The Dandy Cube (Chris Taylor's Cube)

Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
He's been solid if you don't try to throw anything behind him, since aggro decks want equipment most of the time anyway.
He's been amazing since I added all the double strike support. Given red's mediocre 1 drops, (since I guess we don't deserve savannah lions) I love the guy.
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
Jason, I've taken your advice in replacing most of my army in a can guys, but there's a few I haven't really found replacements for.

-Cloudgoat Ranger: I'm not sure what to put here. My current white 5 drop is 4 cards, and that seems like a good size. The other 3 cards are Baneslayer Angel, Karmic Guide, and Reveillark (Who is bloody hard to spell).
On the noncreature side I have hallowed burial, and that's...it....
Do I double up on lark? Add another dumb flier like baneslayer, maybe serra angel? Stonehewer Giant?
...Do I add back in Gideon Jura? I don't think my cube's gotten any better of a place for him, since I still don't see how an aggro deck beats him ever, but I miss having the 5 mana permanent which can become a 6/6 for suprise damage. What's your guys experience with Mr. Jura?

Deranged Hermit: This one I'm a little less in a hurry to replace, since echo really does make him very fair. Still, I feel like I should commit to a theme here.
Current Buddies: Wolfir Silverheart, Acidic Slime, Primal Command and Garruk, Primal Hunter. Green has a huge glut of 4's though, due to the quad birthing pod and The other Garruks (All of whom are crowd favorites)

I had vorapede in for a while, but he was too medicore to justify {2}{G}{G}{G}. Got any gems?

I think I'm keeping Avenger of Zendikar in anyways, since if there's anytime I think promoting a board stall is fine, it's at 7 mana. If he proves to be too good he can go, I've got EDH decks he'd be happy to be in.
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
At the white 5 slot I do run Gideon, but barring that maybe you could try Archangel of Thune as a way to support armies, double strike, big dumb fliers, without clogging the board.

Vorapede is great. He's not too hard to cast, and you run quadpod, so.....

Fine with Avenger as well. You need to make ramp worth playing, meaning they need some finishers that can stabilize and close out the game.
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
Scion I think I'm dismissing for the same reason I removed Geist-Honored Monk: It's mostly the same thing as cloudgoat ranger :p
Maybe it is time to add Vorapede back in. He was never really all that bad, just kinda boring.

Jason, does gideon ever lose? I took him out because aggro just couldn't win if you dropped him, short of bramblecrush (which was horrible the other 99% of the time)

Archangel seems interesting. Wonder how much mo.....fuck. God damn standard, fuckin up my silly eternal format :p
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
Gideon loses all the time, bit that's mostly a function of pur insane aggro decks.

Vorapede is boring but get back to me after you pod one into a grave titan.
 
Eric Chan

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
Gideon was.. actually not all that great here the second time I put him back in. As with Jason's cube, the pure aggro decks could typically rush him down in one turn. My main issue was with him prolonging the length of the midrange mirrors, which were slow and durdly enough already. For the same reason, I'm binning Tamiyo for the time being - she doesn't do enough against aggro on her own, and stretches out the other matchups past points where I'm comfortable with.

I really like Avenger of Zendikar. I find that surviving to seven mana is no small feat, even for the rampy green decks, and Avenger's a suitable reward for making it. Even then, you need that eighth and ninth 'mana' before the tokens become a halfway decent threat.

As for five drops.. how do you feel about Entreat the Angels? Ok, so I'm cheating a bit, but the potential seems more exciting than Serra Angel, even if you just end up making one angel. I know the miracle mechanic is a love it or hate it thing, but for what it's worth, it's been popular in these parts. To be fair, I personally never draft Entreat, and haven't been much impressed when my opponent has it, but.. man alive do some people love the possibility of miracles.
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
My playgroup has been pretty anti miracle, possibly on being soured on Bonfire :p
Even if they were, I don't think entreat looks that interesting to me. I dislike miracle enough as a mechanic because of my hardline bias against unnecessary variance, so I'm not sure even I'll like it.

I think our experiences might be different on gideon, since I'll agree he's horrible on your empty board... but so is every non-sweeper. Play him with even a paltry ammount of blockers in play, and he becomes a nightmare, essentially reading +2: Target opponent skips their combat phase and sacrifices a creature or two.

Maybe the time is right again for him, and that might have been the creature happy old cube of mine talking. Archangel of Thune might kinda support double strike, but in one of those really small ways. I'm not running anything that gives those chaps lifelink, after all (Armadillo Cloak, Behemoth Sledge, heck Moment of Heroism etc)
 
Lucre

Lucre

I like a couple army in can things. I like it from the deckbuilding angle more than I like it from the fighting angle. The tension the good white ones create for your white control decks is kinda cool vs what direction you want to find yourself in. I also like giving white decks ways of encouraging over commitment to the board, but I think that style of deck has been dying for a long time.

Cards that give green decks a bunch of virtual cards are pretty cool.

Skeletal Vampire was such a learning experience for me, it the uphill defensive battles I've had with that card and the narratives I started to develop in my mind about drawing it vs drawing a hard solution sweeper made me think about finishers in a different way. Granted I think we've got a different story in most cube environments, but I like that army in a can cards sorta make you start thinking about card advantage more in the booster limited sort of way where your card advantage and momentum are coming from less material things like keeping track of denying opportunities for advantageous attacks. I don't think you want to flood the market with things like that though.
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
I like the ability of white decks to over-commit to the board, but I think I can go about it in different ways ( {2}{W} double unearth, call it Sun's Breath, after Frost Breath?) so that I can commit to this double strike instead of tokens idea.

Giving creature decks virtual cards might be more of a challenge. I'll have to think on that. Scry kinda works that way doesn't it?

Flooding the market with these army in a can guys certainly contributes to some stalled games, but it looks like just what the token deck wants to do. I could stack up on cards like bitterblossom which make a guy a turn, but VERY few of those exist, and certainly not at lower parts on the curve. Eh, nothing I need to worry about now.

I think Angel of Serenity is the new Skeletal Vampire in terms of finishers which help you when you're behind on board (contrast say, AEtherling), and they're some of my favorites. The recent discussion of Avenger of Zendikar as a finisher has been quite revealing on that front :p
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
So I've decied I want a few more counters in prep for the tempo patch I'm working on, since at the moment I only have mana leak and miscalculation.
Can anyone give me a compelling argument for or against any of these?

Probably Bad:

Arcane Denial
Spell Rupture
Spell Syphon
Unified Will


More Likely:
Evasive Action
Mana Leak
Miscalculation
Rune Snag


I think I want another two, and I could switch the two soft counters I already have. I'm personally not a huge fan of rune snag, but I'm trying to keep my mind open. Thoughts?
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
Jason Waddell said:
Wait, in your Cube Tutor link you have more than just Mana Leak and Miscalculation. Am I confused?
Click to expand...

Well, probably not. Counterspell isn't going anywhere, and I'm not counting remand/memory lapse for this experiment since they don't actually deal with a threat, just delay it; it more like a bounce spell than a counterspell.

It's also possible my cubetutor is out of date, I'll try and fix that when I get this patch hammered out :D
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
The "unless 1" counters are less reliable here, since the curves are less tight and the games are longer due to the increased cube size. You see a lot more turn 3 2 drops and turn 4 3 drops then you might in your cube jason :p

Still good, but I want something a little more universal
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
I've never had much success with X counters, they always seem so flimsy.
I don't think I'm going for another cancel variant, since I'm removing forbid for one of these, and not because it was opressive :p
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
New Patch up on CubeTutor! (Which should be current now IIRC)

Let's get that blue ship rollin!

Goldmeadow Stalwart > Dryad Militant
Lone Missionary > Suture Priest
Soltari Champion > Blade Splicer
Gods Willing > Hyena Umbra
Spear of Heliod > Hyena Umbra

Spellstutter Sprite > Cloudfin Raptor
Omenspeaker > Cloudfin Raptor
Fleeting Thoughts > Cloudfin Raptor ( {U}{1}, flying flash force spike 1/1)
Looter Il-Kor > Cloudfin Raptor
Stifle > Frostburn Weird
Spell Pierce > Frostburn Weird
Thought Scour > Fettergeist
Strategic Planning > Stitched Drake
Venser's Signature > Mana Leak ( {U}{1} bounce a spell or a nonland permanent)
Forbid > Mana Leak
Confiscate > Phantasmal Horror ( {U}{1} 2/3 flying phantasmal)

Squeaking Pie Sneak > Skirsdag High Priest
Mogis's Marauder > Ashwind ( {B}{B}{1} Evoke {B}{1} Cruel Edict 1/1)

Flamekin Bladewhirl > Cinder Swordsman ( {R} 2/2 can't block Bestow {R}{R}{2})
Mogg War Marshal > Iroan Blademaster ( {R}{1} 1/1 double strike Bestow {W}{W}{2})

Ulvenwald Tracker > Sylvan Safekeeper
Vengevine > Polukaranos
Oracle of Mul Daya > Wickerbough Elder
Elvish Mystic > Vorapede
Commune with Nature > Spider Umbra
Sylvan Library > Primitave Instincts ( {G}{1} Mirri's Guile, {G}, Sac: Naturalize)
Commune with Nature > Triumph of Ferocity

Worn Powerstone > Pallidium Myr

Orzhov Pontiff > Zealous Persecution
Mirari's Wake > Knight of the Reliquary
Nucklavee > Spellweaving (See below)

Shock Fetches > Fetches
Scrylands > Fetches

Yeah, y'all have finally convinced me, fetch manafixing is the best manafixing :p
With blue aggro, it's go big or go home, and I'm going big. QUADRUPLE BIG. Though this is somewhat alleviated by the fact that even after that I have a mere 6 blue 1 drop creatures.

Oh yeah, that custom one:
Spellweaving.jpg

This card has been a pet project of mine for a while, and origionally read "Instant and sorcery cards in your hand have splice onto instant or sorcery. The splice cost is equal to the card's mana cost". That got changed since nobody remembers what splice is or how it works (As with the famous play of kodama's reach splice glacial ray your blocker, swing. Blessed Breath, Name..............RED)

This wording nicely dodges that hilarious punt and makes it less vulnerable to countermagic to boot!

Other than that I've added some cool custom cards I think people will like, and taken out the 5 silvergill adept guys (Who had eratta saying you revealed a blue creature instead) except Wren's Run Vanquisher, who has been preforming admirably.

Images, Updated OP/Photobucket all coming tomorrow!
 
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