Final post! Probably should've made this years ago, but here we are. I am still working on the Cube every time new Pokemon content releases, but I don't have time to post on Tumblr anymore. If anybody sees this and is interested, join the discord I have created (link below) and I'll set you up and answer any questions you may have. Thank you!
Check out the Pokemon Custom Cube community on Discord - hang out with 3 other members and enjoy free voice and text chat.
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Howdy! I'm really interested in trying out this cube, I'm a fairly experienced Pokemon TCG player but pretty new to MTG. I'd really like to play it using Cockatrice, but it appears that the nofile link on your latest post is broken :( Could you let me know if you plan on fixing/updating that soon, or if not, could you maybe send me a link to the files? Thanks so much for making this!
Sure thing! Iāll have an update for you sometime this week.
@dreammurkrow I apologize for the delay, I didnāt realize that nofile is no longer an active website! Had to check around for alternatives and landed on MEGA. Here are the latest image files, the cockatrice exported XML file, and the Set file. The link a few posts below should still work for instructions on getting Cockatrice to work, I havenāt messed with it since physically printing the set earlier this year but hopefully it hasnāt changed. Let me know if there are any issues with MEGA.
Howdy! I'm really interested in trying out this cube, I'm a fairly experienced Pokemon TCG player but pretty new to MTG. I'd really like to play it using Cockatrice, but it appears that the nofile link on your latest post is broken :( Could you let me know if you plan on fixing/updating that soon, or if not, could you maybe send me a link to the files? Thanks so much for making this!
Sure thing! I'll have an update for you sometime this week.
Finally got around to updating the color-pair archetypes photo! Ground and Rock swapped colors, and Steel has moved a little bit into Red, but remains mostly Artifacty colorless.
Hey everybody! So, after lots of work figuring out how to do this, I think I finally found a way to publicly host the set file. Itās atĀ https://nofile.io/f/FYomYzedy5C/Pokemon+Set.zip.
That zip file contains the XML and image files needed for Cockatrice, as well as the Magic Set Editor file for the set itself, and the set icon (if thatās even needed). Hereās the how-to for importing a custom set into Cockatrice:Ā https://github.com/Cockatrice/Cockatrice/wiki/Custom-Cards-&-Set
You can also go toĀ http://www.planesculptors.net/set/pokemon-cubeĀ to see the set in its entirety.
@youknowwhatscrewyou, apologies for the delay, but here you go!
So after a few folks on Reddit asked, I said I would post my newest version of the set to the internet for others to see. The bulk of the files needed have been hosted once again at:Ā https://nofile.io/f/UCrWCpMN2xG/Pokemon+Cube.zip
And as before, you can go toĀ http://www.planesculptors.net/set/pokemon-cube to see the latest version of the set (6.0!) in its entirety. Thank you all so much for your continued support, and hello Redditors!
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And now for the first glimpse of archetypes outside of Bug! These are some of the larger Bugs, and many of them are off-color for the archetype. You probably notice a lot of Gruul, and that is because there is a Jund Sandstorm strategy so Steel, Ground, and Rock creatures usually lean into those colors. There is a bit of a Temur Steel/Bugs strategy which is basically midrange but you can see it here. We also have our first Legendary creature, Genesect, and our first hybrid cost, Heracross. Heracross is part of a cycle of creatures with costs that represent their two archetypes, in his case he either costs 2UG for Bugs or 2RG for Fighting. Outside of that cycle, hybrid costs only appear on Normal cards.
Last post for the day and week- most of these Bugs are the ones changed by the Ground/Rock swap, and Armaldo's design changed pretty heavily as well. Shuckle actually has the color of the monk it's design was borrowed from now! Scizor changed from a kind of Steel lord to more of a bomb that must be answered. Armaldo is a little weird now, and I could maybe change it in the future, but it's better than before, I feel.
A peek into the Poison archetype, here are the Bugs which overlap into a Sultai (or BUG) theme. Wither is the keyword for Poison, although it appears on a few Fire creatures and spells also for the flavor of suffering a burn, as seen on Volcarona. Ariados and Araquanid both have reach since they are spiders, a sort of Mtg rule. You can see Beautifly in the next post, the sister card for Dustox. Ninjask and Yanmega are the only cards with Level Up in the cube, but it felt really appropriate for Speed Boost. I had to make Ninjask black to give it the effects I wanted, but luckily Flying is in all five colors and could use more black creatures.
Ninjask is no longer so tricky to play in traditional Simic Bug! Scolipede got a slight nerf as it was a real beating that early in the game. Beedrill was buffed and might honestly be a little too good now. Ariados was changed dramatically, but I like where it is for now, strong on early offense or late defense.
Since this is the first type, I will go ahead and explain that every type has Tribal spells and a Mega stone. Most types also have a tribal build-around enchantment, a tribal Charm, and a few Move Tutor spells. I will collect some of those together in a later post for easy reference.
The Bug archetype has a wide weenie strategy, and usually relies on tricks or group effort to win combat against larger foes. The Bug deck seeks to win by outnumbering or evading the opponent and disabling their threats rather than remove them.
Personally, I really like all of these changes. Old Beedrillite was really wacky because the buff didn't flip like some players might expect, Spider Web is now more unique and less Type-hosing, Sticky Web is WAY more elegant for breaking apart (a Bug has to touch it up every turn!), and Bug Bite can be using the suck out strength or pump in poison!
Iām going to eventually cover every type, so I might as well cover them alphabetically, since thatās how they are most often listed on Pokemon sites. So to kick things off: Bug! This type was always going to include Green, but it was originally Golgari because I was experimenting with a Simic poison strategy. However, there are a lot of Flying bugs, and the Poison creatures ended up going a more Black direction so the two traded. There are lots of Bug/Poison creatures, so a BUG (Black/Blue/Green) Bug draft strategy is definitely possible!
First up, you can see the core Bugs in Simic above. The Pokemon video games love to incorporate varying amounts of damage into their attacks, so this cube includes several dice-rolling and coin flipping cards, with Accelgor simply the first example. Activating it on the opponentās end step every turn seemed a little too powerful, so it got the frequently-appearing restriction of usage only during your own turn. Vespiquen is the bomb of the archetype, and was inspired by Hornet Queen/Pentavus.
Reblogging after long absence! I'm updating cards on this blog to show off their newest versions. Any image not included in the reblog didn't change. Kricketune was changed the most of these, becoming part of the tutor cycle which every type gets one of. Looking forward to posting again!
Hey everybody! So, after lots of work figuring out how to do this, I think I finally found a way to publicly host the set file. Itās atĀ https://nofile.io/f/FYomYzedy5C/Pokemon+Set.zip.
That zip file contains the XML and image files needed for Cockatrice, as well as the Magic Set Editor file for the set itself, and the set icon (if thatās even needed). Hereās the how-to for importing a custom set into Cockatrice:Ā https://github.com/Cockatrice/Cockatrice/wiki/Custom-Cards-&-Set
You can also go toĀ http://www.planesculptors.net/set/pokemon-cubeĀ to see the set in its entirety.
@youknowwhatscrewyou, apologies for the delay, but here you go!
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Hey, is there a cockatrice file for this cube yet? I showed this to my (huge pokemon fan) gf and she wants to play it naow.
Great timing! After all my weeks of posts and balancing, I am finally ready to update my last cockatrice file to the new version. Iāll post it to cubetutor first and provide the link, so that you can properly draft it, then Iāll find a way to provide the Cockatrice file as well so that it can be tested. Look for it in the next week or so.
Welcome back to the Pokemon Cube! After a several-week break, we are finally ready to begin posting again. When last we left, I was struggling with the problem of how to handle a design problem: Rock and Ground behave mostly like RB and GW, but there are some examples of them each acting like the other which create some flavor issues. And I think I have finally solved it! If youāre interested, keep on reading. If not, once again, welcome back!
So I was struggling with my two options of changing Ground to RB or leaving it as GW and all of the compromises that would come with that decision, when I had a realization: If there are going to be sacrifices with either choice, why not make a new choice? I have a recurring mechanic that Maro calls āthreshold 1ā³ which checks whether you control āanother Rock or Ground permanentā, and then provides a bonus if you do. I didnāt include Steel in the check because of text space and because Steel always felt like the odd man out of Ground and Rock. It was added a generation after, and the Gen 1 Rock types Geodude, Rhyhorn, and Onix were all Rock and Ground, so the two types almost felt connected, like part of the same whole.
My mechanic which checked whether you had a āRock or Ground permanentā is a reference to the video game abilities which trigger when a Sandstorm is active. Since I didnāt want a whole mechanic around checking whether you managed to both draft and play 1 card out of 720, I expanded it to checking for any permanent of the proper type. Then, because Ground creatures had the effect as often as Rock, I added āor Groundā for the above reasons, and so GW decks wouldnāt be incentivized to always splash Red or Black.
Anyway, long story short, this showed me that I was treating Rock and Ground as separate as Ghost and Bug when that really isnāt the case, they share a ton of overlap. This meant that by loosening my restrictions a little, I could create Rock and Ground cards which are primarily RB or GW, but occasionally flip into the other typeās colors. Since the main mechanics check for Ground or Rock, it shouldnāt even affect deckbuilding that much.
The images above show my current versions of each card, after the āGround/Rock Epiphanyā, Ground was in fact changed primarily to RB (Rakdos) and Rock was changed to GW (Selesnya). Sandstorm still seemed better in RB due to direct damage feeling like the best translation of the effect. Mudsdale also felt better in GW, since a bunch of +1/+1 counters didnāt fit RB as well.
Landorus actually has the same effect as before, but makes much more sense in RB. Groudon is now no longer an āexceptionā but fits normally into Red. Regirock stays in RB to complete the cycle with the other Regiās. The starter cycle of Infernape, Torterra, and Empoleon used to be monocolored creatures with activated for RG, GW, and 1U, but getting +1/+1 didnāt work mechanically for RB, so I changed each of the starters to be costed for their dual types, and activate for their monotypes.
Finally, Lunatone and Solrock. These two became complex because Psychic and Rock originally overlapped in Grixis. While the new shake-up seemed problematic for that balance, I think it actually worked out for the best. They both used to have ānext turnā effects that had memory issues, so I changed them to exert effects instead, which Iāve used on several other creatures to represent a time delay or recharging. I also solved the ādirect damage with a Grass effectā problem by having Solrock punch the other creatures with its power, which is a bit of a bend but not as bad as dealing the damage directly.
Whew! Well with that finally done, I am mostly comfortable with where the cube has ended up. Itās gone through tons of iteration, and it doesnāt look like Ultra Sun/Moon will be changing that much, but Iāll create a post about it next week! See yāall then!
If we share a fandom or common interest and you think I should follow your blog, would you reblog this post with a quick introduction and description of what you post on your blog so I can follow you? (No NSFW blogs, please.)
Iāll start.
Iām Dave. I mostly blog about Magic: the Gathering, nerd parenting, terrible puns, and occasionally I pretend to be wise or insightful.
Iām a Mormon, a huge nerd, and I believe that people donāt need to validate our emotions because they are inherently valid simply because we feel them.
I also think Iām hilarious, and so far the only people who disagree with me have all been wrong, so I keep trying to be funny and witty on here too.
Hi all! I'm Austin (LuckyLooter) and this is my project sideblog, the Pokemon mtg cube! My main blog is random things Iike, mostly puns and vorthos discussion like Dave.
This blog however, is for my project to create a balanced 720-card custom Pokemon-themed Magic cube. It is heavily tribal and takes a lot of inspiration from Lorwyn and Innistrad blocks. The blog's entire purpose is to gather feedback from other players so I don't become blind to my own mistakes.
I just finished about 20 weeks of posting every card in the set, but over time I've refined and improved many of the mechanics and will be making new posts explaining my changes soon. I will also be running virtual drafts soon too, to test the cards in a live environment if anyone would like to help!
So this post is about something Iāve been considering for awhile, a huge change to the cube: trading two typesā color associations. This would affect every card with a reference to either type, which is a pretty huge number. Rock is currently Red-Black, Rakdos; and Ground is Green-White, Selesnya. I originally chose these color pairs because Rock seemed more offensive, and Ground more defensive. There are a few flavor and mechanical breaks with the way this is handled currently, though, as detailed below.
Groudon is the primary Legendary Ground creature, but it must be Red for both Ruby flavor and its Fire boosting effect. For this reason, it never goes in a Ground deck. Also, Magnitude is great as a Red X spell which deals damage to each creature without flying. In the games, this is a Ground attack, but since the cube currently has Ground as a Green-White archetype, the spell canāt be tribal and just has to be a tribeless Red spell.
Next is the Flying issue. Green can damage and destroy flying creatures, while Red more often damages any creature or āall creatures without flying.ā In the Pokemon games, Ground attacks canāt damage Flying Pokemon, and Rock attacks are super effective. If lined up directly with the games, the Cube should have Rock in Green and Ground in Red. Also, Brock is a protagonist to most people but currently in the Black-aligned tribe, while Giovanni is an antagonist in every sense, yet currently in the White-aligned tribe. As Giovanni is a criminal, and all about amassing power, a swap of these two characterās colors would make sense.
While those are compelling reasons to make the switch, there are a few problems in the cube, the reasons I havenāt committed to the change yet. Torterra currently is a mono-Green creature with GW activation, in a cycle with a mono-Red creature with RG activation (Infernape), and a mono-Blue creature (Empoleon) with 1U activation. After the change, it would have to be either Gruul or Golgari, so this would be awkward balance.
Sandstorm could no longer deal damage as a Green/White enchantment, so the flavor would likely change to either -1/-1 counters (very powerful on a shroud enchantment) or +1/+1 counters on the protected types, also fairly strong and a little weaker in flavor. Why is the Sandstorm strengthening the natives more and more?
Finally, this change would cause Regirock to mess up its own cycle the most of all. Currently, Regirock in RB, Regice in UW, Registeel in Colorless and Regigigas in Green make a perfect cycle. With this change, the cycle would be UW, GW, G, and C. Registeel could accommodate the changes a little, by becoming R as Steel has some affinity there, but then weād still have a double overlap in W even if Regigigas the giant natural land-shaper changed to mono-Black.
So as you can see, neither situation is perfect and a lot of pros and cons have to be weighed. What Iād like here is a discussion, if possible, of feedback on this idea. Does anyone have ideas of another way to do this, or feel strongly about the change or remaining the same? I have created a Strawpoll for this if people would like to simply click rather than type an answer here: https://strawpoll.com/facw4g21.
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Tribeless Spells Post #8: Stone and Sorcery. Our last batch of cards for the whole cube! Next week will be pretty minor, Iām going to make a sort of āinformation gatheringā post or two about a major change Iāve been considering, and try to collect feedback. I may end up making a strawpoll or something after explaining the pros and cons, so we will see. Thanks again to everyone whoās been looking at these, I really appreciate it! Have a good weekend!
Frisk and Thief both affected artifacts on the battlefield before, but I realized that once an artifact resolves, Black usually canāt affect it in current Magic. So I came up with these versions instead, which I like much more. Frisk has a kind of built-in cycling effect that makes it either a narrower Duress or a Gitaxian Probe as consolation. Thief is basically a specific Praetorās Grasp, inspired by Thada Adel.
Perish Song is the cubeās Wrath of God effect, and the only way to get rid some of the creatures with Shroud, or that canāt take noncombat damage. It was originally White, but between the art and the effect, Orzhov felt like the way to go. Plus the Ghost archetype doesnāt have as many creatures as others, so it relies on spells and tokens a lot, and has death triggers which this spell can take advantage of.
This last cycle shows that I should have called this āTribeless Spell Weekā because you donāt cast Lands, but itās not too bad. Plus I believe each of these were covered during their tribeās week except Safari Zone. Or they would have, except I changed the types!! So these were first an homage to Gen 1 locations. During Water week I noted that it didnāt feel fair for what was then the Seafoam Islands to make a Water creature in the mono-Blue archetype, and I was on to something when I changed it to Dratini.
So I actually looked at what color-pairs would want these lands, and the balance was way off. So where I have ended up now is changing each of the cards to an important location in a game (two gen I, two gen III, and one gen V) and now Iāve covered the color pairs equally. I still have an homage to Gen 1, with Power Plant creating a Pikachu! I finally found a way to get the most iconic Pokemon into the cube without making an unevolved card.
Lastly, Safari Zone! This is kind of a mini-game where you go āhuntā for a creature, and in true Safari Zone fashion, a lot of the time it will get away from you. But with enough persistence and time, eventually you can catch one!
Tribeless Spells Post #7: What is the Sorcery? Last day of the week! And a bit of post overload as I play catch up. 4 in one day! Just like the instants, most of the sorceries have flashback for both function and flavor. Rather then always cost-upgrade them like the instants, since the sorceries are more limited in their usability, the Flashback costs either flip color at same cost, or cost up by 2 in the same color. Detailed descriptions under the cut!
As you should certainly know by now, the cube includes tons of references to real Magic cards and Lingering Spirits is one of the most direct. Lingering Souls is a very strong Magic card, so I did cost up the flashback a little bit to try to balance it (and to match the others), but I think the fact these tokens canāt usually blocks balances it enough. Haze is in here to āeliminate all stat changesā like in the games, and taking off +1/+1 counters is one of Blackās cube themes. Blue has plenty of āmessing with countersā effects, so the flashback makes sense, and fitting together in Psychic is perfect.
So here is, in my opinion, the biggest color-pie break I made: A Red spell that can destroy enchantments. Now to be fair, this is a very Red way to do it. Smashing an equipment on it however, is squarely in current Redās color pie so no worries there, although destroying a Mega Equipment is a very strong effect. You smack the creature so hard it knocks the enchanting effect right off of it. Hex isnāt one of my favorites, and while I like the effect fine, I could see replacing the card once Ultra Sun/Moon give me new effects to create.
Rapid Spin is supposed to do the same thing it does in the games, get rid of any Spikes effects currently cursing you. But, since Spikes effects are only 4 cards in 720, we needed a way to make the effect a little more relevant, so it also spins all the negative auras off your Pokemon. Still, this isnāt a huge portion of the card effects, so I gave it a rare instance of Cycling, just so it isnāt a dead card in hand.
Magnitude was originally Earthquake, but thatās already a Magic card name, and as Earthquake it did a static 4 damage. While thinking of how I could change the name, I came across the fact that Magnitude did random damage, and how do we often represent scaling effects in Magic? With X mana! So the light bulb went off, and now Magnitude is one of my favorite interpretations of a Pokemon effect. Plus you get to name your X value by saying āMagnitude 6!ā and shaking the table, so thatās fun. Also I like to call the flashback damage the aftershocks.
Focus Energy is pretty simple, it lets your Pokemon ācritical hitā for double damage, but the opponent knows it is coming, since they saw your creature āuse Focus Energyā before its next attack. Flatter/Swagger are just a color-shifted Traitorous Instinct and scaled-up Mark of Mutiny. We havenāt seen Threaten effects in Black before, but I think it makes sense due to the betrayal flavor, gaining control effect, and haste being in Blackās color pie.