understanding the power level of cube at the time. Like, I think like you can't push the ceiling of a cube in terms of power level without raising the floor. They have to kind of go up in unison. You can't have these super powerful cards and super weak cards in the same cube because, like, everyone has to be. It wasn't even though people weren't like, they weren't like playing the humans and werewolf packages and decks and they were losing with them just like they weren't ever playing with them. And that is like a really bad thing that I like, like, like, like it had to be addressed. And that's kind of why they got cut. Yeah. I mean, this group has played a lot of magic. They it if it's not coming together they're not going to force the NFL. That they'll, they'll acknowledge this, piece of the cards is just better. And it's played with good cards. I mean, I will play them and I will go, oh three. But yeah, I that's kind of the curse of the cube designer, I guess. One of the big cut that came around this time as well, that was on the podcast, was that, this was the last time that I had aristocrats fully supported in my cube. They got cut around the time of this podcast, and they've never really come back in, in any large density, like, like, like at the time, this is effectively what, like Amadou was doing in my cube, like, like basically he also was a more controlling aristocrats rat dos was like quite an aggressive aristocrat tech kind of like. And Boris was built around like a token style strategy. And then because all these sacrifice outlets came out at this time as well. This was also the last time I tested combos in any great density in my cube. As well. But I think we're both on the same kind of wavelength in terms of like PCs. Combos aren't really what cubes are about. Like what high powered cubes are about nowadays. It's just a bit too slow and requires too many pieces. But I have added a touch more aristocrat ape. It's like it's not an archetype, but like I've added like a blood artist back in just because, like in cube nowadays, there's so many things dying and just like having a little bit of reach for aggro decks or for like decks that where things die, I think it's quite nice, but specifically with aristocrats. James kind of like, is it like a deck mess, or do you think it kind of like it got cut, like when it should have basically. Yeah, I think a lot of the same arguments apply, but without the aristocrats as, as stuff like humans, where it's, you just needs a lot to go. Right? And when you've got cards like now, Parallax Wave, for example, is a miscue, right? Out of six cats requires this, like, critical mass of stuff on board. Right. And it requires your stuff to be sticking, and then you need to play like quite a big game without stack. That's it's not great in these like, low velocity things where everything's trading off a lot because you just don't have that board state that you need to to really pop off. And it's not great. And you, you know, you're giving up individual power level on your cards for synergies that come together in a very situational way. And I think, you know, it's not it's not that it can't be strong in the right cube, but you have to, you have to really sculpt an environment for decks like that to be to be very viable. And I think that's not what we're doing in this cube. Right? Yeah, exactly. Like at this point in my cube, we're trying to go as powerful as possible and like, at least at least in this time. But anyway, aristocrats wasn't getting there. And like, That the power level kind of conversation is something that I've really looked at in the last couple of years. Like, for me, I want some level of synergy decks to exist. I like it when like A plus, B or C is better than just A and B individually I like. I use that kind of like, analogy all the time, but like, I like it when someone doing something cool is better than someone just playing a card. So that's why in my cube now, like the modern version, the 2026 version has way less of those. Just like individual power outliers. It's got cards that, when you combine them, are better. And like the way I've been able to do that is by cutting just the raw power level of cards. That's something in 2023 I hadn't worked out how to do yet. I was trying to have all of these powerful individual cards, plus synergy, and just like I hadn't really balanced it at all. Talking of not really balancing, like I said, another one that kind of like was in this constant state of flux around this time, is the madness package. So at the time of the podcast, I think I just made the change to move away from specifically a dedicated madness deck. So we just cut cards like noose, constrictor, Wild Mongrel, lawless, troll, Rack, dust, headliner. These are all cards that, like, let you discard cards for free and then like a bunch of powerful madness cards like blood or Priest, Shadow Grange, Arch Fiend, and also like hollow one was in that also just got cut. But yeah, I was really spent ages trying to work out what this deck is. I think it's in a better place now in 2026, but like at this time, there's so much faffing around, like like I cut a bunch of the madness card, but I'm still running both reckless where I'm an arrogant worm. I can tell in myself, I can look back and say that that may have been a mistake, James, but like, from your end anyway, what did you think of the madness deck at the time? And what do you think the main issues were with it? Yeah, it's pretty tough for the madness deck. I o madness cards, I think, are in a much better place now than they were then because, we we were missing a lot of really powerful discard masters stuff, but we now have. And that just wasn't around at the time. Right. So really the focus of the deck was trying to maximize vs it was a madness stack in my place. That's why we're trying to maximize cards with for word madness. Then and those cards just aren't at the required power level for this sort of cube, you know, like reckless and reckless where I'm not that good of a card. Like, yeah, I know, don't worry, there's a Spider-Man one we can run now instead. Yeah. And it's it's sort of defensible if you, know, the scenario where you have, like, a vulture in play, say. So you're like, kind of getting a card out of a madness. You're getting me instant speed. The idea. Like, then it sort of feels okay in this sort of cube, but when they just kill you over mature, it's it's horrendous. And, it's like it's like you're building around something, but the thing you get when you built around it is just an on par power level. Right? And when that gets disrupted in any way, you just have a dead card. I think the Senate has been a very tough place for a very long time. I think we're now in a place where we could start sprinkling bits back in, because the discard matter stuff is good, like inherently good without madness. Cards, you can kind of shrivel a few of them, like some of the best ones. Like some blizzards, maybe, and some, some of the newer guys and the unused Ravager quite like. Oh, yeah, that's great. That's for. Yeah. Yeah, that's, free for you. When it attacks, discard your hand and free cards. That card's pretty strong. But, yeah, in the environment we had at the time, these cards were not really playable. The only time it felt okay was with exactly survival of the fittest. Because survival of the fittest is a powerful card. It's hard to kill, because it's an enchantment. And the fact that you could get something going, but only essentially having one enabler that's acceptable. Like for a shaman. Not the same thing. I hate to say it. Yeah, I did a great I like the only way this deck was winning. It was when you constructed a board state that involved survival of the fittest and going route, while a route waller into cheating of join into play on like turn three. Messy that like that was how it could pick up. But if you didn't have exactly that, you were in a lot of trouble. And I also remember as well with this, like the manner in this deck being dreadful like this was aimed to be an aggro deck that needed all three pips of mana on turn three. And it's also running a bazaar. Baghdad. And like I think what this kind of highlights is like, this was a time where to an extent, I was just like, oh, with the madness deck, just kind of throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what stuck. Because like in the next update around this time, we cut a bunch of the madness stuff, but then we add in all the dredges like Bazaar, came in when the madness stuff came out, which feels very, in hindsight, very wrong to me. And like, I feel I'm definitely better at building cubes now, trust me. But like, stinky demagoguery, grave troll, all these kind of stuff, these came in and it like we didn't. Episode on how to fix Grigori recently, but this feels very much like a deck we spoke about, and that we're kind of like we're just playing some good cards and and going like, oh, here's the graveyard deck, see what you can build with it. But that's not that doesn't really work like James, would you agree there. Kind of like it feels like it doesn't really it's not really focused. It doesn't really have like a direction as it were. Yeah. I would agree. You. So you titled this this episode wasting your cubes. I'm not going to hold back. I think this is this is, for me, the most inexplicable decision. I could see it for this because I know, like, normally when the build around this stuff doesn't get that. It's like the reason it doesn't get phases. You need lots of different specific pieces, and it's hard to get them to all line up. And like, there's something there that could work, but it just works so rarely that it's not worth having and it's not worth having the slots. I don't think that's really true with this. This stuff, I think. I'm not sure you can construct me a deck from this card pool. Westing. Freedom is a good card. You know, I don't know that that deck exists. Yeah, but I need it's a block of James with Death touch. It's like. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's how most games would end up playing. Like. Yeah. Because the thing is, fight for pay off is just basically only Hogarth. Yeah. There's no point to any of these other cards if you don't have for Hogarth and also sometimes you just exile your Hogarth and then your deck doesn't do anything. And sometimes for Kovacs, like near the bottom of your deck, remember, Dex doesn't do anything. And the reality is, like just the Hogarth is not enough to get it done. In most games of cube, you know, like, people are doing powerful stuff. This isn't this isn't modern, where you have that on turn two every game. And you can't make it be that the cards don't exist to have that level of consistency. So, I don't think there's a scenario where this stuff works. Yeah. It's is it seems a bit tough. The I think if you want to do the really social graveyard thing, it needs to be, in a way, low power level cube, and you need a lot more payoffs for it. And a lot more stuff that, like, inherently does something from the graveyard, you know, like, not stuff you have to draw and then pay off for having a stock graveyard stuff where you melee for. And it just does something by itself, you know? We don't have any of that. We barely just have a hunger in the dream. Yeah. And I completely agree. Like, like in the latest version of my cube, like, there's still Hogarth, but, like, it's kind of leans a little bit more into the delirium side of things, if I'm honest. And like also with some discards issues as well, I'm just way more happier with it. Like you have cards like, monstrosity, which are phenomenal, which isn't technically a Tamagotchi, but it's a better Tamagotchi thing, modern day magic, which I like. Along with like barrack life and pirate life, which are probably at the upper end, power level wise in my cube and, ones that I'll, I'll have to keep an eye on. But like, that kind of delirium, different stuff in Graveyard Deck. I'm definitely more happier with now. Because it just like, naturally gets more value from discard cards like you have cause like indie, which is a really good aggressive cause, like happens to put stuff into the graveyard. You're gaining value with it. That's all really nice is how when you go through your deck, it's triggering your delirium. That's all really good. And I think we've we've just had more time to focus in on kind of like that deck and how things synergize together, where it's kind of like at this time it was like, yeah, throw some dredges in. Dredges are powerful. Let's see how they go. But like, I'm being honest, I don't think dredge like any card with dredge really has a place in any kind of been in any kind of high powered cube, but I guess kind of transitioning from, like a pet deck of mine that, like, didn't work at the time to a pet deck of mine that really worked at the time. The closest update to the to our first podcast is when the artifact aggro deck came in, and it's like full pump in entirety. This is when Scorpion Lord was added. James. We love it. Like around this time there's yeah, yeah, we were adding cars like for Action Dragon engine and like really cheap aggressive artifact creatures along with actually like quite pushed artifact cards like low stone golem really powerful card in this, but also cards like Misha's workshop that also came in around this time and like the first cube after we started the podcast with all these changes was one by, artifact aggro deck. That was running some cool gotten that was running like a bunch of the cool aggressive creatures. Was also running like a goblin welded package with the portal to the for Xia, but also running cards like Misha's Workshop and Talon Academy. And that was really scary. Like James, what did you think of the deck? At the time? Yeah, I remember being a skeptic of the time of our good friend. The Scott has Lords and all his Necron buddies. And I think I was 100% proved wrong, actually. But this all came together shockingly well. I think for anyone who is coming into it from having played a bunch of, like, powered cube and stuff, there was a bit of a predisposition of, like the best thing to do with flux with the broken mana stuff like Academy, like workshop, is to pair it with blue cards and draw lots of cards and go Bellingham, make loads of manor and tapu, academy, yada yada yada placement for sevens. And we all had to adjust to the fact that actually in this cube, in this environment, this beating down was really good with, with our workshops and whatnot. Scope of Lord shockingly effective magic card, it turns out, it's really quite distressing. Stuff like even like the stupid sci command. So. And the scrap heap scroungers of the world. But it all just came together. It came out so quickly. The mana was so powerful. Yeah. I think you could very happily first pick a mishra's workshop in this cube and go pretty, you know. Yeah. During during this time, especially, like, I really I love this deck at the time. I still love it today, but I did have to, like, power it down when I started removing some of, like, the more noise in the three cards. So like, Academy is still in, but the workshop kind of had to come out. It was a bit too free, like only that deck got that card, basically. And like from a balancing point of view, giving one Decker Mox was a bit too much. But yeah, love this deck. It was also like, I really need to build like the Canadian Highlander version of this deck at some point, because yeah, I think that would be awesome. But let's transition over to something that didn't work as well. This is probably, at this period of time, I feel it was definitely like the last, like, valiant stand for birthing pot. This is the last time the pod appeared in my cube, and I gave it one last push before we, end up cutting it. Around this time, we were also testing cards like Prime Speaker Vana for. That's, that's a creature version of birthing pod, as well as a there's also a planeswalker pod in and I was also running some creatures that untap when they come in cause like bound in crisis so that in theory, you could, like, build a pod chain and go up the chain, pretty easily if you got the pieces together. I think it's fair to say, James, this did not work. Something I wanted to test, and it's something I was pushing. Just because birthing pod is, like, one of the. For our playground. I like a super nostalgia driven card. It's really popular, but just. I think I can say that it didn't work. Like, would you agree with that? James? Yes, I think that is reasonable to say. I think looking at the this I'm looking at, which is I think from. Yeah, just post out of the podcast, it's I think you said the persist combo. Is it just come out and I think the birthing pod probably needed to go with them. Yeah. It makes sense as an inclusion if you're trying to, trying to push back on base stuff. But the whole idea of, like, I have a pod giant chain and I untap my pod is is not really something that works in cube because you just need first you need too many cards. You need to open the precise cards to assemble that whole chain, and it puts too much pressure on, you know, stuff just isn't opened in the draft and you don't see it and yada yada, yada. This isn't constructs that we don't have a perfect chain. And also because in constructed right, you have four birthing pods and then one of all of about target all the targets which are like good to fetch but bad seed fall. Whereas in a limited deck we have 40 cards, we have one birthing pods and one of all of the targets which are bad to draw. And then you just end up playing with the pod creatures all of the time. Then you end up playing with the birthing pod. I do still believe birthing pod, like, has a place in some cubes, but it needs to be. It's not about a chain. It's about assembling a combo. And if I have this creature and this creature in play at the same time, then I just win. And. And the birthing pod is where I put that together. And even then, it's, you know, it's kind of tough, and it doesn't belong in the same cube as, as White Plume adventurer. So, yeah, I, I would not be much. I love birthing pods. I would not be taking it highly in this list. Yeah. No, I think that's very fair. I think in hindsight, it's like to actually make birthing pod work. The solution is not to add a bunch of bad, worse birthing pods. It's to like make an environment where you can do mid-range grinding stuff like pod does not work in a cube with the initiative. Like what are we going to do? Like pod away our White Plume adventure to get our seasoned engineer like, let's just keep the White Plume adventure in play like that seems good enough. Yeah, it seems like kind of a tough way to do it. I, I feel like if we have a live stream adventure that season done today, we probably will do okay. Anyway. Valve for a perfect pod today. Yeah, I do, I still love birthing pod. Like I need to finish off my modern board of cube, but I think pod will actually be quite solid there. But let's keep going. Games. There's a couple of other packages and decks I want to get through. Next up was one that I was always a big fan of. Again, just struggled to make it work, I think in this power level. And that was like a top of the deck matters style of deck. Like, it was this is one I do think could have a place in, like a lower powered or a more budget cube. Basically what is trying to do is use cards that can control the top of your library, things like scroll rack, things like sensei's divining top, things like just a mind sculptor or brainstorm and then combine them with either cards that are good on the top of your library because like, like spells with miracle things like try and have some. Katherine's a cool Warhammer creature, cause like intrigue, the angels or temporal mastery. These are the cool cards with miracle or cards that reward you for having something good on your library. Cards like, Vesuvio Drifter, which becomes a copy of a creature on top of your library, or a card like, or a card like God Eternal Ceph net, which lets you cast a copy of a spell that was on top of your library. And you can kind of do some cool infinite, turn combos with that card. This, like top of the deck matters type of thing. Like, like miracles was a deck in legacy for quite a while, and they are quite powerful spells. But like in my power level of cube like this also just didn't get there. What did you think of this deck? James? Yeah, this even drifter seems a little bit tough. And chief Angel seems a little bit tough. The main thing that confuses me is we we have all these, like, kind of medium ways to set it up with. We don't have, like, a vampiric tutor, and we don't have an imperial seal. And these are, like so much more of, like, reliable ways of setting this stuff up than a sensei's divining top and whatnot, you know? Yeah, I think for me, where I drew the line in power level was also tutors. There were very few tutors in this. Okay, I, I think that makes this a little bit tricky, to be honest. Because that that's, that's where this stuff I think can actually be good for transfers. And Catherine, like obviously we didn't have it, I think when this came about. But the card that's a great payoff now is metamorphosis Fanatic, right. The oh yeah, that's a good one. Yeah, I like that due to the animates and puts lifelong caps on stuff. And also it's a big laugh like kind of miracles for two mana. Because a lot of these are just, like a bit tough to make it work for payoff. Like, yeah, temple mastery is powerful, but it's so bad when you just draw it and you don't miracle it. And similar with and treat for angels fairly. And it's, it's still like kind of a lot of minor and you need to have it ever come up at the right time. Whereas if you have those good flexible top deck tutors like they're good cards anyway, you're not you're not sort of paying a course by including learning the cube. You're not just including them for this stack. And, that they are going to make this deck sing. I think in a way that seems quite tricky to do. This is yeah, I agree, I think the tutors would push it over the edge, but I think that kind of leaves this archetype in a really tricky place because like in in cubes that have tutors, they don't need to run miracle cards because like, like shortly after this was tested in my cube, like, you don't need to run and treat the angels because like for failing, it's exists. Which is just a better version. You don't need to worry about miracle again. And then, like, if you're in a power cube as well, that's running the tutors, you don't need to run like, you don't need to run cause, like, temporal mastery to get an extra turn because like, time walk just exists in that cube. So maybe this is just an archetype that's always going to struggle and cube basically, like I could see a world where maybe like that, it could be like a little package because like, I do think cause like sensei's divining top and like, Jay's the mind sculptor, like, they're just solid cards that that can go in, in more of a wide range of cube. So maybe you kind of ignore the, miracle stuff and kind of just, just kind of just have the God eternal castanet infinite turn combo stuff as a as a nice little package. That could be quite fun. I do like, like that, like got a ton of caffeine that is like a four mana, 4 or 5 flier that has an ability. You may reveal the first card you draw each turn as you draw it. Whenever you reveal an instant or sorceress card. This way. Copy that card and you make cost the copy that copy cost to generic. That's the cost. So basically, if it's an extra turn spell on top of your library, you draw it. You can cast a copy of it. If you have a way of putting that extra transfer back on top of your library, like with Scroll Rack or just the mind sculptor, then you effectively get infinite turns. And I think that is quite fun. But yeah, that could be one for a lower power level cube. Not for vintage cube, obviously, but like, yeah, for low power level cube. It is a cool thing to do. And maybe that's as far as that package goes. Now. And I think as well, looking back on it, I think at the time, like because I could kind of see that creature decks were getting quite strong, like with initiative, that they were putting up a lot of numbers. I think I was kind of thinking as I'm like, to balance it out, I need to add more combos. I need to add more different things to do to kind of fight against that, but kind of like what what we've seen in things like the, the mega moment is cube or the arena powered cube is like the way of the way they're dealing with like, creatures being more powerful. Is that just adding more answers to those creatures that are adding more removal and bits of interaction? They're not adding bad combos, which is kind of what I was doing at the time. Yeah, for sure. I think and I, I think this cube is slightly like some removal compared to where we'd be now. Because the other thing that does is actually gives for combo decks makes more points because as a combo Dex gets play removal and slow down the aggressive Dex, but also whenever combo text run into more interactive Dex, being active Dex have bad cards against them because the removal isn't good against the Combo Dex, and the Combo Dex kind of gets, as a little bit of free equity for, and that gives you the time to do some some of the slower combos, stuff like, yeah, we don't have, for example, a doomsday in this cube. I think that that would have been interesting as a way to go for combo rather than this stuff of, yeah, we don't have like a, we have the breach stuff, but we don't have like a another storm Dex. Right. Yeah. I think you've highlighted a really good point that. Yeah, yeah. Like, the combo Dex in at this time were all creature based. So they're not getting that kind of free equity and not running creature. So, yeah, I can be something like a doomsday which has come in subsequently, I think would have been part of it for this kind of era of cube. But yeah, like I saying, like, again, from a timeline point of view, we just can't possess combos. But like, we're only about six months out from, like, Splinter Twin finally coming out to my team because like, people really liked it and people were drafting it, but like, it was like going like oh three or like one, two, but for like a good six months to a year before I finally cut it. Yeah. I mean, the, the, the split screen stuff is good vibes, but it's, it's a bit tough to make it work now. And the other, the other converse stuff we have in Sims. So for example, we have a sneak attack, which is the sort of combo thing that can work. And it's good enough, but some of the support we would want I think isn't quite bad. Like we don't have 15 on the cool. We don't have stuff like Wild Spine one we don't have. Also, I think quite importantly, we don't have a three for each, so we don't have the redundancy. And especially in a world where we don't have good tutors for that, we're kind of in a spot where we're just hoping to troll the sneak by a lot. So really, the only place you can really end up playing it is like a kind of backdoor into the animator deck. Which seems like tough because we also, I think we don't have flash, right? No, we don't kind of like the, the top, the other alternative payoffs. But sneak attack is like in this cube right now is show and tell. I think we're about six months off of flash coming in. And you also kind of see that in the like big green top end, kind of like we're still running like a kind of like titans of industry and like creative. Whereas like once flash comes in, we start transferring over to Woodville, Primus and Worlds. By the way, I'm kind of like like I feel that like as a cube community, that's kind of where the big top ends have kind of settled on now because they're these effects, the work with flash, they work with sneak attack, they work with, but like all the ways you want to take them into play. Yeah, checks out some. Yeah. Some, some other combos I was testing at the time. I think it's worth talking about now. At the time, I was, that was sort of the podcast I had Spike Theater and Archangel of Thune. And this is like an infinite there's like a nice infinite life combo. And then also I was trying to Healy. Right, and feathered our guardian for it, making infinite cats, that kind of stuff. And yeah, it's, it's weird with these cards because they're not really like a package. It's just kind of just two cards existing. Apropos of nothing. And yeah, these didn't really come off like, like, like these don't really have a shell. Yeah. When there's no like I can see back now. No tutors makes these two card combos really hard. It's also a 540 cube. So like, you're not opening a third of the cube. In most drafts. Therefore, these aren't going to appear anywhere near as regularly. Like, and I feel that looking back on this cube, I can feel that this is one of the main areas where I can see myself growing as a cube designer. Like, I feel I put these cards in at the time because like that powerful or like I thought they were powerful, they didn't really have a reason. They didn't really go in the deck. They weren't really working with anything else in the cube. But I definitely feel nowadays if I add something to my cube, there's a much better reason behind it than like, oh, I, I've heard this is powerful, let's just throw it in. Yeah. For sure. Good. That's good. Very. I guess, yeah, I think for stuff like the spike feeder combo, I kind of feel like if you're doing feature combos, you kind of need to do all of that or none of that. And it's like we still have stuff like, for example, Eldritch Evolution and have like, what the hell am I meant 12 which do shit into you know, I think in my head at the time that it was another copy of Birthing Pod, like. Like mistakes were made, James. Mistakes were made. Yeah. Yeah, exactly, exactly. But it's it's kind of just a spike feeder thing, right? Like, there's not enough combos stuff to that I can take for Eldritch Evolution and be like, oh, find like something cool set up with this. And yeah, the the copy, the Guardian thing is just kind of a worst splinter twin, really, because you don't have redundancy. C and B none of the pieces have flash like. But the thing that made splits twin powerful is that you can die at any time I like, so I can go and step past my untap. Kill you. Whereas the owl guardian doesn't do that like you have. You generally have to untap with one part of the combo, which is inherently makes it a lot easier to play against. Oh, yeah. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. And it's just. Yeah, very easy to interact with. Yeah, yeah, I can play game. As I said, mistakes were made. James. Mistakes were made. There was something else. I noticed, though, that when I was looking at this list and like, there's one dead giveaway that this list is from, like the early 2020s and that's that. It still has a full cycle of talismans in it. Like when we got the full cycle talismans, the conversation was, oh sweet. We now are obviously going to replace all of our sickness with talismans. We want a full cycle. That's great. That's kind of time's gone on. Like, I've definitely cut some like I don't I haven't run a full cycle of talismans in quite a while now. It's just the like my color pairs that care about artifacts. They get talismans. Nothing else does. Like like like what does girl need a talisman for in my cuz? It doesn't want that. It wants a want some kind of cool payoff. And I think this is something that generally as like a cube community, we've all kind of settled on like like I'm assuming that like the Go vintage cube and like the arena power Keep don't have full cycles of talismans anymore. James. Yeah, for sure I don't. And, I think a lot of the reason for that vibe is especially for Green Decks, don't really want the talismans a lot of the time. Like, if you want to vamp on to Mana and Green and this cube, I'm like, you've got an armored scrap gold, bio fake. So Lotus Cove, that's there's plenty of options. So it's a bunch of for one mana elves. You're not going to use a talisman for that shop. So what the like the green bed talisman, for example, is not for the green red deck. It's a bad. It's a worse talisman for the blue bad artifact deck, you know. So cut that talisman. And if you want another two mana rock for the artifact deck, putting like a mind stone or whatever instead, right? You don't need you don't need to that green talisman because it's not can be played in the magic green deck. Yeah, I did I did like that. You have, talismans over Signet. So like before, if you have a queen swear, but. Okay. Because Signet so also just a bit annoying, you know, like I've seen so many times, people like, screw up how they tap Fermanagh and leave from South unable to cast a spell because, talismans work in a slightly odd way with the filtering. But yeah, I think talisman is good, but we don't need all of them. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I think as a cube community, that's kind of where we've all settled on as well. But one of the big change to mana that I, I didn't realize it was around the start of this podcast that when I made it, was that I added double fetch lands to my cube. So originally I had single fetch lands. Double fetch lands meant I had two of every fetch lands in my cube and like I've only just taken this out like I had this in for three years. And it made fixing really, really good, especially with triremes. And like they only got better when they added surveillance cause they were more effective. All lands that had like more awesome utility. And like with the double fetch, there's just so many targets and like, and yeah, I think it just made so many decks so much more efficient. And like, this oddly, actually might be one of the reasons why the initiative was so strong in my cube. Because like because like effectively like the Nya soup deck just became like the best thing that you could do for such a long time. Like, it had perfect mana and like three months after we started the podcast, you also got access to things like fourth air lingers on top of things like all initiative creatures on top of comet, stellar Pop on top of mints combo like it being a three color deck was not a drawback at all. Like part of me does wonder would those decks have been so as egregious if they didn't have perfect mana? Like for all games, which they got from from double fetch, right? Because like, those decks are very splashback. They're very easy to put together, like James. Like, what do you remember about when I first introduced double fetch lands into my cube? Yeah, I can then sum the logic for adding it, but I think that was a long time, because we had these big power allies and also most of them are really special, right? Like the initiative creatures when they saw a single pip. Yeah. Like, if I open, you know, season, dungeon era and pack two of this cube. There's very few situations where I'm not taking it. Right? Because, you know, it doesn't actually matter if I'm in the mana deck or, while VAX attack or whatever, I'm going to be able to splash it, because for fixing that, good. Like the fetches, I, you know, of, of often going to be five color lands often like untapped. And now I think that's good. I think it's good to have like five color options, but you should have to work for that. And I think it felt a little bit too free for a while, especially when we got triumphs. Yeah. Similar with like F5 for failing us and stuff. Like it just doesn't matter what colors I'm in, I'm going to take it and I'm going to make it work. I think that's not a super healthy position because it means that, it kind of devalues some of the more synergy based stacks where actually what's more important is to position yourself to just be able to take super powerful cards and play those instead. But you don't have to work for as much. Yeah. And I think as well, like one, I think this kind of comes back in the end is something I said earlier is that I, I feel like I added double fetch lands, not because I had a reason to, but because I thought it would be good and powerful. But like back then, I wasn't even really pushing land for that. Much like like now, oddly, I've got cause like Tifa Lockhart, like, So I got carbon bristly build up cars that want lands like to come into place. But I think what testing them for that amount of time like, made me realize is that kind of like double fetch lands. Doesn't like it will help the decks that you intend them for. Like it'll help the land full decks, but really see, what it's doing is it's just helping. Like the most efficient decks look like it's not a thing of like. Oh, if I double fetch lands, everyone has perfect mana. What it kind of means more is like. Kind of like it like, makes the good cards better because they're easier for people to splash and casts, and they kind of like, warps the like. What's the format around getting these good cards and being able to play them rather than building like a synergistic deck? Yes. Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. And I think there were drafts where I just felt like a lot of attacks were quite soupy and we weren't really playing distinct archetypes against each other. We were playing, look over powerful cards. I drafted my powerful cards. You shafted some off half, you know? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I kind of like when we're in this world, we're kind of like there are these different power outliers because, like, at the time, like we knew the initiative was powerful, but we didn't really realize, like, how powerful? Like it hadn't been banned in most formats at the time we were playing with it. Yeah. Yeah. So unlike, you know, credit, it seemed like it wasn't like the state of the cube VHS nature, like definitely fixed that. But it was, it, I think it was in a weird spot for a while. Yeah. No, I'd agree. Like, I think as well that because we were quite early on the initiative train, it meant that it was around for quite a bit longer than it maybe would have been, like, I'll thank my wife for that one, actually. Like, she, she was casting some initiative creatures off of ancient tombs in legacy and like, smashing face in some high profile tournaments and like, yeah, she really got me on to like, how good they really were. But yeah, we we definitely went to high end. Like, I remember making videos at the time being like, the best thing you can do in cube is play like eight initiative cards in your cube. It's definitely fine. Like in hindsight, like that seems a little bit too much like that. Yeah. And it's safe to say we we've learned where the initiative belongs in cube and it's not in like unpowered environments. Yeah. It's it's like a tough way to do it. But I think like actually like one question I want to ask James before we get everyone out of here. It's kind of like, are there any of these packages that like, personally you would like to see back and try it again? Like, can I interest you, James, in an attraction package in 2026? Maybe you can sign, right? No, I think a lot of this stuff, I think works very well. And this cube is still there. Like for the artifact sacrifice stuff I think is great. And with a bunch of cards I'd never played with before, you put them in your cube, and I think that's really cool. It also combined quite nicely with for, like, goblin welder trash for treasure stuff, which, I think in so many cubes is a bit of a trap, like I've seen so many cubes try and do that and it hasn't worked. And I think in this cube it does. And that's really cool. What other stuff? I like to come back. I mean, I'd like opposition to come back because oppositions don't and should fit in all cubes, but, maybe I need to win five more for that to happen. And then I think the other thing that's kind of interesting is, yeah, I like we've talked about how the madness cards are bad, but I think we can now sprinkle a few of them back in, I think. And these Ravager, it might. It's the time to shine is now, you know, and, in 2023, it wasn't there, but 2026. It's an advantage as well. So, you know, yeah, I'm definitely way more happy with that deck than I am at the time. Like I remember drafting it like back in 2023 and like having to draw off the John Manor base, hoping it would all come together in like one game in like 6 or 9. I'd get him with a Venn drawing and then the rest of it I just like, fail to curve out or lose to a comet. Stellar pop or like an iterative great journey. I just wouldn't wouldn't come together. But yeah, I'm way happier with it now. Yeah. For real. They have one I think is fairly cool. I don't know if I'd have. I don't remember ever working super well, but I think it's a dope card and I always want to try. It is when outer. Oh yeah. Actually yeah. You know what? I actually have a memory of that one actually being quite good. Like specifically when there was so many humans. Like when I got really caught up with the human package, like effectively like by all of our rabble masters were non-humans that made tokens. And then the rest of it was like a human's deck. So that's kind of like how you did it. Like, I know, like the tokens the first time you talk with them, don't trigger. I go to but like the second time they do. So I remember that actually being quite solid at the time. Like, and I think a bunch of the initiative creatures are also human as well, for what that's worth. Oh, cause, yeah, we don't need most ways to find them do is Jesus Christ. Yeah, I have it in my jokes, man. The key moment. I'm sure someone's going to do something absolutely heinous with at some stage and. Oh, yeah. Yeah, having it in the commands. Yeah. I think they could slap, actually. Yeah. That's seems like I'd like it's also a nice deck building constraint. Like you have to kind of balance it to make it work. And that is. Yeah I think that is quite nice. Yeah. And it has to be interesting tension. Right. That it wants you to have cheap non-humans and expensive humans and the cards in magic have lots of cheap humans and expensive non-humans. So yeah, it gives you a little bit of a, that gives you some work to do in that sense, which is cool. Yeah, yeah. I mean, maybe that's one to test the future. Like, I know at the time we had it with, I think Agent of Treachery. That was quite good. That's the one that it comes in and gains control of like an up permanent an opponent controls. That one's pretty good. Like, yeah, that's great. I think that was a constructed thing at one stage, right? Yeah. I have a feeling either agent of treachery or one no. Two was banned in standard for that combination now checks out. Yeah, that doesn't sound that fun. No, no. Exactly. But yeah. No, I think that's where we're going to do it for today. James. Pleasure, man. Nice. A little walk down memory lane. Yeah, yeah. Always a pleasure. I'm also probably worth saying. James. Yeah. Thank you for doing 100 episodes with me. When we started it, I don't think we really had any long term plans, but I think it's fair to say. James. Yeah, it's been a lot of fun, and. Yeah, I've really enjoyed it. Yeah, yeah. No, it's been it's been a lot of fun. And. Yeah. So it's 100 more maybe. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But yeah, also, it just leads me to thank you, dear listener, for listening. And no matter how long you've been with us, if you've been here from episode one or if this is your first episode, thank you very much for listening. We greatly appreciate you all. It's always been nice over the years, seeing, like, the comments and all the great feedback. Yeah. This is a great community and we greatly appreciate you. Yeah. Until next time, it's goodbye from me. And so by from James, you've been listening to powerful nothing. We'll see you all soon. And goodbye.